Albert Neupaver
Analyst · Wells Fargo
Okay. Good morning, everyone. We had a very strong operating performance in the second quarter with record sales and a record backlog. We earned a GAAP EPS of $0.75. If we exclude the special items we mentioned in the press release and which we'll talk about on this call, we earned a non-GAAP EPS of $0.94, which was also a record. As we'll discuss, this performance was driven mostly by growth in our Freight Group, but our Transit Group continues to perform well. Based on this second quarter performance and our outlook for the rest of the year, we raised our annual guidance to $3.45 to $3.55 earnings per diluted share, excluding the special items. Clearly, our business is performing very well, thanks to our diversified business model, our strategic growth initiatives and the power of our Wabtec performance system. We are positioned well to take advantage of our growth opportunities around the world. Let's talk a little bit about these special items that Tim mentioned. As we announced last month, after a long-running legal battle, a jury awarded Favlay [ph] $18.1 million based on a claim that stems from a 1993 product license agreement. That amount could change pending on any post-trial adjustments for previous payments and interest. We're disappointed in the outcome and plan to appeal, but we needed to record the $18.1 million charge in this quarter. Most importantly about this situation is that it has no impact on our ability to supply customers in the past or will have no impact on the business going forward. We also recorded 2 other special items, both of which were benefits. When we acquired Ricon subsidiary in 2008, we had certain amount of money set aside. During this quarter, we received $2.4 million from Ricon's prior owner to settle several claims for which Wabtec had been indemnified. This was the final settlement on those issues. We also had a tax benefit of $1.7 million from the resolution of tax issues from prior years. As I mentioned, we raised our 2011 EPS guidance based on current backlog and outlook. We are now expecting earnings per diluted share between $3.45 and $3.55, with sales growth of about 20% for the year. This guidance excludes the special items we recorded this quarter. Our guidance assumes the following: the global economy continues to grow modestly, freight rail traffic continues to improve with the economy, the transit markets continue to be stable and there's no major changes in foreign exchange rates. We will continue to stick to our long-held philosophy, that is to be disciplined when it comes to costs, focus on generating cash to invest in growth opportunities. Let's first take a look at the freight rail markets. Rail traffic continues to grow this year. Although the rate of growth has slowed due in part to tougher comparison and some weather factors cited by the railroads during the second quarter. Through mid-July, ton miles have increased 3.5% this year and intermodal traffic was up 7.2%. The increase in traffic, as well as additional service contract, primarily related to positive train control, has led to strong growth on our North American aftermarket business, with aftermarket sales in the second quarter up 46% compared to the year ago quarter. The freight OEM markets also continue to strengthen, with OEM sales up 62%. We now expect about 40,000 new freight cars to be delivered this year, up from our original forecast of 30,000 to 35,000. Second quarter deliveries were 10,600, more than triple last year's quarter. New orders come in at 16,900, almost 4x last year's quarter. And the backlog for rail cars rose to over 57,000, the highest in 4 years. As for the locomotive build, it is also increasing with our expectations now that there will be at least 800 built this year compared to our original estimate of 700. In the second quarter, our freight revenues hit a record quarterly high of $280 million. Even with OEM deliveries still below the long-term average, which bodes well for continued growth. Let's look at the transit markets. Our transit sales increased 8% compared to a year ago quarter. Acquisitions have enabled us to overcome some short-term challenges in the U.S. market, which have been affected by budget issues and our transit agency customers and uncertainty about the timing of the new federal transportation bill. Our strategic diversity has helped us to overcome these transit markets issues. This diversity consists of sales were about 2/3 outside of the U.S., about 2/3 were in aftermarket. Product-wise, we cover 4 main areas: components for subway cars, components for buses, we do manufacture locomotives, and we overhaul and maintain locomotives as well as passenger cars. Our customer base, therefore, is also very diversified. Plus, we've continued to invest strategically in future growth with acquisitions, new product development and global expansion. Thanks to these strategies and growth initiatives, our transit backlog increased 3% this quarter. Year-to-date, orders are running slightly ahead of last year, with some not yet in the backlog as we negotiate some final contracts. Looking at the transit markets, we see a stable yet challenging U.S. market, with agencies cutting costs and federal funding about flat. However, ridership was up 1.6% in the quarter, the first increase since the fourth quarter of 2008. OEM transit car deliveries will be about 1,000 in 2011, with new bus deliveries of 4,800. Both figures are slightly less than last year. We're at various stages of negotiating final contracts with several projects this quarter. We did announce a $12 million order to provide braking components for our new subway cars in New Jersey Transit. And there are other contracts that we expect to announce in the coming months. The politicians in DC that we all have come to love have talked about a new federal transportation bill, but none of the proposals seem to be gaining traction. And it's looking like they'll just extend the current bill again. We continue to make progress in various international transit markets, so we are very positive about our transit opportunities based on long-term demographic and economic trends, and our relatively small market share in large global markets. Overall, we will continue to focus on growth and cash generation. Cash remains a priority. It provides the opportunity to invest in organic growth and acquisitions and they return money directly to shareholders in various ways. At our annual meeting in May, the Board voted to increase our dividend to $0.03 per quarter and to increase our stock buyback authorization back up to $150 million. During the quarter, we repurchased 95,000 shares of Wabtec stock for about $6 million. We are focused on increasing free cash flow by managing cost, driving down working capital, controlling capital expenditures. This will enable us to continue to invest in our 4 strategic growth opportunities: global market expansion, aftermarket expansion, new products, and technologies and acquisitions. In the global market expansion area, we've shown some success this quarter. Sales outside of the U.S. were $237 million, 35% higher than in 2010. During the quarter, we announced the fifth joint venture in China. We also announced 2 major contracts in Australia. We announced an order for 22 locomotives for CBH, an Australian grain hauler. And a $21 million project to install electronic controlled pneumatic brakes on Rio Tinto's fleet of iron ore cars. We have also seen in non-rail internationally. In the aftermarket area, overall aftermarket sales were $293 million, 61% of our total sales with growth of 48% compared to the prior year. This is due to our growth initiatives, acquisitions, increasing rail traffic, which benefits our global service unit among others, and increased service contracts, especially in the positive train control area. As far as acquisitions, the integration of Brush Traction, which we acquired during the first quarter, is going well, as is the integration of the transit aftermarket product launch we bought from General Electric just last month. We integrated this business into our already established service center network. Brush Traction is based in the U.K. and has 2 facilities, one near Birmingham and the second one in Scotland. Brush provides locomotive overhaul and maintenance services, annual sales of about $55 million. It is a great complement to our Wabtec rail business in Doncaster, England. We see opportunities for top line growth and margin expansion. The transit aftermarket product lines from GE is also a good fit with Wabtec. We have exclusive rights to manufacture and distribute propulsion and control system products for an installed base of nearly 5,000 transit cars in North America. This acquisition expands our footprint in the transit aftermarket and fits well with our recent acquisitions of Swiger Coil. As for new products, I'd like to provide just a brief update on positive train control. We're moving full speed ahead to help the industry meet the December 15 implementation deadline. We're seeing good growth in PTC this year, with sales expected to exceed $50 million, as we continue working with the U.S. Class I railroads and transit agencies to develop the interoperable solution. These efforts have moved into the laboratory testing phase. Sales were about $20 million last year. We signed 2 major PTC contracts in the first quarter and we are negotiating others, $165 million contract with a railroad in Brazil MRS for a turnkey solution included -- includes project managing, signaling, communications, train dispatch equipment and onboard electronic equipment for 500 locomotives and 50 auxiliary vehicles. The project is scheduled to be completed in 2013. MRS is the fourth largest railroad in Brazil. We had also signed a $27 million contract to provide PTC equipment and services for Metrolink, a commuter agency that serves Southern California. They want to have the project completed by the end of next year. I'll now turn it over to Alvaro.