MTS Systems Corp
Q1 2013 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 1 Feb 2013

[Operator:]

Good day, everyone, and welcome to today's MTS Systems First Quarter 2013 Earnings Conference. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to your host for today, Ms. Sue Knight. Please go ahead, ma'am.

[Susan E. Knight:]

Thank you, Sarah. Good morning, and welcome to MTS Systems Fiscal 2013 First Quarter Investor Teleconference. Joining me on the call today is Jeff Graves, President and Chief Executive Officer. I want to remind you that statements made today which are not a historical fact, should be considered forward-looking statements as defined by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Future results may differ materially from these statements, depending upon risks, some of which are beyond management's control. A list of such risks can be found in the company's latest SEC Forms 10-Q and 10-K. The company disclaims any obligation to revise forward-looking statements made today based on future events. This presentation may also include reference to financial measures, which are not calculated in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP. These measures may be used by management to compare the operating performance of the company over time. They should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for GAAP measures. Jeff will now begin his update on our first quarter results.

[Jeffrey A. Graves:]

Thank you, Sue. And good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for our first quarter investor call. We appreciate having the opportunity to share our financial results for the first quarter of fiscal 2013. In addition to recapping the financials, we'll also provide you with some context so you could better understand what's happening in our end markets for our Sensors and our Test businesses. For today's call, I'll discuss the key takeaways for the company, followed by our first quarter order results. Sue will then discuss the rest of the quarterly financials. Following Sue's comments, I'll conclude the call with a few summary comments about our outlook for fiscal '13. We'll then open the call for your questions. There are 3 key messages today. First, we set a new revenue record, achieving $143 million, which was driven by our Test business. The performance in Test more than compensated for our modest negative currency impact and continued softness in our Sensors business. As planned, the revenue growth is supporting our planned investments in building a scalable enterprise, growing our service offerings and capability and expanding our global talent to enable our future growth. Second, productivity gains in Test enabled us to beat our first quarter revenue on EPS guidance range, reflecting positively on our ongoing productivity project execution. This was a good start to the year, and I'll expand on the implications of this performance later in my comments. Third, we reaffirmed our previous fiscal 2013 outlook of revenue and EPS growth in the 5% to 10% range. We also continue to be watchful of changing market conditions, which are driven by the uncertain economic environment. This enables us to quickly respond to demand increases or decreases as they arise. Sue and I will discuss these topics in more detail beginning with Q1 orders. Total company orders were $139 million, up 3% over last year. Adjusting for currency, orders were up 4%. Consistent with the previous 3 quarters, Test was the driver, which was up 5%. These results were partially offset by a 7% decline in Sensors, the smaller our 2 businesses. Backlog of $291 million was relatively flat compared to the prior year. Now I'll provide you with some additional color by business, and I'll begin with Sensors. In summary, while many of our Sensors customers are now talking about an improving outlook ahead, the market situation in total remains unchanged from the past several quarters. For quarter-to-quarter, the geographic and end market story is varied, but overall, volume still remains weak. However, the good news is that customer inventory levels are low, so we expect that even a modest increase in end customer demand will have a positive impact on our order rates. Sensors orders were $22.5 million, down 7%, as I previously mentioned. Currency accounted for approximately half of this decline. The weakness in Sensors orders was primarily in 3 areas

[Susan E. Knight:]

Thank you, Jeff. My remarks today will summarize our first quarter results based on a year-over-year comparison. Revenue in the quarter was $142.7 million, an all-time high for us. Year-over-year, revenue was up 6.7% and excluding the effect of currency, revenue grew 8%, a very good outcome despite a less-than-robust economic environment. Once again, double-digit growth in Test was partially offset by a decline in Sensors. We exceeded our Q1 guidance growth range of 1% to 3% based on Test productivity gains, as we begin to see the benefits of our investment in operations. On a segment basis, Sensors revenue of $22 million declined 14%. Excluding currency, revenue was down 11% [Audio Gap] and geographically, Europe was down 12%, impacted by both currency and market demand, particularly in the industrial markets. Results -- excuse me, and the rest of the world were similar and consistent with order story as the Americas and Asia declined 16% and 15%, respectively. Test revenue of $121 million set a new record and was $5 million higher than the previous peak in the third quarter of fiscal 2012. It is noteworthy that the strong performance was backlog-driven [Audio Gap] as orders [indiscernible] revenue in the first quarter. Year-over-year growth was 11% and excluding currency, the growth rate was 12%. From a geographic perspective, Europe was particularly strong, up 36% from custom projects. Asia revenue grew 7% while revenue in the Americas declined to 2%, reflective also of the backlog mix. Overall, we were pleased with the revenue results in the quarter. Moving on to the next topic. Gross profit was $57 million, down 4% compared to the prior year. Approximately $4 million of incremental, volume-related gross margin was more than offset by a 4-point decline in the gross margin rate, which was Test-driven. The growth margin rate was 39.7% in the quarter. In Sensors, gross profit declined $2 million to $12 million, which was almost entirely volume-related. The gross margin rate continued to be very strong at 55.5% compared to 55.9% last year. In Test, gross margin of $45 million was flat year-over-year on $13 million higher revenue, as the gross margin rate declined 4.3 points to 36.9%. This rate is within the expected Test range considering both product mix and cost variability, but it is the lowest quarterly rate in a couple of years. Compared to last year, 2 points of the decline was the result of mix and 1 point related to planned investments. Higher warranty expense had a 1 point impact in the quarter, but overall, we expect the annual warranty expense rate will be consistent with our relatively low annual experience. And finally, 1 point was associated with the addition of service technicians to expand our service capability. While the service expansion was planned, it will put pressure on the Test growth margin rate for the next several quarters as these new employees come up to speed in their jobs. Despite that, we do expect a 1 to 3-point margin rate increase in the remaining quarters based on mix in volume in Test. My next topic is operating expenses. At $36.5 million, expenses were up $1.3 million, or 4% on 7% higher revenue. Our planned investment in sales capacity and process and systems infrastructure scale the company, were partially offset by lower legal and compliance spending. As a rate to revenue, operating expenses declined 70 basis points, 25.6%, slightly below our expected range of 26% to 27%. At $21 million, EBIT was approximately $2 million better-than-expected on higher revenue volume. Year-over-year, EBIT declined $3 million from the lower gross margin rate and planned investments. $1 million of this decline was in Test and $2 million was in Sensors. EBIT, as a percent of revenue, was 14.4%, down 3.2 points comparatively speaking. The Test and Sensors EBIT rates were 13.8% and 17.5%, respectively. The tax rate of 32.8% was within our typical range of low- to mid-30%. Compared to last year, it was down slightly from 33.4%. Earnings per share was $0.87, above our expected range of $0.72 to $0.82 due to higher revenue. Compared to last year, earnings were down $0.12 on lower EBIT. The outstanding share count was flat at 15.8 million shares. My last topic for today is cash. The first quarter is historically our highest cash utilization quarter and this year was no exception. The cash balance at the end of the quarter was $48 million, a decline of $32 million sequentially. Operating cash flow was a use of $14 million, which included $29 million for working capital to support higher Test volume. In working capital, advances declined $8 million based on order type and timing, receivables and inventory increased $14 million and $5 million, respectively, while payables declined $2 million. Additionally, capital expenditures were $8 million, on-track with our plans for the quarter. Dividends paid were $10 million, including the previously announced dividend payment acceleration from January to December. And in summary, the financial results were modestly better than we expected, which is a great way to begin a new year. Thank you. Now I'll turn the call back to Jeff for his concluding remarks.

[Jeffrey A. Graves:]

Thanks, Sue. My final topic for today before the Q&A session is our outlook for the full year. At this time, we're pleased to confirm our previous growth range for both revenue and earnings per share of 5% to 10%. The global economy continues to be the single largest variable underlying the range and is particularly important in order for volume recovery in Sensors. We also still expect the second half of the year to be stronger than the first half. While Q1 revenue was stronger than expected, it was a result of Test backlog acceleration, not higher-than-expected short cycle orders, thus, second half revenue is likely to still be 52% to 54% of the full year. Earnings per share in the second half will be 55% to 57% of the full year based on the volume and timing in investment spending. This is the same first half, second half view we communicated last quarter. That concludes my prepared remarks. I will now turn the call back to the operator for the Q&A session.

[Operator:]

[Operator Instructions] We'll go first to John Franzreb of Sidoti & Company.

[John Franzreb:]

Jeff, you actually opened up with what I think is something that's been bothering me for a little while here. The recovery in the order book in the backlog and the sustainability, you touched on it. And if I kind of put it in buckets, it's been an increasing sales rep, it's been the high demand you've seen in Asia and I'm sure, to some extent, it's been the release of some pent-up demand. I don't know if you agree with that assessment, but I'd like you to look at those 3 buckets and talk about the sustainability of the order book, given those drivers going forward.

[Jeffrey A. Graves:]

Yes. I'd tell you, John, obviously business has been very good and that's the key question is how sustainable is it, is the most common question I get from shareholders or potential investors. So that's my #1 question when I'm on the road to the customers is looking for how they're investing their money, where their challenges are at, where they're growing. And I would tell you, and I tried to be specific in the 3 areas that are really driving the business. I do believe that it's a decades-long demand for these new products for our customers that are really driving our business. And it gets down really simply to the tremendous changes in the emerging markets. We've got enormous growth in the base of consumers out there, particularly in China and in India and elsewhere in the emerging world, where they've been employed for a while now and they suddenly have discretionary income. And once they satisfy their food needs and clothing, their basic daily life, they look to buy cars and homes and migrate to cities and travel to see relatives, just like we would in the West. And that is a -- it's a massive trend. I believe it's a sustainable trend, unless there's some devastating economic impact out there. And it's causing our customers a lot of angst in terms of doing new product development and also doing it in new places like China and India, closer to customers. And you'll also see the rise of regional customers that we're now able to penetrate in China and particularly, now in India, in Russia, in places where there are new customers to address those demands. So the emerging market needs, particularly the rise of consumer populations, John, is a tremendous trend, and I believe it's -- it will continue for decades and it'll drive new product development crazy and it's really what's driving our Test business to help them with new products. If you look at other factors, the scarcity of energy, driven by -- everyone talks about how much more energy we're finding in the ground, that's true. But there's a big increases in demand for energy. And you look at any projection over the next 4, 5 decades and it's up four-, five-fold in total, because, again, more people are driving cars, more people having homes with electricity in the emerging markets. So there's a huge demand for energy and what it means is, you need more energy-efficient vehicles for driving, for high-speed rail and for airplanes, things that consume less energy. So again, all of that drives product development and all of that requires our testing equipment. And it carries down through the supply chain. So it's not only cars and trains and planes, it's the suppliers of components to them. And then it's the basic materials development that supports those things. We play in all of those markets and we are a big player, we're a dominant brand and it's great for us, as long as we're there to support them. So we need to increase our investment and focus on these emerging markets. The other thing, John, that's very apparent to me, which is upside for our business, and is particularly true, I would tell you in the emerging markets, is they need our services. They're spending millions of dollars on new equipment to help them develop products and they're new at running the equipment. So they need us to come in and help, not only service the equipment, but help them with methodology and use of the equipment, so that they get the right data. So again, that's why we're pushing really hard on the services business, not only to address our installed base in the U.S. and Western Europe and Japan, which is large, but large to the tune of $3.5 billion worth of installed equipment. But in the emerging markets side, I believe it will be a tremendous business for us. So I don't see these trends changing and I could lump on top of that environmental concerns. When I was in China -- I was in China a couple of weekends ago to accept this award, we're 1 of the top 15 people driving the green economy in China, the pollution levels in Beijing hit record levels that day I was there last -- it was a few Saturdays ago and it made all the papers in the West. And they have to fully address that as their economy grows. And again, it's driving the need for green everything, green cars, green planes, green building structures from an energy and an earthquake-resistant standpoint. So I look at those macro trends, John, and as long as we keep our technology sharp and we are present with the right sales and sales support and service, we have a tremendous future. And I see no let up in that demand for a long, long time to come.

[John Franzreb:]

It -- just a few years back, it wasn't uncommon to MTS to put -- to post an incoming order book number in the mid-'90s. Has the addressable market changed so much that that's not really in the cards anymore?

[Jeffrey A. Graves:]

Sue, help me out with that one, the addressable order book in the mid-'90s.

[Susan E. Knight:]

Well, yes, historically, we were a smaller business but the market opportunities, with the backdrop that Jeff described, are driving a stronger pipeline. I'd say our win rate is strong and the opportunities continue to build in that pipeline.

[Jeffrey A. Graves:]

So John, certainly at the historical reference Sue gave you, I'm really pleased with our order pipelines. Since I've been here, it's grown and it's big. And again, it's -- our challenge is not becoming complacent. We have to really double down on our innovation to make sure we're the technology leader because that's what gotten us in there for decades and that's what is allowing us to be sustainable as the first guy, and our infrastructure. That's why our CapEx spending is reduced right now. We have to have a scalable enterprise for manufacturing so that we can deliver the products cost effectively. People ask me also about anticipated margin performance, things like this. As long as we keep our technology sharp and our cost coming down through our investments in our factory automation activities and how quickly we can process an order or configure a product, as long as we keep those moving in parallel, we'll be very good in terms of margin performance. I would anticipate this kind of level being sustainable as we continue to grow the business.

[John Franzreb:]

Okay. And one other question. If I heard your prepared remarks correctly, you had Asia down and Europe up in Test. Is that -- did I hear that properly? And so what was driving that? I wouldn't expect...

[Jeffrey A. Graves:]

It's just seismic, John. We landed several big seismic orders last year, so the comps are hard and -- but those were big and very good projects for us. And I would tell you, our pipeline of future product in seismic is really strong in Asia. Again, they're building a -- new skyscrapers by the bushel full over there and they need our Test equipment for seismic evaluation on the new building designs. But it's a lumpy business. So we landed some big orders last year. The pipeline's strong looking forward. It's just an aberration that it was down right now. I want to be sure you're clear. Asia is just a tremendously important, big and growing market for us. It's huge.

[Operator:]

[Operator Instructions] From Janney Capital Markets, we'll go next to Liam Burke.

[Liam D. Burke:]

Jeff, you telegraphed that you're -- there was going to be significant upfront investment. Obviously, your gross margins reflected that in the first quarter. Could you give us any sense as to any type of either, anecdotally or actual revenue pickup, on the service side based on these investments in the quarter and then how you see it through the balance of the year?

[Jeffrey A. Graves:]

Yes, Liam it's -- we're refraining from giving kind of quarter-by-quarter updates on service growth. I can tell you, we're obviously very much in the hiring phase and training of our field service engineers, and that's 1 year to 2-year kind of process for these guys, because the equipments are very high-end equipments. And to drill down and say, "Okay, you hired x number of people in the quarter, how much revenue did you generate?" That's just too granular. I would tell you, I'm pleased with our progress. The training's going very well. We expect revenues to be up this year and services over last year, and it think it'll be 1 year to 2 in this hiring investment and training mode until we really see the benefits.

[Liam D. Burke:]

Okay, great. Sue, does your -- your capital budget, is that changed for the year? Or do you still plan on maintaining that? And does your maintenance CapEx budget change at all now that the business, Test business especially, is starting to get a little bigger?

[Susan E. Knight:]

So from a capital spend, Liam, we communicated in the fourth quarter call that we expected CapEx to be about $25 million and that's still a good number. From a maintenance point of view, are you referring to CapEx maintenance or some other aspect?

[Liam D. Burke:]

Yes. No, CapEx management.

[Susan E. Knight:]

I wouldn't see a material change there.

[Jeffrey A. Graves:]

These are mainly -- Liam, these are merely changes, improvements in our MRP system and configuration tools for products, things like this. Those don't typically have a big maintenance check required later on. So it's more for speed through the factory and efficiency. It's not capital equipment.

[Operator:]

[Operator Instructions] We'll go back to John Franzreb with a follow-up question.

[John Franzreb:]

Yes. Jeff, you've been -- the company has been investing in itself, its sales personnel, new systems, new growth drivers, which has kind of limited some of the leverage we've seen on the top line. When do -- when can shareholders expect to see that process wind down such that they get better returns or when do you see those returns on investment play out? You've kind of articulated it's not going to be next year, but will we see it next year?

[Jeffrey A. Graves:]

Yes. I would say -- the -- you're in the right kind of horizon, John. It takes 1 year to 2 years to hire and train these service folks, and I think that's the -- I mean the frustrating thing to me is it takes that long. And so obviously, make the investment, you don't start getting really the revenue generation from these guys for 1 year to 2. The good news is, there's a huge demand for it. I mean the most common question I get from customers, and I would tell you especially in the emerging markets, John, is please help me with equipment. They have the money to buy the equipment now and that's great. But what they really want from us in addition to that is day-to-day help keeping it running, but also kind of what I would think of more is consulting engineering support and the methodology of testing. They're trying to do a lot and they're trying to do it fast, and there's increasing complexity in the vehicles and how much you can simulate of the test. And my view of life is we're very good at that stuff and they want us to help. So there's a very good demand. But to train the guys to provide that level of input, it takes a while. And that's the training cycle time. It's not guys out with oil can, keeping a piece of equipment running, it's how do you really provide high-end services to these folks that they really want to make their testing efficient. And I wish it was faster, but it's just not. And we have excellent retention of these people, we've got good hiring going on, it's just that training takes a while. So you can think of it in terms of 1- to 2-year period. We're starting to see incremental revenue flowing from these folks and then the margin performance, I think, will be as good as it has been historically in our services business, which is higher than our equipment business.

[John Franzreb:]

Okay. And when does Test become capacity constrained? I know it sounds like you're doing some systems improvement. When do you have the actual problem with the facility?

[Jeffrey A. Graves:]

Oh, it's a ways out. I mean, our capital investments are again around, basically, efficiency improvements in the plants to handle more volume. We design things, then we buy components and assemble them. So our supply chain is strong. We don't become capacity-constrained really until you get down to supply chain and individual suppliers out there for things and we're working that hard, but I think we're in very good shape in terms of capacity growth potential. In China, China gives us significant upside potential in terms of our Materials testing business. We continue to invest this year in expanding our 2 factories in China for materials testing. This is growing out of the SANS business that we acquired back in '08 and those factories are doing very well up in Shanghai and down in Shenzhen and we continue to invest this year in expanding those. So I don't see any issue in addressing capacity growth to the horizon at this point, John.

[John Franzreb:]

Okay. And switching to the Sensors side, a lot of the news coming out of the Sensors companies has been "unexciting." You certainly confirmed that last night. I wonder what your customers are telling you about their inventory levels and their willingness to spend. When do you expect to see some kind of turnaround in that business? Or do you think this is something that's going to be with you for some time?

[Jeffrey A. Graves:]

I'm happy to -- the inventory levels are a good news story, they're very low. I mean, our customers are really guys that manage their businesses very well, and they really drove inventories down, especially if you look at Q4 performance, and in terms of our orders and stuff. People were shutting factories down. They were doing everything they could to not build inventory. So there's not much in the supply chain. So the good news is, any uptick in in-demand drives an immediate response to our business and we can see that. The bad news is it's mostly economy-driven. Our industrial machines business there, Sensors into industrial equipment, very, very slow. And it's because those are things like plastic injection molding machines and people just don't need the capacity today. I mean the good news is, the new equipment that's being introduced has more Sensor technology embedded in it because people don't like competing on price. They want better, more precise automated equipment. That's the good news. Bad news is, their customers just aren't buying very much. Steel industry is down, machines are down, the heavy equipment, the earthmoving and agriculture's been a bit of a brighter spot because the needs in large-scale farming. But the earthmoving has been really, really bad. So I look forward to the day it ticks up. You'll know it as -- you'll know it when I do. You'll see it in the papers. You can follow these end customers as well as I can, largely, John. And when it ticks up, it will hit us pretty quickly.

[John Franzreb:]

Okay. So you're not seeing anything imminent?

[Jeffrey A. Graves:]

No, no. I mean I would say the hallway talks better. I mean, when we see customers in the hallway, they're walking a little bit better and more lift in their shoes. But it hasn't translated in orders, John. So that's as much as we can tell you.

[Operator:]

Up next, we'll move to Adam France of 1492 Capital.

[Adam M. France:]

Jeff, could you speak to perhaps your utilization on your -- in your Sensor business? And have you seen any new competitors that are making life more difficult than they should?

[Jeffrey A. Graves:]

No. I mean, in terms of utilization, actually, I don't have a number for you. I mean, it's clearly down and we continue to introduce some really nice automation equipment, so we have capacity to meet demand when it's out there at lower and lower product cost. The nice thing about the business, Adam, is we worked to get designed into equipment. And once you're designed in, you're so embedded that it's very hard to be displaced, frankly, until a new generation comes along. And we're seeing a lot of design wins and -- everything from, again, from plastic injection molding machines to big, heavy, earthmoving equipments and farming equipment, we're seeing a lot of design wins. And you want to feel good about that and celebrate for the long term year, but at the end of the day, our customers aren't selling many of these new products yet. So it's just a bit -- it's a bit frustrating. So I feel good about the technology, our -- we got plenty of capacity to meet demand. We're seeing design wins around the world, it's just the economy's really holding our customers' demand down right now. So that's the story. The margins are hanging in there. We tell you about gross margins. Pricing is hanging in there very well, it's nice. So from a competitive landscape standpoint, again, we're really good at advising customers how to use these sensors and getting them designed in and because of that, once they're embedded, we don't have a lot of further competition on the technology for that platform. But getting that end market demand up is really frustrating and out of our control.

[Adam M. France:]

Okay. And Jeff with respect to your service initiative, is that 100% on the Test side or 90%, 10% Test, sensor? Or how should I think about that?

[Jeffrey A. Graves:]

No. It's really -- you got to remember again, the revenue split between the 2 businesses -- Sensors are, I'm sorry. Test is our dominant business, I mean it's over 80% [ph] of our revenue stream and services is specifically for Test. It really has no application for our Sensors business, it's specifically for Test. And it's basically everything from day-to-day how do we keep our customers equipment running to how do we upgrade it to be more productive through its years. These machines are designed to last 10, 20 -- some customers are using things over 30 years and how do you continue to upgrade the software and controls, how you upgrade the ability to take data on an old machine so that customers have state-of-the-art information without making a new capital investment. And that's really the thrust in the demand except in emerging markets. Emerging markets, it's all new stuff and they want more advice on how to use it, how to run it and how to get the best out of it.

[Operator:]

And it appears we have no further questions at this time.

[Jeffrey A. Graves:]

Okay. Thanks very much. So listen, thank you, all, for joining us on our call today. We're off to a solid start for the year and I remain very excited about our prospects for the future. I look forward to speaking with you again next quarter. Thanks, and have a good day.

[Operator:]

And again, that does conclude today's conference. And we thank you, all, for joining us.