AdvanSix Inc.

Good morning and welcome to the Advance 6 First Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing star then zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on a touch-tone phone. 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 Adam Kressel, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Betsy. Good morning, and welcome to Advance 6's first quarter 2021 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.advance6.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 as further updated in subsequent filings with the SEC. This morning, we will review our financial results for the first quarter of 2021 and share our outlook for our key product lines and end markets. 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 Payne.

Erin Payne Thanks, Adam, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us and for your continued interest in Advancix. We do hope you also remain healthy and safe. As you saw in our press release, Advancic delivered robust first quarter results to start 2021. Our collective organization contributed to generating significantly higher earnings and cash flow in the quarter, reflecting strong execution amid a tightened supply and demand environment overall. Mike will detail our financials in a moment, but as you can see on the left-hand side of slide three, we've highlighted year-over-year variances for some key metrics in the first quarter. I won't mention them all, but you can see the significant improvement in performance, particularly our ability to nearly double our EBITDA compared to last year, which, as you'll recall, was largely unaffected by COVID-19. And it generated a $57 million improvement in free cash flow year over year. Our first quarter 2021 EBITDA was the highest we've seen since the first quarter of 2017 and our second highest quarter since SPIN. Importantly, we captured pricing, achieved sales volume growth, and expanded margins while further reducing leverage levels. Across the board, it was a terrific start to 2021, and we are looking to continue building on that momentum. Early in the first quarter, we announced the acquisition of certain assets of Commonwealth Industrial Services, or CIS, which enables us to expand our offering to directly supply packaged ammonium sulfate to customers. The acquisition also diversifies and optimizes our offerings to include a spray-grade adjuvant to support crop protection, a fire retardant and insulation, as well as other specialty fertilizers and products for industrial use. I'm proud to say that the integration and synergy realization are progressing well ahead of plan, and we are excited to extend our industry-leading value chain for ammonium sulfate. As we look ahead, the outlook for our business remains favorable. In nylon, we expect robust customer demand and improved pricing as we execute our portfolio optimization and experience an improved global economic recovery. In chemical intermediates, we're targeting differentiated product growth as we expand production of oxines and nadone, as well as cultivate our storefront on those chemical marketplace while capturing continued pricing favorability in a tight acetone industry supply and demand environment. Agricultural fundamentals are also improving overall with robust planted acres and crop prices at multi-year highs, supporting an expectation for strong bulk and packaged ammonium sulfate customer demand in our plant nutrients business as we enter the heart of the North America growing season. While we are focused on mitigating continued higher raw material input costs, including freight and logistics, our investments in differentiated product growth coupled with a targeted record year of production output in 2021 are supporting higher earnings and robust cash flow. So there is a lot to be excited about. We can't always predict what the markets will do, but we're highly focused on executing what is in our control and remain confident in our ability to create value for our shareholders. We are executing against a focused strategy to deliver strong and sustainable returns over the long term as we support continued operational excellence and improving through cycle profitability. enhancing our portfolio resiliency through differentiated product growth and mix optimization, and being strong and disciplined stewards of capital. With that, I'll turn it over to Mike to discuss the details of the quarter.