Earnings Call Transcript - CMP Q2 2026

Operator, Operator

Hello, everyone, and thank you for standing by. My name is Ian, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Compass Minerals Second Quarter Fiscal 2026 Earnings Call. I would now like to turn the call over to Brent Collins, Vice President, Treasurer and Investor Relations. Brent, please go ahead.

Brent Collins, VP, Treasurer & Investor Relations

Thank you, operator. Good morning, and welcome to the Compass Minerals Fiscal Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Today, we will discuss our most recent quarterly results. We will begin with prepared remarks from our President and CEO, Edward Dowling; and our CFO, Peter Fjellman. Joining in for the question-and-answer portion of the call will be Ben Nichols, our Chief Commercial Officer; and our Chief Operations Officer, Pat Merrin. Before we get started, I will remind everyone that the remarks we make today reflect financial and operational outlook as of today's date, May 7, 2026. These outlooks entail assumptions and expectations that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause the company's actual results to differ materially. A discussion of these risks can be found in our SEC filings located online at investors.compassminerals.com. Our remarks today also include certain non-GAAP financial measures. You can find reconciliations of these items in our earnings release or in our presentation, both of which are also available online. And with that, I will now turn the call over to Ed.

Edward Dowling, President & CEO

Thank you, Brent. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'll get right to it. In the second quarter, we retired our remaining $150 million of the 2027 senior unsecured notes earlier than anticipated. We continue to push on operational improvements at Goderich and elsewhere. We had a strong winter across much of North America, and our salt business delivered on a high level of sale commitments while continuing to build on the foundation we have put in place. We are making progress, and we recognize that we have more work to do. In Plant Nutrition, we are showing outstanding momentum on the objectives we outlined two years ago. With the winter season behind us, it's worth looking at how much the first half of this year has improved from last year. In both the Salt and Plant Nutrition businesses, revenues are up, operating margins are up. EBITDA is up. Company-wide debt is down and SG&A is down. And we completed new collective bargaining agreements with two of our sites, including the Goderich mine. That's quite a great start to the year. Now let's talk about what we're doing in each of our businesses. The improvement processes that we successfully deployed within our SOP business is the same approach that we are using in the salt business, starting with our larger operations. A focus on restoring good long-term operating practice is critical to improving performance. This requires that we focus on key metrics that will drive performance: safety, utilization, equipment availability, production and development rates, and improved mine planning processes, all of which are advancing. This is a key part of our Back to Basics framework. Production cost per ton in the salt business moved up year-over-year, and I want to explain why. The reported number reflects several factors: regional weather activity, the product mix, and the pace of our operational improvements. During the quarter, we began selling production from the current year's production, which flows through the P&L. While the production cost per ton within the mines are improving, we've not yet met the efficiency gains we've expected. Pete will walk you through this in more detail. As I noted earlier, we recently completed a new CBA with the workforce at Goderich. It was a fair agreement for everyone and reflects a genuine partnership between the company and our workforce. This mutually beneficial arrangement allows us to continue building on the safe, reliable operation while allowing us the mine's efficiency and flexibility. We've also concluded a CBA at another site and are in the process of completing negotiations at others. While the highway deicing season is behind us, our focus turns to building inventory and preparing for next year's deicing bid season. Our production and inventory planning will be informed in part by the commitments we win in the upcoming bid season. The North American highway deicing market remains structurally tight. Inventories across the system are low following the past winter, which is constructive from both pricing and tender size growth. We are moving into the bid season with this framework firmly in mind. We'll be focused on maximizing the value of every ton we commit for the next season. The market conditions are constructive, and we will approach the upcoming bid season with the same discipline that we've brought to the market in recent years that has allowed us to see growth in pricing and margins. Based on our first-half performance and the current operational plans, we've updated our full-year adjusted EBITDA guidance with the midpoint essentially unchanged. We have adjusted the segment outlook. Plant Nutrition is running ahead, and we have moderated salt to reflect the impact of regional product mix sales as well as the pace of operational improvements I described earlier. Pete will walk you through the updated ranges. Consistent with our Back to Basics framework, as announced earlier this year, we simplified our portfolio with the sale of our Wynyard SOP operation, which was completed during the quarter. The sale strengthened our cash position and now allows the Plant Nutrition business to focus on our world-class Ogden facility. Turning to the balance sheet. At the end of March, we redeemed the remaining $150 million of our 2027 senior unsecured notes. We funded the paydown from cash on hand and removed our nearest maturity. This represents a significant deleveraging milestone and provides us with more financial flexibility. Reducing debt remains one of our top priorities and strengthening our balance sheet as a result. This is what investors expect, and it's what we're doing. Before I hand it over to Peter, I want to briefly note the recent changes to our Board. We've added four new directors over the past year. Each brings deep knowledge and relevant experience in industrial and manufacturing businesses, some of which have direct experience in salt and plant nutrition industries. The Board is aligned with our strategy and brings operating and financial expertise we need for this phase of the company's development. With that, I'll turn the call over to Peter to walk you through the numbers and our outlook.

Peter Fjellman, CFO

Thanks, Ed. I'll walk through our financial results as well as our updated outlook. For the second quarter of fiscal 2026, consolidated revenue was $453 million, down $41 million or 8% versus prior year Q2. The decrease is primarily due to lower highway deicing sales in the current quarter. Adjusted EBITDA was $86 million compared to $84 million in the prior year Q2 or up 3.3% over prior year. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 19.1% compared to 17.0% in the prior year. The improvement reflects adjusted EBITDA margin growth in both the salt and the plant nutrition business as well as lower SG&A expense year-over-year. In the Salt business, revenue was $383 million compared to $433 million in the prior year Q2. Tons sold were 4.1 million, down 19% versus prior year, which is a function of timing and velocity of the winter weather. On a per-ton basis, operating earnings were $15.85 per ton, up 21% versus $13.10 per ton in the prior year Q2. The per-ton progression reflects price realization, offset partially by increased distribution and product costs. As Ed mentioned, the sales mix dynamic in Q2 warrants some additional commentary. Our salt business serves customers and end uses across several businesses from multiple production facilities across different geographies. In any given year, the volume each facility contributes depends significantly on where winter weather occurs. With different pricing and cost structures, volume shifts in a given season can impact comparability. So the reported cost per ton reflects three things: the geographic mix driven by weather, product mix, and the production cost dynamics at the facility level. In the Plant Nutrition segment, revenue was $67 million compared to $58 million in the prior year Q2. Adjusted EBITDA was $17 million, up 202% year-over-year with the adjusted EBITDA margin improving to 25.2% in the current quarter from only 9.6% a year ago. I want to note that we closed on the sale of our SOP operations at Wynyard during the quarter. Q2 '26 only reflects a partial contribution from that asset prior to the sale, which makes the year-over-year comparison even more impressive. The Ogden story continues to be strong. We're achieving year-over-year cost favorability from better operational execution and strong asset utilization. On a year-to-date basis, first-half adjusted EBITDA was $152 million compared to $116 million in the first half of last year, a 32% increase year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA margin for the first half of the year was 17.9% compared to 14.5% for the first half a year ago. These combined results show that the plan we put in place is working. We are working hard to maximize value, control costs and manage working capital and inventory. And the result is that we are enhancing profitability and delevering the balance sheet simultaneously. Switching to the balance sheet. As Ed noted, we redeemed the remaining $150 million of our 2027 senior unsecured notes. The redemption, which was funded from cash, extends our maturity profile and delevers the balance sheet. We also renewed our accounts receivable securitization facility during the quarter on improved terms. Combined with the retirement of the 2027 notes, our next significant debt maturity is now in 2028, which gives us meaningful runway to continue executing on our operational priorities without near-term refinancing pressure. At quarter end, total net debt was $639 million, down $119 million versus Q2 prior year. Our leverage ratio was 2.7x on a trailing 12-month basis compared to 4.6x last year. We are focused on continuing to strengthen that balance sheet. Liquidity at the quarter end was $379 million, comprised of cash of $74 million and revolver capacity of around $305 million. We are updating our full-year adjusted EBITDA guidance range of $212 million to $236 million with a midpoint of $224 million. We have adjusted the Salt segment outlook. The midpoint is now $233 million compared to the previous midpoint of $241 million. The adjustment reflects the factors I mentioned above. Plant Nutrition adjusted EBITDA is now $43 million to $47 million compared with the midpoint of $45 million, up from the prior midpoint. Volumes are up, pricing is favorable and Ogden is delivering strong cost performance. This is a straightforward story and a reflection of the commitment we made two years ago to restore the business to historical levels of financial performance. The range of our corporate adjusted EBITDA, capital expenditures, depreciation, depletion and amortization and the effective income tax rate remain unchanged. Interest expense net is now lower at $62 million to $67 million to reflect the paydown of the 2027 senior unsecured notes. Operator, we're now ready for questions.

Operator, Operator

Operator provided instructions on the question queue. Our first question comes from Joel Jackson with BMO Capital Markets.

Evan (on for Joel Jackson), Analyst, BMO Capital Markets

It's Evan on for Joel. Just a couple here. If you could talk about what we can expect from salt costs over the next couple of years before the potential mill project comes online at Goderich?

Edward Dowling, President & CEO

We don't generally guide on costs. But as we work our way through our operational improvements, those unit costs at the mine should continue to decrease from where we are now and to reach our performance targets at the mine, if you look at some of the key KPIs reaching a point heretofore not done at the mine. We need to do that because we're still facing headwinds with regard to where we sit in the mine plan.

Evan (on for Joel Jackson), Analyst, BMO Capital Markets

Great. And in the full-year guide for this year, in salt specifically, you raised volumes, but you lowered your margins. Can you talk about some of the puts and takes there? I understand some issues at Goderich, but you're also raising the volumes. So just some color on that would be great.

Peter Fjellman, CFO

Sure. Thanks for the question. Overall, it's really coming down to the reported cost per ton reflects those three things that we mentioned in our opening comments. It is geographic mix. It is production dynamics at a facility level and product mix. And this year, it's simply the heavier proportion of winter sales hitting our served markets, including limited winter impact out West and volume in higher-cost served markets as well as mix within our commercial and industrial business, which always carries different cost profiles. So our guidance is updated to reflect basically those factors.

Evan (on for Joel Jackson), Analyst, BMO Capital Markets

Can I sneak one more in? I know it's early, but are you seeing any specific trends in the bid season coming up in terms of volumes and bids and prices for the rock salt bid season? And any color on channel inventories?

Edward Dowling, President & CEO

Yes. So Evan, thanks for the question. It's early days in the bid season for us, very early days. But as we said before, we expect the market to be constructive. And we're focused— that said, our primary focus is always value over volume. And we're focused on maximizing value on every ton of production across all of our facilities. We'll have much better visibility to this and be able to report on it at our Q3 earnings call.

Operator, Operator

Our next question comes from the line of David Silver with Freedom Capital Markets.

David Silver, Analyst, Freedom Capital Markets

I guess I would like to follow up maybe on Ed's comments in the press release where I'm just going to quote you, but you said, "We know we still have—we know what we have to do. We still have work to do in terms of addressing salt mine production efficiency." Could you just kind of highlight what's included in the work that you have to do there?

Edward Dowling, President & CEO

Yes. Thanks, David. I appreciate the question. This is really core to what we're focused on in the company: driving our costs everywhere, not just at Goderich, but across all sites into a more competitive position. These are things like improving maintenance practices so that we can improve the availability of the equipment to actually run more hours in the day and take advantage of that through our utilization. We're seeing good inputs on that—elimination of waste, improvements in our mine planning efforts and other things. We've got a handful of teams underway working on this very diligently, and there's more to come. Later this month, we'll be commissioning a number of other teams to really tackle some enterprise opportunities for us. Let me just ask Pat if there's anything else he'd like to add to that.

Patrick Merrin, Chief Operations Officer

David, this is Pat. I think Ed hit those points well. We're focused on the basic fundamentals of how mines operate. And that comes down to at Goderich: are the machines getting fixed and are they available? Are we using them? And are we using them the way we should be? And then optimization of our mine planning process, all of which has been underway for a year or so. And so we're seeing benefits of that. They're just not coming in as quickly as we would have liked, but the improvements are continuing.

Edward Dowling, President & CEO

Thanks for that, Pat. We are seeing some positive signs from this effort. I feel pretty good about that. And we'll be reporting more and more on this as time goes by.

David Silver, Analyst, Freedom Capital Markets

And then if I could just follow up on your comments about the new collective bargaining agreements. In particular, I'm going to ask you—well, whatever is most important, but I was thinking Goderich first. And in particular, I know that over a longer period of time, there have been some meaningful changes in how you go about things and allocate labor at the mine. Does the current collective bargaining agreement that you highlighted include any greater flexibility on your part in terms of how you can deploy labor and equipment in the normal day-to-day operation of Goderich?

Edward Dowling, President & CEO

Yes. The simple answer to that is yes: it's a mutually beneficial agreement. We're all incented, including the workforce, to improve performance. Let me pass it off to Pat, and he can give you a little more color on that, but we want to keep this pretty high level.

Patrick Merrin, Chief Operations Officer

Yes. David, we can't get too far into the details. But what I will say is that we have spent a lot of time over the last 18 months or so working on the relationship with our union, which has improved dramatically. And I think the CBA reflects our desire and their desire to see the site succeed. We're looking forward to continuing to work with our workforce in driving improvements in safety, costs and tonnage, and we think the CBA is going to allow us to do that.

David Silver, Analyst, Freedom Capital Markets

Okay. And I appreciate you keeping it high level. One last question for me, and it would be regarding Ogden and the very strong improvement there on your SOP business. When I look at the results, there are a number of highlights, but I'm just scratching my head and wondering: is the meaningful improvement there in per-ton margins and other metrics really all related to operational execution? Or how much of the improvement is related to accessing more brine-based tons or higher-potassium brine as opposed to supplemental purchases of KCl? How much is the nuts and bolts of operating the evaporation ponds and everything versus tapping into a richer source of brine?

Edward Dowling, President & CEO

Yes, David, that's a great question. It depends where you start the clock. If you look back a couple of years, our earnings out of that business, including Wynyard, were in the mid-teens. Now we're returning to historical levels of about $50 million a year, which is really around $40 million to $50 million as our target. We're there, with more improvement to come. A lot of that improvement is exactly what you said: it's about managing the ponds correctly and building up the salt at the right grade. Remember, we talked about the harvest-to-production ratio and getting that right, and then putting sufficient inventory in front of our wet plant so we can manage and stabilize the plant in a better way. That's been a great success for us. We'll continue to do that. And I want to remind you that we'll continue to supplement as appropriate with KCl. But the big improvement over the last couple of years is really just managing the ponds better and restoring that capability. We're not done yet; we've got an important capital project to execute later next year—the dryer compaction plant—where we have yield losses and other issues, very high circulating loads, and inefficient operations that impact product quality. We'll execute that project, and we'll see more capacity at lower cost and improved quality compared to what we're producing right now.

Operator, Operator

And we have a question from David Silver of Freedom Capital Markets.

David Silver, Analyst, Freedom Capital Markets

Okay. Great. I did want to ask a question about your particular tax situation here as you look at fiscal 2026. In particular, I would love to get Peter's comments on what kind of cash tax liability in a reasonable range we should expect. I mean it's a very complicated tax analysis to do with the different geographies. And on top of that, the resolution with the government of Ontario, I guess. So in thinking about the cash flow work here, the free cash flow work, what could you point us to in terms of a cash tax liability for this year?

Edward Dowling, President & CEO

Okay. Well, look, it is a complicated question. The short answer is within our guidance, everything is built into that; nothing has really changed. In terms of the details, let me pass it off to Peter to try to address your question with a little more substance.

Peter Fjellman, CFO

Sure. Thank you. David, thanks for the question. As we discussed before, our effective tax rate swings depending on where our relative income is recognized — in Canada versus losses in the U.S. — and the relative mix for tax purposes. So that effective tax rate will tend to fluctuate quite a bit. From a cash standpoint, which is your question, remember that we did make some OMT-related payments related to the Ontario mining matter and resolution of that in previous quarters and worked through that, adjusting our balance sheet and cash payments in previous quarters. At this point, there's not a lot to guide on cash tax, and we'll have a better update in Q3 and Q4.

Edward Dowling, President & CEO

Thanks, Peter. Just to close this thought: a year or two ago we had a number of nonoperational issues in the company. Getting these matters behind us — the refinancing that we've done, the Ontario mining matter, and a number of legal issues — we've really cleared much of this out of the company. The great news is it has allowed us to focus more on what's important.

David Silver, Analyst, Freedom Capital Markets

Okay. Great. And just last one for me. At a very high level, thinking about the current bid season: last winter played out with tight supply across your primary marketing region earlier in the season, but the last month or so was fairly mild. Do you think the industry is still in a scarcity mode, or has the mild March weather given a chance for the situation to normalize? Last year, you got low-single-digit gains on volume and price. I know you're trying to improve on that result. Any comments from the field on winter-ending inventories, maybe at key customers and yourselves?

Edward Dowling, President & CEO

Let me make an early comment: when we talk about inventories, it's important to talk about where. We had a really strong winter in much of our northern system and inventories remain tight there. We had a milder winter in the South, and that's part of what's driving the mix and cost. But in the U.K. and out West, particularly where our lowest-cost salts are produced, it was milder and inventories remain higher there. So it's important to understand the geography. Within that context, our objective is to maximize value. Let me pass it to Ben for some comments from the commercial side.

Ben Nichols, Chief Commercial Officer

David, this is Ben. I think as I stated earlier, we view the scenario as constructive for value moving forward. We see the industry as thin on inventories coming out of the last season, all things being equal. While it is early in the bid process, the few data points we have seen are positive and support the thesis we've stated. We're excited about the bid season. The team is very focused on driving value for every ton that we sell, and we'll have a lot more detail for you when we get together about a quarter from now.

Operator, Operator

With no additional questions in the queue, I'll turn it back to Ed Dowling, President and CEO, for closing remarks.

Edward Dowling, President & CEO

Well, thank you all for your questions and your interest in Compass Minerals. I'm going to leave you with this. We had a strong quarter, but the journey isn't finished. Some of the hard work has continued to drive operational improvements, and we are continuing that work. Some is continuing to improve the plant nutrition business, and we are seeing that progress. Some of it is retiring debt to improve our balance sheet, and we are doing that. And some of it is disciplined execution on our commercial side. We're doing that, too. The direction is right, the strategy is sound, and the team is committed. We look forward to updating you on our next call.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.