George E. Strickler
Analyst · B. Riley & Company. Please proceed
Thank you, Jon. In spite of currency headwinds and a difficult Brazilian economy, Stoneridge reported a strong earnings per share for continuing operations of $0.25 per share in the second quarter of this year compared to adjusted earnings per share from continuing operations of $0.06 in the second quarter of last year. Our second quarter results show the strength of our combined businesses with the ability of our PST management team to react quickly due to deteriorating economic situation to our control device and electronic business to perform better, which helped to offset some of the unfavorable effects of PST’s performance. Stoneridge’s consolidated revenues in the second quarter were $165.3 million, an increase of $3.2 million or 2% over the second quarter of last year and on a constant currency basis, which excludes the impact of foreign exchange translation, Stoneridge’s sales would have grown 12.2% compared to the second quarter of last year. And by business unit, sales in the second quarter increased to control devices by $8 million or 10.4%, and electronics by $5.1 million or 9.7%. And sales of electronics decreased by $1.7 million or 3.2% after excluding sales of $6.8 million to Motherson which prior to the sale of the wiring business were accounted for us an intercompany sale. In addition, electronics revenues were negatively affected by approximately $8.7 million on translation of sales due to weakening Swedish krona and Euro against the US dollar. See Slide 4 for more detail. Passenger car and light truck revenues were $68.6 million in the second quarter, a 14% increase over the second quarter of last year sales of 60.2 million as volumes increased on Control Device products, which included new programs shift-by-wire, Seat Track Position Sensors and Keyless Entry. North America automotive production continued to look very favourable in the second quarter for Control Devices, and the outlook for the rest of the year remains equally positive. In addition, our business in China, which is part of our control Device reportable segment is beginning to show significant improvement. During the second quarter, China recorded an operating margin of 7.3% on sales growth of 23.3%, which was far ahead of our plan for them this year which is about breakeven and significantly ahead of last year’s second quarter operating margin of negative 0.5%. One very important point of why we had such a strong second quarter is Stoneridge’s second quarter operating margin excluding PST, which was 7.1% for the second quarter. This is a significant improvement over the first quarter of this year which recorded an operating margin of 4.2%; see Slide 5 for more details. Sales at our commercial vehicle category which are predominantly electronic sales were $57.9 million in the second quarter compared to $52.8 million, a 9.7% increase over the second quarter of last year due primarily the higher volume sales of instrumentation products in Europe and sales to Motherson of $6.8 million, which were classified as inter-company sales in the second quarter of last year. And as previously mentioned, Electronics revenues continue to be negatively impacted by weakening Swedish krona and euro against the U.S. dollar. PST's second quarter sales declined by $9.9 million or 30.1% to $23 million compared to the second quarter of 2014. These results were negatively impacted by approximately $8.7 million on FX translation as the Brazili Real devalued by 37.7% in the second quarter of this year compared to the second quarter of last year, but on a constant currency basis, PST sales were down only by $1.2 million or 3.8%. In addition, PST also experienced a negative transactional impact of $3.6 million in the second quarter in direct material which was largely offset by the redesign of our audio line from our Asia supplier and new supplier sourcing initiatives that began last year along with recent pricing actions. Our PST management team is balancing our cost structure to match the demand forecast driven largely by the economic downturn. To offset the unfavourable currency impact, PST management raised prices 11.3% in March and April in the aftermarket channel by 10% in the audio line which was followed by Pioneer and 12% in the OES dealer channel in April. PST has been monitoring competitors pricing actions taking response to PST’s price increases and their different channels of distribution to make sure competitors are following PST’s lead. Even though the economic situation has been difficult, our PST management team continue to respond by adjusting their cost structure to match market demand. PST management in addition to the pricing action has implemented additional cost actions in July to drive and maintain gross margins by product line and channel distribution. The cost actions taken to redesign the audio line in 2014 is benefiting PST in 2015, though much of the improvement is being offset by the negative impacts of currency changes. PST is also benefiting from favourable mix from higher sales of services which has helped offset unfavourable FX impacts caused by the strong dollar. And the restructuring programs effecting overhead and SG&A cost actions taken in July of this year are expected to cost 1.8 million reais in the third quarter of this year but will be neutral to 2015 earnings. And due to a large number of economically negative events Brazil Real the gross national product contracted 1.6% in the first quarter of this year in year ago terms and data shows this contraction deepened in the second quarter. Brazilian unemployment fell a sharp 0.7% in year ago terms in May raising the unemployment rate to 6.7% the highest since Brazil emerged from the downturn in 2010. Since most of the shocks of the Brazilian economy will be presistant ones, its downturn is likely to continue in the second half of this year. Inflation has risen to 9.1% to 7.2% and interest rates have risen to a range of 18% to 21%. And the economic IME forecast now shows real GDP will contract 1.5% this year and only return to modest growth of 0.7% in 2016. But excluding the effects of purchase price accounting, PST had a negative operating margin of 7% in the second quarter mainly due to unfavourable Brazilian economy and as a result of all the actions taken, we expect PST to return to profitability in the fourth quarter of this year as seasonal demand increases will still only breakeven in the second half of this year. Consolidated Stoneridge operating income margin was 4.5% in the second quarter of this year compared to 3.8% excluding PST goodwill impairment charge in the second quarter of last year despite PST’s performance. Stoneridge's operating margins excluding PST increased to 7.1% or $10.1 million from 4.2% or $5.8 million compared to the first quarter of this year due mostly to the increased sales in our control device segment. On a constant currency basis, our second quarter operating margin excluding PST would have been higher. See Slide 5. Both PST and Electronics experienced decreased possibility from excess transactional exposure to the U.S. dollars. Slide 5, in our deck has a complete P&L breakout on second quarter versus second quarter of last year for continuing operations with the bridge item differences identified on slide 6. Slide three identifies Stoneridge's segment sales increases and decreases versus the prior year’s second quarter. New and replacement business awards for Control Devices and Electronics in the second quarter were 28.4 million, representing $5.6 million in new business awards and 27.8 million in replacement awards. The new awards included a canister event followed by an award for European passenger and light truck customer and a shift-by-wire actuator award for a passenger light truck customer. While we continue to win new business awards and focus on enhancing our long-term pipeline, our primary focus this year will be flawlessly executing our shift-by-wire launch so that we meet our customer commitments. Minda Stoneridge, our unconsolidated JV in India, posted corrected second quarter sales of $11 million, which was flat in comparison of second quarter of last year and rupee remained stable in comparison to the second quarter of last year. Our share of Minda's net income from operations in the second quarter was a profit of $143,000 compared to nearly the same amount in the second of last year. China is beginning to show the results of the hard work and refocus on local business growth, and our control device sales in China had improved in the second quarter from $3.4 million to $4.5 million or an increase of 23.3%. This growth for EGT products for local customers in the China market. The leverage on higher profit sales has taken Control Devices in China to double digit operating income and we are planning to continue shifting products that can be manufactured to low cost facility in Suzhou China. From a geographic diversification our sales in North America represented 57%, Latin America was 14%, and Europe-Asia was at 29%. And our sales growth projection of $130 million in net new business is being driven across all regions, and this can been seen Slide 8. Our customer diversification has improved with the balance between automotive and commercial customers, that’s can also can be seen on Slide 8t. For the three months ended June 30th the company recognized an income tax benefit of $400,000 on pre-tax income from continuing operations of $5.9 million or an effective tax rate of negative 6.4%. The decrease in tax expense of the effective tax rate for the second quarter of 2015 as compared to the same period of last year was primarily due to more favorable mix of earnings and low interest expense with the favorable tax impact on improved U.S earnings, which do not attract tax due to use of net operating loss. This was partially offset by the smaller operating loss and related to tax benefit for PST, we will continue to reflect lower tax rates as North America earnings continue to improve and as result of lower interest expenses. Our ability to drive top line sales, reduce our cost or for profitability and generate cash flow remains our primary focus for continuing operations. In the second quarter, operating cash flow was an inflow of $6 million in comparison out of $9.1 million during the same quarter of last year. Our cash flow in the second quarter of last year included the wiring business’ results which produced a $2.1 million use of operating cash flow. And as indicated on Slide 13, we continued to improve our debt leverage from continuing operations and currently stand of 2.5 times in the second quarter of this year. Our favorable outlook for the remainder of this year is based on our confidence so we have repositioned the company for improved operations in financial performance. Control Devices continues to generate consistently improved operating profits by leveraging the sales growth. Their discipline approach targeting advance development projects in the emission and actuation space should sustain the growth trajectory for years to come. The electronics new programs launched in North America 2015 coupled with advance display technology in Europe to service the safety and fuel efficiency markets should further enhance the growth of this segment. In addition, near-term programs reduce controllable cost, deferred non-critical investment in headcount and judicious reduction in advance development will improve Electronics contribution in this year despite the FX headwinds they are experiencing. And we are clearly we are excited about our new mirror technology that has significant opportunities of both European and North America markets. PST has experienced living in foreign currency headwinds from both transactional and translational exposures and lower economic growth. The PST management team has were diligently offset to negative impacts from these headwinds. The PST management team has implemented pricing actions in the second quarter of this year, and we expect to see benefits from the costing actions and redesigns of audio products that we started in 204. And we have implemented further cost actions in July this year that we expect to be earnings neutral in the second half. So with even the headwinds and currency changes in Europe and Brazil and the continued weakness in the Brazilian economy, we have reported our second consecutive quarter of improved operating earnings and the second quarter was a significant improvement over the first one. We have raised prices in April and May and Brazil tap to offset the impact raw material cost increases and offset the devaluation of the reality of U.S. dollar. We are working to reduce our inventory of PST to paydown debt by more than 20 million reais by year end. We have begun to work our operating and financial performance across our global businesses. We have initiated programs across all our organizations to improve operational productivity in our plans and efficiency across our manufacturing capabilities in functional areas. And in conclusion, we as realizing the benefits from our efforts to refocus our business around our control device at electronics business units and we executing the right changes to position PST to at least maintain profitability even at this low level of sales which should benefit significantly when the market returns to higher levels. We will now open up the call for questions.