Quaker Chemical Corporation (KWR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Greetings, and welcome to the Quaker Houghton Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to John Dalhoff, Director of Investor Relations. Mr. Dalhoff, you may begin.

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to Quaker Houghton's Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Joining us on the call today are Joe Berquist, our President and Chief Executive Officer; Tom Coler, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Robert Traub, our General Counsel. Our comments relate to the financial information released after the close of the U.S. markets yesterday, July 30, 2026. Our press release and accompanying slides can be found on our Investor Relations website. Both the prepared commentary and discussion during this call may contain forward-looking statements, reflecting the company's current view of future events and their potential effect on Quaker Houghton's operating and financial performance. These statements involve uncertainties and risks, which may cause actual results to differ. The company is under no obligation to provide subsequent updates to these forward-looking statements. This presentation also contains certain non-GAAP financial measures, and the company has provided reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures in the appendix of the presentation materials, which are available on our website. For additional information, please refer to our filings with the SEC. Now it's my pleasure to hand the call over to Joe.

Thank you, John, and good morning, everyone. We achieved our fourth consecutive quarter of year-over-year profitability growth in the second quarter, highlighted by a 7% increase in sales volumes. This resulted in the highest quarterly adjusted EBITDA in our company's 160-plus-year history. Our volume increase was driven by broad-based growth and net share gains across all regions. The mid-end markets that we estimate were flat to slightly above the prior year in the aggregate, tempered by offsetting pockets of strength and weakness. Demand remained steady through the end quarter after a strong start in April as some customers accelerated buying against the backdrop of the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz. Asia Pacific once again delivered the strongest performance marking a second consecutive quarter of double-digit loan growth. Our team successfully navigated sharp increases in raw material costs and supply disruption resulting from the conflict in Strait of Hormuz. Through disciplined execution and by engaging in proactive customer communication, we were able to leverage the flexibility of our global manufacturing network and maintain supply continuity throughout the quarter. Gross margins declined sequentially, but stronger volumes and improved utilization rates helped offset product margin pressure. We implemented price increases throughout the quarter, and we'll see further adjustments from our index pricing in the third quarter. Underlying market conditions were mixed. Demand was steady despite the geopolitical uncertainty with pockets of growth in select markets as normal buying patterns returned. Steel and aluminum end markets trended positively. While automotive light vehicle production remained challenged across most regions and geographies. Some customer purchasing activity may be put forward in response to the Middle East conflict early in the quarter but we do not believe pre-buy activity had a significant impact on the quarter's results. In aggregate, we estimate end markets were flat to slightly above the prior year underscoring the significant contribution of share gains to our volume growth. Turning to the second quarter results. Net sales increased 10% year-over-year driven by mid- to high single-digit share gains and were achieved across all regions. Momentum remains strongest in Asia Pacific, where we are winning significant new business in metalworking, by penetrating growing sectors like electrical vehicle OEMs and component manufacturers. We continue to execute effectively in attractive growth markets, such as China, India and Thailand where our investments in local capabilities and customer relationships are translating into meaningful wins. The Americas and EMEA regions each delivered mid-single-digit volume growth during the quarter. In the Americas, we saw improvement in customer activity levels with the return of previously idle capacity and contributions from recent business wins. The Americas region delivered one of its strongest volume performances in several quarters. As operational and customer-specific challenges that affected prior periods improved against a backdrop of firming demand. Our strong customer pipeline and commercial execution drove volume growth in EMEA as we benefited from recent wins in metals and metal working in that region and continue to grow in the Middle East and Africa, despite the challenging backdrop. Adjusted EBITDA margins reached 16% during the quarter, reflecting the increased top line performance and stable SG&A, which declined as a percentage of sales versus the first quarter. In addition to delivering strong financial results, we are executing key strategic initiatives that support our long-term growth and profitability objectives. We remain committed to a disciplined and balanced capital allocation strategy. In May, we announced a new $250 million stock repurchase authorization and returned approximately $24 million of cash to shareholders through repurchases during the second quarter. We also successfully completed the refinancing of our credit facility further enhancing financial flexibility. In addition, our Board of Directors approved an approximately 4% increase to the quarterly dividend, marking our 17th consecutive annual dividend increase and our 50th dividend increase since becoming a public company. At the same time, we remain active evaluating potential acquisition opportunities that strengthen our business and support our long-term growth strategy. We continue to assess targets that expand our portfolio, accelerate innovation and deliver geographic and channel diversification in new markets. With our strong balance sheet and improved financial flexibility, we remain well positioned to pursue strategic opportunities that create value for shareholders. We will continue to take a prudent approach to capital deployment, weighing returns to shareholders, balance sheet discipline and careful investments in growth. Turning to the conflict in the Middle East. We continue to navigate the ongoing challenges and are maintaining reliable supply and strong service levels to our customers in a tough environment. Our direct sales into the Middle East and Africa have remained steady and our consistency of supply has enabled us to win new business in the region. We continue to monitor the situation closely, but have not experienced any significant supply disruptions to date. In many instances, global supply chains have begun adapting to the changing environment. In our global network flexibility continues to ensure reliable service to our customers, but the situation is volatile and the trajectory is uncertain. We are continuing to invest in the capabilities and infrastructure that further strengthen our network and position us for future growth. In June, we achieved an important milestone in our Asia Pacific plan with the successful start-up of our new manufacturing facility in Zhong tugong, China. This new site enhances our local-for-local operating model and will enable us to manufacture the full breadth of our portfolio inside China, reducing the need to import certain products, and thereby creating additional flexibility, efficiency and service responsiveness for customers throughout the Asia Pacific region. More broadly, we continue to take actions across the business to improve efficiency, simplify operations and optimize our cost structure. We are pleased with the progress we are making with the business transformation and cost optimization program announced last quarter. The actions we implemented during the second quarter are expected to deliver approximately $10 million of run rate savings with benefits already reflected in our Q2 results. We will continue to focus on process simplification, productivity improvement and manufacturing footprint optimization, which will further strengthen our profitability over time. The opportunity for profitability improvement over the next few years supports our long-term goal to achieve EBITDA margins above 18%. Finally, we released our annual sustainability report during the second quarter, highlighting our progress in advancing sustainable solutions for our customers and improving the environmental performance of our operations. The accomplishments highlighted in this year's report underscore how sustainability is embedded within our culture and is central to how we innovate, operate and partner with customers around the world. Turning to the outlook. Our view on underlying market conditions remains unchanged. The first half of the year progressed in line with our expectations and we still expect end markets will be flat to modestly positive during the second half of 2026. Raw material costs have currently stabilized, but at elevated levels. Base oil prices remain volatile due to supply constraints across the refinery network and ongoing uncertainty. Based on our current visibility to supply dynamics, we expect our overall input costs to remain stable at these higher rates in the short term and begin to moderate as we progress through the back half of the year. As a result, we anticipate that our gross margin percentage in the third quarter will be in the range of Q2 gross margins as we work through the timing of raw material cost inflation, inventory movements, and price recovery actions. At the same time, incremental pricing actions and certain index-based adjustments will take effect, which will provide increasing benefits as the quarter progresses and should return us to our target range above 36% by the end of the year. Operationally, we were pleased by the strong volume performance in Q2. Demand remains healthy and is showing no signs of slowing in the early part of the third quarter. We expect normal seasonal patterns in the second half, which has historically been better than the first half of the year. In the third quarter specifically, there may be longer seasonal shutdown activity in parts of Europe with the summer holiday period and unseasonably higher temperatures across the continent as well as customers managing their inventories. However, demand in the Americas is improving and tracking broadly in line with normal seasonal patterns, which should help offset the expected slowness in Europe. We anticipate our third quarter performance will be in the range of the second quarter, barring disruptions in the market. As a result, we expect to deliver meaningful revenue in mid- to high single-digit adjusted EBITDA growth for the full year 2026. Our consistent ability to generate share gains, our commitment to execute pricing actions and improve our cost structure and the advantages derived from our global operating network position us well to steadily navigate uncertainty while creating long-term value. In closing, I am extremely proud of how our team performed during a particularly challenging quarter. Our industry-leading teams of operators and experts enabled us to achieve outsized share gains despite the volatility in the macro environment, resulting in record quarterly EBITDA. We continue to demonstrate the resilience in our differentiated service model that are enabling us to win regardless of external market conditions. And we expect to carry our strong momentum through the remainder of the year. With that, I will turn the call over to Tom to walk through the financials in more detail.

Thank you, Joe, and good morning, everyone. Second quarter net sales were $533 million, a 10% increase from the prior year. Sales volumes increased 7%, driven by global net share gains that exceeded the high end of our target range with Asia Pacific once again being the largest contributor. Selling price and product mix contributed an additional 1% to net sales as pricing actions to offset higher raw material costs resulting from the Middle East conflict were partially offset by changes in the mix of products and service. Sequentially, selling price and product mix contributed a 4% increase to net sales compared to the first quarter. We also had a benefit of 2% to net sales year-over-year from favorable foreign currency across all regions. The second quarter marked the first period in which prior year acquisitions, including Dipsol are included entirely within our organic results. Gross margins declined on both a year-over-year and sequential basis to 35.5% due to product margin pressure from higher raw material costs. The sequential decline of 130 basis points was less pronounced than originally anticipated due to better top line performance stemming from higher volumes from our global net share gains as well as solid execution on our 2 rounds of price increases to offset raw material inflation during the quarter. On a non-GAAP basis, SG&A increased approximately $10 million or 8% in the second quarter compared to the prior year. While we began to see benefits from the transformation actions taken during the second quarter, these benefits were offset by higher incentive compensation and unfavorable foreign currency impacts. We delivered $85 million of adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter, while adjusted EBITDA margin of 16% increased 40 basis points year-over-year and 90 basis points sequentially. This performance highlights the operating leverage in our business as strong volume growth drove earnings expansion even in an inflationary environment where margins were under pressure. Switching now to our segment results. Asia Pacific sales in the second quarter increased 12% year-over-year, driven by the second consecutive quarter of 10% organic volume growth. This was the result of new business wins that once again exceeded the high end of our total company target range of 2% to 4%. Favorable selling price and foreign currency also each contributed 1% growth to net sales. Segment earnings in Asia Pacific increased approximately $8 million or 27% in the second quarter compared to the prior year, driven by higher sales volumes. Second quarter net sales in EMEA increased 13% year-over-year, driven by 7% volume growth, higher selling prices related to price actions taken during the quarter to offset raw material inflation and favorable foreign currency impacts. Segment earnings in EMEA increased $8 million or 31% in the second quarter compared to the prior year, primarily due to better top line performance. Lower manufacturing costs related to the closure of our manufacturing facility in Dortmund, Germany also contributed to the improved segment earnings results. Second quarter net sales in the Americas increased 7% year-over-year as 4% higher sales volumes were complemented by favorable impacts from foreign currency and higher selling prices. Higher volumes were primarily the result of new business wins but also benefited from the resumption of previously idled customer production along with some new capacity coming online in our metals business. Segment earnings in the Americas decreased $2 million or 3% in the second quarter compared to the prior year as better top line performance was offset by higher manufacturing and operational costs. Turning to nonoperating costs. Our interest expense was $10 million in the second quarter of 2026, which was consistent with the previous quarter, while our cost of debt decreased to approximately 4.4% reflecting the benefits of our refinancing actions and a more optimized debt portfolio. Our effective tax rate, excluding noncore and nonrecurring items, was approximately 28% in the second quarter which was in line with the previous quarter and our full year target range of 28% to 29%. Finally, our second quarter GAAP diluted earnings per share were $1.55. And our non-GAAP diluted earnings per share were $2.19, a 28% increase over the prior year due to improved operating performance and lower interest expense as a result of reduced borrowings. Cash generated from operations was $29 million in the second quarter, decreasing from $42 million in the prior year. The lower cash generation in the current year is driven by higher working capital outflows resulting from increased sales volume and increased inventory associated with closing our facility in Dortmund and opening our new facility in China. These items were partially offset by improved operating performance. Capital expenditures in the second quarter were $10 million, primarily related to the construction of our new facility in China. For the full year, we expect 2026 capital expenditures to be approximately 2.5% to 3% of sales. During the second quarter, we announced the approval of a new $250 million stock repurchase authorization that replaces a previous repurchase program. and recently announced an increase in our quarterly dividend of 4.3%. We also repurchased approximately $24 million worth of shares and paid approximately $9 million in dividends returning a total of $33 million of cash to shareholders in the second quarter. Together, our share repurchase activity and increased quarterly dividend reflects our confidence in the strength and durability of our cash flow generation and underscores our commitment to returning capital to shareholders through a balanced and disciplined capital allocation strategy. We delivered strong second quarter results driven by continued share gains disciplined execution of our pricing actions and broad-based growth across all regions. Our team executed effectively in an uncertain environment, leveraging our global footprint, pricing actions and our operating discipline to deliver record profitability. With a strong balance sheet, enhanced financial flexibility and continued progress on our transformation initiatives, we remain well positioned to execute our strategy and create long-term value for our shareholders. With that, I will turn it back over to Joe.

Thank you, Tom. To close, our record second quarter results reinforce the strength of our business model and our ability to consistently outperform our end markets despite macro disruptions and uncertainty. While the external environment remains dynamic, we are confident in our approach and our ability to continue creating value for customers and shareholders and the opportunities ahead in the second half of the year. With that, we will be happy to answer your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Mike Harrison with Seaport Research Partners.

Congrats on a nice quarter. Was hoping that maybe we could start just getting a little bit more color on what you guys are seeing on the raw material front. I'm curious what specific raw material baskets are moving higher or continuing to show a lot of volatility and really interested in understanding the timing of the P&L impact to the extent you can help us quantify how much raws were up in Q2 and what the expectation is for inflationary impact in Q3 and Q4, that would be very helpful.

Yes. Good question, Mike. So overall, if you think about our raw material buckets, there's kind of 3 buckets, right? The things that are related to base oils or derivatives of crude, the additives, which tend to be closely linked to that and then the Oleochemicals. And I would say the base oil related, crude related is about 2/3 of our bucket remains pretty volatile. It's as I mentioned in the comments, at that elevated range right now. That's -- it's kind of like the new normal, right, is this volatility in the elevated range. There is a little bit of softening on the Oleochemicals and things that are that are de-linked from that, and it tends to be more regionable impacts overall. Raw material container costs pretty significant for us in the quarter. We think that those impacts really peaked in June and even early this month in July. As we go forward, I think there's different elements at play, right? We have certainly pricing that came on during the quarter. We have index adjustments that happened at the end of the quarter and even in the middle of this quarter. And there's also the inventory movements. I mentioned that in the comments as well. What that means is as the cost of the inventory changes, we revalue that inventory, and there tends to be a capitalization effect for a couple of months as that moves through. So -- what I would say as we've modeled this out, we think gross margins are going to be pretty flat, quite frankly, in Q3 from Q2, and then improving hopefully toward the end of the quarter and into Q4.

All right. And then just on the volume front, Asia has been strong, and so I don't think that was a huge surprise. But EMEA was surprisingly strong. I was hoping maybe for both regions, you can talk about the sustainability of the strength that you're seeing.

Yes. I mean the underlying markets in EMEA were steel was up and industrial production was up slightly. But conversely, the auto ice production, we think, was down double digits, mid-teens. So in composite, we'll say market was flat to slightly up, most of the growth that we're seeing is really what I would call self-help. It's the share gains that we've been delivering from our pipeline they were on the higher end of our range. So I would say slightly above that kind of 4% high end of the target range for us. How sustainable is that for us? I mean, I think I think remaining within that 2% to 4% range is something we're pretty confident that we continue to do. And then anything that happens in the market outside of that would bolster that growth rate. But a lot of new business wins in that region, and we've been talking about share gains over the past several quarters, and we're starting to see the impact of that. In EMEA in the second quarter, early in the quarter, April was a busy month. We do think that region, in particular, of the 3 different segments for us, had some pre-buy. So I would say half to 2/3 of the growth in the quarter was from share gains with that remaining half to 1/3 to 1/2 from prebuy. But we're through kind of the early part of Q3 and demand has remained pretty steady in Europe. So we think most of that impact it wasn't a huge impact on the quarter. Let's just say that, and we think that the demand environment in EMEA has remained pretty steady. We're entering into traditionally holiday period in August is a very slow time. But then usually that recovers in September. For Asia Pac, I mean, Asia Pac, some softness really in that market. So it really accentuates kind of the double-digit volume growth that we're getting there. It's coming from share gain. It's coming from winning new lines, whether that's in the metal space or the metalworking space. We've talked about how important it's been for us to gain share with the electric vehicle manufacturers in that part of the world. Do I expect us to continue to take share in double digit? I would love to say that was true, Mike. I think it will probably normalize at some point in that mid-single-digit range. But we've got a very good team there that's executing on the ground. We just opened a new plant in China. We're doing very well in India and other parts of Asia. So that will be, I think, a growth engine for us for several foreseeable quarters as far as I could tell it right now.

All right. And then my last question is on Americas operating margin. You were down 250 basis points year-on-year and referenced some higher manufacturing and operational costs I'm just wondering if you can help us understand a little bit more between those operational issues and raw materials pricing and maybe any volume leverage or cost actions you're taking. Help us understand the puts and takes around Americas margin and how we might think about that trending into the second half?

Yes, I do think -- so the second quarter specifically, we had some inventory disposal costs related to quality related to kind of things we're working through at one of our plants. On the flip side, good problems to have. I think we had some higher inventory as we work off backlog and we're trying to catch up some of our Greece orders and then one of our primary plants there in Middletown, we've gone to a 24/7 operation right now. And so we will see some ongoing higher cost in the Americas. However, I think there was a little bit of onetime nature on the operational side in the Americas in the quarter. So I would expect that to improve. And overall, operating margins should return to where they've been traditionally for that region.

Our next question comes from Pete Osterland with Truist Securities.

So I just wanted to start by following up on the margin performance, particularly with the drop-off for gross margins less severe than what you anticipated a quarter ago. I guess, to what extent did this reflect faster or higher than expected pricing implementation and thinking about the second half, do you now see upside to the 36% to 37% range that you've talked about exiting the year at as you continue to implement pricing in the back half?

Don't necessarily -- we're not modeling upside, Pete, and thanks for further question. I think what we kind of mentioned it before, there's this inventory valuation aspect, it's a little bit of an accounting exercise, but the timing of how the prices roll into our costs and how those costs work their way through the system. We did a good job with pricing. We certainly didn't get all the pricing that we wanted to get, and there's still some pricing that will come on. One of the key things is volume. We modeled a 200 to 300 basis points kind of impact to gross margins in Q2. The volume was a nice surprise for us, right? And that capacity utilization in our plants was helpful. We're also starting to see the benefits of plant closures, right? We made a decision to close a plant in Europe, and you saw the Europe operating margins improved in the quarter. So it's a mix of different things. I do -- I firmly believe that we will be above that [ 36% ] gross margin by the end of the year. We say our target range is 36% to 37%. There have been times in the past in deflationary environments, where we can see expansion of our gross margins higher than that? And would it surprise me if that happen? No, but it's not something we're anticipating right now.

Very helpful. And then also just wanted to ask a follow-up on capital allocation. Following your recent buyback authorization and some of that repurchase activity kicking in here in the second quarter. How should we think about your plans for the cadence of buybacks this year? How are you currently weighing share repurchases against the potential you see to execute on additional bolt-on M&A? .

Yes. This is Tom. Thanks for that question, Pete. I would say we continue to have really good flexibility from a capital allocation standpoint with the new share repurchase authorization. We just refinanced our credit facility and have added some capacity there as well. First and foremost, we want to deploy capital to help the business grow, whether that's through organic investments like our new plant in China or inorganic opportunities through continuing to work our M&A pipeline. So I think we'll continue to be opportunistic as we think about share repurchases, balance that with dividend payments. We just announced that we increased our dividend 4.3% coming earlier this week. And so again, we're going to use all the tools in the toolkit and continue to have a balanced approach. But first and foremost, primarily we want to deploy capital to grow.

Our next question comes from Laurence Alexander with Jefferies.

It's actually Dan Rizzo for Lawrence. Just getting back to kind of the Asia share gains that you guys are kind of doing. I was wondering if that places like a lot of singles or some meaning that there's a lot of smaller new wins? Or is it a couple of customers where you're getting really great penetration and how that should look moving forward?

Yes. Thanks for the question, Dan. It's really broad-based in Asia. China is the biggest aspect, biggest country of the Asia, but landscape, but really, our growth in India has been very good as well as Southeast Asia. So -- and it's across all product lines, though I think it's a lot of singles and doubles. When you get a new mill that comes online, for instance, a new cold rolling line in China this past year, we were able to get our fluid intelligence equipment on that line and it's pretty big. So every now and then you have a triple, right? But to the nature of your question there, I think it's broad-based. It's not coming from just a handful of things. It's really across the industrial sectors and across the geographic landscape in that region.

So -- and with that to say that the new food intelligence to add at a new plant, is that kind of the toehold and then over the next few years, you should penetrate more? I mean, is that kind of how it works like this is the way in and then we take it from there. I mean, am I thinking about that right that it could -- I guess, what I'm trying to ask is it could accelerate with each plant as you just get a foothold in it? .

I mean that's a design. It's really an enhancement of our service model. And when you're -- when it works as well as it does in the rolling applications, if you're building a new line, right, if a new mill is coming on, we're in touch with not only the OEMs, but also the equipment manufacturers and it's a way to really control how our fluids are used on those lines, so they work very efficiently and give the customers a lot of control over their system as well as insights how to optimize fluid application with their production processes. So we continue to work on innovation in that area. It's not just a steel ruling or aluminum ruling offer for us, we certainly have a metalworking offer as well, and we're seeing some penetration on that side. And we expect that to be a real core part of our offer across the business as we go forward. So I do anticipate you will see that, Dan.

And then you mentioned India versus China, I would assume then that India actually offers more opportunity with more new plants and more new mill working or steel rolling plants coming online there versus China, which I guess would be a little bit more mature at this point. Is that accurate as well? .

Yes and no. I mean I think you're seeing in China, you're still seeing a lot of growth on the -- with the electric vehicle segment. So whether that's die casting, electrical steel, all the way through, and there's a lot of line refreshes that are happening there. The overall growth might be decelerating because of -- on a comparative basis, just because of the size of that market, how big it is, but it's not stagnant. And you're right in pointing out that India is growing differentially. There is, I guess, the ballpark figure that people have thrown around that industrial production there is supposed to double between sort of 2020 and 2030 or 2035. And it seems to be on that pace. There is a lot of new production in that part of the world and so we're happy to grow as that new production comes online, that's certainly a tailwind for our business.