Trinseo PLC

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Trendzeo fourth quarter 2023 financial results conference call. We welcome the Trendzeo management team, Frank Bosich, President and CEO, David Stacey, Executive Vice President and CFO, and Andy Myers, Director of Investor Relations. Today's conference call will include brief remarks by the management team, followed by a question and answer session. The company distributed its press release along with its presentation slides at close of market Monday, February 12th. These documents are posted on the company's investor relations website and furnished on a form 8K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. If anyone should require operator assistance during the call, please press star then zero on your telephone. I will now hand the call over to Andy Myers. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Audra, and good morning, everyone. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After our brief remarks, instructions will follow to participate in the question and answer session. Our disclosure rules and cautionary note on forward-looking statements are noted on slide two. During this presentation, we may make certain forward-looking statements, including issuing guidance and describing our future expectations. We must caution you that actual results could differ materially from what is discussed, described, or implied in these statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ include, but are not limited to, risk factors set forth in item 1A of our annual report on Form 10-K or in our other filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company undertakes no obligation to update or revise its forward-looking statements. Today's presentation includes certain non-GAAP measurements. A reconciliation of these measurements to corresponding GAAP measures is provided in our earnings release and in the appendix of our investor presentation. A replay of the conference call and transcript will be archived on the company's investor relations website shortly following the call. The replay will be available until February 13, 2025. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Frank Bozich.

Thanks, Andy, and welcome to our year-end 2023 earnings call. Although this was arguably the most challenging year in our company's history and one of the most difficult in recent memory for the chemical industry, I'm proud of what we accomplished during the year to improve our cost position and strengthen our market position when global markets normalize. While unprecedented customer destocking, competitive pressure from imports into Europe, and weak market demand persisted throughout the year, we didn't sit idle. We took decisive action on items within our control to liberate cash, improve profitability, and extend our near-term maturities to provide ample runway for the continued shift of our portfolio. In the second half of 2023, We announced a series of additional restructuring actions, including the closure of our styrene facility in Trenouz in the Netherlands, the consolidation of operations across our PMMA cast and extruded sheet network in Europe, as well as other cost savings measures. In addition, we structurally reduced our working capital days to further preserve cash, and we expect to improve on these lower levels. We also successfully refinanced $1.1 billion in near-term maturities until 2028, which will allow us to continue advancing our market-leading sustainability programs. These actions helped us generate positive free cash flow for the year, despite the macroeconomic challenges we faced, resulting in $47 million of year-over-year increase in cash in our balance sheet. Regarding our sustainability investments, I would like to point out that we have remained focused on advancing our sustainability initiatives and working toward our 2030 sustainability goals. Through continued investment and significant advancements in our made-in recycling over the past year, we are becoming a larger contributor to the circular economy. We have commenced full operation at our polycarbonate dissolution pilot facility in Tjernuzen in the Netherlands. and recently announced the inauguration of our PMMA depolymerization plans in Roe, Italy, which is on track to be commissioned later this quarter. Once operational, this facility will be able to recycle a broad range of PMMA waste, including end-of-life PMMA, by reducing it back to its constituent monomer, MMA. These recycled monomers can then be used to produce PMMA resins, sheets, and compounds containing recycled materials that will match the quality of virgin materials. In summary, this depolymerization facility will help promote a circular plastics value chain without compromising quality or performance. I'm also happy to report the sales of our recycled content containing products were up 16% year-over-year, and we expect continued growth as our recycling operations mature. and we continue to develop new sustainable solutions for our customers for these high-demand offerings. Additionally, our specialty in sustainable solutions technologies, which include most of our formulated technologies and engineered materials, such as rigid compounds, PMMA resins, continuous PMMA sheets, and TPEs, as well as case and battery applications in latex binders, continue to see stable margins, and experience less volume decline than our commodity applications. From an EHS standpoint, I'm happy to share that 72% of our eligible sites received our triple zero award this year, meaning the site achieved no injuries, spills, or process safety events. This is a testament to the diligence that our people work with on a daily basis And I'm extremely proud of this industry-leading EHS performance. Now I'd like to take a few minutes to provide an update on our fourth quarter results. As we expected, adjusted EBITDA was sequentially lower than Q3, as year-end customer inventory management and destocking led to a more pronounced seasonality than usual. We saw this dynamic throughout our value chains, but most predominantly in building and construction, appliances, and consumer durable applications. However, we've already seen volume recovery early in the first quarter and expect sequentially better results, which I'll discuss later. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Dave to discuss our fourth quarter and full year results.