Xylem Inc.

Welcome to Xylem's third quarter 2023 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode, and the floor will be open for questions following the presentation. If you'd like to ask a question at that time, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. If at any point your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star 2. So others can hear your question clearly, we ask you pick up your handset for best sound quality. Lastly, if you should require any operator assistance, please press star zero. I would like to now turn the call over to Andrea Vanderberg, Vice President of Western Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Xylem's third quarter 2023 earnings call. With me today are Chief Executive Officer Patrick Decker, Chief Operating Officer Matthew Pine, Senior Advisor and former Chief Financial Officer Sandy Rollins, and Chief Financial Officer Bill Grogan. They will provide their perspectives on Xylem's third quarter 2023 results and discuss the fourth quarter and full year 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 in the 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. A replay of today's call will be available until midnight, November 7th. Additionally, the call will be available for playback via the Investor section of our website under the heading Investor Invents. Please turn to slide two. We will make some forward-looking statements in today's call, including references to future events or developments that we anticipate will or may occur in the future. 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. 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 or 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'll turn the call over to our CEO, Patrick Decker.

Thanks, Andrea. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us. By now, you'll see that our first full quarter as a combined company was Xylem and Avoqua together. The team delivered very strong performance across each of our segments. We significantly exceeded expectations on organic revenue growth, EBITDA margin, and earnings per share. And revenue grew 10% organically. We expanded EBITDA margin well above prior year, and we delivered EPS of 99 cents to the quarter, which represents 14 percent growth year-over-year. Orders were up 3 percent, and more importantly, our backlogs continued to grow, especially in our MCS and ISS segments. Total backlog is now $5.2 billion, and this sets us up for continued growth momentum and demonstrates the health of our key end markets. So, on the strength of this performance, we are raising our full-year guidance. I want to personally give a big shout out to the team for their strong operational performance during a period of integrating two large enterprises. Instead of getting distracted, the team continued to focus on serving our customers and delivering our commitments. The integration of Avoqua is well on track to deliver the cost synergies we promised. It's those synergies that underwrote the transaction. But more importantly, it's the growth synergies that excite us the most. And our customers have already begun to experience the advantages of our combined capabilities. Overall, the quarter strong result, it reflects our continued momentum. And that puts me in a very privileged position on my last earnings call as CEO of Xylem. In September, we announced a planned succession of both me as CEO and Sandy as CFO. Matthew Pine is going to lead Xylem as CEO beginning January 1st. I'll remain on as an advisor through the end of March. I'd also like to formally welcome our new CFO, Bill Grogan, who is on the call with us today. He's alongside Sandy Rowland. Bill took on the role of CFO on October 1st, and it's been a real pleasure to welcome him to the team. Now, as Sandy was in the chair through the end of September, she's going to cover the third quarter's results. But that's not going to happen before I take the opportunity to thank her for her many significant contributions as ILM. She's been a great partner and a great leader over the last few years with me and the team. We simply would not be where we are today without her many contributions. So now, over to you, Sandy.