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Suburban Propane Partners, L.P. (SPH)

Q4 2014 Earnings Call· Thu, Nov 13, 2014

$19.59

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to Suburban Propane's Fourth Quarter and Full Year Fiscal Results Conference Call. At this time all participants are in listen-only mode. Later we'll conduct a question-and-answer session. Instructions will be given at that time. [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. This conference call contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended, relating to the Partnership's future business expectations and predictions and financial condition and results of operations. These forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties. The Partnership has listed some of the important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in such forward-looking statements, which are referred to as cautionary statements in its earnings press release, which can be viewed on the company's web site. All subsequent written and oral forward-looking statements attributable to the Partnership or persons acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by such cautionary statements. I would now like to turn the conference over to our host, Mr. Davin D'Ambrosio. Please go ahead.

Davin D'Ambrosio

Analyst

Thank you and good morning everyone. Welcome to Suburban's fourth quarter and fiscal 2014 full year results conference call. I'm Davin D'Ambrosio, Vice President and Treasurer at Suburban. Joining me this morning is Mike Stivala, our President and Chief Executive Officer; Mark Wienberg, our Chief Operating Officer; and Mike Kuglin, our Chief Financial Officer and Chief Accounting Officer. On today's call we will review our fourth quarter and fiscal 2014 full year results, along with our current outlook for the business, including an update on the status of our integration efforts with regards to the Inergy Propane acquisition that was completed on August 1, 2012. As usual, once we've concluded our prepared remarks, we will open the session to questions. However before getting started, I'd like to just reemphasize what the operator has just explained about forward-looking statements. Additional information about factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in forward-looking statements is contained in the Partnership's SEC filings, including our Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 27, 2014, which will be filed on or about November 26, 2014. Copies of these filings may be obtained by contacting the Partnership or the SEC. Certain non-GAAP measures will be discussed on this call. We have provided a description of those measures, as well as a discussion of why we believe this information to be useful in our Form 8-K which was furnished to the SEC this morning. The Form 8-K will be available through a link in the Investor Relations section of our web site at www.suburbanpropane.com. At this point I will turn the call over to Mike Stivala for some opening remarks. Mike?

Mike Stivala

Analyst

Thanks Davin and thank you everyone for joining us this morning. While fiscal 2014 presented no shortage of challenges as a result of industry-wide supply logistics issues, harsh winter storms, a sudden and prolonged spike in wholesale propane prices, and unseasonably warm temperatures impacting our West Coast operations. Through our efforts to drive synergies from the combined platform and the extraordinary efforts by our employees to provide the level of service that our customers have come to expect, we achieved nearly 3% growth in adjusted EBITDA. Additionally, we made significant progress, not only in our integration efforts, but also in executing our strategic financing initiatives. To highlight a few key accomplishments during fiscal 2014, we completed our system conversions and much of the physical blending activities associated with the integration of Inergy Propane. We have installed our operating model across the entire platform, and have migrated to one common brand. We achieved our targeted year two synergies of $15 million, and we successfully refinanced our previous 7.5% senior notes due 2018 with new 5.5% senior notes due 2024. This effectively extended maturities on this portion of our debt, by six years, and reduced our cash interest requirement by more than $8 million annually, and we have successfully transitioned the leadership of the partnership in accordance with the Board approved succession plans, just to mention a few. As we begin a new fiscal year, the third full fiscal year following the Inergy Propane acquisition. We are well positioned both operationally and financially, to continue to focus on our customer growth initiatives, continue to refine our operating platform to maximize the efficiencies from the combined business, and continue to pursue further growth opportunities. A little later, I will provide some closing remarks. However at this point, I will turn it over to Mike Kuglin to discuss our full year and fourth quarter results in a little more detail. Mike?

Mike Kuglin

Analyst

Thanks Mike and good morning everyone. I will start by focusing on our full year results, and give a little color on the fourth quarter towards the end of my remarks. For fiscal 2014, we reported net income of $94.5 million or $1.56 per common unit, compared to $78.8 million or $1.35 per common unit for fiscal 2013. To be consistent with previous reporting, I am excluding the impact of unrealized non-cash mark-to-market adjustments on derivative instruments using risk management activities, which resulted in unrealized gain of $300,000 in fiscal 2014, compared to the unrealized loss of $4.3 million in fiscal 2013. Additionally, net income and EBITDA for fiscal 2014 include a loss and debt extinguishment of $11.6 million associated with the refinancing of our 2018 senior notes, and $12.3 million in expenses related to our ongoing integration of Inergy Propane. That income and EBITDA for fiscal 2013, with a loss on debt extinguishment of $2.1 million associated with redemption of $157 million of debt, a $7 million charge for the voluntary withdrawal for multi-employer pension plans covering certain employees acquired in the Inergy Propane acquisition; and integration related costs of $10.6 million. Therefore, excluding these items as well as unrealized mark-to-market adjustments on derivative instruments in both years, net income for fiscal 2014 improved to $118.1 million or $1.95 per common unit, compared to $102.8 million or $1.76 per common unit in the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA for fiscal 2014 was $338.5 million, an increase of $9.2 million compared to $329.3 million for fiscal 2013. Retail propane gallons sold at fiscal 2014 of 530.7 million gallons decreased by 3.9 million gallons, compared to 534.6 million gallons in the prior year. Sales of our fuel oil and other refined fuels decreased 4.6 million gallons to 49.1 million gallons, compared to…

Mike Stivala

Analyst

Thanks Mike. Just a brief comment on our quarterly distribution; as announced in our October 23rd press release, our Board of Supervisors declared our quarterly distribution of $0.8750 per common unit in respect of the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014. This equates to an annualized rate of $3.50 per common unit. The quarterly distribution was paid on November 10 to our common unitholders of record as of November the 3rd. As for the status of our ongoing integration of Inergy Propane, as I outlined earlier, we successfully completed our year two integration plans, and we remain on schedule for achieving our stated goal of $50 million in synergies over the first three years. As we head into fiscal 2015, we were very well positioned to leverage the strength of this combined platform. As I highlighted in my opening remarks, we are now operating under one common model, one common system and one culture. We still have work to do, as we continue to fine tune our operating model and cost structure, in order to maximize the operating efficiencies and earnings potential of the combined enterprise, as well as continuing to invest in our people, so that they remain in the best position to deliver the highest quality customer service. In the meantime, we continue to look for acquisition opportunities to further enhance unitholder value. Lastly, I would be remiss and not acknowledging the efforts of all of our employees at all levels of the organization, who work tirelessly throughout this unique and challenging year to successfully execute our aggressive integration goals, while maintaining their focus on providing quality customer service. These accomplishments were a true testament to the level of commitment and talent of our employee base; and as always, we appreciate your support and attention this morning, and would now like to open the call up for questions. Greg, could you give us a hand with that?

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. And at this time, there are no questions.

Mike Stivala

Analyst

Okay. Well thank you Greg for your assistance today, and thank you all and we will see you in February. Thank you.