Howmet Aerospace Inc.

Good day and welcome to the third quarter 2023 HowMet Aerospace Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on a touch-tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Paul Luther, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Betsy. Good morning and welcome to the Hamad Aerospace Third Quarter 2023 Results Conference Call. I'm joined by John Plant, Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Ken Giacobi, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. After comments by John and Ken, we will have a question and answer session. I would like to remind you that today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements relating to future events and expectations. You can find factors that could cause the company's actual results to differ materially from these projections listed in today's presentation and earnings press release and in our most recent SEC filings. In today's presentation, references to EBITDA, operating income, and EPS mean adjusted EBITDA excluding special items, adjusted operating income excluding special items, and adjusted EPS excluding special items. These measures are among the non-GAAP financial measures that we've included in our discussion. Reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures can be found in today's press release and in the appendix in today's presentation. And with that, I'd like to turn the call over to John.

Thanks, PT, and welcome, everybody, to the Q3 earnings call. The results for the third quarter were solid in all respects. and exceeded the guidance given in August, which itself was a further increase on that provided in May and February. Sales of 1.658 billion, increase of 16% year-over-year. EBITDA was 382 million, an increase of 18%. EBITDA margin increased to a headline rate of 23%. Margin rate improvements reflect the continuing good work in all segments. I would like to note fasteners with another sequential quarterly improvement of 230 basis points, and additionally the structure segment had a 320 basis points recovery from the Q2 rate. How much year-over-year revenue increase flowed through to incremental EBITDA margin at a rate of 28%, which was in line with guidance. Operating income increased by 22% year-over-year, and operating income margin was 19%. Continued top-line growth and healthy margins generated a earnings per share increase of 28%. Free cash flow was healthy at 132 million and helped drive shareholder-friendly actions, including gross debt retirement of 200 million, share buyback of 25 million. Lastly, we also announced a 25% increase in the dividend in Q4 on top of last year's 50% increase. Having provided this top level summary, I'll pass the call to Ken to provide further details of revenue by end market and the results by business segment.