Earnings Labs

Worthington Industries, Inc. (WOR)

Q2 2016 Earnings Call· Thu, Dec 17, 2015

$55.66

-0.22%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning and welcome to the Worthington Industries Second Quarter 2016 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] This conference is being recorded at the request of Worthington Industries. If anyone objects, you may disconnect at this time. I would like to introduce Ms. Cathy Lyttle, Vice President of Corporate Communications and Investor Relations. Ms. Lyttle, you may begin.

Cathy Lyttle

Analyst

Good morning. Thanks for joining us on our second quarter earnings call and happy holidays. Certain statements made on this call are forward-looking within the meaning of the 1995 Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties and could cause actual results to differ from those suggested. Our earnings release was issued last evening. Please review it for more detail on those factors that could cause actual results to differ materially. If you would like to listen to today’s call again, a replay will be made available later on our website. On today’s call, we will be hearing from John McConnell, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Mark Russell, President and Chief Operating Officer; and Andy Rose, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. John has some opening comments.

John McConnell

Analyst

Thank you, Cathy and good morning everybody. Thank you for joining us today. The company performed well in the second quarter and we remain on the pack we desire. Let’s get right into the results of the quarter. We will start with Andy Rose on the financial side.

Andy Rose

Analyst

Thanks, John. Good morning, everyone. The company delivered a steady performance in the second quarter of fiscal 2016. Lower manufacturing costs, improved profitability in industrial gas and consumer products and strength in our joint ventures highlighted the quarter. Demand remains healthy in many of our key end markets with the exception of oil and gas and agriculture. Quarterly earnings adjusted for restructuring were $0.60 per share, up $0.05 per share from the prior year quarter. Several unique items were as follows: $22.9 million of charges related to impairment of long-lived assets and intangibles in our oil and gas business; $2.3 million of restructuring charges and steel processing tied to the ongoing closure of PSM or stainless business; and $1.5 million of gains from the sale of real estate in our legacy metal framing business. Inventory holding losses during the quarter were $1.8 million or $0.02 per share as compared to $1 million or $0.01 per share in the prior year quarter. JV income was boosted by $4 million at ClarkDietrich from successful disparagement litigation against several competitors in an industry trade association. Cylinders operating income, excluding restructuring, was down $6.9 million to $12.6 million driven by significant declines in oil and gas equipment. Operating margins for the quarter were essentially flat as compared to the prior year quarter helped by lower manufacturing costs and improvements in operations in industrial gas and consumer products. Steel processing operating income was down $6.1 million, excluding restructuring from the prior year quarter to $28.9 million, primarily from lower tolling volume at our Spartan JV and steel price declines although margins held up well. Revenue in engineered cabs was down 44% to $28.7 million and operating losses were $3.5 million. The transition of business to Greenville is complete. And despite the revenue decline, profitability improved…

Mark Russell

Analyst

Thanks, Andy. Compared to last year’s quarter, direct volume in our steel business was down 1% and toll volume was down 18%. Combined, our total volume was down 8%. Data reported by the Metals Service Center Institute for this period shows the overall market down 10%, indicating that we continue to gain market share. By segment, service center shipments were significantly up by 65%, heavy truck was up 2%, Detroit Three automotive shipments declined by 2%, construction was down 8% and agriculture was, again, our weakest market for the steel company, down 14%. Our tailor welded blank joint venture with WISCO commissioned their latest facility in Nashville, Tennessee in the quarter with new technology lines that are producing high volume and the curvilinear wells. Additionally, TWB announced what will be their 10th facility in Glasgow, Kentucky. This new facility will utilize TWB’s new rotary system to produce heavy gauge rail blanks, which is another new application resulting from light weighting initiatives. Also development of TWB’s friction stir welded aluminum blanks was building momentum with several OEMs currently testing parts. Our Serviacero joint venture in Mexico once again set a new quarterly shipment record on the back of rapidly growing Mexican automotive market demand. In order to service the growth, we have undertaken expansion projects in our Queretaro and Monterrey facilities, which will add more space and additional splitting capacity. Finally, our joint venture of steel processing facility with Nisshin and MISI in China remains on track to start production by June of 2016. In our pressure cylinders business, oil and gas equipment revenue was down 62% compared to last year. Market demand continues to decline as oil pricing continue to drop through the quarter. Capital purchases by the major producers remain limited and short-term in nature. While we continue to…

John McConnell

Analyst

Thank you, both very much. At this point, we will be happy to take any questions that you have.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And first from the line of John Tumazos with John Tumazos Very Independent Research. Please go ahead.

John Tumazos

Analyst

Good morning. Thank you for all the good efforts in tough times. Could you tell us how much of the equity income for the three months and six months was from WAVE?

Mark Russell

Analyst

$19 million.

John Tumazos

Analyst

$19 million?

Mark Russell

Analyst

Correct.

Andy Rose

Analyst

Yes.

John Tumazos

Analyst

And for six months, how much was…?

Andy Rose

Analyst

We are checking, hang on. $41 million, John.

John Tumazos

Analyst

Thank you. Could you explain the very good performance of some of the other JVs with falling steel prices, it’s really good that the steel related JVs did so well?

Mark Russell

Analyst

Yes. I mean I think each of them is slightly different. I know in ClarkDietrich’s case, they have been able to lower their raw material costs ahead of the decline in prices, so that’s helping with margins.

John McConnell

Analyst

John, some of those JVs have customers that are priced on a fixed price, so when the price of steel falls sometimes they are getting a little bit of tailwind.

John Tumazos

Analyst

Is the $19 million for the current quarter exclude the $4 million legal settlement?

Mark Russell

Analyst

That’s ClarkDietrich, John.

John Tumazos

Analyst

ClarkDietrich. Okay, super. I will let somebody else have a chance. Thank you.

John McConnell

Analyst

Thank you, John. Happy holidays.

John Tumazos

Analyst

You too.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And our next question is from Phil Gibbs of KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Phil Gibbs

Analyst

Good morning.

John McConnell

Analyst

Good morning.

Phil Gibbs

Analyst

I had a question on the steel mix in the quarter, was the direct mix a lot higher than normal, were we talking about maybe 65% to 70% of the volume in the quarter, Mark was…?

Mark Russell

Analyst

Hang on, I will give you the exact mix, but the total was weaker than direct. We will look up to the exact mix and give it to you.

Phil Gibbs

Analyst

And was your direct business down 1% comment, was that organic or does that include some of the acquisitions and investments you have made?

Mark Russell

Analyst

All of these numbers are including Rome for steel.

Andy Rose

Analyst

65% direct.

Mark Russell

Analyst

65%, 35% then Phil.

Phil Gibbs

Analyst

Okay. And then if I could just piggyback off of John’s question on the joint ventures in particular, do you have some of these fixed price contracts that would reset on January 1 or at some point next year at WAVE and/or the ArtiFlex or ClarkDietrich that would adjust that transaction price down as those get – meeting some of the tailwind is maybe just a shorter-term issue?

Andy Rose

Analyst

Yes. Those businesses really don’t really operate like the steel company where they have fixed prices, Phil.

Mark Russell

Analyst

Well. So I would distinguish between the steel company and the JVs because the steel company is running a balanced position, so they don’t have a tailwind. Conversely –typically we don’t a headwinds ones going the other way either, but the joint ventures don’t run hedge positions generally and so they do have the tailwind all the way down.

Phil Gibbs

Analyst

I am just asking from the perspective of – so WAVE has a project, its $1 million top line and that’s the fixed price for the year, that’s given the steel price, it’s – does that same price even though the base price stays the same or the fabrication value stays the same, does that go to $900,000 or something?

Andy Rose

Analyst

No, their business doesn’t work that way. They don’t have individual fixed price contracts.

Phil Gibbs

Analyst

Okay. So it’s largely a negotiated piece based on – okay, based on market conditions?

Andy Rose

Analyst

Yes, they are selling them to a market price across the market and adjust across the market all the ones.

Phil Gibbs

Analyst

Okay, that’s helpful. And was there anything within the numbers, particularly in cylinders that was related to some – maybe some relocation of assets, I know you have been moving some things around and maybe internally consolidating and just wondering if anything was in the numbers in terms of continued internal rationalization efforts that was not called out.

Andy Rose

Analyst

No. There are some things that haven’t hit but those costs will end up being capitalized.

Phil Gibbs

Analyst

Okay. I appreciate it guys. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

And we will go back to John Tumazos. Please go ahead.

John Tumazos

Analyst

Could you talk a little bit about the alternative fuel and cryogenic segments of the cylinder business, I know they are far along and not start-up businesses, are they roughly the same profitability as a percent of sales or assets as the consumer or industrial cylinders?

Andy Rose

Analyst

They are no way near, but yes, I will quantify it. At normal volumes, they would be at those targets and in some cases better, John. But in the current environment with such low volume, the profit is not there. The margins are not there.

John Tumazos

Analyst

So they are near breakeven or something like that?

Andy Rose

Analyst

That would be correct.

John Tumazos

Analyst

Concerning the Energy and the Engineered Cab end markets where the commodity prices are up and basically the customers dormant, could you give us a little granularity about how you are repurposing the assets to try to find better hunting grounds?

Andy Rose

Analyst

Well, we are not repurposing anything in terms of trying to move within the different markets or make different products. We are just –we are trying to give them as lean as possible and reduce the variable costs as much as possible so that we can still make money at these levels. And we are generally being successful with that actually. We scale those two businesses, in particular way down. And in the case of the cab business, as you know, we sold one facility, we shut one down, so we are down to half of the footprint we were when we bought that business.

John Tumazos

Analyst

And a lot of the mining businesses now – many plants are idle just like this steel business, sort of 64% operating rate and mining companies tend to shuffle their trucks or machinery from the idle plan to the other plants and not buying anything for a while, do you have the ability to gear the cab business back up whenever cycle works through the tough year to it?

Mark Russell

Analyst

That was our intended plan, John in doing the rationalization is to be it how the smaller footprint, but have a little bit more capacity in those existing facilities, but more flexible so that we do have the ability to meet demand when it comes back, but we are more efficient in this down part of the cycle. That was our strategy with the cabs business. And as I said, it’s basically been executed. We are now down to the two plants and the costs are significantly lower and we should be able to run lean here for a while.

John Tumazos

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And we do have a follow-up from Phil Gibbs. Please go ahead.

Phil Gibbs

Analyst

Thanks. How did the backlogs at WAVE and ClarkDietrich look at this point? I was trying to get a gauge on how the commercial construction momentum is going from your perspective?

Mark Russell

Analyst

Yes. Those businesses are slightly different just in terms of the demand drivers, they are both commercial construction obviously. But in ClarkDietrich’s case, their volume outlook for the year as I think up may be 7%. There is a lot of multifamily construction going on which they benefit from. WAVE doesn’t benefit as much from that multifamily demand and so their outlook, which I think Armstrong actually talks about directly is kind of a market opportunity number, which is kind of flat to maybe slightly up this year.

Phil Gibbs

Analyst

It’s been flattish for a while, right?

Mark Russell

Analyst

Yes.

Phil Gibbs

Analyst

Okay. Thanks so much.

Operator

Operator

And with that, we have no further questions in queue.

John McConnell

Analyst

Alright. Thank you all for joining us. Again, we have a very solid quarter and we are going to continue on this path, continue to improve the company from a cost basis and our efficiencies on the delivery side. So, happy holidays to all and Merry Christmas, have a great and safe holiday with your family. Goodbye.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this conference is available for replay. It starts today at 12:30 p.m. Eastern Time will last until December 24 at midnight. You may access the replay at any time by dialing 1800-475-6701 or 320-365-3844. The access code is 373175. Those numbers again 1800-475-6701 or 320-365-3844 with the access code 373175. That does conclude your conference for today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.