Operator
Operator
Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Parker-Hannifin Q4 2016 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct and question and answer session, and instructions will follow at that time. As a reminder, today's conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Jon Marten, Executive Vice President and CFO. Please go ahead, sir. Jon P. Marten - Executive Vice President-Finance & Adminstration and Chief Financial Officer: Okay. Thank you, Candace. And, again, good morning, everybody, and welcome to Parker-Hannifin's fourth quarter FY 2016 earnings release teleconference. Joining me today is Chairman and 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 number 2, you'll find the company's Safe Harbor disclosure statement addressing forward-looking statements, as well as our non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations for any references to non-GAAP financial measures are included in this morning's press release and are posted on Parker's website at phstock.com. Turning to today's agenda on slide number 3, to begin, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Tom Williams, will provide highlights for the fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2016. Following Tom's comments, I'll provide a review of the company's fourth quarter and full-year 2016 performance, together with the guidance for FY 2017. Tom will then 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 that you refer to slides number 4 and 5. Thomas L. Williams - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks, Jon, and welcome to everybody on the call. We appreciate your participation this morning. Today, I'd like to cover the following key topics: our fourth quarter results, review our fiscal year 2017 guidance, and finally I'll highlight the progress we are making with the new Win Strategy. Let me start with the fourth quarter and full-year results, which demonstrate the progress we are making in a difficult growth environment. Fourth quarter sales were $2.96 billion or a 6% decline compared with the same quarter a year ago. This represents the second consecutive quarter that we saw a sequential improvement in sales and a decelerating rate of decline in sales on a year-over-year basis. Total order rates for the fourth quarter declined 1% compared with the same quarter last year, and represented a sequential improvement from the third quarter level. By segment, North America is still weak, but our Aerospace Systems segment and international business order rates were positive on a year-over-year basis. Net income for the fourth quarter increased 35% to $242 million on an as-reported basis, or a 29% increase to $260 million on an adjusted basis. Earnings per share for the quarter were $1.77 as reported, or $1.90 on an adjusted basis. That represents a 33% increase compared to the same quarter last year on an adjusted basis. Despite ongoing weakness in our end markets this quarter, we were able to achieve total segment operating margins of 14.8%, or 15.6% adjusted. This is tremendous performance and represents a 70 basis point improvement year over year in adjusted segment operating margins. Our adjusted decremental MROS was 2.9% for the fourth quarter. This is the sixth consecutive quarter that our adjusted decrementals have been below 25%, which is the best level of performance I can remember in any previous downturn. Just a few other full-year highlights that I'd like to note. Cash flow was strong in the quarter and also the year, with cash flow from operations, excluding the discretionary pension contribution, exceeding 12% of sales, reflecting the stability of our cash generation during a downturn. We also held inventories as a percent of sales essentially flat at 10.3% in fiscal 2016 versus 10.2% in the prior year. We executed very efficiently on the $109 million worth of business realignment. Even including this restructuring, our as-reported decremental MROS was 19.5% for the full year. And, notably, we accomplished all this while sales dropped $1.35 billion, which is very difficult to do. Moving on to capital allocation. During the fourth quarter, we've repurchased $108 million in Parker's shares, bringing our total share repurchases for the fiscal year to $558 million. As we have now purchased $1.9 billion of Parker's shares since our share repurchase plan was announced in October 2014, we are on track to meet our commitments on capital deployment. Regarding FY 2017 guidance, we are forecasting a year of sales being flat compared with fiscal 2016. Our expectation is that organic growth will be soft in the first quarter, becoming essentially flat in quarter two, with the second half showing 1% to 2% organic growth on a year-over-year basis. For fiscal year 2017, we're issuing guidance for as-reported earnings in a range of $6.15 to $6.95 per share, or $6.50 at the midpoint. On an adjusted basis, we expect earnings per share in the range of $6.40 to $7.10, for a midpoint of $6.75. Business realignment expenses are anticipated to be approximately $48 million or $0.25 per share. So now just a few comments about our progress with the Win Strategy. We continue to make meaningful progress with the initiatives across our four broad goals: engage people, premier customer experience, profitable growth, and financial performance. Regarding our first goal, engage people. During this past year, we saw a 33% reduction in recordable injuries. We continue to target a zero-accident safety goal, not only because it's our responsibility to our team members, but also because improved safety performance can be a leading indicator of improved financial performance. Our high-performance teams are driving this improvement in safety as well as quality, cost, and delivery. Now on the second goal, premier customer experience. On July 1 of this year, we launched our Likely to Recommend (6:33) initiative, which is designed to get direct feedback from customers and distributors on areas where we can improve. Importantly, we are gathering this feedback in a way that every site at Parker can understand and track their performance and make improvements. This is a significant initiative, because a better customer experience will drive faster organic growth for Parker. We're also making good progress in building our e-business capabilities that will deliver a best-in-class online experience for customers. And we are making progress developing our pipeline of Internet of Things applications across groups and product lines to enhance the value we bring to customers. Now, moving to the third goal, profitable growth. We continue to drive innovative products and systems, expand distribution, and build our service business as part of our sales growth strategy. Acquisitions will play a role in our growth plans. We recently closed a transaction in Europe to acquire certain businesses of the Jäger group to strengthen our position in worldwide sealing markets as part of our Engineered Materials Group. And lastly, our financial performance goal. Profitability in Aerospace is improving as we benefit from lower non-reoccurring engineering costs that were associated with some of the large program wins that we had, and improved operational efficiencies. Our simplification initiative is also gaining momentum across the company, as we discover more ways to streamline operations and better serve our customers. The best way to illustrate this is to look at our employment trends. The total number of Parker team members employed at the end of FY 2016 is at 2004 levels, or approximately 48,000 people. In fiscal 2004, our reported sales were $6.9 billion, whereas today, our sales are $11.3 billion with the same number of team members. This is a tribute to our global team members who are working together to find better and more efficient ways to accomplish their jobs and serve our customers. The combination of our simplification and Lean enterprise initiatives is amplifying our ability to improve processes and make significant structural cost improvements. In addition, our strategic supply chain and value pricing initiatives give us sufficient horsepower to propel us to our profit margin goals in the future. So, in summary, by executing the new Win Strategy, we are confident we will achieve our key financial objectives by the end of fiscal 2020. And this includes targeting sales growth of 150 basis points higher than the rate of global industrial production. We're also targeting 17% segment operating margins. And progress towards these goals is expected to drive a compound annual growth rate and earnings per share of 8% over this five-year period. I am very pleased at how far we've come in such a short period of time and continue to be excited about the opportunities we have for the future as we strive to make Parker a top-quartile performing company as compared to our proxy peers. (9:30) So for now I'm going to hand things back to Jon, let him give you more details on the quarter, the full year, and 2017 guidance. Jon P. Marten - Executive Vice President-Finance & Adminstration and Chief Financial Officer: Thanks, Tom. And at this time please refer to slide number 6. I'll begin by addressing earnings per share for the quarter. Adjusted earnings per share for the quarter were $1.90 versus $1.43 for the same quarter a year ago. This equates to an increase of $0.47. This excludes business realignment expenses of $0.13, which compares to $0.16 for the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings per share for the full year 2016 were $6.46 versus $7.25 for the full year 2015. Total realignment expenses and pension termination costs were $0.57 for the full year 2016, and that compares to adjustments for business realignment and voluntary retirement expenses of $0.28 for the full year 2015. On slide number 7, you'll find the significant components of the walk from adjusted earnings per share of $1.43 for the fourth quarter of 2015 to $1.90 for the fourth quarter of this year. Increases to adjusted per-share income include a reduction of corporate G&A; interest and other expense equating to $0.14 per share, which is a result of savings realized from FY 2016 simplification efforts, as Tom just mentioned; one-time credits booked in Q4 FY 2016; and the comparison to a higher expense in Q4 2015 from early retirement expenses incurred, and a lower effective tax rate in FY 2016 of 28% versus 40.9% in Q4 of 2015. This all contributed to $0.30 per share. The impact of fewer shares outstanding due to the company's share repurchase activity equated to an increase of $0.05 per share. A reduction of $0.02 in adjusted per-share income was a result of lower adjusted segment operating income, which was driven by the strengthened U.S. dollar currency translation and weakened end markets, which approximates a little bit more than $200 million quarter to quarter. On slide number 8, you'll find the significant components of the walk from adjusted earnings per share of $7.25 for the full year 2015 to $6.46 for the full year 2016. For the full year 2016, increases to adjusted earnings per share include reduced corporate G&A expense equating to $0.20 per share; $0.13 per share due to a lower effective tax rate of 27.6% in FY 2016 versus 29.3% in FY 2015, which is due to favorable discrete benefits booked during FY 2016; and $0.36 from fewer shares outstanding, reflecting the full-year impact of Parker's enhanced share repurchase program. Decreases to adjusted earnings per share for FY 2016 were lower segment operating income of $1 per share due to the impact of the weakened end markets and higher interest and other expense equating to $0.48 per share, which compares to a sizable one-time favorable currency adjustment recognized in FY 2015 and the full-year impact of interest expense on incremental debt issued in November of 2014. Moving to slide number 9, with a review of the total company sales and segment operating margins for the fourth quarter and full year, total company organic sales in the fourth quarter decreased by 5.3% over the same quarter last year. There was minimal contribution to sales in the quarter from acquisitions. Currency impact as a percentage of sales was slightly higher than our guide, equating to a negative impact on reported sales of $31 million or 1% in the quarter. Total segment operating margin for the fourth quarter adjusted for realignment costs incurred in the quarter was 15.6% versus 14.9% for the same quarter last year. Business realignment costs incurred in the quarter were $25 million versus $27 million last year. The lower adjusted segment operating income this quarter of $462 million versus $468 million last year reflects the meaningful impact of the weakened industrial end markets, partially offset by the savings realized from our very large simplification and restructuring actions taken throughout the year. For the full year, organic sales in fiscal year 2017 (sic) [2016] decreased by 7.7%. Contributions to sales from acquisitions were minimal. The effect of foreign currency translation resulted in a negative impact to reported sales of $404 million or 3.2% of sales for the full year. Total company segment operating margin for fiscal year 2016, adjusted for realignment cost incurred during the year, was 14.8% versus 14.9% in fiscal year 2015. Business realignment expenses incurred in FY 2016 was $107 million. Slide number 10 discusses the business segments. And I'll start first with the Diversified Industrial North America segment. For the fourth quarter, North American organic sales decreased by 10.3% as compared to the same quarter last year. There was a nominal impact from acquisitions and a negative impact from currency of 0.6% in the quarter. Operating margin for the fourth quarter adjusted for realignment costs was 18% of sales versus 17.3% in the prior year. Business realignment expenses incurred totaled $5 million, as compared to $15 million in the prior year. Adjusted operating income was $226 million, as compared to $244 million, which was driven by the reduced volume as a result of the key industrial weak markets. For the full year, organic sales for the fiscal year 2016 decreased by 12.4%. Contributions to sales from acquisitions were minimal. The impact of foreign currency translation resulted in a negative impact to reported sales of $60 million or 1% of sales for the full year. For the full year 2016, operating margin adjusted for realignment cost was 16.8% of sales versus 17% in the prior year. Business realignment expenses incurred totaled $42 million as compared to $16 million in fiscal 2015. Adjusted operating income for fiscal 2016 was $832 million as compared to $972 million in the prior year. Now, turning to slide number 11, I'll continue with the Diversified Industrial segments. Organic sales for the Diversified Industrial International segment – organic sales for the fourth quarter in the segment decreased by 3%. Currency translation negatively impacted sales by 2%. Operating margin for the fourth quarter, adjusted for business realignment costs, was 12.6% of sales versus 10.9% in the prior year. Realignment expenses incurred in the quarter totaled $18 million as compared to $6 million in the prior year. Adjusted operating income was $137 million as compared to $124 million, which, despite the weakened top line, reflects the offsetting savings resulting from realignment actions taken in the current year as well as the prior fiscal years. For the full year, organic sales for fiscal year 2016 decreased by 6%. The impact of foreign currency translation resulted in a negative impact to reported sales of $339 million or a negative 7.1% of sales for the year. For the full year 2016, operating margin, adjusted for realignment costs, was 12.3% of sales versus 12.9% in the prior year. Restructuring expenses totaled $61 million as compared to $27 million in fiscal 2015. Adjusted operating income for fiscal 2016 was $509 million as compared to $611 million last year. And I'll now move to slide number 12 to review the Aerospace Systems segment. Organic revenues increased 2.2% for the quarter. Neither acquisitions nor currency really impacted revenues. Strong growth in military OEM and military aftermarket sales were the drivers for the quarterly performance. Operating margin for the fourth quarter, adjusted for realignment costs, was 16.4% of sales versus 16.9% in the prior year. Business realignment expenses incurred in the quarter totaled $1 million as compared to $6 million in the prior year. Adjusted operating income was flat at $99 million for both Q4 2016 and the prior year, reflecting the impact of the reduced commercial sales volume in the quarter, albeit partially offset by reduced development costs as a percentage of sales. For the full year, organic sales for fiscal year 2016 increased by 0.5% of sales. For the full year 2016, operating margin adjusted for realignment costs was 15.1% of sales versus 13.5% in prior year. Business realignment expenses incurred totaled $4 million as compared to $6 million related in the prior year. And adjusted operating income for the fiscal year was $341 million as compared to $305 million last year, which was largely attributed to the reduction of development cost to slightly less than 8% of sales, together with the savings from the business realignment activities. Going to slide number 13. Moving to that slide is a detail about order changes by segment. As a reminder, our orders represent a trailing average and are reported as a percentage increase of absolute dollars year over year excluding acquisitions, divestitures, and currency. The Diversified Industrial segments report on a three-month rolling average, while Aerospace Systems are based on a 12-month rolling average. Total orders improved to a negative 1% for the quarter-end, reflecting a decelerating rate of decline in key industrial end markets, including oil and gas, construction, and agricultural. Diversified Industrial North America orders decreased to a negative 10%. Diversified Industrial International orders improved to a positive 3% for the quarter. Aerospace System orders increased to plus 14% for the quarter. Looking at slide number 14, we report the cash flow from operations. For the fourth quarter, cash from operating activities was very strong at $488 million or 16.5% of sales. This compares to 16.2% of sales for the same period last year. For the full year, cash flow from operating activities for fiscal 2016 was $1.170 billion or 10.3% of sales, as compared to 10.2% last year. When adjusted for the $200 million voluntary pension contribution made during the year, adjusted cash flow from operating activities was $1.370 billion or 12.1% of sales as compared to 10.2% in fiscal 2015. There was no pension contribution made during FY 2015. The significant uses of cash during the year included $158 million for the company's repurchase of common shares and $342 million for the payment of shareholders' dividends. And there was $149 million for CapEx, equating to 1.3% of sales for FY 2016. Now, turning to guidance for FY 2017. The full-year earnings guidance for FY 2017 is outlined here. Guidance is provided on an adjusted basis. Segment operating margins and earnings per share exclude expected business realignment charges of $48 million, which are forecasted to be incurred throughout FY 2017. Total sales are expected to be in the range of negative 1.5% to positive 2.1% as compared to the prior year. Adjusted organic growth at the midpoint is flat. Currency in the guidance is not forecasted to impact sales. We have calculated the impact of currency to spot rates as of June 30, 2016, and we hold those rates steady as we estimate the resulting year-over-year impact for the upcoming FY 2017. Total Parker adjusted segment operating are margins forecast to be between 15.2% and 15.6%. This compares to 14.8% for FY 2016 on an adjusted basis. The guidance for below-the-line items, which includes corporate G&A, interest, and other expense, is $469 million for the year at the midpoint. The full-year tax rate is projected at 29%. The average number of fully diluted shares outstanding used in the full-year guidance is 135.5 million. And for the full-year guidance, on an adjusted earnings per share, is $6.40 to $7.10, or $6.75 at the midpoint. This guidance excludes business realignment expenses of approximately $48 million to be included in FY 2017. This is the only adjustments that we make to our guidance. It's just realignment expenses. The effect of this restructuring on EPS is approximately $0.25 savings from these business realignment initiatives are projected to be $30 million and are fully reflected in the adjusted operating margin guidance range. Some additional key assumptions for the fiscal year guidance are sales are divided 48% first half, 52% second half, which is a normal distribution split for a year for us. Adjusted segment operating income is divided 46% in the first half, 54% in the second half. EPS in the first half versus the second half is $2.93 and $3.82 for the second half. Q1 FY 2017 adjusted earnings per share is projected to be $1.52 at the midpoint, and this excludes $0.09 of business realignment expenses. On slide number 16, just some influences on EPS for 2017 as compared to 2016. On slide 16, you'll find a reconciliation of the major components of FY 2017 adjusted EPS guidance of $6.75 per share at the midpoint from the prior FY 2016 EPS of $6.46 per share. Increases include $0.40 from an increased segment operating income and $0.11 from fewer shares outstanding and reduced interest expense. Key components of the decrease include a $0.13 per share reduction from taxes, reflecting a rate from continuing operations of 29%, and $0.09 per share reduction from increased corporate G&A and other expense as a result of normalized levels, not including one-time favorable settlements realized in the prior year, primarily in Q4, in part by reduced pension expense due to the company's adoption of the spot rate methodology for calculating annual pension expense. This has a total impact of $0.11 for FY 2017. Please remember that the forecast excludes any acquisition and divestitures that might close during FY 2017. For consistency, we ask that you exclude only the restructuring expenses from your published estimates. This concludes my prepared remarks. Tom, I'll turn the call back over to you for your summary comments. Thomas L. Williams - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks, Jon. We are very proud of the fiscal 2016 results. I'd like to thank Parker team members around the world for their efforts. These accomplishments carry even greater significance given the $1.35 billion drop in sales that occurred during the year. While we still have much more to achieve, we are positioned well for fiscal 2017 and beyond under the framework provided by the Win Strategy. Together, we are building a stronger and better Parker. I look forward to sharing more with you as the year progress. So at this time, Candace, we're ready to take questions if you want to go ahead and open the lines.