Mettler-Toledo International, Inc.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the first quarter 2020 Mettler Toledo International Earnings Conference Call. My name is Demetrius, and I will be your audio coordinator for today. At this time, our participants' lines are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you'll need to press star one on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star zero. I would now like to turn our presentation over to your hostess for today's call, Ms. Mary Finnegan. Please proceed, ma'am.

Thank you, and good evening, everyone. I'm Mary Finnegan. I'm responsible for investor relations at Mettler Toledo and happy that you're joining us this evening. I'm joined on the call today with Olivier Filio, our CEO, and Sean Videla, our chief financial officer. I want to cover just a couple administrative matters. This call is being webcast. and is available for replay on our website, a copy of the press release, and the presentation is also available on the website. Let me summarize the safe harbor language which is outlined on page two of the presentation. Statements in this presentation which are not historical facts constitute forward-looking statements within the meanings of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933 and the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These statements involve risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause our actual results, level of activity, performance, or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by any forward-looking statements. For discussions of these risks and uncertainties, please see our recent Form 10-K and other reports filed with the SEC from time to time. All of our forward-looking statements are qualified in their entirety by reference to the factors discussed under the captions, factors affecting our future operating results, and business and management discussion and analysis of financial condition and results of operations in our filings. One other item. On today's call, we may use non-GAAP financial measures. For detailed information with respect to the use of and differences between the non-GAAP financial measure And the most directly comparable gap measure is provided in our Form 8-K. I will now turn the call over to Olivier.

Thank you, Mary, and good evening, everyone. I hope this finds you safe and well. I'm again doing this call from Switzerland, while Sean and Mary are in Columbus, Ohio. I will start with a summary of the quarter, and then Sean will provide details on our financials. I will then have some additional comments, and we will open the lines for Q&A. The highlights for the quarter are on page three of the presentation. Local currency sales declined 4% in the quarter, which was better than expected. Demand in our end markets continues to be negatively impacted by COVID-19. However, we had good growth in China and our lab and industrial businesses proved more resilient than initially expected. Contributing to this resiliency is that the majority of our sales are to essential end markets, including life sciences and food manufacturing. Furthermore, we have significant product and end market diversification and are doing well in redirecting resources to the best growth opportunities. With the continued benefit of our margin initiatives, centered on pricing and stern drive, as well as the quick actions we took to temporarily reduce our cost structure, we achieved improvement in both gross and operating margins in the quarter. Despite negative currency headwinds, we had positive growth in adjusted EPS. Finally, cash flow generation in the quarter was very strong. Overall, given the very challenging environment, we are pleased with these results. I will have some additional comments shortly, but let me now turn to Sean for the financials.