Earnings Labs

EnerSys (ENS)

Q2 2016 Earnings Call· Wed, Nov 4, 2015

$205.84

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to EnerSys Second Quarter Fiscal Year 2016 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will follow at that time. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would like to introduce your host for today's conference, Mr. John Craig, Chairman and CEO. Sir, you may begin. John D. Craig - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Good morning, everyone. And joining me on the call this morning is Dave Shaffer, our President and Chief Operating Officer; and Mike Schmidtlein. Now last evening, we posted information on our slides that we're going to be covering this morning on our website, which is www.enersys.com. Just as informed a few minutes ago that there is some technical problems, so you may not be able to see these things, even though we'll be referencing too, on this morning. But, before we get into the details on our second quarter results and what we're looking at for our third quarter, I'm going to ask Mike Schmidtlein to cover forward information, so Mike would your take it over from there please? Michael J. Schmidtlein - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Thank you, John, and good morning to everyone. As a reminder, we will be presenting certain forward-looking statements on this call that are based on management's current expectations and are subject to uncertainties and changes in circumstances. Our actual results may differ materially from the forward-looking statements for a number of reasons. Our forward-looking statements are based on management's current views regarding future events and operating performance, and are applicable only as of the dates of such statements. For a list of factors which could…

Operator

Operator

And our first question comes from the line of Ben Hearnsberger of Stephens. Your line is now open.

Ben Hearnsberger - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst

Hey, thanks for taking my question. First question on pricing, it looks like it held up really well in the quarter, despite some negative macro trends we've seen. Can you give us a sense for how you expect pricing to play out in the back half of the year and what you've seen so far in 3Q? David M. Shaffer - President & Chief Operating Officer: Ben, hi. This is Dave. The pricing largely reflects a very positive mix. We've introduced some new products and we always try to focus on the value our products provide. So we don't expect any major changes in that throughout the second half of the year.

Ben Hearnsberger - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. And then kind of along that vein, if we see a more pronounced industrial downturn, would the expectation be that your customers start to trade down from premium products to more of the standard products? David M. Shaffer - President & Chief Operating Officer: I think it's a very mature market, Ben. And those kind of decisions – they see the value and it's a total cost of ownership play. So, it's possible, but we don't anticipate a major change in the mix.

Ben Hearnsberger - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. And then last question on China telco, it sounds like you expect some volumes in 4Q. Will that be enough to get the segment to 10% operating margin by the end of the year? David M. Shaffer - President & Chief Operating Officer: We stated prior that's always our goal for every business unit to maintain that minimum. We think we're going to make a significant move in that direction and that is always our goal.

Ben Hearnsberger - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. Michael J. Schmidtlein - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: I'd like to add to that is, keep in mind that with business in Asia running at $200 million to $250 million. And as I've said on prior calls, that's just unacceptable for us. We have to look at doubling the size of that business over there. And the actions that we've taken, even though they hurt the P&L in the short run, in the long run they're the right decisions. We need to see this business go to $400 million to $500 million. That's why you see expansions that we've done or an acquisition in Australia, what we're doing in India, the new plants in China. We're investing for the future. If we wanted to keep that at 10% or near 10% in the short run, we wouldn't have made those investments. But whenever you start doing the things that we're talking about, thinking about long term, there's some pain you go through with that. So we'll look back on this in time and we'll be happy with what we're doing.

Ben Hearnsberger - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst

So, I guess the question is, are we going to go through more pain in the near term on the margin line or would the expectation be that we do get to that 10% sometime and I guess near the intermediate term? David M. Shaffer - President & Chief Operating Officer: Ben, we feel like many of the major changes are behind us and we're in the recovery phase, so we're on the way up. And specifically on exactly when the timing will be there, I can just say we're optimistic about the direction.

Ben Hearnsberger - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Sven Eenmaa of Stifel. Your line is now open. Sven Eenmaa - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Great. Thanks for taking my question. First, I wanted to ask in terms of telecom and reserve power market and regional dynamics you saw there. Was the North American telecom revenue stream for you guys stable quarter-over-quarter or did it still decline? David M. Shaffer - President & Chief Operating Officer: Sven, this is Dave again. I would say that specifically in the United States, we see that the telecommunications volume has stabilized. We've noted in the prior calls that we had seen some historically high numbers as two of the major carriers were doing their 4G rollouts. I don't anticipate we'll necessarily go back to those volumes in the short term. There are other businesses and other carriers that are trying to close that gap, so we will see some improvements, but the business in the U.S. has stabilized. The biggest issues we're seeing right now in telecommunications are stemming from the Middle East and Western Europe as the choppy rollout of the 4G continues. Sven Eenmaa - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Got it. And so just moving to the EMEA region, you mentioned that the quoting activity remains normal; but obviously, revenues were sequentially lower here. What is your expectation in terms of quoting activity or how much visibility you have in that quoting activity converting into orders? David M. Shaffer - President & Chief Operating Officer: That's been a mix bag. It's usually a question of timing, when those quotes turn in, and that's always the dynamic that's hard to control. I think that, unlike the U.S. the rollout in 4G is continuous. It's not just one country and one set of…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from William Bremer of Maxim Group. Your line is now open.

Travis DiGiacomo - Maxim Group, LLC.

Analyst

Good morning, gentlemen. This is Travis DiGiacomo on behalf of William Bremer. My first question comes in China. And if you could elaborate more on the certifications that you guys are trying to achieve there? David M. Shaffer - President & Chief Operating Officer: Yes, this is Dave. So, there is several different types of certifications. There is product certifications and factory certifications. We're active on all. Let's talk about the factory certifications, first. As you know, China went through a major upgrade of its battery factory regulations a couple of years ago as a result of some bad, I guess, performance by some of our competitors in terms of pollution. So the Chinese have implemented a new standard for what it takes to manufacture batteries in China. I can tell you, it's very rigorous. It has cost significant dollars of investment for the industry. Thankfully, we were closer to the standard than many of our competitors, so the impact on us was slightly less. In terms of the product qualifications, we had noted that we had walked away in the past from large China telecom business, because the margins were just too unattractive. We've since gone back, and redesigned our products, re-qualified the products. And as I noted earlier, we've had very good feedback about the tender results as a result of some of this testing qualification for redesign. And so, we're optimistic that the volume is going to increase as we exit fiscal year and our fourth quarter.

Travis DiGiacomo - Maxim Group, LLC.

Analyst

Okay. Great. Thank you. And can you touch on the Thin Plate Pure Lead? John D. Craig - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. Sure. David M. Shaffer - President & Chief Operating Officer: The Thin Plate Pure Lead continues to be one of our key profit drivers for the company. It experienced very good performance and it qualified in most telecommunications carriers around the world.

Travis DiGiacomo - Maxim Group, LLC.

Analyst

Okay. Great. And my last question is, do you guys achieve any revenue sources from DirecTV at all? David M. Shaffer - President & Chief Operating Officer: There's nothing direct that we know of, with regards to revenue from them and it's very difficult for us to anticipate, how – what's going on with AT&T and DirecTV, would impact our revenue directly.

Travis DiGiacomo - Maxim Group, LLC.

Analyst

Okay. Great. Thanks guys. I'll hop back in.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from John Franzreb of Sidoti. Your line is now open. John E. Franzreb - Sidoti & Co. LLC: Good morning, everyone. In your prepared remarks, you mentioned some sort of manufacturing variances or some sort of variances that will flow through into the third quarter. What exactly were they and how they impact the margin profile? Michael J. Schmidtlein - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Hey, John. It's Mike. So, yes, Dave did comment in his prepared remarks about the fact that in our third fiscal quarter it is normal that the manufacturing variances that we incurred during our summer slowdown, where we're often times shutting down factories to allow the staff there to go on vacation or holiday and to do maintenance repair. So, those variances typically, because we have about a three-month delay or a five-full rollout, those manufacturing variances hit our third fiscal quarter, even though they were incurred in our second fiscal quarter. So that puts a significant amount of pressure on the third quarter that you don't normally see. So we did have the impact of that. We also, as you probably saw in the Q, that we do still have about 85 million pounds of lead that's hedged in the mid to low $0.80 range, which is higher than the spot rate. So between the facts that sequentially our lead costs are not declining and our manufacturing costs are increasing, that's the primary reason you're seeing our guidance, which might surprise you that we were guiding down, because we don't necessarily anticipate the volume decline sequentially. We'd probably expect a slight increase, but those two are the primary factors that are leading us to expect. And as I've commented in my remarks, that I would expect…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And we have a follow-up question from William Bremer of Maxim Group. Your line is now open.

Travis DiGiacomo - Maxim Group, LLC.

Analyst

Hi, guys, just one more question. The pause in reserve power, can you elaborate a little bit more on that? What's impacting this? Is it hospitals? Data centers, what have it? David M. Shaffer - President & Chief Operating Officer: Yeah, that's a good question, this is Dave again. So, the pause principally we've discussed so far has been surrounding our telecommunications business. And you bring up the point about data centers, that's hit or miss depending on the region, and we don't break out reserve power by regions specifically. But, I can make a broad comment that the data center business is stronger in some regions than others, but it's not a particular strength right now as it may have been a few years ago, but most of what we've talked about today and most of what we're feeling sequentially or versus prior-year is related to telecommunications.

Travis DiGiacomo - Maxim Group, LLC.

Analyst

Okay. Great. Thanks, guys.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And at this time, I'm showing no further participants in the queue. I would like to turn the call over to John Craig. John D. Craig - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Okay. Well, everybody thank you for calling in this morning. We certainly appreciate your interest in our company and we wish everybody as best of day today. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation on today's conference. This concludes your program. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.