Earnings Labs

Carlisle Companies Incorporated (CSL)

Q2 2015 Earnings Call· Thu, Jul 23, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning. My name is Angie, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Q2 2015 Earnings Conference Call. After the speakers' remarks there will be a question-and-answer session. Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference over to David Roberts. Please go ahead, sir. David A. Roberts - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you, Angie. Good morning, and welcome to Carlisle's Second Quarter 2015 Conference Call. On the phone with me is our Chief Operating Officer, Chris Koch; our Chief Financial Officer, Steven Ford; our Chief Accounting Officer, Kevin Zdimal; and our Treasurer, Julia Chandler. As we did last quarter, I'll review the company's overall performance, Chris will review our segment performance and Steve will review our balance sheet and cash flow statements. Before I begin reviewing second quarter performance, I ask that you turn to slide two, titled forward-looking statements and the use of non-GAAP financial measures. This slide details the risks associated with investing in Carlisle Company. I strongly urge everyone considering an investment in our company to read these statements in detail along with reviewing the financial reports we filed with the SEC before you decide to purchase shares in Carlisle's stock. As I prepare to review the details of our second quarter performance, let me take a few minutes to highlight a few of our accomplishments. Our two largest businesses, CCM and CIT, had very good results in the second quarter. In fact, very good doesn't describe how well we performed at CCM. With the new plant start-up costs, increased raw material costs and truck shortages that we encountered in 2014 behind us, results at CCM were excellent. We grew organically 10% and achieved a major milestone, as we earned more…

Operator

Operator

Your first question comes from the line of Ivan Marcuse with KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Ivan M. Marcuse - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets

Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. Nice quarter. Real quick, if you look at the construction business, a few construction-related companies have talked about how wet it was in the second quarter. Did that have any material impact on your business? And if so, is there any way or a possibility, a way of quantifying that? David A. Roberts - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: I mean it was obviously wet in the middle part of the country. It did have some impact, particularly down in Texas, Ivan. It's one of our better markets down in Texas and we did have some slow times during the quarter, but as soon as it dried up, I mean those picked up. I couldn't even guess what the heck it would have been or how much of sales were down because of the wet weather. Frankly, if you look at growing at 10% organically, it didn't hurt a heck of a lot.

Ivan M. Marcuse - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets

Right. And then if you look at pricing, you mentioned it was down a little bit year-on-year, but sequentially, was there any movement quarter-to-quarter? Steven J. Ford - CFO, Secretary, Vice President & General Counsel: Sequentially, relatively stable.

Ivan M. Marcuse - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets

Got you. And then on the raw materials, you mentioned that 1.8% of the margin was the raw material benefit. Was that all CCM or did any of the other segments benefit as well? David A. Roberts - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: The vast majority was CCM. I mean there was some minor impact at FoodService, but it was minor.

Ivan M. Marcuse - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets

Okay. And then if you look at the LHi business, margin, I guess, if I did the math right is around 8%. What do you expect that to get to over time and what kind of timeframe would that be? David A. Roberts - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah, it's going to take a couple of years, Ivan. But we would expect it would be closer to the corporate average. Chris and I were out in Seattle earlier this week and they were saying that the process improvements they're making with each Kaizen is yielding about 18% gain in each one of the cells they go through. So they've got three teams working with COS activities constantly and they're just going through the operation, but on average, we've been seeing about an 18% gain in each one of the operations.

Ivan M. Marcuse - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets

Great. And then last question and I'll jump back in. Steve, the notes that are due in 2016, it probably says in your 10-K. But when could you call those and is the expectation that you are going to, with your balance sheet, roll them out or would you expect to pay off the $150 million in notes? Steven J. Ford - CFO, Secretary, Vice President & General Counsel: Yeah. We're not planning on paying them early because there is a penalty for prepayment, so we will take them out when they mature in August of next year and the current plans are just to sort of take those out with a combination of cash on hand and possibly a drawdown on the revolver. But at this point we're not looking to refinance that with additional public debt.

Ivan M. Marcuse - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Matt McConnell, RBC Capital Markets.

Matthew McConnell - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · Matt McConnell, RBC Capital Markets

Thank you. Good morning. David A. Roberts - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning, Matt.

Matthew McConnell - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · Matt McConnell, RBC Capital Markets

Just want to follow up on that Construction Materials margin. Obviously, I think that's an all-time record. Are you seeing any incremental price pressure? I know you said sequentially it was flat. Do you have expectations for how that margin can hold up in the back half of the year? David A. Roberts - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. I think, Matt, right now we expect it to hold up, certainly through the third quarter. We get to the fourth quarter, then I think all bets are off. As volumes start to drop and I'm not sure what will happen with pricing at that point, but we think it'll carry us through the third quarter at least.

Matthew McConnell - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · Matt McConnell, RBC Capital Markets

Okay. Margins around the 19% level? David A. Roberts - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah, I would think so. It really isn't our record. I think we were 21% back four or five years ago for a quarter.

Matthew McConnell - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · Matt McConnell, RBC Capital Markets

Oh. Okay. I might have missed that. Okay. And then Chris, I think you said Finishing volume might be up in the second half. Would that be inclusive of an FX headwind, because that would imply some nice organic growth in the second half of the year. Is that the expectation? D. Christian Koch - President & Chief Operating Officer: Yeah, the expectation is, yeah, to have growth inclusive of FX.

Matthew McConnell - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · Matt McConnell, RBC Capital Markets

Okay, great. David A. Roberts - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: We have some big projects that are working that will come to fruition in the second quarter – I'm sorry, in the second half, not the second quarter. We didn't have any of those large projects in the first half of the year.

Matthew McConnell - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · Matt McConnell, RBC Capital Markets

Okay. All right. Great, that's helpful. And then last one, maybe. So CAT's dealer statistics are still really weak and obviously you're seeing it in your business there and you've done a bunch of restructuring in Brake & Friction, but what are the other options that you have left there from a cost perspective? And do you need to draw up new plans for an incremental leg down in those end markets? Or just how are you planning in the current environment? D. Christian Koch - President & Chief Operating Officer: Well, I think you can see that, you know, we are not – by the words in the release from both Dave and then my comments, we're not planning much of a recovery this year or even into next year at any significant rate, so we are looking at these costs constantly. We've been able every quarter to find ways to reduce the cost as you've seen in the performance. And I would say that we're going to do the same thing going forward. One thing we want to be careful to do is that we don't want to take out either key positions, key employees or key manufacturing assets that we have in play. So we'll look at footprint, we'll look at efficiencies through the Carlisle Operating System and other means to continue to drive cost reductions in CBF.

Matthew McConnell - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · Matt McConnell, RBC Capital Markets

Okay. Great. Thanks, guys.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Kevin Hocevar with Northcoast Research.

Kevin William Hocevar - Northcoast Research Partners LLC

Analyst · Kevin Hocevar with Northcoast Research

Hey. Good morning, everybody. Congrats on a nice quarter. Steven J. Ford - CFO, Secretary, Vice President & General Counsel: Thanks, Kevin.

Kevin William Hocevar - Northcoast Research Partners LLC

Analyst · Kevin Hocevar with Northcoast Research

In terms of the raw materials in CCM, if we could revisit that one more time. I think on the last quarter you mentioned that your oil-based raw spend is like $800 million and you expected those to be down 5% to 10%. Correct me if I'm wrong. But is that still the expectation or have raws come down any more than you would have expected to kind of support these really high margins or I guess, what is your current expectation for that for the year? Steven J. Ford - CFO, Secretary, Vice President & General Counsel: Yeah, Kevin, I guess the only thing we would sort of update you guys on is that, now we'd expect it to be at the high end of that range.

Kevin William Hocevar - Northcoast Research Partners LLC

Analyst · Kevin Hocevar with Northcoast Research

Okay. Got you. And last quarter you kind of uncharacteristically built inventory, it sounds like maybe again you have higher inventories than usual. Is that all in the Construction Materials and is that because of your strong outlook in that business? David A. Roberts - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yes, Kevin, it was almost all in Construction Materials. Last year, I think we took inventory down too low and we had two objectives this year, not to have any outages and I think the business did a great job in preparing in the first and early second quarters to make sure that we had inventory available. We've had ongoing conversations within the company that is 15% operating or working capital the right number? And I think that it might be a little bit low. We might be looking at 17% or 18% long-term, appears to be the optimum level for us to be able to deliver when we need to deliver, and not lose any orders because of inventory outages. And that would be generally across the company.

Kevin William Hocevar - Northcoast Research Partners LLC

Analyst · Kevin Hocevar with Northcoast Research

Okay. And Steve, I think last quarter you were looking at $100 million in CapEx and now it's $80 million to $90 million. So just wondering what changed there? Steven J. Ford - CFO, Secretary, Vice President & General Counsel: Well, last time we spoke we were sort of just going off the forecasted spend from our divisions. And they're just coming in across the board a little bit lower than we had anticipated at the time of our last call, and that's just our updated number. There's nothing really more to it than that, and I think $80 million to $90 million is a good number for the year.

Kevin William Hocevar - Northcoast Research Partners LLC

Analyst · Kevin Hocevar with Northcoast Research

Okay. And then just final question, how should we think of this Nogales plant ramping up? What type of benefits can we see in the back half of this year and I guess going into next year? David A. Roberts - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah, I think that there will be efficiencies. In fact, if you look at the margin that we generated in the second quarter, it was a result of some of those efficiencies we got out of Nogales. We're in one plant rather than four smaller plants, so that's helped us. It's just been, I guess, a stroke of luck that we brought it on just as volumes ramped up again. And we would expect that margins would improve as we go through the year.

Kevin William Hocevar - Northcoast Research Partners LLC

Analyst · Kevin Hocevar with Northcoast Research

Okay, great. Thank you very much. David A. Roberts - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: You're welcome.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Joel Tiss, BMO.

Joel G. Tiss - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · Joel Tiss, BMO

Hey, guys. How's it going? David A. Roberts - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: All right, Joel.

Joel G. Tiss - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · Joel Tiss, BMO

That's good. I just wondered a little bit behind the scenes in the CBF, what's happening in the mining industry? Are you seeing machines coming out of service or it's just a little bit less intensive? Or is it more of just a whole bunch of end markets at once seem to be seeing weakness? David A. Roberts - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Well, if you look at the business, keep in mind that ag is down 27%. It was only off a few percentage points, I think, earlier this year and late last year. So ag has had a major downturn for us. In mining, frankly, mining is – Chris, was it 15% of total revenue, I think? D. Christian Koch - President & Chief Operating Officer: Yeah. David A. Roberts - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Somewhere in that range, yep. So mining, while it's obviously important to us, it's not the biggest segment. Our biggest segments are ag and construction. But mining is not doing well. We don't see anything that would indicate equipment's coming out. It's just that no new equipment is being bought, and it would tell you that equipment is not being used because not a lot of parts are being bought for the aftermarket. So, I think the equipment they have there is not being utilized like it had been in the past.

Joel G. Tiss - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · Joel Tiss, BMO

Okay. And the receivables increasing by so much, is that all just acquisitions and, I guess, a little bit of inventory build? D. Christian Koch - President & Chief Operating Officer: Revenue. David A. Roberts - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah, and revenue. Certainly revenue growth is also a contributor.

Joel G. Tiss - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · Joel Tiss, BMO

And if you take out all the, sort of the acquisitions and all the restructuring or whatever, what was the incremental margin in the quarter, kind of in the 40%s? David A. Roberts - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Oh, incremental margins? It's probably...

Joel G. Tiss - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · Joel Tiss, BMO

All right, I can calculate it out. David A. Roberts - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Mid-30%s I would think, yeah.

Joel G. Tiss - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · Joel Tiss, BMO

Okay. And that looks sustainable for the rest of the year? David A. Roberts - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah, I think if you look at the businesses that are generating that, I would see no reason that it shouldn't be.

Joel G. Tiss - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · Joel Tiss, BMO

And then, just sort of, I guess a kind of strategic question. Is there any sense to refinance that 2020 debt at 5.25%? It seems like you could do a lot better than that in today's market. Steven J. Ford - CFO, Secretary, Vice President & General Counsel: Well, we could certainly do better, but there is a significant penalty to prepay. I mean, there is call protection in the public bonds. We've looked at this and when we do the calculations, we don't see a real benefit once you take into account sort of the upfront penalty that you've got to pay to cover the protection.

Joel G. Tiss - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · Joel Tiss, BMO

All right. Okay. Thank you, guys, very much. David A. Roberts - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: You're welcome.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Tim Wojs, R. W. Baird. Tim R. Wojs - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Hey, guys. Nice job. David A. Roberts - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you. Tim R. Wojs - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): I guess, just on CCM, any kind of geographical color, anything that was a little bit better than the overall business or a little bit worse. And then, I guess just with the TPO facility that you have in the Northeast now, how big of an advantage is that, as we've seen TPO kind of migrate more north? David A. Roberts - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Well, it certainly has helped us from a freight standpoint. If you think about, we were shipping TPO to the Northeast from Tooele, Utah and Senatobia, Mississippi. We now have an operation that's only a couple hours from New York City. So it certainly has helped from a freight standpoint, also from a delivery. You know, you now have a situation where you can react more quickly to the needs of the customers up in the Northeast that want TPO, so it's been a real advantage in having that facility there. Tim R. Wojs - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Okay. And then geographically, just anything that kind of deviated from the overall kind of growth rate in the quarter in CCM? David A. Roberts - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Tim, not really. We talked a bit about earlier in the call with the wetness in Texas early on in the quarter, but I think as soon as it dried out we immediately had roofers on roofs and I don't think there's any pent up demand in Texas because of the wetness, but that's the only thing. Tim R. Wojs - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Okay. And then just in terms of the Fluid business in the back half of the year, you talked about some larger projects. How are the margins on the larger projects versus just kind of the core business, just as a kind of frame of reference? D. Christian Koch - President & Chief Operating Officer: Pretty comparable. Yeah, I would say pretty comparable. The difference with, obviously, the systems is the timing, the installation. These are large automotive projects, so there's a lot of coordination to put those line retrofits in or a new line and so that's what causes a little lumpiness in our demand. Tim R. Wojs - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Okay, great. Thanks a lot, guys. Nice job. David A. Roberts - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

At this time, there are no further questions. I would now like to turn the conference over to David Roberts for any additional or closing remarks. David A. Roberts - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you. As we prepare to end the call, I ask that you turn to slide 15. As we began the third quarter, our outlook remained very positive and continues to be very positive. CCM, CIT, CFT, and CFS have very favorable market conditions going into the second half of the year. Looking at it by segment, CCM should continue to benefit from strong new non-res construction, a healthy reroofing market and lower raw material costs. Sales should grow mid to high single-digits and earnings are expected to be highly leveraged in the second half of the year. Barring any major change in pricing, earnings growth will be reflected in the third quarter and fourth quarter results. While we had some downward pressure on pricing in the first half, but it was minor, it had really very little impact on our overall performance in the year. With the second quarter and first quarters behind us, all indications are that 2015 is going to be a record year at CCM. At CIT the second half of year performance should improve upon our performance in the first half. Our Nogales plant is up and running and our aerospace and medical markets continue to be strong. We're making operational improvements at LHi, and while they are slightly up from 2015 margins, we expect that the impact really is going to occur in 2016 and 2017 at LHi. 2015 should be a record year for CIT though. Sales at Fluid Technologies are expected to grow mid single-digits in the third quarter and fourth quarters. Unfortunately, most of that growth…