Chemours Company (The)

Good morning. My name is Michelle, and I will be your conference operator today. I would like to welcome everyone to the Chemours Company first quarter 2026 results conference call. Currently, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the conclusion of the prepared remarks. I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Brandon Anges, Vice President, Head of Strategy and Investor Relations for Chemours. you may begin your conference.

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the Chemours Company's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. I'm joined today by Denise Dignam, Chemours' president and chief executive officer, and our senior vice president and chief financial officer, Shane Hostetter. Before we start, I would like to remind you that comments made on this call, as well as in the supplemental information provided on our website, contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, as described in Chemours' 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, 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, we 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 is included in our press release issued yesterday evening. Additionally, we posted our earnings presentation on our website yesterday evening as well. With that, I will turn the call over to Denise Dignam.

Thank you, Brandon, and thank you, everyone, for joining us. During today's call, I will begin by discussing highlights from our recent performance before turning it over to Shane, who will provide details around our outlook for the second quarter of 2026 and some commentary on the remainder of the year. Finally, I will provide updates on our meaningful progress against our Pathway to Thrive strategy and current view of our operating environment before taking your questions. We started 2026 with strong results, delivering a first quarter that was well above earnings expectations and showcased the strength of Chemours' disciplined execution and strategic focus across the company. Both thermal and specialized solutions and titanium technologies delivered standout performances, with TSS not only achieving another quarter of double-digit year-over-year growth in Option refrigerants, but also excelling in quota execution and capturing additional opportunities in Freon refrigerants, through sharp market focus and agile commercial execution. TT also exceeded our earnings expectations, driven by global pricing actions, strong commercial discipline across all regions and customer segments, and continued operational focus. In advanced performance materials, the business worked to quickly stabilize operations following the Washington Works outage and the same strength in our performance solutions order book. especially in high-value data center and semiconductor markets. Adding to this strong performance and aligning with our efforts to improve our balance sheet, we completed the sale of nearly all of our Quan Yin properties ahead of schedule and promptly used the available proceeds to pay down a meaningful portion of our near-term debt, further strengthening our balance sheet and enhancing Comor's financial flexibility as we look ahead. We remain on track to complete the sale of the remaining parcel of the land in 2026, which should provide an incremental $60 million of gross proceeds. This development followed the $700 million refinancing completed in March of our 2027 unsecured notes and a portion of our 2028 unsecured notes, extending these maturities out to 2034 and increasing our balance sheet flexibility. Let me expand a bit further on the quarter's business activities. Our TSS business delivered a record first quarter with continued strength in both Freon and Option refrigerants, driving double-digit year-over-year growth. Net sales for TSS increased 22% versus the prior year quarter, largely driven by higher pricing, stronger volume growth, and a favorable product mix across refrigerant markets. Pricing benefited from automotive aftermarket Freon refrigerant sales in North America and Option blends, while overall volume growth was supported by seasonal strength. These top line results translated into record adjusted EBITDA for TSS in the quarter, with margins expanding to 33%, reflecting strong pricing realization for Freon and an improved Option blend mix. While higher input costs, particularly R32, created some offsets, these results underscore the power of our commercial execution and disciplined quota management. Sequentially, net sales increased 28%, consistent with the typical seasonal ramp we see across refrigerants and pricing strength in certain products. For our TT business in the first quarter, the team executed well amid a challenging market environment. we experienced continued global stability and observed solid seasonal demand improvements in North America and Europe. However, lower volumes and less favorable product mix in certain non-Western markets offset these gains, resulting in reduced global volumes overall compared to the prior quarter. While volumes trended down sequentially, net sales finished within our expectations due to disciplined global pricing execution. Notably, adjusted EBITDA exceeded our expectations, driven by our pricing actions along with strong cost management and our focus on operational excellence. In line with our efforts to improve security of supply and input optimization, we've signed a long-term coring supply contract with Olin to service our Dalil site starting in 2028. This agreement ensures a reliable supply at value-accretive economics. strengthening Dalil's global competitiveness and supporting our operational excellence focus under Pathway to Thrive. It also reinforces Comor's commitment to being one of the lowest cost chloride TiO2 producers worldwide. While we had previously announced our intention to pursue an onsite chlorine facility at our Dalil site with a third party, in March, the supply agreement terminated and we will not be proceeding with this project. As we look ahead, our team remains agile and responsive to ongoing market changes and economic uncertainty. We continue to keep our manufacturing operations flexible, modifying production levels to meet shifting demand. Our pricing strategy is firmly in place, as exemplified in our recent price increase communication, first in December and continued on April 1st across all key end markets. These announcements demonstrate our ability to adjust prices while consistently delivering outstanding and dependable service and quality. The first quarter's results, with pricing up 3% sequentially, reflect the initial impact of implementing these price changes alongside our progress in operational reliability, which strengthens our ability to respond effectively to shifts in market demand. APM results in the first quarter reflected both operational and portfolio-related headwinds, with net sales down year-over-year due primarily to lower volumes. Overall, first quarter sales were constrained by the Washington Works outage and the prior closure of the Advanced Materials SPS capstone line. These factors provided a difficult comparison to last year, and the outage weighed meaningfully on sales and incremental costs. resulting in a $25 million headwind in adjusted EBITDA. While our first quarter performance was not what we believed that business is capable of, with these discrete events now behind us today, APM is building a more effective and efficient foundation for coming quarters. Notably, our performance solutions order book is seeing particular strength in high-value markets, positioning APM for continued improvement as we move through 2026. Separately, our corporate level performance also showed a significant decrease in expenses compared to the same quarter last year, largely due to lower costs associated with legacy litigation activities. We remain focused on balancing the timely execution of global corporate initiatives with appropriate cash expenditures. With that, I'll turn it over to Shane to walk through our outlook for the quarter ahead and provide thoughts on what remains for 2026.