Nisheet Gupta
Analyst · CJS Securities
Thank you, Ty, and good morning, everyone. The fourth quarter was a strong close to our fiscal year. We achieved top and bottom line growth. Our pricing and cost actions offset the impact of inflation. And we generated solid cash flow, allowing us to return cash to shareholders.
Let me provide some more details starting with fourth quarter results on Page 8 of our presentation. Fourth quarter revenue grew 6%. This was led by over 20% growth in both Architectural Services and LSO segments, along with 9% growth in Framing Systems.
The quarter included several items that we excluded from our adjusted results. First, we took an impairment charge related to Sotawall. As I mentioned and previously announced, we plan to fully integrate Sotawall into Architectural Services segment starting in Q1 of fiscal '23. During the fourth quarter, we continued to evaluate this optimal strategic approach to integrate Sotawall into Architectural Services and finalize our integration plan.
As part of this, we evaluated the Sotawall assets and determined that certain assets, mainly intangible assets, were impaired. We expect to see improved performance in the future for the combined business under the leadership of Services segment.
During the quarter, we continued to execute the restructuring actions we announced last summer. In the fourth quarter, we had $6.3 million of restructuring costs. As part of the restructuring, we sold our glass facility in Statesboro, Georgia. This has led to a $19.5 million gain in the quarter.
We are pleased with how our teams have executed the restructuring. Everything has proceeded on schedule and is largely complete, and we are beginning to achieve the targeted cost savings.
Overall, during the year, we incurred $30.5 million of restructuring costs. Of this, $9 million was cash expense. When you include the proceeds from Statesboro sale, the overall restructuring program was significantly cash positive for the fiscal year. Excluding the impairment, restructuring and gain on sale of assets, adjusted operating income was $27.7 million, and adjusted operating margin improved to 8.4%. This was 130 basis points better than last year's fourth quarter. The primary driver was the impact of our pricing actions, especially in Framing Systems. Improved pricing fully offset the impact of inflation in the quarter. Margins also benefit from our restructuring and cost-saving efforts.
Adjusted earnings were $0.91 per diluted share. This was 44% higher than last year's fourth quarter.
I would like to highlight that adjusted margins and earnings improved sequentially each quarter during the fiscal year. This demonstrates the positive momentum we have established in the business.
Full year results are shown on Slide 9. Full year revenue grew 7% led by Architectural Services, which achieved record full year revenue of $349 million. Large-Scale Optical fully recovered from last year's COVID-related shutdowns and saw renewed growth in its core markets and exceeded $100 million of annual sales for the first time.
Full year operating income and margins were down from last year. This mainly reflects the impact of inflation.
Adjusted earnings grew to $2.48 per share. This was driven by top line growth and a lower share count.
Finally, our key performance metric of ROIC improved by 40 basis points. We have included a new reconciliation table in our earnings presentation that shows our ROIC calculation. Going forward, we'll continue to share ROIC performance on an annual basis.
Let's turn to segment results on Slide 10. Starting with Architectural Framing Systems, fourth quarter revenue grew 9%. This was primarily driven by pricing actions taken to offset inflation. Volumes were lower than last year. Adjusted operating margin was 3.8%, that is 110 basis points better than last year but well below the segment's long-term potential. Going forward, we expect to see improved margin performance in Framing as we achieve the benefits from our restructuring and cost reduction efforts.
Moving to Architectural Glass. Revenue was down 12%. As expected, this was mainly driven by lower volumes. We have had fewer new project awards over the past year while nonresidential construction has been in a downturn. We were also strategically shifting away from some low-margin sales.
Adjusted operating margin was 6.4%. This was 200 basis points better than last year and 340 basis points higher than third quarter. We are beginning to achieve cost savings from our restructuring, along with productivity gains from our Lean program.
Moving to Architectural Services. Revenue grew 21% to a record $99 million. Operating income of $11.8 million was also a record high. This was driven by strong project execution and leverage from increased volume. Services backlog declined to $518 million. This was driven by strong revenue conversion in the quarter, along with lower new order volumes. As a reminder, Services orders can be uneven from quarter to quarter. We are encouraged by increasing bidding activity in the recent months, which should lead to a rebound in orders over the next few quarters.
Turning to Large-Scale Optical. Revenue of $27 million grew 23% compared to last year's fourth quarter. This was mainly driven by increased sales of high-value products, and margins were strong at 23.7%.
Finally, fourth quarter corporate costs were lower than last year and below the run rate we have seen in the past several quarters. This was mainly driven by favorable insurance costs.
Turning to Page 11. Our cash flow and balance sheet remained very strong. Full year cash flow from operations was $100 million. This was followed by last year's record cash flow of $142 million. We also brought in $31 million of cash from sale of assets.
Our capital spending remained lower than normal this year as we slowed some investments while we completed our strategic review.
Our net leverage remained less than 1x adjusted EBITDA. This is well below our target of 1.5x EBITDA. We have no near-term debt maturities, and our revolving facility is undrawn.
With a strong cash flow, low leverage and limited capital spending, we were building cash on our balance sheet. In the fourth quarter, we decided to put some of this cash to work buying back stock. During the quarter, we purchased 1.5 million shares for $71 million. For the full year, we purchased $100 million of stock.
Going forward, we'll continue to deploy cash and value for shareholders. The capital allocation strategy we shared with the Investor Day -- on our Investor Day is on Page 12 of today's presentation.
Our first priority is investing to drive profitable growth. This will include both organic investments and M&A. Our second priority is returning capital to shareholders. We recently increased our dividend, and we'll continue to evaluate opportunistic share buybacks. We will also work to maintain a strong balance sheet.
Let me wrap up by discussing our outlook, which is on Page 13. We are providing initial guidance for fiscal '23 of adjusted EPS in the range of $2.90 to $3.30 per share. At the midpoint, this would be 25% year-over-year growth.
We expect total company revenue will grow in fiscal '23. This will be mainly driven by pricing in Framing Systems. We expect revenue in other 3 segments to be relatively flat given that Services backlog declined during the bottom of the pandemic and Glass is focused on value, not volume.
We also expect to drive significant margin expansion during the year. This will be mainly in Framing Systems and Glass as we achieve the benefits from our restructuring and continue to drive operational improvements.
While we are not providing quarterly guidance, we expect the flow of earnings next year will be similar to what we saw in fiscal '22. As we mentioned, we plan to move Sotawall into Architectural Services in the first quarter of fiscal '23. To help with year-over-year comparisons, we included tables with pro forma segment results in the appendix of our earnings presentation. Also on Page 14 of today's presentation, we are updating the long-term margin guidance we presented during our Investor Day to reflect the move of Sotawall into Architectural Services.
To close, I would like to thank the Apogee team for all their work over the past year. We have delivered strong results despite many challenges during the year. We delivered EPS growth. We have strengthened our core by investing in standard processes and deployed new systems. We have begun to execute on our new strategy. And we are well positioned for even stronger results in our next fiscal year.
With that, I'll turn it back over to Ty for some concluding remarks.