Earnings Labs

Sypris Solutions, Inc. (SYPR)

Q3 2015 Earnings Call· Tue, Nov 17, 2015

$3.60

-1.91%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

+2.67%

1 Week

+6.00%

1 Month

-28.00%

vs S&P

-25.35%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Sypris Solutions Inc Conference Call. Today’s conference is being recorded. At this time for opening remarks, I'll like to turn the call over to President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Jeffrey Gill. Please go ahead, sir.

Jeffrey Gill

Management

Thank you, Henna. And good morning, everyone. Tony Allen and I would like to welcome you to this call, the purpose of which is to review the trends reflected in the company’s financial results for the third quarter of 2015. For those of you, who have access to our PowerPoint presentation this morning; please advance to Slide 2 now. We always begin these calls with a note that some of what we might discuss here today may include projections and other forward-looking statements. No assurance can be given that these projections and statements will be achieved, and actual results could differ materially from those projected as a result of several factors. These factors are included in the company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. And in compliance with Regulation G, you can access our website at sypris.com to review the definitions of any non-GAAP financial measures that may be discussed during this call. With these qualifications in mind, we’d now like to proceed with the business discussion. Please advance to Slide 3. I will lead you through the first half of our presentation this morning, starting with an overview of the highlights for the quarter to be followed by a brief discussion of each of our two business segments. Tony will then provide you with a more detailed review of our financial results for the quarter. Now, let’s begin with the overview on Slide 4. As we mentioned in our previous calls and in our Annual Report to stockholders for the year 2014, the discontinuation of long-term supply agreement with Dana at year-end was expected to have a material impact on the future outlook for our business since Dana represented approximately 59% of consolidated net revenue in 2014. We noted that the brunt of the financial impact was expected…

Tony Allen

Management

Thanks, Jeff. And good morning, everyone. I’d like to take you through the highlights of our financial results for the third quarter of 2015. I will begin with our consolidated results and ask you to advance to Slide 10. Q3 consolidated revenue totaled $38.4 million, a decrease of $2.4 million sequentially, but down substantially compared to the prior year as expected reflecting the discontinuation of shipments to Dana effective January 1. The sequential decline from Q2 reflects a sale of Sypris Technologies Morganton to North Carolina plant to Meritor on July 9. The impact from the Morganton sale on sequential revenue was a decrease of $6.6 million. Revenue for the balance of Sypris Technologies operations increased sequentially by 10% and revenue for Sypris Electronics increased sequentially by 21%. Gross profit for the third quarter was $2.5 million, or 6.4% of revenue compared to the nearly breakeven amount reported for the second quarter but also well below the prior year period which included the Dana volume. Both segments contributed to the sequential improvement and gross profit from Q2 with Technologies posting a $1.4 million improvement and Electronics adding $1.1 million. SG&A expense declined $1.4 million from Q2 to Q3 which includes cost reduction actions across both segments as well as within the corporate structure. Lower health insurance expense during Q3 and a refund for favorable claim experience for prior years under our workers' compensation program. Partially offsetting these items was an increase in financial advisory and professional services associated with our refinancing efforts. The quarterly expense for these services increased from approximately $300,000 in Q2 to approximately $900,000 in Q3. With a completion of our refinancing on October 30, we expect these expenses to decrease sequentially in Q4. Legal fees which were a large component of SG&A during Q1 have not…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And we will take our first question from Jim Ricchiuti with Needham & Company.

Jim Ricchiuti

Analyst

Thank you. Good morning. I am wondering if there is a way that we can look at these two long-term supply agreements that you have announced and perhaps gauge what might be incremental, particularly in light of the forecast for the Class 8 market next year.

Jeffrey Gill

Management

Jim, it's a good question. Under a steady state situation we would not anticipate an incremental lift in the short term. But what we do see is freightliner in particular being very successful in increasing its market share. And we also see that Detroit Axles which is part of the Daimler group increasing its percentage of freightliners axles assemblies. And so we would anticipate particularly in the case of Detroit Axles that there would be some offset to what would otherwise take place with the market cycle.

Jim Ricchiuti

Analyst

Got it. Just with respect to gross margins in the quarter, the gross margins that you were, yes, surprisingly good at Sypris Technologies just given the low level of revenue. And I am just wondering was there anything unusual in that mix of revenues?

Jeffrey Gill

Management

No, Jim. Really it was not, it is just we've reduced cost, the performance continues to improve and so it was a - represented a good progression if you will as you look at how we’ve trended from Q1 to Q2 to Q3.

Jim Ricchiuti

Analyst

Okay. And Jeff just going forward as we look at that part of the business, you are obviously pursuing business to replace what was lost, how does that pipeline look in terms of new business and does the fact that you weren't able to move forward with Reynolds, does that do anything to you competitively I wonder?

Jeffrey Gill

Management

Okay. Well.

Jim Ricchiuti

Analyst

Two questions.

Jeffrey Gill

Management

Yes, two questions. In the first, dealing with the first question, we do have a robust funnel of new business opportunities and so we have been very pleased with how those have come together and we've been pleased quite frankly with the range of different potential customers that we are talking to about utilizing the capacity that we have. It is still going to take I think some time to not only land them but then launch and so we would expect to see a lot of that kind of churning in 2016. But it has been very positive from that standpoint. With regard to the Reynolds transaction, we were really sorry to see that transaction fall by the wayside. Mr. Reynolds has a great business, he does a great job. And in particular when we started down the road with Mr. Reynolds, our main desire was to combine that operation with our Morganton operation. And we did many similar things in Morganton, North Carolina that Reynolds Machine did and so it was believed that by combining Reynolds with our Morganton operation that we could really learn from that and step up the productive output in North Carolina. When we switched directions and divested Morganton then that changed part of the synergistic benefit that was to be associated with that.

Jim Ricchiuti

Analyst

Okay. If I could just switch gears for a second and if we exclude the Cyber Range revenue from Singapore in the quarter, it looks like you are showing double digit growth in that business. Is there -- are we at that point where we can see growth returning to the business ex some of these one time pieces of revenue that you are also assuming in Q4 with NEC?

Jeffrey Gill

Management

Jim, I think if I can answer your question this way, I think you are looking at it correctly in the sense that we anticipate that we may have some lumpiness with things like range sales and things of this nature. And if you peel the range away from it then perhaps we have more of a stable level of business underneath that. And so we are looking at this as being relatively stable and reliable subject to upside associated with being able to complete the sale and installation of some of these Cyber Ranges.

Jim Ricchiuti

Analyst

Is NEC similar in revenues or little bit lower in terms of Q4 contribution?

Jeffrey Gill

Management

It will not be as large as the Singapore range. It is structured differently and configured differently. But we anticipate as Tony said that it will probably be more attractive in terms of its margins because we don't have the cost embedded to do it.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And we will go back to Jim Ricchiuti.

Jim Ricchiuti

Analyst

Jeff, just in terms of the funnel that you see for Cyber Range, are we in a situation now where the market needs to be able to evaluate what you've done before potential other deals get closed? In other words is it a case where you get this reference accounts and are you able to evaluate and share some information with prospective customers?

Jeffrey Gill

Management

Well, certainly in the context of getting the Singapore range installed in the Security Operations Center and getting it commissioned and having now a strong flow of activity going through it was really an important milestone. And as you recall it took us longer to get that done than we had anticipated but now that it is done, it’s really served as a wonderful demonstration point if you will for other potential customers. And I think you are right that with the installation this quarter for NEC that other customers now will have more than one range that they can look at and validate that it does do what we’ve said it does. And so we would anticipate kind of the pace of activity in this side of our business picking up as we move into 2016.

Jim Ricchiuti

Analyst

Okay. And then looking at the core or the legacy business in the electronics business. The fact that there have been some developments in terms of government funding that maybe provide a little bit more stability going forward. Do you see any change in that market that makes it a bit more predictable going forward for you?

Jeffrey Gill

Management

Let me answer the question this way, Jim.

Jim Ricchiuti

Analyst

Thank you. I know it is --

Jeffrey Gill

Management

Yes. We are cautiously optimistic about 2016. Let me put it that way. And if things run more smoothly everyone will be very pleased.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And there are no further questions in queue.

Jeffrey Gill

Management

Thank you, Henna. Tony and I would like to thank each of you for joining us on this call this morning. We certainly welcome your continued interest and of course questions about our business. Thank you and have a great day.

Operator

Operator

And this concludes today's conference. Thank you for your participation.