Mark Mondello
Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Thanks, Adam. Good afternoon. I appreciate everyone taking time to join our call today. Before we get into prepared remarks, I thought it's appropriate to let you know why Beth is not on the call today. So Beth is attending to her husband Michael, who underwent some fairly complicated medical procedures over the past number of weeks. The best part in all this news is, is I'm happy to report that the patient is now at home and resting comfortably, and nurse Beth is also getting some much needed rest. So please keep Michael and Beth in your thoughts and prayers and our extended best in wishes if you're listening Beth, to you and Michael to make a full-on complete recovery and we miss you. So now on to the prepared remarks. As always, I'll start with a big thanks to our people here at Jabil for their hardwork and never ending dedication and commitment. In addition, I want to recognize the team for their continued focus on always keeping our people safe; safety is at top of mind for all of us. Now taking a look at our third quarter results. The team delivered approximately $114 million in core operating income on revenues at $4.49 billion resulting in core earnings per share of $0.31. Core operating margin came in at 2.5% as anticipated during this heavy investment period representing a 50 basis point pickup over 3Q of last year. I'd also like to note that our team continues to do a good job managing capital expenditures, setting us up for what I believe will be free cash flow for the year in the range of roughly $435 million. All good news, especially when paired with our solid outlook. So as customary, Forbes will provide detail around our results and speak to our forward guidance during his prepared remarks. I'll now share a thought which underline my confidence in the business. For starters, our Greenpoint team is currently doing a wonderful job managing complicated program ramps which are most critical to our customers, this all in the heels of a very demanding third quarter. A quarter characterized by precision engineering development, demonstrated proficiency in material sciences, notable execution, and robust cost controls against complex roadmaps that exhibit significant scale. As we sit today, I'm pleased to report that all program ramps are on-track while product yields are going largely as planned. Lastly, I'll reaffirm that our Greenpoint business continues to diversify within existing products as well as across new product pipelines; a true testament to the value placed on our solutions. Moving to our healthcare and packaging businesses, it's clear that demand for affordable and reliable healthcare services around the world is increasing. Today pharma, medical device, and consumer healthcare companies rely on partners like Jabil as their safe pair of hands to help them efficiently and reliably drive better solutions through the use of technology and digital innovation. Digital solutions enable caregivers to become more productive, more cost effective, and certainly more impactful. Embedded technologies like electronic sensors for example combined with cloud-based data analytics allow for terrific improvements for patient monitoring and patient interactions. These continued paradigm shifts play directly to Jabil's strengths. Similarly, our packaging team is busy working side-by-side with the leading consumer brands creating innovative packaging solutions; digitally driven solutions that fit perfectly with the disruption taking place in the packaging arena. Together, Jabil healthcare and packaging are advancing beautifully; all via touchpoints move closer and closer to the direct consumer and the direct patients. In closing, I believe these businesses collectively will maintain their trajectory tracking the core earnings growth of 20% or greater from fiscal year '16 to fiscal year '19. Now I'll turn to our $11 billion EMS segment. Our EMS team serves many brands that lead various end markets. End markets such as automotive, energy, industrial, retail and print, networking, telecom, cloud computing, and capital equipment; a clear and definitive illustration of the broad diversification within this EMS segment. This business has scale, proven operational excellence, and required domain expertise to maximize opportunities and continue to drive growth. We're undoubtedly more unique and more relevant with our service offerings as the world has to a great extent drifted away from build-to-print requests and moved the conversation to comprehensive build-to-function content. I'll pause there just for a second, we do have quite a thunderstorm in the background, so if you hear some thunder, that's exactly what it is. So at the same time, within our EMS business, there is intense focus on hardware performance relative to cost and size which also squarely in Jabil's sweet spot. In simple terms, Jabil's EMS 2.0 strategy is firmly afoot. In wrapping up my commentary on our EMS segment, it's important to know that the team has done a brilliant job performing to plan and increasing core operating margins, margins that we believe are sustainable for fiscal year '18. Let me now take a minute and address the company in its entirety. Our guidance suggests that we'll deliver the best fourth quarter in Jabil's history. A favorable segway into what's typically our strongest quarter of the year and in this particular case Q1 of fiscal year '18. That then leads me to ask, how might we be thinking about the business as we exit the year? First, I believe our EMS business will increase roughly 3%, fiscal '17 to fiscal '18. Secondly, the healthcare and packaging businesses continue to show great promise within our DMS segment. With that said, please keep in mind the majority of our DMS business remains highly dependent on overall product demand and market acceptance in the mobility space. So what might all this mean? I believe what it means is the following; we're remaining true to what Forbes communicated back in September during our Investor Day. We've also given reasonable consideration and judgment to our current business plans and customer forecasts. The result I believe is fiscal year '18 will sum to core earnings in the neighborhood of $2.60 a share, this on our way to $3 a share in fiscal year '19. As for how the income might layer in quarter-to-quarter, we simply don't know at this point; there is just too many moving parts and too many puts and takes. Although I do believe our DMS business will once again be front-half loaded for the fiscal year '18. While the shape of our EMS business should look quite similar to fiscal year '17. Before I hand the call over to Forbes, a few parting comments. You should know that our shareholders remain at the forefront of all of our actions; we're agile, decisive and a most cost effective operator of our business. There is clear evidence that our diversified portfolio strategy has taken hold and our productive market-facing divisional structure is working and working really well. Our leadership team remains confident in our path forward as we integrate a digital mindset across the enterprise. We're constructing a fabulous company where I believe the whole is materially is more valuable than the proverbial some of the parts. And we're making a real difference by helping make the world better, cleaner, healthier and safer. Thank you. And with that, I'll now hand the call over to Forbes.