General Dynamics Corporation
Q2 2012 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 25 Jul 2012

[Operator:]

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Second Quarter 2012 General Dynamics Earnings Conference Call. My name is Jeff, and I'll be your coordinator for today. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded for replay purposes. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host for today, Ms. Amy Gilliland, Staff Vice President, Investor Relations. And you have the floor, ma'am.

[Amy Gilliland:]

Thank you, Jeff, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to the General Dynamics second quarter conference call. As always, any forward-looking statements made today represent our estimates regarding the company's outlook. These estimates are subject to some risks and uncertainties. Additional information regarding these factors is contained in the company's 10-K and 10-Q filings. And with that, I'd like to turn the call over to our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Jay Johnson.

[Jay L. Johnson:]

Thank you, Amy. Good morning, everyone. General Dynamics' second quarter delivered $7.9 billion in sales and $970 million in operating earnings at a 12.2% operating margin, improvement from last year's second quarter and this year's first quarter. Earnings per share totaled $1.77 on a fully diluted basis, $0.20 ahead of last quarter. Second quarter free cash flow, after capital expenditures, totaled $703 million or 111% of earnings from continuing operations. This result was particularly strong, considering that it includes approximately $100 million in pension fund contribution, 2 quarterly federal tax payments and continued investment in Gulfstream's Savannah campus. We plan to contribute about $500 million in total to our pension plans this year with most of the remainder in the third quarter. Year-to-date, free cash flow is $1 billion or 86% of earnings from continuing operations. On the capital deployment front, we took advantage of our healthy balance sheet and tough market conditions to repurchase 7.8 million shares of common stock this quarter. Through the first half, we have repurchased 9.1 million shares. Additionally, we had announced the acquisition of IPWireless, an excellent bolt-on addition for our IS&T business. IPWireless further expands our technical communications portfolio into the public safety first responder market with advanced broadband technology that improves first responders' effectiveness and safety by providing them with greater access to information. Orders this quarter were approximately $5.2 billion, reflecting continued sluggishness in defense award activity and some slower-than-anticipated order timing in Aerospace. I do anticipate improved second-half orders, particularly in Aerospace. At the end of the quarter, funded backlog was $43.9 billion while total backlog stood at $52.4 billion. Total estimated contract value, which includes opportunities to provide products and services under IDIQ contracts and options, was $78.6 billion. Before I turn to the results and outlook for each of our groups, I want to comment on what we are seeing in this dynamic aerospace and defense business environment. In our U.S. defense market, visibility remains somewhat limited by 3 principal factors

[L. Hugh Redd:]

Thank you, Jay, and good morning, everyone. Really just 3 quick points before the question-and-answer period. First, net interest expense was $37 million for the quarter versus $31 million in 2011. For 2012, we expect net interest expense of approximately $155 million, reflecting the full year impact of our fixed rate notes issued in July of 2011. At the end of the quarter, we had just over $1 billion of net debt. Second, I'd like to point out an item impacting the comparability of our results, that being the sale of the detection systems business in the second quarter of 2011. This sale resulted in a pretax gain of $38 million or about $0.07 in other income. Finally, the effective tax rate was 31.5% for the first 6 months compared with 30.8% for the same period in 2011. For 2012, we expect an effective tax rate of approximately 32%, rising slightly over the 2011 amount, but due primarily to the absence of the R&D tax credit for 2012 but also due to less income from international locations where the tax rates are lower. Amy, that concludes my remarks, and I'll turn it back over to you for the question-and-answer.

[Amy Gilliland:]

[Operator Instructions] Jeff, could you please remind participants how to enter the queue?

[Operator:]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Myles Walton with Deutsche Bank.

[Myles A. Walton:]

Jay, your comments on the second half of book-to-bill improvement that you expect in Aerospace, can you give a little more color as to the level of confidence there in terms of you're seeing more pre-order traffic or kicking the tires, and specifically what regions are showing that pickup? And then kind of as a caveat to that, you -- at least I interpreted that there were some, I'm not sure, it's process procedural delays maybe in the quarter in terms of orders getting over the finish line, if you can clarify that a little bit?

[Jay L. Johnson:]

Okay, be happy to. We did -- let me say it this way. We believe the second-half order activity will be stronger, as I said in my remarks. Example, let me just talk to demographics

[Myles A. Walton:]

Do you think it's enough to make book-to-bill 1 for the second half?

[Jay L. Johnson:]

Probably not. Remember, too, Myles, in my -- as I said in my remarks, the 1

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Noah Poponak with Goldman Sachs.

[Noah Poponak:]

Jay, I wanted to ask you 2 questions on 2 specific programs. First, I wondered if you might speak to why you think Textron won the TAPV program. And then secondly, following up on your IS&T technical comments, can you elaborate on WIN-T? Is there anything materially unexpected or sort of out of line on that program going on?

[Jay L. Johnson:]

Okay. I don't really have a comment on TAPV, Noah. I don't know, I mean. But I wish them well and I would say that we are in the hunt to compete for the CCV and we're already in execution on $1 billion of the LAV III upgrades with the Canadian DND so we've got plenty work to do, and we see more work out ahead. In terms of WIN-T, look, it's the stated #1 priority for our Army customer. So in macro terms, we feel very good about WIN-T and the performance of our pieces based on the NIE 12.2 are very encouraging. So it's back to my T word -- my T word, which is timing and we anticipate getting awards in the second half of this year. We just don't have them yet, okay? We expect a full rate production decision, I think, it's in September, either late August or September. So best we can tell that's still on track, but it hasn't, obviously, come yet. But we are very pleased and I believe the Army customer is very pleased with the performance of our pieces of WIN-T.

[Noah Poponak:]

Have there been any design or specification issues with any other contributors to the program? Just trying to discern why this is getting held up.

[Jay L. Johnson:]

None that I'm aware of. Honestly, I -- and I may be -- I don't want to presume to speak for the Army customer here, but maybe I will a little bit and my -- I'll just give you my impression of some of this, is that they're trying to align all of these programs, WIN-T and JTRS, into the NIE sequence and those don’t happen but every so often. So I think, honestly, that's caused some of the delay in some of the award activity. That's the best -- my best sense of it.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Richard Safran with Buckingham Research.

[Richard Tobie Safran:]

Jay, just a question on the Aerospace and business jets. I just wanted to know -- you noted some pretty strong pricing previously. I just want to know if you could discuss maybe pricing for large-cabin and mid-cabin jets, especially since you're thinking about stronger order activity in the second half?

[Jay L. Johnson:]

The way I characterize it, Rich, is that the large-cabin pricing is very resilient and the mid-cabin pricing, I think this is industry-wide, is very competitive, and shall we say, less resilient.

[Operator:]

Our your next question comes from the line of Peter Arment with Sterne Agee.

[Peter J. Arment:]

Just a question on IS&T. Just thinking about kind of the different buckets that you're involved in. I know that you've commented on the delays within some of the products in the networking area. What are you seeing -- I mean on the services front, we've seen a lot of delays. Can you bucket it in terms of the customer mix, DoD or intel or is it all across-the-board within civil agencies also?

[Jay L. Johnson:]

Well, our services business has been -- they've done pretty well in what I consider a really tough environment. Good award activity in the quarter, I think I mentioned that, but -- and we've got probably about -- I think I've got about 45% to 47% of our IS&T sales are coming out of services now. About 21 or 22% of that out of what I call pure IT services and then probably another 25% coming out of engineering services, but that segment has been pressured for 18 to 24 months now. But I'd say, as I started this answer, again, we're competing very well in a tough environment. We are seeing some of the awards move to the right. We are seeing some down-scoping or re-scoping of those awards, but we're maintaining our capture rates and I think we're very competitive. You've got, in addition to that, the lowest-priced technically acceptable reality, which I think we've talked about before that's out there, that puts a lot of pressure on the system. So in a pretty decent catfight, I think our IT services business is doing very well.

[Jay L. Johnson:]

Yes. Do you need -- I know that you had presence in all 50 states and certainly internationally on the footprint side. Are there consolidation opportunities there to help preserve the margins?

[Jay L. Johnson:]

Sure, sure. They're looking at that all, in doing that, all of them. It's interesting, the consolidations and the re-scoping and the reshaping that I mentioned in my remarks, I mean that is a reality across all of our businesses right now as they deal with the realities of the defense market that has taken a $487 billion reduction across the 10 years and that doesn't even get into the sequestration discussion, so that's just good business. So as I've always said, we manage for profitability. We are doing that right now in all of these businesses.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes on the line of Howard Rubel with Jefferies.

[Howard A. Rubel:]

Just talk for -- about Gulfstream for 2 seconds. One is can you give us a sense what's left in terms of the challenges for the 650 cert and then also just talk a little bit about the service business, you did talk about all the expansion. How -- what kind of growth rate are you seeing?

[Jay L. Johnson:]

Yes, okay. Howard, thanks. The 650 certification, as I mentioned in my remarks, we're getting very close to completion of the flight test activity. That'll conclude here very shortly. Once that occurs, then it becomes a matter of putting it all together, my word, not probably the proper word, administratively, if you will, in laying all that out and then getting with -- working with the FAA to get yourself to an agreed-upon time to execute the type certification. We're on track for that. I have no indication that we're not. So I'm getting excited about it actually. I try to throttle myself back, but that's on track. Once that happens and as that happens, okay, once the flying's done, then we'll -- they'll start training the crews for the aircraft to be delivered, et cetera, as we had talked before. And you'll see then entry into service within a matter, I should think, of weeks after the type certification occurs. So we're marching down that time line very aggressively and visibly, I would add. They're doing lots of flying right now, but we're almost done with it. The service business, Howard, I mentioned, I think, the service business was up like up 5% for the first half. I would expect it to probably stay kind of flat for the rest of the year. I don't -- and why do I say that? Because the lack of activity, for example, that we're seeing in Europe right now, I don't see that getting any better for the rest of the year. It's causing us to have to reshape our European business somewhat at Jet, as I mentioned earlier. So the service business is doing fine, but I don't expect it to outperform the first half in the second half. I'd love to be pleasantly surprised on that, but I just don't see it right now. And we measure that in lots of different ways, not the least of which is looking at what visibility our service centers have on their order books and it's still pretty close aboard. Not a lot of long-term appointments for discretionary repair and upgrade. So it's still a very strong business for us, but I don't see much more than flat for the rest of the year.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Michael Lewis with Lazard Capital.

[Michael S. Lewis:]

Can you help us understand order flow a bit better? Where do bids submitted, pending approval, currently stand? And can you give us the mix of recompetes versus new opportunities in that number? And then finally, as we look out over, say, the next 6 months, what does -- what do you plan to submit to -- on new contracts?

[Jay L. Johnson:]

Wow. Let me just put it in macro terms, Mike. I mean in IS&T space, as you know, we have thousands of contracts in the year. I would characterize the order activity as being quite healthy actually, okay? We don't quantify it inside of that because it's just, like I've said, they're just flat; too many moving parts. But we anticipate the funnel is still there and the funnel will need to get serviced. So as I said earlier, the order activity in IS&T, we anticipate to be fairly respectful and ending the year at probably 1x, which it needs to do. And you know in that short cycle business, they got to turn inside themselves at least inside the year. So that part is good. Where we're seeing the challenge right now, as I've mentioned, is in the actual converting that into -- converting orders into sales and execution, and we're working very hard with our customers to get the appropriated funds obligated and to execute the 2012 plan.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Robert Spingarn with Credit Suisse.

[Robert Spingarn:]

You sort of just touched on this, but what I was going to ask you is what level of bookings you need across the 3 segments, understanding that some are longer-cycle than others, in order to meet your targeted guidance for the year? I'm thinking about the third quarter, specifically, since no one knows what the fourth quarter is going to do.

[Jay L. Johnson:]

Yes, I mean, I think I expect Combats' bookings to improve. I think I may have mentioned that. Marine, not much, but remember -- remember, Marine is very lumpy. So we'll get Marine orders in big slugs. We'll work them off, which we're doing right now and then we'll get another big slug. I'm not worried in the least about Marine. And then IS&T, as I said, it's got to turn itself inside the year and we anticipate, based on the funnel we see out there, still being close to 1

[Robert Spingarn:]

Well, Jay, one other thing. Do I detect a shift towards service in the Marine business with the recent acquisitions? Is that a strategic thing that you're doing given the long-term outlook on production?

[Jay L. Johnson:]

I wouldn't say it's a switch to service. I would say that we're adding service to a very robust platform portfolio, and the repair business is a wonderful thing to be in for the United States Navy with its global fleet. So we're trying to enhance our repair opportunities and I'd love to keep -- we will keep doing that, but it's not at the expense of because we've got 3 shipyards that are going to be very busy for as far as I can see.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Jason Gursky with Citi.

[Jonathan Raviv:]

This is actually Jon Raviv in for Jason. Just a quick question on cash deployment priorities, looking at dividends, buybacks, M&A -- where your priorities are given the current environment? And then just on the M&A question, where your M&A priorities might be? I know we've seen some defense acquisitions of late, perhaps there's some commercial opportunities on the horizon as well?

[Jay L. Johnson:]

Okay. Thanks, Jon. We always pouch our capital deployment in terms of balance and I'm certainly not about to change that. I would caveat it, however, by suggesting that as you look at the rest of this year and you look at, the term we're using, the fogbank, is now ahead of us in terms of the sequester

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Heidi Wood with Morgan Stanley.

[Heidi Rolande Wood:]

Jay, I thought maybe I'd ask a bigger picture question on the Marine side. When you look at the ops tempo, clearly the Navy is small for the missions being asked of it. You've got the Navy stretched thin over Central Command and at the same time being asked to cover significant areas in the Pacific Command. The pivot to the Pacific has been long in the making, but I don't think anyone foresaw how much the Navy would be tasked over Central Command. So it's clear that the Navy budget faces real strain in terms of the needs for more ships. And I'm just wondering if you could give us color on what kind of discussions you're having with your Navy as they wrangle with solving this problem. Is there kind of examination into, basically, maybe buying more lower-cost surface combatants? Or the Virginia-class sub was supposed to be a low-cost sub; could they downsize yet again and develop less costly subs? Can you maybe add some vibrancy to kind of how you're working with the customer kind of wrestle with this?

[Jay L. Johnson:]

Well, I mean we've had this discussion before in the context of even before the Pacific pivot was announced. I mean, we are global Navy. Over 90% of the world's commerce moves by sea, by volume, as I recall. I don't think that will change, certainly not anytime soon. And with that as a reality, United States Navy must maintain a robust force structure. That robust force structure must include lots of ships. And as I've said before, presence really does make a difference, and so you have to be there particularly when you're dealing now with the realities in the Pacific where the tyranny of distance causes you to be unable to be in multiple places at the same time very easily. So all that bodes well when you're a Navy shipbuilder for your future opportunities. As to your comment about the Virginia-class, the Virginia-class submarine in that program, itself, is what I would call as close to a model program as the Department of Defense has and we're very proud of that and we bring those boats in at the price tag that was -- I think, the public price tag is like $2 billion a boat. In point of fact, we delivered the Mississippi $60 million under budget and a year early, so we know how to build Virginia-class submarines. There is no substitute for the Virginia-class submarine in my humble opinion, and I don't think the Navy would argue with that. We need them in number, that's why Block IV will become a reality and there'll probably be a Block V after that. So the customer is looking at costs all the time on things like SSBN(NYSE

[Heidi Rolande Wood:]

And you said you're not the least worried about Marine. Does that mean that the second sub and the second destroyer in FY '13 will be executable? And lastly, if you don't mind me squishing this in, Jay, there's some smaller ships that are clearly struggling and I just wondered if you could touch on whether that creates some M&A opportunities for you?

[Jay L. Johnson:]

On the last, I'm not particularly looking at any of that. On the smaller ship side, I think I know what you're talking about, but we've got plenty of work right now with the platforms we have. And the second submarine and the second DDG, I think the Navy and everyone is working very hard to keep that rate as the reality because it's the most cost-efficient and smartest move for everybody. So we're confident there.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Cai Von Rumohr with Cowen and Company.

[Cai Von Rumohr:]

So a kind of 2-point question on profitability at Gulfstream. The first part is you did 16.1% close to the first quarter, even though forfeitures were down and you had the problems at Jet. How come? And secondly, you had said that G650 should have above-average margins. Given that volume will be up in the second half, presumably with the G650s in your guidance, how come the margins aren't better in the second half?

[Jay L. Johnson:]

Well, they are better than I guided to earlier, Cai, but I would say I'm being a little bit conservative here. I've got a product mix at Gulfstream. We delivered, I think, like 4 of the mid-cabins in the first half so we're going to be delivering more of the mid-cabins in the second half and -- so I'm at the mid-15s right now. And as is usually the case, I'm hopeful they'll outperform that. But we've got Jet, you touched on it, but if you compare it to the first half -- first quarter, I'm sorry, we've got, I think, we were down like 60 basis points. But a lot of that had to do with timing from Jet absorption expenses related to their resizing effort, which I touched on but didn't really elaborate. They are on track to be about break-even for the year, but they've got a lot -- they had a lot to take out here in the first half.

[Cai Von Rumohr:]

But isn't that even if Jet is going to do better in the second half, you have more 650s, you basically -- your volume on the mid-sized given the price differential just isn't that big. It still looks like, on paper, the margins in the second half should be better than the 16.1%. Are we missing something here?

[Jay L. Johnson:]

No, I don't think so. I'm probably hedging. As I said, I'm being a little conservative with it, Cai, partly because of the restructuring and the market that Jet's seeing in Europe right now and partly because I'm just -- I'm hedging myself a little bit on product support which, as I'd mentioned on an earlier question, is I expect to be flat and that remains to be seen.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Sam Pearlstein with Wells Fargo.

[Samuel J. Pearlstein:]

In Combat Systems, just if I look at that you did about $4 billion in revenues in the first half to get to $8.5 billion for the year, it would certainly imply a stronger second half. Can you talk a little bit about what's driving that pickup in that second half? And then just secondly, unrelated, was OT&E recently talked about the HMS Manpack as not being -- performing as well and I just wanted to know if you could comment on that.

[Jay L. Johnson:]

Actually, I think I know on the last what you're referring to, Sam, and that basically is some old news that's already been taken care of. So the Manpack is -- they're quite happy with the Manpack right now. As to the first, it's really -- hit me with it again?

[Samuel J. Pearlstein:]

You did $4 billion in revenues in the first half, you're saying $8.5 billion for the year, so it's got to pick up.

[Jay L. Johnson:]

Yes. Some of that, I think, will have to do with ELS, which we expect to be stronger in the second half than in the first half in Land Systems international programs, which as I'd said, it had some program delay but we expect more pickup in the second half. ELS' and -- I mean Combat Systems has been, historically, rather back-weighted to the year. I don't expect that to change, but I'm quite confident in our $8.5 billion number.

[Operator:]

Our final question comes from the line of Joe Nadol with JPMorgan.

[Joseph Nadol:]

Just a couple of clarifications. Jay, could you be specific on the number of flight hours or test points or whatever that have been achieved on the 650 versus what's necessary? And then on the IS&T side, looking for margin pickup in the second half, but I thought I heard you say that the services side of the business, which was what you believe is going to provide the incremental revenue pickup and so that would suggest an adverse mix shift. What am I missing there?

[Jay L. Johnson:]

To your last, of the $500 million in incremental that we need to get to where we -- I'm guiding in the second half, 2/3 to 3/4 of that comes from IT service. Your point is well taken. The tactical communications piece of that, though, is about 20% to 25% of that. And assuming that happens, which we have every indication that it will, that will give us the margin lift that I talked about. As to your first, I'm not going to get test point-specific. Let's just say that we're down to a very reasonable number of flights that remain and we're on track for the third quarter certification. There's no mystery in any of that, that I'm saying. And quite honestly, I can't remember the precise figure, but I've been tracking it virtually every day or every other day and we're marching down the flight test point, burndown chart quite nicely and I'm very confident that we're going to be wrapping it up very soon here.

[Amy Gilliland:]

And thank you for joining our call today. If you have additional questions, I can be reached at [phone]. Have a great day.

[Operator:]

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect, and have a wonderful day.