David Messenger
Analyst · Wedbush Research. Please go ahead
Thank you, Rob. During the second quarter of 2017, we have significant growth in orders and homebuilding revenue, while making further progress and many previously announced initiatives. I will first discuss our legacy business, then provide some additional color on UCP’s second quarter performance, which are not included on our reported results today. Pre-tax income for the quarter was $23.1 million, while net income increased by 13% to $14.8 million or $0.66 per share compared to $13.1 million or $0.62 per share in the prior year quarter. During the quarter, we incurred $916,000 of acquisition expenses or $0.02 per share. Adjusted EBITDA grew 24% to $31.6 million, compared to $25.5 million in a prior year quarter attributable to revenue growth. Home sales revenues for the second quarter were $287.6 million, an increase of 12%, compared to $257.2 million in the prior year quarter. This improvement in revenues was mainly driven by a 14% increase in average selling prices, which increased to $381,900 in the second quarter of 2017, compared to $334,900 in the prior year quarter. This was due to a shift in regional and product mix as well as core price gains. Home deliveries were 753 compared to 768 homes in the prior year’s quarter. Gross margin percentage on homes closed in the second quarter was 18.7%, compared to 19.2% in the prior year quarter driven by an increase in our financing costs. Excluding capitalized interest and purchase accounting impacts from cost of sales our adjusted gross margin percentage in the quarter was consistent with last year at 21.1%. As we look at our margin profile going forward, we recognize that over the next couple of quarters, we will see an impact from the addition of the UCP portfolio and the purchase price accounting impacts. Based on our prior experiences, we anticipate that in place UCP West will generate gross margins in the 6% to 10% range. We expect that inventory to roll through the system in two to three quarters. Excluding this one-time impact, we project that improved margin profile for the UCP portfolio both from land right down resulting from the below book value purchase price as well as the positive impact from our national purchasing and other initiatives. SG&A as a percent of homebuilding revenue declined to 11.9% for this quarter compared to 12.2% for the second quarter of 2016, which was a result of home sales revenue increasing 12% over the prior year, which more than offset our investments and personnel to support our growth and investment and new divisions. We expect continue to leverage our platform as our three start up operations Utah, Charlotte and financial services continued to grow and the integration of the UCP operations is completed. Looking at UCP’s second quarter performance, UCP had a good pace of activity led by the West with net new contracts growing 16% year-over-year to 265 homes. Home building deliveries were also strong with a 32% increase to 259 homes. UCP backlog of 412 homes was up 22%, which provides for a solid base of activity for Century to hit the ground running and our newly added West and Southeast communities. UCP ended the second quarter with a little over 7,000 owned and controlled lots. Stronger revenue resulted in USP’s home building gross margin expanding to 19.4%, compared to 18.2% in the prior year quarter. Adjusted gross margin improved to 21.8%, compared to 20.7% in the prior year quarter. And SG&A improved to 14.2% as a percent of home building sales compared to 14.4% in the prior year quarter. This all culminated in pre-tax income increasing 192% to $5.7 million and $2 million in the prior year quarter. Looking at a combined performance of UCP and Century on a pro forma basis, second quarter net new contracts would have grown 17% to 1,286 homes. Pro forma backlog increased by 26% to 1,778 homes. Home building revenue on a pro forma basis increased 18% year-over-year to $400.8 million. This improvement was primarily attributable to a 5% increase in pro forma home deliveries and a 13% increase in pro forma average selling prices to $396,100, because of favorable mix attributable to a 38% increase in deliveries from UCP markets in the West. Overall, these UCP and pro forma results are very positive and support our conviction that the planned addition of these assets under the Century brand should continue to flourish as we further improve operations in these well position communities. Now turning to our balance sheet and liquidity. In May 2017, we raised $395 million of net proceeds from a successful offering of senior notes due in 2025 that carried interest rate of 5% and 7%, 8%. We hit the portion of the net proceeds from this offering to pay down in full our revolving credit facility with the balance of the proceeds intended to fund the UCP acquisition. As of June 30, 2017, we had total long-term debt of $787.4 million and total liquidity of $763 million including $363 million of cash and the form availability of our $400 million revolver. Our net debt to capital ratio improved to 44.9% at June 30, and adjusted for the UCP transaction it would have approximated 50%. During the quarter, we issued approximately 383,000 shares under our ATM to $9.6 million or $25.06 per share. Tomorrow, we expect to complete our previously announced merger with UCP for a combination of stock in cash consideration. The cash portion of the deal expected the total approximately $98 million plus the payout of $153 million of debt. We’re trying to fund this through cash or hand. We will also issue 4.2 million shares of Century stock to UCP shareholders. This will result in Century shareholders owning roughly 84% of the combined company upon close. I will now discuss our updated outlook for 2017. We’re excited with the expanded scale of our business across the national footprint. Our updated expectations are for our combined business would reflect not only an increase to Century’s previously issued guidance, but the addition of UCP’s activity for a period from August 4 through the end of the year. We expect our full year deliveries to be in the range of 3,500 to 3,800 homes, and home sales revenues to be in the range of $1.3 billion to $1.5 billion, and we expect to have 110 to 120 selling communities at year end. While we typically do not provide guidance on a quarterly basis, there are a couple of moving pieces related to this transaction that will impact our third quarter and fourth quarter results. First, approximately 4.24 million shares will be issued to fund the UCP merger. And second, we anticipate one-time and acquisition related expenses of $8 million to $10 million, which will both would be recognized during the third quarter of 2017. Balance of 2017, we have a very strong pipeline for additional growth and look forward to integrating UCP into Century and leveraging best practices across the platform to expand our top and bottom line. Furthermore, we anticipate that we will generate meaningful synergies from national purchasing advantages and shared corporate expenses, which we expect will cause the transaction to be accretive in 2018. We’re pleased with our operating and financial progress to date as well as those of UCP, which will provide us with a strong platform to benefit from the exciting prospects of our combined businesses in years to come. Operator, please open the lines for questions.