Ira Birns
Analyst · Evercore ISI. Please proceed with your question
Thank you, Mike, and happy birthday and good evening to everyone on the call. Consolidated revenue for the second quarter was $6.6 billion, down 22% compared to the second quarter of 2015. This decline was due to lower fuel prices, offset in part by increased volumes of the aviation and land segments. Our Aviation segment volume was 1.7 billion gallons in the second quarter, up approximately 150 million gallons or 10% year-over-year. Volume in our Marine segment for the second quarter was 8.2 million metric tons, a decrease of approximately 200,000 metric tons or 2% year-over-year. While Marine volume is down year-over-year, it returned to its highest level since the third quarter of 2015. Brokered business activity for the quarter was approximately 12% of total marine volumes, as compared to 13% in the second quarter of 2015. Our Land segment sold 1.2 billion gallons during the second quarter, up approximately 70 million gallons or 6% from the second quarter of last year. Lastly, total consolidated volume for the second quarter was 5.1 billion gallons, up approximately 175 million gallons or 4% year-over-year. Consolidated gross profit for the first quarter was $219 million, an increase of $28 million or 15% compared to the second quarter of last year. Our Aviation segment contributed $99 million of gross profit in the second quarter that's up $14 million or 16% compared to last year. For the quarter, the Aviation segment again benefited from increases in their core resale business in North America and Europe, as well as an increase in U.S. and foreign military-related activity when compared to the second quarter of last year. Overall, our Aviation segment outperformed our expectations in the second quarter as we head into the third quarter which has historically been a strong seasonal quarter for the Aviation segment. While speaking of the Aviation segment, I would like to provide a brief update on the acquisition of ExxonMobil's fueling operations at certain airports, which we announced earlier this year. While we do expect to begin closing certain portions of this transaction prior to year-end, we do not expect much related income over the balance of 2016 at this point in time. Excluding the potential impact of foreign currency exchange rates, we still expect this transaction to deliver accretion in the range originally forecast in the first 12 months following the full completion of the transaction. I would now like to briefly comment on a matter that we will disclose in our 10-Q to be filed shortly. On July 20, 2016, we were informed that the U.S. Department of Justice is conducting an investigation into the aviation and fuel supply industry, including certain activities of the company as well as other industry participants at an airport in Central America. We were served with formal request by the DOJ about our activities at that airport and our aviation fuel supply business more broadly and we're cooperating with this investigation. We really don't know much more about this matter at this time, therefore we don't have anything further to add. Moving onto the Marine segment, we generated gross profit of $40 million down $2 million or 5% year-over-year. The trends we began more than a year ago of considerably lower fuel prices, a weakened offshore market, and lower price volatility continue to impact overall unit margins to what remains a challenging marine market. While fuel prices increased during the second quarter, we only experienced modest improvement in our core marine resale business and we really didn't see any meaningful uptick in demand for price risk management products during the quarter. With that being said, we do expect to benefit from some seasonal business activity in marine in the third quarter which should drive some improvement in marine results. Our Land segment delivered gross profit of $80 million in the second quarter, an increase of $17 million or 26% year-over-year. The gross profit increase relates to activity from the Pester and Bergen Energi acquisitions and two smaller acquisitions that were not included in our prior year results, as well as increased profits from our North American retail, wholesale, and commercial and industrial businesses. While the second quarter is generally a seasonally weak quarter for Watson, second quarter results of this year were somewhat weaker than anticipated due to two things, extremely wet weather in the United Kingdom which impacted demand in the agricultural sector, as well as weakness with construction related customers as the UK construction industry experienced its weakest quarter since 2009. Non-fuel related gross profit associated with Multi-service was nearly $13 million in the second quarter, up 7% from the second quarter of last year. As we announced a few weeks ago, we completed the acquisitions of PAPCO and Associated Petroleum Products or APP and as Mike already stated, we're very excited to welcome their teams to World Fuel. While we still expect these acquisitions to generate $0.22 to $0.26 of accretion in the first 12 months, inclusive of deal synergies, we do not expect to begin realizing any significant synergies until 2017. As we look forward to the third quarter, the Land segment results should improve benefiting from the addition of the PAPCO and APP businesses as well as improvements in our Multi-service and global energy management businesses and modest improvement in Watson despite some currency headwinds related to Brexit. As I continue with the remainder of the financial review, please note that the following figures exclude the impact of $5.9 million of non-recurring expenses in the second quarter as highlighted in our earnings release. This now is principally comprised of professional fees and severance costs related to multiple acquisitions completed or in progress. To assist all of you reconciling operating income results published in our earnings release, the breakdown of the $5.9 million is as follows: unallocated corporate expense is $2.9 million, and the amounts impacting the Aviation, Land, and Marine segment results were $2.2 million, $600,000 and $200,000 respectively. Operating expenses in the second quarter excluding our provision for bad debt were $165 million, up $18.5 million or 12% year-over-year. I should point out that 92% of year-over-year increase in operating expenses related to expenses of acquired businesses. In the third quarter, total operating expenses excluding bad debt expense should be in the range of $175 million to $179 million, 90% of this sequential increase relates to the PAPCO and APP acquisitions and their related expenses. As Mike mentioned, we have preliminarily identified opportunities to reduce our run rate of operating expenses and we have already identified $15 million to $20 million of cost reduction opportunities which we intend to execute on over the next several months. While we may begin realizing the benefit of these reductions later in the year, I would expect we will not realize the full impact until 2017. Our bad debt provision for the second quarter was $2.5 million effectively flat with the second quarter of last year. Consolidated income from operations for the second quarter was $52 million, up $10 million or 24% year-over-year. And non-operating expenses, which is principally interest expense in the second quarter was $8.7 million, that's $700,000 increase compared to the second quarter of last year which principally relates to higher average borrowings as well as slightly higher interest rates during the quarter. I would assume non-operating expenses to be approximately $9 million to $11 million in the third quarter. The company's effective tax rate for the second quarter was 19.4% compared to 13.7% in the second quarter of last year. We expect our tax rate for the second half of the year to be between 15% and 20%. I would like to point out that we recently identified an error in our 2015 provision for income taxes. Corrections associated with this error related to the second quarter of 2015 and other periods will be reflected on Form 8-K which we will be filing shortly. As noted in our earnings release, the total amount of corrections for the full year of 2015 specifically was $12.5 million. The second quarter 2015 tax rate which I just shared reflects the impact of such corrections, and to the year-over-year variances in net income and earnings per share, which I will provide in a moment. Adjusted net income was $35 million this quarter, up $4.3 million or 14% year-over-year. Non-GAAP net income, which also excludes intangible amortization and stock-based comp, was $44 million in the second quarter, an increase of $5.5 million or 14% year-over-year. Adjusted diluted earnings per share was $0.50 in the second quarter and that's a 16% increase over the second quarter of last year. Non-GAAP diluted earnings per share was $0.63 in the second quarter which is an increase of 17% compared to last year. Our total accounts receivable was $2 billion at quarter end, down more than $350 million compared to the second quarter of last year, principally related to the decline in average fuel prices offset in part by increased volumes in our aviation and land businesses. Net working capital was approximately $880 million, down $30 million compared to the second quarter of last year. We generated $63 million of cash flow from operations in the second quarter contributing to trailing 12-months operating cash flow of approximately $470 million and also marking our 16th consecutive quarter of generating positive operating cash flow. During the second quarter, we also returned $18 million to our shareholders by repurchasing approximately 400,000 shares of our common stock in the open market. As I have stated in the past, the principal objective of our share repurchase program is to offset the dilutive impact of employee stock awards. In addition we also repurchased shares when we feel such shares are significantly undervalued. So in closing, our balance sheet remained strong and liquid benefiting from consistent cash flow generation and prudent balance sheet management. This should continue to service well as we identify further organic growth initiatives which require capital and as we target additional strategic investment opportunities. With the ExxonMobil transaction expected to be completed over the next several months, and the completion of the PAPCO and APP acquisitions just after the second quarter close, combined with the expected impact of identified cost reduction opportunities, we have an even stronger foundation for growth and meaningful increased profitability as we look forward to 2017 and beyond. I will now like to turn the call back over to Kelmer our operator to open up the Q&A session. Thank you.