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Hovnanian Enterprises, Inc. (HOV)

Q3 2016 Earnings Call· Fri, Sep 9, 2016

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning and thank you for joining us today for Hovnanian Enterprises Fiscal 2016 Third Quarter Earnings Conference Call. An archive of the webcast will be available after the completion of the call and will run for 12 months. This conference is being recorded for rebroadcast and all participants are currently in a listen-only mode. Management will make some opening remarks about the third quarter results and then open up the line for questions. The company will also be webcasting a slide presentation along with the opening comments from management. The slides are available on the Investors page of the company’s website at www.khov.com. Those listeners who would like to follow along should log on to the website at this time. Before we begin, I would like to turn the call over to Jeff O’Keefe, Vice President of Investor Relations. Jeff, please go ahead. Jeff O’Keefe: Thank you, Andrew and thank you all for participating in this morning’s call to review the results for our third quarter which ended July 31, 2016. All statements in this conference call that are not historical facts should be considered as forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements of the company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to statements related to company’s goals and expectations with respect to its financial results for the current or future financial periods, including total revenues, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted income before income taxes. Although we believe that our plans, intentions and expectations reflected and/or suggested by such…

Ara Hovnanian

Management

Thanks, Jeff. We are happy to report a pre-tax profit for the third quarter and while we recognize it’s small, it’s definitely a step in the right direction. I am also going to be talking about our credit statistics, which have improved nicely during the third quarter as evidenced by our EBITDA, the interest incurred coverage increasing to 1.4x. And we will also talk about our recent bond transaction, which certainly improves liquidity and allows us to increase our land spend to grow our community count. Let me start with the quarter. We made steady progress in most metrics. If you turn to Slide 3, in the top left hand corner, you can see that total revenues grew to $717 million, a 33% increase versus last year’s third quarter. In the upper right hand portion of the slide, you can see that our gross margin was 16.9% in the third quarter of this year compared to 17.8% in last year’s third quarter. However, our gross margin did increase sequentially from 16.1% during the second quarter of 2016. In the lower left hand quadrant, you can see that we continued to leverage our SG&A expenses during the third quarter of this year. Our total SG&A ratio decreased 330 basis points to 9.3% during the third quarter from 12.6% in last year’s third quarter. In the lower right hand corner of this slide, we show that we had a $3 million income before income taxes and land related charges compared to a $9 million loss last year. Turning to Slide 4, you can see that some of the improvements we have made in our credit statistics. In the upper left hand corner, we show that our adjusted EBITDA increased approximately 75% during the third quarter to $56 million compared to $32 million…

Larry Sorsby

Management

Thanks Ara. On Slide 14, let me start with an update on Houston. Despite almost 2 years of significantly lower oil prices, our Houston division continues to post very good results. During the third quarter of 2016, we saw the absolute number of net contracts in Houston increased by 6% year-over-year and net contracts per community increased 15% year-over-year to 6.9, which was the highest level for third quarter net contracts per community over the past 4 years. There are three things that set our Houston operations apart from many of the builders we compete against in that market. Number one, with an average home price on homes delivered of $306,000, we focus on a lower average price point. Number two, we do not build in any of the highly competitive master planned communities. And number three, we have less exposure to communities in the energy corridor in Houston than our peers. It’s been almost 2 years since oil prices have dropped and our margins and profitability levels in Houston remained strong. Despite another solid profitable quarter for our Houston operations, we remain cautious about the impact of lower oil prices on Houston economy. We continue to keep a close eye on the market and we will take appropriate actions should circumstances change. Of note, our Dallas, Texas operation, which is far less dependent on oil industry than Houston, remained strong as well. Houston and Dallas remain two of our strongest markets. Turning to Slide 15, you will see our owned and optioned land positions broken out by our publicly reported market segments. Our investment and land option deposits were $63 million as of July 31, 2016. Additionally, we have another $13 million invested in predevelopment expenses. On Slide 16, we show that our total lot count, including unconsolidated joint…

Ara Hovnanian

Management

Thanks, Larry. As I said at the onset, we are happy to report our pre-tax profit for the third quarter and while the pre-tax profit is obviously small, it’s definitely is that’s in the right direction and we are very focused on improving our profitability levels from here. As I also said, we are pleased that our credit statistics have improved quite a bit during the third quarter. And as I mentioned, the key measure for us, the EBITDA to interest coverage increased to 1.4x. Closing the transaction that Larry described with H/2 allows us to reinvest in more land sooner than we previously thought we would be able to. The fact that we don’t have to accumulate cash to pay for $121 million of debt that was due to mature in January of ‘17 gives us the ability to redeploy that capital and invest in new communities. Ultimately, these investments will reverse the declining committee count trend that we have seen in the past quarters. Our consolidated deliveries will shrink a little bit in 2017. However, we will be reinvesting in land, as I said, sooner than we previously thought and our 2018 total deliveries should get back to the 2016 levels. We remain focused on executing our business plans by closing out the year with a strong fourth quarter and beyond that getting to higher levels of profitability over the next several years. That concludes our formal remarks. And I would be happy to open up the floor to questions.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Sam McGovern from Credit Suisse. Your line is open.

Sam McGovern

Analyst

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Just with regard to the financing transactions that you closed yesterday, I was hoping you guys could discuss your thought process there just in terms of the limitations in terms of using the baskets, etcetera versus the way you have previously funded things through land banking. How did you think about this transaction versus that?

Larry Sorsby

Management

Well, I think we looked at this transaction very favorably. It’s favorable rate as compared to some of our other ways of pulling liquidity levers. And I think it’s a first step towards re-accessing the capital markets, which I think is also very important to the company as a whole. And the limitation on land banking, from our perspective, is de minimis. Historically, we typically with land bank parcels that were under our control, but not yet owned, we really didn’t do much land banking of owned properties. However, last fall, when the capital markets closed to us relatively suddenly, we had near-term maturities. We took a portfolio of land that we owned and land banked it. So, we would kind of look at that as a one-off proposition for the most part anyway. So, we don’t think that limitation of land banking is a material limitation to us, because going forward, as we identify new parcels that we want to put under control if we decide the land bank, there is nothing to prevent us from doing so due to these transactions.

Sam McGovern

Analyst

Got it. And you highlighted that it does not restrict the land banking for some newly identified lots earlier in your prepared remarks as well. Should we expect new deals for that to be forthcoming or you are just highlighting it?

Larry Sorsby

Management

I think that we will make decisions as we look at individual parcels as to whether we want to do it wholly-owned or whether we want to do it under a land bank. I mean, we now have cash that we weren’t anticipating having prior to the H2 transactions that we wanted to deploy first.

Sam McGovern

Analyst

Got it. And for that $40 million of restricted cash that’s identified for additional debt retirement, can you talk a little bit about where you guys would target would it be the near-term maturities at the end of 2017 or would it be for some of the notes that are trading at a lower dollar price?

Larry Sorsby

Management

Yes. I don’t think I want to be any more specific than it’s available to retire debt.

Sam McGovern

Analyst

Okay, great. And then this is my last question, can you talk a little bit about target leverage, how you guys get there and just where we...?

Larry Sorsby

Management

I mean that’s always interesting point. I mean one of the things that we learned in the last downturn is that our target leverage at that point was 50% debt to cap. We actually entered the homebuilding great recession below that and it [indiscernible]. So it’s kind of an interesting point because we are leveraged, like I had to say to infinity and beyond, since we have negative equity. So rather than set a new target right at this second, we need to get back to our old target of 50%. But frankly, I think that once we achieve that, it’s more likely for us to set a target with a three handle, 30% handle kind of targeted leverage. But we got ways to go before that’s something that we can do on a near-term basis.

Sam McGovern

Analyst

Great. Thanks so much. I will pass it on.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Alan Ratner from Zelman & Associates. Your line is open.

Alan Ratner

Analyst

Hi guys. Good morning and thanks for taking my questions. First one, just on the joint ventures, as the number of JV communities is increasing and next year, it sounds like you expect deliveries to increase quite a bit there as well, how should we think about the profitability coming from JV is because you have been printing losses there and those losses have been expanding as you are opening more JV communities, so should we be extrapolating that out or is there a reason why that loss has been increasing over the past couple of quarters and how do you think about the overall profitability there?

Ara Hovnanian

Management

Sure, this is Ara. The reason to losses you are seeing right now is we are starting many brand new joint ventures. And they are at startup phase. We have got expenses associated with them, but not the deliveries yet. The new properties that we are joint-venturing, we absolutely expect to be very profitable. And the structure of the joint venture is quite favorable for us while as long as we perform as we anticipate, while our partner puts up the majority of the capital, we end up with the majority of the profits. So it is a good win-win partnership with GTIS. And we have done numerous ventures with and it’s been a very good relationship.

Alan Ratner

Analyst

That’s helpful. Thanks Ara. And then second, just on the liquidity and kind of the conversation around cash. First, I know you have some outstanding borrowings on the revolver that’s coming due in ‘18, so curious if you have had any conversations with the lenders there or any plans for that. And then just thinking about the proceeds you got from H2 transactions, you mentioned several times looking to deploy that cash, but really with maturities now just kind of being pushed out into ‘18 and ‘19, it would seem like you need to get that cash out pretty quickly and really have it be primarily finished lots that you could turn over the next, call it 12 months to 18 months in order to have that cash back to get ready for those maturities, unless I am thinking about that wrong, so maybe just talk a little bit about ‘18, ‘19 period, how quickly you think you could get that cash out and back in the door and the revolver? Thank you.

Larry Sorsby

Management

Yes. Let me take the second question first, because that’s the one I can remember and you may repeat the first question. But we believe that as our performance continues to improve that we will be able to access the capital markets again. So we are not contemplating that we are going to be shutdown from refinancing debt forever. And I think we are optimistic that sometime between now and ‘19, we will be able to re-access the capital markets simultaneously as our performance improves and we start to de-lever, maybe we won’t refinance everything. So we are not thinking about this in terms of having to get the capital that we are redeploying back in a certain period of time. Having said that, much of the new communities that we have been doing in recent years has been averaging 50 lots, 60 lots per community and have averaged roughly a 2-year life, so that’s typically what occurs anyway, but not necessarily because we are looking absolutely to have that money back by the date that you were suggesting. And I have been reminded of your first question really is the revolver. And on the revolver side of the equation, we are not anticipating that we will be able to extend that revolver. We are anticipating paying that off in the summer of 2018.

Alan Ratner

Analyst

Great. Thanks for all that detail. Good luck.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Nishu Sood form Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Tim Daley

Analyst

Well, this is actually Tim Daley on for Nishu. Thanks for taking my question. My first question is in regards to the JV versus wholly owned communities, just trying to gauge, when you say that the full year ‘18 closing is going to be similar on a total levels of ‘16, could you breakout how much of that will be coming from JV versus wholly owned communities and compare that to what basically the breakout is for ‘16?

Larry Sorsby

Management

Yes. We are not going to give you detail on that. What we are really trying to do is just tell that we have reconfigured. We are going to be doing roughly the same volume in ‘18 that we have done – that we anticipate doing in ‘16 and keep implying that ‘16 is a huge increase compared to what we actually achieved in ‘15. So as Ara and I like to say, we had 2 years worth of growth and 1 year this year, maybe is 3 years worth of growth and 1 year. And although we are going to take a little bit of a step backwards in 2017, by 2018, the combination of JV deliveries and wholly owned deliveries will be back to roughly the same level that we anticipate to achieve in ‘16. But they will be a little more weighted towards JVs and less weighted to wholly owned is about the only insight I am able to give you at this time.

Tim Daley

Analyst

Alright, that’s very helpful. And then my second question, in regards to selling commissions, I was just curious, can you put numbers around how the commissions have trended over the past year. And then as well, do you – all your commission seem to be SG&A line or is there any other allocations somewhere else?

Ara Hovnanian

Management

To answer the second part first. All the commissions are in cost of sales for us, both internally and external commissions. And commissions as a percentage of revenue have not changed dramatically in the last year or so, it’s been about the same.

Larry Sorsby

Management

The only thing I might add, we have seen incidences of the outside brokerage commissions getting a little additional incentive in some of the more competitive markets. But that’s more anecdotal than a widespread trend.

Tim Daley

Analyst

Alright, great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Susan Berliner from JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Susan Berliner

Analyst

Hi, good morning.

Ara Hovnanian

Management

Good morning.

Larry Sorsby

Management

Good morning.

Susan Berliner

Analyst

So Larry, I guess I want to start first with you with regards to the H2 transaction and it was helpful that you gave land banking restrictions, can you talk about any other restrictions such as joint ventures or any holding on to X amount of inventory?

Larry Sorsby

Management

No other restrictions.

Susan Berliner

Analyst

Okay. And the additional, you got some additional liquidity in the transaction, can you say on a pro forma basis, have you used that to pay down the revolver?

Larry Sorsby

Management

Can I say if I have?

Susan Berliner

Analyst

Yes.

Larry Sorsby

Management

I have not.

Susan Berliner

Analyst

Okay. And then I guess Ara, you had given some commentary with regards to forward guidance and I wanted to focus on the margin because I know you guys aren’t the only ones talking about labor issues, but I guess as we look forward, are you expecting any improvement in gross margin going forward?

Ara Hovnanian

Management

Well, as I indicated, we are still feeling the headwind from all the areas I mentioned. We did make a little sequential improvement and we expect to get some continued incremental improvement next year. As I mentioned, part of that drag is from purchases we made in ‘13 and ‘14, much like many of our peers. Construction costs were much lower. They have gone up quite a bit since then and paces have changed, although that’s improving. But we think we will expect our margins to gradually creep back. I mean it is interesting that it was just 2 years ago in ‘13 and ‘14 when our gross margin was 20%, which was a more normalized level by going back in our longer term history. It certainly eroded for many including ourselves, but we are anxious to get it back to the levels that we just recently achieved.

Susan Berliner

Analyst

And just I guess following up on the SG&A, so obviously you took it down a little bit for this year, considering the makeup of joint ventures versus wholly-owned, how should we think about the wholly-owned SG&A margin in 2017 and ‘18?

Larry Sorsby

Management

Yes, I would say that if you are able – and you are not able to do, Sue, so I will first say that if we treated the JV deliveries in ‘17 and ‘18 as if they were wholly-owned and treated the management fee – if we just looked at it as one of JV and it was a consolidated community, our SG&A numbers are going to be similar to what we report in 2016. The fact that we have more JV communities delivering in ‘17 and ‘18 SG&A might tweak up a bit on a consolidated basis.

Ara Hovnanian

Management

Overall, what’s important for us is velocity per community and that has a very big impact. That has been improving. So, that’s directionally in the right way. The other thing is as we are hoping to do a similar volume overall with four fewer divisions, that helps our SG&A as well. It’s a little more efficient to have fewer, larger divisions.

Susan Berliner

Analyst

Great. And then I guess my last question would be just on the August orders, I know you discussed the difference in weekends. Can you talk about, I guess, the traffic in the communities? And I guess highlight any markets that did better than you expected or did worse, I know you talked about Houston and Dallas?

Ara Hovnanian

Management

Yes. Overall, I would say, it’s been relatively consistent across geographies. I don’t think we can say we have had any real standouts. Perhaps Maryland has been just a touch slower than some of the others. And we are a little bit behind in getting some new openings in Southeastern Florida that we had counted on. The models are just running a touch behind. So, that is part of it as well. But all-in-all, I mean we came off of a very strong third quarter and we are not seeing any substantial shift in the marketplace. August is always a tricky period anyway given all the back-to-school activities, vacations, etcetera.

Susan Berliner

Analyst

Great. Thanks so much.

Larry Sorsby

Management

I will give you one more factoid. When you combine July and August together, sales per community were roughly flat year-over-year.

Ara Hovnanian

Management

Any other questions?

Susan Berliner

Analyst

No, that’s great.

Ara Hovnanian

Management

Okay.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. No other questioners in the queue at this time. So, I would like to turn the call back over to Ara Hovnanian for closing remarks.

Ara Hovnanian

Management

Great. Well, thank you very much. We are making progress a step at a time and we look forward to reporting the great fourth quarter as our year concludes. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you again for your participation in today’s conference call. This now concludes the program and you may all disconnect at this time. Everyone, have a great day.