Rayonier Advanced Materials Inc.

Good morning, and welcome to the RIAM third quarter 2024 earnings conference call. During today's presentation, all parties will be in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, the conference will be open to 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. Thank you. Mr. Walsh, you may begin.

Thank you, and good morning. Welcome again to RIAM's third quarter 2024 earnings conference call and webcast. Joining me on today's call are Delisle Blomquist, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Marcus Moltner, 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 RIAM.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 slide two of our presentation materials. Today's presentation will also reference certain non-GAAP financial measures as noted on slide three of our presentation. We believe non-GAAP financial 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 20 through 25 of our presentation. I'd now like to turn the call over to Delisle.

Well, thank you, Mickey, and good morning. I'll start with the financial overview for the third quarter of 2024. Afterward, I'll outline recent company actions before passing it on to Marcus, who will dive into business segments, capital structure, and liquidity. After Marcus's remarks, I'll return to discuss our ongoing initiatives and updated guidance for 2024. In Q3, we delivered robust performance with adjusted EBITDA reaching $51 million, marking a 27 million or 113% increase from last year. Margins nearly doubled year-over-year, reaching 12.7% in Q3 2024. Year-to-date adjusted free cash flow stands at $99 million, highlighting our ability to generate substantial cash flow while executing strategic initiatives. In the high-purity cellular segment, EBITDA rose by 32 million, or 119%, driven by higher cellular specialty prices and volumes, and decreased costs for key inputs. Our non-flush commodity exposure dropped to 4% of revenue in the quarter, down from 14% last year. The paperwork segment saw a $6 million EBITDA decline, driven by reduced sales prices and increased pulp costs. Meanwhile, our high-yield pulp segment showed a $6 million EBITDA improvement due to higher prices and productivity though partially offset by sales volume decreases. Corporate expenses increased by $5 million, driven by unfavorable foreign exchange rates compared to the prior year period, and higher variable compensation in environmental expense. Our overall success this quarter reflects strong performance in our core cellular specialty segment. We continue to shift our product mix towards specialty production and sales, while focusing on cost reductions across the enterprise. On October 11th, we encountered an isolated fire at our Jessup, Georgia facility. Thanks to the swift and effective response from our team and local emergency services, the incident was effectively managed, appropriate repairs were made, and we resumed full operations by October 25th. The fire primarily compromised power lines and instrumentation in our A and B male digester areas. Additional repairs will be conducted over the next couple of years and are expected to be capitalized. We anticipate minimal impact to long-term operations. Investigation into the cause of the fire is ongoing. Currently, we expect the fire to impact EBITDA by $10 million in 2024, with an additional $3 million in capital. While work on the full claim amount is ongoing, we have put our insurance carrier on notice of a claim under our business interruption and property casualty insurance, which includes a $15 million deductible to mitigate financial exposure to this incident. On October 29th, we achieved a key milestone by successfully refinancing our debt, providing flexibility to execute our long-term business strategy. This new structure allows us to deleverage strategically and invest in growth opportunities. Marcus will provide additional details on the new debt agreement. Prior to the fire, we were on track to raise our EBITDA guidance for the year. Thanks to our Team Swift response, we minimized the impact on earnings and are holding our EBITDA guidance at $205 to $215 million. Additionally, with improved visibility into year-end cash flows, we are increasing our full year adjusted free cash flow guidance to $115 to $125 million. I'll now turn it over to Marcus to go over the quarter financials. Marcus?