Orion Engineered Carbons S.A. (NYSE:OEC) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript
Orion Engineered Carbons S.A. (NYSE:OEC) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript February 15, 2024
Orion Engineered Carbons S.A. isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).
Operator: Greetings, and welcome to Orion S.A. Full Year 2023 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Wendy Wilson, Head of Investor Relations. Thank you, Wendy. You may begin.
Wendy Wilson: Thank you, Raju. Good morning, everyone and welcome to Orion's conference call to discuss our 2023 financial results. I'm Wendy Wilson, Head of Investor Relations. With me today are Corning Painter, Chief Executive Officer; and Jeff Glajch, Chief Financial Officer. We issued our press release after the market closed yesterday and we also posted a slide presentation to the Investor Relations portion of our website. We will be referencing this presentation during the call. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that some of the comments made on today's call are forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to the risks and uncertainties as described in the company's filings with the SEC, and our actual results may differ from those described during the call.
In addition, all forward-looking statements are made as of today, February 15, 2024. The company is not obligated to update any forward-looking statements based on new circumstances or revised expectation. All non-GAAP financial measures discussed during this call are reconciled to the most directly comparable GAAP measures in the table attached to our press release. I will now turn the call over to Corning Painter.
Corning Painter: Thank you, Wendy. Good morning, everyone and thank you for joining our call today. In 2023, we delivered another year of record-adjusted EBITDA, our third year of growth. As good as that is, we are not satisfied. If demand had not cooled off over the year, our results could have been in line with or even beaten our initial guidance. When Jeff takes you through the EBITDA waterfall on Slide 9, you'll see just how impactful the 2023 contract round was and how the slowing underlying markets impacted us. The good news is, as we predicted, we achieved our goals for the 2024 rubber pricing cycle despite relatively weak demand in our key markets. I believe this sets us up well for the 2025 cycle, which will be negotiated later this year.
Our customers remain cautious about 2024 volume, and our guidance reflects that. I'll explain more about that later on the call. Focusing on 2023 and consistent with our pre-release commentary from our January 22 press release, full year adjusted EBITDA was $332 million, and adjusted diluted EPS came in at $1.92. We also delivered strong operating cash flow and strengthened our balance sheet. We returned $1.10 per share to shareholders by repurchasing stock. We also lowered our debt by $1.30 per share, or $78 million. This reduced our net leverage to 2.35 times EBITDA, down from three times EBITDA just 18 months ago. On the operations front, we completed our final air emission upgrade project in the US. It is hard to express how big this is for Orion.
A huge thank you to our engineering and operations teams. Well done. This now allows us to focus our capital allocation to growth, debt reduction, and returning value to our shareholders. I see capital allocation as my top responsibility after safety. Beyond the implications for capital allocation, completing the air emissions work means we can just shift more of our effort to reliability, productivity, and quality. As you'll see later in our presentation, we are also confirming our 2025 mid-cycle earnings capacity goal. While we'll need something more like the pre-COVID market conditions to more fully load that capacity, we believe the path is clear and achievable. Jeff will review this later in the call. There are so many more highlights to 2023 beyond those we featured in our slides today.
For example, we've completed a number of steps in our journey to advance our sustainability goals. We achieved our 2022 emissions target in the U.S. and received a 10 basis points rate reduction in our interest payments on our sustainability-linked term loan. If you recall, Orion agreed to the seven-year, $650 million term loan in 2021, and we were one of the first companies to link the loan to environmental goal. We meet our targets for all four years. We can reduce our financing costs by a total of $2.6 million. We introduced Kappa 10, a new conductive carbon aimed at batteries with more of a cost-based value proposition. We believe this product is well-positioned for that portion of the market. We were also selected for a 6.4 million euro grant from the German government and the European Union to further develop and demonstrate a climate-neutral process for producing carbon black from alternative carbon sources.
We've already shown that we can make a wide range of carbon black rays with biocircular raw materials. That's done. The challenge is now to improve efficiency, to make these more cost competitive. That's what this funding will help with. We believe there's strong demand for these materials as we make them more cost-effective. Also, in 2023, we secured international sustainability and carbon certification for our flagship specialty plant in Cologne. It's not just the tire customers who want to build a circular economy, and this will help us to support specialty customers with sustainable and traceable carbon black. It also means we now leave the industry with a number of certified carbon black production sites. All of these achievements advance sustainability as a business model.
Looking at our two business units, specialty demand, reflecting weak broader market conditions, continues to be subdued. We are using this as an opportunity to push new customer qualifications, upgrade our plants, and introduce new products like Kappa 10 to the market. We've achieved a number of recent wins in the battery, wire and cable, and coatings markets. We've also achieved several technical milestones related to the ongoing debottlenecking of our high-performance surface-treated braids. In addition to the financial benefits of this, these successes allow us to better support our customers' growth plans and allow them to build us into new formulations with confidence. In the rubber business, we successfully completed our negotiations for 2024 per plan.
That we gained volumes in Europe should be no surprise at all with the coming ban on Russian carbon black. Importantly, we raised prices on top of last year's step year step change. We did this in the face of relatively weak demand and outlook from our customers and at a time of some painful actions in the tire industry. We've succeeded for several reasons. First, the industry has restructured. Tire capacity has grown in our key markets and carbon black capacity has not. In North America, debottlenecking has been offset by a plan closure and the European Union, the investment in tire capacity, beyond the investment in tire capacity, there's the Russian ban coming this June. The changes that we're seeing in the long-term trade patterns are amplifying the importance of local production.
There have been some recent announcements of capacity additions in other markets, but not in North America or in Europe or in other countries where we manufacture. Second, we naturally need to earn a return on investment on our compliance investments, but also on our investments to renew our plans. By stepping up our maintenance and replacing end-of-life equipment, we improve our plant uptime and add effective capacity that our customers need for their continued growth. That investment warrants a return as well. Third, the industry wants sustainable offerings. The investments we make, people, R&D and supply chain to make this happen demand a return. All that is only fair to Orion, the people who work in our plants, and to you, our investors.
Slide 4 is a good visual representation of our growing profitability. This is our third consecutive year of adjusted EBITDA growth, and based on our current guidance for 2024, this trend should continue. This also reflects how special our market space is. There are not many chemical or materials companies who had a record 2023, and we expect to set a new record this year. We're in a niche space with very attractive industry restructuring. The completion of the U.S. air emissions work, which was a burden, is another structural positive for us going forward. Despite those U.S. air emission projects, our ROCE has stabilized at a level well above our cost of capital. It is great to have that spending behind us. With that, I would ask Jeff to provide additional insights into our financial results and long-term goals.
Jeff Glajch: Thank you, Corning. On Slide 5, you can see the consolidated results for the fourth quarter. Beyond this slide, I will focus more on the full year, but the detailed quarterly financial and EBITDA loss for both businesses are in the appendix. For Q4, volume was up mainly from the specialty polymers market and from our new facility in China. This was partly offset by lower volume in the Americas. Revenue was essentially flat due to higher contractual pricing in our rubber business, offset by lower oil pricing in the quarter. Gross profit and gross profit per ton were down due to the cogeneration effects from the lower European electricity pricing and unfavorable product and geographic mix in both segments. In addition, higher maintenance turnaround activity, including Huaibei, the final EPA startup cost, and other timing items affected the quarter.
Gross profit per ton was up slightly in rubber versus Q4 last year, but down sequentially at $357. Rubber gross profit was weak due to several reasons. First, volume was slightly up, but we had more volume in China and less in the Americas. This geographical swing adversely impacts gross profit. Second, the expected impact on cogeneration from lower electricity prices in Europe. And finally, continued startup costs at Huaibei and the final EPA project, which hurt rubber gross profit level. Especially gross profit per ton was down very sharply versus prior year and sequentially at $492. While we had higher volume, it was primarily from the lower margin polymer market at Huaibei. This resulted in a less profitable product mix in the quarter. Specialty was impacted by the lower electricity prices in Europe, similar to rubber.
European cogen effects are more impactful than specialty on a per ton basis, since global rubber volumes are 3x to 4x times down special. Finally, costs were up due to higher maintenance, startup, and timing related items. We'll talk more about how we expect specialty to recover in both the near and longer term in subsequent slides. One final item in the quarter, our tax rate was extremely high. This was due to a few items which impacted the full year tax rate, specifically a provision for a German tax audit going back to 2017, a prior year tax adjustment, and a full year true-up of our LTIP tax charges. The full year tax rate was 37%. We expect to be back near 30% for 2024. On to Slide 6. For the full year, the success of our 2023 rubber pricing negotiations helped us achieve a record adjusted EBITDA, despite numerous headwinds in both businesses.
Customer demand weakened as the year progressed. Ultimately, volume was down across all regions except China. Electricity prices in Europe were dramatically lower from their elevated level in 2022. This alone had a $30 million impact on 2023 results. Without this impact, gross profit per ton would have been up $50 instead of $18. Mixed deteriorated due to the relative performance of our specialty end markets. With the exception of the printing market, we expect those markets to improve over time. Slide 7 provides a year-to-date EBITDA drivers. Strong pricing in rubber was offset by weaker volume across both businesses and less benefits from cogeneration. Last year's very high European electricity prices make for a difficult comparable. We also have Huaibei and EPA startup costs, related startup costs.
On Slide 8, our rubber volume decrease was impacted by lower demand in the Americas and EMEA and lack of recovery in tire production in those markets. We experienced a higher gross profit per ton driven by the contractual price increases, but this was partially offset by the lower cogeneration pricing effects. It's important to note that our 2023 gross profit per ton was up 22% compared with 2022. As Corning noted, we had a successful 2024 pricing negotiation and expect next year's gross profit per ton to be in line with the full year 2023 levels. Slide 9 shows in a waterfall chart the effects of rubber as discussed on the previous slide. On to Slide 10. Volume was relatively flat, especially for the year, with weakness across most geographies and the printing market, offset by gains in China and the polymer market.
All other financial metrics were down. The change in mix, as well as the reduction of cogeneration effects due to the lower European power pricing, contributed to the weaker results. As we look forward, we believe the following will move in a positive direction for specialty. Volumes will improve as we move toward mid-cycle conditions. Two, as volumes improve, we believe we'll have more pricing power. Three, mix should improve with business conditions and as a result of our debottlenecking of our premium products, it's early, but we're starting to see some promising signs. Four, the EPA and Huaibei startup costs are mainly behind us. And five, the battery market remains a significant upside for us. On to Slide 11, which shows in a waterfall chart those categories affecting specialty as discussed on the previous slide.
Gross profit per ton decreased due to both geographic mix, which you see in volume, market mix of sales, which you see in mix, as well as lower cogeneration effects, which you see in costs. Importantly, for the specific mix of products that we sold in the quarter, our pricing has remained stable. Slide 12 looks at cash flow for the year. Our improved cash flow allowed us to both repurchase $66 million worth of shares and reduce our debt by $78 million. Our debt to EBITDA ratio now stands at 2.35x, down from nearly 3x just 18 months ago. As Corning mentioned earlier on the call, we spent $1.10 per share to repurchase stocks and $1.30 per share to reduce our debt. Our goal is to reduce our total debt, improve our net debt to EBITDA ratio, and continue to strengthen our balance sheet.
We've made substantial progress in all of these areas over the past year. On Slide 13, we have transitioned to a dramatic increase in our discretionary cash flow conversion as we have stepped up our profitability and at the same time completing our EPA projects. Note that our 2023 conversion rate included $89 million in working capital improvement from changes in our customer agreements. We expect to maintain this benefit in 2024. Let's look at capital spending on Slide 14. Up through 2023, we had a significant CapEx related to our EPA report. This spending reduced in 2023 and is now behind us. With our increased EBITDA and no future EPA capital spending, we expect to focus on growth investments and high return projects as well as a sustained higher level of maintenance projects which will improve reliability.
For 2024 and 2025, the majority of our growth CapEx will be for our conductives planned in LaPorte, Texas. We will also complete some high return debottlenecking projects in our specialty business. Other than LaPorte, the growth investments shown in 2025 carry us beyond our 2025 mid-cycle EBITDA capacity goals. We will prioritize those accordingly as we develop our 2025 capital plan later this year. The hash line for 2025 is a placeholder for those potential growth and productivity opportunities. These projects are not committed to at this point and again, we will prioritize them as part of our capital allocation process. Perhaps another way to look at this is between maintenance in LaPorte, we expect to spend approximately $140 million to $150 million of CapEx in 2025.
The remaining $50 million to $60 million will be fully discretionary and are currently just a placeholder. On to Slide 15. Before we discuss our 2024 guidance, we want to provide an update on our progress toward our mid-cycle capacity goal of $500 million of EBITDA. We believe at mid-cycle, we would expect global economies and demand for our product to be at pre-COVID levels. We would not expect extraordinary pricing for carbon black, but rather pricing that would increase sufficiently to offset cost inflation. The volume level, which would correspond to plant utilization in the upper 80% range, would generate a rubber volume of 840kt to 860kt and 260kt to 280kt for specialty. The specialty volume excludes the incremental 12kt from LaPorte.
For us to meet these volume levels, we do not require significant growth investment except the LaPorte project. We have achieved these volumes before and we are confident we can do it again. On Slide 16, we will have a midpoint of $350 million of EBITDA. To move from $350 million to $500 million, there are three major components. First off, the capital conductives business should add about $50 million. Most of that, 80% to 90%, comes from the LaPorte plant, which we expect to be on stream in mid-2025. The remaining $100 million gain is split $70 million in volume and $30 million in margin. The former is primarily recovering in our end markets to mid-cycle level. This includes approximately 80kt to 100kt in rubber and 20kt to 40kt in specialty compared with our estimates for 2024.
Most of this capacity is already in place to achieve these volume levels. There's a portion of the specialty volume growth that requires completely debottlenecking projects for some high-end products. But again, most of the volume gains needed are for market improvement, not capacity increases. Using the midpoints, the 90kt of rubber volume would be at an incremental EBITDA per ton of approximately $400, very much in line with our current GP per ton and with minimal added cost, this math makes sense. For specialty, the incremental volume of 30kt is closer to $100 per ton. This volume is partly due to the recovering in our current market mix, which has a lower incremental profit plus volume gains in our higher-end products, including the debottlenecking projects that we have discussed in the past.
This is not simply a math exercise. We have specific products in high-end markets that achieve these margin levels today. Finally, the $30 million of margin gains are pricing a mix. The $500 million target split roughly 60-40 between rubber and specialty. The details for each business are also in the appendix slides. With that, I will turn the call back over to Corning to discuss our 2024 guidance.
Corning Painter: Thanks, Jeff. And just one clarification. It's $1,000 per ton on the specialty, and we think that makes sense for all the reasons Jeff just outlined. Based on our discussions with customers and given the slow recovery in our markets that we've observed, we're projecting mid-single-digit adjusted EBITDA percentage growth in 2024. Many chemical firms saw their profits shrinking in 2023 and are bouncing back from a lower base. With projections of a soft landing in the U.S. and the expected weakness in the EU and Chinese economies, we expect our EBITDA growth for 2024 to be similar to what we achieved in 2023. That said, we believe we are well positioned for whatever 2024 brings, and it will be another year of record growth for ORION.
We are confident in our business and we are setting our adjusted EBITDA guidance range to $340 million to 360 million today. This EBITDA guidance is up over 5% at the midpoint and supports our adjusted EPS guidance range of $2.05 to $2.20 per share, which is an increase of 11% at the midpoint. I'll close with six points. First, we built on last year's rubber pricing gains, an upset. Second, we're beginning to see a rebound in specialty mix in Q1. Third, 2023 was our third straight year of EBITDA growth, and our expectation is that 2024 will be our fourth. Fourth, the U.S. air emissions projects are complete. This is huge for us. Fifth, we don't have the one-time working capital reduction from improved customer terms like we did last year. Nonetheless, underlying discretionary cash continues to improve.
Sixth, this year, our growth investments are focused on our new acetylene-based plant in LaPorte, Texas, and some debottlenecking of our high-value products the customers want. With that, Raju, please open up the lines for our questions.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] The first question comes from the line of Josh Spector with UBS. Please go ahead.
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