Good morning, everyone. I am Ashish Khandpur, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer at Avient Corporation. Welcome to our 2026 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. I now call the meeting to order. Thank you for your participation today. We will conduct the formal business of the meeting in just a moment, but I did want to offer a few reflections on 2025 and thoughts about the future. I am very pleased with the progress our team made in 2025 to execute our strategy. We delivered adjusted EPS growth of 6% in a low market demand environment, expanded adjusted EBITDA margin by 50 basis points to a company record of 16.7%, and generated strong free cash flow that enabled us to pay down $150 million in debt and reduce our net leverage ratio to 2.6x.
This performance demonstrates that our strategy is gaining traction. Both segments contributed. Color, Additives and Inks expanded margins through productivity initiatives and favorable mix, and Specialty Engineered Materials grew organic sales driven by strong performance in our prioritized markets. Both segments also invested in our growth vectors, which are growing at rates substantially faster than the rest of our portfolio. Beyond the financial results, I want to highlight how we delivered this performance. Our teams executed with a clear focus on portfolio management, productivity, and innovation to strengthen our business in spite of the macroeconomic uncertainty. Looking ahead to 2026, we are cautiously optimistic. Macroeconomic uncertainty persists, our continued focus on portfolio prioritization, work to strengthen our balance sheet, and history of strong operational execution position us to continue our trajectory of success.
We will continue to work as one team together as one Avient to support our employees, help our customers succeed, and deliver value to our shareholders. Along with us in this conference room today is Amy Sanders, our Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Secretary, and Corporate Ethics Officer, and Joe Di Salvo, our Vice President, Treasurer, and Investor Relations, and soon to be Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, effective as of June 1, 2026. There are 11 directors standing for re-election as named in our proxy statement, including me. Those participating are as follows: Robert Abernathy, Retired Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Halyard Health, Inc. Rick Fearon, Retired Chief Financial and Planning Officer of Eaton Corporation. Neil Green, Executive Vice President and Chief Digital Officer, Otis Worldwide Corporation. Bill Jellison, Former CFO of Stryker Corporation.
Sandra Beach Lin, Retired President, Chief Executive Officer, and Director of Calisolar Incorporated. Dr. Kim Ann Mink, Former Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Innophos Holdings Incorporated. Ernest Nicolas, Chief Enterprise Operations Officer, HP Incorporated. Kerry J. Preete, Retired Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer of Monsanto Company. Dr. Patricia Verduin, Retired Chief Technology Officer of Colgate-Palmolive Company. William A. Wulfsohn, Former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Ashland Global Holdings Incorporated.
We also want to acknowledge Greg Goff, an Avient Director since 2011. As previously disclosed, Mr. Goff is not seeking re-election to the Avient board for personal reasons. We thank Mr. Goff for his many contribution to the board and to Avient. In addition, participating in the meeting, we have Tracy Lindberg, representing the public accounting firm of Ernst & Young LLP, our independent auditors. Amy Sanders will now conduct the formal business of the meeting. Amy.
Thank you, Ashish, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us at our 2026 Annual Meeting of Shareholders, which is being conducted via webcast. The agenda for this meeting is presented on your webcast screen, and you may find additional materials, including our proxy statement, annual report, and a code of conduct governing this meeting posted on the lower right of the webpage. Please note that this meeting is being recorded. However, participants are not permitted to use any recording device during the meeting. The polls are open and will remain open until the conclusion of the portion of the meeting where we consider the items of business.
If you are a shareholder and you have not yet submitted your vote and you wish to vote on the proposals, or if you wish to change your vote, you may vote your shares by clicking on the voting button on your screen. You will need the control number on your proxy materials that you received in order to vote your shares online. I have for filing with the records of the meeting an affidavit by Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc., stating that the notice of meeting, proxy statement, and annual report were sent to all shareholders of record on or about March 27th, 2026. On March 17th, 2026, the record date for this meeting, there were 91,710,167 shares issued and outstanding. A quorum is present for the conducting of business.
Please note that the minutes of the annual meeting of shareholders held last year are in my custody as secretary and are available for inspection by any shareholder. Mike Solecki of Jones Day has been appointed to serve at this meeting as Inspector of Election. We have three items of business on the agenda this morning. The matters to be voted upon today were fully described in the proxy statement for this meeting and are as follows.
The 1st item is the election as directors for a 1-year term of the 11 nominees named in the proxy statement and just introduced by Ashish Khandpur. The 2nd item is the consideration of an advisory vote on named executive officer compensation. The third item is to ratify the appointment of Ernst & Young as Avient's independent registered public accounting firm for fiscal year 2026.
Most voting was completed by proxy prior to the meeting, and these votes have been tabulated by the Inspector of Election. At this time, the polls will be closed, and we will announce the voting results. We have received a report on the preliminary results that include the proxies received up through this morning. The final verified results will appear in our post-meeting report. Each of the 11 nominees for election as a director has been elected. The named Executive Officer Compensation has been approved on an advisory basis. The appointment of Ernst & Young as Avient's independent accounting firm has been ratified. Finally, the certificate of the Inspector of Election will be filed with the records of this meeting. I'll now hand the meeting back to Ashish.
Thank you, Amy. Having completed the formal business of the meeting, I declare the meeting adjourned. We will now open the floor for questions. If you logged into the meeting with your control number and would like to ask a question, you can do so now by typing your question into the box at the bottom of the screen. Joe Di Salvo, our Vice President, Treasurer, and Investor Relations, will read aloud any questions received. We will now pause to allow questions to be submitted. Joe, are there any questions?
There are no questions, Ashish.
All right. As there are no questions, I'd like to thank you all for participating in our meeting today. On behalf of all of Avient, we wish everyone safety and good health.
Thank you. The conference has ended. You may now disconnect your lines.