Earnings Call Transcript - PRM Q4 2023

Operator, Operator

Hello, and welcome to the Perimeter Solutions Q4 and Full Year 2023 Earnings Call and Webcast. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It’s now my pleasure to turn the call over to Seth Barker, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Seth.

Seth Barker, Head of Investor Relations

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Perimeter Solutions’ fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings call. Speaking on today’s call are Haitham Khouri, Chief Executive Officer; and Kyle Sable, Chief Financial Officer. We want to remind anyone who may be listening to a replay of this call that all statements made are as of today, February 22, 2024, and these statements have not been, nor will they be, updated subsequent to today’s call. Also, today’s call may contain forward-looking statements. The statements made today are based on management’s current expectations, assumptions, and beliefs about our business and the environment in which we operate, and our actual results may materially differ from those expressed or implied on today’s call. Please review our SEC filings for a more complete discussion of factors that could impact our results. The company would also like to advise you that during the call, we will be referring to non-GAAP financial measures, including EBITDA. The reconciliation of and other information regarding these items can be found in our earnings press release and presentation, both of which will be available on our website and on the SEC’s website. With that, I will turn the call over to Haitham Khouri, Chief Executive Officer.

Haitham Khouri, CEO

Thank you, Seth. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. As always, I’ll start on Slide 3 with summary comments on our strategy. As we have stated repeatedly, our goal is to deliver private equity-like returns with the liquidity of a public market. We plan to attain this goal by owning, operating, and growing uniquely high-quality businesses. We define uniquely high-quality businesses through the following five very specific economic criteria: number one, recurring and predictable revenue streams; number two, long-term secular growth tailwinds; number three, products that account for critical but small portions of larger value streams; number four, significant free cash flow generation with higher returns on tangible capital; and number five, the potential for opportunistic consolidation. We believe that these five economic criteria are present at our current businesses, and we use these criteria to evaluate potential new acquisitions. As described on Slide 4, we seek to drive long-term equity value creation by a consistent improvement in our three operational value drivers, which are: number one, profitable new business; number two, continual productivity improvements; and number three, pricing to reflect the value our products and services provide. In addition to our three operational value drivers, we seek to maximize equity value creation through a clear focus on the allocation of our capital as well as the management of our capital structure. Turning now to our financial results on Slide 5. 2023 presented challenging demand environments in both our Fire Safety and Specialty Products businesses. Starting with Fire Safety, the 2023 fire season was very mild, with 2.3 million acres burned excluding Alaska. This represented an almost 50% decrease versus 2022, which itself was a mild season and was almost 60% below a 10-year U.S. average. We believe that the mild 2023 season was primarily driven by idiosyncratic weather events, including record aggregate rainfall and snowpack in some of the most fire-prone regions of the United States in the first half of the year and unique storm activity during the fire season, including tropical storm Hilary in August. Despite the almost 50% year-over-year decline in U.S. acres burned excluding Alaska, 2023 Fire Safety revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted EBITDA margin were all roughly flat versus 2022. Fire Safety’s 2023 financial result outperformed the decline in acres burned, principally due to: first, improved unit economics throughout our retardant business; second, continued particularly strong performance from our international retardant markets; and third, continued excellent performance from our suppressants business. We believe that these three positive drivers are the direct result of the rigorous application of our three P’s operating strategy, which I summarized on Slide 4, and which we will continue to drive going forward in all corners of our business, irrespective of end-market conditions. Our Specialty Products business also experienced a weak demand environment in 2023, driven principally by inventory destocking activity in the specialty chemical supply chain. This weak demand environment is reflected in our 2023 Specialty Products financial results, with full year revenue down 28% and adjusted EBITDA down 57% versus the prior year. We will continue to refrain from real-time commentary or timing predictions around the market recovery, though I will reiterate our confidence that demand for our products should recover. Before moving on from our 2023 financial results, I’ll note that while both our businesses experienced weak end markets in 2023, both also reap the benefits of a couple of years of strong execution on our three P’s value driver strategy. The resulting 2023 performance establishes a credible base EBITDA in a soft end-market scenario. Turning to cash and capital allocation, we repurchased approximately 6.3 million shares in the fourth quarter at an average price of $4.21. We repurchased approximately 12.2 million shares in 2023 at an average price of $5.24. Our Board of Directors has approved a new $100 million share repurchase authorization, which replaces our prior authorization. Let me spend a moment now on capital allocation more generally. We’re confident that our three P’s operating strategy will create significant value when applied to the right businesses as defined by the five target economic criteria on Slide 3. This confidence is based on the underlying improvement delivered in each of our retardants, suppressants, and Specialty Products businesses over the past two years. The improvement in our retardants business is evidenced by Fire Safety's approximately flat 2023 financial performance, despite the almost 50% year-over-year decline in U.S. acres burned excluding Alaska versus 2022. The improvement in our suppressants business is evidenced by the fact that we’ve approximately doubled adjusted EBITDA margins between 2021 and 2023 and have well more than doubled adjusted EBITDA dollars over this period. The improvement in our Specialty Products business is best evidenced by its strong performance in 2022 prior to the aforementioned destock activity. As enthusiastic as we are about M&A-driven value creation, we are constantly evaluating the IRR trade-off between actionable acquisitions and share repurchases. As evidenced by our actions, particularly over the latter part of 2023, we’ve deemed shrinking our share count to prevailing valuations to be the best use of our capital to date. We will continue to constantly evaluate our capital allocation alternatives and expect to deploy all of our excess free cash flow as well as the incremental leverage capacity we expect to generate through organic EBITDA growth towards the highest IRR combination of M&A, share repurchases, and special dividends. As I’ve done in the last couple of earnings calls, I’ll now comment on the competitive environment in our retardant business. We believe that Perimeter is the gold standard regarding the efficacy and safety of our products, quality of our service, and the passion, dedication, and integrity of our team. Despite a high degree of confidence in our business, we will not fall into the standard incumbent trap of ignoring, dismissing, or minimizing potential competition. We believe that only the paranoid survive, and we take every potential competitive risk, no matter how remote, seriously. Between the clear superiority of our products, services, and people, our competitive spirit, and our ever-vigilant mindset, we believe that we will thrive in any future environment. I’ll close by noting that we will refrain from providing annual guidance, both for 2024 and as a go-forward policy. As is hopefully clear from our 2023 results relative to end market conditions, as well as from the commentary around our businesses, we feel good about our prospects and expect to report solid financial results in a normalized demand environment. With that, I’ll turn the call over to Kyle.

Kyle Sable, CFO

Thanks, Haitham. Fourth quarter sales in our Fire Safety business were $35.4 million, up 81% versus the prior year and $225.6 million for the full year 2023, approximately flat versus 2022. Fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA in our Fire Safety business was $7 million, up from a loss of $3.9 million the prior year and $76.2 million for the full year 2023, down 1% versus 2022. We are pleased with our Fire Safety results in the fourth quarter, but are mindful of the fact that our fire business’ seasonality for the fourth quarter typically generates less than 10% of annual EBITDA, exaggerates small changes in both revenue and profitability. Approximately half of the improvement in our year-over-year Q4 financial performance was due to our suppressants business and half was due to retardants. The improvement in suppressants was largely driven by strength in fluorine-free foams, aided by our recent mil-spec qualification. While the improvement in retardants was primarily due to strong performance in our international markets and improved unit economics across geographies, each of these components, be it international growth in retardants, successful new product introductions in suppressants, or improved unit economics across our various Fire Safety products and services, is the direct result of the rigorous and successful application of our three P’s operating strategy. Fourth quarter sales in our Specialty Products business were $24.1 million, up 11% versus the prior year and $96.6 million for the full year 2023, down 28% versus 2022. Fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA in our Specialty Products business was $4.2 million, down 30% versus the prior year and $20.6 million for the full year 2023, down 57% versus 2022. 2023 revenue was impacted by lower volumes due to inventory destock activity, and 2023 EBITDA was impacted by lower volumes compounded by high fixed costs. Q4 2023 EBITDA margins were below Q4 2022 due to the timing of certain charges and expenses. Moving to the consolidated business, fourth quarter consolidated sales were $59.5 million, up 44% versus the prior year. Full year 2023 consolidated sales were $322.1 million, down 11% versus 2022. Fourth quarter consolidated adjusted EBITDA was $11.2 million, up from $2.1 million the prior year. Full year 2023 consolidated adjusted EBITDA was $96.8 million, down 23% versus 2022. Substantially all of the year-over-year decline in consolidated revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted EBITDA margin is due to what we believe to be destock-related volumes in our Specialty Products business. Moving below adjusted EBITDA, interest expense in the fourth quarter was $10.5 million, in line with our quarterly run rate. Full year interest expense was $41.4 million, also in line with our long-term expectations. Depreciation was $2.6 million in Q4, while amortization expense was $13.8 million. Depreciation was $9.8 million for the full year, while amortization expense was $55.1 million. Cash paid for income tax was approximately $5.4 million in Q4 and $26 million for the full year. CapEx was approximately $2.8 million in Q4 and $9.4 million for the full year. Our long-term expectations for interest expense, depreciation, tax rate, and CapEx are unchanged and summarized on Slide 6. Our long-term expectations for net working capital are unchanged as well, although we expect to receive a benefit from working capital in 2024, given our robust inventory position. We ended 2023 with approximately $675 million of senior notes, cash of approximately $47.3 million, and approximately 146.5 million ordinary shares outstanding. With that, I’ll hand the call back to the operator for Q&A.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. Our first question today is coming from Dan Kutz from Morgan Stanley. Your line is live.

Dan Kutz, Analyst

Hey, thanks. Good morning. So I just wanted to kick it off. Haitham, you talked a lot about capital allocation priorities and how M&A fits into that. I guess my question is, against the prevailing debt and equity capital markets backdrop and cost of capital for Perimeter, is smaller bolt-on M&A still on the menu? And then, I guess, maybe more importantly, what would some of the milestones or what would you need to see for bigger M&A opportunities to kind of potentially look more attractive? Is it just a factor of maybe a more normal severity fire season and the stock reflecting better earnings power of the business or anything that you could help us with in terms of what would make bigger M&A more attractive in the capital allocation stack? Thanks.

Haitham Khouri, CEO

Yes. Hey, Dan, thanks for the question. So to quickly hit your first one, yes, small tuck-in M&A, anything we can do from balance sheet cash or expected free cash generation is absolutely on the table, and we’re always looking for small deals like that, which tend to be very good when you can find them. Larger deals, it really is strictly a function of expected IRR. If we had one on the table today that was a higher expected IRR than share repurchases or alternative uses of cash and we believe we could finance it, we would do it. We’re open for business for large transactions. Now, that said, to the extent we do need to issue debt or equity securities to finance a larger acquisition, then a lower share price and a higher cost of debt, those are adverse inputs in any model and will lead to a lower IRR. So there is certainly some circularity to it. And the better our stock does and the lower our cost of debt is, from a mathematical standpoint, the more likely it is that a large deal will clear the hurdle, but there’s no magic stock price or cost of debt; there is a magic IRR hurdle, where if a deal clears that hurdle, pro forma for financing assumptions and is a superior IRR to buying back our own stock, we’ll swing the bat.

Dan Kutz, Analyst

That’s great. That’s all super helpful, and I appreciate that color. And then maybe just quickly, I appreciate it’s early in the year, but just wondering if there’s anything you could share in terms of what kind of the snowpack and precipitation indicators might signal thus far this year relative to maybe some prior years or the historical normal trends. Is there anything to garner thus far in terms of the potential severity of this fire season from those indicators? Thanks.

Haitham Khouri, CEO

Predicting fire seasons in February is a fool's errand, but I'll do it anyway. At a very high level comment, I would say this looks pretty normal, but there are no indicators flashing particularly mild or particularly severe. So it’s generally very hard to make a prediction in February, and it’s even harder this year because nothing particularly unusual is going on as far as we can tell.

Dan Kutz, Analyst

Fair enough. And really appreciate that color. Thanks a lot, guys. I will turn it back.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. Your next question is coming from Josh Spector from UBS. Your line is now live.

Josh Spector, Analyst

Yes. Hey, guys. Good morning. So I first want to just ask for clarification. Just when you talked about the Fire Safety business in the fourth quarter, I think you said it was roughly half suppressants and retardants. I wasn’t sure if that referred to the year-on-year growth or the mix in the quarter. So can you clarify that, please?

Kyle Sable, CFO

Thanks, Josh. Now when we’re speaking about that, we are talking about the improvement and the performance of the business, not the overall mix of the business in the quarter.

Josh Spector, Analyst

Okay. That’s helpful. And I guess just related to suppressants, when you talk about the mil spec win, how much of that would you say now is in the numbers, I guess, at least in the second half of this year versus further opportunity as you look at next year?

Haitham Khouri, CEO

So it’s very hard to quantify precisely because mil spec is a very large market, and the nature of our product in suppressants tends to be razor, razor blade. So even if you penetrate the market with upfront installs, you’re then setting yourself up for a very nice long-term, fairly captive stream of foam sales. So it’s hard to answer the question. But at a high level, we got mil spec approval pretty late in 2023. Therefore, while it did help us nicely late in the year, it really was for only a few weeks of 2023. So we’re pretty excited about mil specs going forward. But the last thing I’ll say on mil spec is not all of the mil spec is a single approval. We got – we were the first to get a specific mil spec approval in late 2023, which was great. And by the way, tremendous, tremendous effort over the past couple of years by our suppressants, R&D team; this is very difficult chemistry and a heck of an accomplishment to be first to market here. But it’s the first of a couple of other potential meaningful mil spec approvals, which also nobody has yet. We feel pretty good about our odds of being first to market and doing quite well there; the first-mover advantage as well. Now we’ll see, we’ve got to execute, but we certainly have the R&D team for it.

Josh Spector, Analyst

Thanks, I appreciate that. I’ll ask a couple more and then turn it over. I guess, first, just I wanted to ask on the contracts for the 2024 season. I think your competitor flagged that there were some delays in going out. I’m not really sure what that means for you guys and what your view is on share repricing. So just curious on any color there.

Haitham Khouri, CEO

It really doesn’t mean anything for us, Josh. The last thing I think we want to be doing as a company is commenting customer by customer and contract by contract. So we’re not going to do it today, and we really never going to do it. That said, no, those comments have no impact on our business. From a competitive share perspective, listen, you heard my comments in the prepared remarks. On the one hand, we feel really, really, really good about our business. I will put up our people against anybody in the world; I will put up our product against anybody in the world; I will put up our service against anybody in the world, and I am very confident in spending lots of time with our customers that they agree with that assessment. The second thing I will say is we really do believe that only the paranoid survive. If there is any glimmer of risk anywhere in our business, competitive or otherwise, we are going to take it super, super, super seriously. So, we feel good about 2024, but we are also ever vigilant.

Josh Spector, Analyst

Okay. Thanks. I have no questions; I will leave it there. So, I will jump back in the queue.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. Our next question is coming from Brian DiRubbio from Baird. Your line is now live.

Brian DiRubbio, Analyst

Good morning, gentlemen. A couple of questions for me, just first off, Kyle, I think you mentioned that in 2024, you will see a working capital benefit. Can you give us any sense of how much of that inventory is in Fire Safety versus Specialty Products?

Kyle Sable, CFO

Sure, Brian. Just given the size of the relative businesses and where we are at right now, the bulk of the inventory that we see here is going to be in our Fire Safety business. As far as the impact that it’s going to have this year to our free cash flow, it’s really hard because it depends on both the severity and the timing of the fire season, but we wouldn’t have called it out if it did have potential to be meaningful.

Brian DiRubbio, Analyst

Okay. And are you going to manage that aggressively this year, or put another way, are you going to reduce operating rates to make sure you get that benefit?

Haitham Khouri, CEO

Yes, when you think about our business, the first focus for us is always, 100% of the time, we need to have retardant available to deliver. So, I just want to start by saying there is no scenario where we would ever endanger that priority. That said, yes, listen, we have talked about this several times now. This is a focus for the company and for us to really work through that inventory. We are going to need more of a fire season than we saw last year. If that materializes this year, we expect we will see a benefit from inventory.

Brian DiRubbio, Analyst

Understood. And then, final question for me, earlier this month, the U.S. Forest Service released a record decision about how they want to attack wildfires on national forest lands basically calling for using more water and fewer toxic suppressants – sorry, retardants. Just sort of any thoughts on how that can affect your business overall? I think one of the comments they made in the ROD was that it would impact about 20% of the land-based system?

Haitham Khouri, CEO

And Brian, I just don’t know the report you are referring to, and I am sitting in this conference room here with a big swath of our management team, and none of us know the report you are referring to. Our product has been, just for its work, our retardant products have been developed in true partnerships with our large customers, very consultatively over many, many years and undergo, we have our customers are environmental conservation first and foremost. Our products have gone through rigorous testing and blessing by them, and therefore, there is certainly something collaterally consistent in sort of the premise of your question, but let’s follow up offline, and we are glad to read anything out there.

Brian DiRubbio, Analyst

Yes. I will send you a copy of the report. It was posted on their website, the U.S. Forest Service website in early February, I think it was February 2nd, sort of detailing how they want to change their approach. I will pass along so we can follow up offline.

Haitham Khouri, CEO

Okay.

Brian DiRubbio, Analyst

Great. Thank you.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. Next question is a follow-up from Josh Spector from UBS. Your line is now live.

Josh Spector, Analyst

Hey guys. So, I just wanted to ask about the international growth in retardants. Are there specific markets or products you would call out that helped you in the fourth quarter? And I am just wondering if that’s any read of any flow-through of wins, etc., for next year, or something just within this fire season in those countries for this quarter?

Haitham Khouri, CEO

Yes. I will answer the second part first, which is there is really no read-through from Q4 into Q1. Not to say that Q1 is going to be particularly mild or severe, just the events that led to good retardant sales in Q4 were pretty idiosyncratic and don’t say much about what Q1 of 2024 might look like. As far as markets that were strong for us, Australia was solid for us in Q4, not particularly unusual, but it was a good market for us, as were a couple of markets in South America.

Josh Spector, Analyst

Okay. Thanks. And just a follow-up on the working capital part of it, I guess if I look at where you ended, working capital looks like it’s about 50% of sales. Historically, it’s closer to maybe 25%. I guess very rough math, if your sales are flat, should we think about getting that working capital percentage down to that historical level as about the right framework? And I guess if you were to grow sales, do you actually get a working capital benefit or do you just grow into that? I’m just curious about those two points.

Kyle Sable, CFO

Thanks Josh. Yes, to the second point, and I will take that first, you have generally got the right way to frame it; that if we grow sales, normally, we would have to invest in working capital like any business. We have an inventory position that allows us to slow those initial purchases. It allows us to build into some of the inventory that we already have and use that. To your question on if we hold sales flat, do we release inventory, the hope would be that we would be able to release some amount of inventory. The question just really depends on the severity and timing of the fire season.

Josh Spector, Analyst

Okay. Fair enough. And just a couple on Specialty. So I guess the sales were up, but the EBITDA wasn’t, so I am curious if there is anything you could share about why that was the case?

Kyle Sable, CFO

Yes. Josh, it really was down to a little bit of charge timing, what came in and out of the quarter right around quarter-end. When we look at the underlying economics of the business, we don’t think there is anything meaningful that has changed either quarter-over-quarter or year-over-year other than the deleveraging we would see from an operating perspective.

Josh Spector, Analyst

Okay. And I mean, since you don’t disclose price or volumes, I don’t know if there is a way you can roughly frame where the volumes in that segment today versus – I think you said 2022 was normal. Can you frame that at least so we can understand what a recovery might look like?

Haitham Khouri, CEO

I will try to take that, Josh. So, I am not going to comment on today, but I will comment on last year. Last year was down, and we are not – again, we are not going to quantify it, but last year volumes that the destock was severe; our volumes were down significantly throughout 2023 versus 2022. We have said before, and I will say again, from a three P’s value driver perspective, we did well. Our unit economics are similar, if not better, in 2023 versus 2022, which does suggest some element of positive pricing, and therefore, a large portion – more than all of, etc., the revenue decline is volume.

Josh Spector, Analyst

Okay. Fair enough. And the last one to me, just kind of a picky one here, on the share count, you presented in your slides. I assume that reflects the current share count with the full buyback. So, as of January versus the December quarter average, and does that include roughly a couple of million shares that will be added with the founder's share structure?

Haitham Khouri, CEO

To keep it simple, Kyle, so we just give end of 2023 basic shares outstanding.

Kyle Sable, CFO

Yes, at the end of 2023 for basic shares outstanding, we had 146.5 million shares outstanding at the end of 2023, net of everything.

Josh Spector, Analyst

Okay. But that doesn’t – if the founder shares will be added this year or is that already in…?

Haitham Khouri, CEO

It does not include founder share issuance in Q1 of 2024 and any other potential buyback or issuance activity in the first quarter of 2024.

Josh Spector, Analyst

Got it. It makes sense. Thank you very much.

Haitham Khouri, CEO

Thanks, Josh.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. We reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the floor back over to management for any further or closing comments.

Haitham Khouri, CEO

No, just thanks again for the time, everybody. Thanks for the support, and we will be back here soon.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. That does conclude today’s teleconference and webcast. You may disconnect your line at this time and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.