CNH Industrial NV (CNHI) 2003 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good day everyone and welcome to the CNH full year results conference call.

Hosting the call today will be Mr. Michel Lecomte, CFO;

Mr. Giovanni Maggiora, VP and Treasurer; and Mr. Al Trefts, Senior Director IR and Corporate Finance.

At this time I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Trefts.

Please go ahead sir.

Thank you Mary.

Welcome everyone to CNH's fourth quarter and full year 2003 results webcast conference call.

We are pleased to have with us today Michel Lecomte, our CFO;

Harold Boyanovsky, our President of the Worldwide Construction Equipment business;

Mr. Rich Christman, President of our Agriculture North American, Australian and New Zealand business; and Giovanni Maggiora, our Treasurer.

We will all be available for the Q&A session.

In a few moments Michel will offer management's comments on our results.

Then we will be able to answer your questions.

First I must say that in recognition of Regulation FD, we have provided public earnings guidance in this morning's press release which will be elaborated on in today's call.

After this call, earnings guidance will not be updated until CNH issues another public press release on the subject.

Also, we may be making some forward looking statements during the course of today's presentation planned in answering your questions.

Please refer to this morning's press release for a discussion of the important risk factors and uncertainties in the company's businesses that are subject to change and could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations today.

Finally, this conference call and webcast and their contents are the property of CNH Global NV and are not to be re-recorded or re-broadcast without our express written permission.

Now I will turn the microphone over to Michel.

Thank you Al and hello again everyone.

I am on slide four.

As usual, let us start with the review of the market conditions and our performance in the quarter.

In the fourth quarter, Agricultural tractor industry sales increased substantially in North America, due to the continuing strength of the under 40hp segment and to about a 10% increase in the over 40hp segment.

Western Europe was down but less than what we expected.

Latin America was significantly down for AG tractors due to limited government funding for financing programs.

On the other hand, combine sales in Latin America were exceptionally strong.

Now moving to CNH retail performance.

Our under 40hp tractor sales remained basically flat due to our limited presence in the rapidly growing under 20hp segment.

Over 40hp tractor unit sales increased versus last year, due to the strength in the rest of the world markets.

While in both North America and Western Europe, CNH tractor sales were down, due partially to the limited availability of certain new models.

Nonetheless, for the full year our worldwide tractor market share was basically unchanged.

For combines, where we enjoy higher margins, our market share increased substantially in both North American and Western Europe.

While in Latin American, our combine sales were up in line with the market.

Turning to construction equipment on slide five.

We see that total worldwide industry sales of heavy and light equipment increased by 17% in for the fourth quarter of 2002.

Sales in Latin America were down moderately and Western Europe was flat, while North America industry sales went up considerably.

Industry sales of heavy equipment were up from a worldwide basis, led by strong sales in North America and also in Asia, where we have a limited presence.

In Europe, industry sales of heavy equipment were down slightly, while in Latin America industry sales of heavy equipment were up slightly.

Worldwide industry sales, unit sales of light equipment were also strong in the quarter, due to significant gains in North America.

In Western Europe, higher industry sales of other light equipment more than offset the declines in skid steer loaders and loader backhoes.

In [inaudible] product particularly, the industry sales of backhoes were up significantly.

The declines in Western Europe and Latin America were more than offset by substantial gains in North America and rest of the world market.