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Regal Rexnord Corporation (RRX)

Q4 2013 Earnings Call· Tue, Feb 11, 2014

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to the Regal Beloit Corporation Fourth Quarter 2013 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to John Perino, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

John M. Perino

Management

Thank you, Andrew. Good morning, and welcome to the Regal Beloit fourth quarter 2013 earnings conference call. Joining me today are: Mark Gliebe, Chairman and CEO; Jon Schlemmer, COO; and Chuck Hinrichs, Vice President and CFO. Before turning the call over to Mark, I'd like to remind you that the statements made in this call that are not historical in nature 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 forward-looking statements. For a list of those factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from projected results, please refer to today's earnings release and our filings with the SEC. On Slide 2, we mention that we are presenting certain non-GAAP financial measures related to adjusted diluted earnings per share, adjusted gross profit, adjusted gross profit as a percentage of sales, adjusted income from operations and free cash flow. We believe that these are useful financial measures for providing you with additional insight into our operating performance. Please read this slide for more information regarding these non-GAAP financial measures and please see the appendix, where you can find reconciliations of these measures with the most comparable measures in accordance with GAAP. Now I'll turn the call over to Mark.

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

Thank you, John, and welcome and thank you for joining our fourth quarter call and for your interest in Regal. As usual I’ll follow the normal schedule. I will make some opening comments. Chuck will give you a financial update. John will give color on products, markets, recent acquisitions and operations. And then I'll summarize before we move to Q&A. Before I get into the details, impairment charge in the fourth quarter primarily related to businesses competing in difficult economical market environments. Chuck will discuss this topic in greater detail. To better address our operating performance I’ll discuss our results on an adjusted basis. From an operating standpoint, revenues were up slightly year-over-year in the quarter. Sales in our HVAC business were up approximately 5% in spite of the previously disclosed headwinds. As expected sales in the China experienced strong while revenues in India and Australia remained challenged. Again as expected, revenues in our North American commercial and industrial motor business were down slightly offset by growth in our power generation business where we experienced real strength in the datacenter and market. Our North American Mechanical business was down 7% for the quarter, with the decline coming primarily from our exposure to hydraulic fracturing in our Milwaukee gear business. We were pleased with our 2 point improvement in gross margins which were aligned with our expectations and driven by EPC synergies, our simplification programs, our new products and stronger sales of high efficiency products. For the fourth quarter Regal’s adjusted EPS was up 46% on a year-over-year basis and while our operating performance was within our guidance, our adjusted earnings were well ahead of our guidance. Chuck will get into the details about unanticipated tax benefits in the quarter resulted in adjusted earnings exceeding our guidance. On an adjusted basis,…

Chuck A. Hinrichs

Management

Thank you, Mark and good morning everyone. I’ll start with the reconciliation of our fourth quarter 2013 results on a GAAP and EPS basis to adjust the EPS. Earnings in the fourth quarter 2013 on a GAAP basis were loss of $0.74 per share. We add back the impairment expense of a $1.65 per share adjusted for taxes. The next adjustment in the fourth quarter was purchase accounting adjustments and closing costs for Cemp totaling $0.02 per share. Restructuring charges in the quarter were $2.7 million or $0.04 per share related to our continuing work on our simplification initiative. Adding back these adjustments results in adjusted earnings per share for the fourth quarter 2013 of $0.97, up 46% from the prior year. Our fourth quarter sales were $727 million, an increase of 1.6% from the prior year. The impact of foreign currency translation in the fourth quarter was a negative 0.9% on total sales and a negative 2.5% on international sales as compared to the prior year. Sales in the quarter increased 1.3% from the Cemp and (RAM) acquisition as compared to the prior year. In the fourth quarter of 2013 our gross margin of 24.5% represents a solid improvement over the prior year gross margin of 22.5%. In the fourth quarter 2013 we had LIFO expense of $3.1 million, an increase of $3.4 million over the prior year and $2.7 million of restructuring expenses, a net decrease of $800,000 from the prior year. The gross margin improvement resulted from the benefits of the EPC synergy program and sales of new products at higher margins. Our SG&A expenses in the fourth quarter 2013 were $125 million. This was an increase from the prior year and previous quarter impacted by the SG&A expenses and closing costs from Cemp, higher health care,…

Jonathan J. Schlemmer

Management

Thanks Chuck and good morning everyone. I’ll start by giving some color on the end market and customer demand. We saw improved performance in our North America residential HVAC with sales up approximately 5% compared to the same period prior year. The sales strength was involved the OEMs and the aftermarket side of our business. The cold weather across much of the country in the fourth quarter drove an increase in furnace related motor demand that improved our sales and our mix. The customer dynamics that we communicated back in early 2013 negatively impacted our sales in the quarter as expected, however, I would remind everyone that the seasonality of our residential HVAC businesses results in less of an impact for the fourth quarter versus other periods throughout the year. Sales in our North America commercial and industrial motor businesses decreased approximately 2% excluding the impact of divested pool and spa motor business. Overall order performance was stable throughout the quarter. We experienced strength in a number of end markets including commercial and industrial pump and commercial ventilation. Commercial and industrial equipment and machinery sales declined in the quarter as seen that a number of OEMs for reducing their year end inventory levels. Sales through distributors were slightly down in the quarter. We had another good quarter in our global power generation businesses with sales up strong double digits compared to the same period prior year. The strength involve generators and switchgear equipment resulted from a combination of new customer wins, new products and strong demand in the datacenter segment. The decline in our North America mechanical business was driven by the reduced demand for hydraulic fracturing equipment in our Milwaukee Gear business. Excluding Milwaukee Gear we experienced slight growth in the rest of our North American mechanical business. As…

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

Thanks Jon. So to summarize our top line grew in the fourth quarter and our adjusted earnings per share were up 46% year-over-year. While our performance was in line with our guidance, with the added tax benefits our results finished well ahead of our expectations. We made a 2% growth improvement in the fourth quarter margins driven by our key initiatives. And we are pleased with our continued progress on free cash flow which finished the year at a 115% of adjusted net income. As John mentioned our simplification efforts are focused on footprint and design platform consolidation and we are moving forward aggressively. In addition to the recently announced spring field and the Acunia consolidations you should expect more in the future from these constructing (ph) efforts. We continue to launch new products to innovate our product offering and drive growth and margins improvement. The fourth quarter Cemp acquisition is going well and well contributing EPS growth beginning in the second quarter. We are very excited to welcome Hy-Bon to the Regal family, Hy-Bon will be a nice tuck in with Unico and we like the Hy-Bon products platform in oil and gas space. Our acquisitions pipeline is healthy and we continue to aggressively and yet prudently seek acquisition candidates that need both our strategic objectives and financial criteria. We are fortunate to be in the position with the balance sheet, where we can pursue acquisitions and make appropriate share repurchases through the opportunities presented to us. As we look to the first quarter we are expecting modest growth in our commercial and industrial markets both in North America and China. And we are expecting HVAC business to be flat but slightly up. Further we project more challenging conditions in India, Australia and with Novaky here. Our margins as we explained will have a 1% point headwind in Q1 but we do expect these challenges to be mostly behind us by the end of the second quarter. And finally we expect SG&A as a percentage of sales to improve in the first quarter compared to prior year. And before we go to questions we understand there are a lot of moving products here in both the fourth and first quarters. And we are convinced that we are on the right path. We will anniversary the HVAC customer losses we had in 2013, we believe our simplification efforts will pay off and we expect that our new products will drive organic growth. All these efforts point to margin improvement and we expect to continue to acquire businesses both in current and adjacent (Ph) product platforms. We will now take your questions.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) The first question comes from Mike Halloran of Robert Baird. Please go ahead. Mike Halloran – Robert Baird: Good morning guys.

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

Good morning Mike. Mike Halloran – Robert Baird: So I just want to dig in on the margin comments and how you guys expect those to lay out through the year assuming the revenue expectations come in largely as you guys expect. So obviously the purchase accounting stuff that will be behind you when you past the first quarter year as well the Unico Milwaukee gear commentary. So when do you expect the operational efficiencies to start turning into a benefit for you guys. In other words the operational efficiencies go away and then the gains from the restructuring efforts are lining in. Is there a Q3 event or is that it will start happening little bit in Q2?

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

I think as you mentioned Mike, Q2 is probably the way to think about it and it could happen a little earlier but right now we are going to say it looks like Q3, we will start to see the shift over during the quarter from getting the inefficiencies behind and starting to realize the stray (Ph) things. Mike Halloran – Robert Baird: And then the price cost gap obviously with the price increase we expect you’re normalized on that. What about things you haven’t talked about, for instance the IT side and you guys had a little bit of spend to increase here maybe on the R&D, engineering side. How those costs look would reflect in the year as well over there?

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

We have been and we will continue to invest in IT certainly through the end of 2015. We have some catch-up to do and in fact we had a conversion just as past weekend and pretty major one, that one, it is quite well so far so good. And we have got a few more ahead of us so we will continue to do that. Our goal by the end of 2015 is to have 75% of the revenues in the company and 2 IT platforms and we are heading towards that goal. As I mentioned earlier as we look at Q1, our SG&A on a Quarter-to-Quarter basis would be flat as we look at percentage basis we expect that it actually has been improved in the first quarter. Mike Halloran – Robert Baird: And when you think about the opportunities in the SG&A line to chip away from that as you worked through the years. Is that the type of thing where 125ish is kind of flattish, 123-125 kind of range, is that the thought process for the year or expectation that as you said anniversaring some of these things? And as some of them efficiently, not efficiently but as some of the restructuring issues come through maybe you can start chipping away that a little bit lower?

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

Well, we certainly don’t expect to be increasing that’s for sure. But in terms and I would say through 2014 probably be flat with our first quarter. Mike Halloran – Robert Baird: Okay. That makes sense and then lastly just on a 1% gross margin headwind, if I think about that in dollar terms, it sounds based on the prepared remarks that if I look at that 1% dollar gross margin headwind pressure that substantially all that will go away by the end of the second quarter. Is that the one way to think about it?

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

Yeah, that’s correct Mike. Mike Halloran – Robert Baird: All right. Great guys I appreciate the time.

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

Thank you Mike.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Christopher Glynn of Oppenheimer. Please go ahead. Christopher Glynn – Oppenheimer & Co. : Thanks. Good morning.

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

Good morning Chris. Christopher Glynn – Oppenheimer & Co. : Hey, just wondering if you could give us some more color on the improvement you are seeing in the gas tracking outlook, just kind of pass that -- any detail?

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

Well, you know as we mentioned on the call it hasn’t shown up on our orders yet but there are a lot more activity coding activity and enquiries but like I said there is no substantial change in our order base. Now Milwaukee Gear seat business has seen a little bit of improvement on the industrial side on a year-over-Year basis but not yet on the tracking side. But we have a little bit of optimism there given the change in natural gas prices and some of the activities that is occurring in that space but too soon to talk. Christopher Glynn – Oppenheimer & Co. : Okay. And then on the 12 cent tax benefit, it looks like some of the parts to do with Mexico will call one time but the part related to the mix of profits had a core organic thing I think, am I looking at that correctly?

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

Yeah, of course, that’s really just a forecasting issue as we said our tax provisions. But that’s a smaller amount relative to the change in the Mexican tax cover which was the principal driver for that change from the guidance. Christopher Glynn – Oppenheimer & Co. : Okay. And then in terms of the North American where we expect market from some of the other reports looks like maybe low double digits for the end market. Just wanted if we can just bridge from the five with formula pricing last customer, any other pieces?

Jonathan J. Schlemmer

Management

I would say Chris this is John, I would say that if you look at our fourth quarter performance we pretty much saw I think what most others would expect to see from the market with mid to high single digit market growth. We had the sheer dynamics, the customer dynamics that we talked about with our second quarter earnings call last year that did impact our results in the fourth quarter. But as I mentioned to a lesser degree just because of the seasonality of the business and then the price versus cost pressure that we saw overall in the business certainly did impact at HVAC as well over the quarter. So those were the three, the three main factors. Christopher Glynn – Oppenheimer & Co. : Okay. Great. Thank you.

Jonathan J. Schlemmer

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Joshua Pokrzywinski of MKM Partners. Please go ahead. Joshua C. Pokrzywinski – MKM Partners LLC: Hi. Good morning guys.

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

Good Morning Josh. Joshua C. Pokrzywinski – MKM Partners LLC: If I could just follow up on the Q1 guidance, any issue from whether adversely impacting the business due to shut down or any ranch closers on the distribution side?

Jonathan J. Schlemmer

Management

Josh, good morning this is John. I would say that that’s certain the first week of January, probably the first one to two weeks of January the weather probably had an impact on our business probably three to four days in terms of just overall shipment performance to customers. Some of that you would say will come to back overtime, some of that could be a loss depending on the particular business that we are talking about. I think our business has recovered pretty well though coming through the month of January including because we are not out completely yet because we continued to have some pretty harsh weather across the mid west but that’s how I would characterize it in terms of impacted us. Some benefit on the aftermarket side of the healing side of the business but otherwise some challenges with customers operations and transportation logistics.

Chuck A. Hinrichs

Management

Yeah I just saw on that data this morning John and I do know that our transportation suppliers are about three days behind and even now in the given some of the weather that they are facing and they are digging out. So I don’t believe it had an impact on our revenues but it certainly has an impact on some of our deliveries. Joshua C. Pokrzywinski – MKM Partners LLC: Okay that’s helpful and then I guess on the other side of weather, some of the OEMs and HBSC talked about perhaps a little bit of pull forward in 4Q, anything you guys saw on your end? Did that help the quarter at all and are you seeing the backside of that in 1Q?

Jonathan J. Schlemmer

Management

Josh, I would say that we did hear some of that from the industry about question whether there was a pull forward or not. Hard for me to really say we saw that in our business. We had some mixed reports from customers about the hardy performance versus the OEM shipments. So we don’t really feel like there was much of pull forward in Q4 that will have an adverse impact on Q1 as we come into the first quarter most of our customers are talking about loaded mid single-digit market growth in residential HVAC, as I mentioned we are seeing some nice strength and furnishes especially in the aftermarket side of our business related to the cold weather. So that’s what how I would summarize it. Joshua C. Pokrzywinski – MKM Partners LLC: Okay that’s helpful. And then just one last question on the capital allocation you guys mentioned buyback is the possibility and I understand that the holistic comment that you are making and maybe not over emphasizing buyback over anything else, but how should we interpret that in terms of your guys do you want on the landscape and maybe kind of doing a Monday morning quarter back on the capital raise in 2012 and the ability to identify properties.

Chuck A. Hinrichs

Management

Well Joshua, this is Charles as Mark said the acquisition pipeline is still strong and we believe that that can create a stronger long-term shareholder value than share repurchase but we continue to evaluate that and as we communicated the board, we authorized the 3 million share commitment. So it's just one of the four ways that we intent to deploy our capital going forward to drive and improve shareholder value. Joshua C. Pokrzywinski – MKM Partners LLC: But I guess where I am going this is there, is there a timeframe which you guys say okay we haven’t got enough done, and look more seriously buyback or is it just kind of always on the table as an option and you will continue to prosecute deals first?

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

Yeah I think it's always on the table as an option and we don’t know how buyers will continue to put the money to work and that our pipeline is healthy and obviously we just closed on two acquisitions in the last two to three-and-half months. So you kind of know where our heads are. So it's always up and we are always going to evaluate it on a month to month basis. Joshua C. Pokrzywinski – MKM Partners LLC: Alright, it's helpful, thank you.

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

Thank you Josh.

Jonathan J. Schlemmer

Management

Thank you Josh.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Jeff Hammond of KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Jeffrey D. Hammond – KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc.: Hey guys. Chuck, I am wondering if you could bucket the three headwinds that they come up with the point the gross margin headwind and I guess most particularly the inefficiencies?

Chuck A. Hinrichs

Management

Jeff we don’t have that kind of detail to discuss today. I think the best way to say it is that, that comes against prior year would not be as significant as the operational inefficiencies and the pressure on price versus cost. But as we said, we are working everyday on that. We are implementing the price increase and we would expect the operating inefficiencies to abate in the second half. Jeffrey D. Hammond – KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc.: Okay. So maybe just to go through some of the – so can we talk about what your incremental savings are in 2014 from EPC and what you actually capture from simplification in ‘14?

Jonathan J. Schlemmer

Management

Sure Jeff. Going back to the original EPC synergy benefits there was a final incremental $8 million of savings in 2014. And that was certainly contributor to our fourth quarter gross margin performance relative to the prior year. Savings on the simplification, we are kind of netting them against some of the cost that we are experiencing in 2014, a total amount as it goes through 2015 would be $28 million. The current initiatives we are working on would be the closure of the Springfield plant which will generate $15 million in savings beginning in 2015. Jeffrey D. Hammond – KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc.: Right. So I guess what I am asking is this 28 million identified how much do you get in ‘14 and how much do you get in ‘15?

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

As Jack mentioned we have the 8 million infinity savings from EPC, synergies and some portion, a good amount of 28 million broken down by here but some portion of the 28 million from the simplification benefits could hit in the back after a year, big chunk of that could be some portion of 15 million savings from the Springfield. But I don’t have the exact amount here Jeff, we can go, work on that and try to come up with the better answer. Jeffrey D. Hammond – KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc.: Okay. And then I guess it sounds like there is more to go on simplification. So is there anything that you can do as you take these additional steps to prevent some of these operational efficiencies. It seems like you are talking those lot about savings and now we are kind of surprised with these inefficiencies. And so we expect some of these inefficiencies as we do other activities or do we see better execution?

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

In the case of Springfield, I mean that’s a pretty difficult task move and for something like that we typically thinking that we will experience something like that. We had a similar experience in the (warrens) move where we were moving five different facilities. So it’s not unusual in my experience to have some of that. In the Acunia situation these two facilities are located right next to each other. We are going to employ the same people who are going to use the same equipment. We wouldn’t expect, did the same degree have operational inefficiencies in that move. It is going to be different on a case by case basis depending on the complexity and size of the move. Jeffrey D. Hammond – KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc.: Okay. And then just final thing, back to buyback. You mentioned it still seems like it is much lower on the West but if you look at kind of your peer group and significant number of your peers are seen significant multiple expansions. It feels like deals out in the space to run in at much higher multiples. So why is now not the time to be more opportunistic with buyback?

Jonathan J. Schlemmer

Management

Well Jeff, I think it gets to our valuation of the acquisition pipeline and the opportunities that we see and we still believe that a portion of our capital is going to be in that area. That would be our preference as Mark said. If the dynamics and the valuations in the acquisitions market and the pipeline slows down then I think we would as we said consider the share repurchase opportunities. Jeffrey D. Hammond – KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc.: It just seems like if you take your free cash flow, this year your free cash flow, last year the capital raised. You have room for both and your stock here has been a big under performer. So I don’t understand why you don’t have room for both.

Jonathan J. Schlemmer

Management

I think we did say we do have room for both, we are pursuing both of those initiatives. It’s really not a binary decision. Jeffrey D. Hammond – KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc.: Okay, that’s all folks. Thanks guys.

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

Thanks.

Jonathan J. Schlemmer

Management

Thank you Jeff.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Mark Douglass of Longbow Research. Please go ahead. Mark Douglass – Longbow Research: Hi good morning gentlemen.

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

Good morning Mark. Mark Douglass – Longbow Research: Mark, you mentioned the price increase is 3.4%?

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

Yes. Mark Douglass – Longbow Research: So I assume that’s a blended average, is it going to be little higher in commercial industrial lower HVAC or can you pass that out little bit more?

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

It is different in different parts of the world but I would say generally in North America 3.4% was kind of number we were with, in North America. Mark Douglass – Longbow Research: Just an American number?

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

Yes, there are different things happening in different economies. With the currency fluctuation for instance in one account or the other, I am sorry, one country or the other you may have different price increases but in North America it’s 3.4%. And the other thing I mentioned is you may recall that, roughly 30% of our revenues are through customers that participate in two-way material price formulas with us. Their pricing is dependent on commodities so those customers would obviously not be impacted by this price increase. Mark Douglass – Longbow Research: Great. Okay and then pricing in your international sales assume it’s relatively stable?

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

No, India is an example is experiencing inflation, South Africa as an example is experiencing big inflation, those price increases could be substantial. It all depends on the different economies we are participating in. Mark Douglass – Longbow Research: It would be fair to say that you expect by Q2 to be price cost neutral, is that fair?

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

Yeah, that’s fair. Mark Douglass – Longbow Research: Okay, helpful. On Hy-Bon, first how much was paid and then secondly the big jump in EPS accretion of ‘14 and ‘15. Is that integration cost in ‘14 rolling off or is that savings generated in the ‘15 or can you describe that a little bit? We won’t be disclosing the price every pay for Hy-Bon relative to the change in earnings. So here a big chunk of that could be related to purchase accounting in first fall over and the second piece if it’s kind of related to the growth of the business things. Mark Douglass – Longbow Research: Okay. But in the repurchase accounting, I think it says $0.02 next quarter or whether it is a majority Hy-Bon?

Jonathan J. Schlemmer

Management

Yes Mark, the majority of Hy-Bon are still a little bit of chunk that would flow through in the first quarter. Mark Douglass – Longbow Research: Okay, good. Really things in Hy-Bon includes the first accounting cost so a talk of closer to $0.05 to $0.07 X and maybe –

Jonathan J. Schlemmer

Management

Yeah, probably more $0.04 to $0.06 there is almost a penny from Cemp and then the rest would be Hy-Bon. And the EPS accretion numbers that we referred to would be net of those cost for the full year 2014. Mark Douglass – Longbow Research: Okay. And final question on Novaky, you mentioned it still faces tough count. But I remember in Q1 ‘13 there was a double digit economic, mechanical part of it was justified as it slowed down and tracking. So you had already been seeing in Q1. Was it just beginning then or can you discuss why it is still a tough area to come?

Jonathan J. Schlemmer

Management

Mark, this is John what you said is correct. It was beginning but it was just beginning in Q1 so it had some impact on our mechanical performance not to the same degree we saw than through the second quarter and on to 2013 and we will see now in Q1 of 2014. And then we expect those more difficult comps to be behind us as we exit the first quarter. Mark Douglass – Longbow Research: Okay. Thank you.

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

Thanks Mark.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Walter Liptak of Global Hunter Securities. Please go ahead. Walter Liptak – Global Hunter Securities: Thanks. Just a quick one on the pricing, when was the price increase announced and any cover on like the effective date or how it’s been accepted by customers?

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

It was announced in December of this past year at the early part of December, it’s to take a fact in typically January-February timeframe of the first quarter. And it’s been probably too soon to comment on how it’s being or anything like that at this point. Walter Liptak – Global Hunter Securities: Okay, fair enough. And then your commentary on the CNI business being stable and kind of the outlook, I think sounds pretty decent going in the 2014, I wonder if you just comment, provide a little bit more color you said distributors were down, machineries down, you are seeing indications of those might be picking up as the year goes on?

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

We are seeing a lot of bit of improvement and strong improvement on the commercial side versus the industrial side overall. And as we came out of the fourth quarter, orders in this period slightly better than they were going into the first quarter than they were going into the fourth quarter.

Jonathan J. Schlemmer

Management

Wow, I would add that comment on stable order performance. Yeah, we had a decent level all throughout the quarter, we didn’t see a drop that maybe be related to other than distribution point a little bit. But that was a pretty small drop on a year-to-year basis. And then as we entered into the first quarter that kind of stabled order performances continued. Walter Liptak – Global Hunter Securities: Okay, got it. And we move over to China, we are getting mixed data points out there something your business is pretty strong. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the sectors or what you are saying on China in more detail?

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

We saw, we have seen two scores now of good year-over-year performance in our China business and fourth quarter was as we mentioned earlier on the call strong quarter for China businesses. I would say in terms of the product both commercial and industrial motors as well as power generation similar to what we saw in the third quarter performance. As you said there is a lot of news out right now on China, so far our business is looking okay from an order standpoint but as you know it can change very quickly in China. Walter Liptak – Global Hunter Securities: Okay, great. Okay. Thank you.

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

Thanks Walter.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Julian Mitchell of Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst · Credit Suisse. Please go ahead

Hi guys this is John (Indiscernible) for Julian.

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

Good morning John.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst · Credit Suisse. Please go ahead

I was just wondering if you give a little more color just around kind of North American HVAC. It seems like the trend is significantly improving here about 5% growth this quarter. And that is also kind of excluding, not considering the customer impact. If you can add that kind of things like you are probably growing in that area around high single digit. So we expect that kind of strength essentially to continue into ‘14?

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

John, a couple of things. What we saw in the fourth quarter, certainly we felt like the overall market did perform well in the fourth quarter for the HVAC. In addition to that we did see pretty good strength on the furnace side of business rightly related to the extreme cold weather throughout not much of the country and we had a little bit of headwinds on price. Mix was probably slightly positive but not a strong contributor to our performance in the quarter and again that mix was likely driven by the cold weather and the demand for furnaces, especially high efficiency gas furnaces. And then the sheer dynamics that we had that I briefly talked about, no surprise there from our view in the fourth quarter other than the fact that it’s the seasonal low for HVAC. So we expect to see that kind of impact in the same expectations we have been talking about before in Q1 and Q2, no change there. Now the market, how well the market perform in 2014 compared to what we saw in the fourth quarter, the projections from our customers would not be as quite as robust as what we saw on the fourth quarter. But most are same low to mid-single digit growth in the markets so that should be a positive feel in that business. And we got to get through the first half of the customer dynamics. And as we consistently say we expect to be operating with the market in the third quarter and on.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst · Credit Suisse. Please go ahead

That’s very helpful. And just on the high efficiency side, as a percentage of sales it seems like that you are continuing to improve. Should we expect further improvement kind of initiative sales from high efficiency and then just as a second part to that will that contribute positively to marginal roll?

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

There clearly has been our goal to drive high efficiency sales some of the fourth quarter performance has again was related to a stronger mix HVAC but John mentioned related to our furnace, did relate to furnace demand in the quarter. Very clearly that is what we are driving to that 75% of all of our new products are high efficiency kinds of products and so that is the goal.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst · Credit Suisse. Please go ahead

Thanks a lot.

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

Thank you John.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Nigel Coe of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead

Hey guys, this is (Indiscernible) for Nigel. You mentioned a little bit on the raw materials, see a little bit of (indiscernible) I think you said on headwinds and steel. Just wanted you to give the outlook for 2014 and then what you had hedged?

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

First of all, obviously copper pretty volatile lately was up a little bit there in the last few months and then kind of came down a little bit. And then steel we did see, here we are seeing some headwinds on steel going into 2014. Relative to hedge we do hedge copper and Aluminum and we typically hedge down five quarters on a decline step basis.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead

Okay. Great. Thanks.

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

Thanks.

Operator

Operator

And due to time constraints it’s the last question for today will come from Liam Burke of Janney Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Liam Burke – Janney Capital Markets: Thank you. Good morning Mark, good morning John.

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

Good morning Liam.

Chuck A. Hinrichs

Management

Good morning Liam. Liam Burke – Janney Capital Markets: Mark, could you add little more color on the commercial market. It looks like there were some orders were pretty consistent throughout the quarter is that retrofit side or you are saying any list in the new built side of that market?

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

Well I mean certainly retrofit continues to be an area of excitement for us. There would be to have the opportunity to supply both our small fans and blower systems into the commercial refrigeration side and now more recently our larger HVAC residential motors and (indiscernible) into the residential side, we get the opportunity to go into facilities. We just had one in L.A. where we were going to retrofit at Hilton hotel in L.A. with our residential HVAC motors and we were seeing more and more of that so that’s pretty exciting. We often don’t really know where the product ends up. But it's time for us to say whether we went into a new build or retro fit but there is certainly a lot of excitement out there for us in retrofit. Liam Burke – Janney Capital Markets: Great. Thank you. Chuck, working capital specifically receivables and inventories were up I think from a year ago, is there timing, is it the mix of international business or –?

Chuck A. Hinrichs

Management

I think it's probably a combination of those two OEM and typically what the plant moves or building some inventories buffer safety stock and I think that would account for some of the increase in inventory. Liam Burke – Janney Capital Markets: Great. Thank you.

Chuck A. Hinrichs

Management

Thank you Liam.

Mark J. Gliebe

Management

Thanks for your continued interest in the company. We appreciate all the questions. Have a good day.

Operator

Operator

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.