David Dunbar
Analyst · CJS Securities
Thank you, Tom. Please turn to slide 14, and I'll begin our segment overview with the Food Service Equipment Group. Sales for this segment increased 11.3%, led by Scientific sales growth, with strengths in the legacy business as well as our Horizon Scientific acquisition. The Horizon Scientific team has successfully leveraged sales channel synergies with our legacy Nor-Lake business to drive sales growth and build momentum, but it is expected to continue as we move through fiscal 2018. The team is conducting market test to explore a track of adjacencies and identify new innovative products to bring to the marketplace. In refrigeration, revenue increased 3.2% and backlog remained at all-time high as spending from national accounts including large chains continued to ramp. Refrigeration margins for the quarter declined, and margins for sales on the standard products on our backlog remained lower due to the fundamental changes in market dynamics that we've spoken about previously. In cooking solutions, sales were down 8.7% mainly due to shipment delays from an ERP system implementation within this business standard product plant. We are encouraged that daily shipments are already returning to normal levels. And we expect this dynamic to right itself in the second quarter. From a longer-term perspective, the ERP system is a critical building block for the transformation and health of this business, and once fully implemented is expected to lead to improve sustainable performance. Our specialty solutions continue to perform well, as sales up 9.9% driven by strong growth in the beverage business. In addition, display and merchandising was strong as we begin capitalizing on healthy pipeline of new business opportunities. Looking ahead in Food Service, we remain focused on converting our strong backlog. Backlog shippable within one year is up 23.6% and excluding acquisitions, shippable backlog is up 17.5%. Top priorities also include growing differentiated product sales through expanded market tests and growth laneways. At the same time, we are executing on our restructuring efforts to optimize our standard products businesses in refrigeration and table top cooking solutions while reducing costs. Turning to slide 15 in Engraving, sales increased 22.8%. The Asia-Pacific region was up 11.4% and Europe grew 25.1% as new program launched fueled growth. Operating income, which included a $200,000 negative impact to Piazza Rosa purchase accounting was up 0.3% compared with last year, with an adjusted operating income margin of 23.2%. Most Texturizing sales were up in all regions as automotive OEMs ramped up but is expected to be a record year of new model introductions. During the quarter we closed our Piazza Rosa acquisition, which performs slightly ahead of our top-line expectations contributing $2.5 million of sales. This was partially offset by a decrease of $1 million in sales from our Innovent business, which had a significant customer projects last year. As I noted earlier our efforts and investments to develop growth laneways and Engraving have been successful with increased top-line contributions from several programs this quarter in fact the new technology sales grew $3.5 million of the core. Looking forward our 2018 priorities remains focused on driving sales and operating growth. We will be rolling out tool finishing services, leveraging the expertise of the newly acquired Piazza Rosa business across our 43 global sites. All sites will focus on supporting the record level of automotive model introductions worldwide that led to a 29% bookings growth. In addition, we have committed to executing on growth laneways programs and new technologies and conducting market test to identify additional potential growth opportunities. Please turn to slide 16. Our Engineering Technologies Group where overall sales grew 8.3% in aviation sales were up 20.5% or $1.7 million, our lipskin sales and the newly awarded development job, space sales increased 20.2% from the prior year quarter driven by dome sales and continued work on developmental jobs. Margins in the segment were negatively impacted by plant consolidation inefficient fees, price pressure on legacy engine parts and a slower ramp up of new programs. We remain focused on completing key space development programs for repeatable production in addition we'll continue to ramp up to deliver on long term aviation programs for next generation aircraft and completing cost actions on legacy platform parts. Please turn to slide 17 Electronics. Sales increased by 52.8% powered by organic growth in all regions and by our Standex Electronics Japan acquisition which continues to perform very well. European sales continue to show strength and increase by double-digits driven by the meter industry. Organic growth was particularly strong in the sensor and reed switch product lines. Sensor sales increased by 20.2% including the acquisition of Standex Electronics Japan and grew 13.7% organically across all regions. In reed switches we benefited from the increased capacity of our Japanese acquisition to serve a tight global supply of reed switches. We continue to see great momentum and the integration of our new Standex Electronics Japan acquisition. The potential for Standex Electronics Japan cost synergies are already bearing fruit as we've identified operational improvements for all three reed switch plants through the sharing of best practices across our management teams. In addition, we have begun to implement a new sales structure to leverage synergies between Standex Electronics Japan and our legacy business to sell up to value chain and secure Asia Pacific sensor opportunities. Looking ahead, we're focused on leveraging this new sales structure to grow our sensor business identifying further synergies, reduced costs and capitalizing our active pipeline of new business opportunities in magnetics including LED sensors, reed relays and fluid level sensors to deliver growth. Please turn to slide 18 Hydraulics. The 5.1% sales increase in hydraulics is primarily the result of the down truck and trailer markets beginning to recover as we expected in the latter half of 2017. We continue to believe our markets are fundamentally sound and we're optimistic for a good fiscal 2018 in hydraulics as we focus on converting our strong project pipeline and solid backlog which increased 52.4% over the prior year period. Further we expect demand to grow as the improved macro environment continues. Before we go to questions let me leave with you a few key thoughts. Our strong performance this quarter was bolstered by organic growth across all Standex businesses. Scientific Electronics, Engraving, Engineering Technologies and Hydraulics in particular are expected to remain in this growth path in FY2018. In Food Service, we are focused on executing on the lease structuring initiatives to improve the profitability of our standard products. The progress made to-date gives us confidence that we will see the benefit of these actions begin to take hold in the second half of the fiscal year. Our recent acquisitions are performing very well with all three contributing to sales and margin growth this quarter. Capitalizing on both on M&A opportunities like these is a key component to future growth and profitability. As we continue to transform Standex to be an operating company of profitable niche businesses serving attractive differentiated markets and solid growth prospects, we're committed to constantly improving upon the Standex value creation system. It is to streamline processes operational excellence and talent management across all five business segments and we're setting Standex up to deliver predictable sales, profitable growth and sustainable value for shareholders. And finally, as we look ahead our balance sheet is well positioned to form the CapEx organic growth and acquisition initiatives that will support our growth aspirations. With that, we'll be happy to take your questions.