Welcome to Intertape Polymer Group 2021 Annual Meeting. We are pleased to host the meeting through this virtual meeting platform, accessible to all our shareholders, regardless of physical location, and allowing them to participate, submit questions, and vote at this meeting. These are unprecedented times, and we have taken the approaches here in the best interest of our shareholders and all participants to permit everyone to participate in the meeting and maintain social distance. Following conclusion of the formal portion of this meeting, Greg Yull and I will answer relevant questions from shareholders. Where questions are of a similar nature, they will be organized by theme, and in the interest of everyone's time, I will not address the same or similar question twice. One answer should suffice. The meeting will now come to order. I will act as Chairman of the Meeting. With the consent of the meeting, I will ask Randi Booth, Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Intertape Polymer Group Inc., to act as Secretary of the meeting. Also, with the consent of the meeting, I will ask Bertrand Gély and Isabelle Vachon of AST Trust Company to act as Scrutineers with the respect to the shareholders present at this virtual meeting and the number of shares represented by their shareholders present at this virtual meeting or represented by proxy to compute the votes taken at this meeting and to report to me and to the secretary of the meeting thereof. Joining us today from the board and management are Robert Beil, Chris Cawston, Jane Craighead, Frank Di Tomaso, Robert Foster, Dahra Granovsky, George Koutroubis, Mary Pat Salomone, and Melbourne Yull. Most of you know Greg Yull, our Chief Executive Officer, and Jeffrey Crystal, our Chief Financial Officer. A few words about the procedure for this meeting. We will first conduct the official business of the meeting. Registered shareholders and duly appointed proxy holders have the opportunity to ask questions throughout the meeting by selecting the messaging icon on the online platform. As with any new technology, unexpected glitches may occur with these meetings and potentially to both your and my Internet connections. Our service providers for this platform are very experienced at running this type of meeting and will do their best to help us all out. I will pause for 15 to 20 seconds after asking if there are any discussions on any particular motion or asking for questions to take into account any latency we may experience over the Internet. Shareholders and proxy holders may address the meeting when there is a request to discuss a motion before the meeting. Please provide your questions to us as soon as you are logged in, and we will address each of them at the appropriate time during the meeting. A general question and answer period with respect to questions submitted that do not relate to an item on the agenda for business will take place after conclusion of the formal part of the meeting. There are a number of matters to be dealt with at this meeting. To expedite matters, I have arranged for certain persons to make and second the various motions. Based on proxy forms submitted prior to the meeting, I can report that all matters to be considered today have the requisite level of approval for adoption. We will conduct the votes on all the matters before us by poll using the online platform. In terms of polling, every shareholder entitled to vote on the matter has one vote in respect of each share entitled to be voted on the matter and held by the shareholder. The poll will be open for all motions and resolutions at the same time. We will allow you to choose to vote on each motion and resolution immediately or to wait until the conclusion of discussions prior to the casting of your vote. Proxy votes received prior to the meeting will be displayed. Once discussion on all items of business have concluded, I will give you a minute to record your vote on the online platform in case you have not already done so, and then declare voting closed on all resolutions. Randi Booth, our Corporate Secretary, will announce the preliminary results of voting on each resolution prior to the close of the formal portion of the meeting, with final results to be communicated via press release after the meeting. I now declare the polls open on all resolutions. The scrutineers report shows that there are at least 40,547,488 shares that are represented in person or by proxy at this meeting, being approximately 68.69% of the outstanding voting shares and therefore a quorum is present. I declare the meeting to be regularly constituted. The notice calling this meeting, together with the proxy form, voting instructions form, management information circular, and related documents have been made available to the corporation shareholder. With the consent of the meeting, we will dispose with the reading of the notice. Also with the consent of the meeting, we will dispose with the reading of the minutes of the last meeting of shareholders held on May 13th, 2020. I direct that minutes of the last meeting of shareholders be taken as read and approved, and that they be signed as being correct. The first item of business is the presentation of the annual report and the financial statements and the auditor's report thereon. I now present to the meeting the annual report, consolidated statements of the corporation for the fiscal year ended December 31st, 2020, and the auditor's report. Copies of such documents have been available to shareholders. It is now in order to proceed with the election of directors. I declare the meeting open for nomination and ask AST teams to present her nominations. I nominate Robert N. Beil, Chris Cawston, Jane Craighead, Frank Di Tomaso, Robert J. Foster, Dahra Granovsky, James Pantelidis, George J. Koutroubis, Mary Pat Salomone, Gregory A.C. Yull, and Melbourne S. Yull as Directors of the Corporation to hold office until the next annual meeting of shareholders or until their successors are elected or appointed. I second the motion. Given that no motions have been submitted in advance for candidates for election to the board under Intertape's advance notice bylaw, I declare the nominations closed. I move that the persons named as nominees each be elected as Directors of the Corporation to hold office until the next annual meeting of shareholders or until their successors are elected or appointed. I second the motion. Are there any questions regarding this motion? Mr. Chair, there are no questions at this time. Since no questions have been received with respect to this matter, we will now vote. I note that this vote is governed by Intertape's majority voting policy for the election of directors. If you have already voted using the proxy form sent to all shareholders, or if you have already voted at the opening of the polls earlier, then no further action is required on your part. If you are a registered shareholder or proxy holder and have not voted by proxy or have not voted at the opening of the polls earlier, please record your vote now. This instruction applies for all matters to be voted on upon this meeting. The next item of business is the appointment of the Corporation's Auditors. I ask AST team to present her motion. I move that the motion regarding the appointment of the auditors, Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton LLP, and the fixing of their remuneration, as set out on pages eight and nine of the circular, be approved. I second the motion. Are there any questions regarding this matter? Mr. Chair, there are no questions at this time. Since no questions have been received with respect to this matter, we will now vote. The next item of business is an advisory, non-binding vote on the corporation's approach to executive compensation. I ask AST team to present her motion. I move that the resolution regarding the approach to compensation, as set out on page 87 of the circular, be approved. I second the motion. Are there any questions regarding this matter? Mr. Chair, there are no questions at this time. Since no questions have been received with respect to this matter, we will now vote. For those of you who have not already voted on all of the resolutions put forward, please do so as I will shortly close the polls. It is now 12:10, and I will close the polls, all the polls on all resolutions at 12:11. The polls are now closed. I call upon the Secretary of the Meeting to present the results of the vote on the election of Directors. Mr. Chairman, according to the results received from the scrutineers, each of the 11 nominees for election of Director has received a vote of at least 92.51% of all shares voted in favor of their election. I declare that the 11 nominees have been elected as Directors of the Corporation to hold office until the next annual meeting of shareholders or until their successors are elected or appointed. I call upon the secretary of the meeting to present the results of the vote on the appointment of the Corporation's Auditor. Mr. Chairman, according to the results received from the Scrutineers, over 94.96% of the votes were cast in favor of the motion. I declare that the motion is carried and that Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton LLP have been duly appointed Auditor of the Corporation until the next annual meeting of shareholders. I call upon the secretary of the meeting to present the results of the vote on the corporation's approach to executive compensation. Mr. Chairman, according to the results received from the Scrutineers, over 96.46% of the votes were cast in favor of the motion. I declare that the motion is carried and the resolution regarding the corporation's approach to compensation, as set out on page 87 of the circular, is approved. If there are no further business, I will ask AST team to present a motion to terminate the meeting. I move that the meeting be terminated. I second the motion. I declare that the meeting is terminated. Thank you for attending today and for your support of Intertape Polymer Group. I will now ask Greg Yull to address the meeting. Thanks, James. This morning, we announced our 2021 first quarter results and held our conference call. For a comprehensive update of where we stand today, I suggest you listen to the webcast and review those materials. For our meeting this afternoon, I'll be brief. What can I say about the past year that wouldn't be considered an understatement? How we coped through the pandemic individually as well as together, as a company and a community. The events that transpired last summer, and frankly, both before and since that point, are bringing more awareness to social justice and inequality issues, which is a great thing. Lastly, as it relates to IPG, our financial performance was truly tremendous, but it wasn't even the star of the show. I could not be prouder of how our employees have performed since the onset of the pandemic in March of last year. The team managed a great deal of uncertainty. Difficult decisions were made. Through it all, our employees demonstrated professionalism to our customers, our suppliers, and most importantly, to one another. Their emphasis on working safely and servicing our customers ensured an uninterrupted supply of the essential products we produce to end users. We wouldn't be where we are today without this team. Let me be clear, we are in a great position in our market. Our business is structurally different than it was five years ago. It didn't all happen in 2020, but we started to see the needle-moving benefits in 2020 from the track record of execution that we have laid down. We deployed significant CapEx in 2017 and 2018 into our highest growth categories, which is now driving accretive growth. Our growth in e-commerce has diversified our business and provided us with access to a high-growth market, where we are growing with customers around the globe. We made strategic acquisitions that strengthened our product bundle, provided consolidation opportunities, and offered the ability to vertically integrate our supply chain to capture value from multiple points. We improved our capital structure and prioritized debt repayment to a point where our total leverage ratio is now 2.3 x. We've managed through this first year of the pandemic and come out of 2020 stronger, with improved margin profile and having delivered strong free cash flow. We have managed the recent increase in raw material prices and effectively covered the spread on a dollar contribution basis between selling prices and raw materials and freight. Looking ahead, in 2021, we are investing in high return, near-term capacity expansion projects in our highest growth categories to keep pace with demand. Why are we investing in production expansion? Demand is driving growth across all of our major product categories as we emerge from the pandemic. The composition and strength of our product bundle positions us to benefit from the changes in consumer behavior as e-commerce gains more and more market share from brick-and-mortar retail, as well as to benefit from the broader economic recovery in more industrial markets like building construction, general manufacturing, and transportation. Earlier this summer, we will publish our Third Annual Sustainability Repor t. It expands on the progress that we've made by increasing our disclosure on how we manage the business. We have invested in sustainability, certified products, attracting talent to lead our initiative, and establishing a new subcommittee of the board to oversee our progress. We see sustainability as an important long-term growth driver for the business. The diversity of both our end markets and product offerings, as well as the essential nature of our products, have been core to the underlying performance of the business. We have made a series of investments to build a world-class, low-cost manufacturing base that can compete effectively in any market cycle. We are focused on executing our strategy to deliver for our customers, end users, and shareholders, building a global leader in packaging and protective packaging solutions. Thank you for joining us today, and we'll now open up the meeting to questions from registered shareholders. Mr. Chair, there are no questions at this time. Thank you for attending today. We hope to see you next year in person. Please stay healthy and safe.
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