Allison Transmission Holdings, Inc.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Allison Transmission's first quarter 2021 earnings conference call. My name is Hillary and I will be your conference call operator today. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the prepared remarks, the management team from Allison Transmission will conduct a question and answer session and conference call participants will be given instructions at that time. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Mr. Ray Posadas, the company's Managing Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Hillary. Good evening, and thank you for joining us for our first quarter 2021 earnings conference call. With me this evening are Dave Graziosi, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Fred Boley, our Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and Treasurer. As a reminder, this conference call webcast this evening's presentation are available on the investor relations section of our website alicentransmission.com a replay of this call will be available through may 5th as noted on slide 2 of the presentation many of our remarks today contain forward-looking statements based on current expectations these forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks including those set forth in our first quarter 2021 earnings press release and their annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31st, 2020, uncertainties related to the COVID-19 pandemic and related responses by governments, customers, and suppliers, and other factors as well as general economic conditions. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions or estimates prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those that we expressed today. In addition, as noted on slide three of the presentation, Some of our remarks today contain non-GAAP financial measures as defined by the SEC. You can find reconciliations of the non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP measures attached as an appendix to the presentation and to our first quarter 2021 earnings press release. Today's call is set to end at 545 p.m. Eastern Time. In order to maximize participation opportunities on the call, we'll take one question from each analyst. Please turn to slide four of the presentation for the call agenda. During today's call, Dave Graziosi will provide you with a brief operational update. Fred Boley will then review our first quarter financial performance and update full year 2021 guidance. Finally, Dave will conclude the prepared remarks prior to commencing the Q&A. Now I'll turn the call over to Dave Graziosi.

Thank you, Ray. Good evening and thank you for joining us. I will begin our prepared remarks by once again expressing my appreciation to Allison's employees customers, suppliers, and communities for their continued dedication and resilience during this critical period. Despite the severe disruptions to global supply chains that are currently impacting our end markets, customer demand is improving, and our team continues its tireless efforts to fulfill the Allison promise. I'm extremely proud of the Allison extended family and the commitment demonstrated every day. So much progress has been made in addressing the effects of the pandemic, and there's good reason to be optimistic. The risks persist, and our top priority remains the health and well-being of Allison's extended family and its communities. Many safety measures and precautions that have been implemented throughout the pandemic remain in place today, and Allison is now providing on-site COVID testing and vaccinations to employees in our Indianapolis plants and global headquarters. We continue to encourage everyone to get vaccinated, follow recommended guidelines, and look out for one another. As we discussed last quarter, supply chains across the globe continue to be strained. Challenges include labor constraints and shortages of component materials as global demand surpasses capacity recovery and availability. Logistics issues continue adding to freight delays and costs. and certain electronic components such as semiconductors or chips remain in short supply across many industries. Our procurement and global supply chain team continue to work closely with our suppliers at every level to understand and mitigate constraints. Our suppliers understand the importance of Allison as an essential critical infrastructure manufacturer and the impact both the commercial vehicle and defense industries have in the global pandemic recovery. Continued coordination with our suppliers, customers, and industry participants from order to delivery remains critical as we work collaboratively to further mitigate the ongoing risks caused by the global pandemic. Despite these challenges, the delivery of our products with minimal disruptions since the beginning of the pandemic continues. And we are pleased to report that Allison's first quarter results reflect the ongoing global economic recovery. Thanks to improving customer demand, a resilient outlook, and the efforts of the Allison team to maintain operational alacrity and meet our commitments, we are raising our full year 2021 results guidance, including our full year net sales guidance from a midpoint increase of 12% to a midpoint increase of 15% compared to net sales for 2020. We also continue to fund significant investments in engineering research and development and capital expenditures to further position Allison to capitalize on meaningful growth opportunities across all of our end markets. Finally, during the first quarter, we continued our well-defined approach to capital allocation by settling approximately $96 million of share repurchases or over 2 percent of outstanding shares and increasing the quarterly dividend from 17 cents to 19 cents per share. Thank you, and I'll now turn the call over to Fred.