Myers Industries, Inc.

Hello and welcome to the Myers 2024 fourth quarter and full year results. My name is Elliot and I'll be your coordinator today. If you would like to register a question during today's events, please press star one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand over to Megan Beringer, Senior Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. And thank you for joining Myers conference call to review 2024 fourth quarter and full year results. I'm Megan Beringer, Senior Director of Investor Relations at Meyers Industries. Joining me today are Aaron Shopper, our new President and Chief Executive Officer, and Grant Fitz, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. After the prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. Earlier this morning, we issued a press release outlining our financial results for the fourth quarter and full year of 2024. We have also posted a presentation to accompany today's prepared remarks, which is available under the investor relations tab at www.myersindustries.com. This call is being webcasted on our website and will be archived along with the transcript of the call shortly after this event. Now, please turn to slide three of the presentation 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 revisions 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. Further information concerning these risks, uncertainties, and other factors are set forth in the company's periodic SEC filings. Also, please be advised that certain non-GAAP financial measures, such as adjusted gross profit, adjusted operating income, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted EPS may be discussed on this call. Please turn to slide five of our presentation, as I will now turn the call over to Aaron Shopper. Thank you, Megan.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our call. It's my honor to be addressing you as the CEO of Meyers. I would like to begin by thanking the board for trusting me with the leadership of our company at this critical time. I also want to thank Dave Bask on behalf of the board and the rest of the Meyers Global team. Dave has done a tremendous job as the interim CEO during the transition period and I look forward to working closely with him as he resumes his special projects role. And finally, To the many Meyers employees that I've met during my first months here, I especially want to express my gratitude for your very warm welcome and support. It is clear that Meyers has a great team with even greater potential. Building on the plans already in motion, there remains a lot of work we need to do to reach that potential. So let's get to it. Meyers is a company with a long, proud history. We have strong brands and innovative products built over years of product development and strategic acquisitions. creating the diversified industrial company that we are today. Our products deliver protection from the ground up in array of applications. Scepter provides lighter, safer, and battle proven solutions for transporting ammunition, fuel, and water for the defense industry. Signature System provides composite mats that provide sensitive grounds from damage while providing safe access for vehicles, equipment, and personnel. Buckhorn's sustainable packaging solutions offer improved food supply protection. Myers Tire Supply serves the under vehicle industry for fleet professionals, tire dealers, auto dealerships, retreaders, and government and school systems, ensuring the safe delivery of products and people. This is a small sample of our attractive businesses that provide critical protection, delivering outside value for our customers. Many of our businesses are performing well, as evidenced by our fourth quarter results. For those, we want to accelerate their growth while enhancing their performance. Other businesses in our portfolio are not currently performing to our expectations. For those, we will act quickly and decisively to make meaningful improvements. Prior to joining Meyers, I spent 13 years at Belmont Industries, leading large divisions in the infrastructure and agriculture end markets, also serving as a chief strategy officer. I established a successful track record of building high-performing businesses that consistently delivered results, even during challenging economic conditions. I'm energized by the opportunity to bring my experience to Meyers, extending that track record of success by driving significant improvement in our financial performance. We are already taking decisive action by launching a focused transformation outlined on slide six. Our approach is focused, meaning we will prioritize the critical few. We will focus on what we do best and ensure we are applying our resources where they have the greatest impact on market opportunities that best align with our core competencies. and on key strategic priorities to drive results. This is a transformation because we need to change course and chart a different path to deliver better results. Some tough decisions and difficult trade-offs will be required to truly transform Meyers into an even better company that I know we can be. Our leadership team is up for the challenge. Focus transformation is designed to achieve results by attaining the following four outcomes. First, We will drive performance by establishing a culture of execution and accountability. We can no longer be satisfied with simply a good effort. We must be focused on achieving results. I will hold the managers accountable for doing what they say they will do, just as the board will hold me responsible for achieving our commitments. That is my promise to our employees, customers, and investors. Meyers will be a company that does what we say we will do consistently and reliably. Second, I'm actively engaged with our executive management team to deep dive into each of our businesses and understand their value proposition. Working together, we will create clear strategies to improve the profitability of each business in our portfolio. This process will identify action plans on which businesses are performing well and what we need to do to accelerate growth at expanded margins. At the same time, we will address those businesses that are underperforming and what actions are needed to get them on track. we will develop specific internal KPIs for all our businesses to elevate performance, track progress, and create accountability. Our third objective is to deliver consistent and reliable results across the organization by effectively controlling what we can control. To get us started, we are announcing restructuring plans to deliver annualized cost savings of $20 million, primarily in SG&A by year-end 2025. This represents a reduction of about 10% of our SG&A spend. However, this is not simply a move to cut costs and improve margins. The strategic restructuring will enhance our performance by improving efficiency, eliminating redundancy, and elevating the ability for management decision-making. Our core values of delivering results and continuous improvements will be hallmarks of this approach now and in the future. Finally, A disciplined capital allocation deployment framework is an essential element of our focused transformation. Our approach includes investing in growth while returning cash to shareholders, enabled by a strong balance sheet. As our performance improves, we will be able to grow cash flow generation through expanded margins and prudent cash management, providing additional flexibility to fund our capital deployments. Today, we announce a new $10 million share repurchase authorization. The new program reflects our confidence in the strength of our business and our commitment to return cash to shareholders. We will continue to invest in organic growth and plan to maintain our CapEx target of around 3% of sales, with a focus on opportunities that offer the best growth and highest returns, building on the strength of our branded products portfolio. As we take action to achieve these objectives, we'll adapt and adjust where needed to ensure we deliver on our commitments. We will be transparent so you may assess our status and judge our progress. Over the coming weeks, I'll be meeting with many of you as I work to hear directly from our customers and stakeholders regarding their views on how we can fully deliver on our potential. As we launch our focus transformation, we are temporarily suspending our practice of issuing formal annual guidance. We want to take some time to complete our action plan so we can offer you a more fully informed outlook. This decision is not the result of an emerging negative outlook on our business. On the contrary, we are encouraged by the overall sales trajectory of our business and confident in our ability to continue driving margin improvement in 2025. It is our intention to resume providing guidance as soon as possible. In conclusion, we are moving forward with purpose, transforming Meyers with speed, agility, urgency, and always acting with integrity. Our focus is to create a culture built on accountability, that fulfills our commitments and delivers results with continuous improvement mindset. Meyers has a strong platform and a rich history to build upon. I'm incredibly excited about our company, our employees, and our customers. I'm privileged to be here at the start of what I know will be a very bright future for our company. I believe you'll be pleased with what we are able to achieve. With that, I will turn the call over to Grant to discuss the financial details of the company's fourth quarter and full year results.