Earnings Labs

Visteon Corporation (VC)

Q4 2008 Earnings Call· Wed, Feb 25, 2009

$108.24

-1.92%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning and welcome to the Visteon Fourth Quarter 2008 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on a listen-only mode to prevent background noise. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. Before we begin this morning's conference call I would like to remind you this presentation contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results and condition, but rather are subject to various factors, risks, and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed in these statements. Please refer to the slide entitled 'forward-looking statements' for further information. Presentation materials for today's calls were posted to the company's website this morning. Please visit www.visteon.com/earnings to download the materials if you have not already done so. I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference call, Mr. Steve Ward, Director of Investor Relations for Visteon Corporation. Mr. Ward, you may begin.

Steven Ward

Management

Thanks, Carrie, and good morning, everyone. Joining me on the call today to review our fourth quarter and full year 2008 results are Don Stebbins, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer and Bill Quigley, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. As mentioned in our press release issued earlier this morning in view of the volatile macro environment and industry conditions, Visteon has decided not to provide guidance for future periods. Accordingly following today's presentation of financial results we will not be conducting a question-and-answer session. I'd now like to turn the call over to Don.

Donald J. Stebbins

Management

Thank you, Steve, and good morning. During today's presentation I'll review the company's overall performance and then turn it over to Bill for the financial review. On our third quarter call we said, we anticipated continued production weakness in the fourth quarter. However, the speed, the severity, and the breadth of the change greatly exceeded our expectations. Nearly every OEM in every region experienced significant sales and production declines during the last three months of 2008. And as a result the collapse of the global automotive market in the fourth quarter had a significant impact on Visteon's financial results. Although volume reductions dominated the news in the fourth quarter, the end of 2008 also marked the successful completion of Visteon's three year improvement plan. As you may recall we set out in early 2006 to restructure our business and fundamentally change our company. I am very pleased to report that we completed the plan ahead of schedule and with greater savings and at a lower cost than initially planned. I give credit to the entire Visteon team for the work that they have done to achieve this difficult task. For the fourth quarter 2008 product sales were $1.5 billion down 43% or about $1.2 billion from a year ago. This decline was primarily driven by the significant reduction in vehicle production, unfavorable movements in currency, and plant divestitures and closures. We have accelerated our cost reduction efforts in light of the current production environment. We are ahead of where we had planned to be on our salary census reduction announced in October and we continue to take action on all elements of our cost structure. These actions will allow us to be more competitive at lower volume levels and to leverage the savings associated with our three year plan. Finally…

Bill Quigley

Management

Thanks Don. This slide provides a summary of our fourth quarter and full year financial results as well as the comparison to the prior year on a full year basis. As Don pointed out earlier in his comments, full year 2008 product sales were just over 9 billion or 1.6 billion lower than the prior year with the vast majority of the decline occurring in the fourth quarter. While, we did expect sales to be lower taking into account the impact of business divestitures and plant closures completed in consort with our restructuring plan, much of the decline was a result of a severe downturn in the production volumes of our key customers. 2008 full year product gross margin was $456 million, and although we worked to pull ahead our restructuring efforts and implemented additional cost actions to reduce spending levels, these efforts were offset by the sales declines experienced during last several months of 2008, as OEMs around the world quickly reduced output. This resulted in a negative gross margin of 10 million for the fourth quarter of 2008. In the fourth quarter we also recognized non-cash asset impairment charges for our Interiors' product line of about $200 million. Net loss for the year was $663 million which includes asset impairment charges, tax expense of $94 million, and $63 million of net restructuring and related expenses not funded by the Escrow account. EBITDA was a negative $62 million in 2008, $13 million lower than the prior year. The decline again largely reflected the sales impact on gross margin partially offset by SG&A cost reduction efforts. Free cash flow was the use of $410 million for the full year. I will address each of these items in further detail in the following slides. Slide 16 outlines the production volume performance…

Donald J. Stebbins

Management

Thanks Bill. As you're all aware we are in the middle of an extraordinary time in our industry. At this time we're fortunate to have successfully completed our three year restructuring plan and have a group of talented employees who are focused on moving us through these very difficult times. We expect the Global Automotive production levels will remain extremely challenged and uncertain throughout 2009, and as a result we continue to work to address the significant operational and liquidity challenges presented by this environment. As a result of this uncertainly and our ongoing work and as Steve mentioned in his opening comments we have decided not to take questions today. We appreciate you joining us today on the call.

Steven Ward

Management

Thank you, everyone for attending our presentation today. This concludes our conference call and Kerry you may now close the call.

Operator

Operator

Once again, thank you for your participation. This concludes today's conference. You may now disconnect.