Earnings Labs

Snap-on Incorporated (SNA)

Q2 2016 Earnings Call· Thu, Jul 21, 2016

$376.20

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Snap-on Incorporated 2016 Second Quarter Results Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Leslie Kratcoski, Investor Relations. Please, go ahead, ma'am.

Leslie H. Kratcoski - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

Thanks, Tony, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today to review Snap-on's second quarter results, which are detailed in our press release issued earlier this morning. We have on the call today Nick Pinchuk, Snap-on's Chief Executive Officer, and Aldo Pagliari, Snap-on's Chief Financial Officer. Nick will kick off our call this morning with his perspective on our performance. Aldo will then provide a more detailed review of our financial results. After Nick provides some closing thoughts, we'll take your questions. As usual, we've provided slides to supplement our discussion. These slides can be accessed under the Downloads tab in the webcast viewer as well as on our website, snapon.com, under Investor Information. These slides will be archived on our website along with the transcript of today's call. Any statements made during this call relative to management's expectations, estimates or beliefs, or otherwise state management's or the company's outlook, plans or projections are forward-looking statements and actual results may differ materially from those made in such statements. Additional information and the factors that could cause our results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements are contained in our SEC filings. This presentation includes non-GAAP measures of financial performance, which are not meant to be considered in isolation or they substitute for their GAAP counterparts. Additional information regarding these measures is included in our Q2 earnings release issued today, which can be found on our website. With that said, I'll now turn the call over to Nick Pinchuk. Nick?

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

Thanks, Leslie. Good morning, everyone. I'll start this call with some of the highlights of our second quarter. I'll speak about the general environment and the trends we see, and I'll take you through some of the progress we've made. Then Aldo will move into a more detailed review of the financials. Our second quarter was encouraging, and we believe it once again offered evidence of clear advancements that along our runways for both growth and for improvement. Reported sales were up 2.4% or to $872.3 million and that included unfavorable foreign currency translation this quarter, an impact of $10.2 million. It also reflected an incremental $5.9 million from last year's Ecotechnics acquisition. Now, organic sales for the quarter rose 2.9%. OpCo operating margin expanded by 140 basis points and earnings per share, they reached $2.36, up 16.3% compared with the $2.03 the last year. The OpCo operating margin reached 19.1%, up from 17.7% in 2015. And that 140-basis point increase reflects a higher sales, but it also represents the power of Snap-on value creation. For Financial Services, operating income grew to $49.5 million from last year's $41.4 million, combining with OpCo to drive our consolidated operating margin to 22.9%, up 180 basis points. From an overall macro perspective, the automotive repair arena remained strong and that can be seen clearly in the businesses serving that sector, the Tools Group and the Repair Systems & Information or RS&I Group. They continue to make progress in the quarter both in and outside the United States. The Tools Group organic activity increased 5.8%, once again demonstrating its ability to expand on our already-strong position, leveraging a stream of new products and innovative solutions, capturing more business by helping technicians keep pace with changing vehicle technologies and with the aging fleets. In RS&I,…

Aldo J. Pagliari - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

Thanks, Nick. Our second quarter consolidated operating results are summarized on slide six. Net sales of $872.3 million were up 2.4% including $10.2 million of unfavorable foreign currency translation and $5.9 million of acquisition-related sales. Excluding foreign currency translation and acquisition-related sales, organic sales increased 2.9%, primarily reflecting higher sales in our businesses serving automotive repair, partially offset by lower sales to critical industries in our C&I segment. Due to the strengthening of the U.S. dollar, foreign currency movements adversely impacted our Q2 sales comparisons by 120 basis points. Consolidated gross margin of 49.4% improved 20 basis points from 2015 levels as benefits from higher sales and savings from RCI initiatives were partially offset by 40 basis points of unfavorable foreign currency effects. Operating expenses of $264.9 million yielded an operating expense margin of 30.3% in the quarter, an improvement of 120 basis points from 31.5% last year, primarily due to benefits from sales volume leverage and savings from RCI initiatives, as well as lower stock-based mark-to-market compensation and other expenses, and a lower pension expense. As a result of these factors, operating earnings from Financial Services of $166.4 million, including $6.1 million of unfavorable foreign currency effects, increased 10.3% as compared to prior year, and as a percentage of sales, increased 140 basis points to 19.1%. Financial Services revenues of $69.3 million in the quarter increased 18.1% from 2015 levels and operating earnings of $49.5 million increased 19.6%. These increases primarily reflect the continued growth of the Financial Services portfolio. Consolidated operating earnings of $215.9 million, including $6.4 million of unfavorable foreign currency effects, increased 12.3%; and the operating margin of 22.9%, increased 180 basis points from 21.1% a year ago. Our second quarter effective income tax rate of 31% compared to 32% last year. For the full year,…

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

Thanks, Aldo. Well, that's the Snap-on second quarter; continuing the trend of positive performance with ongoing year-over-year gains, runways for growth, enhancing the van channel, and expanding with repair shop owners and managers. Vehicle repair, a space with strong tailwinds, aging car parts, changing technologies and a need for more precision, abundant opportunity, and you can see it in the results. The Tools Group growing 5.8% organically and an OI margin of 18.3%, up 120 basis points. Something we haven't seen. And it was achieved against 80 basis points of unfavorable currency. RS&I in the vehicle repair space, broad gains, growing at 5.2% organically. OI margins of 25.2%, up 80 basis points. Tools and RS&I up again, clear evidence that vehicle repair is strong and it has abundant opportunity and that Snap-on knows how to take full advantage. C&I, battling the difficulties in the military and international aviation, but proving it can extend and advance in sectors like U.S. aviation, power generation and in geographies like Europe where our efforts with SNA Europe are paying off, and all of it combined to author organic growth at 2.9%. The second quarter also bears the mark of Snap-on Value Creation, customer connection and innovation, creating a growing list of new products to provide higher value, matching the needs for greater precision and performing the work of today and of tomorrow. And RCI, people all over the corporation getting up every day and making our complex business more efficient. Snap-on Value Creation drove our OpCo operating margin to 19.1%. Again, stepping back and looking at the performance and at the numbers, growth up 2.9% organically, performance OpCo operating margin of 19.1% up 140 basis points, a significant rise again this quarter. And EPS of $2.36, a 16.3% increase. It was another encouraging quarter. And we believe that we have the abundant opportunity and the demonstrated capability to continue that positive trend on through the remainder of 2016 and well beyond. Before I turn the call over to the operator for questions, I'll directly speak to our franchisees and associates. I know that many of you are once again listening to this call. The encouraging results of this quarter reflect the special capability, energy and dedication you bring to our effort every day. For your clear achievement in this period, you have my congratulations and for your contributions and your commitment to our team unfailing, you have my thanks. Now, I'll turn the call over to the operator. Operator?

Operator

Operator

Thank you, sir. And we'll go first to Scott Stember with C.L. King. Scott L. Stember - C.L. King & Associates, Inc.: Good morning.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

Good morning. Scott L. Stember - C.L. King & Associates, Inc.: Could you maybe just talk about the overall industry backdrop for the automotive aftermarket, doesn't seem to have that much of an impact on your quarter, but just specific to weather and whether you saw any mechanics or end-markets that were backing off on tool purchases somewhat in the quarter?

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

Not really. I mean, I think, look – I think, every quarter is different and there are ups and downs in every quarter in terms of the growth and in terms of the types of products that sell and so on, big ticket was very strong. I was just on a van within – just a little over a week ago and the franchisees and the garages we visited were all very, very optimistic. So I didn't get any feeling from that, from an anecdotal point of view. And then, during the quarter, I met with our – a group of our franchisees several times from the United States and Canada and so on and they seemed uniformly positive. And when I look at the numbers, I think this market looks like it has looked to us for multiple quarters now, for a long time. So empirically with the numbers and anecdotally from what I get from talking to franchisees and technicians, I think this is pretty positive. Scott L. Stember - C.L. King & Associates, Inc.: Okay. And focusing on the Tools Group, maybe just talk about some of the higher-priced electronics versus traditional tools and power tools, maybe how that trended in the quarter?

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

Yeah. Well, big ticket items. What we've – diagnostic sales were strong in the quarter for the Tools Group. We – you have kind of a secular trend in the market, what I characterize in my remarks is a tailwind, the need for more diagnostics because 40% to 50% of repairs in the parts today need a diagnostic to effect it efficiently and new cars are 80%, so there is a growth toward everybody needing a diagnostic, we see that in our everyday sales and the trends in the market. But in this particular quarter, big ticket items were fairly strong, high value, some of the things I talked about high-value tools that attack precision like the Brutus 300, strong-seller. So the idea – hand tools in fact were also up very strong. So we saw I think pretty wide strength, but again in this quarter, big ticket led the way. And that's what we expect, because our marketing age around Rock N' Roll Cabs and we've just done a major refurb on the Techno-Vans have kind of support those purchases. Scott L. Stember - C.L. King & Associates, Inc.: Got it. And just last question on currency. When you would expect to start to see some of the easier comparisons with the...

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

For your information, for example, you can look at it this way. In the second quarter, the numbers were in sales, we had about $16 million and $0.09 of currency impact between transaction and translation. In this quarter, we had $10 million and $0.07, $10 million – just north of $10 million and currency in sales. And I think that's 1.2% or something like that and about $0.07 of currency impact on profitability, 50 basis points in the OI, impacting the OI margin. If you go forward, if everything stayed where it is, for us the pound is a big – is kind of a big deal. So I think you would say that in the third quarter, the comparisons are such that there would be a slight easing if everything stayed the way it was and then the fourth quarter would get easier I think for us, so that's the way we'd see the year going on, an easing of the pressure of currency, but I think that happens more in the fourth quarter and the third quarter, primarily because of the pound and the pound does carry uncertainty around the exchange rate today and anyway in that situation. But if it stays the way it is today, that's how it'll be. Scott L. Stember - C.L. King & Associates, Inc.: Okay. And just a quick follow-up, sales that are bound by the pound, what percentage of your total sales are coming from that region?

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

About 8%...

Aldo J. Pagliari - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

8% or 9%.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

About 8% or so. And no one knows what the – what Brexit is going to do. The roll up to Brexit was I think a time of uncertainty. We didn't really see much change, but we're selling into a very basic critical industry, so our people are going to – I think our people buy. We've even see it. So on a deep recession, people bought the small – the low payback – the short payback items, even in the deepest of recession. So it remains to be seen what effect Brexit will have, but we're optimistic about it. Okay? Scott L. Stember - C.L. King & Associates, Inc.: Got you. Thanks for taking my questions.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

Sure.

Operator

Operator

Next to Gary Prestopino with Barrington Research.

Gary Frank Prestopino - Barrington Research Associates, Inc.

Management

Hey, good morning, everyone.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

Good morning, Gary.

Aldo J. Pagliari - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

Good morning, Gary.

Gary Frank Prestopino - Barrington Research Associates, Inc.

Management

Nick, what – you didn't give a percentage on the European hand tools up in the quarter, can you share that with us, or maybe I missed it?

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

It was up low-single digits in the quarter.

Gary Frank Prestopino - Barrington Research Associates, Inc.

Management

Okay.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

So we usually don't give percentages, but we have given it in those kinds of terms, mid-single digits, low-single digits, high-single digits.

Gary Frank Prestopino - Barrington Research Associates, Inc.

Management

Right.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

It was up more in profitability. We're pretty encouraged by that though. Like I said, it's the 13th straight quarter growth. And what's really encouraging I think is the growth in core Europe. We haven't seen growth in the core of Europe like this before uniformly. So I am a little encouraged by U.K., Germany and places like that. France, it was encouraging for SNA Europe.

Gary Frank Prestopino - Barrington Research Associates, Inc.

Management

And then, the previous caller asked a question about currency. Did you say that currency comparisons for the pound should get easier as we go through the back half of the year?

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

I said – what I said, well, hard to predict, you know. I mean, the thing is – and you got the cocktail of what you sell and all that stuff. But if all things remain equal, what will happen is, is that currency in general will get – currency in general, the pound becomes more difficult I think as you rollout through the year, but then the other currencies abate. So if you look at the total, it gets – if everything stays the way it is, and the mix stays the way it is, you end up having a little softening in the third quarter and more softening in the fourth quarter. I think that's the way to think about it.

Gary Frank Prestopino - Barrington Research Associates, Inc.

Management

Okay.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

(40:43) problematic and in fact it might be...

Gary Frank Prestopino - Barrington Research Associates, Inc.

Management

Right.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

... more problematic (40:46).

Gary Frank Prestopino - Barrington Research Associates, Inc.

Management

Right. So would be the Canadian dollar and the euro...

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

Canadian dollar, Aussie dollar, you know, the euro, the SEK...

Gary Frank Prestopino - Barrington Research Associates, Inc.

Management

Right.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

...those kinds of – those kinds of currencies, the comparison simply get easier later.

Gary Frank Prestopino - Barrington Research Associates, Inc.

Management

And then did you see any disintermediation in Europe post-Brexit for the first couple of weeks of this quarter, can you discuss that at all?

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

No. We don't comment on the forward quarter, but I don't really think so. I mean, certainly I'll say this, there was a lot of uncertainty in the – going – I was in Europe just before the Brexit vote and there was a lot of uncertainty floating around, around that and we didn't see it impact then, I don't know what will happen going forward. But again, I say, we sell items that solve critical tasks, that tends to be less effective by the economics. It can go up and down in a short period, but I think over time, it doesn't get affected. So I don't really think we expect in that situation.

Gary Frank Prestopino - Barrington Research Associates, Inc.

Management

Right.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

If the exchange rate changes dramatically that would have a transactional effect of course. If it affects the interest rates that would have another thing around other than – in other parts of the corporation, but I don't really – we didn't see anything so far.

Gary Frank Prestopino - Barrington Research Associates, Inc.

Management

And then in terms of the Snap-on Credit, it keeps growing in excess of the sales of the Tools Group, are you seeing more of an appetite or are more products being financed by the technician that...

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

No, not so much. Not really that. I mean the thing is fundamentally, what's happening in the Tools Group, if you look at it from our perspective and we look at it, you can't look at any one quarter because there is a secondary market and there is a lot of – that's actually the franchisee sales not our sales, so it doesn't match up. There is a lot of noise from quarter-to-quarter. But if you look at overall the last year, the originations are roughly the same as the sales of the big ticket items. So it's being driven by the sale of those big ticket items. And if you've been a student of Snap-on, you know that we have been energizing big ticket sales through we think better product of course in diagnostics and tools storage, but also in terms of the marketing, in terms of the marketing, the Rock N' Roll Cabs and the Techno-Vans. So if I didn't know anything, I would say Snap-On puts Rock N' Roll Cabs and Techno-Vans in it and makes clear cold boxes, I'm going to see high originations because it's going to have a higher big ticket sale.

Gary Frank Prestopino - Barrington Research Associates, Inc.

Management

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Nick.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

Sure.

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to David MacGregor with Longbow Research.

David S. MacGregor - Longbow Research LLC

Management

Yes. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the call. Nice quarter, Nick.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

Thank you.

David S. MacGregor - Longbow Research LLC

Management

Just talking about the growth though in the Tools segment, you guys peaked out in the first quarter of 2015 at about 13% organic growth. And just because of the comping process, obviously that's not a sustainable level and you're going to be coming down. But that organic growth has been sort of settling back down for six consecutive quarters now; you're back to 5.8% this quarter. You talked many times in the past about the long-term growth in the Tools segment, it's probably closer to about 4%. And I just wonder, are we on our way back to that kind of level here in the second half of the year or is there something -?

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

I think, what I said is – I'll say – I'll make two comments about that. One is, is that, all through – there has been periods when we grew it like 6% or 5%. During the string of 23 out of 24, I think a year before in 2013, I think, we grew it like – we threw a bunch of 6%s during that period. So it goes up and down. This is a risk fluctuation. I've said this, I think – look, I think the Tools Group goes in the 4% to 5% range if based on the tailwind. It's got – that's a great market, automotive repair is the market, one of the market – in our model is one of the business models that Saturn (44:59) automotive repairs, one of the great, great markets, you've got tech – you've got aging of the part and you've got changing its technology, you've got more precision and that will drive us in a 4% to 5% range and things like Rock N' Roll Cab and Techno Express in the system program drives us up into higher levels depending on how effective that unleashes these – how much more effective that makes the van business. So from time-to-time, we get above this. And I think our ability to grow above the 4% to 5% depends on our ability to keep coming up with those things. That doesn't mean we can grow at every quarter so I think that's how I view it. I think we were at a solid 4% to 5%. But I think if we can keep coming up with ways to amplify our business, the technicians are there. There's 1.3 million technicians, we're calling on 850,000 of them, so a lot of them we'd be hiring every year. So we see a great market there. The other thing I will offer about the quarter, yeah, it was 5.8% but 18.3% OI margins.

David S. MacGregor - Longbow Research LLC

Management

The incremental margins were fantastic and you said...

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

Try to find one of those in the Tools Group history.

David S. MacGregor - Longbow Research LLC

Management

Yeah. But...

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

Now, it's again 80 basis points.

David S. MacGregor - Longbow Research LLC

Management

Right. Could you...

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

So I guess the less than 6% sales and 7% sales didn't affect the profit – so they're still bringing the money...

David S. MacGregor - Longbow Research LLC

Management

Right.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

... to the bottom line.

David S. MacGregor - Longbow Research LLC

Management

And you've said repeatedly that during that period of superb growth that you're not too focused on costs, you're more focused on just bringing in the business. But at some point that growth would ease and that's where we will see the margin improvement, just there was a lot of low-hanging fruit. I guess, which is part of why I asked the question, and now you're starting to see the margin growth which would confirm as a milestone that maybe we're at that point where the growth starts to ease. But you also said earlier in the call that you're still seeing strong double-digit growth in originations and originations attracts big ticket. So I guess the question I would next ask is what's easing within Tools, what do you see that if big tickets are holding up, what's easing on you?

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

Well, look, I didn't say in the quarter that was – I didn't match the double-digit growth of big ticket to the – or double digits of originations in the quarter, because you can't do that. You got to look at it over a longer period. So what I did say was the double digits in 2000 – of originations in 2015 maxed, almost pretty close to dead-on the big ticket items in 2015. In any quarter, it's hard to say that. I don't think in the quarter, the more robust businesses were around diagnostics, around hand tools. I think we had a dynamite hand tool quarter, but maybe we had a possibly less of a power tools quarter than we did in the prior quarter, that's the kind of characteristic we had. So we had some goes-ins and goes-outs, if you want to look at it by product.

David S. MacGregor - Longbow Research LLC

Management

Yeah. And you're not adding any more tech or Rock N' Roll Cab Express, so I presume that the storage part of this is starting to level out a little as well, is that correct?

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

No. Yeah, yeah. But we actually did add one in the quarter. So went from 66 to 67, I mean, okay, it's not much. Look, I don't – I think it's one quarter. I'm not saying that – I'm not – we don't give any guidance, I'm just saying it's one quarter, so I think it's a little wrong to explain to view it totally as what were the mix in one quarter and, will tool storage go down, I don't think so.

David S. MacGregor - Longbow Research LLC

Management

Okay. Last question was just you talked on the last call about extending a little more credit to your most discerning franchisees, guys with the strongest track record at dispensing credit. And I'm just wondering where did that credit get put to work in the quarter and where does that show up in the segment numbers, if in fact it did get put to work?

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

It shows up in the originations and in the Tools Group, those are the big ticket items. Those guys are wielding big ticket items. So that's part of the support system that allows us to sell those big ticket items. I mean big ticket is basically – and it has been for Tools, this has been 30 years of this or 50 years, I don't know how long, but it's been since the 1980s at least that they have been and I think longer that they've been financing big ticket items in this way. And what we did, as you said, is – what we did was just bring striking to the franchisees where we listen more to some guys and listen less to other guys depending on the record to call in the air strikes about appropriate credit. And in the quarter, that kind of – I think in the quarter, that kind of was relatively stable. But over like the last 18 months, we've had – we strike more guys that have been better at credit, and they've been able to aid the credit process more effectively.

David S. MacGregor - Longbow Research LLC

Management

All right. Thanks very much.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

Sure.

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to Bret Jordan at Jefferies.

Bret Jordan - Jefferies LLC

Management

Hey, good morning, guys.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

Yeah, good morning.

Aldo J. Pagliari - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

Good morning.

Bret Jordan - Jefferies LLC

Management

Just to follow-up your comment on the secondary market in the – on the credit side, I'm just sort of trying to line up the growth in the finance book relative to the growth of sales. Has anything – and I guess we've decided that there is not an increase in penetration of credit on a transactional base, so you're not lending at a higher rate. It's been more a growth of high-value sales, but then you had a comment about the secondary market sort of creating some volatility there. Is that when your lending on a transaction where a franchisee is selling a used tool they took on trade?

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

Yeah. Let's take it this way. Yes, that's essentially what it is. But what I meant was, what I offered that comment for is, it's harder to take one quarter's numbers in origination and relate it from originations, the credit action to the actual sale, which is a movement of product from us, from Snap-on Tools to the franchisee. The product moves from Snap-on Tools to the franchisees, it might go into inventory, it might sell directly, and it might ignite say, okay, I've sold you this, Mr. Big Box, it's like 15-feet wide and I took your 7-foot box in trade and I'm selling that, both transactions would be financed. And so while the net, you get a discount from the original for the amount in trade and then that would be on. So the total amount tends to be sort of the same. The timing of those two things can be very different. So a franchisee might end up in his garage, might have three boxes, used boxes waiting there, and then one quarter might roll them all out, might find a seller for them (51:53), you see what I mean. And so...

Bret Jordan - Jefferies LLC

Management

Yes, I do.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

...that tends to distort the timing, not the amount, but the timing.

Bret Jordan - Jefferies LLC

Management

Okay. And then back on the Tools, on the contribution from RCI versus leverage, did you discuss sort of what the RCI impact was in the prepared remarks, I didn't hear it?

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

Sure. I mean, the Tools Group is more or less like this. The OI margin is up 120 basis points and they had 80 basis points of negative currency. The principal offset is RCI.

Bret Jordan - Jefferies LLC

Management

Okay. And then one question on C&I. You talked about U.S. aviation and power generation being highlights. Did you say anything – are you seeing any shifting trends? I mean, energy was a category you used to call out as being challenged? Is there any sign of improvement in some of the other big pieces like energy or mining that have been lagging in C&I?

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

Well, mining, I don't think so. Energy, generally, oil and gas is still lagging, but not by the mammoth proportions we saw in the in the first quarter and the fourth quarter of last year. So that came back a little bit. That got better. And for C&I in general, as we go into the third quarter and fourth quarter, we start to get into, I'll say less demand in comparisons in military and in international aviation as well. So you see that kind of effect going on. In terms of the quarter-to-quarter business, we saw – I think we saw rays of hope in places like U.S. aviation and power generation. And general industry seemed to be fairly nice in the quarter. So we're encouraged by that, but I'm not – given the fact that we're down 2% in the quarter and down more in the critical industries, I'm reluctant to predict any turnaround until I actually see it.

Bret Jordan - Jefferies LLC

Management

Okay. And then one final question on RS&I, just to cover all the bases. In the mix of software versus hardware, are you seeing a shift where you've got this great penetration of diagnostics in your selling software upgrades and that's increasing as a percentage of the mix or is that business kind of stable? It would seem like the software margin should be pretty good.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

Software margins are pretty good, but I'd say in the quarter, it was relatively stable. From time to time, we can see a bump from software based on, we'll issue 18.4 (54:38), will come out in a quarter and that will bump the software sales. But generally, I would say our software sales go up with the general push of diagnostics. Remember, we tend – when we're looking at RS&I, we're looking at the sales we show you have quite a bit of software in it in Mitchell 1. Mitchell 1 is a pure software business. Repair shop information and repair shop management, that's where that SureTrack business is. Generally though I don't think we've seen a big change in the mix yet. It might be entitled to the idea that going out future as we get more installed base, you may see some improvement in that. I tend to think as we get more installed base, we'll see both because people will buy in first. The entry-level technician will buy in at the bottom level for that ETHOS. And then when he starts to get more experience, who want to trade up and buy both software and hardware as he trades up.

Bret Jordan - Jefferies LLC

Management

Okay. So the penetration rate of hardware is still growing. It's not just...

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

No, we don't.

Bret Jordan - Jefferies LLC

Management

You don't have a cycle where you get to sell a lot of – a very high-margin software to a large installed base of hardware?

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

No, we eventually will. I mean, but I think now, we're still seeing a growing of the penetration.

Bret Jordan - Jefferies LLC

Management

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

Sure.

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to David Leiker at Baird. Joe D. Vruwink - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Hi. Good morning. This is Joe Vruwink for David.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

Hi. Joe.

Aldo J. Pagliari - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

Hi, Joe. Joe D. Vruwink - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): I just want to circle back on your C&I comments. I think it was last year in Q3, when military took its first step down and then energy followed in Q4. So when you look at spending levels in those two businesses as we head into this year's Q3, do you think you could actually get to the point where the comparisons flip around and C&I reports a positive comp in Q3?

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

Well, as I said, I think the comps get easier. Clearly, the military comp gets easier, the international aviation comp gets easier, the oil and gas comp kind of is starting to get easier now. So I think those get better. Whether I can predict the turnaround in the military business, the oil and gas business, or the Middle East loosens up, hard to say. They do loosen up and I think you see favorable comps. I mean, like I said, I am positive about our mechanism there, our proof-of-concept. We keep investing in those businesses. If you look at the C&I SG&A or OI this quarter, you see quite a bit of investment, that's because we invested in Asia, we kept investing in these markets because we believe in them. So we obviously believe a turnaround, whether that's a third quarter or not is another question, but these comparisons do get softer. Joe D. Vruwink - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Great. And then shifting back to the Tools Group, not to belabor this question, but growth slowed more than two points sequentially and your comparisons versus a year-ago got easier. So by saying that hand tools were good in the quarter and big ticket items were strong in the quarter, there just seems to be a missing link in the equation that would explain why growth ultimately did decelerate?

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

Well, as I said, I don't really want to go through all the items, but the power tools is down and so on. I don't necessarily recognize that the comparison was necessarily soft versus last year. I'm not really sure about that. But the thing is, is that, from our view, we're not seeing – all I can say is, we're not seeing anything in the market that's a difference. And so the 5.8%, yeah, it's down from the 8.1%, but we still see it as a pretty strong quarter and we don't have any other view of the future of the Tools Group or the auto repair market based on that. In terms of how the numbers, how the numbers work out, like I said, big ticket, still strong, sold better than the average, hand tools are sold better than the average. The other ones were – obviously if you talk about arithmetic, they were lower than the average. Joe D. Vruwink - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Okay. Fair enough. My last question, with Fortive being its own company, Matco has been a little more visible and it looks that their van count has grown pretty dramatically in recent years, but it doesn't really seem to be diluting Snap-on's growth at all. And so is it the case where the two of you or really the three of you in this market co-exist? Is there any deterioration or things that you're concerned about, just maybe an update on the competitive dynamics?

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

Well, the science of Danaher are strong managers. And so Fortive is a formidable competitor with Matco and so is MAC. But I haven't heard their names mentioned on the last several – in many, many van rides now. So – and including the last one, which was just a little while ago. So we don't seem to be seeing them and pinging on them. Whatever they are doing, they are doing it invisible to most of our people. I tend to think people decide to buy Snap-on Tools as they look at others. They make that choice. It's kind of a binary decision. You buy Snap-on because that's the best. If you don't, if you don't, if you don't want that, you look at a bunch of others. Generally if you think about the numbers of people that we have in the field, the 3,487 vans and versus the – even the advanced Matco numbers, we're – our people are much more focused and spend more time with the certain amount of customers and calling those customer bases. The Matco and MAC guys chew a lot more dirt. Joe D. Vruwink - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Very good. Thank you.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

Yes.

Operator

Operator

That concludes today's question-and-answer session. Ms. Kratcoski, I would like to turn the conference back to you for any additional or closing remarks.

Leslie H. Kratcoski - Snap-On, Inc.

Management

Thanks everyone for joining us today. A replay of the call will be available shortly on snapon.com and as always, we appreciate your interest in Snap-on. Good day.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's conference. We would like to thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.