Ampco-Pittsburgh Corporation

Good day and welcome to the AMCO Pittsburgh Corporation fourth quarter and full year 2021 earnings results conference call. All participants will be in a 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 telephone keypad. And 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 Ms. Melanie Sproulson, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Thank you, Chuck, and good morning to everyone joining us on today's fourth quarter and fiscal year 2021 conference call. Joining me today are Brett McBrayer, our Chief Executive Officer, and Mike McCauley, Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and Treasurer. Also joining us on the call today are Sam Lyon, President of Union Electric Steel Corporation, and Dave Anderson, President of Air and Liquid Systems Corporation. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that participants on this call may make statements or comments that are forward-looking and may include financial projections or other statements of the corporation's plans, objectives, expectations, or intentions. These matters involve certain risks and uncertainties, many of which are outside of the corporation's control. The corporation's actual results may differ significantly from those projected or suggested in any forward-looking statement due to various factors, including those discussed in the corporation's most recently filed Form 10-K and subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We do not undertake any obligation to update or otherwise release publicly any revision to our forward-looking statements. A replay of this call will be posted on our website later today. To access the earnings release or the webcast replay, please consult the investors section of our website at amcopgh.com. With that, I'll turn the call over to Brett McBrayer, Amco Pittsburgh CEO. Brett.

Thank you, Melanie. Good morning, and thank you for joining our call. As shared in today's press release, Amco Pittsburgh recorded a loss in the fourth quarter of 2021. This loss was driven primarily by the under-recovery of inflationary headwinds that began last July and and a non-cash asbestos liability adjustment. Despite these temporary setbacks, I'm encouraged by the ever-increasing demand for our products. Full-year backlog has increased 19%, with continuing momentum as we have entered the new year. The diversification of our Forge and Cassinger product segment continues to go well, with Open Dive Forge engineering products backlogged up over 300% at the end of Q4. As mentioned in prior press releases, we commence price increases across all of our products to address negative inflationary costs, impacting primarily our forging cast into your product segment. These increases include new surcharges, which capture the dramatic shifts in energy and transportation costs across our global operations. The transformation of our North American fixed assets in our Forging Cassinger product segment is on track, with completion targeted mid-2023. Despite the challenges we have recently faced, we are confident our path forward will facilitate long-term, consistent profitability for our businesses. Although both segments have experienced supply chain constraints over the last six months, our air and liquid processing segment's performance was impacted the greatest. Critical component lead times began to extend in the second half of 2021, impacting shipments in the fourth quarter. The lead times have stabilized and these deferred sales will be realized in 2022. From a safety perspective, over the last 12 months, we conducted 18 high-risk assessments across our businesses. The goal of these assessments is to challenge our current work practices to ensure robust safeguards are in place for our employees. The engagement of our workforce and their actions to improve our work environment have been impressive. Our previous Air and Liquid Systems president, Terry Kinney, retired at the end of 2021. His successor, David Anderson, is joining the call this morning and will discuss the segment's performance in more detail. Dave?