Earnings Labs

Sanmina Corporation (SANM)

Q3 2015 Earnings Call· Mon, Jul 20, 2015

$209.02

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon. I'd like to welcome everyone to the Sanmina Corporation's Third Quarter Fiscal Year 2015 Earnings Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks there will be a question-and-answer session. Thank you. Paige Bombino, Vice President of Investor Relations, you may begin your conference.

Paige Bombino - Vice President, Investor Relations

Management

Thank you, Ian. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Sanmina's Third Quarter Fiscal 2015 Earnings Call. A copy of today's release is available on the website in the Investor Relations section. You can follow along with our prepared remarks and the slides posted on our website. Please turn to the Safe Harbor statement. During this conference call, we may make projections or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or the future financial performance of the company. We caution you that such statements are just projections. The company's actual results of operations may differ significantly as a result of various factors including the state of the global economy, economic conditions in the electronic industry, changes in customer requirements and sales volume, competition and technological change. We refer you to our Quarterly and Annual Reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These documents contain risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from our projections or forward-looking statements. You'll note in our press release and slides issued today that we have provided you with statements of operations for the three months and nine months ending June 27, 2015, on a GAAP basis as well as certain non-GAAP financial information. A reconciliation between the GAAP and non-GAAP financial information is also provided in the press release and slides posted on the website. In general, our non-GAAP information excludes restructuring costs, acquisition and integration costs, noncash stock-based compensation expense, amortization expense and other infrequent or unusual items to the extent material. Any comments we make on this call as it relates to the income statement measures will be directed at our non-GAAP financial results. Accordingly, unless otherwise stated, in this conference call when we refer to gross profit, gross margin, operating income, operating margin, taxes, net income and earnings…

Operator

Operator

And your first question comes from the line of Mark Delaney with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Mark T. Delaney - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Yeah. Thanks very much for taking the questions and congratulations on a good quarter. Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks, Mark. Mark T. Delaney - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Jure, I was hoping you could elaborate a little bit more on the comments you were making about your outlook into the second half of the calendar year and that you expect that to continue to improve. Can you just talk about what sort of visibility you may have at this point into the December quarter and what sort of trends you may be thinking about for the different end markets at this point in time? Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. Well, first of all, let's take one quarter at a time. As we just talked about the fourth quarter, we're going with a wider range of $1.55 billion to $1.650 billion based on everything that we see on the forecast and the real demand and talking to our customers. We visit our customers around the world. I think the market is starting to stabilize for us, at least with the projects that we are involved in. As we look in December quarter, it's hard to forecast today but based on what we see today, we expect that to continue to be stable and hopefully, some improvements. If you look at the industrial part of the business, that bucket, we think that's going to be pretty good. Embedded computing also should be good. I think in the wireless, at least – I'm sorry – at communications, we see network and optical to continue to be stable. Wireless, it's…

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from the line of Sean Hannan with Needham & Company. Your line is now open. Sean K. Hannan - Needham & Co. LLC: Yeah. Thanks. Can you hear me? Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yes, Sean. Sean K. Hannan - Needham & Co. LLC: Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. Sean, excellent overview there. First of all, yeah, we invested a lot of energy in the last few years diversifying the company, especially in industrial, medical and defense. In the industrial side I think we – and Medical we did a really good job. The good thing is that we still have an opportunity to continue to expand and grow in that market. It takes you a little bit longer to get into those type of customers but once you get them, as long as you're executing well, the relationship lasts for many years. So we're really happy about there. As you know, on the industrial side, which we put oil and gas in industrial side, that's kind of been hurting us in the last couple quarters and it's going to continue to be very weak in the fourth quarter. So long term, we are bullish on oil and gas. And when I say long term, looking at things two years out. I think it's a good area for us to be. As Bob mentioned, we did a strategic small acquisition of this engineering/really oil and gas, this smart technology company that we believe it's going to add a lot to us, as we want to grow and expand in this market. Defense has also been kind of down and flat for us but we've been really expanding that part of the business, especially through our components side of…

Operator

Operator

And for our next question is Jim Suva from Citi. Your line is open.

James D. Suva - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Broker

Great. Thank you very much and congratulations to you and your team there at Sanmina. Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks, Jim. Robert K. Eulau - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Thank you.

James D. Suva - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Broker

I think you mentioned you made a small acquisition or two in the oil and gas segment, and maybe my memory is dead wrong or maybe it's somewhat accurate, as I think last year you also did some M&A in this area, too. So I wonder, is there a kind of a change of heart or a change of strategy where all of a sudden this segment you seem to find a lot of compelling economics, too? One has to kind of scratch their head here when we look at oil prices at $50 a barrel compared to $100 a barrel in the past and wonder is it customers that are looking at kind of exiting this stuff? Or are you more interested in doing more business in that? Or is it more diversified business you're looking? I'm just trying to figure out about, am I correct with my memory in the past and why kind of the change of heart for this segment? Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. Well, Jim, first of all no, you've got a great memory. We expanded some partnership with one of the major players. We took over one of their plants. So as we looked at their marketing last two years especially we kind of look at it the long term how do you grow this market. It's a very unique market. It takes long time to get qualified with these critical large players there and you have to have certain capabilities to be able to grow. Yeah, you're right, even a year-and-a-half ago, a year ago, we thought the oil market is going to be growing a lot faster than it is today. Unfortunately, the world changed. I guess it's good for us. We're paying less for gas but…

James D. Suva - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Broker

Well, great. As a quick follow-up then, and this is my last question, is can you help us quantify the amount? I would just assume it's kind of small but maybe help me quantify how small. And then also, were these customer and customer assets before, or kind of newer companies that weren't customers? How should I think about the relationship and magnitude? Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: So first of all, it is a small company. We'll give you more on that in a – definitely it's a small, it's really more technology driven. This is an independent company. This is not a customer. This is an independent company, been in the business for about, what, about 20 years? Robert K. Eulau - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah, I think so. Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. And it's got a really unique capabilities in designing and manufacturing some very unique components that go underground in drilling industry. So we'll give you a little bit more in the end of the fourth quarter but it's small. It's not going to make a big impact on Sanmina short term but as Bob said it's going to be accretive immediately. This company made money I can almost say for the last 10 years, so every time, every quarter.

James D. Suva - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Broker

Thank you very much, and congratulations, gentlemen. Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks, Jim. Robert K. Eulau - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yup.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from the line of Shawn Harrison with Longbow Research. Your line is open. Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Hey, Shawn.

Shawn M. Harrison - Longbow Research LLC

Management

Hi. Good afternoon, everybody. Robert K. Eulau - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Hi, Shawn.

Shawn M. Harrison - Longbow Research LLC

Management

Been a while, calling in for Joe who's still out on his honeymoon. But wanted to dig in on the storage business. It sounded like you saw a little bit of upside this quarter and your commentary was relatively positive. Is that more the market where you're seeing the uptick in storage? Or is it particular opportunities that are solely specific to Sanmina in the marketplace? Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: I would say these are probably more specific to the customers that we are involved. We've been working some of these opportunities for a long, long time. So we're starting to see that. I would say a fair amount of our growth has been in the cloud side of the business with some unique opportunities. And as I look at this coming quarter, that similar type of thing, Shawn, is that – I'm not a – as I said earlier, I think it's most important what projects we're on. So we continue – we should see a nice, nice demand in that side of the business.

Shawn M. Harrison - Longbow Research LLC

Management

Okay. And then a follow-up just on the wireless communications equipment side, do you believe all the excess inventory that was out there has been bled off and now you're just dealing with true end demand, or is there still some excess wireless equipment inventory in the marketplace? Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Well, I said in my prepared statement that I still believe there's a fair amount of wireless infrastructure inventory out there and that needs to be flushed out. And I'm hoping that gets flushed out sooner than later and that we see more demand. I think once it gets flushed out, I think we're going to see more stable demand, especially as we look at our opportunities. Fortunately for us we are involved in new technology in the wireless infrastructure, so as this industry turns up I think we'll have a benefit.

Shawn M. Harrison - Longbow Research LLC

Management

Just the excess inventory, is that geographically focused, China, the U.S., Europe? Any color there that would be helpful? Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: I would have to use the word geographically because we are -Shawn, we don't have 100% data that we really know where these products get shipped. They could be made in China but shipped all over the world. So I would say what I see out there in the best – for us because we don't have the real data, I would say geographically.

Shawn M. Harrison - Longbow Research LLC

Management

Okay. Thanks so much, Jure. Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks, Shawn.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from the line of Mitch Steves with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Mitch Steves - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Management

Hey. Thanks, guys. I just had a quick question on your Alcatel-Lucent business. They recently announced that they're going to partner with Flex in terms of their optical business but you guys are stating that essentially the optical business should be good sequentially. So I'm just wondering if you guys have any products that are involved there, or if it's – if you guys are agnostic on the optics side? Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: First of all, I can't talk about product specific but the Flex deal with Alcatel has no impact on Sanmina. That's all I can tell you.

Mitch Steves - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Management

Okay. So I guess the implied message there is you guys don't have any optical business? But then my second question is on the wireless and wired increase in the second half of the year. So are you guys expecting more of an impact for the wired business, I assume because – if the wireless is supposed to be muted for the next quarter? Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: What I'm really saying is that our networking and optical networking part of the business should have a nice, modest growth in this quarter. And as I looked at the December quarter, we expect it to be stable. From wireless, we are forecasting for this quarter to continue to be on the projects that we're involved, weak. And as inventory get – how do I say, flushed out, hopefully, we'll see a better time in the December quarter but it's hard for me to forecast December on the wireless infrastructure right now.

Mitch Steves - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Management

Got it. That's helpful. And then last one for the 14 week quarter, Jure, should we assume that the December quarter will be a little bit softer then on a sequential basis because you're moving down from 14 to 13 weeks? Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: From a customer demand, it's really hard for us to tell right now. And as Bob mentioned in his prepared statement, we definitely know we got an extra one week of cost in the fourth quarter. We'll see how things shake out but definitely, we'll have less weeks in December quarter but it's all in the demand. Just because we have less weeks doesn't mean we cannot ship more. So we'll see how things shake out but we're not ready really to give you forecasts for December quarter right now. Robert K. Eulau - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah, as I mentioned, it's really difficult, yeah, for both quarters to understand the impact. The customers' quarters really aren't changing. So it's really a matter of when the shipments are occurring.

Mitch Steves - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Management

Got it. Okay. And congratulations on the quarter. Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Okay. Thanks a lot. Robert K. Eulau - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from the line of Osten Bernardez from Cross Research. Your line is now open. Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Hello, Osten.

Osten H. Bernardez - Cross Research LLC

Management

Hey. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. To begin, I just wanted to get some color if I could with respect to your industrial, defense and medical side of your business. Could you highlight for us some specific examples of the type of products that you're recently engaged in with some of your newer programs? Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Well, when we talk about industrial, it's really everything kind of used in an industrial environment. It's a widespread, well-diversified type of products that we are involved. And that's why we expect the business to continue to be stable and solid, definitely on industrial and medical, as I said earlier. I think defense for us, for this quarter we call it stable, could have some upside. But if we look at the defense longer term I think we are positioning ourselves to have a higher revenue in the future, especially on the components side of our business. But it's well diversified, Osten, across all the industrial products.

Osten H. Bernardez - Cross Research LLC

Management

Okay. And then secondly for me on the defense side, I was just wondering whether you have any thoughts on Lockheed Martin's proposed acquisition of Sikorsky? And how that could impact the SCI business as I understand they're both customers of yours? Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah, we don't see any impact on these programs. These are small programs for us but we don't – if anything we see the business will continue and hopefully we'll have more opportunities but we do business with both companies.

Osten H. Bernardez - Cross Research LLC

Management

And then just real quickly, lastly, on the extra week for the quarter, for the fourth quarter, is there an end market that you would say would be more – that has more volatility with that extra week at all? Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: As I think Bob answered a few minutes ago the best way, customer quarters are the same so it's hard to predict from us exactly how they're going to – what's going to be the take rate. So it's hard for us to predict, to be honest with you.

Osten H. Bernardez - Cross Research LLC

Management

Thank you. Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: And I think this goes across all the market segments. Hopefully we answered that, Osten. Robert K. Eulau - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. It's a really challenging question. And the reality is even once the fourth quarter's finished, we're not going to know for sure what the impact was of the 14th week. It's just impossible to know.

Osten H. Bernardez - Cross Research LLC

Management

Got it. Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: All right. Anything else, Osten?

Osten H. Bernardez - Cross Research LLC

Management

No, thank you. Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you. Robert K. Eulau - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: All right. Thanks, Osten.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from the line of Christian Schwab with Craig-Hallum Capital. Your line is now open. Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Hello, Christian.

Christian D. Schwab - Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC

Management

Hey, Jure. Congrats. So Jure, as we look out for the next three to five years with new customer opportunities, new programs and TAM growth plus or minus, can you give us a rough idea of what you expect your end markets to be able to grow at over that timeframe, not in the next quarter or two? Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. First of all, if we're strictly trying to be a $6 billion-plus company, for me and the rest of this management, it wouldn't be very exciting. We are really, have been positioning the company for the right growth, bigger growth in the last couple of years. I think we did some positive stuff. Yes, I am disappointed with some of the growth but I'm very happy with the quality of the growth that we got and how well we diversified into the right customers for the future. So those are two – as I look at the future, we definitely want to be a lot bigger company than $6 billion-plus, okay? We believe, as Bob mentioned earlier, I think our SG&A structure is such that it's made for – we can do a lot more than what we're doing today. So there's a lot of upside from that point of view. I think if I look at my communication – I'm sorry – networking side of our business, I expect that for us to continue to grow that side of the business. I think we're well positioned with the existing customers and we've got some good new customers coming up. I think industrial and medical, similar type of thing. As I mentioned earlier, we'll grow there. So I'm very optimistic, especially when you talk about, you said three to five, but I would say I'm very optimistic in the next 18 months to 24 months. And I think we can do a lot, unless the economy really goes the wrong way. But as long as the economy stays with us, I think we can do a lot the next couple years.

Christian D. Schwab - Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC

Management

Thank you, Jure. On the communications networking... Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Christian, the market is big enough. That's not an issue. Just for us, fine. Making sure we attract and we partner with the right customers and right industry going forward. That's to me the most important. It's easy to get revenue for revenue's sake.

Christian D. Schwab - Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC

Management

All right. Yeah, I get that. On your communications networking business, can you remind us, roughly, what your mix is between networking, optical and wireless infrastructure today? Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Definitely, the networking and optical side is a lot bigger that wireless.

Christian D. Schwab - Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC

Management

Right. 70%/30%? Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: I don't want to give the percentages out, but I would say it's definitely wireless is less than 30%, a lot less.

Christian D. Schwab - Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC

Management

Perfect. And then lastly, my last question, on the buyback. I like to see you guys spending more money this quarter than last quarter buying back stock. As we – Bob, can you tell us how much cash you have in the United States for repurchasing those shares potentially after this $56 million is done? Robert K. Eulau - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: I actually don't know for this quarter but it's typical at the end of the quarter right around 50% of the cash is in the U.S. We're constantly moving cash around the world. And because of our U.S. NOLs, it's very easy for us to bring cash to the U.S.

Christian D. Schwab - Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC

Management

Excellent. No other questions. Thanks, guys. Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks, Christian. Operator, we have time for one more question.

Operator

Operator

And we have a question again from Sean Hannan with Needham & Company. Your line is open. Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Hi, Sean. Sean K. Hannan - Needham & Co. LLC: Hi. Thanks for taking the follow-up here. And I'm coming back to a question I think that's been addressed in some manner earlier in the call. So just as I focus on the slides that you provided and the specific comment of the rest of calendar 2015, so if we're already guiding for September, the rest of calendar 2015 really has just got to be the December at least period. I do appreciate we're not guiding for that explicitly, but the statement is explicit that we're looking for financial improvement. So just trying to understand, is that relative to September? Is that on a year-over-year basis? I would assume it's a sequential type of comment but just really want to get a better understanding of what is being communicated there. Thanks. Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: To me, Sean, the way we look at it today is we just finished the third quarter. We expect to make some improvements in our fourth quarter fiscal year 2015. And our plan based on what we see today is continue to tune things up and improve the numbers in December quarter. I think we have that potential. That's basically what we're saying, if I can put it in simple English as humanly possible. Sean K. Hannan - Needham & Co. LLC: Okay. So there is a potential for an up quarter, just we want to be careful in not saying that, that should be a guided comment. Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: That's not a guided comment. We're only guiding for a fourth quarter – and I'm saying based on what I see today, I think we'll make some improvements. I think we have that opportunity. Sean K. Hannan - Needham & Co. LLC: Okay, very good. Thanks, folks. Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks, Sean. Robert K. Eulau - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Thanks, Sean. Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Well, ladies and gentlemen, again this is the end of our call. I appreciate your patience and time you're spending with us. And if you have any more questions, please give us a call. Otherwise we'll talk to you like this 90 days from now. Thanks a lot. Robert K. Eulau - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. Thanks, everyone. Have a nice day.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.