Westlake Corporation (WLK) Q1 2026 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by and welcome to the Westlake Corporation first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's remark, you'll be invited to participate in a question and answer session. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, this conference is being recorded today, May 5, 2026. I would like to turn over the call to today's host, Jeff Holey, Westlake's Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer. Sir, you may begin. Thank you, Crystal. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Westlake Corporation conference call to discuss our first quarter 2026 results. I'm joined today by Albert Chao, our Executive Chairman. John Mark Gilson, 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 John Mark, who will open with a few comments regarding Westlake's first quarter performance. Steve will then discuss our financial and operating results, after which John Mark will add a few concluding comments, and we'll open the call up to questions. During the first quarter of 2026, we agreed to pay $67 million to settle certain legal claims in our pipe and fittings business. We also incurred expenses of $18 million related to the shutdown of facilities undertaken last year. We refer to these expense items, which in aggregate were $85 million, as the identified items in our earnings release and on this conference call. Reference...