Rayonier Advanced Materials Inc.

Good morning, and welcome to the Rainier Advanced Materials First Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. During today's presentation, all parties will be in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, the conference will be open for questions with instructions to follow at that time. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to your host, Mr. Mickey Walsh, Treasurer and Vice President of Investor Relations for Rainier Advanced Materials. Thank you. Mr. Walsh, you may begin.

Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone. Welcome again to Rainier Advanced Materials First Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. Joining me on today's call are Paul Boynton, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Marcus Moultner, our Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President of Finance. Our earnings release and presentation materials were issued last evening and are available on our website at rainieram.com. I'd like to remind you that in today's presentation, We will include forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of federal securities laws. Our earnings release as well as our filings with the SEC list some of the factors which may cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements we may make. They're also referenced on slides two and three of our presentation materials. Today's presentation will also reference certain non-GAAP financial measures as noted on slide four of our presentation. We believe non-GAAP measures provide useful information for management and investors, but non-GAAP measures should not be considered an alternative to GAAP measures. A reconciliation of these measures to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are included on slides 18 through 22 of our presentation. I will now turn the call over to Paul.

Thank you, Mickey, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to report that we generated significantly improved EBITDA in the first quarter. both compared to prior year as well as on a sequential basis. And note, we continue to see strong momentum in all of our end markets as we enter the second quarter. Starting on slide five, EBITDA improved by $64 million from prior year to $91 million, driven by a surge in lumber prices, momentum in high-purity cellulose commodity prices, and demand for cellulose specialty products. Along with the strong EBITDA, we generated $21 million of free cash flow as we captured higher prices across all key products to overcome our typical seasonal uses of working capital, as well as certain logistic constraints. Importantly, shortly after we finished the quarter in April, we announced the strategic sale of our lumber and newsprint assets. The sale allows the company to, first, capture significant value from these assets partially due to the surge in lumber prices. Second, it allows the company to pay down debt. And third, it will allow us to build upon our core high-purity cellulose businesses' biofuture. As part of that biofuture, which we see as leveraging our key assets to create new, sustainable, bio-based products, we have also formally announced yesterday an exciting strategic investment in Anamira, a startup company that will be producing and marketing carboxylated cellulose nanocrystals, or CNC, which are fundamental natural building blocks that have widespread consumer and industrial applications. Anomer's nanocrystals are patented biodegradable products to be produced at our temiscamine site from our cellulose specialties products. The emerging business will be supported by a recently signed distribution agreement with CROTA, a global leader in sustainable, high-performance ingredient formulations. So now I'd like to ask Marcus to take us through the numbers for the quarter, and then I'm going to come back on and provide additional perspective on the asset sale, as well as highlight some of our key opportunities to invest in growth for the company.