Cabot Corp Reports First Quarter Fiscal 2022 Results

Diluted loss per share of $1.57 and Adjusted EPS of $1.29

Cabot Corporation (NYSE: CBT) today announced results for its first quarter of fiscal year 2022.

Key Highlights

• Strong EBIT results of $85 million in Reinforcement Materials and $52 million in Performance Chemicals
• Positive outcome from the calendar year 2022 Reinforcement Materials customer negotiations with price increases in all regions
• Momentum in Battery Materials continued, with year-over-year volume growth of 58%
• Entered into agreement to acquire plant in China from Tokai Carbon Group to support growth in Battery Materials
• Returned $40 million in the quarter to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases

“I am very pleased with our start to fiscal 2022 as we delivered strong results with adjusted EPS 9% higher than last year’s first quarter,” said Cabot President and Chief Executive Officer, Sean Keohane. “Solid demand and strong pricing execution in the Reinforcement Materials and Performance Chemicals segments drove a 16% adjusted EPS increase sequentially. We continued to execute against our growth strategy and are particularly excited about our accelerating momentum in Battery Materials which achieved significant growth in the quarter.”

Keohane continued, “We successfully concluded our 2022 tire customer negotiations, and we are very pleased about the outcomes, having realized pricing increases in all regions while expecting volume growth in line with regional demand. In addition, we continued with our commitment to return cash to our shareholders with a return of $21 million of dividends and $19 million of share repurchases in the quarter. Our balance sheet remained strong with approximately $1.2 billion of liquidity and a net debt to EBITDA ratio of 1.8 times as of December 31, 2021.”

Financial Detail

For the first quarter of fiscal 2022, net loss attributable to Cabot Corporation was $89 million ($1.57 (loss) per diluted common share). The net loss reflects an after-tax per share charge from certain items of $2.86 driven by the accounting impact of the announced divestiture of the Purification Solutions business. Adjusted EPS for the first quarter of fiscal 2022 was $1.29 per share.

Segment Results

Reinforcement Materials – First quarter fiscal 2022 EBIT in Reinforcement Materials decreased by $3 million compared to the first quarter of fiscal 2021. The decrease in EBIT was driven by higher costs associated with utilities and maintenance, largely offset by increased volumes and improved unit margins. Higher volumes were driven by demand increases in the Asia region compared to the same quarter last year as replacement and off-the-road tire demand was strong. Higher unit margins were driven by the benefit of higher energy prices on our energy center and yield investments.

Global and regional volume changes for Reinforcement Materials for the first quarter of fiscal 2022 as compared to the same quarter of the prior year are set forth in the table below:

Performance Chemicals – First quarter fiscal 2022 EBIT in Performance Chemicals decreased by $2 million compared to the first quarter of fiscal 2021 primarily due to lower volumes that were largely offset by higher unit margins. Volumes decreased by 3% in the Performance Additives business and 20% in the Formulated Solutions business due to plant downtimes in our fumed metal oxides and specialty compounds product lines. While overall segment volumes declined, we delivered strong volume growth in products sold to battery materials applications driven by higher EV demand. Unit margins improved from favorable product mix in both our specialty carbons and fumed metal oxides product lines and improved pricing in our fumed metal oxides product line.

Purification Solutions – First quarter fiscal 2022 EBIT in Purification Solutions increased by $2 million compared to the first quarter of fiscal 2021. The increase in EBIT was largely due to lower fixed costs. During the first quarter of fiscal 2022, we reached an agreement to divest the Purification Solutions business and expect the transaction to close in the second quarter of fiscal 2022.

Cash Performance – The Company ended the first quarter of fiscal 2022 with a cash balance of $179 million. During the first quarter of fiscal 2022, cash flows from operating activities were a use of $49 million. Capital expenditures for the first quarter of fiscal 2022 were $30 million. Additional uses of cash during the first quarter included $21 million for the payment of dividends and $19 million for share repurchases.

Taxes – During the first quarter of fiscal 2022, the Company recorded a tax benefit of $12 million with an effective tax rate of 13%. The operating tax rate was 27%, which reflected $42 million of non-GAAP tax adjustments. We expect our operating tax rate for fiscal 2022 to be in the range of 27% to 28%.

Outlook

Commenting on the outlook for the Company, Keohane said, “We are very pleased with our first quarter results, and we feel good about the outlook for the fiscal year. Looking ahead to the remainder of 2022, Reinforcement Materials will benefit from the calendar year 2022 customer agreements. In our Performance Chemicals segment, we anticipate demand growth across our major product lines along with particular strength in battery materials and inkjet packaging. Our outlook for discretionary free cash flow for the full year remains strong and we believe we remain on track with our long-term guidance to generate over $1 billion during the next three years. This robust level of discretionary free cash flow would allow us to fund investments, particularly in our high growth vectors, and return capital to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. Given the strong first quarter and our expectations for the remainder for the year, we are increasing our outlook for adjusted earnings per share for fiscal year 2022 to now be in the range of $5.50 to $5.90.”

Keohane continued, “As we look ahead to the second quarter of the fiscal year, we expect demand to improve across all of our key product lines and a step up in profitability largely due to the benefit from our 2022 customer agreements. I feel we are off to a good start in executing our “Creating for Tomorrow” strategy and our outlook is in line with meeting our objectives as outlined at our December investor day.”

Earnings Call

The Company will host a conference call with industry analysts at 8:00 a.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, February 1, 2022. The call can be accessed through Cabot’s investor relations website at http://investor.cabot-corp.com

About Cabot Corporation

Cabot Corporation (NYSE: CBT) is a global specialty chemicals and performance materials company, headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. The company is a leading provider of rubber and specialty carbons, activated carbon, inkjet colorants, masterbatches and conductive compounds, fumed silica, and aerogel. For more information on Cabot, please visit the company’s website at: http://www.cabotcorp.com. The Company encourages investors and potential investors to consult the Cabot website regularly.

Forward-Looking Statements – This earnings release contains forward-looking statements. All statements that address expectations or projections about the future, including with respect to our expectations for our performance in fiscal year 2022, including our expectations for adjusted earnings per share and the strength of demand, discretionary free cash flow and the return of capital to shareholders, the factors that we expect will impact our results of operations, and our expected operating tax rate for fiscal 2022 and the expected closing of our divestiture of our Purification Solutions segment are forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to risks, uncertainties, potentially inaccurate assumptions, and other factors, some of which are beyond our control and difficult to predict. If known or unknown risks materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove inaccurate, our actual results could differ materially from past results and from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause our results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, disruption to our operations from the COVID-19 pandemic, competition from other specialty chemical companies; safety, health and environmental requirements or liabilities; volatility in the price of energy and raw materials; a significant adverse change in a customer relationship; failure to achieve growth expectations from new products, new applications and technology developments; unanticipated delays in, or increased cost of site development projects; negative or uncertain worldwide or regional economic conditions and market opportunities, including from trade relations or global health matters; and fluctuations in foreign currency exchange and interest rates. These factors are discussed more fully in the reports we file with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), particularly under the heading “Risk Factors” in our annual report on Form 10-K for our fiscal year ended September 30, 2021, filed with the SEC at www.sec.gov. We assume no obligation to provide revisions to any forward-looking statements should circumstances change, except as otherwise required by securities and other applicable laws.

Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures

To supplement Cabot’s consolidated financial statements presented on a generally accepted accounting principle (“GAAP”) basis, the preceding discussion of our results and the accompanying financial tables report Adjusted EPS, Total Segment EBIT, Total Segment EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA, our operating tax rate, Free Cash Flow and Discretionary Free Cash Flow, all of which are non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP financial measures are not computed in accordance with, or as an alternative to, GAAP, and the definitions of these measures may not be comparable to those used by other companies. Reconciliations of Adjusted EPS to net income (loss) per share attributable to Cabot Corporation, the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure, Total Segment EBIT, Total Segment EBITDA, and Adjusted EBITDA to income (loss) from continuing operations before income taxes and equity in earnings of affiliated companies, the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure of each such non-GAAP measure, operating tax rate to effective tax rate, the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure and Free Cash Flow and Discretionary Free Cash Flow to Cash flow from operating activities, the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure, are provided in the tables titled “Cabot Corporation Certain Items and Reconciliation of Adjusted EPS and Operating Tax Rate” and “Cabot Corporation Reconciliation of Non-GAAP Financial Measures.”

Management believes these non-GAAP measures provide investors with greater transparency to the information used by Cabot management in its financial and operational decision-making, allow investors to see Cabot’s results through the eyes of management, and better enable Cabot’s investors to understand Cabot’s operating performance and financial condition.

Adjusted EPS. In calculating Adjusted EPS, we exclude from our net income (loss) attributable to Cabot Corporation items of expense and income that management does not consider representative of the Company’s business operations. Accordingly, reporting earnings on an adjusted basis supplements the GAAP measure of performance and provides additional information related to the underlying performance of the business. For example, certain of the items we exclude are items that we are required by GAAP to recognize in one period that relate to activities extending over several periods or relate to single events that management considers to be unusual and infrequent, although not necessarily non-recurring. We refer to these items as “certain items.” Management believes excluding these items facilitates operating performance comparisons from period to period by eliminating differences caused by the existence and timing of certain expense and income items that would not otherwise be apparent on a GAAP basis and evaluates the Company’s operating performance without the impact of these costs or benefits. Management also uses Adjusted EPS as a key measure in evaluating management performance for incentive compensation purposes.

The items of income and expense that we exclude from our calculations of Adjusted EPS but that are included in our GAAP net income (loss) per share, as applicable in a particular reporting period, include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Global restructuring activities, which include costs or benefits associated with cost reduction initiatives or plant closures and are primarily related to (i) employee termination costs, (ii) asset impairment charges associated with restructuring actions, (iii) costs to close facilities, including environmental costs and contract termination penalties, and (iv) gains realized on the sale of land or equipment associated with restructured plants or locations.
• Legal and environmental reserves and matters, which consist of costs or benefits for matters typically related to former businesses or that are otherwise incurred outside of the ordinary course of business.
• Asset impairment charges, which primarily include charges associated with an impairment of goodwill, other long-lived assets or assets held for sale.
• Charges related to the divestiture of our Purification Solutions business, which include accelerated costs associated with the change in control and employee incentive compensation.
• Acquisition and integration-related charges, which include transaction costs, redundant costs incurred during the period of integration, and costs associated with transitioning certain management and business processes to Cabot’s processes.
• Indirect tax settlement credits, which includes favorable settlements resulting in the recoveries of indirect taxes.
• Gains (losses) on sale of a business.
• Employee benefit plan settlements, which consist of either charges or benefits associated with the termination of a pension plan or the transfer of a pension plan to a multi-employer plan.

Cabot does not provide an expected GAAP EPS range or reconciliation of the Adjusted EPS range with an expected GAAP EPS range because, without unreasonable effort, we are unable to predict with reasonable certainty the matters we would allocate to “certain items,” including unusual gains and losses, costs associated with future restructurings, acquisition-related expenses and litigation outcomes. These items are uncertain, depend on various factors, and could have a material impact on GAAP EPS in future periods.

Total Segment EBIT. Total segment EBIT reflects the sum of EBIT from our three reportable segments. In calculating Total segment EBIT we exclude from our income (loss) from continuing operations before income taxes and equity in earnings of affiliated companies, certain items and items that, because they are not controlled by the business segments and primarily benefit corporate objectives, are not allocated to our business segments, such as interest expense and other corporate costs, which include unallocated corporate overhead expenses such as certain corporate salaries and headquarter expenses, plus costs related to corporate projects and initiatives.

Total Segment EBITDA. Total Segment EBITDA is equal to Total Segment EBIT (as defined above), but further adjusted for depreciation and amortization.

Adjusted EBITDA. Adjusted EBITDA reflects Total Segment EBITDA and is further adjusted for unallocated corporate costs, which include unallocated corporate overhead expenses such as certain corporate salaries and headquarter expenses, plus costs related to corporate projects and initiatives.

Free Cash Flow. To calculate “Free Cash Flow” we deduct Additions to property, plant and equipment from cash flow from operating activities.

Discretionary Free Cash Flow. To calculate “Discretionary Free Cash Flow” we deduct sustaining and compliance capital expenditures and changes in Net Working Capital from cash flow from operating activities.

Operating Tax Rate. Our “operating tax rate” is calculated based upon management's forecast of the annual operating tax rate for the fiscal year applied to adjusted pre-tax earnings. The operating tax rate excludes income tax (expense) benefit on certain items, discrete tax items and, on a quarterly basis the timing of losses in certain jurisdictions. The income tax (expense) benefit on certain items is determined using the applicable rates in the taxing jurisdictions in which the certain items occurred and includes both current and deferred income tax (expense) benefit based on the nature of the certain items. Discrete tax items include, but are not limited to, changes in valuation allowance, uncertain tax positions, and other tax items, such as the tax impact of legislative changes. Management believes that this non-GAAP financial measure is useful supplemental information because it helps our investors compare our tax rate year to year on a consistent basis and to understand what our tax rate on current operations would be without the impact of these items.

Cabot does not provide a forward-looking reconciliation of the operating tax rate range with an effective tax rate range because, without unreasonable effort, we are unable to predict with reasonable certainty the matters we would allocate to “certain items,” including unusual gains and losses, costs associated with future restructurings, acquisition-related expenses and litigation outcomes. These items are uncertain, depend on various factors, and could have a material impact on the effective tax rate in future periods.

Explanation of Terms Used

Product Mix. The term “product mix” refers to the mix of types and grade of products sold or the mix of geographic regions where products are sold, and the positive or negative impact this has on the revenue or profitability of the business or segment.

Net Working Capital. The term “net working capital” includes accounts receivable, inventory and accounts payable and accrued expenses.