Participants

Cody Cree; Investor Relations; Gateway Group, Inc.

Benjamin Rosenzweig; Executive Chairman of the Board; Ascent Industries Co

J. Bryan Kitchen; Chief Executive Officer, Director; Ascent Industries Co

Ryan Kavalauskas; Chief Financial Officer; Ascent Industries Co

Vincent Anderson; Analyst; Stifel, Nicolous & Company, Inc

Charles Sculp

Presentation

Operator

Good afternoon, and thank you for participating in today's conference call to discuss Ascent's financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2024.
Joining us today are Ascent's Executive Chairman of the Board, Ben Rosenzweig; CEO, Bryan Kitchen; CFO, Ryan Kavalauskas; and the company's outside Investor Relations Adviser, Cody Cree. Following their remarks, we'll open the call for your questions.
Before we go further, I would like to turn the call over to Cody Cree as he reads the company's safe harbor statement within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. That provides important cautions regarding forward-looking statements.
Cody, please go ahead.

Cody Cree

Thanks, Olivia. Before we continue, I'd like to remind all participants that the discussion today may contain certain forward-looking statements pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Federal Securities Laws. These statements are based on information currently available to us and are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially.
Ascent advises all those listening to this call to review the latest 10-Q and 10-K posted on its website for a summary of these risks and uncertainties. Ascent does not undertake the responsibility to update any forward-looking statements. Further, the discussion today may include non-GAAP measures. In accordance with Regulation G, the company has reconciled these amounts back to the closest GAAP-based measurement.
Reconciliations can be found in the earnings press release issued earlier today and posted on the Investors section of the company's website at ascentco.com. Please note that this call is available for replay via webcast link that is also posted on the Investors section of the company's website.
With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Ascent Executive Chairman of the Board, Ben Rosenzweig. Ben, over to you.

Benjamin Rosenzweig

Thank you, Cody, and good afternoon, everyone. Demand challenges across both of our segments continued to persist during the first quarter, which drove overall weak consolidated financial performance. While it's not yet evident in our financial results, we're making progress in all of our near-term initiatives, which include cost savings, operational efficiencies, and product mix optimization.
Brian and Ryan have been working extremely hard to right the ship, and we remain on track to see improvements across our financial results in the back half of this year. We expect that we're only a few months away from results that are more representative of run rate performance for our existing asset base. We are hopeful of some near-term market recovery we need to resume or rely on that taking place for us to meet our internal plan.
I'll let Brian dive into the details on segment-specific initiatives, but I wanted to provide a brief recap of our plans for both segments. Within tubular products, we're working tirelessly to replicate and implement strategies that we believe can positively impact results in the near term.
I'm pleased to report our operations at Bristol were fully restored after the unexpected downtime that significantly impacted our production capacity starting in Q3. While we saw a bit of improvement in Q1 to restore production capacity will begin flowing through more meaningfully in Q2 and going forward. Overall, I believe we're on the right path towards maximizing the value of the segment.
In specialty chemicals, our top priority remains capitalizing on attractive long-term growth opportunities. We've made positive strides as we began to reconfigure our product mix towards branded product sales without the need for significant capital investment in the near term.
Brian is executing towards a very specific vision for Ascent Chemicals, and it starts with braking -- breathing life back into some of the branded product offerings that we've had on the shelf the past few years, along with better utilizing the production resources we currently have in our toolbox.
We remain confident in our belief that this segment and deliver more profitable and predictable revenue streams resulting in better value for our shareholders over the long term. Our capital priorities also remain unchanged. We've been repurchasing shares in the open market as much as possible, and we'll continue to do so as long as our stock trades below our expectation of the company's intrinsic value. M&A continues to stay warm on the back burner while we maintain our internal operational focus for the near.
As always, our Board continues to evaluate other actionable options to accelerate accretive capital deployment. We're moving in the right direction towards durable shareholder value creation. I know we've had setbacks throughout the last year, and we're working hard every day to restore credibility amongst our shareholders. But the optimism for our future throughout the organization is real.
We remain debt-free, and I'm proud that we're able to show a significant year-over-year improvement in our liquidity as we continue to progress our working capital initiatives. That focus has created ample availability within our revolving credit facility that gives us optionality when the right opportunities to deploy capital present themselves.
Overall, the entire organization is working tirelessly and cohesively to return the positive and growing EBITDA, and we're looking forward to delivering improved financial results in the very near future.
Now I'd like to pass the call over to Bryan to provide details on our operations across both segments. I'll be available later on to answer any questions.
Brian, over to you.

J. Bryan Kitchen

Thanks, Ben, and thank you all for joining us this afternoon. And we have been disciplined in our approach to stabilize the enterprise since our last discussion in March, accountability and ownership are at the core of everything that we do. We've been laser focused on reducing costs, optimizing mix, and managing cash, all while navigating ongoing demand headwinds across both segments. While we are far from seeing the full run-rate impact of the improvements to date, we have delivered both sequential and year-on-year improvements and our bottom line results from continuing operations. Momentum is building.
Now let's first dive into the progress that we've made in the tubular segment. Despite ongoing market headwinds, the team delivered both sequential and year-over-year bottom line improvements. Although we are nowhere near an acceptable level of performance. We are moving in the right direction.
I'm also pleased to report that we've safely moved past the unplanned downtime issue that we had at Bristol. As we strive to transition towards a more profitable and predictable business model, we have completed a critical assessment of our product mix. As a result, we have refined our organizational design and have optimized our labor cost appropriately. We expect our initial efforts related to product mix optimization to have a meaningful impact on our segment-level adjusted EBITDA in the near future and will be at full run rate in the second half of 2024.
Just as we've taken a data-driven approach to our product mix assessment, the same is true regarding the pipeline of cost reduction initiatives we're working on. First, we've made strong progress in reducing overhead across the segment as we've worked through a collaborative and aggressive reset on spending targets across our facilities. Weekly control plans have been established to drive accountability, improved visibility, and surface new opportunities for collaboration across the enterprise.
To be clear, our focus has not been isolated to just continuing operations, but the entire segment inclusive of [mine haul]. As a result, we've identified a number of addressable steps, stranded cost, cost that we immediately eliminated. We are leaving no stone unturned, it all matters.
We've also accelerated strategic sourcing initiatives to drive meaningful improvements to our cost of goods sold. Based on the spend profile, raw materials are certainly at the top of the list, but I assure you every category of spend is being touched. Furthermore, we are not simply focused in on how much we are paying for the goods and services, but we are also critically evaluating the underlying need to purchase anything at all, along with the timing. As we continue to build out our strategic planning functions, we expect to drive even further efficiencies, efficiencies that will yield accretive margin expansion.
Our critical evaluation has been is not only related to expense but capital as well. In fact, we've taken a decision to terminate nearly 22% of capital projects from the approved 2044 budget that when scrutinized did not meet our return thresholds. These dollars will be reallocated to growth projects and or other needs based on clear return on investment hurdles.
With daily improvements in our cost structure and signs of growing optimism across our end markets, we are confident that we are steering towards improved operating margins within the Tubular segment, positive momentum is building within Tubular.
Now let's turn over to Specialty Chemicals. As expected, we continued to experience challenges associated with inventory destocking and soft market demand in the first quarter. Green shoots are beginning to appear in some markets, but we are not relying on the markets to hand deliver sustainable earnings growth. We remain laser focused in on fixing our foundation with aggressive self-help. As outlined in our last call, we are actively working to shift our product mix towards branded product sales to mitigate demand variability and margin dilution associated with traditional Custom manufacturing.
Response has been strong, very strong. Perspective customers are latching onto our team and our domestic multi-site value proposition. Our demonstrated ability to innovate at the speed of our customers is one of our competitive advantages.
To give you some color on that one of our perspective customers' expressed need late March. Within one week, our team had developed several different product formulations with complex multi-step reactions. Samples were immediately shipped once received our perspective customer tested those samples and later advised that one of our products have been qualified. Our technical competencies and our agility were on display garnering the attention of all levels within their organization.
We demonstrated the ability to innovate at the speed of our customers solving a problem of enterprise importance. As a result of that, we have received customer commitments for over GBP3 million, translating to over $6 million of revenue on an annualized basis. This was a tremendous win, but this is not the full breadth of the progress that we've made to date. We were only getting -- we are only just getting started.
In fact, we received our first orders from yet another customer translating to roughly GBP2 million or $4 billion of revenue on an annualized basis. Momentum is building.
We are encouraged by initial customer responses and continue to execute our plans to recapitalize SG&A resourcing. Most recently, we have hired a Director of Strategic Marketing that will help sharpen our go-to-market strategy for branded product sales and partnership with our new world-class technical sales. I look forward to sharing additional success stories with you in the near future.
Similar to the positive momentum we're building with new business development. We are also making strong progress in cost reduction. In spite of great work being done to optimize our costs. The full impact of these efforts were muted by soft demand. In fact, our strategic sourcing team delivered double digit unit material cost reduction, and we have yet to see the full run rate of their impact -- of that impact, other ongoing efforts hit the P&L.
Similar to Tubular, the chemical segment has also been aggressively managing overhead spend by utilizing the same standardized approach to weekly spend management. To put aggressive into context, a few weeks ago, I received a picture of my inbox from our site Director in Virginia. In the picture, there must have been 100 valves organized and spread out on the floor. I admit my first reaction was one of concern. But as I read the note, I realize that our maintenance team gathered up all of our unused fittings from across the entire site, clean them up, and got them for -- ready for redeployment into the field.
The financial impact is the most tangible, but what is more encouraging to me is the ownership mindset and strong bias to eliminate waste. Momentum is building.
Our employees have demonstrated incredible resilience and are beginning to lean into the required changes. We are certainly not where we want to be, but our actions are positioning us nicely for a recovery in the back half of the year. I remain highly optimistic about the future of Ascent and our ability to deliver predictable reliability and durable value for our shareholders, our customers, and our employees.
I'd like to now turn it over to our CFO, Ryan Kavalauskas to walk us through our first quarter financial results in more detail. Ryan, the floor is yours.

Ryan Kavalauskas

Thank you, Bryan, and good afternoon, everyone. Jumping right into the first quarter financial results.
Net sales from continuing operation were $44.1 million compared to $54.9 million in the prior year period. This decline was primarily due to decreased end market demand and what we believe are the final effects of long-standing destocking trends across both segments.
Gross profit from continuing operations increased to $2.5 million compared to $1.5 million in the first quarter of 2023. While gross margin increased 300 basis points to 5.7% compared to 2.7% in the prior year period. The increase was primarily a result of cost savings initiatives and improved strategic sourcing actions that resulted in raw material cost improvements.
Net loss from continuing operations in the first quarter decreased to $4.1 million or $0.41 diluted loss per share compared to a net loss from continuing operations of $5.8 million or $0.58 diluted loss per share for the first quarter of 2023. The decrease in net loss was primarily attributable to the aforementioned increase in gross profit along with a decrease in year-over-year interest expense due to lower debt outstanding.
Adjusted EBITDA in the first quarter improved to negative $3.1 million compared to negative $3.7 million in the same period last year, which was primarily driven by our broader cost optimization efforts. Adjusted EBITDA margin was negative 7.1% compared to negative 6.8% in the same period last year, primarily driven by the aforementioned lower net sales base.
Lastly, looking at our liquidity position as of March 31, 2024, we are pleased to have ended a second consecutive quarter with no outstanding debt under our revolving credit facility and access to $63.6 million in availability. The minimal debt, you do see on our balance sheet that's related to a financing portion of our insurance expense, which matured last month. During the first quarter of 2024, we repurchased a total of 16,313 shares for approximately [$165,000], through our share repurchase program.
With that, I'll now turn it back over to the operator for Q&A.

Question and Answer Session

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Vincent Anderson, Stifel.

Vincent Anderson

Yeah, thanks. Good evening, guys. I know we've beaten this one to death, I think. But I couldn't help, but notice that the operating expense line in chemicals through all the volatility over the last two years has been surprisingly stable. And I wonder if it's fair to interpret that as throughout all of this, the team has done a really good job of hitting the mark on variable margins on a product by product basis. And so everything we think about from here on with earnings improvement is really just down to fixed cost absorption and mix? Or do you feel like there's still more work to do on the variable margin side as well?

J. Bryan Kitchen

Hey, Vincent. It's Bryan. So yeah, the way that we look at it is that absolutely the more volume we put through the plant and -- our fixed cost absorption. But I assure you we're pulling on still even today levers to reduce our raw material inputs. We're pulling on levers to continue to reduce overhead expenses and the like.
So that work doesn't stop or not going to stop seeing the benefits anytime in the near future. In fact, I think based on what we talked about earlier, we're not even seeing the full benefit of all of the improvements that we've implemented to date.

Vincent Anderson

Okay, that's good. And I know the [Q] just hit, I haven't had a chance to look at it, but if you could just comment briefly on what you saw in terms of price versus volume in each of the segments? And how is price and tracking versus raw materials?

J. Bryan Kitchen

Yeah, So from a Tubular standpoint, obviously, price was depressed. As we look out into Q2, we start to see that tick up a little bit. From a chemical standpoint, there's a lot of volatility in there from a product mix standpoint. That's what I would caution you and others as you're looking at the data. As we move forward, as we implement some of the product mix changes, we're going to start to see our average selling price begin to tick up over time and have been more ratable, more predictable.

Vincent Anderson

Okay, excellent. And then your inventory and dollar term stabilized here in 1Q, looks like you're running at around 120 days. So just curious of that kind of the target, if there's some timing, considerations with that or if you're still expecting to bring that down over the course of the year?

J. Bryan Kitchen

Yeah. Look, I think from a chemical standpoint, we still see some opportunity to right size the inventory levels. We also see some sizable opportunities in the Tubular segment as well. So we're not done yet, right. From an inventory optimization standpoint, I would say that we're really just getting started.

Vincent Anderson

Okay, excellent. And then you're on the Tubular side, maybe specifically in just broad terms, how do you feel customer relationships have been holding up? With just the sheer amount of change the company has gone through from a staffing standpoint, product portfolio optimization sounds like you got another round of that coming. Is there been any burden on customer relationships? Or is that something you've managed through pretty well?

J. Bryan Kitchen

Yeah. I mean, look, there's certainly been have been some churn, but what I would say is the vast majority of our customers have been with us for decades, and I believe that they will continue to be with us for decades. So incredibly loyal. We're incredibly thankful for our customers, and we do have and we to continue to grow that base.

Vincent Anderson

Excellent. And then just last one real quick. You know, not you specifically, but Ben, you used to comment on a representative run rate margin being somewhere in the double digit EBITDA area. If not, a goal of getting into the 10s. When you talk about you're kind of starting to see that representative margin in the back half of the year. Is that still the right level? Or is that we're talking about maybe more of a transition period in the back half of the year, and that's still more of a long-term goal?

J. Bryan Kitchen

Yes, I think it's more of a transitionary period in the near term, but that the two new pieces of business that I referenced earlier, they're squarely in that range.

Vincent Anderson

Stifel. Well, thank you so much. That was everything for me.

Operator

(Operator Instructions) [Charles Sculp], (inaudible)

Charles Sculp

Congratulations on showing some improvement. It sounds like things are getting better. I just have a comment about the share repurchase. Buying 275 shares a day on average indicates that you really don't want to buy back shares at a greater rate. I mean, I'm following lots of companies that do share repurchases and I know Ascent is simply traded, but if you wanted to buy two or three times that amount it should be available in the marketplace. Thank you.

Operator

(Operator Instructions) And at this time, this concludes our question and answer session. I would now like to turn the call back over to Mr. kitchen for any closing remarks.

J. Bryan Kitchen

Okay, great. Thank you and leisure. This does conclude our today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation, and we look forward to reporting on our second quarter results.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's teleconference. You may now disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.