Participants

Sam Henrickson; Vice President and Interim Chief Financial Officer; Stepan Company

Luis Rojo; Chief Financial Officer, Vice President; Stepan Co

Dave Storms; Analyst; Stonegate

Mike Harrison; Analyst; Seaport Research Partners

Kevin Holder; Analyst; CL King and Associates

Presentation

Operator

Good morning and welcome to the Stepan Company fourth quarter 2024 earnings conference call. [Operator Instructions] It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Mr. Sam Henrickson, Vice President and Interim Chief Financial Officer of Stepan Company. Mr. Henrickson, please go ahead.

Sam Henrickson

Good morning and thank you for joining Stepan Company's fourth quarter and full year 2024 financial review. Before we begin, please note that information in this conference call contains forward-looking statements which are not historical facts.
These statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, including but not limited to prospects for foreign operations, global and regional economic conditions, and factors detailed in our securities and exchange commission files. In addition, this conference call will include discussions of adjusted income, adjusted EBITDA, and free cash flow, which are non-GAP measures.
We provide reconciliations to the comparable GAP measures in the earnings presentation and press release, which we have made available at stepan.com under the Investors section of our website. whether you are joining us online or over the phone, we encourage you to review the Investors' Life presentation.
We make these slides available at approximately the same time as when the earnings release is issued, and we hope that you find the information and perspectives helpful. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Luis Rojo, our president and chief executive officer.

Luis Rojo

Thank you, Sam Good morning and thank you all for joining us today to discuss our fourth quarter and full year 2024 results. I plan to share highlights of the full year performance, and will also share updates on our key strategic priorities, while Sam will provide additional details on our financial results.
The company reported fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA of $35 million down 7% versus the prior year and full year adjusted it out of $187 million. we are disappointed with our overall financial performance in 2024, we advanced our strategic investments and took the necessary steps to return the company to profitable growth.
I am proud of the resiliency and work and dedication of the entire organization. Full year adjusted EBITDA grew 4% versus prior year despite several one-time events that negatively impacted earnings, and the pre-operating expenses on our new Pasadena site.
Surfactant and specialty products delivered a strong double-digit adjusted EBITDA growth, partially offset by softer demanding polymers. global volumes grew 1%, driven by 2.5% growth in surfactant business. we are encouraged by the surfactant growth across several of our key strategic end markets.
We finished the year with $50.5 million of adjusted net income, which was flat versus the prior year. Strong earnings growth in surfactant and specialty products was fully offset by polymers. free cash flow for the year was positive at $39 million, and in line with our expectations and our operating plan.
The company delivered $48 million in pre-tax cost out during 2024, mainly through disciplined efforts in supply chain and workforce productivity actions taken in the last quarter of 2023.
During the fourth quarter of 2024, the company paid $8.7 million in dividends to shareholders. Our board of directors declared a quarterly cash dividend on a Stepan common stock of $0.385 per share, payable on March 14, 2025.
Stepan has paid an increased dividend for 57 consecutive years. Sam will now share some details about our fourth quarter and 2024 results.

Sam Henrickson

Thank you, Louis. my comments will generally follow the slide presentation. Let's start with slide five to recap the quarter. fourth quarter of 2024 adjusted net income was $2.8 million, $0.12 per diluted share versus $7.5 million, or $0.33 per diluted share for the fourth quarter of last year. the 63% decrease mainly due to $4.4 million of higher pre-operating expenses, our new accostilation investment in Pasadena, Texas, and $2.9 million related to a one-time tax proceeding reserve in Latin America.
The previously announced CEO transition also impacted quarterly results by $2.8 million. adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $35 million, down 7% -over-year. Global sales volume was down 1% versus prior year as double-digit growth in several surfactant end markets was fully offset by softer demand and rigid polymers. cash from operations was $68 million for the quarter. and free cash flow was $32 million.
In the fourth quarter, the company recognized $13 million in pre-tax savings out of the $48 million for the full year of 2024. slide 6 shows the total company net income bridge for the 4th quarter compared to last year's 4th quarter and breaks down the decrease in adjust net income.
Because this is net income, the figures noted are on an after-tax basis. We will cover each segment in more detail, but to summarize, we delivered operating income growth in surfactants and specialty products, fully offset by lower operating results than polymers.
Corporate expenses increased primarily due to the higher expenses associated with the previously announced CEO transition in the fourth quarter of 2024. slide seven shows the total company adjusted average for the fourth quarter compared to last year's fourth quarter.
Adjusted EBITDA was $35 million versus $38 million in the previous year, a 7% decrease year over year. We will cover each segment in more detail, but to summarize, we delivered adjusted EBITDA growth in surfactants and specialty products, fully offset by global polymers.
The lower corporate expenses reflect savings related to productivity efforts implemented at the end of 2023. Slide eight focuses on the surfactant segment results. Surfactant net sales were $379 million for the quarter, a 3% increase versus the prior year. Selling prices were up 5%, primarily due to improved product and customer mix.
Sales volume was up 1% year over year, driven by double-digit growth within the agricultural and oilseed end markets along with our distribution partners. this growth was partially offset by lower demand within the consumer products and markets.
Foreign currency translation negatively impacted net sales by 3%. Surfactant adjusted EBITDA increased $3 million or 10% versus the prior year. this increase was primarily driven by higher sales volume, favorable product and customer mix, and margin recovery.
Higher pre-opening expenses at the company's new accostellation facility being built in Pasadena, Texas and the tax proceeding reserve in Latin America partially offset these drivers. Now, on slide nine, polymer net sales were $130 million for the quarter, a 12% decrease versus the prior year.
Selling prices decreased 4%, primarily due to the pass-through of lower raw material costs and competitive pressures. sales volume declined 9% in the quarter, primarily due to an 11% decrease in global rigid polyo's volume to sluggish demand and competitive pressure.
We believe the sluggish demand is related to continued global macroeconomic uncertainties, overall lower construction activity and a higher interest rate environment. Specialty polyols volume was up the overview. Foreign currency translation positively impacted net sales by 1%.
Polymer adjusted EBITDA increased $9 million or 44% versus the prior year, primarily due to the 9% decline in sales volume. finally, specialty product net sales were $17 million for the quarter, a 10% increase versus the prior year, primarily due to higher sales volume and higher selling prices.
Sales volume was up 32% versus the prior year and adjusted EBITDA increased 65%. The increase in adjusted EBITDA was primarily due to margin recovery and volume growth within the medium chain triglycerides product line.
Turning to slide ten, which shows the total company adjusted EBITDA bridge for full year 2024 compared to full year 2023. djusted EBITDA was $187 million versus $180 million in the prior year. the 4% increase -over-year despite one-time extra costs and higher pre-operating expenses associated with our Milster Pesadena site.
We delivered adjusted EBITDA growth in surfactants and specialty products partially offset by lower polymers performance. polymer results decreased primarily driven by lower global rigid polyol demand and competitive pressures.
Profit expenses were higher mainly due to the Asia fraud event and the CBO transition. Excluding these events, profit expenses were down -over-year due to workforce productivity efforts implemented at the end of 2023.
Overall, the company delivered $48 million in cost savings despite the flood event at Milster during the first half of 2024 and the Asia fraud event.
Next, on slide 11, free cash flow was positive at $39 million for the year, up $125 million year by year as capital investments returned to normalized levels and working capital decreased. during the year, we deployed $123 million against capital investments and $34 million for dividends. now on slides 12 and 13, Luis will update you on our strategic priorities and capital investments.

Luis Rojo

Thanks, SAM. I will focus my comment on our strategic priorities. Our customers will always remain at the center of our strategy and innovation efforts. Our long-standing tier one customers value our technical capabilities and our ability to manufacture and deliver quality products at the scale they need.
Our tier one customer base remains a solid foundation of our business. continue our new customer acquisition with tier two and three tier customers remains a key priority. this is an important and profitable growth channel within our fact and business. for the full year of 2024, our volume grew high single digits, and we added over 1,700 new customers.
our end market diversification strategy remains a key focus area. In 2024, we grew double digits in oil fields and in our construction and industrial solution businesses. after a difficult first half of the year, our agricultural business grew volume 30% versus prior year in the second half of 2024. insulation remains a critical enabler of a more sustainable and energy efficient world.
Our polymer business continues to focus on developing the next generation of real polio technologies that can increase the energy efficiency and cost performance of our cost insulation products. additionally, we're excited about the new products we're introducing in the growing spray fo and market. post and operational excellence remains as a key priority area.
During 2024, the company recognized $48 million in pre-tax savings, despite unfavorable one-time events. These savings were partially offset by pre-operating expenses of our new Pasadena site, the CEO transition, and overall inflation.
But in 2024, the company made significant expenses and caps investments to improve the resiliency of our supply chain network. These investments will improve our customer service levels and reduce potential production disruptions in the future.
Moving on to slide 13, construction our new consultation production facility in Pasadena, Texas is nearing completion, and we expect the plan to start up in the first quarter of 2025. we expect the full contribution run rate of the plan to be achieved during the second half of 2025.
To conclude, I'm excited and energized to continue our focus on accelerating our business strategies to improved execution, to drive consistent volume growth, marginal improvement, and free cash flow generation.
We believe adjusted IIA will improve in all our reporting segments. The second thing is executing our opportunities to grow volume, delivering improved product and customer needs, and further progress, our cost out and cost avoidance initiatives.
We are optimistic that polymer volumes will increase as we execute our innovation and growth plans. we believe our fact and business will experience continued growth in our key strategic and markets.
As previously announced, we expect our Pasadena facility will start up in the first quarter of 2025 and enable us to deliver volume growth and supply chain savings during the year. we believe we are positioned well to deliver full year adjusted dividat and adjust the net income growth and positive free cash flow in 2025.
This concludes our prepared remarks. at this time, we would like to turn the call over for questions. Gigi, please review the instructions for the questions portions of today's call.

Question and Answer Session

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Dave Storms from Stonegate.

Dave Storms

Appreciate that. Okay, just kind of wanted to start, with your facts. Ag had a really strong quarter, and you've mentioned in the past that stepping kind of goes the way of ag. How much more runway do you see in Ag through the balance of 2025?

Luis Rojo

Great question, Dave. So look, we had a very strong second half in our Ag business. As I said in my prepared remarks, the Ag business grew 30% in the second half, so 22% in Q3 and 37% in Q4. So we are actually seeing the acceleration of the growth in the Ag business after a difficult first half with all the de-stocking that we still saw in that end market.
We believe, based on the low base that we have in the first half of 2024, we expect that double digit growth to continue. And clearly the act business is coming back. So we are positive that we should continue seeing the double digit growth in the first half of 2025.

Dave Storms

Understood, thank you. And then just turn to polymers, obviously a challenged quarter and year would you characterize the challenges and polymers as across the board, or are there any pockets of strength, or green shoots that we could look at there?

Luis Rojo

Good point, Dave. If you think about our 2024 performance and why we are disappointed with the overall financial results of the company, we can do better and we are capable of doing better. You saw that in surfactants we still grew 15% adjusted EBITDA in the year despite all the investments that we did in Pasadena and despite all the one-time events that we have.
I just want to clarify that the reserve that we created in Latin America for the tax item is an -the-line reserve. It's not in the tax line, so that's actually above the line and impacting operating income and pre-tax.
Surfactants did okay, specialty products had an outstanding year, almost doubling the operating income and really where we saw sluggish demand was in our polymers business with high interest rate, with slow construction activity, with challenges in Europe. We grew our specialty polymers business.
We had a great year in China despite all the issues in China, our polymer business in China is growing nicely. So there are pockets of strength in our polymer business, and we need to, of course, grow the core, which is North America polymers, and we believe that we have a good plan for 2025.
As I said in my prepared remarks, we're introducing in, we're launching a spray for market, and we believe the market should grow. Overall, the market should grow in 2025 with all the backlogs that we have, in re-roofing and remodels and all of that.

Dave Storms

Understood, thank you for that caller and I'll get back in queue.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Mike Harrison from Seaport Research Partners.

Mike Harrison

Hi, good morning. Can you hear me okay?

Luis Rojo

I can hear you, Mike. Perfect.

Mike Harrison

Great, thank you very much. I was surprised to see the surfactants price mix positive in the 5% level there. You mentioned that was mostly product mix and customer mix, but maybe help us understand a little bit more what you're seeing in that price mix number as we're starting to look into next year. Should price mix be kind of flattish or could it be positive for the full year 2025?

Luis Rojo

Good point, Mike. As we said, our strategy continues to be growing with tier two, tier three customers and of course getting as much business as possible with tier one. Everything is a priority, but tier two, tier three deliver a positive mix of well-growing high single digits in the tier two, tier three space while total surfactants you saw that the volume grew 2.5%. When you think about it from a customer point of view, we continue having a positive mix by growing faster the tier two, tier three segments.
Then on the product side, we had a great, as I mentioned before, we had a great ag up second half and Q4 was stellar growing 37%. Oil field continues growing very nicely and that provides a positive price mix. We are very pleased with how we are returning the surfactant business, which is at the end 70% of the company to growth and to growth levels that are pretty healthy. We are very pleased with how we are returning the surfactant business and those places where we are growing provide that positive price mix that you saw.

Mike Harrison

Alright, very helpful. And then, I was hoping, Louise, that you could help us, level set the starting point for 2025e but if we look at 2024 as you referenced, there were a lot of unusual items. There were some outages, the CEO and the tax issues this quarter and the Pasadena startup costs that that presumably don't repeat.
I also assume though that there's maybe some incentive comp, that was running below normal, maybe some discretionary costs that that start to come back, and maybe some FX headwinds. So a lot of different moving pieces. I was hoping that you could just help us bridge the 100 call it 185 or $190 million. Aviva you did in 2024, how might we think of a more normalized starting point, as we look at 2025.

Luis Rojo

Great point, Mike, and thanks for pushing me for guidance, which I'm not going to provide. So, but let me say something because we have been trying to be very clear and very transparent with the numbers and the one-timers that we had. You saw the meal sale was an $18 million impact in 2024.
And when you think about all the other items, Asia, the transition, the taxes in Latin America, so we're talking about more than $30 million. In one-time events that are, that we really, we have a strong cost avoidance and cost out program in 2025 to ensure that we don't repeat those.
So if you think about our performance on the 187. Of course we are very disappointed about those 30+ million dollars. Pasadena, of course, we have to spend all this money. We have to hire the people. We have to train the people before the site is up and running.
We started some of the depreciation already because there are a lot of areas of the plants that are functioning. so those costs will continue, but then you will see the revenue and the supply chain savings from the plant as the plant starts up and we get to full run rates in the second half of 2025. You are going to see the savings that can compensate the extra cost that you saw in 2024.
And we have been very clear, I mean, around $4 million per quarter. So we have provided that data and that's the piece that we need to offset in the future with the revenue of the plant and the supply chain savings from the plant, right? And we need to avoid the $30 million issues that we had. I think I was clear in a few calls previously that when you saw 2024 and you excluded some of those items, we were actually performing at the $60 million EIA per quarter. I'm not saying that's my guidance.
I'm Saying that's where this team should be capable of doing without those one-timer effects. So the team is committed to turn around the profitability of the company in 2025 and we are working hard and the whole team is working hard to make that happen.

Mike Harrison

All right, thank you for that and then last question for me is just in thinking about the first quarter, and the impact of Pasadena you, you've mentioned that it's nearing completion and going to be starting up, but presumably, we're still going to have.
Another $4million dollars dollar I thought headwind from Pasadena still being in its very early ramp stages, and I was curious, are there any other kind of one time or unusual factors we need to keep in mind as we're thinking about Q1?

Luis Rojo

No, you're fully correct on the Pasadena comment. We're expecting to start up in Q1.
What I will say is that Q1, I mean, we are what, 60% into the quarter, we're a week number 8. From the 13 weeks of the quarter and as I said before, ACT continues to do well. Oil field continues to do well, our distribution partners continues to do well.
So We are seeing a good start of 2025, but of course this is only 78 weeks and we still have to deliver the quarter and the year. There are a lot of moving pieces with tariffs and many other moving pieces as you can imagine, but so far we have a good start for the year. and the only one time, my, the only one timer will be the only one timer will be Pasadena.

Mike Harrison

Perfect thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Kevin Holder from CL King and Associates.

Kevin Holder

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking our questions. This is Kevin on for Dave Silver. Good morning. I just wanted to start off with a few clarifications. Good morning, Louise. I just want to start off with a few, clarifications with, the Pasadena facility.
Can you maybe give us a bit of guidance, on how to look at interest expense and depreciation, through 2025 as you kind of begin to ramp up production kind of in the Pasadena facility.

Luis Rojo

Thank you, Kevin, for the question. We have provided guidance in the slides about our depreciation forecast for the year. We provided 128 to 132, guidance of call it a 130 in the midpoint, so that's mainly.
The case versus 2024 is mainly the Pasadena site, and again, I mean, all of that, can vary a little bit based on timings and based on when each reactor is going online or not, so, that can, that can change a little bit. But what I'm planning to do is one, the site is up and running, and once we have more clarity on the qualification of the new SKUs, etc.
In April, we can talk a little bit more about how we see the second half. And what should be, any savings or any modeling that you need to do in your models, about the second half. I want to see the plan up and running and I want to have a little bit more details before we can talk about the implications for the second half. You see the depreciation already in our forecast. and we will update you more in April.

Kevin Holder

Great, thank you for that. That's very helpful. And then maybe kind of I want to switch gears kind of towards current, currency rates and the strengthening dollar. What is, your sensitivity to recurrencies in the EUR, the Mexican peso, and the Brazil Brazilian rei?

Luis Rojo

Yeah, no, good point. look, we have, the majority of the impact could be the EUR. I mean, EUR sitting at 103 or 104 or 102 of the, some people are already talking about parity. That, that's our main, risk, right? I mean, it's very hard to do pricing in Europe just because of FX, that's not the dynamic in that environment.
I'm not worried about Mexico and Brazil, our costs. Structure is a lot based on local currencies, so you see the help in the cost structure as well. So the net net impact is really not material when you think about Brazil or Mexico. The only risk that we need to continue managing is the EUR and and I believe it, it's still, it still manageable in our total numbers.

Kevin Holder

Great, thank you for that. And then maybe my last one kind of turning to China and maybe kind of your polymer's business there. Can you maybe talk about your expectations in the construction market in China and maybe kind of your expectations in terms of growing spray foam into that market as well. Thank you.

Luis Rojo

No, great question. And what I would say is that the China team has done an outstanding job in diversifying the business. So when you think about our polymer business in China, it's not really focused. 100% in roofing or construction.
I mean, it's a very diversified polymer business going into many end markets including, LNG ships and including many other end markets. So that, that's what the team has been able. To do and that's why we keep growing at a very nice rate, alright it's a something all business, but we're growing very nicely in China. So we are not exposed to the whole construction and residential issue that you see in China these days. We're not exposed to that.

Kevin Holder

Great thank you that's very helpful. I'll hop back in the queue.

Operator

Thank you. At this time, I would not like to turn the conference back to Louis for closing remarks.

Luis Rojo

Thank you very much for joining us in today's call. We appreciate your interest and ownership in the SE and Company as a safe and productive and great day. Thank you.

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.