Earnings call transcript: Ingevity Q3 2025 beats EPS forecasts but stock drops

Ingevity Corp reported its third-quarter 2025 earnings, showing stronger-than-expected earnings per share (EPS) of $1.52, surpassing forecasts of $1.39. Despite this earnings beat, the company’s stock fell by 10.93% to $54.46 in after-hours trading, reflecting investor concerns over a 4% year-over-year decline in sales and other strategic factors.

Key Takeaways

• Ingevity’s Q3 EPS exceeded expectations by 9.35%.
• Revenue slightly surpassed forecasts but fell 4% year-over-year.
• Stock price dropped significantly post-earnings despite EPS beat.
• Company raised full-year free cash flow guidance.
• Strategic divestitures and cost-cutting measures are underway.

Company Performance

Ingevity’s overall performance in Q3 2025 showed resilience with an EPS of $1.52, beating the forecast of $1.39. The company faced a 4% decline in year-over-year sales, totaling $362 million, but managed to improve its gross margin by over 600 basis points. The adjusted EBITDA margin expanded to 33.5%, marking the sixth consecutive quarter of year-over-year margin growth. Ingevity’s strategic initiatives, including the sale of its industrial specialties business, indicate a focus on core operations and cost management.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $362 million, down 4% YoY
• Earnings per share: $1.52, up from forecasted $1.39
• Gross margin: Improved by over 600 basis points
• Adjusted EBITDA margin: 33.5%
• Free cash flow: $118 million
• Share repurchases: $25 million

Earnings vs. Forecast

Ingevity reported an EPS of $1.52, surpassing the forecast of $1.39 by 9.35%. Revenue came in at $362.1 million, slightly above the $359.43 million forecast, representing a 0.74% surprise. This marks a positive deviation from expectations, although the company continues to face challenges with declining sales.

Market Reaction

Despite the positive earnings surprise, Ingevity’s stock fell by 10.93% to $54.46 in after-hours trading. The decline may be attributed to investor concerns over the 4% year-over-year revenue drop and broader market conditions. The stock’s decrease contrasts with its 52-week high of $60.77, indicating a cautious market sentiment.

Outlook & Guidance

Ingevity has raised its full-year free cash flow guidance, aiming for a net leverage ratio of 2.6 times by year-end. The company expects Performance Materials revenue to remain flat or slightly decline, while APT revenue may fall by mid-teens. An investor update scheduled for December 8th will provide further insights into strategic portfolio adjustments.

Executive Commentary

CEO David Lee highlighted, "We are raising full-year free cash flow guidance and now expect net leverage to be around 2.6 times by year-end." CFO Mary Dean Hall added, "We continue to focus on delivering results in a very challenging environment and are proud to report our sixth consecutive quarter of year-over-year adjusted EBITDA margin expansion."

Risks and Challenges

• Declining sales: A 4% drop in year-over-year revenue could signal ongoing challenges.
• Market volatility: Stock price decline reflects investor caution.
• Global auto environment: Dynamic conditions may impact demand for Ingevity’s products.
• Supply chain issues: Potential disruptions from aluminum plant fires and chip shortages.
• Cost management: Continued focus on eliminating stranded costs and indirect expenses.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the impact of aluminum plant fires and chip shortages on operations. Executives clarified that the primary use of proceeds from the divestiture would be debt reduction, and they addressed expectations for working capital post-divestiture.

Full transcript - Ingevity Corp (NGVT) Q3 2025:

David Lee, CEO, Ingevity: Hello and welcome to today’s Ingevity Q3 2025 earnings call and webcast. My name is Bailey, and I will be your moderator for today. All lines will be muted during the presentation portion of the call, with an opportunity for questions and answers at the end. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I’d now like to pass the conference over to John Nypaver, so please go ahead when you’re ready.

John Nypaver, Executive, Ingevity: Thank you, Bailey. Good morning and welcome to Ingevity’s Q3 2025 earnings call. Earlier this morning, we posted a presentation on our investor site that you can use to follow today’s discussion. It can be found on ir.ingevity.com under Events and Presentations. Also, throughout this call, we may refer to non-GAAP financial measures, which are intended to supplement, not substitute for, comparable GAAP measures. For example, we are presenting the pending divestiture of our industrial specialties business for the first time within discontinued operations. In the appendix to our slides, we provide details that reconcile to total operations. Definitions of these non-GAAP financial measures and reconciliations to comparable GAAP measures are included in our earnings release and are also in our most recent form 10-K.

We may also make forward-looking statements regarding future events and future financial performance of the company during this call, and we caution you that these statements are just projections, and actual results or events may differ materially from those projections, as further described in our earnings release. Our agenda is on slide three. Our speakers today are David Lee, our CEO, and Mary Dean Hall, our CFO. Dave will provide introductory comments. Mary will follow with a review of our consolidated financial performance and the business segment results for the quarter. Dave will then provide closing comments and discuss 2025 guidance. With that, over to you, Dave.

David Lee, CEO, Ingevity: Thanks, John, and good morning, everyone. It was a highly productive quarter of strong execution for Ingevity. First, we achieved an important milestone in our strategic portfolio review with the announcement of the sale of our industrial specialties business for $110 million. We expect this transaction to close in early 2026 and will likely use the majority of the proceeds towards further debt reduction. Second, we were pleased with our business segment results. Performance Materials delivered another strong quarter within a dynamic global auto environment. Going forward, we are encouraged by the adoption of hybrids and fuel-efficient ICE platforms, which should drive demand for advanced Ingevity solutions and content. Road Technologies also had a great quarter, highlighted by record sales for our pavement business in North America. Finally, APT delivered strong margins as the team prioritized operational improvements against a backdrop of continued weak end-market demand.

Overall, these contributions reflect our team’s disciplined execution, as well as strategic repositioning actions, which drove best-in-class EBITDA margins of 33%. Reflecting our sixth consecutive quarter of year-over-year margin expansion, strong cash flow generation and disciplined capital allocation enabled us to reduce debt, achieve our leverage target ahead of plan, and return capital to shareholders through share repurchases. Third, I’m very excited to announce we hired Ruth Castillo to lead our performance materials business. Ruth is a strategic and experienced leader with a deep understanding of how to navigate complex businesses and unlock new growth opportunities. I look forward to her leadership in guiding performance materials into its next phase of profitable growth. Before I turn it over to Mary for more details on the financials, I’m pleased to share that we will host an investor update on December 8th.

This will be a virtual event where we’ll share the results of the strategic portfolio review. We will provide an assessment on what we believe the company will look like over the next two years. More details on how to register for the event will be forthcoming. I will now turn it over to Mary.

Mary Dean Hall, CFO, Ingevity: Thanks, Dave, and good morning, all. It’s nice to have some good news to share in this unsettled economic environment. Our Q3 results reflected continued growth in adjusted EBITDA, margins, and free cash flow, despite pressure on the top line, affirming the resilience of our businesses and the successful execution of our repositioning actions in performance chemicals. As previously noted, with the announced sale of industrial specialties, we’re now reporting the results of that business as discontinued operations, with the sale expected to close by early 2026. Given our close proximity to year-end and that full-year guidance is based on total company performance, I’ll focus my comments on total company results so that comparisons to prior periods are apples to apples. I’ll provide more color on continuing and discontinued operations when we discuss the performance chemicals results. Please refer to slide five. Total company sales of $362 million.

In Q3 were down about 4% as increased sales in performance materials and road technologies were more than offset by decreases in industrial specialties and APT. Gross margin improved over 600 basis points, reflecting significantly lower raw material costs, primarily in industrial specialties, and the successful execution of our repositioning actions. SG&A increased due primarily to higher variable compensation expense on improved business results. Adjusted earnings improved significantly, up almost 500 basis points to $56.3 million, driving adjusted EBITDA margin to 33.5%. Please turn to slide six. As a result of strong earnings and disciplined capital management, our free cash flow of $118 million enabled us to repurchase $25 million of shares in the quarter and accelerate deleveraging. We ended the quarter with net leverage of 2.7 times, already beating our previous year-end target of 2.8 times. We now expect net leverage to be approximately 2.6 times by year-end.

This does not include the benefit of any proceeds from the sale of industrial specialties, which is expected to close by early 2026, as I mentioned earlier. Turning to slide seven, performance materials sales increased 3%, primarily due to volume growth, reflecting improved global auto production. Segment EBITDA and EBITDA margin were down a bit as the benefit from increased volumes and price was more than offset by increased variable compensation expense and a negative impact from foreign exchange. Q4 is looking solid, but we do expect Q4 to be a bit softer coming off of a strong Q2 and Q3. On a full-year basis, we expect PM revenue to be flat to slightly down year-over-year, with EBITDA margins over 50%. Our results demonstrate the resilience of this business in the face of unprecedented uncertainty caused by the dynamic tariff environment. Please turn to slide eight for APT results.

Sales in APT declined year-over-year for many of the same reasons we discussed last quarter. The indirect impact of tariffs continues to weigh on already weak end-market demand, especially in footwear and apparel, delaying the upturn we otherwise expected to see. In addition, competitive dynamics in China are continuing to impact sales in the paint protective film markets. The team did a great job holding on to price where possible and managing costs, and posted an EBITDA margin of 26% for the quarter, which also reflected a tailwind from foreign exchange. Near term, we see no indications that the current market conditions or competitive dynamics will improve. We now expect full-year revenue for APT to be down by mid-teens on a percentage basis, with full-year EBITDA margin of 15-20%. Down from their more typical 20% area margins due to the extended plant outage in Q2. On slide nine.

Performance Chemicals. The left side presents a combined view of Performance Chemicals results, including continuing operations and discontinued operations. As I mentioned earlier, with the announced sale of Industrial Specialties, accounting rules require that we separate results of the product lines being divested into discontinued operations. However, because the sale is not yet completed and our guidance is for full-company results, we are showing the Q3 results on a combined basis. As you can see, combined sales were down almost 5% due to Industrial Specialties and our repositioning actions in that business. Road Technologies posted sales up 5% as the pavement business delivered a record Q3 in North America, which is our largest and most profitable region. Road Technologies, as part of continuing operations, includes the lignin-based dispersants business previously included in Industrial Specialties.

Combined segment EBITDA and EBITDA margins improved significantly year-over-year due to lower raw material costs in industrial specialties and the successful execution of repositioning actions. On a continuing operations basis, performance chemicals’ EBITDA margins were down slightly, primarily as a result of pricing decisions made in the road markings business to maintain volumes. Please refer to slide 27 in the appendix of the slide deck for a reconciliation of performance chemicals’ segment EBITDA on a continuing operations basis to the combined segment EBITDA, inclusive of discontinued operations. On the right-hand side of slide nine, we’ve added some detail regarding the impact of the divestiture on the combined results. There is noise in the Q3 numbers, so we believe it’s most useful to look at the estimated impact on a full-year basis.

As you can see, we expect the divestiture to contribute approximately $130 million in sales for the full year, with an EBITDA margin of approximately 6%, inclusive of indirect costs. Please note that these indirect costs related to the divestiture, often referred to as stranded costs, are included in continuing operations for reporting purposes. On a full-year basis, we estimate these indirect costs will be approximately $15 million, which we expect to eliminate by the end of 2026. In addition, the divestiture is expected to contribute approximately $40 million to free cash flow on a full-year basis, primarily due to lower working capital. In summary, we continue to focus on delivering results in a very challenging environment and are proud to report our sixth consecutive quarter of year-over-year adjusted EBITDA margin expansion. In addition, with our strong free cash flow, we have strengthened the balance sheet and resumed share repurchases.

I’ll now turn the call back over to you, Dave, for update on guidance.

David Lee, CEO, Ingevity: Thanks, Mary. Please turn to slide 10. We are very pleased with our third-quarter results and are on track for a strong finish to the year. Our results reflect sustained execution, the durability of our business model, and our leadership in the industries we serve. We are raising full-year free cash flow guidance and now expect net leverage to be around 2.6 times by year-end. We will continue to be disciplined in how we allocate capital. We look forward to closing the sale of our industrial specialties business soon. Lastly, given the ongoing tariff uncertainty and slower industrial demand primarily impacting APT, we’re adjusting our full-year outlook to narrow the top end of our sales and EBITDA range.

In closing, we look forward to hosting everyone virtually on December 8 for our investor update, when we will provide the results of our strategic portfolio review and our expectations for the future. With that, I’ll turn it over for questions.

Bailey, Moderator, Ingevity: Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If for any reason you would like to remove that question, please press star followed by two. Once again, to ask a question, please press star followed by one. Our first question today comes from the line of John Tamanteng from CGS Securities. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

John Tamanteng, Analyst, CGS Securities: Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions and nice job in the quarter. My first question is just regarding the full-year outlook. I noticed that you’re taking down the top end for APT, which makes sense. I was wondering if you could actually speak to the performance materials segment and to the publicized aluminum plant fires in North America, the chip shortages that are going on in China, and just how that’s impacting your outlook there and what’s implied in the guidance. If you’ve accounted for that.

David Lee, CEO, Ingevity: Yeah, thanks, John. Yeah, with respect to those challenges you mentioned, obviously, if you zoom out, it’s been a pretty dynamic year for the industry. I think it actually speaks to the resilience of the auto industry in general. I mean, we’ve been through tariffs, some macro uncertainty, and as you mentioned, some more recent supply chain challenges. Our results and outlook would reflect any impact from those. I think overall, if you look at the results we’ve delivered for performance materials, it demonstrates also the durability of our business, the continued leadership we have in that space. I think quarter over quarter, we’ve continued to deliver strong results. To answer your question on those two supply chain challenges, our results and outlook do reflect any impact to those going forward.

John Tamanteng, Analyst, CGS Securities: Got it. That’s helpful. Thank you. And then just on the discontinued ops, you mentioned, or I guess you gave metrics for what you expect from the year in the inspect business. Could you kind of tell us what’s implied in the Q4, just because we do not have the first half results in there, and then you broke out the Q3 in terms of EBITDA contribution?

David Lee, CEO, Ingevity: This is John. We do show full year for that discontinued ops. It should be easy for you to get to that, I would think. But we can talk offline if you need help on that.

John Tamanteng, Analyst, CGS Securities: Yeah. John, I kind of just in terms of sizing the business, on an annualized basis, think of it as about a kind of mid-single-digit EBITDA business. We have reported three-quarters of it, so kind of extrapolating that out to the fourth quarter, I think, would make sense.

David Lee, CEO, Ingevity: Okay. Great. Thanks.

Bailey, Moderator, Ingevity: Thank you. Our next question today comes from the line of Daniel Rizzo from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Daniel Rizzo, Analyst, Jefferies: Hey, guys. You mentioned working capital and free cash flow. I was just wondering how we should think about working capital. Post divestiture as maybe as a percent of sales or just how you plan to kind of manage that.

Mary Dean Hall, CFO, Ingevity: You’re really thinking looking forward into 2026, Dan?

Daniel Rizzo, Analyst, Jefferies: Right. I mean, not for just 2026, but just how it changes at all once the business is divested.

Yeah. Hey, Dan, this is Phil. I think if you look at our balance sheet, which is included in the press release schedules, we broke out the impact of the discontinued ops on the balance sheet and pulled them out as separate line items. It will give you a really good, clear indication for what we are thinking working capital looks like for the business going forward.

Okay. And then you mentioned that I think net debt is going to be about 2.7 times at the end of the year. And then you get $110 million, roughly, from the sale. I mean, and that’s going to be used towards debt. I guess my question is, what is the net debt you would have targeted? Because that seems like you would bring you relatively low.

Mary Dean Hall, CFO, Ingevity: Dan, just for clarity, we finished the quarter at 2.7 times. As a result of beating our year-end target already, we’re reducing our target for year-end to 2.6.

David Lee, CEO, Ingevity: Right. In terms of use of proceeds, Dan, we mentioned, or I mentioned in my comments, we’d likely use the majority of proceeds when received to further pay down debt. I want to hold off a little bit because we’ll also talk more about capital allocation as one of the major topics on December 8th. Obviously, if you look at primary use of the proceeds as debt reduction, you can do that trajectory down. We’re really pleased with our achievement so far. Ahead of plan, we had targeted 2.8 or below by end of year. We finished the quarter, as Mary mentioned, at 2.7. We think we’ve got a glide path to 2.6 without any use of proceeds to pay down further debt.

Daniel Rizzo, Analyst, Jefferies: All right. Thank you very much.

Bailey, Moderator, Ingevity: Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question on today’s call, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. We have no additional questions waiting at this time. I would like to pass the call back over to John Nypaver for any closing remarks.

David Lee, CEO, Ingevity: Actually, Bailey, I believe someone is in the queue, if you wouldn’t mind double-checking.

Bailey, Moderator, Ingevity: Perfect. Yes, we will take our next question, apologies, from John McNulty from BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

John McNulty, Analyst, BMO Capital Markets: Yeah. Good morning. Sorry about the last-second question there. I just wanted to understand performance materials a little bit better for the full-year sales to be kind of flat to slightly down. I mean, when we look at kind of the overall auto forecast out there, they’re roughly in line with that. I assume normally you’re getting some reasonable amount of price. Is there some negative mix that we should be thinking about on the auto builds that may be contributing to this type of a result? Or is pricing maybe more modest than it’s been, where maybe it’s taken a little bit of a pause after the last few years? Can you help us to think about that?

David Lee, CEO, Ingevity: Yeah, John. As we mentioned earlier in the year, we’ve taken pricing as we typically do. I think when you look at the auto forecasts as we do as well, they’re calling for sort of flattish to slightly down. That’s similar to our PM business. In terms of the overall mix of those vehicles, obviously, we’ve had a lot of volatility, for example, for EVs throughout the year. When you look at the overall trend for automobiles, it may not reflect just ICE and hybrids. We think we have a very strong position in that market. Market continues to be healthy. Actually, still, inventory levels are pretty low, and the fleet remains pretty aged. We’re thinking that we’re even not back to a healthy level of production. Given that, I think that’s how sort of the math would shake out for us.

It’s just not taking into account the portion that’s EVs. Mary, what else would you add?

Mary Dean Hall, CFO, Ingevity: Yeah. Maybe just another little point of clarity. Focusing on North American production, which, as you know, John, is where we’re most profitable. While the forecast has improved again, actually, for the full year, for North America in particular, it’s still down. The latest forecast information we have is that even North America is still down a couple of percent year-over-year, albeit an improvement over the prior forecast. I think that in combination with some of the noise that we’re also, as we mentioned, factoring in the fire at Ford, chip issues, etc., that are making noise in the supply chain system of automotive, we feel comfortable with our current guide.

John McNulty, Analyst, BMO Capital Markets: Got it. Okay. Fair enough. It sounds like it’s really a mixed thing more than anything else. I guess the other question is just any update on the Nexeon platform and that venture and how things may be going there?

David Lee, CEO, Ingevity: Yeah. As we mentioned with Nexeon, that’s kind of a far-out R&D type of initiative. We do expect their plant to be up and running in the next few months. As a reminder, that’s not using our activated carbon for this first generation, but continues to be a strong partnership and an exciting space that we look forward to participating in with them.

John McNulty, Analyst, BMO Capital Markets: Got it. Thanks very much for the call.

David Lee, CEO, Ingevity: Thanks.

Bailey, Moderator, Ingevity: Thank you. As one final reminder, if you would like to ask a question on today’s call, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. As we have no additional questions waiting at this time, I would now like to pass it back over to John Nypaver for any closing remarks.

David Lee, CEO, Ingevity: Thanks, Bailey. That concludes our call. Registration for the strategic portfolio update is now open on our investor website under events. We will also issue a press release with more details later today. If there are any questions, please feel free to reach out to me directly. My contact information can be found in the earnings release and slide deck. Thank you for your interest in Ingevity.

Bailey, Moderator, Ingevity: This concludes today’s call. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.

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