Ashland Inc. (ASH) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Ashland Third Quarter Conference Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference call is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Sandy Klugman, Director of Investor Relations. Thank you, Sandy.

Thank you. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Ashland's Third Quarter Fiscal Year 2026 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. My name is Sandy Klugman, and I am Ashland's Director of Investor Relations. Joining me on the call today are Guillermo Novo, Chair and CEO; William Whitaker, CFO; as well as our business unit leaders; Alessandra Assis, Life Sciences and Intermediates; Jim Minicucci, Personal Care; and Dago Caceres, Specialty Additives. Please note that we will be referencing slides during today's call. We encourage you to follow along with the webcast materials available at ashland.com under Investor Relations. Please turn to Slide 2. As a reminder, today's presentation contains forward-looking statements regarding our fiscal 2026 outlook and other matters as detailed on Slide 2 and in our Form 10-Q. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause future results to differ materially from today's projections. We believe any such statements are based on reasonable assumptions, but there is no assurance these expectations will be achieved. We will also reference certain adjusted financial metrics, both actual and projected, which are non-GAAP measures. We present these adjusted figures to provide additional insight into our ongoing business performance. GAAP reconciliations are available on our website and in the appendix of these slides. I'll now hand the call over to Guillermo for his opening remarks.

Thanks, Sandy, and welcome to everyone joining us. Please turn to Slide 5. Overall, we delivered a strong third quarter that reflected strong demand, disciplined commercial execution and healthy free cash flow generation. Sales increased across all business units, and our performance was in line with the expectations we outlined at the beginning of the quarter. These results reflect the team's strong execution and reinforce the momentum we are building across the businesses. Life Sciences delivered double-digit sales growth, benefiting from broad contributions across pharma end markets and ongoing momentum within our globalized and innovate strategies. Pharma achieved its fifth consecutive quarter of volume growth, supported by strength in high-purity excipients, injectables and innovation growth momentum. Personal Care generated another quarter of solid performance led by biofunctional actives, high single-digits growth in skin care and favorable contributions from hair care and microbial protection. Performance reflected healthy growth across end markets and major regions, supported by strong customer engagement and innovation adoption. Specialty Additives delivered encouraging sales growth in line with our expectations. Strength in Coatings and Performance Specialties was primarily driven by market share gains, reflecting strong commercial execution by the team. Regionally, most markets improved compared to prior year. Intermediates delivered higher sales, supported by improving merchant sales driven by higher NMP demand in North America EV battery and energy storage applications. Operationally, our third quarter results reflected continued progress on manufacturing performance with further opportunities to improve. We remain focused on targeted investments and disciplined execution and expect continued progress in the fourth quarter as the benefits of these actions build. We also generated strong cash flow during the quarter through disciplined working capital management and ended the quarter with a net leverage of 2.4x, returning to our long-term target range and strengthening our ability to invest in growth and innovation. Please turn to Slide 6. Our results demonstrated the strength of our execution and the benefit of the actions we have taken across the portfolio. Sales increased 7% year-over-year, reflecting broad-based growth across the portfolio. Profitability was impacted by production production challenges encountered earlier in the fiscal year. Results improved sequentially and were largely in line with our expectations. We continue to make steady progress across our manufacturing network and on our strategic priorities. Our teams remain focused on commercial execution, pricing realization and cost discipline. Pricing actions continue to gain traction, offsetting higher raw material costs while maintaining strong customer relationships. Please turn to Slide 7. Slide 7 illustrates the breadth of our growth and the quality of our earnings profile. First, our consumer-focused businesses, Life Science and Personal Care continue to generate attractive margins supported by resilient demand, innovation and favorable mix. Second, innovate and globalize strategies continue to deliver measurable results with accelerating momentum in higher-value application across the portfolio. For the first 9 months of the year, innovate has exceeded its full year target, while Globalize has already achieved its full year target and continues to deliver strong results across the platforms. Third, while margins continue to reflect earlier production rate challenges and cost pressures, the actions we have taken across pricing, manufacturing and commercial executions continue to gain traction. As a result, we are well positioned for further profitability improvement in the fourth quarter. Before turning the call over to William, I also want to take a moment to share that yesterday, we announced a cooperation agreement with Ancora, an Ashland shareholder with whom we have had constructive dialogue. Under this agreement, we are welcoming Peter Thomas and Allen Spizzo to the Ashland Board as Independent Directors. Both bring significant executive and financial experience in specialty chemicals, and we believe their perspectives will support our continued focus on creating value for our shareholders. The Board is also forming a Capital allocation Advisory Committee to bring additional rigor and objectivity to our capital allocation strategy and plan. We value ongoing engagement with our shareholders and look forward to working collaboratively with Peter, Allen and the rest of the Board as we continue to execute our strategy. Now let me leave you with 3 key takeaways before we get into the financials. Demand remained healthy across our core businesses. Our innovate and globalized initiatives continue to generate meaningful growth, and we continue to make progress in addressing the operational challenges we have discussed throughout the year. These are encouraging signs for the business and reinforce our confidence in the opportunities ahead. Now I'd like to turn over the call to William to provide a more detailed view of the third quarter financial performance. William?

Thank you, Guillermo. Please turn to Slide 9. Third quarter sales were $497 million, up 7% versus the prior year, driven primarily by volume growth across all business units. Volumes increased 6% across the portfolio, led by continued strength in Life Sciences and Personal Care, while Specialty Additives returned to growth and Intermediates benefited from improving merchant demand. Pricing increased approximately 1% year-over-year, led by Life Sciences and Specialty Additives, reflecting sequential improvement of approximately 300 basis points. Foreign exchange contributed approximately $3 million or 1% to sales. Adjusted EBITDA was $109 million compared to $113 million in the prior year quarter. Growth in Life Sciences and Personal Care was more than offset by lower earnings in Specialty Additives and Intermediates. Profitability continued to reflect the impact of lower production rates earlier in the year and the normalization of incentive compensation from a low base in the prior year. These factors were partially offset by higher volumes, favorable mix and pricing actions. Sequentially, profitability improved as operating performance gradually improved and commercial actions gained traction across the portfolio. We expect a further step-up in profitability during the fourth quarter. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 21.9% compared to 24.4% in the prior year quarter, reflecting these dynamics. Adjusted earnings per share, excluding amortization expense, was $1.02 compared to $1.04 in the prior year quarter. Cash generation remained a significant strength during the quarter. Ongoing free cash flow totaled $103 million compared with $108 million in the prior year quarter or representing conversion above 90%. Inventory is down nearly $80 million fiscal year-to-date, supporting strong cash generation and positioning us for improved absorption and reduced inventory-related margin headwinds going forward. We ended the quarter with $936 million of available liquidity and net leverage of 2.4x, returning to our long-term target range. During the quarter, we also refinanced our credit agreement, extending maturities on attractive terms and further strengthening our financial flexibility. The balance sheet remains a competitive advantage, providing flexibility to support operations, invest in strategic priorities and maintain disciplined capital allocation. With that, I'll turn the call over to our business unit leaders for a closer look at segment performance. Alessandro, over to you for Life Sciences.

Thank you, William. Good morning, everyone. Please turn to Slide 10 for Life Sciences. Life Sciences delivered another strong quarter with sales of $180 million, up 11% versus the prior year period. Performance was driven by higher sales volumes, led by broad-based strength across pharma applications. Pharma achieved double-digit sales growth and delivered its fifth consecutive quarter of year-over-year volume gains. Demand remained healthy across all regions and product categories, including continued strength in high-purity excipients and injectables. We also benefit from customer order timing and supply chain normalization during the quarter. Adjusting for those factors, underlying demand trends remain strong and consistent with our expectations. Pricing contributed positively to results as commercial actions began to gain traction during the quarter with full run rate realization expected in the fourth quarter. Foreign exchange contributed approximately $1 million to sales during the quarter. Injectables continued to outperform in the third quarter, delivering exceptional growth aligned with our globalized strategy. Performance was driven by accelerating adoption of Ashland's high purity differentiated excipient portfolio. Strong customer demand, a growing development pipeline and increasing new product adoption support a strong outlook. We also announced the groundbreaking of our new public coatings manufacturing facility in India, another important step in our globalized strategy. Following recent investments in Brazil, this expansion continues to strengthen our regional manufacturing footprint and position us to better serve customers in some of the fastest-growing pharma markets in the world. Turning to innovation. Our recently launched products continue to drive above-market growth, led by low nitrite oral solid dosage excipients and high-purity injectable and bioprocessing products. Strong customer adoption validates Ashland's strategy of investing in differentiated technologies that address increasingly complex formulation and regulatory requirements. Turning to profitability. Adjusted EBITDA increased 11% to $60 million compared to $54 million in the prior year quarter. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 33%, consistent with the prior year. Increased volumes, favorable pricing and product mix offset the impact of lower production rates and higher SARD expense. Loan growth remained the primary driver of earnings improvement, while disciplined commercial execution and favorable mix also contributed to results. As we look ahead, Life Sciences continues to benefit from resilient pharmaceutical demand and increasing traction from our globalized and innovate strategies. Combined with pricing realization and ongoing innovation adoption, the trends support our confidence in the long-term opportunities ahead. Please turn to Slide 11 for Intermediates. Intermediates delivered a solid quarter with sales of $37 million, up 12% versus the prior year period, driven by improved merchant demand. Merchant sales increased to $26 million from $23 million in the prior year quarter, supported by higher NMP demand from North American EV battery and energy storage customers ahead of planned fourth quarter shutdowns. Active Video sales were $11 million, up modestly from the prior year, reflecting stable internal demand and market-based transfer pricing. Foreign currency had a negligible impact on sales during the quarter. Turning to profitability. Adjusted EBITDA was $4 million compared to $7 million in the prior year quarter. The year-over-year decline primarily reflected lower advanced manufacturing tax credits benefits compared to the prior year quarter, while underlying operating performance remained relatively stable. Pricing realization and improving demand in electronics, a key merchant application helped offset a portion of this headwind during the quarter. While conditions across the broader BDO value chain remain below historical levels, we are seeing soft yet encouraging improvement in NMP demand, mostly for energy storage-related applications. Given the volatility we have experienced in these markets, we remain measured in our near-term outlook. However, our long-term view remains unchanged, and we continue to believe EV battery and energy storage applications represent an attractive growth opportunity for the business. Now I will turn the call over to Jim to discuss Personal Care.

Thank you, Alessandra. I'll now highlight our Personal Care results. Please turn to Slide 12 for Personal Care. Personal Care delivered another quarter of growth, reflecting broad-based performance across end markets and continued strength in our higher-value applications. Sales were $155 million, up 5% year-over-year, driven by robust volume growth across the portfolio, new commercial wins and favorable mix. Biofunctional actives delivered another quarter of double-digit growth, supported by an expanding customer base. [indiscernible] continues to experience accelerated adoption due to its multifunctional benefits and ability to instantly improve skin radiance, hydration, elasticity and provide visible wrinkle correction. Building on this momentum, biofunctional actives is also starting to see early commercial wins with Eternight, our 2026 flagship ingredient. Microbial Protection also delivered solid growth, driven by double-digit volume gains across all regions. In the third quarter, we inaugurated and commissioned our new microbial protection production facility in Europe. This investment strengthens our regional manufacturing capabilities, improved supply chain resilience in the region and represent another major step in globalizing microbial protection. Within Care Ingredients, the portfolio delivered solid gains with positive momentum across hair and skin care markets. Overall, skin care delivered high single-digit growth, hair care delivered mid-single-digit growth and Oral and Home Care generated low single-digit growth. On a regional basis, growth was led by the Americas and China. Pricing improved sequentially as commercial actions continued to gain traction during the quarter, while modestly below prior year. To clarify on pricing, price actions more than offset cost inflation. Specifically in microbial protection, our globalized investments have reduced our cost structure, enabling share gains. Foreign currency contributed approximately $1 million to segment sales. Turning to innovation. In the third quarter, we successfully executed our first industrial production of multifunctional starch, marking a pivotal step toward our planned calendar 2026 launch. Personal Care continues to make strong progress across our globalized and innovate strategies, supported by strong customer engagement and innovation focus. Turning to profitability. Adjusted EBITDA increased to $45 million from $41 million in the prior year quarter, and EBITDA margin expanded 110 basis points to 29%, reflecting broad-based growth across all business lines. Improved profitability was driven by higher sales volume and favorable product mix. In summary, Personal Care delivered both mid-single-digit growth and margin expansion in the quarter, demonstrating disciplined execution, strong customer focus and continued adoption of differentiated and innovative technologies. With that, I'll turn the call over to Dago to review the results of Specialty Additives.

Thank you, Jim. Please turn to Slide 13. Specialty Additives delivered sales growth in the quarter despite continued mixed demand conditions across end markets and regions. Sales increased 4% year-over-year to $136 million, driven by share gains, pricing realization and strong commercial execution in Coatings and Performance Specialties, our most strategic industrial segments. Coatings recovery was driven by higher volumes from share gains across all regions, successful innovation implementation and pricing discipline. Performance Specialties also delivered year-over-year growth, supported by favorable demand trends and commercial execution. These gains were partially offset by continued weakness in Construction and Energy & Resources, where market conditions remain challenged and generally consistent with recent trends. Construction volumes continue to reflect both softer end market demand and the impact of deliberate portfolio management actions to preferentially serve more attractive regulated segments. Regionally, growth was broad-based with nearly every region delivering year-over-year improvement. Worth highlighting is that Middle East, Africa, India and China delivered growth despite challenging market conditions and supply chain disruptions. Pricing actions continued to get traction during the quarter and together with favorable product mix supported growth despite a muted demand environment. Foreign exchange contributed approximately $1 million to sales. Turning to profitability. Adjusted EBITDA was $20 million compared to $26 million in the prior year quarter, while adjusted EBITDA margin was 14.7% compared to 19.8% in the prior year quarter. The results were generally in line with expectations and reflected lower fixed cost absorption associated with earlier operational challenges and reduced production rates at our Hopewell facility. These headwinds were partially offset by favorable pricing and product mix. From an operational standpoint, we successfully completed the planned turnaround at our Hopewell facility and implemented a number of process control, productivity and operational robustness improvements. While we are encouraged by the trajectory, we view this as an operational improvement journey to achieve our long-term productivity targets. The performance of our broader cellulosic asset base remains solid, and we are leveraging our unique global manufacturing network to increase supply flexibility, optimize production and strengthen overall supply reliability. We're also making solid progress across our balanced innovation portfolio. from regional solutions designed for local customer needs to core innovations that strengthen and expand our existing product lines to transformative technologies such as our novel additives, which continue to advance to our commercialization and represents a significant long-term growth opportunity for Ashland. Overall, while end market conditions remain mixed, we are encouraged by the progress being made across the business. Continued pricing realization, strong commercial execution and ongoing operational improvements support our expectation for improved profitability over time. I would like to recognize the team's strong execution and customer focus in what remains a challenging market environment. And with that, I'll turn the call back to...

Thanks, Dago. Please turn to Slide 15. Let me briefly update you on our execute strategy and manufacturing optimization initiatives. As Dago just discussed, progress across our HEC network optimization has been slower than originally planned. That said, the quarter unfolded largely as expected, operating performance improved, and we continue to advance the actions needed to improve productivity, reliability and network performance. Beyond HEC, our manufacturing optimization initiatives remain on track. The T&D optimization efforts are now expected to deliver approximately $12 million of benefit this fiscal year. We also completed the final phase of our small plant consolidation initiative during the third quarter, delivering approximately $3 million of EBITDA benefit this year and further simplifying our manufacturing footprint. In total, VP&D optimization and small plant consolidation are expected to deliver $15 million this year. Importantly, these are structural run rate savings rather than onetime gains, and they position us to enter next year with a leaner, more competitive cost base. Execute remains a core component of our strategy. While we still have work to do, the broader portfolio of manufacturing initiatives is delivering results, and we remain confident in the long-term value and profitability improvement these actions can generate. Please turn to Slide 16. Our Globalize and Innovate initiatives continue to generate meaningful results and remain an important driver of growth across the portfolio. Through the first 9 months of the fiscal year, Globalize has already achieved its full year growth target with Innovate having exceeded its full year objective. Innovation highlights include continued momentum in high-purity excipients within life sciences, skin longevity technologies and personal care and formulated rheology solutions for stone paint within Specialty Additives. As you heard from Alessandra and Jim, we are seeing tangible returns from the investments we have made to expand capabilities and strengthen our regional presence. These initiatives are increasing our exposure to higher-value applications, strengthening customer relationships and improving the quality and durability of our growth profile. Just as important, the opportunity pipeline supporting both initiatives remain strong, reinforcing our confidence that globalize and innovate will remain meaningful contributors to growth and value creation in the years ahead. Please turn to Slide 17. Turning to our outlook, which remains largely unchanged. We continue to see growth across the portfolio, ongoing momentum in higher-value applications, increasing realization of pricing actions and strong cash generation. We expect another step-up in profitability during the fourth quarter. While operating performance remains below historical levels, the impact on profitability should be less pronounced than in the third quarter as operational trends improve and pricing actions continue to gain traction. As a result, we are reaffirming our fiscal 2026 sales and adjusted EBITDA guidance. We continue to expect sales of $1.835 billion to $1.87 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $385 million to $400 million. We are revising our adjusted EPS outlook to low to mid-single-digit growth from mid- to high single-digit growth, reflecting a higher tax rate associated with unfavorable discrete items. We continue to expect ongoing free cash flow conversion of greater than 50% of adjusted EBITDA for the fiscal year. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Guillermo to discuss how our technology platforms are creating value across the portfolio before we open the line for questions. Guillermo?

Thank you, William, and please turn to Slide 18. Innovation remains a core driver of Ashland's long-term value creation and an important differentiator across our portfolio. The progress we've made across our globalized and innovate strategy is a direct reflection of the strength of our technology platforms, customer partnerships and R&D capabilities. We're very excited about the progress we're making on our new technology platforms. These new technologies have strong value propositions and target large scalable growth opportunities. strong customer engagement and validation, we feel very confident of the profitable growth potential of these platforms. With over 52 patents filed, they also present a great opportunity to build sustained differentiation. We're also expanding the range of products and applications these technology platforms can target. We're accelerating the commercialization of new products. To provide investors with a deeper look at these opportunities, we will be hosting an innovation webinar on September 17. During that event, we will provide additional insight into our innovation strategy, our progress in developing and commercializing them and the opportunities we see to create long-term shareholder value. We believe these technology platforms represent a meaningful source of future growth, margin expansion and value creation beyond our current planning. Please turn to Slide 19. As we conclude today's call, I'd like to reiterate what gives us confidence in the opportunities ahead. First, growth is returning across the portfolio. As the actions we have taken to optimize the business and improve the quality of our mix continue to gain traction, we delivered broad-based sales growth across all business units and regions supported primarily by volume growth, strong customer engagement and disciplined commercial execution. We expect that momentum to continue through the fourth quarter. Second, we remain focused on disciplined pricing execution. Pricing actions are gaining traction across the portfolio, helping address cost inflation while maintaining strong customer relationships. I would also like to recognize the efforts of our team who have managed through a dynamic environment. Third, our globalized and innovate strategy is working. Globalize and Innovate continue to generate meaningful results, and we are seeing increased returns from the investments that we have made to expand our capabilities, strengthen our regional footprint and accelerate growth in higher-value applications. This is the type of high-quality growth that enhances the long-term strength of our portfolio. Fourth, Operational performance remains an area of focus. While we are not yet where we want to be, we are making progress and remain committed to improving our performance. We continue to see meaningful opportunities to strengthen profitability as these efforts advance. And finally, we're extremely excited about the progress we are making on our new technology platforms. We look forward to sharing more about customer validation in the coming weeks, but we remain encouraged by the progress we are seeing across our innovation pipeline and the opportunities it creates across the portfolio. Ashland is a company with resilient end markets, leading technology positions, strong customer relationships and a growing pipeline of innovation opportunities. The combination of improving demand trends, increasing pricing realization, advancing technology platforms and ongoing operational improvements reinforces our confidence in the opportunities ahead. I'd like to thank our employees for their continued commitment and thank our shareholders for their ongoing support and engagement. Operator, please open the line for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from John McNulty with BMO Capital Markets.

So I wanted to get a better understanding of the pricing that you're seeing and how we should be thinking about it going into 4Q and maybe early fiscal '27. Do you expect it to largely accelerate from here? Should -- is it going to vary depending on the segment? I guess how should we be thinking about it and the realization of what you need to cover costs, raw material inflation, other inflation, et cetera?

Thanks, John, for the question. Let me first recap just to remind everybody what all this inflation means to Ashland. We are not petrochemical linked anymore after we sold our adhesive business. So we have less exposure to petrochemicals and to high energy raw materials that require high energy for production. So we do -- we're not immune. We do have some impact that we need to capture, but we -- it's much lower. So don't expect the pricing movements that you see with commodity companies. Ours is -- our intent is to recover inflation, maintain margins. We're a specialty company, additives company. Our focus is value pricing through the products, through the technology. That's how we expand. We don't use these moments to expand margins. We just want to make sure that we're holding. So that's sort of the basis. The team has executed very well. We've captured all the inflation, both raw material and freight and all the pricing we've implemented. Obviously, there's a flow-through effect. I think next quarter, we'll see bigger benefits in terms of just the pricing ramp rate versus the inflation that we've already seen. But we're basically covering everything that has impacted us, and you'll see that in the next quarter flowing through. After that, we'll see how markets evolve. Like in 2022, I think our focus is on moving fast so that we maximize or minimize the impact and maximize the benefits for us, and the team has done that. So we feel very confident at this point. But William, do you want to add anything else?

Yes. Just a couple of other specifics. Thanks for the question, John. The important marker for us this quarter is that we swung from down 2% year-over-year in Q2 to up 1% in Q3. We expect that to continue, to Guillermo's point, sequential improvement in Q4 as we get the pricing fully realized. In terms of order of magnitude, I'd expect that to be nearly as large as the sequential improvement we just saw in Q3. And I think overall, as you look to kind of free pricing actions to run rate exiting the year, it's going to be in line with what Guillermo cited on the last earnings call of 3% to 8%. It's going to be roughly -- it depends by region, depends by product line, of course, but we're tracking roughly at the midpoint overall for the company.

Just one other point, John, that I want to make in the prepared remarks, Jim made a comment just so that it doesn't get lost in the translation. For Personal Care, actually, they moved on pricing to recover raw materials. All that has gone through. I think the team has done a lot in terms of the globalized as we regionalize our business, our infrastructure manufacturing. We're changing our cost structure. That's allowed us to do a lot of things. We're getting a lot of share. But Jim, do you want to comment just to clarify the lower pricing, is it really lower pricing in part of your business? If you could comment on that.

Yes. Thanks, Guillermo. So John, I think as William mentioned, sequentially, we're seeing an improvement and an increase in price. We took actions. We worked through it in March when the conflict started. We started communicating with customers. The actions we've taken are price increases as opposed to surcharges. And so there's a flow-through that came through in the third quarter, but we took the necessary actions to cover the cost inflation in the majority of the portfolio. As we said, specifically in microbial protection, we just commissioned our facility in Europe. That's now the last step in globalizing the business. We now have assets in all regions to provide regional supply, and that's really reduced our cost structure, and that's really enabled the share gains. And so that's a bit of a mix as you look at the overall price impact.

Okay. Got it. No, that's all very helpful color. Maybe just as a second question, just can you speak to the manufacturing optimization as well as Hopewell, which I guess is lumped into that. How that -- it sounds like you're seeing some decent progress, maybe not where you had hoped it would be originally, but seeing some decent progress there. I guess how should we think about how you end your fiscal year and the tailwinds into 2027 from some of these optimization and cost-out plans?

So I think overall, I would differentiate the network optimization impact. I think if you look at the headwinds that we've had, there's 2 different types of things. What happened in Calvert City at the beginning, an equipment failure that was the biggest impact in the weather. That's -- I would put that on aside. If you actually look at the network optimization, what's worked well and where are some of the gaps that we're addressing now. Overall, it worked very well. If you look at our VP&D network, we're reducing costs. We've streamlined assets. We're getting much better productivity. I think it's still on the early stage. We're doing some cost optimization, but the real productivity work is going forward. So we still see the opportunity to further improve in those areas. All the small plant consolidation is done. Basically, those -- we just moved production units into our bigger sites. so that we can leverage our overall cost structure, all of that is there. Specifically on HEC, I mean, it's 2 stories. We eliminated a plant. So $25 million, $30 million are gone. Those costs are out. I think how it's flowed through is 2 issues. Part of the benefit we're getting, but it's not an upside anymore. We've used that to fill our plants in China. During this period of time, as we executed, the market in China did go down. So we've rebalanced the network so that we export now from China. So the benefit is -- you're seeing the benefit in terms of sustained margins and improvement. So it wasn't a headwind for us. On the other -- the rest of the things that are supposed to be more positive, I think really now it's a timing issue. We made a shift in production of a different product mix. that we brought to Hopewell. It's not just turn it on and start producing. It's different process technology. We stopped the plant. We didn't -- we weren't getting the production rates that we wanted. We did a turnaround, as Dago mentioned. That turnaround has been successful. We've put in new equipment, process controls so that we can drive that productivity. It just started up. It's running well. I think the product we're producing, the production rates are still not where we want them to be, and that's what we're working to ramp up. The benefit of that will take a quarter or 2. It's not just when we hit the performance with recap and all that, it will flow through into the P&L over time. But that's the biggest issue that we have. If I step back for the year, between the Calvert and weather and the Hopewell type situation, probably we've lost about 200 basis points of margin overall. We should be -- this year should have been 200 basis points higher in terms of EBITDA and EBITDA margins. And that's the bogey that we want to start next year and try to make sure that we're in a good place.

Our next caller is David Begleiter from Deutsche Bank.

Guillermo, just on the Q4 guidance, it's about a $15 million range. Is there a bias at this point in time to either the midpoint or the upper end or the range as we sit here now?

Let me make a comment also. I'll have William comment on each of them. I think if you look at revenue and EBITDA, just at a high level, I would say on the revenue side, we feel really good. I mean, first, the markets are improving. The core markets have behaved resiliently than they have been for a while. Our personal care, our life science and specifically pharma are doing well. Our globalized and innovate is going well. We're getting all the pricing over inflation that we wanted to get. So on the revenue side, the teams are focused and the customer relations are great. And even in uncertain times, we're performing well and feel confident. So from my side, personally, the revenue side, we feel very, very good about. I think on the EBITDA side, it's really about the operating performance. We did communicate in the last call that we were having issues. I think from my side, I'm going to be more careful in terms of how much we want to promise the rate of improvement, one, because we got to drive that improvement over a period of time; and two, the flow-through, as we've talked about before, is it's straightforward. So we want to make sure that we're a little bit more cautious on that side. But William, do you want to make any comments?

Yes. So we intentionally didn't move the midpoint of the EBITDA guide. And so just to give you some of the parts and pieces on our comfort there. So one, to deliver the EBITDA midpoint, we will need stronger outcome on the sales range. And that's actually where our internal modeling does sit today. So there's a few reasons we've been constructive. First of all, June was a strong exit and then July and August order build are encouraging. As you heard from the team, Q3 was volume led, and I'd expect Q4 to be more of a balanced delivery across both volume as well as some of the pricing actions we just spoke to. And so as you break it down by business, Life Sciences, I'd expect quarter-over-quarter stability in terms of sales and earnings, which means, by the way, another solid and resilient quarter. Personal Care, we do continue to see broad-based momentum, both in sales mix and lifting margins. I'd say overall, and you've heard in our prepared remarks, we are a bit more cautiously optimistic on the Specialty Additives side, but we are encouraged by the commercial execution of the team. And then just to elaborate on Guillermo's point, I would say we're again cautiously optimistic on the manufacturing side. It's very much a key focus area for us. It's a real opportunity for improvement, and we do expect gradual progress in Q4. So what's driving the margin lift into the Q4? It's the pricing realization. It's continued momentum on the sales volume with a healthy mix. Globalize and Innovate continues to be an outperformer for us year-to-date and then gradual improvement on the operations side.

Very helpful. And Cam, just on Globalize and Innovate, again, congrats on the success year-to-date. Any early thoughts on some targets for 2027 for Globalize and Innovate?

Yes. We'll be talking -- I think we'll update. As we've done in the past, we want to be transparent on the progress that we're making, specifically on globalized. We've made a lot of investments. We just have a few that have come on stream. So we want to continue to spotlight our performance, not just for you, but internally, it also puts a lot more pressure with greater visibility on what we want to do. So that's going well. On the innovation side, we're going to update in September. I think the biggest issue that we're looking at now, each of the business, I think Dago mentioned it in his comments, we're getting a lot more traction, not just in the new technology platforms, but the businesses. Once you focus on innovation, it changes everybody, everybody's focus. There's a lot more work even on the core innovation, creative new things that we're doing with new cellulosics and all that, modifying them in the different businesses. So there's a lot more going on. So we're going to probably expand over time, maybe not in September yet. it's not just new technology platforms. It's which are the scalable innovations that we really see an opportunity to drive growth, to drive margin expansion. And most importantly, it is to drive differentiation. I think this is one of the challenges our industry is having of hypercompetitive commoditization, all that kind of thing. I think driving that is going to be a critical area. So we'll give you -- in September, we want to give you a little bit more color on what are the key technologies that are more scalable, what are the markets that we're targeting and dimensioning those markets, the potential. Obviously, the commitments, it's going to be a range. So we want to make sure we show the pathway that we're taking, but these are all going to be scalable. And again, what excites me is it's a portfolio. It's not one project that we're betting everything on. It's a number of exciting projects that have significant growth potential for a company our size.

Our next question comes from Reed Halpert with Wolfe Research.

This is actually Chris. Switching over to the Life Sciences segment. I would just like to drill down to the sustainability of the pharma volume growth. It seems like things have been picking up the last couple of quarters. You've been investing in both OSD as well as injectables. Is there anything on the horizon that kind of underscores a greater degree of conviction specifically on the OSD side and anything with GLP-1s, any new products? I know they could be smaller tons, but it seems like things are moving in the right direction.

Thanks for the question. Just a quick comment and Alessandra, if you could comment. But the momentum in Life Science and specifically pharma, it's not innovation, but execute has been a very important part, getting our cost structure, improving our competitiveness. in our core businesses is a big area of focus. So that gives us confidence that as the base business demand grows or stabilizes and we're going to do well. And obviously, there, then there's a lot of the new innovations that the team is doing. But Alessandra, do you want to comment a little bit?

Yes, definitely. So Chris, just to comment, overall, we target to grow at mid-single digits in Life Science. And that's what we expect for 2026. So that's how we should look at that across the quarters. As Guillermo mentioned on OSD or solid growth, we saw VP&D stabilizing. So that's good. We also saw the momentum with our globalized and innovate strategies going very well with injectables, bioresorbable polymers, sugar cellulosics. So we are also excited with launches in other areas, the TVO in Crop Care, we are seeing the customer testing and feedback being positive. not revenue yet in 2026, but that shows the momentum for going forward. When specific on your question about GLP-1. So Ashland, it is benefiting and will benefit materially from the GLP-1 drugs growth, right, that we are seeing. We expect to see continued upside going forward, both through the chemicals that are used on the API production as well as the excipients that are used in oral solid doses. So -- you see in the coming weeks, we are launching a permeation enhancer, and we are seeing the prelaunch momentum with customers. So that's a launch that we will happen in the month of August. But overall, it is -- we see the momentum from globalize, innovate and then, of course, in a stable market.

Alessandra, can you just comment on permeation enhancers, what is it for some of the investors that maybe aren't as familiar with that?

Yes. So basically, with biologics, it is -- it helps with the absorption of the biologics and into an oral format. So basically, that's what we're launching in the month of August. And as I mentioned, a good momentum with prelaunch sales already.

Got it. And just as a quick follow-up, similar question on Personal Care. Obviously, your portfolio has gone through a lot. There have been a lot of adjustments, restructurings, outages, which obviously have been distributed periodically throughout some of the segments. It seems like you're also building a decent momentum here, specifically in skin and hair. I was kind of curious in terms of your outlook there, how much of that is just a lack of destocking. Some of your customers have gone through their own restructurings, in some cases, several restructurings. Just in terms of your outlook and your degree of confidence in that portfolio, kind of where do you stand versus the last 6, 12, 18 months? Is this sustainable in fiscal '27? And if so, what's underscoring that the most?

Chris, thanks for the call. So I think if you zoom out and you look at the year, right, I mean, in Q1, we had highlighted that there were some customer-specific outages that occurred mainly in North America. Adjusting for those in Q1, we were low single-digit growth. In Q2, mid-single-digit growth. This quarter, again, mid-single-digit growth, all driven primarily, predominantly by volume. And then as we look into the next quarter, we expect to be in the same ZIP code, mid-single-digit growth. So for the full year, we expect to land mid-single digit versus prior year. And I think we've built that momentum, right? If you look at biofunctional actives, in Q3, we delivered almost 30% growth in biofunctional actives. We've been very bullish on the technology. We have a great technology. What do we have to do? We have to build the team. We have to build the pipeline, engage with customers and then convert that pipeline. And that's exactly what's happening. And that model is flowing through all of the business lines. Great technology. We've built the team. We engage with customers. We've built the pipeline. And now we're starting to see the benefit of that. And there is that lead time building the pipeline, which we did last year. And then this year is really, really converting on that pipeline, and it's coming through in the volume growth. And I think the really exciting part is that it's broad-based, right? I mean if you look at Biofunctional Access, 30% growth in the quarter, we are both on trend with exosomes PBRN, but then we're setting trend. And we're developing a new ingredient in biofunctional actives. We'll share a bit more. We're still filing the IP on that, but this is really going to be the next blockbuster hit in this segment. Microbial protection, double-digit growth on a volume basis across all regions. Our investments are all in place now to globalize that business, regionalize our supply footprint. We're gaining share. And then in our care ingredients, we're doing really well with our wars, with our cellulosics, our EMD. So it's really broad-based, and we expect to continue to carry this momentum into next year.

Our next question comes from John Roberts with Mizuho Securities.

I believe the activists wanted Ashland to run a formal sales process. Was there an agreement to run a formal sales process? Or is that still yet to be determined by the new committee of the Board with the 2 new Board members?

John, thanks for the question. Obviously, that's sort of the elephant in the room that everybody is asking about. Look, first and foremost, our team is focused on driving the execution of our strategy. I think the one thing that is clear from all the communications, ours, even from the core letter and from our discussions with a lot of other investors is this is a very valuable portfolio. We've got a lot of great fundamentals that are going to drive our future value creation. And frankly, that is the #1 priority. Everybody agrees is execute and drive performance, and that's what's going to create the maximum value and alters. What our strategy is, our Board, just to be clear, we have a very good Board already. We've been changing the Board for many years now. We have experts from every business that we're in. The Board regularly reviews all our strategy. We haven't broken up now because we have an activist or any investor we've been doing a lot of our work, and I've had these discussions with all of you in terms of our views on the market, the industry changes that are happening and the opportunities that lie ahead in the coming years. So none of that has changed. I think what's changed is we engaged Ancora. We had actually a very constructive discussion. They were constructive. We were constructive. I think everybody understands the businesses, the issues. They came forward with 2 very strong directors that can add value to our business. They have relevant experience to what we're doing. So we saw that as a great opportunity to reinforce the Board. We'll have new views that will come into our strategy work. The committee will be reinforced now with some other new views. And we're going to let them do the work that they have been doing and continue to do. We're not going to speculate on what they want to do or not. I think that's their job to make recommendations to the full Board of what that process is going to be like. But the #1 priority that we all agree on is execute, drive the performance, create the optionality of value, organic or inorganic, we want to make sure that we have all options. This is not something that you want to just be forced to do one thing. We want to make sure that we have options to create value in multiple directions with our shareholders.