Belden Inc (BDC) 2012 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. And welcome to this morning's Belden Incorporated conference call. Just a reminder, this call is being recorded. At this time, you are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions). I would now like to turn the call over to Matt Tractenberg. Please go ahead, sir.

Great. Thank you, Vickie. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for Belden's first quarter 2012 earnings conference call. My name is Matt Tractenberg, and I am Belden's Director of Investor Relations.

With me here this morning are John Stroup, President and CEO, and Henk Derksen, CFO. John will provide a strategic overview of our business, and then Henk will provide a detailed review of our financial and operating results, followed by Q&A. We issued our earnings release earlier this morning, and we have prepared a slide presentation that we will reference on this call. The press release and the presentation are available online at investor. Belden.com. Please note, there's no WWW in that web address, just investor. Belden.com.

Turning to slide 2 in the presentation. During this call, management will make certain forward-looking statements. I would like to remind you all that any forward-looking information we provide is given in reliance upon the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The comments we will make today are management's best judgment, based on information currently available. Actual results could differ materially from any forward-looking statements that we make, and the Company disclaims any obligation to update this information to reflect future developments after this call. For a more complete discussion of factors that could have an impact on the Company's actual results, please review today's press release and our annual report on Form 10-K.

During this call, management will reference certain non-GAAP financial information. In accordance with Regulation G, we have provided a reconciliation of the most closely associated GAAP financial information to the non-GAAP financial information we communicate. This reconciliation is in the appendix of the presentation and has been posted separately to the Investor Relations section of our website. I'll now turn the call over to our President and Chief Executive Officer, John Stroup. John?

Thanks, Matt. I'm pleased with our first quarter results, and I want to thank all of our associates for their commitment and execution of our strategic priorities. That includes the global deployment of our market delivery system, lean enterprise, and talent management initiatives.

Please turn to slide 3 in our presentation for a review of our first quarter highlights. We made good progress on margin expansion during the quarter. Our gross margin increased 220 basis points to 30.5%, up from 28.3% during the same period last year and up 210 basis points sequentially. We attribute this to growth in more attractive end markets, price, productivity gains, and improvement in our input costs, which together more than offset the temporary impact of unfavorable product platform mix. I'm also pleased with our free cash flow generation of $5.2 million, a $26.5 million increase over last year, resulting in $370 million in cash and cash equivalents at the quarter's end. This cash balance reflects using $25 million to repurchase shares in the quarter. Our guidance will be discussed at the conclusion of our prepared remarks.

Please turn to slide 4 to review the first quarter income statement. Revenue for the quarter totaled $464.3 million, up $2.7 million, compared to $461.6 million in the first quarter of 2011. Adjusting for acquisitions, currency, and copper, organic revenue growth for the quarter was up approximately 1.4%. I'd like to remind everyone that our customers and channel partners built inventory in the first quarter of 2011 in anticipation of robust demand and the possibility of supply shortages from the natural disaster in Japan. This build, which continued through the third quarter and reversed in the fourth quarter, will affect year-over-year measures throughout the year. After adjusting for last year's first quarter inventory build and the inventory depletion in this year's first quarter, copper adjusted organic revenue growth for the quarter was approximately 5%. This is only slightly below our long-term financial goal of 6% to 8%.

During the quarter, we continued to make progress on our previously stated long-term goal of margin expansion. Operating margin increased to 9.5%, up 40 basis points from 9.1% in the first quarter of 2011 and up 200 basis points sequentially. Our ability to expand margins and achieve 13% earnings growth demonstrates our improved business portfolio and consistent execution. All of us at Belden are pleased with our continued ability to provide shareholders with strong earnings growth in an uncertain environment.

Please turn to slide 5 to review our first quarter revenue mix. During the quarter, we experienced declines in our networking and connectivity platforms which were offset by growth in our cable platform. Year-over-year, organic revenue in our networking and connectivity businesses declined 7.2% and 0.5%, respectively. After adjusting for the channel inventory correction, networking was down approximately 2.5%, and connectivity was up approximately 3.4% year-over-year. We believe the unfavorable product platform mix shift is temporary, driven largely by softer demand in China, where a combination of macroeconomic factors affected this quarter's results. Our networking business, for example, was impacted in the short term by a pause in the Chinese transportation market, created by a major railway accident there last year. A tightening of liquidity by policy makers slowed our sales to the power transmission and distribution market.

Finally, construction equipment sales, which also drive demand for our networking solutions, were off noticeably during the quarter. We believe our product portfolio is solid and the fundamental business drivers are intact. We're executing well, and we expect to see double-digit growth from our industrial networking product line for the current full year. Our cable platform, meanwhile, grew approximately 3.7% year-over-year on an organic copper adjusted basis and approximately 6.3% when adjusting for the inventory correction during the quarter. Despite this temporary impact of unfavorable platform mix, we were pleased to expand gross margins by 220 basis points.

Let's move on to our segments, beginning with Asia Pacific. Revenues declined 12.8% year-over-year, down approximately 9.8% when adjusted for copper and down 5.6% when adjusted for channel inventory. Although admittedly a slow start to the year, we remain optimistic that the manufacturing sector in China will return to its previous levels of growth and demand for our products will resume in the coming quarters, which is supported by a strong current book-to-bill of 1.13 within the region.

Moving on to EMEA. In many cases, our customers incorporate our products in machinery and equipment they build for export to other countries. Our customers in one region, therefore, can be impacted by the economic climate in another. This is what happened in Germany, where the slowdown in China impacted EMEA indirectly by lowering Chinese demand for German exports that contain our products. As recently reported, machinery exports from Germany were down 9%, and China's machinery imports declined 8% year-over-year. These facts support by -- are supported by our own experience during the quarter. EMEA revenues declined year-over-year by approximately 5.5% when adjusted for acquisitions, currency, and copper, and were up 0.7% when adjusted for channel inventory corrections. In addition, we saw challenges in southern Europe due to continued government austerity measures, where revenue declined organically 12.2% year-over-year, partially offset by 10.3% organic growth in the Middle East and Africa.

Let's move on to the Americas segment, which includes the United States, Canada, and Latin America, where we benefited from healthy demand and strong execution. For the quarter, our Americas segment generated revenues of $300 million, an 8.2% increase year-over-year and 3.7% sequentially. After adjusting for acquisitions, currency, and copper, revenues grew approximately 7.2% year-over-year, and after adjusting for channel inventory, revenues grew approximately 9.6% year-over-year. These are clear indicators that our share capture programs are outpacing market growth. We are especially pleased with the 17.6% growth in our industrial business.

We're also gaining share through our M&A process, which produced our year-ago acquisition of Poliron, a leading Brazilian cable company that serves Brazil's emerging industrial end markets. First quarter copper adjusted revenue in Brazil is up by approximately 28% year-over-year, when factoring in Poliron's first quarter 2011 performance on a pro forma basis. This strong performance reflects our expanded product offering within the region and the benefit of a local manufacturing presence. In summary, we saw pronounced differences in performance across segments and regions this quarter. This clearly shows the benefit of having built a globally diversified portfolio.

Turning to slide 6 for our key performance indicators. Inventory turnover was 6.4 in the first quarter. Although turns are flat year-over-year, our finished goods inventory decreased by $16 million, which is a result of lean initiatives to reduce cycle times. Working capital turns were 8.5 for the quarter, a more than 1 full turn improvement year-over-year when we adjust for the impact of the payable for the Polaron acquisition, which was included in our working capital turns in the year-ago period with an impact of 1.5 turns. That completes my portion of today's call. I will now ask Henk to provide additional insight into our first quarter financial performance. Henk?

Thank you, John. I'll start my comments with a detailed review of our income statement, a discussion of our segment results, the balance sheet, and close with our cash flow performance.

Please turn to slide 7. First quarter revenues totaled $464.3 million, up 0.6% year-over-year and flat sequentially. Organic revenue was down 80 basis points year-over-year and up 30 basis points sequentially. Revenues were unfavorably impacted by currency translation of $3.6 million year-over-year and $1 million sequentially, due in part to the unfavorable impact of the euro, partially offset by the favorable impact of the Chinese yuan. Acquisitions completed in 2011 contributed $10.2 million to our first quarter revenue.

Organic revenue on a copper adjusted basis was up approximately 1.4% year-over-year and up 1.6% sequentially. After further adjusting for the channel inventory build of $6 million in the first quarter of 2011 and channel inventory depletion of $9 million in the first quarter of 2012, revenue growth was approximately 5% year-over-year. Gross profit margins increased 220 basis points year-over-year and 210 basis points sequentially. On a currency and copper adjusted basis, gross margins increased 160 basis points year-over-year and increased 120 basis points sequentially when adjusting for the impact of the fourth quarter 2011 restructuring costs. During the first quarter, we benefited from pricing in combination of favorable input costs, with a combined impact of 70 basis points. Productivity had a favorable impact of 50 basis points.

Our ability to sell into more attractive end markets had a favorable impact on gross margins of 90 basis points but was partially offset by the temporarily unfavorable product platform mix experienced in the quarter of 50 basis points. We are pleased with the progress on gross margins and believe this is sustainable, with room for further improvement going forward. First quarter SG&A expense was $83.2 million or 17.9% of revenue, an increase of 170 basis points year-over-year, due largely to strategic investments made during the latter part of 2011 in Brazil to better support coal within emerging markets. R&D expense was $14 million or 3% of revenues, which was flat both year-over-year and sequentially. We continue to make investments in innovation to support long-term product portfolio transformation.

For the first quarter of 2012, we recognized $2.7 million in operating income from equity method investment in our Hirschmann joint venture that services the Chinese crane manufacturing market. The decrease of $1.1 million year-over-year and $1.2 million, sequentially, negatively impacted operating profit margins by 20 and 30 basis points, respectively. These results were driven by a softer construction market in China. I am pleased with the first quarter operating profit margins of 9.5%, up 40 basis points year-over-year and 40 basis points sequentially after adjusting for the fourth quarter 2011 restructuring charges. With the return of favorable mix in the coming quarters, we are confident in our ability to deliver operating margins in the 13% to 15% range by 2013.

The effective tax rate for this quarter was 25.1%. For financial modeling purposes of the second quarter and full year, we suggest using a 25% effective tax rate, which is the rate we incorporated in our guidance that John will discuss in a few moments. Turning to slide 8 for the segment revenue mix. As mentioned earlier on the call, we saw a temporary pause during the first quarter on our product portfolio transformation. We believe this transformation will resume in the second quarter and is one of the most important drivers of achieving our long-term financial goals.

Turning to slide 9 for segment results. We continue to view our business as a diversified portfolio with exposure to distinct end markets and geographies, each subject to unique drivers. This allows balance across the business and less volatility stemming on concentration in any one specific region. As a result of changes to our internal reporting structure and in our efforts to continuously improve transparency, income from our joint venture, which was previously recorded within our EMEA segment, will no longer be included in the segment results. Prior-year results for the segments have been adjusted to reflect this change. We believe this presentation allows for an improved benchmarking to both internal and external comparables.

In our Americas segment, external revenues totaled $299.6 million, affiliate sales were $10.1 million, and total revenues were $309.7 million. First quarter external revenues increased 8.2% year-over-year and 3.7% sequentially. After adjusting for the effects of acquisitions and currency, year-over-year revenues increased by 5.2% and approximately 7.2% after adjusting for copper. After further adjusting for the effects of channel inventory, revenues in the Americas grew by 9.6% year-over-year. During the first quarter, the Americas were able to exceed our long term organic growth range of 6% to 8%. First quarter 2012 operating income was $36.3 million or 11.7% of revenue, up 90 basis points year-over-year and up 70 basis points sequentially. The improved year-over-year operating margins were driven primarily by leverage on growth, in combination with stronger demands in our more attractive industrial end markets.

In our EMEA segment, first quarter 2012 external revenues totaled $94.1 million, affiliate sales were $27.5 million, and total revenues were $121.6 million. External revenues decreased 9.2% year-over-year and increased 1.8% sequentially. After adjusting for acquisitions, currency, and copper, revenues declined 5.5% year-over-year and increased approximately 5.5% sequentially. Operating income in the first quarter 2012 was $17.4 million or 14.3%, up 340 basis points year-over-year, largely driven by improvement in productivity gains in our industrial connector business. When adjusting for the fourth quarter 2011 restructuring costs, operating margins declined by 150 basis points. Given the challenging environment, mainly caused by macroeconomic conditions, the team is executing well, as evidenced by their ability to achieve operating margins within our long-term range of 13% to 15%.

In our Asia Pac segment, first quarter external revenues totaled $70.5 million, affiliate sales were approximately $600,000, and total revenues were $71.1 million. First quarter external revenues were down 12.8% year-over-year and down 15.1% sequentially. After adjusting for currency, copper, and channel inventory, revenues declined approximately 5.6% year-over-year, largely as a result of softer demand in consumer electronics and industrial end markets in China. As mentioned by John, we believe that this impact is temporary in nature, as evidenced by our strong first quarter book-to-bill of 1.13. First quarter operating income was $4.6 million or 6.6%, down 120 basis points year-over-year and up almost 80 basis points sequentially, when adjusting for restructuring cost in the fourth quarter of 2011. This year-over-year decline was a result of lower revenue. As we discussed on our fourth quarter call, our goal is to evaluate our strategic options for our consumer electronics business and restore segment profitability to acceptable levels. While it's clear there's work to be done, I'm confident in our ability to achieve this goal in the current year.

If you'll please turn to slide 10, I'll begin with our balance sheet highlights. Cash and cash equivalents totaled $370 million at the end of the first quarter, down $12.7 million on the fourth quarter after funding $25 million to support our share repurchase program and up $46.9 million year-over-year. Working capital turnover was 8.5 turns this quarter, down 2 turns on the fourth quarter, which is consistent with seasonal patterns, and down 0.3 turns year-over-year. When adjusting for the impact of the Poliron acquisition purchase price included in our first quarter 2011 working capital balance, working capital turns improved by 1.2 turns year-over-year. Days sales outstanding was 57 days in the first quarter, a 1-day improvement from 58 days in the fourth quarter and an 8 day improvement year-over-year, a clear indicator of the progress we've made in the area of accounts receivable collection. Based upon strong current cash position and the liquidity available under the unused current facility, we currently have approximately $620 million of dry powder available to pursue M&A opportunities in combination with the share repurchase program.

Please turn to slide 11 for a few cash flow highlights. Cash flow from operating activities was $12.7 million in the first quarter, compared to negative $15.6 million in the year-ago period. Net capital expenditures totaled $7.5 million, compared to $5.7 million in the year-ago period. Free cash flow of $5.2 million for the first quarter increased by $26.5 million year-over-year, a significant improvement, largely as a result of our lean orientation. Our free cash flow generation funds our strategic initiatives, and we fully expect to achieve our annual goal of free cash flow in excess of that income.

As we indicated in the second quarter 2011 earnings release, our Board of Directors authorized a $150 million share repurchase program. This program is open-ended. In the first quarter, we purchased 640,816 shares of Belden common stock for $25 million under this authorization, totaling 2.28 million shares repurchased on this program, at an average price of $32.95 per share. This leaves $75 million remaining available under this program. That completes my prepared remarks. I would now like to turn this call back to our CEO, John Stroup, for the outlook and his closing comments. John?

Thank you, Henk. Please turn to slide 12 for our outlook regarding the second quarter and full year 2012 results. We expect to build upon the strong margins of the first quarter with seasonally higher revenue and favorable product platform mix in the second quarter. Therefore, we expect our second quarter 2012 revenues to be between $500 million and $510 million and income from continuing operations per diluted share to be between $0.73 and $0.78. For the full year 2012, the Company expects revenues to be between $1.98 billion and $2.02 billion and income from continuing operations per diluted share to be between $2.75 and $2.90. This guidance implies stronger year-over-year organic growth in the second half than the first, based primarily on the relative customer and channel inventory dynamic experienced one year ago. The full year implied copper adjusted organic growth is between 3% and 5%. That concludes our prepared remarks. Vickie, please open the call to questions.

Thank you. (Operator Instructions). We'll take our first question from Matt McCall with BB&T Capital Markets.

Thank you. Good morning, everybody.

Hi, Matt.

Good morning, Matt.

So, looking at the SG&A line, I think, Henk, you gave some color, I believe, in your remarks about the year-over-year impact. But when I look at SG&A sequentially, basically a flat top line -- now, I know there are multiple adjustments that I could make there, so maybe it's part of the explanation -- but a flat top line, yet SG&A up about $2 million, 40 basis points of deleverage. Can you really -- can you help us understand that and then help us understand how we should model SG&A for the remainder of the year?

Thank you for your question, Matt. First quarter 2012 includes a build of strategic investments, most notably in Brazil. And that builds about $4 million year-over-year. The sequential impact of that investment is about $1 million, and our $83.2 million of SG&A costs in the first quarter included $1 million of severance costs, as well. Going forward, modeling in the range of $83 million to $84 million using a half-rate convention would be the guidance I would like to provide you.

Okay, very helpful. And then similarly, looking sequentially in EMEA, just trying to understand the dynamic here from a profitability perspective. $92 million and some change in Q4 goes to $94 in Q1, yet profitability goes from 24 to 17. You talked about some inventory depletion in the channel. Maybe you can just help me understand the negative contribution margin there.

Sure. So, if you take fourth quarter results in EMEA and you adjust for the JV income that we currently report outside of our segments as indicated, our operating profit margins were about 15.8% in addition to the restructuring cost exclusion. That is down about 150 basis points. We saw some lower demand in our industrial networking business, as indicated by John, mainly driven by softer demand in China, which incurred about 150 basis points in favorable mix on a sequential basis.

Okay. So that was specifically -- I was speaking specifically about EMEA. Did I just miss the answer there? So, I show a lower margin sequentially. Is my math off?

I think you have to adjust for a joint venture income that we previously reported as part of our EMEA segment. That impact, Matt, is about 300 basis points on the OP margins of EMEA.

Okay, got it. I'll maybe follow-up with you to make sure my numbers are right.

Matt, this is John. The other comment that Henk had about slowing demand in China, remember there's an inter-Company affiliate revenue and margin from EMEA to APAC for China revenue.

Got it, got it. And then, maybe for you, John. You gave that assumed organic growth assumption or number in your guidance range in your guidance of 3% to 5%. Can you talk about the expectations on a segment basis and/or on a product basis and give us an idea how you're looking at the progression of the year?

Sure. I think we're going to see a meaningful improvement in Asia from Q1 to Q2. And we're pretty confident that's going to happen, based on the order pattern in March and the order pattern in April. We started seeing tightening in liquidity last year in Asia, so we expected that this was going to happen. I think that that's going to get corrected here in the second half, so I would expect significant improvement in the Asia business starting in Q2. That's probably the big benefit.

I think the Americas business is probably going to continue performing the way it did in Q1, which is great performance. We don't see any slowdown there. I think that Europe is going to be tough. I think that we're already seeing softness in southern Europe. I think most people expected that.

Germany is probably going to get more affected by China demand, which is probably positive towards the second half. And I think from a product line point of view, we fully expect that our networking business is going to see double-digit or close to double-digit organic growth for the full year. And given the fact that we're actually down slightly year-over-year in Q1 means that it's even stronger growth on Q2 through Q4. And like I said, in China, I would fully expect strong sequential growth in the industrial networking business from Q1 to Q2.

Thank you all.

Thank you, Matt.

We'll take the next question from Shawn Harrison with Longbow Research.

Good morning, everyone.

Good morning, Shawn.

Just wanted to, I guess, delve into the enterprise cabling business, just wanted to be certain that the inventory correction there is past. And maybe if you could just talk about competitive dynamics, how much share you think you're winning in that market.

So, on the inventory side, we did see further draw in inventory in Q1. We saw it in Q4, and we saw more in Q1. It's our expectation that we'll not see a draw in Q2, and that's based on our POS forecast, and it's based on the inventory turnover targets that our channel partners have. So, our view is in Q2, there won't be a draw in inventory, and it might be a slight build. And if it's a build, it wouldn't be a change in turnover, it would be just a build to keep the turnover consistent.

In terms of competitive dynamics, I think the first quarter was actually kind of a tough quarter for demand on enterprise. We heard that from our channel partners. We heard that from some of our competitors. I would say that the pricing dynamic hasn't really changed very much. I think we're taking share where we've been real specific in our approach. You know that we've been going strong after data centers, particularly low- to medium-size data centers. We've been winning there nicely. I think our team's done a good job growing share there.

If you look at our enterprise business, we actually had pretty good growth in EMEA, although on a small basis. And we had good growth in Americas in our enterprise business. So, I'm not expecting any significant uplift in end market demand, but I'm also not expecting that the competitive environment is going to change dramatically. I think its been this way for the last two to three years.

Okay. And then, just following up in terms of significant amount of dry powder still. If you can maybe just speak to what does the M&A environment look like? Is pricing favorable to you? Just any additional color in terms of how we would expect dry powder to be spent over the next 12 to 24 months.

Yes. So, our funnel is pretty active right now. We've got a number of opportunities we're pursuing within our three stated objectives -- networking, connectivity, and emerging markets. We've deployed more resources towards that initiative. We've increased the amount of people that we have in business development that are working that funnel globally. We have a number of active projects that are very attractive.

On the pricing side, I think that the market is going to continue to be competitive on M&A, but we're always going to remain disciplined, as we did with the RuggedCom opportunity in Q4. And I think that, clearly, the thing that we think we have going for us is when we price deals, we're pretty confident that we can improve the working capital environment. We're getting increasingly confident in our ability to generate revenue synergies, and that can create a competitive advantage for us. So, I'm pretty optimistic that the M&A environment is going to be a good one for us this year.

Thanks so much.

Thank you, Shawn.

And we'll now go to Anthony Kure with KeyBanc.

Hi. Good morning, gentlemen.

Good morning.

Just a quick clarification, if I missed it. The total dollar amount of inventory destocking you have factored into the first quarter impact, do you have that figure if I missed it?

$9 million, Tony.

Okay, thanks. With the networking, I think -- and correct me if I'm wrong, is that the first time that product group has ever been down in a quarter year-over-year?

I think it's the first time since Q1 09.

Okay.

We've had a really, really good string, and we had a great Q1 a year ago. A lot of projects came in, especially in Asia, a year ago in Q1. And we had some projects push out into Q2 this year, so yes, it's the first time this has happened in quite some time.

So I guess if I extend that logic along the double-digit growth expectation for the full year, you mentioned the strong book-to-bill for this business or the strong book-to-bill in Asia and some of the other things that you have as positive indicators. But I guess that implies maybe even accelerating growth. How long is the visibility in your order book that gives you confidence that you can look out the full year on the industrial networking side?

So, I have backlog coming into Q2. I've got a project funnel that extends through Q4. Project time frame on an INET project is typically six to nine months, so I've got pretty good visibility. Obviously, my Q1 guidance included my expectations that there was going to be softness in networking, so I've got pretty good visibility. The thing that we look at very carefully here is making certain that there aren't going to be any shifts in the secular trends, and we don't see any.

Ethernet is still the preferred and pervasive communication protocol in the factory environment. We're obviously seeing some slowdown in China in intelligent transportation because of the railway disaster, but they need subways in China, they need trains in China, urbanization is happening. Factory automation is still going pretty well. So, we've got reasonably good visibility in our networking sector, I would say as good if not better than we do in any of the other product categories. And then the other thing, of course, is a lot of our volume goes through our partners, large global account partners. And we've got great relationships with them to understand their programs. So, we've got reasonable confidence in our forecast going forward.

Great, that's helpful. And then Henk, I think you mentioned you expect Asia to get back to historic operating margins this year. What would you consider historic margins? Are we talking low double-digits again?

Low double-digits would be the expectation. That's correct, Tony, that those are acceptable levels for the current business in Asia Pac.

And is that for the year or at some point this year?

During the year, at some point this year.

Okay. And then, last question is, you also mentioned, Henk, or sort of reiterated that the operating margin or EBIT margin expectations, 13% to 15%. Does that still go hand in hand with the 6% to 8% organic growth?

Yes, absolutely. Those are two of our four stated long-term financial goals. And with all that platform mix coming back in Q2, we expect sequential improvements in our gross profit margins.

Yes. I want to reinforce that, just so there isn't any confusion, there's absolutely no intention on our end to lower the organic growth goal so that we can achieve the operating margin goal. Those two goals remain in place.

Great. Thanks so much.

(Operator Instructions). We'll now go to Jeff Beach with Stifel Nicolaus.

Good morning, John and Henk.

Good morning, Jeff.

You gave us the book-to-bill in Asia. Can you give us the book-to-bill in the Americas and EMEA? And then specifically, can you give more color on some of the end markets in EMEA, geography as well as some of the product end markets?

Yes, so Henk is going to look up the book-to-bill for you, Jeff. Let me answer the latter question. So, in the EMEA in the first quarter, the business that was down was our industrial business. That was down almost 10% on a metal adjusted basis. And that had a lot to do with slowing demand of machinery from China to Germany. Our industrial connector business was down in the first quarter.

The enterprise business was actually up a little bit, up about 9% year-over-year, and our broadcast business was up about 10% year-over-year in EMEA. So, we did a pretty good job in those businesses. Now, they are smaller as a percentage of total, but we did a pretty good job, and I think that mainly the work of our team. From a geographic point of view, our business was down about 10% in southern Europe. That includes Italy, Spain, France, those would be the big markets. And we saw growth of about 12% in the Middle East and Africa.

So, not surprisingly, the Middle East and Africa is growing. Not surprisingly, government austerity is having a negative impact on growth in southern Europe. And the situation in Germany, I think, is more a matter of China, which we think is temporary.

Jeff, book-to-bill for EMEA during the first quarter was 1, continuing into April at 1.03. For the Company on a consolidated basis, we saw book-to-bill of 1.04.

And how about the Americas?

It was one for the first quarter. One flat.

Okay. Thank you.

You're welcome.

And there are no other questions, so I'd like to turn it back to Matt Tractenberg for any additional or closing remarks.

Thank you, Vickie. That's going to conclude our call for today. If you have further questions, please reach out to the IR team here at Belden. Thank you, everyone, for joining our call today. Have a great day.

Thank you very much. That does conclude our conference for today. You may now disconnect.