Earnings Labs

Hubbell Incorporated (HUBB)

Q4 2014 Earnings Call· Thu, Jan 29, 2015

$546.42

-1.61%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

-2.27%

1 Week

+2.34%

1 Month

+3.78%

vs S&P

-0.74%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, my name is Beth, and I will be your conference operator. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to our Hubbell Incorporated Fourth Quarter Earnings Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. Jim Farrell, you may begin your conference.

James M. Farrell

Analyst

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I am here today with our Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Dave Nord; and our Chief Financial Officer, Bill Sperry. Hubbell announced its fourth quarter results for 2014 this morning. The press release and earnings slide materials have been posted to the Investors section of our website at www.hubbell.com. Please note that our comments this morning may include statements related to the expected future results of our Company and are, therefore, forward-looking statements as defined by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Therefore, please note the discussion of forward-looking statements in our press release and consider it incorporated by reference into this call. In addition, comments may also include non-GAAP financial measures. Those measures are reconciled to the comparable GAAP measures and are included in the press release and the earnings slide materials. And with that, let me turn the call over to Dave.

David G. Nord

Analyst

All right. Thanks, Jim. Thanks everybody for joining. I am just going to give a little bit of perspective on our finish to the year then I’ll let Bill in the normal course go through some of the details in the fourth quarter and full-year, and I’ll come back to wrap it up and provide more insights into our outlook for next year. Fourth quarter results as you have seen I am quite pleased with the performance in the quarter, particularly as we are recovering from the challenges that popped up in the third quarter that we knew we are going to face for the rest of the year. The organization certainly focused on finishing the year very strong and I think we see that in our – at least in our fourth quarter results good improvement. You see we’ve got sales up 5% in the quarter, nice balance between the organic side and the acquisitions contributing and I think some of our markets in the quarter were particularly good and our performance in those markets, particularly on our C&I Lighting which was up double-digits in the quarter. Our Power business putting up some good organic growth numbers are two positives. So I think that’s good and of course acquisition contributing. Currency we saw some of the currency headwind starting to creep-in the fourth quarter. And we’ll talk more about that later. On the margin side operating margins of 14.9%, which certainly down from last year, but better than we were anticipating as a result of our focus on addressing some of the issues identified and that 14.9% includes some of the restructuring actions we talk about that, process about 50 basis points. So all of that leading to diluted earnings per share of a $1.38 which has $0.06 restructuring cost, so all-in-all I am pleased with the recovery from the challenges that we identified in the third quarter and the actions taken and we’ll talk later about the action that are in process of being initiated and planned. With that Bill, why don’t you get into some details and then I’ll come back.

William R. Sperry

Analyst

Thanks, Dave very much and thanks everybody for joining us, we are aware that’s a busy time and a non-news items out there we are appreciative of these thing time with us this morning, I am going to use the slide that Jim reference to guide my comments this morning. I’ll be referring to the page numbers as we go through. So I am starting on Page 3, the summary of the fourth quarter. It was a good quarter, nice solid finish to the year. We had orders strengths throughout, right through the end of the year that provided the balance that Dave referenced, that organic growth of 3% reasonably strong through sequentially throughout the year balanced by the 3% from acquisition so 5% sales growth. The OP margin of 14.9% observed some of the mix headwinds that we’ve been discussing all year as the non-res markets which are out growing our other markets happen to contain business with lower margins for us as well as the restructuring actions. And I’ll just try to pause and give you a little bit of flavor of what those actions have been during the fourth quarter. Largely put them into buckets, one sort of targeted headcount reduction in businesses that we are looking for more efficiency. And the second and larger bucket was facility rationalization so on the facility we initiated actions at four different facilities all within the electrical segment on the lighting side. Including one distribution center and few small manufacturing locations and one slightly larger manufacturing location, where those projects reach proceeding, but they are not even I would say halfway done yet. We still have the point of needing to move the PP&E and get the production into the receiving plans. So those projects take some time, you get…

David G. Nord

Analyst

All right, thanks Bill. Yes, before we close out 2014, let me just give you a couple of comments and perspective. We accomplished a lot in 2014 and I don’t want to loose sight of that, obviously we had our challenges, but as Bill mentioned, accomplishments increasing our dividend, investing in acquisitions, ramping up our share repurchase, I think are all highlights. I think as we said here a year ago, we though that our sales would be up 5% to 6% with balance between acquisitions and organic and I think we outperformed on the acquisition side and I would suggest we underperformed on the organic side. I think the markets may have contributed some of that but I think that’s an area that we got to have more focus on and we have more focused on for 2015. Our operating profit, based on our guidance we would have been just north of 16%, finishing the year and instead we are finishing at 15.4% and I think a big part of that is some of the challenges that we faced within the lighting business for sure and maybe a little underestimation of what the mix implications were going to be around our high voltage and Harsh & Hazardous business. So we’ve learned a lot from that. We obviously don’t want to loose sight of earning more than $300 million better than 15% margins, but still we recognized that and we’re disappointed that we came about 30% short of our own expectations and I’ll put that equally between our forecasting on the margin expansion and our execution within the lighting businesses. Both of those things are important to consider as we look into our guidance and things that we contemplate as we are looking at 2015 and the actions that we…

James M. Farrell

Analyst

Okay, let’s go ahead and open it up.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Nigel Coe, Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Nigel E. Coe

Analyst

Thanks, good morning.

David G. Nord

Analyst

Good morning, Nigel.

Nigel E. Coe

Analyst

I hate to start off with the obvious question, but Harsh & Hazardous, I mean seen in the charts of scale, so if I just run the ruler over the task. It looks like $0.40, $0.50 of headwinds you are expecting from that is that about the right zone?

William R. Sperry

Analyst

No, I’d say it’s little less than that Nigel.

Nigel E. Coe

Analyst

Okay. Can you give us the number?

William R. Sperry

Analyst

I would say it’s more in the $0.20 to $0.25 range.

Nigel E. Coe

Analyst

Okay, okay. And obviously the down 15% and 20%, can you maybe just help us think about how you got to that number, is it single in the air, any kind of guess based on customer conversations, what gives you the contents that’s 15% and 20% is the right zone?

David G. Nord

Analyst

I would say all of those things are what we take into account as well as what others are seeing, we are accessing our own business. We think our business is probably 75% upstream. As I said earlier, I think we started with a very simplistic oil down 50%, so the business could be down 50%, but that’s probably, that’s overly simplistic depending on where we play. We had conversations with some customers, but that they are all coming up with different views depending on their own perspective. So I think we’ve come up with the likely scenario this 15% to 20% down keep in mind we didn’t see that didn’t happen in the fourth quarter, we are not seeing that level of down so far this year. So and I suggest that we are contemplating that there is a more significant decline as the year goes on more to the tune of potentially finishing the year down 25% to 30%. And it’s important and the reason we are doing that and listen I might be conservative, I hope I am, but it’s important that we are focused on what the implications are, so we are taking the actions that are possible and necessary to try to medicate that within the business and throughout the rest of our enterprise, so.

David G. Nord

Analyst

I would say Nigel, the most helpful analysis I thought we did with going back to 2008, 2009 timeframe and looking at what prices did and what impact that had on our sales and that was probably the most informative of the different techniques that you described.

Nigel E. Coe

Analyst

Okay that’s great and I appreciate the color David, but can you maybe just talk about how this business - the price and volume impacted in 2008, 2009 and perhaps on top of that what you are assuming for price in 2015?

David G. Nord

Analyst

I think what we saw - to me this is like a two level ratchet on Harsh & Hazardous for us. So in 2014, the business shrunk low single-digits Nigel and in so doing I think lost some of that price power that it had and the margins went from great to good and that was part of what Dave described as maybe forecasting miss on our side during the year of 2014. And so now we’re trying to anticipate steeper volume drop offs and that we don’t have current data as Dave was saying, the order rates are not consistent with down 20%. So we are sort of making some anticipatory guess work here.

Nigel E. Coe

Analyst

Oh, sure. I appreciate that but the down 15% to 20% is that mainly volume at this stage?

David G. Nord

Analyst

Yes.

Nigel E. Coe

Analyst

Yes. Okay, thanks, guys.

William R. Sperry

Analyst

Yes.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Rich Kwas, Wells Fargo Securities. Your line is open.

Richard M. Kwas

Analyst

Hi, good morning, everyone.

William R. Sperry

Analyst

Hey, Rich.

Richard M. Kwas

Analyst

Just I mean some quick math; so on the Harsh & Hazardous 30% decramental is that what you are assuming Dave and Bill on...

David G. Nord

Analyst

Yes that’s what we’re assuming.

Richard M. Kwas

Analyst

Okay, all right.

David G. Nord

Analyst

Roughly.

Richard M. Kwas

Analyst

And then is there a sensitivity we can think of with the growth to rig counts and the impact on your business. I understand, its fluid right now you are not seeing that in the real-time data and you are anticipating it, but as we go forward here, is there a way to think about in terms of percentage change in rig count and how that would potentially affect your business either way?

William R. Sperry

Analyst

We tried looking at that Rich and we weren’t able to come up with an equation that would be satisfactory to you or to us.

Richard M. Kwas

Analyst

Okay, okay.

William R. Sperry

Analyst

We’ll keep looking at it though.

Richard M. Kwas

Analyst

Okay, all right. And then on the margin decline ex-restructuring for the year within the guidance. How much of that is M&A and how much of that is just a Harsh & Hazardous impact if you’ve yet to split out and come over 40 or 50 basis point decline if you accept restructuring?

David G. Nord

Analyst

I think the acquisitions Rich would be around 30 basis points in margin contributing to margin decline.

Richard M. Kwas

Analyst

Okay, so that’s most of it.

David G. Nord

Analyst

Yes.

Richard M. Kwas

Analyst

X restructuring, okay. All right, and then Bill on your comment about buybacks, so you expect to do a $100 million or so this year, you did $70 million in the fourth quarter, with the stock down 20 bucks or so from the highs balance sheet still in very good shape, what’s the thought process of why not to stretch the balance sheet a little bit as it relates to typical Hubbell standards and take advantage of the stock being done a bit here, more aggressively I should say.

William R. Sperry

Analyst

I’ll take that Rich, that is an ongoing conversation now we have and its a certainly an ongoing discussion sometimes debate with by Chief Financial Engineer and economic guy. And one of the issues that we are always pushing on and it’s my strong view is that I’d understand the desire to do that, but if I’ve got a choice my priority is on acquisitions which have the opportunity for earnings growth going forward. So and as you saw we closed three deals already this year or little over $125 million. Okay, so as we are finishing the year we do ramp up share buyback, but we know we’ve got some of these transactions that are close to closing and that’s always the debate that we have when we are looking at the pipeline what’s likely, but that is an ongoing discussion and if there are an opportunity other alternatives, good alternatives we would ramp up share buyback.

Richard M. Kwas

Analyst

Okay, all right thanks.

William R. Sperry

Analyst

Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Christopher Glynn, Oppenheimer. Your line is open.

Christopher D. Glynn

Analyst

Thanks, good morning.

David G. Nord

Analyst

Good morning Chris.

Christopher D. Glynn

Analyst

Good morning, Dave. Just wanted to review a little bit of the linearity for the year and I think I got my answer with the Nigel’s Q&A, but I was going to ask with the 1% to 2% organic for the year and the easier weather comp in the first quarter I guess that’s kind of offset by the you have the Harsh & Hazardous stating through the year that kind of washes that out I guess?

David G. Nord

Analyst

I think that’s right. I think that’s right.

Christopher D. Glynn

Analyst

Okay and then on the Lighting just so we put the impact in properly, I think it translates into little over 20 million pretax. Should we think about that all in lighting and then kind of what proportion in the first quarter and the first half maybe?

David G. Nord

Analyst

It’s definitely not all in lighting I mean it’s really although there is a significant element within lighting. And I think it’s we are trying to execute it, the key is to execute it effectively. And the best way to do that this to would ratably throughout the year, that’s the ideal it doesn’t always look that way. So I think we are planning on it happening that way but it may slide between quarters.

Christopher D. Glynn

Analyst

Okay gotcha. And then just in terms of some growth rates as we subdivide the organization. Could you comment on U.S. organic growth in the quarter? And then any comments on the lighting business?

William R. Sperry

Analyst

Yes, I would say starting with lighting Chris you know we had really nice growth rates on the C&I side we had the resi business along with some of the other national account facing parts of lighting have very lumpy demand dynamics were big orders last year some destocking on some of those projects this year which created some more difficult compares there, but you saw mid-teens growth in C&I inclusive of doing a deal and more or like 10% organic. And so very strong dynamics within lighting from a market perspective and I think trends that give us enthusiasm as we look into the New Year for lighting I think on the resi side certainly some of that data keeps coming in and mixed and some of the homebuilders are giving I think some more modest sort of outlooks certainly Texas market or things that might be over exposed to the oil space seem to be more cautious than others. But in general I think we still the resi support is good for lighting. So, in terms of your geography question, so domestically that non-resi piece is essentially for us – essentially all domestic. And that’s where we saw some of the decent growth. Some of them are more international facing businesses are Harsh & Hazardous and high volt which both was down I think maybe the exception would be our utility business which has got some exposure down in Latin America and in Asia. But in general, if you are generalizing you would say our domestic growth was strong and our international growth was negative.

David G. Nord

Analyst

Well, let me just add a couple other comments on lighting Chris.

Christopher D. Glynn

Analyst

Yes.

David G. Nord

Analyst

I think that certainly we had our challenges and disappointments currently in the third quarter and the second half of the year. One of the things that comes out of that is clearly a wake up call to the team at Lighting, which they are responding incredibly well to. One focusing on the issues that specific issues that came up, but more broadly some of the other implications and one for example when we talk about the pricing pressure and what you realize is that some of the pricing pressure is not so much the market pricing, but our attempts to try and get price to provide a margin with a cost structure, that’s not acceptable. So it’s more of a cost issue than a pricing issue and so that’s why there is much more aggressive action going into the cost side and particularly around the facilities. What I find satisfying is that in a short period of time from feedback from a variety of market participants from suppliers to customers. They have commented that they have seen a change in attitude and approach, much more aggressive, much more customer focus, much more thoughtful in a development of new products and the engineering around that. So all of that are indicators to me that we’re moving in the right direction and it’s just a question of how quickly we can realize the benefits of that. So it’s still early, but I feel a lot better about how that business is moving right now.

Christopher D. Glynn

Analyst

Okay, Dave that’s really interesting color, thanks. And what’s the timeframe on that positive feedback you’re getting is that it must just be the last couple of months even?

David G. Nord

Analyst

Yes, it’s in the last couple of months.

Christopher D. Glynn

Analyst

Great. And just any - what are the thoughts on warranty and obsolescence kind of one-off happenstance going forward?

David G. Nord

Analyst

Well, the thoughts are it’s got to be better. There is a lot of focus on it and I think it’s a challenge within the industry as new participants with new technology have come in and offered up these wonderful warranties. And that’s all fine the reality is if there is going to be a problem with a product it’s going to be early on and it’s going to be caused by poor production or poor design and that’s where our focus has been, identified root cause and have addressed those and are much more focused on that consideration in product launches. And the challenge is to make sure that that doesn’t unduly slowdown the product launches, so you fall behind, but you just take that into account in the development process. So I certainly expect that to be an improved performance I don’t to size that amount yet, but I’m hoping that that provide some of the tailwinds for the lighting business performance in 2015.

Christopher D. Glynn

Analyst

Got it. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jeff Sprague, Vertical Research Partners. Your line is open.

Ryan K. Edelman

Analyst

Hi, guys good morning. It’s actually Ryan sitting in for Jeff.

David G. Nord

Analyst

Hey, Ryan.

Ryan K. Edelman

Analyst

Hi, I was wondering if you could provide a little bit more color on the trends that you are seeing in transmission and substation both in the quarter and as we look out to 2015?

David G. Nord

Analyst

Yes, Ryan, so the fourth quarter as Bill said the transmission and substation were little bit stronger. I think some of that has to do with the timing of shipments of some of the lumpier transmission projects, again we’ve talked a lot this year about small and medium size projects and I think a few of those broke free in Q4 I wouldn’t view it as necessarily a significant uptick in underlying demand. I think some on the substation I think there was a little bit of push at the end of the year to do some maintenance on that. So we got a little lift in Q4. I think as we turned to 2015, I think our guys feel pretty good about again the pipeline of small to medium size projects and actually have cautious optimism that some of the larger stuff might actually come through, but again get you still to a 1% to 2% growth environment as we talked about, Q1 would probably be a lot stronger right, pretty easy comp and then it gets tougher as the year progresses.

Ryan K. Edelman

Analyst

Okay, great thanks. And then on the pricing side within power specifically where exactly are you seeing the most competitive price pressure.

William R. Sperry

Analyst

Ryan that comes on larger jobs where there is just more bidding pressure, there is reasonably high percentage of that business which is maintenance and repair and it’s not on that side, it’s more on the project side.

Ryan K. Edelman

Analyst

Okay, great. Thanks guys.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Steve Tusa, JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Charles Stephen Tusa

Analyst

Hey, good morning.

David G. Nord

Analyst

Hey, good morning, Steve.

Charles Stephen Tusa

Analyst

So, just so I’m clear are you basically the Harsh & Hazardous I mean is that 100% oil and gas that business?

William R. Sperry

Analyst

No, so we’ve got about 70-ish is oil and gas, another 10% would be mining, you’re up around 80% that’s extractive industry Steve in that order of magnitude.

Charles Stephen Tusa

Analyst

Okay, so that kind of dominates, it sound like you have oil and gas down 50% and other markets flat I mean it really kind of dominates the segment from that perspective.

William R. Sperry

Analyst

Yes, it does Steve that’s a good point I mean the way we’re thinking about it for oil and gas is really down more or like 20% to 25% for the 75% of Harsh & Hazardous right.

Charles Stephen Tusa

Analyst

Right and that’s already down right this year.

William R. Sperry

Analyst

Existing the year slower but certainly nowhere near those levels and as Dave said Q1 you’ve got some projects that you know are finishing out through completion so Q1 probably won’t be at the best indicator for how this things going.

Charles Stephen Tusa

Analyst

Yep.

William R. Sperry

Analyst

But yes, so as Dave said I think the back half is what we’re going to watch those 25%, 30% kind of numbers.

Charles Stephen Tusa

Analyst

Right. And then just on the - you’ve talked a lot about pricing, but just on the commodity side. How are you guys planning on the commodity front, any tailwind there in 2015?

William R. Sperry

Analyst

Yes, I mean as you can appreciate Steve its moving everyday but certainly the major commodities that we have are pretty good as you know the challenges is on the pricing side. So but absolutely the coppers, the steels all should help.

Charles Stephen Tusa

Analyst

And you’re embedding that, as of now.

William R. Sperry

Analyst

It is embedded, but I wouldn’t embed a net benefit of pricing commodity cost rise. So at PFR it’s moving quite a bit everyday, but I wouldn’t view it as OP side.

Charles Stephen Tusa

Analyst

Okay gotcha, gotcha. And the one last question, what it is on just on the bridge what exactly did you say the core was – did the core plus acquisition add this year from an EPS perspective I didn’t quite catch that.

William R. Sperry

Analyst

Somewhere between $0.60 and $0.75.

Charles Stephen Tusa

Analyst

Okay so $0.60 and $0.75 and the restructuring as of now do you think that restructuring is kind of you know what you need to do would you envision another major restructuring in 2016? It seems like a pretty big swing you taken here. And then that you got a lot of good projects in the pipe I mean did you feel like okay, what good there, we are kind of control with what we’ve set out there on restructuring?

David G. Nord

Analyst

I think its too early to call on that, I think it is when I look at one element of our cost structure which really is our footprint, the cost to shrink that are not insignificant. And I think it is possible that we get the momentum and cadence down that we would be more aggressive on that. That’s not to say that $0.25 there would be another $0.25 incremental, but that certainly could be the level of expenditure next year, it’s possible. But again it’s too early to tell this, I wouldn’t say its all – all right go ahead.

Charles Stephen Tusa

Analyst

Right, so you wouldn’t look at it and say hey $0.25 of cost this year, call it $0.30 you said, you are going to get more than that in net benefits in 2016. So it’s not quite a $0.55 flip, it is what you are saying for 2016?

William R. Sperry

Analyst

Correct. Correct.

David G. Nord

Analyst

I think one of the drivers Steve, the success of our acquisition programs means you are adding facilities and not each one of those is a world class or global scale kind of facility. As you kind of aggregate those it creates these opportunities. And we have been doing those in [1/zs and 2/zs] kind of year-in and year out. And I think the acquisitions program is starting to outstrip that. So that’s really kind of what’s behind it.

Charles Stephen Tusa

Analyst

So in essence, it’s kind of somewhere between a big one-timer and kind of a multi-year restructuring story, kind of somewhere between that. I guess.

William R. Sperry

Analyst

Yes, I would say it’s somewhere between that. What I believe is certainly for some portion of it the benefits could be greater and so in theory you could get $0.25 more next year. And still be able to pay for this stuff, but what I say is its still very early, but some of them – there is early cost, but tremendous benefits when you do these things, if you can do execute them successfully and that’s always why it’s a little bit more cautious to get to that point.

Charles Stephen Tusa

Analyst

Okay, we appreciate you running this stuff off through the EPS guidance; because there are lot of companies that adjusting strip some of the stuff out. So thanks for the visibility in running that through, it’s a more honest way to approach it.

William R. Sperry

Analyst

Okay.

Charles Stephen Tusa

Analyst

Thanks.

William R. Sperry

Analyst

Thanks. End of Q&A

Operator

Operator

We will now turn the call back to Jim Farrell for his closing remarks.

James M. Farrell

Analyst

Okay, thank you everyone for joining us again this morning, I know it’s a busy time. Certainly folks who have follow-up questions, feel free to reach out to me, I’ll be around all day today and tomorrow. So thanks again, and we’ll talk to you in the next conference. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today’s conference. You may now disconnect. Thank you.