Bonnie Lind
Analyst · Davidson. Please go ahead
Thank you, John and good morning everyone. We noted at the start of the call some of the unusual items included in the third quarter earnings, which on a pretax basis were a net cost of $700,000 in 2018 and a net gain of $2.3 million last year. These adjusting items were allocated to segments and details are shown in our press release, so I will focus on adjusted results as I go through each of the segments and I’ll start with Technical Products. Sales of $138 million were up 10%. In addition to acquired volume, this reflected solid organic growth in transportation filtration and labels, partly offset by lower sales in backings and other products. Revenues also benefited across most categories from higher selling prices and the higher value mix of products sold. Technical Products adjusted operating income of $8.3 million was down $7 million from a year ago. As John mentioned earlier, we had about $6 million of increased manufacturing costs mostly related to added downtime and these costs were almost all in Technical Products. In addition, we had almost $3 million of unrecovered input cost in the quarter that was only partially offset by improved mix and volume. We tend to have more of a lag in recovering input cost in Technical Products due to the structure of our customer pricing and John will talk about our ongoing price realization efforts later in the call. Turning next to Fine Paper and Packaging, revenues of $113 million were about equal to last year. Increased selling prices, growth in premium packaging largely offset a decline in commercial print volumes and a lower value mix. Premium packaging sales rose 6%, lower than our run rate due to timing of orders, but we remain on track for another full year of double-digit growth. Adjusted operating income of $13.2 million was down from $14.9 million last year. This was due mostly to higher manufacturing and freight costs and a lower value mix. As is typical, the majority of our planned maintenance downtime occurred in the third quarter of both years. Turning to SG&A, on a consolidated basis, third quarter SG&A expense was $23.6 million, which is up from $21.3 million last year. This increase was primarily due to SG&A acquired with Coldenhove. Adjusted unallocated corporate SG&A of $4.3 million was up from $3.7 million in the prior year. SG&A is below our guidance and prior run rates partly due to a reduction in the amount of incentive accruals in the quarter. Quarterly interest expense was $3.2 million in both years. Incremental borrowings to finance last year’s acquisition were offset by lower interest rates as we changed our short-term debt composition to take advantage of lower borrowing rates in Germany. We benefited from a low tax rate this quarter due to the reduced U.S. statutory rate that took effect in January as well as initiatives we recently completed. These included a study of our R&D activities, which allowed us to increase the amount of foreign tax credits available and accelerated pension contributions that allowed us to benefit from a larger deduction related to our 2017 tax return. On an ongoing basis, we now expect our corporate rate to be 22%, this is down slightly from our prior guidance of 23%. Our cash tax rate should remain under 10% for the next couple of years as we consume prior period R&D credits. Following this, our cash tax rate will start to converge with our book rate. We accelerated about $6 million of planned 2019 pension contributions in the quarter to generate the incremental tax savings that I mentioned above and overall, our post-employment benefits remain in great shape. We expect total cash outlays to be around $23 million this year, up from $17 million previously communicated and in 2019, cash needs will drop back down by $6 million. Cash payments and contributions in 2018 are expected to exceed expense by about $11 million. Turning next to cash flows, cash from ops was $24 million, that’s down from $36 million last year. About half of the decrease was due to the higher pension contribution with the remainder resulting from lower operating earnings that was partly offset by increased cash generated from working capital. Capital spending was $12 million in the quarter, up from $8 million last year. The increase largely related to additional work during the maintenance down. Year-to-date capital spending is $28 million and we expect full-year spending of around $40 million right in the middle of our targeted range of $3 million to $5 million or 3% or 5% of sales. Moving to our balance sheet, debt declined $4 million in the quarter to $250 million as we use available cash to pay down short-term borrowings. Our debt is made up of $175 million of U.S. bonds due in 2021 and $75 million of other low cost borrowing primarily against our global revolver. We have a strong balance sheet and substantial available borrowing capacity which will continue to allow us to take advantage of attractive investment opportunities as they arise. I’ll close by saying, while the third quarter was challenging, Neenah remains strong financially with businesses that generate meaningful cash flows, a conservative balance sheet, and a disciplined and successful approach to deploying capital to deliver added value. With that, I will turn it back to you, John.
John O’Donnell: Thank you, Bonnie. I will finish up with a few comments on the external environment and actions we are taking to address some of the current challenges. Most economies generally remain on sound footing although we are starting to sense more uncertainty in global demand with changes in duties and tariffs. While customers may rebalance their inventories or order patterns during this time, our sales from the United States to China are not large as we have a global asset base. From a supplier perspective, our purchasing team has secured alternative vendors for affected inputs. So at this point, we don’t expect significant impacts from proposed tariffs and I will update you if our outlook changes. From a currency perspective, while we have had a slight tailwind for the first half of the year as the dollar has strengthened, this has now turned around. In the third quarter, the euro is at $1.16 was about on par with last year. Recent exchange rates are about $0.05 below prior year and would result in a negative fourth quarter impact of $2.5 million in sales and $0.5 million of EBIT. As a reminder, our Technical Products business is impacted by seasonality and second half demand is typically 8% to 10% lower than the first half. The fourth quarter is usually our weakest quarter as customers manage year-end inventories. Last year, the seasonality was partially masked by the Coldenhove acquisition. As in the past, we will take a planned holiday downtime in the fourth quarter to align production with customer demand and manage our inventory levels. So while there should be some improved efficiency with less planned downtime for maintenance versus the third quarter, the fourth quarter will still be negatively impacted by normal holiday downtime. The biggest issue for many manufacturing companies this year including us has been the steep and prolonged rise in commodity prices which continues through today. In August, we indicated input costs would be up $24 million for this year with $14 million of that in the second half. We now expect the full year impact to be closer to $30 million. This added $6 million headwind mostly occurring in the fourth quarter. We are actively addressing this cost inflation through pricing activities and other means. In Fine Paper and Packaging, most businesses sold via distributor pricing. Consequently, we are able to implement increases more quickly in this business while being aware of potential trade-offs between price increase and volume loss due to the down-trading. We recently implemented a third increase on certain grades that will take effect in the fourth quarter. As you would expect, we have generally been able to recover a higher percent of cost inflation in this segment within a quarter or two of experiencing it. In Technical Products, about 15% of this business has quarterly contractual adjusters with the other 85% of pricing discussions occurring on a customer-by-customer basis. In performance materials, our pricing activities are ongoing. However, filtration pricing agreements are typically set annually with the largest change occurring in the first quarter of each year. Consequently, our ability to recover cost increases in Technical Products lags in years when costs are rising. Our historical performance has proven that both businesses have the market strength to overcome rising input costs over time. Given the unprecedented rate of increase this year and the laggy nature of our customer contracts, it will take longer to overcome recent increases. We still expect enough pricing to offset more than 75% of input cost increases in 2018, which suggest that our pricing efforts will clearly continue into 2019. I’d be remiss if I didn’t also emphasize the work our teams are doing to address costs. While we expect improvements each year, we’re redoubling our efforts to drive cost reductions through improvements to our process both capital and non-capital and with larger initiatives like optimizing our footprint through the divestiture of the Brattleboro mill. In May, we announced plans to sell this facility and worked actively to do so, but did not receive an acceptable offer. After reviewing alternatives, we decided in late October, that the best economic decision was to close the facility as it’s continued to negatively impact our financial results. As you might imagine, the closure announcement generated additional interest mostly from companies interested in salvage of the assets. While we remain open to the possibility of a sale unless we obtain an acceptable binding agreement quickly, we expect to satisfy the outstanding customer demand that we have on our order books and then close the facility by year end. We expect that such a closure will be modestly cash positive. Without Brattleboro, our sales will be reduced around $30 million, but will contribute to improved operating income especially for Fine Paper and Packaging. While this will be addition through subtraction, our focus has been on seeking acquisitions that can add value and help change our growth trajectory as we evolve into a faster growing and more profitable specialty materials company. Our balance sheet remains strong and allows us to act on attractive opportunities as they arise. Yet we would remain cautious as valuations have been a bit steep. To wrap up, 2018 has been a difficult year with unprecedented increases in input and freight costs as well as operational challenges in the most recent quarter. Our teams are actively addressing these issues and while their efforts are not yet reflected in near-term results, we are operating Neenah with a longer term definition of success. As a company, our financial and market positions remain strong, our strategy is sound and our resolve to make the right long-term decisions that deliver value for our shareholders unwavering. Thanks for your time and we will now open up the call for your questions.