Avient Corp

NYSE:AVNT

Earnings Call Analysis

Avient Q2 2024 Performance and Future Outlook

Avient reported its second quarter results, showcasing a notable 3% increase in sales to $850 million and organic revenue growth of 5%. This was the first sales growth in seven quarters. The growth was driven by market share gains and new product specifications across all geographies and business segments, particularly in the Color, Additives, and Inks and Specialty Engineered Materials segments. Adjusted EBITDA margins expanded by 100 basis points to 16.9%, leading to a 21% spike in adjusted earnings per share to $0.76, surpassing prior guidance by $0.05. Despite inflationary pressures expected in the second half, Avient increased its full-year adjusted EPS guidance to a range of $2.55 to $2.70, reflecting 8% to 14% growth. The company continues to see strong market momentum, particularly in the healthcare and defense sectors.

Strong Performance and Margin Expansion

Avient Corporation reported a solid second quarter, building upon a robust first quarter performance. The company achieved sales of $850 million, marking a 3% increase compared to the same period last year. Notably, organic sales growth was 5%, excluding the fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, a significant recovery after seven quarters without sales growth. This positive trend was largely due to broad-based growth across all regions and core business segments. Adjusted EBITDA improved to 16.9%, up by 100 basis points, driven by controlled costs, efficient operations, and raw material deflation. Consequently, adjusted earnings per share rose by 21% to $0.76, surpassing previous guidance by $0.05.

Segment Performance and Market Highlights

The Color, Additives, and Inks segment led the growth, benefiting from higher-than-expected demand and favorable raw material costs. This segment saw particular strength in the Packaging and Consumer markets with sales increases of 8% and 10% respectively, particularly in Europe. The Specialty Engineered Materials segment experienced 4% organic growth, supported by restocking in Consumer and Healthcare markets. Growth in Building and Construction was notable despite weak macro indicators, with significant wins in the U.S. and Canadian markets.

Healthcare and Defense Growth

Healthcare sales grew by 10% year-over-year, supported by new product specifications and strategic partnerships in drug delivery and monitoring devices. After a prolonged period of destocking, the market showed substantial improvement in order patterns. The Defense segment, driven by overseas conflicts and specific NATO programs, posted modest gains over the prior year. Full-year sales growth in Defense is projected to be in the low double digits.

Challenges in Telecommunications and Energy

The Telecommunications and Energy markets presented challenges, with a decline in sales by double digits. Telecommunications suffered from destocking in the U.S. and weak demand in Europe. Energy faced inventory reductions earlier in the year, but trends seem to be improving, specifically for applications aimed at strengthening the electrical transmission grid. Avient's Composites business is poised to contribute to this sector with innovative materials designed to enhance grid reliability.

Guidance and Financial Outlook

For the third quarter, Avient anticipates earnings per share of $0.62, a 9% increase from the previous year. Adjusted EBITDA for the full year is projected between $515 million and $540 million, while adjusted EPS is expected to range from $2.55 to $2.70, representing 8% to 14% growth over the previous year. Despite no changes in interest expense projections at $105 million for 2024, the company looks forward to refinancing a portion of its debt maturing in May 2025. Capital expenditures are estimated at $140 million, consistent with prior guidance.

Sustainability and Strategic Initiatives

Avient continues to make strides in sustainability, having reduced Scope 1 & 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 48% since 2019, approaching a target of a 55% reduction. The company's efforts have earned it top-tier scores from independent rating agencies like Ecovadis and CDP. Looking ahead, Avient plans to elaborate on its strategic initiatives aimed at driving organic growth, amplifying innovation, and building future leadership at an Investor Day on December 4.

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q2

[Operator]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Avient Corporation's webcast to discuss the company's Second Quarter 2024 results. My name is Shannon, and I will be your operator for today. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. We will have a question-and-answer session following the company's prepared remarks. As a reminder, this conference is maybe recorded for replay purposes.

I would now like to turn the call over to Joe Di Salvo, Vice President, Treasurer and Investor Relations. Please proceed.

[Giuseppe Di Salvo, executive]

Thank you and good morning, everyone that joining us on the call today. Before beginning, we'd like to remind you that statements made during this webcast may be considered forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements will be of current expectations or forecasts of future events and are not guarantees of future performance.

They're based on management's expectation and involve a number of business risks and uncertainties, any of which can cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by the forward-looking statements. We encourage you to refer to our most recent reports, including our 10-Q or any applicable amendments, for a complete discussion of these factors and other risk factors that may affect our future results.

During the discussion today, the company will use both U.S. GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to the presentation in the Investor Relations section of the Avient website, where the company describes non-GAAP measures and provides a reconciliation for historical non-GAAP financial measures to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measures.

A replay of this call will be available on our website. Information to access the replay is listed in today's press release, which is available at avient.com in the Investor Relations section. Joining me today is our President and Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Ashish Khandpur; and Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Jamie Beggs.



I will now hand the call over to Ashish to begin.

[Ashish Khandpur, executive]

Thank you, Joe, and welcome, everyone. I'm very pleased with our second quarter financial performance, which builds upon our strong first quarter results. As I have said on previous calls, one of our main areas of focus is to deliver organic top line growth with margin expansion. And this quarter, we achieved both.

Starting with the top line, we delivered sales of $850 million for the quarter, representing 3% growth over the second quarter of 2023 on an as-reported basis. Sales, however, grew 5% on an organic basis, which excludes the impact of foreign exchange. This is particularly noteworthy because it has been 7 quarters since the last time the company delivered sales growth.

The organic revenue growth was broad-based across all geographies and in both of our business segments, Color, Additives and Inks, and Specialty Engineered Materials. Both segments benefited from gaining share, winning new product specifications and inventory destocking in certain end markets.

Our team's ability to grow revenue, control costs and operate efficiently as well as raw material deflation helped us expand adjusted EBITDA margins to 16.9%. That's a 100 basis point improvement versus the prior year second quarter. This all led to adjusted earnings per share of $0.76, which is a 21% increase versus the prior year and exceeded our prior guidance for the quarter by $0.05.

Our better-than-expected performance was primarily driven by the Color, Additives and Inks segment which benefited from slightly better demand as well as favorable raw material costs. From an end market perspective, growth in packaging and Consumer had the greatest impact on the quarter by growing 8% and 10%, respectively. These are 2 of our largest end markets, and both benefited from some restocking, particularly in Europe.

We also had strong growth in Building and Construction and Healthcare. This was primarily due to new product specifications and gaining share to deliver above market growth. While macro indicators for Building and Construction remain somewhat weak, both the SEM and Color segments in the U.S. and Canada gained share and won new business.

On previous earnings calls, we have noted that Healthcare destocking was lagging other end markets. I am pleased to report that we began to see a meaningful improvement in order patterns during the second quarter and grew Healthcare sales 10% on a year-over-year basis. Not only do we believe destocking has run its course, we are well positioned to capitalize in certain medical applications that are currently on trend, most notably in areas of drug delivery and monitoring devices.

We have strategically partnered with key pharmaceutical companies and ODMs developing these devices, and we are growing with them as they benefit from strong underlying demand.

In the Defense end market, demand has been driven by overseas conflicts and specific NATO programs. Our second quarter sales were up modestly over the prior year second quarter, and we continue to expect full year sales growth to be in the low double digits.

Telecommunication and Energy, which together constitutes 7% of our sales remain the more challenged end markets with sales down double digits in the second quarter. The Telecommunications end market is primarily impacted by destocking in the U.S. and continued weak demand in Europe. As we start the third quarter, U.S. demand, which accounts for more than 60% of our sales is improving, and we expect overall Telecommunication sales to return to modest growth in the second half of the year.

It is a similar story in the Energy end market where customers have been managing down inventory levels in the first half of the year. We see improving trends as we start the third quarter, in particular for applications designed to harden the electrical transmission grid.

Our Composites business provides innovative materials in applications such as cross arms and insulator rods, which play an important role in ensuring the reliability of the grid in a sustainable manner.

We expect the broad category of Energy to grow in importance over time, and we will continue to focus on developing innovative solutions in this space.

I will now hand it off to Jamie to discuss our second quarter results in more detail and to provide an update on our 2024 outlook.

[Jamie Beggs, executive]

Thank you, Ashish. I was also pleased with our strong performance this quarter, which unfolded largely as expected. As Ashish highlighted, total company sales grew 3% on an as-reported basis and 5% on an organic basis, excluding the impact of foreign exchange.

Adjusted EBITDA grew 9% and adjusted EBITDA margins expanded 100 basis points over the second quarter of 2023. The Margin expansion was helped by strong operational and cost control discipline by our teams as well as raw material deflation.

Our adjusted EPS of $0.76 translates to 21% growth versus the prior year. In addition to the EBITDA growth, adjusted EPS also benefited from lower interest expense resulting from the $100 million pay down in August of 2023 as well as repricing of a term loan at that time and again in April of 2024.

To share some perspective on regional sales performance, we have provided this slide to reflect organic sales growth by region.

Beginning with the U.S. and Canada, which makes up 41% of our total sales, the team delivered 5% growth versus the prior year. New product specifications and share gains underpin the growth in our largest region. The Consumer end market was also strong, benefiting from restocking of personal care products and household goods. We expect to build on this growth in the U.S. and Canada in the second half of the year as we are also seeing increasing momentum from Composite applications that replace conventional building materials and improving trends in the U.S. Telecom and Energy end markets.

Latin America, while only comprising 6% of our total sales had a very strong quarter and grew sales by 19%. Packaging is the primary end market we serve in this region, which benefited from strong demand in applications used in Food and Beverage as well as cleaning supplies. The increased demand for such products was likely influenced by recent flooding in South Brazil as well as high temperatures and draught conditions in Mexico.

Our President in Latin America is also strategic, allowing us to serve global OEMs and brand owners who are looking to nearshore their supply chains in light of political uncertainty with trade flows and tariffs. We are well positioned to participate in this trend and expect to see continued long-term growth in this region.

Sales in EMEA grew 4% as the region benefited from restocking and packaging, particularly in Food and Beverage as well as in the Consumer end market. This was partially offset by weaker demand for Telecommunication applications. The sales growth in EMEA is a positive sign, but we remain cautious. Where there has been some favorable inflation signals correlated with the June interest rate cut by the European Central Bank, the manufacturing PMI dropped from May to June, which may weigh on business and Consumer confidence in the near term. As such, we expect year-over-year growth will likely remain muted for the region as we move through the balance of the year.

In Asia, sales grew 1% as new business gains in Healthcare was largely offset by weakness in Building and Construction. And while economic uncertainty in China remains, we are seeing share gains and encouraging trends in the order book for the region's 2 largest end markets, which are Packaging and Consumer. Accordingly, we expect Asia to grow during the second half of the year.

Turning to a review of segment performance. I'll start with Color, Additives and Inks, which grew 5%, excluding the impact of foreign exchange. The Packaging end market, which represents about 1/3 of segment sales was up high single digits during the quarter. Most of this growth in the end market stemmed from Europe and Latin America as discussed previously.

Building and Construction also contributed to Colors performance during the quarter. This growth was primarily driven by new business wins, using our functional additive solutions and construction materials, as well as some modest restocking by U.S. customers. The segment was able to maintain net price benefit from continued raw material deflation, along with a focus on cost reductions, particularly in Europe, which helped expand overall EBITDA by 15% and EBITDA margin by 200 basis points.

The Specialty Engineered Materials segment grew sales 4% organically. The sales growth was primarily driven by restocking in the Consumer and Healthcare end markets as well as share gains in wire and cable applications, which helped grow Building and Construction sales. Consumer sales primarily benefited from restocking in personal care and household goods as well as for Composite applications used for outdoor sports and other high-performance Composite fabrics.

SEM's base Healthcare business, which was impacted by destocking for several quarters, started to see momentum with new orders during the quarter. Examples of applications that should order pickup included materials for respiratory care and monitoring devices. Weaker demand in Telecommunications and energy partially offset the growth in Consumer, Healthcare and Building and Construction.

Adjusted EBITDA grew 7% and EBITDA margins expanded by 80 basis points, driven by raw material deflation and favorable mix from Consumer and Healthcare applications, which have accretive margins.

Turning next to guidance. We are providing estimates today for the third quarter and an update to our full year 2024 guidance range. We expect third quarter earnings per share of $0.62, which reflects a 9% increase over the prior year. We expect the second quarter trend of year-over-year growth to continue in the third quarter.

Regarding input costs, in the first half of the year, we realized approximately $35 million in raw material deflation, which was in line with our expectations. However, this benefit is not expected to repeat in the second half of the year as we are seeing modest levels of inflation across the majority of our raw material basket, including hydrocarbon-based materials such as polyethylene and polypropylene as well as polycarbonate and certain polymer additives.

Additionally, as previously discussed, we have also factored in a $30 million year-over-year headwind from variable compensation in the second half of the year. Taking all of this into consideration, expectations for the back half of 2024 are largely unchanged from our previous outlook provided in May.

As such, we are adjusting our full year guidance range to reflect the better-than-expected second quarter results and increasing adjusted EBITDA to a range of $515 million to $540 million and adjusted earnings per share to a range of $2.55 to $2.70.

Our full year adjusted EPS guidance now represents 8% to 14% growth over the prior year. Interest expense expectations are unchanged at approximately $105 million for the full year 2024. We do have a portion of our debt maturing in May of 25, and we look forward to opportunistically refinance it in the near term, subject to market conditions.

If we were to refinance this debt during 2024, we do not expect it to have a material impact to our full year interest expense guidance of $105 million. We continue to expect our adjusted effective tax rate to be between 23% and 25% and our capital expenditures to be roughly $140 million, which are also unchanged versus our prior guidance.

Before turning the call back over to Ashish for closing remarks, I wanted to draw attention to the release of our 2023 sustainability report. We just published our updated report online, and it details our latest performance metrics and provides examples of sustainability and action at Avient.

I'd like to call out a few highlights that we are particularly proud of and that I know are important to all of our stakeholders.

First is our reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Since 2019, we have reduced our Scope 1 & 2 GHG emissions by 48% and are quickly approaching our goal of a 55% reduction.

And second, are the independent rating agencies that recently updated our scores. Since our last report, Ecovadis increased Avient to Gold, moving us in the top 5% of all reporting companies and CDP increased our score to an A-, which showcased our alignment with the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures. I'd like to thank our employees to contribute to improving our underlying sustainability performance and helped us earn these top-tier scores. I will now turn it back over to Ashish who will share some exciting news about our upcoming Investor Day.

[Ashish Khandpur, executive]

Thank you, Jamie. Since joining the company, I have been speaking with many stakeholders, including customers, employees and investors. Those conversations, along with collaboration among my leadership team, are forming the basis of our strategic plan that we are finalizing and we'll share with investors on December 4 in New York City.

Registration details will be forthcoming, but for now please save the date.

I want to close by saying a big thank you to the global Avient team who worked tirelessly to deliver a strong second quarter. I am particularly proud of our teams for delivering organic growth for Avient after a long 7 quarters while expanding margins on the bottom line. That concludes our prepared remarks for today.

Operator, we are now ready to begin the question-and-answer session of today's call.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Mike Harrison with Seaport Research Partners.

[Michael Harrison, analyst]

Congrats on a nice quarter.

[Ashish Khandpur, executive]

Thank you. Mike!

[Michael Harrison, analyst]

Ashish, I was hoping that maybe you could share some of your thoughts about visibility into the second half. It sounds like your outlook on demand hasn't really changed a whole lot from where it was a few months ago. But I'm curious what you're hearing from customers and maybe what you're seeing in order patterns in some of your key markets that helps to provide some confidence that you can continue to see some growth momentum into the second half?

[Ashish Khandpur, executive]

Sure, Mike. I mean as you know, on an organic sales growth basis, we finished Q2 at 5%. And when we look at our order book and how we finished July, we feel like we are right on track with our -- meeting our range that has been provided for revenue growth for the year. So if you think about it in first half and second half of the year, first half, we have grown as printed sales by 0.5%. And so if you think about it, that can happen, accordingly comes down from low single digits to high single digits. So let's take the midpoint as mid-single digits is the expectation. So that's where we finished Q2. And then as we are looking into Q3 with some momentum in our order book, that's the kind of -- that's very consistent with what we are providing for guidance here. I just want to also talk about a little bit about in Q1, sorry, in Q2, we had 7 of our 9 segments that grew year-over-year. And that's more than 90% of our revenue mix. And then as we look into Q3 and Q4, we expect that trend to continue. So we are coming from a place where we are seeing some market demand come back. We are seeing some restocking taking place. But also we are seeing our teams take more share and win new programs and develop new applications, which is really helping our growth to go into these mid-single digits in the second half of the year...

[Michael Harrison, analyst]

All right. Thank you, and I was hoping that you could talk a little bit about what you're seeing in Healthcare. It sounds like maybe the destocking process has run its course. But maybe more than that, it sounds like you're seeing some growing opportunities around drug delivery and monitoring. Can you talk a little bit about some of the partnerships that you've developed and kind of how you see the Healthcare segment evolving over the next quarters and maybe next couple of years?

[Ashish Khandpur, executive]

Sure, Mike. As you said, Healthcare, the destocking, we believe is finally over and we are seeing restocking, both in our co-equipment maker accounts, or OEMs as well as distribution. We are seeing the sales growth on both those channels. So that's a good sign to indicating destocking is largely over.

We are also, our teams have also pivoted to winning more share and new applications in some of the high-growth areas, especially around drug delivery of obesity and monitoring, glucose monitoring drugs kind of applications. And so that pivot to winning applications in areas which are growing in Healthcare, fast is really helping our Healthcare sales to grow at double digits as we showed in Q2.

Now when I look into what's happening in both CAI providing additives and color as well as SEM side are growing in Healthcare. So that's a good sign. And on the specific devices side, medical equipment and devices side, we are seeing good, robust demand, again, restocking for our catheters, inhalers and other drug delivery like syringes type devices, so which is our conventional stuff. So we are winning where -- which what I would call our core businesses, but we are also building some new applications in this fast-growth drug delivery devices. And just as a context in point, we have been growing our Healthcare equipment and drug delivery business at a CAGR of 14% since 2019. So it has been a good healthy business. It's quite profitable, and it is growing fast, and we continue to innovate in that area.

[Michael Harrison, analyst]

All right. Very helpful. Thanks very much.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Frank Mitsch with Fermium Research, LLC.

[Frank Mitsch, analyst]

I'm assuming that's the legal drug delivery type of businesses that you're referring to because when you see such high margins, you -- one has to wonder...

[Ashish Khandpur, executive]

It is a... Thank you for clarifying that for us.

[Frank Mitsch, analyst]

Absolutely. The Star in 1Q is that 38% growth in Defense, and you mentioned that it was up modest year-over-year in the second quarter. Can you provide a little more color there and what your expectations are for the balance of the year in that business?

[Ashish Khandpur, executive]

Yes. Sure, Frank. So as you know, Q1 was very strong in Defense, and that helped not only our growth, but also our margins -- but Q2 sequentially was down, but year-over-year, was modestly up versus last year. As we look into Q3, we still see strong growth in that area and more in line with what our results have been in Q2 from a revenue perspective. But since the comps last year were quite weak, we see double-digit plus growth in Q3 for Defense. And for the rest of the year, included -- for full year, we expect it to finish, as Jamie said in her prepared remarks at double-digit levels. Again, a good solid momentum in that business. We are winning new programs, not just with the NATO countries, but also with specific programs with local law enforcement agencies, capital police as well as some new applications, both in Germany and Spain, apart from the other NATO countries that we have orders from. So good momentum there.

[Frank Mitsch, analyst]

Very helpful. And Jamie, you talked about raw materials being a positive for 2Q, but then expecting inflation impacts in the balance of the year. Is there any way to quantify that? I think order of magnitude was deflation, something like a $10 million benefit in the second quarter and our expectations on 3Q as to what your -- what you're going to see.

[Jamie Beggs, executive]

Sure. The Q2 deflation number was about $15 million. So for the first half, it's about $35 million, closer to $38 million for the first half. The back half, we're expecting between $5 million to $10 million headwind. Right now, the way the curves look and may hit a little bit more in Q4 versus Q3, but that's our current outlook.

[Frank Mitsch, analyst]

All right. So flat in 3Q...

[Jamie Beggs, executive]

I would expect some -- I'm sorry, some inflation in Q3, but to me, that's on the lower end of the side. I think we're going to see a little more in Q4.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Michael Sison with Wells Fargo.

[Michael Sison, analyst]

In terms of the second half outlook for sales growth at mid-single digits, will that mostly be volume growth? It sounds like you have good momentum in the third quarter. Hopefully, the Guardians can keep up there as well. And then just a follow-up in terms of R&D, Ashish. Any changes that you've made that you're sort of seeing some momentum there in new product development or such?

[Ashish Khandpur, executive]

Yes, Mike. So on the first one on second half outlook, just so that even for Q2, all our growth, as you see, is volume-related growth. So it's very strong volume growth that we have seen. And then that momentum will continue in second half and second half growth is again volume related. So that momentum will continue. And so we are seeing strong program wins, new application wins. And that goes back to your second question, really with respect to what changes we have done and how -- if anything is bearing any results yet.

So -- we have done a lot of pivots around our sales team really changing our strategy with respect to how we are addressing different regions of the world. So for example, in Asia, we committed to going to more local key accounts, apart from the multinational accounts that we were serving, for example, in China because we were seeing the business move away from some of those, between those 2 local versus global multinational accounts. And so our teams pivoted there and one share there. We -- in EMEA, which is, as you know, is a low-growth area, low GDP growth area. Our team's focus is now on winning share, and we are doing that with new applications as well as just basic blocking and tackling in the business. And then in U.S., we are seeing momentum with respect to some secular trends with hardening of the electric grid taking place and other applications like that. And we are -- our teams are winning there as well with new products and new applications. So I think what you're seeing for our volume growth is a combination of not just restocking, some market demand come back in certain areas of the world, but also a significant amount of growth coming from new product development and new application development and share wins that is happening across the globe.

[Michael Sison, analyst]

Got it. And then in terms of the strategic plan, I know you're probably going to keep a lot of that and they're still developing land. But what metrics do you think are most important for investors to think about and that you're focused on that you maybe kind of highlight at the Investor Day in December. And any thoughts about sort of the longer-term earnings power as you've been there for -- since the beginning of the year?

[Ashish Khandpur, executive]

Yes. So obviously, I mean, I would ask for some patience for -- until December 4, when we actually come back and give the numbers. But just to let you know, Mike and we have highlighted in our past earnings calls, the 3 top of mind areas for me is, really growing organically the top line while expanding the margins on the bottom line, amplifying innovation, which will feed into that top line and profitable bottom line growth, and then the third thing is building the leadership and talent for Avient of the future.

And our strategic plan is really going to address all those things. And really, that's what I can share at this point in time. But that's what we are focused on how to grow, how to make innovation as a central part of our growth strategy. So that not only are we growing the top line in a sustainable way, but also differentiate ourselves from competition and improve our margins.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of David Hoang with Deutsche Bank.

[David Huang, analyst]

Ashish, I did see that you're hiring a Chief Technology Officer and another person to be in charge of marketing and new business development. Can you remind us how those organizations are currently structured in your company? And I guess what do you wish to change or achieve with these new hires?

[Ashish Khandpur, executive]

Sure, David. So the CTO part, currently, we are structured both, the R&D structure both in the businesses as well as a central team of technology. And so it's kind of -- most of the R&D folks are in the business right now and some are in the center of the corporation. So we want to just actually -- when we bring the CTO, we are also trying to see how we can really build a flywheel of innovation that continues to deliver. So we think in terms of horizon.

So Horizon 1 could be sitting in business, for example, and Horizon 2 and 3 could be either in the business or being incubated a little bit away from the business. So while it's still connected very directly to the customers. So I think that's our R&D model that we are trying to get going. And we have started actually consolidating some of our R&D structures especially in high-growth spaces to build capacity and capability. So we have some of this R&D scattered around different parts of the company because they came into the company through different acquisitions. But we have now started pulling them together to build enough scale in areas where we can -- where we really want to grow fast. So we have started doing some organization changes on that front. And the CTO would obviously be part of that story.

Then on the marketing side, we are -- as we look into some of the view, the world is really changing fast and technology trends are changing the world fast. So if you think about what is happening with artificial intelligence, it's really going to create a lot of usage for electric power, distribution and generation.

And so -- and that has a derivative effect on our businesses because we can supply in those areas. Similarly, semiconductors are needed for AI, and we need to -- we are a material provider, and we can play in that pass-out area once again. So all these trends are happening, whether it's mobility, whether it's electrification and so on and so forth. And we can become part of those fast-growing markets. And so we need to understand those markets in a better way and also our go-to-market models. We have a lot of technology, but sometimes how do we approach those markets to commercialize these things is equally important. So this new marketing position that we have advertised is going to be helping out in that area.

[David Huang, analyst]

Got it. And then just going back to the share gains you mentioned, I guess how much does [Indiscernible] contributed to the volume growth in the quarter? It sounds like they're more related to sustainable solutions and Composites. I guess -- if you look at the organic volume growth for those 2 platforms, where are they today? And I guess, is there any fundamental underlying competitive dynamic change that's contributed to some of the share gains?

[Ashish Khandpur, executive]

Yes. So I think the share gains actually were not as much in Composites this time as they were in our traditional engineered materials. On the SEM side, clearly, on the Color and Additives side, we saw broad-based share gains in taking market. I think we expect Composites to play bigger. As I was mentioning earlier in my comments with respect to winning share in Defense and other things with NATO countries. So Composites is going to kick in there. Also, we are seeing some products in Building and Construction area with respect to Panels and Composite materials that are used in construction of homes that we are seeing momentum in. So I think Composites is going to be largely a second half story for us. And so -- but in general, we have seen share gain on traditional engineered materials side. With respect to your second question, which was...

[Jamie Beggs, executive]

Within the second question, So David, maybe just to add a bit more because I think you're looking for specificity between on the 5%, how much was related to share gain, how much was related to new business wins and then also we had restocking as well. And like Ashish said, I think the applications that you called out with Composites and for sustainable solutions, that's really more on the new business gain side. Like for instance, in Building and Construction for the company, it was up 15%. And that really is because of the new applications either in the functional Additive space or in certain applications on the Composite side that really started to take win with new applications. And then in other cases, also in Building and Construction, for instance, the wire and cable space, that's more of a share gain. And then if I go into something like in our Packaging, which is up 11% within the region, that really was driven highly by restocking in that space because the underlying market conditions wouldn't suggest that would be the case. So really the mix between all 3 of those buckets for how organic growth grew within the quarter.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Laurence Alexander of Jefferies.

[Laurence Alexander, analyst]

This is Kevin Estok on for Laurence. I guess about mix. I guess I'm just wondering how you guys expect your mix to evolve in the short to medium term, so maybe back half of this year and maybe into 2025, 2026...

[Jamie Beggs, executive]

Yes, from a back half perspective, we're not expecting a whole lot from price mix to come through. As Ashish mentioned earlier, it's really a volume story in the back half of the year. There may be some mix that comes through because of $0.50 comes up a little bit stronger in the back half. That may help with margin expansion. But we're not expecting price mix to be material for the back half -- we haven't come up with estimates for '25 and '26. As Ashish mentioned before, we are interested in amplifying innovation. And as those programs start to take more hold, we do expect margin expansion to continue. So we expect that to be positive, but we'll give more specifics when we get to December 4.

[Laurence Alexander, analyst]

Okay. Understood. And I guess you talked a little bit about pricing, but I mean, just with raw materials coming down, I'm just curious, let's say, if that trend were to continue into 2025. I mean would you expect any kind of knock-on effects from, let's say, pricing pressures coming from customers further downstream? Or do you expect to...

[Jamie Beggs, executive]

Well, pricing is actually going up in the back half of the year. So like I answered with Frank, we expect $5 million to $10 million in the back half of the year. We have a strong history. If you go back for the last 8 to 10 quarters of being able to have a net price benefit regardless if it's an inflationary or deflationary environment. The teams have done a really nice job with that. I expect that to continue to be the case.

[Operator]

Our final question comes from the line of Vincent Andrews of Morgan Stanley.

[Vincent Andrews, analyst]

This is Turner Henrik on for Vincent. Can you help us understand what's going on from a cash flow perspective and what you expect from working capital for the year?

[Jamie Beggs, executive]

Sure. Maybe just a little bit of a comparison to prior year. So we had a little over $185 million of free cash flow. And as we look into 2024, our capital expenditures for the year are slightly higher than last year, we estimated about $140 million. So taking that into effect, we do expect -- two things to change for 2024. One is that working -- sorry, one is the CapEx and the other is working capital. We do expect the higher sales level to also be a cash use versus -- we had about $40 million of cash, [good guy] in 2023, which won't impede in '24 because of the sales, [good guy]. Maybe as a reminder, our working capital as a percentage of sale averages between 12% and 13%. We expect that to continue through the back half of this year, too.

[Vincent Andrews, analyst]

Great. One additional question that I had. What parts of the Raws basket is driving the expectation for additional inflation in the fourth quarter relative to the third quarter? And is this something that you all could see continuing?

[Jamie Beggs, executive]

Yes. So what we're seeing in the back half really relates to pigment, certain performance additives as well as our hydrocarbon basket, which is primarily driven by polyethylene, polypropylene and TPE. That's really what we're seeing in the current curve. I mean, obviously, that's dependent on kind of the evolution as we kind of go through the back half, but that's the best visibility that we have at this point.

[Ashish Khandpur, executive]

Okay. With that, I think we'll conclude today's call. Thank you, everyone, for joining us, and we'll see you next quarter. Thank you.

[Operator]

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.