Joe Bellino
Analyst · D.A. Davidson. Your line is now open
Thank you, Tony and good day everyone. And thanks for the kind words. Looking at the third quarter of 2015 results, earlier today we reported a net loss of $9.5 million or $0.86 per share for the current quarter. This compares to net income of $2.9 million or $0.26 per diluted share for the third quarter of 2014. I will get into the details in a moment, but as Tony mentioned, this reflects a pre-tax charge of $22.7 million, which is $1.28 per share on an after-tax basis and it includes the following pre-tax charges. The recording of a $10 million forward loss reserve on a regional jet program, a $0.8 million restructuring charge, and $11.9 million charge for debt extinguishment expenses incurred relative to our new debt structure, which we finalized during here the third quarter. Net sales for the third quarter of 2015 were approximately $162 million that's roughly 14% lower than the comparable period in 2014. The revenue decline reflected a $26 million decrease in the military and space revenues. In this area, we have seen reduced demand for both structural solutions and technology applications. This reflects lower aggregate government defense curtailments and shifting spending priorities. Within the commercial aerospace arena by contrast, which was up slightly year-over-year we continue to experience solid revenue as we benefit from the sustainable large commercial air frame build rates and increased content. During the quarter, we experienced significant growth in our commercial aerospace bookings both in the structural and electronic solutions, largely contributing to our total backlog at quarter end being nearly identical to year-end 2014. We expect the current macro environment to be similar over the next few quarters. We had previously indicated that 2015 would be a transition year as we work through the decline in demand with our military and space end-use markets, streamlining operations realizing supply chain efficiencies and cut cost to strengthen the company. Excluding the forward loss reserve our adjusted gross margins were 18.6%, as compared to 17.6% in last year's comparable quarter. As we realize the benefits from actively managing this transition and from efforts to improve product mix, eliminate lower margin products, and reduce manufacturing expenses. As we continue with profit improvement initiatives, we expect to sustain or potentially improve these gross margin levels. We remain committed to addressing the issues in front of us and a return to company profitability levels of which we are capable. This means further headcount reductions lowering of indirect labor cost, improving our manufacturing performance and effective execution on certain new programs. As Tony summarized, we have a total target of some $6 million to $8 million in cost reductions for the company with additional work underway. Our cost-cutting activities will continue as we remain committed to improving financial results in the fourth quarter of 2015 and beyond. We expect our New York facility consolidation project to be completed in the next few months. As a result of this move and other restructuring actions in progress, we expect to take an additional $1.7 million to $2 million restructuring charge in the fourth quarter. Ducommun’s operating loss for the current quarter was approximately $1 million as compared to operating income of approximately $10 million in the third quarter of 2014. Excluding the $10 million forward loss reserves and the $0.8 million restructuring expenses, which did total $10.8 million, the current quarter operating income would be $9.6 million or 6% of revenues, as compared to 5.3% of revenues in last year's third quarter. We are now seeing the benefits of the completion of our refinancing mid-year and with the new debt structure, interest expenses were $3.4 million or 2% of revenue as compared to $7 million or 3.7% of revenue in last year's third quarter. We estimate interest expenses will be approximately $2.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2015. Our effective income tax benefit during the quarter was 42.1%, compared to 37.4% effective income tax rate for the comparable period last year. The higher rate reflects the pre-tax loss this year compared to pre-tax income in 2014. We expect the effective tax rate for the fourth quarter of 2015 to average approximately 37%, excluding any potential benefit from the federal, research, and development tax credit. There was traction in Congress for approval of these credits for 2015 and 2016, which would be an additional benefit to us. EBITDA was $5.5 million or 3.4% of revenue in the third quarter of 2015. Excluding the forward loss reserve and restructuring expenses, EBITDA would have been approximately $16 million or 10% of revenues as compared to $18.4 million or 9.8% of revenues in the third quarter of 2014. Now looking at the individual business segments, starting first with Ducommun AeroStructures or DAS, our Ducommun AeroStructures segment posted revenues of approximately $64 million for the quarter, compared to $81.4 million in the third quarter of 2014. The lower revenue was primarily due to reductions in demand for our military helicopter applications coincident with lower defense spending levels and sudden setting of two long cycle defense programs. Our commercial aerospace structural applications remain at record levels, while up just slightly year-over-year they reflect certain timing differences regarding shipments. We continue to meet the delivery requirements of the large commercial air frame manufacturers, primarily Airbus and Boeing and we are positioned well to support the next level of increased build rates beginning in late 2016 and extending into 2017 and beyond. The DAS operating segment loss for the quarter was $6 million, compared to an operating income of $6.9 million for the third quarter of 2014. This decrease to an operating loss was primarily the result of the $9 million increase over last year's comparable quarter in forward loss reserves related to the regional jet program. In addition, DAS was impacted by approximately $3 million from an unfavorable product mix shift and $1 million in net expenses as it worked through our cost-cutting efforts. EBITDA for the DAS segment was a negative $3.6 million for the quarter, compared to $10.8 million or 13.3% of revenue for last year's third quarter. Now turning to the Ducommun LaBarge Technologies, DLT business segment, our DLT segment posted solid results with operating income, EBITDA and corresponding margin improvement this quarter compared to last year's comparable quarter. Revenue for the third quarter was $97.5 million, compared to $106.8 million for the third quarter of 2014. The lower net revenue was primarily due to an approximate 14.6% decrease in military and space revenue, mainly due to lower sales of radar rack and defense helicopter electronic applications, and then an approximate 2% decrease in our overall non-aerospace and defense revenue, primarily from the energy sector, which was partially offset by a 5% increase in our commercial aerospace electronics solutions. Through recent market development activities, we continue to enjoy increased demand for our commercial aerospace electronics applications with new customers. In our non-AND offerings, we have seen lower demand for our energy-related products over the last few quarters and expect that trend to continue well into 2016. However offsetting this, we're experiencing solid backlogs in other areas including our medical and in our industrial applications. DLT's operating income for the third quarter was $8.6 million or 8.8% of revenues compared to $8.3 million or 7.8% of revenues, for the comparable period in 2014. As you heard earlier, from Tony that there was also in our results for this quarter $0.8 million of the restructuring charges were within this segment Of the restructuring charges were within this segment. We did benefit in all those key profitability measures due to a favorable product mix and lower compensation and benefit expenses partially offset by loss of efficiencies from the lower manufacturing volumes. EBITDA was approximately $13 million or 13.1% of revenues, an improvement from the $12.7 million or 11.9% of revenue in last year’s comparable period. We continue to focus on product mix improvement and achieving the supply chain savings to sustain profitability in the segment. Corporate general and administrative expenses allocated to the business for the third quarter were $3.7 million or 2.3% of total company revenue, a decrease from $5.1 million or 2.7% of total company revenue in the comparable period. Now turning to our backlogs, our overall backlog at the end of the quarter was $553 million, up from $524 million at the end of this year’s second quarter. This was primarily driven by significant commercial aerospace orders. The increase reflects a combination of orders for existing programs and recent new awards as we continue to build our pipeline. As I mentioned in previous calls, timing differences may impact quarterly reporting of backlogs and at times it may not clearly reflect the strong underlying long term demands for large commercial airframe products. Quarterly backlogs even along long term programs now tend to be shorter in duration and lowering amounts than was previously the case. Despite that, we continue to work diligently to win additional orders across both our diverse commercial aerospace end markets and defense technology platforms. Regarding liquidity and capital resources, in the first nine months of 2015, we generated $12 million of cash from operations including the $9.8 million that we use for the redemption of the $200 million senior unsecured notes in July. Excluding this $9.8 million redemption payment, we generated approximately $18.2 million in cash from operations for the first nine months compared to $20.8 million during the comparable period in 2014. We remain diligent in effective working capital management and we expect our net cash profile going forward to reflect historic seasonal patterns. At the end of the quarter, our net debt to adjusted EBITDA is defined was approximately 4.2 to 1. While the real financial highlights was our new capital structure which involved completed a new credit facility at the end of the second quarter and finalizing with the redemption in new capital structure by taking out and redeeming in late July the 9.75% senior unsecured notes and replacing that with lower interest new credit facilities which we put in place in June. Upon completion of the refinancing, we had $275 million outstanding on the term loan and an unused balance on our revolver. Since that time, we have paid down $25 million in the third quarter and here in the fourth quarter already we have paid down an additional $10 million since then reducing our outstanding debt currently to $250 million. In addition, we have approximately a $198 million of liquidity. We are very pleased with the debt structure as it provides greater financial flexibility to execute strategic initiatives and it creates shareholder value by significantly reducing interest expenses. At this stage, we continue toward our goal of deleveraging to targets of 2.25 to 2.5 by the end of 2017. Capital expenditures year-to-date for the nine months were just under $13 million and for the year, we expect this amount to be around $15 million. Our capital expenditure spending this year primarily reflects the consolidation expansion of our upstate New York operations resulting in a state-of-the-art advanced titanium product center of excellence. In closing, we continue to focus on managing the changing mix in our business and are working to realize lower manufacturing cost throughout our operations. We also expect to see annualized cost savings of $6 million to $8 million beginning in the fourth quarter through our streamlining initiatives to help drive higher operating and EBITDA margins. In addition, we remain diligent with regard to expense management and working capital efficiencies which along with our significantly lower interest expenses to generate meaningful free cash flow going forward. Now, I would like to turn the program back over to Tony. Tony?