Earnings Labs

Littelfuse, Inc. (LFUS)

Q2 2016 Earnings Call· Thu, Aug 4, 2016

$387.81

-3.78%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

+2.48%

1 Week

+2.04%

1 Month

+9.42%

vs S&P

+8.21%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Littelfuse, Inc., Second Quarter 2016 Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded. At this time, I’d like to turn the call over to Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Gordon Hunter. Please go ahead, Sir.

Gordon Hunter

Management

Thank you and good morning. And welcome to the Littelfuse second quarter 2016 conference call. Joining me today is Meenal Sethna, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and David Heinzmann, our Chief Operating Officer. Overall, this was another solid quarter for Littelfuse both sales and earnings were above the midpoint of our guidance, despite a continued mixed macroeconomic environment where we saw some end market challenges in our commercial vehicle products business and parts of our industrial segment. Our Electronics and Automotive segments performed well in spite of the challenging environment. However, we were disappointed with the performance of our industrial business and have taken recent actions to reduce our cost structure across this segment. This was also our first full quarter with the PolySwitch business as part of Littelfuse. And last quarter we outlined our plans and progress for the business and I'm happy to report that we are on track. Sales and earnings were in line with expectations and we're making excellent progress on the integration. We will provide more details on some early design wins and our integration activities later on in the call. First, I'll turn the call over to Meenal, who will give the Safe Harbor statement and a brief summary of the news release.

Meenal Sethna

Management

Thanks, Gordon. Before we proceed, let me remind everyone that certain comments we make on this call contain forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and may involve significant risks and uncertainties. Actual results may vary materially from those in forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. Factors that might cause such difference include but are not limited to those discussed in our Forms 10-Q and 10-K as well as other SEC filings. In addition, our remarks today refer to the non-GAAP financial measures adjusted earnings and adjusted earnings-per-share. These non-GAAP measures are intended to supplement but not substitute for the most directly comparable GAAP measures. A reconciliation of these measures is provided in our press release filed today. Now, on to the second quarter. Sales for the second quarter of 2016 were $272 million, which was up 22% year-over-year. Excluding PolySwitch revenue of $36.4 million, sales grew 6%. GAAP earnings for the second quarter of 2016 were $1.20 per diluted share and included $5.5 million of special charges primarily related to purchase accounting and integration costs for the PolySwitch acquisition. Partially offset by non-operating foreign exchange gains. Excluding these items adjusted earnings-per-share included the PolySwitch business were $1.44. Adjusted earnings-per-share increased 8% compared to the prior year quarter. Our PolySwitch business performed as we expected. Sales and earnings were in line with our expectations and included favorability from operating expense management and lower amortization expense versus our prior estimates, offset by some non-recurring expenses relating to the acquisition. Cash provided by operating activities was $26 million for the second quarter which was a decline versus last year. The year-over-year decline was primarily due to integration costs and other one-time cash items relating to the PolySwitch acquisition. Capital expenditures were $11 million for the quarter about $3 million lower than last year mainly due to the completion of our new Philippine plant in 2015. In summary, we had a solid second quarter both across our core and PolySwitch business. Now I'll turn it back to Gordon for more color on business performance and market trends.

Gordon Hunter

Management

Thanks, Meenal. We'll start the segment review with electronics which accounts for nearly half of total Littelfuse sales. Second quarter electronic sales of $132.2 million were up 25%, excluding PolySwitch sales increased 2%. As we saw last quarter sales were strong in Europe and China and stable in North America. Japan and Korea remain sluggish. Channel inventories for our core electronics business are in line with our expectations at this point in the year. We've talked before about our strategy to meet the needs of customers whose end products are smaller than ever before and at the same time require higher performance. This strategy generated a number of design wins in the second quarter. For example we are seeing increased demand for our surface mount components that are used in low cost automated assembly. One win in this area was for our high voltage low profile NANO fuse with a major Chinese TV manufacturer. Another win for our NANO fuse was with a major consumer appliance make up for a high end hairdryer. We also won new business for our high surge Varistor disc that has been designed into a space saving residential electrical surge protection unit developed for the China market. The Internet of Things is another growth area for us. One of our most recent wins in this space is for the Ring Video Doorbell system. This system offers high definition video and audio, smart motion detection and cloud recording that is streamed over your home Wi-Fi to your mobile device. We work with Ring to designing our NANO fuse TVS diodes and power switching thyristors to provide safe and reliable functionality. Estimated revenues for the first year of the program of $500,000. LED outdoor street lighting continues to be an excellent market for us with sales expected…

David Heinzmann

Management

Thanks, Gordon. The Industrial segment accounts for about 10% of our total sales. Second quarter industrial sales of $28.4 million were down 7%. After four quarters of growth, our fuse sales were down slightly in the second quarter. The fuse business showed pockets of strength in both Asia and Europe, but North America was soft. As many of you know, our fuse business has benefited from a strong U.S. solar market for some time. However, the market slowed in the second quarter. As Congress extended the tax credit stimulus late last year, MINI solar OEM’s pushed out their projects to focus on scale and efficiencies. Sales in both our Protection Relays and Custom Products businesses continued to be impacted by weakness in the heavy industrial markets particularly mining and oil and gas as those customers restrict their capital spending. To offset these slower end markets, we are focusing on growth in other general industrial end market. Within the Relays business, a bright spot is our growing line of Arc-Flash Relay. Our newest Arc-Flash Relay has been winning awards since it was launched last year and was recently selected as one of the best new products in 2016 by readers of Consulting-Specifying Engineer magazine. We recently had a design win with a crane manufacturer that installed our Relays on switchgear used for heavy industrial crane at a shipping port in Canada. In our Custom Products business, we continue to see a decline in our potash market. The continued steep drop in potash pricing has led to further slowdowns on delays and investment. To offset this decline, we increased our focus on E-House used in the heavy industrial and utility market. However, profitability for these products is lower than our potash products, which has impacted our operating margin. Given the sustained weakness…

Gordon Hunter

Management

Thanks, Dave. Two weeks ago we were pleased to announce a 13.8% increase in our cash dividend. This is our sixth consecutive year of double-digit growth in the dividend rate a very nice track record for our investors. The increase is consistent with our capital allocation strategy, which is to build a balanced strategic acquisition with a return of capital to shareholders. On a final note as we complete an update of our strategies for the next five years, we will be hosting an Investor Day on Friday December 9, in New York City. We will provide more information as we get closer to the date. With that, I’ll turn the call back to Meenal, who will provide the outlook for the third quarter and then we will take your questions.

Meenal Sethna

Management

Thanks, Gordon. Now looking ahead to the forecast. Sales in the third quarter of 2016 are expected to be in the range of $262 million to $272 million. The midpoint of the range represents 24% growth over the prior year. This forecast includes approximately $40 million in revenue from our PolySwitch business for the third quarter. Revenue growth over last year would be 5% at the midpoint of the range excluding PolySwitch sales. Third quarter adjusted earnings are expected to be in the range of a $1.36 to a $1.50 per diluted share. The forecast includes some tailwinds from currency, but at lower levels than what we saw in the second quarter. We now expect PolySwitch amortization expense to be about $8.5 million per year which equates to about $0.30 per diluted share on an annual basis. This revised estimate is included in the third quarter adjusted earnings guidance. Our effective tax rate assumption continues to be 22% including the PolySwitch business. We are pleased with the benefit of the structures we've implemented over the past few years and we expect to see further reductions in the effective rate over subsequent period. Looking at cash flow, the core fundamentals of our business remain the same as the acquisitions we've made this year align well with our existing business models. We continue to focus on working capital management and our cash conversion metrics remain strong. For 2016, we have several one-time acquisition related cash impacts primarily driven by the extensive integration activity we have for our PolySwitch business and other acquisition related items. Given these activities, we are expecting our operating cash flow to be 12% to 14% of revenue for this year versus our typical target of 16% to 18% per year. We expect 2017 operating cash flow to be back to historical run rates. We are pleased with our overall performance to date, while we continue to see some volatility and challenging end market trends in certain areas of our business. We remain committed to expanding our operating margins excluding acquisition by 150 basis points for the year. Now, I'll turn it back over to Gordon for some last comments.

Gordon Hunter

Management

Thanks, Meenal. We performed well in the first half of the year and we are on track with the PolySwitch integration. And as I look back through the past few years of macroeconomic and end market shifts, our team has delivered 15 quarters of consecutive year-over-year revenue growth in constant currency. I am proud of what our teams have accomplished as they have continued to profitably grow the business through some challenging periods. So this concludes our prepared remarks. And with that, we'd be happy to take any questions.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] From Stifel Financial, we have Matt Sheerin on the line. Please go ahead sir.

Matthew Sheerin

Analyst

Yes. Thanks and good morning, everyone. Just a few questions for me. First off just on your margin guidance going forward with the lower amortization expenses, we were modeling something like $13 million which you had previously guided to and it’s now less than that yet your margins in terms of your near-term guidance look a little bit lower than we have been forecasting. I know there's a lot of moving parts within the various divisions here and you're still backing your 150 basis point increase in margins for the core business for the year. So just trying to figure out what's going on in terms of near-term margin headwinds?

Meenal Sethna

Management

Sure, Matt. Hey, how are you? So maybe just some comments on margin. I did just mention 150 basis points margin expansion excluding acquisitions and we had always talked about this with PolySwitch given general amortization expense just with what we're doing this year, margins would be a bit lower for PolySwitch. In the core business excluding PolySwitch, as we mentioned there's a few different puts and takes. You’ve heard from Gordon and Dave our electronics and automotive businesses are doing well even though we're seeing a little bit of softness in the end markets in the commercial vehicle products side of that business. But at the same time, we are seeing continued end market challenges on the industrial segment especially in our relay and our custom business. And we've seen even a little bit further downturn during the second quarter within potash piece of the custom and the relay business. So that’s taking our margins down a bit as that’s taking revenue down a bit as well.

Matthew Sheerin

Analyst

Okay. That's helpful. And just jumping around a little bit. You talked about the opportunity with higher voltage batteries in automotive and sounds like there's some good wins there? Could you talk about the electronic content the fuse opportunity, because I know you've been running sort of in the mid-single-digits more or less in terms of fuse content? Could you tell us as you get to the next generation programs what the content may look like?

David Heinzmann

Management

Thanks Matt. This is Dave. What I would say is in our traditional passenger car fuse business as you stated we're kind of you know an average car is going to be in that mid-single-digit sort of range. We've had really nice content increase over the last two or three years and continue to see it with high current devices. But that will begin the plateau in the next couple of years as that adoption is really kind of fully integrated across the segments and across the regions. The next big driver as you mentioned is really the higher voltage systems particularly areas like 48-volt systems, which are really getting a lot of design activity from our customers across the globe. We estimate that moving to a 48-volt system although it will be a small percentage of cars, but a very fast growing percentage of cars will increase the content opportunity for us by 25%, 30% within a vehicle. So it's a really nice content increase driven out - just even the 48-volt systems. And then if you go up in to hybrids or electric vehicles that increases even dramatically from there.

Matthew Sheerin

Analyst

Okay. And just lastly on the automotive sensor business. You talked about sort of flattish growth because you are deselecting some lower margin products. When does that start to show growth again when do you start to see acceleration of growth in that business?

Gordon Hunter

Management

Yes. I think we'll see most of that kind of dampening in the back half of this year, but with the number of design wins we win - that we already have and we are continuing to win, we do expect next year for growth rates to pick back up to kind of more normal rates we've been expecting from the sensor business.

Matthew Sheerin

Analyst

Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

From Oppenheimer, Christopher Glynn on the line. Please go ahead.

Christopher Glynn

Analyst

Thanks. Good morning.

Gordon Hunter

Management

Good morning.

Christopher Glynn

Analyst

So on light vehicle I think you had previously talked about a little slower 2016 content and ramping back in 2017. Did that pull forward in kind of flip the cadence a little bit?

Gordon Hunter

Management

I don't know that it’s particularly as pull forward, but sometimes the mix between regions and OEMs as it shifts from month-to-month, quarter-to-quarter can kind of influence that a little bit. But yes we've had very solid content growth in the passenger car fuse side in the first half of the year. But we do expect to continue to see the content growth to drive better than market performance from that business.

Christopher Glynn

Analyst

Okay. And then on the PolySwitch as we think about the bridge to the synergies target run rates by the second half of 2017. I think this year you're working a lot through the transition services agreements and creating some new expense structures. How do we think about that timing? Do you see a meaningful kind of drop through start to hit by year-end this year for instance?

Meenal Sethna

Management

Hi Chris. It's Meenal. Yes, what I would say is you know what we talked about we're well underway on the integration, we're on track with what our goals were I would say we've still got to get some heavy lifting this year, the big part these days with any integration is really all the IT systems and all the work that's got to be done around that and we're making good progress but we've got work to do around that and where that impacts expenses is just the spend to make sure that we're getting it done right with the right resources and then building up our internal capabilities. While we're still on the TSAs to take over all that work ourselves. So I guess you know bottom line I'd say you should still see a mixed bag of expenses coming through this year, but we'll start to get some synergies I would say probably second quarter next year you will start to see the effect of that.

Christopher Glynn

Analyst

Okay. Thanks. That's helpful. And last one is just an update on the pipeline and with all the work going on, on PolySwitch, how are you viewing the organizational bandwidth against your pipeline opportunities?

David Heinzmann

Management

Yes. It’s a good question. I think that there's obviously a lot of resources being used in the integration with PolySwitch, but there's other parts of the company I mean this is very much around mostly our positive electronics team and somewhat our automotive team, but there's other parts of the company that are not really impacted by this. So, we have still got a very active program, a very active pipeline of targets that we're looking at. So it hasn't really slowed us in those areas. We're obviously going to be selective in terms of what makes sense for us, but it's still very much an active part of our strategy.

Christopher Glynn

Analyst

Great. Thanks, everybody.

David Heinzmann

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

From Longbow Research, we have Shawn Harrison on the line. Please go ahead.

Shawn Harrison

Analyst

Hi, good morning.

Meenal Sethna

Management

Good morning.

Shawn Harrison

Analyst

I don’t know if it was my newborn waking up last night or what, but I can't figure out your guidance into the third quarter and so I know you gave some commentary in the math, but sales only being slightly lower into the third quarter where we're at right now, but having some synergies either related to PolySwitch or related to the industrial restructuring, EPS drop is substantially greater than I would anticipate. So if you could just walk me through some of the moving pieces to help clarify it. That would be helpful.

Meenal Sethna

Management

Sure. Shawn. So I’d say it’s a few things largely in the core excluding PolySwitch. So you're right from a sales perspective. It doesn't look like it's down as much. So what we talked about - what Dave mentioned is a little bit of the mix shift where our custom sales, we’ve seen a pretty significant decline on the potash side both in the Custom business and the Relay business and that's historically been a pretty nice profitable business for us. What we've seen are some of the increases and what we call this E-House business part of Custom, but that's at a much lower margin. So you get some margin shift there as well. And then also we talked about the end markets as well on the commercial vehicle side, so sales were down a little bit there, offset by some of the small acquisition that we made and things like that. So excluding PolySwitch it’s still - sales look up a little bit, but there is some acquisitions and other things going on there. And then the other thing that I had mentioned as part of my comments were that the FX benefits that we were getting in the first half of the year. We're still going to get some FX benefits, but it's lower in the third quarter and actually commodity prices are starting to increase and that starting to [split] for us.

Shawn Harrison

Analyst

How much did FX help you in the second quarter and will the industrial business be above breakeven in the third quarter?

Meenal Sethna

Management

On FX, we have so many moving rates now and they also are moving in different, the euro is - now you still have the pound in there and so many different things that. We generally know we have a benefit that’s just tough to quantify at this point. And in terms of industrial, I would say especially because we talked about some of the restructuring and we're looking at what else we can do around that business. We will see margins that are better than they were in the first half.

Shawn Harrison

Analyst

Okay. And then two brief follow-ups, if I may. What was the dilution associated with PolySwitch for the second quarter and do you have an expectation for the third quarter? And then my other one would just be there's been a lot of rumblings now are peaking auto market domestically and now concerns about Brexit. Just maybe what you're hearing from customers on that?

Meenal Sethna

Management

So I'll take the first part, on PolySwith, the challenge we have and the good news, bad news pieces. We’re well on track, in a couple places we’re ahead on our integration and the faster we integrate, and faster we commingle, it's just hard to separate the expenses and how much is PolySwitch versus how much is our core business? Let me tell you directionally, excluding amortization expense PolySwitch was right around breakeven-ish which is what we talked about maybe a little bit ahead. And for the third quarter we had talked about excluding amortization a little bit better than that and so we're on track for that.

Gordon Hunter

Management

And regarding peak order, I think that that's a little bit of a North America focus, which we have to understand, is only about 20% of global production. And certainly our focus in Asia which is more than 50% of global production and growing faster is really paying off for us, but really as David said it’s a lot of it is about content and maybe Dave can just add a little bit about the trends in the content area.

David Heinzmann

Management

Sure. Again, lot of for us recently here particularly in North America is our kind of peeking out and leveling off comments and others. So those things clearly will have some impact on us, but very much a global business for us and content increase story continues to be solid. As I mentioned earlier as higher loads continue to proliferate in the vehicles and the architecture of the vehicles. Our high current devices continue to show growth and that’s the content increase for us. And then as I mentioned the 48-volt systems and higher voltage systems as well as automotive electronics. Our growth drivers for us to continue to drive increases in content and grow beyond what carved on this.

Shawn Harrison

Analyst

All right. That’s definitely very helpful. Thanks so much.

Gordon Hunter

Management

Thanks, Shawn.

Operator

Operator

From Robert W. Baird & Company we have Tim Wojs on the line. Please go ahead sir.

Tim Wojs

Analyst

Good morning, everybody. I guess just on electronics Gordon, I mean the book-to-bill there I think includes the PolySwitch, but it's one of the stronger book-to-bill in Q2 that we've seen in the last couple years, so I guess is there a way to think about what the book-to-bill looks like organically and just how you feel about the revenue growth in the back half of the year in electronics organically?

Gordon Hunter

Management

Yes. I'd say it's a little bit stronger than our historical we are looking back over the last six years, mean over the last six years is 102, so it's a bit stronger than that, but there is some noise in there. I think we're a little bit stronger than historical, healthy, but I think as we've sort of shifted a little bit more into sort of I'd say light industrial areas that the consumer build phenomenon of years ago is probably less prevalent here now and get some more solid broader business that electronic segment sell into. So I think we feel pretty strong about that. The noise that we get from PolySwitch is one that we have to keep taking out of that. So I think that along with very careful monitoring our distributors, the sell through from them and the inventory levels around the world, we feel we're in pretty good position on the inventory level.

Tim Wojs

Analyst

Okay. And then in the press release I think you said the semiconductor business in electronics was down and is that just a weakness in Japan and Korea that you cited and I guess it's that - would that help you on the margin side from a mix perspective?

Gordon Hunter

Management

Well, it was down, but we are looking at that business actually being very healthy in the second half of the year, certainly be in Korea and Japan as for all of our business it’s being weaker there, but we're starting to see our semiconductor business look very healthy and generally when that business picks up, the margins are very healthy.

Tim Wojs

Analyst

Okay. And then just in automotive just given some of the moving parts around your acquisitions and some of the low margin work they are exiting. Could you just give us maybe a little bit more granular idea of what that business should grow organically in the back half of this year?

Meenal Sethna

Management

Yes, hey, Tim. I’m going to have to come back to you. We’ll put something out there. I'm with all the bits and pieces, but then shipping out the acquisition stuff I've to come back to you on that.

Tim Wojs

Analyst

It should still grow, right?

Meenal Sethna

Management

Yes. It will still grow. I mean directionally, generally we've talked about the automotive business growing mid-to-upper single-digits when you take into the bland of passenger car and automotive sensor, but with what we've talked about with sensor is being down as we are exiting the low margin legacy business and then also as part of the mix CDP has been down flattish to down, so that what taking that back down.

Tim Wojs

Analyst

Okay. That's helpful. Good luck on the third quarter. Thank you.

Meenal Sethna

Management

Thank you.

Gordon Hunter

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] From Sidoti & Company, we have John Franzreb on the line. Please go ahead sir.

John Franzreb

Analyst

Yes, maybe just ask that sensor question in different way. How much in revenue contribution do you expect from the low margin senor business for all of 2016?

Gordon Hunter

Management

But don't really understand the question. So are you looking for specifically how much revenue we're walking away from? That’s a question.

John Franzreb

Analyst

Yes.

David Heinzmann

Management

We haven't given guidance on the specific number we are walking away from, what we have said is the back half of this year where we've been enjoying pretty significant growth in that space the back half of this year compared to the back half of last year will look flat. And so it's kind of counteracting the organic growth we're getting by stepping away from these pieces of business. However, we’ll begin to laugh ourselves on that going into next year and more normal growth rates will begin to rebound.

John Franzreb

Analyst

I guess Dave if we just have to tally easier for us to strip it out and figure out what the organic number looks like. That’s kind of what was back into there.

David Heinzmann

Management

Sure, yes.

John Franzreb

Analyst

You mentioned Dave that you look for normal seasonality in the second half of the year on the auto side and Gordon I think mentioned a little bit about the electronic side of the business being more manageable and that’s pronounced in Q3s years pass because the new end markets that you're entering. My question really is with the addition of PolySwitch the seasonality is Q4 versus Q3 historically its down 5% to 7%. Is that become a little bit more flattish or is it still normal seasonal trends in Q4 versus Q3.

Gordon Hunter

Management

I think it's probably going to be normal seasonal trends I think the PolySwitch end markets you know that significantly different from our core electronics business. So we haven't really thought that it would affect the seasonality of the business.

John Franzreb

Analyst

Okay.

Meenal Sethna

Management

I think - as we've gotten the PolySwitch business better and we continue to do so, it’s very consistent, very similar to our existing electronics business. So we're generally starting to see many of the same trends. We just having to work through as we’re working on integrating the business, there’s just some different things are working through on couple of quarters. So you might see some unevenness this year but generally the trends would be about the same.

John Franzreb

Analyst

Okay. All right. All my other questions were answered. Thank you.

Gordon Hunter

Management

Thanks John.

Operator

Operator

From Palisade Capital Management we have Garo Norian on the line. Please go ahead.

Garo Norian

Analyst

Hi, guys. Can you help me understand I think through the industrial segments and let's call the intermediate term, kind of think about the last few years post the real strength in the potash market, margins declined into kind of a single-digit - high single-digit in 2014 and we kind of bounced up into the mid double-digit and now looks like we’re probably going back down. And I just challenge to try to figure out what normal is for that segment over the next kind of two or three years?

Gordon Hunter

Management

Yes. It is a challenge and one of the big drivers of that kind of volatility and the view there has really been driven around this heavy potash piece of our business. And as a reminder that is our custom business that’s driving into potash as well as a lot of relays - protection relays being sold into that space. And we gone through the big ramp and then you know again dropped off dramatically and began to see improvement. But what we've seen is with potash prices further falling and just you know week and a half ago as the Chinese sign their contract on potash at $219 a ton which from the peak times where we were really having dramatic you know performance there was over $700 of ton. The spending out of our core customer base in the potash side has dropped off dramatically. They've literally shuttered two or three of the key mines that we support there. So I think that volatility did come back this year more than we anticipated and it’s certainly worse and that's really pulled down the margin profile of that business.

Garo Norian

Analyst

Okay. And so is it kind of a safer expectation to you know not assume improvement for the foreseeable future in that business.

Meenal Sethna

Management

Yes, Garo I would say for the rest of this year. That's one of the things we talked about is that you know we don't - in the end markets we don't see anything changing and so that's why we took some actions around restructuring. We continue to look at other opportunities to improve profitability but it's going to take us some time.

Garo Norian

Analyst

Got it. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We have no further questions at this time. I’ll now turn the call back to Mr. Gordon Hunter for closing remarks.

Gordon Hunter

Management

Well, thank you all for joining us on today’s call. We look forward to continued progress and to updating you again next quarter. Thank you and have a good day.