Jon Painter
Analyst · Seaport Global. Your line is now open
Thanks, Mike. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us this afternoon to review our second quarter results, and discuss our outlook for the second half of the year. Overall, we had another terrific quarter with record bookings, record adjusted EBITDA, and record adjusted earnings per share. I'll begin with the financial highlights. To tell you the truth, the second quarter is one of those quarters with so many highlights it's hard to know where to start. But since it's at the top of the slide, I'll start with bookings. We had record bookings of $120 million, which beat the previous record set last quarter. This was driven in large part by continued strong capital bookings in China and Europe. Other highlights include, gross margin, at 48%, was the third best in our history, and was due largely to a high percentage of parts and consumables at 64% of revenue. Adjusted EBITDA was a record $19 million or 17% of revenue. We generated $0.72 of GAAP diluted earnings per share, but more important to us, our adjusted earnings per share which excludes the acquisition costs for NII was a record $1.04. Generating over a dollar share is an important milestone for us, and we're very proud of it. Cash flow is also outstanding, at $24 million. And net cash at the end of Q2 was $22 million. Soon after the quarter closed however we happily eliminated our net cash position with the acquisition of NII. We're currently working on the integration of NII, which is going well. This is an important acquisition for us, and so far we're feeling great about it. The markets for their products are quite strong, and their management team has done a great job with the transition. Mike will give you the details of the impact that will have on us this year. But, with a spoiler alert, I can tell you it's off to a fantastic start. As you can see on slide six, foreign currency translation was a modest headwind again in the second quarter, while there was no impact from acquisitions. Our internal revenue growth for the second quarter excluding FX was 1%, while internal growth in adjusted earnings per share was up 25%. Internal growth in bookings was 26%. I'm also pleased to report that our internal revenue growth for parts and consumables in Q2 was 3%, while bookings were up 8%. On slide seven, you can see a nice trend in bookings over the last three quarters, culminating in record bookings of $120 million in the second quarter. All our product lines were up double digits over Q2 of last year, except forward handling, which was still up a solid 8%. Leading the strong bookings performance was our stock prep Stock-Prep and Wood-Processing product lines, which were both up over 30%. Q2 revenue was essentially flat at $110 million, compared to a record Q2 of 2016. That said, this is our third consecutive quarter with a book-to-bill ratio greater than one, so we feel confident that revenue will continue to trend up this year. The first half of this year has been excellent in terms of parts and consumables business, with record revenues in Q1, and near record revenue in Q2. Revenue from parts and consumables in the second quarter increased 1% compared to the same period last year, to $70 million, and represented 64% of our total Q2 revenue. Parts and consumables bookings were up 6% to $68 million. All major regions contributed to this increase with the strongest contributor being China. Bookings for parts and consumables however were down 9% on a sequential basis from a record Q1 due to particularly strong bookings for our wood-processing parts in Q1. And additional seasonal influences in North America impacted the decline as Q1 is historically a strong quarter for parts as mills prepare for spring maintenance outages. Next, I'd like to review our performance in the major geographic regions where we operate. Let me start with North America. The pulp and paper market in North America is solid and stable. Prices are being sustained or increased across many grades, and operating rates for U.S. containerboard machines are in the upper-90%, while inventories remain fairly low. The housing market in North America is also quite strong, and has led to continued growth in our Wood-Processing product line. Industry analysts are forecasting approximately 1.25 million housing starts in 2017, which is the highest level since 2007. More importantly, there are signs that the millennials are entering the market after sitting on the sidelines for over a decade. Millennials are now the largest segment of potential homebuyers, and they're starting to buy single-family homes. As this generation increases its homeownership we expect demand for housing to remain healthy. This is good news for us as the recent acquisition of NII makes the housing sector even more important to us. As you can see on slide nine, revenue increased for the third consecutive quarter to $52 million, but was down 4% compared to the second quarter of 2016, due largely to softer demand for our Stock-Prep product line. Bookings in North America were $48 million, up 4% compared to Q2 of last year. Increases in bookings from our Wood-Processing product line offset reductions in our Doctoring, Cleaning, & Filtration and Stock-Prep product lines. The 15% drop in bookings from Q1 to Q2 was largely due to the strong performance of our Fiber-Based and Wood-Processing product lines in Q1, but also due to a drop in orders for our other products lines as a result of somewhat softer demand from our paper customers in North America. Before leaving North America, I want to provide an update on our efforts to expand PAAL's presence in the North American market. As we announced earlier this year, we obtained an order for our first PAAL baler in Monterey, California, in January. In May, we debuted a full-sized baler at North America's largest waste and recycling trade show. The show was a huge success for us in terms of meetings new prospects and generating strong interest in our balers. In fact, before the show was over we had secured an order for our second North American baler from a major waste management company. Slide 10 shows our bookings and revenue performance in Europe, which were both records. After years of relatively weak market conditions, Europe has showed surprising strength this year. Second quarter revenue was up 3% from Q2 of 2016, and up 4% sequentially. Bookings in Europe were up 23% sequentially from the relatively strong performance in Q1, led by our Doctoring, Cleaning, & Filtration and Stock-Prep product lines. We also saw strong performance in our Fluid-Handling product line in Europe, primarily from industrial markets in Spain, Italy, and France. In addition to the solid market conditions in Western Europe, Russia continues to be active in capital projects. During the quarter, we booked an order for stock-prep system in Russia for approximately $4 million. And finally, our recent acquisition of NII, which has a significant presence in Europe as well as North America, will positively impact our revenue in bookings in these regions beginning in the third quarter. The market is Asia, which is dominated by China, continues to be quite strong for both capital and parts and consumables. In addition, China recently notified the World Trade Organization that by year-end it will ban the import of unsorted paper, since unsorted or mixed paper is often combined with old corrugated containers or OCC in the production of recycled linerboard to reduce fiber costs. The ban is expected to put upward pressure on the cost of OCC. This should be a positive for us as our equipment helps producers increase the yield from processing OCC into recycled linerboard. Our revenue in Asia was up 18% from last year due largely to shipments of large capital orders booked in the previous two quarters. As I noted in our call in May, the strong bookings performance from China in Q4 of 2016 and Q1 of 2017 are having a positive impact on revenues in China this year. The high level of capital bookings that we had in the two prior quarters continued into the second quarter of 2017, with bookings double from the same period last year. All of our major product lines had significant growth in bookings. In China, we continue to see strong bookings in our Stock-Prep product line. In addition to the early Q2 capital order for two OCC systems valued at $6 million that I mentioned in the previous call, we booked two additional orders for recycling systems, and a multi-machine order for our fabric cleaning system with a value of $10 million. Although we know the capital equipment market in China can be volatile, we continue to have a fairly active pipeline of projects in the works which looks promising for the remainder of 2017. Finally, a few comments on the rest-of-the-world results; as you could tell from my remarks, we're seeing very good market conditions in most regions of the world. The exception is South America, and in particular Brazil. Our revenue in the rest of the world, which is largely South America and Brazil, was $8 million in Q2, down 26% compared to a relatively strong Q2 and 2016, and relatively flat on a sequential basis. Bookings were also down sequentially and year-over-year due to the ongoing economic recession in Brazil, which has been exacerbated by the political situation. At some point, this should resolve itself and that will free up some pent up demand. I should note by the way that our performance in Brazil despite the poor market conditions is a validation of our approach to focusing on and building a strong and stable spare parts and consumables business in all of our operations throughout the world. Despite very little capital sales, our operation in Brazil continues to make a modest profit due to its strong parts of consumables business. When the capital business does return we will be well positioned to take advantage of it. I'd like to conclude my remarks with a few comments on our guidance for Q3 and the full year 2017. We're pleased by the healthy bookings trend we've seen over the past few quarters and the strong first half of 2017. Based on our Q2 results, our improved outlook for the remainder of 2017 and the inclusion of the results of our recent acquisition of NII we are significantly raising our full year revenue in adjusted earnings per share guidance. We're also raising our GAAP revenue and earnings per share guidance for the second half of the year. For 2017, we now expect to achieve GAAP diluted earnings per share of $3.18 to $3.26 and revenues of $488 million to $494 million. We now expect our adjusted diluted EPS which excludes the transaction expenses and purchase accounting adjustments associated with the NII acquisition to be $3.99 to $4.07. Our improved adjusted revenue and adjusted earnings per share guidance is the result of both strong performances from our existing businesses in North America Europe and Asia as well as the positive impact of the inclusion of NII. Mike will give you a breakdown of the expected impact of each on our GAAP and adjusted earnings per share forecast. For the third quarter of 2017, we expect to achieve GAAP diluted earnings per share of $0.83 to $0.87 and revenue of $139 million to $142 million. On an adjusted basis, we expect diluted earnings per share of a $1.12 to $1.16. Our adjusted results include the result of NII which is expected to have an exceptionally strong third quarter. I'll now pass the call over to Mike for additional details on our financial performance in Q2 and our guidance for the rest of the year. Mike?