Universal Corporation

Hello all, thank you for your patience and a warm welcome to Universal Corporation second quarter fiscal year 2023 earnings call. My name is Louise and I'll be your operator today. If you wish to ask a question, you'll have the opportunity to do so at the Q&A portion. Please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad if you wish to ask a question. And I have the pleasure of turning the call today to Candice Formacek, Vice President and Treasurer at Universal Corporation. Candice, please go ahead.

Thank you, Louisa. Thank you all for joining us. George Freeman, our Chairman, President, and CEO, Ayrton Henshke, our Chief Operating Officer, and Johan Kroener, our Chief Financial Officer, are here with me today and will join me in answering questions after these brief remarks. This call is being webcast live and will be available on our website and on telephone tape replay. It will remain on our website through February 3rd, 2023. Other than the replay, we have not authorized and disclaimed responsibility for any recording, replay, or distribution of any transcription of this call. This call is copyrighted and may not be used without our permission. Before I begin to discuss our results, I caution you that we will be making forward-looking statements that are based on our current knowledge and some assumptions about the future and are representative as of today only. Actual results could differ materially from projected or estimated results, and we assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. This is a particular note during the current ongoing COVID pandemic when the length and severity of the crisis and resultant economic and business impacts are so difficult to predict. For information on some of the factors that can affect our estimates, I urge you to read our 10-K for the year ended March 31, 2022, as well as our Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2022. Such risks and uncertainties include but are not limited to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, customer mandated timing of shipments, weather conditions, political and economic environment, government regulation and taxation, changes in exchange rates and interest rates, industry consolidation and evolution, and changes in market structure or sources. Finally, some of the information I have for you today is based on unaudited allocations and is subject to reclassification. In an effort to provide useful information to our investors, our comments today may include non-GAAP financial measures. For detail on these measures, including reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures, please refer to our current earnings press release.

Moving to the quarter.