Superior Plus Corp.

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Superior Plus 2021 Third Quarter Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentations, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question at that time, please press star then 1 on your touchstone telephone. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Rob Doran, Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasurer. Sir, please begin.

Thank you, Valerie. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Superior Plus' conference call and webcast to review our 2021 third quarter results. Joining on the call today are Luc Desjardins, President and CEO, Beth Summers, Executive VP and CFO, and Darren Rebar, Senior VP and Chief Legal Officer. Today's call is being webcast, and we encourage listeners to follow along with the supporting presentation, which is also available on our website. For this morning's call, Luke and Beth will begin with their prepared remarks, and then we will open up the call for questions. Before I turn the call to Luke, I'd like to remind you that some of the comments made today may be forward-looking in nature and are based on Superior's current expectations, estimates, judgments, projections, and risks. Further, some of the information provided refers to non-GAAP measures. Please refer to Superior's third quarter MD&A posted on CDARC. and Superior's website yesterday for further details on forward-looking information and non-GAAP measures. I would encourage listeners to review the MD&A as it includes more detail on the financial information for the third quarter as we won't be going over each financial metric on today's call. This will allow us to move more quickly into the question and answer period. I'll now turn the call over to Luke.

Well, thank you, Rob, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining the call. I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy. I'd like to start the call by thanking our entire Superior Plus team. I'm proud of our team's commitment to safety, reliability, and we continue to provide essential fuel and services for our customers, whether they're employees or out in the field and working remotely. We're making good progress in our Superior Way Forward growth plan to requisition continuous improvement in organic growth, In the past 12 months, we've announced and completed 625 million of propane acquisition, including the acquisition of Camp Propane. In 2021, we have announced or completed approximately 600 million of acquisition, which is over 30% of our 1.9 billion target set for Superior Way Forward Acquisition Initiative. So we're well on our way to achieve our acquisition target through 2026. We have a proven track record of executing on our synergy targets for acquisition, and we target 25% improvement in the EBITDA of businesses we acquired by optimizing the operation, utilizing the Superior Way operating platform, and leveraging our larger scale as we are reducing redundant operating and back office functions. On September 23rd, we've announced that we received a request for additional information from the FTC related to our proposed acquisition of the company that makes up Camp Propane in California. We must provide this additional information to the authorities before we're able to close the transaction. In the current environment, U.S. regulator authorities are taking more time reviewing more information on energy-related transactions before making decisions, which is pushing out the timing of the deal. Due to this continued review, we anticipate the closing of CAMP will occur in the first quarter of 2022. We still expect to finish within our adjusted guidance range of 390 to 420 million in 2021, even though the closing of CAMP has been delayed, which demonstrates the resilience of our business and the positive impact of the efficiency improvement and sales and marketing initiative taking as part of our barrier way forward plan. On the financial and operating results, our third quarter results were modestly higher than the prior year, driven by improved sales volume and average margin, as well as a decrease in corporate costs. The increase in sales volume and margin were set in part by higher operating costs, particularly in the U.S. due to the recent acquisition. The third quarter is the seasonally lowest quarter due to the lack of eating demand in many of our regions. As a result, the increase operating costs from acquisition recently completed more than have said the increase in gross profit. So the bottom line is you end up with the full cost, but you have less volume in those quarter two and three, so therefore more difficult to have profit, which comes in quarter four, as well as quarter one of every year. For reference to the third quarter, adjusted EBITDA of $13 million represents approximately 3% of our annual adjusted EBITDA based on the midpoint of our 2021 guidance. In the third quarter, U.S. propane results decreased compared to the prior year quarter, primarily due to the higher incremental operating expense related to acquisition, partially upset by higher average margin and higher sales volume related to near incremental contribution from acquisition. U.S. Propane EBITDA from operation in 2021 is anticipated to be higher than 2020, primarily due to the impact of acquisition complete in 2020 and in 2021, benefits from the Superior Wage and Decisional Workforce Optimization Initiative, and realized synergy from acquisition. Canada propane results for the third quarter were modestly lower than the prior year quarter, primarily due to the decrease in benefit from the COWS, partially upset by an increase in average margin and volume. We're seeing modest improvement in commercial and wholesale volume in our Canadian propane distribution business as COVID-19 restrictions continue to be lifted. Canadian propane EBITDA from Operation 2021 anticipates to be lowered in 2020, primarily due to the decrease in average unit margin as well as reduction in CLW benefit. We're optimistic more than COVID-19 restriction will be lifted in the fourth quarter and for the coming 2022 year, allowing our commercial customer to operate at a higher capacity, which is expected to increase propane demand when COVID is more behind us. I'll now turn the call over to Beth to discuss the financial results and more details.