Westlake Corporation

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Westlake Corporation fourth quarter and full year 2021 earnings conference call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's remarks, you will be invited to participate in a question-and-answer session. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, this conference is being recorded today, February 22, 2022. I would now like to turn the call over to your host, Jeff Holley. Westlake Vice President and Treasurer.

Sir, you may begin. Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Westlake Corporation conference call to discuss our results for the fourth quarter and full year of 2021. I'm joined today by Albert Chow, our President and CEO, Steve Bender, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Roger Kearns, our Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, and other members of our management team. We have included an earnings presentation, which we'll reference during our call today, which can be found in the investor relations section of our website. To begin today's call, I would like to cover several changes at Westlake we've recently announced. Last week, we issued a press release announcing our name change to Westlake Corporation, which we believe better represents the breadth of products we produce and industries we serve, including housing and construction, automotive and consumer lifestyle, packaging, and healthcare. In conjunction with our name change, we also resegmented our business for financial reporting purposes. Our two newly established reporting segments, the housing and infrastructure product segment and the performance and essential materials segment, replaced the former olefins and vinyl segments. We will begin with discussing our new housing and infrastructure product segment, that includes Westlake Royal Building Products, Westlake Pipe and Fittings, Westlake Global Compounds, and Westlake Dymex. Our performance and essential materials segment includes Westlake North American Vinyls, Westlake North American Chloralkylene Derivatives, Westlake European and Asian Chlor Vinyls, Westlake Olefins, Westlake Polyethylene, and Westlake Epoxy. You can find additional information on our resegmentation on slide three of today's presentation. Today's conference call will begin with Albert, who will open with a few comments regarding Westlake's performance. Steve will then discuss our financial and operating results, including the results of our resegmented business. Roger will then discuss the current perspective and competitiveness of our two businesses. Finally, Albert will add a few concluding comments, and we'll open the call up to questions. Today, management is going to discuss certain topics that will contain forward-looking information that is based on management's beliefs as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to management. These forward-looking statements suggest predictions or expectations and thus are subject to risks or uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties are discussed in Westlake's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2020 and other SEC filings. We encourage you to learn more about these factors that could lead our actual results to differ by reviewing these SEC filings, which are also available on our investor relations website. This morning, Westlake issued a press release with details of our fourth quarter and full year results. This document is available in the press release section of our website at westlake.com. A replay of today's call will be available beginning today two hours following the conclusion of this call. That replay may be accessed by dialing the following numbers. Domestic callers should dial 855-859-2056. International callers may access the replay at 404-537-3406. The access code for both numbers is 835-6311. Please note that information reported on this call speaks only as of today, February 22, 2022, and therefore you are advised that time-sensitive information may no longer be accurate as of the time of any replay. I would finally advise you that this conference call is being broadcast live through an Internet webcast system that can be accessed on our webpage at westlake.com. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Albert Chow. Albert?

Thank you, Jim. Good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us to discuss our record quarterly and annual results. In 2021 was a very exciting year for Westlake. As we celebrate the 35th anniversary of our founding in 1986, reported record financial results and transformed the business. Westlake businesses benefited from the strong economic expansion and favorable macro themes as we bounded from the economic downturn in 2020. And we announced four transformational acquisitions that have significantly expanded and diversified our business. For the full year of 2021, we reported a number of financial records, including record net income of over $2 billion, or $15.58 per share, and record EBITDA of $3.7 billion. Our record sales are $11.8 billion. The dedication of the Westlake team was evident in 2021 as we were able to deliver these record results in spite of numerous disruptions such as winter storm Yuri, hurricane Ida, COVID-19, and ongoing global supply chain dislocations. Over the past six months, we've invested $3.8 billion to expand and diversify our business in housing and infrastructure products, and in performance and essential materials markets. These investments include acquisitions of Ball North America's building products businesses, which, when combined with our existing building products platform, provide our residential customers with a comprehensive portfolio of leading brands and high-value products and housing solutions that enhance the everyday lives of countless individuals. Dymex, a producer of consumer products made from post-industrial recycled PVC and polyethylene, Lasco Fittings, which complements our existing pipe and fittings business, which is one of the nation's largest pipe and fittings companies, and Hexion's epoxy business, a leading global producer of epoxy resins used in high-performance materials, composites, and coatings. These materials are essential to the lightweighting of products, including wing turbines, electric and other fuel-efficient vehicles and airplanes, reducing their carbon intensity and creating more sustainable products. These acquisitions, with their attractive financial attributes and market-leading positions, strategically fit with Westlake's leading positions in housing and infrastructure products NMPVC, polyethylene, caustic soda, and chlorine, expanding the depth and breadth of our business and creating a larger and stronger platform for future earnings growth. We will continue to look for opportunities to expand our business while driving value for our shareholders. While Steve will provide greater detail on the results of our strategic realignment, and associated resegmentation, I do want to provide some insight behind these investments. As our business profile has evolved over the last decade, accelerated by the significant acquisitions of the past year, we have grown and transformed our business into a more diversified and end product oriented mix. We believe our name change from Westlake Chemical Corporation to Westlake Corporation better reflects Westlake's borderlines of businesses. The new segmentation will provide the market with better clarity into our businesses and the exceptional value each segment creates and delivers to our shareholders. The fourth quarter of 2021 continue to benefit from the strong demand drivers across our product portfolio that we experienced in the first nine months of the year. Key markets such as housing, repair and remodeling, new home construction, flexible food, industrial and consumer packaging have remained strong and our results were driven by broad-based pricing gains. The continuation of the market momentum in construction activity, especially North America housing, along with our leading product positions and brands, drove demand for our PVC and building products, and our sales volumes significantly improved as we capitalized on that strong demand dynamic. Our longstanding belief in delivering sustainable value also encompasses our commitment to environmental and social responsibility which we outlined on slide four of our presentation. We have established a goal to reduce our CO2 intensity 20 percent by 2030 from our 2016 baseline and have a plan to achieve this reduction. We have a disciplined strategy to decarbonize our assets while growing EBITDA in our attractive end markets, as well as delivering sustainability-focused products to our customers. I would now like to turn our call over to Steve to provide more detail on our financial results for the fourth quarter and full year 2021.