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Plexus Corp. (PLXS)

Q2 2018 Earnings Call· Thu, Apr 26, 2018

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Hello and good morning. Welcome to the Plexus Corp. Conference Call regarding its Fiscal Second Quarter 2018 Earnings Announcement. My name is Michelle, 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 and is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Ms. Susan Hanson, Plexus Senior Director of Communications and Investor Relations. Ma'am, you may begin.

Susan Hanson - Plexus Corp.

Management

Thanks, Michelle. Good morning and thank you for joining us today. Some of the statements made and information provided during our call today will be forward-looking statements as they will not be limited to historical facts. The words believe, expect, intend, plan, anticipate and similar terms often identify 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 30, 2017, and the Safe Harbor and Fair Disclosure statement in yesterday's press release. Plexus provides non-GAAP supplemental information, such as ROIC, 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, adjusted earnings per share and adjusted operating margin to provide a better understanding of core performance for purposes of period-to-period comparison. For a full reconciliation of non-GAAP supplemental information, please refer to yesterday's press release and our periodic SEC filings. We encourage participants on the call this morning to access the live webcast and supporting materials on Plexus website at www.plexus.com by clicking on Investor Relations at the top of the page. Joining me today are Todd Kelsey, President and Chief Executive Officer; Steve Frisch, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer and Pat Jermain, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Consistent with prior earnings call, Todd will provide summary comments before turning the call over to Steve and Pat for further details. Let me now turn the call over to Todd Kelsey. Todd?

Todd P. Kelsey - Plexus Corp.

Management

Thank you, Susan, and good morning, everyone. Please begin with our fiscal second quarter results on slide 3. After the close of the market yesterday, we reported results for our fiscal second quarter of 2018. We finished the quarter with record revenue of $699 million. The result was near the high end of our guidance range and up approximately 16% from the comparable quarter last year. Our Industrial/Commercial market sector outperformed strengthening during the quarter as a result of robust demand in the semiconductor capital equipment space. Our Healthcare/Life Sciences and Aerospace and Defense market sectors achieved solid sequential growth as we benefited from new program ramps in improving end markets. We incurred a $13.2 million expense impacting our GAAP earnings per share result as a consequence of the previously announced bonus for non-executive full time employees. Our diluted GAAP EPS was $0.36. Excluding the bonus impact, we delivered non-GAAP diluted EPS of $0.74 including $0.13 of stock-based compensation expense. The non-GAAP EPS result was above the midpoint of our guidance range as we benefited from better than anticipated revenue coupled with operating performance in line with previous expectations. Our return on invested capital was 15.6%. This represents an economic return of 610 basis points above our weighted average cost of capital, well above our 500 basis point goal. Next, I will highlight a few significant accomplishments within the fiscal second quarter. In response to recent U.S. tax reform, we announced a revised capital allocation strategy on February 20, 2018, that supports a more effective capital structure. The tax changes allow for the efficient repatriation of more than $500 million of our overseas cash. I will review some of the key components of our revised capital allocation strategy. One of our top priorities is to allocate capital to support our…

Steven J. Frisch - Plexus Corp.

Management

Thank you, Todd. Good morning. Please advance to slide 5 for a review of our market sector performance during the second quarter of fiscal 2018 as well as our expectations for the sectors in the fiscal third quarter of 2018. Our Healthcare/Life Sciences sector was up 5% in the fiscal second quarter, which was in line with our expectations of a mid-single-digit increase. New program ramps for several customers provided the growth. Looking ahead to the back half of fiscal 2018, we expect the ramp of new programs to continue. As a result, we anticipate a mid-single-digit revenue increase in our Healthcare/Life Sciences sector in the fiscal third quarter. Our Industrial/Commercial sector was up 17% sequentially in the fiscal second quarter, which was above our expectations of a low double-digit increase. For the second quarter in a row, the stronger than anticipated revenue was mainly due to increased demand from customers within the semiconductor capital equipment subsector. As we look towards the fiscal third quarter, the exceptionally strong demand from my semiconductor capital equipment customers is expected to stabilize a slightly lower revenue level. As a result, we anticipate a mid-single-digit decrease in our Industrial/Commercial sector in the fiscal third quarter. Our Communications sector was down 26% sequentially in the fiscal second quarter of 2018. This result was in line with our expectations of a mid-20s percentage decrease. Looking ahead to the fiscal third quarter, we expect that modest end market strength and new program ramps will yield a low double-digit increase in our Communications sector. Our Aerospace and Defense sector was up 10% in the fiscal second quarter, a result that was below our expectations of a mid-teens increase. Delayed new program ramps were the main reason for the lower revenue. As we look towards the fiscal third quarter,…

Patrick J. Jermain - Plexus Corp.

Management

Thank you, Steve, and good morning, everyone. Our fiscal second quarter results are summarized on slide 12. As Todd mentioned earlier, second quarter revenue and non-GAAP EPS were above the midpoint of our guidance. Including gross profit for the fiscal second quarter was approximately $12.6 million of expense related to the one-time employee bonus paid at the end of March. Before consideration of the one-time bonus, adjusted gross margin was 9.4%. This result met our expectations and was consistent with the fiscal first quarter. Our seasonal compensation cost increases impact to gross margin. We managed to offset the impact through continued operational productivity and better leverage of fixed expenses with sequentially higher revenue. Selling and administrative expense of approximately $35.6 million included $900,000 of expense related to the one-time employee bonus. As a percentage of revenue, SG&A was 5.1%, a sequential increase of 40 basis points. Contributing to the increase was the anticipated seasonal compensation headwinds, higher incentive compensation expense along with the one-time employee bonus expense. Before consideration of the one-time employee bonus expense, adjusted operating margin of 4.4% was in line with our quarterly guidance. Included in this quarter's operating margin was approximately 65 basis points of stock-based compensation expense. Diluted EPS at $0.36 included a detriment of $0.38 per share as a result of the after-tax employee bonus expense. Excluding this expense, non-GAAP EPS of $0.74 was slightly above the midpoint of our guidance. Turning now to the balance sheet on slide 13. Return on invested capital before the one-time bonus expense was 15.6% for the fiscal second quarter, 610 basis points above our weighted average cost of capital of 9.5%. Sequentially, return on invested capital reduced 60 basis points due in part to working capital investment to support anticipated higher revenue and longer lead times for…

Operator

Operator

Thank you, sir. Okay. I do have a question in the queue from Shannon (sic) [Shawn] Harrison with Longbow Research. Your line is open. I'm sorry, Shawn.

Shawn M. Harrison - Longbow Research LLC

Management

Morning.

Todd P. Kelsey - Plexus Corp.

Management

Morning, Shawn.

Shawn M. Harrison - Longbow Research LLC

Management

Good laugh to start my day.

Todd P. Kelsey - Plexus Corp.

Management

Perfect. Go ahead.

Shawn M. Harrison - Longbow Research LLC

Management

Two questions if I may. So if you look at the 12% growth target now for the year that you've highlighted, I think part of it last time was that you would see decent growth in the Communications business and maybe that looks like it's either going to be a little bit lower the fourth quarter or will be a little bit stronger. And so maybe just the trajectory into the end of the year within Communications and then anything else that's changed within the other sectors as well, it looks like Industrial's gotten a little bit better once again?

Todd P. Kelsey - Plexus Corp.

Management

Yeah, Shawn. This is Todd. I'll take a first crack at this and pass it off to Steve. But if we look at the 12% and what's occurring there on a sector-by-sector basis – I'll start with Communications. As for Commercial, maybe add a little color on the other ones. But Communications is softened a bit during the course of the year from what our earlier expectations were, and we continue to see that. Now we're expecting a couple of quarters of decent sequential growth as we end the year. But when you add that all up, it looks kind of flattish for the year where originally, we felt we're going to see some pretty good growth. Now on the flip side, Industrial/Commercial has really done the exact opposite. I mean we thought we'd struggle to grow during the year. We now look like we're going to have a really strong growth year and we continue to see significant pull-ins from semiconductor capital equipment, but additional strengthening within the rest of the sector there. So maybe I'll pass it over to Steve and he can hit on that or the other two sectors as well.

Steven J. Frisch - Plexus Corp.

Management

Yeah, I think Todd hit those two well. They kind of flip flop from our original expectations, and then in terms of Healthcare/Life Sciences, expected strong double-digit growth that we expect to see continue in the back half of 2018 and into 2019. I mean in Aerospace and Defense, very similar story, strong double-digit growth we expect to continue into 2018 and – so better to be in the 2018.

Shawn M. Harrison - Longbow Research LLC

Management

If I may follow up on kind of the semi cap and then the comms, do you think the market is weakening further within Communications for your customer products or is it more of a slower ramp? And then in Industrial, obviously, there's been a lot of noise with some of the earnings releases around, maybe weakening in orders for the semi cap cycle. Are you seeing kind of any of that within your order book?

Steven J. Frisch - Plexus Corp.

Management

So, this is Steve. I'll probably start with Industrial/Commercial first. In respect of the semiconductor capital equipment market, we had an exceptional past couple of quarters here, really drop in demand that we were able to deliver. And so, we see the forecast not going down, it's really maybe those spikes that we saw in the last couple of quarters. The question is, are we going to see those as we finish out 2018. And so our forecast, as we finish 2018 is staying relatively stable. Just a question in our head is, is there upside, is really the unknown for us. We see semiconductor capital equipment looking good through 2018. And there is conversations about it continuing in the 2019. So for us, we're reasonably comfortable with where semiconductor is going to be at least as we go into 2019. As we take a look at the Communications space, the ramps are a little bit slower than what we'd anticipated. But they're still healthy and strong. Obviously, we'd a little bit headwind last quarter with the customer disengagement. So that put a little bit of a hole that we had to fill. As we look towards the back half of the year, we expect those ramps to continue and continue a sequential growth. But overcoming kind of the headwinds that we had to fill back in, we're looking more of a flattish to – kind of range for the Communications sector for entire fiscal 2018.

Operator

Operator

The next question in the queue comes from Sherri Stirner with TB (sic) [Sherri Scribner with DB]. Your line is open.

Sherri A. Scribner - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

Hi. It's Sherri Scribner from DB, Deutsche Bank. I guess just looking at the strong wins, especially in the Industrial segment, I know we've had some strength in the semi cap equipment business over the past couple of quarters. But you mentioned a number of new deals and I think you mentioned the mechatronics deal, can you give us some more information about what's driving those new wins and what areas were you guys are winning new business so we can think about how that translates into revenue growth as we move into fiscal 2019?

Steven J. Frisch - Plexus Corp.

Management

Sure. We're pretty excited about the Industrial/Commercial wins. As we mentioned last quarter and in this quarter, most of these wins are coming from customers outside of the semiconductor capital equipment space. A little bit of color on a couple of them. One is a meaningful test and measurement device, a higher level assembly that is going to be transitioning into our APAC region. We have some automated retail as well as, I'd call it, automated manufacturing products that are coming into our Appleton facility. So for us, it's a nice expansion and diversification away from some of the semiconductor capital equipment growth that we had through the beginning half of fiscal 2018.

Sherri A. Scribner - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

Okay, great. And then maybe just if you could provide a little bit of detail on the rationale for expanding in Guadalajara. And as it relates to expanding, maybe if you could provide some thoughts on what you're thinking about the current discussions about a trade war with China and how that might potentially impact your business. Thanks.

Todd P. Kelsey - Plexus Corp.

Management

Yeah. Sounds good, Sherri. So this is Todd. I'll take these questions. If we look at Guadalajara, and you think back to the last few years as we launched the site, we've ran above our expectations throughout the history of that site. So it ramped quickly, it got to profitability quickly, continues to grow, and there continues to be a really strong demand. I think since it's opening, it's always had about – either the best or the second best funnel of any of the sites within Plexus. So as we look ahead, we look where we're at right now. We're running it at maybe a little over 50% capacity right now, but as we project out to a year from now, that really looks to be in the order of 70% to 80% capacity which gets to near the unhealthy level when you're talking about a strong growth area. So I think we're bringing on additional capacity at about the right time to be able to service our customers and the strong interest there. I'd like to give a big shout-out to the team there too. I mean the reason that they're growing so fast is the executions been spectacular as they've transitioned in new products within new sectors, so that's been great. Speaking more to China and potential for trade wars, I mean when we look at – I mean obviously, there's a list of potential products that could be impacted by tariffs. And there are products of our customers that would fall on that list, but I think right now, it's a wait-and-see type approach on that as to what will really happen and how this will really play out. If we looked at it though from a bigger picture standpoint, I think – if we looked at tariffs in general, first of all, they passed to our customers, but also, there could be potential that we move product around. But I think we're in a better position than most in our space because we're less dependent on China as a large revenue region. I mean it's a relatively small concentration of our revenue in China. So I think we're in a better spot than most people, but it's something that we're certainly keeping a close eye on in analyzing and have contingency plans in place.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from Sean Hannan from Needham & Company. Sean K. F. Hannan - Needham & Company: Yeah, thanks. Good morning. Thanks for taking the question here. So just stepping back and thinking at a higher level in terms of the opportunities we're looking at now for fiscal 2019, if I am tracking these wins that you've been aggregating over the last many quarters – I mean your win rates have been spectacular. They've been very consistently strong. You had a great result here this quarter. It seems that the EMS environment in terms of being able to procure incremental outsource particularly in these non-traditional markets has been very fertile ground. And so as we're lining up here, you've got good growth to your opportunities in fiscal 2018, my model and I could exactly retrieve this (34:25), I don't know, about 7% growth in fiscal 2019. Now, I'm not asking for guidance, but it would seem to suggest at this point in time, based on these wins, you folks should be looking much more at a very real opportunity for double-digit growth perhaps again in fiscal 2019. So just wanted to see if I could check on that, get a gut-check and your reaction, and any color out of that would be helpful.

Todd P. Kelsey - Plexus Corp.

Management

Yes. So sounds good, Sean. I mean the one thing I'll say is I hesitate to make any projections that are that far out because just so many things can change. But if we look at 2019 right now and, of course, we're in a planning process as we speak, the first part of the year is looking good for us and that's where we have reasonable visibility, I would say in the first part of fiscal 2019 and we talk about the potential, the continuous sequential growth into that timeframe. So then the question just becomes what happens in the back half of fiscal 2019, and I think that's dependent on a few things. I mean one would be what happens with end markets. Right now, we're seeing end markets strengthen a little bit, not in great shapes, but a little bit. And then what happens with respect to wins that occur over the course of the next couple of quarters and how quickly they ramp. So I think if we look at where we're at from our own internal view, it looks similar to where we were at this time last year looking at 2018 and we talked about that being kind of high single-digit type growth. Now, it turned out better than that or is looking better than that. I shouldn't say turned out, we still have half a year to go. It's looking better than that for 2018 as we speak, but it remains to be seen whether those same – we hit the same things. Like semi cap for instance could swing things in a big way. And I doubt it will be stronger than this year, so it could take us down a little bit from a comparative standpoint as we look at 2019.…

Patrick J. Jermain - Plexus Corp.

Management

Yeah. Hey, Sean. This is Pat. I'll start with your first part, and then Steve can address your second question. With regard to the CapEx, with it starting this year, we'll see some capitalization in the back half of this year. Most of it will occur in the first and second quarter of fiscal 2019. In total, the leasehold improvements will be about $20 million. So that's what we've got in our forecast for fiscal 2019. And then I'll let Steve talk about the capacity and ramp.

Steven J. Frisch - Plexus Corp.

Management

Sure. As Todd talked about, as you look to the back half of 2019, we see the existing facility being about 80% utilized, and our strategy is really a campus approach. So this facility is very close to the existing facility. That allows us to do a couple things. One is we would target each of the facilities for a different sector or a different set of sectors. And that allows us basically to share revenue and that, quite frankly, kind of see both facilities and make sure that they're healthy from a starting point. We do have expectations for the existing team that with the growth that they're going to see, we're going to get some better leverage, which will help fund some of the investments that we're going to look to in the back half of 2019. And along those lines by having more of a campus environment, we've been able to share some of the higher level resources that are required for running both the facilities. So our strategy is to leverage some of the growth that we're going to get in the next year, here with the growth, to fund some of the investments as we look to 2019, and then split revenue across the facilities and allow both of them to grow. We think it's a pretty decent strategy to ensure success down there going forward. Sean K. F. Hannan - Needham & Company: Very helpful. Thanks so much for addressing the questions.

Patrick J. Jermain - Plexus Corp.

Management

You're welcome.

Operator

Operator

And the next question in the queue comes from Matt Sheerin with Stifel. Your line is open. Matthew John Sheerin - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Yes, thanks, and good morning. Just a couple of questions. One on the working capital and the inventory build, which certainly you're not the only company that's seeing a tight supply environment. But are you actually seeing any issues related to being unable to ship products for customers because of component shortages? And talking to your suppliers and your procurement teams, how long do you think this environment is going to last so that you're going to see elevated inventory and working capital levels?

Steven J. Frisch - Plexus Corp.

Management

Sure. This is Steve. I'll take this one. I think our supply chain team has done a phenomenal job of seeing this coming. And the supply chain solutions that we have in place have from my view showed a continuity of supply with customer demand. And so we've not had a problem meeting kind of our commitments to our customers as it relates to the supply. With that said, customers that are dropping in orders and maybe haven't been used to a constrained market in the past that we've been able to respond to very quickly were challenged a little bit at times to basically meet some of their upside demand. And so that's why we're talking with them and looking at the inventory positions in the situations that we're at. We've been adding a little extra inventory. And I'll give you an example. So if we have a customer that has upside on two products and it shares a common part that's a little bit challenged and if we don't see line of sight to that entire need for that part, we'll chase inventory for both products with the expectation that in an attempt that we're going to be able to basically deliver both but we may not be able to. And so that's driving some high level of customer satisfaction. Feedback from our customers, we're doing better than some in the industry, so pretty happy about that. In terms of how long it's going to last, we definitely see this lasting in the fiscal 2019. It depends on the components. There's really several that we're watching, resistors and capacitors, logic and discretes as well as memories. And it varies a little bit with each of those, but definitely in some of the areas like the capacitors, we definitely see that continuing into 2019 for sure. Matthew John Sheerin - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Okay. Thanks, Steve. That's helpful. And then just on the semi cap strength that you've seen. Could you give us an idea of the rough percentage of revenue contribution in the Industrial/Commercial sector from semi cap and has the growth rate within that segment been in line with the overall segment?

Steven J. Frisch - Plexus Corp.

Management

Yeah, sure. The Industrial/Commercial sector is about 14% of overall Plexus revenue. And I'm just looking to grab the data here. Here we go. It's about 45% of the – for FY 2018, it's about 14% of Plexus revenue and about 45% of the sector revenue. From a growth rate standpoint, it's growing very rapidly, much more than the Industrial/Commercial sector as a whole. I can get you that number quickly too. Matthew John Sheerin - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: And have you seen the expansion of customers there as well?

Steven J. Frisch - Plexus Corp.

Management

Yeah, expansion of customers, a lot of new program wins. So I mean overall, we're up in, call it, the 40% to 50% range year-over-year in semi cap. And I mean that's a combination of end markets and new programs. Matthew John Sheerin - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Got you. Okay. All right. Thanks a lot.

Operator

Operator

The next question – Jim, your line is open, sir.

Jim Suva - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Management

Thanks very much. If I heard correctly, did you say CapEx this year of $80 million to $90 million? And then am I correct it would dramatically decline the following year just given this year is the build-out of Mexico?

Patrick J. Jermain - Plexus Corp.

Management

Well, no, Jim. Some of that build-out in Mexico is going to fall into fiscal 2019. So we will see a reduction. I expect a reduction in CapEx next year. We're going through that plan right now because we have the additional building over in Malaysia this year, but with Guadalajara mainly in next year, it's not going to go down to the historic levels it's been the last three years. So you can expect some reduction, but not to the tune of where we were maybe in fiscal 2017 or 2016.

Jim Suva - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Management

Okay. That makes sense. And then what about impact on margins as that facility comes online? Will there be a suppression of operating margins as that facility ramps up?

Steven J. Frisch - Plexus Corp.

Management

I mean there is going to be a little bit of a burden on it, but again, our expectation is really working with the teams to leverage out of the existing facility as it's ramping and growing to offset some or all of that. So there is definitely some more cost hitting there, but again, we're trying to offset it with improvements in other areas

Todd P. Kelsey - Plexus Corp.

Management

Yeah. One of the things I'd add as we're always making investments in new sites or new capabilities or new customers, so our expectations are, well, the new site in Guadalajara certainly wouldn't be at corporate level expectations that we'd overcome in elsewhere. And our expectation is to meet the 4.7% to 5% that we talk about.

Jim Suva - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Management

Okay. Thanks so much. Much appreciate it.

Operator

Operator

The next question in the queue comes from Paul Coster with JPMorgan.

Paul Coster - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Management

Thanks for taking my question. I'm not sure there's many left to ask here, but perhaps you can just give us some comments on factoring. It sounds like it's sort of on again, off again, on again. What's the strategy there?

Patrick J. Jermain - Plexus Corp.

Management

Yeah, Paul, I'll take that. It is definitely on. We've got the program in place, and this past quarter was a little lower than the prior quarters because in China, there was some difficulty with our bank getting liquidity to their currency, the CNY to be able to sell those receivables. So that was something we had forecasted executing this quarter, but did not happen. Now we are expecting to return to a similar level to the fiscal first quarter as we go into the third quarter. So it should be at a similar level to that and we continue to execute on the plan.

Paul Coster - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Management

Okay. And one quick follow-up, it's really sort of expression of my ignorance, but the engineering sector seems to be getting a good backlog as well. What is the synergy, if there is any, between the engineering business and the manufacturing business?

Todd P. Kelsey - Plexus Corp.

Management

Yeah. So, it's quite good. I mean when we look at our engineering programs or engineering revenue, in the high 90s of that business transitions into our manufacturing. Now, if we look at it from a per customer standpoint or on a customer-by-customer basis, somewhere on the order of 35% to 45% of our customers are engaged with our engineering at any given point in time as well to. So it's a pretty good synergy. I mean the thing I'll add just on the success there, we've ran over the last five years a double-digit CAGR in engineering and are getting similar results again in 2018. So, really seeing good results from the team there as well as from our business development, go-to-market people and convincing our customers of the value of that service.

Paul Coster - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Management

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The next question in the queue comes from Mitch Steves from RBC.

Mitch Steves - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Management

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Just had a quick follow-up on the Communications piece. So, am I hearing this correctly that essentially something changed where you're going to expect a Q-over-Q bigger increase this quarter than a slowdown in Q4? And if that is correct, I guess what exactly is happening from a product perspective that's causing that to occur?

Todd P. Kelsey - Plexus Corp.

Management

I might have misspoke when I said that. But we're expecting sequential growth in both this quarter and next quarter right now. So it's program ramps that are continuing, and we talked about a number of them that are going on. So we'd expect some reasonable sequential growth in each of the next two quarters.

Mitch Steves - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Management

Okay. And is that essentially signaling seasonality or do you mean – or I guess is there any difference between how this quarter will look and the quarters will look and where you've seen over the past like five or six years or so?

Steven J. Frisch - Plexus Corp.

Management

No. We're not expecting a difference. I think, along Todd's line is, sequential quarter-over-quarter growth from the new program ramps is on track with what we believe is going to happen.

Mitch Steves - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Management

Okay. Perfect. And then the last one is just, what's kind of the rough revenue rate you guys are thinking to get to 5% operating margin at this point?

Todd P. Kelsey - Plexus Corp.

Management

I don't know that we necessarily think about it from a revenue standpoint. I mean certainly, if we – if things would pop in the next quarter or two, I mean obviously, we can do that because you get a lot more leverage, but we usually think of it in terms of transitioning and new programs and kind of keeping it at the 4.7% to 5% level.

Mitch Steves - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Management

Okay. Perfect. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Next question in the queue comes from Shawn Harrison with Longbow Research.

Shawn M. Harrison - Longbow Research LLC

Management

Hi. A few brief follow-ups. The other expense number included in the third quarter guidance, is that a combination of the other expense and interest expense or is there something else and why it's picking up sequentially?

Patrick J. Jermain - Plexus Corp.

Management

Yeah. Shawn, this is Pat. I'm glad you mentioned that because it's something we haven't guided in the past, and I thought it was important to guide this quarter because in looking at the analyst estimates, I think they were a little lower than where we've got our guide at. And to answer your question, it is a combination of interest income, interest expense and foreign exchange gains and losses. And we are seeing that tick up a bit in the third quarter. With the last several quarters, we've had foreign exchange gains that we've recognized, and that's obviously something we don't guide to continue, but that has helped the numbers in the prior quarter. We do see factoring expense going up and that is something that's also recorded below the line. But we are seeing improvement with interest expense. As we paid down our revolver, this past quarter, interest expense is coming down. But it's important to remember that bringing that cash from offshore, it was earning interest income offshore and at rates that were higher than we can get in the U.S. So all-in-all, we do see other expense going up, and it was important to get that guide out to the Street for their models.

Shawn M. Harrison - Longbow Research LLC

Management

Okay, helpful. And then the benefit whatever it may be from the new debt placement to replace $175 million outstanding, that would be a September quarter benefit?

Patrick J. Jermain - Plexus Corp.

Management

It would be – yeah, it'll go into effect mid-June, so mainly a fourth quarter event that will benefit us.

Shawn M. Harrison - Longbow Research LLC

Management

And then lastly, I think there's, I don't know, maybe $75 million or so left on the authorization, the expectation is you would complete that by the end of the fiscal year before you enter into the new $200 million authorization?

Patrick J. Jermain - Plexus Corp.

Management

That's correct. It really depends on market conditions, but I would expect us to go through that authorization sometime in the fiscal fourth quarter, maybe early in the fiscal fourth quarter and then start right into the $200 million authorization. So from a weighted average shares outstanding, I guided 34 million shares for the weighted average for the fiscal third quarter. So that's assuming about a 400,000 share reduction this quarter, but keep in mind that's a weighted average number. So I do expect the purchasing in the third quarter to be higher than the fiscal second quarter because that fiscal second quarter, the acceleration started primarily in the month of March, and so now, we'll have a full quarter of that.

Shawn M. Harrison - Longbow Research LLC

Management

Perfect. Thanks so much.

Patrick J. Jermain - Plexus Corp.

Management

You're welcome.

Operator

Operator

There are no final questions in the queue, sir. And I would turn the call over to Mr. Todd Kelsey for any final remarks.

Todd P. Kelsey - Plexus Corp.

Management

Okay, thank you, Michelle. So I'll be brief in closing, but I would like to think first of all our 16,000 Plexus employees globally, and we really appreciate your efforts in servicing our customers and going the extra mile, it's making a difference. I also want to thank everybody who joined us on our call today. We appreciate your support and your interest in Plexus.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's teleconference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.