You are given a text that consists of multiple sentences. Your task is to perform abstractive summarization on this text. Use your understanding of the content to express the main ideas and crucial details in a shorter, coherent, and natural sounding text. 
Text: I know many of you have had the opportunity to speak with Amber, our new Director of Investor Relations.
Ken has a proven track record of leading high-performing teams and delivering results at several diverse global organizations.
We are excited to have Ken on our team.
Ken will then provide additional financial details on the third quarter and then I'll come back to discuss our outlook for the fourth quarter.
Our global team continues to demonstrate tremendous resiliency, adapting the changing market conditions and working hard to service the demands of our customers.
I'm incredibly proud of how our teams have worked together during these challenging times to achieve such strong financial results, delivering record quarterly EBIT, double-digit EBIT margins in all three businesses and record free cash flow.
All of this was accomplished while maintaining our focus on keeping each other as well as our customers and suppliers healthy and safe, ramping up manufacturing operations throughout the quarter to service increasing customer demand and supporting our communities as we continue to operate through this global health crisis.
Before discussing our markets and financial results in more detail, I'll start with safety.
As you know, safety is a top priority for our company.
Year-to-date 57% of our global facilities remain injury free.
In the third quarter, while we continue to perform at a high level with a recordable incident rate of 0.73, this result was above our third quarter 2019 performance and reminds us of the daily focus we must have on safety in order to achieve an injury free workplace.
Turning to financial results, our performance this quarter was better than what we outlined during our last earnings call as we saw customer demand continue to improve throughout the quarter in most of our end markets.
Revenues were $1.9 billion, up 1% compared with the same period last year and adjusted EBIT was $289 million, up 4%.
These results continue to demonstrate the strength of our company's market leading position, broad product offering and improved operating efficiencies to generate substantial free cash flow and deliver sustainable shareholder value.
On our last two calls, I've discussed four key areas, we have focused on this year to ensure the strength and continuity of our business.
First, keeping our employees and other key stakeholders healthy and safe, second, staying closely connected to our customers, our suppliers and our markets, third, rapidly adapting our businesses to near-term changes in market conditions, while remaining focused on positioning us for long-term success, and fourth, ensuring a strong balance sheet with access to capital as needed.
We have managed these four priorities well through the pandemic and expect to finish the year strong, while we position ourselves for 2021.
Overall, we continue to see our end markets recover during the quarter, but at different rate.
Our residential markets, especially, in the United States are being fueled by robust demand for new single-family housing as well as increased repair and remodeling investments as owners upgrade their homes and expand their living spaces.
Our commercial and industrial markets are also seeing improvements, but we continue to expect these to recover at a slower pace as we finished 2020.
In the third quarter, our Roofing business delivered revenue and earnings growth.
Increased storm activity and continued remodeling growth drove significantly higher market demand in the quarter.
While our manufacturing and supply chain teams worked hard to service the higher demand, our volumes trail the overall market growth due to limited inventory levels entering the quarter.
We remain focused on improving our service cycles and plan to continue running our facilities at full capacity to meet near-term demand, while ensuring we are positioned to support our customers and service expected market demand in 2021.
In composites, volumes also continue to improve throughout the quarter with revenues down just 2%.
Our focus on specific end markets, such as building and construction and wind energy combined with our local supply chain model in specific geographic regions, continues to pay dividends as we grow our volumes.
This along with our continued focus to drive operational efficiencies through manufacturing productivity and network optimization led to double-digit EBIT margins in the quarter.
And in insulation, revenues also finished down 2% with EBIT margins of 11% driven primarily by the additional growth we saw in our North American residential fiberglass business.
As I stated earlier, we continue to see the U.S. housing market strengthening with demand around 1.4 million units on a seasonally adjusted basis for the last three consecutive months.
Given the market demand we are currently seeing and that is forecasted for 2021, we have initiated work to restart our batt & roll insulation line at our Kansas City facility.
We would expect to have this line back up and running during the second quarter of next year.
Our focus in this business has been to operate the most efficient and most flexible manufacturing network, which positions us to quickly respond to changing market conditions to service our customers and deliver strong financial performance.
As we continue to adapt our operations to service the changing market environment, we remain focused on generating strong free cash flow and maintaining an investment grade balance sheet.
Last quarter, we discussed our focus on evaluating our liquidity needs, prioritizing deleveraging the balance sheet and maintaining our dividend.
In the third quarter, given our cash flow, we were able to execute on all these areas, finishing the quarter with more than $1.7 billion of liquidity.
Before turning it over to Ken to discuss our third quarter financial results in more detail, there is one other item I would like to cover.
She will become the Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs and General Counsel at Whirlpool Corporation.
During her five years with Owens Corning, Ava played a key role in shaping the direction of our company and driving our success.
We are currently exploring alternatives to identify her successor, and we'll make an announcement when our evaluation is complete.
First, let me say that I'm honored by the opportunity to join the OC team and to contribute to the future success of this company.
While only on day number 50, I'm already impressed with the resilience of the company and the dedication of our people.
Every day reaffirms for me that OC is truly global in scope and human in scale.
His leadership during this unprecedented time was crucial, and the company's financial strength is a testament to the quick and decisive actions taken by Prith and the leadership team.
Now turning to our results.
On Slide 5, the company's third quarter performance demonstrates the strength of Owens Corning and its ability to generate strong financial results in an improving, but still challenging environment.
The company has reduced its debt position and retains ample liquidity in light of the continued market uncertainty.
For the third quarter, we reported consolidated net sales of $1.9 billion, up approximately 1% over 2019.
In the quarter we saw solid revenue growth in our Roofing business while revenues in our Composites and Insulation businesses declined slightly.
Through the quarter, the residential recovery in the U.S. has continued to accelerate while commercial, industrial and non-U.S. residential markets have recovered at a slower pace as expected.
Adjusted EBIT for the third quarter of 2020 was $289 million, up $12 million compared to the prior year, highlighted by the continued recovery in residential end markets, primarily in the U.S. All three businesses achieved double-digit EBIT margins as a result of the company's market-leading positions and continued focus on our key operating priorities.
Net earnings attributable to Owens Corning for the third quarter of 2020 was $206 million, compared to $150 million in Q3 of 2019.
Adjusted earnings for the third quarter were $186 million or $1.70 per diluted share compared to $176 million or $1.60 per diluted share in Q3 2019.
Depreciation and amortization expense for the quarter was $120 million, up $8 million as compared to last year.
Our capital additions for the third quarter were $68 million, down $114 million versus 2019.
On Slide 6, you see adjusted items reconciling our third quarter 2020 adjusted EBIT of $289 million to our reported EBIT of $296 million.
During the third quarter, we recognized $7 million of gains on the sale of certain precious metals.
We've excluded these gains from our adjusted EBIT.
I would also like to highlight one item related to adjusted EPS.
We've adjusted out a $13 million non-cash income tax benefit related to regulations that were issued during the third quarter associated with U.S. corporate tax reform.
This adjustment is described in more detail in the notes of our 10-Q.
Slide 7 provides a high level overview of the changes in third quarter adjusted EBIT from 2019 to 2020.
Adjusted EBIT of $289 million increased $12 million as compared to the prior year.
Roofing EBIT increased by $53 million, insulation EBIT decreased by $11 million and composites EBIT decreased by $12 million.
General corporate expenses of $35 million were up $18 million versus last year, primarily due to higher incentive compensation expense associated with our improved financial outlook.
In addition, the timing of smaller one-time items more than offset benefits from our ongoing cost control initiatives.
Now I'll provide more details on each of the business results, beginning with Insulation on Slide 8.
Insulation sales for the third quarter were $681million down 2% from Q3 2019.
During the quarter, volume growth in North American residential fiberglass insulation was more than offset by lower selling prices for the overall segment and lower volumes and technical and other building insulation.
Volumes were down in technical and other due to the impacts of COVID-19, however, we saw some sequential improvement within the quarter.
EBIT for the third quarter was $73 million, down $11 million as compared to 2019.
The decline was driven by lower year-over-year selling prices, the negative impact of lower volumes in technical and other, and slightly higher delivery costs.
The benefit of higher sales volumes from the recovery in North American residential and favorable manufacturing performance, partially offset these impacts.
For the Insulation business overall, our sequential operating leverage from Q2 to Q3 was 48%, in line with the outlook provided on the Q2 call.
Sales in composites for the third quarter were $521 million, down 2% as compared to the prior year due to lower selling prices and unfavorable product mix.
Overall, sales volumes were flat year-over-year.
During the third quarter we saw certain regional markets began to recover and continued to see strong performance in our wind and roofing downstream specialty applications.
EBIT for the quarter was $55 million, down $12 million from the same period a year ago but up significantly from EBIT of $6 million reported in Q2 of 2020.
Our results continue to be impacted by COVID-19 demand variability.
The EBIT decline in the quarter was primarily driven by the negative impacts of production curtailments and lower selling prices, partially offset by favorable manufacturing performance.
Unfavorable customer mix and negative foreign currency translation were largely offset by lower selling, general and administrative expenses, input cost deflation and lower delivery costs.
Sequentially, from Q2 to Q3, we generated operating leverage of 40%.
Slide 10 provides an overview of our Roofing business.
Roofing sales for the quarter were $761 million, up 7% compared with Q3 of 2019, driven by 12% volume growth, which was partially offset by lower year-over-year selling prices and lower third-party asphalt sales.
In the third quarter, the U.S. asphalt shingle market grew significantly as compared to the prior year, primarily due to continued strength in repair and remodeling as well as increased storm activity.
EBIT for the quarter was $196 million, up $53 million from the prior year, producing 26% EBIT margins for the quarter.
The EBIT improvement was driven by higher sales volumes, input cost deflation and favorable manufacturing performance, partially offset by lower selling prices.
The current pricing environment has improved sequentially with the realization of our August increase, partially offsetting the year-over-year headwind from the lack of a spring price increase.
In addition, the benefit of asphalt cost deflation and slightly lower delivery cost more than offset the negative impact of lower year-over-year selling prices.
As a result, we maintained a favorable price-cost relationship in the quarter and cash contribution margins were solid, as we exited the quarter.
Turning to Slide 11, I'll discuss significant financial highlights for the third quarter of 2020.
We continue to manage our working capital balances, operating expenses and capital investments.
As a result of disciplined actions taken and the recovery of U.S. residential markets, our third quarter free cash flow reached a record quarterly level and our year-to-date free cash flow of $514 million was $232 million higher than the same period last year.
In the last earnings call, we highlighted the company's focus on strengthening liquidity, deleveraging the balance sheet and maintaining the dividend.
Based on our strong cash flow performance and deleveraging activities, we're operating within our target debt to adjusted EBITDA range of 2 to 3 times with ample liquidity.
I'd like to highlight our progress and evolution in this space.
During the quarter, we repaid the remaining $190 million that was drawn on our revolver at the end of the first quarter.
We also repaid the remaining $150 million balance of the term loan in advance of the February 2021 due date.
We maintained our dividend in the third quarter and have returned $159 million to shareholders so far this year through dividends and share repurchases.
As of September 30th, the company had liquidity of more than $1.7 billion, consisting of $647 million of cash and cash equivalents and nearly $1.1 billion of combined availability on our revolver and receivable securitization facilities.
We continue to focus on maintaining an investment grade balance sheet and are evaluating additional U.S. pension contributions in the range of $50 million to $100 million to further delever the balance sheet and improve our credit metrics.
Through our teamwork and consistent execution, we are positioned well to capitalize on both the near-term market recovery as well as longer-term secular trends.
However, we continue to face uncertainties with the pandemic and potential government responses and expect our financial performance to be impacted by market disruptions caused by COVID-19.
Broadly speaking, we have experienced a much faster recovery in our residential end markets, while commercial and industrial end markets are following at a slower pace.
Given this continued market performance, we would expect the company to deliver revenue and adjusted EBIT in the fourth quarter at or above last year, driven by our innovative product offering and broad market reach.
Based on trends we are seeing in October, I'll provide some additional details by business, starting with Insulation.
Within our North American residential business, we saw continued strengthening in U.S. new residential construction.
While lagged housing starts in Q4 will be higher versus prior year, we expect our volumes will be relatively flat based on current supply constraints and limited inventories.
In our technical and other building Insulation businesses, October volumes are trending down mid-single-digits versus prior year.
We expect year-over-year volumes will continue this trend through the fourth quarter based on a steady but slower recovery in commercial and industrial end markets.
Prices through the third quarter remained relatively stable in both our North American residential and our technical and other Insulation businesses, however, we continued to face a negative year-over-year price carryover.
While we are seeing positive traction from the mid-September residential insulation price increase, we don't expect to come positively yet in the fourth quarter.
As we move into 2021, we recently announced an 8% price increase for our U.S. residential Insulation business effective January 11th.
Overall for our Insulation business in the fourth quarter, we expect results to be slightly better than our EBIT in Q3.
In Roofing, third quarter industry shingle shipments were up about 25% with our volumes tracking below the market due to supply constraints driven by low inventories entering the quarter.
Our October shipments have started the quarter higher than prior year.
Based on current trends we could see year-over-year market volumes for the fourth quarter up a similar percentage to what we saw in the third quarter, depending on the timing of winter weather.
Given our third quarter volumes, we would expect to outperform the market in Q4 to service out-the-door demand and improve distributor inventory positions of our products.
In the fourth quarter, we should continue to see realization from our August price increase, offsetting the year-over-year headwind from the lack of a spring price increase.
However, we expect to see some continued pricing headwinds in the quarter driven by higher rebates versus 2019, due to this year's increased Roofing demand.
Deflation from expected seasonal declines of asphalt costs should result in another quarter of positive price cost mix.
Based on all these factors, roofing EBIT margins in the fourth quarter should remain strong, but could be slightly lower than Q3 due to seasonally lower shipping volumes.
In Composites, Q3 shipments improved throughout the quarter.
Given this trend, we could see volumes in Q4 similar to the first quarter with overall demand continuing to recover.
While transactional pricing remains relatively stable, we continue to expect a similar pricing headwind in Q4 as we realized in Q3.
As we work through our annual contract negotiations with customers, we've announced price increases in most of the regions we serve, which could impact 2021.
We remain committed to tightly managing our inventory levels, which will continue to impact our manufacturing performance in the fourth quarter as we curtail production to meet demand.
Similar to the last several years, we expect to see our overall fourth quarter revenue and EBIT performance similar to what we saw in the first quarter with an additional $5 million headwind related to rebuild costs.
With that view of our businesses, I'll discuss a few key enterprise focus areas.
We continue to closely manage our operating expenses and capital investments.
We expect corporate expenses for the company to be approximately $125 million, primarily due to additional incentive compensation tied to our earnings outlook.
And we expect capital investments to be at the high end of the range we previously provided of $250 million to $300 million.
In terms of our capital allocation, we remain committed to generating strong free cash flow into our target of returning at least 50% to investors over time.
So far this year we have returned $159 million through share repurchases and dividends and we'll pay our third quarter dividend of approximately $26 million next week.
In our last call, we said we would focus on deleveraging the balance sheet and maintaining our dividend, we increased liquidity to over $1.7 billion, paid down the revolver and term loan and paid our dividend in the quarter.
Going forward, we will continue to manage our liquidity needs, remaining focused on supporting the dividend, while evaluating additional pension contributions and potential share repurchases.
As I stated at the beginning of the call, our team continues to execute very well, adapting to changing market conditions while remaining committed to operating safely, servicing our customers and creating value for our shareholders.

user
compname reports q3 adjusted earnings per share $1.70.
q3 adjusted earnings per share $1.70.
q3 sales $1.9 billion versus refinitiv ibes estimate of $1.81 billion.
expects covid-19 pandemic will continue to create uncertainty in its end markets.

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