Ron Robinson
Analyst · Piper Jaffray
Thank you, Dan. I would like to make a few comments about the quarter, but I think in general, we're pleased with our second quarter results. I think the kind of earnings growth we achieved despite the soft sales shows the progress we continue to make at Alamo Group. But certainly, we're concerned about the weakness in some of our market areas. For the last several years, our Industrial Division has been our strongest and really led the way and consistently grown, so on the one hand, the comparables are actually quite strong. But - and generally, our Industrial Group continues to hold up well today, even though, I think industrial activity in the U.S. is in general is slowing. Our blowers, street sweepers, snow removal and excavator products all continue to do well, but certainly, vacuum trucks demand particularly for non-governmental applications has been weak and is probably getting weaker. Our backlog dropped and backlog in our Industrial Division were mainly vacuum trucks and excavators, but it's more of the vacuum truck portion that has a concern because while excavator backlog was down some, the inquiry levels remain healthy levels and strong, which is not as much the case with the vacuum trucks. And as I mentioned, even snow removal products remain good, even though it was a fairly mild winter, except probably the airport sector snow removals, which is where we've seen some weakness in snow, but in general, our snow products are up. And as I said, street sweepers and blowers are also doing just fine. So our main concern in the division is vacuum trucks and will likely remain so for the rest of the year. In our Agricultural sector, the overall market there continues to be soft. Farm incomes are declining further this year and our sales in this market were slightly down, but I think continue to hold up much better than the market in general, and our margins in these products continue to improve, which has been a big contributor to Alamo's overall margin growth. In Europe, the general economic situation there certainly remains weak, and in spite of these actually our French operations are showing some improvement, though our UK operations, which have historically been our strongest, are down for the first half of the year, certainly, partly due to the weak economic situation and partly, we believe due to delays caused by concerns and uncertainty related to the Brexit vote, which took place in June of this year. While we certainly do not know exactly how the Brexit situation will fully play out, we feel demand for our type of products should remain fairly stable. However, there would certainly be some effects on us, such as the currency translation effects we are already experiencing due to declines in the value of the British pound, which makes our sales and earnings from their work less. There also certainly could be some longer-term effects based on the ultimate trading arrangements, established between the UK and the European Union, but this process could take several years to fully develop. And long-term, since we have manufacturing capabilities in both the UK, which will be outside the EU and France, which will still be in the EU, we do not feel we will be impacted or that this have any problems in our ability to serve our markets in Europe, whether they’re in or outside the EU. So despite the soft market conditions, which are likely to affect us for the rest of the year, we feel good about the progress we continue to make in operational improvements, which has been driving our earnings growth. Sales in the first half of 2016 were slightly down, yet net income was up over 8% in the second quarter and up over 12% for the first 6 months of 2016 compared to 2015. And as we’ve pointed out repeatedly, these improvements are not just from one area, but the result of a number of initiatives including better manufacturing efficiencies, positive purchase price variances on purchases of components, despite higher steel cost, probably even some net pricing gains of our price increases and even lower overhead cost in general. And we feel these initiatives will continue to help our results for the rest of this year and into next year. Even with sales that are probably likely to remain soft in certain areas like I said, I think generally we feel our sales holding up are reasonably well, but certainly, there is going to be a few soft areas. And as Dan pointed out, these improvements also contributed to significant growth in our free cash flow. And as a result, I think it was significant that our total debt, net of cash, was down nearly $50 million compared to the same period at the end of the second quarter of 2015, [indiscernible] we had very good conversion of cash flow into the ability to pay down debt and strengthen - further strengthen our balance sheet. So all-in-all good results for the quarter in which sales were softer than we would certainly have liked. The performance improvements we have made will continue to help us going forward, but sales will continue to be challenged in several sectors. And I can assure you that those sectors are going to be getting a lot of attention for us and certainly, in addition to our normal efficiency initiatives we're undertaking, bookings will be an important focus of us for the next - for the rest of this year. So with that, I'd like now to open up the floor for any questions you might have.