Advanced Drainage Systems, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Today's conference call will begin momentarily. Until that time, your lines will be placed on music hold. Thank you for your patience.

Thank you and good morning. With me today I have Scott Barber, our President and CEO, and Scott Cottrell, our CFO. I would also like to remind you that we will discuss forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those forward-looking statements because of various factors, including those discussed in our press release and the risk factors identified in our Form 10-K filed with the SEC. While we may update forward-looking statements in the future, we disclaim any obligation to do so. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, all of which speak only as of today. Lastly, the press release we issued earlier this morning is posted on the investor relations section of our website. A copy of the release has also been included in an 8K submitted to the SEC. We will make a replay of this conference call available via webcast on the company website. With that said, I'll turn the call over to Scott Barber.

Thank you, Mike. Good morning. Thank you all for joining us on today's call. We appreciate your time. The first quarter was a solid start to the year and highlighted the resiliency of the ADS model, even in the face of lower market demand. The net sales and adjusted EBITDA results exceeded expectations, primarily driven by better than expected performance from the infiltrator business and the allied products portfolio. Importantly, the positive mix effect from these two segments, as well as strong execution on pricing, good control over material and operational costs, and the benefit from actions we took during the second half of last year to reduce manufacturing and transportation costs in the lower demand environment, led to a record 36.2% adjusted EBITDA margins. This is the highest quarterly margin in the company's history and 350 basis points higher than the same quarter last year. This record profitability was achieved despite a 15% demand-driven sales decline in the quarter. I'd like to highlight growth in three highly strategic areas of the business today that are in part representative of the large opportunity in front of the business. Sales of infiltrators' active treatment products and ADS's HP pipe and water quality products all increased this quarter due to the successful execution of the market share model. In particular, sales of the active treatment and water quality products are dependent upon the intensely local knowledge of our sales force as product requirements and standards vary significantly depending on the local regulations. Our business model incorporates a high touch sales team combined with a national distribution footprint and engineering services support. The growth of these products in the quarter demonstrates the resilience of that business model, even in the unfavorable demand conditions. As communities and developers deal with the increasing effects of heavy rainfall and water scarcity, ADS is a trusted resource in the development of standards, and practices around management of water, the world's most precious resource, helping to safeguard our environment and communities. Developers, contractors, and distributors recognize our expertise and value proposition as they continue to choose ADS and Infiltrator as the premier partner for water management solutions. Water management remains a critical aspect of proper infrastructure development and stormwater management, highlighting the ADS brand promise, our reason is water. Whether it be flood mitigation, nitrogen removal, water quality improvement, or water conservation, we remain focused on staying true to our foundational mission to provide clean water management solutions to communities and deliver unparalleled service to our customers. Now, let me provide an update on what we are seeing in markets. From a residential perspective, the overall shortage of available housing and lack of existing homes for sale in the United States continues to give us confidence in the long-term market growth potential and opportunity for further market penetration. The outlook for single-family housing starts has improved since the beginning of the year, which in turn benefited sales of infiltrators, leach field chambers, and septic tanks. Though demand was down overall, sales picked up sequentially through the quarter alongside the improvement in single-family housing starts. This improvement in outlook has not yet resulted in increased residential land development activity, where ADS products are sold early in the development cycle. However, as single-family housing starts improve, the available inventory of land will decrease, driving the land acquisition and development activity to follow. In the non-residential market, we primarily participate in horizontal, low-rise construction projects. Financing in the non-residential market can be impacted by credit availability from small and regional banks, including tightening credit standards and higher loan-to-value requirements. We are seeing this impact the demand for speculative development projects. For purpose projects, such as the ADS Engineering and Technology Center we are building, and many large-scale development projects continue to move forward. There continues to be uncertainty as to how the back half of this year will play out and whether the government stimulus programs like the IIJA, IRA, and CHIPS Act will be able to offset the impact of lower demand in other segments of the residential market. We are closely tracking projects related to these government stimulus programs including semiconductor, automotive, battery, and EV projects, among others. We quote on these projects, utilizing our business development team to present relationships with contractors, distributors, and engineers that are working on these projects. This is the same strategy we previously used to successfully build relationships with the related parties in warehouse and data center development, as well as the large national and regional home builders. Within the infrastructure market, which increased 1% this quarter for us, the IIJ activities are starting to pick up. As we have talked about before, the initial funding has primarily been allocated to repair work, and the real capacity expansion projects are still to come. We continue to see good quoting activity for airport projects, where the transportation benefits of ADS products are very attractive to contractors. In the agriculture market, our outlook remains favorable as farm economics continue to do well. The contractor installation window in the upper Midwest was compressed in the spring due to weather, but we expect to see that business pick up in the fall. In areas less impacted by late-breaking winter or heavy participation, like the lower Midwest, the spring season was basically on plan. Moving to profitability, our adjusted EBITDA decreased 6% this quarter on a dollar basis due to the lower demand environment. The adjusted EBITDA margin increased 350 basis points to 36.2%. The short-term weakness in demand we began to see in the back half of calendar year resulted in lower fixed cost absorption in the period. However, the actions and initiatives we've taken to align our costs with this lower demand environment allowed us to mitigate some of the headwinds we faced. And our first quarter results are the product of the ADS resilient business model and the successful execution of operational strategies at both ADS and Infiltrator. I want to highlight the progress on our world-class engineering and technology center. Since we talked to you last, we've erected steel beams for the structure, which is on track to open in 2024. I'm very excited that this facility will bring product design, material science, and manufacturing technology under one roof to increase our pace of innovation and incorporate more recycled content into our products. In summary, we're off to a very good start to the year in the lower demand environment. ADS's value proposition, solutions package, conversion strategy, and unique sustainability position in water and recycling remain highly relevant. And we are committed to being the leader in sustainable water management solutions. We will continue to manage costs and production to meet our commitments in this lower demand environment that's in front of us. But importantly, we are managing the business for the upturn in the residential and the non-residential markets. We will continue investing in capacity and under-penetrated geographies new products, automation, safety, and maintenance to ensure that when the market ramps up, we have good service and the right capacity to be the partner of choice for contractors and engineers. With that, I'll turn the call over to Scott Cottrell to further discuss our financial results.