Harsco Corporation (NYSE:HSC) Q2 2017 Earnings Conference Call - Final Transcript

growth for the quarter?

No. We have not.

Okay. And then, there was a recent -- because you mentioned share gain throughout all three Industrial businesses. There was an acquisition, a recent acquisition, Chart acquired Hudson products, which I think is a competitor to Air-X-Changers. How do you see that market shaping up with that consolidation?

Well, the acquirer has a relatively small business that competes with us, although they're not one of the top competitors. So we simply look at their acquisition of Hudson as probably a supportive move for the competitive situation in the industry. So it's not really a concern to us. I wouldn't say and as we've discussed in the past, Hudson's products compete with us in a part of our business, but not in, I'll call it, the heart of our range. Not in the upstream segment where we are growing fast now and developing a lot of profit growth.

Okay. Fair enough. And then just one last one for me. Clearly, the Metal's backdrop is -- continues to improve and is strong. But on the applied side, you mentioned that as one of the drivers to your improved outlook. So I'm just wondering, what do you see as a near-term opportunity within applied. And then also longer term, how are you thinking about internal investment versus maybe some bolt-on M&A to grow and broaden that business? Thanks.

Well, we expect that the trends in applied products that we've seen in the first two quarters to continue. They have been above our expectations, not yet reflective of much investment that we've made. As we turn to 2018, we certainly will be increasing our investment in applied products both internally and, hopefully as you point out, through some acquisitions. It remains an opportunity that is quite compelling for us, where from a competitive standpoint and a market demand standpoint, there's just a lot of white space for Harsco to continue to expand.

So we're quite confident that when we do invest, we'll get good returns on those investments. But the performance thus far and really for the rest of the year, we expect to reflect more internal execution and end market dynamics than were the result of any investment.

Great quarter, guys. Thanks.

Thank you.

Your next question is from line of Rob Norfleet with Alembic Global Advisors.

Hi. Good morning guys. Congrats on a great quarter.

Hi, Rob. Thank you.

Just quickly, you'd mentioned, obviously some of the M&M's recent contract wins that you got in Turkey and China, Egypt, et cetera. Can you kind of walk us through what your typical investment into these sites is? On average, I know you -- each one is going to be somewhat different. But I mean, historically, that was a really high and you guys were bringing that down. Can you kind of give us some color on that?

And then secondly, I know Pete had mentioned that there was still some underperforming contracts or contracts were