Standard Motor Products, Inc.
Q4 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 23 Feb 2021

[Operator:]

Good day, everyone, and welcome to today's Standard Motor Products' Fourth Quarter Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, you will have an opportunity to ask questions during the question-and-answer session. Please note this call is being recorded. I will be standing by, should you need any assistance. It is now my pleasure to turn today's program over to Larry Sills. Please go ahead.

[Larry Sills:]

Good morning everybody. And thank you for attending our fourth quarter call. My name is Larry Sills, Chairman of the Board. With me today we have Eric Sills, President and CEO; Jim Burke, Chief Operating Officer; and Nathan Iles, Chief Financial Officer.

[Nathan Iles:]

Thank you, Larry. And good morning everybody. Before we begin this morning, I'd like to remind you that some of the material we will be discussing today may include forward-looking statements regarding our business and expected financial results. When we use words like anticipate, believe, estimate or expect, these are generally forward-looking statements. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, they are based on information currently available to us and certain assumptions made by us, and we cannot assure you that they will prove correct. You should also read our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a discussion of the risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ from our forward-looking statements. I'll now turn the call over to Eric.

[Eric Sills:]

Well thank you Nathan. And good morning everyone. And welcome to our fourth quarter earnings call. I'd like to open the day by thanking all of our employees for going above and beyond in the year, unlike any other. I truly believe we would not have been nearly as successful in navigating these uncharted waters without their dedication and skills. I truly could not be more, proud of how they guided us through it. Okay, on to business, we are extremely pleased with our fourth quarter results. As we set records for both sales and profits. Our sales were up $41 million or 17% with both divisions contributing record numbers. Engine Management was up 15% and was far in away our largest fourth quarter on record. Some of this was due to entering the period with an order backlog. As you recall, the third quarter was also quite strong and due to some manpower shortages in our distribution centers, we did not fully catch up until early in the fourth quarter. But beyond that incoming volume from our customers continued to be robust throughout the period as well. I would note that our customer sell-through in the fourth quarter was in the mid-single digits, and we are pleased to see that the positive trend has continued into 2021.

[Jim Burke:]

Okay. Thank you, Eric. This is Jim Burke and I’d like to touch on two topics from operations today. First is our supply chain, 2020 was like no other year and I'm very proud of all our team members enduring everything that was thrown at us. We are deemed an essential business to the transportation industry and we remained open to meet our customer demands. This entailed retrofitting all of our facilities for safety precautions and social distancing. We endured while demand swings dropping 30% to 40%, followed by positive swings up 10% to 20%. At the same time we were faced with a labor shortage. We are very thankful for all our employees who work continuous overtime and seven days a week. Many customers were very complimentary in recognizing our employee efforts. A more recent topic around supply chain has been the disruption in the auto sector from lack and unavailability of semiconductor chips. Fortunately, we believe we have an adequate inventory supply and deem this to be a minor risk. Another supply chain challenge has been the logistics of moving product primarily from the far east to the U.S. Fortunately we have a very large manufacturing footprint in North America and Poland and are less exposed than others who source 100% from Asia. The logistic challenge reflects a combination of container shortages, availability of shipping vessels and ultimately congestion at local domestic ports. We have been managing through this process by forward booking containers and vessels to meet our needs, while definitely a challenge we were able to alleviate more of this risk than others with our North American and Poland manufacturing locations.

[Nathan Iles:]

Okay. Thank you, Jim. Now turning to the numbers, I'll walk through the operating results for the fourth quarter and the full year, cover some key balance sheet and cash flow metrics and then also talk a little about our expectations for the year of 2021. Looking first at the P&L, consolidated net sales in Q4 2020 were $282.7 million, up $41.5 million or 17.2% versus Q4 last year. Our consolidated net sales for the full year were $1.13 billion finishing down just 0.8% after recovering in the last half of the year as Eric noted earlier. Looking at it by segment, Engine Management net sales in Q4 excluding Wire and Cable sales were $193.5 million, up $26.2 million versus the same quarter of last year.

[Larry Sills:]

Brittany, are you there?

[Operator:]

I apologize. We will take our first question from Scott Stember with CL King. Your line is now open

[Scott Stember:]

Good morning guys, and congrats on a great quarter. Good way to finish out the year.

[Eric Sills:]

Thank you, Scott.

[Scott Stember:]

Maybe talk about the loss of business. You talked about the change in strategy by this one customer, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that they just, I guess want to break it out amongst different folks and they're not as interested in the one stop shop portfolio of services that Standard offers. I’m just trying to dig into a little bit more, what their reasoning is, and, thanks.

[Eric Sills:]

Understand, Scott. And I don't want to overly speculate on their strategy, better to speak with them. What I would say is that we continue to emphasize our go-to market strategy, which we still think is very sticky and very relevant out there today and just to remind you as well, certainly, but others perhaps on the call. But our approach has always been to be a full-line, full-service guy, and full-line being a very important part of it, which is we're now with an Engine Management north of 40,000 part numbers and heading more each year, and as the line gets more complicated and the technology gets more complicated and car manufacturers find new systems and methods to improve their vehicles to have a category manager, like a Standard Motor Products to really drive the whole thing for you, we think is very well received by the balance of our customer base. So we're going to continue to emphasize our strategy as mentioned players, like O'Reilly awarding us their top honors and relationships we have with the other players out there both large and small suggest that going forward, our strategy is still the strong-line. So while this other account chose to go in another direction better to talk to them about why, but we still believe our strategy is the right one.

[Scott Stember:]

Fair enough. And the business that's going away, what is the mix? Is it pretty much the same mix of business that you have across your entire Engine Management business? Just trying to get a sense of whether this is higher margin business going away, or if it's just emblematic or just representative of your entire mix of business that you have?

[Eric Sills:]

Yes, they were a customer of the entire line, so their mix was roughly reflective of the overall division.

[Scott Stember:]

All right. And last question before I get back in the queue, you talked about some opportunities that you're working on currently to replace this lost business. Could you just give us a sense of what kind of stuff we're looking at here and the – how long it could possibly take to replace all this, this is obviously a big chunk of sales that are coming out.

[Eric Sills:]

And really I don't have any details to report Scott, but what I would say is that we have many prospects in the works across Engine Management and other product categories with many customers out there. They're all in different stages. So it's not like there's going to be potentially a big stepwise replacement of the business. But I would actually say that we possibly have more opportunities now than ever. We're excited about it. We think that our customers are excited about working on some of these things with us but we don't have any specifics to report.

[Scott Stember:]

Great. Thanks, guys.

[Eric Sills:]

Thank you, Scott.

[Operator:]

And we will take our next question from Andrew Ryan with Stephens Inc. Your line is now open.

[Andrew Ryan:]

Hey, good morning guys. Congrats on the quarter.

[Nathan Iles:]

Good morning.

[Eric Sills:]

Thank you.

[Jim Burke:]

Good morning.

[Andrew Ryan:]

Yes, so I guess the first question I have here; I heard from some of your like public retail customers inventory is on the lower side where they'd like to be. Where do you think like they are and you guys are positioned heading into pre-season sales for 2021?

[Eric Sills:]

Well, it's a good question. So it's best answered by looking at the division separately because they have somewhat different dynamics especially this time of year. Within Engine Management we actually really entered the fourth quarter where they were a bit light but and that was partly because of our order backlog. But by the end of the quarter they were really back up to reasonable and healthy levels. That being said, what we see is perhaps more of an appetite than we've seen in a long time for some of these distributors to really strengthen their forward deployed inventory as they're looking to aggressively go after the market out there. So we see the potential for even though they're not under inventoried today that there's more of an appetite to really strengthen their – what they have on the shelves. On the Temperature Control side here too, they ended the year roughly where they have in the past. So even though it was a very strong selling season as you saw by their purchases from us over the course of the quarter they were up 30%. So their shelves are in reasonable shape. As we enter 2021 for Temperature Control in the first half of the year is almost entirely about pre-season preparing for the summer. If you look at 2020, 2020 was very light pre-season. The first quarter was just light. And the second quarter was the pandemic. So the comps are relatively easy. But that's why we always caution to look at the full year. The first half of the year is really just about preparing the shelves. And that's really what happens in the summer. So perhaps I've given you more than you asked for but that's kind of how we see things going forward.

[Andrew Ryan:]

No. That was very helpful. Thank you. I guess then moving over to control SG&A, really impressive levers there. Can you kind of parse out how much was cost removal versus production and sales leverage?

[Nathan Iles:]

Yes. Well just to reiterate what we said before, when you look at SG&A the cost tend to be roughly 75% fixed and 25% variable and they then tend to flex that way. And so with strong volumes, like I said it in my remarks, most of the improvement was just the better leverage on the top line volume.

[Andrew Ryan:]

Perfect. I guess just one quick a little housekeeping follow-up. I guess can we get any color around on expectations for the cadence of repurchases now that you've started that up going into 2021?

[Nathan Iles:]

We have no specific cadence around repurchases just noting that we do have the board authorization and we'll use it as it makes sense.

[Andrew Ryan:]

Perfect. All right, thanks guys.

[Nathan Iles:]

Thank you.

[Operator:]

We'll take our next question from Bret Jordan with Jefferies. Your line is now open.

[Bret Jordan:]

Hey, good morning guys.

[Eric Sills:]

Good morning, Bret.

[Bret Jordan:]

Hey, on the existing inventory at advance is that going to be bought out or is there any inventory that would be returned to you in this transition?

[Eric Sills:]

We don't get into those levels of details, but I would say, it would be as you're looking to model it for this year, it would be negligible.

[Bret Jordan:]

Okay. And then obviously a lot of talk about ROE in the prepared remarks is that something we should read as sort of a shift in the strategy, and maybe if you think about how you see OES percentage of sales mix and maybe a longer-term basis, like looking out a few years, is that going to grow? I've obviously lost small numbers, probably helps it grow, but is that going to be a meaningful growth driver of the total top line?

[Eric Sills:]

All right, that's a great question. And there's nothing well, perhaps got a little bit more attention in the prepared remarks. There's nothing new about this diversification strategy. We've been working on it for the last several years and some of our M&A over the last few years have really been geared towards finding categories that are complementary to our core business, makes sense for us where we think that we can do well, but not chasing every little opportunity. That's why we emphasize that we think the commercial vehicle, heavy duty industrial space is a little bit better suited for us and we’re seeing some nice inroads there. Some of it came with the acquisition of Pollak, but this is an area we've been working on, especially out of Poland which is in some ways uniquely positioned to go after OE business, because it has a very good cost structure and is very technical in their capabilities. So if you add up all this complimentary business and we report this in our K, it's about somewhere north of 14% of our business. It's been growing slowly over the last few years. We’re judicious in what we look for, but we see it as a nice complimentary business. We still believe the North American aftermarket, that's our core business, that's what we've emphasized for the last 100 years. We think that sits nicely on top and there are some synergies between the two.

[Bret Jordan:]

Okay, great. Thank you.

[Operator:]

We will take our next question from Robert Smith with Center for Performance and Investing. Your line is now open.

[Robert Smith:]

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. So as you're in your second hundred years, you are in some thought to the so-called end of the ice age and the transformation of the industry to electric vehicles and how you might see this in your role?

[Eric Sills:]

Good morning, Robert. And it's a great question. And it's certainly one that we spend a great deal of time thinking about and preparing for internally. We're certainly seeing more news recently, whether it's the General Motors announcement of what they're planning to do with their fleet by 2035 and just so many other car manufacturers preparing for that. We recognize that it's not – it's not and if it's a win. We do think that win is still many years out. Again, General Motors is looking at 2035 and that's really for new car sales and as largely an after-market manufacturer we have a pretty good lead time, even after that, before it has any significant impact on the addressable market on the car park. But look, we definitely see that it’s coming. So as we look at our product portfolio and make sure that we’re evolving along with automotive technology, perhaps, it’s helpful to break it into its components. If you look at our temperature control division at essentially immune, there are some slight technology changes on AC systems for electric vehicles, but for the most part, it’s still out there. And on engine management, we really see more and more of that division really having little to do with the engine. So we’re seeing much more as it relates to safety related devices, whether it’s older technologies like ABS sensors are getting into the new technologies with all of the advanced driver assist systems we’re seeing on vehicles, where we are already offering hundreds and hundreds of SKUs to support cameras, lane departure systems, and so on and so forth. So we see as the potential for ice related components to contract, we hope that there are replacement – that there are product categories that are there to replace that business. And that potentially also includes parts to service that electric vehicle powertrain. It’s also important to note, and I think you’re aware of this, that much of the electrification going on, certainly for the near-term is hybrid vehicles, where there is a combustion engine on board, along with the electric motor. But yes, we continue to look to evolve and with these new systems comes new technologies and new parts opportunities, so for example, there’s going to be much more related to battery cooling, which we think is in our wheelhouse to power management battery sensing technology and so on, which we think is in our wheelhouse, and again, more and more emphasis on different types of sensors and actuators throughout the vehicle. So we’ve been evolving with automotive technology for a hundred years. We plan to continue to do it. We think we have a several year lead time before there’s significant impact in the addressable market, but we’re by no means ignoring it, we’re addressing it and preparing for it.

[Robert Smith:]

Yes, thanks for the color. And all I can say is the pace of technological change is increasing as it always has been.

[Eric Sills:]

Absolutely.

[Robert Smith:]

Thanks, again.

[Operator:]

And we will take our next question from Andrew Ryan with Stephens Inc. Your line is now open.

[Andrew Ryan:]

Hey guys, thanks for taking my follow-up Andrew on for Daniel again. I have one quick question. I was wondering you mentioned rising breakup in the quarter. And I'm kind of wondering if you are seeing inflation anywhere else? And how are you guys feeling about the industry's ability to pass those costs through to the consumers? Thanks.

[Eric Sills:]

Yes. Well, let me just answer. I guess specific to SMP, we have a number of inputs in our manufacturing processes from a materials perspective. Of course, you see the inflation out there is – but we don't have any one commodity that's big input into our processes. So, it's not a huge driver there, but yes, to your point, anything that we see we try to pass through to the customers.

[Andrew Ryan:]

Would that be kind of similar process, like when you compare it were you guys able to protect those gross profit dollars?

[Eric Sills:]

Yes. Okay, so if you are saying it's similar to Standard, yes. Like we did a couple years ago.

[Andrew Ryan:]

Excellent. All right, thanks guys.

[Operator:]

And we will take our question from Robert Smith with the Center for Performance and Investing. Your line is now open.

[Robert Smith:]

So as 2020 unfolded with the pandemic, you kind of were hoping, I guess, defense and due to the uncertainties and you passed them in. I voiced my concern about what happened subsequently and the fact that the dividend payout was reduced in 2020. So again, I might ask of you that the way the year ended, so to speak, and really fine tune, that you might consider declaring an extra dividend in 2021 to make up for the reduced dividend payout in 2020.

[Jim Burke:]

All right, Robert, we will discuss these things with our Board as we always do and take it under advisement.

[Robert Smith:]

I think it would hold you in good stead on a long-term basis. Thanks.

[Jim Burke:]

Thank you.

[Operator:]

We'll pause for just a moment to allow questions to queue. And it appears we have no further questions at this time. I will turn the program back over to our presenters.

[Larry Sills:]

Okay, thank you all. Thank you all for attending. Wish us all good luck. Okay, bye. Thank you.

[Jim Burke:]

Thank you.

[Operator:]

This does conclude today's program. You may disconnect at any time.