Entegris Inc (ENTG) 2021 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good day, everyone, and welcome to Entegris Third Quarter 2021 Earnings Release Call. Today's call is being recorded. At this time, for opening remarks and introductions, I would like to turn the call over to Bill Seymour, Entegris VP Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning, everyone. Earlier today, we announced the financial results for our third quarter of 2021.

Before we begin, I would like to remind listeners that our comments today will include some forward-looking statements. These statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, and actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties is contained in our most recent annual report and subsequent quarterly reports that we have filed with the SEC. Please refer to the information on the disclaimer slide in the presentation.

On this call, we will also refer to non-GAAP financial measures as defined by the SEC and Regulation G. You can find a reconciliation table in today's news release as well as on our IR page of our website at entegris.com.

On the call today are Bertrand Loy, our CEO, and Greg Graves, our CFO. With that, I'll hand the call over to Bertrand.

Thank you, Bill, and good morning to all. In the third quarter, we continued to deliver on our growth strategy. In spite of a very dynamic supply chain environment, I am proud that we've been able to deliver 23% organic sales growth year-to-date. During the third quarter, sales grew 20% year-on-year and 1% sequentially. Our growth year-on-year was strong across all 3 divisions as we benefited from robust industry growth and record demand for our products and solutions.

Lower operating expenses did offset the decline in gross margins and this resulted in 30% EBITDA margins in line with expectations, up over 20% year-on-year and up slightly sequentially. Non-GAAP EPS was up 37% year-over-year and 8% sequentially.

Let me now provide more color on our operating performance. From a product standpoint, we continue to benefit from strong demand for both our unit-driven products and CapEx-driven solutions. Within the unit-driven products, growth has been especially strong in strategic areas such as liquid filtration, up 21% year-to-date and in advanced deposition materials, up 26% year-to-date. In addition, we recorded another strong quarter of revenue for our Aramus high-purity bags, which are used for the bulk transportation of COVID-19 vaccines worldwide.

As I just mentioned, the supply chain environment across the industry continues to be very dynamic. On balance, our teams executed well, keeping our factories running at full utilization even in regions that experienced government-mandated shutdowns. We have also addressed some of the key capacity bottlenecks we discussed in the last few quarters, including adding production headcount and moving many of our operations to a 24/7 work schedule. However, our operations were impacted by a few nagging supply chain issues, which have been pervasive across the industry.

The 2 most significant areas of constraints during the quarter were availability of raw materials and freight. These constraints negatively impacted gross margin and prevented us from getting key materials then, and in some cases, from shipping finished products out of our factories in a timely fashion. We expect some of these challenges to linger, and we have taken this into account in our fourth quarter guidance.

Having said all that, demand for our products and solutions continues to be at a record level, and we continue to have a high degree of conviction in the positive secular growth of the semiconductor market, driven by accelerated digitalization, 5G and high-performance computing, to name just a few. In addition, the pace of node transitions for both logic and memory has accelerated and device architectures are becoming much more complex. This is great news for Entegris because the unique set of capabilities we have built around process materials and materials purity will be the key enablers of these new chip architectures. And this will translate into a rapidly expanding Entegris content per wafer.

Looking at the full year, we are reaffirming our revenue guidance of up 21% to 22%. We also expect EPS to be in line with our target model and expect full year 2021 non-GAAP EPS to exceed $3.30 per share, which, as we referenced last quarter, is starting to approach the 2023 EPS target of greater than $3.55 which we communicated in our Analyst Day last year.

Before I turn the call to Greg, I would like to highlight a couple of additional items. Last week, we published our first corporate social responsibility annual report. This report highlights our CSR strategy, the ambitious goals we set for 2030 and the progress we have made to date. Establishing our CSR program has allowed us to more fully embed these efforts into both our business strategy and in our operations, which enhances our ability to measure our progress and the impact of our efforts. Going forward, we expect to provide annual updates, and we look forward to your feedback as we continue this important journey.

Next, I would like to ask you to please hold your calendars for a virtual Analyst Meeting on December 1. We would not necessarily do an analyst meeting every year. However, given the growth we are delivering in 2021, the 3-year financial model we provided last year needs updating. In addition, we look forward to highlighting our strategy to sustain attractive growth rates for the years to come.

Finally, I want to take a moment to thank our customers for the trust and confidence they place in Entegris. And once again, thank the Entegris teams around the world for their incredible work and resourcefulness.

Now let me turn the call to Greg. Greg?

Thank you, Bertrand, and good morning, everyone. Our sales in Q3 were $579 million, up 20% year-over-year and up 1% sequentially. GAAP and non-GAAP gross margin were both 45.6%. Gross margins were lower than expected, driven by manufacturing inefficiencies and higher input and freight costs, challenges that have been well documented across the industry.

We expect gross margin to be approximately 46%, both on a GAAP and non-GAAP basis in Q4. GAAP operating expenses were $125 million in Q3 and included $13 million of non-GAAP items from amortization of intangible assets, integration and other costs. Non-GAAP operating expenses in Q3 were $112 million.

We expect GAAP operating expenses to be approximately $128 million to $130 million in Q4. We expect non-GAAP operating expenses to be approximately $116 million to $118 million. Q3 GAAP operating income was $139 million. Non-GAAP operating income was $153 million or 26% of revenue, up 26% year-on-year and up 26% slightly sequentially. Adjusted EBITDA was approximately $176 million and 30% of revenue.

Moving to below the operating line. Our GAAP tax rate was 8% and our non-GAAP tax rate was 11% for the quarter. The lower-than-expected rate in Q3 related primarily to a planning initiative that resulted in a discrete foreign tax credit benefit. For Q4, we expect both our GAAP and non-GAAP tax rates will be approximately 18.5%.

Q3 GAAP diluted EPS was $0.86 per share. Non-GAAP EPS of $0.92 per share was up 37% year-over-year and 8% sequentially.

Turning to our performance by division. Q3 sales of $176 million for SCEM were up 17% year-over-year and down 2% sequentially. Year-on-year growth was primarily driven by advanced deposition materials and specialty gases. As Bertrand mentioned, the shortages of key raw materials in the quarter were the primary driver in the modest sequential sales decline.

Adjusted operating margin for SCEM was 23% for the quarter, up year-on-year and down sequentially. The sequential margin decline was primarily driven by a onetime benefit from a sale of intellectual property that occurred in the second quarter.

Q3 sales of $226 million for MC were up 17% from last year and down slightly sequentially. Growth has been strong across all product lines in MC so far this year, especially in liquid filtration. The freight availability issues Bertrand referenced, negatively impacted shipments of large gas purification systems in MC during the quarter. Adjusted operating margin for MC was 35% for the quarter, up slightly from Q2.

Q3 sales of $186 million for AMH were up 29% versus last year and up 8% sequentially. Year-on-year growth was strongest in wafer handling and fluid handling and in measurement as both product lines benefited from the strong industry CapEx environment.

Sales of our Aramus high-purity bags also continued to be very strong. Adjusted operating margin for AMH was 22%, down both year-over-year and sequentially. The margin decline was primarily driven by the supply chain inefficiencies discussed earlier.

Third quarter cash flow from operations was $150 million and free cash flow was $101 million. CapEx for the quarter was $49 million. We continue to expect to spend approximately $225 million in CapEx for the full year.

During Q3, we paid $11 million in quarterly dividends, and we repurchased $20 million of our shares.

Now for the Q4 outlook. We expect sales to range from $580 million to $600 million. We expect GAAP EPS to be $0.80 to $0.85 per share, and non-GAAP EPS to be $0.87 to $0.92 per share.

In summary, we are very optimistic about the secular demand trends in the semiconductor industry and our ability to outperform the market. And finally, we look forward to updating you on our longer-term outlook and the Entegris story at our virtual Analyst Meeting on December 1.

Operator, we'll now open up for questions.

(Operator Instructions) We take our first question from Toshiya Hari with Goldman Sachs.

Bertrand, I was hoping you could provide maybe a little bit more color on some of the supply chain issues that you're experiencing. You talked about raw materials and freight. But what was -- how meaningful was the impact on revenue and gross margin in Q3? And what sort of impact are you embedding in your Q4 guidance, again, as it relates to supply chain issues? And at what point would you expect the environment to normalize? Is it sometime in early '22 or could it be the second half of '22? And then I've got a quick follow-up.

Toshiya, let me take maybe the part on the top line, and then I will defer to Greg on the question on margin. But if you think about Q3, think about that in the context of record level of demand for products and solution sets. And as we said, that was offset by some supply and freight constraints.

More specifically, if you look at the difference between what we are reporting today for Q3 and the high end of our Q3 guidance, it boils down to 2 major factors. The first one was the availability of substrate for our coating solutions and that impacted our SCEM division. And then the other one was the lack of container availability, which impacted the timely shipment of several large gas purification systems out of our San Luis Obispo site in Southern California.

We expect the first supplier issue, so the availability of substrate to be partially resolved in Q4. And with respect to the freight availability, it's a little bit harder to comment. At one level, we are obviously encouraged by the latest development in the ports of Southern California. But on another level, obviously, we expect to see continued pressure throughout the holiday season. So it's a little bit harder for us to opine on this one.

I will defer to Greg on the margin question, and then we'll take your next question, Toshiya.

Yes. So Toshi, on the margin side, where the supply chain issues really sort of emanate themselves are in, I'd call it, sort of the labor inefficiencies where we've put labor in place and then we don't have the inputs to build a product. So it's really not any more complicated than that as it relates to the gross margin. I can comment more on the gross margin broadly at some point, if you'd like. But as it relates to the supply chain, it emanates itself really in labor inefficiency.

Right. So Greg, I guess as a quick follow-up on your comment. The -- I guess, 140 basis point missing gross margin in Q3. Is that primarily supply chain/labor inefficiency related? Or whether...

Yes. I guess -- so I would say, really, we broke it down in 3 pieces. We said manufacturing inefficiencies, inputs and freight costs. On the manufacturing inefficiencies, you've really got 3 pieces to that. You've got labor. I mean, we've hired over 1,000 people this year. So training and ramping new employees and inexperienced employees, I mean, they impact our quality; they -- it impacts our scrap.

The material shortages, which I commented on, when you got material shortages, you're obviously more inefficient. I mean if you've staffed and planned for certain volumes and you can't do the volumes because of materials. And then the last place, manufacturing inefficiencies have emanated themselves as we've got a couple of ramps going on. We have a facility ramp going in LifeSciences in Minnesota, and we're ramping a drum facility in Korea.

Then on the input side, it's been nothing specific -- it's not any one thing. I think where we've seen probably the most impact has been probably around resins and chemistries. And then freight costs in general, whether it's inbound freight, moving product around between our facilities or the like.

And I would say when you take all of those things, it's probably equal weight, maybe a little bit more biased toward manufacturing inefficiencies and input pricing in terms of the overall impact on the margin.

Got it. And the 46% guide for Q4, I'm guessing, embeds some of these risks and they persist into Q4?

That's exactly right. I mean we certainly expect the logistics costs and the materials cost to persist into Q4. We do expect some improvement in our plant performance and manufacturing efficiencies.

Okay. Got it. And then as my follow-up, Bertrand, back to you. I was hoping to ask you a little bit about the out year and given your scheduled Analyst Day, I doubt you would share too much on this call, but I was hoping if you could comment qualitatively your hopes and expectations into next year. Obviously, you're operating in a very dynamic environment, but you did talk about how customer node transition seem to be accelerating. And I'm guessing across logic, foundry and also the memory side as well. So I feel like the setup for you guys specifically is very positive given the content growth potential. But yes, if you can kind of share your preliminary thoughts and views on the out year, that would be super helpful.

Sure. I think you mostly answered the question, Toshiya. But as you said, there are many reasons for us to be optimistic about 2022. We expect a lot of new capacity to come online after the surge in CapEx that we've seen for the last couple of years. And as of today, we expect also a number of important node transitions next year, both in logic and in memory, where we have higher Entegris content per wafer. So I will not quantify those qualitative statements today, but we are generally optimistic about 2022 and beyond.

We'll take our next question from Sidney Ho with Deutsche Bank.

Let me follow up with the previous question on calendar '22. I understand you don't have perfect visibility. But based on your order book and lead times, how are you thinking about first half of next year versus second half of this year? And if I look back to your past 5, 6 years, it seems like first half total revenue grows mid- to high single digit over second half of the previous year, maybe with the exception of 2018. Just curious if you have -- if you're willing to, on this call, talk about it, if you see anything different than previous years?

Look, Sidney, as I said in my previous answer, I'm not going to try to quantify 2022 in general, let alone trying to talk about first half versus second half. As I said, I think there are many reasons for us to be optimistic about 2022, optimistic about the momentum going into 2022. As we've said in the prepared remarks, we see an acceleration in the demand for our solutions and products. So all of that is positive, but I won't quantify that.

Okay. It's worth a try. My follow-up question is. So what we learned over the past few months, you said a lot of times supply constraints are not just your -- about your supply chain, but also your customer supply chain. Are there any particular end market segment that you are worried that your customers may not be able to get all the parts they need such that you will get impacted even though your sales then may not be constrained. Just thinking broadly like maybe fab construction versus equipment suppliers, maybe wafer starts. Any color would be helpful.

Yes. Well, I think that we are obviously in very close contact with our customers, trying to understand the instantaneous speed of their business, both in terms of new fab construction projects as well as the level of fab activity. To put that in context, I mean, going into Q4, we expect, in fact, sequential decline in the industry. We expect that MSI will be down. We expect that CapEx will be sequentially down modestly. And in spite of that, we expect demand for our products to continue to accelerate, and we expect to outperform the industry as a result of that in spite of some of the supply chain issues that we expect to encounter in Q4.

So it is a very dynamic environment. There are supply chain issues coming from our supply partners. And you're right that we're also increasingly watching supply chain constraints that could impact the output from -- for our customers and then obviously have an impact on the demand for our products. And we're trying to factor all of that into our Q4 guidance.

We'll take our next question from Patrick Ho with Stifel.

Bertrand, maybe just following up on the supply chain issues. As the quarter progressed, you still actually did pretty well on the revenue front. Do you have to qualify new investors to get resin and materials on that front? Or was it simply just timing and things kind of improved as the quarter went where you were able to procure the necessary materials to at least get to your revenue guidance line?

Yes, Patrick. So it is, as you know, very difficult for us to substitute supplies and to qualify suppliers. It requires a lot of work, both by us and by our end customers. And right now, we, frankly, collectively do not have the time to do that. So the solution usually is to work with the existing qualified suppliers and to help them increase their output or as Greg was mentioning earlier, in some cases, really incur premium freight in order to accelerate the shipment of incoming materials.

So I think what has been very difficult, not just for us, but I think for the industry, in general, over the last 3 to 6 months is the fact that every week, there seems to be another crisis that emerges. I think our teams have done an amazing job with many, many diving catches, if I can put it this way. I know you're a baseball fan, so you can understand the analogy. But I think what we are worried about are the unknowns, right? And we know that when those unknowns are becoming visible to us, we know that our teams -- our joint teams between our manufacturing support teams and our existing supply chain partners will find solutions, but it always takes a little bit of time.

Great. That's really helpful. And maybe as a follow-up question, I think maybe more of a qualitative outlook. Obviously, now we're starting to see in the U.S., a third shot for the COVID vaccines for people. How do you look at the Aramus business going forward? Does this provide, one, an incremental boost to that business opportunity, particularly as you look into 2022?

Sure. As we've said, I think the demand for our Aramus product continues to accelerate. We expect the revenue to exceed $50 million this year. I'm very pleased, in fact, by the work of our LifeSciences teams, the capacity additions are progressing well. The capacity is coming online as scheduled. So in other words, we do not expect constraints on that front, which is good.

And I also like the greater diversity in the new opportunity pipeline. So clearly, the current demand and the demand for the bag next year will be driven by COVID-19, but I would expect that to start shifting further down the road.

And frankly, beyond the business success, I think it's been very, very gratifying for everyone at Entegris to contribute to the global fight against COVID-19 in such a meaningful way. So many reasons for us to be very pleased with that, the business and that investment.

The next question comes from Amanda Scarnati with Citi.

Can you talk a little bit about the pricing environment? I know you've mentioned in the past that you've been working on taking steps to improve pricing. And how has that been in sort of this environment of under shipping to demand, supply constraints, et cetera? Have you seen any increased benefit in pricing?

Well, I can take that, Greg, if you want. But I would say that, as Greg was mentioning earlier, we are, right now, very carefully assessing the input costs, trying to assess what is permanent versus what is transitory. And when and where it makes sense, we are increasing prices. And that's something that we just started literally in the last few weeks.

And then the other question I have is just sort of on shipments versus demand. Can you talk about what percentage are sort of under shipping? Are you able to meet full demand in certain product areas? Or sort of is it more of a broad-based issue with the raw materials and the shipping?

No, as we said in many different ways already on the call, the demand far exceeds our ability to need it. I think that it's fair to say that -- look, the chip demand is very strong right now. And as I've said before, the demand for our products is even stronger. So the -- I mean the singular focus that we have as an organization is really to maximize output to meet the customer demand. And as Greg was mentioning in his comments around margin, in some cases, this focus has come at the expense of margin optimization at least short term. So if you think about the business today, it's really a tale of 2 cities, extremely strong demand for products, offset by supply chain inefficiencies and margin inefficiencies.

Great. And if I could just make sure I heard something right earlier. You said that MSI was -- you're expecting it to be down in the fourth quarter?

Sequentially, yes.

We take our next question from Mike Harrison with Seaport Research Partners.

Good morning. I was wondering, Bertrand, if you can talk a little bit about what you're seeing with some of your trailing edge or legacy customers as they work to get additional product into the auto OEM and other industries that are struggling with the chip shortage? Are you seeing some of these fabs add lines or look for other ways to improve production? Any insight on when they might make sort of progress on that would be helpful.

Yes, it's a good question. And as a matter of fact, if you look at some of the markets where those mainstream fabs are operating, be it Japan or Europe, we are seeing record levels of revenue in those regions. Europe is growing at 25% year-to-date for us. Japan is growing at about the same level. And it's partially due to the high level of activity that we are seeing in those mainstream fabs. So that has been a nice driver to our business in 2021. And we, frankly, expect that to continue going into 2022 as well.

All right. And then on the supply chain disruptions, you mentioned that due to freight, you had some equipment that maybe didn't ship during the quarter. And I'm just wondering a little bit about the impact on customer node transitions if they're seeing delays in getting equipment or getting materials, have you seen any delays in the pace of those transition either from supply chain impact or ability to get equipment or anything else, I guess?

Look, I think this is a general industry phenomenon. We do have supply chain issues. I think that on balance, we are managing them well. I am not aware of being the one supplier being the cause of delays in the industry. And I hope it stays that way. Having said that, we know that some projects have been delayed due to lack of equipment or materials availability. But to the best of my knowledge, we have never been the one reason for those delays.

The next question comes from Kieran De Brun with Mizuho.

I was just wondering, it's a little bit of a longer-term question. But when we think about the current uptick in CapEx spending and what that means for future demand, both from a memory and logic perspective, are there any areas where you currently feel maybe underrepresented or where you would like to increase your exposure? And whether you see that from like an organic perspective or even inorganic perspective on a go-forward basis? I know you might address that a little bit more during the Investor Day, but if you have any color you can give us at this time, that would be really helpful.

I think that in general terms, we've said that historically, we've had a lot of exposure to the logic and foundry technology road maps, and we had been behind in terms of opportunities in memory. We've been able to bridge that with the migration from 2D to 3D architectures. And we talked at length in previous calls about why that was the case. It was really the introduction of those high aspect ratios, architectures, triggering the need for new materials and triggering the needs for higher purity levels in the processes.

We expect to see similar trends at work with DRAM with the introduction of EUV, which will be enabling greater miniaturization, which in due time will actually make those contamination challenges more significant for the DRAM road maps, and that will actually create opportunities for us to increase our content per wafer.

So again, I think that we are seeing a shift in where we see the opportunities for us in the industry. We used to have almost a singular opportunity in logic, and we are seeing now a much broader, much more diverse opportunity pipeline for us with greater opportunities in 3D NAND and I think in a few years in DRAM as well.

Great. And then I guess just -- and this is more of a near-term focus question. If we think about this supply chain kind of logistical raw material environment persisting longer into '22, are there any levers that you can pull to maybe whether it's plant optimization or just in general, investing in the overall business, returning capital to shareholders in the near term that you think could supplement some of those headwinds if they were to persist longer? Or how should we think about that?

Could you -- I'm not sure I'm capturing your question. Would it be possible for you to rephrase it?

Yes. I was just saying if this headwind -- if this environment where we're seeing supply chain challenges, raw material impacts, et cetera, persists longer than we expect, are there any internal initiatives that you can take maybe to improve gross margins to help offset that over the near term?

Well, I think we are obviously very focused. I mean if you think about the supply chain issues, right, you have 3 big buckets right now and that we've been talking in the previous 3 quarters in each of those buckets have been the source of constraints at one point or another so far this year. Early in the year, it was really around our own manufacturing capacity. I think we've made a lot of progress there. As Greg mentioned, we have hired a lot of new headcounts, close to 1,100 manufacturing and manufacturing support positions and more than half of those positions were created during the summer. And I'm pleased to say that the training is mostly complete, and -- which means that as we are entering Q4 now, most of our manufacturing sales are running at 24/7 operations.

We have also invested in new equipment, completed the qualifications for that. And so new capacity will be coming online in Q4. That will be good for liquid filters, good for high-purity drums out of Korea. So again, good focus on our internal capacity. We have enough capacity -- internal capacity to meet the expected demand in 2021. We're going to continue to make investments in 2022 and in 2023 in the U.S., in Taiwan and in Japan in order to sustain the growth levels that we expect for the years to come.

And then when it comes to the other 2, whether that's supply chain and freight, I mean, we are working with our partners, and we hope that they make similar types of investments and that we have our supplier day coming up in a few weeks, and that will be one of my major ask or reaffirming the need for similar types of investments by our supply chain partners because we expect secular growth in this industry and the secular demand for our products to remain very attractive and very strong for the years to come. So a lot of focus at all levels internally and externally with our partners.

The next question comes from Chris Kapsch with Loop Capital Markets.

Just following up on the factors that were influencing the slight margin pressure. I get the optics of degradation maybe on a sequential basis or relative to some models that were out there. But on a year-over-year basis, it looks like it's only the AMH segment that saw degradation. So you called out a number of the issues there. I'm just also wondering if there's any mix effect that influence or weighed on the year-over-year margin degradation in AMH.

Yes. So broadly, I'm just talking about gross margins. I just want to say, I mean, the margin that we experienced in the most recent quarter, I mean, is not really -- it's not a natural margin. I mean that's not the margin power of the business because of all that was going on in the supply chain, some of the headwinds on material costs that we're not sure will be permanent or transitory, like I said, the labor inefficiencies. So I don't like where the margin was in the quarter, but I don't -- I certainly don't view it as sort of the margin power of the business.

If you think about the margins across the company in the most recent quarter, you asked the question on mix. I mean mix was certainly a minor factor. When we've given our guidance coming into Q3, we expect an improving mix and we didn't see that. You commented on AMH specifically, I would say that's the division that probably saw the most impact related to freight expediting in particular, and also headwinds related to ramping facilities, both of the facilities I referred to, the Jangan facility as well as the LifeSciences facility reside in that business.

So when I think about the margins overall, I guess, I would say I'm comfortable to say that I think we'll be on an improving trend. I'm not predicting when these supply chain issues are going to go away. But -- so ultimately that will improve and we'll continue to see an improving trend on our margin, which -- and our current guidance is pretty modest for Q4.

Okay. That's helpful. And just as a follow-up sort of to a prior question, despite the margin sort of headwinds, I guess, the sales growth in AMH, which is equipment oriented was strong and may have been stronger if not for some of these constraints. But I was just curious if you have visibility regarding demand there, is that skewed mostly to customers that are adding capacity at leading-edge nodes? Or is it really spread across all technology nodes? So is it skewed towards leading edge? Or is it more balanced?

Let's say, in AMH in particular -- go ahead, Bertrand.

Your question is around AMH, Chris, correct?

Yes.

Okay. Yes, I think we're seeing capacity additions in logic, and we are seeing technology upgrades in memory. So it's a little bit of both.

Okay. And just 1 last one since you teed up the December 1 analyst event and referenced the 3-year modeling would need some updating. If you could just remind us the $3.55 EPS bogey that was referenced, how much, if any, share repurchase activity was factored into that? Or maybe you could just talk about the latest thinking in terms of share repurchases as a capital allocation lever.

That the $3.55 million number was an organic number. We had laid out in the Analyst Meeting last November sort of -- and I don't have it right in front of me, the impact that we could have from certain capital allocation scenarios, including more aggressive share repurchases. And right now, in terms of our strategy around share repurchases, I don't want to comment specifically, I mean, other than to say that we stand by our capital allocation framework that we've laid out, which suggests that M&A would be our top priority. But that over time, it's our goal to return 60% of free cash flow to shareholders in the form of buybacks and dividends.

The next question comes from Timothy Arcuri with UBS.

Bertrand, I heard you say you were talking about Q4 and talking about MSI and CapEx both being down, which I think is kind of interesting. And so my question is sort of around customer behavior. How are they changing their behavior, if at all, given the shortages? I mean we've seen the equipment companies, they're guiding pretty flat in December and the chip guys are generally guiding up. So I guess I'm wondering, are you seeing orders deferred because of the supply issues? I guess -- I would think it would probably go the other way that if you can't get what you need, you might order more, not less. So I guess I wanted to kind of double click on your comment that CapEx and MSI will be down in Q4.

Yes. So as I said, we expect MSI and CapEx to be down mid. So MSI down mid-single digit and CapEx down low single digits sequentially. To your point, Tim, I think that some customers may not slow down demand for our products simply because they are running at a fairly low level of safety stocks. But we know that in some of the cases, they may actually choose to slow down demand for our products. So it's a mixed bag. And obviously, I won't go into customer-specific commentary here.

Okay. But I guess just on that, so you are seeing some business deferred as a result of the shortages?

Nothing really meaningful. And frankly, that's one of the reasons why we expect to outpace the industry by 4 to 5 basis points sequentially.

Okay. I guess, maybe just on that point, can you just give an idea of what unconstrained demand is. There was a question before that was trying to get at this, maybe to ask it a different way. If you didn't have any constraints, what would revenue have been? It sounds like maybe you would have been at the high end or maybe even above the high end were it not for these issues. Can you just talk about that?

Yes, it would have been at the high end if it wasn't for those issues. Absolutely, yes. And if you fast forward until, I would say, let's project forward to the end of the year, all of those constrained issues have a snowballing effect. So if you fast forward to December, I would expect the difference between the unconstrained demand and what we expect to be able to ship this year to be around $50 million. So a couple of points of top line growth on an annual basis.

$50 million, that's on a quarterly basis or that's on an annual basis?

Annual basis.

We'll take our next question from Josh Silverstein with Wolfe Research.

I just wanted to follow up on the prior comments around the cash return profile. And maybe just thinking about what else you may want to do with the cash. You've got your long-term debt down about $150 million kind of year-over-year. The cash is building. Just wanted to see what the gross debt reductions that you want to undertake or maybe think about the other way, like what's the capacity for buybacks that you guys may have going forward? Or is there some sort of limiting factor around leverage profile that you want to stick to?

So I think we've consistently said that we'd like to keep our ongoing leverage around 2x on a gross basis. We're a little bit below that today. But the debt that we have in place today is largely permanent debt. So other than $100 million or so on the term loan, you're not -- there's really -- there's no intent to reduce the debt levels from where they are.

As we think about returning cash to shareholders, I think it's a function of 2 things. It's reinvestment in the business. And we've said previously, we've got some relatively significant investments coming up the next several years. The Taiwan facility specifically. We'll comment on that more in December. And then it's a function of the M&A environment. We said M&A is a priority. And so it's sort of -- I guess it's a bit of a Rubik's cube. But I mean like I said, our intent over time is to return a meaningful amount of cash to shareholders. And we -- if you look at the last year or so, it hasn't been great. But if you were to look at the 3 prior years, we were just short of that 60%. In aggregate, we're just short of that 60% target that we talked about.

Great. And then just following up on the M&A comments. Is there -- there are 1 or 2 things that you guys -- wish you had in the portfolio today, and that's what you're trying to target? Or are these smaller bolt-on transactions that are just kind of complementary to what you guys already have or just an extension of what you already have within the portfolio?

Yes. So as Greg said, I think M&A continues to be an important part of our growth strategy. We have a strong balance sheet and liquidity. But -- so expect us to be active, but selective. And what it means is that our teams are very, very busy right now. So expect us to be active on targets that are really a perfect strategic fit with our platform. And we are really focused on a few areas right now. Small to midsize deals would be the type of things you should expect us to focus on at this point?

Got it. Yes, I would just think with the multiple that you guys have in the balance sheet, maybe there's some bigger opportunities out there. So that's why I wondered if it was big or small. And would you be willing to issue some -- use that currency for a potential acquisition?

I think we've said that often, but for the right deal, we will be willing to use this currency indeed. I mean, we talked about that in the context of there were some discussions several years ago, and our position remains the same.

The last question comes from Paretosh Misra with Berenberg.

Can you provide some more color on growth drivers in your Specialty Chemicals segment? I guess Greg flagged deposition of specialty gas for high growth. So maybe if you could quantify that? And any color on the cleaning chemistries and graphite business, that would be great.

So -- yes, so the big driver for SCEM this year and this past quarter has been advanced deposition materials. It's up 26% year-to-date. It was up sequentially nicely as well. Other parts of the business are doing well, but not growing as fast. Specialty gases, specialty coatings, up about 22% year-to-date, significantly higher than MSI in spite of some of the supply issues that we were mentioning. So it was down sequentially, but year-to-date still very strong performance for those product platforms. And the others, be it cleaning or some of the other product lines are more in the low to mid-teens, so more in line with wafer starts.

Got it. And then so just I guess big picture in terms of memory and logic growth, how is it looking on a year-to-date basis so far? .

So logic is doing well. I mean, it's certainly led by our performance in leading-edge foundry. This is where we see the biggest growth in logic for us. And then memory continues to be the one big driver for us. That segment is really in the mid-20%. And that's a function of the node transitions that I was referencing earlier, which are driving the steady expansion of our served market as we see greater opportunity on a per wafer basis for materials, for selective-edge chemistries and for some of the coating solutions that are used in the chamber components at the edge tools in memory applications.

Maybe if I could ask just 1 last one, probably for Greg. I realize you may want to save your detailed comments on the Taiwan facility for December. But maybe just in terms of timing, is that plant still set to start end of next year? And how much of this year's CapEx is towards that facility?

So the CapEx for that facility this year will be less than $50 million. And then as it relates to timing, late 2022, early 2023, depending on which division you're talking about. But overall, I think the end of next year is the right way to think about it.

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