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Economic Value Generated and Distributed
Our investment decisions and growth strategy are guided by an emphasis on sustainable business practices and full compliance with laws, regulations and internal standards.
Strong financial performance is key to the sustainable growth of our business and our future success. Our stakeholders around the world expect us to deliver on our financial commitments by generating and distributing economic value. To that end, we are focused on growing our earnings by 7% to 10% over time while also returning 50% of our discretionary free cash flow to shareholders. We believe this approach, in combination with investing for growth in our businesses, will allow us to maintain our reputation as a leader in our markets and be well-positioned to respond to the evolving needs of our customers.
We had strong financial performance in 2022, delivering record adjusted earnings per2 share of $6.28 and operating cash flow of $100 million. We generated a record discretionary free cash flow2 (DFCF) of $393 million and from fiscal year (FY) 2015 to FY 2022, we returned 64% of DFCF to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. In 2022, we invested $319 million and exceeded our performance against our 2025 goal to invest $1 billion in capital and technology.
With our “Creating for Tomorrow” strategy, we continue to leverage our strengths and invest for advantaged growth. We aim to accelerate our growth by continuing to win in our core markets and increasing our share in applications with significant growth potential. We are strategically focused on battery materials and the opportunity to capitalize on the high growth potential that comes with the transition to electric vehicles.
We recognize that we have a critical role to play in the electrification of vehicle fleets and stationary energy storage. As the only global player with a complete conductive additives portfolio, we continue to build out capacity across our global network to support the growth of the battery materials market. We recently announced our plans to invest approximately $200 million to expand conductive additive capacity in the United States as well as opened a new battery application technology center in Germany focused on supporting customers and accelerating battery application innovation within Europe.
We have made significant capital investments in emissions control technology at several of our carbon black manufacturing facilities. These investments consisted of projects in Xingtai, China, and Franklin, LA, USA, which resulted in improved air quality through the reduction of NOX and SOX emissions. Furthermore, we have initiated the construction of air pollution control and energy recovery system projects in Ville Platte, LA, USA with completion of this project anticipated in 2024.
In late 2018, we announced a strategic acquisition in Xuzhou, China to support our specialty carbons business. The site was temporarily mothballed to perform maintenance and upgrade manufacturing equipment, process technology and environmental control technology to ensure alignment with our industry-leading SH&E, quality and service standards. On April 7, 2022, we commenced operations at our facility in Xuzhou, China and by May 2022 all lines were running. The start-up of the Xuzhou plant supports our efforts for our capacity and capabilities to match regional supply and demand and also helps create flexibility to produce a diverse portfolio of products to meet current and future customer requirements for specialty carbons. Furthermore, it enables us to optimize capacity within our network to support battery materials growth.
Inkjet Facility Expansion in Haverhill
To meet the growing demand of the inkjet market for digital printing applications, we have increased our global capacity of aqueous pigment dispersions at our Inkjet manufacturing facility in Haverhill, MA, USA. In addition to the expansion of a new production line, our facility underwent capital expansion projects including upgrades to manufacturing equipment and process technologies. These upgrades enable enhanced operational efficiencies, a reduction in water usage and an increase in capacity to offer broader product portfolios for our inkjet customers.
Performance
View our latest sustainability report to learn about our progress and goals.
Download Here
