Mike Pettit
Analyst · Stephens. Your line is open
Thanks Brent. I would like to start off by giving us some color on our first quarter financial results. On a consolidated basis, first quarter revenue was $392 million, with consolidated new trailer shipments of 9,670 units during the quarter. Gross margin was 12% of sales during the quarter while operating margin came in at 2.9%. As Brent mentioned these margins were somewhat above our expectations for the quarter as a result of continued strong cost control. Additionally, I like to reference the 2020 initiatives to lower our cost structure by $20 million, of which $15 million was SG&A because after the first quarter, clean SG&A comparisons from last year as furloughs and other temporary cost control measures were implemented beginning in the second quarter of 2020. SG&A was lower year-over-year in Q1 by $4.7 million. Additionally, about 25% of our savings initiatives are being realized as reductions in cost of goods sold. So we are pleased that these structural savings are more than holding during a significant ramp in volumes. Operating EBITDA for the first quarter was $26 million, or 6.7% of sales. Finally, for the quarter net income was $3.2 million, or $0.06 per diluted share. From a segment perspective, commercial trailer products generated revenue of $240 million and operating income of $20.9 million. Average selling price for new trailers within CTP is roughly $26,000 this represents a 7.5% decrease versus Q1 of 2020, as a result of meaningfully higher mix of trailers where prices tend to be significantly lower at 53 foot driving trailers. Diversified products group generated $74 million of revenue in the quarter with operating income of $6.1 million and segment EBITDA margin that hit 14.3%, which was the best level since 2016. Average selling price for new trailers within DPG was roughly $72,000, which represents a 4% increase versus Q1 of 2020. Final Mile products generated $77 million of revenue as this business ran to meet stronger market demand. FMP experienced an operating loss of $4 million which was expected in our prior quarterly guidance because of FMP’s heavy and increasing amortization burden, EBITDA provided a more stable measure of progress and more relevant measure of impact on operating cash generation. We were encouraged that FMP’s EBITDA moved back to positive territory during the first quarter with a gain of $621,000 as improved volumes allowed us to better leverage our fixed costs during the quarter. We expect FMP’s EBITDA generation to improve in the second half of 2021 as the business installed additional capacity to continue meeting customer demand through the on-boarding of new employees. Year-to-date operating cash flow was negative $22 million. We invested roughly $4 million via capital expenditures leaving negative $27 million of free cash flow. Although our payables wiped out considerably receivables and inventory combined to have a meaningful impact on working capital as was expected during the quarter. We continue to show working capital efficiency in Q1 as part of our one Wabash transformation, and we are well on our way to achieving a capital efficient ramp in 2020. We continue to target $35 million to $40 million in capital spending for 2021. With regard to our balance sheet, our liquidity, our cash plus available borrowings as of March 31 was $337 million with $169 million of cash and $168 million of availability on our revolving credit facility which is fully untapped. With capital allocation during the first quarter, we utilized $18.2 million to repurchase shares, paid our quarterly dividend of $4.3 million and invested $4.2 million in capital projects. Furthermore in April, we made voluntary $15 million payment on our term loan. Our capital allocation focus continues to prioritize reinvestment of business through growth CapEx while also maintaining our dividend and valuing opportunities for net reduction and share repurchase. Moving onto the outlook for 2021, we expect revenue of approximately $1.95 billion to $2.05 billion. CTP is right back to bumping up against capacity constraints while SMP is still in demand as labor being the primary gating factor. DPG’s backlog is also building nicely. So I would like to remind you that we do have a quarterly headwind of about $6 million per quarter versus year ago level as a result of the absence of divested revenue. SG&A as a percent of revenue is expected to be in the low pursuit range for the full year and we remain on track to sustain the reduction in our cost structure by $20 million relative to 2019 with around 15 million of that cost out residing within SG&A. Operating margins are expected to be in the high 3% range at the midpoint. Turning to the second quarter, we expect revenue in the range of $450 million to $480 million, up 17% at the midpoint sequentially versus Q1 with new trailer shipments of 10,500 to 11,500 as we look to keep increasing production throughout the year. Given our expectations for operating margins in the low 3% range in Q2 this implies EPS in the range of $0.10 to $0.15 for the quarter. In closing, I'm pleased with our results to start the year. Ramping manufacturing is never easy and this year certainly comes with unique challenges for ourselves and other manufacturers. But what we see is a great opportunity to scale out and ensure that we're firing on all cylinders as customers increasingly become focused on 2022 and what we expect to be a smoother operating environment that will allow us to return the company revenues to levels approaching that was reported in 2018 and 2019. The company is just beginning to enter into these exciting times as the structure of our organization is in the early days of achieving its intended purpose of advancing our strategy, which emphasizes organic growth leveraging our industry leading first to Final Mile Portfolio. With that I will turn the call back to Lindsay to open up for questions.