Quaker Chemical Corporation (NYSE:KWR) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Shane Hostetter: Sure. Thanks, Arun. So I think I commented a little bit already on the seasonality. There’s a little bit of a Q1, Q4 impact. And your statement of historical rates, we don’t anticipate anything major shifting on that. I would highlight, the key thing is our volume growth is going to be driven as well by new business wins. And those new business wins are very much focused on adding higher value to customers and then to earn that value in the way that we work with them. And we’re going to continue to work on our efficiencies as well as we move forward here. So net of that, that’s how we believe the volume growth and the margin expansion will help us to drive earnings growth in 2024.

Arun Viswanathan: Great, thanks. And then as a follow up, what are you seeing I guess on the M&A front? It looks like that maybe is an area of opportunity for you guys relative to some of your other peers who are potentially not as financially healthy. Is there any opportunities of the large variety that would make sense for you guys? And would you consider taking on a little bit more leverage at this point to complete those deals or is the interest rate environment still not necessarily constructive for that kind of move?

Andrew Tometich: Yes, well, the capital allocation strategy still remains, it has not changed. And as I highlighted, a big way for us to increase shareholder value is to grow and one of those levers is through mergers and acquisitions and that really reinforces our ability. We’ve been very successful on bolt-ons and we have a very active pipeline. We just completed the IKV deal. We are going to continue to cultivate all sizes of deals as we move forward. That can take advantage of our customer intimate model and allow us to generate value through our expertise. And again, we’ll look at places where there’s technology channel or geography that will be able to help us. So we’re encouraged by the opportunities that remain. We feel like we’re in a good financial position of strength and our capital allocation strategy supports us continuing to move forward there.

Arun Viswanathan: Great. And just as a follow up there. So we shouldn’t necessarily think that there’s been any change or reprioritization to share buybacks being ahead of M&A. It’s still very balanced as far as your approach and you’d just consider all opportunities to increase shareholder value. Is that the message basically?

Andrew Tometich: Yes. We’re very disciplined and focused on creating shareholder value. We believe growth will help us to drive that. But opportunistically, we have the tools available if there are other opportunities to add shareholder value.

Arun Viswanathan: Thanks.

Andrew Tometich: Thank you.

Operator: With no further questions at this time, I would like to turn the floor back over to Andy for closing comments.

Andrew Tometich: Yes, I just want to thank everybody for joining our call today and your continued interest in Quaker Houghton. Please reach out to Jeff if you have any follow up questions and thank you. Have a great day.

Operator: Thank you. This will conclude today’s conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time and thank you for your participation.

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