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that mission this year and we also have created a momentum that, with the AMCOL acquisition, I know we can carry into the foreseeable future. 

Our success has been the result of many factors, not the least of which is the strength of our management team and the dedication and hard work of our employees. Central to that accomplishment has been the deployment of our employee- driven Operational Excellence and Lean processes. Those processes, which we have considerable experience with, will be central to our integration plan with AMCOL. Besides framing much of our approach to the integration across AMCOL’s operations, it will enable us to achieve our integration objectives quickly. That means obtaining the targeted synergies and a rapid deleveraging of the debt that we will be taking on with this acquisition. 

Over the past few years, I have outlined our acquisition strategy to you by indicating that we were focused on minerals companies with a strong technology bent as well as diverse, growing end markets such as energy, environmental and consumer 

products, which can offer us higher growth potential and less cyclicality. AMCOL meets all of these conditions, and even exceeds them considering the potential growth and profitability that we can achieve as a combined company. We took our time to focus on the right acquisition for our shareholders, we fought for it, and we know what we need to do to deliver on it. 

We look forward to working with AMCOL’s employees to bring them into the MTI family. We are also looking forward to sharing with you the results of what we know we can achieve this year, and the positive trajectory this sets us on for years to come. 

## 2013 Performance Now, let’s turn to our 2013 performance. 

Minerals Technologies had another excellent year in 2013. For the fourth year in a row we achieved record-breaking earnings and we continued to execute on our core growth strategies of geographic expansion, new product innovation and Operational Excellence. 

Let’s look first at the financial performance. The company recorded operating income of $124.4 million, which increased by 10 percent over 2012. The operating income as a percentage of sales was 12.2 percent, a 7-percent improvement over 2012. Earnings per share for 2013 were $2.42, up 12 percent over the $2.16 per share we recorded in 2012. Net income was $80.3 million, an 8-percent increase over 2012’s $74.1 million. 

Both business segments—Specialty Minerals and Refractories—contributed to this outstanding performance through record-breaking financial results. For the last three quarters of 2013, Minerals Technologies’ sales grew, and continued to gain momentum throughout the year. We finished the year with a 2-percent increase in sales over 2012, while in the fourth quarter sales grew 6 percent. Underlying sales, excluding the effect of foreign exchange, grew 3 percent in 2013 and 7 percent in the fourth quarter. 

