Illinois Tool Works Inc.

Good morning. My name is Julianne and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press the pound key. For those participating in the Q&A, you will have the opportunity to ask one question and if needed, one follow-up question. Thank you. Karen Fletcher, Vice President of Investor Relations, you may begin your conference.

Okay, thank you, Julianne. Good morning, and welcome to ITW's second quarter 2020 conference call. I'm joined by our Chairman and CEO, Scott Santee, and Senior Vice President and CFO, Michael Larson. During today's call, we will discuss ITW's second quarter 2020 financial results and provide an update on our strategy for managing through the global pandemic. Slide two is a reminder that this presentation contains forward-looking statements. We refer you to the company's 2019 Form 10-K and subsequent reports filed with the SEC for more detail about important risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations, including the potential effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business. This presentation uses certain non-GAAP measures, and a reconciliation of those measures to the most comparable GAAP measures is contained in the press release. Please turn to slide three, and it's now my pleasure to turn the call over to our chairman and CEO, Scott Santee.

Thank you, Karen. Good morning, everyone. While things are far from normal for any of us or our businesses at present, I'm extremely proud of how the ITW team is managing through the unprecedented and challenging circumstances brought about by the pandemic. I want to begin by sincerely thanking my ITW colleagues around the world for the effort, dedication, and selflessness that they continue to demonstrate daily in protecting the health and safety of their colleagues while continuing to serve our customers with excellence. As I have said many times, the power of the ITW business model and of our decentralized entrepreneurial culture are never more valuable than during times of significant and rapid change. And we are leveraging both to position the company to participate across a wide range of recovery scenarios while continuing to execute on our long-term strategy to achieve and sustain ITW's full potential performance. Over the last seven years, we have made significant progress in executing our strategy to take full advantage of our unique strengths to clearly establish ITW as one of the world's best performing, highest quality, and most respected industrial companies. And in doing so, building a company that has both the enduring competitive advantages and the resiliency necessary to deliver consistent upper tier performance in any economic environment. Well, needless to say, the resilience component of that equation is now being tested in ways that were hard for many of us to even imagine six to seven months ago. And as evidenced by our second quarter results, this company and our team of over 45,000 dedicated professionals are rising to the challenge. In the second quarter, in the face of an unprecedented 29% decline in revenues, ITW delivered $449 million in operating income, $681 million in free cash flow, and operating margins of 17.5%. We leveraged our flexible cost structure to reduce operating expenses by more than $140 million without any centralized cost takeout mandate from corporate, while providing full compensation and benefit support to every ITW team member, sustaining investments in key long-term growth strategies, and positioning for full participation in the recovery. As we outlined during our first quarter earnings call, We have an integrated four-pronged strategy for managing the company through the pandemic. Protect and support our people, continue to serve our customers with excellence, maintain our financial strength and strategic optionality, and win the recovery. These four priorities comprise the central near-term planning and execution focus for the whole of ITW and for every one of our operating divisions. We'll come back to them at the end of our presentation, but first let me turn the call over to Michael, who will provide you with additional detail on our Q2 performance. Michael, over to you.