3/1/2022

speaker
Operator
Conference Call Operator

Thank you for standing by. Please go ahead.

speaker
Stephanie Listwalk
Investor Relations Manager

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to LB Foster's fourth quarter of 2021 earnings call. My name is Stephanie Listwalk, the company's investor relations manager. Our president and CEO, John Castle, and our chief financial officer, Bill Tallman, will be presenting our fourth quarter operating results, market outlook, and business developments this morning. Sean Riley, the company's corporate controller, is also joining us this morning. We'll start the call with John providing his perspective on the company's fourth quarter performance and updating you on significant business matters and market developments. Bill will then review the company's fourth quarter financial results. John will then provide his perspective on company outlook and his closing comments. We will then open the session up for questions. Today's slide presentation, along with our earnings release and financial disclosures, were posted on our website this morning and can be accessed on our investor relations page at lbfoster.com. Our comments this morning will follow the slides in the earnings presentation. Some statements we are making are forward-looking and represent our current view of our markets and business today, including comments related to COVID-19. These forward-looking statements reflect our opinions only as of the date of this presentation, and we undertake no obligation to revise or publicly release the results of any revisions to these statements in light of new information, except as required by securities laws. For more detailed risks, uncertainties, and assumptions relating to our forward-looking statements, please see the disclosures in our earnings release and presentation. We will also discuss non-GAAP financial metrics and encourage you to read our disclosures and reconciliation tables provided within today's earnings release and within our accompanying earnings presentation carefully as you consider these metrics. For the purpose of helping you understand the underlying performance of the company, we will be referring to adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income, adjusted diluted EPS, net debt, and adjusted net leverage ratio during the presentation today. as reflected in the reconciliation tables included in the appendix to the earnings presentation. Additionally, in September of 2020, we announced the equity sale of our IOS Test and Inspection Services Division. As a result of this divestiture, we have presented the Test and Inspection Services business as a discontinued operation, including within the earnings release and presentation, and have recast prior periods to reflect this change. The comments today will be focused on our results from continuing operations. Further, in September of 2021, we announced the asset sale of our piling products division. Due to the nature of the sale, we have presented the piling products within continuing operations in our financial statements, but we have adjusted certain metrics as annotated in our presentation slides to reflect the sale for purposes of an even comparison. So with that, let me turn the call over to John.

speaker
John Castle
President & CEO

Thanks, Stephanie, and hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us today for our year-end earnings call. Before I jump into the prepared remarks, I'd like to introduce Sean Riley, who joined us as our Corporate Controller and Chief Accounting Officer in early January. Sean brings a valuable contribution of corporate and operational finance experience to our organization and has already contributed to our strategic transformation. Welcome, Sean. During today's call, we will recap significant accomplishments we achieved in 2021, establishing a sound platform for transformational growth in the years to come. It should be highlighted that these accomplishments were achieved during a period of unprecedented operational and market challenges that our teams continue to navigate as we transition into 2022. We are continuing to manage the day-to-day challenges of running the business in a turbulent environment while also focusing on our strategic execution roadmaps. Slide 5 reflects an overview of the key accomplishments of 2021. Of course, the cornerstone accomplished for us was the development and unveiling of our refreshed enterprise corporate strategy. I'll cover this in more detail in the coming slides. In August, we amended, expanded, and extended our revolving credit facility to substantially improve our access to market competitive capital to execute our strategy. In September, we completed the sale of our steel piling products business. The sale of piling, which was a working capital intensive business that has become commoditized over time, generated approximately $23 million in proceeds that we used to pay down a revolving credit facility. These proceeds, coupled with the benefits of the amendment to our credit facility, provided greater flexibility to fund a creative bolt-on acquisitions aligned with strategic roadmap, as well as investments in organic growth initiatives in our core growth businesses. We should also highlight the passage of the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure and Jobs Act in November of 21. This funding initiative, along with other spending programs passed over the last two years, provide much needed resources to repair, rebuild, and expand U.S. transportation infrastructure and national parks for years to come. New strategy coupled with the prospects for significant multi-year project and program funding in our core markets should lead to improving shareholder value. On slide six, I'll cover some of the key messages from our Investor Day event in December of 21. In particular, primary elements of a refreshed strategy. We are aligned on executing a strategy to transform LV Foster by focusing on growth platforms in core markets and transitioning to a technology-focused infrastructure solutions provider. By establishing growth and returns platforms within our portfolio, we created a clear roadmap to drive shareholder value by focusing investment on scalable core businesses with market headroom for growth and leveraging our differentiated offerings, specifically rail technology, where we're entering some adjacent markets and in precast concrete. The growth platform businesses will be funded through existing available resources, as well as a strong cash generation from a returns businesses platform. On slide seven reflects the eight playbook items that would make up our strategic transformation roadmap. In alignment with strategy, we are focusing resources on the businesses in our growth platform, where we see the greatest greatest market headroom. We're also driving capital efficiency and maintaining our competitive advantage in our returns businesses. We will be systematic and relentless in executing our strategy and plan on providing quarterly updates to all stakeholders on our progress. Slide 8 provides an overview of our new segment reporting structure. Our reporting segments have been established in alignment with our refreshed corporate strategy and the corresponding management organization structure established to execute the related strategic roadmap. We will have three reporting segments going forward, rail technologies and services, precast concrete products, and steel products and measurement. Slide 8 provides an overview of each of the segments' financial results for 2021, as well as their primary product offerings. This most significant change in reporting segment is the establishment of our precast concrete products as a reportable segment. This segment was previously included in the infrastructure solutions segment. The steel products and measurement segment represents the balance of the previous infrastructure segment. Rail technology service is largely unchanged. So I'll now turn it over to Bill who will spend some additional time on the performance service segments with his financial review. Bill?

Disclaimer

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