NN, Inc.
Q4 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 12 Mar 2021

[Operator:]

Good day, and welcome to the NN Inc's Fourth Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference. All participants will be in listen-only mode. . Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mark Schuermann, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

[Mark Schuermann:]

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us. I'm Mark Schuermann, Vice President Treasurer and Investor Relations. I'd like to thank you for attending today's business update. Our presenters this morning will be President and Chief Executive Officer, Warren Veltman and Tom DeByle Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Last night we issued a press release announcing our financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2020 as well as a supplemental presentation which has been posted to the Investor Relations section of our website. Anyone needs a copy of the press release or the supplemental presentation. You may also contact Lambert & Company at 616-258-5788.

[Warren Veltman:]

Thanks, Mark, and good morning, everyone. If you return to Page 4, we will review some highlights for the year. By almost any measure 2020 was a significant year for our company. We worked to overcome the adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic while making significant progress on our business transformation. I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the tremendous efforts of all our employees over the past years. The COVID-19 pandemic took the world by storm. But our team showed resilience in servicing our customers while affirming their commitment to our company and the strategic transformation process we initiated. For those efforts, we're deeply thankful. Throughout the year, we executed on our initiatives to conserve cash and improve our operating performance. We reduced our overall office and operational footprints to better reflect our ongoing needs and restructured our group leadership. By far the largest transition we accomplished during the year with the completion of our review of strategic alternatives which resulted in the sale of the Life Sciences Group for $825 million consisting of $755 million in cash and a $70 million earnout based on 2022 performance. The cash received from the sale was used to significantly reduce our debt levels and provide a stronger foundation upon which we will build our Mobile and Power Solutions businesses were for long-term growth.

[Tom DeByle:]

Thanks Warren. Let me start by highlighting some of the changes that we made to our presentation as we walk through the slides on today's call. In the past I've walked through an earnings bridge and a number of other specific tables in great detail. For those that appreciate this detail, they're still available in the appendix to the presentation for reference. What I will address today are some of the high-level metrics that define our financial and operational focus. Please turn to Slide 9 which highlights the impact of some of these actions we have taken over the past year along with continued recovery in our sales. Despite the sales decrease our non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA fell at a much lower rate than would be expected given our 40% variable margins. Well let's walk through how we get there. With sales falling $62 million, the 40% variable margin would suggest that the adjusted EBITDA would fall $24.8 million from last year's $56.4 million to an implied $31.6 million. However, we generated $46.5 million in adjusted EBITDA an outperformance of $14.9 million reflecting the cost containment actions we previously implemented.

[Warren Veltman:]

Thanks Tom. On Page 15, we outlined our view of current market conditions within each of our operating groups. Within Mobile Solutions we have seen a resumption of automotive production following the shutdown induced by the pandemic. These researches are varied by region and by product. In addition, we've recently seen a new challenge emerge in automotive production from a shortage of semiconductor chips that are essential for a variety of applications within each vehicle. These and other supply interruptions have allowed us to differentiate NN from competitors by utilizing our global platform, engineering talent and logistic capabilities to maintain a source of supply for our customers. From an industrial perspective the medium and heavy truck markets continue their steady growth in North America, Europe and China which has driven demand for diesel engines. Specifically with China CN6 emission standard of deadline of July 2021 approaching. We're experiencing accelerations of volume prior to that effective date. Within the Power Solutions, energy companies are investing in grid modernization upgrades for aging infrastructure including smart-grid systems, green power generation and storage solutions. We believe grid infrastructure investment will continue to grow as the transition to electrical vehicles create incremental electric demand. Certainly these emerging trends and the new administrations prioritization on electric vehicles and the infrastructure investments will bode well for our Power Solutions group. We've presented additional information for each of our operating groups starting with Mobile Solutions on Page 16.

[Operator:]

your first question today comes from Daniel Moore with CJS Securities. Please go ahead.

[Daniel Moore:]

Comments around the exposure to ICE really helpful and how you're thinking about that over the next three to five years. If we think about electrical and smart-grid in particular. I think you show a TAM of $5 billion for electrical. But what's the overall exposure to that end market today and what kind of percentage of revenue do you think that could be in that maybe five-year timeframe, just trying to frame up how you think about the overall revenue opportunity for NN over the next three to five years?

[Tom DeByle:]

As you look at the electrical industry as I said in my comments. We think that there is tremendous growth opportunities there. What we have on the sheet here in 5% to 7%. But we see subsets of that industry that also have growth profile that actually see that level. So we're very excited about it obviously and as you see, we're expecting to go from 10%. You can just do the math, 10% of $428 million to over 13% on the electrical of $600 million. That's the opportunity that we're targeting. As it unfolds in front of us, we think that there's opportunity for us to not only grow with the industry. One of the things that I talked about was that I think that group has been underserved over the last couple of years from a salesforce standpoint. So one of the things that we're really focused on bringing in some new sales representatives or what we call customer development engineers to pursue some of the customers that we have today. Where there's significant opportunity for up to expand what we provide to them. So not only is there growth in the market but there's additional penetration growth in market share that we think that we can grab with existing customers and other strategic customers that we've targeted.

[Daniel Moore:]

That's really helpful. Okay. And obviously you've got a new board member - that certainly will be helpful in that regard.

[Tom DeByle:]

Definitely part of the strategy.

[Daniel Moore:]

Yes, no question. You have a slide earlier that talked about this, but if you were to rank order sort of end markets in terms of expected strength in 2021. If you could provide any more color there, that would be helpful.

[Tom DeByle:]

Sure. I would tell you that, we talked a little bit about the auto side. There's some uncertainty there with the chips shortage and we're concerned about that and we're following it. But we've seen some resilience still in our customer volumes there. We haven't seen a lot of interruption. Most of our customers are pushing forward either putting buffers in place or what have you in order to deal with potential surge. Once the chip shortage goes away, we have some end customers OEMs that have said they're going to continue build cars that we've seen and said they'll put the chips in them when they're available later so, our volumes remained relatively strong on the auto side. We see the diesel piece of the business. The product that we have that's in general industrial for diesel injectors, diesel systems, we see that has been a very strong business for us over the next 18 months.

[Daniel Moore:]

Got it, that's helpful. Maybe one or two more and I'll pass it off. The balance sheet clearly - you enter 2021 and is good a shape as we've seen in a long time. Maybe just talk about your priorities for capital allocation up till now it's been debt paid now. But we're now down under one times leverage. You talked about CapEx. Are there other M&A back on the table, share repurchases at certain levels? Just talk about your overall capital allocation strategy.

[Warren Veltman:]

As Tom made a comment that we're still looking at our capital structure obviously there's some finalization and fine tuning that needs to be done there and we're still working on that. But as it relates to capital allocation, we feel comfortable. If you go back and look at the history of the company in 2017, 2018. There was quite a bit of capital deployed and for various reasons including the tariffs and Chinese economy pulling back in mid-2018 that hasn't been fully utilized. So one of the things that our team is doing right now is selling into what we think is some excess capacity that still exist in the business and that's going to be a huge positive for us because it will limit the amount of CapEx that we have to spend going forward and it will have, I think almost a turbo charged effect on our margins by adding that incremental volume. So that's our focus as we look at CapEx spend. I would tell you, we've seen in 2021, 2022 timeframe some opportunistic opportunities where we've had some other competitors that have had difficulty with product or with their financial situation. We can demonstrate to our customers that we have financial stability. They're looking at us frankly differently than they did 18 months ago. So that has brought some additional opportunity as well where customers have come back to us and asked us to help out in situations where they might have held back on that 18 months ago.

[Daniel Moore:]

That's great to hear. Last from me on that same topic. Just remind us on the interest on the preferred steps up, options and potential timing for redeeming it?

[Warren Veltman:]

Tom, do you want to take that one?

[Tom DeByle:]

Yes. So at March 31, premiums steps up by $5 million and so as I had mentioned Dan, we're working on at additional capital structure as we speak and we hope to have an announcement in the near future. So that's right now.

[Daniel Moore:]

Okay, I'll look forward for more details. Thanks.

[Operator:]

Your next question is from Rob Brown with Lake Street Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

[Rob Brown:]

I think you talked a little bit about cross-selling between your electrical segment, your automotive segment and the EV opportunity. Could you just give us further color on where you are at in terms of developing that sales pipeline and what kind of opportunities you sort of see there at this point?

[Warren Veltman:]

Yes, when you look, Rob when you look at the amount of electrical vehicles produced today. It's not significant. When you look at its comparison to the overall right and the chart that we showed, shows at least the full electrical vehicle from IHS forecast going up to about 20%. So we think that there's certainly a significant amount of time here for us to get engaged in that and there are numerous products that we manufactured today that end up on electric vehicles. When you talk about some of the electric power steering systems that we make, some of the breaking components that we make, that provide energy back to the batteries. We're making some of those types of products today. We haven't segregated them out fully in this presentation and that's something that we're going to work to do. So as that business evolves, we think that there's significant opportunity not only for the Power Solutions group obviously Mobile as well where some of the applications that I just talked about. But on the Power side I think last time we talked, our analysis had showed that there is 72 different connecting points within electrical vehicle those are areas that we're pursuing. There are things that there are other new innovations within electrical vehicle that will almost like a circuit breaker will cut off the power in the car, in the event of an accident to ensure that there's no electrification of any of the passengers or any rescue personnel that may show up on the scene. We're actively coding and targeting some of those types of applications because they fit some of our core capabilities. So we're pretty excited on what the opportunities are, that exists there.

[Rob Brown:]

Okay great and then some just clarity on the techs for the China, CN6 emission standard driving some demand. Could you elaborate on how that's stemming demand and how you see that playing out?

[Warren Veltman:]

Some of the new standards that they I think announced 18 months or two years ago become fully into effect in July of 2021. So some of our customers are driving to get diesel engines in trucks as long as they're complete and in inventory by the end of June they can be sold subsequent. So we've seen an acceleration of the demand for some of the components that we manufacture for diesel injectors and then we also couple years ago got into the diesel dosing side of that equation and we've seen the volumes increase significantly in that area as well.

[Rob Brown:]

Okay, good thank you. I'll turn it over.

[Operator:]

your next question is from Steve Barger with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

[Steve Barger:]

I appreciate all the modeling detail you provided. I just want to make sure I understand EBITDA for 2021. You expect improvement from the adjusted 46.5 you show on Slide 9. Can you just refresh us on the updated thinking on incremental operating margin flow through from increased revenue this year?

[Tom DeByle:]

So we say, 40% is our variable margin, so it should drop through. Of course when we're going through the year, we get pass as pandemic obviously travel will increase and plus as I mentioned. We reinstalled some of the temporary cost savings that we had which is about 1.4% of our sales in Q4, so that's about a $1.6 million that will impact our margins going forward. But it's 40% close.

[Steve Barger:]

Right, well I know it's hard to predict bearable cost in the future like travel and things like that. But does that - the temporary cost roll off and whatever you're anticipating in the back half does that mean we're thinking more like 30% flow through this year or just any kind of thoughts around that as you normal as your cost structure?

[Warren Veltman:]

Yes, I think you're safe model in the 30% to 32% range from a flow through standpoint Steve. I mean as we add some people. We treat medical and some of the benefits as a fixed cost and some of those will go up. Tom, 100% accurate in that that our true variable is 40%. But on a longer-term basis as we shift the business and have to bring on additional resources. I think you're safer in the 30% to 32% range.

[Steve Barger:]

Got and will NN be able to generate free cash flow this year after the actual impact of restructuring and variable cost coming back and any refi activity that takes place, along with the cash flow items you listed on Slide 22?

[Tom DeByle:]

We expect that, we will be yes.

[Warren Veltman:]

Yes.

[Steve Barger:]

Anyway to frame up what you expect that could look like?

[Tom DeByle:]

Well it's a couple of elements and we did show that on Page 22. It's going to be lumpy during the year. But because we have a tax payment on the sale of Life Sciences that's going to happen on April 15 of about $15 million, $16 million and then we're expecting a CARES refund that kept again pushed to the right. But we anticipate that being done in Q3 for about $12 million so that will be to the plus. But overall, we feel that we're going to be in let's say the high single digits or closer to $10 million of free cash flow for the year around that approximately.

[Steve Barger:]

Okay and as I think about that longer term just kind of normalized free cash flow margin for NN. Margin begin percentage of revenue that turns into free cash flow in the average year. Just given the cost structure you have in place now and how you think about what your CapEx requirements will be?

[Tom DeByle:]

We project our CapEx requirements to be in the range of about $20 million, $22 million going forward and as Warren mentioned we have the excess capacity as we had a number of capital investments in the prior year and then we're looking to do it more of the cross selling and utilization of our factories through Power and Mobile. So that should be a good trend going forward.

[Steve Barger:]

So well I guess I'll say it this way, $10 million on whatever revenue is called 450 or 470 this year is very low single-digit free cash flow margin. Can that get to mid-single-digit? Or how do you think about that on a normalized basis in terms of the just the cash the business can generate every year?

[Warren Veltman:]

I think there's some nuances to our free cash flow generation this year as we continue to deal with our capital structure unwinding. I think that our view is, is that number can definitely double as we look out more than double as we look out in 2022.

[Steve Barger:]

Got it and I'll ask one more. I just want to go back to Slide 20. If I just added up $40 billion total addressable market with a midpoint average growth rate of around 6% excluding electrical vehicles. The CAGR to the $600 million 2025 target is about 7%. So the plan has you growing at market rate plus or minus despite your unique capabilities as a manufacturer. Is that the net effect of ICE shrinking or how should I think about market share gains beyond market growth?

[Warren Veltman:]

Yes, I think that there's some opportunity. I mean if you look at the ICE dependent piece of it, Steve. There really isn't a lot of tremendous amount of pullback on that total volume when you multiply the percentages out because we don't expect that that's going to deteriorate significantly by 2025. So opportunistically in that business, we still see customers investing in those areas and asking us to launch new project . We're not expecting a significant pullback there. Our view is that, this is a growth rate and a target and objective that we feel that we can achieve from an organic standpoint. And one of the questions that I got earlier was as it relates to additional opportunities for us. I think that once our capital structure is finalized. I think that will put us in a position earlier rather than later to look at potential tuck in acquisitions that could complement what you see here.

[Steve Barger:]

Understood. Thank you.

[Operator:]

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Warren Veltman for any closing remarks.

[Warren Veltman:]

Appreciate everybody's time this morning. Certainly thanks for the questions and I know we'll have some follow-up this afternoon. But just overall very pleased with our results for the quarter and pleased with definitely with the direction that the company is going and looking forward to our conversations next quarter. Thank you.

[Operator:]

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.