RPM International Inc.

Good morning and welcome to the RPM International Fiscal First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. 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 Matt Schlarb, Senior Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Andrea, and welcome to RPM International's conference call for the fiscal 2024 first quarter. Today's call is being recorded. Joining today's call are Frank Sullivan, RPM's Chairman and CEO, Rusty Gordon, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Michael LaRoche, Vice President and Controller and Chief Accounting Officer. This call is also being webcast and can be accessed live or replayed on the RPM website at www.rpminc.com. Comments made on this call may include forward-looking statements based on current expectations that involve risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to be materially different. For more information on these risks and uncertainties, please review RPM's reports filed with the SEC. During this conference call, references may be made to non-GAAP financial measures. To assist you in understanding these non-GAAP terms, RPM has posted reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures on the RPM website. Also, please note that our comments will be on an as-adjusted basis, and all comparisons are to the first order of fiscal 2023 unless otherwise indicated. We have provided a supplemental slide presentation to support our comments on this call. It can be accessed in the presentation webcast section of the RPM website at www.rpminc.com. Additionally, as we discussed on our most recent earnings call, certain businesses in Asia Pacific that were previously part of the construction products group are now being managed and reported under the performance codings group effective June 1st, 2023. As a result, all references to CPG and PCG today reflect the updated structure. The recast businesses generate approximately $100 million in annual sales, and this change has no impact on consolidated results. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Frank.

Thank you, Matt, and thank you to everyone for joining us on our call today. I'll begin today's call with an overview of our first quarter performance, and then I'll turn the call over to Mike LaRoche to discuss financials in more detail. Then Matt Schleier will provide an update on one of our businesses, and then Rusty Gordon, our CFO, will cover our outlook for the next quarter and the balance of fiscal 24. At the conclusion of the prepared remarks, we'll be pleased to answer your questions. Beginning on slide three of our investor deck, Our associates are, to put it simply, executing at a very high level. We generated 4.1% sales growth in what can be best described as a mixed economic environment, resulting in record first quarter sales. Driven by the continued execution of our MAP 2025 initiatives, we expanded margins and grew adjusted EBIT by 12.3% to an all-time quarterly record. These results represent the seventh consecutive quarter of record sales and adjusted EBIT. Importantly, we remain focused on converting this profitability into cash flow. And this focus resulted in $359.2 million of cash generated from our operating activities during the quarter, which is an all-time record. Moving to slide four, sales were driven by pricing, mainly from the wraparound effect of increases implemented in fiscal 2023 and strong unit volume growth in our construction products group. Our CPG was our fastest growing segment as the team there leveraged its strategic focus on repaired maintenance and differentiated turnkey service model. As we've highlighted in the past, several of our businesses in our performance codings group and construction products group have positioned themselves to benefit from spending on infrastructure and reshoring capital projects, which continued during the quarter. The successful execution of our MAP 2025 initiatives led to margin expansion during the quarter, particularly in businesses where volumes grew, as we were able to to more fully leverage the structural efficiency improvements that we put into place. MAP 2025 is a key driver in growing adjusted EBIT to an all-time record of $309 million. As I mentioned, this growth is in addition to strong results in the prior year, and our two-year stacked sales and adjusted EBIT growth rates were 22% and 49%, respectively. MAP 2025 initiatives are also contributing to structural improvements in working capital. Through improved coordination between sales operations, procurement, and R&D, as well as being a more data-driven decision-making organization, we have become more agile with more efficient inventory processes. This contributed to strong cash flow conversion during the quarter. And while we still have significant work to do in improving in this area, I'm proud of the progress we were making on a sustainable basis. Looking at sales by geography on slide five, sales growth was strongest in Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America driven by continued spending on infrastructure projects in these emerging markets. This growth is in addition to strong prior year results when sales in these regions were up double digits. Europe is expanding for the first time in over a year. While economic growth in the region remains subdued, our teams captured growth opportunities and are leveraging MAP 2025 initiatives to expand margins. While on the surface sales growth in North America may appear moderate, it is important to keep in mind that in the prior year, revenues increased in North America nearly 23%. The two-year stack growth rate in North America is 26.1%. Overall, RPM has begun our fiscal year with positive momentum and our teams are executing at a high level on the things that we can control. We remain focused on executing our MAP 2025 program, leveraging our competitive strengths to capture growth opportunities and bringing new products to market to continue growing throughout the fiscal year. I'd now like to turn the call over to Mike LaRoche to cover our financial results in more detail. Thanks, Frank.