W. Howley
Analyst · Myles Walton with Deutsche Bank
Good morning, and thanks for calling in to hear about our company. As usual, I'd like to start with some comments about our consistent strategy, as well as our current sense of the status of the aerospace market as it applies to our company, and I'll also give a short description of our recently announced acquisition of Schneller -- or contract signing for Schneller. To reiterate, we believe our business model is unique in the industry, both in its consistently and its ability to sustain and create intrinsic shareholder value through all phases of the aerospace cycle. To summarize some of the reasons we believe this, about 90% or more of our sales were generated by proprietary aerospace products, and most of our net sales come from products for which we are the sole source provider. About 55% of our revenues, and a much higher percent of our EBITDA, come from aftermarket sales. Aftermarket revenues have historically produced a higher gross margin and have produced relative stability through the cycles. Because of our uniquely high EBITDA margins, typically in the high 40s to 50% of revenue, and relatively low capital expenditures, 2% or less of revenue, TransDigm has year in, year out generated very strong free cash flow. We pay close attention to our capital structure, and we view it as another means to create shareholder value. As you know, we have been in the past and continue to be willing to lever up when we either see good opportunities or view our leverage as suboptimum for equity value creation. We typically begin to de-lever pretty quickly. We have a well-proven value-based operating strategy focused around what we refer to as our 3 value drivers. Those are new business development, continual cost improvement and value-based pricing. We stick to these concepts as the core of our operating management methods. This consistent approach has worked for us through up and down markets, and has allowed us to continually increase the intrinsic value of our business while steadily investing in new business and platforms. We have also been successful in regularly acquiring and integrating businesses. We acquire proprietary aerospace businesses with significant aftermarket content. We have acquired 36 such businesses, including 21 since our IPO in 2006. We have been able to acquire and improve proprietary aerospace businesses through all phases of the cycle. Through our consistent focus on our operating value drivers, clear acquisition strategy and a close attention to our capital structure, we've been able to create intrinsic value for our investors for many years through up and down markets. As you may have seen, we recently announced the execution of a contract to buy Schneller LLC, for $288 million. The close is subject to typical closing conditions and regulatory approvals, but if all goes smoothly, this should close before our fiscal year end of September 30. We will utilize cash on our balance sheet to close this transaction. Schneller is headquartered in Kent, Ohio and is one of the very few companies in the world that design and supply highly engineered laminates, primarily for commercial transport airplanes. The proprietary nature of the product, the significant aftermarket content and the well-established platform positions fit well with our strategy. Schneller's products are on almost all of the Boeing and Airbus planes in service, as well as a high percentage of the regional jet fleet. Business is about 2/3 Commercial Aftermarket with the balance from Commercial OEM. For calendar year 2011, revenues are currently running in the mid-$80 million per year range, with EBITDA margins in the mid-30% range. We see upside in both the margins and the revenue. I can't say much more about this business at this time until we own it and also, because we have a confidentiality agreement until such time as we own it. The first 3 quarters of our fiscal year were active in the M&A area. In Q1, we closed on both the acquisition of McKechnie for approximately $1.25 billion, and the Teleflex Actuator business known as Talley Actuation for about $93 million. In the second quarter, we completed the divestiture of the McKechnie Fastener businesses to Alcoa for about $240 million on a pretax basis. In Q3, we completed the sale of the small McKechnie Distribution business to Satair for $30 million, again, on a pretax basis. This completed our divestiture activities related to the McKechnie acquisition. The remaining businesses fit well with our business strategy. As I already mentioned in Q4, we also announced the definitive agreement to purchase Schneller for $288 million. As of July 2, after closing on both divested businesses, we have about $550 million of cash and about $240 million in undrawn revolver. Additionally, since we made a large tax and interest payment in Q3, we expect to generate about $100 million in operating cash in Q4. We also have more capacity under our credit agreement. Our net debt to EBITDA is now a little under 4.5x. And as in the past, absent acquisitions or other capital market activity, we will continue to de-lever. As we mentioned last quarter, we repriced our $1.6 billion of bank debt, and we're able to make a meaningful reduction around 1% on the interest rate through a mix of lower LIBOR floor and reduced spread. We're also able to eliminate the 2 maintenance covenants: Interest coverage and net leverage. In Q3, we also instituted a debt swap for hedging activity to convert more of our floating rate debt to fixed rate debt. With respect to our underlying markets, and you'll see Slide 5, market outlook is mixed but surely more positive than negative. We continue to see clear signs of an improving commercial aerospace market although defense market remains much less clear. In the commercial OEM sector, industry forecasters and airframe manufacturers continue to be optimistic regarding the commercial transport OEM production cycle. As I've said before, by historic measures, this has been an unusually moderate downturn. Commercial transport rate increases are proceeding, if not accelerating, at both Airbus and Boeing. We still expect minimal, if any, 787 shipments for TransDigm in our fiscal year 2011. In general, though very platform-specific, the overall biz jet OEM market appears to have stabilized and may be picking up a bit. In the commercial aftermarket, we continue to see mostly positive data from worldwide passenger traffic, our incoming orders and other items. The oil prices and worldwide instability bare watching, so far at least, still do not appear to be meaningfully impacting our business. This quarter, we again saw significant year-over-year increases in our aftermarket revenues. Incoming orders or bookings continue to run above shipment levels in the aftermarket and well above the prior year's levels. And inventory in our major distributors appears to generally be in line. In the Defense business, many uncertainties around defense budgets and recent trends, we are planning on a modest decline in this segment for fiscal year 2011. This can be tough to predict especially given the current U.S. political winds and the worldwide geopolitical situation. Now let me turn to our latest financial performance. I'll remind you this is the third quarter for fiscal year 2011. Our fiscal year started October 1 and ends September 30. As I have said in the past, quarterly comparisons can be significantly impacted by differences in the OEM aftermarket mix, large orders, trends in inventory fluctuations, modest seasonality and other factors. But in any event, our third quarter performance was strong. Our GAAP revenues were up 52% versus the prior Q2 and 43% on a year-to-date basis. Organic revenue was up about 13% on a quarter-versus-quarter basis. This is the fifth quarter in a row of year-over-year organic growth, in spite of a decline in military revenues. Reviewing the revenues by market category and again, this will be on a pro forma basis versus the prior year, this is [ph] that is assuming we own the same mix of businesses in both periods. In the commercial market, which makes up about 70% of our revenue, commercial OEM revenues were up 20% versus the prior quarter and 15% on a year-to-date basis. Quarterly commercial transport and business jet OEM revenues, our revenue growth percents, were both up in the high teens to mid-20s compared to both the prior Q3 and on a year-to-date basis. The commercial aftermarket revenue was up about 25% on a Q3-versus-Q3 basis and up about 23% on a year-to-date basis. The revenues are also up sequentially. For the quarter, business jet aftermarket revenues were up in the high-teen percent versus last quarter. The commercial transport aftermarket was up in the high 20s. Commercial aftermarket bookings continue to run ahead of shipments. In the defense market, which makes up around 30% of our revenue, the picture was less positive. The revenues are down about 2% on a quarter-versus-quarter basis and down about 3% versus the prior year-to-date. Incoming orders were soft this quarter and now on a year-to-date basis are just about even with shipments. We remain cautious about trends in this area. In total for the quarter, our revenues were a bit better than we expected. Moving to profitability and now on a reported basis, I'm going to talk primarily about our operating performance or EBITDA as defined. The major year-to-date as defined adjustments are related to the McKechnie acquisition, the divestitures and the large financing in the first half of the year. Our EBITDA as defined of about $161 million for Q3 is up around 53% versus the prior Q3 and the $418 million year-to-date is up about 41% versus the prior year. The EBITDA as defined margin is almost 50% for the quarter and 48% on a year-to-date basis. The quarterly margin is approaching our pre-McKechnie margins. Our quarterly EBITDA margin versus prior year is negatively impacted by about 2% from the dilutive impact of the acquisitions. Q3 continues to be a busy time for our operating team, and Ray is going to expand on that a little. After 8 months of ownership, the McKechnie integration is on track. And the businesses, with some puts and takes, generally look as good if not better than we expected. With respect to acquisitions, we continue looking at opportunities. We're pretty busy in the first part of the year, closing, restructuring and buying. The pipeline is in decent shape. We are clearly seeing more activity. The closes are difficult to predict, but we remain disciplined and focused on value-creation opportunities that meet our criteria. Now regarding the fiscal year 2011 guidance, which is on Slide 6, as you can see from our press release, we increased our guidance from that given before the Investor Day. The significant pluses are the improved operating performance at both the overall McKechnie businesses and our base business and to a lesser extent, a modest reduction in the full year estimated tax rate of 35%. Based on all the above, we are again increasing the midpoint of our EPS as adjusted guidance by $0.21 a share from $4.05 to $4.26 a share. This again is primarily due to improved operating performance with some other modest puts and takes. We now expect revenue for TG to be about $1.2 billion or up $10 million from our Investor Day guidance. This assumes no additional acquisitions, but does reflect the divestiture of the Fastener and Distribution business. 2011 EBITDA as defined is now anticipated to be in the range of $582 million a year, up about $5 million from our previous Investor Day guidance. EBITDA as defined margin is now expected to be about 49% of revenue for the full year. Margin increase is due to a combination of higher commercial aerospace volumes, a slightly better mix, in addition to improving operations at the McKechnie and the base businesses. Compared to 2010, we are now planning on full year commercial aerospace OEM revenues to be up in the mid- to high-teens. In the commercial aerospace aftermarket, we are planning on revenue growth versus the prior year to be up in the low 20%, that's based on worldwide traffic up 5% to 6% and some restocking or deferred maintenance recovery. For defense revenues, we now anticipate year-over-year revenues to be modestly down. The first 3 quarters of 2011 were good. The commercial aftermarket continues to recover nicely, and the defense markets still remain unclear. In any event, I'm confident that by focusing on our consistent strategy, we can continue to create intrinsic value for our shareholders through good and bad times. With that, let me hand this over to Ray Laubenthal who will give you a little color on our operations for the quarter. Ray?