Li-Cycle Holdings Corp.

Good day. My name is Ashley, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the second quarter 2024 Lifecycle Holdings earnings call-in webcast. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question at that time, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you should need operator assistance, please press star 0. Thank you. I will now turn the call over to Luis Diaz, VP Corporate Affairs. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, and thank you, everyone, for joining us for LifeCycle's business update and review financial results for the interim period ended June 30th, 2024. We will start today with formal remarks from Ajay Kochhar, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Craig Cunningham, Chief Financial Officer. We will then follow with a Q&A session. Ahead of this call, Lifecycle issued a press release and a presentation, which can be found on the investor relations section of our website at investors.lifecycle.com. On this call, management will be making statements based on current expectations, plans, estimates, and assumptions, which are subject to significant risks and uncertainties, most of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond the control of Lifecycle. Actual results could differ materially from our forward-looking statements if any of our key assumptions are incorrect, including because of factors discussed in today's press release, during this conference call, or in our past reports and filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Ontario Securities Commission in Canada. These documents can be found on our website at investors.lifecycle.com. We do not undertake any duty to update any forward-looking statements, whether written or oral, made during this call or from time to time to reflect new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing lifecycle assessments of any date subsequent to the date of this call. With that, I'm pleased to turn the call to Ajay.

Thank you, Louis, and good morning, everyone. On our first quarter earnings call in May, we provided an update on the progress made on our comprehensive review for the restart of construction of the Rochester Hub. Today, we are pleased to share additional updates on the steps we've taken towards achieving our previously mentioned key objectives and also to discuss our second quarter financial and operating results. Starting on slide three, we continue to make progress on our key objectives. First, closing the U.S. DOE loan remains our top priority. We continue to work closely with the DWE Loan Programs Office to advance towards definitive financing documentation and satisfying conditions precedent for loan disbursements. Second, we continue to evaluate additional financing alternatives, including exploring financial and strategic options to increase our near-term liquidity. Third, we have advanced our comprehensive review of the Rochester Hub. We refined the cost estimates for the local market as part of our work on evaluating the total project cost, and we also advanced the Go Forward Rochester Hub project execution plan for the proposed mixed hydroxide precipitate, or MHP, process. Finally, we are reviewing and optimizing our spoke network. We are exploring ways to extract more value from our spoke network and and our Transitioning the Ontario spoke from a paused operation to closure to focus on our key Generation 3 facilities. In addition, we are pleased to announce that the Germany spoke secured ISO certifications for meeting global standards. We will continue our strategic review of our operations. Turn to slide four for an update on the current status of the DOE process regarding the conditional commitment for a loan for gross proceeds of up to $375 million. As you can see, we remain in step five of the DOE's loan application process, and we remain committed to finalizing the loan. During Q2, we continue to work closely with the DOE on key technical, financial, and legal work streams to advance towards reaching an agreement on definitive financing documentation, execution thereof, and satisfying conditions precedent for loan disbursements. Turn to slide five for an update on the Rochester Hub project and the proposed MHP scope. On our Q4 earnings call in March, we reported that we had completed an internal technical review confirming the viability of the MHP scope to produce MHP and lithium carbonate as part of the proposed change in our project development strategy for the Rochester Hub. Since then, we've made significant progress on the technical workstream. This includes advancing the go-forward project execution plan for the Rochester Hub. Additionally, we refined cost estimates with the local market for major construction contracts. Including consideration of the recent work with the local market, our current estimated cost to complete the Rochester Hub project is substantially similar at approximately $490 million for the MHP scope, which is inclusive of cash commitments to date. For clarity and positively, the total project cost estimate for the MHP scope remains the same at approximately $960 million. We note that these estimates are subject to several assumptions and will continue to be refined as we complete our comprehensive review work. In summary, the technical work on the proposed MHP scope is now quite advanced. Turn to slide six for an overview of Lifecycle's commercial updates. we've established a broadly diversified global base of battery supply customers, including a leading U.S. headquartered, vertically integrated EV and battery manufacturer, which is our largest customer source of revenue for the first half of the year. Notably, four of our top five partners for feed intake during Q2 were among the largest global EV OEMs. We continue to demonstrate our expertise in processing all types of lithium-ion batteries, independent of form factor and chemistry. We remain focused on EV battery packs to leverage the value differentiators provided by our Gen3 spoke capabilities in processing this material. EV battery packs continue to be a large portion of our input feed and represented approximately 40% of the total battery materials processed at our spokes in Q2. We've also widened our commercial footprint for input feed stock for the Germany spoke in Europe. As well, during the quarter, we announced a partnership with Diamond Truck North America to recycle batteries. Finally, we continue to see broad-based support for our differentiated technologies reflected in our position as a preferred recycling partner for leading global battery, EV, and energy storage OEMs. Turn to slide 7 for some highlights of our spoke operations. During the quarter, our spokes produced approximately 1,394 tons of of black mass and equivalents. We have continued to optimize our spoke network and have increased throughput rates at our Arizona and Alabama spokes. We secured ISO certifications for our Germany spoke, highlighting our commitment to sustainability and the highest global environmental health and quality standards. And finally, we are transitioning the Ontario spoke, where operations have been paused since November 2023, to closure in order to focus on our priority Gen 3 facilities. Turn to slide eight for some highlights related to the optimization initiatives at our spokes. Our goal is to take near-term steps towards creating financially accretive spokes. As noted, we are prioritizing our Gen 3 spokes, which can process full battery packs without the need for dismantling. This aligns with priorities of our EV and battery OEM partners, who comprise a large share of our global battery feed intake. In line with this, we aim to maximize and sustain throughput rates at our Gen 3 spokes to fully leverage these capabilities. We are also optimizing our product conversion costs to increase our competitiveness in the market. As you can see in this quarter, recycling services are a growing share of our revenue. We're accepting approximately 43% of our revenue in the first half of the year. We will continue focusing on these services to leverage the value differentiators of our Gen 3 spokes and generate revenue. We are working with our strategic partners to support and execute on these plans and look forward to providing further details on our spoke optimization and strategic initiatives in Q3 2024. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Craig to provide a review of the financials.