On February 19, Orion S.A. (NYSE: OEC), a specialty chemical company, announced financial results for its full-year financial results for 2024, reporting a third consecutive year of $300+ million EBITDA and highlighting positive 2025-2026 inflection in Free Cash Flow.

“Orion delivered more than $300 million of Adjusted EBITDA for the third consecutive year in 2024, but we are not satisfied by these results. Soft Western tire production levels – and consequently lower than expected Rubber demand – was Orion’s single largest obstacle in 2024, and we addressed this partly through commercial strategy coming into 2025. This will blunt impact from the distorted tire industry trade flows, should they persist,” stated Corning Painter, Orion’s Chief Executive Officer. “Despite lingering end-market softness, foreign exchange headwinds reflecting the Dollar’s recent strength and uncertainty around the new administration’s broader policies, we expect growth in 2025 on a constant currency basis, underpinned by the new Rubber supply agreements, debottlenecked Specialty production lines and other factors in our control.”

“Of potentially greater interest to our investors,” continued Painter, “may be the multi-year inflection in our free cash flow generation. Higher Adjusted EBITDA and reduced capex are key levers here. With available capacity in Rubber and premium Specialty products, we are positioned to achieve higher earnings levels over several years without additional growth capital. Considering the improving cash flow and our stock’s current valuation, we continue to see opportunistic share repurchases as an attractive allocation of capital.”

Jeff Glajch, Orion’s Chief Financial Officer, added, “We finished 2024 with net leverage down modestly from the third quarter, even as we continued buybacks at a sensible pace during the fourth quarter. In just over two years, we have reduced our net outstanding shares by approximately 6%, including nearly $20 million of repurchases in the second half of 2024. At the end of December, we still had nearly 5 million shares on our current authorization.”

Learn more in Orion’s full financial report.