AdvanSix Inc.

Good day, everyone. Welcome to the AdvanceX fourth quarter 2018 earnings conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. 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. I'd like to turn the conference over to Mr. Adam Kressel, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Alan. Good morning and welcome to AdvanceX's fourth quarter 2018 earnings conference call. With me here today are President and CEO Aaron Kane and Senior Vice President and CFO Michael Preston. This call and webcast, including any non-GAAP reconciliations, are available on our website at investors.advancex.com. Note that elements of this presentation contain forward-looking statements that are based on our best view of the world and of our business as we see it today. Those elements can change, and the actual results could differ materially from those projected, and we ask that you consider them in that light. We refer you to the forward-looking statements included in our press release and earnings presentation. In addition, we identify the principal risks and uncertainties that affect our performance in our SEC filings, including our annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. This morning, we'll review our financial results for the fourth quarter of 2018 and share with you our outlook for our key product lines and end markets. And finally, we'll leave time for your questions at the end. So with that, I'll turn the call over to Advancix's president and CEO, Erin King.

Thank you, Adam, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us this morning and for your continued interest in Advancix. As you saw in our press release, Advancix delivered a strong fourth quarter to close out a dynamic year. Mike will detail the full results in a moment, but overall, we captured the benefits of favorable market-based pricing. We drove improved plant production rates across our key manufacturing sites, And our cash generation continued to improve. Cash flow from operations increased nearly 30% in 2018, helping to fund high return investments in the business, debt pay down, and share repurchases. There were two one-time considerations in the results this quarter to note, however. We had a $6 million pre-tax income charge to bad debt expense, which was partially offset by a $2.9 million benefit from business interruption insurance advances related to the first quarter 2018 weather event claim. Taking these items into consideration, underlying EBITDA would have been roughly $3 million higher in the quarter. As we enter 2019, there continues to be great momentum across the organization. We strive to be our customers' trusted partner across all our various product lines, delivering growth and value through excellence in all we do. As you may have seen in our fourth quarter filings, we successfully renegotiated and extended our ongoing long-term arrangement with Shaw Industries. We've also increased our presence at various industry events and conferences in recent months, with members of our technical marketing team representing each of our major product lines presenting on our breadth of product offerings and capabilities. Operationally, while 2018 began with a significant weather event, which the organization successfully managed through demonstrating our resiliency and grit, our relentless focus on safe and stable operations culminated in fourth quarter plant utilization rates, reaching the highest level of any quarter since our spinoff in 2016. In addition, safety, performance, and compliance are core to how we operate. We are pleased to have published our inaugural sustainability report in November, sharing our commitment in this arena and the many ongoing initiatives at Advancix. Reinvestment in the business continues as we execute on our high return growth and cost savings capital project pipeline. The first two projects initiated in 2018 to further enhance our Advantage integrated value chain are on track. And as we commission these projects into service, we expect to start seeing benefits in the back half of 2019. Cash flow generation this year has been a consistent and positive outcome of our focused efforts. With increasing cash flow from operations, we're not only funding high return investments, but also maturing our capital allocation. You'll see in our press release, our board of directors authorized an additional $75 million share repurchase program. This authorization is in addition to the previous program announced in May of 2018. We are committed to delivering long-term value as we drive growth in the business consistent with the capital allocation priorities we have previously discussed. executing on high return reinvestment, building out our inorganic pipelining capabilities, and returning excess cash to shareholders. We'll provide more color on the remainder of 2019 later in the call. And although there are some puts and takes across the portfolio, our outlook remains largely intact from what we shared with you in November. Our priorities remain centered on continuing to drive safe, stable, and sustainable operations, enhancing our long-term growth capabilities, and making smart investments in the business to drive higher returns. We are confident in our ability to build upon our advantage validation that will continue to position the company for strong operational and financial performance for years to come. Before handling the call to Mike, I would like to take the opportunity to provide an update on the ongoing HOPAW investigation. As you'll see in our updated disclosures later today, we were recently notified that the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia has closed its investigation with no further action required by the company. As a reminder, this investigation did have numerous state and federal agencies involved, and we do continue to cooperate fully with the remaining narrowed inquiry by the U.S. EPA and the Department of Justice Criminal Divisions. So it's certainly a positive development, and we'll continue to keep you apprised with updates as we can. With that, I'll turn it over to Mike to discuss the details of the quarter.