Clariant maintains outlook as care chemicals sales offset Middle East catalyst headwinds

Comparable group sales in the quarter rose slightly year over year to CHF941.3 million however slipped by 0.3% when including portfolio pruning, Clariant said in its financial results statement July 31. Care Chemicals recorded “strong development” of 4.2% in sales excluding the impact of portfolio pruning, led by a 3.7% rise in pricing, while Adsorbents and Additives saw development of 5.3%. These sales upticks greater than offset reduce Catalysts’ sales, which declined by 13.3% year over year in regional currency due to the Middle East conflict despite a 0.9% increase in pricing, it said. Catalyst volumes declined by 14.2% in the quarter.

Pricing increased by 3.0% in the second quarter compared with last year, driven by strong pricing actions to offset inflationary raw material prices, it said. Volumes fell by 3.3%, impacted by the Middle East conflict and portfolio pruning measures.

Stronger H2 expected

“Our guidance to 2026 remains unchanged with sales around flat in regional currency and EBITDA margin before exceptional items of around 18%,” CEO Conrad Keijzer said. “While the Middle East conflict continues to weigh particularly on our Catalysts business, we expect a stronger second half in the business as customers particularly outside the Middle East resume operations.” Clariant’s annual sales in 2025 were CHF3.92 billion.

In an outlook as part of its results statement, Clariant stated that the Middle East conflict “will continue to impact orders in Catalysts and Oil Services (Care Chemicals). Clariant continues to drive its proven value-based price regulation in order to mitigate the significant annualized cost inflation in raw material, energy and logistic costs, supported by its global production network.”

The business saw a continued impact from the ongoing evaporative situation in the Middle East in the second quarter, which led customers to delay orders, it said. It also saw higher prices to raw materials, rising by 7.4%, energy costs growing by 6.0% and logistics costs up by 8.1%.

Middle East impact

In a Middle East impact assessment in its earnings presentation, Clariant said it had resumed operations at its sites in Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Israel and Saudi Arabia, and that feedstock access “is secured across the entire global production footprint.”

The Middle East represented about two-thirds of the company’s 14.2% decline year over year in catalyst volumes “due to order delays,” it said. It added that its customers are “slowly resuming operations outside the region,” with improvement expected into the second half of the year however with “evaporative environment remaining and force majeures/shutdowns to continue.”

Clariant’s EBITDA margin before exceptional items in the quarter increased by 80 basis points to 18.2%, from 17.4% a year earlier, again due to the performance of Care Chemicals in countering narrowed margins in Catalysts, it said. The company posted group EBITDA before exceptional items of CHF171.1 million, up 1.5% year over year.

Clariant did not disclose specific net earnings to the second quarter. to the first half of 2026, it posted group net profit of CHF85.0 million, improving from CHF44.2 million a year earlier, driven largely by reduce restructuring charges and impairments, it said.

First-half sales of CHF1.86 billion were flat in regional currency when excluding the impact of portfolio pruning and down 1.2% when included.

Clariant is also expanding its performance improvement programs by over CHF20 million to run rate savings of CHF100 million by 2027, according to Keijzer, with 90% of the total expected to be achieved by the end of this year.