Celanese Corporation (NYSE:CE) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Scott Richardson: Yes. And then, Josh, with regards to the covenants, the way our covenants are structured is gain on sale of assets is included in EBITDA. And so because this has a very low book basis, and while it’s an efficient transaction, that $450 million will be largely gained. So you get the gain that goes into the EBITDA piece, using then the cash proceeds to pay down debt at the same time. And there’s a partial offset, obviously, in EBITDA from the 70% that would go to Mitsui. But that math then works out to be because it’s in EBITDA, about a 0.7% reduction for the debt covenant purposes.

Josh Spector: Okay. I appreciate that. And maybe just one clarification there. Is that gain, are you going to exclude that from your adjusted EBITDA? And that’s in the — I guess, the debt accounted for EBITDA? And in your comments about free cash flow, you reiterated the $1 billion plus. Can you just give us an idea of what the core free cash flow you’re expecting at this point, some of the movements between working capital, restructuring, et cetera?

Scott Richardson: Yes. So for adjusted EPS, we will go ahead and exclude that gain as we do have past transactions. And then on free cash flow, we had previously said $1.5 billion of free cash flow, which included about a $200 million improvement overall in working capital. If we see that same $200 million improvement in working capital and we saw inventories move up a little bit just with the lower demand in the fourth quarter, then we would see free cash flow likely a little lower than that 1.5 billion just because of the lower earnings that we have. So we’re still working through kind of exactly how the working capital will play out this year. But if we see something in that range, we would expect to be a little bit lighter than the $1.5 billion.

Operator: Next question is coming from Michael Leithead from Barclays. Your line is now live.

Michael Leithead: Great. Thanks. Good morning, guys. First question on pension. Your $12 to $13 a share EPS guide, I believe, includes $100 million hit year-over-year on pension. When you talked last quarter about $13 to $14 a share, how much pension were you impact are you expecting at that time?

Scott Richardson: Yes. Thanks, Mike. So I’m actually going to kind of put some of the other buckets in here that change from our previous $13 to $14 guidance. D&A actually came in about $75 million better than we expected, but it was eaten up by a pretty good chunk by that pension. So kind of approach that amount. It’s a little lower than that 75%, but it was approaching that. And so I think when you kind of largely neutral those two things together, but it was in that range.

Michael Leithead: Got it. Okay. That’s helpful. And then maybe just more of a segmentation or clarification question, but it seems like M&M EBITDA, if I’m reading correctly, is sort of allocated between earnings and EM and from centralized or other costs and other. So if you do deliver, say, 7.25 EBITDA from the M&M business this year, is it correct to interpret that we’ll actually see it reported at something like 8.25 or so higher in EM EBITDA, but also, I don’t know, $100 million or so higher other costs to offset that. Is that the correct interpretation?

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