Martin R. Benante
Analyst · KeyBanc
Well, thank you, Dave. As you've heard so far today, we continue to position Curtiss-Wright for strong profitable growth. We intend to accomplish this by advancing internal operational improvements, leveraging opportunities to grow its new technologies in markets and expanding our global offering of products and services. As Dave highlighted, integration of our 7 recent acquisitions is going well. Furthermore, our approach to acquisitions requires a business unit management team that will own the target post acquisition, fielding the entire process from due diligence through integration. As a result, we typically have different Curtiss-Wright management teams working concurrently on integration, which minimizes our overall integration execution risk. It just so happens that we essentially have 7 different teams working on integration of the 7 recent acquisitions. That said, we are still in the lookout for additional opportunities of similar size and end market profile, mainly in upstream oil, gas and oil, sensors, highly technical surface treatment technologies and niche power generation businesses. We also maintain a stable balance sheet and solid financial profile, along with a manageable debt-to-capitalization ratio, which provides flexibilities in terms of future transactions. This directly supports our strategy to further balance our end market diversification, one of the core components of our long-term plan that fuels our competitiveness and creates less overall downside risk for Curtiss-Wright. Next I'd like to highlight some key factors affecting our 2 largest end markets, starting in defense. While they continue resolution, with the full defense appropriation bill for fiscal year 2013 has been enacted, which provides more clarity on the 2013 budget, so we [indiscernible] fiscal year in September. Uncertainty in the country remains, including the possibility for cuts tied to sequestration. Our best information so far is that cuts to the Navy's shipbuilding plan are likely to result in the elimination of any of the fiscal 2013 ships authorized and appropriate for construction, including the refueling and co-op price [ph] overall of CVN-72. We are eagerly awaiting the decision to come from the Congress regarding the President's fiscal 2014 budget request. Based on preliminary indications, the navy defense outlook appears to be positive as it continues its construction of 2 Virginia Class submarines per year, whereby the President's fiscal year 2012 budget requested only 1 Virginia Class submarine for fiscal 2014. It also notes the potential for increased funding for surface ships that are refueling an overhaul of the prior generation of aircraft carriers, keeping us confident in maintaining our naval defense guidance. Already, since January 1, 2013, we have received orders of approximately $100 million, most of which were planned for products for the Virginia Class submarine construction program, CVN-71 and 72 overhaul, DDG-51 and DDG-1000 destroyer -- destruction programs, and the Ohio Class replacement submarine development program. We expect additional orders throughout 2013 for the Virginia and the DDG-51 multiyear procurement programs and to support continued CVN-78 and 79 construction and Nimitz class overhauls. Meanwhile, within the aerospace and ground markets, continued uncertainty associated with funding authorization remains, and it continues to reflect our space expectations for all orders in 2013. Overall, as Glenn noted, we continue to project defense-related sales to be flat to down 4% in 2013, which does not factor into any -- any potential specific impact for sequestration. In fact, sequestration appears to be less ominous for our naval defense business. Next, a few updates in power generation, starting with the AP1000 program. As you recall, in 2012, we completed the pump construction cycle and shipped the first 4 of 16 reactor coolant pumps or RCPs acquired for the Sanmen Unit 1 in China. During the first quarter, an AP1000 RCP impeller provided to Curtiss-Wright from the supplier was found to be defective, and we have since determined numerous impellers from the subcontractor to be defective. As a result, we are working closely with Westinghouse and the Chinese to resize the hardware while minimizing the schedule impacts of deliveries of RCPs to the plants in China. While we previously expected the remaining 12 certain pumps to be shipped this year, it is possible that the final 4 pumps may ship in early 2014. We will provide an update once the solution has been met. And at this time, we do not expect any additional costs to impact our business, nor should it affect the plants being built. In addition, as we previously stated, we expect our next AP1000 order to come from China. We have received the RFQ for multiple newbuild sites under construction, with Curtiss-Wright content to be determined. High-level discussions have taken place with China's State Nuclear Power and Technology Company as formal negotiations have commenced. We expect an order later this year. Outside of China, newbuild activities continues to progress. In the UAE, we received new orders in the first quarter achieving [ph] 80 million to support UAE's newbuild reactors and have an additional outstanding proposals for another 22 million which we expect to be awarded over the next 6 to 18 months. In addition, we provided proposals in excess of $25 million for new reactors in Romania. Elsewhere, in the operating reactors portion of our business, we experienced strong new orders in the first quarter. Our Flow Control business received more than 5 million in first awards from NRC orders 1, 2 and 3 related to Fukushima's response initiatives to have more than $25 million in outstanding proposals. We also received more than $15 million in new orders specifically tied to existing U.S.-planned operatives to solve the obsolescence issues and more than 6 million from international customers, including the U.K., Sweden, Canada, Brazil and Spain. We currently have an additional $40 million in proposals outstanding for U.S. customers related to our obsolescence solutions. Finally, we continue to see strong order activity supporting plant upgrades and modifications as well as growth in our installed base, leading to a solid expansion of Curtiss-Wright content. Our long-standing expertise in this industry will provide solid growth for years to come. I also want to highlight the solid operational performance within our Surface Technologies business where organic operating income grew 16% on a 1% increase in sales. This solid performance reflects the benefit of our 2012 restructuring efforts, including the closure of some underperforming facilities and the sale of our heat treat business -- heat treating business, as well as continued operational improvements. The heat treating business was mainly an outsourced type of business that was not in line with our focus on highly engineered technologies in this segment. As a result of these efforts, our further expansion of the technological chain, with the addition of Gartner, we are able to realize the benefits of improved returns and better mix in technologies for Curtiss-Wright moving forward. Overall, I remain confident with the company's ability to continue to deliver strong revenue and profitability growth as we execute our strategic plans based on solid organic growth enhanced by strategic acquisitions. We will continue to integrate our recent acquisitions and improve our operations to increase profitability and generate long-term shareholder value. Furthermore, the management is focused on manage -- margin expansion and cash flow generation, and we have tasked all of our operational leaders to increase these 2 key metrics. Finally, we expect the growth of our business to be complemented by our disciplined and well-balanced capital allocation strategy, which also includes paying down our existing debt, along with our commitment to return capital to shareholders in the form of dividends and/or share repurchases. At this time, I'd like to open the conference call for questions.