Alcoa Corporation

Good afternoon and welcome to the Alcoa Corporation fourth quarter 2021 earnings presentation and conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to James Dwyer, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good day, everyone. I'm joined today by Roy Harvey, Alcoa Corporation President and Chief Executive Officer, and William Opplinger, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. We will take your questions after comments by Roy and Bill. As a reminder, today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements relating to future events and expectations that are subject to various assumptions and caveats. Factors that may cause the company's actual results to differ materially from these statements are included in today's presentation and in our SEC filings. In addition, we have included some non-GAAP financial measures in this presentation. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures can be found in the appendix to today's presentation. Any reference in our discussion today to EBITDA means adjusted EBITDA. Finally, as previously announced, the earnings release and slide presentation are available on our website.

With that, here's Roy. Thank you, Jim, and thanks to everyone for joining our call. 2021 was truly a transformative year for Alcoa. Due to the work and dedication of employees across the globe, we're now in our best financial shape ever. Our accomplishments, which span across our business, will help propel us forward with our vision to reinvent the aluminum industry for a sustainable future. Before Bill covers our results in detail, I want to quickly highlight a few items. Our most important focus is always on safety, which is embedded in our Alcoa values to act with integrity, operate with excellence, care for people, and lead with courage. And every one of those values has an application that helps to support and improve our safety. Importantly, we will never put production or profit ahead of human life. Last year, we had no fatalities, but we did experience some serious injuries. We recognize that our systems and processes must be consistently applied and regularly reviewed to prevent injuries. We never rest comfortably when it comes to safety. We must and will remain vigilant. Next, turning to some of our results. We had a quarterly net loss due to restructuring charges that Bill will detail. Meanwhile, our quarterly adjusted net income increased 21% from the prior quarter. setting a quarterly record for our company at $475 million. Adjusted EBITDA, excluding special items, was $896 million. In the fourth quarter, we also paid $19 million in cash dividends, our first as Alcoa Corporation. This action, too, made 2021 an important year as the initiation of our dividend program indicates the strength of our company and our view of future performance through the cycle. In the fourth quarter, we authorized an additional stock buyback program and repurchased 3.2 million shares. We generated nearly $1 billion from the sale of non-core assets in 2021, including $240 million from the Rockdale, Texas site in the fourth quarter. We've also continued to make good progress on the review of our operating portfolio. We've now addressed roughly 75% of the 1.5 million metric tons of global smelting capacity that we said we'd evaluate for significant improvement, curtailment, closure, or divestiture. Importantly, we have significantly reduced our debt position during the year. Our adjusted proportional net debt was $1.1 billion on December 31, 2021, an improvement from $3.4 billion from year-end 2020. And on pensions, our remaining U.S.-qualified pension plans are fully funded. We annuitized additional portions of our U.S. plans, de-risking our balance sheet while ensuring that pensioners and beneficiaries receive their payments from highly rated insurance companies. We are now well positioned for the future, where aluminum will become an even more important material. Aluminum has always been the sustainable choice in metals, and we're ready to make it even more attractive to a greening world with technology advancements that will help us realize our vision. progress toward our net zero ambition, and create an even more sustainable aluminum company and industry. Finally, we're excited to see it all come together with many positive fundamentals in our markets. We expect the aluminum market to be stronger and for longer. Now, let me ask Bill to go through our Q4 and full-year results.