Scott Robinson
Analyst · William Blair. Your line is open
Thanks, Tod. Good morning, everyone. We generated first quarter sales of $673 million and EPS was $0.51 per share. First quarter operating margin declined 90 basis points to 13.2% and our EBITDA margin of 16.7% was down 40 basis points. The delta between the two rates reflects incremental depreciation related to our significant capacity investments. While operating margin is still our primary metric, EBITDA offers a helpful reference point, as we progress through two years of elevated capital expenditures. As the rate of sales, operating expenses were up 130 basis points from last year. The increase was driven by loss leverage on lower sales and investments in our strategic growth opportunities. For example R&D was up 5% in the quarter, and we are adding more headcount and tools to the Industrial segment to build our connected solutions and thus, collection businesses. We offset a portion of these investments with gross margin, which grew 40 basis points in the first quarter. Importantly, gross margin was up in both segments. The increase was driven by benefits from pricing, along with lower raw material supply chain cost, which was partially offset by lack of volume leverage on lower sales. While we are pleased with the gross margin increase, we also recognize there is more work to do to create a sustainable level of improvement. Our top initiatives include leveraging new capacity; lower the cost of manufacturing and optimize the supply chain; cost takeouts within our mature manufacturing plants and strengthening our part level profitability, including continued refinement of pricing strategies. We expect to complete many of these projects over the coming quarters and we will continue to pursue new opportunities that will further enhance our gross margin. Turning to our other financial metrics. Our leverage ratio at the end of the quarter was slightly above one times net debt-to-EBITDA, which is a comfortable spot for us. Cash conversion was 75% in the quarter, up from about 50% last year. We’re making progress on releasing days sales outstanding and we have ramped up our focus on inventory and payables. I want to take a quick moment to thank all the people involved in driving these improvements, which are enabled by our global ERP. Fiscal 2020 marks the beginning of our fourth year of being on the system, and our team is focused on standardizing, optimizing and globalizing our processes. So a big thanks to all those people. I sincerely appreciate their passion, and I’m confident they will continue finding ways to make us more efficient organization. I’ll now turn to a review of our fiscal 2020 forecast. As Tod mentioned earlier, there are no changes to the guidance ranges we provided last quarter. I also want to remind everyone that we intentionally kept the guidance ranges wide this year to account for the greater level of uncertainty in the operating environment. One quarter-end, we still feel the same way. Between currency and commodity price fluctuations, the political environment and trade-related concerns we feel it’s prudent to maintain that approach. Starting at the top, full-year sales are forecasted between a 2% decline and a 4% increase from last year. This range includes a headwind from currency of 1% to 2%, partially offset by pricing benefits of 1%. Engine sales are projected down 4% to up 2%, with on-road and off-road each declining in the mid-teens. On-road sales are likely be pressured by a slowdown in Class A truck production, off-road will have the exhaust and emissions headwind, and we also expect markets will remain soft. Aftermarket sales are projected to increase in the low to mid-single digits, reflecting share gains and continued strength in sales of innovative products. PowerCore is a great example of how we plan to keep growing. Aftermarket PowerCore sales are up in the mid-single-digits last quarter, achieving a new quarterly sales record. When we talk about growing aftermarket with share gains, greater retention rates from proprietary products are a key part of that strategy. Rounding out engine sales of aerospace and defense are planned up in the mid-single digits, reflecting growth in commercial aerospace and ground defense. Sales in the Industrial segment are planned up between 2% and 8%. We expect a low single-digit decline in Special Applications, with secular headlines from Disk Drive being partially offset by growth in Venting. GTS sales are forecasted up in the low-single digits, reflecting higher sales of replacement parts. In IFS, sales are planned up in the mid to high-single digits, including the incremental benefit from BOFA. We received some questions about IFS after the last call, so let me add a little more color. First, we aren’t banking on very favorable marketing conditions. When we break down IFS, about half of total business unit is related to new equipment. That’s made up of things like new dust collectors and OE systems for compressors. We’re planning on these businesses to be down a bit this year reflective of the environment. The other half of AFS is dominated by our Advance and Accelerate portfolio, including dust collection replacement parts and process filtration. We expect healthy growth rates in these businesses will more than offset a softer demand environment for new equipment. I’ll also tend to get another – in front of another question you might have. We do expect sequential momentum in IFS over the course of the year. We expect benefits from the investments we’ve been making will layer in over the next several quarters. Consequently, our second-half growth in IFS should be much better than we expect in the first-half of 2020. I’ll talk more about calendarization in a few moments, but first, I will go through the rest of our fiscal 2020 guidance metrics. Operating margin is forecasted between 13.9% and 14.5%. That represents an increase from last year of 30 to 90 basis points, which we expect to be driven entirely by gross margin. There are a lot of moving pieces affecting our gross margin as we stand up new capacity, while working to transfer production from one facility to another. We expect to complete many of these projects as we move through the year, setting us up to deliver our full-year gross margin target. We are projecting the expense rate will be flat to slightly up from last year, with higher incentive compensation of about $10 million being the largest notable item. For our other operating metrics, we planned interest expense of $18 million to $20 million, other income of $4 million to $8 million and a tax rate between 25% and 27%. We expect capital expenditures to remain elevated at $110 million to $130 million. However, the pace of spend will likely drift down over the course of the year as projects are completed. We also expect to repurchase 2% of the shares again this year, which is consistent with our recent trends. Altogether, we’re planning cash conversion of 80 to 95% and GAAP EPS between $2.21 and $2.37. Before turning the call back to Tod, let me further elaborate on the calendarization of 2020 sales and margin. Consistent with what we outlined last quarter, we expect better year-over-year performance in the second-half than the first. The one reason for the cadence is that second-half as an easier comparison. When we reflect on the second-half of 2019, FX headwinds are more severe and engine was under pressure from OE destocking. We don’t expect to repeat that this year, which results in better performance. The only notable exception is on-road, where the widely anticipated Class A production slowdown will be more of a headwind later in our fiscal year. For operating margin, the full-year growth of 30 to 90 basis points will be driven by performance in the second-half. The first-half has a tough comp to deal with and we plan to realize benefits from our margin improvement initiatives later this fiscal year. While we would happily accept a little less uncertainty, I’m proud of the way our global team has responded to the uneven environment. I should point out that part of why our business is uneven is because of the choices we are making. As markets become less favorable, we’re building efficiencies in certain businesses, while continuing to press for growth and others. Our teams are doing a solid job of balancing these opportunities, and I’m confident that we’re making the right decisions to position us for long-term success. I’ll now turn the call back to Tod. Tod?