Chemtrade Logistics Income Fund

Chemtrade Logistics Income Fund

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Chemtrade Logistics Income FundUS flagOther OTC
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Q3 FY2014 · Earnings Call TranscriptNovember 13, 2014

Operator

Good morning and welcome to the Third Quarter Results Conference Call for Chemtrade Logistics Income Fund. Your host for today’s call is Mark Davis, President and CEO.

Please be advised this call is being recorded. Please go ahead.

Mark Davis

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you for joining us for our conference call and webcast today. As usual, joining me today is Rohit Bhardwaj, our Chief Financial Officer.

Before I commence to the review, I would remind you that our presentation contains certain forward-looking statements that are based on current expectations and are subject to a number of uncertainties and risks and actual results may differ materially. Further information identifying risks, uncertainties and assumptions and additional information on certain non-IFRS measures referred to in this call can be found in the disclosure documents filed by Chemtrade with the Securities Regulatory Authorities available at www.sedar.com.

Please note that our comments on financial result on this call include the results of the Montreal business, although it has been disclosed as discontinued operation in our financial statements. Chemtrade’s third quarter results shows the strength and promise of our combined business, following the General Chemical acquisition completed early this year.

For the third quarter of 2014, we generated distributable cash after maintenance capital expenditures of $50.6 million, or $0.83 per unit, compared to $23.7 million or $0.57 per unit for the same period last year. Our EBITDA for the quarter was $72.1 million, which is an improvement of $12.6 million over the second quarter of this year.

Even after adjusting for the benefit resulting from the previously announced sale of the Montreal business during the third quarter, EBITDA in the third quarter was higher by approximately $7.5 million than the second quarter. As I said, this quarter clearly showed the strength of the larger combined business.

For the nine months of this year, we have generated distributable cash of $1.73 per unit while making distributions of $0.90 during this time. The new business continues to perform in line with our expectations and we’re pleased with the contribution it is making to our enhanced operations.

Business conditions continued to be stable during the quarter and taking into account certain seasonal increases in the quarter, demand for most of our products remains consistent. Most of the issues that we experienced in our legacy business during the second quarter that we mentioned during our second quarter call were largely behind us during the third quarter.

During the third quarter, we continued to make solid progress on the integration of the acquired business. This included a review of our suspense capital program and requirements.

We now believe that we can reliably operate the combined business with a lower level of aggregate sustenance capital than we had built into our models at the time of the acquisition. Rohit will comment further on our lower forecasted run rate.

But I did want to point out that this quarter benefited from capital expenditures even lower than this new anticipated run rate. During the third quarter, we successfully closed the sale of our Montreal business to Suncor.

We used the net proceeds from the sale to pay down our senior bank debt, thus further strengthening our balance sheet. On the last call, we also mentioned that the significant capital investments we made at our sodium chlorate plant in British Colombia, in order to make it a low cost facility were completed.

A benefit of our improved cost position and operating rates are now being realized and this is reflected in the results of the WSSC segment. To summarize, we are pleased with the performance of the new business and its integration with our legacy business and the solid third quarter results demonstrate that we have a strong base for sustainable results.

Rohit will now provide you with some additional details on the third quarter financial results.

Rohit Bhardwaj

Thanks Mark and good morning everyone. In general our businesses performed well during the third quarter of 2014.

Comparisons with last year are significantly affected due to the acquisition. 2014 results include General Chemical’s results for the full quarter, whereas 2013 results are of course only the legacy business.

Also during the second quarter of 2014, we announced the sale of our Montreal East business to Suncor. We classified the net assets of this business as held for sale on our balance sheet.

We also showed its net earnings as discontinued operations on the income statement. Although as Mark mentioned, for the purposes of this call, we have included Montreal results in our comments.

Revenue for the quarter was $324.6 million, an increase of $117.7 million over 2013. The primary reason for the increase was the three months of revenues from the General Chemical business.

Additionally, the international and SPPC segments realized increased revenues due to higher volumes of sulphuric acid and sulphur, compared with the same period of 2013. For the three months ended September 30 2014, distributable cash after maintenance CapEx was $50.6 million or $0.83 per unit compared with $23.7 million or $0.57 per unit in 2013.

Please note that the full unit amount is based on a weighted average number of units outstanding of 61.2 million units in the third quarter of this year versus 41.7 million units outstanding last year. Aggregate EBITDA for the third quarter of 2014 was $72.1 million compared with 37.5 million in third quarter of 2013.

Turning to segmented results for the quarter, SPPC generated revenue of $159.3 million and EBITDA of $48.2 million compared with $131.7 million and $34.8 million respectively in 2013. The main reason for the increased revenue was the inclusion of the General Chemical business for the quarter.

The higher revenue also reflected higher volumes of sulphur and sulphuric acid. Pricing for sulphuric acid, our largest product by volume, remains strong and shows some strength -- some signs of strengthening.

WSSC, our new segment, reported third quarter revenue of $112.9 million compared with $31.8 million in 2013. EBITDA was $33 million compared with $9.1 million in 2013.

The higher revenue and EBITDA generated in this segment is primarily due to the inclusion of three months of results for the acquired business. International reported revenue of $52.4 million for the third quarter compared with $43.4 million in the third quarter of last year.

EBITDA for the quarter was $4.3 million compared with $1.9 million last year. The higher level of EBITDA reflects improved conditions for sulphur and sulphuric acid in certain international markets.

Maintenance CapEx in the third quarter was $7.7 million compared with $8.3 million in Q3 of 2013. As Mark mentioned, we now believe that we can reliably operate the businesses with a lower level of maintenance CapEx than we have been indicating.

We expect that we will end 2014 with total maintenance CapEx of approximately $45 million. We believe that this level represents the lower end of the range of normal level of maintenance CapEx required by the business.

We now believe that our business requires maintenance CapEx in the range of $45 million to $50 million on an annual basis. Excluding unrealized foreign exchange gains and losses, corporate cost in the third quarter of 2014 was $13.4 million, which was $5.1 million higher than the third quarter of 2013.

The primary reason for the increased cost is the increased scale of the business. Additionally, LTIP expenses were $1.4 million higher than the third quarter of 2013.

Our balance sheet at September 30 was in sound shape. The sale of our Montreal facility to Suncor closed on July 17 and we used the net proceeds to pay down senior debt.

This further strengthened our balance sheet and provides additional financial flexibility. At September 30, we had drawn down about U.S $534 million on our senior credit facilities.

Our term loan is fully drawn, but we maintain about US $413 million of undrawn capacity on our $500 million revolving credit facility. Both of these facilities are due in January of 2019.

Obviously we retain significant liquidity on our credit facilities. We expect to steadily reduce our leverage due to our ability to generate strong near term cash flow in excess of the distributions we pay.

As we had previously mentioned, we expected cash taxes in North America to be low in 2014, but to incur higher cash taxes going forward starting in 2015. We have not been able to more accurately predict our near term future taxes.

We now expect cash taxes in North America to be less than $10 million in 2015 and increasing to an annualized level of $20 million to $25 million starting from term in 2017. This would of course also depend on future levels of profitability, tax laws and is based on our current business portfolio.

I’ll now hand the call back to Mark. Mark?

Mark Davis

Thank you, Rohit. The third quarter results provide a clear picture of the earnings potential of the enlarged Chemtrade following the acquisition of General Chemical in January.

The third quarter is traditionally our strongest quarter form both a distributable cash and EBITDA perspective. We expect that to be true again this year.

The final financial benefits from our integration activities should positively affect our Q4 and Q1 earnings. Although as usual, from a distributable cash perspective, we expect to incur significantly higher capital expenditures in the fourth quarter than we have incurred so far this year.

Our strategic initiatives remain the same. We will continue focusing on growth, operational excellence, benefiting from our business model and financial prudence.

The sale of our Montreal business and the issuance in June 2014 of our convertible debentures, bolstered the balance sheet and maintains our ability to invest in the business when opportunities arise to strengthen and grow our portfolio. We remain confident of our portfolio business model and our strong balance sheet will continue supporting our ability to provide our unit holders with the growth and yield they have come to expect.

Thank you for your attention and operator we’d now be pleased to answer any questions.

Operator

[Operator instructions]. Your first question is from Joel Jackson, BMO Capital Markets.

Joel, please go ahead.

Joel Jackson – BMO Capital Markets

Good morning. You talked about higher sulphur and sulphuric acid volumes in both the domestic and international business.

Is that just some of the GCC business coming in or is there something going on in terms of stronger demand for these products?

Mark Davis

It’s not just the General Chemical because when we compare quarter to quarter or year to year actually its pro formad in, right? There was more acid in both North America and internationally.

And as we said in our comments, we see demand strengthening for acid in particular as time goes on.

Joel Jackson – BMO Capital Markets

Maybe just following up on that, what are the drivers for that please?

Mark Davis

The economy, particularly in North America continues to carry on. And I don’t think there’s any -- from our perspective, I don’t think there’s any particular driver that’s actually leading to substantial increased demand.

I think there’s just general firmness across the broad North American economy. As far as our international business goes, it has a feel to us that the international market is also strengthening form the demand side as some of the metals guys and fertilizer guy I think actually increase their rates.

Joel Jackson – BMO Capital Markets

Now that you are a couple of few quarters into the GCC acquisition, can you comment a little more on where you see seasonality in the combined business here in terms of Q4 and Q1, what we’ve seen versus the last couple of quarters?

Mark Davis

It is traditionally and I think continued and I’m looking at Rohit as I say it, is our second and third quarters should be our strongest from an EBITDA perspective. From a straight cash perspective, we swing a little bit depending on when various shutdowns are and capital programs come to fruition.

And quite frankly, despite our desire to level out our capital expense, spending more than is traditional, I think we will continue to see Q4 being a traditional heavy quarter just frankly because of the budgeting process and the way capital is spent. From an EBITDA perspective, Q2 and Q3 should be the strongest.

Joel Jackson – BMO Capital Markets

Finally, on your leverage, where do you see your leverage at the end of the year? Where do you want to see it at the end of ’15?

Rohit Bhardwaj

At the end of the year, we expect to be about 2.8 to 2.7, that kind of – the senior debt to EBITDA, 2.7 to 2.8 range. At the end of 2015, we are looking at a few other things.

So we should be similar because there is a CapEx catch up in Q4 and things like that. Probably in the similar kind of range at the end of 2015 as well.

There after we do expect leverage to come down after 2015.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question is from Jacob Bout with CIBC.

Jacob, please go ahead.

Jacob Bout – CIBC World Markets

Good morning. I had a question on the SPPC.

This is a follow up there. When you take a look at the contribution from General Chemical and then from your legacy business, as far as year-on-year uptick on the volumes or on the revenue side, what was the increase in the legacy business?

Rohit Bhardwaj

We are not quantifying precisely what the distinctions there are between legacy and General Chemical. Although when we make our comments about the improvement in business as Mark mentioned, we are just excluding the General Chemical impact.

But it’s fair to say that in the SPPC in particular, we look at Q3 versus Q3. There was a modest improvement in the legacy business because acid was, volumes were up and pricing was a bit up and there a few other moving parts within SPPC.

So I’d say modestly up in the legacy business with the bulk of it being the acquired business being included.

Jacob Bout – CIBC World Markets

Then on the international sides, just remind us again, what did General Chemical contribute?

Rohit Bhardwaj

Nothing.

Jacob Bout – CIBC World Markets

Nothing, okay. Then juts on your maintenance CapEx, the guidance that you’re giving there, what are the drivers there and should we be thinking about like a zero change in maintenance schedules or anything we should aware of?

Mark Davis

No. Look, the biggest change is if you go back to the presentation we made when we acquired General Chemical is, we took their run rate and increased it in our pro forma numbers by about 50%.

We actually had done that also when we actually acquired Marsulex because we like to be cautious as far as actually giving guidance to where our CapEx is. Now that actually we’ve run the business for six or seven months, we think in aggregate we could actually spend less money than what we had indicated.

We still think we’ll spend probably higher than the general run rate was, but when you look at our system as a whole, we think we could actually quite comfortably live with the new indicated rate versus the higher rate we had indicated before.

Jacob Bout – CIBC World Markets

As far as the maintenance CapEx, your legacy business really hasn’t changed?

Rohit Bhardwaj

Actually we are looking at it as one whole system and we prioritize spending across the entire system now. We really won’t be caring much about whether that comes from place X or place Y.

We are looking at everything in totality and deciding where is the best place to put our capital.

Operator

[Operator instructions]. Your next question is from Benoit Laprade, Scotiabank.

Benoit, please go ahead.

Benoit Laprade – Scotiabank

Thank you. Good morning gentlemen.

Just to clarify, on your cash taxes you said less than $10 million for this year. 20, 25 in 2017 onwards.

What about 2016?

Rohit Bhardwaj

So 2016 we’ll start getting -- it’ll be bridging between that 10 to that 20, 25. So the exact number will land somewhere in the middle because the way it works as you go through your losses and shelter then you start to hit a certain run rate.

2016 will be somewhere in the middle. It’s hard for us to pinpoint exactly what it will be, but somewhere between that 10-ish rate and before 20.

So, somewhere in the middle.

Mark Davis

Yes. It’s 10 for 2015 and 20 for 2017 and draw a line.

Rohit Bhardwaj

Somewhere in the middle there, but we don’t want to get that precise.

Benoit Laprade – Scotiabank

I think I can get somewhere in that area. Just curious on the capital side, any growth CapEx on top of that maintenance we’re talking about that we should think of in 2016?

Mark Davis

We’re hopeful that there is, but there’s nothing yet planned. If we spend growth CapEx next year it’s likely in the – I would say a maximum of probably $10 million, not in excess of that.

We have a couple of things that we think we want to do. They’re just not quite nailed down yet.

But $10 million will be a maximum number for next year.

Benoit Laprade – Scotiabank

Great, that’s helpful. Lastly, more curiosity but on the Montreal East business, if I read your MD&A correctly, there was about $11 million of revenue from discounted operation that translated into $10 million of EBITDA.

Just curious how that was possible in the only few days you had it in the quarter?

Rohit Bhardwaj

Okay, what that is, we had actually indicated even in Q2 that there was some deferred revenue in that business that we accelerated due to the sale and that’s got nothing to do with Suncor. That was the other customer that used to be in place that had exited the contract but was – we recognize the revenue over the remaining term of the contract with another about 18 months.

Because of the sale, we had to take all of that into income and that was all pure income with no cost associated with it.

Mark Davis

If you know any businesses that can generate $10 million of EBITDA out of 11 revenue, we’d be happy to find those.

Benoit Laprade – Scotiabank

I was thinking you sell one every quarter. Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question is from Paul Blanky, TD Securities.

Paul, please go ahead.

Paul Blanky – TD Securities

Hi guys, just a quick one here. Can you quantify the tailwind from FX in the quarter?

Rohit Bhardwaj

Actually, there wouldn’t be any tail – it’s like tailwind, okay that’s fine. What we’ve done, we haven’t really -- the biggest impact this quarter which was last year quarter was the acquisition.

So we look at the legacy -- our legacy business if you recall prior to the acquisition, FX was not a big deal just because we had a lot of national hedges in place. So there’s some benefit with the higher exchange, but it’s not that significant.

I guess it’ll be a more meaningful discussion at the end of 2015 when we start comparing the acquired business because that is a predominantly US business.

Mark Davis

Just another general overview of that is that we also associated US dollar debt with our US earnings to match debt and currency. So to the extent we benefit from a higher US dollar on an EBITDA basis is it gets adversely affected by US interest and quantum of debt.

We’ve always said that net, net, net from a distributional cash perspective in between CapEx, interest, debt etcetera is a lower Canadian dollar is a net positive, but it’s not a huge magnitude.

Operator

Thank you. Your next question is from Mark Vernest, National Bank.

Paul, please go ahead.

Mark Vernest – National Bank Financial

Good morning. It’s Mark Vernest on behalf of Jeremy.

Just wondering, with respect to potential internal investments you mentioned, maybe in the $10 million per year range, can you remind us again what you target for return hurdles ono these projects?

Mark Davis

We’d like to use those Montreal numbers we mentioned before. A bunch of it depends actually on how certain we are of the income, but if you wanted to assume a 20% return on capital number, that’s directionally close enough.

Operator

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time.

Please proceed.

Mark Davis

Thank you all for your attention and look forward to talking to you next quarter.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines.