WASTE MANAGEMENT INC 2024 Q3
Earnings Overview & AI Insights

Earnings Performance

The company has filed a Form 8-K that includes the earnings press release and is available on our website at (pre)www.wm.com. Jim, John, and Devina will discuss operating EBITDA, which is income from operations before depreciation and amortization. John will discuss our results in the metrics of yield and volume. WM's president and CEO, Jim Fish, will discuss the company's quarterly results. Jim Fish: "We're pleased to report another quarter of double-digit operating [growth] growth, positioning us well to deliver about $6.5 billion for full year, near the upper end of our guidance. We're also hard at work integrating acquisitions in key markets and closing Stericycle. During the quarter, we completed eight projects spanning our network, including six automation upgrades and new facilities in New York and Florida. We've now completed 24 of the 39 projects in the growth program, which have added 1.5 million million pounds of annual recycling capacity across North uablyAmerica. John Morris -- Executive Vice President, Chief Executive Officer -- will give a look at Stericycle's third-quarter results. John will provide a deeper dive into our operational results for the fourth consecutive quarter. The weighted average average collection efficiency rose by 2%, with the residential line of proprietary business increasing more than 4%. The intentional focus on making WM a great place to build a career is leading to reduced driver and technical turnover, improving about 19% annualized, a significant improvement over last year. EBITDA grew $181 million in the third quarter, with margin expanding to 37.4%. Service increases continued to outpace decreases further reinforcing our execution. EBITDA margin expanded to an all-time high of 30.5%. Churn was 9.2% in the quarter, validating the effectiveness of our customer lifetime value model. The company has grown free cash flow by 20% in the last year. WM is confident that we will meet or exceed the high end of our 2024 guidance for revenue and free cash cash flow. We have suspended our share buyback program because of the current focus on M&A growth. Thank the team for all they do. We look forward to delivering on our targets for 2024 as we close out the remainder of the year. With that, Livia, let's open the line for questions.