Don Charron
Analyst · Sidoti. Please proceed
Thanks, Andy. Good morning everyone. I'm very pleased with the incredibly strong results in Q3. Sales exceeded our all-time high in a quarter by 10%, operating margin was 5.5% of net sales, which was significantly better than the first half of the fiscal year and 80 basis points higher than a year ago. Diluted EPS increased more than 30% year-over-year with our backlog of open orders at record levels, and manufacturing facilities running at higher utilization and capacity expansions underway, we are ideally positioned to maintain strength and momentum in this bifurcated year, and we expect a strong pace to carry through the fourth quarter. Further, given the strength of our funnel in a slate of new product introductions, we are well positioned to continue this solid performance into fiscal year 2023 and beyond. I continue to be extremely impressed with our team, and how we've managed the global supply chain issues stemming from the pandemic and the component shortages. The challenges in Q3, however, were compounded by the devastation in Ukraine. We have Ukrainian associates in our U.S. and European operations, and facilities located in nearby Poland and Romania. Our number one priority has been the health and safety of our associates, and supporting their families directly affected by the conflict. Many of these individuals are actively involved in refugee support efforts and our company has made monetary donations as well. Our hearts and thoughts are with all people, both inside and outside the Kimball Electronics family impacted by this tragic turn of events. We've also taken appropriate measures to safeguard our business and continue to fulfill customer commitments. In March, I traveled to our facility in Poznan, which is located in Western Poland, roughly 240 kilometers from Berlin, to meet with our team and tour the facility. We employ approximately a thousand associates there and recently announced an expansion targeted for completion in early fiscal year 2024. I'm pleased to report the morale of the team is positive and upbeat. The business is operating well, all things considered. And the expansion remains on schedule. We continue to monitor and evaluate information, including concerns over securing ample natural gas and other resources for our facilities. Longer term it's estimated that conflict could cause incremental stress on global supply chains and further disrupt the auto industry. Russia is a large exporter of commodities, including metals and mining output. Relative to car manufacturing, they are a major supplier of palladium, platinum nickel and aluminum. Palladium and platinum are key raw materials for catalytic converters. Nickel is used in electric vehicle batteries and aluminum and copper are needed for vehicle framing and wiring. Recently prices for these commodities have been on the rise. However, with multiple global sources for the materials, the price movement has been characterized as manageable. Ukraine also plays an important role in the auto industry by producing wiring harnesses for cars and being a supplier of neon and other noble gases that are critical for semiconductor production. Not surprisingly many of the factories making these components have slowed or shutdown altogether in the phase of the conflict. There is some speculation that combined impact from Russia and Ukraine will increase auto parts shortages and adversely affect car manufacturing in Eastern Europe and Germany. This is supported by Volkswagen's announcement earlier this year to cut production estimates for 2022. Some believe these steps could create an opportunity for Chinese automakers to fill the demand. However, given the fluidity of the situation only time will tell. Please keep in mind that we do not directly purchase any materials from Russia or Ukraine and the financial impact of the conflict on our operations in the quarter was not material. One additional risk we are monitoring is the ongoing impact of China's zero tolerance policy related to COVID. As you know, several cities experienced shutdowns recently due to a rise in the number of COVID cases. If shutdowns continue to occur in major cities across China, there may be temporary disruptions in both the supply chain and demand as our customers balance manufacturing delays. This concern is somewhat offset by the record output of semiconductors coming out of the Taiwanese market, a response to global demand. We've updated our outlook for net sales to reflect the uncertainty from these developments. And while we are reiterating our guidance for operating income margin for fiscal year 2022, we expect it to come in at the lower end of the range. We anticipate the impacts of the China COVID lockdowns to be shorter term in nature and that any temporary disruptions will rectify over time. Turning back to the third quarter, net sales were $368 million, a 19% increase compared to Q3 last year and $50 million higher than Q2. The strength this quarter occurred in all four vertical markets with sales and automotive exceeding $160 million, a 16% increase year-over-year, and we're 44% of our total company sales in the quarter. This represents an all-time high for the automotive vertical market and resulted from the ramp up of certain programs, including programs supporting fully electric vehicles. It's also quite a turnaround from the second quarter when component shortages drove a decline in sales. But as conditions improved in Q3 and parts became more available, we were ready to respond. The investments made throughout the pandemic to maintain our highly trained workforce and strategic inventory builds in the first half of the fiscal year both allowed us to quickly increase production and response to the strong worldwide demand for vehicles. During the quarter, we also completed our multi-year strategic plan with a comprehensive analysis of our positioning and growth opportunities within each vertical market. Our work confirmed that the megatrends in the auto industry continue to represent a meaningful tailwind for our company as electronic content is being added to cars and trucks at an increasing rate with advanced technologies and expanded operating systems. In addition, we see the rapid adoption of electric vehicles, the expansion of autonomous driving and vehicles with increasing connectivity as additional areas of upside where our chassis control expertise and core manufacturing competencies could align very well with the stringent production requirements of the automotive industry. Net sales in medical were $103 million; a 20% increase compared to Q3 of last year, and represented 28% of our total company sales. This is a very good result for the medical vertical market and suggests the industry is continuing to recover and normalize from the pandemic. The increase this quarter was driven by the launch and ramp up of new programs, some of which are coming online in the quarter after pandemic related delays. Similar to automotive, the work in our strategic plan validated the long-term growth opportunities in medical resulting from megatrends in the healthcare industry, including the world's aging population, increasing access and affordability to healthcare and decreasing device sizes and connected drug delivery systems. Industrial was up 22% in Q3 with sales totaling $84 million, representing 23% of our total sales. Once again, this quarter higher end market demand for climate control products and new customer additions drove the increase. Longer term we continue to see growth opportunities for this vertical as the importance of consumption, awareness and conservation of water, gas and electricity continues to increase globally. And finally, sales on our public safety vertical were $13.8 million, a 2% increase compared to the third quarter of last year. So in summary, an excellent quarter and a promising outlook. I'll now turn the call over to Jana to discuss Q3 in more detail and review our guidance for the balance of the year. Jana?