Azenta, Inc. (AZTA) Q1 2012 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Brooks Automation’s First Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. My name is [Kisha], and I will be your operator for today. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. We will conduct a question-and-answer session towards the end of this conference. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded for replay purposes. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Martin Headley, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Please proceed, sir.

Thank you very much, [Kisha], and good afternoon, everybody. I’d like to welcome each of you to the first quarter financial results conference call of Brooks fiscal 2012 year, covering the results of the first quarter ended on December 31, and providing an outlook into the second fiscal quarter ending on March 31. Our press release was issued after the close of markets today and is available on the investor relations page of our website www.brooks.com, as are the illustrative PowerPoint slides to be used during our prepared comments during the call. I’d like to remind everybody that during the course of the call we will be making a number of forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Litigation Securities Act of 1995. There are many factors that may cause actual financial results or other events to differ from those identified in such forward-looking statements. And I refer you to the section of our earnings release titled “Safe Harbor Statement,” the Safe Harbor slide in the aforementioned PowerPoint presentation on our website, and the company’s various filings with the SEC including Form 10-K and the fiscal year ended September 30 2011. We make no obligation to update these statements, should future financial data or events occur that differ from forward-looking statements presented today. I would also note we also make reference to a number of non-GAAP financial measures, which are used to in addition to and in conjunction with results presented in accordance with GAAP. Management believes these non-GAAP measures provide an additional way of viewing aspects of our operations and performance but, when considered with the GAAP financial results and the reconciliations of GAAP measures, provide a more complete understanding of the Brooks’ business. Non-GAAP measures should not be relied upon to the exclusion of GAAP measures. With me today is Brooks’ President and Chief Executive Officer, Steve Schwartz, who will open with remarks around the business environment and our current initiatives. I will then provide an overview of the first quarter financial results and a summary of our financial outlook for the March quarter, the second quarter of Brooks’ fiscal 2012. We’ll then take your questions. During our prepared remarks, I will from time-to-time make reference to the slides available to everybody at the Investor Relations page of our website. And with that, let me introduce Steve Schwartz.

Thank you, Martin, and thanks to all of you for joining our call. Today, I’ll spend a few minutes updating you on our progress against our strategic initiatives, highlighting some of the focus areas for the company, and outlining what we see as prospects for our continued growth in each of the markets that we serve. There’s been a significant change in our business outlook since our last earnings call. In November, we knew that we renew our cyclical bottom in our semi business, but we did not know when or how much of a recover we might expect. Our orders began to pick up in December, so that our near-term outlook has improved significantly and we’re looking forward to an improvement in the semiconductor portion of our business. Consistent with many of the North American suppliers to this industry, who have already reported their December results, our semiconductor products revenue in the December quarter was down about 27% from June 2011 levels. Fortunately, capital spending announcements from large IC makers are setting the tone for an improved 2012 forecasts. And like other suppliers to this industry, we too see improvement in the March quarter. We’re also beginning to have more confidence that the June quarter will be up from there. Ultimately, the continued global macro economic uncertainty will determine the speed and surety of these capacity investments, but for now, the tone is distinctly positive. In our Life Science Systems business, we participate in large and growing market that is not susceptible to dramatic capacity driven swings. Our December quarter Life Science Systems revenue was $12.8 million, up $4.4 million from September, a quarter in which we had the benefit of only two months of Nexus revenue. We anticipate a further increase in Life Science Systems revenue in the…

Thank you very much, Steve. Significant events in the December quarter, I’d summarize on slide three of the presentation. The financial statements reflect the full quarter of Nexus Biosystems acquisition compared to only two months of activity, which was reflected in the September quarter following the purchase on July 25, 2011. The balance sheet also includes the assets from the Celigo product line acquisition that we closed on December 28, 2011. The quarter opened with very low semiconductor capital equipment activity levels that continued through November. However, a strong rebound in the last few weeks of the quarter resulted in product shipments to wafer front-end being approximately flat with the prior quarter. The most significant sequential revenue decline during the quarter came from reduced capital spend for products destined for industrial market. Most notably, as Steve noted for the Polycold, mixed gas cryo chillers. Finally, the Brooks’ tax provision has fluctuated and will bounce around somewhat over the coming quarters. Given the impacts of mix on where profits are recognized in the time table for statute of [limitations] expiry related to the certain tax and services. Slide number four shows how Brooks’ sequential revenues and operating profits before special charges moved from the September quarter results, the final fiscal quarter of 2011 to the December quarter, our first fiscal quarter of 2012. In the September quarter, excluding the impacts of fair value acquisition accounts and the restructuring charges, the Brooks Life Science Systems recognized $4.3 million of incremental revenues and reduced losses by $1.3 million. This brought the Life Sciences business to an underlying $53 million revenue run rate, well on track with our annual growth target. The Brooks Product Solutions felling into semiconductor adjacent and industrial market, saw a $13.2 million or 13.4% decline in revenues, the bulk of…

(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from the line of Edwin Mok with Needham & Company. Please proceed. Edwin, please check your mute feature. Y Edwin Mok – Needham & Company: Hi, sorry about that. thanks for taking my question. So, first question I have is actually on 450. You mentioned that you shipped three system in the quarter, I was wondering how you can’t think about a 430 opportunity this year it appears in customers [chart]. Did that development, do you see that actually as a growth driver for your business this year?

Yeah. Hi, Ewin let me clarify one thing. We had orders for three new 450 millimeter systems and we shipped one additional vacuum system. So orders for three and one additional shipment that we had already taken an order for, but we see a pretty significant level of activity in 450, a lot of customers are interested to get our first unit, put into their development lab, there is one of the earlier 450 products that is in end user customer facility right now. The most of the activity we have is for customers who are developing 450 millimeter process technology. Y Edwin Mok – Needham & Company: Thanks for the color. On the outlook I think Steve you mentioned that you expect you have a more confident that your June quarter to be up sequentially even the March quarter, is that mostly come from the semicap string there or you counting on recovery in (inaudible), can you give us some color on that?

It is primarily from continued strengthen semicap and we’ve some turn to modest levels in industrial markets for our vacuum equipment, and as well as continuing robust progress of our Life Science Systems business, so it’s a bit of all the pieces coming together and jelling with our service business also contributing nicely, probably the largest element from semi. Y Edwin Mok – Needham & Company: Great. Thanks for the color. And then I guess quickly touch on the Life Science area, you talked about booking at $18 million, this is higher than your revenue right and just curious what income time horizon for those booking, and do you see any kind of potential or seasonal decline or any kind of the other thing that could impact our business income in quarters, on the next two quarters if you will?

So Edwin the cycles for the bookings of the units are pretty long, sometimes it’s six months, sometimes it’s three years, so these are pretty big size capital purchases and there is not really a seasonal aspect to that, when we get down to the consumable products level, sometimes there are seasonal aspects when people lead to use some budget at the end of the year. And so, what we understand is that typically there will be a pop – often there will be a pop at year-end, when people want to use up their budgets, but that comes from the consumable side, not from the big ticket bookings, if you will.

In terms of revenue recognition since a number of these larger projects have presented completion accounting, some parts of that will start to be reflected in our revenues even though, typically final delivery and acceptance of these units may be many months out. Y Edwin Mok – Needham & Company: I see, great. Just quickly touch on your guidance, I think there is some one-time stock comp expenses that could come into the – these I guess are adjustment that actually is a benefit for you guys for the quarter? I was wondering it in terms of run rate, how do you think of your operating expense going forward and (inaudible) as to what you did on last quarter, I would imagine you guys continuing that so, what do you think your OpEx can get to?

Well, if you look to the operating expenses, which were $25.3 million in the quarter. In the December quarter, you’re going to see the impact of the recovery of costs that we previously expensed on the final methods related to the options methods. Going in one direction, increased costs associated with the annual direct to ground, which immediately were. And so, when you take those factors into account, you’d expect to see a fairly sizable reduction in SG&A in that quarter and you probably see an increase up to kind of December levels expected typically beyond that. So, it’s going to bounce around with these factors going along at this juncture. During all of this time, within that there is some funding of the productivity initiatives that Steve made a mention too, and those start to really bear fruit in terms of gross margin improvements in the back part of the year. Y Edwin Mok – Needham & Company: I see, great. That's all I have. Thank you.

Okay.

Your next question comes from the line of Terence Whalen with Citi. Please proceed. Terence Whalen – Citigroup: Hi, good afternoon. thanks for taking the question. Just wanted in regards to the industrial market, if you think back historically in your participation in that market as you've gone through cyclical troughs, and then as you sort of re-emerged from those troughs, can you compare where you are today with the industrial market versus in the past and maybe where you might see some leading indicators turn positive for that business? Thank you.

Yes, thanks, Terence. The industrial market, it (inaudible) the play general vacuum applications for cryo pumps, gauges, mixed gas cryo chillers. Our experiences with these businesses that they tend to lag semiconductor, tend to lag it by a quarter to two quarters. So it would be our expectation that we would start to see some rebound probably into the June quarter is the best estimate we have at this stage, and we will be obviously scattering customers in our distributor assessments of that closely, but it is a lot of typically smaller dollar sales. so it’s an accumulation of a lot of factors that come into play there. Terence Whalen – Citigroup: Okay terrific, thank you. And then as a follow-up question, the book-to-bill obviously in Life Science is very strong. Perhaps does your observation of that book-to-bill maybe it lead you to every question whether that business will grow at 20% or 25% or perhaps higher this year, thank you.

I think I’d go back to Steve’s comment in his prepared remarks about how lumpy the bookings are these are very long gestation projects. They can’t all capture at one point in time, whilst we are very encouraged by the business we’re winning and in the strong position, we are in, I think we’ll be cautious about getting over optimistic had gone beyond the 20% growth rate that we projected for this business at this stage, but we show we’re wrong it’s better. Terence Whalen – Citigroup: Okay. Terrific and then my final one is, regarding some of the pick up and activities on the semi-cap equipment side of the business. Can you just help provide a little bit more clarity maybe by segment where you see that, and what are your expectations are going through the next couple of quarters, thanks.

Is this in terms of end user application that you were thinking of the clarification on the semiconductor please turn… Terence Whalen – Citigroup: Yes, I’m, Martin.

Okay. Well, I think where we see it given we have such broad application for our products is that we follow mostly what’s going in the industries, the [humanoid], but probably better than we do, which is none that’s particularly strong at the moment. And that driver is also geographically strongest currently in Korea, and in Taiwan. Terence Whalen – Citigroup: Okay, I appreciate that insight. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Satya Kumar with Credit Suisse. Please proceed. Feran Emit – Credit Suisse: Hi, this is Feran. I just wanted to ask a question regarding your Life Sciences business. Like this quarter your operating income was pretty close to break-even, seems like it’s getting there. Can you give us an idea of what revenue level do you expect it to be profitable? And also like if you can elaborate on how your growth in Life Sciences business was on a trailing 12 month basis?

First in terms of where we’re going, this Life Science business is very much a business in motion at moment. There’s a lot factors going on. We have integration of three businesses and certain costs being taken out as part of that integration. We have applying Brooks’ operational leadership in the business and carefully reviewing the terms and conditions on which we do certain of the business, which we believe can improve the margin structure going forward. So it isn’t just a matter of volume leverage that gets us to break-even into nice contribution. I think we previously indicated it’s our expectation .We’ll turn that quarter in the current quarter and that we’re operating at that level. And that reflects sequentially a nice growth from where we are. In terms of growth, if you were to talk about this business, at the time we bought RTS from Nexus that was about a $48 million trailing run rate. We haven’t disclosed specifically the run rate of the Celigo business, but it was fairly modest given the start of nature of it as Steve made reference to in his comments. So where we're seeing our growth rate, given the bumpy nature, it will be misleading to compare a particular quarter on a pro forma basis and particularly, given these were private companies whose performance characteristics were driven by other factors than we would drive them back, but we're continuing to have a growth rate consistent with us saying that we’ll show 20% growth above that trailing LTM. Feran Emit – Credit Suisse: Thank you. And just one question on Intevac, Steve touched on it briefly regarding the assets that you got from Intevac. Can you just elaborate a little more on what kind of areas are you targeting over the acquisition you have made and what exactly it brings for Brooks?

Yeah. Sure, it's a vacuum system technology with a small footprint and the promise for high productivity. So it's a product that has great interest to us, as it complements a lot of the technologies we developed here at Brooks, but it's a nice IC addition, if you will and we’ll continue to develop that for some applications that will allow a small footprint productive enough solution if you will for some – for 50 applications. Feran Emit – Credit Suisse: Okay. So by that you mean like – is it like a mainframe and basically it allows you to like integrate chambers on to I mean, (inaudible)?

That's correct, with an automation assembly inside. Feran Emit – Credit Suisse: Got it. So that could likely, I mean if it’s successful, it could be a much more higher ASP product than what you typically sell, is that fair to assume?

Hard to say about ASP, but it will be an attractive application for small footprint utilization if you will, for vacuum system. Feran Emit – Credit Suisse: Got it. And then just one last question related to your industrial business, you mentioned that it’s related kind of like from your remarks, it seems like it’s related a bit to the OLED market. I was just wondering like recently there has been like some licensing of printing technology from now probably by Samsung and I was just wondering if there is a shift from vacuum processing to printing, which is leading to some drop and (inaudible) some risk you see or is it just short-term thing, basically the orders are overall declining.

Hi, Feran, it’s not really related to OLED if you will. the bulk of the fall-off, if you will in industrial application where we’ve seen is for our mixed gas cryo chillers that relate to the coding, if you will on display for mobile applications. So that’s been the bulk of it. we don’t have a huge presence right now in something related to OLED. Feran Emit – Credit Suisse: Got it. That’s all I had. Thanks.

Okay.

Your next question comes from the line of David Duley with Steelhead. Please proceed. David Duley – Steelhead Securities, LLC.: Yeah. Just a couple of questions, what do you suspect the mix will be, what will the gross margins be in this upcoming March quarter?

I don’t think we’re providing specific growth margin guidance here, Dave. But we’ll see a progression, but it will continue to somewhat depressed by the mix factors that influence the December quarter, but it will be definitely a progression from where we reported in the December quarter. David Duley – Steelhead Securities, LLC.: And in the product solutions group when you talk about mix, can you just help me understand is that product mix, customer mix, it sounds like the margins were a little bit lower than you expected. Could you just talk about why?

Its product mix and customer mix, and product mix within customers, so we can have some of our larger OEMs where a particular solution if it’s headed for a particular end user has a spec on a different price point and margin structure to us, than it does for a similar product that’s headed to a different end user. So we have those situations. The biggest element was with the semiconductor recovery coming along so robustly; we were substituting some of our higher margin adjacent market products with some of our lowest margin semiconductor products. and so that profile of demand was not something we projected and it’s something that had adverse consequence. David Duley – Steelhead Securities: And going forward, how will the gross margins improve in the Product Solutions group, what are the key initiatives to get the gross margins off this 33% rate or whatever was?

Well, there’s clearly, there’s also a mix, there’s the factor of inventory reduction, which also have a absorption issue there. But more importantly going forward, we have substantial supply chain and outsourcing initiatives that we’re looking at. Those are well under way, but given the environments in semiconductor industry where those changes need approval from some of our major both OEM and end user customers, thus a degree of delay in seeing those come through. we’ve got substantial traction on this project. so we can be assured that we will be making progress, it just won’t be immediate, because of those approval processes. David Duley – Steelhead Securities: Okay. Does it look at this point, like the order number will increase again in the March quarter, how are we – how we are up to the early start of the quarter here.

I would say that the bookings are consistent with thinking that the June quarter will advance from the current quarter. So it is a nice start. David Duley – Steelhead Securities: Thank you.

Thanks, Dave.

(Operator Instructions) Your next question comes from the line of Ben Pang with Caris & Co. Please proceed. Ben Pang – Caris & Co.: All right. Thanks for taking my question. First a clarification on the gross margin comments, you are targeting 40% gross margin and $150 million in revenues, that’s total revenues?

That is correct. Ben Pang – Caris & Co.: And what kind of mix do you assume for that between your Life Sciences and early products?

Ben, this is Steve. If we had the same mix that we had in the December quarter that would be the right target. And it improves obviously as Life Science Systems improves, but it would be the target around this mix. Ben Pang – Caris & Co.: Okay. And then a couple of other questions, you talked about the design wins that you had between the core or traditional semiconductor area that you are in and on the peripheral areas. Which do you expect to have a higher growth rate in terms of those new products for 2012, new product revenues?

Yes. so for 2012, we’ll see the semi continue to drive this. The adjacent spaces have the same pattern to design something in. It still has a year if you will, towards qualification when the equipment makers get the product out and get it into beta, get it tested before the volume follows on. So whenever we have any of the design wins you can almost allow 12 months before any volume will follow. Even though, we do get repeat orders, it’s not driving a huge part of the business. Ben Pang – Caris & Co.: Okay.

But we’re looking at, for example we’re looking at business that we won in early 2011, and we’re starting to get repeat orders now for that. So some we do pay close attention to, but it does take a while to generate the volume orders. Ben Pang – Caris & Co.: Okay. And my last question is, what’s the lead time right now for your product, and did you see a rebound in that area? Are you expecting to see rebound in orders in that area in the first quarter?

We may see a rebound in orders, but probably not for delivery in the quarter. A degree of these orders, a degree of these revenues go through distribution. So there is a little bit of an inventory effect that occurs in the channel. And so, it is unlikely that those would be pushing forward for immediate delivery in the current quarter. Ben Pang – Caris & Co.: Thank you very much and nice quarter.

Thank you.

Thanks there.

Your next question comes from the line of Patrick Ho with Stifel Nicolaus. Please proceed. Patrick Ho – Stifel Nicolaus & Company, Inc.: Thank you very much. I know it’s early in the process as you are integrating your Life Sciences acquisition. But can you just give a little bit of color how you look at your manufacturing strategy on a going forward basis? Is it something where you believe eventually you can leverage your core semiconductor manufacturing capabilities or is this something that’s going to stay pretty much standalone, where it is today?

Yeah, hi Patrick, it’s Steve. There are opportunities. It’s not as great right now as it is in semiconductor. But I give you an example of the four sites if you will that were part of the acquisition, all had manufacturing. Right now, we’re manufacturing only in two sites. So there is some consolidation that’s begun already. And for example, we found some pretty significant synergies related to the cooling mechanisms for the products that we acquired from Nexus in San Diego. And what we do in the Polycold business unit in Northern California. So in California, we have two very like modules being put together. And so we think there are synergies there to take advantage of here in the near-term, and those actions are already begun. But in terms of contributions from the robotics that we have for example in Chelmsford, there’s nothing that has been identified as yet, but we continue to work. So I think good progress so far and – for both from a consolidation standpoint and from a putting like manufacturing processes together, so there is more to be done, but a good start so far. Patrick Ho – Stifel Nicolaus & Company, Inc.: Okay, that’s very helpful. Martin, just a quick question on tax, I know you got a lower tax rate for the March quarter. What can I look for I guess your fiscal year 2012?

For fiscal year 2012, we’ll be subject to a little bit of these bounce around. So I think on balance you can probably expect it to be a tax neutral fiscal year with credits in some quarters and charges in other, so I’m afraid, I wish it won’t, but that’s the way we follow the rules. Patrick Ho – Stifel Nicolaus & Company, Inc.: I understand that and maybe just staying on tax for a second. Given the different locations and probably the customer base on the Life Sciences, how do you see that evolving given the core semiconductor businesses now obviously heavily, [actually I say] heavily, but on the chip maker side, it’s more Asia based and even probably a lot of your shipments go there. So how does that look on a longer-term basis?

On a longer-term basis I think it’s neutral to the tax impact. I mean, clearly means that some of the initiatives that we’re already engaged in with slightly more manufacturing out of our for instance Korea facility then also the U.S. facility, may not be as relevant in the Life Science Systems business. I don’t see it being either a positive or a negative to our tax credit, if you’re going back to your original question. Patrick Ho – Stifel Nicolaus & Company, Inc.: That’s great. Thank you very much.

There are no further questions in queue at this time. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Martin Headley for any closing remarks.

Well, thank you everyone for your interest in Brooks and we look forward to speaking with you again one quarter from now. Thank you.

Thank you for your participation in today’s conference. This concludes the presentation. You may now disconnect your lines. Good day.