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Earnings Call: Q2 2022

Aug 2, 2022

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to DuPont Q2 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 Q&A session. If you'd like to ask a question during this time, press star, followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, press star one again. Thank you. Chris Mecray, you may begin your conference.

Chris Mecray
VP of Investor Relations, DuPont

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for review of DuPont's second quarter 2022 financial results. Joining me today are Ed Breen, Chief Executive Officer, and Lori Koch, Chief Financial Officer. We prepared slides to supplement our comments during this review, which are posted on the investor relations section of DuPont's website and through the webcast link. Please read the forward-looking statement disclaimer contained in the slides. During this financial review, we'll make forward-looking statements regarding our expectations or predictions about the future. Because these statements are based on current assumptions and factors that involve risks and uncertainties, our actual performance and results may differ materially from the forward-looking statements. Our 2021 Form 10-K, as updated by current and periodic reports, includes detailed discussion of principal risks and uncertainties which may cause such differences. Unless otherwise specified, all historical financial measures presented today exclude significant items.

We'll also refer to other non-GAAP measures. A reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in our press release and posted to the investor page of our website. I'll now turn the call over to Ed.

Ed Breen
CEO, DuPont

Good morning, and thank you for joining our second quarter financial review. We posted strong quarterly results above expectations in a difficult environment. Our top line revenue growth of 7% versus the year ago period included solid organic growth of 9%. Overall, customer demand remained strong across our key end markets as E&I delivered a 6% volume increase, driven by ongoing strength in Semiconductor Technologies and Industrial Solutions. In terms of inflation, our pricing actions continue to fully offset higher costs associated with raw materials, logistics, and energy. Early in the quarter, our expectation for full year 2022 was about $600 million of increased cost, and that number has now risen to over $700 million, mainly due to higher energy and logistics costs.

We still expect to remain price cost neutral in the second half and for the full year based on pricing actions we have taken. Overall, our second quarter results reflect year-over-year and sequential earnings growth. These results highlight the strength of our end markets and our team's efforts to successfully navigate a challenging macro environment, which was further complicated by China's COVID lockdowns during the quarter. We were very pleased that the lockdowns alleviated by mid-June, and that our China-based colleagues who operated diligently under difficult circumstances have been able to return to some form of normalcy. More broadly, our focus on execution continues to drive results as we increase our use of digital tools and other plant site investments to drive additional productivity and capacity release.

Finally, with regards to sustainability, I am pleased to highlight that last month we announced our commitment to setting targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Paris Agreement Science-Based Targets Initiative, or SBTI. This is an important step toward reducing our overall climate impact, and it builds on our existing commitment to protect the planet by reducing the carbon footprint across our value chains in partnership with customers and suppliers. Turning to slide four, I'd like to update you on key initiatives for 2022 stakeholder value creation, namely our portfolio transformation and our balanced approach to capital allocation. In addition, I will highlight our continued focus on growth execution on the following slide. First, as it relates to the Rogers acquisition, progress is being made on the required regulatory reviews, with China being the last jurisdiction outstanding.

We expect the deal to close during the third quarter. Regarding Rogers' first quarter 2022 performance, we were satisfied with top line progress for the business, with growth in the high single digits, and we are especially pleased to see new wins and ongoing growth in the electric vehicle space. Rogers' business in the period was impacted by a price cost gap and several operational challenges that held back full earnings potential. We remain confident in the actions that the Rogers team is taking, and we expect improvement as we move forward. For the M&M transactions, we are on track regarding timing associated with the M&M divestiture to Celanese, with a completion anticipated around year-end. We continue to make the necessary progress to separate the business, and we were pleased to see Celanese secure permanent financing in the last few weeks.

We continue to move forward with plans to divest the Delrin business and affirm our expectation for completion around mid-year 2023. This past July 1 marked the one-year anniversary of our acquisition of Laird Performance Materials. I've commented previously on how successful this acquisition has been for us, including overall financial performance ahead of plan on both the top and bottom lines. We also continue to advance commercial synergy opportunities on top of cost synergies previously noted. Finally, we completed the sale of the biomaterials business at the end of May, which was the last of our previously announced non-core business divestitures. Since 2019, we generated gross proceeds of over $2.2 billion by divesting eight non-core businesses, which collectively produced lower growth, lower margins, and overall higher volatility in earnings.

We received solid value for these divestitures, selling them at a low double-digit EBITDA multiple. Shifting to capital allocation, we continue to pursue a balanced strategy that includes prioritizing the return of excess capital to shareholders as well as bolt-on M&A. During the second quarter, we repurchased $500 million of shares, bringing our year-to-date total to $875 million, which represents 2.5% of total shares outstanding. We anticipate completing the $500 million of authorization remaining on our existing share repurchase program during the remainder of this year.

As I noted during our last earnings call, given the magnitude of anticipated proceeds from the M&M divestitures, we expect there will be room to execute substantial incremental share buybacks, while disciplined M&A will also remain a key deployment priority over time as we continue to seek accretive and opportunistic transactions that can leverage our existing growth even further. Finally, our balance sheet remains strong, and this remains a key priority, particularly in uncertain, volatile macro environments. Turning to slide five, another key value driver for us is innovation-led growth. Greater focus on secular, high-growth end markets in electronics, water, protection, industrial technologies, and next-generation automotive will serve as a sound basis for our organic growth execution.

We continue to invest actively in both advancing the technology within our existing product portfolio and also introducing new products around the pillars highlighted here, with an overall R&D investment rate of around 4% of total sales in line with best-in-class peers. This investment is coupled with substantial application engineering focus, where our technical personnel have a seat at our customers' table in the design phases of their products. This past quarter, we had a number of highlights, which we note on the slide, but I'd emphasize that we are proud to have won four Edison Awards across different technology platforms, and we continue to make progress in introducing new technologies, such as applications in EV batteries, which have strong growth potential. With that, let me turn it to Lori to discuss the details of the quarter as well as our financial outlook.

Lori Koch
CFO, DuPont

Thanks, Ed, and good morning, everyone. As Ed mentioned, we saw continued strong demand during the quarter in key end markets, with volumes higher than our expectations coming into the quarter. Cost inflation intensified further compared to previous estimates, but additional pricing actions are anticipated to fully offset these higher costs. These factors, along with our team's continued strong execution focus, contributed to those top-and-bottom-line results well above expectations for the quarter. We also delivered a consistent operating EBITDA margin on both a year-over-year and sequential basis. Focusing on financial highlights for the quarter on slide six. Net sales of $3.3 billion increased 7% as reported versus the second quarter of 2021 and increased 9% on an organic basis.

The acquisition of Laird, partially offset by non-core divestitures, provided a 1% net tailwind to net sales, while currency was a 3% headwind during the quarter as the U.S. dollar strengthened against key currencies, including the euro and the yen. Organic sales growth included 8% pricing gains and 1% higher volume. Volume growth reflects continued strong demand in key end markets, namely semiconductor, general industrial, water, and construction, muted primarily by lower volumes for protective garments within Safety Solutions. These factors resulted in organic sales growth during the quarter of 9% for W&P, 8% for E&I, and 15% for the retained businesses of the former M&M segment that we report in corporate, which predominantly reflects our adhesives portfolio tied to next-generation auto.

On a regional basis, we delivered organic sales growth in all four regions globally, including volume increases in Asia Pacific, North America, and Latin America. In China, organic sales growth was up slightly versus the year-ago period, and volumes in China were up low single digits sequentially from first quarter despite government-mandated lockdowns in parts of the country into early June. From an earnings perspective, operating EBITDA of $829 million was up 6% versus the year-ago period, and adjusted EPS of $0.88 per share increased 11%. The increase in operating EBITDA was driven by pricing actions, stronger earnings contributions from the Laird acquisition, and volume gains, which more than offset higher inflationary cost pressures. Operating EBITDA margin of 25% was slightly better than our expectations set earlier this quarter and flat on both a year-over-year and sequential basis.

Our pricing actions have fully offset cost inflation on a dollar basis but have impacted EBITDA margins. Our operating EBITDA margins adjusted to exclude price costs was 26.6% or 150 basis points higher than the year ago, driven by productivity and higher volume. Our incremental margin was 22% on an as-reported basis. Excluding the impact of price costs, incremental margin for our core businesses was almost 60%, demonstrating strong cost discipline and operational productivity. From a cash perspective, cash flow from operations during the quarter of $86 million and capital expenditures of $135 million resulted in a free cash outflow of $49 million. Working capital was an additional headwind during the quarter as we continued to secure inventory given tight supply chains and incur higher inventory costs related to inflation.

We expect improvement in free cash flow during the second half of the year, consistent with our typical pattern and factoring in a reduction of working capital levels. As we separate the M&M business, we continue to incur transaction-related expenses with over $100 million of transaction costs incurred during the second quarter and about $700 million in costs related to the M&M separations expected in full year 2022. These costs, combined with higher working capital related to the M&M business that we are divesting, are significant headwinds to our 2022 cash flow. Turning to slide seven. Adjusted EPS of $0.88 per share increased 11% compared to $0.79 per share in the year ago period. Higher volumes and earnings from Laird provided a benefit to adjusted EPS in the quarter of $0.11 per share.

These gains were partially offset by weaker mix in W&P related to lower garment production and Capstone plant startup costs totaling $0.03 per share. A lower share count from ongoing share repurchases provided a $0.04 benefit to adjusted EPS, while other below-the-line items, including a higher tax rate and exchange gains, netted to a $0.03 headwind. Our base tax rate for the quarter was 22.6%, up slightly from 21.8% in the first quarter, and up notably from the year ago period, given certain discrete tax benefits reported in the prior year resulting from tax law changes. We are maintaining an expected base tax rate range for the full year 2022 of 21%-23%. Turning to segment results, beginning with E&I on slide eight.

E&I delivered net sales growth of 16%, including 8% organic growth, an 11% portfolio benefit from Laird, and a 3% headwind from currency. Organic growth for E&I included a 6% increase in volume and a 2% increase in price. From a line of business view, organic sales growth was led by Semiconductor Technologies, which increased mid-teens as strong demand continued, led by the ongoing transition to more advanced node technologies and ongoing high semiconductor fab utilization, along with growth in 5G communications and data centers. Within Industrial Solutions, organic sales growth was up high single digits, led by continued demand for OLED materials for displays, ongoing strength for Kalrez semi CapEx related product offerings, Vespel products serving recovering aerospace markets, and for healthcare applications such as biopharma tubing.

Interconnect Solutions sales decreased low single digits on an organic basis as expected due to a slight volume decline. Volume gains for films and laminates in certain industrial end markets were more than offset by lower smartphone volumes due to the anticipated return to more normal seasonal order patterns compared to last year and including softness in China smartphones. The business was also impacted somewhat by lower global PC and tablet demand and continued constraints in automotive production. Looking forward, we expect similar growth patterns for Semiconductor Technologies and Industrial Solutions to continue into the second half of 2022. Within Interconnect, we expect to return to positive organic growth in the second half given seasonal strength and added capacity from our Capstone expansion. For the full year, we expect Interconnect Solutions to be up low to mid single digits on an organic basis.

This reflects a slight decline from our previous expectations as supply chain constraints and softer consumer demand are expected to mute volumes for smartphones, PCs, and tablets. Operating EBITDA for E&I of $480 million increased 13% as strong earnings from Laird, volume gains, and pricing actions were partially offset by higher raw material and logistics costs. Operating EBITDA margin of 31.4% reflects sequential improvement of 40 basis points. On a year-over-year basis, operating EBITDA margin was down 70 basis points due primarily to a 100 basis point headwind from price costs. Turning to slide nine. W&P delivered net sales growth of 6% as organic sales growth of 9% was partially offset by a 3% headwind from currency. Organic growth for W&P reflects a 12% increase in price and a 3% volume headwind.

Pricing gains reflect broad-based actions across the segment, most notably in Shelter Solutions and Safety Solutions. Volume declines were driven by Safety Solutions. From a line of business view, organic sales growth was led by Shelter Solutions, which increased high teens driven by pricing actions and continued robust demand in North America residential construction, as well as ongoing growth in commercial construction and strength in repair and remodel related demand during the quarter.

Within Safety Solutions, sales were up mid-single digits on an organic basis as pricing actions were partially offset by lower Tyvek volumes given the shift from garments to other end market applications and the resulting negative impact of increased manufacturing line changeovers on overall production. Sales for Water Solutions were up mid-single digits on an organic basis on pricing gains and continued steady demand for water filtration technologies, muted by supply chain constraints in Asia Pacific due to COVID lockdowns in China and an earthquake in Japan impacting our production. Operating EBITDA for W&P of $348 million declined 1% versus last year as pricing actions taken to offset higher costs were more than offset by volume declines.

Operating EBITDA margin of 23.2% was 170 basis points below the year ago period as the impact of price cost was an approximate 200 basis point headwind to margin. Excluding the price cost impact, operating EBITDA margin was over 25%. I'll close with a few comments on our financial outlook on slide 10. We are still seeing solid demand, and our order book is sound in most of our end markets. However, future uncertainties continue to exist in the macro environment driven by inflationary pressure, challenging supply chains, and U.S. dollar strength. Our teams remain focused keenly on execution, and we are concentrated on the levers within our control in order to continue to drive value for our shareholders. For the full year 2022, we are narrowing our adjusted EPS range while maintaining the midpoint of our previous range.

We now expect full year adjusted EPS in the range of $3.27-$3.43 per share versus our previous range of $3.20-$3.50 per share. We are updating our full year 2022 net sales guidance range to be between $13 billion and $13.4 billion, reflecting $200 million of incremental foreign currency headwinds, along with the removal of about $120 million in net sales related to the biomaterials business given its divestiture at the end of May. We continue to expect organic sales growth for the year to be up high single digits.

After adjusting the high end of our operating EBITDA guidance primarily for incremental currency headwinds and the removal of the biomaterials business, we now expect full year 2022 operating EBITDA to be between $3.25 billion and $3.35 billion. For third quarter 2022, we expect net sales to be between $3.17 billion and $3.37 billion, and operating EBITDA to be about $810 million. We expect third quarter net sales and operating EBITDA to be slightly weaker than the second quarter as sequential volume increases are expected to be offset by further foreign currency headwinds and the absence of the biomaterials business.

We are also expecting impact during the third quarter on operating EBITDA of approximately $15 million from unplanned downtime at our W&P Spruance site in Virginia associated with an unforeseen utility disruption from a third-party supplier. On a year-over-year basis, we expect third quarter net sales to be up 2% at the midpoint and up high single digits on an organic basis. We expect third quarter 2022 adjusted EPS of approximately $0.81 per share. With that, we are pleased to take your questions. Let me turn it back to the operator to open the Q&A.

Operator

Thank you. At this time, I would like to remind everyone in order to ask a question, press star one on your telephone keypad. We will allow one question and one follow-up only. Your first question comes from Jeffrey Sprague from Vertical Research. Please go ahead.

Jeff Sprague
Founder and Managing Partner, Vertical Research Partners

Thank you. Good morning, everyone.

Ed Breen
CEO, DuPont

Good morning, Jeff.

Jeff Sprague
Founder and Managing Partner, Vertical Research Partners

Hey, Ed. Hey, good morning. Ed or Lori, could you just comment on kind of the visibility on the top line in the back half kind of around, you know, some of the economic worry points, right? U.S. resi, you know, some of the consumer electronics, you know, cell phone and the like. Just what you're seeing from your customer and channel partners there and your comfort level that that's all dialed now properly relative to the guide.

Ed Breen
CEO, DuPont

Yeah, Jeff, so we looked over the weekend at our order rates as of the end of last week. Across the board, our order rates are hanging right in there where we would expect them to be. The only softness we've seen, which we've mentioned before, is smartphones in China. Demand is down, and I don't know how much of that is because of the lockdowns versus, you know, just true demand down. We're seeing some lightness on the PCB board side, which is really for PCs, tablets, things like that. Not significant, but a little bit of a downdraft there. Besides that, everything, at least in our order rate, is holding in. Now remember, we have a really solid look, I would say, on our orders out about 30 days, in the bulk of the businesses.

Some of them longer than that. Like, the water business is actually some months. We're a little bit shorter cycle on the order rate, but as we sit today, it looks like things are hanging in there. We have seen no downdrafts as to your specific point on the construction side. Both the residential and commercial order rates are good ending last week, and the do it yourself piece of that business was still good. Having said that, Jeff, we're not naive. We see data points out there. Obviously we're doing recession planning, you know, just to be ready if things do soften up. At this point in time, not seeing it.

Jeff Sprague
Founder and Managing Partner, Vertical Research Partners

Great. Thanks for that color. Just wondering back to the ultimate deployment of cash, particularly as it comes to the M&M proceeds. Is it still your bias to wait until that cash is in the door, or you know, now that Celanese has secured funding and maybe we're a little bit further down the kinda regulatory path?

You know, perhaps there's some comfort to get a running start on some of that.

Ed Breen
CEO, DuPont

Yeah. Jeff, so we're talking to the board about it, and just to reiterate the prepared comments we made, we're clearly thinking heavy on a share repurchase here with the amount of cash available. I wouldn't say the cash has to be in the door. I just wanna see kinda, if I'd use the term, green lights through town, that the timing is, you know, what we think. We're gonna be ready to do this by November 1 with all the internal work both we're doing and Celanese is doing. My gut is by the time you get through regulatory, you know, our comment was kinda end of the year, right at the first of the year, 2023. You never know with regulatory and, you know, if there's COVID lockdowns.

You know, you don't know for sure. I just wanna get closer, and then we'll make a final decision.

Jeff Sprague
Founder and Managing Partner, Vertical Research Partners

Great. Thanks for the color.

Ed Breen
CEO, DuPont

Yep.

Operator

Your next question comes from Scott Davis from Melius Research. Please go ahead.

Scott Davis
Chairman and CEO, Melius Research

Hey, good morning, everybody.

Ed Breen
CEO, DuPont

Good morning, Scott.

Scott Davis
Chairman and CEO, Melius Research

Morning. As you mentioned in your remarks, Rogers having kind of a challenging price-cost, I think you said, gap. Is it off the deal model then for 2022? Is it materially off where it impacts kind of your 2023 look at it?

Ed Breen
CEO, DuPont

Yeah. There's a good and a bad, I guess I'll just put it that way. The good is the revenue line is right on what the planning assumptions were, and the win rate is looking really nice. The EBITDA is off the planning model. By the way, putting price/cost aside, which you can catch up on, which will happen, there were four or five operational issues that have been hitting them, that are really impacting the EBITDA percent. By the way, all fixable, all within the control of the team to fix those. We expect improvement to come. By the way, I'll just give you two. One of them is not really even something they can control.

You know, they're being shorted as the whole industry is on the silicone side, and it's a very high-margin application for them. Obviously, they're trying to secure more silicone supply. At some point here, that'll, you know, even out. That's off. Then just to give you one other example, they used more contract manufacturing 'cause they're bringing up a facility that they had that had a fire in it, they're bringing that back up online. In the meantime, to satisfy the customers, they're using contract manufacturing, which is really eating into the margin of that business. That's two examples, but there's, you know, three other ones. Those things, that's being worked on, and they're getting ready to launch that facility again and bring the production back in-house.

It's items like that, we'll work through that. My hope and gut is we'll be in good shape going into 2023, as we get these operational issues fixed.

Scott Davis
Chairman and CEO, Melius Research

Helpful. And then just the-

Lori Koch
CFO, DuPont

Yeah, I think I'd point to on the.

Scott Davis
Chairman and CEO, Melius Research

Oh, I'm sorry, Lori.

Lori Koch
CFO, DuPont

Yeah, I think I'd point, too, on the, if I'm on the top line, one of the areas that we're really impressed with is their penetration in EV. They've seen really nice growth there. We'll continue to take advantage of the opportunity, especially the combined opportunity in DuPont when we put it together with our EV applications. I think we've mentioned in the past, the two portfolios generate about $400 million of revenue today. We're excited to get those two together and see what we can do.

Scott Davis
Chairman and CEO, Melius Research

All right. Just on Laird, I assume based on what I see on the slides here, that Laird is a little ahead of its deal model.

Ed Breen
CEO, DuPont

Yeah. Both revenue and earnings are ahead. We got good synergies out of that. We're getting about 80% through that. We've identified really solidly $63 million of synergies. What I'm more excited about on Laird, and I think the same is gonna play out with Rogers, is really the revenue opportunities between the two, as Lori was sort of just alluding to. You know, we just had another one in European auto customer who Laird had a direct relationship with, and we were able to use some of our existing DuPont technology in an application to resolve an issue for them, and it seems like a nice new revenue stream with that customer. That's really exciting with the kind of putting this toolkit together.

Scott Davis
Chairman and CEO, Melius Research

Sounds good. Best of luck. Thank you.

Ed Breen
CEO, DuPont

Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from Steve Tusa from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Steve Tusa
Managing Director, JPMorgan

Hi, good morning.

Ed Breen
CEO, DuPont

Hey, Steve.

Lori Koch
CFO, DuPont

Good morning.

Steve Tusa
Managing Director, JPMorgan

Hey, on the price cost side, what's your estimate for the year now? I think you had $350 million in raw material headwind prior. This quarter, obviously inflation is tough, but this quarter seemed a little bit higher than I was expecting. Also, are you including logistics in that? If not, I think you had given, like a $225 million headwind prior, maybe just an update on those two.

Lori Koch
CFO, DuPont

Yeah. We're now expecting between raw materials, logistics, and higher energy costs, about $700 million. It's about a $100 million increase from where we were sitting when we did the prior earnings call. We still expect to fully cover that with price increases. We'll be net neutral on the bottom line. It just creates the headwinds on the margin profile, as we have telegraphed. It was about 150 basis points in total this quarter. Underlying, we held flat on margins year-over-year, if you take out that delta, we were actually up about 140-150 basis points. Nice leverage through the P&L.

Ed Breen
CEO, DuPont

Steve, that.

Steve Tusa
Managing Director, JPMorgan

Is that

Ed Breen
CEO, DuPont

But the-

Steve Tusa
Managing Director, JPMorgan

Yeah, go. Sorry.

Ed Breen
CEO, DuPont

I'll breakdown, Steve, for you, 'cause I think you were just using raws. The breakdown of the inflation is about 60% is raws, 20% is logistics, and 20% is energy. Just to give you kind of a feel for it. By about 70% of our inflation is in the W&P segment, where you can see we got phenomenal pricing.

Steve Tusa
Managing Director, JPMorgan

Yeah. That energy cost, was that previously recorded through the raw materials line? I don't recall you guys kind of breaking that out explicitly. Had that been running through that raw materials number in prior quarters?

Lori Koch
CFO, DuPont

It wouldn't have been in the raw.

Steve Tusa
Managing Director, JPMorgan

Was that a new line item?

Lori Koch
CFO, DuPont

Yeah. It wouldn't have been in the raws, but it would have been in the total $600. It's not new in total. The increase from the prior $600 to the current $700 is really primarily the increase in energy costs and then the knock-on effect to logistics as we see higher fuel costs.

Steve Tusa
Managing Director, JPMorgan

Yeah. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. Just one last one on the W&P business. I guess how do you see that performing through, you know. Let's say you have kind of a consumer recession where housing takes a bit of a hit. I mean, can that business grow through that on a volume basis, or is there kind of too much cyclical exposure in that business? How do you look at that business through that type of recession?

Ed Breen
CEO, DuPont

Well, remember, Steve. First of all, it just depends how deep the recession is, so it's hard. It's a hard one to answer. Remember that the Tyvek product line, which is one of the biggest segments in there, that's a sold-out asset. So, you know, we can divert, you know, product to other end markets. For instance, we are shorting right now, unfortunately, the medical market, medical packaging market. We're trying to work through that backlog, as we speak. We have other applications for it in a sold-out asset. And by the way, I think the water business, just to use W&P, I think the water business would hold in there pretty well in a recession. You know, yeah, we'll see some effect of it.

You know, Nomex would probably go down a little bit. Kevlar might go down a little bit. I think we can hang in there pretty well.

Lori Koch
CFO, DuPont

Yeah. I think you know this, but just to be sure. The residential piece of construction is about 40%. The rest is 40% commercial and then about 20% repair and remodel. In the commercial, the largest end markets underneath there are more on the healthcare side and the restaurant side. Those are, they make up the bulk of the commercial opportunity for us.

Steve Tusa
Managing Director, JPMorgan

Excellent. Thanks, guys. Appreciate the color.

Ed Breen
CEO, DuPont

Thanks, Steve.

Operator

Your next question comes from John Walsh from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

John Walsh
Director, Credit Suisse

Hi. Good morning.

Ed Breen
CEO, DuPont

Good morning, John.

John Walsh
Director, Credit Suisse

Just, following up to Steve's question there. Maybe we could talk a little bit on the pricing side. You highlighted strong pricing there in W&P, but, you know, as you look forward, where do you think you have the most structural pricing? And then where might, you know, you have to give back as, you know, potentially we see some material deflation in the future?

Ed Breen
CEO, DuPont

Yeah. Well, John, that is a great question. We talk about it all the time. We made a strategic decision that all the price increases we did were all baked into the product price. We did not do surcharges that are tied to some index or something like that. I feel good about the approach that we took. Obviously, our goal, if a recession hits and commodity costs come down, would be to then get a gap, maintain a gap going forward, where obviously we're maintaining more price than the, you know, the decrease on the commodity. By the way, we've been working on these scenarios for the last month with our teams, like, where do we feel and how much can we hold in each of our end markets.

Our goal is gonna clearly be to hold a gap so that we can help our EBITDA margin percent, which is that Lori just mentioned, obviously, has been hit the other way with the price cost thing, but where we can benefit from it. You know, I won't get into each end market, but I think we have the opportunity to do what I just said. To what extent we'll see as it plays out. That, by the way, that's interesting. This. If a recession hits, that's the one thing that is very, very different for companies like ours and many others. Where in the past you didn't have this dynamic. You had a recession, you were cutting your costs or whatever you did.

This is probably the single biggest dynamic to improve financial performance that clearly we have and many, many global companies have.

John Walsh
Director, Credit Suisse

No, that's very interesting perspective. Thank you. You know, the $15 million headwind that you're gonna see in W&P in Q3, does that fully reverse out in Q4, and kind of what's the confidence level, you know, that that third party can get beyond their disruption?

Ed Breen
CEO, DuPont

We're already getting past the disruption. We've been bringing lines up this week. This problem hit a week and a half ago. It's a safety issue, by the way. We have to methodically go through, look at all the lines, what ended up being caught, just called stuck in them, when it went down. It's a little bit of a process. We're bringing some lines up a day ago, and later today we bring a line up again. We know we're out of the problem here, you know, over the next few days. We don't make that up because it. For instance, Tyvek is one of the products, big products there. It's a sold-out asset. You know, we can only make so much and we're sold out.

By the way, just to give you a sequence from the third to the fourth quarter, you see a little bit of a lift, which is not necessarily the seasonal pattern. What's happening there is we have, you know, the Spruance site's not being down, so we don't have that third quarter to fourth quarter problem. We'll be running full tilt there. We have a new water line that we've been telling you about that's coming up at Edina, which will give us incremental volume on a sold-out business, also our reverse osmosis product line. Then remember, we have the Kapton line coming up in our electronics business in our Circleville facility, and they all hit in the fourth quarter and give us the incremental volume. Kapton's also a sold-out asset.

We're not expecting a sequential third to fourth quarter change in demand in the marketplace. They just happen to be the sold-out assets where we start getting some production out of them. Great. Thanks for taking the questions. I'll pass it on. Thanks.

Operator

Your next question comes from John McNulty from BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

John McNulty
Managing Director, BMO Capital Markets

Yeah, thanks for taking my question. You know, I believe about 20% of your sales come from the EMEA region. Can you give us a little bit of color as to your exposure to Germany and any precautions that you're taking or any levers that you can pull if there are any issues with regard to gas and power as we kind of progress through the rest of the season?

Lori Koch
CFO, DuPont

Right now, we're not expecting any material impact if they start to ration energy in Germany. There's one plant site in our existing go-forward portfolio that doesn't use it, so we don't see an impact there. It's in the businesses that we retained from Mobility & Materials. Mobility & Materials does have a plant in Germany, so that they could be impacted minimally if there was some rationing going on there. But as we see it right now, we don't see a headwind from a utilization perspective. You know, we'll obviously continue to watch the European natural gas prices, which, you know, have an impact on primarily W&P and the RemainCo portfolio as they've got a few plant sites in Europe. So they're up again. I think they were, you know, 210 or so as of the last couple of days.

We'll continue to keep an eye on those to see where that moves.

John McNulty
Managing Director, BMO Capital Markets

Got it. Okay, thanks for the color. Just in the Tyvek garment business, I guess how far back to normal or reversing kind of that big surge would you say we are? It sounds like you had some incremental headwinds that aren't just on the mix shift but also are on the line shifting. I guess, can you break that out in terms of how much of a hit that might have been on the margin and how we should be thinking about that going forward through the rest of the year?

Lori Koch
CFO, DuPont

Yeah. In the second quarter, garment volumes were down about $40 million. We were able to make up a little of that with increasing sales in the medical and other end markets. In total, garments were down $40 million. We expect that to be a hit again in Q3 on a year-over-year basis, and then in the fourth quarter, we start to get out of that year-over-year comp headwind. The piece, too, on the production side is not so much a demand because you can shift the demand to other end markets from the garments. It's more around the product produced that you net out to a headwind. When we were making garments, we were able to just run garments the entire time and minimize the changeovers on the lines.

Now that we're back to a more normal product mix, we're having to have more changeovers than we had last year, so therefore, translating to lower pounds produced.

John McNulty
Managing Director, BMO Capital Markets

Got it. Okay, thanks very much for the color.

Operator

Your next question comes from Christopher Parkinson from Mizuho. Please go ahead.

Christopher Parkinson
Managing Director, Mizuho

Great. Thanks for taking my question. Just, pretty much a corollary of the last, two and a half questions or so. You know, can you just give us, your updated thoughts on the intermediate to long-term margin outlook for W&P, just given, you know, the question about structural price increases, improving reliability across the asset base, you know, product mix, and so on and so forth? Just any updated color there and your confidence in those numbers would be very helpful. Thank you.

Ed Breen
CEO, DuPont

Yeah. You know, I'll give you really both of the bigger businesses here. I think, you know, E&I, and you've seen us do this ex the price cost, we should be able to run that, you know, 32%-33% EBITDA margins. This quarter, we weren't far off of that.

Then a little bit of price cost there, and I think that's about where that will run, and pretty consistently have been there. In the W&P business, we really think we can get that over time to kind of more of a 27%-28% EBIT to business. Now, by the way, we're planning on getting some of that as commodities at some point here drift down, and we maintain, as I mentioned a minute ago, some incremental pricing above that. Internally in our own control is really capacity release at our facilities, and that would be specifically on Tyvek. Our water assets and our Nomex product line would be the big ones for continued capacity release.

In our prepared remarks, Chris, one of the things you see we've been working heavily on is working on a lot of digital tools that we're implementing at our facilities that are helping us on the reliability side. These are big, heavy assets on the W&P side, so you get a 1% improvement. You know, you get quite a bit of throughput. We're really spending our time working kind of our operational excellence playbook, and that's what will really help us on the W&P to keep incrementing that up.

Lori Koch
CFO, DuPont

Yeah. I think as we look towards the second half, we don't see any material margin movement in the second half versus the first half. We were around 23%, you know, more like 25%, 26% when you take away the price cost headwinds in the first half. We would expect that same 23% roughly underlying, and then, you know, 25-ish%, 26% when you take away the price cost headwinds.

Christopher Parkinson
Managing Director, Mizuho

That's very helpful. Just as a very quick follow-up, to the extent you can you just give us a little bit more color on the expectations for Delrin versus your commentary over the past two quarters in terms of price, number of suitors, and so on and so forth? Thank you.

Ed Breen
CEO, DuPont

Yeah, Chris, what we've been doing on Delrin is we've been working on standing it up. You know, it was a division in a division, so it was a little extra upfront work for us. We finished up the data room. We're gonna actually really launch the process here in the early fall. We're just waiting to get through the summer. I can't give you any color commentary on detailed number of people, but I would think it's more strategics that are gonna be interested in this asset. By the way, it's a business that has 30% EBITDA margins. It's doing very well still in this environment. That's probably the timing of it, and that's why we said so fast the timing.

By the time you get to close the deal, you're probably about the middle of 2023, and that would really be the end of the kind of divestiture and getting the portfolio, you know, where we want it. Now remember that asset's already in discontinued operations.

Christopher Parkinson
Managing Director, Mizuho

Yep. Very helpful. Thank you so much.

Ed Breen
CEO, DuPont

Thanks.

Lori Koch
CFO, DuPont

Your next question comes from Steve Byrne from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Steve, your line is open.

Steve Byrne
Managing Director, Bank of America

Sorry about that. I wanted to ask you a little bit about your semiconductor business and a couple of potential longer term drivers. One being whether the product mix is potentially shifting with any of the semiconductor fabs that you support, where they are shifting to other products. Is that possible? Is that a way for those businesses to remain, you know, pretty robust? Then the other driver being the new semiconductor fabs under construction. Do you have already some awarded business for fabs that are coming online in the intermediate term?

Lori Koch
CFO, DuPont

I think as to your first part of your question, I don't see them changing the product mix that they make on the fabs, but they can kinda shift around the end markets. We've seen them move away as there's been some weakness in the consumer electronics space to more of the data center applications where the demand remains very robust, which is favorable to our portfolio, just given the higher advanced technologies associated with those end market data center applications. You can see in our results in the second quarter, we continue to post very strong results. We're well-positioned as we go forward to take advantage of the increase in the fabs through the construction that's taking place.

Right now, I believe over the next few years, they'll bring on an incremental about 7% capacity when it comes to wafer starts, and we're very well-positioned. We've got great relationships with the majority of those fabs that are putting in capacity. You know, while it's hard to say if you want any new capacity from those new lines coming on, I don't know that they actually have all that in place, but we'll continue to maintain very strong relationships with those large players that are putting in capacity. You know, we've said in the past that we'll be about 200-300 basis points ahead of MSI growth. We're posting those results this year, so I don't see any reason why we wouldn't continue to do that.

I think it's important to know, you know, the semi market, and the revenue that's posted is a function of both price and volume, and our exposure is to the volume piece. Price can be volatile in the semi markets. That doesn't impact our results. It's really a focus on the wafer starts and the MSI, so the millions of square inches of wafers produced.

Steve Byrne
Managing Director, Bank of America

Thank you, Lori. Ed, just curious if you can comment on any update on PFAS litigation settlement discussions.

Ed Breen
CEO, DuPont

Yeah. It's ongoing conversations. As you know, the judge has encouraged that to go on. I don't have anything new to say. We continue to have pretty consistent conversations to try to, you know, resolve the issues. You know, I'm still optimistic. Nothing new to say, you know.

Steve Byrne
Managing Director, Bank of America

Thank you.

Ed Breen
CEO, DuPont

Yep. Thanks.

Lori Koch
CFO, DuPont

Your next question comes from David Begleiter from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

David Begleiter
Managing Director, Deutsche Bank

Thank you. Good morning.

Ed Breen
CEO, DuPont

Good morning.

David Begleiter
Managing Director, Deutsche Bank

Ed and Lori, just on your EV exposure with Rogers, how large will it be, and what type of growth are you looking forward to going forward?

Lori Koch
CFO, DuPont

Yeah. We see the opportunity in EV between our portfolio and Rogers portfolio to be about $250 a car. So a really nice content number. As I had mentioned earlier, today we have about $400 million of revenue between the two portfolios, so about $200 coming in from Rogers and about $200 in our existing portfolio, which is predominantly made up of adhesives, and then we have a Nomex paper application for the e-motor piece. It's a very nice opportunity, as I had mentioned, for the two companies to come together to continue to drive opportunities in this space. You know, it's a really high growth rate as we've mentioned before too. You know, EV applications are overall growing in the mid-teens%. ADAS applications even higher than that.

We've got a nice ADAS portfolio today with the incoming Laird acquisition, so lots of opportunities for growth.

David Begleiter
Managing Director, Deutsche Bank

Great. Thank you. Just on Tyvek between now and when line eight comes online, is there anything you can do to, you know, eke out more capacity or further improve the mix in this business to keep on growing earnings until the new capacity is on stream?

Lori Koch
CFO, DuPont

Yeah. That's a key opportunity for us, is to continue to get capacity release off those sold-out assets. During the pandemic, recall that we brought line one back up, so we were able to bring on a little bit of incremental capacity. Line one's the oldest line in the portfolio, so it doesn't have as much production as the newer lines, but it was incremental capacity for us. We'll continue to try to get more pounds off of all the lines between both Spruance and Luxembourg as we await the new Tyvek asset, which we expect sometime around the end of 2023.

David Begleiter
Managing Director, Deutsche Bank

Thank you very much.

Operator

Your next question comes from Vincent Andrews from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Vincent Andrews
Managing Director, Morgan Stanley

Thanks, and good morning, everyone. Ed, you know, well articulated that your preference is for share buybacks with the proceeds, but you know, you still mentioned bolt-on. If you could just give us an update on what's out there, and then maybe give us an update on, you know, I think in the past you've sort of sized bolt-ons, so maybe you just wanna redefine what a bolt-on could look like on a go-forward basis.

Ed Breen
CEO, DuPont

Yeah. Thanks for the question, Vincent. Any bolt-on that we would do, first of all, would be on one of the five pillars that we talk about. You know, we've been looking at things. Let me say, what bolt-on would be more like Laird, not as big as Rogers. You know, that $1 billion-$2 billion type range. It would be something that would bring additional technology to play in one of those pillars. It would, back to the electronics example, just give us more tools in the toolkit to resolve issues for our customers because we're so strong in application engineering, and we're really seeing the benefit of that with Laird tied together with the DuPont electronics portfolio. I know we're gonna see it with the Rogers one.

It would be something like that, in one of those pillars, that we would look at.

Vincent Andrews
Managing Director, Morgan Stanley

Okay. This may be less of an issue for the refined DuPont portfolio now, but in the past, when we've been in these tricky macro outlooks, we'd get into Q4, and customers could destock more than they typically do seasonally just sort of to manage uncertainty going into year-end. Are you picking up any whiffs of that in your sort of you know, C-level to C-level conversations or anything that we should be thinking about?

Ed Breen
CEO, DuPont

No, we're not. Trust me, we're watching it closely. But no, we're not seeing that.

Vincent Andrews
Managing Director, Morgan Stanley

Okay. Thanks very much, everyone.

Ed Breen
CEO, DuPont

Thanks, Vincent.

Operator

Your next question comes from Aleksey Yefremov from KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Aleksey Yefremov
Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst, KeyBanc Capital Markets

Thanks, and good morning, everyone. In your E&I segment overall and in semis in particular, is your outlook for third quarter kind of better or worse or about in line with normal seasonality?

Lori Koch
CFO, DuPont

I would say it's in line with normal seasonality. With the one exception of we will start to return to posting growth within the Interconnect Solutions business on a year-over-year basis. Just given that last year was a little odd with respect to the smartphone shipments of what they normally do. This year it's more on a normal pattern. You saw the headwind in the first half as we posted volume declines. We expect to have volume increases in the second half within the Interconnect Solutions, at the year-over-year basis. Sequentially, no material change to our usual pattern, with the one exception as Ed had mentioned of the Kapton line coming on, which will provide some incremental revenue in the back half of the year.

Aleksey Yefremov
Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst, KeyBanc Capital Markets

Makes sense. Thanks, Lori. To follow up on W&P, your margin comments that margins would be similar in the back half compared to the first half, is this also a function of the outage that you see? Because I seem to remember you were expecting higher margins in the back half. Is this still an expectation maybe just delayed into fourth quarter or first quarter of 2023?

Lori Koch
CFO, DuPont

Yeah. I mean, I think maybe coming into the year, we had expected some margin improvement as we went into the back half. The last quarter and this quarter, we've seen those more flatten out. It's a function of, one, the incremental price headwinds that we've seen, so a lot of it is that. Recall back when we originally gave guidance for the full year, we thought overall raw materials, logistics, and energy would only be $350 million. That number has now went to $700 million, as we have mentioned, and the majority of that increase is in W&P, so that creates as reported margin headwinds for us.

Aleksey Yefremov
Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst, KeyBanc Capital Markets

Thanks, Lori.

Operator

Your next question comes from Josh Spector from UBS. Please go ahead.

Josh Spector
Director of Equity Research, UBS

Yeah. Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I guess within Safety Solutions, can you comment on how the business excluding Tyvek is running? I guess, is there anything materially different there we should be thinking about from a volume perspective that might be better or worse relative to industrial production or any other metrics we should be looking out for? Thanks.

Lori Koch
CFO, DuPont

Yeah. No, those are generally performing well. We had a little bit of a shortfall in the second quarter with access to raw materials within our Nomex line, so it really wasn't a structural demand issue or an operational issue. It was we couldn't get access to some of the key inputs to make the Nomex product. Nothing to work through on the aramid side as far as asset utilization like we're seeing on the Tyvek side with the increased changeovers as we ride through the garment change.

Josh Spector
Director of Equity Research, UBS

I guess just on the demand side as well, anything changing through the quarter? Are you seeing any weakening with customers maybe pulling back on spending, or is demand still relatively steady?

Lori Koch
CFO, DuPont

No, demand's still steady in the end market, yeah.

Josh Spector
Director of Equity Research, UBS

Okay, thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from Mike Sison from Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Mike Sison
Managing Director, Wells Fargo

Hey, good morning. Nice quarter. In terms of Rogers, can you remind us what type of sales growth you expect in 2022? It sounds like it's coming on plan and looks pretty good. If there is a shortfall versus the 270 EBITDA, it sounds like as you head into 2023, the bulk of the shortfall will be somewhat within their control to close the gap.

Ed Breen
CEO, DuPont

Yeah, the items they're having operationally, all are in their control, I would say, except for the silicone supply, which obviously we're having the same issues here, so we understand it. Yeah, the others are under control, so they can work through those, as you said, and hopefully tee up well for 2023. The modeling, by the way, for them was for growth in the high single digits in 2022. They hit that obviously in the first quarter. I can't say anything about the second quarter, you know, I'm not allowed to. We would expect them to perform high single digits this year on top line. That's nice.

To Lori's point a few minutes ago, they're really seeing nice opportunities as we are on the EV side. You know, feeling good about that, work through the operational issues.

Mike Sison
Managing Director, Wells Fargo

Got it. As a quick follow-up, at the midpoint for your 2022 guidance would imply that the fourth quarter could be up sequentially versus the third quarter. That's seasonally difficult, I guess, when you look back historically. So any thoughts on why it could be better fourth quarter versus third if you were to hit the midpoint?

Lori Koch
CFO, DuPont

Yeah. The math you're getting to is about a $30 million sequential increase from Q3 at approximately $810, and then you back into about $840. It's really coming from three primary drivers. One is you don't have the headwind from the outage at Spruance, and so we had sized that at $15 million, so you're able to get that volume back in the fourth quarter. The other two key drivers are the capacity additions that we have from the water asset that we spoke about earlier and then Kapton getting production off that Kapton line. No underlying change in market, just those three items.

Mike Sison
Managing Director, Wells Fargo

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from P.J. Juvekar from Citi. Please go ahead.

P.J. Juvekar
Managing Director, Citi

Yes, good morning.

Lori Koch
CFO, DuPont

Good morning.

P.J. Juvekar
Managing Director, Citi

Thank you. What are you seeing in terms of semiconductor shortages, and how quickly can automotive production come back? Do you think it's a snapback next year, or is it more of an extended recovery in 2023 and 2024?

Lori Koch
CFO, DuPont

Yeah, I mean, I think the expectations right now are for 86 million cars produced next year. That's off of 80 this year, so still, you know, well below the high 90s where we used to be. There's still some opportunity to see continued strength and growth heading into 2024. Obviously, it'll all depend on the semiconductor chip shortage resolving itself. Even beyond that, I mean, the third quarter is expected to be up 22% and 7% sequentially. It feels like things are getting a little bit better there as we resolve some of the supply chain issues.

Ed Breen
CEO, DuPont

P.J., I'd also mention back to points Lori was talking about earlier too. We very much care about production on the EV side of things. This new DuPont portfolio is very much weighted towards that and not the ICE engine. We are more ICE engine related, I'll say, because of the M&M portfolio, which probably M&M will also sell nicely into EVs, you know. This new portfolio is very EV driven, so the growth rate of that becomes way more important. Obviously we'd like the overall growth rate of autos to go up, but it's even very weighted towards that piece.

P.J. Juvekar
Managing Director, Citi

Great. Quickly, another question on China. You know, you talked about slowdown in smartphones, but what about the property market there, which has been under pressure, and I know the government is trying to revive it. What are you seeing there, and what's your exposure to the property market in China? Thank you.

Lori Koch
CFO, DuPont

Yeah. We actually saw sequential improvement in China, Q1 over Q1, and that was on top of, you know, that extended lockdown. We were pleased with the results there. To your specific question on the construction market, we don't really have a construction footprint in China, so it wouldn't impact our overall business. The majority of our construction is in the U.S. and in Japan within Asia.

P.J. Juvekar
Managing Director, Citi

Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from our last caller for today, Frank Mitsch from Fermium Research. Please go ahead.

Frank Mitsch
President, Fermium Research

Hey, good morning, and thanks for squeezing me in. Yeah, just to follow up on China, actually. You did 6% organic growth in Asia. Obviously the data on PMI that just came out was somewhat concerning. What are you actually seeing right now in the third quarter as you progress in that part of the world?

Lori Koch
CFO, DuPont

Yeah. We expect to see improvement in China again into the third quarter. While we still year-over-year probably see it about flat, we see sequential improvement as you go from Q2 to Q3.

Frank Mitsch
President, Fermium Research

Great. Overall, you would expect volumes to be up Q3 versus Q2. Is most of that Kapton, the big driver there, or are there other businesses that you're seeing volumes materially pick up sequentially in Q3?

Lori Koch
CFO, DuPont

No. I mean, Kapton's a piece of it. That's the smartphone seasonality as well. Usually we see very high smartphone sales as we head into the Christmas season within the E&I segment and overall electronics in general as they prepare for the holidays.

Frank Mitsch
President, Fermium Research

Fantastic. Thanks so much.

Ed Breen
CEO, DuPont

Thanks, Frank.

Operator

I will turn the call back over to Chris Mecray for closing remarks.

Chris Mecray
VP of Investor Relations, DuPont

Okay. Thank you everyone for joining the call today. For your reference, a copy of this transcript will be posted on DuPont's website. This concludes our call. Thank you.

Operator

This concludes the discussion.

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