Earnings Labs

NewMarket Corporation (NEU)

Q2 2017 Earnings Call· Sat, Aug 5, 2017

$679.02

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Greetings and welcome to the NewMarket Corporation Second Quarter 2017 Financial Results. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Brian Paliotti, Chief Financial Officer for NewMarket Corporation. Thank you, Mr. Paliotti, you may begin.

Brian Paliotti

Analyst

Thank you, Doug and thanks everyone for joining us this afternoon. With me today is Teddy Gottwald, our Chairman and CEO. As a reminder, some of the statements made during this conference call will 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 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 measures. We filed our 10-Q this morning. It contains significantly more details on the operations and performance of the company. Please take time to review it. I will be reviewing and referring to the data that was included in last night’s release. Net income was $63 million or $5.29 a share compared to a net income of $64 million or $5.43 a share for the second quarter of last year. This is both an earnings and EPS decrease of 3% from last year’s performance. Petroleum additives’ operating profit for the quarter was $95 million, which is $8 million or 7% lower than last year. Consolidated sales for the quarter increased 4.9% to $547 million compared to sales for the same period last year of $522 million. The increase in revenue in petroleum additives in the quarter comparison was mainly driven by higher volumes. Petroleum additives shipments for the second quarter of 2017 were up 6.4% from the same period of last year and are up 10.1% year-to-date. Increases have been seen in both lubricant additive and fuel additive shipments. Asia-Pacific and Europe were the main reasons contributing to the increase in lubricant additive shipments and Europe…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Dmitry Silversteyn from Longbow Research. Please proceed with your question

Dmitry Silversteyn

Analyst

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. Couple of – just trying to dig a little bit into your revenue and margin performance for the quarter, your 10-Q suggests that your selling pricing was still down year-over-year compared to 2016. Is that just a sort of a lag from a very steep decline that you saw earlier in the year and you actually are getting pricing, you are just not up year-over-year yet, but you will be in the second half of the year? Can you talk a little bit about sort of your pricing initiatives and what the dynamics there look like?

Teddy Gottwald

Analyst

Dmitry, hi, this is Teddy. We are not going to get into detail on our pricing. As you know, there is a lag when we see costs going up and that’s what we are seeing. And we have taken some action we are going to take more action to recover that. As far as actual prices this quarter versus a year ago, mix is a big component. Other than that, we really don’t have much to say about it.

Dmitry Silversteyn

Analyst

Okay. Then turning to margins, they were about 2.5 points lower in the petroleum additives year-over-year obviously a function of the ramp up in raw material costs. With your pricing initiatives, are you looking to get back to parity by the fourth quarter or should we wait for 2018 before you kind of get the margin back to 18% plus given that you delivered almost 19% in 2016?

Teddy Gottwald

Analyst

Yes, I hesitate to say we are going to get back to parity, because that’s parity compared to what. We have talked about margins being in a range in the mid to upper teens, that’s still the case. And we are not happy where they are right now and we are working on that.

Dmitry Silversteyn

Analyst

Okay, Teddy. Thanks. And then just maybe a final question, your tax rate has been coming down as the profits from lower tax jurisdictions is growing, what’s your outlook for the tax rate for 2017 for the second half of the year?

Brian Paliotti

Analyst

Yes, I think we are at 27% for the year-to-date, so we are going to be in that neighborhood for the year end.

Dmitry Silversteyn

Analyst

Okay. And is that something that we can model for the out-years as well kind of the 27%, 28% range?

Brian Paliotti

Analyst

Yes. I think the business is moving to more jurisdictions outside the U.S. and I think this represents where we are selling more now from a regional perspective, so I don’t see that changing.

Dmitry Silversteyn

Analyst

Okay. Thanks, Brian. And then one final question on your Mexican acquisition, did it have an impact in the quarter in terms of revenue or profitability?

Brian Paliotti

Analyst

No, we actually closed the acquisition on July 3, so second quarter – or third quarter event.

Dmitry Silversteyn

Analyst

Got it, got it. Okay, thank you very much.

Brian Paliotti

Analyst

You are welcome.

Teddy Gottwald

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

There are no further questions in the queue. I would like to hand the call back over to management for closing comments.