Kathryn A. Mikells
Analyst · Barclays
Thanks, Ursula, and good morning, everybody. I'd characterize Q2 as a very solid performance. Overall, Services performed in line with our expectations, and Document Technology came in a bit better. Our leading indicators were positive and cash flow was strong. Let's start with a look at overall earnings. Revenue was up 1%, with growth driven by Services, which was up 5% or 6% at constant currency. We also had a positive contribution from equipment sale revenue, which was up 1%, our highest growth since Q3 2011. Our gross margin of 31.4% was down 120 basis points, driven mainly by mix. The relative growth of our Services segment naturally dilutes gross margin. We also had some negative impact from business line mix within Services and equipment versus supplies and financing mix within Document Technology. I'll cover this a little bit more when we hit the segment slides. RD&E and SAG were both lower year-over-year, benefiting from productivity initiatives, as well as the greater mix of services. Operating margin trends improved, up 200 basis points sequentially, with year-over-year margin contraction slowing to down 50 basis points versus down 110 basis points in Q1. Margin benefited from greater leverage on higher revenues, as well as productivity improvements. There's clearly more work to do, but we were pleased with the progress that we made this quarter, and we understand what's needed in order to keep up the positive trend. Adjusted Other net of $98 million and equity income of $36 million were both modest contributors year-over-year. Within adjusted Other net, there's $33 million of restructuring, which is in line with our guidance and up slightly year-over-year. As part of our ongoing productivity actions, we anticipate a similar level of restructuring in Q3, which is fully incorporated into our adjusted earnings guidance. Our tax rate came in at 24%, which is 2 percentage points higher year-over-year and below our guidance of 28%. Adjusted EPS of $0.27 was up $0.01 from 2012 and above our guidance range of $0.23 to $0.25. Relative to guidance, the overachievement was driven by better operating results, as well as the $0.01 benefit from tax rate below our guidance. So in summary, a relatively clean quarter with good top and bottom line results. Turning now to Services. Services revenue was up 6% overall, with BPO up 4%, Document Outsourcing up 6% and ITO up 13%. BPO growth of 4% reflects strong growth in Healthcare Payer and Pharma and state government, partially offset by the elimination and runoff of our government and commercial student loan businesses. Document Outsourcing growth of 6% was above expectations, supported by a very strong equipment sales growth, as well as Partner Print Services. Finally, ITO continues to grow at an accelerated rate, driven by the ramp of a couple of megadeals that we had in 2011. We expect ITO growth to taper off and return to low-single digits by the fourth quarter. Segment margin was 10.2% in Q2, up 90 basis points sequentially and down 40 basis points year-over-year. Margin was essentially in line with our expectations, reflecting the benefits of productivity initiatives, partially offset by the impact of less-rich mix. As we look forward to the remainder of the year, we expect the pressure from weaker mix to continue, with the largest year-over-year impact from the government student loan runoff occurring in the fourth quarter. Long term, we're taking a number of actions to improve the mix of our portfolio. We're accelerating investments to build more scale in competitively advantaged businesses, with good secular and macro trends. We're adding to our suite of capabilities to create more value for our customers, thereby enabling higher margin, and we're deemphasizing lower margin and low-return niche and noncore businesses. Turning to our key performance metrics. Signings were up 40% year-over-year, and on a trailing 12-month basis, turned positive for the first time in 5 quarters. We continue to have shortening contract length and smaller average deal sizes with no megadeals this quarter. New business ARR and NRR was up 5% year-over-year, and we had good signings contribution across the line of businesses. Our renewal rate was high at 95%, and our pipeline grew 10%, all positive indicators for our future Services performance. So solid results from Services, which we expect to continue into Q3, with revenue growth in the mid-single-digit and modest segment margin improvement year-over-year to roughly 10%. Moving on to Document Technology. Our revenue was down 5% this quarter, improving as anticipated from the 9% decline in Q1. We saw a really good pickup in equipment sale revenue year-over-year, which was up 1% for the total company and down only 2% within Document Technology. This compares favorably to down 11% and 12%, respectively, in Q1. The equipment improvement was driven by the success of our recently launched products in mid-range and high-end and the related strong backlog we had entering Q2. Within mid-range, our recently launched ConnectKey platform has been very well received and resulted in 16% growth in installs of mid-range color MFPs. ConnectKey refers to a software system that's embedded in 16 new multi-functional printers. It provides industry-leading security, more features for mobile users, as well as the ability to customize the MFP to link into business processes. High-end also experienced strong growth in both entry and production color, driven by recently launched products. We feel good about the improving trends in this segment, as color continues to become a larger part of the business and begins to offset the declines in black and white. Finally, in entry, we continue to see good growth in color A4 MFPs. But in total, this segment was down, driven by weaker results in developing markets as well as OEM sales. Overall, Document Technology margin showed a really nice recovery from Q1, up 200 basis points, and at 10.8%, it was at the high end of our target range. The year-over-year decline of 50 basis points was driven by lower supplies and financing mix, with price pressure largely offset by cost and efficiency savings and a modest currency benefit from the weak yen. Looking toward Q3, we're exiting Q2 with a strong backlog, albeit not as high as Q1, and we expect revenue growth to be down mid-single-digits, with margins seasonally lower. So overall, good performance from both Services and Document Technology, which we hope to build on next quarter. With that, let's turn to cash flow. Cash flow from operations was very strong in the quarter. The $533 million in Q2 and $446 million for the first half compares to $228 million and $213 million, respectively, for 2012. Free cash flow was similarly strong at $426 million in Q2 and $232 million for the first half, which compares to a use of $30 million in the first half of 2012. The Q2 improvement in operating cash flow year-over-year was driven by the following: $105 million was from lower defined benefit pension contribution. For the year, we expect cash pension funding to be about $170 million lower, so we saw the large part of that benefit in Q2. Working capital was also better this year, driven largely by accounts payable, which is basically intra-year timing differences. We also saw improvement in other assets and liability lines, which reflects some intra-year timing, as well as lower required Services investments. Partially offsetting those positives was a lower source of cash from finance receivables, which was expected, given the $600 million of finance receivables that we sold last year. Moving down to the cash flow report. Investing from cash flows was a use of $167 million in the quarter. We spent $107 million on CapEx and $81 million on acquisitions. Cash from financing was a use of $427 million and included the retirement of our $400 million senior note in May, as well as $72 million of common dividends, which reflects the 35% increase in the dividend earlier this year. Given the timing of cash flows and the note repayment, we didn't repurchase shares during the quarter. However, we continue to plan on repurchasing at least $400 million worth for the year. Given our first half cash flows and the historical cash flow seasonality of the business, we're very well positioned to hit our full year operating cash flow guidance range of $2.1 billion to $2.4 billion. Moving to the next slide. I'll walk through our capital structure and capital allocation plan. With the $400 million May senior note repayment, we ended the quarter with $8.1 billion of debt, which is down $400 million from the beginning of the year. Applying the 7:1 leverage on financing assets, our allocated financing debt is $4.9 billion, leaving core debt of $3.2 billion. This debt reduction satisfies our minimum target for the year. We continue to expect $1.6 billion to $1.9 billion of free cash flow, and our capital allocation plan, including the debt reduction that I just talked about, remain the same as follows: share repurchases. We continue to view Xerox's shares as an attractive investment, and we plan to repurchase at least $400 million worth of shares this year. Acquisitions. Through the first half, we spent $134 million on acquisitions, and we anticipate doing between $300 million and $500 million. Our pace of Services acquisitions has been slower than planned, which puts a bit of a damper on Services revenue. So this continues to be an area that we're focused on. I feel good about the quality of deals in our pipeline, but I believe it's really important that we remain disciplined in targeting businesses that are a really good fit and at reasonable valuations. And finally, dividends will be a use of about $300 million of cash, which factors in the Q1 quarterly dividend increase to $0.0575 per share. You can see our capital allocation plans are on track, and we remain committed to using our strong free cash flow to deliver value to our shareholders. So before I hand it back to Ursula, I just thought I'd take a minute to give you my perspective on the business, with 3 months now under my belt. One of the reasons that I took this job was my perception of the tremendous opportunity that Xerox has in front of it. In Document Technology, we face a growth-pressured, competitive industry. That said, the industry is very profitable, and we have a good track record of maintaining our advantaged position and maximizing returns. In Services, there's been significant work done to address cost and execution issues, as well as evaluating our portfolio of businesses to shape our business for the future. So I feel like we're in a reasonably good place today. We understand our strengths and our weaknesses and the work in front of us to further transform Xerox. I'm really happy to be on board, and you can count on me playing an active role to ensure Xerox is a success. And with that, back over to you, Ursula.