Earnings Labs

Key Tronic Corporation (KTCC)

Q1 2019 Earnings Call· Tue, Oct 30, 2018

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Key Tronic First Quarter Fiscal 2019 Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Brett Larsen. Please, go ahead sir.

Brett Larsen

Management

Good afternoon, everyone. I am Brett Larsen, Chief Financial Officer of Key Tronic. I would like to thank everyone for joining us today for our investor conference call. Joining me here in our Spokane Valley headquarters is Craig Gates, our President and Chief Executive Officer. As always, I would like to remind you that during the course of this call, we might make projections or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or the Company's future financial performance. Please remember that such statements are only predictions. Actual events or results may differ materially. For more information, you may review the risk factors outlined in the documents that the Company has filed with the SEC, specifically our 10-K, quarterly 10-Qs and 8-Ks. Please note that on this call we will discuss historical financial and other statistical information regarding our business and operations. Some of this information is included in today's press release and a recorded version of this call will be available on our website. Today, we released our results for the first quarter ended September 29, 2018. For the first quarter of fiscal 2019, we reported total revenue of $127.5 million up from $117 million in the prior quarter and from $109.2 million in the same period of fiscal year 2018. We adopted the new revenue recognition standard beginning July 1, 2018. The impact related to the adoption of the standard for the first quarter of fiscal 2019 includes the accelerated recognition of approximately $4.9 million in revenue in the fiscal quarter of 2019 primarily due to the change from point in time to overtime recognition of revenue for certain customers as the standard requires excluding this benefit revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2019 would have increased 5% from the prior quarter and 12% for the same period of…

Craig Gates

Management

Okay, thanks Brett. For the first quarter of fiscal 2019 our new programs continue to ramp despite the continued industry wide supply chain shortages for key components and hampered our growth and increased our cost. We also continue to diversify our customer base, reduce our debt and reduce inventory levels and have return to growth. During the first quarter we benefited from the continued ramp of SkyBell Technologies a global leader in patented Wi-Fi video doorbell technology that improves home and neighborhood safety. As we discussed last quarter, this important new relationship is projected to expand our customer base and contribute profitable long-term growth. During the first quarter we also continue to win significant new business both from EMS competitors and existing customers including new programs involving industrial motion control products, power metering and fire protection systems. Our broader and more diversified customer base significantly lowers the potential future impact and the slow down by any one customer. At the same time, our productivity continued to be adversely impacted by industry wide shortage and key components resulting in delays and delivery, inventory pressure and increased costs. Moreover the tariff situation as it exist today and as it is anticipate to evolve, as complex ramification for KTCC. Certainly for our customers in our Shanghai site the tariffs are a huge problem for any product imported back into the USA. But for those current customers a transition of their business out of our Shanghai site to our [indiscernible] USA site is facilitated by our centralized command and control. This dramatically reduces the risk and time associated with the move back to our North America sites and thus allows these customers some leeway to respond to the rapidly changing tariff landscape. Meanwhile for companies with business at our China-centric CM competitors KTCC's North…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] we'll take our first question from Bill Dezellem with Tieton Capital Management.

Bill Dezellem

Analyst

As usual I have a group of questions. The first one is the same standard question size of your new wins this quarter please.

Craig Gates

Management

Five to 10 each.

Bill Dezellem

Analyst

And anything special to mention about any one of them that is either unique or may lead to something more meaningful in the future?

Craig Gates

Management

I don't think so, these are pretty much our standard average wins.

Bill Dezellem

Analyst

Okay, great. Thank you. And then relative to SkyBell, talk a little bit around the issue of component shortages there and the degree to which they are settling down or improving or getting orders. What are you seeing on that front please and how is that matching with demand that you're seeing for their product?

Craig Gates

Management

The component shortages and long lead times have severely limited our production we've been probably half of the demand is where we've been producing for the last two or three months. We see a number of components in that family of products that have 40-week to 50-week lead times as we have been working our way through those products. We've been able to increase output from the factory but we're still nowhere near what the market would like us to be shipping. We see I guess hope it's not wishful thinking, but see the slight improvement in supply over the last couple three months certainly nothing where everybody can stand up and celebrate, but I think I am sure that it has ceased to continue to get worse every day.

Bill Dezellem

Analyst

Given the pace that you currently see or trajectory as you're on when would you anticipate that component availability would match demand and please don't say, 1,000 years.

Craig Gates

Management

Well, the problem is there's two variables here. One is the increase in demand from the market and the other is the improvement in supply from the supply chain. So I don't really have the ability to tell you when those two variables are going to cross. I can't tell you that over the next three to four months, we see our output continuing to improve nicely. But our demand also continues to improve which is a great problem to have but nonetheless a problem.

Bill Dezellem

Analyst

Thank you, that's appreciated. So thank you. In all seriousness putting the joking aside. Is the increase in your supply of SkyBell products on the market leading more prospective customers to be aware of the product and therefore that's pushing demand or is there something else that is driving that?

Craig Gates

Management

I think it's safer to say, we haven't even reached that stage yet. Right now the increase in demand is from current customers who are gaining confidence and our ability to supply and our turning lose their sales team to do a little promoting and take some orders. So I would say that we haven't begun to tap the new customer demand, new channels and all we're doing is filing up some of the demand from existing customers and convincing them that our performance is convincing them that it's safer to let their sales guys be a little bit more aggressive in selling this product.

Bill Dezellem

Analyst

Craig if I may interpret that, are you saying that up till recently that SkyBell's customers just didn't have confidence they were going to be able to get them product. Now the Key Tronic is manufacturing for them, they are - they now have that confidence and so that's what leading them to sell. Actually go out and sell whereas as they really had that [indiscernible] basically turned off before.

Craig Gates

Management

That would sound like tuning our own horn a little bit, but basically yes I would say that's the case. And we're still a long way from having their current customers believe that they could go completely waltz on the wall and sell as much as they could get orders for. But it certainly has improved their confidence in what they can do and what we're going to be able to do in the near future.

Bill Dezellem

Analyst

So when you had originally shared with the investment community this new relationship. Are you gaining confidence in the end product demand more so than you originally had? If I remembered right, you thought the potential was pretty great to begin with.

Craig Gates

Management

Yes so we continue to believe that the potential is great and as we produce product and it gets basically snapped up as soon as we can get it into the warehouse and El Paso we're gaining confidence that the continuation of the demand is there.

Bill Dezellem

Analyst

Great. Thank you. I've additional questions, but I'll step back in and re-queue up and let others ask.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] we'll take our next question from Sheldon Grodsky with Grodsky and Associates.

Sheldon Grodsky

Analyst · Grodsky and Associates.

Nice to double-digit earnings per share. I'd like to see higher double-digit soon, I just wanted to check on one of the numbers that you actually mentioned in the presentation. I wasn't sure if I quoted right, well what are your capital expenditures expected to be for the current year.

Brett Larsen

Management

$10 million.

Sheldon Grodsky

Analyst · Grodsky and Associates.

$10 million? Okay that's sizable.

Brett Larsen

Management

$10 million.

Sheldon Grodsky

Analyst · Grodsky and Associates.

I heard, okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Hans [indiscernible] with [indiscernible].

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

I had one on the arbitration and the settlement. Did the company already receive the settlement payment and if not, when do you expect to receive this amount?

Craig Gates

Management

We did receive the payment already.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

And was it already up in the Q3 numbers or I mean on the balance sheet or is it after, was it received after Q3.

Brett Larsen

Management

It was received prior to our first quarter ended in September so it's included in the balance sheet.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Yes all right. Thanks.

Craig Gates

Management

That is included in the results. Yes.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We'll take our next question from George Melas with MKH Management.

George Melas

Analyst · MKH Management.

Can you provide a little bit more color on the utility and the labor cost increases? I sort of calculate in a very back of the envelope we're at 50 bps decline in gross margin is roughly $600,000 to $700,000. Can you sort of - some color on that?

Brett Larsen

Management

Sure I can take that one Craig. Definitely the utilities themselves were approximately about $400,000 increase in cost quarter-over-quarter. In addition there was some additional labor cost we were bit inefficient the first part of the quarter predominantly in some of our US locations. So you're half of percentage of estimated cost increases during the quarter is accurate based on those two events.

George Melas

Analyst · MKH Management.

Okay, great. Brett next one is for you too. There's a new item on your balance sheet on tracked assets of roughly $16.8 million. That looks like it's a reclassification, what is it?

Brett Larsen

Management

So what that is, new general accounting principles require that Key Tronic and other contract manufacturers recognize revenue overtime. So as we build product, we actually recognize the revenue upon completing that production and not upon shipment. So what that is, it's a change in revenue recognition so that's $16.7 million is really inventory and work in process and its associated margin that have been recorded through the income statement.

George Melas

Analyst · MKH Management.

Well that sounds complicated.

Brett Larsen

Management

It is, I mean in reality it's a one-time adjustment it's kind of a lean forward of your revenue and the impact as we disclosed in the first quarter was roughly $4.9 million of additional revenue. We don't anticipate future material impact due to this revenue recognition standard, but included in Q1 is about $4.9 million of extra revenue.

George Melas

Analyst · MKH Management.

Okay and did that, that I imagined did not have much of an impact on gross margin on a percentage gross margin. Did it have an impact on OpEx?

Brett Larsen

Management

No. not materially no.

George Melas

Analyst · MKH Management.

Okay and then quick other question. Your SG&A came down quite a bit and maybe that's because of a decline in legal cost. OpEx now roughly 5.5% of revenue and that now we're sort of modeling at 6%, what would be a good number to use or a dollar number I'm not sure how you think about it.

Brett Larsen

Management

I think as a percentage I think 5% between 5.5% to 6% is a good estimate. As you mentioned we spent far less in legal cost now that the arbitration is behind us with an increase in revenue I would hope to keep that closer to the 5.5% than 6%, but yes that's a reasonable estimate within that range.

George Melas

Analyst · MKH Management.

Okay great and then Craig, is there way you didn't have any constraints in the supply chain and shortages of what would be the additional revenue that you would be able to produce and recognize?

Craig Gates

Management

A really crude number would be probably another $10 million to $15 million in the last quarter.

George Melas

Analyst · MKH Management.

And that I imagine, this would come then with some improved gross margin because you wouldn't delays the scheduling issues and that kind of stuff right.

Craig Gates

Management

Yes there would actually the effect of a two-fold, one is as you just pointed out SGA& as a number rather than a percent even though it's easier to use a percent. So every little bit we add the revenue helps and on top of that, we've got a bunch of people in Juarez who have to sit around at the beginning of the week while we wait for components to show up and then we have to build as quick as we can, so we can ship parts out and meet our customers' expectation. So we're running inefficiently right now in order to try to fulfil market demand yet deal with parts that don't show up on time or at all.

Operator

Operator

Thank you we'll take our next question. [Operator Instructions] we'll take our next question from Hanz [indiscernible] with [indiscernible].

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Thanks guys for taking one more question. I was just looking at the working capital and the balance sheet a little bit and it looks like, if I'm looking correctly the payment that you received for the settlement didn't really go into reducing the debt. Can you perhaps give some color on where that those funds went?

Brett Larsen

Management

Sure I can take that. so the roughly $6.7 million that we received is part of the arbitration did in fact help us get back to paying payables early allowing us to again initiate early pay discounts and as well helped us increase in the amount of inventory that's available for some of these ramping new customers, would have liked to have seen in some additional decreases in debt, but hope to see those in the near future as we continue to work down the inventory.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Very good and the other line from current assets, saw that's increasing a little bit from the Q4 of last fiscal year is that anything specific it's now $17 million, I think.

Brett Larsen

Management

I would need to look into that, but I believe what that is, is the foreign currency contracts many of them are in an asset position rather than a liability within the next 12 months.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Okay, yes. Thank you very much

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We'll take our next question from Bill Dezellem with Tieton Capital Management.

Bill Dezellem

Analyst · Tieton Capital Management.

In the opening remarks, I believe that there was some reference to fiscal 2019 growth and your confidence that you would be growing this year. Would you dive into that and provide some more commentary about how you were thinking about fiscal 2019 unfolding please?

Craig Gates

Management

Okay, we've been winning business over the last coupled three years as we recovered from the decline of that one large customer who we also had to sue in arbitration to get paid from. So we are at I think we are not at, we're little bit past the tip point where we've replaced them and now what's been going on under the top line should start to stack on top of the top line. So the cadence of the wins continues and in fact has speeded up and we're no longer trying to fill a hole now we're packing on top. So that's where we think it's going to come from, companies like SkyBell and other that we've mentioned are going in production and that's basically where it's going to come from. We're not counting on [indiscernible] of an acquisition to key to growth that we foresee.

Bill Dezellem

Analyst · Tieton Capital Management.

And so do you kind of have a conceptual or qualitative view about the March and June quarters and just how that trajectory looks. I mean you continue at a modest rate of growth, are you seeing some increasing in that trajectory. What are you currently thinking there please?

Craig Gates

Management

We're thinking that we're not going to put any kind of numbers to that. As per our.

Bill Dezellem

Analyst · Tieton Capital Management.

[Indiscernible] something think about at night.

Craig Gates

Management

Me too.

Bill Dezellem

Analyst · Tieton Capital Management.

So let me jump on one of your answers to prior question or $10 million to $15 million of additional revenues that you believe that you could be shipping if you had the components. If we just simply assume the low end of that $10 million and an incremental gross margin of roughly 20% with 20% tax rate, that gives us an additional $0.15 a share and so is there anything flawed with my thinking that if you didn't have these component shortages, the business could be running at $0.30 a quarter of earnings or roughly about 20 annualized run rate.

Craig Gates

Management

The only flaw on that thinking would be, if that was a one-time or if it repeated every quarter. So it's hard to say if that would be a one-time bump and then the ones we filled all the shortages, if the fulfilled POs would then be filled in from behind with more demand, hard to figure that out. But certainly there's a chunk of unfulfilled demand out there today that we can't ship.

Bill Dezellem

Analyst · Tieton Capital Management.

Right. Okay that is helpful. And then lastly for now, in the opening remarks there was a reference to an evaluation of new Asian facility location. Would you talk to that please?

Craig Gates

Management

Yes, so about five or six years ago we took a look and decided that we had lot in our plates so we're going to hold off, but if the tariff situation continues as it is, our China facility is not going to be very attractive to people, when it's shipped into the states. So we're going to have to come up with another spot for those folks who don't want to be in Mexico or don't want to be in the states but still want to ship into the states. The nice thing about that is since we're centralized it's pretty easy for us to step and repeat in new facility as you may or may not remember we've had facilities in France, in Ireland, outside of Budapest and we don't see a really big challenge to picking one up and say India or Vietnam or Thailand or whoever that it is, that we decided that we want to go, so we're pretty far down the road. We had done some Greenfield studies a while back and looking at costs and doing pro forma “for products out of facilities”. Since that time they mature, I mean the supply chain was in those target countries has matured and I think it's not going to be that hard to make move if we decided to do it. We're kind of like the customers we talked about, is we've got a little bit of wait and see because we don't know what's going to happen with all the tariffs, even without the tariffs it's interesting to come up with another Asian site and so that's why we mentioned it.

Bill Dezellem

Analyst · Tieton Capital Management.

Great. Thank you for the time.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] that concludes our questions for today. I'll turn it back to Craig Gates for closing remarks.

Craig Gates

Management

Okay, thanks again everybody for participating in today's conference call. Brett and I look forward to speaking with you again next quarter. Thank you and have a good day.

Operator

Operator

Thank you ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference. You may now disconnect.