Earnings Labs

NewMarket Corporation (NEU)

Q4 2016 Earnings Call· Wed, Feb 1, 2017

$679.02

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Greetings and welcome to the NewMarket Corporation Fourth Quarter 2016 and Year-End Financial Results. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I’d now like to turn the conference over to your host, Brian Paliotti, CFO. Thank you, Brian. You may begin.

Brian Paliotti

Analyst

Thank you, Rob, and thanks everyone for joining us this morning. With me today is Teddy Gottwald, our Chairman and CEO. As a reminder, some of the statements made during this conference call may be forward looking. Relevant factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those forward-looking statements are contained in our earnings release and in our SEC filings, including our most recent Form 10-K. During this call, we may also discuss the non-GAAP financial measure included in our earnings release. The earnings release, which can be found on our website, includes a reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measure to comparable GAAP financial measure. We intend to file our 2016 10-K towards the middle of February. It will contain significantly more detail on the operations and performance of our Company. Please take time to review it and I’ll be referring to the data during this call that was included in last night's release. So on to the fourth quarter results, our net income was $45.7 million or $3.86 per share, the net income for the fourth quarter of 2015 was $53.9 million or $4.50 a share. Petroleum additives operating profit for the quarter was $75.6 million, about even with the fourth quarter of 2015. Sales for the quarter were $500 million, up 4.9% compared to the sales for the same period of last year, due to higher shipments and product mix partially offset by changes in selling price. Shipments were up 10% versus fourth quarter 2015, but remember that shipments in this quarter, last year were very low due to some customer de-stocking and anticipation of lower base oil pricing. A couple of other items of note for the quarter where the effective tax rate and uses of cash, the effective income tax rate for the fourth…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. At the time, we will be conducting a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. Our first question is from the line of Dmitry Silversteyn with Longbow. Please proceed with your questions.

Matthew Skowronski

Analyst

Good morning, guys. This is Matt Skowronski on for Dmitry. First question, can you breakdown the volumes for lubricant additives versus fuel additives in the quarter?

Brian Paliotti

Analyst

Matt, we don’t have a breakdown. We have one segment, which is petroleum additives, so there isn't a breakdown between [gluten] fields from a biometric shipment perspective.

Matthew Skowronski

Analyst

Okay. All right, perfect. And then can you quantify how much of raw material inflation you saw during the quarter and how much that hurt gross margin?

Brian Paliotti

Analyst

I can tell you across the balance of 2015, we didn't experience only a slight increase in raw materials across the year.

Matthew Skowronski

Analyst

Okay, perfect. And then as far as the acquisition goes, can you just talk a little bit about your motivation for that. I mean how quickly do you think that's going to start to add to either mix or volumes?

Thomas Gottwald

Analyst

Yes. Good morning, Matt. This is Teddy. We're excited about this acquisition. It's a solid business. As we mentioned, they've been in the business for 50 years. It's a very good overlap and fit with our business. We see it is our - as an acquisition that’s going to be very helpful and strengthen our global supplier capability, given as more strength in the Latin American market and given us the ability to provide even better solutions for our customers. It's not an acquisition that requires cost cutting to see benefits. So we do expect that from the time we close it, we'll start seeing a positive impact.

Matthew Skowronski

Analyst

Okay. That’s sounds good in the immediate impact. Okay, and then my next question is regarding Singapore. It sounds more like is this going to be a 4Q story. Can you just tell us a little bit how quickly do you think that's going to ramp up and we're going to see results from that?

Thomas Gottwald

Analyst

Yes. The physical completion will be in the second half of this year and it will take us a bit to get it fully operational and qualified. It will ramp up just as quickly as we can bring in the volume to grow.

Matthew Skowronski

Analyst

Okay, all right. Thank you so much. That’s all the questions I have.

Thomas Gottwald

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question is from the line of [indiscernible]. Please go ahead with your question.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Yes, on the Aditivos Mexicanos acquisition, is this the situation where that you would be able to apply some capital in a helpful way for that business to grow it in a way there has not been able to?

Thomas Gottwald

Analyst

Possibly, it has a lot of capabilities and we’ll be working at what additional capabilities it has that we can get the most out of it.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Okay, thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. There are no additional questions at this time, Brian.

Brian Paliotti

Analyst

Okay, well thanks everyone for calling in and we'll talk to you again next quarter.