Jillian Evanko
Analyst · Evercore ISI. Your line is open
Thanks. And good morning, everyone. I will start right into the supplemental presentation that was released this morning starting on Slide 3. We officially began reporting in our new segmentation as shown here, which we believe is clear for shareholders to understand the key drivers of our growth and margin. Additionally, all discussion is around continuing operations as we closed on the divestiture of Cryo/Bio on October 1. So now let's get into the meat of our results and get going on explaining why we believe 2021 is set up to be a breakthrough year for our company. We sent multiple records in 2020, which we'll share today and expect some of those to be beat in 2021. Moving to Slide 4, our focus over the past 2.5 years has been on executing our strategy to be the world leader in providing cryogenic process technology and equipment for the industrial gas and clean energy end markets. Our strategic focus areas have been on expanding our high growth, higher margin areas of the business, creating and penetrating repair service and aftermarket capabilities, incorporating geographic diversity into our manufacturing as well as our leadership, creating a broader customer base and stickier relationships with those customers through repair capabilities, as well as flexibility and targeted long-term agreements, and finally, delivering the cost structure of the organization. The focus on these actions will continue. And I'll share some progress from 2020, in the fourth quarter specifically today, as we walk through these results. We executed 33 long-term agreements in master supply agreements in 2020. This is extremely meaningful as historically we only had agreements with a handful of North American customers. Also meaningful is that of these 33 agreements for the first time ever, we have 14 repair and service long-term agreements and 10 agreements with customers outside of the United States. We have a broad based and more consistent order activity. For example, we looked 80 orders greater than $1 million each in fourth quarter, and had orders with 472 new customers in 2020, of which 109 were in specialty. In the first half of 2020, we took out over $60 million of annualized cost, by eliminating luxury layers in the order structure and also finding areas in the business where we could promote high potential talent. We're very pleased with our strategic investments completed in 2020. And those that we have executed to date so far this year, which you can see on the bottom of Slide 5. We approach these investments with two fundamentals. First, the investment brings access to customers and commercial projects that cannot be accessed without significant organic investment. And second, the investment brings access to regions or geographies for the respective products and applications that otherwise could not readily be accessed. As we have stated, we have a very unique offering that addresses the clean power, water, food, and industrial nexus. And one of our most recent [indiscernible] BlueInGreen, which was completed in early November has already generated synergies. Our water treatment orders for 2020 were a record and in the six weeks of ownership of big and Q4 we sold 10 water treatment orders totaling $4.1 million, $3.2 million of those having both Chart cryogenic equipment and BlueInGreen dissolution solutions. January 2021 started with three additional water treatment orders. As we shared when we announced the acquisition of BlueInGreen, we felt the non-U.S. markets will have great potential for the combination of big technology in our equipment. Case in Point is the December win that we had, a contract in Brazil with the government water utility serving the state of São Paulo’s 46 million people. By way of background, Brazil ranks 112 out of 200 countries in sanitation. This project is in the center of the city, the first of its kind in a statewide environmental remediation plan to treat Brazil's polluted water bodies directly using a distributed network of oxygenation installations. The Worthington cryogenic and hydrogen trailer acquisition and also closed in the fourth quarter and came out of gates strong, contributing to our hydrogen trailer record orders for the year. Fourth quarter was our highest order quarter in history for hydrogen trailers. And currently, there are 16 liquid hydrogen trailers in backlog in the U.S., and nearly a dozen gaseous hydrogen trailers in backlog in Europe. The completion of the SES acquisition for cryogenic carbon capture technology followed by early February investment in [indiscernible] another carbon capture business, has resulted in multiple new commercial opportunities. As I have previously said, we think carbon capture is on the brink of having a hydrogen style breakout in terms of project activity. We're collaborating closely with our partners McPhy and HTEC on hydrogen opportunities, ranging from liquefaction, to fueling stations, to trailers. And currently we have over 20 projects that we were bidding on together with one or both of them. It isn't just our inorganic investments that contribute to our unique position in the clean power, water, food industrial nexus, as shown on Slide 6, that's commercializing each day more and more, it's also our organic R&D efforts that further differentiates us. 82% of our products have intellectual property associated with them. We continue to increase that percent through our organic new product development efforts, which I'll share with you today, the status on two key hydrogen product developments. But before we get into hydrogen, hydrogen, hydrogen, let's start with what is very exciting about our 2020 year and what sets us up for breakthrough 2021. On Slide 7, you can see our full year 2020 records for chart as well as for each of the segments. While there are many accomplishments, including record gross margin and operating income, lowest SG&A as a percent of sales, highest adjusted earnings per share, the one that is most important to us as a company is safety. And we achieved our lowest total recordable incident rate and number of accidents in our history in 2020. Second half 2020 orders increased sequentially over the first half by 28% as you can see on the right-hand [indiscernible] Side 7. And flipping to Slide 8, you can see that each of our segments had second half order growth above 24%, when compared to the first half. The broad-based order activity contributed to our year-end record backlog of $810 million. On the right-hand side of Slide 8, you can see fourth quarter 2020 records. And I would point out that food & beverage was a super surprise, given the dramatic slowdown that occurred in the second quarter due to the global restaurant shutdowns from the pandemic. We saw specific fast-food chains and beverage companies move ahead with orders in December for their new builds and franchises. As we've mentioned previously, we continue to adapt to meet the medical oxygen equipment needs of our customers as they serve hospitals and nursing homes dealing with COVID-19. The fourth quarter was the highest order quarter of 2024 for medical oxygen-related equipment primarily driven by demand in Europe. And while not a record, the demand for trailers in the eastern hemisphere doubled in the second half of 2020 when compared to the first half of the year, which sets the second half of 2021 revenue on trailers up very well. Slide 9, shows you our near term in total addressable market size for Specialty Products is now $5.75 billion an increase, in the last weeks of $1.2 5 billion. The increase was driven by three things. First, the inclusion of liquid hydrogen onboard vehicle tanks resulting from the status of our testing and prototype tank, commercial interest in our joint agreement with Ballard Power. Currently we are discussing the use of [indiscernible] tanks with 14 different potential customers. Second, the addition of Cryo Technologies expanded hydrogen liquefaction capabilities and commercial pipeline, opens up the very broad liquefaction process market for which our combined content on these types of projects ranges from $15 million to $100 million each. Our combined content would be inclusive of the liquefier, storage and trailer loading. And these estimates are for five to 60 tonne per day plants. And third, Cryo Technologies access to and experience in the helium market not only provides us content on large helium liquefaction projects, but also storage ISO containers and transport core charge equipment. So, we thought we'd share some data by each of the new segments with you starting on Slide 10 with Specialty Products. 2019 included a large fourth quarter order for LNG by rail $22 million, making the order comparable more challenging. But what I would point out to you is that we saw a 55% increase in fourth quarter 2020 sales when compared to the fourth quarter 2019 sales. So, we're starting to see that strong order activity hitting the shipments. And while less impactful in 2020, cannabis and space exploration are smaller specialty areas, both with the unique position utilizing our existing equipment. We work with major space launch companies, including receiving a $1.4 million order from one on the last day of the year. And we're pleased with our ongoing hydrogen tank deliveries for the Indian Space Research Organization. In terms of cannabis, we saw an increase in both alcohol and cannabis equipment demand [indiscernible] lockdowns. And with federal cannabis legalization gaining steam this is another area where our specialty market could go from very nichey and embryonic to larger production scale. Okay, you've waited 11 slides for hydrogen, the topic that continues to be the hottest one in the clean energy portion of our specialty markets. Recently, there was an article titled The Hydrogen Economy Is No Longer A Pipe Dream, which I thought was apropos. The Atlantic Council hosted the fifth World Energy Forum in late January, and in conjunction with that shared a survey of global energy leaders. When asked which carbon-free energy technologies will see the greatest increase in investment in 2021, 31% said hydrogen, followed by battery storage at 23%. These stats prompted the think tank conducting the study to suggest that 2021 might be the year of hydrogen. Couple that with 30 countries launching national hydrogen strategies and over $70 billion from 51 countries tagged for hydrogen work. For us, 2020 was the start of the decade of hydrogen, as evidenced by our backlog of $39 million, which is all expected to ship this year. Looking ahead to 2021, we're excited about many things of hydrogen including our start to the year in hydrogen orders, which is in line with our expectations. That includes a variety of equipment sold such as tanks, upgrades to gadgets hydrogen trailers already on order, as well as lifecycle installation services. The Secretary General of the China Standard Committee has released the drafting group [indiscernible] public for comments, a major milestone toward our expected April final approved liquid hydrogen bulk tank group code. This is a significant differentiator for our equipment to be built for and used in the hydrogen economy in China. We, along with 10 other companies, launched Hydrogen Forward a few weeks ago. As you know a chart in our Hydrogen Forward partner companies, including Air Lockheed, Anglo American, Bloom Energy, CF Industries, Cummins, Hyundai, Linde, McDermott, Shell and Toyota are united under a shared belief in the environmental and economic benefits of hydrogen technologies. With all this excitement, we sometimes forget, one of our greatest progresses over the last quarter, our organic product development activities for hydrogen equipment. Our or liquid hydrogen onboard vehicle tank prototype, as shown on the right-hand side of Slide 11, has been built and tested. And we're excited about having it as an option for our heavy-duty transportation customers, both existing ones and new potentials. On the left-hand side of the slide, you can see a rendering of our hydrogen test facility in Minnesota. We chose to include only a rendering because actual photos have too much confidential information surrounding the components that we design and build. We're collaborating with industry partners as we advance safety and innovation at this facility. Figuring prominently in that effort is demonstrating our one-of-a-kind liquid hydrogen pumping system. [Indiscernible] gave it to me for Christmas, it's definitely still have a few holidays to get through before being fully production ready. But it will be this year. And while to go on and on [indiscernible] things happening in hydrogen, there are too many other areas of the business for which we're developing solutions for our customers, and helping new customers achieve their ESG targets. On the left-hand side is Slide 12, you can see two examples of our recent folks. And we had a whopping 31 folks in the quarter. We're very excited to partner with Pepsi to upgrade their CO2 capacity at one of their United States’ facilities, that's through our lifecycle team. Additionally, you may remember that our dosing technology is used regularly in nitro beverages, such as Starbucks Nitro coffee in a can. And we're now seeing applications for dosing for oxygen water. We're collaborating with a company called O2 on their unique oxygen water, a functional hydration and recovery drink that makes clean, [indiscernible] products. Thanks to their CEO, Dave Colina, for sending our team some of these tasty, low-calorie, high energy drinks. You can see me trying it in the picture on the bottom left. We had to take it away from Merck. If you think you're enclosed, get some energetic, you should have seen him with this thing. A variety of applications with are a subset of our 65 new customers in the fourth quarter are shown on the right-hand side of the slide. Pretty fun to see our equipment being used in nitro beer, canned wine, bottled egg alternatives, whatever that is, squeezable dips, and for eyeball research. So, moving on to Slide 13, for the full year Repair, Service & Leasing was 13.5% of our total revenue. We expect this percent to significantly grow in 2021, driven by our expanded leasing capabilities, our 14 recently executed repair and service agreements [indiscernible] business rebounding which hasn't a nice aftermarket component to it. Our South Carolina greenfield location is set to begin repairs in the second quarter of 2021. Next Thursday, we'll hold a Building Dedication Ceremony as the final beam is placed on the building. And we look forward to welcoming our customers to the site in May. I would point out the fourth quarter record RSL gross margin. This was driven by more installation and repair work from the Lifecycle team, which is typically a high margin work as well as a fantastic December in ORCA upgrades from our repair and service team in Minnesota. Our investment in expanding our leasing fleet for standard product in particular ISO containers and mobile equipment has gained traction since we started investing in the leasing fleet expansion in May of last year. Leasing, Lisa Dole, who runs our global leasing team and her leadership team also known internally as the ladies of leasing had the new equipment being built leased before each piece was even completed. A few points of reference for you. From the first to the third quarter of 2020, we had 25 new leases signed. In the fourth quarter, there were 28 new leases signed compared to six in the fourth quarter of 2019, which brings a total of 53 leases signed for the year. This compares to 18 new leases signed in 2019. And in January of 2021, we quoted 78 new leases with 28 different customers. So the group is off to a great start. 37 new leases have already been signed only six weeks into 2021. Moving to Slide 14 in our Cryo Tank segment. We saw growth in orders and expanded gross margin as our Chinese business executed the best it has in our history posting record operating income. Additionally, while we saw a recovery in the traditional industrial gas aspects of the business in the fourth quarter, purchasing from the majors was not yet back to pre-COVID levels. Specifically, gas major purchasing in the Eastern hemisphere contributed to the highest order quarter in history for D&S products in the East. However, Q4 did not fully compensate for the little order intake in previous three quarters. So the full year of 2020 was still below 2019 in that region by 6.2%. Additionally, trailer orders were part of our COVID fluid on the second quarter of 2020. We saw a significant increase in the fourth quarter in all trailer activity and 2021 is off to a strong start in this area with a 114 trailers ordered year-to-date as of yesterday, compared to an average of 84 trailers per quarter last year. Said differently, our highest order quarter for trailers in 2020 was Q3 with 115 trailers ordered. And we're already at 114 year-to-date. Slide 15 is our last segment to cover and certainly contains the most ups and downs in 2020 ranging from $98 million of revenue from VG Calcasieu Pass project to a sudden and deep drop off of air cooled heat exchanger orders after the start COVID and the OPEC situation to ending the year with a significant air cooler order of $70 million for application, as well as a $30 million VRV shell and tube heat exchanger order for processing facilities in the Eastern hemisphere. We are pleased to see the increasing activity in the carbon capture market. And with the addition of SES carbon capture technology and our investment in Svante, our commercial pipeline continues to grow. As one of our team member said, our commercial pipeline is actually off the Chart right now for carbon capture opportunities. We now have well over 50 potential customers that we're working with on various project quoting stages. A significant percentage of the total carbon capture plant cost, regardless of whether the process is post combustion and carbon capture or direct air carbon capture is equipment that we offer with air cooled heat exchangers representing approximately 50% of total equipment cost or 20% to 25% of total project cost in aiming processes. And approximately 50% of total project cost indirect air carbon capture. With the recent rise in LNG prices as seen on the left hand side of Slide 16 in particular in JKM and the winter weather in Asia and just this week in Texas, there is a growing need for LNG supply after a hiatus of new export terminal construction. We expect this pricing trend to continue and in turn more big and small-scale LNG projects to move to FID in 2021. You can see on the upper right-hand chart, three big LNG projects that have the potential to be ready to roll this year. Venture Global’s Calcasieu Pass project is tracking on schedules and our equipment revenue on this project is expected to conclude in the first – 2021. VG CEO recently indicated at the first phase of Plaquemines are 10 million tons per annum is expected to have necessary sales completed by mid-year and also expected to FID this year. As a reminder, our equipment for the first day's totaled approximately $125 million. And this project is not included in our 2021 guidance. Our small and utility scale LNG pipeline is very robust with 24 potential projects in our bidding pipeline that could go in 2021 totaling approximately $150 million with a few shown on the bottom right hand side of Slide 16. And don't forget all of the infrastructure being built globally, ranging from fueling stations to over the road trucking to storage to ISOs. Just one example of LNG has continued cost competitive and scalability was December's announcement that the Central Indian government plans to create a gas infrastructure in India with an investment of $60 billion over the next four years, inclusive of LNG terminals. And finally worth noting is that LNG is also getting greener. In addition to our hydrogen development initiatives, Chart continues to develop energy transition solutions that lower emissions from LNG facilities. Many of our LNG and traditional IOC customers are thinking of how to make their facilities other molecule ready. This ranges from gas stations being able to handle other molecules completely or hybrids of mixed molecules to setting up terminals that are a 100% LNG now, but can be switched all at once or gradually to [indiscernible]. Our equipment and processes are well-suited to be able to adapt to these changing requirements. This past year, Chart completed a design study with Total in conjunction with Siemens to evaluate technologies to reduce CO2 per ton of LNG. The study compared Chart’s IPSMR, and IPSMR plus designs with direct gas turbine drives and electric drive with combined cycle power plant. The IPSMR plus configuration with electric drives and combined cycle power plant significantly improved overall plant efficiency and reduce CO2 emissions, another efficient and cleaner option now for our customers to choose from. I'll now hand it over to Merk to talk, or maybe he can sing about our financials. Merk?