Scott Sproule
Analyst · UBS. Your line is now open
Thanks, Gene. I’ll start with our net results for the quarter. Our GAAP EPS for the quarter was $0.28 and on an adjusted basis, our earnings per share was $0.44, a 16% increase from the first quarter of 2017. As we typically do, our adjusted earnings per share exclude the results associated with our South African projects and non-service pension expense. In addition, we’ve excluded certain costs associated with the announced acquisitions. Going forward, we plan to adjust out any onetime costs associated with acquisitions. And lastly, based on further revisions to our assessment of the impact of the transition provisions for tax reform, we took a charge in the quarter to revalue certain deferred tax assets and have adjusted that out of our earnings. Overall, we are pleased with our Q1 results which reflect solid overall operational performance. Moving on to core segment results for the quarter. As Gene noted, revenue growth during the quarter was driven by solid performance in our HVAC and Detection & Measurement segments. Core segment income margin for the quarter increased to 12.3% compared with 12% in the prior year, driven by margin expansion in our Detection & Measurement segment. Now, I will walk you through the details of our results by segment, starting with HVAC. Revenue for the quarter increased 16%. This includes a modest currency benefit and an organic revenue increase of almost 15%. The revenue increase was driven by stronger demand for our boiler systems and electrical heating products. As we mentioned on the Q4 call, we saw demand for heating products pickup late in 2017 and continued into Q1 with the cold winter weather, reflecting a more normalized heating season. In addition to more favorable temperatures contributing to our results, we are seeing solid results from the introduction of our new heating products that led to increased competitive wins in the quarter. Segment income was up $2.1 million, driven by the revenue increase. Segment margins of 14.6% represented a modest decline from the prior year driven primarily by our higher input costs. Entering the year, we anticipated some margin impact from higher material costs and have been in the process of implementing price increases to address them. During the first quarter, overall input costs, including for freight, were higher than we expected. Combined, the segment margin impact of higher net input costs was approximately 100 basis points. We anticipate offsetting this effect on a full year basis as we implement additional price increases and productivity and cost measures. In Detection & Measurement, revenue increased approximately 22%, including a positive currency effect of 2.8% and a 1.5% impact from the Schonstedt acquisition. Organically, revenues increased 18.1% for the quarter. Sales of our communication technologies products increased significantly from the prior year, when we experienced low levels of project revenues. Adjusted segment income margins were 24.4% or an increase of 350 basis points. This increase was primarily due to leverage on the incremental sales. As we noted during the February call, segment margin was exceptionally strong in our Detection & Measurement segment in Q2 2017 due to very favorable mix, an effect we would not expect to repeat in Q2 of this year. In our Engineered Solutions segment, excluding the results of the South African projects, revenues were approximately $144 million during the quarter, down about 9%. The decline in revenues was primarily driven by lower project revenues and the timing of transformer deliveries, partially offset by the impact of the adoption of new revenue recognition standard. Under the new standard, we now recognize certain revenues in a similar way to a percentage of completion method instead of on a shipment or delivery basis. Segment income decreased $4 million, and margins decreased 200 basis points to 4.9% due primarily to less favorable mix in our transformer solutions business. For the full year, we continue to expect Engineered Solutions segment results in line with our guidance of revenue decline in the high single digits and margin expansion of 80 to 130 basis points. For quarterly modeling, we expect Engineered Solutions’ profitability to be more second half-weighted this year. Regarding the South African projects, our overall Q1 results were in line with our expectations with a net cash usage of approximately $5.5 million. You can find more details on these results in the appendix of this presentation. Now turning to our financial position, our balance sheet remains solid and we are well positioned to deploy additional capital for growth. The quarter end cash balance of $104 million includes the effect of our acquisition of Schonstedt, which was an all-cash transaction of approximately $16 million. Our net leverage was 1.5x at the end of Q1, which is consistent with where we ended 2017. After we complete the CUES acquisition, we anticipate being – which we anticipate being later this quarter, we expect to remain within our target range of 1.5x to 2.5x leverage. In Q1 2018, we generated core free cash flow of $5 million, which excludes the $5.5 million of net usage used for the South African projects. As we discussed in February, we are targeting at least 110% cash flow conversion of our adjusted net income and expect to have capacity of roughly $600 million of capital available for deployment through 2020 before taking into account the two acquisitions we announced during the quarter. Turning to our 2018 guidance, we are pleased with our Q1 results and are well positioned to achieve our annual targets. For the full year, we continue to expect to achieve adjusted earnings per share in the range of $2.03 to $2.18 or an 18% increase at the midpoint over the 2017 results. We also expect the cadence of earnings to be somewhat more back half weighted compared to last year due to timing of project activity. As Gene mentioned, we will update our guidance for the impact of the strategic actions we have announced when we close on the CUES transaction. With regard to our 2020 expectations, we felt it important to provide more clarity into those numbers given our recent M&A announcements. On our Q4 call, we provided financial targets, including 2020 adjusted EPS of $2.65 to $2.90. This guidance included M&A related amortization expense. As we have stated, when looking at the effectiveness of our capital deployment, we focus on cash returns that provides a better view of the value creation we are delivering. Revising our 2020 adjusted EPS targets to exclude the impact of deal-related amortization would increase them by approximately $0.20 or around $3 per share at the midpoint. And with that, I will turn the call back to Gene.