Star Group, L.P. (NYSE:SGU) Q2 2023 Earnings Conference Call May 4, 2023 11:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Chris Witty - Investor Relations

Jeff Woosnam - President and Chief Executive Officer

Rich Ambury - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Steve Errico - Locust Wood Capital

Tim Mullen - Laurelton Management

Operator

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Star Group Fiscal 2023 Second Quarter Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please also note today’s event is being recorded. And at this time, I’d like to turn the floor over to Chris Witty, Investor Relations Advisor. Sir, please go ahead.

Chris Witty

Thank you and good morning. With me on the call today are Jeff Woosnam, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Rich Ambury, Chief Financial Officer.

I would now like to provide a brief Safe Harbor statement. This conference call may include forward-looking statements that represent the company’s expectations and beliefs concerning future events that involve risks and uncertainties that may cause the company’s actual performance to be materially different from the performance indicated or implied by such statements. All statements other than statements of historical facts included in this conference call are forward-looking statements. Although the company believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to have been correct. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the company’s expectations are disclosed in this conference call, the company’s annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2022 and the company’s other filings with the SEC.

All subsequent written and oral forward-looking statements attributable to the company or persons acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statements. Unless otherwise required by law, the company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise after the date of this conference call.

I’d now like to turn the call over to Jeff Woosnam. Jeff?

Jeff Woosnam

Thanks, Chris and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us to discuss our second quarter and fiscal year-to-date results. As the largest provider of home heating oil in nation, our business remains highly dependent on weather, and the second quarter was particularly challenging due to the mild temperatures experienced throughout our footprint. .

To put this in perspective, not only were temperatures 22% warmer than normal, but the period was also the warmest in New York City in 123 years. Year-to-date, it was the fourth warmest period on record in this key market. While there’s nothing we can do to influence mother nature, we are adept at mitigating, to every extent possible, unusual weather swings like this, managing costs and working capital and adjusting short-term investment decisions. At the same time, our weather hedge program worked as intended and provided an important buffer under such conditions, as did our disciplined approach to controlling operating expenses even in the face of certain inflationary pressures.