Earnings Labs

Parker-Hannifin Corporation (PH)

Q1 2016 Earnings Call· Thu, Oct 22, 2015

$947.49

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Quarter One 2016 Parker-Hannifin Corp. Earnings Conference Call. My name is Sue and I'll be your operator for today. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. We will conduct a question-and-answer session towards the end of this conference. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Jon Marten, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Please proceed, sir. Jon P. Marten - Executive Vice President-Finance & Adminstration and Chief Financial Officer: Good morning and welcome to Parker-Hannifin's first quarter FY 2016 earnings release teleconference. Joining me today is Chief Executive Officer, Tom Williams, and President and Chief Operating Officer, Lee Banks. Today's presentation slides together with the audio webcast replay will be accessible on the company's Investor Information website, at phstock.com, for one year following today's call. On slide two, you'll find our Safe Harbor disclosure statement addressing forward-looking statements as well as non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations for any reference to non-GAAP financial measures are included in this morning's press release and are posted on Parker's website, at phstock.com. Today's agenda appears on slide three. To begin, our Chief Executive Officer, Tom Williams, will provide highlights for the first quarter of fiscal year 2016. Following Tom's comments, I will provide a review of the company's first quarter FY 2016 performance together with the revised guidance for FY 2016. Tom will provide a few summary comments and then we'll open the call for a Q&A session. At this time, I'll turn it over to Tom and ask you to refer to slide number four.

Thomas L. Williams - Chief Executive Officer

Management

Thanks, Jon. And welcome to everyone on the call. We appreciate your participation today. I'm going to take a few minutes to review the quarter and touch briefly on some of our end markets and also provide an update on the new Win Strategy. To start, a few comments on our first quarter. It continues to be a very tough environment in many of our markets. We are experiencing the negative effects of the strong dollar and we witnessed further deterioration in key end market demand. We have continued with actions to adjust to these conditions. These actions include: reduced work schedules and tight control of discretionary spending in addition to the previously announced actions we have underway with regard to restructuring and our simplification efforts under the new Win Strategy. Sales declined 12% in the quarter, as the effects of the strong dollar negatively impacted us by approximately 6%, while acquisitions were slightly positive, resulting in an organic sales decline of 7%. Order rates declined 11% in the first quarter compared with the same quarter last year, reflecting ongoing market weakness, particularly in the natural resource-related markets. Despite the magnitude of the decline in sales, I am very pleased we delivered total segment operating margins of 14.5%, or 15.3% on an adjusted basis. As many of you are familiar, for some time now we've been raising the floor and ceiling on margins through the past business cycles. Our Q1 results represent the best segment operating margin performance that we have had in recent history given this tough of a macro environment and represents decremental operating earnings of just 22% on an adjusted basis. It also represents a sequential improvement of 40 basis points in adjusted segment margins from the level we achieved in the fourth quarter. There are three…

Thomas L. Williams - Chief Executive Officer

Operator

Thanks, Jon. We are operating in a difficult environment, but as the first quarter demonstrates, we have responded well. I'm pleased with the progress we are making with our restructuring initiatives, which remain on track for the year. We also continue to find new opportunity to streamline operations through our simplification initiatives. What I am most encouraged by the response of our Parker team members. They are stepping up to the challenges before them and are embracing the changes we have initiated to build a stronger Parker. I am confident that we have a bright future ahead of us and I look forward to sharing with you our progress throughout this year. So at this time, we are ready to take questions. So, Sue, you could go ahead and start us off.

Operator

Operator

Your first question comes from the line of Stephen Volkmann of Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Stephen Edward Volkmann - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Jefferies. Please go ahead

Hi. Good morning, guys. Jon P. Marten - Executive Vice President-Finance & Adminstration and Chief Financial Officer: Good morning.

Stephen Edward Volkmann - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Jefferies. Please go ahead

I'm wondering if we could dig in a little bit just on the change of the guidance sequentially. Obviously things sort of deteriorated through the quarter here. I think you made a comment that it kind of got worse as the quarter went along. And I'm wondering if you could just flush that out a little bit and if I am right about that. But more importantly, what really deteriorated? Do you have more energy exposure than you originally thought? It seems like the stuff that's not commodity-related has been fairly stable, but correct me if I'm wrong there. Maybe just a little bit more color on how this progressed through the quarter and what's really driving it.

Thomas L. Williams - Chief Executive Officer

Operator

Yeah, Steve. This is Tom. And I'm sure that's the key question everybody has. And I'll start off by giving you an overview of how our thought process changed and what was behind revising the guidance. I'm going to hand it over to Lee to go ahead and go through the markets in more detail. But what really changed during the quarter was order entry levels weakened more than we anticipated and September was much more worse than we had expected. And as we had mentioned in the Investor Day, those of you that were there, September is always a key month. It's really a key indicator for how the quarter is going to be. July and August are always somewhat suspect because of the levels of vacation and holidays between North America and Europe. And September is your first good indicator for the quarter and also it's a really good indicator for what the rest of the year potentially is going to look like. So September turned worse; that was the first influence. Also based on the roll-up that we've gotten from our divisions, our customers, talking to our distributors, we're not forecasting any kind of recovery in the natural resource-related markets in the second half of our year, which we originally were forecasting some kind of recovery there. So oil & gas, construction, ag, and mining are soft and actually are softer than we had expected and they're going to continue that way through the remainder of the fiscal year. We're also anticipating more softness in the emerging markets. We had anticipated China and Brazil; they were soft. They have softened worse through the course of the quarter. And then what you were referring to, Steve, about kind of the oil & gas impact, clearly oil & gas impacted North America the most. But there's clearly a knock-on effect that is felt throughout the rest of our end markets, in particular for our distributor channel which is a big part of the company. It felt the reduction in oil & gas and it has felt it across the whole board. So we've seen distribution soften quite a bit in the quarter and that's a change for us for what we think the full year is going to be. So in general, we had forecasted softening in the first half with some small lift in the second half. That was our original guidance. So now what we're saying is that the first half is going to be softer than we thought before and we don't see any kind of recovery in the second half and the second half will be soft as well. So with that kind of as a overarching summary, I'm going to let Lee go through the end markets in more detail.

Lee C. Banks - President and Chief Operating Officer

Analyst · Jamie Cook from Credit Suisse

Great, Tom. Thanks, Steve. So just kind of reiterating what Tom said, if you look at it, it's continued softness in some of these natural resource-driven markets and then the continued softness regionally and by country in Europe, China and Brazil. And then let's not forget about currency; it continues to be a major headwind. If we look at North America, maybe starting there, we mentioned in Q4 a slowdown in distribution. And it's clear that that slowdown continued in Q1. I would say it was largely attributed to those distributors with exposure to oil & gas, but you couldn't help but see a knock-down effect in some of other distribution with some of their order entry and business. We do continue to see destocking in the channel. Our best bet is we'll continue to see that destock through Q2. As I mentioned earlier, distribution outside of oil & gas, in some areas it's okay and in some areas it's just moderate to slightly negative. So maybe it's an effect of a strong dollar in some key markets, but it's certainly not as robust as we saw last year. And then if I look oil 7 gas, we continue to see contraction across all sectors, but specifically the upstream sectors. Offshore activity and land-based activity continue to be very soft. The last rig count numbers I saw was down 57% versus prior year, so significant reduction. And I think the one thing, even though business is soft, we're encouraged really by some of the wins with new products we've had in these industries. And we are seeing great opportunities in service businesses that we've launched and are working with some of these key customers. Agriculture, we talked about earlier, continues to be very soft. In energy, and this is really…

Stephen Edward Volkmann - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Jefferies. Please go ahead

I appreciate it. Just one quick follow-on. Can you guesstimate how much of the distribution exposure is in energy? And then I'll pass it on.

Lee C. Banks - President and Chief Operating Officer

Analyst · Jamie Cook from Credit Suisse

I wouldn't really be able to guesstimate right now. I would say those distributors around Southwest, Gulf and Western Canada have more exposure, but I'd be hard-pressed to give you a number right now.

Stephen Edward Volkmann - Jefferies LLC

Analyst · Jefferies. Please go ahead

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Hammond from KeyBanc. Please proceed.

Jeffrey D. Hammond - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Hammond from KeyBanc. Please proceed

Hey. Good morning, guys. Jon P. Marten - Executive Vice President-Finance & Adminstration and Chief Financial Officer: Morning, Jeff.

Jeffrey D. Hammond - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Hammond from KeyBanc. Please proceed

So decremental performance, very good in the quarter. And it seems like in the guide, you're seeing that as sustainable. So I guess as you get further into this downturn, what's your confidence level you can sustain that? And maybe just speak to what you think you're doing differently in the cost structure maybe this cycle versus last cycle to be able to hold those decrementals? Jon P. Marten - Executive Vice President-Finance & Adminstration and Chief Financial Officer: Well, Jeff, I think one of the things that we're most proud of is our ability to maintain these margins, as Tom said, given the downturn that we saw in Q1 and, like you said, as we are foreseeing for the balance of the fiscal year. As we've been speaking about in many of our forums, we have done quite a bit of restructuring last year and the year before. That prior restructuring is serving us very well as we continue to get the savings from that this year and throughout the balance of the year. We also have been responding very quickly at each one of our operations throughout the world to the changing market conditions and we are much quicker responding today than we were in the prior downturns. And that is something that is serving us very well. And then lastly, with the new Win Strategy and our simplification efforts that we talked about last year, that has been kicking in in a very, very good way for us. We're very enthusiastic about our ability to maintain our margins in the area that you see in our guidance. And our simplification efforts we see being a very powerful driver for us from a margin standpoint going forward here. And that is one of the very important elements of the financial performance in the new Win Strategy that we're going to be focusing on going forward here. So I would say that those are the three major changes and things that are a little bit different than we've seen in prior downturns for us.

Jeffrey D. Hammond - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Hammond from KeyBanc. Please proceed

Okay, great. And then you mentioned September worsening. Can you just maybe speak to how that trended into October? And then also on the distributor destocking, I think, Lee, you said you thought that continues through calendar year end. What's really in the guidance around distributor destocking?

Thomas L. Williams - Chief Executive Officer

Operator

Jeff, it's Tom. I'll start first with September. So September worsened. We saw July come out about how we expected. August turned a little bit better, so we were a little bit optimistic. Then September got worse and that continued. And basically what we've seen in October is reflective of what we've done in our revised guidance. And I guess just on the destocking part, what's in the guidance is destocking finishing end of this calendar year, so end of Q2, early into Q3.

Jeffrey D. Hammond - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Hammond from KeyBanc. Please proceed

Okay, thanks. Jon P. Marten - Executive Vice President-Finance & Adminstration and Chief Financial Officer: Thanks, Jeff.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Jamie Cook from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. Jamie L. Cook - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Hi. Good morning. I guess my question centers around just pricing as well as material costs. I think there's increased scuttle in the channel that pricing has deteriorated. So I'm wondering if you could give some color on what you're seeing and what your assumptions are in terms of pricing for 2016 and then also what your assumptions are on the material cost side. Thanks.

Lee C. Banks - President and Chief Operating Officer

Analyst · Jamie Cook from Credit Suisse

Yeah, Jamie. It's Lee. So overall, you're right; it's a challenging environment on pricing and it's a favorable environment on material costs. So I would say in our guidance, it's just basically flat going forward. It's going to continue to be a challenging environment. That's the best way I can characterize it for you. Jamie L. Cook - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): But I guess when you think about – is it specific to a certain end market or type of customer? You know what I mean? Or can you talk just more broadly competitively like what you're seeing, just any color I guess besides it's bad?

Lee C. Banks - President and Chief Operating Officer

Analyst · Jamie Cook from Credit Suisse

I would say pricing is most challenged around those markets that are down significantly. So if you think about the oil and gas markets we talked about, where there is just really no significant demand right now. We continue to have great pricing opportunities in markets outside that. But there is some momentum in some of those key end markets that do make it a challenging environment. And that, plus coupled with the fact that you have this deflationary effect going on with materials, it just makes it a – we're still positive, but it's a challenging environment. Jamie L. Cook - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Okay. And then I guess just my second question just relates to capital allocation. I know this year your guidance implies your share count doesn't change from where we are in the first quarter. Can you just talk about has there been any change in priority or acquisition or acquisitions popping up as more favorable? I don't know if pricing is getting any better relative to like a year, 12 months to 18 months ago, when the pricing environment on acquisitions just wasn't in your favor?

Thomas L. Williams - Chief Executive Officer

Operator

Yeah, Jamie. This is Tom. So I'll start with the capital allocation priority. So they haven't changed versus the dividends. We want to maintain that increased record. And our target is 30% pay-out to net income. And we're at that and we're above that, on going the last 12 months, we're quite a bit above that. The next would be organic growth to fund CapEx for organic growth and innovation as well. And then when we look at share repurchase and acquisitions, it's really looking at a case-by-case basis and making the best decision that generates the best long-term value for our shareholders looking at those two in comparison. On the share side, you saw what we did in the quarter. So we bought $310 million of shares, approximately $112 a piece. So we're now at $1.64 billion, so we're 82% of the way to the low end of our commitment. And we're still committed to that $2 billion to $3 billion range and I think we're making good progress on that. On the acquisition front, we continue to work that pipeline. But just by nature, how acquisitions work, they're going to be lumpy, they're going to be difficult for us to predict and give you any kind of visibility to. But I would tell you valuations still from our perspective are high. And we're disciplined buyers and so there's been several properties that we've passed on because of that. And we'll just continue to work it and we'll have to see what yields out of it. But, again, it's looking at that in conjunction with share repurchase and making the best long-term decision here. Jamie L. Cook - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Okay, thanks. I'll get back in queue.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of John Inch from Deutsche Bank. Please proceed.

John G. Inch - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · John Inch from Deutsche Bank. Please proceed

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Jon P. Marten - Executive Vice President-Finance & Adminstration and Chief Financial Officer: Morning, John.

John G. Inch - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · John Inch from Deutsche Bank. Please proceed

Morning. So, hey, Jon, you called out unfavorable mix as part of the walk from the $7 to the $6.10 within the $1.14 drag versus your prior expectation. And then, Lee, you just said that you're not expecting any pricing, so I want to square those two. In other words, what's actually happened with respect to mix in three months that warranted calling that out, especially if price is only flat, right? So unfavorable mix implies there's price degradation or realization in some manner. Could you just talk to that and maybe the context? Is it significant, the $1.14? I mean, just trying to make sure I'm triangulating all these points. Jon P. Marten - Executive Vice President-Finance & Adminstration and Chief Financial Officer: Sure. I think when I talked about mix, I talked about the change in volume. And as we go forward and we look at all of our end markets, as the volume in the higher margin end markets reduces, that is having a impact on our margins that outweighs all the other end markets that we have. And so historically, John, North America has been progressing very well in terms of our sales growth over the last several years. What we're starting to see now, and you see it in our orders and you see it in our guidance, is that North America sales increases, this is actually now of course decreases are more pronounced in North America than they are in our International Industrial markets. And so from a mix standpoint on that volume, we are being impacted disproportionately, so.

John G. Inch - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · John Inch from Deutsche Bank. Please proceed

Okay. Okay, so you're saying basically lower volume in North America is translating into lower realized overall profit within Industrial. I think that's what you're saying. Jon P. Marten - Executive Vice President-Finance & Adminstration and Chief Financial Officer: Right. More of a volume issue than a pricing issue here for us.

John G. Inch - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · John Inch from Deutsche Bank. Please proceed

So, in other words, Jon, when you look at North America rolling orders down 11%, is that all volume? Or is there also little bit of degradation – like is that all a unit volume or is there any kind of price degradation that bakes into the 11%? Jon P. Marten - Executive Vice President-Finance & Adminstration and Chief Financial Officer: It's primarily almost all volume; it is not pricing, John.

John G. Inch - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · John Inch from Deutsche Bank. Please proceed

Okay. So then, Lee, when you said pricing is now going to be flat, can you just remind me what was that versus? Did you previously think it was up like 0.5% or something? Or is it, kind of squaring with Jon's comments, not really that material?

Lee C. Banks - President and Chief Operating Officer

Analyst · John Inch from Deutsche Bank. Please proceed

I'm sorry, John. I lost you the last half there, but...

John G. Inch - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · John Inch from Deutsche Bank. Please proceed

Oh. Jon is making the point that it's kind of the change here, which is fine, is volume and there's associated decrementals. But you made the comment to Jamie that now you expect price to be flat. So I'm just trying to understand is, what was that versus? In other words, you had been hoping that price was going to improve, but it's now flat? Or it's actually gone a little softer? That's all. I'm just trying to make sure I'm dotting all of my i's. Jon P. Marten - Executive Vice President-Finance & Adminstration and Chief Financial Officer: Yeah, just to try to connect the dots here for you. When Lee was talking about pricing being flat, we're really talking about our process inside the company that where we take every part that we ship today in every single one of our divisions and we compare the price of that part today to that price of that same part that we shipped the exact same time last year and we calculate a sales price index. And in that sales price index that Lee is talking about, it's basically flat. And that is the flat pricing that we're seeing overall that Lee I think was referring to. Does that help?

John G. Inch - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · John Inch from Deutsche Bank. Please proceed

Yeah. He also – well, he is right there. Lee, you also made the comment that pricing is – you almost implied it was increasingly perhaps challenging. The reason I'm harping on this is price is one of these buzzwords right now that people are throwing out. And the companies are sort of not suggesting, including your own, that there's really that much realized price degradation versus the chatter of potential. I just want to make sure you're not really (42:48) more substantial.

Lee C. Banks - President and Chief Operating Officer

Analyst · John Inch from Deutsche Bank. Please proceed

So realized price degradation is not something I worry about...

Thomas L. Williams - Chief Executive Officer

Operator

Okay.

Lee C. Banks - President and Chief Operating Officer

Analyst · Jamie Cook from Credit Suisse

...for the company. There are certain end markets that are price challenged and there are certain markets that are not price challenged. When you kind of sum it up across the board, it is kind of a zero-sum game. But I don't worry about price degradation as a whole for the company.

John G. Inch - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · John Inch from Deutsche Bank. Please proceed

Got it. Just lastly, $70 million of restructuring savings. How does that delineate over the next three quarters? Jon P. Marten - Executive Vice President-Finance & Adminstration and Chief Financial Officer: It's a total of $20 million in the first half and $50 million in the second half, John.

John G. Inch - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst · John Inch from Deutsche Bank. Please proceed

Okay, got it. Thanks very much. Jon P. Marten - Executive Vice President-Finance & Adminstration and Chief Financial Officer: Sure.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Josh Pokrzywinski, Buckingham Research. Please proceed.

Joshua Pokrzywinski - The Buckingham Research Group, Inc.

Analyst · Josh Pokrzywinski, Buckingham Research. Please proceed

Hi. Good morning, guys. Jon P. Marten - Executive Vice President-Finance & Adminstration and Chief Financial Officer: Hi, Josh.

Joshua Pokrzywinski - The Buckingham Research Group, Inc.

Analyst · Josh Pokrzywinski, Buckingham Research. Please proceed

This is a follow-up to Jeff's question earlier on the decremental margin management. It looks like as it pertains to the 2Q guide, you guys actually did a little better managing that sequentially. And I would think with all the comments around destocking, particularly in distribution where you have some better mix, presumably you're also destocking in your own facilities, so maybe absorption is a little lighter, I would imagine that something between some of the input cost deflation, restructuring savings are helping bridge that. Can you maybe talk about how that squares out, either by 1Q, 2Q, first half, second half, just so we can help square up volume versus some of the other discreet items coming through? Jon P. Marten - Executive Vice President-Finance & Adminstration and Chief Financial Officer: Yeah. I think that it's really hard to articulate very quickly the depth and breadth of the restructuring that we've done in the prior years and how that is impacting as the year goes on our decremental margins. One thing to just point out, Josh, would be the early retirement that we announced in Q4 of last year. That is largely going to start having major impacts on our business in Q2. So what we did is go through each one of our operations and, with this new volume that we're looking at, make sure because we saw how favorable these decrementals look, that we've got the actions either already completed and the savings started, or that we are realizing benefits from programs that we put in place last year and the year before, frankly, in some economies, that are going to be impacting the bottom line for Q2. So we feel very good about the guidance that we gave there. And we realize that the decrementals are something that are, at first glance, could appear to be aggressive.

Joshua Pokrzywinski - The Buckingham Research Group, Inc.

Analyst · Josh Pokrzywinski, Buckingham Research. Please proceed

Is that fair, though, the earlier supposition that you guys are destocking internally to go along with what your customers are doing? So, I guess, should we look at that performance as even kind of better versus the absorption headwind? Jon P. Marten - Executive Vice President-Finance & Adminstration and Chief Financial Officer: I think so. I think so. We're able to handle the absorption headwind with the reduced volume with the amount of restructuring that we've planned on doing. And I can't emphasize enough the power of a simplification program where we are trying to make the company a lot more efficient, a lot less reliant on indirect overhead that is really not adding value, and really being able to push our margins in directions that we've never seen before in the history of the company. And so, yes, we're able to overcome the lack of absorption overhang that we're going to see in Q2.

Joshua Pokrzywinski - The Buckingham Research Group, Inc.

Analyst · Josh Pokrzywinski, Buckingham Research. Please proceed

All right. Thanks, guys.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And your next question comes from the line of Andrew Casey of Wells Fargo Securities. Please proceed.

Andrew M. Casey - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Andrew Casey of Wells Fargo Securities. Please proceed

Thanks a lot. Good morning, everybody. Wanted to ask a question on the revenue guidance. If I take your midpoint and the comment about the split, 48% to first half, it kind of implies Q2 revenue down about 15%. And I'm trying to square that with the comment about fiscal second half being down about 5%. So could you talk about the components of that Q2 forecast, meaning organic and currency? Because I'm trying to understand the step-up from 15% down to 5% down. Is that all currency or is there something else built into the outlook?

Thomas L. Williams - Chief Executive Officer

Operator

Andy, it's Tom. I'll start and then Jon can fill in details if there's more follow-up that you have. But in the second half, that 5% I was talking about was total company. So that has the Industrial piece being down worse and Aerospace being more positive. Currency is around, for our mid-point, currency is about 2.7 points of the 9.5% for the full year. And you are about right with what you thought for Q2; we have it around 14% down on sales.

Andrew M. Casey - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Andrew Casey of Wells Fargo Securities. Please proceed

Okay. Thank you, Tom. And then one specific question, maybe Jon can help out. In the quarter on cash flow, there was about a $265 million consumption related to other assets and liabilities. And that's the highest in a few quarters. Can you kind of detail what was in that? Jon P. Marten - Executive Vice President-Finance & Adminstration and Chief Financial Officer: Well, in that case, there was – we really only did three major things in the quarter. We bought stock, and that's $310 million, we made a pension contribution of $200 million and we made acquisitions of $67 million for the quarter. So those are the major changes. There are some movements in the cash flow related to tax, the equity investment that we made in the Internet of Things company that Tom referred to and a few other things, Andy, but that's really the lion's share of the uses of cash here for us in the quarter.

Andrew M. Casey - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Andrew Casey of Wells Fargo Securities. Please proceed

Okay. Just a follow-up on that, Jon. Thank you. So the $200 million of pension funding, would that be within that $265 million? Jon P. Marten - Executive Vice President-Finance & Adminstration and Chief Financial Officer: Yeah.

Andrew M. Casey - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Andrew Casey of Wells Fargo Securities. Please proceed

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Joe Ritchie, Goldman Sachs. Please proceed. Joseph Alfred Ritchie - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Jon P. Marten - Executive Vice President-Finance & Adminstration and Chief Financial Officer: Morning, Joe. Joseph Alfred Ritchie - Goldman Sachs & Co.: So my first question, I guess just trying to get my head around the top-line reduction was roughly about $1 billion in revenue. And you guys kept the restructuring plans and simplification plans at roughly $100 million. How much of that is a question of internal capacity to actually do additional restructuring, given what you have in place today, as opposed to just feeling like the $100 million is the right number and aligned and you'll be at the right place even in a lower-growth environment?

Thomas L. Williams - Chief Executive Officer

Operator

Joe, this is Tom. I think what we're finding on the restructuring is a couple things. One, we're able to do a lot of the projects less expensive than what we anticipated. So we're actually adding to the project list. We didn't change the number to you, but we're adding extra projects because we've been more efficient on the ones that we already looked at. Simplification in general is a more efficient way of deploying restructuring spend because it's not dealing as much with footprint consolidations, plant closures and all that, which carry typically more cost. It's more focused on SG&A, the overhead piece of things. And so when you do division consolidations, you look at optimizing organization, structure, processes. When we did the early retirement, we looked at organization design changes to not have to replace people in kind, at least not one for one. All those changes can be done more efficiently without the same level of restructuring. So we are actually doing more within that envelope of $100 million. We just didn't need to change the dollar amount because we're just being more efficient. Joseph Alfred Ritchie - Goldman Sachs & Co.: All right. That's helpful color there, Tom. Maybe just asking a little more detailed question on one of the segments. Haven't really heard much about Aero yet. Orders deteriorated double-digits now for the second quarter in a row. I'm just curious what's going on there. How should we expect that to read through to growth, not just in this year but also into next year? Because it tends to be a little bit longer cycle. Jon P. Marten - Executive Vice President-Finance & Adminstration and Chief Financial Officer: Yeah, Joe, Jon here. Just to give you first top-level answer to that. Keep in mind that when we publish our Aerospace numbers, they are a 12-month rolling forecast. And last year – the comparables are tough for us for right now because last year we booked several multi-year, multi-program large orders. And those large orders that we booked ran our 12-month number way up. We were up, approximately this time last year, we were up 12%. And so we're looking at we're down 16% now. It's not really nearly as severe as it appears. We're still confident in our growth rates going forward in the 4% level in Aerospace. So I completely appreciate the question and how that looks very unusual. We've been taking a really hard, hard look at that and we feel confident that it was just that series of multi-program, multi-year orders that we booked based on contracts that we received that were fully priced and scheduled out that drove our orders up at that point in time. Joseph Alfred Ritchie - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Okay, great. I'll get back in queue. Thanks, guys.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Nathan Jones from Stifel. Please go ahead. Nathan Jones - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Good morning, everyone. Jon P. Marten - Executive Vice President-Finance & Adminstration and Chief Financial Officer: Hi, Nathan. Nathan Jones - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: A question on the guidance first. There is a $30 million reduction in corporate expense for the year. Can you give us some more color around that? Jon P. Marten - Executive Vice President-Finance & Adminstration and Chief Financial Officer: Nathan, that is primarily – the biggest driver there is as a result of the pension contribution that we did in August, our pension expense for our underfunded plans is going down. And that's the major driver. Nathan Jones - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Okay, that makes sense. And then on the free cash flow conversion dip down 90 basis point year-over-year, been hearing several companies talk about difficulty with collections, primarily in emerging markets in this environment. Is there any impact there to you? Or what is the reason for that 90 basis point lower conversion? Jon P. Marten - Executive Vice President-Finance & Adminstration and Chief Financial Officer: Yeah. Well, if you're talking about – we really have two things going on here in the quarter. We are looking at DSO very carefully. We are not seeing any degradation whatsoever. But we are very aware of the issue and we are very focused on that. The issue for us was really in our inventories. We will see that correct in Q2 and Q3 and we'll see better cash. We always perform much better from a cash environment and we've been able to prove that over the years as things start to slow down a little bit. So we're fully confident. But I think it's mainly our performance in inventory that is the outlier there that we'll see correct as the year goes on. Nathan Jones - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Okay. And then you were talking about the sales price index not changing. I know you also track a cost price index. Are you seeing any more or less favorable outcomes there?

Thomas L. Williams - Chief Executive Officer

Operator

Yeah, Nathan. This is Tom. Yes, we're working that hard as one of the initiatives that we have. If you remember from our walk to 17% ROS on the operating margin side is working the supply chain. And, yes, we are seeing improvements and we will continue to work that. We'll work that on the indirect side, which doesn't necessarily show up in our purchase price index, but shows up in lower expenses, which is part of helping us in our margin on returns. But, yes, we're working that hard. And when I look at SPI to PPI, it's neutral to slightly positive, that comparison. Nathan Jones - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Do you think you can hold that positive for the year?

Thomas L. Williams - Chief Executive Officer

Operator

I think so, yes. Nathan Jones - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: All right. Thanks very much.

Thomas L. Williams - Chief Executive Officer

Operator

Okay. Sue, we'll just take one more question, please.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And that question comes from the line of Andrew Obin, Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please proceed.

Andrew Obin - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Andrew Obin, Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please proceed

Hi, yes. Good morning. Thanks for fitting me in. Jon P. Marten - Executive Vice President-Finance & Adminstration and Chief Financial Officer: Hi, Andrew.

Andrew Obin - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Andrew Obin, Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please proceed

So the question in terms of leverage versus lower earnings forecast, how should we think about your willingness to take on leverage in this notably weaker environment yet an environment that could down the road present M&A opportunities?

Thomas L. Williams - Chief Executive Officer

Operator

Well, Andrew, this is Tom. I think, as always, we want to make the best long-term decision for our shareholders looking at acquisitions versus share repurchase. We still are committed to our A rating, and so that's a function that we look at all the time. So when we do our cash allocation discussion every quarter, we look at cash generated versus where we are in our debt to debt equity relationship and we make the best decisions that we possibly can on behalf of the shareholders. But certainly the A rating is a controlling device that we use. And I think it's been helpful for us. And the bulk of our peers, if you look at they're all A rated. And we think that's an advantage for us to continue to do that.

Andrew Obin - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Andrew Obin, Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please proceed

And in your view, I know that rating agencies have been company-specific, but what does it mean in terms of sort of the upper band of leverage you would be comfortable with?

Thomas L. Williams - Chief Executive Officer

Operator

We typically work to a 37% debt to total cap.

Andrew Obin - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Andrew Obin, Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please proceed

Thanks. Jon P. Marten - Executive Vice President-Finance & Adminstration and Chief Financial Officer: Thank you, Andrew. And this concludes our Q&A and our earnings call for today. Thank you so much for everybody joining us today. Robin will be available throughout the day to take your calls should you have any further questions. And thank you. Have a great day.