Epoxy
May 4, 2024
Epoxy Highlights from Huntsman Investors Call
Huntsman Corporation (HUN) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript
May 03, 2024 2:50 PM ETHuntsman Corporation (HUN) Stock
Q1: 2024-05-02 Earnings Summary
EPS of -$0.06 beats by $0.00 | Revenue of $1.47B (-8.47% Y/Y) misses by $1.15M
Huntsman Corporation (NYSE:HUN) Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call May 3, 2024 9:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Ivan Marcuse – VP, IR & Corporate Development
Peter Huntsman – Chairman, CEO & President
Phil Lister – EVP & CFO
John Roberts
Then I had thought you had already exited epoxy BLR resin that’s there. So, what else are you exiting that I thought you exited before and how much is left to go?
Peter Huntsman
Well, again, when we look at our epoxy businesses, we do continue to produce some commodity grades of epoxies and we will do that as we base load some of our facilities. Our emphasis is going to continue to be able to take that volume and moving it into higher value added components and so forth. But, yes, you do have some of the low end of your reactions — reactors that take place and your production that takes place that I consider to be commodity and that — you’re always going to be exiting the bottom end of that and pushing more volume on the upper end of that margin scale. So, not sure that it’s all necessarily, when we talked about exiting businesses, isn’t necessarily all BLR. I would just say that as we look at our capacity, availability and where we want to put our emphasis, that may be beyond just basic BLR as well.
Phil Lister
Yeah. And John, for context, I mean, BLR used to be about 50%, if you go back ten years. Today, we still have some business as Peter says, it’s about 10% of our volumes and we continue to move that down when appropriate.
April 30, 2024
Epoxy Highlights from Olin Investors Call
Olin Corporation (OLN) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript
Apr. 26, 2024 1:25 PM ETOlin Corporation (OLN) Stock
Q1: 2024-04-25 Earnings Summary
EPS of $0.45 beats by $0.09 | Revenue of $1.64B (-11.33% Y/Y) misses by $12.71M
Olin Corporation (NYSE:OLN) Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call April 26, 2024 9:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Steve Keenan – Director, Investor Relations
Ken Lane – Chief Executive Officer
Todd Slater – Chief Financial Officer
Damian Gumpel – Vice President, Corporate Strategy
Ken Lane
Thank you, Steve and good morning everyone. Let me start by saying I am delighted to be part of Team Olin. Olin has a long and rich history with leading positions across this portfolio and I am looking forward to leading the company as we define the next phase of value creation for our shareholders and employees.
Today, Olin is in great shape with an investment-grade balance sheet and a strong team. This company has incredible potential and I look forward together with our 7,000 Olin team members to start building upon this foundation and writing the next chapter in Olin’s success story. I do want to thank Scott Sutton for his leadership of the company, which resulted in a step change of record results. Scott has been very gracious with his time and support during our transition. I am a firm believer in our operating model and I am absolutely committed to continuing Olin’s value-focused commercial approach. The entire Olin team embraces the winning model and that support runs deep from senior leadership to frontline manufacturing.
Now, I want to talk about my near-term priorities. First and foremost is always operating safely. Keeping our people and our communities safe, while running our assets efficiently and reliably. It is not a coincidence that the safest operators are the most reliable. We are focused on being a leader with respect to our safety performance.
Next, Olin is a coiled spring. And as our market demand recovers and customers seek to pull more volume, we will be ready to capture that significant value opportunity. I’ll provide whatever support is needed to defend the gains we have achieved and continue our value generation as the industry leader that we are. Also, it’s clear to me that investors appreciate Olin’s consistently strong cash flow and share buybacks across the cycle. Delivering on our commitments is an imperative. We will continue our disciplined capital allocation strategy and will be a steady buyer of our shares, focused on delivering above average shareholder returns. Finally, I am committed to providing Olin stakeholders with strategic transparency and a long-term roadmap for growth, that we will share during a Capital Markets Day around year end. More will be communicated on that in the near future.
Now, let’s take a quick look at our chlor alkali business and turn to Slide 5. Olin took decisive actions during the fourth quarter to curb price erosion across our system. Early in the first quarter, our value accelerator initiatives continue to tighten Olin supply, successfully advancing the inflection point and effectively stopping the value drop. During the first quarter, we saw improved chlorine volume being pulled by Olin customers at our value level across several key end uses, including agriculture, urethanes, titanium dioxide and water treatment. As we look beyond the first quarter, we are seeing some seasonal demand increases for chlorine and caustic soda. In the United States, planned and unplanned outages and low supplier inventories have kept caustic availability tighter than expected. Trade publications confirm that domestic caustic is climbing up from a cycle bottom.
Now, let’s turn to our Epoxy business on Slide 6. During the first quarter, our Epoxy business continued to realize the benefits of our 2023 restructuring actions. Our streamlined asset base will support the growth of our higher margin epoxy systems demand while also reducing Olin’s downside commodity exposure across the cycle. Our recently announced U.S. anti-dumping initiative seeks to level the playing field. The first quarter marks the beginning of the recovery for epoxy and the start of a gradual climb out of a very deep trough. As that building momentum continues into the second quarter, we will realize continued benefits from our restructuring and stronger focus on higher margin formulated systems.
Hassan Ahmed
Understood. Understood. And as a follow-up, you touched on the improvement sequentially within the Epoxy business. How should we think about the split between, call it, further organic improvement ove0r there? And maybe you could touch a bit on some of these sort of trade cases that you guys as well as the industry has brought about on the anti-dumping side of things?
Ken Lane
Yes. So we are seeing the impact from the restructuring last year. The team did a great job last year rightsizing the footprint. We have got the asset footprint that we think is going to support the strategy around growing the higher margin business today. But we are seeing an influx over the last year or so of products that is being dumped into the United States. First, I’ll say, we’re all for fair trade, free trade, but we are going to fight against unfair trade, and that’s what you see here. So we had the first hearings in Washington, D.C. this week. It’s early in that process, but we are going to continue to push that case. And we believe that there is a risk within the United States having only two producers of epoxy resin is a risk for the future. We have got a very critical material here that we are producing and it is under threat by unfair trade.
April 29, 2024
Olin Results
Olin Announces First Quarter 2024 Results
Apr. 25, 2024 4:05 PM ETOlin Corporation (OLN)
Q1: 2024-04-25 Earnings Summary
EPS of $0.45 beats by $0.09 | Revenue of $1.64B (-11.33% Y/Y) misses by $12.71M
Highlights
- First quarter 2024 net income of $48.6 million, or $0.40 per diluted share
- Quarterly adjusted EBITDA of $242.1 million
- Share repurchases of $105.4 million in first quarter 2024
CLAYTON, Mo., April 25, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Olin Corporation (OLN) announced financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2024. First quarter 2024 reported net income was $48.6 million, or $0.40 per diluted share, which compares to first quarter 2023 reported net income of $156.3 million, or $1.16 per diluted share. First quarter 2024 adjusted EBITDA of $242.1 million excludes depreciation and amortization expense of $129.7 million and restructuring charges of $8.3 million. First quarter 2023 adjusted EBITDA was $434.1 million. Sales in the first quarter 2024 were $1,635.3 million, compared to $1,844.3 million in the first quarter 2023.
Ken Lane, President and Chief Executive Officer, said, “All first quarter 2024 business segment results improved sequentially from fourth quarter 2023, which begins Olin’s recovery from trough-level earnings. During the quarter, the Olin team delivered on our commitment to accelerate a favorable inflection point for our Chlor Alkali Products and Vinyls business. We expect this momentum to continue with second quarter 2024 results, as demand and pricing continue to improve. We expect our Chemical businesses to be sequentially higher than first quarter 2024 levels and our Winchester business to be in line with first quarter results, as a less favorable mix and higher raw material costs offset stronger military volumes. Overall, we anticipate Olin’s second quarter 2024 adjusted EBITDA to improve from first quarter 2024 levels. Based on our current outlook for the pace of demand and pricing improvement for our Chemical businesses, we currently believe Olin’s full year 2024 adjusted EBITDA to be similar to or slightly higher than 2023 levels.”
Commenting on his recent appointment as President and CEO, Lane continued, “I am excited about building upon Olin’s strong foundation and confident in our ability to sustain strong earnings and cash flow performance. As such, we will continue our disciplined capital allocation strategy, while committing to maintain an investment-grade balance sheet. We remain committed to our approach to preserve electrochemical unit (“ECU”) values and will continue to align our operating rates and product purchases to match the weaker side of the ECU, while refraining from selling incremental volume into poor-quality markets.”
SEGMENT REPORTING
Olin defines segment earnings as income (loss) before interest expense, interest income, other operating income (expense), non-operating pension income, other income, and income taxes.
EPOXY
Epoxy sales for the first quarter 2024 were $341.3 million, compared to $360.7 million in the first quarter 2023. The decrease in Epoxy sales was primarily due to lower product pricing partially offset by improved volumes. First quarter 2024 segment loss was ($11.8) million, compared to segment earnings of $21.4 million in the first quarter 2023. The $33.2 million decrease in Epoxy segment earnings was primarily due to lower pricing, partially offset by increased volumes and lower raw material and operating costs. Epoxy first quarter 2024 results included depreciation and amortization expense of $13.5 million compared to $14.5 million in the first quarter 2023.
April 18, 2024
Trade Action on Epoxy Resin
Olin Among U.S. Epoxy Resin Producers Filing Trade Cases Against Five Countries
News provided by Olin Corporation
Apr 03, 2024, 16:05 ET
CLAYTON, Mo., April 3, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Olin Corporation (NYSE: OLN) today announced the filing of antidumping and countervailing duty petitions against five countries related to certain epoxy resins, as part of the U.S. Epoxy Resin Producers Ad Hoc Coalition. The petitions charge that unfairly traded imports of certain epoxy resins from China, India, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand are causing material injury to the domestic epoxy resin industry. The petitions further charge that significant subsidies have been provided to the foreign producers by the governments of China, India, South Korea, and Taiwan. The U.S. producers in the Coalition, including Olin, produce epoxy resins, an essential component for which there are no practical substitutes, for various customer applications, including critical U.S. industries such as Aerospace, Automotive, Defense, Electrical Transmission, Semiconductors, and Wind Energy. Having domestically produced epoxy resins is vital to ensuring that the U.S. manufacturing industry is capable of meeting domestic preference requirements contained in important U.S. legislation like The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the CHIPS and Science Act. The availability of domestic epoxy production is also important to ensure U.S. industry has supply chain resiliency.
“We have been facing a significant volume of what we believe are unfairly dumped and subsidized imports of epoxy resin into this country,” said Florian Kohl, President, Olin Epoxy. “These unfairly traded imports have seriously impacted pricing in the U.S. market, which has resulted in a significant negative effect on our production, sales, and earnings. Without relief under U.S. law, unfairly traded imports will undermine the sustainability of U.S. producers and the welfare of their workers and local communities.”
The petitions were filed today with the U.S. Department of Commerce (“Commerce Department”) and the U.S. International Trade Commission (“USITC”). The five countries covered by the antidumping petitions and the dumping margins alleged by the domestic industry are as follows:
| COUNTRY | DUMPING MARGINS ALLEGED |
| China | 264.87% – 351.97% |
| India | 11.43% – 17.50% |
| South Korea | 30.01% – 69.42% |
| Taiwan | 87.19% – 136.02% |
| Thailand | 163.94% – 205.63% |
The petitions also allege that the foreign producers benefit from numerous countervailable subsidies. The petitions were filed in response to large volumes of low-priced imports of epoxy resins from the subject countries over the past three years that have injured the domestic epoxy resin producers.
The petitions allege that producers in the subject countries have injured the U.S. epoxy resin producers by selling their products at unfairly low prices that significantly undercut the prices of U.S. producers. As a result, imports of epoxy resins have captured an increasing share of the U.S. market at the direct expense of the U.S. industry. The price declines that U.S. producers have suffered are likely to continue if duties are not imposed to level the playing field.
Antidumping duties are intended to offset the amount by which a product is sold at less than fair value, or “dumped,” in the United States. The margin of dumping is calculated by the Commerce Department. Estimated duties in the amount of the dumping are collected from importers at the time of importation. Countervailing duties are intended to offset unfair subsidies that are provided by foreign governments and benefit the production of a particular good. The USITC, an independent agency, will determine whether the domestic industry is materially injured or threatened with material injury by reason of the unfairly traded imports.
OLIN COMPANY DESCRIPTION
Olin Corporation is a leading vertically integrated global manufacturer and distributor of chemical products and a leading U.S. manufacturer of ammunition. The chemical products produced include chlorine, caustic soda, vinyls, epoxies, chlorinated organics, bleach, hydrogen, and hydrochloric acid. Winchester’s principal manufacturing facilities produce and distribute sporting ammunition, law enforcement ammunition, reloading components, small caliber military ammunition and components, industrial cartridges, and clay targets.
April 4, 2024
Arsenal Exits Seal for Life Platform with Sale to Henkel
Arsenal Completes Sale of Seal For Life to Henkel
PR Newswire
Thu, Apr 4, 2024, 8:45 AM EDT3 min read
NEW YORK, April 4, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Arsenal Capital Partners (“Arsenal”), a private equity firm that specializes in investments in industrial and healthcare companies, announced today it has sold its portfolio company, Seal For Life Industries LLC (“Seal For Life”), to Henkel AG & Co. KGaA (“Henkel”), a publicly traded German manufacturer of industrial and consumer products. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Seal For Life is a specialized supplier of protective coating and sealing solutions for a broad variety of infrastructure markets such as renewable energy, oil & gas, and water. The company employs more than 650 people and has a global production network. Seal For Life offers innovative coating and sealing products such as heat-shrink sleeves, visco-elastic coatings, epoxy & urethane coatings, fire protection, insulation, and sound dampening coatings. The performance and application capabilities of these solutions, marketed under different industry-leading brands including STOPAQ®, CANUSA®, COVALENCE®, and LIFELAST®, are pioneering in the protection and retrofitting of a wide variety of customer infrastructure assets, including onshore and offshore pipelines, jetty piles, storage tanks, valves, flanges, and high- performance industrial flooring.
Arsenal completed its investment in Seal For Life in 2019 and through seven strategic acquisitions, built a global platform in innovative coating and sealing solutions for both existing and new build infrastructure assets. The company’s leading brands and technologies play a critical role in extending the asset life of aging infrastructure with a focus on sustainable materials. During Arsenal’s ownership, Seal For Life significantly invested in technology development and innovation as well as expanded its end market exposure with novel solutions into applications such as district energy and renewable applications for wind and solar infrastructure protection.
Sal Gagliardo, an Operating Partner of Arsenal, said, “We are delighted with the growth achieved during our ownership, with Seal For Life’s sales more than doubling and strengthening of the company’s global market position. Seal For Life’s team, led by Jeff Oravitz, achieved strong organic growth, completed and integrated complementary acquisitions, and created a best-in-class technology platform in the infrastructure coatings sector. We want to thank Jeff and the Seal For Life team for their efforts and leadership that drove to this successful outcome.”
Jeff Oravitz, CEO of Seal For Life, stated, “Arsenal has enabled the transformation of Seal For Life into a unique platform of coatings solutions. The firm brought significant expertise in technologies and applications that drove a focus on where the markets are going and how we can address the long-term trends. We are grateful to the Arsenal team for their partnership and support over the last five years and are excited for the growth opportunities as we join the Henkel organization.”
Roy Seroussi, an Investment Partner of Arsenal, commented, “Arsenal’s close collaboration with Jeff and the team and the success of the Seal For Life platform further strengthens Arsenal’s position as a leading investor and company builder in the coatings, adhesives, sealants, and elastomers sector. We wish the Seal For Life team and Henkel the very best in their future success.”
Arsenal is an active investor in the coatings, adhesives, sealants, and elastomers sector, with current investments including Applied Adhesives, ATP Tapes, Fenzi Group, Meridian Adhesives Group, Polycorp, and Polytek, and with several prior investments in this sector.
J.P. Morgan Securities LLC acted as financial advisor to Seal For Life and Kirkland & Ellis LLP served as legal counsel.
About Arsenal Capital Partners
Arsenal Capital Partners is a leading private equity firm that specializes in investments in industrial growth and healthcare companies. Since its inception in 2000, Arsenal has raised institutional equity investment funds totaling over $10 billion, completed more than 290 platform and add-on acquisitions, and achieved more than 35 realizations. The firm works with management teams to build strategically important companies with leading market positions, high growth, and high value-add. For more information, visit www.arsenalcapital.com.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/arsenal-completes-sale-seal-life-124500648.html
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