Stephen Oswald
Analyst · Noble Capital Markets
Okay. Thanks, Chris. And thank you, everyone, for joining us today for our 2017 fourth quarter conference call. I'll begin providing an overview of recent developments, after which, Doug Groves, will review our financial results in detail. So we just completed a very important year for Ducommun, one of which will lay the foundation for future growth through several initiatives designed to strengthen our core capabilities. As you know, we purchased Lightning Diversion Systems or LDS last September, bolstering our electronics business proprietary technology suitable for numerous aerospace and defense applications. I'm pleased to announced that -- you know the LDS has been fully integrated into the company, and that its leader, Dave Wilmot has taken additional responsibility here at Ducommun to help drive the growth of our electronic segment. Dave is off to a great start in the company as a key part of my leadership team. We also announced last quarter, the company will begin implementing a multi-stage structuring program to cut costs, improve operating efficiency and ultimately, increase our asset utilization, particularly with regards to our structure's operation, where we need a good amount of improvement. While the structures margins are predictably low due to our investment in next-generation programs and the expansion of our Parsons facility, this was a big focus for the Q4 restructuring activities. Therefore, as expected, we began by taking $8.8 million of restructuring charges in the Q4, reflecting actions taken across the entire company, which Doug will review shortly. The Structural segment, as mentioned, was 65% of this cost or $5.8 million, where significant work needs to be done. The charges in total encompass severance, lease termination and fixed asset impairments meant to start the process of consolidating functions and eliminating redundancies across the organization. We reduced the number of Vice Presidents in the company in our operations from 12 to 6, took out one entire layer of management to flatten the organization and consolidated our business units from 6 to 3. Due to these changes that were difficult to make, we are much more nimble, transparent and close to the customer. We have also closed some small facilities, written off excess machinery and equipment and continuing the process of exiting fully performing programs such as certain regional and business jet platforms and a few helicopter programs, as we discussed in the past. Our overall adjusted operating margin for Q4 was 5%, excluding restructuring expenses and certain one-time inventory purchase accounting adjustments related to the LDS acquisition. This is versus 5.2% in Q3 and 6.4% last year. While we are working out many of the changes and headwinds from 2017, I fully expect, and you should, too, better margins in 2018. We remain on track to complete the company's restructuring program with 2018 and realize approximately $14 million in annual savings, starting next year. And we are driving and committed to be a much better, stronger and innovative supplier to the aerospace and defense industries. Another positive development for our investors in the company as we enter the year with a significant uptake in our backlog to a record $726 million. This backlog cuts across both our military and commercial segments and is a great sign for the year ahead. So I'm feeling very good about 2018. As we work hard, take steps and position the company for faster growth, higher margins and stronger customer relationships, all leveraging our proprietary processes, technology and highly-skilled staff. Now let me provide some color on our end-use markets, products and programs. Beginning with our military and space sector, we posted fourth quarter revenue of $63.8 million, down slightly from last year, primarily due to some timing of certain deliveries. While greater rack shipments were lower year-over-year in Q4 as our structural components for military helicopters, we saw a strong growth in the missile defense platform, particularly for Raytheon's Paveway laser-guided systems. This became one of our top defense-related programs for last year. For 2017 as a whole, to comment on military and space revenue, it was just under $260 million, up 13% from 2016 $229 million. Our backlog, again a great story, grew as well, ending 2017 at $277 million versus $256 million beginning of the year, with most of the increase due to awards across our innovative defense and electronic applications. Given this level of contract activity, I feel confident that Ducommun will again mark solid performance across military and space platforms this year as well. This is due to the key programs we're on, the ongoing need for technology upgrades with our customers and, of course, the potential for increased defense spending. With our commercial aerospace operations, fourth quarter sales were $64.1 million, up just slightly from-- last year, again reflecting shipment timing. Notably, we saw a nice gain in revenue for a large fixed [indiscernible] aircraft applications, particularly on the Boeing 737 platforms and the Airbus A320 family. Revenues on this platforms were up 28% in 2017 and now represent almost 40% of our commercial aerospace business. We also saw our business on Airbus platforms grow almost 30% in 2017 as we continue to win content with this important end-new customer. It's worth noting as well, as previously discussed, to comment as exited fully performing regional and business jet platforms as well as exiting a couple of the helicopter programs, which I've mentioned. We ended 2017 with record commercial aerospace backlog of $418 million, up $60 million from where we were at the start of the year. This clearly shows the momentum we're building across the commercial landscape as well as benefit from increased build rates with the large airframe portion of our business. In addition, while we made some decisions to exit certain unattractive platforms, the regional business jet space was still bullish on certain opportunities. For example, we're excited about our wins with Gulfstream and look forward to the ramp-up in 2018 of the G500 and G600 series, a new family of large-cabin long-range business jets. Ducommun is a sole source supplier of titanium auxillary power inlet duct and the cooler ducts for these aircrafts, which we'll supply out of our Parsons facility. Along with attractive wins such as this, where we're supplying value-added solutions that leverage our titanium expertise, we also see plenty of room for growth within the jet engine market along with our core narrow-body programs. We're making good progress on many new product introductions we've discussed in the past and expect most of them to be in production the first half of this year. These development programs have been somewhat of a drag on margins but are now seeing marketplace success. And given the completion of our Parsons expansion this spring, which will result in slow but steady improvements to our operating leverage along with ongoing ramp-up of new platforms. Such programs remain on track, including Boeing 737 MAX, our largest. And we're excited about the additional business our state-of-the-art titanium applications can win. I've seen a lot of progress in Q4 from the team, especially in support of all the organizational changes, and now position the company well for higher growth, margin expansion and improved return for shareholders. With that, I'll now have Doug review our financial results in detail. Doug?