Orbia Advance Corp Sab

Good morning and welcome to ORBEA's first quarter 2024 earnings conference call. As we turn to slide one, all participants will be in 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 touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Diego Echave, Orbia's Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, operator. Good morning and welcome to Orbia's first quarter 2024 earnings call. We appreciate your time and participation. Joining me today are Samir Baradouache, 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 Pewter 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.

Thank you, Diego, and good morning, everyone. First, I would like to thank our more than 24,000 employees operating in over 50 countries worldwide for their steadfast commitment to serving our customers and creating value for our stakeholders as we work to advance life together. We are harnessing the power of material science and innovation to develop solutions that enable the energy transition, enhance food security, provide clean water and sanitation, improve infrastructure resilience, and increase information access and connectivity. Orbia wouldn't be Orbia without our community of dreamers, doers, and builders who bring purpose to life everywhere they are. And the world has started to understand how distinctive this is. Orbia was recently recognized by the Women's Choice Awards for being a top company for women and millennials in the U.S. as well as by the Reagan Awards amongst a global roster of blue chip B2B and B2C companies for the launch of our first employee brand that has activated our internal community, excited interest from external talent, and conveyed our truth as the place where purpose comes to life. Now moving on to slide three, I will share a high level overview of our first quarter 2024 performance. For the quarter, revenues of $1.9 billion decreased 18%, and EBITDA of 253 million decreased 46% compared to the prior year quarter. The first quarter results were in line with guidance for the first half of 2024, which we provided last quarter. We continued to navigate persistent high interest rates around the world, which have impacted demand for our products across most of our end markets, especially those related to construction and infrastructure. In addition, excess PVC supply from China and the U.S. has reduced PVC prices globally, impacting our polymer solutions business. Nonetheless, our business fundamentals are robust. We remain committed to achieving our long-term targets and creating value for our shareholders through executing our strategy and developing differentiated and truly innovative products and solutions that tackle the world's toughest challenges. I will now turn the call over to Jim to go over our financial performance in further detail.