Lincoln Electric Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:LECO) Q1 2022 Earnings Conference Call April 28, 2022 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Amanda Butler - VP, IR and Communications

Christopher Mapes - Chairman, President and CEO

Gabriel Bruno - CFO

Conference Call Participants

Bryan Blair - Oppenheimer

Mig Dobre - Baird

Dillon Cumming - Morgan Stanley

Steve Barger - KeyBanc Capital Markets

Adam Farley - Stifel

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the Lincoln Electric First Quarter 2022 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode and this call is being recorded.

It is my pleasure to introduce your host, Amanda Butler, Vice President of Investor Relations and Communications. Thank you. You may begin.

Amanda Butler

Thank you, Po [ph], and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Lincoln Electric's first quarter 2022 conference call. We released our financial results earlier today and you can find our release as an attachment to this call's slide presentation as well as on the Lincoln Electric website at lincolnelectric.com in the Investor Relations section.

And joining me on the call today is Chris Mapes, Lincoln's Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Gabe Bruno, our Chief Financial Officer. Chris will begin the discussion with an overview of our results and business trends, Gabe will cover our first quarter financial performance in more detail, and finally, we'll pass the call to Chris to conclude with a review of updated assumptions for the year. Following our prepared remarks, we're happy to take your questions.

Before we start our discussion, please note that certain statements made during this call may be forward-looking and actual results may differ materially from our expectations due to a number of risk factors. A discussion of some of the risks and uncertainties that may affect our results are provided in our press release and in our SEC filings on Forms 10-K and 10-Q.

In addition, we discuss financial measures that do not conform to U.S. GAAP. A reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measure is found in the financial tables in our earnings release, which again is available in the Investor Relations section of our website at lincolnelectric.com.

And with that, I'll turn the call over to Chris Mapes. Chris?

Christopher Mapes

Thank you, Amanda. Good morning everyone. Turning to slide three, we're pleased to report record first quarter sales, profitability, earnings and return performance, executing on a strong start to 2022. Sales increased 22% to record $925 million led by 22% organic growth. While we expected pricing strength from prior pricing actions, volume performance on our welding segments accelerated, reinforcing continued recovery momentum in end markets and demand for our automation solutions.