The second quarter delivered Huntsman Corporation something the equity had not produced in a long stretch: clean, broad-based operating improvement across every surviving segment at once, accompanied by the largest single earnings announcement in the company's recent history. Huntsman, a global specialty chemicals manufacturer, produces higher-value, lower-volume industrial chemicals sold into specific end uses rather than the bulk undifferentiated commodity grade. Reported second-quarter revenue of $1,663M grew 14% year over year. Adjusted EBITDA (the headline cash-flow proxy, defined as earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization with a series of management-defined add-backs) of $120M came in more than 60% above the prior-year quarter. That print, layered onto the June 16 announcement of an all-stock merger of equals with Olin Corporation, transformed the equity from a slow-cycle specialty name into an event-driven specialty name in a single reporting cycle.
The price tells the rest of the story. Shares trade near $9.39. A fifty-two-week range running from $7.30 to $16.09 frames the volatility. Market capitalization sits near $1.65B. The dividend yield near 3.6% supports a quarterly payout of $0.0875 per share. A forward price-to-earnings ratio near 46x reflects depressed earnings on the cycle trough, making the headline multiple optically extreme. Average daily turnover of nearly 5M shares makes the equity reasonably tradable. Three concrete signals matter for the next several months: clearance of the Olin merger, third-quarter MDI (methylene diphenyl diisocyanate, the dominant Huntsman product and a key input to polyurethane foams used in construction insulation, refrigeration, automotive seats, mattresses and footwear) price trends as the global supply-demand picture firms, and management's read on the China capacity wave that has weighed on the industry since the prior cycle.
What is changing in the underlying business is what makes the second-quarter print worth taking seriously rather than dismissing as a low-quality beat. MDI average selling prices rose across all three regions (the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific). MDI volumes expanded in the Americas and Europe. Advanced Materials, the segment making epoxy resins, adhesives and composite materials sold into aerospace, wind turbine blades and automotive lightweighting, grew revenue 19% on both higher prices and volumes. Polyurethanes segment adjusted EBITDA more than doubled year over year. The restructuring cycle of 2025, which generated $125M of charges tied largely to the closure of the Moers, Germany maleic anhydride facility, has rolled off the comparison base. The lingering question is durability: how much of the print is genuine operating leverage on the cycle turning versus the prior-year restructuring anniversary and the absence of transitional costs. The rest of this report works through that question section by section.