Allegion plc

Good morning and welcome to the Allegiant first quarter 2024 earnings call. All participants will be in listen only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing star then zero on your telephone keypad. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. 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 Josh Pokowinski, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Drew. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for Allegiant's first quarter 2024 earnings call. With me today are John Stone, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Mike Wagnus, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Allegiant. Our earnings release, which was issued earlier this morning, and the presentation, which we will refer to in today's call, are available on our website at investor.allegian.com. This call will be recorded and archived on our website. Please go to slide two. Statements made in today's call that are not historical facts are considered forward-looking statements and are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of federal securities law. Please see our most recent SEC filings for a description of some of the factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from our projections. The company assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements. Today's presentation and commentary include non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to the reconciliation in the financial tables of our press release for further details. Please go to slide three, and I'll turn the call over to John.

Thanks, Josh. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. Legion is off to a solid start in 2024, and I'm very proud of our entire team. I'll walk through some of the top Q1 highlights briefly, and we'll share more on each of these through the course of the presentation. Institutional markets remain healthy as we expected. Our team continues to leverage our capabilities in spec writing, made-to-order manufacturing, and strong distribution partnerships to best serve our end-user customers. We're executing at a high level, expanding margins in the quarter, and delivering balanced capital allocation. As previously announced, we acquired Boss Door Controls and DoorCosts in Q1 and returned cash to our shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. Driven by our vision of enabling seamless access in a safer world, Allegiant's Q1 performance has set a solid foundation for the year. We're performing well, and we're affirming the 2024 outlook we provided to you in February. Please go to slide four. Allegiant continues to deliver on balanced and consistent capital allocation, and our Q1 performance showcases this. We continue to invest for organic growth, building on the legacy of our flagship brands, delivering new value and access through industry-first innovations, and nurturing strategic relationships to be the partner of choice. In March, Schlage announced a new Smart Lock integration with Airbnb to help improve and simplify host and guest experiences alike. Our integration means most Airbnb hosts with listings in the U.S. and Canada can now provide a seamless access experience to guests with the industry-leading Schlage Encode Smart Lock family directly within the Airbnb app. Hosts can streamline the check-in and check-out process with automatically generated guest access codes, removing the need to manually create unique codes for each visitor. Access codes are shared with guests at the time of booking, and those codes are only active during their trip, automatically deactivating after checkout. Hosts can make any needed adjustments to their guests' check-in and check-out times in the Airbnb app, which will automatically update the smart lot, keeping them in control of the access experience, while guests can rest easy with the peace of mind brought by having Schlage on the door. The SmartLock integration within the Airbnb app is currently only compatible with Schlage, making this another industry first for our company. Allegiant also continues to be a dividend-paying stock, and as a reminder, in February, we announced our 10th consecutive annual dividend increase. For the quarter, this amounted to approximately $42 million in cash returned to shareholders. Additionally, in Q1, we closed two bolt-on acquisitions. During our last earnings call, we discussed the February acquisition of Boss Door Controls in the UK, which brings a strong architectural channel and a flexible supply chain, while positioning us to increase our spec-driven business in Elysian International. In March, we acquired Dorcas, a leading manufacturer of electromechanical access control solutions based in Spain. Dorcas Solutions are distributed and sold internationally with a strong presence across European markets, including in the education and healthcare verticals. Their electric strikes and locks are integral elements of access control systems, and bringing this business into Allegiant International is another strategic investment in the quality of our portfolio there. Lastly, in the first quarter, we made additional share repurchases amounting to approximately $40 million. Overall, I'm happy with the balanced capital allocation you see here on this slide. We continue to invest in the core, continue growing the business, and continue returning cash to shareholders. Mike will now walk you through first quarter financial results, and I'll be back to provide some final thoughts.