Ashland Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to Ashland's first quarter fiscal 2021 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants' lines are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star zero. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker, Seth Morozek, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Phyllis. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Ashland's first quarter fiscal year 2021 earnings conference call and webcast. My name is Seth Morozek, Director, Ashland Investor Relations. Joining me on the call today are Guillermo Novo, Ashland's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Kevin Willis, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. We released preliminary results for the quarter ended December 31, 2020, at approximately 5 p.m. Eastern Time yesterday, February 3. This news release issued last night was furnished to the SEC in a Form 8-K. During this morning's call, we will reference slides that are currently being webcast on our website, Ashland.com, under the investor relations section. The slides can also be found on the investor relations section of our website. We encourage you to follow along during the webcast during the call. Please turn to slide two. As a reminder, during today's call, we will be making forward-looking statements on several matters, including our outlook for fiscal year 2021. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause future results or events to differ materially from today's projections. We believe any such statements are based on reasonable assumptions but cannot assure that such expectations will be achieved. Please refer to slide two of the presentation for a more complete explanation of those risks and uncertainties and the limits applicable to forward-looking statements. Please also note that we will be referring to certain actual and projected financial metrics of Ashland on an adjusted basis, which are non-GAAP financial measures. We will refer to these measures as adjusted and present them in order to supplement your understanding and assessment of the financial performance of our ongoing business. Non-GAAP measures should not be considered a substitute for or superior to financial measures calculated in accordance with GAAP. The most directly comparable gap measures as well as reconciliations of the non-gap measures to those gap measures are available on our website and in the appendix of today's slide presentation. Please turn to slide three. Guillermo will begin the call this morning with an overview of Ashland's results in the first fiscal quarter. Next, Kevin will provide a more detailed review of financial results for the quarter. Finally, Guillermo will close with key priorities and planning in the current economic environment in addition to providing his thoughts on important next steps. We will then open the line for questions. Now, please turn to slide five, and I will turn the call over to Guillermo for his opening comments. Guillermo?

Guillermo Diaz- Thank you, Seth, and good morning to everyone. Before I begin, I'd like to thank you for your participation this morning. First and foremost, this quarter's results demonstrates the overall business conditions are improving and we are successfully executing our strategy. We continue to operate safely with a clear focus on the safety and well-being of all our employees as we manage through this difficult pandemic. As we execute our strategy, our business priorities remain unchanged, demonstrating organic growth, expanding margins, and improving free cash flow. During the quarter, our team successfully delivered on each of these priorities. Ashland sales grew 4%, inclusive of favorable currency. Most of the consumer end markets continued to demonstrate resilient demand, with life science delivering strong growth during the quarter. However, the global pandemic is still impacting some businesses linked to consumer behaviors. We have not seen demand improve in hairstyling, sun care, and other businesses linked to grooming activities impacted by changes in social and recreational dynamics. We also began the process of exiting lower margin product lines. We commented on our last call. We saw continued recovery of industrial demand, as well as reduced seasonality. This demand improvement was broad-based across multiple end markets, and our industrial businesses executed well during the quarter. Consistent with our strategy, higher volumes, improved mix, lower SARD, and lower operating expenses led to growth in EBITDA and EBITDA margins. Our focus on earnings growth and disciplined working capital control delivered significant growth in free cash flow. Lastly, in line with our goal of leveraging bolt-on M&A opportunities to support our strategy, we announced the agreement to acquire Shulkin-Meyer's personal care preservative business. I'm very pleased with the progress made by the Ashland team to deliver improving momentum in what continues to be an uncertain global marketplace. I will discuss how this improving momentum impacts our outlook for fiscal year 21 following Kevin's review of the Q1 results. Kevin?