Minerals Technologies Inc.

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the first quarter 2021 Minerals Technologies earnings call. Today's call is being recorded, and at this time, I would like to turn the call over to Erik Aldag, Head of Investor Relations for Minerals Technologies. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Lisa. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our first quarter 2021 earnings conference call. Today's call will be led by Chief Executive Officer Doug Dietrich and Chief Financial Officer Matt Garth. Following Doug and Matt's prepared remarks, we'll open it up to questions. I'd like to remind you that beginning on page 15 of our 2020 10-K, we list the various risk factors and conditions that may affect our future results. And I'll also point out the safe harbor disclaimer on this slide. Statements related to future performance by members of our team are subject to these limitations, cautionary remarks, and conditions. Now I'll turn the call over to Doug. Doug?

Thanks for the introduction Erik and good morning everyone. We appreciate you joining today's call to discuss our first quarter 2021 results and I hope you're all staying safe and healthy. I'll take you through the sales and operating highlights of our strong start to the year and touch on current market trends. I'll then turn it over to Matt to review our financial results in more detail and discuss our expectations for the second quarter. I'll finish up the call today by outlining the progress we're making with a broad range of growth initiatives. Last year, our teams throughout the world worked hard to efficiently operate our facilities, protect our employees, serve our customers, and simultaneously position us to capitalize on the recovery. As a result of these actions and our continued focus on responding to this dynamic environment, who are well positioned to leverage the momentum from the end of the year to deliver a strong first quarter. Before going through the quarter highlights, I wanted to share that we'll be discussing our business results today in three operating segments rather than four. As detailed in our earnings release last night, we have realigned our energy services segment and combined it with the environmental products product line in performance materials. I'll take you through this further when I speak about our growth highlights. Our first current performance was highlighted by sales and operating growth in every segment. Specifically, we drove solid geographic growth in our core product lines, increased volumes through capacity expansions and new PCC satellite startups, and improved sales from recently commercialized value-added products. In addition, we continued with our proactive operational measures, including pricing and productivity improvements and overhead cost control all of which drove income and cash flow higher compared to last year. And in many of our major end markets continued to trend upward. Several of our markets recovered to pre-COVID levels. These dynamics helped drive sales of $453 million, an increase of 5% sequentially and up 8% compared to last year. Generated $59 million of operating income, and earnings per share of $1.17, up 4% and a record first quarter EPS for our company. In addition, cash from operations and free cash flow were up 68% and 142% respectively over last year. As we discussed on our earnings call in February, we expected that demand conditions in our end markets would continue to strengthen through the first quarter and that's how conditions played out. Consumer-oriented markets, such as pet care, fabric care, and food and pharmaceutical, remained robust through the first quarter, continuing our growth trajectory. Automotive and residential construction markets remained strong. Steel markets further improved from the fourth quarter, with utilization rates reaching close to 80% in the U.S., and our paper end markets continued to rebound from a slow 2020. Our project-oriented businesses, including environmental products and building materials are recovering and indications point to continued improvement through the second quarter. These mostly favorable end market conditions drove sales growth across the majority of our product lines. Performance materials, sales in our household, personal care, and specialty business increased 14%, driven by our global pet care platform, but also double-digit increases in other specialty applications, that we've been investing in to enhance our technology and manufacturing capabilities, including fabric care, personal care, and edible oil purification. The metal casting business performed well as sales grew 32% driven by strong demand in both North America and Asia from foundries serving automotive, heavy truck, and agriculture markets. In both regions, The improved foundry conditions that we saw in the fourth quarter maintained that trajectory through the first. Specifically, metal casting sales in Asia were up 52% over 2020, with much of this growth coming in China. Penetration of our blended products has also accelerated in China, and sales increased 62% compared to last year. In addition, we continue to extend our value proposition with customers beyond China. Last quarter in India, which is the second largest casting market globally, sales of our blended products were up 21% over 2020. Within our specialty minerals segment, our specialty PCC business had another strong quarter with sales up 17% over last year. Our new capacity expansions are supporting increased customer demand for our food and pharmaceutical and high performance sealant products. In addition, we benefited from exceptionally strong demand higher than usual in the first quarter from our ground calcium carbonate and talc products that serve the automotive and residential construction markets. Paper PCC sales increased 5% driven by improving end market conditions and the wrap up of new satellites. In fact, the net of the mill closures over the past year and the new capacity additions that occurred in 2020 The paper PCC volumes this quarter were slightly above the first quarter of 2019. Finishing up our sales highlights, our refractory segment had a great quarter with sales increasing 7% over 2020 and margins remaining at 16.2%. This was achieved despite lower laser equipment sales. Commissioning of new orders continues to be difficult due to COVID travel restrictions. We also had a solid operating quarter. Our performance reflects our team's disciplined execution with managing costs, implementing pricing measures, and driving productivity improvements. As a result, margins expanded across the majority of our businesses. Strategically implemented price increases across our portfolio. These increases have fully offset the higher raw material, energy, and logistics costs we are beginning to see. While margins dipped slightly for the company as a whole this quarter, This is primarily due to higher corporate expenses. We see margins above 14% in the second quarter and have the potential to move higher toward the second half of the year with continued improvement across our businesses. Now let me turn it over to Matt to review this and take you through the financial results in more detail. Matt? Thanks, Doug.