Glenn Tynan
Analyst · Baird
Thank you, Dave, and good morning, everyone. I will begin with a review of our first quarter end market sales. Overall, we experienced a 12% increase in sales to our defense markets, while sales to our commercial markets grew up 2% year-over-year. In Aerospace Defense, our results were mixed as higher defense electronic sales on helicopters, primarily in the Apache were mainly offset by reduced sales on various UAV programs. In Ground Defense, we experienced the slight reduction in sales due to timing as our full year 2019 guidance remains on target. In Naval defense, strong growth of 27%, 7% of which was organic, reflects increased sales on the CVN-80 aircraft carrier and the Virginia-class submarine programs. In Commercial Aerospace, we experienced higher sales of sensors and electronics equipment on various platforms, including a 7% increase in the core OEM sales in the quarter. In Power Generation, revenues were down slightly as higher sales to the domestic nuclear aftermarket were offset by reduced international aftermarket sales. And finally in the general industrial market, we experienced increased demand for industrial valve products with the Oil & Gas market and also for vehicle products for the on and off-highway markets. Next, I'll discuss the key drivers of our first quarter 2019 operating performance, which we are presenting on an adjusted basis for the Defense segment in overall Curtiss-Wright, which excludes first year purchase accounting cost associated with the TCG acquisition. In the Commercial/Industrial segment, operating income increased 1% and operating margin was up 20 basis points to 13.4%. This performance reflects favorable absorption in both our industrial valve and sensor businesses, mainly offset by unfavorable absorption in the actuation business. Our results in this segment also include savings generated from our ongoing margin improvement initiatives, partially offset by the net impact from tariffs. In the Defense segment, adjusted operating income decreased 8%, while adjusted operating margin declined 170 basis points to 14.9%. As expected, this performance primarily reflects unfavorable mix for our defense electronics products due to a higher percentage of lower-margin systems sales. In the Power segment, operating income surged 58%, while operating margin increased 320 basis points to 14.8%. This performance was driven by favorable absorption on strong sales growth of 24%, most notably in our Naval defense business as well as increased profitability on the CAP1000 program. So, in summary, overall Curtiss-Wright first quarter adjusted operating income increased 12%, which led to a solid margin improvement of 70 basis points to 12.5%. Moving onto our 2019 end-market sales guidance where we have made several changes highlighted in blue on the slide to reflect the $15 million to $20 million increase in total Curtiss-Wright sales as we increased both the low and high ends of our guidance ranges. As a result, we now expect overall Curtiss-Wright sales to grow between 4% and 6%, an improvement from our prior guidance of 3% to 5%. We continue to expect sales growth in all of our end markets. In the Aerospace Defense market, we increased our sales guidance by $10 million due to the addition of TCG, which generates a significant portion of its sales from the US Air Force and prime contractors and now expect growth between 8% and 10% in this market. In the Naval Defense market, we have raised our sales guidance by $5 million to $10 million, primarily due to higher Virginia-class submarine orders, and we now expect growth between 8% and 10% in this market. This in turn is expected to result in overall defense market sales growth of 8% to 10%. Our outlook for our overall commercial market sales growth remains unchanged at 1% to 3% growth. And finally, in the appendix of our presentation, you will find the updated 2019 end-market sales waterfall chart. Next to our 2019 financial outlook beginning with the sales. As you can see, our guidance reflects solid growth across all three segments, driving overall sales growth of 4% to 6%. In the Commercial/Industrial segment, based on the aforementioned increase to our Naval Defense market guidance, we now expect this segment sales to be up 4% to 5%. Segment operating income guidance increased by $2 million due to the higher sales. As a result, we are now projecting segment operating income to grow 7% to 10%, while operating margin is expected to increase 50 to 60 basis points to a new range of 15.6% to 15.7%. And as a reminder, our guidance for this segment includes $4 million net impact for tariffs and a $3 million year-over-year increase in R&D. In the Defense segment, based on TCG's expected $10 million increase to our Aerospace Defense market guidance, we now expect this segment sales to be up 4% to 5%. We've also increased adjusted operating income guidance by $2 million, while adjusted operating margin guidance remains unchanged, ranging from 22.6% to 22.7%. And as a reminder, our guidance for this segment includes a $5 million year-over-year increase in R&D. Excluding the increased R&D investment, segment operating margin guidance would have reflected a 30 basis point increase compared to 2018 adjusted results. In the Power segment, our top line guidance remains unchanged. We increased adjusted operating income guidance by $6 million to reflect the exclusion of one-time costs related to the relocation of the DRG business. As a result, we are now projecting segment-adjusted operating income to grow 7% to 9%, while adjusted operating margin is expected to increase 30 to 40 basis points to a range of 16.9% to 17%. As a reminder, our guidance for this segment includes a $2 million year-over-year increase in R&D. To sum up, as a result of all these guidance updates, total Curtiss-Wright adjusted operating income is now expected to grow 6% to 9% while adjusted operating margin guidance now reflects a 40 to 50 basis point increase to a range of 16.2% to 16.3%. Based on all of the aforementioned guidance changes, including a slight reduction to our share count driven by our ongoing share repurchase activity, we have increased full year 2019 adjusted diluted earnings per share by $0.20 to a new range of $7 to $7.15, up 10% to 12% over 2018 adjusted results. For your EPS modeling purposes, please note that we expect approximately 40% to 45% of our full year 2019 EPS to be in the first half of the year and anticipate each quarter to increase sequentially with the fourth quarter being our strongest as we have done historically. We are also raising our full year 2019 free cash flow guidance by $10 million due to the addition of TCG, increased earnings in our Commercial/Industrial segment, and our continued focus on working capital management. 2019 adjusted free cash flow guidance, which excludes a $20 million capital investment for new machinery and equipment for our DRG business is expected to range from $330 million to $340 million with an adjusted free cash flow conversion rate of approximately 110%. Before I pass the call back over to Dave, I wanted to put our order activity into perspective. As you've seen this quarter and in the past, our orders can be lumpy because we periodically receive large multi-year orders, which provides solid visibility and build our backlog. However, when we do, our book-to-bill is well north of 1x in the quarterly orders received and lower in subsequent quarters when we ship a bill against the order. The strong Defense orders in this quarter drove book-to-bill of 1.8x in defense and 1.3x for Curtiss-Wright overall. We experienced similar strength in the first half of 2018 and 2017, also led by large defense orders. Following those strong starts, we concluded both 2017 and 2018 at 1x, and we expect the similar pattern in 2019. Now I'd like to turn the call back over to Dave to continue with our prepared remarks. Dave?