Core Molding Technologies Inc

Hello and welcome to the Core Molding Technologies 4th Quarter Fiscal 2023 Financial 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 1 on your telephone keypad, and to withdraw from the question queue, you may press star, then 2. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the call to Sandy Martin, three-part advisors. Sandy, please go ahead.

Thank you and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for the Core Molding Technologies conference call to review fourth quarter and full year results for the 2023. Joining me on the call today are the company's president and CEO, Dave Duvall, and EVP and CFO, John Zimmer. This call is being webcast and can be accessed through coremt.com via an audio link on the investor relations events and presentations page. Today's conference call, including the Q&A session, will be recorded. Please be advised that any time-sensitive information may no longer be accurate as of the date of any replay or transcript reading. I would also like to remind you that the statements made in today's discussion that are not historical fact including statements or expectations or future events or future financial performance or forward-looking statements and are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements, by their nature, are uncertain and outside of the company's control. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied. Please refer to the earnings press release issued today for our disclosures on forward-looking statements. described in detail in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Core molding technology assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements publicly. Management will refer to non-GAAP measures including adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EPS, debt to trailing 12 months EBITDA ratio, free cash flow, and return on capital employed. Reconciliations to the nearest gap measures can be found at the end of our earnings release. Finally, a copy of the press release has been submitted to the SEC on Form 8K. And now I would like to call, turn the call over to the company's president and CEO, Dave Duvall. Dave?

Thank you, Sandy. And thank you all for joining us to review our 2023 annual and fourth quarter results. 2023 was an exciting, successful year for the company. significant achievements both in terms of executing our strategic initiatives and progressing on our long-term transformation journey. We're proud of our team's hard work and exceptional accomplishments in 2023. We stated in March of 23, one of our key strategic goals for 2023 was specifically margin improvement. This was driven through our must-win battles to improve both our operational performance and working through the product line profitability on some of our larger customer programs to achieve what we see as market-based pricing. We have done exactly what we said we would do. I believe this is an important statement to make. Within 2023, we have significantly improved our overall business model. The result of this accomplishment is directly reflected in our gross margins for the year, which increased by 410 basis points. This is the result of a summation of many improvements attributable to a high-performing organization executing to a defined strategy. What I find most exciting is that we're now in a much better position to focus on growth, which is just our next challenge to overcome. As a quick review, these are some of the 2023 highlights that demonstrate our disciplined approach and commitment to achieving organizational goals. We successfully executed the company's strategic initiatives and operational must-win battle projects. We made targeted operational improvements in key plants that significantly improved the product line profitability and created more capacity with the existing infrastructure, as originally discussed in March of 23. We formalized and implemented our company-wide continuous improvement systems, leveraging our expert knowledge across the organization to embed a culture of continuous cost and efficiency improvements. We continue to invest in developing our organizational capabilities by expanding our leadership development, technical training programs, internships, and government training grants. This is an ongoing process which is foundational to our organization. Creating a culture and environment where it's easier to succeed is the cornerstone of our current and future success. We issued CORE's inaugural sustainability report in 2023, focusing on advancements in corporate citizenship and our environmental stewardship of the company. The second publication will be in April. We were honored with the Material and Process Innovation Award nomination for our development of the Sea-Doo Hall for BRP, which underscores our culture of innovation at CORE Molding. At the 22nd Annual National Industrial Meeting, our facilities in Matamoros and Monterey were honored for their commitment to high ethical standards, practices, and sustainability in our Mexican plants. The result of our disciplined execution resulted in full year record net income and earnings per share, strengthened the balance sheet, and generated record cash flows. These accomplishments and the company's inclusion in the Russell 3000 Index last year were the direct result of Core's dedicated teams, operational performance, winning culture, and dedication to driving shareholder value. Now, turning to a review of our top-level financial results, as we previously signaled, annual net sales of $358 million were down 5%, primarily due to changing market dynamics and tougher 2022 comparisons. Gross margins for the year increased by 410 basis points to 18%. We also generated over $42 million in adjusted EBITDA, or 11.8% of sales, resulting in meaningful free cash flows of $26 million for the year. Operational performance metrics improved for the full year, exceeded our target of 20%, and created the additional capacity we originally stated. Given tougher prior year comps, we expected softer sales in the fourth quarter of 2023 and cautioned in the third quarter conference call about industrial and utility customers continuing to work through inventories. Although the fourth quarter is always challenging due to fewer workdays and customer shutdowns during the holidays, we still improved gross margin and adjusted EBITDA margins for the quarter compared to a year ago. Again, This is a result of our organizational ability to execute and deliver on improved product line profitability in the quarter and for the full year, as we had stated at the beginning of 2023. Lastly, yesterday, we announced that our board has authorized a new stock repurchase program, authorizing the company to purchase from time to time up to 7.5 million of the company's common stock at current market prices. This buyback program is important because it allows us to opportunistically purchase core molding stock, which we believe is a critical component of the company's capital allocation strategy. With that, I'd like to now turn it over to John to cover the financials in more detail.