Earnings Labs

Curtiss-Wright Corporation (CW)

Q4 2008 Earnings Call· Tue, Dec 9, 2008

$701.65

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon my name is Kevin. I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Williams Control to host Q4 2008 results. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker’s remarks, there would be question and answer session. (Operator Instruction) I would like to turn the call now over to Mr. Dennis Bunday, Chief Financial Officer. Sir, you may begin your conference.

Dennis Bunday

Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, and good afternoon everyone and welcome to our fourth quarter, fiscal 2008 and year end conference call. Before we begin, you should note that the following discussions and responses to questions reflect management's views as of today, December 09, 2008, and may include forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Information concerning risk factors and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially is included in our filings with the SEC, including our 2008 annual report on Form 10-K, our fiscal 2008 quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and our fiscal 2008 current reports on Form 8-K. Specific factors that may cause such a difference include, but are not limited to availability of adequate working capital, domestic and international competitive pressures, increased governmental regulation, increased cost of material and labor and general economic conditions in the United States and abroad. I will now turn the call over to our CEO Patrick Cavanagh for his comments on the quarter and the full year.

Patrick Cavanagh

CEO

Thanks, Dennis. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our fiscal fourth quarter and fiscal fourth quarter and year end conference call. This morning we released our financial results for the fourth quarter and the fiscal year end. I would like to begin by making a few comments about fiscal 2008, and then I will comment on the current business environment. As we stated in our press release, sales for the fourth quarter were up 5.1% from a year ago quarter at $17.2 million, but sales for full year, in the end September, were down 4.6% from fiscal 2007 at $65.8 million. Net income for fourth quarter was up 31.7% at $2 million or $0.26 per diluted share from the same quarter in fiscal 2007. For the fiscal year end, net income was down 1.3% at $7.8 million or $1.01 per diluted share compared fiscal 2007. In fiscal 2008, Williams’ business outside of North America, accounted for more than $24 million in annual revenues or 36% of our world wide sales. This represents the 22% increase over fiscal 2007 sales and 104% increase since we began our strategic focus on growing internationally four years ago. Since that time, our Asian business consistently achieved double digit growth, resulting in sales in fiscal 2008 of $8.6 million, which was 13% of our total sales. This is a result of the move to more emission compliant engines in China, Korea and India. In our more mature European market, sales were up 8% on fiscal 2008 to $15.4 million or 23% of our total sales. Sales in Europe were partially driven by Russia’s move to more emission engines, and European sales over the last several years have consistently shown five single digit percentage increases. Sales for our North American truck customers dropped $6.5 million or…

Dennis Bunday

Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Pat. As Pat noted, sales for the 2008 fourth fiscal quarter were $17.2 million, 5.1% higher than the 2007 fourth quarter sales of $16.4 million. Full year sales were $65.8 million, down 4.6% from the $60.9 million in 2007. Sales for our Asian customers were 38% higher quarter over quarter, and at $8.6 million for the full year, or 51% higher in 2008 than in 2007. Strong markets in Europe and share gains by some of our European truck OEM customers, resulted in no sales, being 14% higher in the quarter, and 18% higher year over year. Sales to NAFTA truck OEMs in the fourth quarter were down 10.9% from an already depressed fourth quarter of 2007. Overall, sales to NAFTA truck OEMs were down 34% year over year. On world wide basis, off road sales showed strength in the fourth quarter with sales of 4.3% quarter over quarter or have finished the year down $550,000 or 4.3% over the fiscal 2007 levels. Net income for 2008 four quarter with $2.0 million or $0.26 per diluted share, up 31.7% from $1.5 million or $0.20 per diluted share in the fourth quarter of 2007. Net income as a percent of sales was 11.6% for the quarter. For the full year, net income was $7.8 million or $1.01 per diluted share, down just slightly from $7.9 million or $1.03 per diluted share last year all on $3 million of lower sales. It should be noted that both years include one time or unusual gains of essentially equal amounts. Fiscal 2008 pretax income has a one time $1.1 million gain for proceeds received from settlement of environmental claims for our Portland, Oregon facility. The fiscal 2007 result included $900,000 gain from writing off old payables from defunct subsidiaries. Excluding these one…

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from the line of John Nobile – Taglich Brothers. John Nobile – Taglich Brothers: Good afternoon. I am curious if, in your first quarter guidance, you are factoring in a weakening Asian market as part of your assumptions?

Patrick Cavanagh

CEO

Yes. Yes we are. John Nobile – Taglich Brothers: Alright, because I know that the growth has been pretty strong there even in this quarter if I do the math that look like it was a very strong market. I am sure that there is going to be growth but it would be a slowing growth rate in the first quarter at least.

Patrick Cavanagh

CEO

Yes I think John, as we have talked about before in Asia. We have seen – it is been sporadic. We have seen a flowing in some markets in a lot growth in others. We have factored all of our global business in and the kind of discussion that I had in my formal comment. But, the Asian market for us tends to go in fits and spurs. It is very, very strong and then it can be weak for a couple of months and very, very strong again. Some of the ordering patterns are a bit chaotic with some of our Asian customers. John Nobile – Taglich Brothers: Okay. But I mean, even for the fiscal year, I would imagine there would be growth in this area. However, not as strong as it has been in the past?

Patrick Cavanagh

CEO

Well, the visibility is not very good at this point neither in Asia nor in North America, and we are hopeful that there will be some growth. But I am not sure of that at this point. John Nobile – Taglich Brothers: Okay. Earlier on the call, you mentioned forecast anywhere from 150,000 heavy trucks to, was it 220,000?

Patrick Cavanagh

CEO

Two hundred twenty two thousand, there is two competing forecast, John. One is put out by ACT. Another one was putout but FTR. FTR showing a 150,000 for class-A in calendar year 2009, and ACT is saying 220,000. John Nobile – Taglich Brothers: Okay and you have mentioned the 200,000 units. Was that forecast to 2008, which has --?

Patrick Cavanagh

CEO

Yes I think I have 2007 was about 212,000 units and they are predicting, we do not have all the numbers in yet for 2008 about somewhere between 196,000 to 207,000 or somehwere in that range. John Nobile – Taglich Brothers: Okay. It could be some growth. It could be at least looking at the NAFTA market now.

Patrick Cavanagh

CEO

Yes. That is the NAFTA Class-A market that – John Nobile – Taglich Brothers: I know that in 2010, we are looking at emission legislation that is due that year. So, typically, there would be a pre-buying leading up to that I have seen in the past. So, I am curious, if you feel that this would indeed help boost NAFTA sales? At least over what they were in fiscal 2008 year.

Patrick Cavanagh

CEO

Well, there is a lot of speculation on that, there are two competing technologies. There is the EGR solution and then there is the SCR solution. The SCR solution provides slightly better fuel economy with the higher upfront cost. The EGR solution has lower upfront cost but lower fuel economy. But I think, more that anything, there is a lot used trucks out there right now, and the freight tonnage has continued to ease and so, I am reluctant to say that there is going to be much of a pre-buy, I do not think many of the other people in the industry thinks that the pre-buy is going to be very strong. There is a possibility that it could be, but right now, with what we were saying, I would not expect any large pre-buy. John Nobile – Taglich Brothers: In light of a weak economy, are you looking to cut costs in any specific areas?

Patrick Cavanagh

CEO

Well, we want to be really careful and I will tell you why, John, we have programs with many of the major OEMs with both truck and off-road equipment manufacturers. We are building products for many of their new platforms and designing those products now and we are going to be positioned so when the market comes back, we will see full advantage of that and it can really accelerate our growth. So, we are very, very careful about what we cut but obviously we have to be a viable company and we will take prudent things that are necessary to make sure the business is well positioned and yield is economically viable. So, it is a carefully scripted thing and we want to make sure that we have future prospects.

John Nobile - Taglich Brothers

Analyst

So, you have been doing a fine job so far. I just want…

Patrick Cavanagh

CEO

What I said, John, in the meeting though is went back to single shifts to both of our plants. We have reduced through attrition some number of direct labor individuals in our plant. We have reduced temp complement here which was about 12 people. We work in one shift here. We have limited overtime to just absolute necessity and those are the steps that reached to the near term that we are chasing.

John Nobile - Taglich Brothers

Analyst

Okay, I mean, well most of these cost cutting measures in the December quarter or a lot of them had shown up already in the quarter that just ended with the September quarter?

Dennis Bunday

Chief Financial Officer

It is basically will be in the first fiscal quarter, John.

John Nobile - Taglich Brothers

Analyst

Okay, so we are looking at the December quarter. One more question, in regard to gross margins and your breakeven guidance at least for Q1, I am just curious as to what level of gross margins you are using to achieve the breakeven level of Q1. This is assuming on the level?

Patrick Cavanagh

CEO

We are pulling; it will go down, John. We were about 35% I would say that would probably go down to the 30% range, somewhere in that, yes. But that is a little bit on product.

Dennis Bunday

Chief Financial Officer

Looking at it that depends on that plan, it depends on product mix and it is one of the things that…but that is a very good place to start.

John Nobile - Taglich Brothers

Analyst

Okay. That is 30%, high 20s or low 30s in that area.

Patrick Cavanagh

CEO

Yes, low 30s might be pushed a little bit because you do have the cost in there and everything. So you have to factor that in.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Sir, there are no other question. Thank you.

Patrick Cavanagh

CEO

Well, thank you very much. This concludes our yearend conference call and I would like to thank everybody for attending today. Goodbye now. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. You may now all disconnect.