David Messenger
Analyst · Jay McCanless with Sterne Agee. Please go ahead with your questions
Thank you, Rob. During the first quarter, we achieved higher sales and a 60 basis points improvement in adjusted gross margin to drive increase in net income to $8 million or $0.38 per share compared to $6.04 million or $0.30 per share in the prior year quarter. For the first quarter, our pre-tax income was $12.4 million, an increase of 31% year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter was $17 million, up 20% compared to $14.2 million in the prior year quarter. Home sales revenues for the first quarter were $181.1 million an increase of 17% compared to $154.3 million in the prior year quarter. This improvement in revenues was mainly driven by higher average selling price of home deliveries, increasingly to $336,000 in the first quarter of 2016 compared to $284,800 and the prior year quarter. Largely, due to a favorable shift in regional and product mix from new communities. As in the past, we expect prices to remain largely stable with normal quarter-to-quarter fluctuation as a result of regional and product mix. Home deliveries were 539 homes compared to 542 homes in the prior year quarter. Gross margin percentage on homes closed in the first quarter improved 120 basis points to 20.3%, compared to 19.1% in the prior year quarter. Excluding capitalized interest and purchase accounting impacts from cost of sales, our adjusted gross margin percentage in the quarter increased to 22% versus 20.2% in the prior year quarter. SG&A as a percentage of revenue was 13.9% in the first quarter, compared to 13.6% in the prior year quarter primarily as a result of higher home sales revenues which were offset by an increase in personnel costs and additional investments to support a higher number of open communities. We expect to gain addition leverage on SG&A as progress through the year. Turning now to our balance sheet and liquidity, we ended the first quarter with total inventories of $867.4 million and total assets of $957.6 million. Our total liabilities were $541.1 million including total debt of $415.1 million. During the quarter, we repurchased 158,859 shares of our common stock for an aggregate purchase price $2,388,000. We believe our balance sheet and capital resources firmly position us to continue investing in attractive land parcels and other value enhancing opportunities. We have over $165 million of total liquidity including $140 million of availability on our undrawn revolver. In addition, to the $165 million of liquidity, we have a $100 million accordion feature and a revolver which provides us flexibility to move quickly as we pursue growth and investment opportunities. In closing, we are pleased with our first quarter results. We are capitalized on expanded scale to support our localized strategies with enhanced product mix, operational enhancements and a stronger capital pace to generate strong returns. To that end, we remain confident about the prospects for continued growth in our overall business during 2016. Most of our housing markets continue to be supported by improving fundamentals including job gains, new household formations, and strengthening regional economies. As a result, we are reaffirming our full year 2016 outlook for deliveries to be 2,500 to 3,000 and home sales revenues to be in the range of $800 million to $950 million. We expect our net income trends to be seasonally similar to 2015, with our first quarter experiencing our lowest closing and net income. We expect each quarter to grow as the year progresses, we close and open new communities and leverage our SG&A. We look forward to updating you on our progress in coming quarters. Operator, can you please open the lines up for Q&A?