David Bullwinkle
Analyst · Cowen. Your line is now open
Thanks, Jeff, and good afternoon. Today, the company filed its Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2017 with the Securities and Exchange Commission. As always, I recommend you read this filing in its entirety. First, some important updates and notable items in the 10-K filing and impacts on 2018 and forward. As I'm sure you are aware, new federal tax reform legislation was enacted in the United States, resulting in significant changes from previous tax law, including the reduction in the federal corporate income tax rate from 35% to 21%, effective January 1, 2018. Upon enactment, there is a onetime deemed repatriation tax on undistributed foreign earnings and profits, which is referred to as the transition tax. We recognized tax expense of $14 million related to the transition tax in 2017, which was fully offset by our foreign tax credits, resulting in no cash or P&L impacts. As Jeff noted in the 2018 guidance he provided, an accounting change has been made, which impacts Kodak's measure of operational EBITDA going forward. The change reclassifies the amortization of prior service credits out of operating results. This change will result in higher expense and operational EBITDA related to pensions in the amount of approximately $8 million. We have reflected this in our guidance for 2018, and we'll recast prior periods for comparability as we progress through the year. The impact on 2017 would have been approximately $8 million of additional expense in operational EBITDA. There was no cash impact from this accounting change. I will now share further details on the full company results and update on our cost structure initiatives and cash flow performance and the 2018 cash flow outlook. Starting on Slide 14. Net earnings for the full year 2017 on a GAAP basis were $94 million compared to net earnings of $16 million in 2016, an increase of $78 million. Included in these results is a non-cash tax benefit of $101 million due to a release of a valuation allowance as the result of increased profits in a location outside the U.S. Consistent with previous quarters, our net earnings are also impacted by other non-cash items, such as pension income, goodwill and asset impairments or remeasurements, reduction and depreciation and amortization expense and changes in the fair value of the embedded derivative associated with the Series A preferred stock. Turning to Slide 15. We are presenting our divisional results for the fourth quarter ending December 31, 2017, and 2016 on a constant currency basis as reflected at the bottom section of the slide. As we report in our earnings release, revenue for the fourth quarter was $414 million compared to $432 million in the fourth quarter of 2016, a decline of $18 million. On a constant currency basis, revenue declined $31 million or 7%. Operational EBITDA was $20 million compared to $43 million in the prior year period. On a constant currency basis, operational EBITDA declined by $28 million. The decline in operational EBITDA is driven by reductions in PSD and CFD, which I will describe in more detail later, as well as non-cash impacts in the fourth quarter of 2016 of $12 million related to reductions in workers' compensation reserves and incentive compensation accruals in the prior year. The year-over-year reduction in the Print Systems Division operational EBITDA was driven primarily by plate price erosion, higher aluminum cost and volume declines, partially offset by cost reduction activities and good growth in SONORA Plates. The year-over-year decline of $5 million in the Consumer and Film Division operational EBITDA was due to lower volume in industrial film and chemicals, the expected decline in the consumer inkjet business and higher cost in motion picture film, driven by vendor transition impacts, partially offset by higher brand licensing revenues. Partially offsetting the declines in PSD and CFD, revenues in the Flexographic Packaging Division grew by 15% and operational EBITDA for the division improved by 29%, which is driven by the continued growth of FLEXCEL NX. As we indicated on our Q3 earnings call, we have taken steps to improve the profitability of the company. As presented on Slide 16, in the fourth quarter, we accelerated our cost reduction actions across the company to eliminate approximately 425 positions for a savings of approximately $45 million on a run-rate basis. Currently, 260 positions have been eliminated with an annual cost-savings of $20 million. Actions have been taken to eliminate an additional 155 positions in 2018, which, combined with other employee-related actions will result in a savings of $18 million. We will continue to execute on position eliminations in the first half of 2018 to deliver the targeted savings. Our total headcount will be approximately 5,600 after these reductions. We will continue to achieve higher levels of efficiency in 2018 through cost opportunities and business process simplification and relentless focus on shortening the payback periods on investments. Moving on to the company cash performance presented on Slide 17. Cash and cash equivalents reported on the balance sheet as of December 31, 2017, were $344 million, an increase of $2 million from September 30, 2017, and down $90 million from the year. For the full year ending December 31, 2017, cash used in operating activities was $67 million, driven primarily by negative cash earnings of $19 million and other balance sheet changes of $48 million, which includes working capital use of $7 million. The working capital change was primarily due to the reduction in accounts payable related to product volume reductions in PSD and CFD. For the full year ending December 31, 2017, the company used $24 million of cash for investing activities. Capital expenditures of $38 million, which includes our investment in the new flexographic plate manufacturing line in Weatherford, Oklahoma, were partially offset by proceeds from asset sales and marketable securities. Cash used in financing activities for the full year ending December 31, 2017, was $29 million, which included $10 million in preferred stock dividends, a $7 million payment to Kodak Alaris for continued consideration from the business sale in 2013, and repayment of debt of $7 million. Currency favorably impacted cash by $11 million. On a year-over-year basis, the company used $54 million more cash, excluding debt repayments for the full year ending December 31, 2017, than the prior year. This was primarily driven by lower cash earnings of $31 million and a higher cash usage from balance sheet changes of $21 million. When we last spoke in November, I indicated an expected cash use for 2017 between $60 million and $70 million before debt payments. For the year ended December 31, 2017, we used $83 million of cash, excluding debt repayments. The increased usage was due to more cash used and working capital and higher CapEx due to accelerated build of the flexographic packaging manufacturing line. Throughout 2017, the company has continued to invest in growth areas. In AM3D, $26 million was invested in new technologies. We continue to invest at ULTRASTREAM within EISD for $15 million. We also invested $7 million in our capacity expansion for packaging. In addition, we continue to develop new products, spending approximately $100 million on SONORA X and NEXFINITY, which were launched earlier this month as well as the Super 8 camera, which will be introduced later in 2018. The slowdown we saw on the commercial printing industry impacted our cash flow in the second half of the year and our ability to continue to invest at these levels. As I previously discussed, we have taken actions to improve profitability heading into 2018. These actions will also improve our cash flow in 2018, along with our continued focus on improving efficiency and simplification of our businesses and processes. We remain in compliance with our covenants under our credit agreements. The company's EBITDA used in the secured leverage ratio as calculated under the first lien term loan credit agreement exceeded the EBITDA necessary to satisfy the covenant ratio by $26 million. To summarize, the company's 2017 performance reflects good execution and growth in our packaging business, headwinds and the impacts of the commercial printing industry dynamics in PSD, volume reductions in supplier cost in CFD, strategic investments made to improve longer-term profitability, particularly in our growth areas of FLEXCEL NX packaging, the next-generation SONORA Plates and ULTRASTREAM inkjet technology. Turning to 2018. We expect continued growth and full year revenues and earnings for Kodak's growth areas as well as productivity and cost improvements across our business. Like in 2017, we expect seasonality to drive stronger performance to the second half of the year in revenue, operational EBITDA and cash. In the first half of 2016 and 2017, we generated approximately one-third of our operational EBITDA and had a higher cash use rate than the second half of the year. For 2018, we expect approximately 30% of operational EBITDA to be generated in the first half of the year. As a result, we expect the cash used in the first half of 2018 offset by cash generated in the second half of the year. As shown on Slide 18, our cash outlook for the full year 2018 is a range of $20 million to $30 million on an unlevered basis and breakeven to a use of $20 million on a levered basis. The sources of cash generation and operational EBITDA of $60 million to $70 million, proceeds from a couple idle buildings and small asset sales totaling $17 million, and a source of cash from working capital of approximately $9 million. We expect cash to be used for legacy items of $47 million, which includes foreign pension and workers’ compensation payments. $29 million of these uses of cash are included in our operational EBITDA as expense. Therefore, the incremental amounts of $18 million has been presented as an adjustment to operational EBITDA. Interest and dividend payments or used of cash of $36 million, capital expenditures of $35 million, net cash income taxes outside the U.S. of $13 million, and restructuring payments of $13 million. Turning to Slide 19. I would like to highlight the opportunities and risks associated with our 2018 plan. First, we see the following opportunities for 2018: we continue to see accelerated customer adoption of our process-free technologies, which may result in higher SONORA X Plate volumes. Based on our current hedge position of approximately two-thirds of our annual usage, a reduction in the price of aluminum would also benefit our PSD results by approximately $1 million for every 2% change in the price. Higher FLEXCEL NX Plate volumes, a more rapid conversion of our brand licensing pipeline. In addition, we see upside to our plans as we make working capital improvements, explore monetization of certain assets and pursue strategic transactions. Second, our plan – our 2018 plan has the following risks: a further slowdown in the commercial print industry would impact our business results. Conversely, the aforementioned opportunities related to aluminum costs and brand licensing pipeline conversion could result in negative impacts versus our plan. Timing of planned tax settlements and new product launches could also have a negative impact to the 2018 plan. Overall, this is a balanced plan, and we expect to deliver these results for 2018. We will now open the call to your questions. Gigi, please remind participants of the instructions to ask questions.