Tom Paulson
Analyst · CJS Securities. Your line is open
Thanks Chris. In my comments today, all references to earnings per share are on a fully diluted basis. For the first quarter ended March 31, 2015, Tennant reported net sales of $185.7 million compared to $184 million in the prior year quarter. Excluding an unfavorable foreign currency exchange impact of about 5%, organic sales grew approximately 6% in the 2015 first quarter. As you may recall, organic sales in the 2014 first quarter grew approximately 10.5% excluding an unfavorable foreign currency exchange impact of about 1%. So we were lapping a very robust prior year quarter. For the 2014 full year, organic sales rose approximately 10.3% excluding an unfavorable foreign currency exchange impact of about 1%. We continue to be encouraged by the solid level of organic sales growth. First quarter 2015 net earnings were $5 million, or $0.27 per share. In the year ago quarter, Tennant reported net earnings of $5.8 million, or $0.31 per share. As anticipated, foreign currency exchange headwinds unfavorably impacted our 2015 first quarter financial results. I’ll provide more information about this in just a few minutes. Turning now to a more detailed review of the 2015 first quarter. Our sales are categorized into three geographic regions which are the Americas, which encompasses all of North America and Latin America; EMEA which covers Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and lastly Asia-Pacific which includes China and other Asian markets, Japan and Australia. In the Americas, 2015 first quarter organic sales increased approximately 11.5% excluding about 2% of unfavorable foreign currency impact. Record sales for the first quarter in North America were fueled by strong sales to strategic accounts including the sales of new products. In the 2015, firs quarter, Latin America organic sales declined approximately 5% as compared to organic sales growth of about 10% in the prior year quarter. This was primarily due to economic headwinds in Brazil. As Chris noted this was an important emerging market for us and we remained confident about the long-term growth prospects there. In EMEA, our organic sales in the 2015 first quarter decreased approximately 5%, excluding an unfavorable foreign currency impact of about 14.5%. On the derivation of organic sales growth excludes the impact of foreign currency exchange, it’s important to note the increase in headwinds from an approximate 2% benefit in the 2014 third quarter to an approximate 8% unfavorable impact in the 2014 fourth quarter and now an approximate 14.5% unfavorable impact in the 2015 first quarter. In EMEA, organic sales for the 2014 full year grew approximately 4.4%, excluding a foreign currency exchange impact of about 1%. As Chris noted, we do anticipate EMEA organic sales growth for the 2015 full year will be positive. In Tennant's Asia Pacific region, organic sales decreased approximately 1.3%, excluding an unfavorable foreign currency impact of about 6.5%. Economic weakness in Australia and slower sales in China unfavorably impacted the 2015 first quarter. APAC Organic sales for the 2014 full year rose approximately 12.8% excluding an unfavorable foreign currency impact of about 4% and organic sales in China grew approximately 15% for the 2014 full year. We are expecting positive organic sales growth in APAC for the 2015 full year. Tennant's gross margin for the 2015 first quarter was 42% compared to 41.8% in the prior year quarter. We achieved a 20 basis point improvement in gross margin despite an unfavorable impact from the selling channel mix given the robust sales to strategic accounts. In addition, foreign currency headwinds unfavorably impacted gross margin by approximately 60 basis points. As I mentioned last quarter, we are proactively addressing our supply chain challenges stemming from higher production volume and new products in order to increase manufacturing productivity and further improve our gross margin performance. We made continued progress during the 2015 first quarter and expect to see further improvement in the second quarter. We still anticipate achieving a 43% gross margin for the 2015 full year. Research and development expense in the 2015 first quarter totaled $7.7 million or 4.2% of sales compared to $7.5 million or 4.1% of sales in the prior year quarter. We continue to invest in both our core business, and Orbio, which is focused on advancing a suite of sustainable water-based cleaning technologies. Selling and administrative expense in the 2015 first quarter totaled $62.1 million or 33.4% of sales, which was inline with our expectations as we continue to invest in our sales growth initiatives. This compares to S&A in the first quarter of last year of $60.2 million or 32.7% of sales. Our 2015 first quarter operating profit totaled $8.3 million or 4.4% of sales, compared to the year earlier operating profit of $0.2 million or 4% of sales. We have routinely discussed the impact of foreign currency exchange on our sales but now with a significant change in foreign currency exchange rates in the past two quarters, we believe it’s helpful that we provide additional information. As you may know, in a global company such as Tennant, isolating the impact of foreign currency exchange is complicated. We have calculated an estimated an constant currency income statement which assumes no change in exchange rate from the prior year, In so doing will enable to compare that to our actual financial results to isolate the estimated impact of foreign currency exchange. Here is a recap of the estimated foreign currency exchange impact on our 2015 first quarter financial results. Unfavorable impact to sales of approximately 5% or about $9.4 million, unfavorable impact to gross margin of 60 basis points using a constant currency, using a constant currency, our gross margin would have been about 42.6% compared to 42% as reported. Unfavorable impact to operating profit of approximately $1.9 million using a constant currency, our operating profit would have been about 5.2% compared to 4.4% as reported, an unfavorable impact to earnings per share of approximately $0.07. Using a constant currency, our earnings per share would have been about $0.34 compared to $0.27 as reported. This estimated unfavorable impact coming primarily from the strengthening of the US dollar during the 2015 quarter was lower than we had anticipated due to lower than planned sales in EMEA, Australia and Japan. Despite external circumstances beyond our control, we remained committed to our goal of a 12% or higher operating profit margin by successfully executing our strategic priorities and assuming the global economy improves. As we work towards this goal, we are keenly focused on driving organic revenue growth in the mid to high single-digits, holding fixed costs essentially flat in our manufacturing areas as volume rises, striving for zero net inflation of the gross profit line and standardizing and simplifying processes globally to continue to improve the scalability of our business model while minimizing any increases in our operating expenses. We continue to successfully execute our tax strategies. Tennant’s overall effective tax rate for the 2015 first quarter was 32.4%. The base tax rate was 31.8%, which excludes routine discrete tax items. Note that we were not able to include any benefits in the 2015 first quarter for the federal R&D tax credit as this is not yet been reenacted for 2015. Turning now to the balance sheet. Again, this continues to be a very strong balance. Net receivables at the end of the 2015 first quarter were $134 million versus $144 million a year earlier. Quarterly average accounts receivable days outstanding were 64 days for the first quarter even with the prior year quarter. Tennant's inventories at the end of the 2015 first quarter were $85.6 million versus $73.8 million a year earlier. Quarterly average FIFO days inventory on hand were 97 days for the 2015 first quarter compared to the 88 days in the year ago quarter. We have increased our inventories to support higher sales levels and many new product launches. Capital expenditures of $4.1 million in the 2015 first quarter were $0.6 million higher than $3.5 million in the prior year with planned investments in tooling related to new product development, and manufacturing information technology process improvement projects. Tennant's cash from operations which is typically negative in the first quarter due to the seasonality of the business totaled a negative $2.1 million in the 2015 first quarter compared to a negative $3.9 million in the prior year quarter. Cash and cash equivalents are strong totaling $76.8 million up $13.4 million from $63.4 million a year ago. Total debt of $26.1 million declined $2.1 million from $28.2 million a year ago. Our debt-to-capital ratio was 8.7% at the end of the 2015 first quarter versus 9.6% a year ago. Regarding other aspects of our capital structure, Tennant is currently paying a quarterly dividend of $0.20 per share. We paid cash dividends of $3.7 million in the 2015 first quarter. Reflecting our commitment to the shareholder return we are proud to say that Tennant has increased the annual cash dividend payout for 44 consecutive years. During the 2015 first quarter, we purchased 64,490 shares of Tennant's stock at an average price of $64.12 per share for a total cash outlay of $4.1 million. As of March 31, 2015, we had 341,079 shares remaining under our repurchase program. Moving now to our outlook. We are reaffirming our guidance for the 2015 full year. We continue to estimate 2015 full year net sales in the range of $825 million to $855 million, up 0.4% to 4%percent, or approximately 5% to 9% organically, assuming an unfavorable foreign currency impact on sales in the range of 4% to 6%. We continue to estimate 2015 full year earnings in the range of $2.40 to $2.70 per share. Foreign currency exchange headwinds in 2015 are estimated to reduce operating profit in the range of $10 million to $12 million, or approximately $0.37 to $0.44 earnings per share. However, we do anticipate organic operating profit growth in 2015. The estimated higher effective tax rate in 2015 of approximately 31% compared to 27.2% in 2014 is anticipated to negatively impact earnings per diluted share by about $0.14. The foreign currency exchange headwinds coupled with a higher tax rate is anticipated to negatively impact 2015 earnings in the range of $0.51 to $0.58 per share or approximately 19% to 22%. For the 2014 full year earnings per share totaled $2.70 on net sales of $822 million. We are not changing our guidance for the 2015 full year. However, the foreign currency volatility is likely to disrupt the historical pattern of our quarterly results. We now anticipate the foreign currency exchange headwind will be the strongest in the second quarter of 2015. We are estimating a more normal geographic mix of sales in 2015 second quarter which is anticipated to result in a larger unfavorable impact from foreign currency exchange as compared to the 2015 first quarter. We are also lapping record-breaking in the 2014 second quarter. We are currently expecting a stronger second half with a particularly strong fourth quarter. Our 2015 annual financial outlook includes the following expectations; economic strength in North America, modest improvement in Europe and growth in emerging markets. Increased foreign currency impact on sales for the full year in the range of an unfavorable 4%; to 6% with a $10 million to $12 million negative effect on operating profit. Gross margin performance of approximately 43%. Research and development expense of approximately 4% of sales, capital expenditures in the range of $25 million to $28 million, and an effective tax rate of approximately 31% including the anticipated reenactment of the 2015 Federal R&D tax credit. Note that our 2015 effective tax rate does anticipate a 2015 benefit for the federal R&D tax credit. However, that is not yet been reenacted for 2015. Therefore, we are not allowed to include its favorable impact in the 2015 tax rate we record until it’s enacted. Our current sales and earnings guidance reflects the success of our ongoing focus on accelerating organic sales growth and our continued investments in direct sales, distribution and marketing to drive additional future growth. It also assumes that it will take us into the second quarter to further improve the performance throughout our supply chain as we continue to ramp up to support higher levels of production and launch new products. Finally, it also includes the estimated significant unfavorable impact of sales and earnings from foreign currency exchange rates. We continue to consider and analyze a number of opportunities to proactively mitigate the foreign currency exchange headwinds that include, increasing selling prices in the affected local markets, evaluating the potential to expand the scope of our hedging strategies and exploring the feasibility of producing and shipping productions from locations with a more favorable foreign currency exchange carrying. Tennant’s operations are performing well and our objective is to continue to build our business for sustained success. Now we’d like to open up the call to any questions. Thanks, Chris.