Toronto, Ontario -- In this week’s Tuesday Ticker, automotive coatings help two European auto paint giants, Akzonobel and BASF, through rough quarters.
Dutch Decline
The Netherlands-based chemical company AkzoNobel reported wobbly start to the year, with Q1 sales of €2.61 billion (around C$3.8 billion), down one percent from €2.64 billion (C$3.8 billion) in Q1 2024.
“We delivered a better-than-expected quarter with positive pricing and strong cost reduction,"
“While macro-economic volatility has been fueled by US tariffs, our local-for-local and procurement de-risking strategic principles continue to largely shield us from direct impacts on our cost base or our ability to deliver," said Greg Poux-Guillaume, the company's chief executive officer.
"However, we expect to be indirectly impacted by more timid customer demand as economic growth slows during this period of reassessment for global trade. All the more reason to remain focused on our self-help measures to achieve our full-year outlook and build a stronger AkzoNobel.”
Organic sales actually rose by a percent, buoyed by higher volumes in key markets. Currency effects from a stronger U.S. dollar helped bolster sales, while local‐for‐local production strategies in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific limited direct tariff impacts on its cost base.
Its performance coatings arm — which includes the automotive refinishing and traffic-solutions lines — registered nine percent organic growth, a positive signal for Canadian body shops reliant on its coatings.
Surface technologies — the arm that supplies automotive refinish coatings — saw a slight uptick in earnings. It was responsible for 15.1 percent of total earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA), 0.3 percent below the previous year.
AkzoNobel left its full‐year EBITDA guidance range unchanged at €8 billion to €8.4 billion and intents to provide €12 billion to shareholders in distributions through 2028.
Contraction Confidence
Like AkzoNobel, BASF has had a rough start to 2025. The German paint company saw a sales of €17.4 billion (about C$25.2 billion), down €151 million (roughly C$219 million) from the same period last year.
“In the first quarter of 2025, BASF held its position in an increasingly challenging environment," said Dirk Elvermann, the company's chief financial officer. "EBITDA before special items was at about the level of the prior-year quarter and was in line with average analyst estimates"
Its declines were the result of softer volumes in agricultural solutions and chemicals.Automotive refinish coatings sales remained flat at €2.6 billion (approximately C$3.8 billion).
BASF maintains its full-year outlook of €8.0 billion to €8.4 billion (C$11.6 billion to C$12.2 billion) in EBITDA, underscoring confidence that its local-for-local production strategy will continue to buffer tariff headwinds and keep refinish supplies flowing.
