Thomas Riordan
Analyst · BMO Capital Markets
Thank, Phil, and good morning, everybody. I'll cover the current views of each of our businesses and then go through a few Terex-wide updates. Let me start on Page 9. The majority of our businesses are continuing to see positive trends and orders. Inventory is flowing consistently through our distribution channels to dealers and customers or directly to the rental channel, and we are in a good position to build to the rate our customers require. Our Aerial Work Platform business has seen a rebound in orders for products driven by emerging markets, particularly Brazil and Asia Pacific, including Australia. North America remains in a slow and choppy recovery, while the European markets generally continue to lag. Large international account rental companies are increasing their requests for quotations and showing interest in discussing 2011 potential purchasing, but remain weary of placing significant orders. Smaller rental companies continue to struggle financially with rental rates and utilizations, and we believe we are near the bottom of the cycle for them. While customers in general are very concerned about fleet aging, new product availability and manufacturers capacities going into next year, they remain focused on their balance sheets. Eventually, these dynamics will lead to increased orders. Our bad debt experience remains stable. And used equipment pricing has stabilized and firmed somewhat based on recent auction experience as well as third-party indications. We've also believed that based on industry-wide de-fleeting has generally subsided, although most purchased transactions continue to involve some trade in of older fleet. The Utilities business has been solid and we expect that continue based on high levels of quotation activity. Excluding the foreign duty provision we took in Q2, we would've been slightly profitable for the quarter, a terrific achievement on a road back to solid profitability Considering the incremental margins that were demonstrated this quarter on a year-over-year basis, we're very happy with our progress. Our production rates have risen significantly, generally in line with customer order rates which has led to improved productivity and absorption. Our working capital is down compared to last year, while we worked to ensure we have reasonable product availability and manageable lead times. Supply chain partners on almost all cases have been keeping up with our increasing build rates. Lastly, our Changzhou, China facility remains on time and on budget for Q4 start up. I visited there Tuesday and our team is genuinely excited about launching a new plant with several new products that are tailored to the local market. Moving on to Construction. We had a very solid quarter with strong growth compared to last year. Our backlog is steady at this point in the season, and we are working hard to maintain lead times to our customers. Our supply partners are keeping up with a 45% increase in net sales we delivered in Q2. Order intake is solid in most products except our trucks business at the moment, and even there, we're seeing positive signs. Developing markets are strong including a rebound in Russia along with South America. While North America remains sluggish, our business in Germany is strong with mix results in the balance of the EU countries. Our Roadbuilding business had a positive first half, although is now starting to see a seasonal slowdown in-line with expectations. Our product launches to date have been very well received, and we're very excited about the new loader backhoe and skid steer loader product introductions which are on track for later this year. And the real impact of these products will start in 2011. Most of our restructuring in this segment has been completed, and a significant improvement in profitability that you see here is a direct result of that. It's important to note that this quarter included a total $6 million restructuring cost. Incremental margins are good and if you exclude this restructuring, we are getting close to breaking even at about half the volume this business had achieved at the prior peak. This has been our objective and is a positive sign for Terex and our overall return to solid profitability. Our Cranes business has been challenged with the drop in order rates for larger, over 300-ton mobile cranes. Although not unexpected, we expect to see a stable second half 2010 based on the long lead time products, and we'll likely see a volume reduction in this size class in 2011. Our restructuring in the Port Equipment business is progressing nicely, and we've had some recent orders success based on evolving a broader Terex organization with key customers. Quotation volumes and interest continues to improve in this business. Our smaller mobile cranes and stationary cranes continue to be challenged for orders. I would describe our situation as bumping along the bottom. The smaller crane size class was the first to reduce volume and will be the first to recover likely in 2011. Although utilization for many customers continue to be in the 60% to as high as 80%, many are currently waiting out the current economic climate before they place new orders or buying used cranes from financially-stressed crane rental specialists. In general, we're seeing solid quotation and order rates in Asia Pacific, notably, China and Australia, and continued softness in Europe and the U.S. The Middle East is showing some signs of rebound. Our Cranes business is also on track to launch several new products in the second half that we are optimistic about. On our last quarterly call, I mentioned the new 1000-ton crane with the state-of-the-art performance and operating costs, and a new 100-ton rough terrain crane jointly engineered by our Italian-U.S. businesses, which fills a big global gap in our product portfolio. Both introductions are off to a good start despite the challenging environment. Moving on to Material Processing, we're back to being profitable. The overall order rates for crushing and screening products continue to be strong with net sales of nearly 50% year-over-year. In general, EU and U.S. markets are steady. Developing markets are generally strong, with India for aggregate markets and Australia and Africa for mining-related markets. We're seeing some rebound in Eastern Europe as well. We've launched numerous products earlier this year at BAUMA, many of which are targeted for mining applications and all of which will help the second-half results. Our results show the positive impact of cost reductions from last year with terrific incremental margins, and we expect the positive profitability trend to continue as the year progresses. Similar to Construction and AWP, we find ourselves working hard to keep lead times short in order to be responsive to our customers as markets recover. Moving on to Page 10, you can see the developing markets activity, in general, continues to be very strong for Terex. Now that we have 32% of our sales in these areas in the first half compared to 24% in the first half of '09, Brazil and India are both up over 100% year-over-year and Russia's up very dramatically as well. Net sales in Saudi Arabia more than doubled. We're putting increased additional investment in our new plant in India, and our announced investment in Southern Brazil for a new multi-product facility is on track for start up early next year. All in all, a great story in developing markets. Referring to Page 11, I'll move to some overall comments for Terex. While we have new products and new markets that can provide growth opportunities, we're also aggressively pursuing growth on our existing markets. We're in a period where you need to understand the key drivers of customer demand and provide solutions that meet their needs for product and cash flow. As part of that, we're being more active with our Terex Financial Services team in supporting our business growth in most regions of the world. While the majority of the deals use strong financial partners for funding, we have also expanded our own originations with well underwritten and secured with balance sheet financing on an ongoing basis. TFS will continue to be a crucial tool for us to support our customers growth. I've already mentioned a number of specific product launches underway. And additionally, as part of Tier 4 engine conversions, we have a multitude of other products we are updating or enhancing along with required drivetrain changes needed over the next few years. I believe we're well-positioned with a full pipeline of products as we move into the future. Our material costs appear to be somewhat inflexed at the moment. While there's strong price pressure earlier in Q2 for steel, we're seeing clear moderation lately. We now expect steel at this point in time to be basically stable for the balance of the year. And as steel has been the primary cost driver over the last few years, we expect level pricing, in general, for all commodities during the next few quarters. I mentioned on last quarter's call, we're seeing some delivery challenges for key components based on strong production levels. We have been working effectively with our suppliers to provide additional visibility into our production plans and frankly, we now have only limited shortages that we have generally been able to work around. At this point, our supply chain is doing a good job with staying in sync with us, which I expect will continue. To summarize, we remain comfortable and confident on how the year is progressing with no real surprises on how the markets are performing. And at this point, I'll turn it back to Ron.