Thank you for standing by. My name is Cass and I will be your operator for today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the first quarter 2026 Albany International Corp earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during that time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. if you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Karen Blomquist, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Albany International's first quarter 2026 earnings call. As a reminder for those listening on the call, please refer to our press release issued this morning detailing our quarterly financial results. Contained in the text of the release is a notice regarding our forward-looking statements and the use of certain non-GAAP financial measures and their reconciliation to GAAP. For the purposes of this conference call, those same statements apply to our verbal remarks this morning. Additionally, our remarks today may reference our earnings presentation, which is available on the industrial relations section of our website, albint.com. Today, we will make statements that are forward-looking contain a number of risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from those expressed or implied. For a full discussion of these risks and uncertainties, please refer to both our earnings release of April 30, 2026, as well as our FCC filings, including our 10Q and our 10K. Now, I'll turn the call over to Gunnar Cleveland, our president and CEO, who will provide opening remarks. Gunnar?

Thank you, Karen. Good morning and welcome, everyone. Thank you for joining our first quarter earnings call. We entered 2026 as a more focused and disciplined organization with a clear strategy centered on our core strengths. Our culture begins with caring for our people, and it was an honor to recently have our engineered composite segment recognized as one of America's safest companies. Safety is a priority at Albany and is embedded in how we design processes and operate each day. And a strong safety culture translates to a strong quality culture. This operational philosophy is also manifested in our outstanding on-time delivery performance. Our focus on safety, quality, and operational excellence creates a solid foundation for our reliable operations while our value proposition remains grounded in our shared expertise in industrial weaving and material science which connects our two businesses and differentiates us in the markets we serve. I'd like to take a minute to address the conflict in the Middle East. We're continuously monitoring and working closely with our suppliers and customers and to date we have not seen any impact and have made only slight adjustment to delivery routes. Raw materials are generally protected by either long-term contracts or customer-directed contracts. We will continue to monitor and work to minimize any supply chain risk. At the same time, we're seeing increased demand on our weapons programs and are maximizing production on key programs. In machine clothing, the team did an outstanding job taking corrective actions to make up the downtime of a machine malfunction, and we expect death recovery to be completed in the back half of the year. More broadly, demand conditions across our end markets stabilized in the first quarter. In engineered composites, our focus remains on refining our operating model and prioritizing higher value-add applications, particularly within our advanced weaving technologies, including 3D weaving, braiding, winding, and resin transfer molding that serve end markets such as commercial and defense propulsion systems, missile production, and space exploration. We're seeing volume increase across key programs, reflecting both higher production rates and the benefit of the actions we have taken over the past 12 months. Importantly, we're winning new business with new and existing customers, and demand remains strong across defense platforms, and the lead production continues to increase. Our current pipeline of new business opportunities remains robust and continues to expand as we focus on new applications where our expertise and products offer greater strengths and lighter weight solutions. We believe the actions we have taken and the trends we see across both segments position us well to drive strong free cash generation and build on the baseline we established exiting 2025. This provides us with the flexibility to continue allocating capital in a balanced and disciplined manner, including reinvesting in the business to support long-term growth while also returning cash to shareholders. Turning to the quarter, we're off a solid start to 2026 with revenue of $311 million, up 7.8% year-over-year, which translated to adjusted EBITDA of $48 million. dollars. In machine clothing, revenue for the quarter was $166 million and came in ahead of our expectations across all regions, including North America, Europe, and China. Despite the recent stabilization in China and improved order rates, which are positive developments, visibility beyond the near term remains limited. As we previously disclosed, at the start of the first quarter, we experienced an equipment failure at one of our facilities, and I'm pleased to report that we were able to recover more of the lost production related to the unplanned downtime than we initially anticipated in the first quarter. Assuming the equipment continues to operate as expected, we believe we are well positioned to recover the remaining lost volume by the end of the year. We are actively managing this situation and are relocating a machine from a close facility to have a long-term solution in place by year end. Adjusted EBITDA margin for MC was 25.9%. On a constant currency, margins were stable, driven by a meaningful improvement across Europe as we continue to realize the benefits of integration activities. Turning to engineered composites, revenue for a quarter was $145 million compared to $114 million in the prior year. The increase was driven by broad-based growth across our programs with incremental contribution from S35, Nittal Systems, LEAP, 787, and the CS33K. Segment-adjusted EBITDA was $17 million, or 11.7% of sales, compared to $15 million or 13.5% of sales in the prior year. The increase in EBITDA reflects higher overall volume, while the margins in line with expectations were driven by mix, primarily the impact of CH63K-AFT program revenue, which is now booked at zero margin following the actions taken in the third quarter of 2025. In new business developments, we're excited to announce our new contract with Pratt & Whitney for composite engine components for their GEAR turbofan. The turbofan relies extensively on advanced composite materials to achieve its fuel efficiency, noise reduction, and weight targets, which strongly leverages AEC's strengths in high-performance composite structures. For both JASM and LORASM missiles, we have been requested by our customer to increase production, bringing output to the highest level achievable within our current capabilities, including through the use of Overtime. Turning to the strategic review of the Amelia Earhart facility in Salt Lake City, which houses the CSU-CGK program, we continue to make progress and have completed the standalone analysis with PWC. While it is still too early in the process for us to share any conclusions, we remain on schedule and look forward to providing an update as we move towards the resolution. As we look ahead, our priorities remain clear. Discipline execution, continued progress across both segments, and driving improved profitability and cash generation. In machine clothing, we saw stabilization in key markets and remained focused on execution and margin recovery. In engineered composites, we're scaling the business, refining our operating model, and prioritizing higher-value application to support long-term growth and margin expansion. We believe Albany is well-positioned to deliver sustainable value for our customers and shareholders, supported by our differentiated capabilities and a more focused, disciplined approach. I would like to thank our employees for their continued dedication, as well as our customers, partners, and shareholders for their ongoing support. With that, I will turn the call over to Will to review the financial results in more detail.

Thank you, Zinar, and good morning. Before turning to the financials, I would like to remind you that a reconciliation of gap to non-gap measures discussed today can be found in this morning's press release. First quarter revenue was $311.3 million, representing growth of 7.8% year over year. This increase was driven primarily by high volumes in engineer composites as key programs continue to ramp, partially offset by lower volumes in machine clothing, particularly in China. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $48.2 million compared to $55.7 million in the prior year, reflecting a margin of 15.5%. The year-over-year decline in margin was primarily driven by a higher mix of revenue from engineered composites, which carry structurally lower margins, as well as lower volumes in machine clothing and the impacts of foreign exchange. In machine clothing, results reflect continuous softness in Asia markets, particularly in China, resulting in a modest year-over-year decline in revenue to $166 million, compared to $174.7 million in a prior year. Despite this headwind, underlining trends remain stable, and operational execution was solid. Adjusted EBITDA for the segment was $43 million, with a margin of 25.9%. The year-over-year decline was driven primarily by foreign exchange impacts and lower volume in Asia. On a constant currency basis, margins were stable overall, supported by efficiency initiatives and integration progress. In engineering deposits, performance was solid above our internal expectations. The revenue increased to $145.4 million from $114.1 million in the prior year. The growth was driven by higher volumes across multiple programs, including commercial aerospace platforms such as LEAP, as well as defense programs. The outperformance reflects both the timing of program ramps and strong execution, which enabled us to meet higher-than-anticipated demand in the quarter. Adjusted EBITDA for the segment was $16.9 million compared to $15.4 million last year. While margins declined to 11.7%, this reflects the impact of prior year items and mix, including zero margin revenues associated with actions taken on a CH53K AFP program in 2025. Growth profit for the quarter was $99.8 million, with a margin of 32.1%, compared to 33.4% in the prior year. The change reflects revenue mix with a greater contribution from engineered composites. Operating income was $25.4 million, representing a margin of 8.1%, compared to 9.8% last year. The decline was driven by higher non-recurring and restructuring expenses. Net interest expense increased to $5.5 million, reflecting higher borrowing costs. Other income was at a net benefit of $3.2 million, driven primarily by foreign currency and derivative impacts. The effective tax rate for the quarter was 33.1% compared to 26.6% in the prior year, largely due to the absence of favorable discreet items. Free cash flow was at a net use of $3.6 million compared to a net use of $13.5 million in the prior year period. The year-over-year improvement reflects timely customer collections. Capital expenditures totaled $9.3 million, focused on facility optimization and investments tied to key customer programs. R&D expense was $13 million, reflecting our continued commitment to innovation. We ended the quarter with $122.6 million in cash and $477 million in total debt, resulting in net debt of approximately $354 million, including revolver availability. We have approximately $446 million of available capital, providing flexibility to support ongoing investments and return capital to shareholders. Looking ahead, current trends support a stable outlook across both segments. In machine coding, we expect modest sequential improvement in volume in the second quarter following typical first quarter seasonality. Assuming no additional equipment downtime, we expect to recover the remainder of lost volume as the year progresses. In engineering composites, we expect continued growth supported by ongoing program reps across both commercial and defense platforms. For the second quarter, we expect consolidated revenue in the range of $335 million to $345 million. We anticipate adjusted EPS in the range of 70 cents to 80 cents and an effective tax rate of approximately 31.5%. For the full year in machine coding, we succeed to see stable demand in Europe and the Americas, and while China shows signs of stabilization, we still have limited visibility for the remainder of the year. In engineered composites, we expect continued growth driven by key platforms with margin levels normalizing relative to the prior year. Now I'd like to open a call up for questions.

Thank you. At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, please press star, followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. We ask to please limit to one question and one follow-up. We will pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. And your first question comes from the line of Peter Arment with Baird. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning, Gunnar and Will. Thanks for your time.

Hey, Gunnar, maybe you could just give us an update on Salt Lake and discussions around CH53K, what you can say about planned investiture or anything you could kind of highlight. I know it's obviously challenging given there's ongoing negotiations.

Yeah, Armand, I think that our performance out of our Salt Lake facility, as you can see with the performance in the first quarter, has been very, very good. We stay very close to our customer and continue to deliver both for our customer on the CS3CT program as well as all the other programs, as well as the warfighters. So that is the commitment that we have given through this process. The process of the strategic review is progressing to our schedule. We're in the process of finalizing the marketing material so that we can go more directly to the interested parties that have already contacted us and Guggenheim. So I would say, just like Will said, we are on schedule and we are staying connected with our customer throughout this process.

I appreciate that color. And if I could just ask a follow-up, unrelated on the MC business, could you just give us a little more color on the overcapacity issue in Asia? You know, the MC business has been such a resilient business, you know, over the years and obviously we've got different regions that it's in, but could you just give us a little more color on what's driving the overcapacity? Is it just economic activity or something specific?

Yeah, the investment in paper machines and new machines in China specifically has been very high in the last several years. And as you know, Peter, to run a paper machine profitably, it needs to run at high speeds. That's where we come in and we have the best belts for that, but they overproduced. And that overproduction, that's what we are uncertain about. How long does it take to get the paper back to a normal level so that production can pick up again? Then the other uncertainty is, is there too much production capability? in in China and is this a cycle that they're going to go through because we see new builds there the the positive that we're seeing there is on tissue we are we're seeing an increase in tissue and some of our process belts that are being used there continue to be in in favor so that's what we saw in the first quarter, the stabilization. We're taking a conservative outlook for the year in what's

happening in China. Thanks, Kenner. Again, if you would like to ask a question, press star and the number one on your telephone keypad. Thank you. I'm not showing any further questions in the queue. I will now turn it back over to Gunnar Cleveland for closing remarks.

Thank you, Kath. And thank you, everyone, for joining us on the call today. We appreciate your continued interest in Albany. Thank you and have a good day.

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.