N. Thomas Linebarger
Analyst · UBS
Thank you, Mark, and good morning, everyone. Well, as my first teleconference as Chief Executive, I'm conscious of my now retired boss' parting piece of advice which is, don't screw it up. I'll start with a summary of our fourth quarter and full year results, and then I'll also talk about our outlook for 2012. Pat will then take you through more details of the fourth quarter financial performance and our current forecast for the year. We delivered strong performance in the fourth quarter, finishing off an outstanding year for the company. Revenues for the fourth quarter were $4.9 billion, an increase of 19% over the fourth quarter of 2010 and a new quarterly record. Fourth quarter EBIT, excluding onetime items, was $677 million, an increase of 25% over the same quarter last year, continuing our trend of increasing profits faster than sales. Including onetime items, EBIT was $768 million. All 4 businesses reported higher sales than Q4 2010, and the Engines, Components and Distribution businesses all reported record sales in the fourth quarter. Our fourth quarter EBIT percent was 13.8% with the Engine and Components businesses delivering significant improvement from a year ago. The Distribution and Power Gen businesses had declines in EBIT percent from a year ago due to currency, commodity costs and a number of onetime items that we do not expect to repeat. As a result, we expect to see margins improve in both businesses in the first half of 2012. For the full year, Cummins sales topped $18 billion, an increase of 36% year-over-year, which is terrific performance given the economic uncertainty in a number of regions in 2011. Our revenues have grown a total of the 67% over the last 2 years, and we ended 2011 with revenues 26% above our pre-recession peak. Full year EBIT margin, excluding special items, reached 14.2% in 2011 and was also a new annual record. All 4 businesses delivered double-digit EBIT margins for the year, with the Engine and Components businesses delivering record EBIT percent. In addition to strong revenues and profits, we also had a solid cash flow performance in 2011. Cash from operations totaled $2.1 billion, driven by both our strong earnings results and improvement in our working capital efficiency. Our strong cash flow performance has allowed us to continue to fund our investments in future growth, while increasing returns to shareholders. We increased our dividend by 52% in the third quarter and repurchased 6.4 million shares during 2011. Our strong performance was also recognized by all 3 major credit rating agencies, with all 3 upgrading our rating during the year. Before I turn to our outlook for 2012, I'd like to make a few comments about some of our key markets in 2011. Let me start with North America. Our revenues in North America grew 50% in 2011. The North American heavy-duty truck market reached approximately 230,000 units in 2011, an increase of 77% over 2010 levels. Working very closely with our key OEMs and supply chain partners, we were able to quickly ramp up shipments of our heavy-duty engines while increasing our full year market share to 38%. Fourth quarter shipments of 15-liter engines to the U.S. and Canada were just 14 engines short of our all-time record. Total 15-liter shipments to all markets globally did reach a new record. The U.S. medium-duty truck market size reached approximately 98,000 units in 2011, an increase of almost 40%. We maintained our leadership position in 2011 with market share above 50% for the fourth quarter and the full year, and we ended the year with very encouraging order trends. As we approach the launch of our engines for EPA 2010, we said that it would take 18 to 24 months for the market to assess the different technologies and competitive offerings. We were confident in our technology then, and now, 24 months later, we are delighted with the strong customer acceptance of our products. We believe that our market position demonstrates that we delivered on our promise to provide significant fuel economy benefits, while meeting the toughest performance and emission standards in the world. In addition to delivering industry-leading fuel economy, our engines are proving to be extremely reliable. And our warranty costs, as a percentage of sales in 2011, were the lowest we have experienced in more than 15 years. We take a long-term approach to our technology development to ensure that we deliver the right technology to the market. For example, 10 years ago this month, we announced the formation of our Emission Solutions business to develop after-treatment products, well ahead of market demand for the technology. This business has been a key enabler to the success of our Engine business and now has leading market share in the U.S. and Europe, achieving revenues of more than $1.2 billion in 2011. Today, we have shipped over 209,000 engines equipped with our Selective Catalytic Reduction or SCR systems, and customer feedback continues to be extremely positive. Our international revenues increased by 27% in 2011. We achieved record full year revenues in Australia, in China, India, Latin America and Russia. We received a lot of questions over the past few months about market conditions in China and India. In China, demand softened in construction markets in the fourth quarter, while sales of truck engines improved modestly from third quarter levels. As a point of reference, during 2011, the truck market in China for heavy- and medium-duty trucks combined declined 9% to just under 1.2 million units, still 3.5x the size of the U.S. market. Our market share in 2011 in China was 11%. The excavator market in China continued to weaken in the fourth quarter, although the full year market size of 174,000 units was 5% higher than 2010 and this still remains the largest single market for construction equipment. Across all construction segments, our market share reached 13% in 2011. The market for Power Generation equipment increased 25% in 2011, driven in part by power shortages in the country. Our revenue increased by 40% over 2010 levels. In the fourth quarter, demand for Power Generation equipment came in a little ahead of our third quarter guidance, offsetting weaker demand for excavators. Full year revenues from our China operations, including joint ventures, reached $3.7 billion in 2011, an increase of 21% year-over-year and in line with the guidance we gave during the third quarter earnings call. In India, the truck market remained strong all year, with the industry sales growing by 12% to 370,000 units. Our market share reached 44% in the fourth quarter. As expected, our sales of Power Generation equipment declined in the fourth quarter in India, although new order intake has already started to improve. Full year revenues from our India operations overall, including joint ventures, were $2.3 billion, also up 21%. Now I would like to provide our overall outlook for 2012 and then comment on individual regions and end markets. We are currently forecasting total company revenue growth of 10% in 2012, and we expect EBIT to be in the range of 14.5% to 15% of sales. This would represent good progress towards our 2015 goals of reaching $30 billion in sales and 18% EBIT. In North America, we expect strong demand to continue in 2012 in a number of end markets. We expect that the market size for heavy-duty trucks will increase 21% to 278,000 units, and the medium-duty truck market is expected to grow 25% to 117,000 units. Mining and oil and gas markets are expected to remain strong, with OEMs reporting stronger order backlogs. Shipments of our engines for the Dodge Ram pickup are expected to grow by more than 10%. Power Generation revenues are expected to grow by 20% in North America, driven by data center demand, improving nonresidential construction and the launch of some new products. We expect our consolidated revenues in Latin America will decline by approximately 6% next year. The decline in revenues is driven by an expected 5% decline in the Brazilian truck market and the impact of the MAN engine transition that we discussed during our third quarter earnings call. Growth in the Components and Power Generation businesses will partially offset the decline in on-highway engine revenues. In China, we expect domestic revenues to be flat in 2012, with demand for construction equipment and trucks projected to be stronger in the second half of the year than the first. For the full year, we expect the truck market, heavy and medium combined, to be down 5% from 2011 and the excavator market to be about flat year-over-year. Inflation concerns appear to be moderating in China, and there's a growing expectation that the government will start to ease monetary policy, which would be a positive move for our end markets. Demand for Power Generation equipment and mining engines remain strong, and we expect good growth in engines for oil and gas applications in 2012. In India, the market for commercial vehicles remained strong throughout 2011, and we expect the commercial vehicle market size to grow a further 7% in 2012 to 398,000 units. Order trends for Power Generation have improved recently. And after relatively soft first quarter, we now expect 2012 revenues to grow by 10% driven by continued government investment in infrastructure. Inflation concerns in India also appear to be moderating. We do not have a clear picture of full year 2012 demand patterns across our end markets in Europe. Our current expectation is that our full year revenues in Europe may be down 5% year-over-year, with demand for trucks and construction equipment expected to decline. We do expect to some segments in end markets such as mining and Power Generation in Russia to show good growth. In 2011, our European revenues accounted for less than 15% of total company revenues, and we have very limited exposure to Southern Europe. We expect -- we continue to make progress in the execution of our growth strategy in Africa. In 2011, our revenues grew by 49%. For 2012, we expect to generate growth of further 30%, driven by -- primarily by our Power Generation and Distribution businesses in Africa. Cummins delivered good performance in 2011, and we continue to benefit from our leadership position in a number of end markets and geographies. As we have discussed, we have plans in place to generate continued strong growth, and we remain focused on further improving profitability across our businesses. None of this would have been possible without the commitment of our customers and partners, and I would like to personally thank them for their confidence in Cummins. I would also like to thank all of our employees around the world for their dedication and hard work in 2011. I want to give special recognition to the Cummins employees in our manufacturing plants, parts and logistics operations and our supply chain organizations, whose dedication enabled us to meet rapidly growing customer demand in several regions and end markets. Now I'll turn it over to Pat, who will cover our 2011 performance and 2012 guidance in more detail.