PPG Industries Inc.
PPG
logged net income from continuing operations of $272 million or $1.14 per share in fourth-quarter 2020, down from the year-ago quarter’s profit of $295 million or $1.23 per share.
Barring one-time items, adjusted earnings were $1.59 per share in the reported quarter, up from $1.31 logged in the year-ago quarter. The figure also topped the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.57.
Net sales rose roughly 2% year over year to $3,757 million. The figure surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $3,561.6 million. Sales volumes were down around 1.5% year over year, reflecting the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic in certain markets. Selling prices rose 1.5%.
The company benefited from higher year-over-year sales in its Industrial Coatings segment in the quarter, led by the automotive original equipment manufacturer, general industrial and packaging coatings businesses. It also witnessed strength in its global architectural coatings business.
FY20 Results
Adjusted earnings for full-year 2020 fell roughly 8% year over year to $5.70 per share, while net sales dropped 9% to $13.8 billion.
PPG Industries, Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise
PPG Industries, Inc. price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart
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PPG Industries, Inc. Quote
Segment Highlights
Performance Coatings:
Net sales in the segment was around $2.2 billion in the fourth quarter, down around 1% year over year. Sales volume in the segment declined around 6% mainly due to lower demand resulting from the pandemic. Selling prices rose around 3%.
Segment income fell 3% year over year to $299 million. The downside was due to reduced sales volumes, partly offset by higher selling prices, restructuring initiatives and cost-mitigation efforts.
Industrial Coatings:
Sales in the segment totaled around $1.6 billion, up around 7% from the prior-year quarter’s figure. Sales volumes rose 5% year over year due to improved demand for automotive and general industrial coatings. Selling prices were flat year over year.
Net income in the segment totaled $282 million, up around 40% year over year. Results were driven by restructuring cost savings, higher sales volumes and favorable currency impact.
Financials
PPG Industries ended 2020 with cash and cash equivalents of $1,826 million, up roughly 50% year over year. Long-term debt rose around 14% year over year to $5,171 million.
The company generated record operating cash flow of about $2.1 billion for the full year. PPG Industries also paid around $500 million in dividends in 2020. It also had roughly $1.5 billion remaining on its current share repurchase authorization at the end of the year.
Moreover, PPG Industries delivered roughly $40 million of incremental structural cost savings from business restructuring programs in the reported quarter, bringing full-year 2020 cost savings to around $115 million.
Outlook
Going forward, the company expects overall global coatings demand to continue to improve in many of its end-use markets and across all of its major regions. It expects overall global economic activities to strengthen in first-half 2021.
The company expects to gain from volume recovery in its technology-advantaged automotive refinish and aerospace coatings businesses, synergy realization and earnings accretion through integration of recently announced acquisitions and an eventual inventory restocking in specific industrial end markets.
Factoring in current global economic activities and the near-term economic uncertainty associated with the pandemic, PPG Industries expects total sales volume for the first quarter of 2021 to be flat to modestly higher, differing by business and region.
PPG Industries also expects to achieve total incremental cost benefits from restructuring measures of $30-$35 million in the first quarter.
The company also sees adjusted earnings for the first quarter to be $1.55-$1.61 per share. The mid-point of this range indicates an increase of more than 20% over the comparable year-ago figure of $1.31.
Price Performance
Shares of the company have gained 9.8% in the past year compared with 24% rise of the
industry
.
Zacks Rank & Other Key Picks
PPG Industries currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
Better-ranked stocks worth considering in the basic materials space include
Fortescue Metals Group Limited
FSUGY
,
Impala Platinum Holdings Limited
IMPUY
and
BHP Group
BHP
.
Fortescue has a projected earnings growth rate of 75.5% for the current fiscal. The company’s shares have surged around 121% in a year. It currently sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see
the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here
.
Impala Platinum has an expected earnings growth rate of 189.4% for the current fiscal. The company’s shares have rallied around 43% in the past year. It currently carries a Zacks Rank #1.
BHP Group has a projected earnings growth rate of 61.2% for the current fiscal year. The company’s shares have gained around 28% in a year. It currently carries a Zacks Rank #1.
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