Brian Shore
Analyst · Needham
Okay, Matt. Thanks for going through that for us. It's Brian here again. So now with my commentary. First of all let’s start a high level. So the sales were up about $2.4 million in Q2 as compared to Q1. That's all attributable to aerospace. Electronics were flat. Matt already went through the number, so you know I'm just making some high level comments. So the revenue increases in aerospace, story if you will. And the revenues drove the pretax earnings before the special items up about $700,000 again compared to the first quarter and that's all again attributable to aerospace and the additional contribution from the addition of aerospace revenue. Okay, so let's see a couple of other comments before we go into electronics and in aerospace individually. So the tax provision Matt mentioned was 18.7 and I think he said that would have been 18.7 in the first quarter as well except for that very large unusual item. We just want you to know that we think that is kind of the range where the tax rate will be going forward in the near term anyway and that's quite a bit from recent history. We're not saying exactly 2.7 but something that range of course. The other thing is we have a question from one of our big shareholders. He mailed it me this morning. He asked me to comment on what we would do if this repatriation tax, the 10% repatriation tax goes through. So, let me discuss that. It’s a little more – it’s not just yes or no answer, takes a little bit of discussion. First of all, it's not clear how the tax will play-out of course but one possibility is that we would be asked to pay tax repatriation tax and the difference more or less between the tax paid and the corporate tax rate which is proposed to be 20%, that could result an even a lower repatriation tax. It's complicated because foreign tax credits have to be computed but it could be less than 10%, that’s the approach which is taken. And who knows? Maybe it'll be up to the tax payer to decide. So if that happens, the first thing we would look at is paying off to short term loan. There really would be no reason to maintain that loan to future and as you probably remember we took out that loan to pay special dividends. We have a couple of reasons for doing it but first of all we didn't want to repatriate money to pay the [huge] [ph] tax which is would be in - which was in place at that point and also now. And the other reason is we wanted to provide to shareholders with return to capital treatment on the dividend to the extent that the shareholders were taxpayers anyway. But once the tax law goes through really whatever it is, it's hard for us to justify maintain that long keeping outstanding since we have so much cash overseas. So the first thing we probably do is payoff the loan. We repatriate the money to pay off the loan. There is also covenants and restrictions in the loans which would prevent us from doing things without going to the bank, negotiating amendments for modification to the terms which we really don’t want to have to be doing that. So then after we paid a loan off then there is question what we do, I know that’s what shareholders getting at. So we currently have about $245 million of cash and I think about $70 million loans, so we would have to repatriate it a little additional money to pay a tax. So you do the math, so maybe we have then, after repatriating enough money to pay off loan $160 million or something, that’s based upon the current cash situation $160 million, $165 million or maybe something like that. These are round numbers but again based upon the current cash situation, so then the question is what do we do? And the answer is it’s going to depend. Obviously we’ll be looking at a return of capital to shareholders and we’ve discussed that in the past and that will be something that will be right on the front burner, would it be a dividend, would it be a buyback, we don’t know. We’ll confirm with our advisors at that time. We discussed these things with the advisor in the past but it would be important at current on based on all the current considerations not just outside considerations but all of our business needs. We are looking at acquisitions for aerospace and that would be one of the things we would consider. So, that's not a black-or-white answer but we don’t have a black-or-white answer, I pretty much told you everything we know in response to the question about what we would do if the 10% repatriation tax or some other tax went through effect which would significantly reduce the tax we pay on reparation of the foreign money. Okay, so that's the answer we have to that question. Now let's talk about electronics and aerospace, my comments may be a little bit longer than usual, just a lot to cover here, so, please bear with me. So, U.S. electronics, the main story there is the restructuring, is we kind of messy, it wasn't really managed that well. We didn’t do a very good job. It wouldn't give us more than a maybe D or C minus. But we did make the changes we need to make in the last let's say month. So I think we're in good shape now. We have the restructuring under proper control. It's moving forward well, so I feel pretty good about that. We probably you know lost a couple few months, not getting our act together, that's nobody's fault, it's fine, but that's the truth of the matter. So, but I think the good news is, that's behind us and you know the economics that we talked about in the past which I'll go through with you again are still in place. The charges in Q1 $1.2 million, in Q2 was about $2.8 million, remember the total is going to be about $5.3 million. Q3 maybe a couple of hundred thousand and then we don’t know, when the rest of it will go through the P&L, the charge. The total benefit when it's fully realized, remember was about $3.3 million a year that’s still the case. Q1 zero, Q2 is actually negative because we got another benefit from restructuring, but we have lot of the negatives from the duplicative cost and things like that. We're still in the transition from two facilities to one facility and we just weren't really executing very well. So we did lot of sillies and things like that to push money at the end of the day. But I would say, max number is 200,000 negative. I think that's an optimistic number. I would think if you really, everything probably more like double that in the second quarter in terms of the negatives from the restructuring. In the third quarter, there is still some duplicative cost which you'll be, which will occur. For the third quarter, our net benefit including, due to benefit from restructuring offset by the duplicative cost, should be about $0.75 million or 700,000 or so, was I think any wise numbers by the way. Those types of numbers for the quarter, so that's good because when we're on the path for that to happen at this point. The California facility, the one that was going to be closed was closed at the end of August and that's the main thing that had to occur in order for the benefit from the restructuring to start to leg in. In the fourth quarter, the benefit should be fully realized and that's probably around $800,000 at that point per quarter and that would be the same thing going forward. In the U.S., I mentioned, last time, last call, I think we see it more of as a niche business in the U.S. it's quite different in Asia. It's almost like two different businesses in electronics. But U.S. is looking more and more like a niche business, which is actually niche opportunity which is good for us. That's a good thing for us, because that's really the focus we want to have. Lots of small things, but the good thing about the small things, is there is things we can protect and things that aren't take away from us so easily. With niche business, niche opportunities are hard to get to more work our fund, but much more difficult to take away from us and we like that. That's we look at that as building with brick in time. We built something, we could add to it. We don’t put a brick down. But it's really, not a brick, it's papier-mache, we turn around and we've got to start all over again, that's kind of exhausting. We have some opportunities, which we are happy about with the Polyimide but also No Flow. Remember we announced that No Flow product just I think a couple of months ago. That's a nice product and it's clearly as far as we're concerned a niche product and it's for rigid flex for military So we like military in the U.S., that's a good market for us. I think there was an ITC reported recently saying that you know they expect the military business for circuit boards to improve in the U.S. in the near future, hopefully, that's true. Electronics in Asia, it's a completely different story, it's like two different stories. Okay, so we've been talking for about a year now, with these OEM programs, OEM program pricing, OEM program arrangements. And from the perspective of getting qualified with these OEMs, I think has gone quite well. Year ago, we're talking mostly of the new ways product, that's a new product where we have I guess about six different versions of it now, all the same UO, which is nice. But a year ago, we really kind of nobody. It's just kind when the odds are looking in, knocking the doors with the OEMs and now, we're qualified, our products were qualified in all the major programs. We want to be qualified on, that's the good news. There is some Meteorwave quarter-over-quarter growth. You see that in the second quarter as compared to the first quarter. But we still haven't seen the acceleration that we're looking for in the second half and that doesn’t happen. Also I should tell you that September was a weak month for Asia. We're not sure why that is. Some time on a short-term basis, things happen to market that aren't really so easy to understand. We expect that to recover. But September, I think is off to a good start in Asia. And I just want to report that too, I know we always ask. We don't have a good explanation for it. The other thing is, it's our sense that the telecom infrastructure equipment market is weak at this point. But actually what we are getting from the customers and OEMs in Asia. And I think, they were a little bit coy about that. Maybe I am just speculating. They want to encourage us to really pursue the qualification seriously. But now the story is well, they really need to wait little bit until 4.5, with 4.5 GE takes home. I wish maybe Tony DiGaudio on this call will explain this to you, he is much more of an expert. But there is a five GE specification, which hasn't really been, hasn't been finalized yet. My understanding is, that's still a couple of years off. But some of the big OEMs in Asia is once we deal with this, wait for 5G, they kind went to 4.5 G. I don’t think that's a real specification. I think it's something that's created. But it's obviously somewhere between 4G, 5G in terms of the equipment technology. And we are saying yes, they kind of need to wait for 4.5 G to start taking hold. The best information we are getting is, that's probably next year. Of course they ask, what does that mean, is that mean, we are getting in the year, at the end of the year. We're not been told. If I had to bet, I would bet to second half not the first half of the year, just because sometimes, we're given information that might be a little bit more class half full optimistic. So anyway, so, I guess note myself here, but I think will recover. We may need to 4.5 G to get moving for these programs for qualified under ramp up and that's the thing, when we’re getting qualified normally on new programs, not existing programs, right. There is some existing program. But the real driver is the new programs. Once we qualify, we can't force the OEM to move the product out more quickly than they otherwise would, and that's obviously ridiculous. But that's the situation. I mean it's a market, the overall market drivers that will impact when an OEM is going introduce a new product and also their own development cycle. But I have a feeling that, some of the OEMs are slowing down a little bit more than we thought, maybe more than we were told, waiting for 4G and 4.5G to take hold. And their programs are qualified on, like I said, that's driver. They are not going to deliver revenue, until those program go into full production and if the OEMs are holding back little bit, that's obviously going to affect us and obviously, I will say it again, it's got ridiculous, but no OEM is going to be interested and are telling them we want to introduce their new equipment, their new programs earlier to keep us happy. So a couple of other like detail type things. We introduced M-Ply, recently that's used for as a PTFE Bond Ply for RF, that seem to be getting some nice reception. We also introduced a product called 350 recently and is news released in those products. In terms of what we are working on development wise, supply all to all electronics, not just Asia. We have in development, just something that we have in our road map we presented to our customers and OEMs - halogen free material, which should be in the ultra low loss kind of Meteorwave from a category in terms of the loss properties. We have also developed, working on two next generation high-speed products, which would be the next generation after Meteorwave. It was three different products that we have in R&D at this time. Okay, when we switch to aerospace, I suspect you have some questions about electronics, if I switch to aerospace. As I said, the news is quite good there. So, the revenues were up in Q2, as I said by about 2.6 million or Matt said I guess, compared to Q1. Couple of things that drove one is GE. Remember we talked about this inventory overhang which was kind of driving us crazy. I think we said in the last call probably would be complete, if you will by June and I think it was complete by June. So, we took that, got that monkey off our back. And then the other, the fundamentals are moving in the right direction which is mostly A320 starting to really ramp up. A320 needed with LEAP engine starting to ramp up. So, those two things combined drove our GE revenues in the right direction. The removal of the overhang that’s one-time benefit but the ramping up of the A320 that we’re certainly not anywhere near the levels that are projected so that there's still quite a bit of room to move up. The other thing that drove the aerospace revenues was ablatives. We have pretty good ablatives revenues in the second quarter. Ablatives' is a nice niche product for us that's for rocketry. And most of this feeds into the Atlas 5 and PAC-3 program PAC-3 is a next generation of the Patriot missile which you probably heard about. To think about ablatives, so it’s a little bit lumpy. It's not like consistent across the year which you might expect more from a GE for instance, so we could have a strong second quarter not such a strong first quarter and third quarter may follow-up as well, that’s the nature of ablatives, that’s does not ever leading or losing market share it’s a nature how ablatives work. So we had a good quarter the second quarter for ablatives and the third quarter won’t be as good. Like I said that's not surprised, it’s kind of how ablatives business works for us. After the call last time I realized it created some confusion. One of our shareholder called me and I better clear it up. This relates to GE means two different things going on there is division of GE called MRAS, Middle River Aircraft Systems, that's where GE produces the cells and structures versus structures for the engine. These are core structures. And that’s what we talk about mostly we’re sole-source of those programs, I’ll just tick the role in the 747, A320neo the combat 919, a combat ARJ the Embraer ERJ passport 20 for the Bombardier Global 7,000, 8,000. Those are programs that we talk about mostly that MRAS division of the GE Aviation. And we have a 13 year agreement with the MRAS division of the GE Aviation for these - the cells and TRs, thrust reversers. It’s a 3, plus 5, plus 5 and the pricing is adjusted at three years and after five years 13-year agreement. But then last time I talked about now true GE Aviation and its true but that doesn’t relate to MRS, that relates to the other part of GE Aviation which is internal structure. The cells and TRs and more like external to the engine tenders composite structure inside the engine internal structure. And that’s where we’re doing the RFQ about and that's still ongoing, we respond to RFQ there is a meeting on Friday, I can set tropical negotiation or something like that. But what we already qualified on a number of programs with three different products launch for getting a higher look at our product forms which is good. There has been a big investment to qualify some of those programs you know we didn't have any kind of long-term agreement. So we’ve given proposals on a number product launch but those three four that we’re already qualified on might – I’ll say my opinion is that the chances are in fact high likelihood that we’ll get those programs in your RFQ process. So just because there is a big expense in qualifying a supplier and we were qualified recently there was a shipping and the most of those programs are ready. So to start all over again now would be a highly unusual thing. I can guarantee it but I think it would highly unusual for that to be changed. So those internal structures for the engines for the 747, 787, 777X we’re shipping into those programs in most cases. We also - this is still a GE there is a new project we’re just working on now for the 777X. We don’t if we getting or not but it's quite a big project. So we’re hoping on that one. We also have a large part that we’re working on and that’s now gone to Phase 2, so we're already shipping in for the prototypes and development work so Phase 2 is going to prove that’s really pretty exciting program to materials and parts. So like I said two exciting program and it's little surprising that GE Aviation is working on it, but it is very nice program and going well and we feel good about that. I think that if it really goes into production, it’s probably end of next year. It will start ramping in production. The potential is quite large so let’s cross our fingers on that but so far so good. That’s not a competitive situation not RFQ and something that we've been working with GE Aviation and we’re happy about it. Remember we talk about the joint development agreement project that's going well. We’re hoping to go into production with that new product that’s under development quite soon in the beginning of next year. There is another project another new product that we’re working on with GE that actually wasn't part of a formal agreement but nevertheless it just good to watch and that looks like it's moving into production we hope and near future as well that would require fairly light qualification that second one. The first one probably a little bit more of a qualification but nothing near the qualification that we go through for our materials for structures. Okay that's GE. There is another major aircraft company we spoken about we just quickly update you. There's a number of material specifications that we’re working on, one we’re currently in qualification on the others were under review. There’re big dollars associated with them so we feel good about that. There’s also interesting opportunity as you can material in part large part for a civilian aircraft and that's going well. We’re still doing some development work and still going through the qualification but that's also exciting for us. And then there is a lot of these legacy military aircraft we’re talking about the same company, its huge company right legacy military aircraft and we’ve done many, many, many codes for parts and spares for lot of legacy military aircraft F-18, F-15 and others. And that looks like it’s just about to get started now in other words we expect that we’ll actually begin to get orders and that’s potentially is very large we'll see what happens but it's really exciting to be getting on the inside with our program. So I guess I leave at that. I think we already 11:30, so sorry about the very long introductory remarks. Operator, we're done with our introductory remarks and we like to take questions now if there are any.