Perimeter Solutions Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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May 9, 2024

There are 7 speakers on the call.

Operator

Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Seth Barker, Head of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Speaker 1

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Perimeter Solutions' Q1 2024 Earnings Call. Speaking on today's call are Haitham Khoury, Chief Executive Officer and Kyle Sabol, Chief Financial Officer. We want to remind anyone who may be listening to a replay of this call that all statements made are as of today, May 9, 2024, and these statements have not been nor will they be updated subsequent to today's call. Also, today's call may contain forward looking statements.

Speaker 1

These statements made today are based on management's current expectations, assumptions and beliefs about our business and the environment in which we operate, and our actual results may materially differ from those expressed or implied on today's call. Please review our SEC filings for a more complete discussion of factors that could impact our results. The company would also like to advise you that during the call, we will be referring to non GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA. The reconciliation of and other information regarding these items can be found in our earnings press release and presentation, both of which will be available on our website and on the SEC's website. With that, I will turn the call over to Haitham Khoury, Chief Executive Officer.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Seth.

Speaker 3

Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us. As always, I'll start on Slide 3 with summary comments on our strategy. As we stated repeatedly, our goal is to deliver private equity like returns with the liquidity of a public market. We plan to attain this goal by owning, operating and growing uniquely high quality businesses. We define uniquely high quality businesses through the following 5 very specific economic criteria.

Speaker 3

1, recurring and predictable revenue streams 2, long term secular growth tailwinds 3, products that account for critical but small portions of larger value streams 4, significant free cash flow generation with higher returns on tangible capital and 5, the potential for opportunistic consolidation. We believe that these 5 economic criteria are present at our current businesses and we use these criteria to evaluate potential new acquisitions. As described on Slide 4, we seek to drive long term equity value creation by a consistent improvement in our 3 operational value drivers, which are number 1, profitable new business number 2, continual productivity improvements and number 3, pricing to reflect the value our products and services provide. In addition to our 3 operational value drivers, we seek to maximize equity value creation through a clear focus on the allocation of our capital as well as the management of our capital structure. Turning now to our financial results on Slide 5 and starting with fire safety.

Speaker 3

Recall that the Q1 is usually Fire Safety's smallest quarter of the year and a quarter in which the business has typically historically reported an adjusted EBITDA loss. Fire Safety delivered markedly improved year over year financial results in the Q1 of 2024, much as the business did in the prior quarter. Fire Safety revenue increased 34% year over year in Q1, while the business was close to breakeven on an adjusted EBITDA basis versus a negative $3,400,000 adjusted EBITDA loss in the Q1 of 'twenty 3. The year over year improvement in Fire Safety's revenue and adjusted EBITDA was primarily driven by our Suppressants business, where our 3P's operating strategy continues to drive performance. Specifically, our focused R and D investments into fluorine free technology is driving profitable new business by our market leading product portfolio.

Speaker 3

Our focus on pricing our products at significant value they provide is driving higher per unit revenue and profitability. And finally, our rigor around eliminating excess costs via consistent and measurable productivity initiatives is contributing to adjusted EBITDA growth in excess of revenue growth. Turning to Specialty Products. After several slow quarters, which we attributed to destock activity throughout the Specialty Chemicals supply chain, specialty products delivered solid financial results in the Q1. The business is 37% adjusted EBITDA margin, roughly in line with the business' margins prior to the destock period, illustrates the point we repeatedly emphasized around Specialty Products' resilient underlying unit economics through the destock period.

Speaker 3

While we're clearly encouraged by Specialty Products' Q1 performance, we've also been candid around our surprise at the depth and duration of the destock.

Operator

As such,

Speaker 3

we will allow more time to pass before offering projections around end market demand in this business. Turning to cash and capital allocation. We repurchased approximately 3,000,000 shares in the Q1 at an average price of $4.79 Recall that we repurchased approximately 12,200,000 shares last year at an average price of $5.24 We have approximately $97,000,000 remaining on our existing repurchase authorization and we ended the Q1 with approximately $34,000,000 of cash on our balance sheet. As I did last call, I'll touch on our approach to capital allocation, including M and A. We're confident that our 3 piece operating strategy will create significant value when applied to the right businesses.

Speaker 3

The right businesses are defined by the 5 target economic criteria I covered on Slide 3. Our confidence in M and A driven value creation is based on the improvement our 3 piece operating strategy has delivered in each of our retardants, depressants and specialty products businesses over the past 2 years. Much of this improvement is evident in our reported results and commentary, including in Specialty Products and Suppressants. We expect the balance of this 3P driven improvement, particularly in our retardants business to be evident in a more normalized fire season. As enthusiastic as we are about M and A driven value creation, we're constantly evaluating the IRR trade offs between our different capital allocation alternatives.

Speaker 3

We ultimately expect to deploy all of our excess free cash flow as well as the incremental leverage capacity we expect to generate through organic EBITDA growth towards the highest expected IRR combination of M and A, share repurchases and special dividends. Finally, and as I've done over the last several earnings calls, I will reassert our conviction that perimeter is the gold standard as far as the efficacy and safety of our products, the quality of our service and the passion, dedication and integrity of our team. This is reflected in our ongoing strong market positions. I will also reassert that we will never take our market leadership positions for granted. Rather, we will always relentlessly push to raise the bar on ourselves.

Speaker 3

Between the clear superiority of our products, services and people,

Speaker 4

our fiercely competitive spirit and our ever vigilant mindset, we expect to thrive in all future environments. And with that, I will turn the call over to Kyle. Thanks, Atham. 1st quarter sales in our fire safety business increased 34% year over year to $25,200,000 while Q1 adjusted EBITDA was negative $200,000 an improvement from negative $3,400,000 in the Q1 of 2023. As Haitham noted, consistent with the past several quarters, the year over year improvement was driven by particularly strong year over year performance in our suppressants business as well as continued solid 3Ps implementation across our entire fire safety business.

Speaker 4

As is typical, our retardant sales were relatively modest in the 1st quarter and concentrated amongst customers in South America and Australia. I'll call out that the significant February fires across Texas and Oklahoma drove very modest Q1 retardant activity due primarily to the fact that regional air bases were not open when the fires ignited and quickly spread as well as significant turn in weather conditions once bases did open. 1st quarter sales in our specialty products business increased 35% year over year to 33 point $9,000,000 while 1st quarter adjusted EBITDA increased 91% to $12,400,000 The year over year improvement was due primarily to higher market demand as well as continued strong unit economics driven by our pricing and productivity actions. 1st quarter consolidated sales increased 35% year over year to $59,000,000 Our 1st quarter consolidated adjusted EBITDA increased almost fourfold year over year to $12,100,000 Moving below adjusted EBITDA, interest expense in the Q1 was 10,600,000 dollars in line with our quarterly run rate. Depreciation was $2,600,000 in Q1, while amortization expense was $13,800,000 Cash paid for income tax was approximately $800,000 in the Q1.

Speaker 4

CapEx was approximately $1,600,000 in the Q1. Our long term expectations for interest expense, depreciation, tax rate and CapEx are unchanged and summarized on Slide 6. Our long term expectations for net working capital is also unchanged. Although as I've noticed previously, we expect to receive some benefit from working capital in 2024 given our significant inventory position. We ended the quarter with approximately $675,000,000 of senior notes, cash of approximately $34,000,000 and approximately 145,000,000 basic shares outstanding.

Speaker 4

With that, I'll hand the call back to the operator for Q and A.

Operator

Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer Our first question is from Josh Spector with UBS.

Speaker 5

Hi, good morning, everyone. It's Chris Perrella on for Josh. I wanted to follow-up on the strength in specialty. Is there restocking that took place in the business in the Q1? Or should we think about that as strong growth and at a good run rate for the business for the rest of 'twenty four?

Speaker 2

Yes. Hey, Chris. Hessam here. So the latter. We don't think there was any destocking in Q1.

Speaker 2

We think it was a natural rebound off of the depressed levels of the last 4 or 5 quarters.

Speaker 5

All right. No, I appreciate the color on that. And then switching over to fire safety, the fire season to date, you had the higher burn acreage in Texas. Given some of the noise in the first quarter, how would you think about the trends in the fire season and how it relates to PRM?

Speaker 2

I don't think there's much, if anything, to extrapolate from Q1 into the balance of the year. The acres burned number due to the Texas and Oklahoma fires were significant. As Kyle pointed out, their financial impact on our Q1 was largely insignificant and I think too early to tell. It's unpredictable. Too early to tell.

Speaker 2

It's unpredictable and we'll find out in the next 90, 120 days here, But it's very, very hard to prognosticate with any confidence at this point.

Speaker 5

No, I appreciate that. And then just one more on working capital. Where are you targeting that for the year? And is that going to be positive for 2024?

Speaker 4

Yes. Chris, it's Kyle. We do expect that we will receive a benefit compared to our normal long term guidance that we laid out on Slide 6 this year. And when we look through that, the timing of that is going to come through and the big piece of that will come a little bit in Q2 and more predominantly in Q3. So we've talked about previously, we have a more robust inventory position that we usually hold.

Speaker 4

A good portion of the reduction that will be made in that to the extent that we're able to do so will be during the fire season. So we'll see some of that benefit coming through predominantly in Q3.

Operator

Our next question is from Dan Kutz with Morgan Stanley.

Speaker 6

Hey, thanks. Good morning. Hi, Dan. So I just wanted to ask about the UAFAs calling from the U. S.

Speaker 6

Fire Service to kind of revisit and revise its PPL qualification process. I guess the first part of the question is just simply are any PRM products at risk from this prequalification process? I'd assume no, because it sounds like in all of the confirm that. And then, I guess, secondly, a lot of to confirm that. And then I guess secondly, a lot of folks are trying to wrap their head around what the timeline could be for the U.

Speaker 6

S. Fire service to potentially revisit and revamp this process. It sounds like it's a pretty old process. So maybe the answer to this question is no, not really. But I'm just wondering if there's any relatively recent experience you have with revisions or updates to the QPL process and any read throughs to the potential revision of the process today?

Speaker 6

Thanks.

Speaker 2

Yes. So, two good questions. Thanks, Dan. On the first one, you're thinking about it right. We feel very good about all our products on the QPL and certainly expect no changes there.

Speaker 2

On the push from the air tanker community or I would say more safety focused testing to avoid frankly, the pretty close call those guys had with a competing product. We're absolutely on the same page as the air tankers, air tanker companies, as UEFA, which is the Industry Association, as the Forest Service, which is driving much of this reexamination, And then as the regulatory agencies that are, I think, very, very appropriately looking at what happened and trying to improve safety, NIST, NTSB, etcetera. So we think this is a very, very healthy process. It's a process our industry exists to drive a safety mission. Our company truly exists to drive a safety mission.

Speaker 2

Absolutely everything takes a distant backseat to the safety and efficacy of our products, to keeping the air tanker pilots who carry our product and their planes safe, to keeping the wildlife firefighters who are risking their lives day in, day out, fighting fires with our product being dropped around them to keep them safe, safe and ultimately keeping community safe. And any calls be it from the industry association, our customers, regulatory agencies to look at the testing and approval process with an eye towards increased safety and efficacy. We're just huge, huge proponents of and are frankly very, very pleased with some of the developments over the past few weeks.

Speaker 6

Great. That's really helpful color. And sorry, Kyle, to batter this again, but I just wanted to come back to the working capital and inventory question and just confirm. So if I look at past 1st quarters, you guys would invest a little bit in inventory. This quarter was basically flat.

Speaker 6

Is the interpretation of that that there's maybe less runway than you contemplated a quarter ago for the incremental tailwind versus your normal long term working capital framework? Or are you guys still pretty confident that are we kind of in a similar place today as we were a quarter ago in terms of the magnitude of what you think that tailwind can be?

Speaker 4

Dan, I think you just said it extremely well. We're in the same place we were a quarter ago as regards to our working capital view for the year. The important point to recognize and the difference from our long term assumptions is that inventory position. We entered the year with a substantially more robust inventory position than we normally would. When you look at the use of working capital specifically as it relates to inventory, typically Q2 is a reasonably meaningful use of cash for that as we build that inventory into the fire season.

Speaker 4

That trend in Q2 will be muted this year and then we will see we're likely to see a reduction in that inventory in Q3 as the fire season gets going.

Speaker 6

Got it. Super helpful and very clear. Thank you. Maybe if I could just sneak one last one in and, Ketan, this might be for you. But I know sometimes some investors aren't huge fans of special dividends or special dividends versus buybacks.

Speaker 6

I was just wondering if you could talk us through what scenario or what the situation would be where special dividends might rank the highest in your capital allocation framework? Just broadly what kind of would be the circumstances where that might be the preferred capital deployment method? Thanks.

Speaker 2

Another very good question. So let me walk you through a principle, Dan, and then let me walk you through essentially the process by which we sort of express the principle. The first principle is cash on our balance sheet is capital that belongs to our shareholders. And we have an obligation and a duty to put that capital to work on their behalf at appropriately high IRRs. That's literally how we think about and talk about cash on our balance sheet.

Speaker 2

And cash sitting on the balance sheet earning a couple of percent interest rates is woefully insufficient for what we owe our shareholders as far as a return on their cash, which begs the question, all right, if you're not going to stockpile cash on the balance sheet, what are you going to do with it? And the answer is, we are very focused on deploying it at high IRRs. And I think there is a clear waterfall. There is no company we know better than perimeter. There is no company we believe in more than perimeter.

Speaker 2

There is no company where we have a better and more specific view on future value than perimeter. And therefore, when we believe the IRR on share buybacks is above our long term return hurdle, which we described at the opening of every call as private equity like return to the liquidity of public market, we're going to deploy cash into buybacks as priority 1. Number 2 is M and A. We are very and increasingly confident that we can take our 3 piece playbook based on driving profitable new business, driving constant measurable productivity and pricing our products to the value they provide and meaningfully improve margins and cash flows at acquired businesses. We believe we're 3 for 3 with our 3 businesses at perimeter.

Speaker 2

I think the results are clear on 2 and hopefully will be on our retardant business when we have a more normal season. And we think we're going to apply it again and again and drive real value. And therefore, when there is an acquisition opportunity on the table where we believe the playbook applies, we can get the deal done. And again, the IRRs are above our status threshold, we're going to do that. Now, if we ever find a scenario where we are not buying our stock back because the IRR doesn't justify it and we don't believe we're going to find actionable acquisitions over the near medium term that hit our return threshold, then our options simply becomes forward cash on the balance sheet or return it to its owners, in which case the answer is very clear.

Speaker 2

We'll return it to its owners, ARP shareholders, and they can decide how to allocate it.

Speaker 6

Very clear and super helpful. Thanks a lot, guys. I'll turn it back.

Speaker 2

Yes. Thanks, Dan.

Operator

Our next question is from Josh Spector with UBS.

Speaker 5

Hi, guys. It's Chris Perrella again. Just a quick one. Can you comment on fire your outlook for fire retardant pricing for the year?

Speaker 2

The short answer, Chris, and I'm sorry, is no. We just don't talk about car pricing. What I will point you to, which I think will be quite responsive, is our very, very, very consistent philosophy on pricing. I mean, this is unwavering, has never changed, will never change. We are truly obsessed, obsessively focused on listening to our customer, understanding where their pain points are, understanding what they perceive as max value and working really, really hard, be it with our R and D team, with our service team, whatever it may be to improve our product and service and drive more value to the customer.

Speaker 2

And we think we're really good at that. Once you do that and you offer the customer more value, it behooves us to then take price so we continue to price our product commensurate with the value it provides customers and everybody wins in that case. You solve your customers' biggest pain point, you've provided them with material value, they're typically more than happy to pay some premium for that incremental value. And we're also thrilled. We've delighted our customer, and we've done good work for our bottom line and our shareholders.

Speaker 2

And therefore, while we're never going to comment on pricing in any given year, we are simply not doing our jobs if we deviate from that playbook. And I think the direction that the playbook suggests our pricing should go year in, year out is crystal clear.

Speaker 5

I appreciate the color on that. And then just one quick one. For Mil Spec. Does that have an impact in 2024 or is that a slow build for that product?

Speaker 2

So, I would say both. It had an impact in the second half of twenty twenty three. It had an impact in Q1. It should certainly have an impact throughout the balance of the year, but Mil Spec is not a one shot thing. I referred to this on my prior call.

Speaker 2

MILF, there are a number of chunky important MILF spec approvals, which are separate from one another. You have aircraft rescue, you have fixed system sprinkler, you have saltwater, you have commercial airport, so on and so forth. And our hope and certainly our plan over the coming quarters and years is to keep being first to market with these various approvals, therefore, unlocking incremental chunks of mill spec and continuing to benefit from this opportunity over the long term as we clearly are in 2024.

Speaker 5

Thank you very much. I appreciate all the color.

Speaker 2

Yes, you bet.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of the question and answer session and there are no time for today's call. I I'd like to turn the call back to Hatem Khouri for closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Thank you very much, everyone, and talk again in 90 or so days.

Operator

Thank you. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time.

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Earnings Conference Call
Perimeter Solutions Q1 2024
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