Oil-Dri Corporation Of America

Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q2 fiscal 2026 earnings discussion for AllJoy Corporation of America. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there'll be a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question during the session, you need to press star one on your telephone. You will then hear an automatic message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw yourself from the queue, please press star one again. I would now like to turn... the conference over to your speaker for today, President and CEO, Dan Chaffee. Chaffee, please go ahead.

Thank you and welcome, everybody. And we are in virtual mode. So, we've got people dialing in from all over. I'm going to introduce them. We very much appreciate you guys getting your questions in early. That gave us a chance to develop our responses and prioritize. So, thank you for doing that. With me today is Susan Cray, our CFO and CIO. Aaron Christensen, our VP of Operations. Chris Lamson, Group Vice President of Business to Business and Strategic Growth Initiatives. Wade Robey, VP of Agriculture and President of Amlin International. Laura Sheelan, Vice President and General Manager of our Consumer Products Division. Bruce Paetze, our Vice President of Fluids Purification. Mervyn D'Souza, VP of Research and Development. Tony Parker, our VP General Counsel and Secretary. And Leslie Garber, our Director of Investor Relations. And I'm going to turn it over to Leslie for our safe harbor provision.

Good morning, everyone. I also just want to note that John Blake, VP Corporate Controller, is also on the call today. On today's call, comments may contain forward-looking statements regarding the company's performance in future periods. Actual results in those periods may materially differ. In our press release and in our SEC filings, we highlight a number of important risk factors, trends, and uncertainties that may affect our future performance. We ask that you review and consider those factors in evaluating the company's comments and in evaluating any investment in oil dry stock. Thank you for joining us. Now I'm turning it back over to you, Dan. Great.

Thank you, Leslie. And as always, I'm going to have a few comments, but I'm really going to turn it over to the team to walk you through a lot of the details and what went on in the quarter. Very proud of the results. We had a very, very, very strong quarter, especially given the way we navigated through the storm called Fern. And I'm not going to get into that too much because I know Susan's going to cover it. Aaron's probably going to cover it. But all I'm going to say is it was another validation of the commitment and the caring that our global teammates have for doing everything they can to create value from sorbent minerals and help deliver value to our shareholders. Because we had a lot of heroic effort. We absolutely emphasized safety first. making sure that everyone took care of their family. They were without power. They were without water for some period of time. It was really a dynamic situation, and we navigated it very, very well. So, I'm just very proud of the team. Susan, I'm going to turn it over to you to walk us through the quarter.

Sure. Thank you, Dan. In order to preserve the most time for the Q&A portion of this call, I'm going to highlight a few financial matters and then address any of your other questions during the Q&A session. During our second fiscal quarter, Oil Dry continued to deliver strong financial performance. However, when I reflect back on the second quarter, what makes me so proud to be a part of this team is how everyone, especially our operations leadership, handled the situation with Winter Storm Fern. They played a team game and demonstrated agility in using our entire plant network to service our customers. And they did so while embracing the core values of our culture. Those core values shone brightly when the first thing that the operations team addressed as the magnitude of the storm impact unfolded was the safety and well-being of our teammates, followed closely by a focus on taking care of our customers, both of which are key pillars of our We Care values. Erin, I hope your team is listening and that they know how much the rest of us appreciate what they did to handle such a major disruption and handle it so well. Switching gears back to financial performance, I want to highlight our continued ability to generate strong cash flows. During the second quarter of our fiscal year 2026, Oil Dry generated EBITDA of $22 million, which was in line with the $22 million of EBITDA generated during the same quarter a year ago. For the first six months of fiscal year 2026, Oil drives generated cash flows from operating activities of just over $28 million. Our strong ability to generate cash was an enabler in building our inventories. The elevated levels of inventory going into January played a key role in being able to service our customers while several of our production facilities experienced outages resulting from winter storm burns. Our strong cash position also supports our continued investments in growth and infrastructure projects in our manufacturing facilities. We ended our fiscal second quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $47 million. Our outstanding debt at the end of the second quarter, including current maturities of notes payable, was $40 million. meaning that at this point in time, we have more cash than debt, and we are extremely well positioned to make continued investments in our business to support our strategic growth initiatives, such as a couple of the new product launches that we will see in the second half of this fiscal year. In summary, our strong financial performance and our strong cash position, coupled with our deep cultural values of being a team-based organization with a focus on our people and our customers, enabled our resiliency during a major weather-related disruption. And again, I'll take your questions during the Q&A if you have any specific accounting or financial questions. And with that, Dan, I will turn it back over to you.

Okay, great. And before I open it up to the Q&A, you know, we had a great board meeting yesterday, and I wasn't – being facetious when I said, look, the one constant, I've been doing this job since 1995, so I haven't been promoted in 31 years. But you've seen a lot of dynamic growth the last three to five years, and a lot of that was seeds that were planted maybe three years before that. And, you know, for the fun of it, I was clicking on my app this morning, and if you look at our one-year growth rate on the stock price, it's 36%. When I click the two, it jumps to 88%. And when I click the five, it jumps to 258%. And I am sincere in saying that is a direct result of the incredible work that our team does on a global basis every single day, led by the people you're hearing on this teleconference. So when you invest in oil rights, you're investing in the team. And we have a phenomenal team. And I just want to thank them publicly for the incredible job they do. So Leslie, I'll turn it over to you now for the Q&A. Leslie, I'm not hearing you.

I'm here. I'll open up the floor for Q&A. Please submit your questions using the Ask a Question field on the webcast and click Submit. So our first question comes from John Bear from Ascend Wealth Advisors, and he asks, several years ago, Oil Dry made it known that considerable CapEx costs would be undertaken over a three to five-year period to upgrade and modernize plant and equipment. Recognizing there are always unexpected developments that pop up, how far along is that effort? Have the major initiatives been accomplished, and can we expect that those costs will diminish over the next few years? Aaron, will you please take that?

Thanks, John. I appreciate the question. As we approach the completion of our fourth year of elevated capital spending, I'd say the program has really progressed as intended. We've executed our plan with strong discipline, addressing some foundational areas of the business, including revitalizing portions of our mine fleet, advancing power, air, and other critical infrastructure, and prioritizing core processing assets. Really importantly, we don't view this as a discrete project with a defined endpoint. Although prior communicated as a three- to five-year endeavor, that was an initial belief. Our approach to capital allocation ongoing is to increasingly anchor to our long-term replacement cost of our asset base with a focus on sustaining high uptime, optimizing capacity, and consistently meeting customer service expectations. I often say to Dan and Susan, I am the steward of our asset base and manufacturing plants. The reliability and service performance that our customers experience is directly tied to having a manufacturing network that is flexible, continually ready to perform, and that remains central to how we think about capital going forward. Susan and Dan both paid me significant compliments in the way we manage a winter storm fern. I'll make a direct connection to the ability to have our entire asset base ready to perform when we mash the pedal. coming out of that storm and to use our plants in a way that's flexible and somewhat atypical in the weeks that follow the storm. So I hope that answers your question, John.

Perfect. The next question comes from Ethan Starr, and he asks, What's the sales increase in agriculture and horticulture products, and is the increase in sales sustainable? Are you still finding new customers who want to include verge granules in products they manufacture? I'm going to turn that over to Wade.

Yes, thank you, Leslie, and thank you, Ethan, for that question and for noting the excellent performance we've seen in that division the first half of this year. There's really two parts of the market that we serve and I'll segregate those for you real quick. The first is the, what I'll call the broad acre market, which would be directed at grains, oilseeds or pulses. And that's the large scale farming side of the business that we target with the fine ag products that we sell. The second would be on the turf and ornamental side where we focus with engineered granules like verge. In both cases, we've seen good performance out of those segments in the first half of the year. The broad acre side is really driven mostly by planted acres, and we've seen increases in those planted acres over the last year, which allows our ag retailer partners, who are our customers, to service more acres, and that drives sales. So that's been good growth, and we expect that to continue kind of normal to historic patterns. On the turf and ornamental side, again, it's the engineered side of the business where we target with Verge. That's been good as well for us, and we've seen new product opportunities for us or new application opportunities for us come in, specifically with some new customers we've been developing. Those granules are used in products like insecticides or in products like specialty fertilizers for the turf and ornamental markets. So those markets have both been strong. We remain very bullish on the growth of that side of the business as well. So overall, we expect to see good performance over the next couple of years as we continue to expand with current customers and they expand their respective markets as well.

Great. Thank you. The next question comes from Robert Smith from Center for Performance Investing, and we also have a couple of other questions that are similar. Will there be new product introductions of note during the second half? Which areas and can you share any color, of expectations as to their importance. As always, thank you. I'm going to have Laura Sheelan cover that.

Sure. Hi, good morning. Thanks for the question. At Oil Dry, we're always dedicated to innovation and improved consumer experience with our robust R&D and product development teams, as evidenced by our recent and new product launches in past fiscal year and this fiscal year. So I'm excited to report on some updates there. You know, in recent past years, we launched our EPA-approved antibacterial litter and excited and pleased with the progress and increased distribution during this fiscal year. Also, last quarter, I reported out on three new Cat's Pride crystal items that test better than competition with 30 days guaranteed odor control. We are pleased with these items and performance in the market and the distribution that's growing. And then very excited to announce a new expansion of our Crystal Litter portfolio. Just in the past month, launched a new health monitoring litter that provides great peace of mind to consumers. We're excited to see our proprietary health monitoring formulation that we put a lot of effort to develop not just what's currently in market, but even improved formulations for real vibrant color indications. In addition, last quarter, I reported on our new Caps Pride Super Bowl tail that launched in the fall at Walmart. Well, in the second quarter, we added an additional Cat's Pride Total Odor Guard Pale exclusively at Walmart, and I'm excited with that expansion of branded items. Additionally, we also just launched a new line of Cat's Pride Max Power Pro items that are exclusively online in our stand-up bags and are designed and optimized for e-commerce fulfillment. So really excited about the progress of our innovation that's, you know, geared to offer consumers the best experience, but also to partner with our strategic customers to satisfy their needs and desires and kind of maximize for a growing e-commerce segment as well. Thank you.

Great. Thanks. Thanks. Next question comes from Curry Monacondon from Cocoon Capital. Can you give more details on underlying drivers of speaking and renewable diesel sales? What are the bottlenecks in both the market and OTC? When can we expect to reaccelerate?

Yes, I'll respond to that. This is Bruce Pacey. And currently, you know, the blender's tax or the blender's rebate was removed and a producer's rebate was put in place. This caused a little disruption at some of the renewable customers and actually reduced production as they were trying to figure out how much money they would get back from the federal government. So, we did see a slowdown. Secondly, the feedstock oils that were brought into these plants changed a little bit and no longer is there a rebate for feedstocks that come over from China or foreign markets into the US. So, with that, plants are just adjusting. Currently, there's a 45Z rebate been put in place, and as these companies start to work with that more in the future, I'm sure we're going to see some growth in that renewable market in the coming quarters.

Okay, thank you. The next question comes from Ethan Starr. Are you selling the co-packaged lightweight litter to the same customer you sell? other co-packaged literature or is it being sold to multiple customers? Chris Lamson, please address that.

Thanks, Leslie, and thanks, Ethan, for the question. Unfortunately, our contractual obligations, Ethan, really don't allow us to share either the name of the brands or partners that we're working with. But that being said, I'd really like to take the opportunity to highlight, you know, the revenue that you saw and we mentioned. in the press release is really a culmination of a multi-year cross-functional effort from our team and the partner to bring our first offering in the lightweight segment that is in fact a contract manufacturing item for us. While we're really excited about the new business and the revenue and profit stream it should create for us going forward, we're just as excited about really what it does for the lightweight segment. You've heard me and more recently Laura talk time and time again that really our strategy is about growing the lightweight segment. We've got a nice size pie of it, and we'll continue to have that nice size pie of it, but we really want to grow that pie. And we think, candidly, as much as there's a big revenue gain here, we also think having a strong player with strong brands participating in the segment with a great product that we've worked with them to develop over the last couple of years. We'll continue to do just that. And Laura would – I think Laura would tell you because she told me that that segment growth is really continuing to work. If you looked at Nielsen data, you'd see that growth rates in the lightweight segment are well ahead of the rest of the segment. In fact, it's the single biggest driver of growth. in total cat litter over the last year. So we're both pleased about the revenue and we're pleased about the strategic impact this will make for us for a long time.

Thank you. John Bear asks, in the recent 10Q, you indicate that the year-over-year six-month per ton manufacturing costs were up, but per ton transportation and packaging costs were lower. Can you speak to the current trends in your manufacturing costs as well as transportation and packaging cost trends? Are the latter improvements due to your efficiency efforts or the macro environment? Aaron, will you please address that?

Yeah, John, that's another thoughtful question. And there's a few elements in your question. I'll try to unpack one at a time. Starting with manufacturing costs, the year-over-year comparison reflects a combination of timing and normal volatility. with no real single underlying driver trend. As both Susan and Dan and I already talked to, we experienced meaningful operational disruption late in the quarter from Winter Storm Fern, which included temporary production outages at multiple U.S. plants, which created some short-term fixed cost absorption pressure, as well as some variable costs that came with the event. In addition to the timing of the winter storm late in January, labor-related inputs, in particular benefits, continue to be an area of cost pressure for us, which is not uncommon in the industry. And we've seen that flow through our results. I'll add here, our repair costs continue to stabilize directly related to your prayer question and the ongoing reinvestment in capital into our asset base. Turning to transportation, We do operate in markets that naturally fluctuate and recent periods reflected a more balanced freight environment. That being said, we tend to view freight performance less through the lens of spot conditions and more through execution and how we take advantage of those spot conditions. I'll take a moment to thank, recognize, and acknowledge our freight and logistics team for the great work that they do to align the right carrier partnerships, network design, and operating discipline to consistently meet customer service expectations to our wildly high on-time performance that commonly exceeds 90%. Maintaining a strong on-time performance while managing freight costs requires daily coordination across the organization that remains a core operational focus for us regardless of those market conditions. We would always be better than market conditions through our operational executions. On packaging input costs, input costs have been relatively stable overall, with offsetting pressures across different materials and sourcing categories, including tariffs. I will remind the audience here that a very large portion of our packaging costs or packaging materials are domestically sourced. We're less exposed to tariff costs than many competitors. Our focus here is elsewhere is on structural capabilities. standardization, specification, diversification where appropriate, and supplier engagement and partnership. Rather than short-term commodity movements, we are focused on long-term strategy with the right partners. Those efforts help us manage variability over time, but we don't view them as eliminating exposure to broader cost dynamics. Overall, we continue to manage the business for reliability, service, and long-term operating resilience, recognizing that cost inputs will move differently across categories and time periods.

Thanks, Aaron. So we have two questions regarding Amlin, one from Ethan Starr and one from Robert Smith. I'm just going to read one of them because Wade Roby will touch on both. Despite the rough quarter for Amlin, what progress are you making with Amlin and do you expect sales growth for Amlin over the long term? Wade?

Yes, thank you, Leslie, and thank you to both of you for that question. I appreciate the opportunity to address the performance in the first part of the year for Amlin. As was mentioned in the press release, we did lose a key account, which has impacted our performance to date quite a bit, which is reflected in the numbers. This is really a function of the extraordinarily large size of the accounts that we target in many cases really around the world not just in the U.S. market, but in LATAM and in Asia Pacific as well. These accounts are really enormous in size. That benefits us greatly on the positive side when we gain a new account that can hurt us on the downside if we lose an account, albeit temporarily. In this case, we did have an account loss early in the fiscal year, very early in fact. And since then, we've been working very, very hard to recover that business with our distribution partner. They're actually the seller of the products to the account directly through our distribution network. The second thing we've been doing, which we always do, which is work to broaden the base of our customers. This has the best effect long-term to mitigate the impact of any single account loss. So really, those two actions is what we've been focusing on. None of this in any way changes the outlook we have for the business or the excitement we have around these markets that we're targeting for oil dry. The animal nutrition, animal feed additive markets are very, very large. They're around the globe, as you know, and they tend to be high margin, high value markets. So we're continuing the strategy, continuing our approach, and are just working hard to recover the loss that we saw early in the year.

Hey, thank you. Next question is from Robert Smith. From what you see now, what are the headwinds and tailwinds of the oil and gas situation, first with respect to the fluid segment and then corporate-wide? I'm thinking of sustainable aviation fuels, renewables, and then costs. I'm first going to have Bruce Patsy address that regarding renewable diesel and fluid purification, and then I'm going to turn it over to... Aaron Christensen about costs.

Ruth? Yes, thanks for the question. The increased or the conflict is causing increased fuel costs obviously for us at the pump. This also helps increase the margin for our end users that are using our products to make renewable diesel. So we are seeing a slight uptick in orders right now as they're trying to produce more oil to get out into the market. The tailwinds, I guess, for our end user in this case would be if this price stays up high for a long time, the suppliers of the feedstock oil are going to pass increases on to them, which will then affect and negatively impact their margins. But at this point, if it stays a 30-, 60-day issue, I think we'll see an uptick with that business. So that's my answer. Thank you.

Erin?

And then Leslie, I'll speak to it from a cost perspective. Robert, I'll remind you and other investors that several years ago, Oil Drive resumed the practice of forward buying a portion of our consumed natural gas. Very mathematically and algorithmically, we purchased strips of natural gas at buffer and dollar cost average our forward exposure. I deliberately continue to avoid the word hedge. We're not trying to beat the market. We're trying to dollar cost average over time and then buy our organization time to understand where prices are going and then, where appropriate, pass those costs along in the marketplace as utility costs rise over a period of time. Periods like we're experiencing right now are the points in time that our current strategy provides me great comfort knowing that we're not exposed to substantial changes in cost short term. We have time to react as we see where prices go longer term.

Thank you. Okay. We have one last question from Robert Smith. Are you already at work using artificial intelligence in the microbiology center to identify targets for new product development for your clay? Mervyn, I'll turn that over to you.

Thanks, Leslie. Appreciate the question, Robert. I think we all know artificial intelligence has become a household term now that's impacting almost every walk of life, both with positive and negative outcomes. Across OilDry and within the R&D team, as I've mentioned in the past, we have a very thoughtful and deliberate approach when it comes to the use of AI to drive us towards both increased efficiency and effectiveness. We're working on integrating both human and artificial intelligence into our day-to-day operations as they become relevant, both for new product development as well as for improving our existing products to deliver innovative solutions to our OilDry customers.

Wonderful. Thank you. That is the end of the Q&A portion. Dan, do you have any closing remarks?

Yeah, I just want to thank the investors for very thoughtful and on-point questions. It shows, you know, you're longtime holders and you've been very invested in the strategy and growth of the company over many, many years. And your knowledge of, you know, where we create value and where we have opportunities is clear by the questions you're asking. So thank you for that. Thank you to the Oil Dry team, and we will be looking forward to our third quarter teleconference in, you know, around 90 days.

This does conclude today's program. Thank you all for joining, and you may now disconnect.