Koppers Holdings Inc. (KOP) Business

ITEM 1. BUSINESS

General

In this report, unless otherwise noted or the context otherwise requires, (i) the term Koppers, Koppers Holdings, the Company, we or us refers to Koppers Holdings Inc. and its consolidated subsidiaries, (ii) the term KH refers to Koppers Holdings Inc. and not any of its subsidiaries and (iii) the term KI refers to Koppers Inc. and not any of its subsidiaries. Koppers Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Koppers Holdings Inc. Koppers Holdings Inc. has substantially no operations independent of Koppers Inc. and its subsidiaries. The use of these terms is not intended to imply that Koppers Holdings Inc. and Koppers Inc. are not separate and distinct legal entities from each other and from their respective subsidiaries. Koppers Holdings Inc. was incorporated in November 2004 as a holding company for Koppers Inc.

We are a leading integrated global provider of treated wood products, wood preservation chemicals and carbon compounds. Our products and services are used in a variety of niche applications in a diverse range of end-markets, including the railroad, specialty chemical, utility, residential lumber, agriculture, aluminum, steel, rubber and construction industries. We serve our customers through a comprehensive global manufacturing and distribution network, with manufacturing capabilities in North America, South America, Australasia and Europe.

Business Segments and Products

We operate three principal business segments: Railroad and Utility Products and Services (RUPS), Performance Chemicals (PC) and Carbon Materials and Chemicals (CMC).

We believe our three business segments command leading market positions. Through our RUPS business, we believe that we are the largest supplier of railroad crossties to the Class I railroads in North America and the second largest producer of utility poles in the United States. Through our CMC business, we believe we are the largest global supplier of creosote to the North American railroad industry. Through our PC business, we believe that we are the global leader in developing, manufacturing and marketing wood preservation chemicals and wood treatment technologies for use in the pressure treating of lumber for residential, industrial and agricultural applications.

Our RUPS and CMC operations are, to a substantial extent, vertically integrated. Through our CMC business, we process coal tar into a variety of products, including creosote, which is an intermediate material necessary in the pressure treatment of wood crossties, other related railroad products and utility poles. The majority of the creosote we produce in North America and Europe is sold internally to our RUPS business and consumed in the treating process.

Our RUPS and PC operations are also vertically integrated. Through our PC business, we produce a variety of products, including chromated copper arsenate (CCA) and dichloro-octyl-isothiazolinone (DCOI), which is used in the pressure treatment of utility poles and pilings. A portion of the CCA and DCOI we produce in North America and a portion of the CCA we produce in Australia is sold internally to our RUPS business for treating poles and pilings.

Railroad and Utility Products and Services

Our RUPS business primarily sells pressure-treated railroad ties to the railroad industry in the United States and Canada and treated utility poles to utility markets in the United States and Australia. Railroad products and services include procuring and treating items such as crossties, switch ties and various types of lumber used for railroad bridges and crossings. Utility products include the pressure treatment of transmission and distribution poles for electric and telephone utilities. In addition, we provide untreated wood products and rail joint bars, which are steel bars used to join rails together for railroads, to the railroad markets and inspection services to the utility markets. We also operate a business related to the recovery of used crossties, serving the same customer base as our North American railroad business. The primary end-markets for RUPS are the North American railroad industry, which has an installed base of approximately 450 million wood crossties, and the U.S. and Australian utility industries which utilize wooden distribution and transmission poles. Both crossties and utility poles require periodic replacement.

The RUPS business operates 18 wood treating plants and one rail joint bar manufacturing facility located throughout the United States, Canada and Australia. Our network of plants is strategically located near timber suppliers to enable us to access raw materials and service customers effectively. In addition, all of our crosstie treating plants are on our largest railroad customers’ rail lines.

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Our RUPS business manufactures its primary products and sells them directly to our customers through long-term contracts and purchase orders negotiated by our regional sales personnel and coordinated through our marketing group at corporate headquarters.

Hardwoods, such as oak and other species, are the major raw materials in wood crossties. Hardwood prices, which account for approximately 70 percent of a finished crosstie’s cost, fluctuate with the demand from other hardwood lumber markets, such as oak flooring, furniture, pallets, barrels and other specialty lumber products. Weather conditions can be a factor in the supply of raw material, as unusually wet or inclement conditions may make it difficult to harvest timber.

In the United States, hardwood lumber for crossties is procured by us from hundreds of small sawmills throughout the northeastern, midwestern and southern areas of the country. The crossties are shipped via rail car or trucked directly to one of our crosstie treating plants, all of which are on line with a major railroad. The crossties are either air-stacked for a period of six to nine months or artificially dried by a process called boultonizing. Once dried, the crossties are pressure treated with creosote, a product of our CMC business. A portion of our crossties are also treated with borate, which is purchased from our PC business, in combination with creosote.

We believe we are the largest supplier of railroad crossties to the Class I railroads in North America. We have one principal competitor, Stella-Jones Inc., and several smaller regional competitors in the North American market. Competitive factors in the railroad crosstie market include price, quality, location, service and security of supply. We believe we have a competitive advantage due to our ability to obtain internally-sourced creosote and our national network of treating plants which have direct access to our major customers’ rail lines. These advantages provide for security of supply and logistics advantages for our customers.

Our RUPS business’ largest customer base is the North American Class I railroad market, which buys approximately 70 percent of all crossties produced in the United States and Canada. Approximately 75 percent of our North American Railroad Products and Services sales are under long-term contracts, and we currently supply all North American Class I railroads. We also have relationships with many of the approximately 630 short-line and regional rail lines. This also forms the customer base for our rail joint bar products.

We believe our North American utility pole business is the second largest supplier of utility poles in the United States, and we believe our Australian utility pole business is the largest supplier of utility poles in Australia. Our North American utility pole business serves eight of the top ten utilities, based on customer base and revenue, in the United States. Utility poles are produced mainly from pine species in the United States and eucalyptus species in Australia. Most of these poles are purchased from large timber owners and individual landowners and are shipped to one of our pole-peeling facilities. In North America and Australia, in addition to utility poles, we market pilings for marine applications and smaller poles to the agricultural landscape and vineyard markets. We treat poles with a variety of preservatives, including CCA, DCOI and creosote, which we produce internally and purchase from PC and CMC.

Performance Chemicals

Our PC business maintains sales and manufacturing capabilities in the United States, Canada, Europe, South America and Australasia. The primary products supplied by PC are copper-based wood preservatives, including micronized copper azole (MicroPro®), micronized pigments (MicroShades®), alkaline copper quaternary, amine copper azole, DCOI and CCA. The primary applications for these products include decking, fencing, utility poles, construction lumber and timbers, and various agricultural uses. Additionally, we are a leading supplier of fire-retardant chemicals (FlamePro®) for pressure treatment of wood, primarily in commercial construction. Because we are a global supplier of wood preservatives, we face various competitors in all the geographic regions in which we participate.

The PC business supplies ten of the 11 largest lumber treating companies in the United States, the largest treated wood market in the world, in addition to four of the five largest lumber treating companies in Canada. In North America, our PC business is vertically integrated through the manufacturing of copper compounds for our copper-based wood preservatives. Each year, we purchase approximately 30 million pounds of our key raw material, scrap copper, in addition to other compounds containing copper which we process to meet the demand of this major market. When we purchase scrap copper, it is shipped to our manufacturing plants in Hubbell, Michigan and Millington, Tennessee for further processing into other copper compounds. We utilize swap contracts to hedge our exposure to copper prices.

We believe that being vertically integrated in copper manufacturing provides our PC business with an important competitive advantage and also provides our customers with the security of a supply of copper-based wood preservatives. Likewise, we believe that our marketing, engineering, environmental, regulatory and technical support services provide added value to our customer base. We believe another competitive advantage is provided by our strategic sourcing group, which procures scrap copper and other raw materials, such as chromic acid, tebuconazole, arsenic trioxide, colorants, dispersants and various biocides and co-biocides through the global market.

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Carbon Materials and Chemicals

Our CMC business manufactures its primary products and sells them directly to our global customer base under long-term contracts or through purchase orders negotiated by our regional sales personnel and coordinated through our regional marketing groups. Our three coal tar distillation facilities and two carbon materials terminals give us the ability to offer customers multiple sourcing options and a consistent supply of high-quality products.

Our CMC business manufactures the following principal products:

▪creosote, used in the treatment of wood or as a feedstock in the production of carbon black;

▪carbon pitch, a critical raw material used in the production of aluminum and steel; and

▪naphthalene, used as a surfactant in the production of concrete.

Creosote, carbon pitch, naphthalene, and carbon black feedstock are produced through the distillation of coal tar, a by-product generated through the processing of coal into coke for use in steel and iron manufacturing. Coal tar distillation involves the conversion of coal tar into a variety of intermediate chemical products in processes beginning with distillation. During the distillation process, heat and vacuum are utilized to separate coal tar into three primary components: chemical oils, distillate and carbon pitch.

In December 2024, we decided to discontinue phthalic anhydride production at our facility in Stickney, Illinois. The decision was driven by significant near-term capital spending requirements that could not be economically justified by end-market projections and the ability to substantially reduce annual emissions of certain regulated air contaminants. Production of phthalic anhydride ceased in the second quarter of 2025.

For years, the coal tar distillation industry has operated in an excess capacity mode, which further increased the competition for a limited amount of coal tar in North America and Europe. In response, we embarked on a global restructuring plan in 2014 and reduced our global number of coal tar distillation facilities to three as of December 31, 2025.

The smelting of aluminum requires significant amounts of energy, which is a major cost component for the aluminum industry. As a result, new production facilities are being built in regions with low energy costs such as the Middle East, while regions with higher energy costs such as the United States, Western Europe and Australia have seen significant amounts of smelting capacity idled or closed over the last several years.

In the United States, our primary coal tar raw material supply contracts have remaining terms ranging from one to three years, and most provide options for renewal. Pricing under these contracts is either formula-based or negotiated on a quarterly or semi-annual basis. Our primary European tar supply contract has a remaining term of approximately four years and contains quarterly formula-based tar pricing. Finally, our primary Australian tar supply contracts have remaining terms up to four years and contain formula-based pricing which is adjusted on an annual or semi-annual basis.

We believe we are the largest global supplier of creosote to the North American railroad industry. We have one principal competitor, Rain Carbon Inc., in the North American and European markets, in addition to several smaller regional competitors. We believe we have a competitive advantage due to our vertically integrated RUPS and CMC operations. These advantages provide for security of supply and logistics advantages for our customers.

Technology and Licensing

In 1988, we acquired the Koppers trademark from Koppers Company, Inc. The association of the name with the chemical, building, wood preservation and coke industries is beneficial to our company, as it represents long-standing, high quality products. Trademarks relating to our PC business, such as MicroPro®, FlamePro®, Protim and Solignum are important in this segment of our business, and as long as we continue to use the name Koppers and the trademarks associated with our wood preservation business and comply with applicable registration requirements, our right to use the name Koppers and the other trademarks should continue without expiration. The expiration of other trademark rights is not expected to materially affect our business.

Backlog

Generally, Koppers does not manufacture its products against a backlog of orders. Inventory and production levels are typically driven by expectations of future demand based on contractual obligations. Our RUPS business carries significant amounts of untreated crosstie inventory, which typically requires air-seasoning for a period of six to nine months.

Seasonality

Demand for residential, commercial, and agricultural treated lumber may decline during winter months due to weather conditions. In addition, inclement or winter weather may affect access to certain raw materials or impact operations at our facilities. As a result, operating results may vary from quarter to quarter depending on the severity of weather conditions

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