伊士曼化學 (EMN) 2019 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Eastman Chemical Company First Quarter 2019 Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. This call is being broadcast live on the Eastman's website, www.eastman.com.

大家好，歡迎參加伊士曼化學公司 2019 年第一季電話會議。今天的會議正在錄製中。這場電話會議正在伊士曼網站 www.eastman.com 上現場直播。

We will now turn the call over to Mr. Greg Riddle of Eastman Chemical Company Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

現在我們將電話轉給伊士曼化學公司投資者關係部的 Greg Riddle 先生。請繼續。

Okay. Thank you, Kim, and good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us. On the call with me today are Mark Costa, Board Chair and CEO; Curt Espeland, Executive Vice President and CFO; and Jake LaRoe, Manager, Investor Relations.

好的。謝謝你，金，大家早安，謝謝你們加入我們。今天與我一起參加電話會議的有董事會主席兼首席執行官馬克·科斯塔 (Mark Costa)、執行副總裁兼首席財務官科特·埃斯佩蘭 (Curt Espeland) 和投資者關係經理傑克·拉羅 (Jake LaRoe)。

Before we begin, I'll cover 2 items. First, during this presentation, you will hear certain forward-looking statements concerning our plans and expectations. Actual events or results could differ materially. Certain factors related to future expectations are or will be detailed in the company's first quarter 2019 financial results news release, also during this call and in the accompanying slides, and in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Form 10-K filed for 2018 and the Form 10-Q to be filed for first quarter 2019.

在我們開始之前，我將介紹兩件事。首先，在本次演示中，您將聽到有關我們的計劃和期望的一些前瞻性陳述。實際事件或結果可能有重大差異。與未來預期相關的某些因素已在或將在公司 2019 年第一季財務業績新聞稿、本次電話會議和隨附幻燈片以及我們向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件中詳細說明，包括 2018 年提交的 10-K 表和將於 2019 年第一季提交的 10-Q 表。

Second, earnings referenced in this presentation excludes certain noncore and unusual items. In addition, historic quarterly earnings use an adjusted tax rate, using the forecasted tax rate for the full year that excludes the provision for income taxes for the same noncore and unusual items. Reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures and other associated disclosures, including a description of the excluded and adjusted items, are available in the first quarter 2019 financial results news release, which can be found on our website, www.eastman.com in the Investors section. Projections of future earnings exclude any noncore, unusual or nonrecurring items.

其次，本報告中提到的收益不包括某些非核心和不尋常的項目。此外，歷史季度收益使用調整後的稅率，採用全年預測稅率，不包括相同非核心和非常項目的所得稅準備金。與最直接可比較的 GAAP 財務指標及其他相關披露的對賬，包括排除項目和調整項目的描述，均可在 2019 年第一季度財務業績新聞稿中找到，該新聞稿可在我們的網站 www.eastman.com 的“投資者”部分找到。未來收益預測不包括任何非核心、不尋常或非經常性項目。

With that, I'll turn the call over to Mark.

說完這些，我會把電話轉給馬克。

Thanks, Greg, and good morning, everyone. I'll start on Page 3. In the first quarter of 2019, we had a number of accomplishments we can be proud of and a number of challenges to take on. Before we get into the financial results of the quarter, I'd like to pause and take a moment to discuss some of the important highlights from the quarter.

謝謝，格雷格，大家早安。我從第 3 頁開始。在 2019 年第一季度，我們取得了許多值得驕傲的成就，也面臨許多挑戰。在我們了解本季的財務結果之前，我想停下來花點時間討論本季的一些重要亮點。

First, after challenging fourth quarter, we delivered a 28% sequential improvement in our earnings and we expect this momentum to continue on to the second quarter. We also received an ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year award for the eighth consecutive year, demonstrating our commitment to operate our facilities responsibly and efficiently. Eastman is always searching for ways to leverage our world-class operations and macro trends like sustainability, and I'm proud of the investments we're making in methanolysis and the carbon renewal technology, which provides serious solutions to enable the circular economy.

首先，在經歷了充滿挑戰的第四季之後，我們的獲利環比成長了 28%，我們預計這一勢頭將持續到第二季​​度。我們也連續第八年榮獲能源之星年度合作夥伴獎，彰顯了我們負責任、高效營運設施的承諾。伊士曼一直在尋找方法來利用我們世界一流的營運和永續發展等宏觀趨勢，我對我們在甲醇分解和碳更新技術方面的投資感到自豪，這為實現循環經濟提供了重要的解決方案。

In this environment, we continue to see strong customer engagement with our innovation programs and delivered an 8% increase in new business revenue closes from our innovative products. As always, we also continue to aggressively execute on cost management, running a highly productive organization, and we've increased our cost-reduction actions given the short-term macroeconomic challenges.

在這種環境下，我們繼續看到客戶對我們的創新計劃的強烈參與，並且我們的創新產品的新業務收入增加了 8%。像往常一樣，我們也繼續積極執行成本管理，運作一個高效率的組織，並且考慮到短期宏觀經濟挑戰，我們增加了成本削減措施。

Consistent with our strategy to pursue bolt-on acquisitions in our specialty businesses, we completed the acquisition of Marlotherm heat transfer fluids from Sasol, opening up their product offerings to new regions, and we'll continue to pursue bolt-on M&A where it makes sense. Core to how we win is our ethics and integrity, and we appreciate the recognition is one of the World's Most Ethical Companies by Ethisphere for the sixth consecutive time.

按照我們在專業業務領域進行補強收購的策略，我們完成了對 Sasol 的 Marlotherm 傳熱流體的收購，向新的地區開放了他們的產品供應，並且我們將繼續在合理的範圍內進行補強併購。我們獲勝的核心是我們的道德和誠信，我們很高興連續第六次被 Ethisphere 評為全球最具商業道德的公司之一。

And finally, these awards and the focus of our strategy comes back to our owners, where we consistently return cash to our shareholders. We returned $212 million to shareholders in the first quarter of 2019, an 18% increase over the first quarter of '18.

最後，這些獎勵和我們策略的重點都回歸到了我們的所有者身上，我們始終如一地向股東返還現金。2019 年第一季度，我們向股東返還了 2.12 億美元，比 2018 年第一季成長了 18%。

On Slide 4, we continue to execute our innovation-driven growth model to create superior value. Today, I'd like to highlight 2 specialty product lines: one is Advanced Materials and another is Additives & Functional Products, both in a challenging end market: transportation. Although we've seen weakness in global transportation markets over the past 2 quarters, especially in Asia, I'm very excited to report that our team continues to deliver strong growth in our premium innovative products. One example, fueling this growth is Saflex heads-up display, where we are delivering double-digit growth, including an impressive 20% growth in Europe. We're well positioned to create growth in an even challenging transportation market for a number of reasons.

在投影片 4 上，我們持續執行創新驅動的成長模式，以創造卓越的價值。今天，我想重點介紹兩條專業產品線：一條是先進材料，另一條是添加劑和功能產品，它們都處於一個充滿挑戰的終端市場：運輸。儘管過去兩個季度我們看到全球運輸市場疲軟，尤其是在亞洲，但我很高興地報告，我們的團隊繼續在優質創新產品方面實現強勁增長。推動這一成長的一個例子是 Saflex 平視顯示器，我們在該領域實現了兩位數的成長，其中在歐洲實現了令人印象深刻的 20% 的成長。由於多種原因，我們有能力在充滿挑戰的運輸市場中成長。

Our world-class PVB technology platform enables us to continue to introduce new products to meet the evolving needs of the marketplace. We are deeply engaged both with our customers and equally important across the entire value chain, including the premium auto OEM brands and projector manufacturers. And our application development capabilities enable us to tune our products for the unique challenges associated with each model, including standards for optical clarity and the complexity of the design. The end result is our products sold at a premium price, growing at multiples of the underlying market to meet this reinforce of the value of our innovation-driven growth model.

我們世界一流的 PVB 技術平台使我們能夠不斷推出新產品，以滿足市場不斷變化的需求。我們與客戶保持著密切的聯繫，並且在整個價值鏈中也發揮著同樣重要的作用，包括高端汽車 OEM 品牌和投影機製造商。我們的應用程式開發能力使我們能夠針對與每種型號相關的獨特挑戰調整我們的產品，包括光學清晰度標準和設計的複雜性。最終結果是我們的產品以高價出售，並以基礎市場的數倍增長，以滿足我們創新驅動型成長模式的價值強化。

Another innovation in transportation is where we're winning with customers in our next-generation Crystex product, which is essential in a challenging tires market. It is produced at our new facility in Kuantan, Malaysia, which is now fully operational and we're seeing accelerated adoption of our new and innovative product, Crystex Cure Pro. Tire makers, to win in their markets, are under constant pressure to improve tire performance as well as operational efficiency. Working closely with our customers to better understand these challenges drove us to develop a superior product, and we're getting validation from customers that they're seeing significant benefit in line speed improvements, scrap reduction and energy savings.

交通運輸領域的另一項創新是我們的下一代 Crystex 產品贏得了客戶，這在充滿挑戰的輪胎市場中至關重要。它是在我們位於馬來西亞關丹的新工廠生產的，該工廠現已全面投入運營，我們的創新產品 Crystex Cure Pro 正在加速普及。為了在市場上取勝，輪胎製造商面臨著不斷提高輪胎性能和營運效率的壓力。透過與客戶密切合作以更好地了解這些挑戰，我們開發出了優質的產品，並且我們得到了客戶的認可，他們在生產線速度提高、廢品減少和能源節約方面看到了顯著的好處。

As a testament to the tire additives team's relentless engagement with the market, we're now working with more than half of the top 30 tire makers in the world on our next-generation Crystex and have 9 new plant trials in progress in the first quarter.

作為輪胎添加劑團隊不懈參與市場的證明，我們目前正在與全球前 30 名輪胎製造商中的一半以上合作開發我們的下一代 Crystex，並且在第一季正在進行 9 個新工廠的試驗。

Finally, we're proud that Crystex Cure Pro is recognized as a finalist in the 2019 Tire Technology International Awards for Innovation and Excellence. And we're the only innovation honored that was now created by a tire company. While the tires markets will be challenging for us in this year given our legacy products, Cure Pro is already demonstrating that we can extend our differentiated position as we move forward in filling out this new plant. These are just 2 of many great examples we have that demonstrate how our specialties are delivering today and our innovation and market connections position us to continue to win in the future.

最後，我們很自豪 Crystex Cure Pro 入圍 2019 年輪胎技術國際創新與卓越獎決賽。我們是唯一獲得此項殊榮的輪胎公司創新成果。雖然由於我們現有的產品，今年輪胎市場對我們來說將充滿挑戰，但 Cure Pro 已經證明，隨著新工廠的建設，我們可以擴大我們的差異化地位。這只是我們眾多優秀例子中的兩個，它們展示了我們的專業技術如何在今天發揮作用，以及我們的創新和市場聯繫如何使我們在未來繼續獲勝。

With that, I'll turn it over to Curt.

說完這些，我就把麥克風交給 Curt。

Thanks, Mark, and good morning, everyone. It's always a pleasure to spend this hour together. I'll begin with a review of our corporate results on Slide 5. Although challenges from the fourth quarter persisted into the first, we increased EBIT by 28% sequentially with growth in 3 of our 4 segments. Driving this improvement was a seasonal increase in volume, improved product mix and higher spreads.

謝謝，馬克，大家早安。能一起度過這一小時總是令人愉快的。我先從幻燈片 5 上的公司業績回顧開始。儘管第四季度的挑戰一直持續到第一季度，但我們的息稅前利潤 (EBIT) 環比增長了 28%，4 個部門中有 3 個部門實現了增長。推動這項改善的因素包括銷量的季節性成長、產品組合的改善以及利差的擴大。

On a year-over-year basis, sales revenue and earnings decreased mostly due to lower volume. We managed our controllable cost down significantly in the quarter. These actions were more than offset by a stronger dollar and cost in which we have less discretion such as higher pension costs, netting out to greater than a $30 million headwind year-over-year.

與去年同期相比，銷售收入和收益下降主要是因為銷售量下降。本季我們大幅降低了可控成本。這些行動被美元走強和成本（例如更高的退休金成本）所抵消，我們在這些成本方面的自由裁量權較少，與去年同期相比淨虧損超過 3,000 萬美元。

Looking across to our end markets, we experienced volume softness, particularly in transportation, consumables and consumer durables, especially in Asia and Europe. Global economic uncertainty persisted throughout the first quarter, which contributed to the softness, and in particular, higher-margin specialty businesses such as tire additives, adhesives and specialty plastics were most impacted by the challenges in these end markets. The primary driver continues to be the U.S.-China trade wars impact on demand in China and its associated impact on Europe, which is highly dependent on exports to Asia.

縱觀我們的終端市場，我們經歷了銷售疲軟，特別是在運輸、消耗品和耐用消費品領域，尤其是在亞洲和歐洲。在整個第一季度，全球經濟的不確定性持續存在，導致經濟疲軟，尤其是輪胎添加劑、黏合劑和特種塑膠等利潤率較高的特種業務受到這些終端市場挑戰的影響最大。主要驅動因素仍然是中美貿易戰對中國需求的影響及其對高度依賴對亞洲出口的歐洲的影響。

Looking at the cadence through the quarter. January was about as expected, but after Chinese New Year, demand was sluggish and did not pick up as we had hoped. Destocking was evident throughout the quarter and a substantial contributor to our volume decline. That said, March was a strong month and April orders gave us confidence we'll continue the trend upwards into the second quarter, and we're seeing signs of destocking coming to an end across many of our end markets.

回顧整個季度的節奏。一月份的情況與預期大致相同，但農曆新年過後，需求低迷，並沒有像我們所希望的那樣回暖。整個季度庫存都明顯減少，這是導致我們銷售下降的重要因素。話雖如此，三月表現強勁，四月份的訂單讓我們有信心將這一上升趨勢延續到第二季​​度，而且我們看到許多終端市場的去庫存趨勢即將結束。

Moving now to our segment reviews and beginning with Advanced Materials on Slide 6. Both sales revenue and EBIT increased sequentially with EBIT up $30 million or 42%. Higher sales volume and improved product mix drove the sequential improvement in first quarter. On a year-over-year basis, sales revenue decreased primarily due to lower specialty plastics sales volume and an unfavorable shift in foreign currency exchange rates.

現在轉到我們的分部回顧，從幻燈片 6 上的先進材料開始。銷售收入和息稅前利潤均連續成長，息稅前利潤成長 3,000 萬美元，成長 42%。銷售量的增加和產品組合的改善推動了第一季的環比成長。與去年同期相比，銷售收入下降主要是由於特種塑膠銷量下降以及外匯匯率的不利變動。

Lower volume in specialty plastics was due to continued customer inventory destocking, particularly consumer durables related to the uncertainty caused by the U.S.-China trade dispute. As a highlight for the quarter, performance films and advanced interlayers volume and mix were relatively unchanged, despite declining vehicle build rates globally. Growth in high-margin innovation products such as paint protection film, heads-up display interlayers and architectural interlayers is offsetting declines in the underlying auto market.

特種塑膠銷售下降是由於客戶持續去庫存，特別是與中美貿易爭端造成的不確定性相關的耐用消費品。本季度的一個亮點是，儘管全球汽車生產率下降，但高性能薄膜和高級中間層的產量和組合相對沒有變化。漆面保護膜、平視顯示器夾層和建築夾層等高利潤創新產品的成長正在抵消汽車市場的下滑。

EBIT declined year-over-year primarily due to lower sales volume and unfavorable exchange rates, and we're also still working of our high-cost inventory from last year. Looking forward, we expect strong sequential improvement for revenue and EBIT in the second quarter due to a few factors. Tritan destocking coming to an end with primary demand intact, continued mix upgrade due to products like paint protection films and premium interlayer products, typical seasonality and improvement in the flow of the lower raw material costs in our inventory. Taking these factors together, we expect EBIT in the segment will be similar to the second quarter of 2018. Looking at the full year, given the positive trends in the business, we continue to expect Advanced Materials will grow EBIT between 7% and 10% relative to 2018.

息稅前利潤年減主要是因為銷售量下降和匯率不利，我們仍在處理去年的高成本庫存。展望未來，我們預期由於一些因素，第二季的營收和息稅前利潤將較上季強勁成長。Tritan 去庫存即將結束，主要需求保持不變，由於漆面保護膜和優質夾層產品等產品的組合繼續升級，典型的季節性以及庫存中較低原材料成本流動的改善。綜合考慮這些因素，我們預計該部門的息稅前利潤將與 2018 年第二季相似。縱觀全年，鑑於業務的積極趨勢，我們仍然預計先進材料的息稅前利潤將比 2018 年增長 7% 至 10%。

Moving now to Slide 7. Additives & Functional Products also had strong sequential improvement with EBIT up $27 million or 22%. The sequential improvement was due to improved product mix and increased spreads. Sales revenue decreased year-over-year particularly for adhesives resins due to continued competitive pressures and for tire additives products attributed to trade-related pressures. In tire additives, in particular, trade-related uncertainty has had a significant impact on Chinese tire production during the time when overall Chinese economic demand is going down. Chinese tire producers have adjusted accordingly by destocking their inventories.

現在轉到投影片 7。添加劑和功能產品也實現了強勁的連續成長，息稅前利潤增加了 2,700 萬美元，增幅為 22%。連續的改善是由於產品組合的改善和利差的增加。銷售收入較去年同期下降，特別是黏合劑樹脂因持續的競爭壓力而下降，輪胎添加劑產品則因貿易壓力而下降。特別是在輪胎添加劑方面，在中國整體經濟需求下降的時期，貿易相關的不確定性對中國輪胎生產產生了重大影響。中國輪胎生產商已做出相應調整，減少庫存。

As a result, tire additive competitors have excess capacity in China, which has caused some short-term competitive dynamics in our legacy products. We have confidence that dynamics will improve as we continue to see great adoption of our next-generation Crystex Cure Pro in the marketplace. For adhesives, we face competitive pressure from new competitor capacity as we have discussed in prior calls.

因此，輪胎添加劑競爭對手在中國的產能過剩，導致我們的傳統產品在短期內出現一些競爭態勢。我們相信，隨著我們下一代 Crystex Cure Pro 在市場上的廣泛採用，動態將會改善。對於黏合劑，我們面臨來自新競爭對手產能的競爭壓力，正如我們在先前的電話會議中所討論的那樣。

Revenues were also negatively impacted by a stronger dollar. Lower selling prices year-over-year were largely attributed to Care Chemicals due to cost pass-through contracts, producing stable earnings.

美元走強也對收入產生了負面影響。銷售價格年減主要歸因於護理化學品業務因成本轉嫁合約而產生的穩定收益。

Looking at EBIT, the year-over-year decrease was primarily due to lower sales volume and an unfavorable shift in foreign currency exchange rates. To a lesser extent, excluding the Care Chemicals cost pass-through contracts, prices were relatively flat sequentially with higher costs raw material flow through creating some pressure on spreads year-over-year.

從息稅前利潤來看，年減主要是因為銷售量下降和外匯匯率的不利變動。在較小程度上，不包括護理化學品成本轉嫁合同，價格環比相對持平，但原材料成本的增加對同比價差產生了一些壓力。

Looking at the second quarter, we expect sequential improvement in both revenue and EBIT due to seasonally stronger volume, an increase in spreads as lower cost raw materials continue to flow through inventory, but earnings will not get back to last year's levels due to volume still recovering and unfavorable currency. And we expect spreads to be similar to last year.

展望第二季度，我們預計收入和息稅前利潤將環比改善，原因是季節性銷量增加，隨著低成本原材料繼續流經庫存，利差將擴大，但由於銷量仍在恢復和貨幣不利，盈利將無法回到去年的水平。我們預期利差將與去年相似。

As we move to the second half of the year, we expect demand to improve for coatings, adhesives and tire additives, assuming the trade dispute with China is resolved. There may also be some upside as China appears to be stepping up the environmental enforcement actions. For the full year, we expect 2019 EBIT to be similar to, or slightly better than 2018.

隨著進入下半年，假設與中國的貿易爭端得到解決，我們預計對塗料、黏合劑和輪胎添加劑的需求將會改善。由於中國似乎正在加大環境執法力度，因此也可能存在一些好處。我們預計 2019 年全年息稅前利潤將與 2018 年持平或略好於 2018 年。

Now the Slide 8, and Chemical Intermediates, which delivered a strong improvement in sequential earnings. On a year-over-year basis, sales revenue decreased primarily due to lower sales volume, mostly because of the refinery-grade propylene project, reducing bulk ethylene sales as planned. Remember in the first quarter of 2018, we were still selling ethylene at attractive prices due to market conditions.

現在來看幻燈片 8，化學中間體，其連續收益實現了強勁增長。與去年同期相比，銷售收入下降主要是由於銷售量下降，主要是因為煉油級丙烯項目按計劃減少了大宗乙烯銷售。記得在 2018 年第一季度，由於市場狀況，我們仍然以有吸引力的價格銷售乙烯。

Lower raw material prices in a few products also led to reduced pricing in the segment. EBIT decreased primarily due to lower sales volume and lower selling prices declining slightly more than raw material cost for our few olefin products, particularly glycols.

部分產品原物料價格下降也導致該領域產品價格下降。息稅前利潤下降主要是因為銷售量下降和銷售價格下降（降幅略大於我們少數烯烴產品（尤其是乙二醇）的原料成本）。

Looking at the second quarter, while we don't have the headwinds of the industrial gas supplier outages, market conditions have changed from a year ago. The benefit of not having supplier outages from last year is being offset by a sequential decline in spreads and acetyls and some continued pressure in glycols. Similarly, in the full year, we expect the benefit from the lack of some of the 2018 headwinds in 2019 to be offset by weakening market conditions, especially impacting spreads in acetyls and glycols, leading us to expect EBIT in 2019 to be similar to 2018.

縱觀第二季度，雖然我們沒有面臨工業氣體供應商中斷供應的不利因素，但市場狀況與一年前相比已經發生了變化。去年沒有出現供應商中斷供應的好處被價差和乙醯基的連續下降以及乙二醇的持續壓力所抵消。同樣，就全年而言，我們預計 2018 年部分不利因素的消失將因市場條件走弱而被抵消，尤其是對乙醯基和乙二醇價差的影響，因此我們預計 2019 年息稅前利潤將與 2018 年相似。

Finishing up the segment reviews of Fibers on Slide 9. Sales revenue decreased year-over-year primarily due to lower acetate tow sales volume, attributed to China trade-related issues and other customer volume patterns as well as lower acetate tow selling prices. EBIT decreased primarily due to lower acetate tow sales volume, somewhat offset by growth in textiles and lower raw material costs. This is consistent with the guidance we gave you on our fourth quarter call that first quarter EBIT will be the lowest quarter for the year.

完成幻燈片 9 上纖維部分的回顧。銷售收入較去年同期下降主要是由於醋酸絲束銷售下降，這歸因於中國貿易相關問題和其他客戶量模式以及醋酸絲束售價下降。息稅前利潤下降主要是由於醋酸纖維絲束銷量下降，但紡織品銷售成長和原材料成本下降在​​一定程度上抵消了這一影響。這與我們在第四季度電話會議上給出的指導一致，即第一季的息稅前利潤將是今年最低的季度。

For the full year, we expect acetate tow volume declines consistent with the underlying market plus the impact of the headwinds from China trade issues from the first half of the year, offset by growth in textile market and cost-reduction actions. Therefore, we continue to expect Fibers' EBIT to be about the same as 2018.

就全年而言，我們預期醋酸絲束產量將下降，與基礎市場狀況一致，加上上半年中國貿易問題帶來的不利影響，但紡織市場的成長和成本削減措施將抵銷這一下降。因此，我們繼續預期 Fibers 的息稅前利潤將與 2018 年大致相同。

On Slide 10, I'll transition to some corporate financial highlights. In the first quarter, we did a nice job managing our cash flows and remain on track to deliver greater than $1.1 billion of free cash flow in 2019. Priorities for use of this cash will remain balance between deleveraging, funding an increasing dividend. And in the absence of bolt-on M&A, we will use the remainder of our cash for share repurchases.

在第 10 張投影片上，我將介紹一些公司財務亮點。在第一季度，我們很好地管理了現金流，並預計在 2019 年實現超過 11 億美元的自由現金流。這筆現金的使用重點仍將是去槓桿、融資和增加股利之間的平衡。在沒有附加併購的情況下，我們將使用剩餘的現金進行股票回購。

I'll add that you should always assume that we fully deploy our cash. We've returned $212 million to stockholders in the first quarter through share repurchases and dividends, and we remain committed to an investment-grade credit rating and we'll delever as needed to maintain our solid balance sheet, likely in the $250 million to $300 million range. Our effective tax rate in the first quarter was roughly 16.5%, consistent with our full year expectation of between 16% to 17%.

我要補充一點，你應該永遠假設我們已經充分利用了現金。我們在第一季透過股票回購和股息向股東返還了 2.12 億美元，我們仍然致力於投資級信用評級，並將根據需要去槓桿以維持穩健的資產負債表，可能在 2.5 億至 3 億美元範圍內。我們第一季的有效稅率約為 16.5%，與我們對全年 16% 至 17% 的預期一致。

With that, I'll turn it back over to Mark.

說完這些，我會把話題交還給馬克。

Thanks, Curt. On Slide 11, I'll provide an update on our 2019 outlook. Our earnings challenge in the first half of the year is predominantly a volume challenge for our high-value specialties and the slow growth world, especially in Asia and Europe compounded by the destocking.

謝謝，Curt。在第 11 張投影片上，我將提供有關我們 2019 年展望的最新資訊。我們上半年的獲利挑戰主要是高價值特種產品的產量挑戰和全球成長緩慢的挑戰，尤其是亞洲和歐洲的去庫存化。

Spreads in the specialties in the second quarter improving and are expected to be similar to last year's level. The volume challenge we see is primarily trade-related and to a lesser extent due to slowdown in the global transportation market. That said, we are encouraged by the improvement in our orders through March into April and believe most of the destocking is behind us.

第二季特種化學品的利差正在改善，預計將與去年的水平相似。我們看到的運量挑戰主要與貿易有關，其次是全球運輸市場放緩。儘管如此，我們對 3 月至 4 月訂單量的改善感到鼓舞，並相信大部分去庫存工作已經完成。

And as the 16th largest exporter by volume in the U.S., with Exxon as the only chemical company above us, we're probably more exposed to trade disruptions we've seen for the last 2 quarters. The stronger U.S. dollar is having a negative impact, which is a challenge given our U.S. manufacturing footprint. We've assumed that on average, the dollar-euro exchange rate will be around $1.14 for the year. And we expect the impact of the first half to be around $30 million with AFP and AM most impacted and with limited impact in the second half. You recall from our fourth quarter call that we discussed that slow flow through of high-cost raw materials from last year would impact our earnings in the first quarter, which it did.

作為美國第 16 大出口商，埃克森美孚是唯一一家出口量超過我們的化學公司，我們可能更容易受到過去兩個季度所經歷的貿易中斷的影響。美元走強正在產生負面影響，這對我們在美國製造的業務來說是一個挑戰。我們假設，今年美元兌歐元的平均匯率將在 1.14 美元左右。我們預計上半年的影響約為 3000 萬美元，其中 AFP 和 AM 受到的影響最大，下半年的影響有限。您還記得，我們​​在第四季度電話會議上討論過，去年高成本原材料的緩慢流通將影響我們第一季的收益，事實也確實如此。

Given this lower-than-expected volume in the first part of this year, this impact was greater than we expected. So the benefits of the lower cost raw materials will now be more of a second half impact.

鑑於今年上半年的交易量低於預期，這種影響比我們預期的還要大。因此，原物料成本降低的好處將對下半年產生更大的影響。

Lastly, we're expecting higher pension costs for the year, and this is approximately $30 million split relatively evenly between the quarters. Putting this together, we're expecting second quarter EBIT to increase between 15% and 20% compared to the first quarter.

最後，我們預計今年的退休金成本將會更高，約 3,000 萬美元，在各季度之間相對平均分配。綜合以上因素，我們預計第二季息稅前利潤將較第一季成長 15% 至 20%。

Moving next to the second half of the year. We're assuming that the U.S.-China trade dispute is settled at some point here in the second quarter, removing uncertainty that is impacting the Chinese economy. We're also expecting improving global demand, and we are starting to see it already with strong demand in March and April compared with January and February. I will describe April at more normal levels, plus innovation is creating our own growth. As demand improves, our asset utilization levels will pick up and that should result in lower cost raw materials and conversion costs flowing through. And roughly $30 million first half year-over-year headwind from the stronger dollar is expected to be much lower in the second half of the year. Then we have the additional $40 million of cost actions we're taking.

接下來進入下半年。我們假設中美貿易爭端將在第二季的某個時候得到解決，從而消除影響中國經濟的不確定性。我們也預計全球需求將會改善，而且我們已經看到，與一月和二月相比，三月和四月的需求更加強勁。我將在更正常的水平上描述四月份，此外創新正在創造我們自己的成長。隨著需求的增加，我們的資產利用率水準將會提高，這將導致原材料成本和轉換成本的降低。美元走強為上半年帶來了約 3,000 萬美元的年比不利影響，預計下半年這一數字將大幅降低。然後我們又採取了額外 4000 萬美元的成本行動。

Moving on to the full year. Obviously, we have to offset a substantial earnings decline in the first half. It's also important to remember that we have an easy comp in Q4. With all of the growth drivers in the second half that I have mentioned, we have confidence that we can deliver low single-digit EBIT growth for the year. And then with returning cash to shareholders and share repurchases and lower interest expense, we expect our EPS can grow at the low end of the 6% to 10% range that we provided in the fourth quarter call.

進入全年。顯然，我們必須抵消上半年大幅的獲利下滑。同樣重要的是要記住，我們在第四季的競爭很輕鬆。憑藉我所提到的下半年的所有成長動力，我們有信心實現今年的低個位數息稅前利潤成長。然後，透過向股東返還現金、股票回購和降低利息支出，我們預計每股盈餘可以成長到我們在第四季電話會議上提供的 6% 至 10% 區間的低端。

As Curt mentioned earlier, we continue to see a pathway to free cash flow of greater than $1.1 billion. I often get asked what makes me confident of Eastman's future. And here is the bottom line for me. Big picture, we continue to focus on what we can control and are winning with customers because of our innovation-driven growth model. And at the same time, we're aggressively reducing our cost to accelerate top line growth to the bottom line. Nothing happens without the dedication and drive of the people of Eastman throughout the world who face challenges and opportunities head on and every day they find ways to overcome them and are determined to win. And that's why I'm confident we're going to win today and far, far into the future.

正如 Curt 之前提到的，我們繼續看到一條通往超過 11 億美元的自由現金流。常常有人問我，是什麼讓我對伊士曼的未來充滿信心。這就是我的底線。總體而言，我們將繼續專注於我們能夠控制的事情，並透過創新驅動的成長模式贏得客戶。同時，我們正在積極降低成本，以加速營收成長和利潤成長。如果沒有遍布全球的伊士曼員工的奉獻和動力，一切都不會有進展。他們直面挑戰和機遇，每天都在尋找克服挑戰的方法，並決心取得勝利。這就是為什麼我相信我們今天以及在遙遠的未來都會取得勝利。

With that, I'll turn it back to Greg.

說完這些，我就把話題轉回給格雷格。

Okay. Thanks, Mark. We've got a lot of people on the line this morning, and we'd like to get to you as many questions as possible. So as always, I ask you to please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up.

好的。謝謝，馬克。今天早上有很多人在線，我們希望盡可能多地回答你們的問題。因此，與往常一樣，我請您只提出一個問題並進行一次後續跟進。

With that, Kim, we are ready for questions.

金，我們已經準備好回答問題了。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question today is from David Begleiter from Deutsche Bank.

（操作員指示）我們今天的第一個問題來自德意志銀行的 David Begleiter。

On your full year guidance, it looks like you lowered segment guidance in one segment AFP, but maintained in the other 3. You maintained a full year guidance. Can you talk about that dynamic? And why you didn't take the opposite -- opportunity now to trim the full year guide given the challenging macro?

在您的全年指引中，看起來您降低了一個分部的 AFP 分部指引，但維持了其他 3 個分部的指引。您維持了全年指引。能談談這種動態嗎？那麼，鑑於宏觀經濟情勢的挑戰，為什麼您不採取相反的做法——現在趁機下調全年預期？

Thanks, Dave. And in your observation around the guidance is sort of directionally correct. Obviously, in the first quarter, our earnings came in a little bit lower than we expected, and we have that adjustment in the second quarter. And that's why you saw us take the aggressive cost actions that we announced in late March. So while we have these challenges, we stepped up our cost reductions to take another $40 million out relative to the plans we had in the beginning of the year. That sort of balances that equation out and allows us to stay on track for our guidance. And we also feel very encouraged by the improvement in volume we saw in March and the continued improvement in the volume that we're seeing as we go into April and getting our mix back. One of the bigger challenges we've had here is mix of our high-value products and that gives us confidence. We're on the right track for the rest of the year.

謝謝，戴夫。根據您的觀察，該指導在方向上是正確的。顯然，在第一季度，我們的利潤比預期略低，而我們在第二季度做出了調整。這就是為什麼您看到我們採取了在三月底宣布的積極成本行動。因此，儘管面臨這些挑戰，我們仍加大了成本削減力度，相對於年初的計劃，又削減了 4,000 萬美元。這樣就平衡了方程式並使我們能夠繼續按照指導方針行事。我們也對 3 月份銷量的改善感到非常鼓舞，而且隨著進入 4 月份銷量繼續改善並恢復正常，我們也感到非常鼓舞。我們面臨的最大挑戰之一是高價值產品的混合，這給了我們信心。今年餘下的時間裡，我們的工作進展順利。

And Mark, on these additional cost actions, how permanent are these actions? And where are they coming from?

馬克，關於這些額外成本行動，這些行動的持久性如何？他們從哪裡來？

So David, as we started the year, as a reminder, we had already taken aggressive cost actions to kind of help offset higher turnaround costs and other anticipated challenges at that time. So as Mark mentioned, as we started the year, we decided to take additional actions, which are primarily headcount, contractors and discretionary spend. So the additional actions are expected to contribute $40 million to our 2019 results. So I'd call those pretty permanent kind of reductions and again predominantly in the second half of the year. So these factors plus the additional expectation -- expected improvements in '19 should provide us good momentum going into 2020.

所以，大衛，在我們開始新的一年的時候，提醒一下，我們已經採取了積極的成本行動，以幫助抵消當時更高的周轉成本和其他預期的挑戰。正如馬克所提到的，在年初，我們決定採取額外行動，主要是增加員工人數、承包商和可自由支配的開支。因此，這些額外行動預計將為我們 2019 年的業績貢獻 4,000 萬美元。因此，我認為這是相當永久性的削減，並且主要發生在下半年。因此，這些因素加上額外的預期——2019 年的預期改善應該會為我們進入 2020 年提供良好的動力。

I'd also note about 3 quarters of those cost reductions going to manufacturing, and they'll go into our COGS and then they will have to flow out. So that's why they're going to very back-end loaded and where the benefits shows up.

我還要指出的是，這些成本削減中約有四分之三用於製造，它們將進入我們的銷貨成本 (COGS)，然後必須流出。這就是為什麼它們會非常注重後端加載，並且好處也會顯現出來。

Moving on, we'll hear from Jeff Zekauskas from JPMorgan.

接下來，我們來聽聽摩根大通的 Jeff Zekauskas 的發言。

What was the magnitude of the cash restructuring charge that you took in the first quarter?

您在第一季承擔的現金重組費用是多少？

So you saw the restructuring charge, I believe, it was about $28 million. A good portion of that is the anticipated severance of our restructuring programs. There will be a little bit more in the second quarter and maybe a small tail in the second half of the year, but a good portion of that is that $28 million of severance charge accruals that we took in the first quarter. That will be the cash impact. Now not all that cash flows out. This year, it could go over a 12-month time period, too. So some of these severances accruals get paid out over a 12-month period.

所以你看到了重組費用，我相信，大約是 2800 萬美元。其中很大一部分是我們重組計劃的預期終止。第二季還會有更多，下半年可能會有少量尾部，但其中很大一部分是我們在第一季提列的 2,800 萬美元遣散費。這就是現金影響。現在並非所有現金都流出。今年，這期限也可能超過 12 個月。因此，部分遣散費將在 12 個月內支付。

And then for my follow-up, your prices in Advanced Materials in the quarter, I think, were up 1%. And if you -- and you had negative volumes in the quarter of some mid-single-digit level. And like if you think about the Celanese's earnings, I think in their engineered materials, their prices were up 7% and they had a similar volume decline to you. When you look at your businesses versus their businesses, do you find them in any way comparable? Do you think you're more disadvantaged in terms of being able to raise price? Or do you think that there is an opportunity where you could have been more aggressive and you plan to be more aggressive in the future? Can you kind of assess those difference? Can you assess that comparison?

然後，我的後續問題是，我認為本季你們先進材料的價格上漲了 1%。如果您 — — 並且您在某個季度的負交易量處於中等個位數水準。如果你考慮塞拉尼斯的收益，我認為他們的工程材料價格上漲了 7%，而銷量卻出現了與你們類似的下降。當您將自己的業務與他們的業務進行比較時，您是否發現它們在某些方面具有可比性？您認為在漲價方面你們處於更不利的地位嗎？或者您認為自己有機會表現得更積極主動，並且計劃在未來表現得更積極主動？你能評估一下這些差異嗎？你能評估一下這個比較嗎？

Sure, Jeff. First of all, the Celanese's business and our business are just fundamentally different. So it really doesn't make sense to make a lot of comparisons. They're primarily a compounding business with a completely different set of polymers and different set of applications. So I'm really focused on us. The business that we have has been incredibly successful, delivering very strong earnings growth for the last 6 years, and this year it will be the seventh. And the underlying driver of that is volume and mix improvement as the key to sort of driving that growth, where we're selling a very high-growth rates, very high value, high-margin products like Tritan and heads-up display interlayers, performance films, et cetera, relative to the segment average, and we keep on driving the weighted average mix growth up. So that's the core and heart of our strategy.

當然，傑夫。首先，塞拉尼斯的業務和我們的業務有著根本的不同。因此進行大量比較確實沒有意義。他們主要從事複合材料業務，擁有完全不同的聚合物系列和不同的應用系列。所以我真的很關注我們。我們的業務取得了令人難以置信的成功，過去六年實現了非常強勁的獲利成長，今年將是第七年。而其根本驅動力是銷量和產品組合的改善，這是推動這一增長的關鍵，我們銷售的產品增長率非常高，價值非常高，利潤率也很高，例如 Tritan 和平視顯示器中間膜、性能薄膜等，相對於細分市場的平均水平，我們將繼續推動加權平均產品組合的增長。這就是我們策略的核心和重點。

Pricing is, obviously, a key part of how you manage your spreads for any product relative to raw materials. And our goal is always to keep it stable because that's how you keep a solid relationship with your customers long-term for innovation. So in our business -- and SP was probably -- the specialty plastics guys are probably up about 3% in price and then that was offset by some price declines in advance interlayers for a high-value products. We discussed this all back at Innovation Day. When you have these very high-value products and you're in the early phases of adoption, your prices gets your cost structure quite high. And then as you develop scale and volume and growth of that you, you share some of that benefits of scale with your customers and price declines, which is especially typical in the automotive industry where those products go.

顯然，定價是管理任何產品相對於原材料的價差的關鍵部分。我們的目標始終是保持穩定，因為只有這樣才能與客戶長期保持穩固的關係，實現創新。因此，在我們的業務中 - SP 可能是 - 特種塑膠的價格可能上漲了約 3％，然後這被高價值產品的預付夾層價格下降所抵消。我們在創新日討論過這一切。當您擁有這些非常高價值的產品並且處於採用的早期階段時，您的價格會使您的成本結構相當高。然後，隨著規模和產量的擴大以及成長，您會與客戶分享一些規模效益，價格也會下降，這在汽車行業尤其常見，因為這些產品都銷往該行業。

So you see that going on, but the volume mix growth is so strong double-digit levels that the earnings grow despite those modest price declines. So in general, that's sort of where it played out. What I'd say is that when you're trying to build a business and have innovation be at the heart of your business. And the markets we serve, we work with the same large customers forever, right, the glass customers or even the tires and coatings customers in the AFP side. You got to have a relationship where they have trust in you and that you're being balanced on how you manage your price versus raws which we do very well. Our spreads are relatively stable, but you can't be greedy, right? So when you have a declining raw material situation, raising prices aggressively at the same time, it creates a significant amount of tension with your customers where they are not as excited about innovating with you and they are certainly very motivated to find alternative suppliers to you if you do that. And in specialty business, you can do that for a short period of time in our kind of businesses, but then you suffer the consequence later on about losing volume 12 months or so later as they work to find alternatives. So we think we have a good balanced relationship with our customers. They understand what we're trying to do. We keep our spread steady, and we drive volume/mix growth and set around innovation.

所以你會看到這種情況正在發生，但銷量組合增長如此強勁，達到了兩位數的水平，儘管價格略有下降，但收益仍在增長。總的來說，事情就是這樣發生的。我想說的是，當你試圖建立一家企業時，創新應該是企業的核心。在我們服務的市場中，我們永遠與相同的大客戶合作，對，就是玻璃客戶，甚至是 AFP 方面的輪胎和塗料客戶。你必須與客戶建立一種信任關係，並且你在價格和原材料的管理上保持平衡，而我們在這方面做得很好。我們的點差比較穩定，但也不能貪心啊，對吧？因此，當原材料價格下降時，同時大幅提高價格，這會給你的客戶帶來很大的壓力，他們不會那麼熱衷於與你一起創新，如果你這樣做，他們肯定會非常積極地尋找替代供應商。在專業業務中，你可以在我們這種業務中短時間內做到這一點，但隨後你將承受後果，即在 12 個月左右的時間裡，當他們努力尋找替代方案時，你的業務量就會損失。因此我們認為我們與客戶之間有著良好的平衡關係。他們明白我們正在努力做什麼。我們保持穩定的傳播，推動銷售/組合成長並圍繞創新。

Our next question today is from Robert Koort from Goldman Sachs.

我們今天的下一個問題來自高盛的羅伯特·庫爾特 (Robert Koort)。

This is Ragnel filling on for Bob. You're highlighting some sequential earnings improvements through the year, and the 4Q to 1Q improvement was notable. But when you fast-forward to 4Q '19, what kind of year-over-year growth is possible given the easier comp?

這是 Ragnel 代替 Bob 發言。您強調了全年盈利的一些連續改善，並且第四季度相對於第一季的改善非常顯著。但是，當你快轉到 2019 年第四季時，考慮到更容易的比較，什麼樣的年成長是可能的？

So great question, and it's an important one to remember when we talk about our back half guidance. With macroeconomic growth occurring, with innovation in our high-value specialties also creating our own growth, we're assuming that '18 -- I mean, '19 is going to be materially better and the fourth quarter is an easy comp, right? So if we can just get back to 2017 levels in Q4, that's $80 million of the hole we have to fill in the first half. And then we look at for both the third and fourth quarter, volume and mix growth being better than '17. So you've got that as a tailwind to help the back half of the year. And you got the cost flow through which will flow through, through the back of the year, especially as you go into the fourth quarter. So I expect the fourth quarter to be very strong compared to the past.

這個問題問得真好，當我們談論後​​半部分指導時，記住這一點很重要。隨著宏觀經濟成長，我們高價值專業的創新也創造了我們自己的成長，我們假設'18 - 我的意思是'19將會有實質性的改善，第四季度將是一個簡單的比較，對嗎？因此，如果我們能在第四季度恢復到 2017 年的水平，那麼我們就必須在上半年填補 8,000 萬美元的缺口。然後我們看看第三季和第四季，銷量和組合成長都比2017年更好。因此，您可以將其視為幫助下半年發展的順風。而您將獲得成本流，這些成本流將流經今年年底，特別是進入第四季度。因此我預計第四季的表現將比過去更加強勁。

And what I might add on top of it, I'll remind you that roughly $30 million of impact of foreign currency you're expecting in the first half of the year goes away to a greater extent in the second half of the year, so we don't have that headwind overcome any more in both third and fourth quarters.

另外，我要補充的是，我要提醒您的是，您預計上半年約 3000 萬美元的外匯影響將在下半年大幅消失，因此我們在第三季和第四季都不會再面臨這種不利因素。

Right. So you put all that together and the cost reductions, you've got the hole basically being filled in the front half and you've got to just believe in some reasonable volume mix growth and some raw material tailwinds and you can get to our guidance.

正確的。因此，將所有這些以及成本降低結合起來，你基本上可以填補前半部分的空缺，你只需要相信一些合理的產量組合增長和一些原材料的順風，你就可以得到我們的指導。

Okay. And are you seeing any signs that the specialty plastics destocking has ended? Any indication on volume changes for that for quarter-over-quarter and may be also year-over-year for 2Q?

好的。您是否看到任何跡象表明特種塑膠去庫存已經結束？有沒有跡象顯示季度環比銷量有變化，或者第二季度同比銷量也有變化？

Yes. We've already seen that. So January, in particular February were rough. The destocking in the fourth quarter that continued in those first 2 months was pretty significant. You have to remember that the vast majority of what we sell into China from specialty plastics is made into products that are predominantly exported back to the U.S. and to some extent Europe. So when you get into this trade war issue, a lot of those producers really lost confidence in their ability to sort of export back to the U.S. because they fear the trade tariff is going back to 25%. That's what held them in the fourth quarter last year as well as the uncertainty what would happen on March 1. As things started to sort of stabilize and look like things were to going to get settled to some degree, people starting to getting back to business and we saw a pretty good recovery in Tritan orders, in particular in March, and March was -- as a month pretty strong and those orders are holding up as we go into April. So we feel pretty good about the destocking question when it comes to specialty plastics. And when you combine that with raw materials, finally starting to flow through at a benefit in the second quarter. It leads to a pretty strong second quarter from -- sequentially from the first.

是的。我們已經看到了這一點。因此，一月，尤其是二月，非常艱難。前兩個月持續的第四季去庫存現象相當顯著。你必須記住，我們銷往中國的特種塑膠絕大部分被製成產品，主要出口回美國，部分還出口到歐洲。因此，當陷入貿易戰問題時，許多生產商真的對向美國出口產品的能力失去了信心，因為他們擔心貿易關稅會回到 25%。這就是去年第四季阻礙他們發展的原因，同時也是 3 月 1 日會發生什麼的不確定性。隨著情況開始穩定下來，看起來事情將在某種程度上得到解決，人們開始恢復業務，我們看到 Tritan 訂單出現了相當好的複蘇，特別是在 3 月份，3 月份是一個相當強勁的月份，進入 4 月份時，這些訂單仍在保持穩定。因此，當談到特種塑膠時，我們對去庫存問題感覺相當樂觀。當你將其與原材料結合時，最終在第二季度開始產生效益。與第一季相比，第二季業績表現相當強勁。

We'll take our next question from Vincent Andrews from Morgan Stanley.

我們將回答摩根士丹利的 Vincent Andrews 提出的下一個問題。

Just kind of maybe a little bit of a follow-up on the last one. As it relates to trade and the settlement of the trade dispute, what's your sort of sense from talking to customers about how activity or behavior or buying patterns will improve? It sounds like there's already been some improvement sort of as people sense that a resolution is within sight. So how much of an incremental step up would you anticipate right away post settlement? Or is this something that's going to take a few months or a quarter before we sort of have a real sense of how much of a snap back there's going to be?

可能只是對上一個問題的一點點跟進。就貿易和貿易爭端的解決而言，您從與客戶的交談中了解到活動、行為或購買模式將如何改善？聽起來好像已經有了某種改善，因為人們感覺到解決方案就在眼前。那麼，您預計結算後增量會有多少呢？或者這需要幾個月或一個季度的時間，我們才能真正感受到經濟復甦的力道有多大？

Vincent, a great question and it's obviously a pretty difficult one to forecast since we're dependent on President Trump settling a trade dispute with President Xi, and the timing of that is unknown or -- and the details of it are unknown. But based on everything we've seen, which is the same stuff you've seen, it seems like they're making good progress and the odds of escalation now are going down. And I'd say that's very well covered here in the press in the U.S. But from what we can tell in China, they're pretty quiet. They're very being very careful about declaring any kind of victory or possible victory with their -- inside their country because they just don't know what's going to happen with President Trump. So there's still a lot of caution and uncertainty in China today. But I'd say, the destocking is mostly playing out and behind us, so you've got the removal of that headwind.

文森特，這是一個很好的問題，而且顯然這是一個很難預測的問題，因為我們依賴川普總統與習近平主席解決貿易爭端，而解決的時間尚不清楚——細節也不清楚。但根據我們所看到的一切，也就是你們所看到的，似乎他們正在取得良好進展，升級的可能性正在下降。我想說，美國媒體對此進行了充分報道。但從我們在中國了解到的情況來看，他們相當安靜。他們在宣布國內任何形式的勝利或可能的勝利時都非常謹慎，因為他們不知道川普總統會發生什麼。因此，目前中國仍存在著許多謹慎和不確定性。但我想說，去庫存化基本上已經結束，所以你已經擺脫了那個不利因素。

And primary demand is still out there, including exports to some degree, but we really haven't seen any restocking yet that could be material at some point, and we're not banking on much of that in our forecast, so that would be upside. So what we need is a trade settlement to sort of get settled, not escalate and the Chinese government to send the all-clear signal to their companies and their consumers that things are going to get back to normal. You've also got them dumping a ton of stimulus into their economy, which is also, of course, helping improve things right now. We can see some of that benefit. So when we put that altogether, we feel like it is stabilizing. News is getting out that the things are going to be okay in China, but we're not really seeing a dramatic recovery yet, but we're a lot better off than where we were in January and February.

主要需求仍然存在，包括一定程度的出口，但我們實際上還沒有看到任何可能在某個時候產生實質影響的補貨，而且我們在預測中也不指望太多這樣的補貨，所以這將是上行空間。因此，我們需要的是貿易協定的解決，而不是升級，中國政府向其企業和消費者發出一切將恢復正常的訊號。他們也為經濟注入了大量刺激措施，當然也有助於改善當前情勢。我們可以看到其中的一些好處。因此，當我們把這些放在一起時，我們感覺它正在穩定下來。有消息稱，中國的情況會好起來，但我們還沒有看到顯著的復甦，但比一月和二月的情況要好得多。

Okay. And on adhesives rises competitive activity, has that been sort of made worse by the trade issue and -- or just weak demand? And if that's something that potentially were about to lap or could snap back post resolution?

好的。黏合劑的競爭日益激烈，貿易問題和需求疲軟是否加劇了這種情況？如果這是有可能發生的事情，或者可以在解決後迅速恢復？

Yes. So far on adhesives, the global underlying market growth rates for adhesives is very strong, it's in your consumables, hygiene applications. And overall, I'd say, it's pretty good. There's no question in China demand has been a bit off, especially in some applications. They are a little bit more consumer discretionary, and that's contributed to some of the pressure in the marketplace. But adhesives is more of a supply-driven issue than it is a demand-driven issue. As we told you in the past, we've had new capacity come in the marketplace in Asia and the growth slowing down a bit doesn't help in that equation. The good news is, this business has very strong underlying market growth rates that will continue, that are really not that discretionary. We got to use the diapers and we got to use them. And so we feel good about observing this capacity that's been added. On top of that, we've got innovation rolling out in the marketplace this year. That is a huge sustainability trend. This market is no order -- preferably no order, no VOC kind of product. We've now launched the best-in-class product for those applications with this sensitivity on the environment out there. And it's expected to grow quite well. We'll get that in the marketplace in the back half of this year towards the end, and that gives us another way to grow out of this business. And the rosin and resin conversions also continues where same environmental trend rosins have a lot of odor and smell, too. Consumers don't want that. And so that's another way we're picking up resin growth to fill up the capacity. We expect second half to be better.

是的。到目前為止，就黏合劑而言，全球黏合劑潛在市場成長率非常強勁，它適用於消耗品和衛生應用。總的來說，我認為它非常好。毫無疑問，中國的需求有所下降，尤其是在某些應用領域。他們的消費能力更加自主，這給市場帶來了一些壓力。但黏合劑更多的是一個供應驅動的問題，而不是需求驅動的問題。正如我們過去告訴您的那樣，我們在亞洲市場上有了新的產能，而成長速度的放緩對此沒有幫助。好消息是，這項業務的潛在市場成長率非常強勁，並且將持續下去，而且這種成長率實際上並不是那麼可自由支配的。我們必須使用尿布，而且我們必須使用它們。因此，我們很高興地看到這項新增容量。除此之外，我們今年也在市場上推出了創新產品。這是一個巨大的永續發展趨勢。這個市場沒有秩序－最好是沒有秩序，沒有VOC類型的產品。現在，我們已經針對這些對環境敏感的應用推出了一流的產品。預計其將會發展得相當好。我們將在今年下半年即將結束之際將其推向市場，這為我們的業務成長提供了另一種途徑。松香和樹脂的轉化仍在繼續，同樣的環境趨勢是松香也有很多氣味。消費者不希望出現這種情況。這是我們加快樹脂成長以填補產能的另一種方式。我們預計下半年情況會更好。

P.J. Juvekar from Citi has our next question.

花旗銀行的 P.J. Juvekar 向我們提問了下一個問題。

I'm looking at ethylene prices. Ethylene prices have collapsed. They're down to what $0.13. And I know you don't sell as much ethylene now with the RGP project. But then looking at propylene, it's also down with propylene inventories close to 6 million barrels. So I guess, my question is if one or more complex remains weak, are you able to get pricing on your derivative products?

我正在查看乙烯價格。乙烯價格暴跌。他們已經降到 0.13 美元了。我知道，現在有了 RGP 項目，你們銷售的乙烯數量就沒那麼多了。但看看丙烯，丙烯庫存也下降了，接近 600 萬桶。所以我想，我的問題是，如果一個或多個複雜因素仍然疲軟，您是否能夠對衍生產品進行定價？

Yes. Good question. So on the ethylene side, as you just mentioned, we had a considerable headwind in ethylene last year, and the RGP investment we made this year, which is up and running incredibly well and actually performing better than we expected, is taking us a long way in reducing the ethylene we sell this year in the merchant market and that helps mitigate a lot of that headwind, giving us a year-over-year benefit. So that's been great. When it comes to derivatives, you're right to point out that propylene and ethylene don't define the price of a derivative. It's just an indicator of the underlying market conditions. And in a lot of places, prices are holding up well in our derivatives from propylene and ethylene, but there are few places where, Curt called out that, we do see some price pressure, in particular glycols, NPG, MEG and glycol ether sort of places where we're seeing some price pressure creating some spread compression. So that's factored into our guidance. And to some degree, that's what offsets the benefits we've created through RGP and not having the industrial gas outages from last year, those sort of net out those benefits to sort of keep the segment stable this year.

是的。好問題。因此，在乙烯方面，正如您剛才提到的，去年我們在乙烯方面遇到了相當大的阻力，而我們今年進行的 RGP 投資運行得非常好，實際上表現比我們預期的要好，這在很大程度上減少了我們今年在商業市場上銷售的乙烯，這有助於緩解很多阻力，使我們獲得了同比增長。這真是太棒了。當涉及衍生性商品時，您正確地指出丙烯和乙烯並不能決定衍生性商品的價格。它只是潛在市場狀況的一個指標。在很多地方，丙烯和乙烯衍生物的價格都保持良好，但 Curt 指出，在少數地方，我們確實看到了一些價格壓力，特別是乙二醇、NPG、MEG 和乙二醇醚等地方，我們看到一些價格壓力造成了價差壓縮。所以這已納入我們的指導之中。從某種程度上來說，這抵消了我們透過 RGP 創造的收益，並且沒有出現去年的工業天然氣中斷，這些收益抵消了先前的收益，從而保持了今年該部門的穩定。

Okay. And then you added a lot of new capacity in products like Tritan, Crystex and PVB. So if I look at all of them together in aggregate, what sort of ballpark EBITDA do you expect in 2019 from that?

好的。然後，您在 Tritan、Crystex 和 PVB 等產品中增加了大量新產能。因此，如果我將它們全部放在一起看，您預計 2019 年的 EBITDA 大概是多少？

P.J., we don't breakout the EBITDA growth just from distinct projects. What they are really driving is the underlying growth in the markets we serve that we've been providing in our guidance. So like Advanced Materials where we're talking about earlier, again that business is looking to grow EBIT, 7% to 10% EBITDA would be reciprocal to that other than the factors a little different. So overall, those projects are typically greater than cost of capital returns, driving good returns, and there will be one of the factors that long term contribute to our EBITDA growth as a percentage.

P.J.，我們不會僅從不同的項目中得出 EBITDA 成長數據。它們真正推動的是我們所服務市場的潛在成長，而這些成長正是我們在指導中所提供的。因此，就像我們之前談到的先進材料一樣，該業務再次尋求增加 EBIT，7% 至 10% 的 EBITDA 將與之相對應，除了一些不同的因素。因此總體而言，這些項目的回報通常高於資本成本，從而帶來良好的回報，並將成為長期促進我們 EBITDA 百分比成長的因素之一。

I mean, what I'd add is that, the fact that we did all those plants is because our volume growth has been so strong from '15 through '17. We're running out of capacity on all those products last summer, and they started up just in time. And obviously, we didn't predict a trade war impacting demand in the short term. But as those markets come back through this sort of short-term disruption on the macro, the fixed cost leverage of all that's going to be very attractive when that volume from those high-value products come in and as we work through the back half of this year-end and even more so in 2020.

我的意思是，我想補充的是，我們之所以建立所有這些工廠，是因為從2015年到2017年我們的產量成長非常強勁。去年夏天，我們所有這些產品的產能都已用完，而他們恰好及時啟動了生產。顯然，我們沒有預測貿易戰會在短期內影響需求。但是，隨著這些市場從宏觀的這種短期混亂中恢復過來，當這些高價值產品的數量增加時，所有這些的固定成本槓桿將非常有吸引力，而且隨著我們在今年年底下半年，甚至在 2020 年，這種情況將更加嚴重。

Next we'll go to Aleksey Yefremov from Nomura Instinet.

接下來我們來談談野村證券的阿列克謝·葉夫列莫夫 (Aleksey Yefremov)。

It's Matt Skowronski on Aleksey this morning. On the last call, you kind of gave out a Brent crude prediction for the year. It seems to change since then. Can you just tell us how this changes your outlook?

今天早上我是馬特·斯科隆斯基 (Matt Skowronski) 在 Aleksey 節目中報道的。在上次通話中，您給出了今年布蘭特原油價格的預測。從那時起，情況似乎發生了變化。您能告訴我們這如何改變了您的觀點嗎？

It doesn't really have much of an impact on our outlook. We're in sort of the $70 range. We're now, what, $74 before. So I think it's important to remember that oil is part of an indicator of how raw material prices move, but it's not the only indicator. Last year, oil did move up quite a bit, especially as we got into the third quarter, but the spreads above oil also dramatically increased. So if you've looked at something like paraxylene, normal spreads above naphtha are like $300 a ton. You at history, we were well over $700 in the third quarter last year and we're now back to sort of in the $500 range. And even with the oil up, we expect that $500 keep moving its way back to normal because there's a lot of capacity coming along in PX in the back half of this year. So you got to remember that those are indicators, but they're not -- there's a lot more going on in any of these markets. So even if with oil being a bit higher than we expected, a lot of the raw materials that we buy, we don't expect those prices to move up much. And in places where they do, we'll increase prices. We've have demonstrated. We're very disciplined about managing prices. We offset all the raw material increases through the third quarter last year with price increases. And as we look at the price raw trade-off in the specialties, we expect to get back to the second quarter spreads of last year by the second quarter of this year and then that becomes a tailwind as we go to the back half. So we can manage that.

它實際上對我們的前景沒有太大影響。我們的價位在 70 美元左右。我們現在的價格是，之前是 74 美元。因此我認為重要的是要記住，石油是原材料價格走勢的指標，但它不是唯一的指標。去年，石油價格確實上漲了不少，尤其是進入第三季度，但石油價差也大幅擴大。因此，如果你研究過對二甲苯之類的物質，那麼石腦油的正常價差大約是每噸 300 美元。從歷史上看，去年第三季我們的利潤遠超過 700 美元，現在又回到了 500 美元左右的水平。即使油價上漲，我們預計 500 美元將繼續回到正常水平，因為今年下半年 PX 產能將大幅增加。所以你必須記住，這些都是指標，但事實並非如此——在這些市場中還有很多事情發生。因此，即使油價比我們預期的略高，我們購買的許多原料的價格也不會上漲太多。在他們這樣做的地方，我們會提高價格。我們已經證明了。我們對價格管理非常嚴格。我們透過提高價格抵消了去年第三季所有原物料價格上漲的影響。當我們觀察特種產品價格的原始權衡時，我們預計今年第二季的價差將回到去年第二季的水平，然後，隨著我們進入下半年，這將成為順風。所以我們可以做到這一點。

And then in Fibers, on the last call, you kind of noted it will be the weakest quarter, which it was. How did trends look so far in April? And can you give an outlook on pricing for the remainder of the year?

然後在 Fibers 方面，在最後一次電話會議上，您注意到這將是最疲軟的一個季度，事實也確實如此。四月到目前為止趨勢如何？您能預測一下今年剩餘時間的價格走勢嗎？

Sure. So on the volume side, as Curt mentioned, we expect volumes for the year to be slightly down with the overall market decline. So what's underneath that assumption is customer buying patterns in this business, as you look at our history, bounce around a lot. So Q1 was just uniquely low customer buying pattern outside of China. In China, this is a trade-related issue where they stop buying tow from us made in the U.S. And we had to start shifting to our Korean facility to import in the U.S. We have orders now from the Korean facility, but we're still in the qualification process with some of the customer plants there. But we feel like we'll get back to sort of where we needed to be on that volume relative to last year as well. So I think we're fine. It's just going to be lumpy in how it spreads out. I mean, second quarter will be a lot better than the first quarter in volume. And price, another good question, prices were down a little bit more in the first quarter versus the rest of the year because some of the price declines we put in place last year didn't go effective until April 1. So you're going to just see a bit more of a drop in Q1 than what you'll see for the rest of the year. On a full year basis, prices won't be down very much at all.

當然。因此，從銷售量來看，正如 Curt 所提到的，我們預計今年的銷售量將隨著整體市場的下滑而略有下降。因此，從我們的歷史來看，這種假設背後的原因是，這個產業的客戶購買模式波動很大。因此，第一季中國以外的客戶購買模式明顯較低。在中國，這是一個與貿易相關的問題，他們停止從我們這裡購買美國製造的拖車。我們不得不開始轉向韓國工廠進口到美國。我們現在有來自韓國工廠的訂單，但我們仍在與那裡的一些客戶工廠進行資格認證。但我們感覺，相對於去年，我們的銷售量也會回到應有的水準。所以我認為我們很好。它的擴散方式將變得不均勻。我的意思是，第二季的銷售量將比第一季好很多。關於價格，另一個好問題，第一季的價格比今年其他時間下降得更多一些，因為我們去年實施的一些降價措施直到 4 月 1 日才生效。因此，你會看到第一季的價格下降幅度比今年其他時間的降幅更大一些。從全年來看，價格不會下降太多。

Moving on, we'll hear from Frank Mitsch from Fermium Research.

接下來，我們來聽聽 Fermium Research 的 Frank Mitsch 的演講。

Curt, you were talking about the use of that $1.1 billion plus free cash flow, that bolt-ons are part of that equation. How is that market looking to you right now? How should we think about the probabilities or the possibilities of Eastman doing more than just Marlotherm?

科特，您剛才談到如何使用這 11 億美元加上自由現金流，附加費用是這個等式的一部分。您目前對該市場的看法如何？我們該如何看待 Eastman 除了 Marlotherm 之外還能做更多事情的可能性？

Yes. I would say, our bolt-on acquisition pipeline is active. There are several opportunities we're looking at. As always, it's got to make sure you do the right diligence, pay a fair price and hopefully don't find big bid-ask spreads. I'd say right now it's possible. You might see 1 or 2 more small acquisitions during the course of the year, but we'll see how those play out.

是的。我想說的是，我們的附加收購管道是活躍的。我們正在尋找幾個機會。像往常一樣，它必須確保您進行正確的盡職調查，支付公平的價格，並且希望不會發現大的買賣價差。我想說現在這是有可能的。您可能會在一年內看到 1 或 2 次小型收購，但我們會觀察它們如何發展。

And small -- just for definitional purposes, less than $100 million sort of a ballpark?

而且規模很小——僅出於定義目的，大概是不到 1 億美元的規模？

Yes. I would say less than $100 million in that ballpark, yes, in aggregate.

是的。是的，我認為總計大約不到 1 億美元。

All right. Terrific. And Mark, you did a nice job talking about how March came back in terms of volumes and certainly you're seeing that through the month of April as well. So I'm wondering if you can give some granularity by region on what you're seeing there? And what the expectation is for the second quarter?

好的。了不起。馬克，您很好地解釋了三月份銷量如何回升，而且您肯定也看到了四月份的銷量回升。所以我想知道您是否可以按地區詳細說明您在那裡看到的情況？對第二季的預期是什麼？

Sure. So the biggest hit across all regions when it comes to value was China. It's important to keep in mind that different regions have very different margin profile. So when you look at our specialty businesses, 2/3 of their revenue is outside the U.S. And so when you are in China, we sell very few commodity products in there. It's almost all specialties, variable margins are substantially higher than the U.S. average that includes a lot of CI and a very little of that is exported. So the big volume and what I'm saying is mix hit was China and mostly that was where we also saw the most extreme amount of destocking going on things like Tritan, tires, even a little bit of adhesives and some coatings. And so when we got to March, we saw a good recovery in Tritan. We saw a good recovery in some of our highest value specialties in coatings and tires are still sort of working itself out. So China has been a pretty big -- pretty attractive snapback towards the end of the quarter, and it seems to be holding up so far through April. Europe, it's a little bit late different story. And I would say, Europe is still very much attached to the China trades issue. When the Chinese cut back on imports, it's not just a U.S. impact, it actually has a bigger impact on Germany than it does on us because they are so dependent on exports. So you're seeing that economy slowdown, all connected to the same issue. We're seeing demand recover there as well, but it's more of a lag effect. So a little bit slower in its recovery. And that's why you see AFP having a bit more challenge in recovering its earnings to last year versus AM, which is much more sort of China dependent on where the impact occurred. The U.S. has been sort of stable and moving along just fine.

當然。因此，就價值而言，所有地區中受衝擊最大的是中國。重要的是要記住，不同地區的利潤率狀況非常不同。因此，當您查看我們的專業業務時，其 2/3 的收入來自美國以外。因此，當您在中國時，我們在那裡銷售的商品很少。幾乎所有專業領域，可變利潤率都遠高於美國平均水平，其中包括大量 CI，但只有極少部分是出口的。因此，我所說的大宗商品和混合商品受到的衝擊主要在中國，而且，我們也看到中國出現了最為嚴重的去庫存現象，例如 Tritan、輪胎，甚至少量黏合劑和一些塗料。因此，當我們進入三月時，我們看到 Tritan 出現了良好的復甦。我們看到，塗料和輪胎等一些最高價值的專業領域出現了良好的復甦，並且仍在逐步恢復。因此，中國在本季末出現了相當大的反彈，而且這種反彈勢頭似乎持續到四月。歐洲的情況稍晚一些，但情況有所不同。我想說，歐洲仍然非常關注與中國的貿易問題。當中國減少進口時，這不僅對美國有影響，實際上對德國的影響比對我們更大，因為他們非常依賴出口。所以你看到經濟放緩，都跟同一個問題有關。我們也看到那裡的需求正在復蘇，但這更多的是一種滯後效應。因此恢復速度會稍微慢一點。這就是為什麼你會看到 AFP 在恢復去年的盈利方面會面臨比 AM 更大的挑戰，因為 AM 更依賴中國，具體取決於影響發生的地點。美國一直比較穩定，發展順利。

And up next, we have Mike Sisson from KeyBanc.

接下來我們有請來自 KeyBanc 的 Mike Sisson。

In terms of Advanced Materials, they're still may be struggling a little bit to see the growth in the second half. I did the math. The EBIT growth -- operating growth needs to be somewhere around 30%. You have -- 3 kind of factors you noted like lower raw materials, volume and may be less FX. Can you may be help us understand what -- are they about even in terms of the recovery for the second half? Or am I missing a couple of other variables that help to grow that?

就先進材料而言，下半年仍可能面臨一些成長困難。我算了一下。EBIT 成長－營業成長需要達到 30% 左右。您注意到了三種因素，例如原材料價格較低、產量較低以及外匯可能較少。您能否幫助我們了解一下—他們對於下半年復甦的看法如何？或者我忽略了其他一些有助於實現這一目標的變數？

Volume mix is a primary driver, Mike. Obviously, we don't have the currency headwind that we had in the first half of the year. So you don't have that $15 million headwind. That is on AM in the first half of the year, repeating in the second half. So there's that. There's raw material flow tailwind. Of course, with PX, that's going to help as that price comes off relative to a very high price last year. But the biggest driver by far is volume mix. You got to remember that -- what we're saying is we're going to grow volume mix through the back half of this year relative to the first half of this year, which means it's going to be materially better than 2017. And when you look at the drop in earnings in the fourth quarter of '18 due to volume and mix and the higher raw material costs, you're going to fill that entire hole and then add to it with some additional volume and mix, especially when we got all these products like heads-up display, interlayers and performance films growing at double digits. So when we put all the math together, you can get to the guidance we're giving you.

音量組合是主要驅動因素，麥克。顯然，我們不再面臨上半年那樣的貨幣逆風。所以你不會面臨 1500 萬美元的逆風。上半年 AM 頻道出現這種情況，下半年也將重複這種情況。就是這樣。原料流動順風。當然，對於 PX 來說，這會有所幫助，因為相對於去年的高價來說，今年的價格有所回落。但迄今為止最大的驅動力是產量組合。你必須記住——我們所說的是，相對於上半年，我們今年下半年的銷售組合將會有所增長，這意味著它將比 2017 年有實質的改善。當你看到 2018 年第四季度由於產量和混合以及原材料成本上升而導致的收益下降時，你會填補整個缺口，然後用一些額外的產量和混合來增加收益，特別是當我們所有這些產品，如平視顯示器、中間層和性能薄膜都以兩位數增長時。因此，當我們將所有數學知識放在一起時，您就可以獲得我們提供的指導。

And on that fact, I'll add just 2 comments on top of it. Don't forget that easy comp on the fourth quarter basis -- look at what they did in fourth quarter '17 versus fourth quarter of '18, and we expect that to be growing on top of what we saw back in the fourth quarter of '17. So that is a good fillar. The second thing I'd add is this not only for Advanced Materials but for the corporation as a whole is this benefit of the flow through of lower raw material costs. And so to give you some sense, if you think about just the first quarter, the flow through of lower raw material costs was only a benefit of roughly $10 million, and that is only a small piece. And within that, it was mostly a benefit in the commodities and still a headwind in these specialties. So as these lower raw materials slow the second quarter as well second half of the year, you will see improved EBIT resulting from the flow through lower raws on top of the utilization and the volume/mix growth.

有鑑於此，我只想補充 2 則評論。不要忘記第四季度的簡單比較——看看他們在 2017 年第四季和 2018 年第四季的表現，我們預計這將在 2017 年第四季的基礎上有所增長。所以這是一個很好的填充物。我想補充的第二點是，這不僅適用於先進材料公司，對整個公司來說，都是原料成本降低的好處。因此，為了讓你明白，如果你只考慮第一季度，原物料成本降低帶來的收益只有大約 1000 萬美元，而這只是一小部分。其中，這在大宗商品領域主要是一種優勢，但在這些專業領域仍然是一種阻力。因此，隨著這些原材料價格的下降導致第二季度以及下半年原材料價格放緩，您將看到由於原材料流向降低、利用率提高以及產量/混合量增加而導致的息稅前利潤的提高。

Yes. I also want to emphasis, asset utilization is a big deal, guys. So when you have to slow the plants like we did last year in the fourth quarter to adjust the demand situation and even run them a little bit slow in the first quarter, your asset utilization, your fixed cost per kg goes up in a meaningful way. So as volume picks up, that starts to accelerate how all the cost cuts we're doing can flow into a lower cost per kg and benefit earnings in the back half of the year.

是的。我還想強調一下，資產利用率是一件大事，夥計們。因此，當你必須像去年第四季一樣放慢工廠的運作速度來調整需求狀況，甚至在第一季稍微放慢工廠的運作速度時，你的資產利用率、每公斤的固定成本就會大幅上升。因此，隨著產量的增加，我們正在進行的所有成本削減都會開始加速，從而降低每公斤成本，並為下半年帶來收益。

Okay. Great. And then a quick follow-up. You spent a lot of time over the years moving your portfolio into more specialty areas. If you look at the the fourth and first quarter results for the specialty businesses, I'm still a little bit surprised the earnings got hit so much. So when you think about the performance that you expect to see and I understand there are much higher-margin businesses, but what's kind of the takeaway you want us to see in terms of supporting the notion that your portfolio is much more special than it was?

好的。偉大的。然後進行快速跟進。多年來，您花了大量時間將您的作品集轉向更專業的領域。如果你看一下專業業務第四季和第一季的業績，我仍然對收益受到如此大的打擊感到有點驚訝。因此，當您考慮預期看到的表現時，我知道有很多利潤率更高的業務，但是您希望我們看到什麼樣的結論來支持您的投資組合比以前更加特別的觀點？

Yes. So I mean, the growth in the specialties has really been a tremendous success story. If you even just go back and look at history here from '14 to now, we've done a series of acquisitions here. We've delivered a significant amount of innovation, growth on top of that. And we've grown the EBITDA from these 2 segments by over $500 million from 2014, and if you put on our constant-currency basis over $600 million. So this is a great story of delivering a phenomenal amount of earnings growth in the last 5 years, all due to our growth model and our innovation that allows us to sustain our spreads and drive volume, and importantly mix upgrade. And I don't think anything of that story has changed from a long-term point of view as I look forward. No question, we, in our portfolio, have a high exposure to consumer discretionary spend. Transportation, B&C, consumer durables, it's about 45% of the company's total revenue. So if you have a situation where there is a correction and demand in those spaces, and that is clearly what we saw in 4Q, 2Q and for 4Q and 1Q and a little bit still dragging on into 2Q for AFP. When you lose that very high variable margin demand with destocking to correct to the sort of trade economic situation, you're going to take a hit, given the value of those kgs relative to the company average. But the good news is we've already seen demand coming back in March and April. So that demand comes back, the economies improve and that value that we've created over the last 5 years through volume and mix growth comes back in a pretty dramatic fashion on the other side of the equation just like it went away comes back the same way. And so there's sort of sensitivity we have to consumer discretionary. I don't think that's a secret about our portfolio. And the good news is we make a lot of money in China. And I believe long term, China is going to be an attractive growth market to continue to deliver a lot of growth in the future.

是的。所以我的意思是，專業領域的成長確實是一個巨大的成功故事。如果你回顧一下從 2014 年到現在的歷史，你會發現我們已經進行了一系列收購。我們已經實現了大量的創新和成長。自 2014 年以來，這兩個部門的 EBITDA 成長了 5 億多美元，如果按照固定匯率計算，則增加了 6 億多美元。這是一個偉大的故事，過去 5 年我們實現了驚人的獲利成長，這一切都歸功於我們的成長模式和創新，這使我們能夠維持利差、推動交易量，更重要的是實現組合升級。而我認為從長遠角度來看，這個故事不會有任何改變。毫無疑問，在我們的投資組合中，非必需消費品支出佔比很高。運輸、B&C、耐用消費品，約占公司總收入的45%。因此，如果您遇到這些領域存在調整和需求的情況，這顯然是我們在第四季度、第二季度以及第一季度看到的情況，對於 AFP 來說，這種情況仍然會延續到第二季​​度。當你通過去庫存來糾正這種貿易經濟形勢而失去非常高的浮動利潤需求時，考慮到這些公斤的價值相對於公司平均水平，你將受到打擊。但好消息是我們已經看到三月和四月需求回升。因此，需求回升，經濟好轉，我們在過去 5 年中透過產量和組合成長所創造的價值又以相當顯著的方式回歸，就像它消失後又以同樣的方式回歸一樣。因此，我們對非必需消費品有一定的敏感度。我認為這不是我們的投資組合的秘密。好消息是我們在中國賺了很多錢。我相信，從長遠來看，中國將成為一個有吸引力的成長市場，並在未來繼續大幅成長。

Mike, one other just takeaway as you think about all those long-term benefits that Mark talked about. On a short-term basis, don't forget that these specialties have a long supply chain. And so when you have a disruption like these trade wars, that's where you have some of the negative impact like you see in the fourth quarter and first quarter. Those will return to more normal levels, and we have -- also might have a bounce back at some point as those supply chains fill back in. So just keep in mind, short-term, it's been impacted by those supply chains in those of market dynamics.

麥克，當你考慮馬克談到的所有那些長期利益時，你還有另一個收穫。從短期來看，不要忘記這些專業產品有很長的供應鏈。因此，當出現貿易戰等乾擾時，就會產生一些負面影響，就像我們在第四季和第一季看到的那樣。這些水平將恢復到更正常的水平，隨著供應鏈的恢復，我們也可能會在某個時候出現反彈。所以請記住，短期內，它已經受到市場動態中供應鏈的影響。

Our next question today is from Laurence Alexander from Jefferies.

我們今天的下一個問題來自 Jefferies 的 Laurence Alexander。

It's Dan Rizzo on for Laurence. I just really just have one question, the softness in auto and tire has been well documented. Can you just tell us what you're seeing in your construction and ag end markets?

丹·里佐 (Dan Rizzo) 代替勞倫斯 (Laurence)。我真的只有一個問題，汽車和輪胎的柔軟度已經得到充分證明。您能否告訴我們您在建築和農業終端市場看到了什麼？

So on the ag market, obviously, things are a little bit slower with the wet weather in the first quarter, and we saw some of that impact particularly in CI. But everything we can see in those markets are all coming back as we'd expect. So we feel good about the ag market this year on a full year basis, and we're seeing some innovative growth with a few of our customers to help us create our own growth there as well. When it comes to the construction market, it's been relatively stable. So from an architectural interlayers point of view, it has been great. Vast majority of where we're selling the layers is in Europe, where they do laminated glass and we've seen strong growth there through '18 and that's continuing on through '19 and that's pretty visible at the back order that you can see in construction.

因此，在農業市場上，顯然，由於第一季的陰雨天氣，發展有些放緩，我們在 CI 尤其看到了這種影響。但我們在這些市場上看到的一切都正如我們預期的那樣回歸。因此，我們對今年全年的農業市場感到樂觀，我們看到一些客戶的創新成長，這也幫助我們在那裡創造了自己的成長。就建築市場而言，它一直相對穩定。因此，從建築夾層的角度來看，它是非常棒的。我們的夾層玻璃銷售市場主要在歐洲，那裡主要生產夾層玻璃。我們看到 2018 年那裡的銷售呈現強勁成長，這種勢頭將持續到 2019 年，從建築業的積壓訂單就可以看出這一點。

On the architectural side, North America has been fine. Obviously, China and Europe have been a bit off, but we're seeing some recovery there.

在建築方面，北美表現良好。顯然，中國和歐洲的情況有些不佳，但我們看到那裡正在出現一些復甦。

One other thing I'd mentioned is environmental enforcement does create benefits as well. With this unfortunate accident that's occurred in China, we do see an impact on a few produces that we compete with being shut down for environmental inspections and things like that. That's giving us a modest tailwind. We're not banking on much of that. But if that continues -- that enforcement continues, there will be an upside to our forecast.

我提到的另一件事是環境執法確實也帶來了好處。由於中國發生這起不幸的事故，我們確實看到一些與我們競爭的產品受到了影響，它們因環境檢查等原因而關閉。這給我們帶來了適度的順風。我們對此沒有太多的指望。但如果這種情況持續下去——執法持續下去，我們的預測就會有上行空間。

Duffy Fischer from Barclays is up next.

接下來是巴克萊銀行的達菲‧菲舍爾 (Duffy Fischer)。

First question just around the raws, again. I know you've got an accounting benefit that will flow through in the back half, but a lot of your suppliers would talk about kind of the same destocking events happening that you are seeing with your products. So if you get that back half pickup in economic activity like you're expecting, what do you think the odds are when you look at all your raw materials and kind of the supply demand that actually prices there will rise fairly rapidly and maybe we're talking about raw material headwinds in the back half of the year?

第一個問題再次圍繞著原始問題。我知道你們獲得了會計收益，該收益將在下半年流出，但你們的許多供應商都會談論你們產品中發生的同樣的去庫存事件。因此，如果像您預期的那樣，下半年經濟活動回暖，當您查看所有原材料和供應需求時，您認為那裡的實際價格會相當快速地上漲的可能性有多大，也許我們談論的是下半年的原材料逆風？

Yes. When we look at the specific products that we buy, Duffy, I don't see there is a significant risk there. I mean, you can always get into oil price scenarios. And if demand driven where oil goes up, then we'll have the demand market conditions to raise prices and we'll be fine. Supply-driven events in oil is a different discussion. But we're not really worried about that with the raws that we buy, especially because the one that was a biggest problem for us in the back half of last year was [paraxylene] (corrected by the company after the call) and there's so much new capacity coming online.

是的。達菲，當我們查看我們購買的具體產品時，我認為那裡不存在重大風險。我的意思是，你總是可以了解油價情境。如果需求推動油價上漲，那麼我們就會有需求市場條件來提高價格，我們就會沒事。石油供應驅動事件是另一個討論主題。但對於我們購買的原料，我們並不真正擔心這一點，特別是因為去年下半年對我們來說最大的問題是[對二甲苯]（公司在電話會議後進行了糾正），而且有大量新產能上線。

Fair enough. And then just to jump to Fibers, can you breakout, if you just look at, say, the EBITDA year-over-year kind of they're down $14 million, how much of that was China versus ex China? And then do you think it will be difficult to get your Chinese business back once the deal is settled because, obviously, they are players inside China that have excess capacity they're probably back filling that today. Is that a structural step down do you think? Or will that be pretty quick to come back?

很公平。然後直接跳到 Fibers 上，您能否突破一下，如果您只看 EBITDA 同比下降了 1400 萬美元，那麼其中有多少是來自中國，有多少是來自中國以外的地區？那麼，您是否認為一旦交易達成，恢復中國業務會很困難，因為顯然，他們是中國境內擁有過剩產能的參與者，他們可能今天就填補這些產能。您認為這是結構性的退步嗎？或者很快就會恢復？

Yes. As far as the demand goes in the first quarter, I would say, it's sort of balanced between the China factor and sort of just customer buying patterns across the quarters for this year with another customers. In regards to your second question, there is no competitor in China backfilling us. The -- all the companies -- or the plants that make tow in China are joint ventures with CNTC, our customer. They run those plans flat out every day as best as they possibly can every year, which is why imports dropped when they add that capacity over the last 5 years. So the imports, and we're now down to pretty small levels, are just being shifted around from plants -- to different plants that are not outside of the U.S. But we have a great relationship with our customer there, and they are working with us and we believe we'll get back in.

是的。就第一季的需求而言，我想說，它在某種程度上是在中國因素和今年各季度其他客戶的購買模式之間取得平衡的。關於你的第二個問題，中國沒有競爭對手來填補我們的空缺。所有在中國生產絲束的公司或工廠都是與我們的客戶中國菸草總公司合資成立的。他們每年都盡可能地全力以赴地執行這些計劃，這就是為什麼在過去 5 年裡他們增加產能時進口量會下降的原因。因此，進口量（現在已降至相當小的水平）只是從工廠​​轉移到美國境外的不同工廠。但我們與那裡的客戶保持著良好的關係，他們正在與我們合作，我們相信我們會回到美國。

Moving on, we'll hear from John Roberts from UBS.

接下來，我們來聽聽瑞銀集團的約翰羅伯茲的發言。

You mentioned the coming paraxylene capacity, I think it's the primary target of some of the new crude to chemical projects coming online globally. So I guess, this could be a multiyear kind of weakness in paraxylene. Do you think structurally you'll end up passing some of that through because the whole polyester, I guess, complex could come under pressure with weaker paraxylene over time here?

您提到了即將到來的對二甲苯產能，我認為這是全球一些新的原油化學工程專案上線的主要目標。所以我猜，這可能是對二甲苯多年來的疲軟表現。您是否認為從結構上來說，您最終會將其中一些問題解決掉，因為我認為，隨著時間的推移，整個聚酯複合物可能會因對二甲苯變弱而承受壓力？

Yes. So there's a lot of paraxylene coming online. The big chunks in the back half of this year are just traditional PX plants, not the sort of oil or the chemical things. But there will be some passing along with some of that paraxylene value to some of our customers, which is natural and the logic I started with in the beginning of the Q&A session here, I'll reference you back to, which is you got to have a balanced approach to the customers if you want them continuing buy from you and we work with the same customers for the last decade and I hope the next decade. And so we got to have respect and trust and innovation together.

是的。因此，大量對二甲苯正在上線。今年下半年的大宗商品只是傳統的PX工廠，而不是石油或化學品。但是，我們會將部分對二甲苯價值傳遞給我們的一些客戶，這是很自然的，也是我在問答環節開始時提出的邏輯，我會參考一下，那就是，如果你希望客戶繼續從你這裡購買，你就必須對客戶採取平衡的態度，過去十年我們一直與相同的客戶合作，我希望未來十年也是如此。因此，我們必須共同擁有尊重、信任和創新。

And that will come from Kevin McCarthy from Vertical Research Partners.

這份報告由 Vertical Research Partners 的 Kevin McCarthy 撰寫。

Mark, I had a question for you on interlayers. In your prepared remarks, I think you referenced double-digit growth prospects for Saflex. And you threw out, I believe, 20% in Europe. And so I was just wondering if you could elaborate on what is driving that? The build rates have obviously been tough and my recollection is that Sekisui was adding some capacity in the Netherlands. So perhaps you could elaborate, are you gaining share? Is it penetration mix, heads-up displays, construction, what would be driving that premium?

馬克，我有一個關於夾層的問題想問你。在您準備好的演講中，我認為您提到了 Saflex 的兩位數成長前景。我相信，你在歐洲已經拋棄了 20%。所以我只是想知道您是否可以詳細說明一下造成這種情況的原因？建設速度顯然很艱難，我記得積水在荷蘭增加了一些產能。那麼也許您可以詳細說明一下，您的市佔率是否正在增加？是滲透率組合、平視顯示器、建築，還是其他因素推動了溢價？

Yes. So specifically, that 20% applies to heads-up display interlayers in Europe, not the overall interlayer business. So what you're doing is you're replacing standard interlayers with one that includes acoustics and heads-up display. And we're the world leader in that specific product, but it's a very small percentage of the overall market right now. There's not that many heads-up displays in cars yet. So we're seeing just tremendous growth as we're adding that feature because auto OEMs are always looking us a way to value up cars, especially in the slow growth markets. They want more feature packages to offer -- to get more volume per car, which is a great lever for us in the different kind of features we had. So that's going quite well. And I'd also add, the architectural is also growing really well in Europe as well. So that gives us a way to offset the underlying auto market trends. It's very impressive that performance films and interlayers is stable in this auto market.

是的。具體來說，這 20% 適用於歐洲的平視顯示器夾層，而不是整個夾層業務。所以你要做的就是用包含聲學和平視顯示器的夾層來取代標準夾層。我們是該特定產品的全球領導者，但目前它在整個市場中所佔的比例非常小。目前，車上還沒有那麼多平視顯示器。因此，我們在添加該功能時看到了巨大的成長，因為汽車原始設備製造商一直在尋找一種方法來提升汽車價值，特別是在成長緩慢的市場中。他們希望提供更多的功能包——以增加每輛車的銷量，這對於我們利用不同類型的功能來說是一個很好的槓桿。一切進展順利。我還要補充一點，歐洲的建築業也發展得很好。因此，這為我們提供了一種抵消潛在汽車市場趨勢的方法。令人印象深刻的是，高性能薄膜和中間膜在汽車市場上表現穩定。

So Mark, how would you characterize the all-in structural growth rate in the interlayers business, I don't know, over the next 3-plus years or so?

那麼馬克，您如何描述未來 3 年多時間夾層業務的整體結構成長率？

Well, I think that again volume mix, we continue to expect that the Advanced Materials segment, including [specialty plastics] (corrected by the company after the call), will grow sort of double the underlying market growth rates. So any one guess on what the automotive growth rate is going to be, but we're real better in there.

嗯，我認為，再次從產量組合來看，我們繼續預期先進材料部門（包括特種塑膠）（公司在電話會議後進行了修正）的成長率將是基礎市場成長率的兩倍。因此，任何人都可以猜測汽車成長率將會是多少，但我們在這方面確實做得更好。

All right. Thanks, again, everyone for joining us this morning. A replay of this call will be available on the website later today. And hope you all have a great day.

好的。再次感謝大家今天早上的參加。通話的重播將於今天稍晚在網站上提供。祝大家有個愉快的一天。

And that does conclude our conference today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

今天的會議就此結束。感謝您的參與。您現在可以斷開連線。