Earnings Labs

Flowserve Corporation (FLS)

Q1 2011 Earnings Call· Thu, Apr 28, 2011

$83.44

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning. My name is Michael, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Flowserve Q1 2011 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Mike Mullin. Sir, you may begin your conference.

Mike Mullin

Analyst

Thank you, operator. Good morning, and welcome to Flowserve's First Quarter 2011 Earnings Conference Call. Today's call is being webcast with our earnings presentation via our website at flowserve.com. Simply click on the Investor Relations tab to access the webcast and the accompanying presentation. For those of you that are listening to today's call through our dial-in phone number and also wish to follow along with the earnings presentation slides via our website, please click on the Click Here to Listen via Phone icon at the bottom of the Event Details page. The webcast will be posted at flowserve.com for replay approximately 2 hours following the end of this call. The replay will stay on this site for on-demand review over the next few months. Joining us today are Mark Blinn, President and CEO of Flowserve; Tom Ferguson, President of the Flow Solutions Group; and Tom Pajonas, President of the Flow Control Division; as well as Dick Guiltinan, Senior Vice President of Finance and Chief Accounting Officer; and Dean Freeman, Senior Vice President, Finance and Treasurer. Following our commentary, we will begin the Q&A session. Regarding any forward-looking statements, I will refer you to yesterday's earnings release and the 10-Q filing and today's earnings presentation slide deck for Flowserve's Safe Harbor Statement on this topic. All of this information can be found on Flowserve's website under the Investor Relations section. I encourage you to read these statements carefully with respect to our conference call this morning. The information in this conference call, including all statements by management plus our answers to questions related in any way to projections or other forward-looking statements, are subject to Flowserve's Safe Harbor. Now I would like to turn it over to Mark to begin the formal presentation. Mark?

Mark Blinn

Analyst · BMO Capital Market

Thank you, Mike, and good morning, everyone. Let me start by saying I'm pleased with our first quarter results. When you consider that we have generally faced challenging markets for more than 2 years now, it is significant to note that our employees have been able to maintain this level of quarterly performance at this stage of the economic cycle. Their strong dedicated work gives me increased confidence that Flowserve is very well positioned to benefit when the expected stronger portion of our business cycle fully arrives. Our short cycle end markets, which typically recover faster during the economic cycle and our long cycle markets saw double-digit growth in the quarter, notably in North America. The improvement in bookings in our FCD and IPD operations, which tend to be weighted toward short cycle markets, reflected in this positive development. As we anticipated, we continue to see competitive challenges in our Long Cycle business, which typically lags in the economic cycle as capacity is still chasing price. While we've seen some EPD project activity impacted in the short term by the events in Japan and the Middle East, nothing has shaken our belief that there will be attractive growth in infrastructure spending in our markets over the next few years as emerging markets develop and mature markets recover. In the meantime, we are working to remain selective and internally disciplined in our project bid selection process as pricing continues to be competitive on large project bids. We were particularly pleased to see continued traction in our Aftermarket strategies, with 9% growth in quarterly bookings over 2010 and improved core end markets across all regions. Our growth in Aftermarket bookings is more evident of both of our ability to succeed during that tougher portions of the economic cycle and the continued effectiveness…

Richard Guiltinan

Analyst · BMO Capital Market

Thank you, Mark. Good morning. This is the Dick Guiltinan. Mark has briefly touched on the highlights for the quarter, so I'd like to cover the bookings and sales analysis and the key aspects of the consolidated financial results. Starting with the bookings analysis, the top graphics compare our bookings performance for the first quarters of 2010 and 2011 by industry. Bookings for the 3 months ended March 31, 2011, increased by approximately $91 million or 8.5% as compared with the same period in 2010. The increase included currency benefits of approximately $19 million. Driving this increase is growth in the oil and gas sector and FCD, which has been a strategic focused in the basis for the acquisition of Valbart. Increased bookings in general industries, in FCD and IPD, partially offset decreased customer bookings in power generation industry across all divisions. The bottom graphic shows our original equipment to Aftermarket bookings mix for the first quarters of 2010 and 2011. The increase for the first quarter of 2011 was primarily attributable to increased original equipment bookings in FCD and IPD and increased Aftermarket bookings in EPD, partially offset by decreased original equipment bookings in EPD. The consistent consolidated mix percentages year-over-year reflected diversity of our global platform. The bullets at the right of the slide provide a good analysis of the mix. The Aftermarket bookings grew 9%. Our longer cycle bookings such as the EPD original equipment bookings are down 5%, while the shorter cycle activities such as FCD and IPD original equipment bookings have grown 22% and 16%, respectively. Turning to the next slide. Sales for the 3 months ended March 31, 2011 increased by approximately $38 million or 4% as compared with the same period in 2010. The increase included currency benefits of approximately $20 million. Our…

Thomas Ferguson

Analyst · BMO Capital Market

Good morning. Generally speaking, I am pleased with the overall performance of the Flow Solutions Group. Our focus on our end user customers, operational excellence and strategic growth initiatives continue to provide a platform to drive bookings growth, while generating solid sales and income performance. We have continued to drive sales pricing discipline and carefully balance our project win rates and market share targets with factory loading consideration. We've also continued to see competitive pricing in most Long Cycle original equipment markets, as many of our customers focus on first cost for new projects. We made progress on improving our Industrial Product divisions operational performance but still have work to do. For the Engineered Product Division, Q1 bookings growth of 1.7% was driven primarily by growth in seals in the Aftermarket. Both of these areas benefited from our focus on Integrated Solutions Base programs. Market activity levels are at core market sectors continue to be mixed, and our longer cycle OE bookings fell versus last year primarily due to price selectivity. We are pleased however with our Aftermarket business which continued to strengthen, particularly in North America and Latin America. Service and solutions opportunities have grown as end user customers show greater interest in energy efficiency and operating cost reduction. Sales were down 1.5% primarily due to the lower OE you backlog entering the quarter versus 2010. The gross margin decrease of 110 basis points adjusted to exclude realignment charges was primarily due to pricing from beginning of the year backlog and the impact of decreased sales on the absorption of fixed costs, although partially offset by a sales mix shift to higher margin Aftermarket sales, operational efficiencies and savings from realignment programs and supply-chain initiatives. We are generally pleased with our operating income margin of 17.5%. This was driven…

Tom. Pajonas

Analyst · Scott Graham with Jefferies & Company

Thanks, Tom, and good morning, everyone. This is Tom Pajonas, I'm pleased to report on a solid performance for the quarter for the Flow Control Division. In summary, the Flow Control valve market can be described as choppy and price competitive. In addition, there are some general regional uncertainty in the Middle East. And some concerns surfacing in the Nuclear business as a result of the Japanese nuclear situation. We are continuing to monitor these areas for any effects on the overall Long Term business. In terms of the financials, orders for Q1 2011 were up 18.3% compared to Q1 of 2010 on the strength of chemical, general industries and oil and gas bookings. Sales for Q1 2011 increased over 31.8% from Q1 2010. Operating income increased 18.5% over Q1 2010 results. Excluding realignment and acquisition effects, the base business had an operating margin of 15.8% for Q1 2011 as compared to 15.7% for Q1 2010 on the same basis. While we are experiencing choppiness in the longer lead time Valve business, we are seeing improvement in the shorter lead time businesses, particularly in chemical, pulp and paper [indiscernible] and our Aftermarket businesses. Capital investments in the chemical and petrochemical industry appear to be recovering based on the project activity in the Middle East region. Customers in general are telling us that they are seeing increased demands for certain base materials such as PTA, and PX used in plastics. The MRO business continues to do well in the chemical area. Activity in South America pulp and paper remains strong with several projects in Brazil and Uruguay preceding. The business in Russia and Europe are starting sooner, stronger than prior year, with Russian distributors placing orders based on anticipated demand. In Power [ph], we did book nuclear valve for China and…

Mike Mullin

Analyst

Thanks, Tom. Operator, were are ready to open the line for Q&A.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Charlie Brady with BMO Capital Market.

Charles Brady - BMO Capital Markets U.S.

Analyst · BMO Capital Market

Back on the last comment on FCD and the nuke business, the Nuclear business is a relatively small piece of that and broadly speaking a relatively small piece of Flowserve in general, correct?

Mark Blinn

Analyst · BMO Capital Market

Yes. In general, it's an important part of our business. We've talked about this before. You look in our power sector. We participate broadly across coal fired and other applications as well. But the point is it is high margin business for us and has presented good consistent opportunities, for example, if you remember back in 2009, the Valbart had a $50 million order. So it's not something that we ignore, but it's not a majority overall of our Power business.

Charles Brady - BMO Capital Markets U.S.

Analyst · BMO Capital Market

Do you think what's going on with the review of projects outside of that for existing plants, obviously reviews are going on. Is that presenting an opportunity for you as reviews go on to look at what's already in place?

Mark Blinn

Analyst · BMO Capital Market

It can. That's a fair point, in all of the business guys, the little further what tends to happen, you saw the Macondo oil spill last year and it tends to cause a pause, everybody reevaluates. And then they look, for example, the United States they're going to make sure they understand -- focus on the Greenfield. And then look at existing facilities for recertification and oftentimes that may lead to upgrade requirements on existing facilities, especially if Greenfield opportunities are going to be difficult to permit. So yes, it can present opportunities. I think our note here is what typically happens and it's the same thing you saw last year in the oil and gas industry, as everybody takes a step back, pauses, they look at the regulatory environment, assess risk and opportunities in their existing facilities, and you've pretty much seen that around the world. All related to what you saw last year there was a Gulf oil spill and oil & gas industry that impacted the region and you saw the activity, what happened in New England gas. This was a nuclear event and that has far-reaching impacts overall to the industry itself. The whole industry is very tight and they watch these things very carefully. So that tends to be what you see in the form of a reaction. But also to your point, that's right, these people are going to make sure that operating facilities are up to grade.

Richard Guiltinan

Analyst · BMO Capital Market

And I would add, Charlie, that these type of events, although unfortunate tend to drive back to multinationals that have very solid quality programs. Documentation becomes more of an issue, certifications deep into the supply chain. So we tend to, I would say, benefit from these events unfortunately.

Mark Blinn

Analyst · BMO Capital Market

So the general comment is it's just the projects, particularly the Greenfield project expansion. They had some in the United States and other regions of the world are being certainly being evaluated. And what that will tend to do is like what you saw last year, is to pause, and they'll make a decision to go forward or not in the oil & gas industry. You saw move forward on some of the projects certainly around the world. It's yet to be seen what will happen in the Gulf.

Charles Brady - BMO Capital Markets U.S.

Analyst · BMO Capital Market

As a follow-up on FCD. As we look at the Aftermarket business it sounds like it's seeing some pretty good strength and it was 50% of the sales mix here in the quarter, I guess the same with the bookings mix. Do you see that moving up on the Aftermarket business that is moving up towards what was it was last year kind of in the high teens, maybe gained 20% as we go through 2011?

Thomas Ferguson

Analyst · BMO Capital Market

Charlie, this is Tom again. I mean if you look at the past and you go back to 2008, 2009, we were probably in the high 30s in the '08 time period. In the '09 time period, we moved up to the high 40s per quarter. And now we're sitting at the high 40s, mid-50s. So but I would say in our particular business the Aftermarket doesn't swing is much. It would tend to be more steady in the Aftermarket by would say, were at a different plateau in the business.

Mark Blinn

Analyst · BMO Capital Market

Yes, and this has been an area of strategic focus. If you followed our business for a very long time our former cell [ph] division, the blocks and develop a lot of the end user strategies and what was the Pump division. Now they're combined with FSG. Tom has taken a lot of these strategies and put them into his business in forms of initiatives. What you're seeing in the mix, Charlie, is as much the Short Cycle business growth is anything else. Really, what we tend to focus on is the absolute growth in dollar terms of our Aftermarket business and more importantly the backlog, which is certainly significantly increased year-over-year in our Aftermarket business and even from year end. So that's probably the better way of looking at it and really the reason we started commenting generally around Long Cycle, Short Cycle and Aftermarket to really look at it more in terms of absolute terms, mix will depend. His mix is as much as what's happening in the short cycle OE business as anything else.

Charles Brady - BMO Capital Markets U.S.

Analyst · BMO Capital Market

Fair enough. And then I was also talking on the Valve business, too, because the obviously tends to have a smaller portion of pure Aftermarket business. And I'm just wondering does that business, it obviously as a margin impact as that business moves up 300, 400, 500 basis points on a mix shift, there's a meaningful impact on margins pretty high margin business and we expect that business to see an impact? Because it sounds as though the Aftermarket business in valves is pretty strong right now.

Mark Blinn

Analyst · BMO Capital Market

Yes. I mean it is. And we talked about this before, the Valve business is different than the rotating equipment because a lot of the Aftermarket comes in the form of a replacement valve. They’ll just cut it out and often times it may go through a distributor as well. Tom's still able to still command I would say good margins on that type of quick turn replacement equipment which is OE. But fair point is, he drives his end user strategy and grows his Aftermarket business that's absolutely good margin business similar to what you see in the FSG side.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Mark Barbalato with Vertical Research Partners.

Mark Barbalato

Analyst · Mark Barbalato with Vertical Research Partners

So when I look at Q1, Q1's typically a low-volume quarter. You had delayed shipments and you're still working through the low margin backlog and you had the Valbart headwind. Should we think of Q1 as a low order mark for operating margin?

Mark Blinn

Analyst · Mark Barbalato with Vertical Research Partners

As you know, we typically won't guide on margins going forward. But our comment, if you remember on the third quarter call, was historically, Q1 has tend to be a lower absorption quarter and you can really, you can see typically lower sales. And why that occurs is there's a big push at year end. Our customers want the product and everything. So Q4 tends to be historically has been a very strong shipment, which tends to bring down backlog. So that's the impact on the first quarter of the year. We also commented before that what we've seen is that the first half of the year is going to be more challenging as we work through these things. Generally, when you take a step back and look at the business going forward, our Short Cycle and our Aftermarket businesses are certainly showing some promise in terms of increased volumes and increased penetration. And that's consistent. Certainly the Short Cycle with what you're seeing is recovering economies around the world. Our Long Cycle business, which will tend to lag, what goes on around the world for a period of time, is still competitive and choppy, which we've seen for a period in time. So what we commented is after the second quarter last year is on the long cycle. We're living in the pricing environment that was really started towards the beginning of 2009. It's just you won't see it in our P&L necessarily because it is long cycle. Going back to the comment, that's why in '09 pricing we had a pricing benefit overall because that was 2008 and some 2007 pricing. So that's the best way to think about our business going forward.

Mark Barbalato

Analyst · Mark Barbalato with Vertical Research Partners

Sure. And then I guess as we head into Q2, are we going to be working through -- I mean will we have worked through most of the lower margin backlog?

Mark Blinn

Analyst · Mark Barbalato with Vertical Research Partners

Well, to my comment earlier, on the Long Cycle backlog, it can be there a year to a year and a half. So the pricing environment you're in, in that will manifest itself through the P&L for a period of time. So as you look out, right now we're in a competitive pricing environment in the Long Cycle business and we have been. That's going to be working itself. That will be in our P&L for 2011. The other impacts though the short cycle, if you heard our comments, volumes increasing, which can help not only on absorption but as price follows which typically happens as capacity starts to fill that up, distributors tend to restock then you can get some pricing power in that environment as well. And then also just the growth of our Aftermarket business. We have higher Aftermarket backlog and that's high margin business.

Mark Barbalato

Analyst · Mark Barbalato with Vertical Research Partners

My last question is Valbart was a little bit of a headwind this quarter does that turn positive in Q2? How should I think about that?

Mark Blinn

Analyst · Mark Barbalato with Vertical Research Partners

Well, what we commented is it's going to continue this year. As we talked about, we anticipated with this acquisition that you work through the acquired backlog that there is purchase accounting effects and everything with bringing the integration. But we're really pleased with this acquisition. I think Tom commented we've seen good pull through opportunities in the oil and gas business. It certainly helped us with some of our strategic relationships. It's a critical piece of equipment for the oil and gas industry. So we expect it to be a contributor really through the year and typically, you talk about these for about three or four quarters and then it's on to business as usual.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jamie Sullivan with RBC Capital Markets.

Jamie Sullivan - RBC Capital Markets, LLC

Analyst · Jamie Sullivan with RBC Capital Markets

Question on the long cycle business. You've talked a lot about the price pressure you have started to see in 2009. It sounds like the environment hasn't changed much so that, that could actually continue in the P&L into 2012 with what's in the backlog. Is that sort of the right way to think about it?

Mark Blinn

Analyst · Jamie Sullivan with RBC Capital Markets

It really depends on when the choppiness subsides and things tend to pick up. Right now, it's still choppy. So if you -- Jamie, we have percentage of completion, accounting and everything that if it picks up, you do see some benefit from it over the relatively short term, but just think about it to my comments earlier. Now one thing I'll caveat, cycle times have come in. So the fact that we carried a lot over into 2010 was reflective of the environment in 2008 where I can tell you price was chasing capacity and lead times extended out. In the environment now, time is money so lead times tend to come in. But that is a fair point as choppiness -- if it does continue into this year and we've talked about it over the near term, we continue to see that, that will lag into our P&L and could go in the P&L into 2012.

Jamie Sullivan - RBC Capital Markets, LLC

Analyst · Jamie Sullivan with RBC Capital Markets

And then can you talk a little bit more about the delayed shipments maybe if we could quantify the exposure of the backlog, when you might have some visibility on whether those would be canceled or an update there?

Mark Blinn

Analyst · Jamie Sullivan with RBC Capital Markets

Well, you've seen our -- you followed our cancellations. We've had very few cancellations. A lot of this is more around on the delayed shipments. Is inspectors available, customers don't need equipment at that necessarily at that point in time. We've seen kind of that effect in our business for the last couple of quarters where there has been certainly some delayed shipments. And frankly some of them, as Tom talked about, as IPD is continuing to improve, they are getting some of this past due backlog out of their business. So it is an area of focus. Certainly on the issues that we can control, that is the past due backlog that we work on that we can get out to our customers, a lot of it is just customers aren't ready to take that piece of equipment. But keep in mind the way contracts are structured and obviously with the advanced cash, it's often rare that the equipments are ready to go and they cancel it.

Jamie Sullivan - RBC Capital Markets, LLC

Analyst · Jamie Sullivan with RBC Capital Markets

And then maybe you could comment a little bit more about input costs in some of the shorter cycle businesses, is that hurting right now? And similar to other companies, you'll raise prices following on. There's a little bit of a lag. How should we think about that?

Mark Blinn

Analyst · Jamie Sullivan with RBC Capital Markets

That's the right way. On our long cycle business, when we bid these projects, we lock-in most of the -- almost all of the economics associated with that at that point in time. But on the shorter cycle business you -- as commodities increase, you can pass it on but there tends to be a lag effect and same thing as the commodity prices go down. And remember, when we're talking about commodities, we're not only talking about material cost that you would expect to see in a piece of our equipment but also in transportation and other things as well. You can tend to pass those on but their -- as you hear with other businesses, there is an overall lag and after that lags then you can pass the pricing through overall to the customer.

Jamie Sullivan - RBC Capital Markets, LLC

Analyst · Jamie Sullivan with RBC Capital Markets

Typically about a quarter or so on the short cycle in that lag?

Mark Blinn

Analyst · Jamie Sullivan with RBC Capital Markets

You know it really depends on the piece of equipment. A quick turn seal can be a matter of weeks, one of our valves, it could be a couple of months or maybe even extend beyond a quarter as well. I think the other thing that's important is we work very hard in all instances to make sure we use our supply chain effort and everything that continue to mitigate it as well. So what we'll do in an environment where material costs come up is start to look more broadly at our supply-chain sources to see if we can take advantage of opportunities. But clearly to your point, when material costs come up and commodity costs come up, it does provide a headwind to our business. But remember at the end of the day, a lot of what we provide when you look at our Engineered Product and our aftermarket is more around the human capital content to the business. And what I mean by that is aftermarket margins remained fairly stable, somewhat independent of commodity costs because really what they're paying for is that uptime and reliability.

Jamie Sullivan - RBC Capital Markets, LLC

Analyst · Jamie Sullivan with RBC Capital Markets

And just one last quick one on the power business, do you talk a lot about nuclear? Some other companies have talked about opportunities popping up in other methods of power generation. Have you seen any of that in discussions with customers or potential customers?

Thomas Ferguson

Analyst · Jamie Sullivan with RBC Capital Markets

Yes, this is Tom Ferguson. We have seen that in the alternative energies, solar, biofuels, we're seeing more gas turbine driven power plants, combined cycle, things like that. So we're well positioned with a full product line for the power sector. And so some of the opportunities that have been delayed on the nuclear side are being offset by these other areas.

Mark Blinn

Analyst · Jamie Sullivan with RBC Capital Markets

You know, Jamie, it goes back to the comment I made earlier in my original comments is bottom line and end of the line, there is a need for energy both power and oil and gas. And if one opportunity is delayed or foreclosed, another opportunity will present itself. That may create, like I talked about, the oil spill, is it may create a short-term in our industry three to six months. It could be, in short-term, delay in a project that's coming on line because what happens is if the nuclear facilities delayed, there is not somebody just saying, "All right, let's just bring up this fossil power plant over here." But the bottom line is you look at the underlying drivers in our business, the demand for energy is going to continue over the next couple of years. So as these events occur, which are unfortunately out of our control, it may tend to have short-term impacts on the market. But long-term, the demand is going to need to be met. And that's what gives us confidence as we look out over the next couple of years that there is going to be demand for infrastructure.

Thomas Ferguson

Analyst · Jamie Sullivan with RBC Capital Markets

And then, Jamie, I would also add. One of the things you see is a very low and high-availability of natural gas which tends to create some opportunities, particularly in North America here for the combined cycle plants, and then China and India still driving heavily into the coal market.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line on Hamzah Mazari with Crédit Suisse. Hamzah Mazari - Crédit Suisse AG: The first question is just on the IPD business. If you could just update us on the integration work you've done there, what's remaining? And the product gap that you guys are closing, is that done with -- what needs to happen from now on to get to sort of double-digit margins in that business?

Thomas Ferguson

Analyst · double-digit margins in that business

Yes, this is Tom Ferguson. We've made a lot of progress in IPD over the last couple of quarters. We haven't completed everything yet, but the majority of, say, the implementation of the ERP platforms and things like that is behind us. We're still fine tuning and that will go on for another quarter or two. The focus now is on expanding our distribution, focusing on the new products. We rolled out the first phase or the next phase of the new chemical ISO pump. We got another phase to go, but we're now in a much better position than we were. And then we got a couple of other product gaps to fill, but they are not huge pieces of the business, they just help us have a broader portfolio for the chemical processing sector.

Mark Blinn

Analyst · double-digit margins in that business

You know, Hamzah, what we talked about last year is it starts with leadership, and we've got a leadership in that organization. We're very pleased with it. So I would say that one is we're very happy with what we have there, and that's really where it starts. Hamzah Mazari - Crédit Suisse AG: And then I know you gave a lot of color on sort of the backlog. But you guys mentioned that your second half is going to be stronger than the first and there are various puts and takes to that. But isn't some of that cycling through lower-priced backlog as well? That's my first question related to that. And then second one, how do you think about the choppiness of the long cycle business starting to subside? Is that just excess capacity driven, or is there something else structurally that needs to happen there?

Mark Blinn

Analyst · double-digit margins in that business

Well to your first question around the second half, a lot of that was what we've seen in the growth in our aftermarket backlog and the short cycle business picking up. As that kind of gets in place, we saw that as a benefit to the back half of the year. And then overall, what you'll see in choppiness in terms of the pricing environment in the long cycle business is that the pricing can, as we talked about earlier, can remain in your P&L for a period of time. But as volumes start to pick up, then you work through the absorption issues because as Tom talked about in EPD, with the OE decline, there was some anticipated absorption issues. And I think this goes back to some of our earlier comments, is we were thoughtful as we look at projects. You can fill facilities with projects that don't have the type economics and maybe deal with the absorption issue. But you have a greater impact long-term because if you need that capacity and a good opportunity comes, it's spoken for. So that's a way. To think of our long cycle businesses is choppiness means, and certainly in the pricing environment, the price component, that we don't expect and necessarily see a benefit on the price side in our P&L and it will lag because it is long cycle. Comments around the second half were driven really by what you saw in the short cycle business. The growth in the aftermarket business. We've talked about Valbart coming online as well. Tom seeing traction in the Industrial Products Division. Really those were a lot of the drivers and what we saw in the back half of the year. Hamzah Mazari - Crédit Suisse AG: And then just last question, just on your balance sheet, how are you thinking about leveraging that? You've done some small, very small acquisitions. How should we think about your appetite there and getting into some adjacent product categories? Do you still have a lot of internal work to do and you're going to keep the balance sheet the way it is or are you ready to use it?

Mark Blinn

Analyst · double-digit margins in that business

Well, we've been ready to use it for a period of time. But to your point, and I think we made the comment on the year-end call, we've been fairly internally focused in 2009, 2010 around the realignment effort. Although we did make an acquisition, we're very pleased in 2010 in Valbart because the opportunity certainly presented itself. But we are certainly looking at opportunities and willing to use our balance sheet which we believe we have a lot flexibility in our balance sheet as you look at opportunities out there. So I think the message around that is we are -- there is still some internal activities that we're doing but far fewer than we've seen in the last two years in our business.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Scott Graham with Jefferies & Company. R. Scott Graham - Jefferies & Company, Inc.: The cycling through of this backlog is just something that I'm trying to maybe get a better handle on here because conference call comments in the third quarter of last year were kind of maybe introductory into that suggesting that you know, I know that these things ship out over the next, over their next 4 to 8 quarters. Nevertheless, your sales numbers have been pretty good during that period suggesting that there has been some runoff of that backlog. So is it fair to say that we should anniversary that late in the year? Anniversary defined as when I think the margins stabilize? It just seems that when you look at the bookings in the business and the shipments and then you turn around and compare it to the backlog, it seems as if we should be cycled out most of this stuff third or fourth quarter of this year.

Mark Blinn

Analyst · Scott Graham with Jefferies & Company

Well, what you saw was really going back to 2009, is we started cycling into the lower, the more price competitive environment really during the course of 2009, it increasingly through 2009. But remember, to be in 2009 had a lot of that prior period backlog, a majority of that. And so what you saw is a tailed off as we talked about through the first half of 2010. So our comment around the third quarter is we're now kind of living in a pricing environment that on the booking side, we've been in for a year, a year and a half now. So to that point, that's kind of the environment we're in. And if that means choppy and competitive, that means that is kind of the same impact on that long cycle economics is you're talking about. The other thing that we talked about that impacted us in Q3 was around absorption as well and our backlog is up. So that should help with that. So we'll be -- when, to their comments earlier, when pricing starts to improve in our long cycle business, you do see some short-term benefit, but really that will lag in your P&L depending on what the average cycle time or the duration of that backlog is, those times have come in. So it's been in the P&L. On the pricing side, the impact has been relatively stable since towards the end of the year. But we're just going to be living with it for a while until the market -- the long cycle market start to pick up. R. Scott Graham - Jefferies & Company, Inc.: Understood. Let me maybe just ask this question in a second way and I appreciate that response, Mark. If we look back at last cycle, right, you guys were fully in those same chairs and saw when pricing did start to improve. Now last cycle was something maybe a little bit peculiar from the standpoint that everything seem to be going gangbusters for a long period of time. Nevertheless, this cycle, particularly on the oil and gas side, looks pretty strong right now, early innings, that kind of thing. I guess I'm a little bit surprised that we haven't started to see a little bit less of that competitiveness. What do you think is causing sort of the improvement in pricing to be delayed this cycle versus last cycle?

Tom. Pajonas

Analyst · Scott Graham with Jefferies & Company

I mean I think generally, it's the available capacity that's out there. Now it is starting to fill up overall in our industry. We talk last year, let's go upstream a little bit to the engineering and contracting side that would seem large participation by creating contracting firms. As you listen to the Westerns and their comments, they've starting fill up and the westerns are starting to see more activity. So as capacity in our industry starts to fill up, then you'll start to see the pricing opportunity come back. And Tom said customers are focused on, first, cost. They have been -- they went from the price chasing capacity in '08 quickly to first costs in '09 and they like it and they'll let go of it reluctantly. But the fact is as capacity starts to fill up, people become more selective or their capacity is full so they can bid on the opportunity, then price will start to come back into the environment, and it is what we saw on the last cycle. It is certainly what we saw in the last cycle. I think the difference when you look at us. And when we talked about how we performed through the cycle, we've been very pleased. You see in our industry much wider swings in earnings through the cycle and we really been pleased with ours as it's been relatively stable. But what's different from the last cycle, obviously, is our certainly our bigger footprint and a larger business but the growth in our aftermarket business, overall. That certainly has been key and our ability to maneuver globally. They are seeing -- even through these difficult times, there's been opportunities somewhere in the world. R. Scott Graham - Jefferies & Company, Inc.: Next question has to do with the cash flow, which I guess you're a much larger working capital user in the first quarter of this year than you were last year and even more than you were in the last four or five years. How should we read that? Is that to protect yourselves against raw materials? Is that based on near-term bookings that must be shift? How do we read that?

Mark Blinn

Analyst · Scott Graham with Jefferies & Company

I'll comment high-level and turn it over to Dick. Backlog is up well over $400 million year-over-year, and that's one of the things that impacts it. Go ahead, Dick?

Richard Guiltinan

Analyst · Scott Graham with Jefferies & Company

Scott, with that said, I'll rest my case. Now, let me go through a little bit. I think there's a couple of different pieces to it. We typically do have, as you said, a very heavy first quarter. A lot of the use of cash, increasing use of cash quarter-over-quarter came out of the inventory efforts. We talked about the ramp up on the short cycle and aftermarket side, so seeing increases in raw materials kind of is very consistent with that. And then also we had a very heavy fourth quarter shifting [ph] level, so we're kind of now into ramping up on the next projects in the cycle, so you see work in process increasing as well and our progress going to [ph] down on a little bit based on how the fourth quarter closed out versus the phasing in the first quarter. If we look at those three elements, that's the biggest and most of the driver of the increase.

Mark Blinn

Analyst · Scott Graham with Jefferies & Company

One general way to think about it and then further color is when our book to bill is greater than one, that will tend to burden our balance sheet. And another reason we do and we do this intentionally is we talked about how we mitigate material cost with really contemporaneous purchase of componentry in this long cycle business. Historically, you may have seen businesses manage to just-in-time inventory, which means they would delay the purchase of that. But we use our balance sheet: one, to secure the cost in case. There -- we saw copper rise in 2007 such that motors, which can be 30% of the piece of -- the cost of equipment went up significantly and you can get squeezed there if you didn't advance procure that component. So I think we do that. And the other reason is on-time delivery is a motor -- you cannot ship that pump skid until the motor is there. So you feel a lot better if it's sitting there in the plant ready to go even before you're done manufacturing the pump. So I think that's some other elements just to understand our business. But typically, when the book to bill is over 1 and even in the downturn and in the industry you saw over the last couple of years, our book to bill average still in the 0.9, 4 or 5 range. So we didn't see a big balance sheet liquidation, which you traditionally seen in our industry. But as the book to bill is greater than 1, it will tend to put pressure on our working capital and a lot of that clears towards the end of the year. R. Scott Graham - Jefferies & Company, Inc.: All right, that makes sense. This last question has to do with the prior question and also my question about -- and your response that there is excess capacity around the world. Well, we have a balance sheet here that can -- I know that it's a big market but certainly start to remove some of that capacity from around the world through acquisition means. Could you talk about your acquisition pipeline? You bought Valbart and you like the acquisition and certainly oil and gas probably will be a good one. But is there anything larger that you're looking at on the horizon here to maybe help yourself both with earnings and with capacity shrink in the market?

Mark Blinn

Analyst · Scott Graham with Jefferies & Company

Well, obviously we don't comment specifically on M&A or M&A opportunities. But there is certainly a range of asset prices that we're considering. And really, Scott, our focus is on growth, expanding our product capabilities, expanding into markets, also looking for ways to expand the value proposition. And what we talked about, we bought a ceiling system business a couple of years ago really to completely outfit the skid and also to leverage the aftermarket capabilities. So we are looking. The fact as you've seen is there has been activity and the price of assets have certainly gone up overall in the industry, but there is still good opportunities out there. So we don't -- we do have a flexible balance sheet. So we really focus on the strategic benefit of the opportunity and then look at the integration aspects of it, the risk return profile of the acquisition in and of itself and also we consider the impact overall to our balance sheet. So we do have a lot of flexibility. We -- comments earlier, while we're still internally focused, we have less internal activity which gives us the opportunity to certainly be more flexible in what we consider in the assets out there. But that's the way we're going to look at it is really around focusing on growth and there could be the opportunity to certainly take some capacity out there, but those will present opportunities and installed base. We'll also consider that against the alternative of just going out and building and getting close to that customer. And you've seen that, we've built quite a bit. I'll remind you I guess in the -- over the last three years, we spent about $100 million of capital in growth opportunities. That's like an acquisition for us. Really what we do is we can -- what Valbart gave us was speed to market. We wanted to get to that market quick and typically you pay a premium over building it yourself but you get access to the market, and we like that.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Kevin Maczka with BB&T Capital Markets. Kevin Maczka - BB&T Capital Markets: Mark, a lot of talk today on the call about this long cycle pricing dynamic. And I wanted to revisit your comment on the short cycle side and we've had this anticipation for some time now that as volumes return, pricing will follow, and you made that comment again this morning. So with volumes returning, are you seeing that now? I'm just wondering what -- if you can comment more on the current pricing dynamic you're seeing right now? How much is it improving if at all?

Mark Blinn

Analyst · Kevin Maczka with BB&T Capital Markets

Well, our comment, you know is right. As volumes pick up, pricing should follow. And we certainly seen it in some areas, not across the board but as distributors, restock and we've seen that activity, price tends to follow. And being that is short cycle business, it tends to recover quicker with the economy. So we do expect and anticipate that the pricing should follow.

Richard Guiltinan

Analyst · Kevin Maczka with BB&T Capital Markets

Yes, and I would add, there is still material price pressure even on the shorter cycle business. It certainly hasn't returned to the level that it was in the past but the volumes have definitely increased in Q1 here as you've seen in the overall numbers and that's going to help out on the absorption. But we do have still competitors that are putting a lot of price pressure out there as well as the material prices are relatively high compared to what they were in the past. So it hasn't worked this way out yet. Kevin Maczka - BB&T Capital Markets: And then going back to your comment about the better second half than first half. So if we're going to be living with this long cycle pricing and margin dynamic throughout most of this year perhaps, is the short cycle dynamic the biggest issue here or benefit, if you will, that's going to drive a better second half? Or is there some other unique aspect of your low-cost sourcing initiative or your supply chain initiatives or something else that we should expect to really move the needle and be visible in the second half?

Mark Blinn

Analyst · Kevin Maczka with BB&T Capital Markets

I think it's all of the things that I mentioned earlier. Yes, short cycle should provide a benefit. One, certainly as volumes increase, that gives you better absorption and better leverage overall in the business. And then if pricing follows, you get a benefit from that as well. But also as I commented, we have a significantly higher aftermarket backlog. So that certainly presents an opportunity as we look out into the year. And then the other things that we talked about, it is going to be around continued focus on continuous improvement, supply chain, cost controls. Also Valbart, we've talked about its contribution and we expect it to be a contributor to the balance of the year. And as Tom commented, it's -- he's seeing improvement in the Industrial Products Division. So really as we look out towards the back half of the year, we have a number of things that kind of give us that outlook as to the opportunities in the back half. Kevin Maczka - BB&T Capital Markets: Okay, and then just finally, on share on the long cycle, Mark, can you comment on your assessment of your market share there with I guess in EPD with bookings down five and OEM sales down 25, are you perhaps losing some, walking away from some business as you maintain your price discipline? Or give us an update there, if you will.

Mark Blinn

Analyst · Kevin Maczka with BB&T Capital Markets

Well, but you know in -- you'll hear this general in the industry by being discipline, that does mean you walk away from some opportunities and it's because it's not strategic or it doesn't have the economics that you want and you always consider that against loading a facility. So I think what that means is that we're selective in how we approach these projects overall.

Richard Guiltinan

Analyst · Kevin Maczka with BB&T Capital Markets

And I'd add that one of our key focus areas is on maintaining our installed base so that we can continue to support the future aftermarket growth. So while we may you know be given some slight amount of market share on the longer cycle projects, we're still very focused on making sure we're building the installed base in the areas that are loyal aftermarket customers and in the right kinds of applications that generated good solid aftermarket. So we focus on a lot of things. And our win rate has bounced around a little bit but it's not bouncing significantly.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Robert Barry with UBS.

Robert Barry - UBS Investment Bank

Analyst · Robert Barry with UBS

Thanks for taking the questions. Just a couple of quick ones. Can you tell us how much of the backlog is nuclear?

Mark Blinn

Analyst · Robert Barry with UBS

No, we don't break out our backlog specifically by product offering.

Robert Barry - UBS Investment Bank

Analyst · Robert Barry with UBS

It sounds like you said though it was less than 50% of the power backlog, is that right?

Mark Blinn

Analyst · Robert Barry with UBS

No, what I said in the power business is it doesn't represent a majority or a big proportion of our power business, overall.

Robert Barry - UBS Investment Bank

Analyst · Robert Barry with UBS

Okay, and then on Valbart, in what quarter do you expect they will be accretive?

Richard Guiltinan

Analyst · Robert Barry with UBS

Well, we just talk generally for the year. We expect it to be accretive and contribute for this year. And as we talked about and we anticipate it and we've been still cycling through some of the effects of the acquisition, but it certainly has come online. I mean I think another thing to point out is the bookings opportunities that it’s presented to us have been very encouraging, but we expect it to be accretive for the year and certainly to be a contributor.

Robert Barry - UBS Investment Bank

Analyst · Robert Barry with UBS

Yes, I was just wondering if it might not be until the fourth quarter since -- third quarter I think is the seasonally low point for it anyway.

Richard Guiltinan

Analyst · Robert Barry with UBS

Yes, well you know Ro [ph], we don't provide quarterly guidance and certainly not bound to a specific acquisition.

Robert Barry - UBS Investment Bank

Analyst · Robert Barry with UBS

Yes, fair enough. I guess just my last question is on trying to understand the dynamic in IPD around the revenue. When I look at what the bookings have been for the past four quarters, really, north of $200 million for these solid lease though on the last couple, and I think of that as cycling through within the quarter give or take. So seeing the revenue down fair amount sequentially and year-over-year well below the $200 million, I'm just trying to understand that dynamic. Is that related to the delayed deliveries you talked about, or is there also something else going on there that I'm missing?

Mark Blinn

Analyst · Robert Barry with UBS

I think it's mainly really the impact we see overall on our business. Q1 tends to be, if you look sequentially, tends to -- is often been lighter than Q4. A lot of stuff goes out the door in Q4 for -- is talked about, that's when our customers want it. They have many of these international companies have annual cash budgets. So they want the product delivered towards the end of the year, and that's where we have collection efforts. So Q1 tends to be, and we talked about this in Q3, like year-over-year I think it was what Tom talked about is really reflected of the lower booking environment as they came into this year versus last year. So I think, but it's more really the Q1 lower volume, sales volume levels that we've traditionally seen in our business.

Richard Guiltinan

Analyst · Robert Barry with UBS

They had a $220 million fourth quarter, so that has headwind on the backlog.

Robert Barry - UBS Investment Bank

Analyst · Robert Barry with UBS

Fair enough. And then just finally, when you were talking about the working capital change, you called out, among other things, the delayed shipments having an impact there. And I was just wondering if you could kind of to mention how much of the change in the working capital related to that?

Mark Blinn

Analyst · Robert Barry with UBS

That -- I mean he was just commenting generally on work-in-process. We talked about the last couple of quarters that there has been shipments delayed because customers aren't ready to take at some of the past due backlog. Those are the things that, as you look year-over-year, really into working capital compare. But I think most of the impact that you're seeing at our working capital is what we talked about around the increased backlog. And we've got our backlog at $2.8 billion is as big as we've seen since I think we entered 2009. So what that will tend to do is it will make a claim on your working capital and build working capital.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of William Bremer with Maxim Group.

William Bremer - Maxim Group LLC

Analyst · William Bremer with Maxim Group

I guess what I'm trying to get my arms around is this cycle of lower competitive pricing began, say, mid 2009, can you give us an idea broadly of what innings do you think we ran only in like the seventh inning of this, or are we in more like the fifth at this point? And given the underlying commodity markets, what's your take in terms of how long potentially can this capacity get taken out? And then my second question is just on each of your segments, can you give us an idea of what each segment is currently operating at in terms of capacity as a percentage?

Mark Blinn

Analyst · William Bremer with Maxim Group

Well, let me -- on the first question, what we commented is we see this choppiness kind of into 2011. So that's our current view. There's certainly projects we see out on the horizon over the next couple of years that we have a sense for that we think will start to eat up this capacity in our industry. And by the way, the capacity has been used over the last couple of years. So it's not a matter that we're at the levels that the industry is at the levels that it was last year, it's starting to move up. But really, our view right now on our comments have been around 2011. In terms of capacity utilization by segment, we don't provide that data out there specifically. But generally when you look at our capacity, we do manage it globally on the highly engineered. So we have the ability to move manufacturing across our various capacity depending on the lead times. And I think the other thing that we've been doing is all of our capacity isn't necessarily ubiquitous. So we have specific products. We manufacture in specific locations. We've been working consistently to make those efficient and also to start creating capacity in emerging parts of the world mainly it does give us an opportunity certainly on relative cost, but moreover, gives us the presence in those local markets where increasingly local contents require, and we have strong capabilities there to address the market. So we think of our capacity not as one-size-fits-all and we manage it as an overall percentage. We manage up site-by-site, relative to each project that we look at, but also more strategically in terms of where does that capacity need to be to support the customer, to support the QRC in the area. So we've been, as you've seen, we've been adding capacity really in the emerging parts of the world. Tom talked about that. Our facility in Brazil, we acquired some land in China next to our existing facilities to expand our capabilities there. We're looking to continue to expand in India. Well those are the three markets that are showing a tremendous amount of growth over the next couple of years.

William Bremer - Maxim Group LLC

Analyst · William Bremer with Maxim Group

And then just a housekeeping question. I appreciate the color on it, Mark. On the SG&A line, Valbart is completely baked in?

Mark Blinn

Analyst · William Bremer with Maxim Group

Yes.

William Bremer - Maxim Group LLC

Analyst · William Bremer with Maxim Group

Is this sort of the new run rate we should be utilizing going forward?

Mark Blinn

Analyst · William Bremer with Maxim Group

Well, that's going to depend on what happens with the currency. I mean currency had an impact on our reported SG&A as well. But the way to look at it is, I think around Dick's comments is we'll continue to focus on costs in this SG&A line. Our backlog is growing, so we'll focus on leveraging our SG&A. But we could run this run rate down if we decided not to invest in some of our emerging market opportunities, our technologies, and we're just not going to do that. So I think our focus is going to be on maintaining an efficiency in our SG&A line and continuing to drive that. So we still have opportunities to be more efficient, I can tell you. We stay very focused on that, but also we want to make sure that we're doing some requisite lead time investing in our business, and I'm getting engineers in the parts of the world where we need them.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jeff Beach with Stifel, Nicolaus. Jeffrey Beach - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: You mentioned earlier in your comments that North America is strengthening and the emerging markets are stable. Can you highlight a couple of the end markets where there is differences in the trends and whether there is a difference in the trends in OE and aftermarket between North America and the emerging markets?

Mark Blinn

Analyst · Jeff Beach with Stifel, Nicolaus

Yes, I'll comment generally and let Tom and Tom fill in. I mean generally, what you saw in North America was in a lot of the oil and gas capacity. Some of the deferred maintenance came back online. So you've seen promise in that area. The flip side is what we talked about earlier in the nuclear side, a lot of that activity has stopped at this point in time as they're evaluating opportunities. I think around the world, what you've seen is continued investment in the Middle East. There have been some areas where there has been unrest, where some project activity has been delayed. As you can imagine in Libya there's -- that's an oil-rich country and we certainly participated there. There's not a lot going on at this point in time. And so it really can kind of depend on country-by-country. But generally in the Middle East, they are continuing to invest in their capacity to increase production long-term. Also, they are driving very hard to move away from just being a crude oil exporter into more of a refined product exporter so that they can get more of the value proposition of the refined product. In Brazil, you've seen certainly in the oil and gas, the major oil company has acquired a significant amount of reserves and they have investment to basically monetize those reserves. It's on the horizon. That's generally -- any other comment, Tom?

Tom. Pajonas

Analyst · Jeff Beach with Stifel, Nicolaus

On the FSG side, we have seen North America has strengthened on the aftermarket and particularly with refineries now doing some deferred maintenance and spending some money in those areas as well as we've seen the end markets like chemical and some of the general industry in North America pickup as well. I guess to continue with what Mark said, Latin America has been active, especially on the oil and gas side and we're heavily into the downstream. So there has been quite a bit of that. And then the Middle East is just a very significant area, and naturally the oil and gas is active. But also things like power generation, desalination, those markets are active in the Middle East as well. So it's not just oil and gas for us.

Thomas Ferguson

Analyst · Jeff Beach with Stifel, Nicolaus

And I would just add to a few additional comments. On the power side, as Mark has indicated, North America is going through I would say we're looking at the environmental regulations and probably is flat right now. India and China is still going along pretty good. We have the nuclear business in China still progressing with the U.S., progressing but looking at the designs. Combined cycle looks like it's moving pretty good around the world. The shale gas in North America looks pretty good in there looking at how things are now in Canada, you got the chemical business in the Middle East as they move the chemical business closer to feedstocks now. And as people now find a lot of gas around the world to move in that, that way. And then we these other markets like pulp and paper are -- it seems like it's coming on strong back in, particularly in Latin America. You've got district heating in Russia where you got the distributors now stocking once again, not to the pre-2007, 2008 levels, but they are stocking again. You have mining, which everybody's after their raw materials. So that market seems to be fairly strong in Australia and other places in Latin America. So there's some good movement in different markets. Jeffrey Beach - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: And you touched on a couple of markets within general industrial. But is general industrial the pickup you're seeing broad-based globally, or is it focused around one of your geographic markets?

Mark Blinn

Analyst · Jeff Beach with Stifel, Nicolaus

It's more broad-based than we've seen before and which makes sense. It tends to be as economic cycles start to trend up, it tends to be one of the first to participate. If you remember last year, the mining industry saw on the engineering contracting side, they saw a tremendous growth in the infrastructure opportunities in the mining. That's typical when you see economies start to recover.

Operator

Operator

And at this time, there are no further questions. I'd like to turn the call back to Mike Mullin for any closing remarks.

Mike Mullin

Analyst

Thank you, Michael. I would just like to remind everybody that this webcast will be available on our website for replay in approximately two hours, and thank you all for joining.

Operator

Operator

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.