Timothy D. Leuliette
Analyst · CRT Capital
Thank you, Scott, and welcome, everyone. We have a lot to talk about today but what I want to do first is I do want to welcome Jeff Stafeil, who will be announced as our CFO -- is announced as our CFO effective on November 2. For those of you who know, both Jeff and I, we've worked together for about 12 years around Asia, Europe and North America, and it's good to have Jeff as part of the team. In addition to that, I would like to also thank Mike Widgren who's filled in and taken the role of interim CFO in the interim period here and has led the group through, as you know, a number of actions and scenarios and activities as we prepare to improve shareholder value. With that, let me start and focus, first of all, on the first slide, Page 2, of the deck and talk about our third quarter performance. I think, first of all, the key here is that it was in line with our expectations. I think what's underlying here, an important point for shareholders, is that the company was fairly conservative with respect to its forecast of Europe in the beginning of the year and Europe has played out as anticipated. Adjusted sales of $1.6 billion were down year-over-year by about $107 million, of which more than that was -- represents the impact of currency over the year. Adjusted EBITDA of $131 million, down $37 million. Year-over-year currency impact of that by $15 million will go through some -- Mike will go through some explanations of the product groups, but climate was up $5 million, electronics down $18 million because of the timing of some inputs and outputs to that particular business, interiors down $1 million and the discontinued ops at $8 million explain that delta. Net income was down $26 million to a $15 million level driven obviously by the EBITDA, also driven by the fact that we had run through expenses through -- for the quarter for the unsuccessful Halla tender offer that's about $10 million. We had some higher taxes of about $8 million, and that was partially offset by lower D&A and a gain on sale of the R-TEK and some restructuring and other expenses net of about $12 million. We ended the quarter with $920 million of cash. That's an increase of $174 million from year-end 2011, again, driven by both operational cash contribution but it had significant proceeds, obviously, from the sale of Grace Lake, the headquarters facility in lighting and R-TEK. We also ended the quarter with debt of $595 million. Mike will take you through the details of that, but those are the top line drivers of those specific elements. As we look at our guidance for the year, we will confirm the $6.8 billion revenue target for the year, and we are maintaining the midpoint of the adjusted EBITDA range, narrowing it down between $590 million and $610 million. We have referenced here. I think it's important to see what is that number less lighting for the year. As you know, the revenue number of $6.8 billion is also less lighting, so you see the impact of taking lighting out for the 12-month period and it provides some sort of basis, as you know, going forward. Our free cash flow, we said plus or minus 0. Historically, I think now we're saying at least a $25 million positive free cash flow from operations. We've also added earnings per share as a guidance item here on the upfront portion of the presentation. A couple of reasons for that. I've watched, in both my role on the board now and as CEO, sort of a disconnect between, I think, the ability for you out there, from an analyst perspective, to go bridge from EBITDA to earnings per share and what I'm going to ask and have asked Jeff Stafeil to do as we get into the first quarter is to help you bridge our cash flow and our earnings per share. Right now, we're going to bring that up as a formal guidance item for you to track. The other item here, as we talk about guidance, is we do not give quarterly guidance, but obviously as we've now finished 3 quarters and there's only one left, by default, we are giving a Q4 guidance. And let me talk a bit about that. If you look at our EBITDA, we have generated approximately $150 million in the first quarter, $150 million in the second and approximately $130 million in the third, which is obviously the weaker quarter of the year. To get to this range of numbers for our outlook for the forecast for the year would imply $160 million to $180 million for the fourth quarter, which would be our strongest quarter of the year. It also would impact -- reflect the fact that there's no lighting in Q4. And it also would reflect the fact that -- of all the announcements we've seen in Europe. The important part here is I think the company has stated for some time that during the Chapter 11 process and the emergence of that process, you go through what I'll call a purgatory period where your order book and business awards are somewhat soft until the company exits. The company has now been out for 2 years, and you're starting to see the impact of the business awards, as well as cost reduction actions, that the company had -- has announced and has been discussing for the last year or so. I think you should look at the fourth quarter as sort of a baseline for what we will be building on going forward and so that's sort of the indication there. And we do look at the fourth quarter as being fairly good from a revenue perspective. I will also say that we will spend the rest of my time on this call discussing some of the value-creating actions and items that we have discussed in the past. And with that, I'd like to turn to the next slide on Page 3, which is entitled the Visteon: Strategic Plan. This was discussed on September 19, and I have basically no changes to make to that strategy. We have outlined that strategy. We are focusing on that strategy, and I'll discuss some of the implementing actions here in a few minutes. But first, a critical building block is our Halla-Visteon climate combination that is in process, and as I said, I will discuss it further. I think the critical factor here is this is a financially-sound, extremely attractive and extremely powerful combination of companies. I think as we get into next year, we'll start to share with you some of the new technology here, what we call the heating, ventilation and air conditioning, or HVAC, in a box, a concept that we're putting forth in some of our new idea vehicles and some of our new customer discussions. It really changes the HVAC design for vehicles for the first time in a lifetime. And this is the kind of technology push that we think is going to drive -- continue to drive this business. Visteon Interiors, obviously, I think all of us felt that the Yanfeng Visteon-Interiors combination was a sound and had good industrial logic. In absence of being able to do that, we will find some other scenario there to enhance that business and to find a proper home for that business. I have nothing new to report since our September 19 discussion there. When I go on to Visteon Electronics, I will say like climate. Visteon Electronics has also won business awards in the marketplace in excess of industry growth. We're seeing that more impact '14, '15 from a revenue perspective. It's got a good technology base. Again, as we said before, we need to enhance and expand that presence or find a combination that makes sense there. Again, I have nothing new to report on that since September 19. And then we have Yanfeng Visteon, which is obviously a very critical asset of ours and something that I feel, from the standpoint of talking to you, the shareholders and some of the investors and analysts, that there's probably not the clarity or the depth of understanding for Yanfeng Visteon. So again, we will take the January 15 Deutsche conference in the time allowed to -- because there'll be a number of subjects there, but we'll also expand upon Yanfeng Visteon and give you some greater insight into that business. For example, that business has grown in a 28% CAGR since its start. And as we face '13, and again I'm not going to give directions here as far as forecasts, but I will say that in 2013, Yanfeng Visteon will add $1 billion of growth in one -- in that year alone. So it's a very attractive, a very strong and core piece of business, but we have yet to be able to have the Visteon shareholder benefit from that value creation and that is our goal and challenge to do so. And then last, but not the least, at the bottom, we talked about corporate rightsizing and I will expand upon that in the slides coming forward. Moving on to Page 4. Let's talk about the Halla-Visteon Climate Group transaction. We are on -- in our timeline -- on our timeline to achieve this. We are selling, as you know, our Visteon Climate to Halla Climate, contributing that for cash. We have separated the activities legally and defined the perimeter. What we are transferring in and contributing to Halla-Visteon is not the entirety of Visteon Climate. There are certain facilities in phase down and some G&A that will not be contributed to that. It will be addressed in some of the discussions I have in a moment. It reflects 13 manufacturing facilities and a number of technical sales activities in 14 countries. We have defined that package. The independent valuation and diligence is underway. And when I say underway, it's in process in a matter of days here to finally resolve, and we are now integrating in the organization charts and the integrating teams are being defined. The estimated value of Visteon Climate is approximately $350 million to $450 million. Again, I don't want to narrow that down any more than that at this stage as the final negotiations are in process, but that gives you a value range, I think, that will allow you to plan appropriately as you're looking at your modeling. We will have a siding and a closing of that activity in the first quarter of '13 and that was, I think, in line with the timeline that we announced back on September 19. What are we going to do with the proceeds of that? I think, again, as I discussed on September 19, we'll use that for balance sheet enhancement. We will be more definitive and outline the game plan for those proceeds at the January 15 conference that I mentioned earlier. From the standpoint of Visteon shareholders, you will see that you alone, as Visteon shareholders, 70% of the clear #2 global climate player, it has an expanding market share, has a significant 3-year backlog and a growth curve greater than the industry, and it has one of the strongest balance sheets in the industry. This is the gold standard of the climate business. The Visteon shareholders will have a large portion of the company, that is Visteon, valued on an Asian stock exchange so that you can constantly look at the valuation of this particular investment as it's tracked daily. You will also own 70% of a very highly profitable, very lean, technology leader and I talked a bit about the HVAC in a box and some of the other technical breakthroughs that are coming out of that group. It's Asian-centric. It's in the growth area, and it's one of only 2 full-line suppliers in the world. For the Halla shareholders, which are, by the way, also Visteon because we own 70%, they will see an immediately accretive transaction with ongoing consolidation synergies to provide further economic benefits over '13, '14. They will also see, as a result of the contribution, Halla growing by 30% as it expands its global footprint, strengthens its technology base and balances its customer portfolio, both European, North American and Asian balance. You will have a company with a strong balance sheet, as I've said earlier, and above-industry growth profile. It'll have, to the Halla shareholders, Visteon as its automotive partner, which, as a majority shareholder, is also an operating company and one that will -- has been a partner and a contributor for years to this organization and will continue to do so. As you go to the next page, Page 7, I think it does summarize briefly what has been the story of Halla under Visteon ownership. During that period of time, that 20-year period, the revenues have quadrupled. The Korean investment in new plant and equipment has exceeded $1 billion during that ownership period. And now as part of the combination of Halla and Visteon, it's got a very strong and very capable Asian, European and North American technology base. And we have announced an expansion of our R&D capability in Korea, which will duplicate one of our major wind tunnels that we have in Germany so that we now have the high-speed capability for all elements of climate in HVAC and testing and development for vehicles and that will be in place at our Korean R&D center. The leadership, I believe, of this is not just from my personal perspective, but from an industry perspective being as best in class. And during this period of time, as this company has grown, Forbes, for 4 years in a row, had awarded Halla Climate as one of its best under $1 billion dollar companies to invest in. Well, the only thing we've done is it's now worth more than $1 billion, much more than $1 billion and continues to grow and will do so. And it has become, during this period of time, the second largest automotive climate company in the world. This is a critical element for Visteon. It's a critical asset. It is well valued. It is well positioned, and it will continue to grow under our stewardship. Now let's now focus to the next page, Page 8, and talk about the restructuring program. We will be incurring some restructuring and other costs of approximately $100 million to allow the company to further reduce its SG&A and other fixed costs in '13. These charges will be recorded beginning this quarter and extend into next year. These actions are in addition to the activities that we already started in 2012, which had reduced SG&A and other fixed costs by 7%, which is approximately $35 million in 2011 -- versus 2011. As we look at where these costs will be binned and where we are addressing our cost structure, they're really in 3 categories. We're, first of all, rightsizing our SG&A activities in connection with the company's strategic plan. I announced that on September 19 and this is the manifestation of that. We're also rightsizing our European activities in anticipation of the revenue streams we see coming forward. And we also have, on the books and in the business, some historically underperforming assets which we will be shutting down. Those assets include a Philippine manufacturing facility, which will be shut down this quarter, and there are some other facilities around the world that are included in this initiative. For those of you who are modeling this, some background here. Of that $100 million, you should view that as a majority of that being cash, a majority of that being spent in '13. When you look at the 3 categories of actions, the rightsizing of SG&A activities typically have a one-year payback. The European activities tend to be closer to a 2-year payback, and the addressing of the historical underperforming assets are really a portfolio and a tapestry of different return analysis. Some of these are drains on the company today, some of those we see as being a drain going forward. I think the best way to assess and to measure the impact of this is when we do discuss our 2013 forecast, which again will be at that January 15 Deutsche conference where we will give you some greater insight into where we're headed and how that -- all these numbers impact our performance. Now moving on to Page 9. There has been, as you know, other activities going on this year, positive activities from both the cash and performance perspective. The Cadiz, Spain plant closure, the sale of the Grace Lake Corporate Center, the lighting sale and the R-TEK Interiors JV sale, which has all occurred up until August. We also announced a $100 million share repurchase plan, and we also announced the defined benefit lump sum offer. Let me expand a bit about both of those items here on the next page. First of all, starting on Page 10, with $100 million share repurchase we announced on August 2, the objective of repurchasing up to $100 million of our common shares during the next 2 years. We did not purchase any shares in the third quarter for a number of reasons. First of all, at the time, the program was finally approved and the sequence was established and the protocol was established, we had, at that time at the board level, made the decision to make a CEO change. And then immediately thereafter, made the decision to implement the strategic plan which was -- I discussed earlier. During both of those periods of time, we are in a restricted period by decision of council. And then, of course, as you get to the end of the quarter, you're also confronted with a restricted period for 5 days. So therefore, in aggregate, there was only 4 days in the third quarter for which we could acquire shares. And I will say, at that point, the stock had already risen about 40% from where it was when it closed, but we are committed to this plan. We will be engaged in this plan, and that is independent of the proceeds discussion which I discussed earlier with respect to the sale of Visteon Climate to Halla. On the next page, Page 11, Defined Benefit Lump Sum Offer. We announced on September 19 our objective of offering a lump sum buyout option to a number of our pension participants that represented nearly 10,000 of our 20,000 total U.S. plan participants that qualify for this opportunity. This is an action that will be completely funded by pension assets, not Visteon assets. The election window started on October 1. It'll end here next week. We are presently forecasting about a 50% take rate, which, everything that we've seen to date, would suggest that that's in line with -- we are in line with that expectation. This will reduce our unfunded pension liability by $50 million to $75 million, which again is a real liability and that's, in essence, $1 or more a share. Also, we will expect our PBO to be really reduced by over $300 million. I think there's a couple of aspects to that to support one that has about a 20% reduction in the overall liability for this -- for our U.S. pension liability. That, therefore, reduces the risks going forward as far as volatility. And secondly, there's about $1.5 million of reduced admin expense per year as a result of these actions, which again is a benefit going forward to the plan. So again, we are in a position of being able to do that. The fund is -- the pension is 80% or more funded. We're in a strong position, and we've taken advantage of that particular opportunity. And with that, I'd like to turn it over to Mike Widgren to go through some of the financial details. Mike?