WESCO International, Inc.

Hello and welcome to Westco's third quarter 2021 earnings call. I would like to remind you that all lines are on listen only mode throughout the presentation. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. Please note that this event is being recorded. I will now hand the call over to Lesley Hunziker, SVP Investor Relations and Corporate Communications to begin.

Thank you and good morning everyone. Before we get started, I want to remind you that certain statements made on this call contain forward-looking information. Forward-looking statements are not guaranteed the performance and by their nature are subject to inherent uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially. Please see our webcast slides as well as the company's SEC filings for additional risk factors and disclosures. Any forward-looking information relayed on this call speaks only as of this date and the company undertakes no obligation to update the information to reflect the changed circumstances. Today we'll use certain non-GAAP financial measures. Required information about these non-GAAP measures is available on our webcast slides and in our press release, both of which are posted on our website at wesco.com. On the call this morning we have John Engel, our CEO, and Dave Schultz, Wesco's Chief Financial Officer. Now I'll turn the call over to John.

Thank you, Leslie, and good morning, everyone. Well, we had another exceptional quarter and, again, delivered outstanding results across the board. We're early into the second year of our transformational combination of Wesco and Anixter, and the substantial value creation of the new Wesco is underway and is building. The impressive progress we're making in the integration is a direct result of the dedication, commitment, and relentless execution of the entire Wesco team. I want to thank all our associates for their strong teamwork, their supplier engagement, and their exceptional customer focus in providing the product, services, and resilient supply chain solutions that our customers need. Now moving to page four. Our sales growth accelerated versus 2019 pre-pandemic levels in the third quarter, and our margin performance and backlog achieved new records for the company. Based on our strong third quarter results, we are raising our sales, margin, and profit outlook for the year. We're outperforming the market across our three business units. Our comprehensive product and value added service offerings, our broad and deep supplier relationships, and our technical expertise are proving to be critical differentiators for our company. Importantly, we're ensuring continuity of supply for our customers. which is especially critical as the economic recovery continues. At the same time, we've built a foundation for sustainable margin improvement through our increased global scale, our value-based pricing program, and realization of cost synergies at both a pace and scale that continues to exceed our expectations. Our new earnings power is reflected in our third quarter profit performance, which was at record levels. and has been a key catalyst to rapidly de-levering our balance sheet since acquiring Anixter in June of last year. In just five quarters since closing the transaction, we've improved our leverage ratio by 1.6 terms, which is well ahead of schedule and highlights very clearly the power of our business model. Now moving to page five. We have an expanding pipeline of sales opportunities, and our cross-sell momentum is building. We're on track to deliver 500 million of cumulative cross-sell synergies by 2023. We're capitalizing on the strength of the complementary portfolio of products and services, as well as the minimal overlap that exists between legacy Wesco and legacy Anixter customers. Our customers are benefiting from our ability to be the one-stop shop for their product, service, and supply chain solution needs. Opportunities exist across all three of our global business units. We have already generated over 220 million of sales synergies since the merger closed in June of last year, with 105 million being realized in the third quarter. Recent cross-sell wins in the third quarter include our EES business, expanding a local relationship with a solar contractor into a national multi-brand service model that now provides wire, cable, and balanced system electrical products. In another example, our CSS business, as the supplier of choice for one of the largest data center providers in Latin America, won a multi-year data center project by utilizing the combined technical expertise of both our CSS and EES teams. And finally, our UBS business is also growing through cross-selling, where we recently expanded the scope of a three-year project for an electric utility customer by supplying wiring cable in addition to our inventory management, project planning, and storm response services. Our cross-sell growth opportunity is further amplified by the six secular growth trends that we've outlined previously. Last quarter, I talked about how we're capitalizing on growth opportunities in grid monetization and the rural broadband build-out. Today, I wanted to spotlight how we're capitalizing on the ongoing growth opportunities in data centers. Currently, there are approximately 27 billion connected devices around the world, and this number is expected to surpass 40 billion by 2023. These devices generate substantial amounts of data that is being captured, routed, stored, retrieved, analyzed, and ultimately operationalized. With the rise of IoT and Industry 4.0, customers and suppliers are increasingly relying on big data and data analytics to enhance the efficiency, productivity, security, and cost-effectiveness of their businesses. As a result, more data centers are being constructed, and we're participating in these data center upgrades and build-outs. And we're doing that by providing solutions for our customers' electrical infrastructure, network infrastructure, physical security, and thermal management needs. Our dramatically increased scale and expanded portfolio positions us very well to capitalize on these secular growth trends that will sustain the current economic recovery and are foundational for the global economy in the years ahead. So in summary, this is really a growth story. We're transforming into a growth company as a result of our digital investments, cross-selling our expanded portfolio of products and services, and providing resilient and sustainable supply chain solutions for customers around the world. Continued execution of our aggressive integration plan and capitalizing on the secular growth trends will only accelerate this shift. Finally, I'm happy to say the value creation potential of the new Wesco is building, and we are only in the early days. With that, I'll turn it over to Dave to walk you through the details of the third quarter and our updated guidance. Dave?