Barrick Mining Corporation

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. My name is Abby and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Barnes second quarter 2023 earnings conference call and webcast. Today's conference is being recorded and all lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during that time, simply press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star 1 a second time. Thank you, and I will now turn the conference over to Bill Pitts, Vice President of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Thank you, Abby. Good morning, and thank you for joining us for our second quarter 2023 earnings call. With me are Barnes President and Chief Executive Officer Thomas Hook and Senior Vice President Finance and Chief Financial Officer Julie Stryke. If you have not received a copy of our earnings press release, you can find it on the investor relations section of our corporate website at onebarnes.com. That's O-N-E-B-A-R-N-E-S dot com. During our call, we will be referring to the earnings release supplement slides, which are also posted on our website. Our discussion today includes certain non-GAAP financial measures which provide additional information we believe is helpful to investors. These measures have been reconciled to the related GAAP measures in accordance with SEC regulations. You will find a reconciliation table on our website as part of our press release and in the form AK submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Be advised that certain statements we make on today's call both during the opening remarks and during the question and answer session, may be forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Please consider the risks and uncertainties that are mentioned in today's call and that are described in our periodic filings with the SEC. These filings are available through the investor relations section of our corporate website at onebarns.com. Let me now turn the call over to Tom for his opening remarks. Then Julie will provide a review of our financial performance and details of our updated 2023 outlook. After that, we will open up the call for questions. Tom? Thank you, Bill, and good morning, everybody.

I'd just like to... Start first by wishing my wife Bethann a happy birthday. Barnes delivered a good performance in the second quarter, generating top line growth and improvement in adjusted operating income and margin. The team accomplished this while simultaneously advancing the substantial transformation underway at Barnes. Our progress is encouraging, although asymmetric across the company. And there remain further opportunities to drive our integrate, consolidate and rationalize optimization strategy. Our multi-phased initiative to improve core business execution continues and some early progress can be seen in the improved industrial results in the quarter. While industrial performance is not at the desired level, there is movement in the right direction. For the time being, I am taking a more active role with each industrial SBU and I have temporarily assume the molding solutions president role while the ultimate organization structure for industrial is under development when settled it will be an efficient structure built to support the execution of our strategic plans for industrial organic orders were flat as compared to a year ago though booked bill was approximately 1.1 times from a macro standpoint trends we have discussed previously are still visible with several end markets performing well and others seeing ongoing challenges. Automation has delivered an increase in sequential revenues for three quarters in a row, and our multi-cavity mold systems business continues to be strong. On the other hand, our automotive hot runners and sheet metal forming product lines have seen weakness. Across industrial markets, China has been particularly soft. Julie will touch upon SBU highlights in a moment. There is a rich organic growth opportunity at Industrial, and we are redirecting our sales efforts to drive a strong, vibrant sales funnel, focusing on improved commercial practices and a new customer acquisition. Building that commercial pipeline is a key step to generating the performance we expect from the business. At Aerospace, the market remains very favorable. Our OEM business will benefit from ongoing production rate increases by both Boeing and Airbus. In the aftermarket, we continue to deliver strong sales growth given improved passenger traffic and the resurgence of wide-body activity. Clearly, the market vibrancy supports our aerospace strategy to enhance, focus, and grow this business. In support of our strategy to grow our military aftermarket business, we have reached an agreement with Blue Raven to provide U.S. military aftermarket distribution support for Barnes Aerospace products and services. This agreement will help grow our U.S. military aftermarket business through Blue Raven's tech enabled, scalable supply chain solutions. While top line performance at Aerospace has been particularly good, we did take a step back with respect to adjusted operating margin performance in the second quarter. There are two factors driving this dynamic. First, we have experienced productivity challenges in some facilities. These challenges are within our control and are actively being addressed. Second, within OEM, we experienced a product mix impact on margin resulting from less fabrication work and more machining. That said, I am pleased with the overall performance and direction of our aerospace business and expect our margin performance to get back on track in the second half. Before I conclude my remarks, I'd like to provide an update on our pending acquisition with MB Aerospace. MB Aerospace is an exceptional strategic fit for Barnes Aerospace with highly complementary programs, global operation, technical capabilities, and product and services offerings. The transaction is progressing as expected through the regulatory approval process, and we anticipate closing the transaction before the end of the year. Upon closing, We will immediately begin integration and driving organizational synergies. At that time, we will also be able to share more detailed financial and operational aspects of the combined business. We're excited about the acquisition and like the balance it brings to our portfolio. To close my prepared remarks, our actions across the company target the core business performance improvement we expect to deliver. These actions, whether transformation related or acquisition integrated related, are all part of the same value equation there is considerable work in progress and still much more to do however we have the systems investments and global team to execute these simultaneous objectives we're on the appropriate path and our commitment to the process is unwavering let me now pass the call over to julie for a discussion of our second quarter performance as well as some end market color good morning everyone and thank you tom