Earnings Labs

Lionheart Holdings (CUB)

Q4 2013 Earnings Call· Thu, Dec 5, 2013

$10.79

+0.09%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to Cubic Corporation's Fiscal 2013 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Diane Dyer, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Diane Dyer

Analyst

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon. Welcome to our Fiscal 2013 Earnings Conference Call. We have 2 speakers today who will review our businesses and the fiscal year results we announced this afternoon: William Boyle, our Chief Executive Officer; and John Thomas, Cubic's Chief Financial Officer. After our prepared remarks, our executive team will be happy to take your questions. By now, you should have a copy of our earnings press release, which crossed the wire about 0.5 hour ago. If you need a copy of the press release, you can go to www.cubic.com under the Investor Relations tab to find an electronic copy. We encourage everyone to read today's press release and refer to our most recent reports on Form 10-Q and Form 10-K. For anyone who has not yet seen a copy of these documents, they're available on Cubic Corporation's website and on the SEC's website. Now I'll turn the call over to Jim Edwards, Cubic's Senior Vice President and General Counsel, for the Safe Harbor disclosure.

James R. Edwards

Analyst

Thank you, Diane. Please note that certain information discussed on the call today is covered under the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. I caution listeners that during this call, Cubic management will be making forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, statements about future events or Cubic's future financial and operating performance. Actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied by these forward-looking statements due to risks and uncertainties associated with the company's business. These forward-looking statements should be considered in conjunction with and are qualified by the cautionary statements contained in Cubic's earnings press release and SEC filings, including its annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. This call contains time-sensitive information that is accurate only as of the date of this broadcast, December 5, 2013. Cubic undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this conference call. This conference call will also include a discussion of non-GAAP financial measures as that term is defined in Regulation G. Cubic believes this information is useful to investors because it provides a basis for measuring the company's available capital resources, the actual and forecasted operating performance of the company's business and the company's cash flow. A reconciliation between the GAAP financial measures that correspond to these non-GAAP financial measures is contained in our earnings press release and our SEC Form 10-K report for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2013. Any discussion of non-GAAP measures is not intended to detract from the importance of comparable GAAP measures. With that said, let me turn the call over to Bill Boyle, our Chief Executive Officer.

William W. Boyle

Analyst · Jim Ricchiuti with Needham & Company

Thanks, Jim. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. As you may have seen in the press release issued earlier today, to put it mildly, a lot of things didn't go well for us in the fourth quarter. While we're very disappointed by reporting these results today, we do expect a quick turnaround and should deliver much better results next year, although the first quarter may be somewhat mediocre. For those of you who haven't seen our release, EPS dropped to $0.74 for fiscal 2013, caused by a loss of $1.43 per share in the fourth quarter, primarily driven by a goodwill impairment charge in Mission Support Services of 50 -- and that's $50.9 million or $1.61 per share net of taxes. There were other issues in the fourth quarter in all 3 of our business segments and Jay Thomas will expand on all this in a few minutes. As you know, in -- Cubic has not been in the practice of giving formal guidance, and I don't know what we might do in the future. However, due to our fourth quarter results, we feel now we owe it to you to give you some guidance and as clear a picture as we can of what we expect for the next year. And we'll attempt to do that throughout our discussion. Through the third quarter of this year, we thought it would be an okay year for Mission Support Services, but that changed in the fourth quarter, which is normally their best quarter, due to a substantial drop in activity for readiness training at major U.S. training sites. As you know, the defense service marketplace is being impacted by delays in new business awards caused by the U.S. DoD budget uncertainty and sequestration. We believe this trend will…

John D. Thomas

Analyst · Jim Ricchiuti with Needham & Company

Thanks, Bill. I'll discuss our consolidated highlights for fiscal -- for the fiscal year and then provide some additional comments around our segment level results in the fourth quarter. On a consolidated basis, total sales for the year were $1.361 billion versus $1.381 billion last year, or a 1% decrease. The 4 acquisitions we made during the year added $43.1 million in sales, while organic sales decreased by 5%. Adjusted EBITDA was $112.6 million or 8.3% of sales this year versus $150.9 million or 10.9% of sales last year. A number of factors contributed to the decrease in adjusted EBITDA during the year. The largest component was an 8% decrease in gross profit margins on product sales, somewhat offset by a 4% increase in gross profit margin on service sales. Overall, our gross profit margins were down 2% for the year. In addition, during the year, we incurred $8.1 million in restructuring charges, primarily in our Defense Systems segment. We also had higher net SG&A expenses aggregating $3.6 million. These higher expenses were for stock-based compensation, higher professional fees related to our restatement last year, and cost related to a secondary offering, partially offset by an insurance recovery. Operating income was $36.4 million for the year compared to $128 million last year. Operating income declined in all 3 segments for the year. The largest contributors to this decline in operating income were a goodwill impairment charge of $50.9 million taken in the fourth quarter within our Mission Support Services segment, which I'll address in a few minutes, and the previously discussed lower gross profit margins and higher net SG&A expenses. Net income attributable to Cubic was $19.8 million or $0.74 per share for the year, down from $91.9 million or $3.44 per share last year. Net income was adversely impacted…

William W. Boyle

Analyst · Jim Ricchiuti with Needham & Company

Thanks, Jay. Since the goodwill impairment and Transportation Systems issues had such an impact in the fourth quarter, we thought it advisable to have our Senior Vice President and Corporate Controller, Mark Harrison; and our Executive Vice President of Transportation Systems, Matt Cole, with us to help us respond to any questions you might have. So with that, why don't we now open it up for questions. Operator?

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Julian Mitchell with Crédit Suisse. Julian Mitchell - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division: So I guess the first question is really on the Transportation Systems segment. The degree to which, I guess, some of the cost overruns you feel comfortable that you've got your arms around, and how confident you are that you'll see operating income growth in Transport for the full year '14?

John D. Thomas

Analyst · Jim Ricchiuti with Needham & Company

Well, I think we've provided for the cost, and we're actually making some progress in monitoring what is going on as we -- it primarily relates to installing bus equipment, and so we're doing weekly assessments of how we're doing relative to our estimates. We feel pretty confident in the overall profitability as the business will improve for the whole year, primarily driven by the fact that we're going to have increased sales. Julian Mitchell - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division: Got it. And then in terms of Mission Support Services, what's the degree of, I guess, cost reduction or taking out some fixed cost that you can do there, given your comments on the top line outlook, looking out a couple of years, sounded pretty weak. Defense Systems, it seems like you've done a pretty good job on getting the cost base rightsized. What are you doing within Mission Support?

John D. Thomas

Analyst · Jim Ricchiuti with Needham & Company

Well, we restructured the business twice during the year, most recently at the very end of the year. So it's just that the -- you're in an environment now where you oftentimes will find that on some competitive tenders, people will bid below your cost. So it's a little hard to predict right now, but we think we've taken out sufficient cost to be competitive in that environment. Julian Mitchell - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division: Got it. And then lastly, just on the acquisition outlook. You've been pretty aggressive in terms of stepping up M&A. Should we expect that to continue or you think the handful of deals that you've done is, for the time being, at least enough and the focus should be on integrating those?

John D. Thomas

Analyst · Jim Ricchiuti with Needham & Company

Yes, I think in the near term, we'll be focused on integrating the acquisitions we've made. And I'd say that's a near-term in also completing these projects.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Jim Ricchiuti with Needham & Company. James Ricchiuti - Needham & Company, LLC, Research Division: I wonder if relative to the guidance you're giving for revenues for this year, you can give us a sense of what the organic growth rate might be in the Transportation business?

John D. Thomas

Analyst · Jim Ricchiuti with Needham & Company

I think the -- right now, our outlook, Jim, is the organic growth would really relate to us starting to generate revenues on the Chicago project for the year. The rest of the outlook in Transportation relates to the acquisitions that we've made. James Ricchiuti - Needham & Company, LLC, Research Division: Jay, is there any way -- I'm wondering if you could give us some sense as -- even a range of revenues that you might be anticipating from the Chicago contract?

John D. Thomas

Analyst · Jim Ricchiuti with Needham & Company

Yes, as I said on the call, we said on an annualized basis, we should start to generate around $45 million. So for the next year, that probably translates into something on the order of $25 million to $30 million. James Ricchiuti - Needham & Company, LLC, Research Division: Okay. And can you talk at all about the tender, the level of tender activity in North America in terms of some of the larger projects and, obviously, there's been a lot of speculation about New York, how -- what's the pipeline look like?

John D. Thomas

Analyst · Jim Ricchiuti with Needham & Company

I'm going to let Matt address that.

William W. Boyle

Analyst · Jim Ricchiuti with Needham & Company

We'll let Matt address that.

Matt Cole

Analyst · Jim Ricchiuti with Needham & Company

Yes, so the Transportation pipelines bordered on North America, we're currently bidding on fare collection contracts in the Middle East, in Continental Europe and some in North America. As Jay mentioned on the call, we're also looking to diversify some of the changes we've made in our technology recently, allow us to broaden our aperture and look at tolling opportunities as well, and we're looking at a number of those in North America. Overall, the Transportation pipeline over the next 5 years is -- sorry, 3 years, is $5.7 billion. James Ricchiuti - Needham & Company, LLC, Research Division: $5.7 billion, and that's globally. And where does the bulk of that come from? Is it spread fairly evenly, domestic, internationally? Can you talk just in terms of how that might break out?

John D. Thomas

Analyst · Jim Ricchiuti with Needham & Company

A fair piece of that would be existing business. So for instance, we have a recompete coming up in the U.K., so a fair piece of that pipeline would be the U.K. and then there would be opportunities like in Washington that we've discussed before.

Matt Cole

Analyst · Jim Ricchiuti with Needham & Company

And as I said then, we've got some other business in Europe that we're pursuing, as well as some in the Middle East, and then a large balance of it in North America.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the floor back over to management for closing comments.

William W. Boyle

Analyst · Jim Ricchiuti with Needham & Company

Well, we'd like to thank you, all, for joining us today. If anybody has any further questions, please call or contact Diane Dyer, our Director of Investor Relations. So -- and obviously, Jay and I and everybody's available, if you have any questions. So this concludes our call today, and we thank you for your interest in Cubic. Thank you very much.