Earnings Labs

EnPro Industries, Inc. (NPO)

Q4 2012 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 7, 2013

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning. My name is Megan and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the EnPro Industries Fourth Quarter Yearend Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. Don Washington, you may begin your conference.

Don Washington

Analyst

Thank you, Megan. And good morning, everyone. Welcome to EnPro Industries quarterly earnings conference call. I'll remind you that our call is also being webcast at enproindustries.com where you can find the slides that accompany the call. In a moment, Steve Macadam, our President and CEO, and Alex Pease, our Senior Vice President and CFO, will review the results for the full year and fourth quarter 2012. But before we begin, I want to point out that you may hear statements during the course of the call that express a belief, expectation or intention, as well as those that are not historical fact. These statements are forward-looking and involve a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause actual events and results to differ materially from such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties are referenced in the Safe Harbor statement included in our press release and are described in more detail, along with other risks and uncertainties, in our filings with the SEC, including the Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2011 and the 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2011. We do not undertake to update any forward-looking statements made on this conference call to reflect any change in management's expectations or any change in assumptions or circumstances on which such statements are based. You should also note that EnPro owns a number of direct and indirect subsidiaries. From time to time, we may refer collectively to EnPro and one or more of its subsidiaries as we, or to the businesses, assets and debts or affairs of EnPro or a subsidiary as ours. These and similar references are for convenience only, and should not be construed to change the fact that EnPro and each subsidiary is an independent entity, with separate management, operations, obligations and affairs. Also, I want to remind you that our financial results reflects the deconsolidation of Garlock Sealing Technologies LLC, Garrison Litigation Management and their subsidiaries, effective June 5, 2010. The results of these entities will remain deconsolidated during the pendency of the Chapter 11 legal proceedings to resolve asbestos claims against GST. We refer to this as the asbestos claim resolution process or ACRP and you'll hear us use that acronym during the call today. GST's results are presented separately on our earning release. And now I will turn the call over to Steve.

Stephen Macadam

Analyst

Thanks, Don. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for calling in. I'm pleased to report that we closed 2012 with strong margins and profit performance even though our markets were soft in the fourth quarter and our organic sales were lower in both our Sealing Products and Engineered Products segments than they were a year ago. Our initiatives to control and reduce costs and to improve pricing supported in increase in segment margin despite the circumstances in our markets. Clearly we are not pleased with the weak environment we encountered in the second half of last year. I'll talk about our 2013 outlook at the end of the call, but our continued improvement from enterprise excellence were obviously be important to our performances going forward. Before I turn the call over to Alex to talk about the quarter, I want to touch on some of the highlights for the full year. As you can see from our press release, our consolidated sales grew 7% to almost $1.2 billion. Acquisitions contributed sales of about $91 million or growth of 9% excluding acquisitions and the unfavorable effect of foreign exchange sales were up about 1% primarily because of increased sales in the Engine Products and Services segment. Sales in that segment were up about 15% with just over half of the increase coming from Engine revenues and the rest from increased parts and service sales. The increase in Engine revenues needs a moment to explain. We began the transition to percentage of completion accounting for new engines in the third quarter of 2011 when we had the necessary systems and controls in place to track progress on engines as they moved towards completion. Engines that are already in progress continued under the completed contract method which recognizes revenue when the engine is shipped. We…

Alexander Pease

Analyst

Thanks, Steve. As Steve noted, our operating performance improved in the fourth quarter of 2012, even though we had no organic growth in sales. In comparison to the fourth quarter of 2011, total sales were up by 3% or just less than $8 million. All as a benefit of the Motorwheel acquisition which was completed in the second quarter of last year. Motorwheel had sales of almost $10 million and added 4% of top line growth. However, unfavorable foreign exchange rates reduced sales by 1%. Higher sales in the Engine Products and Services segment were fully offset by decreases in organic sales in the Sealing Products and Engineered Products segments. I will go into more details on the segment's performance shortly. Looking at profitability, gross margins in the quarter were 32.6% and in line with the fourth quarter of 2011 when they were 32.8%. Even though unit volumes were lower almost across the board, gross margins held that we got better pricing in most of our businesses, in addition to material cost savings and the broad range of enterprise improvement initiatives. SG&A spending dropped by about 9% as we moved aggressively to complete the integration of our acquisitions. Corporate expense was also lower primarily due to lower incentive compensation costs. As a percent of sales, SG&A declined to 24.3% from 27.5%. Turning to our segment results, fourth quarter sales in the Sealing Product segment were up about 2% or $2.8 million compared to fourth quarter of 2011. The contribution of Motorwheel increased Sealing Product sales by about 7%, but that was more than offset by the combination of unfavorable foreign exchange which reduced sales by about 1% and softer conditions in all of the segments markets. Excluding the impact of foreign exchange and the acquisition, the segment sales declined by…

Stephen Macadam

Analyst

Thanks, Alex. As you see in our earnings release, we expect our markets to remain soft in the first quarter of 2013 and our results to be down from the first quarter of 2012. This comparison is against what was the strongest quarter of 2012 when our markets were more active and demand was higher than it is today. Our European market started out fairly strong in 2012, but steadily deteriorated over the rest of the year and we see no indication they will improve in the near term. The first quarter of 2012 also benefited from strong demand from the semiconductor market. Conditions in that market weakened in the second half of 2012 and continue to be depressed. However, customers are indicating that demand may pick up later in the year which could benefit us in the second half of 2013. We also see a drop in sales at Fairbanks Morse compared to the first quarter of last year when the combination of percentage of completion and completed contract engine revenues benefited sales. Parts and service sales and POC revenues should be about the same in the first quarter as last year, but because we will not have any new engines shipped on completed contract method, we expect sales at FME to be down between 25% and 30% compared to the first quarter of last year. Total segment profits and margins will also be lower than they were in the first quarter of 2012 when demand was higher. In the Sealing Products segment, we expect a less attractive product mix than we've had in recent quarters, in part because of lower sales of high margin products into nuclear power markets. In the Engineered Products segment, the restructuring we completed in 2012 should support an improvement in margins, but the…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Jeff Hammond with KeyBanc Capital Market.

Jeffrey Hammond

Analyst

Just a few questions on kind of 2013 and how you are thinking about it. First, what are you thinking for restructuring savings for the full year and how might that parse out by segment?

Stephen Macadam

Analyst

Do you want to take that?

Alexander Pease

Analyst

Sure. So essentially if you take the impact of both the non-recurring restructuring expenses as well as the savings that we plan on getting from that, that will take you in -- in Engineered that will give you about $9 million of savings for the year. The vast majority of that comes from headcount reduction, although there is also a fair chunk from lease, basically the elimination of leases as we consolidate some of these facilities. So that's what it looks like in Engineered. In Sealing we had about $1.2 million of expense associated with an inventory write up in Stemco that obviously won't recur. And then we had an additional kind of $1.1 million in Garlock related to the consolidation of the Houston facility. So does that help?

Jeffrey Hammond

Analyst

You'll get a couple millions of cost saves in Sealing?

Alexander Pease

Analyst

Yes, so in Sealing, that gives you about $2.5 million, $2.5 million to $3 million.

Jeffrey Hammond

Analyst

Perfect.

Alexander Pease

Analyst

And that gives you about $9 million or so in Engineered.

Jeffrey Hammond

Analyst

Okay and then it sounds like on a core basis you expect Sealing and Engineered products to be down in the first quarter, but do you anticipate, I mean are you kind of building your budget and forecast for growth in those businesses on a full year basis in 2013?

Stephen Macadam

Analyst

Jeff, we are thinking that the growth will offset the decline that we know we're going to see in FME just simply because of the new engine schedule that we're going to see and the accounting change. So yes, we're building up some modest growth in those 2 segments combined for the full year.

Jeffrey Hammond

Analyst

Okay and then just finally, can you, I mean is this engine dynamic simply accounting noise or?

Stephen Macadam

Analyst

Well, it is. We shipped 14 engines in '11, we shipped 14 engines in '12 and the schedule calls for 22 engines in '13. Okay, so it's going to be a good year for FME, but as you know because you've followed this for a while that usually with completed contract method the quarters would move around a ton because it would reflect when the engine shipped not when the work is actually being done, which is more levelized over time. So once we had the systems in place to shift to that method, we're really required to use that method. And we did that in I think it was July -- sometime in the third quarter of 2011. And we decided rather than do all the work required for a big bang and moving everything, we said we're going to shift to the new method, new engines that get started, but to any that are already in process let's just keep them through -- keep them on completed contract right. So that resulted in obviously in the second half of 2011 a combination of the 2, so we shipped some completed contract for work that had been done prior to the shift and then last year we shipped -- we had still engines on completed contract where that work had been done in 2011, right. So all in all, and then we did a lot of work in the shop last year for engines many of which we will ship this year, but a lot of the work has been done. Right? Because we're shipping 22 engines this year versus 14 last year. So it -- basically, the shift is behind us at this point, because even though we do have a couple of programs, there's only a couple of engines, none of which are scheduled to ship this year that remain on completed contract because they were part of an overall engine program. But it's just -- I can't remember the exact number. Do you? It's like 2 or 3 or 4 engines over the next 3 years, so.

Jeffrey Hammond

Analyst

Completed contract?

Stephen Macadam

Analyst

It's 4 engines over the 3 years, none of which were scheduled to ship this year. So going forward we're pretty much done with that transition and it will be all based on percent of completion. I know it has been complicated for you guys to follow. We apologize, we've tried to be transparent about it, but the work in the shop continues to be strong this year. As Alex mentioned, the backlog is about where it was before. So it's just the shipped and what everyone has been used to tracking prior to the middle of 2011. So that's where we are. Did that answer your question, Jeff?

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Kevin Bennett with Stern Agee.

Kevin Bennett

Analyst · Stern Agee.

First off, on 2013, you mentioned in the release that there is some indications of a second half recovery and I'm just wondering what some of those indications would be?

Stephen Macadam

Analyst · Stern Agee.

Well yes, that's a very, very good question because as you know we have short cycle markets.

Kevin Bennett

Analyst · Stern Agee.

Sure.

Stephen Macadam

Analyst · Stern Agee.

So it's really hard for us to see visibility, but most of that comes from customer feedback right so.

Kevin Bennett

Analyst · Stern Agee.

Okay.

Stephen Macadam

Analyst · Stern Agee.

Give you a couple of examples. One is we have a pretty significant exposure to one significant customer in the semiconductor industry that makes semiconductor, basically chip manufacturing equipment. We have a nice position with them. And they give us, they have a rolling -- gosh we see at least 4, sometimes 6 quarters in advance what they believe their build schedule will be, obviously it's updated it's a rolling schedule. And that shows an increase in volume in as the year progresses. Okay, so that's an example. Now again it could always be revised right.

Kevin Bennett

Analyst · Stern Agee.

Sure.

Stephen Macadam

Analyst · Stern Agee.

It provides an updated, but that's their best look at it today. And the other is I mean you can read the press as well, many people believe that finally that the German automotive market has truly bottomed down and that there is going to be more auto sales over there as the year progresses. We're still clearly at the bottom today and Germany just reported lower registrations in January, but I don't know if you have seen some of the press, but at least in some of the southern European countries. I mean they are bumping along at a 30 year low for automotive production. So our view is it can't get any worse and is likely to get better. Just how much better and when we don't really have a lot of visibility into that, plus China has started to do better. For us both our operations in China and as we've said before GGB has also a nice exposure. It's really good business for us in German primarily ,but in Europe overall on the industrial side. And a lot of that is machine tools and construction equipment and so forth and a lot of that gets exported from Germany to China because it's really high quality stuff and they have a great position in China. So as China's economy begins to recover, they'll buy more of that stuff from Germany and we benefit from that at GGB in Europe. So those are some of the things that we are looking at to give us a little bit of cautious optimism.

Kevin Bennett

Analyst · Stern Agee.

Got it. Perfect, that's helpful and hopefully those will pan out.

Stephen Macadam

Analyst · Stern Agee.

Yes.

Kevin Bennett

Analyst · Stern Agee.

Next question, in terms of the first quarter you know it's pretty clear that it's going to down year-over-year, but can you speak to the magnitude in Sealing and Engineered? I know you did in Engines, but I mean is it going to be similar to the fourth quarter or should it up sequentially or what are your thoughts around that?

Stephen Macadam

Analyst · Stern Agee.

Well, part of it is -- let me give you some numbers. Do you have that handy?

Kevin Bennett

Analyst · Stern Agee.

Well?

Stephen Macadam

Analyst · Stern Agee.

I think there is a couple of things that we're -- that there's a couple of headwinds that we're facing. So the first is the semiconductor cycle that Steve mentioned. So that, we're going to have to offset that. The second is significant decline in FME's parts and services outlook, I think that sequentially we should see a nice bit of a sequential growth typical to what you see in terms of our normal seasonal pattern.

Kevin Bennett

Analyst · Stern Agee.

Yes.

Stephen Macadam

Analyst · Stern Agee.

From a year-over-year standpoint, I think you'll probably see us down slightly. But again, remember last year, the first half of the year was substantially stronger for us than the second half of the year, so it's not a great comparison looking at?

Kevin Bennett

Analyst · Stern Agee.

Yes that's certainly fare.

Stephen Macadam

Analyst · Stern Agee.

So on balance for the whole -- all the segments, including -- I am not adjusting for any acquisition deal here, just total bottom line, we're looking at somewhere with about a 4% decline in total, right. Obviously most of that is going to be FME driven.

Kevin Bennett

Analyst · Stern Agee.

Got it. And you said that was the bottom line?

Stephen Macadam

Analyst · Stern Agee.

No, that's the revenue but the total of all the segments.

Kevin Bennett

Analyst · Stern Agee.

Got it.

Stephen Macadam

Analyst · Stern Agee.

Total EnPro is what I meant, yes.

Kevin Bennett

Analyst · Stern Agee.

Got it, fair enough. Couple more for me. I know you guys put acquisitions kind of on the backburner while you're integrating to 2011 and then to Motorwheel 1, but now that we are kind of further along in that process, can we expect you guys to kind of pick up the pace of looking for deals or you're still working on the integration?

Stephen Macadam

Analyst · Stern Agee.

No, while the integration has actually gone quite well, we feel very good about where we are, all the heavy lifting of any facility consolidations, combination of organizations, etcetera, etcetera is behind us. We still do have some systems work to do, but that's kind of ongoing stuff, it's not really impeding the capturing of any synergies or anything like that. I actually feel very, very good about the kind of strategic position of our businesses including CPI. We've done a lot of work in CPI to get that business position. So I am pretty optimistic about the performance there as we go forward. Now to answer your question and for everyone, the simple fact of the matter is we got the estimation trial for the ACRP coming up this summer and we have got $150 million plus of cash that's kind of frozen up in that process. And we have got an intercompany note that we have to support for GST, so it's not a great time for EnPro overall to be raising new capital in the market. So we have to do it kind of based on our own cash flow, our own availability, etcetera, etcetera. This close to the estimation trial, which is as you guys know we've been working on for 2.5 years now getting ready for this, so part of it last year just happened to fit so that we had a lot of integration work to do and didn't have a lot of capital available on our existing balance sheet that we could tap or leverage. We are still in that situation on the balance sheet, so we are looking at a couple of smaller opportunities. None of those are likely to happen in the first quarter, and there is nothing big that's going to happen until -- unless and until we know what's going to happen with our ACRP case. Either we are going to be in the thing for quite a bit longer or we're going to reach a settlement sometime this year or the judge is going to do something to change the game in July. So given that we are so close to that, it's really prudent for us to kind of see how that plays out over the over 6 to 9 months.

Kevin Bennett

Analyst · Stern Agee.

Got it. Sure, that's there. Last one for me. The Canadian Natural Gas business at CPI, kind of been a problem child for a while and you guys have done a ton of work to try to right size it, but given some of the structural challenges in that market, I mean how committed are you guys to that business? I mean do you think you can -- I mean does it make sense to just get out of it or do you think you can earn a sufficient return, I mean what are your thoughts around that?

Stephen Macadam

Analyst · Stern Agee.

That's a good question. I mean it's something that we obliviously have robust debate about internally. I don't know that we have the definitive answer for the long term because we continue to look at it, but right now we feel like we're at least going to be moderately profitable up there given the demand that we see today and given the restructuring that we put in place. And we still think that long term it is a viable play. I mean there is lot of gas up there. As the total demand for energy around the globe continues to increase that gas -- that resource is going to be tapped and so we feel like strategically we are positioned very, very well. So as long as we continue to go forward on a go-forward basis, be moderately profitable, we are going to certainly continue to strengthen our position, try to gain share and be positioned for when it starts to get -- when the resource starts to get utilized more.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Joe Mondillo with Sidoti & Company.

Joseph Mondillo

Analyst · Sidoti & Company.

Just a follow-up on the last question. Just wondering directionally wise compared to say the third quarter if that environment has improved at all. It seemed like -- I think I have in my notes that you sort of barely broke even in the third quarter. So just wondering sort of -- have we seen sort of any improvement or are we still sort of treading on the bottom there?

Stephen Macadam

Analyst · Sidoti & Company.

I think we will try, it's tough to tell ,Joe, because Canada -- Western Canada and where we are is Q4 and Q1 are always the slowest quarters by far versus quarter 2 and quarter 3. So we really don't know how the market feels and is going to shake out until we get into the second quarter. So I would have to say that we don't see any indication that it's any best, certainly not any worse, but I would say it's almost too early to tell to be honest with you.

Joseph Mondillo

Analyst · Sidoti & Company.

Okay, fair enough. Also, could you just maybe give a little more color just in terms of sort of the competitive landscape within that business and sort of the competitive pressures that you are seeing?

Stephen Macadam

Analyst · Sidoti & Company.

You mean within CPI overall?

Joseph Mondillo

Analyst · Sidoti & Company.

Yes, within CPI.

Stephen Macadam

Analyst · Sidoti & Company.

Yes, I don't it's any -- I mean, I think it's about like it has been. I mean, our focus is on solving customer problems, and so we can still get paid when we effectively solve customers' problems for how they run their compressors with our parts and materials. That's what we focus on doing so.

Joseph Mondillo

Analyst · Sidoti & Company.

I guess I am just trying to ask or try to get a feel of your competitive landscape, I mean is there -- is this such an immense business where there is only a couple sort of competitors?

Stephen Macadam

Analyst · Sidoti & Company.

Yes, I mean, there is a few other big guys. Cook Compression, which is part of Dover; Hoerbiger, which is primarily on the valve side, but also they sell rings and packing that compete with us and we also sell valves that compete with them. That's a large Austrian company. And us are really the 3 big guys in the market. Then there is a whole competitive set which is the compressor companies trying to protect their after-market business, right, because these -- our parts are going on compressors made by GE and Dresser-Rand and Ariel and Neuman & Esser and so forth. So and they all have some level of after-market activity that they try to do to support their machines, and then there is still some -- there is a fair bit of fragment and mom and pops out there. That's a big part of what we acquired over the last 4, 5 years to grow our business. So I like our position, I mean you got to look at it really to local -- it's a local market business supported by a global company. So to look at the competitive dynamics, you almost have to look at it on a regional basis, different regions. There's at least 3 or 4 significant regions for this activity in the US alone. There is obviously western Canada, and even western Canada is so big there is a couple of regions that have different dynamics and then you've got a few regions in Europe that we look at etcetera. So as we look at our strategic position, we look at it within each one of those regional frames. And that's what we've been working on with our acquisition program over the last several years. It's just unfortunate that we've encountered such a difficult demand environment as we've had to consolidate these things and try to take advantage of some growth. So again, just to emphasis, we have got -- by the end of the first quarter, I did mention we didn't quite get done with the restructuring that was done. If it was begun in early 2012, that spilled over a little bit into January of this year, so we will have another restructuring charge less than $1 million in Q1. At that point, I am not saying we won't do anything going forward because we are always open to relooking at it, but at this point we've got the business to where we want it in terms of the headcount, footprint, etcetera.

Joseph Mondillo

Analyst · Sidoti & Company.

Great. That was helpful. Then also at GGB, staying in the Engineered Product segment, how was your headcount or sort of footprint been looking over the last quarter or so also during the market headwind?

Stephen Macadam

Analyst · Sidoti & Company.

Yes, the footprint in terms of facilities is the same and will be. I mean, we have 10 global facilities in GGB. They are all sizeable operations and stable. What we did do last year and Alex mentioned this in the restructuring costs, even when you flex hourly work and hourly workers in France, you have a fair bit of severance that's different than the U.S. As we flexed labor in Europe, primarily France the second half of the last year we had to pay some severance costs. Most of what we do to downsize is contract and temporary laborers, so that's why the number is not that big from a restructuring standpoint. But we flexed labor in Europe, [indiscernible] and some even in the fourth quarter. So but it's at this point, again the demand in Europe for GGB is -- I just can't really imagine that it would be lower in 2013 than it was in 2012. It may not get a lot better, but I don't see it getting any worse.

Joseph Mondillo

Analyst · Sidoti & Company.

Okay, and did you say that North America was down 5% at GGB?

Stephen Macadam

Analyst · Sidoti & Company.

Only in Q4.

Joseph Mondillo

Analyst · Sidoti & Company.

In Q4. Could you just give some color on that? I thought maybe that would be at least sort of flattish sort of what you are seeing there?

Stephen Macadam

Analyst · Sidoti & Company.

Yes. That was just fourth quarter year-over-year.

Alexander Pease

Analyst · Sidoti & Company.

Right, for the fourth quarter year-over-year, it was down about 5%. Most of that, Joe, happened towards the end of the year. So what we actually found was in December, the European market appeared to stabilize, it appeared to sort of reverse the trend that we'd seen earlier in the year, and the North American market got substantially weaker. So.

Joseph Mondillo

Analyst · Sidoti & Company.

Is that automobile or what end market was that?

Alexander Pease

Analyst · Sidoti & Company.

Not auto. In North America, it was primarily in the industrial space. As you know, the automotive markets in North America have actually been quite strong.

Joseph Mondillo

Analyst · Sidoti & Company.

Yes, that's why I was sort of wondering what was?

Stephen Macadam

Analyst · Sidoti & Company.

Yes. I think quite frankly, Joe, it's as much that Q4 in '11 was a pretty darn good quarter for that business, because it always slows in Q4 because of the year-end holidays and customers wanting to get their inventories cleaned up a little bit and so forth. So GGB historically has been fairly weak just seasonally in the fourth quarter. It wasn't that weak in '11 and but it kind of returned to that. So some of it's just the year-over-year comp.

Joseph Mondillo

Analyst · Sidoti & Company.

Okay, and just one last question, if you will. GST, I was wondering if you could give a little more color on sort of the end markets there and how they're trending. I thought maybe given that it's more sort of downstream oil and gas that it might not have - might have held in a little bit more and also how much is the petrochem part of that business?

Stephen Macadam

Analyst · Sidoti & Company.

I don't know the petrochem off the top of my head. Don, do you have that handy?

Don Washington

Analyst · Sidoti & Company.

I don't know.

Stephen Macadam

Analyst · Sidoti & Company.

We can easily follow-up with Don on that. I mean, I know it's in our stuff. I just don't want to quote a wrong number, Joe. But ,no, that market has been good, because again when we, you've got to make sure that when you are looking at GST, Garlock you are looking at the whole family of Garlock companies, which would include both what's consolidated and what's deconsolidated, right. So when you add that whole thing up, that's then the -- and most of the most of the refinery and petrochem exposure in Garlock is actually in the GST LLC, in the filed entity. So it's going to be in the GST, in the separate deconsolidated numbers, okay, certainly in the U.S. But when you look at the business as a total and the whole family of companies, no, it's been very, very - it's been stable. And we feel pretty good about it. I mean, we feel that there's going to be a decent turnaround season that comes up in Q2 this year. We've got decent distribution orders for that. The weakness that we are seeing in Garlock is in the consolidated portion in Europe as part of the PSI acquisition we did. We have some exposure to waste water and water projects. So when a city municipality does a big refurb of a waste water plant or a puts new water piping in, et cetera, et cetera, we sell a lot of pipeline products into that market. That's a business that we acquired with -- it came as part of the PSI acquisition and its European based, primarily Germany. Because none of it -- and so when Alex talks about infrastructure for water and waste water, he's talking about infrastructure really in Europe. And because they don't have a lot of money in those cities, even though they've got a pretty antiquated infrastructure, that project activity has been very, very slow. And that's really the primary area of weakness that we've seen in Garlock and that does show up on the consolidated side.

Alexander Pease

Analyst · Sidoti & Company.

Yes, Joe, just some additional couple of points, one thing that we did see in the fourth quarter was some, I mentioned it my remarks, some conservatism in the supply chain as distributors were drawing down inventories, just some anxiety around what 2013 looked like. But actually I'm looking at the January numbers and as Steve mentioned for GST, sales are actually quite strong. Which is in line with what we've heard for the spring turnaround season, so not only does that bode well for GST, it also is a positive indicator for CPI's petrochemical and refining businesses.

Operator

Operator

There are no further questions in queue. I'll turn the call back over to the presenters.

Stephen Macadam

Analyst

All right, we thank you all for attending the call this morning and we look forward to talking to you again soon. As always, if you have any questions or need any follow-up, please don't hesitate to give me a call. Thank you again and we'll talk to you next quarter.

Operator

Operator

That concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.