Sachin Lawande
Analyst · Dan Galves with Wolfe Research
Thank you, Kris, and good morning, everyone. Before I start today's presentation, I would like to acknowledge the tremendous effort of our employees in these challenging times. They have been resilient and resourceful in delivering to our customer commitments while simultaneously reducing costs. I would also like to take a minute to reflect on the unexpected passing of David Leiker earlier this month. It was always a pleasure to work with David and I'd come to regard him as a friend. The Visteon team sends our deepest condolences to his family and to his colleagues at Baird. The second quarter was marked by extended vehicle production shutdown in various parts of the world due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With the exception of China, vehicle production in the rest of the world was shut down for over half of the quarter, resulting in global vehicle production to be down 45% year-over-year. Vehicle production at Visteon's customers was down even more at 53% reduction year-over-year. Visteon second quarter sales were $371 million, down about 48% year-over-year, excluding currency and outperforming vehicle production at our customers by about 5 percentage points. The company set a comprehensive action plan at the onset of the pandemic with a focus on 5 key areas: managing cash and liquidity; reducing operational costs; strengthening commercial discipline; aligning supply chain and manufacturing to lower demand; and finally, positioning the company for the future. In the second quarter, we were able to flex operational costs down across the business in response to the reduced sales volume. Our manufacturing costs were reduced by more than 45%, while gross engineering and adjusted SG&A were both down approximately 30%. This was achieved through a combination of temporary salary reduction, adjustment of our footprint from high to low cost, reduction of contractors and other purchase services and through strict control of all operational expenditures. With respect to commercial negotiations with customers, we were able to hold pricing to around 2% of the current quarter sales. We also derisks second half engineering recoveries by finalizing some negotiations with customers earlier than previously anticipated. The strong performance on cost reduction and commercial negotiations resulted in adjusted EBITDA of negative $3 million for the quarter with a decremental year-over-year margin of 15%. The sudden and extended shutdown of manufacturing operations that we experienced in April and May were very challenging from a supply chain perspective. The team did a great job in reducing inventory down to $170 million for the quarter, which is down $10 million compared to Q1. All of our manufacturing plants globally are up and running, and the supply chain is improving with each passing week. Increased focus on customer receivables and reduced CapEx helped mitigate the impact on cash, and adjusted free cash flow was a negative $52 million for the quarter. As a result, our cash balance was $759 million at the end of the second quarter, which gives us ample liquidity to weather the crisis. Our strategy of winning greater share of new business and converting it into revenue through new product launches remained on track in the second quarter. Even with the slowdown of activity, we launched 8 new products, bringing the total count to 21 for the first half. We also won $900 million of new business in the quarter, despite the low activity with OEMs in North America and Europe, bringing the first half total to just over $1.7 billion. In summary, the company performed well in a challenging environment by responding to the reduced sales with strong cost performance without impacting our long-term plans for growth. Turning to Page 3. Automotive production recovered to pre-COVID levels in China by the beginning of the second quarter. But outside of China, return to production was more uneven with OEMs restarting production in Europe in early May and were delayed until early June to restart their production in North America. In Brazil and India, production restarted by the end of May, but at much lower capacity and did not recover much during the quarter. In this uneven production environment, vehicle production at top Visteon customers was down 53% year-over-year, lower than overall industry, which was down about 45%. Visteon sales were down 48%, excluding currency, outperforming vehicle production at our customers by 5 percentage points. This outperformance would have been greater if not for the high implant inventories at our OEMs towards the end of the first quarter. From a regional perspective, Visteon's sales in Americas were down about 70% and in line with the industry as we were impacted by late start of production at key customers in both U.S. and Brazil. In Europe, our sales continued to outperform the industry due to new product launches with multiple customers, including Ford, Renault and PSA. In China, although the market was up 6% year-over-year, vehicle production at our largest customer, SAIC, with joint ventures with GM and VW, was down about 7%. Nonetheless, Visteon sales continued to outperform the market in this region by 9 percentage points on account of the new product launches over the past 4 quarters. I should mention that the high take rates that we experienced with GM in China, in 2019, have now come down to normal levels as the customer has ended the promotional campaign. In rest of Asia, we continue to be in a product transition phase with the roll-off of infotainment at Mazda, which was partially offset by launch of digital clusters at Hyundai and Mazda. In summary, Visteon continued to outperform vehicle production in the second quarter, despite the challenges with the uneven restart of production in different parts of the world. Moving to Page 4. New program launches with customers remained on track in the second quarter, despite the restrictions due to COVID-19. We launched 8 new products with OEMs in the quarter, of which 4 were in Europe, 2 in Americas and 2 in China and bringing the total for the first half to 21 new products. Some of the key launches are shown on the slide, starting with the 12-inch cluster for Toyota in China, our first with this customer and to launch on 2 vehicles in that region. We also launched a 12-inch cluster with Nissan for the new 2020 Rogue compact SUV, which will then be followed by 4 additional vehicles over the next 12 months. We are starting to see all digital clusters come into mass market vehicles like the Rogue and the Ford Focus, and we expect this trend to continue going forward. In addition to clusters, we also launched our first Android-based infotainment system with VW in South America. The first launch was on an all-new SUV, the Nivus in Brazil which will be followed by additional vehicles as a mid-cycle upgrade. This infotainment system offers a few features that are a first for an entry infotainment system for mass market vehicles, such as an App Store with downloadable apps, wireless CarPlay and Android Auto and a large 10-inch display. This launch has put Visteon on the map as an infotainment supplier, and we are now in discussions with multiple OEMs for solutions. We have a very busy second half with about 40 new products planned for launch that will make 2020 a record year for Visteon. About half of these launches are in China with the rest spread across the other regions. The majority of the new launches are for digital clusters, including a 12-inch digital cluster with over-the-air software update capability for the top selling pickup in North America, and another 12-inch digital cluster for a top-of-the-line luxury sedan with a German OEM with enhanced 3D graphics and augmented reality. In China, in addition to multiple digital cluster launches, we also have the first launch of our new SmartCore system that uses Qualcomm silicon and cloud ecosystem from Tencent. And in rest of Asia, we have several launches with Honda, Hyundai and Mazda, mostly for clusters, but also displays and multi-display systems, including a dual 12-inch display system with integrated digital cluster for an OEM in Korea. The 21 launches year-to-date, plus the upcoming launches in the second half, will put Visteon in a good position to continue our better-than-market performance going forward. Moving to Page 5. In the second quarter, as I mentioned earlier, new business activity with OEMs in Europe and North America was slow with the shutdown and restart of production taking most of the attention, but we had a lot of activity in Asia. We are seeing an acceleration in the adoption of the new cockpit solutions in Asia and in China, in particular. We were able to leverage our technology leadership in displays, digital clusters and SmartCore to win significant business in this region in the second quarter. Some of the second quarter new business highlights are shown on this page. The first win on the left of the page is at the China OEM for a multi-display system with an integrated digital cluster in a large 27-inch center information display with horizontal orientation. The second win in the middle of the page is for a 10-inch center information display for a Japanese OEM and will include new features such as narrow borders and in-cell touch capability. Displays in cars continue to be larger and with new capabilities and our expertise and technology leadership in the design and manufacturing of these displays was key to winning this business. The third win was for a SmartCore system with a Chinese OEM that leverages the work we have done for a different OEM also in China. The system offers integrated digital cluster, an Android-based infotainment with cloud-based apps. The system will launch on 7 different models with this OEM and will solidify our position as the leader in cockpit domain controllers in the China market. As these wins indicate, the key trends in cockpit electronics remain strong and continue to drive new business opportunities for Visteon. I'm particularly pleased to see that we're winning high-quality new business in large displays and SmartCore in addition to digital clusters and broadening our product portfolio. Moving to Page 6. We won $900 million in new business in the second quarter, bringing the first half level to $1.7 billion. Due to the shutdown in Europe and North America, most of the wins in the quarter came from Asia. Second quarter wins were evenly distributed across digital clusters, SmartCore and displays. And for the first half, digital clusters make up about half of the new business, followed by infotainment and displays. We also had a couple of significant wins for SmartCore in China this year, which will help us maintain our global lead in this category. As we look ahead to the rest of the year, I expect our performance in the second half to be better than first half as OEMs in Europe and North America restart their activities with respect to new business. Our new opportunity pipeline for the second half is between $8 billion and $9 billion, which is a little lower than in prior years as the industry is still finalizing vehicle cycle plans in response to the crisis. We expect to see continued interest in bringing digital clusters to all vehicle segments, especially for the mainstream B and C segment vehicles. Following the launch of our first Android-based infotainment system with VW in Brazil, we are now seeing more opportunities for this product with other OEMs. We are in discussions with multiple potential customers and even though sales cycles for infotainment tend to be long, we hope to close some of the opportunities this year. With this new infotainment system, our product portfolio is now complete and stronger than it has ever been. As the industry continues on its path of recovery from the depths of the second quarter, I'm confident that we will return to our prior levels of new business wins. Move to Page 7. On this page, I would like to share our thoughts with respect to the outlook for the industry and for Visteon in the second half of this year. The global automotive industry recovered late in the second quarter, with production in June being down 21% year-over-year compared to the 61% drop experienced in April. The outlook for vehicle production for the third and fourth quarters depends on a few factors, the most important being the ongoing crisis due to coronavirus and the resulting impact on global economies as well as the geopolitical uncertainties that have impacted consumer confidence even prior to COVID-19. It is difficult to predict when we will be able to overcome the coronavirus, but it appears unlikely to happen this year, and we may have to live in this environment for the rest of the year. Our discussions with OEMs regarding second half vehicle production lead us to believe that production at Visteon customers may be down by about 15% year-over-year for the second half. This is slightly lower than the forecast for global auto production by IHS. Our outlook assumes that the situation with coronavirus will not worsen beyond what we have already experienced and that the global economies will start to recover from the bottom experienced in the second quarter. We expect Visteon sales to continue to outperform the market in the second half due to the favorable cockpit electronics trends and due to the contribution of new product launches. The best we can do in this uncertain environment is to focus on the factors that we can control and let the market take its course. We will remain focused on controlling costs and execute on the new product launches in the second half of this year, like we have done in the second quarter. Moving to Page 8. In summary, the company executed very well in the face of a challenging business environment. Our second quarter sales were better than the underlying vehicle production at our top customers, making it our fifth successive quarter of market outperformance. The proactive actions we took to preserve cash and reduce operational costs are helping the company weather the crisis and puts us in a good position to eventually emerge stronger and more competitive than before. Despite the challenging environment, we have launched 21 new products and $1.7 billion in new business in the first half of 2020, building the foundation for future growth. In addition to digital clusters and displays, we launched our first Android-based infotainment system with several first-to-market features. It rounds out our product portfolio and puts the company in a great position to take advantage of all the key trends in the industry. Now I would like to turn the call over to Jerome.