Gregg Sengstack
Analyst · Sidoti & Company. Please go ahead
Thank you, John.Second quarter 2019 results were below our plan and expectations. Continued record precipitation in the U.S., political uncertainty and social unrest in EMENA, economic weakness in other developing regions, and a slowdown in China all contributed. That said, second quarter revenue, operating income, net income, and earnings per share were records for any quarter in our Company's history.In the U.S. and Canada Water Systems business, large dewatering pump sales were up over last year but below expectations, again due to customers pushing out a couple of million dollars of orders into the second half of 2019.Backlog remained steady. Sales of other categories of surface pumps were up as well in the quarter. U.S., Canada groundwater pumping systems sales declined 12% on the back of lower sales through our Distribution segment. With much of the back office integration complete, we are focusing on reducing inter-segment inventory. Sales of groundwater pumps to third-party distributors were up 5% over last year.Moving outside the U.S., our Water Systems business in EMENA declined organically mid-single digits. As we supply components to other European pump companies, we view this slowdown as industry-wide. The Middle East is an important export market for European companies, and a political uncertainty and social unrest are impacting the pump business in this region.In addition, business in Turkey is slow, particularly in the Ag market. Farmers have not recovered from the dramatic devaluation of the lira that began last summer.Our Water Systems business in Latin America, outside Brazil declined organically as well. Throughout Latin America, political instability and fragile economies still trade the headlines. One bright spot in Asia Pacific, where like quarter one, our Water Systems business was up meaningfully. John will get into more details, but weakening currencies reduced our International Water reported revenue by 8% as compared to the second quarter of last year.Our Fueling Systems business delivered another record quarter with operating income up double digits. Sales were again up double digits in the U.S. and Canada. Business in China is back on track. But, we see growing evidence that the economic environment in China is impacting our business in two ways.First, state-owned oil companies are scaling back their capital plans; and second, “buy local” initiative is growing. At this point, we believe we will achieve our 2019 planned revenue of approximately $50 million in the country. However, we now believe that 2020 revenue will be between $40 million and $50 million.Sales in EMEA continued to be below expectations principally due to uncertainty around Brexit impacting underground tank sales and credit issues in Africa delaying build programs in the back half of 2019. Sales in Asia were down after a strong Q1. Sales in India recovered nicely and are back on plan. Our fueling business in Latin America continues to grow.Turning to distribution, like Q1 this end-customer facing business was the one most dramatically impacted by the extreme weather and high levels of precipitation experienced in many regions of the U.S. We had expected, hoped maybe that precipitation would normalize in Q2, and that didn't happen. However, the team did a great job of selling more non-water well products and delivered 1% organic growth in the second quarter.As expected, the overall weak demand in the water well market compressed margins, although they improved sequentially through the quarter. With many Headwater branches located in Midwest and West, the record precipitation resulted in sales of F.E. brand products through Headwater being 5% lower in Q2 of last year.That brings me to our outlook for the balance of the year. I will start with Distribution. End demand is there. We believe that the more normal weather conditions we are now seeing will lead to recovery in our Distribution business, July has started well. We believe our groundwater manufacturing business will also recover. Our sense is that inventory channel is about average for this time of the year.The outlook for our U.S. surface pump business is good as is the demand for our large dewatering pumps, we continue to focus considerable attention on expanding and diversifying our customer base, both by end market and geography.Overall, the business climate in the U.S. is robust. We are encouraged by the positive feedback we've gotten from the field. Even with the turmoil in EMENA, we are somewhat optimistic about the second half of 2019. We’re getting more traction with our expanding line of pressure boosting systems, we are seeing an increase in tender activity for North Africa, and believe we will see some improvement in the Middle East, albeit from a low base.We believe our European Water business is doing as well or better than most. Given our second quarter results, we expect Turkey to continue to be weak. We see Argentina stabilizing, and Brazil getting a little bit better as well. We are encouraged by our results in Australia, South East Asia, and in China, where we've introduced a new booster system that's gaining some traction.In our Fueling business, the outlook remains positive. The team is positioned to carry forward the strong start in the U.S. and our China revenues are recovering back to planned levels.Despite these positives, looking forward, our first half results did not meet our expectations, and we do not believe we will be able to achieve our original earnings per share guidance. We now believe our full year 2019 earnings per share before restructuring charges will be between $2.15 and $2.25, which at its midpoint would result in a second half 2019 earnings per share before restructuring charges of $1.29 [technical difficulty] percent increase over the second half of 2018.I will now turn the call over to John to discuss the numbers in more detail. John?