Operator
Operator
Good morning. I would like to welcome everyone to Kennametal's Second Quarter Fiscal Year 2014 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Quynh McGuire, Director of Investor Relations.
Kennametal Inc. (KMT)
Q2 2014 Earnings Call· Thu, Jan 30, 2014
$39.13
-1.31%
Same-Day
-2.28%
1 Week
-3.81%
1 Month
-0.09%
vs S&P
-4.75%
Operator
Operator
Good morning. I would like to welcome everyone to Kennametal's Second Quarter Fiscal Year 2014 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Quynh McGuire, Director of Investor Relations.
Quynh McGuire
Analyst
Thank you, Denise. Welcome, everyone. Thank you for joining us to review Kennametal's second quarter fiscal 2014 results. We issued our quarterly earnings press release earlier today. You may access this announcement via our website at www.kennametal.com. Consistent with our practice in prior quarterly conference calls, we've invited various members of the media to listen to this call. It's also being broadcast live on our website, and a recording of this call will be available on our site for replay through March 3, 2014. I'm Quynh McGuire, Director of Investor Relations for Kennametal. Joining me for our call today are Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Carlos Cardoso; Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Frank Simpkins; and Vice President, Finance, and Corporate Controller, Martha Fusco. Carlos and Frank will provide further explanation on the quarter's financial performance. After the remarks, we'll be happy to answer questions. At this time, I'd like to direct your attention to our forward-looking disclosure statement. The discussion we'll have today contains comments that may constitute forward-looking statements as defined under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve a number of assumptions, risks and uncertainties that could cause the company's actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by such forward-looking statements. Additional information regarding these risk factors and uncertainties is detailed in Kennametal's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, Kennametal has provided the SEC with a Form 8-K, a copy of which is currently available on our website. This enables us to discuss non-GAAP financial measures during this call in accordance with SEC Regulation G. This 8-K presents GAAP financial measures that we believe are most directly comparable to those non-GAAP financial measures and provides a reconciliation of those measures as well. I'll now turn the call over to Carlos.
Carlos M. Cardoso
Analyst
Thank you, Quyhn. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. In the December quarter, we realized organic growth for the first time in 6 quarters. On an organic basis, sales for our Industrial segment increased 6% year-over-year, which was consistent with our expectations. This was driven by higher activity levels in our Transportation and General Engineering business, which included double-digit sales growth from distribution customers. Revenue growth in our Aerospace unit was mixed depending on the geographic region. We believe that it was related to certain project delays as the industry's 2013 backlog reflected a 5-year high. Regarding markets served by our infrastructure business, the energy sector has now rebounded and production levels are still weak for both underground and surface mining activities. From a macro perspective, we are encouraged that global industrial production is gradually improving and the economic indicators remain positive. This increase in manufacturing activity has been largely driven by inventory buildup consistent with business expectations for calendar year 2014. Although the Appalachian mining industry continues to be under pressure, the rig counts for oil and gas remain slightly higher, and the oil and gas extracted per rig has been on the rise. Also, the commercial aerospace industry remains strong, and the light vehicle production market continues to expand. While demand is increasing, it is important to note that customers have exercised continued caution in terms of spending over the past 6 months. To a certain extent, the recovery seems to be delayed. But considering that our order rates bottomed in December of 2012, business conditions are much better than 1 year ago. Consistently, we still expect to realize sequential quarter-to-quarter growth, as well as year-over-year improvement in the second half of our fiscal year. In the near-term, we'll continue to make adjustments to our business…
Frank P. Simpkins
Analyst
All right. Thank you, Carlos. Consistent with my prior discussions, I'll start by making some overall comments, and then I'll review our second quarter in more detail. Some of my comments are related to the non-GAAP metrics. So to summarize the December quarter, we delivered solid profitability while focusing on necessary actions to drive further customer service improvements. In addition, we began to integrate our acquisition of ATI's Tungsten Materials Business. Highlights of the quarter included, as Carlos pointed out, the trend of the year-over-year sales growth that began in the month of September, continued during the December quarter -- for the December quarter, where we realized organic growth for the first time in 6 quarters. Organic growth was led by improving demand in our transportation and General Engineering businesses, which tend to grow faster earlier in the cycle. Aerospace & Defense was slightly lower due to delayed timing of orders. Our Industrial segment achieved 6% organic growth in the quarter. In our Earthworks business, we still experience weak demand in underground mining, particularly in the U.S. and in China. In Energy, order activity remains softer than anticipated, but it is showing signs of modest growth. We completed the acquisition of the Tungsten Materials Business, or TMB, for $607 million, and immediately initiated restructuring plans for the combined businesses. And I'll go into much greater detail in a few minutes. We continue to generate strong free cash flow and we delivered adjusted earnings per share of $0.52. As Carlos said, we will continue to balance investments related to improving the customer's experience with our shareholder return priorities. And as always, we continue to evaluate strategic investments to grow our long-term enterprise value. Now I'm going to walk through the key items in the income statement. Sales for the quarter were…
Carlos M. Cardoso
Analyst
Thank you, Frank. Moving ahead, we'll continue to execute strategies consistent with our long-term growth goals, which include doubling revenues over the next 5 years. Additionally, we will stay focused on maximizing growth in top line, earnings and cash flows. Furthermore, we will continually streamline our cost structure throughout the enterprise, including the recently acquired Tungsten Materials Business. As we have previously discussed, we plan to align manufacturing processes, as well as functional services to realize significant cost synergies. As always, we'll remain disciplined in our capital allocation process. We will continue to evaluate opportunities to further invest in our business, to best serve our customers' demand, make acquisitions, repurchase shares and pay dividends. In summary, our global team continues to focus on increasing shareholder value by delivering profitable growth in the existing and adjacent markets, demonstrating ongoing cost discipline, achieving improved profitability and generating strong cash flows. In addition, we are further balancing our served end markets, business mix and geographic presence. Kennametal is well-positioned for the future and we have an enterprise-wide commitment to succeed. Thank you for your continued support. We will now take questions.
Operator
Operator
[Operator Instructions] The first question will come from Ann Duignan of JPMorgan. Damien R. Fortune - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: It's Damien, on for Ann. Can you guys talk about how order rates have progressed so far this quarter?
Carlos M. Cardoso
Analyst
Yes, I mean, January is in line with our new forecast. However, due to cold weather, we are not sure how much -- we definitely lost some work days, but we're not sure at this point how many work days totally we lost. But we anticipated some of that in our current forecast. Damien R. Fortune - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Okay, great. And then just on the oil and gas weakness that you were talking about earlier, I know you said the U.S. was a little bit better, but can you talk about oil and gas regionally outside of the U.S.?
Frank P. Simpkins
Analyst
I would say, probably almost 2/3, Damien, of our businesses resides in the U.S. So that's obviously impacting our profitability, as well as our sales, given the composition. But outside of that, the -- both the European, as well as the Asian platform is doing well.
Operator
Operator
Our next question will come from Adam Uhlman of Cleveland Research.
Adam William Uhlman - Cleveland Research Company
Analyst
Frank, you were talking about this $11 million of expense growth in the quarter. You broke it down into merit paid, the sales, and then the headcount additions. I was wondering if you could divide that up for us, and then also talk about what's in the outlook for the second half of the year. And then just to build on that, if maybe you could talk about your expectations of payback from the headcount additions that you're making into the business. Is this a short cycle payback or is this something that's going to take some time?
Frank P. Simpkins
Analyst
Yes. First of all, you're right. The increase sequentially are -- I can't remember if you asked year-over-year. And year-over-year, we did, obviously, add some people, and the base we're going off of -- I just want to ground everybody, I think Carlos said this. Last year, we we're clearly in a decelerating decline as far as the overall macro. So we were watching everything. We had stuff locked down very tight. So obviously, we were able to maintain very strict cost controls last year. As we go forward, we typically have our merit increases every October 1. We added some people. And then on the Industrial side, we have some of the sales force, because they were up obviously 6% and of course, we're paying some sales commissions. Adam, without getting too specific, I would say that it was probably an equal increase across those, with the headcounts, the merit and some of the sales commissions. They're the main drivers. But it's always like a Catch-22. You can't wait until you have growth to start adding people. So we started adding people, obviously, towards the end of last year into the first quarter in both businesses. I think you see a bit quicker payback on the Industrial side, given the early cycle, and I think we're looking at that closely, as well as some of the opportunities on the Infrastructure side. Now that's a little bit softer, but they're a little bit longer projects. So it takes a little bit longer. You don't get significant payback quicker. So we'll see a little bit more of a return faster on the Industrial side going forward. And with a little bit -- maybe longer, but we still think we need the right investments as it relates to the Infrastructure side of the house. So the payback will be a little bit different. I think it will be quicker on the early cycle than the later. But we think longer-term, some of the bigger projects and the growth that's fragmented there will be opportunistic. And then we'll see how the TMB acquisition can help fill some of those gaps going forward.
Carlos M. Cardoso
Analyst
And the only thing that I would add is that we've seen already in the second quarter, some of that benefits on the top line, which was, I mean, the Industrial business grew at 6%. But I want to point out that in the month of December, the Industrial business grew at double-digit rate, which is a really good leading indicator for our business.
Operator
Operator
The next question will come from Stephen Volkmann of Jefferies.
Stephen E. Volkmann - Jefferies LLC, Research Division
Analyst
I wanted to drill in a little bit on Infrastructure, and I had sort of a 2-part question, and I'll just give it all to you at one time. I'm just wondering -- there's a lot of sort of numbers that are being thrown around. I'm just wondering if you could expand a little bit on the Transportation driver there. I think you said, Frank, that was down 11% to 12% or something, which was bigger than, I think, the decline you saw on Earthworks, and I just thought that was sort of interesting. So maybe a little bit of detail there. And then the second part is just on the margin. It was quite a bit lower in that segment, even adjusted for all the onetime items. And how should we think about the -- what's impacting that margin and how that should look going forward?
Frank P. Simpkins
Analyst
Yes, Steve. First, on Transportation, it's not like-for-like. Obviously, we serve different industries. The lion's share of our Transportation, the light vehicles in the Industrial side, and I think that's kind of reflective of what people are seeing from the automotive builders. And then we have -- it's a very small one, we reorganized and kind of transferred a couple of things. We have like, Extrude Hone. We make some of these machines that are going into the automotive. So they're a little bit spotty from the -- overall quarter. But that number, even if it was plus-12, it's not going to be a significant driver on the profitability. The infrastructure is still going to be driven by the energy, as well as the Earth cutting. So as far as the profitability, right? Energy, we had expected it to be a bit stronger. It's still a little bit weaker in the industry gas turbines that Stellite provides there. I would say the underground mining continues to be challenging, but we don't expect it to get any worse from this period out. Now we will see a sequential lift because our December quarter for the Infrastructure business is typically our weaker because of the construction and the holiday period. So as we go into the March quarter, we'll start seeing a little bit of a pickup with the energy side, both coal, as well as energy. And then we'll start to see some of the orders start for the highway construction projects as that typically kicks in, in the March period. And we'll be -- we'll talk about that when we're out at CONEXPO, but we're looking forward to see what type of information we have going forward. So we expect it to be a little bit stronger as we get into the second half, which is typically our best period, and the seasonality impacts kick in. But the challenge for us, really, in the quarter was the energy side on the Infrastructure, and the 12%. The transportation is a small thing, so I wouldn't read too much into that.
Operator
Operator
The next question will come from Andy Casey of Wells Fargo Securities.
Andrew M. Casey - Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Research Division
Analyst
Just a few more margin questions. X the TMB dilutive impact, it looked like you had about a 80-basis-point decline in margins, 1% core growth in the first half. Is it fair to say that you expect second half roughly 4% to 8% core growth and 14% plus or minus operating margins?
Frank P. Simpkins
Analyst
Yes. I think, Andy, the second half we'll definitely do a little bit better. I think we have our inventory pretty much in line, to your point, the year-over-year change. Obviously, we have additional labor and we have some additional maintenance costs. We're trying to get our fill rates up for our distribution partners and it's a combination of higher costs there. We did have the negative volume impacts associated with the infrastructure that was not completely offset in the Industrial side. And then last year, we're still burning down inventory, particularly throughout the period. So particularly, the December quarter, or really, the big drop was in the March quarter of last year. So we think our inventory is pretty much in line from that perspective. And then from a raw materials -- we don't see much change from the current levels, but it may be up slightly on a year-over-year basis. But yes, we do expect the margins to improve in the second half compared to last year. And particularly, in the March quarter last year, we have the significant inventory reduction of about $35 million.
Andrew M. Casey - Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Research Division
Analyst
Okay. Okay, thank you for clarifying. And then just to play Devil's advocate a little bit, if we get into the second half, we're all expecting improvement. But if for some reason, that does not show up, do you have contingent structural cost plans in place to get to those higher margins?
Frank P. Simpkins
Analyst
Yes. I mean, yes, we started that obviously in the quarter. And obviously, with the acquisition and restructuring opportunities, we'll try to accelerate that even quicker or pull more opportunities into play. So yes, we think we have both normal contingency plans, as you would expect on discretionary stuff, and then we also have structural stuff ready to go.
Operator
Operator
The next question will come Eli Lustgarten of Longbow Securities.
Eli S. Lustgarten - Longbow Research LLC
Analyst
One quick question on the outlook. With your 2% to 4% organic growth in the second half of the year, are you effectively extrapolating the trends that you saw in December quarter into the second half of the year? I mean, you're expecting mid-single-digit growth in Industrial and flat-to-down -- I don't know, if it's plus or minus, I guess, in infrastructure. Is that sort of the structural framework that you're looking at?
Frank P. Simpkins
Analyst
Yes, I think that's fair.
Eli S. Lustgarten - Longbow Research LLC
Analyst
Okay. So moving on, so you're not expecting any changes. And in your profitability, I mean, your numbers are well below where you sort of -- what we used to think of the profitability of the businesses. And it's clear that, I guess, Industrial will be much more profitable than Infrastructure for a while. Can you give us some idea of -- is pricing more competitive? Are these cost for investments that you have also have some element of competitive response in the marketplace because demand is so slow, that will limit margin recovery in the second half?
Carlos M. Cardoso
Analyst
No. Our pricing, actually, for the year and overall is going to be slightly positive.
Eli S. Lustgarten - Longbow Research LLC
Analyst
There was no pricing moves taken at the beginning of the year?
Frank P. Simpkins
Analyst
No, there were some in select markets, on certain geographies, Eli. Like Sandvik went up in a couple of areas. We did as well.
Eli S. Lustgarten - Longbow Research LLC
Analyst
So it's all positive.
Frank P. Simpkins
Analyst
Yes. More on the Industrial side than the bigger material content side because raw materials on that side has been relatively kind of flat.
Eli S. Lustgarten - Longbow Research LLC
Analyst
And then a follow-up question on the ATI acquisition. So you obviously had a big surprise in inventory that almost changed the whole -- your lookout for this year. Can you talk a bit about, versus expectation, was inventory the only surprise? And do we still talk about -- not so much in '14, that year we understand, you gave us the restructuring impact. But will '15 still be accretive in the 20%, 25% range, or 15%, 20%, whatever number you want to pick, that you sort of have been talking about when you made the acquisition?
Frank P. Simpkins
Analyst
Good question. And I'll start off by saying the base number that we put in there, Eli, the 10% to 15%, there's no restructuring benefits in there yet. Even though we're starting -- but we still -- maybe we can do a little bit quicker here in the fourth quarter. But you're right. The major difference, when you take a step back, everything is pretty much on track. We had limited access to get in there. And at the end of the day, the entire difference is solely related to inventory. It was basically double what we had anticipated. So if I take that out of the equation, and I'd rather have more value assigned to a tangible asset than an intangible asset. And given the terms that they have for, I'm glad that we're getting -- we have more inventory there, so more tangible assets so we can serve our customers. It's going to be done by the March quarter. So when I get to the June quarter, this business, the base business including purchase accounting, is accretive and are relatively quick. So that's why we feel pretty good about it. And I'm not even talking about trying to accelerate any restructuring activities. If we can do it, great. We'll do a little bit better. But I like how the fact that we're trending the right way. No real surprises. The culture, we have the top leadership, Carlos, myself and 2 other EMC men. We visited all the U.S. locations, and Carlos also visited the international. And these guys are very, very happy to be part of Kennametal. So I see huge benefit. And the one thing I will also remind everybody is we have no sales synergies at all built in. And we think this would to be some opportunities as we get into the '15 going forward. So as far as I'm concerned, this thing is a great acquisition, and everything's on track.
Carlos M. Cardoso
Analyst
The only thing I'll add to that is that I think this is going to be -- turn out to be the best acquisition we've made in the last 10 years. We really are excited about this business.
Operator
Operator
The next question will come from Walter Liptak of Global Hunter.
Walter S. Liptak - Global Hunter Securities, LLC, Research Division
Analyst
I wanted to ask about, in one of the charts, you've got TMB base operating results, and the operating profit looks lower than, I think, we expected going into it, looks like a 4% operating profit margin. And I thought it was high-single digits, closer to 10%. Is that -- was there production cuts to reduce inventory that went on? Why was that so much lower?
Frank P. Simpkins
Analyst
Well, first of all, they were on a 4%, 4% or 5% closing period under the prior one. So right away, we lost the first week in November. Then we had to shut the place down to do the physical inventories, the fixed assets. So we lost another day there. And this is how we built it in. And then you have the holiday periods. So when I take a step back, it was profitable, to your point. But the worse 2 months, maybe they don't have as big as a footprint as we do in Europe. But we have the worst 2 months ownership right now and we still made money. So to me, I think everything is pretty much on track. This is as expected. And to your comment, the double-digit, still there.
Walter S. Liptak - Global Hunter Securities, LLC, Research Division
Analyst
Okay. So in the second half, what are you assuming for operating margin for TMB?
Frank P. Simpkins
Analyst
We haven't got it out, but you kind of alluded to what we think it's going to be, and that's without restructuring. So this is kind of looking at the base and the purchase accounting. We're going to have a nice second half. Let me leave it at that.
Walter S. Liptak - Global Hunter Securities, LLC, Research Division
Analyst
Okay. With the -- ISM's picking up, and you've talked about General Industrial looking better. Are you seeing distribution or -- in customer inventory build yet? Or is it still too early?
Carlos M. Cardoso
Analyst
Yes. I don't think we -- that the inventory buildup is taking place yet. I think that this is due to demand. Everything that we've seen, there are 6% organic growth. And as I said, double-digit in the month of December, is still, at least, we feel we don't have -- I mean, we can't really. Just like we couldn't tell how much of the decline was coming from the inventory reduction. We -- it's hard for us to see all the way down. But our gut feeling that tells us that there's no inventory buildup yet.
Walter S. Liptak - Global Hunter Securities, LLC, Research Division
Analyst
Okay. But at some point, we should see that, right?
Carlos M. Cardoso
Analyst
Yes. Not as much as -- every year -- every time there's a downturn, we always get more efficient. But yes. Yes.
Frank P. Simpkins
Analyst
And then that's why we talk to distributors out there. That's we've been focusing on the fill rates because we do expect that if you look at the global PMI, all the economic indicators, or if you just look at the U.S., obviously they're strong. So we want to make sure we maximize our opportunity when it comes forward.
Carlos M. Cardoso
Analyst
And this is why we added a cost in the first half of the year is to -- with the anticipation that the Industrial business was going to come back strong in the second half.
Walter S. Liptak - Global Hunter Securities, LLC, Research Division
Analyst
Okay. And then last one, what tax rate are using for the third quarter and fourth quarter?
Frank P. Simpkins
Analyst
Well, if you exclude everything out, I would use about 24%.
Operator
Operator
The next question will come from Julian Mitchell of Crédit Suisse. Jonathan Shaffer - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division: This is actually Jon Shaffer for Julian. I just wanted to check on Industrial. It sounds like December was a good standalone month, up double-digits, and that Asia was kind of one of the strongest drivers of growth. Is that kind of 12% growth in Asia sustainable for the rest of the year?
Carlos M. Cardoso
Analyst
I mean, I'm not sure if that is sustainable, but I think that we're going to see an improvement in growth in North America versus where we have been right now. And I think that Europe is going to continue to stay kind of at a nice growth rate, especially in Germany, where we have a large presence. And I think the concern -- the only concern that we have to watch is really Brazil and India, as I talked. India is coming up for a -- national election is coming up. Things are not going to happen that much until that election takes place. But we feel very good about them, about our forecasted growth for the second half of the year. Jonathan Shaffer - Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division: And then just quickly on the Infrastructure side, specifically to Earthworks. It sounds like there's now bottoming in that market. Is there any suggestion on when you could actually see revenue turn positive again? Is that a kind of next year event, or possibly at the end of this year?
Frank P. Simpkins
Analyst
I mean, it's interesting, right? With this cold weather, it will -- well, it does have an impact. Cold weather, obviously, is good for the energy, whether you're doing oil and gas or coal, so we'll watch how this thing plays out as we go forward. Out Achilles heel has been, obviously we have a good market shares in Appalachia, as well as China. I would expect China to come back before Appalachia, but it may be slow. But construction has been very good. So while we have negative, and mining is a little bit bigger than our construction, but our highway construction was low double-digit growth. So the highway construction stuff continues to bode well. And if we get a little bit of an improvement here in our second half, we go into the highway season. And if the weather stays cold and we see what kind of prices natural gas does, there could be swing there. But I think it's a little bit too early for us to get excited on it.
Operator
Operator
The next question will come from Samuel Eisner of Goldman Sachs.
Samuel H. Eisner - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division
Analyst
Just a couple of housekeeping items here. You said that the inventory step-up on TMB was about double what you're expecting. I'm just curious about -- with the $100 million sequential increase. How much of that is TMB and how much of that is actual base business?
Frank P. Simpkins
Analyst
Sorry, I didn't follow you Sam there, 100% -- what was that?
Samuel H. Eisner - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division
Analyst
The step-up in inventory. The total inventory is about $100 million on a sequential basis. How much of that is TMB and how much of that is base business?
Frank P. Simpkins
Analyst
Yes, the base business was about $4 million. Everything else was TMB.
Samuel H. Eisner - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division
Analyst
Great. And the timeline for the annual savings that you're doing from the restructuring, I think you called out about $35 million to $45 million. So just curious when those start to flow in and how they do flow in over future periods?
Frank P. Simpkins
Analyst
We really have them coming in towards the end of the fourth quarter. We'll see how quick we can get those into the base business. So I'm not counting on a lot into that number I provided, the $10 million to $15 million. So if we can accelerate a couple of these because it does take some time moving things around. But hopefully, we can go a little bit quicker and they'll start coming in, in the June quarter. But really we'll start seeing it in '15, in earnest.
Samuel H. Eisner - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division
Analyst
And is there a way to get a base utilization rate on the base business at the moment, x TMB?
Carlos M. Cardoso
Analyst
Well, if you -- I'll give you just a rule of thumb. We said that we were capitalized for $3 billion on the upturn, okay, of the base business. We bought Stellite after that, and we now bought TMB. Between the Stellite and TMB, the run rate of the business is about...
Frank P. Simpkins
Analyst
$3 billion, I think?
Carlos M. Cardoso
Analyst
Yes. So that -- so we -- our base business is still below the high levels that we were before, significantly. I would say they're below the 2 acquisitions. So I'll say that our business, in general, base business is probably running at, I guess, about 70% to 75%.
Samuel H. Eisner - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division
Analyst
Okay, great. And then just lastly on the double-digit strength that you saw in the distribution market. Is that primarily because of easing comps, or are you actually seeing sequential growth? I know you called out December was obviously up double digits in all Industrial. Just curious how the Industrial distribution piece is working.
Carlos M. Cardoso
Analyst
Well, I mean, I think it's the combination of both, and we really can't -- I mean, we don't have -- don't know how to break that down, to be honest with you. And I don't have a number. Actually, I didn't look up the number for distribution, but obviously, distribution is a big factor of driving that double-digit. And distribution is always -- comes in -- comes out first. So...
Carlos M. Cardoso
Analyst
Comps are helping us, and there is actual growth.
Operator
Operator
The next question will come from Holden Lewis of BB&T. Holden Lewis - BB&T Capital Markets, Research Division: I just wanted to understand, I guess, the guidance a little bit more. So I mean, for revenues, you are sort of indicating that total sales growth is going to be 12% to 13%. That obviously includes the TMB contribution.
Carlos M. Cardoso
Analyst
Right. Holden Lewis - BB&T Capital Markets, Research Division: When you get to the bottom line of $2.60 to $2.75, that includes nothing from TMB, no base ops, no depreciation and amortization step-up, nothing at all?
Frank P. Simpkins
Analyst
Right. The $2.60 -- that's kind of like-for-like. That is akin to the prior guidance that we had, the $2.90 to $3.05. And really, when you take a step back, it's a combination of the top line being a little bit softer, some investments that we accelerated to grow the top line and some of the manufacturing expenses that we had in the quarter. That's all base-to-base. Holden Lewis - BB&T Capital Markets, Research Division: Okay, got it. And then when you look at the pieces, and obviously, the inventory step-up, it was done pretty quickly. That kind of seems like non-recurring. But the depreciation and amortization step-up you talked about, that's sort of a long -- that's going to be with you for a long time. That's just the standard, right?
Frank P. Simpkins
Analyst
Yes. On an annual basis, I'd ballpark that $0.06 to $0.09 annually. Holden Lewis - BB&T Capital Markets, Research Division: Okay. So if we're looking to sort of line up the EPS along with the revenue guidance, so that's truly like-to-like, with the revenues includes -- revenues include the acquisition the EPS is. We should probably be using the TMB base ops and the D&A step-up, which are kind of offsetting, I guess. But is that the way that we should be looking at it in terms of trying to make the top line and the bottom line be apples-to-apples with the acquisition?
Frank P. Simpkins
Analyst
Yes, I think that's about right. Holden Lewis - BB&T Capital Markets, Research Division: Okay, excellent. And then, I guess, the second question I have is kind of related to your comment about being down 70% to 75% of peak level. You talked about all these new costs, but as an organization, obviously, you've had -- you've been in a much higher organic revenue base. You have plenty of capacity. The recovery seems to be very early and a bit weaker than you anticipated. Why are we ramping expenses now, given all of that? Why don't we sort of farm the infrastructure a bit, be sure of the trend behind the end markets and then kind of, sort of get ahead of -- getting to peak. It just seems like it's premature to be adding these expenses so soon.
Carlos M. Cardoso
Analyst
Well, the first thing that I'll tell you is it takes a very experienced sales guy about 6 months before they can be productive, and it takes about a young junior salesperson about 1.5 year before they can be efficient, for instance, just to give you an example. So it's a trade-off. Do you want to grow double-digit in the month of December, or you trade off some expenses and grow less than double-digit, and then lose market share in the process? Holden Lewis - BB&T Capital Markets, Research Division: Okay. But these sort of investments that you're making, these are kind of new to the story. It's not something that you were aggressively doing 1, 2 quarters ago. It's kind of something you're stepping up now with your rising confidence?
Carlos M. Cardoso
Analyst
Yes. I mean -- and by the way, you've got to -- you also have to realize that in a year-over-year basis, last year, we were taking some of these people that were not as efficient out with the understanding that we would have to replace them at the right time so that we can accommodate the accelerated growth.
Frank P. Simpkins
Analyst
Yes. If you go back to the July call, we try to highlight 2 facets, Holden. One was about $0.10, we said, with kind of investments. And then we said, "Hey, we're going to have another $0.20 coming back for incentive compensation." All those type of progress is coming back. So some of those stuff is coming back and we kind of had to build that in. And then there are some investments. And we talked about NOVO, we talked about people, but we think these are the right things, longer-term, to help us to grow the top line quicker.
Carlos M. Cardoso
Analyst
Yes. The bottom line is you've got to manage this business for the year, not for the quarter.
Operator
Operator
And our final question will come from Joel Tiss of BMO.
Joel Gifford Tiss - BMO Capital Markets U.S.
Analyst
Everything's been answered. I just had one kind of curious question. Is there any chance that the buildup in inventory, in the acquisition, resulted in higher revenues and operating profits during the period that you were looking at that might impact, like it might impact the growth rate longer-term or medium-term?
Frank P. Simpkins
Analyst
No.
Carlos M. Cardoso
Analyst
No.
Joel Gifford Tiss - BMO Capital Markets U.S.
Analyst
Okay. So just more stuff came out of the ground, but it wouldn't flow through into the revenues and the earnings.
Frank P. Simpkins
Analyst
Yes. Just kind of the value. I mean, we couldn't get in there, Joel, and do something. These guys ran a tight auction, unfortunately. Everything we had, and good news to me, is I'd rather have more tangible than intangibles, as I said earlier. And this is good stuff.
Joel Gifford Tiss - BMO Capital Markets U.S.
Analyst
Yes. Yes, it's all stuff you need anyway. So...
Carlos M. Cardoso
Analyst
Yes, exactly.
Frank P. Simpkins
Analyst
Not cabbage.
Operator
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, this will conclude our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the call back to Quynh McGuire for closing remarks.
Quynh McGuire
Analyst
This concludes our discussion. Please contact me, Quynh McGuire, at (724) 539-6559 for any follow-up questions. Thank you for joining us.
Operator
Operator
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