Transcontinental Inc.

La parole est à Yann Lapointe, directeur relations avec les investisseurs et trésorerie. Monsieur Lapointe, please go ahead.

Thank you, Joël, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Transcontinental's first quarter fiscal 2024 earnings call. Before we begin, please note that our quarterly report, including our MD&A, our financial statements and related notes, as well as the slides supporting management's remarks, are available on our website at www.tc.tc under the investor relations section. A replay of this conference call will also be available on our website shortly after the call. Please note that this conference call is intended for the financial community. Media are in listen-only mode and should contact Nathalie Saint-Jean, Senior Advisor, Corporate Communications, for more information. We have with us today our President and Chief Executive Officer, Tom Amorin, and our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Donald LeCavalier. As referenced on slide two, some of the financial measures discussed over the course of this conference call are non-IFRS. You can refer to the MD&A for a complete definition and reconciliation of these measures to IFRS. In addition, this conference call might also contain forward-looking statements. These statements are based on the current expectations of management and information available as of today, and they involve numerous risks and uncertainties, known and unknown. The risk, uncertainties, and other factors that could influence actual results are described in the fiscal 2023 annual MD&A and in the annual information form. With that, I would like to turn the call over to our president and CEO, Thomas Marais.

Thank you, Yann, and good morning to all. As you may have seen, we're holding our annual meetings of shareholders broadcast later this morning, and I hope you can join. As you've seen, we had a solid first quarter, mostly due to our cost reduction initiatives, as well as early gains from our program to improve profitability and our financial position, which we announced last December. I thank all our teams for their excellent and timely execution. Continuing to focus on our priorities, first on growth, we are pleased with our increased 14.3% in adjusted EBITDA, despite the decline in volume from soft market demand. Second, delivering on strong return on assets, and in line with our December program, to which I will come back later, we have announced the closing of our Saint-Hyacinthe printing plant in April with the end of Publisac. On third, reducing our debt with a strong free cash flow and brought our net debt ratio to exactly two times at the end of Q1. And fourth, pursuing our sustainability agenda, we're progressing well with RADAR and with the installation of our BOP line a cutting-edge monomaterial recyclable packaging solution, and a first in North America, which is expected to start production in Spartanburg this summer. Now, turning to our sectors, packaging is off to an excellent start. The soft demand environment affecting us, particularly in the industrial and medical markets, was more than offset by our cost improvement measures, a more favorable product mix, and a recovery in our Latin American operations performance. While uncertainties remain regarding short-term demand, we're supporting the needs of our customers to accelerate the commercialization of recyclable packaging and the drive to create a more secure economy for plastics. With the deployment of our new equipment linked to our strategic investments, we're encouraged by the market's interest in our sustainable solutions. Now, in our printing sectors, our cost-cutting initiatives have enabled us to offset the continuing difficulties in our book printing business, where we've been testifying our business development activities, and we will continue to manage costs diligently. In our retail services, we are encouraged by opportunities, including the continued rollout of Radar, with 2 million copies now distributed each week in Quebec, up to 3.7 million copies at the beginning of May, as well as in our ISM and pre-media activities, all doing well in Q1. Finally, as said earlier, we are pleased with the early results of our two-year program to improve our earnings per share and our financial position. By the end of the second quarter, with the closure of Thomas, Wisconsin, and Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, and the other staff reductions across the organization, we would have reduced our overall workforce by 6%. We have also achieved significant reduction in our cost of goods sold. And on the real estate front, since the sale of a building in Quebec City, we have launched sales processes for four other buildings. Now, some of these decisions, combined with the end of COBLISAC, had a regrettable impact on employment for our affected employees and their families. I sincerely thank them for their dedication and accomplishment today.