Theodore Crandall
Analyst · Barclays Capital
Thanks, Keith. And good morning to all on the call. As Rondi mentioned, we posted charts to our website and my comments will reference those charts. So on chart one, Q1 results summary, starting at the top of the slide, revenue in the quarter was $1.058 billion, down 25% from Q2 last year. The effects of currency translation contributed 7 points to the decline. Segment operating earnings were $86 million, down from $240 million in Q2 last year. Segment earnings in Q2 included approximately $20 million of restructuring charges associated with our ongoing cost reduction efforts. Approximately $15 million of the restructuring charges was related to cost reductions that contributed to our targeted fiscal year '09 cost take-out. We believe we will exceed our fiscal year '09 targeted $240 million and I'll tell you more about that when we get to full year guidance. The balance of the restructuring charge is about $5 million, was incurred to get us started on the next $50 million to $100 million of cost reduction that we talked about last quarter. We have initiated several actions, which are anticipated to save approximately $20 million per year beginning in fiscal year '10. We're making progress in our cost reduction efforts are ongoing. For this quarter, purchase accounting expense, general corporate net expense, and interest expense were each about $2 million lower than last year. The effective tax rate in the quarter was 26.7% that compares to 28.5% in Q2 last year. For the first six months of this year, the effective rate was 19.9%. The effective rate for the first six months of last year was 28.5%. EPS from continuing operations was $0.29 that included $0.02 of income from special items. Special items was $4 million of pretax income, related to the reversal of restructuring accruals established in prior years. Average diluted shares outstanding were 142.1 million in the quarter down from 148.7 million shares last year. Consistent with our comments last quarter regarding our plans for cash management, we repurchased no shares in Q2 this year. Moving to chart two, Q1 results for Rockwell Automation, as I mentioned on the prior chart sales for Q1 declined 25% year-over-year with currency accounting for 7 point of that decline. Sequentially, sales declined by 11%. On the right hand of this chart, you can see that segment earnings declined significantly, both year-over-year and sequentially. The earnings decline is primarily due to the significant decline in revenue. But segment earnings were also lower due to the $20 million of restructuring charges incurred in the quarter, and due to mix offset in part by cost reductions. As I’ll show you on the next slide product sales and particularly Architecture & Software sales continued to decline in Q2, at a more rapid rate than our lower margin solutions business. We believe the decline in product sales included a more pronounced effect of destocking in our channel in Q2 compared to Q1. Also, it’s worth noting that cost reductions in the quarter benefited from the adjustment of incentive compensation accruals. Segment operating margin contracted by 9 points year-over-year to 8.1%, although it’s not displayed on this chart, our return on invested capital was 18.7% down from 26% last year. That’s a 12 months rolling calculation and the decrease is primarily due to reduced earnings. Turning to chart three, this chart covers the Q2 results of the Architecture & Software segment. Sales for Q2 were down 34% year-over-year, down 28% excluding the effects of currency translation. Sequentially sales were down 22%. Operating margins declined to 8.4% compared to 23.4% in Q2 last year. The decline is principally due to the very sharp organic sales decline in this high margin business, partially offset by the net effect of restructuring charges and cost reduction. Chart four, covers Control Products & Solutions and this segment sales decreased 18% in total, 10% excluding currency effects, sales decreased 3% sequentially. On an organic basis, sales of the solutions businesses within Control Products & Solutions grew by about 1% compared to Q2 last year. With the product portion of this segment down consistent with the organic sales decline in Architecture & Software. Earnings were down significantly from Q2 last year and down somewhat sequentially. Segment operating margin contracted year-over-year by 4.4 points to 8%. The decline due to a combination of volume and mix, again partially offset by the net effect of restructuring charges and cost reductions. Moving to the next chart, chart number five provides a geographic breakdown of our sales in the quarter. The center column displays the overall growth rates by region including currency impact. The far right column shows the regional growth rates excluding currency. And comparing the two, you can see the continuing significant impact currency is having on year-over-year comparisons. And the regions outside the U.S. I’ll focus my comments on the far right column which is basically organic growth. The U.S. was our weakest region in this quarter with sales down 24% compared to last year. Canadian sales were down 21% with continued weakness in the Eastern part of the country. EMEA sales were down 16% compared to Q2 last year and Asia-Pacific sales were down 9% year-over-year, with particular weakness in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, which tend to be more export-dependent. Emerging Asia sales were about flat compared to last year with China up about 4% but offset by small declines in India and Southeast Asia. In North America, EMEA and Asia-Pacific, there was a similar vertical story. There was weakness across all vertical categories, but transportation was the worst performing vertical both auto and tire. And consumer was the best performing, but still a decline compared to the prior year. Latin America was the one region that delivered year-over-year sales growth at 12% for the quarter. Resource-based industries were the strongest but sales in the quarter also benefited from the timing of holidays compared to last year. In Latin America, we have seen order trends beginning to slow, so we do not expect to sustain year-on-year growth going forward. I'll move to chart six, free cash flow. We made very good progress this quarter on cash flow and conversion. Free cash flow for the quarter was $152 million, that's a conversion in the quarter of about 375%. Working capital reductions contributed $89 million toward that. We made very good progress on inventory in the quarter. We reversed the increases that occurred in Q1 and achieved a substantial additional reduction. Capital expenditures were $18 million in the quarter and $46 million year-to-date. Last year, through six months, capital spending was $60 million, so we're down almost 25%. We also received a refund of $32 million in the quarter related to a contractual tax matter. Before I move on to talk about guidance, just a couple comments on our balance sheet. The balance sheet remains an important strength as Keith mentioned. Debt-to-capital at the end of Q2 was 38% and net debt-to-capital was 22%. Also at the end of Q2 we had cash and equivalents of $520 million and short-term debt of about $75 million, down somewhat from last quarter. Our first maturities of long-term debt are in 2017. And during the quarter we replaced our $600 million credit facility that was expiring in October of 2009 with two new facilities, a three-year and a 364-day that totaled $535 million. We intend to continue to tightly manage cash and our balance sheet consistent with these uncertain market conditions. So now on chart seven, our revised guidance for the full year fiscal year '09. As Keith mentioned, we now expect full year sales excluding currency effects to decline between 16% and 18%. Consistent with our previous guidance, we continue to expect currency to cause a further decline of about 7%. Compared to our previous fiscal year '09 cost target of $240 million, we now expect reduced costs in fiscal year '09 by about $280 million. This additional cost reduction will help to offset the lower sales and less favorable mix. Given the revised sales range and taking into account the expected cost reductions, we expect segment operating margins for the full year to be in the range of 9 to 11%. We expect EPS in the range of $1.40 to $1.70. Consistent with our previous guidance, this range includes the $25 million of pay as you go charges that we told you about in our guidance both in November and last quarter. That $25 million covers the restructuring costs for the actions already taken through the end of Q2. But also consistent with our guidance last quarter, this range does not include any charges related to future restructuring actions. We are continuing to work toward the previously identified $50 to $100 million of savings for fiscal ‘10. As I mentioned, we have already initiated actions to realize $20 million of those savings, beginning in fiscal ‘10. Given projects, we are currently working on, the savings target remaining and the likely time required to complete the planning and to finalize further actions, we expect to incur about $25 million of additional restructuring charges in the balance of fiscal year ‘09, some of that beginning in Q3. Regarding cash flow, we expect free cash flow conversion to be about 110% for the full year. And with that I’ll turn this back over to Rondi to begin Q&A.