Steve DeMartino
Analyst · Eilers Research. Your line is now open
Thanks, Bart. Good afternoon, everyone. 2014 fourth quarter net sales were 12.3 million compared to 12.5 million in the year ago quarter and on a full year basis total net sales were 53.1 million in 2014 compared to 60.1 million in 2013. As Bart pointed out earlier nearly $5 million of our 7 million year-over-year sales decline was attributable to lower sales in our casino and gaming market which was impacted throughout the year by lower unit sales trends. For the full year 2014 our gross margin was 40.9% compared to 41.7% in 2013. Although we did lose some gross margin leverage on 12% lower sales volume, the decline was only 80 basis points. The transition we made to our newer higher value products is now definitely showing up in our gross margin and we expect this trend to continue into 2015 as we ramp sales of these higher margin products, especially in food safety and to a lesser extent Epicentral. Looking at our sales by market for the fourth quarter, casino and gaming sales declined approximately $700,000 to 5 million. The year-over-year decline reflects lower North American market revenues which were partially offset by a modest increase in sales for the international markets. You may recall that 2013’s fourth quarter benefited from the significant slot machine replacement orders from a large casino group that didn’t repeat in 2014. Lottery sales of 1.6 million were consistent with the 2013 fourth quarter and lottery sales for the full year 2014 of 4.7 million was actually a bit higher than in '13 as GTECH took just slightly more than their minimum required quantities for 2014. As Bart noted earlier on the call, based on orders already in-hand we expect lottery sales to be strong this year, particularly in the first quarter and the first half of 2015. Food safety, POS and banking sales were 2.2 million in the fourth quarter 2014, consistent with the fourth quarter 2013. Sales for the 2014’s fourth quarter reflects 115% increase in sales of our Ithaca 9700 food safety terminal compared to the prior year, which is offset by lower sales of lower margin banking and point of sale printers. On a full year basis, food safety, banking and POS sales were 9.3 million compared to 11.3 million in 2013, mostly due to a large initial stocking order for food safety terminals we made to a distributor during 2013 that didn’t repeat in 2014. With sales for this distributor resuming in 2015 and a growing traction we are getting from some well-known restaurant brands for the Ithaca 9700. We expect to see positive sales trends for our food safety, banking and POS solutions during 2014. Total revenue of our Printrex branded printers was approximately $900,000, which is up slightly from last year’s fourth quarter and also up on a quarterly sequential basis. Full Printrex sales were a 3.9 million in 2014 compared to 4.3 million in 2013, as our 2014 sales were impacted by oil and gas customer’s lower capital spending resulting from steeply declining oil prices. Given the state of the oil and gas industry today we expect this trend will continue to impact our worldwide Printrex oil and gas printer sales during 2015. However despite this trend, we do expect sales of our Printrex 980 color office printer to continue to be strong in 2015, which should lead to continued growth of our recurring high margin Printrex color consumables business. Finally TSG sales were up 19% during the fourth quarter to 2.6 million, including a $400,000 increase in spare part sales and a more than doubling of sales of our Printrex color consumables, reflecting the higher install base of Printrex color printers. On a full year basis TSG sales were 12.4 million compared to 12.8 million in 2013. During 2014 we experienced a $700,000 decline in service revenue from expiring contracts and paper testing services that did not repeat in 2014 as well as an $800,000 decline in sales of non-Printrex consumables largely HP inkjet cartridges. As you may recall our install base of HP inkjet printers continues to decline as we continue to deemphasize this low margin legacy printer product. However on the positive side spare part sales were up $900,000 mostly to GTECH and sales of Printrex color printer consumables continued their growth trajectory increasing $300,000 year-over-year a trend that we expect to continue into 2015. Our gross margin of 39.9% in the fourth quarter was consistent with the 2013 fourth quarter. Operating expenses of 6.1 million for the fourth quarter were up 2.6 million year-over-year, however excluding lawsuit legal fees, employee termination charges and adjustment to the accrual for contingent consideration related to the Printrex acquisition in both periods, operating expenses were 4.5 million compared to 4.1 million in the 2014 fourth quarter up $400,000 or 8%. Engineering, design and product development expenses for the fourth quarter were down 150,000 or 15% year-over-year reflecting lower product development expenses, as well as staff reductions resulting from the cost reduction plans we initiated in the fourth quarter. Selling and marketing expenses for the fourth quarter were up $200,000 or 13% to 1.9 million primarily due to a shift in the timing of the G2E trade show this year. G2E, which is our largest trade show expense of the year, moved from the third quarter of 2013 to the four quarter in 2014. G&A expenses for the fourth quarter were up 1.2 million to $2 million in the fourth quarter. The increase was due to a couple of unusual items. First, G&A expenses for the fourth quarter of 2013 were unusually low because they included a $700,000 reversal of expense related to the Printrex contingent consideration accrual. We did not make any similar adjustment for this accrual in the fourth quarter 2014. Secondly, G&A expenses for the fourth quarter of 2014 included a $200,000 charge for severance related to employee terminations incurred as part of our cost reduction actions taken in Q4. In terms of our cost reduction plan, we are on-track and still expect to realize at least $1 million in annualized cost savings from these actions beginning in the first quarter of 2015. Excluding both unusual items the employee termination charge and the change in contingent consideration accrual G&A expenses were only up $300,000 due largely to higher incentive compensation expense compared to the prior year period. Legal and other expenses related to the lawsuit with Avery Dennison were 1.4 million in the fourth quarter 2014. We expect legal fees for this lawsuit to continue to ramp through the scheduled trial date of April 21, 2015. Although we cannot predict the outcome of the trial I will remind everyone that to-date we received a favorable ruling from the courts on three separate occasions as it relates to this lawsuit. GAAP diluted EPS for the fourth quarter of 2014 was a loss of $0.08 compared to diluted EPS of a positive $0.13 in the year ago period. Adding back the legal and other expenses related to the Avery Dennison and lawsuit, employee termination charges and the Printrex contingent consideration accrual adjustment, adjusted diluted EPS was a positive $0.05 for the 2014 fourth quarter compared to $0.08 in the year ago quarter. Adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter of 2014 was $800,000 compared to 1.3 million in the fourth quarter 2013 and on a full year basis adjusted EBITDA was 3.8 million in 2014 compared to 8.4 million in 2013. And now turning to the balance sheet, we ended the quarter with 3.1 million in cash and we continue to have no debt outstanding as of December 31, 2014. During the quarter we also returned approximately 2.5 million of capital to our shareholders through our quarterly cash dividend of $0.08 per share and a repurchase of approximately 326,000 shares of our common stock at an average price of $5.55 per share. For the full year 2014, we repurchased a total of approximately 435,000 shares of our common stock for $2.6 million at an average price of $6.06 per share. So through a combination of quarterly cash dividend and share repurchases we returned a total of approximately $5.2 million to shareholders during 2014. After getting effect to these share repurchases we made in 2014, we have approximately 4.9 million remaining under our current $7.5 million share repurchase authorization, which includes approximately 2.2 million remaining under our 10b5-1 trading plan. The training allows share repurchases to take place according to the provisions of the plan during our normal quarterly blackout periods. This 10b5-1 trading plan expires at the end of April 2015. As Bart mentioned we entered 2015 with a specific focus on sales execution for our product lines in particular those products that carry higher margins. We are expecting a better year in 2015 in fact we expect to start the year out strong, especially since we began the year with a healthy backlog and forecast for lobby printer sales from GTECH. In addition, we also expect to see our food safety terminal sales ramp-up as we move throughout 2015. In the casino and gaming market, we remain cautious with our growth expectations given the current market conditions, though the first part of the year we are starting off nicely especially in the international markets. We remain similarly cautious with the Printrex oil and gas market given the impact of declining oil prices and it's having on the capital spending of our customers. Still our lucrative color consumables business should continue to grow even in this challenging environment. And lastly, we're excited about the prospects for our new mobile printer the RESPONDER and expect to record initial revenues from this product later in the year. All-in-all, 2015 will be a better year. And at this point I'd like to give the call back to Bart for some closing remarks.