Carlisle Companies Inc (CSL) 2010 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good day and welcome to the Hawk Corporation's Earnings Conference Call.

Today's conference is being recorded.

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

Ron Weinberg.

Please go ahead.

Thank you very much and good morning everyone.

The purpose of this call is to discuss our 2010 first quarter financial results.

And conducting the call today is myself, Ron Weinberg; Chris DiSantis, President and COO of the company; and Tom Gilbride, Vice President of Finance.

As you probably know, we released earnings today for the first quarter.

During our call, we'll review the financials and give you an operating report on the business.

And after that, as we customarily do, we'll open the call to questions.

I'd like to remind you that statements made during this call, which are not historical facts, may be considered forward-looking statements.

Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those expressed or implied.

For further information concerning issues that could materially affect financial performance related to forward-looking statements, please refer to our quarterly earnings releases and periodic filings with the SEC.

Well, we're very pleased with the quarter.

Our sales that we reported are $53.4 million, up from $44 million, which is a 20% increase.

Our operating income went up 86% from the comparable quarter last year, and our net income went from $1.6 million for the quarter last year to 3.8% [sic] this year, a dramatic increase.

And we posted earnings per share of $0.45.

So as you'd suspect from this, we have begun to benefit from the recovery, and we are optimistic that it will continue through the year.

We always pose a degree of caution with that.

As we're looking forward, we're certainly pleased with what we see right now.

In addition, through the quarter, we have continued our stock buyback program.

We had one, which commenced in November of '08, and we spent about $15 million in stock repurchases.

And then the board approved a new plan as of February 19th, which we executed through this past quarter, but not in completion--about $3.6 million worth.

So those are some high points.

At this point, I want to turn the call over to Chris DiSantis.

He'll give you further operating and financial report.

Thank you, Ron.

I'll go through a little bit more detail on those revenue numbers and then provide some commentary on the markets.

The sales for the first quarter of 2010 at $53.4 million were up $9.1 million or 20.5% from 2009.

And the way that that breaks down is volume contributed 21.4 points; foreign exchange, 1.5 points; and pricing, negative 2.4 points to that growth.

The primary contributor to volume growth was the mining and construction segment, led by strong results with Caterpillar.

The negative variance in pricing was a result of pricing surcharge reductions to our customers that are based on the changes in the underlying associated commodity prices.

In terms of market comparatives, mining and construction, our largest segment, was up 54.6% in the first quarter of 2010, driving this segment to 46.5% of our total sales.

Sales were particularly strong in this segment, given the replenishment in the inventory pipeline, new programs that we launched from past year [MBAs] and share taken from our competitors.

The aircraft and defense segment was down 29.1% as a result of falling military sales due to the government working down inventory levels.

No market share was lost.

Our sales in military can by highly cyclical from quarter-to-quarter, given how the government manages their purchases.

As a result, this combined segment decreased to 17.8% of our total sales.

Agriculture was up about 14% and maintained roughly the same percentage of sales as last year as the global economy improved.

Heavy truck was up 23.9% due to increased vehicle builds on the OE side and increased freight mileage overall.

And direct aftermarket sold through our VelveTouch and Hawk Performance brands was up 10.5%.

Performance aftermarket, which is a subset of that direct aftermarket segment where disc break pads for fleet, street, and racing or so, did very well, increasing by 28.4%, as a result of new product introductions, shorter lead times and selling more products via internet retailers.

Finally, alternative energy, our fuel cell business, albeit still a small slice of the pie at 2.9% of our sales, is up 460.7% versus the same period in the prior year.

This was a result of not only selling more units, but also in offering cell stack components with more value-add operations.

So we remain particularly bullish on this segment of the business.

Sales from foreign facilities increased to 31.1% of the total sales in the first quarter of this year compared to 27.9% in the first quarter last year.

Specifically, sales in our Italian facility in euros were up 24%, and sales in our China facility and R&D were up 94.3%.

It was nice to see a comeback in these facilities as they were the ones most negatively impacted by the downturn in 2009.

We had strong margins in the first quarter, which Tom will talk more about as he goes through the income statement.

Basically what happened is we made a lot of cost reductions in 2009 during the downturn, and we're going to carry some of that favorability into 2010 through an improved fixed-cost basis.

And we really leveraged it with the sales increase in the first quarter.

Strategically looking to the future, we're very optimistic on India.

All our major customers have India plans are giving the domestic growth expected in trucking, agriculture and infrastructure development.

We're taking a conservative approach, going as far as to qualify sub-suppliers prior to committing to a land purchase, so we know we have a viable supply chain in place.

This is particularly important in India given the logistical challenges of outsourcing.

We expect to purchase land this year and complete construction of a new facility and be manufacturing product by the end of 2011.

We completed the acquisition of our steel core supplier, Sangte, in China in the first quarter and the integration is going well.

We don't expect any large improvement to earnings as a result.

By getting control over our most critical supplier that we believe we've abated a lot of risk and have positioned ourselves better for growth in the future for a relatively small investment.

We've raised our outlook for 2010.

We remain cautiously optimistic.

The reason I used the word 'cautiously' is that it is difficult to determine right now how much of the sales increase we're seeing is being driven by real and consumer demand versus overall inventory replenishment in the pipeline.

I'll now turn it over to our VP of Finance, Tom Gilbride, to talk in more detail about the financial results.

Thanks, Chris.

As both Chris and Ron have indicated, sales did increase in the quarter by 20.5% to $53.4 million compared to the first quarter of 2009.

Chris gave you the details as it related to that increase.

But I think in summary, what we saw was that virtually all of our markets saw improvement as well as for all of our global facilities provided improvements in that sales increase.

As we look at our gross profit margins, they increased to 32.2% in the first quarter of 2010 compared to 27.1% in 2009.

So we saw a significant increase in margins during the quarter.

The primary reason for the improvement was the positive impact of the higher production volumes that went through all of our facilities, resulting in a higher absorption of overhead.

And additionally, as Chris indicated, we did initiate cost structure improvements throughout the organization in 2009, and those improvements are benefiting us as we go through 2010.

But one of the slight offsets to this improvement is a result of products mix issues during the quarter.

Specifically, as Chris did indicate, we did see a reduction in aircraft and defense sales during the quarter.

Our SG&A expenses as a percent of sales fell to 16.7% in the first quarter of 2010 compared to 16.9% in the first quarter of 2009.

In absolute dollars, our SG&A was $8.9 million in the first quarter compared to $7.5 million in 2009.

The primary driver of this increase was our incentive compensation expense.

And as you are all aware this program goes across the board to all employees, and it was driven in response to our improved profitability in the first quarter of 2010 compared to 2009.

This incentive comp increase accounted for virtually 100% of the total dollar value increase in SG&A.

Interest expense in the first quarter of 2010 was down slightly.

And this is due to the repurchase of $10 million of senior notes by us in November of 2009.

We disclosed in our first quarter 10-Q this morning that we didn't -- we purchased an additional $2.5 million of senior notes during the first quarter or yesterday, so it's a subsequent event, but we did make an opportunistic purchase of additional senior notes.

Our effective income tax rate is 35.7% in 2010 compared to our first quarter of 2009 rate of 37%.

The improvement in the rate is due to the mix of earnings between our various domestic and foreign facilities.

We are pleased to report that as a result, net income was $3.7 million for the first quarter of 2010 compared to $1.6 million in the first quarter of 2009.

Our diluted earnings per share are $0.45 for the first quarter compared to $0.17 for the first quarter of 2009.

Turning to the balance sheet, there were really no significant changes in the balance sheet during the first three months of 2010.

A couple of items that I will highlight, we did see cash and investments decline by $3.9 million; however, this decline -- we used a significant cash for a number of programs.

We spent $3.9 million for stock repurchases.

We spent $1.5 million for a senior note consent fee, payment to the senior noteholders during the first quarter.

$3.4 million was in semi-annual interest payment that was made in January.

And approximately $4.5 million was made in incentive comp payments related to the 2009 year paid in March of 2010.

So significant outflows of cash.

This was offset by cash flows from operations, positive cash flows from operations during the period.

Receivables, inventories and payables were all up.

However, this was in response to increased sales volumes during the quarter.

There is no deterioration in the quality of these working capital assets as we look at March 31, 2010.

Chris briefly touched on guidance.

We are increasing our revenue guidance to between $200 million and $210 million from our original guidance of $190 million to $200 million based on the current sales strength being experienced.

We're looking at 16% to 21.8% increase over our 2009 reported results of $172.4 million.

Operating income is increasing to $23 million to $25 million.

This is an increase from our 2009 reported results of 37% to 49.7%.

Our effective tax rate we're reducing to approximately 36% from our original guidance of 40%, as our expected mix of earnings between domestic and foreign operations settles in.

As I indicated, we spent $3.9 million in stock repurchases during the period.

$3.6 million was spent under the Company's new $25 million stock repurchase plan.

We have $21.4 million available for our future purchases under this plan.

And with that, I'll turn it back over to Ron.

Okay.

Thank you, Tom.

And at this point, we will be glad to take questions from any of the listeners.

(Operator Instructions).

Our first question comes from Eli Lustgarten with Longbow Research.

Please go ahead.

Eli, are you there?

Yes, I'm here.

Let's go ahead.

I'm on mute, I'm sorry.

Good morning, terrific quarter.

I wish you guys had picked a better date to announce.

Yes.

Market is down 244 at the moment.

Anyway.

Maybe it'll be a bellwether for us.

Well, hopefully, guys.

But as far as bellwether, you had a wonderful first quarter, and to cut to the chase, the guidance suggests lower sales through the rest of the year than this quarter.

And that -- we can argue be pretty close -- I guess this quarter will be pretty close to what we've seen.

But materially lower operating income than the 15%, [51 probably] is what we saw in the quarter.

In order to get to -- the operating -- EBITDA forecast to $23 million to $25 million, you've got to be almost 10% to 12% kind of margins instead of a 15%-plus more I can see.

Give us some idea of what you'll be thinking, do we expect that, or is that just conservatism at this point?

It's a little bit conservatism.

We're being cautiously optimistic for the balance of the year.

One of the things that happened is that as we rolled from 2009 into 2010, the comeback in demand came very, very fast and very sudden.

And when you have a leaned our cost structure, and you automatically start getting increased orders.

It tends to be really good pull-through on this for sales that come through.

And then as you slowly start to replenish the cost base -- we've hired a lot of people, put a lot of people back to the organization, kind of put ourselves back on a growth track.

We sort of phased those costs back in over the quarter.

So we're expecting them to have more of a full quarter's impact going forward for the balance of the year.

And there is some you could call modest price pressure from a variety of different customers.

So a little bit of that is reflected in there too.

You had material cost pressure.

So that's a big bugaboo for the second half of the year that most people have.

Is that part of the price pressures you're talking about?

You're worried about getting recovery, or is that something you have to deal with in the second half of the year?

Some of this is a lag frankly from last year.

We've positioned ourselves theoretically that we're not in the commodity business.

We try and match commodity pricing to customers.

But you can get lags of different sorts.

I guess -- yes, I know you don't -- you just give annual guidance.

But is there any reason why your second quarter wouldn't be relatively similar, maybe a little bit lower, but similar to the first quarter?

In other words -- I mean I expect (inaudible) you don't have the full build-up effect of inventory due to some of these cost pressures, but you should be -- is that reasonable to expect that the second quarter would be reasonably closer to the first quarter and that if there is a slow-up in the second half of the year?

Yes, you said it right.

We don't give quarterly guidance.

We try and avoid that.

You know, it's a great question, but let us defer on that one.

Well you know that-- I mean the big game was construction and mining, and that was, you know, Caterpillar talked a lot about the [build-up effect], you know, really building up supply chain, even though their production is just starting to go up.

Have you seen a change in the level of orders in construction and mining at this point from the first quarter, not the percentage gain, but the level of activity that you're seeing in the second quarter in C&M versus the first quarter?

We don't get perfect visibility throughout the, you know, balance of the year from all the major accounts.

And it tends to be volatile.

I mean our customers are very good at changing their requirements on a week-to-week, even day-to-day basis sometimes.

So we have to do a lot of estimating, you know, I mean on our own behalf.

I mean as of right now, we haven't seen anything dramatic or material that's different from kind of what we've included in our guidance.

But, yes, I mean there's some caution in the end -- towards the end of the year, because we just don't know how it's going to go.

And my final question is for Tom.

Tax rate for next year would be similar to this year, which we expected to go up towards the 40% vis-a-vis this year about what happens, you know, how do we look at this going forward?

You know, our issue with tax rate, because given the size of the organization, their earnings, is highly dependent on the mix of our earnings.

As we look at this year, we're seeing improvement in earnings at all the locations, getting the benefit of some of these non-deductible expenses.

I think, you know, the tough thing is we really haven't got enough visibility to look at next year's rate at this point.

(inaudible) is expected to go up somewhat, may not to the 40% that we started the year at, but drifting up is more likely the same thing, I mean that's what [we have to get]?

I mean we don't have enough visibility yet, given what we think the rate will come in at for next year.

Within these levels, Eli, it's hard even for us to forecast.

I mean this is not one where we know in our given guidance -- these are flutters, whether it's 36% or 38%.

It's called a variable.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Thanks.

(Operator Instructions).

Our next question comes from the site of John Walthausen with Walthausen & Company.

Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning, and first of all, congratulations, that was an excellent quarter.

I was scrolling through my model and I didn't find gross margins that good.

So I was in the, I think, maybe 98 or something.

So was there something unusual in the mix that allowed you to get that good a gross margin?

I think the biggest single factor was what Chris commented on when you get a rebound in business coming on top of cost structure that we had cut back.

And remember we talked all last year about how we were cutting costs and beginning into early '09, and it took effect in the middle of the year.

So it's a very pleasant result on the operations when that happens.

All right.

So everybody has talked about cost cutting, but you've really brought us to the bottom-line.

We did walk the walk.

Congratulations on that.

Just the other question is, as I look back through the quarters, I don't see a pattern of seasonality.

Is that a correct interpretation of the way your business goes?

Yes and no.

I mean our products don't have seasons.

It's not like we're making swimming pool valves or something.

Yes.

But by the nature of things in the last quarter of the year, there aren't just simply more holidays.

In our OE business, manufacturers like to keep their inventory trend at the end of the year.

So the last quarter is usually a little softer than the first unless there is some extraneous event that somehow causes a lot of business to happen.

Okay.

Well, that answers my question.

Thanks [for the thoughts].

Thank you.

And our next question comes from Zahid Siddique with Gabelli & Company.

Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning, and congratulations.

Hi, Zahid.

On the $2.5 million of debt that you repurchased, what was the [profit] on that?

The profit on it?

We haven't disclosed anything.

We just indicated that there was an opportunistic buy out there yesterday and we took advantage of it.

Were you asking what the price is or what the benefit to us is?

I guess the benefit -- I guess -- how much cash did you get, let me ask it that way, for selling that -- I guess the base amount is $2 million, $2.5 million, how much cash did you get in for that?

We actually bought it.

We --

We repurchased our debt, in that we took out some of the bonds that were outstanding of our 8.75% bonds and we bought them back.

And the reason we do that is that those bonds pay 8.75%, and the interest we earn on money market funds and the like is de minimus.

Right.

And how much did you roughly pay to repurchase that amount?

We didn't give an amount—we didn't give a price that we paid for the bonds.

Okay.

And on your -- I guess the Aircraft and Defense segment, I understand that you lost -- revenue fell about roughly 20% to 21%.

And what are the trends that you are seeing going into the second quarter?

We expect Military to be soft for the balance of the year, but it's for the reason I described when I gave the opening comments is that there is a major inventory adjustment going on for a variety of parts that we sell to the government.

The government's just got a lot of inventory, and they're working it down.

So we haven't lost any share or any business, we're just waiting for that inventory to be used up.

Okay.

That's helpful.

And then I guess within trucking, you expect that -- the trend to continue because -- the positive trend?

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you so much for your time.

Thanks.

Thank you.

(Operator Instructions).

Our next question is a follow up from Eli Lustgarten with Longbow Research.

Please go ahead.

Going to be a quiet day I guess.

Just couple of -- is there going to be a gain reported on the repurchase in the second quarter?

We are -- well, Eli, we have the price.

Yeah.

(Inaudible -- Multiple speakers)

Yeah, Eli, it's not significant.

We really have $2.5 million, and relatively -- it was opportunistic for us.

This is an open market buy also.

I mean, so you can see what the trends are -- I mean, it's not like we brought these at some big discount or anything.

Okay.

And how many shares did you buy at the $3.6 million—the [$3.6 million bought]?

We purchased -- over the quarter, we purchased 178,423 shares during the quarter under the $25 million plan.

You know, the shares outstanding would drop from 8.246 average to something like 8.1?

That --?

When we look at total shares outstanding -- if you look at the front page of the Q, it's as of the end of last week, we're at 7.8 million shares outstanding.

7.8, so that would be the new fully diluted number?

Well, that's not the fully diluted, I mean -- yes, that's basic shares.

Basic.

So the fully diluted number would --?

We had dilution of a little over 200,000 shares --.

Would be about 8 million shares at the end?

Yes, for (inaudible—multiple speakers)

That's what I was getting at.

Yes.

And you mentioned you brought the Chinese supplier and, you know, can you quantify how much you spent for that?

And you're planning an Indian investment.

Can you give some idea of how much investment you expect to make over the next year in round numbers and how the decision will matter, just sort of?

Yes, it was less than $1 million.

And the vast majority of that supplier sales were to us.

So we don't expect any incremental revenue as a result of the acquisition, but we do think it's a very strategic acquisition for a critical outsourcing operation, and puts us in control over our destiny, allows us to --

And as we look at India, can you have any sense for what the magnitude of the investments you're contemplating in that country?

The investment in India, any investment we make this year is included already in the CapEx, the guidance that we put out there.

Yes, I was asking [that would be, do you have some] planning for next year, because -- this year and next year, the two years, just a -- just a $3 million or $4 million project, $2 million, what -- just a magnitude of what the project looks like?

What was the first part of what you're asking on, we're going to have to take more shares to --.

No, no, just the magnitude of the investment in India to setup production there?

I can't -- it has several permutations that it could take right now, so it's hard for me to say what a specific number is.

But I guess, I can go as far as to say this; it's not going to be a gigantic -- you know, an invent the company type investment that could actually be disruptive.

I mean, we'll start cautiously, the same way that we've done our due diligence and ramp the business up slowly so that our customers don't feel, I mean any call it start-up risk that -- that's common with that kind of--

I understand.

Are we -- are we really saying less than $5 million or less than the $10 million is what we're looking at, just a magnitude that I'm looking --?

Yeah.

Well, we have the opportunity to lease buildings there, which I will do.

So if you don't have to do that, you're down to, you know, equipment.

And so, you're in the right ballpark.

It's a very wide ballpark, because we don't know.

Stylistically, as Chris was explaining, we're not going to go blowing in there with some $20 or $30 million commitment and see how that works out.

We move cautiously and incrementally.

Just to add anything that might be in the back of your mind.

I mean, we went through a major plant relocation from Brook Park to Tulsa, 2005, 2006, and given the factors in 2007, had a material effect on the earnings of the company.

We did not see anything like that happening with respect to starting up the plant in India --.

That much I remember, fortunately enough.

Thank you very much.

And our next question comes from the site of Tony Venturino with Federated.

Please go ahead.

Good morning guys, how are you doing?

Just a quick question on the bond purchase; are you going to continue to buy more?

Depends on the price.

Okay.

I mean it's sort of a definite maybe.

Tony Venturino Okay.

This morning I think they were quoted at par; I mean is that still something that you interested in, at par?

Well, at this point, the calculation that I just referred to a few minutes ago is what governs us.

You know, that we pay a lot more in interest costs than we do in income from our cash.

So, in effect, we look at it and think of this as a trader's mentality, so we may or may not [at any moment] feel like we want to buy some.

The other thing we look at is, you know, as you said the market's at par.

Right now our call -- the call premium is 10.375%.

So, clearly there is a benefit to market price right now versus call.

Sure.

In there, is there any sort of restriction on where you can buy back?

Or did you clear that up?

With regard to bond repurchases, the only restriction is in our bank credit agreement, because at this point there is nothing that should prohibit us from doing anything that we are looking at.

Okay.

What is the restriction in the bank agreement?

The credit facility provides for up to $30 million in bond repurchases.

We already purchased $10 million last year, so that effectively leaves us with $20 million for par -- bond repurchases.

Now, that doesn't include the $2.5 million you did yesterday?

Well, that $20 million, it would be less $2.5 million --so we have $17.5 million left.

Okay.

All right, that's it then.

Thanks a lot.

Thank you.

Thank you.

At this time, it appears we have no further questions.

Okay, well, we want to thank you everyone for joining the call, and we are always happy to answer questions from you in the future.

Have a good day everybody.

Thanks.

This concludes your teleconference.

Thank you for your participation and you may now disconnect.