Celanese expects record cash flow, plans to repay revolver next year

By Lisa Kerner

Charlotte, N.C., Oct. 20 – Celanese Corp. is tracking towards delivering record free cash flow for the year, according to chairman and chief executive officer Mark Rohr.

“In the quarter, we generated $173 million of operating cash flow and $101 million of free cash flow,” said Rohr.

Chris Jensen, senior vice president, said he expects free cash flow of at least $600 million for 2015, which would be a second consecutive record performance.

The Dallas-based producer of specialty and intermediate chemical products held its earnings call for the third quarter on Tuesday.

Celanese returned a record $467 million to shareholders in the quarter through dividends and share repurchases.

“During the quarter, we repurchased over 6.6 million shares, or roughly 4.3% of our outstanding share count, deploying $420 million of cash,” said Jensen.

The repurchase was funded with $75 million of balance sheet cash and $345 million of borrowings under the company’s $900 million revolver, which it expects to repay early next year.

The company intends to repurchase up to $1 billion of its shares over the next two years under its current authorization.

Celanese ended the quarter on Sept. 30 with $952 million of cash on hand and long-term debt of $2.5 billion, compared with $780 million and $2.6 billion, respectively, at Dec. 31, 2014.

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