Michael W. Lamach
Analyst · Steve Volkmann from Jefferies & Company
Okay. Thanks, Sue. Please go to Slide 12. To give you an update on the outlook for our key markets, I'll start with North America non-residential. And as you know, we look at a collection of data to derive our forecast. To us, Put in Place outlook, which is $1.00-based estimate for 2014, shows an overall increase of 6%. I always put a caution flag on this forecast, which over the past 4 to 5 years, has kind of start high and walk down throughout the year. For 2014, the Commercial and Industrial Put in Place forecast was to be up for 13%. Those markets were up 8% in 2013. With Commercial and Industrial, the strongest verticals are expected to be office and bank buildings, warehouses and garages meeting 2 to 3 top categories have a lower HVAC usage intensity. Institutional markets are expected to be down again in 2014 by 1% versus down 8% in 2013. So still negative, but institutional appears to be bottoming. Historically, institutional markets have used more applied product versus unitary. Within institutional, government is expected to be down double digits, education and dormitories down mid-single digits and hospitals up slightly. The construction starts forecast for 2014, which is expressed in square footage, is expected to be up 11%, mainly due to Commercial and Industrial. Institutional starts forecast is fairly flat for 2014. Start is the longer lead indicator for us, impacting later 2014 or even 2015, depending on the type of building, equipment and services that are involved. Based upon this backdrop, we expect low to mid-single-digit growth for 2014 in North American commercial HVAC, with applied equipment markets fairly flat, unitary equipment up low- to mid-single digits and service contracting and parts up mid-single digits. We expect Latin American, Asian, European and Middle East HVAC equipment markets in the aggregate to be up low- to mid-single digits in 2014. Emerging markets growth will be mid- to high-single digits and mature markets will be flat, up low-single digits. We expect North American and European transport markets to be up low- to mid-single digits on a dollar basis in 2014. U.S. residential and new construction markets continue to show good growth. We expect industry motor-bearing unit shipments for the year to be up mid-single digits in 2014, driven again by new construction. Industrial markets will remain slow, industrial production statistics have not improved in recent reports. We expect markets to be flat, up low-single digits, led by growth in services. Golf markets are expected to be up mid-single digits. Please go to Slide 13. Aggregating those market backdrops, we expect our revenues for full year 2014 to be up 3% to 4% versus 2013. Translating that to our full year outlook by segment, we expect Climate revenues to be up 4% to 5%. The Industrial segment revenues are forecasted to be in the range of flat to up 2%. Please go to Slide 14. Transitioning to earnings, the adjusted earnings per share range is $3.05 to $3.20. Operating leverage for 2014 is expected to be about 35%. Segment operating leverage is expected to be about 25% and lower corporate expense accounts for the other 10 points. That EPS range excludes a full year placeholder for restructuring of $0.10. 2013 was truly an exceptional year, given the expense of spin-related onetime costs and restructuring. As Janet said at the beginning of the call, since an ongoing $0.10 of restructuring has been a fairly normal spend rate for us over the past several years, our intention is to report on a GAAP continuing EPS basis during 2014 as we had done for the past several years prior to the spin. Therefore, for continuing EPS on a reported basis, the range of $2.95 to $3.10. This reflects the full year tax rate of 25% and an average diluted share count of 275 million shares. To focus on first quarter guidance, refer to the right-hand column on this chart. First quarter 2014 revenues are forecast to be up 2% to 3%. Adjusted first quarter earnings per share forecast to be $0.23 to $0.28. Restructuring costs are expected to be about $0.02 for the quarter. So on a reported basis, EPS range is $0.21 to $0.26. We're assuming a share count of 283 million shares and a tax rate of 25%. We have provided EPS bridges for both first quarter and full year in the Appendix should you have any questions. For the full year 2014, we expect to generate free cash flow of $900 million. Please go to Slide 15. We have a strong balance sheet. During 2013, we refinanced our 2013 and 2014 maturities for lock-in attractive rates and maturity schedules. We exited 2013 with excess cash. This purely reflects the timing of the receipt of distribution from Allegion received after spinoff versus our deployment of that cash to share buyback. We should be down to a more normal cash balance in the next several months. The bar on far right depicts our outlook for free cash flow for 2014. It's in the range of $900 million. After paying the dividend, we look to deploy about half of the excess cash flow to continued share repurchase. That will be in a range of $400 million to $500 million from cash flow and that repurchase will begin sometime in the second quarter. We have a placeholder on the remainder of the cash flow to fund acquisition. This will be small to moderate size and will fit squarely into our core. Deployment acquisition will depend on the specific set of targets and, of course, on availability and valuation. We have a disciplined review process in place in a small but active pipeline. I would not expect anything of material size to be completed before the second half of the year. To model the pipeline, we'll update that estimate as we move through the year. If we don't find acceptable targets at attractive valuation, we'd likely redeploy those funds to further share repurchases. Please go to Slide 16. This slide demonstrates the significant emphasis we have had and continue to have on returning capital to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. On the left you can see that steady increase of dividend since 2010, with a 19% increase we announced last week, bringing our per share dividend to $1 per annum. We are at our target for reaching a peer payout ratio in 2014, a target and date which we had established in 2010 and we're [ph] making ratable progress towards each year. The chart on the right-hand side shows the dollars allocated to share repurchase over the 4-year period, about $4.6 billion. Our board authorized a new $1.5 billion program just last week. To break down the 2014 estimate column, given that it has several components, the tan color at the bottom is the dollar amount we expect to deploy in the first quarter and that will finish out the $2 billion authorization made in December 2012. After exhausting that authorization, we'll still have about $175 million from the Allegion distribution left to spend. We expected to deploy those funds in the second quarter. And we have the $400 million to $500 million from cash flow that I described in the prior slide. That brings you to a total of $1.375 billion to $1.475 billion for full year 2014. Taking dividends and repurchases in the aggregate, that's about $5.5 billion of capital return to shareholders over the last 4 years. Please go to Slide 17. In closing, we're pleased to have delivered another solid year. We have demonstrated a multi-year trend of delivering operating leverage and margin improvement. We are finally seeing some light in portions of the construction and retrofit markets, but industrial market is slowing. Our focus is on positioning the company to continue to grow earnings and cash flow with or without help of the markets. We have proactively worked to reduce costs and improve productivity, while still making prudent investments for the future. Our new product pipeline is as strong as it's been in decades. We continue to invest in new products and service offerings, our IT infrastructure and further developing our people and our operating capabilities. We took the necessary actions in 2013 to fully offset the cost stranded by the spin. We've implemented a consistent shareholder focused of capital allocation program. So I'm proud of the progress we've made, the results we have delivered and, certainly optimistic about the opportunities that lie ahead for us. And with that, Sue and I will be happy to take the questions.