Good day, and welcome to the Compass Minerals First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Ms. Peggy Landon. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Thank you, Jennifer. And thank you, all, for joining us this morning. I have with me here Fran Malecha, our President and CEO; and Rod Underdown, our CFO. Before I turn the call over to them, let me remind you that today's discussion may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on the company's expectations as of today's date, April 29, 2014, and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause the company's actual results to differ materially. The differences could be caused by a number of factors, including those identified in Compass Minerals' most recent Forms 10-K and 10-Q. The company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made today to reflect future events or developments. You can find reconciliations of any non-GAAP financial information that we discuss today in our earnings release, which is available in the Investor Relations section of our website at compassminerals.com. Now I'll turn the call over to Fran.

Thank you, Peggy, and good morning, everyone. I'm happy to report strong demand drove improvement for both of our businesses in the first quarter and lifted total company sales 10% above prior year results, while net income rose 8%. Adjusted EBITDA increased slightly from the prior year to $85.4 million as our EBITDA margin fell to 20% from 22% due to lower highway deicing prices, which I will discuss shortly. I'm sure many of you have experienced the severe winter weather throughout our core North American service area this winter, as snow events were substantially above long-term averages. This fueled a 9% increase in highway deicing sales volumes and the highest salt sales volumes since 2008. Mild weather in the U.K., however, hampered our ability to equal or surpass that record for our entire salt business. Highway Deicing revenue increased 2% above the prior-year quarter, as our average selling price for these products fell 6% due to the lower contract pricing that was established during last summer's bid season and we incurred some additional costs from serving our customer during this extreme frigid winter. Winter weather also had a very positive impact on our consumer and industrial business. We sold 22% more tons of these products this quarter compared to last year. This is the second quarter we've reported 20%-plus year-over-year growth and reflects the influence of winter weather on sales of our consumer and professional deicing products. And just like in our highway deicing business, we believe packaged deicing inventories at the customer level have been cleared out and the return to more typical weather-driven sales patterns will occur later this year. So our current expectations for this portion of the salt business includes solid volume growth of 10% for the second quarter, and we are optimistic that customers…

Yes, thank you, Fran. And I'll start this morning with a recap of our salt segment results, where, again, we believe the winter provided a pivot towards better business dynamics for the remainder of 2014. As Fran discussed, the strong winter weather demand pushed total sales up 8% to $353.2 million. This improvement resulted from higher deicing sales volumes of both highway and consumer uses for salt. These higher volumes also helped to lower our per unit operating cost from the prior year, despite the impact of a negative mix on that metric. Salt operating earnings for the quarter were modestly lower than in the first quarter of 2013. And as Fran mentioned, by far, the most significant factor in the limited earnings leverage from the higher sales volumes was the lower average selling price for our highway deicing salt. The prices we achieved this quarter were established during the bid season last year and reflect the impact of 2 consecutive mild winters. Those bid results will continue to influence our average selling price through the second quarter. In addition, the first quarter highway deicing price was negatively impacted about 1%, by weakness in the Canadian dollar. A few other factors also impacted our salt segment earnings. We incurred incremental costs due to extreme winter conditions, including about $2 million for some contractual service shortfalls. And the year-over-year increase in sales of consumer deicing products improved our operating earnings, but had a compressing impact on our reported operating margin percentage. Now, these products have higher prices, but also higher costs. Lastly, consumer and industrial -- or excuse me, last year, consumer and industrial sales represented about 11% of salt sales volumes, while this quarter, they represented 16%. Every winter quarter, as most of you know, we report the estimated impact…

[Operator Instructions] And we will take our first question from Chris Parkinson from Crédit Suisse. Christopher S. Parkinson - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division: It's fairly clear that a lack-luster winter in the U.K. held your volumes back on the salt front. Can you give us a little more color on the year-over-year comps in this business? And also how this fits in onto your, let's say, intermediate and longer-term outlook over the next year or so?

Sure. Thanks, Chris. Yes, I mean, we've always described our U.K. business was about 10% of our highway sales or about $1 million tons roughly. And most of that, in a typical year -- I shouldn't say most, but a large percentage of that would be sold in the first quarter. It was very, very mild in the U.K. and sales were very low there. The good thing about the U.K. is that there's no, really, carry forward into the next winter. So to the extent winter returns in the fourth quarter next year, we would expect volumes consistent with a normal year there. So we don't expect any long-term effect. And the bidding market is a bit different there, and so it shouldn't have any long-term repercussions.

And our next question comes from Chris Shaw from Monness, Crespi. Christopher L. Shaw - Monness, Crespi, Hardt & Co., Inc., Research Division: I was just reading -- it was just an anecdotal example of one town was talking about their upcoming bid for the next season. And one thing they mentioned was that they were shrinking the range. So instead of 80% to 120%, they were going to do 90% to 110%. And I forget the exact reasoning. Is that something you think could happen more with customers this year? And have you seen that happen in -- like this in past years following a tough winter like 2008, 2003?

This is Fran. I mean, I think every state is a bit different on those percentages, and may have a different view on kind of the risk reward of maintaining those ranges. I don't think we'll see a material shift on that in the year ahead. And kind of with the winter that happened, the depletion of inventories and what kind of could happen in a real severe winter, I doubt that our customers would be looking to narrow those ranges at all. Christopher L. Shaw - Monness, Crespi, Hardt & Co., Inc., Research Division: So there's no -- I mean, they were -- this town was suggesting it's a benefit to them. I don't seem to remember what their exact reasoning was. But there's a -- do you see a benefit for them? Or do you think actually that it's worse for them do that?

I think it allows them the flexibility, given the variability that can happen with winter to manage their requirements. And so I would expect it across the board, kind of across our geography to remain unchanged. It doesn't mean that you wouldn’t have a community or municipality that might have a different view. And every municipality out there has different storage capabilities and things like that, that may impact their specific needs or requirements. Christopher L. Shaw - Monness, Crespi, Hardt & Co., Inc., Research Division: Just curiously, if -- for the narrower ranges, would that be something that you would typically, all other things being equal, something you would bid higher -- I'm sorry, bid lower for? I just think that a tighter range, I think, would be favorable for you guys, right?

Well, I think a tighter range would be favorable for us, if you just looked at that one component. I think you're right there. Obviously, the risk that we have to produce to those maximums, there's a cost to that. There's a cost to carrying larger inventories through the system, but that cost is offset by the benefit of having those stocks there, if and when needed. So I think, it -- it all gets down to risk reward, and I think we always are mindful of that and want to make sure that we're pricing the business commensurate with that, with the risk that we're taking.

And next we will hear from Ivan Marcuse from KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Do you look at your mines -- you talked about how you'll be able to run these -- run your salt mines full out come for 2014. If you look back at 2009 after the 2007, 2008, you were sort of in this $29 per ton unit operating cost. Is that sort of how to think about -- and I assume you're running at full out there, is there anything different that -- comparing 2009 until -- to today? Or how do you sort of expect unit operating cost to trend...

Sure, Ivan. I think a couple of things that are -- of course, there's been some inflationary factors that you'd want to factor in. The other thing that I mentioned in my remarks in our -- and we mentioned in our remarks is that we expect just in a normal winter, average winter situation for the rest of the year, that our consumer and industrial products are going to become a larger percentage of the mix. And that's because, really, highway sales are more driven by whatever the winter event result were -- or require for our customers. The consumer deicing business becomes one more of an early restocking and retailers and others kind of getting ready for winter. And so that the timing of sale for the winter and for preparation of the winter, does vary between consumer deicing customers and the highway customers. So I mentioned in my remarks that we expect a positive impact on average price from that mix, but there's also a higher average cost associated with that. Having said that, we do expect that if we were to break down costs by subsegment within the rock salt and the consumer salt, we expect lower costs year-over-year.

Got you. But all in, you would -- I'll just follow-up with you after the call in regards to that. And then as a follow-up, if you look at your -- on the Wolf Trax acquisition, you mentioned that it was -- this is sort of your first in sort of a first step in -- further expanding your fertilizer business. So how do you look at doing other type of Wolf Trax-type of acquisitions that may be outside of SOP going forward? And also as a part 2 of that question, does your 25% to 27% margin in the fertilizer for the second quarter, does that include the impact of Wolf Trax?

This is Fran. When we look at Wolf Trax, this is actually is a -- was an acquisition that is still a specialty fertilizer business with a margin profile that's equal to or better than our SOP business. But it gets us on more acres, gets us on different crops, expands our geography. At the same time, we think there's opportunity to include that technology on SOP blends and create more value for our current customers or allow us to extend our reach on these crops that we're currently meeting customers' needs on. So it's a great fit from that standpoint. And we're just a month into this business, but already hitting the ground running and working on some of those things that I just mentioned in terms of SOP blends and whatnot. So positive for us to expand this business. And if there's other acquisition opportunities out there, I mean, we would consider them. This -- that micronutrients base is fragmented, and so the real driver, from my perspective, is the technology and the differentiation that technology brings to customers. And Wolf Trax, we felt, was the best at that in the industry. We can build on that organically and we plan to, continue to drive increased sales and do more business. If there's other acquisition opportunities that fit, we'll consider them at the appropriate time. And in terms of the -- Rod, maybe you want to answer the question on the margin percentage?

Yes. Yes, Ivan, and that guidance would be, including both our historical SOP business, as well as the Wolf Trax business, combined.

And that includes the costs associated with the acquisition, sort of the one-time, or I guess, one-time acquisition cost?

Yes, that's right. The accounting effects that you must take -- that we must take into account, yes.

Great. And then, last quick question on the EBITDA of the Wolf Trax. I think you said it was around $8 million or expected to be $8 million in your presentation. How much that is DA?

Well, we are in the process of finalizing our accounting purchase allocation there, and so we aren't in a position to really talk about knowing that exact figure at this point.

Our next question comes from Mark Gulley from BGC Financial.

Fran, you may have already addressed this in connection with the question regarding future acquisitions in micronutrient. But I'm wondering, and I know it's early days, there's a bit of windfall in terms of earning from the prior 3 quarters that are affected by the winter in the upcoming one. Have you thought about maybe returning -- in terms of return on capital -- return of capital to shareholders in the form of a share buyback? Perhaps, turning some of that, what I'll call, windfall over to shareholders?

Sure, Mark. Thanks for the question. First off, I'd say I don't actually consider it a windfall. We look at our business as being maybe suppressed in fall for the last couple of years and getting back to more normal driven by this above average winter. So we expect that we'll continue to drive earnings and cash flow going forward appropriately. Having said that, in terms of our approach on allocating capital and investments, as I'm sure you know, we've increased our dividend every year over the last 10 years. And just recently did that again this past year. And so that's kind of the top of the pyramid as we look at uses of cash. And then, we look at internal investments, and after internal investments, acquisitions that are accretive and all those investments have to exceed our -- meet or exceed our cost of capital. And then after that, we would look at ways to return cash to shareholders through other means. So the hierarchie's in place. And when we look at investments, we always are mindful of and compare that to returning that cash to shareholders. So I don't anticipate any change in our approach. We're going to be disciplined in our use of cash to make sure our analysis is sound, and then we're going to act decisively to deploy the cash.

And then this is the most optimistic you've sounded about the Great Salt Lake operation for some time. Yields are getting better, you've increased your deice per shipment, so this is a fairly positive backdrop. Are you any closer to making a decision on expanding the pond capacity?

Yes, we're -- we continue to feel real good about the business that we're building here. And as you mentioned, the demand increased. I mean, the volume increase for us is really driven by our approach with customers in achieving more value for them and the value then that we achieve from our products. That continues to build over time, I think, in a sustainable way. And as we build those volumes, the -- we certainly think there is an opportunity to convert those volumes from kind of the interim step, from my perspective, of upgrading KCl to the more permanent -- through our SOP process. So we're moving that forward and certainly getting, I think, closer to a decision on that. And I think, as we talked in the past call or 2, it doesn't have to be just a one-time large uptick. It can be staged as well. And so we want to make sure that we get that right. And then as I said earlier, once we make a decision, we'll move quickly to employ whatever decision we make. So we're confident in the way we're building this business. And think that we certainly have the best opportunity with our process at the Great Salt Lake to continue to match capacity with that demand growth.

And next we have David Begleiter from Deutsche Bank.

Fran, in highway deicing, how do you think about the market share and in terms of how it's been trending? And how are you looking at this upcoming year in terms of balancing perhaps gaining back some share versus the push in price?

Yes, I think over the last probably 3, 4 years, now our share's been declining. And certainly, over time, we plan to call that share back and do that in a disciplined way. I think we probably lost 1% or so share of the market over the last 4 years. The five years has been -- and our plans are to call that back. This year is going to be interesting because most likely, the market's going to be challenged to supply -- to produce and supply all the salt required. And so we're -- as we get into the bidding season, obviously, we're going to manage that closely. And just with the kind of increase in volumes, we may or may not see a change in our market share this year. And we're always managing price and share volume effectively from my perspective. And we want to make sure, over the longer term that whatever pricing increases that do transpire, that we can keep them -- keep that and then build share over time.

And given the attractive market in the U.S. for deicing, do you expect to increase imports into the U.S.? And I know they mainly come on to the coast, do you think they can impact your region?

There may be slight increases in imports into the U.S. Most of those are going to come into the Eastern seaboard, which had a real strong winter as well. And there could be imports into other parts of the U.S., but I think it'll be limited.

And our next question comes from Joel Jackson from BMO Capital Markets.

If you look out for the next year, starting the third quarter, what percent of the highway deicing sales would you guess are locked up in your -- well, on your chemical salt sales in your multiyear? So I guess I'm trying to get at what percent will be exposed to the highway deicing bid season?

Yes, Joel, we really haven't seen a big change in our chemical business. So that runs roughly 2 million to 2.5 million tons per year. And it's roughly consistent quarter-to-quarter. There can be variations. So that's the amount that we would expect to sell. And at chemical, I would say -- I would guess -- I don't have the number at my fingertips, but I'm just guessing based on, obviously the knowledge that [ph] the multi-year highway contracts probably represent a little less than 10% of total highway volumes. So that wouldn't be much of the available potential winter sales that we expect.

Okay. So basically, if I do that with the U.K. the multiyear, the chemical salt, it's something like 40% to 45% are sort of not exposed to bid season, correct?

Yes, I think the -- in the U.K., that there are some multiyear contracts there. There's fewer in North America. So if you think about our chemical business being about 2 to 2.5 and about 10% of the West being multiyear, I don't think you'd get to 45%.

Okay. And the second question I had was back on the SOP business. You had great volume Q1. The premium over MOP has basically done quite well. What -- how do you look at this in the performance? How much of this comes from the fact that [indiscernible] has continued to have significant challenges in their production that [ph] and has hurt their exports or their imports to the U.S.?

It's true that imports to the U.S. are down. And it's hard to speak to any one competitor, but I'd suspect that we're enjoying the fact that there's markets -- other markets that some of the offshore production is securing. And I think we've continued to focus on North America because it's the best net backs for us, and we've been fortunate to be able to do that and really reduce some -- the amount that we've exported over the past 2 or 3 years. So the production is shifting, I think, to meet that demand. And it's just hard to say that the customer or the competitor that you mentioned, what that real impact is.

I guess, I'm trying to get at -- and I now recall [indiscernible] processes had production challenges to one of their operations. If you're seeing stronger SOP demand in North America or if you've been able to take share of some production problems by some offshore competitors?

I would say, it's probably some of both currently.

[Operator Instructions] We will now hear from Edward Yang from Oppenheimer. Edward H. Yang - Oppenheimer & Co. Inc., Research Division: Fran, maybe just levering further on the SOP pricing, the price spread that you're getting for you specialty fertilizer versus commodity KCl, that continues to widen. And I guess, looking at it from a longer-term perspective, 1 year from now, 2 years from now, what do you think will be the driver of SOP prices? Do you think that it will recouple back to MOP in that spread that you normally get?

I think it's, longer-term, more really a function of the economics of the crops that we're supplying. The customers' economics on those crops and the additional value that if they're able to capture that SOP is bringing to the table. So sure, I mean, there's always going to be some substitutability. And I think, on the production side, some capacity for producers to -- offshore producers to produce a bit more SOP than MOP and compare those economics. But in North America, we're really the only [ph]producer here. So I think it's going to be more a function of, what I would call, a basket of the economics of the crops; a basket of crops that we're serving, more so than kind of the absolute spread to MOP. Edward H. Yang - Oppenheimer & Co. Inc., Research Division: And on the supply side, are there any sort of arbitrage opportunities near to intermediate term in terms of whether producers that can take advantage of this -- the margin in that business? I mean, why aren't more producers, I guess, upgrading KCl, or what are some of the practical constraints there?

Well, I think it's difficult to do that effectively. I think our process is the most effective, certainly in this part of the world, to do that. And so we're trying to do as much of that as we can to meet that demand. And I know the Mannheim process, that's probably the most prevalent out there, is quite -- it comes at quite a higher cost than our production process. So I suspect there is some shift going on, as well as we probably exited even some lower net back North American markets that -- and that moved to higher net back markets more in the West where our plant's located that may have created some opportunity in the East -- Eastern side of the U.S. for imports. But other than that, I don't think it's that easy to make this stuff. And I think even some of the projects that are out there that have been talked about in various stages of trying to bring it to the market, they come with unproven technology. And so I guess we feel like we have the -- even though, we've talked about some challenges with our yields, the lowest cost proven technology at the Great Salt Lake.

And that concludes our Q&A session. I will turn the call back over to Ms. Peggy Landon.

Thank you, Jennifer. And thanks to everyone for joining us today. We'd also like to invite you to listen to our live webcast on June, 4, when we will be providing the more in-depth review of our strategy at our Investor Day. You'll find details about this event on our website in a couple of weeks. Again, thanks for your time today and have a great day.

And that concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation.