Compass Minerals International Q2 2025 Earnings Report

Compass Minerals International EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.63
• Consensus EPS: $0.39
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.24
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Compass Minerals International Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $494.60 million
• Expected Revenue: $413.96 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$80.64 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +35.90%

Compass Minerals International Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q2 2025
• Date: 5/7/2025
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, May 8, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 9:30AM ET

Compass Minerals International (NYSE:CMP), provides essential minerals in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and internationally. It operates through two segments, Salt and Plant Nutrition. The Salt segment produces, markets, and sells sodium chloride and magnesium chloride, including rock salt, mechanically and solar evaporated salt, and brine and flake magnesium chloride products; and purchases potassium chloride and calcium chloride to sell as finished products or to blend with sodium chloride to produce specialty products. This segment provides products for use as a deicer for roadways, consumer, and professional use; as an ingredient in chemical production; for water treatment, human, and animal nutrition; and for various other consumer and industrial uses, as well as records management services. The Plant Nutrition segment produces sulfate of potash specialty fertilizers in various grades that are used in broadcast spreaders, direct application, and liquid fertilizer solutions under the Protassium+ brand name; turf products used by the turf and ornamental markets, as well as for blends used on golf course greens; organic products; and develops and produces a portfolio of magnesium chloride-based aerial and ground fire retardant products. This segment provides its products to distributors and retailers of crop inputs, as well as growers. The company was formerly known as Salt Holdings Corporation and changed its name to Compass Minerals International, Inc. in December 2003. Compass Minerals International, Inc. was founded in 1844 and is headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas.

Compass Minerals International Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Compass Minerals is advancing its “back-to-basic” strategy by optimizing operations, lowering capital intensity and refocusing on its core salt and plant nutrition businesses.
• North American highway deicing inventory values fell 47% and volumes dropped 59% year-over-year, releasing approximately $145 million in working capital and enabling over $170 million in debt reduction.
• Second-quarter revenue rose 36% year-over-year to $495 million, adjusted EBITDA was $84.1 million, net loss improved to $32 million, and fiscal 2025 EBITDA guidance was raised to a midpoint of $188 million.
• With Canadian salt and fertilizer products exempt under USMCA tariffs, the company is ramping up production to drive down per-unit costs and anticipates stronger pricing and volume commitments in the upcoming deicing bid season.
• Corporate cost initiatives include cutting over 10% of the corporate workforce and winding down the Fortress North American business to simplify the organization, boost cash flow and accelerate deleveraging.

Presentation

[Operator]

Thank you for standing by. My name is Carly, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Compass Minerals Second Quarter Fiscal twenty twenty five Earnings Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session.

[Operator]

Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Brent Collins, Vice President, Treasurer and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

[Brent Collins, VP - Investor Relations at Compass Minerals International]

Thank you, operator. Good morning and welcome to the Compass Minerals fiscal second quarter earnings conference call. Today, will discuss our recent results and provide an update of our outlook for fiscal twenty twenty five. We will begin with prepared remarks from our President and CEO, Edward Dowling and our CFO, Peter Feldman. Joining in for the question and answer portion of the call will be Pat Marin, our Chief Operations Officer and Ben Nichols, our Chief Commercial Officer.

[Brent Collins, VP - Investor Relations at Compass Minerals International]

Before we get started, I will remind everyone that the remarks we make today reflect financial and operational outlooks as of today's date, 05/08/2025. These outlooks entail assumptions and expectations that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause the company's actual results to differ materially. A discussion of these risks can be found in our SEC filings located online at investors.compassminerals.com. Our remarks today also include certain non GAAP financial measures. You can find reconciliations of these items in our earnings release or in our presentation, both of which are also available online.

[Brent Collins, VP - Investor Relations at Compass Minerals International]

I will now turn the call over to

[Edward Dowling, President & CEO at Compass Minerals International]

Thank you, Brent. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on our call today. After a disappointing first quarter, the second quarter was much better in terms of winter weather. This, in turn, has unlocked the benefits of the strategy we embarked upon a year ago. Last year, the company made the strategic pivot to refocus its efforts on the core business.

[Edward Dowling, President & CEO at Compass Minerals International]

Our goal is to improve the cash flow generating capability of our business by optimizing business practices and structures, lowering capital intensity of our assets and improving the efficiency of our operations. Because of the nature of our seasonal business, the steps we take to achieve these goals sometimes take quarters to play out. I'm pleased to share that we continue to make progress on our back to basic strategy. Almost exactly a year ago, we shared our plan on how we intended to rationalize the North American highway deicing inventory levels that have grown too large after consecutive mild winters. The primary goal of this initiative was to free up cash that was hung up on working capital and use that cash to reduce debt.

[Edward Dowling, President & CEO at Compass Minerals International]

Additionally, we knew that salt inventories across the broader system were high, which is impact from the supply demand balance in the market. We didn't want to further exacerbate that dynamic. We decided to curtail production at Goderich Mine and to a lesser extent at Cote Blanche with the view that with some help from winter, we'd see a meaningful drawdown in our salt inventories and realize significant working capital release out of inventory. As a result of that curtailment, we knew that we'd experienced some short term margin compression due to higher fixed cost absorption, but it was the right business decision for the long term success to move our business to lower inventory levels. Fast forward a year, you can see that we executed well on the plan.

[Edward Dowling, President & CEO at Compass Minerals International]

A few points to help that bear that out. North American highway deicing inventory values are down 47% year over year. North American highway deicing inventory volumes are down 59% year over year. Across our depot network, we saw a number of depots being fully depleted by the end of the highway deicing season and throughout the season, there are multiple media reports about shortages of salt in some of the markets which suggest there's some tightness in the market during the winter. The successful execution of our plan allowed us to realize approximately $145,000,000 working capital release out of inventory alone, which in turn helped us reduce our total debt in the quarter by more than $170,000,000 The drawdown in inventory across our network was significant this season.

[Edward Dowling, President & CEO at Compass Minerals International]

We also believe that competitors and customers saw similar drawdowns in their respective networks. Against this backdrop of a low system wide inventories, the company is well positioned to optimize production inventory levels as we approach the twenty five-twenty six North American highway deicing bid season. During the second quarter, there's obviously a lot of noise around tariffs and we needed to see where these things landed before firming up our production plans for the coming year. The salt and fertilizer products that we produce in Canada are qualified under USMCA trade agreement. As a result, they're currently exempt from any tariffs that have been implemented or proposed.

[Edward Dowling, President & CEO at Compass Minerals International]

With that huge question mark seemingly addressed, the company is in the process of ramping up production, which should have a favorable impact on our per unit cost, all things being equal. From a pricing perspective, the setup is constructive as we enter North American bid season. There's a psychological component to the highway deicing business. It worked against us when we had mild winters for a couple of winters and customers could look in their sheds and see that they were full of salt. The recently completed deicing season was a good reminder that winters do in fact happen.

[Edward Dowling, President & CEO at Compass Minerals International]

It's not unreasonable to think that the pendulum could sweep back in our favor this bid season and allow for some stronger pricing. We could see positive impact on volume commitments in the coming season as well. Our efforts over a year ago are bearing fruit and position us well to maximize value of our highway deicing business in the coming year. We will continue to maintain flexibility in our operations and capital plans so that we can appropriately respond to the market conditions. I'll now move to actions we took during the second quarter that are expected to have benefits in future periods.

[Edward Dowling, President & CEO at Compass Minerals International]

In March, we announced that we're eliminating over 10% of our corporate workforce. This is an extension of our efforts to align our cost structure with our current business needs. We We are working on advancing additional cost improvement projects as we continue to focus on driving down costs across the platform. We also announced that we'd begin to wind down Fortress North American business. These actions simplify our business, allow the company to generate additional cash flow and accelerate deleveraging.

[Edward Dowling, President & CEO at Compass Minerals International]

With that, I'll turn the call over to Peter for a review of our quarterly results.

[Peter Fjellman, Chief Financial Officer at Compass Minerals International]

Thanks, Ed. I'll comment briefly on the financial results for the quarter before turning the call over for Q and A. For the second quarter, consolidated revenue was $495,000,000 up 36% year over year. Operating loss for the quarter was $3,100,000 which was an improvement from the operating loss of $39,300,000 last year. Consolidated net loss was $32,000,000 compared to a net loss of $38,900,000 in the prior period.

[Peter Fjellman, Chief Financial Officer at Compass Minerals International]

These results include impairments taken on Fortress in both periods as well as the impairment in the Plant Nutrition business last year. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $84,100,000 which compares to $95,700,000 a year ago. As noted in our press release yesterday, the treatment of the contingent consideration liability for Fortress impacts the comparability of adjusted EBITDA between periods. When that is taken into account, modified adjusted EBITDA was $76,200,000 in the quarter compared to $71,900,000 in the second quarter of twenty twenty four. In the Salt business, revenue in the second quarter was $433,000,000 compared to $310,000,000 a year ago.

[Peter Fjellman, Chief Financial Officer at Compass Minerals International]

Pricing was down 5% year over year to approximately $85 per ton with volumes up 47% compared to the prior period. Net revenue per ton, which accounts for distribution costs decreased 4% to $57 On a per ton basis, operating earnings came in lower year over year at $13.1 per ton down 31% while adjusted EBITDA per ton decreased roughly 30% to $16.75 The decrease in margins primarily reflects the increase in production cost per ton due to the curtailment of the production at the Goderich mine last year and softer pricing for highway deoxing salt compared to last year. In the Plant Nutrition business, revenue for the second quarter was $58,000,000 which is up 16% year over year from $50,000,000 Sales volumes were up 26% from prior period while pricing was down 8% for the same period. Distribution cost per ton increased 13% to around $102 per ton and all in production costs per ton decreased by approximately 10% when adjusting for the impairment in the business last year. As Ed mentioned, we executed successfully on our plan to reduce North American highway deicing inventory levels, harvest cash and pay down debt.

[Peter Fjellman, Chief Financial Officer at Compass Minerals International]

The value of North American highway deicing inventory declined 47% year over year and the volumes associated with that were down almost 60%. This allowed for a sequential decrease in total net debt of $171,000,000 and an $81,000,000 decline from last year's second quarter. At quarter end, we had liquidity of $329,000,000 comprised of $51,000,000 of cash and revolver capacity of around $279,000,000 From a guidance perspective, we increased our adjusted EBITDA guidance for the year. At the midpoint, we are now showing $188,000,000 for the year, which is an increase from a midpoint of $173,000,000 coming out of Q1 twenty twenty five. The $188,000,000 includes the gain related to the write off of the fortress contingent consideration liability of approximately $8,000,000 Even adjusting for that item, we're showing improvements in guidance for SALT and corporate.

[Peter Fjellman, Chief Financial Officer at Compass Minerals International]

I would also point out that our guidance for capital expenditures was unchanged at a range of 75,000,000 to $85,000,000 As we continue executing on our back to basic strategies, we will focus on controlling costs, managing inventory working capital and enhancing free cash flow. I'll now open the floor for questions. Operator?

[Operator]

Your first question comes from David Silver with CL King.

[David Silver, Senior MD & Director - Equity Research at C.L. King & Associates]

Yes. Hi, good morning. Not used to being called first. Okay. Thank you very much.

[David Silver, Senior MD & Director - Equity Research at C.L. King & Associates]

I do have a couple of questions regarding kind of the balance sheet and the cash flow statement in particular. And I understand there's a number of relatively different events kind of puts and takes. Can I just ask you, unlike most March quarters, the accounts receivable level actually rose from December to March? And overall, I mean, think it's at a very high level relative to your sales or historical season ending levels. Is there something going on there?

[David Silver, Senior MD & Director - Equity Research at C.L. King & Associates]

Or why shouldn't I think that this would be a significant source of incremental further incremental cash going forward. Just some comment on kind of the March March month end level of accounts receivable, please?

[Edward Dowling, President & CEO at Compass Minerals International]

Hi, David. This is Ed. Sometimes it's good to be first, but the anyway, to hear your voice. Let me pass this off to Peter Feldman to address your question about the balance sheet.

[Peter Fjellman, Chief Financial Officer at Compass Minerals International]

Sure. This is Peter. There are a couple of insurance settlement matters within the AR and both the AEP balances. And so you'll see site gross up to both for the accounting as well as we continue to have a good quarter and we see those AR balances will continue to come down slightly related to just the natural flow of the inventory sell

[Peter Fjellman, Chief Financial Officer at Compass Minerals International]

through.

[David Silver, Senior MD & Director - Equity Research at C.L. King & Associates]

Okay. Very good. And then maybe a business question, but I'm sure your team this has to do with the upcoming bid season, and I'm sure your team is very proficient at kind of reading the tea leaves, I guess. But what can you say or what can you divulge divine, I guess, from the early requests for bids? In other words, have the volume commitments that the customers are seeking, have they noticeably increased versus the past year or two?

[David Silver, Senior MD & Director - Equity Research at C.L. King & Associates]

Are the delivery points indicating areas of maybe the depot depletion, Ed, that maybe you cited in your remarks? Just, I know it's early, but, the bidding does start pretty early or at least the bid process starts pretty early. What can you divine from what's available to you at this point?

[Edward Dowling, President & CEO at Compass Minerals International]

David, I'll make some general comments upfront and then pass it off to Ben here. Is very early in the bidding season. We do think that the market based on the difference between a year ago and now in terms of inventories and the winter that we served last year is much more constructive than we've seen over the past several years. So that by itself gives an indication of potential price increases and potential volume increases. But recognize that not all areas are the same, that some areas experience more snow than others.

[Edward Dowling, President & CEO at Compass Minerals International]

So those sort of things will be different depending on the sort of current situation in the different locales. It's a setup that we understand reasonably well. So pass that off to Ben Nichols here to see what else you might want to add.

[Ben Nichols, Chief Sales Officer at Compass Minerals International]

Yeah. Good morning, David. This is Ben. I think what Ed alluded to the regional nature of that is important to understand. I would also say we have some early data points on tender sizes which is the municipal and state level indications of what they see their needs for the upcoming season.

[Ben Nichols, Chief Sales Officer at Compass Minerals International]

And I would tell you that those are ranging to slightly up to significantly up in some regions. So all things being equal, we think the dynamic is going to be positive year over year moving forward. And I would tell you our team is very excited about that opportunity.

[David Silver, Senior MD & Director - Equity Research at C.L. King & Associates]

Okay. Great. And I'm just going to sneak in one more. But this would be related to your SOP business. And just as a note, I mean, to me that business is still has a lot of potential to kind of improve the margins there, especially given the pretty two consecutive quarters I think of pretty high shipment levels.

[David Silver, Senior MD & Director - Equity Research at C.L. King & Associates]

Ed, you've I understand the Salt segment and particularly the icing inventories was job one here. But what do you see over the next few quarters or next year or so in terms of restoring kind of that cash cost or cash production cost performance level to, I don't know, more historical levels and maybe driving some incremental cash flow from that part of your business?

[Edward Dowling, President & CEO at Compass Minerals International]

Yes. It's an important objective for us, David. We outlined efforts that we were initiating a year ago and it's a multiyear effort. And it really starts with the brine chemistries and controlling the brine chemistries better as we go into our evaporation ponds to sort of repair and restore these ponds back towards sort of historical levels. And we talked about sales to harvest ratios and harvest to production ratios, excuse me, and other things.

[Edward Dowling, President & CEO at Compass Minerals International]

The early indications are very good in that regard. And you see that through the increased volumes that we're now producing in Utah. That's really just the first step. That will continue for some period of time, but it really is just the first step. The other big end of this is sort of the back end of the SOP production, which is related to what we call the dryer plant or the compaction plant, which requires a capital project and modification.

[Edward Dowling, President & CEO at Compass Minerals International]

That engineering work is well advanced. We want to make sure that we're really spot on and able to manage this really well. But between those different efforts, we believe that we will be able to materially reduce the cost of our SOP production. I'll hand this off to Pat Barron a little bit to see if he'd like to add some additional comments there.

[Patrick Merrin, COO at Compass Minerals International]

Thanks, Ed. Hi, David. This is Pat. I've had a chance to get to Ogden a couple of times now. And certainly, we have a fantastic team there and a very unique asset.

[Patrick Merrin, COO at Compass Minerals International]

And on top of the projects that Ed has talked about, we certainly see some opportunities for us to drive improvements in how we run the business. But that's going to be incremental over time. But the two big projects that Ed has spoken about, the restoration of the ponds and the capital projects will give us a step function going forward while we continue to drive improvements in the business.

[David Silver, Senior MD & Director - Equity Research at C.L. King & Associates]

Okay. Thanks very much. I'm going to get back in queue. Appreciate it.

[Edward Dowling, President & CEO at Compass Minerals International]

Okay. Thank you, David.

[Operator]

There are no further questions at this time. I'll now turn the call back over to Edward Dowling, President and CEO.

[Edward Dowling, President & CEO at Compass Minerals International]

Thank you, Carly, for the moderation here. I appreciate that. And thank you all again for your interest in Compass Minerals. We are focused on delivering on our back to basics strategy. We're making good progress in that regard, and I'm excited about the steps the company is making.

[Edward Dowling, President & CEO at Compass Minerals International]

Please don't hesitate to reach out to Brent if you have any follow-up questions. We look forward to speaking to you in the next quarter.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Brent Collins, VP - Investor Relations
• Edward Dowling, President & CEO
• Peter Fjellman, Chief Financial Officer
• Ben Nichols, Chief Sales Officer
• Patrick Merrin, COO

Analysts

• David Silver, Senior MD & Director - Equity Research at C.L. King & Associates