Bonnie Lind
Analyst · CJS Securities
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I will start today reviewing results for each of our segments and then cover a few corporate items, including the impacts from the recent change in U.S. tax laws. Starting with Technical Products. We have another strong quarter with sales of $127 million, up 22% and organic sales up 15%, after excluding $7.5 million from Coldenhove. While improved pricing and currency translation from a stronger Euro helped, the primary driver of the growth was volume-driven increases across most product categories. Filtration sales increased 16% as we continue to optimize our mix, ramp up and deliver double-digit growth in nontransportation filtration products. Performance materials, organic sales grew 13%, led by backings with strong market demand and increased sales of products in Asia. And Labels, which benefited from increased demand for our harsh environment products. Operating income of $11 million was down from $12 million in 2016. And 2017 results included $3 million of cost for one-time purchase accounting related to the Coldenhove acquisition and timing differences for our annual German filtration down, which occurred in the third quarter last year. Without these one-time costs, profit would have increased by around $2 million. Volume growth, higher net selling prices, improved manufacturing efficiencies and lower restructuring and integration costs more than overcame increased costs for the U.S. filtration ramp ups and input costs. Turning next to Fine Paper & Packaging. Revenues of $104 million were up slightly compared to last year. A higher priced mix and growth in premium packaging and retail sales helped offset lower commercial print volumes. Operating income of $14 million fell from $17 million last year. The biggest impact was due to increased pulp and freight cost, which combined were up almost $3 million. As we mentioned last quarter, a new regulation has resulted in driver shortages and significant increases in our volume held rates. Lastly, while down for the year, SG&A costs were higher in the quarter due to timing of marketing expenditures. Turning to corporate items. Selling, general and administrative expenses $25.6 million was above an unusually low quarter, last year of $20.4 million. The increase includes SG&A acquired with Coldenhove and SG&A added to support the new U.S. transportation filtration business as well as expenses related to timing and sales growth. In 2018, we expect to maintain our SG&A efficiency below 10% sales, with quarterly spending of approximately $26 million. Unallocated corporate SG&A was $5.5 million, down from $6.6 million in the prior year. On an adjusted basis, costs were approximately $4.5 million in both periods. In 2018, we expect unallocated corporate costs of approximately $5 million per quarter. Net interest expense was $3.2 million in 2017, compared to $2.8 million in 2016. Costs were lower in 2016 as we capitalized the portion of interest related to our investment and filtration and due to higher interest rates and additional short-term debt in 2017 to finance the Coldenhove acquisition. Okay, now on to the hot topic of the day, taxes. I will talk first about the fourth quarter and then cover expected ongoing benefits from U.S. tax law changes. Our tax rate in the fourth quarter was negative 19% compared to an expected full year rate in the upper 20s. The primary reason for the negative rate was enactment of the U.S. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which help generate a one-time reduction in tax expense of $6 million or $0.35 per share. The 2 large pieces that comprise this amount were a $10 million benefit from the remeasurement of deferred tax liabilities and a $4 million one-time charge on unrepatriated foreign earnings that will be payable over the next 8 years. Of the $0.35 per share benefit, $0.27 was a result of our 2017 activities, as we accelerated tax appreciation of U.S. filtration assets and purposefully took additional actions to accelerate deductions at the higher 2017 tax rate. The remaining $0.08 per share was due to remeasurement of prior period balances or one-time items, and we excluded those from 2017 adjusted earnings. While there were parts of U.S. tax laws still being clarified, at this point we expect our 2018 book tax rate to be around 23%. As a reminder, since we benefited from the added $0.35 per share in 2017, we don't expect to see any meaningful year-on-year change in earnings due to the tax law change in 2018. From a cash flow perspective, because of our existing prior period R&D credits, we've been in pretty favorable cash tax position and the new tax rate should provide an additional ongoing benefit of about $3 million to $5 million annually. We have no offshore cash so changes in law regarding repatriation don't impact us going forward. We currently expect to consumer prior period R&D credits over the next 2 years, at which point cash and book tax rate will start to convert. While the change in the text law won't change our cash deployment priorities, where organic investments and value adding M&A remain our top choices, it will make U.S. investment choices, like our recent filtration, operations more attractive and it will help strengthen our financial position. Cash from operations in the quarter was $18 million, about equal to 2016, while capital spending of $15.5 million was down from $19 million. Post employment benefit plans and pension funding remain in great shape. In 2018, we expect cash outreach for these plans to be around $17 million, slightly below 2017 and $6 million higher than related expense. For the full year, free cash flow was $57 million in 2017, which is up $10 million from 2016 as reduced capital spending offset the impacts of lower operating income and an increase investment in working capital. Working capital increased in 2017 with sales growth, start-up of the new filtration operations and to help bridged Fine Paper service levels in the first year with 1 less paper machine. We expect to improve efficiencies in this area as we go through 2018. Capital spending of $43 million in 2017 was in the middle of our targeted range of 3% to 5% of sales. We expect spending in 2018 to be similar, with about 1/3 of spending on maintenance capital and the rest on projects that drive growth or deliver cost savings. That at year-end was $255 million and cash was just under $5 million. Debt increased $34 million in the fourth quarter of 2017 to finance our acquisition of Coldenhove. Debt currently consists of $175 million of bonds that are due in 2021, with a fixed rate at 5.25% and the remainder and short-term borrowings at a variable rate, slightly below 3%. In total, debt-to-EBITDA remains below 2x, and we continue to have plenty of borrowing capacity. As we've said, our strategy is to increase these organic growth rates, while maintaining an attractive double-digit return on capital and returning a meaningful part of our cash flow to shareholders. In 2017, we continued to invest organically, completed 2 value-added acquisitions and increased our dividend at a double-digit rate for 8th consecutive time. With our substantial cash flow generation and strong balance sheet, we're well positioned in 2018 to continue successfully executing this strategy. With that, I will turn it back to you, John.