洛克威爾自動化 (ROK) 2011 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Thank you for holding, and welcome to Rockwell Automation's quarterly conference call. I need to remind everyone that today's conference call is being recorded. Later in the call we will open the lines for questions. (Operator Instructions).

At this time I would like to turn the call over to Rondi Rohr-Dralle, Vice President of Investor Relations. Ms. Rohr-Dralle, please go ahead.

Good morning everyone. Thank you for joining us for Rockwell Automation's third-quarter fiscal 2011 earnings release conference call. Our results were released this morning and the press release and charts have been posted to our website at www.RockwellAutomation.com. Please note that both the press release and charts include reconciliations to non-GAAP measures.

Additionally, a webcast of this call is accessible at that website and will be available for replay for the next 30 days.

With me today, as always, are Keith Nosbusch, our Chairman and CEO, and Ted Crandall, our Chief Financial Officer. Our agenda includes opening remarks by Keith that will include highlights on the Company's performance in the third quarter and our updated outlook for the fiscal year. Then Ted will provide more details around the third-quarter results and our revised guidance for fiscal 2011. Then, of course, we will take questions at the end of Ted's remarks.

We expect the call today to take about an hour. And is always the case on these calls, I need to remind you that our comments will include statements related to the expected future results of the Company and are therefore forward-looking statements as defined by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

Our actual results may differ materially from our forecasted projections due to a wide range of risks and uncertainties that are described in our earnings release and detailed in all of our SEC filings. So with that I'll hand the call over (multiple speakers).

Operator, we can hear you talking. Okay, thank you. I am turning the call over to Keith then.

Thanks, Rondi. Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us on the call today. I appreciate your time and interest in Rockwell Automation.

Please turn to page 4, which captures the key messages from the quarter. I will touch on these during my remarks. I am very pleased with the record results in the third quarter. Sales of over $1.5 billion, earnings per share from continuing operations of $1.22, and after-tax return on invested capital of 29.3% are all new quarterly highs for the Company.

Strong organic growth of almost 14% and the diversity of that sales growth across regions and verticals indicate that we are capitalizing on our growth opportunities.

Architecture & Software had an outstanding quarter, with Logix growth of over 25%, excluding the impact of currency.

Operating margin continued to improve in the quarter and year-to-date margin is up over 2 percentage points compared to a year ago. There again A&S was a standout with the highest quarterly operating margin since the third quarter of fiscal 2007.

Control Products & Solutions' margins dipped compared to Q2, primarily because of lower organic volume and acquisitions. Plus keep in mind that Solutions margins tend to fluctuate more quarter-over-quarter. On a year-to-date basis we are pleased that the margin in this segment has expanded almost 2 percentage points.

Cash flow was strong again this quarter, in spite of the additional layer of inventory that we added to protect our customers after the Japan crisis. Fortunately, at this point we don't see any significant risk to our supply chain due to Japan. I think Japan has managed very well through the crisis.

Before I comment on the outlook let me give you some other highlights in the quarter. India was a star in emerging Asia with 27% organic growth. China was at mid teens growth, which was in-line with our expectations given the very strong Q3 from last year. We are gaining traction in emerging Europe. In Q3 we had a significant $3 million wastewater win in Turkey.

I am pleased with the progress we're making in process. Our process business had its best quarter of the year, with 18% year-over-year sales growth and 9% sequential growth, both on a currency neutral basis.

Globally we are seeing more and larger legacy DCS conversion opportunities, and we continue to invest in our process domain expertise for selling, application engineering and technical support.

Success with OEM customers continues to contribute to the above-market growth we are seeing in EMEA. And we closed two acquisitions in the quarter, announced a 21% dividend increase, and stepped up our share repurchases.

Our results in the third quarter kept us on track for an outstanding year for the Company and for our shareowners. We have had excellent performance through the first three quarters of the year by capitalizing on the strength of the industrial recovery and executing our growth and performance strategy. We are now nine quarters into the recovery and market growth rates are moderating just, as we would expect at this stage.

Given our strong year-to-date results and an increased tailwind from currency, we are increasing our full-year sales outlook to approximately $5.9 billion. About half of the increase compared to the prior guidance is from currency and acquisitions with the other half from additional organic volume.

Based on this sales outlook we are raising our fiscal 2011 earnings per share guidance to $4.55 to $4.65. Ted will go through the puts and takes in more detail, but at the midpoint this represents more than a 50% increase in the earnings per share compared to 2010, and record earnings per share from continuing operations.

Before I close, I would like to welcome the employees of Lektronix to Rockwell Automation. Lektronix is our newly acquired repair and maintenance service business based in the UK, but with operations around the world. They serve a broad range of both discrete and process industries and have expertise in most industrial automation products not just ours. We are excited to have them on board, and we know they will help us expand our service to customers around the world.

Once again, I want to take the opportunity to thank the people and partners of Rockwell Automation. Their dedication and expertise support the business and productivity needs of our customers, and enable us to sustain our long tradition of innovation and deliver superior financial performance.

So with that, I will turn it over to Ted to provide more details on the financial results for the quarter and our outlook for the remainder of fiscal 2011.

Thanks, Keith, and good morning everybody. I will start with Q3 results summary on page 5. Sales in the quarter were $1.516 billion, up 20% compared to Q3 last year. The year-over-year impact of currency translation increased sales in the quarter by approximately 6 points. That is a considerably larger currency impact than recent quarters.

Segment operating earnings were $263 million, an increase of 33% compared to Q3 last year. General corporate net expense was $22.3 million compared to $23.1 million a year ago. The effective tax rate in the quarter was 19.2%. We benefited in the quarter from some discrete items that lowered the rate by about 2 points.

Diluted earnings per share from continuing operations was $1.22, an increase of 47% from $0.83 in Q3 last year. There was also a small benefit from discontinued operations in Q3 related to various legacy legal and tax matters. Diluted earnings per share, including that benefit, was $0.01 higher at $1.23.

Average diluted shares outstanding in the quarter was 145.9 million. As Keith mentioned, we stepped up share repurchases in Q3. We repurchased approximately 1.35 million shares in Q3 at a cost of about $114 million. Year-to-date through June we have repurchased a total of 2.7 million shares.

Turning to page 6, the Q3 results Rockwell Automation total. So on the left side of this slide you can see the trend in sales. As I noted, sales were up 20% year-over-year in the quarter and also up 4% sequentially.

Moving to earnings, on the right side of the slide, we have seen steady improvement over the past year. Segment operating margin has continued to expand and improved by 1.8 points year-over-year to 17.4%. Operating margin improved sequentially by 0.7 point.

The year-over-year improvement in operating margin reflects volume leverage, partially offset by increased spending to support growth. And as Keith noted, we saw particularly strong margin performance in the Architecture & Software segment in the quarter.

The year-over-year incremental margin was about 26%, so better than our Q2 results. The effects of currency and acquisitions reduced incremental margin by about 5 points in the quarter. On a relative basis these effects have a significantly more negative impact on the Control Products & Solutions segment, and also some continued impact in Q3 from the unfavorable material cost that we talked about last quarter. But that was pretty much what we expected it to be coming into the quarter.

Although it is not displayed on the chart, our trailing four-quarter return on invested capital was 29.3%. That is up from 17.7% in Q3 last year, and another record for return on invested capital.

Moving now to page 7. This slide summarizes the Q3 results of the Architecture & Software segment. This segment reported a really outstanding quarter with regard to both sales and margin performance. On the left side of this slide year-over-year sales growth in the segment was 21% in the third quarter. That included about 6 points of growth due to currency translation. Sequential growth was 8%.

We have continued to see particularly good performance in this segment in the EMEA region, reflecting in part continued success with OEM customers. Operating margin for the quarter was 26.1%, up 3.5 points compared to last year. That is due primarily to strong volume leverage, partly offset by increased spending.

The next slide, page 8, covers our Control Products & Solutions segment. Sales in Q3 were $843 million, up 18% compared to last year, with about 5 points of the increase due to currency translation and about 1 point from acquisitions.

On a year-over-year basis sales for the products portion of Control Products & Solutions segment were up at about the same rate as the Architecture & Software segment, with the solutions and services businesses increasing by 16%.

For the segment as a whole you can see here on the left side of the slide all-in sales were basically flat sequentially, but excluding currency translation sales declined by about 2%.

Moving to the right side of the slide, segment operating earnings increased 20% year-over-year with a small improvement in operating margin. In Control Products & Solutions volume leverage was just about offset by increased spending and somewhat lower margins in the solutions businesses. Solutions business margins tend to be somewhat more variable quarter to quarter.

Also as I previously mentioned, currency effects had a somewhat more negative impact on margins in this segment this quarter.

The Control Products & Solutions segment has fundamentally higher margins today than where we were at the beginning of the recovery in the last cycle. Year-to-date in this segment operating margin is up 1.8 points and we expect margin to expand as the recovery continues.

On page 9 this provides a geographic breakdown of our sales in the quarter. I will focus my comments on the far-right column, which excludes currency effects. Very good growth across the regions. Another particularly strong quarter in the EMEA region with 21% growth. That was about 19% growth excluding the impact of acquisitions.

Latin America had another strong quarter with 21% growth. Asia-Pacific came in at 14%, and the US and Canada at about 10%. Emerging markets continue to grow above the Company average.

I will turn now to page 10, free cash flow. Free cash flow for the quarter was $194 million, which represents conversion on net income of 108%. That is a very good result. Year-to-date free cash flow is at $424 million. That is a conversion of about 86%.

We now feel it is likely that we will make a discretionary US pension contribution in the fourth quarter, and that will put cash conversion for the full year more in the range of 75% to 85%.

And that brings us to the final slide, which addresses our current outlook for fiscal 2011. As Keith mentioned, we are increasing sales and earnings guidance. We have increased full-year sales to approximately $5.9 billion. That is a $150 million increase compared to the previous guidance midpoint. About half of that increase is due to currency and acquisitions, and the balance reflects a somewhat higher organic growth in both the third and fourth quarter. For the full year that represents growth of approximately 18% excluding currency effects. The previous guidance range was 15% to 17%.

Based on currency rates experienced in Q3 for the full year we now expect currency to contribute a little over 3 points to growth. We have increased that by about 1 point from our previous guidance.

We continue to expect segment margin to be about 17%. Our fiscal 2011 guidance for diluted earnings per share from continuing operations is now $4.55 to $4.65. Compared to the previous guidance we raised EPS by $0.10 at the midpoint, and with only one quarter remaining in this fiscal year, we narrowed the range from $0.20 to $0.10.

Basically compared to the prior guidance midpoint to midpoint, we are getting a positive contribution from volume and a somewhat lower tax rate that is partially offset by less favorable mix and increased performance-based compensation expense due to the higher sales and earnings.

A couple of our other items related to the full-year guidance. We expect a full-year tax rate of 19% to 20%, lower by 1 point compared to previous guidance. And we continue to expect general corporate net expense of about $80 million for the full year.

With that, I will turn it back to Rondi and we will get to Q&A.

Great, thanks, Ted. Before I turn this over to the operator to start the Q&A, I would just like to remind everyone that we do want to get to as many of you as possible, so if you could please limit yourself to one question and a quick follow-up, then if you have a question on another topic, you could get back in the queue and we will try to get to you again. But just a way to try to get to as many of you as possible. So we would appreciate your cooperation on that.

With that, Mary, let's open it up for our first question.

(Operator Instructions). Julian Mitchell, Credit Suisse.

I guess I had a question on your -- particularly your China and US businesses. The China growth was mid-teens off a tough comp. Do you expect that to be sustained in September and the balance of this calendar year or are you seeing any sort of reduction in customer CapEx plans because of the tightening?

Secondly on the US, organic sales growth moderated to about 11%. How do you see that going forward? Obviously, one of your peers yesterday talked about a steep deceleration in US demand. I just wondered if you had seen any change in ordering patterns in the US or China, or indeed any region in the last couple of months? Thank you.

Sure. With respect to China, we are coming up -- we are coming up to some very strong previous performance. So we still expect our year-to-year performance in China to be a little over 20%, which is what we planned for at the start of the year, and we still believe that will be where it ends up.

With respect to the US, we continue to do our normal quarterly analysis of our customers, our channel partners, our sales organization. And we believe our outlook for the remainder of this fiscal year will be able to enable us to deliver the guidance that we provided.

So we feel pretty good about our outlook at this point in the process. The only caveat and reminder I will put in on that is this quarter we have -- August is a very weak month, and certainly a preponderance of our revenue for the quarter flows in September. That means it is six weeks away, and we will hopefully see how that plays out.

With respect to, once again, the China and US, both China and the US had sequential growth. So the moderation is on a year-over-year performance as we go forward based upon where we are in the recovery for sure in the US, and just based upon very significant growth in China in our fourth quarter of last year.

Okay, thanks. Then just on the incremental margins. I think your gross margins were flat year-on-year in Q3, having been down slightly year-on-year in December and in March. Do you expect that to be up slightly year-on-year in the September quarter? And I guess overall on operating incrementals are you still expecting not to run in the 30s when you're thinking about the medium term? Thank you.

I guess, I would rather talk about operating margin than gross margin. And maybe the easiest answer to your question, I think, would be right now we would expect to see maybe slightly higher incremental margin in Q4 than we saw in Q3.

Okay, thank you.

Richard Eastman, Robert W. Baird.

I just got two questions, one for Keith. Keith, you had mentioned maybe as a line in your initial comments that you were seeing more and larger DCSI conversion opportunities -- or DCS conversion opportunities. Could you just maybe by industry -- or is there some, let's call it, maybe early adopters from an industry perspective, where would those opportunities be?

It is not really an industry specific application with respect to the legacy. It is more upon two dynamics. One is the age of the installed equipment, and the second is, is it still is supported by the DCS supplier.

In most cases these are 10- to 20-year-old systems that no longer are supportable from the original supplier for whatever reasons. That -- we are seeing the opportunity to give our plant-wide optimization value proposition to these customers and they understand the benefit of that. And when they are making their next transition in a technology they are looking for long-term, sustainable support in value, and we think the plantwide optimization story plays particularly well to them. (multiple speakers).

Okay then just as a second question, what was the book to bill in the solutions side of the business?

It was about 1 to 1 for the quarter. One point -- I'm sorry, 1.1.

1.01 or 1.1?

1.1 to 1.

Okay, great. Thank you.

Rich Kwas, Wells Fargo Securities.

Keith, could you talk about the front log activity, what you're seeing there? I know over the last couple of quarters you have seen some signs in the developed markets that things have been picking up. Obviously, it was mentioned with one of the competitors yesterday talking about some weakness. Could you give us an update there on what you are seeing overall?

Yes, the overall front log remains positive for us, and it grew 8% from the prior quarter. If we go around the world so to speak, we see in North America we had continued growth in both the product and solutions front log. In EMEA the stronger growth was in the solutions area, in particular some oil and gas opportunities there. In Asia Pacific front log, it was increasing, both products and solutions. And in Latin America, likewise it was increasing for both products and solutions.

So that is a volatile measure, but we do think that it is an indicator, I guess, at a minimum of the sentiment for forward-looking projects. As always, the timing is what is the tough part to call. So we like the activity, and our goal is to translate as much of that front log into orders and then into shipments as we progress through fiscal 2012.

Okay, and then just a follow-up for Ted on the solutions segment in terms of the margin. Last quarter I think you had booked a $20 million plus project into the first -- or into the fiscal second quarter. Was there anything unique in the quarter in terms of something that got booked or anything else -- I think there is some M&A costs there in that segment -- but anything else that we should be aware of in terms of what affected the margin?

I don't think I would say anything unique. I would say the solutions business margins tend to be a little bit more variable, because every quarter you've got a somewhat different mix of projects across different types of solutions applications, so the variability comes just because of that mix.

Okay, great. Thank you.

Jeffrey Sprague, Vertical Research.

Just a couple of things, and I apologize, I missed the first five or ten minutes.

That was all the good stuff, Jeff.

I am sure it was. You were particularly worried about Japan supply chain previously, looking out at maybe there was something lurking in the shadows that hadn't perked up yet. You feel you are clear of that or is there any particular issue that you're still worried about?

No, we believe that we will now not see any significant risks due to the supply chain in Japan. We did put in a little more inventory, as we talked about last quarter. We believe that has helped. But also we have worked very hard with our suppliers, and quite frankly the response of the Japanese companies has been tremendous in their efforts to recover, quite frankly.

So right now, other than the fact that we had to put in more inventory, we believe over the next quarter to two we will not see any meaningful impact from the Japan crisis. And hopefully we are really down to a handful of components that we are really on top of now, and it seems to be getting better each month. So we are encouraged at this point.

Right. Could you elaborate a little bit more on price cost? I think you're just in the early stages of going out with price. But what the reception is in the marketplace to that? How long you think it takes to actually get it in place, and whether or not you are seeing any relief anywhere (multiple speakers)?

Well, I guess, let me talk about the cost side first. I would say the inflationary pressures on material and transportation costs in Q3 were about the same as we experienced in Q2 with some puts and takes across different commodity categories.

Compared to our expectations coming into the year our priced cost dynamic is still unfavorable, and was still unfavorable in Q3. We had implemented some price increases in our solutions businesses. We implemented -- basically right now we are implementing a price increase in the product businesses. So we would expect maybe to see that begin to improve as we move through Q4, and then more improvement as we enter into Q12 -- I am sorry, into fiscal 2012.

Just given the quick-turn nature of your business, do you think that we should expect, if it is successful, that it does show up quickly or is there pre-commitments and project work and things like that that drag it out?

I would say more the latter than the former. A lot of our business is at negotiated price levels. Those agreements roll typically on an annual basis and spread throughout the year. So when we implement a list price change it doesn't hit all the business equally at the same time.

Okay, great. Thanks for the color.

John Inch, Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Maybe, Keith, how would you characterize the process business today based on -- I don't know if there is really a front log activity book or whatever, but I know there has been some product introductions. The growth rates sound like they're better. Would you characterize the business as actually positioned to accelerate? Obviously, the oil and gas industry is pretty robust right now. Maybe just a little more color on that business and how you see the progression.

Well, certainly, we are pleased with the progression, because basically what our strategy and plan has been is to continue to build capabilities in the platform and continue to build, I will call it, capabilities of our organization to deliver -- to, one, sell, deliver and support a process application. So it is an ongoing evolution for us.

And we are pleased with the talent that we have been able to bring into the Company. We have been very pleased with the development of our sales organization and competence in this area. And our channel partners, whether it be system integrators or our distributors, both of those are very critical to continuing to build what we would call the ecosystem to be able to support the process industries.

That part has gone well, but it has never ended either. So we keep building that. The technology, every release of a new Logix platform generally has something in it that is a better -- that helps the process application, and some more than others. But certainly when we released the PlantPAx 2.0, that was a very significant improvement in our capabilities.

The other area in process that we are working very hard on is with the process Skid OEMs. And that is another way that Rockwell Automation can differentiate the fact that we know how to interface with OEMs. It is a big part of our machine -- our discrete business, has been historically. And as all of you know, we have been focusing on OEMs the last couple of years and process Skids is just one of the six segments that we go after. But it is very important from the overall plant-wide optimization strategy that we are implementing.

So the ability to address more applications, more industries continues to help us -- continues to help us grow at the rates we are growing. And as I mentioned earlier, that process grew above the Company average for the first time this year.

Well, that is where I was driving, Keith. Really, the setup should almost be for sustained faster process growth in the coming quarters. Is there any reason why that would not be the case?

I think your Company is misperceived by a lot of folks as somehow it is early cycle. Maybe some of your MRO businesses are early cycle, but it strikes me that a businesslike process is distinctly late cycle. And I'm really just trying to understand, all else equal, this business should be really beginning to gain momentum, not somehow have peaked out already. Is that not a fair statement?

That is a fair statement, with the only caveat of what is going to go in on in the economy, and what is this cycle. And certainly the process should be a more mid to late cycle player. That is why we are doing it to just your point. We are trying to balance our portfolio to have a balance between early, mid -- and a better balance between early, mid and late cycle. And process was an area that we expected to push a little more into that late cycle -- mid to late cycle business.

So we really want to focus on that. It is also a big part of emerging markets. As you know, John, it is part of the building and infrastructure, building a resource-based industries which is many of the exports, or ability to grow an economy early in emerging markets. And, obviously, later it goes to consumer, which is the other dimension of our strategy for emerging markets.

But for those reasons we do see this as an important balance to our strong MRO and early cycle discreet businesses. And that, combined with our intelligent motor control, we think -- and our process safety capabilities with the acquisition of IC ST certainly, we think, should help us later in the economic cycles than we were historically.

Keith, can I just ask then the follow-up? I mean, your stock is up over 20% from its high. Let's presume that these momentum folks are out of your stock today. You've got a pretty good set-up with process, your other businesses. And frankly you have been able to pull -- what appears to have been able to to pull forward an awful lot of spending this cycle that gives you a pretty good playbook on the setup.

You are sitting on an over-capitalized balance sheet. It looks like you're beginning to buy more stock. Why wouldn't you aggressively buy more stock today opportunistically as a dynamic based on what has happened in the stock market and with respect to your share price specifically?

Well, we do believe that opportunistic buying is part of the way that we do our cash deployment strategy. I think we demonstrated that in our third quarter. And certainly we will continue to look at that as we go into the fourth quarter.

Obviously, we are trying to balance the cash deployment. You heard Ted earlier talk about that we probably will make a discretionary contribution to our pension. That is an offset to buying back stock. Obviously, acquisitions, we have completed two this quarter. That is another alternative.

Then as all of you well know, it is a question of where the cash is as well. And certainly we have a significant portion of ours that is outside the US. So there is just a lot of moving parts there that we are trying to balance between them all. But I would say absolutely we are an opportunistic purchaser of our stock, and we think it is a great time at the moment.

And, John, I would add, look, we stepped up in Q3. You know that we have never previously expressed our intentions around the current quarter, and don't think that is an appropriate thing to do now.

No, I agree, and I did see that, and I vote put the pension on the back burner and buy more shares. Thank you.

We understand your vote.

Thank you.

Mark Douglass, Longbow Research.

I didn't know he got a vote (laughter). Do I get one too?

No one said the votes get counted (laughter).

Or how they are weighted (laughter).

So you said Logix' organic sales were over 25%. What were the other products like then? Does it necessarily mean that they are below the 14% organic corporate, or can you go into more details about how the other products fared?

Well, I think the one that always is the balancing comment with respect to our Logix is what happened in the legacy processor businesses. And when we link those together I think that is a pure number for you. So let me do that.

The legacy sales were down 12%. And processor -- which is back to a more traditional decline in the legacy business. We talk about 10% being the ongoing decline of that business. And total processor sales were up 19% for the quarter. So slightly above -- not slightly, about 5 points about the organic growth.

So I think our product business -- if you look at it, our product businesses in general were above organic growth and our solutions was below organic growth. And I think that is the way to look at it. There was no significant product deviation. And I think it was more of the mix between product and solutions that got us to the 14%, as opposed to, boy, this product was way negative and this one was way positive.

Okay, that is helpful. Then continuing on kind of that theme looking at certainly Control Products & Solutions, I think we -- a lot of us probably expected a pickup sequentially organically. Was a conversion to sales, was there a pullback in the conversion rate? Maybe did people hold up off on taking delivery of of the solutions, or did their projects get put on hold? Nervousness of customers -- can you give a little bit more insight as to the dynamics there?

No I wouldn't say there was any -- we haven't seen any change in the dynamics of customers' delivery acceptance on projects Q2 to Q3. I would remind you, and I think Julian mentioned this -- I think it was Julian -- we did have this very large project shipment in Q2 in the solutions business, and so we were expecting some decline in solutions going from Q2 to Q3.

Sales were about flat, down a little bit organically. But I wouldn't say -- there is nothing -- there is no fundamental change in what we are seeing in terms of underlying customer demand in that segment.

Okay, thank you.

Steve Tusa, JPMorgan.

I joined the call a bit late. On China, can you just tell us maybe what is going on there, and then what would you expect for growth there in the fourth quarter?.

Sure. China continues to grow for us. We had a growth there that I mentioned earlier of mid-teens. We still expect China for the year to grow above 20%. We are coming across some very strong growth quarters, so we will see continued decline from our first couple of quarters, where we were 40% and 30% plus. So I think we are getting into more of that average 20% growth over a year that we have been outlining as what our goal is for China.

The only other comment I would make there is the lumpiness of our solutions business there maybe masked a little bit of a stronger performance in our product portfolio, which was higher than the overall average.

But, I think, Keith, maybe another way of expressing this is we are expecting sequential growth in China in Q4, but a continued moderation in the year-over-year growth rates.

So does that go below double digit?

My guess is it will be close.

Then when you look at the incremental, you talked about it improving a little bit here in the fourth quarter. So will that be in kind of the 30% to 40% range?

I think it will be at the lower end of that range.

Okay, and then no real kind of dynamics around the segments, right? I mean, are A&S still pretty strong and Control Products below the low end of that range?

Yes. That is just -- A&S has fundamentally higher operating leverage.

Right, right. Okay. That's it. Thanks.

Operator, do we have any other callers in the queue?

We should call.

No, we are still on the call.

Hello? Hello?

Rondi Rohr-Dralle Is the operator there, or who is next in the queue?

This is Mark Koznarek. I don't know, I haven't been announced, but I am ready with a question.

Okay, go ahead. I don't know what happened there.

Go ahead, Mark.

Okay, great. It is pretty unusual here. Just there is a lot that we have covered already, so there is just some odds and ends. You called out some additional growth-related spending in CP&S. Is that of the magnitude of say last year where we had this $100 million kind of one-time step-up? Are we talking about a big block of additional R&D or is this sort of normal expansion in-line with the current revenue growth and revenue outlook?

My intention was not to call out anything specific for CP&S. We have a headwind year-over-year in the margins that is related to increased spending. And part of that is related to the ramp we did in spending and talked about in the latter half of last year. So that affects both segments.

Given the lower operating leverage in Control Products & Solutions it had somewhat of a larger effect on conversion margin in that segment. But that increase in spending affects both segments. Actually, in Q3 the impact of that spending is actually a little bit less than it was earlier in the year, because we are starting to lap some of those larger increases we made in the second half of last year.

Right, yes, I had thought that you had lapped that year-ago thing, so I got the impression that you're calling this out as another round of spending, but apparently that is not the case.

No, that is not the case. And I would also remind you we haven't fully lapped that ramp in spending last year because some of it also occurred in Q4.

I see. Okay. Next, when we look at -- there were some comments on front log and the improvement there. Can you give a little bit of insight into the industries that are participating? Is it across-the-board improvement or are some areas that were previously dormant starting to move forward more aggressively and vice versa, other things starting to slow?

I don't think we are seeing things starting to slow. Obviously, the highest growth has been in transportation and we certainly don't expect that to continue to grow, but we expect that to continue to exist at the higher levels going forward.

With respect to what is picking up at this point in time, we believe that the greatest opportunity as far as in the front log really is around the oil and gas and mining. Those tend to be the areas now that we are seeing additional pickup. And previously it was really what was going on in transportation, as well as some of the OEM business associated with packaging in particular.

So I think some of the -- as we talked about in the earlier question, with respect -- from John Inch -- with respect to process and some of the later cycle businesses, I think we are seeing more quotation activity in some of those areas. And hopefully if commodity prices stay at the level they are at, those quotes will be able to translate into future orders and shipments.

Okay, so those categories are going to be more process intensive. You are more successful in moving forward your process initiative into these categories, oil and gas and mining.

And the follow-on, does that imply that the average margins of those businesses will be a bit lower because they are more solutions intensive and perhaps less process or product intensive?

Well, I think that is always the case with respect to process industries, because the business model in the process industry is the automation supplier buys the solution. So I don't think it is any different than what we have in process in general. So I don't see that as a significant change.

But you are right, in process we will be more of a solution provider, and that means that the project margin will be lower than when we just sell product and some other integrator provides the solution.

Then a quick one for Ted. The lower tax rate, is that simply the result of a discrete item or have you done something structural whereas -- leading to a better tax rate expectation for 2012 and beyond?.

Well, I am not going to -- I am going to try not to provide guidance for 2012 on tax rate at this point. I would say the lower tax rate, as it relates to our previous guidance, is due to discrete items that occurred primarily in Q3.

Okay, great, thanks.

Shannon O'Callaghan, Nomura.

Can you just provide a little more color on the solution mix issue in the quarter -- the lower margin mix. What are we talking about here in terms of types of projects, and how often do you see that happen?

And you have visibility now -- you're talking about better incrementals in 4Q -- do you have visibility into a better mix in the book as you look into the next few quarters or was this a particularly negative mix this quarter?

Well, let me -- I think there really two different questions there, so let me answer the first one, which is so provide a little more color around the solutions mix issue. In our solutions businesses we have some longer cycle solutions businesses and some shorter cycle solutions businesses.

On the longer cycle it is kind of our turn-key systems integration work, and that the shorter cycle it is things like Motor Control Centers. So when I talked about -- and medium voltage drive systems. So when I talked about the mix across the solutions businesses and talking about those three categories and the margins tend to be somewhat different in each category.

So what happens in a particular quarter in margins has a lot to do with what the mix across the solutions businesses looks like. It is not so much an industry application issue. It is not so much a regional issue. It is just a -- we have got some different types of solutions businesses.

Your question about Q4 expectations, I would say at the Company level our expectation in Q4 is for somewhat less favorable mix, because we are expecting our typical increase in solutions volume in Q4. So we think we are going to have higher solutions growth than product growth sequentially, so a somewhat less favorable mix.

I do expect that within the solutions businesses we will be back to a little bit better mix than we saw in Q3.

Okay, so even though -- so the mix within solutions get better, so you are still expecting better incrementals within CP&S next segment -- next quarter?

I would expect better incrementals in CP&S, but also better incrementals in total.

Right. So both segments get better?

I don't want to comment on A&S at this point, but I think (multiple speakers) will be better and I think we will be better in total.

All right. Let me just ask on the OEM you had the big motion driver last quarter. It sounded like it is still running well. (inaudible) was that [up] this quarter, and how are you able to overcome the negative mix you had last quarter?

Well, I would say, as we talked last quarter, we had kind of an extraordinary quarter for motion control growth year-over-year. This quarter the motion control growth was much more in-line with the Architecture & Software segment average, so we didn't have that same unfavorable mix of that.

Okay, that helps.

In fact, Mark Douglass' question about Logix growth being above average this quarter.

Right, okay. That makes sense. Last one for me is just can you give a little more color on what you are seeing in terms of the auto market in terms of their spending behavior on automation equipment as distinct from actual production rates, and what you saw this quarter and what you're expecting?

Yes, auto -- as I mentioned earlier, transportation was one of the better performing verticals for us throughout the year, and has been a big part of the recovery increases for us. But, obviously, that is based upon where they were two years ago.

But we think the one thing we are seeing is that the CapEx outlook is very positive in the automotive industry. If you come across, in particular, the US companies -- Ford, their CapEx is up over 30% year-over-year and they expect it to continue to be strong. GM is up even higher than that.

So we are seeing a continued investment in new platforms, new projects. And as you commented, that is a little different than just production rate. The production rates really drives more of our MRO-installed base, but the projects, which we see continued strong, they were -- you know, front log of those projects in auto were up slightly in the year -- in the quarter, but they remain at a very high level.

So I think we are seeing about the capacity at this point that that industry can spend at. And we expect those projects to flow through the system as we go through FY 2012.

Okay, great. Thanks a lot.

Jason Feldman, UBS.

Mary, before Jason starts, this will be our last caller. So, Jason, you're going to wrap it up for us.

Okay, thanks for squeezing me in. So you have mentioned some moderation of growth rates, which is typical, I guess, at this point in the cycle overall, but was there any change in the cadence of activity during the quarter? Was the latter part of the quarter given some of the macroeconomics macro weakening we saw and the political issues come up different than the first half?

I would say we start pretty steady demand across the quarter. So we didn't see a lot of change from April through the end of June. I would say -- I think it would be fair to say and that we have seen a continuation of that now through July.

Good to hear. Then, lastly, have there been any indications, particularly in the process end markets, of either project delays or push-outs that are anything other than normal? I know some projects are always delayed, but anything unusual there?

No, we have not seen any change, other than as you said, the normal -- some push out, some move in. But really not a change in what had been occurring previously.

That is part of the work that we do every quarter when we go through the analysis of what is going on in the market. And certainly is what was behind the fact that we decided to raise our revenue and earnings guidance for the remainder of the year.

Great, thank you very much.

So we are going to wrap up today's call. We want to thank everyone for joining us. A good set of questions today. And we will disconnect at this time. Thank you.

This concludes today's conference call. At this time you may now disconnect. Thank you and have a good day.