Glenn E. Tynan
Analyst · Wells Fargo
Thank you, Dave, and good morning, everyone. Our discussions today, of current and future results, are on a continuing operational basis, which excludes both the current quarter and last quarter's previously announced divestitures. As Dave noticed -- noted we produced a strong third quarter, led by improved sales and operating income in our Commercial/Industrial and Energy segments, as well as the benefit from our 2013 and 2014 acquisitions. On an organic basis, operating income increased 7% on a 4% increase in sales. Reported operating income rose 13%, generating an operating margin of 13.3%, up 50 basis points from the prior year. This growth was led by our higher sales and the continued benefit of our operating margin improvement initiatives, including lower corporate overhead costs related to our organizational realignment initiatives. Diluted earnings per share from continuing operations of $0.90 in the third quarter increased 14% compared to the prior year. However, to further clarify the strength of our third quarter results, prior to the divestitures and relative to our previous guidance, our diluted earnings per share would have been approximately $0.95 for the third quarter. These results keep us on track for strong double-digit growth in earnings per share for 2014. We also had solid new orders during the third quarter, most notably within the international ground defense market for our turret drive stabilization systems. And finally, free cash flow for the third quarter was $50 million, slightly above the prior year period. And year-to-date, we have produced nearly $100 million of free cash flow and remain well ahead of 2013. Moving on to the end markets. Overall, commercial market sales grew 8% during the third quarter, led by 2% organic growth, along with the benefit from acquisition within the Commercial/Industrial segment. In commercial aerospace market, we produced another solid quarter of organic sales growth, driven by higher sales on the Boeing 787 program, as well as Surface Technologies services supporting numerous customers. We remain well-positioned for continued solid growth based on the multi-year production up-cycle in this market. In the oil and gas market, we generated strong organic sales growth of 10%, led by solid demand in our aftermarket business. This growth also reflects the removal of the slower growth downstream revenues, now part of discontinued operations. Meanwhile, within the power generation market, we continue to experience lower revenues on both the U.S. and China AP1000 contracts, as well as lower sales to existing domestic operating reactors. As the years progressed, U.S. nuclear plant operators have faced increased headwinds, such as lower demand and higher operating costs that have led to restricted operating budgets, as well as increased regulatory requirements that, together, have contributed to deferring spending on plant maintenance, upgrades and power upgrades. These challenges have also resulted in 5 plants' closures over the last 18 months. Moving forward, we believe that our product line diversity, notably for obsolescence solutions and our focus on emerging issues, will help to mitigate these headwinds and position us to grow when normal market conditions return. In the general industrial market, higher sales were driven by a combination of solid 9% organic growth, as well as our Arens Controls acquisition, serving the on-road and off-road truck and specialty vehicle markets. Looking ahead, we remain optimistic for increased demand for our industrial vehicle products, based on a solid growth outlook for OEMs and increasing global desire to reduce emissions. Next, to the defense markets, where sales increased 11% overall, 7% of which was organic. This performance was led by a 16% increase in aerospace defense due to higher demand for embedded computing products and several long-term production programs, most notably for helicopters and the JSF program. We also experienced another solid performance in our naval defense market where we continue to receive steady funding for key U.S. Navy shipbuilding programs. Next, I would like turn to our financial outlook beginning with our end-market sales. Full year 2014 sales growth of 6% to 8% remains unchanged from our previous guidance. However, we have refined our expectations in each of our major end-markets. Total defense market sales are now expected to grow between 3% and 5%, essentially at the high end of our previous range. This change is primarily based on new orders and strong demand for our embedded computing products serving the aerospace defense market. In addition, we removed the sales attributable to the planned divestiture of our engineered packaging business, which provides products across all defense markets. Curtiss-Wright remains well-positioned to continue to outpace the baseline DoD budget growth. Meanwhile, total commercial sales are now expected to grow between 8% and 10%. We've made some modifications within the commercial end markets, as you can see herewith. In commercial aerospace, we removed the sales for the planned divestiture of the aviation ground support equipment business. In oil and gas, we removed the sales for the planned divestiture of the upstream and downstream businesses, partially offset by improved optimism within our remaining businesses. In power generation, we've lowered the growth rate to reflect our expectations for reduced sales in the nuclear aftermarket and AP1000 new build businesses. And in general industrial, we removed the sales for the planned divestiture of the surface treatment businesses while also increasing our sales guidance tied to the industrial vehicle sales. Continuing with our financial outlook, I'll start with the changes to segment sales, which tied to the end-market changes that I just discussed, along with the following notes. Higher sales in the Commercial/Industrial segment relate to improved expectations for increased sales of severe service industrial valve and industrial vehicle. Lower sales in the Defense segment primarily reflect the removal of the businesses to be divested. And the most significant change took place in the Energy segment, which reflects the removal of the downstream and upstream oil and gas businesses. Next, I'll discuss updates to our segment operating income and margin guidance. Note that the updated guidance for each segment reflects incremental operating margin improvement initiatives and the full year impact of discontinued operations. Starting with Commercial/Industrial, our guidance essentially remains unchanged. We are projecting more than a 200 basis point increase in operating margins to a range of 13.1% to 13.2% compared to our 2013 results. Next, to Defense, segment operating income was reduced by $6 million to reflect the impact of discontinued operations as well as reduced operating income due to lower AP1000 revenues, which I noted earlier. However, our segment margin guidance increased 20 basis points to a new range of 13.9% to 14% due to the impact of divestitures. Moving onto Energy, segment operating income was reduced by $5 million to reflect the impact of discontinued operations, and to a lesser extent, the impact of lower power generation aftermarket revenues. However, our divestiture actions resulted in a significant improvement in operating margins, reflecting the benefit of removing the oil and gas businesses. As a result, we are now projecting a margin range of 15.3% to 15.4%, up approximately 550 basis points from our prior guidance. Note that this is nearly double the previously reported 2013 results. We also made a few offsetting tweaks to the corporate expenses. We lowered our pension expense by approximately $3 million to reflect the curtailment charge that is now expected to take place in 2015, and we increased our corp and other expenses by $3 million to reflect the impact of higher foreign currency exchange losses. Overall, Curtiss-Wright's total operating income guidance decreased by approximately $9 million, but still reflects a growth range of 17% to 21% in 2014, while our operating margin has expanded another 110 basis points to a new range of 12.2% to 12.4%. We have adjusted our 2014 guidance for diluted earnings per share to a new range of $3.40 to $3.50, down $0.10 compared to our prior guidance. However, as highlighted in the earnings release, the breakdown of our diluted earnings per share guidance change is as follows. A $0.07 increase due to the incremental operating margin improvement initiatives, a $0.05 increase due to the adjustment in our end-market sales as well as updates to interest, taxes and shares outstanding, partially offsetting a $0.22 decrease based on the net full year impact of moving certain businesses into discontinued operations. So, despite the negative impact to diluted earnings per share resulting from the removal of those businesses, we expect to overcome more than half of that $0.22 decline as we drive our enterprise-wide focus on operating margin expansion. Next, to our cash flow, year-to-date we have produced strong cash flow from operations of $153 million, leading to nearly $100 million in free cash flow. Both the quarter and year-to-date performance have benefited from higher cash earnings and higher deferred revenues. We remain on track with our full year free cash flow guidance of $180 million to $200 million and are not making any changes at this time. We expect the improvement over 2013 to be based on expectations for working capital improvements, which is consistent with our goal to maintain a free cash flow conversion rate of at least 100%. Now, I'd like to turn the call back over to Dave to provide an update on the specific margin improvement initiatives and future outlook. Dave?