Michael J. Schmidtlein
Analyst · Sidoti & Company
Thanks, John. For those of you following along on our webcast, I am starting with Slide 4. As John mentioned, our third quarter net sales decreased 5% over the prior year to $612 million. This resulted from a 2% decrease in organic volume and a 6% decrease from currency translation, less a 2% increase from acquisitions and a 1% price increase. On a regional basis, our third quarter net sales in the Americas were down 4% to $314 million, while Europe's decreased 4% to $242 million, and Asia decreased 15% in the third quarter to $55 million. In the Americas, 3% was from negative organic volume in our enclosures business and 2% was from currency devaluation, while acquisitions contributed 1%. Europe had a 6% increase in organic volume due to a strong showing in reserve power and a 1% increase in pricing, overcome by 11% in currency devaluation. In Asia, organic volume was down 26%, with sales to China's telecoms remaining down and the impacts from the transition of motive power production to a new facility. Currency was also down 3% in Asia, while the new UTS acquisition contributed 14% to net sales. On a product line basis, net sales for motive power were down 3% to $305 million, while reserve power decreased 7% to $307 million. Motive power had a 1% pricing gain and a 2% gain from acquisitions, less 6% negative currency translation. Reserve power obtained 1% from acquisitions, while organic volume and currency translation were down 3% and 5%, respectively. Please now refer to Slide 5. On a sequential quarterly basis, third quarter net sales were down 3% to the second quarter due to 3% lower currency translation. The Americas region was down 6%, and Asia was down 13%, while Europe increased 4%. On a product line basis, reserve and motive power were both down 3%. Now a few comments about our adjusted consolidated earnings performance. As you know, we utilize certain non-GAAP measures in analyzing our company's operating performance, specifically excluding the highlighted items. Accordingly, my following comments concerning operating earnings and my later comments concerning diluted earnings per share exclude all highlighted items. Please refer to our company's Form 8-K, which includes our press release dated February 4, 2015, for details concerning these highlighted items. Please now turn to Slide 6. On a year-over-year quarterly basis, adjusted consolidated operating earnings decreased approximately $5.6 million with the operating margin down 20 basis points. On a sequential basis, our third quarter operating earnings were down $1.7 million, but margins improved 10 basis points. The decrease from the prior year reflects higher -- primarily higher commodity cost and lower volume. Europe improved both year-over-year and sequentially, while Asia and the Americas declined in both comparisons. Adjusted operating expenses declined $4 million from the prior year to 14.0% for the third quarter compared to 13.9% in the prior year. We would expect our full year adjusted operating expenses to remain near fiscal 2014's full year rate of 13.7%. Our Americas business segment achieved an operating earnings percentage of 13.3% versus 15.0% in the third quarter of last year, primarily from the dilution in our enclosure business and the impact of lower pricing in our aerospace and defense sales. On a sequential basis, third quarter improved 40 basis points again this quarter from the 12.9% margin posted in the second quarter and the 12.5% in the first quarter. Europe's operating earnings percentage of 11.5% remained above our 10% minimum target, and well above last year's third quarter of 8.5%, primarily from better volume, pricing and mix, and the impact of prior restructuring efforts. The operating earnings percentage in our Asia business declined in the third quarter this year to 4.4% from 11.1% in the third quarter of last year and from the 7.2% in the prior quarter. Asia is still transitioning its motive power production in China, implementing new business processes for the business we took over in India, and redirecting our Chinese business away from lower margin telecom markets. Please move to Slide 7. As previously noted on Slide 6, our third quarter adjusted consolidated operating earnings of $71.9 million, was a decrease of 7% in comparison to the prior year, with the operating margin decreasing 20 basis points to 11.8%. Excluded from our adjusted net earnings for the third quarter was approximately $2.4 million of highlighted net charges. Please see our press release issued yesterday for details of these items. Our adjusted consolidated net earnings of $51.6 million decreased 4% from the prior year, but remained at 8.4% of sales, with our booked tax rate just below 24%. EPS increased 2% to $1.09 on lower shares outstanding. The lower average diluted shares resulted primarily from recent share buybacks and less dilution from our convertible debt, which becomes dilutive when our shares rise above $39.93. This convertible debt dilution added approximately 1.4 million shares, net to this quarter's EPS calculation, and decreased EPS by $0.03 in our third quarter. We offset this convertible debt dilution by acquiring approximately 1.2 million shares in fiscal 2014, and we have acquired 2.8 million shares in fiscal 2015 through December, and 3.2 million shares to date through January and have nearly $16 million still authorized. We expect our fourth quarter of 2015 to have approximately $46.5 million weighted average shares outstanding, which represents another meaningful decline from the previous quarter. Please now turn to Slides 8 and 9. As usual, we have provided information on a year-to-date basis similar to that of our third quarter on prior pages. These 2 pages are full-year reference, and I don't intend to cover year-to-date results. Please now turn to Slide 10. Now some brief comments about our financial position and cash flow results. Our balance sheet remains very strong. We have $280 million on hand in cash and short-term investments as of December 28, 2014, with nearly $320 million undrawn from our committed credit lines around the world. We generated $173 million in adjusted cash from operations year-to-date in fiscal 2015. Our leverage ratio increased by $0.01 to 1.2x, due mainly to spending over $200 million on share buybacks and dividends through the first 3 fiscal quarters. Capital expenditures year-to-date are $47 million in fiscal 2015 compared to $49 million in fiscal 2014. Our full year spending should be comparable to last year. We expect to generate adjusted diluted net earnings per share of between $1.10 and $1.14 in our fourth quarter of fiscal 2015, which excludes an expected net charge of $0.12 per share from our restructuring programs and acquisition activities. We anticipate our gross profit rate in our fourth fiscal quarter to be between 25% and 26%. We believe our tax rate for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2015 will be between 24% and 26%. And for over the full year, we expect a 25% to 26% tax rate on our as-adjusted earnings. In conclusion, we believe we remain well-positioned to take advantage of future opportunities. Now let me turn the call back to John.