Chemours Company (The)

Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Comores Company's first quarter 2021 earnings call. At this time, participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you require any further assistance, please press star 0. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Jonathan Locke, VP Corporate Development and Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning and welcome to the Chemours Company's first quarter 2021 earnings conference call. I'm joined today by Mark Ferdinando, President and Chief Executive Officer, Mark Newman, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, and Sunir Rahan, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we start, I'd like to remind you that comments made on this call, as well as the supplemental information provided in our presentation and on our website, contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including the impact of COVID-19 on our business and operations, and the other risks and uncertainties described in the documents Morris has filed with the SEC. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and are based on certain assumptions and expectations of future events that may not be realized. Actual results may differ, and Chemours undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statements as a result of future developments or new information. During the course of this call, management will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures that we believe are useful to investors evaluating the company's performance. A reconciliation of non-GAAP terms and adjustments are included in our release and at the end of this presentation. With that, I'll turn the call over to our CEO, Mark Ferdano, who will review the highlights from the first quarter.

Mark? Thank you, Jonathan, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. I'll begin my commentary with the first quarter highlights on chart three. It is hard to believe, but it has now been more than one full year since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Throughout that time, I have continually been impressed by the company's focus on our North Star, the safety of our people and their families while supporting our customers and the communities in which we operate. That bedrock commitment has allowed us to serve our customers safely and respond quickly as the recovery has gained momentum. I would like to recognize the efforts of our entire global employee base over what has been a difficult period. Your focus, diligence, and resilience is truly amazing. Looking at the Q1 results, demand remains strong as the world moves through what we hope are the final few months of the pandemic. Net sales rose 10% to $1.4 billion, with adjusted EBITDA up 4% to $268 million, despite weather challenges we encountered in the quarter. In our titanium technology segment, we continue to see a rising tide of coatings, plastics, and laminate demand into the second quarter. Contractor and renovation and remodel demand have been strong thus far in 2021, building on the strong DIY momentum from 2020. Our customers continue to see the value proposition of our long-term ADA contracts, and we continue to add new customers across all segments to the TVS family. In our thermal and specialized solution segment, Demand for Option remains strong despite constrained automotive build rates. We continue to see Option blend adoption in stationary applications and growth in the automotive aftermarket. In the U.S., we expect the EPA to implement a framework to transition to lower global warming refrigerants under the AIM Act later this year and believe a unified global transition toward HFO technology is underway. Demand in our advanced performance material segment has rebounded strongly across the majority of our end markets. Q1 was a solid proof point in our ability to increase margins across the portfolio in APM as demand normalizes. Commercial activity across most end markets has been robust as supply chains restock and overall demand has increased, creating tightening supply conditions around the world. In addition, we continue to make progress against our key growth programs in Semicon, 5G, and the hydrogen economy. While demand has been strong across the board, winter storm Uri affected our profitability in the quarter. Our concentration of operating assets in the southern U.S. region has affected results across all our segments, with the largest impact in our TSS segment with two key plant sites in Texas. Samir and Mark will discuss this in more detail, but I am proud of the way our teams quickly responded to minimize the impact on our people, facilities, and customers. Looking ahead, we continue to gain confidence in our outlook despite the winter storm headwinds of the first quarter. As a result, we are raising our 2021 full year guidance by $100 million on both the low and high end of the range. We now project full year adjusted EBITDA of between $1.1 billion and $1.25 billion. We also are raising our free cash flow guidance by $100 million to greater than $450 million. Mark Newman will take you through our higher guidance targets later in the presentation. Moving beyond financials, in March, we announced a strategic review of our mining solutions business. As you all know, we have significantly improved the performance of our chemical solution segment since spin, investing behind the most attractive portions of the business, improving operating efficiency, and driving stronger commercial focus with an eye to maximizing shareholder value. We are in the early days of our review, but hope to have some news to share later in the year. Turning to chart four. Since the launch of our first corporate responsibility report in 2018, we have been pursuing a set of 10 ambitious goals designed around inspired people, our shared planet, and evolved portfolio. These goals were always designed to lead and push ourselves and the chemical industry to a higher standard. Last month, we announced an updated climate goal. In doing so, we extended our leadership on climate-related issues in the chemical industry. Chemours will achieve a 60% absolute reduction in Scope 1 and Scope 2 carbon emissions from our operations by 2030 on our way to achieving net zero by 2050. This commitment does not include the profound impact our products will have on climate. From Option refrigerants to Napion membranes, our products are fundamental to helping the world achieve the aims of the Paris Agreement. Our commitment to all our stakeholders shines through in our CRC program, and I know these commitments will serve as a guiding light for Chemours long into the future. With that, I will turn things over to Samir for a more detailed look at our results. Samir?