Richard Johnson
Analyst · Bank of America. Your line is open
Thank you, Jack. So let's start by reviewing the results for our June quarter. Our consolidated sales for the quarter were $186 million that was a decline of $18 million or 9% versus the prior year. During the quarter, we experienced a short-term decline in demand for our products due to the pandemic. The animal production industry faced unprecedented demand disruptions, production impacts, price declines, plus substantial currency volatility in a number of international markets. We experienced sales declines in all three segments of our business, primarily due to lower volumes. In Animal Health, we saw increased sales in nutritional specialty and vaccine products, but those were partially offset by the lower sales of MFAs and other products. We'll get into further details regarding segment results later in the presentation. Our reported net income was $5.6 million for the quarter that was a decline of $3.2 million or 36% compared to the prior year. Income before income taxes improved, primarily due to restructuring costs in the same quarter last year. However, an unusually higher provision for income taxes caused the net income decline. The increase in income tax was driven by the effects of the complex additional federal income tax known as GILTI, that's an acronym changes in uncertain tax positions and the absence of tax benefits on the operating results of some of our newer international operations. As a result, diluted earnings per share was $0.14 for the current quarter that was a decrease of $0.08 per share from the prior year. Now let's look at adjusted results on page 6. I'll discuss net sales in more detail when we look at the individual segments level. In total, adjusted gross profit was $62.1 million for the quarter. That was a decline of $4.5 million or 7% compared to the prior year. We did see favorable product mix in the Animal Health and nutrition segments during the quarter and that contributed to an improvement overall in the overall gross profit percentage. In the Animal Health segment, increased sales and gross profit from nutritional specialty and vaccine product sales partially offset lower volumes in MFAs and other products. Mineral Nutrition gross profit decreased as lower average selling prices more than offset favorable raw material costs and the gross profit decline in Performance Products was driven by lower overall volume. Total adjusted SG&A or operating expenses decreased in the quarter they were $44.2 million that was a decrease of $1.7 million or 4% year-on-year, primarily due to lower variable compensation and employee-related costs in the Animal Health segment with a partial offset from the effects of the Osprey acquisition. This is the last quarter where we will see the -- any meaningful impact of the overlap of the acquisition which we did in August -- beginning of August a year ago. The adjusted provision for income taxes was unusually high in the quarter for the same reasons that I described earlier. And as a result, adjusted diluted EPS was $0.17 per share compared with $0.30 per share last year. Looking more closely at the Animal Health business. Net sales of $122 million declined $9.6 million or 7% compared to the same period of the prior year. Net sales of nutritional specialty products were $31.1 million, an increase of $2.6 million or 9%. The Osprey acquisition accounted for the majority of that sales growth. Net sales of vaccines were $18.6 million, an increase of $1.5 million or 8%, driven by higher international demand. And net sales of MFAs and other products were $72.6 million, a decline of $13.7 million or 16%. We saw lower demand in various international regions, including China and South America, and the volume decline in China was due to the effects of African Swine fever plus a phased regulatory change that took effect in the middle of our fiscal year in January of 2020. For the Animal Health segment, adjusted EBITDA was $29.6 million that was a decline of $1.6 million or 5%. The decrease was attributable to the overall sales and related gross profit decreases, partially offset by favorable SG&A costs. And now, looking at our other segments. The Mineral Nutrition had net sales of almost $50 million that was about a $6 million decrease or 11% due to -- primarily due to lower average selling prices, coupled with slightly lower overall unit volumes. The lower average selling prices are generally correlated with the movement of underlying raw material costs. Gross profit declined $300,000 in the quarter as the decline in average selling prices was more than the change in favorable raw material costs. As a result adjusted EBITDA was $3.5 million, down about $300,000 compared with the same quarter last year. The Performance Products business reported net sales of $13.6 million, also a decline -- a decline of $2.3 million or 14%. We saw volume declines in copper-based in our industrial chemical products, which contributed to lower profitability and overall a $400,000 decrease in adjusted EBITDA. And corporate expenses were comparable to the prior year. Now, turning briefly to our full year performance. This is -- since this is the end of our fiscal year, we, not only, are talking about the quarter, but talking about the full year. So, for the full year, we have $800 million of sales that was about a 3% year-over-year decline. And within the Animal Health segment sales declined about $5 million. Of that total decline $5 million was -- approximately $5 million was within the Animal Health segment and that was a 1% decline. We did report double-digit sales growth for our nutritional specialty and vaccine product lines. However, MFAs and other products declined. Our nutritional -- net sales of nutritional specialties grew 14% for the full year due to volume growth in poultry and dairy products. And the recent Osprey acquisition accounted for approximately two-thirds of the overall sales growth for that product group. Vaccines grew 10% for the full year due to strong international demand for poultry vaccines and increasing market penetration. In addition, in the prior year we had a domestic distribution arrangement for the first four months of the year. And so on a comparable basis our net sales of vaccines would have increased 14% without that unfavorable overlap. And finally, net sales of MFAs and other products declined 8% due to a $31 million sales decline in China driven by the effects of African Swine Fever and regulatory changes. The other segments of our business also saw declines in sales. Mineral Nutrition segment declined $19 million that decline -- or that was an 8% decline. Decline was primarily driven by lower average selling prices. And Performance Products net sales decreased $3 million or about 5% due to reduced volumes of copper-based products with a partial offset from more business in the personal care ingredients area. Adjusted gross profit overall was $263.5 million that declined $6.4 million or 2% due to the sales and related gross profit declines. Animal Health adjusted gross profit declined primarily due to the sales decline in MFAs and other products with some partial offset from the sales growth and the other product groups. Mineral Nutrition adjusted gross profit also declined as we saw average selling prices being dropping slightly faster than the overall favorable raw material costs and the favorable effect of increased unit volumes, and in Performance Products gross profit declined due to overall lower volumes. Total company for the full year adjusted SG&A increased $11.5 million or 7% as we continued to invest in product development and strategic initiatives. In addition, the Osprey acquisition and increased public company costs related to strengthening and testing of internal control over financial reporting also contributed to the overall expense increase. As a result, adjusted EBITDA for the year was $102 million compared to $118 million a year ago and that translated to adjusted earnings per share of $1.08 a 29% decline compared to $1.53 a year ago. And now briefly looking at capitalization. At the end of June, we had a gross leverage ratio of 3.8 times. That was $388 million of total debt compared to $102 million of adjusted EBITDA. We also had $91 million of cash and short-term investments on the balance sheet at that same point in time. For the June quarter, we used $6 million of cash before financing activities primarily for our ongoing capital expenditure program. For the full year, we used $30 million of cash excluding change in short-term investments and that included using $55 million for the acquisition of Osprey. So putting aside the acquisition of Osprey, we generated $25 million of cash prior to the -- prior to any financing activities for the year. And we have paid and declared to be paid the routine quarterly dividend of $0.12 a share. And now talking a little bit about our guidance. We are forecasting only short-term expectations at this point given the ongoing difficult conditions in the industry. And as a result, our more limited visibility than we would normally -- if we would normally have. The animal production industry continues to face demand disruption and production impacts. We do believe we are optimistic. We believe the current situation will normalize as we progress through our fiscal year and the industry gradually will return to typical operating levels. Our guidance for our September quarter is to have net sales of approximately $190 million and that's about the same level as the September quarter a year ago. That will translate to net income of $5 million to $6 million on a GAAP basis, an increase of $2.5 to $3.5 million compared to last year and GAAP EPS of $0.13 to $0.15 per share, again an increase of $0.07 to $0.09 per share. Adjusted EBITDA, we are guiding to approximately $20 million for the quarter, again approximately equal to the prior quarter and that will translate to adjusted diluted EPS of $0.18 to $0.20 per share a plus or minus change of $0.01 from the same quarter last year. And with that, that's the end of my prepared comments. We will open it up for questions from the callers. Operator, please?