Earnings Labs

Ashland Inc. (ASH)

Q2 2015 Earnings Call· Thu, Apr 30, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Ashland, Inc. Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session, and instructions will follow at that time. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would like to introduce your host for today's conference, Mr. Jason Thompson, Director of Investor Relations. Sir, please go ahead.

Jason L. Thompson - Director, Investor Relations

Management

Thank you, Michelle. Good morning and welcome to Ashland's second quarter fiscal 2015 conference call and webcast. We released preliminary results for the quarter ended March 31, 2015, at approximately 5 PM Eastern Time, yesterday, April 29. And this presentation should be viewed in conjunction with the earnings release. Additionally, we posted slides and prepared remarks to our website under the Investor Relations section, and have furnished each of these documents to the SEC in a Form 8-K. On the call today are Bill Wulfsohn, Ashland's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Kevin Willis, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; Luis Fernandez-Moreno, Senior Vice President of Ashland and President of the Chemicals Group, which includes Ashland Specialty Ingredients and Ashland Performance Materials; and Sam Mitchell, Senior Vice President and President of Valvoline. As shown on slide two, our remarks include forward-looking statements, as such term is defined under U.S. securities law. We believe any such statements are based on reasonable assumptions but cannot assure that such expectations will be achieved. Please also note that we will be discussing adjusted results in this presentation. We believe this enhances understanding of our performance by more accurately reflecting our ongoing business. I will now turn the call over to Bill for his opening remarks. William A. Wulfsohn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you, Jason, and good morning everyone. I am pleased to report that the Ashland team achieved strong financial results in the second quarter, driven by solid execution across the entire organization. As you may remember from our first quarter earnings call, I outlined several core priorities associated with my on-boarding to Ashland. My first priority was to ensure that we delivered against our near and mid-term financial EBITDA margin growth targets. Kevin will provide more color around our progress…

Luis Fernandez-Moreno - Senior Vice President and President, Chemicals Group

Management

Thanks, Kevin. ASI had a good second quarter. Our strategy of focusing on segments of the market where we add significant value is working. A few good examples would be in the personal care, pharmaceutical, and coatings markets. On a combined basis, volumes sold into these markets grew 3% versus prior-year, and sales grew 2%, after adjusting for currency. Additionally, the investments we've made in recent years to expand our global presence (10:09) results. Currency-adjusted sales in emerging regions grew 5%. Although our teams drove good performance across the business, we also faced some significant headwinds. The combined effect of currency, our exit from non-core product lines, and weakness in energy markets resulted in a roughly $57 million headwind to sales. Adjusting for that, sales would have increased 2% from prior year. Gross margins were strong for the quarter, driven by better mix in products and market segments as well as continued improvement in our cost execution. In general, we had good pricing in most areas of the business. We are seeing modest benefits from lower costs for crude oil and some other feedstocks. Price have been stable across most of our markets, although we have seen some price pressure in the energy and nutrition markets. SG&A was down $14 million from last year, as we have done a good job of removing cost through the global restructuring. These reduced support costs, combined with the strong execution, are driving solid business performance. As we look out over the near-term, we expect headwinds from currency and energy to persist. As a result, we expect full-year 2015 sales to be slightly lower than our previous expectation, at approximately 4% to 6% below prior year. However, we expect year-over-year margin expansion to persist through continued improvement in product and market mix and manufacturing…

Samuel J. Mitchell, Jr. - Senior Vice President and President, Valvoline

Management

Thanks, Luis. Valvoline posted record earnings in the second quarter. The strong performance was driven by improved profitability across each of our channels and great execution by all of our teams. Within DIY, strong promotions during the quarter led to a 2% volume increase. The Valvoline Instant Oil Change team had another strong quarter, with each of its key metrics improving from prior year. Oil changes per day were up 7%. Average ticket approached $70, and same-store sales for company-owned sites rose 7%. The international channel returned to growth as distributor destocking appeared to abate during the end of the quarter. However, within our installer channel, we saw continued destocking through January, with shipments picking up in February and March, but still ending the quarter slightly behind prior-year volume. Across Valvoline, we saw very good growth of our premium products, which accounted for nearly 41% of total branded lubricant sales. This strong operational performance, coupled with good margins, led to EBITDA growth of 18% from prior year. Looking to the third quarter, we expect solid performance across all channels. The international channel in particular should get back to normal profit levels – growth levels. While we expect strong margins driven by good product and channel mix, we do expect continued pricing adjustments to be an offset. As a result, we expect EBITDA margin to contract somewhat from the record level in the second quarter, but be up approximately 300 basis points from prior year. Longer-term, we expect to continue driving volume growth within the international, VIOC, and installer channels, offsetting secular declines in the DIY market. Lower base oil prices have provided a tailwind for us in the first half of the year. We are now passing along some of those savings to customers, but the overall supply/demand balance for…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of John McNulty with Credit Suisse. Your line is open. Please go ahead. John P. McNulty - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Yeah. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe the first one on ASI. When we take a look, even if when you back out the energy volumes and the weakness around that, see kind of modest, low-single digit type growth, which certainly isn't kind of the mid-single digit range that I think you have all, kind of, indicated is a good, kind of, growth rate, long-term. So, I guess, how should we be thinking about what's holding that business back now? And maybe some of the measures that you can pull, or some of the levers you can pull, to accelerate the growth as we kind of look into the latter half of the year and into next year.

Luis Fernandez-Moreno - Senior Vice President and President, Chemicals Group

Management

Hi, John. How are you? This is Luis Fernandez. This is a very good question. As you see, the total growth for the business, when you take the energy markets out, currency is about 3%, what really encourages me is that the growth in the core segments, specifically personal care, pharma, coatings and adhesives, has been at the rates consistent with 1.5 times to 2 times the GDP growth of those areas. What is pulling back a little bit from that growth has been the construction market in Europe. We also took some decisions to get out of redispersible powders, which is, again, not necessarily bad for us, because it was – it's a business that is accretive to EBITDA the fact that we got out of it. But it's having an impact on our sales. And then on the nutrition segment, although the nutrition segment is reasonable, one of our product lines has had extra capacity in the marketplace and that has limited a little bit of our growth in the nutrition area. But the key to me is on the core areas, which are high-margin areas, and that's where I referred to better market segment mix, we definitely are growing at rates that are above the GDP growth for those market segments. John P. McNulty - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Okay, great. And then maybe a question on the BDO assets. You've got – I guess in the past, it had been viewed that they were important to keep in and integrated through ASI. You've got both the assets down. It does look like they are – they do contribute a lot of volatility to the overall portfolio. So, I guess, I'm wondering maybe, Bill, if you can comment as to now that you've had a…

Samuel J. Mitchell, Jr. - Senior Vice President and President, Valvoline

Management

Regarding Valvoline Instant Oil Change and its strength, as I mentioned earlier, it's been performing for a number of years for us. So the model continues to get stronger. We've built an excellent team, great leadership team, great leadership out in the stores. That is the fundamental driver for great performance and taking care of your customers. But over the years, too, we've developed strong process for how we take care of customers, not just within our company-owned stores, but our franchise stores, too. And what's exciting for me is to see that our franchise stores are performing in lockstep with the company stores, seeing the same kind of trends. And then lastly, we've really made some good progress on our marketing efforts to help us drive new traffic to the stores and win new customers, and convert those to loyal customers. So those are all big drivers to a strong operating model. And as we look at the model, then, and the opportunities in the quick lube market, we definitely see opportunities for store expansion. And we've been working hard on developing those plans for where we are going to grow both company stores, how we are going to continue to work with our franchisees to help them grow. So we are definitely bullish on this business. John P. McNulty - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Great. Thanks very much for the color.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Brian Maguire with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Brian P. Maguire - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Good morning and thanks for taking my question. Bill, I've thought of the – a question related to the asbestos trust formation. I think I've historically thought of the liabilities as being one potential obstacle to a separation of the Valvoline business, how do you apportion those liabilities, et cetera? Does the creation of the trust and sort of dealing with those liabilities make it any more or less likely that you would think about spinning that business out or doing something strategically with it? Is that the right way to think about it, or are there still a lot of other considerations and obstacles to think about? William A. Wulfsohn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Well, clearly, it's a great development that the asbestos settlement has allowed us to create the trust that we believe covers a substantial amount of the future obligations. And really, our focus related to that is the effective cash that was needed to support those settlements now can be essentially funded from the trust. So that's really the major development around that. I think, beyond that, any other related portfolio decisions would be really independent of that particular factor. It all helps. The better your cash flow is, it creates more and more flexibility for a variety of options. But beyond that, I would decouple that development from any future portfolio decisions. Brian P. Maguire - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Okay. And then just a question related to the buyback authorization. The size of the buyback is – it's about four times the size of the free cash flow guidance you're providing…

Samuel J. Mitchell, Jr. - Senior Vice President and President, Valvoline

Management

Sure. Definitely, as we shared earlier, that there has been a positive price lag effect with the falling base oil prices, and we've seen that pretty substantially in the first and second quarter. At the last call, too, I shared the dynamics around Valvoline pricing across the different parts of our business. And so a good portion of those – the sales that we have are in contractual pricing arrangements, where those cost decreases are passed through to customers. On occasion, there can be a short lag effect with that, too. And then some of our business, roughly 40%, is driven on market-based pricing. And when that happens, occasionally, there is opportunities to strengthen margins long-term on a unit basis, too. So what you are seeing over the first six months of our year is that you've had a stronger margin on a per-gallon basis driven by the lag effect. And then as we look at longer term, I think we've given some good guidance as to where we expect our gross profit margins. Brian P. Maguire - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Great. Thanks very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of David Begleiter with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

David I. Begleiter - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Bill, you mentioned some low margin businesses that you would look to divest. What portion of the portfolio still is in that low-margin, potentially divestible portion of the business? William A. Wulfsohn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: That's a very good question, and it's a little bit of a challenging question as we sit here right now. And the reason why is because, literally, as I mentioned, we're going to be taking a little deeper dive. I think Luis and Sam and Ted, back when he was part of the team, they've – have done a good job of pruning portions of the portfolio that didn't have that right kind of fit. And I think, as we mentioned, there is still more opportunity. But it's hard for me to specifically quantify that at this point. I think we will be able to provide more clarity on that as we go forward in the year, and we have a chance to share kind of the output of the work we are doing now.

David I. Begleiter - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

And, Bill, you mentioned on M&A that right now prices are pretty high, multiples are pretty high. But are there businesses that you think could fit the ASI business, down the road, once you do become a pure play specialty chemical company? William A. Wulfsohn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. I think there are opportunities both on the Chemical side and on the Valvoline side, actually. There are opportunities. And we remain open to growing and augmenting our business in those areas that are very close to the core, as I mentioned. I think the challenge is that with the multiples being high, we want to make sure that if we do make those investments, that we get the right kind of return for our investors. And as I mentioned, they are few and far between. So certainly, I think there clearly are opportunities for us to expand in both of the business areas through acquisition. Just now, it's not the most robust time in terms of opportunities to move forward on that front.

David I. Begleiter - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

And Bill, just lastly, are you confident that if there was a separation, it could be done tax efficiently for the two or three pieces of the business? William A. Wulfsohn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Well, you've jumped a couple of steps ahead of me on the thinking there. So I would say that, obviously, we need to look at what's the right construct for the company in the future, and we'll do that. But first, we really need to look at the potential of each one of the business units. I think you've seen the board has been willing to take those kind of step-back looks at the portfolio. Anything we would do relating to any divestiture, or split of any portion of the company, big or small, we clearly look at the tax-efficient or effective ways to do it, because, obviously, that can dramatically impact the economics associated with the move. But you are a step or two ahead of me on the question as you phrased it.

David I. Begleiter - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Sorry about that. I'll wait a few more quarters. William A. Wulfsohn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you. Appreciate it.

David I. Begleiter - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Laurence Alexander with Jefferies. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Laurence Alexander - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Good morning. A couple of questions. First, can you give an update on your thinking around the PVP business, particularly capacity additions over the next three years to four years in the – in respect to volume versus price dynamics in that business? And secondly, on the culture side, you mentioned you are challenging the segments to – the business leaders to take more action faster. Can you give a couple of examples of areas where the culture previously might have been inclined to punt, and we can expect some movement faster than we would have expected previously? And maybe another way to look at that is, what are your one or two top priorities in terms of fixing the culture or improving the culture, now that this cost-cutting wave is done?

Luis Fernandez-Moreno - Senior Vice President and President, Chemicals Group

Management

Okay, this is Luis. Let me tackle the first question around PVP. PVP continues to be a market that is growing, especially on the pharmaceutical space, and with some of the specialty grades. It's also growing in the personal care mostly around GDP or the actual growth of the personal care space. It's also growing in beverage. And we have continued – Ashland has continued to expand capacity in that regard to make sure that we can meet demands of our customers. As you probably know, the other large producer of PVP has announced a long-term program to expand their capacity. And I mean, I think that is consistent probably with what I see from a growth perspective. At the end of the day, the PVP market is mostly driven by the specialty nature of the products that we make and how we specify those with our customers. So in many ways, it's all about, specifically for us, on making sure that our capacity is consistent with the growth that we are seeing with our customers. And it's a lot less about what is the capacity in the network, and does that have an impact of price. As I mentioned, I mean, there has been a certain level of stability in prices. There is always pressures here and there in both directions, but the pricing itself, I don't think that is driven by capacity expansions. And as you've seen, a fair amount of capacity expansions in China, that have had really very little impact on the products that we sell to our customers in the pharma and personal care space. William A. Wulfsohn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: And then if I could – this is Bill – take the second question you had around culture and kind of the pace of change. I'm still fairly new here, but looking at the company and what has done, I think the company has been moving at a very fast and aggressive way to grow, change, and evolve its business and its portfolio. So when we talk a bit about the cultural side, I think some of that relates back to the changes that accompanied the restructuring that Kevin referenced earlier. What happened as part of that was a fair portion of things that were centralized moved into the business units. And with that – and especially in the Chemicals area, where you had multiple businesses with multiple companies coming together, there is an opportunity to take that change, and now the expanded leadership across the Chemicals group and really just meld that together and do what Luis has been doing here for the last year or so, which is driving higher levels of execution within the base business. And I guess I'd just leave it at that.

Laurence Alexander - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Jefferies. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of John Roberts with UBS. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

John E. Roberts - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst · UBS. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Yes. Good morning. William A. Wulfsohn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning, John.

John E. Roberts - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst · UBS. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

You gave Valvoline margin guidance for the next quarter and also for the year. So you can kind of calculate September by difference. It looked like that was 18%. It looked like it was going to trend down a little bit. Am I doing the math right on that? Or should it be more stable as you get through the end of the year?

Samuel J. Mitchell, Jr. - Senior Vice President and President, Valvoline

Management

We do expect the margin to trend down in the fourth quarter versus the third quarter. And again, that has to do with the pass-through of pricing.

John E. Roberts - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst · UBS. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

But if you could hold margins, or hold profit per gallon on the lower pricing, shouldn't the margins actually trend up? If it's just passing through of cost, you can hold the spread, which seemed to me that margins should go up.

Samuel J. Mitchell, Jr. - Senior Vice President and President, Valvoline

Management

Yeah. It's – on a per-unit basis, you'll see some degradation of the margin. So that's really what I was speaking to. And then on a percentage basis, we'll see some shifts a little bit when the mix changes between the business units. DIY tends to have a lower part of the mix in the fourth quarter. So that's part of the guidance, too, for the fourth quarter. But what we are talking about is longer-term gross profit margins in the 32% to 34% range.

John E. Roberts - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst · UBS. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Okay. And then on the share buyback, I think you said in the release the current ASR shares will come in by July 31. Is that a lump near July 31, or some other pattern? And does the new buyback have to wait to begin until after those shares are in? J. Kevin Willis - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: John, as a reminder, we actually have two active accelerated stock repurchase programs running concurrently right now. There is the $750 million program that was started last year. At the bank's option, that program can end anytime between now and the end of June. And the $270 million program that we kicked off in February also, at the bank's option, can end as late as the end of July. And so we have these two programs running concurrently right now with these two banks. And we really need for those to kind of run their course before we would probably get into another large program on top of those. So that – we do need for those to play out a little bit.

John E. Roberts - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst · UBS. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Dmitry Silversteyn with Longbow Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Dmitry Silversteyn - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst · Longbow Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Good morning, guys, and congratulations on another strong quarter. William A. Wulfsohn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning, Dmitry. J. Kevin Willis - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Good morning.

Dmitry Silversteyn - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst · Longbow Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

A couple of questions. First of all, you've mentioned a couple of times in your prepared remarks around ASI about the energy business being down for you. Besides guar, can you tell us what else you're selling into energy, how big of a business that is for you? And also which parts of energy you are seeing softness in, as far as frac and shale versus deepwater, versus some other esoteric stuff that the energy markets are broken into?

Luis Fernandez-Moreno - Senior Vice President and President, Chemicals Group

Management

Sure. I mean, we've discussed in the past that before the slowdown in the energy market, energy represented about 8% of our sales. And we also mentioned that about 50% of that was exposed to the North American shale, but mostly on cementing and stimulating of wells. And as you know, that's the first part of the energy market in the U.S. that has taken a significant reduction. So that gives you a little bit of a perspective in terms of our exposure to the North American energy market. I have to say, though, that there are other energy markets around the world where actually we continue to introduce new products and have had great success in that regard. We actually sell a fair amount of our technologies in this space. It's not only guar. We have HEC, MC, some specific new technologies that we've developed around PVP, and so forth. So it's a much wider portfolio than just guar. And as we exited the guar powders business, and focused on also guar derivatives and the products I mentioned, our product offering to the energy market is, I would say, much more special than what it used to be. But, granted, when the new wells are coming down in North America, that just has an impact on the overall demand of the product line. But, as I said, having said that, we are actually growing in outside of North America, but, obviously, the hole in North America from a sales perspective is pretty large, and, as you have seen from most of the service companies at an even more of an accelerated pace than we expected.

Dmitry Silversteyn - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst · Longbow Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Sure. Sure. Okay, thanks, Luis, for that color. Secondly, I just want to, sort of, circle around the composites business. It's been a couple of quarters now that that business has grown very nicely for you in the Performance Materials segment. Can you talk about what's sort of behind the growth – any particular markets or share gains? And then also what the outlook for that business is both for the end of this year and also longer-term? Is there something fundamental that changed in how you approach the market, or the products that you have going into the market, that gives you confidence that this level of performance can be sustained longer-term?

Luis Fernandez-Moreno - Senior Vice President and President, Chemicals Group

Management

Let me take some of that, Dmitry, although that's going to be a stat based on about two weeks of induction in the composites markets. I mean there are a couple of things that, from a GDP perspective, are helping us. Obviously, the U.S. economy in this case is helping us with the transportation business doing well, some of our construction segments doing well. But the thing that it's also driving the performance is we have continued to introduce new applications, and that has allowed us to gain new – again, new applications with those customers in those industries. That's what – why that the team feels reasonably confident on the continued growth of the composites business as we continue to benefit from a stronger economy in some of the segments that we service, together with continued introduction of new products and gaining sort of new applications in the market space.

Dmitry Silversteyn - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst · Longbow Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Got it. Got it. And one final question around Valvoline. Can you talk about the international part of the business, as far as, sort of, how it's composed geographically, and where you are seeing the recovery, and where you are, sort of, targeting as a growth opportunity for Valvoline internationally?

Samuel J. Mitchell, Jr. - Senior Vice President and President, Valvoline

Management

Yes. Our international business, we have a pretty strong channels to market in a number of different regions. Some of our, what we would call, our core markets would include Europe and Australia, two profitable areas for us. But our major growth regions are in China, in India, and Latin America. And each of those markets, over the last five years, we've seen tremendous growth. And we've really been focusing on developing our capabilities within each region and fine-tuning our strategies for long-term growth. China is a market where, obviously, you've got a fast-growing PCMO passenger car market opportunity. At this point in time, Valvoline is relatively new to the market. So we are in the early stages of developing our plans for how we can grow a strong business there.

Dmitry Silversteyn - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst · Longbow Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Mike Sison with KeyBanc. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Michael J. Sison - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · KeyBanc. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hey. Nice start, nice quarter there, guys. William A. Wulfsohn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks, Mike.

Michael J. Sison - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · KeyBanc. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

In terms of – Sam, in terms of Valvoline, when you take a look at retail pricing for motor oil and stuff, it really hasn't come down. So I'm just curious, when you think about pricing and the areas where – are you encouraged to what you've been at with the lag? Could it have been better? Could it have been worse? And then when you think about longer-term, if retail pricing holds up, could you do better than that 19% to 20%?

Samuel J. Mitchell, Jr. - Senior Vice President and President, Valvoline

Management

I think, specifically, you're honing in on the DIY market...

Michael J. Sison - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · KeyBanc. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Yes.

Samuel J. Mitchell, Jr. - Senior Vice President and President, Valvoline

Management

...where the consumer is going to the shelf to choose product. The pricing has held up pretty well. In the DIY market, most of the volume is sold off promotion. And so your key dynamic there is keeping your brand strong, so you're in a strong position with the retailer to get favorable promotion support throughout the year. So for Valvoline, it's making sure that we are on par at least with the other leading premium brands of Castrol and Pennzoil. And our team has done a nice job with that. In terms of, is there an opportunity to improve structural profit there, given the level of pricing, price competition, there's still a decent amount of price competition where we've got to make sure we manage the gap versus, say, what we would call some of the mid-tier brands. So the real opportunity is not so much in pricing, but in terms of driving our mix. So driving our success; growing synthetic share; driving our share of the MaxLife, the high-mileage segment; and looking for ways to innovate to, especially on the marketing front, to drive consumer trial. And that's – I spoke earlier about some of the changes in our marketing efforts. They're probably most significant in our DIY business, where we've taken a real shift from traditional mass marketing efforts to much more targeted efforts that we think are going to pay off for us to help us grow share in the long-term. Bottom line, in DIY, that's what we've got to do is grow share, because you've got a structural long-term decline in motor oil demand in DIY. But we're still confident that we are going to keep this business quite healthy with long-term share growth through improved marketing, and continued strong relationships with the key retailers.

Michael J. Sison - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · KeyBanc. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Okay. And then, real quick – I guess this one is for Luis, maybe Bill, but when you think about Performance Materials longer-term, is there opportunities, do you think, to really boost the potential for EBITDA margins there via acquisition, or even some internal initiatives? And I know you are going through your long-term planning now. But what are your thoughts there in terms of how that business could either catch up or be improved over time? William A. Wulfsohn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: So that is really at the crux, I think, of what we want to look at within assessing the composites business and thinking and mapping out. I think we know that in the composites space, which is kind of a general definition, we saw a lot of materials and resins that actually go into composites, so it's, in essence, a chemical, as you know, that there are very profitable zones there. They need to be differentiated. And we also are looking for areas that we can make sure that we're getting a high return on invested capital. And the question will be, with the investments that have been made in the business and the technology pipeline that we've been working on to get the more differentiated pricing, can we achieve the types of levels and targets that we aspire, whether that be just through organic efforts or potentially through acquisition. But I really just want to be clear that that isn't what we're – the acquisition, if you will, or that direction is not what we are looking to do right now with the composites business. I think we want to have a better appreciation for where we can take it before we get down, if you will, that road in our thinking. So we're kind of at a fundamental stage. And the good news is, it is performing well, and it is performing better than it has. So we are starting from a good spot. But I think this will also be part of the power of bringing the Chemicals group together as – I don't think Luis can now, but he will be able to further articulate the specialty chemical, not only culture, but also the metrics that will really drive us and how the businesses will help us to achieve those metrics. And things will naturally fall in, and things will naturally fall out, based upon how they fit relative to that definition.

Michael J. Sison - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · KeyBanc. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Okay, great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Mike Ritzenthaler from Piper Jaffray. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Mike Ritzenthaler - Piper Jaffray & Co (Broker): Yes. Good morning, Bill. I'm curious about cost efficiency, I guess, from kind of a higher-level philosophy point of view, now that the $200 million cost out program is more or less complete. Is there a different philosophy for maintaining or continuing to improve cost efficiencies going forward, now that the defined plan is more or less delivered? William A. Wulfsohn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: I would say the answer to that is definitely yes. I am not announcing a new program or anything here today. I want to be clear about that. But I think in this world that we are in today, we have to focus on driving productivity to offset inflation. We have to find more efficient ways to get things done. We have to be open and think about the way we are organized, and what's the best way to get things done. I think having Luis and Sam on the Executive Committee will help us with some of the reflection around that. So there's nothing specific that I would bring to you as it relates to your question today, other than we understand that just adding to our overhead is not the right solution. We need to be aggressive in managing it and maintaining it. J. Kevin Willis - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: And ultimately, Mike, we have to introduce and maintain this proper mix of grow-to-spend and spend-to-grow. And that really gets at the heart of the matter in terms of building leverage in the middle of the P&L. And that's something that – we've spent a lot of calories on that concept internally, and it gets a lot of attention. And we understand what we need to do, and we just have to execute on it. Mike Ritzenthaler - Piper Jaffray & Co (Broker): Fair enough. A little bit more drilling-into-the-numbers kind of question, looking to fiscal third quarter, I'm interested in a little bit more detail, Luis, about how much of the input cost-benefit is going to flow into 3Q, given sort of the qualitative guidance that you have given this morning? Was there a raw material destocking? Was that a factor at all on Ashland's side, or perhaps a small restocking cycle on the part of your customers, or some kind of transitory industry phenomenon like that?

Luis Fernandez-Moreno - Senior Vice President and President, Chemicals Group

Management

Yeah. Let me answer that in two ways. When it comes to the ASI portion of the business, as I mentioned, we've seen our prices to be pretty stable. But also, at the same time, we have seen a very limited benefit from raw materials. We have seen one, but it's very limited. So I would argue that in ASI, the margins will continue to improve, mostly because of actions that we are taking on mix and growth, both market and product mix. And again, the price of raw material situation has a very small impact into it. And when it comes to Performance Materials, yes, definitely, we got a much better margin in Q2, mostly because of the lag that we have in passing some of those raw material decreases to the customers. And one of the things that is changing in Q3 is the fact that some of those raw materials are starting to come up as we, again, have passed some of those prices in. So the comment that we made, which is we expect some of those margins to start trending towards historical levels, is what we are seeing. And that's what is included in the guidance, right? And I gave you the specific – we have made a calculation of, based on what price concessions have happened, what are our visibilities on raw materials on Performance Materials, and then, with that, provided guidance that is consistent with that visibility. Mike Ritzenthaler - Piper Jaffray & Co (Broker): Thanks very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of James Sheehan with SunTrust. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

James Sheehan - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey

Analyst · SunTrust. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thanks for taking my question. Just on Valvoline, could you comment on where this fits in your portfolio? Previously Ashland has said that Valvoline is not core, not a specialty chemical asset; and you've considered, and the board has considered, strategic alternatives for that business. In the board's last comment was that it would not move to separate that business at this time. Could you just update us about the board's thinking about that timing? And will Valvoline remain in the portfolio over the next two years to three years?

Samuel J. Mitchell, Jr. - Senior Vice President and President, Valvoline

Management

So your initial comments around the business, and clearly we recognize that Valvoline is not a specialty chemical. And at the same time, as also referenced earlier in the call, we do recognize that it is a very strong business that is making a very solid contribution to Ashland today, and growing and thriving in this environment. And I believe the first step that we must take is really to look at the businesses individually in terms of the dynamics that will create the greatest growth potential, and what their needs will be, and what then ultimately is the connection or a lack thereof that's associated with it. So we'll start by looking at the businesses. And that's what we're talking about with our strategic planning and coming back to you, as soon as possible, this calendar year here, with an assessment on the businesses and the outlook for them. And then I think it will, in that context, be clearer for us to look at bigger decisions, if there are bigger decisions, around the portfolio in general. So, for today, I'd say that, yes, we do want to be the premier specialty chemical company. And at the same time, we feel very fortunate that we have a leading consumer-branded company, and we want that to be a premier business as well within the Ashland portfolio. And decisions further would be just a bit down the road.

James Sheehan - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey

Analyst · SunTrust. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much. William A. Wulfsohn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Operator, we will take one more call here.

Operator

Operator

All right. Our final question comes from the line of Mike Harrison with Global Hunter Securities. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Mike J. Harrison - Global Hunter Securities LLC

Analyst

Thanks for getting me in under the wire here. Luis, looking at the coatings side of your business, you mentioned some benefits from the additional HEC capacity. I know in the past that you guys have done some reselling of third-party products in order to help baseload additional capacity. How much of that has been going on with your plant in China? How much margin benefit could we potentially see as you basically bring those third-party sales in-house?

Luis Fernandez-Moreno - Senior Vice President and President, Chemicals Group

Management

Mike, that is a very good question. A couple of things. Yes, we started to see the benefits on the plan in Nanjing, and that's driving growth. We expect to see more growth in Q3. But I will tell you, we continue to operate, even as we have bring in capacity, we continue to be constrained in the HEC. So we continue to buy materials to, again, not resell, because we cannot just buy them and resell them; we have to actually still modify them in order to make them consistent to our specs. But we will continue to do that, to be honest, for the foreseeable future. So from a margin expansion, from that perspective, number one, the amount is small, because, again, we need to rework them in order to meet our specs. So we are doing as much as we can, and we normally don't disclose how much that is. But we will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, as the capacity that we are bringing in is just fundamentally feeding the growth requirements of the market space. And that's consistent for the foreseeable future, for the next, definitely at least 12 months.

Mike J. Harrison - Global Hunter Securities LLC

Analyst

All right. And I don't believe I saw an adhesives growth number. What was adhesives growth in Q2? And can we maybe get an update on your progress on leveraging that business outside North America?

Luis Fernandez-Moreno - Senior Vice President and President, Chemicals Group

Management

Yes. The growth of the adhesives business was probably a little lower than what we had over previous years. It was a little – I wouldn't say flat, but a little more than flat. The progress on geographic – that's very exciting, but it does take time. So we have put the people on the ground. We're getting new applications in new locations. But as you know, when you enter new geographies and new places, sales just don't happen. You also have to supply them. But it's fundamentally very positive. I would say that we've gained – started to gain applications in India and in Europe and in other locations, which is exciting. So I think that the strategy in adhesives continues to work very well.

Mike J. Harrison - Global Hunter Securities LLC

Analyst

All right. Thank you very much.

Luis Fernandez-Moreno - Senior Vice President and President, Chemicals Group

Management

Okay. William A. Wulfsohn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you, everybody. I think that concludes us for the day, operator.

Operator

Operator

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for participating in today's conference. This does conclude the program, and you may all disconnect. Everyone have a great day.

Jason L. Thompson - Director, Investor Relations

Management

Thanks, everybody.