Financials down at Eastman, Celanese in 2019

Add Eastman Chemical Co. and Celanese Corp. to the list of specialty chemicals and plastics firms that weren't happy with their 2019 financial results.

Sales at Kingsport, Tenn.-based Eastman were down almost 9 percent to a little less than $9.3 billion, as profit slumped almost 30 percent to $762 million.

Eastman's Advanced Materials unit, including Tritan-brand copolyester resins, fared better than the firm overall, with sales down only 2 percent to just under $2.7 billion and pretax profit up almost 2 percent to $517 million. Advanced Materials ranked second among Eastman's four operating units in 2019 with a 29 percent share of sales.

"We enter 2020 in a period of significant uncertainty related to macro factors that are out of our control," Chairman and CEO Mark Costa said in a news release. "In this environment, we are focused on what we can control, including growing new business revenue by leveraging our innovation-driven growth model, aggressive cost management, and disciplined capital allocation.

"We are currently assuming that slow growth continues in 2020 at levels similar to 2019, although with less inventory destocking," he added.

For Dallas-based Celanese, full-year sales were down 12 percent to less than $6.3 billion, with profit sliding 29 percent to $858 million.

Sales in the firm's Engineered Materials unit, including Celcon-brand acetal resins, declined 8 percent for the year to just under $2.4 billion. The unit's operating profit was down 3 percent to $446 million. Advanced Materials ranked second among Celanese's three operating units in 2019 with a 37 percent share of sales.

"In this environment, our heightened focus on the factors within our control, including a robust productivity program and high-return capital deployment, has allowed us to weather these challenges and remain positioned to deliver on our long-term growth ambitions in 2020 and beyond," CEO Lori Ryerkerk said in a news release.

On Wall Street, Eastman's stock price was near $84 in early November but had declined to close at just under $74 on Feb. 6. In that same comparison, Celanese's per-share price went from more than $127 to around $109.50.