Core Molding Technologies Inc

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Core Molding Technologies fourth quarter and full year fiscal 2024 financial results conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero on your telephone keypad. 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 and then two Please note that this event is being recorded. Now, I will turn the call over to Sandy Martin, three-part advisors. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for the Core Molding Technologies conference call to review the fourth quarter and fiscal 2024 results. 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 statements made in today's discussion that are not historical fact including statements or expectations or future events or future financial performance are forward-looking statements and are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. By their nature, forward-looking statements are uncertain and outside of the company's control. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied. Please refer to today's earnings press release for our disclosures on forward-looking statements. These factors and other risks and uncertainties are described in detail in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Core molding technologies assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. Management will refer to non-GAAP measures, including adjusted EPS, adjusted EBITDA, 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. Our earnings release has been submitted to the SEC on Form 8K. Now, I would like to turn the call over to the company's President and CEO, Dave Duvall.

Thank you, Sandy, and thank you all for joining us. Before we review our 2024 financial results, I want to sincerely thank all of our employees for their hard work and dedication throughout the year. Our organizational, operational, and product line profitability improvements, which were previous must-win battles that we've successfully implemented over the past three years, are evident in our ability to maintain our gross margin levels between our targeted range of 17% to 90%, even with the reduced demand. All plans continue to be profitable as promised. Our book of business is solid, and we see our customers benefiting from a stable partner that can invest and improve in the quality of services and products we provide, as demonstrated by our recent supplier awards, such as the PACR 10 PPM and the BRP Gold Awards. We believe we are operating better than many in the industry in both launching new complex programs as well as ongoing delivery and support. We have created a strong team and a robust business model, which has provided record cash flows and has put CORE in a position to drive growth. Our job is to now leverage all the work the teams have done to drive profitable growth. Driving growth, both organic and inorganic, is what we have to do and are relentlessly driving now. Investor growth is our must-win battle for 2025, and I know we will be successful, just like the other must-win battles we have executed. We have the organizational capability, assets, and cash to invest in growth. We are actively engaged in evaluating acquisitions and confident we will execute an acquisition this year. Our newly implemented voice as a customer process has convinced us to invest in top coat paint capabilities at our Matamoros facility, which is now painting for customers and bringing that value-add process inside. The ability to paint aligns well with some markets that we are driving to grow, such as construction equipment, aerial lifts, and agricultural equipment. These solutions further engage us with customers and provide a broader value proposition, and I will share more in a few moments. Now turning to high-level comments on the year, as promised, all of our plans continue to be profitable in 2024. Our book of business is growing, and we have maintained solid product line profitability based on the successful completion of our last must-win battle, which drove decisions and actions to exit our correct non-profitable business. We have a high-performing business that is operationally positioned and financially capable of significant growth. We've won $45 million of new business in 2024, and driving profitable sales growth remains our most important focus. Now to hit on a few of the financial highlights, fiscal 2024 was another successful year for the company and a testament to our work over the last three years to stabilize margins despite lower revenue. We finished the year with sales of $302 million, gross margins of 17.6%, and adjusted EBITDA margins just over 11%. I am pleased to report that we generated record cash flow from operations of $35 million, which is driven by prudent working capital management, stable margins, and solid returns that John will discuss in a moment. Although market demand and product sales were down overall in 2024, we do not accept or tolerate the decline in sales, and we firmly believe that our best-for-growth strategy is the key to driving our growth engine. We have the same must-win battle drive for excellence and sense of urgency as we've shown over the last three years with our organizational, operational, and product line profitability must-win battles. We acknowledge that a portion of sales growth in the past was a direct result of positive COVID impacts, higher customer demand, and product stockpiling due to unpredictable supply chains. We have proven our ability to ramp up and capitalize on opportunities quickly, and I'm confident we can do it again. Nearly all of our $45 million in new wins are launching in 2025, generating higher tooling revenue with a ramp up to full production levels in 2026. Also, of the new wins, 35 million are either new or replacement sales from existing or past customer relationships. We know this demonstrates the importance of continuing to grow WalletShare with existing customers, as well as the importance of diversifying our end markets so that we can demonstrate our value and partnership with new customers and new industries. The replacement business we secured in 2024 indicates that customers trust our performance and ability to deliver. Finally, our pure new business wins last year on top of our 2024 product sales translates to an 8% sales growth, which is exciting. We will provide more on our fiscal 2025 outlook in a few minutes. Now I want to turn the call over to John to cover the financials in more detail.