Theodore D. Crandall
Analyst
Thanks, Keith. Good morning, everybody. My comments will reference the slides on the website, and I'll be starting with Slide 5, the third quarter results summary. Revenue in the quarter was $1,560,000,000. That's up 3% compared to the third quarter of last year. The year-over-year impact of currency fluctuations reduced sales by about 4 points. That's a much more negative impact from currency than earlier this year and more negative than we anticipated at the beginning of the quarter. The decline of the euro compared to the U.S. dollar is causing the largest part of that difference. Segment operating earnings were $284 million, an increase of 8% compared to a year ago. General Corporate net was $19 million, that compares to $22.3 million in Q3 last year. This Q3 was somewhat lower than average quarter for General Corporate net expense, primarily just timing. We still expect the full year General Corporate net expense to be about $90 million. The effective tax rate in the quarter was 22.1%. There were some discrete items that reduced the rate in the quarter. Year-to-date, the effective rate was 23.8%. So through 9 months, we're running very close to our full year expectation of 24%. Last year in Q3, the tax rate was 19.1%, also lower due to the recognition of discrete items. Diluted earnings per share from continuing operations was $1.33, up $0.09 compared to Q3 last year and despite the higher tax rate. Average diluted shares outstanding in the quarter was 143.5 million, that's down about 2.4 million shares from the average of Q3 last year. During the quarter, we repurchased approximately 1.6 million of shares at a cost of about $121 million. Year-to-date, through the end of June, we've repurchased approximately 2.3 million shares at a cost of about $170 million. The increased rate of repurchases in Q3 is generally consistent with the intentions that we outlined in the earnings call at the end of April. Moving to Slide 6, this is a more graphical representation of total company results for the third quarter. As I noted on the prior slide, the year-over-year increase in sales for Q3 was 3%, 7% x currency. Reported sales were flat sequentially but up about 1 point, excluding currency translation. On the right side of the slide, you can see a healthy increase in segment operating earnings, both year-over-year and sequentially. Segment operating margin was 18.2% in the quarter, up 0.8 points compared to last year and up 1 point sequentially. The year-over-year margin expansion reflects volume leverage, partly offset by increased spending and unfavorable mix. We also benefited in Q3 from lower incentive compensation expense, including year-to-date adjustments related to reduced expectations for full year sales and earnings. It's a similar year-over-year margin causal in each of the segments. Through 3 quarters, segment operating margin is 18.2%, up 1.4 points from the same 9 months of last year. Let's move to Slide 7, which summarizes the Q3 results for the Architecture & Software segment. The left side of the chart displays the sales performance. Sales were $664 million, a decrease of 1% year-over-year. Currency translation reduced sales by about 4 points, so organic sales growth was approximately 3%. Sales were flat sequentially. Operating margin for the quarter was 27.5%, up 1.4 points compared to Q3 last year. Year-to-date operating margin in Architecture & Software is 27.1 points -- or 27.1%, up almost 2 points from the same period last year. Let's turn to Slide 8 results for the Control Products & Solutions segment. Sales were $897 million in the quarter, up 6% compared to Q3 last year. The increase included about 1 point contribution from acquisitions, offset by about a 5-point reduction due to currency. So an organic sales increase of 10%. Solutions and services businesses grew about 16% organically year-over-year, contributing the lion's share of the dollar growth. Sales in this segment were flat sequentially. Segment operating earnings were $102 million, an increase of 16% compared to Q3 last year, with segment operating margin at 11.3%, up almost a full point from a year ago. Year-to-date, Control Products & Solutions operating margin is 11.5%, up 1.3 points compared to last year. The next slide provides a look at regional sales performance. Keith provided a good deal of color on the regional sales performance, so I won't repeat that. Perhaps just a couple of comments. Looking at the difference between the growth rates in the middle column, that's the as-reported year-over-year comparison, and in far right column, which is x currency, you'll note the significant negative impact from currency, particularly in EMEA and Latin America, and the largest impact in Latin America coming from Brazil. In EMEA, with ex-currency growth at 5%, we benefited from about a 2-point contribution from acquisitions year-over-year. And to reinforce a point that Keith made, maybe the most positive message from this slide is the organic growth in all regions. I'll turn now to Slide 10, free cash flow. Free cash flow for the quarter was $232 million, that's about 122% of net income. We continue to expect free cash flow conversion of about 75% for the full year, including the impact of the $300 million discretionary pension contribution that we made in quarter 1. We would expect conversion to be about 100% excluding that pension contribution. And that brings us to the final slide, which addresses our current outlook for the full year. As Keith mentioned, we've reduced the narrowed sales and earnings guidance. We now expect sales for the full year of about $6.2 billion. Think of that as a range of $6.15 billion to $6.25 billion, and that compares to the previous guidance of $6.25 billion to $6.45 billion. We now expect currency translation to reduce sales by about 3 points for the full year. Previous guidance assumed a 2-point decrease due to currency. Across the sales guidance range, there's about a $50 million negative impact from currency compared to the prior guidance. Excluding currency effects, we expect growth for the full year of about 6% to 7%. Previous guidance was 6% to 9%. We still expect segment margin to be a little over 18%. As I mentioned earlier, we're at 18.2% year-to-date. And we expect diluted EPS in the range of $5 to $5.20. As Keith mentioned, currency effects are reducing EPS across the guidance range by about $0.05 compared to the prior guidance. We continue to expect a full year tax rate of about 24%. And as I mentioned earlier, we expect General Corporate net expense to be about $90 million for the full year. With that, I'll turn it over to Rondi to begin Q&A.