Peter Kelly
Analyst · Steve Smigie, representing Raymond James
Thanks, Rick, and good morning to everyone on today's call. Before I start, I'd like to mention that we recently announced that we have changed our segment reporting, and that we'll also be excluding stock-based comp from our non-GAAP reporting as we move forward. We made the segment reporting changes to better reflect the underlying trends in our business, our gross -- sorry, General Purpose Logic business line clearly has more in common, both from a gross margin and a go-to-market strategy with our Standard Products business than with our HPMS business. And our software business is used in support of our mobile business. Clearly, the GPL move is the much bigger change of the 2. Now we've also decided to exclude stock-based comp from our non-GAAP numbers. We'll continue to give you full visibility on the impact of this, but believe this change will give you a better view of the underlying performance of our business, as well as make this more directly comparable with key peers. Finally, as this is a transition quarter, I will try to bridge between the old reporting and the new reporting to ensure you have the opportunity to understand what is happening. And I'll also try and anticipate some of the more obvious questions. Hopefully, I'm not confused anymore, and I apologize in advance if I appear to be spoonfeeding obvious data. Overall, we delivered a good quarter, reflecting better top line revenue trends than originally expected. We delivered non-GAAP earnings of $0.72, continue to pay down debt, as well as completing 2 debt transactions, which convert at about $1 billion of floating rate secured debt to fixed rate unsecured debt. And now turning to the specifics of the quarter. Top line revenue was $1.085 billion, down 3% versus the fourth quarter, but at the top end of our guidance. We generated $537 million in non-GAAP gross profit of 49.5% non-GAAP gross margin. During the quarter, an ongoing legal dispute was resolved in our favor, which resulted in a $43.5 million net benefit to cost of goods. Excluding the onetime benefit, non-GAAP gross profit was 45.5%, which was below our target due to several items in our Standard Products segment, which I'll discuss in a moment. Total operating expenses was $289 million or about $2.5 million better than our original guidance, excluding $16 million in stock option expense, including in operating expenses. This resulted in non-GAAP operating profit of $255 million or 23.5%. So let me turn to the segment performance. Within our HPMS segment, revenue was $776 million, down 1% versus the prior period, but approximately $14 million better than our target. HPMS non-GAAP gross profit was $465 million or 59.9%. Our non-GAAP operating profit was $229 million or 29.5%, 520 basis points higher sequentially. Excluding the $43.5 million one-off onetime legal dispute, HPMS non-GAAP gross profit would've been 54.3%, 20 basis points lower than the prior quarter. In our Standard Products segment, which is now the combination of our General Purpose Logic and discrete businesses, revenue was $279 million, down 3% sequentially and approximately $8 million below our target. Standard Products segment non-GAAP gross profit was $73 million, or 26.2%, about $18 million or 6.5 -- sorry, 650 basis points below our target. While revenue in the Logic business was a bit lower than expected, gross profit fall-through was essentially as we expected. Within our Standard Products business, about half the impact of gross margin was due to poor product mix and a tougher pricing environment. The remaining shortfall was due to poor operational performance, with lower absorption than planned and a slower ramp up in our factories, following the quality issues reported in Q4 and a slower return to work in our factories, following the Chinese New Year. We are diligently working to address the issues within our control but do not expect an immediate improvement in the business. Standard Products segment non-GAAP operating profit was $28 million or 10%. Interest expense was $49 million, slightly better than expected. Noncontrolling interest was $13 million, in line with our guidance, and cash taxes were $7 million or $2 million, better than expected. Taken together, our non-GAAP earnings per share was $0.72, of which about $0.17 was due to the legal dispute benefit and about $0.07 was stock-based compensation. Net of these items, earnings per share was $0.49 per share, which was in line with the midpoint of our guidance. Now I'd like to turn to the changes in our cash and debt. Our total debt to the end of the first quarter was $3.44 billion, down $52 million from the fourth quarter. During the quarter, we completed 2 $500 million unsecured note transactions using the proceeds to pay -- to repay $962 million in secured floating rate term loans. Both of the new bonds carry fixed interest of 5.75% and are due in 2021 and 2023 respectively. While the refinancing actions do not materially change our expense outlook, they do derisk and extend our debt maturity profile. And we continue to see interest expense in the $195 million range this year and are committed to our deleveraging programs. Cash at the end of the quarter was $595 million down $22 million sequentially. We exited the quarter with net debt of $2.8 billion on a trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA of $1.2 billion, resulting in a net debt to trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA leverage ratio of 2.4x. You will note that we bought back 1.1 million shares at a cost of $35 million. I want to assure you that we're still very much focused on paying down our debt, but to the extent that we receive proceeds from the exercise options, we will use these receipts to offset any dilution. You will also note that our overall non-GAAP fully diluted share count increased from 254 million for the fourth quarter to 257.8 million shares for the first quarter. This reflects the almost 25% increase in the average share price of NXP from Q4 to Q1. Turning to our working capital metrics. Days of inventory were 111, an increase of 7 days. Receivable days were 39, up 1 day, while payable days was 78, down 4 days, resulting in a cash conversion cycle of 72 days, up 12 days from the prior quarter and reflecting seasonably lower revenue in Q1 and planned revenue growth in Q2. Cash flow from operations was $119 million, and net CapEx was $39 million, resulting in a $80 million -- resulting in $80 million of free cash flow or approximately 7% free cash flow margin. Now I'd like to provide our outlook for the second quarter. Influencing our outlook is strong demand due to company-specific design wins in multiple areas of our HPMS business. We currently anticipate product revenue to be in the range of up 6% to up 12% sequentially. At the midpoint of this range, of 9% sequentially, we anticipate the following trends, all on a percentage point basis. Within our HPMS segment, we expect Identification revenue to be up in the low double-digit range. Within our Automotive business, we expect revenue to be up in the single-digit range. Within Infrastructure & Industrial business, we expect revenues to be up in the low teens range. And we anticipate in our Portable & Computing business to be up about 10%. Within our Standard Products segment, we anticipate low- to mid-single digit sequential growth. We anticipate the combination of manufacturing and Corporate and Other to be around $26 million. And taken together, total NXP revenues should be in the range of approximately $1.15 billion to $1.21 billion, or $1.179 billion at the midpoint, up about 9% sequentially. We expect non-GAAP gross profit to be about 46%. We expect operating expenses to increase by about $10 million and to be about $300 million, plus or minus $5 million as we plan to accelerate certain development investments within ID to continue to reinforce our market leadership position. Taken together, our guidance should into a non-GAAP operating profit in the range of $237 million to $258 million. Interest expense on our debt should be approximately $48 million, cash taxes roughly $12 million and noncontrolling interest expense should be about $17 million. Stock-based compensation should be about $20 million, which is excluded from our guidance. Diluted share count should be about 259 million shares, depending on share price fluctuations. Taken together, this translates into earnings per share of $0.62 to $0.70, or $0.66 per share at the midpoint of our guidance range. Clearly, our profit and EPS guidance is below where we would've liked it to be, given our improvement in the sequential revenue growth. We are very comfortable with the performance of our HPMS business, but our Standard Products business is at a tough quarter. And we believe, at this point, it's responsible not to forecast the snapback in Q2. Finally, I'm sure you'll be wondering what the status is of our goal of exiting 2013 at 25% EBIT. Clearly, I don't want to give guidance for Q4. However, I would like to say the following. Firstly, the exclusion of stock-based comp is not part of our plan to get to 25%. Without stock-based compensation, the comparable number is 26%. Secondly, our HPMS business is clearly on track with what we've discussed in the recent past. I believe that our Standard Products team can get their profitability back on track during 2013, so we feel no reason to back off our goal. I'd like to now turn it back over to your questions. Jeff?