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IT Tech Packaging, Inc. (ITP)

Q4 2012 Earnings Call· Tue, Mar 19, 2013

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning and good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2012 Orient Paper Inc Earnings Conference Call. At this time, I would like to inform you that this conference is being recorded and that all participants are in a listen-only mode. With us today are Mr. Zhenyong Liu, Orient Paper’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Mr. Winston Yen, the Company’s Chief Financial Officer. Orient Paper has announced its fourth quarter and full year 2012 financial results through a press release earlier and it is available on the company’s website at orientpaper.com. Mr. Liu will brief you on the company’s key highlights, operational and corporate development over the quarter and the year of 2012 and Mr. Yen will walk you through the company’s financial and business review as well as the Company’s outlook and guidance. After that there will be a Q&A session. Before we begin I would like to draw your attention to our Safe Harbor statement. This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Safe Harbor Provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements other than statements of historical fact in this announcement are forward-looking statements, including but not limited to, anticipated revenues from the digital photo paper business segment. The actions and initiatives of current and potential competitors; the company’s ability to introduce new products; the company’s ability to implement the planned capacity expansion of corrugate medium paper; market acceptance of new products; general, economic, and business conditions. The ability to attract or retain qualified senior management, personnel, research, and development staff; and other risks detailed in the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and are based on current expectations, assumptions, estimates, and projections about the companies and the industry. The company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent occurring events or circumstances or to change in its expectations except as may be required by law. Although the company believes that the expectations expressed in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, it cannot assure you that its expectations will turn out to be correct, and investors are cautioned that actual results may differ materially from the anticipated results. There is a presentation document featuring management’s prepared remarks and is now available for download from the company’s website at orientpaperinc.com. Please note there will be discussions on non-GAAP financial measure of EBITDA or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. Please refer to our press release for complete reconciliations of EBITDA to net income. As a kind reminder, all numbers in our presentations are quoted in US dollars and all comparisons refer to year-over-year comparisons unless otherwise stated. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Liu. Please proceed.

Zhenyong Liu

Management

(Interpreted) Good morning to our investors calling in today. I would like to discuss our fourth quarter and full year 2012 earnings and give everyone an update of our company’s activities. Please turn to slide 5, where we will have a look at the key highlights for the fourth quarter and the full year. Last year was a very difficult year for the paper industry and product credit has continued to remain soft in the fourth quarter. However, we’re pleased to record the highest quarterly revenue ever in the history of Orient Paper. Thanks to the successful ramp up of our new CMP production line which boosted our sales volume by 154% in the fourth quarter and 135% in the full year 2012. As CMP is our core business, we have also started preparing for the renovation of our legacy line as announced earlier. An initiative we’re undertaking in anticipation of increased regulatory concerns on energy efficiencies and to upgrade the quality of our CMP products. In the last quarter, we have automated a head start progress in our tissue business expansion, by securing the land lease and equipment suppliers to build our production facility in Wei County in Hebei Province. Wei County enjoys good transportation lengths with direct access to three national highways with increasing development of regional economy rising improvement of living standards with the tremendous demand growth that will benefit Orient Paper. Furthermore, we’re pleased that our cash position has improved significantly. This will give us the necessary fuel to fund our business plan. Since the second quarter of 2012, we are pleased to have initiated three quarterly cash dividends. Now, I would let our CFO, Winston Yen take it through the financial and business review and our 2013 guidance, and the interpreter will share with you our focus for the year on my behalf.

Winston Yen

Management

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Liu. I would like to remind you that all numbers are in US dollars, and all comparisons refer to year-over-year comparisons, otherwise stated. We have also assigned a numbering system for our connector line for easy reference and the table of this is provided in our earnings press release and in the appendix of the presentation on slide 28. Now, let’s look at the financial performance over Q4 and for fiscal 2012, and please turn to slide 7. Total revenue for Q4 was a record high for the company at $44 million, up 12%. For full fiscal 2012, total revenue was $151 million, a minor increase at 0.2%. Gross profit for Q4 was $7 million, down 20%. The gross margin was 15% compared to 22%. For full fiscal 2012, gross profit was $27 million, down 18%. Gross margin was 18% compared to 22%. Income from operations for Q4 was $3 million and operating margin was about 7% while for the full fiscal year income from operations was $21 million and operating margin was 14%. The decline was largely due to the $2.8 million impairment loss we booked in anticipation of the renovation of paper machine One or PM1. Our legacy corrugated medium paper line, which we will discuss shortly. Net income was $2 million, down 64%. Net margin was 5% compared to 14%. This translates to basic and diluted earnings per share of $0.11. For full fiscal 2012, net income was $50 million and net margin was 10%, which translates to basic and diluted earnings per share of $0.79. Both our gross and operating margins were affected by in increase raw material cost of for CMP than lower ASP in Q4. Our margins for fiscal 2012 are mainly affected by production disruption and overall week for…

Zhenyong Liu

Management

(Interpreted). Thank you, Winston. Let us now move on to slide 24. While we face some strong short-term headwinds, explained in the last slide, 2013 will be a year of intense execution for Orient Paper. First, we will continue to ramp up the utilization of our new CMP line to a minimum average of 75% utilization and target production of at least 245,000 tons for fiscal 2013. We will also continue the execution of our tissue business expansion plan and the renewal of our legacy CMP plan within budget and time. Definitely we will continue to enhance our operational and environmental processes and systems. As public awareness and demand for a clean and healthy environment growth is expected at all levels of Chinese Government will elevate their reinforcement of environmental protection standard to further protect the quality of air and water. Although, production has been affected by inspections in the last few fiscal quarters, we place environmental issues at top priority and we’re confident that our environmental protection message and practices can withstand any public scrutiny. In fact, by leveraging the government elimination of outdated polluting mills, we can reinforce our leadership position at increased market share. Last but not least, we will relentlessly focus on cost discipline and improving our competitive cost base by extracting greater synergies and cost efficiencies in all aspects of our operations. We will also strive to maintain strong cash flows to support our investment. This sums up our strategic imperatives for the year what we believe are vital to build up the company’s long-term sustainable growth and reinforce our competitive strength. With this, we have come to an end of our prepared remarks. We would now like to open the call to your questions. Operator? Hello, operator.

Operator

Operator

This concludes the management’s prepared remarks. We will now open the floor for questions. (Operator Instructions). Your first question comes from the line of Howard Flinker. Howard Flinker – Flinker & Company: Winston, I have a question for you.

Winston Yen

Management

Hello, Howard. Howard Flinker – Flinker & Company: Hi. One, what would your depreciation and amortization be this year, will it be about $10 million?

Winston Yen

Management

It will be – we had about $8 million for 2012 and I think we’ll probably get to $9 million in 2013. Howard Flinker – Flinker & Company: Okay. And the second question is, in your expansion are you expanding from 150,000 tons to 250,000 tons or 150,000 tons to 400,000 tons. I wasn’t clear of the wording.

Winston Yen

Management

The new renovated production line will have 250,000 tons capacity from that production line, and of course, we have another 360,000 tons from the new production line right now. So, combined we have a 360,000 tons capacity and a 250,000 tons capacity in 2014 if renovation is done. Howard Flinker – Flinker & Company: But you are adding 250,000 tons, you are not replacing 150,000 tons with 250,000 tons, right?

Zhenyong Liu

Management

We are basically tearing down most of the parts of the 150,000 tons production line. We rebuilt a new production line on the foundation of that outline and a new line will have 50,000 ton capacity. Howard Flinker – Flinker & Company: 250,000 tons I didn’t hear.

Zhenyong Liu

Management

250,000 tons, yes. Howard Flinker – Flinker & Company: Okay, not 400,000 tons?

Zhenyong Liu

Management

No, no, no. It will not be 400,000 tons. Howard Flinker – Flinker & Company: Yeah, I wasn’t sure if I should add them or replace them. Okay, those are my questions. Thank you.

Zhenyong Liu

Management

Thank you, Howard. Howard Flinker – Flinker & Company: You’re welcome.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Theo Miller.

Theo Miller

Analyst

Yes. The expansion in the tissue paper area is, if I’m not mistaken bi-unit HPOP, but you have stated before, you were trying to stay away from the five units, and I don’t understand this contradiction here?

Winston Yen

Management

Theo, so your question is which – and if you will conducted the new tissue paper business?

Theo Miller

Analyst

Yes.

Winston Yen

Management

Right. If you read our 10-K which was filed yesterday, we had a table in the first few pages of the 10-K which is connected by a list of all of our production lines and the new tissue paper line, you could actually see that we have – that we have not decided which entity will be operating or will only be the tissue paper production line. Right now, we have signed construction contracts with suppliers and contractors using HPOP, but I believe by the time everything is said and done, try to push the ownership of the new production lines to the entities that can be directly owned by Orient Paper if they use entity.

Theo Miller

Analyst

Okay, all right. The other question is – the move of your headquarters building. What is the cost involved in the move?

Winston Yen

Management

The cost involved in the move is still being investigated by our Audit Committee. So I do not have specific information at this point, but the cost of the move along with the fair market value of all of these that are subject to change will have to be ascertained before our Audit Committee can make a decision on whether or not they want to sell the property, so – because we have a few options now as to where we want to move the office and the digital photo paper operation to. So nothing has been finalized yet. And I believe it’s…

Theo Miller

Analyst

But it will still be un-strategic?

Winston Yen

Management

I’m not sure if we will be completing the relocation by the end of this year. We certainly want to move the digital photo paper as soon as possible because, as we have explained, the residents in our neighboring areas, they have a lot of problem with us operating a factory during night time. So if we could find a suitable space, we will try to move the digital photo paper first. The office building, I’m not sure if we will be able to construct new office building near our other production lines. But my estimate right now is that maybe both the digital photo paper and the office building will not be relocated maybe by the end of this year.

Theo Miller

Analyst

Okay. Thank you.

Winston Yen

Management

No problem. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Steve Cheng.

Steve Cheng

Analyst

Hi.

Winston Yen

Management

Hello, Steve.

Steve Cheng

Analyst

Any kind of compensation from the government because of the forced move or is this entirely an expense that the company will have to bear? And the second related question is, you mentioned that negotiations will take place with Chairman’s newly formed real estate company. Can you give us sort of an explanation for why the negotiations are taking place with that company and that company alone as opposed to making sort of a open call for bids to negotiate and purchase, just in light of general concerns that have existed in this space for a while about self dealing issues. I personally don’t have any issues, but I know that the perception is out there?

Winston Yen

Management

Sure. The first question, I believe, is regarding our government compensation for the relocation. Unfortunately we are not the only company that is affected by this rezoning. The government actually has ordered four major manufacturers along Juli Road to relocate or to change the use of the land within the next few years. And the government is not paying any compensation at this point right now to my knowledge. And besides Orient Paper, we know that other businesses that are affected are also doing similar things. They are looking for other spaces to move their factories. They are building out new facilities farther away from the center of the town to accommodate their current production activities. So I do not see a good chance that the government will give us any sort of financial compensation for the move. And as to why we are negotiating with Mr. Liu’s real estate development company, regarding the relocation. The first issue that the management has to assess is whether it makes sense for the companies to develop of the land under the request of the government. We of course could take out the work of developing real estate simply by relocate our office building and change that office building and tear down warehouse and reconstruct utilization units for sale, but that is actually out of management’s expertise. Our core business is, of course, making paper. And our Board of Directors would like to make sure that Orient Paper’s management does not get distracted from manufacturing paper by running a side real estate business. And of course, if we do not develop the land by ourselves, then of course, the ownership of the land and the building will probably have to be changed. And Mr. Liu’s proposal comes in first as an acceptable alternative…

Steve Cheng

Analyst

Okay. Thank you.

Winston Yen

Management

No problem. Thanks, Steve.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions). At this time, there are no further questions in queue. So I’d like to hand the call back over to Mr. Winston Yen, CFO, for closing remarks.

Winston Yen

Management

Thank you, operator. Thank you very much for all of our investors and analysts to come to our earnings call. As we explained, 2013 is going to be a challenge for Orient Paper. We have a renovation project and we have expanded to tissue paper business all in a year when economic forecast is not totally clear to us and in the same time, we’re required by the government to relocate to a different place. So all these challenges will be dealt with by management of the company and we hope that we’ll be able to provide you with more update in the form of press release or a conference call when we have additional information to report on the company’s business. And finally, thank you very much for attending this conference call.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our presentation. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Have a great day.