Xylem Inc.

Welcome to the Xylem second quarter 2020 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode, and the floor will be open for your questions following the presentation. If you would like to ask a question at that time, please press star 1 on your touchtone phone. If at any point your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing the pound key. We ask that you please pick up your handset to allow optimal sound quality. Lastly, if you should require operator assistance, please press star zero. I would now like to turn the call over to Matt Latino, Vice President of Investor Relations.

Thank you, Christy. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Xylem's second quarter earnings conference call. With me today are Chief Executive Officer Patrick Decker and Chief Financial Officer Mark Rakowski. They will provide their perspective on Xylem's second quarter results and our outlook. Following our prepared remarks, we will address questions related to the information covered on the call. I'll ask that you please keep to one question and a follow-up and then return to the queue. As a reminder, this call and our webcast are accompanied by a slide presentation available in the investor section of our website at www.xylem.com. A replay of today's call will be available until midnight on August 31st. Please note the replay number is 800- and the confirmation code is 709-5996. Additionally, the call will be available for playback via the investor section of our website under the heading investor events. Please turn to slide two. We will make some forward-looking statements on today's call, including references to future events or developments that we anticipate will or may occur in the future. All references will be on an organic, or adjusted basis unless otherwise indicated. These statements are subject to future risks and uncertainties, such as those factors described in Xylem's most recent annual report on Form 10-K and in subsequent reports filed with the SEC, including in our Form 10-Q, to report results for the period ending June 30, 2020. Please note that the company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements publicly to reflect subsequent events or circumstances, and actual events or results could differ materially from those anticipated. Please turn to slide three. We have provided you with a summary of our key performance metrics, including both GAAP and non-GAAP metrics. For purposes of today's call, all references will be on an organic and adjusted basis unless otherwise indicated and non-GAAP financials have been reconciled for you and are included in the appendix section of the presentation. Now, please turn to slide four, and I will turn the call over to our CEO, Patrick Decker.

Thanks, Matt. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us. Let me start by expressing my sincere hope that you and everyone close to you are keeping safe and well. As you've seen from our release this morning and consistent with our pre-announcement two weeks ago, Our second quarter performance was better than we'd expected. In hindsight, April turned out to be the low point of the quarter. We hope we'll eventually look back and say it was a low point of the pandemic. After April, we saw modest improvement in both May and June as demand began to stabilize in our key markets. Because our business is global, we were exposed to the pandemic's effects early. And so we've also benefited from our presence in markets that have already begun to recover. Back in April, it's fair to say that uncertainty overshadowed both supply and demand outlooks as COVID spread from Asia to Europe and then North America. So we felt it responsible to set our second quarter guidance range intentionally wide to bracket a broad set of scenarios for the macro environment. Today, we have far more insight and confidence on the supply side. That's because of one notably positive effect of feeling COVID's impact early. It catalyzed early action by our teams. Fortunately, we were working from solid financial foundations and a strong position. So we were able to focus on adapting to the uncertainty and managing the things under our control. In addition to addressing the immediate need, Those actions have built a more robust foundation for both the medium and long term. I want to make a point of giving credit to my colleagues across Xylem and all of our external partners who made that happen. They've shown incredible resolve and resilience through a time that has put excessive demands on everyone. I want to credit everyone around the world who's kept the water flowing and kept essential services running despite everything being thrown at them. Throughout this period of incredible challenge, they've focused on keeping each other safe and serving our communities. Within Xylem, I want to highlight the work of our supply chain, manufacturing, and our distribution team. They've kept our customers supplied and serviced with very few interruptions. Today, we are up and running across our manufacturing network at greater than 90% availability. So while demand side uncertainties continue, our outlook now reflects greater clarity and confidence about supply, putting us in a much better position to guide to the third quarter. I also want to recognize the dedication of our commercial teams, despite the challenges of working remotely. They drove 10% backlog growth, despite COVID-related macro softness. You will have seen our announced wins in Telangana, India, and with Angolan water in the UK. The Telangana Irrigation Project is our largest win in the country to date, and we do anticipate it will generate roughly $115 million in revenue over the next two to three years. And our smart networking deployment with Angolan in the UK, which combines metrology, communications, and digital offerings, is expected to deliver revenues of roughly $90 million over the course of the project. These wins are further evidence of the durability of our business, even in challenging times. Because of the differentiation of our portfolio and the resilience of our teams, we expect we will have more news to share about additional big wins when we deliver our third quarter results. Clearly, I'm very pleased that the team's hard work is evidence both operationally and commercially. Having said that, the outlook for the second half is still not back to normal. Therefore, we are not reinstating full-year guidance. Conditions are improving in a number of our key markets, but the shape of the COVID curve overall is still unpredictable. Now I'd like to hand over to Mark to provide some detail on the second quarter, and then we'll come back to our outlook and the trends we see emerging through this period. Mark, over to you.