Stepan Company

Good morning and welcome to the Steppen Company first quarter 2025 earnings conference call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterward, we will conduct a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. As a reminder, this call is being recorded on Tuesday, April 29, 2025. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Mr. Sam Henriksen, Vice President and Interim Chief Financial Officer of Steppen Company. Mr. Henriksen, please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for joining Steppen Company's first quarter 2025 financial review. Before we begin, please note that information in this conference call contains forward-looking statements, which are not historical facts. These statements involve risk and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, including but not limited to prospects for foreign operations, global and regional economic conditions, and factors detailed in our securities and exchange commission filings. In addition, this conference call will include discussions of adjusted net income, adjusted EBITDA, and free cash flow, which are non-GAAP measures. We provide reconciliations to the comparable GAAP measures in the earnings presentation and press release, which we have made available at www.steven.com under the investor section of our website. Whether you're joining us online or over the phone, we encourage you to review the investor slide presentation. We make these slides available at approximately the same time as when the earnings release is issued, and we hope that you find the information and perspectives helpful. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Luis Rojo, our President and Chief Executive Officer.

Thank you, Sam. Good morning. and thank you all for joining us today to discuss our first quarter 2025 results. I plan to share highlights of the quarterly performance, and will also share updates on our key strategic priorities, while Sam will provide additional details on our financial results. We are pleased with the start of 2025, and I'm proud of our team that is committed to further improving earnings going forward. The company reported first quarter adjusted EBITDA of $57.5 million, up 12% versus the prior year. Surfactants and specialty products delivered double-digit adjusted EBITDA growth, while polymers adjusted EBITDA decreased slightly year-over-year. Volume grew 4%, and the growth was broad-based with surfactants up 3%, polymers up 7%, and our MCT product line up 4%. We continue to experience double-digit volume growth within the agricultural and oilfield end markets, and with our distribution partners in surfactants. North America and European rigid polio volume grew single digits, while the specialty polio and commodity PA businesses delivered a strong growth year-over-year. We believe that rigid polio growth in North America and Europe continues to be restrained by global microeconomic uncertainties and the high interest rate environment. We're encouraged by the broad-based volume growth across several of our key strategic end markets. We finished the first quarter of 2025 with $19.3 million of adjusted net income, up 32% versus the prior year. driven by earnings growth in surfactants and specialty products and a lower tax rate. We executed the safe startup of our new Pasadena, Texas site, which is now operational. During the first quarter of 2025, the company paid $8.7 million in dividends to shareholders. Our board of directors declared a quarterly cash dividend on a step on a stock, common stock of 38.5 cents per share, payable on June 13, 2025. The statement has paid an increase in dividend for 57 consecutive years. Sam will now share some details about our first quarter results.