Tip: Try a valid symbol or a specific company name for relevant results Westlake’s (WLK) Second Quarter Turned Two Straight Losses Into Profit The above button links to Coinbase. Yahoo Finance is not a broker-dealer or investment adviser and does not offer securities or cryptocurrencies for sale or facilitate trading. Coinbase pays us for certain activity generated through this link.
Prices displayed are informational. On August 4, Westlake Corporation (NYSE:**WLK**) reported second-quarter results that erased two consecutive quarterly losses in a single swing. Net income landed at $260 million, or $2.01 per share, compared with a $169 million loss just three months earlier and a $142 million loss a year ago.
EBITDA nearly tripled from the second quarter of 2025. The numbers mark a sharp reversal for a company whose chemicals business had been bleeding red ink. Westlake's (WLK) Second Quarter Turned Two Straight Losses Into Profit The turnaround centers on Performance and Essential Materials, the segment that makes chlorovinyls and other basic chemicals.
PEM swung from a $318 million operating loss in the second quarter of 2025 to $185 million in income this quarter, while EBITDA excluding identified items jumped from a 3% margin to 21%. The driver was pricing: average sales prices across PEM rose 14% year over year, more than offsetting a 3% price decline in the Housing and Infrastructure Products segment. Combined with a 7% increase in companywide sales volume, excluding the effects of plant shutdowns and an acquisition, the pricing recovery pushed companywide EBITDA to $679 million from $210 million a year earlier.
Westlake is also working the balance sheet alongside the market recovery. The company reduced debt by $500 million during the quarter and returned $99 million to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. Management says its three-pillar profitability improvement plan remains on track to deliver a $600 million operating income benefit, a target that, if it holds, would layer structural cost savings on top of whatever the market gives back in pricing.
Not every part of the story improved together. Housing and Infrastructure Products, the segment tied to home construction and building products, saw its EBITDA margin slip to 22% from 24% a year earlier, even as volume rose 6% excluding the ACI acquisition. Average sales prices in that segment fell 3% year over year, a sign that pricing power in housing products has softened even as the company sells more of it.
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