David Shaffer
Analyst · Oppenheimer. Please proceed with your question
Thanks, Mike. Before covering our second quarter of Fiscal 2020 results, I'd like to touch on a few important events that took place during the quarter that will help set the stage for the rest of our remarks. Please turn to Slide 3, In mid-September, we announced the acquisition of NorthStar from a Swedish private equity fund. In addition to a small [indiscernible] business in Stockholm, NorthStar has two production facilities in Springfield, Missouri, where it manufactures and distributes energy storage products, nearest in design and performance to EnerSys Thin Plate Pure Lead or TPPL products. The newest of the two factories also has additional floor space immediately available for our new TPPL high speed production line. As you may recall, we were going to have to take up two manufacturing lines to install the high speed line at our Warrensburg] facility. We will now be able to preserve $100 million of revenue capacity at Warrensburg on top of NorthStar's additional capacity and will no longer require an inventory build in advance and installation. This acquisition fits perfectly with our previously discussed strategy to increase sales of premium products as it will able EnerSys to dramatically accelerate our TPPL sales. The manufacturing processes and quality standards of NorthStar are very similar to EnerSys TPPL production and it will require modest -- only a modest investment to convert the NorthStar factories to build our ODYSSEY, NexSys and SBS products over the coming quarters. The proven expertise and training of the NorthStar production teams will dramatically accelerate our growth versus ordering and installing additional equipment, building on greenfield sites and training new employee teams. Lastly, NorthStar has blue-chip customers in Europe and given that Enersys currently imports significant amounts of products from Europe into the US market, this transaction will allow a rebalancing of factory loading and a dramatic reduction in inventory, freight duty, and currency risks. We are extremely excited to welcome the NorthStar team to the EnerSys family and will provide ongoing updates regarding the integration, synergy capture, and capacity expansion as we move forward. Mike will provide more color on the financial aspects of the acquisition during his portion of the call. The second significant event of the quarter was the fire that took place in the formation area of our Richmond, Kentucky plant on September 19. First and foremost, there were no injuries to any employees or responders for which we are very thankful. We are confident in our ability to eventually recoup the vast majority of the product and equipment replacement and business interruption costs through our insurance policies. However, for our third quarter, we will lose approximately $20 million in sales as reflected in our guidance. The third major event was our Investor Day at the New York Stock Exchange in early October, which by the way, the presentation is available on our investor section of our website. Thanks to all of you that attended or listened to the event, which we believe could not have been timed any better. EnerSys is reaching a key inflection point in its transformation as we build off of the two recent acquisitions we've completed, the modernization of our products to a modular system solution and expansion of our addressable markets and the use of [indiscernible] to drive down waste from our enterprise. We believe we laid out an evolutionary yet realistic roadmap during the Investor Day that reinforces the opportunity ahead of us and the process with which we expect to capitalize on them. Please turn to slide 4 for details of our second quarter EPS results of $1.23. Please turn to slide 5. Now I'd like to update you on some of our key markets which are progressing largely in line with prior calls. Our Motive Power Americas business was strong in the second quarter as demand for our TPPL products remains robust. We believe our ongoing efforts to expand production, including the acquisition of NorthStar, will enable further growth in TPPL. Overall in the Americas, organic sales were up 12% during the quarter compared to the prior year. In the first half of FY20, TPPL orders grew over 130% year-on-year and represented 11% of Motive Power Americas sales. As discussed on our last call, orders in EMEA are softening from our traditional Motive Power OEM factory customers. We also saw a return to lower second quarter seasonal patterns in EMEA, which we hadn't seen the year before due to limited industry supply. EMEA demand for Motive power TPPL products continues to accelerate. Motive power in Asia continues to slow, particularly in China given the current trade climate with the rest of Asia largely stable. During the Investor Day, Shawn O'Connell, President of our Motive Power Americas group spent considerable time highlighting our efforts to increase EnerSys' is relatively small share in the premium transportation sector. As you know, we have a technology platform with TPPL that we've adopted into a number of vertical markets and transportation is one of them. The transportation business in the Americas continues to improve as we sign up new customers for our ODYSSEY, TPPL products in the premium automotive, long haul trucking and agricultural spaces. In EMEA transportation, the ODYSSEY brand continues to be highly sought after due to its superior performance. Similar to prior quarters, our global telecom business continues to be soft. It is clear that normal spending patterns had been disrupted as the market awaits significant investments in modern high speed networks including 5G. In particular, one of Alpha's largest historic customers continues to restrict CapEx, which has delayed near-term revenue pressure. The team remains confident that this delayed spending is creating pent-up demand, which we will be unleashing at the broadband -- as the broadband networks continues to be stressed from streaming services consumption that requires more system build out . Our last note is that the Sprint, T-Mobile deal has received approval from the FCC and while it's currently being challenged by many states' attorney general, a confirmed merger should be drive -- should drive greater spending. Moving onto another exciting part of our business, we are pleased to have reached critical mass in the very attractive aerospace and defense sector. While these programs are taking time to get to this point, once you [indiscernible], it tends to be for the long term and we're excited about the progress we've made in the position we're in. EnerSys has been gaining market share and we anticipate our share will continue to grow. Please turn to slide 6, I will now provide an update on the continued progress we are making on our strategic initiatives. A year ago, we closed on our acquisition of the Alpha Technologies Group creating the only fully integrated AC and DC power supply and energy storage solution provider for broadband, telecom, and energy storage systems, a truly powerful combination that has already been validated by our customers. The integration is essentially complete, made successful by EnerSys' and Alpha's aligned cultures, focused on making high-quality products that our customers can rely on. By the end of FY20, we should have captured $25 million in annual synergies, which is well ahead of our initial target. In addition, by the end of FY21, we estimate the total synergies will reach $35 million, which exceeds the original target by $10 million. The integration of Alpha's and EnerSys lithium-ion programs is also progressing well. As I mentioned on our last call, a sample telecom system was developed, combines our lithium-ion modules and energy storage management systems from the Motive Power with AlphaRacks' telecom rectifiers and controller systems. We are extending this further to offer such advanced features as autonomous peak shaving, demand response and energy arbitrage capabilities. With these additions and higher voltages, we will be able to transition the technology to energy storage products for commercial and industrial applications. The lithium program is critical to our Outback subsidiaries photovoltaic energy storage system and this offering is an important niche in this fast-growing renewable back up to mitigate unstable grid, utility driven power outages like those reported in the California wildfires and other natural disaster prone areas and peak shaving markets. Our second major strategic priority is to significantly increase TPPL manufacturing capacity to reduce lead times and to meet the exciting and rapidly growing demand that far outstrips our current manufacturing footprint. It will take approximately six months and approximately $40 million of CapEx spending for the NorthStar facilities to be able to manufacture EnerSys' product types. In addition, over the next two years, we will likely spend additional $40 million CapEx at our existing EnerSys facilities to further expand their capacity during their capacity output. Our current TPPL manufacturing capacity of approximately $600 million should be done during the next couple of years. The new high-speed line shipping containers are beginning to arrive in Missouri and the installation and the testing should be completed by the end of FY20. Finally, on the new products, we have launched our 12-volt Motive Power TPPL block with carbon additives. This product will significantly enhance energy throughput. Although the additional carbon does not pose a significant process or cost impact to production, it allows us to achieve further margin improvements by offering a lower total cost of ownership or TCO for our maintenance free customers. The new TPPL Motive systems will have an integrated battery management system allowing for a similar customer experience as lithium while helping to extend the life of the energy storage product. In summary, we have the people, the products and the infrastructure in place to capitalize on the exciting growth opportunities ahead including a massive global 5G infrastructure build out and continued growth in broadband, increased global share for ODYSSEY brands and transportation, and our new product sales, including NexSys maintenance free for Motive Power and our fully integrated DC power systems and services for telecom. After three years of living and breathing this power solutions industry as CEO, I can say with complete certainty that needs for energy and energy storage and industrial markets will continue to grow and EnerSys is uniquely positioned today to participate in that growth for many years to come. With that, I'll now ask Mike to provide further information on our results, additional financial details on the NorthStar acquisition in the third quarter guidance.