Robert K. Eulau
Analyst · Jim Suva
Thanks, Jure. Please turn to Slide 3. Overall, the first quarter was about as expected from a revenue standpoint and better than expected from a margin perspective. Revenue of $1.447 billion was down 3.8% on a sequential basis, and down 3.2% from the first quarter last year. Our gross margin came in at 7.8%, which was unchanged for the third consecutive quarter. Operating margin decreased 30 basis points from last quarter to 3.4%. Non-GAAP EPS was $0.41, which was at the high end of our guidance for the quarter. This was based on 87.3 million shares outstanding on a fully-diluted basis. Cash generation was good this quarter with cash flow from operations at $38 million, and free cash flow at $25 million. We invested about $57.7 million to acquire assets for a major oil and gas services company, which will substantially accelerate our progress in that market segment. We also invested $25.2 million in open market repurchases of our common stock. I'll discuss the balance sheet in more detail in a few minutes. Please turn to Slide 4. Revenue was down 3.8% or $58 million from Q4 to $1.447 billion. From a GAAP perspective, we reported net income of approximately $23 million, which results in earnings per share of $0.26. This was down relative to last quarter by $0.18, but up $0.25 from a year ago. The fourth quarter GAAP results included an incremental release of our valuation allowance against deferred tax assets, which we did not have this quarter. The tax benefit recorded last quarter totaled $21.5 million or $0.25 per share. If we adjust for the tax benefit from last quarter, EPS is up on both a sequential and a year-over-year basis. The restructuring cost for Q1 were $3.7 million. Going forward, the restructuring cost we expect are associated with real estate we have on the market to be sold. We expect these costs to be around $3 million next quarter. As of the end of December, we had about $86 million of real estate on the market at list price after having sold around $88 million of property in the last 4 years. My remaining comments will focus on the non-GAAP financial results for the first quarter. At $113 million, gross profit was down $4 million from the prior quarter. Gross margin came in at 7.8%, which was the same as we reported in Q3 and Q4 last year. Operating expenses were up $2.3 million for the quarter at $64 million. This represents a 30 basis point increase in operating expenses as a percent of revenue. Overall, operating expenses were higher than last quarter, primarily due to low expense for professional services in Q4, and increased research and development in Q1. At $48.6 million, operating income decreased by 12.7% from the prior quarter. Operating margin was 3.4%, which was a 30 basis point sequential decrease. Other expense at $5.8 million was down 33% from last quarter and down 55% from the first quarter last year, which was primarily driven by lower net interest expense. The tax rate for the quarter was 17.2% of pretax income, which was slightly above the range we had expected. This is up 1.4 percentage points when compared to the tax rate last year. The increase is primarily attributable to tax law changes enacted in Mexico, which became effective on January 1, 2014. The tax benefits all companies received from the Maquila status in Mexico were dramatically reduced. And accordingly, we were impacted by that change. We've had little time to react, but we plan to critically assess the manner in which we transact business in Mexico. On a non-GAAP basis, we earned $35.5 million in net income or $0.41 per share. Earnings per share were down 11% from Q4, but up 41% from Q1 last year. Please turn to Slide 5, where we are providing more information on the segments that we report. The Integrated Manufacturing Solutions segment represents printed circuit board and test, final system assembly and test, as well as direct order fulfillment. As you can see from the graph on the left, the IMS segment revenue was down $56 million or 4.7% from last quarter. In spite of the drop in revenue, our gross margin improved by 40 basis points to 7%, which was driven by a good mix of business and excellent execution. The second segment for us is Components, Products and Services. Components include printed circuit board fabrication, backplane assemblies, cable assemblies, enclosures, precision machining and plastic injection molding. Products include computing and storage products, defense and aerospace products, memory and solid state drive modules, as well as optical and RF modules. Services include design and engineering, as well as logistics and repair services. In aggregate, the revenue for this segment was flat with Q4, with gross margin down 1.8 percentage points to 9.1%. The biggest challenge was in our mechanical systems division, which was a disappointment in several plants. The products and services businesses performed well. On Slide 6, we are showing you some of our key non-GAAP P&L metrics. Revenue was down $58 million from last quarter. Demand was good in the Multimedia and the Defense, Medical and Industrial segments, but this was not enough to offset weakness in other market segments. Compared to Q1 last year, total revenue was down 3.2%. Moving on to gross profit. Gross profit was down $4 million in Q1, while gross margin at 7.8% was the same as the last 2 quarters. While volume and mix have varied in each quarter, we are pleased with the consistency of gross margin over the last 3 quarters. Our operating profit decreased 12.7% from last quarter to $48.6 million. This led to operating margin of 3.4%. While this was down 30 basis points from last quarter, it was up 60 basis points from Q1 last year. Net interest expense was down $1.7 million from last quarter and down $6.2 million from the first quarter last year to $6.7 million for the first quarter this year. Now I'd like to turn your attention to the balance sheet on Slide 7. The balance sheet was impacted in several areas by the asset acquisition I mentioned earlier and the repurchases of common stock. We used cash generated and short-term debt to acquire assets of $57.7 million from a major oil and gas services company on December 18. We also invested $25.2 million to repurchase 1.67 million shares of our common stock at an average price per share of $15.05. Our cash and cash equivalents were $407 million. Cash was up $4 million from the previous quarter. Inventory was up $10 million from Q4 to Q1. Accounts receivable decreased by $28 million and accounts payable decreased by $31 million due to lower revenue. Property, Plant and Equipment was up $22 million, which includes $35 million in fixed assets, which were just acquired. Other assets were up $26 million, which includes intangible assets of $14 million, which were just acquired. Please turn to Slide 8, where we will review our balance sheet metrics for the first quarter. Cash was up $4 million from Q4. Cash flow from operations for the quarter was good at $38 million and net capital expenditures for the quarter were $13 million. This led to $25 million in free cash flow. Inventory reduction and cash generation are an ongoing priority for our team. This quarter includes $7 million in inventory acquired in the transaction that I just discussed, but it was still a disappointment that we were not able to lower inventory with the lower revenue this quarter. Inventory dollars were up $10 million from last quarter at $792 million, while inventory turns declined from 7.0 to 6.8. We are showing cash cycle days which combines our cycle time for inventory, accounts receivable and accounts payable. Overall, cash cycle time increased from 46.0 days last quarter to 47.3 days this quarter. This was the result of an increase in accounts receivable days sales outstanding of 2.8 days, and an increase in days of inventory of 1.9 days, offset by a 3.3-day improvement in our accounts payable days outstanding. When compared to Q1 last year, our cash cycle time improved by 4.4 days. In conclusion, return on invested capital was up -- was 12.4% for the quarter, which was hurt primarily by lower profitability. Please turn to Slide 9. I would now like to share with you our guidance for the second fiscal quarter fiscal year 2014. Our view is that revenue will be in the range of $1.425 billion to $1.475 billion. We expect that gross margin will be in the range of 7.6% to 8.0%. Operating expense should be $64 million to $66 million. This leads to an operating margin in the range of 3.1% to 3.5%. We expect that other income and expense will be in the range of $7 million to $8 million. We expect the tax rate to be 17.2%, plus or minus a percentage point, and we expect our fully-diluted share count to be 86 million to 87 million shares. When you consider all this guidance, we believe that you will end up with earnings per share in the range of $0.36 to $0.42. Finally, for your cash flow modeling, we expect that capital expenditures will be around $20 million, while depreciation and amortization will be around $25 million. We also anticipate real estate sales of around $4 million to $5 million this quarter. Overall, we are pleased with our results in the first quarter, but we have room to improve in a few plants and we will expect progress in Q2. We remain focused on driving growth but it's imperative that we grow with the right kind of business. At this point, I will turn the discussion back over to Jure for more comments on our target markets and our business strategy.