Koppers Holdings, Inc. Investor Day 2026

Thanks, Steph. Good morning, everyone. I'm Quynh McGuire. I'm the Vice President of Investor Relations for Koppers, and welcome to today's 2026 Koppers Investor Day. We appreciate that you're joining us, and we look forward to sharing our story today. We've posted materials to the investor relations page of our website at www.koppers.com that will be referenced in today's discussion. This event is being broadcast live on our website, and a recording will be available for replay for one year. Before we begin, I'd like to note that today's discussion will include forward-looking statements. Certain comments made today may be characterized as forward-looking statements as defined under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements involve a number of assumptions, risks, and uncertainties, including risks described in the cautionary statement included in our presentation and in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In light of the significant uncertainties inherent in the forward-looking statements included in the company's comments, you should not regard the inclusion of such information as a representation that our objectives, plans, and projected results will be achieved. The company's actual results, performance, or achievements may differ materially from those expressed in or implied by such forward-looking statements. The company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made during today's discussion. References may also be made to certain non-GAAP financial measures. The company's presentation, which is available on our website, contains reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures. I'll now turn the discussion over to Leroy, our CEO of Koppers.

Okay, fantastic. Thank you, Quynh. Appreciate that. I want to start off by welcoming everybody that's in the room here today, as well as those who have decided to join us virtually to Koppers' 2026 Investor Day. For those I haven't met, I'm Leroy Ball, CEO and Board Chair of Koppers, and I recently enjoyed my 16-year anniversary with Koppers, having joined the company in September of 2010, as first the Chief Financial Officer before stepping into the role of CEO in January of 2015. As we gather here today in mid-September at the start of a new college and professional football season, I'm reminded that a few things that capture the power of hope quite like the beginning of a new season. Every team starts with a clean slate and a renewed belief in what might be possible. Yes, dare I say it, even Cleveland Browns.

I hope we don't have any Browns fans in the audience here today, but there's hope that the lessons learned from past setbacks have made us wiser and stronger and hope that the countless hours of preparation, sacrifice, and hard work will pay dividends when the moment of truth arrives. And hope that this could be the season when all that effort, discipline, and perseverance finally come together to achieve something extraordinary. That's what makes the start of a new season so exciting, right? As I step back and I think about how the hope and excitement of a new season correlates to Koppers, I can't help but think that the same sense of possibility applies to us. We've learned from our challenges, we've strengthened our capabilities, and we've continued to invest in the future.

Like every team taking the field this fall, we have every reason to believe that the work that we put in can translate into something special in the season ahead. Today you will hear from several members of our leadership team who will share important updates on our company, the progress we have made during what I would characterize as our preseason here in 2026, and our plans to achieve higher levels of performance in 2027 and 2028. We have laid the foundation, we put in the preparation, and now we are focused on converting that preparation into sustained execution that translates into superior results as we enter this next phase of our strategy. Before we look ahead, however, I would like to begin with a brief overview of Koppers for those who may be newer to our story. Koppers has evolved significantly over time.

In 2014, we began transforming from a legacy carbon materials company and railroad company into a wood preservation technology leader through a series of strategic acquisitions. These include what are now the cornerstone of our growth strategy, Performance Chemicals, or what we refer to in shorthand as our PC business, and Utility and Industrial Products, or UIP. Meanwhile, our two legacy businesses, Railroad Products and Services, also known as RPS, and Carbon Materials and Chemicals, or CMC, have been asked to step back in prominence to play a different role in our go-forward strategy. They still remain an important part of our value creation story. You will be hearing multiple references to these names and acronyms throughout this morning. Today, our 1,800 team members around the world provide wood preservation technologies, carbon compounds, and services that support critical infrastructure.

Guided by safety and sustainability, we help enable the movement of goods, the delivery of power and connectivity, and the creation of outdoor living spaces. Our products often operate behind the scenes, but their impact is everywhere. They help produce the aluminum that goes into the cars we drive and the airplanes that we fly on. They protect the crossties that keep rail networks moving the goods that power our economy. They preserve the utility poles that deliver electricity and support the communications infrastructure connecting us to the digital world, and they protect the wood used in the decks, fences, docks, and outdoor spaces that enhance everyday life. Simply put, Koppers helps build and preserve the infrastructure that keeps the world moving, connected, and growing. With that perspective in mind, let us get things underway with a look at today's agenda on slide 2.

I am going to kick things off today with an overview of the company, which will include a summary of the portfolio transformation that has occurred during my time at the company, as well as an update on Catalyst, the enterprise-wide transformation of our operating model that we launched in 2025. Of course, I will get into the rationale behind our 2028 strategic plan. Next, Stephanie Apostolou, our Chief Legal and Strategy Officer, will discuss in greater depth how we are executing our strategy, which is designed to enhance value creation for our shareholders. She will then follow that up by moderating a discussion with our business leaders on the various initiatives that they are overseeing and their impact.

Eric Brenner, our Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, will then outline the financial framework supporting our strategy, including our path to 15% or higher adjusted EBITDA margins and $300 million of cumulative free cash flow through 2028. Then I will return to wrap up and open the floor up for Q&A. All right. Quynh has already gone over the safe harbor statement, but I do want to say that everything here today leads back to a single unifying theme. We believe that Koppers is well-positioned to accelerate performance, expand profitability, increase cash flow, and deliver meaningful value for shareholders for years to come. Here is how. Slide 4 captures the investment thesis for Koppers in a single page. We have reshaped the portfolio, we have completed much of the heavy investment, and we have installed a more disciplined operating model.

We are now positioned to convert that work into stronger margins, greater cash generation, and higher shareholder returns. Most recently, we launched Catalyst, our enterprise-wide operating model transformation. Catalyst is fundamentally changing how we drive performance improvement across the organization by bringing greater structure, discipline, accountability, and transparency to how we identify, prioritize, resource, execute, and measure improvement initiatives. As a result, we have already seen a meaningful step change in cash flow generation, reaching levels well beyond anything previously achieved in our history. At the same time, we have sharpened our capital allocation approach, directing discretionary investments toward the most attractive areas of our portfolio, particularly PC and UIP, while returning substantial capital to shareholders through dividends, share repurchases, and debt reduction.

Taken together, these actions are creating a stronger, more resilient, and more focused Koppers, and they are also establishing the foundation for what we believe will be the next phase of value creation, one that is characterized by stronger profitability, higher cash generation, disciplined capital deployment, and increased returns to our shareholder base. If we move to slide 5, I am going to show you what I mean. To start, Koppers begins from a position of strength as a market leader in critical end markets. The diversity in our end markets is a strength that is often undervalued as our business risk is spread across several distinct end markets. It is this diversification that helps moderate the effects of downturns or disruptions in any one particular end market. The vertical integration of our chemical and wood treatment business is another aspect of our model that is often misunderstood.

As others in the treating industry have dealt with quality issues, we have been able to bring our direct chemical expertise to the table to assure customers that we have experts in-house to address their concerns. I believe it has directly led to Koppers being the preferred supplier at several major customers. With most major investments behind us, we are primed for a breakout with a little market tailwind. But even if markets remain subdued, we have a model that can still generate cash at a rate that is top tier, with our cash flow yield comfortably in double digits at our current share price. Moving forward, each business uniquely contributes to Koppers' value creation strategy.

With RPS growth being limited as a pure repair and replacement business, it is all about optimizing our cost to serve by maximizing the utilization of our asset base in order to maintain our leading market share and generate cash to deploy to PC, UIP, and to shareholders. For CMC, the end goal of driving maximum cash flow is the same as RPS, but we will get there by better managing the inherent risk and volatility in the business that has experienced large swings in raw material costs over time and higher operating and capital costs for safety, environmental, and plant reliability. PC and UIP are positioned as our higher growth, higher margin, less capital-intensive businesses where we look to continue investing to earn greater market share that results in higher sales and increased profitability and cash.

As PC and UIP grow to make up a greater proportion of our top line, our consolidated margins and free cash flow will expand in turn. If we drill down another layer on slide 6, you can see more details on the four businesses across three segments, all of which will serve critical end markets or support essential infrastructure. Together, they provide a balanced platform for managing risk, strengthening our market position and our treating business, and supporting a more diversified earnings base that smooths out the peaks and valleys of the economic cycle. As an example, our Performance Chemicals business is the recognized market leader in developing treatment solutions for the wood preservation industry, holding 139 patents, including the patent for MicroPro, the current industry standard for residential lumber treatment.