Earnings Call Transcript - IOSP Q3 2021

David Jones, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer

Hello, this is David Jones and I'm Innospec's General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer. Yesterday, we reported our financial results for the quarter ending September 30th, 2021. The earnings release in this presentation are posted on the company site at innospecinc.com. During this call, we will be making forward-looking statements, which are predictions and projections. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the anticipated results implied by forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties are detailed in Innospec's 10-K, 10-Qs, and other filings with the SEC. Please see the SEC site or Innospec's site for these and other documents. In our discussion today, we've also included some non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures is contained in our earnings release, which is also posted on our site. The non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered as a substitute for or superior to those prepared in accordance with GAAP. They are included as additional clarification items to help investors further understand the company's performance in addition to the impact that these items and events have on financial results. With us today from Innospec are Patrick Williams, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Ian Cleminson, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. And with that, I turn it over to you, Pat.

Patrick Williams, President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, David and welcome everyone, to Innospec's Third Quarter 2021 Conference Call. This was another very good quarter for Innospec. Our global business teams did an excellent job managing through a difficult supply chain in an inflationary environment. All businesses delivered strong sales growth while holding overall gross margins in line with historic levels. Our outlook is for ongoing tightness in logistics and raw materials as we move through the coming quarters. We will continue to maintain close communication and coordination with our suppliers and customers to limit the impact of any future price actions which may be required to offset inflation. Our balance sheet remains strong and I am delighted that the Board has approved another increase to our semi-annual dividend to $0.59, bringing our full year dividend to $1.16, a 12% increase. Performance Chemicals delivered another excellent quarter with record sales, improved margins, and a 44% increase in operating income over 2020. Our technologies directly address growing long-term consumer trends like clean beauty, sustainable packaging, and low carbon formulations. To keep pace with the demand associated with these trends, we expect to materially step up our organic growth investment in 2022. These investments are targeted for our existing U.S. and European sites and will add incremental capacity, economies of scale, and flexibility to these operations. The majority of this growth CapEx will support our premium, industry-leading personal and homecare ingredients and formulations. Accordingly, we recently raised our medium term organic volume growth outlook from mid-single-digits to high single-digits for Performance Chemicals. In Fuel Specialties, sales and operating income were up significantly over last year as global fuel demand continues its recovery toward pre-COVID 2019 levels. In the coming quarters, both volumes and mix are expected to improve in parallel with the further lifting of the global COVID-19 restrictions and the acceleration of jet travel, particularly international jet travel. Over the medium term, we fully expect global demand for diesel, jet, and renewable fuel to exceed 2019 levels. Our technologies will continue to play a critical and increasing role in reducing fossil fuel consumption and emissions, while also supporting renewable fuel adoption in the global commercial trucking, marine, and aviation fleets. In parallel, supported by our technical and R&D leadership, we are actively extending these technologies outside of fuel applications into areas such as coatings and petrochemical industries, where our business has consistently delivered double-digit annual growth over the past four years. In Oilfield Services, sequential sales and operating income grew and operating margin expanded for the fifth consecutive quarter. The recovery in this business is progressing, but the rate of progress is below our internal expectations. The overall market environment in terms of commodity prices, completion, and production activity is healthy and expected to continue to improve sequentially. With this backdrop, we continue to see significant potential for operating income growth and margin expansion in the coming quarters. Now, I will turn the call over to Ian Cleminson, who will review our financial results in more detail. Then I will return with some concluding comments. After that, we will take your questions.

Ian Cleminson, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Thanks Patrick. Turning to slide seven in the presentation. The company's total revenues for the third quarter were $376.1 million, a 43% increase from $265.1 million a year ago, driven by recovering demand in all our businesses compared to a COVID-19 impacted prior year. Overall gross margin increased by 0.3 percentage points from last year to 30%. EBITDA for the quarter was $41.4 million compared to $31.5 million last year. Our GAAP earnings per share were $0.94, including special items, the net effect of which decreased our third-quarter earnings by $0.21 per share. A year ago, we reported GAAP earnings per share of $0.51, which included the negative impact from special items of $0.20 per share. Excluding special items in both years, our adjusted EPS for the quarter was $1.15 compared to $0.71 a year ago. Turning to slide eight, revenues in Performance Chemicals for the third quarter were $132.8 million, up 30% from last year's $102 million. Volumes grew 10% with a positive price/mix of 19% and a favorable currency impact of 1%. Gross margins of 24.5% were up one percentage point compared to 23.5% in the same quarter in 2020. Operating income increased 44% from last year to $17.8 million. We believe our capital expenditure funds in Performance Chemicals will support the delivery of a high single-digit volume growth over the medium term. Our estimated spend on these capital projects is $32 million in 2022 and the same again in 2023, as the business accelerates its growth plans to meet market demand. Moving on to slide nine, revenues in Fuel Specialties for the third quarter were $156.4 million, 30% higher than $120 million reported a year ago. Volumes grew by 17% and there was a positive price/mix effect of 12%, with a favorable currency impact of 1%. Fuel Specialties gross margin for the quarter was slightly below our expected range of 31.4% compared to 33.6% in the same quarter in 2020. Operating income increased 20% from last year to $26.6 million. Moving on to slide 10, revenues in the Oilfield Services for the quarter were $86.9 million, approximately doubling from $43.1 million in the third quarter last year as customer activity continues to increase. Gross margins of 35.9% were up 2.5 percentage points on last year's 33.4%. Operating income of $2.7 million was a $7.2 million improvement from the loss of $4.5 million a year ago. Turning to slide 11, corporate costs for the quarter were $15.7 million compared to $13.3 million a year ago, due mainly to higher share-based compensation accruals. The effective tax rate for the quarter was 24% compared to 37.1% last year, which included the adverse impact of the change in the U.K. tax rate. The adjusted effective tax rate was 22.3% compared to 23% a year ago, due primarily to the geographical distribution of profits. Moving on to slide 12, cash generation for the quarter of $2.8 million before capital expenditures of $7.9 million was adversely impacted by an increase in working capital due to higher levels of trading and inventory growth to offset supply chain disruption. We've taken a positive decision to hold greater volumes of raw materials and finished goods where it makes commercial sense to do so to ensure continued production at our plants and supply to our customers. We will keep this under review as we move through the fourth quarter and into 2022. As of September 30th, 2021, Innospec had $89.2 million in cash, cash equivalents, and no debt. I'll now turn it back over to Patrick for some final comments.

Patrick Williams, President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Ian. Tight supply chain and inflationary conditions are expected to persist in the coming quarters. We will continue to adapt and manage through the environment while maintaining our excellent standard of customer service. We will continue to work with our suppliers and customers to look for ways to limit the impacts of future price actions which may be required in the coming quarters to offset inflation. These near-term challenges will not delay our execution of the significant number of organic growth investments which are planned for 2022. As we have frequently noted, organic growth is our capital allocation priority and in 2022, we expect to complete a record level of these growth investments in Performance Chemicals. These investments will primarily support increasing demand for our premium personal and homecare technologies. While the size and quality of our near-term organic pipeline has favored building over buying, we continue our disciplined pursuit of M&A opportunities, which would add further scale and complement our Performance Chemicals business. In parallel, with these market growth opportunities, we believe we are well-positioned in our businesses to benefit from increasing demand as economies continue to recover and move closer to full reopening. With the support of our strong balance sheet, we are continuing our record of returning cash to our shareholders by again increasing our semi-annual dividend to $0.59, which represents an annual increase of 12%. Now, I will turn the call over to the operator, and Ian and I will take your questions.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. Your first question comes from Jon Tanwanteng from CJS Securities. Please go ahead.

Stefanos Crist, Analyst

Hi. Good morning. This is Stefanos Crist for Jon.

Patrick Williams, President and Chief Executive Officer

Good morning.

Ian Cleminson, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Hey, good morning.

Stefanos Crist, Analyst

First, can you talk about where you expect margins to go sequentially, just given the input price environment and how mix trends in Q4?

Ian Cleminson, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Yes, so let me take that one. I think, certainly, each business in turn. I think Performance Chemicals will stay around that 24% to 25% gross margin range. We're in a good place there. We're able to pass through inflationary increases. And I think the important thing is that we're working both with our suppliers and customers to ensure it's not just a straight pass-through, but there's lots of innovation and creativity in the supply chain as well. Fuel Specialties, we expect gross margins to increase a little bit into Q4 and into Q1. They are at the lower end of our range right now. We expect them to be broadly between 32% to 36%, but just below 32%. And one of the things that we struggle a little bit in Fuel Specialties in inflationary environments is that the pass-through of raw material increases is on a lag, normally around about three months. So, at the bottom end of that lag, right now, we'll catch that up as we move through Q4 and into next year. And then in Oilfield, we expect those gross margins to stay broadly where they are in the sort of the low-30s, maybe even switching to the mid-30s in terms of growth percentage points.

Stefanos Crist, Analyst

Great, thank you. And I do just want to go a little bit more on the Oilfield gross margins, around the 35%, is that level sustainable? And then how should we think about the impact there on volumes versus price?

Ian Cleminson, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

The gross margins are expected to remain in the mid to low-30s. There may be some variability due to sales mix, depending on quarterly volumes. While our business is volume-driven, volume does not significantly affect our manufacturing costs, as most expenses come from raw materials. If we continue to take appropriate pricing actions and maintain discipline, we should be able to stay within that margin range.

Stefanos Crist, Analyst

Great. Thank you and I'll just ask one more. How should we think about free cash flow? Are you planning to spend more in working capital going forward?

Ian Cleminson, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Yes, we've not had the best quarter for free cash flow. We had a small free cash flow outflow. And that was mainly driven by a $29 million outflow in working capital. Now, we took a very conscious decision, as we've said in the script too, earlier on, and it's to hold higher volumes of raw materials and higher volumes of finished goods. And that's really to see us over the supply chain disruptions that we are currently experiencing, and we think that makes good commercial sense. We'll keep our eyes on that as we move into Q4 and into the start of next year. And in terms of how we see working capital going from here on in, our expectation is that it will be fairly flat between now and the end of the year, and then we'll take another hard look at it as we enter into 2022, seeing what the external environment looks like. But with the strength of our balance sheet, we think that makes good sense for us to take those actions to make sure that our plants stay operational and our customers all stay supplied.

Stefanos Crist, Analyst

That's great. Thank you for taking my questions.

Ian Cleminson, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Thank you.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from David Silver from CL King. Please go ahead.

David Silver, Analyst

Yes, good morning. Thank you very much. I would like to begin with a couple of questions for Ian. Firstly, regarding the corporate expense line. When I examine it sequentially or year-over-year, one of the noticeable variances is on the corporate expense line, and I was wondering if you could discuss what happened this quarter that resulted in that number being somewhat elevated compared to historical levels. Additionally, what is the outlook for that going forward? I will pause with that question for now. Thank you.

Ian Cleminson, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Sure David, it's a good question. And as you can imagine, over the last 18 months, we had quite an up and down period both on our SAR base, but also from a share price base, and this period last year, our share price had dropped quite a bit and because of that, we saw some credits coming through from share-based compensation. This quarter, we are seeing better performance in the business and we're seeing a better share price performance and that's rebounded a bit. So, there's a little bit of a delta between where we were this time last year and where we are now, and broadly, corporate costs are in that sort of $15 million range, most quarters, they could be a little bit higher, a little bit lower depending on what we're doing. But that $15 million a quarter is about the range I would expect us to tackle out, David.

David Silver, Analyst

Okay, great. I would like to follow up on the working capital question you just answered. There has been a net working capital usage in each of the first three quarters of the year, totaling around $80 million over nine months. I understand there are various factors contributing to that total, but could you explain how much of the full working capital increase represents a recovery from last year, as opposed to the additional working capital needed to manage the issues you mentioned regarding holding more inventory and finished products? Thank you.

Ian Cleminson, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Yes, that's a good question, David. As you mentioned earlier, we have seen an outflow of approximately $82 million in working capital in cash terms over the past nine months. Of that amount, around $60 million to $65 million can be attributed to increased trading across all three of our businesses. Performance Chemicals has experienced significant acceleration, Fuel Specialties has shown a solid recovery, and we are witnessing gradual improvements in Oilfield. We anticipated that our working capital would stabilize somewhat in Q3, but that did not happen. The last quarter was when we made a deliberate choice to raise our inventory levels of finished goods and raw materials, mainly in our Fuel Specialties segment. When examining each business from Q2 to Q3, both Oilfield and Performance Chemicals remained relatively stable in terms of working capital, while Fuel Specialties opted to maintain higher levels of raw materials and finished goods. This decision reflects the complexities and lengthy supply chains that our business must navigate.

David Silver, Analyst

Thank you for your insights. I have a question for Patrick regarding Performance Chemicals, and potentially one for Oilfield. Ian mentioned the growth plans for Performance Chemicals over the coming years, which is impressive. However, I'm curious about the commercial terms when you develop a popular new additive. Specifically, if you create a sulfate-free formulation that interests a particular customer, are the terms typically exclusive, or can you market it to a broader customer base? In essence, do your breakthrough products usually have exclusive agreements, or do you have the flexibility to sell them to additional customers beyond the first one?

Patrick Williams, President and Chief Executive Officer

Some products developed for specific customers may be exclusive to them, but most of our technology is designed for the broader market. While the formulation for a particular product might be unique to one customer, we generally sell the main components to the mass market. Our products are mild, sulfate-free, and free from 1-4 dioxin, aligning with consumer trends we focused on four years ago when we established this strategy. As mentioned in previous calls, this direction has been effective for us, guiding our plant and volume expansions toward producing milder and more sustainable products.

David Silver, Analyst

Okay and thank you for that. And then, I'd like to shift over to Oilfield, Patrick, and I'd appreciate your medium- to longer term perspective on this question. But the recovery in the Oilfield Services topline, in my opinion, has been a little bit more moderate than I would have expected given the absolute level of crude oil prices. And I'm just wondering if you could share your, like I said, maybe medium- to longer term view for how you see that part of your business, and I guess, by extension, the domestic energy production, the domestic energy industry, the production side evolving over the next few years? In other words, is this the case where it's just going to take longer to get back to the pre-COVID business levels in that group? Or maybe, should we be thinking about kind of a lower ceiling for that given the current, I don't know, political environment or whatever else you might cite. So, maybe how to think about prospects for continued recovery in that segment given the current level and direction of crude oil prices? Thanks.

Patrick Williams, President and Chief Executive Officer

Sure David. We've talked about this before, and it seems like this recovery is different from past ones. Normally, when crude prices rise by 10% to 20%, we would also see an increase in volumes. However, that's not the case now, largely due to COVID and regulatory factors, but primarily because of Wall Street's expectations. Public oil and gas companies are focusing on paying down debt and returning cash to shareholders before investing more in production. This has led to a significant slowdown in drilling and investment. Although we're positioned well for the future, the recovery will likely be slow. This approach is responsible and should help stabilize oil and natural gas prices. The current administration's regulatory environment has also contributed to this slowdown, but we are prepared for it. Internally, we are not satisfied with the current growth, but we anticipate a better recovery next year. We expect moderate growth for the next couple of quarters before seeing substantial long-term growth. There is a lot of uncertainty, particularly regarding OPEC and the regulatory environment, but also concerning long-term demand. We are biding our time and believe we are well-positioned to take advantage of the market as it improves.

David Silver, Analyst

Okay. Yes, I have one more question on Oilfield. In the past, Patrick, you've mentioned that when industry conditions are strong, you tend to bundle services and act as a full-service provider for your key customers. However, during tougher times when costs become a concern for customers, you shift to offering a more limited, À la carte selection of services. Where do you think we currently stand on that spectrum? Are customers interested in accessing a broader range of your services and technologies all at once, or do you believe that cost-consciousness is still a significant factor, and how might this change in the future? Thanks.

Patrick Williams, President and Chief Executive Officer

It's an interesting question, David. I think it filters across all of our businesses, but we're in a market environment because of supply chain inflationary issues, where some of the technology that we bring, which is grade-A, top technology, is potentially put aside for a more commoditized technology. We just have to adapt to the environment. It doesn't mean we give up margin; it just means that we have to really look at technology from a different perspective. And I think that's really specific to Oilfield is where you have this transition of market play right now. And so, we're in that environment and so we just have to make sure we continuously look at technology and make sure we provide that to the customer base to limit as much inflationary pressures that they have and supply chain issues that they have as well. And we've done a good job of that. I think you'll see, specific to Oilfield, we'll return to a better operating income as we move into next year, as we do, not only simple blocking and tackling things, but as we maneuver that technology around. The customer is still looking at us as the expertise in chemicals downhole and we will continuously provide that because that's what we do; it's different than everybody else. And for us, it's just remaining intact to make sure that we limit really the effect on that customer, on rising cost. And that's what we're doing.

David Silver, Analyst

Excellent. Okay. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Patrick Williams, President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I would now like to hand the conference back to Patrick Williams for closing.

Patrick Williams, President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you all for joining us today and thanks to all our shareholders, the customers, and Innospec employees for your interest and support. If you have any further questions about Innospec or matters discussed today, please give us a call. We look forward to meeting up with you again to discuss our fourth quarter 2021 results in February. Have a great day.