Koppers Holdings Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to COPPR's first quarter 2025 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 first quarter 2025 earnings conference call. We issued our press release earlier today. You can access it via our website at www.coppers.com. As indicated in our announcement, we've 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 broadcast live on our website, and a recording of this call will be available on our website for replay through August 9, 2025. 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 our company's filings with the Security 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. Also, references may be made today to certain non-GAAP financial measures. The press release, which is available on our website, also contains reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures. Joining me for our call today are Leroy Ball, Chief Executive Officer of Coppers, and Jimmy Sue Smith, Chief Financial Officer. At this time, I will turn the discussion over to Leroy.

Thank you, Quinn. Good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to report that despite a decrease in sales in the first quarter, we delivered solid profitability on an adjusted basis. Now, as previously announced, we began taking steps in late 2024 to combat some market share loss and lingering softness in some of our end markets by resizing our employee base and improving our cost structure in anticipation of the challenges we knew were coming in 2025. Unsurprisingly, our first quarter results benefited from these actions and enabled us to offset the transitory headwinds. Through Q1, our global employee base has been reduced by 5%, and our SG&A finished the quarter $4.1 million lower than Q1 2024. We're also realizing cost benefits at the plant level that also helped Q1. And we'll continue to focus on improving our business performance and margins through actions we're developing from the initial performance assessment we recently completed, and we'll share more with you as plans get finalized and implemented. Slide four highlights key metrics for the first quarter. We achieved consolidated sales of $456.5 million compared with $497.6 million in the prior year. First quarter adjusted EBITDA was $55.5 million compared to $51.5 million in the prior year quarter. Our overall adjusted EBITDA margin was 12.2%, which compared favorably with 10.3% in the prior year quarter and represented our strongest Q1 margin since 2021. First quarter diluted loss per share was 68 cents compared with diluted earnings per share of 59 cents in the prior year quarter, driven by restructuring charges and a loss recorded from terminating the bulk of our U.S. defined benefit pension plan. Adjusted earnings per share for the quarter were 71 cents compared with 62 cents in the prior year quarter, primarily due to benefits realized from cost actions. Cash flow used in operations in the first quarter was 22.7 million. which included a $14 million payment associated with the termination of our U.S. pension plan. By comparison, we used $12.3 million of cash from operations in the prior year quarter. Capital expenditures, net of insurance proceeds, and sales of assets were $10 million for the first quarter compared with $25.8 million in the prior year quarter. Gross capex is now down to a normalized level and will provide a significant positive benefit to future free cash flow. On slide six, we had 31 out of 41 facilities worldwide operating accident-free for the quarter. Our European CMC, European PC, and Australasian PC businesses completed the quarter with zero recordable incidents. Leading activities designed to identify and eliminate hazards increased this quarter compared with last year, which is a good thing, and that led to reductions in recordable injuries and serious safety incidents. At COPRES, we continue to take our responsibility to operate sustainably seriously, and as shown on slide 7, our 2025 Zero Harm Plan includes improving our environmental performance across our operating footprint and reinforcing the foundational elements of zero harm to bring us closer to our goal of zero injuries. Zero harm continues to be a core element of the COPRES culture and will remain so as we continue to look for ways to push our performance to new heights. As seen on slide nine, it's my pleasure to visit with two of our most recent additions to the coppers network in Matheson, Mississippi and Kennedy, Alabama. These two facilities joined coppers last year with the acquisition of Brownwood Preserving Company, expanding our capabilities in the manufacturing sale of pressure treated wood utility poles while growing our geographic reach in the Midwest and central regions of the US. And this expansion of our operating footprint greatly improves our ability to expand our product offerings and penetrate underserved geographic markets in a more cost-effective way than we were able to before the acquisition. Moving on to slide 10, we issued our 2024 annual report and 2025 proxy statement, which are available on the COPPA's website. You can also access these materials using QR codes, as shown. Our commitment to sustainability continues to garner positive attention, as shown on slide 11. For the third consecutive year, Coppers was named to USA Today's List of America's Climate Leaders, which recognizes companies that set a meaningful standard for emissions reduction in the U.S. In addition, Coppers gained further recognition by our customer, CSX, as they honored us with a Chemical Safety Excellence Award for safely transporting hazardous materials with zero non-accidental releases in 2024. In summary, there continues to be a lot of positive development on multiple fronts at Coppers. I'll now turn the discussion over to our Chief Financial Officer, Jimmy Sue Smith.