Earnings Labs

Sanmina Corporation (SANM)

Q4 2015 Earnings Call· Mon, Nov 2, 2015

$209.02

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good evening. My name is Laurie and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Sanmina Corporation's Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year End 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-Investor Relations, you may begin your conference.

Paige Bombino - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Thank you, Laurie. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Sanmina's fourth quarter and fiscal year 2015 earnings call. A copy of today's release is available on our website in the Investor Relations section. You can follow along with our prepared remarks in the slides posted on the website. Please turn to the Safe Harbor statement. During this conference call, we may make projections or other forward-looking statements regarding the 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 operation may differ significantly as a result of various factors including the state of the global economy, economic conditions in the electronics industry, changes in customer requirements and sales volume, competition, and technological change. We refer you to our quarterly and the 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 3 months and 12 months ended October 3, 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, non-cash stock-based compensation expense, amortization expense, and other infrequent or (02:05-02:30).

Operator

Operator

One moment, ladies and gentlemen, as we are experiencing technical difficulties. Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: All right. Thanks.

Paige Bombino - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Sorry for the issue with our phone line, ladies and gentlemen. I'm going to go ahead and backtrack a little bit here in the prepared remarks and then we'll go ahead and get the call started. So, you'll note in the press release and slides issued today that we have provided you with statements of operations for the 3 months and 12 months ended October 3, 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, non-cash stock-based compensation expense, amortization expense, and other infrequent or unusual items to the extent material. Any comments we make on this call today are related 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 our gross profit, gross margin, operating income, operating margin, taxes, net income, and earnings per share, we are referring to our non-GAAP information. I would now like to turn the call over to Jure Sola, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks, Paige. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this conference call. Thank you all for being here with us. With me on today's conference call is Bob Eulau, our CFO. Robert K. Eulau - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Hello, everyone. Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: The agenda we have is that Bob will review our financial result for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2015. I will follow up with additional comments about Sanmina's results and future goals then Bob and I…

Operator

Operator

Your first question is from Osten Bernardez of Cross Research. Your line is open.

Osten H. Bernardez - Cross Research LLC

Analyst · Cross Research. Your line is open

Hey. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Hello, Osten. Robert K. Eulau - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Hi, Osten.

Osten H. Bernardez - Cross Research LLC

Analyst · Cross Research. Your line is open

Hey there. So, Jure, could you just elaborate a bit more in terms of why was Sanmina able to outperform its peers during the quarter and what types of projects, what type of new programs are driving that business for you? Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Well, Osten, it's not just one quarter. We've been positioning our Company to basically try to make improvements every day. I think our strategy is working. We have a pipeline of very good mix of some good project. We're able to expand our customer base and all those things add up together. But at end of the day, it's all about execution and focus. I think we've been fortunate also that some of the programs that we're on are doing well. And hopefully, economy will cooperate that we can continue to improve and that's really the goal.

Osten H. Bernardez - Cross Research LLC

Analyst · Cross Research. Your line is open

And from a technology standpoint, if you could elaborate, is it primarily are we talking about optical components? Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Well, first of all, everything that we build in Sanmina is more – we're focusing on higher-end mission-critical product which includes a fair amount of optical components in our communications side of our business as we focus on our high-end optical networks. That's one of our cores. So definitely, things like that give us a benefit. But again, we had a strong industrial, medical and defense group that did well. So I would say it's – not to say that we did perfectly, Osten. As I said earlier, I think we can do better and that there's still room for improvements.

Osten H. Bernardez - Cross Research LLC

Analyst · Cross Research. Your line is open

Got it. And then just looking at the fiscal 2016, how do you see the mix between your IMS and Components business changing, and what should we be thinking about the margins for that business going forward? Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Well, we are still committed to our long-term goals to deliver the industry-leading margins. I think we are closer now than two years ago. I think we have a customer base. We have balance sheet, and I think we have some strong leadership to get us there. We do expect to see some improvements in our Components, Products & Services this year. On the IMS side, we expect to continue to tune things up and grow. So we expect to grow from both sides, but I think we got some good opportunities again in our Components, Products & Services in 2016 that will help us improve our margins.

Osten H. Bernardez - Cross Research LLC

Analyst · Cross Research. Your line is open

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Sean Hannan of Needham & Company. Your line is open. Sean K. F. Hannan - Needham & Co. LLC: Yeah. Good evening, folks. Thanks for taking my question here. Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Hello, Sean. Robert K. Eulau - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Hi, Sean. Sean K. F. Hannan - Needham & Co. LLC: Hi. So we have about 32% of our business as we look out to fiscal 2016 in the communication side being effectively stable, at least that's the viewpoint today. Then about 68%, you're expecting some growth. And of that 68%, you've got 40% there tied to industrial, medical and defense that would be strong growth. So, as I step back and I try to just calibrate what does it mean to grow in fiscal 2016, it would almost seem to appear that we should have a better growth year than what was accomplished in fiscal 2015. Is that an appropriate takeaway, or how should we be thinking about your summary viewpoint there? Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: First of all, it's hard to predict the market. I think the Company is positioned as I look at the long term. I think in this quarter that I just talked about, I think we're positioned to have, what I could say, a good year but we're going to take the one quarter at a time. Sean K. F. Hannan - Needham & Co. LLC: Okay. I guess if I look specifically into the industrial, medical, defense segment, you folks have done a great job in growing that and you seem to be really optimistic for this year. Is the pipeline of opportunities and new ramps positioning us again for at…

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Joe Wittine of Longbow Research. Your line is open.

Joe H. Wittine - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst · Joe Wittine of Longbow Research. Your line is open

Hi. Thanks. First, a clarification. Jure, you mentioned new programs ramping in January and February. Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Right.

Joe H. Wittine - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst · Joe Wittine of Longbow Research. Your line is open

And then you mentioned the Motorola transaction. I just want to be crystal clear. Are those two related, or are you talking about other programs besides this one in January and February? Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Definitely, Motorola is in that mix, Motorola Solution.

Joe H. Wittine - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst · Joe Wittine of Longbow Research. Your line is open

And then also, I just want to be crystal clear. You're talking about – you said transaction, so I assume you're going to acquire facilities and equipment that go along with this program. Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yes. We're going to pick up some people and equipment and factory, yes.

Joe H. Wittine - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst · Joe Wittine of Longbow Research. Your line is open

Okay. I guess I look forward to the eventual details there. Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yes. We'll do that. We'll give you guys more in that in next call in January timeframe.

Joe H. Wittine - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst · Joe Wittine of Longbow Research. Your line is open

Okay. Bob, on the Components' gross margin, any other color you can give? I think you said within the "Components, Products & Services," it was the Components portion, but I just got an e-mail pointing out that gross margin within Components – I'm talking about the segment here – is down on a year-over-year basis for eight straight quarters. So I guess the question is, is mix structurally declining there for any reason, or is this kind of more execution-related that you hope to correct? Robert K. Eulau - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: I would say, far and away, the biggest issue for us is revenue in the Components areas, both mechanical systems and printed circuit board business. I think structurally, they're in good shape. I think that every factory can always improve. But I think they're generally doing okay. And what we really need is revenue there. And we're working on trying to generate more revenue from third parties as well as trying to drive more vertical integration.

Joe H. Wittine - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst · Joe Wittine of Longbow Research. Your line is open

Okay. But the top line is moving in the right direction. So is this more a product of the legacy EMS market segment? They are declining while defense, industrial, medical, et cetera doesn't use as much internal components as the other pieces did. Robert K. Eulau - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. We haven't analyzed it that specifically. We believe components are used across all the segments, all the market segments we're in and its different types of components potentially. But they're all using our Components businesses. I wouldn't draw any conclusions from that.

Joe H. Wittine - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst · Joe Wittine of Longbow Research. Your line is open

Got it. And then finally just a non-GAAP question here. The distressed customer charge, Bob, these are becoming more frequent and bigger as part of the non-GAAP reporting. So anything to note as far as what drove the increase in the last fiscal year and this quarter especially? Robert K. Eulau - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. It's actually the same customer. We had reserved about 50% of the exposure roughly a year ago. And the way that claims were trading, we felt that we needed to write it down to zero. So we did that now.

Joe H. Wittine - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst · Joe Wittine of Longbow Research. Your line is open

Okay. Got it. Thanks, guys. Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks, Joe.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Mark Delaney of Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Hello, Mark. Mark Trevor Delaney - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Hi. Good afternoon. Appreciate taking the questions. First question is about some of the macro trends that the Company has seen. And getting back to some of the better trends Sanmina has seen relative to the peer group, I was hoping if you could just put some context around maybe potential timing differences, maybe what some of the other rest of the supply chain is reporting versus what you're guiding to. And just kind of reflecting on 1Q of fiscal 2015, the Company did very well. And then when we got to the second quarter in the March quarter, it turned out that there've been some overshipment as you finished up programs and just seeing things later than some of the rest of the supply chain, especially in comm infrastructure. Can you just talk about to what extent you guys have comfort that it's not one of those situations again? Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah, first of all, Mark, it's hard for me to comment what other suppliers or competitors do every day. I can tell you that our business is coming per plan. Yeah, we operate not in a perfect environment, but I believe that what we accomplished this year was a lot, positioning the Company and winning some new programs during the year. So I think the new programs and some of these stable customers that we have are driving our growth. And it's going to give us stability in a short term and hopefully lot more growth longer term. I believe that's how we position. We are also…

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jim Suva of Citi. Your line is open. Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Hello, Jim.

James Dickey Suva - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Jim Suva of Citi

Thank you. Hello and thanks and congratulations to your team at Sanmina. I might have kind of two questions. I'll just put them out there now so you can think about it a little bit. I think, Jure, you made some comments about you expect to see some growth next year. I just wanted to kind of clarify, does that growth include depending MSI additional transaction, or is that without because if we look at Q1, it looks like we're already starting off with a challenging down year-over-year? And then my second question would be – I think it's more for Bob – is cash flow from operations. The past three years, it's actually been coming down even though there's been less interest expense. So can you talk a little bit about cash flow from operations of kind of what's going on there, and should we expect an uptake, or why is cash flow from operations actually going down the past few years? Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Hey, Jim. Let me talk about the growth question. Yeah, we do – first of all, we do expect to grow in 2016 over fiscal year 2015. We think overall we're going to have a better year. Definitely, MSI project is part of that growth. That's something that we worked on for a long time. We're going to hopefully start shipping to them in the second quarter of fiscal year 2016. I think for the first quarter, we are here exactly what we expected at six months ago. We knew that the second half of calendar year 2015 for us will be a little bit better than the first half of calendar year 2015. So that's coming per our plan. No major surprises in the short term. So I…

James Dickey Suva - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Jim Suva of Citi

Okay. And then on the last quarter, you mentioned a small oil and gas acquisition. And then on this conference call, you mentioned a company that started with, I think, the letter C if I heard correctly. Are those the same companies or are those different? Robert K. Eulau - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yes. No, it's the same company. It's a small oil and gas engineering and manufacturing company. Its name was CST and, sorry, that wasn't more clear but same company.

James Dickey Suva - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Jim Suva of Citi

No problem. And then lastly, the distressed customer, you no longer producing for them or you are, like was there a write-off with a line or product, or you're completely going separate ways with that distressed customer? Robert K. Eulau - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: No. As I mentioned before, it's the same customer that we had a write-off for roughly a year ago or so. At that time, their claims – they're in bankruptcy. Their claims were trading at roughly $0.50 on the dollar. In the last quarter, that really changed and so we felt like we needed to reserve the full amount. We're no longer building any product for them, and we'll obviously try to recover whatever we can through the bankruptcy process.

James Dickey Suva - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Jim Suva of Citi

Great. Thanks for your clarifications and details, gentlemen. Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks, Jim. Robert K. Eulau - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Thank you. Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Operator, we have time for one more call, please.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your final question is from Mitch Steves of RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Mitch Steves - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open

Hey. Thanks for taking the question, guys. I just had two quick ones but I can combine them. So one on the comm side, a lot of the competitors, Benchmark and Plexus, stated that the margin profile was just lower which is why they're walking away from the business. So I just wanted to confirm that there's going to be no change essentially on the gross or operating margin structure for the comm side? And then secondly, for the first quarter, I'm assuming that you're including both Motorola and the CST oil and gas transaction in the guidance, and I just wanted to try to see if you guys can comment on the annual run rate CST, if you guys can't comment on the Motorola piece? Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. First of all, Motorola, there's no revenue on the new projects for Motorola in the first quarter of fiscal year 2016. That transaction will be closing second quarter of fiscal year 2016, if I understood you correct. And we should have some revenue in the second quarter of fiscal year 2016. Did I answer that question, Mitch?

Mitch Steves - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open

Yes, yes. Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Okay. That small oil company that we bought, it's really that we acquired – it's a small revenue. It's really acquired for product design, engineering and technology as we are building – we still believe in oil and gas long term. We have a few good customers. So, yeah, it's a small revenue. We had a little bit revenue last quarter, and we'll continue to have some revenue. Good thing is they are profitable. Actually, oil and gas is profitable for us. It's just that it's not growing, so it's really not from an overall margin. But we're kind of surviving through this tough period. But we think the long-term oil and gas is still a area that we want to find growth. Back to your first question regarding net working, I can't make a comment to what Benchmark and – I think you mentioned Benchmark and Plexus talking about. Every customer is different. Every project is different. We are in a competitive environment. I think it all depends what type of solution and what technology do you play in all of these businesses. Sanmina, we are a niche player. We focus on a high technology. We know that side of the business. We grew up in that side of the business. We believe we have a competitive advantage. At the end of the day, just like any customers, we have to find – you have to deliver the right solution to your customer in order to make a little bit of money. And I believe Sanmina delivers a competitive advantage. It's the area that we can compete, and we compete in a high end. So I think from a margin point of view, I don't see – it's always been competitive. No major changes there. We just have to be more efficient and find a way to make an extra penny.

Mitch Steves - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open

Got it. Thank you very much. Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks, Mitch. Robert K. Eulau - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yes. Thank you. Jure Sola - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Well, ladies and gentlemen, that's all we have for today. Hopefully, we answered most of your question. If not, please give us a call. And looking forward to our next quarter results 90 days from now. Robert K. Eulau - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Thanks, everybody. Bye.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.