ATI Inc.

Hello all and welcome to ATI's first quarter 2024 earnings call. My name is Lydia and I'll be your operator today. If you'd like to ask a question during the Q&A, you can do so by pressing star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I'll now hand you over to Dave Weston, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to ATI's first quarter 2024 earnings call. Today's discussion is being webcast online at atimaterials.com. Participating in today's call to share key points from our first quarter results are Bob Weatherby, Board Chair and CEO, Kim Fields, President and COO, and Don Newman, Executive Vice President and CFO. Before starting our prepared remarks, I would like to draw your attention to the supplemental presentation that accompanies this call. Those slides provide additional color and details on our results and outlook and can also be found on our website at atimaterials.com. After our prepared remarks, we'll open the line for questions. As a reminder, all forward-looking statements are subject to various assumptions and caveats. These are noted in the earnings release and in the accompanying presentation. Now I'll turn the call over to Bob. Thanks, Dave.

Good morning, everyone. In the first quarter of 2024, our leadership team focused on the things within our control, acting with urgency and a forward-looking perspective. The results reported today reflect those efforts. This morning, I'll summarize the three key points I want you to take from our performance. Point number one, Q1 financial results surpassed expectations. We delivered adjusted earnings per share for the quarter of 48 cents, exceeding the top end of our estimated range. Revenue was over $1 billion for the seventh consecutive quarter. Our advanced alloys and solutions segment led the way, achieving a 14% EBITDA margin in Q1. This reflects a double-digit sequential growth in the electronics and medical markets and strong A&D sales in specially rolled products. In addition, our Oregon team delivered an accelerated recovery from January's Pacific Northwest storm-related outages. It really was a great performance across the segment. We expected the high-performance materials and components segment to be down in the first quarter, given the late-year production outages we discussed in our last quarterly call. The good news is those impacts are fully behind us, and the business is leveraging the ramping melt rates and new billet forge press capacity. Equally important, our forge products business unit racked up another great quarter, best two in a row, delivering the highest revenue in their history. All of this sets the stage for strong sequential growth and segment EBITDA margins back above 20% in Q2. Our commitment to managing working capital intensity delivered significant first quarter improvements for free cash flow over the prior year first quarter. And we fully executed our share repurchase authorization of $150 million, directly sharing the benefits of our strong performance with our shareholders. We did what we said we would do and what we needed to do in Q1. Point number two, demand for ATI Aerospace and Defense, as well as aero-like products, remains robust. While the percentage of A&D sales dipped slightly below 60% in the quarter due to near-term order patterns and the impact of the Q4 outages, the composite of A&D and aero-like business remained above 75%. We're confident sales in the coming quarters will put us back on the trend line to our target of 65% A&D sales. ATI's market position is very broad, significantly more diverse than before the pandemic. We're producing for every commercial airframe and every jet engine program. The struggles with the 737 MAX and the resulting impact on near-term LEAP-1B engine deliveries are much publicized. The impact on ATI is not meaningful. Any impact is more than offset by demand to support the geared turbofan accelerated overhauls, elevated engine spares, and increased defense and commercial space activity. And for clarity, the revised lower 737 MAX and LEAF 1B orders are reflected in our 2024 full year guidance. Our focus is firmly on end markets and premium products where our differentiated capabilities and materials are most highly valued. Point number three, we're increasing our 2024 GPS guidance driven by strong demand, improved operational stability, and a healthy pricing environment. We maintain our expectations for both top and bottom line growth in the second half. Our operations are performing at rates that support the second half guidance. Kim will share more color on this in a moment. As we leave the first quarter and look ahead to the strong outlook for Q2 and the rest of 2024, we've reached an ideal intersection of effective strategy, top line growth, and bottom line performance. ATI is proven to perform and well positioned for the future. With that, I'll turn the call over to Kim and return later in the call for a few closing comments. Kim?