Titan International, Inc.
Q4 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 4 Mar 2021

[Operator:]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Titan International, Inc. Fourth Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode and we will open the floor for your questions and comments after the presentation. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Todd Shoot, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Treasurer for Titan. Mr. Shoot, the floor is yours, sir.

[Todd Shoot:]

Thank you, Rocco. Good morning, and welcome everyone to our fourth quarter 2020 earnings call. On the call with me today, we also have Titan's President and CEO, Paul Reitz; and Titan's Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, David Martin.

[Paul Reitz:]

Thank you, Todd. Good morning, everybody. We're only at March 4th and this year is already looking like a completely different story, compared to 2020. Late in the fourth quarter, we started to see demands trend in a positive direction, and that's really evidenced in our Q4 results that exceeded expectations. And 2021 has really kept on roll and as we've seen, the U.S. farmers' sentiment and farmers' capital investment index levels spiked to all time highs already. The $25 billion of government payments late in 2020 certainly helped move these indexes in a favorable manner combined with of course strong commodity prices with corn hovering around $550 and soybeans up above $14. Another significant positive indicator for 2021 is the low levels of inventory that exists in most channels, especially in the dealer networks. Therefore our market uptick at the retail level should get that additional boost from inventory replenishment. It's definitely great to see ag moving in a positive direction in 2021 and it seems that the market upturn shared some pretty good legs on it as well.

[David Martin:]

Thanks, Paul and good morning to everybody. I appreciate all of those who are participating in the call and those that are following Titan's progress. Well, my whole plans are changing in flash. While we're still very much in an uncertain time and while the pandemic and other global volatility and economic uncertainty continues, Titan's world is changing rapidly. Our response to the crisis last year was critical as we now head into the recovery that is upon us. I'll focus most of my discussion today on the fourth quarter performance, but what is important and what we accomplished in the quarter and for the year puts us in a stronger position as we manage 2021 and beyond. First, our cash position ended $117 million for the year, up $51 million from last year-end and we accomplished this through strong operating cash flow in Q4 and for the full year, along with our efforts to secure liquidity through non-core asset sales and related transaction. Operating cash flow for the fourth quarter was $10 million, which pushed full-year operating cash flow to $57 million. As anticipated, we completed further transactions in non-core -- of non-core assets of $16 million in Q4 and for the full year, it's up $53 million. Second, related to the cash improvement, our net debt position at the end of the year was $347 million, down from $366 million at the end of last quarter and $433 million at the end of last year. As we stated in the release, we haven't seen this level since 2017. Third, we took another important step forward last week with the extension of our domestic ABL facility. This facility now has runway for two more years and are now closer to maturity on our overall debt structure.

[Operator:]

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Today's first question comes from Steve Volkmann with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

[Steve Volkmann:]

So sounds like things there are definitely sort of -- gears are switching here, I guess that's good. Maybe my first question, maybe this is a Paul question, a big picture question. Most of your OE customers have now kind of gotten to the point where they are able to provide us some thoughts around volumes and profitability in 2021. What's different about you guys that you still can't do that?

[Paul Reitz:]

Well, I think what's different, Steve is, we touched a lot of different markets with really three different core products, and so there is a different response that would be -- and different response or different movements going on in the market as we sit here today. You look at what we -- where we were at the end of December, what we thought was going to be a pretty good forecast for Q1, we're exceeding that quite rapidly. And so, the challenge for us is that we see the market trend, we know they're there, they're going in a good direction, we are hiring as fast as we can. We are also seeing indications in the market, Steve, and I kind of talked about it in my comments with certain customers where the inventory replenishment cycle is not necessarily what you see in some of the numbers they're putting out in their forecast. And so, there are some discrepancies in forecasts that we get or orders that we're getting that exceed what is out there in the market. And so, we are adjusting our -- as I said in our comments, we're adjusting our allocation, we're hiring, we are moving rapidly. And so, it's just really difficult to pinpoint exactly where those order levels are going to be across all our different geographies and market -- market products that we produce, but also just with the amount of labor that we're going to have available. Quite frankly, in South America, you just can't bring on enough people fast enough to meet all the demand that's there, and similarly in certain situations as well in North America. So, we are working on building a better forecast and getting more visibility to the year. But right now it's moving rapidly and it's moving rapidly in a good direction.

[David Martin:]

Just to restate that in a way that we're forecasting almost every couple of weeks and the forecasts are improving, I will say that, and we're -- I didn't want to get us into a position where we liking something and we have to change it pretty, pretty rapidly as we get out of Q1. And these things are all moving in a positive direction, and I'm not going to say it's a negative direction in any way. So, we will come out of Q1 and probably have better clarity about where the year will be, and we can talk to you again about it then.

[Steve Volkmann:]

So, let's leave the volume aside and assume that that is going to be better, but a little bit unforecastable, but it sounded Paul like in your commentary that there were a number of potential headwinds on profitability and you talked about price cost, you talked about labor availability, it sounds like you're actually trying to capacity constraint from what you're describing, but that it would take some time to get new people sort of ramped up. So maybe the right way to ask it is, I'll make my own forecast for volume, but how should I be thinking about incremental margins?

[Paul Reitz:]

Well, my comments about pricing are in a positive manner related to where the market is moving. Pricing is complicated, Steve you know, because of steel going from $445 to $1,200 because of volatility with other costs related to production areas, trucking, etc. And so, pricing is complicated, so my comments were, we are adjusting pricing for raw materials, but also then looking at adjusting pricing for other production costs. And then on top of it where -- to what you just noted, where demand exceeds capacity in the marketplace, then thirdly adjusting pricing to leverage where the market sits. And so, again kind of tying back to your question about forecasting, there is a lot of moving pieces. They are favorable. I mean, sitting here at any point in the last few years, just that first phase of pricing recovery raw material costs, at times could be a challenge and we've referenced that in prior year's comments. What I'm saying is, we are going to recover raw material costs in 2021. But if you look at some of the price increases we've had to introduce in Q1 for steel again going from $445 to $1,200, you're talking very sizable price increases. So again, it makes it difficult to pinpoint exactly where your incremental margins are going to be with all those moving pieces, but I think the point that David and I are really illustrating is that they are moving in a very positive direction, better than we had expected when we're putting together our own internal forecast and plans for 2021 in mid-December. We know, and we believe we will manage all those pieces successfully because of the market strength. But I can't sit here and tell you today that there is not a tremendous amount of work that's going on at Titan to manage all these variables to hire people, train them, meet the demand, so again, just makes it difficult to pinpoint exactly where it's going to fall. Those are all positive things, but challenges that we need to overcome.

[Steve Volkmann:]

So last time we saw a spike in commodity prices, there was some timing issues on your side in terms of when you could pass them through and how much inventory you were working off, etc., is there any scenario where we have a quarter that has like down margin quarter because we're sort of absorbing some of the stuff before we get the price increases through or is that kind of what you're flagging for us, or would we expect margin improvement each quarter?

[David Martin:]

I think there could be certainly a -- certain quarterly variations to these things. But just marginally off of that, I don't expect to see significant swings in margin, because I do believe we have carefully calibrated how we go to our customers and get more swift reaction to pricing versus where in the past mechanisms may not allow for us of that because we are very unprecedented time with the rapid recovery in the market. So we're going to move much quicker with respect to decisions and actions that we have to take. And if you look at our Q4 results, let's just look at that for a second, 11.8% is a good barometer for where we're going to calibrate around in terms of -- we should get incremental margins as volume increases, and there may be some variations from that related to pricing in a given quarter. But overall the trend will be positive.

[Operator:]

And our next question today comes from Steve Ferazani with Sidoti. Please go ahead.

[Steve Ferazani:]

Hi, good morning everyone. I'm just trying to get -- obviously surprised about the strength in Earthmoving and Construction, trying to see if you could provide a little bit more detail and color in terms of where the strength was for end markets and geography? And just sort of where do you see that going?

[Paul Reitz:]

Yes. We're seeing it come out of certain segments in Europe where they're getting ahead of putting more spending into the marketplace than we see here in North America. We're seeing strength coming out of China. And again, I think both David and I said that, we expected that strength more in the back half of the year, certainly as infrastructure builds kicked into gear and even here in North America we still plan on second half of the year to be moving in a much better direction. But I think what surprised us is it's early already both coming out of the gate in January and February already, again we put together what we thought was a really good forecast in December and were double-digits above that forecast. So it's moving in a very positive direction. I think we're seeing it in a couple of key areas, but as we move into the back half of the year it'll become more broad based. And we certainly feel that, that momentum in the first half of the year is just really a good sign for the second half of the year, so. To answer your question kind of primarily Europe and Asia right now, out of the gate is where we're seeing that exceeding budget. Really out of our ITM business just to be clear with you, when we talk about Earthmoving and construction, it's really our undercarriage business that I'm referencing.

[Steve Ferazani:]

So in terms of ITM, you're obviously seriously explored or closed on options for that, or for the market downturn. Is it too early to reconsider those options?

[Paul Reitz:]

Yes. I think that's a fair statement. I mean, we're sitting here in early March, and it's definitely positive where that business is going. We've always believed in the core strength that ITM has in the marketplace. They've build great high quality products with a strong brand. We've been expanding their aftermarket presence through a number of efforts over the last few years. And so Steve, to really answer that question, I think the cards are moving in a positive direction for what ITM is capable of doing in a good market and we're in a good position to sit back now and really reap those benefits. So really no thoughts at all right now of how we would position in the marketplace like we have in the past of seeing if there is any potential interest. It's a good quality business. It's a core business for us. And again it is moments like this where you really see the value of ITM, or how quickly when the market is starting to turn, how quickly they can go and grab that share of the market and really turn it into the sales quite rapidly, so now looking forward to a really good year out of undercarriage.

[Steve Ferazani:]

And then I know you both mentioned potential for debt refinancing early. At this point given your improving cash flow profile and improving industry fundamentals, are you engaging with your credit rating agencies at all? I would think an improvement there could be to refinancing that much more positive.

[David Martin:]

We have regular discussions with the credit agencies every quarter and those will continue for sure. And that's certainly part and parcel to the entire process of going out there.

[Steve Ferazani:]

And then last one would just be on low sidewall, given that if we're going into a replacement cycle for Ag, is this the time for seeing more market share in terms of new equipment used in low sidewall and what's your success rate you're seeing there, potentially granting that new replacement cycle?

[Paul Reitz:]

Absolutely, it's always a good time for low sidewall, Steve, the benefits it brings to the marketplace have proven themselves. Our aftermarket business in North and South America has done very well over the last four or five years. As you illustrated, I think the opportunity is to continue to get more low sidewall placements, will only grow as farmer income goes up. The ability to look at the premium products just only enhances. And then the next frontier for us as well is getting more low sidewall out of South America. You know, those farms out there are massive and our loan sidewall penetration in South America has got a lot of opportunity in the future. So I think we got to take a lot of what we learned in North America and it does take some time. I can't sit here and tell you these -- turn the switch on and you go sell low sidewall a couple of months later. But I do look forward to what we can do in South America with those sidewall as well, so a very small presence right now. And again I think as farmer income goes up and the markets really moving a good direction, it's a good time to go try to chase more share of the South American market, but North America great time to low sidewall, absolutely.

[Operator:]

And our next question today comes from Larry De Maria with William Blair. Please go ahead.

[Larry De Maria:]

Thanks, good morning everybody. First I just wanted to clarify ITM is now considered core and we're not considering any alternatives including a listing, is that a done decision than listings off the table, etc. And we should just assume ITM stays part of Titan for a long time now?

[Paul Reitz:]

Yes, that's been off the table for over a year and a half.

[Larry De Maria:]

Well, it's been off the table, but it's been on-again, off-again and now the market is better, so it's in a better valuation standpoint, which is what we are waiting for and for waiting for that now is the time. So think about, but you're saying obviously it's -- it's core. Okay, can you talk about --

[Paul Reitz:]

It's a really good business. We pulled the listing as we said over a year and a half ago where we started to go with the Board in the future is the value of the business goes up if not all the table right now here today, what's here today is it's a really good business that's performing well. That's really what we've been -- we've been emphasizing for a period of time. I don't think we've talked publicly about another listing with ITM for quite a while.

[Larry De Maria:]

No, I agree. I just thought we're waiting for better market environment to reconsider that, which obviously we're in now. But can you guys talk about the possible debt refi timing for rates that are available to you guys and how you're thinking about that debt refinance?

[David Martin:]

Larry, I'd say it's premature to even talk about that, given we're kind of just coming off the year and now we're obviously have some good momentum in front of us in the expectations for the year. We'll have these discussions at the appropriate times with our advisors, and look at the market and we'll know, obviously know in the coming days what that would look like. It's a little early to say.

[Larry De Maria:]

Okay, thanks. And then last question, in order that the dealer channel short -- and obviously you are going to refill that, but obviously OEMs are still strong. So the question is, can you fill the OEM demand that you made to your customers or you had to divert some of that aftermarket, and maybe you could talk about what mix was between OEM and aftermarket in 2020 and what that looks like in 2021?

[Paul Reitz:]

Yes. I mean our goal as a Company is to keep that split very consistent from '19 to '20 and '20 to '21. Clearly demand is accelerating in all areas, especially the OEM, the aftermarket is moving strongly as well. So, our work and our job and what we've been doing aggressively every day is how we allocate our production and how we allocate our labor constraints across that production portfolio. Now, what we are doing is hiring and training rapidly, very aggressively. So my comments were only to illustrate that in our business, if you need 60 people, you don't go hire 60 people and bring them in on Monday as actually our production levels would go down for about the next three months. So really what I'm trying to illustrate is if you need 60 people, you have to bring them in systematically, train them, get them off the speed and then bring in some more. It's the nature of business, we build complicated products, and so it's true within our industry across the Board. Us being a public Company, we talk about it more, obviously openly in the marketplace. But it's a good thing. It's not a bad thing. If you could just go hire 100 people and move to switch all over the place that it kind of devalues our products. And so, from my perspective, it adds value to our products, there is a way you have to bring people in and train them and that's what we've been doing. So it's a lot of work, we're getting there. But during that time period where you're hiring and training, you are going to have to make some allocation decisions. And so, we're trying to make those allocation decisions to answer your question is to remain very consistent with how we've done in prior years. And then from there, as I said in my comments as well, we're pursuing opportunities to make it a win-win relationship with an OEM where if they want to pursue more allocation, then those opportunities are available through a win-win scenario for both the customer and for Titan. Clearly in the last four or five years when the market is down, you're not in that position where you have available capacity, whether it be labor or production available at all times. That's not the market we're in right now in North or South America. And so, I do think those -- again, those are all positives, and I welcome those discussions and we're having those discussions with the OEMs of how we can -- how we can allocate our product potentially differently, but in the broad sense, the aftermarket is a great business for us. We have strong brands, good distribution channels, we got to honor those dealers and make sure they have product as well.

[Larry De Maria:]

Okay, I get it. You're in a much better position and as you're ramping. I guess, but the question really is, are you in position to satisfy the OE demand as the companies that have publicly given their guidance have given? Can you satisfy that demand this year? Or is that, do you have to really build to that? In other words, we're going to have a problem already in 1Q satisfying that demand, which you have strong sales, but obviously won't flow through all the way, and there'll be supply chains in the industry issues.

[Paul Reitz:]

Well, I think everybody in the industry is facing supply chain constraints of some sort. Again in our industry specifically, when you look at where we were in December, so what both David and I said about what we are forecasting where we are today, it's moving better than we expected. Let's take Brazil, for example, David said fourth quarter was up over 40%. It's moving even stronger now in the first part of this quarter. The reality is, Larry, you can't go from the tails of the pandemic where you have reduced head count to that type of growth in three months. I think that's the part that's getting overlooked is that the surge in demand is about three months old. So we -- and that's part of the reason why we curtailed our forecast, because we see the demand is growing, we will by the end of the year be able to meet that demand. Are you going to have hiccups as you move along through that stages? Absolutely. We don't -- our plants don't go from zero to 120 miles an hour that fast. We will get to 120 miles an hour. We will be capable of running that fast, we're just -- we're not going to be there that quickly coming off the end of a pandemic. I think that's the key that -- Brazil still has a pandemic, sitting here in North America, we're starting to feel the -- it fade away. Again, I want to -- I don't want to make that comment, it's a broad comment, not specific. Brazil still has the pandemic, if you look at their hospitalization, what's going on there. So yes, there is a lot of things you got to manage. It's all positive, but are you guys having hiccups in the first quarter, as you are ramping up hiring, and you're not going to be able to meet all the demand? Absolutely, there'll be carryover demand from the first quarter into the second.

[Operator:]

And your next question comes from Kirk Ludtke with Imperial Capital. Please go ahead.

[Kirk Ludtke:]

Great. Well, thank you for the call, and for squeezing my question in. It sounds like we're headed in the right direction, but as you said, a lot of moving pieces, maybe stepping back for a second, Titan generated over $100 million of EBITDA as recently as 2018. Just putting steel and staffing cost aside for a second, how would you compare, how would you compare the overall demand of our environment now versus then, and how much structural cost do you think you've taken out between 2018 and now?

[Paul Reitz:]

Well, I think, as we sit here now, the surge in demand is much better than what we saw in 2018. Now looking at it from a broader perspective, we are still at what I would say below, kind of mid-cycle. So there is plenty of room to run, and I think that's what we're all looking forward to, as the year progresses. Is that you kind of buzz through those mid cycle levels and keep expanding. I mean, as much as Brazil has surged in the last three, four months, it's still 45% below where it was running six, seven years ago. And I mean, Brazil's agriculture market not Titan. So I think the opportunities are definitely there. And so I think what is going on now is the surge very quickly, again, very positive and I think if you take that and extrapolate through the rest of the year, then you start buzzing through some mid cycle levels and you get some pretty long tails on it, where with the government incentives, the strength of commodity prices, the low level of the dealer inventory that now you're looking into an opportunity for the market to run favorable for not just the first half of this year. But you're looking at a couple of multiple two, three year run on this if you just take all those factors combined. So I think it's dealing with the surge now, and then extrapolating that into the future, that's really positive.

[Kirk Ludtke:]

Great, that's helpful. And on the cost side, is there a -- ballpark, how much you've taken out in terms of structural cost over the last couple of years?

[David Martin:]

There is a lot of moving parts to that situation obviously replacing unfavorable with favorable things that we do within our plants and everything. But I would -- I would say it's pretty close to $20 million between SG&A cost that we've taken out as well as some of the costs in some of our operations, both domestically and internationally, it's at least that.

[Kirk Ludtke:]

Got it. Thank you. And on the steel side, how far out can you lock in or are you locking in steel?

[David Martin:]

Yes. So, if you're looking at, just steel, it did vary by location and operation on domestic places where we're locking in where we are with -- there is a lead lag on the contracts, if you will, in terms of how pricing versus locking in volume goes in -- it's a quarter.

[Kirk Ludtke:]

Okay. And in terms of -- and the last one, in terms of your orders, how far out are you booked? I mean what month are you taking orders for at this point? I suspect it varies by business, but can you give us some sense for that?

[Paul Reitz:]

It does vary so much by business and all of our businesses have different lead times. We are booked very solid. I'll just kind of leave it there. I know it's a very generic answer to specific question, but we're booked very solid. We're looking at aggressively again how we're going to ramp up to take on more higher production levels, but we are allocating product right now. I can't sit here today and tell you we're not.

[Operator:]

And ladies and gentleman, this concludes our question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Ms. Reitz for any closing remarks.

[Paul Reitz:]

I just want to thank everybody for their attention and time today and look forward to talking again in the future. Thank you.

[Operator:]

And thank you, sir. Please note that a webcast replay of this presentation will be available soon within the Investor Relations section on our website under News & Events. Thank you for attending today's presentation. The conference call has concluded. You may now disconnect your lines.