Greif, Inc.

placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, please press star one again. Thank you. Matt Eichmann, you may begin.

Thanks, Chris, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Grice First Quarter Fiscal 22 Earnings Conference Call. This is Matt Eichmann. I'm joined by Ali Rostar, Grice President and Chief Executive Officer, Larry Hilshimer, Grice Chief Financial Officer, and Matt Leahy, Grice Vice President of Corporate Development and Investor Relations. We will take questions at the end of today's call. In accordance with Regulation Fair Disclosure, please ask questions regarding issues you consider important because we are prohibited from discussing material, non-public information with you on an individual basis. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up before returning to the queue. Please turn to slide two. As a reminder, during today's call, we will make forward-looking statements involving plans, expectations, and beliefs related to future events. Actual results could differ materially from those discussed. Additionally, we will be referencing certain non-GAAP financial measures, and reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP metrics can be found in the appendix of today's presentation. And now, I turn the presentation over to Ole on slide three.

Thanks, Matt, and good morning, everyone. Today is my first quarterly earnings call as GRIF's president and chief executive officer, and I'm excited to be with you. My plan today is to review the state of our business, to briefly share our new Build to Last strategy and its key components, to introduce GRIF's new executive leadership team, And finally, to engage meaningfully in a Q&A session. Big picture. Our fiscal 2022 is off to an outstanding start. We delivered record financial results in the first quarter, despite a challenging operating environment complicated by the pandemic, supply chain disruptions, and inflationary pressures beyond our control. We also announced the pending divestiture of our 50% ownership in the flexible products and service business for outstanding value, solidified our net leverage position, and increased our profit expectations for fiscal 2022. These accomplishments results from disciplined operational execution and the commitment of our global drive team and I thank our colleagues for their hard work this past quarter. Finally, we announced plans to hold an investor day in June and details about the event can be found in the earnings release we published yesterday. Please turn to slide four. I would like to briefly share our new Build to Last strategy with you. I will summarize the strategy's high points today as we will dive much deeper into it at our investor day on June 23rd and review our continued growth plans. The Build to Land strategy consists of four missions. Creating thriving communities, delivering legendary customer service, protecting our future, and ensuring financial strength. Mission one, creating thriving communities. It's about achieving a zero-harm environment and creating an even more engaged, diverse, and inclusive workplace in the future. Thriving communities will help us win in the war for talent. Our second mission, delivering legendary customer service, involves finding ways to serve customers better each day. This mission includes implementing new technologies that will increase our agility and help us deliver faster and more comprehensive customer solutions. Legendary customer service combined with Grife's unmatched global portfolio and product offerings forms a powerful business competitive advantage. Mission three, protecting our future, is about embracing a low-carbon world and further enhancing our focus on product, Bright is already a sustainability leader today, evidenced by our recently awarded fourth consecutive EcoVadis Gold Rating. But we will take additional steps to mitigate risks associated with climate changes and capture opportunities related to product circularity and sustainable solutions for our customers. Finally, our fourth mission. Ensuring financial strength entails generating high-margin EBITDA growth to deliver a growing, sustainable profit and cash flow stream that enhances shareholder value creation. The Build to Land strategy is founded upon our bedrock, the Driveway, which has guided our business for many years and remains the focal point of our culture. I look forward to sharing more about Build to Last with you at our investor day. Please turn to slide five. I'm fortunate to be surrounded by an exceptional team charged with helping to activate the Build to Last strategy. These extraordinary servant leaders possess extensive industry knowledge and a demonstrated commitment to disciplined operational execution and customer service excellence. Their rich and diverse set of skills and experiences, along with proven records of performance, will drive even greater success at Drive in the future. I hope you will join us at Investor Day in June to interact with them. Finally, before jumping into our results, I would like to announce some changes to our investor relations team. Matt Eichmann, who you know well, has been promoted to Chief Marketing and Sustainability Officer effective March 1st. Matt has done an outstanding job representing Rife to the investment community the last six years, and I'm excited to have him take on this exciting leadership opportunity. Matt Leahy, who currently leads our corporate development team, has added the role of investor relations to his responsibilities. Matt Leahy has extensive buy-side experiences and has been instrumental in executing Rife's acquisition strategy and portfolio changes since joining our team almost four years ago. I'm confident that Matt Leahy will be a strong leader in the investor relations role and will build upon Matt Eichmann's efforts to improve investor communications, share insights on our business and financial condition, and ensure that leaders across price understand what our investors and owners expect of us.