Glatfelter Corporation

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the GLAP CELTR's quarterly earnings conference call. At this time, all participants line 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'll need to press star 1 on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star 0. Thank you. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Mr. Ramesh Shetegar. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Patricia. Good morning and welcome to Glatfelter's 2021 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. This is Ramesh Shetegar, Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Treasurer. On the call today to present our first quarter results are Dante Perini, Glatfelter's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Sam Hillard, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin our presentation, I have a few standard reminders. During our call this morning, we will use the term adjusted earnings as well as other non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of these financial measures to our GAAP-based results is included in today's earnings release and in the investor slides. We will also make forward-looking statements today that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Our 2020 Form 10-K filed with the SEC and today's release, both of which are available on our website, disclose factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements. These statements speak only as of today, and we undertake no obligation to update them. I will now turn the call over to Dante.

Thank you, Ramesh. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. Gladfelter continued to achieve strong overall results, which were ahead of expectations in the first quarter. Despite the pandemic and its associated challenges, we delivered adjusted earnings per share of 19 cents and adjusted EBITDA of $31 million. Slide three of the investor deck provides highlights for the quarter. Airline materials performed below expectations due to ongoing softness in the tabletop category related to government lockdowns and delayed restaurant openings. During the quarter, we also experienced lower than anticipated demand in wipes, home care, and feminine hygiene products as customers and consumers adjusted their buying patterns to account for higher inventory levels. As a result, it was necessary to take additional downtime to manage inventories, which negatively impacted profitability. Although the pandemic is still evolving in our core markets, we remain optimistic about demand recovery for tabletop products as vaccinations increase, infection rates decline, governments relax restrictions on dining establishments, and the warmer weather arrives. Composite fibers posted another strong quarter as robust demand for food and beverage and technical specialties products help drive results. When coupled with higher asset utilization, profitability for this segment hit its highest level in four years. We recently announced an 8% price increase for composite fibers products to address cost inflation for raw materials, energy, and logistics. We expect the impact of these pricing actions to begin flowing to the bottom line in Q2, with greater realization to occur in the second half of the year. At an enterprise level, we maintained our focus on the health and safety of Gladfelter people. These efforts kept all facilities operational, ensuring uninterrupted supply of essential products to our customers. Lastly, in March, we announced the conclusion of the regulatory review process for our pending acquisition of Georgia Pacific's U.S. nonwovens business and now expect the transaction to close in mid-May. We're excited to begin this integration that will enable us to optimize capacity, improve operational efficiencies, and accelerate innovation efforts across our expanded Airlade platform. At this point, I'll turn the call over to Sam to give an in-depth review of our first quarter results. Sam?