Good morning. My name is Emma, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to The Chemours Company First Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, again, press the star one. Thank you. Jonathan Lock, Senior Vice President and Chief Development Officer, you may begin.
Hi. Welcome to The Chemours Company's first quarter 2022 earnings conference call. I'm joined today by Mark Newman, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Sameer Ralhan, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we start, I'd like to remind you that comments made on this call, as well as the supplemental information provided in our presentation and on our website, contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including the impact of COVID-19 on our business and operations, and the other risks and uncertainties described in the documents Chemours has filed with the SEC. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are based on certain assumptions and expectations of future events that may not be realized. Actual results may differ, and Chemours undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statements as a result of future developments or new information.
During the course of this call, management will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures that we believe are useful to investors evaluating the company's performance. A reconciliation of non-GAAP terms and adjustments are included in our release and at the end of the presentation. As a reminder, our prepared remarks, a full transcript, and an audio recording, plus our earnings deck, have been posted to our website alongside our earnings release. This morning's call will focus purely on Q&A. With that, I'll turn the call over to our CEO, Mark Newman.
Thanks, Jonathan, and good morning, everyone. I hope everyone is well, and thank you for joining us. As Jonathan said, and in keeping with our refreshing simplicity value, we've made a change to our earnings call format starting this quarter in order to make this time more efficient and useful for everyone here. With that, Emma, we're now ready for Q&A.
At this time, we ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Your first question comes from the line of John McNulty with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
Yeah, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Congratulations on some really, really solid results. I guess to that, like the TSS segment was a lot stronger than expected, and I suppose it's tied to a handful of things, whether it's the AIM Act or less SF6 gas dumping or maybe even some mix. I guess, can you parse out the various buckets as to what drove kind of the huge jump in margins and the strength that you're seeing? Can you help us to understand that a little bit better and how to think about the sustainability of that as we kind of look through the rest of the year and into next year?
Hey, John. Thanks, and good morning. Let me start first with the quarter, and then I'll get into TSS, and then I'll ask Sameer to sort of reflect on how he sees the numbers for the rest of the year in keeping with our guidance. You know, the quarter was, as you saw, strong. It showed, you know, Chemours-wide improvements with momentum in all three businesses despite the ore limitations which are affecting TT, and I think are really the beginning of evidence of long-term secular trends which are gonna benefit all three businesses, but in particular will benefit, you know, TSS on low global warming refrigerants and propellants and foaming agents and, obviously, APM, you know, as it relates to the mega trends which are unfolding, you know, today on semicon, hydrogen coming, EVs, you know, here.
There's a lot going on in the company that to me is showing the importance of our TSS and APM in the quarter and in the year there increasing contributions to Chemours earnings, you know, which gives us confidence despite the our limitations on the guide that we've provided for the year. As it relates to your question, you know, I think there's a couple of things going on in the quarter and in the year that I'd like to highlight. First of all, you know, refrigerant demand remains very strong. As you can imagine, folks are coming back to offices, they're going to restaurants, they're going to hotels, so lots of demand here on stationary that we like. Clearly, you know, demand on auto OEM is impacted by the ongoing semicon shortage.
Q1 was particularly weak, as you'll see from the earnings reports by OEM customers. Full year, you know, is looking as a year-over-year improvement, you know, from a volume perspective based on IHS. Obviously, the market there's some structural shifts happening in the market. Here in the U.S., obviously the implementation of the AIM Act, you know, is taking effect at a time when demand is strong. Clearly there's some supply issues as it relates to China that are also affecting availability. Q1 is particularly strong. As we look out to the year, you know, our view is demand remains very strong on the institutional stationary side. The AIM Act framework is working. We're also encouraged by, you know, ongoing developments in Europe to make F-gas better.
You know, maybe I'll ask Sameer to see if there's any other commentary, you know, on full year. You know, this is a great business, long-term secular growth, multiyear secular growth and EBITDA margins, you know, north of 30%.
Yeah, Mark. Hey, John, just quickly. Well, only other thing I would add is, as you kind of think about the year, the trends that you talked about regarding the TSS business, we feel very strong about how they will be shaping the rest of the year, and that's reflected in the guide that we have given. You know, the market and the regulatory mechanism is at work, and it's benefiting the entire portfolio of the TSS business. We feel really good that despite the automotive volume demand headwinds, we in a very strong place. TSS business is firing on all cylinders.
Got it. That's helpful color. Then maybe, you know, Mark, to one of the other points you brought up, on the ore front, it looks like that may be a little bit of an issue, and it may drag on a little bit longer than you thought. I guess, can you give us an update as to how you're thinking about that? Also, you know, I think you were looking to add capacity, you know, on the TiO₂ front through debottlenecking over the next couple of years. I guess, how does the ore supply issues start to factor into that as you think about that capacity coming on?
Yeah. Maybe I'll answer the question in a couple ways. As we look at our ore situation for the full year, we now recognize that, you know, we will remain ore constrained into the second half. You know, when exactly in the second half is moving around, but our guidance contemplates, you know, probably not having ore constraints resolved meaningfully before Q4. With that in mind, you know, I think we've been able to narrow the range of outcomes. You know, clearly our guidance range got narrowed. Yeah, we now acknowledge that this is gonna go into Q4, but the team has done a phenomenal job of finding ore where it can. Now the range of outcomes in terms of ore availability, in my view, are more well-defined.
The third point I'd make is, you know, we continue to give priority to our contracted customers and to the highest value application. The team, you know, has done a nice job, first on making sure we're serving our strategic customers with whom we wanna grow. Obviously, as we focus on higher value applications and our price mechanisms, you know, we're staying ahead of cost inflation. I think the last question that you asked was capacity. We continue to focus on capacity and releasing the 10%. You know, we're ore constrained for a few more quarters, but that's not the way we plan to run the business.
In fact, as you saw, you know, one of my four focus priorities as CEO is really to continue to take steps on improving the earnings quality of TiO₂ through the cycle. We have the best book of business. We're servicing those customers despite being ore constrained, and we're focused on how we expand capacity to grow with those customers, as well as take actions that will reduce earnings volatility through the cycle.
Got it. Thanks very much for the color.
Your next question comes from the line of Arun Viswanathan with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
Great. Thanks. Take my question. Congrats on the progress this year. Yeah, you know, you cited some positive dynamics within stationary. I guess when you include that and maybe some recovery in OEM, what do you think the foundational level of earnings for TSS would be, I guess, you know, maybe if you could give us some growth rates or maybe some margin levels or anything that would kinda help us kind of frame how that business is doing?
Yeah. You know, Arun, great question. I'll just remind everybody, we're gonna have a TSS mini investor day in May 16, actually, where we'll provide, you know, a lot more insights into that segment. It's been on our list to do, and clearly, we feel the time is right. You know, I view this business and, you know, Alisha and her team see this as a business with multiyear secular growth. You know, I think we would say, you know, it's in the mid to high single digit range as people adopt low global warming, not just refrigerants, which are bread and butter, but propellants for all many different applications, as well as foaming agents.
The team's doing a phenomenal job on making sure we have capacity in all of those verticals to really drive the adoption of low global warming products both in the E.U. and in the U.S. and then around the world. You know, we see here we could call it a decade of secular growth, mid- to high-single-digit, in a business that we think, you know, long term has EBITDA margins in the low 30s. Clearly, this year we're off to a great start, so we might be higher in this year. Generally speaking, we're looking to capture the growth with EBITDA margins north of 30%.
Thanks. That's very helpful. Now, if I could, as a follow-up, just ask about PFAS. Would you expect any updates there by year-end? Maybe a settlement with the water districts? What are you working on that side? Thanks.
You know, we're very focused, and it's one of my three priorities to continue to manage and resolve legacy liabilities consistent with the MOU. Last year, as you know, we were able to reach an agreement with the state of Delaware. In North Carolina, we're very focused on the remediation work and specifically the barrier wall work that will reduce seepage to the Cape Fear River. You know, the team's very focused on that. I'd say the three companies are aligned, having signed the MOU, you know, to move forward and to have a bias to resolve legacy liabilities, but do that in a smart way that you know our shareholders and our stakeholders and our communities would applaud. The work there is ongoing.
I won't comment on specific outcomes in the future, but you should know that the team here, including our General Counsel, David Shelton, is quite focused on getting something done here.
Thanks.
Your next question comes from Josh Spector with UBS. Your line is now open.
Hey, guys, this is James Cannon after Josh. I was wondering if you could talk about the TSS pricing in the quarter was up quite a bit. If you could just share some comments on how much of that is your actions versus market dynamics, and if the pricing in HFCs is driving a little bit more of a shift towards Opteon, if that's faster than your initial expectations.
Thanks for the question. We continue to see increased adoption in Opteon and the related improvement in mix as a result of that. Clearly, as I said in my earlier remarks, you know, the market demand in stationary, you know, which is particularly biased to HFCs today or legacy refrigerants, is very strong. You know, in some respects, you know, there's a seasonal factor in the year, but there's also, I think, the impact of a lot of folks returning to offices, travel picking up as you've seen, and just the, you know, just a greater demand for institutional use of stationary refrigerants, which today remain biased to HFCs. You know, the team's very proactive from a pricing perspective. I wouldn't want anybody to think that this team isn't very focused on the supply-demand dynamics.
To your point, you know, there's regulatory impacts, AIM here in the U.S., F-gas in Europe, you know, which are providing a structural shift in the marketplace, which will continue for many years to come.
Great. Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Michael Leithead with Barclays. Your line is now open.
Hey, thanks. Good morning, guys. Maybe just first a comment. The switch in the conference call format straight to Q&A is awesome for what it's worth. I guess I wanted to go back or kind of stick on TSS. I was hoping, can you just kind of talk about what you saw in the market on the legacy or HFC refrigerant pricing side this quarter? And maybe can you just update us on how the illegal import situation in Europe is going?
Yeah. Well, first of all, Michael, thanks for the feedback on the call format. Another core value for Chemours is being customer-centered, so it's good to get some customer feedback in this regard. You know, on TSS, you know, the pricing on HFCs, as I said, is really being driven by both the structural shifts in the marketplace driven by, you know, the AIM Act here in the U.S. and F-gas in Europe, as well as the demand that we're seeing for a whole host of factors that I already mentioned. You know, we're very encouraged by ongoing enforcement actions in Europe. There are also some draft regulations, as it relates to enforcement in F-gas in Europe that we're encouraged by.
Those regulations are not in effect, but clearly, as an industry participant, we'll be, you know, very helpful in working with regulators there. I also wanna give recognition to the EPA in the AIM regulations here in the U.S. They went out of their way to learn from what happened in Europe and to take steps. Maybe I'll ask Sameer just to comment on some of the EPA actions that we think are helping. Clearly, this is a combination of both market demand and as well as the favorable impact of the transition from HFCs to Opteon taking place in the quarter. Sameer?
Yeah. Thanks, Mark. Michael, let me just address, add a little bit more color on the pricing side, first, and then I'll move to the EPA enforcement. On the pricing side, as Mark said, the market dynamics are strong, but as we kind of step back, you know, Opteon is a low global warming potential refrigerant of the future, and we are very well positioned to help our customers transition to this new technology over time. As we kind of think about the solution offerings that we're providing to the customers, ultimately it's a value in use pricing. The way you should be thinking about the transition of a business is the TSS and the APM.
It's all about value in use pricing, and that's what you're seeing in the margin in the TT, TSS as well as in the APM businesses. That's of course in the pricing. On the EPA side and the enforcement, especially as we kind of look in the U.S., as Mark said, it's been great to see how EPA has learned from some of the things in Europe and really put in some mechanisms in place which give us a lot of comfort and confidence in the ability to enforce the AIM Act. I won't go into all the specifics.
You're gonna hear a lot from Alisha on May sixteenth on these things, but simple things like, you know, having standardized, you know, HTS codes, the QR tracking, even a 14-day advance notice for bringing in any material into the U.S., which gives the U.S. Customs and Border Protection all the time to figure out, you know, whether the people importing the products have any great allowances or not. You know, what's been phenomenal is there's a cross-agency task force that's already been set up to coordinate all the things which took a while in Europe to get in place, and that includes U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice. We look across all the agencies, you know, that cross-agency thing is in place.
Last thing I would say is on the AIM Act does provide the Clean Air Act authority, the ability to impose civil and criminal penalties. Again, if you go back to the European experience, it took a while to get people, everybody on the same page. There's a lot of teeth, and the mechanisms are already in place, which give us comfort. The structural trends that we are seeing in the transition of a refrigerant is really providing us a nice pricing power in the market.
Great. That's super helpful context. Maybe second one for Sameer. Just if I look at the full year outlook, you raised EBITDA guidance by, call it, $160 million at the midpoint. Operating cash flow though only goes up about $50 million or so, which is maybe a little bit lower conversion than I would've thought. Why is that?
Yeah, that's primarily just because of the working capital dynamics. As we kind of look at how the supply chain is stressed in the marketplace right now, as we think about, you know, driving the growth in our businesses, we wanna make sure that we are well-positioned to have the inventories in place, be it on the raw side, on the product side. There's nothing more to it. It's mostly driven by the working capital in the.
Yeah. If I could make a couple comments. Obviously, working capital with higher input costs, you know, is a bigger investment on our balance sheet today. Obviously, you know, we're getting rewarded for that in terms of the margins in our business. The guide though indicates that it's greater than $550. If you take $550 and divide it by the midpoint of the range, you know, you're at a 36% cash conversion. You know, we typically wanna be in that 35%-40% cash conversion in our business. You know, it. View the $550 as, you know, a floor in the guide.
The other point I would make, you know, beyond working capital is, you know, as we look, especially in some of our APM businesses, which by the way had a record quarter, you know, we are seeing demand for our Teflon PFA that goes into the semicon industry here in the U.S. And, you know, we're already expanding our capacity, but we're already sold out on that expanded capacity, and we're seeing years of CAGRs that are double digit. You know, we wanna leave ourselves some flexibility in our free cash flow guide to make very prudent investments in areas of the business where we see candidly explosive growth, you know, for multi-years to come. You know, again, there's nothing wrong with our cash flow guide. It's a floor.
I also, from a shareholder perspective, wanna make sure that you understand that we're seeing some opportunities in all three businesses consistent with our shareholder value creation focus that you would want us to make, in this calendar year.
Great. Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Hassan Ahmed with Alembic Global Advisors. Your line is now open.
Morning, Mark. Just wanted to revisit some of your commentary about ore constraints. Just wanted to better understand, is it primarily a function of logistics and supply chain/shipping issues, or is there something more secular going on there? If there is something more secular, what does that say in terms of the prospects for industry capacity growth?
Yeah, Hassan, I wouldn't point to anything that's more secular at all here. Clearly, you know, within a twelve-month frame, which is our fiscal year 2022, I think we're acknowledging that, you know, starting the year with Richards Bay Minerals force majeure, having that further compounded by the conflict in Ukraine, you know, within this twelve-month frame, you know, there's limitations on what you can do. And that's just based on, you know, our access today on the spot market. Also, you mentioned logistics in your question, you know. Even if you identify ore today, it takes a lot longer to get it to our shores here or where our plants are located. It's not a secular point.
It's really just a recognition of where we are with respect to fiscal year 2022. Again, I would expect us to be beyond this sometime in Q4. Again, we just felt like it was time to acknowledge that, and as we updated the guide to make sure it was clear that it was part of our guide. Clearly it will limit, you know, TT volumes in the coming quarters. I would expect us, for example, to be flat in Q2 in a quarter that normally is higher. I think I wanna maybe call out that this is a fiscal year 2022 issue, which will affect our next two or three quarters.
Understood. Very helpful. As a follow-up, sticking to TT, you know, obviously we've seen a fair degree of raw material inflation, you know, be it chlorine, be it ore. On the other side, pricing for pigment has been strong as well. As you sort of holistically take a look at the global cost curve, I mean, how do you see it right now? Are some of the marginal guys, you know, still, you know, because of all of these moves still in the red? If they are, what percentage do you feel are in the red right now?
Yeah, clearly, Hassan, I'm not gonna comment on our competitors, but you know, we're very grateful for where we sit on the cost curve and our continued focus on efficiency. Today, obviously, and we've said on prior calls, I'll reinforce it here, you know, our even the margin in this business is unlikely to be at its target level of 25% or mid-20s until we're not ore constrained. But I'd say, you know, as I look at the cost dynamics in the world, you know, I'm glad that the majority of our plants are tied to natural gas here in the U.S., even though those prices are also up. I think our ability to weather input cost increases is good because of how efficient we process ore into pigment.
Again, the team's done a great job in working this, both from a procurement supply chain perspective, but also in how we've run our operations very well in TT and in all of our business candidly, but in TT despite being ore constrained.
Yeah.
Hassan, this is Sameer. I'll just add one more point is, look, I mean, overall, as you kind of look over the longer term, cost curves are definitely important, but also it's kind of, you know, what's becoming more and more apparent in the market, and as we kind of look at it from the customer's perspective is our value proposition. Let's go back to the TT, right? It's our ability to supply on time, being able to meet the commitments, even in these tough supply chain conditions is also helping how we kind of think about the growth of the business and ultimately the pricing and of a product and the margin that we can generate. You know, Mark kind of talked about the raw material issues that we are seeing.
Look, on the pricing side, the teams have done a phenomenal job in staying ahead of the inflationary headwinds. The ore issue does play into the margin as well, if that's where you're headed, because ore constraints do limit our ability to optimize the circuit, and that's reflected in the margin profile as well.
Very clear. Thanks, Sameer. Thanks, Mark.
Your next question comes from the line of Matthew DeYoe with Bank of America. Your line is now open.
Morning. Sticking with TT, TiO₂ price, I think, was 24% higher year-over-year. Just kind of curiously strong when you consider the tie-ups, the PPI in your contract. Like how are you securing this big of an increase given your sales mix and how much is tied to just like purchase price?
Yeah, I think it's a great question and obviously the team's done a really nice job of taking advantage of the tight marketplace and higher input costs. As Sameer just said, you know, staying ahead of our inflationary impacts. You know, if you look at the PPI adjustments that we've seen in the last, you know, our PPI adjustments take place twice a year. You know, they've been actually quite high. Clearly, you know, we continue to improve the book of business and the mix of customers. As folks come into the fold, you know, they're paying not yesterday's prices, but today's prices.
Then finally, you know, a portion of our business runs through our flex and distribution portal, and those are more akin to spot prices, which are very high, if you can get the product. You know, it's a combination of all three factors. There's been a view historically that with TT, we wouldn't have pricing power, and I think we've proved the market wrong in that regard.
Okay. Look, you have a fair amount of Europe exposure, auto exposure, et cetera. I mean, how did volumes and how did then market demand trend through the quarter? How does April look? How's kind of the May order book looking? Just given there's a lot of concerns on the macro.
You know, it's hard not to hear all the posturing about, you know, a recession coming and a recession in 2023. You know, clearly, when we revised our full year guide, you know, we're very aware of all the macro issues facing us. You know, we wanted to be more constructive in our guide by, you know, identifying what would constitute a low end or a high end scenario. But with the expectation that, you know, we would be today, we'd be towards the middle of the guidance range. You know, as I look across our three businesses, you know, demand remains strong. North America is clearly the strongest around the world.
you know, I'd say even today we see very good demand in both AP and EMEA, and to a lesser degree in Latin America. Demand remains strong. in several product lines, you know, we remain sold out. you know, in APM, for example, where we had a record quarter, you know, there's quite a shift going on in that business, from a mix perspective. you know, yes, some of the consumer coatings business is down, but, you know, our Teflon PTFE in battery applications for EVs is way up. Our membrane business on hydrogen is really starting to take hold. then, you know, as I said early on, semicon, we're sold out, and we're sold out for years to come.
Yeah, I hear a lot of sort of posturing on global macro. We take those risks seriously in our planning. You know, we're seeing very high demand across our circuit. Sameer?
Matt, only other point I would make is with respect to 2022, you know, inventories have a role to play in this thing as well. Because if you look at the inventories, at least from our vantage point through the supply chains and where we play, inventories are pretty depleted. As we kind of look at 2022, we feel pretty good about the demand from that perspective as well.
Your next question comes from the line of P.J. Juvekar with Citi. Your line is now open.
Hi, this is Eric Petrone for PJ. In your TSS segment, your main competitor in HFOs announced the doubling of capacity in fourth quarter of last year. I know you finished your Corpus Christi expansion back in 2019. How do you see your capacity needs going forward and any associated CapEx to build that out?
Yeah. A great question, Eric. You know, when we installed our Corpus capacity, you know, it was a 3x expansion and, you know, our view was, you know, we were sizing our expansion with both the AIM Act or essentially U.S. adopting the Kigali Amendment of the Montreal Protocol plus F-gas in Europe. You know, we continue to watch capacity on our base refrigerant business. We've brought other capacity online with some other HFO molecules, you know, at our El Dorado facility last year. Alisha and the team continue to look out on that business, you know, with respect to staying ahead of the curve on capacity.
Clearly this is a business today that not only has very high EBITDA margins, but is also generating a lot of free cash flow because essentially we've done a lot of the front end work already in investing in capacity and investing in the molecules. You know, clearly over time we'll need to consider how we invest in capacity to support a decade of secular growth in this space. More to come on that front. You know, we're appropriately sized for where we see the market today.
Thank you. A question back on the pricing of 40% in the quarter. Is that sticky for the remainder of 2022 or how do you see comps as, you know, supply issues in China resolve and so forth?
Yeah. There's you know, I would say that the quarter, in my view, is a combination of, you know, some of the coming off of COVID factors which continues as we come into here into Q2. The structural shift that I mentioned, you know, aided by regulatory actions and just, you know, strong economic demand globally. Clearly, you know, remember that this business, you know, tends to have, you know, more seasonality in the first half versus the second half. And obviously, you know, some of our pricing actions are in anticipation of some cost increases we see coming through the pipeline that will hit us in the second half. You know, our long term goal for this segment is to be in the low 30s EBITDA margins with the kind of growth rate that I talked about.
Clearly with the strong start we had to the year, we could be higher.
Thank you, Mark.
Your next question comes from the line of Laurence Alexander with Jefferies. Your line is now open.
Hi, this is Kevin Estok on for Laurence. Thank you for taking my question. The first question has to do with your non-US operations. I guess I was wondering how you expect lockdowns in China to impact your business for the remainder of the year. If, and like in the European front, if you had any meaningful sales in Ukraine, Russia and Eastern Europe, and whether you get natural gas from other locations. Thank you.
Clearly, you know, we're monitoring the situation in Ukraine and in mainland China. You know, our thoughts and prayers go out to those folks who are impacted in a very stressful way, given the humanitarian issues. As you saw, we did suspend any operations in Russia or business with Russian entities. We had announced that along with, you know, charitable contributions to aid in the humanitarian crisis. I'll ask Sameer to comment more specifically on the impact of both China, which we mentioned as part of our guidance and the Ukraine in the quarter.
Thanks, Mark. As we kind of look at Kevin, from the Russia and the Ukraine perspective, what we've said is our revenue is, you know, around 1% in previous year. Majority of that was in the TT business. Given the supply demand dynamics that you're seeing in the TiO₂ in the industry, we don't see any issues facing that volume in other parts of the world. We feel pretty good from the top line perspective that it shouldn't have any major impact. Overall, when you look at from the cost perspective, you know, in this quarter, we did take a charge of roughly $10 million tied to our operations, tied to some of the receivables and inventory write-offs.
Other than that, we don't anticipate any impact for the rest of the year. Now on the China side, look, I mean, it's an interesting market. You know, we are looking and keeping tabs very closely on that. Each business gets impacted in a slightly different way. Overall, we don't expect a material impact at this point from a direct. Now overall, if China stays shut down, yes, it will have an impact on the broader Chinese economy and the spillovers into the global economy. I can't speculate today and speculate on that. Overall, our businesses, we do procure some raw materials from there. Those supply chains are really stretched with those shutdowns that we're seeing.
Our businesses and our partners are very constructive in helping us get the material. We are in a good position right now. On the electronics chain, well, we keep on monitoring as well any impact that may have on the APM business. That's the only one I would say where we are exposed from a demand perspective. At this point, the impacts that we anticipate are reflected in the guide that we gave.
Okay, thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Vincent Andrews with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.
Hi, guys. This is Will Tang on for Vincent. Just a quick follow-up from me. Just on the Chinese, you know, the China side. We've been seeing kind of Chinese TiO₂ exports, I guess continuing to increase, sequentially year to date. Can you talk about what you're seeing in the region in terms of, I guess, local production and demand? To what extent you see heightened exports posing a risk to TiO₂ prices elsewhere? Thanks.
Yeah. Will, first of all, we see very limited intersection between China exports, grades and the markets and customers and applications in which we serve. You know, we've also noticed that, but I'd say has limited impact on our book of business. Our business in China on the TiO₂ side tends to be at the high end of the spectrum, both from a coatings and laminates perspective. A lot of our work in the laminates area are for the export market of high-end furniture, for example. So far, our demand in China on TiO₂ remains very strong. I'd say, yes, we understand there's more product coming out of China in part because of Chinese demand being down for those products.
They have very limited impact on our book of business globally and in terms of the customers and businesses that we serve.
Got it. Thank you.
That concludes today's Q&A. I now turn the call back over to Mark Newman.
Yes, thank you everyone. You know, we look forward to seeing you all very soon at our Investor Day, mini Investor Day with respect to TSS. There's been a lot of great questions on the call, and we just felt it was time, you know, to share more on that great segment with you going forward. In closing, I would just like to reinforce that we remain focused on our four key areas of long-term value creation, and some of which you witnessed firsthand in the quarter. The first is to improve our TT earnings through the cycle while growing with strategic customers. As I said, we have the best book of business, and Ed and his team continue to take steps that will make that business higher earnings quality with the great cash conversion it enjoys today.
Our second objective is to drive secular growth in TSS and APM behind class-leading products with innovative chemistry. As you see in this quarter, TSS is already off to the races, but there's much more to come. In APM, you know, we're starting to see the impact of the mix shift related to higher value applications. You know, our science in APM is at the heart of clean energy, whether you're thinking of hydrogen or EVs or in a, you know, advanced electronics revolution that's happening today. Clearly, we're very integral to semicon. We're the only U.S. producer of PFA, and our Teflon PFA is key to the global semicon market, but also to all the efforts on reestablishing a U.S. semicon supply chain. So we're very excited about our work there in that area.
As I said earlier, the hydrogen revolution is happening on both sides of the Atlantic, and our Nafion membrane will be key to driving the decarbonization of the planet. Our third objective is to continue to manage and resolve legacy liabilities consistent with the MOU. You know, this is a key area of focus for a few dedicated professionals in the company. As I said earlier, all three companies having signed the MOU are keen to make progress in this area. Finally, you know, we will continue to return the majority of our free cash flow we generate to our shareholders. You know, we made meaningful progress in completing the existing shareholder authorization, by which we intend to complete in Q2.
In a recent meeting with our board, they've approved a new $750 million authorization through 2025. You know, my way of thinking is, we will continue to invest behind one, two, and three to really drive significant value to our shareholders. Item four, in returning the majority of cash through both dividends and stock repurchases, has the impact of compounding the value creation over time. We're very excited as a leadership team as to how we can drive significant value for our shareholders, and I wanna share with you that everyone is focused on these four key priorities, which we think will pay significant dividends in the years to come. Thank you, and have a great day.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.