David Little
Analyst · Stephens Inc
Thanks, Kent, and thanks to everyone on our first quarter conference call today. We are off to a great start in 2018, and I will start off with a summary of my thoughts and Kent will take you through the key financial details. And we will aim to get all your questions answered through our prepared remarks and our Q&A session. After returning to significant sales growth in the second half of last year, our top priority is to sustain top line momentum and drive operating profits in 2018. This is our fifth consecutive quarter of sequential increases and we are going to aim at keeping this trend up. Let me thank all our DXP stakeholders, in particular, all our DXPeople for their hard work. Momentum is building in our business, and we are focusing on having a smart recovery. We are focused on growing the top line and bottom line as well as providing speed, quality and convenience for our customers and all stakeholders. Turning to our results. Total DXP revenues of $285.9 million for the first quarter of 2018 was a 7.6% sequential increase and a 19.9% increase year-over-year. This reflects continued improvement and stability in our end markets as well as the addition of Application Specialties, Inc., a leading metalworking and cutting tool distributor located in Auburn, Washington. This is the first quarter that Application Specialties has reported as part of DXP, and we are excited to have them as a part of the DXP family as ASI has great people who are customer-driven experts in metalworking solutions. For the first quarter, ASI contributed $10.6 million in sales. Adjusting for the acquisition of ASI, DXP sales increased 15.4% year-over-year and 3.7% sequentially. In terms of sales increase by business segment, I was pleased with the contribution of all 3 segments as we are seeing strength in our capital projects, MRO and OEM businesses. Innovative Pumping Solutions sales increased 37.9% year-over-year to $69.6 million, while Service Centers sales increased 17.9% year-over-year to $175.4 million and Supply Chain Services sales increased 5.3% year-over-year to $42.9 million. Overall, I am pleased with the growth, but it is great to see both sales growth and continued increases in our backlogs, especially within the IPS business segment. Innovative Pumping Solutions increase was primarily driven by modular packaging equipment for midstream onshore markets as the offshore markets are still soft. Sequentially, IPS experienced a 13.7% increase from Q4 of '17 to Q1 of '18 or an $8.2 million sales uptick. We continue to remain encouraged by the improvements in the IPS backlog, which has continued to grow into the first quarter of fiscal 2018. Trends in the IPS quarterly average backlog increased 80-plus percent from 2017 to 2018 and 8-plus percent from Q4 of '17 to Q1 of '18. The Service Centers sales growth was driven by increases in our Rotating Equipment, Metalworking and Bearing and Power Transmission product divisions. Within Service Centers, we saw particular strength in DXP's Southwest, Southeast and South Central regions. DXP's overall gross profit margins for the first quarter were 26.7%, a 32 basis point decline from Q1 of '17. However, adjusting for the acquisition of ASI, gross margins were 27% or essentially flat to the same period in 2017. I am pleased that we continue to work off the trough and our gross margins we experienced in the Q3 of 2017. In terms of ASI's gross profit margins, they are below DXP's average, but they produced operating income margins of 12-plus percent. The other factors that have impacted our gross profit margin: DXP's engineered-to-order business and DXP's safety service business in Canada have experienced slight improvements, but we are not where we want to be. And frankly, other areas of DXP compensated this quarter to the upside in terms of gross profit margins. Specifically, we saw strength in DXP's fabrication business at our 529 facility and increased margins in our private-label pump business. DXP's engineered-to-order business within IPS is still working through a reduced level of the complex, large high-margin orders and their overall cost absorption as they attempt to focus on more configured-to-order projects. In terms of DXP's Canada safety business, we are continuing to work through implementing price increases and adjusting our employee cost structure in order to make the gross margins we expect going forward. As we have discussed, this is the seasonal soft season in Canada and we expect to see progress on our efforts during the second half of 2018. SG&A for the first quarter increased $9 million versus Q1 of '17. As a percent of sales, DXP's SG&A declined 75 basis points going from 23.6% in Q1 of fiscal 2017 to 22.8% in Q1 of '18. That says similar to our Q4 commentary, SG&A reflects the growth and investment in our business and people. At the end of the first quarter, DXP had approximately 2,563 full-time employees. As always, it is my privilege to share DXP's financial results on behalf of these DXPeople, who work hard every day as one team, driving customer success and value creation. SG&A will increase as expected and reflect our investment in our people and our organization as we grow going forward. But as a percent of sales, SG&A will decline. DXP's overall operating income margin was 3.9% or $11.1 million, which includes corporate expense and amortization. This reflects a 45 basis point improvement in margins over Q1 of '17. That being said, we still have ways to go for full recovery. Service Centers operating income was 9%, while IPS and Supply Chain Services operating margins were 9.4% respectively. IPS operating income margins experienced the greatest increase, growing by 228 basis points year-over-year, driven primarily by improved gross margins. Service Centers increased operating income margins by 6 basis points, benefiting from the addition of ASI, which had a 12.3% operating income margin in the first quarter. Supply Chain Services operating income margins decreased by 52 basis points, driven by an increase in SG&A. Overall, DXP produced EBITDA of $17.9 million versus $15.5 million in 2017, a year-over-year increase of $2.4 million or 15.5%. EBITDA as a percent of sales was 6.3% versus 6.5% in Q1 of '17. Earnings per diluted share for the first quarter were $0.24 compared to $0.17 per share in the first quarter of '17, a year-over-year increase of 41.9% or $0.07 per diluted share. In summary, DXP delivered 19.9% sales growth, 15.5% EBITDA growth and 41.5% earnings per share. DXP and all our stakeholders remain excited about our future and a smart recovery as we move through fiscal 2018 as DXP believes our goal is to grow the top line and the bottom line at the same time as well as providing speed, quality and convenience for our customers and stakeholders. Before I turn it back over to Kent, I want to reiterate my excitement about the future and our capabilities to bring value to our customers, suppliers, DXPeople and shareholders. The first quarter was a great start of the year. DXP remains well positioned to benefit from the return to growth. DXP and all our stakeholders are fired up and excited about winning and growing as we continue to be customer-driven, partnered with great suppliers and take market share by being fast. With that, I will now turn it back to Kent to review the financials in more detail.