Selwyn Joffe
Analyst · Oppenheimer. Please go ahead. Your line is now open
Thanks, Gary. I appreciate everyone joining us today. I am going to start off first off, I want to thank all our team members for their commitments and customer-centric focus on service and for their exceptional pride in all the products we sell and the customer service we provide. We are particularly grateful to our team during these unprecedented times. Their health and safety remains the top priority. Since the very beginning of this pandemic, we enhanced our already vigorous disinfection procedures. In addition, we implemented stringent social distancing and health safety policies, including the use of protective equipment at our facilities around the globe. For the most part, our corporate team is continuing to work remotely as much as possible. Though we are taking steps to gradually and safely return our team back to the office. During this challenging period, our IT team has been exceptional and laser-focused on maintaining around the clock uninterrupted service to our global operations. As a result of everyone’s contributions, our operations have continued largely uninterrupted. I am extremely proud of all the working of our company. Our ongoing commitment to being socially responsible, particularly during this challenging period is also noteworthy. One of the company’s many initiatives includes food programs for employees and members of the community. Let me restate what I said in today’s press release. We should never lose sight of our individual and collective responsibilities, particularly in times of crisis, and we, as a company, always strive to nurture this spirit in our day-to-day activities. Clearly the past few months have been challenging for all of us. From our vantage point, we see light at the end of the tunnel. While the month of April was strongly impacted across the automotive aftermarket, consumer demand has picked up over the past month-and-a-half with industry observers and retailers reporting encouraging trends as states have opened up and consumers are driving more. We experienced unprecedented declines in April, followed by sharp gains in May and expect that June will continue with this strong sales trend. It is still too early to determine if this trend will continue moving forward, but we are cautiously optimistic. As highlighted in the press release, issued this morning, we reported record sales, positive generation of cash flow from operations, and margin improvement. Unfortunately, our results were impacted by two major items. Firstly, the extraordinary non-cash losses due to the weak Mexican peso, and secondly some one-time transition expenses related to this expansion of plants in Mexico. The underlying results however were very strong. We are making excellent progress in the execution of our strategic plans and investments and we are on target to complete our strategic build-out in Mexico by the end of the fiscal second quarter. In short, we have a scalable infrastructure and our growth opportunities remain abundant, particularly as the competitive landscape changes and customers place even more importance on reliable suppliers to meet anticipated demand as the economy recovers. In summary, all of our initiatives will further our financial performance, particularly as we realize the benefits of our state-of-the-art production of calipers, the relocation of certain additional product lines to our operations in Mexico from higher cost domestic production and other related overhead absorption initiatives. In addition, or facility expansion in Malaysia is complete, which will allow us to increase capacity and productivity to our existing product lines and allow us to utilize the additional capacity to reduce dependence on outsourcing certain products or components. For more than fifty years, MPA has established itself as a leader in the supply of internal combustion vehicle hard parts to our industry. The market size to our current categories is more than $6 billion at the retail level. According to Lang Marketing Research, internal combustion engine vehicles in operation in the United States will increase by 36 million from 2020 to 2030, up from approximately 282 million vehicles in operation last year. These vehicles will continue to age, fueling significant growth in the aftermarket parts replacement to industry well beyond 2030. In fact, these statistics should further benefit from vehicles in the peak sauce years entering the prime parts replacement age. In short, our strategy before and since the pandemic is to leverage our significant channel relationships for aftermarket parts and offer superior parts and solutions to our customers and consumers. Today, we are relentlessly focused on maintaining our growth rates and enhancing our profitability for the hard parts categories that we offer, as well as launching and establishing ourselves within the multi-billion dollar brakes category. Industry observers believe as the economy opens up, personal vehicles will be the main choice of transportation. In addition, industry reports indicate that personal vehicles will be the preferred mode of transportation for vacations in the foreseeable future. This bodes well for our business. In addition, during recessionary times, people hold on to their vehicles longer. As these vehicles age, the rate of replacement of parts increases substantially. For example, cost in the zero to three year age group have a replacement rate for alternators of 2.42%, compared with 6.65% in the twelve plus year age group. We are already seeing a significant increase to used car sales versus new car sales, which indicates that consumers are electing a less expensive alternative to car replacement. At the same time, as new car sales return, we still benefit, simply because new cars get old. As we start a new fiscal year, we are well positioned to benefit from our investments for continued growth notwithstanding the impact of the April stay at home orders across the country. In short, all of our initiatives will further solidify our position as a valued premier supplier of automotive after parts - aftermarket parts in North America. With respect to our Diagnostic business, demand for our benchtop tester continues to grow as our customers upgrade their existing testers to meet the latest protocols to starters and alternators. As late model applications started entering the repair cycle, retailers began increasing their capital expenditures for Diagnostic and testing products. During our fiscal fourth quarter, when the pandemic became an issue, our customers’ capital expenditures were deferred, but now with the fast pickup in the aftermarket business, the testing expenditures appear to be resuming. These investments support our customers’ mission to provide continuing trustworthy advice with regard to whether or not a customer’s alternator or starter is working properly. This helps significantly reduce a misdiagnosis of the vehicle’s problem, which is one of the largest reasons for a return. To complement our internal combustion business, we have also embraced the advancements of the fast-growing world of electrified transportation. Consequently, we have made investments in the rapidly advancing diagnostics for automotive electric vehicles and the electrification of the aerospace market and military industry. Our offering of complete solutions for simulation, emulation and production testing for the electric power train is gaining traction. Sales activity is gaining momentum, but orders have been temporarily slowed as OE manufacturers for these vehicles reopen. Nonetheless, we are encouraged by order activity from key blue chip global companies in both the automotive and aerospace industries and the strength of our strategic partnerships within this space. The increasing global demand for electronic testing products and subscription services represent significant value creation opportunities. In short, our entire company is well positioned for sustainable top and bottom-line growth. Despite favorable sales trends beginning in May, supported by demand for do-it-yourself repairs and improved demand from the professional installer market, the company believes it is prudent at this time to not provide annual guidance. In summary, notwithstanding the human and economic impact of this terrible pandemic, we are cautiously optimistic about the outlook. Healthcare professionals, medical researchers around the world appear to be making significant progress in addressing the virus and we are prepared to do our part to keep vehicles on the road. We expect the number of vehicles and their prime parts replacement age will continue to grow and we are pleased to see the number of repairs and miles driven regain momentum, particularly as people return to work, lifestyle changes, vacations, turn to road shows and a new normal takes hold. All of this supports our optimism for growth and profitability over the next several years and we remain convinced that our strategy to enhance shareholder value is on target. I’ll now turn the call over to David to review the results for the fiscal fourth quarter and fiscal year.