RPM International Inc.

Good morning, and welcome to the RPM International Fiscal 2027 First Quarter 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 call over to Matt Schlarb, Vice President of Investor Relations and Sustainability. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Gary, and welcome to RPM International's conference call for the fiscal 2027 first quarter. Today's call is being recorded. Joining today's call are Frank Sullivan, RPM's Chair and CEO, Rusty Gordon, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Michael Laroche, Vice President, 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 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 R.P.M.' '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, R.P.M. has posted reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP financial measures on the R.P.M. website. Also, please note that our comments will be on an as-adjusted basis in all comparisons to the first quarter of fiscal 2026, unless otherwise indicated. We have provided a supplemental slide presentation to support our comments on the call. You can be accessed in the Presentations and Webcast section of the RPM website at www.rpminc.com Effective June 1, 2026, certain Latin American businesses in the construction products and consumer groups with annual sales of $128 million and $15 million respectively were moved to the Performance Codings Group. This change has no impact on consolidated results, and details of the changes can be found in a Form 8-K file today. Current and prior year results reflect the updated structure. Now I will turn the call over to Frank.

Thanks, Matt, and thanks to everybody on the call this morning. I'll begin on slide three with a high-level overview of our performance. Michael Laroche will review the financial results, then Matt Schlarb will cover our balance sheet cash flow and discuss some of our successes in the emerging markets. and then Rusty Gordon will finish with our outlook. Our associates delivered record first quarter sales, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS despite sluggish end markets and several temporary operating headwinds. These results demonstrate the strength of our balanced business model. Broad-based growth in performance coatings group and consumer more than offset temporary softness in our construction products group. Additionally, our SG&A optimization actions played a role in offsetting raw material inflation and other expenses. Slide 4 illustrates how our SG&A optimization actions helped offset gross margin pressure. As expected, we offset raw material inflation on a dollar basis, but gross margins decline 100 basis points as the rate of raw material inflation outpaced pricing and MAP benefits in the quarter. Even with that pressure, we compensated for this by leveraging SG&A as a percent of sales to maintain the adjusted EBITDA margin consistent with the prior year quarter. This outcome reflects the benefits of the SG&A focused actions we have implemented across RPM. These savings helped offset the gross margin headwinds while also allowing us to continue investing in growth and serving customers. We are pleased with the organization's cost discipline and the ability to grow in an uncertain economic environment, and we continue to expect additional pricing and operational improvements to support margins as we face continued inflationary pressures during the balance of our 2027 fiscal year. Slide 5 highlights emerging markets generating more than 20% revenue growth. fueled by demand for engineered solutions for high performance buildings and infrastructure. North America delivered solid growth, led by strong performance in our performance coatings group and our consumer businesses. European growth was primarily driven by acquisitions. Our emerging market success was driven by our platform group structure, which oversees operations across RPM businesses in these regions. The platform group reports as part of our performance codings group segment, but sells products for businesses across all RPM segments. Historically, our decentralized structure limited our ability to fully capitalize on emerging market opportunities. Several years ago, we created the platform group to have a more cohesive strategy and operations in Africa, Middle East, and the Asia Pacific regions. Following several years of successful growth, at the beginning of this fiscal year, we added South American businesses to the platform group as well. The structure has been successful for multiple reasons. First and foremost, because an excellent management team has leveraged assets where it makes sense, such as shared manufacturing and distribution facilities, while still providing autonomy to local sales teams who understand the markets best. Additionally, businesses across RPM have increased cooperation to provide support to our platform group in areas including brand management and product development. The platform group is an excellent example of the power of RPM in action, leveraging our leading products and services alongside the scale of our businesses to drive growth and profitability. The addition of our South American businesses further enhances our ability to capitalize on that scale and accelerate growth in this important region. So to summarize the quarter, we made tangible progress on SG&A expense reduction, which along with other MAP initiatives and our strategic balance, helped us offset higher inflation and temporary market slowdowns in our construction products group. We'll provide more details on these operational improvements and other aspects of our MAP 2030 at a previously announced Investor Day on November 9th at our Stoneheart facilities in Mapleshade, New Jersey. Scheduled speakers for our Investor Day on November 9th include myself, Dave Dennsteadt, our newly appointed President and Chief Operating Officer, Rusty Gordon, RPM's Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and our Performance Codings Group President, Greg Michael. If you would like to attend in person, please contact Matt Schlarb if there is some limited availability. We will also be webcasting the event, which will start around noon Eastern time. Details on how to join the event are available on our website. I now want to turn the call over to Michael Roche to provide more details of our quarter.