Tim Hassinger
Analyst · Stifel. Please go ahead
Good morning and thank you for joining our call. With me on today's call is Brian Ketcham, our Chief Financial Officer. I feel it’s prudent to mention that Brian and I are sitting together in a conference room more than six feet apart adhering to social distancing guidelines. This quarter, in the domestic irrigation business, we saw the resolution of various trade disputes that have been putting downward pressure on farmers’ sentiment. The market facilitation payments administered through the USDA did significantly contribute to farm income. However, commodity prices did not fundamentally change given the uncertainty that existed in China’s expected commodity crop purchases. Until the recent COVID-19 impact, we had observed an incremental improvement in customer sentiment. We continue to make progress on our innovation and collaboration strategies for FieldNET and FieldNET advisor. Year-to-date, our penetration rates with our telemetry technology is up 50% plus versus the prior year. To enhance the opportunity for farmers to gain access to Lindsay’s telemetry technology, and in this case Pivot Watch, Lindsay will be offering this product on Amazon later this spring. Given the do-it-yourself nature of Pivot Watch, this option will enhance penetration with growers who want to go online to buy the product and install it themselves. Also, in connection to our collaboration with Farmers Edge, they recently announced their 2020 Smart Water offering that includes access to FieldNET and FieldNET advisor for their customer base. Early indications are positive based on their customer acceptance and feedback. In the international irrigation business, the global project market remains active but largely uncertain regarding timing. In Brazil, we continue to see growth and we have made several investments to enhance our commercial capabilities. For infrastructure, growth in the Road Zipper business continues to gain momentum. In this past quarter, we were awarded a contract from Highways England for supply of a Movable Barrier System for use in Kent, United Kingdom. Highways England plans for the entire system and related traffic management scheme to be fully operational by December 31, 2020. The total value of the contract as awarded is approximately $28 million. Also, we have secured another order from our partner in Japan, NEXCO East, for a new reactive tension barrier to use with their existing Road Zipper systems. That order value is approximately $10 million and we will begin delivery in our fiscal third quarter. These are great examples that we are successfully addressing the need to grow this business and reduce the lumpiness. Last quarter, I shared that our overall sales funnel, projects based on a 50% probability of success, is at the highest level it has ever been along with the number of machines being leased on target to be in the highest level ever as well. One additional point I'd like to share is that we now have potential projects in our sales funnel in more countries than ever before. We stated more than two years ago when we launched the Foundation for Growth initiative that for the Road Zipper business, we wanted to increase our leasing business, be active in more countries and increase the overall sales. We are achieving these three objectives and this business is moving in a positive direction. Regarding our Foundation for Growth initiative, we continue to see that the margin improvement projects we implemented are delivering as expected. Lastly, I’d like to address the impact COVID-19 had on our second quarter results and the associated forward view. In our second quarter, COVID-19 did have an impact on product flow in some cases related to schedule shipments to and from the affected areas. In addition, our plant in China was temporarily shutdown aligned to the country mandate. At the end of the quarter, this plant resumed operations and is fully operational. Overall, the disruption in quarter two was not material to our overall results. Looking forward, our primary focus is to ensure our employees are safe and to mitigate the various risk connected to the COVID-19 pandemic impacting our business. To the best of our knowledge, we have not had any confirmed cases of employees with COVID-19. We’ve proactively put a number of measures in place to promote employee safety, including eliminating nonessential business travel, implementing return to work restrictions for employees returning from travel, and evaluating whether meetings may be postponed or held virtually. Our company has moved to a work from home direction for roles that can be done at home. And for roles that require the employee to go to the site, we have implemented work restrictions aligned to CDC and Department of Health recommendations, including strict social distancing guidelines that are being deployed in all our sites. Our businesses and products are generally considered business essential to support agriculture and critical infrastructure activities, so our clients will remain operational as long as we have demand for our products, are allowed to remain open by local governments and can provide for the safety of our employees. At the present time, we have temporarily ceased production in our South Africa irrigation facility for three weeks due to a government mandate. However, we remain open to support the service parts business. In order to manage the ongoing challenges, a rapid response team structure is in place across the company to address issues that arise and identify ways to mitigate potential risk to the business going forward. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our employees who continue to keep our manufacturing facilities operational and allowing us to deliver on our commitments to our customers. I would also like to thank our employees who are working from home supporting all the other functions of our company. I’d like now to turn the call over to Brian to review our second quarter results.