American Vanguard Corporation

Greetings, and welcome to the American Vanguard First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Anthony Young, Director of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you, Jesse, and welcome everyone to American Vanguard's first quarter 2024 earnings review. Our speakers today will be our Chairman and CEO, Eric Wintemute, and our CFO, David Johnson. Also joining us to answer your questions will be our Chief Operating Officer, Bob Tregell, our Chief Information Officer, Tim Donnelly, and our Chief Transformation Officer, Don Galdoni. Before beginning the presentation, let's take a moment for a cautionary reminder. The company, from time to time, may discuss forward-looking information. Except for the historical information contained in this release, all forward-looking statements are estimates by the company's management and are subject to various risks and uncertainties that may cause results to differ from management's current expectations. Such factors include weather conditions, changes in regulatory policy, and other risks as detailed from time to time in the company's SEC reports and filings. All forward-looking statements if any, in this release present the company's judgment as of the date of this release. With that, I will turn the call over to Eric.

Thank you, Anthony. Hello, everyone, and welcome to American Vanguard's first quarter 2024 earnings call. We appreciate your continued support and interest. As you'll note from slide four, I will be covering four topics today, our Q1-24 financial performance, current market conditions, our 24 outlook, and our transformation efforts. Moving to slide five on Q1 performance, we recorded a 35% jump in adjusted EBITDA during the period. In addition, our operating income rose by 87%. This improvement in operating leverage is evidence that the cost control initiatives that we have started in the second half of 23 are having their desired effect. As I've mentioned in prior calls, our cross-functional teams remain focused on controlling expenses while maximizing operational efficiency. In that vein, we recorded lower operating expenses as a percent of net sales while increasing sales by 8%. Further, all three of our businesses grew during the quarter. Within our consolidated net, sales results. U.S. crop was up 9%, U.S. non-crop 28%, and international 2%.