Avient Lifts Full-Year Guidance as Margins Hit Record High
Avient's adjusted EPS climbed 20% to $0.96 in the second quarter, topping its own guidance and prompting the specialty materials maker to raise its full-year profit outlook.
Avient (AVNT) reported second-quarter sales of $917 million, up 5.8% from a year earlier, and adjusted earnings of $0.96 a share, up 20% and ahead of the company's guidance of $0.89. The specialty materials and colorants maker raised its full-year 2026 adjusted EPS guidance to a range of $3.10 to $3.25, up from $2.93 to $3.17 issued after the first quarter.
The quarter marked a turn in Avient's growth trajectory. Sales had been roughly flat to down through the back half of 2025, at $807 million in the third quarter and $761 million in the fourth, before edging up 3% in the first quarter of 2026 on favorable currency. Second-quarter growth was broader-based, with 4.3 percentage points coming from organic volume and pricing and 1.5 points from foreign exchange.
Profitability accelerated alongside sales. Adjusted EBITDA margin reached a record 18.3% in the quarter, up 110 basis points from a year earlier and the fifth straight quarter of expansion, following gains of 20 basis points in the first quarter, 80 basis points in the fourth quarter of 2025, 60 basis points in the third quarter and 30 basis points in the second quarter of 2025. Adjusted gross margin rose to 34.2% of sales from 32.5% a year earlier.
Both of Avient's segments contributed to the improvement. Color, Additives and Inks operating income rose to $101.8 million from $90.3 million a year earlier, while Specialty Engineered Materials operating income climbed to $52.7 million from $40.2 million, with organic growth in both units. The Specialty Engineered Materials segment had already driven a fourth-quarter 2025 earnings beat on similar organic strength.
GAAP results also improved from a year earlier, when Avient absorbed a $71.6 million cloud ERP impairment and other elevated special items. First-quarter 2026 GAAP EPS was $0.61, compared with a loss of $0.22 in the first quarter of 2025, and second-quarter GAAP EPS was $0.70, up from $0.57.
Avient raised its full-year adjusted EBITDA guidance to $575 million to $603 million, up from the $555 million to $585 million range set with fourth-quarter 2025 results in February and left unchanged after the first quarter. The revised EPS guidance implies growth of 10% to 15% for the year, up from a prior guide of 4% to 12%. The move follows a more cautious pattern in prior quarters, when third-quarter 2025 guidance was trimmed on adjusted EBITDA to $540 million to $550 million from $545 million to $560 million while EPS guidance held flat; the second-quarter results mark the first outright raise to both metrics in the five-quarter window.
Avient repaid $50 million of debt in the quarter and now targets $100 million to $150 million in repayment for the full year, following $150 million repaid in 2025 against an initial target range of $100 million to $200 million.