Mark Kalvoda
Analyst · Baird. Please proceed
Thanks David. Turning to slide seven, we generated total revenue of $310.2 million for the fiscal 2021 first quarter, which was an increase of 11.5% compared to last year. Our parts and service business continued to generate solid results in the first quarter, increasing 9% and 12.1% respectively. Agriculture segment led the way with another quarter of double-digit growth compared to the prior year quarter. Our focus in this area continues to be complemented by an aging customer fleet and the addition of the Northwood locations also added to the year-over-year results. International parts and service also performed well, but was offset by the softness we are seeing in our construction segment as a result of the pandemic. However, the upside for the quarter was largely driven by our equipment business, which increased 12.7% versus prior year. Equipment growth was driven by our agriculture segment where we believed delayed fourth quarter sales were realized in the first quarter as farmers were late harvesting last year's crop. In addition, we aggressively moved some used agricultural equipment during the quarter. Rental and other revenue was essentially flat versus prior year. The dollar utilization of our construction segment rental fleet decline 160 basis points to 18.9% for the current quarter compared to 20.5% in the same period last year. The lower utilization was the result of the weaker end market conditions in oil and construction that David spoke to earlier. On slide eight, our gross profit for the quarter increased 8.4% to $58.4 million due to the increased sales. The decrease in gross profit margin was partially due to revenue mix in two ways. First, equipment revenues made up a larger portion of overall revenues relative to the higher margin parts and service business. And second, our total equipment sales mix was more weighted to agriculture, which generally experiences lower equipment margins than equipment sold in our construction and international segments. Finally, our ag used equipment margins also decreased over the prior year as we accelerated efforts to sell this inventory. Our operating expenses were nearly flat versus prior year, increasing by $500,000 to $53.1 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2021. Our operating expenses as a percentage of revenue decreased from 18.9% in the first quarter of last year to 17.1% in the first quarter of fiscal 2021. Despite the additional year-over-year costs associated with our new Northwood store, expense growth was limited due to specific expense control efforts, such as overall salary and overtime reductions, as well as COVID impacted expense areas, such as fuel and travel expenses. This expense control combined with higher revenues resulted in much improved operating expense leverage. Floorplan and other interest expense decreased 15.9% to $2.1 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2021 compared to $2.5 million in the same quarter last year. The decrease was due to lower interest expense resulting from the May 2019 retirement of the remaining balance of the company's convertible notes. In the first quarter of fiscal 2021, we realized a $2.9 million increase in our adjusted net income to $3.4 million. This adjusted figure for first quarter fiscal 2021 excludes $1.1 million of adjustments, net of taxes related to ERP transition costs, impairment charges, and Ukraine re-measurement costs resulting from the recent devaluation of this currency to the U.S. dollar. This compares to the prior year where we excluded $900,000 of similar adjustments net of taxes. Our adjusted earnings per diluted share for the quarter was $0.15 compared to $0.02 in the first quarter of last year. For the first quarter of fiscal 2021, adjusted EBITDA increased 76.1% to $11.1 million compared to $6.3 million in the first quarter of last year. You can find a reconciliation of adjusted net income, adjusted income per diluted share, and adjusted EBITDA to their most comparable GAAP amounts in the appendix to the slide presentation. On slide nine, you will see an overview of our segment results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2021. Our agriculture segment drove solid overall top and bottom-line results in the first quarter. We do not feel the effects of the pandemic are fully reflected in these results. More on this and future expectations in a few minutes. Our agriculture segment had a strong quarter with total sales increasing 25.9% to $193.6 million, driven by strength in equipment sales and supported by ongoing momentum in parts and service revenue. The significant sales growth coupled with moderate increases in operating expenses created significant operating leverage at the segment level. For the quarter, adjusted pretax income increased to $6.2 million compared to $1.9 million in the prior year period. Turning to our construction segment, revenue decreased 15% to $60.1 million compared to the prior year period. The decrease in revenue was primarily the result of lower equipment demand due to macroeconomic challenges and uncertainty, which also impacted parts, service, and rental to a lesser extent. The segment's adjusted pretax loss widened by $600,000 to $2.7 million in the first quarter, despite reductions in operating expenses. In the first quarter of fiscal 2021, our international segment revenue increased 5% to $56.5 million. However, strong early first quarter results have been largely offset by late quarter weakness, which we are seeing continue into our second quarter. Nonetheless, equipment, parts, and services revenues were all up compared to the prior year first quarter and drove a $300,000 increase in adjusted pretax income. On slide 10, we provide an overview of our balance sheet highlights at the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2021. We had cash of $50.8 million as of April 30, 2020. Our equipment inventory at the end of the first quarter was $501 million, a decrease of $15 million from January 31, 2020, reflecting a $12 million decrease in new equipment and a $3 million decrease in used equipment. Equipment inventory turns were 1.6 versus 1.8 in the prior year period. I will provide a little more color on our inventory on the next slide. Our rental fleet assets at the end of the first quarter increased slightly to $104.9 million compared to $104.1 million at the end of fiscal 2020. We still anticipate our fleet size will decrease to about $100 million by the end of fiscal 2021. As of April 30, 2020, we had $378.3 million of outstanding floor plan payables on $762 million of total floor plan lines of credit. On April 3rd, 2020, the company entered into a new five-year amended and restated credit agreement maturing in April 2025, replacing the previous credit facility scheduled to expire in October 2020. The new the new facility provides for an aggregate $250 million financing commitment by the lenders consisting of floor plan capacity of $185 million and working capital financing capacity of $65 million. Floorplan facility features improved flexibility with higher advanced rates on new and used inventory and the working capital facility provides for a greater breadth of assets that can be utilized in the borrowing basis, such as vehicles and real estate in addition to higher advanced rates compared to the prior facility. The amended and restated credit agreement does not obligate the company to maintain financial covenants, except in certain circumstances with terms that are similar to those in the previous credit facility. The interest rate for borrowings under the credit facility will be equal to LIBOR plus an applicable margin based on the company's liquidity position. Overall, our borrowing costs under this facility should decrease by at least 50 basis points compared to the prior facility, Our total liabilities to tangible net worth ratio is a healthy 1.9 compared to 2.1 in the prior year period. As of the first quarter, we are now back to an apples-to-apples comparison, given the effects on the ratio from the adoption of the new lease accounting standard that went into effect on February 1, 2019. Importantly, the ratio is well below 3.5, which is the leverage covenant required for our most restrictive bank facilities. Turning to slide 11, the amount of new and used equipment inventories are reflected in the size of the red and blue bars on this slide. We are pleased to finish the first quarter with a $15 million reduction in inventory versus fiscal year end levels, which demonstrates early progress in our plan to drive inventory turns higher in fiscal 2021 through prudent inventory management. Historically, we have increased our new equipment inventory levels in the first quarter, which can be seen in the prior year. Solid equipment sales and lower procurement levels of new equipment allowed us to decrease our inventories and slightly increase our turns to 1.6 from 1.5 for the rolling four quarters ended April 30, 2020 and January 31, 2020. The overall quality of our inventory remains healthy with 40.3% of our inventory under non-interest bearing terms, which can be seen by the gray bar on the slide. This is a good percentage, but it's below the prior year comparable quarter percentage of 47.4% as we had a lot of new inventory stocking in that quarter, which carried new non-interest bearing terms. Slide 12 provides an overview of our cash flows from operating activities for the first three months of fiscal 2021. The GAAP reported cash flow use for finance for operating activities for the period was $5.4 million compared to cash provided by operating activities of $2.9 million in the first quarter last year. As part of our adjusted cash flow provided by operating activities, we include all our equipment inventory financing, including non-manufacturer floor plan activity and adjust our cash flow to reflect a constant equity in our equipment inventory, allowing us to evaluate cash flows exclusive of changes in equipment inventory financing decisions. After applying these adjustments, our adjusted cash use for operating activities was $3.6 million for the three-month period ended April 30, 2020 compared to $37.4 million for the same period last year. The much lower use of cash in the first quarter versus prior year was due to the substantially lower equipment stocking I referred to on the previous slide combined with the stronger bottom-line results. Consistent with our practice thus far in fiscal 2021, we are not providing modeling assumptions due to the continued uncertainty in our business as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. That said, I'll provide some updated color on a few noteworthy items for you to consider as you look at our business for the balance of fiscal year 2021. As you may recall, in mid-March, we began restricting customer access to our stores amid COVID-19 concerns. As of a couple of weeks ago, we began allowing customers back in our facilities with safety protocols in place. We felt very good about the uninterrupted service levels provided to our customers during that time. Regarding our agriculture segment for the remainder of fiscal 2021, we do not believe our solid first quarter results are a good proxy for the rest of the year. As I mentioned earlier, we believe our first quarter equipment results were lifted by some delayed customer purchases and some aggressiveness and on our part in selling used equipment. Our first quarter results far exceeded total U.S. industry retail sales, which is down year-to-date through April. Overall, COVID-19 has created industry challenges and uncertainties in areas such as ethanol, livestock, and international trade which we believe will put pressure on equipment sales and push them lower than the prior year. It is difficult to know the extent however, given all the variables and uncertainties, we still feel good about the potential parts and service opportunities for the year, but will likely not be able to sustain the growth we achieved in our first quarter. May results are already showing parts and service while off the pace realized in the first quarter. Additionally, please remember to account for a full year contribution from our recently acquired Northwood, North Dakota location, which closed on October 1, 2019 as well as HorizonWest acquisition that closed on May 4, 2020. Both of these acquisitions -- both of these businesses had revenues of approximately $25 million in their most recently completed full fiscal year. Within our construction segment, we expect continued headwinds to persist, but the magnitude and duration are difficult to predict, given the overlap we have with the energy markets. All revenue categories were impacted in this segment and we expect this to continue while macro-economic stress and uncertainties persist. Keep in mind the first quarter was only partially impacted as COVID-related shutdown started occurring in mid-March. We expect to continue to achieve some offset to the lower revenues through reduced expenses. Additionally, as we referenced during our fourth quarter call, please consider the January 2020 divestiture of our Albuquerque, New Mexico store, which generated approximately $8.5 million of revenue in fiscal 2020. With regards to our international segment, we witnessed a good start in the first two months of our first quarter and then experienced deterioration in April results. April revenues were 20% to 25% below the prior year. We're also seeing parts and service being impacted in these markets in current months. As David mentioned earlier, in addition to the COVID-19 challenges and uncertainties, our European customers are currently facing difficult growing conditions. We believe these factors will weigh on future quarters. Expense controls will help mitigate pressured revenues, but this segment has lessen the way of variable expenses, such as our domestic equipment commissions and overtime, which are not as prevalent in Europe. This concludes our prepared comments. Operator, we are now ready for the question-and-answer session for our call.