Myers Industries, Inc.

hello everyone and welcome to the myers industry inc quarter three 2023 earnings call my name is Carla and i will be your operator for today's call following today's prepared remarks there will be a q a session to register your question please press start followed by one on your telephone keypad if you wish to revoke your question at any point please press start followed by two and we kindly ask you to limit yourself to one question and two follow-ups only I will now hand over to your host, Grant Fitt, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Myers Industries, to begin. Grant, please go ahead.

Thank you, Carla. Good morning, and thank you for joining us. I'm Grant Fitt, Chief Financial Officer at Myers Industries. Joining me today is Mike McGaw, our President and Chief Executive Officer. We are both here in Las Vegas at the SEMA Auto Aftermarket Show, meeting with customers and suppliers in a very exciting industry. Earlier this morning, we issued a press release outlining the financial results for the third quarter of 2023. We have also posted a presentation to accompany today's prepared remarks. If you have not yet received a copy of either the release or the PowerPoint, you can access them on our website at www.myersindustries.com under the Investor Relations tab. This call is also being webcast on our website and will be archived along with the transcript transcript of the call shortly after this event. Please turn to slide two of that PowerPoint for our Safe Harbor disclosures. I would like to remind you that we may make some forward-looking statements during this call. These comments are made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements are based on management's current expectations and involve risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in these statements. Also, please be advised that certain non-GAAP financial measures, such as adjusted gross profit, adjusted operating income, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EPS, may be discussed on this call. Further information concerning these risks, uncertainties, and other factors is set forth in the company's periodic SEC filings and may be found in the company's 10-K and 10-Q filings. Please turn to slide three of our presentation. I'm now pleased to turn the call over to Mike McGaugh.

Thank you, Grant. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our third quarter earnings call. The quarter's results are a testament to our focus on operational and commercial excellence. These efforts have helped us offset near-term macroeconomic headwinds, and as a result, I'm pleased to report that we have delivered our seventh consecutive quarter of adjusted gross margin expansion on a year-over-year basis. In addition, adjusted EBITDA margin also expanded this quarter. Our gross margin and EBITDA margin resilience is a result of several operational excellence initiatives, including proactive cost containment efforts, manufacturing optimization, and improved sales and operations planning. These initiatives continue to generate results. While our third quarter's top line was impacted by softer demand, particularly in end markets that are more consumer oriented, we continue to believe that there are significant organic growth opportunities ahead. In addition to our operational and commercial improvements, we have continued to build upon an already strong balance sheet by improving free cash flow and paying down debt, allowing us to reach historically low leverage ratios. Due to our balance sheet, we remain proactively engaged in evaluating inorganic growth opportunities that can accelerate our financial and strategic objectives. We continue to evaluate M&A opportunities with discipline, ensuring that a potential acquisition fits our strategy and is the right move for our shareholders. While embracing this disciplined approach, we continue to refine our M&A process, strengthen our deal flow, ensure that target criteria are met, and capture the learnings of our recent bolt-on acquisitions. We are well positioned with strong capabilities, good cash flow, and a prized balance sheet, just as more targets come to market at reasonable valuations. As I've said before, we will be disciplined and patient. We will have the capability to act, and we will do so when the time is right and the deal structure is right. Now I will pass the call back to Grant to walk through our financial results for the quarter. Thank you, Mike.