Michael Lucareli
Analyst · Colliers Securities. Your line is open
Thank you, Kathy. And good morning, everyone. Although it was a challenging quarter, Q1 revenue and earnings were in line with our expectations, and the positive free cash flow was better than anticipated. From an operational standpoint, all plants have been opened since late May, but most are running at reduced capacity. All locations are following strict measures to protect our employees' health and safety including social distancing, wearing face masks and following enhanced sanitation protocols. Also during this downturn, we're evaluating ways to improve our manufacturing efficiency. As a result, we made progress on several important operational initiatives during the quarter, the most important of which was the consolidation of the CIS manufacturing footprint in China. We expect this to be complete in September and provide immediate cost savings while still providing sufficient capacity for growth in the region. Another priority is tightly managing our CapEx spend as part of efforts to maintain positive cash flow. Capital spending was relatively low this quarter, and we continue to target a 25% reduction overall in CapEx spending from the prior year. Strategically, we are moving forward with the automotive exit. We've spent a significant amount of time and money separating the automotive business last year in support of this strategy. Our automotive business is now successfully carved out as a separate reporting segment from what we are now calling our Heavy Duty Equipment segment, or HDE. As a reminder, HDE will focus on several heavy duty markets, including medium and heavy truck, bus and specialty vehicle, agriculture and construction equipment and power generation. Unfortunately, the automotive exit has taken longer than expected and was further delayed by the onset of COVID-19. I am encouraged as we have successfully reengaged with interested parties and we are progressing with a number of productive conversations. I can't provide a definitive time line, but rest assured this is our top strategic priority. In the meantime, we will be running the business to optimize earnings and cash flow. On the growth side, we are reallocating more resources to our data center business. As discussed last quarter, we believe we can grow our share in data center cooling, which is a large and growing market. Our existing products in the UK and relationships with customers provide leverage for expansion into the European and North American markets. Ultimately, our right to win in these markets is linked to our ability to provide a full customized solution within our global footprint. Our goal is to provide our customers with the lowest possible total cost of ownership by maximizing system efficiency. With a clear strategy, prioritized tactics, we are looking to accelerate our growth plan over the next several years. Now let's cover our first quarter segment results. Please turn to Page 4. Sales in our CIS segment were down significantly in the quarter, impacted by COVID-related plant closures and the general economic slowdown. Overall, sales were down 27%, with the largest drop to commercial HVAC and refrigeration customers. Please note that more than 20% of the sales decline in the quarter is related to one large data center customer. The pullback in data center construction is consistent with our expectations as this customer expects lower volumes to continue for the balance of fiscal '21 with a strong recovery next fiscal year. In addition, the team is making improvements to our business model in order to improve variable margins. For example, we are focused on cost reductions at our manufacturing facilities and improvements in our pricing models. Our procurement group has been successful in lowering our material costs, while other cost savings initiatives are driving SG&A savings. On the growth side, we are making significant strides with our coating business, where we have introduced an antimicrobial coating that complements the anticorrosive properties of our existing spray coat products. This product has great potential in HVAC systems for hospitals, hotels, restaurants, schools and anywhere else bacteria, mold or fungi are a concern. We're also seeing a strong uptick in orders for products to the recreational vehicle market. There remains a great deal of work to do in CIS but the framework is in place to improve profit margins and capitalize on the volume recovery as we go forward. Please turn to page five. Building HVAC sales held up relatively well given the pandemic, down 3% in the first quarter. This was primarily driven by lower sales of heating and ventilation products, partially offset by higher data center sales in the UK. I want to highlight that adjusted EBITDA increased 30% from the prior year, primarily due to improved pricing and lower material and labor costs as well as improved operating leverage as a result of management cost actions. This type of performance demonstrates the potential for Modine after we address the auto business and reallocate capital. We expect growth in Building HVAC to be driven by data center sales where our order book remains strong. We anticipate that North American heating and ventilation will be relatively flat to the prior year, but this remains somewhat dependent on weather conditions. We also expect cost savings actions taken during the quarter will drive earnings improvements as we make strategic investments to grow the data center business. Please turn to slide six. As expected, we had a significant revenue decline in our Heavy Duty Equipment, or HDE, segment. As a reminder, most of these markets were entering a downturn before the pandemic, then the markets further softened as the pandemic spread and impacted the global economy. Sales for the HDE segment were down 43% from the prior year. On a more positive note, the markets appear to be stabilizing in June as compared to April and May, and we are beginning to have more confidence in customer order projections. Last quarter, we mentioned our customer outlook was extremely limited. We now appear to be through the worst of this challenge and have heightened confidence in our customer data. In addition, we are seeing recovery in growth in the China construction market. Although we are predicting a year-over-year sales decline to continue, we anticipate the rate of decline to stabilize and improve. With a focused team on HDE, we are strengthening customer relationships while focusing on cost-effective solutions and superior service. Recently, we were awarded 2 supplier awards in Asia, and we continue to win genset business. In the transit and school bus market, we are winning incremental business with the industry-leading OEMs. There is significant activity in this market to industrialize alternative powertrains that range from hybrids to fuel cell and full battery electric, all of which require advanced thermal management solutions. Modine has developed a full portfolio of cooling modules and complete battery thermal management systems to address the needs of these growing markets. Another benefit of separating the automotive business is that it highlights further areas for improvement in the HDE segment, both short term and long term. For example, we have aggressively reduced SG&A and have accessed government support programs where possible. We have also lowered our level of capital spending to conserve cash and are aggressively working to reduce working capital. Please turn to slide seven. I'd like to now shift to our new segment, Automotive, which is the auto business, previously reported as part of the VTS segment. As we communicated last year with the announcement of our automotive exit strategy, this business is challenged from a margin and cash flow perspective as we focus on reallocating capital amongst our segments. Combined with the COVID impact, you can clearly see the challenges we face in this segment. Isolating the business with a separate team and objectives is a critical step as we continue our exit strategy. As most of you know, the global automotive industry has been one of the hardest hit by the global pandemic. Sales in the Automotive segment were down 45% from the prior year with the biggest decrease coming in Europe which is also our largest market. Sales in Asia were relatively flat from the prior year. In North America, sales were down in line with the market. Sales during the quarter were also significantly impacted by customer shutdowns as all of our automotive plants were eventually forced to close. All plants were reopened by the end of May, and we began to see a recovery in June, particularly in Europe. Similar to the HDE segment, there's been a strong focus on cost control in this segment as a result of the volume decline. Again, it's difficult to predict a market outlook for this segment, but overall, we expect the market in Asia to be flat to slightly up; in Europe and North America to be down 10% to 20% from the prior year. We expect the first quarter to be a low point for us with sequential improvements in revenue and earnings each quarter. Rest assured that this business is being managed much differently than in the past with an emphasis on cash flow, while we reallocate capital to the higher margin businesses. Please turn to slide eight. As we navigate difficult market conditions brought on by the pandemic, we've taken actions to minimize their downside results and prepare for an eventual recovery. First quarter sales declined by $181 million or 34%, led by slower demand in vehicular markets, commercial HVAC&R markets and with our largest data center customer. Downside conversion on the lower revenue was supported by favorable operating performance and labor cost reductions across all segments. Our gross profit decreased by $37 million to $46 million, resulting in a gross margin of 13.3%. Despite the gross profit decline, I want to highlight the progress achieved in our Building HVAC segment, which is one of our targeted future growth areas. SG&A of $45 million was lower than the prior year by $19 million or 30%. This decrease was driven by lower spending on the automotive exit strategy and difficult actions to lower employee compensation costs and discretionary spending. While we anticipate a recovery in the second half of our fiscal year, we have expanded our savings initiatives to address potential headwinds. Adjusted EBITDA of $20 million was down $27 million from the prior year. This was driven by the previously mentioned volume decline and partially offset by favorable gross margin performance and SG&A reduction. As usual, our appendix includes an itemized list of adjustments and a full reconciliation to our US GAAP results. Our first quarter adjustments totaled $5.1 million, including $4.6 million from restructuring activities as we reduced head count and consolidated footprint. As previously discussed, the automotive separation costs were minimal in the quarter. We had a small tax benefit in the quarter on the pre-tax loss. This was driven by losses in jurisdictions with valuation allowances and by changes in the mix of foreign and U.S. earnings. Adjusted earnings per share was a negative $0.09, down $0.40 from the prior year. Turning to slide nine. I'm very pleased with our first quarter free cash flow of $3.2 million, which represents a $23 million improvement from the prior year. We typically experience negative cash flow in the first quarter. Our adjusted free cash flow was nearly $11 million. The positive cash flow was driven by a number of items, including lower spending on the automotive exit strategy, good working capital management and lower capital spending. Net debt decreased slightly during the quarter, and our leverage ratio of 2.9 times was well within our covenant limits. I want to highlight, in these difficult times, we continue to have ample liquidity to run the business and execute our strategies. Now let's turn to slide 10 for our fiscal '21 outlook. With so much uncertainty surrounding the global economic recovery, we will not be providing formal guidance at this time. Instead, we will provide high-level insights and outlook for the balance of the fiscal year. Although we are pleased with the performance of our plants worldwide, we are still planning for difficult market conditions to continue through the summer, especially in our vehicular markets, with a slow recovery in the second half of our fiscal year. There have been no major changes to our market outlook since we reported last quarter, and we expect the data center market to continue to drive growth in our Building HVAC segment. We are clearly seeing positive trends, but the recovery will be slow. We expect second quarter sales will be sequentially higher than the first quarter, but could be down as much as 20% from the prior year. We will continue to offset negative volumes with cost actions, including salary and benefit reductions, furloughs and shortened work weeks where appropriate. In addition, we continue to aggressively manage our cash through lower CapEx spending and working capital management and expect this to result in positive cash flow for the year. Maintaining a strong balance sheet and preserving cash is a high priority. We continue to navigate through this crisis with an equal focus on cost control, cash generation and targeted growth. Modine will emerge stronger with a better mix of higher margin and growth businesses. In closing, I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge David Leiker from Robert W. Baird, who passed away recently. David was a highly respected analyst, and more importantly, a great person. It was a pleasure to work with David and his engagement during these calls will be greatly missed. I'd like to personally thank Tom Burke, who established a world-class culture at Modine and served as a mentor for many. We're undergoing a lot of changes but are fortunate to have a strong and experienced leadership team and dedicated employees around the world. Our cost cutting actions have impacted everyone in the company, and we have not made these decisions lightly. Modine's progress and success is due to the sacrifice and dedication of all employees around the globe. With that, we'll take your questions.