Operator
Operator
Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Louisiana-Pacific Corp. Q1 2015 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will follow at that time. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would like to introduce your host for today's conference, Ms. Sallie Bailey, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Ma'am, please go ahead. Sallie B. Bailey - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Great. Thank you very much, Michelle, and good morning. Thank you for joining our conference call to discuss LP's financial results for the first quarter of 2015. I am Sallie Bailey, LP's Chief Financial Officer, and with me today are Curt Stevens, LP's Chief Executive Officer; as well as Mike Kinney and Becky Barckley, our primary Investor Relations contacts. I will begin the discussion with a review of the financial results for the first quarter of 2015. This will be followed by some comments on the performance of individual segments and selected balance sheet items. After I finish my remarks, Curt will discuss the general market environment in which LP has been operating, provide his perspective on our operating results and give some thoughts on the outlook. As we have done in the past, we've opened up this call to the public and are doing a webcast. And that webcast can be accessed at www.lpcorp.com. Additionally, to help with the discussion, we have provided a presentation with supplemental information that should be reviewed in conjunction with the earnings release. I will be referencing these slides in my comment this morning. We have filed an 8-K this morning with some supplemental information, as well as our Form 10-Q. I want to remind all the participants about the forward-looking statements comment on slide two of the presentation. Please also be aware of the discussion of our use of non-GAAP financial information included on slide three of the presentation. The appendix attached to the presentation has some of the necessary reconciliations that have been supplemented by the Form 8-K filing we made this morning. Rather than reading these two statements, I incorporate them with this reference. The housing market was still in recovery mode for the first quarter of 2015. The results in our OSB segment reflect the lower pricing environment, down 13% from last year and impacted the company's financial results for the quarter. The reduction in OSB pricing accounts for approximately $29 million of the change in our operating loss and adjusted EBITDA relative to the first quarter of 2014. The stronger dollar, lower raw material costs, better plant operating performance and the record selling quarter in our Siding segment offset the impact of the decline in OSB price. With that, let me go into the details. Moving to slide 4 of the presentation for a discussion of the first quarter 2015 consolidated results. We are reporting net sales of $472 million for the first quarter of 2015, a 6% increase from the net sales of $445 million reported in the first quarter of 2014. In the first quarter, we recorded a net loss of $35 million or a loss per diluted share of $0.24 as compared to a net loss for the first three months of 2014 of $14 million or a loss of $0.10 per diluted share. Included in our GAAP results for the quarter is $11.6 million write-off of the timber licenses associated with our indefinitely idle Chambord, Québec facility. Given our ongoing losses in Canada, this write-off provides no immediate tax benefit to LP due to our valuation reserves. The Québec Ministry of Forestry terminated our license in the first quarter of 2015 and Curt will discuss this a bit more in more detail in a few minutes. The adjusted loss for the quarter was $19 million, or a loss of $0.13 per diluted share based upon the normalized tax rate of 35% compared to adjusted loss of $7 million, or a loss of $0.05 per diluted share for the first quarter of 2014. Adjusted EBITDA from continuing operations was $6 million in the quarter, compared to $23 million in the first quarter of 2014. I'll move to slide five and review of our segment results, beginning with OSB. OSB recorded an operating loss of $28 million on $190 million of sales in the quarter compared to an operating loss of $2 million on $195 million of sales in the first quarter of 2014. For the quarter, we are reporting negative adjusted EBITDA of $13 million, compared to positive EBITDA of $12 million in the first quarter of 2014. We have a 14% increase in sales volume and a 4% increase in the OSB segment production. Pricing for OSB was down 13% over the first quarter of 2014. The decrease in pricing resulted in lower operating results by about $29 million. OSB segment took 127 down days or the equivalent of just under 200 million square feet of reduced production during the quarter. Despite the significant number of down days, our cost of sales per MSF improved relative to the first quarter of 2014, as well as the fourth quarter of 2014 due to the impact of the weaker Canadian dollar, lower raw material costs and improved operating performance at our Clarke County facility. Slide six reports the results of the Siding segment. This segment includes our Smart Side and Careel siding products. The first quarter of 2015 was a record quarter for the Siding segment for sales, operating income and adjusted EBITDA. The Siding segment reported sales of $174 million in the first quarter of 2015, an increase of 21% from $144 million reported in the first quarter of 2014. The Siding segment reported operating income of $33 million, compared to $19 million in the first quarter of 2014, and adjusted EBITDA of $38 million as compared to $24 million in the same quarter of 2014. For the second quarter in a row, the Siding segment did not produce any OSB. Consistent with the past several quarters, the Siding segment continued to experience higher wood cost. However, we're able to acquire logs to run our facility as is planned and took no downtime in the quarter related to log shortages. The higher wood cost in the first quarter of 2015 were partially offset by lower resin cost and improved absorption in our manufacturing facility. The results for the quarter were also positively impacted by improved product mix and higher sales volume. For the quarter, SmartSide average sales prices were up 8%, and volumes increased 19%. Volumes increased in our SmartSide siding line due to continued penetration in several key focus markets, including retail, repair and remodel markets, and sheds. CanExel prices were flat in U.S. dollars. However, prices were up 12% in Canadian dollars, which is CanExel's primary market. Volumes were down 18% in the quarter due to decreases in Canadian and international demand. Please turn to slide seven of the presentation, which shows the results for our Engineered Wood Products segment. This segment includes I-Joist, laminated strand lumber, laminated veneer lumber plus other related products. This segment also includes the sale of I-Joist and LVL products produced by the Abitibi joint venture or under our sales arrangement with Murphy Plywood. The EWP segment did produce 10 million square feet of OSB in the first quarter of 2015 out of the Houlton, Maine facility. The Engineered Wood Products segment recorded sales of $65 million in the first quarter of 2015, up from $62 million in the first quarter of 2014. The segment's operating loss in the first quarter of 2015 was $4 million, as compared to a loss of $3 million in the first quarter of 2014. For the first quarter of 2015, adjusted EBITDA from continuing operations declined to a negative $400,000, as compared to a positive adjusted EBITDA of $1.3 million in the first quarter of 2014. Volumes of I-Joist were down 12%, primarily due to lower volumes in Western Canada while volumes in LVL and LSL were up 16% compared to the same quarter last year as we focus more on export and industrial markets. Pricing was up 6% in I-Joist and down 3% in LVL and LSL. The increase in I-Joists reflects price increases introduced to offset rising raw material costs during 2014. The decline in LVL and LSL reflects changes in mix through a higher percentage of industrial uses which are sold at a lower price. Turning to slide eight of the presentation. For the quarter, our South American segment recorded sales of $36 million, as compared to $37 million in the first quarter of 2014. Operating income was $2 million in the first quarter of 2015 compared to $4 million in the first quarter of 2014. South America's adjusted EBITDA from continuing operations was $5 million for the first quarter of 2014, as compared to $7 million in the first quarter of 2014. Volumes in the quarter were up 31% lower by 18% in Brazil compared to the same quarter last year. The sales volume increase in Chile was primarily due to improved housing demand. In Brazil, the reduction in sales volume was due to the economic recession, which led to less demand. Pricing was down 13% in Chile and down 16% in Brazil and in local currency, Chile's pricing was lower by 1% compared with the same quarter in 2014 and Brazil recorded a 3% improvement in pricing. Total SG&A costs were $39 million in the first quarter of 2015, compared to $41 million in the same quarter of 2014. For the quarter, the reduction in SG&A cost is primarily related to legal costs incurred in 2014 associated with the aborted Ainsworth transaction. We recorded $2 million of foreign exchange loss in the quarter compared to $4 million loss in the same quarter last year, and net interest expense was flat between quarters. Please refer to slide nine of the presentation. As of March 31, 2015, we have cash, cash equivalents, investments and restricted cash of $483 million, working capital of $742 million, net cash of $114 million, and in addition to the $483 million of cash on our balance sheet; we had $200 million of availability on our credit facility. March year-to-date capital expenditures were $15 million. We do expect capital expenditures for 2015 to be in the range of $120 million to $130 million with over half of this amount related to Swan Valley mill conversion. We did not repurchase any shares of LP stock during the quarter, but we do continue to evaluate opportunities to repurchase shares along with other uses of the company's capital. Now, I'll turn the call over to Curt for his comments. Curtis M. Stevens - Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks, Sallie, for that review. Good morning to all of you and thanks for joining us on the call. Let me start with LP's safety performance. Last week, the APA announced the results of their Safety and Health Awards program for 2014. I'm pleased that LP was named the safest large company in our industry for the year. This is the fifth time we have been so recognized in the last seven years. We also had 10 facilities included in the Incident Free Honor Society. I'm very proud of all of our employees who recognize the value of being safe and act accordingly. In addition to the obvious savings in workers' compensation cost, LP believes that our safety culture gives us a competitive edge in the hiring and retention of our employees. This morning, I'll provide a few comments on the results of the first quarter, talk about the state of the housing market, and give you my views for the next several quarters. After that, I'll turn the call back to Sallie for questions. With two notable exceptions that negatively affected our results, OSB pricing and the write-off the wood license, LP actually had a pretty good quarter. Let me just start with a quick review of the two negative items. OSB pricing has fallen below analysts' projections for the last six quarters and Random Lengths North Central was 12% and already low 2014 pricing level. The easy scapegoat in Q1 is always the weather. Well, I know this did have an impact; the primary driver of lower pricing was more available supply than demand. As a result, we had to take significant downtime in our mills in the quarter. In Q2, we continue to evaluate and take market-related downtime as the recovery in new residential demand has been short of economists' projections. Further, while we are meeting commitments to our customers, we're also aggressively exploring other applications beyond single-family new construction. These areas include repair/remodeling, industrial, transportation and modest exports. Let me give you some background on the Chambord wood license. We indefinitely curtail production at the Chambord, Québec mill in 2008 as the Great Recession whacked housing. Over the intervening years, we have been in regular contact with the Québec government and we've met all of our mutually agreed upon obligations to retain the license. Over the last year, there's been increasing pressure to use the wood to create jobs in the area. Unfortunately, the government decided that they would not wait for LP to restart the mill and informed us last quarter that they had canceled our wood license. They will be setting up a project office to review alternative proposals for the wood. We will be a part of this process and believe that the LP mill is still the best alternative to use the wood in the area. We do have other options for these assets we were also being exploring. As to the write-off, the accounting rules dictated that we take a non-cash charge for the carrying value of the wood license. On the positive side, as Sallie mentioned, our Siding business had a record quarter. SmartSide shipments, revenue and EBITDA. We did enjoy lower resin costs in Q1 and the lower Canadian Dollar made our operations north of the border more competitive. Efforts to fully convert our Swan Valley mill to SmartSide production are underway with initial production expected in Q4 of this year. Next, let me just share some views on the housing market. As you know, there are mountains of data on the future of the housing market that are confusing sometimes conflicting and definitely frustrating. My bottom line is housing is improving, but not at the pace forecast by most economists. Here are some numbers on expected housing starts. The consensus forecast for this year is 1.153 million, which would represent a 15% increase over 2014. Consensus forecast for 2016 stands at 1.36 million, which is a further 18% increase on the forecast for this year. At LP, as I mentioned last quarter, we forecast 1.1 million housing starts for 2015 and I believe that still looks like a reasonable number. In 2016, we expect a 10% to 15% improvement in starts. Other positive housing-related news, household formations accelerated in Q4 to 1.7 million and follow that up with about 1.5 million in Q1 of this year. This is much better than the anemic 400,000 to 500,000 pace of the last several years. And when a household is formed, this usually means that a home is occupied, which is good news for industry. A Deutsche Bank economist just published a following tidbit which might be of interest. The number of people per household returns to the 2000 to 2003 level, this would lead to 4 million new households, a very positive for housing looking forward. Mortgage rates remain below 4%. The inventory of new and existing homes for sale is shrinking. And most of the big builders who have reported first quarter results have mentioned a strong's spring selling season. Repair/remodel expenditures are expected to be strong and the rental vacancy rate is at the lowest level in 20 years. So what does this all mean for LP in the next several quarters? With spring finally happening in most of the country and positive momentum in the housing sector, we should see increased demand in North America. Obviously, we would like to see an improvement in OSB pricing as well. With high channel inventories and ready wood in the market, we didn't see an increase in pricing or demand in April. We have taken steps to adjust our production levels to take this into consideration as we focus on meeting our customer commitments while limiting the sale of unprofitable open market wood. Before I turn it back to Sallie, let me make a few comments on South America. We continue to see high demand in Chile due to increased spending by the government on housing. And with the terrible floods in Northern Chile, 24,000 homes were destroyed and we are helping with emergency shelters. We're supplying this demand currently from Brazil and, as you know, we are working on a project to add a third mill into Chile to eliminate the costly freight coming from Brazil. With that, let me turn it back over to Sallie for questions. Sallie B. Bailey - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Great. Well, thank you, Curt. Michelle, we'd like to go to the queue for questions, please.