Olin Corporation

Operations third quarter 2023 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal conference specialists by pressing the star key followed by zero. Following today's brief opening comments, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. 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, Jason. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Before we begin, let me remind you 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 yesterday's 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, and Todd Slater, Olin CFO. I'll now turn the call over to Scott Sutton to make some brief remarks, after which we will be happy to take your questions.

Thanks, Steve, and good morning to all. In the third quarter, the Olin team delivered what we promised, which was $315 million of adjusted EBITDA, no sequential reduction in chlorine pricing, and a prioritization on share repurchases. Additionally, we complemented those confirmed deliveries with the acquisition of the White Flyer Clay Targets business at forecasted returns substantially better than share repurchase returns. Looking forward, Olin's strategy continues to be championed by our teammates and our board of directors. As such, in the fourth quarter and potentially beyond the fourth quarter, We are taking a dramatic but necessary step to change the direction of declining ECU values. It is a challenging market, and we've already actioned this initiative to force a rebound of our ECU values, which involves idling significant chunks of our assets and slashing our participation in wheat markets. This value accelerator initiative results in a $100 million incremental penalty to adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter relative to our previous expectation, but delivers an anticipated improvement in 2024 adjusted EBITDA relative to 2023. We are confident of that improvement. Even though we operate in an environment where bad news creates a negative recency bias, please never forget that in chloralkali, we believe future demand growth exceeds future supply growth. And that growth may also be unbalanced across the ECU. All favorable for Olin. We are confident in that favorable outlook. So, Jason, that concludes my opening remarks, and we can now proceed to questions.