Chemours Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
February 18, 2025
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Operator

Good morning. My name is Michelle, and I will be your conference operator today. I would like to welcome everyone to the Chemours Company Fourth Quarter twenty twenty four Results Conference Call. I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference call over to Brandon Anchez, Vice President of Investor Relations for Chemours.

Operator

You may begin your conference.

Brandon Ontjes
Brandon Ontjes
Vice President of Head of Strategy & Investor Relations at The Chemours Company

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to The Chemours Company's fourth quarter and full year twenty twenty four earnings conference call. I'm joined today by Denise Dignam, Chemours' President and Chief Executive Officer and our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Shane Hostetter. Before we start, I would like to remind you that comments made on this call as as well as some supplemental information provided on our website contain forward looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties as described in Kevorka's SEC filings. These forward looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are based on certain assumptions and expectations of future events that may not be realized.

Brandon Ontjes
Brandon Ontjes
Vice President of Head of Strategy & Investor Relations at The Chemours Company

Actual results may differ and Chemours undertakes no duty to update any forward looking statements as a result of future developments or new information. During the course of this call, we will refer to certain non GAAP financial measures that we believe are useful to investors evaluating the company's performance. A reconciliation of non GAAP terms and adjustments is included in our press release issued this morning. Also, we've posted our earnings presentation to our website earlier today. With that, I will turn the call over to Denise Stigman.

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

Thank you, Brandon, and thank you, everyone, for joining us. Over the past few months, we've been focused on executing against the refreshed corporate strategy that we outlined on our last earnings call, which we call Pathway to Thrive. Today, we are excited to share our results from the fourth quarter and full year 2024, as well as the significant progress we've made against our strategic pillars in just a few short months. Shade and I will begin by discussing our fourth quarter and full year performance. We will then provide a view of the first quarter and share some thoughts around the outlook to the full year 2025.

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

Next, we will discuss the progress we've made on our strategy in more detail and take your questions. Beginning with our results, we delivered another quarter of strong performance, building on our momentum from the last quarter. Across all our businesses, we exceeded our adjusted EBITDA expectations for the quarter, demonstrating our continued focus on operational excellence and fulfilling our shareholder commitments. For our TSS business, we again achieved a quarterly sales record driven by 23% year over year growth in Opteon refrigerants driven by The U. S.

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

AIM Act and EU F Gas regulatory transitions underway. Our TSS earnings came in above our expectations driven by this continued Opteon adoption and supported by a favorable product mix and lower cost in the fourth quarter. In light of strong adoption, I'm pleased to share that we recently completed the expansion at our Corpus Christi site, where we produce our Neat Opteon refrigerant and are in the process of ramping this added capacity to support market demand. In TT, our team remains focused on driving strong commercial performance and advancing cost reduction efforts under the TT transformation plan. As we had guided, we saw a sequential decline in our net sales driven by seasonal volume trends and regional mix.

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

As we reflect on the year, even with the headwinds we saw in the first half of the year, our TT transformation plan has yielded clear results with approximately $140,000,000 in annual savings, exceeding our initial target of $125,000,000 While we continue to experience a weaker macro environment, the cost savings we achieved in TT more than offset weaker pricing during the year, enabling us to deliver a net one percentage point increase in adjusted EBITDA margins, bringing us to 12% for the year. Under the operational excellence pillar of our Pathway to Thrive strategy, we will continue to execute cost reduction efforts at an efficient and orderly pace. We expect TT will achieve at least another $60,000,000 in run rate savings by the end of twenty twenty five, representing approximately half of the $125,000,000 dollars corporate wide target we set out for the upcoming year. In APM, sales for the quarter were softer than anticipated due to weaker conditions in more economically sensitive end markets combined with weaker demand for NAPON membranes in our hydrogen end markets, negatively impacting our Performance Solutions portfolio. However, much of the sequential weakness in Performance Solutions was offset by the encouraging progress we are seeing in our newly constructed high purity Teflon PFA resin production line, which serves semiconductor customers.

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

Our earnings in APM were driven by better than expected cost performance, primarily due to favorable inventory adjustments and true ups in the quarter. At the corporate level, I am pleased to share that we fully remediated our four material weaknesses in internal control, which were identified in connection with the audit committee's internal review in early twenty twenty four. The remediation of these material weaknesses has been a significant undertaking for our organization and is symbolic of the final step needed to move past the events of the prior year and is reflective of efforts under our strengthen the long term strategic pillar. I also want to take a moment to highlight two recently announced updates to our executive team. First, I'd like to welcome Damian Gumpel as President of Comeore's TT business.

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

Most recently, Damian served as the Vice President, Corporate Strategy at the Olin Corporation and previously led Olin's global epoxy business. Damian's strategic experience, business leadership and transformation background will help us continue to build on the success of our existing transformation plan and contribute significantly to advancing Comeore's strategy. We're looking forward to him officially joining the team in early March. Second, I want to highlight the appointment of Diane Pichot, our Chief Enterprise Enablement Officer. Since taking on the role of Interim TT Business President in March 2024, Diane has made significant contributions to building on a strong foundation for the TT business.

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

In her new role, Diane will be focused on the execution of the operational excellence and growth enablement pillars of Pathway to Thrive strategy, working across our businesses to deliver results. Diane brings over forty years of business leadership across Chemours business segments, and I can attest firsthand to her effective and collaborative leadership style. The appointment of Damian and Diane helps further solidify our leadership team and put us on the path to drive long term value for our shareholders.

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

Now, I'll turn it over to Shane to walk through our financial results. Thank you, Denise, and good morning, everyone.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

Let's take a closer look at our financial results, beginning with our quarterly performance. Our consolidated net sales for the fourth quarter were approximately $1,400,000,000 down 1% compared to the prior year quarter. This decrease was driven by a three percent decline in pricing, partially offset by a 2% increase in volume with currency impacts remaining for it. Turning to adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter, we saw an increase from $176,000,000 in the prior year to $179,000,000 this quarter. This increase was primarily driven by cost savings realized through the TT transformation plan, favorable inventory adjustments in true ups and APM and increased volumes in TSS, partially offset by lower pricing across all our businesses.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

For the fourth quarter, Chemours reported a net loss of $8,000,000 or $0.05 per diluted share compared to a net loss of $18,000,000 or $0.12 per diluted share in the prior year. Our consolidated adjusted net income came in at $16,000,000 this quarter or $0.11 per diluted share, which was down from $46,000,000 of adjusted net income in the prior year quarter or $0.31 per diluted share, largely due to favorable tax impacts due to a lower effective tax rate in the prior year. Now let's turn to our full year results. Our consolidated net sales for the full year 2024 were approximately $5,800,000,000 down 5% compared to the prior year. This decrease was driven by a 4% pricing decrease and a 1% decrease due to portfolio changes made during 2023, which reflects the sale of our glycolic acid business in 2023.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

Currency impacts were flat year over year, as well as our volumes as solid increases in TSS and TT were offset by weaker volumes in APM. Adjusted EBITDA for the full year was $786,000,000 compared to $1,000,000,000 in the prior year. The decrease year over year was primarily driven by pricing decreases across all businesses, unfavorable currency impacts, portfolio changes and higher costs in TSS and corporate expenses related to the audit committee's internal review and remediation. These increased costs were more than offset by cost savings realized through the TTE transformation plan. For the full year, Chemours reported net income of $86,000,000 or $0.57 per diluted share compared to a net loss of $238,000,000 or $1.6 per diluted share in the prior year.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

As a reminder, the loss in 2023 was primarily due to costs related to the settlement of the U. S. Public Water System class action suit. Our consolidated adjusted net income for the full year came in at $182,000,000 or $1.21 per diluted share, which was down from $425,000,000 of adjusted net income last year or $2.82 per diluted share, primarily due to the prior year elevated earnings drivers I previously outlined. Now let's turn to our business segment performance starting with TSS.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

In the fourth quarter, as Denise mentioned, TSS again achieved record net sales of $390,000,000 a 3% increase from the prior year. This growth was primarily driven by a volume increase of 7%, which was partially offset by a price decrease of 4% with currency impacts remaining flat year over year. The increase in volume was driven by 23% year over year sales growth in our opt down refrigerants, which reflects continued strength in demand ahead of the transition to new low GWP stationary air conditioning equipment starting in 2025 as mandated under The U. S. AIM Act.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

Year over year pricing remains lower similar to previous quarters due to soft pricing in our Freon refrigerants due to elevated HFC inventory levels, which continue to persist in the market. TSS's fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA decreased slightly by 1% to $123,000,000 compared to the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA margin also decreased one percentage point to 32%. This decrease was driven primarily by the aforementioned pricing weakness, partially offset by lower costs that we don't anticipate will recur in the first quarter of twenty twenty five. Sequentially, TSS's net sales decreased by 17%, which was driven by a volume decrease of 13% and a price decrease of 4%.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

Overall, volume and price decreases were primarily related to typical seasonal trends across our refrigerant portfolios combined with lower demand for our FP and O products during the quarter. Turning to full year results for TSS. Net sales for the full year were $1,800,000,000 a 1% decrease from the prior year. This decline was primarily driven by a price decrease of 3%, which was partially offset by a 2% volume increase, while currency impacts remained flat year over year. The decrease in price for the full year was primarily related to softer Freon refrigerant prices, partially offset by stronger Opteon refrigerant prices.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

Volume growth for the full year was driven by higher demand within the Opteon refrigerants portfolio due to continued stationary and automotive end market adoption, partially offset by a volume decrease in the Freon refrigerant portfolio in connection with the previously mentioned HFC step downs under The U. S. AMAC and EU F Gas regulation. TSS's full year adjusted EBITDA decreased by 16% from the prior year to $576,000,000 resulting in an adjusted EBITDA margin of 31%. This decrease was primarily driven by the softer Freon refrigerant prices that I mentioned, higher costs associated with purchasing non corpus based low GWP refrigerant, near term quota allowances, lower fixed cost absorption in TSS's HFC product line, as well as other input costs.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

Now let's move to our TT segment beginning with quarterly results. In the fourth quarter, TT's net sales fell 3% year over year to $632,000,000 primarily due to a 2% decrease in pricing and a 1% decrease in volume, while currency impact remained flat year over year. Adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter increased 20% to $77,000,000 compared to the prior year with adjusted EBITDA margin improving by two percentage points to 12%. Cost savings realized through our TT transformation plan drove this boost in earnings and was partially offset by the previously mentioned decreases in pricing and volume. Sequentially, TT's fourth quarter net sales decreased by 6%, driven by a 4% decline in volume and a 2% decrease in price.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

Turning to full year results, TT's net sales fell 4% year over year to $2,600,000,000 primarily due to a 5% decrease in pricing, partially offset by 1% increase in volume. Adjusted EBITDA for the full year increased 8% to $312,000,000 compared to the prior year with adjusted EBITDA margin improving by one percentage point to 12%. This earnings increase was primarily driven by approximately $140,000,000 of cost savings realized through the TT transformation plan during the year, which as Denise mentioned earlier exceeded our original commitment. The impact from the TT transformation plan was partially offset by the previously highlighted decrease in pricing. Also TT's full year adjusted EBITDA includes $26,000,000 of costs across the second and third quarters related to the unplanned weather related downtime at our Altamira, Mexico manufacturing site.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

Since these disruptions at our site occurred over the summer, I am pleased to say that our operation temporarily and we have fully supported our customer demand. Turning to our ATM segment. In the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four, ATM reported net sales of $324,000,000 a 1% decline compared to the prior year. This decrease was largely driven by a 3% decline in price, which was partially offset by a 2% increase in volume, while currency impacts remained flat. APM's volume increase was primarily related to our recent capacity expansion in high purity Teflon PSA, which more than offset the weaker demand that we saw for our products serving the hydrogen market in the quarter.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

The pricing decrease stemmed from product mix connected to more economically sensitive end markets across the segment. ATM's adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter increased 20% to $48,000,000 dollars while adjusted EBITDA margin rose three percentage points to 15%. This increase was primarily due to favorable inventory adjustments and true ups in the fourth quarter that are not expected to recur, which were partially offset by the aforementioned decrease in price due to overall product mix. Sequentially, net sales decreased by 8%, driven by a 6% volume decrease and a 2% decline in price with currency impacts remaining flat. Turning to full year results in APM, net sales were $1,300,000,000 reflecting a 9% decrease compared to the prior year.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

This decline was primarily driven by a 5% decrease in pricing as well as a 3% decrease in volume with currency also creating a slight 1% headwind. The decline in volumes for the full year was primarily due to weaker demand in the hydrogen market that I mentioned earlier, as well as lower volumes in more economically sensitive end markets. The price decrease seen during the year was due to product mix connected to the same economically sensitive end markets across the broad segment. APM's adjusted EBITDA for the full year decreased 41% to $161,000,000 resulting in an adjusted EBITDA margin decrease of seven percentage points to 12%. This decrease in adjusted EBITDA was primarily due to the previously mentioned decreases in pricing as well as lower sales volumes and the related impact of lower volumes on fixed cost absorption, which further contributed to the earnings decrease.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

Regarding our APM segment, we continue to closely evaluate this business to reduce costs and identify opportunities to further optimize our footprint and enhance shareholder value as part of our Pathway to Thrive corporate strategy. Denise will discuss recent actions taken by the team in more detail shortly. Moving to our UGGMOS segment. We recorded net sales of $13,000,000 and breakeven adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter. For the full year, our other segment recorded net sales and adjusted EBITDA of $54,000,000 and $8,000,000 respectively.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

And finally, our corporate expenses and offset to our adjusted EBITDA totaled $69,000,000 in the fourth quarter, which represents a 20,000,000 increase from the prior year. This increase was mainly driven by changes in reserves related to legacy asbestos matters in the fourth quarter. For the full year, corporate expenses totaled $255,000,000 a $43,000,000 increase versus the prior year. This increase was primarily due to costs associated with the audit committee's internal review and related remediation as well as asbestos reserves recorded in the fourth quarter, which are not anticipated to recur. Turning to our balance sheet and liquidity.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

As of 12/31/2024, our consolidated gross debt stood at $4,200,000,000 with approximately $1,400,000,000 in total liquidity. This includes $713,000,000 in unrestricted cash and cash equivalents along with approximately $640,000,000 available under our revolving credit facility. Additionally, the company retained $50,000,000 in restricted cash and cash equivalents, all of which is held in escrow under the terms of the memorandum of understanding related to potential future legacy liabilities. On a trailing twelve month basis, our net leverage remained unchanged at 4.4 times adjusted EBITDA sequentially. For the fourth quarter, our cash provided by operating activities was $138,000,000 compared to $482,000,000 in the same quarter last year.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

Elevated cash flow in the prior year quarter was driven by the actions from previous management as previously disclosed. Capital expenditures for the quarter totaled $109,000,000 compared to $135,000,000 in the prior year, driven by additional capital expenditures on APM's Teflon PFA expansion in the prior year and efforts to focus capital spend on critical areas in the current year. Additionally, the company paid $36,000,000 in dividends to shareholders during the quarter. For the full year, we had outflows of our operating cash of $633,000,000 compared to operating cash inflows of $556,000,000 in the prior year. A higher usage of operating cash flow reflects the release of the $592,000,000 of restricted cash and cash equivalents related to the U.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

S. Public Water System class action suit settlement following its final judgment and also cash impacts due to the unwinding of the twenty twenty three year end net working capital actions. Capital expenditures for the full year totaled $360,000,000 compared to $370,000,000 in the prior year. During the year, the company also paid $148,000,000 in dividends to shareholders. I did want to take a moment to convey that we have been very focused on our balance sheet liquidity and have taken actions in recent months to ensure that we are well positioned in our debt structure to solidify this.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

As we move ahead, we do not anticipate any liquidity concerns or events that would impact liquidity related compliance concerns with our banking covenants. Overall, we're encouraged by the progress we made during the fourth quarter, including the strong performance the team delivered. Although we saw challenging dynamics in certain end markets and geographies that impacted our top line, we were able to exceed our adjusted EBITDA expectations across all our businesses as we continue to control what we can control and focus on our commitments to both strengthen our operational execution and enhance overall cost efficiencies. With these fourth quarter and full year results in mind, I would now like to move to discuss our expectations for the first quarter of twenty twenty five and our outlook for the full year. Beginning with TSS.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

For the first quarter, we expect overall TSS net sales to increase sequentially, driven by double digit growth in Opteon refrigerants, partially offset by a decrease in Freon refrigerants in connection with the ongoing USAIM Act and EU F Gas regulatory transitions. Sequentially, TSS's adjusted EBITDA is expected to increase slightly, reflecting impacts from increased costs from a forced outage at our Corpus site and additional input costs associated with the site's ramp up of the new Opteon capacity expansion, which are both expected to have negative impacts on the first quarter's margins. Looking further ahead, we anticipate overall 2025 results to be improved versus 2024 with the pattern of year over year double digit net sales growth in Opteon refrigerants to persist throughout the year, driven by volume expansion in our Opteon refrigerant OLEDs. The strength in Opteon sales will come from the continued regulatory driven demand amid the transition from a broader set of legacy HFC products to more targeted available options for low GWP products such as Chemours HFO Opteon brand or alternatives such as R32. For HFC pricing, we continue to anticipate that U.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

S. Freon prices will remain at low levels into 2025. While we continue to monitor increasing input costs, primarily from R32 and regulatory headwinds around the world, absent significant changes, we continue to anticipate that adjusted EBITDA margins will remain around 30% for the remainder of 2025. For our TT business, in the first quarter, we expect volumes to remain stable sequentially. However, the segment's projected regional sales mix will result in lower net sales for the quarter.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

We expect adjusted EBITDA to decrease sequentially as a result of this regional mix as well as operational headwinds related to cold weather downtime at our U. S. Sites in January, further contributing to this decline. Despite these headwinds, we remain committed to our TT cost reduction targets for the full year. For the full year, we expect twenty twenty five results to be better than 2024 with improvements becoming more evident in the second half of the year.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

We will continue to control what we can control through our cost out programs and a focus on driving commercial excellence as evidenced in our share gains while small particularly in Europe. Furthermore, we've used the disruptions we faced in 2024 to improve our operational planning and we are well positioned to meet customer orders moving forward. For our APM business, we expect our top line to be impacted by softer demand across the segment, driven by the continued weakness in cyclical end markets as well as our products that serve the hydrogen and semiconductor markets. Adjusted EBITDA is also anticipated to decrease sequentially due to lower net sales during the quarter, further impacted by an unfavorable product mix. We also anticipate incurring additional costs in the first quarter as a result of an outage from scheduled major plant maintenance that extended into the beginning of twenty twenty five.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

Of note, as I mentioned earlier, the fourth quarter comparison period for APM did include favorable inventory adjustments and other true ups, which are not anticipated to recur in the first quarter. On a consolidated basis for the first quarter, we anticipate net sales to be flat to slightly down sequentially with adjusted EBITDA also expected to be slightly down sequentially. This expectation includes a sequential decrease in corporate expenses as it all set to adjusted EBITDA of approximately 30% compared with the fourth quarter inclusive of the fourth quarter costs associated with legacy asbestos matters. We anticipate these corporate costs in the first quarter of twenty twenty five to be more reflective of the corporate cost expectation for the remainder of the year. Regarding our liquidity expectations for the first quarter, we expect operating cash flow to reflect a net usage consistent with traditional seasonality.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

We also expect capital expenditures to be in the range of $80,000,000 Turning to the full year 2025, we expect adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $825,000,000 to $975,000,000 dollars For the high end of our range, we would anticipate a more favorable macroeconomic environment for TT and APM along with TSS pricing action success, input cost moderation and Freon pricing strength. Alternatively, for the lower end of our range, we would anticipate a worsening macroeconomic environment, higher input cost pressures in TSS and increased local regulatory pressure on the APM business. These current expectations for adjusted EBITDA do not include significant changes in the broader regulatory landscape. Regarding cash flow for the full year, operating cash flow is expected to improve as the year progresses and more than fund anticipated capital expenditures ranging from $250,000,000 to $300,000,000 while also ensuring dividend funding subject to board approval quarterly. With that, I'll hand it back over to Denise to discuss recent progress for our Pathway to Thrive strategy.

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

Thank you, Shane. Last quarter, we shared our refresh strategy for Chemours Pathway to Thrive. This strategy is intended to capitalize on our business's fundamental strengths, our incredible talent and our competitive differentiators to enhance shareholder value creation. Chemours' strategy is focused on four pillars: operational excellence, enabling growth, portfolio management and strengthening the long term, all rooted in a foundation of balanced and disciplined capital allocation. Efforts to execute our strategy were underway when we shared it in our Q3 call, and we've continued to take steps to structure the organization around its pillars to meet shareholder expectations.

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

In addition to appointing Damian as TT's Business President and Diane as Chief Enterprise Enablement Officer, we've also established a transformation office that is fully dedicated to driving results within each pillar of our strategy. Starting with operational excellence, we continue to target incremental run rate cost savings of greater than $250,000,000 across the company starting this year and building through 2027. As a reminder, this overall cost savings plan comprises an additional $125,000,000 in cost savings under our TT transformation plan and $125,000,000 in targeted cost savings spread evenly across the other businesses and corporate. Of our total $250,000,000 cost target, we remain on track to deliver half of these run rate cost savings by the end of twenty twenty five. As we progress further into the year, we'll look to provide regular updates on those savings, which remain focused on optimizing our asset footprint and reducing overhead costs.

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

These efforts tie into our portfolio management pillar, which I will speak to shortly. Our ability to execute a broader cost out program, which has been a focus of mine since moving into the CEO role is rooted in our transformational expertise as exemplified in our success through our TT transformation plan continuing under Pathway to Thrive. To further emphasize our long term efforts to drive down costs in TT, I want to highlight the announcement we made in December around our agreement with PCC Group to build and operate a chlor alkali facility on the grounds of our TiO2 plant in De Leon, Mississippi. We believe that this asset light approach working closely with a trusted partner in the chlorine space will continue to bolster our efforts to become one of the world's lowest cost TiO2 producers providing sizable operating cost advantages once the plant is operational in 2028. This plant adds to our vertically integrated chlorine positioning at our new Johnsonville site to ensure U.

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

S. Domestic supply of TiO2. More broadly, we have focused efforts on reducing corporate overhead costs, taking a zero based budget approach to these costs, while reducing costs in an area of focus that we can control, we are also looking at improvements to drive further operational efficiencies. By using a standardized execution model to centers of excellence, we will drive best practices across our organization and help continue our momentum. Turning to our second pillar, enabling growth.

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

Chemours remains committed to smartly investing in high return, low risk initiatives across our portfolio, while driving commercial effectiveness. We are targeting a revenue CAGR of over 5% from 2024 through 2027, assuming no significant macro events over that time. As we shared at our last earnings call, we are prioritizing expansion in attractive spaces with a focus on data center cooling, next generation refrigerant, semiconductor fabrication and the development of next generation EV batteries. And as we saw this past quarter, we've already taken positive steps to expand our presence in the semiconductor space through a successful capacity expansion of our high purity Teflon PFA line in our APM business. I'm pleased to say that the production ramp up of this asset has proceeded well.

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

With our focus on growth, I wanted to highlight the continued strength in demand for Opteon refrigerants, which experienced double digit growth in 2024 and which we anticipate will continue through 2025. As mentioned previously, we have completed a 40% expansion at Corpus Christi, of which half will be available in 2025 with the remaining capacity available in 2026. With this added capacity, we believe we will be well positioned to meet customer demand driven by the growth in Opteon in connection with the regulatory transition to low GWP refrigerants. Taken together, these actions reflect important steps towards achieving our targeted sales growth over the coming years and enhancing our competitive positioning in high growth areas. We will to expect our investments to be funded by organic cash flow generation and cost savings realized across all our businesses.

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

Our third strategic pillar, portfolio management, is reflective of our ongoing commitment to optimize our existing businesses and assets by shifting our focus from products to applications in higher growth, higher margin markets with the goal of enhancing shareholder value. As I shared on our last earnings call, these efforts included an evaluation of our existing footprint to ensure we have an optimal asset base that is aligned with our future needs. In connection with these efforts, we are announcing a strategic review of our APM European asset footprint with a focus on creating value for shareholders and improving the quality of earnings as we continue to aggressively reduce costs and improve our overall profitability. Our focus is on enhancing our asset footprint to provide the highest level of shareholder value. While announcing the strategic review today, we started to take initial steps around our APN European assets in the third quarter.

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

Those activities included the write down of certain assets and putting our hydrogen focused Nafion expansion on long term hold. Adding to these earlier actions in January of twenty twenty five, we made the decision to exit our Surface Protection Solutions or SPS Capstone business. This action was taken due to regulatory changes and uncertainty that have caused reduced demand and market deselection. We expect all manufacturing activities for SPS product to cease by the end of second quarter of this year pending local regulatory approval. Once complete, we expect the annualized revenue loss to be approximately $80,000,000 to $90,000,000 going forward with a challenging operating environment compounded by increased costs making SPS economics unfavorable going forward.

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

In connection with the SPS exit, we expect to incur total restructuring charges of approximately $60,000,000 of which half are expected to be cash payments. The cash payments associated with this exit are expected to be incurred throughout late twenty twenty five and 2026. While these decisions are never easy, we believe these actions and continued evaluation of our portfolio are critical to ensure Chemours' long term success and drive shareholder value. These actions also help us strengthen the overall Chemours portfolio and enable us to allocate capital to areas of the business generating a more positive return. We anticipate completing our review of our European APM asset base by the end of twenty twenty five and we'll share updates as we progress.

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

Lastly, in our fourth pillar, strengthening the long term, we remain focused on advocating for the criticality of our chemistries, ensuring that we make measurable progress on addressing legacy liabilities and use the best science, analytical methods and data to support our responsible manufacturing practices. Our efforts in these areas are embedded at all levels of the company and we engage with our regulatory stakeholders to support science based regulation of our industry that provides clear standards that are supported by sound science and research. I'm proud of the significant progress we have made to date in executing our Pathway to Thrive strategy over the short course of a few months. We remain confident that our continued focus on the key pillars of our corporate strategy will drive strong operational and financial performance across our three businesses and ultimately position Chemours for long term success and value creation. This progress was only made possible through the dedication and efforts of our employees, and I would like to thank our entire team for their hard work and efforts that have allowed us to bring this strategy forward as we continue delivering Trusted Chemistry.

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

I look forward to providing additional updates on our operational and financial performance and our continued progress executing our Pathway to Thrive strategy in the months to come.

Operator

Thank you. And our first question will come from Arun Viswanathan with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Arun Viswanathan
Arun Viswanathan
Senior Equity Analyst at RBC Capital Markets

Great. Thanks for taking my question. I hope you guys are well. So, I guess, first off, I wanted to understand maybe the bridge from $24,000,000 to $25,000,000 EBITDA guidance. If I remember correctly, there were about $80,000,000 or so of one timers in $2,024,000,000 dollars So if we add that back, it seems like there's about $40,000,000 or $50,000,000 of extra growth to the midpoint of your new range for $25,000,000.

Arun Viswanathan
Arun Viswanathan
Senior Equity Analyst at RBC Capital Markets

Am I right in that assessment? And then if so, how would you kind of characterize that additional growth? Thanks.

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

Thanks, Arun. Appreciate the question. So first of all, I just want to start with talking about this year and what we're excited about. I mean, when we look at this year, the transition to the low GWP technology in the stationery aftermarket in the stationery market is really exciting for us. We also see green shoots in our TT business and we're really laser focused on delivering on Pathway to Thrive.

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

As you say, there's some things to explain relative to the bridge from '24 to '25, and I'm going to turn it over to Shane to give you a little bit more color on that.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

Yes. Thanks, Arun. You mentioned a number of one time costs, which we don't anticipate recurring next year. However, you probably saw the Q1 guidance. We are anticipating some operational headwinds in Q1 related to in TSS, a site specific forced outage, some weather related items in TT, especially in January here in the elongated plant shutdown in APM.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

That's about $15,000,000 to $20,000,000 going in Q1. But as I think ahead, we don't anticipate these to recur. We anticipate seasonality in TSS and TT in Q2 and Q3. And as Denise mentioned, very excited about the Opteon adoption, especially in commercial and stationary refrigerants. And then further, we're going to control what we can control, continuing to align pathway to Thrive and continue to reduce costs and manage that accordingly.

Arun Viswanathan
Arun Viswanathan
Senior Equity Analyst at RBC Capital Markets

Okay. Thanks for that. And then as a follow-up to that, so looks like your second half, I think you mentioned should be a little bit stronger than the first half. So it sounds like you could be exiting second half at a $500,000,000 or so plus run rate of EBITDA. If you annualize that, you get to $1,000,000,000 plus for $26,000,000 Am I thinking about that the right way?

Arun Viswanathan
Arun Viswanathan
Senior Equity Analyst at RBC Capital Markets

And what would that require? Is that kind of maybe the a better pre owned pricing environment or maybe capitalizing on the capacity growth that you've had in TSS or would it also require some better TT markets? Thanks.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

Thanks, Arun. I mean, I think it's early to give anything related to 2026 at this point. But as I think about kind of your math in 'twenty five and alliums that we believe are going to help us with that guidance that we talked about for the full year, Certainly, the additional capacity at Corpus Christi from Navient perspective is contributing to that. We brought a PFA line on as well, which is going to help continuing that cost out program as we've talked about as well. And then also, we are seeing, as Denise talked about, some green shoots in TT as it relates to share, but also thinking through a back half weighted some market recovery as we look at the underlying KPIs.

Arun Viswanathan
Arun Viswanathan
Senior Equity Analyst at RBC Capital Markets

All right. Thanks a lot.

Operator

And the next question will come from Josh Spector with UBS. Your line is open.

Josh Spector
Josh Spector
Executive Director at UBS Group

Yes. Hi, good morning. I wanted to follow-up on TT. So you mentioned a couple of times green shoots in that business that you're seeing, but volumes aren't improving in your forecast sequentially and you talked about some regional mix headwinds. So I think from the outside in, it looks like your TT business is maybe getting worse, but you're calling out green shoots.

Josh Spector
Josh Spector
Executive Director at UBS Group

Can you help us understand kind of what's going on within that? Thanks.

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

Sure. Yes. Thanks, Josh. Appreciate the question. Yes, going into so first of all, we delivered a very strong fourth quarter.

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

Coming into the first quarter, there's really a regional mix impact. When we talk about some of the green shoots we're seeing, it's really around some share gain that we're seeing in Europe. I would say it's still early days as you think about the antidumping impact. But if you look at the exports from China as they go into Europe or even into Brazil, you see that there's quite a decline and not just a decline in overall volume, but a decline in the high purity, high quality TiO2. So there's a lot of inventory that had to be worked out, but you can see that decline occurring, which we're well positioned.

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

We have a great value proposition, a great franchise around reliability, security of supply. The other thing that first of all, we're going into the second quarter is generally a better season for the coatings market. And some of the macros that we look at, the housing market index has increased again in January. It's the highest level it's been at in nine months. And historically, that correlates to coatings demand.

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

So that's what we mean when we say green shoots. And we absolutely are not saying that feeling like we're weak. As I said, the first quarter has a lot more to do with regional mix. And we're committed to our pathway to thrive and continuing to drive cost out in TT.

Josh Spector
Josh Spector
Executive Director at UBS Group

Thanks. Just a follow-up, just the regional mix to be specific, is that selling more into Europe and less into North America? Or what's the change? And is that temporary for first quarter? Or does that reverse?

Josh Spector
Josh Spector
Executive Director at UBS Group

Or is that a permanent shift?

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

Yes. I would say that that's accurate. And then I would definitely expect it to shift as we enter the seasonal coatings market in The U. S.

Josh Spector
Josh Spector
Executive Director at UBS Group

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

And our next question will come from Hassan Ahmed with Alembic Global Advisors. Your line is now open.

Hassan Ahmed
Senior Equity Analyst at Alembic Global Advisors

Good morning, Denise and Shane. Just wanted to dig a bit deeper into the prior questions about TT and guidance, 2025 guidance in particular. I mean, from the sounds of it, it seems, obviously, we haven't really seen much of an impact from the anti dumping side of it. I'm just trying to get a more granular view with regards to what you're baking in, in your 2025 guidance in terms of TT pricing, volumes and a potential boost from any sort of antidumping related market share gains?

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

Yes. Thanks, Hassan. I mean, from what we're baking in, we're not baking in any large macro change. What we're saying is that we are seeing signs and these things take time. There's inventory that has to work down.

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

If you look at the China exports into the EU twenty seven and into Brazil, you can see that they are declining, which creates opportunity for us.

Hassan Ahmed
Senior Equity Analyst at Alembic Global Advisors

Understood. And as a follow-up, I mean, as I sort of talk to industry consultants, TiO2 consultants, there seem to be pretty large divergences in what they're baking in, in terms of supply additions globally, right, particularly as they relate to China, be it some of the supply additions that happened in 2024, be it some of the supply additions they're baking in for 2025 and beyond. I mean, can you sort of give us a view or Chemours view of what the supply picture looks like, whether there is sort of forecasted tightness and utilization rates on a going forward basis?

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

Thanks, Hessam. Yes, I mean, I would say that we're not anticipating any significant increase in supply and it really depends on the utilization is going to depend on what happens with demand, which as we're saying, right now we're cautiously optimistic, I would say, but we would need some more macro signs to see a utilization pick up.

Hassan Ahmed
Senior Equity Analyst at Alembic Global Advisors

So I mean, just to get sorry to follow-up, but just to get a bit more specific. I mean, some people have numbers north of sort of 500,000 tons baked in for 2025 supply additions, while others have the number at 150,000 to 200,000. I mean those are major swings, which camp are you guys in?

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

I'm not exactly sure I understand your question.

Hassan Ahmed
Senior Equity Analyst at Alembic Global Advisors

In terms of net capacity additions for 2025 in TiO2?

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

Yes, I mean it would definitely be on the low side.

Hassan Ahmed
Senior Equity Analyst at Alembic Global Advisors

Thank you so much.

Operator

And our next question will come from John McNulty with BMO. Your line is open.

John McNulty
John McNulty
Managing Director - Chemicals Analyst at BMO Capital Markets

Yes. Thanks for taking my question. So I guess first one would just be around your CapEx. You're looking for $250,000,000 to $300,000,000 so down a reasonable amount from 2024. Is it fair to assume that your CapEx budget doesn't include any CapEx for the data center opportunity that you've been talking about.

John McNulty
John McNulty
Managing Director - Chemicals Analyst at BMO Capital Markets

And can you give us a little bit of color or thought on the timing for FID on that and any other updates around the two phase immersion cooling platform that you've been building out?

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

Yes, John, thanks. I'll take care of the CapEx and then Denise can go into the immersion cooling update. As far as the CapEx go, as you mentioned, $250,000,000 to $300,000,000 is what we guided. We continue to think about how to continue our growth initiatives and maintain asset light where possible. So if you think about Denise talked a little bit about the PCC and agreement in TT and the unique way we did that.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

So as we think about just going forward, we're laser focused on our liquidity and CapEx is one of those as well. And then Denise, do you want to go on?

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

Sure. Relative to how we're doing with the in emerging cooling, we're really still very excited about the space. We have significant value chain engagement and we think this is going to be a large part of a big part of the overall liquid cooling demand. But and I know you know this, but it's really going to be kicking in more towards the end of the decade because there will be requirement for new data centers. So relative to our asset plan, we talked about that before that we're going to be giving updates.

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

We remain focused on achieving commercialization by next year. We are underlying in our under we have an underlying plan. Right now, there's some confidentiality around our process and intellectual property. And so there's some things that we're not really ready to disclose around the molecule, but we look forward very soon to be giving an update on that.

John McNulty
John McNulty
Managing Director - Chemicals Analyst at BMO Capital Markets

Great. Thanks very much for the color on that. And then just maybe on the TSS side, it sounds like there's a pretty wide range of outcomes as you're looking out to 2025, both on Opteon and it sounds like there's some pretty solid volume growth there. I guess, can you help us to think about that, as well as where you think we may be in the Freon inventory kind of destocking? When do you think we may be getting through that where we might see price starting to inflect since it seems like that's a big part of the range of outcomes that you've got for the year?

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

Thanks, John. First, I'm going to start with Freon. Last year was a unique year for us, for Freon because there was a delay that was very unexpected with the technology transition where things were pushed out a year, the cell through was pushed out. So we were really impacted by Freon. Coming into this year, right, we're trying to use our quota really for the low GWP refrigerant.

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

So our as we've said in our strategy, we are much less dependent on Freon this year. And as a matter of fact, by the end of the year, we are really all Freon sales are going to be outside of The U. S. And Europe. So but if we turn to the Opteon side, you saw 23% growth in the fourth quarter.

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

You can expect at least that kind of growth this year. But one thing and we're committed to 30% margin in this space. One thing to keep in mind and kind of going back to when things transitioned to the HFO technology for the auto OEMs, this is the year where it's the OEM year, where the aftermarket space where you have more, I'll say pricing flexibility is lower. So it's about a 10%. Really what we're doing with the OEMs is securing our share for the long term.

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

With that said, we still do have opportunity to pass through raw material price increases even to the OEM part of the market.

John McNulty
John McNulty
Managing Director - Chemicals Analyst at BMO Capital Markets

Got it. Okay. No, that's very helpful. Thanks for the color.

Operator

And our next question will come from Vincent Andrews with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Vincent Andrews
Vincent Andrews
Managing Director at Morgan Stanley

Hi. Could I ask in the fourth quarter you mentioned that you had some non recurring benefits from inventory true ups in APM as well as I guess some non recurring cost benefit in TSS. Could you tell us what those were? And in particular to the inventory, can you talk about what triggered that or how that happened and what discretion you had related to it?

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

Yes, sure, Vincent. Yes, as I think about some of the benefits we saw, they were kind of one time in nature. I mentioned the items in APM and TSS. I mean, these are really around inventory valuation items that happened in the fourth quarter and some reserve changes. They're in the range of about 5,000,000 to $10,000,000 as I think about kind of sizing them up.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

But I would say, I mean, those were benefits, but we also had some items in our corporate costs that were onetime in nature related to asbestos reserves as well. And as you can think about the additional corporate costs, I mean, that was in the range of $10,000,000 to $15,000,000 as well. So just trying to give some a little bit of color on the positives and negatives we saw from a onetime items in Q4.

Vincent Andrews
Vincent Andrews
Managing Director at Morgan Stanley

Okay. And then if I could just ask on TT,

Vincent Andrews
Vincent Andrews
Managing Director at Morgan Stanley

point taken on what's happening so far in Europe and Brazil in terms of the direction of Chinese exports. But if we're a year from now, where do you envision those Chinese exports that don't go to Brazil or Europe anymore? Where do you think they wind up? Do you envision China cutting production? Or do you envision those going into other markets?

Vincent Andrews
Vincent Andrews
Managing Director at Morgan Stanley

And if they go into other markets, what happens to the TiO2 that was previously servicing those other markets?

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

What you can see in the data is it's going to Asia and The Middle East. I think time will tell based on how prolonged the recurrence of the upswing to kick in the market when that happens. I think there are some concern of customers around the profitability of some of these the Chinese producers and how long they can withstand the narrow margins.

Operator

And our next question will come from John Roberts with Mizuho. Your line is open.

John Roberts
John Roberts
Managing Director at Mizuho Financial Group

Thank you. I guess we have now an ex DuPont are back at the EPA in a key position here. Do you think that changes any of the complexion around the PFOS activity over the next few years? And maybe give us an update on the upcoming New Jersey trial?

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

Sure. Relative to the EPA, we're really, as you know, that the rule came out relative to maximum concentration limits around specific molecules that were really not science based. We're really glad that the Trump administration, the EPA has come up and put those in abeyance for sixty days. So we're really hopeful for a good dialogue on science based targets. Relative to the New Jersey trial, we that is set for May and we continue to prepare.

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

And as always, there's you're getting ready for trial. There's also opportunity for settlement as well.

John Roberts
John Roberts
Managing Director at Mizuho Financial Group

Okay. And then what's happening in the existing small fluorochemical based emerging cooling market? Three ms is exiting. So what are their existing customers doing? And is there anyone stepping into that space here as they exit?

Denise Dignam
Denise Dignam
President & CEO at The Chemours Company

Yes. For the chemistry that three ms produces, there are Chinese producers. There are, I would say some pretty significant corrosion issues with that product. So while it's in the market, there's definitely big room for improvement.

John Roberts
John Roberts
Managing Director at Mizuho Financial Group

Thank

John Roberts
John Roberts
Managing Director at Mizuho Financial Group

you.

Operator

And the next question will come from Lawrence Alexander with Jefferies. Your line is open.

Laurence Alexander
Laurence Alexander
Analyst at Jefferies Financial Group

So good morning. We'd just like to flesh out the regulatory comments about the downside risks for 2025 for APM. Can you just flesh out what, if there's any particular timeline or events you're looking for or decisions that would and then how much of a swing in your forecast that scenario would entail? And also can you put that in context in terms of what is APM facing over say the next three to five years?

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

Yes, Lawrence, thanks. Yes, I mentioned that as I think about the range provided within the low end to the high end, from a low end to the $825,000,000 I put. When I mentioned regulatory pressures in APM, that's really making sure just from an operational perspective, Denish just talked about some of the science based items we were discussing with the EPA. We are excited about kind of developing that and having further conversations. But if there is some other conversations that go the other way, that's really what we were getting at is potential regulatory pressure there.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

As I think about your latter question around the next several years in APM, we're really committed to taking a look at just overall portfolio in line with Pathway to Thrive, and APM is certainly part of that and making sure that the product lines we're operating are optimized from a return basis and thinking through the next steps, whether that be changes in portfolio like we just talked about with SPS or putting hydrogen on the long term hold. We're really committed to making sure that that business is optimized from a return portfolio.

Laurence Alexander
Laurence Alexander
Analyst at Jefferies Financial Group

Thank you.

Operator

And our next question will come from Jeff Zekauskas with JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Jeff Zekauskas
Jeff Zekauskas
Analyst at JPMorgan Chase

Thanks very much. Your inventories were $1,470,000,000 in the quarter, which I think is up 12% sequentially and about 10% year over year, your sales are down. What's going on with that number? Why is it so high?

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

Yes. Thanks, Jeff. I think there's a confluence of a couple events here. I would say one is, we did have a lot of planned maintenance activities at the end of the year. So we did build up inventories through that side that will continue to work down as we look into 2025.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

I think other aspects of this is really some related items in TSS around our quota, and which will continue to work down in 'twenty five. And then outside of that was some select purchases within TT to think through where their inventory balances are. I will say this, as we think about the path ahead of us from a liquidity, we are focused on making sure that we optimize our working capital going forward and thinking about days conversion. And I think there's opportunities within that inventory balance.

Jeff Zekauskas
Jeff Zekauskas
Analyst at JPMorgan Chase

So you've talked about your possible cash flows for 2025 and you said you should cover your dividend of 150,000,000 CapEx is roughly $275,000,000 so you total it up that's $425,000,000. Is that your expectation with your EBITDA between $825,000,000 and over 9 or is there something that would lead you to have that would put pressure on your cash flows or that's kind of what you're expecting? Do you have an aspiration for 2025 cash flow?

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

Yes. Thanks, Jeff. Certainly, we have an aspiration as we think about cash flow. We did not provide that externally as we talk about transparency, very happy with providing annual guidance on EBITDA. As I think about what we talked about from cash flow was we expect to from that perspective to at least cover the CapEx and dividends on that side, just making sure that we give confidence on balancing strategic growth and debt pay down with other priorities of the company, I.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

E. Making sure that we fund the organic CapEx as well as providing returns to shareholders. Great. Thanks.

Operator

And our last question will come from Pete Osterholm with Truist. Your line is now open.

Pete Osterland
Pete Osterland
Equity Research Analyst at Truist Securities

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. First, on the cost savings realized from the TT transformation plan in 2024, what drove the upside versus your original target? And as you begun working on optimizing your cost structure through the new cost savings plan, are you finding any areas of the business where you think there may be upside to this target as well? Thank you.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

Yes. Thanks, Pete. As I think about just the TT transformation plan in total, very proud of the team just executing above the target. We saw some positives as it relates to just overall manufacturing area related costs and thinking through mainly around those fixed cash costs in the operation side. We're not as we think about the Pathway to Thrive targets of $250,000,000 we're still very focused on achieving those.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

As we continue on this path and if we see any upsides, commit to being transparent around that and thinking through if there is that side. We are the first part of this and we're very excited about the organization we put around the pathway to Thrive, whether it be the committed transformation teams or the other areas from pillars that are leading such. And I'm confident that they can meet those targets and exceed in circumstances.

Pete Osterland
Pete Osterland
Equity Research Analyst at Truist Securities

Great. Thanks.

Pete Osterland
Pete Osterland
Equity Research Analyst at Truist Securities

And then just a quick follow-up on free cash flow. It looks like you're guiding for free cash flow to be positive this year. Is that the assumption at the middle of the EBITDA guidance range or do you expect to be free cash flow positive even at the low end?

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

Yes. I mean, it's a great question.

Shane Hostetter
Shane Hostetter
Senior VP & CFO at The Chemours Company

I mean, I think from a positive free cash flow, I indicated such given that with the overall guidance was that we can fund our CapEx as well as the dividends go. Go. I think that if it is at the lower range, we can take other actions to think through working capital and making sure that we're balancing such. So committed to positive free cash flow and making sure that we're going forward on balancing spend to get it to there. Thank you very much.

Operator

We have reached the end of our question and answer session. Thank you for joining Chemours Company Fourth Quarter twenty twenty four Earnings Call. You may now disconnect.

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Key Takeaways

  • Chemours delivered a Q4 adjusted EBITDA of $179 million, surpassing expectations and supported by record TSS net sales and favorable cost and inventory adjustments across segments.
  • TSS achieved its highest quarterly sales ($390 million) driven by a 23 percent increase in Opteon refrigerants amid U.S. AIM Act and EU F-gas transitions, and completed a 40 percent capacity expansion at Corpus Christi to meet rising demand.
  • The TT transformation plan generated approximately $140 million in run-rate savings—exceeding the $125 million target—and lifted TT’s full-year adjusted EBITDA margin by one percentage point to 12 percent, with an additional $60 million in TT savings expected by year-end 2025.
  • APM sales were softer due to economic headwinds and hydrogen-market weakness, but earnings were bolstered by cost performance and the ramp-up of a new high-purity Teflon PFA resin line; management is also reviewing its European footprint and exiting the low-margin SPS business.
  • Looking ahead, Chemours remediated all material control weaknesses, appointed new leadership roles, and reiterated its 2025 guidance of $825 million to $975 million in adjusted EBITDA, underpinned by ongoing cost-out programs and expected growth in Opteon demand.
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