Douglas McCrosson
Analyst · Canaccord
Good morning and thank you, Sanjay. And good morning and thank you all for joining us on our call. I will begin this morning with a review of our performance for the fourth quarter and full-year 2017 before offering some thoughts on 2018, and an overview of our plan to acquire Welding Metallurgy or WMI, which we announced this morning. Vince will then review our financial results for both periods, the financial considerations of our acquisition of WMI, and introduce our financial guidance for 2018. I will then conclude our prepared remarks. Let's begin. I’m pleased to report another quarter of solid financial performance, the result of our continued focus on operational excellence and program execution. We continue to advance our defense market strategy, winning a $15.8 million multiyear contract from Lockheed Martin for the manufacture of multiple canopy actuation drive shaft assemblies on the F-35 Lightning Aircraft. This is our second contract for the F-35 in effect doubling the value of our content on this program. Equally significant, this new order speaks to our strong relationship with Lockheed Martin and our ability to leverage superior program execution to secure additional work from the largest defense prime contractor in the world. Our financial results for 2017 attest to how far we've progressed since we undertook a series of operational and strategic initiatives in 2014 to return to the company -- to return the company to its defense market roots. Since then we have placed greater focus on multiyear opportunities, expanded and diversified our revenue base and implemented profitability improvement initiatives. As a result, this year we restored annual profitability and positive operating cash flow. Key financial highlights for the year includes: first, pre-tax income came in at the high-end of our guidance range for the year as capital investments and improvements made within our facility continued to enhance productivity and efficiency. Second, we generated a substantial turnaround in profitability year-over-year with earnings per share of $0.65 in 2017 compared to a loss per share of $0.42 for 2016. Third, cash flow from operations was $1.6 million compared to negative cash flow from operations of $6.6 million in 2016. While we anticipated year-over-year revenue growth, as we discussed in our third quarter call, we experienced order push outs from newer defense programs still in their development phase that delayed revenue recognition, which together with an expected step down in E-2D shipments resulted in flat year-over-year revenue. Turning to Slide 4, execution on our defense market strategy has given us a backlog of contracts that serve as a foundation for our long-term growth. At 2017 year-end, defense backlog stood at $301.3 million, up 18.2% from year-end 2014 and down 6% from year-end 2016. The decline, year-over-year, reflects the budgetary standstill between the presidential election and the signing of the omnibus appropriations bill in May of 2017. With the signing of that bill, we did add approximately $54 million to backlog over the balance of the year. Multiyear defense awards now comprise 78% of consolidated backlog. On Slide 5, you can see the many successes of our defense market strategy. This slide illustrates that approximately $282 million of the total backlog at 2000 -- 2017 year-end is derived from defense contracts announced since November of 2014. Albeit, two of the programs on this slide are in production with periods of performance that extend beyond 2022 in some cases and affords us good visibility in annual defense revenue in future years. Notable words in the year reflected the deepening of our relationships with leading defense prime contractors including two 5-year supply agreements with Sikorsky totaling $29 million on the Black Hawk helicopter. These awards follow the signing of the multiyear nine contract by Sikorsky with the U.S. Army. A $14.8 million award from Bell for the AH-1Z attack helicopter, our TacSAR contract with UTC Aerospace though a 1-year development contract, this award positions us well to secure a multiyear award when this program moves into production. A $2 million purchase order from the U.S. Air Force for structural modification kits for the T-38 Trainer under a contract potentially worth $49 million. Since being awarded the contract in 2015, we’ve received orders today totaling about $14 million. And as I previously noted, our canopy actuation system drive shaft program, our second contract on the F-35. Subsequent to the end of 2017, Bell amended our long-term contract to the AH-1Z helicopter by adding an additional year valued at $3.8 million. This amendment increases the potential value of the contract to $18.6 million. We also recently announced additional purchase orders to supply E-2D wing components for the third and forth aircraft under our four aircraft contract for E-2D's bout for Japan. As we look ahead to 2018, we're going to build on our accomplishments in 2017 and accelerate the momentum we have in the defense sector to drive top line growth. Let me spent a few minutes now discussing the inputs that are shaping our perspective on 2018. The start of the year has brought renewed defense spending uncertainty with the Department of Defense operating with funds provided by a fifth continuing resolution. As a consequence of this spending uncertainty, previously anticipated new awards are being pushed out. For example, while each of the proposed 2018 and '19 Authorization Bills contain money for the A-10 rewinging program, the delay is passing -- the delay in passing an appropriations bill has now pushed out the anticipated contract award date into early 2019. Against this backdrop, however, it's a clear strengthening of long-term industry fundamentals. The combination of growing geopolitical tension in the President's call for increased defense budgets, has the defense industry preparing for fresh opportunities on the horizon. The President's fiscal 2019 budget proposal aligns with our core competencies, namely a continuous production, procurement of newer platforms such as the F-35 and CH-53K, funds monetization programs for current aircraft such as the F-16 and the A-10, and it provides funding for aircraft and systems and development such as the B-21 and the Next Generation Jammer Pod. With industry fundamentals strengthening, we brought Jay Mulhall on board last month, a Senior Director of Business Development and Strategy for Defense Markets. Jay will lead our business development efforts in areas of substantive benefit greatly from increased DoD spend, particularly electronic warfare, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and autonomous systems, areas where we enjoy significant competitive advantage. Having retired after a 33-year career in Northrop Grumman, Jay brings deep industry experience that’s integral to our strategy of pursuing emerging growth opportunities and expanding our business. As the DoD balances between modernization and readiness, we believe that a strong defense portfolio together with a broader base of business entering 2018, a deep backlog and a pipeline of opportunities, positions us for strong organic long-term growth. Turning to Slide 7, our bid pipeline reflects our sales emphasis on multiyear opportunities in the defense market. We continue to remain selective about bidding on new commercial aircraft programs and we limit participation to the opportunities where we believe we can offer a compelling value proposition to our customer. We're seeing continued strong demand within our Aerosystems and Kitting supply chain management segments and now nearly 80% of the value of the bid pipeline are in these key areas. We will see some of the opportunities in our bid pipeline listed on Slide 8. One of these opportunities third and fourth orders for the Japan E-2D we received after the close of the year. Of note, the F-16 Service Life Extension Program or F-16 SLEP is one of the largest potential awards for which we are competing in 2018. The government has valued this opportunity at several hundred million dollars over a 10-year period, and we believe that a winner will be selected within the next few months. Turning to Slide 9, our focus on multiyear defense awards gives us excellent long-term revenue visibility. Our defense and commercial programs together have the potential to generate approximately $389 million over the remainder of their periods of performance. While we have a broader opportunity set today, the pace of conversion of those opportunities into backlog the revenue rest, at times, with the lawmakers in Washington DC. In acquiring WMI, we are taking matters into our own hand, ensuring continued growth in the near-term, while better positioning ourselves to capture larger and more complex awards once defense spending levels are set. We’ve talked before about our plans to supplement organic growth with acquisitions that expand our capabilities in support of a larger defense portfolio, and have been evaluating acquisition candidates for a while that need our strategic and financial criteria. With WMI, we chose the perfect transaction. Our first in over two decades, and of course the first with me as CEO. From an operations, customers programs and capabilities perspective, WMI is an ideal fit for CPI Aero. Turning to Slide 11, let me explain why acquiring WMI is the right transaction for us. First, we share customers programs and capabilities and our Aerostructures business, acquiring WMI significantly increases content on key defense programs including the E-2D advanced Hawkeye, F-35, UH-60 Blackhawk, and the Sikorsky CH-53K. The F-35 is the largest military aircraft program and the CH-53K is the largest helicopter program within the U.S Department of Defense. Second, acquiring WMI gives us a broader and more diverse set of Aerosystems assembly. For instance, we're combining WMI's technical capabilities in the areas of welding and tube bending with our mechanical and bonding capabilities. Adding WMI's electrical wire cabling integrated electronics and wire harnesses capabilities gives us greater control over content for integration work. For our pod business, this means we can offer customers like United Technologies with their TacSAR pod or Raytheon with their Next-Generation Jammer Pod, a more integrated solution that elevates our standing as a key partner in their production processes, allows us to bid on larger work packages and expense content share on existing programs. Also, WMI has a long-standing relationship with Raytheon on the Sea Sparrow guided missile launching system where it provides turnkey electronics integration solutions. Through this shared anchor customer, we’re now in a position to transfer our Aerosystems assembly capabilities into naval defense programs. As a result, acquiring WMI adds to our growing pipeline of larger and more complex programs. Finally, the transaction leverages the cost management and operational improvements, implemented in prior years to enhance our overall profitability and cash flow generation. I will come back to this point in a minute. In summary, the acquisition of WMI is highly strategic to CPI, gives us added capabilities to support a larger defense portfolio and boost our growth opportunities. As you can see on Slide 12, WMI had strong overlap with our customers and programs including the E-2C and D in the Black Hawk helicopter and gives us a new presence on new programs such as the Sea Sparrow guided missile launching system produced by Raytheon to the U.S. Navy. Finally, Slide 13 details transaction. We're paying $9 million in cash to acquire WMI subject to customary adjustments based on the networking capital of WMI at the closing of the transaction. The agreement also calls for plus up to for -- up to $1 million payable on cash to air industries, if WMI enters into certain long-term supply agreements during 2018. I mentioned earlier that acquiring WMI leverages the cost management and operational improvements we've implemented over the past two years. The efficient infrastructure we now have in place allows for a smooth and low-risk integration of WMI's operations into our own facility. It certainly helps that WMI is located close to our facility literally just miles away and that we've similar asset light business models. Largely through the integration process and to a lesser extent eliminating some duplicate of overhead, we expect to realize post closing synergies of approximately $900,000 during 2018. Post closing, we anticipate WMI will contribute more than $15 million in revenue annually, which would represent growth of about 15% over the 2017 revenue incrementally benefiting our overhead rates and factory utilization. And we expect to transition -- sorry, we expect the transaction will be accretive to 2018 earnings per share, including transaction expenses of approximately $600,000. All in all, we’re creating value with the acquisition of WMI strategically, operationally, and financially to realize synergies and enhanced profitability and cash flow generation. We expect to finance the transaction through a new term loan with an expanded and extended credit facility with our existing lender and to close the transaction during the second quarter. Once we’ve closed the transaction, we anticipate being able to fully integrate WMI into our facility before the start of the fourth quarter of 2018. I will turn the call over now to Vince Palazzolo, our CFO to review our financial results for the fourth quarter and full-year in greater detail. Vince will also introduce our financial guidance for 2018. I will then come back with some closing comments before opening the call to questions. Vince?