Chemours Company (The)

Good morning. My name is Jeannie and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Comoros Company second quarter earnings call. 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 this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw the question, Again, press the star 1. Thank you. Brandon Onchez, Vice President of FP&A and Investor Relations, you may begin your conference.

Hi, thanks, Jeannie. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the Chemours Company's second quarter 2023 earnings Q&A conference call. I'm joined today by Mark Newman, President and Chief Executive Officer, and our recently appointed Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Jonathan Locke. Before we start, I'd like to remind you that comments made on this call, as well as in the supplemental information provided in our presentation and on our website, contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties as described in CMORSA's SEC filings. 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 from may differ and Chemours undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statements as a result of future developments of 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 our presentation. As a reminder, our prepared remarks, a full transcript plus our earnings deck, have been posted to the investor relations section of our website along our earnings release. This morning's call will focus purely on Q&A. With that, I'll turn the call over to our CEO, Marvin Mark.

Thank you, Brendan, and thank you all for joining us this morning. In addition to reporting solid results in the second quarter, as you saw from our press release, we had an active and productive quarter. In TSS, we had another all-time record quarter. And as you'll note, in the last six quarters, we've had five record quarters in TSS, which really speaks to the momentum and growth in this business. In APM, we had another double-digit growth quarter in our performance solutions business. And we launched the Mobility FC Membranes Company, which will be focused on Nafion membranes for the fuel cell requirements of the hydrogen economy. In TT, we made the difficult decision to close our Kuan Yin facility, and I just want to take this moment to acknowledge the profound impact the closure will have on our dedicated and skilled colleagues who have been valuable members of our team in Taiwan. During this transition, consistent with the ChemWorks culture, We will remain fully committed to working with our local leaders to offer support and assistance in this difficult transition. Additionally, as you saw, we reached a comprehensive settlement of PFAS-related drinking water claims of a defined class of U.S. public water systems. We also published our sixth sustainability report. which shows significant progress on both greenhouse gas and floor organic compound emission reductions. On capital allocation, we agreed to the sale of our glycolic acid business, which we expect to close this quarter. And we continue to return capital through dividend and stock repurchases to our shareholders. It was also a quarter marked by a number of leadership changes. On April 1, Denise Dignam became the president of our titanium technologies business. In early June, we had Jonathan Locke appointed to the CFO role. And obviously, Brandon Ange is stepping up into the investor relations slot. Matt Abbott became our chief enterprise transformation officer at the same time. And then earlier this week, we announced Joe Martinko, as the president of our thermal and specialized solutions business. So, you know, when I look at all the changes, including Gerardo Familia being named earlier this year behind Denise going into TT, you know, we've had a number of leadership changes, which really speaks to the strength of the talent on the Chemours bench and how well we're developing diverse and capable leaders of the future. You know, as I think of the quarter in total, I think it's a real demonstration of the Chemours brand of courageous chemistry. We did not miss a beat despite the leadership changes and we got a lot done. And, you know, as we face a week or second half this year, the team is full of energy and energized to drive continued great performance and to deliver value to our shareholders from our five strategic priorities. So with that, Jeannie, let's go to Q&A.