Hello, and welcome, everyone, joining today's Matthews International Fourth Quarter and Year-End Fiscal 2025 Financial Results. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] It is now my pleasure to turn the meeting over to Chief Financial Officer, Steve Nicola. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Nikki, and good morning. I'm Steve Nicola, Chief Financial Officer of Matthews. And with me today is Joe Bartolacci, our company's President and Chief Executive Officer; and Dan Stopar, our incoming Chief Financial Officer, beginning December 1. Before we start, I would like to remind you that our earnings release was posted on the company's website, www.matw.com, in the Investors section last night. The presentation for our call can also be accessed in the Investors section of the website under Presentations. Any forward-looking statements in connection with this discussion are being made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Factors that could cause the company's results to differ from those discussed today are set forth in the company's annual report on Form 10-K and other public filings with the SEC. In addition, we will be discussing non-GAAP financial metrics and encourage you to read our disclosures and reconciliation tables carefully as you consider these metrics. In connection with any forward-looking statements and non-GAAP financial information, please read the disclaimer included in today's presentation materials located on our website. Now I will turn the call over to Joe.

Thank you, Steve. Good morning. Thanks for joining us today to discuss the financial results for Matthews fiscal 2025 fourth quarter and 2025 year-end. Before sharing our solid results for the fourth quarter, I want to take a step back on our strategic progress. Earlier this year, we laid out several objectives: simplify our corporate structure, expand our work with -- in higher growth and higher-margin businesses and reduce our costs. I am proud to say that we have taken decisive actions throughout the year to deliver against each of those goals. I would like to spend a few minutes elaborating on our progress across each of these buckets. The divestiture of SGK and Warehouse Automation at compelling valuations have clearly simplified our story. In selling SGK, we retained a 40% stake in the new company, Propelis, that is outperforming expectations. Thus, we expect to reap a significant benefit when we exit this business, which is likely over the next 18 to 24 months. From a commercial perspective, the market response to Propelis has been very favorable. Propelis is now operating at an EBITDA run rate significantly higher than the $100 million that was assumed at the time the deal was closed. After a period of consolidation post COVID, CPGs are realizing the need to innovate in order to strengthen their brands. Thus, the Propelis core packaging business is having a strong performance. Plus, given our new scale, we are seeing opportunities on the marketing side of the business that neither business had the scale to deliver on before the transaction. Note that over $50 million of synergies are yet to be executed with a significant portion of those synergies to be delivered next year. We expect this to be a highly favorable transaction. Once we exit, we will have…

Thank you, Joe. Before starting the financial review, I want to give a reminder on the financial reporting with respect to SGK. As you are aware, the divestiture of SGK closed on May 1, 2025, and as such, our consolidated financial information reflects the financial results of the SGK business through the closing date. As part of the transaction, the company received a 40% ownership interest in the newly formed entity, Propelis Group. Please note that as a result of the integration process of Propelis Group and transition to its own stand-alone reporting systems, our 40% portion of the financial results of Propelis will be reported on a 1-quarter lag. As a result, except as otherwise noted, the consolidated financial information discussed today only includes our 40% interest in the financial results of Propelis for the months of May and June 2025. Similarly, our financial statements to be included in the annual report on Form 10-K will only reflect our portion of the results of Propelis for May and June 2025. However, in Joe's remarks in the press release yesterday, we provided our adjusted EBITDA results for fiscal 2025, inclusive of estimated Propelis results for July through September 2025 for your reference. Now let's begin the financial review with Slide 7. For the fiscal 2025 fourth quarter, the company reported a net loss of $27.5 million or $0.88 per share compared to $68.2 million or $2.21 per share a year ago. The change primarily reflected significant restructuring charges a year ago, including a goodwill write-down compared to litigation costs and other restructuring costs and asset write-downs for the current quarter. Consolidated sales for the fiscal 2025 fourth quarter were $319 million compared to $447 million a year ago. The decrease primarily reflected the divestiture of the SGK business on May…

[Operator Instructions] We'll take our first question from Colin Rusch with Oppenheimer.

Congratulations on the progress with the customers on the battery side. Can you talk a little bit about the opportunity set when you think about solid-state and ultracapacitors, given what we're seeing with data center power needs and power buffering. Are you seeing any incremental interest on the ultracapacitor side or changes in chemistry that may be more attuned to some of the stationary power application rather than the mobile applications?

Certainly, Colin, thank you. Good to talk to you. You know a lot more about the energy storage business than many of our investors do, and that's important because factually, you're absolutely correct. The reality is that our dry battery electrode technology applies far more than just the energy that goes into a vehicle, whether it's ultracapacitors who we're having multiple discussions with or whether it's for storage capacity for anything from data centers to anything else. The customer I referred to that is looking at a $50 million order next year is exactly that. It is storage. It is not for automobiles. So we're seeing increased interest. The technology is highly valuable and focused on any type of energy storage, and we're looking to expand upon that opportunity everywhere we look.

And then with the strategic review, you've been able to divest a number of businesses. You're potentially in a more flexible cash situation. How should we think about M&A and augmenting some of the technology portfolio that you guys have a really solid foundation with here as you look at some of these bigger opportunities starting to emerge in a more concrete way?

Well, right now, Colin, we're focused on reducing our debt, and we're going to get that in line. And we have a target here of coming at 2.5 or better when we look at our debt. The exit of SGK will clearly, clearly put us well below that target, and we're very comfortable being there. As I said in my comments, that will open up the opportunities for strategic initiatives. And whether it be on the energy side, whether it be on the memorialization side or the execution of our new printheads, we will look at it diligently and try to be prudent about that decision as we go forward. Imminently, though, we do not have anything on the table that we'd be focused on as we try to get out the door of what we do have. There's a lot on our plate right now, folks with 3 transition services agreements, divestitures happening, restructuring associated with that. We have enough on our plate right now to deal with. And I would say in the near term, we're focused solely on debt.

Our next question comes from Liam Burke with B. Riley Securities.

Joe, you called out a firm order, and then you also called quantified another potential order. You also quoted pipeline opportunities. Is it -- are your customers less reticent to start working with you even though the Tesla lawsuit has not been completely resolved yet?

I would say that they're less -- not less, reticent as much as they're more dependent on the market environments in which they operate. And when it comes to EV, there is overcapacity on the battery side. We are looking at a fairly significant opportunity, we believe, in the European market where one of our potential customers has had success and is looking at the building of a new factory over there. When we look at solid state, that's another completely different market, smaller volumes at this point in time, but higher -- let's call it, efficiency when it comes to the battery itself. As Colin mentioned earlier, included in there are some opportunities when we look at ultracapacitors, another form of energy storage. So I would tell you, Liam, they're not so much worried as much of that as they are in making sure they have market opportunities.

Fair enough. And on Memorialization, cremation, is that still -- how is that doing?

The business itself or the trend? The business itself is doing fine. We are -- as Steve mentioned in his comments, we sold our underperforming European business, which had been a drag for us for a while. We had shut down our -- many of you may know, we have a facility in Apopka, Florida. From an efficiency standpoint, we looked at opportunities on the West Coast to be able to support that market more locally. We have shut down that facility, integrating that also into Apopka. We still have room for improvement in the business, but it continues to operate at a pretty good rate.

We will move next with Dan Moore with CJS Securities.

This is Will, on for Dan. Can you provide an update on beta testing for the new Printhead solution? What are the key steps before you can commercialize it more broadly? And how should we think about the TAM for that product over the next 2 to 3 years?

So I mean, key steps is, it's in market. So we will start deliveries here in December. Recognize that we had literally 2 trade shows where our trade -- our booth was overwhelmed, both with competitors as well as with customers. Comments like this is finally an alternative to continuous inkjet. The 2D code thing that I mentioned on my call, getting GS1 certification is big, but we're still early in the process. So the steps that we are going through right now is we have limited chips, so we will begin that process of selling that, but it will be a limited amount. The market TAM that we're going after is over $2 billion. I don't need to have a lot of that TAM to be successful for this part of our business. So I'm looking forward to where this goes. And we'll continue to refine the yield that we're receiving on those -- the chips as we move forward. So multiple steps to really creating the value that this opportunity is for us.

And looking at the balance sheet, the $300 million 5-8 bonds aren't due for another 2 years. What are your options to call or refinance early if you were to choose to do so?

Well, we're in a call period right now that started October 1. And so that will last, obviously, through the end of the term of the bonds. So as you would expect with the proceeds that we're seeing from some of the divestitures not only the SGK divestiture that's closed, but the warehouse divestiture and the packaging and tooling that are pending. Looking at that 5 and 5-8 bond is something that is definitely on our radar in terms of evaluating the alternatives for it.

Our next question comes from Justin Bergner with Gabelli Funds.

Just to start, could you elaborate the solid-state opportunities for energy storage, which end markets are those primarily feeding?

So I'll give you an example. We're not going to name the names of the customer that we already -- that we received the order for. That is -- they have demonstrated the capacity for motorcycles as an example. But imagine anything from small appliances to larger vehicles. I think if you spoke to people that are highly focused on the energy space, they would expect solid state to be long term, solution for all batteries, but I think we're still a while away. At the end of the day, the application of solid-state better density, lighter weight, more safety, a faster charge, all the things that have been the challenges to adoption is addressed by solid state.

Okay. When you say there's excess capacity in the battery side as it relates to the automotive opportunity for energy storage, is what you're saying effectively that even though you have a better solution with the wet, I guess, capacity already installed, you need to see incremental capacity before customers come to you independent of the legal dynamics?

Well, clearly, as capacity expands and more importantly, as capacity localized, meaning whether it's produced in North America, right now, China has an overcapacity of battery production capabilities. But as both governments and clients demand localized support, that will change the demand for it as well. But depending on your projections on what battery needs will be over time, we're only scratching the surface of where total capacity for batteries needs to be. I mean, adoption rates are going to determine that. But if you believe what you hear, the trend towards electrification is only just beginning. It's just where we are today relative to adoption of EVs and other energy storage solutions that is EVs and other energy users like that, that our current capacity is overcapacity. So what I'm saying in my comment is not necessarily that there's -- we have to wait for expansion. We have to wait also for localization and also have to kind of deal with the fact that the economics of our solution are better. And as they amortize existing footprints, we can make an easier discussion about replacing their current technology with new technology.

And then just the certification for the new chip head -- product ID solution. What is the significance of that certification?

It's massive because GS1 -- if you think about -- I'll try to put it in the simplest terms. So when barcodes came out, you had multiple different readers and everybody had their own solutions. GS1 certification is the standardization so that there'll be one reader capability and one standard for adoption across. So now we all have one individual -- one standardized reader that allows many manufacturers to produce it. Our equipment today is the only equipment that can -- that allows that reader to read at speeds that allow them to remain at current levels. When you walk into a Walmart, I'll give you an example. When you walk into a Walmart, you can scan self-service yourself, and it doesn't really matter to you how long that reader takes to read that barcode. But when you have what they call professional scanners, I mean those are the people standing behind the cash register and actually taking your orders and running them through. If you notice how fast they swipe it, that is critical for efficiency at a retailer. The retailers demand that standard in order to be effective. Our technology, because of our ability to print in multiple sizes, and that's the biggest, we get -- we can produce at multiple size prints with highly, highly defined marks are the only ones that can operate at the speed. So you can swipe just as fast as you do with a barcode.

Got you. All right. And then one last cleanup question, if I may. So you mentioned $160 million net proceeds from Warehouse Automation and $30 million of net proceeds from European packaging and tooling, both to close in the first quarter. Just how much liability reduction should we also factor in whether it's pension or securitized receivables on top of that $160 million and $30 million?

Yes. With respect to the packaging and tooling business, Justin, that number is going to be close to $10 million. And with respect to the Warehouse Automation business, that's a little less than $10 million. That's the difference between the $230 million and the $223 million.

Yes. So it's already included in our calculation. The net of $160 million is what we expect to apply.

Okay. So the $160 million would be the debt reduction, but then there would be, I guess, the $7 million or a little bit less than $10 million of liability reduction on top of that?

That's right. So again, if I just quickly run through the math, $230 million was the total value, about $7 million of assumed liabilities. So the cash portion was $223 million. And then there's a significant tax bite out of that plus transaction fees and some other costs to take it down to $160 million.

At this time, there are no further questions in queue. I will now turn the meeting back to Mr. Nicola for final comments.

Okay. Thank you very much. I'm going to take this off of Steve for a second before he kind of closes out here. For those of you that have been fortunate enough to hear Mr. Nicola speak for the last 20-odd years, many of you know that Steve has announced his retirement effective here December 1. On behalf of Matthews International Corporation, its Board of Directors and its shareholders, I want to thank Steve for his over 25 years of service to this corporation and to the shareholders and wish him well in his retirement. So I'll turn it over to Steve to close it, but then say goodbye.

All right. Thank you, Joe, and thank you, everyone, for listening and your support all these years. So have a wonderful day and a great weekend. Take care.

Thank you. And this brings us to the end of today's meeting. We appreciate your time and participation. You may now disconnect.