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CNH Industrial N.V. (CNH)

Q4 2013 Earnings Call· Tue, Mar 12, 2013

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Raven Industries Fourth Quarter 2013 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Tom Iacarella, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Sir, you may begin.

Thomas Iacarella

Analyst

Thank you, operator. Joining me on today's call is Dan Rykhus, Raven's President and Chief Executive Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to remind participants that the information contained in this call is current only as of today, March 12, 2013. The company assures -- assumes no obligation to update any statements, including forward-looking statements. Statements that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements and subject to the Safe Harbor disclaimer in today's press release. With that, I would now like to introduce Dan for a strategic look at Raven's fourth quarter.

Daniel A. Rykhus

Analyst

Thanks, Tom, and welcome, everyone, to our fiscal fourth quarter and year-end conference call. I'll start off with an overview of our performance and talk about each of the divisions in more detail. And finally, speak to our expectations going forward. Tom will then provide you with a look at our financials, including a discussion of margins and the balance sheet. And after that, we'll open up the call for your questions. So let's begin with our performance. For the fourth quarter, sales were $89.6 million versus $96.3 million in the prior year fourth quarter. Our Applied Technology Division delivered a top line gain of 18%. This though is offset by continued softness in Aerostar and lower demand in Engineered Films, resulting in an overall quarterly sales decline of 7%. The full year presents a stronger picture. For the 12 months, sales reached $406.2 million, a 6% increase from last year's $381.5 million. Net income grew 4% to $52.5 million. We were able to generate record revenue and earnings for our 2013 fiscal year, topping the record set in fiscal 2012 and 2011. Over that period, the strong agriculture and energy markets provided opportunities for us to realize returns on the recent and aggressive investments made in our Applied Technology and Engineered Films Divisions, both of which turned in strong performances in fiscal 2013. Our targeted investments in new product development, capacity expansion and new market penetration were essential to our annual growth in those respective businesses. This performance was attained despite Aerostar facing reduced demand from the U.S. federal agency customers we serve and Engineered Films adjusting to more moderate energy market demand. As a company, Raven is well positioned for growth. We're financially strong with no debt and we have fantastic long-term prospects. One of the hallmarks of…

Thomas Iacarella

Analyst

Thanks, Dan. Hopefully all of you have had a chance to review this morning's release. I will discuss our balance sheet changes and operating margins in more depth. And then, as Dan said, we'll take questions. First, the balance sheet. At quarter end, we had $49.4 million of cash and investments, up $23.5 million from last January. We have been able to sustain our strong cash position amid investments in production and infrastructure capacity and research and development. We reported operating cash flows of $76.5 million compared to $43.8 million last year. The $32.7 million increase was driven by improved working capital utilization, along with higher depreciation and net income. Inventories were down $8.6 million from the previous January. Inventory turns have held steady and inventory levels did decline during the quarter. Accounts receivable also were down $4.5 million from last January. Our average DSO was in line with last year's levels. Our current ratio was 4.74 versus 3.63 last year. We have a balance sheet that is a source of strength and stability, and cash flows from operations that can fund investment in our operations and dividend growth. Turning now to investments and capital spending. We continue our commitment to invest in Raven. Capital expenditures were more than $29 million for each of the past 2 years. Specific investments include expanding our Engineered Films extrusion and conversion capacity, including our new reclaim production line that Dan talked about; our corporate facilities renovation project; an expansion of the Raven Innovation campus in Sioux Falls; and setting up a state-of-the-art research center for Applied Technology in Austin, Texas to support growth in engineering and technology enhancements. We also continued to invest in our research and development capabilities, corporate finance, legal, compliance, information technology and human resource development. Spending in all these…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from Andrea Sharkey from Gabelli & Company. Andrea Sharkey - Gabelli & Company, Inc.: So I was just wondering, I mean, you guys had a great year in Applied Tech and ag is doing well. When you look at the margins that you guys produced this year and even this quarter was higher than I'd expected, how sustainable is that going into fiscal 2014? Should they be similar? Or are there going to be some pressures that we should be expecting?

Daniel A. Rykhus

Analyst

Tom, go ahead.

Thomas Iacarella

Analyst

Sure. Our overall strategy is certainly geared towards improving the top line growth and moving the company forward in that way. We've been deliberately reinvesting profits back into the business, and as a result, we're not looking for bottom line margin expansion over time. We think that 13% range that we've been in the last couple of years is a very strong overall margin and one that we'd be pleased to sustain. That being said, we certainly move towards more proprietary products and try and emphasize those products that carry higher gross margins that allows us to generate more cash that we can and turn around and reinvest in the businesses. Andrea Sharkey - Gabelli & Company, Inc.: But specifically, I guess on Applied Tech, just sort of that 34% to 35% operating margin that you've had for the past 2 years, is that kind of fair for us to expect going forward, or maybe think more low 30s? Just I don't know, cost go up, things like that?

Thomas Iacarella

Analyst

Well, I think that, again, we're looking to sustain those margins. I think that if we can generate the sales growth, we will be able to sustain those types of margins, but we will continue to reinvest the necessary dollars back in the business. So I think it's a sustainable level but one that -- for the year. Obviously, the quarter was pretty strong.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Andrea James from Dougherty. Andrea James - Dougherty & Company LLC, Research Division: So Dan, I know historically, you've talked about 10% annual earnings growth, and I noticed you're sort of backing away from giving a specific. Do you want to just get further into the year before you give some more clarity there? Or could you just give -- thinking about this more specific numbers maybe for your annual earnings growth?

Daniel A. Rykhus

Analyst

Yes, it's pretty early in our year to give much detail beyond. We expect to return to our historic levels throughout the year, so that's about as much projection as I can give. We do expect to have a record year in our fiscal year '14, and we do expect throughout the year to return to our historic and goal growth rates of the 10% to 15%. Andrea James - Dougherty & Company LLC, Research Division: Okay. And then I got one more and then I'll hop back in the queue. Could we assume that the Q4 Vista contribution is sort of a going run rate? And can you talk more about what drove the strength there? And also the margins in that business and just sort of how you see those trending?

Daniel A. Rykhus

Analyst

Well, I'll let Tom talk about the margins in Vista, but it's going to be lumpy. I wouldn't say fourth quarter is a real model building quarter to use. Fourth quarter was great for us. We delivered some product, some radar systems and we had some good service revenue out of Vista. But we have many, many projects in the pipeline with Vista. And I do want to make a point. One, so we made the acquisition back in January. And right away, we rolled up our sleeves to start to pursue ITAR Certification, which includes a design requirement to make our radar systems anti-tamper proof. And ITAR Certifications are given by country, by product. So we've got very aggressive throughout the last year spending our resources to open up new markets for us, and we've had great success with that and we've opened up several new markets around the world, mostly in the Middle East and other parts of -- in the Southern Hemisphere. So we feel good about it. But it's going to come in lumpy chunks, if you will. But over the course of the year, we expect Vista's going to provide some nice growth for us this year, and even more growth and better prospects further out than that. Now in terms of margins, I'll put that back to Tom to give you some sort of sense of margins that you might expect for Vista throughout the year.

Thomas Iacarella

Analyst

Now Vista's a business that has really 2 separate components. They have their traditional business that they've been in for a long time, which was providing services to the U.S. government and other entities on a contract basis, and that, by its nature, carry some pretty low margins in the teens kind of margin or even lower in some cases. That's a business that we'll continue on at a certain level but probably not looking for much growth out of that. The main reason, of course, that we bought Vista was related to the radar systems that they can deliver for us. And those radar systems can deliver strong growth profits comparable to our other proprietary products in the 20%-plus range.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Marc Heilweil from Spectrum Advisory.

Marc Heilweil - Spectrum Advisory Services, Inc.

Analyst

My first question is relative to international sales. Can you give us an idea of what percentage of Raven's revenues should be international over the next couple of years?

Daniel A. Rykhus

Analyst

For the company as a whole?

Marc Heilweil - Spectrum Advisory Services, Inc.

Analyst

Yes.

Daniel A. Rykhus

Analyst

Let me think about that for a second. Is it Marc?

Marc Heilweil - Spectrum Advisory Services, Inc.

Analyst

Yes.

Daniel A. Rykhus

Analyst

Okay. So Applied Technology is going to, over the next couple of years, grow into the mid 30s and maybe beyond that if you take the tail out a little further. We do expect a lot of the Aerostar growth with radar systems as well as our aerostat systems, which can be sold together or sold separately, much of that growth is also going to come from international demand. So that being said, I haven't really thought about it in terms of our total company, but let me do a little figuring here. I'm going to say that we could -- it could easily be approaching 25% of our business depending on the length of time horizon. But certainly, we have a strong emphasis on international growth and it's -- we look at it more within each division than a roll up. And of course, films doesn't have as much international growth opportunity because of the cost of shipping, unless we were to make an acquisition in a part of the world with some manufacturing capabilities that we thought were additive to what we were doing for films. But one of the things that you have to remember is that this is a complicated and different growth strategy for Raven. Growing internationally takes other administrative expertise here. And as you look at our growth in our administrative expenses, a lot of that is due to this commitment to growing our international business. But yes, I guess, I'd also kick that over to Tom, if you want to comment on the overall 2- to 3-year time frame for overall international sales, Tom?

Thomas Iacarella

Analyst

I don't really have anything to add there. I think you're right that we do look at it by division, and it's certainly an emphasis area for Applied Technology and will be for Aerostar as we go forward. But we'll be taking that over time and looking at how it grows on a division-by-division basis.

Marc Heilweil - Spectrum Advisory Services, Inc.

Analyst

Fair enough. And my follow-up would be in terms of Aerostar. Could you give us a little insight into the competitive nature of -- you seem to be getting on a number of platforms. Do you have specific competitor, direct competitor in trying to get your products on the platforms? Or are you -- would you consider your position in the niche that you're serving that you're the largest player in that niche?

Daniel A. Rykhus

Analyst

So which product line within Aerostar?

Marc Heilweil - Spectrum Advisory Services, Inc.

Analyst

I'm talking about the global -- particularly global positioning and just general smart agriculture.

Daniel A. Rykhus

Analyst

Okay. So you're talking about Applied Technology?

Marc Heilweil - Spectrum Advisory Services, Inc.

Analyst

Right, correct. I'm sorry.

Daniel A. Rykhus

Analyst

Okay. So ATD, we have a few competitors, Trimble is a strong competitor in this space, pretty solid GPS company that has a division that serves the agricultural market. And then, one of our very strong partners, John Deere, also has a proprietary line of products that they equip their vehicles with. Those would be the largest other players in the precision ag space and then there's lots of smaller players. John Deere is an interesting company for us. I've list them as a bit of a competitor, but they're also a wonderful customer and partner for us. About 3 years ago, I started to talk about developing our relationship with Deere, and this is an example of our pipeline. And when I talk about the strength of our pipeline, it isn't just things that we're working on today. The real strengths of the pipeline are the projects that we worked on 2 and 3 years ago. Deere is a good example of that. So we rolled up our sleeves and helped develop product lines to complement what they do themselves, and that's grown to be a $5 million chunk of business for us. So it's not huge, but it's gotten to be a level where we believe it's poised to continue to take off and provide nice growth going forward.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Garo Norian from Palisade Capital Management.

Garo Norian - Palisade Capital Management LLC

Analyst

I wanted to see if you could help me understand, I'm relatively new to you guys. But when you talked about kind of getting back to historic growth rates, what should I be thinking of, is that a top line comment? Only a bottom line comment? How to understand that?

Daniel A. Rykhus

Analyst

We'd talk about growth in terms of earnings growth, so that would be in the 10% to 15% long-term annual earnings growth.

Garo Norian - Palisade Capital Management LLC

Analyst

Okay. And is there any sort of top line assumption that typically underpins that?

Daniel A. Rykhus

Analyst

It's pretty similar. We used to -- if you go back a ways, we used to believe that we would -- if we could grow our top line 15%, we'd get more on the bottom line. But those have come closer together. Sometimes it works that way, but not always.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Andrea James from Dougherty & Company. Andrea James - Dougherty & Company LLC, Research Division: So with Engineered Films, you do -- I know you've got these innovative films. Why not build or acquire some extruders in Europe or on another continent? I just wonder, is there some untapped -- is that like an untapped market for you?

Daniel A. Rykhus

Analyst

Are you asking about Europe in particular, or about international growth as a part of the EFD strategy? Andrea James - Dougherty & Company LLC, Research Division: Either.

Daniel A. Rykhus

Analyst

Okay. So Europe is a possibility. There's a lot of operators in Europe already. But there's other parts of the world, particularly South America, that are -- that have some film manufacturing capacity but may provide opportunities as those economies grow, and some of the activities that we're involved in supporting geomembranes and ag and mining and things like that continue to grow in South America. There could be opportunities. Nothing's imminent. I don't want to leave you with that thought. But we look at an international acquisition to support EFD as maybe third or fourth on the list of how we expect to grow that business. But it's part of the conversation. Andrea James - Dougherty & Company LLC, Research Division: And then, can you talk about the biofuels collaboration and how that translates to sales?

Daniel A. Rykhus

Analyst

Sure. So a couple of years ago, we started to work with ASU on developing what we call photo-bioreactors, which use our -- the plastic film that we produce and we -- so we make the film and then we build that into a bag, if you will, with a lot of particular characteristics that support the production of algae, and this has led to a handful of commercial collaboration efforts that we have underway that are all under confidentiality agreement, so I can't talk to them specifically. But this is a long-term play for us. And again, when we talk about pipeline, we want to have business development projects that can deliver growth today; some that can deliver growth next year, and then some that, obviously, are higher risk but hopefully, have higher return potential that are out there in the 3- to 5-year range. So I would say that's how we would classify this one as a long-term commitment that we think leverages some of our core strengths of producing films with particular attributes that would be useful in the production of algae.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes Garo Norian from Palisade Capital Management.

Garo Norian - Palisade Capital Management LLC

Analyst

Just wanted to understand on the working capital on the inventory drawdown, can you give a sense by, I guess, segment? Who is the biggest contributor to that side of things?

Daniel A. Rykhus

Analyst

Tom, go ahead.

Thomas Iacarella

Analyst

It would have been our Engineered Films division that adjusted their inventory levels down to be more in line with the overall sales. And overall, I think most of the divisions were down over a year ago.

Garo Norian - Palisade Capital Management LLC

Analyst

Got you. And then just on the Aerostar segment. What level of confidence do you guys have that fiscal 2013 will kind of prove to be the bottom on the profit trajectory for those guys?

Thomas Iacarella

Analyst

Level of confidence. There's a lot of moving parts. Of course, there's the government environment, there is the general economy, so there's some headwinds to be sure. But again, we've made some commitments in terms of new product development and the Vista acquisition and the pursuit, so my confidence is high that this will be the bottom and that Aerostar will start to turn around this year and be that breakout potential that we've always positioned it to be. It isn't going to be a business that can grow in the same fashion that we look for films and ATD to grow, which is a consistent growth rate and within that range of what I talked to you about earlier is our historic growth rate levels. Aerostar plays a different role. They persist and provide profit, and it's going to be lumpy. But I think what we've gone through in the last year has been really tough to take the earnings down the way it has but we've made adjustments in our business model, we've invested in growth opportunities that we believe in and I think this year will be a decent year for Aerostar, and I think it'll be growth from here.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Alex Yaggy from Cortina Asset Management.

Alexander E. Yaggy - Cortina Asset Management, LLC

Analyst

Like one of the previous callers, I'm fairly new to the story, but you had mentioned M&A is becoming more important. You've hired up -- hired within that area. I just wanted to ask just a few questions related to that. And how important is M&A to the 10% to 15% long-term growth targets you have? And are they more likely to be additive to product lines, like Vista or geography, as you were discussing with the films? And then finally, just how you measure returns for your M&A, potential M&A?

Daniel A. Rykhus

Analyst

Okay. Just a bit of a clarification before I get into the answers. I think what I was -- what I meant to imply when I talked about our growth in administrative expenses was the preparation for doing business internationally as one element of that growth. But that being said, M&A is a part of our growth strategy. We've always looked at it as a supplement to a primary organic growth strategy. So the first places we or methods that we look to grow are through new product development that we carry to our existing markets or adjacent markets. That being said, if you look historically, we've done an acquisition every couple of years, and they typically bring a technology into an existing division that we see as important to either our overall technology suite that we offer our existing markets or an adjacency play in the way of Vista Research, where that radar technology was very complementary to what we're doing with aerostats and even high-altitude balloons. Now more likely to get to your second question, our acquisitions would be -- would bring technology. We look first to find technology that's useful in our overall product strategy. Second, if we can get a geographic penetration play, that's another angle that we look at, and ideally, we get both. If you look historically back at Montgomery Industries and acquisition we made in Canada in 2005, that's a wonderful story for us, brought in spray boom technology. Leveling technology, that's been a great success for us over the years, and there was a ready channel into the Canadian market that we were able to exploit with the rest of our product line. So it's great when we get both. But sequentially, or in terms of priorities, we look first for technology; and second, for reach. In terms of our internal rates of returns, we want to believe that we can meet a 20% internal rate of return hurdle for an acquisition that we make, and we want to believe that based on reasonable assumptions, so we have a fairly high hurdle rate for our acquisitions.

Operator

Operator

And our final question comes from Andrea James from Dougherty. Andrea James - Dougherty & Company LLC, Research Division: I was thinking about what you said about Vista and getting the ITAR approval. And I was just wondering does that mean you're primarily going after international market there with those products, or is it just a combination of DoD and international?

Daniel A. Rykhus

Analyst

It's really a combination. There's so many opportunities around the world now with border insecurity as it is that we just have to have that technology able to carry to those other areas of the world. But we still have great opportunities in the Southern border of the U.S., some opportunities with the DoD and even some commercial opportunities with the Vista radar system. So it's a mix. Andrea James - Dougherty & Company LLC, Research Division: Have you gotten the -- all of the export licenses that you've requested?

Daniel A. Rykhus

Analyst

That's a good question. I'm not sure that we've received every one that we've requested, but we have a great handful of those certifications now. And I'm not aware that we haven't been able to receive one that we've requested at this point. So it's gone well. It's been a lot of work on our end, but it's gone well.

Operator

Operator

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to hand the conference back over to Mr. Dan Rykhus, CEO, for any closing remarks.

Daniel A. Rykhus

Analyst

All right, thanks. Thanks again for taking the time to join us on the call today and for the great questions. I really appreciate the questions today. At Raven, there is a singular purpose behind everything we do, and we call it solving great challenges, that's why we exist as an organization. Great challenges require great solutions, solutions that are driven by quality, service, innovation and peak performance, and this is what sets us apart from the other companies because it is our culture and it's woven into how we do business. We're continuing to invest in the company, expanding our fixed asset base and our portfolio of product lines. Raven's diversified business model enables us to weather near-term challenges while continuing to grow and build for the future. We look forward to updating you on our progress in the future. Thank you.