Robert Mehrabian
Analyst · Tyler Hojo representing Sidoti & Co
Thank you, Jason, and good morning, everyone. We ended 2012 with a very strong quarter. Quarterly and full year sales and earnings per share were each at all-time records. Fourth quarter sales of $567.4 million increased 19.6% compared to last year, and GAAP earnings per share from continuing operations of $1.17 increased 18.2%. Full year GAAP earnings per share from continuing operations were $4.33 and increased for the 11th consecutive year. For the fourth quarter, organic revenue growth was 5.1%, driven by 21.9% increase on organic sales in our Instrumentation segment. Fourth quarter free cash flow of nearly $100 million was also an all-time record. For the full year 2012, free cash flow, excluding voluntary pension contributions, was $184.5 million and exceeded net income for the sixth consecutive year. Throughout 2012, we accelerated our ongoing transformation into higher-technology and higher-margin businesses, serving industrial growth markets, including offshore energy, high-end digital imaging and analytical and electronic test and measurement instrumentation. The shift in our portfolio during 2012 was accelerated by 4 strategic acquisitions as well as a majority controlling investment in Optech, a leading 3D laser imaging company. As we seek to drive growth of new proprietary products and gain market share, R&D expense increased approximately 100 basis points compared to last year in both the fourth quarter and full year 2012. Given our strong fourth quarter sales and the strength of our commercial businesses, we were able to achieve net organic growth for the full year 2012 despite declines in our lower-margin government businesses. Turning to our business portfolio, we continue to experience weakness in certain markets and geographies and tepid growth in others. Nonetheless, the overall balanced mix of our businesses and growth in those end markets in which we made significant investments helped us overcome such challenges. For example, even excluding contribution from acquisitions, overall sales in Europe increased given strong sales growth of our marine instrumentation in the region. We also continued to experience growth in Asia, largely driven by increased sales of marine instrumentation and avionic systems. Finally, I'd like to discuss our operating discipline. Due to challenges in select markets and under ongoing reductions in government spending, we've responded with facility consolidation and a variety of Lean initiatives that accounted for a total workforce reduction in 2012 of approximately 4.3%. I will now comment on our business segment, after which, Sue Main will review some of our financials in more detail and provide an earnings outlook for the first quarter and full year 2013. Turning to our Instrumentation segment, this segment, which is our largest and also most profitable, serves the offshore energy, including deepwater exploration and production, and global infrastructure market, as well as provides a range of both analytic and electronic test and measurement instrumentation. International sales represented over 50% of the segment sales in the fourth quarter. Fourth quarter sales increased 56.2% to $232.6 million with organic growth of 21.9% mentioned previously. Sales of marine instrumentation increased 40% driven by strong organic sales growth of 34.8%. Revenue from virtually all product categories increased compared to last year's, but sales of geophysical sensors and interconnect systems for subsea oil exploration and production was truly outstanding. In addition, revenue from acoustic marine survey systems increased substantially, and sales of complete autonomous marine vehicles nearly doubled. Marine instrumentation continues to be a key strategic market for Teledyne. In addition to a strong share in subsea oil exploration and production market, Teledyne continues to grow in hydrographic survey, that is, ocean mapping market. Sales of environmental instrumentation grew 3.1%, driven largely by increased overseas sales of ambient air monitoring equipment. Teledyne LeCroy, a leading manufacturer of high-end oscilloscopes and other electronic test and measurement systems, contributed $46.5 million of sales. In the fourth quarter, Teledyne LeCroy launched the industry's first line of High Definition Oscilloscopes. The new products are based on the market's only true 12-bit signal acquisition technology, which provides 16x the measurement resolution of the 8-bit technology used by virtually all competitors. This increased resolution is important for an increasing number of customer applications ranging from automotive electronics, components development to mobile devices. The increase in segment operating part -- profit and margin largely reflected strong operating leverage given by the higher sales of marine instrumentation as well as strong margin performance in environmental instrumentation. Turning to the Digital Imaging segment. This segment provides a broad portfolio of visible, including 3D, laser imaging or LIDAR, infrared, x-ray, ultraviolet sensors, cameras and software. Fourth quarter sales in Digital Imaging increased 11% compared to last year, with the revenue growth due to consolidated results of Optech. Sales of x-ray sensors for medical applications largely offset decreased sales of certain sensors for scientific applications. Sales of industrial machine vision systems increased slightly compared to last year's, and also sales of infrared sensors, cameras, optics, also increased collectively but were offset by reduced sales from lower-margin government funded research programs. Segment operating profit and margin improved but continued to reflect over 300 basis points of intangible asset amortization, reinvestment of all our profit from our scientific R&D centers and the declassification of Canadian R&D tax credits from above-the-line segment income to below-the-line provision for taxes. Turning to our Aerospace and Defense Electronics segment. Fourth quarter sales decreased marginally compared to fourth quarter of 2011. Sales of higher-margin avionics and other commercial electronics increased while sales of microwave devices and interconnects also increased slightly due to acquisition of VariSystems. The overall decline in total segment sales primarily resulted from decreased sales of lower-margin government electronic manufacturing services. Segment operating margin declined, due in part to charges for severance and relocation, as we are consolidating operations in our government businesses to drive down our cost structure in this segment. Turning to the Engineered Systems segment. Fourth quarter revenue decreased 1%, but operating margin improved 24 basis points. We expect the performance of this segment, which is largely government-focused will remain challenging in 2013. However, we continue to reposition this business with a greater proportion of manufacturing and commercial sales and greater ability to pull through systems and services sales from our other segment. For example, this segment is leading the delivery of our marine instrumentation autonomous underwater vehicles for the U.S. Navy. In addition, in November 2012, we announced that this segment, in conjunction with our environmental instrumentation business, will lead an on-site and off-site management and support of research services for a number of sites for Dow Chemical. In conclusion, despite continued economic and government funding uncertainty, we ended 2013 with the strength of our balanced business portfolio, and now, we have the greatest proportion of commercial and international sales in our history. Finally, before I turn the call to Sue, I want to make a few general comments regarding our 2013 outlook. First, our full year 2012 earnings per share included net tax benefits of $5.4 million or approximately $0.14 per share. Second, because of the record low discount rate, we expect to have approximately $0.15 per share in additional pension expense in 2013 compared to 2012. In other words, we began 2013 with nearly $0.30 per share in EPS headwind. I will now turn the call over to our new CFO, Sue Main. Sue?