The Brink's Company
Q4 2014 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 5 Feb 2015

[Operator:]

Welcome to The Brink's Company's Fourth Quarter 2014 Earnings Call. Brink's issued a press release on the fourth quarter results this morning. The company also filed an 8-K that includes the release and the slides that will be used in today's call. For those of you listening by phone, the release and slides are available on the company's website at brinks.com. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. Now for the company's Safe Harbor statement. This call and the Q&A session contain forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from projected or estimated results. Information regarding factors that could cause such differences is available in today's press release and in the company's most recent SEC filings. Information presented and discussed on this call is representative as of today only. Brink's assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. The call is copyrighted and may not be used without written permission from Brink's. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Ed Cunningham, Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications. Mr. Cunningham, you may begin.

[Edward Cunningham:]

Thank you, Denise. Good morning. Joining me today are CEO, Tom Schievelbein; and CFO, Joe Dziedzic. This morning, we reported results on both the GAAP and non-GAAP basis. The non-GAAP results excludes several items, including U.S. retirement expenses, severance and restructuring charges, certain compensation and employee benefit items, acquisitions, dispositions and some currency-related items, including the write-down of net monetary assets in Venezuela. The non-GAAP results use a tax rate of 38.5%, up from 34.2% in 2013. The higher rate is due primarily to lower profits in Venezuela as a result of the currency devaluation in that country in March of 2014. We believe the non-GAAP results make it easier for investors to assess operating performance between periods. Accordingly, our comments today, including those referring to our guidance, will focus on non-GAAP results. A summary reconciliation of non-GAAP to GAAP results is provided on Page 3 of the release. More detailed reconciliations are provided in the release and the appendix to the slides we're using today and this morning's 8-K filing and on our website. Page 10 of the press release provides a summary of several of outlook items, including guidance on revenue, operating profit and earnings per share. I'll now turn the call over to Tom.

[Thomas C. Schievelbein:]

Thanks, Ed, and good morning, everyone. We've got a lot of ground to cover today, so I'm going to provide a brief overview of our results, some recent restructuring actions and our outlook for this year and for 2016. In addition to the normal financial review, Joe is going to spend some extra time on our recent restructuring activities, our new financial reporting format, the impact of currency on our results and the actions we're taking to improve results in the United States of Mexico. Providing this information should help investors track and assess our progress. Fourth quarter earnings from continuing operations came in at $0.69 per share despite a negative impact of $0.25 related to last year's devaluation in Venezuela and an additional negative impact of $0.14 from other currency declines. Revenue fell 12%. Organic revenue, which excludes the effects of currency translation, was up 19%. Now on our last call, we projected a full year segment margin rate of 5.5% to 6%, and we came in at 6.1%. So it was a good quarter, and we are particularly encouraged by the strong revenue and profit growth in our U.S. operations. On an adjusted basis, which uses the devaluated exchange rate in Venezuela for both quarters, fourth quarter earnings were up 25%. After this year's first quarter, the impact of the devaluation on earnings comparisons will be behind us. Looking at full year earnings, the decline was driven entirely by Venezuela devaluation and currency declines in other countries, which more than offset modest profit growth at the operating level. Regardless, we're not satisfied with the 2014 full year earnings, and we expect significant improvement going forward. Looking ahead, our margin goals have not changed. Our prior guidance for 2015 called for a segment margin rate of 6.5% to 7% and 8% for 2016. We fully intend to achieve these targets. Of the 80% of our revenue generated outside the U.S., currency is a major impact on our results and is the primary reason for reducing our 2015 revenue guidance from $3.8 billion to $3.4 billion. We expect 2015 earnings to be in a range between $1.55 and $1.75 per share. This represents an improvement of 30% to 45% after currency impact. For 2016, our earnings guidance range is now $2 to $2.40 per share. This is the first time we've given current year EPS guidance. We felt it was important to estimate and to communicate the potential impact of currency declines on our earnings. Once again, our margin targets have not changed. But to help ensure that we achieve these targets, we're taking aggressive actions to reduce cost and to improve operational efficiency. In December, we announced the consolidation of our 4 regional units into 2 operating units. This enables us to eliminate managerial positions and administrative structure. These actions are expected to generate about $15 million in cost savings in 2015. In addition, most of our country-based support functions such as IT, HR, legal, finance, procurement, security and project management are being centralized. We expect this reorganization and centralization will contribute significantly to our overall speed, decision-making and savings. This morning, we announced the plan to reduce 2015 cost by an additional $30 million to $35 million by eliminating approximately 1,700 positions throughout the company. The implementation of this plan is underway and should be substantially completed in the first quarter. So with the $15 million of the expected savings that we disclosed in December, we now expect total 2015 savings from these organizational changes to be approximately $45 million to $50 million. Our goal is to increase profits on a global basis, yet our primary focus, at least in the near term, is in our largest 5 markets

[Joseph W. Dziedzic:]

Thanks, Tom. Good morning, everyone. As in the past, I'll start by covering our quarterly results in the same format as prior quarters. Then I'll review how the recent organizational changes led to a new format for reporting our results at a more granular level. I'll close by reviewing our financial targets for 2015 and '16 and what we're doing to achieve them. The quarterly revenue decline of $160 million was driven by $108 million decline in Venezuela. Organic growth in other countries was offset by the strengthening U.S. dollar. Segment operating profit fell by $11 million due to a $19 million decline in Venezuela. The rest of the business grew by $9 million, overcoming $12 million of unfavorable currency. The U.S. and Argentina were the primary drivers of the improvement. Brazil profits declined versus last year's results, which included the positive resolution of several operating tax items that did not repeat in 2014. Non-GAAP EPS fell by $0.03 as unfavorable currency offset operating profit growth. The adjusted non-GAAP EPS, which adjusts Venezuela to the same exchange rate in both periods, shows a 25% increase from $0.52 to $0.65 per share, driven by the growth in the U.S. and Argentina. The EPS bridge highlights the variances from last year's fourth quarter. The segment operating profit decrease of $0.13 per share was driven mainly by 2 factors

[Operator:]

[Operator Instructions] And our first question will come from Ashish Sinha of Gabelli.

[Ashish Sinha:]

I had a few. Firstly, your new company structure. If you could give a bit more details in terms of how the company's setup now versus where it was before. So if you could run us through the org structure, I mean, branch managers in each country, who do they report to and then how does it kind of flow up to the top in terms of reporting relationships and how is it different from before. My second question is on Brazil and LatAm margins, specifically, Brazil. So Q4, we can see a huge drop year-on-year. I do appreciate you talked a little bit about some one-offs, which didn't repeat this year. But last quarter, you were talking about passing on some wage increases in your contracts. If you have any updates on that, and if that impacted your margins at all. And lastly, if you could also talk about some nonfinancial metrics as in terms of your branch performance levels and branch efficiency, that would be great.

[Thomas C. Schievelbein:]

This is Tom Schievelbein, and I'll address the organizational question first, and let Joe address specifics on Brazil and then we'll talk about efficiency improvements. So the first thing, on the organization. We've gone from a regional structure that had the Far East, Europe, North America and Latin America separate reporting in to me. We've gone to a structure where I have heads of 2 now large operating segments. One, being strategy and the focused markets, which are the U.S, France, Mexico, Brazil and Canada under Mike Beech, and I also have the global markets under Amit Zuckerman, which includes the rest of the world. So I think it's 36 countries. I think even more importantly is that we'd changed into a more centralized function. And so the operations and the support functions within each of those countries, and I'm talking specifically here about information technology, human resources, finance, and the rest of the ones I mentioned have been centralized as wages to, again, get advantages of volume, get advantages of synergies. And so Patty Watson, the CIO, has got responsibility for improving cost around the world from our Information Technology. Holly Tyson on HR, Mac Marshall on legal and, of course, Joe with finance. So we have a more direct reporting responsibility, I think it should improve both speed and allowed us to reduce the number of managerial positions that we had that were overseeing the incorporation. Relative to Brazil, Joe?

[Joseph W. Dziedzic:]

So in Brazil, we did have a significant impact, specifically in the fourth quarter from last year, the resolution of some operating taxes that were favorable to us. We also -- we're planning on getting some price recovery. We did not realize as much of that recovery as we were projecting. We also begun to take some of the actions to generate the savings that we announced today. There were some transition costs related to that overall. And the timing of price increases as well as the onetime resolution of the operating tax items in the fourth quarter also affected earlier quarters in the year and that was the primary driver of the year-over-year decline in Brazil. You'd asked a question about branch performing metrics -- performance metrics. I wouldn't characterize those as having changed dramatically due to the organization change. But one of the things we are driving with a much greater focus is a performance on lean -- utilizing lean tools. Let's talk specific to the U.S. Many of the projects that we're implementing in the U.S. gives us of the data to be able to start measuring and managing the business in a very different way, which allows us to provide tools to their branch to manage their routes and their efficiencies in a much more effective way. So that's really related specifically to the U.S. But the organization change in itself didn't really change the branch performance metrics across the company.

[Ashish Sinha:]

If I could remember, you gave a number of 56% of your U.S. branches, I think, were performing or fell under your performing criteria. And you had a target to take it to 80%, I think. Do those targets change? Or do they still hold?

[Joseph W. Dziedzic:]

The targets don't change. We're really more focused on driving efficiency across the entire business. We look at that as a measure of individual branch performance. But at the end of the day, we need to see the total margins improved and each of the branches have opportunity to improve regardless of where they are today from an efficiency or profitability perspective.

[Ashish Sinha:]

So it's not going to be a metric you're going to communicate regularly or...

[Thomas C. Schievelbein:]

Ashish, it depends on them communicating regularly. I think we said like on a biyearly or every other month -- or every other earnings release, we'll be reporting on that. It hasn't moved enough or changed enough to where we think it's helpful to report it on a quarterly basis. So you all continue to see those metrics in the future on a regular basis and it's most likely going to be on a every 6-month basis.

[Joseph W. Dziedzic:]

It did improve a few hundred basis points versus the baseline metric you referenced. But that's what you would expect, given the margin rate improvement in the fourth quarter for the U.S.

[Operator:]

And next question will come from Jamie Clement of Macquarie.

[James Clement:]

A couple of questions kind of random order. But in light of the new way that you're reporting revenue and profits, if you look at the corporate items line, I think it was about $114 million all-in, in 2013. And I think maybe $111 million here in 2014. Is -- we look at your cost savings number, is there a dollar value that should be coming out of that line versus the countries? Do you have a rough estimate of what that should look like?

[Thomas C. Schievelbein:]

Yes, we do. Hold on. Joe?

[Joseph W. Dziedzic:]

So Jamie, most of the $15 million from the reorganization comes out of the corporate items. Because in the new structure, corporate items includes what used to be considered non-segment, plus all of the regional cost. And so the $15 million of savings came directly out of regional cost and some of the corporate functions. So you should expect to see about a $15 million improvement in that category, that there are a number of items in that category of corporate items that move around. And some of them actually have volatility, which we'll talk about on a quarterly basis.

[James Clement:]

Sure. Joe, did you just say $15 million or $50 million?

[Joseph W. Dziedzic:]

$15 million. 1-5.

[James Clement:]

1-5, okay. And then -- so the rest is coming out of the countries?

[Joseph W. Dziedzic:]

Correct.

[James Clement:]

Okay. Now in years past, obviously, with the way you referred to segment margin, that led to a lot of tables of reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP. The principal one over the years being pension cost. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but based on what you'd said last year, it sounded like 2015 pension cost to the P&L on a GAAP basis was not going to change materially from 2014. It may even, in fact, get a little more favorable to you. Are the days of significant GAAP versus non-GAAP reconciliation based on that kind of behind us?

[Joseph W. Dziedzic:]

I think -- well, we will continue to remove the pension expense for the U.S. and for the UMWA liability from the GAAP result -- from the non-GAAP results because we think you should focus on the cash flow impact. Those -- so I -- we're working through those numbers right now. I do think they will get better in 2015 versus '14. But I would expect to see a continued difference between GAAP and non-GAAP driven by that item.

[James Clement:]

Sure. I think Joe, what I was actually really getting at was reconciling the prior year's period versus the current year period and factoring that in, but I totally understand what you're saying. But it -- sorry, go ahead.

[Joseph W. Dziedzic:]

One of the things I hope is easier for everyone to understand our results is that all of those reconciling items are now being categorized into one line item, while other items now allocated to segments, which I hope makes it easier because now, at the country level, the results you see on a GAAP and non-GAAP basis are going to be the same. And the reconciling items will be on one line item that we detail in the press release and in the Qs and K.

[James Clement:]

Got it. And on that topic of the pension, Joe. I don't think I saw a balance sheet table of any sort in the press release. Obviously, with the prepayment of some of your pensioners, some of that was sort of formally taken onto the balance sheet, I guess, that's one way somebody could interpret it. Do you have a net debt balance that you can give us year-end?

[Joseph W. Dziedzic:]

Our net debt is about $312 million, it's in one of the slides.

[James Clement:]

Oh, my bad. I was looking at the press release.

[Joseph W. Dziedzic:]

No, no, that's okay. And it's on Slide -- it's in the early section...

[James Clement:]

I can find it.

[Joseph W. Dziedzic:]

$319 million. And then if you add the underfunding to that, you get a more traditional net debt. But I would encourage you to consider the cash flow or lack of cash flow requirements for the U.S. pension and UMWA.

[James Clement:]

Well, yes, and that's why I was asking specifically about just the pure net debt component rather than the basic gap under funding. Switching gears -- I'm sorry.

[Joseph W. Dziedzic:]

$319 million.

[James Clement:]

$319 million, okay. Just switching gears and this will be last question then I can get back in the queue. So obviously, the U.S. and Mexico points of emphasis going forward clearly understand that. One thing and Tom, maybe you can chime in here. Fourth quarter was pretty good compared to Q2 and Q3 in both the U.S. and Mexico. So I was wondering if you might be able to provide a little more clarity on that. And specifically, $6.2 million margin in the U.S. I mean, if you rewind 3 years in the Brink's company, that was a number that was probably -- you just -- people couldn't even have conceived with a number like that.

[Thomas C. Schievelbein:]

Yes. I mean, I think what we saw in the U.S. was some volume and the profitability following through. But there's also a lot of -- there are some one-offs in there, but they basically net out. I think in the end, I believe, we're starting to get traction, but it's still early in terms of the turnaround. And so a lot of these, and that was my comment on volatility, as we put the new projects online, we could get some up and down in terms of the efficiency with which we do that in the U.S. But I'm encouraged, specifically by the volume growth in the U.S. because I'd view that as our customers starting to -- a vote of confidence in what we're doing in the U.S. in terms of fixing that operation.

[James Clement:]

And Tom, if I could ask a follow-up on that. 2008 and 2009, not that far in the rear view mirror. And any business partners of this country's large financial institutions have just been beaten down on price ever since 2008 and 2009. Are we at the point where maybe customers are perhaps taking a little bit of a closer look now at service levels versus just the pure price being quoted to them and that maybe some business is starting to come back to you? Because I mean, the overall cash in circulation in the U.S. were -- kind of know what those trends are, so clearly something else is going on in your favor.

[Thomas C. Schievelbein:]

Well, so -- I mean, I don't think it's -- it has anything to do with anybody in this particular industry getting paid lot more for what we're doing. But we did have some pretty good corporate wins of $30 million to $35 million in the U.S. mid-year. And so that provided us some volume, obviously, with a heavy fixed cost of business, then the profitability tends to be magnified by that volume. Now I would also say that we're looking to provide a lot more value-added services with our CIT and some of the other actions. And I believe that we will continue to then be able to differentiate ourselves and get additional volume in the U.S. So I mean, it's a positive. I don't think we want to declare victory at this point because we still have a long ways to go. But it was -- obviously, it's a positive for '14 and it sets us up for a much more positive '15 than we've had for the last, say, 3 or 4 or 5 years.

[James Clement:]

And Joe, I think you are the one that talk mostly about Mexico in your prepared remarks. Compared to where you were in Q2 and Q3 in Mexico and where you were in Q4, I know there were some things that were sort of, I don't know, artificially depressing the numbers in Q2 and Q3, the 7.6 [ph] in Q4. What's kind of a -- is there a reasonable range of what kind of margin you might be looking for in 2015 in Mexico to show some improvement?

[Joseph W. Dziedzic:]

Mexico, we're looking at 6% to 8% for 2015. The fourth quarter revenues were down more than $10 million, but profit was up slightly year-over-year. It was a strong fourth quarter and it was the result of the cost actions they have been taking all year. We saw the benefit of that begin to help the fourth quarter results. We expect that to continue to help us going into 2015, and it's an important part of getting to our 6% to 8% margin in '15. And we're very focused on picking up some additional retail volume in '15 to give us a little bit of top line help.

[Operator:]

[Operator Instructions] Our next question will come from Saliq Khan of Imperial Capital.

[Saliq Jamil Khan:]

I'm speaking on behalf Jeff Kessler as well. One of the things we're looking at is that the segment operating margins with you guys have largely increased and it seems like the reorganization, all the restructuring effort that you guys have been putting in place is finally starting to show a lot of real success. But at the same time, one of the things that we've been really thinking about is that the oil pressure and oil price pressure could increase the volatility over the short term, which we're starting to see is that there's some real expenditure growth that's higher than the non-oil tax collection that's coming out of Venezuela. So you have set the bolivar at $50 -- VEF 50 to $1, but you're seeing that the free market is somewhere near VEF 200. This seems to be kind of a similar situation that you guys were in last year. As you're looking out at the next couple of years, how are you guys thinking about any potential devaluation of the bolivar beyond the VEF 50?

[Thomas C. Schievelbein:]

I'll let Joe take a shot at foreign exchange.

[Joseph W. Dziedzic:]

The -- Venezuela is a significantly reduced piece of our company. Last year, it was about $15 million-ish in profits. If you adjust the bolivar to 50 for the full year, we don't expect it to move materially, and we don't expect Venezuela to have a material impact on our business, positively or negatively, from operations in going forward. Obviously, if we get nationalized, which is always a risk in Venezuela that, that would have an impact on the balance sheet. But from an operating income, we don't expect a material impact.

[Saliq Jamil Khan:]

Got it. And then one of the things that you guys have mentioned -- you're following, you say, you reported somewhere around $24 million of operating profit from the Latin American segment, which tends to be almost about 1/3 of the overall contributions that you've seen from the overall earnings. How much of that $24 million came out of Venezuela?

[Joseph W. Dziedzic:]

It was low single-digit dollars.

[Saliq Jamil Khan:]

Joe, our last question for you guys is that -- what you're finding is that we're in a world where it's a lot of unstable Forex currency impact. How you guys -- especially thinking about either spending money on dividends versus paying down your debt?

[Joseph W. Dziedzic:]

Right now, we're focused on generating profit growth and generating more positive free cash flow so that we have that decision to make.

[Operator:]

[Operator Instructions] The next question will come from James Cochran [ph] of Tribe Capital.

[Unknown Analyst:]

I'm just wondering how much of revenues is cash-in-transit versus high-value services and security services. And then I was just curious from when you reiterated your 2016 guidance in December of $2.50 to $3. Since then, currency has probably devaluated in the euro about 10% and then across the other currencies, marginally flat or like maybe slightly up, the dollar has been slightly up. So I'm just wondering that's -- it's a big change since December both on 2015 revenue and from your EPS basis, 2016. I'm just wondering if there's anything else I'm missing.

[Thomas C. Schievelbein:]

So I will let Joe handle it. So nothing's changed in terms of the underlying operations other than foreign exchange. Joe?

[Joseph W. Dziedzic:]

Sure. With the CIT compared to the other lines of businesses in the range of 50% to 55% of our revenue, which is pretty consistent with what has been last few years. The economy is, in Latin America, we grow CIT pretty well and outside of Latin America and more developed markets, the other segments tend to grow faster. We obviously are very focused on growing high-value services, whether it's BGS or ATM servicing or developing other solutions. But if we can grow CIT in Latin America at great margins, we'll continue to do that. With respect to exchange rates, you're right, there's been a significant impact. If you look at the euro back in the middle of the year when we gave our guidance for 2016, we've seen a 15-plus percent decline in the value of the euro. So that is clearly had an impact and is what drove us was largely from going from $3.8 billion as our 2015 revenue estimate down to $3.4 billion. Currency, clearly, has an impact when 80% of the business is outside the U.S. Hopefully, currency becomes the tailwind someday, and we get some of that back.

[Thomas C. Schievelbein:]

It would be very nice if currency became a tailwind. Let's hope so.

[Unknown Analyst:]

So can I interpret that if currency moves in your favor, there is some upside to your guidance?

[Joseph W. Dziedzic:]

We're driving towards and committed to delivering on the performance metric of operating profit margin rate. So when we get to our margin rate targets, if currency drives revenue up we get more income and more earnings per share, yes.

[Thomas C. Schievelbein:]

On a dollar basis.

[Operator:]

And next question will come from Marisol Olivera [ph] of Burlich [ph].

[Unknown Analyst:]

I was wondering why have you taken the reduction of regions as a way to achieve your goal. Isn't there another way or something?

[Thomas C. Schievelbein:]

Could you repeat the question please? We didn't get it.

[Unknown Analyst:]

Sure. Why have you chosen the reduction of regions as the way or as the best way to achieve your goals, your financial goals?

[Joseph W. Dziedzic:]

The question, if I'm hearing it correctly, is why have we chosen cost reduction as a way to improve profitability?

[Unknown Analyst:]

No, I was -- if I didn't listen correctly, let me know. But you were saying that there will be a reduction of the regions?

[Thomas C. Schievelbein:]

Yes. The reduction from 4 regions to 2 operating units?

[Unknown Analyst:]

Exactly. Does that include Mexico?

[Thomas C. Schievelbein:]

Well, Mexico is in one of those operating units. It's in the focus of the large 5 markets. So it's under Mike Beech in that, in his operating unit.

[Unknown Analyst:]

But why is it the best -- that direction, why is it the best way?

[Thomas C. Schievelbein:]

Well, we view it as a best way because it allows us to focus the resources and the improvement actions on the U.S. and Mexico. Okay. So I mean, it's really an issue of being able to focus the best and most of efficient resources we have to help out both the U.S. and Mexico along with the rest of the big 5, which is France, Brazil and Canada, which we told you is 60% of the revenue, but 5.5% margin rates. So that's our biggest opportunity to improve the earnings of Brink's. And that's why we're focused on that particular segment of the business.

[Operator:]

And ladies and gentlemen, this will conclude our question-and-answer session. The Brink's Company Fourth Quarter 2014 Earnings Conference Call has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines.