Eastman Chemical narrows FY24 EPS view to $7.50-$70 from $7.40-$7.85

Consensus $7.69. Commenting on the outlook for full-year 2024, CEO Mark Costa said, “We are proud to have delivered another strong quarter in this period of prolonged macroeconomic weakness. As expected, sales volume improved from last year mostly due to the lack of customer inventory destocking. With destocking over, our demand has reconnected to our end markets, which remain stable. In the fourth quarter, we expect to see normal seasonal volume declines across most of our markets. We also expect to continue to leverage our innovation-driven growth model to drive growth above our markets. We expect to benefit from commercial excellence and the continued flow through of lower raw material and energy costs in our specialty businesses. While we have made significant progress achieving consistent production rates at the Kingsport methanolysis facility, it has taken us longer than expected to achieve those rates. Despite these challenges, the strong results we have delivered in our base business enable us to keep the midpoint of our full-year adjusted EPS guidance unchanged. Taking these factors together, we expect 2024 EPS to be between $7.50 and $7.70 and for 2024 cash from operations to approach $1.3 billion, reflecting a targeted increase in working capital to support growth in 2025. I remain confident in our ability to deliver earnings growth and strong cash flow going forward.”