- Reports fourth quarter revenue of $365 million, an increase of 18% over the fourth quarter of 2019, including organic chemistry revenue growth of 5%
- Delivers net income of $22 million, up significantly over the fourth quarter of 2019
- Posts adjusted EBITDA of $106 million, a 5% increase over the fourth quarter of 2019
- Reduces net leverage to 5.1x at year end 2020 (before IPO completion on February 8, 2021)
- Expects total full year 2021 organic revenue growth to be in the range of 10% to 12%, including full year organic chemistry revenue growth in the range of 8% to 9%
- Anticipates full year 2021 adjusted EBITDA [1] to be in the range of $405 million to $425 million, an increase of approximately 14%, at the mid-point
Berlin, Germany – March 4, 2021 – Atotech Limited (NYSE: ATC), a leading specialty chemicals technology company and a market leader in advanced electroplating solutions, today reported its financial results for the fourth quarter and full year 2020 and provided guidance for full year 2021. Total organic chemistry revenue growth, a key performance indicator for the company, increased 5% over the fourth quarter of 2019. Organic chemistry revenue growth reflects chemistry revenue growth excluding the impact of foreign exchange translation (“FX”) and palladium pass-through (“palladium”).
Management Commentary
Geoff Wild, Atotech’s Chief Executive Officer said, “We are very pleased with our fourth quarter performance. We leveraged the continued strength of our Electronics end-markets, as well as the ongoing recovery in global automotive markets, to deliver strong organic growth. In particular, demand for our comprehensive solutions addressing the technical requirements related to the 5G smartphone replacement cycle, including next-generation semiconductor packaging, was robust. Other areas of strength include 5G infrastructure, automotive electrification, and growing demand for sustainable solutions in surface-finishing applications.”
“These secular trends not only provided a constructive backdrop in the fourth quarter, but also present a multi-year opportunity to grow our business, expand share, and deliver strong returns to our shareholders.”
“Throughout 2020, we continued to invest in our business and made decisions in the long-term best interests of our customers, while carefully managing costs.”
“We completed a new chemistry manufacturing facility in China, invested in multiple digitalization initiatives, including IoT solutions, and maintained our highly trained customer-facing workforce. As we enter this high-growth period in our industry, we believe these decisions have positioned Atotech to take advantage of the many market opportunities in front of us.”
Fourth Quarter 2020 Results
Reported total revenue was $365 million for the fourth quarter, an increase of 18% over the prior year period. Organic revenue for both chemistry and equipment, which reflects total revenue excluding the impact of FX and palladium, increased 9%. FX was a 4% tailwind and palladium increased total revenue by 5% in the quarter. These strong quarterly results were driven by organic chemistry revenue growth of 5%, reflecting increases in both the Electronics (“EL”) and General Metal Finishing (“GMF”) segments.
Adjusted EBITDA was $106 million for the fourth quarter, a 5% increase over the prior year period, reflecting strong organic chemistry volume growth, stable pricing, and the benefits of cost containment actions, partially offset by compensation accruals taken in the fourth quarter.
Adjusted EBITDA margin was 29.1% in the fourth quarter of 2020, which reflects the impact of palladium pass-through, the product mix of chemistry versus equipment, as well as the impact of compensation accruals. Excluding these items, adjusted EBITDA margin was largely in-line with the fourth quarter of 2019.
Strong cash flow generation enabled the company to repay $80 million of its outstanding Holdco notes in the fourth quarter of 2020 and thereby reduce its net leverage to 5.1x full year adjusted EBITDA at year end, and before the proceeds from the company’s IPO, which closed in early February. Pro forma for the application of proceeds from the company’s IPO, net leverage is 3.9x full year adjusted EBITDA at year end.
Fourth Quarter 2020 Segment Highlights
Electronics: Revenue for the fourth quarter in our Electronics segment of $232 million increased 25% over the prior year period. Total organic Electronics revenue increased 14%, consisting of 7% organic chemistry growth and a 56% increase in organic equipment revenue. Palladium and FX were each a 5% tailwind in the quarter.
The organic Electronics revenue increase was driven by strong demand for the company’s leading IC substrates and advanced semiconductor packaging solutions. This demand is being driven by secular trends in 5G infrastructure and smartphone growth, as well as growth in leading-edge consumer electronics, including wearables. These trends are also driving strong demand for our equipment, as our customers actively upgrade to next-generation packaging standards and increase production capacity.
Adjusted EBITDA for our Electronics segment was $70 million in the fourth quarter, an increase of 9% over the prior year period, primarily reflecting strong chemistry volume growth.
General Metal Finishing: Revenue for the fourth quarter in our GMF segment of $133 million increased 7% over the prior year period. Total organic GMF revenue increased 2%, consisting of 3% organic chemistry revenue growth, partially offset by a decline in organic equipment revenue. Palladium and FX added 3% and 2% to revenue in the quarter, respectively.
Organic chemistry revenue growth was primarily driven by the continued global automotive market recovery and solid demand in other industrial end-markets.
Adjusted EBITDA for our GMF segment was $36 million, essentially flat with last year.
Initial Public Offering
Subsequent to year end 2020, the company closed its initial public offering of 29,268,000 shares of common stock at $17.00 per share on February 8, 2021. The gross proceeds to Atotech from the offering were approximately $498 million, before deducting the underwriting discount and offering expenses, and were used to further repay indebtedness and to pay underwriting discounts and offering expenses.
Full Year 2021 Guidance
Regarding the company’s 2021 outlook, Peter Frauenknecht, Atotech’s Chief Financial Officer said, “We expect full year 2021 total organic revenue growth to be in the range of 10% to 12%, including full year organic chemistry revenue growth in the range of 8% to 9%, which excludes the impact of FX and palladium pass-through. This strong outlook is driven by constructive end-markets in both our Electronics and GMF segments. We expect to leverage this organic growth and deliver full year 2021 adjusted EBITDA in the range of $405 million to $425 million, which represents an increase of 14% over 2020, at the mid-point.”
Conference Call
The company will host a conference call today at 8:00 a.m. Eastern time to discuss these results. To participate on the conference call, please dial +1 833-714-3263 (United States) or +1 270-823-1866 (international), using conference ID 3943049. A link to the live audio webcast, and associated materials, will also be available on the company website at investors.atotech.com.
Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
This communication contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. In this context, forward-looking statements often address expected future business and financial performance and financial condition, and often contain words such as “expect,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “plan,” “believe,” “seek,” “see,” “will,” “would,” “target,” and similar expressions and variations or negatives of these words.
These forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions about us, may include projections of our future financial performance, our anticipated growth strategies, and anticipated trends in our business. These statements are only predictions based on our current expectations and projections about future events. There are important factors that could cause our actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to differ materially from the results, level of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements, and such differences could be material. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.
More information on potential factors that could affect Atotech’s financial results is available in “Forward-Looking Statements”, the “Risk Factors” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” within Atotech’s most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F, and in other documents that we have filed with, or furnished to, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and such factors include, but are not limited to: the uncertainty of the magnitude, duration, geographic reach, impact on the global economy of the COVID 19 pandemic, as well as the current and potential travel restrictions, stay at home orders, and other economic restrictions implemented to address it; uncertainty, downturns, and changes in our target markets; foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations; reduced market acceptance and inability to keep pace with evolving technology and trends; loss of customers; increases in costs or reductions in the supplies of raw materials that may materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations; our ability to provide products and services in light of changing environmental, health and safety, product liability, financial, and other legislation and regulation; our failure to compete successfully in product development; our ability to successfully execute our growth initiatives, business strategies, and operating plans; whether the secular trends we expect to drive growth in our business materialize to the degree we expect them to, or at all; material costs relating to environmental and health and safety requirements or liabilities; underfunded defined benefit pension plans; risk that the insurance we maintain may not fully cover all potential exposures; failure to comply with the anti-corruption laws of the United States and various international jurisdictions; tariffs, border adjustment taxes, or other adverse trade restrictions and impacts on our customers’ value chains; political, economic, and legal uncertainties in China, the Chinese government’s control of currency conversion and expatriation of funds, and the Chinese government’s policy on foreign investment in China; regulations around the production and use of chemical substances that affect our products; the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union; weak intellectual property rights in jurisdictions outside the United States; intellectual property infringement and product liability claims; our substantial indebtedness; our ability to obtain additional capital on commercially reasonable terms may be limited; risks related to our derivative instruments; our ability to attract, motivate, and retain senior management and qualified employees; increased risks to our global operations including, but not limited to, political instability, acts of terrorism, taxation, and unexpected regulatory and economic sanctions changes, among other things; natural disasters that may materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations; the inherently hazardous nature of chemical manufacturing that could result in accidents that disrupt our operations and expose us to losses or liabilities; damage to our brand reputation; Carlyle’s ability to control our common shares; any statements of belief and any statements of assumptions underlying any of the foregoing; and other factors beyond our control.
Non-IFRS Financial Measures
This communication contains certain non-IFRS financial measures designed to complement the financial information presented in accordance with IFRS because management believes such measures are useful to investors. However, our use of these non-IFRS financial measures may vary from that of others in our industry. Our non-IFRS metrics have limitations as analytical tools, and you should not consider them in isolation or as alternatives to consolidated net income (loss) or other performance measures derived in accordance with IFRS as measures of operating performance, operating cash flows or liquidity. The Company believes that these measures are important and supplement discussions and analysis of its results of operations and enhances an understanding of its operating performance. See the Appendix for a reconciliation of the non-IFRS financial measures.
For a reconciliation of non-IFRS measures see the full Earnings release on our Investor Relations Webpage.
About Atotech
Atotech is a leading specialty chemicals technology company and a market leader in advanced electroplating solutions. Atotech delivers chemistry, equipment, software, and services for innovative technology applications through an integrated systems-and-solutions approach. Atotech solutions are used in a wide variety of end-markets, including smartphones and other consumer electronics, communications infrastructure, and computing, as well as in numerous industrial and consumer applications such as automotive, heavy machinery, and household appliances.
Atotech, headquartered in Berlin, Germany, is a team of 4,000 experts in over 40 countries generating annual revenues of $1.2 billion (2020). Atotech has manufacturing operations across Europe, the Americas, and Asia. With its well-established innovative strength and industry-leading global TechCenter network, Atotech delivers pioneering solutions combined with unparalleled on-site support for over 9,000 customers worldwide. For more information about Atotech, please visit us at atotech.com.
Contacts:
Paul Goldberg
+1 803 504 4731
paul.goldberg@atotech.com
Susanne Richter
+49 30 349 85 418
press@atotech.com
[1] Adjusted EBITDA is a non-IFRS financial measure. Adjusted EBITDA should be considered in addition to, but not as a substitute for, the information provided in accordance with IFRS. A reconciliation for adjusted EBITDA to the most directly comparable IFRS financial measure is provided in the Reconciliation of Adjusted EBITDA to Consolidated Net Income (Loss) table. We are not able to forecast Consolidated net income (loss) on a forward-looking basis without unreasonable efforts due to the high variability and difficulty in predicting certain items that affect Consolidated net income (loss), including, but not limited to, Income taxes, Interest expense, net, and Foreign exchange income (loss).