Christopher Hix
Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead
Thanks, Matt. I'll start my comments on Slide 8. Total company sales grew 9% in the second quarter to $925 million, including an 8% contribution from acquisitions and a 2% FX benefit. We actually expected more year-over-year currency benefit, but pressures emerge throughout the quarter that our businesses overcame to deliver the expected operating results. Gross profit grew $29 billion in the quarter and gross margins improved 70 basis points from acquisitions and restructuring benefits. Operating profit increased $2 million or $7 billion excluding amortization from acquisitions. As expected, year-over-year operating margins were lower than the prior year, but improved 90 basis points sequentially from our first quarter. We expect additional sequential improvements in the second half from higher margin orders, restructuring, and seasonally strong fourth quarter volumes. Tax contributed to this quarter's results as we converted some of the opportunities that the Fluid Handling divestiture created. The actions we took generated a one-time benefit that helped drive the tax rate down to 15% in Q2 and these actions will also contribute to our future tax rates. Adjusted EPS grew 36% to $0.61. In summary, our businesses overcame FX pressure to deliver expected operating profit and sequentially higher margins and tax changes benefited the quarter and future rates. Slide 9 includes the second quarter results of our Fabrication Technology business. Segment sales of $561 billion were up 8% organically in the quarter. The business achieved growth across the globe in an every product line. Acquisitions delivered six points to our topline growth and are performing in line with expectations. Adjusted operating profit grew to $71 billion in the quarter and margins increased 40 basis points year-over-year to 12.7%. The business is successfully addressing inflationary pressures through a combination of price and productivity improvements. Looking ahead, we expect the usual seasonal sales dip in the third quarter. Our teams will continue to address dynamic tariffs and inflation in the back half of the year, while driving greater productivity across the business. ESAB has positioned for a strong year-over-year improvement in margins in the fourth quarter, creating a healthy jumping off point for next year. The Air & Gas Handling segment as shown on Slide 10 was up 3% in sales quarter-over-quarter, including contributions from the acquisitions. The business had a small FX tailwind, but organically sales were down as expected. Sales in the industrial sector were up 34%. Oil and gas was relatively flat and power was down 44% following that Chinese investments step down in last year's third quarter. As Matt covered earlier, since the step down power sector order levels have remained in the expected range. Lower organic sales resulted in operating profit being down $8 million compared with the prior year. From our first quarter, margin sequentially improved 60 basis points were 260 basis points if you exclude the first quarter facilities sale gain. We are seeing the expected benefit of lower margin projects exiting backlog and restructuring benefits are increasing. We expect improved performance in the second half of 2018 with the seasonally strong fourth quarter for both sales and margins. Slide 11 shows we remain disciplined and agile in capital deployment with a focus on growth and shareholder value creation. We recently repurchased $6.4 million of our shares for $200 million of investment mostly during the second quarter, enabling us to take advantage of recent prices. We also supported our primary objective for capital deployment, which is our strategic growth program, including the GCE acquisition. Our Board authorized an additional $100 million for repurchases that remains open and available, creating additional flexibility for long-term value creation. During the quarter, we monetized our CIRCOR shares, completing the divestiture of the Fluid Handling business at an attractive multiple. We finished the quarter with significant global cash balances, gross leverage of 2.5 times and access to our $1.3 billion revolver. We have ample liquidity to pursue attractive platform acquisitions where we can apply our model for compounding value creation. On Slide 12, we discuss our outlook for the balance of the year. We started the year with an expectation of significant earnings growth, and I'm pleased to say that our view is strengthened and we are again increasing our guidance from $2.05-to-$2.20 to $2.15-to-$2.30. This represents year-over-year growth of at least 24%. In addition to discrete tax benefits in the first half of the year, our operating performance is playing out as expected. Our FabTech business is benefiting from healthy market conditions and battling inflationary pressures with pricing actions. Full-year organic growth in this business is expected to be 5% to 8% including price to offset inflation. Our Air & Gas Handling business is improving the profitability of orders, creating a better cost structure and building order funnels that support a strong second half finish with seasonally highest profits in the fourth quarter of the year. Our outlook includes restructuring savings that have expanded to more than $30 million, interest expense of $40 million to $45 million, 6.4 million shares repurchased and a 20% to 22% tax rate for the full-year that implies about 24% for the second half. We have not included the GCE acquisition in our guidance. That concludes our prepared remarks. Michelle, please open up the call for questions.