Fay West
Analyst · CJS Securities
Thank you, Dave. Fourth quarter net income was $7.9 million, up $5.2 million from the prior year. SG&A was lower in Q4 2021, due in part to strong cost containment efforts as well as the absence of nonrecurring strategic investments made in the prior year. Additionally, current year results benefited from lower interest expense due to the refinancing of debt. For the full year, we delivered record net income of $64.9 million compared to $33.7 million in the year ago period. Strong sales, coupled with solid operating performance and lower interest expense, contributed to the year-over-year increase. Fourth quarter adjusted earnings per diluted share was $0.71 compared to $0.48 per diluted share in the prior year period. Full year 2021 adjusted earnings per diluted share was $4.39 compared to $2.91 in 2020, an increase of $1.48 per diluted share. Adjusted earnings per share numbers exclude amortization and restructuring charges as well as the gain on sale from the Coatings business and debt extinguishment costs. For the full year 2021, Tennant reported net sales of $1.09 billion compared to $1 billion for 2020, up 9.1% on an organic sales basis. Foreign currency was a favorable driver year-over-year and comparisons between periods were also impacted by the sale of the Coatings business in the first quarter of 2021. The increase in net sales was primarily driven by strong demand in our end market and in part to increased price realization. All regions demonstrated positive organic growth on a year-over-year basis. Moreover, growth was fairly consistent throughout the year, which is a testament to the efforts of our global team in addressing record demand in the wake of significant supply chain disruptions. As you may know, Tennant grouped its sales into 3 geographies: the Americas, which includes all of North America and Latin America; EMEA, which covers Europe, Middle East and Africa; and Asia Pacific which includes China, Japan, Australia and other Asian markets. For the full year 2021, sales in the Americas grew 4.3% year-over-year or 7.4% organically. Growth drivers include service, parts and consumables and strong industrial sales in North America. At the same time, strong organic growth in Latin America was driven by industrial sales in Brazil and the sale of IPC branded products in Mexico. Sales in EMEA grew 19.3% year-over-year or 14.2% organically, with demand and order backlog strengthening throughout the year. Results reflected growth across all countries and product category. Sales in Asia Pacific increased 9.6% year-over-year or 5.6% on an organic basis. Strong demand in Australia and Korea more than offset the decline in China, which was impacted by supply chain disruptions and labor constraints. Looking at adjusted EBITDA. Adjusted EBITDA for the full year 2021 was $140.2 million or 12.9% of sales compared to $119.4 million or 11.9% of sales in 2020. We are pleased with our ability to convert a 9.1% organic sales increase to a 100 basis point improvement in our adjusted EBITDA margin, especially in a year where we experienced such inflationary headwinds in material, manufacturing and freight costs. These headwinds contributed to a year-over-year 90 basis point decrease in adjusted gross margin to 40.2% in 2021. Adjusted S&A expenses were 29.2% of net sales compared to 30.9% in the year ago period. The year-over-year improvement in leverage was a result of continued cost saving actions and lapping the previously mentioned strategic investments in the year ago period. Overall, we are pleased with our full year adjusted EBITDA performance, which was the result of our ability to capture volume, deliver on net price realization and manage expenses. Turning now to our fourth quarter performance. For the fourth quarter of 2021, Tennant reported net sales of $276.4 million, up 4.5% year-over-year on an organic basis. While we were encouraged to see price realization ramp up and read through in the fourth quarter, the impact was somewhat muted given our existing backlog. Foreign currency impacts from the strengthening U.S. dollar and the sale of the Coatings business were unfavorable drivers year-over-year. In the fourth quarter, sales in the Americas grew 1.3% year-over-year or 4.9% organically despite widespread supply chain challenges and labor constraints. Growth drivers included service parts and consumables and strong industrial sales in North America. At the same time, strong organic growth in Latin America was driven by industrial sales in Brazil and the sales of IPC branded products in Mexico. Sales in EMEA were 3.9% year-over-year or 7.4% organically with demand and order backlog continuing to strengthen. Tennant achieved growth across all product categories and markets, except for France, which was more heavily impacted by supply constraints. Sales in APAC declined 7.5% or 7.2% on an organic basis. The decline was attributed in part to supply chain disruptions and labor constraints in China with new pandemic-related shutdowns in the region, impact of which was partially offset by strong demand in Korea and Australia. Turning to adjusted EBITDA. Adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter of 2021 was $28.4 million or 10.3% of sales compared to $25.4 million or 9.3% of sales in 2020. We were able to achieve a 100 basis point improvement in our adjusted EBITDA margin. Parts availability and inflationary pressures were particularly acute in the quarter as adjusted gross margin declined by 460 basis points from the prior year period to 36.7%. During the fourth quarter, our adjusted S&A expenses were 28.1% of net sales compared to 33.9% in the year ago period. Drivers for the quarter were consistent with those of the full year. Turning to capital deployment. In 2021, we generated operating cash flow of approximately $69 million, which reflects strong operating performance and incremental investments in working capital, specifically inventory. The cash flow generation allowed us to make good progress on our capital allocation initiatives. CapEx of approximately $90 million in 2021 was lower than guidance as capital investment activity was impacted by supply chain constraints and has shifted slightly into 2022. As we discussed in our previous conference call, we refinanced our debt, which both extended our maturity profile and lowered our cost of debt. The interest rate savings resulted from the debt refinancing are in excess of $12 million on an annual basis. Additionally, we reduced debt outstanding by approximately $44 million. We ended the quarter with net leverage of 1x adjusted EBITDA, which is lower than our stated goal of 1.5 to 2.5x. We also returned capital to our shareholders in 2021 by paying approximately $17.5 million in annual dividend and by repurchasing approximately 197,000 shares of our common stock for $15 million under our existing share repurchase authorization. In total, we ended 2021 with a cash balance of approximately $124 million and strong liquidity of approximately $403 million, setting the stage for continued progress against our capital allocation priorities. We continue to be disciplined in our capital allocation strategy, which is first to fund operations and investment in growth, appropriately manage leverage, pursue strategic and accretive M&A and then to return excess free cash flow over time to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. Switching gears, I would now like to talk about our guidance expectations for 2022. As Dave mentioned, our guidance for the full year 2022 reflects what continues to be an uncertain operating environment with macro level happenings that are likely to persist for much of the year. We anticipate that supply chain constraints such as component availability will continue to impact our ability to produce and deliver products to meet increased demand levels and we expect that we will continue to operate with record-level backlog throughout 2022. We will take necessary actions like local-for-local and region-for-region manufacturing and sourcing to help maximize output and to address and offset inflationary pressures. We announced further price increases in the first quarter of 2022, and will continue to monitor the competitive end market backdrop. We anticipate our quarterly sales cadence will be driven more by our ability to produce than by our demand pattern. We also expect that gross margins will improve sequentially throughout 2022. In terms of profitability, we expect increased price realization, cost out initiatives and strong expense management to drive sequential adjusted EBITDA improvement throughout the year. For 2022, Tennant provides the following guidance. Net sales of $1.125 billion to $1.17 billion, reflecting organic sales growth of 4.5% to 8.5%. Full year reported GAAP earnings in the range of $3.90 to $4.50 per diluted share. Adjusted EPS of $4.40 to $5 per diluted share, which excludes certain nonoperational items and amortization expense. Adjusted EBITDA of $145 million to $160 million. Capital expenditures of $25 million to $30 million. And an adjusted effective tax rate of 20% to 25%, which excludes the amortization expense adjustments. Overall, our 2022 guidance is in line with our long-range financial commitment. With that, I will now turn the call back over to Dave.