Michael Wilson
Analyst · Oppenheimer & Company. Please state your question
Thanks Dan. Good morning everyone. Thank you for joining us this morning and from what we know is a very busy earnings week and for your continued interest in Ingevity. If you'll turn to slide number 4, you notice some highlights for the quarter. We had a good start to the year and our first quarter performance was in line with our expectations. We benefited from continued strong growth in Performance Materials segment and from price and mix improvements in our legacy Performance Chemicals applications. In addition, our newly acquired Engineered Polymers product line formed through the acquisition of the Capa caprolactone business of Perstorp Holding AB contributed significantly to the Performance Chemicals segment. Overall, revenues in the first quarter were $277 million, up approximately 18% when compared to the previous year's quarter. The positive revenue impacts were partially offset by higher selling, general and administrative or SG&A costs, including legal expenses and higher logistics and transportation costs. Still adjusted EBITDA were $84 million. We delivered strong revenue drop through posting a 24% increase in adjusted EBITDA on the 18% increase in revenues. The resulting adjusted EBITDA margin of 30%, which was up 170 basis points versus the prior year, was particularly strong for a first quarter. Both the drop through in profitability and the margin improvement are clear evidence of the success we're having in executing our strategy. While committed to delivering top line growth, both organically and inorganically, we remain steadfast in our commitment to prioritize earnings growth and margins, even if at the expense of some short-term top line growth. This includes investing in and building capabilities through which we can become better technology partners with our customers. But it also includes intentionally transitioning to higher margin applications, and occasionally backing away from volumes that don't meet our long-term profitability objectives. The latter is perhaps most notable occurring in our Performance Chemicals segment. If you turn to slide number 5 you'll see first quarter results for Performance Chemicals. Segment sales in the first quarter were $168 million, up 20% versus the prior year period. Segment EBITDA was $32 million up 30%. Versus the prior year, we drove margin improvement of more than 150 basis points to 19.3%. These results on an as reported basis clearly benefited from our G-P pine chemicals and Engineered Polymers acquisitions. On a pro forma basis, which assumes we had owned both businesses for the full quarter in 2018 and 2019. Sales in the segment were down 10% and segment EBITDA were down 16%. The majority of the pro forma revenue decline, and resultant pro forma EBITDA impact was a result of actions we took to continue to deliver profitable growth primarily in our Industrial Specialties applications. Sales into Industrial Specialties applications and these include printing inks, adhesives, agricultural chemicals, lubricants and others were down $3 million or 3% on an as reported basis, which excludes nine weeks of ownership of the G-P pine chemicals business in 2018. On a pro forma basis, Industrial Specialties applications revenues were down $18 million or approximately 16% versus the prior year. The three most significant drivers of the decrease were, one, we reduced our sales to printing ink customers, including our intentional withdrawal in the second half of last year from ink business in Europe that was providing sub-optimal margins. Two, we intentionally sold significantly less un-derivatized products to the merchant market based on market conditions in the quarter. And three, we terminated and are transitioning out of a low margin distributor relationship in Europe. Though other less significant factors also impacted sales to Industrial Specialties customers, collectively, these three items accounted for more than 70% of the year-over-year decline on a pro forma basis. Conversely, our success in implementing price increases for tall oil fatty acid or TOFA which are up 18% over the past year and the positive impacts of the G-P pine chemicals acquisition mostly offset the reductions in our as reported results. Sales of Performance Chemicals products to oilfield customers were up approximately 30% versus the prior year also benefiting from the full quarter of the Georgia-Pacific pine chemicals business. Absent the G-P benefit, oilfield sales were up high-single digits driven by growth in oil production chemicals. We benefited in the quarter, by having exposure to production as well as drilling uses as our business grew despite the reduction in U.S. drilling activity. According to Baker Hughes U.S. rig count at the end of the first quarter was down 7% versus the fourth quarter. And based on our information linear feet drilled was relatively flat sequentially. Sales to pavement applications in a seasonally slower quarter were even with the prior year period. We experienced an increase in business in North America as some 2018 work delayed by weather was pushed into the first quarter. On the flip side, sales in South America decreased albeit on a smaller base as the political environment in Brazil impacted infrastructure work. For the full year, we expect sales to pavement customers continue to grow at historical rates in the high-single digits. In the segment, we also had the benefit of a half quarter of revenue from our new Engineered Polymers product line. These results were slightly higher than our expectations due to a strong finish to the quarter. However, when compared to last year on a pro forma basis sales were down about 10%. About half of this decline was due to unfavorable FX in the current quarter and about half due to an Asian competitor's temporary inability to supply product during the first quarter of 2018, which inflated results. More importantly, the margins we realized on Engineered Polymer sales reaffirm our view of the profitability of this business and its long-term fit with our strategy. Overall, for the segment we believe the actions we are taking now to enhance margins will benefit us in the future. As you know, we have committed to driving Performance Chemicals segment EBITDA margins to the mid-20% range by 2022. We are not only on track to reach this target, but the addition of the Capa business will likely enable us to reach this objective well in advance of this timeline. For the full year 2019, we expect to see solid margin accretion above the 20% margins Performance Chemicals posted in 2018. Turning to Performance Materials, as you can see on slide number 6 the segment once again delivered outstanding performance. Segment sales in the first quarter were $109 million, up about 14% versus the prior year's quarter. Volumes continued to be driven by strong sales of our patented U.S. Tier 3 and LEV III gasoline vapor emission solutions particularly our honeycomb scrubber products. As is typical for this business, the regulatory drivers far outweigh the impacts of quarterly variations in production and sales of light vehicles. According to Wards, light vehicle production was down 2.7% in North America. Anecdotally, we're continuing to see the shift toward light trucks away from passenger cars. Trucks market share is now around 71%. In China, quarterly light vehicle production was down 10%. Again, I think it bears repeating the fact that our Performance Materials segment was up so significantly despite the weak auto production in North America and China speaks to the significance of the regulatory driven growth in this business. In the quarter segment EBITDA were a record $51 million, up $9 million or 21% versus the prior year's segment EBITDA. As impressive segment EBITDA margin rose 270 basis points to 47%. As we discussed last quarter, we expect modest accretion in margins for the full year above the 42% posted in 2018. Looking forward, as I mentioned last quarter, ordering patterns for pelleted carbon products in China are increasing dramatically as automakers implements the China six regulations. To provide more color on this, if you'll turn to slide 7 you'll see our updated map, which provides information on what is publicly available regarding early adopting provinces. Since our last call, very little has changed. In fact, the only change is that Guangzhou City has pushed out its time frame from March one to July 1 2019. At this stage, we believe that it is now more relevant to look at automakers ordering patterns than movements in announced regulatory adoption schedules. Some automakers are moving ahead of the announced schedules and are now in normal production of China 6 vehicles with Tier two type canisters containing our carbon products. As you can see from the chart, on the right hand side of slide 7, our quarterly volumes of pelleted products shipped in China has grown almost threefold in the past six months from the historical average. Growth in pelleted products is a key indicator of China 6 adoption as China 5 canisters, typically employed granular product. In addition, over 2500 Chinese vehicle platforms or approximately 80% of the total platforms in our estimation have now been certified as compliant with China 6. We are well prepared to meet the needs of our customers in China. In addition, we're continuing to meet the needs of our customers in Europe, as they implement the Euro 6d regulation which is also well underway. We're confident that our technological leadership and the investments we've made and are continuing to make in manufacturing capacity globally will serve us well as various regions and countries continue to shift to more stringent regulatory standards. These regulatory shifts will continue to fuel strong growth for the Performance Materials segment for the foreseeable future. At this point, I'll turn the call over to John Fortson, our Executive Vice President, CFO and Treasurer for a more detailed review of our financial status and our guidance for 2019. John? John Fortson Thank you, Michael. Good morning everyone. Turning to slide 8, I will provide some additional color on our first quarter results, review our capital structure and review our guidance for the year before turning the call back to Michael for some closing remarks. As Michael said, the first quarter was in line with our expectations. We are excited to welcome the Engineered Polymers team into Ingevity and they are already a valued part of and contributor to our Company. As Michael has covered the revenue and EBITDA of the Company, I will begin at the SG&A line on the income statement. SG&A is up from last year to reflect the additional cost both cash and non-cash associated with both the G-P pine chemicals and Capa caprolactone acquisitions as well as increased legal expenses. Our core SG&A, excluding legal expenses and amortization effects to the acquisitions was relatively flat on a percent of sales basis. Net interest expense for the quarter was $11.1 million as a result of the increased debt associated with the Capa acquisition. During the quarter, we closed on an incremental term loan at attractive rates from a subset of lenders to fund a portion of the proceeds needed for the Capa acquisition. Our borrowing rate at the end of the quarter for our revolver was 3.75% and the blended rate of our combined bank term loans was 3.49%. The rate on our senior notes remains fixed at 4.5% and the $80 million industrial revenue bond borrowing rate remains at 7.67%. Our provision for income taxes on adjusted earnings was $12 million for the quarter. Our GAAP or our adjusted non-GAAP tax rate as of March 31 was 22.3%. Our GAAP tax rate for the quarter was actually zero as we recognized one-time adjustments related to the Capa acquisition and the beneficial tax effect of stock and option awards vested in the quarter. We expect our full-year 2019 cash tax rate to be around 7% due to the positive effects mentioned earlier as well as the immediate tax benefits received from current year spending on capital projects in the U.S. and the tax deductible goodwill from our acquisitions of both the Georgia-Pacific pine chemicals business and the remaining interest in the PurCell joint venture. In early January, we settled the repurchase of 40,000 shares at a weighted cost per share of $82.76 that were bought at the end of last year. $392.7 million remain available from our Board authorized share repurchase programs. Diluted adjusted earnings per share in the quarter, which adjusts for the acquisition costs and also excludes the positive tax effects of the equity and ops vesting was $0.99, which is a 25.3% increase from the first quarter of last year. As of March 31, Ingevity had 41.7 million basic shares outstanding and 42.2 million diluted shares outstanding. Turning to slide 9, our net debt at the end of the quarter was $1,319.2 million. This reflects both the funding of the Capa acquisition as well as our seasonal working capital build in advance of the paving season. Our net debt to EBITDA was 3.4 times at the end of the quarter. Working capital increased this quarter due to the inclusion of our Engineered Polymers accounts, but also due to the buildup of inventory in advance of the paving season. We continue to hold high inventory levels of activated carbon in anticipation of increased demand in China and we do expect these carbon inventories to begin falling in the second half of this year. Net working capital as a percentage of sales however, actually fell from the first quarter of last year as we continue to tightly monitor our cash positions globally. Our cash from operations in the quarter was negative $8 million and capital expenditures were $28.1 million. The resultant free cash flow was negative $36.1 million. As a reminder, due to the seasonality of our businesses, we typically turn cash flow positive in the second quarter. Additional information will be available in our Form 10-Q, which we expect to file later today. Turning to slide 10, as we have said, the first quarter was in line with expectations and we now have improved line of sight into our 2019 outlook both as opportunities and risks. We are maintaining our guidance for sales from between $1.30 billion and $1.36 billion and adjusted EBITDA from between $390 million and $410 million. We're also maintaining guidance on our tax rate, capital expenditures and target net debt ratio for the year. G&A for the year adjusting for the Capa acquisition now appears to be trending towards the high $80 million for the year, approximately, $25 million for Capa and $60 million to $65 million for the legacy businesses. We are off to a solid start for the year and are planning significant growth across all metrics for Ingevity over the course of 2019. With that I will now turn the call over to Michael.