Stepan Company

Greetings and welcome to the Q2 Step-in Company 2021 Earnings Conference Call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. At that time, if you have a question, please press the 1 followed by the 4 on your telephone. If at any time during the conference you need to reach an operator, please press star 0. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded Wednesday, July 28th 2021. I would now like to turn the conference over to Luis Rojo, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead. Luis Rojo, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead. Luis Rojo, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Luis Rojo, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead. Luis Rojo, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead. Luis Rojo, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead. Luis Rojo, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead. Luis Rojo, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead. Luis Rojo, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead. Luis Rojo, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead. Luis Rojo, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead. Luis Rojo, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. including but not limited to prospects for our foreign operations, global and regional economic conditions, and factors detailing our security and exchange commission filings. Whether you are joining us online or over the phone, we encourage you to review the investor slide presentation, which we have made available at www.stepan.com under the investor section of our website. We make these slides available at approximately the same time as when the earnings release is issued. And we hope that you find information perspective helpful. Now with that, I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Gwyneth Stephan, our chairman and chief executive officer.

Thank you, Luis. Good morning. And thank you all for joining us. We hope you and your families have had an opportunity to be vaccinated and that you have done so. The best way to protect yourself and your family is to be vaccinated. Although demand for cleaning, disinfection, and personal wash products has slowed from the pandemic peak, we at Stephan remain committed to doing our part by supporting customers that supply these essential products to the market. The company had a good first half and delivered record results. Adjusted net income was $84.6 million, or $3.62 per diluted share. Both adjusted net income and adjusted earnings per share were up 35% versus the first half of 2020, which was negatively impacted by the Millsdale plant outage. We delivered our best second quarter and had $42.2 million adjusted net income. Surfactant operating income was down 5%, largely due to higher North American supply chain costs driven by inflationary pressures and planned higher maintenance cost. Our polymer operating income was up 48% on 44% sales volume growth. The polymer growth was driven by both the Invista polyester polyol acquisition and organic market growth. Overall, the integration of Invista's business into our company has gone well and is on track with our business plans. Our specialty product business results were up due to order timing and improved margins within our MCT product line. Our board of directors declared a quarterly cash dividend on Steppen's common stock of 30.5 cents per share, payable on September 15th, 2021. Steppen has increased its dividend for 53 consecutive years. Luis will walk you through a few more details about our second quarter results.