Sotirios J. Vahaviolos
Analyst · Stephens. Your line is open
Thank you, Jon. As always, I am proud of my team. They have recognized the opportunity in front of us and have created a plan that we’re following to drive improve results. And now we will update you on some key developments in our business. First, our Services segment. The second quarter yielded a very strong and diverse mix of projects, span across industries that included both additional and advanced inspection services as well as engineering and application software design, and implementation services. Specifically, our North American midstream business was especially strong with 15 new pipeline and terminal project awards, many of which are Canadian. These projects will also include such advanced services as automated UT, mechanical integrity, damage reviews and procedure development supported by our proprietary plant conditioning monitoring software, our PCMS software. Our chemical business was strong with several new contracts from major multinational customers. One such project is the selection of our PCMS software as the U.S corporate standard for a major European-based chemical company. Our refining business secured to new January turnarounds. Our in-house component inspection business secured a large order to inspect railcar wheels used to transport crude oil. In the power generation sector, we became the primary inspection provider of pressure vessels for a national utility and we gain a multi-year inspection contract for a top five utility company. We also secured two capital projects for the construction of natural gas combined cycle plants. Our products and system segment continues to focus on its business pipeline of aerospace, automotive, power and chemical industry opportunities, and focusing on higher margin product lines to improve second half profitability. A major elected utility order several of our advanced monitoring system, solution packages to be integrated into their centralized monitoring and diagnostic center to perform online monitoring of their critical assets as previous -- at various sites in their fleet. We also received repeat orders for a worldwide deployment of our advanced ultrasonic automotive airbag canister weld inspection system. And now let’s discuss the international sector. Progress continues on this challenging sector of our business based on the following strategy we've put in place the beginning of the fiscal year. Stabilize revenues to last year levels even with large foreign exchange impacts for poor economies and aggressive local competition. Finalize management changes, reduce unbillable labor, and place more emphasis in profitability growth rather than revenues. Opportunistically value, pursue the implementation of the USA evergreen based business model in EMEA and South America. And now with some news that will help us better perform in the second half of the year. Our service division in France has successfully completed a major turnaround at the refinery where we won the run and maintain evergreen contract. Based on outstanding performance, the customer awarded us two of the turnaround contracts that are scheduled for Q4. Our relationship with EDF electricity to France continues to expand in the nuclear sector due to our integrated solutions and efforts of our recently hired new manager. Our fatigue and fracture mechanics lab started to deploy the two large strategic projects that we want in Q1 to perform testing on Airbus programs. In Germany, we continue to grow our relatively new advanced NDT solutions business and based on current results we’re confident we’ll achieve the revenue targets we have set. It is worth noting that we’re -- we were awarded our first German bridge monitoring project that we will deploy with a support of our experienced infrastructure center of excellence based in our Cambridge office. In Germany’s main business of materials destructive testing, we continue to expand our unique relationship with fewer players in the composite industry, mainly to support the ramp up of the Airbus A350 program that is now evolving into the production phase. In Benelux, we were awarded a five-year evergreen contract at a major worldwide energy company where we will deploy our full range of entity services. MISTRAS was chosen for its key performance indicator driven evergreen management methods that ensure both MISTRAS and the client that services are deployed safely, thoroughly, and economically. The U.K. group continues to grow profitably with the new centre of excellence in Aberdeen for the offshore business. This is in addition to its onshore testing and inspection business as well as the remote based monitoring applications work for bridges, wind turbines, and other structures using MISTRAS unique proprietary web-based information system. We continue to closely monitor our Brazilian operations and are beginning to see an improvement driven by the renewed government investments to Petrobras coupled with aggressive cuts in expenses and unbillable labor. Our strong and expanding railroad ultrasonic inspection services also offer us unique opportunities for our business, enabling us to diversify our market. And now for my closing remarks. Following a difficult first quarter, the second quarter results are very gratifying to me. We said several important new quarterly performance records and did show while meeting and exceeding demand in market and customer expectations. And we will also did so with a new mindset that emphasizes growing profits faster than revenues. Every MISTRAS location is in every country is prioritizing growing more profitability and making these decisions within this framework. Our services team had a terrific record breaking performance and yet our management team knows that we’re capable of doing even better in the future. Our products and systems team has reduced its cost base and is poised to improve its results in the quarter to come. And despite a difficult economic and FX environment, our international subs are making important improvements in their margins and costs for a better second half. We have grown total revenues by more than 20% for three consecutive quarters. Now the last year’s BP Alaska contract has reached its one-year anniversary, revenue growth might slowdown a bit in the second half of the fiscal year, but should still be healthy. Recognition of our strangled first half performance, we increased our revenue guidance to a range from $720 million to $740 million and we believe that our EBITDA will be towards the high-end of our guidance range of $78 million to $84 million. As I conclude this conference call, let me thank our 5,800 loyal employees for their commitment to quality and safety and our loyal customers and valued shareholders for believing in us. That concludes our prepared remarks. And we’d like to now open the floor to questions.