Good morning. My name is Angela, and I will be your conference coordinator today. Welcome to the Luxfer’s Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute. [Operator Instructions] Now, I will turn the call over to Kevin Grant, Vice President of Investor Relations and Business Development at Luxfer. Kevin, please go ahead.

Thank you, Angela, and good morning everyone. Welcome to Luxfer’s third quarter 2023 earnings conference call. This morning we’ll be reviewing Luxfer’s financial results for the third quarter ended October 1, 2023. I’m pleased to be joined today by Andy Butcher, our Chief Executive Officer; and Steve Webster, Chief Financial Officer. Today’s webcast is accompanied by a presentation that can be accessed at luxfer.com. Please note, any reference to non-GAAP financials are reconciled in the appendix of the presentation. Before we begin, a friendly reminder that any forward-looking statements made about the company’s expected financial results are subject to future risks and uncertainties. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Please refer to the Safe Harbor statement on Slide 2 of today’s presentation for further details. Now, let me introduce Luxfer’s CEO, Andy Butcher. Please turn to Slide 3. Andy, please go ahead.

Thank you, Kevin, and welcome to the Luxfer team. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. We have a lot to cover on today’s call. First, I’ll provide a high-level overview of our third quarter financial performance. On October 11, we announced preliminary Q3 results and the shortfall against full year guidance. I will review what drove that shortfall and the ongoing and accelerated initiatives we are executing to address the business conditions we are facing today. Steve will then discuss the quarter in more detail and provide our outlook for the fourth quarter. I’ll end by providing color on the accelerated and expanded strategic review we are undertaking, which we referenced in yesterday’s release. For the third quarter, we reported sales of $97.4 million and adjusted diluted earnings per share of $0.04, in line with the preliminary results we announced. We noted that specific areas of our business are facing continued challenges with either supply chain issues or weakening demand, which we have shared on our second quarter earnings call in late July. While we lowered our full year 2023 guidance to reflect these challenges, it was not enough. The headwinds persisted and grew during the quarter, resulting in a disappointing Q3 results. On today’s call, we will discuss the issues we are facing in more detail and the actions we are taking. We are tightly focused on controlling what we can as we navigate the increasingly challenging macro landscape to deliver improved results for Luxfer shareholders. Beginning with revenue. The 2.8% year-over-year drop in sales was the net result of growth in the Gas Cylinders segment that was more than offset by a decrease in the Elektron segments. By end market, our business across Defense, First Response and Healthcare, along with Transportation, grew revenues compared to last…

Thanks, Andy. I’ll begin on Slide 6 with a summary of our sales performance by end market. Defense, First Response and Healthcare sales grew by a notable 20% in the third quarter, driven by strong demand for our lightweight firefighter SCBA cylinders and continued contributions from chemical kits, flameless rations heaters and pharmaceuticals. Transportation sales grew 6% as automotive remains strong on the back of increased auto catalysis shipments and the completion of this year’s RotaMag alloy wheel program. Meanwhile, alternative fuels, inflatable cylinders, and aerospace alloy sales were flat in the quarter. General Industrial sales decreased 30% being most impacted by the macro headwinds mentioned earlier. The issues we faced in photo-engraving plates, commercial magnesium powders and industrial zirconium applications weighed on our performance. One area of strength, though, was an increase in our new green hydrogen product line. Please turn to Slide 7 for a summary of our consolidated third quarter financial results. Third quarter sales of $97.4 million, decreased $2.8 million or 2.8% from the prior year, impacted by volume declines and unfavorable mix, primarily in industrial markets. We did see favorable pricing in Gas Cylinders, partially offset by Elektron. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA of $6 million decreased $10.1 million or 62.7% from the prior year. Proactive price recovery efforts were not sufficient to overcome combined headwinds of inflation, volume and mix. In addition, we faced tougher comps in the Elektron business as in the prior year, we were successful in driving price in advance of realizing material cost increases, which now acts as a headwind by comparison. Finally, foreign exchange had a negative impact of $0.9 million, and we incurred increased legal costs. Turning to Slide 8 and our segment results. Elektron sales of $52.7 million decreased 7% from the prior year, driven by lower demand in…

Thanks, Steve. I’m on to Slide 11. As we announced on October 11, we are accelerating and expanding our annual strategic review process. The purpose of this comprehensive and portfolio-wide exercise is to review our business and operations to inform strategy development and evaluate future opportunities. To support our efforts and to ensure a rigorous independent assessment, we’ve engaged a leading global investment bank that is in the process of evaluating all of our businesses, our capital structure and the range of available opportunities to unlock and maximize value. The scope of this activity is comprehensive and we are executing the review with an open mind, considering all possible paths to value maximization. Luxfer offers unique capabilities in materials technology, and we want to make sure we are in the right markets and businesses to best leverage those advantages for our customers, employees and shareholders. The strategic review has kicked off in earnest and is ongoing. We are committed to transparency and plan to provide an update on or before our fourth quarter and 2023 full year earnings call in February. Given the macroeconomic uncertainty and pending the outcome of the strategic review, we have decided that it is responsible and appropriate to withdraw our previous adjusted EPS goal of $2 in 2025. We will revisit long-term targets when our strategic review is complete, and we are in a position to provide a more informed outlook. I want to underscore that our Board and leadership team are committed to driving improved performance and taking the necessary actions to transform Luxfer. And to that end, I want to thank our stakeholders, to our employees around the world who are working hard to ensure we are able to meet the needs of our customers, to our customers, who placed their trust in us to deliver innovative and valuable solutions and to our stakeholders for their interest and support over the long term. With that, I’d like to turn the call back to the operator to begin the Q&A session, after which I will provide some final remarks. Angela, please go ahead.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Steve Ferazani with Sidoti. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Andy, Steve, appreciate you taking my questions this morning. And appreciate the detail on the call. Trying to get a better sense of your outlook on Graphic Arts now with the new competitive pressures. It would seem like that margin pressure won’t go away even if U.S. mag comes back. How do you look at that business going forward, given that you’ve been willing to divest lower-margin business to slower growth businesses in the past?

Thank you, Steve, and welcome to the call. Let me first of all talk about Graphic Arts demand and then our strategic review process. The trading conditions of Graphic Arts remain very difficult in Europe at the moment, Steve. Currently, that outage of U.S. Magnesium means we’re working with much higher material costs than our competitors in Europe who are predominantly using Chinese-based material. In Q4, we will be introducing an improved photo-engraving plate that we expect to deliver a strong value proposition to end users. So that will be helpful. And I do believe that long-term, the magnesium raw material market will likely stabilize at lower prices. We may have opportunity to purchase some notably lower cost magnesium in 2024. So those will be significant positives for the future prospects of the business. Turning to your specific question on Graphic Arts and our strategic review. The strategic review includes the comprehensive review of all of our businesses, which does include the Graphic Arts business. Right now, we’re very focused internally in Graphic Arts in reducing the costs and improving the profitability. If after the strategic review is complete, it’s determined that Luxfer is not the best owner of the Graphic Arts business than we would embark on a process to find what that best owner of the Graphic Arts is. And we couldn’t commit to a transaction today, of course, and we’d never sell any business if we couldn’t get greater value than the value of the business under Luxfer’s ownership. I think the best takeaway overall on this is that the Board and the management are aligned and committed to unlocking and delivering long-term stakeholder value and open to any and all alternatives to do so.

Great. Appreciate the answer. Turning to a couple of the stronger areas for you this quarter. Transportation was up year-over-year. Alternative fuel is still flat. Was this a one quarter uptick? It looked like you had some benefits that were going to be one-off this quarter, the conclusion of the wheels sales for the year. Can you give us an outlook on near-term outlook on transportation given maybe an improving regulatory environment for hydrogen?

Yes. Thank you. So transportation for the quarter was up. You’re right. The – particularly encouraged by what we see long term from the alternative fuel market. And especially, I would say, at the moment, in the CNG area, some lower natural gas prices, increasing low emissions vehicle requirements have made that the need for CNG vehicles, especially in North America is quite strong. I was saying earlier this week, more details on the new multi-fuel 15-liter engine coming out from Cummins for up CNG, rolling out into extended trials. And we’re seeing some good benefits from that now, and I hope that will be an additional tailwind for us in 2024. I feel good about our CNG range. In hydrogen, yes, the outlook is still pretty choppy, I think. The tailwind from some of these government infrastructure investments isn’t really being felt yet, although that news on the expenditure in seven specific hydrogen hubs was very encouraging. Alternative fuels is an important part of our strategy for value creation. We may have to be a little patient on hydrogen. It was good to see that strong development in CNG.

Fantastic. Last one for me, if I could squeeze it in. It looks like you benefit on Gas Cylinders primarily from pricing and your pricing is more than offsetting inflationary pressures, surprised we didn’t see margin improvement. Can you give a little bit of detail on why that didn’t result in margin improvement?

Yes. We are pleased with the progress being made on pricing in Luxfer Gas Cylinders. That’s been a positive this year, and we believe will be for the future, some of the longer-term contracts that we have are rolling off, and that’s giving us opportunity to recover some of those higher costs that we’ve been seeing from some time, so that’s been very helpful for us. In the period, we did see some – early in the period, we saw some productivity shortfalls in one of the facilities that was associated with a shortage of labor and some equipment difficulties, but that’s in the past. Now, September was much stronger. The higher performance has continued into October, and we’re projecting in the notes in the script, a better performance, again, out of Gas Cylinders in Q4, which I believe will carry forward into the new year.

Great. That’s it for me. Thanks, Andy. Thanks Steve.

Thank you.

At this time, I’ll turn the call over to CEO, Andy Butcher for any final remarks.

Thank you, Angela. Please turn to Slide 12. Thanks for the questions and dialogue today. While this is a difficult period, I want to remind us that Luxfer continues to offer a strong customer value proposition supported by competitive advantage across diverse niche applications. Our materials engineering expertise, broad array of proprietary technologies, technical know-how and manufacturing expertise deliver innovative and superior solutions to our customers. We are continuing to concentrate the product portfolio in segments that create sustainable long-term value. Currently, we are facing supply chain and macroeconomic challenges that are creating headwinds for our business. To combat these factors, we have and continue to take decisive actions, which are gaining traction, executing initiatives focused on pricing, footprint optimization, cost savings and cash flow management. But these actions alone are not sufficient. Our expanded annual strategic review process will thoroughly explore a comprehensive range of opportunities to fully unlock and maximize value. We look forward to sharing the results of that strategic review with you and outlining the next steps in our value creation journey. Thank you again for your time today. Operator?

This concludes Luxfer’s Q3 2023 Earnings Call. A recording of this conference will be available in about two hours. A link to the recording of this webcast will be available on the Luxfer website at www.luxfer.com.