Hyster-Yale Materials Handling, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Hyster Yale Second Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants 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 will need to press star 1 on your telephone. please be advised that today's call is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star zero. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Christy Kometko. Thank you. Please go ahead. Thank you.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our 2020 second quarter earnings call. I am Christina Kometko, and I am responsible for investor relations at Hyster Yale. Thank you for joining us this morning. Joining me on today's call are Al Rankin, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of High Street Yell Materials Handling, Rajiv Prasad, President and Chief Executive Officer of High Street Yell Group, and Ken Schilling, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Yesterday evening, we issued our second quarter 2020 results and filed our 10-Q. Copies of our earnings release and 10-Q are available on our website. For anyone who is not able to listen to today's entire call, an archived version of this webcast will be on our website later this afternoon and available for approximately 12 months. Our remarks that follow, including answers to your questions, contain forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements made here today. These risks include, among others, matters that we have described in our earnings release issued last night and in our 10-Q and other filings we make with the SEC. We disclaim any obligation to update these forward-looking statements, which may not be updated until our next quarterly earnings conference call, if at all. Also, certain amounts discussed during this call may be considered non-GAAP. The non-GAAP reconciliations of these amounts are included in our earnings release and available on our website. In a moment, I'll discuss our second quarter results. But first, let me turn the call over to our chairman and CEO, Al Rankin, for some opening remarks.

Al. Thanks, Christy, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. The second quarter brought unprecedented challenges to our customers, dealers, suppliers, employees, and Hyster Yale. Our first priority was and continues to be to keep our workforce safe and to help reduce the spread of coronavirus. Our safety focus approach is coupled up with a responsibility to our customers to supply them with the products and services that include operations in many critical industries working closely with our dealers we are delivering products and services that enable our customers to provide key infrastructure that is essential to support the economy during this pandemic the broad measures taken by governments businesses and others around the world to limit the spread of covid 19 adversely affected our business during the quarter Production was significantly reduced or suspended at our European and, to a lesser extent, America's facilities during the first half of the second quarter. The significant decline in global economic activity has also reduced demand for our products from customers and limited availability of components from many suppliers. To mitigate the financial impact of these challenges, starting late in the first quarter, we phased in a significant set of cost reduction and liquidity enhancement measures. These measures were largely implemented by the end of the second quarter. Benefits from these cost containment actions resulted in a decrease in operating expenses of $21.6 million in the second quarter and $27.9 million for the six months end of June 30, 2020, but did not fully offset the unfavorable impact of economic downturn caused by the pandemic. As a result, the company's second quarter operating profit and net income were significantly lower than both the 2019 second quarter and the 2020 first quarter. Overall, amidst these very challenging conditions, the company's global workforce is focused on keeping costs down, managing inefficiencies, continued to meet customer needs, and generated results that exceeded our initial expectations. And despite these challenges, we are continuing to make important investments for the future. This is the context for Christy's discussion of our second quarter performance, which comes next. Then Rajiv will provide perspectives on the business, including near-term demand challenges and perspective on supply chain activities and the pace of our strategic programs. Ken will then discuss the actions we are taking to enhance our liquidity and manage our financial results through this challenging environment. The duration and impact of the pandemic on the economy remains uncertain, but the resiliency of our workforce has been impressive. Our Hyster Yale management team and global workforce have responded to a variety of challenges, including changing customer demand, new working protocols and supply chain disruptions, among others. We believe our employees and our businesses are well positioned to manage through this pandemic. Their disciplined execution in a difficult environment we have has enabled Hyster Yale to support our dealers and customers. and at the same time, work diligently to ensure their health and safety. Now, let me turn the call over to Christy to cover our results for the quarter.