Tricia Fulton
Analyst · Robert W. Baird. Please go ahead
Thank you, Wolfgang and good morning everyone. I’m starting on Slide 6th with the review of our third quarter consolidated results. Third quarter sales were $88 million, up 95% compared to last year’s quarter. This includes $30.8 million for the Enovation Controls business indicating that the organic business grew 27%. Most of our products did not have any price increases in 2016 or 2017. The pricing had an immaterial impact on the comparability. Foreign currency translation had a favorable 200,000 impact for the quarter. I will now touch on sales by region, which are designated here in the sales bar chart. We inserted a chart in the back of the press release, as well as the supplemental slides summarizing this information. As we previously noted, we start experiencing progressive improvement in all of our geographic markets a little over year ago and that has continued to the present time. We realized year-over-year third quarter growth in each region. In the Americas sales more than doubled over the third quarter of 2016 to $52.1 million, driven by the Enovation Controls business, as well as organic growth. The Enovation Controls business is heavily weighted to the US, driving our sales to the Americas market up to 59% of the consolidated total. EMEA realized 36% growth to $19 million and the Asian Pacific region was up 72% to $16.9 million. Our organic business grew 21%, 15% and 55% in the Americas EMEA and APAC respectively. We have made investments in sales and marketing, including the addition of sales application specialists in the field, which we believe are generating sales to complement the market expansion. Regarding profitability, our consolidated adjusted EBITDA more than doubled to $22.5 million, representing 25.5% of sales in this year’s third quarter. That was up from 21.7% in last year’s third quarter. The improvement was driven by the increase in sales and the leverage realized on our fixed cost base in both cost of goods sold and SEA, those benefits were partially offset by higher cost associated with product development activities and efficiencies that resulted from the curve-out and public company audit and stock implementation expense. Turning to the bottom line, adjusted earnings per share were $0.43 more than double last year’s third quarter of $0.19. I want to mention a few items that impacted our consolidated results reported in our earnings release. First, our amortization expense, most of which resulted from Enovation Controls acquisition amounted to $2 million pretax in the third quarter, net of tax that amounts to $0.05 per share. I’d also want to point out that we realized $1.4 million of incremental net interest expense, primarily due to the cash and debt used for the acquisition, net of tax, this amount to approximately $0.04 per share. Finally, we reported an additional 700,000 pretax of contingent consideration, which net of tax amount to approximately $0.02 per share. We report this item as an adjustment to arrive at non-GAAP, net income, and EPS as shown in the reconciliation at the end of both the earnings release and the slide deck. Based on the accounting rules, this represents an adjustment to the additional purchase price for the Enovation Controls business in accordance with the earn-out in the purchase agreement. Please turn to Slide 7 for review of our hydraulics segment third quarter operating result. Sales grew 28% to $56.6 million with particular strength in the APAC and Americas region continuing the trend realized last quarter. We saw 55% year-over-year growth for the quarter in APAC region and 23% in the Americas region. Gross profit increased by 50% to $22.9 million on the higher sales driving gross margin up to 40.4%. This compares favorably to last year which realized 34.4% gross margin. The improvement resulted primarily from leverage on the higher sales volume, although there was a minor unfavorable impact in our Sarasota operations from Hurricane Irma. SEA expenses increased by $1.8 million to $9.3 million to support our growth initiatives, including the addition of new talent. Operating income increased 75% to $13.5 million or 23.8% operating margin, compared with 17.4% operating margin in last year’s third quarter. Similar to the improved gross margin on our higher sales volume, we realized further leverage on our SEA expenses. This drove the operating margin improvement. Please turn to Slide 8 for a review of our electronics segment third quarter operating results. As a reminder, the 2016 electronics segment numbers include only a very small HCT business, and the 2017 numbers include both our Enovation Controls business, as well as HCT. Enovation Controls contributed $30.8 million of the segment $31.4 million third quarter 2017 sales. On a pro forma basis, Enovation Controls realized 34% growth over the pre-acquisitions 2016 third quarter. Similar to the strong pro forma growth realized in the last quarter, we attribute this to our proactive sales initiatives, as well as new products and overall increasing market demand in the power controls and recreational vehicle end market. The segment generated 42.8% gross margin and 19% operating margin in the quarter, compared with trailing second quarter, this period was impacted by higher cost associated with product development activities and efficiencies that resulted from the curve-out and public company audits and stock implementation expenses. Please turn to Slide 9 for review of our year-to-date consolidated results. Sales of $258.7 million were up 76% over the same period of last year. This includes $85.2 million for the Enovation Controls business, indicating that the organic business grew approximately 18%. Foreign currency translation had an unfavorable $1.7 million impact year-to-date, compared with last year. Regarding profitability, our consolidated adjusted EBITDA nearly doubled to 59.9%, representing 27% of sales in the first three quarters of 2017 that was up from 25% last year. Turning to the bottom line, adjusted earnings per share were $1.33, up from $0.75 last year. As I noted for the quarter, I want to mention some items that impacted our consolidated year-to-date results reported in our earnings release. To begin with, in the first quarter of this year, we reported $1.8 million pretax for amortization of inventory step-up. It is included in the positive sales and net of tax amounts to $0.04 per share. This is reflected as an adjustment to arrive at non-GAAP, net income, and EPS, and showing reconciliation at the end of both our earnings release and slide deck. Next, our amortization expense amounted to $6.4 million, net of tax that amounts to $0.16 per share. Third, we realized $3.8 million of incremental net interest expense, net of tax, this amount to approximately $0.9 per share. Finally, we recorded $8.9 million pretax of contingent consideration was net of tax amounts to approximately $0.21 per share. This item is also reflected as an adjustment to arrive at non-GAAP, net income, and EPS. Please turn to Slide 10 for a year-to-date review of the hydraulic segment. Sales grew 19% to $171.6 million with particular strengthen in the APAC and Americas region, which grew 36% and 17% respectively. Gross profit increased by 33% to $70.5 million on the higher sales driving gross margin up to 41.1%, this compares favorably to last year which realized 36.8% gross margin. Operating income increased 44% to $43.6 million or 25.4% operating margin, compared to 21% operating margin for the first three quarters of 2016. Like the quarter, our improved profitability is benefiting from the leverage realized on our fixed cost with higher sales volume. Please turn to Slide 11 for year-to-date review of our electronic segment. Enovation Controls contributed $85.2 million of the segments $87.1 million of sales for the first three quarters of 2017. On a pro-forma basis, Enovation Controls realized 38% over the same period last year. The segment generated 44.7% gross margin and 21.4% operating margin in the first three quarters of 2017. As Wolfgang indicated, this sales growth and profitability is exceeding our initial expectations. We are very pleased with the team's attention and focus to attaining or exceeding their goals. Please turn to Slide 12 for a review of our cash flow and capital structure. During the first three quarters of 2017, we generated $38.4 million of cash from operating activities, compared with $31.3 million in the first three quarters of 2016. The increase is due to higher net income partially offset by an increase in working capital. We have - needed additional working capital going 2017, especially inventory to support the sales growth, as well as the Enovation Controls curve-out. To ensure that we didn’t interrupt our ability to meet customer demands, we carried extra inventory of production lines for being shutdown and then setup in the new location. Total debt was $116 million at September 30, 2017 down from a $124 million at July 1, 2017, and $140 million at April 1, 2017. We repaid an additional $8 million of debt during the third quarter of 2017 after having a repaid $16 million during the first quarter. We had a $184 million of available capacity and revolving credit facility at September 30, 2017. As we previously mentioned would occur in our fourth quarter, in October we paid $17 million to the former owners of Enovation Controls, as the first of prepayments earned as contingent consideration or earn-out. The next two payments are due in July 2018 and April 2019, other than that and our regular quarterly dividend, our primary use of cash, as the capital expenditures and acquisitions to support our vision 2025. We finished the quarter with $84.9 million of cash and short-term investments and $116 million of debt or $31.1 million of net debt. Our net debt to net capitalization was down to 10%. At the end of 2016, we had $81 million in cash and short-term investments and $140 million of debt or $59 million of net debt. That had our net debt to net capitalization at 20%. So, our strong cash flow profile has allowed us to make considerable improvement in that matrix during the year. Wolfgang, I’d like to turn it back to you for your perspective and outlook, before we open line for Q&A.