Olin Corporation

Following today's brief opening comments, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then 2. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Steve Keenan, Olin's Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Steve.

Thank you, Tom. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Before we begin, let me remind you that this discussion, along with the associated slides and the question and answer session that follows, will include statements regarding estimates or expectations of future performance. Please note that these are forward-looking statements and that actual results could differ materially from those projected. Some of the factors that could cause actual results to differ from our projections are described, without limitations, in the Risk Factors section of our most recent Form 10-K, and in the third quarter Earnings Press Release. A copy of today's transcript and slides will be available on our website in the Investors section under Past Events. Our Earnings Press Release and other financial data and information are available under Press Releases. With me this morning are Scott Sutton, Olin CEO, Pat Dawson, President, Epoxy, Damien Gumpel, President Chloralkali Products and Vinyls, Brett Foyer, President Winchester, Jim Varlick, Olin COO, and Todd Slater, Olin CFO. Scott will begin with some brief remarks, after which we'll be happy to take your questions. I'll now turn the call over to Scott Sutton.

Yeah, thanks, Steve, and hello to everybody. I'm pleased to report the Olin team has once again proved to be the most unique and agile in the industry in meeting the clear expectation of our shareholders. Again, I just have to say that this solid performance by the complete team sets me up to be able to focus on the items that drive our future, which are enhancing our contrarian value model, turning our ratchet on undervalued products, parlaying to grow, accretive capital allocation, building out our interlink matrix of activation knobs, growing shooting sports participation, and lifting all Olin people. This is a company that is focused on continuing to grow adjusted EBITDA and coupling that with balanced capital management to deliver more than $10 of earnings per share in the near future. So I'll make some brief commentary on a few slides and get to the Q&A quickly. 2021 is expected to be a solid result for Olin for the reasons shown on slide number three. While the longer term fundamental of demand that grows faster than supply is starting to be exposed here in 2021, our leading actions to get a higher value for our scarce resources is proving to be successful. Current highlights of that success are that we continue to exit business that was based on non-negotiated pricing, align our product chain mix with the intended impact from purposeful settings of our interlinked matrix of activation nodes, start accelerating the value capture of epiclorohydrin, and drive an expansion in shooting sports participation with our Shoot United movement. While there may be some end of year holiday slowdowns, which are really supply driven, not demand driven, and some seasonality that result in a sequentially flattish fourth quarter result, we still expect 2022 to exceed 2021. The reason thematic for better results in 2022 is shown on slide number four. The minor reason in our thematic is that the previously mentioned demand growth versus supply growth dynamic just gets better and better across all our businesses. More people are enjoying shooting sports, demanding clean wind energy, and expanding their homesteads. The major reason in our thematic is that all of Olin's activities are designed around a foundational cultural principle of only selling into value. We know who we are. In October, we took the decision to close some more undervalued assets and simultaneously used other existing global asset and product liquidity to grow Olin's value. As our own ECU assets are getting right-sized, We are a global buyer of ECUs to satisfy our higher valued products demand. Even though we have grown earnings for five consecutive quarters and delivered a levered free cash flow that is approaching 20%, we still must show that our performance will continue to improve. But maybe more importantly, we must demonstrate our ability to manage uncertainty and volatility. Slide number five is an illustration. Olin has three substantial businesses, each with a meaningful contribution to segment earnings. For reasons that we previously discussed, the Winchester, which is shown in red on the slide, consumer and defense business offers solid and sustainable growth. For reasons we will discuss in just a moment, the epoxy, which is shown in green on the slide, engineered materials, offer differentiated growth as we expand margins in that business. The chloralkali products and vinyls industrial essentials are our largest organic and inorganic growth opportunity. We expect the chloralkali segment results to be slightly volatile across a brief transitional window when we have a model profile shift between the relative strengths on the two sides of the ECU. We think of the net company volatility as ripples on a deep ocean, not waves on a shallow lagoon. We should control our destiny here. Continuing with the theme of good fundamentals on slide number six, our perceived old world chemistry has new world application and value. I won't read all these megatrend multipliers, as I'm sure they're familiar to you, but instead jump to slide number seven. and hit on the differentiated growth profile of epoxy. Epoxy sets itself apart from other engineered materials by offering nearly non-substitutable performance. Almost every end-use category is growing faster than global GDP. Consider the outlook for more and larger wind turbines for clean energy. Consider the outlook for electrical laminates for the new mobility trends and broad electrification trends. Consider the outlook for infrastructure expansion and replacement and so on. Even though we recognize the value of this business in epoxy resin sales and in epoxy systems sales, the value driver is really epiclorohydrin. and we will be expounding on our globally leading epiclorohydrin position in future earnings calls. We expect it won't be long before our epoxy business delivers greater than $1 billion of EBITDA and carries the same enterprise value that all of Olin carries today, more representative of a highly engineered materials company. Finally, I will close on slide number eight. We're going to start talking more about EPS in conjunction with EBITDA and segment earnings. We are advancing in our evolution and expect our activities in debt reduction, refinancing, share repurchases, and M&A to be big contributors of forward value, and that value shows in EPS. No doubt that a majority of our forward discussion will center on leadership, our linchpin products, great supply-demand fundamentals, parlaying and lifting Olin people. However, new ways to create shareholder returns are evolving for Olin and help us earn above $10 of earnings per share. So that concludes my opening comments, and Tom, We're now ready to take questions.