Stephen Nolan
Analyst · Alembic Global. Go ahead please. Your line is open Mr. Skibitski
Thank you, Bill. Good morning to everyone. I will talk first about the results for the quarter and then about our updated outlook for the balance of the year. For the second quarter, total company net sales were $261.4 million, an increase of 11.4% compared to the $234.5 million delivered in the same quarter last year. Adjusting for currency translation effects, principally the decline in the euro relative to the U.S. dollars, net sales increased by 14.6% year-over-year in the quarter. In Machine Clothing, also adjusting for currency translation effects, net sales were down 1.8% year-over-year compared to an exceptionally strong second quarter of last year, driven by declines in engineered fabrics, packaging and tissue grades. These declines were partially driven by our previously announced exit from the Russian market. Engineered Composites’ net sales, again after adjusting for currency translation effects, grew by nearly 50%, with growth on CH-53K and LEAP production partially offset by a decline on the F-35 and 787 platforms. During the quarter, the LEAP program generated revenue just over $40 million compared to a little under $26 million in the same quarter last year. Second quarter gross profit for the company was $100.6 million, a reduction of 1.1% from the comparable period last year. Similar to the first quarter, as a result of the mix shift due to AEC’s top line growth outpacing that of the MC segment, the overall gross margin declined by 490 basis points from 43.4% to 38.5% of net sales. Within the MC segment, gross margin declined by 90 basis points from 52.9% to 52.0% of net sales due to higher input costs and mix effects partially offset by a one-time accrual release. Within AEC, the gross margin declined from 23.0% to 19.8% of net sales caused primarily by a lower net favorable change to long-term contract profitability, which was just over $1 million this year compared to over $4 million in the same quarter last year, and by mix effects. Second quarter selling, technical, general, and research expenses decreased from $51.8 million in the prior quarter to $49.9 million in the current quarter and decreased as a percentage of net sales from 22.1% to 19.1%, primarily due to differences in foreign currency revaluation effects. Total operating income for the company was $50.7 million, up from $50.0 million in the prior year quarter. Machine Clothing operating income decreased by about $1 million, caused by lower gross profit partially offset by lower STG&R, while AEC operating income rose by about $2.4 million, driven by higher gross profit partially offset by higher STG&R expense. Other income and expense in the quarter netted to income of about $7 million compared to expense of about $800,000 in the same period last year. The improvement was primarily driven by a more beneficial foreign currency revaluation effect in the quarter. The income tax rate for the quarter was 26.9% compared to 30.0% in the prior year quarter. The lower rate this quarter was primarily due to favorable discrete adjustments this quarter. Net income attributable to the company for the quarter was $39.2 million, an increase from $31.4 million last year, driven by more beneficial other income and expense, partially offset by higher tax expense. GAAP earnings per share, was $1.25 this quarter compared to $0.97 in the same period last year. After adjusting for the impact of foreign currency revaluation gains and losses, restructuring expenses and expenses associated with the CirComp acquisition and integration, adjusted earnings per share was $1.06 this quarter compared to $1.01 last year. Adjusted EBITDA decreased 4.9% to $66 million in the most recent quarter compared to the same period last year. Machine Clothing adjusted EBITDA was $57.9 million, or 38.2% of net sales this year, down from $63 million or 39.4% of net sales in the prior year quarter. AEC adjusted EBITDA was $21.3 million or 19.4% of net sales, up from last year’s $19.3 million or 25.9% of net sales. During the quarter, the company generated free cash flow, defined as net cash used in operating activities less capital expenditures of about $22.8 million. During the second quarter, we returned over $47 million of cash to our investors, comprised of over $6 million in regular dividends and over $41 million in share repurchases. We repurchased almost 510,000 shares during the second quarter at an average price of $80.93. At the end of the quarter, our net leverage ratio, defined as total debt less cash and cash equivalents divided by trailing 12 months adjusted EBITDA, was about $0.66. I would now like to provide an update on our financial guidance for the balance of the year. Once again, Machine Clothing had a good quarter, with a difficult comparison to a very strong second quarter in 2021. The decline in the top line was largely due to currency effects, a timing driven decline in North American revenues and our exit from the Russian market. We are certainly seeing more impact on revenue from currency effects than we had anticipated as even 3 months ago we had not expected the euro to be quite this close to parity with the U.S. dollar. However, demand for our products remains strong globally, with higher orders in the second quarter compared to the same quarter last year in all regions. Therefore, we are reaffirming our previously issued revenue guidance for the segment of a range of $590 million to $610 million. From a profitability perspective, we are seeing some impact from rising input costs. Our gross margin was down 90 basis points year-over-year in the quarter. And within the quarter, it trended a little lower in the third month compared to the first 2 months. For the full year, the expected impact from inflation continues to rise every quarter and is now about $8 million higher than when we provided our initial guidance. However, the MC team is continuing to drive efficiencies, offsetting the impact of some of that inflation. As I discussed a moment ago, we are also still seeing good demand for our products, which helps maintain strong margins. Therefore, while we still expect to see year-over-year impact from inflation and other factors in our results, we are modestly raising the lower end of our full year adjusted EBITDA guidance for the segment, resulting in a revised range of $210 million to $225 million. Turning to Engineered Composites, the results for this quarter and for the balance of the year will be materially higher than what we had communicated to you last quarter. The primary positive driver of that change is the CH-53K Aft Transition program. When we last discussed that new win, we indicated that we did not anticipate recognizing material revenue on that program during 2022. As you are aware, on the vast majority of the AEC’s programs, we are required under the relevant accounting standards to recognize revenue as we incur cost on the program. However, we have anticipated a contract structure on the Aft Transition program that would have led to us deferring revenue recognition on the non-recurring cost incurred in 2022. Expect at that time to represent about $30 million of revenue and then amortizing it over the life of the production program. Since then, two things have changed. First, in late May, we completed the negotiation of the contract with our customer, and its final form resulted in somewhat different accounting treatment than we had originally anticipated. And second, our customer has asked us to begin production and assembly work earlier than we had anticipated. As a result of those changes, we will now be recognizing significant revenue from the CH-53K Aft Transition program this year. During the recently completed quarter, we recognized close to $20 million in revenue on the program largely related to tooling expenditures. And we expect to recognize close to $50 million in revenue for the full year. Bill has already discussed the idling of our 787 frame production. Our other AEC programs are running as expected, including the ASC LEAP program, which we expect to deliver over $150 million in revenue for the full year, and the F-35 program, which we still expect to be down about $15 million dollars for the full year compared to 2021. Overall for the AEC segment, we are raising both the lower and upper end of our guidance range for the full year by $50 million, resulting in a revised range of $380 million to $400 million. We are also updating our guidance for AEC adjusted EBITDA to a range of $75 million to $80 million, up from the prior range of $65 million to $75 million. At the company level, we are updating our previously issued full-year guidance as follows: revenue of between $970 million and $1.01 billion, up from our prior range of $920 million to $960 million; effective income tax rate of 28% to 30%, updated from our prior guidance of 29% to 31%; depreciation and amortization of $71 million to $72 million, down from $75 million; capital expenditures in the range of $75 million to $85 million, unchanged; GAAP earnings per share of between $3.45 and $3.75, updated from prior guidance of between $2.76 and $3.26; adjusted earnings per share of between $3.30 and $3.60, updated from our prior guidance range of between $2.80 and $3.30; and adjusted EBITDA of between $230 million and $250 million, updated from prior guidance of between $215 million and $245 million. Returning to the present, we want to thank all of our employees for the hard work that led to the great performance in the recent quarter. I’m pleased that we were able to notch up our guidance at this point in the year. We feel good about the outlook for both segments, not only in the near-term, but also into the future. And with that, I would like to open the call for questions. Alan?