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The global specialty materials company is a leading producer of acetic acid, an industrial chemical often used as a solvent for paints and resins.

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The technology and specialty materials company makes products used in the chemicals, paints, automotive, consumer electronics, and food-and-beverage industries, among others.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 65th running of the list.

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This year's Fortune 500 marks the 61st running of the list. Wal-Mart claims the top spot again. See who made the list.

Wal-Mart stayed on top as its sales crept closer to half-a-trillion dollars. Apple moved into the top five. And UnitedHealth Group continued its steady climb. 

Key Financials (last Fiscal Year)

Revenues ($M)

Profits ($M)

Assets ($M)

Total Stockholder Equity ($M)

Profit Ratios

Profit as % of Revenues

Profits as % of Assets

Profits as % of Stockholder Equity

Earnings Per Share (last Fiscal Year)

Earnings Per Share ($)

EPS % Change (from prior fiscal year)

EPS % Change (5 year annual rate)

EPS % Change (10 year annual rate)

Total Return

Total Return to Investors (last year)

Total Return to Investors (5 year, annualized)

Total Return to Investors (10 year, annualized)

Celanese Corporation is a chemical company that manufactures and sells engineered polymers worldwide. Its products are used in industries such as automotive, medical, electronics, appliances, and construction.

Q2 2026

Q1 2026

Q4 2025

Q3 2025

Q2 2025

Q1 2025

Q4 2024

Celanese (CE): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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Celanese

celanese

Greetings. Welcome to the Celanese First Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Call and Webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Bill Cunningham.

Thanks, Daryl. Welcome to the Celanese Corporation first quarter twenty twenty five earnings conference call. My name is Bill Cunningham, Vice President of Investor Relations. With me today on the call are Scott Richardson, President and Chief Executive Officer and Chuck Kyrish, Chief Financial Officer. Celanese distributed its first quarter earnings release via Business Wire and posted prepared comments as well as a presentation on our Investor Relations website yesterday afternoon.

As a reminder, we'll discuss non GAAP financial measures today. You can find definitions of these measures as well as reconciliations to the comparable GAAP measures on our website. Today's presentation will also include forward looking statements. Please review the cautionary language regarding forward looking statements, which can be found at the end of both the press release and the prepared comments. Form eight ks reports containing all of these materials have also been submitted to the SEC.

With that, Daryl, let's please go ahead and open it up for questions.

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. Our first questions come from the line of David Begleiter with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your questions.

Thank you. Good morning. Scott, nice quarter. Looking beyond Q2, how should we think about the earnings cadence, if not ramp in the back half of the year?

Thank you, David. Look, we do have some tailwinds, particularly on the cost side as we go into the second half of the year. First half is pretty heavy on turnarounds. There's probably around $30,000,000 of tailwind there. We called out tariff impact of about $30,000,000 on a direct basis.

So those two offset each other. The additional cost reduction actions that we outlined in the prepared remarks is about $40,000,000 And then kind of the full run rate of the original $80,000,000 is another 20,000,000 So you got about 60,000,000 there. And then tow dividend and tow volume will certainly be a tailwind as well. Those two together are about $50,000,000 or so in the second half. So when you kind of put those things together, it's really a nice kind of almost $100,000,000 or so just from those elements in the second half.

The uncertainty factor demand right now. And I think that is what we're watching very closely to see kind of where things are going to hold from a demand perspective.

Very good. And just on Micromax, is this the only divestiture you're looking at this year or could it be more this year beyond just Micromax?

We've been very consistent that our focus is on cash generation. And we are looking at a myriad of options on the divestiture side, David. It's not just Micromax. We've talked about having a portfolio of things that we're looking at. We felt like announcing the Micromax transaction was important because of the number of inbounds that we've had on this business and with us launching the process right now.

We felt like being public with it made a lot more sense. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Frank Mitsch with Fermium Research. Please proceed with your questions.

Just following up on MicroMax. How do we think about the EBITDA margins for that business?

Thank you, Frank. Yes, we said the revenue is about $300,000,000 And honestly, right now, that business is running very similar EBITDA margins to what Engineered Materials did in the first quarter. So high teens, Frank, is how I would think about it.

All right. Terrific. And I appreciate the color in the commentary and in the slides regarding Nylon sixty six and the difficulties therein. I mean, have seen a recent bankruptcy filing. What's your outlook in terms of capacity rationalization and what gets that business fundamentally improving?

I'd like to take a quick step back, Frank. I mean, we believe that we have the leading engineered materials franchise in the world. When you look at the 19 different polymer families that we have in our portfolio, we feel like we can really deliver unique customer solutions to a wide variety of the customer base. Nylon is the one that's specifically challenged. And so we called it out really because it is a business that we know we've got to put a core amount of focus on and has been the biggest driver of our earnings decline in the last several years.

As we look here, the industry is challenged. The industry has given up a lot of margin over the last several years and it's unsustainable. And so the actions that we started taking last year around capacity reductions, us kind of flexing a different operating model here hasn't been enough yet. But we are starting to see a stabilization here. And now that we've got things stabilizing, it's important that we start to build up.

And so you've seen us announce some price increases. We're continuing to focus heavily on the cost side of the equation so that we can really streamline our operations to be leaner and ability to meet customer needs going forward.

Understood. Just lastly, you called out that you didn't expect the high cost producers to be able to last in this sort of environment. Are you seeing any tangible actions that of competitor capacity rationalizations?

Frank, we can only can control what we do. And we, I believe, have been taking decisive actions in this business and we will continue to do so. And we'll continue to partner with our customers as well to bring unique solutions and continue to drive our costs down as much as we can.

Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Jeff Zekauskas with JPMorgan. Please proceed with your questions.

Thanks very much. Oil prices have begun to come down. Is this good for Celanese or bad for Celanese or how do you think about it or calculate it?

Thank you, Jeff. We have a flexible operating model. We have a variety feedstocks. And I think we've been pretty consistent over the years that we're relatively agnostic to where oil pricing is at. And so we haven't necessarily we see some puts and takes from that.

We certainly see some feedstock reductions, which is helpful. But then you see some offsets from that, particularly in things like the Ibn Sina dividend, which comes down when oil pricing moves off. So as we've run a myriad of permutations from a straight cost perspective, we tend to be agnostic. The question is really demand. I think in most economic environments, lower oil pricing usually means demand is at reduced levels in a lot of our end uses.

And so I think that's the piece that we're watching closely right now.

So in the quarter, Engineered Materials volumes were down four and year over year and the acetyl chain volumes were down six. Is that sort of the baseline level of year over year change that you expect? When you did your guide for the second quarter, many of the positive components you pointed to were either one time or cost related. Are you seeing sort of a normal seasonal pickup in volumes? Can you talk about what you expect for volumes for the year?

Yes. I'll talk about order book as well, Jeff, here for the second Let me start with Engineered Materials. We saw a much stronger March than we saw in January and February. And the April orders were kind of in line with that March pickup. And the order book for May looks very similar.

June is too early to say, and there's some uncertainty around where June orders will go. But April and May are strong. So we are seeing a volume pickup from Q1 into Q2 from Engineered Materials. The Acetyl side of things, I would say we're not seeing the normal seasonal pickup that we would typically see. Usually Q2 is significantly better volumetrically and things like paints and coatings.

We haven't seen that. We're seeing some of that, but not nearly at the level that we've historically in the past. Where we are seeing volumes move up in acetyls is in the acetate tow business. And we called out some Q1 seasonality there and things certainly are better here as we've started the second quarter. Just as an example, April volumes in acetate tow were about 25% more than January volume.

So certainly seeing things move in the right direction there.

Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Ghansham Panjabi with Baird. Please proceed with your questions.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everybody. I just want to go back to the Nylon 66 question earlier. Obviously, very significant drag on operating profit since 2021 on the EM segment. Scott, what specifically changed relative to perhaps your diligence at the time of the M and M transaction prior to close?

And then what is the catalyst to change the profitability metrics for that business going forward? Is it just demand weakness at this point and exaggerated supply? What's going on there?

Thank you, Ghansham. The biggest change that we saw happen as we got into 'twenty two and 'twenty three was really reduced demand. And I think that was really came at the exact same time of the increase in capacity. I mean, the increased capacity coming to the marketplace was something that we had seen and we knew was coming. But I think that overlay of the demand reduction coming at that second time has just created this significant overcapacity in a short period of time.

And we just didn't see a rationalization globally of capacity very quickly. And we took action obviously over a year ago on our asset in Europe. And you'll have to see kind of where things go as we go forward. But historically, the Western Hemisphere was over capacitized, but it had a home to go in China. And when China brought on a lot more new capacity, we've seen that volume back up.

And so we'll just have to kind of see where things go from a balance perspective. But we're going to continue to pivot there. We as we've said in the past, we don't need to be a producer of nylon polymer. We are buying polymer as well. And when it's cheaper to do so, we'll ramp down our own operating rates.

Okay. Thanks for that. And then in terms of the upstream AC segment, pricing has been negative since 4Q twenty twenty two on a year over year basis pretty consistently. Just trying to reconcile your comments in your prepared commentary, etcetera. Are we sort of at an inflection point as you see it at this point?

I know you've done some pricing in different businesses.

Yes. The overcapacity that we've seen is contained in Asia today. And we have been moving our business model consistently over the last five or so years further downstream. And we've added capacity in our emulsions business. We purchased the powders asset downstream from emulsions, and that has given us more flex really to consume more acetic acid and VAM internally.

Currently, on a global basis, 65% of what we actually sell in acetyls to a third party customer is not acetic acid or VAM. And so that downstream capability does give us some level of differentiation. It doesn't fully insulate us from overcapacity and we certainly would like margins to be better in acetic acid and VAM, but it does give us some flexibility there. And margins have been relatively stable in the Western Hemisphere.

Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Vincent Andrews with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your questions.

Thanks and good morning. Just on the seven hundred to eight hundred million dollars of cash you're calling out for the year. I mean, understanding that the back half of the year is tricky right now to forecast from an earnings perspective. But can you just bridge us 24,000,000 to $25,000,000 I know there were lot of onetime items on the cash flow statement last year, but just sort of help us understand your conviction and being able to get to 700 to $800,000,000 of cash this year despite a tricky outlook?

Yes. Vincent, let me start and then I'll let Chuck fill in some of the year over year details. As I said earlier, our focus is on cash. And yes, there's uncertainty in the back half. We do have some tailwinds second half versus first half, as I called out earlier.

But there is some uncertainty with demand. We are not even though volumes are better here in the second quarter, we are not ramping up our plant rates. We are focused on reducing inventory and are going to pull back on rates if we see any kind of reduction in demand. So that inventory reduction plan is very strong. And we have levers, we believe, even if we see a sharp reduction in demand in the second half, we have levers to be able to generate cash flow in the range we called out.

Yes, that's right, Vincent. And to guide on free cash flow, some of those levers, they will have impact on the income statement, right, in terms of cost absorption, etcetera. So those are more difficult to predict sort of on a timing basis. But what we are confident in is the cash flow protection and generation of these levers. And we also think about the categories that we've been talking about to call out of year over year improvement.

Working capital is a use of cash last year. We're expecting it to be a source of cash this year. So that's a significant increase year over year. We've really taken CapEx down to our maintenance levels. And so that's going to be a significant increase.

Cash taxes will come down. So those things, in addition to these levers that Scott talked about make us confident in that 700 to $800,000,000 of free cash flow for the year.

Okay, very good. And then if I could, as a follow-up, your auto volumes, your volumes into auto were down 5% against a global industry down 10%. How much of that outperformance was just a function of it seems like it was Asia where the real weakness was? And I think Asia has been a softer market for you in recent quarters versus are you also picking share up or any other things you want to call out in that delta?

Look, our team has balance and where we're positioned globally on automotive. Obviously, business historically is stronger in the Western Hemisphere than in China, but that China business is growing. The end of some of the European destocking that we had called out in the month of March and as we started here Q2 was a good driver for us. Certainly, that's where we have more content is in The U. S.

And in Europe. And so that certainly was helpful. And we had seen kind of a mismatch of our volumes versus where builds were in the fourth quarter. And so this is kind of getting things kind of balanced back out, Vincent.

Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Josh Spector with UBS. Please proceed with your questions.

wanted to ask your view on the impact of tariffs on your ability to flex your acetyls chain. So I mean you called out kind of $15,000,000 net headwinds a quarter in second half. I'm not sure how much of that's acetyls versus the other businesses. But the hallmark of that business model has been the flexibility and ability to arb different regions. So how much of a hindrance is that?

Or do you see that something you could largely mitigate?

Tariffs really don't have much impact for us in acetyls, Josh. I mean the amounts that we called out are really more related to Engineered Materials. Yes, a hallmark of our model is ability to flex. But even when we first started investing in China in 02/2007, we've talked about China for China for the most part in acetyls. And so we have a really nice position with where our assets are positioned in acetyls, and we really don't see much tariff impact.

Okay. So maybe to clarify for me, on Slide 17, when you talk about 9% of China sales essentially coming from The U. S, is that all EM then or what's the nature of that material?

Yes, it is all Engineered Materials, Josh. And it is really specifically just several product families. And as we called out there, we have the ability to move that production to other places for about half of that exposure. So we do have a gap, and the team is working hard still on that remaining gap to find ways to mitigate it going forward.

Thank you. Our next question has come from the line of Patrick Cunningham with Citi. Please proceed with your questions.

Hi, good morning. I was wondering if you could speak to the success of pricing actions across the EM portfolio given the 1Q and 2Q price increases you've announced. It looks like price is modestly higher sequentially, but could you compare and contrast standard grade versus the more differentiated end and outlook for pricing for the year?

Yes. Thank you, Patrick. The team was successful getting some price. We didn't get a whole lot in the first quarter because those price increases were announced towards the end of the quarter, but we did see some. And we are seeing a little bit of that carry forward obviously and some additional increases here in the second quarter.

I think the price you're seeing is a little more mix related in the first quarter. That was a bigger chunk of the pricing.

Very good. And then just on the high impact growth pipeline in EM, do you have any concerns on resource alignment, customer relationships with quite a bit of headcount reduction in this business? How do you balance the right levels of SG and

A investment to support this pipeline going forward? We are taking an aggressive approach on the cost structure of not just the business, but the entire corporation. But we also believe that we have sufficient resources. And it is really about making sure that we are majoring in the majors, not majoring in the minors here, and that we are making sure our resources are focused on those high impact programs. And it doesn't mean we're not going to work other things.

It just means that where we're going to put real effort and where we're going to make investment is on those things that have a bigger payoff. And I think the Engineered Materials team led by Todd Elliott has really been doing a great job of ensuring that we are looking at everything that we're doing and making sure our resources are properly positioned on those high impact areas.

Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Mike Sison with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your questions.

Hey, good morning guys. A nice start to the year. When we think about the second half of the year, Scott, I think you're assuming things don't get worse from here. Where do you think you should end the year in terms of, I don't know, maybe earnings power? Where would you like to get the company to in terms of, in this environment, some level of earnings or EBITDA as we exit the year heading into hopefully a better year next year?

Well, Mike, let me just kind of take a step back. We're not assuming anything right now. We are continuing to be diligent on driving self help actions, and that is where our focus is. You look at some of those second half tailwinds that I talked about, if and this is obviously a big if, were to stay similar to what it is in April and May, then if you add those things, you would get to kind of a run rate exiting the year around $2 a share. That's obviously a big if.

And we're not going to assume that that's going to be the case. And we're going to continue to be ahead of how we operate our assets to ensure that we are generating cash because that is really the key focus for us right now, Mike.

Got it. And then longer term, as reassess the portfolio, do you have any thoughts since you've taken the helm of where the earnings power for Celanese should be longer term?

We have two great franchises with strong operating models. We believe in the acetyl chain operating model. We believe in the engineered materials operating model. These businesses have significant earnings power. I mean the steps that we're taking now and the things that we're doing to generate opportunities even in an uncertain environment, I think are going to be a nice catalyst for us when we see a stabilization of demand.

I mean if you look at our largest end use exposure in the ASCIL chain and paints, coatings, construction, adhesives, it's been really historically soft now for multiple years. And the business is still generating the type of EBITDA that it is. That flexibility that we have in that business and the investments we've made will really well position that to grow earnings pretty significantly going forward. And I'm not ready to call out a number right now, Mike, on the future, but we do believe kind of the first step is kind of that $2 per quarter, and then we'll build off of that.

Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Alexey Yefremov with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please proceed with your questions.

Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Scott, last quarter you talked about your focus on gaining share in content in Asia. I mean, we're now five months into this year. How do you feel about your progress on this topic this year?

And maybe if look into 'twenty six, how should this area of focus evolve for you?

China is an important area of focus for us. We believe that in automotive, in particular, that the local OEMs are going to be the winners there in China, and we need to be increasing our content there. That increased content is really going to be focused on these high impact programs that we have. It needs to be margin focused because I don't know that the volume play there is going to be the same as where our business has historically developed. And so the team is really quarterly focused.

Todd Elliott and team have created really a focused group that is really designed around accelerating our content there locally in China. We grew our EV volumes in China Twenty Percent last year over the previous year, and we've got to do that again this year. And so that's the kind of focus and targets that we're setting for ourselves to ensure that we're successful long term.

And just looking back on Engineered Materials last year, as you know, you were just shy of $1,300,000,000 of EBITDA. It sounds like destocking is over, demand is okay. How realistic is it for you to get back to that 1.3 annual level over the next few quarters? And what are the risks? What has changed that may preclude you from going back to that level of earnings?

Well, first and foremost, it's around self help actions, the things that we are driving that we control. And that is the first step here. And I think with the team, it continues to create a nice slate of actions, and it seems like we're adding to that list every single quarter. And so that is helpful. The volume side of the equation is important.

Every incremental ton that we sell is worth a lot, particularly as we continue to pull cost out of this business. And so getting some level of volume stability coming out of where we were in the fourth quarter and the first part of Q1 was extremely important. I also think that the price discussion is important. Margins have compressed here pretty significantly in some of these standard grade areas. And it is really important that we get off of these unsustainable margin levels.

And so that's another element. And we know that's not going to change overnight, and we're going to have to keep working up that step by step. But we feel confident in the long term earnings power of this franchise.

Thank you. Our next question has come from the line of Kevin McCarthy with Vertical Research Partners. Please proceed with your questions.

Yes, thank you and good morning. Scott, when I look at your 2025 free cash flow range of 700,000,000 to 800,000,000 and back out your ranges for CapEx, working capital, cash taxes, etcetera, It seems to imply that you're tracking to an adjusted EBITDA level around $1,800,000,000 or so. Is that fair or are there other cash flow items that might skew the implied earnings range materially higher or lower than that?

No, Kevin, I wouldn't read too much into that. As we've stated repeatedly, our focus is on cash. And given the amount of potential demand uncertainty that we see in the back half of the year, we're not we're kind of looking at a myriad of scenarios of how things could play out. And with the levers that we have to pull in the variety of those scenarios, we believe that is a solid range for us, and we're confident in that range. Like I said before, if given some of the tailwinds that we have in the second half, if demand were to stay pretty stable, then certainly the earnings trajectory will look pretty strong in the second half of the year.

Okay, fair enough. And then secondly, in a scenario where the tariff regime is status quo today, can

in general terms about what you think might happen in China? For example,

you seen or would you expect to see any examples of project cancellations in China as you look across your portfolio? And where do you think the effect on market conditions could be most pronounced?

We haven't seen project cancellations in China. What I would say, Kevin, is we are seeing orders in some of the, I would say, kind of small appliances, toys, those areas, we've seen that kind of start to pull back here in the second quarter. That tends to be relatively low margin business for us. So we're not significantly worried about it from an EBITDA perspective. But I do think it's indicative of the uncertainty that is out there.

Celanese (CE) Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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