James Hardie Industries plc

Thank you for standing by and welcome to the James Hardy Q4FY22 results call. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presentation followed by a question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Harold Wiens, Interim Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.

Hello everyone and welcome to our fourth quarter and full year fiscal year 2022 earnings column. I'm Harold Wiens, Interim CEO of James Hardy. On page two, you'll see our standard cautionary note on forward-looking statements. Please note that this presentation does contain forward-looking statements and also the use of non-GAAP financial information. Let's move on to page three, where you will see our agenda and speakers for today. I'm proud to be joined by our CFO, Jason Mealy, and our North America President, Sean Gabb. Today, we'll start the presentation with a brief update on the significant transformation James Hardy has undertaken. Jason will then discuss the fourth quarter and full year financial results, And then Sean will provide an update on our North American strategic focus and how he and his team plan to deliver a strong fiscal year 2023. Finally, Jason will return to conclude with a discussion on guidance. Let's turn to page five. Our strategy remains unchanged, and we expect it to continue to drive profitable growth globally. It is embedded across all three regions and all 5,000 of our team members. Underlying our strategy is our commitment to zero harm and ESG. Our strategy starts with focus and strong execution around our three foundational initiatives, which are lean manufacturing, customer engagement and partnership, and of course, supply chain integration. Over the last three years, it is these three foundational strategic initiatives that drove our transformation. With these initiatives now fully embedded in our company, we're focused on continuing to drive profitable growth globally through the following three strategic initiatives. First, marketing directly to the homeowner to create demand. second, penetrating and driving profitable growth in existing and new segments, and third, commercializing global innovations by expanding into new categories. Over the next few pages, we will highlight just how different of a company James Hardy is today compared to just a few years ago. This change was driven by our strategic transformation and we enter fiscal year 2023 as a global company that has consistently delivered growth above market and strong returns. Let's turn to page six. Four years ago, we were a regional business with $2 billion of revenue, delivering 66 cents of earnings per share. In contrast, We are now probably a $3.6 billion revenue global business, delivering $1.39 of earnings per share. We have also increased our operating cash flow from $309 million to $757 million during this period, and that enables us to continue to invest in growth. Our shift to a truly global business of scale began with our acquisition in Europe and was then accelerated through the successful implementation and execution of our global strategy. Our execution of HMOS, which means Hardy Manufacturing Operating System, helped to ensure consistent production within our network of plants, and it is the cornerstone that enabled us to increase our long-term margin ranges in May 2021. We also engaged with our customers and partnered together to deliver increased value for them and us as we drove growth above market and had a higher value product mix. And lastly, we integrated our supply chain to ensure that we could provide the right products at the right time for our customers and then in turn their customers. Every employee, team and division that contributed to our incredible transformation and growth during this period and I want to thank them all for their contributions to our success. I will now ask Sean and Jason to discuss this transformation for each of our regions.

Thanks Harold. Let's turn to page seven. In North America, we became a significantly larger and more profitable business over the past three years. We're now a $2.5 billion revenue division with adjusted EBITs close to three-quarters of a billion U.S. dollars. We have step-changed our adjusted EBIT margin, increasing it by 600 basis points during this period. It is interesting to note that the net sales and EBIT results of just the North American business in fiscal year 22 represents a larger and more profitable company and the entire consolidated James Hardy Global Company of fiscal year 19. As we increased our scale during this time, we did so in a manner that drove leverage whilst we continued to invest in future growth, primarily in people, capability, and marketing. Over a three-year period, we delivered a 15% CAGR on net sales, while delivering a 24% CAGR on adjusted events. Later in the presentation, I will discuss our approach deliver another fantastic result in fiscal year 23. Jason will now take you through APAC in Europe.