Andy Tometich
Analyst · Seaport Research. Please proceed
Thank you, Jeff, and good morning, everyone. In the second quarter, we once again executed well, advancing our key strategic and financial objectives and delivering on our stated commitments, despite persistent macroeconomic challenges. We drove another consecutive quarter of double-digit increases in adjusted EBITDA and non-GAAP earnings per share and generated strong operating cash flow. These results underscore our commitment to executing on what we can control while preserving a strict focus of prioritizing value-added services and solutions for our customers. I continue to be pleased with the financial and operational performance over the last several quarters, and I am confident we have the right strategy to capitalize on the momentum we have built. Net sales in the second quarter increased 1% to $495 million. This year-over-year improvement in net sales was primarily driven by executing our value-based pricing initiatives, which were implemented to offset the continued inflationary pressures impacting our cost to serve. Volumes declined compared to the prior year and were similar to the prior quarter. We continue to improve our competitive position with new business wins at higher levels of value, trending at the top of our long-term range and offsetting volumes we've declined due to our margin improvement initiatives. Market conditions, primarily in steel and general industrial, continued to be soft. Our diversified portfolio and emphasis on profitable growth through new business wins has provided resilience in this challenging environment. Taken together, our volumes are tracking directionally in line with the specific customers, end markets and regions we serve. We have made very strong progress on our gross margin journey. Gross margins of 35.9% improved more than 500 basis points, compared to the prior year and more than 100 basis points, compared to the first quarter of 2023. The pace of the recovery in our margins reflects the actions we put in place to manage our portfolio, as well as a modest improvement in our basket of raw materials and positions us well for an eventual recovery in our markets. Despite the persistent and challenging macroeconomic backdrop, we have made significant progress once again improving the profitability of our business, while balancing customer relationships and the long-term growth aspirations of our business. Our focus is clear. Delivering for our customers by investing in innovation, capabilities and tools, while also balancing the cost to deliver that value in our customer intimate model. In the second quarter, we generated adjusted EBITDA of $80 million and $1.93 of non-GAAP diluted earnings per share, a double-digit increase, compared to the prior year. Our financial results are primarily driven by the recovery in our gross margin and the team's execution, managing the business through the ongoing uneven and complex market environment. We generated $78 million of operating cash flow in the second quarter and $116 million in the first-half of 2023. We also remain focused on strengthening our balance sheet. Year-to-date, we have paid down approximately $73 million of debt and announced our 14th consecutive annual increase in our dividend, highlighting the confidence in our cash generation capabilities. These results in the second quarter and first-half of 2023 represent a strong start to the year. Turning to our segments. We delivered improved margin performance in all of our segments on a year-over-year basis. Volumes declined in all segments and were most pronounced in the Asia Pacific and EMEA segments, because of softer end market conditions and our targeted margin improvement initiatives. We continue to strengthen our portfolio, focusing on the products, services and solutions that yield the greatest benefit for our customers. We are confident our approach enhances our ability to grow profitably with our customers, especially as underlying demand recovers from current lower levels. All segments delivered a double-digit increase in earnings, compared to the prior year, driven by an improvement in margins. We expect further progress with our margins both from cost and efficiencies, while balancing initiatives to drive profitable growth. As we look ahead, there is a considerable amount of uncertainty in the second-half demand environment and limited visibility. We anticipate a continuation of the current difficult and uneven market environment in the third quarter with customer and regional differences. We expect adjusted EBITDA in the third quarter will be similar to the second quarter, translating into another quarter of solid year-over-year earnings growth. Additionally, we anticipate gross margins in the third quarter will remain relatively stable, as we balance pricing with the raw material environment and our cost to serve. We also expect another quarter of solid cash generation, further delevering our balance sheet and strengthening our financial position. Switching to the full-year. We are focused on advancing our strategy, contemporizing the organization and enhancing the value we provide to our customers. The current uncertain and uneven backdrop is likely to persist through the end of the year. That said, we have made solid progress on our financial objectives, including delivering a considerable improvement in our margins, translating into expectations for strong earnings growth and cash flow in 2023. We have built momentum in our business, investing in targeted profitable growth initiatives and positioning the company to deliver in any market environment. Quaker Houghton is built on a foundation of earning value through our differentiated customer intimacy model. As a leadership team, we are energizing the organization to enhance our processes to efficiently and effectively drive deeper engagement. This will enable us to better deploy the quality of our broad and leading portfolio and realize even more value for customers. Our growth culture is healthy, and we continue to make progress with our key profitable growth themes, effectively leveraging our global scale, investing to deploy digital tools and analytics across our platform, and leading in sustainability. We are also committed to our long-term enablers for profitable growth, and we will be vigilant in the current and uncertain environment, prioritizing investments and actions to meet the long-term needs of our company and our customers. Moving forward and building on our foundation, we are refining the organization taking advantage of our global scale. This has, for example, helped improve our operating performance in the EMEA segment despite weak end market activity in the region. These actions, including the cost and operational improvement initiatives underway, are heightening our competitiveness and advancing the intimacy of our model. This is essential as we more exactly and efficiently deliver what customers already value and also advance new opportunities by cross-selling and targeting new profitable growth areas. We're also being more thoughtful with data as part of our digitization focus to deepen our relationships with new and existing customers and suppliers. As I highlighted last quarter, we are making progress with our FLUIDTREND software platform, which will help transform how we deliver customer intimacy in the future and further expand our value proposition. In April, we held a global event to advance efforts on energy management as well as reducing waste and water consumption at our sites, reinforcing our drive to lead in sustainability for our company, our customers and our communities. Recently, we invested in solar energy at our site in India, covering 80% of their energy use and eliminating approximately half of that site's greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, our R&D and commercial teams continue to partner with customers to expand and deploy our portfolio of sustainable solutions, enabling our customers to, in turn, achieve their goals. These important initiatives are driven by our overall strategy and will help us grow with new and existing customers, expand our markets and lead our industry to a more sustainable future. In summary, there is clear positive momentum at Quaker Houghton. We are making progress on our financial and operational priorities. We have a strong market position and are fully committed to this industry, which has attractive long-term growth characteristics. We are supporting our customers as they transition to pursue new opportunities and tackle the secular challenges impacting their businesses, including pursuit of new applications, managing labor and skill shortages, addressing increasing demands on cost and productivity, and delivering on their own sustainability objectives. The quality and breadth of our product, technology and solutions portfolio is unparalleled, and we are uniquely positioned to earn value for and with our customers. We are also prudently investing to advance our growth initiatives, our people and our innovation pipeline. This includes developing our talent, supply chain and digital capabilities to redefine how we most effectively and efficiently deliver customer intimacy for today and for the future. We remain fully committed to unlocking our potential, including the earnings power and the cash flow generation of the enterprise, regardless of the operating environment. I am confident in our strategy, our leadership and our people and have continued conviction that we will execute and achieve our goals. With that, I'd like to pass it over to Shane to discuss the financials.