Lincoln Electric Holdings, Inc.

All lines have been placed on mute and this call is being recorded. It's my pleasure to introduce your host, Amanda Butler, Vice President of Investor Relations and Communications. Thank you and you may begin.

Thank you, Janice, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Lincoln Electric's third quarter 2025 conference call. We released our financial results earlier today, and you can find our release and this call's slide presentation at lincolnelectric.com in the investor relations section. Joining me on the call today is Steve Hedlund, our chairman, president, and chief executive officer, as well as Gabe Bruno, our chief financial officer. Following our prepared remarks, we're happy to take your questions. But before we start our discussion, please note that certain statements made during this call may be forward-looking, and actual results may differ materially from our expectations due to a number of risk factors and uncertainties, which are provided in our press release and in our SEC filings on Forms 10-K and 10-Q. In addition, we discussed financial measures that do not conform to U.S. GAAP. Reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measure is found in the financial tables in our earnings release, which again, you can find on our investor relations website at lincolnelectric.com. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Steve Hedlund. Steve?

Thank you, Amanda. Good morning, everyone. Turning to slide three, we reported solid third quarter results this morning. Sales increased 8% driven by pricing, benefits from our M&A strategy, and resilient demand for short cycle portions of our product portfolio in the Americas Welding and Harris Product Group segments. While we are still navigating a period of challenged capital spending in our automation portfolio and sluggish demand in the EMEA region, our results demonstrate the strength of our operating model. We are effectively offsetting inflation and volume headwinds through commercial and operational agility. We are achieving our targeted neutral price-cost position and generated an incremental $8 million in permanent savings this quarter. This resulted in both higher gross profit and operating income margins, a 15% increase in our adjusted earnings per share performance, and record cash flow generation with 149% cash conversion. Our strategic investments and operating model continue to compound earnings, are delivering top quartile ROIC performance, and are supporting a balanced capital allocation strategy that invests in long-term growth while returning cash to shareholders through the cycle. Let's turn to slide four to discuss organic sales performance in the third quarter and into October. Organic sales increased 5.6% on higher price and narrowing volume declines. Volumes reflected ongoing stabilization in the demand for our short cycle consumables, most notably in Americas and the Harris Products Group segments, as well as in our North American industrial gas distribution channel. An encouraging area of improvement was the low single digit percent volume growth we achieved in welding equipment in the Americas, which has shown continued momentum in October. Our automation portfolio continues to be challenged from deferred capital spending in the automotive and heavy industry sectors. In the third quarter, we generated approximately $200 million in global automation sales. This was slightly below expectation and primarily due to project timing, which will be recognized in the fourth quarter. We were encouraged by a broad increase in automation order rates in late September and through October. If this trend continues, we expect fourth quarter automation sales to be approximately 15 to 20% higher sequentially, but still below last year's sales level. Looking at end market organic sales trend, we continue to see three of our five end markets representing approximately 60% of revenue, achieving steady to higher organic sales growth in the quarter. While largely price-driven, we did achieve volume growth across general industries, the HVAC sector, and in midstream energy. Construction infrastructure organic sales were steady in the quarter from a high single-digit percent increase in America's which was offset internationally. Heavy Industries' organic sales trends improved on easier prior year comparisons, price, and higher customer production activity in construction and agricultural equipment, which we are encouraged to see. While automotive remained challenged due to slow capital spending, we are pleased to see consumable volume growth outpace domestic production rates in Americas. We are encouraged by the industry's latest October model launch survey that points to a re-acceleration in new model launch plans through 2029. This aligns with an increase in long-cycle automation orders we closed in October. If this momentum continues, it's just an inflection to growth for auto capital spending in our business in early to mid-2026. To summarize before passing the call to Gabe, we are in the final quarter of our five-year Higher Standard 2025 strategy. Our global team has done an outstanding job over five very dynamic years that have spanned a global pandemic and a global trade war. I am proud that our initiatives have delivered and we are on track to achieve most of our financial and sustainability targets. Since 2020, our strategy baseline year, our operating income margin has increased 500 basis points and has averaged 16% across that timeframe, which is on target. Our earnings have more than doubled at a high teens percent annual compounded growth rate, and we have generated over 165% in total shareholder returns through the third quarter. Our relentless focus on serving customers, Driving innovation and continuous improvement and winning together positions the company for superior performance in the next growth cycle. And now I'll pass the call to Gabe Bruno to cover third quarter financials in more detail.