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Curtiss-Wright Corporation (CW)

Q2 2010 Earnings Call· Fri, May 7, 2010

$699.84

-0.88%

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Transcript

Dennis Bunday

Management

Good afternoon, everyone. And welcome to Williams Controls Second Quarter Fiscal 2010 Conference Call. Before we begin, you should note that the following discussions and responses to questions reflect management's views as of today, May 6, 2010, and may include forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Information concerning risk factors and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially is included in our filings with the SEC, including our 2009 annual report on Form 10-K, our fiscal 2010 quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and our fiscal 2010 current reports on Form 8-K. Specific factors that may cause such a difference include but are not limited to, availability of adequate working capital, domestic and international competitive pressures, increased governmental regulation, increased costs of materials and labor, and general economic conditions in the United States and abroad. I will now turn the call over to our CEO, Pat Cavanagh, for his comments on the quarter.

Pat Cavanagh

Management

Thank you, Dennis. How are you? It’s been an interesting day in the markets today. I’d like to welcome everyone to our second quarter conference call. This morning we released our financial results for the second quarter of fiscal 2010. We’ve seen a continued improvement in our sales starting in the quarter ending September 2009. Our second quarter sales were $12.6 million up 38% from the same quarter of fiscal 2009, and 8% from the first fiscal quarter this [Audio Gap]. Year to date sales compared to last years first six months are up 23%. During this quarter there were several factors that drove the 6% per share loss. Dennis will these factors in his remarks after mine. But we don’t breakout revenues in individual markets. I want to share with you some relevant sales comparison and market projections. Compared to the first six month period last year our NAFTA truck sales were up 4%. I recently have the opportunity to review the Heavy Duty Manufacturers Association, supplier parameter, with surveys executives of many of the suppliers to the truck industry in North America. The results of the survey for North American class 8 market for 2010, is that it will improve modestly from 2009 to 121,000 units, while the class 5 to 7 markets will reach 94,000 units this year. The Heavy Duty Manufacturers Association member forecast for the North American class 8 production in 2011, is 160,000 units, while the class 5 to 7 forecast is a 103,000 units. While these forecasts are not as optimistic at some of the more scientific market forecasters this is still welcome change from where we are today. The NAFTA truck market is almost 20% of our business, and we were preparing ourselves to take advantage of the rebound in this market…

Dennis Bunday

Management

Thank you, Pat. Sales have continued increase each quarter since our low point in the third quarter of fiscal 2009, to $12.6 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2010, and we are up 38% from the prior second quarter sales of $9.1 million. Although, we have seen improvement from our low point the industry is still significantly below the levels of the pre-economic downturn and as a comparison our second quarter run rate is still approximately 23% below fiscal 2008 sales levels and 31% or $5.7 million below the second quarter of fiscal 2007, when the world-wide markets were healthier. Sales for the first six months of fiscal 2010 were [20.4] million or 23% higher than the same period in fiscal 2009, where sales were $19.8 million. The net loss for the quarter was $432,000 or $0.06 per diluted share, compared to a loss of $1.2 million or $0.17 per diluted share in the second quarter of 2009. The quarter-over-quarter improvements are due primarily to the higher sales volumes with pricing remaining stable, when I require a special note. For the last several months we have been involved in settlement discussions with the plaintiffs in the Cuesta class action lawsuit. You may recall this was a claim brought against Ford and Williams in Oklahoma over five years ago relating to pedals produced by our automotive supply group in Florida, which we sold in 2004. Although, we have always felt this case to be without merit, we also feel that settlement is a reasonable outcome and it appears we are very close to a settlement, therefore during the second quarter we recorded a $775,000 pre-tax provision or $478,000 after-tax for our portion of settling the case. It will most likely still be a few months before this case is finally…

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Your first question or comment comes from the line of John Nobile from the Taglich Brothers. Your line is now open. John Nobile – Taglich Brothers: Hi. Good afternoon.

Pat Cavanagh

Management

Hi, John. How are you? John Nobile – Taglich Brothers: Good. Thanks. I just wanted to go one point with you. I kind of missed, you said gross margins in the second quarter would have been about 13.2%.

Dennis Bunday

Management

Yeah. John Nobile – Taglich Brothers: Without the special items, if you could just give me the quick run down of the dollar amount of those items, I mean…

Dennis Bunday

Management

Yeah. Absolutely, the first one was -- let me get too, I’m sorry, make sure, I’ve got the right numbers and I don’t mess it up really here.

Pat Cavanagh

Management

We really enjoy the conference this week John. John Nobile – Taglich Brothers: It was very good. I thought it was going overwhelmed.

Dennis Bunday

Management

What we had there John was -- we have some freight cost and other logistics costs and inefficiencies about $100,000 because a couple of suppliers, our sales as you can tell ramped-up pretty quickly and we have a couple of suppliers that have little bit of difficulty keeping up with that. And so, there were some additional cost there. We also had the pricing revision of $165,000 and our warrantee was $200,000 higher. John Nobile – Taglich Brothers: Okay. Warrantee $200,000. And the freight cost that’s not or I can say recurring, there is a $100,000 increase was?

Dennis Bunday

Management

The large portion, John – a large portion was driven by large IC chip manufacture and he’s having some problems in keeping up with a demand, its increased very quickly. And we told at this point that he will have this result in June and July. John Nobile – Taglich Brothers: Okay. Of the class action provision, $775,000 charge this quarter?

Dennis Bunday

Management

Yes. John Nobile – Taglich Brothers: Do you feel that it’s a one-time charge here or might be there will be more to follow in the following quarters?

Dennis Bunday

Management

Well, John, obviously, what you do, and you make a provision as you take your best estimate on this thing. But I would have to say, the documents have not been finalized, but I feel we are very, very close. And I don’t anticipate that number change and I don’t anticipate that we are going to have any further charges going forward.

Pat Cavanagh

Management

Of course, it’s not done yet, I have to say the same is gorgeous, it’s not totally done yet, but I have to feel pretty good about that 7, 75 number. John Nobile – Taglich Brothers: Okay. So basically, all that you expected to take was taken and of course, till it finalized we shall see but if there is anything going forward, it should not really be significant as far as you can tell us at this time?

Pat Cavanagh

Management

That’s exactly right. No, when you do this type of things when you have – when you book the estimate, the best guess you think there is and so, this looks, that look pretty solid.

Dennis Bunday

Management

We are comfortable with the number, John. John Nobile – Taglich Brothers: Okay. And I was curious if you could explain or just talk a little bit more about the lingering effects that you had mention from the 2010 the mission mandate, which obviously now we are into the second quarter after that mandate. So, if you could just explain that little bit why…

Pat Cavanagh

Management

Well, okay, I can, John, I’ll cover this best I can. There was a mission engine -- mission technology change at the beginning of the year. John Nobile – Taglich Brothers: Okay.

Pat Cavanagh

Management

The EPA allowed the engine manufacturers to build engines and installed them in trucks in 2010. So if they had built up had an inventory of trucks with or inventory of engines that were built in 2009, they can use them for a certain period of time in 2010, and they’ve been using those engines. And those engines are basically are $7 to $12,000 less expensive than the 2010 engines. So a lot of sales, I saw one estimate that said 8 to 10,000 trucks will pulled into first half of late in 2009 and then about 10,000 trucks will pulled into 2000 – the first half 2010 from the second half because the trucks with those engines are less expensive. So what we expect is that there is going to be a slowdown in the heavy duty NAFTA truck sales in the second half of the year because they are going to be driven – they are going to be, there was a kind of -- early pre-buy. John Nobile – Taglich Brothers: Okay.

Pat Cavanagh

Management

And the new 2010 engines will, the 2007 technology engines will be used up by the end of this month or next and so the more expensive 2010 engines will be use in the second half of the year. But there is significant pent-up demand in freight. The amount of freight being hold is increasing. So we think and the trucks that are currently on the road are, at a record age level and we expect that their could be a small or a dip in the sales in the second half of the year and we expected to rebound in sometime in 2010. So that’s kind of what we’ll see, you know. John Nobile – Taglich Brothers: Okay. Yeah. No. Understand.

Pat Cavanagh

Management

I’m sorry 2011, 2011 John… John Nobile – Taglich Brothers: All right. And I think market forecast or industry forecast for the heavy truck market were pretty robust 2011.

Pat Cavanagh

Management

Yeah. John Nobile – Taglich Brothers: Just one more question. You had mentioned, was it in October of 2010 there was going to be phase mission regulations, that was in India?

Pat Cavanagh

Management

Right. That’s in India. John Nobile – Taglich Brothers: Okay.

Pat Cavanagh

Management

They are going to start moving to electronically controlled engines, the date is October of 2010, and they are going to phase those things. I think it’s by region. John Nobile – Taglich Brothers: So it will be a gradual phase.

Pat Cavanagh

Management

Right. It does not going to be an overnight switch. John Nobile – Taglich Brothers: And then regard to China, do you have specific dates on when that would be mandated?

Pat Cavanagh

Management

Well, that’s been a kind of all over the math, John, I mean, they’ve changed it several times. What we are seeing is that, there was an increasing number of, I guess in China, we call them Euro IV electronic engines being built by the manufacturers. We don’t have a hard and fast date but we really believe that over the next two to three years, we are going to see, almost a complete change over in the new trucks that are built and they are going to move electronic engines. That’s our belief at this point in time. John Nobile – Taglich Brothers: Okay. That’s all I have. Thank you very much.

Pat Cavanagh

Management

Thanks John.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) There are no further questions at this time.

Dennis Bunday

Management

Okay. Well, I guess, this concludes our second quarter conference call and Pat and I would like to thank everybody for coming today. Good-bye now.