Earnings Labs

Mativ Holdings, Inc. (MATV)

Q1 2008 Earnings Call· Thu, May 22, 2008

$9.48

-2.67%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning. My name is Demetrius, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Schweitzer-Mauduit 2008 Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. There will be a question-and-answer session after the speakers' remarks. (Operator Instructions) Thank you, Mr. Thompson, you may begin your conference. Peter J. Thompson – Chief Financial Officer: Thank you, Demetrius Good morning; I am Peter Thompson, Chief Financial Officer of Schweitzer- Mauduit International. With me are Wayne Deitrich, our Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board, Mark Spears, our Corporate Controller and several other Executive Officers of the Company. Thank you for joining us for review of our first quarter 2008 financial results. Which were file with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and Form 10-Q yesterday evening. I will be leading our conference call today. Various comments or remarks that we may make during today’s conference call constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from the results suggested by these comments for a number of reasons. Such factors are discussed in more detail in the company’s Securities and Exchange Commission report, including the company’s 2007 annual report. Certain financial measures that will be discussed during this call exclude restructuring expenses. Financial measures which exclude this item have not been determined in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States, and are therefore non-GAAP financial measures. I will now review the highlights of the first quarter of 2008; Wayne will then provide additional discussion of key factors impacting our results. We reported a first quarter 2008 net loss of $1.2 million compared to the net income of $4.2 million during the…

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions).your first question comes the lime of Jonathan Lichter, from the Sidoti & Company.

Jonathan Lichter

Analyst

Good morning; how certain are you of these price increases at this point?

Peter Thompson

Analyst

If we at this point implemented some price increases, it would be mostly with independent companies, ones that are not governed by global negotiating because with the multinationals on a global negotiating basis, it is harder to get mid-contract price changes. The multinationals, which of course would be the majority of our sales, we're still in discussions with key customers about pricing actions. So the way it's going to play out is we will start to book some price increases here in the second quarter above and beyond anything that we had previously seen, but then it will build from there. Now, how successful we'll be in total, at this point I couldn't say because we haven't completed it. We are resolved that we do need to get price increases in the environment that we're in, especially with inflation and currency doing what it's doing, supports that it's obviously quite visible. So it will be continuing and not something that will happen in a large single event.

Jonathan Lichter

Analyst

So, would it happen primarily, the multinationals do you think in Q3, or could that be stretched out into Q4?

Peter Thompson

Analyst

I think probably what will happen is we'll see price increases that will come this year, and then we will hopefully be successful in having some type of adjustors going forward that we would have pricing reset, again in the beginning of 2009. So I think we'll see it in waves, and how much we get, that is very hard to predict at this point, but I think specific to the multinationals, we'll see it come in kind of periods, now and then another increase further in 2009, at the beginning of the year.

Jonathan Lichter

Analyst

Okay, how is the startup of the machine in China going so far?

Peter Thompson

Analyst

So far so good; it's very early in the process, but all of the mechanical operations, the way that the machine would start up is it would sequentially begin to operate first in the stock making area, mechanically operating, electrically operating, etc. We're at the point where we're making fiber into paper. We haven't yet gotten to the point we're making sellable paper, but we are progressing pretty much along our line of expectation, and so far, it may be very early to say, but better than the same type of experience we saw with the machine rebuild in France. And obviously, having come off the heels of that at this moment, we don't want to see a repeat of that type of experience. Now, it's too early to say that startup in China will go perfectly, but we are seeing good progress so far.

Jonathan Lichter

Analyst

And the French machine, you mentioned that it would extend into Q3; is that, are you being cautious there, or do you really think, will it take that long?

Peter Thompson

Analyst

I think it will probably take that long. What we are seeing right now is in April and in May so far, we've seen good progress, but we're basically on the same startup curve that we should have been on back in February when we first turned on the machine. So we lost two months, and we'll never get that back. From where we are right now, we're progressing up the startup curve. Will we be at 100% by the end of June; probably not. So that's where we would see some impact going into the third quarter.

Jonathan Lichter

Analyst

Are you, how certain are you that that will be resolved during Q3?

Peter Thompson

Analyst

Fairly certain; we're getting to the point now where we're achieving 80-plus plus percent of the eventual production rate of the machine. What we're still struggling with is being able to produce the full range of products on this machine that would represent the full spectrum of paper specifications. So it's still dealing with primarily meeting the variability issues that we have with certain key physical properties of the paper. When that and how that will be exactly resolved is the hardest part to know. Now, what that means, though, form a financial standpoint is we have enough of a breadth of a spectrum of paper products that can be made on this machine that it can be operated at a full schedule. So financially, we should see the impact of this machine not operating where we thought it would be end up or wind up here in the second quarter. I would expect at this point that unless we have a new issue, which shouldn't happen, that in the third quarter, we will not see much of a financial negative form this machine. That's our current expectation. But operationally, we'll continue to work on this machine to make it meet fully all of our objectives, but financially, the third quarter it should be neutral in terms of any further impact.

Jonathan Lichter

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions). There are no further questions at this time; do you have any closing remarks?

Peter Thompson

Analyst

Not at this time, just to thank everybody for taking the time to join us today.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.

Peter Thompson

Analyst

Bye.