Martin Marietta Materials, Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Martin Marietta's fourth quarter and full year 2020 earnings conference call. All participants are now in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the company's prepared remarks. As a reminder, today's call has been recorded and will be available for the replay on the company's website. I will now turn the call over to your host, Ms. Suzanne Osberg, Martin Marietta's Vice President of Investor Relations. Suzanne, you may begin.

Good morning, and thank you for joining Martin Marietta's fourth quarter and full year 2020 earnings call. With me today are Ward Nye, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Jim Nicholas, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. As a reminder, today's discussion may include forward-looking statements as defined by United States securities laws in connection with future events, future operating results, or financial performance. Like other businesses, Martin Marietta is subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Except as legally required, we undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether resulting from new information, future developments, or otherwise. Please refer to the legal disclaimers contained in today's earnings release and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are available on both our own and the SEC websites. We have made available during this webcast and on the investor relations section of our website, 2020 supplemental information that summarizes our financial results and trends. In addition, any non-GAAP measures disclosed today are defined and reconciled to the most directly comparable GAAP measure in our earnings release and SEC filings. Ward and I will begin today's earnings call with a discussion of our full-year operating performance. Jim Nicholas will then review our 2020 financial results and liquidity position, after which Ward will discuss market trends and our 2021 outlook. A question and answer session will follow. I will now turn the call over to Ward.

Thank you, Suzanne, and thank you all for joining today's teleconference. We sincerely hope that you and your families remain safe and healthy. By all accounts, 2020 was extraordinary for Martin Marietta, We're proud to have extended our long track record of financial, operational, and safety excellence, particularly in a year filled with unprecedented disruption. Martin Marietta set new performance records, delivering our most profitable year and the best safety performance in our company's history. These impressive results demonstrate our resilient business model and our team's commitment to Martin Marietta's vision and successful execution of our proven strategic operating analysis and review or SOAR plan. As noted, today's discussion focuses on our full-year results and 2021 outlook. Before doing so, I'll highlight a few notable takeaways from our record-setting fourth quarter. Importantly, we achieved solid shipment and pricing growth across all product lines as construction activity stabilized from the spring and summer months when we saw a greater impact from COVID-19. These top-line improvements, along with our steadfast focus on cost controls, resulted in 7 percent growth in consolidated total revenues, 20 percent growth in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, or adjusted EBITDA, and a 40 percent increase in diluted earnings per share. For the full year, we established new records for product and services revenues, profitability, and adjusted EBITDA. Specifically, full-year consolidated products and services revenues increased to $4.4 billion. Consolidated gross profit increased 6% to $1.3 billion. Adjusted EBITDA increased 11% to nearly $1.4 billion, and diluted earnings per share was $11.54, an 18% improvement. Martin Marietta's 2020 results marked the ninth consecutive year of growth in these financial metrics. Operating our business safely sets the foundation for our longstanding financial success. Martin Marietta's industry-leading safety performance continues to trend near or exceed world-class safety levels. We achieved a 25% reduction in total reportable incidents across the enterprise in 2020, and for the fourth consecutive year, we achieved a company-wide world-class lost-time incident rate. These superior financial and safety results are directly attributable to the dedication and agility of our nearly 9,000 talented employees. I'm extraordinarily proud of how our team managed the challenges and disruptions caused by the pandemic while remaining focused on being good wingmen, working safely and efficiently together, and seamlessly meeting our diverse stakeholders' needs. With that overview, let's now turn to our full-year operating performance. Aggregate shipments declined 2% to nearly 187 million tons, reflecting anticipated lower infrastructure shipments in portions of North Carolina, reduced energy sector demand, and headwinds from COVID-19 disruptions. However, in line with broader macroeconomic trends, four-year aggregate shipments to the residential market increased, benefiting from healthy single-family housing activity. Aggregate's average selling price increased 4% on a mixed adjusted basis, in line with our expectations. Importantly, all divisions contributed to this solid growth, a testament to this product line's resilient pricing power and our leading market positions in attractive geographies. The disciplined execution of our locally driven pricing strategy, along with attractive underlying market fundamentals, will continue to support sustainable pricing growth moving forward. Our cement operations established new records for shipments, which increased 2% to nearly 4 million tons. Large project activity supported underlying product demand in both north and south Texas throughout the year, offsetting weakness in the energy sector. Pricing increased 3% on a mix-adjusted basis, demonstrating the resilient price fundamentals of core products in the state of Texas. We expect our cement business will continue to benefit from favorable shipment and pricing trends, supported by tight supply and healthy demand in Texas, diversified customer backlogs, and April 2021 price increases. Turning to our targeted downstream businesses, ready-mix concrete shipments increased 3%, excluding shipments from acquired operations and from our Southwest Division's former concrete business in Arkansas, Louisiana, and eastern Texas, which we divested in January 2020. Concrete pricing increased 2%. Our Colorado asphalt and paving business established a new record for asphalt shipments, increasing 15% to 3 million tons. This growth reflected solid underlying product demand together with carryover work following a weather challenge 2019. Asphalt pricing increased nearly 3%. I'll now turn the call over to Jim to discuss more specifically our full-year financial results and liquidity. Jim?