KEMET Reports Preliminary Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2017 Results

• Net sales for the quarter up 5.0% to $197.5 million compared to the prior quarter ended December 31, 2016
• Gross margin for fiscal year 2017 of 24.6% compared to 22.2% for the prior fiscal year 2016
• Cash Balance at March 31, 2017 of $109.8 million up $44.8 million compared to prior year March 31, 2016

GREENVILLE, S.C., May 10, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- KEMET Corporation (the “Company”) (NYSE:KEM), a leading global supplier of electronic components, today reported preliminary results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended March 31, 2017.

Net sales of $197.5 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2017 increased 5.0% from net sales of $188.0 million for the prior quarter ended December 31, 2016, and increased 7.4% compared to net sales of $183.9 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2016.  For the fiscal year ended March 31, 2017 net sales were $757.8 million, up 3.1% compared to $734.8 million for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2016.

U.S. GAAP net income, including the equity income from NEC TOKIN, for the quarter ended March 31, 2017 was $52.9 million, or $0.93 per diluted share, compared to a net loss for the quarter ended March 31, 2016 of $15.2 million or $0.33 loss per basic and diluted share. U.S. GAAP net income, including the equity income from NEC TOKIN, for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2017 was $48.0 million, or $0.87 per diluted share compared to a net loss of $53.6 million, or $1.17 loss per basic and diluted share for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2016.

Non-U.S. GAAP Adjusted net income for the quarter ended March 31, 2017 was $7.8 million or $0.14 per diluted share, compared to a non-U.S. GAAP Adjusted net income of $1.8 million or $0.04 per diluted share for the quarter ended March 31, 2016. For the fiscal year ended March 31, 2017, non-U.S. GAAP Adjusted net income was $23.9 million, or $0.43 per diluted share compared to non-U.S. GAAP Adjusted net income of $8.9 million, or $0.17 per diluted share for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2016.

“It was another milestone for KEMET with the fifth quarter of sequential growth and cash generation exceeding our forecast,” stated Per Loof KEMET’s Chief Executive Officer.  “While many doubted our ability to bring the TOKIN acquisition to closure it was an exciting quarter and now a start to our next fiscal year with a transaction that is unique, transformational, and deleveraging to the balance sheet.  The work now begins to bring more value to our shareholders through this combination,” continued Loof.

Net income (loss) for the fiscal quarters and years ended March 31, 2017 and 2016 include various items affecting comparability as denoted in the U.S. GAAP to Non-U.S. GAAP reconciliation table included hereafter.

About KEMET

The Company’s common stock is listed on the NYSE under the ticker symbol “KEM” (NYSE: KEM).  At the Investor Relations section of our web site at http://www.kemet.com/IR, users may subscribe to KEMET news releases and find additional information about our Company.  KEMET applies world class service and quality to deliver industry leading, high performance capacitance solutions to its customers around the world and offers the world’s most complete line of surface mount and through-hole capacitor technologies across tantalum, ceramic, film, aluminum, electrolytic, and paper dielectrics. Additional information about KEMET can be found at http://www.kemet.com.

QUIET PERIOD

Beginning July 1, 2017, we will observe a quiet period during which the information provided in this news release and annual report on Form 10-K will no longer constitute our current expectations. During the quiet period, this information should be considered to be historical, applying prior to the quiet period only and not subject to update by management. The quiet period will extend until the day when our next quarterly earnings release is published.

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT ON FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

Certain statements included herein contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws about the Company’s financial condition and results of operations that are based on management’s current expectations, estimates and projections about the markets, in which the Company operates, as well as management’s beliefs and assumptions. Words such as “expects,” “anticipates,” “believes,” “estimates,” variations of such words and other similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions, which are difficult to predict. Therefore, actual outcomes and results may differ materially from what is expressed or forecasted in, or implied by, such forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which reflect management’s judgment only as of the date hereof. The Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly any of these forward-looking statements to reflect new information, future events or otherwise.

Factors that may cause actual outcomes and results to differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, these forward-looking statements include, but are not necessarily limited to, the following: (i) adverse economic conditions could impact our ability to realize operating plans if the demand for our products declines, and such conditions could adversely affect our liquidity and ability to continue to operate and cause a write down of long-lived assets or goodwill; (ii) an increase in the cost or a decrease in the availability of our principal or single-sourced purchased raw materials; (iii) changes in the competitive environment; (iv) uncertainty of the timing of customer product qualifications in heavily regulated industries; (v) economic, political, or regulatory changes in the countries in which we operate; (vi) difficulties, delays or unexpected costs in completing the restructuring plans; (vii) acquisitions and other strategic transactions expose us to a variety of risks; (viii) acquisition of TOKIN may not achieve all of the anticipated results; (ix) our business could be negatively impacted by increased regulatory scrutiny and litigation; (x) difficulties associated with retaining, attracting and training effective employees and management; (xi) the need to develop innovative products to maintain customer relationships and offset potential price erosion in older products; (xii) exposure to claims alleging product defects; (xiii) the impact of laws and regulations that apply to our business, including those relating to environmental matters; (xiv) the impact of international laws relating to trade, export controls and foreign corrupt practices; (xv) changes impacting international trade and corporate tax provisions related to the global manufacturing and sales of our products may have an adverse effect on our financial condition and results of operations; (xvi) volatility of financial and credit markets affecting our access to capital; (xvii) the need to reduce the total costs of our products to remain competitive; (xviii) potential limitation on the use of net operating losses to offset possible future taxable income; (xix) restrictions in our debt agreements that limit our flexibility in operating our business; (xx) disruption to our information technology systems to function properly or control unauthorized access to our systems may cause business disruptions; (xxi) additional exercise of the warrant by K Equity, LLC which could potentially result in the existence of a significant stockholder who could seek to influence our corporate decisions; and (xxii) fluctuation in distributor sales could adversely affect our results of operations.

Non-U.S. GAAP Financial Measures

In this news release, the Company makes reference to certain Non-U.S. GAAP financial measures, including "Adjusted gross margin", "Adjusted operating income", “Adjusted net income (loss)”, “Adjusted net income (loss) per share” and “Adjusted EBITDA”.  Management believes that investors may find it useful to review the Company’s financial results as adjusted to exclude items as determined by management.

Adjusted Gross Margin

Adjusted gross margin represents net sales less cost of sales excluding adjustments which are outlined in the quantitative reconciliation provided below.  Management uses Adjusted gross margin to facilitate our analysis and understanding of our business operations by excluding the items outlined in the quantitative reconciliation provided below which might otherwise make comparisons of our ongoing business with prior periods more difficult and obscure trends in ongoing operations.

The Company believes that Adjusted gross margin is useful to investors because it provides a supplemental way to understand the underlying operating performance of the Company.  Adjusted gross margin should not be considered as an alternative to gross margin or any other performance measure derived in accordance with U.S. GAAP.

The following table provides a reconciliation from U.S. GAAP Gross margin to Non-U.S. GAAP Adjusted gross margin (amounts in thousands):

Adjusted Operating Income (Loss)

Adjusted operating income represents operating income (loss), excluding adjustments which are outlined in the quantitative reconciliation provided below. We use Adjusted operating income to facilitate our analysis and understanding of our business operations by excluding the items outlined in the quantitative reconciliation provided below which might otherwise make comparisons of our ongoing business with prior periods more difficult and obscure trends in ongoing operations. The Company believe that Adjusted operating income (loss) is useful to investors because it provides a supplemental way to understand our underlying operating performance and allows investors to monitor and understand changes in our ability to generate income from ongoing business operations. Adjusted operating income (loss) should not be considered as an alternative to operating income (loss) or any other performance measure derived in accordance with U.S. GAAP.

Adjusted operating income (loss) is calculated as follows (amounts in thousands):

Adjusted Net Income (Loss) and Adjusted Net Income (Loss) Per Share

“Adjusted net income (loss)” and “Adjusted net income (loss) per share” represent net income (loss) and net income (loss) per share excluding adjustments which are outlined in the quantitative reconciliation provided below.  Management believes that these Non-U.S. GAAP financial measures are useful to investors because they provide a supplemental way to understand the underlying operating performance of the Company and allows investors to monitor and understand changes in our ability to generate income from ongoing business operations. Management uses these Non-U.S. GAAP financial measures to evaluate operating performance by excluding the items outlined in the quantitative reconciliation provided below which might otherwise
make comparisons of our ongoing business with prior periods more difficult and obscure trends in ongoing operations. Non-U.S. GAAP financial measures should not be considered as an alternative to net income, operating income or any other performance measures derived in accordance with U.S. GAAP.

The following table provides reconciliation from U.S. GAAP net income (loss) to Non-U.S. GAAP adjusted net income (loss):

U.S. GAAP to Non- U.S. GAAP Reconciliation

(1)  The income tax effect of the excluded items is calculated by applying the applicable jurisdictional income tax rate, considering the deferred tax valuation for each applicable jurisdiction.
(2)  Used to calculate adjusted net income (loss) per diluted share.

Adjusted EBITDA

Adjusted EBITDA represents net income (loss) before net interest expense, income tax expense, and depreciation and amortization expense, adjusted to exclude certain item which are outlined in the quantitative reconciliation provided below.  We use Adjusted EBITDA to monitor and evaluate our operating performance and to facilitate internal and external comparisons of the historical operating performance of our business.  We present Adjusted EBITDA as a supplemental measure of our performance and ability to service debt.  We also present Adjusted EBITDA because we believe such measure is frequently used by securities analysts, investors and other interested parties in the evaluation of companies in our industry.

We believe Adjusted EBITDA is an appropriate supplemental measure of debt service capacity, because cash expenditures on interest are, by definition, available to pay interest, and tax expense is inversely correlated to interest expense because tax expense goes down as deductible interest expense goes up; depreciation and amortization are non-cash charges. The other adjustments to arrive at Adjusted EBITDA are excluded in order to better reflect our continuing operations.

In evaluating Adjusted EBITDA, you should be aware that in the future we may incur expenses similar to the adjustments noted below.  Our presentation of Adjusted EBITDA should not be construed as an inference that our future results will be unaffected by these types of adjustments.  Adjusted EBITDA is not a measurement of our financial performance under U.S. GAAP and should not be considered as an alternative to net income, operating income or any other performance measures derived in accordance with U.S. GAAP or as an alternative to cash flow from operating activities as a measure of our liquidity.

Our Adjusted EBITDA measure has limitations as an analytical tool, and should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for analysis of our results as reported under U.S. GAAP.  Some of these limitations are:

• it does not reflect our cash expenditures, future requirements for capital expenditures or contractual commitments;
• it does not reflect changes in, or cash requirements for, our working capital needs;
• it does not reflect the significant interest expense or the cash requirements necessary to service interest or principal payment on our debt;
• although depreciation and amortization are non-cash charges, the assets being depreciated and amortized will often have to be replaced in the future, and our Adjusted EBITDA measure does not reflect any cash requirements for such replacements;
• it is not adjusted for all non-cash income or expense items that are reflected in our statements of cash flows;
• it does not reflect the impact of earnings or charges resulting from matters we consider not to be indicative of our ongoing operations;
• it does not reflect limitations on or costs related to transferring earnings from our subsidiaries to us; and
• other companies in our industry may calculate this measure differently than we do, limiting its usefulness as a comparative measure.

Because of these limitations, Adjusted EBITDA should not be considered as a measure of discretionary cash available to us to invest in the growth of our business or as a measure of cash that will be available to us to meet our obligations.  You should compensate for these limitations by relying primarily on our U.S. GAAP results and using Adjusted EBITDA only supplementally.

The following table provides a reconciliation from U.S. GAAP net income (loss) to Adjusted EBITDA (amounts in thousands):

Contact:	
William M. Lowe, Jr.
Executive Vice President and
Chief Financial Officer
williamlowe@kemet.com
864-963-6484

Richard J. Vatinelle
Vice President and
Treasurer
richardvatinelle@kemet.com
954-766-2800

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