Gerald G. Colella
Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Thanks, Seth. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on the call today. First, I'll provide an update on our progress toward the strategic initiatives I described in our last call, as well as some highlights of recent product wins. Following that, I'll give a recap of the first quarter of 2014 and finally, our outlook for the second quarter. Seth will follow me with further details on our financial results, and then we'll open the call for your questions. On the last call, I spoke about our vision to broaden our global leadership position in vacuum processing and to measurably improve profitability of the company. This vision is supported by several key strategies. The first is a focus on satisfying customers with the best technology coupled with strong OEM relationships and more local support to help solve the complex and yield challenges inherent in sub-20-nanometer geometries and 3D structures. In concert with this, we are expanding our product solutions on our core business and we're continuing to invest in and expand into other high potential advanced markets. Next, we are managing the business for a sustainable and profitable growth. To improve our results, we are taking measured and disciplined steps to improve our operating profit throughout all aspects of the semiconductor cycle. During the first quarter, we completed a number of actions to reduce our costs and realign our workforce to better focus on our key initiatives. These are permanent structural changes unaffected by volume. We will continually pursue these initiatives in order to enhance our profitability while increasing shareholder value. Seth will have more details on this later in the call. Finally, we are committed to deploying our capital in the best long-term interest of our shareholders. In the quarter, we paid an $8.6 million dividend and repurchased additional shares under our outstanding share repurchase program, and since 2007 have returned $340 million in cash to our shareholders. As I mentioned last quarter, we have a robust M&A pipeline and are confident that we will continually successfully identify, acquire and integrate technology-based companies. This quarter, we are pleased to announce the planned acquisition of Granville-Phillips, or GP, a worldwide leader in indirect vacuum gauging for the semiconductor and other advanced markets. As we seek out strategic acquisition targets, there are a number of factors we look for. One key aspect is having complementary products and technologies that we can deliver to our customers. GP's leadership in the indirect gauging market coupled with our leadership in capacitance manometers or direct gauges will allow us to have one of the strongest technology portfolios in the gauging market, with minimal product overlap. As our core semi market addresses the process for clients of finer geometries and 3D structures, GP expands our portfolio with products which can provide critical information to validate vacuum quality. A second consideration in evaluating companies for M&A is their fit within our markets. GP serves complementary customers and end markets. And together, we will have an increased capability to support semiconductor and other vacuum customers. Approximately half of GP's business is outside of the semiconductor market in general, industrial and analytical applications including vacuum furnaces, and some coating, leak testing, freeze-drying and instrumentation. Additionally, they are strong in the analytical markets for use in mass spectrometry. This business profile aligns with our goal to increase penetration of additional markets and will create further synergies. We believe we are in a strong position to give GP products more exposure to each of our target markets to existing global sales and applications distribution channels. Another important element in evaluating acquisitions is the probability of successful integration. Here, we have a thorough understanding of GP's products, as well as their markets and customers, which reduces integration risk and provides opportunities for synergies that we expect will produce higher revenue and improved operating profitability. And finally, as I mentioned in last earnings calls, we'll only seek acquisitions that are both top line and profit growth potential, which meet or exceed our target of return on invested capital. GP is a strong, financially stable operation with financial metrics that meet or exceed our own model. And we expect the acquisition to be accretive in the second half of 2014, the acquisition is proceeding as planned and is expected to close late in the second quarter after regulatory approvals. Moving now to our first quarter results. We expected Q1 sales to remain strong, and we closed the quarter with sales of $206 million, exceeding expectations and up from a very strong Q4. Sales in the semiconductor market were $150 million, a new high for MKS, as OEM customers pulled business into the quarter to meet their customer schedules. Sales through all of the markets combined were $56 million, also up from Q4. As I look to the technology business environment, over the past few calls, we've talked about the increasing challenges should make the space as they migrate to 20-nanometer and smaller devices. If we look at etch, for example, our customers use our RF generators to provide the power to energize the plasma to drill or etch these high-aspect ratio holes and lines through numerous angstrom-thick layers of different materials deposited on the wafer. It is critical that the etch be smooth and precise that adapts to the different materials in the layers and it stops before penetrating too many layers. This requires an unprecedented level of process control. Our industry-leading pulse RF generators combined with our newly introduced Dynamic Frequency Tuning, or DFT, achieved mass power delivery in less than 50 microseconds, 10 times faster than previous tuning, providing virtually instantaneous adjustment of the RF power, and delivering precise set point power to the process. This is important to our customers because it stabilizes the plasma much faster, making the etch more controlled, consistent and repeatable. This is critical when etching extremely thin layers at high aspect ratios as a major advancement in RF technology, which we believe will contribute to future revenue growth and market share gains. Recently, 3 major OEMs evaluated MKS's pulse RF power alongside competitive solutions. They have now selected MKS's pulse RF for their process tools of record. This is an important growth step for our business. Our technology leadership extended to other areas as well in the first quarter. Over the last few years, we've invested to strengthen our infrastructure to support the emerging and increasingly important semiconductor hubs in Asia, especially Korea. Each quarter, we see further benefits from this investment. And recently, we received a large volume order from a major Korean deposition equipment manufacturer for our latest aspects product, the Paragon remote plasma source. Paragon was selected for chamber cleaning because of its high reliability and long life, which provides better performance and lower cost of ownership for our customers. In the quarter, we also had success with a major Korean manufacturer of memory devices. After competitive evaluation, this customer selected our residual gas analyzers we use on PVD tools to identify process issues and improve yield. Through our strengthened local applications and engineering presence, we have improved interaction with our customers, which benefits both them and MKS as we work together to address their needs. While semiconductor was a major part of our sales last quarter, approximately 30% of our business in Q1 was outside of the semi market. These other markets include environmental, medical, biopharmaceutical, energy, thin films, LED and more. The thin film market encompasses a number of applications. One emerging area is carbon-based products such as carbon nanotubes and graphene. Graphene can be deposited using chemical vapor deposition, a process similar to the semiconductor deposition process. Research into properties, applications and best manufacturing methods for graphene, carbon nanotubes and other nano materials is being done in numerous research organizations and universities across the globe. As this research progresses towards commercialization, new tool OEMs are appearing. And I am pleased to report that this quarter, our highly successful G-Series flow controls have been designed in on a new European graphene deposition tool. This is truly an emerging field with much ongoing research. And our technology including pressure, flow and other products are supporting development in this emerging field. Now as we look ahead to the outlook for our second quarter, semiconductor analysts are forecasting there will be a pause in equipment demand after an extremely robust Q4 and Q1. Although not formally announced, several planned projects in areas such as 3D NAND and FinFET logic devices at the foundries appear delayed. And we are seeing this lower demand in Q2. Those of you who follow us closely are well aware that when our OEM customers are ramping, our business accelerates at an earlier and faster rate than our customers. And this was evident in the past 6 months. Conversely, due to our short lead times, when a pause occurs, we typically see the impact sooner in the cycle in a sharper rate. However, we are confident that the long-term secular trends favor MKS. In our other markets, world GDP is improving, and we anticipate revenue growth will continue. Based on these factors, and looking at current business levels, we anticipate that sales in the second quarter may range from $160 million to $180 million. And at this volume, our non-GAAP net earnings could range from $0.21 to $0.35 per share. At this point, I'll turn the call over to Seth to discuss our results and expand our guidance.