The Andersons, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the ANASIS 2020 Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press Star 1 on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press Star 0. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, to Mr. John Krause, Director of Investor Relations. Thank you. Please go ahead.

John Krause Thanks, Julem. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the Anderson Second Quarter 2020 Earnings Call. We've 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, The COVID-19 pandemic 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. This presentation and today's prepared remarks contain non-GAAP financial measures. The company believes that adjusted pre-tax income, adjusted pre-tax income attributable to the company, adjusted net income attributable to the company, adjusted diluted EPS, EBITDA, and adjusted EBITDA attributable to the company, and adjusted and others about its operations, allowing an evaluation of underlying operating performance and better period-to-period comparability. These measures do not and should not be considered as alternatives to net income or income-before-income taxes as determined by generally accepted accounting principles. On the call with me today are Pat Bowe, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Brian Valentine, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. After our prepared remarks, Pat, Brian and I will be happy to take your questions. Before Pat makes his opening comments, I want to inform you that we've rescheduled our Investor Day. We will present it in a virtual format on the morning of Tuesday, December 8th, 2020. We look forward to sharing more details about that event with you soon. With that, Pat, the floor is yours.

Thank you, John, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our call this morning to review our second quarter results. We posted solid second quarter results as all four of our business groups generated positive pre-tax income. The plant nutrient group achieved a significant improvement in the second quarter. Wholesale fertilizer distribution volumes and retail farm center application services were both up substantially. The ethanol group continued to be affected by reduced gasoline demand but still earned positive pretax income attributable to the company as margins recovered late in the quarter. The group's decision to extend normal spring shutdowns allowed the plants to quickly reach peak efficiency as we brought them back online. The trade group earned a small pretax profit during the quarter. The story was largely the same as for the first quarter. While the merchandising business stayed strong, income earned by the group's assets was down significantly due to the small 2019 harvest in the east. In addition, farmers largely continued to hold on to their grain, and ethanol customers' demand was lower. The rail group's results were slightly lower as carload traffic continued to fall, and a record nearly one-third of all North American rail cars were idle. Implications of that reduction in rail traffic include softening lease rates and lower demand for repair services. Before Brian reviews our second quarter financial results, I want to spend a couple minutes discussing the business structure and organization changes we announced in our press release last night. We continue to look for ways to better serve our customers, leverage our knowledge base, and reduce costs across the company. With that in mind, the company has combined the trade and ethanol groups. Bill Krueger will lead the combined group as its president, and Jim Paroli will continue to lead the ethanol business and will take on an expanded role within the combined group. We believe we will benefit from having all grain origination Co-product trading, and risk management under one umbrella. This change will enable us to manage overall risk, logistics, and arbitrage as one unified business. It will also allow for the management of food, feed, and fuel products from one end of the supply chain to the other. While these strategic benefits drove this combination, we also expect to realize cost savings as the two units become further integrated. The company has also combined the plant nutrient and rail groups under the oversight of Joe McNeely, who was the president of the rail group. Cost savings was the main driver of this combination, though we also expect to identify business synergies. I'm now going to turn things over to Brian, and I'll be back when he's finished to discuss our outlook for the rest of 2020 and into early 2021. Brian?