Seth Bagshaw
Analyst · Needham & Company
Thank you, John. I'll cover our fourth quarter and full year results and provide some thoughts for our first quarter of 2023, including eliminate impact of the ransomware incident. Starting with the fourth quarter, we did revenue of $1.09 billion, above the high end of our guidance range. Revenue was down $0.05 sequentially and down 6% year-over-year each compared to combined company results for the previous period. Excluding the impact of foreign exchange fluctuations in palladium pass-through, fourth quarter revenue grew 1% on a year-over-year basis compared to combined company results. Turning to our end market results. Fourth quarter semiconductor revenue was $503 million, declining 6% sequentially and growing 2% year-over-year each compared to combined comps result for the previous period, which was better than our expectations. Despite headwinds from continued supply chain constraints as well as newly enacted U.S. export restrictions in the fourth quarter, our team executed very well in delivering to our customers. Fourth quarter revenue from electronics and packaging market was $266 million, a decrease of 8% sequentially and 19% year-over-year each compared to combined company results for the previous period. Excluding the impact of foreign exchange, inflation pass-through, fourth quarter revenue declined 11% on a year-over-year basis compared to combined company results. On a sequential basis, this decrease in revenue is primarily a function of lower chemistry revenue resulting from the softer global electronics demand. Electronics and packaging revenue, we have 25% of overall revenue in the fourth quarter. As we mentioned in our recent Analyst Day, we have a unique opportunity to combine our capabilities to optimize the interconnect as package substrates advance PCBs require greater integration due to trends in miniaturization and complexity. We are very pleased with the initial reaction in the marketplace our combined laser drilling and chemistry capabilities. That reaffirms our belief that we can deliver meaningful revenue synergies from the combination of our 2 companies as customers begin to focus on next-generation device design cycles. Moving to our specialty industrial market. Revenue in the fourth quarter was $316 million flat sequentially and declining 4% year-over-year, each compared to combined company results in the previous period. Excluding the impact of foreign exchange in palladium pass-through, fourth quarter revenue grew 3% year-over-year on a combined company basis. In the quarter, the specialty industrial market made up 29% of total revenue. As a reminder, our specialty industrial market utilizes our proprietary technologies in vacuum, photonics, in materials to serve a broad array of applications. This share of expertise allows us to tap into some attractive secular growth opportunities, diversifies our revenue in case of healthy margins and cash flow. In the fourth quarter, consumables and service revenue across the 3 end market categories comprised 37% of our total revenue, up 3% year-over-year on a combined company basis, excluding the impact of foreign exchange in palladium pass-through. Looking forward, we expect this revenue stream to provide greater resilience in our financial model as we enter a period of cyclical and macroeconomic softness. Our services revenue, in particular, showed strong momentum led by our semiconductor market. These results are a bipart of the actions we took several years ago, strategically reorganizing services to drive a more market-centric growth and profitability strategy. Turning to our margins. We reported fourth quarter gross margin of 45.9%, exceeding the high end of our guidance range. We did well in addressing continued supply chain constraints, a inflationary pressures and also benefited from a more favorable product mix. Fourth quarter operating expenses were $242 million, up slightly from the midpoint of our guidance due to higher revenue volume. Fourth quarter operating margin was 23.6%, significantly above the high end of our guidance range due to strong operating leverage in our financial model along with favorable product mix. Our integration of Atotech is progressing well, and we are on track to achieve our cost synergy target of $55 million within 18 to 36 months post close. Fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA was $282 million, also above our guidance range. Just EBITDA margin was 26%. Net interest expense for the fourth quarter was $75 million. This is slightly lower than we anticipated with favorable timing of Fed rate increases relative to interest reset dates of our term loans as well as higher interest income. Our tax rate for the fourth quarter was 20% better than expected due primarily to refinement of acquisition-related valuations estimates in a favorable geographical mix of income. Net earnings for the fourth quarter were $133 million or $2 per diluted share. Turning to our balance sheet and cash flow. Consistent with our track record of deleveraging, we made a voluntary principal payment of $100 million in the fourth quarter. Exiting the quarter maintained strong liquidity with cash and short-term investments of $910 million and revolving credit facility of $500 million. We exited the quarter with gross debt of $5.1 billion, which included the voluntary debt prepayment, partially offset by a revaluation of euro-denominated debt due to a strong euro in the quarter. Our net leverage ratio exiting the fourth quarter has been calculated on a combined company basis was 3.4x based on trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA. For the fourth quarter, operating cash flow was $184 million, and free cash flow was $130 million. Our capital expenditures in the fourth quarter were $54 million, an increase of $28 million compared to the third quarter, reflecting a full quarter contribution from Atotech. It is with prior quarters, we had a dividend payment of $15 million or $0.22 per share. Moving to full year 2020 results, revenue was a record $3.5 billion, up 20% year-over-year with $2.9 billion we reported in 2021. On a combined company basis with Atotech, revenue was consistent year-over-year. However, through the impact of foreign exchange inflation pass-through, 2022 revenue grew 5% for the combined company. Semiconductor revenue set another record in 2022, totaling $2.04 billion, growing 12% year-over-year. Through the impact of foreign exchange. Semiconductor revenue grew 16% year-over-year. We delivered strong growth across our portfolio of vacuum and photonic solutions, reflecting our unique breadth and technology leadership. [indiscernible] packaging revenue was $1.1 billion in 2022 on a combined company basis. Excluding the impact of foreign exchange, palladium pass-through, combined company sales declined 8% on a year-over-year basis. Atotech's business performed well in electronics and packaging market, growing 3% year-over-year, including foreign exchange inflation pass-through. Specialty Industrial revenue was $1.3 billion in 2022 on a combined company basis, excluding the impact of foreign exchange palladium pass-through, combined company sales grew 4% on a year-over-year basis. In 2022, on a combined company basis, the revenue split between our semiconductor Lutron packaging, especially industrial markets was 46%, 25% and 29%, respectively. Total consumables and service revenue amounted to $1.7 billion in 2022 on a combined company basis, up 5% year-over-year from the effect of foreign exchange in palladium pass-through. For 2022, on a reported basis, operating cash flow was $529 million and free cash flow was $365 million. I'll now turn to our first quarter outlook. John addressed the current SaaS recovery from the ransomware incident. Given that our effective operations are just starting to return to production and our focus on serving our customers, we are not able to provide our usual guidance for the first quarter. In addition, as you may have seen yesterday, we filed a verification with the SEC of an extension to file our 10-K. Given that we're in the process of restoring our systems, we require additional time to complete our annual report. As John noted, the incident has materially impacted our operations for our Vacuum and Proton Solutions divisions. The operations of our Materials Solutions division were not impacted. MSD revenues are spread across electronics and packaging and specialty industrial markets. What we can share is that prior to Ransomware event, we are planning to guide total MKS revenue for the first quarter to be approximately $1 billion. This reflected widely publicized cycle softness in the semiconductor industry, offset somewhat by a strong backlog coming into the quarter, continued weakening in global electronics spending impacted our electronics and packaging market and a modest sequential decline in revenue, especially industrial market. We estimate the Ransomware incident will impact our forest quote revenue by at least $200 million. However, we expect to substantially recover this revenue by the end of the second quarter. Price the incident, we're also expecting gross margins of 44.5% down from the fourth quarter levels due to lower volume and mix. In terms of operating expenses, we're also expecting approximately $260 million in the first quarter, up from fourth quarter levels primarily due to seasonal increase in compensation and fringe expenses as well as continued investment into product development and customer-facing sales and marketing expenses. Our ability to continue to invest in critical initiatives has been a key strategic driver behind our long-standing ability to exit cycle in a stronger market position to continue to accelerate our customers' product road maps. We plan to maintain its investments. We're also keeping a close eye on macroeconomic and industry trends and our proven playbook for managing costs for cycles allow us to adjust spending levels when and if needed. As an example, we've already executed approximately 1/3 of our $55 million ad tech cost synergy target within just a short period of time. Just to run our expectations prior to into the first quarter, we expect our tax rate to be 27%. We currently expect our net interest expense to be $78 million. With that, I'll turn it back to John to wrap up.