AptarGroup, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Aptar Group's 2018 fourth quarter and year-end conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Introducing today's conference call is Mr. Matt Della Maria, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Communications. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Howard, and welcome, everyone. Participating on the call today are Stephan Tanda, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Bob Kuhn, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and Secretary. You can find a copy of our press release as well as a slide presentation that summarizes our results on our website. We will also post a replay of this conference call on the website. Lastly, today's call includes some forward-looking statements. Please refer to our SEC filings to review factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or contained in the forward-looking statements. APTAR undertakes no obligation to update the forward-looking information contained therein. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Stéphane.

Thank you, Matt, and good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us. As you saw yesterday, we reported fourth-quarter results that included very robust core sales growth across seven of our eight end markets and in each geographic region. Bob will share some details regarding our financial results, and afterwards I will briefly recap the year. But first, I would like to comment on a few important topics that are an inherent part of our strategy. If you're following along with the presentation that accompanies our press release and is posted to our website, I'm referring now to slide four. The first topic is sustainability. The increased level of interest in this topic by our customers is driving new innovation projects that will drive future growth. You may also have seen that APTR has signed the L. MacArthur New Plastics Economy Global Commitment, and we have joined the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. Joining these important organizations further underscores our efforts to work closely with customers and industry stakeholders to accelerate progress towards a circular economy. Some of our closures and pumps that feature post-consumer recycled resin, or PCR, can already be found on products on the market today. For example, most recently we announced the launch of a dispensing closure that uses 50% PCR for e-covers brand of liquid soap called Washing Up. We are also actively collaborating with our customers on refillable products. We are supporting our customers' participation in the circular e-commerce platform called Loop, by providing lotion pumps to key customers Unilever and Procter & Gamble. Finally, APTA was recently named by Barron's one of the top 100 most sustainable companies in the US as part of their 2019 sustainability rankings. Another important topic is innovation. As you know from our prior discussions about our strategic priorities, we have a dedicated innovation excellence group And we are very excited about the implementation of new tools and methods as the team works to identify opportunities in each business and in each geographic region. We continue to explore ways to leverage new technologies, including our active packaging technology that we recently acquired as part of CSP, and our growing platform of connected devices. I would like to share a few recent examples of interesting innovations that we are bringing to market. So turning to slide five, I will highlight the first three examples, starting with a product from our beauty and home segment. The so-called indie brands or independent brands are gaining more prominence within the beauty industry, and many of these players require a direct connection with key suppliers. Small business owners and founders of indie brands are turning to Aftar due to our expertise in dispensing, local supply chain, and industry knowledge to help their brands succeed. The photo on the left shows a moisturizing gel lotion by IT Cosmetics, the indie brand that L'Oreal has acquired, which features Aptar's airless dispensing system. Moving to the next product from our pharma segment, we recently launched our Quick Start injectable solution that is available to order online via our website. This solution is a sterile, ready-to-use offering designed to accelerate the development time for startups, biotechs, universities, and early-stage developers. The Quick Start solution offers everything needed for the small volume filling of high-value formulations, including various sizes, configuration of wild stoppers, push-off caps, as well as technical documentation that proactively address regulators' needs and accelerate approval. Turning to food and beverage products, we continue to help our customers convert their packaging from a non-dispensing format, such as a tub of sour cream, to inverted dispensing solutions featuring our closure and simply squeeze valve. The example on this slide shows Kemp's new inverted easy squeeze bottle for their sour cream. As we look to grow our business and manage near-term challenges and opportunities, we will also focus on long-term results by investing in sustainable solutions In accelerating our innovation, we are committing to a bright future for our customers and for our planet. With that, I will now turn it over to Bob. He's going to walk through some of the financial details and come back afterwards.