Avient Corporation (AVNT) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the PolyOne Corporation Annual Meeting. At this time, it is my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Bob Patterson, Chairman, President and CEO. Sir, the floor is yours.

Well, thank you, and good morning, everyone. I am Bob Patterson, PolyOne's Chairman, President and CEO. Welcome to our 2020 Annual Meeting of Shareholders, which I now call to order. Historically, we have held this meeting in-person at our offices in Cleveland. But given the coronavirus global pandemic, we, like many companies, are hosting this meeting virtually today. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all those who have been impacted during this challenging time, and we expressed our gratitude to all those contributing to the response and recovery. Joining me on the call today are certain members of management. They include Brad Richardson, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; Lisa Kunkle, our Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary; and Joe Di Salvo, Vice President of Treasury and Investor Relations. Also joining us on the call today are the Board nominees, which include me, Robert Abernathy, Rick Fearon, Greg Goff, Bill Jellison, Sandy Beach Lin, Dr. Kim Ann Mink; Kerry Preete, Dr. Patricia Verduin, Bill Wulfsohn. Their bios can be found in our proxy statement. In addition, participating in the meeting today, we have members from Ernst & Young LLP. They're Lynette Horrell, Laura Feller and Bryan Gacka, and they represent our public accounting firm, our independent auditors. Lisa Kunkle will now commence and conduct the formal business section of the meeting. At the end of the official items of business, we will answer questions submitted on the website related to the proposals. Lisa?

Thank you, Bob, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us at our 2020 Annual Meeting of Shareholders, which is being conducted via webcast. The agenda and rules of conduct for this meeting are posted on your webcast screen. Please note that this meeting is being recorded. However, participants are not permitted to use any recording device during the meeting. The polls are open and will remain open until the conclusion of the portion of the meeting where we consider the items of business. If you are a shareholder and have not yet submitted your vote and wish to vote on the proposals or if you wish to change your vote, you may vote your shares by clicking on the Voting button on your screen. You will need the control number on your proxy materials that you received in order to vote your shares online. I have for filing with the records of the meeting an affidavit by Broadridge Financial Solutions, stating that the notice of meeting, proxy statement and annual report were sent to all shareholders of record on or about March 30, 2020. And on March 17, the record date for this meeting, there were 92,380,548 shares issued and outstanding. More than 94% of these shares are present in-person or by proxy, and a quorum is present for the conducting of business. Please note that the minutes of the PolyOne Annual Meeting of Shareholders held last year are in my custody as secretary and are available for inspection by any shareholder. And Mike Solecki of Jones Day, has been appointed to serve at this meeting as inspector of election. We have 4 items of business on the agenda this morning. The matters to be voted upon today were fully described in the proxy statement for this meeting and are as follows. The first item is the election as directors for a 1-year term of the 10 nominees named in the proxy statement and just introduced by Bob Patterson. The second item is the consideration of an advisory vote on named executive officer compensation. The third item is to approve the PolyOne Corporation 2020 Equity and Incentive Compensation Plan. And the fourth item is to ratify the appointment of Ernst & Young as PolyOne's independent registered public accounting firm for fiscal year 2020. Most voting was completed by proxy prior to the meeting, and these votes have been tabulated by the inspector of election. At this time, the polls will be closed, and we will announce the voting results. The inspector of election has submitted a report on the preliminary results that includes the proxies received up through this morning. The final verified results will appear in our post meeting report. Each of the 10 nominees for election as director has been elected. The named executive officer compensation has been approved on an advisory basis. The PolyOne Corporation 2020 Equity and Incentive Compensation Plan has been approved. And the appointment of Ernst & Young as PolyOne's independent accounting firm has been ratified. The certificate of the inspector of election will be filed with the records of this meeting. Having completed the formal business of the meeting, I declare the meeting adjourned. We will now open the floor for questions. [Operator Instructions] Joe Di Salvo will read aloud any questions received. We will now pause to allow questions to be submitted.

Lisa, there are no questions.

Okay. As there are no questions, I'd like to thank you all for participating in our meeting today. And on behalf of all of PolyOne, we wish everyone safety and good health. Thank you.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and have a good day.