Earnings Labs

NACCO Industries, Inc. (NC)

Q3 2008 Earnings Call· Tue, Nov 4, 2008

$49.59

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Third Quarter 2008 NACCO Industries Earnings Conference Call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. We'll be facilitating a question-and-answer session towards the end of this conference. (Operator Instructions). As a reminder this conference is being recorded for reply purposes. I would now like to turn the presentation over to Ms. Christina Kmetko, Manager of Finance. Please proceed. Christina Kmetko – Manager of Finance: Thank you. Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us today. Yesterday, a press release was distributed outlining NACCO's results for the third quarter ended June 30, 2008. If anyone has not received a copy of this earnings release or would like a copy of the 10-Q, please call me at 440-449-9669 and I'll be happy to send you this information. You may also obtain copies of these items on our website at www.nacco.com. Our conference call today will be hosted by Al Rankin, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of NACCO Industries. Also in attendance representing NACCO Industries is Ken Schilling, Vice President and Controller. Al will provide an overview of the quarter and then open up the call to your questions. Before we begin, I would like to remind participants that this conference call may contain certain forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements made here today. Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties was set forth in our earnings release and in our 10-Q. In addition, certain amounts discussed during this call are considered non-GAAP numbers. The non-GAAP reconciliations of these amounts are included in our 2008 third quarter earnings release, which is available on our website. I'll now…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. And your first question comes from the line of Vanessa Miranda of Stanfield Capital Partners.

Amy Bloom

Analyst

Hi. This is Amy Bloom of Stanfield. For the Hamilton Beach Subsidiary wise, it looks like the covenant next quarter will also be tight considering that the outlook for the fourth quarter is weak? Are you expecting to contribute more capital to keep that company in mind with these covenant requirements? Thank you.

Al Rankin

Analyst

We monitor the performance of the companies very carefully and believe we have the ability to address covenant issues one way or another in each of our businesses at this time. So it obviously depends on -- the degree of difficulty depends on the assumptions you make about the markets themselves but we feel we have outstanding businesses in each of our four subsidiaries and we will take the actions that are necessary to move us through this period.

Amy Bloom

Analyst

Thank you. And also on that subsidiary, are you expecting any type of inventory write-downs in Hamilton Beach?

Al Rankin

Analyst

We have a couple of areas where there is potential expertise due to some degree but it's not abnormal for the business and the general levels of inventory and the quality of the products the Hamilton Beach is just fine. Its not -- and there are no issues of significance in terms of phasing out products and phasing a new products that might leave us with significant problem areas as we look forward. There is almost always a case, we have a couple of areas where we are focused on special programs to deal with inventories, but they are not in the scheme of things of major issues.

Amy Bloom

Analyst

Okay. Great, thanks for you support.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. The next question comes from the line of Frank Magdlen of The Robins group.

Frank Magdlen

Analyst

Good morning.

Al Rankin

Analyst

Good morning.

Frank Magdlen

Analyst

Al, at Hamilton Beach, if raw material prices stayed flat, what would it taken away price increases to get to the desired margin?

Al Rankin

Analyst

Well, I am not sure I can really answer the question. What I would you tell you is about the process we’ve gone through. We have reviewed at Hamilton Beach essentially every single stock keeping unit, skew in the business. We have loved the current prices. We have asked our suppliers to reflect in their ongoing prices for next year. The kinds of reductions and commodity cost that we have seen and our engineers are basically reverse engineered, our products, we understand the material of those products in great detail and we know what commodity content is in them and therefore what we think should be appropriate reductions. So some portion of the recovery will come from decreased prices. But we believe that our decreased cost -- but we believe that the prices we put in place as a result of the reviews that we’ve done of every single skew put us in a pretty good position to have more normal margins in 2009. But, in some cases the price increases require have really met that – it's necessary because of the implications for the price pointed which the product would ultimately sell in our customers operations to substitute products typically, to substitute lower cost, lower featured products that can help that retailer maintain a good product with the right margin for the retailer and for us at that lower price points. So, there are number of pieces that all come together with getting us back to a more normal kind of situation. So, that's really the process where we’ve been working through, we think we are out in front of it to the degree that we can be and we have always targeted the beginning of next year as the time when we can put in place many of those enhancements. And in a number of cases we have customer commitments that mean at raising prices it's very difficult in the last part of the year, the last six months of the year and the normal time for price increase is often right at the beginning of the next year. So that’s what we have focused on.

Frank Magdlen

Analyst

Okay. And in the lift-truck marketing can you highlight may be what industries are particularly down or…?

Al Rankin

Analyst

I think we can get some of that information for you but I will tell you that the situation is so forward and changing was such repetitive right now that we are watching the levels of the bookings market very closely each month. Those are the periods which we get the best information and I think you can assume that the manufacturing industries are particularly weak in comparison to more service-based and transportation-based industries that is industries that are involved in transportation of goods particularly from overseas. On the other hand, they are not immune either and we have seen some declines in our parts business, which is often historically is a leading indicator of weakness in the units of business because people are not feeling the need to repair trucks as quickly. It’s also a leading indicator of an upturn because you see an upturn in parts as people are bringing their forklift truck fleets back up to full serviceability. So obviously the areas that you can well imagine like automotive which are weak, but I think it’s going to take us a while to get that kind of information which we don’t get as frequently frankly to be able to answer your question more fully than I have just done.

Frank Magdlen

Analyst

Alright. And then I guess, I will try the second question do with Hamilton Beach, what kind of price increases if commodity cost and freight cost stayed lower where they are to get to back to board desired margin?

Al Rankin

Analyst

Well, it just varies all over the lot and because we change the mix so much, I really don’t want to retention does a percentage. We have long term targets of 10% operating profit in the Hamilton Beach business in this environment. You could assume that that’s an ambitious target. It’s a target which is dependant not only on margin but also on the absolute amount of the volume because its ability to contribute effectively to us is there is a substantial in terms of incremental impact. I think our real focus right now is on tightening our belt on GS&A costs, on ensuring we get whatever material cost reductions we can and managing the business in a very very prudent way.

Frank Magdlen

Analyst

And just what’s the target and remind me on the – for material handling?

Al Rankin

Analyst

In the long term we have very ambitious aspirations with the combination of the following. The new product line, which we are putting in place and which will be increasingly either parts that have had been available but the remainder over the course of 2009 and 2010, we have a significantly enhanced supply chain structure that we think will be very beneficial. We have closed the plant. We are in the process of closing the plant and in Scotland and making other changes that will make our manufacturing operations more efficiently, have very good parts business. And we think that on sort of an average part of a cycle which we are certainly not in, we would aspire to a 9% operating profit in the business. But in this environment, those are not numbers that we are focused on. We are focused on managing at low levels and doing all of the kinds of things that you have to do when you have a heavy industrial business with substantial embedded capital and so on and so forth.

Frank Magdlen

Analyst

Alright. Thank you, Al.

Operator

Operator

And you have no further questions. I will now turn the call back over to Christina Kmetko for closing remarks.

Al Rankin

Analyst

Okay, I will just comment again that we are watching the markets very carefully. We think this is going to be – I think as we surprised anyone on this call that the economy both here and in other countries is facing very difficult conditions and those are certainly affecting us perhaps even at the front line in terms of affecting us. We are taking all actions that we think are appropriate and proven to manage our costs and our businesses in that adverse environment, while at the same time continuing particularly in product development to maintain our position as excellent product provider because we think that’s where the long term strength of our businesses comes from. Till that completes my remarks. Christie, you have any closing remarks

Christina Kmetko

Analyst

Just thank you for joining us today and we appreciate your interest. If you do have any followup questions please feel free to give me a call, again the number is 440-449-9669. Have a good day.

Operator

Operator

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. To access the replay for this call you may dial 888-286-8010 or 617-801-6888 internationally. With the replay pass code 34694487. The replay will be available in approximately one hours' time. This concludes the presentation and you may now disconnect.