Universal Corporation

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. My name is Kelvin, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Universal Corporation Second Quarter Fiscal Year 2026 earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star one again. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Wishma, Vice President and Treasurer. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. With me today is Preston Wigner, our Chairman, President, and CEO, and Johan Kroner, our Chief Financial Officer. During the course of this call, we will be making forward-looking statements that are based on our current knowledge and some assumptions about the future. These are representative as of today only. Actual results, performance, or achievements could differ materially from anticipated results, prospects, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. And we assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required by law. For information on some of the risks and uncertainties related to these forward-looking statements, please refer to the reports we filed with ICC and under cautionary statements regarding forward-looking statements in our current earnings price release. Finally, some of the information we have for you today may be based on unaudited allocations and may be subject to reclassification. Our comments today may also include certain non-GAAP financial measures. For details regarding these measures, including reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measures, please refer to our current earnings price release and other public materials. This call is being webcast live and will be available for replay on our website through February 6, 2026, and via telephone through November 20, 2025. This call is copyrighted and may not be used without our permission. Other than the reference and replay, we have not authorized and disclaimed responsibility for any recording, replay, or distribution of any transcription of this call. I would like to now turn the call over to Preston.

Thank you, Woosh. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. We're pleased with our performance in the first half and second quarter of fiscal year 2026. We saw strong operational execution for both segments of our company, and we are working diligently to continue that performance through the second half of our fiscal year. Let's begin with our tobacco operations segment, which continues to perform well. Tobacco buying is largely complete in most key growing regions, and crop sizes are significantly larger this year following several years of smaller crops due to weather. Green tobacco prices have softened in certain regions compared to the prior fiscal year. Shipments are progressing smoothly, and we are shipping tobacco earlier than we did last year. Customer demand has remained firm following several years of undersupply, despite significantly larger crops this fiscal year. As expected, carryover crop sales were lower for the six-month period, reflecting significant shipment volumes earlier in the prior fiscal year. Uncommitted inventory levels remain low and well within our target range. We believe that tobacco supply and demand are generally balanced at this point in the fiscal year, and we expect tobacco to move into an oversupply position by year end. We have historically performed well in slight oversupply market conditions. It allows us to meet customer needs while also pursuing opportunity sales. Our team is experienced managing oversupply markets, and we are confident in our ability to navigate the change in market dynamics. Now, turning to our ingredients operations segment, we maintain positive momentum with higher sales and volume in both the quarter and the six-month period ended September 30th. Interest in our new value-added products continues to grow, and we are maintaining an active pipeline. Universal ingredients to enhance production and operational capabilities are supporting this growth. Demand for our new products remains solid, while fixed costs, product mix, and external challenges, including weakness in the consumer packaged goods industry, and tariff uncertainty had a negative impact on earnings. We are taking a proactive approach to meeting our customer's strategic needs, focusing on our credit growth, and converting customer interest into product sales so we can continue to build scale and generate returns on our investments. We believe the ingredient segment is well positioned to capitalize on those investments and drive future growth. I'll turn it over to Johan to walk through our financial and operational performance in more detail. After that, I'll offer some additional thoughts and open the call for questions.