Scott Sproule
Analyst · Credit Suisse. Your line is open
Thanks, Gene. I’ll start with our net results for the quarter. On a GAAP basis, we reported a loss per share of $0.19. On an adjusted basis, our earnings per share was $0.44, a significant improvement from the comparable $0.33 earned during the second quarter of 2016. As we typically do, our adjusted earnings per share exclude the result associated with our South African projects, including the Q2 charge though described in detail in a moment. As well as nonservice related pension expense. From an operational standpoint, the success we experienced in the first quarter continued. Our 2017 results reflected increased order conversion in Detection and Measurement and benefits of ongoing operational improvements, most notably in Engineered Solutions. Before reviewing our core results, let me walk you through the financial impact of the South African projects charge. As Gene noted, we have made significant progress towards completing our scopes to work and reducing our risk profile related to the South African projects in 2015. And during the first half of this year, we made several decisions on what is going to take to further address risk and accelerate execution. Based on our revised plans, we have update our estimates to complete the projects, which resulted in a charge of $22.9 million recorded as a reduction in revenue of $13.5 million and an increase in cost of $9.4 million. The charges comprised of investment and incremental resources in order to accelerate project completion, the cost of showing up our supply chain to improve our schedule, which includes both the insourcing of fabrication to our operations and addressing issues with one material supplier at risk of not meeting delivering schedules. And we have experienced higher than anticipated costs incurred, as we close out certain scopes of work. We’ve also updated future estimates to reflect this experience. As we’ve said, we view the obligations associate with the South African project, it can do a finite life, amortizing liability and primarily focus on the cash required to support its completion. Based on the actions we have taken and where we are today with projects, we are now in a position to revise our estimate of when we will be substantially complete with our work, which is now the end of 2019. And provide our first comprehensive estimate of the total remaining cash outflows on the projects. In the first half of this year, we spent $27 million on the projects we now estimate we’ll spend an additional $60 million to $70 million in completing the projects of which $25 million to $30 million will be spent during the second half of 2017. And understanding the timing of these cash flows, it’s important to understand the remaining milestones on the project as these would be the key factors as we reduce cash spend in South Africa. As Gene stated by the end of this year, we’ll be complete with a larger scope of work remaining on for construction. In 2018, we’ll be taking further actions to reduce spend and rightsize operations. And by the end of 2019, we’ll be substantially complete with all of our scopes of work. We are in the late stages of our work on the South African projects, and we are confident what it will take to execute with the projects are now without risk and is possibly we could experience variability in future results. Now let me move on to our Core results for the quarter. For Q2, Core revenues were down modestly. The decline was primarily due to timing of both transformer shipments in our Engineered Solutions segment and cooling shipments in our HVAC segment. These declines were partially offset by strong sales growth in our Detection & Measurement. Core segment income margin for the quarter increased to 13.6% compared with 10% in the prior year as we experienced significant margin expansion in both Engineered Solutions and Detection and Measurement. Now I’ll walk you through the details of our results by segment starting with HVAC. Revenues for the quarter declined 1.3% compared to the prior year. This included the negative currency effect of 60 basis points in an organic revenue decline of 70 basis points. Our heating product sales were modestly stronger in the quarter, but this was more than offset by the timing of cooling shipments. In 2016, we had unusually high concentration of cooling shipments in Q2. In 2017, we’re expecting full year growth in cooling, but shipments are more evenly distributed through the quarters compared to the prior year. Segment margin declined to 120 basis points in Q2, largely due to a less profitable sales mix associated with the timing of revenue from cooling shipments. Overall, we remain pleased with our teams continued focus on operational improvements in both the heating and cooling businesses. We remain on track to achieve our full year segment margin guidance for HVAC of approximately 16%. In Detection and Measurement, each of the product lines contributed strong segment results, with increased front log conversion driving significant increases in sales and margins. Revenues increased 7.3% in Q2 with an organic increase of 8.8%, partially offset by a negative currency effect. Sales of bus fare collection systems and obstruction lighting products were the key growth drivers. The order intake for communication technologies products was strong for both signal monitoring and obstruction lighting products. Last quarter, I indicated that we were more encouraged by the timing of front log conversion from these products, so we’re very pleased to see the solid Q2 order intake. Segment income margins were 26.8% or an increase of 670 basis points. This increase was primarily due to higher profit contribution from increased sales of bus fare collection systems, obstruction lighting products as well as lower SG&A spent associated to cost-reduction initiatives across the segment. For the year, we expect operating profit growth across our product lines – in all of our product lines in Detection and Measurement. However, quarterly margin variability can be impacted by project mix and timing, which are favorable factors in our Q2 segment results. Overall, a strong backlog and a longer cycle products and solid order trends in our book and turn products gives us confidence that we can now achieve segment revenue growth for the year a little above the high end of our long-term target range of 2% to 6%. In our Engineered Solutions segment, excluding the results of South African projects, revenues were approximately $163 million during the second quarter, down 4.1%, including a small favorable currency effect. The decline was primarily due to the timing of transformer shipments, which we continue to expect to be similar to 2016 level on a full year basis. When compared with the prior year, segment income increased $8.7 million, and margins improved 550 basis points to 9%. The increase was due primarily to a change in operating model that we’ve been implementing in our process cooling business, a favorable project mix and the benefit from restructuring actions taken in 2016. As a reminder, the operating model change comes with lower revenue profile and changes the way we participate in a broader market, which revenue growth in other areas of the business, we’ll touch on this more on our guidance update. Turning now to our financial position. Our balance sheet remained solid. We ended the quarter with cash and equivalents of around $84 million. Our net leverage was 2.2 times at the end of Q2, consistent with where we ended Q1. As a reminder, we exited the spin and a leverage ratio of 2.7 times, and this now marks the third consecutive quarter we have maintained operating leverage within our target range of 1.5 times to 2.5 times. Based on our typical cash flow seasonality and increased expectation for cash flows from our Core businesses, we expect to end the year with a net leverage ratio at or below the midpoint of our target range of 1.5 times to 2.5 times, which is slightly better than our previous communications. And we remain confident in our ability to deploy capital for actions to drive incremental shareholder value, including acquisitions and the growth focused areas of our company. For 2017, we are targeting greater than 100% cash flow conversion of our adjusted net income. And our projections to have capacity of $400 million of capital available for deployment over the next four years remain unchanged. The expectations we provide is around South Africa did not effect our estimate of capital available to deploy these changes were within the parameters of our capital planning models. And with that, I’ll turn the call back to Gene.