Twin Disc Inc (TWIN) 2025 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Welcome to the Twin Disc, Inc., fiscal second quarter 2025 conference call. We will begin with introductory remarks from Jeff Knutson, Twin Disc's CFO.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today to discuss our fiscal 2025 second-quarter results. On the call with me today is John Batten, Twin Disc's CEO. I would like to remind everyone that certain statements made during this conference call, especially statements expressing hopes, beliefs, expectations or predictions for the future are forward-looking statements. It is important to remember that the company's actual results could differ materially from those projected in such forward-looking statements.

Information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements are contained in the company's annual report on Form 10-K, copies of which may be obtained by contacting either the company or the SEC.

Any forward-looking statements that are made during this call are based on assumptions as of today, and the company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise these statements to reflect subsequent events or new information. During today's call, management will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. For a definition of non-GAAP financial measures and a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial results, please see the earnings release issued earlier today.

By now, you should have received the news release which was issued this morning before the market open. If you have not received a copy, please call our office at (262) 638-4000, and we will send a release to you. Now I'll turn the call over to John.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our fiscal 2025 second quarter conference call. I appreciate you joining us today. We are pleased to report another quarter of strong double-digit sales growth with second-quarter sales of $89.3 million, reflecting a 23.2% year-over-year increase as we close out a successful first half of the fiscal year. We continue to see meaningful contributions from Katsa Oy, which is allowing us to extend our global footprint and deepen our engineering capabilities, particularly in Europe and North America. We remain committed to ensuring a seamless integration of Katsa and are excited to unlock its full potential.

Our focus is on capitalizing our cross-selling opportunities, optimizing shared cost efficiencies, streamlining our business lines, and maintaining strong execution. At the same time, we are pleased to see continued strength in shipments of Veth products, meeting the robust demand for cutting-edge electric hybrid and conventional propulsion system. We are maintaining a healthy backlog across all of our end markets and are encouraged by the continued stabilization with our industrial business over the quarter.

Shifting to the product segments. Sales in our Marine Propulsion segment grew 23.9% year over year. This performance was driven by ongoing strength in our Veth product line, which once again delivered record orders as demand remains consistent globally. Incoming orders were driven in part by demand from both new North American projects within commercial applications in the luxury yacht market, supported by our Veth Rolla partnership.

Meanwhile, increased government defense spending has sustained demand for patrol boat projects, mainly driven by evolving market dynamics surrounding ongoing geopolitical conflicts in Southeast Asia and Europe. The integration of Veth continues to yield meaningful synergies, positioning us to capture market opportunities in conventional electric and hybrid propulsion applications with our hybrid marine transmissions and control systems. We remain focused on leveraging these synergies to address evolving customer needs, particularly around sustainability and electrification.

In our land-based transmission, sales increased 19.8% year over year, reflecting continued momentum in our airport rescue and firefighting transmission business, where we shipped a significant volume of units this quarter. As we mentioned last quarter, demand for ARFF vehicles remained strong, driven by our advanced configurations, unique torque capabilities, and innovative power dividing systems, which continue to position us as the supplier of choice. This trend persists as we benefit from growing international airport development, the replacement of aging fleets, and the global shift towards emissions-compliant transmission.

Turning to oil and gas. Exports were down during the ongoing macroeconomic headwinds in the Asia-Pacific region and subdued new builds in North America. However, we anticipate momentum will begin to build as we have seen recent uptick in quoting activity. Aftermarket demand for replacement parts in oil and gas applications remain stable, underscoring the resilience of both our installed base and the demand driven by North American usage trends. As fleets continue to age through the replacement cycle, this indicates the potential for new builds and sustained growth for the business.

Our Industrial segment stock grew 44.8% year over year driven by both the addition of Katsa and a rebound in our Lufkin orders. We are seeing a continued stabilization sequentially within this segment as order momentum from our Lufkin facility has picked up.

Overall segment demand has improved, particularly for higher-end content industrial products. We believe our continued engineering focus positions us to capture share in markets that demand specialized solutions, whether that's agricultural equipment, construction machinery or other high torque application.

Our backlog remains healthy, and we are encouraged by the rate of sustained order momentum across our portfolio. As we executed during the quarter, our six-month backlog is lower both sequentially and year over year due to high shipments. Foreign exchange also accounted for $11.5 million versus the prior-year quarter. As we move through the year, we remain committed to disciplined inventory management and optimizing to lower inventories compared to the backlog.

To conclude my comments, I'd like to address the significant progress we have made to date in executing our long-term strategy. Over the past several quarters, we have maintained strong focus on our long-term strategy and our recent acquisition to underscore that commitment. The successful integration of Katsa expanded our engineering capabilities and market reach, particularly in Europe and North America. By enhancing our portfolio with Katsa specialized solutions, we are capturing share in industrial end markets that value customization and technical expertise.

From an operational perspective, we have made significant progress in integration, rationalizing inventory, aligning product lines, and leveraging cross-selling opportunities to enhance the customer experience. At the same time, we continue to optimize cost through improved supply sourcing, Kaizen-driven facility enhancement and strategic inventory management, positioning us for sustained margin expansion.

Looking ahead, we will remain disciplined in executing our operational initiatives and exploring additional strategic acquisitions that complement our core expertise. By steadily improving efficiency, enhancing profitability, and strengthening our technology portfolio, we believe we are well positioned to deliver sustainable long-term value for our customers, employees, and shareholders.

With that, I will now turn it over to Jeff to discuss the financials. Jeff?

Thanks, John. Good morning, everyone. In the second quarter, we delivered sales of $89.9 million for the quarter, up $15.9 million or 23.2% from the prior year, driven by a $10 million incremental benefit from Katsa. On an organic basis, which excludes the impact of acquisitions and foreign currency exchange, revenue increased 10.1% as demand in our global end markets remain healthy.

Net income attributable to Twin Disc for the second quarter was $900,000 or $0.07 per diluted share compared to a net loss of $900,000 or $0.07 per diluted share in the second quarter of fiscal '24. Earnings per share were impacted by an increase in other expenses related to interest expense and additional pension amortization in the quarter.

Gross profit margin decreased to 24.1% compared to 28.3% during the prior-year period, and gross profit increased 5% to $21.7 million. The decline in gross profit margins was driven by a $1.6 million inventory write-down related to the Katsa acquisition as we eliminated redundant inventory, along with a $300,000 purchase accounting amortization expense tied to the acquisition and unfavorable product mix in the quarter.

Looking at top-line sales distribution, we delivered double-digit growth in all three of the marine and propulsion systems, land-based transmission, and industrial segments. This was mainly driven by ongoing healthy market demand and geographic expansion, including the additional benefit of the Katsa acquisition and the continued stabilization in the industrial segment, which fostered strong year-over-year growth. Touching on geographic distribution, we again saw increased sales in Europe as a result of our acquisition of Katsa as well as a larger proportion of sales from North American markets on strength in the best projects in the region.

Compared to the second fiscal quarter of 2024, net debt increased $12.3 million to $9 million in the quarter, primarily driven by an increase in total debt due to the Katsa acquisition. We ended the quarter with a cash balance of $15.9 million, 24.3% lower than the prior year.

Operating cash generation of $4.3 million was strong in the quarter and EBITDA increased to $6.3 million in the second quarter, up 13.5% compared to the second quarter of fiscal '24. Gross margin decreased approximately 420 basis points from the prior-year period, largely reflecting the impact of inventory rationalization in our Industrial segment as we continue to integrate Katsa and eliminated redundant inventory.

Additionally, we saw unfavorable mix in the quarter, which further pressured margins. As we move through the year, we are taking a disciplined approach by streamlining operations, optimizing our cost structure, and driving efficiency across our supply chain. At the same time, we continue to prioritize higher-margin products and services while maintaining a strong focus on pricing discipline. In terms of inflationary and supply chain challenges, we have seen near-term shipment delays that impacted the prior quarter largely subsided.

On capital allocation, our priorities remain the same. We are committed to generating consistent cash flow in order to maintain leverage within a comfortable range. Our primary focus for acquisitions is on businesses that complement our expertise in industrial and marine technology, allowing us to accelerate growth in these key markets while enhancing our value proposition to customers.

Equally important is our commitment to fueling organic growth. This means investing in research and development to push the boundaries of innovation, expanding our presence in underpenetrated geographies, and advancing market efforts to deepen customer engagement and capture new opportunities. By balancing disciplined external investments with thoughtful internal initiatives, we're ensuring that Twin Disc is positioned for sustained growth and shareholder value creation, both now and in the future.

I'd now like to turn the call back to John to share some closing remarks.

Thanks, Jeff. In summary, we delivered another strong quarter of top-line growth, [buoyed] by robust demand in marine and propulsion and recovery in industrial, along with ongoing integration successes with Katsa. While we navigated margin headwinds from product mix, we have made proactive steps to rightsize our inventory rationalization and enhance profitability.

Our backlog, albeit lower sequentially due to FX, remains at a healthy level and cash flow has improved significantly as a result of inventory management. We believe we are well positioned for long-term growth, thanks to our expanding portfolio of higher content, high-value solutions and increasingly diversified global footprint and a strategic focus on electrification and hybrid systems. We are committed to delivering value to our customers, employees, and shareholders through consistent execution and strategic investment.

That concludes our prepared remarks. And now Jeff and I will be happy to answer your questions.

(Operator Instructions) Simon Wong, Gabelli Funds.

Jeff, John, good morning.

Hey, Simon, just a quick note, John unfortunately wasn't able to join us for the Q&A session today, but I'm happy to take your question and anybody's question.

Okay, no problem. Just a quick question on oil and gas. You talked about exports being down. Can you quantify how much of your oil and gas business is this quarter? And how much was it down year over year?

Yeah. Good question, and I was prepared for that question, Simon. Yeah, it was down -- it was about a little under 8% of revenue for the quarter and down compared to the prior year Q2, down about 24%.

Okay. In your prepared remarks, you talked about quoting activity remains high. Is that North America quoting activity or is that Asian quoting activity?

It's both. It's North America, it's Asia, and also some South American activity as well.

South America or --?

Yeah.

Okay. And then it sounds like the ordering trend or activity from the oil and gas customers in light of the change in administration, you're seeing them getting back to work. Is that a correct statement?

I think maybe it's a little bit early to say that. I think what we've seen is, yeah, increased level of activity in some new calls, some new potential projects. So it feels like, yeah, we would say it's kind of a renewed level of activity in that market.

Okay, great. And then can you just refresh your CapEx outlook for the year? And then on the free cash flow, you should -- are you still targeting to convert 60% of your EBITDA to free cash flow?

Yeah. I mean, that's certainly our goal, right? And we -- as we talked about after Q1, we had a difficult Q1 for a variety of reasons in terms of free cash flow. Bounced back nicely in Q2. Free cash flow in Q2 of [about] $6.4 million.

So yeah, we're still targeting to get to that 60% of EBITDA. I think it's a bit of a stretch this year given the difficult Q1, but we're on a good trend now following Q2.

In terms of CapEx, I think no big change there. We were, I would say, a little bit behind pace. We've spent something like $5 million through the first half of the year. We have some bigger projects coming through in the second half. I think in the range of $12 million to $14 million is probably where I'd peg it right now.

Okay. If I can squeeze one more in, if I can. You talked about R&D, investing in R&D to expand the market or to capture growth in the market. Anything that you can talk about that's being commercialized this year that will contribute to growth?

No, I don't think there's anything that we're ready to talk about specifically in terms of new products or new technologies. I think we continue to focus on the hybrid electric market, and that's an ongoing development. We get -- we continue to get -- or more traction there, more orders, more interest, more activity, and we continue to expand our capabilities in that market, and that's a big focus for growth for us.

(Operator Instructions) Simon Wong, Gabelli Funds.

Jeff, since no one is asking questions, let me get one more in. The electric frac fleet that you're piloting about two, three quarters ago, any uptick on that product?

Yeah, I would say it's stable. It's ongoing. I wouldn't say there's anything newsworthy in the quarter that we could share. It's just an ongoing process for us.

Thank you. Seems like there are no more questions in the queue. That concludes our question-and-answer session. It also concludes this conference call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect.