Dave Naemura
Analyst · Bank of America
Thanks Mark. Adjusted net earnings for the second quarter were $104 million an increase of 70% from $61 million in the prior year period. This translated to adjusted net earnings per share of $0.61 cents, compared to $0.36 cents in the prior year period. The double-digit increase in earnings was primarily driven by strong broad-based volume growth, which led to 450 basis points on adjusted core operating margin expansion in the quarter. Core revenue growth in the second quarter was 33% against the prior year Q2 that declined 21% in the height of the pandemic impact. This growth was driven by broad-based non-EMV growth of greater than 35% and augmented by the continued strength of the EMV roll-out in North America. In GVR, core revenue and bookings grew more than 25% and more than 35% respectively, while Matco had more than 50% core revenue and bookings growth. High growth markets were also a significant contributor in the second quarter, growing core revenue more than 25% year-over-year, led by continued progress in India and Latin America. Importantly, we saw the strong Q1 end market demand continue in Q2. Adjusted operating profit for the second quarter was $151 million growth of 66% compared to the prior year period, primarily driven by strong core revenue growth. Though our teams -- to our team's execution and -- execution of portfolio profitable growth initiatives and continued management of dynamic supply chain and inflationary environments. We drove approximately 70 basis points of gross margin expansion of 450 basis points of adjusted core operating margin expansion more than offsetting almost $20 million of temporary cost reduction actions in the prior year Q2 that have returned to the business this year. In the second quarter, we generated adjusted free cash flow of $45 million, a conversion of 43%. This uncharacteristically low conversion rate, which is expected to be the low point for the year reflects two items which we communicated on our call last quarter. First, we paid an incremental federal tax payment of approximately $30 million in the quarter, which was a dynamic from our spin in Q4 of 2020. And second, we built approximately $30 million of net working capital, while continuing to satisfy strong demand conditions and run at outstanding working capital levels. We ended Q2 with working capital dollars at 6.2% of last 12 months sales and increase from Q1 levels of 5.6%. But still a very low working capital level historically. Adjusting for the impact of the extra federal tax payment, our adjusted free cash flow conversion was approximately 70% in the quarter. Our year-to-date adjusted free cash flow conversion is 95%, consistent with our communicated guidance for 2021. Additionally, our net leverage stands at 1.7 times adjusted EBITDA down from 1.9 times in the first quarter and down from 2.6 times at the time of our spin in October of last year. This deleveraging has been enabled by strong earnings growth and free cash flow conversion. Looking at the performance of our two platforms, mobility technologies had core revenue growth of 26%, primarily due to more than 25% core growth in GVR and GTT, partially offset by low single-digit decline and Teletrac Navman. The strength in GVR continues to be multifaceted. We saw greater than 35% core growth in non-EMV sales, driven by retail solutions, after-market and environmental solutions, and more than 25% core growth in high growth markets. And we continue to see strong demand from EMV in North America in the months immediately following the deadline. As expected EMV dollars declined sequentially from Q1, but did grow on a year-over-year basis. Core revenue growth that our diagnostics and repair technologies platform was 57%, driven primarily by continued strong demand in Matco and Hennessy. Matco experience more than 50% core growth. This was driven by continued strong demand environment and a growing distribution base, reflecting our fourth consecutive quarter of strong net franchisee additions, following the pause that we saw during the height of the pandemic. Looking at total company sales regionally, the growth was again truly broad-based. As I mentioned, high growth markets grew core revenue more than 25%. And our developed markets in total had core revenue growth greater than 30% led by greater than 35% growth in North America and low double-digit growth in Western Europe. We continue to make progress on our profit improvement actions that will better position the company in the back half of this year and in 2022. We recognize the restructuring charge of $3 million in the second quarter. This is part of the approximately $20 million charge that we continue to anticipate for the full year. This charge is excluded from our adjusted net operating profit. We continue to expect to have these actions substantially complete in the year, positioning our exit rate to achieve the full benefit of these actions in 2022. Before discussing our outlook and assumptions, I want to provide additional color on the EMV outlook. As we have previously stated is a very fluid situation, and we continue to execute extremely well powered by VVS and as evidenced by our continued backlog strength, booking strength and our agile ability to manage supply constraints. We currently expect the headwind associated with EMV to be in the range of $75 million to $100 million for the full year 2021 down from our prior estimate of $100 million to $150 million. We will continue to assess the situation and provide updates as appropriate. When we entered 2021, we highlighted that the quarterly trend of our year-over-year growth in the year would be impacted by the strength of the V shaped recovery that we demonstrated last year, and the roll-off of EMV as we pass the adoption deadline, the tale of two houses we referred to it. The net impact of these two compounding dynamics is that we expect second half adjusted earnings per share to decline high single-digit percent compared to the prior year period. In contrast to the 54% of adjusted EPS growth, we just completed in the first half of 2021. Having said that, we expect the second half revenue and earnings to be higher than our first half performance, a seasonality that we would directionally expect to see in our business. But the growth dynamics are highly impacted by the comparison factors that I mentioned. Taking a closer look at our 2021 outlook assumptions, starting with the third quarter, we expect core revenue growth to be flat to slightly negative and adjusted core operating margin to contract by approximately 25 basis points. This dynamic is primarily reflecting the difficult comps related to the strength of Matco, EMV and Mexico Fiscal Regulation in the prior year period, consistent with the tail two halves and translates into adjusted earnings per share of $0.71 to $0.74 in the quarter. For the full year 2021, we are increasing our core revenue guide to high single-digit growth compared to our prior outlook of low-to-mid-single-digit growth, which equally reflects the better than expected demand in non-EMV solutions and our favorable revision to the EMV outlook. Additionally, we are increasing our core operating margin expansion target to greater than 125 basis points in 2021 reflecting continued execution on our profitable growth initiatives, in cost management and partially offset by persistent but manageable inflationary pressures, supply chain constraints and mix. All told this translates $2.70 to $2.82 of adjusted EPS growth of approximately 12% to 14% year-over-year and an 8% raise at the mid-point of our prior guide. We continue to expect adjusted free cash flow conversion will be approximately 95%, reflecting continued working capital management of all time low levels and the low capital intensity of our business model. Overall, the second quarter, capped-off a robust first half of 2021 and supports another meaningful raise to our full year 2021 expectations for core growth, margin expansion and earnings growth. With that, I'll turn it back to Mark.