Bill Griffiths
Analyst · CJS Securities. Your line is open
Thanks, Brent. During the third quarter, we transferred the operating responsibility for two wood-based accessory plants from our North American Engineered Components segment to our Cabinet Components segment. On an annualized basis, this transfers approximately $25 million in revenues and just over $3 million of EBITDA from segment to segment. Of the $25 million in revenue, approximately two-thirds is fenestration related. These moves have been contemplated since the acquisition of Woodcraft in late 2015, but were consciously postponed until the core business was more stable. While there will be some minor cost savings related to these moves in 2018, they will immediately help relieve some bottleneck capacity issues at some of the other Woodcraft plants, as we continue to relocate production to better balance capacity. In an effort to clarify the year-over-year comparisons, we have provided a segment reconciliation table in the earnings release. Operationally, we continue to make slow, but steady progress in our Cabinet Components segment, with margins improving 30 basis points during the quarter, and we continue to expect margin expansion in this segment during the fourth quarter of this year and through 2018. The underlying growth rates in this segment, excluding the business we’re exiting was 1.5% for the quarter and 5.9% year-to-date. This compares to the latest KCMA numbers for the semi-custom segment of 2.8% growth for the quarter and 3.9% growth year-to-date. In the North American Engineered Components segment, the underlying growth specific to our U.S. fenestration products business was a healthy 5.4% during the quarter and 5.0% year-to-date, which compares favorably to the latest Ducker numbers for the three months and nine months ended June 30, of 4.3% and 2.9%, respectively. Unfortunately, most of this growth has been offset by a significant decline in our non-fenestration products, driven mostly by solar edge tape and our wood flooring business. This decline was expected, but at a much slower pace. We expect non-fenestration products to continue to be a smaller percentage of this segment through 2018. Adjusted EBITDA margin across the non-vinyl North American Engineered Components businesses improved slightly, which is in line with our expectations. With respect to our U.S. vinyl extrusion business, after successfully relocating 13 extrusion lines and 237 tools, we are now working to rebalance the capacity across our remaining three plants to better optimize manufacturing efficiencies. As such, we are in the process of relocating 123 tools from our Kent Washington plant to Kentucky and I anticipate that this will be completed during Q4. At this time, we do not expect to relocate any additional extrusion lines that may very well mothball some of our older and less productive lines. In Europe, despite Brexit, growth was still robust at 6.3% on a local currency basis. Margins fell in this segment compared to Q3 of 2016, mainly due to a very strong comp at HL Plastics, which had the benefit of a temporary trough in raw material prices last year. Notwithstanding this and a gain on a local currency basis, the adjusted EBITDA margin of 17.7% for the quarter was in line with our expectations and similar to the fiscal 2016 adjusted EBITDA margin for this segment of 17.8%. Now let me try and summarize what has been a somewhat complicated quarter. We transferred $7 million of revenue and $900,000 of EBITDA from the North American Engineered Components segment to the North American Cabinet Components segment during the quarter. Revenues were reduced by $23 million, almost 10% during the quarter to the planned exit of products that do not meet our financial objectives. On an annualized basis, the overall impact is now likely to be closer to $80 million rather than the $75 million we previously estimated. The slight increase compared to our previous estimate is related to both vinyl extrusions and cabinet components. Revenues in the non-fenestration part of our North American Engineered Components segment declined faster than anticipated. This was led by a reduction in our wood flooring business, which is currently under strategic review. Secondly, our solar edge tape business is off significantly due to a technology change with our largest solar customer. The new design requires less tape than the previous design and the customer is transitioning faster than planned. Excluding this, our underlying U.S. fenestration business grew faster than the market compared to Ducker. The North American Cabinet Components segment grew more or less in line with the semi-custom segment of the market compared to KCMA, and Europe continue to outgrow expectations at 6.3% on a local currency basis. In summary, above market growth in fenestration components in North America is being offset by a decline in non-fenestration products and European growth is being offset by continued FX headwinds. As a result, we now expect full-year revenues to fall below the low-end of our previous guidance range, which was $880 million. We currently expect revenues to come in closer to $870 million. During Q4, we expect margins to continue to improve in the Cabinet Components segment remain static in Europe and improved slightly in the North American Engineered Components segment. With that said and after accounting for our year-to-date results, our current expectation is for the full-year consolidated adjusted EBITDA margin to slip from a 11.9% in 2016 to the low to mid-11% range in 2017. Looking ahead to 2018, we do not expect to shed any further business nor do we expect a further decline in our non-fenestration business. We do, however, expect market growth in fenestration above market growth in fenestration, market growth in our Cabinet Component segment and continued growth in Europe on a local currency basis. In addition, we expect to return to consolidated adjusted EBITDA margin expansion led by accelerated improvements in the North American Cabinet Component segment. Finally, we expect to put a difficult transition year with multiple plant closures, lost business and product line repositioning behind us and look forward to a more normalized 2018. Before I close, I’d like to comment on the recent promotion of George Wilson to the newly created position of Chief Operating Officer. George came to us in 2011 with the acquisition of Edgetech and he successfully consolidated it with our legacy TruSeal business. This has been our most successful acquisition integration by far and has surpassed all of the cost savings and growth targets set at the time of the acquisition. In his new role, George is now focused on implementing a more robust cross-selling initiative and accelerating the margin expansion objectives at Woodcraft. Both the Board and I are confident that George can lead us to the next level of operational excellence, which in turn will continue margin expansion and improve cash flow generation. Operator, we’re now ready for questions.