Robert W. Kuhn
Analyst · James Armstrong from Vertical Research
Thank you, Steve, and good morning, everyone. I'll provide my comments and then Peter, Steve and I will be happy to answer your questions at the end. First commenting on the results for our quarter. As announced in our press release, our reported increased 16%. Excluding currency changes, sales increased 10%, higher tooling sales accounted for about 1% of the overall top line growth. From a geographic standpoint, sales to customers by our European operations represented approximately 57% of sales this year versus 56% of sales in the prior year, while sales to customers by our U.S. operations accounted for 27% of sales versus 29% last year. Reported diluted earnings per share increased 6% to a third quarter record of $0.72 per share compared to $0.68 per share in the prior year. Free cash flow, which we defined as cash flow from operations, less capital expenditures, was approximately $71 million for the quarter versus roughly $26 million in the prior year. Our cash flow from operations for the quarter was approximately $119 million compared to approximately $53 million in the prior year. Capital expenditures were approximately $48 million in the quarter compared to $27 million in the same quarter of last year. Regarding our repurchase activity during the quarter, we spent about $38.8 million to buy back approximately 800,000 shares of our stock. The mix of that at the end of the quarter is roughly 65% fixed versus 35% variable and the average interest rate is slightly -- is around 3.5%. On a gross basis, debt to capital is about 23%, while on a net basis, it is roughly 2%. Taking a look at the first 9 months. Similar to the quarter, our year-to-date reported sales increased approximately 16% and changes in exchange rates accounted for 6% of the increase, resulting in an organic sales increase of 10%. Once again, custom tooling sales represented about 1% of that increase. Reported diluted earnings per share year to date, increased 9% to $2.08 per share versus $1.90 per share last year. Looking forward, presently we expect depreciation and amortization for 2011 to be in the area of approximately $135 million with capital expenditures expected to be in the area of $170 million. I'd like to point out that these amounts could vary depending upon changes in exchange rates. The effective tax rate for the full year of 2011 is expected to be between 32% and 33%. And lastly, we currently estimate that diluted earnings per share for the fourth quarter of 2011 will be in the range of $0.57 to $0.62 per share compared to the record fourth-quarter results of $0.59 per share reported in the prior year. At this time, Peter, Steve and I will be glad to answer any of your questions.