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Unisys Corporation (UIS)

Q3 2014 Earnings Call· Wed, Oct 22, 2014

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day and welcome to the Unisys Third Quarter 2014 Results Conference Call. At this time I'd like to turn the conference over to Mr. Niels Christensen, Vice President of Investor Relations at Unisys Corporation. Please go ahead, sir.

Niels Christensen

Management

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining us. Earlier today Unisys released its third quarter 2014 financial results. With us this afternoon to discuss our results are Ed Coleman, our CEO, and Janet Haugen, our CFO. Before we begin, I want to cover a few details. First, today's conference call and the Q&A session are being webcast via the Unisys Investor website. Second, you can find the earnings press release and the presentation slides that we will be using this afternoon to guide our discussion on our Investor website. Third, today's presentation, which is complementary to the earnings press release, includes some non-GAAP financial measures. These have been provided in an effort to give investors additional information. The non-GAAP measures have been reconciled to the related GAAP measures and we have provided reconciliations within the presentation. And finally, I’d like to remind you that all forward-looking statements made during this conference call are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. These factors are discussed more fully in the earnings release and in the company’s SEC filings. Copies of those SEC reports are available from the SEC and from the Unisys Investor website. Now I’d like to turn the call over to Ed.

Ed Coleman

Management

Thanks, Niels. Hello everyone and thank you for joining us today to discuss our third quarter 2014 financial results. Please turn to Slide 4 for an overview of the quarter. This was a strong quarter for the company. We grew our revenue 11% and more than tripled our pretax profit over the year-ago period. At the bottom line we reported third quarter 2014 net income of $47.8 million or $0.95 per diluted share. This compared to a year-ago net loss of $11.6 million or a loss of $0.26 per diluted share. Both our technology and services businesses grew in the quarter. Our services revenue grew 6%, led by growth in our strategic focus areas of IT outsourcing and systems integration. After a slow first half of the year, our technology business delivered a very strong third quarter, growing revenue 66% on significantly higher sales of our ClearPath enterprise software and servers. Our ClearPath revenue doubled over the year-ago quarter. Through nine months, our technology revenue was up 2% over the first nine months of 2013. We've made great progress over the past few years in stabilizing our ClearPath business while investing in new technologies and enhancements to our flagship server line. Among other innovations, we've transitioned the ClearPath line to an all-Intel x86 chipset and increased our clients' ability to run open Windows and Linux workloads alongside their legacy applications in a fabric-based environment. Today we believe that with ClearPath we have the most secure, open, modern enterprise server platform in the industry, a platform that large organizations around the world choose to run their most mission-critical applications. For example, Travel Sky, the leading provider of IT solutions to China's air travel and tourism industry, recently upgraded to ClearPath systems that run its mission-critical IT infrastructure, giving the company the…

Janet Haugen

Management

Thanks, Ed, and hello everyone. The third quarter saw improved sequential and year-over-year revenue performance across both our technology and services business. After a challenging first half of the year, our third quarter performance has resulted in flat year-to-date revenue and stable gross and operating margins compared to the same period last year. Please turn to Slide 8 for a discussion of our third quarter 2014 results. We reported revenue of $883 million in the quarter, which was up 11% year over year, up 10% on a constant currency basis. Technology revenue in the third quarter of 2014 was up significantly compared to the year-ago period, principally reflecting higher sales of our ClearPath system. For the year-to-date, overall technology revenue is up 2% versus 2013. Because of quarterly variability, the technology business' performance continues to be best measured on an annual basis. Our goal for the technology business remains year-over-year growth in revenue for 2014. This requires a strong fourth quarter performance, and we have a good pipeline of opportunities to help us achieve this outcome. Within the services segment, we saw growth in our systems integration and outsourcing businesses. Based on today's rates, we anticipate currency to have a 2.5 percentage point unfavorable impact on revenue in the fourth quarter of 2014 when compared to the fourth quarter of 2013. Our gross profit margin rose to 26.6% in the third quarter of 2014 from 21.7% in the third quarter of 2013 as a result of higher year-over-year revenue in the technology business. Operating expenses rose by approximately 7% year over year in the third quarter of 2014. This increase largely reflected the incremental investments we continued to make in growth programs like Stealth, Forward!, our reseller channel initiatives, and our cloud-based solutions. During the third quarter of 2014, the…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] And we'll take our first question from James Friedman with Susquehanna. James Friedman – Susquehanna: Ed, I first want to thank you for your leadership of the company over the years. Clearly you [indiscernible] better off today than when you arrived there.

Ed Coleman

Management

Thanks, Jamie. James Friedman – Susquehanna: So a few operational and financial questions. Ed, did you notice any linearity across the quarter? IBM obviously called out a weak September. Wondering about your perspective in that regard.

Ed Coleman

Management

Yeah, Jamie, we didn't see anything of note there as we went through the quarter. James Friedman – Susquehanna: Okay. That's good to hear. With regard to Stealth, so maybe if you could orient me and the others on the line, the 30 customers, did I miss a prior disclosure about this? And I may have. But is 30 a lot or a little? And what, if anything, have you disclosed about the customer account previously?

Ed Coleman

Management

Yes. So we've never -- we haven't previously given out the number of customers. There had been a number of requests to give out a bit more information about how the technology is progressing, the marketplace, and we decided to do that. And we're happy to add 30 customers. You know, we've won those 30 customers one at a time against stiff competition. They vary in terms of the degree to which and how far along they are in the implementation and deployment of the technology. Some are very far along, others are just getting started. But as I said in my comments, we think this is a disruptive technology, which is a good thing, because we think it changes dramatically the way people can provide security and also reduce costs and add flexibility in their environment. But at the same time, because it's disruptive, it's a longer sales cycle. And I think we've been a little bit surprised at how long the sales cycle is. But, again, we continue to make progress on it. We have talked about a couple of the customers, not by name, in past calls, including one state government that's using it to facilitate a major consolidation of 50 datacenters. Another is a chemical company that's using it to protect its planned automation systems that are connected to the internet. So there's a variety of stories that we're beginning to tell about how our customers are using it, but this is the first time that we've given out that number of 30. James Friedman – Susquehanna: Okay. And then a couple of housekeeping questions. Janet, with regard to the way that the company defines backlog, is that -- or two things. One, is that constant currency or is that -- does that contemplate movement in foreign exchange? That's the first question. And then the second question is, when you have protests like the one you're describing at the border, I guess it's a double protest, is that -- at what point, or if already is, does that go into the backlog?

Janet Haugen

Management

Sure, Jamie. Our backlog is reset at every reporting date for the currency at that time. So the September 30, 2014 backlog is restated for the currency rates that were in place in the marketplace at September 30. So it would be, you know, the currency impact, when you're comparing what looks like on the surface flat backlog going into the third -- the amount of backlog we had going into the third quarter at 6/30 is roughly the same as what we've got going into the fourth quarter, similar to a year-over-year basis. But there is a negative impact from currency in those numbers. So on a constant currency basis we would be looking at those numbers being slightly up. With regard to our backlog, we do not include option years. We would not include the Benz [ph] contract because it's under protest. We don't add that to the backlog until those protests are resolved. James Friedman – Susquehanna: Got it. Okay. And then also with regard to services, I just want to make sure that I wasn't exaggerating anything in your comments, but it seemed like you were suggesting that some of the sell-in [ph] business in the fourth quarter might be at least as important as a percentage of services as it has been in the past. Am I -- was I misinterpreting that or did I get that right?

Janet Haugen

Management

Yes. So, Jamie, we normally do 10% to 15% in the sell-and-bill within a given quarter. We're a bit higher in the third quarter at 17%. Last year we were also a bit higher in the fourth quarter. And our comment is that we're normally in the 10% to 15% range, but we're going into the fourth quarter with a good pipeline of opportunities for that sell-and-bill in the services area this quarter. James Friedman – Susquehanna: Got it. Okay. I'll go back into the queue. Thank you. And congratulations on the quarter.

Janet Haugen

Management

Thanks, Jamie.

Ed Coleman

Management

Thank you, Jamie.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Next we'll go to Ned Davis with William Smith & Co. Ned Davis – Wm Smith & Co.: Yes. Thank you. And also congrats, Ed, for job well done.

Ed Coleman

Management

Thank you, Ned. Ned Davis – Wm Smith & Co.: On the pension, just looking at this chart here with this big spike in 2020 in the total funding. I take that that's just reflective of the kind of smoothing effect, if you will, that the change in the highway legislation mandates. But I guess my question is, at what point do you actually have a reasonable chance of laying off some of this liability, some sort of a contract like other companies have done, with insurance companies or other balance sheets? Have you reached -- are you closer to that? Is it more feasible now? Or does this big number after 2019 kind of prohibit that?

Janet Haugen

Management

So, Ned, you are right on the 2020, it has increased year over year because of the highway bill, but the prior legislation did have a smoothing impact coming off, which is why 2020 has always been spikier in the pension funding estimates for the U.S. plan. With regard to options on the plan, there are a number of options that we've looked at and we would continue to look at. The plan right now from a funding perspective is not at 100% funded. And the reason why I point to that is that a number of the estimates on the recent transactions that have happened in the U.S. marketplace have been around the transfers when, you know, with the transfer rate probably in the 100% to 105% rate. So we are aways away from that level, to be able to offload those pension obligations in that fashion. But we have and we'll continue to review on a regular basis with the Board economic alternatives as a way to potentially try to reduce that overhang that we have from the pension. Ned Davis – Wm Smith & Co.: Okay, appreciate that. Just switching over to the 30 customers that you mentioned. When the revenue starts to materialize in a meaningful way from those customers, roughly what percentage of it would fall into the technology line versus the services line? And are the two kind of just linked together?

Ed Coleman

Management

Yeah, I think it'd be primarily in the tech line, but there are some services, implementation services and design services, that we also offer around the product as well. But the majority of that I think would be in the tech line. Ned Davis – Wm Smith & Co.: And could we assume that when it does materialize, the kind of gross margins that you've been achieving recently, you know, adjusting for the kind of lumpiness of the activity, would be sustained with that business just based on the pricing and the competitive situation in the industry, or is it lower margin, higher margin? Can you characterize it at all?

Janet Haugen

Management

Sure, Ned. The Stealth is software. It's company -- it's a company proprietary software so it would enjoy the software margins which are, hopefully, depending upon the markets evolve over time, similar to what we're experiencing now. Ned Davis – Wm Smith & Co.: Good. Thank you very much.

Ed Coleman

Management

Thank you, Ned.

Operator

Operator

And we have no additional questions in our queue. I'd like to turn the call back over to our presenters for any additional or closing remarks.

Janet Haugen

Management

Sure. Thank you everyone for joining the call today. As we've said in our comments, the third quarter reflected solid execution by the company. We remain focused on executing against our strategy and closing our opportunities in the fourth quarter to end the year with a strong performance for our shareholders, our customers and our employees. Thank you for taking the time. We look forward to giving you an update at the end of the fourth quarter. Thank you.