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PolyOne Corp (AVNT 1.54%)
Q3Â 2018 Earnings Conference Call
Oct. 24, 2018, 8:00 a.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the PolyOne Corporation's Third quarter 2018 Conference Call. My name is James and I will be your operator for today. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. We will have a question-and-answer session at the end of the conference. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded for replay purposes.
At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Joe Di Salvo, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please proceed.
Joe Di Salvo -- Vice President, Investor Relations
Thank you, James. Good morning and welcome to everyone joining us on the call today. Before beginning, we would like to remind you that statements made during this conference call may be considered forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements will give current expectations or forecasts of future events and are not guarantees of future performance. They are based on management's expectation and involve a number of business risks and uncertainties, any of which could cause material results to differ -- cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by the forward-looking statement. Some of these risks and uncertainties can be found in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as in today's press release.
During the discussion today, the company will use both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to the earnings release posted on the PolyOne website where the company describes the non-GAAP measures and provides a reconciliation from the most comparable GAAP financial measures. Operating results reference during today's call will be comparing the third quarter of 2018 to the third quarter of 2017 unless otherwise stated. Joining me today on the call is our Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, Bob Patterson; and Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Brad Richardson.
Now, I will turn the call over to Bob.
Robert M. Patterson -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, Joe, and good morning. We are pleased to report record third quarter adjusted earnings per share of $0.62 and that is up from $0.58 in the prior year. It's a 7% increase, which has been driven by our continued topline expansion. Our revenue of $833 million (ph) was an 8% increase over last year. Investments in our commercial team have made performance like this possible. Our sales, marketing, and R&D resources, which have increased nearly 5% organically this year led to a 6% organic increase in revenue. And whether it's more sellers in high growth regions, more personnel to lead marketing campaigns, or additional R&D technicians to collaborate with our customers; we are delivering for them and the results are clear. At the same time, we're also investing in our existing teams. We're conducting training to make us more efficient, more strategic so we can get better target high -- better and target high probability, high margin, new business opportunities.
And this includes investing in unique training among our sales force to improve regional and cross business unit collaboration as well as sales effectiveness that best represents One PolyOne. Our intense customer-centric selling seminars, educator teams on our portfolio, applications, new technologies, and best practices. These sessions are happening all over the world and they are enhancing communication among our sales force. Quite simply, this is leading to more projects and more closed new business. Color and Engineered Materials led the way this quarter with sales growth of 11% and 7% respectively and expanding operating income 13% and 7% respectively. The growth in Color was driven by new business gains in consumer and packaging end markets. There continues to be strong pull from the marketplace for our barrier technologies that prolong shelf life while improving recyclability, processing efficiencies, and food safety.
The growth in Engineered Materials was driven by new business wins in the outdoor high performance end market. Our recent investments in this market and in composites is offering the marketplace performance-enhancing capabilities in new and existing applications. Recall from our Investor Day in May that we provided an overview of four key technology platforms; composites, fiber colorants, flame retardants, and barrier technologies. These platforms remain our investment and commercial focus. We are confident that strong market pull for sustainability combined with our ability to formulate innovative solutions will allow us to drive future growth. And it's our long-term focus and commitment to our four pillar strategy that has allowed us to deliver our third quarter results despite weakening currencies and higher raw material and freight costs. Inflation is impacting all of our businesses.
In terms of freight, costs were up $3.5 million this quarter over the prior year. Our teams have been working diligently with our customers to minimize the impact from this inflation, but it is often the case that higher prices are inevitable. This quarter we implemented surcharges and we are just beginning to capture them. As you know, inflation has been a persistent theme throughout 2018 and Q3 was no different. With respect to raw material costs, nylon and butadiene for example, which are key inputs for our Engineered Materials segment, were both up more than 50% year-over-year. Inflation is not new, particularly in the areas I just covered. What was new this quarter and really happened just in September was a slowdown in demand in certain North America end markets such as building and construction and appliance as well as in Asia.
Performance Products and Solutions and distribution were the most heavily impacted by these challenges and that was observable as their operating income declined year-over-year. The demand slowdown was abrupt with certain customers delaying orders at the end of the quarter. They are citing concerns over tariffs, rising input costs, and weaker consumer demand as the primary drivers. I will have more to say on our long-term perspective and strategy, our balance -- our outlook for the balance of the year after Brad provides a segment review and financial highlights.
Bradley C. Richardson -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Well, thank you very much, Bob, and good morning, everyone. Let me first start with our GAAP results. GAAP earnings of $0.62 per share. Special items for the third quarter of 2018 did not resolve to net earnings per share impact as environmental remediation costs were offset by tax benefits recognized during the quarter. Adjusted EPS from continuing operation for the quarter was $0.62, up 7% from $0.58 in the third quarter of 2017 marking a new PolyOne third quarter record. Color, Additives, and Inks drove this performance with 11% sales growth while gaining leverage on the bottom line to improve operating income 13%. Clearly, our organic and acquisition-related investments are working in this business as seen by a 6% organic revenue improvement and 6% growth from acquisitions, which was offset slightly by FX impacts of a negative 1%.
Our performance is geographically balanced as well with all regions contributing as new business gains and pricing initiatives help to offset weaker demand conditions observed in September. Beverage packaging and consumer applications in particular continued to perform well in all regions and wins in this market are improving overall margins. These customers' sustainability goals are increasingly focused on improving shelf life and eliminating waste. PolyOne's barrier technologies from oxygen scavenging additives and bottles to Light Blocking Additive to replace unrecycleable multilayer packaging are solving those problems and gaining market traction. Engineered Materials also had a strong third quarter and continued its positive trajectory expanding revenue by 7% and increasing operating income by 7%. Underlying gross margin improvements from our composites portfolio drove this expansion.
Our growing commercial team continues to use this technology to close new specialty applications to replace metal, wood, and glass in various end markets. Such as next generation furniture where we are having great success, our composite material is improving the performance of springs in office chairs for example leading to weight reduction, design enhancement, durability, and ergonomics in workplaces everywhere. Our outdoor high performance customers also benefit from the high strength anti-corrosion and precision performance achieved through the use of composites. For example, composite applications in end markets such as archery helped to expand our outdoor high performance business 30% in the third quarter. Growth with application like these despite elevated raw material cost like nylon and butadiene, both up more than 50% over the prior year, is allowing our EM segment increased both revenue and operating income just as they did this past quarter.
Performance Products and Solutions had a challenging quarter no doubt. Sales did grow slightly, but margins were compressed due to higher raw material and freight cost as Bob mentioned. Freight cost alone impacted operating income by about $2 million. We also noticed the softened demand toward the end of the quarter within the appliance and building and construction end markets as customers delayed orders citing concerns about consumer demand for these applications. This late quarter softening in demand largely impacted PP&S, but also POD. In fact, POD volume was flat for the quarter entirely driven by a drop off in orders in September. POD margins were also impacted by freight increases, which our surcharges only partially offset as they were implemented in August. It remains, however, that our distribution business is the premier world-class provider in this space with unmatched service.
We do not believe we have lost any share and that the previously described weaker market conditions relate to end market demand. You will note that all of our segments continue to generate tremendous free cash flow and we are on pace to deliver over $200 million in total company free cash flow in 2018. We will continue to deploy that cash in organic growth initiatives and accretive bolt-on acquisition, the investments that have and will continue to fuel our growth. We will also continue returning cash to shareholders as evidenced by our announcement earlier this month to increase our dividend by more than 11%. This is consistent with our planned three-year commitment to deliver a 60% increase. We finished this quarter with more than $480 million in available liquidity allowing us ample ability to fund our dividend increases, invest in our strategic growth areas, as well as opportunistically buyback shares. And in this recent market volatility and pull back, we will of course take advantage of such opportunities.
Thank you. And with that, let me turn the call back to Bob.
Thanks, Brad. So, to recap. Color and SEM drove another strong quarter of growth at PolyOne with both topline and operating income expansion. This was made possible, as I said earlier, by the important investments we've been making in commercial resources, specialty acquisitions, and innovation. With respect to innovation, consider the challenges companies are facing today in terms of consumer expectations around sustainability, what it means for their products and what it means for their business. Consider the challenges associated with the global political arena, which is introducing everything from currency volatility, turmoil in Turkey, and wide-ranging tariffs. There have and always will be challenges, but we've built and committed to our proven strategy that not only helps us navigate them, but to find opportunities therein.
At our Investor Day, we highlighted what sustainability means to PolyOne and the four cornerstones of people, product, planet, and performance. And our technology platforms are inherently sustainable solutions for our customers to utilize. Recycling is clearly at the forefront with local and global organizations beginning to understand and invest in infrastructure that will enable consumers to increase recycling and we are there to support them as well as our customers and OEMs with polymer solutions that increase the recyclability of their products. At the same time, leading industry associations such as the American Chemistry Council are taking leadership positions to advocate for the tremendous value that plastics bring. The benefits when one compares total cost of production and the life cycle of using and recycling plastics in many instances is very clear.
So there's broad work being done by our industry to first educate consumers, OEMs, and governments about the value of plastics; but also to engage deeply to be part of the multi-stakeholder solution to increase recycling at this important juncture. Earlier I referenced our four key technology platforms and how they are well aligned with these important mega trends. Barrier technologies and additives improve shelf life, reduction of material required, processing efficiencies, and food safety. In composites, which Brad mentioned, can lightweight just about anything reducing environmental footprint costs and fuel consumption. We really began building our platforms and capabilities around composites back in 2012. We later expanded our technologies with the additions of Gordon, Polystrand, focused on the next generation materials.
And in June of this year, we expanded our portfolio even more broadly adding a high growth long fiber technology component via our acquisition of industry leader PlastiComp and we will continue to invest to grow in this important space. Our fiber colorant technology is another core area with clear sustainability benefits as production can be done with less water required and wastewater generated. And our flame retardant material science gives consumers and the environment increased safety and reassurances for end markets like wire and cable and construction, to name a few. These are just four of the many areas we're innovating for our customers and as you know, innovation is the lifeblood of a specialty company and our vitality index continues to exceed 35%, which we view as world class.
So, I am incredibly excited about our long-term growth prospects and emphasize our goals of delivering double-digit EPS and increasing return on invested capital. We need to always keep this in mind and not lose sight of our longer-term objectives as we along with many other companies face near-term challenges today. Higher raw material and freight costs aren't going away and it is likely the same could be said for tariffs, which we expect will impact us directly by $5 million on an annualized basis given what we import today. Although our business in Turkey is relatively small, we do expect recent turmoil there to impact us in the fourth quarter. But more significantly, customers are increasingly pointing to a slowdown in certain end markets in North America and China and we are experiencing this firsthand, as Brad mentioned, in building and construction and appliance to name a few.
And I want to put September in perspective so please consider these data points. For PP&S, combined sales for July and August were 7.5% higher than last year, but September sales declined 12% compared to last year. For Distribution, July and August sales were up 15% while September sales were nearly flat. In short, the September drop off was abrupt. And if I look at the order rate for PolyOne as a whole for October, it suggests flat sales for the month ahead and given increasing prices, I believe this implies that unit sales are down slightly. Although Color and Engineered Materials are expected to expand operating income in the fourth quarter, their growth may not be enough to overcome what we are seeing in PP&S, POD, and the other challenges that I outlined. And we believe that this would translate to EPS of approximately $0.41, which is flat with the prior year in the fourth quarter.
Hopefully what we are hearing from our customers and what we are experiencing today is short term. And during times like this, we have to remain even more vigilant and focused on taking care of our customers. We are a company and culture built on excellence and execution of our strategy. We ensure it's built to last and we stay true to it in good times and it helps us to navigate the challenging times. We recently completed our annual strategic planning process with our leadership team and board. And while implementing freight surcharges and staying ahead of raw material inflation was a major part of the conversation, we talked more about PolyOne's underlying businesses; how we must invest and lead the company to achieve strong sustainable performance. We discussed how to maximize the momentum from our commercial investments, where to make more and when. We challenged each other on our world-class service model and asked how can we make this even better.
And it's this type of approach, which has led to hallmark customer offerings like LSS customer first and IQ design. So, we continue to ask the question and examine what investments into our customers' experience are necessary for our next innovative service offering. We studied our technology platforms to ensure they are still positioned well with high growth mega trends such as lightweighting, recyclability, and improved packaging. And our investments are aligned accordingly to ensure our portfolio of solutions is broad and sustainable. We spent a lot of time discussing the customer experience and what digital tools and service improvements can deepen our relationships with current customers and earn the trust of new ones. We focused on our people, how we will invest in leadership and next generation talent to execute our strategy and realize the growth potential here at PolyOne. And of course, we will always -- always put our customers first and provide exemplary service to help them innovate and grow their business and ours.
That concludes our prepared remarks. We will now open the discussion for questions.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
The call lines are now open. (Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Mike Sison with Keybanc. Your line is now open.
Michael Sison -- KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst
Hey, guys.
Robert M. Patterson -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Hey, Mike. Good morning, Mike.
Michael Sison -- KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst
I guess Bob, when you think about the headwinds that you're facing both in demand, raw materials, and as we head into '19; what do you think the propensity for PolyOne to continue to grow or hit your EPS growth goals of double digits going forward?
Robert M. Patterson -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
I mean obviously we outlined our expectation for the balance of this year as well as we can and seeing what we do right now. I think it's too early to comment on 2019, Mike. When we get to the end of the fourth quarter and report our results in January, I think we'll be better prepared to do that. Certainly with respect to the investments that we have made in our commercial resources, where we are positioned from an innovation standpoint, and focus on sustainability; I think we're really well positioned to do that. But given these headwinds, that's certainly a challenge in the short term.
Michael Sison -- KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst
Got it. And then in terms of the demand weakness and you obviously have a pretty good feel from your customers, do you think September, October, maybe some of the fourth quarter will be more destocking and once they get through that could those -- could those -- could volumes rebound down the road?
Robert M. Patterson -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
I mean it's possible that there is a destocking effect here because that is the type of feedback that we got from our customers. As you know, we don't have a long backlog and pretty short window of visibility out into the future. What we did hear from customers was that they had more inventory on hand in some cases at the middle of September and weren't planning on taking any more at this time. So it's possible that there was a destocking effect, which is impacting September and maybe October, but what I have seen so far is that I'm not seeing that go up appreciably in November. But again, it's a little too early to say.
Michael Sison -- KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst
Great. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Our second question comes from Frank Mitsch with Fermium Research. Your line is now open.
Frank J. Mitsch -- Fermium Research -- Analyst
Good morning, gentlemen.
Robert M. Patterson -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning, Frank.
Frank J. Mitsch -- Fermium Research -- Analyst
Hey, guys, obviously you put in surcharges I guess in August you mentioned. In light of the weakening in demand that you outlined, what has been the receptivity to these surcharges and maybe you can work it in with your thoughts on when we get margin recovery and expansion in the businesses?
Robert M. Patterson -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Well, I mean look, customers -- I think first of all, customers really don't ever like getting a price increase of any kind whether or not that's on the underlying material or service provided or surcharge. I think that their understanding of the present landscape is better now than it was at the beginning of this year. Everyone has an appreciation for what we are all facing and as a result of that, our ability to capture those I think is really high. The reality is though when they got implemented in mid to late August, that just made it -- we just couldn't cover everything that incurred in the third quarter. So I think from a freight standpoint, we should be in much better shape in the fourth quarter. What of course is still a challenge for us is on the raw materials side, which I think will still continue to see inflation in the fourth quarter.
Frank J. Mitsch -- Fermium Research -- Analyst
I see. And then your expectation in terms of when you'll be able to push through pricing to offset those raws. I mean is that a -- is that a 1Q '19 event or first half '19 event, an all-year '19 event? What are your thoughts there?
Robert M. Patterson -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Yes. So I'm sorry, I missed the second part of your question there. I mean with respect to Color and Engineered Materials, I think we have really good line of sight to starting to see margin expansion and you've seen some early signs of that through the middle part of this year. Where I don't think that's going to be the case is in PP&S and POD. So with what I know or what I see right now, I think that can continue into the first part of 2019.
Frank J. Mitsch -- Fermium Research -- Analyst
All right, that's helpful. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Our next questioner comes from the line of Mike Harrison with Seaport Global Securities. Your line is now open.
Mike Harrison -- Seaport Global Securities -- Analyst
Hi, good morning.
Robert M. Patterson -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning, Mike.
Mike Harrison -- Seaport Global Securities -- Analyst
Wanted to see if we could dig in a little bit more on what you're seeing in Asia, specifically what end markets are you seeing that are moving lower? And are you seeing any signs that there is sort of a temporary shift going on of manufacturers as they move some production out of China and maybe into other parts of Asia or other parts of the world?
Robert M. Patterson -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Well, we're certainly having or we're certainly hearing from our customers concerns around tariffs, Mike, and that they are giving consideration to where their production should take place. So, I think that's part of it. I think to Mike Sison's earlier comment too, there could potentially just be some destocking in preparation for where those moves are taking place. It's too early to say definitively on where things are going to land, but that could very well explain some of what we saw in Asia in the third quarter. For us, appliance was a comment that we made broadly mostly around North America, but I think that was also impacting Asia plus just general industrial applications if I looked at the biggest impact to us in China.
Mike Harrison -- Seaport Global Securities -- Analyst
All right. And was wondering if you could talk broadly about what you're seeing in the Engineered Materials business, maybe talk a little bit about the impact you're seeing from higher nylon prices, what you're seeing in wire and cable? I know that's been under pressure, maybe also comment on the auto market?
Robert M. Patterson -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
If I can take those in maybe reverse order so just make sure I don't forget the beginning. But look from an auto standpoint overall, we have a category called transportation when we think about our end markets, but it really is made up of let's say two-thirds traditional auto and one-third recreational vehicles and heavy duty. If you just look at auto, US auto for example, that was for the quarter actually down slightly whereas recreational vehicles and heavy duty were up and they had kind of canceled each other out for the quarter, which impacted EM really to the tune of probably just being flat in that end market. Where EM is seeing great traction is in composites.
When I mentioned the outdoor industry, that does include these off-road vehicles that I had mentioned and that's up. Brad mentioned archery as well. And those are the reasons why we're seeing expanding profits and profitability in that segment. So pricing is actually, we compare and contrast where we were in 2017 from a pricing standpoint. We are doing much better this year and getting ahead of it, moving fast. And again to my earlier comment, customers I think have a better appreciation for the dynamics that exist today. It's not to say that they willingly accept these price increases, but I think they're more aware that they're coming. So, that's I think been reflected in the better margin performance of the segment.
Mike Harrison -- Seaport Global Securities -- Analyst
Wire and cable and nylon impact in EM?
Robert M. Patterson -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
So the nylon impact again, I think we're actually ahead on price for a net positive. And then wire and cable, we have some new business that's actually coming to fruition, which is helping us to offset what I think is some slower conditions from a demand standpoint. Wire and cable though, Mike, didn't stand out like appliance and building and construction did. So at present, we haven't seen the same demand effects there.
Mike Harrison -- Seaport Global Securities -- Analyst
All right. Thanks very much and good luck to your Wolverines.
Robert M. Patterson -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Our next caller comes from the line of Colin Rusch with Oppenheimer. Your line is now open.
Colin Rusch -- Oppenheimer -- Analyst
Thanks so much. Guys, can you give us an update on the potential M&A pipeline and how you see that potentially playing out over the next six to 12 months? Are there some later stage processes that you're going through at this point and are there some assets that you might have to or might want to acquire as folks reconfigure their geographic exposure?
Robert M. Patterson -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Can you repeat the beginning of that, Colin, it broke up a little bit?
Colin Rusch -- Oppenheimer -- Analyst
Sure. Just looking at the state of the M&A pipeline for you guys.
Robert M. Patterson -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Yes. It -- we have -- at the beginning of the year I felt like things were a little slow and it's always amazing how fast things can change in the course of a quarter or so. We have a really good pipeline and a number of things that we're looking at right now. In fact a couple of bolt-on acquisitions that could come to fruition in relatively short order in Engineered Materials. So obviously I can't say much more about that and it's never done until it is, but the pipeline is really robust. I'm not seeing anything from a seller standpoint that suggests at this point that they're doing that because of what's going on with the end market, but maybe so. And from our perspective if we can capitalize on that, we will. So pipeline looks really good, some pretty cool specialty bolt-ons.
Colin Rusch -- Oppenheimer -- Analyst
Okay. That's helpful. And then just in the PP&S, the headwinds, how much of that's coming from Asia and how much of that's coming from the US with the residential construction slowdown?
Robert M. Patterson -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Well, construction, I mean PP&S Asia is pretty small. Operating income there was down some year-over-year so that does impact the bottom line. But with respect to the end market observations, that was predominantly a North American one.
Mike Harrison -- Seaport Global Securities -- Analyst
Okay, perfect. Thanks so much, guys.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Robert Koort with Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.
Dylan Campbell -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Good morning. This is Dylan Campbell on for Bob. In the context of the $0.41 for fourth quarter, can you give an updated outlook for free cash flow generation in 2018?
Bradley C. Richardson -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yes. So Dylan, in my comments, we're on track this year to generate about little over $200 million of free cash flow. So, that's consistent with what we've been sharing with you.
Dylan Campbell -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Got it, thanks. And then I guess going into 2019, can you give a kind of broad outlook, some of the puts and takes that we should expect going into next year?
Bradley C. Richardson -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Puts and takes in terms of the operating performance or the free cash flow?
Dylan Campbell -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Free cash flow.
Bradley C. Richardson -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yes. So I mean I think -- look, the free cash flow in 2019 will be driven by the underlying earnings performance of the company. I do think maybe our capital expenditures we've got a lot of, we've been averaging about $75 million in capital expenditures, I think it might be up next year just with again what we're funding in terms of capacity expansions. So, that could be an additional $10 million or so. Our cash taxes may be up next year just with the impact of tax reform here in the United States. But net-net, I would expect that we would have another year of growth in our free cash generation.
Dylan Campbell -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Kevin Hocevar with Northcoast Research. Your line is now open.
Kevin Hocevar -- Northcoast Research. -- Analyst
Hey, good morning, everybody.
Robert M. Patterson -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Hey, Kevin.
Kevin Hocevar -- Northcoast Research. -- Analyst
Bob, I just want a quick clarification. You mentioned that October sales were flat. Was that a POD -- you were talking about POD right before that. So, was that a POD comment or was that a total company comment?
Robert M. Patterson -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
That was then moving to a total company comment, but you can make the same statement about really POD and PP&S.
Kevin Hocevar -- Northcoast Research. -- Analyst
Okay. Got you. And can you comment too on the slowdown in Asia. You had mentioned -- you gave us good color on the magnitude of the change in PP&S and POD, how July and August looked versus September. Can you give some type of comments on how the quarter progressed in Asia? Did you see similar bigger slowdowns in September? Just any color you can provide on how the quarter progressed in Asia and how that's continued into October would be helpful?
Robert M. Patterson -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Yes. And maybe I'll frame that in the context of the full year as well because I think if you went back to the full -- the first half of the year, unit sales were up 6% or 7% and for the quarter they are up 2%. So, it was still a growth period for us heavily weighted toward July and August. And I'm not sure the September effect manifested itself the same way in Asia as what we saw in North America and there may be something to the destocking comment that was made earlier on the call. But from a sales standpoint, sales in July and August were higher than they were in August, but not quite as extreme as some of the changes I mentioned for POD and PP&S.
Kevin Hocevar -- Northcoast Research. -- Analyst
Okay. Got you. And then in the building and construction end markets, you'd mentioned you trying to term it as the destocking is a greater slowdown. In your conversations with customers in some of our building products coverage, it sounds like why -- there was a pretty wet September so that caused some slowdown -- sounded like that caused some slowdowns in parts of the country. So wondering if weather had an impact at all, if you heard that and I don't know if you heard that that was an impact as well.
Robert M. Patterson -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
I mean it's possible that customers were citing that. What I was getting back though I think more loudly than weather was really around how much inventory they had on hand. It's possible that that was weather driven, but we didn't get sort of the driver of that. We were mostly hearing that generally they just got more inventory than they need or project that they do for the near term. So, it's possible that was a factor.
Kevin Hocevar -- Northcoast Research. -- Analyst
Okay. And last question on -- so obviously raws have been a headwind here for a while and will continue to be. Wondered if you can give some color on price versus raws, how that's -- the net impact of that and how that's trended throughout the year and as you look into the fourth quarter. Has that been kind of stable or getting any better as you've been realizing some price, getting worse because inflation's been picking up? Like how is the net impact of that been trending?
Robert M. Patterson -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Yes. So for Color and Engineered Materials, it really has trended quite positively throughout the course of the year. As, Kevin, we had some challenges in 2017 in EM and to start this year, I would say that where we are right now, we are past that relative to pricing being ahead of raws. It's a little hard to bifurcate how the quarter would have shaken out for the company as a whole had it not been of course for what we saw in September for unit demand. So, PP&S was sort of flat except behind on freight. So freight was still a really net bad guy for PP&S and then as you know on POD for the most part, that's a pass-through based on our supplier pricing.
Kevin Hocevar -- Northcoast Research. -- Analyst
Yes, got you. Okay. Thank you very much.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Laurence Alexander with Jefferies. Your line is now open.
Laurence Alexander -- Jefferies and Company, Inc. -- Analyst
Good morning. Can you -- given the environment you're seeing, can you discuss a little bit how you're thinking about the pace of new hire increasing staffing levels and the efficiency of your technical sales force?
Robert M. Patterson -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
I didn't mention that during our strategic planning session a couple of weeks ago with the board, I said hey look, there is really important team that I want to convey this year which is around the efficiency of those commercial resources. We have, as you know, put a lot of investment into hiring over the last few years and I believe that has been a big driver of our sales growth. But I also believe that you can't just continue to only hire, you do have to continue to see efficiency gains from those resources and so that was a really important focus. I think we are seeing that right now, Laurence. As you know when we brought those resources on, our average seller territory size actually went down, right. That went down.
So from an efficiency standpoint, that sounds like it's going backwards; but I think we're starting to see that actually begin to improve and expect that to be the case in 2019 absent the macro stuff we've talked about here. Look, with respect to our hiring plans, no change to what we tend to do from a commercial standpoint and sometimes when markets are like this, you can find really outstanding people who have been displaced for one reason or another. So at the moment no changes to that, but I can tell you without question we will be closely monitoring all of our other discretionary spending and expenditures including CapEx as we go into 2019. It's not lost on us, we need to do that under the current circumstances.
Laurence Alexander -- Jefferies and Company, Inc. -- Analyst
And can you give us a feel for how you think about the response function if there is further erosion. That is like is there a certain level of end market decline or customer behavior for you to change course or is it more of a gradual iterative approach?
Robert M. Patterson -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
One of the things I think that we will be giving more consideration to is that Brad had talked about CapEx and expectations for next year and I think we do have at present some capacity constraints in a couple of places around in the world and may very well have (ph) if this continues to pull back and doesn't get better. Those capacity constraints solve themselves unfortunately and maybe that ends up in a little less CapEx for next year. I really want to keep the long term in focus and think about where things are going to be in three, four, five years of course and make the right decisions in that regard. But it's possible in the short term some of those things correct in that way.
Laurence Alexander -- Jefferies and Company, Inc. -- Analyst
Okay, great. Thanks.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Jim Sheehan with SunTrust. Your line is now open.
James Sheehan -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc. -- Analyst
Good morning. In the second quarter, you noted that you had closed 2,500 new business opportunities. What did that number look like in the third quarter?
Robert M. Patterson -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Pretty similar number. I would say that if it were July and August, my expectation was that was going to be even better, but of course with the September results, that really negated that being the case.
James Sheehan -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc. -- Analyst
Great. And on raw materials, what proportion of your Engineered Materials consists of butadiene as the input? It looks like butadiene prices are starting to ease here. Do you think that butadiene has peaked and do you expect that to start to become more of a tailwind going forward?
Robert M. Patterson -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
I would say that roughly one-third of the segment is a TPE material, which has as a basic building block butadiene going into the styrenic block copolymer. So, that helps to put hopefully sort of order of magnitude into perspective. And to the extent that butadiene does come down and eases some, I think that helps us. We have seen that in the past where that can be the case in periods of deflation where we can benefit from that and hopefully that's the case in the near term here.
James Sheehan -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc. -- Analyst
Could you describe the lag that you have between when raw materials peak and when you start to see a benefit?
Robert M. Patterson -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
I mean look for the most part in our Color and Engineered Materials segments, it's pretty very -- there's close to arm's length transactions as we can relative to pricing. Obviously we struggled with Engineered Materials in 2017 with some of the spikes and there was a lag because we weren't able to get the pricing that we wanted to. So I think that with respect to deflation, that can happen really inside of a quarter. So I think if we had deflation, we could see a benefit for that inside of 60 days to 90 days.
James Sheehan -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc. -- Analyst
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Rosemarie Morbelli with Gabelli and Company. Your line is now open.
Rosemarie Morbelli -- Gabelli & Company -- Analyst
Thank you. Good morning, everyone.
Robert M. Patterson -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning.
Rosemarie Morbelli -- Gabelli & Company -- Analyst
I was wondering, Bob, when you -- your comment about the capacity expansion or shortages in certain categories, could you give us a feel as to what the categories are?
Robert M. Patterson -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
I'm going to do this by -- well, I'll do it by region first, which is that where we were most capacity constrained really was in China. So, we had been spending some time looking at where we would invest in a new facility to not only handle that constraint, but also to support future growth. Obviously with everything that is going on in China, we have to take that into consideration and if things change materially, that could change our perspective on that. But so China was number one. Number two really relates to being able to broaden our composites penetration into Europe and also in China. So first and foremost, I think it's the region of China; but secondly, from a capability standpoint in technology, it's around composites.
Rosemarie Morbelli -- Gabelli & Company -- Analyst
So, have you changed your mind in terms of adding capacity in Europe? I understand that you may have vis-a-vis China, but what about Europe? Can you give us a feel as what the economic environment demand environment, is there?
Robert M. Patterson -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
At this point, no. We haven't changed our perspective on Europe. I really haven't changed the perspective on China either. If I'm optimistic about the future and where we'll be long term, it still makes sense to invest. So, nothing new. Obviously we're aware of what's going on right now and need to take that into the consideration, but in the near term I don't think it changes anything for us.
Rosemarie Morbelli -- Gabelli & Company -- Analyst
And when you are talking about slowdown in China, does that encompass all of Asia or is it specific to the country?
Robert M. Patterson -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
I mean most of Asia for us is Mainland China. Of course a lot of things that we make in China find their way to the rest of the world based on where our customers ship them. So mostly I'd say this was a China effect. India actually really did well for us despite a sort of devaluation of the rupee, which we've seen. But mostly this is the China set of observations.
Rosemarie Morbelli -- Gabelli & Company -- Analyst
Thanks. And if I may ask one last question. You talked about the decline in September for building and construction demand. Could it be that inventories that your customers had been pre-buying in anticipation of price increases and therefore it would be kind of a short-lived type of period as opposed to being the industry itself being in trouble or slowing down?
Robert M. Patterson -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
I mean that is a possible explanation for some of the inventory. I don't think all of it. Inflation has been with us now for some time and so where we may have seen that at the beginning of the year, I don't know that that has carried forward to where we are today. With respect to what our customers were telling us, it was mostly their concerns around end market demand as being the bigger reason for concern and not taking additional product in September.
Rosemarie Morbelli -- Gabelli & Company -- Analyst
Alright. Thank you.
Robert M. Patterson -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Alright, thanks. Well, that concludes our calls and questions. We appreciate everybody taking the time to listen in on our third quarter results and look forward to updating you on our fourth quarter and full-year results in January.
Operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude today's conference. Thank you very much for your participation. You may all disconnect. Have a wonderful day.
Duration: 49 minutes
Call participants:
Joe Di Salvo -- Vice President, Investor Relations
Robert M. Patterson -- Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Bradley C. Richardson -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Michael Sison -- KeyBanc Capital Markets -- Analyst
Frank J. Mitsch -- Fermium Research -- Analyst
Mike Harrison -- Seaport Global Securities -- Analyst
Colin Rusch -- Oppenheimer -- Analyst
Dylan Campbell -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Kevin Hocevar -- Northcoast Research. -- Analyst
Laurence Alexander -- Jefferies and Company, Inc. -- Analyst
James Sheehan -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc. -- Analyst
Rosemarie Morbelli -- Gabelli & Company -- Analyst
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