Kathy Mikells
Analyst · Cross Research
Thanks, Ursula and good morning everyone. I will start with an overview of our financial performance before moving into a more detailed discussion of the segment. As announced two weeks ago, this quarter we reported a pre-tax charge of $389 million or $241 million after tax, reflecting that we no longer expect to fully complete the health enterprise platform projects in California and in Montana. This decision will improve Xerox’s future financial performance as these implementations were generating losses and will remove an element of risk and volatility in the business. Accordingly, I will provide results and growth rates, adjusting for the charge to give better visibility to the underlying business performance in the quarter. Our bottom line results were within our third quarter guidance with revenues a bit softer and profitability generally in line with our expectations. Total revenue in the quarter was down 7% at actual currency and 4% at constant currency. Services was flat at constant currency as growth in document outsourcing offset a 1% decline in BPO. Document Technology declined 9% at constant currency and was impacted by increasing weakness in developing markets. Gross margin of 30.9% was down 130 basis points year-over-year, driven by a lower technology equipment gross margin as well as the greater mix of services, which carries the lower margin. RD&E was slightly lower year-over-year. SAG in absolute dollars was down 9%. SAG as a percent of revenue was better by 40 basis points helped by currency and on our ongoing productivity initiatives as well as lower compensation and benefit expense. Our third quarter operating margin of 8.7% decreased 90 basis points year-over-year and operating profit declined 16%. Over 40% of the operating profit decline was driven by currency and developing markets. Moving down the income statement, adjusted other net expense was $8 million lower year-over-year driven by lower restructuring costs. Equity income was $40 million in the quarter, down $4 million year-over-year, driven in part by the continued impact of negative translation currency. Our third quarter adjusted tax rate of 24.6% was at the low end of our guidance range of 25% to 27%. Our third quarter adjusted EPS was at the top of our guidance range at $0.24. I will now move on to discuss our operational performance in Services. Services revenue declined 3% and was flat at constant currency. BPO was down 1%, consistent with the second quarter, reflecting the headwind from last year’s larger contract losses, lower inorganic contribution as well as lower new contract ramp from softer signings in previous quarters. Good growth continues in document outsourcing up 3%, driven by strong Xerox Partner print services growth as well as good equipment revenue growth in enterprise accounts from recent strong signings. Total signings in the quarter were down 7%, but are up 5% on a trailing 12-month basis. New business signings were down 9% year-over-year as growth in document outsourcing was more than offset by declines in BPO. Our go-to-market investments and move to industry business groups are beginning to result in good growth and shorter sales cycle offerings such as customer care, but we have yet to see a pickup in higher value longer sales cycle offerings. Our renewal rate in the quarter was 89%, which was at the high end of our target range of the 85% to 90% and reflects continued overall good customer retention. Turning to margin, segment margin was 8.1%, in line with our expectations for sequential improvement from 7.5% in the second quarter. Margin was down 100 basis points year-over-year, reflecting investments in resources and in our new Services operating model, negative business mix within BPO as well as higher overhead as we work to lean out cost following the ITO divestiture. We continue to expect productivity from operational initiatives and our recent restructuring to yield increasing benefits in the fourth quarter. I will now turn to Document Technology. Document Technology revenue in the quarter was down 9% at constant currency. Developing market weakness, including negative currency accelerated in the third quarter contributing more than one-third of the constant currency revenue decline. Also contributing to the decline in the third quarter was high end revenue. After good equipment growth in the second quarter, high end was weaker in the third quarter, reflecting in part timing of product launches, including our recently announced iGen 5, which had helped us drive improvement in the fourth quarter. From a total printing perspective, combining Document Technology with document outsourcing, revenue has been fairly stable, down 5% in the third quarter and down 4% year-to-date at constant currency. Turning to activity, we saw a strong growth in entry A4 color, driven by new products, relatively stable results in mid-range, but weaker installs and mix of products in high end. Document Technology margin of 12.8% was down year-over-year, but within our full year guidance of 11% to 13%. Year-over-year drivers include negative equipment mix given better A4 results and the anticipated higher pension expense, partially offset by lower compensation and benefit expense. We continued to actively manage our cost base to ensure alignment to revenue trends. So in closing, Doc Tech revenues were slightly lower than expected, but profitability remained strong. Turning now to cash, cash flow from operations was $271 million in the quarter, which was lower than prior year cash flow of $595 million. The decline year-over-year reflects lower profits in Document Technology with the two largest drivers being continued negative currency impact and developing market’s weakness, lower profits in Services driven by margin decline as well as the expected loss of cash flow from the ITO business following the divestiture. Additionally, working capital was the use of cash due to timing of vendor payments as well as lower demand and timing of shipments impacting inventory. The health enterprise charge in the third quarter had a negligible impact on cash in the period and we anticipate the approximate $225 million of cash outflows will be spread over time. Moving down the cash flow statement, investing cash flows were $206 million use, driven by $65 million spent on CapEx and $153 million on acquisition. Cash flow from financing was an $888 million used which included $691 million spent on share repurchases and $90 million used for preferred and common stock dividend. And our cash balance at the end of the quarter was just over $800 million. So cash flow in the third quarter was impacted by lower operating profit as well as working capital timing. Now I will review our capital structure. We ended the third quarter with $7.6 billion in debt. Applying seven to one leverage on customer financing assets, our allocated financing debt at the end of the third quarter was $3.9 billion, leaving core debt of $3.7 billion. In the fourth quarter, we are now anticipating an additional $200 million debt reduction, which will bring our year end debt level to approximately $7.4 billion, a $350 million debt reduction for the year. This reduction will help to offset the impact to our credit metrics from lower earnings and the reduction in our financing assets. Overall, we continue to manage our capital structure to maintain credit metrics consistent with our investment grade rating. I will now hand it back to Ursula to discuss capital allocation and guidance.