Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Innospec third quarter 2022 earnings release and conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there'll be a question and answer session. To ask a question during your session, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, David Jones, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer. Please go ahead.
Thank you. This is David Jones. The earnings release for the quarter and this presentation are posted on the company's website. During this call, we will make forward-looking statements which are predictions, projections, and other statements about future events. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the anticipated results implied by such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties are detailed in Innospec's 10-K, 10-Qs, and other filings with the SEC. Please see the SEC site and Innospec site for these relevant documents. In our discussions today, we've also included non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure is contained in the earnings release. The non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered as a substitute for or superior to those prepared in accordance with GAAP.
They're included as additional items to aid investor understanding of the company's performance in addition to the impact that such items and events had on financial results. With me today from Innospec are Patrick Williams, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Ian Cleminson, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. With that, I turn it over to you, Patrick.
Thank you, David, and welcome everyone to Innospec's third quarter 2022 conference call. This was an excellent quarter for Innospec. Volume and price mix improvements drove strong sales growth in all businesses. We delivered a 60% increase in operating income and margins expanded. Over 80% of our gross profit in the quarter came from business outside of Europe, where recessionary pressures are more prevalent. We believe we are well-positioned for both an end market and geographic perspective to navigate continued expected headwinds. In Performance Chemicals, strong personal care growth continued to offset weaker demand in smaller segments like our European home care. Overall volumes and price mix both improved in the quarter and operating income was up 43%. We do not see any change in our customers' drive towards higher performance and cleaner formulations.
Major customer projects continue to move forward, and we remain cautiously optimistic that we can achieve mid-single-digit volume growth and steady gross margin through the expected recessionary headwinds in 2023. To support additional contracted demand, we expect to complete the majority of our $70 million capacity expansion over the coming year. In Fuel Specialties, operating income grew by 5% over last year. We expect this business to be relatively resilient through any near-term economic weakness. In addition, we continue to see potential for gross margin improvement as inflation normalizes and demand for our higher-margin jet fuel additives continues to recover. Over the medium to long term, we will continue to capitalize on sustainability themes, which are opening doors for new applications with our technologies in clean fuels, higher efficiency engines, and non-engine applications.
We expect momentum to build in these areas as customers continue to look for cost-effective technologies that improve productivity and decrease emissions. In Oilfield Services, strong orders in our production chemicals business combined with further improvements in our other oilfield segments drove sharp increase in operating income. We expect reduced activity in the coming quarters versus this extremely strong third quarter. However, we continue to make progress towards a return to 2019 full-year operating income levels within the next two years. Now I will turn the call over to Ian, who will review our financial results in more detail. Then I will return with some concluding comments. After that, Ian and I will take your questions.
Thanks, Patrick. Turning to slide seven in the presentation, the company's total revenues for the third quarter were $513 million, a 36% increase from $376.1 million a year ago. Overall gross margin increased slightly by 0.4 percentage points from last year to 30.4%. EBITDA for the quarter was $59.2 million compared to $41.4 million last year, and net income for the quarter was $38.7 million compared to $23.4 million a year ago. Our GAAP earnings per share were $1.55, including special items, the net effect of which decreased our third quarter earnings by $0.19 per share. A year ago, we reported GAAP earnings per share of $0.94, which included the negative impact from special items of $0.21 per share.
Excluding special items in both years, our adjusted EPS for the quarter was $1.74 compared to $1.15 a year ago. Turning to slide eight. Revenues in Performance Chemicals for the third quarter were $159.7 million, up 20% from last year's $132.8 million. Volumes grew 4% as strong growth in personal care volumes offset volume decline in our other European markets. While a positive price mix of 26% was offset by an adverse currency impact of 10%. Gross margins of 24.5% were unchanged from last year, and operating income increased 43% from a year ago to $25.4 million. Moving on to slide nine.
Revenues in Fuel Specialties for the third quarter were $178.7 million, 14% higher than the $156.4 million reported a year ago. A favorable price mix of 30% offset a reduction in volumes of 6% and a negative currency impact of 10%. Fuel Specialties gross margins of 29.9% were one and a half percentage points below last year and will remain at the lower end of our expected range until inflation moderates. Operating income increased 5% from last year to $27.9 million. Moving on to slide 10.
Revenues in Oilfield Services for the quarter were $174.6 million, approximately double the $86.9 million in the third quarter last year, as very strong orders in production chemicals and a continued sequential recovery in other segments drove a sharp improvement. Gross margins of 36.4% were up half a percentage point on last year, and operating income of $14.2 million was an $11.5 million improvement from a year ago. Turning to slide 11. Corporate costs for the quarter were $17.4 million compared with $15.7 million a year ago, due mainly to higher performance-related remuneration accruals. The adjusted effective tax rate for the quarter was 20.1% compared to 22.3% last year as a consequence of the geographical location of taxable profits.
Moving on to slide 12. Cash generation for the quarter was $39.8 million before capital expenditures of $9.7 million. As of September 30th, 2022, Innospec had $100 million in cash and cash equivalents and no debt. Now I'll turn it back over to Patrick for some final comments.
Thank you, Ian. Our team delivered another excellent quarter with double-digit growth, improved margins, and strong cash flow. We expect economic headwinds and volatility to increase. However, we believe that our end market and geographic mix positions us well for the coming quarters. Our direct and responsive approach with our customers continues to open new opportunities for our technologies. As a result, we have an exciting pipeline of technology-led organic growth opportunities. We generated over $30 million in cash, and our net cash position returned to over $100 million. We expect cash generation to continue in the fourth quarter as we remain focused on disciplined working capital management. This quarter, we returned value to shareholders through our $2.3 million of share repurchases.
In addition, we increased our semiannual dividend to $0.65, bringing our full-year dividend to $1.28, representing a 10% annual increase. We remain well positioned to pursue complementary M&A opportunities and complete our significant organic growth projects. Now, I will turn the call over to the operator, and Ian and I will take your questions.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Once again, that is star one and one on your telephone. We will now take your first question. One moment, please. Your first question comes from the line of Mike Harrison, Seaport Research Partners. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning.
Good morning, Mike.
Good morning, Mike.
Was hoping that you could give maybe a little bit more color on what was going on in the Oilfield Services business to drive the strength. We kinda get the sense from your commentary that some of that was more one time in nature, some of it may be a little bit more sustainable. But any help that you can provide or guidance you can provide on what that means for the outlook in Q4 and into 2023 would be appreciated.
Sure, Mike. This is Patrick. Most of that growth was in the production business, and it was global. It was offshore and onshore. Some of it was a little uptake on one-off. Some of it was expansion of the business, and some of our first order into offshore production business. We will see some normalization into Q4 and a little bit of normalization going into 2023. You know, our expectations are single-digit, upper single-digit growth for that business.
All right. Thank you. Then over on the Fuel Specialties business, the volume there was down 6% year-over-year. Can you break out what you were seeing in different regions in terms of the volume performance in the quarter? Maybe also talk about some of the trends that you're seeing on volume by region.
Sure. I'll let Ian take the first part of that, Mike, then I'll finish up with his comments.
The volume is an interesting question, Mike. We are comparing ourselves against Q3 last year, which was a really strong quarter, and that was a period where we were coming out of the pandemic and were experiencing some pretty high volume growth. We've seen volume decline in pretty much most of our regions. That's as much about the sales mix as it is about anything else. You're seeing that the price mix at 30 percentage points is really high, and yet the volume's down 6%. There's definitely a mix element in there where we're selling less volume, but we're selling it at higher prices. There's also, you know, a lot of inflation in the supply chain at the moment as well.
It's pretty much across all regions. There's no real trend in there. It's not concerning us. You know, overall for the full year to date, volumes are where we'd expect them to be. You can see from our performance in Fuel Specialties, you know, we've put together another really strong quarter.
Yeah, just to add to that, Mike, you know, if you look historically on the Fuel Specialties business, it's somewhat recession-free. We call it resistant. It's just a strong business that kicks out a lot of cash flow with great technology. Our expectations as travel returns and uptake comes back, that we should still be in that single digit growth, even moving into 2023 with these unpredictable markets.
Maybe just to follow up on Fuel Specialties. We're hearing that in certain regions there are shortages of diesel fuel. Curious if you guys view that as something that is maybe a headwind to growth in some of the additives that you provide into diesel, or if that's actually driving some increased interest in maybe some of the additives that help to improve fuel economy, et cetera.
Yeah, you just hit on the backend. It's more of a tailwind and obviously there's a big push from the government to up their production of diesel and jet. As that comes on, that'll give us more opportunities. We don't view that as a headwind right now. We're more seeing it as a tailwind right now.
All right. I guess the last question I have is maybe more on the outlook and how we should be thinking about Q4 earnings. You know, last year you guys did about $1.30 in EPS. It seems like you should be on track to be able to exceed that. I guess if you're willing to provide any type of insight into what your expectations are for Q4, amid the challenging macro environment, I think investors would appreciate that. Thank you.
Sure, Mike, this is Ian. You know, we don't give specific guidance, but let me just talk sort of generally about each of the businesses. Performance Chemicals, we do expect some slowing down in Q4, sequentially, and that's quite normal. We do typically see customers destocking ahead of the year-end, plus the holiday season does have some impact. We basically see customers managing their inventory levels, coming to year-end. I think right now we're seeing customers being a little bit more proactive on that than they have been in previous years. I'd expect our Q4 performance this year to be very similar to where we were in Q4 2021.
As we move into 2023, as we said previous on previous calls, we've got major customer projects that are moving forward. We remain cautiously optimistic, I guess, that we can achieve that mid-single volume growth, and with steady gross margins. We feel like we can manage our way through those recessionary headwinds. On Fuel Specialties, you know, we do expect to show a little bit of growth over Q4 2021, and sequentially, I'd expect Q4 to be very similar to where we were in Q3. As Patrick said earlier on, we know the fuels business is pretty resistant to recession, although it's not bulletproof. In 2023 for the full year, we'd be expecting the business to be fairly stable and fairly flat against where it was in 2022.
I think Europe's gonna be a tougher environment for us, no doubt, but we do feel that we've got opportunities elsewhere globally, in different applications and in different regions. We've talked a little bit about oil field already. Q4 will be probably slightly down on where Q3 was. In 2023, as Patrick said, you know, we will sort of be more moderating that business, and it'll be slightly ahead of where it was this year for the full year, but we won't see the same performance that we're gonna see in Q3 and Q4.
Excellent. Thanks very much.
My pleasure.
Thank you. We will now go to your next question. One moment, please. Your next question comes from Jon Tanwanteng from CJS Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Good morning. Great quarter.
Morning, Jon.
My first question is, you mentioned mid-single-digit volume growth through 2023 with you know maintaining your gross margins. Was that across the entire business or is that just one of the segments? Secondly, where are the areas you might expect to see a decline next year, as you look at it?
Jon, that was, I mentioned that. That's in Performance Chemicals, mid-single digit volume, and gross margins holding around that sort of 24%-25% range.
Okay, great. The second piece, just are there any businesses you expect to be weaker through 2023, just given the pressures that are out there?
You know, we don't see that right now. We see a little more moderation. As Ian alluded to earlier, you know, you'll see a little pull down of Oilfield from third quarter. Obviously, it was an exceptional third quarter. You'll see that more normalized. I think you'll see a little more normalized in Performance Chemicals. In Fuel Specialties, as we said, is fairly resilient, but, you know, we still see a nice single digit growth across the business.
Okay, great. I think you also mentioned high single- or mid- to high single-digit growth in Oilfield going forward. Is that inclusive of the outside, you know, revenue that you got in Q3 so as you look at it on an annualized basis?
It does.
It does. Great.
Yep.
Okay. Just help us again with an update on the inflationary environment, your ability to recover margin. You know, where do things stand now? Is it moderating? Is it more the same? You know, or are there any other things that we should be thinking about as you try to, you know, bring up margins in fuels and, you know, to press for it, you know, to keep the same in the other places?
Yeah, it's moderating in some of our businesses. Inflation's still fairly high in others. I think we can all see trucking starting to come down. Some of the oleochemicals are starting to come down. We are starting to see some moderation in some of the inflationary pressures that are out there. You know, I think the other thing that we've done, and we're working really close with our customer base to work with them and their headwinds, to either A, a modification of technology or new technologies to the market. I think we've done a really good job in that area as well. You know, I think it's just something, Jon, we're gonna have to watch. You know, do you run into a double dip recession? Are we gonna see inflationary pressures for another two quarters?
These are things that we've kind of looked at internally and monitor those very close. Obviously, we'll take price actions as needed either way.
Okay, great. What is the expectation for jet fuel this holiday season, just 'cause the travel seems to have increased quite a bit? You're obviously getting the effect of them coming out of cold flow and your additives being sold in there.
Yeah. I mean, it's coming back and we see it coming back in Q3 and in Q1. You know, obviously, if there's no other COVID shutdown again. You're not gonna see a lot of improvement in Asia Pacific just due to the fact that there's a lot of shutdowns still going on in China and other areas. We are starting to see our aviation business come back. Then again, as you just said, in cold flow improvers, the winter is hitting, and typically that helps the fuel specialties business globally when you get a cold winter, and we're hoping that that's the case.
Great. Any updates on just what you're planning to do with all the cash? I know you raised the dividend. Is there any other priorities that you're thinking about?
You know, it's to keep increasing our dividends. It's to focus on buybacks when we feel opportunistic. It's to continue to fund our organic growth. I think that's the cheapest and most controlled growth and most profitable growth 'cause you're not paying a multiple on it. Then, of course, you know, last but definitely not least, is continue to look at M&A. We are still seeing a lot of deal flow right now. You know, I think we'll be ready to go when we find the right deal. The LBO markets are underwater. As you see, it's expensive debt now. So we're in a really good position if we find the right deal, and that's what we'll continue to look for over the coming months. We're
You know, Jon, we're very academic about this, and we're very patient, and we're gonna remain that way.
Got it. Thank you. Good job as usual, guys.
Thank you.
Thanks, Jon.
Thank you. We will now go to our next question. One moment, please. Your next question comes to the line of Christopher Shaw, Monness, Crespi, Hardt. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hey, good morning, gentlemen. How are you doing?
Morning, Chris.
Morning, Chris.
If I could ask one on Oilfield. You said, you know, get profitability back to 2019 levels over the next couple of years, yet, you know, sales are already ahead of 2019 levels, and I know there's a lot of probably pricing in there, but that means margins are, you know, less than half what they were. I mean, what's keeping margins low at this point? Is it cost? Is the volume not come all the way back? You know, how do you get to the 2019 profitability levels then?
It's a little bit of both, Chris, and there's also a technology play in there as well. We're moving to different technologies over time, which should help us with the margin improvement, move into 2023. Again, as you just said, it's cost, it's labor cost, it's raw material cost, it's trucking costs, all the inflationary costs that are out there right now that have hit margins too. It's a little bit of all of the above. Now, as I've said, we're starting to see that improve, and we should see further improvement on the margins as we move forward. You know, what we're excited about is we're starting to see nice profits in that business. We have a nice diversified portfolio in all three of our strong businesses.
You can see what happens in a quarter when all three businesses do well. That's what excites us. I think that our portfolio is so diversified now that we can, you know, withstand any recessionary or inflationary headwinds that we're dealing with right now.
Has Oilfield been a more difficult market to get pricing to cover costs than some of your other businesses?
It has. You know, as I said, we're just starting to see some relief there. We're changing some technologies there as well, which will help to benefit us. It's definitely been a little slower than the other businesses have.
Then just to switch to performance. This, the $70 million capacity expansion, when does that actually come online? What part of next year?
Comes on in phases. You'll see a little bit in the first half of 2023, and you'll see the remainder coming on as the last half of 2023 into early 2024.
Got it. That partly fuels your view of mid-single digit kind of growth in volumes?
That's correct.
Got it.
Even though you'll see some pullback in home care and personal care in Europe because of, you know, some of the growth that we already have signed up contractually, that's why we see the single-digit growth.
Got it. Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you. We will now go to our next question. One moment, please. Your next question comes from the line of David Silver, C.L. King & Associates. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Thank you. Good morning.
Morning, David.
Yes, good morning. I wanted to maybe start out with a couple of questions on Performance Chemicals. In particular, you know, it was quite a divergence. The price mix was up quite a bit, 26%, but volumes were maybe just a touch below where I might have expected them. I was just wondering if you could maybe provide a little more color on the 26%. In other words, how much of that was merely, I don't know, cost catch up price versus maybe the mix effect from new product introductions from a, you know, a steadily upgrading sales mix. How should we think about that 26% and how it might perform, you know, in a more stable, let's say, cost environment? Thanks.
Sure, David, this is Ian. You know, I think the first thing I would say around the volume, we grew volumes 4% globally in Performance Chemicals, and there's a real regional split there. We've continued to grow volumes really strongly in the Americas region, something like 22% year-over-year growth in volume there. That's because that's where we are focused on that personal care market, and the market's been really strong. All those new products coming through, doing extremely well. Where we've been weaker on volume is in our European region, focused around the home care. We've been flagging that for the last couple of quarters that we've seen some weakness in that market. When you combine those two regions together, that's why you get, sort of like that 4% volume growth.
I just wanted to highlight that to you. Now, when you actually drop down into the price product mix, it is really strong. The vast majority of that, as you said, it's sort of flexing towards the higher end, the higher margin personal care end. There's also still a chunk of inflation in there as well, David. You know, but once that inflation moderates and you know, the business stabilizes in terms of the split between home care and personal care, I think we'll just then revert to that mid-single-digit growth, which we expect round about that 4%-6% in 2023, which will be mainly volume driven.
Okay. Thank you for that. Just to follow up just a tiny bit. You talked about the volume split by region, weakness in Europe. You know, certainly that's a region that remains a little bit uncertain here. You did, I think, directionally point to slower kind of fourth quarter trends in your Performance Chemicals segment. Is this the case where you know you may have a quarter or so where you know the volume growth is flat or slightly negative? Is that you know on a year-over-year basis is that possible, or is this more just on a sequential basis that you're discussing maybe a little bit softer trend in the fourth quarter? Thank you.
Yeah, David, you're correct. You know, we talked earlier on about the sequentially how Q4 will be softer than Q3. We went through the reasons behind that. You know, the seasonality, the traditional destocking ahead of year-end. This is all the things that we normally see in the Performance Chemicals business. I pointed to the fact that it our expectation is that Q4 this year will be very similar to Q4 last year. In terms of volumes, I don't really expect anything particularly that high or that low against last year. As we move into 2023, our expectations are that we'll revert much more to that sort of Q2, Q3 style business, in terms of profitability, and we'll continue to see that mid-single digit volume growth year-over-year.
Okay, great. One more on Performance Chemicals, and this would be in particular regarding your growth plans. You know, I believe the way it was framed, but when the $70 million kinda two-year program was announced. I think it was framed as having, you know, a number of customer orders kind of in hand, or very well developed. I think if anything, I mean, the pace of the growth in that particular segment has exceeded your expectations, let's say, at the beginning of this year. Internally, I mean, is there any thought to either, you know, accelerating the completion of the current, you know, $70 million program?
Is it the case maybe you're working on kinda stage two, you know, the next, discretionary spend on building out the capacity and logistics capabilities? Just kinda how are you thinking about it beyond, you know, the end of next year and, you know, and given the prospects that you're seeing in hand? Thanks.
Yeah, David, we've actually been trying to escalate getting that first half of the build-out done, because we do have contractual volume. You know, the issue with the inflationary times and labor issues was getting the reactors, the personnel, the technicians, the engineers, and everybody to put these reactors in and piping in to get the volume that we need. It's not that we're slowing the first half of this project down, it's been more of a market issue than anything else. We'll continue to push. I think that you'll see us get this $70 million expansion finished in 2023. First half should be done first part of the year.
We're gonna continue to push forward due to the fact, as we said, we do have contractual volumes and, we're gonna continue to push forward.
All right. I'm gonna ask one more, and I'll stipulate up front, this question is completely unfair to ask you at this early stage. You know, I think the investment community went into yesterday thinking the elections in the United States were gonna turn out, you know, with a wave in one direction. We wake up this morning and in my opinion, you know, it's a different outcome than that. I think a number of your businesses either rely on the cost of fuel or hydrocarbons or the willingness of people to invest to produce them. You know, Patrick, I know you have you know, very comprehensive view of the industry.
What would you say has changed for your company and or your thinking in terms of, you know, capital allocation or where your growth prospects lie, you know, this morning maybe as opposed to, you know, 24 or 48 hours earlier? Has anything meaningful changed in your mind? Thanks.
Yeah. You know, I don't think it has. You know, I think that both administrations are starting to realize that you do need hydrocarbons to move forward. We're not in a position as a not only United States, but globally, to operate just strictly in the green zone. So I don't think you're gonna see a real change in the capital allocation of E&P companies. I think it's gonna be steady as they go. You know, I think it's probably good for the industry to, you know, not get to the standpoint where capital is flowing freely in that industry. I think it's very disciplined, and we're gonna stay disciplined. You know, I think everyone's probably a little surprised by the results. I won't comment one way or the other.
You know, it, David, it really does not change anything that we're fundamentally doing as a company. We didn't put any political expectations into our numbers whatsoever, nor our strategy.
Okay. That's fantastic color. Thanks very much.
Thanks, David.
Thank you. I will now hand the call back to Patrick Williams for closing remarks.
Thank you all for joining us today, and thanks to all our shareholders, customers, and Innospec employees for all your interest and support. If you have any further questions about Innospec or matters discussed today, please give us a call. We look forward to meeting up with you again to discuss our fourth quarter 2022 results in February. Have a great day. Bye-bye.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.