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: The global pandemic created unprecedented challenges for all of us, as we saw the virus impact our family and friends, our end markets and disrupt our daily lives on a scale we have never experienced before.
But throughout the year, our company faced into these challenges showing the resolve of our people, the strength of our market positions and the value of our enterprise.
As a team, our collective focus was and continues to be working together to keep each other healthy and safe, to adapt to changing market conditions and service our customers and to provide needed support to the communities where we work and live.
These efforts are aligned with our company's purpose and resulted in strong operational and financial performance.
During today's call, I'll start with an overview of Owens Corning's fourth quarter and full-year 2020 results, before turning it over to Ken, who will provide additional details on our financial performance.
I will then come back to talk about our outlook for the first quarter and how we are positioning the company to capitalize on both near-term market opportunities and longer-term secular trends.
I'll begin my review with safety, where we continue to perform at a very high level.
Our commitment to the health and safety of our employees is unconditional.
In the fourth quarter, we achieved a recordable incident rate of 0.4, representing a 37% improvement over the same period in 2019.
This lowered our full-year 2020 RIR to 0.61, which is an 8% improvement over the prior year.
I'm pleased to note that over half of our global locations worked injury free in 2020.
I'm pleased to note that over half of our global locations worked injury free in 2020.
For the quarter, we delivered revenue of $1.9 billion, a 14% increase compared with the fourth quarter of 2019, and adjusted EBIT of $306 million, up 50% from the same period one year ago.
All three of our businesses delivered double-digit EBIT margins for the second consecutive quarter.
For the full-year, we delivered $7.1 billion in revenues, down 1%.
Adjusted EBIT was $878 million, a 6% improvement over 2019.
Increasing demand for our products, combined with strong manufacturing performance and improved operating efficiencies resulted in earnings growth for the year despite a slight decline in revenues.
During the back half of the year, we continue to see our end markets recover and improve.
In the US residential market, which impacts all three of our businesses and accounts for about half of the company's revenue.
Demand grew at a strong pace, driven by increased repair and remodeling activity, as well as higher new construction start.
Most of our commercial, industrial markets also strengthened throughout the second half as projects restarted, manufacturing activity increased, and customers replenished inventories.
In 2020, Insulation EBIT margins grew to 10%, despite a 2% revenue decline.
In addition to higher residential insulation demand, our ongoing focus on network optimization and manufacturing performance drove the earnings growth in the business.
Our composites business also benefited from increased demand, delivering double-digit EBIT margins in both the third and fourth quarters.
Our focus on higher value downstream businesses and key geographies where we have strong market positions, combined with increased manufacturing productivity continues to drive our financial performance.
And in roofing, revenues increased 2% compared to 2019 and EBIT margins grew 22% driven by strong volumes and a positive price cost mix.
Overall market demand for shingles grew by 10% versus 2019, driven by above-average storm demand and the strong second half remodeling market.
Across our businesses, rapidly improving markets and high demand for our products have created supply shortages and extended lead times.
Our manufacturing and supply chain teams continue to work hard to increase the availability of our products and reduce our lead times, leveraging the benefits of both improved productivity and capacity expansion investments.
In Insulation, as I shared with you last quarter, we have initiated work to restart our Batt & Roll line in Kansas City.
I'm pleased to report that this line is on track to start production in this month.
We've also increased some additional loosefill production and took actions in our US mineral wool plants to meet growing customer demand.
In composites, we are expanding our glass non-woven capacity, adding a new production line next to our current facility in Fort Smith, Arkansas.
This will add needed capacity to our network and allow us to optimize costs by replacing our existing smaller production line at the site.
We expect to start production in mid-2023 to service a growing number of building material applications.
And in roofing, capital investments over the past two years have increased incremental capacity at several of our manufacturing facilities.
Our strong earnings performance in 2020, combined with working capital management and disciplined capital investments, led to record operating and free cash flow of $1.1 billion and $828 million.
During the year, we also returned approximately $400 million of cash to shareholders through share repurchases and dividend payments.
At Owens Corning, sustainability is central to our purpose and represents a competitive advantage for our company.
It also is becoming increasingly important to our customers and other key stakeholders.
Even as we face near-term uncertainties from the pandemic, we continue to invest in achieving our 2030 sustainability goals, one of which is to double the positive impact of our products.
Our new FOAMULAR NGX product line used in a variety of residential and commercial applications is a great example of this commitment and a testament to our teams who found creative ways to continue this important work remotely.
NGX launched last month, uses a new blowing agent chemistry with 90% lower global warming potential compared with traditional products without sacrificing performance, demonstrating how product and process innovation can reduce the environmental impact.
In addition, we were honored to be recognized as a leader in ESG, earning a position on the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index for the 11th consecutive year and being named Industry Leader for the DJSI World Building Products group for the eighth straight year.
In early April, we'll release our 15th Annual Sustainability Report in which I invite you to read more about the full scope of our sustainability performance and progress.
As Brian mentioned, Owens Corning delivered solid results in 2020 against the backdrop of global uncertainty from the pandemic.
Our company results were highlighted by record performance across a number of key financial measures.
The actions taken by the company enhanced by the recovery in US residential markets have driven the earnings growth, robust free cash flow conversion and a strong liquidity position for the company.
Now, turning to our results on slide five.
For the fourth quarter, we reported consolidated net sales of $1.9 billion, up 14% over 2019, as all three segments delivered revenue growth in the quarter.
Adjusted EBIT for the fourth quarter of 2020 was $306 million, up $102 million compared to the prior year.
Adjusted earnings for the fourth quarter were $207 million, or $1.90 per diluted share, compared to $125 million, or $1.13 per diluted share in Q4 2019.
For the full-year 2020, our adjusted earnings were $566 million, or $5.21 per diluted share compared to $500 million, or $4.54 per diluted share in 2019.
The full-year earnings per share comparison was affected by a few below the line items in 2020.
In addition to tax items adjusted out in the first three quarters, we adjusted out at $32 million non-cash income tax benefit in the fourth quarter resulting from the inter-company transfer of certain intellectual property rights into the US.
Depreciation and amortization expense for the quarter was $141 million, up $21 million as compared to last year.
The growth in the fourth quarter of 2020 was mainly impacted by higher accelerated depreciation from this quarter's restructuring actions.
For 2020, depreciation and amortization expense was $493 million, up from $457 million in the prior year, primarily due to higher accelerated depreciation from our restructuring actions and incremental amortization from new finance leases.
Our capital additions for the year were $320 million, down $131 million versus 2019.
Given the uncertain market environment early in 2020, we took actions to reprioritize capital investments and preserve liquidity.
Looking ahead, we will continue to be disciplined in our capital spending as we focus on delivering strong free cash flow and will prioritize investments that drive growth and productivity.
On slide six, you see adjusting items reconciling full-year 2020 adjusted EBIT of $878 million to our reported EBIT loss of $124 million.
For the year, adjusting items to EBIT totaled approximately $1 billion, largely driven by $987 million of non-cash goodwill and intangible impairment charges recorded in the first quarter.
In the first three quarters, we recognized $26 million of gains on the sale of certain precious metals.
We've excluded these gains from our adjusted EBIT.
During 2020, we recorded $41 million of restructuring costs, with $31 million of costs being recognized in the fourth quarter.
The bulk of these fourth quarter costs are non-cash and are primarily associated with restructuring actions in our insulation and composites businesses as part of our ongoing network optimization activity to improve manufacturing productivity and reduce our cost position.
Slide seven provides a high-level overview of full-year adjusted EBIT comparing 2020 to 2019.
Adjusted EBIT of $878 million was a new record for the company and increased $50 million over the prior year.
Roofing EBIT increased by $136 million, Insulation EBIT increased by $20 million and Composites EBIT decreased by $82 million.
General corporate expenses of $128 million, were up $24 million versus last year, primarily due to higher incentive compensation expense associated with improved adjusted EBIT results and the absence of small one-time gains realized in 2019.
Now, I'll provide more details on each of the business results, beginning with Insulation on slide eight.
Insulation sales for the fourth quarter were $728 million, up 1% from Q4 2019.
In the North American Residential Fiberglass Insulation business, while lagged, housing starts in Q4 were higher than the prior year.
Supply constraints and limited inventories coming into the quarter caused volumes to be down slightly year-over-year.
We continue to be encouraged by US residential new construction demand and the realization of our September price increase.
In the technical and other Insulation businesses, volumes improved from the time of our Q3 earnings call and finished the quarter up slightly versus the prior year, driven primarily by strong performance in our US formular and global mineral wool businesses.
EBIT for the fourth quarter was $106 million, up $17 million as compared to 2019.
The EBITDA increase was driven by positive manufacturing performance and higher selling prices in North American residential.
Overall volumes for this segment were relatively flat.
For the full-year, sales in Insulation were $2.6 billion, down 2% versus 2019 with growth in North American residential more than offset by COVID-19 related declines in the technical and other Insulation businesses.
Overall volumes for the segment were flat.
The decline in revenue was driven by lower selling prices, unfavorable product and customer mix and the divestiture of a small business in the first quarter.
In 2020, Insulation EBIT increased by $20 million to $250 million, primarily due to favorable manufacturing performance and strong cost controls, partially offset by lower selling prices and unfavorable product and customer mix.
The business delivered EBIT margins of approximately 10% in 2020 with increased EBIT on lower revenues.
Sales in Composites for the fourth quarter were $547 million, up 14% as compared to the prior year, driven primarily by higher sales volumes.
During the quarter, we experienced robust volume improvements in many regional markets, particularly North America and India.
Additionally, we saw a strong performance in our wind and roofing downstream specialty applications along with continued improvement in automotive.
EBIT for the quarter was $60 million, up $4 million from the same period a year ago with the benefit of higher sales volumes and favorable manufacturing performance, partially offset by furnace rebuild and production curtailment cost and continued pricing headwinds.
Composites delivered a 11% EBIT margins for the quarter.
Full-year sales were about $2 billion, down 5% as compared to 2019.
The decline was driven by weaker volumes due to COVID-19 primarily in the second quarter, lower selling prices from negative year-over-year carryover, unfavorable customer and product mix and negative foreign currency translation.
In 2020, EBIT declined by $82 million to $165 million.
For the year, favorable manufacturing performance and lower SG&A costs were more than offset by weaker volumes, the negative impact of production curtailments and negative pricing carryover.
Slide 10 provides an overview of our Roofing business.
Roofing sales for the quarter were $702 million, up 33% compared with Q4 2019.
The increase was driven by 36% volume growth, partially offset by lower third-party asphalt sales.
Price in the quarter was flat with favorable transactional shingle pricing on realization of the August increase offset by higher rebates associated with stronger 2020 shingle demand.
In the fourth quarter, the US asphalt shingle market grew significantly as compared to the prior year.
The market growth, which was higher than the expectation we provided in last quarter's call, was a result of milder weather that extended the Roofing season.
Our volumes trailed the market in the fourth quarter as we continue to operate in sold out conditions with low inventory levels.
EBIT for the quarter was $183 million, up $96 million from the prior year producing 26% EBIT margins for the quarter.
The EBIT improvement was driven by higher sales volumes in both shingles and roofing components and the continued deflationary impact of asphalt.
Roofing sales for 2020 were $2.7 billion, up 2% versus 2019.
The increase was driven by higher sales volumes of about 6%, partially offset by lower selling prices and lower third-party asphalt sales.
In 2020, Roofing EBIT improved by $136 million to $591 million.
The increase was driven by strong market volumes in both shingles and components and strong manufacturing performance.
We experienced additional EBIT improvement from a price cost perspective as the benefit of asphalt cost deflation and lower transportation costs more than offset lower selling prices.
For the year, the business delivered EBIT margins of 22%, up approximately 500 basis points from 2019.
Turning to slide 11.
I'll discuss significant financial highlights for 2020.
As a result of disciplined actions taken to manage working capital, operating expenses and capital investments and the recovery of our markets, US residential in particular, we delivered record full year levels of operating and free cash flow.
Our free cash flow for 2020 was $828 million, up $238 million as compared to 2019.
Free cash flow conversion of adjusted earnings was 146% in 2020, as compared to 118% in 2019.
In December, the Board of Directors approved a new share repurchase authorization for up to 10 million additional shares.
During 2020, we returned $396 million of cash to shareholders through stock repurchases and dividends.
At the end of 2020, 9.5 million shares remained available for repurchase under the current authorization.
During 2020, we completed several deleveraging activities to further improve our credit metrics.
These actions included repaying the term loan in advance of the February 2021 due date, repaying the mid-2020 borrowing on our revolver and contributing $122 million to our global pension plans.
Based on our strong cash flow performance and deleveraging activities, we've maintained an investment grade balance sheet and are operating within our target debt-to-adjusted EBITDA range of 2 times to 3 times with ample liquidity.
At year-end, the company had liquidity of approximately $1.8 billion, consisting of $717 million of cash and nearly $1.1 billion of combined availability on our bank debt facilities.
Earlier this month, the company's Board of Directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.26 per share payable on April 2nd.
Since inception in 2014, the dividend has grown an average of 7% per year.
We remain committed to strong cash flow generation returning at least 50% to investors over time and maintaining an investment grade balance sheet.
General corporate expenses are expected to range between $135 million and $145 million.
Capital additions are expected to be approximately $460 million, which is below expected depreciation and amortization of approximately $480 million.
While we're expecting growth in both capital and operating expenses as conditions begin to normalize over the course of the year, we remain committed to closely managing these investments.
Interest expense is estimated to be between $120 million and $130 million.
And finally, our 2021 effective tax rate is expected to be 26% to 28% of adjusted pre-tax earnings.
We expect our 2021 cash tax rate to be 18% to 20% of adjusted pre-tax earnings.
The growth in our cash tax rate as compared to our guidance in the last few years approximating 10% is due to the utilization of substantially all of our US federal net operating losses and foreign tax credits by the end of 2020.
Our 2020 performance demonstrated the value of our enterprise and the ability of our global teams to successfully execute on our operating priorities even during challenging conditions.
While uncertainties remain, we are well positioned to deliver another strong year in 2021 as we see the strength in our residential markets and improving conditions in our commercial and industrial markets continuing into the first half.
In keeping with prior practice, I will focus my outlook comments on the current quarter.
Based on trends we are seeing to start the year, we expect the company to deliver significant revenue and adjusted EBIT growth in Q1 versus prior year.
Starting with Insulation, we are seeing continued strength in new US residential construction with lag starts in Q1, up 12% versus Q1 2020.
Our North American residential volumes are expected to largely track with the market during the quarter, and we continue to see favorable pricing based on positive traction from our January price increase.
We are beginning to see some inflationary pressure in the business, particularly transportation cost, and recently announced a price increase for April.
Our technical and other building insulation businesses are expecting modest volume improvement in the first quarter, as we continue to experience a gradual recovery in our commercial and industrial end markets across the globe.
Pricing in these businesses is expected to remain relatively stable.
Overall for Insulation, we expect first quarter EBIT to be about double what we delivered in the first quarter last year.
In Composites, we expect Q1 volumes to increase mid single-digits versus Q1 2020, given our strength in a few key regions and downstream applications supporting the wind and building and construction markets.
We also expect to start realizing price gains from actions implemented as part of our annual contract negotiations.
This along with continued strong manufacturing performance should generate first quarter EBIT generally in line with Q4 2020.
And in Roofing, January shingle shipments were substantially higher than last year, reflecting the strength and carryover demand from 2020.
Based on this, we expect to see market volumes of approximately 25% in the first quarter.
Against this backdrop, we continue to ship our available capacity and would expect our volumes to increase in line with this growth.
From a price cost perspective, we expect to deliver another strong quarter with some incremental price realization from our February increase combined with continued asphalt inflation, albeit at a slower rate than in Q4.
We are seeing asphalt cost increasing and expect this to continue through the quarter turning to inflationary in Q2.
Similar to our other businesses, we are also seeing an increased inflation and recently announced a price increase effective the first week in April.
Based on these factors, Roofing EBIT margins in the first quarter are expected to be up year-over-year and more in line with the long-term operating margins we have discussed for this business of about 20%.
With that view of our businesses, I'll turn to a few key enterprise areas.
Our team remains committed to generating strong operating and free cash flow.
In terms of capital allocation, our priorities remain focused on reinvesting in our business, especially productivity and organic growth initiatives, returning at least 50% of free cash flow to shareholders over time through dividends and share repurchases and maintaining an investment grade balance sheet.
In addition, we are also evaluating investments in bolt-on acquisitions that leverage our commercial, operational and geographic strength and expand our building envelope offering.
Overall, Owens Corning is well positioned to capitalize on our near-term market opportunities as well as several longer-term secular trends that will fuel our revenue and earnings growth moving forward, including the demand for new housing in the US, which has been under built for several years and continued remodeling reinvestments as homeowners renovate their living spaces and upgrade their homes.
We also see growing opportunities to benefit from the drive for increased energy efficiency in homes and buildings, product safety and sustainability, material durability and performance and investments in renewable energy and infrastructure.
Each of these trends creates opportunities for Owens Corning to leverage our material science, building science and unique product and process technologies to partner with our customers and help them win in the market through additional products, systems and services.
Our team is proud of the results we delivered in 2020 and are excited about the opportunities we have in 2021 to service our customers, grow our company and deliver value for our shareholders.

user
q4 adjusted earnings per share $1.90.
q4 sales $1.9 billion versus refinitiv ibes estimate of $1.8 billion.
capital additions are expected to be approximately $460 million in 2021.

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