Rogers Corporation
Q4 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 18 Feb 2021

[Operator:]

Good day. My name is Erica and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, we would like to welcome everyone to the Rogers Corporation Q4 Year End 2020. I will now like to turn the call over to your host, Mr. Steve Haymore, Director of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin your conference.

[Steve Haymore:]

Thank you, Erica. Good afternoon, everyone and welcome to the Rogers Corporation fourth quarter 2020 earnings conference call. The slides for today’s call can be found on the Investors section of our website along with the news release that was issued today.

[Bruce Hoechner:]

Thanks, Steve. Good afternoon, everyone and thank you for joining us today. As recently announced the fire disrupted operations at our South Korea UTIS facility which produces our eSorba product line, most importantly all of our employees are safe and there were no injuries. UTIS represents less than 4% of Roger's annual sales and we are evaluating various recovery options. Our current expectation is that we will resume production in South Korea in the fourth quarter of this year. Turning now to slide 4, I'll cover the results for the quarter and 2020 highlights. Rogers ended 2020 with strong momentum achieving Q4 sales, gross margin and earnings that exceeded the top end of our guidance. The strong performance was driven by accelerating growth in advanced mobility markets and continued improvements in operational execution. For the quarter net sales increased to $211 million and gross margin improved to 38.3%. Earnings were $0.81 per share and adjusted earnings reached $1.58 per share. Despite headwinds from both trade tensions and the COVID-19 pandemic Rogers continued to build stronger and more sustainable business in 2020. The business environment was dynamic and challenging and I'm extremely proud of how the Rogers team responded. At the outset of the Coronavirus we began quickly mobilizing to protect health of our employees while simultaneously focusing on maintaining business continuity. We leveraged our global manufacturing footprint as well as multi-site customer qualifications where possible to avoid any significant disruptions to our customers or essential industries that rely on our advanced materials. This resilient response was possible thanks to the extraordinary capabilities and dedication of our employees. It's also important to recognize our suppliers and customers for their responsiveness and flexibility.

[Mike Ludwig:]

Thanks Bruce and good afternoon everyone. As Bruce mentioned I intend to retire from Rogers in 2021. It has been a privilege to serve as CFO and work with so many outstanding and dedicated employees. Together we've been able to drive significant operational improvements and investments in growth that have benefited shareholders and position Rogers for a strong future. I would like to thank Bruce and the rest of the board of directors for the opportunity to serve in this capacity. In the slides ahead I'll review our fourth quarter 2020 results followed by our first quarter 2021 guidance. Turning to slide 11 as Bruce mentioned Rogers delivered excellent results in the fourth quarter. Revenues of $210.7 million were 4.3% higher than Q3 as revenues increased sequentially in all business units led by advanced mobility applications. In addition, we are encouraged by small sequential growth in certain of our industrial markets in Q4 which we anticipate extending into the first quarter of 2021. The gross margin improved by 90 basis points over Q3 to 38.3% as we continued our journey of operational excellence and we leveraged the incremental volumes in our factories. In Q4 we delivered GAAP EPS of $0.81 per fully diluted share and an increase of $0.44 per share compared to Q3. The improvement is attributable primarily to an increase in revenues and gross margin a $5.8 million decrease in restructuring and impairment charges recorded in Q4 significantly reduced interest expense and higher income from our copper hedging program. Higher income taxes partially offset these improvements.

[Operator:]

And your first question is from Daniel Moore with CJS Securities.

[Daniel Moore:]

Good afternoon gentlemen. Thanks for taking questions.

[Bruce Hoechner:]

Hi Dan.

[Mike Ludwig:]

Hi Dan.

[Daniel Moore:]

Mike, so looks like you push gross margins up to the 40% range and dropped . Congratulations by the way.

[Mike Ludwig:]

Well. Thank you.

[Daniel Moore:]

Thank you. Thanks for your help.

[Mike Ludwig:]

Yes. We are obviously very excited about what we've been able to do on gross margins but it's been a great team effort honestly. It's been a lot a lot of people involved. So I haven't quite dropped the mic but it's loose in my hand.

[Daniel Moore:]

Good to know. Good to know. So that is my first question guidance obviously continued strength at 39% gross margin at the midpoint. Is that a level that see is sustainable as we look out for the remainder of the year inclusive of any impact that UTIS might have?

[Mike Ludwig:]

Yes. I think Dan again one of the things that Bruce highlighted and I highlighted is the sustainability of the improvement that we've made on gross margin and I think you'll see that going forward and I think again I think the 39% certainly depending on mix and whatnot and if we see the continued recovery with increased volumes there is no reason why we shouldn't be able to maintain the 39% and continue to improve gross margin both from the position of continued focus on operational execution as well as the footprint optimization that we have and again I think that can add another 100 to 200 basis points even without the additional volume and then as we've talked about in the past additional volume can certainly add another we'll call it 100, close to 100 basis points for each incremental $10 million to $11 million assuming the same product mix. So we're excited about what we've been able to do but we're also excited about how we can continue to expand gross margin going forward.

[Daniel Moore:]

Very helpful and Bruce you alluded to this one of the questions I had was on we heard a lot about semiconductor chip shortages. It sounds like we're good for Q1. What are you hearing and what are your expectations of any challenges as we look at Q2 and beyond?

[Bruce Hoechner:]

Yes. Well, certainly it will be a challenge for the industry overall particularly what we're seeing and hearing is in the automotive side of things. Now one of the interesting observations that we have is that OEMs are focusing where they have materials on the higher priced and EV/HEV models which plays to our strengths and whether it's in ADAS or over in the EV/HEV side of the house with our substrates and our battery pad. So we're cautious and keeping track of what's going on. It will most likely overall have an effect on the total number of automobiles made. The question is which models and more of the premium models would be the ones that we'd like to see made.

[Daniel Moore:]

Very helpful and any update on share and business wins across both battery pads and substrates in EV/HEV as we kind of get into to the first part of 2021 would be helpful if Bob has any sort of color or update on share and do business wins there?

[Bruce Hoechner:]

I'll take that. This is Bruce, we continue to see strength in our design wins. Customers are impressed with the performance of our products, our engineering support and as we had talked about over the course of last year we've been very encouraged by the feedback and by the win. So that continues. No change in that and we're anticipating a another strong year in that front.

[Daniel Moore:]

Okay and all the color on UTIS lastly was really helpful. Is it fair to say likely a slightly bigger impact in terms of percentage of revenue as we get out to Q2 based on your commentary that will likely be down and or down until closer to Q4 or is there is inventory in the supply chain that you've got that might offset some of that?

[Bob Daigle:]

No, Well Dan as you know the timing of that was early mid February. So certainly we'll get a month and a half in the first quarter that we're not going to get in certainly the second and probably the third quarter as well and we had some inventory that was not destroyed in the fire. Therefore that will contribute to first quarter but I think Bruce's comments about the less than 4% would indicate that it's probably going to have a little bigger impact in Q2 and probably Q3 as well until we get up and running and it's hard to say what Q4 because again we're urgently and looking at how to get that business recovered.

[Daniel Moore:]

All right. Well congrats on the momentum and execution and I will jump back with any follow-ups. Thank you.

[Bruce Hoechner:]

Thanks Dan.

[Operator:]

Your next question is from Craig Ellis with B. Riley Securities.

[Craig Ellis:]

Yes. Thanks for taking the question and Bruce congratulations on the growth in the business and Mike to you on the great gross margin performance and thanks for your help and that which will continue until your riding off into the sunset. I'll just start with a follow-up to that last question from Dan. So with South Korea can you just help us understand the options that the company has to restore its output capability? Do you perceive that you would only produce the product that you had been producing in that facility in South Korea or is there potential to produce it in another Rogers facility that's doing elastomeric product and potentially bridge to an operational ramp back up in South Korea?

[Bruce Hoechner:]

So that facility is the only one that produces the eSorba material, the polyurethane foam material. So what we're doing is looking at multiple approaches, looking at equipment that's available, looking at working on maybe some other lines that we have in other places to see if we can convert them quickly, and so I would say again it's still early days and we're working closely with customers as well to see if there is any alternatives that we can help them with but overall our assessment is probably a six-month recovery here so into the late Q3, Q4 time frame. But that's –

[Speaker:]

Again we are still we're very committed to again our business in South Korea.

[Craig Ellis:]

Yes. Makes sense given some of the big customers there. So it sounds like you may miss the early part of what would be the golden week build season but you might be able to catch a decent chunk of what would be the tier 1 holiday build season if you can get things back in late 3Q. I'll move on to a comment you made Bruce on 5G content. It sounds like you may be seeing more substantial content gain than what I think I heard three months ago. I think I was hearing 10% to 15% or maybe mid-teens but you talked about 30% content gain and high-end systems. Can you talk a little bit more about 5G content and what's possible for Rogers this year?

[Bruce Hoechner:]

Sure. I'm going to ask Bob to come in a little bit more detail on that.

[Bob Daigle:]

Yes. Correct. In the more advanced phones yes, there is a lot of, there are some very sensitive components that really require some higher value impact protection. So the opportunity for high end phones is more like 30% higher in these full-featured phones. So I think it's as 5G continues to gain momentum for the handsets we're expecting very nice opportunity in that space even given the .

[Craig Ellis:]

Yes. Got it. And then moving on to the general industrial business which we see in a couple of segments, Mike or Bruce can you just help put a finer point on the extent to which you're seeing demand come back depending on the companies that we speak to some of them have six sub-segments in their “industrial business” some as many as 20. What would be helpful would be to have some deeper understanding of the extent to which that business had started to turn up for the company here in the first quarter and then what's possible as we go beyond the first quarter through the year given that we still haven't hit that period where we've got synchronized global growth albeit with global ISM suggesting that's increasingly possible by mid-year?

[Bruce Hoechner:]

So the way that we're seeing this we saw the positive indications particularly in the EMS side, the elastomeric side of the house which is an agglomeration of many different sub-segments but mostly focused on capital investment as the main driver and so we see strong order in Q1 for these areas and so we will continue to see we think as long as the economies begin that recovery on that side of the house we'll see that continue we believe. On the power industrial side of the house we saw a slight decline in Q4 on that front and we're not really yet seeing that heavy equipment recovery that would be equipment with horsepower more than 50 horse and so forth. So the heavy ordering for that CapEx hasn't quite materialized yet.

[Craig Ellis:]

Got it. That makes sense Bruce. Thank you and then Mike a follow-up point on gross margin before I go back in the queue. So here we are with guidance at 39% at great level and the color you provided suggested another 100 to 200 basis points volume agnostic. A 100 basis points with every 10 million in revenue so it seems like we've got visibility into that 41% to 42% if we can see continued good and demand. I guess the question is there have been inbound client concerns about input costs. Does the business have the ability to continue to offset those in whatever way that you were able to do so in the fourth quarter with either hedging or other mechanisms? What are some of the risks we need to keep our eye on as we think about a business that can move up into the low 40s on gross margins?

[Mike Ludwig:]

Yes. I think your point on input cost is a good one it's one that we're concerned about and as we talked about we saw it in the fourth quarter but we're still with the efficiencies that we have from increased yields and just increased manufacturing efficiencies we're able to overcome that. In some of our business, we're able to pass those input costs along to customers but maybe not in all the businesses but again I think that with the continued focus on increased yields, increased efficiencies we may not be able to see the rise in gross margin as quickly as we would like but I think we're still pretty comfortable with the sustainability of the improvements we've made as well as committed to the future improvements which we think will more than offset the increased input costs.

[Craig Ellis:]

Lastly, if I could sneak into housekeeping with the move to an advanced electronic solutions focus combining ACS and PES should we expect then when we get the calendar first quarter results that instead of three segments the company will be reporting on two segments. Is that how you'll treat things from a financial reporting standpoint?

[Mike Ludwig:]

Well, that that would be our intention to combine those into reporting but we are in the process of changing our internal reporting to support that position and so that's what our intent is. Certainly we have to review that but that's the thought process but even if we do that Craig we'll continue to provide commentary on the elements of the ceramic business and the profitability and gross margin of that business. So well that's the intent again we still have some internal housekeeping that we need to do to make that happen but that being said we are committed to providing continued visibility and transparency on what's happening in our ceramic business particularly around the EV/HEV portion of that business.

[Craig Ellis:]

Great. Thank you Mike. Thank you Bruce.

[Mike Ludwig:]

Sure. Thanks Craig.

[Operator:]

Your next question is from Patrick Ho with Stifel.

[Patrick Ho:]

Thank you very much and first off I want to wish Mike well. We've gone through a few rides together and it's great to see the contribution that you've provided to Rogers. So I hope again best of luck to you and I'm sure we'll continue to talk. My first question given the building momentum you're starting to see in the automotive market both on EV/HEV and ADAS given that autonomous vehicles are also starting to re-emerge in the news once again and I know a lot of it is related to ADAS but from just the autonomous vehicle perspective what are some of the potential opportunities you see there with potential materials content for a lot of features that would go into those type of cars?

[Bruce Hoechner:]

I'm going to ask Bob to comment on that.

[Bob Daigle:]

Yes. So Patrick and I think we've talked about this in the past and basically what we're producing our materials for the radar sensors, it's pretty scalable. So as you go to higher levels of economy you typically will have more radar sensors on a vehicle from let's say 2.5 today to some of the vehicles that have been developed that are full autonomous that have had 9, 10, 11 radar sensors on board. So I think what we're expectation is you go to higher degrees of autonomy from level one, level two today to level four, level five and our content opportunities will scale pretty proportionally as because the number of radar sensors will continue to rise and we could see some of the test vehicles out there like I said could be three to three plus times the number of sensors that were custom today. So it's a very positive trend and I think as the average autonomous that's going to be a very nice still win for us ADAS.

[Patrick Ho:]

Great. That's helpful Bob and maybe as my follow-up question for Mike and I apologize because I missed the beginning of the call with the recent fire in South Korea and I guess some of the shifts in capacity and getting products out, are there any kind of near-term OpEx changes that we should expect in reaction to that situation? I'm assuming it's been factored into Q1 but is this something that we should, I guess measure into our OpEx as things move around?

[Mike Ludwig:]

We didn't have that. We didn't have very high OpEx expenses in that business. The answer to that is probably is no but again I think what we've talked about is less than 4% of the revenues for that business and we'll probably have, I would say a similar impact on EPS but again from an operating from a modeling perspective operating costs aren't really going to be impacted materially.

[Patrick Ho:]

Great. Thank you very much.

[Operator:]

And there are no further questions in the queue at this time. I'll turn the call back over to you for closing remark.

[Bruce Hoechner:]

I'd first of all like to thank everyone for joining us today on the call and I also like to again acknowledge Mike's great contributions to the success of Rogers and we look forward to working with him until he walks out of the door and drops the mic whichever order that is. Again everyone have a good safe evening.

[Operator:]

Ladies and gentlemen this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.