Earnings Labs

Dana Incorporated (DAN)

Q1 2015 Earnings Call· Thu, Apr 23, 2015

$37.46

-2.65%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

+0.05%

1 Week

-1.06%

1 Month

+0.00%

vs S&P

+0.22%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to Dana Holding Corporation's First Quarter 2015 Financial Webcast and Conference Call. My name is Brent, and I will be your conference facilitator. Please be advised that our meeting today, both the speakers' remarks and the Q&A session, will be recorded for replay purposes. There will be a question-and-answer period after the speakers' remarks, and we will take questions from the telephone only. At this time, I would like to begin the presentation by turning the call over to Dana's Director of Investor Relations, Craig Barber. Please go ahead, Mr. Barber.

Craig Barber - Director-Investor Relations

Management

Thanks, Brent, and thank you all for joining us today for Dana's first quarter 2015 earnings call. Copies of our press release and presentation have been posted on Dana's Investor website. Today's call is being recorded, and the supporting materials are the property of Dana Holding Corporation. They may not be recorded, copied or rebroadcast without our written consent. Today's call will include a Q&A session. In order to allow as many questions as possible, please keep your questions brief. Today's presentation includes some forward-looking statements about our expectations for Dana's future performance. Actual results could differ from those suggested by our comments here. Additional information about the factors that could affect future results are summarized in our Safe Harbor statement. These risk factors are also detailed in our public filings, including our Annual Report, Quarterly, and Current Report with the SEC. Presenting this morning will be Roger Wood, President and Chief Executive Officer; Bill Quigley, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Mark Wallace, Executive Vice President and Group President of On-Highway Driveline Technologies. I will now turn the call over to Roger Wood. Roger J. Wood - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you, Craig, and good morning. The first quarter of this year had its challenges with currency movements and softer markets in South America, but we continue to execute well on our plan. The quarter ended very well for us and we remain on track for the year. Starting on slide four, in the first quarter of 2015, we recorded sales of $1.6 billion, which represents 4% organic growth compared to the first quarter of last year. Net income for the year was $63 million, an 85% increase versus last year, and diluted adjusted earnings per share were up 56% to $0.50. This quarter,…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instruction] Your first question comes from the line of Brett Hoselton with KeyBanc. Please go ahead with your question. Roger J. Wood - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hi, Brett.

Brett D. Hoselton - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Good morning, gentlemen.

Craig Barber - Director-Investor Relations

Management

Hi, Brett. William G. Quigley - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Hi, Brett.

Brett D. Hoselton - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Two quick questions here. First of all just from a clarification standpoint, slide 13, the volume and mix in the Brazil market, what's the difference between those two? William G. Quigley - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Oh, yes. I'm sorry Brett, this is Bill. What we've highlighted on – you're speaking to Commercial Vehicle Driveline obviously, on the bridge, correct.

Brett D. Hoselton - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Yup. William G. Quigley - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: If you look at the volume mix, it's basically rest of world demand, but most notably North America, so we separated the two to highlight what's going on in North America vis-à-vis what we're seeing in the Brazil market currently. So it was to separate the two and you'll note here about the net impact being a slight margin – or a slight sales undercall if you will of $1 million, but certainly, different regions are contributing to that change in sales, so we wanted to highlight that for the audience.

Brett D. Hoselton - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. And Brazil, so the Brazil market is simply volume mix. It's not necessarily incorporating currency or anything along those lines? William G. Quigley - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Correct, the currency line as highlighted here, Brett, the $30 million, that is all currency impacts with respect to operations around the world for commercial vehicle.

Brett D. Hoselton - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. Perfect. And then with regards to again slide 13, so 10% margins in the Light Vehicle Driveline, 8.1% margins in the Commercial Vehicle Driveline, obviously below your corporate average margins and kind of your longer term margin expectations. Can you kind of talk about as we look through the next year or two, how do we think about margin progression in each of those two segments? What might that look like? And what might be some of the key drivers of margin improvement in those segments? William G. Quigley - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Sure, sure, Brett. It's Bill. I'll take a stab at this and certainly Roger or Mark will jump in as well. Let's talk a bit about Light Vehicle Driveline. I think you can see the performance here in the quarter at 10% margin, a very good performance. And as we move forward, as we've spoken to many of you in the past, we certainly expect Light Vehicle Driveline to contribute to our overall exit target margins that we've talked about with respect to, I would say, near term performance 2016 and post. So they are certainly on the path there. The drivers of that margin performance I think continue, one, to be the cost efficiency being driven in the business, but probably most notably is the net business that's coming on line from a sales backlog perspective. And I think to some extent you're seeing that impact already in our first quarter on the volume mix line which is a contribution margin of about 20% in Light Vehicle Driveline. So certainly we expect Light Vehicle Driveline to contribute to our overall margin move forward in the coming, I'd say, medium term. On the Commercial Vehicle front, and I'll let Mark talk a bit to this as well, from my perspective though obviously going through from a margin perspective the impact of the supply chain initiative that we embarked upon last year and have just have completed, if you will, with respect to execution. That certainly has been somewhat of a headwind to us, but by default, it turns into a tailwind and probably most notably, it provides us additional flexibility and competitiveness moving forward. So certainly, we would expect that margin to move up as we move into the intermediate term. It is certainly dependent on what happens from a demand perspective, but an 8% margin certainly is not our expectation for the business and quite frankly by year-end of 2015 our expectation would still remain at about a 10% margin for the business with opportunity moving forward.

Mark Wallace - Executive Vice President and Group President, On-Highway Driveline Technologies

Analyst

Yeah, and Brett, Mark Wallace. On the Commercial Vehicle business with our supply chain initiative, again as Bill mentioned, it's about capacity, flexibility, and competitiveness, and if we kind of exclude our premium cost that we've been incurring to fill the pipeline at these elevated market levels, we're definitely seeing a contribution margin improvement already in our North American business. We definitely would need some help from Brazil. As you can see very low levels, we're back at 10-year ago levels, at 2004 and 2005 levels. So definitely we would like to see some improvement in the revenue in Brazil, that would be definitely be part of our exit rates in 2016. And back over to the Light Vehicle Driveline, as Bill mentioned, we have new programs that are coming on and as we've committed, they're coming on at better margins than our run rate has shown in the past. And as we've also articulated, we have new businesses launching later this year and into 2016 that will definitely be supporting our 2016 exit rates. So we're positive on both of these businesses driving our exit rates in 2016.

Brett D. Hoselton - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you, gentlemen.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Patrick Nolan with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead with your question.

Patrick E. Nolan - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead with your question.

Good morning, everyone. Roger J. Wood - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hi, Pat. William G. Quigley - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Good morning, Pat.

Patrick E. Nolan - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead with your question.

Just a couple of questions. I wanted to follow up on the last one about the Commercial Vehicle Driveline business. Mark, how are you thinking about – I mean next year we're probably looking at probably a better market in South America, but there could be some headwinds in North America. I know today the decrementals in South America are worse than the incrementals you're seeing in North America. So in North America, you're getting even before these startup costs, it's seems like it's close to a 10% incremental and Brazil, it seems like it's almost twice that on the downside. When it flip-flops and Brazil starts going up, are you going to get the same type of incrementals and Brazil are going to be twice that of the decrement you'll see in North America or – and that's why you can offset the North America headwinds? Am I thinking about it right in that context?

Mark Wallace - Executive Vice President and Group President, On-Highway Driveline Technologies

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead with your question.

Yes. I think on the Brazil market, I mean clearly with the volumes at the levels they're at, I mean we've gotten closer and closer and closer to our breakeven point. Although, we're still profitable in Brazil, it's definitely – the decrementals are flowing through at a higher rate than we would typically see at a normal market. So I think as volumes get back to Brazil at a closer rate, it will be back to the normal incremental levels. However, in North America, even if we see some volumes subsiding, we do expect margin improvement in our North American business due to our supply chain initiatives as we mentioned, so we should see overall margin improvement in 2016 moving forward.

Patrick E. Nolan - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead with your question.

Got it. And if we could switch gears a little bit to the Off-Highway business, it looks like you're actually tracking ahead of your plan for margins for 2015 in that business. I think you're guiding to around 13%. You were at 13.% in Q1, but my question is, you're doing really strong margins in that Off- Highway business, arguably at the trough of the cycle. How do you think about what the long term potential of that business is as margins have improved? I mean can this be a mid double-digit EBITDA margin business or even higher going forward? Roger J. Wood - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. So this is Roger. The Off-Highway group has done a really nice job even in light of the very, very difficult market conditions around the world in that segment, but as you recall maybe three or four years ago, we separated that group out to be run independently with a separate management team just like the rest of the business units, so that they could focus their energies and effort on just that market and just that business, taking advantage of the global strength synergies that we have across the four different business units that we have, but thus facing that market for the customers and so forth. By doing that, they were able to very quickly over the last two to three years make some tremendous efficiency gains in what they're doing, because it wasn't kind of embedded in another business unit, if you will. It was out there on their own and they've done a really nice job with that. In addition to that, by focusing on the customers and utilizing the technologies that we have throughout the organization across the four business units, have been able…

Patrick E. Nolan - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead with your question.

Thanks very much, I will get back in the queue.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Justin Long with Stephens. Please go ahead with your question.

Justin Long - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst · Stephens. Please go ahead with your question.

Thanks, good morning. William G. Quigley - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Hi, Justin.

Justin Long - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst · Stephens. Please go ahead with your question.

Hey, so first question I wanted to ask, the divestiture in Venezuela was about an $18 million benefit to adjusted EBITDA in the quarter, but I was curious if you had any update to the impact that divestiture would have for the full year? I think last quarter you talked about it being about breakeven in terms of the EBITDA impact in 2015, has that view changed at all? William G. Quigley - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Justin, it's Bill. Not at all right now, obviously our sales last were about $110 million for the business and all of that obviously included our Light Vehicle Driveline business and to your point, we ended up in a breakeven position in 2014 on the business. What you'll see obviously as quarters roll on here during the course of 2015, we've got an $18 million charge, if you will, a loss if you will on an EBITDA basis a year ago which certainly we avoided given the elegant solution that we executed for the business. About a year ago then we started recoveries, right, and mechanisms that we were working through, so we're going to get a little volatility in kind of year-over-year basis with respect to kind of the ups and downs of Venezuela from a quarterly perspective. But from your comment, you're exactly right, annual basis $110 million sales reduction for Light Vehicle Driveline year-over-year with no impact from an EBITDA perspective.

Justin Long - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst · Stephens. Please go ahead with your question.

Okay, great. That's helpful. And secondly, as you think about the multiyear backlog you discussed at the beginning of the year, do you see any potential for the timing of that revenue changing at all, whether it's you know the market dynamics you're seeing today, or product launch changes? Just curious if there are any major swing factors on the horizon or if that cadence of revenue over the next couple of years is pretty firm at this point?

Mark Wallace - Executive Vice President and Group President, On-Highway Driveline Technologies

Analyst · Stephens. Please go ahead with your question.

Justin, it's Mark Wallace. Actually it's pretty firm at this point. We're actually seeing our passenger – our Light Vehicle Driveline business continues to improve in their backlog but I don't see anything else in the rest of the business units would have any dramatic impact to it. So we're still very optimistic and supportive of what we put out in the backlog and hopefully we have more upside. William G. Quigley - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: And Justin, just, it's Bill as well. Just probably maybe a little finer touch on it as we progress as well. You know certainly distribution of the business and we're talking about – everyone is talking about FX, right. Certainly there will be an impact of FX on the backlog but I think to Mark's point, what we are seeing is obviously opportunities that we're executing upon even in the current environment in fact probably being offsets, but we will give an update to the market obviously later part of this year, early next year with respect to an updated backlog, but to-date very firm.

Justin Long - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst · Stephens. Please go ahead with your question.

Great. That's helpful update. I appreciate the time. Roger J. Wood - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Ryan Brinkman with JPMorgan. Please go ahead with your question.

Samik X. Chatterjee - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Please go ahead with your question.

Hi. This is Samik on behalf of Ryan. The first question I had was just to clarify on the revenue guidance. You did take down your revenue guidance by $100 million. I was wondering is that entirely just due to currency or are there other moving parts in terms of the underlying market, or for example backlog, are you seeing any push out on that? Is there any other components of that that we need to keep in mind here just outside currency? William G. Quigley - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah I think if you – excellent question. You know that $100 million neck down if you will on the top line is almost 100% obviously currency and in fact probably a touch higher on the currency level. We are seeing offsets and as part of our margin maintenance, if you will, with respect – or actually improvement in our adjusted EBITDA maintenance, opportunities to the upside on end market demand, I think as reflected in our first quarter results as well as what we're seeing a bit on the new business front and the actual, I would say the actual realization of sales versus what our expectation was at the beginning of the year. So you are exactly right. I think that headwind from a currency perspective, about $140 million kind of being offset by about $40 million net that we see today with respect to upside on demand as well as new business being launched during the course of the year as well as new business that has already been launched late last year that's operating at a higher level than our expectation. So, you're right, it's a little mix of both, but largely FX.

Samik X. Chatterjee - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Please go ahead with your question.

So, just to follow up on that, obviously margins, you are raising your margin guidance here and you had mentioned your (40:05) coming in at better margin rate but is there any raw material benefit here that you're looking at? Maybe remind us if there's any outlook for – that you've given for what benefit from raw materials do you get during – in 2015 as well?

Mark Wallace - Executive Vice President and Group President, On-Highway Driveline Technologies

Analyst · JPMorgan. Please go ahead with your question.

Yeah, it's Mark Wallace. Just on raw material, basically especially in our Light Vehicle and Commercial Vehicle Driveline business, most of those are pass-through issues with our customers. So, mainly whatever favorability we pick up in the near term will be passed back to the customer and vice versa. So, right now there's really no significant impact for materials in 2015.

Samik X. Chatterjee - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Please go ahead with your question.

Okay, great. And just my last question here, you mentioned that utilization levels in your North American facilities are running quite high and maybe there's some premium cost that you are incurring but just thinking about probably what one of your competitors mentioned here that they have sort of on the Class 8 side that capacity is more at the 320,000 units level. So what is the sort of capacity you have currently or what level, up to which level will you be able to comfortably support and are you open to putting in more capacity if required if the market has more upside here?

Mark Wallace - Executive Vice President and Group President, On-Highway Driveline Technologies

Analyst · JPMorgan. Please go ahead with your question.

Sure, good question. Again it's Mark Wallace; actually the rates recently have been running around 340,000 units, so, definitely a strong market. We've actually been putting in capacity at our supply network. Our assembly plants, we have the capacity and obviously are supporting the current run rates today and we do expect in the future to be able to support these higher rates that we're seeing today, so we're confident as we move forward into 2015 and beyond that we can support rates at this current run rate we're at today.

Samik X. Chatterjee - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Please go ahead with your question.

Okay. Great.. Thanks for taking our questions. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of David Tamberrino with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead with your question. David, please make sure that you line is not on mute. David J. Tamberrino - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Yes, thanks, it actually was on mute. Roger J. Wood - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hi, David. William G. Quigley - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Hi, David. David J. Tamberrino - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Yeah, rookie mistakes over here. Piggybacking off of that last question, the net performance drag that you saw in the first quarter on Commercial Vehicle Driveline, is that expected to continue into the second quarter of this year or is that pretty much – and I think you said that it was completed this quarter, but should we see the benefit start to hit the P&L now or is that more second half?

Mark Wallace - Executive Vice President and Group President, On-Highway Driveline Technologies

Analyst

Yeah, Dave, it's Mark Wallace. A couple of things, one, you've already – seeing sequential improvement from Q4-to-Q1 related to premium. We'll also experience some premium costs in Q2, but it will be actually on the declining basis, so we should see margin progression throughout the rest of the year and as already mentioned, we should approximate our 10% EBITDA target we had for full year. David J. Tamberrino - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Okay, that's helpful. And then I guess we were a little bit caught off guard on the Light Vehicle Driveline and the Venezuela divestiture. I mean you guys kind have kind of spoken to exactly what you think there, but for the rest of the business, I mean when we strip it out year-over-year and take a look at it, is it fully just the content growth from incremental new business? Is there some additional benefit from mix shift, from smaller cars, medium cars and the light truck that's helping you kind of at least outperform what we were expecting?

Mark Wallace - Executive Vice President and Group President, On-Highway Driveline Technologies

Analyst

Yeah, Dave, it's Mark Wallace again. When you look at our Light Vehicle Driveline business, we've obviously had strong demand with Jeep and the Ford Super Duty. We had very strong demand with Jaguar Land Rover in England as well as we see a recovering market in Thailand. But on top of that, as mentioned before, we're seeing the expansion on the Colorado/Canyon hitting us full year at better than we expected. So kind of a good news across the board, we're seeing definitely some improvement in the current base of business, but as well as our new business coming on at the better margin rates. David J. Tamberrino - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Understood. That all makes sense. And just lastly, the U.S. GAAP tax rate, I think that was moved up from 24% to 31%, anything there we should be aware of? William G. Quigley - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah, we touched that up a bit. This is Bill. And you're exactly right, we touched it up to about 31%. And what you'll note here is we're seeing kind some incremental tax expense largely around our U.S. operations. You'll recall in the fourth quarter of last year, we released or had a benefit in the income statement of about $179 million of our deferred tax valuation allowance. And what we're seeing is under the accounting rules, we now have to book a tax expense at the – basically the U.S. rate even though we haven't completed the planning action that we undertook to realize the benefit a year ago. So basically, what you're seeing is kind of neck up on that tax expense. And as we kind of proceed the rest of the year, as we look also at our valuation allowance and our deferred tax asset positions, that probably will be a fourth quarter discussion item as well. There is no cash impact to this, obviously, with respect the utilization of the NOLs. It's just more of the timing of expense recognition via the accounting rules versus what we had expected when we put our guidance out at 23%. David J. Tamberrino - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Understood. And that's all from me. Thanks again and congrats on the quarter. William G. Quigley - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Thank you.

Mark Wallace - Executive Vice President and Group President, On-Highway Driveline Technologies

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your final question comes from the line of Brian Johnson with Barclays. Please go ahead with your question.

Steven Hempel - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Hi, good morning, team. It's actually Steven Hempel on for Brian Johnson. William G. Quigley - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Oh, okay.

Steven Hempel - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Just wanted to touch base on a couple of things that are inter-related here. Related to new business launching in 2015, I believe in the Q here, you lay out that some of the offsets from higher market volumes and weaker currencies are being offset by contributions from new business programs launching in 2015. I believe that's likely related to the GMs new mid-size truck program, but before, you noted that the net backlog is actually firm at this point. So is basically, the net backlog coming in from that program higher than expected, but being offset by currencies, euro, and other programs that might – the net backlog might be lower or I guess if you could just help us clarify what you actually meant by higher contribution from new business programs? William G. Quigley - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. Let me take is for first shot, Mark, and you can follow up on this. If you think about the backlog and we had the progression and how it was going to increment 2015 forward, there was an incremental increase of about $140 million expected for 2015 as we progress through the year. So I think it's twofold actually. One was that was based on an assumption of production and we use one particular platform being the GM platform that we launched late last year. It had an assumption with respect to demand. So twofold, one is we're certainly meeting that assumption if not exceeding it, but I think the more important piece of the puzzle as well is, is that we're seeing the margins that we expected on that business and obviously from a volume perspective, we're seeing an uptick in our contribution margin. So you're exactly right, it's kind of the best of the best if you will. It's a great program for us, hopefully a great program for GM as we're seeing. Reasonable and good returns on that business in excess of our base business and you're right, we're seeing some upside in the production environment as we head through not only the first quarter, but the rest of the year.

Steven Hempel - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. And is there any offsets that are offsetting that additional, I would assume that should be grouped in that backlog then or is there a potential upside to that net backlog for 2015? William G. Quigley - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: I would suggest there was really no offsets to that other than outside of FX, right, but from a pure volume perspective, probably in the current year, might be some positive there.

Steven Hempel - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Okay, and then just kind of related question here. I looked at volume mix for LVD was roughly 20% on an incremental margin basis. I assume that's largely related to the new business that's rolling in. Should we expect similar type of kind of incremental margins here for that business moving forward through kind of 2016 and 2017? I believe historically you've kind of indicated 15%-ish type incremental margins, so just trying to gauge what we should be expecting as new business starts to ramp?

Mark Wallace - Executive Vice President and Group President, On-Highway Driveline Technologies

Analyst

Steven, just on the margin for Q1, definitely the new business is driving the higher major portion of the margin, but also we continued to work on our cost improvement initiatives inside. So we do expect that the LVD business will continue to have stronger margins than historically and will be again part of our margin expansion into 2016 as well.

Steven Hempel - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Okay, great, and then just one quick follow-up housekeeping, are you still expecting pricing recoveries to be a $75 million to $100 million tailwind in 2015? William G. Quigley - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Steven, this is Bill. No, not at all, because much of that if you think about it, was what we were experiencing largely in South America, largely around Venezuela. What the expectation was obviously as we discussed in early January pre the disposition was, that was going to be the same situation, certainly with the solution that we came up with Venezuela, that's going to neck down significantly. I would suggest it's going to be more of a normal course inflation recoveries that we have around the world with respect to certain countries that we operate in, that are kind of well-worn paths with the customers. I think the exception a year ago and really two years ago is largely around Venezuela.

Steven Hempel - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Right, great, thanks for taking my question. Roger J. Wood - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay, this is Roger, I just want to thank everyone for joining the call today and we'll see you next time. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

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