Philip D. Fracassa
Analyst · Goldman Sachs
Thanks, Rich, and good morning, everyone. Let's start on Slide 11. For the first quarter, Timken posted sales of $723 million, down 2% from last year. Currency adversely impacted our sales by $33 million in the quarter or around 4.5%. Excluding the effects of currency, we achieved growth of around 2.5%, led by wind energy, rail, and military marine as well as the benefit of acquisitions. This was offset by partially by lower demand in aerospace, agriculture and the automotive aftermarket. From a geographic standpoint, excluding currency, sales were up 2% in North America; 11% in Asia, led by wind energy; and 2% in Europe. Latin America was down 6%. Turning to Slide 12. Gross profit in the first quarter was $203 million or 28% of sales, down 160 basis points from last year. SG&A expense of $129 million was down $13 million from last year. The decrease reflects lower incentive compensation, our ongoing cost-reduction initiatives and favorable currency. SG&A expense was 17.8% of sales in the first quarter, an improvement of 140 basis points from last year. During the quarter, we incurred a non-cash pension settlement charge of $215 million, substantially all of which related to the Prudential group annuity transaction we announced in January. This transaction, which covered approximately $575 million of retiree pension obligations, was funded entirely with pension plan assets, requiring no incremental cash funding from the company. As a result, you can see on the next line that our first quarter EBIT was a loss of $149 million. Moving to Slide 13. When you back out the pension settlement charge and other unusual items, adjusted EBITDA in the quarter was $73 million or 10.1% of sales, down from $75 million or 10.2% of sales last year. As outlined on Slide 14, the decline in adjusted EBIT was driven primarily by currency of $7 million, and volume and mix totaling $5 million, with the benefit of volume being more than offset by unfavorable mix. SG&A expense and other items had a favorable impact of roughly $10 million. Turning to Slide 15. We posted a net loss from continuing operations of $135 million or a loss of $1.54 per diluted share. On an adjusted basis, our earnings per share was flat at $0.50, flat with last year. Note that earnings per share benefited from lower shares outstanding as a result of our buyback program, including 2.3 million shares repurchased during the first quarter. Our GAAP tax rate in the quarter was 14%. On an adjusted basis, our tax rate was 32%, compared to 34% a year ago, reflecting our geographic mix of profitability and greater utilization of foreign tax credits. We expect to maintain a 32% adjusted tax rate for the remainder of 2015. Now turning to Slide 16. Let's take a look at our business segments, starting with Mobile Industries. In the first quarter, Mobile Industries sales were $393 million, down 7% from last year, with currency representing about 2/3 of the decline. Excluding currency, sales were down around 2.5%, driven by lower agriculture, automotive aftermarket and defense-related aerospace shipments, offset partially by continued growth in the rail sector. For the first quarter, Mobile Industries EBIT was $35 million. Adjusted EBIT was $36 million or 9.3% of sales compared to $45 million or 10.7% of sales last year. The decline in earnings was driven by lower volume, unfavorable mix in currency, partially offset by lower SG&A expense. The outlook for Mobile Industries sales for 2015 is to be down 5% to 6%, driven by negative currency of approximately 5%. Excluding currency, sales are expected to be flat to down 1%, reflecting lower off-highway and aerospace demand, partially offset by organic growth in the light vehicle and rail sectors. EBIT margins are expected to be at the low end of our targeted range of 10% to 13%. Turning to Process Industries on Slide 17. Sales for the first quarter were $330 million, up around 5% from last year. Excluding currency, sales were up 9%, driven by growth in the wind energy and military marine sectors as well as the benefit of acquisitions. For the quarter, Process Industries EBIT was $45 million. Adjusted EBIT was $51 million or 15.4% of sales compared to $49 million or 15.6% of sales last year. The increase in earnings was driven by higher volume, partially offset by unfavorable mix and currency. The outlook for Process Industries sales for 2015 is to be down 2% to 3%, with a negative currency impact of approximately 5%. Excluding currency, sales are expected to be up 2% to 3%, reflecting organic growth in wind energy and services as well as the benefit of acquisitions, partially offset by softer-than-expected industrial distribution demand. EBIT margins are expected to be at the low end of our targeted range of 17% to 20%. Turning to Slide 18. Operating cash flow from continuing operations for the quarter was $17 million, up from last year's use of cash of roughly $1 million. The improvement was driven by lower trade working capital needs and lower pension payments compared to the first quarter of last year. After CapEx of $20 million, free cash flow for the quarter was roughly breakeven. Note that the first quarter is our seasonal low for free cash flow due in part to the payment of incentive compensation for the prior year. Looking at our balance sheet and capital allocation on Slide 19. We ended the quarter with net debt of $354 million or 20% in capital, up from 13% at the end of 2014. During the quarter, we continue to make progress in our capital allocation strategy. We invested $20 million in CapEx, we paid a quarterly dividend of $0.25 per share or $22 million in total and we bought back 2.3 million shares at a cost of $97 million. As of March 31, we have approximately 6.6 million shares remaining under the company's authorized share repurchase program, which expires at the end of this year. Looking to the balance of 2015. We will continue to march toward our 30% to 40% leverage target and we will report our progress with regard to capital allocation on a quarterly basis. Shifting to our outlook on Slide 20. We now anticipate sales for the year to be down around 4% compared to last year, driven by 1% organic growth, more than offset by 5% of negative currency based on March 31 spot rates. We expect earnings per diluted share to be in the range of $0.60 to $0.70 per share. Included in our earnings outlook are 3 unusual items totaling net expense of $1.70 related to non-cash pension settlement charges of $1.75, restructuring and impairment charges of $0.20, and $0.25 of income related to an anticipated discrete tax accrual adjustment. Excluding these items, we expect adjusted earnings per share to range from $2.30 to $2.40 per share. We estimate our adjusted EBIT margin will be in the range of 11.5% for the year. Currency is expected to negatively impact our margins by almost 100 basis points. This is due primarily to the level of cross-border shipments in our business, especially exports out of the U.S. and China, which in the current environment will impact our profitability to a greater degree than normal translation. After CapEx spending at 4% of sales, we estimate free cash flow will be roughly $190 million or around 90% of adjusted net income. As we did back in January, we added Slide 21 to provide some detail on the components of our earnings per share change from 2014. At the midpoint, our 2015 adjusted EPS guidance is down $0.20 from last year. We estimate currency will negatively impact us by about $0.35. In addition, we anticipate higher pension expense of around $0.05 and higher interest expense of around $0.05. On the positive side, we estimate organic growth at roughly $0.10 and a lower tax rate at around $0.05. Finally, share repurchases. Including the full year impact of what we completed last year as well as the impact of the 2.3 million shares bought in the first quarter of this year should add $0.10 in total. The sum of these items get you to the midpoint of our current estimate for 2015. Any share buybacks during the remainder of this year will further increase earnings per share. We will update our guidance for this item on a quarterly basis. While the year got off to a slower than expected start and the current market environment is challenging, we remain focused on our strategy and are well-positioned to capitalize in market upturns should they materialize faster than what our outlook would imply. This concludes our formal remarks. And we'll now open the line for questions. Operator?