Westlake Corporation (WLK) Q3 2025 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Westlake Corporation Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's remarks, you will be invited to participate in a question and answer session. And as a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, this conference is being recorded today, October 30th, 2025. I would now like to turn the call over to today's host, Jeff Hawley, Westlake's Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer. Sir, you may begin. Thank you, Stephan. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Westlake Corporation conference call to discuss our third quarter 2025 results. I'm joined today by Albert Chao, our Executive Chairman, John Mark Gilson, our President and CEO, Steve Bender, our executive vice president and chief financial officer, and other members of our management team. During the call, we will refer to our two reporting segments, performance and essential materials, which we refer to as PEM or materials, and housing and infrastructure products, which we refer to as HIP or products. Today's conference call will begin with John Mark, who will open with a few comments regarding Westlake's performance. Steve will then discuss our financial and operating results, after which Jean-Marc will add a few concluding comments, and we'll open the call up to questions. During the third quarter of 2025, we recorded a non-cash impairment charge of $727 million, representing all of the goodwill associated with our North American Chlorobinols business unit. We also accrued expenses of $17 million related to previously announced facilities closures. We refer to these expense items, which in aggregate were $744 million, as the identified items in our e...