Leggett & Platt, Incorporated

Greetings and welcome to the Leggett & Platt Third Quarter 2021 Webcasts and Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Susan McCoy, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations Thank you, Ms. McCord. You may begin.

Good morning, and thank you for taking part in Leggett and Platt's third quarter conference call. On the call today are Carl Glassman, Chairman and CEO, Ms. Stolliff, President and COO, Jeff Tate, Executive Vice President and CFO, Steve Henderson, EVP and President of the Specialized Products and Furniture, Flooring, and Textile Products segments, And Cassie Branscombe, Senior Director of IR. The agenda for our call this morning is as follows. Carl will start with summary of main points we made in yesterday's press release. Mitch will discuss operating results and demand trends. And Jeff will cover financial details and address our updated outlook for 2021. This conference call is being recorded for Leggett and Platt and is copyrighted material. This call may not be transcribed, recorded, or broadcast without our express permission. A replay is available from the IR portion of Leggett's website. We posted to the IR portion of the website yesterday's press release and set up PowerPoint slides that contain summary financial information along with segment details. Those documents supplement information we discuss on this call, including non-GAAP reconciliations. I need to remind you that remarks today concerning future expectations, events, objectives, strategies, trends, or results constitute forward-looking statements. Actual results or events may differ materially due to a number of risks and uncertainties and the company undertakes no obligation to update or revise these statements. For a summary of these risk factors and additional information, please refer to yesterday's press release and the sections in our most recent 10-K and subsequent 10-Qs entitled Risk Factors and Forward-Looking Statements. I'll now turn the call over to Carl.

Good morning, and thank you for participating in our third quarter call. Yesterday, we reported record quarterly sales from continuing operations of $1.32 billion, EBIT of $144 million, and earnings per share of 71 cents. Sales in the quarter were up 9% versus third quarter 2020 and reflect the pass-through of significant inflation in 2021, partially offset by lower volume in several of our businesses. When comparing to the pre-pandemic results of the third quarter 2019, trade sales grew 6%, adjusted EBITDA increased 1%, and adjusted EPS was flat. Like many other companies, we continue to navigate a myriad of macro market challenges, including supply chain issues related to semiconductor shortages, foam chemical shortages, labor availability, and freight challenges, as well as higher costs associated with each of these issues. Given this very challenging operating environment, we are extremely pleased that our teams were able to deliver third quarter earnings in line with a pre-pandemic and relatively strong third quarter 2019. We narrowed our full year guidance range for both sales and EPS, primarily reflecting lower expected volume in our automotive business due to declines in global production forecast. Jeff will provide more detail on the updated guidance later in the call. Leggett remains well-positioned, both competitively and financially, to capitalize on long-term opportunities in our various end markets. Our enduring long-term fundamentals give us confidence in our ability to continue creating long-term value for our shareholders. With that, I'll turn the call over to Mitch.