Xylem Inc.

Welcome to Xylem's third quarter 2024 results conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad, and to withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please also note today's event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Keith Buechner, Vice President, Investor Relations and Financial Planning and Analysis. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Xylem's third quarter 2024 earnings call. With me today are Chief Executive Officer Matthew Pine and Chief Financial Officer Bill Grogan. They will provide their perspective on Xylem's third quarter 2024 results and discuss the fourth quarter and four-year outlook. Following our prepared remarks, we will address questions related to information covered on the call. I'll ask that you please keep to one question and a follow-up, and then return to queue. As a reminder, this call and our webcast are accompanied by a slide presentation available in the Investors section of the website. A replay of today's call will be available until midnight, November 11th, and will be available for playback via the Investors 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. 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 key performance metrics, including both GAAP and non-GAAP metrics, with references to the prior year segment metrics being made on a comparative basis reflecting the change in segments as of the beginning of the year. For the 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 will turn the call over to our CEO, Matthew Pine.

Thanks, Keith. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. As you've seen in our press release earlier this morning, the team delivered very strong earnings in the quarter. In fact, I want to recognize the whole Xylem team for disciplined execution across the business. The result was record EBITDA margins and record earnings per share in the quarter. Operational discipline also delivered accelerated momentum in our integration of Avoqua. We're now well ahead of schedule in capturing the expected cost synergies, ending the year above our run rate targets. Our profitability is also beginning to benefit from the work to optimize our portfolio and simplify our organization. All that work is in service of reducing Xylem's complexity in serving our customers better, in addition to delivering systematic margin improvement in support of our long-term framework. The team showed great customer focus delivering healthy orders growth across all segments in the quarter. Organic orders were up high single digits overall, with a book to build greater than one, reflecting strong underlying demand in resilient end markets that continue to prefer our differentiated mission-critical solutions. Moderated revenue growth in the quarter was primarily driven by project timing pushouts in MCS and WSS, combined with tough compares versus prior year. Orders are up sharply in both of those segments, indicating healthy underlying demand and customer preference. Overall, in-market demand continues to be resilient, with a few pockets of softening in the short term. With good visibility through Q4, we're narrowing full year earnings guidance and maintaining the midpoint despite a slightly lower revenue expectation. Also in Q4, we expect to increase our stake in the ADRIKA joint venture, giving us a majority ownership position. As a reminder, ADRIKA is a global leader in data management and analytics for water utilities. The system powering the XylemView platform at the heart of our intelligent solutions for utilities. Having been born out of the utility operator itself, the platform has been deployed in more than 300 customers around the world. We took a minority stake last year and became the global distribution partner for the technology. Our teams continue to get traction with customers, and with this transaction, the business will be consolidated into Xylem's measurement and control solution segment. Now I'm going to turn it over to Bill to get into the quarter's results, our financial position, and our outlook. Bill?