萬機儀器 (MKSI) 2021 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the MKS Instruments for First Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. (Operator Instructions) I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, David Ryzhik, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. I am David Ryzhik, Vice President of Investor Relations, and I am joined this morning by John Lee, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Seth Bagshaw, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

Yesterday, after market close, we released our financial results for the first quarter of 2021, which are posted to our website, mksinst.com. As a reminder, various remarks about future expectations, plans and prospects for MKS comprise forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially as a result of various important factors, including those discussed in yesterday's press release, and in the most recent annual report on Form 10-K and any subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q.

These statements represent the company's expectations only as of today and should not be relied upon as representing the company's estimates or views as of any date subsequent to today, and the company disclaims any obligation to update these statements.

During the call, we will be discussing various financial measures. All of these financial measures will be non-GAAP other than revenue. Please refer to our press release for information regarding our non-GAAP financial results and a reconciliation of our GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures.

Now I'll turn the call over to John.

Thanks, David. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. We delivered another record quarter with revenue of $694 million and net earnings per diluted share of $2.56, both were above the high end of our guidance range. Our strong results were driven by robust demand across both our semiconductor and Advanced Markets. We're also very pleased with the margin expansion and operating leverage in the quarter, leading to a greater than 60% year-over-year increase in net earnings per share. Sales to our Semiconductor Market strengthened further in the first quarter, exceeding our expectations, growing 5% sequentially and 32% year-on-year.

We saw a broad-based demand across our vacuum subsystems portfolio, generating record revenue in our Pressure, Flow and Valve solutions businesses. We also delivered another exceptional quarter in our Power Solutions business as well as robust sequential growth in our plasma and reactive gas business. We continue to harness our photonics expertise across a number of semiconductor applications, and in the first quarter, we secured multiple design wins in our world-class optics initiative. We also had a meaningful win in our precision motion business for an advanced wafer packaging application.

You have heard us talk a lot about how our broad portfolio, unique innovation engine and operational excellence have enabled us to outperform the markets we serve. Earlier this month, VLSI, an independent market research firm, reported that MKS gained more than 2% of share in the overall critical subsystems category in 2020. In fact, I'm very proud to say that VLSI also reported that we gained almost 10% of share in the RF [Power] category in 2020 and are now neck and neck with a historic market leader. We also extended our leadership in remote plasma sources by gaining more than 6% of share.

Finally, we also took share in the pressure gauges and valve product categories. This third-party validation of our performance in 2020 further solidifies our decades-long model of market share gains, and clearly demonstrates strength of our technology roadmaps, the agility of our operational capabilities and the breadth of our customer relationships.

It is a privilege to lead the great teams that delivered this success. In fact, as I think about the long-term opportunity in our Semiconductor Market, the following powerful secular trends remain intact: First, the demand for chips will continue to grow, driven by the explosion in data and the need to store it, transmit it and process it; second, it's not just more chips, but more leading edge chips, and that places additional demands on the capital equipment ecosystem to drive technology breakthroughs; and third, these breakthroughs need to occur faster as product iterations are increasing and development cycles are shortening.

All of this equates to a compelling long-term growth profile for capital equipment spending. It also means that those companies that execute on innovation faster and smarter, while staying operationally nimble will outperform. This has been MKS' key to success in the past few decades and will remain so moving forward. In the near term, demand in our Semiconductor Market remains robust, and we expect our semiconductor revenue to grow sequentially in the second quarter.

Now moving to our Advanced Markets. Revenue in the first quarter exceeded our expectations. We delivered strong sequential growth of 6% and year-over-year growth of 27%. Our strong top line results were driven by growing demand in Advanced Electronics manufacturing, which is fueled by precision laser processing. Within Advanced Electronics, we continue to see healthy demand for our flexible PCB via drilling solutions as a result of growing capacity needs and technology transitions associated with new 5G smartphones, which carry higher flex PCB content.

In the first quarter, we secured 2 design wins for our high-density interconnect via drilling solution, one of which is with a large multinational PCB manufacturer. Demand for our pulse nanosecond, picosecond and femtosecond lasers continues to increase. As we are seeing growing interest across PCB, Advanced Packaging, solar and display applications. We are very pleased with the momentum we are seeing in our Advanced Markets and anticipate revenue in the second quarter to grow sequentially.

Finally, I wanted to share a few thoughts regarding our prior efforts to acquire Coherent. While we believe the combined company would have offered a compelling value proposition, we have always been disciplined acquirers and our M&A strategy will remain rooted in our commitment to shareholder value creation. In fact, we cannot be more excited about our current portfolio in Photonics, which we are executing well and are positioned to capitalize on the growing need for miniaturization and complexity. We consider the combined revenue from our Light and Motion division and the Advanced Markets component of our Equipment and Solutions division, to best characterize how we think about Photonics revenue.

This means that in the first quarter, we generated $257 million in Photonics revenue, which grew 25% year-over-year, and we expect further sequential growth in the second quarter. Our Photonics business, with an annualized run rate of over $1 billion, will remain an important area of growth and investment at MKS.

With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Seth.

Thank you, John. I will cover our first quarter 2021 results and then provide additional detail on guidance for the second quarter. Sales for the first quarter were a record $694 million, up 5% sequentially, up 30% year-over-year and above the high end of our guidance range. Our record performance reflects another quarter of strong semiconductor demand as well as a continued acceleration in our Advanced Markets. In the first quarter, semiconductor sales set yet another record at $412 million, up 5% sequentially and up 32% year-over-year, reflecting broad-based demand for our vacuum, photonics subsystems.

As John mentioned, we are very pleased to be recognized by VLSI for market share gains in 2020 in the total Critical Subsystems category, including significant gains in RF power supplies and remote plasma sources as well as gains in other Critical Subsystems categories such as pressure gauges and valves.

Excluding our strong performance of Power Solutions, the combined revenue of our other products in the Semiconductor Market reached another quarterly record. This strong growth and significant market share gains are a clear validation of our unique Surround the Chamber strategy, our long-standing successful track record of operational excellence and our deep commitment to market-leading innovative solutions, all of which we expect will position us to outperform WFE by 200 basis points as outlined in our long-term model we provided at our Analyst Day.

For the first quarter, sales for Advanced Markets also set a record at $282 million, up 6% sequentially, and up 27% year-over-year, led by continued acceleration in Advanced Electronics applications.

Demand for our market-leading flexible PCB via drilling solutions accelerated further in the first quarter and this followed a particularly strong fourth quarter. Our customers continue to turn to MKS to enable leading edge flexible PCB manufacturing applications. And this is driven by large part by 5G smartphones, we're also seeing growing interest from wearables in 5G base station applications.

Revenue from MLCC test systems also remained healthy in the first quarter as our customers continue to expand capacity. Within the HDI market, we've completed all shipments and installations of systems from a previously announced multiunit Geode order in December, which are all now operating in high-volume manufacturing applications.

In addition to design wins that John referenced, we've seen increased interest at our demo centers from other key HCI PCB manufacturers and are working closely with their critical technical teams to transition them to beta customers.

In the first quarter, we also saw accelerated demand from our pulsed laser and Surround the Workpiece portfolio for Advanced Electronics applications, largely driven by PCB, display, solar and Advanced Packaging applications.

As I stated on Analyst Day, the transit miniaturization and complexity in semi that we foresaw decades ago and now driving growth in Advanced Markets and uniquely position the broad photons portfolio across both our Light and Motion and Equipment Solutions divisions.

In fact, as John highlighted, our Photonics revenue, which is revenue from our Light and Motion division, combining the Advanced Markets component of Equipment Solutions division, is now over a $1 billion annual run rate in the first quarter. And the Advanced Markets portion of our Photonics revenue now exceeds $850 million annual run rate and grew 30% year-over-year in the first quarter.

For the first quarter, the revenue split between our Semiconductor and Advanced Markets was 59% and 41%, respectively. First quarter gross margin was 46.4%, above the high end of guidance, up 70 basis points sequentially and up 170 basis points year-over-year. This strong performance was due to higher volumes and improved product mix.

First quarter operating expenses were $143 million, up $5 million sequentially, primarily due to higher variable compensation resulting from our strong financial performance, however, we remain within our guidance range, reflecting continued overall cost control. First quarter operating margin was 25.8%, up 110 basis points sequentially and up 530 basis points year-over-year, which reflects a strong operating leverage in our financial model.

Net interest expense for the first quarter was $6 million, and our tax rate was approximately 17%. Net earnings for the first quarter were a record $143 million and a record $2.56 per diluted share.

On a year-over-year basis, our EPS increased 66% or more than 2x our revenue growth rate. This strong financial leverage exceeded our long-term target operating model that we announced at our Analyst Day.

Exiting the first quarter, we maintained a strong balance sheet and liquidity position, with cash and short-term investments of $910 million and $100 million of incremental borrowing capacity under an asset-based line of credit subject to certain borrowing base requirements. Our term loan principal balance was $831 million at the end of the first quarter, and we exited the first quarter with $78 million net cash position.

In terms of working capital, days sales outstanding were 55 days in the first quarter compared to 54 days at the end of the fourth quarter, and inventory turns were 2.9x at both the first and fourth quarter of 2020.

We remain focused on improving our cash conversion cycle, and our first quarter operating cash flow was $127 million, a 69% year-over-year increase. Free cash flow for the first quarter was $100 million, a 55% year-over-year increase. Consistent with prior quarters, we had a dividend payment of $11 million or $0.20 per share.

I'll now turn to our second quarter outlook. Based on current business levels, we estimate second quarter revenue of $740 million, plus or minus $30 million. Based on anticipated product mix and revenue levels, we estimate second quarter gross margin of 47% plus or minus 1 percentage point, and operating expenses of $146 million, plus or minus $4 million. For the second quarter, net interest expense is expected to be approximately $6 million, and our tax rate is expected to be approximately 17%.

Given these assumptions, we expect second quarter net earnings of $2.92 per diluted share, plus or minus $0.26.

I'd like to now turn the call back to the operator for Q&A.

(Operator Instructions) And our first question coming from the line of Patrick Ho with Stifel.

Congrats on the nice quarter. John, maybe first off on the semiconductor side of things. I know you don't want to give guidance past the June quarter. But qualitatively, can you discuss the visibility you're seeing in today's demand environment? And what type of, I guess, outlook you would have for the second half of the year, given the strong demand trends, some of your customers have already outlined? Does that change any of the planning, especially on the procurement side, given the potential expectations of a strong second half of the year?

Patrick, yes, thanks for the question. I think we certainly have read all the various industry analyst views of the second half, and I guess we tend to agree that the second half is now marginally stronger than just 3 months ago. So I think we agree with that. And of course, our revenue is a little correlated to it over the long term, but short-term can be lumpy. And we're certainly taking all the necessary actions to expand capacity and pull the materials to deliver and as you've seen, we've done that pretty well over the last several quarters of the ramp.

Great. That's helpful. And maybe as my follow-up question on the Advanced Market side. You posted very strong results. You talked about some of the marketplaces that are starting to pick up momentum. Can you discuss again qualitatively whether you've seen any synergies in terms of your Light and Motion and ESI businesses? Because you did mention strength in the flex PCB, but there's also opportunities on the PCB and for your Light and Motion business. Are you seeing any of the synergy start, I guess, appearing? And is that giving you the confidence for some of the growth prospects you talked about in your prepared remarks?

Yes, Patrick. So certainly, we've been working to unlock all the synergies between the Light and Motion division and the E&S division over the last 1.5 years for the acquisition. And so we already have a laser design in the E&S tool. There are other areas that we're working on with respect to future tools as well. So I think we're getting the synergy -- development synergies that we expected from the acquisition.

Our next question coming from the line of Krish Sankar with Cowen.

This is Krish, can you hear me?

Yes.

Great. I have 2 questions, too. First 1 is for John or Seth, the gross margins came in much better than expected, and it looks like it's probably the upper end of your long-term target model. So is this 47% or high 40s percent the right number to think around these revenue levels? Or were there any one-off things in the quarter that actually like was a tailwind for gross margin in June?

Yes. Krish, this is Seth. I'll take that question. Yes. So we've said, obviously, in the Analyst Day and other earnings calls, about a 50% variable gross margin, how we look at it internally. And so the question what's the jump in that point. So in the first quarter, the margin was a little better than we expected, a little better mix. And then we're kind of forecasting similar mix in the second quarter as well. So if I look at the variable margin in Q2, I think it's a little bit above that target model at the midpoint of guidance.

But to answer your question, there's nothing unique or one-off in the year or the quarter that is driving up the higher margins. We said in the past, the volume is the biggest piece of it. And the operation team is managing very well through normal COVID headwinds we have, some higher logistics costs. So those have been managed very well in Q1 and Q2, but there's nothing in the first 2 quarters, the guidance in Q2 or Q1 actuals, I'd call one-off that are unique.

Got it. Got it. Very helpful. And then a follow-up for John. It's nice to see the Advanced Markets recovering and looks like you guys are gaining traction in HDI, PCB. I'm just kind of curious, how big is that market today? And can you also compete in the SLP side, the substrate-like PCB side? Or are you more focused on HDI at this point?

Yes, Krish. These markets are very large, and we're just entering in HDI. But substrate-like PCBs are also within the realm of our tools and certainly future tools that we have in mind. So it's a great market. I think it goes to our concept of miniaturization and complexity that's being now realized in advanced packaging. So we're really happy about our position there and the momentum we've started to gain in HDI.

Our next question coming from the line of Paretosh Misra with Berenberg.

Just on the -- a question on your electric vehicle exposure. What are you seeing in the cutting and welding applications in that market? And do you think you have the full portfolio of products, laser products to serve those emerging opportunities?

Yes, Paretosh. Thanks for the question. So EV laser processing, there are some pulsed laser applications, but there are a lot of fiber laser, continuous wave fiber laser applications. So as you know, we participate in pulsed lasers, but not in fiber lasers with the laser, but we certainly have a lot of exposure with the Surround the Workpiece portfolio that would support the fiber laser manufacturing process, such as power meters and beam profilers.

Got it. And so these pulsed lasers are used for both cutting and welding or only welding?

Mostly cutting for pulsed lasers.

Got it. And then maybe as a quick follow-up also on the electric vehicle. Do you see opportunities for your power business? Or I guess, are those opportunities like differentiated and value added? Or you think those are more commoditized products?

Are you talking about like RF power business in...

Yes. That's right.

No. I think electric vehicles really don't have a lot of the kind of needs for RF power that we participate in, which is the higher power, very precise kind of power that is needed for semiconductor etching and deposition.

Our next question coming from the line of Tom Diffely with D.A. Davidson.

John, wondering if you've seen any impact from the chip shortage on your electronics customers and how that might work through to you?

Yes, Tom. Certainly, our customers are pulling and trying to add capacity, is well publicized. I think chip shortages are something we're seeing like everybody else within our supply chain. And so many of our products have PCBAs. And here and there, there are spot shortages. I think incrementally, that's gotten a little more challenging over the last several months. But I think that's what everybody is seeing. And MKS has done well so far in dealing with those kinds of shortages and getting those materials in. And we'll continue to make sure that we meet our customers' demands.

Okay. So you haven't really seen chip shortages kind of throttle your customers' demand for your products because they can't get chips for other portions of their products?

We haven't really seen it, Tom, but I would also say we don't really have that kind of visibility in terms of a customer maybe having some kind of limit to their production because of chip shortages. That would be a little difficult for us to say. So if it's happening, it's very -- probably very minor because we're not seeing any kind of large changes.

Okay. Great. Well, can't complain with the results, that's for sure.

All right. And then on the flex circuit drilling business, historically, it's seasonally weak, but you had a very strong quarter. I'm wondering was this a slug of business? Or do you think there's a new level of activity that's going to be prolonged just because of the 5G rollout over the next few years? And what's your view on PCB drilling?

Yes. No, I think we have a long-term view of PCB drilling, flex PCB drilling. And we've talked about that. Drivers for that 5G phones having more flex circuits, wearables and even moving into mobile types of devices. So that's the long-term view. And as you know, it can be lumpy. But I think the levels we're seeing now feel like it's meeting the demand rather than any kind of overbuild.

Our next question coming from the line of Scott Graham with Rosenblatt Securities.

Yes. Terrific quarter, guys. I do have a couple of questions for you around materials. This chip shortages thing has raised sort of the specter, at least for me in combining that with commodities prices being higher. How are you handling that? I mean, could you tell us how pricing was in the quarter? Have you announced price increases? Have others announced price increases to you? How are you sort of handling that price cost right now?

Yes, Scott, certainly, we're probably not going to give you that kind of color, but I would say, in general, Scott, if there are chip shortages, or any kind of commodity shortage, prices tend to move up just because of supply and demand. And I would say broadly, we see areas where that's happening with respect to electronic components. But really, it's really about trying to get the electronic components because, as a percentage of our bomb, our capacitor or resistor is really not that large. It's really all the other stuff that goes around it, that's a bigger part of the bomb. So I think in general, there are going to be these pressures to increase prices while we have these shortages.

Got it. I guess the second question would be along the lines of your balance sheet with all that dry powder. And maybe if I could just -- 2 questions there. #1, what kind of stopped you short of continuing to move higher on your bid for Coherent? I don't blame you. The numbers came in pretty high. But I mean, was there something that you just said, okay, enough is enough.

And then going forward, can you maybe take us a little bit through whatever you're seeing in your funnel? I mean, obviously, Coherent was certainly much larger than you've done in the past. Is that type of -- that size acquisition still on the table? Or you're kind of maybe thinking more back to what you've done in the past on M&A, the several hundred million dollar type of sales deal?

Yes, Scott, thanks for that. I think we are certainly disciplined acquirers. We had a very precise view of how we could add value, at what price with Coherent, and we stuck to it. Other companies obviously thought they could get more value, and they went up almost $1 billion over what we could see for ourselves. So I don't want to judge what their views of the value creation is. It certainly couldn't be different than ours. But we have our view, and we're going to stay disciplined to it.

And in terms of our pipeline, we have a very broad pipeline of both Advanced Markets types of targets as well as semi and also a range of sizes. And so we'll have lots of opportunities for tuck-ins, sub-$100 million, some middle-sized deals in the couple of hundred millions. And then a couple of these larger opportunities where we're talking about billions. So that whole range of opportunities still exists, Scott, and we're looking at all of them as well.

I just want to add to that, too, Scott, we've grown organically the market share of the comments we made as well. So you grow with M&A, you also grow organically, and that's been 1 of our key pillars for a number of years. If you go back to the Analyst Day, we announced we have like 7 product categories, we were never 1 or 2, back in 2015. And in 2020, we had 15 of those categories. So we've done the M&A. We've done the organic growth rate. We've gained market share. So a lot of levers to kind of pull, if you will. So we're very bullish on the space, very bullish on the opportunities ahead of us. And as John mentioned, we're pretty disciplined on how we look at the acquisition pipeline.

Would you guys be disappointed if you didn't transact something this year?

Scott, it's certainly something that may or may not happen, but I think it really depends on the opportunities that come up, and we're going to stay disciplined.

Our next question coming from the line of Jim Ricchiuti from Needham & Company.

Maybe just along those lines of the prior question. I'm just wondering, does the M&A focus perhaps evolve at all? Or are you looking maybe opportunistically at other market adjacencies that perhaps weren't on the radar a year or so ago?

Yes, Jim, that's a good question. We certainly have been focused on Advanced Markets, laser, photonics, as we've talked about, as well as semi, which is our historic market. But we've always looked at adjacencies that we have other markets like life and health sciences, defense, industrials. And every once in a while, some company there could make sense for us. And so we would always consider that as a potential third leg of growth, if you will, in addition to semi, photonics and some other market.

Got it. And just with respect to the Light and Motion business, I'm wondering, are there any areas at this point in the business where you have not seen the recovery back to pre pandemic levels?

I think research is still a little -- still has a little headwind, Jim, and that is really COVID related. I think as you see, different regions have reinstituted COVID protocols. But we saw a pickup in the end of the year 2020, which is a normal quarter for pickup. And it's kind of reverted back to a seasonal Q1, Q2. But overall, I think there's a bit of headwind in the research market as we see it in (inaudible).

And presumably, I guess, the stimulus bill could help down the road in that area of the business?

Yes. Sure. Agreed.

The infrastructure I'm referring to?

Right. Right.

Our next question coming from the line of Joe Quatrochi with Wells Fargo.

Congrats on the results. On the semi side, there's clearly a funnel of pretty strong demand as we look out in the second half of this year. And you're even starting to talk about next year. I guess how do we think about your manufacturing footprint or capabilities to support just the level of demand that we're currently seeing?

Yes, Joe, that's a good question. One of the things that we pride ourselves in MKS is trying to get ahead of those kinds of increases in the market, multiple investments were made even 3 years ago with some product lines that, right now, we have planned capacity for. We continue to look at this, modeling what -- just a year ago what a $70 billion WFE might look like for us in terms of a factory footprint. Now it's more like what's $100 billion WFE look like for us. And when we do these models, Joe, we certainly look at burst capacity because, when it's on average [70], as you know, the peaks can be close to [100] today. And we're handling that pretty well today. But when it gets to an average of $100 billion, as you can imagine, those peaks would be well over $100 billion because of the nature of where we are in the supply chain.

We also keep a fairly asset-light model, Joe, so we don't really need a lot of capital per se. The buildings, we have plenty of footprint around the world, low-cost country and obviously, elsewhere. But we do try to look at the value in the manufacturing process and final test and assembly that we kind of leverage the capital. And again, you can bring that capital on relatively quickly. And I think the key point, as John mentioned, is we do have a high beams on on this, and we've made some investments back in 2017 to expand the pressure group quite dramatically, and that's been extremely helpful in this environment, so.

That's really helpful. And then I appreciate the calling out the Photonics revenue. I guess if we go back to the Analyst Day and just think about the growth rates that you talked about, is this something that we should think about falling into maybe more of like the advanced manufacturing bucket in the kind of low double-digit CAGR growth range? Or is there something else we should think about?

Yes. Joe, that's exactly how we look at our Photonics business. Today, it's made up of the Advanced Electronics, which is probably half of the Advanced Markets. And the other half is life and health sciences, defense and industrial. So over time, we expect that Advanced Electronics part of it to grow that low double digit. And then it becomes a bigger and bigger part of our Photonics revenue. So that's how we look at it.

Our next question coming from the line of Mark Miller with Benchmark Company.

Congratulations on another strong quarter. The natural tendency of some is to worry about peaking results. But we have new -- 4 new major fabs -- at least 4 new major fabs planned for next year and beyond. I'm just wondering when you think order flow will start to occur and will it last through 2022 for these fabs?

Yes, Mark, that's a great question. I think we have better minds than us to predict that. But we can certainly see long term, Mark. We agree with you, with all these new fabs being built just within the U.S. and other regions also contemplating that. We think the long term, this is just going to be great for the semiconductor equipment industry. So it will be hard for us to predict quarter-on-quarter where the peak is for sure. But the long-term is something that we're really very, very bullish about.

Are you planning to add capacity to address maybe another wave of major orders? And if so, in which areas?

Yes. No. As I said to the previous question, we are looking at that continuously and continuously adding capacity where needed. Certainly, our RF power supplies have -- we're now tied with the historic market leader. And that's been an area where we've invested for the last 4 or 5 years in terms of capacity, and where we see future capacity needs as well. So that's 1 area that I call out. But even in our pressure business where Seth said -- mentioned 3 years ago or 4 years ago, we had capacity, we continue to look at that as well because that capacity was really helpful in this environment. But we have to look at what it would look like when WFE is $100 billion.

Congratulations again on another strong quarter.

Appreciate it, Mark.

(Operator Instructions) And I am showing no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the call back over to David Ryzhik for closing remarks.

Thank you, Olivia. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today and for your interest in MKS. Operator, you may close the call, please.

Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude our conference call today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.