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spk05: Welcome to InSPEC's first quarter earnings call. 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 and other statements about future events. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risk and uncertainties. They can cause actual results to differ materially from the anticipated results implied by such forward-looking statements. The risk and uncertainties are detailed in InnoSpec 10-K, 10-Qs, and other filings with the SEC. Please see the SEC site and InnoSpec site for these and related documents. In our discussions today, we've 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 or superior to 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 these items and events had on financial results. With me today from NSFAC are Patrick Williams, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Ian Clementson, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.
spk02: And with that, turn it over to you, Patrick. Thank you, David, and welcome everyone to NSFAC's first quarter 2024 conference call. I am pleased to report a strong start to 2024. Excellent performance across all our businesses drove double-digit operating income growth and margin improvement. Performance chemicals delivered on our target for sequential improvement has operating income more than doubled over last year. While customers remain disciplined in their order patterns, volumes have improved in our key end markets. Supported by our strong organic growth and technology pipeline, we are cautiously optimistic that we can maintain this improvement in 2024. In addition, our recent QGP acquisition is performing in line with expectations as was immediately accretive. Our focus remains on continued progress returning operating income run rates and margins to levels consistent with full year 2022. Bills Best achieved another steady set of results, Gross and operating margins improved over the prior year and were within our targeted range. Our team has continued to build a strong pipeline of regional product and market growth opportunities in both fuel and non-fuel applications. Oil field services achieved operating income growth and margin expansion over the prior year. Softer production chemicals activity in the corner was more than offset by further improvement and our other segments. In the second quarter, we expect significant headwinds in production chemicals activity. And consequently, operating income will be substantially lower than previous quarters. We are cautiously optimistic that operating income run rates will return to our targeted 15 to 20 million per quarter range in the second half of the year. Now I will turn the call over to Ian Clementson, 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, and good morning, everyone.
spk03: Turning to slide seven in the presentation, the company's total revenues for the first quarter were $500.2 million, a 2% decrease from $509.6 million a year ago. Overall gross margin increased by 2.1 percentage points from last year to 31.1%. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was 64 million compared to 52.7 million last year, and net income for the quarter was 41.4 million compared to 33.2 million a year ago. Our gap earnings per share were $1.65, including special items, the net effect of which decreased our first quarter earnings by 10 cents per share. A year ago, we reported gap earnings per share of $1.33, which included a negative impact from special items of 5 cents per share. Excluding special items in both years, our adjusted EPS for the quarter was $1.75 compared to $1.38 a year ago. Turning to slide 8, revenues in performance chemicals for the first quarter were $160.8 million, up 6% from last year's $151.4 million. Growth attributable to the QGP acquisition of 6% volume growth of 13% and positive currency impact of 1% were offset by an adverse price mix of 14% due mainly to lower raw material costs flowing through to selling prices. Gross margins of 23.4% increased 7.5 percentage points compared to 15.9% in the same quarter in 2023, benefiting from increased sales and production volumes. Operating income of $21.1 million, approximately doubled on last year. Moving on to slide 9, revenues in fuel specialties for the first quarter were $176.9 million, down 7% from the $190.3 million reported a year ago. An adverse price mix of 6% and a 2% reduction in volumes were partially offset by a positive currency impact of 1%. Gross margins of 34.3% were 4.1 percentage points above the same quarter last year. Operating income of 33.4 million was up 3% from 32.4 million a year ago. Adjusting for the 7.4 million inventory write-off in Brazil in the prior year, gross margins were 34.1% and operating income was 39.8%. The decrease in adjusted operating income year on year mostly due to the timing of sales in our Avgas business. Moving on to slide 10, revenues in old field services for the quarter were 162.5 million, down 3% from 167.9 million in the first quarter last year. Gross margins of 35.3% decreased 4.2 percentage points from last year's 39.5% on a weaker sales mix. Operating income of 16.9 million increased 6% on $15.9 million one year ago. In the second quarter, we expect operating income to be significantly lower due to a slowdown in our production chemicals business. We expect operating income will be in the $7 to $10 million range. However, we are cautiously optimistic that operating income run rates will return to our $15 to $20 million per quarter range in the second half of this year. Turning to slide 11, Corporate costs for the quarter were $20.2 million compared with $17.7 million a year ago, due mainly to the growth and timing of IT expenditure and higher performance-related remuneration. The effective tax rate for the quarter was 25.1% compared to 26.2% a year ago. Moving on to slide 12, free cash generation for the quarter was excellent, with an operating cash inflow of 80.2%. As of March 31st, Innespec had $270.1 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.
spk02: I am very pleased with the strong performance of all our businesses delivered in the quarter, including the new acquisition. In partnership with our customers, we remain well-placed for growth through technical innovation and excellent customer service over the medium to long term. This quarter, our board approved a further 10% increase in our semiannual dividend to 76 cents per share. With net cash of over $270 million, we continue to deliver on our record of returning valued shareholders while maintaining flexibility for M&A, dividend growth, organic investment, and buybacks. Now I'll turn the call over to the operator And Ian and I will take your questions.
spk00: Thank you. To ask a question, you will need to press star 1 and 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 and 1 again. We will now go to your first question. One moment, please. And your first question comes from the line of Mike Harrison, Seaport Research Partners. Please go ahead.
spk04: Hi, good morning. Congrats on a strong start to the year.
spk03: Thanks, Mike. Thanks, Mike.
spk04: I was hoping that you could provide a little bit of additional detail on what you're seeing in that performance chemicals business. You mentioned that some customers are remaining disciplined in their orders. Just curious, does that mean there's still some lingering destocking effects going on in some product lines? Maybe help us understand what you've been seeing in terms of order patterns and trends as you look at kind of that February into March into April timeframe.
spk02: Yeah, Mike, we're still seeing very positive trends. I think the destocking was by application by business, for instance, agriculture. But if you look at overall performance chemicals, i.e., personal care, home care, etc., Globally, we're seeing uptick. We're seeing strong order patterns coming into the second quarter. We're feeling like these stockings have been put behind us, and we're just moving forward. We're finally starting to see the market come back to some normalcy, and we believe that throughout the year we'll see an uptick continue. Q2 looks very strong today.
spk04: And maybe just in terms of that price mix number in performance chemicals, I believe in the past you had said that that's mostly mix. And if ag is soft, I would understand where that's affecting mix. But it also sounded like you were saying that raw materials are lower and that's weighing on pricing. Maybe just a little more color there and when you might expect to see some stabilization in that price mix number in performance chemicals.
spk03: Yeah, that was a year-over-year comment. So we are seeing much lower raw material costs now starting to flow through to the revenue lines. There's still a little bit of mix in there. Ag is not where we'd like it to be. But as Patrick alluded to, our main business in personal care, home care, we're seeing great volume growth year-over-year, and sequentially we continue to see the business expand. So we expect raw materials to stabilize, so we expect that price mix to sort of flatten out throughout the rest of the year. But we're in good shape going into Q2 and for the rest of the year.
spk04: All right. And I guess for my last question, understand the commentary that you provided on Q2 in the oil field business, but I was just hoping that you could give us maybe some broad insights Thoughts on the full year outlook? The consensus number is $6.75. I know I can't just annualize the first quarter given what you said about oil field, but annualizing Q1 would get you more to a $7 type EPS number. So maybe just help level set us on some of the modeling assumptions that we should be keeping in mind for the rest of the year.
spk03: Yeah, Mike, let me take that one. So oilfield, obviously, we've guided in the comments earlier to a 6 to 10 million operating income quarter. Our expectation is that in Q3 and Q4, we get back into that 15 to 20 million operating income range. There's no reason, as we sit here today, why we can't do that. So that broadly puts us in that sort of 60 to 70 million operating income range for the full year in oilfield.
spk02: Mike, just to give an additional color, there is potential we start seeing some orders in the latter part of Q2. But again, I think as Ian said, let's stick to the numbers that he's put forward for Q3, Q4 as well.
spk04: All right. Thanks very much. Thanks, Mike.
spk00: Thank you. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 and 1 on your telephone keypad. We will now go to your next question. And your next question comes from the line of David Silver from CL King & Associates. Please go ahead.
spk01: Yeah, hi. Good morning. Good morning, David. Morning. You know, I'd just like to start out with a clarification, I guess. I'm just curious, but in oil field, there's kind of a disparity between how the gross margin line performed versus the operating income. Just curious, but you talked about lower margins on the gross profit line, but there was something of an increase year over year on operating income. Income. So what between the gross profit or how would you kind of characterize, you know, that, I don't know, those two lines on the segment financials kind of going in opposite directions? And is that something that will persist through the year or is that kind of just a one quarter phenomenon? Thanks.
spk03: Yes, David, what we're looking at here is that we've had a slowdown in our production chemicals business in the quarter, but the rest of our business has continued to execute extremely well, off the same cost base. So we've been able to grow the revenues, maintain the costs, and that's what's helped year-over-year operating income come higher. Our production chemicals business does attract a lot of service-intensive work, so that is a high cost. So we've just dropped a little bit out of our SAR line, And as the production chemicals business comes back, you'll see that SAR line rise a little bit as well. So nothing unusual, just the business is doing well outside of production chemicals, and we're pleased with the results.
spk01: No, thank you for that. I admit when I read it, I had to look it over a couple times and think about it. So thank you for clarifying that. On the fuel specialty side, you know, there is kind of the margin pickup is getting back to that targeted, I don't know, 32% to 35% range. Just, you know, a couple of questions about that. So would you say that the more recent, you know, margin improvement, is that related to the return of jet fuel aviation products markets kind of returning more to normal, or would you say that the margin improvement this quarter is maybe tied to some different end markets or product lines?
spk02: No, it's different end markets, David. We didn't have a lot of jet fuel in the quarter. It tends to be lumpy. It's consistent blocking and tackling, lower raw materials, steady prices in the marketplace. increased volumes. It's a little bit of everything. And, you know, we've set a plan years ago to get these margins up, and the group's done a really good job. So, you know, as we see an increase in half gas, we should see maybe potentially even a low margin uptick there as well.
spk01: Okay. And then also sticking with fuel specialties for one more But the comment in the press release, and I'm sorry, I'm fumbling with my pages, but it seemed like you did call out a number of growth opportunities in multiple end markets across the fuel specialties portfolio. And I mean, over the last several years, you've definitely launched a number of new initiatives, ocean-going vessel projects, I'm sorry, additives and stationary power, et cetera, along with some other opportunities. Which of those or, you know, what would you call out as kind of the more promising ones right now that led you to kind of call that out in the press release? Thank you.
spk02: Yeah, Dave, I think it's a combination really of the IMO products and GDI products. If you look at a lot of Eastern European nations, they're starting to use the gasoline direct injection product, and that's been a nice uptick. We've been preaching that for quite some time, and the hope was that it would start getting some legs, and we're finally starting to see that. So GDI has taken off, IMO has taken off, and applications outside of fuels had a good quarter as well. In general, we see some nice tailwinds in this fuels business that we've got to continue to take advantage of.
spk01: Very good. One more, if you don't mind, on performance chemicals, and in particular on the QGP contribution. So you did call out the sales growth. I was wondering if you could maybe kind of talk about that 6% increase as kind of above trend or right on trend, just kind of how does that relate to your overall expectations, let's say, for the first 12 months, revenue generation from that asset? Secondly, you did take a small charge, I guess, for adjustments to the contingent consideration related to that acquisition. If I'm interpreting it correctly, I think that means it's performing at or above original expectations. And, you know, if that's the case, I mean, if you wouldn't mind qualitatively talking about what that adjustment to contingent consideration was related to and maybe is there a maximum earn out associated with that that maybe we should think about. Just kind of, you know, framing the contribution from QGP and the implications of the incremental charge you took for contingent consideration. Thanks.
spk03: Sure, David. So in terms of KGP's performance in the first quarter, it's exactly on track from a revenue and operating income perspective. What's really pleasing for us is that the business performed exactly how we expected it. But behind that, there's an awful lot of work going on with the integration across our manufacturing, our sales, our finance, supply chain, And we see lots of opportunity in that business going forward. Now, it's going to take us a little bit of time to bring all that together and to see some real growth. But we are very confident that we've made a great acquisition. The people are fantastic. Integration is going really well. As we move through the year into next year, we think we can accelerate that growth. So as we sit here, everything is bang on track, which is great. In terms of the contingent consideration, that is the accretion charge going through. That's absolutely expected. There's no changes to our expectations of the earn-out right now, but obviously that will change from quarter to quarter, and as the business transitions over the next two to three years, we'll keep you updated on what that earn-out's going to look like. But right here, right now, everything's on track and looking good.
spk01: Okay, thank you for that. I'm going to get back in queue. Thank you.
spk00: Thank you. There are no further questions. I will now hand the call back to Patrick Williams.
spk02: 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 second quarter 2024 results in August. Have a great day.
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