Chemours Co. Stock

Good morning. My name is Marvin, and I'll be your conference operator today. I would like to welcome everyone to Chemours Company Third Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded.

I would now like to hand the conference call over to Brand Ontjes, Vice President, Head of Strategy and Investor Relations of Chemours. You may begin your conference.

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the Chemours Company's Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. I'm joined today by Denise Dignam, Chemours' President and Chief Executive Officer; and our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Shane Hostetter.

Before we start, I would like to remind you that comments made on this call, as well as in the supplemental information provided on our website contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties as described in Chemours' SEC filings. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are based on certain assumptions and expectations of future events that may not be realized. Actual results may differ, and Chemours undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statements as a result of future developments or new information.

During this call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures that we believe are useful to investors evaluating the company's performance. A reconciliation of non-GAAP terms and adjustments is included in our press release issued yesterday evening. Additionally, we also posted our earnings presentation on our website yesterday evening.

With that, I will turn the call over to Denise Dignam.

Thank you, Brandon, and thank you, everyone, for joining us this morning. On today's call, I'll start with highlights from our third quarter performance before turning it over to Shane to walk through our fourth quarter outlook and initial perspectives on 2027. I'll then close with an update on our strategic execution under Pathway to Thrive.

Our third quarter results reflected strong year-over-year performance in Titanium Technologies and Advanced Performance Materials, paired with disciplined commercial and operational execution across the company despite weakening macroeconomic conditions across our key end markets.

Net sales were up 3% year-over-year as expected, driven by continued pricing momentum in TT and growth of 26% in APM Performance Solutions business, more than offsetting the anticipated softness in TSS due to expected weaker demand in the North American stationary AC aftermarket for Opteon blends. Adjusted EBITDA was $200 million at the high end of our guidance range with all businesses contributing above expectations.

With this update, I also want to highlight the progress that we've made under Pathway to Thrive to derisk our balance sheet through continued efforts to reduce litigation exposure and address leverage. On the litigation front, we were able to reach a settlement with the state of North Carolina and 11 local entities to resolve claims of PFAS and other discharges from our Fayetteville Works site as well as those unrelated to our site.

In addition, we received final approval of the Judicial Consent Order with the State of New Jersey. This was a meaningful step toward completing our settlement and establishing previously agreed funding from our MOU partners to support settlement payments over decades. These developments reflect our continued focus on derisking the balance sheet.

With this, let me expand on the quarter's business activities. In TSS, third quarter performance reflected the anticipated softness in the North American stationary AC aftermarket. Demand for Opteon blends was lower compared with the prior year period, which benefited from the initial channel fill associated with the stationary AC technology transition under the U.S. AIM Act.

While lower aftermarket volumes and higher input costs weighed on earnings in the quarter, we remain confident in the long-term fundamentals of TSS. We believe that the expanding installed base of lower GWP systems and our advantaged position with HVAC OEMs and aftermarket distributors will provide a strong foundation for future growth. As the 2026 cooling season comes to a close in North America, we continue to build on our advantaged position, managing the business with discipline and positioning TSS to capture the attractive aftermarket opportunity in front of us.

Looking further ahead, the business' attractive growth is underpinned by our innovation-led foundation and our intellectual property portfolio, ensuring protection for the breadth of our Opteon products extending into the 2030s. In TT, third quarter performance reflected strong commercial execution against a challenging demand backdrop. Many of our customers continue to navigate a persistently weak housing market and broader macroeconomic uncertainty across most key end markets.

Even in this environment, the team delivered growth through a combination of pricing and volume improvement with strength in North America, Latin America and Asia Pacific outside of China, more than offsetting softer demand in EMEA and China. This execution helped us deliver earnings above the high end of our range. As an additional point, this quarter did include approximately $5 million of earnings benefit from sales and cost timing between the third and fourth quarter.

Importantly, global pricing increased 10% year-over-year in the third quarter, underscoring the success and discipline of the global pricing increases we executed over the past year. Pricing improved across every region and was the primary driver of the significant year-over-year increase in earnings and margin. This performance demonstrates the value of our differentiated Ti-Pure products, consistent commercial approach and the ability to execute pricing actions while continuing to deliver the quality and service our customers expect. While housing and other key end markets remain under pressure, we are confident in the actions we are taking to strengthen TT through the cycle.

Our work to optimize our manufacturing circuit to demand with a focus on pricing execution, regulatory diligence and market selectivity underpinned by cost reduction efforts have been key elements to enhance the value in a competitive TiO2 market. We will continue to control what we can control and remain ready to capture the opportunity as market conditions change.

In APM, third quarter performance reflected continued progress toward a higher-value portfolio mix. The business delivered year-over-year growth despite mixed conditions across broader industrial end markets, supported by pricing, improved volumes and strong momentum in Performance Solutions. This deliberate mix shift also contributed to meaningful year-over-year improvement in earnings and margin.

Notably, Performance Solutions sales increased 26% year-over-year and 8% sequentially, underscoring the robust demand signals we continue to see from certain end markets, inclusive of those in the AI infrastructure and semiconductor space. Continued order book strength across data center and semiconductor applications demonstrate the critical role of our differentiated products now approaching nearly half of Performance Solutions, enabling increasingly complex high-performance technologies.

As Performance Solutions becomes a larger part of APM, it reinforces our confidence in the business' path toward higher value growth and stronger earnings potential. More broadly, Chemours continues to expand its presence in attractive AI infrastructure end markets, inclusive of data centers and semiconductors with differentiated offerings across APM's Performance Solutions business and TSS. As of today, we have seen strong growth markets with our sales concentration across TSS and APM now at 10%.

With that, I'll turn it over to Shane to walk through our outlook as we move into the fourth quarter.

Thank you, Denise, and good morning, everyone. As shared in the earnings materials available on our investor website, I would now like to discuss our expectations as we look ahead.

Beginning with TSS. For the fourth quarter, we expect TSS' net sales to decline sequentially in the high teens to low 20% range, reflecting traditional seasonal patterns as the North American cooling season concludes. We expect adjusted EBITDA to be between $105 million and $115 million, primarily reflecting the associated seasonal volume and mix impacts.

As we look ahead, we are watching the economy closely and monitoring key demand drivers across TSS, including OEM stationary HVAC unit shipments in North America as well as light vehicle builds. Given the seasonality of the business, we expect better visibility into the aftermarket as we move further into the first quarter of 2027 when seasonal restocking comes more into view. While the near-term environment remains dynamic, we remain confident in the business' long-term fundamentals, supported by our positions with OEMs and aftermarket distributors and disciplined commercial execution.

For our TT business, we expect TT's net sales to decline sequentially in the high single digits to low teens percentage range and adjusted EBITDA to range between $60 million and $65 million in the fourth quarter. These expectations reflect challenging end markets as well as normal seasonality, paired with the timing of earlier referenced sales and cost benefits in the third quarter, which will negatively impact fourth quarter earnings.

While the sequential outlook reflects these timing and seasonal factors, we continue to see weaker demand volumes across our key regions with some slight strength in Latin America, reflecting a challenging and competitive global demand environment. We also feel well positioned on pricing, anticipated to be up high single digits over the prior year, following the 3 announced increases over the past year. The traction achieved across regions reflects consistent execution, close customer engagement and our focus on protecting the value of our Ti-Pure offerings.

Longer term, we remain focused on controlling what we can control through commercial and operational agility, underpinning this value-focused approach. We are managing production to demand and advancing cost productivity across our manufacturing to strengthen earnings and cash flow through the cycle.

Turning now to our APM business. For the fourth quarter, we expect APM's net sales to increase sequentially in the low to mid-teens percentage range, driven by continued strength in Performance Solutions. We expect adjusted EBITDA to be between $40 million and $45 million, reflecting the benefit of higher sales and continued cost and operational improvements across APM's manufacturing circuit. The circuit is currently working well, and our focus remains on consistent execution and reliable customer service.

At the same time, the business is addressing broader demand tailwinds across AI infrastructure, data center, semiconductor and related end markets, where the quality and differentiated capabilities of our products continue to earn customer loyalty. These demand trends have strengthened the Performance Solutions order book and continue to support strong momentum from attractive end markets. As we fulfill that demand and shift the portfolio towards higher-value Performance Solutions products, we see a clear path to stronger earnings and sustained growth in APM.

Looking to our consolidated outlook, we now expect net sales to grow around 2% compared with 2025 and adjusted EBITDA to now be between $775 million and $800 million. As we move further into the fourth quarter, this outlook reflects broader pricing momentum in TT with seasonal volume decline, partially offset by anticipated cost improvements, continued APM demand strength in high-value end markets supported by operational improvements and stationary aftermarket weakness in TSS, which we expect will result in modestly lower earnings to close the year.

Looking at liquidity, we now anticipate free cash flow conversion to be between 15% to 20%, which reflects capital expenditures between $220 million and $230 million. This free cash flow conversion outlook reflects notable recent developments, most of which were not in our previous outlook. First, the increase in restricted cash related to the PFAS insurance proceeds MOU in connection with the finalization of the Judicial Consent Order with the State of New Jersey, which we expect to be more than offset by related legal settlement payments to the state of New Jersey and payments associated with our settlement with the State of North Carolina, both falling in the third and fourth quarters.

These dynamics, together with timing of our net working capital spend, partly related to turnaround plans at APM, have lowered our cash flow projections for the remainder of the year. Transaction taxes associated with the sale of our Kuan Yin property of approximately $25 million also impacted the third quarter with the remaining $5 million in the fourth quarter.

Our net leverage ratio is now expected to be below 4.2x adjusted EBITDA at the end of 2026. Related to our leverage position, we have continued to prioritize debt repayment. In the third quarter, we prepaid an additional EUR 50 million of our euro Term Loan B, bringing total debt reduction for the year to EUR 280 million.

Additionally, as anticipated, we closed the sale of the final parcel of land associated with our former manufacturing facility in Kuan Yin, delivering the remaining approximately $56 million of consideration from the transaction. This land sale, completed earlier than anticipated, marks the conclusion of a multiyear effort by our team and underscores our ability to rightsize our operational footprint, drive smart cost-cutting initiatives, maximize the value of our noncore assets and deploy proceeds in a responsible fashion.

Going forward, we will continue to prioritize debt reduction as a key element of our capital allocation strategy, strengthening the Chemours balance sheet and enhancing our long-term financial flexibility. The work to derisk our balance sheet is foundational to executing the 4 pillars of our Pathway to Thrive strategy.

As we look ahead to 2027, we expect uncertain macroeconomic conditions to persist. We remain focused on controlling what we can control and are confident in the cost measures we have taken and the improvements we are driving across our operational circuit through the Chemours Business System to strengthen our resilience and execution. Even in this challenging environment, we expect Chemours to deliver earnings growth in 2027.

With that, I'll turn the call back over to Denise for her closing remarks.

Thank you, Shane. As we move into the second half of our Pathway to Thrive strategy, we continue to make progress across all 4 pillars: operational excellence, enabling growth, portfolio management and strengthening the long term. Run rate cost savings, improved operational stability and strong growth in TSS' Opteon low GWP refrigerants, TT and APM Performance Solutions all reflect our focus on execution over the course of Pathway to Thrive. We also recently completed the sale of our former Kuan Yin site, strengthened our balance sheet through debt reduction and reduced our litigation exposure through the North Carolina settlement and the final approval of the New Jersey Judicial Consent Order supported by our MOU partners.

Importantly, the related payments are expected to occur over decades under the MOU framework. We will continue to take a disciplined approach to addressing legacy matters in a way that protects our balance sheet. Additionally, we have strengthened the long term of Chemours through sustainability actions.

As highlighted in our 2025 sustainability report published this past August, we have reduced air and water process emissions of fluorinated organic chemicals by 80% since 2018, keeping us on track toward our goal of 99% or greater reduction by 2030. This progress reflects our continued investment in advanced emissions detection and abatement technologies and our commitment to responsible manufacturing, which protects our privilege to operate and positions Chemours to thrive for the long term.

Over the same period, we have also reduced our Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 57%, nearing our goal of a 60% reduction by 2030, which highlights our innovation. I also would like to highlight the launch of the Faizeon product portfolio, our two-phase liquid cooling fluids designed to help meet the rapidly growing cooling requirements of AI infrastructure in a new valuable end market for Chemours. We created the Faizeon brand to give our growing portfolio a clear, dedicated identity in the liquid cooling data center market, bringing together years of fluid development, technical expertise and industry collaboration under one brand.

Looking ahead, I remain excited about our trajectory and the future value we will create. Our strength lies in our 3 market-leading businesses, differentiated solutions and attractive end markets. Building on the progress we have made under Pathway to Thrive, we are well positioned to deliver the long-term shareholder returns while extending our leadership in data center, semiconductor and related AI infrastructure markets and realizing our potential in growth markets such as liquid cooling and critical minerals.

Finally, we believe the future for Chemours is one of growth and exciting possibilities, and none of it will be possible without our employees around the world who live our values every day. I want to thank them for their continued focus, humility, transparency and tenacity.

With that, I'd like to open the line for your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of John McNulty of BMO.

This is Caleb on for John. Denise, you mentioned earlier that you saw higher input costs in TSS. Was that higher R-32? Or was that something else? And then maybe just looking to next year, what are your expectations for TSS input costs through the year and what that looks like with R-32 pricing in China and India looking like it's stepped up decently throughout the year?

Sure. I mean, the primary input cost increase that we see is really sulfur. That's the beginning of the supply chain for our TSS business. But we've been really able to overcome that with our pricing efforts with the excellent commercial work of the team. We don't see any further changes in those raw material inputs.

Got you. Okay. And then for APM with the Q4 guide at $40 million to $45 million, that's above like the historical range you've talked about for business at $30 million to $40 million. Should we assume that, that $40 million to $45 million range is kind of like the fair normalized run rate that we expect in '27?

Caleb, thanks. As we look at Q4, there is definitely strength in the Performance Solutions that's driving that business. And there's a little pent-up demand given some of the operational items that happened in Q2 and Q3. Looking ahead, right, we still feel confident in that $30 million to $40 million range per quarter going into next year.

Our next question comes from the line of Aleksey Yefremov of Barclays.

This is [ Ryan Weiss ] on for Aleksey. I just wanted to maybe dig into TSS a little bit more. I just get an understanding of -- you talked about less favorable seasonality. How much of that kind of reflects normal seasonality that you see kind of 3Q to 4Q versus like the distributor destocking that you're seeing? And then when do you kind of expect the channel inventory to clear?

Yes. So I mean, I think, first of all, I'll just remind that this is a onetime transition. It's really the first time this has been done and kind of transitioned overnight. When we look into -- as you get into the fourth quarter, that's when the market seasonality really starts to see the aftermarket is a pretty low demand.

We have seen signs -- some positive signs of orders have been coming in, in the fourth quarter, which gives us some confidence that the market has stabilized. The inventory has stabilized, but it's really going to take us until we get into the first quarter, I would say, towards the end of the first quarter as we see the cooling season, in particular, in the Northern Hemisphere for us to really understand and get a better line of sight of demand, in particular, in the aftermarket.

And just to add on from a financial perspective, we received your question around seasonality. If you look at legacy seasonality in past quarters from third quarter to fourth quarter, the drop in earnings is really aligned to what we're seeing here. And as Denise mentioned, I think it's less on the destocking, more just seasonality.

Great. And then, Denise, a question for you. Just one of the trade rags kind of flagged increasing Chinese imports of TiO2 flowing into the U.S. following some of the antidumping duties that have maybe been placed in other countries. Have you guys seen any pressure from this to date? And then do you think that pursuing an ADD in the U.S. would be something if current tariff protections aren't enough?

Sure. Thanks for the question. I mean it's still -- I mean, imports into the U.S. are still pretty modest relative to places around the world. But I can tell you, we take a very, very serious stance on protecting our fair trade -- the fair trade markets. There's been -- and I think it's been very successful. I mean you see when the trade barriers come up, the Chinese exports into the regions really weaken.

So -- and there's just a lot of trade actions going on. Japan and Australia have put an ADD investigation in. We -- the India ADD rates have been approved. There's strong ADD in the U.K. EU is reevaluating the effectiveness, and we have production in Mexico, and that's certainly an area where we are focused. The Trump administration in 2019 put in trade tariffs on the imports of TiO2 into the U.S. And just to kind of reinforce, we will aggressively defend the U.S. market.

Our next question comes from the line of Pete Osterland of Truist Securities.

So first, just on the formal launch of the liquid cooling portfolio, curious as to the timing for announcing that now. Is this an indication that you're expecting a meaningful ramp for sales of these products near term? And maybe across the 5 products that you outlined on Slide 11, where are you seeing the most customer interest right now? And how do you see that evolving over time?

Thanks for the question. First of all, we're really excited about the launch of this brand. This is the first brand that Chemours has launched. So we see this as a very strategic new market for us with significant long-term growth. We definitely see the momentum building as you see more advanced chips.

As you look at what's going on in the market, there's definitely been a transition to single-phase direct-to-chip, but as you get higher rack densities, that's going to become an inefficient solution for the more advanced chips. You're going to need more water, more treatment of water, different size tubing. It's not going to be the most efficient. So we think that there is in -- possibly in 2027, it's something clearly that we're working on with the -- our customers that there could be a data center architecture designed for two-phase in 2027.

Very helpful. And then just as a follow-up, I wanted to ask on Pathway to Thrive. Could you share the run rate of the $250 million that you expect to have achieved exiting '26? And for the rest of it, what are the major areas where you still have work to do to get to that target by the end of '27?

Appreciate the question. We feel very confident in achieving those savings and believe we're ahead on that side. And as you think about what's driving that, it's really operational excellence. We introduced the Chemours Business Systems, which I think is really being helpful from a lean mindset and driving out costs locally at the manufacturing sites, but also this is a global company-wide area where we've done a lot of perspectives around cost cutting and thinking through making sure from a lean perspective, it's not just in manufacturing, but it's across all BUs of the company.

Our next question comes from the line of John Roberts of Mizuho.

On APM, have you caught up with the delayed orders from the outage that you had earlier in the year? Or when do you think you'll get caught up? And how is that affecting your mix in that segment?

Yes. I mean the -- I'm just going to say across the semicon space and data center space, the demand is so robust. I think it's -- for most people, it's hard to get caught up, right? It's just a tremendous demand. So what we see is that we're running our assets extremely well and that we're taking advantage of every opportunity.

And we have a lot of strategic partners in this area, and it's incredibly important for us to meet their needs and to fulfill the demand. So this idea of catching up, I don't think that going into '27, there's just a huge pent-up demand. As you think about these AI chips and the need for memory, it's just -- it really is kind of out of control. So I don't really see us necessarily catching up in some of these spaces next year. It's going to be continued strong demand.

Our next question comes from the line of Duffy Fischer of Goldman Sachs.

First question, just if you could help us with what you think the right baseline is for TSS in the back half. So last year, you did $322 million of EBITDA, which obviously has some oversell in it. This year, at the midpoint for your Q4, you're $246 million, which has some undersell. As we go forward, what's the right baseline of EBITDA do you think that we should build off of into '27 and '28 for the second half of TSS?

Duffy, appreciate that. As we think of the baseline stepping off of this, we think about the year ahead of us into '27, we're looking at the markets from an underlying perspective, we feel very confident in the chillers market with significant growth.

Denise just mentioned kind of the AI demand in areas there. I see modest growth in the auto side, just given just overall light vehicle sales and then flattish residential and commercial. So as we look ahead to '27, we see this as more kind of a modest top line growth on that side. But longer term, we feel very confident. We continue to put forward that this is a GDP plus type business with margins above the 30% type range. And so really feel confident as we think about the aftermarket growth story as well as the stable base that we have within the OEMs rather.

All right. And then if we jump to TiO2, 2 questions. Do you think the India ADD will be durable this time? And some of your peers are quite a bit larger in that market than you are. If it is durable, is that a market that becomes more interesting to you? And will you push harder into that market?

Yes. I mean, I do think that the antidumping will be durable. It really was taken off just because of a technicality that they've resolved. So I do think it will be durable. Although when you look at global pricing, India is kind of the lowest pricing in the world. So we have a very disciplined commercial approach where we are focused on fair trade regions, but also making sure we maximize the value for the company. So if opportunities arise, absolutely. But I think that, that remains to be seen if that's a place where we decide to put more volume.

Next question comes from the line of Josh Spector of UBS.

You got James Cannon on for Josh. I wanted to take another one just on kind of what the underlying run rate in TSS is? And if I think about the moving pieces between a stronger first half, weaker second half this year, where do you guys think the full year nets out compared to the underlying stationary HVAC market?

Thanks, James. Maybe I'm going to turn it over to Shane for some of the detail, but I just really want to kind of take us back and really the strength of the TSS business and our longer-term view of this being a GDP-plus business with greater than 30% EBITDA margins. This is a business that's driven by regulatory transition. We have an advantaged position.

There's significant growth still ahead. You can look at the aftermarket, but as well as you look at the continued trends that are needed in cooling, we talked about liquid cooling in data centers, but there's also just the cooling needs in areas and the chillers in the data center. So we're very, very confident in the long-term trajectory of this business.

But I'll turn it over to Shane to give a little bit more detail on the next year.

Yes. I appreciate it, James. I know you mentioned kind of the run rate in TSS. I think as we look to '27, right, we talked about growth in Chemours as this is on the script, but we feel very confident in some tailwinds as we look at each one of the businesses. I mean, TT, if you look at the second half, right, it's $85 million this quarter and then $60 million to $65 million. We think that second half is more representative going to '27, specific to really strong pricing that we think is going to hold into the year.

And then APM, we talked earlier about it being run rate of $30 million to $40 million. So really a good tailwind as we get in. That, coupled with modest growth, as I described, given the overall macro changes between significant growth in chillers, slight auto growth and flattish residential, we feel very confident that Chemours is going to grow next year.

Our next question comes from the line of Hassan Ahmed of Alembic Global Advisors.

A question around TT. Obviously, pricing was decently strong. I mean, you guys were up 10% year-on-year and 4% sequentially. Could you comment a bit about just the sustainability of those sort of pricing moves that you've taken? I know you guys are guiding to sort of high single digits to low sort of teens revenue declines in Q4. But as we look at 2027, how sustainable are these pricing levels?

Thanks, Ahmed. As you know, we don't give forward guidance on pricing, but I will say we've been very successful with our pricing execution, which we started really December of '25. So we've been very successful, and we are very much focused on protecting the progress that we made. We're very deliberate and disciplined in our commercial efforts.

And as you pointed out, you can see that in our results. We're also kind of looking around the world and actually pleased to see that the Chinese producers have just recently done another price increase. So we're just confident in our actions and what we do to deliver value for the business.

Understood. And as a follow-up, can you comment a bit on the cost curves? I know you guys, obviously, in 3Q within TT expanded your margins. But how is -- how are the marginal guys doing, particularly with sulfur still being an issue, sulfuric acid prices still being high? And part and parcel with that, are you guys seeing any further signs of rationalization in the global TiO2 space?

I would say from a cost curve perspective, certainly, the sulfur producers have moved to the right, and we continue to move to the left with all of our efforts. This has been our strategy as we kind of launched all of our efforts in TT in 2023, and we continue to drive and be on that on that trajectory, we think that's critically important for the business. As far as permanent shutdowns, I mean, we're not really sure you see things coming back, in particular in Europe.

What I will say is it still remains to be seen how successful those restarts will be. Customers are cautious about relying on those assets and is it long-term sustainable. So we just focus on our production and some of those assets, they were shut down because they're high cost. That's not going to change. So we really think the winning strategy is to continue to -- on the current trajectory of driving our cost to the left-hand side of the curve.

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

This is Justin Pellegrino on for Vincent. I was just hoping you could kind of discuss the drivers of the free cash flow guidance reduction a little bit more. You mentioned the items that are new for 3Q and 4Q, but 3Q came in a bit ahead of guidance. So I was just hoping you could kind of parse out the split between 3Q and 4Q timing and specifically when the North Carolina settlement is expected if that was in 3Q and 4Q? And just any other drivers that we should be considering within that guidance?

Yes. Thanks for the question. A couple of specifics, right? So the North Carolina settlement is expected in the fourth quarter on that side. And so as I think about just taking a step back and where we're guiding, we're guiding to above 15% free cash flow. That is a reduction given we had settlements for New Jersey with the JCO signing, we have the North Carolina settlement which would be in the fourth quarter. We have the EPA settlements, which will be in the fourth quarter as well.

And then we also paid tax on the proceeds in the third and fourth quarter. The way I look at this is without those items, we'd be closer to that 25% that we guided to in the third quarter. So notably, we are seeing a little bit of reduction from free cash flow in the latter part. That is due to really timing as it relates to APM, TSS planned maintenance activities as well as later sales in the fourth quarter, which we anticipate to collect, call it, in the first quarter. So all in all, just lead us -- we really feel confident in the free cash flow characteristics of this business, and we'll look to build off the free cash flow conversion into the next year that we've established this year.

Fantastic. And then just one more on CapEx, just given the $40 million reduction in guidance, can you just kind of fill us in on where we are relative to sustaining CapEx? And then if you have any preliminary expectations for 2027, that would be great.

Yes, I appreciate the question. As we think about CapEx, right, we are obviously looking at what needs to be spent to run and maintain the related assets and operations, and we're not impacting that, right? There are some items around maybe strategic areas that are not yet ready that we might have to spend next year or the years after. As I think about '27, we won't give specific guidance on CapEx, but I do not believe that it will be a large amount of increase into the given year into next year.

We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. Thank you for joining the Chemours Third Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. You may now disconnect.

Good morning. My name is Therese, and I will be your conference operator today. I would like to welcome everyone to The Chemours Company's Second Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference call over to Brandon Ontjes, Vice President and Head of Strategy and Investor Relations for Chemours. You may begin.

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the Chemours Company's Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. I'm joined today by Denise Dignam, Chemours' President and Chief Executive Officer; and our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Shane Hostetter. Before we start, I would like to remind you that comments made on this call as well as in the supplemental information provided on our website contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties as described in Chemours' SEC filings.

These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are based on certain assumptions and expectations of future events that may not be realized. Actual results may differ, and Chemours undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statements as a result of future developments or new information.

During this call, we'll refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures that we believe are useful to investors evaluating the company's performance. A reconciliation of non-GAAP terms and adjustments is included in our press release issued yesterday evening. Additionally, we posted our earnings presentation on our website yesterday evening as well. With that, I will turn the call over to Denise.

Thank you, Brandon, and thank you, everyone, for joining us this morning. On today's call, I'll start with highlights from our recent performance, then turn it over to Shane to walk through our outlook for the third quarter and the balance of 2026. After that, I'd like to share my reflections as we've reached our halfway point under Pathway to Thrive and discuss the opportunities ahead before we open the line for your questions.

For the second quarter, our results reflect disciplined commercial execution, continued pricing actions and progress against our priorities across all 3 businesses. Net sales were slightly below expectations, primarily due to softer residential stationary AC demand in Thermal and Specialized Solutions. However, pricing improved across all our businesses, including continued execution in Titanium Technologies.

Adjusted EBITDA exceeded expectations, supported by stronger operational performance and an improved product mix in Advanced Performance Materials, lower corporate costs and the referenced pricing strength in TT. Importantly, we continue to see tangible evidence that the actions we are taking under Pathway to Thrive are strengthening the business. In TT, we announced an additional global TiO2 price increase effective June 1, building on prior pricing actions and supporting local price increases of approximately 5% year-to-date.

Separately, in APM's Performance Solutions portfolio, net sales grew 8% year-over-year, underscoring the momentum we are building in the high-value specialty applications for data center and semiconductor end markets as we fulfill a backlog of existing orders. More recently, we also recorded nominal sales of 2-phase liquid cooling products for sampling across 2-phase applications with several customers.

These early sales support continued progress through product trials, which have increased 70% year-over-year while reinforcing the relevance of our innovation pipeline in attractive growth markets. As an indication of the momentum in this space, recent research from the Uptime Institute, an industry-leading authority on data center infrastructure and operations, identified a growing share of operators evaluating 2-phase systems for future deployments as AI-driven compute demand accelerates the shift towards liquid cooling.

Additionally, we continue to strengthen Chemours' financial position through strong cash generation and disciplined capital allocation, enabling further debt reduction and enhancing our financial flexibility. We also made notable progress resolving legacy litigation as demonstrated by our recent settlements with the U.S. EPA and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.

Collectively, these actions represent important steps to derisk the balance sheet, improve leverage and cash positioning while enabling Chemours to invest with discipline in opportunities that support long-term value creation. Now let me expand on the quarter's business activities. Our TSS business delivered solid second quarter results.

Net sales were slightly down versus the prior year quarter, driven by lower volumes from reduced aftermarket sales of Opteon blend in North America, while Opteon OEM volumes saw growth year-over-year in addition to continued growth into data center end markets. In the second quarter, that volume pressure was partially offset by higher pricing supported by strength in Freon refrigerants, primarily in automotive applications.

It's important to note that the prior year quarter benefited from advanced demand tied to the initial aftermarket channel fill associated with the stationary AC transition under the U.S. AIM Act. Given our advantaged position in the market, Chemours moved quickly to help ensure distributors and technicians were well supplied to support the new equipment installations. As a result of the initial channel fill, aftermarket customers built additional inventory, creating an oversupplied channel heading into 2026.

Today, while we continue to see strength in the OEM market, the aftermarket is working through elevated inventory levels. At the same time, residential demand is being pressured by higher interest rates, affordability challenges and a slower housing market. Together, these factors weighed on second quarter order activity and may continue to drive destocking as we move through the year.

Looking ahead, we would expect the aftermarket to begin normalizing as inventory levels are reduced and seasonal restocking begins ahead of next year's cooling season. Adjusted EBITDA for TSS increased year-over-year with margins also expanding. This improvement was driven by higher pricing and benefited from the timing of certain costs in the quarter.

Overall, TSS continues to demonstrate the value of disciplined commercial execution and strong margin performance even while facing some near-term weakness in the stationary aftermarket. In Titanium Technologies, the team continued to execute well in a challenging and inflationary market environment. Second quarter net sales increased slightly versus the prior year quarter, driven primarily by global pricing strength.

Pricing increased across all regions, reflecting the discipline and consistency of our commercial pricing approach in light of the dynamic demand environment. Volumes were lower across key end markets with the exception of Asian markets, excluding China and Latin America, where demand remained more resilient in connection with recent antidumping duties in Brazil. Adjusted EBITDA for TT also improved year-over-year, while adjusted EBITDA margin was flat.

The increase was primarily driven by the global pricing strength noted earlier, partially offset by higher costs from inflation. Importantly, our performance shows that even as inflation continues to pressure the cost structure, the business is responding with strong commercial execution and disciplined cost management, outpacing any inflationary headwinds. We have now announced 3 TiO2 price increases since December 2025, including our most recent global increase effective June 1.

Together, these actions have contributed to an approximately 5% year-to-date price increase relative to where we started the year. As we look ahead, our team remains agile and responsive with an optimized manufacturing circuit that enhances efficiency and flexibility, enabling us to adjust production levels to meet demand while continuing to deliver outstanding service and quality for our customers.

This combination of disciplined pricing, operational flexibility and customer focus positions TT to manage through a dynamic environment and capture value as opportunities emerge. In APM, second quarter net sales were down versus the prior year quarter, primarily driven by lower volumes associated with the SPS Capstone line closure completed in the third quarter of 2025.

This was partially offset by higher pricing in the business. Adjusted EBITDA declined year-over-year, reflecting the lower sales volumes from the line closure as well as higher costs tied to the now resolved Washington Works outage. Notably, we continue to see strong momentum in the Performance Solutions portfolio, where net sales increased 8% year-over-year.

Order book strength is driven by long-term sustainable demand tailwinds in data center and semiconductor end markets, where our specialty products play an important role in supporting complex and high-performance applications. Performance Solutions is becoming a larger part of APM's portfolio, reinforcing our focus on higher-value markets with stronger growth and margin potential. As a point of emphasis, our exposure to high-growth markets is expanding across Chemours.

Sales into data center, semiconductor, AI and advanced electronics end markets now represent a high single-digit percentage of total sales across APM and TSS, supported by strong demand for differentiated solutions in both businesses. Within Performance Solutions, more than 40% of sales are focused on these targeted markets, where we see durable demand trends and robust growth potential in the years ahead.

Importantly, this does not include the investments we are making in liquid cooling and next-generation refrigerants, which we believe will further expand our participation in these attractive growth platforms. Collectively, these dynamics position Chemours to participate more meaningfully in high-value applications that we believe can become a meaningful driver of overall earnings over time. With that, I'll turn it over to Shane to walk through our third quarter guide and our updated outlook for the full year 2026. Shane?

Thank you, Denise, and good morning, everyone. As shared in the earnings materials available on our investor website, I would now like to discuss our expectations for the third quarter and the remainder of the year as we look ahead. Beginning with TSS. For the third quarter, we expect TSS' net sales to decline sequentially from the mid-teens to 20%.

While we continue to see stability in overall OEM sales, we anticipate softer residential and light commercial aftermarket demand for our Opteon blends during the third quarter in connection with destocking trends in the aftermarket and broader macroeconomic uncertainty. Also, consistent with our end market concentration, we expect seasonality as we progress through the Northern Hemisphere's cooling season.

For the third quarter, we expect TSS' adjusted EBITDA to be between $125 million and $140 million, which considers seasonality as well as a less favorable mix from lower Opteon aftermarket sales. Longer term, as seasonal restocking occurs in the aftermarket and the installed OEM base in residential and light commercial systems continues to expand in North America, we expect the business to return to GDP plus growth.

That growth should also be supported by continued heat pump adoption in Europe as well as rising global demand for data center chiller applications. Overall, despite the softer near-term demand backdrop, we remain confident in the long-term fundamentals of this business, supported by our advantaged market position with OEMs and aftermarket distributors, regulatory tailwinds and disciplined commercial execution.

Going forward, we anticipate the stationary aftermarket to grow annually in the mid- to high single-digit percentage range. This, combined with continued advancements in liquid cooling and our next-generation refrigerants will act as growth catalysts for the future in TSS. For our TT business, in the third quarter, we expect TT's net sales to increase sequentially in the low to mid-single-digit percentage range, driven by continued execution of recent pricing announcements on modest year-over-year volume increases.

Also, we expect TT's adjusted EBITDA to range between $70 million and $80 million. This expected improvement reflects the momentum we are seeing from our commercial excellence efforts, which have led to realized pricing gains across the business. Importantly, this pricing momentum is more than offsetting the cost and inflationary headwinds the business continues to face.

It also demonstrates the value of our commercial discipline, customer focus and ability to move quickly as market conditions change. While we anticipate some volume-driven seasonality as we exit the year, additionally, we anticipate volumes to be up year-over-year in the second half across all end markets outside of China. Also, we expect continued cost productivity from operational improvements and broader cost reduction efforts to help keep earnings stable.

Longer term, we remain focused on controlling what we can control. We continue to operate with commercial and operational agility, managing production to demand, optimizing the use of higher cost inventory on hand, which will drive notable earnings and cash flow productivity and staying disciplined on price to protect value in a dynamic global TiO2 environment. Turning now to our APM business.

For the third quarter, we expect APM's net sales to increase sequentially in the mid- to high single-digit percentage range. This top line improvement is expected to be driven by a return to normal operating levels at Washington Works, along with continued strength in the Performance Solutions order book. We expect APM's adjusted EBITDA to be between $20 million and $30 million for the third quarter, which reflects approximately $5 million in performance that was pulled forward into the second quarter given sales timing.

Within Performance Solutions, as Denise highlighted, we continue to see strong order book momentum for specialty products that address critical needs across the AI infrastructure ecosystem, including data center and semiconductor applications, which we anticipate will exceed 40% of these sales. These end markets are supported by durable demand trends and remain areas where Chemours is well positioned to deliver differentiated material solutions.

While broader industrial demand remains mixed, the strength in Performance Solutions reinforces our confidence in APM's path toward higher-value growth. As we move through the balance of the year, we expect operational improvements and continued order book fulfillment in Performance Solutions, which will support anticipated earnings growth beyond the third quarter.

Longer term, we remain focused on shifting our portfolio mix to Performance Solutions, where we see continued order book strength in high-value data center and semiconductor end markets. Our ability to continue to drive operational improvements and sharpen our portfolio will increase our earnings opportunities and drive us past our expected $30 million to $40 million adjusted EBITDA range.

Looking to our consolidated outlook. We expect third quarter net sales to range from a decrease of 5% to flat sequentially. This reflects the referenced weaker demand in TSS' stationary aftermarket for Opteon blends, partially offset by continued pricing momentum in TT and sequential sales and cost improvements in APM. Our consolidated adjusted EBITDA is expected to range between $175 million and $205 million for the third quarter.

Corporate expenses are expected to be approximately $40 million to $45 million. We also anticipate capital expenditure to be in the range of $65 million with free cash flow of at least $50 million, reflecting the timing of payments for plant turnaround activities commencing later in the third quarter. Turning to the full year. We expect 2026 net sales to grow between 1% and 5% over 2025, with adjusted EBITDA growing to be between $775 million and $825 million.

This outlook is supported by pricing momentum and ongoing cost improvements across each of our businesses. As highlighted for the third quarter, continued destocking of our Opteon blends in the aftermarket will impact TSS, but this headwind is expected to be partially offset by strength in TT from pricing and cost improvements as well as APM's operational resilience and demand strength in higher-value end markets as the year progresses.

Capital expenditures are expected to be between $250 million and $280 million for the full year, with free cash flow conversion above 25%, reflecting higher earnings and improvements in working capital throughout the year. We also continue to anticipate achieving a net leverage ratio around 3.8x adjusted EBITDA by the end of 2026, further positioning us towards our longer-term goal of being sustainably below 3x net leverage.

As Denise mentioned, we have continued to prioritize debt repayment using both organic cash flow as well as the proceeds received to date from the Kuan Yin land sale. In the second quarter, we repaid close to $270 million of our 2028 euro term loan, which represents an additional $103 million beyond what was communicated on our first quarter call.

We intend to continue to prioritize debt reduction as a key element of our capital allocation strategy in order to enhance the overall strength of Chemours' balance sheet. This work is fundamental to executing against the 4 pillars of our Pathway to Thrive strategy and allows us flexibility for the longer term. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Denise for her closing remarks.

Thank you, Shane. As we close, it's worth taking a step back and recognizing where we are on our journey. We are now roughly halfway through our Pathway to Thrive strategy, which makes it a good moment to reflect on what we've accomplished and just as importantly, where we're headed. Looking back, Pathway to Thrive was never simply a cost, productivity, or restructuring program.

We undertook it to strengthen the foundation of Chemours, improve the resilience of the company and create strategic portfolio options that can maximize value for our shareholders. As evidenced by our results, we've made significant progress taking decisive actions to strengthen and derisk our balance sheet while advancing our portfolio transformation.

At the same time, we've continued to establish a stronger operating model through the application of lean principles driving the discipline, capabilities and culture that will support long-term performance. The progress is real and it's undeniable, but there is still work ahead. As we move past this halfway point, we will continue to execute with urgency and pursue opportunities that enhance our strategic and portfolio optionality, including transformational partnerships and actions to reshape our existing portfolio.

The work we have done has created a stronger foundation and greater flexibility to act. We will build on that momentum by expanding our strategic choices, strengthening our portfolio and positioning Chemours to deliver greater long-term value for shareholders. I want to be clear; no portfolio action is off the table where we see an opportunity to unlock a step change in value creation for our shareholders. Moving forward, what gives me confidence is the trajectory we're creating for Chemours.

We have 3 market-leading businesses, differentiated solutions and solid positions in attractive end markets. Combined with the progress under Pathway to Thrive, these strengths are creating a stronger foundation and expanding the opportunities ahead of us. Across Chemours, our talented people are embracing new ways of working, building a culture of continuous improvement and bringing a passion to win every day.

Together, we are creating a company that is stronger, more resilient and increasingly positioned to have greater strategic optionality. I'm excited about what the future holds. We have more to accomplish, more value to unlock and more opportunities ahead of us than behind us. The choices available to Chemours today are meaningfully different than they were when we launched Pathway to Thrive, and I believe the actions we take on our priorities can create substantial value for our shareholders.

We look forward to sharing that progress with you as we continue to execute our strategy and realize the full potential of Chemours. In closing, from our core businesses, we are confident that steadfast execution of our strategy can deliver a business with at least $1 billion of annual adjusted EBITDA, free cash flow conversion exceeding 40%, while progressively derisking the balance sheet. These efforts are already driving results today and will create greater financial and strategic flexibility. With that, I'd like to open the line for your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question today is from Pete Osterland with Truist Securities.

So I just wanted to start with the margins implied in the third quarter TSS guide. So the midpoints imply a high 20s margin for third quarter below the 30% that you've talked about historically. I guess could you rank order what the drivers are here between mix and input costs, overall cost absorption? And I guess more broadly, do you expect this margin level to be a 1 quarter occurrence with a snapback? Or is it more likely resetting the baseline here with gradual improvement thereafter?

Peter, thank you. Yes, so I appreciate the perspective there. I don't look at the margin sequentially from Q2 to Q3. I kind of look at it compared to prior year. Certainly, we'd be guiding to lower margins. And really, this goes hand-in-hand with the discussions we had on the script whereby we're seeing really slower business in the aftermarket, specifically in residential, light commercial in TSS.

And that's really a mixed attribute. That's really the predominant driver there. As I look ahead, going to your latter point and the question of where this is going, seasonally, Q4 margins tend to be a little bit kind of on the downside, just given the mix of seasonality of refrigerants versus FPL. But we still stand behind that this business is a 30-plus margin business.

And as we look ahead into '27, we will see some restocking of that aftermarket, which will help mix happen that side. But I think more importantly is we're very excited about the market of the aftermarket in this side. You see the potential impact they have on the actual margins themselves and really see it as a growth business going forward.

Very helpful. And I guess just a follow-up on that point on mix. Could you size what proportion of your Opteon sales are made up by the stationary aftermarket business? And how much are you assuming that business will be down year-over-year in your third quarter guidance?

Thanks. We haven't really talked a lot about the actual sizing of the aftermarket from this perspective. As we think about quantifying how much it's down, last year, you might recall, we had a really sizable sales into the aftermarket given the transition under the AIM Act.

We believe from the Q2 and Q3 perspective, there's probably about $65 million of aftermarket sales that realistically, you think about like-for-like probably should have been allocated to more of this year. It was just more prebuy given some of the overall inventory constraints in the market that we took advantage of in supply. So like-for-like, I think if you look at Q2, Q3 comparatively year-over-year, there's probably about a $65 million balance.

Our next question is from Duffy Fischer with Goldman Sachs.

Another question on TSS. So with the -- whatever you want to call it, the presales from last year, does that mean that we need to anniversary falling sales from this aftermarket stationary business through the first quarter of next year? Or how long does it take for that to correct before you get back to kind of selling in what you're selling out?

Thanks for the question. Yes, I think that's a good way to look at it. I think you should look at this transition -- the transition of the technology over '25 and '26 and then really picking back up in next season in the end of the Q1 of 2027.

Okay. And then if we jump to TT, surprisingly, the Chinese exports, given their sulfur costs and stuff like that, have remained quite high year-to-date. And when you look at collectively, I think the numbers that you guys put up, Kronos and Tronox will put up plus the Chinese, year-over-year, that supply to the world is running much faster than what the end markets, paint and some other construction stuff seems to be growing. Where is that product going? Was there a low inventory, so people are rebuilding inventory? Or how is the production and sales volume of TiO2 kind of running ahead of end consumption in your view?

Yes. Thanks for the question. I mean, as we talked about, we're focused on the fair-trade markets where our customers value what we bring to the table. And we're not seeing -- obviously, there were disruptions with the war, and our customers really count on reliability. And what we see is in those fair-trade markets, we see a pretty balanced market and our ability to maintain our share.

Our next question is from [ Drew Clowder ] with Mizuho Securities.

Let me just check. This is John Roberts. Can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Good. Okay. The refrigerant aftermarket is very fragmented, a lot of small service providers. How much visibility do you actually have into the inventory of those small customers?

Thanks for the question, John. I mean, I guess what I want to say is that we have -- we're market leaders here, right? We have the majority of the share. We feel like we have good visibility into this market. Clearly, as you think about last year, there were mixed signals on what -- from the channel on what the demand would be this year. I think there's a couple of things that have happened.

When we think about this year, Shane mentioned it earlier, we've had -- as we've gotten into the year, we had a colder spring in the Northeast, which definitely impacts demand. And then the macro environment with the war, really affordability concerns with consumers has distributors holding back. So I guess, really just high level, we think we have good visibility into the market with our leadership position.

And then what's causing the price strength in Freon? Is it something related to the emission allowances, or something related to costs?

John, yes, you might have -- remember in Q1, we talked a little bit about overall mix shift. This is really into more of the automotive aftermarket and strength there that we've been able to take. That continued into Q2 on that side. So just overall mix shift as where the pricing opportunity has gone.

Okay. So it's mixed. It's not raising like-for-like prices.

We feel like it's a mix to higher-priced products that we've taken advantage.

Our next question is from Hassan Ahmed with Alembic Global Advisors.

A question around your full year's guidance. If I sort of take the midpoint of the Q3 guidance, it seems that you guys are sort of forecasting 100 and so -- midpoint obviously being $190 million for Q3. And it seems you guys are guiding to a range of, call it, $170 million to maybe $220 million for Q4. So just trying to understand in an otherwise seasonally weak quarter that is Q4, what gives you guys the confidence of that sequential step-up from Q3 to Q4 EBITDA?

Thanks, Hassan. Yes, I think your observation is correct that we do anticipate a strong Q4 on the backs of really strength in TT and APM comparatively to the prior quarters with seasonality still in effect given TSS obviously will have lower volumes in the quarter as well as some slight lower volumes in TT. So the strength in TT really is on the back of some pricing, obviously, tailwinds that we're seeing in the market.

But also, we have line of sight into really good cost improvements within TT that we anticipate coming through in the fourth quarter, both on input costs as well as operational. On APM, right, so obviously you've seen we've had some lighter EBITDA in the first 3 quarters that we're anticipating compared to where we really would like the business to be.

Those on the backs of some obviously downtime in our Washington Works facility and related impacts. As we think about Q4, we've talked about how strong the order book is in APM on really great end markets with product mix that is advantageous to us. So it's that.

And then it's also -- the first 3 quarters really were impacted by higher costs that we were sitting in inventory that were coming through given the absorption related to Washington Works. We're not going to see that in the fourth quarter. So it's a mix of both really strong portfolio in APM as well as improved costs as well as just really good tailwinds in TT.

Very helpful. And as a follow-up on TT, I mean, can you guys talk a bit about what you guys are seeing on the cost curves? Obviously, we keep hearing about elevated sulfuric acid prices, availability of sulfuric acid being obviously a concern as well. So what role is that playing in sort of facilitating some of the price hikes that you guys are implementing? And part and parcel with that, are you guys seeing potential rationalizations or accelerated rationalizations in China on the back of where the cost curves are?

Thanks for the question, Hassan. Yes, I mean, relative to cost curves, there's no doubt with the input cost of sulfur increasing that's causing an increase in cost for sulfate produced TiO2. This trend was actually happening even before the war. So it's only been exacerbated.

We see that continue. Is that fundamentally -- do we see fundamental rationalization? Not per se, but certainly, it's helpful from a pricing standpoint. As I mentioned before, our focus is on fair trade markets and where we know our customers value what we provide. And there's less of a, I'll say, competition from a Chinese perspective.

Our next question is from Josh Spector with UBS.

I wanted to follow up on TSS again. Just -- I mean, at a high level, I mean, it seems like initially, you thought TSS would grow EBITDA by about $50 million. Now your guidance, I'm assuming for the year is kind of flat to down. So following up on some of the prior questions where you talk about aftermarket visibility and like your position, it just seems like expectations changed quite materially over the last quarter.

So what surprised to really drive that where we're talking about a year ago, we should have known this, but now we're baking that in. It just seems like something more changed under the hood than what your answer implied previously.

Thanks for the question, Josh. So first of all, I just want to be clear, this is a significant change in the market size for this year, right? So when we think about what the volume in the aftermarket was last year versus this year, we see about a 25% drop. So why -- the question is, what's changed?

As I said earlier, we were getting signals from the channel about demand this year. As we got into the year and we saw what was happening with the colder spring, we did signal that we were starting to see a slower start to the season, mainly the end of the first quarter.

As we started to see that with the cool weather as well as the war, it really -- just thinking about consumer discretion and being able to make choices of whether you put in a new system or you repair and distributors really not taking risk on premium products. So it's really something that has evolved I would say, over the second quarter, and we've adjusted our forecast.

Yes. And I would just tag on to that, Josh. As I think about where we believe we were going into this year, the TT business has really outperformed where we expected coming into the year. And we thought the balance of the portfolio would help itself, seeing a little bit of a delay in that aftermarket start, but also seeing really price strength in TT maybe offsetting some of that delay, so.

Yes. We -- I mean, the fundamentals are there for this market. I mean, basically, you had a whole market turnover with a technology transition where you've gone from many suppliers to just 2. I think you need to just look at it at 2025, 2026, that's really a transition.

There's -- it's hard to read those tea leaves when a technology changes in that way. We feel extremely positive about this business. We have said that it's a GDP plus growth business. When you look at the aftermarket, there's a huge growth platform with high single-digit growth in the coming years.

Yes. I guess maybe if you could help a little bit. It's just the tone is different between you and your larger competitor that talked about gains in the aftermarket mix up in the second half. I mean this seems more like share shift between one player versus another, maybe in addition to destocking. I mean, can you comment on that? Is there a view about why your mix would be pretty materially different here?

Yes. I mean -- first of all, I'm not going to talk about what competitors say and what they do. But all I know is that last year, we had significant share, and we were able to supply market when others weren't. There's a huge difference in the comparatives. If you look at some of the comments that were made, the aftermarket for stationary is viewed as an upside in the second half. That's not something that has occurred to date. So I think there's a different comp between the 2 companies.

Our next question is from Arun Viswanathan from RBC Capital Markets.

Maybe I could ask another question on TSS as well. And thanks for the slides on data center use cases, very interesting stuff here. So if you kind of think about TSS when you step back, I think you mentioned $1 billion of EBITDA longer term. Could you provide us maybe some bridge items to get from, say, $800 million in 2026 to that $1 billion level?

Does that kind of include maybe a couple of hundred million from data center by the end of the decade? Or what kind of the longer-term opportunity as you see it, including the 2-phase immersion cooling products that you discussed on those slides as well?

Thanks, Arun. Yes. No, we're very excited to say that $1 billion target with the 40% free cash flow. As I think about -- you mentioned bridging items, Denise talked about in her script, just excitement around different end markets around just AI infrastructure, whether it be in data center, semiconductors, advanced electronics. Right now, it's about 9% of our overall TSS and APM portfolio.

We anticipate large growth in those markets ahead of us. And obviously, those are advantaged market positions. So that will be key contributors going forward. I would say other bridge items, we'll continue to execute on pricing across each one of the businesses. And then also, obviously, we're in a little bit of a cyclical downside on certain businesses where we will bring considerable volume in the base business as well.

I would say outside of that, it's really continuing to control what we control from a cost-out perspective, making sure we're optimizing performance. But we're really excited about Chemours Business Systems and the lean principles there, too, which really would drive like more operational reliability, and we believe there's a lot of area there to drive really efficient costs.

I would say, I think I'm equally excited around cash flow characteristics of this business. This quarter, we were above 40% from a free cash flow perspective. We continue to think through opportunities to drive that attribute. As earnings grow, those will grow as well, but we're excited also to work on the balance sheet and unlock further working capital opportunities similar to what we've talked about before with some of the high-grade ore contracts in TT.

And maybe to build on that, Arun, we talk about these high growth areas in AI infrastructure, but we also have to talk about one of the elements is liquid cooling. We put some things in the script that really give us a really good indication of the market traction that we're starting to see. And there are upside. So liquid cooling as well as our work in next-generation refrigerant, NGR are upsides to that $1 billion case.

Okay. And just -- again, just kind of from a composition standpoint, would that $1 billion kind of require maybe mid-cycle assumptions for TT, say, in the annualized run rate of, say, $300 million to $400 million of EBITDA and then you're thinking maybe $160 million or so for APM and maybe $800 million for TSS offset by corporate?

Or how are you thinking about that $1 billion composition from a segment basis? And then also, as I mentioned earlier, what kind of the target for that? Is that -- from a time frame? Is that end of the decade? Or is there a line of sight to when you'd achieve that level?

Thanks, Arun. Yes, I really appreciate you kind of mapping that out. I'm not going to get into specifics as in regard to each number for the company. But I just -- I reflect and think through, yes, I mean, I think there's a floor mid-cycle, call it, over 400 for TT. That's going to help get there. I think there's attributes to really build upon APM.

As we've talked about exiting this year, really strengthen the order book and operational resilience. And TSS continues to be really a good growth momentum business off that side. As it relates to timing, not get into that, but I do believe in the coming years, you'll see us hit these targets.

And Arun, just to build on that, for TT, a thing to remember is that there are structural cost changes coming with ore and chlorine that have -- are not yet visible in our earnings.

Our next question is from John McNulty with BMO Capital Markets.

This is Caleb on for John. So just a follow-up on Josh's question about what kind of changed since the start of the year. Some of your HVAC OEM customers have raised their unit outlook for the start of the year. So can you just kind of square how they're raising their outlook, but then you're talking about kind of like a slowdown happening just kind of like intuitively isn't really making a lot of sense.

Yes. Thanks, Caleb. Yes, what you have to remember is that our sales are into OEMs or the OEM sales, our aftermarket sales are actually once the distributors -- actually the unit is put in operation. So yes, I mean, could we see some upside in the fourth quarter? Potentially, but we think it's likely going to be more next year just because of the time difference.

Got you. Okay. And then maybe just on the data center opportunity, is there a way to frame your content in either like a dollar basis or a kilogram basis for the same data center that would be using single-phase direct-to-chip, two-phase direct-to-chip and then two-phase immersion cooling?

Yes. I mean just to be clear, liquid cooling has taken off in data centers, right? And -- but it's not two-phase. What you see today is the single-phase. So there is not any -- today any share in the commercial market. So that's all upside. The thing that we've talked about is that as we think about the AI infrastructure and the things that where we participate.

Today, in APM, we have about 40% of our Performance Solutions portfolio is towards that end market. If you look at TSS and APM together, it's a high single digit of the total sales that are in that AI infrastructure space. Anything related to liquid cooling data centers will be on top of that, and it's part of the robust growth that we see.

Our next question is from Vincent Andrews with Morgan Stanley.

Sticking with the liquid cooling. Denise, could you just talk about what your route or routes to market might be in liquid cooling, I'm just looking sort of at the broader industry structure, there seems to be a lot of consolidation and vertical integration going on there. So would you be a supplier to one of the big integrated folks? Or would you be selling directly to the data center customer? Or how would this work?

Thanks, Vincent. It's a good question. Yes. I mean the way this works is, first of all, this is, as you said, a complicated value chain, lots of different players. We really have to, I'll say, sell across the value chain. You saw our announcements around Samsung qualification. We're working with other hyperscalers. We have to first kind of get scoped in or spec into the architecture for the design of the data center.

We also work with the OEMs that are putting in equipment similar as we do currently in our refrigeration market. So where will the sales be made? Ultimately, it's going to be -- really the specific sale is going to be to the OEM, but it's going to be pulled through specifications across the ecosystem.

Okay. And then as a follow-up for Shane, I guess kind of a 2-part question on free cash flow. One, you were able to actually increase the free cash flow guidance for the year despite the reduction in EBITDA. It sounds like it's some working capital and some other timing issues. Are those going to reverse in '27 and make a harder comp on free cash flow?

And then separately, what's the -- you talked about the long-term goal of 40%. Is there something that limits 40% as the free cash flow conversion level? Is it you're baking in some potential litigation payments over time or just other contingencies? But what is it that would make 40% the ceiling on free cash flow conversion?

So very excited about the free cash flow characteristics for the year. We continue to really make sure we're prioritizing that cash inflow above 45% with the guide for this year. I think as you were asking, is there anything that are onetime oriented in nature? Yes, we do have some large cash this year on this side, which will help with the overall free cash flow.

But at the same point, I think we're very focused into next year, and we don't believe we'll take a sizable decline. We are focused really on improving the free cash flow characteristics of this business. As it relates to the 40% and areas around -- you called it the ceiling, I said -- I would tell you it's 40% plus, right?

So where we believe we can take this business. Notably, yes, I mean, in that perspective, we will have existing settlements that are paid over multiple periods. For instance, New Jersey is over 25 years on that side. And then we also have obviously ongoing environmental and other legal costs that weigh that down.

But also you have other areas that are right off the top as far as conversion, whether it be the interest costs that we're paying, taxes or obviously CapEx. So we're mindful of all these areas that are weighing down the free cash flow conversion, and our job is to really focus and improve upon them.

And our next question comes from Aaron Rosenthal with JPM.

Are you willing to elaborate at all on the strategic portfolio comments mentioned just ahead of the Q&A session? Just curious if there was any maybe unsolicited inbound from third party or if there's some sort of momentum on efforts driven by Chemours?

Aaron, thanks for the question. I think first, I want to take a step back and say, why are we even talking about it, kind of reflective, right? We're halfway through Pathway to Thrive. And I thought it was a great time to kind of step back and say and to talk with our shareholders about why did we develop this strategy. The Pathway to Thrive pillars were designed to solidify the foundation of the company to create optionality for us.

So we've improved our balance sheet, derisking our liabilities, improving our cash flow, growing into high-value applications, improving our operational and commercial performance. So all of these things are what's helping us build to a stronger balance sheet that gives us that optionality.

I'm not going to speculate on any specific actions that we're considering or that we would take. But it really is just to assure our shareholders that there's no portfolio action that's off the table that would create step change value for the company. And that really -- the Pathway to Thrive is really gets us to the point to be able to do those -- make those kinds of decisions.

You can see it could be around product lines, or assets, it could be strategic partnerships. We've already announced some of those, but it's really about taking a step back, really taking a high-level view of why are we doing Pathway to Thrive and what is it going to accomplish for us.

Okay. Totally fair. That was a question. And then maybe just one on APM. Are there any updates on the permitting front tied to the Washington Works site? And just curious if there's any lingering uncertainty on that front, maybe how that is baked into guidance from a utilization assumption perspective?

Yes. I mean we don't have any uncertainty relative to that. I mean I think it's telling that as we did the EPA settlement, it was commented by many parties of the importance of that site just for many different applications, critical applications for fluoropolymers when it comes to national security and defense. So we have strong support for operation of that site.

Okay. Just to verify, was the -- I think there was a permit expiry in July that was cited in the 10-Q. Has that been resolved?

Yes, it has.

Thank you. We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. Thank you for joining the Chemours Second Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. You may now disconnect.

Good morning. My name is Michelle, and I will be your conference operator today. I would like to welcome everyone to the Chemours Company First Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded.

I would now like to hand the conference over to Brandon Ontjes, Vice President, Head of Strategy and Investor Relations for Chemours. You may begin your conference.

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the Chemours Company First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. I'm joined today by Denise Dignam, Chemours' President and Chief Executive Officer; and our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Shane Hostetter.

Before we start, I would like to remind you that comments made on this call as well as in the supplemental information provided on our website contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties as described in Chemours' SEC filings. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are based on certain assumptions and expectations of future events that may not be realized. Actual results may differ, and Chemours undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statements as a result of future developments or new information. During the course of this call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures that we believe are useful to investors evaluating the company's performance. A reconciliation of non-GAAP terms and adjustments is included in our press release issued yesterday evening. Additionally, we posted our earnings presentation on our website yesterday evening as well.

With that, I will turn the call over to Denise Stignnam.

Thank you, Brandon, and thank you, everyone, for joining us. During today's call, I will begin by discussing highlights from our recent performance before turning it over to Shane, who will provide details around our outlook for the second quarter of 2026 and some commentary on the remainder of the year. Finally, I will provide updates on our meaningful progress against our Pathway to Thrive strategy and current view of our operating environment before taking your questions.

We started 2026 with strong results, delivering a first quarter that was well above earnings expectations and showcased the strength of Chemours' disciplined execution and strategic focus across the company. Both Thermal & Specialized Solutions and Titanium Technologies delivered standout performances with TSS not only achieving another quarter of double-digit year-over-year growth in Opteon Refrigerant, but also excelling in quota execution and capturing additional opportunities in Freon Refrigerants through sharp market focus and agile commercial execution. TT also exceeded our earnings expectations, driven by global pricing actions, strong commercial discipline across all regions and customer segments and continued operational focus.

In Advanced Performance Materials, the business worked to quickly stabilize operations following the Washington Works outage and is seeing strength in our Performance Solutions order book, especially in high-value data center and semiconductor markets. Adding to the strong performance and aligning with our efforts to improve our balance sheet, we completed the sale of nearly all of our Kuan Yin properties ahead of schedule and promptly used the available proceeds to pay down a meaningful portion of our near-term debt, further strengthening our balance sheet and enhancing Chemours financial flexibility as we look ahead.

We remain on track to complete the sale of the remaining parcel of the land in 2026, which should provide an incremental $60 million of gross proceeds. This development follows the $700 million refinancing completed in March of our 2027 unsecured notes and a portion of our 2028 unsecured notes, extending these maturities out to 2034 and increasing our balance sheet flexibility. Let me expand a bit further on the quarter's business activities. Our TSS business delivered a record first quarter with continued strength in both Freon and Opteon Refrigerants driving double-digit year-over-year growth. Net sales for TSS increased 22% versus the prior year quarter, largely driven by higher pricing, stronger volume growth and a favorable product mix across refrigerant markets.

Pricing benefited from automotive aftermarket Freon Refrigerant sales in North America and Opteon blends, while overall volume growth was supported by seasonal strength. These top line results translated into record adjusted EBITDA for TSS in the quarter with margins expanding to 33%, reflecting strong pricing realization for Freon and an improved Opteon blend mix. While higher input costs, particularly R32, created some offset, these results underscore the power of our commercial execution and disciplined quota management.

Sequentially, net sales increased 28%, consistent with the typical seasonal ramp we see across refrigerants and pricing strength in certain products. For our TT business in the first quarter, the team executed well amid a challenging market environment. We experienced continued global stability and observed solid seasonal demand improvements in North America and Europe. However, lower volumes and less favorable product mix in certain non-Western markets offset these gains, resulting in reduced global volumes overall compared to the prior quarter.

While volumes trended down sequentially, net sales finished within our expectations due to disciplined global pricing execution. Notably, adjusted EBITDA exceeded our expectations, driven by our pricing actions, along with strong cost management and our focus on operational excellence. In line with our efforts to improve security of supply and input optimization, we signed a long-term chlorine supply contract with Olin to service our DeLisle site starting in 2028. This agreement ensures a reliable supply at value-accretive economics, strengthening DeLisle global competitiveness and supporting our operational excellence focus under Pathway to Thrive.

It also reinforces Chemours' commitment to being one of the lowest-cost chloride TiO2 producers worldwide. While we had previously announced our intention to pursue an on-site chlorine facility at our DeLisle site with a third party, in March, the supply agreement terminated, and we will not be proceeding with this project. As we look ahead, our team remains agile and responsive to ongoing market changes and economic uncertainty. We continue to keep our manufacturing operations flexible, modifying production levels to meet shifting demand. Our pricing strategy is firmly in place as exemplified in our recent price increase communication, first in December and continued on April 1st across all key end markets.

These announcements demonstrate our ability to adjust prices while consistently delivering outstanding and dependable service and quality. The first quarter's results with pricing up 3% sequentially reflect the initial impact of implementing these price changes alongside our progress in operational reliability, which strengthens our ability to respond effectively to shifts in market demand. APM results in the first quarter reflected both operational and portfolio-related headwinds with net sales down year-over-year due primarily to lower volumes.

Overall, first quarter sales were constrained by the Washington Works outage and the prior closure of the Advanced Materials SPS Capstone line. These factors provided a difficult comparison to last year and the outage weighed meaningfully on sales and incremental costs, resulting in a $25 million headwind in adjusted EBITDA. While our first quarter performance was not what we believe the business is capable of, with these discrete events now behind us today, APM is building a more effective and efficient foundation for coming quarters.

Notably, our Performance Solutions order book is seeing particular strength in high-value markets, positioning APM for continued improvement as we move through 2026. Separately, our corporate level performance also showed a significant decrease in expenses compared to the same quarter last year, largely due to lower costs associated with legacy litigation activities. We remain focused on balancing the timely execution of global corporate initiatives with appropriate cash expenditures.

With that, I'll turn it over to Shane to walk through our outlook for the quarter ahead and provide thoughts on what remains for 2026.

Thank you, Denise, and good morning, everyone. As shared in the earnings materials available on our investor website, I now would like to discuss our expectations for the second quarter and provide some updates on our business as we look ahead. Beginning with TSS. For the second quarter, we project net sales to rise sequentially in the low to mid-teens percent range, primarily attributable to favorable seasonal trends related to the cooling season in the Northern Hemisphere.

It is worth noting that some demand and associated sales having about a $10 million impact on adjusted EBITDA was pulled forward into the first quarter due to timing, which modestly tempers the sequential progression we would have otherwise expected and added strength to our first quarter TSS performance. Despite this pull forward, the seasonal uplift we anticipate for TSS will be underpinned by strength across our Opteon and Freon Refrigerant channels. Adjusted EBITDA for TSS is also expected to grow sequentially, ranging from $210 million to $225 million, primarily driven by seasonality as well as specific opportunities our commercial team is capturing in the Freon aftermarket and continued transition to Opteon Refrigerants. In the first quarter and into the second, weakness in residential demand was more pronounced than anticipated.

This softer demand has been largely driven by a slower start to the reference cooling season, which has delayed equipment installations and associated aftermarket activity and is consistent with what we are hearing more broadly across the residential HVAC value chain. Specific to expectations in the first quarter and into the second quarter, overall aftermarket demand has slowed as new equipment demand has decelerated into distribution networks, an important leading indicator for downstream demand. Looking to the full year, we continue to expect year-over-year growth in the business, supported by our strong market position, regulatory tailwinds and overall pricing strength.

However, we remain appropriately cautious on residential demand signals. One other important factor to consider is that TSS is a quota-driven business. Our company can drive differentiated value through disciplined execution and allocating our available quota to the most attractive pockets of demand. While we do not expect the same year-over-year double-digit top line growth for the remainder of 2026 as comparisons begin to reflect the regulatory-driven adoption under the U.S. AIM Act that drove robust demand in late 2025, we remain bullish on the opportunity ahead as we allocate our quota to achieve optimal profitability.

Overall, demand across our Opteon channels, together with continued momentum in the Freon automotive aftermarket supports the growth profile and consistent margins we outlined last quarter. For our TT business, we expect sequential net sales to increase in the mid- to high teens percentage range in the second quarter, driven by a more favorable seasonal comparison and related pricing actions. This improvement is supported by increased mineral sales following first quarter timing dynamics related to our mining restructure as well as some strength we are seeing in our TiO2 pigment sales amid actively developing global market conditions.

Our guide for the second quarter anticipates the initial effects of the price increase on April 1st as well as the continuing effects from pricing increases announced in December. These adjustments are being applied across our key end markets as contracts allow. Although global geopolitical events continue to affect supply chains and impact the worldwide TiO2 market, both directly and indirectly, we are confident that our TT business is strategically positioned to take advantage of emerging opportunities. Aligned with the current market environment and the improved agility of our operational circuit, for the second quarter, we expect TT's adjusted EBITDA to range between $40 million and $50 million.

Although geopolitical outcomes remain uncertain and the related market impact is unclear, recent enhancements to our operating circuit and improved visibility of order patterns support the second quarter earnings. As the year develops, consistent with prior messaging, we are controlling what we can control, and we intend to stay true to our commercial strategy, which will be supported by robust pricing efforts that will continue based on our assessment of market conditions. We remain resolute in our belief that this strategy positions our TT business for success regardless of market and demand conditions.

Now for our APM business. For the second quarter, we anticipate net sales to increase within the low to high 30% range on a sequential basis, primarily due to the resumption of normal operations at the Washington Works facility. Adjusted EBITDA is forecasted to be between $12 million and $18 million. While sequential growth in EBITDA is expected, earnings remain below targeted levels as cost pressures and volume limitations related to the Washington Works downtime experienced in the first quarter continue to weigh on second quarter profitability. Although we are facing outage-related constraints, our APM order velocity has reached a level that has not been experienced in the past several years.

Within our Performance Solutions portfolio, demand remains strong in the semiconductor and data center end markets, which are driving orders for our Performance Solutions products. These sectors are tied to growing and sustainable demand for APM's products and are areas where Chemours is uniquely positioned to serve these markets. In addition to our higher-value end market activity, our Advanced Materials portfolio is also experiencing strong order levels. While the industrial end markets that Advanced Materials generally serve remain weak, our commercial team is seeing signs of destocking for specialty materials that may have been overbought in prior years.

While the impact of these demand tailwinds is limited in our second quarter outlook, we see direct pathways to achieve significant second half strength while the macroeconomic environment remains tepid. On a consolidated basis, we anticipate our second quarter net sales to increase in the range of 15% to 20% sequentially, with consolidated adjusted EBITDA expected to range between $220 million to $250 million. Also, we anticipate corporate expenses to range between $45 million and $50 million. Our capital expenditures for the second quarter are expected to be in the range of $50 million, with free cash flow generation of at least $100 million.

In connection with the strong free cash flow we anticipate for the second quarter, we expect to realize interest expense savings in the quarter as we reduced our debt by approximately $160 million in April. Also, we remain committed to enhancing our balance sheet flexibility, including the $700 million refinancing completed in March, which builds on the close to $2 billion of near-term debt we have addressed since the fourth quarter of 2025. We are proud of these efforts, which strengthen our balance sheet and enhanced financial flexibility, key enablers of our Pathway to Thrive strategy.

Turning to the full year. Despite a mixed global operating environment that includes challenging commercial end markets and overall raw material and other cost inflation, we still expect our full year consolidated net sales, adjusted EBITDA and capital expenditure forecast to align with our previous guidance. Full year free cash flow conversion is now expected to be above 20%, slightly lower than our prior guide, driven by Kuan Yin land sale tax implications, which impact free cash flow. That said, the earlier-than-anticipated closure of the majority of the Kuan Yin parcels positions Chemours to immediately begin to delever as we pay down approximately $150 million of our outstandin Euro Term Loan B in rating.

As we close the final Kuan Yin land parcel and repatriate the remaining proceeds expected this year, we intend to use those proceeds to continue redeeming future debt maturities. This positive development paired with our diligent cash management activities provides us with confidence towards achieving our liquidity objective of net leverage below 3x adjusted EBITDA. For 2026, we now anticipate our net leverage ratio will be below 3.8x adjusted EBITDA by the end of the year. Additionally, our efforts will provide approximately $9 million in interest expense savings to the company going forward annually by year-end after the reference repayment in April.

Overall, we started the year out well. And looking ahead, we see strong pricing momentum in TT, robust refrigerant demand and operational reliability improvement across our sites, which gives us confidence to deliver a step-up performance in the second half of the year, enabling us to deliver on our full year guide. Also, we remain front-footed on our assessment of operational and commercial impacts stemming from geopolitical considerations around the globe to ensure we address inflation ahead of any financial impact as well as addressing any potential opportunities as they present themselves. We have the right team in place and a strong understanding of our customer base to achieve the goals and outlook we have laid out for the current year.

Given these perspectives on the second quarter and remaining year, I'd like to now hand the call back over to Denise to share her closing thoughts and perspectives.

Thank you, Shane. As I look across our first quarter performance, we continue to see clear progress against our Pathway to Thrive strategy, which remains the foundation for how we operate, allocate capital and create long-term value. We remain on track and are seeing tangible accomplishments across all pillars, including improved operational reliability, disciplined cost execution, targeted growth investments, continued portfolio improvements and efforts to derisk our balance sheet aimed at strengthening the business over time.

Our teams are performing effectively across all Pathway to Thrive pillars. In the area of operational excellence, we continue to integrate the Chemours business system to implement lean principles, ensuring a high standard of consistency, reliability and cost efficiency. Although CBS was implemented earlier this year, we are already observing positive outcomes. For enabling growth, our focus remains on areas that set us apart and provide clear market advantages. This is evidenced by ongoing momentum in Opteon Refrigerants, increased engagement within high-value end markets across TSS and APM and continued efforts to drive value through recent pricing strategies.

For portfolio management paired with our disciplined capital allocation approach, we've improved our balance sheet with the nearly completed Kuan Yin land sale and existing cash reserves, enabling a reduction in debt that will continue through the year. We are dedicated to aggressively reducing our leverage while making steady progress in our strengthening the long-term pillar where we are progressively working to reduce our exposure to legacy matters. These efforts highlight our focus on derisking Chemours to ensure our ability to secure our future in exciting high-value end markets and opportunities.

In taking a broader view of Chemours, we are closely monitoring the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and the resulting volatility across energy markets and global chemical supply chains, which is adding uncertainty to the broader macro environment with the potential to weigh on demand, particularly in more impacted regions. To this, we are focused on actively working to mitigate cost headwinds through core price and other pricing mechanisms. As sulfur markets tighten due to this conflict, sulfate-based TiO2 producers are seeing tangible cost inflation, creating potential opportunities for those positioned to respond.

Chemours has decades of leadership in the titanium dioxide market with deep technical, commercial and regional expertise. As conditions evolve and potential tailwinds emerge, we are applying that experience with discipline, remaining selective and deliberate as we monitor the macro environment and act accordingly. In parallel, we are taking a disciplined approach to risk management across the enterprise, prioritizing cost control, supply chain resilience and capital allocation to ensure flexibility in this more uncertain macro environment. We believe that our positioning considering these market dynamics provide opportunities for Chemours as we move into the second half.

Before we move to questions, I want to thank our employees around the world for their continued focus, resilience and commitment. Their execution and adaptability are central to our performance and our progress against Pathway to Thrive. I'd also like to thank our customers for their ongoing partnership and trust as we support their needs across critical end markets. With a strong start to the year, the right strategic actions underway and a proven ability to execute through uncertainty, Chemours is well positioned to deliver on our commitments and drive sustained value creation for all of our stakeholders as 2026 progresses.

With that, I'd like to open the line for your questions.

[Operator Instructions]Our first question is going to come from the line of Joshua Spector with UBS.

I wanted to ask just on TSS and specifically in first quarter, when you're talking about some of the benefits from the pricing step-up in the Freon products into the auto aftermarket. I was wondering if you can characterize that. Was that more of a step-up in some contract type structure? Or is that more of a tightening of the legacy refrigerant market? And did you expect that, I guess, when you gave your guidance earlier in the year?

Question, Josh. Yes, from Freon, we -- first of all, we, as a business, are always looking to optimize our EBITDA by per quota. So we do see strength in the auto aftermarket, but we are uniquely positioned when it comes to the auto aftermarket. We have 1 of 2 domestic suppliers of 134A versus other foreign suppliers. We also have a great quota position. And then also, there are some constraints for other suppliers that are stemming from EPA regulated phasedown of the key raw material that goes into their process of TCE. So we see this as very sticky. I would say going into the quarter, we did anticipate strength going in, maybe not as high as it turned out to be, but we certainly expect that to continue.

Okay. And I guess just sticking with TSS and thinking about 2Q, I think your comments clearly say you expect weaker resi OEM. I think that's the interpretation. So you're being somewhat conservative there. Does that help your view on margins in the quarter? And I guess there's just a bunch of moving parts now with costs moving up, you're trying to get pricing and generally just trying to understand kind of the margin cadence you'd expect as either OEM comes back into the mix or some other factors maybe help on the cost side as you go further through the year?

We always talk about the TSS business to be around the 30%, 30% margin or higher in the low 30s. So that's kind of where we are. When I think about equipment installations in 2026, we're really around the projection at around 7.5 million units, which is really low. And we expect that to grow as there's more optimism around housing and expecting more around the 9 million unit on a longer-term basis. We see a lot of strength in our aftermarket positioning and see a lot of growth that's coming from that. So we anticipate around Opteon still a really good growth year for us.

Josh, just to add too, I mean, you mentioned about the Q2 guide and a little bit of weak I do want to emphasize in the script, we talked about a $10 million adjusted EBITDA impact that was pulled into the first quarter. Our commercial team did great executing at the last part of the quarter, and we shifted about $10 million of EBITDA in the first quarter. So if you normalize the Q2 for that $10 million, I think you would see more seasonal trends.

Our next question is going to come from the line of John Roberts with Mizuho.

This is Fabien Himenez on for John. Question on APM. With the Washington Works outage and your closure of SPS Capstone line, what should we expect to see in terms of a sustainable earnings power of the segment? And also, what's the timing of this ramp?

Thanks for the question. Yes, we expect the APM business to be in the $30 million to $40 million EBITDA range, and we definitely expect getting back to that range in the back half of the year. We have a really strong order book when you look at our Performance Solutions portfolio, really centered around semiconductor growth and data center. So you'll start to see that as we get into the back half.

And switching gears here. On Corpus Christi, can you share what your playbook is if the city declares a Level 1 water emergency? What levers can you pull here potentially?

Thanks for the question. This is something that has been on our radar for the better part of 2 years. So we've been very proactive. We actually -- if you -- we don't see -- right now, there's a potential for a 25% curtailment, which is potentially announced for the fourth quarter. That is already dialed into our outlook. So we do not see any hiccups from that. And we also have a very, very robust supply chain. So if it came to other knobs, we have other partners that we work with that we can supply our customers.

Our next question comes from the line of John McNulty with BMO.

So I wanted to dig into one of the points that you were bringing up toward the end around some of the sulfur-related impact on other parts of the TiO2, I guess, producer market. It looked -- we've seen -- because of sulfur constraints, we've seen some really significant price hikes from a lot of the Chinese producers. I guess, how do you think about your playbook as you push through the rest of this year in terms of either going after price and kind of working underneath that higher pricing umbrella that some of your competitors are pushing or going after the volumes that may be left on the table because you don't have to necessarily raise price quite as much. I guess how is -- how are you thinking about that from a playbook perspective? And can you speak to your ability to address some of the international markets that are starting to see some of that really aggressive pricing pushing through?

Great. Our playbook is, as we talked about before, where our strategy is around gaining share in fair trade regions. But along with that is also profitability and prioritizing price. So we came out in December ahead of any disruption with the Iran war and start raising prices, and we're successful. As you can see going into the first quarter, our pricing is up 3%. So we're going to continue as we see opportunities to raise price. So we already made an announcement for a price increase of the same order of magnitude in April. One thing just to say is we have great flexibility in our contracting around driving pricing. So I would say we're going to continue around -- our playbook is continuing around driving our share in the fair trade market, but also prioritizing profitability and raising prices. it's clear with sulfur costs increasing, there is an opportunity to go back in history, as sulfur costs increase, there's a one-for-one correlation to what happens in the cost curve of sulfate producers.

I would just add too, John, I mean, if market disruption is occurring and there's volume opportunities, you might remember in the third quarter last year, we talked about bringing capacity down about 10% to 20% just to align with where we thought demand was going to be. And we have flexible operating circuits that we bring that back up to address that as well.

Yes. And even in the first quarter, we saw volumes increasing over what we had expected, we were able to respond.

Got it. Okay. No, helpful. And then I guess, can you just give us an update on your 2-PIC solution? I think NTT was doing some heavy trials on you. I think you've also got some potential capacity coming up later on this year. I guess, can you give us an update as to how that's progressing?

So yes, we're excited about towards the end of the year, we're going to have the capacity that comes on. And we're going to be using it to sample customers as well as refining our process technology for future scale up. So when it comes to NTT, the 12-month field trial using our fluid was successful. There were no signs of fluid or equipment degradation. There were over 200 prospective customers and partners that have seen the fluid in action. So we're going to continue working with NTT through 2028 and really continue to expand the visibility of that technology.

Our next question comes from the line of Hassan Ahmed with Alembic Global Advisors.

A question around your Q2 as well as full year guidance. I mean if I sort of take a look at what you guys have guided to, I mean, you're guiding to a first half EBITDA of around $404 million. And if I compare that to what that means or implies for the back half of the year, it's essentially a range of $396 million to $496 million. So I'm just trying to sort of figure out that bridge to the higher end of that EBITDA range. I mean, what gets us to that incremental, call it, almost $100 million on the higher end side of things, I mean, particularly factoring in seasonality and the like?

Thanks for the question, Hassan. I'll just start by saying coming into 2026, we were very optimistic on growth 2025 to 2026, and we remain very optimistic on that growth. When you think about pricing, we have very strong pricing. When you think about volume, we see very stable volume and our cost actions are really working. So we feel good about the growth year-over-year, but I'm going to turn it over to Shane to get into more of the specifics around your question.

Yes. Thanks for the question, Hassan. So certainly, as you just put the math to it, it looks as if we're back-end weighted. But you have to remember, we started out the year really slow in ATM with Washington Works outages. We mentioned $25 million in the first quarter. And then we also had some expense come through as well as constraints on overall sales into the second quarter as well. That normalized for the second half is a good runway to get to that balance. I would say outside of that, right, we talked a bit about TT.

We really are looking at strong pricing and some tailwinds according from that side. Denise mentioned the strong adoption in December, and we just announced April as well. So on the backs of a lot of these efforts and controlling what we control as well as operating and then also APM had a really good order book. I mentioned in the script, the best we've seen in several years. So we feel very confident with this guide. And as we think about opportunities within TiO2, I think there's upside here and some tailwinds as well.

Very helpful. And as a follow-up on the TT side of things, I mean, I know you guys commented on sulfuric acid and some of the price increases we've seen over there. I mean, as you take a look, so the question really is around where cost sit today and also sort of how that impacts the rationalization that we were seeing leading into some of these sort of sulfuric acid price moves. I mean, if I've run my numbers correctly, some of the sort of latest rounds of price hikes in TiO2 that we've seen, it just seems barely cover the higher sort of costs coming out of higher sulfuric acid prices and the like. So I mean, the state of affairs for TiO2 cost curve wise was pretty dire even prior to this run-up in sulfuric acid prices. So I mean, where are the cost curves today? Are a large chunk of the producers still losing money despite these price hikes? And how does that impact sort of rationalization, particularly in China on a go-forward basis?

Yes. Thanks for the question. I mean, first of all, let's just go back to what our strategy is, and it's really to be low-cost chloride producer globally, and we continue on that path. We don't have any sulfate production. So we are very much on the left side of the cost curve. Clearly, for sulfate producers, they're moving to the right. And depending on how much sulfur increases, that's how far they're going to right. Can I say what kind of decisions they're going to make around their capacity? No. But what I can say is we are clearly focused on our strategy of gaining share in the fair trade markets, continuing our advocacy and being reliable suppliers to our customers.

Our next question comes from the line of Arun Viswanathan with RBC Capital Markets.

Congrats on the results here. So I guess I just wanted to follow up on the last point. So for TT, I think you're guiding to about $40 million to $50 million for Q2 EBITDA. How does that evolve as you kind of move through the year? Are there any discrete items like cost reductions or maybe something on the ore supply side that would lift that in Q3? Or is it going to be mainly dependent on demand?

Yes, I would say that we definitely see improvement as we go through the year, and I would point to 2 primary factors. We are not building any volume upside into our outlook. It's really pricing and continuing our cost out work, which we definitely see evidence every -- we saw it in the first quarter, we see it coming through the rest of the year.

Okay. And another question on TSS, I guess, if I could. When you think about the last year, and you did have a pretty big step-up because of the step down in the quota. How are you seeing growth play out this year in TSS in absence of that? Do you still have a strong backlog that's going to catch up to prior orders? And also, maybe if you could comment on the pricing environment and the mix environment. Will we be selling any more Freon? And would that affect the mix in a positive or negative way? Or is that destocking all done?

Great. Thanks for that. Yes. So as it evolves, as we've said, first of all, we still expect year-over-year growth in Opteon and in TSS. We -- as we get to the second half of the year, you're going to see more of a slowdown as we've talked about, because of the transition. But we see a lot of upside in the aftermarket as new equipment gets installed, and we have a really, really strong position in the aftermarket. When you think about Freon, as I said earlier, we see stickiness in our pricing and in our volumes because of our position in the auto aftermarket. So we feel very optimistic about the growth and our position for the rest of the year.

And as it relates to the margins, Arun, talked about a 30-plus margins in this business, and we feel very confident with that. Seasonally, Q2, Q3 tend to be seasonally the strongest margins, and we anticipate such again.

Our next question comes from the line of Pete Osterland with Truist Securities.

I just wanted to start on TT. So you called out the lower TiO2 sales in North America in the first quarter. It looks like sales were down 12% year-over-year in the region. Was that a reflection of underlying market demand, I guess, or anything to note from a customer inventory perspective? And just going forward over the next couple of quarters, what's your outlook for the North American market?

Yes. I mean going into -- actually coming into the year, we had projected this -- the volume actually, we and particularly in North America than we had anticipated. As we go into second quarter, we definitely see a step-up with the coating season.

Okay. And then just as a clarification on your free cash flow guidance being lowered to 20% from 25%. Does that represent anything other than the tax outflow from the Kuan Yin proceeds? I guess, any other cash headwinds that you hadn't previously incorporated?

Thanks, Pete. Yes, I appreciate you bringing this up. As you mentioned, yes, this is really just specific to the Kuan Yin land sale. We had taxes that are forecasted to be in operating cash flow, whereas the Kuan Yin proceeds going to be outside of free cash flow. So it's really just a presentation of those. But I will make sure to emphasize that 20% is a floor, right? We're confident in really generating upside here, and we'll continue to focus on that free cash flow generation of the company.

Our next question comes from the line of Duffy Fischer with Goldman Sachs.

Question on the new chlorine contract. One, is it more of a cost plus? Or is it a market minus type contract? And then two, if you look at it versus what you've paid over the last 2 or 3 years, is it a meaningful cost advantage for you when that rolls through?

Yes. Thanks for the question, Duffy. Yes, we can't talk about specifics of the contractual terms. But all I can say is this provides secure, reliable supply of chlorine at a very attractive rate. It secures our competitive position and it's very aligned with our drive to the left side of the cost curve.

Okay. And then on the Q1 slide deck, you called out $17 million of kind of onetime impacts that you thought were going to happen in TT. With that quarter now done, what was that -- did it come in at $17 million? Was it higher? Was it lower? Did some of that get pushed into Q2? Can you just talk about that?

Yes. Thanks, Duffy. Yes, I appreciate you bringing that up. That was really related to some ore mix items within the cold season at some of our plants. I would say the $17 million we saw come through. However, we did have some onetime benefits that came through as well. So we had less than the $17 million that we saw come through, but not too much of a quantum less.

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

This is Dan Rizzo on for Laurence. You mentioned that Freon is sticky. When you say sticky, is it for this year where it's some sort of restock? Or is it like a multiyear growth story? And I guess more importantly, can it provide some tailwind when the Opteon adoption kind of slows a little bit?

I'm sorry, can you ask the second part of that question again?

Well, I was wondering if Freon is going to be a multiyear growth story because as -- I mean, Opteon is still very strong, it will eventually peter out -- not peter out, but it will slow to a more, I guess, longer pace. And I was wondering if Freon could kind of augment that.

Yes. I mean we see a multiyear trajectory around Freon strength. So as we said, we always -- the way we run this business is managing quota and getting the best margins for CO2 equivalent. As I said, we have a very advantaged position in the U.S. relative to this product. And we have a good quota position. And we have -- our process is not impacted by some of the EPA actions. So definitely see this persistent.

And is the demand -- I mean -- and maybe a simple question, but is the demand coming almost entirely from auto aftermarket? Or are there other factors or other areas contributing?

Yes, it's really auto aftermarket. And I would say, if you look at even the trajectory of like ICE vehicles, there's a long tail for that. So that's how you can kind of think about that on sales.

Our last question will come from the line of Vincent Andrews with Morgan Stanley.

I'm just wondering if you could comment a little bit on the TiO2 market and what you think the impact to the market as well as to you will be from the restarts of the Venator assets. I guess there's one in Italy that's restarting and then LB seems to have gotten approval for the one in the United Kingdom. It's not clear exactly when that might restart. But what will -- I know Europe is not necessarily the biggest market for you, but what do you think it will do to the market? And how will you play around that?

Yes. I mean I think -- thanks for the question. I think there's definitely -- will be a small impact. We'll see how those assets start up. They definitely need some work to get started. So I think if anything, we would start seeing something maybe next year. But we feel, especially around, say, the U.K. asset, there's going to be -- I would say our biggest concern there is can that asset be used for pull-through of other Chinese volume, and we see the risk of that low. We have a lot of trade advocacy going on, making sure we're not -- there's no circumvention of antidumping tariffs and also really strengthening -- working with authorities to strengthen the rule of origin definition. So I would just say it's really not something that we see as a big impact. These are also very high cost to operate facilities.

Okay. And then, Shane, if I could just follow up on the cash flow. The fourth quarter, when you put out the 25% number, you obviously had announced the sale of the land. At the time, did you just think there was going to be a way to not incur taxes on that and then that didn't play out? Or just what happened there?

Yes. Thanks, I appreciate the question. I would say, as we announced that, I think we were fine-tuning the overall distribution plan out of Taiwan. We are going to carry with it. That said, we are -- we've announced net proceeds of $290 million here way ahead of time, right, as well as we're seeing net-net, probably more than we expected. We said net roughly around $300 million. I would say net, we're roughly in the $310 million range. So yes, the original 25% did not take into account that tax item. but it was more presentation. We anticipated that net item being kind of netted to the proceeds instead of being presented in operating cash flow.

Thank you. And I'm showing no further questions at this time. Ladies and gentlemen, this will conclude today's question-and-answer session as well as today's conference call. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.

Good morning. My name is Carmen, and I will be your conference operator today. I would like to welcome everyone to the Chemours Company Fourth Quarter 2025 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded.

I would now like to hand the conference over to Brandon Ontjes, Vice President, Head of Strategy and Investor Relations for Chemours. You may begin your conference.

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the Chemours Company's Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. I'm joined today by Denise Dignam, Chemours' President and Chief Executive Officer; and our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Shane Hostetter.

Before we start, I would like to remind you that comments made on this call as well as in the supplemental information provided on our website contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties as described in The Chemours SEC filings. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are based on certain assumptions and expectations of future events that may not be realized. Actual results may differ, and Chemours undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statements as a result of future developments or new information. During the course of this call, we'll refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures that we believe are useful to investors evaluating the company's performance. A reconciliation of non-GAAP terms and adjustments is included in our press release issued yesterday evening. Additionally, we posted our earnings presentation on our website yesterday evening as well.

With that, I will turn the call over to Denise Dignam.

Thank you, Brandon, and thank you, everyone, for joining us. During today's call, I will begin by discussing a few recent developments across Chemours in addition to highlights from our recent performance. I will then turn it over to Shane, who will provide details around our outlook for the first quarter of 2026 and key drivers for the full year ahead. Finally, I will provide updates on our meaningful progress against our Path to Thrive strategy before taking your questions.

First, as we should in January, we have reached an agreement to sell our Kuan Yin site. Since the shutdown of our titanium dioxide operations at this facility in 2023, we've been actively decommissioning the site and preparing to sell the remaining property. I'm happy to report that the estimated net proceeds of $300 million we expect to receive from the landfill will make a significant impact in reducing our outstanding debt and support our continued progress towards lowering our targeted net leverage below 3x. I'm proud of our team's effort to get us to this point.

Additionally, I want to welcome Mike Foley as the new Business President of TT. And joining Chemours, Mike brings extensive leadership experience in the chemicals industry, running multiple business units with experience centered on operational excellence. As an established leader, I'm confident that Mike will continue to drive improvements in our titanium dioxide business staying true to our value-based commercial strategy, strengthening reliability across our asset base and advancing our long-term cost position initiatives.

Turning to our fourth quarter results. We are pleased with the robust cash flow generated and the ability to drive sales performance within our expectations. Net sales met expectations largely due to TSS achieving record sales driven by continued strong Opteon adoption and consistent commercial performance across all divisions. We posted solid earnings overall. However, for the APM business due to near-term end market weakness, we shifted our focus to promote cash flow as the quarter progressed. -- resulting in certain noncash charges and the sale of certain products to reduce inventory levels. These decisions enabled us to make meaningful steps towards driving cash flow while setting a foundation for improved earnings as we get deeper into 2026. While these incremental costs resulted in us just missing the low end of our earnings range, we are pleased with our ability to generate strong quarterly free cash flow of $92 million, which we believe is more reflective of Chemours' longer-term cash generation potential to drive value for our shareholders.

With this background, I'd like to provide some additional context on our business level performance. Our TSS business reported a fourth quarter record for Opteon sales with double-digit growth of 37% compared to the prior year quarter, in line with our expectations. Overall, TSS' top line increase was primarily due to higher pricing and moderate volume increases, supported by a favorable mix for Opteon refrigerant blends driven by the U.S. AMX residential HVAC equipment transition and opportunistic sales for certain Freon refrigerants. This could not have been achieved without the TSS team's excellent commercial execution, which resulted in new sales opportunities and efficient use of our quota allowances.

TSS had record annual sales in 2025 despite a year with subdued shipped HVAC units in the residential stationary OEM market. Additionally, these efforts led to overall annual Opteon refrigerant growth of 56%, making up 75% of total refrigerant sales in 2025, up from 56% the year before. top line success helped to drive annual adjusted EBITDA margins of 32%, up from 31% in the prior year. Despite additional costs of approximately $22 million in liquid pooling and next-generation refrigerants R&D investment over the same period.

Moving to TT. In the fourth quarter, the TT team had strong execution with our top line performance results coming in line with our expectations and our adjusted EBITDA remaining ahead due to stabilized pricing and cost performance. While we continue to operate in a more tepid global market experiencing volume seasonality in certain key markets, we have maintained a strong result in implementing our pricing efforts across all key end markets. To these efforts and our pricing announcement in December, we experienced pricing stability between the third and fourth quarter, laying the groundwork for continued pricing strength in 2026. We are confident in our conviction of our value-based commercial strategy and remain resolute in this approach. Our overall objective to drive improved operational and longer-term cost performance remains unchanged.

Consistent with that, we shared in the third quarter we have calibrated our production expectations to be more closely aligned with anticipated market conditions, and we continue to challenge what we can control. including improvements on all our costs while continuing to prioritize cash flow generation in the business. As part of our recent strategic portfolio management initiatives for TT we commenced a restructuring of our mining operations in early January, including the temporary idling of 1 of our mines in North Florida and transitioning to a third-party earthmoving contractor. This revised approach will support our overall cost efforts and promote improved cash generation.

Shifting over to APM. While our cash flow driven changes weighed on our earnings results this quarter, the decisions we made strengthened our cash generation, even as we navigated headwinds in certain cyclically sensitive end markets, notably in auto and industrial construction, which we believe will stabilize as we get into early next year. Entering the first quarter of 2026, the APM business in Performance Solutions observed a strengthening order book, particularly within the semiconductor sector, which shows preliminary signs of recovery. Additionally, growth was noted in data center materials and other key end markets. In January, Washington Works, a key manufacturing facility experienced a disruption that necessitated a temporary shutdown, limiting our capacity.

This event was traced to equipment affected by a local utility service outage in August, which is integral to our fluoropolymer supply chain and involves complex chemical processing technology. Although operations have now resumed the unplanned outage coincided with challenging winter weather resulting in delays to the restart. Our strategy has always included additional work on these assets and for Q1 of 2027. Despite less an ideal earlier timing, these efforts are critical to ensuring long-term reliability and establishing operational stability to meet improving demand for APM's Performance Solutions products.

Lastly, I would like to briefly address corporate level performance, which demonstrated a significant decrease in expenses compared to the same quarter last year. This cost reduction reflects ongoing efforts in expense management and underscore the progress achieved through our operational excellence pillar as part of the Pathway to Thrive strategy.

With that, I'll turn it over to Shane to walk through our first quarter outlook and key drivers for the full year 2026.

Thank you, Denise, and good morning, everyone. As was shared in the earnings materials available on our investor website, I now would like to discuss our expectations for the first quarter and factors that will drive our business as we look ahead.

Beginning with TSS. For the first quarter, we project net sales to rise sequentially in the mid-20s to 30% range, primarily attributable to favorable seasonal trends and continued growth in Opteon refrigerants, where we are also forecasting a sequential increase of 30% to 40% in the first quarter. This sustained double-digit Opteon refrigerant expansion is expected to be driven by the continued regulatory adoption associated with government mandates under the U.S. AIM Act.

Adjusted EBITDA for TSS is also anticipated to grow sequentially, ranging from $170 million to $185 million, also driven by seasonality and the continued transition to our Opteon stationary refrigerants. As we look beyond the first quarter, we expect year-over-year double-digit growth for Opteon refrigerants to continue into the second quarter of 2026, but will then begin to normalize to more typical seasonal patterns in the second half of the year as year-over-year comparison points will reflect the regulatory-driven market demand we saw in late 2025.

Additionally, we believe that pricing strength stemming from favorable pricing mix for Opteon blends and opportunistic pricing in free on refrigerants will continue into 2026. Also, we expect benefits from cost out efforts throughout 2026, including our recent Corpus Christi capacity expansion, which will be partially offset by increased raw material costs primarily due to R32, a key component of our stationary preference.

Overall, we anticipate that the confluence of these factors will underpin strong sales and earnings growth for TSS in 2026, with consistent overall margins compared to that of 2025. For our TT business, we expect sequential net sales to decrease in the low to mid-single-digit percentage range in the first quarter. In our recent reporting, we split out our mineral sales from our TiO2 pigment sales to provide greater visibility in line with recent strategic decisions. In the first quarter, we anticipate that our mineral sales will be down 60% sequentially driven by sales timing and the impact from the recent changes in mining efforts while our TiO2 pigment sales are expected to be down in the low single digits.

The slight anticipated decline in TiO2 pigment sales during the first quarter is due to weaker seasonal volumes in non-Western markets, which will offset the volume increases we expect in Western markets. supported by our global pricing efforts as highlighted in the previous quarter across all of our regions. Our global pricing improvement is driven by our pricing announcement in December of last year, which we have seen signs of strong adoption globally as we continue to demonstrate our value-based commercial strategy within our TT segment. It is our expectation that overall average global pricing for TiO2 pigment should be generally in line with the prior year quarter.

For the first quarter, we expect TT's adjusted EBITDA to be between breakeven and $5 million. This low level of EBITDA is due to the timing of mineral sales, paired with an additional approximately $17 million of net costs we expect in the quarter tied to inventory and ore mix as well as overall impacts from low plant utilization. The combined force of these near-term impacts is expected to result in higher net costs for the quarter. However, TT is positioned to grow earnings and cash flow during the year.

Beyond the first quarter, we see a year where our top line will be driven by positive TiO2 pricing trends across regions and stabilized volumes in Western markets, followed by non-Western markets as the year progresses. For pricing, we've already seen expected increases start to take form through stabilized Q4 pricing, which has reflected growth into 2026. Our portfolio and operational initiatives will continue to drive improved earnings as the year progresses with a clear realization of important cost savings efforts becoming more visible, further underpinned by improved cash generation.

Now for our APM business. In the first quarter, we expect net sales to decrease in the high teens percentage range sequentially due to sustained market weakness, combined with customer timing and constraints from the Washington Works outage. Adjusted EBITDA is projected to range from breakeven to $5 million. primarily due to the previously referenced outage at the Washington Works facility. This outage is expected to result in a negative impact of $20 million to $25 million for the quarter, with most of this effect attributable to restricted sales associated with the facilities interruption.

As Denise noted earlier, the plant has returned to normal operations and will be a key contributor to the improved earnings we anticipate in APM throughout the rest of 2026. Specifically, we see a return to more profitable quarters for APM after the first quarter of 2026, with progressively improved sales and earnings as we move further into the year. While the overall top line will include lower net sales due to closure of the Advanced Materials SPS Capstone line in 2025, and we plan to replace those lost sales with an increase of specialty-focused Performance Solutions products with higher bottom line contributions.

Although we are facing constraints from our outage, demand remains strong in the semiconductor and data center end markets, which are driving current and anticipated sales growth of our Performance Solutions products. These are sectors where we see tremendous inroads for APM's chemistry to help enable the growth and adoption of artificial intelligence across global economies. While we expect some negative cost effects to carry over slightly into our second quarter, we plan to counter these through increased operations at our Washington work site and the increased realization of existing and continued cost reduction efforts as production improves.

While the year did not begin as we had planned, we are confident that APM will finish strong in 2026 as we work to recover lost volume on our plant circuit at elevated levels and continue to drive commercial and operational excellence. Through these initiatives, we anticipate adjusted EBITDA to be slightly higher than 2025 levels, while cash generation will see meaningful improvement. On a consolidated basis, we anticipate our first quarter net sales to increase in the range of 3% to 5% sequentially with consolidated adjusted EBITDA expected to range between $120 million to $150 million.

Also, we anticipate corporate expenses to range between $45 million and $50 million. Our capital expenditures for the first quarter are expected to be in the range of $50 million, with free cash flow reflecting a use of cash not to exceed $100 million. For the full year 2026 at a consolidated level, we anticipate overall net sales growth to be between 3% and 5% and adjusted EBITDA to range from $800 million to $900 million, primarily driven by increased TSS and APM Performance Solutions demand, expected pricing strength in TT and further benefits of more pronounced cost realizations in TT and APM throughout the year.

Additionally, we expect capital expenditures to be between $275 million and $325 million, with free cash flow conversion to be above 25%, supported by improved earnings and working capital improvements that we expect to realize as the year progresses.

As we advance into 2026, we remain committed to executing our Pathway to Thrive strategy, and are focused on prioritizing a platform of robust cash flow generation annually going forward via various initiatives across all areas of the company. We view these cash flow efforts to be based in driving clear performance goals across our cash conversion cycle, which we are already seeing take for. These initiatives will take time to fully implement, but we believe improved cash generation in 2026 serves as a starting point where we anticipate further free cash flow expansion in the future. Through these efforts, coupled with approximately $300 million in net proceeds from the sale of our Kuan Yin facility, which will be used to reduce our debt. We anticipate our net leverage ratio to be below 4x adjusted EBITDA by the end of 2026. This is a key milestone that further positions us to achieve our long-term objective of a net leverage ratio of below 3x adjusted EBITDA across economic sites.

Given these perspectives on the first quarter and full year 2026, I'd like to now hand the call back over to Denise to share her thoughts and perspectives on our strategic execution under Pathway to Thrive. .

Thank you, Shane. As we look ahead to 2026, it is important to build upon the substantial strategic progress achieved in 2025. Our Pathway to Thrive strategy remains central to how we make decisions allocate capital and conduct our business operations, and I believe our team has demonstrated notable success in delivering results across every pillar of the strategy. Starting with operational excellence. We continue to advance the disciplined work in driving cost out and making meaningful step-change improvements in how we operate. We fulfilled our commitments for 2025, delivering at least $125 million of gross controllable cost savings. While these efforts have been more visible at the corporate level and through SG&A, we believe that this work will become more clear as operational levels improve, primarily across our TT and APM businesses this year.

In the case of TSS, our focus on operational excellence and controllable cost improvements has been concentrated around the completion of capacity expansion efforts at Corpus Christi. This expansion represented a sizable capital investment made in late 2024 and has established a foundation for TSS to further vertically integrate and reduce reliance on third-party YF purchases. While this has provided benefits in 2025, over time, this will provide a substantial cost upside for TSS in support for increased customer demand in connection with the global low GWP transition.

More recently, we formally rolled out the Chemours business system, which we have established to embed lean principles to reduce waste and drive increased productivity across the organization. Our team is energized by this effort, which we are already actioning across our manufacturing circuit. Our enabling growth pillar is where we continue to demonstrate the strength of our market positions and the value of our innovation. As we've shared, TSS delivered another great year, breaking quarterly records as adoption of our Opteon refrigerant accelerates.

We also made meaningful progress towards commercializing our 2-phase liquid cooling solution, including the qualification of our fluid by Samsung Electronics and the start of a manufacturing agreement with [Navin] Flooring where we are targeting initial commercial production in the third quarter of 2026. Public and next-generation refrigerant growth opportunities reflect important ventures serving as long-term growth opportunities, where we look to continue to invest at a rate of roughly $5 million per quarter. These ongoing investments also contribute to expanding our overall presence in high-value data center and semiconductor end markets, where we are experiencing sustained growth and continued order book strength in APM's Performance Solutions products, particularly in high-purity PFA sales.

Furthermore, we anticipate that TSS' double-digit data center growth achieved in 2025 will persist and serve as a catalyst for increased refrigerant sales. Across our businesses, we are sharpening commercial effectiveness and investing selectively where our differentiators position us to win and support long-term growth.

Turning to portfolio management. We made decisive progress across the portfolio to drive significant economic value to Chemours. Outside of the Kuan Yin site sales, and the restructuring of mining efforts in our TT business, we continue to advance our European asset review, which will extend into 2027. After completing the APM SPS Capstone business exited 2025, we are now announcing the closure of our Real Estate Paul site in France, originally intended for additional hydrogen development. This decision aligns our industrial operations with current market demand.

Moving now to the significant progress made under our strengthening the long-term pillar, which includes reaching a proposed judicial consent order with the state of New Jersey. This milestone provides greater clarity for our stakeholders and reflects our continued commitment to advancing measurable progress in resolving legacy liabilities in close partnership with our MOU partners. With responsible manufacturing at the center of how we deliver essential chemistry, we also reported strong progress against our 2030 corporate responsibility commitment goals. At the same time, independent government level assessments, including from the EU Industry Research and Energy Committee and the U.S. Department of are reinforce the essential role fluoropolymers and gases play across critical industries.

Building on Shane's remarks, our recent efforts have positioned us to generate more cash with our previous working capital headwinds clearly behind us. Going forward, we aim to grow earnings, improve free cash flow conversion and continued deleveraging. As we close out 2025 look ahead to our opportunities in front of us, I want to emphasize that Chemours is focused on executing with discipline across every pillar of pathway to thrive, and we believe by remaining dedicated to doing the hard work now that will provide strong returns to our shareholders through long-term stable value creation. The progress we've made gives me great confidence in our trajectory.

I want to thank our employees for the focus, resilience and commitment they have demonstrated throughout 2025. With the talent, technology and portfolio we have today, and the clarity of strategy guiding us and confident in our ability to deliver for customers, communities and shareholders in 2026 and beyond. Thank you for your continued support.

With that, I'd like to open the line for your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Pete Osterland with Truist Securities.

I just wanted to start on the TT segment. Could you share some more detail on the assumptions for TiO2 volume growth that are embedded in your 2026 guidance? What do you expect the global industry to grow volumes at this year? And how would you expect your volume growth to compare to the industry average?

Sure. Peter, thanks for the question. I would say our outlook is that demand is stable and there's not major demand triggers. Our outlook is really based on -- we announced a price increase in December we've seen, I'll say, strong yield of that price increase. We talked about flat pricing from Q3 to Q4, flat year-over-year pricing as we head into Q1 and we feel really good about that. So that's kind of how we see it progressing stabilized demand with our pricing power.

Great. And then just switching gears, I just wanted to follow up on your comments on your legacy liabilities. Do you have a lot of sight for meaningful progress towards resolving what you have left during 2026. Any key items or dates to be watching out for this year that you could share?

Sure. We've made significant progress in the fourth -- our fourth pillar, strengthening the long term. And we're really proud of the work that was done in -- with New Jersey, really kind of laid a framework and hopefully, you can see how we're going to progress going forward. The 2 other areas where we're focused and continue to make progress is in our West Virginia facility as well as in North Carolina. So I would expect to hear additional information relative to those facilities as we progress the year.

Our next question comes from the line of John Roberts with Mizuho. .

It seems like there are a lot of mix effects running through the APM segment. Maybe you could peel apart some of the different end markets there to let us know how much some are down and where some of the strength is?

Yes. Thanks, John. I mean as we said in my prepared comments, things like auto, industrial production, those things are down. But -- there's a real opportunity in our Performance Solutions portfolio of products. If you think about PFA and the expansion that we did in our Teflon product line, there's a lot of demand related to the AI search and the build-out of data centers which is also building out the semicon and all of the demand for additional memory that those chips will need. So it's really, I would say, in those -- in that area really a pull on the AI side.

And my understanding is there's still some more maintenance to be done in 2027 on washing works. Why not pull all of the 2027 maintenance until whatever downtime you've got here in the March quarter of 2026?

Yes. Actually, thanks for the question. All of the -- we have regular turnaround. So that's something that happens every 3 years at our site. So we had already had that plan for the beginning of next year. We actually pulled all the maintenance related to the situation, the disruption in January forward. So we've actually taken scope out of that turnaround. There's still more work to do. It's just a regular turnaround. But yes, we have pulled that forward. And really, our decision was we wanted to have really reliable operations and to make sure we did not -- that particular issue that hit us last summer did not continue to pull it down. We really wanted to make sure we had stable operations. So I would call it more of the turnaround more of a tune-up versus significant maintenance work that would drive stability.

It comes from Arun Viswanathan with RBC Capital Markets.

I guess my first question is just on the Q1 and the full year guide. So the midpoint for Q1 is 135, looks like the full year midpoint 850. Maybe you can just talk a little bit about how -- what are some of the bridge items as you move into Q2? I imagine, obviously, there's seasonality for both TSS and TiO2 that's pretty pronounced in Q2 and Q3. But I guess I'm just curious what else we should think about or some disruptions that you had last year in the middle of the year as well. Obviously, is it your assumption that those don't repeat. Maybe you can just understand how you plan to see that uplift from, say, the 135 to maybe a $200 number or so for the middle of the year.

Thanks, Aaron. Yes, we have full confidence in our full year guide. As I said in the prepared comments, we expect earnings growth in all 3 of our businesses. I'm going to turn it over to Shane to give you a bit of the walk.

Arun, so specific to kind of -- you got the midpoints right in Q1 and year-end guides and then you really -- as we look at Q2, right, just thinking through what happened in Q1, we are looking at low ranges of 0% to 5% in TT and APM that is inclusive of some, what I'll call, unusual items specific to APM, we had the Washington Works outage of roughly $20 million to $25 million of an impact. And then for TT, we had roughly $17 million of inventory and really mix areas around the ore. So as you think about that with the midpoint of the guide in the first quarter, the $40 million in addition to that onetime it's going into next year or going into the second quarter, it's a good start.

Then as you pointed out, it's really seasonality. It's really strength in our refrigerants and Opteon business. It's getting the price in the fact that Denise had earlier talked about in TT and continuing that momentum as well as pricing over assess. And we're going to continue to control what we can control across each one of our businesses and getting cost out across on that side, which is going to progress as the year goes on as well.

Great. And then as a follow-up, just on the free cash flow, you noted that, obviously, your teams did a lot of good work in Q4 to harvest some of that, especially in -- could you just maybe walk us through, I guess, Denise, you may have mentioned that $92 million is more reflective of the quarterly run rate of cash flow generation. So is it also the implication is that you feel comfortable that free cash flow could eclipse $300 million or $350 million as you go through the year?

Yes, Arun, why don't I take that one. First of all, I'm very proud of the team of what we've done in Q4, ending the year driving free cash flow over our high end of the range. As we look ahead, Denise talked about the normalization thinking through what the cash generation capabilities of this business are, we're really thinking that as reflective of the full year. As you probably know, right, we are seasonal as it relates to working capital. And I mentioned in my script that in Q1, we don't anticipate over $100 million of outflow, but we do anticipate an outflow in Q1 given working capital seasonality.

But for the full year, we wholeheartedly stand by the above 25% free cash flow guide, and we feel comfortable attaining that. So really excited for the capabilities of the team and really driving through cash conversion through unlocking further working capital and really hitting the mark on earnings to generate that cash flow in '26.

Our next question comes from the line of Duffy Fisher with Goldman Sachs.

First question is on TT. Can you walk through the 3 geographies that have some antidumping activities going on in India, Brazil and Europe? And just -- what have you seen in those areas already from those antidumping actions? And what do you think is still left on the come for the Western players?

Duffy, thanks for the question. I mean we see that there is -- we're seeing benefits from the antidumping duties. If you look at Brazil, we see really high duties really good market for us out of our Mexico facility. So really feel very good about that. India, I'm sure you know, there's been a little bit of back and forth. We're confident that those duties are going to come back, but it's just a process that has to come through. We've seen in Europe that, obviously, we've had some uplift in Europe there has been some currency changes since this dumping went in, which gives some benefit to Chinese producers, but it's not anything that is going to dramatically change our view of Europe.

Fair enough. And then jumping to TSS, can you walk us through what impact has kind of the bringing online of Corpus Christi been either increased costs? Is it ramping -- and then what's left as far as benefit as that plant fully fills out?

Yes. So what we talked about in our -- before with TSS is that it was going to be a 2-year ramp. So you could see last year, we talked about improvement in margin that comes from cost out as well as price. So we saw -- started seeing some improvement last year. The second half of that facility will be ramping up this year. So we will continue to see improvement there. The technology we have is the lowest-cost technology in the world. So we feel really good about the tailwinds that we're going to get from that facility.

Our next question comes from the line of Josh Spector with UBS.

You have James Cannon on for Josh. I wanted to touch back on the ore mix impact that's flowing through in TT this quarter. I know there's some noise around some legacy purchase contracts. And I was wondering I think the last 1 of those continues to run through, I think, this year or next year. Is any of that something that we should be modeling continuing? Or is it something that should be contained in the first quarter?

Yes. I would say that for the first quarter, the change in our mix was really related to the winter interruption and the need to consume higher grade ore. Definitely, as you've said, we had 2 contracts, long-standing contracts that were unfavorable. One is completed, 1 is finished, and we're working through the second contract right now. we have laser focus on our input cost in the TT business. So you will continue to see that improving over the year. We also talked about our restructuring that we've done in our mines in -- by taking down 1 mine, it's all aimed towards lowering our input costs. One of the primary costs that go into our plants and actually a competitive advantage for us.

Okay. Got it. And then on the -- just a follow-up on the Freon side. It seemed like you called out some opportunistic sales that drove a pretty solid sequential in the quarter. My math gets me to a first quarter guide that has continued growth there. Can you just talk through what you expect on that side of the business without the transition happening this year and new step downs as far as I'm aware.

Yes. Thanks for the question. We're pretty happy with some of the tailwinds we saw in the fourth quarter related to the Freon business. As we look ahead, in my script, I mentioned really thinking through the tailings of pricing around both Opteon and Freon, and we can look at '26 and see that continuing. So we're really proud of both the execution on the Opteon side and Freon side in '25, and we'll continue to execute and grow in both next year.

Our next question comes from the line of Hassan Ahmed with Alembic Global Advisors.

Just wanted to revisit some of the questions asked earlier on TT. Particularly as it pertains to you guys as volumes, you obviously reported volume declines in Q4 and the volumes aren't looking that great for Q1 as well. And I'm just trying to sort of think through the antidumping duty side of things, the 4 countries, large regions, in particular, where those antidumping measures have been announced. I mean if I sit there and think through for lack of a better way of putting it, the volume that is up for grab, it's around 800,000 tons, right? So I mean, what is baked into that $800 million, $900 million EBITDA guidance that you guys have given in terms of any potential antidumping related market share gains for you?

Yes. Hassan, thanks for the question. When you think about us in TT for the year, we're really focused on executing on our price increase. And I know you're smart, and you can figure it out, kind of put the pieces of the puzzle together. We are really focused on our pricing. Our pricing was a global price increase all regions, there's no mix impact. So while we talk about the duties and they clearly have been helpful, we are really focused on delivering value and creating value for this business through our pricing efforts.

But I mean, just any sort of guidance in terms of the market may typically grows at 2% to 3%? I mean, will you be in line with the market? Will you be better than the market in terms of volume growth?

Yes. We are projecting a stable market. I don't think anyone sees any big reason to expect significant growth. Again, we're focused on value and our pricing and with stable volumes. Maybe I'll kind of take it up a level 2. We have -- I talked about seeing growth in our businesses throughout the year. we're super proud of what was accomplished with our TSS business. We are coming off a record quarter, a record year, strong foundation. If you look at what we've been able to do, we have a leading market position with OEMs in the aftermarket -- and we're really close to our customers. And we are very, very well positioned for growth this year in TSS. Additionally, as we talked about with APM, as we look at the AI trend, we also see great opportunity for growth there as well.

Understood. And as a follow-up, Denise, if you don't mind, just sticking to the TT side of things. I mean a lot of folks you guys included, had talked about 1.1 million tonnes of capacity rationalizations since 2023. Are you guys still comfortable with that figure? And what are you guys seeing in terms of potential rationalizations in China on the back of anti involution?

Yes. I mean we're so confident in that. I mean, those announcements were made, they're all public. We feel we feel confident in that. As far as additional with anti evolution, I really can't speak to that at this point. We don't know that we've seen much more than that.

Our next question comes from the line of John McNulty with BMO Capital Markets.

This is Caleb on for John. I was just hoping you could provide a little bit more color on what would get you to the high end of the range and the low end of your range for the full year?

Sure. Thanks, Caleb. As I think about the range of possibilities here, I think it really depends upon a couple of things. The high end, depending upon market evolution how the actual economic returns comes. -- if there's further rate cuts, for instance, and that really has impact on the overall market. I would say the other parts on the high end is really just overall cost out and thinking through where the net inflation and cost improvements go side.

I would say then finally, would be really continued execution on the pricing side and broader adoption across the businesses. I would say, on the low end of the range, continue to thinking through the cost inputs and thinking through if there's additional costs that we're not seeing right now as we kind of evolve throughout the year. I would say on the opposite side of what I just said, if there's less price receptivity going through there. And then I would say on the other areas is if there's any thoughts around volume depression on the adaptation right side.

Yes. Maybe I'll just add on to that. I think we've been -- we're focused on things we can control. So I would say the market would be the really a key variable in that.

Okay. That's helpful. And then for TSS in the -- over the past couple of years, you've seen the benefit of the AIM act and then the H2L transition. Going forward, how do you see the growth algorithm for that business kind of playing out? And especially relative to your previous commentary for like mid- to high single-digit sales growth over the longer term.

Yes. Thanks for that question. So I would say coming into the first part of this year, we still see significant growth from HFO transition, whether it's additional units the mix of HFC versus HFO units that get sold as well as replenishing inventory that was drawn down in the fourth quarter. So we see that through the first half of the year. One thing to keep in mind is this is a pretty depressed market when it comes to the residential segment. So we see as new units are put on and as the housing market picks up, we see substantial growth there. So we will continue to grow in line with the residential segment. But the other areas to focus on our growth in data centers and chillers and some of the other spaces where we participate.

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

I just kind of want to follow up on that a little bit. Could you talk about what your residential HVAC customers are doing. It seems like they're reducing production for various reasons. Is that leading to a destock from you? And can you help us understand how much of that mix -- how much of your mix that is now versus other parts of the TSS business, whether it's data centers or aftermarket and how much of those are going to contribute this year volumetrically?

Yes. Thanks for the question, Vincent. Yes. I mean, first of all, I want to say that we have -- hopefully, we've established a lot of credibility in this business to this point and what we see going forward. I kind of laid out what we thought was -- what we believe is going to happen as we enter this year. So we do see our customers Actually, inventory was drawn down in the fourth quarter. So we do see some of that coming back in the first half of the year as well as the -- the HFC to HFO transition of the mix of what gets sold to customers. We also see on that, the aftermarket that comes with those installations. So we see solid growth, especially we'll talk about the first half double-digit growth for this space.

Okay. And Shane, if I could ask you on the cash flow, the target to do at least 25% conversion this year. What are the things that are inhibiting you in 2026 from doing better than that from getting up to, say, 40% or 50% conversion. I noticed there were some line items for full year '25, whether it was an inventory build or your payables went down a couple of hundred million dollars and also a fair amount of movement in the crude liabilities and other liabilities, which I know is below the working capital line. But maybe you can just help us reconcile some of the important lines on the cash flow statement this year? And what's going to help you year-over-year and what's going to inhibit you?

Yes. Thanks, Vincent. First, we put out at least 25%, and I really feel comfortable with that, and we will obviously strive to be more than 25% as we go forward into '26. Specific to the areas that I will keep in mind, it's story a lot is around inventory and getting our DIOs improved. We do -- earlier, there was a question around contracts and TT that are going to wane through the year. Unfortunately, that is a headwind coming into the year because that is mandated high-grade ore that we had to fight against, but we feel very confident, even though we will have additional ore put on that throughout each 1 of the businesses will have inventory reductions outside of that.

So I think the inventory is a big story. I think navigating, as you just mentioned, other areas around cash conversion and driving up DPO as well as being efficient on the collections is certainly areas that we'll focus on. And then going forward, I really feel that the CapEx in this company is going to increase year-over-year, but that's really around -- we talked about planned maintenance activities or in the year. So I think it's going to kind of impact our free cash flow in a given year compared to last year as well.

So all in all, I think really the story here is we're control what we control, really confident in that 25% number and really will drive ahead to get them even more into the year.

One moment for our next question. It comes from Jeff Zekauskas with JPMorgan.

In the titanium dioxide segment, actually, your revenues in North America and in Europe were flat to up, the issue was in Asia, where for the year, your revenues went from roughly $660 million to $465 million. So you're down 30% in Asia. What happened in Asia? And where is that business going?

Yes. So I mean, as we've talked about, our strategy is we're focusing on the fair trade markets, and there's been in India in particular. So I mean, that was a trend that was happening for us as we move towards the fair trade market. And India, there was a pullback on the tariff. So -- as I said, we're confident it's going to come through, but I'll say it's temporary.

Okay. So secondly, there's a focus on free cash flow generation. And basically, if you look at Chemours from, I don't know, 2019, your inventories used to be $1.1 billion, and now they're $1.6 billion, and even this year, they're up 7%. And your revenues over that from 2019 to 2025 were up about 5%, inventories are up 50%. What's all that inventory? Is it titanium dioxide? Is it something else? Why do your inventories keep growing? And what can you do about it?

Thanks for the question, Jeff. I think certainly, it's -- obviously, we are carrying more inventory than we need right now from that side and we'll own to that. When you look at back to 2019, as you mentioned, we're different business right now. As we think about TSS with Corpus Christi up and running in other areas. So you can't really look at the past trends, but I own up to the fact that their inventory is an area that we are concerned reduce. Certainly, as I mentioned earlier on the call, we have contracts to take-or-pay contracts with a high or that is areas that we don't necessarily need, but we can use so that some of that that's put on there.

But I would say across each 1 of the businesses that we're carrying too much inventory and we have stretch goals in 2016 and beyond to get it back to more normalized levels on that area.

So we have reached the end of our Q&A session. Thank you for joining the Chemours Fourth Quarter 2025 Results Conference Call. You may now disconnect.

Good morning. My name is Gigi, and I'll be your conference operator today. I would like to welcome everyone to The Chemours Company Third Quarter 2025 Results Conference Call.

[Operator Instructions] I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference call over to Brandon Ontjes, Vice President, Head of Strategy and Investor Relations for Chemours. You may begin your conference.

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to The Chemours Company's Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. I'm joined today by Denise Dignam, Chemours' President and Chief Executive Officer; and our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Shane Hostetter.

Before we start, I would like to remind you that comments made on this call as well as in the supplemental information provided on our website contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties as described in Chemours' SEC filings. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are based on certain assumptions and expectations of future events that may not be realized. Actual results may differ and Chemours undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statements as a result of future developments or new information.

During the course of this call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures that we believe are useful to investors evaluating the company's performance. A reconciliation of non-GAAP terms and adjustments is included in our press release issued yesterday evening. Additionally, we posted our earnings presentation and prepared financial remarks on our website yesterday evening as well.

With that, I will turn the call over to Denise Dignam.

Thank you, Brandon, and thank you, everyone, for joining us. During today's call, I will begin by discussing highlights from our third quarter performance, and we'll then turn it over to Shane, who will provide details around our outlook.

Finally, I will provide updates on meaningful progress on our pathway to 5 strategy along with strategic developments before taking your questions. For our third quarter performance, we exceeded our adjusted EBITDA expectations despite the persisting macroeconomic weakness that affected some economically sensitive sectors of our business. Our stronger earnings were driven through diligent commercial execution in stationary aftermarket sales of Opteon refrigerants under the backdrop of the 2025 U.S. AMX stationary equipment transition. Further supported by lower corporate costs. While we had highlighted some anticipated operational disruptions heading into the third quarter, these issues are now resolved, aided by our manufacturing center of excellence enabling quicker response and enhanced issue mitigation.

Now turning to each segment's performance in the third quarter. Starting with TSS. Our TSS business reported another quarter with results exceeding earnings projections as Opteon sales maintained double-digit growth of 80% compared to the prior year quarter. This marks a third quarter record for Opteon sales. The increase in Opteon was primarily due to higher pricing and volume associated with sales into the stationary aftermarket in connection with the U.S. AMX residential and commercial HVAC equipment transition this year. Throughout this transition, the TSS team displayed its focus on commercial excellence, capturing sales opportunities while making efficient use of our quota allowances.

As a result of the achievement, Opteon refrigerants now account for 80% of total refrigerant sales an increase from 58% in the previous year. TSS' excellent commercial discipline drove earnings performance and a 35% adjusted EBITDA margin underscoring the strength of our differentiated portfolio and ability to capture profitable growth tied to the regulatory transition. This earnings performance also reflected some higher-than-anticipated onetime costs associated with continued investment to commercialize our liquid cooling product. The latest notable achievement in this journey being the reason successful technical qualification of our 2-phase emergent coin fluid by Samsung Electronics.

Altogether, this was an industry-leading performance from TSS, outpacing our third quarter adjusted EBITDA expectations and setting a solid foundation as we head into the fourth quarter and next year.

Turning to APM. APM also drove solid top line performance for the third quarter, which ensured earnings performance was in line with our expectations. Washington Works was back up and safely running by mid-August following the external utility disruption due to the diligent response effort from our site team. In addition to driving expected earnings results, the APM business continued to make notable progress to execute upon our portfolio management efforts, completing the shutdown of the SPS Capstone product line during the third quarter.

Adding to this strategic execution, the APM business also announced an agreement with SRF Limited in India to support needs for essential applications. This partnership positions our company to benefit from a more flexible and robust operational footprint while providing optionality to better serve our dynamic customer base.

Moving to TT. In the third quarter, TT delivered overall results below our expectations, primarily due to sustained macro weakness across the global TiO2 market. In our key western markets, we experienced seasonal trends compounded by some near-term destocking that was partially offset by some sequential pricing strength.

In these Western markets, we view this destocking activity as short term as customers look to preserve cash as they navigate uncertainties in exiting the year. Alternatively, in our non-western markets, sequential pricing weakness was offset by sequential volume strength. Despite challenges in the broader market, our team demonstrated resilience while effectively addressing anticipated disruptions. Through our efforts, we are now well positioned to minimize future disruptions and respond proactively to external factors that may arise. While the broader market has yet to indicate improvements, we remain steadfast in our pursuit of a value-based commercial strategy.

This approach is aligned with the higher product quality that we provide to our customers and is reflective of the competitive advantages that we provide in reliability, customer service and sustainability. In line with this approach, in the fourth quarter, we recently communicated a global pricing increase, which is reflective of our value in the market. As we look at global market capacity, during the third quarter, we continued to see capacity rationalization of Chinese production and other western producers as the market continues to realign to a weaker demand environment.

While it is clear that exports of Chinese products continue, albeit at lower rates than last year, much of this inventory continues to be exported to Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa and parts of Latin America. In light of this, we are seeing the recent fair trade actions in Europe holding strong, but with additional supply in the market due to excess inventory from a Western producer's inability to continue operations in the third quarter. Also, we are pleased to see finalized fair trade actions taken in Brazil and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

However, Note that it will take some months for the existing oversupply of titanium dioxide inventory to work its way through the system in these markets. We believe these changes in the global supply environment provide longer-term opportunities in Western markets, but they are more muted in the near term due to the continued macro weakness and additional inventory in the system. I will provide additional perspectives on our strategic progress and our path for TT after Shane shares an update on our guidance for the period ahead. At the corporate level, we continue to make progress against our underlying cost structure, while it did incur some slightly more favorable cost partially due to the timing of certain legal spending, a portion of these lower costs are due to the continued cost efforts that the company has executed over time.

With that, I'll turn it over to Shane to walk through our outlook.

Thank you, Denise, and good morning, everyone. As shared in our earnings materials as well as the supplemental prepared financial remarks available on our investor website. I would like to now discuss our expectations for the fourth quarter and as we look ahead.

Beginning with TSS. For the fourth quarter, we expect net sales to decrease sequentially in the high teens to low 20s percentage range, driven by traditional seasonality with continued double-digit Opteon growth. This option performance is anticipated to more than offset declines in our Freon business year-over-year. TSS' adjusted EBITDA is expected to decrease sequentially, ranging between $125 million and $140 million, also driven by seasonality. As we made progress on our next-generation refrigerants and liquid cooling solutions, we anticipate continued investments to support our commercialization and product sampling efforts.

Similar to the $22 million in cost we saw this quarter, reflective of some onetime production-related costs, we expect another $8 million in the fourth quarter, burning our full year estimate of product development cost to approximately $40 million. As we look ahead into next year, we anticipate that we will continue to achieve double-digit year-over-year Opteon growth into the early part of the year as OEMs continue to transition to R454B in the U.S. We also expect modest benefits from our cost-out efforts driven by our expanded capacity through our recent Corpus expansion, which will continue to expand margins over time.

Also, we anticipate product development costs to be closer to $20 million next year, consistent with earlier expectations for annual spend. Overall, we anticipate continued sales growth for TSS paired with improved earnings as we head into next year. For our ATM business, we expect net sales to decrease in the low single-digit percentage range sequentially due to market weakness in the global industrial end markets where we have more sensitivity to macroeconomic conditions. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to approximate $30 million to $40 million in the fourth quarter, driven by a return to normal operations at our Washington Works site paired with continued progress on cost reduction efforts. We believe that APM's fourth quarter EBITDA will reflect our continued focus on operational excellence to drive increased reliability paired with continued cost-out efforts and should be at a more normalized level of earnings which we expect will continue in future quarters.

For our TT business, we expect sequential net sales to decrease in the high single digits to low teens percentage range, driven by seasonality, regional sales mix as well as near-term destocking, which we see continuing until the end of the year. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to decrease sequentially, ranging between $15 million and $20 million. During the third quarter, the company decided to lower its production volumes concurrently with what we are seeing in TT's value chain, while near-term demand expectations remain muted. This decrease in production will result in a $25 million cost impact to TT's adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter, offsetting sequential benefits or improved operations and cost reductions, but will improve TT's cash charge.

As Denise shared earlier, we anticipate that this destocking will be short term as downstream customers look to conserve cash moving into the end of the year. Looking to 2026, we anticipate similar stocking efforts in the first quarter. In connection with this first quarter restocking, we expect improved earnings as we head into next year, supported by improved operational performance.

However, we do anticipate unit market conditions to persist in the quarters ahead. Considering these weaker conditions, we are placing a greater emphasis on promoting improved cash generation, and we'll seek to closely align our production with anticipated demand. To this, when the broader market demand profile improves, we will align production, which will drive improved cost absorption across our circuit. With our resolve unchanged, we continue to make good progress on costs. however, recognize that the full benefit of these reductions may be masked by the impacts of our lower circuit operations.

On a consolidated basis, we anticipate our fourth quarter net sales to decrease 10% to 15% sequentially, with consolidated adjusted EBITDA expected to range between $130 million to $160 million. Also, we anticipate corporate expenses to range between $40 million and $45 million, considering the timing of certain accrued expenses.

Our capital expenditures for the fourth quarter are expected to be in the range of $50 million with free cash flow conversion expected to be between 50% and 70%. Based on these metrics, we would anticipate that full year 2025 sales would range between $5.7 billion and $5.8 billion with adjusted EBITDA to range between $745 million and $770 million with CapEx in the range of $220 million for the year. Looking forward to 2026, at a consolidated level, we anticipate overall sales and earnings growth with improved cash flow performance, supported by continued progress on our cost-out efforts.

We remain committed to improving our enterprise's financial position to support our pathway to drive strategy. Beyond the recent recapitalization of our U.S. term loan, which extended the maturity of the facility from 2028 to 2032, we continue to review our business portfolio as well as looking at other avenues to create value similar to critical minerals, which Denise will discuss in a minute. We are also taking a disciplined approach to the review of our nonoperating real estate footprint to determine how it can be optimized without impacting existing operations. Efforts like these aim to ensure that our resources are being used effectively and efficiently to further our strategic goals and to balance our financial flexibility.

With that context on our look ahead, I'd like to now hand the call back over to Denise to share perspective on our engagement in critical minerals and our continued strategic execution under pathway to Thrive.

Thank you, Shane. We continue to execute our pathway to Thrive strategy with clarity and conviction to build on the progress we have achieved to date across all our pillars. With that perspective, I'd like to provide additional context on where we participate in the area of critical minerals, which is concentrated in our TT business supporting our enabling growth pillar. While our minerals business is limited, we currently estimate approximately $90 million in mineral sales annually with roughly past consisting of high-value minerals comprised of [indiscernible] and precision investment casting, zircon. The monazite that we process domestically through our mines would support existing titanium dioxide feedstock operations continues a uniquely high portion of heavy rare earth elements that are used to produce permanent magnets critical for the electric vehicle and defense markets.

This attribute differentiates our domestic supply of Moneta compared to other forms of rare-earth pounds in North America. Additionally, we are the only qualified zircon supplier into U.S. precision investment casting applications, which is critical to the aerospace industry for both defense and commercial end users. While our access to mines in Florida and Georgia provide the opportunity to extract these minerals, our TT business also possesses the ability to separate these critical minerals.

Considering our specialized experience in the mining and mineral separation space, which has spanned over 75 years, we have been able to leverage this expertise to more recently attract government funding around our separation capabilities. This funding is designed to support innovative separation assets and to provide a framework to drive future growth in this space. Total grabs funding awarded for 2025 and 2026 approximate $10 million. While an area that we have operational experience in, we look forward to continuing research of this innovative separation technology to develop future critical mineral opportunities in the United States.

The presence of our mineral sales in the business today, combined with the potential of government support for future opportunities provides an exciting pathway for our company to enable growth while continuing to serve the needs of these critical end markets. With regards to the execution of our operational excellence pillar, we have also launched the Chemours business system to take the next step in operational excellence, applying lean principles to drive step change improvements in safety, quality and efficiency across our business operations.

As we build on our recent operating improvements, we are also focused on pursuing further rigor in our commercial effectiveness. We believe that the reduced operational disruptions and enhanced commercial efforts will drive earnings growth as we head into next year. As we shared in recent quarters, we remain focused on controlling what we can control while pursuing commercial growth opportunities where we can. We are confident in our ability to close out the year and remain committed to driving long-term value for our shareholders through disciplined execution, strategic growth and operational rigor.

As we continue to execute on the 4 pillars of our Pathway to Thrive strategy, we are routinely evaluating our existing portfolio for opportunities where there may be a more efficient path to return value to our shareholders. Our senior leadership and Board remain grounded in our belief that the execution of our transformation strategy will provide a greater degree of strategic flexibility and position the business to thrive.

Our team continues to pursue new ways to enable growth, remaining focused on optimizing our portfolio management efforts and is steadfast in our efficacy and execution to strengthen the long term for Chemours.

Thank you for your continued support. With that, I'd like to open the line for your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of John McNulty from BMO.

So maybe the first question is just on the TSS business. It sounds like despite what we've been hearing from some of the residential HVAC OEMs around kind of what looks like a volume speed bump. It sounds like you're not really seeing that and you don't expect it as you look to 2026.

I guess, can you help us to understand why that would be some of the smoothing mechanism that you may have in place and/or look, maybe it's just not -- while it was a big improvement this year, it may not be it's not the only part of your business. But I guess help us to understand why we're not going to see that speed bump work through the refrigeration side of the business.

John, thanks so much for the question. Yes, I mean, we, as a business, are focused always on maximizing value of our quota. So we have a broad portfolio outside of HVAC OEMs from an application, from a product, from a regional perspective. So we're always focused on maximizing the quota. We expect double-digit growth going into the fourth quarter and as we start 2026, I feel really proud of what the team has been able to deliver.

If you look at our refrigerant sales were up year-over-year 32%, 80% increase in Opteon year-over-year. And from a segment, our sales are up 20%, and we've had margin expansion from 30% to 35%.

Got it. Okay. Fair enough. No. And look, it's been a great performance this year so far. Okay. And then I guess the second one I wanted to dig into kind of goes to your last point, where you're constantly kind of reviewing the path to return value to the shareholders. And I guess to that, you've got -- you have a lot of balls in the air at this point. You've got the data center opportunity. It sounds like you at least have some opportunities around critical minerals as well as kind of running the other core businesses.

So kind of a lot going on. I guess, do you think Chemours has the bandwidth to manage all of that or are there other potential owners of some of these assets that might be better owners, not that you guys aren't good owners, but maybe better owners for specifically the way to get as much out of these assets as they could.

Yes, John, thanks for the question. We actually feel really good about the things that we're working on and really aligned with our pathway to thrive strategy. When you think about the strategy that we put in place, it really is about strengthening the company over the next several years. So you look at operational excellence, getting out $250 million of costs, enabling growth, getting to a 5% CAGR, portfolio management, as you talked about, the critical minerals or data centers and even around our ATM portfolio, some of the things that we've done and then our last pillar is strengthening the long term around our legal legacy liabilities and advocacy and really strengthening the whole portfolio.

So it's really about creating a strong company, strong balance sheet and to give us optionality as we move beyond pathway to Thrive.

Yes. Just to add to that, John, as you think about the third pillar about portfolio optimization going to are we the right owners, et cetera, we'll do whatever the right thing is to optimize the value to our shareholders and that's including as we're managing these internally and thinking through our options there.

Our next question comes from the line of Pete Osterland from Truist Securities.

So first, I just wanted to start on just operating performance within the TT business. It looks like you're guiding for the impact from operational disruptions to be 0 in the fourth quarter. So I was just wondering if you could give a bit more detail. I guess what specifically were the major improvements you've made operationally here. How much opportunity is there to improve further in the coming quarters and potentially offset some of the cost impact if you have to continue running at lower production rates.

Thanks, Pete. Yes, from an operation standpoint, and we're feeling very, very good. Many of the issues that we phase were onetime distinct issues. We've put contingency plans in place around those issues. We have brought in really strong operational leadership. We stood up our manufacturing COE and reliability is really 1 of the key elements of that work. We've responded extremely well in the third quarter, and it was really through the resilience of that teamwork. And we're moving forward even bolstering further putting in a standardized operating system throughout the company. So I feel really good about it.

I'm going to turn it over to Shane to kind of talk through the numbers.

Pete, thanks for noticing it. We do only anticipate the one-off operational issues that we saw earlier part of this year and the third quarter going forward, given all the efforts that Denise just mentioned and continued excellence will be -- that said, we did call out $25 million of, call it, fixed cost absorption that we're going to see in the fourth quarter, just given that we are decreasing production to align with what the demand is that we see ahead of us.

Those costs will continue, but it will depend upon where we ramp up production depending upon as we view demand ahead of us. That, as you mentioned, potential offsets, we continue that first pillar and pathway to drive and really driving out costs within TT, they are somewhat masked based on these fixed cost absorptions, but we'll continue to optimize and control what we can control.

Very helpful. And then just as a follow-up on TT, just on your announcement of the TiO2 price increase effective in December, what gives you confidence that this will be implemented given that global demand conditions are still pretty weak? And I guess by region, are there specific areas where you think market conditions are relatively more or less likely to support a price increase?

Yes. Actually, I feel really good about it. We've talked about our strategy being to maximize value and focusing on the fair trade markets. We've seen -- throughout the year, we've actually seen price stability in these markets. There's obviously stuff going on at the end of the year. There's onetime issues. They're temporal, right? So you have liquidation of inventory from a Western player that's unable to continue operations. You have liquidation of inventory from in Chinese producers. There was uncertainty in tariffs that was introduced by India, but that's going to get resolved. And if you look at the value chain, there's destocking from the value chain we're confident that our customers are going to be restocking in the first quarter that ADD is going to be resolved in India and we're going to start seeing the impact of the other areas in Brazil and Saudi Arabia. We're confident moving forward. As I said, we've seen stability in the fair trade markets we play in. And in particular, in EMEA in North America. So we're confident moving forward.

Our next question comes from the line of John Roberts from Mizuho.

How are you thinking about the replacement market for HFOs? How fast do you think that develops? And does it become financially material in the next 18, 24 months to sort of move the overall HFO numbers.

John, as we look ahead, we gave perspectives around '26 that we see double-digit Opteon growth into the first part of next year. Obviously, that is driven by the HFO market. As we look at growth into '26, we gave a guide just overall growth in sales and earnings and cash flow for TSS, and that's going to be driven primarily by that HFO transition, both on the OEM side and the aftermarket.

Our next question comes from the line of Arun Viswanathan from RBC Capital Markets.

I guess maybe I'll start with TT. So -- when we go back about a year or so, it looks like we were thinking that the segment would be maybe in the 300-or-so million range for EBITDA, and you're significantly below that. And similarly for the company, we were kind of in the 875 range. Now you're in the 750 range. So I guess, as you look back on this year, would you say that the main shortfall has been in TiO2 demand? Or would you cite something else as well? And is this -- because we went in this year thinking that the pathway to thrive would add maybe $100 million or $125 million of cost reductions. And it seems like the demand weakness has more than offset that.

So maybe you can just comment on what kind of played out in TiO2 this year and if it was worse than what you expected.

Yes. Thanks, Arun. Definitely, demand played a part in TiO2. Also some of the, I'll say, the shakiness with the tariffs and the duties implementation. As well as -- as I talked about, these onetime operational issues, we are very confident in our $125 million cost out. You can see it in many places already disguise and some, but I'm going to turn it over to Shane to give you a little bit more color on that.

Yes. Thanks, Arun. As we look -- coming into this year, I don't think we expected the $100 million -- close to $100 million in operational impacts in the year. certainly a step back as well as the impacts on TT, whether it be the destocking areas that we've seen or Denise mentioned some of the operational impacts of just overall lack of demand in slow markets.

Now on the flip side, right, I think we are really pleasantly surprised on the impacts of TSS and really what they've driven in the year from a solid performance. So just really wanted to applaud that group as we're looking at some of the decreases in the year, but also we've had really solid performance in our PSS business.

Great. And I guess maybe I can just ask a follow-up on TSS. So maybe you can kind of give us some of the drivers for that growth that you expect next year Again, it seems like we're coming off a pretty strong step down year as well as shortages that maybe drove some pretty robust pricing. So -- when you look into next year now that Corpus is running up, would that be a contributor, maybe the chiller adoption does that get you in the kind of double-digit growth?

Or how should we think about TSS, especially in light of some of those HVAC inventory OEM overhangs?

Yes. Thanks, Arun. As we look ahead to 26, 1 of the thing to note as you look at the OEM transition, about 75% has transitioned in. So we still have that runway going in as well as we believe the aftermarket will grow somewhat as well. we feel confident in our commercial execution. If you look at what happened in '25, we really think just looking ahead that our commercial group is primed to continue the growth in TSS given the transition aspects. The other area there as you look at just cost out and controlling control, you mentioned the expansion of Corpus Christi.

We do believe that will be a tailwind going into next year as we drive further cost optimization. And then lastly, we did have some higher onetime costs related to our next-generation refrigerants as well as our liquid cooling venture, which we don't anticipate to occur. I put that is this year, it's going to be roughly about $40 million, and we believe the annual run rate is going to be in the $20 million range.

Great. And just as a quick follow-up. So when you think about -- again, when you think about this year and how it played out, -- there were a number of operational disruptions. There were, again, weak demand. How do you kind of foresee the next year? I mean, do you think those operational disappointments are kind of in the rearview mirror?

What can you do to not necessarily have those kinds of disruptions impact you next year and really kind of show that growth that we know that the portfolio can achieve. It's just been a little bit disheartening at times when we know that the growth is there. It's just not -- it's just getting offset by some of these factors that some of which appear to be somewhat in your control. So maybe you can just address what you're doing to really tighten that up.

Yes, definitely. I completely agree. We -- and this has been a #1 focus. Our first pillar is operational excellence. And we've made a lot of investments. We talked about the manufacturing COE in leadership and operations and just investments in really how we work in our processes. So -- and I feel really good about that. I agree. It's something that we look at is in our rear-view mirror.

Our next question comes from the line of Josh Spector from UBS.

I had a few follow-ups on TSS. I'll just leave together. First, just to confirm on the liquid cooling investment, the $22 million versus the targeted $5 million that flow through EBITDA, correct? And just what exactly drove that delta versus your expectation?

Yes. Thanks, Josh. It did flow through EBITDA, yes. And what drove it was, as we're continuing development of the liquoring venture and thinking through that side, there are areas that we continue to develop specific to the charge related to an intermediate related to the product development side that we had to essentially take a charge-off for. So it's a onetime area. It's not something we anticipate going forward.

So is that something you spent money on that you're writing off related with liquid cooling? Or is that some other investment?

No. It's a noncash item. As we look ahead, we do anticipate value coming out of that. It was more of an accounting related area.

Okay. And then secondly, with the whole TSS moving parts of what you've had. So if we look at what you reported in 3Q and 2Q, you beat your expectations that you put out there by about $20 million. I mean if we then add back this item that we're discussing, that's maybe $35 million in the fourth quarter -- sorry, third quarter. I guess if you separate the pieces, we know your competitor had some issues with sales and you guys benefited in aftermarket. How much of that is sustainable and that you won share, you keep it? How much of that would you characterize as potentially temporary due to the supply constraints and just the dynamics within 2Q, 3Q that do not repeat into next year.

Josh, thanks for the question. Yes, I mean, we feel confident in our commercial capabilities. Certainly, there's a little bit of a competitive aspect. But we really deliver and we know the customers and the value chain appreciated it. We also have other levers as Sean talked about relative to margin with the scaling up of our Corpus facility and the continued growth in the aftermarket segment where we've demonstrated a lot of strength.

But I guess to be clear on that last point, scaling Corpus helps you maybe $20 million, $30 million does that offset some of the shift that you would expect, and therefore, that's neutral? Like is that rough framing about right? Or would you characterize it differently?

Yes, Josh, I go back to the guidance we provided, which is we anticipate earnings growth going in from '25 to '26 that's inclusive of the Corpus expansion, but also inclusive of where we believe our top line revenue is going, as I indicated, sales were going to grow. As you mentioned, right, we've had some really good performance in Q2 and Q3. We believe we can hold on to that performance and in the material amount and going into '26 as well.

Our next question comes from the line of Duffy Fisher from Goldman Sachs.

Can you help size for me as we've kind of pushed the Chinese out of Europe with ADD, Venator liquidating, how much opportunity or how much volume does that open up for you guys to go after? Same thing for Brazil and India. And then relative to your market shares in those markets, would you expect to be below kind of at your market share or above your market share and winning the business that's kind of foregone by those actions?

Thanks, Duffy. Yes. I mean our strategy is to grow our share in the fair market markets. And we expect about 800 kilotons around, if you think about all those areas, Europe, India, Brazil. So yes, a great opportunity for us, and we expect to be focused on growing share.

Okay. And then could you size for me on your ore inputs, how important is Rio's African operations? As you know, publicly, they've said that they're looking at that you don't know what hands those could end up in potentially maybe a Chinese competitor.

So how important is their ore in your operations? And if that fell in the hands of somebody who was a competitor, what would be the needed steps you'd take to offset that?

Yes. I mean we have -- our strategy is really around as we've talked about in the past, a really large portfolio of ores that we can accept and the diversity of the way we're able to run our manufacturing plan. So we don't see that as having any material impact on us.

Our next question comes from the line of Hassan Ahmad from Alembic Global Advisors.

Denise and Shane. A question around the net Q4 sort of TT guidance you guys gave. If I read correctly, you guys are guiding to sales declines in the high single digits to low teens. I'm just trying to reconcile that. From the sounds of it, it seems you're looking for sort of maybe low single-digit volume declines -- and I'm just trying to reconcile that with 1 of your larger sort of Western competitors talking about 3% to 5% volume increment sequentially in Q4.

I mean is this a geographic footprinting, is this a market share thing? All of the above? I would love clarity around that.

Yes. Thanks, Hassan. I mean -- we have -- obviously, from our -- from different competitors, we have different customers, we have strength in different regions. This is what we see where we are, and it's also the strategy that we're executing.

Understood. Understood. And as a follow-up, just your thoughts on anti-evolution. I mean since 2023, it seems 1.1 million tons of titanium dioxide capacity has been shuttered. And if I sort of take a look at some of these older subscale facilities, in China, they amount to maybe around 700,000 tonnes.

So I mean, what's your thought process around potential shuttering of those 700,000 tons of capacity in China?

Yes. I mean, our current belief is that based on the research we've done is that at least $300 million kilotons will be permanently shut down. I would expect and more would shut down, especially as the duties really come into play. I mean, we've seen it in the U.S. We've seen it in Europe. -- with that, with the duty structure, it really does protect the Western players from the dumping of the Chinese producers. So at least 300 expected to be more.

And Dennis, just to clarify, that $300 million would be incremental to the $1.1 billion that's already been announced, correct?

No, it will be inclusive.

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

Could you roll out the comments around destocking and give some perspective as you look back on the year, how much of a net headwind, do you think those kinds of dynamics might have had so that we can think about level setting for 2026 and 2027.

Yes. I mean from the destocking standpoint, it really is on both sides, right? So it's on the producer side. as well as on the -- I would say that is really more kind of third quarter-ish, going maybe a little into the fourth quarter. And then from customer value chain perspective really seeing that in the markets where we serve going into the to the fourth quarter, but let Jane maybe add some color around the numbers.

Yes. Thanks, Lawrence. I mean, obviously, we've seen a volume impact this year since '24 to '25. I think there's a balance there between the destocking we saw in the beginning part of the year and going into the end of the year, but offset by some really good diligence with the commercial team in gaining share. So quantifying such I'd rather not get into at this point, but really it's a balance between the share gains and really the destocking decrease on the other side.

And secondly, just on the TT side, can you give sort of an update on how important Architectural Coatings are to the overall profit pool for you?

Yes. I mean architecting are very important for us. It's about, I would say, 70% of our PC business.

And then on the refrigerant gases, can you give us a sense for kind of what the next wave after option of refrigerants might look like? And in particular, I guess I'm curious if there's eventually going to be a fluoro gas, that is also sort of engineered to self-destruct sort of to deal with the -- to basically -- like are there ways in fluoropolymers and fluorogases to deal with the forever chemicals by sort of crafting ones with the same functionality but also kind of a vulnerability in certain environments.

Yes. I mean I would say our work around our next-generation refrigerant, I mean this -- in this business, we continue to kind of reinvent the category and our next-generation refrigerant is along those lines, and we're going to continue to innovate even beyond that.

Our next question comes from the line of Jeff Zekauskas from JPMorgan.

When you look at titanium dioxide market, is there a price erosion in the United States as you see it? Or is it really confined to the other geographies?

Yes. I mean I can really talking about our portfolio, as I said, we've had actually stability in pricing in 2025 in the U.S. Year-over-year, there has been a decline. But as we said this year, we've seen stability, and we're moving forward with a price increase.

And in India, do you think that a ruling on the stay of -- stay of the duties will come in the fourth quarter? Or will it take until next year? Or really, nobody can tell.

Our current intelligence and thinking is that it will happen by the end of the year.

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

Denise, you sort of referenced earlier in TT that pathway to thrive is sort of being obscured by the challenging demand environment in terms of your profitability. So if you could just bridge us, let's assume that the assets run reliably for a full year where -- how much volume growth do you need before you think we would see sort of the full blossoming of pathway to thrive in the TiO2 segment from a margin perspective.

Yes. I mean I think that even if you just look at where we are now, I think a modest increase in demand will actually get us on track. We've had some operational issues, which have hindered us in 2025. So you're feeling positive about it going into 2026.

Okay. And then, Shane, if I could ask you, you mentioned the real estate strategy. So I don't know how significant this could be if you want to tell us about some assets you have that maybe you could completely monetize? Or are you just looking to do sale leaseback kind of things and just get stuff off your balance sheet, but maybe just a little detail on that.

Yes, thanks. That was really one of a couple of things that I pointed to as we think about looking at our portfolio and our assets and our infrastructure and just being outside the box to unlock value, right? So I pointed to, obviously, our portfolio optimization pillar, the critical minerals, which Denise just mentioned during the call, as well as the real estate portfolio as we look at strategic areas.

I don't want to get into the specifics, but I do think there's areas there that can help us from a cash flow perspective going forward, so as not to disrupt our current cash flow.

Our next question comes from the line of Roger Spitz from Bank of America.

Can you give us a sense of the impact on industry pricing and volumes when Venator Materials sort of is liquidating their inventory, which we understand has impacted materially Q3 and I'm thinking it's going to take a lot longer than 1 quarter, I presume, for them to liquidate their inventory. I mean, is this something that's going to take them several quarters that we'll see this headwind.

Thank you. Yes, we don't anticipate several quarters. We really see this probably have kind of coming through in the current quarter from that perspective. I would say just pricing and volume impacts, obviously, was a material impact to us and to the market as we saw in Q3. I don't really want to get into the specific numbers there.

Got it. And I know you don't owe these 2 technologies, but you will aren't very good with chloride process to 2. So you've got this announcement of [indiscernible] buying mentors, [indiscernible] in the U.K. And I'm wondering if you have guys have any sense of how different or similar the effectively ICI chlorous technology is to the on billions who's using, I understand the PPG's core process technology, like 11 billion is trying to improve that PPG operations is getting their hands on the ICI Corpus enology, something that will help them operate better in China?

Yes. I mean, first of all, this is still hasn't been settled right? And there's many questions around that transaction. All I can say is we understand the technologies in the industry. Our technology is really the premium technology. And from a competitive standpoint, we don't see that as an issue.

Our next question comes from the line of Aaron Rosenthal from JPM.

I guess I was looking at the 10-Q, and I noticed the commentary on the government shutdown was pretty interesting. Seems like a lot of moving pieces, but is there any risks that implicate anything tied to the HFO transition or anything on the EPA front maybe as it relates to GSS broadly or even in the context of addressing the legacy environmental liabilities?

And then maybe if you could also help us frame the magnitude of the potential call it, cash payments or collections that are at risk tied to existing government contracts and anywhere exactly within your portfolio, this would be relevant to.

Thanks, Aaron. Yes, relative to the government shutdown and TSS and HFO as we see basically no impact. The market's already transitioned, and we don't see that coming -- that changing Really, from the comments around the EPA, I mean, we've talked about before our fourth pillar around strengthening the long term. A lot of it is about advocacy. And we've had an open door talking with various agencies within the government and for us, with it being shut down, has kind of slowed that down a bit. So we're really excited and hoping that they reopen soon so we can really continue to advance that pillar of our strategy. And your last point there as it relates to government business and any perspectives around accounts receivable or cash flow. We don't see any material impacts due to the shutdown.

Okay. And then maybe just taking a look at the balance sheet and the upcoming maturities. So following the USD term loan being extended, you still have the neuro piece out there and then the '27 unsecured which presumably will be addressed 12 months out from the May '27 maturity. Will you be approaching these refinancings piece by piece or all at once? And I guess is there any willingness to issue new secured debt to refinance the existing unsecured bonds.

Yes, thanks. Obviously, we were out in the market, extending the [indiscernible] that side recently, pretty proud of where it closed just given the hard market that we were facing. I think as we look at other expirations coming up on that side, we'll continue to be opportunistic when we hit the market if it allows on that side. I would say, with the near-term notes, right, you mentioned refinancing that 12 months out. we will look -- or differing structures to ensure that those do not come up for -- to be current. So that's kind of where I will lead that from that perspective.

Great. And then if I could sneak one more in. If you can just remind us what your current secured debt capacity is maybe following that term loan exercise?

Yes. We feel very good about the headroom owner secured side on this side. We have leased 2 turns on that side.

We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. Thank you for joining the Chemours Third Quarter 2025 Results Conference Call. You may now disconnect.