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Plexus Corp. (PLXS)

Q3 2015 Earnings Call· Thu, Jul 23, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning and welcome to the Plexus Corp. Conference Call Regarding its Fiscal Third Quarter 2015 Earnings Announcement. My name is Lorraine and I will be your operator for today's call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After a brief discussion by management, we will open the conference call for questions. The conference call is scheduled to last approximately one hour. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Angelo Ninivaggi, Plexus' Senior Vice President, Chief Administrative Officer and General Counsel. Angelo? Angelo Michael Ninivaggi - Senior Vice President, Chief Administrative Officer, General Counsel & Secretary: Thank you, Lorraine. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Before we begin, I should remind everyone that statements made during the call today and information included in the supporting material that is not historical in nature, such as statements in the future tense and statements that include believe, expect, intend, plan, anticipate and similar terms, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees since there are inherent difficulties in predicting future results and actual results could differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. For a list of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed, please refer to the company's periodic SEC filings, particularly the Risk Factors in our Form 10-K filing for the fiscal year ended September 27, 2014, and the Safe Harbor and Fair Disclosure Statement in yesterday's press release. Plexus provides non-GAAP supplemental information, such as return on invested capital, Economic Return and free cash flow, because those measures are used for internal management goals and decision-making and because they provide additional insight into financial performance. In addition, management uses these and other non-GAAP measures, such as adjusted net income and adjusted…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session And our first question comes from Brian Alexander from Raymond James. Please go ahead. Brian G. Alexander - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Okay. Thanks. Good morning, guys. Dean A. Foate - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Hi, Brian. Brian G. Alexander - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: I just wanted to start with the new business wins. I appreciate they were balanced geographically and across segments, but they were roughly 25% below the average we've seen over the last six quarters. And I think the funnel came down as well. So you didn't harvest as many as you had. So is it getting more difficult on the business development front in general? And are you seeing more competition for new programs from some of your larger EMS peers and kind of what's your outlook for new program wins over the next few quarters? Steven J. Frisch - Chief Customer Officer & Executive Vice President: So, Brian, this is Steve. In terms of the funnel itself, it's still healthy at over $2 billion. I think in terms of the aggressiveness of competition, I don't think there's a fundamental difference in what we've seen. And the EMS business is a competitive business. And, again, fundamentally, I don't think there's a big shift that we've seen there. As we look forward, we do expect Q4 to improve in terms of the quantity of wins, led significantly by the Healthcare/Life Sciences team. They are expecting some decent wins this quarter. The one thing that we did do this quarter is we did sign a letter of intent with a large industrial commercial customer. However, we have to win the individual business units. So we're not recognizing any of those wins until we win…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from Mitch Steves from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Mitch Steves - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst

Hey. Thanks, guys. I just had a quick question on the Guadalajara facility ramps. I remember I think last quarter you guys were talking about 20 basis points to 30 basis points improvement in Q4. But now that I look at the slide deck, it looks like you guys are delaying that to FY 2016. So could you just maybe provide some commentary what changed there and why the delay? Patrick J. Jermain - Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer: Sure. So there's not a delay in Guadalajara and it's actually ahead of schedule. So what we had talked about last quarter was overall a 40 basis point drag that was a result of the Guadalajara investments that we've put in place to aggressively ramp the facility. We expected to recover that over a three quarter period, Q3, Q4 and Q1. So we've recovered 20 basis points of it already in Q3 because of the facility really ramping faster than expected, achieving profitability when we expected it to be at a slight loss in Q3. So we're ahead of plan. We still expect to make some further improvements in Q4 and be completely up to corporate targets in Q1.

Mitch Steves - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst

Got it. Thanks. And then if I could ask one more on the Networking side. I'm sure you guys hear a lot of questions on this, but is there any comments you guys can make on maybe next year just because the quarters were so lumpy this year? And when we'll see maybe year-over-year growth, the comparable, to be maybe pretty tough in the first two quarters? Dean A. Foate - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Boy, I don't know. That's a tough one to answer right now because we sure didn't see the kind of step down like we just experienced into Q4. I guess at this point, I mean we've got a forecast for next year. We see revenues coming up again in that sector as we come into the new fiscal year. Demand from the customers that we saw weaken has come back up. We don't think that we're going to see the extraordinary strength from in particular one of the customers that we've seen this past year. And I don't think that they would suggest they would see that in that regard either in the near term. Definitely, they were positioned such that they were first to market with a new technology and they made extraordinary progress penetrating that market. And, of course, the demand is going to normalize. Now who knows what's going to happen with follow-on product technologies and those kinds of things. But, at this point, that marketplace for us and for everyone, I think, is just really difficult to pin down in terms of what we think the kind of quarter-by-quarter linearity is going to be. It's going to be – I think continue to be somewhat volatile here. Todd P. Kelsey - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: The one thing too that I'd add, Dean, is that we're expecting strong growth and have a really solid forecast in our other three market sectors. So, we feel really good about our prospects in those three sectors. But the Networking/Communications in general has been so volatile, it's just tough to predict right now.

Mitch Steves - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst

Got it. And just real quick. Was ARRIS still a 10% customer in the quarter or did they drop off? Patrick J. Jermain - Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer: Yeah. We, Mitch, only report that on an annual basis. So we'll be reporting that in our year-end results.

Mitch Steves - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst

Okay. Got it. Thank you. Dean A. Foate - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from Matt Sheerin from Stifel. Please go ahead. Matt J. Sheerin - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Yes. Thanks. Good morning. Just wanted to ask some questions revolving around the production process constraints in your Aerospace/Defense business. Was that specific to one customer? And could you give us more color in exactly what those issues were? I know it's been a drag on margins. Is it going to continue to be a drag over the next couple quarters? Todd P. Kelsey - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: Sure. So, Matt, this is Todd. I'll take this one. With respect to the issue of the production process constraint, it was in our conformal coating function. So this is essentially a back-end process that's utilized heavily in Aerospace, occasionally in other market sectors, but primarily within Aerospace. And what's particularly challenging around it is we have 17 chemistries that we currently have implemented right now, of which three or four are the bulk of the volume. And then within that conformal coating, there's a certain – the typical method is to automate the processes around the coating, but there's certain products that have very manual intensive processes that become very Aero prone. So what we've been working with our customers on is – and what we expected to have resolved within Q3 is to automate some of these more manual processes on products in particular where we've seen upside and also to really bring on third-parties for the really obscure coat processes that we have in place. And those did not occur within the quarter. We're working through those. And we have the bulk of it resolved as of today. Still a couple of things to resolve yet within the quarter, but we…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from Sherri Scribner from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Sherri A. Scribner - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Hi. Thank you. I wanted to dig a little bit more into the Networking weakness that you saw this quarter. And I want to confirm, Dean, I think that you said during the previous questions that customers that were weak this quarter has come back. I want to confirm that that's what you said. And then also I wanted to ask in terms of the Networking piece. How much of that weakness do you believe is related to weakness in China, which is something we've heard from other companies or is it not related to China at all? Dean A. Foate - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: I'll let someone else take the market question overall. But I would just say I want to clarify what I said. It came down late in Q3 and disappointed. And, of course, that weakness carried into Q4. We see improvement in Q1 but at this point not to the level that we're executing revenues with some of the customers that came down for the prior higher levels. I mean, we see it coming back some but we're not – I wouldn't say it's a robust forecast for that sector. Steven J. Frisch - Chief Customer Officer & Executive Vice President: This is Steve. I'll take the market question. As Todd highlighted in his comments, we did see some extraordinary things happen with one or two customers with some new product ramps that came down. And that kind of magnified the thing for us. But in terms of the feedback we're getting from customers, yeah, there is end-market weakness that they are seeing that I think you've heard from other people. So I think there's a combination of the two things. One is we kind of have the extraordinary dip due to a couple of product lines and then just the overall general end-market weakness is something that being reflected back to us as well. Todd P. Kelsey - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: And it's not necessarily China, Sherri. Steven J. Frisch - Chief Customer Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah.

Sherri A. Scribner - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. Okay. Thanks. And then, Dean, just thinking about fiscal 2016, you indicated that most of the segments are going to see growth next year based on your funnel of business and wins. It looks like the Street is forecasting growth of about 7% next year. Does that seem like a reasonable growth number for you for fiscal 2016? Dean A. Foate - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Well, it's tough to start guiding 2016 just yet. But I mean certainly the marketplace supports growth at that or better. And so, I wouldn't want people to take their numbers up based on that statement yet because it's just too early. But if we only grow 7%, that would be kind of disappointing, quite frankly.

Sherri A. Scribner - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. Thank you. Dean A. Foate - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from Shawn Harrison from Longbow Research. Please go ahead.

Shawn M. Harrison - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst

Hi. I'm going to beat a dead horse. So we got a lot of detail on Networking. Just want to be clear. So were these new products going into market that didn't ramp as expected based upon the last comment? Was it an inventory correction? Was it new business you were supposed to ramp? Just trying to, I guess, get that last detail. Steven J. Frisch - Chief Customer Officer & Executive Vice President: This is Steve. The detail is, is that the customer was forecasting stronger growth and strength in their product ramps. And now it had been ramping nicely. Their end-markets didn't materialize the way that they thought with those products in the quarter. And they see a short-term dip that was more significant than what I think anybody anticipated. And I think Dean highlighted the fact that we do expect to see some of that come back in 2016, back to more normalized run rate. So there was a particular product line that took a dip for everybody here more than what anybody anticipated. And the exact end-market reasons for that – I think weakness in what was happening in that market sector surprised everybody in that market sector or that subsector. Dean A. Foate - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Well, we're also cautious here about what we're saying, quite frankly, because we're out in front of the customers on our customers' earnings announcements as well. So you know who some of our key customers are. I guess I'd just say just hang on and listen to their calls and they will give you more detail. We don't want to be giving information that are contrary to what they might say in terms of direction.

Shawn M. Harrison - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst

That's fair. Just the bounce back into the December quarter that implies that there is excess inventory out there and that's why we bounced back or is it stronger demand that you're getting from the customer in terms of the feedback? Dean A. Foate - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. Generally, I don't think there's a lot of inventory in the channel. This stuff is pretty much direct fulfilled. So there is some of that clearly but a lot of this is just their ability to make sales to customers and get the product moving out into the marketplace.

Shawn M. Harrison - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst

Okay. And then just as a follow-up. Maybe I think it was Todd's earlier comments on a bullish year on Mexico into 2016. I know last quarter you talked about potentially very large programs breaking free. Is that what the bullishness in the medical sector is tied to or is there something else that could be breaking free in driving growth? Todd P. Kelsey - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. So the growth is – we have three major customers that are ramping within that facility right now. And I'd say that by itself is driving the bullish view. But we also have several other Healthcare/Life Sciences customers that we're beginning to grow as well too. And to be honest, we would view that as being upside to our projections in Mexico.

Shawn M. Harrison - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst

But nothing incremental on large medical programs breaking free tied to the comment last quarter? Todd P. Kelsey - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: Not into this facility at this point.

Shawn M. Harrison - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst

Okay. Got you. Thanks so such.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from Steven Fox from Cross Research. Please go ahead.

Steven B. Fox - Cross Research LLC

Analyst

Thanks. Good morning. First question just with regards to the weakness in Networking/Communications, just a broader question. The company has had periods where it's disappointed the Street and it seems to typically be related to customer or market concentration. Obviously, you can't snap your fingers and just balance everything out overnight. But can you talk about given this latest round of misses, what you're doing to maybe reduce some of this end-market risk or end-market dependency risk in the future? Dean A. Foate - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. I think if you look at where we were at a number of years ago in terms of our overall concentration in Networking/Communication, obviously, it was quite high. I think it was - Todd P. Kelsey - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: 50% Dean A. Foate - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. It was north of 50% at one point in time. So I think we've done a nice job, not necessarily always in the way we'd want to. But we've done a nice job growing the other sectors proportionally faster than we have the Networking/Communication sector. So that's part of the strategy. Part of the difficulty, obviously, with the customers in Network/Communications is they tend to have much bigger average program sizes than perhaps the other sectors. So even though you have a lot of volatility in Healthcare and you have volatility in Industrial/Commercial with individual product lines the fact that you're building so many different products with such a great deal of mix that tends to kind of smooth out performance. But in Network/Communications, the customers tend to have these very significant programs that can have enormous volatility to them. So, our strategy is to try to pick the right customers where we can provide a lot of value-add, grow in Network/Communications because we think it's an important growth sector, but continue to grow the other sectors faster, to try to reduce some of that volatility. But, clearly, we're not always successful doing that. Like I would say, the hit we took this – in the coming quarter obviously is driven substantially by Network/Communications. But if we look at the miss in the prior quarter, this was somewhat self-inflicted as well with our inability to get product out in Defense/Security and Aerospace. So it's not all Network/Communications that gave us the current issues.

Steven B. Fox - Cross Research LLC

Analyst

Yeah. Dean, that's fair. I guess one of the things I was getting at is my understanding was that you guys have done a better job of diversifying within the segment in Networking/Communications. So maybe you can just sort of give us an update on how well you're diversified to – there are some – obviously with some industry consolidation that is going on, there's some spending cycles that maybe are in more sync right now within that segment than usual. But how diversified would you say you are today within that big segment? Thanks. Dean A. Foate - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. I don't have the percentages with me right now. But, clearly, we have a couple of very dominant customers. And like I said, those customers – the revenue generated for Plexus with those customers tends to revolve around a handful of product lines. And so it's going to be volatile in that sector for us. So it's not as stable as I think as we'd like but at the same time these are great customers and great partners for us. And, of course, we're working to add additional customers into that sector to help grow with over a longer period of time and hopefully take some of that volatility out.

Steven B. Fox - Cross Research LLC

Analyst

Great. Thank you very much. Dean A. Foate - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from Andrew Huang from B. Riley. Please go ahead. Andrew Huang - B. Riley & Co. LLC: Thanks for taking my question. First, I was wondering if we could kind of go back a little bit to the wins and then specifically in the Americas because I think in that specific geography there was a pretty big drop-off. Steven J. Frisch - Chief Customer Officer & Executive Vice President: Todd, do you want to take that? Dean A. Foate - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. Just go ahead, Steve. Steven J. Frisch - Chief Customer Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. So, in the Americas, if you go back and look over the last couple of quarters, it's actually similar to some of the sectors. There's actually been some volatility now. A couple of quarters ago, we had a pretty decent win. I mean in Q2 of F2015, we were at $133 million. Q1 of F2015, we're at $23 million. And this quarter, we're at $61 million. So, from a volatility standpoint, I think, what you'll see, as you look quarter-to-quarter, you will see volatility in the regions just like you will in the sectors. And that's why we kind of look at the trailing four quarters. And the trailing four quarters has been running relatively flat, in that 25% to 30% range. So, from our perspective, it's not anything that's abnormal. It's just normal volatility that we would see. And, as Todd highlighted, I think we're pretty comfortable with what we've got sitting in the front end of each of the regions at the moment. Todd P. Kelsey - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. What I'd add too is, from an absolute standpoint, it's the largest of…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from Mark Delaney from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Mark T. Delaney - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Good morning and thanks very much for taking the questions. I was hoping, first, to talk more on the Industrial/Commercial segment and trying to better understand some of the dynamics with a couple of the larger program opportunities that the company has talked about. I think on the last call, the company talked about a $100 million opportunity. And I think you had already booked $75 million or so of that with maybe another $35 million still to come. How much of that has already shipped for revenue through the June quarter and how should we expect the additional part of that program to layer on? And then the additional $100 million opportunity that you were talking about that you think you can book in Industrial, is that the same customer or is it somebody new and when can that turn into revenue? Steven J. Frisch - Chief Customer Officer & Executive Vice President: This is Steve. To answer your last question first, the customer I talked about is a new customer. It's not the same one. And, in turn, in regards to the customer we talked about last quarter, the $77 million we'll complete ramping this quarter. And it is fully loaded for the F2016 forecast. There, we talked about additional $35 million in revenue. In this quarter, we closed $5 million of that additional, so that will be being loaded into the site forecast in the F2016. There's still an additional $28 million to $30 million that's in our funnel that we're still pursuing with the customer. And I don't have an expectation exactly as to when that would close, but that's still in…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from Jim Suva from Citi. Please go ahead.

James D. Suva - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you. When we think about your new business line, is there a reason why one should not think about (55:30- 56:10). Dean A. Foate - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks, Jim. It sounds to us like you maybe on a mobile device or something because we're having a little bit difficult time completely piecing together your questions. So I'm going to try to interpolate between the various. What I think I heard – I think you were asking about our 12% kind of enduring growth rate, the target that we have of 25% of trailing four quarter revenues as being the target to support the 12% goal. And excuse me if I'm not getting your question right. But I think that throughout the year now, for the past couple of years, we've done a pretty good job staying meaningfully above that 25% goal. If you look at this year, I mean we're all sitting here disappointed kind of how this has unfolded. We're still going to grow for the full year now. It looks like just shy of that 12% enduring goal. So the arithmetic in terms of our win rate and driving growth near 12%, I think, holds up. And, in fact, all of our sectors are growing in fiscal 2015. So I think we feel good about the growth. It's not – we felt we were going to be well above 12%. The difficulty is that the cost structure was out in front of 12% – the cost structure was starting to come in for higher levels of growth. And, of course, we also just have some couple of facilities here that are putting a meaningful drag on our near-term results that we just have been frankly struggling to get them course corrected and we will get them course corrected. But we've clearly struggled and so we haven't gotten the operating leverage and the EPS growth this year that we ought to be getting. And so, generally speaking, I think that we still got the right model. I think we still got the right go-to-market strategy. We're winning the new customers, winning the programs. This isn't – our issues aren't related specifically to pricing in the marketplaces or in the industry of collapsing. Just our ability to generate profit is about us getting a couple of facilities course corrected and getting the growth into the new sites that we've invested in.

James D. Suva - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you very much. Dean A. Foate - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you, Jim.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And at this time, I'm showing no further questions. Dean A. Foate - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: All right. Well, clearly, this isn't the outcome that we had expected. We expected just a quarter ago to have a much stronger result. We take our responsibility and our commitments to deliver numbers in our guidance range very seriously. Over the past 10 years, 12 years, this is the only second time we've missed on our EPS guidance range. And we're quite embarrassed by that. And we're even more disappointed here with what the outlook here in the near-term on Q4. And so, again, we appreciate the questions from the sell-side and we certainly appreciate the support that we've had from our shareholders. And we feel a sense of urgency to get the margin performance back where it needs to be and then get reacceleration of top line growth here as fiscal 2016 unfolds. So, thanks very much. And I hope all of you have a pleasant day.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's conference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.