David A. Roberts
Analyst · Matt McConnell
Thanks, Jasmine. Good morning, and welcome to Carlisle's Fourth Quarter 2013 Conference Call. On the phone with me is our CFO, Steven Ford; our Chief Accounting Officer, Kevin Zdimal; and our Treasurer, Julie Chandler. Also with us is our Group Presidents, John Altmeyer from Construction Materials; John Berlin from Interconnect Technologies; and Chris Koch from Brake & Friction and FoodService. Before I review the details of the fourth quarter and 2013, let me highlight a few of our accomplishments during 2013. On December 31, we completed the sale of Carlisle Transportation Products. 161 days following the announcement that we're going to seek a buyer for the business, we completed the transaction for $375 million and added $370 million in cash to our balance sheet. Combining the $370 million to our cash on hand, we finished 2013 with $752 million. With an untapped $600 million revolver, we have plenty of capacity to pursue acquisitions. We are out aggressively looking to add a high-margin engineered products business to our portfolio as well as bolt-on acquisitions to our core businesses. In addition to acquisitions, we expect to be more active in share repurchases this year. We have board authorization to purchase up to 3 million shares, and once the blackout periods expire, we plan to be systematic about our share repurchases. Throughout 2013, we made excellent progress in reducing our working capital. Working capital as a percent of sales ended the year at 18.7%, a 150-basis-point improvement over 2012. In the first quarter of 2009, our working capital was 30.2% of sales. With the improvement in 2013 and the plans we have in place to continue reducing our working capital, we are well on our way to reaching our 15% goal over the next couple of years. Through the hard work and innovation of our CIT sales and engineering teams, we signed a contract to supply cabling and connector systems to a large aircraft manufacturer late in 2013. To manufacture these products, we'll need additional capacity. We are in the planning stage of a new factory and we'll be building a new Interconnect Technologies plant in Nogales, Mexico. This new plant will allow us to consolidate 4 buildings we have in Nogales into one facility and to take additional work we have contracted with that aircraft manufacturer. We are targeting to have the construction complete by the end of 2014. The new factory, not only provides the capacity to take on the new work, but it will also allow us to improve margins on our current products produced in Mexico. We will be incurring approximately $2 million worth of startup cost this year in Interconnect Technologies as we build that plan. While Brake & Friction's revenue was down 8% in the fourth quarter and 22% for the full year, we are starting to see increased order rates for most of our braking products other than those related to mining. Historically, when we see 5 consecutive months of improving orders, it's been a good indicator that the business is finally recovering. While not a scientific measure, it has been a directionally correct indicator of the braking business. January was our fifth consecutive month of increasing orders. In addition, most of our customers are indicating that the destocking in their businesses are over. We didn't think we would see -- we don't think we'll see a dramatic improvement in the first half of the year, but should continue to see improving order rates, which will mean sales and margins will very likely tick up in the second half of 2014. The past 15 months of declining orders has given us time to assess our cost structure in Braking. We have taken steps to streamline our Braking operations with the last remaining step being the closure of our Akron stamping plant. We continue to make progress closing this facility and moving the production to our Tulsa, Oklahoma facility. Our target is to be out of the Akron plant by mid-2014, and the remaining relocation and closing costs will be approximately $2 million spread over the first 2 quarters of the year. We continue to make our investments in organic growth activities at Construction Materials, spending the vast majority of the company's 2013 $111 million capital investment on new plants and facilities at CCM. Construction Materials has always been a good place to invest capital for organic growth, as can be witnessed from our approximate ROI of 40%. The vast majority of our growth at CCM has come from organic growth initiatives and the significant investment we made in new factories in 2013 prepares the business to handle the forecasted volume as non-res construction continues to recover. In 2013, we completed 2 polyiso insulation plants and continued the construction of our PVC roofing plant in Greenville, Illinois. We also began the construction of our fifth TPO line. This one's going into Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The PVC plant will be producing standard roofing membrane products late in the second quarter and the TPO line will be producing products for the 2015 construction season. We made excellent progress at FoodService in 2013, as year-over-year margins improved from 5.1% to 11.3%. Our margins improved throughout the year because of cost reductions and process improvements. We also saw a small recovery in sales in the fourth quarter, with December being up nearly 10%. If the volume continues to increase, margins will be further enhanced. Let's turn to the slide presentation that is available on our website. Before we begin to review fourth quarter financial performance, let's turn to Slide 2 and review the forward-looking statement. I strongly urge that you read the statement and review the documents that we filed with the SEC. Both will detail the risks associated with investing in Carlisle. As we begin our review, please be reminded that the results of CTP are excluded with the exception of the cash flow. Turning to Slide 3 is a summary of total company performance in the fourth quarter. Company sales increased 5.9% to $724 million. We experienced organic growth in Construction Materials and FoodService Products. Interconnect Technologies sales were flat and Brake & Friction was down 8% compared to the fourth quarter 2012. EBIT increased 27% as we earned $92.4 million, yielding an operating margin of 12.8%. Margins were up year-over-year on a comparison of 220 basis points. We experienced strong quarterly margin performance at CIT with 16.8% margin, CCM with 15.2% margin and CFS with 12.7% margins. We continue to be margin-challenged at CBF with 6.1% margins, driven by volume shortfalls and restructuring activities. Our tax rate in the fourth quarter was 28.3%, compared to 33.4% last year. Our cash conversion rate for the full year was 110%. In the fourth quarter, we generated $66.1 million of free cash flow, ending the year with $755 million worth of cash on hand. Turning to Slide 4, we see our sales bridge. This slide details the negative and positive impacts on revenue. Reviewing it, you'll see that price had a negative impact of 0.7%, driven mainly by pricing pressure at CCM. Positively impacting sales in the quarter was 3.5% volume and mix change, 2.9% from acquisitions, primarily the Thermax acquisition in 2012, while FX had a 0.2% impact on sales. Organically, CCM grew 6%, CFS 3%, CIT was flat and CBF declined 8% in the fourth quarter. Let's turn to Slide 5, which details our margin bridge. Our quarterly operating earnings increased $19.9 million, or 27%. Price negatively impacted profitability by 0.5%, volume positively impacted margin by 0.3%, COS had a 0.9% positive impact, acquisitions added 0.2% and other added 1.3% to margin. We finished the quarter with operating margins at 12.8%. Slide 6 begins our review of the individual businesses starting with Construction Materials. After a strong start in October and the first half of November, winter weather hit the U.S. mid-November reducing our roofing days. Despite the difficult weather conditions and pricing pressure, CCM sales increased 6%. While sales were up slightly in roofing membrane, solid growth in insulation and waterproofing had the greatest impact on our revenue growth. Insulation and waterproofing are key indicators of recovering in non-res construction market. Price was negative 1%, while volume was up 7%. Margins were down 80 basis points compared to 2012, primarily due to raw material inflation and lower selling prices. Despite those pressures, we generated 15.2% operating margins in the fourth quarter. CCM new plant startup costs were $1 million in the fourth quarter. For all of 2013, startup costs were $7.3 million. Startup of the new Greenville PVC plant and the construction of the new Carlisle Pennsylvania TPO plant continue. We will have 2014 startup costs for these plants of approximately $5 million spread throughout the year. Slide 7 details CTI's (sic) [CIT] performance in the fourth quarter. Interconnect Technologies grew at 16.5%, nearly all of that growth coming from the Thermax acquisition. Organic sales were basically flat in the quarter. Aerospace was up 4%, test & measurement was up 7%. Continuing to decline was our military business, which was off 19%; and our industrial business, which was off 10%. Our industrial business is comprised of many of the same customers as our braking business. In the third quarter, the business was down 21%, so we're starting to see a slowing of the decline in this product category. Medical, which is a very small segment today, grew 1400% driven by new products that have been developed and introduced during the past 12 months. EBIT growth for the quarter was 47%, as we earned $24 million compared to $16.3 million last year. The Thermax acquisition contributed $3.4 million of margin, with margins of 17%. Thermax is a prototypical acquisition that we are seeking to replicate in 2014. It was integrated into our existing business in a very short period of time and immediately was contributing at a high level. We acquired Thermax on December 17, 2012, so its results would no longer be broken out in our quarterly reports. Margin was up 350 basis points, largely due to COS savings. 2013 was a record sales and earnings year for CIT. We also made dramatic improvement in working capital as we reduced it 330 basis points during the year. We expect CIT to have another record year in sales, earnings and working capital in 2014. Slide 8 details the performance of our Braking business. We continue to suffer from lower sales, as our customers worldwide sell off their finished goods inventory, but the decline slowed in the fourth quarter. Sales were down 8%. By market, ag was up 17%, construction equipment was up 2%. Mining equipment is still a drag on sales, being down 28% in the quarter. The majority of the growth in our ag business continues to come from our European operations. In the fourth quarter, EBIT was down 45% as we earned $4.9 million, compared to $8.9 million last year. Reduced volume, selling prices and restructuring costs drove our margin down to 6.1% in the quarter. We incurred $1 million of restructuring charges as we continue to phase down the Akron plant and move that work to Tulsa, Oklahoma facility. Akron will be closed at the end of the second quarter of 2014. We will incur another $2 million in charges in the first half of this year for the Akron plant relocation. Turning to Slide 9, you'll see that FoodService revenue grew 3% in the quarter driven by pricing, lower rebates and allowances. Overall, volume was flat in the quarter but late in November and in December, we saw a sales volumes increase growing in domestic FoodService Products, health care and Jan/San equipment. This was offset by a decline in global sales and products that we exited due to low or negative margins. During our third quarter call, I mentioned that we had lower volume based on our inability to deliver. That has since improved and our domestic volume late in the quarter benefited from product availability. Over the past 12 months, we've seen a steady improvement in our EBIT margins and in the fourth quarter, it was no exception. Our margins were up 380 -- 870 basis points to 12.7%. Overall, our EBIT dollars were up 230% from $2.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2012 to $7.6 million in the fourth quarter of this year. The FoodService management team has done an excellent job improving profitability and I expect this performance to continue in 2014. Shifting gears, let's take a look at Carlisle's overall performance for 2013. You'll find that detailed on Slide 10. 2013 was the second consecutive year of record sales and record net earnings. Sales were up 3% from $2,851,000,000 to $2,943,000,000. Our growth was driven mainly by Construction Materials and Interconnect Technologies, while Brake & Friction and FoodService had negative sales growth for the full year. EBIT margin was 12.5%, slightly down from 2012. We earned $366.8 million in 2013 compared to $371.9 million in 2012. Our tax rate was 29.4% compared to 33.7% in 2012. EPS for the year was $3.61, a record for Carlisle. Slide 11 provides you the detail of each segment. It's important to note that we had record sales and earnings in Interconnect Technologies, record sales in Construction Materials and record earnings in FoodService. Slide 12 and 13 are sales and margin bridges for 2013. These sales are self-explanatory, so I will leave you to review them on your own. This concludes my review of the business segments. Steve will now review our balance sheet, cash flow and working capital slides. Steve?