Earnings Labs

Pitney Bowes Inc. (PBI)

Q2 2015 Earnings Call· Thu, Jul 30, 2015

$15.88

+0.86%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

+2.30%

1 Week

+2.05%

1 Month

-3.13%

vs S&P

+3.11%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning and welcome to the Pitney Bowes' Second Quarter 2015 Results Conference Call. Your lines have been placed in a listen-only mode during the conference call until the question-and-answer segments. Today's call is also being recorded. If you have any objections, please disconnect your lines at this time. I would now like to introduce your speakers for today's conference call, Mr. Marc Lautenbach, President and Chief Executive Officer; Mr. Michael Monahan, Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer; Mr. Charles McBride, Vice President-Investor Relations. Mr. McBride will now begin the call with a Safe Harbor overview.

Charles F. McBride - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Good morning. Included in this presentation are forward-looking statements about our expected future business and financial performance. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to be materially different from our projections. More information about these risks and uncertainties can be found in our 2014 Form 10-K Annual Report and other reports filed with the SEC that are located on our website at www.pb.com and by clicking on Investor Relations. Please keep in mind that we do not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information or developments. Also, for non-GAAP measures used in the press release or discussed in this presentation, you can find reconciliations to the appropriate GAAP measures in the tables attached to our press release and also on our Investor Relations website. Additionally, we have provided slides that summarize most of the points we will discuss during the call. These slides can also be found on our Investor Relations website. Now, our President and Chief Executive Officer, Marc Lautenbach will start with a few opening remarks. Marc? Marc Bradley Lautenbach - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you, Charlie, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. Earlier this year, I told you that 2015 was going to be a pivotal year in our transformation. I also told you that we would move forward with the same disciplined, focused required for the long-term success of the company. The objective of our transformation has been and continues to be to create long-term value. In the second quarter, we took several actions to transform Pitney Bowes and to create value. We closed on the sale of our World Headquarters building and also closed on the sale of our Marketing Services business. Both of these transactions are clear…

Operator

Operator

Thank you very much. And our first question in queue will come from Ananda Baruah with Brean Capital. Please go ahead.

Ananda P. Baruah - Brean Capital LLC

Analyst

Hi, good morning, guys, thanks for taking the questions. I guess, a few if I could. The first is, Mike, could you just sort of walk us through the components of the adjusted EPS guide down, there is a number of things in the GAAP adjustments and just trying to make sure we understand the components to the adjusted EPS change in guidance? Thanks. And I have some follow-ups. Michael Monahan - Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: Sure. In terms of the adjusted EPS guidance forward, there are really simply two items that are adjustments to our prior guidance. One is $0.06 related to the Imagitas business sale that would be the earnings of that business in the second half of the year. And you would note that in that business, typically there are big (33:59) there is a third quarter because of the move season around the summer time, but that specifically relates to their earnings. The second is related to the Borderfree acquisition of $0.04 adjustment. That really reflects principally the amortization of the intangibles that are related to the acquisition, the amortization for the – basically for the seven months of the year that we would own the business. There's net about an additional penny related to investments associated with integration of the business offset by some early synergies associated with the business. So the net change is $0.10 in the adjusted earnings EPS range and that's specifically related to those two items.

Ananda P. Baruah - Brean Capital LLC

Analyst

Got it. And just as a housekeeping question in that context, I believe last quarter you had talked about an incremental – baked into the old guidance, incremental expense for ongoing ERP and marketing programs. Has that changed at all or is that still – it wasn't called out this quarter but just want to make sure that nothing has changed there in it? Michael Monahan - Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: It continues to be in our base. Some of the obviously components vary from quarter-to-quarter. We continue on track with both of those initiatives and we'll continue to incur costs related to those in the second half, but those are in our guidance assumptions.

Ananda P. Baruah - Brean Capital LLC

Analyst

Okay, got it, thanks. And then – the 1% to 5% constant currency growth for the second half of the year is pretty strong, I realized there is – some of it is you have stuff ramping and there's some kind of easy compares stuffs in there as well, but generally speaking, do you have more confidence now based on what you've seen in the pipeline that what has been your constant currency guidance, which I – I believe has been kind of 1% to 3%, is a reasonable way to think about the normalized run rate of the business once you get through, you know sort of all the – sort of normalized model I guess, kind of comping this and transacting that? Marc Bradley Lautenbach - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: The short answer is yes. We do think that's a reasonable going forward expectation. The reason we are more, the reason we are confident in the second half projections really breaks into two categories. First of all, from a macroeconomic perspective, you know as you look around the world clearly the expectations for higher GDP growth, that will inevitably help us. Secondly, we do think some of the effects of currency and will either begin to wrap and/or stabilize. So you are in presumably a better macroeconomic environment. The part that gives us the most confidence, however, is with is what's within our own grasp and I'll – I'll point to a couple of topics. First of all, as you look at our channel maturation for SMB in North America as well as Europe, ex-France you're another quarter along, I expect North America to be more or less kind of back on the horse in the second half of the year. And Europe SMB, ex-France, again…

Ananda P. Baruah - Brean Capital LLC

Analyst

That's really useful, guys. Just one last quick one here. Can you just put some a little bit greater context around how you guys envision ongoing improvements in North American SMB, because it sounds like you have two things working for you now. You have -- you have the go-to-market kind of programs in place, but then you guys also have sort of the new products that are rolled out. And I guess if you could just sort of like, I don't know. I know you're going to give guidance on the Analyst Day on this, but just give us some sense of how material each of those things could be? And then just a second thing on ecommerce is, Marc your comments on the call just now about, about new wins in the business that you kind have lines of sight of revenue. Is that legacy Pitney ecommerce or does some of that also include Borderfree? And then I'll cede the floor, thanks. Marc Bradley Lautenbach - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: So, in reverse order, it's both, both legacy Pitney Bowes as well as Borderfree had some very important signings in the second quarter, which will begin to deliver benefits as we get into the back half of the year, specifically December, as we get to the fourth quarter and the holiday season. As it relates to North American SMB, if you look at the original guidance that we had talked about in terms of our long-term model, we have a set goal post of between minus 1 and minus 4 in the second quarter Ex currency. We were at 3, minus 3 as Mike indicated that decline was the best performance that we had in five quarters, parenthetically, it's the second best performance we have had since I have been here. That said, we do see continued improvement in that business in the second half of the year. Our objective has been and continues to be to operate on right side of that football field between minus 1 and minus 4. We are not there yet, but we are getting closer and it's in our sights. And I'd say the product announcement will help and the channel maturation really helps as well.

Ananda P. Baruah - Brean Capital LLC

Analyst

Thanks a lot, guys. Congrats. Michael Monahan - Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question in queue that will come from George Tong with Piper Jaffray. Please go ahead. George K. F. Tong - Piper Jaffray & Co (Broker): Hi, good morning. Michael Monahan - Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: Good morning. George K. F. Tong - Piper Jaffray & Co (Broker): Can you provide some additional details on how the sales of your process is progressing in France, and what the key issues are there and when you expect growth trends there to be stabilized? Michael Monahan - Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: Sure. As we've talked about in the last quarter, in terms of France there is a works council process that you must work through. We completed the consultation phase and we're now in the transition phase, meaning, we are moving resources into the new model, we are hiring in new sales people in some cases, and we expect all that to be in place by September so that as we finish the third quarter and enter the fourth quarter we will have that program fully in place. George K. F. Tong - Piper Jaffray & Co (Broker): Got it. And turning to international SMB more broadly, now that the go-to-market changes are largely complete, do you expect revenue growth to revert back to levels prior to the restructure and what's the timeline? Michael Monahan - Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. In terms of international, clearly we expect there to be quarter-to-quarter improvement in the growth rates as we go forward. As we talked about different countries are in different sort of stages of completion on this, I would say the UK through the first half of the year has already…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is queue will come from Shannon Cross with Cross Research. Please go ahead.

Shannon S. Cross - Cross Research LLC

Analyst

Thank you very much for taking my question. I just had a couple, the first is – are you done with divestures and acquisitions at this point, do you think you kind of got the assets or are there any other pieces you might be able to – to spin-off? Marc Bradley Lautenbach - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I looked up the questions and answers from the first quarter, and that was the same question you asked in the first quarter, you are very consistent so. It's good to be able to count on some things in the life, I'll give you the...

Shannon S. Cross - Cross Research LLC

Analyst

I try, I try. Marc Bradley Lautenbach - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I'll give you the same answer, in that, value in the marketplace has continued to evolve, therefore your portfolio needs to continue to evolve. There is – you know, I had always articulated two criteria for staying in the portfolio, one was you got an acceptable level of return and second were strategically coherent. And I guess what Marketing Services taught me was, I really should have articulated a third criteria in that if a business is worth substantially more to someone else than it is to you, then it's the right thing to do for your shareholders to consummate that transaction. So, as I look at our portfolio today, I like how everything fits and clearly we're on the path of making acceptable returns. I will not preclude those dynamics changing and it's certainly hard to predict the dynamics of how one enterprise sees value versus how you see it. In terms of acquisitions, we continue to look at our development plans for the next five years and we look at make versus buy decisions. We've got a series of, I would characterize as mostly smaller types of transactions that we look at and if we can get those for the right price, we'll do it. But again, I do not see in our future anything that would be characterized as acquisitions that are outside of our strike zone.

Shannon S. Cross - Cross Research LLC

Analyst

Okay. Great. And then, my second question is just with regard to the share repurchase, which you said you're now going to be completing by the end of the year. Do you look at that as something from an ongoing standpoint; you want to keep the program in place going forward? I just – it goes under cash usage which you just talked about acquisitions, but I guess how do you think about cash return to shareholders going forward? Michael Monahan - Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: I think, in terms of cash return to shareholders as we've really done a lot of work on our balance sheet as we look at sort of the balance of growth opportunities in the business, the additional leverage we should get as we go forward and implement our impact program, we feel good about the free cash flow profile of the business as we go forward. So we see return of capital as an ongoing component of our capital allocation program as we move forward. That said, obviously if there's a particular opportunity for reinvestment in the business we're always going to look at that as well and its total impact on shareholder return. Marc Bradley Lautenbach - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: You can discern from our actions where our view is of how to drive shareholder value at this point in time. But it's always predicated on what's going on in the marketplace, what your stock price is at, what other opportunities you have for that cash. What you're seeing is kind of our view of that dynamic right now and I believe that will continue for the foreseeable future, but it is a fairly dynamic market.

Shannon S. Cross - Cross Research LLC

Analyst

Great. Thank you very much. Michael Monahan - Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Next in queue is Glenn Mattson with Ladenburg Thalmann. Please go ahead. Glenn G. Mattson - Ladenburg Thalmann & Co., Inc. (Broker): Hi. Good morning, guys. A question -- a little bit more on the Borderfree. I was curious, when the e-commerce business really took off a couple of years back, there were occasional references to the idea that there may be other very large partners out there beyond eBay that would also benefit from this service. Is part of the maybe extreme upside case on the Borderfree acquisition -- the part of the idea there that perhaps this could help you finalize or close some of those larger deals with larger partners? Marc Bradley Lautenbach - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well listen, I'll say a couple of things. First of all the legacy Pitney Bowes business made some reasonable progress on that front in the second quarter, we'll talk more about that as we get into the back half of the year. I would say more importantly that going forward combination of the two businesses provides the possibility of more compelling value propositions to our clients. Glenn G. Mattson - Ladenburg Thalmann & Co., Inc. (Broker): Okay, great. And then -- I think I know the answer, but just to check the box. The – do you anticipate any disruption role from the eBay's split up with PayPal? Michael Monahan - Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: There is – there's obviously been an ongoing working relationship and dialogue with eBay and so that's continued throughout the process that they've gone through. And we would expect that to remain a good working relationship. Glenn G. Mattson - Ladenburg Thalmann & Co., Inc. (Broker): Right. great. Okay. Thanks, guys. Michael Monahan - Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Yeah. At this time, if there's no additional questions in queue. I will turn the conference back to our presenter for any closing comments. Marc Bradley Lautenbach - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you, operator. I'd like to close on three points. First of all, I'm not terribly pleased with how we executed in the quarter. There were some bright spots in the North America, SMB did better, Presort continued to do reasonably well and the North America software business performed reasonably. That being said on balance, we should have done better. And we are taking actions to improve our execution as we get into the second half of the year. The second point, I think, it's the more important point, is that we really made substantial progress on our long-term strategy in the second quarter. The acquisition of Borderfree, I believe will be game changing. We are the market leader with first mover advantage in a very substantial and fast growing market. Also worth noting and we haven't talked a lot about this, but we have a world-class management team in that business right now. That gives me even more confidence. You will see more about this, but it is something that gives us great optimism. In our SMB business, the new market approach is settling down. We see clearly within our sites improvements, both in the North American SMB business as well as international mailing, again setting us up for the long-term very, very well. Finally, we continued to drive operational excellence and thereby unlock substantial shareholder value. Continue to become efficient, simplifying our business and rationalizing our portfolio. Significantly, we continued to make real progress with our systems work and as Mike indicated the benefits are now crowing in our sides. I said in my prepared remarks that our focus is to create shareholder value and we'll always choose the creation of shareholder value over a more expedient path of protecting a quarter or a year. I'll make the point that strategies are necessarily long-term in nature. I've now been at this about 30 months. We describe this as a three year to five year transformation. And you can see as you get to the back half of that transformation, the benefits are clearly within our grasp. As I said, at the outset, I am very, very pleased with where we are in our overall transformation and as I said the benefits are now in our sights. I look forward to giving you a more detailed update at our Analyst Day in September, until then, we will see you. Thank you.