Vishay Intertechnology, Inc.
Q4 2013 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 4 Feb 2014

[Operator:]

Good morning. My name is Jennifer, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Vishay Fourth Quarter and Year 2013 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Peter Henrici, Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications. Please go ahead, sir.

[Peter G. Henrici:]

Thank you, Jennifer. Good morning. With me today are Dr. Gerald Paul, Vishay's President and Chief Executive Officer; and Lori Lipcaman, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. As usual, we'll start today's call with the CFO who will review our fourth quarter financial results. Dr. Gerald Paul will then give an overview of our business and discuss operational performance, as well as segment results in more detail. Finally, we'll reserve time for questions and answers. This call is being webcast from the Investor Relations section of our website at ir.vishay.com. The replay for this call will be publicly available for approximately 30 days. You should be aware that in today's conference call, we will be making certain forward-looking statements that discuss future events and performance. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from the forward-looking statements. For a discussion of factors that could cause results to differ, please see today's press release and Vishay's Form 10-K and Form 10-Q filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, during this call, we may refer to adjusted or other financial measures that are not prepared according to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. We use non-GAAP measures because we believe they provide useful information about the operating performance of our businesses and should be considered by investors in conjunction with GAAP measures that we also provide. This morning, we filed a form 8-K that outlines the various variables that impact the diluted earnings per share computation. On the Investor Relations section of our website, you can find the presentation of the Q4 2013 financial information containing some of the operational metrics Dr. Paul will be discussing. Johan Vandoorn, our Executive Vice President and Chief Technical Officer, will be presenting next week on Tuesday, February 11 at the Stifle Technology, Internet and Media Conference in San Francisco. Now I turn the discussion over to Chief Financial Officer, Lori Lipcaman.

[Lori Lipcaman:]

Thank you, Peter. Good morning, everyone. I am sure that most of you have had a chance to review our earnings press release. I will focus on some highlights and key metrics. Vishay reported revenues for Q4 of $616 million, above the high end of our guidance and 2.2% above Q3. Revenues in the quarter benefited from positive exchange rate impacts, both compared to our guidance and to quarter 3. GAAP EPS for the quarter was $0.20. The fourth quarter includes a charge of $2.8 million related to our previously announced restructuring program. Excluding the effect of this item and the related tax impact, adjusted EPS was $0.21 for the quarter. Yesterday, Vishay's Board of Directors decided to initiate a quarterly cash dividend, the first-ever cash dividend of the company. A dividend of $0.06 is payable on March 27, 2014, to holders of common stock as of the close of business on March 3, 2014. At approximately 147 million common stock outstanding, the annual payments will be approximately $35 million. Future dividends will be subject to board approval. Revenues in the quarter were $616 million, up by 2.2% from previous quarter and up by 16.1% compared to prior year. Gross margin was 23.4%. Operating margin was 7.6%. Adjusted operating margin was 8.1%. EPS was $0.20. Adjusted EPS was $0.21. During the fourth quarter, we recorded $2.8 million of restructuring expenses related to the programs we announced in late October. We will continue to record charges relating to these programs as they progress. The longest of these projects relates to our MOSFET segment and is expected to be completed in Q1 2016. Looking at the reconciliations, adjusted operating income quarter 4 2013 compared to operating income for prior quarter, based on $13 million higher sales or $8 million higher excluding exchange rate impacts, adjusted operating income decreased by $3 million to $50 million in Q4 2013 from $53 million in Q3 2013. The main elements were

[Gerald Paul:]

Thank you, Lori. And good morning, everybody. 2013 for Vishay, like for the entire electronic components industry, has been a year of rather mixed economic exposures as they relate to very different developments in some relevant market segments. Vishay in 2013 achieved a gross margin of 24% of sales and adjusted operating margin of 8% of sales, adjusted earnings per share of $7 -- $0.79, GAAP earnings per share of $0.81. We generated $144 million free cash and continued our good performance of so many years. The fourth quarter results were substantially better than in 2012. We had a gross margin of 23% of sales, adjusted operating margin of 8% of sales, adjusted earnings per share of $0.21 and GAAP earnings per share of $0.20. Let me talk about the economic environment. After a very weak fourth quarter 2012, economy recovered through the first half year of 2013, initially driven by the restocking of distributors and, in the second phase, by improving end customer demand. After a disappointing third quarter, burdened by a sudden drop of orders from distribution, Quarter 4 indicated a return of confidence in most of the market segments and in particular, at distribution. The Automotive segment in 2013 was historically strong, driven by 2 factors

[Peter G. Henrici:]

Thank you, Dr. Paul. We open now the call to questions. Jennifer, please take the first question.

[Operator:]

[Operator Instructions] Your first question will come from Shawn Harrison.

[Shawn M. Harrison:]

Just the gross margin guidance to be clear. Is that -- are you saying flat sequentially x the environmental or -- x any kind of onetime charges? Or are we looking for kind of a different gross margin percent number? I was a little bit confused, I apologize.

[Gerald Paul:]

Well, it's the normal procedure. So you take the different volume times the variable margin and assume -- make some assumptions on the fixed costs. So it's equivalent basically given the volume but normalized for the volume.

[Shawn M. Harrison:]

Okay. And then 2 brief follow-ups. Just the restructuring savings amounts, I know there's a lot of moving pieces. But is there an actual dollar amount of restructuring savings that we should anticipate benefiting Vishay in the second half of this calendar year?

[Gerald Paul:]

Well, in the -- I know when everything is implemented, we have annualized savings of $36 million exactly. And this will come in pieces obviously. The first savings at mid of the year, but the major program related to MOSFETs will only kick in to the full extent then after the first quarter of 2016.

[Shawn M. Harrison:]

Okay. And then just your commentary on distribution, the book-to-bill being above parity, was that for the month of January?

[Gerald Paul:]

No, this was for the -- for the fourth quarter. We -- they have seen book-to-bill -- our distributors with our products obviously have seen a book-to-bill of 1.04 in their business, which is promising.

[Shawn M. Harrison:]

Okay. I guess following up on that, and I know January can be a little bit cloudy because of the holiday in China, but what are you seeing in terms of the sale experience so far in the quarter? Any -- like anomalies, I guess, is the question.

[Gerald Paul:]

Okay. January is not the perfect month, especially not at this year, because -- as you said, because of the anomalies. But I would say, looking at the business in January, no surprise, it's according to what we think.

[Operator:]

Your next question is from Ruplu Bhattacharya.

[Ruplu Bhattacharya:]

Yes. Dr. Paul, just following up on the last question, now that you have the dividend, how does that change your preference for M&A versus share buybacks?

[Gerald Paul:]

It's independent. Well, first of all, we have our plans to grow. First priority, and we would not have gone to a cash dividend if we felt -- if we had felt that our plans, M&A plans would have been impacted negatively. So rest assured, this is independent. Both things are independent. Concerning another stock buyback, there's no real connection either, but in the first approximation, it's an independent step.

[Ruplu Bhattacharya:]

Well, that makes sense. And then when we -- talking about distribution, in terms of orders that you got, was there relative strength in one region versus the other? Was Asia -- Asian distributors, were they stronger than Europe? And is that trend continuing?

[Gerald Paul:]

I mean, it's always the same in reality. There's -- the surprises always come from Asian distribution, to be honest. Our -- there's negative surprises like positive surprises. The oscillations in Asia are the strongest. It's a systematic thing, and again, it happened like that. You're right, and it came from Asia distribution in a strong way. But not only -- it's in general, but Asian distribution, of course, given the situation there, had the biggest impact.

[Ruplu Bhattacharya:]

And then just looking at the various end product lines, can you give us a sense for which product line in the March quarter currently you're seeing strength versus which ones are weaker?

[Gerald Paul:]

Well, as a matter of fact, the first quarter normally, we have some seasonality. And the first quarter, it's always more dominated by Europe vis-à-vis the others. The last quarter is normally dominated by Asia. So as we -- especially strong with passives in Europe, I would suspect that the passives will -- the best in the first half, in the first quarter, may I say, as always.

[Operator:]

Your next question is from Steve Smigie.

[Jonathan Steven Smigie:]

Great. I just wanted to follow up. Sorry if I missed this, but -- so what should we be thinking about operating expense for -- in the March quarter?

[Gerald Paul:]

Will be...

[Lori Lipcaman:]

$96 million.

[Gerald Paul:]

$96 million, we said, yes.

[Jonathan Steven Smigie:]

$96 million. Okay, sorry about that. And then it sounded like the restructuring efforts were a little bit slower, maybe unexpected in the fourth quarter, if I understand that correctly. And how should we be taking costs out over the course of 2014, do you think, based on sort of how you've seen how things have developed so far?

[Gerald Paul:]

It's a misunderstanding. There was no disappointment in the fourth quarter. We didn't anticipate much in the fourth quarter. We announced there that if you're late in the quarter, we -- I have no doubt that everything will work at least according to plan, at least according to plan. And I believe that most of it, as we said in the last conference, will be implemented by end of the year.

[Jonathan Steven Smigie:]

Okay. And then how should we think about gross margin going forward? As the volumes pick up, should we expect you guys could get to maybe 27% gross margin or something like that exiting the calendar year?

[Gerald Paul:]

I didn't calculate it, but it's the same business model you have -- our contributive margin is not a secret. It's around 45%, 46% in between. And then you really -- and the fixed costs exposed to inflation has -- with some cost reduction on top. I think 27% is a stretch. I didn't make the calculation. Needs a lot of volume to get there. But 25% plus, yes, sure, possible.

[Jonathan Steven Smigie:]

Okay, all right. And then your overall tone sounds pretty decent in terms of trends overall. Is it a particular region as we look out over the next year that's giving you some of the confidence? Or is it more Europe stabilized and you do a lot of business in Europe, and that's what's better?

[Gerald Paul:]

I think that for us, Industrial is important. It's Automotive and -- but in particular, Industrial, that is important for Vishay. Okay, we sell to everything, but this is the heart of the business. And as you said, especially in Europe, Industrial was not doing well in the last 2 years. And there are signs of improvement, especially in Central Europe. We have for us the most biggest part of -- that the business is. So this is really what carries our hope in particular. But let's not forget, we try really seriously to get into China in the industrial market. We have people on the ground. We have substantially increased our sales efforts there. So I do have to count and I expect some improvements also from China.

[Jonathan Steven Smigie:]

Okay. I guess if we look at what's happening in some of the emerging markets, Turkey, Argentina, having issues, and the equity markets have been somewhat troubled by that, I'm just curious, your thoughts or sort of boots on the ground. What do you see in terms of some of those markets? Would that necessarily impact you overall? And do you think that weakness that we're seeing is sustainable?

[Gerald Paul:]

I think it would be superficial to say it doesn't impact us at all. There's always something, a little. But first approximation, maybe even second approximation, it doesn't impact us. Indirectly maybe and a little, but I don't know. It's really not the focus of our business. Our business is Americas, China and Germany as a hit [indiscernible].

[Operator:]

Your next question is from Matt Sheerin.

[Matthew Sheerin:]

Yes, Matt Sheerin from Stifel. So Dr. Paul, just on your guidance, it sound -- you sounded relatively positive, but you're guiding down sequentially about 2%. And I know seasonally, you're typically up in the passives business in the low to mid-single digits on industrial picking up, more selling games in Europe, distribution picking up. And is that how should we think about that business? And the semiconductor, the Diodes and the MOSFET business will be down after what seemed like a little bit better quarter than you had expected there?

[Gerald Paul:]

Matt, it's not so -- I didn't expect the question, to be honest with you. As a matter of fact, our real comparison should be vis-à-vis the same quarter last year. And in this case, you really see a difference and maybe a reason for my optimistic tone. We start into the year 2014 much better than in the year 2013. Now our sales is up, our backlog is up. Both are up. And the fact that we are guiding down somewhat vis-à-vis the fourth quarter was also must -- I must say that openly, that fourth quarter was exceptionally strong. And of course, you can always be pleasantly surprised. And you can call it somewhat conservative maybe, but this is our best opinion. I -- we had no specific reason to guide down. It was basically vis-à-vis prior year, we thought it's a stable and a solid way up, and vis-à-vis the fourth quarter, it was maybe a little conservative maybe.

[Matthew Sheerin:]

Okay, okay. But both -- so both segments will be done just so we're flat to down basically? Is that how you're looking at it, both segments?

[Gerald Paul:]

Yes, to put it simply.

[Matthew Sheerin:]

Okay, okay. And then on the dividend, as you stated, you have $34 million or $35 million years, still a fraction of what you plan to generate every year. So I would assume that this does not change your M&A strategy and your focus on that $50 million to $100 million type of tuck-in acquisition opportunity?

[Gerald Paul:]

No. As I said before, as growth, also through acquisitions, has a high priority, we would not have gone to a dividend if we had to fear that paying out a dividend could impact negatively our plans, our growth plans. You're absolutely right, it will not impact our plans.

[Matthew Sheerin:]

Okay. And just lastly, I know you sounded like you said Asian distributors were willing to take a little bit more inventory. But other suppliers are talking about U.S. and European distributors still relatively disciplined, and we've seen inventory fairly tight because lead times are still short and they're still relatively cautious. Are you finding that as well? Or they're starting to open up?

[Gerald Paul:]

Completely agree. The positive development I highlighted in one of the questions before, Asia, but it's -- but on the other hand, in quarter 3, this was the disappointment really. And so -- but looking at rest of distributors, it was also very solid quarter but, of course, not the same aptitude. And you are right, people are very disciplined at the moment.

[Operator:]

[Operator Instructions] Your next question is from Jim Suva.

[Jim Suva:]

A quick question. I think the dividend will be very welcomed by investors. Can you walk us through any type of capital allocation or methodology? Like are you kind of going to peg this to percent of cash flow or net income or a certain percent that we should think about capital allocation?

[Gerald Paul:]

Okay. I think I will turn over to the CFO.

[Lori Lipcaman:]

So at this point in time, this is, as you know, our first-ever cash dividend. And so at the moment, I don't think that I could comment directly on the strategy. It will be up to the board to make that decision going forward. As I said in my prepared remarks, they will make that decision each quarter for the amount that will be distributed in that quarter. At this point in time, it was an -- best estimate, also in discussion with the board yesterday, but I couldn't comment further.

[Jim Suva:]

Okay. As a follow-up on a different topic, on the environmental item, is it now over or is there still some lingering exposure or expenses? Or how should we think about the environmental item?

[Lori Lipcaman:]

The additional environmental charge was related to 2 ongoing remediation sites. And we do a periodic review semiannually. And it was just something that came up. As it turns out, it's going to be slightly more expensive than originally anticipated. So it's not a new site. And at the moment, we think it's fully covered.

[Operator:]

At this time, there are no further questions. I will now turn the conference back to Mr. Henrici.

[Peter G. Henrici:]

Thank you for your interest in Vishay Technology -- Intertechnology, and that concludes our call.

[Operator:]

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's conference call. You may now disconnect your lines.