Orbia Advance Corp Sab

Good morning and welcome to the ORBEA first quarter 2023 earnings results conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Gerardo Lozoya, Investor Relations Director. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Good morning and welcome to Orbia's first quarter 2023 earnings conference call. We appreciate your time and participation today. Joining me today are Sameer Bharadwaj, CEO, and Jim Kelly, CFO. Before we continue, a friendly reminder that some of our comments today will contain forward-looking statements. Based on our current view of our business, an actual future results may differ materially. Today's call should be considered in conjunction with cautionary statements contained in our earnings release and in our most recent Bolsa Mexicana de Valores report. The company disclaims any obligation to update or revise any such forward-looking statements. I would like to turn the call over to Sameer. Sameer?

Thank you, Gerardo, and good morning, everyone. I would like to begin by reminding everyone who Orbia is and why we are here today and where we are going on our journey. Driven by the purpose to advance life around the world, at Orbia, we are at the forefront of solving some of the world's toughest challenges. Through our global operations in over 50 countries, we are creating basic and advanced materials and solutions that enable clean water and sanitation, food security, infrastructure resilience, connectivity, health and wellbeing, and the energy transition. Now, moving on to slide three, I would like to share a high-level overview of our performance from the first quarter of 2023. As expected, With the continuation of the macroeconomic volatility that we encountered in the second half of 2022, Orbia faced a challenging environment this quarter. Compared to a very strong first quarter a year ago, profitability decreased in polymer solutions, building and infrastructure, and precision agriculture, which was partially offset by continued growth in fluorinated solutions and connectivity solutions. On the upside, however, Many of our end markets strengthened somewhat compared to late 2022 levels, and sequential EBITDA results improved across all businesses. Quarterly revenues totaled $2.3 billion, down 12% year over year. EBITDA decreased by 23% to $469 million, with an EBITDA margin of 20.6%, or roughly 295 basis points below prior year. Finally, our operating cash flow was $167 million, down 14% from the prior year. This was largely driven by lower EBITDA, partially offset by effective working capital management. Despite the challenges of the current operating environment, Orbia remains focused on executing our strategy for value creation, focusing on three key areas, as outlined at our Investor Day in May 2022. Investing in profitable growth and innovation, maximizing the value of integration, and creating shareholder value by being thoughtful stewards of capital and disciplined operators. At this time, I will turn the call over to Jim to go over our financial performance in further detail.