John Hrudicka
Analyst · Oppenheimer
Thanks, Paul. Good morning, everyone. Well, needless to say, Q2 is disappointing in terms of performance, continuing against the backdrop of price reduction, mining downturn and the decline of ag, specifically large ag equipment. Related to mining, we recorded an asset impairment of $23.2 million on machinery equipment molds used to produce giant mining tires. In addition, we recorded an inventory write-down of $11.6 million to adjust the value of mining product inventory to estimated market value. So let's begin by breaking down our revenue to understand the drivers. Quarter sales were at $524 million, this was down nearly 12% from Q2 of last year and up 3% from first quarter. The 12% year-over-year decrease was driven primarily by reductions in North American large ag and North American earthmoving and construction, primarily mining. So let's talk about the ag market. We are experiencing a correction that is occurring in large farm equipment sales after multiple years of significant growth. In North America, large ag equipment sales declined in June. Dealers' inventories are still considered high. Four-wheel drive tractor sales are down 24% from prior year; combine sales, down 25%; and row crop tractor sales are down 16%. Put this together with lower crop prices and across-the-board increases in production input costs, with the exception of fertilizer, and it is a perfect storm for lower profitability, and as a consequence, negatively impacting new equipment sales. Specifically, our large ag equipment sales were down $37 million from previous year Q2. Ag in total was down nearly $40 million. Inherent in these variances are price concessions due to raw material decreases related primarily to rubber, for which we are contractually obligated to pass these along. Our other markets, Europe and Brazil, have also experienced the negative effects of the lower ag demand. Growth from acquisitions, represented by our Voltyre-Prom acquisition in Russia, contributed $17 million to our ag segment, unfortunately, very little flow through the show for it. With all this various ag talk, I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about something positive. So Section 179 is the amount of depreciation farmers can take in a given tax year. 2014 was to mark the end of this elevated deduction and revert back to prior years' limit of $25,000. However, the Senate and House have passed a bill to reinstate the $500,000 amount for both 2014 and '15. This is going to the President for signature. If signed, the farmers will certainly give more consideration to buy new equipment in order to take advantage of this significant deduction. So let's turn our attention to Earthmoving/Construction. As I indicated earlier, we recorded $34.8 million in asset impairment and inventory write-down associated with the giant mining tires. Some of the larger OEs believe that 2014 may have marked the bottom of the mining downturn. So while this downturn has significantly impacted both sales and profitability in North America, it has also harmed our Australia and global undercarriage businesses. For the quarter, sales for Earthmoving/Construction were down $44 million or 21% from Q2 of last year. The inventory de-stocking, competitive pricing pressures, lost leverage and productivity due to the significant decline in sales has compounded negative impact on profitability. While we don't disclose this separately, we did have a pickup in small construction, experiencing some growth this quarter. I want to make a quick point on consumer. We experienced some nice growth here across-the-board, Europe, Australia, Russia, Russia being all incremental. In terms of the growth in Europe, this is primarily represented by high-speed disc brakes sold in Spain. In the press announcement, Morry mentioned and referred to the ITM steel foundry in Spain has just entered a partnership agreement in principle to provide railroad cast steel brakes. This product generates attractive margins that should positively impact our GP performance going forward. So with the first 2 quarters under our belt, that puts us at just under $1.1 billion year-to-date compared to $1.2 billion last year, representing an erosion of 9.3%. While ag is down $32 million year-to-date, primarily North America, this would have been $73 million or 13%, excluding the addition of Russia. Earthmoving/Construction is the real culprit here when looking at year-to-date sales, down $101 million year-to-date, as Q1 2013 was a strong quarter for mining. Consumer is up $24 million year-to-date on the strength of Europe and Australia and the incremental Russia sales. We also got hit with FX at $11 million. Greater than 100% of this impact was driven by the Brazilian real. So now let's turn our attention to margin performance. We reported a decline in gross profit performance of 4.3%, or 11% on an adjusted basis for the quarter, again, adjusted for the mining asset impairment inventory write-down. That compares to 14.6% from Q2 of last year and 10.1% in Q1. So even on an adjusted basis, this obviously represents a sizable decline to last year's performance well above prior quarter. At 14.9%, we experienced 240 basis points decline in ag GP performance from Q2 last year. This is not surprising given the reduced sales and specifically in our higher gross margin large ag product and the addition of Russia's sales lacking flow through. Most of the negative impact stems from mining, again, associated with North America, Australia and our undercarriage businesses. I know you're all very knowledgeable of the mining downturn story. After adjusting for the asset impairment inventory write-down, our Earthmoving/Construction business is at 7% versus 12.9% Q2 one year ago, an erosion of 590 basis points. As mentioned earlier, this is a result of the significant decline in sales and associated profit, de-stocking, competitive pricing pressures for the business that remain and lost leverage and productivity. As I stated back in Q1, we are responding to this downturn positively. We build very good 49s, 51s and the 57-inch loader we're competitive there. With our super giants, the 57s and 63s, we have been in process for a while now, systematically making changes to this product to improve both quality and performance, and they're currently being tested in the field. We have shipped and we'll be getting feedback soon in the coming months on a group of 57-inch tires that represent our most significant improvement to date in terms of both design and process. These tires will be monitored by our field engineering group in South Africa. We are very optimistic and believe that we'll obtain very good performance. As I mentioned back on the Q1 call, our customers are not comfortable with the duopoly of Michelin and Bridgestone. They want us to be successful and level the playing field. In Australia, the story is different, but the outcome very similar. In late 2012, a slowdown in mining commenced, coinciding with the government introducing a super profit mining tax. This tax has stifled exploration and expansion, but there has been some recent developments. The government repealed the carbon tax and it appears, the removal the mining tax is imminent. It is too early to speculate on the timing and size of impact that we will have as we look forward, but this is very positive news, nonetheless. Material cost reduction, made up of primarily natural and synthetic rubber, we're at $13 million for Q2, basically a push with the North American price concessions we made due to raw materials reduction. Q2 is a nice story relative to our warranty cost. We picked up nearly $15 million to the positive side when compared to Q2 1 year ago. This is primarily due to the 2013 giant mining tire claims that have worked through the system and improved quality associated with our newer version tires. On a smaller scale, we've also realized improvement from compound and structure changes in our Freeport and Des Moines tire plants that have proved successful. As Paul mentioned earlier, we've reduced headcount significantly in the plants to respond to both lower volume and our current profitability challenge. While the plants are working hard at improving productivity and reducing costs, we still have experienced erosion in labor and overhead as it is very challenging to overcome the significant impact of lower sales. From a broader perspective, we continue to experience this mix shift impact. Our acquired or international businesses were 20% of our sales volume back in 2012, 44% in 2013 and now account for more than half of our business this quarter at 52%. This has had a negative consequence from a gross profit performance standpoint, as the lower international gross margin performance at 11.3% was 600 basis points less favorable for our legacy or North American business at 17.3% in 2013; 390 basis points less favorable at 9.1% versus 13% Q2 of this year. While the gap has narrowed, this is primarily due to the considerable decline in the North American margins based on the impact of mining and large ag described earlier. So getting back to the impact of this mix shift. For Q2, there was 123 basis points decline in 2014 from 2012 and 30 basis points from 2013, 2013 being less severe due to the mining and large ag impact just noted and growing share of international. Let's turn our attention to the expense side of the equation. SG&A was up $1.4 million or 8.6% of sales for the quarter versus 7.4%, one year ago. While there are a series of puts and takes across this category, this increase is primarily attributable to the incremental SG&A associated with the Voltyre-Prom acquisition at $4.2 million for the quarter. R&D in Q2 was $3.2 million, representing a $400,000 increase over Q2 of the previous year. This was primarily due to the U.S. new product tire testing, of which our LSW concept makes up a good portion of this expenditure. As described with the gross margin geographic mix impact, we have experienced a similar effect with expenses, as the international SG&A, as a percent of net revenue is higher than our North American business. So for Q2, international SG&A was 9.1% versus the North American business at 8%. Outside of declining sales, this is primarily to why our operating expenses declined as a percent of sales. So let's move down to P&L. Our interest expense continued at a run rate of approximately $9 million, which is consistent with the first quarter. We did have some debt reduction during the quarter, primarily in Europe and Russia, relating to overdraft and working capital facilities in those locations. We see this current run rate right around $9 million, subject to any further changes in our debt. Foreign currency. We experienced a gain of $3.7 million for the quarter, primarily from our intercompany balances and the favorable FX shift between those balances. This gain consisted of approximately $2.5 million from Russia, which was a partial recovery from the $3.8 million loss in Q1. Obviously, the events in Russia over the past several months have resulted in significant swings in the ruble. We also had a gain of $600,000 during the quarter for balances tied to the Australian dollar. During the past 12 months, we've continued to address these intercompany currency exposures through balance reductions and development of a future hedging practice. Let's summarize and bring this to bottom line relative to profit. We had the 2 adjustments for mining asset impairment inventory write-down in the quarter. So our adjusted net income attributable to Titan is $0.03 per share, EBITDA at $35 million. That compares to adjusted net income of $0.24 per share and EBITDA of $57 million from Q2 one year ago, and $0.05 per share and $24 million EBITDA in Q1. As I stated when we began this discussion, our Q2 results are disappointing and are being addressed in a diligent manager -- manner by management, and you heard comments from both Morry and Paul in this regard. As Paul mentioned earlier, we've reduced our employee population by nearly 800. We will consider further reductions as future business conditions require. In addition to the headcount reductions, we've embarked on a number of short-term profit optimization initiatives to address our current profitability challenge. But equally important, perhaps more important than our long-term success, we are also focused on developing and implementing an integrated management framework, performance management framework, or EVA, as Paul referred to earlier, that will support decision-making, enhanced transparency and accountability with a clear link to shareholder value creation and you'll hear a lot more about this concept in the near future. So despite our disappointing results and the current industry downturns described, we remain very optimistic and excited by our future. The LSW concept, and I know we've kind of beat this to dust, but this is at the core of our strategy and I think generates the most excitement in our company. I've heard a lot about it. It -- and again, it's core to our complete wheel tire assembly system strategy, for which no other competitor possesses this capability. It is really starting to take hold in the marketplace with the OEs and our equipment dealers. And request for drawings, information, meetings are accelerating. The aftermarket is warming to the concept as well. This will allow us to truly realize the rewards of leveraging our core competency as a complete wheel tire assembly system, differentiating ourselves from our discrete wheel and tire competitors. In Europe, our waffle wheel technology continues to be adopted by our customers, combining the 2 attributes of adjustable track with high speed and strength. We are the only producer in the market to provide this capability and have a patent pending to protect this innovation. Each year, demand has doubled. This technology is truly driving differentiation in the market for Titan. And our newest initiative, just announced last month, 10-year service agreement with Suncor Energy, for the recycling of used tires, utilizing our TVR or Thermo Vacuum Reactor technology. A single 63-inch tire produces approximately 500 gallons of oil, 4,000 pounds of carbon black and 2,000 pounds of steel. Carbon credits will be generated as well, and we expect this system to be operational in 2015, with further expansion planned as new acreage becomes available and new customers commit to the process. Let's run through the balance sheet for a moment. AR is down $26 million on $15 million sales decrease from the previous quarter, experiencing a nice decrease in DSO, down 3 days to 52 days. Inventory is also down $8 million, improving days in inventory by 1 day to 75. CapEx, we added $14 million for the quarter, putting us at $31 million year-to-date. We have started to spend money on the Thermo Vacuum Reactor project referred to previously, $5 million year-to-date. For the quarter, PP&E was down $25 million due to the mining asset impairment and depreciation. Cash ended the quarter at $162 million compared to $200 million last quarter. Through all the ebbs and flows, this is primarily attributable to the repayment of the Titan Europe overdraft facility in the U.K. of $38 million. This facility of Deloitte bank was set to expire at the end of May, and we elected not to renew it. This was purposeful on our part to rationalize our global banking partners and account as part of our integration of the Titan Europe acquisition. We established a multicurrency notional pooling structure through Bank of America to replace Deloitte's facility. From a debt perspective, our debt-to-trailing EBITDA measure has doubled from 1 year ago to 2.91. This is primarily a function of our falling profitability as our debt level today is lower than 2013 yearend. So wrapping up, clearly, there is a lot of work to do and that was mentioned by both Morry and Paul. But as I mentioned earlier, it is our belief it is our passion that there are a number of significant innovative initiatives that will set up our company for long-term success. So with that, I'd like to turn the call over to the operator for questions.