Stepan Company

Good morning and welcome to the Steppen Company fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings conference call. During the presentation, all participants will be in the listen-only mode. Afterwards, 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. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 1 again. As a reminder, This call is being recorded on Monday, February 23rd, 2026. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Mr. Ruben Velazquez, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Stepan Company. Mr. Velazquez, please go ahead.

Thanks, Didi. Good morning and thank you for joining Stepan Company's fourth quarter and full year 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 risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, including but not limited to prospect of our foreign operations, global and regional economic conditions, and factor details 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 compatible GAAP measures in the earnings presentations and press release, which we have made available at www.stepan.com under the investor section of our website. Whether you are 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, Ruben. Good morning, and thank you all for joining us today to discuss our fourth quarter and full year 2025 results. I plan to share highlights of the performance and will also share updates on our key strategic priorities. while Ruben will provide additional details on our financial results. 2025 was a transformational year for Stepan. We divested two manufacturing plants, made significant progress on the foundational work required to further optimize our global footprint, and positioned the company to execute against a more disciplined and resilient operating model in 2026 and beyond. I also want to highlight that we delivered the best year on safety results in our history. Congrats to the whole Stepan team on these excellent safety results. Despite a challenging macro environment, the continued pressure across the chemical sector, unprecedented raw material inflation and tariff impacts, we delivered full year adjusted EBITDA growth of 6%. We delivered adjusted EBITDA of $199 million, reflecting discipline pricing and cost management, favorable mix, and solid growth across all our strategic businesses. Organic volume increased 2% year-over-year, driven by a strong growth in crop productivity, oil field, Tier 2, Tier 3 customers, global polymers, and specialty products. This was partially offset by softer demand in global consumer commodities surfactants. Throughout the year, we maintained a disciplined approach to capital allocation. We generated positive free cash flow in 2025 and strengthened our balance sheet and reduced net debt. Our leverage ratio improved from 2.8 to 2.5 times at the end of the year. We did all of this while continuing to invest in the business. Consistent with our long-standing commitment to shareholder returns, we increased our dividend for the 58th consecutive year, underscoring our confidence in Stepan cash flow strength and long-term outlook. During the fourth quarter of 2025, the company paid $8.9 million in dividends to shareholders. Our Board of Directors declared a quarterly cash dividend on Stepan common stock of 39.5 cents per share, payable on March 13, 2026. This represents a 2.6% increase in our dividend versus the prior year. Importantly, in 2025, we demonstrated our ability to deliver earnings resilience, advance strategic priorities, and take decisive actions in a difficult operating environment. We successfully commissioned our Pasadena Constellation Facility optimize our asset footprint through targeted divestitures, and establish the foundation to implement project catalysts, which we will discuss later today. With that, I will turn the call back to Ruben to walk you through the financial details for the quarter and the year.