DuPont de Nemours, Inc.

Thank you for standing by. My name is Pam and I will be your operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the DuPont second quarter 2024 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 your question, press star 1 again. Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference over to Chris McRae. You may begin.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us for DuPont's second quarter 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. Joining me today are Ed Breen, Executive Chairman, Lori Koch, Chief Executive Officer, and Antonella Franzen, Chief Financial Officer. We've prepared slides to supplement our remarks, which are posted on DuPont's website under the investor relations tab and through the webcast link. Please read the forward-looking statement disclaimer contained in the slides. During this call, we'll make forward-looking statements regarding our expectations or predictions about the future. Because these statements are based on current assumptions and factors that involve risks and uncertainties, our actual performance and results may differ materially from our forward-looking statements. Our Form 10-K, as updated by our current periodic reports, includes detailed discussion of principal risks and uncertainties which may cause such differences. Unless otherwise specified, all historical financial measures presented today are on a continuing operations basis and exclude significant items. We will also refer to other non-GAAP measures. A reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure is included in our press release and presentation materials and has been posted to DuPont's Investor Relations website. I'll now turn the call over to Lori.

Good morning and thank you for joining. I'm excited to be here today for my first quarterly call as CEO and to be joined by Antonella, our newly appointed CFO. We both look forward to partnering with Ed and our global team to continue to drive value creation for all stakeholders. We remain focused on driving results and demonstrating the performance potential of our combined portfolio while furthering the plans to unlock value through our previously announced separation. This morning, we reported second quarter financial results ahead of our previous guidance, reflecting continued positive momentum led by broad-based electronics recovery, as well as sequential improvement from all W&P lines of business. We were very pleased with this outcome and by the continued focus and strong execution of our global team. On a consolidated basis for the quarter, we saw improvement across all key financial metrics. Net sales and operating EBITDA were both up year-over-year and sequentially, including a 17% pickup in operating EBITDA versus the first quarter. We saw strength in the semi-business driven by growth in advanced technology applications, including AI. We also realized continued recovery and new wins within consumer electronics markets to drive both year-over-year and sequential growth for interconnect solutions. We did see some favorable timing benefits within each of these businesses during second quarter relative to our expectations. In the W&P segment, we were pleased to see a better-than-anticipated sequential step-up in our water business in China, as well as improvement in Tyvek medical packaging within Basie Solutions, which was in line with our expectations. Our year-over-year growth in operating EBITDA reflects solid margin expansion with operating EBITDA margin improvement of 130 basis points, driven by favorable business mix, stronger production rates in our electronics businesses, and realization of construction-related cost savings, partially offset by higher variable compensation expense. Second quarter adjusted earnings per share increased 14% year-over-year. Strong cash generation and related conversion of over 100% was another bright spot for the quarter, highlighting disciplined working capital management amid a sequential sales ramp. For the full year 2024, we are raising our guidance for net sales, operating EBITDA, and adjusted EPS, which Antonella will detail shortly. I also wanted to highlight that earlier this week we closed our acquisition of Donatel, a manufacturer of sophisticated medical devices. We are delighted to welcome the Donatel team to DuPont and are excited about this transaction, which will deepen and complement our expertise in medical device markets alongside Spectrum, which we acquired last year. Donatel will be managed within our E&I Industrial Solutions line of business alongside the Spectrum team. Together, these offerings are expected to enhance our position as a partner of choice for customers in the high-growth medical device field. I'll now turn the call over to Ed, who will provide a progress update on our planned separations.