Robert Rowe
Analyst · RBC Capital Markets
Great. Thank you, Jay, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our third quarter earnings call. We are pleased with how Flowserve is responding to the dramatic and unprecedented change in 2020. COVID-19 continues to impact our lives on a global scale, which is impacting Flowserve's end markets and changing the way we run our company on a day-to-day basis. Considering the current environment, I truly appreciate the dedication and commitment demonstrated by Flowserve's leaders and associates, and especially those on the front line working in our manufacturing facilities and QRCs who continue to fully support our customers each and every day. While we have had associates directly impacted by COVID, our strict adherence to the operating policies and procedures we implemented earlier in the year, prevented any Flowserve to Flowserve transmission from recurring in our facilities during the quarter. We are pleased with this outcome, and we remain committed to the safety of our associates. However, it is important to acknowledge that the additional safety protocols and the disruption and have an incremental cost and impact on our overall productivity levels. Despite our best efforts in investment and ensure the health and safety of our employees and customers, COVID continues to cause sporadic disruptions within our facilities. In the third quarter, our Indian and Mexican operations were the most challenged regions, where we have several large manufacturing facilities. However, today, all of our locations are operational and providing support to our customers. The recent rise in COVID related cases in Europe and the United States is concerning. We're doing everything possible to keep these facilities open and operational throughout the fourth quarter and beyond, and we believe our system and processes will continue to keep our associates safe and productive. Before Amy covers our financials in detail, I would like to address our results at a high level. Overall, we are pleased with our execution during the quarter. Flowserve delivered adjusted earnings per share of $0.5, in line with our expectations. These solid earnings also reflect the significant cost actions we have implemented this year. End of the quarter, adjusted SG&A decreased $30.8 million year-over-year to $193 million. We continue to track ahead of our $100 million cost-out program for full year 2020 compared to last year's cost structure. As we communicated previously, these savings are about half from discretionary measures and half from structural actions we have taken. In addition to the SG&A savings, we are working hard to reduce our product cost through supply chain savings and to maintaining higher levels of productivity in our manufacturing locations. Our Flowserve 2.0 transformation program continues to deliver solid operational execution, limiting the decline in our adjusted operating margin to 60 basis points on a $71.4 million revenue decrease versus third quarter 2019, resulting in decremental margins of 19.5% in the quarter. We are confident as additional Flowserve 2.0 process improvement initiatives are implemented within the organization, we will capture more margin enhancement opportunities through further cost actions, manufacturing productivity and product cost reductions. Let me now turn to our segment level performance in the third quarter. FPD's bookings decreased 22.6%, while sales decreased 1.8% as we executed on its strong backlog. The bookings decline was driven by original equipment down 37%, while aftermarket bookings were more resilient at a decline of 12%. Oil and gas bookings were down 45% year-over-year, primarily due to a nearly $60 million decline in project awards. FPD's adjusted margins were in line with expectations, including the 110 basis point improvement in adjusted operating margin to 14.1%. Despite the modest revenue decline, adjusted operating income increased approximately 6.8% to $94.5 million, demonstrating solid operating performance, which more than offset the headwind of a 400 basis point mix shift towards original equipment. Aggressive cost actions drove a $22 million decrease in adjusted SG&A and a 280 basis point decrease in adjusted SG&A as a percentage of sales to 18.7%. FCD's bookings and sales were down 16% and 18.7%, respectively. Oil and gas, power and general industries were both primary drivers or one of the primary drivers, down 30%, 20% and 12%, respectively. Additionally, within general industries, the North American distribution channel continues to be challenged as spending has been impacted by COVID and commodity price declines. FCD's adjusted gross and operating margins were 30.3% and 12.2%, respectively. While these are not the results we typically expect from the business, I am confident that our focus on execution, cost reduction, backlog conversion and inventory reduction will drive fourth quarter margins above their second and third quarter levels. Turning now to bookings. As expected, our third quarter bookings of $806 million was generally in line with second quarter levels and represented a 21% decline year-over-year. As you may recall, last year's third quarter included strong oil and gas project activity in the Middle East and Asia Pacific as well as a number of smaller projects awards, which together totaled roughly $140 million. By contrast, the largest award we received in the 2020 third quarter was $12 million. And when combined with our other small to medium-sized project awards, the sum represented less than $60 million of project awards. On a positive note, we didn't have any material cancellations in backlog in the quarter. Third quarter aftermarket activity remained relatively stable with bookings of $424 million, down 32.5%, modestly better or modestly below our expectations. While customers continue to spend to meet safety and regulatory requirements, upgrade and productivity investment remained muted and larger scale turnaround and maintenance activity continue to face cohort related headwinds with limitations due to site access. Original equipment bookings in the quarter were $381 million, down 28% versus prior year and up about 4% sequentially. Large projects, which typically accounts for 10% to 15% of our business remain the most challenged. The majority of these projects have been delayed and are currently being reevaluated. Our customers' project spending decisions will largely depend on the status of the COVID environment. The bookings level over the last 2 quarters accurately represents the current market environment, and we expect bookings in the fourth quarter and likely the first quarter of 2021 to be similar to this year's second and third quarter. Given what we know today, I am increasingly optimistic that we begin to return to bookings growth next year as the world moves beyond the COVID crisis. We should see it first in our aftermarket bookings ahead of an inflection in project bookings, but we expect both to be better in the back half of 2021. On the aftermarket side, we feel there is pent-up demand building for parts and services and expect that growth in the -- in this area to incur earlier than the project business. We are beginning to see signs of increased aftermarket spending in 2021 as operators are planning for maintenance and turnaround events. Let me now address our served end markets. Our oil and gas markets continue to be the most impacted due to COVID related declines in energy demand. Third quarter bookings declined 42% year-over-year and were roughly flat sequentially. Last year's third quarter presented a challenging compare figure due to the strong project environment at that time, which included several larger awards related to IMO 2020 upgrade activity. 2019 third quarter included over $90 million of project awards. This quarter, our largest project awarded in oil and gas was just $12 million. Third quarter chemical bookings were down 21.6% in the quarter, primarily driven by FPD's 31% decline, while FCD's bookings were down only 5%. The quarter included one smaller award of $4 million in Asia Pacific. Our integrated customers continued to delay petrochemical investment, while specialty chemical demand presents growing opportunities. Turning to power. While the power market continues to be challenged, it has not declined as much as oil and gas or the chemical markets. Third quarter and year-to-date bookings are down just 7.5% and 9.2%, respectively. The quarter includes a few small lucrative awards totaling $9 million and a $4 million fossil fuel award in Asia. The digital industries market, which includes a significant level of distribution and was our most challenged end market in 2019, continued to show signs of recovery in the third quarter with bookings up 18.6% and up 5.9% year-to-date. FPD's 31% increase was partially offset by FCD's 11.5% decline, driven by the continued MRO slowdown in North America. FPD's growth was driven by distribution and food and beverage growth. Finally, representing our smallest market, water bookings decreased $41 million or 66%. Last year's third quarter was particularly strong, including over $20 million in awards for a large Middle East desalination project. While the 2020 third quarter included only 1 project award of $6 million in North America, we continue to expect investment opportunities from desalination, flood control and municipal water markets. Regionally, our largest dollar decline was in North America, which has seen a significant impact from COVID as well as the related downturn in energy demand. Only Latin America has delivered constant currency bookings growth in 2020, up 6% and 9% in the third quarter and year-to-date, respectively. We incurred double-digit year-over-year bookings declines in all other regions. We're seeing the most potential in the Asian markets as mobility has returned to near-normal levels, demand for processing based products has recovered and infrastructure spending continues. With limited and highly competitive project opportunities, we continue to focus on improving our position for winning available work, driving our cost structure lower to offset pricing pressure and maintaining a quality backlog to increase our installed base and create aftermarket opportunities. We believe our markets have stabilized and expect fourth quarter bookings to be in line with what we saw in the second and third quarters of this year. Let me now turn the call over to Amy to cover our financial results in greater detail before I return to provide our outlook for the fourth quarter.