Operator
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Titan International, Inc. First Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call. During this session, all lines will be muted until the question-and-answer portion of the call. Any statements made in the course of the conference call that state the company's or management's intentions, hopes, beliefs, expectations, or predictions for the future are considered forward-looking statements. Please note that the Safe Harbor statements contained in the company's latest Form 10-K and Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission extend to this conference call. And any forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties as detailed therein. At this time, I would like to introduce Titan Chairman and CEO, Maurice Taylor. Please go ahead, sir. Maurice Manning Taylor - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you. Good morning, everyone. And you'd be on the call, you've already seen the press release and 10-Q is out there. Let's back up a little bit. It was two months ago. I was on the year-end earnings call for 2014, which was not a good year. But every company has to have a year of adjustments if it is to grow, and I believe that was our year last year. This first quarter, our sales were down but 60% of that drop was due to the currency adjustments, not a lot you can do about that. But otherwise, you look at what's happened, our gross profit percentage, even with the sales drop, was up, which tells you that, number one, we – in this market then we have been doing a pretty good job. But if you turned around and you looked at the machining numbers that came out on the retail side for big equipment in the farm side you'll will find that North America, the first quarter was down 48% and which is a big drop for big equipment. And if you look at our numbers, we, of course, were not down like that. So what we said two months ago that we do grow our market share in a down market. And in this market, when it's taking off, is our LSW tires and wheels, which we've been preaching a long time. They're being offered now. They're going into the price books by our OEs. And we spent years trying to get that done, to offer these options. It's really kind of hard though when you look back, and most of the OEs were just banging whatever equipment they could get out the door to have it sold. Market's changed a little bit on them for right now. So in three to four years, we mentioned this Grizz Squad, and what we really did, we backed off the big OEs and decided to go right through the large farmers, which you've heard me talk about. That was our Grizz Squad, which we have expanded now to the construction companies. And this is not referring to OEs and lengthy equipment. I'm talking just about the fellows that – every state has a couple one or two great big ones. In fact, yesterday, I met with a fellow in Detroit, who handles all this equipment for a big private company whose business worldwide for sand and crushing gravel, stones, et cetera. And he told me about – he put his set of LSWs on his 980 Caterpillar machine, and he was ecstatic. He ran it for the last year. It not only improved the operation. It improved in the handling, the safety, but the biggest thing that he had to mention, it saved him a lot of money. And he's going to make those across the board on his fleet, which is we will be doing right direct with him and that's another thing I should say. We're changing in a big way how we go to market. If any of you have followed us, you know we make tires for the agricultural and the construction and the mining – wheels and tires. What happens is that in the aftermarket, you were going to – the old way was go sell it to a wholesaler or to a – direct to a big dealer. But when you do that you realize that's not their main business. Their main business is automotive, truck, et cetera. Very few, 30%, of their business is in what we do. So you always have someone else in the same shelf for whatever sale or whatever. So we decided three, four years ago, because we have a product that no one else has out there and it does, contrary to anybody thinks, improve the characteristics, the use of the equipment that you're using. So when you can get them 5% or 6% more in fuel savings, you got it. The operator likes it. They can pull more with it, work at less air pressures, less compaction and it's safer. In many ways, they – you got yourself a good product. So what we have done is we have moved to not only talking with the large farmers and, of course, the big farm equipment dealers. We have also now, by expanding our Grizz into the construction, dealing with construction companies just like this other fellow. And when you look at those companies, they change and handle their tires themselves. They're big enough so they do it all. And even though your equipment dealers in the farm side don't necessarily sell the tires direct, they are interested in buying total assemblies from Titan where they can turn around and change out a customer who's got the old balloons. So he's got tires that if anybody asked about, they've been around for 50 years. So this is the way we're going and that we believe that will give the tire dealers that we deal with, we will be able to have stronger, better reliance with tire dealers because eventually, they're going to be carrying the LSW to change out tires over time. One nice thing about tires, they do wear out. The other situation, which concerns all of you, is that over the last three to four years in this process, we've expensed out about $50 million that we don't have to do anymore, so we've already taken our hit. And we are building this business. You can't – I got one board member who thinks everything is, in manufacturing, it's like a light switch, you just push a button. It doesn't quite happen. So this is a long process. We've been working on it. And now it's starting to come to fruitation. And the unique thing about it is that, as this building business keeps growing, we should hit new sales highs, we should hit the best profits and, of course, I appreciate that's what most everybody wants. But the unique thing is we're the only ones, who have the manufacturing capabilities for both the wheels and the tires. So we're going to not be spending a lot of capital to – if we succeed in this thing and we will succeed. There's no question about that. I'd also, while we're looking at this first quarter, make sure I mention that when you look at the Brazilian operation and the Russian tire group, they swung in the positive in the first quarter and that's real good to see because what they did had to do this past year of cutting the bodies and everything else, they are starting now to move up in very down market, very tough markets. But they should be able to grow to the profitability we expected. I also should mention that our largest competitor in Brazil happens to be Pirelli and now with Pirelli being bought by the Chinese, I would expect that our market share will grow very fast down there and that we are also – our people that are down there right now because we're going to do the same thing down there. I think it'll be easier down there, won't take us long because we've done it up here, and that is our Grizz Squad, to move that and get it going. I would also like to take – and the same in Russia. When you look Russia come to, and they already had two weeks off the first two weeks of January. So I would say the new management team at Titan headed by Paul Reitz and John Hrudicka, they're building a real base. They're taking the base they got and I think you're going to be very pleased as we keep going, what they do. And we can back that up but just looking to see the first quarter with what everything went, I was expecting it not to be as good, especially on the EBITDA, than it was. So you're always happy when you see that. And if any of you attend the Shareholders' Meeting in Union City on June 4, you'll see Titan's thermal reactor, the portable unit, will be in operation, plus you'll get a plant tour, and you'll see what they're doing today and what we expect in the future down there. I'll be going up to the oil sands meeting with our partners and customers up there this Tuesday. We are – snow's gone and we're in movement to get on with the reactors up there and we expect to be up full bore on them 100% by 1st of April. We'll probably have one side of them going later this summer, but as I mentioned earlier, our Titan Mining Service and all these customers we have, we've also made deals for tires, wheels, track component, tire service, repairs. So over the next few years, we believe that business will grow in excess of $100 million in our manufactured and servicing products. It does take time and planning and our partner up there is Suncor and I think they're pretty pleased with what we're doing. We have a tendency to move a little faster, but the other big mines have either signed up or they're in the process. So we're excited about that part. The only thing that we're looking real hard that we have got to make some adjustments, the adjustments will be in Europe. On our wheel side, the plan is in place. We have to execute it. Also to cover – we have decided, from the management side, of an acquisition and expansion in Brazil, reference a tire facility – not tire, wheel facility, excuse me. We have equipment, most of it. It's not going to be a large capital outlay, but that will be approved or not approved at the June 4 meeting. The only other – that's the only acquisition that is up in front right at this point and very significant. We're looking some other stuff for add-on pieces at all the other facilities. But I can't mention those. But things are pretty good. And then, finally, before I turn it over to Paul, right after the first of the year, there was a deal that talked about the liquidity of Titan. And I don't know how many of you own shares in Berkshire Hathaway but my wife does and I was reading his comments. But the situation is that you take your numbers you have. Number one, you take our receivables. That probably is take a 1% or 2% if you wish but most of them are all insured. And then you do the same with the inventory and you got about $200 million – or $550 million total. You subtract that $150 million of payables and you'll find that with the cash, you can pay everything off but still have a lot of cash left in your bank account. And if you noticed that little number that sits there, prepaid, that's all that royalty we got when we bought everything with our friends at Goodyear. So whoever concern, those notes don't come due until 2020. Anybody that can figure out what 2020 is up there, God bless you. But there is one thing a fellow pointed out to me, that Caterpillar's construction sales – and I think Cat's been handling what's going on extraordinarily well. But the last time their sales dropped that many years like that was 1929, and I don't think anybody on these phones was around then, so I thought I'd mention it. We think we've seen the bottom. We think from now to the rest of the year. And so there's a little patch in 60 days some place on here. There'll be some adjustments from the OEs, but we're real positive. We're real positive. If you go out there and look at the – the construction is starting to percolate a little bit more. You're seeing the farmers are hitting the field. We're marching, and we're marching pretty good. Europe is still a – anybody that could understand Europe, God bless you. I don't, but we're going to take action there to streamline that and to boost their margins, too. We're excited. We're really excited about what we're doing. The tough part was over. No offense, (18:28) whenever you take people out, you affect real things, but it was done and I'm very proud of what the people that stepped up to go. With that, why don't you bring them up to what the hell you've been working on, Paul?