Albert J. Neupaver
Analyst · Wells Fargo
Thanks, Tim. Good morning. We had a very strong operating performance in the third quarter with record sales of $499 million and record earnings of $0.96. 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 third quarter performance and our outlook for the rest of the year, we've raised our annual guidance for sales and EPS. Clearly, our business is performing very well, thanks to our diversified business model, our strategic initiatives and the power of Wabtec Performance System. We are well-positioned to take advantage of our growth opportunities around the world, yet prepared to manage through an economic downturn should one occur. As I mentioned, we raised our 2011 sales and EPS guidance based on our current backlog and outlook. We're now expecting earnings per diluted share between $3.65 and $3.70, with sales growth of about 25% for the year. This guidance excludes the special items we recorded in the second quarter. If we had included those items, our guidance would be $3.46 to $3.51. Our guidance assumes the following: the global economy continues to grow modestly; freight rail traffic continues to improve with the economy; transit market continues to be stable; and there is no major changes in foreign exchange rates. We will continue to stick to our long-held philosophy and that is, be disciplined when it comes to controlling cost and focus on generating cash to invest in our growth opportunities. Let's first look at the freight rail market. Rail traffic continues to grow this year and, in fact, it is currently running at the high point for the year. Through mid-October, ton miles increased 2.7% and intermodal traffic was up 5.3%. The Increase in traffic has led to strong growth in our North American aftermarket business with aftermarket sales in the third quarter up 26% compared to a year ago quarter. The OEM markets in freight also continued to strengthen, with OEM sales almost double that of the year ago quarter. We expect about 40,000 new freight cars to be delivered this year. We just got the statistics related to rail car build just this morning. Third quarter deliveries were at 12,519. Orders were at 20,165. So that means that the backlog rose to 65,000, the highest level in more than 3 years. We do not expect any changes in the locomotive build, about 800 this year, and that's about double what it was last year. In the third quarter, our freight revenues hit a record -- quarterly record of $316 million, even with OEM deliveries still well below recent annual high, which bodes well for continued growth. Now if we look at the transit market. We continue to see stable markets in the U.S. as well as abroad. In the U.S., ridership was up 1.7% in the second quarter, the second consecutive quarter it has increased. Transit car deliveries were about 1,000, but bus deliveries will be at 4,800, both are slightly less than in 2010. And these numbers are projections for 2011. As for funding, the politicians in D.C. on both sides of the aisle are now talking about a new federal Transportation Bill, that we could see something by the end of the year if they manage to tie it to the Jobs Bill. In the Senate, Boxer's going to introduce a two-year bill and Mica in the house is taking a look at a 6-year bill. More important, they both seem to agree that stable funding plus inflation is the way to go. That's a far cry from just a couple of months ago when Mica was calling for a 20% to 30% cut. So we are positive about our transit opportunities based on the long-term demographic and economic trends on a relatively small market share and large global market. For the quarter, our transit sales increased 10%, and our 12-month backlog increased 6% as orders continue to run ahead of last year's pace. Our strength in transit is related to our diversity and growth initiatives and that has really helped to stabilize the transit business. Year-to-date, sales are 57% outside of the U.S., and we have about 63% of our business in the aftermarket. Product-wise, we were also diversed. We make components for subway cars, for buses. We build new locomotives. We overhaul and maintain locomotives and passenger cars. We provide positive train control at the transit industry, electronic products. Therefore, as you could see, our customer base is diverse. Also, we continue to invest in transit growth through acquisition, new products and global expansion. As a corporation, we continue to focus on growth and cash generation. Cash remains a priority. It provides the opportunity to invest in organic growth and acquisitions and to return money directly to shareholders in a variety of ways. The board has set our dividend at $0.03 per quarter and has increased our stock buyback authorization to $150 million. During the third quarter, we repurchased 308,000 shares of Wabtec stock for about $18 million. We are focused on increasing free cash flow by managing cost, driving down working capital and controlling capital expenditures. This will enable us to continue to invest in our 4 strategic growth opportunities: global market expansion, after market expansion, new products and technologies, acquisitions. If we look at our strategies, in the global market expansion area in this quarter, sales outside of the U.S. were $230 million, that's 46% higher than in 2010. We've also seen growth in non-rail with strong performance by our thermal management businesses. In the aftermarket expansion area, overall aftermarket sales were at $282 million for the quarter, 57% of our total, growth of 33% compared to the prior year. This was due to our growth initiatives, acquisitions, increased traffic and the rails which benefits our Wabtec Global Services unit among others and increased service contracts. We continue to stress looking for strong candidates for acquisitions in rail and adjacent non-rail markets. In the new product arena, we've decided we like to focus on one new product that we have for just a little bit. I'd like to really update you on positive train control. Positive train control is a technology designed to automatically stop or slow trains to prevent collisions, derailment and unauthorized movement. It includes computer hardware and software on a locomotive and electronic devices along the track. It uses GPS to monitor the train's location and communicates with the railroad's back office and dispatch centers. For many years, positive train control was at the top of the NTSB's wish list for safety project. And Wabtec has been in the forefront of developing the onboard locomotive equipment required for this system. In fact, we've invested more than 10 years and $100 million in the development of positive train control. In 2004, BNSF began a pilot program using our PTC product and the railroad received approval to expand PTC along its network in the year 2007. Meanwhile, we began working on pilots with other railroads including Metra, a commuter railroad that serves Chicago. So the industry seemed to be progressing toward PTC implementation on its own. As we all know, in 2008, there was a very serious collision between a freight train and a commuter train in California. More than 20 people were killed. After one month, Congress passed the Rail Safety Act, which mandates that positive train control is to be installed by December 15 on commuter locomotives, freight locomotives that share track, as well as locomotives that carry certain types of hazardous materials. Given our success with BNSF and the projects we’d already started with other railroads, Class 1 eventually decided to standardize on the Wabtec onboard solution. Along the way, we expanded our PTC capabilities that include signal design and engineering, project management, back office and dispatch work. Currently, we are working closely with the railroads to design a positive train control system that will consistently perform across the entire U.S. rail network. The industry uses the term interoperability to describe the system-wide performance, obviously, a test that is not a simple one. Now let's talk about the work we're doing this year and the next steps. We've released the latest version of the onboard software which provides the majority of the interoperable functionality. Railroads have begun doing lab testing. We're working on software that integrates the onboard with the back office server. At least one railroad has surpassed 1,000 hardware platforms ordered, while others expect to increase purchases going into next year. We expect field testing to begin next year, followed by submission of the product safety plan to the FRA by year end. Now what does all that mean in terms of PTC revenues for Wabtec? As you know, we have said that our U.S. freight railroad opportunity is between $250 million and $500 million through the 2015 implementation deadline. This may proved to be conservative, but we think it's a prudent range at this point given the complexity and the other uncertainties of PTC which I'll review in a minute. This range includes potential revenues of $200 million to $400 million based on the cost of onboard systems which ranges anywhere from $20,000 to $40,000 and a number of locomotives that will need to have it installed on between 15,000 and 20,000. The competitive factors such as market share are also taken in consideration. It also includes potential revenues of between $50 million to $100 million for services at Xorail, our signaling engineering division can provide. In addition to the U.S. freight rail opportunity, we're also generating PTC revenues from U.S. transit agencies as well as internationally. These opportunities are not included in the range I just discussed. Last year, we had about $20 million of revenue that can be contributed to PTC technology. We now expect about $100 million this year. If the programs proceed as planned, we should see continued growth next year as well. In the U.S., 21 commuter agencies will need to install some form of PTC, and we expect to play a role in many of these projects. We have announced contracts for 2 of the largest ones, in Denver and Los Angeles. We just signed a $63 million contract with Denver Transit Partners to provide a dispatch office, wayside engineer and project management services for a PTC system to be installed on 3 new commuter rail lines. We also have a $27 million contract with Metrolink in Southern California to provide PTC equipment and services. This project is to be completed by the end of next year. Please keep in mind that most of the other transit PTC projects will be much smaller than the ones we've already booked. In Brazil, meanwhile, internationally, we've signed a $165 million contract with MRS Logistica to provide a turnkey PTC solution, including project management, signaling, communications, train dispatch equipment, onboard electronic equipment for 500 locomotives and 50 auxiliary vehicles scheduled to be completed in 2013. MRS is the fourth largest freight railroad Brazil. Thus, others may show interest in PTC, but any additional opportunities would likely be a bit into the future. In addition to these opportunities, the U.S. freight and transit markets, we would expect to generate PTC-related revenue through service contracts, system upgrade, related products and services. But it's too soon to quantify that. Clearly, the Wabtec PTC opportunity is significant and ongoing, and we will keep you informed as we make progress. As you want to make assumptions about this opportunity, we think you should keep in mind that many factors could affect the size and timing such as market share. There are obviously other companies working on competitive systems, so market share is certainly a variable. Complexity and scale of PTC. We're still in the early stages of a multi-year, multi-hundred million dollar new product rollout. We can't predict the exact number or timing of revenues or the profitability of the various projects. Actions by the federal government. In the U.S., PTC is an unfunded mandate and the railroads have opposed that for various reasons. We can't predict whether the government will modify the law or delay the deadline. Scope of transit projects is also a risk. It's very difficult to quantify the transit opportunity because the agency size and the project scope varies greatly. For example, Metrolink, which is the commuter railroad in L.A., has about 100 vehicles, where North County in San Diego only has 10. And finally, funding itself. The U.S. transit agencies already have budget issues that are affecting their existing operations. PTC will require substantial additional funding. All that being said, we are truly excited about the PTC opportunity. But I want to remind you and I want to emphasize to you that we -- although we're extremely excited about all these growth opportunities, in fact, PTC is only accounted for about 20% of our growth in total revenues so far this year. So we clearly have a lot of other initiatives that we're excited about as well and that are ongoing. With that, I'll turn it over to Alvaro.