Axalta releases full results
Axalta Coating Systems has announced its financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2014.
Net sales were $1.1 billion for the fourth quarter of 2014, an increase of 5.1%, excluding negative foreign currency impacts, or a decrease of 1.3% on an as-reported basis, compared to the fourth quarter of 2013. Net sales growth was primarily driven by volume increases, which contributed 3.1% in net sales growth, driven by increases in North America, Latin America, and Asia Pacific and slightly lower volumes in EMEA. Higher average selling prices contributed 2.0% in net sales growth with moderate price increases in select regions. Growth from volume and pricing was more than offset by unfavourable currency translation, primarily due to the Euro and currencies in Latin America, which reduced net sales growth by 6.4%.
Adjusted EBITDA was $205 million for the fourth quarter of 2014, an increase of 3.7% compared to the fourth quarter of 2013. Adjusted EBITDA growth was driven by higher volumes and favourable pricing. As a percentage of net sales, Adjusted EBITDA expanded by 90 basis points to 19.0%.
For its full year 2014 results, Axalta published net sales of $4.4 billion, an increase of 4.0% excluding negative foreign currency impacts compared to prior year Pro Forma results. Its adjusted EBITDA saw an increase of 14% over the prior year Pro Forma results to $841 million.
It also completed with transition-related activities and associated costs from DuPont.
‘We are pleased with the results that we achieved in the fourth quarter and for the full year. While we experienced significant currency headwinds in the fourth quarter, net sales increased as a result of growth in volume and price. We continue to focus on optimising our business and are excited about the progress that we have made with our European cost-initiative and our global commercial and productivity initiative called The Axalta Way that we launched this year,’ said Charles Shaver, Axalta’s chairman and chief executive officer. ‘As we look forward in 2015, we anticipate favourable underlying demand trends across our key end-markets, which combined with our optimisation efforts, should drive adjusted EBITDA growth despite substantial currency headwinds.’
Axalta has provided the following outlook for the full year 2015; including net sales growth of 5-7% in constant currency and flat to slightly down including the impact of currency, and adjusted EBITDA of $860-$900 million, representing margins of approximately 20%.
Additionally, it anticipates a normalised effective tax rate of 27-29%, capital expenditures of approximately $150 million, and net working capital of 13-15% of net sales excluding cost reduction initiatives and transition-related items which were previously expensed.
