KWR News & Events

Quaker Houghton has approved a new share repurchase program authorizing the company to repurchase up to an aggregate of $250M of its common stock. The company has terminated its prior 2024 share repurchase program. The program may be suspended, modified, or discontinued at any time without prior notice. The company expects to fund the repurchases by using cash on hand and expected free cash flow to be generated in the future.

Quaker Houghton announced that the Board of Directors has elected Mark A. Douglas as Chairman of the Board, effective immediately. Mr. Douglas will succeed Michael F. Barry, who has decided to retire as Chairman and a member of the Board. In connection with Mr. Barry's retirement, the Board acted to reduce its size from eleven to ten directors, effective May 13, 2026.

Reports Q1 revenue $480.48M, consensus $463.36M. Joe Berquist, Chief Executive Officer and President, commented, "We achieved 3% year-over-year organic volume growth despite challenging markets, resulting in our third consecutive quarter of profitability improvement compared to prior year. The volume growth was driven by new business wins in all regions, led again by the Asia/Pacific region. Our disciplined approach to sales execution and serving the customer is enabling us to outperform soft end markets, which we estimate were down a low-single-digit percentage in the quarter. Gross margins improved as expected in the first quarter, driving higher earnings, with adjusted EBITDA up 5% compared to prior year. Looking ahead we expect demand to improve incrementally with normal seasonality, even with volatility and current uncertainty in the market. We expect to incur raw material inflation beginning in the second quarter and have implemented price recovery and cost actions to mitigate the impact; however, some lag will temporarily impact gross margins in the second quarter. We expect to fully recover margins to reach our target range as we exit the year. While recent geopolitical events have created additional near-term uncertainty, we expect to achieve year-over-year revenue and adjusted EBITDA growth in 2026 assuming no significant deterioration in our end markets as a result of the Middle East conflict. I am proud of the resilience and unwavering commitment to our customers demonstrated by the entire Quaker Houghton team in an exceptionally volatile environment."