Greg Rustowicz
Analyst · CJS Securities. Please proceed with your questions
Thank you, Mark. Good morning everyone. On Slide 5 net sales in the fourth quarter were $216.7 million while sales were normally higher by 1.2% compared to the prior year, fundamental growth in the business was actually much stronger than that. As you know, we completed three divestitures in the quarter, which accounted for reduction to sales of $5.9 million. Foreign currency continues to be a headwind, which also reduced our sales by $6.7 million compared to the prior year. Adjusting for these two items, net sales were up over $15 million from the prior year. This represents organic growth of 7.3%. This was better than the outlook provided last quarter of 4% to 5% sales growth, excluding adjustments due to foreign currency translation and divestitures. We had strong performance even as we are shedding unprofitable sales as part of our 80/20 Process. Sales volume was up 5.5% and pricing was higher than the previous year by 180 basis points. Year-over-year pricing improved about 50 basis points from Q3 levels due to the impact of our annual price increases as well as our 80/20 pricing initiatives. As you know, we typically raised prices for the majority of our businesses in fiscal Q4. While the markets are competitive, we have demonstrated our ability to capture pricing annually. Foreign currency translation remained a headwind in the quarter of approximately 3% and we expect the headwind to remain in fiscal 2020’s first quarter. At today's foreign exchange rates, the headwind will be in the range of 2% to 3%. We saw solid growth in the quarter, particularly in the U.S., where sales increased 7.8%. Adjusted for divestitures, U.S. sales were up $11.3 million or 10.4%. Sales outside of the U.S. were down $6.1 million or 6%, but this is the result of the divestitures and FX. Adjusting for the effects of the divestitures and foreign currency translation, we saw organic growth of 4% outside the U.S. We think that organic growth of 7% in the quarter was very strong performance and reflects the progress we continue to make with customer responsiveness and ramping the growth engine. We believe we are growing share in key markets and executing well. On Slide 6, we recorded gross margin of 35.1% in the quarter. This is a 20 basis point expansion in gross margin from a year ago and it's our 8th consecutive quarter of year-over-year margin expansion. As Mark mentioned earlier, the 80-20 process was accretive to gross margins as was the productivity we recorded in the quarter. We feel that Phase 2 of our strategy still has a lot of runway to further improve gross margins going forward. Let's now review the quarter’s gross profit bridge. Fourth quarter gross profit of $74.7 million increased by $1.3 million compared to the prior year. The three divestitures negatively impacted gross profit by $1.2 million. The three largest contributors to growth – gross profit expansion were higher sales volume, pricing at a material cost inflation and productivity. Sales volume and mix contributed $4.1 million of gross profit, while pricing at a material cost inflation contributed $2.1 million and productivity contributed $1.2 million. For the full year, we achieved record productivity levels of $8.5 million as our operations team improves our manufacturing cost structure. The impact of higher pricing continues to offset raw material inflation and tariffs. Tariffs had a negative impact of $900,000 in the fourth quarter. In fiscal 2020 with the current 25% tariff schedule and no mitigation efforts, tariffs will have about a $3 million negative impact on gross profit. We are actively working to mitigate this headwind. I will also point out that we incurred $1.3 million of costs in the quarter for the Ohio plant consolidation. This project is now complete and we expect to benefit by approximately $2 million in overhead cost savings in fiscal 2020. Finally, foreign currency translation reduced gross profit by $2.4 million in the quarter. As shown on Slide 7, our SG&A costs were $49 million in the quarter or 22.6% of sales. This is an improvement of 300 basis points from the previous year. As a reminder, the prior year fourth quarter included pro forma costs totaling $4.9 million and the divestitures reduced RSG&A by $700,000. In addition, FX was a benefit in the current year of approximately $1.4 million. Selling costs decreased by 13.2% due to the divestitures, FX and some structural cost changes we made to reduce costs. G&A costs decreased by 8.1% due to the divestitures, FX and $4.5 million of pro forma costs that occurred in the prior year. These included STAHL acquisition costs, debt repricing costs, which lowered our spread and our Term Loan B by 50 basis points and a net reduction and insurance recovery litigation costs compared to the prior year. R&D costs declined 8.8% or $300,000 largely due to the divestitures and FX. We have redeployed resources around our most meaningful projects and expect to increase R&D expenditures in fiscal 2020. Our first quarter forecasted RSG&A is lower than Q4 levels as a result of the divestitures and is expected to be in a range of $47 million to $48 million. Turning the Slide 8, adjusted income from operations grew 24% to $24.9 million or 11.5% of sales at 210 basis point improvement over the prior year. Our adjusted operating leverage in the quarter was 186%, which reflects our ability to execute on our strategy to drive earnings power. For the full year, adjusted income from operations was just under $100 million, which represents a 26.8% increase versus fiscal 2018. As you can see on Slide 9, GAAP earnings per diluted share for the quarter were $0.83. Adjusted earnings per diluted share was $0.69 compared with $0.51 in the previous year, an increase of $0.18 per share or 35%. Moving on to Page 10, GAAP earnings per diluted share for the year was $1.80 per share. Adjusted earnings per diluted share was $2.74 compared to $2.1, which was an increase of 36%. On a GAAP basis, our effective tax rate for the year was 19.5%. This was better than the previous guidance of 27% to 29% due to our ability to utilize certain foreign tax credits as well as adjustments related to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. We expect the full year tax rate to be approximately 25% in fiscal 2020. On Slide 11, we continue to expand our adjusted EBITDA margin. For the year, our adjusted EBITDA margin was 15.1%, an increase of 140 basis points over last year. We also continue to make progress in driving our ROIC higher and are now at 11.2%. As a reminder, our blueprint for growth strategy goal is to achieve a 19% adjusted EBITDA margin in fiscal 2022 and achieve an adjusted ROIC in the mid-teens. Turning to Slide 12, our working capital as a percent of sales was 17.2%, an improvement of 70 basis points over the trailing quarter. We improved our days payable outstanding by six days from the trailing quarter. We think there is an opportunity to further improve DPO performance as well as inventory turns going forward, which will further improve our working capital utilization. On Slide 13, net cash from operating activities for the year was $79.5 million, which is higher than the prior year by $9.8 million. For the year, we generated $67 million of operating free cash flow. Our free cash flow conversion rate of 104% is quite strong. Our guidance for capital expenditures for fiscal 2020 is expected to be approximately $20 million for the year. Turning to Slide 14, our total debt was approximately $300 million and our net debt was approximately $229 million at the end of this fiscal year. Our net debt and net total capitalization is now below 35%. We repaid $15 million of debt in the fourth quarter and reduced our term loan debt by nearly $135 million since acquiring STAHL. We made excellent progress delevering and achieved a net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio of 1.7 times, which is below our targeted net leverage ratio of 2 times. From a capital allocation perspective, our plan is to use our free cash flow to continue to delever our balance sheet. We expect to repay an additional $65 million in fiscal 2020. Please turn to Slide 15 and I will turn it back over to Mark.