Earnings Labs

MGP Ingredients, Inc. (MGPI)

Q2 2010 Earnings Call· Wed, Feb 10, 2010

$20.36

+0.54%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Fiscal 2010 Second Quarter Earnings 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. (Operator Instructions). As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today’s conference, Steve Pickman, Vice President of Corporate Relations. You may begin, sir.

Steve Pickman

Analyst

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to today’s conference call. Very shortly, Tim Newkirk, President and CEO, will provide comments related to our earnings announcement. Also joining us this morning are Don Tracy, Chief Financial Officer, and Don Coffey, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing. Before Tim begins and before taking questions this morning, we need to note the following. Any forward-looking statements we might make today are qualified in the following respect. There are a number of factors in addition to those already mentioned that could cause our actual results and any guidance to vary materially from expectations. Additional information about these factors may be found in reports that we filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These include our annual report in Form 10-K and quarterly reports in Form 10-Q. I would also like to mention that this conference call is being webcast. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Tim.

Tim Newkirk

Analyst

Thanks Steve. Good morning everyone, and thank you for joining us. As you can imagine, we are happy to be here today after producing two back-to-back quarters of solid performance on our bottom line. In reviewing that performance, I also want to emphasize how genuinely excited I am about our opportunities and potential going forward. We have successfully completed a challenging and historical business transformation and established a very solid financial foundation to our balance sheet transformation. We now have a firm platform from which to launch even stronger long-term growth initiatives for our future. Our second quarter was very similar to our first quarter in that the sales mix consisted of a much larger percentage of higher value products compared to a year ago. As a result, our gross margin surpassed our previously announced target of 15%, exceeding 17% in the second quarter, and averaging 19% for the first six months of fiscal 2010. Our second quarter gross margin was $8.5 million compared with the negative gross margin of $23.6 million for the same period a year ago. At that time, we were losing money in both of our principal business segments, Ingredient Solutions and Distillery Products, largely due to a higher mix of commodity related products sales and an unwieldy cost structure. This year’s second quarter net income was $4.8 million or $0.28 in diluted earnings per share. That’s a significant contrast to the net loss of $42.7 million or diluted loss per share of $2.58 that we had for the same period a year ago. As reported in our earnings release, our current year’s second quarter results included charges related to the formation of the Illinois Corn Processing, LLC joint venture in Pekin, Illinois, gains in the sale of equipment, and a Federal income tax refund. Let…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instructions). Sir, I am showing no questions on the call.

Tim Newkirk

Analyst

Okay, thank you very much, operator. We have tried to highlight for you today the many ways that our strategy is beginning to take shape. I realize that we are still a show-me story, but we have produced tangible results in the form of a higher value sales mix, improved profit performance, and a stronger balance sheet. In closing, I look forward to the opportunity to update you on our progress in the third quarter. Thank you for your interest and this concludes our call.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation in today’s conference. This concludes the program. You may all disconnect. Everyone have a great day. Copyright policy: All transcripts on this site are the copyright of Seeking Alpha. However, we view them as an important resource for bloggers and journalists, and are excited to contribute to the democratization of financial information on the Internet. (Until now investors have had to pay thousands of dollars in subscription fees for transcripts.) So our reproduction policy is as follows: You may quote up to 400 words of any transcript on the condition that you attribute the transcript to Seeking Alpha and either link to the original transcript or to www.SeekingAlpha.com. All other use is prohibited. THE INFORMATION CONTAINED HERE IS A TEXTUAL REPRESENTATION OF THE APPLICABLE COMPANY'S CONFERENCE CALL, CONFERENCE PRESENTATION OR OTHER AUDIO PRESENTATION, AND WHILE EFFORTS ARE MADE TO PROVIDE AN ACCURATE TRANSCRIPTION, THERE MAY BE MATERIAL ERRORS, OMISSIONS, OR INACCURACIES IN THE REPORTING OF THE SUBSTANCE OF THE AUDIO PRESENTATIONS. IN NO WAY DOES SEEKING ALPHA ASSUME ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY INVESTMENT OR OTHER DECISIONS MADE BASED UPON THE INFORMATION PROVIDED ON THIS WEB SITE OR IN ANY TRANSCRIPT. USERS ARE ADVISED TO REVIEW THE APPLICABLE COMPANY'S AUDIO PRESENTATION ITSELF AND THE APPLICABLE COMPANY'S SEC FILINGS BEFORE MAKING ANY INVESTMENT OR OTHER DECISIONS. If you have any additional questions about our online transcripts, please contact us at: transcripts@seekingalpha.com. Thank you!