Orbia Advance Corp Sab

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to ORBEA's second quarter 2023 earnings conference call. As we turn to slide one, 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 and then one on your touchtone telephones. To withdraw your questions, you may press star and two. Please also note today's event is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the floor over to Gerardo Lozoya, Orbia's investor relations director. Sir, you may begin.

Thank you, operator. Good morning and welcome to Orbia's second 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, and 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. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Samir. Samir?

Thank you, Gerardo, and good morning, everyone. At Orbia, we continue to be guided by a purpose to advance life around the world while harnessing the power of material science and innovation to serve our customer needs, address world challenges, and provide sustainable solutions. Through our global operations in over 50 countries, we are creating basic and advanced materials and solutions that are linked to three main themes, water and food security, decarbonization and energy transition, and information access and connectivity. Now, moving on to slide three, I would like to share a high-level overview of our performance for the second quarter of 2023. The second quarter was challenging for Orbia due primarily to weak demand and pricing and slowed building and construction activity in certain regions, most notably in Europe. Compared to a strong second quarter a year ago, profitably decreased in polymer solutions, building and infrastructure, and precision agriculture, which was partially offset by strong margins achieved from active pricing management and continued strength in fluorinated solutions and connectivity solutions. Quarterly revenues totaled $2.2 billion, down 18% year over year. EBITDA decreased by 27% to $444 million, with an EBITDA margin of 20.4%, or roughly 250 basis points below the prior year level. Finally, our operating cash flow was $217 million, an increase of 62% from the prior year. Despite the challenges stemming from the current operating environment, our long-term fundamentals remain intact, and we are committed to achieving our growth targets as we reiterated at our strategy update in June. At this time, I will turn the call over to Jim to go over our financial performance in further detail.