Arkema S.A. (ARKAF) Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Arkema S.A. (OTCPK:ARKAF) Q3 2024 Earnings Conference Call November 6, 2024 5:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Thierry Le Hénaff – Chairman and CEO
Marie-José Donsion – Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Thomas Wrigglesworth – Morgan Stanley
Emmanuel Matot – ODDO BHF Corporate & Markets
Aron Cecceralli – Berenberg
Chetan Udeshi – JPMorgan Chase & Co
Georgina Fraser – Goldman Sachs
Geoffery Haire – UBS Investment Bank
Jaideep Pandya – On Field Research
Ranulf Orr – Citigroup Inc.
Matthew Yates – BofA Securities
Alex Stewart – Barclays

Thierry Le Hénaff

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Arkema’s Q3 ’24 Results Conference Call. With me today are, as usual, our CFO, Marie-José Donsion and the Investor Relations team. To support this conference call, we have posted a set of slides which are available on our website. And as usual, I will start with some comments on the highlights of the quarter before letting Marie-José go through the financials. And at the end of the presentation, we’ll be available to answer your questions.

So the macroeconomic conditions we encountered in the third quarter remain broadly in line with what has already been observed for several quarters, namely continued soft demand in a global challenging macroenvironment. Once again, there was no sign of rebound overall, and we should even add that the automotive sector has worsened notably in Europe. After an encouraging month of July, demand were down in September, which reflect inventory adjustment end of the quarter at some customers.

Despite this context, Arkema achieved, we believe, strong financial results, significantly higher than the average of its peers. We are able to deliver again a solid sales growth in Q3 up 2.9% compared with last year, driven by Specialty Materials in Asia and in the U.S., while Europe suffered from low demand overall. Besides we increased our EBITDA by more than 5% and