Wabash National Corporation
Q4 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 3 Feb 2021

[Operator:]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to today's Wabash National Corporation Q4 2020 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the conference over today to Ryan Reed, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

[Ryan Reed:]

Thank you, Michelle. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us on this call. With me today are Brent Yeagy, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Mike Pettit, Chief Financial Officer. A couple of items before we get started. First, please note that this call is being recorded. I'd also like to point out that our earnings release, the slide presentation supplementing today's call and any non-GAAP reconciliations are all available at our refreshed investor site, ir.wabashnational.com. Slide 2 contains our Company's safe harbor disclosure statement, addressing forward-looking statements.

[Brent Yeagy:]

Thanks, Ryan. As eager as everyone is to move on to 2021, we’ll start today's call by providing some perspective on 2020. As we all know, we learned the most about ourselves and their organizations from the challenges we encounter, it is also through these challenges that we prove what we are capable of. First and foremost, our employees came through for us in 2020. Our team was able to see through the disruption caused by the pandemic and work through near-term challenges, like modifying our shop floor environment and managing a disruptive supply chain to safely keep our manufacturing running for our customers. At the same time, our employees remain focused on our purpose to change how the world reaches you and executing on our ‘first to final mile’ strategy. However, it was their resolve to structurally realign and reorganize our business that has left me in all and thankful for where I come to work every day. Together, we are creating a new Wabash environment where we are prioritizing ease of doing business for our customers, creating a growing portfolio of innovative engineered solutions that span from first to final mile and a culture that continually seeks for better process that creates value for our customers, our employees and our shareholders. Secondly, we learned about the resilience of our product portfolio we've created over the last decade, and the processes we've embedded within our businesses. Our process discipline enabled Wabash National to observe a notable reduction in volume while minimizing the impact to operating income as shown through 14% decremental margins for the full year of 2020. We generated $104 million of free cash flow during 2020, which enabled us to maintain our dividend through the cycle, a feat never remotely accomplished during a significantly challenging environment in the history of Wabash National. I hope our strong financial performance during 2020 indicates the structural improvements that have taken place within our Company over the last decade, but especially over the last two years. We aim to continue this improvement in financial performance as we leverage our customer-centric organizational structure, along with our opportunities for strategic growth. There is something special growing at Wabash National, and we are starting to see that this leadership team, our employees are buying into a new way to operate. This is a good point to circle back to our broader strategy. Our refreshed purpose to change how the world reaches you positions us with a renewed focus on being the innovation leader within the transportation, logistics and distribution markets. This clarification has our team pulling in the same direction. And we took action to streamline our portfolio by selling assets that do not offer strong strategic fit. As we finish pruning our portfolio, we are also setting the stage to backfill divested revenue by continuing the diversification of our Company with both, expanded and new revenue streams within this transportation, logistics and distribution markets.

[Mike Pettit:]

Thanks, Brent. Turning now to slide 4. On a consolidated basis, fourth quarter revenue was $404 million. Consolidated new trailer shipments were approximately 10,600 units during the quarter. We achieved our strongest shipments and revenue of the year during Q4 as a result of increasing customer demand.

[Operator:]

Your first question comes from Justin Long from Stephens.

[Justin Long:]

So, maybe to start, Mike, you gave a little bit of color on the first quarter. But, I was wondering if you could help us think through the operating margin cadence that you're expecting over the course of 2021. Because I'm guessing we'll kind of start the first quarter a little bit weaker and then the exit rate will be much higher. So, any color you can give around that?

[Mike Pettit:]

You said it right. We will -- the first quarter will definitely be the lowest of the year, and it will step up as we go through the year. And the easiest way to think about that is the 600 employees we mentioned we added in Q4 and the 900 we're looking to add in Q1, which will obviously -- that ramp will pressure margins in Q1, probably slightly in early Q2, and then it will be more up at full capacity rates in the mid part of the year. So, you'll see that come through on the operating margin line in almost a sequential fashion from Q1 to Q4.

[Justin Long:]

And could you share what you expect the exit rate to be from a margin perspective as we get to the fourth quarter?

[Mike Pettit:]

It will be -- if we look at -- we mentioned that at the beginning of the year, we're going to end up at EPS breakeven. And our margins will go up to the year, I said 4% to midpoint. So, we're obviously going to be about 4% at exit rate. You can kind of do the math. You would assume it would be somewhere upwards of 5%, probably at the end of the year, going into 2021.

[Justin Long:]

Okay. That's helpful. And to kind of stay with that same line of questioning. You mentioned that the 8% operating margin target longer term in the next two to three years. Could you talk about what that assumes by segment? And specifically related to the final mile business, how much of an improvement we need to see to get to that consolidated target?

[Mike Pettit:]

Yes, absolutely. So, I'm not going to break out specific margins by segment. But, I will say, if you unpack my 2021 commentary around FMP, while still not nowhere near the level of performance we're going to achieve in that business, it's a pretty significant step-up in 2020. And you would expect to see another large step-up from '21 to '22 in that business, which should really help expand margins on a consolidated basis. The actual timing of when we would hit an 8% will depend on the market, obviously. But, we’d expect -- you'd expect CTP to be exiting 2021, and I would say, at near optimal levels of margin performance going into 2022 and FMP will still be stepping up in 2022. But, as we've talked before, we would expect to get that business to similar EBITDA margin levels of CTP in the '22, '23, probably more the '23 time frame. But if you kind of model that out, you could -- that would be a pretty good roadmap to get to 8% operating margins in that time period.

[Justin Long:]

Okay. That's helpful. And then, maybe just one last one. On the guidance, does that assume any buybacks? And maybe, could you talk about any debt paydown you have planned for 2021 as well?

[Mike Pettit:]

Yes. So, in the -- it would all be in our guidance, what we just seem to do with our capital allocation. That's obviously somewhat fluid, depending on what the market will do. But, we ended the year with $218 million of cash on the balance sheet. We would expect to be free cash flow positive in 2021. So, we obviously have some cash that we can deploy. We'll look for opportunities to deploy that most exceedingly as possible whether that’s share repurchases, capital allocations internally, which we still have. As Brent mentioned in his commentary, the product development front is really picking up some steam and the opportunities with MSC specifically and FMP. So, we might have some opportunities to deploy extra capital there. But after that, we look at those two, we'll look to the share repurchase avenue. And we definitely see opportunities with our '22, '23, kind of implied guidance there with our targets. And where we sit today, we think there's opportunity to be active in share repurchases.

[Operator:]

The next question comes from Joel Tiss from BMO.

[Joel Tiss:]

Can you give us any color around the backlog? Is there any part of the increase in the backlog from inability to ship, or is that just all strong orders?

[Brent Yeagy:]

It's all strong orders at this point, Joel. We are -- the way the market has materialized for 2021 is right in line with the expectations that we had roughly three or four months ago, as we saw quote order pick up. Generally, shipments are falling in, in line with how we thought that would materialize in the fourth quarter. And as we look at 2021, we don't see anything that is a structural impediment moving forward.

[Joel Tiss:]

Okay, great. And then, as long as you're here, can you give us a little bit of a sense of what you guys are working on, like for the next five years? Where is the industry going to be? There's certainly a lot of moving parts between here and there, and even with like refrigerated transport for vaccines and things like that. Can you give us a little sense of what you guys are working on kind of longer term?

[Brent Yeagy:]

Yes. I can take you back. In the script, we talked about just three main headers, which is cold chain, home delivery, and parts and service. And so, let me talk specifically about cold chain and home delivery. While we think about these as, we call it, individual areas of focus, they really overlap in many different ways. And when we think about rapidly disruptive logistics change, you factor in this regulatory environment, the push for sustainability, impact of climate change, increase, I think of, we'll call it, time and change related regulation, at least for the next four years, I would argue, in some manner going beyond that. I think, it opens up a really interesting way that Wabash National can take the ideas that we generate from an innovation standpoint, technology that we have, and really bring sustainable solutions within those spaces. So, we think about the opportunity that e-commerce. We call it home delivery, but what we're really talking about is e-commerce and what it does to change logistics models across the board. It gives us some very unique opportunities in the first and middle mile to grow the portfolio, the product portfolio around these openings that began to open -- that open up. The other piece that we follow is that our largest customers on the truckload side are quickly moving into that middle mile and final mile space. And that allows us to get some, we'll call it, volume leverage as we make these improvements. So, we really bring those things together. And then, the other piece that I would talk about is, when we think about home delivery, there are so many different ways, which home delivery actually impacts the market. And it's not just the small parcel delivery that we see. I mean, it's everything from big and bulky. It's the return leg. It's the flow between fulfillment centers. There's so many ways Wabash National can play beyond just that parcel delivery piece that we can become fixated with. And it really is just this offshoot of our first to final mile strategy. It's a much broader way of looking at the world than just that small parcel delivery. So, that's the big picture of what we're working on. If I were to fine-tune that a little bit, we are pruning our product portfolio and the ideas that we have within it, so that we very, very discriminately focus on the areas that I just talked about. And by -- everything from what we do in our internal processes, to how we look to connect to the market, i.e., assets that don't match, everything is about creating significant leverage in those areas so that we can rapidly deploy in the next 24 months.

[Joel Tiss:]

That's awesome. And then, just one little last piece. How much temporary cost comes back in the first quarter?

[Brent Yeagy:]

Year-over-year, the biggest quarters where there was temporary costs were Q2 and Q3. So, I would say Q4 is pretty clean year-over-year and Q1 is relatively clean as well. You're going to see the biggest moves year-over-year in Q2 and Q3 actually had the biggest flow. There's some -- it will be a couple of million, Joel, but the bigger pieces will be in Q2 and Q3.

[Operator:]

And your next question will come from Felix Boeschen from Raymond James.

[Felix Boeschen:]

Hey. Brent, I was hoping maybe we could also start with a little bit of a bigger picture question here. But, in the release, you really talked about finding adjacent revenue streams. And I know we've talked a little bit about some of the product development opportunities in your prepared remarks. But, I was just curious if you could expand a little bit more on your approach here. Is this really organically driven, i.e., it sounds like you have a lot of product development going on, or would you also look to maybe participate in more M&A over the next couple of years? I'm just trying to kind of understand the bigger picture behind those comments.

[Brent Yeagy:]

Sure. Well, yes, first off, we are absolutely repositioning resources within the given company to accelerate the organic efforts that we have to create additional revenue, right, in a way that has never been seen at Wabash National. The focus is growing at an incredible rate than what I've experienced over the last 16, 17 years of being part of this Company. Now, with that, all part of the plan, which has been executed really in 2020 was to provide a different structural financial capability as we've demonstrated, right? So, when you come in with over $210 million of cash into this period, we're absolutely positioned, the balance sheet to be able to move forward in very interesting ways, whether it's partnerships, JVs, M&A, funding organic opportunities in a way we've never done this, and we've never been faced with the market that has this much potential. So, all the -- I'll call it, all the ways that we could potentially grow are on the table right now. And we have specifically invested in, we'll call it, our corporate development process over the last year, year and a half to begin to prime the idea pump properly for what's the best way to move forward in this market, right, whether it's in expansion of upfitting, acquisition of technology, maybe it's a product platform, maybe it's a geographical platform. That all remains to be seen. But, we are going to look smartly and aggressively how we grow going forward. But, we're going to do it in a way that assures profitability, which is core to why we're putting in the Wabash management system and deploying it and restructuring the organization, so that when we choose to act, we act at a much higher level of execution than Wabash has demonstrated in the past.

[Felix Boeschen:]

That's super helpful. And then, just maybe along the same line, if I think about molded structural composites, I just wanted to understand the time line a little bit better here. I know you've been testing the product for some time, and the grocery application makes a whole lot of sense. But, do you have anything in the guide as it relates to MSC contributing revenue this year, or is it still more of a two to three-year story until we see more meaningful impact?

[Brent Yeagy:]

Yes. That's a great question. I think, we are living in a world right now where we have a convolution of forces that are aligning right now where the technology is becoming a much more, we'll call it, a larger opportunity based on what's happened in the last year, coupled with the drive for sustainability. So, the willingness to accept innovation has really never been higher on this front. So, I would say, we have -- we are cautious in the way that we guide relative to what the impact of MSC is. And we are -- not only are we looking at how do we scale this through various, we'll call it, product platforms, when we think about internal uses of capital, we're also talking about how we would quickly expand the manufacturing capability within the next couple of years. And until we have sold that off, it is hard to say how I want to answer that question right now.

[Felix Boeschen:]

Okay. Yes. No, that's very fair. And then, maybe just last one for me. But, I know that the truck body business was kind of outsized impact from COVID, you had some nonessential exposure in there, and I think some pretty good SMB exposure as well. Just curious if you could talk about the current demand backdrop, what you're hearing from your customers as they're maybe thinking about planning for '21.

[Brent Yeagy:]

Yes. So, I think the impact is still very real and evident even within the backlog that we see today. And we have seen the leasing customer come back into the market because of just overall economic conditions and the ability to look forward within their businesses. The small business is still trying to figure out what they can do and how they move forward. And I think we'll see that play out through 2021. That really looks more like a '22 event when they're going to be in a position financially, and I will say even psychologically to move forward in a meaningful way. And that's why we think the step-up in revenue for final mile really is kind of a two-phase thing, right? We have a certain, we'll call it, demographic that's going to come back in '21. We see the rest of it come back in '22, accordingly. So that gives that muted -- gives a muted impact to all the disruption we hear around us an opportunity because we just have real financial and psychological issues that impact buying decisions. It makes up for a real interest in '22 and '23 in terms of how we look at capacity and how we choose to serve the market. Those are things we are evaluating and selling off right now in terms of how we deploy capital, and we'll call it, continue to refine that business going forward. But what I will say is that the larger customers have a much more positive output impact in perspective about 2021, and they've come in nicely at the beginning of the year.

[Operator:]

At this time, I have no further questions in queue. I turn the call back over to Mr. Reed for closing remarks.

[Ryan Reed:]

Thanks, Michelle, and thanks, everyone, for joining us today. We look forward to following up during the quarter.

[Operator:]

Thank you, everyone. This will conclude today's conference call. You may now disconnect.