Christian Hanke
Analyst · Julian Radlinger from UBS
Thank you, Mikael. Looking now to our financials on the next page. We have our key figures for the first quarter, including negative currency translation effect of around $106 million and organic sales growth of $39 million, our consolidated net sales reached $2.2 billion. Our gross margin declined year-on-year. The net operating leverage on the higher sales was more than offset by higher commodity costs and costs related to the preparation for upcoming launches as well as ramp-up of recent launches. Additionally, we experienced lower capacity utilization in most regions due to the sharp drop in light vehicle production and temporary costs related to the strike in Matamoros. Our adjusted operating margin of 7.7% declined year-on-year, mainly due to the lower gross profit and a slightly higher RD&E and SG&A in relation to sales, although they were roughly unchanged in absolute dollar amounts. Our reported EPS decreased by $0.55 mainly as a result of lower operating income. Our adjusted return on capital employed and return on equity were 19% and 22%, respectively. Our dividend of $0.62 was $0.02 higher than a year earlier. Looking now on the next slide. Our adjusted operating margin of 7.7% was 320 bps lower year-on-year. As illustrated by this chart, the adjusted operating margin was impacted by higher raw material costs of 80 bps, 30 bps from SG&A and RD&E, slightly offset by 25 bps from positive FX effects. In addition, we had temporary costs for the social unrest in Matamoros, Mexico. Excluding this cost, our adjusted operating margin would have been 100 bps higher than the 7.7%. The negative leverage on the higher sales was as a result of higher RD&E expenses, other launch-related costs and underutilized capacity of our supply chain production and logistic systems. The 10 bps higher RD&E was driven by the high number of product launches, especially in China. In the quarter, launches in China alone rose by more than 80%. The profitability development of our products usually follow a typical generic product life cycle that's illustrated on the slide, that's on the right hand on the corner. And I will try to explain in generic terms the principles behind how profitability over a life cycle works out. So please bear with me here for a few moments. During the development phase, costs will be expensed driving RD&E expenses without additional income. We also invest in new production equipment at this stage. In the introduction or launch phase, revenue is not enough to cover all of the addition of expenditure to launch products. During the growth or ramp-up phase, volumes increase and productivity improves, results typically moves from loss to profit and we start to recover engineering and launch costs. In this phase, continuous improvement activities are implemented to improve productivity and profitability further. So continuing with the quarter. The sharp drop in LVP has mainly affected our more mature products, which - with their generally higher profitability, and therefore, there is a greater impact from products that are in the earlier phases of their product life cycle. This has subsequently resulted in period where - with the product mix carrying a lower profitability. Despite this negative mix development, our Q1 performance was in line with our expectations, supporting our full year indication. Looking more into our cash flow on the next slide. Operating cash flow was strong in the quarter and amounted to $154 million, almost twice the level achieved for continuing operations in the same quarter of 2018. Capital expenditures amounted to $108 million in the first quarter, which is about 5% in relation to sales. In the first quarter of 2018, capital expenditures for continuing operations were $110 million or 4.9% of sales. For the full year '19, we expect capital expenditures to decline in relation to sales as the ratio begins to normalize towards the historical range of 4% to 5%. Looking at our full year '19, excluding any discrete items, we expect our operating cash flow for continuing operations to improve year-on-year. Looking now to our earnings per share. On the next slide, we have the EPS development. Reported earnings per share declined by $0.55 to $1.27. The main drivers behind the decrease are $0.65 from lower operating income and $0.05 from higher financial net, partially offset by lower tax and lower cost for capacity alignments and antitrust related matters. In Q1 '19, the adjusted earnings per share decreased by $0.63 to $1.20 compared to $1.83 for the same period one year ago. Moving on to the balance sheet on the next slide. And as you know, we have a long history of prudent financial policy. Our balance sheet focus and shareholder-friendly capital allocation policy remains unchanged. Autoliv's policy is to maintain a leverage ratio of around 1x net debt-to-EBITDA within the range of 0.5x to 1.5x. As of March 31, 2019, the company had a leverage ratio of 1.6x, which is 0.1x higher compared to December 31, 2018. The main reason for the increase is the lower EBITDA in the quarter. Our strong free cash flow generation should allow deleveraging and should allow continued returns to shareholders, while providing flexibility. We are aiming to be well within the target range by the end of the year 2019, despite the fine for the remaining portion of the EC investigation that will be paid in the second quarter. This excludes any other discrete items and other non-foreseeable changes to our business. Looking at our market development for the rest of the year on the next slide. The outlook for major light vehicle markets has become increasingly more uncertain, due to weaker consumer confidence, trade tariffs and regulatory changes. According to IHS, the U.S. market is seen as slightly down, while Europe and China are expected to stabilize from the recent volatility. Since January, IHS has reduced their full year 2019 expectations of global light vehicle production by 1.9 million units to 90.4 million or by 2 - or a reduction by 2 percentage points. The WLTP impact in Europe has faded. However, we see an increasing risk for uncertainty among end consumers on what drivetrain technology to choose. Corporate and fleet sales seem to be less effective. Other factors to watch are effects from Brexit and the new real driving emission testing, RD&E, that will be mandatory from September 1. In China, IHS expects the softness to continue in the second quarter, forecasting a decline about 3% in light vehicle production year-over-year. As inventory levels are relatively high and the recent trend in sales have not substantially improved, we believe there is some down side risk to this estimate. However, we have heard encouraging positive signals from a number of OEMs in China pointing to a better second half of 2019. Additionally, policymakers have outlined plans to implement more stimulus measures to boost the economy. Our base scenario for global light vehicle production in 2019 is in line with IHS estimate of the decline of 1%. We expect to outgrow light vehicle production at the similar level as we did in 2018, which was almost 6 percentage points. Turning the page. We have summarized our full year '19 and indications. Despite the weaker than expected market development, higher cost for raw material and cost related to the Matamoros strike, our full year 2019 indication, excluding currency translation effects remains unchanged since we last reported in January. Full year indications assumes mid-April exchange rates prevail and excludes costs for capacity alignments and antitrust related matters. Our full year '19 indication is for an organic sales growth of around 5% and a negative currency translation effect of around 2%, resulting in consolidated net sales growth of 3% for 2019. Our indication for the adjusted operating margin is around 10.5% for the full year. We expect the 2019 raw material cost increase to be at least as much as it was in 2018. We anticipate the currency effects on the operating margin for '19 to be neutral. The projected tax rate, excluding unusual items is expected to be around 28% for the year. The projected operating cash flow, excluding any discrete items is expected to improve compared to '19. The projected capital expenditures in relation to sales full year 2019 is expected to decline compared to the 5.6% for continuing operations in 2018. The projected RD&E in relation to sales full year 2019 is expected to decline compared to the 4.8% for continuing operations in 2018. We expect the leverage ratio to be well within our target range of 0.5x to 1.5x by the year-end 2019, excluding any unforeseen discrete items. I will now hand it back to Mikael for some closing remarks.