PPG Industries Q2 2022 Earnings Results & Report

PPG Industries EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $1.81
• Consensus EPS: $1.75
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.06
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A
• EPS Beat Rate: 5 of last 8 quarters

PPG Industries Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $4.69 billion
• Expected Revenue: $4.75 billion
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$57.27 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

PPG Industries (NYSE:PPG) is a global manufacturer of paints, coatings and specialty materials. The company develops products designed to protect, decorate and improve the performance of surfaces and components used in transportation, construction, manufacturing and consumer products.

Its product portfolio includes automotive and commercial vehicle coatings, aerospace coatings, industrial and protective coatings, architectural paints, packaging coatings, and coatings used in marine and other specialty applications. PPG also provides related services, technologies and color solutions for manufacturers, contractors and other commercial customers.

Founded in 1883 as Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company, PPG has expanded from its original glass business into a coatings-focused company. Headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, it serves customers through operations and distribution networks across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and other international markets.

PPG Industries Q2 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• We delivered record net sales of $4.7 billion and adjusted EPS of $1.81 in Q2, driven by real-time price increases fully offsetting inflation and strong performance in our traffic solutions and PPG Comex businesses.
• Our selling prices were up 12% year-over-year (15% on a two-year stacked basis), marking the 21st consecutive quarter of increases and contributing to a 200 bps sequential improvement in operating margins.
• Softening consumer demand in Europe (volumes down ~10%), extended COVID disruptions in China and unfavorable currency translation collectively trimmed EPS by about $0.10 versus April guidance.
• Supply chain conditions continued to improve with easing commodity constraints, higher supplier inventories and better logistics, supporting further cost inflation moderation and manufacturing efficiency gains in the second half.
• For Q3 we expect year-over-year EPS growth despite a ~$0.10 FX headwind, backed by additional price realization, ~$30 million of acquisition synergies and positive volume mix in automotive OEM, aerospace and Asia.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good morning. My name is Lauren, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the second quarter PPG earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there'll be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad.

[Operator]

If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. To allow everyone an opportunity to ask a question, the company requests that each analyst ask only one question. Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference over to John Bruno, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

[John Bruno, VP of Finance and VP of Investor Relations at PPG]

Thank you, Lauren, and good morning, everyone. Once again, this is John Bruno. We appreciate your continued interest in PPG and welcome you to our Q2 2022 financial results conference call. Joining me on the call from PPG are Michael McGarry, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Tim Knavish, Chief Operating Officer, and Vince Morales, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Our comments relate to the financial information released after U.S. equity markets closed on Thursday, 21 July 2022.

[John Bruno, VP of Finance and VP of Investor Relations at PPG]

We have posted detailed commentary and accompanying presentation slides on the Investor Center of our website, ppg.com. The slides are also available on the website for this call and provide additional support to the brief opening comments Michael will make shortly. Following management's perspective on the company's results for the quarter, we will move to a Q&A session.

[John Bruno, VP of Finance and VP of Investor Relations at PPG]

Both the prepared commentary and discussion during the call may contain forward-looking statements. Reflecting the company's current view of future events and their potential effect on PPG's operating and financial performance. These statements involve uncertainties and risks which may cause actual results to differ. The company is under no obligation to provide subsequent updates to these forward-looking statements.

[John Bruno, VP of Finance and VP of Investor Relations at PPG]

This presentation also contains certain non-GAAP financial measures. The company has provided in the appendix of the presentation materials, which are available on our website, reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures. For additional information, please refer to PPG's filings with the SEC. Now let me introduce PPG Chairman and CEO, Michael McGarry.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

Thank you, John, and good morning, everyone. I would like to welcome you to our Q2 2022 earnings call. I hope you and your loved ones are remaining safe and healthy. I will provide some comments to supplement the detailed financial results we released last evening.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

For the Q2, we delivered record net sales of $4.7 billion, and our adjusted earnings per diluted share from continuing operations were $1.81. To quickly summarize the quarter, our sales performance was an all-time record driven by continued realization of real-time price increases that are now fully offsetting total cost inflation.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

Total cost inflation includes generational high commodity cost inflation, energy, logistics, and other employee-related cost inflation. In addition to pricing, our top and bottom lines continue to benefit from recent strategic acquisitions, including our Traffic Solutions business, which delivered a record quarter.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

We achieved strong sales results despite softening consumer demand in Europe, longer than anticipated COVID-related disruptions in China, and unfavorable currency translation. While we included the European demand realities in our financial guidance we issued in April, the impact of the extended China restrictions and the currency translation was negative by about $0.10 per share versus our original guidance.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

Our sales were aided by above market volumes in several of our end-use markets, including our PPG Comex business, which delivered another record quarter as concessionaires continue to add new locations. In addition, our global Automotive Refinish, Traffic Solutions, and U.S. packaging coatings businesses each set all-time quarterly sales record in the Q2. This highlights one specific example of PPG technologically advanced products.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

That is our packaging business, where we have won positions on about 75% of the new metal can packaging lines in North America over the past two years. Also, our Aerospace business continues to benefit from year-over-year improvements in domestic travel in various countries, resulting in higher aftermarket demand, and we expect further aftermarket and OEM growth as the industry demand remains well below pre-pandemic levels.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

Although still challenging, commodity supply disruptions continue to ease in the quarter, and we expect further improvements as we progress through the second half of 2022. This includes much better raw material availability as inventories at most of our suppliers have vastly improved.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

We achieved adjusted earnings that were toward the upper end of our April financial guidance and would have been in line with the Q2 of 2021, if not for the negative impact of foreign currency translation. This reflects the benefits of our strong commercial discipline regarding pricing and continued focus on cost management.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

Our earnings performance was aided by higher selling prices of about 12% year-over-year, marking the 21st consecutive quarter of higher selling prices. Our selling prices are now up over 15% on a two year stack basis, reflecting our continued actions to offset persistent cost inflation. We anticipate by the end of 2022, we will fully offset all cumulative total inflation from 2021 and 2022. More importantly, we are converting higher prices to improve margins. During the quarter, our operating earnings improved each month.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

This strong progress is being reflected in the positive momentum of our operating margin recovery as we improve sequential quarterly margins by 200 basis points and anticipate further improvement in the Q3. Also aiding our Q2 earnings performance was continued realization of acquisition-related synergies and cost savings from previously announced programs, which together total about $30 million of incremental benefit.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

During the Q2, we also implemented cost mitigation initiatives in Europe, reflecting the slower demand in the region and have additional contingency plans ready in the event of a broader economic slowdown. The efforts around cost management resulted in a reduction of our selling and general admin cost by 100 basis points as a percent of sales compared to the prior year's Q2.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

Our acquisitions are also performing well, including the Traffic Solutions business, which achieved 15% sales growth in the Q2. We remain excited about future growth opportunities for this business as in the next few years, we anticipate increased infrastructure spending and expect further U.S. adoption of mandatory expansion of traffic markings for safety purposes.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

During the quarter, we continued to progress our launch of the expanded ProPainter initiative with The Home Depot. Albeit later than we wanted in the paint season, and despite continuing raw material constraints, we were able to fully load PPG products at all U.S. locations with our full pro product assortment by the end of the quarter.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

We have already had some meaningful early wins of some large pro contractors, and our near term target list includes more than 1,000 pro contractors that have expressed interest in buying our products at The Home Depot. We're excited about teaming up with The Home Depot, and collectively, we see opportunities for significant growth in the coming years.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

In the Q2, our net debt was consistent with the Q1, and our working capital was sequentially higher, mainly due to the higher dollar value of inventories reflecting inflationary effects and higher receivables given our selling price increases. As the supply chain disruptions continue to improve in the coming quarters, we expect our working capital to return to more normal seasonal patterns and cash flow generation to improve as we progress through the end of the year.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

We repurchased $135 million of our stock at attractive prices during the quarter and continue to manage our acquisition pipeline. In addition, we have progressed our key capital expenditures during the Q2 focused on productivity and growth and now expect total spending to be about $450 million for the full year. Consistent with our past practices, we'll deploy cash in the most accretive manner for our shareholders, including some debt reduction.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

In the Q2, we further enhanced our company's corporate governance as we received the necessary shareholder vote threshold for board declassification and elimination of super majority voting requirements. We'd worked on soliciting our shareholders for years to pass these proxy votes, and we're pleased to see our efforts pay off to further solidify our corporate governance.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

In addition, we continue to advance our sustainability strategy and proudly announce PPG's commitment to setting near-term company-wide emission reductions in line with climate science through the Science Based Targets initiative. We plan to communicate new 2030 goals that will define our decarbonization strategy over the coming months.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

Looking ahead, in most major regions and end-use markets, underlying demand for PPG products is expected to remain solid. We anticipate strong sequential growth in Asia due to higher industrial production compared to the Q2. That was heavily impacted by COVID restrictions. We're closely monitoring the current COVID situation in China, and at this time, we only expect minimal impacts to our sales and operations from any further restrictions. In Europe, we expect economic conditions to remain soft, including normal seasonal demand trends versus the Q2.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

Also, positive demand trends are generally expected to continue in North America, aided by stronger sequential automotive OEM production, further Aerospace recovery, and continuation of recent trends in auto refinish sales as we work to fulfill strong back orders. In the second half, year-over-year comparisons will be aided by the sharp declines we experienced last year during the height of the supply disruption that impacted several industries, particularly in the U.S.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

Outside of a few commodities, we expect supply chain conditions to continue to improve, including better raw material and transportation availability as our suppliers' production capabilities are returning to a more normal condition. Also in the second half, and specific to PPG, we expect several businesses, including automotive OEMs and Aerospace, to deliver strong growth due to large supply deficits and low inventories in these end-use markets.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

Other PPG specific positives for the second half are continuing acquisition synergy realization and additional cost savings from previously announced restructuring actions. In the Q3, our two-year stacked raw material inflation is expected to be about 40%, up a low single-digit percentage sequentially versus the Q2. We'll continue to prioritize implementing further real-time selling price increases, and we expect a quicker offset versus historical lags similar to what we delivered in the Q2.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

Importantly, we expect that our sequential quarterly momentum on operating margin improvement will continue in the Q3, as we work back towards our historical margins. Even with significant unfavorable currency impacts expected to continue, resulting in about a $0.10 EPS impact in the Q3. We are forecasting our adjusted earnings to increase on a year-over-year basis.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

While near-term challenges exist, I remain confident about the future earnings capabilities of PPG as the earnings catalysts that I referenced in the past remain fully intact, and we certainly see a path to return to prior peak operating margins with opportunities to exceed them. As a reminder, this includes continued recovery in the Automotive Refinish, OEM, and Aerospace coatings businesses.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

Continued sequential momentum of positive price versus cost as commodity raw material costs moderate. In the event of an economic downturn, they should moderate in a more rapid manner. A lower cost structure resulting in strong operating leverage on any sales volume growth. Accretive earnings and further growth from our recent acquisition. In closing, as we look ahead, our team of 50,000 employees remains focused on serving our customers and supporting our stakeholders.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

Every day, I'm inspired by our teams around the world who are making it happen, are providing products that are helping to protect and beautify the world. Thank you for your continued confidence in PPG. This concludes our prepared remarks. Now, Lauren, would you please open the line for questions?

[Operator]

Of course. At this time, I would like to remind everyone in order to ask a question, please press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, to allow everyone an opportunity to ask a question, the company requests that each analyst ask only one question. We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from David Begleiter from Deutsche Bank. David, please go ahead.

[David Begleiter, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

Thank you. Good morning. Michael, you discussed a path to $9 EPS in 2023. Has that now been pushed out given the current economic backdrop and weakening we're seeing in Europe?

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

Well, David, it's certainly gonna make it a little bit more challenging, but all the conditions are still there, right? You have refinish that's gonna have an improved outlook. Miles driven are closing in on 2019 levels. Automotive OEM is still light. I mean, we got 24.5 million builds in China. We have a supply deficit in the US. The fleets haven't been rebuilt.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

That's still there. Aerospace is coming back at a very strong level, and I'm sure you saw the Farnborough announcements about the new plane you're gonna have not only aftermarket doing better, but OEM doing better. You have the synergies we've talked about. You know, we have $30 million in synergies, you know, just in the quarter alone. Productivity, manufacturing, and then price raws, even though we haven't built that in.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

You know, I'm sure somebody's gonna ask later on the call about that we see, you know, certainly, raw material pricing getting a little weaker in China. We know it's gonna get weaker in Europe, and that's gonna free up additional. We still have, you know, ability to have cash deployment. You know, I think all options are on the table, and I think we're, you know, we're still, pretty confident that the outlook remains, good for PPG.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Ghansham Panjabi from Baird. Please go ahead.

[Ghansham Panjabi, Senior Research Analyst at Baird]

Yes, good morning. Thank you for the time. On the weakness in Europe that you saw in Q2 and, you know, market concerns over a recession in the region, Michael, how do you think this particular business cycle could be different in a continued slowdown scenario, given that some of your end markets never fully recovered to begin with? Related to that, can you also comment on the current raw material supply situation in Europe, just given concerns over, not just the supply of natural gas, but also, issues with logistics and the water levels and so on and so forth in the rivers? Thanks.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

Sure, Ghansham. Let's start with the fact that what's gonna be different this time is, look, in the U.S., we have full employment, and you have people with a lot of money in their pockets. You know, even if the Fed overtightens, I'm still looking for people to maybe partially slow down, but it's not gonna be anything significant i would say that right now, you know, there's a strong likelihood that people are gonna continue to spend money in the U.S. Certainly, we see a slowdown coming in Europe. I gotta be honest, I'm not as worried as other people are about gas rationing in Europe.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

The reason for that is, you know, when you think about the size of the automotive business, the size of the chemical business, these are hugely important to people in Europe. If you got into a significant gas rationing over there, you would have an economic event that would not be pleasant.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

You know, I'm anticipating the government's gonna ask people to turn their thermostats up substantially during the summer they're gonna turn them down in the winter. People are gonna start conserving. I'm not worried about raw material supply from that standpoint.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

The other thing I would tell you is I'm already starting to see some rotation of raw materials out of China to Europe in anticipation of this. That's gonna provide additional supply, and that additional supply will help ease some of the projected challenges. You know, obviously paying attention, but I'm not nearly as worried as some people are.

[Vince Morales, Senior Vice President and CFO at PPG Industries]

Specific to the European demand, Ghansham, that you asked. You know, we are seeing obviously slowness we were down about 10% in Q2. We're projecting to be down in Q3. We have some markets that are improving on a go-forward basis, as Michael alluded to. Our auto OEM business we expect to improve, certainly over the next 12 months. We know Aerospace is improving in that particular region as well as globally. We have some offsets to what's already a weak environment. On a go-forward basis, we expect some puts and takes.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Christopher Parkinson from Mizuho Securities. Christopher, please go ahead.

[Christopher Parkinson, Managing Director and Senior Industrials Equity Research Analyst at Mizuho Securities]

Great. Thank you. Just back to a corollary of Begleiter's question. You know, there have been three variables affecting your margin outlook, including, you know, end market mix with refinish and Aero improving, but still, you know, below or maybe just at 19 levels. You know, some manufacturing inefficiencies, especially in the second half, you know, due to auto OEM and then, of course, price cost.

[Christopher Parkinson, Managing Director and Senior Industrials Equity Research Analyst at Mizuho Securities]

You know, when we take a step back and just think about these, you know, for this not only for the second half but into 2023, you know, going back to that $9 question, can you just give us the key highlights and how you're thinking about these, you know, right here, right now, and perhaps just highlight, you know, how you're thinking about them a little bit differently versus the past three to six months? Thank you so much.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

Yeah, Christopher. I mean, obviously the mix is improving every single day. That's a positive for us as you know, refinish and Aerospace are very good businesses for us. You have improved pricing in automotive, which is improving that mix as well so i think from that standpoint, that's gonna be good.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

The second one, if you think about our manufacturing situation, you know, we've had to adjust manufacturing schedules on very short notice or no notice in some cases, because of supply disruptions, force majeurs. As supply gets better, you know, we're able to plan better, scheduling is better. You know, obviously, COVID is not a challenge anymore we don't have as many call-offs.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

From that standpoint, our manufacturing is gonna improve. As you see, our price is dropping to the bottom line. Margins improved 200 basis points in Q2. You're gonna see a significant improvement in Q3. You're gonna see an improvement in Q4. You know, from that standpoint, you know, that is gonna continue to be positive momentum. We're expecting raw materials on a sequential basis only likely be like up, you know, low single digits in the Q3. I think there's a lot of positive momentum here, and I'm feeling pretty good about that.

[Vince Morales, Senior Vice President and CFO at PPG Industries]

Christopher, this is Vince again i just want to add that we are still down 10% in volume, you know, versus 2019. Again, you said we were close to parity, and it's just huge incremental margins on that volume recovery. Again, in Auto and Aerospace are two of the biggest declines versus 2019 or pre-pandemic.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from John McNulty from BMO Capital Markets. John, please go ahead.

[John Patrick McNulty, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at BMO Capital Markets]

Yeah, thanks for taking my question. I guess what I'd like to focus on is the price versus Raws dynamic i guess, can you help us to understand what portion? of the portfolio still has more pricing that it needs to get to catch up? It seems like you did really well in Q2. I guess I'm curious what else you need to kinda hit on.

[John Patrick McNulty, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at BMO Capital Markets]

Then equally important, it looks like you're on track for Raws to be up about $2 billion or so over the last couple of years. I guess when we start to see Raws coming off, I guess how much of the pricing associated with that do you think you hold on to, versus having to give back? Is there a way to think about that? 'Cause it just seems like it's a really big number.

[Vince Morales, Senior Vice President and CFO at PPG Industries]

Yeah. Yeah, John, this is Vince. I'll start, and then Michael could add some color. We still have targeted pricing that we will inject in Q3. Some businesses, we have perennial pricing that typically occurs toward the end of the season.

[Vince Morales, Senior Vice President and CFO at PPG Industries]

So you'll see that both in performance. We still have some catch-up pricing in some of our industrial and auto businesses that'll take place in the quarter. And so there'll be higher—we expect higher pricing on a percentage basis and certainly on a two-year stack for Q3. With respect to the inflation, you know, I think your numbers are directionally correct in terms of the inflation we've absorbed over the past, call it 18 and soon to be 24 months.

[Vince Morales, Senior Vice President and CFO at PPG Industries]

We anticipate offsetting that fully with price, but not just that as Michael mentioned in the opening remarks, we're offsetting logistics, we're offsetting employee-related inflation, and packaging inflation. Again, our pricing will overcome that by the end of the year. You know, we typically have sticky pricing as we progress through the economic cycle.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

Maybe John, to add a little bit to that. You know, your premise that you're trying to understand is how much of this $2+ billion are we gonna keep. The thing that we're talking to our customers about is raw material inflation is just one piece of this. You know, so when you add the things that Vince talked about, logistics, labor, energy, packaging costs, you know, we need to continue to recover that.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

I fully expect, and I will be fully engaged, and Tim will be fully engaged with the businesses to ensure that we're gonna be keeping a large percentage of this in our pocket. That is a key deliverable for our business unit leaders. Everybody's well aware of it, and it's been signaled well ahead of time this will not be a surprise to our customers. I'm feeling pretty good.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Kevin McCarthy from Vertical Research Partners. Kevin, please go ahead.

[Kevin McCarthy, Partner at Vertical Research Partners]

Yes, good morning. In your guidance for the Q3 on slide 10, you're baking in volume assumptions of flat to down, a low single-digit percent i was wondering if you could just speak to the build up to that assumption, you know, maybe in terms of geography, assumptions around China lockdowns or lack thereof, European macro, but also, in terms of your individual businesses and which ones you expect highest or weakest volume growth in the Q3. Thank you.

[Vince Morales, Senior Vice President and CFO at PPG Industries]

Yeah, Kevin. Good morning. This is Vince again. On a year-over-year basis, probably a couple big movers. You know, we again, we expect Europe to be down, you know, double digits, close to double digits, versus the prior year. We do expect, if you recall, we did have the peak of the chip shortage in our Automotive OEM business last year, and that's recovering. Not fully recovering, but it's recovering this year, Q3.

[Vince Morales, Senior Vice President and CFO at PPG Industries]

We also have improvement in Aerospace, as we've talked about several times already on the call. Those are three of the bigger movers. Then we have a variety of puts and takes, you know, by business. On a sequential basis, what's important is we do expect, you know for us, China was down for essentially two months in Q2. We do expect China to be fully up and running with just modest, very modest, impact from COVID in Q3. That's the biggest mover sequentially.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Joshua Spector from UBS. Josh, please go ahead.

[Joshua Spector, Executive Director and Equity Analyst at UBS]

Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking my question. I was wondering, within Architectural Coatings, could you discuss some of the volume differences in DIY versus trade markets? I guess specifically looking at North America and Europe. I guess given some of the commentary about Europe, where you're still seeing declines on technically easier comps from last year, what does that say about your thoughts about DIY and how that holds up in a recession this cycle, potentially? Thanks.

[Timothy Knavish, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

I'll take that one, Josh Spector. This is Tim Knavish. Thanks for the question. The biggest driver of the volume issue in DIY is clearly Europe. We've seen, you know, a double-digit decline in DIY volumes Europe. Frankly, we expect that to continue. We called it at the end of the last quarter, that was accurate, and we expect that same phenomenon to continue. The trade volumes in Europe are a bit stronger it depends on country by country. We're seeing some softness in some countries in trade in other countries like France, we continue to do very well on the trade side of the business. That's more mixed.

[Timothy Knavish, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

When you come over to this side, to the United States, we've also seen DIY, I would call it more normalizing. Where Europe was down because of a number of issues, whether it was, you know, coming out of COVID, or consumer confidence because of the war. Here in the United States, it's more normalizing in a post-COVID environment.

[Timothy Knavish, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

Whereas in the trade side of the business here in architectural US, we still see very good backlogs. We do a survey of our professional painters every quarter, and about 80% of the professional painters that we surveyed here in the US this quarter have as much or larger backlogs than they did last quarter. DIY normalizing here, but still good trade backlogs.

[Vince Morales, Senior Vice President and CFO at PPG Industries]

This is Vince. A couple other color points here. In the U.S., we were still impacted early in the quarter in our U.S. architectural business by supply challenges. You know, April, May are still in the heart of the paint season. In Europe, you know, based on what we've seen to date, we're very comfortable with our share position.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Frank Mitsch from Fermium Research. Frank, please go ahead.

[Frank Mitsch, Co Founder and President at Fermium Research]

Thank you, and good morning, folks. Appreciate the level of details. Coming to the use of cash, you know, Tikkurila is rolling off as a driver as part of the M&A increase. I know that M&A is important to PPG. You did mention that you stepped up buybacks in the quarter at attractive prices im just curious as to, you know, what the outlook is on the M&A front that's out there.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

Frank, this is Michael. The M&A front continues to be what I would call steady. You know, you saw there were some deals done in the past, you know, 90 to 120 days. You know, we obviously looked at those and decided those weren't value-creating from a PPG shareholder perspective. We continue to look at our portfolio you probably noticed that we sold a couple of businesses you saw we sold [unintelligible] and another small one we're always looking at our portfolio.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

We're gonna do what's best. This quarter, you know, paying down debt and buying back a little stock made the most amount of sense we're gonna continue to look at our portfolio and decide what we're gonna do. The pipeline remains what I would call steady. You know, we're continuing to talk to the board about the options that are out there.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Laurent Favre from BNP Paribas. Laurent, please go ahead.

[Laurent Favre, Senior Equity Research Analyst at BNP Paribas]

Yes. Good morning, all. I have a question regarding this contingency plan on the European side. I mean, I hope you're right on, I guess, the lack of big curtailment of chemical production and all the mess that would be related to that. I was wondering if you could talk about two things you know, one is how you're thinking about raw materials inventories and stocking up perhaps into a more turbulent time.

[Laurent Favre, Senior Equity Research Analyst at BNP Paribas]

Also, in terms of areas where you may have single sourcing. I know that there was a big surprise last year in the U.S. I'm wondering if you've learned from the U.S. side and that now all of your European operations can run on dual sourcing, for instance, so that you can indeed import all those raw materials from elsewhere. Thank you.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

Laurent, this is Michael. First of all, it's virtually impossible to be dual source on everything, because we make some unique chemistries. On those that we are single source, we have a contractual relationship with our suppliers to provide that protection that we need. But, you know, we have, you know, been in a mode of, you know, being conservative on min inventories right now.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

In Europe, though, we are, you know, gonna be moving toward a mode of destocking over the next few months. You know, we've already started to see availability of raw materials get better we anticipate that prices. You know, we've seen some prices already soften in China. We anticipate some softening coming up in Europe. You know, the plants have already, you know, put in place contingency plans. They've enacted some to, you know, lower costs. From that standpoint, I think, you know, we feel very comfortable we have some additional plans in place as well.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Arun Viswanathan from RBC Capital Markets. Arun, please go ahead.

[Arun Viswanathan, Senior Equity Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

Great. Thanks for taking my question. I guess I just wanted to go back to the bridge potentially to maybe $9 or something close to that in 2023 or 2024. If you think about that seems to be, you know, likely that it would have to be composed of something around $2.50 for Q2, Q3, and $2 for Q1, Q4. I guess, is that correct? I mean, that would imply kind of like a 20% improvement on a quarterly run rate basis. If you think about that 20%, is that maybe a third volume improvement? and 2/3 kind of margin recovery from price cost? Or how should we think about that path to getting back to that kind of earnings power?

[Vince Morales, Senior Vice President and CFO at PPG Industries]

We'll try to take another stab at this, Arun. This is Vince. Look, we're down 10% in volume versus 2019 we expect the vast majority of that to return, again because some of these decremental items are in very large businesses for us and businesses that are showing today and we expect on a go-forward basis good recovery momentum. We talked about auto, we talked about Aerospace there are a couple more that are smaller.

[Vince Morales, Senior Vice President and CFO at PPG Industries]

We do expect positive business mix as part of that equation as well. I think your point on price raw recovery, we've talked about a couple times. You know, we're still down in Q3 on a cumulative basis we expect to be at least at parity by the end of the year on price and raw, so that'll pick up several points. I don't wanna underemphasize what Michael talked about with respect to manufacturing.

[Vince Morales, Senior Vice President and CFO at PPG Industries]

You know, we typically have productivity improvements year-over-year from our manufacturing operations. If you look at the past 12 months, we've had decrements in manufacturing. We expect to fully recover those decrements and move back to our legacy of productivity. Those three things coupled with synergy capture and coupled with some cash deployment, you know, gets us to the $9 plus of earnings power we've talked about.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from P.J. Juvekar from Citi. Prashant, please go ahead.

[Prashant Juvekar, Managing Director, Global Head of Chemicals and Agriculture Research at Citi]

Yes. Hi, good morning. You know, you talked about European DIY being slow you've talked about that for a while. How did European industrial business do throughout the quarter? Did it slow down as the quarter progressed? Related question to that is, are you seeing a rebound in industrial activity in China? Do you think? that China activity or industrial activity can grow if U.S. and Europe are slowing down? Thank you.

[Vince Morales, Senior Vice President and CFO at PPG Industries]

Yeah, P.J. We saw declines in architectural in Europe, obviously as Tim talked about. Automotive on a year-over-year basis and our industrial business on a year-over-year basis were also down in the mid-single digits, due to some of the same issues that caused economic slowing in the region. On a go-forward basis, you know, auto, we expect to recover at some point. It's still gonna be choppy in the back half of the year in Europe. It's gonna certainly recover in the US and in China.

[Vince Morales, Senior Vice President and CFO at PPG Industries]

Industrial activity, we expect at least at parity. We are seeing a very rapid recovery in China from the COVID shutdowns and expect growth on a year-over-year basis in Q3. With respect to Europe slowing, would China grow.

[Vince Morales, Senior Vice President and CFO at PPG Industries]

Again, we think China is becoming more of an internal consumption market, and we still feel good about the U.S. economy. There are some offsets to a European slowing that would allow China to produce good industrial activity results.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

P.J., this is Michael. I think if you think about this from a China macro standpoint. The China government is under significant pressure right now because of some of these COVID lockdowns. They're injecting money, reducing the amount of bank restrictions, and they're putting pressure on the building industry as well. They are, you know, showing every sign to make sure that the local economies in China continue to recover. You know, I feel pretty good about the fact that China is committed to having a better second half of the year than they had the first half of the year.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Michael Sison from Wells Fargo. Michael, please go ahead.

[Michael Sison, Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Hey, guys. Next quarter. You know, it does feel like a recession is the consensus view, you know, impending these days and your portfolio has changed. Just curious, overall, how do you think the current portfolio would in terms of volumes hold up in a recession? You know, given you've got $2 billion worth of inflation, is it possible that you could potentially offset that entire volume, you know, decline because you get a lot of this inflation back and maybe PPG's earnings look a little bit more resilient than maybe in the past?

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

Well, Mike, I think we certainly have built a more resilient company just start with that as the basic premise. Second, I do think that, you know, we're gonna keep a lot more raw materials in our pocket so if you do see a raw material decline, I think that's gonna, you know, flow through the P&L a lot quicker than you think.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

I think that's a little bit of what people are missing in this analysis. Quite honestly, this recession, if there is one, which, you know, I still don't think there's gonna be a significant one, if there is one, you know, we have a different portfolio right now think about Traffic Solutions. I mean, that business runs, you know, no matter what happens, and they are, you know, behind on that. You have demographics where they're gonna have thicker lines more, the lines are gonna be longer.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

Those things are gonna be positives. You also have the fact that we have a significant supply deficit here in the U.S. of cars. You know, that's gonna be different. We have a significant deficit of planes, and that's gonna be different the new planes that are coming out are much more fuel efficient than the old planes. It's not a matter of whether they're gonna keep the old planes in the air they're not gonna do that. They're gonna replace these because of the fuel efficiency.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

If you believe that, you know, $100 oil is here for a long, you know, moderate period of time, the plane guys, you know, those are economics they cannot afford to miss that's why they're gonna be replacing these planes. I think that's all good. You know, what's interesting about this work from home stuff is that the dynamics are people are driving in the suburbs more and less on the highway, which leads to more lower speed collisions. Totals are actually down right now. Totals were down 2%, and I anticipate totals continuing to decline.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

That's good for our refinish business. Oh, by the way, if you get in an accident right now, you better be prepared to wait because the average backlog to get a car repaired is about six weeks right now that's assuming they get the parts. I'm feeling pretty good about that.

[Vince Morales, Senior Vice President and CFO at PPG Industries]

Yeah. Mike, just Vince again, just your comparison, and we'll just compare to the last recession. You know, obviously there was a housing overhang globally in the last recession. There was an auto overhang in the last recession we're not seeing those. Michael talked about Aerospace. We expect that to be in a recovery mode, auto in a recovery mode.

[Vince Morales, Senior Vice President and CFO at PPG Industries]

As it relates to PPG's portfolio in a different position of Traffic Solutions, you know, versus the last recession, we have PPG Comex, which is a very steady business for us. We also have some other businesses in other parts of the world that are more steady. Again, I think Michael's comments at the outset that we build a better portfolio, more resilient portfolio, takes into account some of those things.

[Timothy Knavish, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

Mike, it's Tim. Just to pile on here even one more business from a recession or potential recession resiliency standpoint. The military part of our Aerospace business, given what's happening geopolitically, tremendous backlog there too.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Jeff Zekauskas from J.P. Morgan. Jeff, please go ahead.

[Jeffrey Zekauskas, Senior Analyst and Managing Director at JPMorgan]

Thanks very much. Your volume expectation in Performance Coatings for the Q3 is flat to down a low single-digit percentage. Isn't that too low? I understand that European deco is weak, but isn't Aerospace better and auto refinish? Last year there were shortages in raw materials in the North American architectural market. Shouldn't volumes be up in the Q3? For Vince, inventories and receivables are going up at, you know, maybe about a 10% rate, and payables are maybe going up at half that. Is that a trend that's going to continue, and why the difference?

[Vince Morales, Senior Vice President and CFO at PPG Industries]

Yeah, Jeff, I'll take the second question first again, on inventory, you know, we came into the year with a focus on having excess inventory where possible in order to have supply to our customers. So we're certainly looking at that as we go to the back half of the year. We'll ratably work that down. As supply conditions have improved and continue to improve.

[Vince Morales, Senior Vice President and CFO at PPG Industries]

Receivables are up simply because our pricing is up, and we have a bigger book of business, and receivables are up $600 to 700 million on a year-over-year basis. We'll collect those, and we're not seeing any significant deterioration on collections. That the high receivable balance, Jeff, will turn to cash in the Q3 and Q4. You know, payables, again, we're timely with our suppliers, so nothing to speak of there.

[Vince Morales, Senior Vice President and CFO at PPG Industries]

As it relates to the Performance Coatings volumes, there's a variety of different moving pieces. Aerospace up, as you mentioned we do see DIY down, both in Europe, U.S. also and other mature regions like Australia. We do have some challenges in our protective business when you go into Q3, really a residual hangover from Q2 in China. With the reporting segment, you always have puts and takes. It's our best guess at this time. Hopefully, we're being conservative, but that's our best guess at this time.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Duffy Fischer from Goldman Sachs. Duffy, please go ahead.

[Duffy Fischer, Equity Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Yes, good morning. Question just around raw materials. If you could talk about the different buckets, you know, solvents, resins, pigments, maybe packaging. What's your view, what's happening with price and availability going into the back half of the year? Maybe kind of what do you think, the two-year outlook is for some of these raw materials that have been quite tight?

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

Well, let's start with the negative first is that emulsions continue to be a bit of a challenge for us, and there have been a few, you know, Force Majeure you probably saw the one in Allnex recently. It's not -- we're not out of the woods on that yet.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

You know, we've seen TiO2 in China get weaker we're seeing TiO2 from China being shipped into Europe. I certainly see epoxies in Asia getting weaker as well. I think that, you know, there's a number of our solvents that are now flattening out. Availability is much improved, but the pricing is flattening out. I think the same thing with packaging. Packaging is flattening out.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

I think when I look at our overall, we bucket our raw materials into about 12 different buckets. You know, last quarter, I had 11 out of 12 were red. Coming into this quarter, we have four or five of them that are yellow.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

That means the prices have moderated, and we actually have one green on the chart you know, when we look ahead to the Q4, we see improvement in a number of those as well. I think we're coming to the end of that raw material inflation, and that's good for us sequentially, we see low single digits in the Q3 and I think you should expect, you know, sequential improvement in the Q4.

[Timothy Knavish, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

Hey, hey, Duffy, it's Tim. Just to add to what Michael said. You know, while supply is significantly better than it was at the beginning of Q2 and certainly better than last year, we still have spot supply issues, I would call it, in refinish, in auto, in architectural. We're not quite back to what you would call completely normal supply, pre-COVID kind of supply situations, although sequentially much better, and we expect that to sequentially continue to improve.

[Vince Morales, Senior Vice President and CFO at PPG Industries]

Duffy, you asked about this event just about two years that's beyond our forecasting horizon, where we're typically three to six month window is the best forecasting visibility we have, and we certainly can't go out two years there is structural commodity supply being built in China, which is we expect to fully exploit, but that's the best we could give on a two year look.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Vincent Andrews from Morgan Stanley. Vincent, please go ahead.

[Vince Morales, Senior Vice President and CFO at PPG Industries]

Yes, thank you. Just wondering if you could talk a little bit about the cost work you're doing in Europe and whether that's sort of structural or just sort of temporal. Along those same lines, given sort of the normalization in DIY, has there been an opportunity to reduce maybe promotional spending? Maybe that was already being reduced during the hot demand period, or ad spending, or is there anything changing on how you're allocating investment spending into that business?

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

Well, certainly on the ad spending, as you see the decline, you're also getting near the end of the paint season by the time the quarter is gonna be over that is on a decline. That's typical, though, so that's not really that much of a difference.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

We do bucket our cost reductions in Europe into two things one is structural and one is short term. The structural ones, you see that flowing through we have, you know, plants that we have targeted to be closed we have headcount that we're taking out we have productivity initiatives through dispense cells and other high volume packaging equipment that is driving productivity in the plant all those things are underway. Of course, we are on a temporary basis.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

You know, you are reducing headcount as you're seeing that lower demand in the architectural segment. I'm feeling comfortable that we're gonna continue to grow margins if you look at our history in Europe. We have consistently grown our earnings in Europe year-over-year regularly. I don't think this should be any different this year.

[Timothy Knavish, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

Hey, Vince. Tim here. Tim Knavish. We also have continuation of the Tikkurila synergies, which of course are structural we've captured a lot of those. Footprint-wise and back office-wise, we continue to make progress there. Just to put some perspective, you know, margin improvement progression has continued in our AC Europe business despite the volume challenges, and we expect that to continue as well.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Mike Leithead from Barclays. Mike, please go ahead.

[Michael Leithead, VP and Equity Research Analyst at Barclays]

Great. Thanks. Good morning, guys. Just on auto OEM, I was hoping you could give some context about your volume levels today versus maybe, say, pre-pandemic. I'm just trying to figure out if we get back to, say, a 2019 type build rate, what sort of upside does that offer. Maybe just remind us what type of incremental margin levels we should think about broadly for your industrial coatings business today after all the restructuring and whatnot.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

Well, Mike, if I remember right, last year there was about 78 million cars built we're on a path to have a little bit over 80 million cars built. At the peak, it was 95 million cars, and there's a substantial backlog of vehicles that need to be built. Plus, I think what you're gonna be seeing, you're already starting to see some of these electric vehicles being made in China that are being exported to Europe. So you're gonna start to see a better mix in our automotive business because of mobility. You know, right now, you know, our margins in automotive are improving on a sequential basis.

[Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

What I would do is I'd look back at the historical margins in our, industrial segment, and you know automotive is the biggest business in that, so they're gonna be somewhat close to that, margin. That's the way I would do the math.

[Vincent Morales, SVP and CFO at PPG]

Yeah, Mike, if I could just elaborate a little bit on, you know, what we call the latent demand in auto here. We talked about this last quarter, but, you know, U.S. dealer inventory somewhere below, just below 30 days. Typically, that's 60+, 70+. The inventories need rebuilt.

[Vincent Morales, SVP and CFO at PPG]

You know, there's a big fleet rebuilt process that has to take place in the U.S. that includes just company-owned cars as well as other fleet vehicles. That's a significant impact. There is a European fleet that also at some point will be rebuilt. There's a significant amount of employees that have company cars in Europe, so that's another adder.

[Vincent Morales, SVP and CFO at PPG]

That, those latent things in addition to the demand where most cars are on backorder. Again, we have comfort the next 12+, 15+ months for a solid recovery back toward that, you know, call it high 80s, low 90s level. We're still down about almost 20% in the industry versus pre-pandemic.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Mike Harrison from Seaport Research Partners. Mike, please go ahead.

[Michael Harrison, Managing Director and Senior Chemicals Analyst at Seaport Research Partners]

Hi, good morning. I was wondering if we could go back to some of the raw material availability issues and specifically dig in on what's going on in the refinish business. It sounds like some of the raw material and logistics bottlenecks that you've been seeing are gonna continue into Q3 maybe just a little more detail, on what you're seeing there. What needs to happen to get some resolution to those supply issues? I guess, you know, is your expectation that that improvement's going to happen sometime this year? or is that an early 2023 thing? What's the timing look like? Thank you.

[Timothy Knavish, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

Hey, Mike, it's Tim. We, you know, despite having a record quarter in refinish and we expect that kind of performance to continue, we do have persistent, I would call them one-off, shortages from a raw material standpoint, that have led to some of the backlogs. In addition to the backlog of works that our customers have, we've got a backlog just to catch up and refill the channel because of these one-offs.

[Timothy Knavish, CEO and Chairman at PPG]

That won't get fixed overnight. It continues also to sequentially improve, and I expect us to continue to work our way through that through the rest of this year, which frankly is some pent-up upside for us because in addition to the high body shop activity levels that we have notably here in the U.S., you know, we've got this kinda inventory replenishment to catch up on throughout the rest of this year as well.

[Operator]

Thank you. That is the end of the Q&A session. I'll now hand you back over to John Bruno for closing remarks.

[John Bruno, VP of Finance and VP of Investor Relations at PPG]

Thank you, Lauren and everyone, for listening, for your interest in PPG i look forward to talking and seeing many of you in the coming weeks. This concludes our second quarter earnings call. Have a good day.

[Operator]

This concludes today's call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.

Participants

Executives

• Michael McGarry, CEO and Chairman
• Vince Morales, Senior Vice President and CFO
• Timothy Knavish, CEO and Chairman
• Vincent Morales, SVP and CFO

Analysts

• John Bruno, VP of Finance and VP of Investor Relations at PPG
• David Begleiter, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Deutsche Bank
• Ghansham Panjabi, Senior Research Analyst at Baird
• Christopher Parkinson, Managing Director and Senior Industrials Equity Research Analyst at Mizuho Securities
• John Patrick McNulty, Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at BMO Capital Markets
• Kevin McCarthy, Partner at Vertical Research Partners
• Joshua Spector, Executive Director and Equity Analyst at UBS
• Frank Mitsch, Co Founder and President at Fermium Research
• Laurent Favre, Senior Equity Research Analyst at BNP Paribas
• Arun Viswanathan, Senior Equity Analyst at RBC Capital Markets
• Prashant Juvekar, Managing Director, Global Head of Chemicals and Agriculture Research at Citi
• Michael Sison, Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Wells Fargo
• Jeffrey Zekauskas, Senior Analyst and Managing Director at JPMorgan
• Duffy Fischer, Equity Analyst at Goldman Sachs
• Michael Leithead, VP and Equity Research Analyst at Barclays
• Michael Harrison, Managing Director and Senior Chemicals Analyst at Seaport Research Partners