James Hardie Industries plc

Thank you for standing by and welcome to the James Hardy Industries GHX Q1 FY23 results briefing. Your speakers today are Interim CEO Harold Wins, CFO Jason Milley, and North America President Sean Gadd. After the call, we will open to questions. Can I remind participants to limit their questions to one plus a follow-up. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Jason Mealy, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning to everyone in Sydney, and hello to others from around the world. I'm Jason Mealy, Chief Financial Officer of James Hardy. Welcome to our first quarter fiscal year 2023 results call. Turning to page two, you will see our standard cautionary note on forward-looking statements. Please note that this presentation does contain forward-looking statements and the use of non-GAAP financial information. Let's move on to page three. Here you will see our agenda and speakers for today. Joining me on the call are interim CEO Harold Weems and North American President Sean Gadd. Today, Harold will start the presentation with a brief update on our global strategy. I will then discuss the first quarter financial results, and Sean will provide an update on our North American business. Finally, I will return with a discussion on capital allocation, capacity expansion, and guidance. followed by our customary question and answer session. Before I hand it over to Harold, let's move on to page four. I want to quickly mention our upcoming Global Investor Day. This in-person event in New York City will be held on September 12th and September 13th. The event will focus on all areas of James Hardy, with a key focus on how we are expecting to achieve our long-term product mix growth goals. At the event, you'll have access to approximately 30 James Hardy senior executives, as well as Chairman Mike Hammes and his named successor, our Deputy Chairperson, Ann Lloyd. If you have not already registered and are interested in joining us, please register at your earliest convenience. Thank you all for joining us today. We look forward to seeing you at our Investor Day in New York. I will now hand it over to Harold.

Thank you, Jason. Let's turn to page six. Our strategy remains unchanged, and we expect it to continue to drive profitable growth globally. It is firmly embedded in the business and understood by all 5,000 of our global team members. As always, underpinning our strategy is our commitment to zero harm and ESG. Our strategy is built upon our three foundational initiatives, lean manufacturing, customer engagement, and supply chain integrations. With these initiatives fully entrenched in our company's day-to-day operations, we are continuing to drive profitable growth globally through 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. Now, let's turn to page seven. While our strategy remains unchanged, and it is entrenched in our company, we have to adjust and adapt to changing and uncertain market conditions. The current calendar year has seen the macroeconomic environment change around us quite significantly. with unprecedented levels of inflation, global supply chain disruptions, and the war in Europe. The current macroeconomic environment is not only creating uncertainty for the housing markets in all three regions in which we do business, but it is also putting pressure on our fiscal year 23 financial results, primarily from increased input costs and increased trade costs. That said, we're confident that we will be able to deliver growth above market and strong returns again in fiscal year 23. We have significant advantages and strengths as we navigate this period of uncertainty. First, we have a strong balance sheet and significant financial flexibility. Our liquidity is high, our leverage is low, and we have step-changed our earnings and our cash flows. Second, we have a management team with experience in navigating uncertain markets and doing it at James Hardy successfully. Third, we have the financial strength to continue to invest in growth. Our focus is to be prepared for a wide range of potential housing markets and to be positioned to thrive in any of them. We are laser focused on two things we want to deliver during this time of uncertainty. First, deliver strong results throughout this period. Second, accelerate and expand our competitive advantages through this period. The leadership team has already made adjustments to ensure we can deliver on both of these items. Jason and Sean will discuss these adjustments further during today's presentation. What I'm excited by and impressed by is that amidst a remarkably unique period, our team was able to make the right adjustments to position the company for continued future success and also deliver global adjusted EBIT growth of plus 16% in the first quarter. This will be my last quarter presenting in this forum. I want to wrap up by thanking the entire James Hardy Global team for their extraordinary efforts the past seven months. I could not be prouder of what you have accomplished and how you have positioned the company for future success. Thank you. I will now hand off to Jason to discuss our financial results.