Stepan Company (NYSE:SCL) Q3 2023 Earnings Conference Call October 18, 2023 10:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Luis Rojo - Chief Financial Officer
Scott Behrens - President and Chief Executive Officer
Conference Call Participants
Vincent Anderson - Stifel
Dave Storms - Stonegate
David Silver - CL King and Associates
Mike Harrison - Seaport Research Partners
Operator
Good day, and welcome to the Stepan Company Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.
I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Luis Rojo, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.
Luis Rojo
Good morning, and thank you for joining Stepan Company’s third quarter 2023 financial review. Before we begin, please note that information this conference call contain forward-looking statements, which are not historical facts. These statements involve risk and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, including but not limited prospects for our foreign operations, global and regional economic conditions, and factor detailing our Security and Exchange Commission filing.
Whether you are joining us online or over the phone, we encourage you to review the Investor slide presentation, which we have made available at www.stepan.com under the Investors section of our website. We make these slides available at approximately the same time as when the earnings release is issued, and we hope that you find the information and perspective helpful.
With that, I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Scott Behrens, our President and Chief Executive Officer.
Scott Behrens
Good morning and thank you all for joining us today to discuss our third quarter results. I plan to share highlights from our third quarter performance and will also share updates on our key strategic priorities, while Luis will provide additional details on our financial results.
The company reported third quarter adjusted net income of $14.7 million. Earnings were significantly impacted by a 9% decline in sales volume versus the record prior year third quarter due to continued demand softness across most of our markets and continued inventory destocking in certain market channels.
In the third quarter, Surfactant unit margins were lower versus the prior year, due to less favorable product mix, high cost raw material inventory carryover and pricing pressure in Latin America from imported products. Volumes in Latin America grew by high-single-digits, compared to the second quarter. Specialty Product unit margins were significantly lower due to high-cost inventory and pricing pressure related to increased MCT import activity.