Fabrinet (FN) 2019 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Fabrinet's financial results conference call for the second quarter of fiscal 2019. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. I would now like to turn your call for your host, Garo Toomajanian.

Thank you, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us on today's conference call to discuss Fabrinet's financial and operating results for the second quarter and fiscal year 2019, which ended on December 28, 2018. With me on the call today are Seamus Grady, Chief Executive Officer; and TS Ng, Chief Financial Officer.

This call is being webcast, and a replay will be available on the Investor section of our website located at investor.fabrinet.com. Please refer to our website for important information, including our earnings press release and investor presentation, which include our GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliation.

I would like to remind you that today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements about the future financial performance of the company. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from management's current expectations.

These statements reflect our opinions only as of the date of this presentation, and we undertake no obligation to revise them in light of new information or future events, except as required by law. For a description of the risk factors that may affect our results, please refer to our recent SEC filings, in particular, the section captioned Risk Factors in our Form 10-Q filed on November 6, 2018.

We will begin the call with remarks from Seamus and TS, followed by time for questions. I would now like to turn the call over to Fabrinet's CEO, Seamus Grady. Seamus?

Thank you, Garo, and good afternoon, everyone. We posted record revenue and non-GAAP earnings per share in the second quarter. Revenue in the second quarter was above the high end of our guidance range at $403 million, and non-GAAP net income also exceeded our guidance at $0.97 per share. These results also drove strong cash flows in the second quarter with operating cash flow of nearly $35 million and free cash flow of $30 million.

Upside was driven primarily by stronger-than-expected growth from the telecom market. Component supply constraints that we experienced in the first quarter eased somewhat in the second quarter. However, supply for MLCC and certain ASIC parts remain constrained. As such, we continue to see some headwinds to gross margins from our efforts to mitigate these supply constraints in order to meet customer demand and drive revenue.

Looking at our second quarter performance by end market. Both optical communications and nonoptical communications business grew sequentially as well as year-over-year. Optical communications revenue was $306 million or 76% of total revenue and grew 9% from the first quarter. Within optical, 100G transceivers continue to generate strong revenue with additional growth from nonspeed rate of products, such as amplifiers and ROTEMs. Growth in optical communications was led by telecom products, which, at $207 million or 68% of optical revenue, grew 16% from Q1 to an all-time record.

Datacom products were 32% of optical revenue at $99 million, a decrease of a few percentage points from Q1 primarily due to the transition of current products to the next-generation designs. By technology, silicon photonics-based optical communications revenue was $80 million, a slight decline from Q1, again primarily due to product design transitions.

During the quarter, we started to see revenue from QSFP56 as 2 customers started migrating from QSFP28 to faster data rate QSFP56 transceivers. Variance of the QSFP28 and now the QSFP56 transceivers, which can be both silicon photonics and nonsilicon photonics-based, continue to perform well with revenue up 21% from Q1 at $55 million.

By data rate, as I mentioned, 100G programs continue to dominate optical communications production at 52% of optical revenue or $158 million. Products rated at speeds of 400G and above represented more than 6% of optical communications revenue with virtually all of this revenue from telecom applications. Looking at nonoptical communications. Revenue was $98 million, up 1% from Q1.

We continue to see momentum in the industrial laser market with revenue up 2% sequentially to $50 million. Automotive revenue increased 4% to $23 million with traditional automotive remaining stable and new automotive applications up a little.

Sensor revenue was flat at $4 million in the second quarter, and other nonoptical communications revenue was also stable sequentially at $21 million. Both new business and existing programs contributed to our top line growth in the second quarter with new business up 7% sequentially to $147 million or 36% of total revenue.

We continue to generate strong interest from new and existing customers, and while a little over 60% of our new building in Chonburi is spoken for or occupied, we have ample capacity to handle near-term demand. TS will provide more color on our guidance, but we are optimistic that Q3 will represent a record third quarter for us in terms of both revenue and profitability.

In summary, we're pleased with our record performance in the second quarter and remain enthusiastic about our longer-term prospects as a trusted manufacturing partner for our customers' most demanding and complex products. Now let me turn the call over to TS to discuss the details of our second quarter performance and our outlook. TS?

Thank you, Seamus, and good afternoon, everyone. I will provide you with more details on our performance by end market and our financial result for Q2 as well as our guidance for Q3 of fiscal year 2019.

Total revenue in the second quarter of fiscal year 2019 was $403.1 million. Note that our adoptions of ASC 606 this fiscal year contributed approximately $3 million to our second quarter revenue. This means that we exceeded the high end of our revenue guidance of $380 million to $388 million under ASC 605 by $12 million.

Non-GAAP net income was $0.97 per share and was also above our guidance range despite a $0.01 per share foreign exchange headwind in the quarter. ASC 606 impact on net income was immaterial.

Looking at the second quarter in more detail. Our growth was driven primarily by the telecom market within optical communications. Optical communications represented 76% of revenue with nonoptical communications representing 24% of revenue.

Now turning to the details of our P&L. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures is included in our earnings press release and investor presentation, which you can find on our website.

Non-GAAP gross margin in the second quarter was 11.6%, an improvement from the first quarter but still a little below our target range as we continued to see supply constraint for certain components, having a negative impact on overall gross margin. We continue to anticipate reaching our target range of 12% to 12.5% on a quarterly basis this fiscal year.

Non-GAAP operating expense was $9.4 million in the second quarter, down from the first quarter but up from a year ago. As a result, non-GAAP operating income was $37.5 million, an increase on the first quarter in the year ago, and non-GAAP operating margin was 9.3% compared to 8.5% in the first quarter.

Taxes in the quarter were $0.7 million, and our normalized effective tax rate was 5.9%. We continue to anticipate an effective tax rate of 6% to 7% for the fiscal year.

Non-GAAP net income was a record $36.5 million in the second quarter or $0.97 per diluted share, up from $0.92 in Q1 and $0.72 a year ago. On a GAAP basis, which includes share-based compensation expenses and amortizations of debt issuing costs, net income for the second quarter was $31.5 million or $0.84 per diluted share, also a record performance.

Turning to the balance sheet and cash flow statement. At the end of the second quarter, cash and investments were $382.5 million, an increase of $30.1 million from the first quarter. Operating cash flow in the quarter was $34.7 million, and with CapEx of $4.3 million, free cash flow was $30.4 million in the second quarter.

We did not repurchase any shares during the second quarter. Management will continue to evaluate the buyback program based on stock market conditions and our cash position each quarter. As such, as of the end of the quarter, $17.6 million remains in our repurchase authorization.

I would now like to turn to our guidance for the third quarter of the fiscal year 2019. While we are now reporting under ASC 606, this guidance is based on ASC 605, and we will provide a reconciliation with our third quarter results.

After reporting record revenue and net income in the second quarter, we anticipate continuous year-over-year growth but a small sequential decrease in total revenue in the third quarter with continuous sequential growth in telecom offset by a small decline in datacom and a small seasonal decline from nonoptical communications. Despite this sequential decline in total revenue, we remain very optimistic and confident in our market position as reflected in anticipated year-over-year growth.

For the third quarter of fiscal 2019, we anticipate revenue to be in the range of $384 million to $392 million. From an earning perspective, we anticipate non-GAAP net income per share in the third quarter to be in the range of $0.86 to $0.90 and GAAP net income per share of $0.71 to $0.75 based on approximately 37.6 million fully diluted share outstanding.

In summary, we are pleased with our record performance in the second quarter. Our strong market position makes us optimistic in our business momentum.

Operator, we would now like to open the call for questions.

(Operator Instructions) And our first question will come from Alex Henderson with Needham & Company.

A couple of quick questions just on the modeling data. The first one is the tax line came in well below forecasted. It looks like about a $0.04 positive to the numbers relative to what we had been modeling at 6.2%. Should we'd be expecting, since you're guiding to 6% to 7% for the year, that we make that up and that, in fact, for the full year, on an annual basis, we're in the 6% to 7%? Or are you saying that, in the back half, you expect 6% to 7% on a quarterly basis?

Alex, this is TS. I think for the particular quarter, we report a little below $700k tax expense. Moving forward in the second half, I would still go back to 6% -- 6% to 7%.

So it's 6% to 7% on a quarterly basis not on a full year basis then.

That's correct.

Good. Okay, that helps. And then the other one was I was a little surprised at the decline of $400,000 or so in the sales and marketing line in what normally is a seasonally stronger quarter. Can you give us some rightsizing on that? Should we be thinking that, that comes back up towards the $10 million, $10.5 million range? Or will it stay down here at this lower level?

No. We have a couple adjustment in last quarter at Q2. Moving forward, I still look at around $11 million per quarter.

$11 million per quarter on the sales and marketing line?

Yes, that's correct, Alex.

That's non-GAAP?

That's non-GAAP, yes. [Then flat with the ASC], of course.

Right. Can you just tell me what it was you said that -- you said that capacity has improved, but, you said some chips were still tight. What supplies are you still struggling with?

Alex, this is Seamus. So primarily MLCCs and also certain ASIC devices. Overall, we did see an improvement in the quarter, but we still have some tightness in a couple of categories here, MLCCs and ASICs being the 2 main ones.

So it sounds like you're expecting to get back to the 12-plus -- 12-or-better range over the year. But given that you didn't say that about the March quarter that we should be below that 12% hurdle in the March quarter?

I think we -- I mean, we did improve from -- I think we were at 11.2% the prior quarter, then 11.6% in Q2. I think we continue to see some improvement, and we said we think we can get back to the 12% range before the end of the year. Now whether we get back there in Q3 or in Q4, we still have that component, I would say, slight headwind on the components there. But we think we can get back there certainly in this fiscal year. Whether it's Q3 or Q4 remains to be seen.

Okay. One last question, then I'll cede the floor. I hate forecasting ForEx, but since December 31, there's been a spike in the exchange rate back to February levels. That ForEx move, I know you hedge it on -- operationally, but it does show up in the ForEx exchange line. What are we assuming for the March quarter in that line? Are we assuming $2 million, $3 million hit in that line? Or are you assuming 0 in that line?

So Alex, for our guidance, we assume 0. And the reason is that, for this quarter, it's already fully hedged. I have basically all the baht I need for this quarter -- March quarter. Now moving to June quarter, I have partially hedged, and obviously, you're right. The baht do a U turn right now -- is appreciating right now. And again, we are dollar cost average down to buy for June and September quarter. So you're probably -- assuming the baht stay at this level, 31.3 this morning, in September quarter, you might see some headwind on the gross margin again. But again, we don't know yet because if we stay at 31.3 today, the model, it might back up to 33. So we are watching it very, very closely.

If I assume the exchange rate stays at this current level all the way through 2019, would that be a headwind against your gross margins in the June, September, December quarters?

We'll be in the June -- excuse me, September -- mostly September and December quarter, assuming it stay at 31.3.

We have to assume a flat currency unless -- harder to forecast currency than your numbers.

And our next question will come from the line of Troy Jensen with Piper Jaffray.

So first, how about on the silicon photonics, you said it was down slightly there. I think you mentioned some product transitions. Anything else you can kind of provide on -- some details on what happened?

I think if you look at on the longer term, silicon photonic as a technology segment is still doing very well. Last quarter, we see some design transitions mostly from one customer. The rest of the customers in that group are all doing well.

Okay. How about -- I know you don't like to talk about customers, but Cisco is acquiring Luxtera. And I'm pretty sure Luxtera is one of your customers in this category. So could you maybe just help us size the opportunity there? Have you had any discussions with Cisco and their intents on ramping up silicon photonics?

So yes, Cisco is a customer. There's nothing that we have noted yet, and as far as we know the deal, that acquisition hasn't closed yet. And all I would say is, historically, we have benefited from those type of consolidations. But I think, for us, it's too early to say yet what the impact might be.

All right, perfect. And then, Seamus, I know you're saying end of last year that you kind of had multiple conversations with customers about the China tariffs. I know it would be kind of a further out opportunity, but just love to get an update there. Is any of these conversations getting more serious?

Yes. So I think we continue to have conversations with -- and discussions with several customers. But they remain with discussions at this point. Like I said, they're still early at the discussion stage, nothing solid, nothing concrete to report there yet. It takes a long time as I'm sure you can appreciate. So it takes a long time from the initial discussion until it turns into business, it can be a 6- to 9-month process, best case, and then you have the qualification time line on top of that.

(Operator Instructions) And our next question will come from the line of John Marchetti with Stifel.

I just wanted to spend a minute, if I could, Seamus, on the datacom business. Obviously, it's kind have been bouncing around here, a little bit weaker in the December quarter. You're talking about it being weak again in March. Just curious if you could sort of give us some color in terms of what you're seeing either from a demand or a pricing front. Just trying to get a sense of maybe how that business or your expectations for that business as we kind of climb through '19.

So I can tell -- you're right, John. The demands for datacom components, strictly transceivers, remains strong. The markets has been experiencing some fairly intense price pressure, and we've been doing our best, our part for their customers to work with the customers to reduce costs for these components, make our customers competitive in the marketplace. So I think the volume, the demand remains strong, but there is some very significant pricing pressure coming from the end key end market. While this can impact our revenue like it did this past quarter, we typically share in the cost savings that we're able to generate with our customers. So we're able to preserve our margins. So then it -- and again, the decline there in datacom, that's not isolated to one particular customer. It's across the board. But the demand is strong in terms of volume, but the price pressure is pretty intense. In addition, we don't expect the revenue there to go up in a straight line. We point out that we expect revenue from all the product lines to be flat to up on a year-over-year basis, which does indicate continued positive trends.

And I guess, following up on that. The move to QSFP56 and some of the things that you mentioned even in silicon photonics, would you expect those areas to be growth areas as you go through the year and then some of the other, obviously, the pricing and some of the dropoff in 28 occurs? I'm just trying to think about this from a trends perspective.

Yes, I think that's a fair assumption. The transition to QSFP56, it's 2 customers, and it's on products that are 400G and above. So the volume growth that comes with that then, again, it won't be a straight line, especially when the customer transitions maybe from a QSFP28 100G product, for example, to a QSFP56 400G product. With that additional bandwidth that you have there, it takes a little bit of time for the volume to catch up. But it's a high-quality problem that we like to have because it means we're working on the most current generation, the next-generation products. But like I said, with that does come the fact that sometimes they don't grow in a straight line. We're happy to live with that.

Right, right. And then if I can just get in one last one maybe on the telecom side. Obviously, some continued strength in that business. In discussions with your customers, is there any concern at all that, with all the noise about what may or may not happen with Huawei in China and things like that, that there is a chance here that we actually have some overordering going on for customers serving that China market and that, if things ultimately smooth out, that there's a chance that we have a pullback on that demand front just because of some early sort of overordering in anticipation of an action that may or may not occur. Just curious, in your conversations with customers, how they're viewing sort of that China market right now.

Yes. That's not something we've discussed with our customers, John. Honestly, it's -- of course, there's always a chance that some of the customers and companies in the supply chain, somewhere along the way, are overordering. If they are, we -- they wouldn't necessarily tell us that if they were. And we really don't have any visibility into that, I'm afraid, John. And it's just not something that we [discuss with our] customers.

And our next question will come from the line of Alex Henderson with Needham & Company.

So I wanted to ask a couple of questions relative to the merger between Oclaro and Lumentum. How do you think that, that impacts you? Do suspect any change in production location that would favor you or any cutbacks in product line that might hurt you? And if those cutbacks occur, would other companies that are -- you're currently serving benefit? How does that all shake out relative to your positioning?

I think it's really early -- very early to say. It's too early to say, I think, at this stage. Again, they -- we've been building products historically for both companies, and now for Lumentum, they're our #1 customer and historically have been, in 2017, in our last fiscal year, we're at 17% customer, now they're roughly 23% customer. But it's really too early to say, Alex, what the impact might be in terms of any product shakeouts. I guess, from our perspective, we'll be the optimistic in the sense that there's very little product overlap in what we make and what we have made historically for both companies.

And then, Alex, this is TS. We will learn more tomorrow from the Lumentum earnings call, which I intend to dial in to.

Well, the good news is that call will happen before the morning call, so -- or before the morning open. The second question I wanted to talk a little bit about is have you changed -- seen any change in the rate of adoption of the capacity at the new plant and -- I mean, 60% is pretty good, but it seems like that's starting to level out a little bit. Has there been some slowdown of footprint commitments?

No, I wouldn't say so. I think maybe the way to think about it, Alex, is the -- our existing customers -- the majority of our existing customers are at the Pinehurst facility, and they prefer to keep all the manufacturing at Pinehurst. And them from time -- and that facility is essentially full. And then from time to time, customers may free up additional space in Pinehurst as they move as other product comes to end of life and a line gets moved out and a new line moves in. So we're still able to grow. In other words, obviously, we want to fill Chonburi as fast as we can, but there isn't necessarily direct correlation between the pace at which we increase our occupancy in Chonburi and the pace at which we have improve the overall revenue of the company. We're above -- slightly above 60% right now in terms of occupied and spoken for. And I would say, versus our own internal targets, we believe we're very much on track as regards getting full in Chonburi.

Well, as I understand it, that's actually nicely ahead of what your original targets were. When do you think you might have to make a decision on actually starting the plant for the next build?

I think we've always kind of said once we get to 70% utilization. We're probably -- maybe towards the end of the summer, I think we're probably looking at starting to make some decisions on what we want to do with our next building in Chonburi. It's relatively straightforward for us. We own the land there. We have the details, specifications for the building, so we know exactly what we build. So we're able to move pretty quickly. But probably towards the end of the summer I think would be fair. TS, what you think?

Yes, and depends on -- yes.

Okay. And have you guys made any progress in finding a full-time CFO to replace TS' retiring position?

Well, we have a very much full-time CFO. Well, TS is fully engaged. We're continuing to look. We're not any particular hurry. We continue to -- continue with the search. There's a lot of very good candidates, but we haven't found anybody at this stage that we're ready to talk about in terms of a permanent replacement. But we continue to search.

Well, we'd be happy to keep TS as long as he wants to stay, but my guess is that's not long in his agenda at this point. Just going back to the optical side for a second. Could you talk a little bit about where you are relative to the production facilities closures at Sanmina and moving some of those productions to Thailand that your customers been involved with? Is that now grandfathered into the numbers? Or is there still more to come from that?

So that's not -- we don't have any direct involvement in that closedown, so we're not really fully up to speed on what's going on there. Obviously, it's a conversation, I'd say, between our customer and Sanmina. We have benefited somewhat, but the exact status of that and what's finished in terms of transferring, we don't have a good handle on.

Any thoughts on how that plant, the Lumentum plant, that is it going to be down the street from you? Is it going to be integrated into your facilities and how -- the back and forth between those 2 locations. I assume that those are going to be tightly wound.

Our facility and Lumentum's facility?

Yes.

Yes, very much so. Yes, I mean, the -- some of the -- if you like, some of the components and the products that we source today come from Lumentum's facility. So the -- our 2 operations are very tightly coupled and work very closely together.

And one last question if I could. The Israeli thought process progress, lack of progress, where are you on Israel?

So we continue to work on all 3 aspects of our efforts in Israel, the 3 aspects being firm to developing relationships with our existing customers there; exploring rich sets of new customers and establishing our own facility, either through greenfields or acquisition. And we continue to make progress in all 3, but in terms of bringing up our own facility, it is quite slow going, I would say, because we're being very careful about making sure we have the right facility in the right location and the right size and capability. We continue to see Israel as a great location to do business and a place where we're committed to bringing up an NPI facility. But nothing specific to announce at this time, Alex.

One more question if I could. TS, could you give me a little bit more granularity on what caused that decline in the sales G&A line and why it bounces back so much? I mean, that's a pretty big delta between the 3 quarters.

Sure, so I like the way they approach the year-end. Typically, we adjust the bonus accrual for management, and so, we can't expect whether we're going to meet the target or not. So if we are not meeting the target, so we reverse some of the accrual. So that's one thing. And then we have certain IT systems, which we get some credit from the vendor. So again, that affects the number. So moving forward, I expect we go back to the normalized SG&A, which is about $11 million.

I'm sorry, did you say your bonus accrual did not hit company target even though you beat consensus?

Yes. For example, we had -- the management had certain revenues and gross margin as a target. And then as we approach the year-end now, we only have 2 quarters behind us, we will forecast whether we're going to meet the goal, whether we're going to have a payout. So whether we're going to have a payout, we adjust accordingly. In the last year, management didn't have any payout. So if you look at last year fourth quarter, June quarter, we had a major write-back on the accrual. And that's how we do the accounts.

I was a little surprised that you would have disappointment relative to your bonus targets when you beat the high end of the guidance band. Is that because of expectation?

I'll tell you what, the -- our board's pretty tough. I mean, guidance is one thing and trying to do it is another thing. So...

And our next question will come from the line of Dave Kang with B. Riley FBR.

First on the laser segment, what was the percentage revenue? And just how should we think about that segment going forward for the next couple of quarters with all the macro uncertainty and all that?

Okay. This is TS. I think the laser, we see about 13% of the $15 million, right. $15 million divided by 400, yes, is somewhat 13%.

I think going forward, Dave -- this is Seamus, I would say laser -- the investor laser market for us is a key target segment. We think it's a very large market in terms of the potential and quite underserved I'd say in terms of the degree to which that market outsources today. So they -- we think it's kind of in the low to mid-single digits in terms of how much of that market outsources today versus optical communications. About half of that -- half of the manufacturing, I'd say, in the optical communications market is outsourced. And optical communications is a $10 billion marketplace roughly. Industrial lasers, about $15 billion marketplace, and the degree to which it outsources, it's very small, 6% or 7%. So we see it as having very big potential for future growth. And it's a very [profitable bid] for us in terms of the technology, and it's very complementary to the capabilities we have in the optical communications side.

So you talked about like some customers -- or gaining market share, I guess, some customers are coming to you guys. Is that still the dynamic here? I mean -- and so we should be expecting a sort of sequential growth from December to March to June? Is that how we should think about it? Or, I guess, can you provide more color on how we should think about this fiscal second half?

I think, Dave, on a quarter-to-quarter basis, we definitely see some variations, right. In the longer term or medium term, we see that segment is growing simply because we are just into that -- in the early innings. The market is so big. And obviously, you heard some of the weaknesses in certain pockets, whether on semiconductor, the laser [base] is weak right now. But again, our customers don't participate in any segment, okay, depending on whether the segment -- the [TOSA] is continuing to do well. Micro machining is doing well. So a lot depend on our customers [starting to] in which field. Suffice to say that most our customers are growing maybe as at 1 season decline in the demand, so we are quite optimistic about that sector.

Got it. And I was wondering, I believe you're -- the strength that you're seeing in telco, I guess, ROTEM is definitely one of the drivers. So wondering if you can kind of bake that segment out, if possible.

Telecom, if you listen to some of our customers' earnings call, they say they sold out. They sold out on the amplifier, ROTEM, and they're adding capacity. So some of these are, obviously, cascade down to our demand, our backlog from them. So again, if you just listen to the -- our customers who are specializing in telecom, most of [them have it]. So we have 16% sequential growth and 43% year-over-year growth for the quarter. So we continue to look out for the telecom to provide the driver for the growth.

Got it. Okay. And then maybe lastly on II-VI and Finisar. Can you just remind us, first of all, are they both mid-single-digit type of customer? And any overlap between those 2?

As of today, they both are single digit, yes, single-digit percent of our total revenue.

And not mature enough.

Not mature enough. Yes, because, for Finisar, we always say that we really do the PPA sort of the module pieces and then II-VI bundle lines for Oclaro many years ago and then the EDFA and then a palm laser. So yes, there is really no overlapping.

And I'm showing no further questions. So now it is my pleasure to hand the conference back over to Mr. Seamus Grady, Chief Executive Officer, for closing comments and remarks.

Thank you for joining our call today. We're excited to deliver strong results and a positive outlook as we continue to position the company for continued growth and diversification over the longer term and we look forward to speaking with you again soon. Thank you and goodbye.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation on today's conference. This does conclude our program, and we would now disconnect. Everybody, have a wonderful day.