Brian Purves
Analyst · Credit Suisse
Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Luxfer conference call on the fourth quarter of 2016. Looking at slide 4, first of all, the headlines for the quarter are as expected, it was a difficult quarter, as our magnesium business continued to experience a downfall principally defense orders. Our earnings result was however in line with our updated guidance. We consolidated a significant improvement in cylinders profits over the year. The defense order book for 2017 did increase during the quarter but still below par as much improved. We have several new products commercializing this year and despite Q1 likely to be only partly recovered overall we expect 2017 to be at least 10% up over 2016. Turn to slide 5 our adjusted diluted EPS of $0.14 in the quarter was in line with our guidance but $0.13 below quarter four last year. So, we had seasonably weak fourth quarter but consolidated a good improvement over the year. As in the third quarter, the principle headwind came from sales of our North American magnesium products and in particular defense-related products. We occupy a very strong position in supplying the U.S. Military with all its requirements from military powders, flameless heaters and personal chemical agents, detection and decontamination products. It is a great place to be when demand is strong. But it has been problematic during this period of tight budgets and de-stocking, as I will discuss later of our underlying improvements in the background. Revenues compressed by the lower defense sales but also by lower activity at our Czech recycling plant albeit with marginal impact on profitability and by foreign exchange rates translating our non-U.S. sales into dollars. Looking at the quarter more details slide 6, following 2015’s right-sizing actions, results from the alternative fuel cylinder business stream remained much improved as listed by a higher market share in the bus market. European demand, for composite medical cylinders were depressed in quarter four, as it was throughout the year. Although sales of aluminum cylinders have improved with the increase in the large industrial cylinders being particularly promising. Our Superform business is selling fueled and usual formed goods. Due to surf in the fuel contracts finishing in advance of new contracts commencing. But we are selling record levels of tooling. And those tools also see new contracts and the future supplier of panels. Our largest sand casting customer and truck to load protection in September, resulting in some disruption to supplies during the following weeks, we are carrying $1.2 million reserve against the merged [indiscernible] as we entered chapter 11. The major impact on the quarter was the deferral of our several of our defense related magnesium products in North America. We also experienced de-stocking by certain photoengraving distributors in the U.S. although this was a direct result of positive action by us to increase the number of direct potentials in the U.S. following work to improve the flexibility of our manufacturing operations. Exchange rates have been a hindrance to profit for us in 2016 but that is starting to turn into benefit. And we expect that to continue. On slide 7, although we are clearly very unhappy with quarter four’s trading results the quarter did contain good news that builds confidence that we will overcome these short-term issues. New contracts were placed by the U.S. military for the old fleet. And we have retained our position as the supplier of 100% of the associated flamers Russian heaters over XY viewers. The interim annual purchase of €30 million was carried over into the new contract. And it was a strong indication that there would be a top-up order in 2017, where in 2016, for the first time over 15 years there was luck. And shoot the DOD, the larger the contracts to one of our customers for the new player, with production starting in April this year. While the military clear customer, which facility had begun to action for the majority of 2016 started to come back on line. The de-stocking by the photoengraving distributors appears to have come to an end allowing us to start dealing more of our North American customers. Our objective to improve customer service and lower our logistics costs. The sand-casting [indiscernible] the event of chapter 11 is still working through which we structured. But after a few levels, we are now regularly shipping to military where end products, being required by the helicopter manufacturers. We are still short of military orders for chemical agent detection and decontamination products. In response we have launched a package of these products branded key-defense. And we are marketing it direct to first responders and other civilian agencies both in the USA and Europe. Overall, we are seeing a recovery in sales for these military magnesium products early in 2017, albeit the quarter one will still be somewhat affected as productions restarted at our gross customers. These statements by President Trump about increased military spending is clearly helpful backlog, given that we believe budgetary pressures to be a key reason for recent low demand. On slide 8, looking at 2016 as a whole, in addition to the lower magnesium sales without clarity, our reported sales have been heavily impacted by the weakness in [indiscernible] and also by the difficulties being experienced by the European magnesium recycling market. The profitability of our gas cylinder division has improved by around one third largely due to the actions taken to right-size our alternative fuel business and despite a low year for cylinder medical service. The challenges will hit our magnesium business in the second half however, our full-year profitability was impacted with adjusted EBITDA $55 million substantially lower than in 2015. Slide 9, within Elektron the zirconium business stream was actually steady despite the continuing transition in catalysis. Baked into our results was, North American sales of magnesium products. The Superform business has probably been slow in 2016 with a gap in contracts in supplier form goods. But we are enjoying an extended run of very high sales of tooling and low sales in the products of higher formed goods sales particularly for the second half of 2017 onwards. As mentioned earlier, FX has been negative to us in 2016 but we believe that is coming to an end and new term positive as our hedge position moves forward. And as usual, our strategic growth projects starting on page 10, for outstanding start for late 2015, we sold $4 million worth of SoluMag alloy to a North American oil and gas industry in 2016 despite industry activity remaining depressed. The bulk of the sales were, for tracking seals as shown on the illustration. But we also supply material for use of plugs and sliding sleeves. Responding to requests from customers, we have developed and launched two new derivatives of the alloy, to expand the range growing slowly as to the industry. The high ductility version is ideal for expanding plugs while the high strength version will come to extreme pressures. While it is a technical challenge, we’re also working on a reaction that will dissolve in the relatively fresh water found in the [indiscernible] wells. On the other side of the slide, Biotronik have launched their magnesium scaffold product branded Magmaris in several countries there, including Europe, the Middle East and Australasia. And we expect our royalty income to grow steadily in 2017. Early feedback indicates that extremely low incidents of forced operations from both of this, something that can play non-metallic devices. Slide 11, when we bought the Elektron Magtech two years ago, we said that one of our objectives would be to expand [indiscernible]. Last year we established new sales positions outside of the USA and we have now quoted for several billion dollars’ worth of business to a number of non-U.S. buyers of South Russians, or for [indiscernible]. Slide 12, we continue to walk on our aircraft salons with several seat manufacturers and we now have three prototype components with different manufacturers in testing for customer inclusion and there are new aircraft seat devices. And these have been confident of getting at least one of those parts into production stream in 2017. Slide 13, we continue to get very good feedback from our customers from their laboratory testing of the properties of our next generation G6 auto-cast technology. The customers do still need to complete engine testing on catalyst named using their material. But we are confident enough to be planning for how we can start making the material in commercial quantities as early as each of those years. Slide 14, our investment program Superform in the U.K. is well underway. We believe which will increase certainly demand to supply assemblies rather panels. The lease strike depress to allow secondary operations to enable our Superform pedals into our stock and new heading sales will enfold the ultra-glow panel or an inner panel on supply assembled unpainted duel is now under construction. These new facilities will be used to supply assemblies and panels on two new models which will be reviewed this week after Geneva Motor Show. Thank you. And Andy Beaden will now take you through some of the detail on the quarter four results.