WESCO International, Inc.

Hello, and welcome to Wesco's 2026 first quarter earnings call. I would like to remind you that all lines are in 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 would now hand the call over to Scott Gaffner, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations, 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 guarantees of performance and by their nature are subject to uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially. We see our webcast slides and the company's SEC filings for additional risk factors and disclosures. Any forward-looking information speaks only as of this date, and the company undertakes no obligation to update the information to reflect changed circumstances. Additionally, today we'll use certain non-GAAP financial measures. Required information about these 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, Wesco's chairman, president, and CEO, and Neil Dev, executive vice president and chief financial officer. Now I'll turn the call over to John.

Thank you, Scott. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our call today. We delivered an exceptional start to 2026, building on last year's market outperformance and accelerating business momentum. In the first quarter, sales, backlog, operating margin, adjusted earnings per share, and free cash flow all increased versus the prior year and exceeded our expectations. Record first quarter sales of $6.1 billion were up 14%, marking our third quarter in a row of double-digit sales growth. Booming data center demand remains a significant growth driver of our business. Data center sales of $1.4 billion were up approximately 70% versus prior year and represented 24% of total company sales in the quarter. Overall, our business momentum continued to accelerate in the quarter with organic sales up sequentially, outpacing normal seasonality, and reinforcing the strength and durability of demand across our end markets. This performance reflects broad-based strength across our entire portfolio, led by continued strong momentum in CSS and EES, along with improving trends in UBS. We again ended this quarter with a record backlog of 22% versus prior year, reflecting the continued effectiveness of our cross-selling program and providing clear visibility of the secular growth trends on our business. Profit growth, margin improvement, and free cash flow generation were also excellent in the first quarter. Adjusted EBITDA grew 25%, and adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 60 basis points, driven by gross margin expansion and strong operating cost leverage on our double-digit sales growth. Adjusted diluted earnings per share was up 52% versus the prior year. Free cash flow generation at 128% of adjusted net income was also very strong, underscoring our disciplined execution and continued focus on working capital management. We're very pleased with our first quarter results. While we remain mindful of the volatility of the broader macroeconomic environment, we see positive momentum continuing across our business. As a result, we are raising our full year outlook for 2026. As the market leader and with positive momentum building, I'm confident that Wesco will continue to outperform our markets through disciplined execution, our differentiated value proposition, and the strength of our global platform. Our Wesco team remains focused on driving strong growth and margin expansion and delivering superior value to our customers and shareholders. One final comment. As we announced earlier this year, Dave Schultz is retiring from Wesco, and Neil Dev has joined our team as CFO. I would like to thank Dave for his outstanding leadership, his dedicated service, and his tremendous contributions to Wesco and our overall success over the past 10 years. We wish Dave and his family our very best. Neil's off to a great start as Wesco's new CFO, And I will now turn it over to him to take you through our excellent first quarter results and raised full year outlook in more detail.