Apogee Enterprises, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Apogee Fiscal 2020 Fourth Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are on 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 need to press star 1 on your telephone. If you require any further assistance, please press star 1 and 0. I would now like to introduce your host for this conference call, Mr. Jeff Hibson. You may begin.

Thank you, Kevin. Good morning, and welcome to Apogee Enterprises Fiscal 2020 Fourth Quarter Earnings Call. With me today are Joe Pushis, Apogee's Chief Executive Officer, and Jim Porter, Chief Financial Officer. I'd like to remind everyone that there are slides to accompany today's remarks, which are available in the Investor Relations section of Apogee's website. During this call, we will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures. Definitions of these non-GAAP measures and a reconciliation to the nearest GAAP measures is provided in the earnings release we issued this morning, which is also available on our website. I'd like to remind everyone that our call will contain forward-looking statements reflecting management's expectations, which are based on currently available information. Actual results may differ materially. More information about factors that could affect Apogee's business and financial results can be found in our SEC filings. And with that, I'll turn the call over to you, Jeff.

All right, thanks, Jeff, and thank you, everyone, for joining us this morning. I hope all of you, your families, and your colleagues are safe and healthy. During these challenging times, I'm going to make a few comments about our fourth quarter and how we closed fiscal 2020. Then I'll spend some time updating you about the events that have happened since the end of our fourth quarter and how Apogee is responding to the COVID-19 crisis and its potential impact on our business. Jim will provide some additional details around the results and our financial condition, and then I will take your questions. Let me start with the fourth quarter results. We ended the fiscal year with a solid quarter, earnings above our guidance range, led by continued strong performance in architectural services segment, yet all of our businesses met or exceeded expectations. And we also benefited from some favorable discrete tax items in the quarter. We continued to win new business and expand our backlog. Architectural services grew its backlog by over $50 million. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for joining us. In addition, we made good progress during the quarter on our key strategic initiatives. Our new automated glass, architectural glass facility to serve the small projects market is fully operational. We made significant progress on our enterprise-wide procurement savings program. And we advanced efforts to improve execution, drive synergies, and reduce costs in architectural framing systems. We maintain line of sight to achieve $30 to $40 million in annual cost savings target when these initiatives are fully implemented and expect substantial benefit this fiscal year. Once again, Jim will provide additional details about these cost savings. So overall, it was a good quarter. We delivered on our commitments, above our guidance, and closed the fiscal year in a strong position. We entered fiscal 21 with positive momentum in our business and a path to deliver significantly improved performance. We were executing a plan that would deliver mid-single-digit top-line growth and more than 30% increase in operating income compared to fiscal 2020. In the week since our fourth quarter ended, the world has seen unprecedented events and is responding to the COVID-19 outbreak which has become the primary focus for all of us. As a company, we are stepping up to this challenge. I want to acknowledge the tremendous efforts of everyone on Apogee's team. Our employees have worked tirelessly over the past several weeks to adapt our operations so we can take care of our people and customers in this rapidly changing environment. Thank you to all of Apogee's employees for your contributions during this most challenging time. Page 5 in our slide deck outlines some of the key actions in our COVID-19 response plan. We've assembled a cross-functional team to lead our response. In everything we do, the health and safety of our employees is our top priority. We've implemented robust site prevention activities, including social distancing, massively increased hygiene standards, restrictions on travel, restrictions on visitors, and meetings. and remote work to the maximum extent possible. We've also established business continuity plans to maintain essential operations and to continue to serve our customers. We've stepped up our communications with customers so we can understand and accommodate their requirements and we're working closely with our supply chain partners to ensure the flow of critical materials. The situation is evolving very quickly as you all know. Given this high uncertainty environment, we have decided not to provide financial guidance for fiscal 21 at this time. However, I would like to share some observations about what we are seeing in our operations and end markets and how we're positioned to respond to this situation. First, almost every day we are receiving new directives from federal, state, and local governments in locations where we operate. were working to assess these directives and ensure we comply to support health and safety requirements. In most cases, construction-related activities have been deemed essential according to federal CISA guidelines on critical infrastructure and are continuing to operate. At this time, Apogee's three architectural segments continue to operate, ship products, and serve our customers while taking necessary precautions to ensure the health and safety of our amazing workforce. Overall demand for architectural products and services has been very steady. We are responding to rapidly changing customer schedules and requirements, and some projects have slowed, a few have been put on temporary hold, and this will impact results. However, most projects continue unabated. Again, I'd like to thank all of Apogee's employees for their efforts Thank you for joining us. and many of the retailers that sell our products are currently closed. We will work hard to resume operations as soon as possible and I'm confident that the LSO segment will return to its normal high performance level. I want to emphasize that we remain positive about the long-term prospects for all of our business segments. With our market leading brands, strong customer relationships and significant backlog, we're well positioned once we emerge on the other side of this COVID-19 situation. Looking at our cost structure, we are fortunate that we entered this period of uncertainty with a robust set of cost out initiatives already underway. We expect these initiatives will deliver significant savings in fiscal 2021. We're also evaluating additional actions to manage costs and capacity as necessary. Finally, we finished fiscal 2020 with very strong cash flow and a healthy financial position. As I've noted, Jim will provide details on those actions that we are taking to maintain our financial position and liquidity. So as we look at the current situation, I think of the key takeaways. Number one, we're facing this period of uncertainty starting from a position of strength. We are continuing to operate, servicing our customers while taking necessary actions to protect our troops. and we are confident that we have the team and resources in place to navigate this situation. We entered the global COVID-19 pandemic from a position of strength. We'll come out the other side in a terrific position thanks to that. With that, I'll pass it over to Jim who will provide more details on the quarter and our financial position and then I will return with a few brief comments and ready to take your questions. Jim?