Operator
Operator
Good morning. My name is Brent, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the Weyerhaeuser Third Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. Thank you. I'd now like to turn the call over to Denise Merle, Senior Vice President of Human Resources and Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Denise M. Merle - Senior Vice President-Human Resources & Investor Relations: Thank you, Brent. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today to discuss Weyerhaeuser's third quarter 2015 earnings. On the call with me this morning are Doyle Simons, CEO; Patty Bedient, CFO; and Beth Baum, Director of Investor Relations. This call is being webcast at www.weyerhaeuser.com. Our earnings release and presentation materials can also be found on our website. Please review the warning statements in our press release and on the presentation slides concerning the risks associated with forward-looking statements, as forward-looking statements will be made during the conference call. We will discuss non-GAAP financial measures and a reconciliation of GAAP can be found in earnings material on our website. I will now turn the call over to Doyle Simons. Doyle R. Simons - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you, Denise, and welcome, everyone. This morning, Weyerhaeuser reported third quarter net earnings of $180 million, or $0.35 per diluted share on net sales of $1.8 billion. I'm very pleased with our third quarter performance as each of our businesses capitalized on operational excellence improvements to deliver strong results despite some market and global macroeconomic headwinds. In addition, we continued to deliver on our commitment to return cash to shareholders. We have completed the $700 million share repurchase program authorized in 2014. In August, our board supplemented this program with an additional $500 million share repurchase authorization and also increased our quarterly dividend by 7% to $0.31 per share. This illustrates our confidence in our ability to continue to execute our operational excellence initiatives and capitalize on market improvements going forward. I'll begin the discussion of our business results with some brief comments about the housing market. The U.S. housing market continued to advance in the third quarter following choppy activity in the first half of the year. Total housing starts as of September, has improved 18% compared with 2014, and single-family starts are up 12%. We continue to anticipate just over 1.1 million starts for 2015. Our customers tell us they expect strong year-in activity for as long as weather conditions remain favorable. With rising employment, strong consumer confidence, historically low mortgage rates and builder sentiment reaching all-time highs, we continue to anticipate steady improvement in the U.S. housing market. Let me now turn to our business segments, starting with Timberlands, charts two to four. Timberlands contributed $126 million to third quarter earnings, comparable to the second quarter. Strong cost controls and operational excellence initiatives offset the effect of reduced Western fee harvest volumes and lower average sales realizations for Western logs. As expected, Western fee harvest volumes declined by 5% compared with the second quarter due to buyer season logging constraints. This year's buyer season was exceptionally severe due to record breaking temperatures and unusually low rainfall. Our employees did an exceptional job of protecting our Timberlands and flexing harvest settings to adjust the changing logging constraints and market conditions. Our tree farms experienced virtually no fire damage with only about 150 of our 7 million acres affected, less than 100 of 1%. Average realizations for Western domestic logs improved slightly in the third quarter as fire season restrictions resulted in tighter log supplies, especially in Southern Oregon and we benefited from an improved mix. Turning to the export markets, Japanese demand remained strong and pricing for our Japanese logs was up slightly in the quarter. After peaking in August, log inventories at Chinese ports have declined as supply has fallen in response to lower pricing. However, Chinese demand in pricing remained challenging due to continued slow construction activity and we flexed volume into more profitable domestic markets. Overall, average realizations for our Western logs declined compared with the second quarter, primarily due to the higher proportion of domestic log sales. In the South, fee harvest volume increased and average log sales realizations improved slightly. Third quarter included earnings of $13 million from disposition of non-strategic timberlands, an increase of $8 million compared with the second quarter. Operational excellence initiatives contributed to Timberlands' third quarter results as efforts to optimize harvest settings and road and silviculture expenditures resulted in continued cost improvements. The business remained on track to meet or exceed its OpEx target for 2015. Wood Products, charts five and six. Wood Products contributed $85 million to third quarter earnings, an improvement of $14 million compared with the second quarter. EBITDA increased to $111 million as improved sales volumes and lower operating costs enabled the business to overcome the drag of lower average lumber realization. In Lumber, EBITDA declined $4 million compared with the second quarter. A 3% decrease in average sales realizations was mostly offset by seasonally higher sales volumes and improvements in logs and other costs. In OSB, EBITDA improved by $12 million, due to a 2% increase in average sales realizations and reduced manufacturing and log cost. Engineered Wood Products reported third quarter EBITDA of $36 million, compared with $38 million in the second quarter. Slightly improved sales volumes and realizations for several products were offset by higher manufacturing cost due to planned maintenance downtime. EBITDA for the distribution business increased by $7 million compared with the second quarter due to improved sales volumes and lower overhead cost. Our Wood Products business remains relentlessly focused on operational excellence. Lumber and OSB are on track to achieve their 2015 targets. Engineered Wood Products is tracking significantly above its EBITDA improvement target. Year-to-date, the business has generated EBITDA of $100 million, a $35 million improvement compared with a target of $15 million to $20 million. We made significant progress in our distribution toward our OpEx target in the third quarter as EBITDA improved to $9 million and we expect continued progress in the fourth quarter. At this point, however, we're unlikely to reach our full $20 million target for the year. With that said, I'm encouraged by our level of improvement in the third quarter and this business is highly focused on continuing to improve bottom line performance going forward. Cellulose Fibers, charts seven and chart eight. Cellulose Fibers contributed $79 million to third quarter earnings, compared with $27 million in the second quarter. Pulp market softened in the third quarter due to rising global inventories and the continuing challenge of a strong U.S. dollar. Average pulp realizations declined slightly compared with second quarter. Earnings for this segment increased significantly as maintenance expense declined and pulp production improved due to fewer scheduled maintenance outage days. The third quarter included only four days of scheduled maintenance outages, compared with a 46-day extended outage completed in the second quarter. The Cellulose Fibers business continues to make good progress on operational excellence initiatives as well. Third quarter results benefited from initiatives to reduce energy costs, and chemical costs, and usage. Cellulose Fibers business remained on track to achieve its 2015 operational excellence target. I will now turn it over to Patty, to discuss our fourth quarter outlook. Patricia M. Bedient - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Thanks, Doyle, and good morning, everyone. The outlook for the fourth quarter is summarized on chart 12, and I'll begin my comments with Timberlands. In the West, export log volumes to Japan is expected to increase during the fourth quarter as a result of an active Japanese housing market, and we anticipate a slight improvement in prices. Although construction activity in China is still slow, inventories at Chinese ports started to decline during Q3 and are expected to decrease further this quarter. As a result, we see fourth quarter prices stabilizing. Average sales realizations and volumes for Western domestic logs are expected to be comparable to Q3. Fee timber harvest in the West is anticipated to increase slightly, as fire-related logging constraints have been lifted. In the South, fee harvest volume is expected to be in line with the third quarter and we anticipate roughly similar average sales realizations. Silviculture and logging costs will likely increase seasonally. Overall, fourth quarter earnings in our Timberlands segment are expected to be comparable to Q3. In our Wood Products segment, the fourth quarter is typically the seasonally weakest quarter of the year. Because of the seasonal slowdown, we expect lower sales volumes. Although we have seen an increase in lumber prices thus far in the fourth quarter, average sales realizations for Q4 are expected to be lower than the average of Q3. We expect higher average sales realizations for oriented strand board in the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter, and we anticipate that Engineered Wood Products' average sales realizations will be relatively flat. Production volumes in the fourth quarter are expected to decline, due to the holiday season and scheduled downtime to complete maintenance and capital projects. This downtime will result in higher per-unit manufacturing costs. Consistent with the normal seasonal patterns, we expect fourth quarter earnings in our Wood Products segment to be lower than the third quarter and slightly lower than the earnings of Q4 of last year, which had much higher pricing. Our Cellulose Fibers business is continuing to experience currency headwinds due to the strong U.S. dollar. Worldwide inventories for softwood pulp stood at 30 days at the end of the third quarter. Typically, industry supply increases during the fourth quarter as there is seasonally not as much maintenance downtime in the colder winter months. As a result, we expect weaker average sales realizations for pulp in the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter. Our final planned maintenance outage for this year was completed earlier this month. The mill is back up and running well. Due to this outage, we will have more planned maintenance phase this quarter, as a result expect that overall maintenance expense will be approximately $10 million higher than Q3. In addition, we expect seasonally higher fiber costs. We anticipate that overall earnings in our Cellulose Fibers segment will be approximately $20 million to $25 million lower in the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter. Chart nine summarizes the results of unallocated items. Unallocated items moved from a positive earnings impact of $20 million in Q2 to a negative $27 million in Q3. The largest change was the result of a non-cash charge for the weakening of the Canadian dollar. As we've said in the past, every $0.01 change in the exchange rate is roughly $3 million to $4 million on a pre-tax basis. The other large variance was a lower positive effect for the elimination of intersegment profit in inventory and LIFO. Now, I'll wrap with some overall financial comments. Income taxes for the quarter resulted in a tax benefit of $16 million. This was due to a true-up of the effective tax rate for the year, which is now estimated to be lower based on the higher mix of REIT income relative to the taxable REIT subsidiary. In addition, there were discrete items booked in the quarter of approximately $9 million; the largest item being a positive resolution of uncertain tax positions. Now, I'll refer you to chart 10. Cash flow from operations for the third quarter was $282 million, or a reduction of $84 million compared to Q2. The change was primarily the result of a large working capital reduction in Q2 and normal timing of interest payments. Capital expenditures for the third quarter were $112 million, bringing our total expenditures for the first three quarters of the year to just over $300 million. We still anticipate total expenditures for the year to approximate $500 million. There was no change to our scheduled debt maturities and, as you can see from the chart, the first maturity isn't until 2017. Chart 11 details our share repurchase activity, and we have now completed our $700 million 2014 share repurchase authorization. And as mentioned earlier, in August, the board authorized an additional share repurchase program for $500 million. Now, I'll turn the call back to Doyle. Doyle R. Simons - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you, Patty. We are encouraged by the positive trend in housing and the optimistic tone we are hearing from our customers. Going forward, we remain relentlessly focused on operational excellence and disciplined capital allocation. By relentlessly driving operational excellence in each of our businesses, we are laying a foundation that enables us to take full advantage of market opportunities. Our recently announced dividend increase and share repurchase program illustrate our confidence that we will continue to grow shareholder value by capitalizing on these activities going forward. And with that, we'd like to open the floor for questions.