Tricia Fulton
Analyst · Stifel. Please proceed
Thank you Josef and good day everyone. On Slide six and seven, I will review our third quarter consolidated results. As Josef noted, we outperformed and delivered outstanding growth in third quarter supported by our focus on delivery lead times and managing our operations efficiently. We continue to expand our sales channels while our existing end markets remain robust. We are focused on executing our Flywheel acquisition strategy and our most recent transformative acquisition of Balboa exceeded our expectations again. Net sales grew 82% over the prior year period, as we executed our growth plans and continue to take market share. As Josef mentioned, we delivered very strong 30% organic growth during the quarter. Third quarter gross profit of $80.9 million increased $34 million or 72% over the prior year period from higher volumes. Gross margin was a very healthy 36.2% and was impacted year-over-year by the difference from Balboa’s margin profiles. Throughout the quarter, we captured manufacturing efficiencies, and improved leverage over our fixed costs based on higher sales, which were offset by increases in logistics and raw material costs. We have done and continue to implement multiple pricing strategies, while also carefully managing the business to overcome the higher input costs. Manufacturing is performing well, given the constant reprioritization we need to do to get product out the door. Maintaining extreme flexibility and agility in our operations has been a competitive advantage and it's helping us take market share. Adjusted EBITDA margin grew to 25.1% of 170 basis points from the same period a year ago, reflecting higher volumes and our discipline cost management efforts. Non-GAAP cash EPS improved $0.54 to $1.07 for the third quarter over the prior year period, reflecting strong demand across all industries, and better than expected performance of the Balboa acquisition. Our effective tax rates in the third quarter was 25.5% compared to 20.7% in the prior year period, due to a reduction in available tax incentives, and increased earnings in higher tax jurisdictions such as Italy, Germany and Australia. Please turn to Slide eight for review of our Hydraulic segment third quarter operating results. Third quarter hydraulic sales of $133 million were up 36% over the prior year period, and benefited from broad based improved demand in most of our end markets, showing very strong annual growth in the Americas and EMEA. Annual organic growth in this segment was 31%. Sales included a positive 1 million impact from foreign currency exchange rates. Q3 Hydraulics gross profits benefited from higher volumes while margin increased 150 basis points to 37.6% primarily driven by fixed costs leverage on higher sales, manufacturing efficiencies and sales mix. The 460 basis point operating margin expansion to 23.8% compared with the prior year period reflects operating leverage on higher volumes as well as our disciplined execution on our manufacturing strategy. Please turn to slide nine for review of our Electronic segment third quarter operating results. Electronic sales were $89.8 million, up from the $24.4 million in the year ago period, reflecting an increase of 268%. Annual organic growth in this segment was 26%. We are seeing strong demand from the health & wellness and recreational markets. Supply chain constraints limits its sales in both end markets in the quarter. Acquisitions contributed $59 million in revenue to our electronic segment for the third quarter. Next quarter we will observe one year since acquiring Balboa and it will be classified into our organic growth categories. We continue to be very excited by the potential this acquisition has brought to our business. Electronics segment gross profit of $31.3 million in Q3 increased with the acquisition and higher volume. Electronics gross margin was 34.9% and reflects the impact of mix primarily related to the different margin profile of the Balboa acquisition, as well as increased costs resulting from supply chain challenges to meet strong customer demand. Operating income for the electronic segment of $18.4 million was up from $4.7 million in the prior year period, and operating margin improved 130 basis points. The 2021 third quarter margin reflects operating leverage gained with Balboa’s favorable operating profile and higher volume in the organic business. Please turn to Slide 10 for a review of our cash flow. Cash from operations was $32.5 million in the third quarter compared with $36.7 million in the prior year period. We are carefully balancing our working capital requirements with our efforts to provide timely deliveries to our customers amidst significant demand and material shortages. For the quarter, CapEx was $6.7 million up from $1.9 million in the third quarter of 2020. CapEx for the full year 2021 is expected to range between $25 million to $27 million. This is down from our range of $30 million to $32 million due to the timing of when certain investments will be available. On a year-over-year basis, this will be an increase of 78% from our capital expenditures in 2020. Free cash flow was a strong $25.7 million at the end of the third quarter, equating to a trailing 12-months free cash flow conversion rate of 103%. We are confident we have significant financial flexibility to further pursue our Flywheel acquisition strategy. Regarding our capital structure on Slide 11, we continue to rapidly deliver our balance sheet. This quarter, we hit our target range of pro forma net debt-to-adjusted EBITDA leverage of two times. This improved from the three times at the end of 2020. Total debt was $471 million at quarter end. We also have $121 million available on our revolving lines of credit with total liquidity of $169 million. As a reminder, our financial strategy is to increase leverage for disciplined acquisitions and then generate the cash to quickly pay that down. Our capital priorities remain debt reduction, organic growth through new products and technologies, acquisitive growth and distributions to shareholders. In fact, with our next dividend payments, we plan to join an elite group of public companies that have paid dividends for 25 years straight. Now, let’s turn Slide 12 and I will discuss our outlook for the rest of 2021. Our guidance for 2021 assumes constant currency using quarter and rates, as well as the assumption that our markets are not further impacted by the global pandemic. As a result of our outperformance this quarter, we are raising our revenue outlook for 2021 to the range of $840 million to $860 million, which implies an annual growth rate of approximately 63% at the midpoint of the range. We are holding adjusted EBITDA margin outlooks steady at 23.5% to 24.5%. We continue to leverage our manufacturing efficiencies to offset stronger headwinds in the fourth quarter due to rising material costs. This implies we are raising our expectation for adjusted EBITDA dollars, the range of $197 million to $211 million or a 68% annual growth rate at the midpoint of the range. Additionally, we continue to invest through non-CapEx related items into our manufacturing strategy to reap the rewards of margin improvement over the long term. Relative to our margin guidance, we are reflecting inflated material and freight costs continuing through the remainder of the year. The challenges of obtaining parts and supplies even as we build inventory, as well as the difficulties in staffing and balancing production lines. We are tightening our interest expense outlook to $16 million to $17 million at current borrowing levels and rates. The expected effective tax rate for 2021 remains in the range of 22% to 24%. Depreciation is now expected to be between $21 million to $22 million, while outlook and amortization is unchanged at approximately $32 million to $33 million. We are raising our non-GAAP cash EPS outlook to between $3.75 to $4.10 per share, or a 75% increase over the prior year at the midpoint of the range. The increase in our guidance for 2021 is driven by the strong end market demand we have so far this year, and expect to continue throughout the remainder of 2021. We expect that we can leverage our fixed cost base and maintain our strong margins even given the headwinds on the supply chain, material costs and logistics. The spread in our ranges this far into the year is an indication of the highly unusual operating environment we all find ourselves within. With that, I will turn the call back to Josef for some final comments.