Haynes International (HAYN) Risk Analysis

We are a U.S. based company with customers and suppliers in foreign countries. We import various raw materials used in our production processes, and we export goods to our foreign customers. The United States, the European Commission, countries in the EU, the United Kingdom, and other countries where we do business may change relevant tax, border tax, accounting and other laws, regulations and interpretations, which may unfavorably impact our effective tax rate or result in other costs to us.  In addition, the Company has deferred tax assets on its balance sheet which could be subjected to unfavorable impacts if tax rates are reduced.

We are subject to various foreign, federal, state and local environmental, health and safety laws and regulations, including those governing the discharge of pollutants into the environment, the storage, handling, use, treatment and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes and the health and safety of our employees. Under these laws and regulations, we may be held liable for all costs arising out of any release of hazardous substances on, under or from any of our current or former properties or any off-site location to which we sent or arranged to be sent wastes for disposal or treatment, and such costs may be material. We could also be held liable for any and all consequences arising out of human exposure to such substances or other hazardous substances that may be attributable to our products or other environmental damage. In addition, some of these laws and regulations require our facilities to operate under permits that are subject to renewal or modification. These laws, regulations and permits can require expensive pollution control equipment or operational changes to limit actual or potential impacts to the environment. Violations of these laws, regulations or permits can also result in the imposition of substantial penalties, permit revocations and/or facility shutdowns. We have received permits from the environmental regulatory authorities in Indiana and North Carolina to close and to provide post-closure monitoring and care for certain areas of our Kokomo and Mountain Home facilities that were used for the storage and disposal of wastes, some of which are classified as hazardous under applicable regulations. We are required to monitor groundwater and to continue post-closure maintenance of the former disposal areas at each site. As a result, we are aware of elevated levels of certain contaminants in the groundwater and additional corrective action could be required. Additionally, it is possible that we could be required to undertake other corrective action for any other solid waste management unit or other conditions existing or determined to exist at our facilities. We are unable to estimate the costs of any further corrective action, if required. However, the costs of future corrective action at these or any other current or former sites could have a material adverse effect on our business. We may also incur liability for alleged environmental damages associated with the off-site transportation and disposal of hazardous substances. Our operations generate hazardous substances, many of which we accumulate at our facilities for subsequent transportation and disposal or recycling by third parties off-site. Generators of hazardous substances which are transported to disposal sites where environmental problems are alleged to exist are subject to liability under CERCLA and state counterparts. In addition, we may have generated hazardous substances disposed of at sites which are subject to CERCLA or equivalent state law remedial action. We have been named as a potentially responsible party at one site. CERCLA imposes strict, joint and several liabilities for investigatory and cleanup costs upon hazardous substance generators, site owners and operators and other potentially responsible parties regardless of fault. If we are named as a potentially responsible party at other sites in the future, the costs associated with those future sites could have a material adverse effect on our business. Environmental laws are complex, change frequently and have tended to become increasingly stringent over time, including those relating to greenhouse gases. While we have budgeted for future capital and operating expenditures to comply with environmental laws, changes in any environmental law may directly or indirectly increase our costs of compliance and liabilities arising from any past or future releases of, or exposure to, hazardous substances and may materially adversely affect our business. See "Business-Environmental Compliance" in Part I, Item I in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

We anticipate that we will continue to derive a significant portion of our revenues from operations in international markets. As we continue to expand internationally, we will need to hire, train and retain qualified personnel for our direct sales efforts and retain distributors and train their personnel in countries where language, cultural or regulatory impediments may exist. Distributors, regulators or government agencies may not continue to accept our products, services and business practices, and costs related to international trade have increased and may continue to increase. In addition, we purchase raw materials on the international market. The sale and shipment of our products and services across international borders, as well as the purchase of raw materials from international sources, subject us to the trade regulations of various jurisdictions, including tariffs and other possible punitive measures. In addition, the Russian invasion of Ukraine led us to voluntarily cease the procurement of nickel from Russia (which was previously only a small portion of our need at roughly 5%).  Compliance with such regulations is costly. Any failure to comply with applicable legal and regulatory obligations could impact us in a variety of ways that include, but are not limited to, significant criminal, civil and administrative penalties, including imprisonment of individuals, fines and penalties, denial of export privileges, seizure of shipments and restrictions on certain business activities. Failure to comply with applicable legal and regulatory obligations could result in the disruption of our shipping, sales and service activities. Our international sales operations expose us and our representatives, agents and distributors to risks inherent in operating in foreign jurisdictions, any one or more of which may adversely affect our business, including: - our ability to obtain, and the costs associated with obtaining, U.S. export licenses and other required export or import licenses or approvals;- changes in duties and tariffs, quotas, taxes, trade restrictions, license obligations and other non-tariff barriers to trade;- policy changes affecting the market for our products;- burdens of complying with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and a wide variety of foreign laws and regulations;- business practices or laws favoring local companies;- fluctuations in foreign currencies;- restrictive trade policies of foreign governments;- longer payment cycles and difficulties collecting receivables through foreign legal systems;- difficulties in enforcing or defending agreements and intellectual property rights; and - foreign political or economic conditions. Any material decrease in our international revenues or inability to expand our international operations as a result of these or other factors would adversely impact our business.

We are subject to macroeconomic downturns and geopolitical events in the United States and abroad that may affect the general economic climate, our performance and the demand of our customers.  The Russian invasion of Ukraine has resulted in trade restrictions with companies operating in Russia, which has forced us and other companies to source raw materials from other countries which can lead to insufficient supply or higher prices for us. Transportation and logistics resources, including shipping and transportation services, have been in short supply, which has had, and may continue to have, an adverse effect on our business. Further, any global trade wars or similar economic turmoil, including new or existing tariffs, could adversely affect our business.  In past years, the U.S. and China have imposed tariffs on large amounts of products imported into each of the countries from one another.  A "trade war" or other governmental action related to tariffs or international trade agreements or policies has the potential to adversely impact demand for our products, our costs, customers, suppliers and/or the U.S. economy or certain sections thereof, and, thus, adversely affect our business.  Our competitors outside of the United States may not be subject to these tariffs or other measures, and therefore, could have a significant competitive advantage over us in that respect.

We rely on a combination of confidentiality, invention assignment and other types of agreements and trade secret, trademark and patent law to establish, maintain, protect and enforce our intellectual property rights. Our efforts in regard to these measures may be inadequate, however, to prevent others from misappropriating our intellectual property rights. In addition, laws in some non-U.S. countries affecting intellectual property are uncertain in their application, which can affect the scope or enforceability of our intellectual property rights. Any of these events or factors could diminish or cause us to lose the competitive advantages associated with our intellectual property, which could have a material adverse effect on our business.

Cybersecurity incidents may result in compromises or breaches of our and our customers' systems, the insertion of malicious code, malware, ransomware or other vulnerabilities into our systems and products and in our customers' systems, the exploitation of vulnerabilities in our and our customers' environments, theft or misappropriation of our and our customers' proprietary and confidential information, interference with our and our customers' operations, exposure to legal and other liabilities, higher customer, employee and partner attrition, negative impacts to our sales and reputational harm and other serious negative consequences, any or all of which could materially harm our business. Additionally, outside service providers could be subject to attack which could inhibit those providers' abilities to provide necessary services to us.  Any such attack could disrupt our operations and could have a material adverse effect on our business. As previously disclosed, the Company experienced a network outage indicative of a cybersecurity incident on June 10, 2023. Upon detection of the incident, the Company engaged third-party specialists to assist in investigating the source of the outage, determine its potential impact on the Company's systems, and securely restore full system functionality. On June 21, 2023, less than two weeks after the incident began, the Company announced that all manufacturing operations were running and that the Company had substantially restored administrative, sales, financial and customer service functions. Nevertheless, during those 11 days many aspects of the Company's production were substantially disrupted. This cybersecurity incident resulted in a significant loss of production time and a reduction of products shipped in the third quarter of fiscal 2023, which negatively impacted the Company's financial results for fiscal 2023.  In addition, the Company incurred significant costs and expenses, as well as the diversion of management's attention, in responding to the cybersecurity incident, all of which had a negative impact on the Company. We have put in place a number of systems, processes and practices designed to protect against intentional or unintentional misappropriation or corruption of our systems and information or disruption of our operations including unauthorized access to our networks, servers and data, encryption of network access and the introduction of malware. Despite our cybersecurity efforts, we could be subject to future breaches of our security systems, which may result in unauthorized access, misappropriation, corruption or disruption of the information we are trying to protect, in which case we could suffer material harm. For example, access to our proprietary information regarding new alloy formulations would allow our competitors to use that information in the development of competing products. Current employees have, and former employees may have, access to a significant amount of information regarding our Company which could be disclosed to our competitors or otherwise used to harm us. Any future misappropriation or corruption of our systems and information or disruption of our operations could have a material adverse effect on our business.

Management relies on our information technology infrastructure, including hardware, network, software, people and processes, to provide useful information to support assessments and conclusions about operating performance. Our inability to produce relevant or reliable measures of operating performance in an efficient, cost-effective and well-controlled fashion may have significant negative impacts on our business.  We continue to evaluate options to further upgrade our systems, including an implementation to a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.  A transition to a critical system or the discontinuation of support from legacy systems could result in disruptions, which could have a significant adverse impact on our business.