Albert J. Neupaver
Analyst · Wolfe Trahan
Thanks, Tim. Good morning. We had a strong operating performance in the fourth quarter with record sales of $610 million and record earnings of $1.34. As a result of this strong finish to the year, we ended the year 2012 with record sales and earnings and a record backlog of more than $1.6 billion. Wabtec finished 2012 as the only company in the United States on any exchange whose year-end stock prices increased for 12 consecutive years. We accomplished this during a period that included 2 recessions, one of which I think you'd all agree was probably the worst that we'll ever experience. 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 optimistic and excited about the long-term growth opportunities in our freight and transit rail markets, which are being driven by the mega trends around the world. These trends include ongoing demand for natural resources, increasing global trade, increasing urbanization, continuing need for infrastructure investment and the demand for more environmentally friendly technology. Today, we also issued our 2013 guidance. Based on our current backlog and our outlook, we expect full year earnings per diluted share to be about $5.85. Along with this will come sales growth of 8% to 10% for the year. This EPS guidance is about 13% higher than 2012. Our guidance assumes the following. Slow growth in the global economy, the U.S. and European transit markets will remain stable with the emerging countries' transit market's driving growth. Our transit revenues should grow based on our existing backlog of projects in the U.S. and internationally. The third assumption is that U.S. freight rail traffic will be stable with OEM locomotive and car build slightly down. So far this year, traffic is slightly down from a year ago. Fourth assumption, no major changes in foreign exchange rates, and we expect to have a slightly lower tax rate. And we have also included our most recent acquisition, Napier, in our guidance. As always, we will be disciplined when it comes to controlling cost, focused on generating cash, cash to invest in growth opportunities and ready to respond decisively to any changes in market conditions. Let's first look at the freight rail market. In the U.S., rail traffic is mixed and was mixed in 2012. For the year, car loadings were down 3.1%, and revenue ton miles were down 2.4 %. However, excluding coal, car loadings were actually up 3%. Intermodal traffic was up 3.2%. Of the 20 traffic categories, 10 were up, with particular strength in autos, petroleum products and lumber. So far in 2013, total rail traffic is down slightly, 0.7%, although it was up 2.2 % in the most recent week. In 2012, it was a good year for OEM deliveries, with 2013 expected to be slightly lower. About 1,200 new locomotives were delivered last year, we expect that to be around 1,000 to 1,100 this year. Forecasters are expecting anywhere from 50,000 to maybe 55,000 new freight cars to be delivered in 2013. This compares to 59,000 in 2012. About 11,800 cars were delivered in the fourth quarter. Orders were about 11,000, so the backlog remained about steady at around 60,000 cars. This compares to deliveries of 12,300 in the third quarter and 16.7 -- or 16,700 in the fourth quarter of 2011. Globally, freight traffic is also mixed. Looking at transit, we continue to see stable markets in the U.S. and abroad. In the U.S., ridership was up 2.6% through the third quarter of 2012. In 2012, transit car backlog increased about 10%. We expect deliveries of about 900 units for 2013. Bus deliveries will be about 4,500 in 2013, and that's about the same number that we had in 2012. The stability in North American market continues despite budget issues and uncertainties about a long-term transportation bill. As you all remember, after a period of about 3 years, a short-term extensions and uncertainty, Congress did pass a new transportation bill, it's a 2-year bill called MAP-21. This 2-year bill maintains funding for transit programs at about $10 billion, about where it's been for the past several years. This bill was passed in the fall of 2012. Outside of the U.S., transit is more of a part of the culture and the economy, and we're seeing stability in the developed markets and growing in emerging markets. In Germany, for example, the Deutsche Bahn had 4% increase in ridership in the first half of the year. In France, SNCF saw a 6% increase. Now even in these difficult economic times in Europe, transit agencies are serving their customers and moving ahead with existing products and projects. We continue to focus on growth and cash generation. Our priorities for allocating free cash remained the same, fund internal growth programs first. This accounted for 67% of our sales increase in 2012. We invested $36 million in capital expansion with most of that focused on growth opportunities. Secondly, we'll focus our cash generation use on acquisitions. We spent about $115 million on 4 acquisitions in 2012. We will also return money to shareholders through a combination of dividends and stock buybacks. In 2012, we bought back 607,000 shares of stock for about $47 million. In the fourth quarter, we bought 231,000 shares for about $19 million. We also increased our quarterly dividend from $0.03 per share to $0.05 per share earlier in 2012. We are focused on increasing free cash flow by managing costs, driving down working capital and controlling capital expenditures. Our growth strategies also haven't changed. Let's talk about some progress in these strategies. First, global end-market expansion. Our sales outside of the U.S. were a record $1.2 billion in 2012. That's 30% higher than last year's total. Now, 50% of total sales versus 1/3 5 years ago. We showed good growth in Australia, South America and China. We also had growth in non-rail, which is now about 15% of our total sales. In aftermarket expansion, we saw sales of $1.3 billion, another record. It accounted for about 54% of our total. This is growth of 16% compared to the prior year. This growth is due to both acquisitions and internal growth initiatives such as expansion of our locomotive services in the U.S. and continued expansion of our service center in Brazil. The third strategy, new products. We continue to have tremendous focus on this effort, with about 1/3 of our total annual sales coming from new products. We define new products as those introduced in the last 5 years. We have many internal development projects such as electronic braking, an oil-free compressor, locomotive services and an integrated brake system for the European freight market and of course, positive train control, which skips most of the headlines. PTC represented about $215 million of our sales in 2012. We expect more growth in 2013 as we continue to work with the railroads and other industries' suppliers to deliver on interoperable system by the 2015 deadline. As you know, there has been discussions about extending the deadline. We certainly can't predict whether that will happen or not. But we have analyzed how the delay would affect Wabtec, and we do not think it will have a meaningful impact on our business. The last growth strategy is acquisitions. As I stated, we completed 4 transactions last year and have already closed one this year. Combined, the 2012 acquisitions and the ones we closed at different points in 2011 contributed incremental revenues of about $128 million in 2012. About half of that growth was in transit and half in freight. That total represented 33% of our growth in 2012. Let's talk about our most recent acquisition, Napier Turbochargers, for a minute. Napier has about $55 million in revenues. They manufacture turbochargers and components for high-horsepower engine. It's a growing business and good markets. Power generation represent about 70% of their revenue, and sales within the marine area contribute about 30% of their sales. They have good IP and strong technical capabilities. Their installed base of more than 18,000 turbochargers and use around the world provides a strong reoccurring aftermarket revenue. They have a strong customer base, Caterpillar, Hyundai, Wartsila and other OEM engine manufacturers. This acquisition meets all of our strategic goals. New products. Aftermarket was 60% of their total. And global expansion, they have sales of about 50% in Europe, 35% in the U.S. and 15% in Asia and growing. The other acquisition that we had in 2012 was Tec Tran, the only U.S.-owned manufacturer of hydraulic braking equipment and related components for light rail transit cars; Winco, a marketing and sales company in Brazil, with capabilities including value-added engineering and assembly service technical support and logistics; and the LH Group in the U.K., that's a provider of maintenance and engineer -- or engine overhaul services for transit; and lastly, Mors Smitt, a European-based manufacturer of electronic components for rail and industrial markets. I will now ask Alvaro to discuss our financials.