Westlake Corporation (NYSE:WLK) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript February 20, 2024 11:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Jeff Holy - VP & Treasurer
Albert Chao - President and CEO
Steve Bender - EVP and CFO
Conference Call Participants
Patrick Cunningham - Citi
Frank Mitsch - Fermium Research
Duffy Fischer - Goldman Sachs
Salvator Tiano - Bank of America
Mike Leithead - Barclays
Arun Viswanathan - RBC Capital Markets
Josh Spector - UBS
Matthew Blair - TPH
Jeff Zekauskas - JPMorgan
Turner Hinrichs - Morgan Stanley
Kevin McCarthy - Vertical Research Partners
David Begleiter - Deutsche Bank
Hassan Ahmed - Alembic Global Advisors
Operator
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Westlake Corporation Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Earnings Conference Call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's remarks, you will be invited to participate in a question-and-answer session. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, this conference is being recorded today, February 20, 2024. I would now like to turn the call over to today's host, Jeff Holy, Westlake's Vice President and Treasurer. Sir, you may begin.
Jeff Holy
Thank you, Jonathan. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Westlake Corporation conference call to discuss our fourth quarter and full year results for 2023. I'm joined today by Albert Chao, our President and CEO, Steve Bender, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and other members of our management team.
During the call, we will refer to our two reporting segments, Performance and Essential Materials, which we refer to as PEM or Materials, and Housing and Infrastructure Products, which we refer to as HIP or Products. Today's conference call will begin with Albert, who will open with a few comments regarding Westlake's performance. Steve will then discuss our financial and operating results, after which, Albert will add a few concluding comments, and we'll open the call to questions.
During the fourth quarter of 2023, we recorded a noncash impairment charge of $475 million related to the company's epoxy business, as well as a $150 million charge to fully resolve certain liability claims that are currently not being covered by certain of our excess insurance carriers. We refer to these two charges as identified items in our earnings release and on this conference call. References to income from operations, EBITDA, net income and earnings per share on this call exclude the financial impact of the identified items. As such, comments made on this call will be in regard to our underlying business results using these non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP financial measures is provided in our earnings release, which is available in the Investor Relations section of our website.