Earnings Labs

Dana Incorporated (DAN)

Q4 2015 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 18, 2016

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning and welcome to Dana Holding Corporation's Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 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 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 of Investor Relations

Management

Thanks, Brent, and thank you to everyone on the call for joining us today. 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 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 forward-looking statements about our expectations for Dana's future performance. Actual results could differ from those suggested by our comments today. 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 reports with the SEC. Presenting this morning is Jim Kamsickas, President and Chief Executive Officer; Rod Filcek, Senior Vice President and Interim Chief Financial Officer; and joining us for Q&A is George Constand, Vice President and Chief Technical Officer. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Jim. James K. Kamsickas - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you, Craig. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining the call. The results for 2015 were in line with the preliminary results we presented in January. We recorded sales of $6.06 billion as we battled strong currency headwinds last year. Adjusting for currency effects, full-year sales would have been approximately $6.7 billion. We did see positive organic growth last year with three of our business units posting a combined 5% organic growth rate compared with 2014. Net income was $159 million including some onetime items that Rod will discuss and diluted adjusted earnings per share of $1.74. Adjusted EBITDA was $652 million or 10.8% of sales. As you will see, performance…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. At this time, we would like to begin the Q&A session. Your first question comes from the line of Ryan Brinkman with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Ryan J. Brinkman - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Hi. Great. Thanks for taking my question. First is just on cadence of repurchases. Given the decline in the market, auto stocks generally and your stock in particular, would you consider maybe front-end loading the execution of that authorization that extends out through 2017? Rodney R. Filcek - Senior VP, Chief Financial & Accounting Officer: Ryan, this is Rod. As I mentioned, we're continuously looking at the cadence there. Quite frankly, we have other opportunities that we're looking at, some additional organic growth and some other opportunities. And so we're going to continue to evaluate the cadence as we look at those opportunities. So at this point, we're not prepared to depart from the cadence that I mentioned, which is basically even throughout the next couple of years, but subject to looking at the other opportunities.

Ryan J. Brinkman - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay, thanks. That's helpful. And then just lastly, any update on the situation at Paccar? I remember on the 3Q call, you'd mentioned wanting to regain some share there by year-end and Meritor at their Analyst Day in December talked about them gaining some additional production share. Then in Detroit you talked about a backlog that you shared there being updated for share losses. But I'm just curious if you're still seeing sort of opportunity to over time rebuild share at that particular customer. James K. Kamsickas - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning, Ryan. This is Jim. Thanks for the question. It's a little early for that. Fair question, but it's a little bit early to tell. I can only pass along to you that from a quality, delivery, overall execution, customer satisfaction, we're very comfortable with where we're at with all of our Commercial Vehicle customers, but things don't change overnight. So we'll see where that positions us, not just specific to your question about Paccar but across all the CV customers.

Ryan J. Brinkman - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. Great to hear. Thanks a lot.

Operator

Operator

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

Brian Colley - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst · Stephens. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning, guys. This is actually Brian Colley on for Justin. So my first question was just on the competitive landscape in the Off-Highway business. How has that evolved during the past few years as we've kind of weathered the difficult environment that we're seeing today? And mainly, I'm just curious to know if you think Dana is better positioned competitively once this market starts to come off the bottom? James K. Kamsickas - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you, Brian, for the questions. This is Jim again. I guess I would characterize it like this. I think we are better positioned, but I don't want to come across as an advertisement. I think we're better positioned because frankly you know looking at the numbers that we're financially stable, and when markets get difficult, customers, one of the first things they do is when they're placing their bets and thinking about where they're going to put the next piece of business, they want to make sure they're going to put it – somebody that's going to be here, comment one. Comment two, they want to make sure they're dealing with a supplier that's still continuing to invest in technology, and I'm not going to go back to January or some other prior presentation talking about all our technology, but we provide real technology in that market as well as our other markets. So l feel very bullish about our opportunity continuing to take share. Unfortunately, with the market continuing to decrease, you just don't see it in the top line today, but I certainly feel good about tomorrow.

Brian Colley - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst · Stephens. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Thanks for the color there. And secondly, I wanted to ask about the cost structure of the business. A lot has changed since the prior cycle. So I was wondering if you could talk about how the cost structure breaks out between fixed and variable cost today and how that split compares to what it was maybe in the prior cycle. Rodney R. Filcek - Senior VP, Chief Financial & Accounting Officer: Brian, this is Rod. I wouldn't say there's any significant shift in the cost structure. We're continuously looking at opportunities and ways, and I think we still have some opportunities to continue to improve on the cost front. Those are opportunities we're certainly looking at pursuing. But in terms of kind of the mix between variable and fixed, I don't think that's changed significantly.

Brian Colley - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst · Stephens. Please go ahead.

All right. Thanks for your time. James K. Kamsickas - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

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

Patrick E. Nolan - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. James K. Kamsickas - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hey, Patrick.

Patrick E. Nolan - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Two questions. On the cost savings side, the $25 million that you're looking to spend this year, how are you thinking about that in terms of do you see additional opportunities here to take more cost out of this business as some of your business is potentially peaking and going to a volume downturn? Is that something you'd take up those restructuring actions this year? Rodney R. Filcek - Senior VP, Chief Financial & Accounting Officer: Yeah, Patrick, this is Rod. I was assuming you were talking about the $25 million of cash spend on restructuring. A portion of that, probably a little less than half of it, is for actions that we've already taken, and there's still some additional cash to be incurred. The remaining portion, quite frankly, we're still finalizing exactly what the plans will be for that. As I just mentioned, we're continuously looking at some opportunities to further improve the cost position and cost structure. And we just haven't finalized all those plans yet to be definitive about how the entire amount of that $25 million is going to be spent at this point.

Patrick E. Nolan - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Got it. And if I could just turn to the Commercial Vehicle business. Just simplistically, it looks like that you're implying a bit of a pickup in the revenue run rate versus what we saw in Q4. Is that just seasonality or are you assuming any improvement in underlying trends? And within that, the performance has been pretty positive on the revenue side for that business over the past couple years. Do you expect that to turn negative as the industry goes into a downturn over the next couple years? James K. Kamsickas - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Let me take at least the second of those first. The downturn, to reiterate, the thing about Commercial Vehicle is last year you're talking about record highs and all that type of thing. So to be in the $240 million to the $260 million range in Class 8 this year, we see that as really more of a normal situation. So to answer (41:32) that's where we're at. As it relates to Q4 to Q1, I think, Rod, I think it's safe to say that it's relatively stable. Rodney R. Filcek - Senior VP, Chief Financial & Accounting Officer: Yes. I think that is certainly seasonality, Patrick. We still see this, I'll call it, seasonally adjusted run rate being in the $240 million to the $260 million range that we're forecasting for 2016.

Brian Colley - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Okay. Thanks very much. I'll just get back in the queue. James K. Kamsickas - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Brian Sponheimer with Gabelli & Company. Please go ahead. Brian C. Sponheimer - Gabelli & Company, Inc.: Hi. Good morning, guys. James K. Kamsickas - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning, Brian. Rodney R. Filcek - Senior VP, Chief Financial & Accounting Officer: Good morning, Brian. Brian C. Sponheimer - Gabelli & Company, Inc.: Jim, this is your second call now. You've been on since August. You made the Magnum acquisition, and I guess just a longer term, as you've had the time to reflect on last six months, what do you think are the best opportunities to really drive value in this business as you kind of look at some choppy markets over the next couple of years? James K. Kamsickas - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good question. All good questions. Thank you, Brian. First, I'm a believer organic growth is usually the best. I'm almost dating myself three decades in the business and usually that's where it come back to if you execute appropriately. And so that's certainly going to be our focus. I'm very bullish on what we can continue to do. You saw the growth numbers in this presentation as well as in January. So I feel very strongly there. In terms of allocation other than that, I think it all depends, right? And not to be kind of non-direct on that question. It all depends on the opportunity that's in front of you and from an organic standpoint versus we just touched on potentially some restructuring opportunities to all the other levers that you can pull on the business. Only thing I can say, and I wish I could be more direct, because it all depends on what's coming at you, we won't…

Operator

Operator

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

Brian A. Johnson - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays. Please go ahead.

Yes. Good morning. Two questions. One, drill down on CV kind of walk, and then second is more of a strategic question on Light Vehicle. On the Commercial Vehicle side, we certainly understand those non-repeat of warranty and some of the premium freight. But could you sort of give us as you do in your annual walk the kind of currency volume mix performance walk from 2015 to 2016 in Commercial Vehicle on the EBITDA side? Rodney R. Filcek - Senior VP, Chief Financial & Accounting Officer: You were a little – I'm not sure I heard the entire question, Brian. But I think your question was about kind of walking the volume from 2015 and 2016.

Brian A. Johnson - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays. Please go ahead.

Yeah. The pricing and the currency volume mix and performance of 2016 over 2015. Rodney R. Filcek - Senior VP, Chief Financial & Accounting Officer: Yeah. And certainly as we walk the volume from 2015 to 2016 in CV, the Class 8 market, North America is going to be down. That's going to take volume down a little bit. Then we're going to have a full year of run rate on the lower sales with our major customer in that group. So, that's really what's driving the lower sales in CV from 2015 to 2016. It's really the two factors, I would say, from a volume perspective.

Brian A. Johnson - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays. Please go ahead.

And on the EBITDA walk side? Rodney R. Filcek - Senior VP, Chief Financial & Accounting Officer: I'm sorry?

Brian A. Johnson - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays. Please go ahead.

The EBITDA walk, how much is volume mix, how much is currency? Rodney R. Filcek - Senior VP, Chief Financial & Accounting Officer: Oh, the EBITDA walk, the EBITDA reduction again, the currency, you can calculate the currency, about $5 million or so and most of the other impact is – aside from the performance pickup of the onetime cost is going to be volume-related.

Brian A. Johnson - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays. Please go ahead.

Okay. So performance really comes from the non-repeat. Second, on the Light Vehicle side, both in Power Tech and in Driveline, what benefits are you seeing, if any, yet from the shift from cars to light trucks in the showroom? And then in terms of quoting activity and maybe new business, some of the capacity expansion in light truck, that companies like Fiat, Chrysler, and Ford have been hinting at? James K. Kamsickas - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. I'll take this one. Thank you, Brian. Just real quick, we're not – on the second question, not really prepared to – and I don't think you're asking me to, to quote on the rumors that we're all hearing out there. I would only tell you that Dana certainly is in play. It's our sweet spot for that for potential incremental volumes; on some of those programs we're in play and potential new programs we're in play. So I feel good about our chances given our product portfolio. Brian, what was the first part of that question, just to make sure I didn't miss it?

Brian A. Johnson - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays. Please go ahead.

Are you seeing it in current production volumes in terms of take rates on light trucks boosting either Power Tech or Driveline? James K. Kamsickas - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I think it's in line basically with our guidance and so on and so forth, nothing more of any substance. We're certainly busy, we're certainly running full out, but nothing any more than what we've put into our numbers at this point.

Brian A. Johnson - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays. Please go ahead.

Okay. Thank you. James K. Kamsickas - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Pat Archambault with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Patrick Archambault - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Oh, yeah. Thanks very much and good morning. Yeah. I guess just a follow-up, I don't know if I heard this incorrectly on page 18. So, you gave the number for the premium freight and the warranty piece in terms of the Commercial Vehicle walk. But which won't repeat (49:59). Did you say there was a positive of $25 million that was one-time in nature or did I just mishear that, which is probably what happened? Rodney R. Filcek - Senior VP, Chief Financial & Accounting Officer: There was a $25 million pricing action that benefited the EBITDA that partially offset the transition, the supplier transition warranty cost that I mentioned. I mean, that would not be one-time. That pricing action kind of continues into the future. Patrick Archambault - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Okay. Yeah. Because that was my question because it seems like net of those things, they kind of washed out in 2015. So, there wouldn't – so, okay, unless that does repeat in the same order of magnitude, right, you won't really get much of a sort of onetime benefit, if you will. Rodney R. Filcek - Senior VP, Chief Financial & Accounting Officer: Right. Patrick Archambault - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Okay. But it does, all right. My second question is just on the content of Super Duty. Is it possible just to mention what the CPV is on that program in Brushstrokes and well, let's just go with that. James K. Kamsickas - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: We haven't typically provided content per vehicle kind of data and don't really have that at my fingertips to give that to you. Patrick Archambault - Goldman Sachs & Co.: All right. Well, failing my luck at that, can I ask maybe if – I had to try. Is there a difference between in your content moving from the old model to the new model? Does it step up? Does it step down? Is it more or less the same? I mean clearly from a volume perspective, it's probably an opportunity, but is it from a content as well? James K. Kamsickas - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: No. There is incremental content. I can tell you that, Pat. Patrick Archambault - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Any kind of dimensioning on that? James K. Kamsickas - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Craig is telling me no. So, I guess no. Look, I like your effort. Patrick Archambault - Goldman Sachs & Co.: All right, guys. That's what I had for you. Thanks a lot.

Craig Barber - Director of Investor Relations

Management

Thank you. James K. Kamsickas - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. Brent, I think we have time for one more call.

Operator

Operator

The final question will come from the line of Irina Hodakovsky with KeyBanc. Please go ahead.

Irina Hodakovsky - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. James K. Kamsickas - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hi, Irina.

Irina Hodakovsky - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

To follow-up a little bit on that last question for the Commercial Vehicle. Just to be able to gauge maybe some sensitivity in terms of potential downturn. Your estimate right now for the market is $250 million at midpoint. If we were to gauge what that means, if another 5,000 units came down, how can we think about that in terms of modeling decremental margins or revenue impact?

Craig Barber - Director of Investor Relations

Management

Hi, Irina. This is Craig. We haven't given that specific sensitivity. As you know our mix in Commercial Vehicle is maybe a little bit different than some of the peers since we have a higher percentage of medium duty as well. So, it's not a straight line. We can look at maybe providing that in the future, but we don't have anything on that right now that we can share.

Irina Hodakovsky - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Got you. And just one last question. Also in terms of volume and expectations, Brazil, a small piece of your mix but a large impact on earnings. And wondering you're looking at a flat market into 2016 in Brazil. The start of the year so far was what one headline described as dismal. Wondering what's driving your confidence that that would improve as we go through the rest of the year. Rodney R. Filcek - Senior VP, Chief Financial & Accounting Officer: This is Rod speaking. We're not looking for it to improve quite frankly in 2016. We're just kind of hunkered down there doing everything we can to keep the cost base as minimal as possible. So, I think the improvement we expect is going to be post-2016.

Irina Hodakovsky - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

But you're not expecting the market to decline relative to 2015 and 2016. James K. Kamsickas - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Not significantly.

Irina Hodakovsky - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

All right. Thank you. James K. Kamsickas - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. Well, thank you again everyone for joining the call. Just quick summary from my standpoint, anyway. There is no question that we had a bit of a difficult year in the Commercial Vehicle Group largely due to currency in the Brazilian market. But the group is certainly stable now and improving every day. However, I'm sure it's not lost on anyone that three of the four business units performed exceptionally well and continue to perform at a very high level. Even that, with some very challenging end markets which will naturally improve some day. Now after six months at Dana, I'd say I'm very excited about Dana and our prospects and frankly achieving our guidances we presented not only in January, but we reiterate it today. So, thank you very much for your support and joining the call. Have a great day.

Operator

Operator

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