The Urethane Blog
October 29, 2025
Leggett & Platt, Incorporated (LEG) Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript
Oct. 28, 2025 2:41 PM ETLeggett & Platt, Incorporated (LEG) StockLEG
Q3: 2025-10-27 Earnings Summary
EPS of $0.29 beats by $0.00
| Revenue of $1.04B (-5.93% Y/Y) beats by $11.07M
Leggett & Platt, Incorporated (LEG) Q3 2025 Earnings Call October 28, 2025 8:30 AM EDT
Company Participants
Steve West – Vice President of Investor Relations
Karl Glassman – President, CEO & Chairman
Benjamin Burns – Executive VP & CFO
J. Hagale – Executive VP & President of Bedding Products
R. Smith – EVP, President of the Furniture, Flooring & Textile Products and President of Specialized Products
Karl Glassman
President, CEO & Chairman
Thank you, Steve, and good morning, everyone. I’m pleased with another quarter of solid results, reflecting nearly 2 years of disciplined cost structure improvements despite an ongoing soft demand in residential end markets. Importantly, we are reaffirming the midpoint of our full year sales and adjusted EPS guidance, which Ben will discuss in more detail later.
Our third quarter was also marked by significant progress on our key strategic initiatives. Our team has done a terrific job driving results through the execution of our restructuring plan, disciplined cost management and improving operational execution. These efforts have culminated in improved cash flow, which allowed us to significantly strengthen our balance sheet. On August 29, we completed the divestiture of our Aerospace business, aligned with our goal of optimizing our portfolio. We used proceeds from the sale, along with a portion of our operating cash flow to pay down all of our remaining commercial paper and substantially lower our net debt to trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA ratio.
Our restructuring plan is nearing completion and is meeting or exceeding our initial expectations. We made considerable progress on the second phase of the flooring consolidation during the quarter and expect the consolidation to be completed by the end of the year. In Hydraulic Cylinders, we completed the rightsizing of our U.K. facility.
Beyond our formal restructuring plan, in early September, we announced the consolidation of our Kentucky adjustable bed manufacturing operation, which will be consolidated into our Mexico operation by the end of this year. This decision was driven by lower volume and tariffs on imported components, which resulted in a cost disadvantage for our domestic production in a category that primarily competes with imported products.
Throughout the quarter, we continued to navigate a very dynamic environment. We still believe tariffs will be a net positive for us, but remain concerned that wide-ranging tariffs could drive inflation, hurt consumer confidence and pressure consumer demand. We are actively mitigating some of the negative impacts experienced in a few of our businesses, such as supply chain disruptions that can have an indirect impact on us and our customer demand disruptions. Our teams are actively engaged with customers and suppliers across our global footprint to reduce tariff exposure and minimize impacts.
In general, import issues are an ongoing risk, especially for our Bedding Products segment, but we are encouraged that some recent enforcement actions support fair competition for domestic manufacturers and importers alike. U.S. Customs and Border Patrol recently dismantled a Chinese mattress transshipment scheme estimated to have evaded more than $400 million in duties. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has also recently issued recalls and product safety warnings for certain imported mattresses that fail mandated U.S. flammability standards.
Now more than ever, misclassification of shipments and understated product values are additional problems that domestic manufacturers face when competing against imports. While we continue to believe that imports have a role in the U.S. bedding market, the domestic industry must be able to compete on a level playing field. Amid these initiatives and macroeconomic challenges, our teams remain focused on providing high-quality innovative products to our customers, keeping our employees safe and continuously improving at everything we do. I’ll now turn the call over to Ben.
Benjamin Burns
Executive VP & CFO
Thank you, Karl, and good morning, everyone. Third quarter sales were just over $1 billion, down 6% year-over-year due primarily to continued soft demand in residential end markets as well as sales attrition from both the divestiture of our aerospace business and our restructuring efforts.
Looking at sales by segment, Bedding product sales decreased 10% year-over-year but improved 3% sequentially versus the second quarter and sales accelerated through the quarter. Specialized product sales declined 7%, while Furniture, Flooring and Textile product sales were flat year-over-year. In Bedding Products, as anticipated, sales weakness at a certain customer and retailer merchandising changes drove volume declines in adjustable bed and specialty foam. U.S. spring unit volume was in line with both mattress consumption and domestic mattress production volumes, both of which we estimate declined low single digits.
U.S. mattress industry production improved sequentially versus the second quarter, marking the second consecutive quarter of improved domestic production volume. While we are encouraged to see sequential improvement, third quarter domestic volume remained negative year-over-year. It is worth noting that the improvements we have seen are not consistent across the industry. Certain channels and market participants are performing better than others. We have also started to see stabilization in demand patterns between holiday promotional periods.
In the fourth quarter, we expect U.S. domestic mattress production to slow sequentially due to normal seasonality and to remain negative on a year-over-year basis. Total market consumption for the full year is now expected to decline low single digits with domestic production down mid- to high single digits. Within our Specialized Products segment, we experienced modest sales declines in automotive and hydraulic cylinders with the divestiture of Aerospace making up the largest sales drag during the quarter. Looking ahead, multiple global automotive supply chain risks such as availability of aluminium, certain semiconductors and access to rare earth minerals have materialized as we moved into the fourth quarter and has begun impacting both the industry and our business. However, we have experienced no material impact to date.
Finally, within Furniture, Flooring and Textiles, continued sales growth in textiles and Work Furniture was offset by declines in home furniture and flooring. We anticipate continued year-over-year strength in the geo-component side of our textiles business, while current trends and seasonality will likely continue in the other businesses within the segment through the remainder of the year.
Susan Maklari
Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Research Division
Yes. Okay. That’s great color, Ben. And then I want to turn to Bedding. Can you talk about the demand environment and how that came through during the quarter? I think you said that you did see things improve each month in the third quarter. But it seems like that’s coming despite the headwinds that we are seeing in the housing market and the volatility in consumer confidence. How do we sort of weigh those different factors out there? And can you just talk a bit about what you think is actually going on out on the ground?
Karl Glassman
President, CEO & Chairman
Susan, thanks for the question. Before we go down that path, though, I’m going to turn it over to Tyson, but I want to stop for just a second and congratulate Tyson and his team for the tremendous job that they’ve done in the Bedding segment. The restructuring has been a challenge, the demand headwinds. The team has come together. We have an innovation pipeline that is more robust than it’s ever been in our history. And when you think of — they still have issues, Tyson will be very candid on these issues regarding specialty foam and adjustable bed. But when you look at the financials, you can see to your earlier question, the restructuring benefits, you can see cost management, operational efficiency improvements, metal margin expansion through the trade sale of trade rods. And like I said, the early in the year, we talked about the benefit of customer product launches. We’re seeing that. It’s ramping up. But most notable is what the teams have coming into the near future. 2026 is going to be really robust from innovation, evidence of our team’s capabilities. So with all of that, Tyson, why don’t you go ahead?
J. Hagale
Executive VP & President of Bedding Products
Sure. And thanks, Karl. Susan, I’ll start just with some comments about the market. And I think we would characterize things right now as more stable than seeing a lot of recovery, although in both the second and third quarter, Ben mentioned this, but we saw sequential improvement in both quarters, which was coming off a pretty tough first quarter, but still that’s a trend we haven’t seen in quite some time. But really, it’s getting us back to more of a stable place, but still in the third quarter, especially looking at the domestic market, down low single digits when we talk about units.
A few things, though, that I think are worth mentioning. Kind of within that stability, first of all, we’ve talked about this in some past calls that we see some pretty high peaks when we get to the promotional holidays and then some pretty tough valleys when we come off of those. But we’re seeing more stability month-to-month. So we see some improvement around the promotions, but we don’t see quite the big drop-offs, which I think is notable and something we’ll continue to watch.
The other thing is that although things are reaching more of a stable level, we don’t see consistent performance across all retail channels and brands. It is pretty choppy. And from our view, that’s coming from a variety of factors with industry consolidation that’s been going on, new program launches, advertising changes. All of those things are resulting in a lot of movement, which makes it a little more difficult to track exactly what’s going on, but I think that’s another thing we’ll watch going forward.
But big picture, I think we still have to continue to watch it. You mentioned it, Susan, but the big macro factors that tend to drive bedding and furniture are still a pretty big challenge. Karl talked about this, too, the consumer is dealing with a tariff environment, but still pretty tough housing, wages dealing with inflation and just general consumer confidence. Those are all big picture things that for us to plan for an actual more recovery type environment, we have to see those things start to flip to be more positive.
Robert Griffin
Raymond James & Associates, Inc., Research Division
This is Alessandra Jimenez on for Bobby. First, I just wanted to touch on kind of the growth opportunity for here — from here. Now that the majority of restructuring is near complete, where do you see the most opportunities for organic growth, assuming the macro environment is supportive?
Karl Glassman
President, CEO & Chairman
Well, longer term, I’m going to surprise you a little bit. I appreciate the question. Longer term, I see our largest growth opportunity probably in finished bedding. It’s a long tail to sell that product through, but we’re gaining momentum. We’re replacing some lost volume. So again, I’m not calling this being a fourth quarter or first half of next year even. But longer term, that private label work that we’re doing on finished bedding, I think will reap significant benefit.
J. Hagale
Executive VP & President of Bedding Products
And this is Tyson. I agree with Karl. The private label finished mattress opportunity, especially with where we’ve seen the biggest volume declines in our bedding business, but also as we see consumers get more confident in returning to bedding and furniture products, Karl referenced this in his opening comments, but some of the investments that we’re seeing in innovation and giving consumers a reason to come back and do some shopping, we feel pretty good about those right now. And this is purely anecdotal. There’s not a lot of data to support it, but just seeing the workload that our teams have right now in bedding, they are really busy working with our customers right now. And at least from a feel standpoint or gut, it seems like this is as busy as we’ve been working on new product development since at least the start of the pandemic. I mean, since then, it’s been a lot of VA/VE or just trying to spec products to replace things in the supply chain, but we’re seeing more activity around getting new products into the market, which hopefully is a signal of our customers getting ready to put more products on retail floors.
Karl Glassman
President, CEO & Chairman
Keith, if you don’t mind, Tyson, while we’re on that subject, much has been written about lost market share. Talk about that, if you don’t mind.
J. Hagale
Executive VP & President of Bedding Products
Well, and I think a lot of that comes from the moving pieces with the imported finished mattresses and how much are actually being consumed within the course of the year. It’s been a tough thing to track, but we’re seeing more stability with the imported finished mattresses, especially after some of those things were loaded up in the first part of the year ahead of tariffs. So it’s a little easier to get a view of that now, Karl. But on top of that, we’ve seen some different moves with some of the brands and industry consolidation, but that’s where we feel at least from the U.S. Spring point of view.
Keith Hughes
Truist Securities, Inc., Research Division
And if you look at adjustable and specialty, I know there’s a customer issue. When do you lap that, when will that start to look more like a chance to do better than the industry or like the industry?
J. Hagale
Executive VP & President of Bedding Products
Yes, Keith. So it is a consistent commentary from what we shared last quarter. I’ll talk just a little bit more about it. It’s largely 2 customers, and they’re the same ones for specialty foam and adjustable bed. The first one is Mattress Firm. And once the consolidation has been complete, with specialty foam, there was a private label mattress program that was taken internal. And then second to that, with our adjustable bed business, we still sell some product there, but we’ve seen a change in the merchandising plan and where some of the sourcing of that product is coming. So those have been both impactful to both specialty foam and adjustable bed. And it will really take fully through next year before we’ll fully get through that part of it. The second big challenge again for both businesses is not a market share loss, but it’s more just of a headwind of a large customer of ours that impacts both foam and adjustable bed. Now it’s hard to say exactly when we anniversary those because it’s more of just a specific customer challenge, but not lost market share.
Keith Hughes
Truist Securities, Inc., Research Division
Okay. And I think it was Karl, your commentary on the sector, you were seeing some retail do better than others. Could you talk about that a little bit more of what type of retail is seeing some at least sequential improvement? I was still down year-over-year? And what areas are still struggling?
Karl Glassman
President, CEO & Chairman
Yes, that was actually Tyson. Go ahead, Tyson.
J. Hagale
Executive VP & President of Bedding Products
Sure, Keith. Well, it’s probably what you would suspect. On the online channel, see quite a bit of strength in some of the lower-end online e-commerce. There’s a lot of volume moving through there. In brick-and-mortar, see quite a bit of activity happening in big box and through Mattress Firm. But it’s not as we’ve kind of talked about here, it doesn’t seem to be a rising tide lifting everybody at the same level. It is inconsistent, but see stronger unit volumes at least through those channels.
October 27, 2025
US Housing Inventory Marks 102nd Consecutive Week of Annual Gains: Report
Buyers have begun ghosting sellers in some markets.
Reporter
10/27/2025|Updated: 10/27/2025
0:00
3:58
The number of residential properties active on the market jumped 15.1 percent yearly, marking the 102nd consecutive week of annual gains in housing inventory, according to the latest weekly analysis report from Realtor published on Oct. 23.
As new listings went up 4.7 percent year over year, and mortgage rates registered a steady drop since May, more sellers are putting up homes for sale across the country hoping to incentivize buyers waiting on the sidelines.
The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, backed by Freddie Mac, is currently at 6.19 percent, as of Oct. 23. At the beginning of the year, it was over 7 percent. The number is relatively high when compared to the average 3 percent rates in 2021.
There were around 1.1 million homes for sale last week, said Realtor, adding that it was the 25th week in a row where the number was above a million. Active inventory is growing faster than new listings indicating a slower sales cycle with homes sitting on the market far longer than before.
The average period of time a property sits on the market is currently four days longer than a year ago, but this rate is coming down signaling an increasing interest from buyers.
According to real estate brokerage Redfin, the median number of days a home presently sits on the market is 48. The median sale price is $391,250, as of Oct. 19, while the asking price is $399,675—with both numbers registering a considerable increase annually.
All numbers point to a buyers market.
“Buyers are scoring deals, especially those who can pay all cash and/or those who are open to new construction,” said Amanda Peterson, a Redfin agent.
“One recent all-cash buyer paid $500,000 for a condo that was appraised at $685,000—and the seller agreed to pay upfront for six months of pricey HOA dues. And builders are offering steep discounts on new homes, especially in areas where they already have a lot of inventory and are still actively building. Builders are dropping prices, giving up to $20,000 in concessions, throwing in appliances, and buying down mortgage rates, sometimes to below 4 percent.”
More sellers than before are willing to offer discounts and concessions.
However, “stubbornly high prices” are keeping away some buyers hopeful they may see a reduction in property prices.
“Nationwide, there are half a million more home sellers than buyers,” said Redfin.
The home sales numbers are skewed in such a way that the brokerage reports some buyers beginning to “ghost” sellers.
Last month, there were 53,000 home-purchase agreements nationwide that got canceled, said Redfin, which is 13.6 percent more than in 2024.
In markets such as Florida and Texas, there is a higher proportion of home buyers who are ghosting sellers.
In Tampa, Florida, 20.1 percent of home-purchase agreements were canceled, up from 17.7 percent a year earlier, said Redfin.
“I’m seeing a lot of buyer’s remorse,” said Jo Chavez, a Redfin agent. “Buyers make an offer, then they start worrying they could have found a better deal or a better home because there are more home sellers than buyers in the market. Some other buyers are backing out because they’re concerned about job security.”
The Federal Reserve is set to meet on Wednesday, amid an ongoing government shutdown, with policymakers expected to lower interest rates by 25 basis points, lowering the target to a range of 3.75 to 4 percent.
Mortgage rates are closely tied to the central bank’s interest rates, and recent declines have been attributed to the predicted lowering of interest rates.
October 27, 2025
Dow Inc. (DOW) Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript
Oct. 23, 2025 12:27 PM ETDow Inc. (DOW) StockDOW
Q3: 2025-10-23 Earnings Summary
EPS of -$0.19 beats by $0.11
| Revenue of $9.97B (-8.33% Y/Y) misses by $255.13M
Dow Inc. (NYSE:DOW) Q3 2025 Earnings Call October 23, 2025 8:00 AM EDT
Company Participants
Andrew Riker – Vice President of Investor Relations
James Fitterling – Chairman & CEO
Karen Carter – Chief Operating Officer
Jeffrey Tate – Chief Financial Officer
James Fitterling
Chairman & CEO
Thank you, Andrew. Beginning on Slide 3. In the third quarter, we executed against Dow’s strategic priorities to deliver sequential earnings and cash flow improvement despite continued pressure across the industry. These results reflect our focus on navigating the near term while positioning the company for profitable growth when our industry recovers.
In the third quarter, we delivered net sales of $10 billion. Sequentially, gains in our Industrial Intermediates & Infrastructure segment were more than offset by declines in Packaging & Specialty Plastics and Performance Materials & Coatings. EBITDA was $868 million, and while this is lower than the same period last year, our earnings reflect an improvement over second quarter. This was driven by volume gains stemming from our new growth investments in the U.S. Gulf Coast, lower planned maintenance activity and the progress we’re making on our cost reduction actions.
Cash provided by operating activities was up $1.6 billion sequentially, primarily driven by working capital improvements, and advanced payments for low carbon solutions and other long-term supply agreements. We also delivered $249 million of dividends, reflecting our commitment to competitive shareholder returns over the cycle.
Next, Karen will provide some additional context around the more than $6.5 billion in actions that we have completed or currently have in-flight.
Karen Carter
Chief Operating Officer
Thank you, Jim. We advanced several strategic actions in the third quarter. We announced an expansion of our strategic agreement with MEGlobal to formalize the contractual offtake of an additional 100 KT of ethylene supply at attractive economics for both parties. We closed the second and final phase of our strategic infrastructure asset partnership in the U.S. Gulf Coast delivering $3 billion in total proceeds for Dow this year.
We completed the second of 2 previously announced non-core divestitures, delivering a total of approximately $250 million at attractive EBITDA multiples of around 10x. And we issued an additional $1.4 billion bond to take advantage of tight credit spreads, providing added financial flexibility.
We are progressing the delivery of at least $1 billion in targeted cost savings by the end of 2026. We are on track to deliver approximately $400 million of the cost savings this year, which was clearly visible in our third quarter performance. We have also lowered our CapEx spending in alignment with our $1 billion reduction target this year compared to our original plan of $3.5 billion. This reduction is largely due to our decision to delay the Alberta project until market conditions improve.
As we announced in April, this decision supports our near-term cash flow and adjusts our timing to align with the market recovery. We remain committed to the long-term strategic rationale of the Alberta project, which further improves our industry-leading cost position and the growth upside that it will enable and targeted applications like pressure pipe, wire and cable and food packaging.
However, our expectations for when this capacity will be needed have changed, given the prolonged down cycle our industry is facing. As we committed, we will provide an update on this during our fourth quarter earnings call in January. Any decisions related to the project time line will remain centered on maximizing value.
So taken all together, these near-term strategic actions demonstrate Team Dow’s continued efforts to adjust our cost structure and response to the current operating environment. These actions also support our overarching goal to build a more simplified modern Dow that consistently delivers strong performance, profitable growth and lasting competitiveness.
Next, I’ll turn to our operating segment performance on Slide 4. In the third quarter, we continued to focus on margin improvement, while prioritizing volume growth in attractive end markets such as food packaging, electronics, home care and pharma. We also took decisive actions to lower our cost base and progress our cost savings actions.
Next, turning to our Industrial Intermediates & Infrastructure segment on Slide 5. Net sales were down 4% year-over-year driven by continued pricing pressures globally, resulting in an 8% impact on revenue. Sequentially, net sales increased, reflecting volume gains in both businesses and all regions. This was supported by lower planned maintenance activity and the start-up of one of our near-term growth projects, which partly offset lower prices. Volume increased 2% compared to the year ago period, driven by gains in the U.S. and Canada and both businesses as well as in energy applications.
Sequentially, volume increased 5% with improved supply availability following planned maintenance activities in both businesses as well as additional volumes from our new alkoxylation unit in Seadrift, Texas.
Operating EBIT for the segment increased versus the year ago period, driven by higher volumes and operating rates as well as lower fixed costs, which were partly offset by lower prices. Sequentially, operating EBIT increased by $138 million. This was driven by lower planned maintenance activity and higher volume in both businesses. This volume growth was enabled by the startup of our new alkoxylation unit in the U.S. Gulf Coast, which serves more resilient home and personal care end markets.
Jeffrey Tate
Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Karen. Good morning to everyone participating in today’s call. Turning to Slide 7. We continue to advance several strategic priorities to support Dow’s near-term cash flow, further enhance our balance sheet and deliver structural improvements. This positions the company for growth and better profitability and the recovery. For example, this quarter, we completed the second phase of our strategic partnership with Macquarie for the sale of a 49% equity stake in select U.S. Gulf Coast infrastructure assets, receiving approximately $3 billion in total cash proceeds this year.
With that, I’ll share some of the key indicators we’re continuing to track on Slide 8. The broader macroeconomic landscape remains largely unchanged since our last update. As it relates to Dow’s key market verticals, while we are seeing some pockets of stability, a broader recovery has yet to take hold. Based on the visibility we have through current customer orders; we continue to see a cautious operating environment. Business investment and consumer spending are subdued due to ongoing economic uncertainty and affordability challenges. These dynamics are impacting demand across several key end markets Dow serves.
At the same time, recent monetary policy shifts and the beginning of a rate cutting cycle could begin to more positively influence demand. And our packaging market vertical, global demand remains steady.
Industry growth in North America was supported by record September domestic and export volumes. Manufacturing activity in China continues to be modest, while Europe contracted in September. In the infrastructure sector, market conditions remain soft across the United States, Europe and China. In the U.S., 30-year mortgage rates have eased modestly, but remain above 6% this month. Demand is unlikely to increase in the near term due to limited affordability, but lower mortgage rates could spur a recovery in 2026 as conditions improve.
Consumer spending has remained resilient, but with that, confidence is low, which has been driving value-seeking behaviors. In September, U.S. consumer confidence declined to its lowest level since April and sentiment in the EU remains below historical averages. In China, retail sales grew year-over-year in August, but at its slowest pace since last November. And in mobility, we continue to see mixed demand signals across the industry and regions. In the U.S., auto sales rose in August as consumers moved ahead of the EV tax credit expiration. And in China, government incentives for EVs also continued to support higher auto sales and production.
This strength has helped offset weakness in internal combustion vehicles, including in Europe, where new car registrations are down year-to-date. Given this backdrop, we will continue to focus on the actions within our control. Doing so helps Dow to navigate the complexities of this down cycle while strategically positioning the company to capitalize when the market conditions do improve.
Next, I’ll turn to our outlook for the fourth quarter on Slide 9. The macroeconomic dynamics that I described continue to limit visibility into customer buying patterns, making projections challenging. As always, we’re committed to maintaining transparency and will provide timely updates if they become available. Based on current indicators and normal seasonality, we anticipate our fourth quarter EBITDA to be approximately $725 million. Our disciplined and targeted cost actions and lower planned maintenance activities are expected to provide sequential tailwinds.
Normal seasonality, especially in building and construction end markets, should be a headwind for our Performance Materials & Coatings and Industrial Intermediates & Infrastructure segments.
In Industrial Intermediates & Infrastructure, we expect fourth quarter EBITDA to be approximately $20 million lower than the third quarter. This is largely driven by seasonally lower demand in building and construction. Additionally, we anticipate margin compression from higher energy costs and pricing pressures. We’ll see this primarily in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India as Asian exporters redirect volumes into the region from prior U.S. locations where those volumes would now be subject to dumping duties.
Sequential tailwinds are expected to be provided by higher demand for deicing fluids, lower turnaround spending and our cost reduction actions.
James Fitterling
Chairman & CEO
Thank you, Jeff. Turning to Slide 10. The prolonged down cycle continues to weigh on our entire industry, but we’re starting to see some encouraging actions in response, most notably around addressing industry oversupply. Specifically, announcements to date include significant rationalization of global ethylene, propylene oxide and siloxane capacities, each of which will benefit Dow’s diversified portfolio.
The vast majority are occurring in Asia and Europe, targeting assets that sit high on the global cost curve. This includes Dow’s decision to shut down 3 European assets across each of our operating segments in order to rightsize upstream regional capacity, reduced merchant sale exposure and remove higher cost energy-intensive parts of our portfolio.
Dow’s rationalization announcements and those from industry peers have exceeded the majority of consultant projections, paving the way for improved operating rates, which will also be supported by anticipated polyethylene demand growth remaining above GDP for the foreseeable future.
As we have experienced through prior down cycles, we expect to see additional announcements and actions until more visible signs of recovery begin to materialize. As it relates to anticompetitive oversupply activities, our teams continue to be actively engaged in conversations with governments around the world to mitigate impact, aggressively defend local production and to ensure a fair-trade environment remains. These discussions have led to various actions and duties to protect local industries, including MDI in the United States, polyols in Brazil and more.
Dow’s global asset footprint and product portfolio position us well to win in the key markets that we serve, particularly as purchasing patterns trend for buying local products and materials to mitigate any potential tariff headwinds.
Karen Carter
Chief Operating Officer
Thank you, Jim. We are pleased to see several of the industry actions that you described beginning to unfold. We continue to monitor both supply and demand signals, and we’re staying close to our customers and key external stakeholders to understand their unique challenges while identifying opportunities to drive profitable growth. At the same time, our teams are working to lower Dow’s cost structure, enhance our cash position and strengthen our manufacturing footprint through the shutdown of higher cost assets and the start-up of our advantaged growth investments serving high-value end markets.
And as the macroeconomic environment improves, our actions will ensure Dow is best positioned to beat our competition, capitalizing on our key advantages.
First and foremost, we are committed to being a low-cost producer. Currently, more than 75% of our global cracking capacity is in a top quartile cost position. This number will increase to approximately 80% once we complete the announced shutdown of our Böhlen cracker.
In addition, we continue to upgrade our world-class asset footprint by rightsizing higher cost capacity across a variety of value chain, including the shutdowns of 500 KT of PO capacity in North America, 150 KT of upstream siloxanes production in the U.K. and one of our CAV units in Germany.
Our downstream specialties capacity helps to differentiate and improve Dow’s performance across the economic cycle, which will become more evident when our previously announced shutdowns are completed. And our innovation capabilities also enable strong earnings compared to our peers over the cycle as evidenced in this year’s annual benchmarking report.
So to summarize, with the addition of our U.S. Gulf Coast investments, broad product range, leading cost efficiency and global scale, Dow is set to gain share in premiums in markets that traditionally grow above GDP like packaging, electronics, mobility and consumer goods. And we are confident that Dow’s differentiated portfolio paired with our team’s strong execution will position us to outperform as the industry recovers.
Jeffrey Tate
Chief Financial Officer
Vincent, this is Jeff. I’ll just make a couple of additional comments here related to cash flow. And even on the cost reductions that Karen was just mentioning, initially in our guide for 3Q, we expect it to be approximately $50 million tailwind for us, and it was actually better than that as September came in a little bit stronger on the cost reduction side at about $75 million. So about a $25 million improvement there. I do want to spend a second on the cash flow as well, though, because you’ll notice that our cash from operations came in at $1.1 billion in third quarter, which was an improvement sequentially of $1.6 billion.
And that was really driven by 3 different areas here. Sizable improvement in our working capital. The team has done a phenomenal job of continuing to really double down on the working capital improvement going into the second half of the year. In fact, as you heard in my prepared remarks, we’re expecting in the second half of the year, our working capital to deliver a release of cash of $200 million to $300 million, and we saw $80 million of that working capital improvement in terms of a source of cash during the third quarter. We also had the 2 long-term strategic supply agreements that Karen mentioned in her prepared remarks, as well as the improved earnings that we have sequentially from second quarter to third quarter.
Matthew Blair
Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Securities, LLC, Research Division
I was hoping you could talk a little bit more about some of the moving parts in your polyurethanes business. Are you seeing any benefits to U.S. MDI margins from tariff impacts that have reduced imports from places like China. Also on the — just on the construction end market side, I think you mentioned that rates are coming lower but is it fair to say that’s not really coming through in the market yet.
And then finally, do you have any sort of commentary you can provide on the relative strength with your polyols business versus your isocyanates business. Is one holding up a little bit better than the other?
James Fitterling
Chairman & CEO
Thanks, Matthew. Karen, do you want to tackle that?
Karen Carter
Chief Operating Officer
Sure. So let me start just with the building and construction market because you’re right. We did see rates come down, but we definitely believe that they need to come down further for us to see really a recovery in that space. They’re currently sitting in the mid-6% range. We believe they’ll probably need to have a 5 handle on them before we see any reasonable recovery in that segment. And of course, as we said before, about 40% of our products are aligned to infrastructure across our entire portfolio. So it’s a good start, but it’s not good enough for us to see a recovery.
Let me answer your second question, maybe it was your first on MDI because we are encouraged by some of the recent rulings that we’ve seen around antidumping. And so in September, the U.S. Department of Commerce made a preliminary finding concluding that MDI dumping was occurring by Chinese producers in the United States. Chinese imports account for about 20% of the MDI market here.
And so industry imports are reporting that on top of the preexisting duties that were already there, that the market for Chinese imports is dissipating quite quickly. And so we are seeing some starts of additional volume, not yet a lot of pricing there, but we are seeing some additional volume. And again, I have been encouraged by those initial findings.
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4832431-dow-inc-dow-q3-2025-earnings-call-transcript
October 22, 2025
The AWS Outage Bricked People’s $2,700 Smartbeds
· Oct 22, 2025 at 9:40 AM
When Amazon Web Services went offline, people lost control of their cloud-connected smart beds, getting stuck in reclined positions or roasting with the heat turned all the way up.
Read More Here:
https://www.404media.co/the-aws-outage-bricked-peoples-2-700-smartbeds
October 21, 2025
COIM SPA and Manali Petrochemicals Limited will enter into a binding/ Share Purchase Agreement (SPA)
PUdaily | Updated: October 21, 2025
October 20, 2025 – COIM SPA, a multinational company developing and manufacturing specialty chemicals since 1962, has reached an agreement in principle with Manali Petrochemicals Ltd. for the acquisition of Notedome, a leading UK-based polyurethane systems company specializing in the elastomer sector.
COIM and MPL will finalize and execute a binding Share Purchase Agreement (SPA), under which COIM will acquire 100% of the share capital of Notedome Ltd from MPL’s subsidiary, AMCHEM (Singapore). The parties have agreed to a valuation of at least 8.5 times Notedome Ltd’s adjusted EBITDA, as jointly determined.
The transaction will be completed on a cash-free and debt-free basis, subject to customary closing conditions and shareholder approval by the seller. With this strategic acquisition, COIM strengthens its international presence in the polyurethane systems sector and further expands its product and service capabilities in key European markets.
Further updates will be provided upon signing of the definitive agreement.
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