Univar Solutions Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Univar Solutions' third quarter 2020 earnings call. My name is Carol, and I will be your host operator for this call. Currently, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. Instructions will be provided at that time. If at any time during the conference you need to reach an operator, please press star followed by zero. I will now turn the meeting over to your host for today's call, Heather Koss, Vice President of Investor Relations at Univar Solutions. Heather, please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning. Welcome to Univar Solutions' third quarter 2020 earnings call and webcast. Joining our call today are David Jukes, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Nick Alexos, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Last night we released our financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2020, and posted to our corporate website at unibarsolutions.com a supplemental slide presentation to go with today's call. The slide presentation should be viewed along with the earnings release, which also has been posted on our website. During this call, As summarized on slide 2, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures for which you can find the reconciliations to the comparable GAAP financial measures in our earnings release and the supplemental slide presentation. As referenced on slide 2, we will make statements about our estimates, projections, outlook, forecasts, and or expectations for the future. All statements are forward-looking, and while they reflect our current estimates, they involve risks and uncertainties and are not guarantees of future performance. Please see our SEC filing for a more detailed summary of the risks and uncertainties inherent in our business and our expectations for the future. On slide three, you will see the agenda for the call. David will start with third quarter highlights and end market trends. Nick will walk through our financial update, and then David will close with progress on our next year integration and business strategy. Following that, we will take your questions. With that, I'll now turn the call over to David for his opening remarks.

Thank you, Heather, and good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to everyone, and thanks for joining our call. Our mission at Universal Solutions is to streamline, innovate, and grow, and I'm pleased to see progress on that mission reflected in our Q3 performance, which remains solid as we continue to adapt to these challenging times and deliver results. As a company that is always serious about safety, this remains our highest priority for employees, suppliers, and customers, and I'm pleased to report that all our facilities remain operational. Key highlights from the quarter are we delivered solid earnings beyond the upper end of our expectations in a challenged environment. Although sales were down versus the prior year, we were able to partially mitigate the economic headwinds by selling to new customers, practicing disciplined margin management, and implementing cost reductions. We continue to monitor changing customer demands as we operate in this new normality. I'll speak more on overall trends in a moment. We had strong liquidity for $730 million and are on track to end the year within our $750 to $800 million guidance range. Our Nexo integration remains on track, and we continue to make progress on our business systems migration. We continue to grow our digital capabilities and make progress on our Salesforce effectiveness, attracting more new customers. we advanced our newly launched S22 program, rounding out the leadership in our global specialty industry verticals and streamlining our business with a sale and exit of some non-strategic assets. We continue to work with customers as they seek to return to higher operating rates and with our suppliers as they do the same, as well as manage through some weather-affected outages in the Gulf regions. As compared to the prior year, excluding the divested environmental sciences business, July and August sales were down low teens, while September was down mid-single digits. We continue to see accelerated demand in core products within the consumer solutions business, with a robust return of business in personal care, as well as double-digit growth in our pharmaceuticals markets. Many of our general industries experienced a solid July and ended the quarter with a strong September. We benefited from the return of the automotive sector, which is lifting demand in our industrial solutions business. Refining and chemical protein markets continue to be down significantly in both the USA and Canada. However, October rig count data gives some cause for optimism that we may have reached the bottom. As an insight into current trading, October sales have continued at the same levels as a good September, but we do expect a slower period in November and December driven by normal seasonal slowdown and the potential of a resurgence of COVID-19 related shutdowns. As a result, our adjusted EBITDA guidance range for 2020 is $629 to $634 million. For 2021, we'll give more detailed guidance in our year-end call in February, but we do expect the year to show growth in line with the economic dynamics of the year with some puts and takes that Nick will expand upon shortly. Longer term, we believe the actions we've taken and the F22 program further position our business for sustainable success, even as the pandemic continues to disrupt life for the foreseeable future. We believe we have the right tools, products, people, and strategy that will allow us to continue to deliver innovative solutions that customers and suppliers value and will deliver share growth. Now, let me turn the call over to our CFO, Nikol Exos. He will walk you through our third quarter results and our outlook. Then I will close and update on Nexo integration and the Streamline 2022 progress and highlight our key business strategies.