Sean Smith
Analyst · UBS. Your line is now open
Thanks, Peter and good morning everyone. Second quarter sales fell 5% sequentially to $122.9 million and 3% year-over-year as strong FPD growth was offset by softness in IC demand. Sales of FPD photomask improved 36% compared with last year and 6% sequentially. High-End FPD sales increased sequentially to 78% of total sales. Demand remains strong for advanced LCD and OLED displays and we have been able to prioritize high-end orders bringing positive mix. Additionally, in some areas we’ve been successful in realizing higher pricing. Backlog remains above average and we continue to run at full capacity. Our next phase of capacity installation should come online in May 2017 which should allow additional growth. Until then, we expect sales to remain flat, limited by our installed capacity with potential benefits from both mix and pricing. IC sales were down $8.9 million sequentially, the majority of which with High-End, which was down $8 million primarily related to the reduced High-End memory demand that Peter alluded to. High-End Logic was also down slightly due to lower foundry sales in Asia. As Peter alluded to, Mainstream sales rebounded in the U.S. and Europe but were down sequentially primarily due to the Chinese New Year. On a year-over-year basis, Mainstream was down due to lower foundry demand principally in Asia. Breaking out sales geographically, 67% of total sales were from Asia, 26% from North America and 7% from Europe. Gross margin for the second quarter was 25.5% down 180 basis points sequentially as a result of reduced volume, principally High-End memory in Asian Mainstream. SG&A expenses were down $1.2 million sequentially due principally to cost reduction programs and to a lesser extent the deferment of certain costs. The operating margin for Q2 was 12.1% as compared to 13.5% sequentially. And EBITDA was $34 million for the quarter and $176 million for the trailing 12 months. Other expense net was $3 million primarily related to unfavorable foreign currency principally from Taiwan. Income tax expense includes a non-recurring net bottom-line benefit of $3 million related to the recognition of certain tax benefits in Taiwan. Since part of the benefit was recognized by our PDMZ JV, the accounting of the benefit is a little complex. The bottom line impact was $3 million but the impact on our tax expense line is approximately a benefit of $4.2 million. Of this, $1.2 million is our partner share thus reducing the minority interest line. So, excluding the total tax benefit, tax expense for Q2 would have been $1.9 million just below the low-end of our guided range of $2 million. GAAP net income was $11.9 million or $0.16 per diluted share and excluding the bottom line tax item previously mentioned non-GAAP net income was $8.9 million or $0.13 per diluted share. Turning to the balance sheet, we ended the second quarter with cash balance of $194 million, bringing our net cash position to $124 million, an improvement of $85 million since Q2 of last year. On a pro forma basis, including the payment from Micron, we received after the quarter close our net cash position is in excess of $200 million. We did have a few changes in our balance sheet during the quarter, so I’ll walk everyone through of those changes. First; $57.5 million of our convertible debt matured on April 1. At the time of the maturity, our stock was trading slightly above the conversion price of $10.37. As a result, only about $7.4 million of the debt converted to equity, raising our total shares outstanding by approximately $700,000. The remaining $50.1 million of debt did not convert and repaid the principle amount back to those holders from our cash balance. As a result of the convertible debt maturing, our diluted share count sold out approximately 4.8 million shares although the total was not reflected on our Q2 share count because the change occurred on April 1. And EPS is calculated based upon weighted average shares. Total share count adjustment will be reflected in our Q3 results as included in our Q3 guidance, which I will discuss in a few minutes. During Peter’s comments, he referred to the tremendous turnaround of our balance sheet over the last several years. To put his comments into perspective, at the end of 2008, the height of the recession, we had total debt of $224 million and net debt of $140 million. And our debt to EBITDA ratio was over 2 times. Since then, we have reduced our debt to $70 million, and have $217 million in net cash on a pro forma basis and a debt to EBITDA ratio of 0.4 times. This was achieved even as we invested in leading edge capability and capacity and over the last several years, our CapEx has averaged nearly 20% of our sales, demonstrating that we have remained committed to becoming both the market and technology leader within the photomask industry. CapEx for the quarter was $13 million. We anticipate spending of approximately $60 million to $70 million in cash CapEx this year. CapEx for the FPD investments mentioned earlier will occur through 2017. Before providing third quarter guidance, I just want to remind everyone that our visibility is always limited and our backlog is typically only one to two weeks. Also, the demand for some of our products such as High-End IC foundry Logic is inherently lumpy and difficult to predict. Finally, as our High-End business has grown, ASP for these assets are higher and a relatively few number of High-End orders can have a significant impact on our sales for the quarter. Given those caveats, we expect third quarter sales to be between $118 million and $128 million. This range assumes FPD remains strong and IC Mainstream sees incremental improvement from Asian seasonality and market growth. In High-End IC is mixed with anticipated Logic growth but lower demand in memory as Micron may reduce outsourcing following the JV expiration. Based upon this revenue expectation and our current operating model, we anticipate - estimate earnings for the third quarter to be in the range of $0.10 to $0.18 per diluted share. The first half of the year, which is typically our softest, given seasonality of our major markets, has been a bit more tepid than we anticipated about six months ago. However, we have done a tremendous job of controlling and have continued to generate cash despite the lower demand environment. We still remain optimistic regarding the long-term demand trends and believe we have several attractive areas for investment to achieve profitable growth in the future. We are certainly well positioned to support these growth initiatives again with our strong balance sheet and look forward to continuing to build upon our leadership position. Thank you for your interest. And we’ll now turn the call over to the operator for your questions.