Innospec Inc.

Thank you. Welcome to InnoSpec's fourth quarter earnings call. This is David Jones, and I'm InnoSpec's general counsel and chief compliance officer. The earnings released for the quarter and this presentation are posted on the company's website. During this call, we will make forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections, and other statements about future events. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risk and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated results implied by such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties are detailed in Introspect 10-K, 10-Qs, and other correlations with the SEC. Please see the SEC site and Introspect site for these and related documents. In today's presentation, we have also included non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure is contained in the earnings release. The non-GAAP financial measure should not be considered as a substitute for those prepared in accordance with GAAP. They are included as additional items to aid investor understanding of the company's performance in addition to the impact that such events had on financial results. With me today from InnoSpec are Patrick Williams, President and Chief Executive Officer, and E. Clementson, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. And with that, I turn it over to you, Patrick.

Thank you, David, and welcome everyone to InnoSpec's fourth quarter and full year 2023 conference call. I am pleased to present another excellent quarter for Innispec. Performance Chemicals and Field Specialties delivered improved margins and double-digit operating income growth over the fourth quarter last year, while Oilfield Services maintained a strong performance. In December, we completed the acquisition of QGP Chemica. This acquisition aligned with our previously stated M&A goals to further strengthen our Performance Chemicals segment and add strategic manufacturing in South America. QGP brings meaningful capabilities that complement many of the end markets we serve, including agriculture, personal care, home care, industrial, construction, and mining. In addition, there is significant manufacturing flexibility for future organic expansion. We expect this transaction to be immediately accretive and added approximately $0.08 of EPS in 2024. In performance chemicals, operating income in the quarter grew by double digits over the prior year and margins improved. Our focus remains on returning operating income and run rates and margins to levels consistent with the full year 2022. While the economic environment remains a challenge, We are making progress against that objective. On a sequential basis, Performance Chemicals delivered its second consecutive quarter of operating income growth and margin improvement. We continue to have strong technology pipeline and organic growth opportunities in all end markets. In fuel specialties, Operating income grew by double digits over the same quarter last year, and gross margins were within our target range of 32 to 35 percent. Excluding Brazil, inventory charges incurred the first half of 2023. Full-year operating income grew by 3 percent, and operating margins improved to 18 percent. We will continue to focus on operating margin improvement. In oilfield services, as expected, activity levels in the quarter moderated compared to last year, but remained strong. For the full year, operating income approximately doubled and operating margins expanded above 11%. While we expect production chemicals activity to remain at moderate levels in the coming quarters, We continue to see opportunities for sales growth and margin improvement in all segments and geographies in 2024. Now I will turn the call over to Ian Clemson, who will review our financial results in more detail. Then I will return with some concluding comments. After that, Ian and I will take your questions. Ian?

Thanks, Patrick. Turning to slide seven of the presentation, the company's total revenues for the fourth quarter were $494.7 million. a 3% decrease from 510.7 million a year ago. Overall gross margin increased by 1.8 percentage points from last year to 31.5%. EBITDA for the quarter was 54 million compared to 54.3 million last year, and net income for the quarter was 37.8 million compared to 25.5 million a year ago. Our gap earnings per share were $1.51, including special items, the net effect of which decreased our fourth quarter earnings by $0.33 per share. A year ago, we reported gap earnings per share of $1.02, which included a negative impact from special items of $0.18 per share. Excluding special items in both years, our adjusted EPS for the quarter was $1.84 compared to $1.20 a year ago. For the full year, total revenues of $1.95 billion decreased 1% from $1.96 billion in 2022. EBITDA for the year was 210.6 million compared to 225.4 million in 2022, and net income was 139.1 million compared to 133 million a year ago. Our full year gap earnings per share were $5.56 including special items, which decreased our full year earnings by 53 cents per share. In 2022, we reported gap earnings of $5.32 per share, which included the negative impact from special items of 72 cents. Excluding special items in both years, our adjusted EPS for the year was $6.09 compared to $6.04 a year ago. Turning to slide eight, revenues in performance chemicals for the fourth quarter were 137.2 million, down 5% from last year's 143.9 million. A negative price mix of 14% was offset by higher volumes of 6% and a positive currency impact of 3%. Gross margins of 21.3% were up 2.9 percentage points from last year. Operating income increased 14% from last year to $18 million. For the full year, revenues of $561.6 million were down 12% from last year's $639.7 million and operating income decreased by 43% to $54.5 million. Moving on to slide nine, revenues in field specialties for the fourth quarter were $182.1 million, 1% lower than the $183.3 million reported a year ago. The volumes were flat and a negative price mix of 4% was offset by a positive currency impact of 3%. Fuel Specialty's gross margins at 32.9% improved by 5.1 percentage points from 27.8% last year. Operating income increased 22% from last year to $32.6 million. For the full year, revenues were down 5% to 695.9 million and operating income declined 10% to 109.7 million. Adjusting to the impact of non-recurring Brazil inventory charges in the first half of 2023, operating income grew by 3% to 125.1 million. Moving on to slide 10, Revenues in oilfield services for the quarter were $175.4 million, down 4% from $183.5 million in the fourth quarter last year. Gross margins of 38% were down 2.4 percentage points on last year's 40.4%, and operating income of $18.3 million was down 11% from $20.5 million a year ago. For the full year, revenues of $691.3 million were up 16% from last year's $593.8 million, and operating income increased 88% to $78.6 million. Turning to slide 11, corporate costs of $24.4 million increased by $7.9 million from last year, driven mainly by additional remediation charges and acquisition-related costs. The full year adjusted effective tax rate was 23% compared to 27% last year. The decrease is primarily a consequence of having operations outside of the U.S. where they are exposed to foreign currency fluctuations, together with the changing profile of our taxable profits by territory year on year. For 2024, we expect the full year effective tax rate to be around 25%. Moving on to slide 12, this was an excellent quarter for cash, with cash generated from operations of 72.4 million, before capital expenditures of 21.1 million. In the quarter, we paid the previously announced semi-annual dividend of 72 cents per common share. This brought the total dividends for the full year to $1.41 per share, a 10% increase over 2022. For the full year, cash from operations after capital expenditures was $130.2 million compared to $39.6 million in 2022. As of December 31st, Interspeak had $203.7 million in cash and cash equivalents and no debt. And now I'll turn it back over to Patrick for some final comments.

Thanks, Ian. I am pleased with our operating results that the business teams achieved in the quarter and the full year. The foundation of success is innovation, customer service, and teamwork across all our global businesses. Our technologies and customer partnerships are first in class in the end markets that we serve. We will continue to leverage and invest those strengths as we target growth and further margin improvement in 2024. Cash flow continues to be extremely strong in the quarter and full year. After funding the upfront portion of the QGP acquisition and a 10% dividend increase, our net cap position remained over $200 million. We continue to have significant flexibility and balance sheet strength for further M&A, dividend growth, and organic investment. Now I will turn the call over to the operator, and Ian and I will take your questions.

Thank you, sir. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 1 and 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, press star 1 and 1 again. Once again, please press star 1 and 1 for any question or comment. Thank you. We are now going to proceed with our first question. And the questions come from the line of John Tan Wantang from CJS. Please ask a question. Your line is opened.

Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions in the next quarter, guys. Thanks, John. Good morning. Good morning. My first one is, again, what's driving the strength in the oil field, you know, after I think you tried to level set expectations a little bit last quarter, and what are your run rate expectations heading into 24?

Yeah, I mean, it leveled off a little bit when you look over year over year. We're still driving a lot of strength in our global business, whether it's in Saudi, whether it's in other parts of the country. It's balancing out that portfolio, which has still helped us improve and grow in that business. As we stated, you will see some moderation in the production side of the business. But I think the diversification, John, within the portfolio has helped us to still maintain a pretty good growth in that business, you know, with good off-ink and good margins. You know, you will see a little slowdown again in 2024, but it's still a very strong business right now, and the guys have done a really good job in that area.

Okay, just to be clear, do you see growth in that business on an overall basis for the year, or is that something that's going to decline? I think it's probably going to be a little flat.

You might get a little growth, but I would probably say flat to just a little tiny bit of growth for 2024.

Okay, great. No, that's great to hear. And then I expect that the tax rate guidance for 25%, that's reflecting where you expect the revenues to come from just on a geographic basis? That's correct, John, yeah. Okay, great. And jumping over to QGP, I was wondering if you could tell us what the revenue in EBITDA for that business was and the contribution you expect in 24. Yeah, it's great.

Pretty small at the moment. It's a nice tuck in. We've said that we're going to deliver about eight cents of earnings off that. We've not disclosed what the revenue and EBITDA is, John, but you can sort of re-engineer it back from eight cents. We're really excited by it, actually. We've now completed the acquisition in Q4, and the teams are working really well together. We have lots of folks down there, and we're very confident that the synergies that we can drive from a revenue perspective and the opportunities we've got both from sales of their products and our products and the technology crossover is going to drive a really nice acquisition, so we're super excited by it.

okay great and then um just any updates on the trends and performance chemicals um obviously you you've lapped i guess inventory issues um coming from last year but what's the organic trend in both demand and mix as you see it going forward you know i think it's that mid single digit growth that we've been talking about we've seen pretty much the inventory issues go away in most of the product lines

You know, there is still some, what I would say, demand destruction in the marketplace, but we are definitely starting to see that come back. So we're pretty excited about the year. You know, again, I think you're probably talking low single-digit growth to mid-single-digit growth in that business.

Okay, great. Thanks, Patrick. I'll jump back in queue. Thank you.

Thank you. Once again, as a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 1 and 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Once again, it's star 1 and 1 on your telephone. We are now going to proceed with our next question. And the questions come from the line of Mike Harrison from Seaport Research Partners. Please ask your question.

Hi. Good morning. Congrats on a strong finish to the year. Thanks, Mike. Appreciate it. Maybe just kind of continuing on the question on performance chemicals, you mentioned that you expected to see some growth there. I assume you were talking top line growth in terms of low to mid single digit growth. But I'm just curious if maybe you can talk a little bit more about, we've seen a lot of kind of, I believe what's mostly mixed erosion rather than pricing erosion. But talk about what you're seeing in terms of mix. And then I guess we've seen a pretty dramatic change in the operating margin in that business, kind of starting the year in the 7-ish percent range, finishing the year here at about 13%. Where should we expect to see that margin progress to over time in performance chemicals?

Yeah, if you look at, Mike, the general businesses, as you can tell, are starting to come back. The guys have done a really good job of focusing on margin improvement. We're starting to see the top line growth that we anticipated. There are still some difficult situations with raw materials. You saw the CPI numbers that came out yesterday. We are still seeing some inflationary problems in the marketplace. But overall, I think that we've filtered through most of the high-cost inventory. We've really focused on margin improvement, not only from a raw material standpoint, but from a technology point of view to the customer base to make sure that we're obviously keeping them competitive as well. So we've done a really good job in that area, and I think that's obviously where you saw the margin improvement. I think moving forward, probably the margins that you see today will probably carry forward in 2024 may go a little higher, and that's our anticipation and that's our focus right now.

All right. Thanks for that. And then switching over to the fuel specialty business, understand that we had a lot of noise going on there with the stuff going on in Brazil. But you talked about kind of sustainably looking to get back to that. I believe 19% to 21% operating margin is what you pointed to there. What are some of the key drivers for the expected margin improvement in that fuel specialties business?

A lot of it is product differentiation mix, focus on raw materials. and expansion of the business. And that continues to happen in that business that we are discussing today. It's been a battle. You know, that's a difficult business in this environment. But our group and the one thing about fuel specialties is when you get into a high inflationary and a recessionary environment, you don't really see the high negativity you do in most consumer-facing markets. This is one of those strong businesses, and all of our folks in that business have done a really good job managing their way through it. And we're starting to see some improvement in total volumes as well, which is key to the business.

All right. And then the last question for me is kind of more on the guidance front. I guess as you roll up your expectations for the different segments, You know, any thoughts on what that could imply for EPS in Q1 and I guess in 2024 compared to the 609 you did this year, this past year?

Yeah, Mike, let me take that question. So just thinking about Q1, the consensus out there is around about $1.60, I believe, and we expect to be around about $1.60 for the first quarter. As we move into 2024 in full throttle, our expectation is that our oilfield business or generate somewhere between $15 to $20 million of operating income each quarter. We're targeting close to $20 million a quarter in performance chemicals. And the full year for fuel specialties should be broadly similar to where it was for this year, around about 125 once you take out the the Brazil inventory write-offs. So you wrap all that up together, and I think you've basically come out with a number that's pretty close to the full-year consensus from our analysts. So we'd be guiding people for Q1 and for the full year that the numbers that they have are about right, and we can continue to update you as we move through the year.

All right. Sounds good. Thanks very much.

No problem, Mike.

Thanks, Mike.

Thank you. We are now going to proceed with our next question. And the question comes from the line of Jonathan Wantang from CJS Securities. Please ask your question.

Hey, guys. Thanks for the follow-up. Just wanted to ask what was the legacy cost that you dealt with in corporate expenses in the quarter and kind of help me understand the details there.

Yeah, John, that's remediation charges for one of our sites where the operations have closed, and we've just had some changes to scope and costs, and it's a legacy item for us, so it's not part of our continuing operations.

Okay, and was that a TAL business, or is that something else?

Yeah, you're correct. It was the old octane analysis business. Yep.

Okay, great. And then going forward, you know, you obviously still have a fantastic cash position despite the acquisition raising the dividend. What are your expectations just in terms of use of cash and priorities for capital allocation?

John, I don't think it changes. The focus is still to increase the dividend as we continue to do. Focus on organic growth as the markets rebound, and we're starting to see that. And additionally, continue to look at M&A that fit our portfolio. We made a really nice acquisition in South America. We think there's a few of those out there that really fit us from a geographic standpoint or a product portfolio, and we'll continue to look at those acquisitions as we move forward. Number one priority right now is to make sure we integrate the acquisition we just made and get the synergies and get the growth out of it that we're expecting. But those are really the three core use of cash remain the same as they have for a period

Got it. Thanks. Ian, just one housekeeping question. What's the run rate corporate expense that you're expecting going forward?

For the full year, I think it's going to be somewhere closer to sort of $55 million this year, John.

$55? Yeah. Great. Yes. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. We have no further questions at this time. I will now hand back to Mr. Patrick Williams for closing remarks.

Thank you all for joining us today, and thanks to all our shareholders, customers, and InnoSpec employees for your interest and support. If you have any further questions about InnoSpec or matters discussed today, please give us a call. We look forward to meeting up with you again to discuss our first quarter 2024 results in May. Have a great day.