The Andersons, Inc.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Andersons 2019 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode to prevent background noise. If anyone needs assistance during the conference, just press star and zero for an operator. Later, we will have a question and answer session, and the instructions will be given at that time. Now, it's my pleasure to turn the call to Mr. John Krause, Director of Investor Relations.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the Anderson's first quarter 2019 earnings call. We have provided a slide presentation that will enhance today's discussion. If you're viewing this presentation via our webcast, the slides and commentary will be in sync. This webcast is being recorded, and the recording and the supporting slides will be made available on the investors' page of our website at andersonsinc.com shortly. Certain information discussed today constitutes forward-looking statements, and actual results could differ materially from those presented in the forward-looking statements as a result of many factors, including general economic conditions, weather, competitive conditions, conditions in the company's industries, both in the United States and internationally, and additional factors that are described in the company's publicly filed documents, including its 34 act filings and the prospectuses prepared in connection with the company's offerings. Today's call includes financial information which the company's independent auditors have not completely reviewed. Although the company believes that the assumptions upon which the financial information and its forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, it can give no assurance that these assumptions will prove to be accurate. On the call with me today are Pat Bowe, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Brian Valentine, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Pat, Brian, and I will answer your questions after our prepared remarks. Now I'll turn the floor over to Pat for his opening comments.

Thank you, John, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our call this morning to review our first quarter 2019 performance. After Brian reviews our results, I'll wrap up our prepared remarks with some comments about our outlook for the balance of 2019. And then we'll be happy to take your questions. Our reported and adjusted first quarter results were well behind those of the first quarter of 2018, but both were significantly impacted by accounting adjustments related to our Lansing Trade Group acquisition. Holding that acquisition was certainly the highlight of the quarter, and I'm very pleased about the progress we're making with the integration of our trade group. Our new team and assets are both performing well, especially considering the difficult grain market conditions. We began managing our commodity positions on a combined basis on day one. and the level and extent of market and customer information being shared by our team is exactly what we need to capture the top line synergies we know are available. We're also making great progress toward identifying and capturing the $10 million in run rate expense synergies we've promised to deliver by the end of next year. Having made these comments about our trade group, the market backdrop was difficult for most of our groups during the quarter. And those conditions contributed to some disappointing results. The trade group operated in a flat, low volatility environment that hampered the group's margins. The group also incurred an insured loss due to water damage at its Anselmo, Nebraska facility, most of which we expect to recover through insurance later this year. The ethanol group continued to remain profitable for the quarter, making the best of a very weak margin environment during most of the quarter. Difficult times like these reinforce the wisdom of our strategy in this business. Operate as efficiently as possible to maximize margin from each bushel of corn we grind and effectively manage risk by using prudent hedging strategies. The Royal Group continued its solid performance, recording better results year over year. Income from the leasing business improved due to record utilization and more cars on lease. And revenue and margin improvements led to better results from our repair network. As we planned, income from car sales was lower year over year. Our plant nutrient group struggled with difficult early season conditions across our selling region. We expected a good start to the year due to the difficulty many farmers had in getting any fertilizer applied during the wet fall, but persistent rain and cold pushed both primary and specialty nutrient volumes down considerably year over year. Lawn and contract manufacturing was also down due to reduced volumes with a few key customers, which we anticipated last year. Later in the call, I'll speak about our outlook for the remainder of 2019. Brian will now walk you through a more detailed review of our financial results.