Koppers Holdings Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to COPPR's fourth quarter 2021 earnings conference call and webcast. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. If you need assistance, please alert a conference specialist by pressing star followed by zero. Following the presentation, instructions will be given for the question and answer session. Please note that this event is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Quinn McGuire. Please go ahead.

Thanks, and good morning. I'm Quinn McGuire, Vice President of Investor Relations. Welcome to our fourth quarter and full year 2021 earnings conference call. We issued our press release earlier today. You may access it via our website at www.coppers.com. As indicated in our announcement, we have also posted materials to the Investor Relations page of our website that will be referenced in today's call. Consistent with our practice in prior quarterly conference calls, this is being broadcasted live on our website, and a recording of this call will be available on our website for replay through May 23rd, 2022. At this time, I would like to direct your attention to our forward-looking disclosure statement seen on slide two. Certain comments made on this conference call may be characterized as forward-looking statements as defined under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements involve a number of assumptions, risks, and uncertainties, including risks described in the cautionary statement included in our press release and in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In light of the significant uncertainties inherent in the forward-looking statements included in the company's comments, you should not regard the inclusion of such information as a representation that its objectives, plans, and projected results will be achieved. The company's actual results, performance, or achievements may differ materially from those expressed in or implied by such forward-looking statements. The company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made during this call. References may also be made today to certain non-GAAP financial measures the company has provided with its press release, which is available on our website, Reconciliations of Non-GAAP Financial Measures to the Most Directly Comparable GAAP Financial Measures. Joining me for our call today are Leroy Ball, President and CEO of Coppers, and Jimmy Sue Smith, Chief Financial Officer. I'll now turn this discussion over to Leroy.

Thank you, Quinn. Good morning, everyone. I want to start by saying I'm pleased to report that we again delivered strong results for 2021 and finished the year slightly ahead of our revised projections we provided last November. Moving into 2022, I and the rest of our team are excited to continue on the path of executing on our long-range growth plan to deliver $300 million of EBITDA in 2025. As always, I'll begin my comments with an update on zero harm as seen on slide four. In 2021, we achieved our lowest 12-month rate of serious safety incidents in the company, with 16 of our 43 operating facilities working accident-free for the entire year. And what's more, we stayed on track for our fifth consecutive record year of proactive leading activities, which are used to correct conditions or behaviors that precede potentially life-altering injuries. We conducted more than 18,500 leading activities across the company in 2021, and this is an encouraging sign that means that our efforts to prioritize training and education around identifying and mitigating the most potentially dangerous exposures are generating positive outcomes. Our culture of zero harm continues to move deeper into the organization through training and workshops for our frontline employees, as well as sharing practical applications among our plants. Part of the training for frontline employees includes conducting peer-to-peer observations. And as our worldwide team has come to understand, the key to zero harm is engaging with employees and leaders at a personal level by working aggressively to anticipate, identify, and eliminate the risk of serious incidents. In addition, we're making progress on improving our transportation fleet safety program to influence safe driving behaviors. We've implemented measures to increase transparency, improve tracking of key performance indicators, and identify opportunities for synergies. We continue to conduct zero harm training for our commercial truck drivers and have begun to include defensive driving techniques. Later in 2022, we'll hold our second annual truck driving championship competition in recognition of the employees who do the essential work to safely deliver products to our customer base. And we'll continue to develop enhanced tools for monitoring fleet compliance, as well as for coaching our truck drivers. And although we still have much work ahead of us on our journey to zero, I am proud of the progress we continue to make year over year. And I send my sincere thanks to our Zero Harm team and our employees worldwide for staying relentlessly focused on safety. Moving to slide six, I'm pleased to announce that today our Board of Directors reinstated a quarterly cash dividend of $0.05 per share of Copper's common stock, which will be paid on April 4, 2022, to shareholders of record as of the close of trading on March 18, 2022. Now, those who have followed us for the past seven years We know that we've worked hard to transform Coppers into a stronger and more resilient organization, and as a result, we've been able to withstand the many challenges thrown our way to produce consistent, reliable profitability and cash flow. And as we're moving into the next phase of our strategy, we feel it's important to bring more balance to our capital deployment strategy and begin returning cash to our shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. In August of last year, our board approved a $100 million share repurchase plan, and now we feel it is prudent to reinstitute our long-suspended dividends. Our board's decision to reinstate a dividend demonstrates their confidence in the strength and resiliency of our business and our ongoing ability to drive growth. Now, I would like to welcome Jimmy Sue Smith to our first earnings call as Copper's Chief Financial Officer since assuming the role on January 1st of this year. Welcome, Jimmy Sue. Take it away.