Albany International Corp. (NYSE:AIN) Q2 2024 Results Conference Call August 7, 2024 9:00 AM ET

Company Participants

JC Chetnani - VP, IR
Gunnar Kleveland - President & CEO
Rob Starr - CFO & Treasurer

Conference Call Participants

Peter Arment - Baird
Pete Skibitski - Alembic Global
Jordan Lyonnais - Bank of America
Jack Ayers - TD Cowen
Michael Ciarmoli - Truist Securities

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Albany International Corp. Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to turn the conference over to JC Chetnani, VP IR and Treasurer. Please go ahead.

JC Chetnani

Thank you, Debbie, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Albany International's Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder for those listening on the call, please refer to our press release issued last night detailing our quarterly financial results. Contained in the text of the release is the 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. Today, we will make statements that are forward-looking and 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 August 6, 2024, and as well as our SEC filings, including our 10-K.

Now I will turn the call over to Gunnar Kleveland, our President and CEO, who will provide opening remarks. Gunnar?

Gunnar Kleveland

Thank you, JC. Good morning, and welcome, everyone. Thank you for joining our second quarter earnings call. I will provide an overview of our business performance. Rob will later discuss our financial results in detail.

Overall, we had another good quarter as our businesses delivered strong results and are responding well to their industry challenges. We continue to deliver strong profitability and have further strengthened our balance sheet. Free cash flow was strong with $64 million generated in the second quarter. Machine Clothing revenues at $194 million grew year-over-year driven by our Heimbach acquisition, slightly offset by lower organic demand, primarily in Europe and North America.

Our global order backlog remains stable. We continue to make progress with the integration of Heimbach. Our performance has improved sequentially quarter-over-quarter with a 220 basis point expansion in Machine Clothing. Adjusted EBITDA margins and we took further action on our global footprint with the consolidation of 2 U.K. facilities.