Accsys Technologies PLC

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Axis Technologies PLC preliminary results for the year ended 31st of March 2023 webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. you will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Stephen O'Dell, Executive Chair of Access Technologies PLC. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our preliminary results presentation for the year-ended 31st of March, 2023. Here's our usual disclaimer. which I'll let you read in your own time. Next slide, please, operator. In terms of this morning's agenda, I will begin with an overview of the results, then Stephen Sarlow will take you through the financial detail. I'll then go through the business review, highlighting progress on our growth and expansion strategy, the recent challenges we've overcome, and the outlook for our business. Next slide, please. Overall, I'm pleased with our performance in FY23. Demand for our Accoya and Tricoya brands has been strong throughout the year as customers have continued to seek out our outstanding products. The strength of the Accoya brand has allowed us to offset macroeconomic inflationary pressures such as high energy and chemical costs through price increases. As a result, revenue increased by 34% to 162 million euros. The completion and startup of reactor four in Arnhem, combined with the reactors one to three returning to production after the plant shut down in April and May 22, has led to a 6% growth in volumes and record volume production in quarter four. I'm delighted to report that EBITDA rose by 120% to 22.9 million euros. Turning now to our operating highlights. The completion of Reactor 4 in Arnhem adds 33% additional capacity to the plant and has enabled us to sell more products than ever before. Since breaking ground at our Accoya USA plant in Kingsport, Tennessee in April 22, we've made good progress with construction successfully completing a number of key milestones. However, as previously announced in May this year, the project has experienced some delays and cost inflation, which is being felt throughout the industry globally. The plant, which will service the substantial latent demand in the North American market, is expected to commence commercial operations mid-2024. And of course, We're providing a significant update on our whole project today. The board has been reviewing the plant over the last six months and believes in the underlying attractive economics and margins of completing its construction. We will therefore continue to explore funding options to support the plant's construction. More details of that later. And I will now hand over to Steven Salo to go through the numbers.

Thank you, Stephen, and good morning, everyone.