5N Plus Inc.

Bonjour Mesdames et Messieurs, Merci d'avoir patienté et bienvenue à la conférence téléphonique des résultats du deuxième trimestre 2023 de 5N+. Présentement, les lignes des participants sont en mode d'écoute seulement. Après la présentation, il y aura une période de questions et réponses. Pour poser une question, appuyez sur étoile et le 1 de votre clavier téléphonique. Si vous avez besoin d'assistance, veuillez appuyer sur étoile 0. Je vais maintenant céder la parole à Monsieur Richard Perron. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by and welcome to the five and plus second quarter 2023 results conference call. At this time, note that all participants are in listening mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, please press star then one on your telephone keypad. And if you require immediate assistance for the operator, please press star zero. And I would like to turn the conference over to your speaker today, Richard Perron, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead, sir.

Bonjour à toutes et à tous. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for RQ3 2023 Financial Results Conference Call and Webcast. We'll begin with a short presentation, followed by a question period with financial analysts. Joining me this morning is Gervais Jacques, our President and CEO. We issued our financial results yesterday and posted a short presentation on the investors section of our website. I would like to draw your attention to slide two of this presentation. Information in this presentation and remarks made by the speakers today will contain statements about expected future events and financial results that are forward-looking and therefore subject to risk and uncertainties. A detailed description of the risk factors that may affect future results is contained in our management discussion analysis of 2022 dated February 21, 2023, available on our website in our public filings. In the analysis of our quarterly results, you will note that we use and discuss certain non-IFRS measures, which definitions may differ from those used by other companies. For further information, please refer to our management discussion and analysis. I would now turn the conference over to Gervais.

Merci, Richard, et bonjour à tous. Yesterday, we announced very strong Q2 results for the three months ended June 30th, 2023. Specifically, the 5N Plus team achieved our strongest quarterly and year-to-date adjusted EBITDA and gross margin performance in nearly a decade. This remarkable performance on two KPIs truly represents the fruits of our labors over the past several years. including the effective execution of our strategy to improve our product mix while targeting critical high growth sectors. Our performance also reflects the success of our commercial excellence program implemented over a year ago now. We are committed to maintaining this path going forward. To that end, we remain on track to achieve the higher end of our previously disclosed guidance range for adjusted EBITDA for this fiscal year. Looking now at our performance by segment. In performance materials, our intention to exit of low-margin extractive and catalytic products announced in the second half of 2022 is paying off. Beyond the near-term impact on year-over-year revenue cuts, the segment is now generating strong earnings and margins, with adjusted EBITDA increasing 12% in Q2 and 31% year-to-date. Another proof point to our strategy of focusing on an improved product mix comprised of more value-added and higher margin products. Specialty semiconductors delivered another excellent quarter of strong revenue and adjusted EBITDA growth in the context of unprecedented customer demand, namely from Azure and the space solar power market, and from terrestrial renewable energy. This strong demand is reflected in the segment's backlog, which once again stood at the maximum 365 days at period end. As like last quarter, the effective backlog, in fact, surpasses the next 12 months because of our confirmed long-term contracts. As the only viable global supplier of ultra-high purity specialized semiconductor materials outside China, we continue to be uniquely positioned to support current and future clients operating in critical and high-growth industries to reach their own capacity expansion objectives. First Solar's recent announcement in the renewable energy space illustrates the strong demand in key market ends. In the context of unprecedented demand in several key end markets, and given our market leadership position, we have a very active pipeline of future business opportunities, which we are pursuing with our usual disciplines. Our commercial excellence program continues to guide us. In particular, our pillars of innovation drives our value-added product development approach across both segments, which complements our focus on value optimization pricing strategy and co-investment initiatives under our client partnerships. As I mentioned in our last call, we have begun the process of increasing Azure's output capacity by 30% by the end of 2024. We are also increasing production capacity for renewable energy applications by 35% in 2023 and 100% in 2024 in support of key customer capacity expansion plans. From a critical metal sourcing and recovery perspective, another key competitive advantage for 5N+, we are also in the advanced stages of securing additional complex feeds and secondary streams for the recovery of critical minerals. This is following the recent expansion of recycling and refining capacity at our Montreal plant, and additional investments we are making to further leverage our closed-loop metals management, recovery, and refining capabilities. Looking ahead, we expect demand to remain strong in our end markets, especially in terrestrial renewable energy and space solar power under our specialty semiconductor segment, and in health and pharmaceuticals in our performance materials segment. We remain focused on the execution of our commercial excellence program and our capacity expansion plans. We will continue to invest in building our own capacity as our customers also ramp up their production of finished products employing our value-added materials. In addition, we will maintain our focus on developing long-term, value-added partnerships with customers operating in high-growth markets. Our strong financial results here today are a testament to our strategy and market leadership, and we are motivated and excited for what's to come. Richard, over to you to provide further details on our financial results before we take questions from analysts.