AVIENT CORP (AVNT)

ITEM 2. MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

Our Business

We are an innovator of materials solutions to help our customers succeed, while enabling a sustainable world. Our products include specialty engineered materials, performance fibers, advanced composites, and color and additive solutions. We are also a highly specialized developer and manufacturer of performance enhancing additives, liquid colorants and silicone colorants. Headquartered in Avon Lake, Ohio, we have manufacturing sites, research and development facilities, design centers and warehouses around the globe. We provide value to our customers through our ability to link our knowledge of polymers and materials science with our manufacturing and supply chain capabilities to provide value-added solutions to designers, assemblers and processors of materials. When used in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, the terms “we,” “us,” “our,” “Avient” and the “Company” mean Avient Corporation and its consolidated subsidiaries.

Results of Operations — The three and six months ended June 30, 2026 compared to the three and six months ended June 30, 2025:

Sales

Sales increased $50.5 million, or 5.8%, for the three months ended June 30, 2026 compared to the three months ended June 30, 2025. Favorable foreign currency impacts were 1.5%, while sales, excluding the impacts of foreign exchange, increased 4.3%. Sales increases within the packaging, building & construction, consumer and defense end markets more than offset declines in the healthcare and transportation end markets.

Sales increased $71.3 million, or 4.2%, for the six months ended June 30, 2026 compared to the six months ended June 30, 2025. Favorable foreign currency impacts were 3.0%, while sales, excluding the impacts of foreign exchange, increased 1.2%. Sales increases within the packaging and building & construction end markets more than offset declines in the transportation and healthcare end markets.

Gross Margin

Gross margin as a percentage of sales was 33.5% for the three months ended June 30, 2026 compared to 32.1% for the three months ended June 30, 2025. The increase was primarily driven by higher sales and the benefit of cost savings from productivity and restructuring actions. Further, 2025 included approximately $3.0 million of incremental planned maintenance costs within the SEM segment.

Gross margin as a percentage of sales was 32.9% for the six months ended June 30, 2026 compared to 32.0% for the six months ended June 30, 2025. The increase was primarily driven by higher sales and the benefit of cost savings from productivity and restructuring actions. Further, 2025 included approximately $3.0 million of incremental planned maintenance costs within the SEM segment.

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Selling and administrative expense

Selling and administrative expense increased $13.4 million for the three months ended June 30, 2026, primarily driven by higher employee costs partially offset by the benefit of productivity initiatives.

Selling and administrative expense decreased $72.3 million for the six months ended June 30, 2026, primarily driven by the Company's decision to cease development of the cloud-based enterprise resource planning system, S/4HANA, in 2025, which resulted in an impairment charge of $71.6 million and additional charges of $14.7 million for unpaid contractual obligations for hosting fees, which more than offset higher employer costs.

Interest expense, net

Interest expense, net decreased $2.4 million and $7.3 million for the three and six months ended June 30, 2026, respectively, primarily driven by the benefit of reduced interest rates resulting from refinancing activity during 2025, in addition to prepayments on Avient's senior secured term loan totaling $150.0 million during 2025.

Income taxes

During the three months ended June 30, 2026, the Company’s effective tax rate was 26.3% compared to 24.5% in the three months ended June 30, 2025, while the six month period ended June 30, 2026 was 24.7% compared to 24.2% for the six month period ended June 30, 2025. The higher effective tax rate in 2026 is primarily driven by an increase in withholding taxes and higher unfavorable U.S. permanent items.

Refer to Note 6, Income Taxes, for further details.

SEGMENT INFORMATION

Avient has two reportable segments: (1) Color, Additives and Inks; and (2) Specialty Engineered Materials.

Operating income is the primary segment performance measure that is reported to our chief operating decision maker (CODM), which is the Company's chief executive officer. Our CODM utilizes this measure as an input to determine appropriate resource allocations to our segments in the annual planning process and to periodically assess segment performance, primarily by evaluating actual results in comparison to the annual operating plan and forecast. Operating income at the segment level does not include corporate general and administrative expenses that are not allocated to segments, restructuring charges, share-based compensation costs, environmental remediation costs and associated recoveries, asset impairments, acquisition-related charges, mark-to-market adjustments on pension and other post-retirement obligations, and certain other items that are not included in the measure of segment profit or loss that is reported to and reviewed by our CODM. These costs are included in Corporate.

Sales and Operating Income — The three and six months ended June 30, 2026 compared to the three and six months ended June 30, 2025:

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Color, Additives and Inks

Sales increased $35.6 million, or 6.6%, in the three months ended June 30, 2026 compared to the three months ended June 30, 2025. Favorable foreign currency impacts were 1.6%, while sales, excluding the impacts of foreign exchange, increased 5.0%. The sales increase was primarily within the packaging, building & construction and industrial end markets, partially offset by a sales decrease in the healthcare end market.

Sales increased $44.0 million, or 4.2%, in the six months ended June 30, 2026 compared to the six months ended June 30, 2025. Favorable foreign currency impacts were 3.3%, while sales, excluding the impacts of foreign exchange, increased 0.9%. The sales increase was primarily within the packaging end market, partially offset by a sales decrease in the transportation and consumer end markets.

Operating income increased $11.5 million for the three months ended June 30, 2026 compared to the three months ended June 30, 2025. The increase was primarily driven by higher sales while the benefit of cost savings from productivity and restructuring actions largely offset higher employee costs.

Operating income increased $14.3 million for the six months ended June 30, 2026 compared to the six months ended June 30, 2025. The increase was primarily driven by higher sales while the benefit of cost savings from productivity and restructuring actions largely offset higher employee costs.

Specialty Engineered Materials

Sales increased $14.2 million, or 4.3%, in the three months ended June 30, 2026 compared to the three months ended June 30, 2025. Favorable foreign currency impacts were 1.0%, while sales, excluding the impacts of foreign exchange, increased 3.3%. The sales increase was primarily within the packaging, consumer, building & construction and defense end markets, partially offset by sales decreases in the transportation, industrial and healthcare end markets.

Sales increased $26.0 million, or 4.1%, in the six months ended June 30, 2026 compared to the six months ended June 30, 2025. Favorable foreign currency impacts were 2.3%, while sales, excluding the impacts of foreign exchange, increased 1.8%. The sales increase was primarily within the packaging, building & construction and defense end markets, partially offset by sales decreases in the transportation and industrial end markets.

Operating income increased $12.5 million for the three months ended June 30, 2026 compared to the three months ended June 30, 2025. The increase was primarily driven by higher sales, favorable mix, and benefits of cost savings from productivity and restructuring actions that more than offset higher employee costs. Further, 2025 included approximately $3.0 million of incremental planned maintenance costs.

Operating income increased $12.8 million for the six months ended June 30

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ITEM 7. MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

Overview

Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations (MD&A) is designed to provide information that is supplemental to, and should be read together with, our consolidated financial statements and the accompanying notes contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Information in this Item 7 is intended to assist the reader in obtaining an understanding of our consolidated financial statements, the changes in certain key items in those financial statements from year to year, the primary factors that accounted for those changes, and any known trends or uncertainties that we are aware of that may have a material effect on our future performance, as well as how certain accounting principles affect our consolidated financial statements. Unless otherwise noted, the discussion that follows includes a comparison of our results of operations, liquidity and capital resources, and cash flows for fiscal years 2025 and 2024. For a discussion of changes from fiscal year 2024 to fiscal year 2023, refer to Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations in Part II, Item 7 of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2024, filed with the SEC on February 18, 2025.

The following discussion contains forward-looking statements that reflect our plans, estimates and beliefs. Our actual results could differ materially from those discussed in these forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to these differences include, but are not limited to, those discussed below and elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, particularly in “Cautionary Note on Forward-Looking Statements” and Item 1A, “Risk Factors.”

Our Business

We are an innovator of materials solutions to help our customers succeed, while enabling a sustainable world. Our products include specialty engineered materials, performance fibers, advanced composites, and color and additive solutions. We are also a highly specialized developer and manufacturer of performance enhancing additives, liquid colorants and silicone colorants. Headquartered in Avon Lake, Ohio, with 2025 sales of $3.3 billion, we have manufacturing and warehouses around the globe, with 61% of our sales to customers outside the United States. We provide value to our customers through our ability to link our knowledge of polymers and materials science with our manufacturing and supply chain capabilities to provide value-added solutions to designers, assemblers and processors of materials.

Strategy and Key Trends

In 2024, we unveiled Avient's new strategic direction guided by our purpose: to be an innovator of materials solutions to help our customers succeed, while enabling a sustainable world. We seek to achieve this with a two-pronged strategic approach: 1) building new platforms of scale, to play bigger and bolder in high-growth markets, and 2) catalyzing our core business, to maximize the impact of our existing portfolio. We have identified growth vectors — specific markets and applications targeted for above-market growth — in both accelerating markets and in our core business, by intersecting secular trends with our technologies.

We seek to operationalize our strategy using four strategic drivers: Portfolio Prioritization; Amplify Innovation; Digital for Operational Excellence and Growth; and Leadership, Talent, and Culture for the Avient of the Future. Our strategy builds upon Avient's foundational strengths refined over our history: unwavering customer focus; global reach with a local touch; diverse technology portfolio; commercial excellence; financial rigor and prudence; and a culture of safety and sustainability. The safety and health of our employees remain top priorities, and our ultimate goal is to operate injury-free.

In 2025, we made significant progress implementing our new strategy. Our growth vector sales are outpacing the rest of the Company, with defense and healthcare leading the way. Internal R&D collaboration has increased, resulting in technology sharing across businesses and geographies. We have bolstered digital capabilities with a focus on pilot projects designed to improve speed and efficiency. We continued to foster the culture needed to execute our strategy, and to build our talent pipeline by promoting leaders from within while bringing in external expertise as needed.

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Sales

Sales increased $19.8 million, or 0.6%, in 2025 compared to 2024. Favorable foreign currency impacts were 0.9%, while sales, excluding the impacts of foreign exchange, decreased 0.3%. The sales decline was primarily within the consumer, industrial and energy end markets, partially offset by sales increases in the healthcare, defense and telecommunications end markets.

Gross Margin

Gross margin decreased to 31.2% from 32.6% in 2025 compared to 2024, primarily driven by higher restructuring charges of $22.2 million and higher operating costs, which included planned maintenance in the second quarter of 2025. Further, in 2024, Avient recognized a gain from insurance recoveries associated with previously incurred environmental remediation costs of $34.7 million as compared to a gain of $2.0 million in 2025. This was partially offset by lower environmental remediation charges of $11.6 million.

Selling and administrative expense

These costs include selling, technology, administrative functions, amortization of intangible assets, corporate and general expenses. Selling and administrative expense in 2025 increased $84.7 million compared to 2024, primarily driven by an impairment charge of $71.6 million associated with the Company's decision to cease development of the cloud-based enterprise resource planning system, S/4HANA, charges of $14.7 million associated with unpaid contractual obligations for hosting fees, and higher restructuring charges of $21.7 million. These charges were partially offset by productivity initiatives and lower incentive compensation cost.

Interest expense, net

Interest expense, net decreased $7.0 million in 2025 as compared to 2024, primarily driven by the benefit of reduced interest rates resulting from previous refinancing activity, in addition to prepayments totaling $150.0 million made on our senior secured term loan throughout 2025.

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Other income, net

Other income, net increased $5.7 million in 2025 as compared to 2024, primarily associated to a $5.4 million increase in mark-to-market income associated with pension and post-retirement plans.

Income taxes

The 2025 consolidated effective tax rate was 25.2% compared to 24.1% in 2024. The higher tax rate was primarily attributable to higher Global Intangible Low-tax Income (GILTI) and Subpart F income and increases in valuation allowances. These increases were partially offset by the tax effects of intercompany transactions, including statutory impairments and the intercompany sale of intellectual property. Refer to Note 11 - Income Taxes for further detail, including a rate reconciliation.

Segment Information

Operating income is the primary segment performance measure that is reported to our chief operating decision maker (CODM), which is the Company's chief executive officer. Our CODM utilizes this measure to determine appropriate resource allocations to our segments in the annual planning process and to periodically assess segment performance, primarily by evaluating actual results in comparison to the annual operating plan and forecast. Operating income at the segment level does not include corporate general and administrative expenses that are not allocated to segments, restructuring charges, share-based compensation costs, environmental remediation costs and associated recoveries, asset impairments, acquisition-related charges, mark-to-market adjustments on pension and other post-retirement obligations, and certain other items that are not included in the measure of segment profit or loss that is reported to and reviewed by our CODM. These costs are included in Corporate.

Avient has two reportable segments: (1) Color, Additives and Inks and (2) Specialty Engineered Materials. Our segments are further discussed in Note 13, Segment Information, to the accompanying consolidated financial statements.

Sales and Operating Income

Color, Additives and Inks

Sales decreased $12.3 million, or 0.6%, in 2025 compared to 2024. Favorable foreign currency impacts were 1.0%, while sales, excluding the impacts of foreign exchange, decreased 1.6%. The sales decrease was primarily within the consumer, building and construction, industrial and transportation end markets, partially offset by growth in the healthcare end market.

Operating income increased $5.1 million, or 1.7%, in 2025 compared

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