Kevin Nowlan
Analyst · Patrick Archambault, Goldman Sachs
Thanks, Ike, and good morning, everyone. On today's call, I'll review our second quarter financial results and take you through our updated 2014 guidance. On Slide 8, you'll see our second quarter income statement for continuing operations compared to the prior year. Sales were $962 million in the quarter, up year-over-year by $54 million or 6%. This increase was due to higher commercial truck production in all of our geographic regions, but most notably in North America and Europe. In addition, revenue was slightly higher in our Aftermarket & Trailer segment. Our only business that was lower on a year-over-year basis was Defense, as FMTV revenue stepped down by nearly 50%. Gross margin increased $21 million year-over-year due to the continued execution of our M2016 initiatives. This improvement was driven by conversion on higher revenues and continued net material, labor and burden performance, and keep in mind that this increase in gross margin was achieved despite the significant year-over-year step down in FMTV volumes. SG&A was $1 million higher in the second quarter of 2014 compared to the same period last year. However, as we look at SG&A as a percentage of revenue, we actually experienced a slight decrease on a year-over-year basis. This is the result of our continued focus on managing the overall cost structure of the business. You should expect this disciplined approach to continue even as revenue increases. This quarter's restructuring costs were $9 million lower than the same period a year ago. As you may recall, in the second quarter of 2013, we recognized an $11 million expense primarily for employee severance costs associated with our segment reorganization and our Asia Pacific realignment. Earnings in our minority-owned affiliates were $9 million in the quarter, down slightly from the prior year. The decrease is primarily due to $4 million of lower earnings from our Suspensys joint venture, which was sold in July of last year and is no longer contributing to our earnings. Interest expense was $23 million higher in the second quarter of '14 driven by the loss on debt extinguishment relating to the repurchase of our 10 5/8% notes due in 2018. You'll note that we have included an add-back of $21 million in adjusted income from continuing operations associated with this loss. Later, I'll provide more detail on what these transactions mean for our debt maturity profile. Income tax expense increased $2 million in the second quarter of 2014. This increase was driven by higher earnings in jurisdictions where we recognized tax expense. In addition, no tax benefit was recognized on the loss on debt extinguishment incurred during the quarter since this loss was recorded in the U.S. where we currently have a valuation allowance. After adding back the debt extinguishment loss, adjusted income from continuing operations was $21 million or $0.22 per share compared to $6 million or $0.06 per share in the same period last year. Slide 9 shows second quarter sales and segment EBITDA for Commercial Truck & Industrial. Sales in the second quarter of 2014 were $763 million, up $51 million or 7% from the same period last year. Segment EBITDA was $57 million, an increase of $20 million year-over-year. This represents 39% upside EBITDA conversion due primarily to improved net material labor and burden performance and higher volumes across all of our commercial vehicle markets. These positives more than offset the negative mix headwind associated with the step down in our FMTV business. Next, on Slide 10, we've summarized the Aftermarket & Trailer segment financial results. Sales were $232 million, up $8 million from last year. The increase was primarily due to higher European sales and North American pricing initiatives executed over the past year. Segment EBITDA was $22 million in the second quarter and was flat compared to last year. The EBITDA benefit of higher revenue was offset by the loss of earnings year-over-year from our previously divested Suspensys joint venture, as well as certain inventory reserves booked in our second quarter. Now let's move to Slide 11, which shows the sequential adjusted EBITDA walk from Q1 to Q2. Walking from the $70 million of EBITDA generated in our first quarter, we had $17 million more of EBITDA due to volume, mix and pricing. This is primarily driven by higher revenue in both segments across North and South America. This increase was partially offset by lower revenue in Europe as production levels stepped down following the Euro 6 pre-buy that occurred during our first fiscal quarter. We also executed pricing actions in our Aftermarket & Trailer segment, which contributed sequentially to our results. Next, you recall that in the first quarter, we recorded a $5 million accrual reduction associated with a change we made to reduce benefits provided under our long-term disability plan. This did not repeat in the second quarter, so it is a headwind in our sequential walk. And finally, we have an all other net decrease in EBITDA of $4 million when compared to the prior quarter. This includes additional inventory accruals in our Aftermarket business, as well as the impact of the Brazilian real depreciation. Overall, this was another solid quarter for us. We generated adjusted EBITDA of $78 million and adjusted EBITDA margin of 8.1%. We are continuing to build upon the performance we have delivered over the last several quarters and remain focused on achieving our financial objectives. Now let's turn to Slide 12. For the second quarter, total free cash flow was $9 million. This represents a $35 million improvement over the same period last year. This increase was driven by higher adjusted earnings, lower pension contributions, lower cash interest and a decrease in restructuring payments. Working capital, including the impact of our factoring programs, negatively impacted our cash flow by $37 million in the quarter. As we discussed on last quarter's earnings call, our first quarter cash flow was positively impacted by higher sales in Europe where we factor most of our receivables. This had the effect of accelerating the cash cycle time in Q1. As production volumes in Europe took a step down in this quarter following the pre-buy, the first quarter cash flow benefit from factoring became a cash flow headwind for us in the second quarter. In addition, as Ike mentioned earlier, we are continuing to build strategic inventory buffers to support an upturn in the North American market, so this had a modest impact on working capital performance in the quarter and will continue to impact us in the second half of the year. Now let's turn to Slide 13 for a review of our liquidity and debt maturity profile. We completed several capital market transactions during the second quarter. First, we issued $225 million of 6 1/4% notes due in 2024. The proceeds from this issuance were used, along with balance sheet cash, to call $250 million of our 10 5/8% notes due in 2018 and to pay off the remaining $41 million term loan balance. These transactions resulted in gross debt reduction of $66 million and will generate annual cash interest savings of approximately $14 million going forward. During the second quarter, we also amended and extended our revolving credit facility. The maturity date for the revolver was extended to February 2019 and we improved the drawn pricing by 75 basis points. In addition, we increased the facility size to $499 million through April 2017. After which time, the facility will step back down to $410 million through maturity. From a liquidity perspective, we used cash to help fund the debt repurchases I just spoke about. However, as a result of the revolver amendment, we largely offset the liquidity impact of using that cash by upsizing the revolver more than $80 million. As a result, we ended the quarter with $795 million of liquidity, only slightly below last quarter's balance. Completing these actions has allowed us to achieve greater financial flexibility and has provided us a clear runway in which we have only $170 million of funded debt coming due over the next 5 years. In fact, 85% of our funded debt doesn't mature until 2019 and later. Next, I'll review our updated fiscal year 2014 outlook on Slide 14. We are raising our fiscal year 2014 sales guidance from approximately $3.7 billion to a range of approximately $3.75 billion to $3.8 billion. This increased sales guidance is due to a strengthening North American Class 8 truck market, and to a lesser extent, increased revenue expectations in China. This revised sales guidance also takes into account the effect of the weaker market in Brazil. We're also raising our adjusted EBITDA margin guidance from approximately 7.5% to approximately 7.7%. We expect better second half performance than originally planned due primarily to the revenue upside we're seeing particularly in the North American Class 8 market. But second half performance is tempered somewhat as we manage headwinds in 2 of our higher-margin businesses, as well as modestly higher steel cost in North America. We are taking down our production forecast for South America due to the softness in the commercial vehicle demand in that region. And in the case of our Defense business, we expect revenue to be lower by more than 50% in the second half of the year relative to the first half of the year, due to the continued step-down in FMTV production. It will be important to keep these headwinds in mind when thinking about our third and fourth quarters from an earnings perspective. We are also raising our adjusted earnings per share from continuing operations guidance to a range of $0.50 to $0.60 for fiscal year 2014, which is an increase of $0.20 compared to our prior guidance. This increase is driven by the expected improvements to adjusted EBITDA, as well as the benefit of lower interest cost resulting from the capital market transactions we executed. Total cash flow is still expected to be between breakeven and positive $25 million. As the North American market continues to strengthen, we are ensuring that we are prepared for increased demand by putting strategic inventory buffers in place where necessary. This investment in working capital will position us to convert on the North American market upturn. But even with these inventory buffers, with the first half performance, we're confident in our ability to deliver this free cash flow guidance, which would be our strongest full year free cash flow performance in 4 years. Now I'll turn the call back over to Ike to provide closing remarks on our continued forward momentum.