Hillenbrand Inc

Greetings and welcome to the Hillenbrand fourth quarter and full year 2021 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Sam Minesburg, Director of Investor Relations, Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Hill & Brand's fiscal fourth quarter and full year 2021 earnings call. I'm joined by our president and CEO, Joe Raver, our executive vice president and incoming CEO, Kim Ryan, and our senior vice president and CFO, Christina Cernelia. I'd like to direct your attention to the supplemental slides posted on our IR website that will be referenced on today's call. Turning to slide three, a reminder that our comments may contain certain forward-looking statements that are subject to the safe harbor provisions of the securities laws. These statements are not guarantees of future performance, and our actual results could differ materially. Also, during the course of this call, we will be discussing certain non-GAAP operating performance measures, including pro forma comparisons for our segments. I encourage you to review the appendix and slide three of the presentation, as well as our 10-K, which can be found on our website, for a deeper discussion of non-GAAP information forward-looking statements, and the risk factors that could impact our actual results. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Joe.

Thank you, Sam, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. Before I start, I'd like to take a moment to introduce our new Investor Relations Director, Sam Minesburg, who kicked off today's call. Sam brings more than a decade of finance experience to the position and has been with Hill & Brand since 2014, serving in a variety of finance roles. Given Sam's knowledge of our business and strong financial acumen, we're excited to have him lead our investor relations efforts. I'll now turn to an overview of the year. Fiscal 2021 was marked by record performance for Hill & Brand, achieving new milestones for order intake, revenue, earnings, and cash flow, driven by strong demand for our products and solutions and outstanding execution by our people. We capped off this strong performance with a solid fourth quarter, as all three segments delivered margins and cash flow that exceeded our expectations coming into the quarter, which Christina will discuss in more detail later in the call. As we approach the second anniversary of the Millicron acquisition, the integration continues to progress well. We accelerated our synergy realization and exceeded our goal for the year, achieving approximately $30 million of incremental cost savings bringing our total synergy realization to date to nearly $60 million. We remain confident in achieving our target of $75 million in run rate synergies by the end of year three. The Millicron integration has served as a catalyst in establishing the foundation for accelerating value capture from future M&A and in driving many of the improved processes that have allowed us to effectively navigate this difficult operating environment. We are a stronger company because of the Millicron acquisition, and I'm excited about the opportunities that lie ahead. We also achieved significant strategic milestones, successfully streamlining our portfolio through the announced divestitures of RedValve and Aval during the fiscal year, and just last month, TerraSource Global. We made good progress on our sustainability journey this year, including the hiring of our first Chief Sustainability Officer, and the issuance of our second sustainability report in September. This year was not without its challenges, however. As global supply chains remain stressed, inflation in commodities and transportation has not abated, the impact of COVID-19 continues to persist, and labor shortages continue throughout the US. Nevertheless, I'm proud of the dedication and resiliency displayed by our associates as they successfully executed our strategy and served our customers in the face of these external challenges. Hillenbrand has a proven track record of execution, and I'm confident in our position as we enter fiscal 2022. Our experienced leadership team, healthy balance sheet, strong backlog, and focused portfolio position us well for continued growth and success. Before I turn the call over to Kim to cover our strategy, I'd like to discuss the CEO transition which is nearing its completion. As I've mentioned before, Kim and I have worked together for a number of years at Hill & Brand, and we have a high degree of trust. Together with our board, we've been executing a detailed plan to ensure a smooth and effective transition. I'm confident that Kim and the rest of our executive team will do a great job leading Hill & Brand into the future. With that, I'll turn it over to Kim.