Gayla J. Delly
Analyst · Deutsche Bank
Thank you, Don, and good morning to everyone on our call today. To top off a strong quarter's performance, I'm pleased to share with you another positive for Q4, our bookings level. Specifically, during the fourth quarter, we recorded 33 new bookings, including 10 engineering projects. These have an estimated annual revenue run rate between $150 million and $180 million. In the current macroeconomic environment where GDP generally fails to provide adequate growth opportunities, our growth comes from new customers, new technologies and new platforms. With an expansion of our selling team and our strategic approach to problem solving, we are finding opportunities to fulfill unmet needs in the marketplace, especially in the nontraditional markets where outsourcing is still not as prevalent or encompassing. Our results in filling our opportunity pipeline and executing new program ramps is positioning Benchmark well for future organic growth. Please turn with me to Slide 10 where we will discuss our perspective on the market. In general, the tone from our customers is becoming slightly more optimistic as we've headed into 2014. However, our customers remain cautious, and longer term visibility remains a challenge. For Q1, the computing sector will experience difficult first quarter decline. The combined performance for the remaining sector is expected to be flat, but with some significant mix changes within the production requirements. These forecast expectations from our customers are incorporated into our guidance. We expect a return to growth in the future quarters. Now let me share a broader perspective on the markets we serve with our customers. First, let's turn to computing. In the fourth quarter, our computing customers saw strong demand. Overall, we expect computing to return to seasonal trends in the coming year. Our Q4 revenue included at least $30 million for our product line where customers selected an earlier than expected end-of-life announcement. And this product has been removed from our first quarter guidance. The next-generation product has not yet been released for ramp-to-volume production. On another customer point of clarification and one of interest, Benchmark is not a participant in the x86 supply chain. As such, we are not impacted by the transaction announced by our top customer. During 2014, we expect the percentage of business from computing sector to decline as a percentage of revenue as the growth in our other sectors outpaces the growth in computing. The outlook for our customers in telecommunication: For 2014, this sector remains positive with the combined impacts of expanding telecom infrastructure spend and our growth in new bookings in the sector. Our customers have indicated that the strong finish in 2013 was the result of increased demand level versus a year-end budget flush. Our participation in this space varies widely from cellular infrastructure and networking, monitoring to carrier switches and satellite transmission. As we support new programs and products in this sector, there is sensitivity in timing related to market qualifications for telco products. We expect demand to be stable and our growth to come primarily from a strong pipeline of new product opportunities. Next, moving to industrial control. We see significant growth in the industrial sector in 2014, even though fixed investment in infrastructure spend is only expected to growth modestly. Our strong pipeline of opportunities in this space is generated by increased outsourcing for complex engineered products and manufacturing services. Industrial products typically have longer life cycle, which provide a long runway of positive opportunities. Next, looking at the medical sector. We remain excited about new business we're winning. We expect near-term demand to remain stable. During 2014, we see a number of product transitions with maturing products offsetting revenues from new product qualifications. Medical was our highest growth sector in 2013, and we expect growth in this industry to moderate in early 2014 due to the product transitions and gain greater momentum in late 2014 and into 2015, which will be based on the timing of product qualifications and regulatory approvals. And finally, our test and instrumentation sector. In the coming year, we expect to see strong growth coming from the T&I sector. We see some improved demand from our existing customer base, but the majority of growth is coming from new customers and new products. We have worked very hard over the past year to take advantage of increased outsourcing trends for customers in this sector. For new and existing customers, we are performing well and continue to benefit from the investment we have made in engineering, precision machining and extremely complex system assembly. Let's turn to Slide 11. In summary, Q4 was an excellent finish to a good year for Benchmark. We exited 2013 stronger than we were when we entered the year. In a challenging marketplace with tough end market conditions, our revenue and profitability was strong as we advanced our strategic initiatives and invested in 2 tuck-in acquisitions. We believe our 2013 results provides further proof that we are gaining traction and driving our performance to higher levels. There are 3 key focus areas that enabled this in 2013 and will continue to provide a strong platform for expansion in 2014. The first is operational excellence. Our global standardization and operational excellence initiative allowed us to successfully manage a record number of new product introductions last year. Our acquisition integration is progressing according to plan, and we are benefiting from the talent and capabilities added. Our culture has truly become one of continuous improvement to meet the evolving needs of our customers. Overall, we saw very good execution by our teams operating our business. The second is portfolio management. Over the past few years, we have seen marketplace opportunities change significantly for computing and some subsegment at the telco market. As these industries become more mature in outsourcing, we see an increased level of opportunities and have focused on the nontraditional markets of industrial, medical and test and instrumentation. In 2009, we began investing in expanded capabilities and precision technologies and organically growing our complex assembly and micro e-capabilities to meet the growing outsourcing needs of customers in these markets. With the increasing number of opportunities we see in the nontraditional market, we anticipate the growth rate in these markets to exceed the long-term growth rate in computing and telco. Our third key focus area has been in enhancing our understanding of customer needs and identifying incremental opportunities to serve them. The results of our enhanced customer focus continues to manifest itself and result in higher bookings. For 2014, we remain focused on driving profitable growth through continued execution, controlling what we can control and managing the evolution of our portfolio with increased growth opportunities arising in the markets we serve. Our team is confident and energized as we've moved in to 2014. In closing, I want to recognize and thank the Benchmark team for their commitment and contributions to our operational excellence initiatives and focus on our customers, and thank our business partners and shareholders for their continued interest in and support of Benchmark. With that, operator, I'd like to open the floor for questions.