Scott C. Donnelly
Analyst · Royal Bank of Canada
Thanks, Doug, and good morning, everybody. Manufacturing revenues were up slightly in the quarter based on strong commercial demand of Bell, increased deliveries of Textron Systems and sales growth at E-Z-GO. Unfortunately, demand for business jets was soft again this quarter. We were hopeful that demand would recover as the impact of last year's election and fiscal uncertainties were behind us. We also thought the recent strength in U.S. equity markets would have supported improved business confidence and therefore, business jet demand. Sales dialogue and customer recruit was reasonably active during the quarter. However, customers, especially in the light jet segment, who tend to be small business owners, continue to defer purchase decisions, reflecting continued concerns about their financial outlook. As a result, we delivered 32 new jets in the quarter, down from 38 a year ago, resulting in a segment loss in the quarter of $8 million. On the positive side, we continue to see good volume in the used market, leading to a significant increase in used jet sales, which resulted in higher overall Cessna revenue despite lower new deliveries. Looking forward, given the lack of recovery in the business jet market, we're reducing our 2013 business jet delivery outlook and now expect that deliveries will be down this year compared to 2012. This reflects our expectations for lower deliveries in the light category, partially offset by growth in the midsized category. Accordingly, we're adjusting our production schedules and implementing other appropriate cost actions at Cessna. In addition, we've initiated a salary workforce reduction program, the largest portion of which is a voluntary separation plan. While we are taking these immediate actions, we believe the global business market has significant long-term growth potential, and we remain committed to our new product plans, which include the introduction of the M2 and the new Sovereign and Citation X models later this year, as well as Latitude in 2015 and the Longitude in 2017. Moving now to our finance segments. Slowness in the business jet market resulted in only a few new loan originations during the quarter. However, segment profit benefited from good performance in our captive portfolio and a number of small asset transactions in our non-captive business. Shifting to industrial. We saw lower volumes in the quarter at Caltex as growth in North America was more than offset by weakness in both the European and Asian automotive markets. Greenlee and Jacobsen were down slightly, reflecting weakness in European markets, while E-Z-GO saw good growth, reflecting the success of new product introductions. Moving to systems. Revenues were up, reflecting growth in our UAS and weapons and sensor product lines. We continue to see operational improvement in our fee-for-service UAS programs, but as previously discussed, these are essentially break-even programs for us at this time. Finishing with Bell, operational results reflected good program execution in both military and commercial product lines. We did experience a decline in aftermarket deliveries during the quarter. This a result of the conversion to a new ERP system. I would note that the underlying aftermarket order flow actually remained quite strong. The global commercial original equipment demand environment also remained strong as we delivered 40 commercial helicopters in the first quarter versus 30 in last year's first quarter. We also had a very good showing at this year's Heli-Expo, announcing 2 new products, the Bell 412 EPI and the Bell 407 GT. The new 412 EPI includes a fully integrated glass flight deck and 1,400-pound increase in maximum hot and high payload capacity. These are significant enhancements to the value of what is already one of Bell's most versatile and reliable helicopters, and the customer response, so far, has been very positive. Likewise, the new Bell 407 GT, which is an armed version of the 407GX, incorporates an integrated glass cockpit and a fully configurable weapon system. We believe the GT will be an effective and affordable platform for foreign military and paramilitary applications. We also featured our new Relentless 525 flight simulator at HAI, demonstrating the steady progress we're making toward first flight next year. Overall, we had a very successful show, capped by the signing of 50 new commercial orders, including an agreement with Air Medical Group to deliver 30 helicopters over the next several years. During the quarter, the 429 model continued to add jurisdictions certifying a 500-pound increase in useful load. The most recent came from Indonesia, an important and growing helicopter market, making it the 17th country to approve the increased maximum gross weight. In the military business, we delivered 9 V-22s and 6 H-1s in the quarter, consistent with our customers' quarterly delivery schedules but down slightly compared to 10 V-22s and 7 H-1s in last year's first quarter. We are on track to deliver 40 V-22s and 25 H-1s in total this year. We also delivered our 100th H-1, marking an important milestone toward fulfilling the total program record of 349 units. We also delivered the first HMX V-22 units, which will serve presidential and other special missions. And finally, at last week's Army Aviation Association of America meeting in Fort Worth, we introduced the V280 Valor as our entry to the Army's request for joint multi-role future vertical lift aircraft. The Valor concept is a third-generation tiltrotor, featuring a fixed engine configuration with a target cruise speed of 280 knots and a combat range of up to 800 nautical miles. We believe this platform will prove to be the highest performance, most cost-effective solution to the Army's future mission requirements. To wrap up, despite a challenging first quarter, most of our businesses were on track for a solid year, with the notable exception of Cessna, which necessitated a change in our operational plans and our overall outlook. On this basis, we're reducing our guidance for earnings per share from continuing operations to a range of $1.90 to $2.10. We're also lowering projected cash flow from continuing operations of the manufacturing group before pension contributions to about $400 million as a result of the lower expected Citation deliveries. We remain focused on continuing to improve our operational execution and cost productivity, while, at the same time, we're also committed to continue our investments in new products and sales capabilities to grow the business over the long term. With that, I'll turn the call over to Frank.