Kaiser Aluminum Corporation Price & Performance (KALU)

The company undertakes no duty to update any forward looking statements to conform the statement to actual results or changes in the company's expectations. In addition, we have included non GAAP financial information in our discussion. Reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP financial measures are included in the earnings release and in the appendix of the presentation. Reconciliations of certain forward looking non GAAP financial measures to comparable GAAP financial measures are not provided because certain items required for such reconciliations are outside of our control and or cannot be reasonably predicted or provided without unreasonable effort. Any reference to EBITDA in our discussion today means adjusted EBITDA which excludes non run rate items for which we have provided reconciliations in the appendix. Further, Slide five contains of terms and measures that will be commonly used throughout today's presentation. At the conclusion of the company's presentations, we will open up the call for questions. I would now like to turn the call over to Keith Harvey.

Thanks, Kim, and thank you all for joining us for review of our fourth quarter and full year 2024 results. Turning to Slide seven. Our results for the year met our expectation for both conversion revenue and margin expansion. This was our second consecutive year of EBITDA margin expansion increasing by approximately 60 basis points year over year. More notably, it has expanded by four sixty basis points since the low established during the pandemic in 2022. In 2025, we expect to continue our progress towards achieving our EBITDA margin goals in the mid-twenty percent range which I will describe later. The market backdrop in 2024 really since the start of the pandemic, has been complex and rapidly changing.

I'm extremely proud of the work our team has done to position the company for an inflection in our performance, while maintaining our unwavering focus on the execution on our long standing commitment to meet our customers' needs a foundational element of our business. There were challenges in each of our end markets in 2024. Particularly in packaging as we worked hard to meet the strong demand of our along with other investments across our portfolio. Of which I'll have more details to discuss later in the call. We'd expect market conditions to and believe the momentum we have been building over the last several years puts Kaiser in a very strong position for the future. Now let me turn the call over to Neil for more details on our 2024 results. [indiscernible] Thank you, Keith.

And good morning, everyone. I'll begin on Slide nine with an overview of our 2024 full year shipments and conversion revenue. Our full year total net sales were just over $3,000,000,000 After adjusting for the hedge cost of alloy metal of $1,570,000,000 our conversion revenue for the full year was $1,460,000,000 a decrease of $10,000,000 or 1% compared to 2023, while total shipments were down 24,000,000 pounds or 2%. Looking at each of our end market applications in detail, ARO and high strength conversion revenue totaled $530,000,000 down $4,000,000 or approximately 1% reflecting a 4% decline in shipments over last year. The strength of our customer contracts high quality products and superior customer service along with our diverse portfolio of products used in business threat, defense, space and commercial end market applications, helped to offset short term disruptions within the commercial aircraft OEM order patterns which have impacted the entire commercial aircraft production supply chain. Packaging conversion revenue totaled $490,000,000 down $13,000,000 or approximately 3% reflecting a 3% decline in shipments or £20,000,000 over 2023. From an industry perspective, underlying demand remains strong with our shipments continuing to sequentially increase for the fifth consecutive quarter. General engineering conversion revenue for 2024 was $313,000,000 up 3% year over year due to a 6% increase in shipments despite operating in a very complex market, we are encouraged that pricing remained relatively stable regardless of uneven demand and import pressures.

We continue to believe we earn a premium for our products driven by Kaiser Select product portfolio and industry leading service and quality. And finally, automotive conversion revenue was $120,000,000 up 3% over 2023 and a 3% decline in shipments primarily due to an improved product mix of higher value added products. Additional details in conversion revenue and shipments by end market application can be found in the appendix of this presentation. Now moving to Slide 10, reported operating income for 2024 was $88,000,000 After adjusting for non run rate costs of approximately $12,000,000 associated with the closure of our Sherman, Texas facility in June of twenty twenty four and an increase in legacy environmental reserves our adjusted operating income was $100,000,000 down $1,000,000 from 2023. In addition, 2024 operating and as we commissioned our growth in quality driven capital investments during the year. Our effective tax rate for the full year 2024 was 26% compared to 16% in 2023 due primarily to an increase in valuation allowance and certain state operating losses and credits.

For the full year 2025, we expect our effective tax rate before discrete items to be in the low to mid-twenty percent range under current tax regulations. We anticipate that our 2025 cash taxes for federal, state and foreign taxes will be in the 5% to $7,000,000 range. Reported net income for 2024 was $47,000,000 or an income of $2.87 per diluted share. Which was relatively consistent with the 2023 reported net income and income of $2.92 per diluted share. After adjusting for pre tax non run rate net gain of approximately $7,000,000 which primarily included non strategic land sales and insurance settlements related to prior year claims partially offset by restructuring and legacy environmental charges adjusted net income for 2024 was $41,000,000 or income of $2.51 per adjusted diluted share compared to an adjusted net income of $44,000,000 or income of $2.74 per adjusted diluted share in 2023. Now turning to Slide 11, Adjusted EBITDA for 2024 was $217,000,000 up approximately $7,000,000 from 2023. Adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of conversion revenue improved by 60 basis points from 2023 to 14.9%, The improvement in adjusted EBITDA was driven primarily by improved product mix, partially offset by higher personnel and energy costs.

We remain focused on improving operating efficiencies executing on our recent capital investments implementing our metal sourcing strategy and reducing costs in our business. Now turning to a discussion of our balance sheet and cash flow. At the December 2024, total cash of approximately $18,000,000 and approximately $53,000,000 in net borrowing availability and our revolving credit facility provided total liquidity of $572,000,000 There were no outstanding borrowings under our revolving credit facility during and as of the quarter end December thirty one. Our total liquidity position remained strong. As a reminder, our senior notes interest costs at fixed at $48,000,000 annually and we have no debt maturing until 2028. As of year end, our net debt leverage ratio was 4.8 times against our target leverage ratio of two to 2.5 times. Turning to capital allocation. Our full year 2024 capital expenditure came in at $181,000,000 With the fourth coating line investment work largely done at our Warwick facility, we expect our 2025 capital expenditures to be closer to our expected run rate at approximately $125,000,000 including some remaining costs for the fourth coating line project at Warwick and our Phase seven expansion at Trentwood. As a result, we currently estimate greater than $100,000,000 of free cash flow for full year 2025 which we define as cash flow from operation less capital expenditures.

Driven by the lower capital expenditures and reduced working capital demands across the portfolio.

Additionally, in 2024, we returned to approximately $51,000,000 to our shareholders through dividend payments, marking our eighteenth consecutive year of dividend payments to our shareholders. On January 14, we announced that our Board of Directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.77 per common share, which underscores a continuing and increase stockholder value. Finally, we have begun to assess alternative inventory accounting methods other than LIFO. We expect to provide an update on the assessment And now I'll turn the call back over to Keith to discuss our 2025 outlook. Keith? Thanks, Neil. Before I share our outlook for 2025, I'd like to take a step back and talk for a moment about the business approach that has served us well for decades and how it's setting us up for success in the future. First, we are focused on niche areas in our served markets that have very demanding applications and present significant barriers to entry. In those areas, we have built strong competitive positions through product differentiation, and establish long standing relationships with blue chip customers in those markets. In addition to ensuring quality, on time delivery performance and continued strong customer satisfaction levels maintaining our long term customer relationships, comes down to a strong understanding of our customers' evolving needs.

The mutual commitments we have made with our customers help to prioritize our business decisions. As demand for our products grows, our customers expect us to invest for additional capacities to meet their needs and in turn commit to us as a key long term strategic supplier. These commitments support upgrading our Wart rolling mill to produce a greater mix of coated products to meet the needs of our packaging customers and expanding capacity at our Trentwood rolling mill which produces high value added flat rolled products for aerospace, high strength and general engineering applications. These are not small investments. So it has been crucial that we have a very good understanding of our customers' needs Back with mutually beneficial long term agreements to secure the investments and ensure we deliver solid returns to our shareholders. Now let me explain how our business approach has influenced our investment decisions for 2025. And provide our outlook by end market application and on a consolidated basis. Starting on Slide 13, Arrow and High Strength, as I have mentioned in prior calls, commercial aircraft fundamentals remain very strong. Airline passenger miles and freight traffic continue to increase driving the demand for new aircraft.

Although our large airframe customers issues that impacted deliveries in 2024, aircraft shipments are expected to increase in the high single digits year over year in 2025. These OEMs hold years of aircraft backlog In fact, the backlog is as strong as it's ever been. With a high book to bill ratio continuing into 2025. At Kaiser, we're coming off a near record year for Even though we have been operating in a choppy environment, which has resulted in higher M Despite strong demand, those inventories need to be worked through and will have a short term impact on our shipments this year. So while our offerings in business jet, defense and space remain steady, expect large commercial aircraft OEMs will enter a temporary phase of destock that will lead to declines in our 2025 shipments and conversion revenue by approximately 5% to 7% year over year. Looking further out, we expect large commercial aircraft production rates to increase materially in 2026. This should align well with the additional 5% to 6% increase in capacity we expect to gain from our Phase seven one of the very few rolling mills in the world qualified to supply heat treated plate products for aerospace and certain general engineering applications.

This investment is the start of our next major expansion at this facility. And we are excited about the value creation potential it offers to our shareholders.

This expansion is expected to be completed in the second half of twenty twenty five. Overall, the aerospace and high strength market will continue to provide a strong multiyear tailwind to our business. Let's move on to Packaging on Slide 14. Members of our audience who have followed our story closely over the last several years since we reentered the packaging market are aware of the challenges we have faced along the way towards making our Warwick facility a major contributor to our business. I am proud of the tremendous work that has gotten us to where we are today and which will lead to a material improvement in our performance in 2025 and beyond. Our Warwick facility is one of a very select domestic major aluminum rolling mills dedicate to the North American packaging industry it is uniquely positioned as a long term supplier of coated sheeted products into various beverage and food packaging applications and we are investing to meet the increasing demand for these products. We are following the same playbook we have successfully executed in our other end market applications. Where we focus on a very demanding niche portion of the market deliver industry leading products and services, and provide customers with a highly differentiated offering all of which allow us to establish a strong market position and generate attractive returns for our investors.

The investments we have made in Wharton are poised to transform our packaging business and increase its margin profile. Our new roll coat line investment is in its final stages. Both in terms of capital expenditures as well as its readiness to deliver additional coated product. As we previously stated, the fourth roll coat line is a highly strategic project that we expect to convert approximately 25% of our existing capacity to higher margin value added coated products. We are presently commissioning the new roll coat line and will begin customer qualification shortly thereafter. We expect to begin shipping coated product from this line in the second quarter of this year with full production ramping through the remainder of the year. We're also in the final stages of contract negotiations with customers the remainder of the coating capacity this investment will generate. And we now expect those multiyear agreements to be in place by the end of the first quarter this year. In anticipation of the completion of this project, in late twenty twenty four, we began to shift product availability towards a more coated centric mix.

This shift will result in total first half shipments being reduced temporarily as qualifications are completed and we begin shipments from the new line to customers. We expect shipments in the resulting higher value mix to ramp slowly in the second quarter and then reach higher run rates in the second half of the year. As such, the benefit of our investment at Whart will become more apparent in the second half of the year. To add context to that comment, for the full year, we expect shipments and packaging to be up 3% to 5% year over year and expect conversion revenue to increase by 20% to 25% in 2025 As I have said before, we expect our investment in Wart to yield 300 to 400 basis points of EBITDA margin expansion to our consolidated business at full run rate. While we won't guide quarter to quarter, we expect to see the full benefit run rate in the fourth quarter of this year and we believe it to be sustainable. We expect packaging to be a meaningful driver of our long term performance. The dynamics in the industry are extremely compelling. There is a solid long term demand in both food and beverage packaging a fair portion of which is being satisfied currently by imports.

North American production is not currently sufficient to meet future demand. Let alone current demand. Particularly since some capacity has been reallocated towards other end markets including automotive and industrial. And we of course occupy a unique space in the market with our sole focus on packaging at our Worritt facility. With strong secular growth expected in the 35% range annually, coupled with our longstanding customer relationships with multiyear contracts and a focus on higher margin value added coated products we are highly optimistic about our ability to drive strong results in our packaging end market applications. Turning to general engineering on Slide 15. Destocking appears to be over in long products. In fact, service center inventories for a certain of our long products are at lows not seen in over a decade. Shipments to start the year are encouraging. And the ISM Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index moved into expansion territory in January, for the first time since October of twenty twenty two, after twenty six consecutive months of Plate product inventories remain elevated but we expect these will even out by mid year. Our initial outlook for 2025 As noted, we expect Phase seven to expand our capacity at Trentwood Rolling Mill and enable us to continue to meet the growing needs of our customers for general engineering heat treated plate.

Finally, turning to automotive on Slide 16. North American industry production is expected to be flat to down modestly in 2025 compared with last year. While we have some exposure to a softer demand environment, we do have favorable resets on various contracts in 2025. Also, although our shipments are likely to follow market production rates, we are skewed towards the SUV and light trucks segments which should continue to outperform the general overall market Again, we are focused on niche product categories with few competitors and a solid mix of higher value added products. Due to these factors, we expect conversion revenue to be up 3% to 5% on 5% to 7% lower shipments over 2024. Consistent with expected industry production. Turning to our summary outlook for 2025 on Slide 17. We expect our full year consolidated conversion revenue to and EBITDA margin to be up 50 to 100 basis points year over year. In line with the expected ramp of our new investments, anticipate that we will see meaningful EBITDA and EBITDA margin up lift in the second half of the year with around 60% of full year EBITDA expected to come in, in the second prior to any changes we may make on accounting inventory valuations.

Our assumptions include the market conditions and outlook described, the timing of our investments being brought online, and current market considerations on pricing and availability of scrap.

Notably, our assumptions do not include potential impacts from recently announced tariffs which we are evaluating across all of our businesses. Our balance sheet will also continue to strengthen as will our steady pace of deleveraging and our shareholders will reap the additional benefits from the large Finally, I'm pleased to announce that we reached early agreement with our United Steelworkers, represented employees at our newer card alloy plant and Trentwood Rolland Mill taking us to the end of the decade, our existing contract expires in September but as we have done many times in the past, our teams came together early on and worked on a mutually beneficial contract to ensure uninterrupted service to our customers. I'm extremely proud of the relationship we share with United Steelworkers and I want to thank everyone involved on another successful outcome for our employees, our company and for our customers. In summary, we expect to exit 2025 with strong tailwinds resulting from our strategic investments and strong market positions. As I said on our prior call, we expect 2025 to be a transformational year for the company. And that expectation remains unchanged. I look forward to sharing our continued progress with you throughout the year.

With that, I'll now open the call to any questions you may have. Operator?

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. Your first question comes from Bill Peterson with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Yes. Hi. Good morning and thanks for taking the questions. Within the consolidated 2025 EBITDA guide, you have some key assumptions. You say recovery in scrap availability potential tariff. You just spoke to that none of these include any tariff update, but what are you assuming in terms of scrap spreads, the impact to EBITDA, I guess, particularly probably in packaging, but what are your assumptions at this stage? Is there a way to quantify the current impact from the tightness in scrap spreads?

Well, what we used Bill we basically used how we ended up last year. So we had talked about last year that the efforts we had focused on for improving spreads for us on EBITDA and EBITDA margin expansion. We felt that our position was going to bring 150 to 200 basis points of improvement. And as we spoke to the fourth quarter, or excuse me, the third quarter of last year, we said we're at the lower end of that range. And that's pretty much what we've modeled for the remainder of 2025. If we scraps improve, the spreads improve improve, we'll have a tailwind from that. But we're certainly not rolling in that there's going to be a big uplift at this point. And if you take a look at the tariff component Bill, while we didn't include any of that, we're still assessing through all of our businesses what currently has been laid out. And I could say what we've seen from the what's been delivered so far on the announcements, the two thirty two exemption changes and then the the February 1 announcement that came out We really think that this is a neutral to a positive thing for Kaiser Aluminum.

Overall, we may have some areas that we need to refocus on some of our supply of billet or so forth, but something we can meaningfully take care of. On the positive side, we've seen some good pricing position. I mean, as far as we were having we were facing some headwinds with imports I think that's immediately slowed that down. And so that's a positive for us. And then on the other side of it, we're beginning to see customers talk about more domestic shipments. So that always blends well for Kaiser Kaiser. Moving forward, The one area that we remain waiting to see what takes place is on these reciprocal tariff impacts. Play out. But again, our overall assessment of this time is that it's a neutral to a positive for Kaiser Kaiser. Okay. Thanks for that. Maybe trying to double click or get a little bit more color on the the end markets. Maybe first on aerospace. Recognizing you still kind of an inventory correction environment, but what are you hearing from your customers in terms of inventory in the system? When do you expect buyers move sidelines? And guess as we think about progressing through the year, do you see the potential for the year on year shipment and conversion revenues declines to abate or maybe even turn to positive growth by year end or is that just too early to tell?

Well, we took a hard look at this last year a couple of times, Bill, if you recall, we'd said in the in June and then again in in the September call that we felt there was going to be some depression on shipments and inventory concerns and then of course we had some labor issues coming in. When you look at our fourth quarter results, we actually did very well. And I really push that to the strength of our contracts that we have in place. And I'm happy to communicate the strength of those contracts will continue into 2025. [indiscernible] the second part of your question, what do we think, how does the year look, I think the build rates are going to continue to increase with the large OEM airframers, Bill. And I think as those production rates will increase throughout the year, I think that destocking component or that demand could pick up noticeably, especially in the second half of the year. I also we talked in our comments about general engineering. And we talked about this last year. We think that semiconductor stands a good chance of getting back some strength in the second half of the year.

And then along with really low inventory levels at our service centers, any uptick in demand is going to drive demand for us. Now the important factor that we're looking at is that we're beginning the working in that Phase seven that 5% to 6% increase that's coming in. And quite frankly, I think we're going to get very lucky here in that the demand should allow us to put that in with minimal impact to any of our customer's shipments. And so we're going to probably get a good timing on this. This investment. We expect to be done probably in the middle of the second half of the year. And then we'll be ideally positioned to take advantage of any return on demand that we expect to see in the second half of the year. Yes. Thanks for those insights. And then then you mentioned in general, but maybe shifting to packaging. First the fourth quarter sort of pricing was down. Was that Was that a mix impact? And then I guess maybe can you remind us of how many remaining legacy packaging contracts are expected to be renewed? And and what this could what kind of impacts you could have on pricing maybe absent absent of tariffs that could even be a further positive tailwind?

Yes. And again, Bill, good point on that. Nothing on tariffs has rolled into what our our outlay of what our expectations will be on margin expansion as we move to higher value added products. But you could see in that we led that shipments will be up only 3% to 5% And by the way, you are correct. It was just mix in the fourth quarter. We're seeing really really strong demand. I have to pay it that way. We've were very anxious ourselves to get the new capacity on because our our customers are screaming for more metal and we're going to be in a great position start delivering that in the second quarter sometime. But this change to higher value added revenue is indicative of what we're saying. So the second half of the year you will begin to move up to full run rates. And we're talking about up to a 25% improvement on our conversion revenue And so that's just indicative on very few more pounds shipped. So that's just a little insight as to what's to come.

That we think with this vision and I reflect back to that 300 to 400 basis points overall to the consolidated business it'll begin in the in the second half of this year, but purely clearly 2026 we'll be able to really let this thing go. Yes. Thanks for sharing the insights, Keith.

I'll pass along. Thanks, Bill.

Next question, Timna Tanners with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead. Thanks for that great detail. I wanted to ask a few more just high level we've seen the Midwest premium double since last year. So any timing issues with passing that through to customer or implications for working capital?

Yes. Thanks for the question. Hey, good morning, Tim. Our business model has really been set up to pass these through almost immediately. We have very few segments in our businesses where there's a lag of fact, And if those exist, there are no more than twenty or thirty days But the majority of our businesses are set up to pass through metal right away. So you shouldn't see any drag on our business as metal ramps And a good way to go back and look at how that reacts go back and look at our data when metal was up around $2 a pound.

And you can see that our spreads and margins maintain themselves through that period on the way up and on the way down. So So I think we're pretty well insulated on that. Now one thing we intend to do this year, we're Neil mentioned about the greater than $100,000,000 of free cash flow we expect for the year. We're obviously going to be very focused on discipline on the use of working capital Okay. And then again, we're past that large timing of that basically three years in a row where we would had very high spending to get these investments ready to start delivering revenue. So that's going to be completed this year. And so all of that combining together is going to make a very positive effect on our on our cash generation and on our balance sheet.

Okay. Thanks. I was wondering why you were talking about converting your inventory methodology. So I wondered if that was because of a working capital issue. Is there something that we should think about as for modeling purposes or is that imminent?

Well, I think, Tim, if you recall all last year, we we had to evoke LIFO impact at least two or three times. And with that change that took place, we just we're taking a chance to reevaluate how we're looking at and you could look at how are we going to evaluate. We're going to look at FIFO. We're going to look at average cost metal. And we're going to evaluate that against LIFO. And we're going to say what best fits our business moving forward and so that we don't all have to sit there and guess what that accounting scenario that we're in is going to impact earnings. So we're going to go with the one that we think best fits our business. And I think you'll hear more out of us on that issue very soon.

Okay, great. And I think you've been really clear that there's a lot of factors that will drive a better second half than first half. I'm just wondering if you want to put a finer point on it like percentage of EBITDA that might be more second half than first half because it is a quite a confluence of factors between the aerospace cycle that we know of between the ramp up [indiscernible] I think I'm missing something, but there are several factors. I'm just wondering, is there any way that you could put a finer point on it for us? Yes. In the comments, Tim, and I was talking so fast and so much, that you may have missed it. But what we basically said, we expect the total EBITDA for the year to generate approximately 60% of that in the second half. And that's without any of those accounting changes that we make a book and so forth. So you could probably look at it that way perspective of forty-sixty For the year? I did miss that. Yes, thank you. Okay.

So one more for me if I could. The NOLs are still supporting a pretty nice small [indiscernible] And I was wondering since we haven't seen the K yet, what that might look like if this might be the last year of that benefit? And then similarly CapEx in 2025, I think you still have some remaining, of course, from the investments, but what should we think about? Is that falling off around into 2026? Or are there still decent Thanks again.

Yes.

So I'll handle the CapEx and then Neil can talk about the NOLs. Yes, basically what we're stating is that we'll be around that $125,000,000 CapEx for 2025 We sort of alluded to that last year. We said $100,000,000 to $125,000,000 but the $125,000,000 is the general range we're looking at currently. And that is inclusive of finalized the investment on the roll coat line and the Phase seven. Expansion at Trentwood.

And I'll turn the NOLs over to Neil.

In regard to tax NOLs, we basically as of the end of twenty twenty four, we have now utilized our NOLs And as I noted in my comments, we expect our cash tax payments in 2025, which will also cover federal, state and foreign taxes will be in that $5,000,000 to $7,000,000 range in $25,000,000 which is effective with the cash tax payments for '24 taxes.

Got it. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Timna.

I would like to turn the floor over to Keith Harvey for closing remarks.

Okay. Well, thank you for joining us today and thank you for your interest in Kaiser Aluminum.

We're looking forward to an exciting year as we bring these new investments online and position the company for strong growth in 2025 and the years ahead. I look forward to speaking with you again in April when we I hope you have a good rest of your day. Thank you.

This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time and thank you for your participation.