Earnings Labs

Diebold Nixdorf, Incorporated (DBD)

Q4 2009 Earnings Call· Wed, Feb 3, 2010

$83.02

+0.87%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, everyone. Welcome to the Diebold Inc. fourth quarter financial results conference call. Today’s call is being recorded. At this time, for opening remarks and introductions, I would like to turn the call over to the Vice President and Chief Communications Officer, Mr. John Kristoff; please go ahead.

John Kristoff

Management

Thank you, Dannie. Good morning and thank you for joining we for Diebold’s fourth quarter and year end conference call. Joining me today are Tom Swidarski, President and CEO; and Brad Richardson, Executive Vice President and CFO. Just a few notes before we get started. In addition to the earnings release, we have provided a supplementary presentation on the Investor page of our website. Tom and Brad will be walking through this presentation as part of their opening comments today and we’d encourage you to follow along. We have also included non-GAAP financial measures throughout our presentation this morning. Specifically, I refer you to slides 29 through 39, which provide GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliations as well as our rational for the use of non-GAAP measures. A replay of this conference call will be available later today from our website and as a reminder, some of the comments today maybe considered forward-looking statements. Internal and/or external factors could significantly impact actual results, and as a precaution, we refer you to the more detailed risk factors that have previously been filed with the SEC. So, now with opening remarks, I’d like to turn the call over to Tom.

Tom Swidarski

President and CEO

Thanks, John. Good morning, everyone. As you see in this morning, we are reporting solid operational results for the fourth quarter, despite a number of challenges our industry continues to face in the current economic environment. In addition, we had some tax adjustments from prior years that resulted in a much higher tax rate than expected and Brad will walk you through those in his commentary. We also announce changes to our organizational structure in North America, which I will cover in a few moments, but first I would like to discuss the progress we made on a number of key fronts during the period. In Brazil, we want a major contract to supply 160,000 election terminals and related equipment to the federal government. The bidding process was very competitive this time around and our team did an outstanding job of developing a cost competitive solution. As we mentioned in our announcement, this business represents approximately $100 million in revenue for terminals that will deliver primarily during the second and third quarters in 2010. While the contract allows for the purchase of an additional 90,000 units, we remain focused on providing the electoral counsel with everything they need to run an effective election in October 2010 and don’t anticipate receiving any additional orders before that time. Secondly we continue to generate improved service margins during the period. As the fourth quarter represents our 10, consecutive quarter of year-over-year improved service growing margins. We also made significant progress on improving our working capital, which resulted in year-to-date free cash flow of more than $250 million and debt reduction of $190 million. Finally I’m encouraged by the significant increase of orders that we’ve experienced if most regions around the world. Dispositions as well for the latter half of 2010 when many orders…

Brad Richardson

Management

Those of you who have worked with me know that I’m committed to align business plans with a specific financial framework and in the case of Diebold, that represents 10% operating profit and 15% return on capital employed. My other areas of focus for the business moving forward will be one, to help drive the strategic transition of the company, two, to drive operational performance improvement, and three, and very importantly, to drive further improvements in our financial controls, processes, and systems. My pledge to investors is to continue the commitment transparency that Diebold has established during the past few years. I value open communication in dealing with the street, and plan to keep as active of a schedule of face-to-face meetings and phone conferences as possible. Among my initial observations is that we have a very capable leadership team, doing the right things, working to generate growth and making the tough decisions now to help ensure our future success. This is evident by the realignment actions we are taking today in North America. I’d like to refer to slide 14, which focuses on fourth quarter revenue. Total revenue was $725 million, down 8% from the fourth quarter 2008, including a net positive currency impact of 6% driven by the strength of the Brazilian Reais. For the full year revenue was down 12% from 2008. Full year revenue includes a net negative currency impact of 2%. For the year, product revenue was down 18% while service revenue was down 6%. These decreases are due to lower product demand and some of our core markets. Looking at our financial self-service business on slide 15, fourth quarter revenue was $549 million, down 6% from the fourth quarter of 2008. This decrease was attributable to continued weakness in Eastern Europe. However, we did…

John Kristoff

Management

Thanks, Brad. Dannie, we’d like to open it up for questions at this time.

Operator

Operator

Your first question comes from Matt Summerville - KeyBanc.

Matt Summerville - KeyBanc

Analyst

Tom, you had mentioned in your prepared remarks that orders in EMEA and ATM business were up about 20% in the fourth quarter. It sounded like that was heavily weighted toward the month of October. Did you see a shift in business fundamentals in November and December to the point that was just kind of a flicker in momentum, if you will?

Tom Swidarski

President and CEO

Matt, I would say that year-over-year was heavily skewed from October. It just ended up being timing of several large orders that came in. So I don’t see really any underlying shift in terms of what’s happening in Europe. We see that as an area where we’re going to see modest growth, high single digit next year, but we don’t see a full rebound there, especially as a result of eastern Europe still being very, very weak at this time.

Matt Summerville - KeyBanc

Analyst

Tom, did I hear you right, where you expect EMEA to grow high single next year?

Tom Swidarski

President and CEO

Yes, I think that would be about right.

Matt Summerville - KeyBanc

Analyst

With regards to some of your other comments, I’d like to hear more specifically what your customers are saying about their capital budgeting decisions within the small and regional bank market, given the prepayment worth of three years worth of assessments. What are your customers telling you it is doing specifically to their capital budgeting decision around deposit automation?

Tom Swidarski

President and CEO

So, I have spoken to a number recently and have been in several meetings. As you might imagine, when you are talking about the U.S. regional bank space, including community banks in there, you are talking about 10,000 institutions. So I’m having conversations with 20 folks that I respect, but in essence there is still a lot of hesitation in the North American market. Certainly these assessments, getting the assessment identified, and understood is a very important factor for visibility going forward, but a lot of their issues still revolve around the underlying health of the bank and with the credit situation where it’s at, you know, a lot of people have indicated that much like this year. While they may have had a bank branch or two on the radar screen, they’re going to be conservative in that regard. So I think they are going to remain conservative in the United States, and that’s what we’re planning for in 2010 with the regional bank space.

Matt Summerville - KeyBanc

Analyst

How should we think about seasonality in your earnings as we move from quarter-to-quarter in 2010, given the Brazilian elections business and given the dynamic you expect out of China? Historically, the fourth quarter has been Diebold’s best quarter. That wasn’t the case in ‘08, the third quarter was. How should we think about 2010 in that regard?

Tom Swidarski

President and CEO

Yes, Matt, I would say that it’s going to return much more of a traditional trajectory for us. This year our first half comps will be difficult in that we had a lot of Asia Pacific coming in the last of 2009 and so what we’re going to see this year is a significant ramp in the third and fourth quarter that would be more traditional to what Diebold has experienced. First of all, you have Asia Pacific that’s going back to a more seasonal type of environment. Second, you have a lot of opportunities and Brazil being the biggest. That’s going to be delivered heavily in the third quarter; while there will be some in the second as well. That influences it. I think third, in terms of the United States, we see the first half of the year being relatively weak in that regard, and that the orders that we’re going to be seeing in the first part of the first quarter really are not going to revenue until the third quarter. So for us, the third and fourth quarter in 2010 will be large, and the first two will be difficult comparisons for us.

Matt Summerville - KeyBanc

Analyst

Can you give a little more of a sense, a moment ago, Brad walked through a line by line item in terms of how you bridge your EPS, but there were two categories, one was the organizational change. I assume that has to do with the most recent layoff you announced today. Then other new cost reductions. I assume that relates to SmartBusiness 200. I just want to make sure and understanding those buckets and then in that same context, Tom, I think you indicated some of the savings you’re going to get out of North America you’re reinvesting, and I want to make sure this number is netted out for that.

Tom Swidarski

President and CEO

Yes, so in fact that line, if you look at that slide, it says organizational changes. That is a net number. So obviously, we’re taking 350 full time equivalents out of the North American operations. Some of that will be reinvested back in North America, as I mentioned, with integrated services where we want to do even more because of the momentum we’re gaining there and the reception we’re receiving in the market, but also some of that has to do with funding some additional development and focus outside the United States, where we continue to see growth opportunities. So yes, in fact, that is a net number. The other number on that slide, the reconciliation slide that is a net number is the cost savings. So in that cost savings, that’s really SmartBusiness 200 netted against the increases of the fuel commodity, and then the pricing impact as well. So you’ve got those netting out to what’s on the slide and again, I think I’d feel very good in terms of SmartBusiness 200, which will evolve into 300 here in the not too distant future, in terms of the underpinning and the will of the company taking costs and taking waste out of our organization just on an ongoing basis.

Matt Summerville - KeyBanc

Analyst

Then just two quick follow-ups, Tom, and then I’ll get back in queue. On the 350 FTEs, are any of those folks coming from your sales or core service organization? Then of the restructuring impact, Brad, that was in gross profit $5.8 million, just as a housekeeping item, can you give a more precise split between how much of that was in product versus service? In case I missed that.

Tom Swidarski

President and CEO

So Matt, on the first question, there is no reduction relative to the sales organization or the service organization at this time. Our goal is to actually move some additional resource closer to the customer from a sales standpoint, especially on IF and deposit automation, and put more specialized capabilities within the selling organization. So while I expect the selling organization to change, we’re actually looking to put additional resource there, funded by taking it out at the headquarters.

Brad Richardson

Management

Matt, I look forward to actually meeting you face-to-face, but the pre-tax number that is in for the restructuring that we just announced is about $9.2 million pre-tax. That’s in the operating expense line on our income statement. We have not split that between the product side, if you will, and the service side of the business.

Matt Summerville - KeyBanc

Analyst

I thought in one of the reconciliation slides in the back, it says and I believe this is 4Q ‘09 that within gross profit there was $5.8 million of restructuring charges?

Brad Richardson

Management

Yes, and that’s also shown up in the front. That was in addition to that there’s $5.8 million that actually comes through the manufacturing side, and that’s the ongoing restructuring that we’ve been doing and the manufacturing side of the business, as well as some service, but again, in addition to the 9.2 that is attributable to the 350 positions being eliminated here.

Matt Summerville - KeyBanc

Analyst

Correct. I was more looking specifically with the 5.8, how much of that is in product versus service?

John Kristoff

Management

Matt, I don’t want to cut you off, but we have got a really long queue. Can we take this offline?

Matt Summerville - KeyBanc

Analyst

Yes, no problem. That’s fine.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Reik Read - Robert Baird & Co. Reik Read - Robert Baird & Co.: Just with respect to the U.S. orders, the down double digit, can you give us a breakdown there in terms of product versus services, and talk a little bit about how those orders are looking sequentially? Then Tom, also, with respect to services, could you maybe break that down too and talk a little bit about how things are moving from a traditional services and the integrated services and how those might be moving forward?

Tom Swidarski

President and CEO

Reik, I’ll try and take those. I may not catch them all. Basically, orders in North America sequentially are flat, so third quarter to fourth quarter sequentially flat. In terms of being down double digit, it’s heavily weighted toward product. So product in terms of being down is far greater than the service impact. As far as traditional service versus services, our contract portfolio of the traditional services in the United States is enormous, and it has been relatively constant. The area that we are hit relative to service has to do with what’s tied to product. So the installation gets tied into the service bucket. That has been down as a result of product being down. In terms of the new initiative on the services side, we are real happy with the growth we are seeing there. The year-over-year growth is significant, in the high double digit range in terms of growth, but those are five year contracts. So that is spread, and then the individual services components of that will build overtime. So we like the fundamentals of that. It fits very nicely with our competency relative to service and builds on the trust we built with traditional service and again, because our contract based on service remains very solid and growing ever so slightly, it really gives us a good springboard into services for many of these customers that trust you to handle their operation. So I like the fundamentals of where that’s headed. That is why we are taking some of the actions we are here, so we can put more resource against that in the field and have more capability of selling that infrastructure that we have now pretty much built. Reik Read - Robert Baird & Co.: Can you give us a sense, Tom, as to what that integrated service is as a percentage of maybe the overall services and where you’d like that to be down the road?

Tom Swidarski

President and CEO

Yes. It’s a very small percent in the United States. The way we look at it, just like the way I can explain it is we have got two elements of it. One is what I would call total contract value and that means we secure a contract with XYZ bank that’s over five years that’s total contract value. Our goal for total contract value, last year we did about $50 million in total contract value. This year we came in shooting for, I think somewhere in the range of $65 million to $70 million, which we achieved and slightly surpassed and next year we would look to ramp that up an additional $15 million, $20 million, but that’s spread over the five years. When you look at it in year one, because these are individual point services, whether it be monitoring or whether it be cash forecasting or software downloads, these are all pretty small items that need mass to really to grow and to leverage and so probably as a percent, I don’t have that at my fingertips, I would imagine it’s probably only 2% or 3% at this point of our total service revenue. Reik Read - Robert Baird & Co.: Okay, and then just going back to Eastern Europe, you mentioned you were going to do some things to position yourself. Can you talk about what that incremental positioning is and it sounded like back half of the year you might see a little bit more activity there, is that correct?

Tom Swidarski

President and CEO

Yes, that is correct. We certainly think the current course and speed is very difficult and Russia is a big driver in terms of what’s going on in Eastern Europe, and we’re not as well positioned in Russia as I’d like. So we’re looking to see what type of additional service operation we need there, what type of additional resources we need to be in positioned when that takes place. So we’re thinking our timing is good relative to that and that the activity will pickup probably toward the second half of this year, based on some of the meetings that we’re having with banks there, and really I’d look for 2011 and 2012 for it to return to some level of normalcy compared to what we have done in the past, because it was off dramatically in 2009. Reik Read - Robert Baird & Co.: Then one question for Brad, in your slides, you talked about 10% operating margin is what the business model supports. What should that look like in terms of in the long run? What product gross margins and service gross margins should be?

Brad Richardson

Management

Well, what I would probably prefer to answer that without giving kind of a specific guidance regarding the split is to say, clearly again, as I said in my remarks, some of the actions that we’re taking today help obviously move the company toward the 10% operating margin, and certainly some of the SB 200 initiatives are moving us that direction. Having said that, I think we all have to recognize that we need meaningful top line revenue growth in order to get the company up to the 10% operating profit margin and what we have historically said is based upon, again leveraging our revenue base and tightly controlling, if you will, the fixed costs of the company, that we need a revenue base of somewhere around $3.5 billion in order, coupled with again, the cost reduction initiatives that we have ongoing in order to achieve that 10% operating profit.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Kartik Mehta - Northcoast Research.

Kartik Mehta - Northcoast Research

Analyst

I wanted to ask your thoughts on, as you look at 2010, at least as we sit today, what ATM markets you feel the most comfortable with and maybe which ones give you the most concern or pause, and not only on order activity, just the conversations you’ve had with the banks?

Tom Swidarski

President and CEO

So maybe I’ll comment on the largest countries, and if I miss one that you would like me to comment on, I will, but certainly the United States, since it by far, for us is the largest, most key market. The regional bank business for us historically has been such a major driver in terms of the overall profitability of the company. Given the financial crisis that we have faced and the impact here in banking, specifically in the United States, that would be the area that I would say would be the greatest concern to me, in that it can have the potential earnings generation power that we’ve experienced in the past, but yet right now the outlook and the visibility is really cloudy, but I also feel that we have by far our best capability and skill set sitting here as well So it’s a matter of remaining focused on this, not knowing exactly when the market is going to rebound, but being there and certainly our service base suggests that customers are very satisfied with our quality of product in our services offering because they keep renewing our service contracts, which to me is the biggest indicator of customer satisfaction. So I think we’re well-positioned in the United States, like the capabilities we are bringing to the market, and the regional bank space seems to have been very much like the offering we’ve come out with in integrated services and while that sales cycle is long, I feel good about its ability to really differentiate us and give us five year contracts versus competing for individual ATM orders. Second, I would say Brazil, Brazil for us still remains, as you can see from the kind of orders we get down there just an overwhelmingly capable organization with…

Kartik Mehta - Northcoast Research

Analyst

I want to go back to a statement you made about 2010 in the seasonality and earnings. Would it be fair to say, if you’re going back to more of a traditional Diebold seasonality, that in 2010, it would be difficult to have year-over-year earnings growth in the first and second quarter compared to 2009?

Tom Swidarski

President and CEO

Yes, no question. Those are exceedingly difficult comps for us given what happened with Asia and some other major orders that came early in the year. So for us, those will be very difficult comparisons, but the second half of the year really is where a lot of the existing contracts we have a backlog coming in the year actually going to be delivered. Third and fourth quarter for us should be very strong, which reflect much more historically how we’ve performed.

Kartik Mehta - Northcoast Research

Analyst

Brad, just on the Brazilian Elections business, will you try to hedge any of that currency? I know last time there is an election business order that came Diebold benefited from the hedge or movement in currency. So I’m wondering at this time, if you’ll hedge any of it or you’ll just rely on whatever is happening in the currency at that time?

Brad Richardson

Management

In fact, the US dollar components of the raw materials that are going into the voting machines, we’ve already taken action to hedge that in order to protect the margins on the business.

Kartik Mehta - Northcoast Research

Analyst

Final question for you, Brad, you talked a little bit about working capital on the accounts receivable, there’ll be a negative drag in 2010. As you look at the rest of working capital, especially inventories and maybe payables can the improvement in that offset the drag from the receivables or in 2010 will working capital be more of a drag?

Brad Richardson

Management

I think certainly our focus as an organization will be to drive to offset that. We’ve got aggressive plans that we’re working. Again as I mentioned with George Mayes on the inventory, and certainly if you look at our metrics around the day’s payable outstanding, and look at that relative to how quickly our customers pay us, but also look at it on a benchmark basis. We think there’s opportunity there on the payables and we’re already focused on that particular area. So I think those two areas, the inventory and the payables are designed to kind of help offset this drag from the receivables that you mentioned.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Gil Luria - Wedbush Securities.

Gil Luria - Wedbush Securities

Analyst

You gave one piece of the regional guidance you said that you may expect a high single digit. Could you finish the picture with America’s growth excluding Brazil Elections and Asia growth for 2010?

Tom Swidarski

President and CEO

Asia Pacific, I think in terms of right around 10%, or 11% kind of scenario. So, high single digits to low double digits right in that venue. That’s coming off of difficult comps so I feel pretty good in terms of how we’re situated there for 2010. When you think of the Americas in total, you think of it relatively flat. Again we’re excluding Brazil Elections here. So, you have Brazil and Latin America, which look to be, I think, pretty healthy this year, and both would be single digits kind of growth off of from Brazil’s case not pretty good outstanding 2009. So that would put us in a position of being, slightly up there, and then in the Americas, we see that being flat to slightly down, given what we look at right now. Then that has a lot to do with where security is. So security really impacts certainly North America that doesn’t impact anywhere else and we’re still pretty cautious there, simply because the bank branch builds side of things. The number of bank branch builds, was in the range of 3,500 to 4,000. If you went back over the last you know 10, 15 years, this past year it probably came down closer to 2,000, 1,800, somewhere in that range. We’re projecting this year it could slide even further to the 1,500. Thus, we’ve taken our revenue projections down. We might be surprised if some of that active picked up the second half of the year, but again, it doesn’t help us from a revenue standpoint this year. So, that would be my comment relative to kind of a quick view around the world.

Gil Luria - Wedbush Securities

Analyst

You’ve talked about some of the dynamics of the U.S. Will you mention Bank of America rolling off this year and I think last call, you talked about that being about 15% of that business. Where are you going to make that up? Is it banks four through 20? Or is it the banks below that they’re going to help make up that difference, so you only have a low single digit decline.

Brad Richardson

Management

Yes, I think both of those will help us, I mean historically, our strength has been with the regional bank space throughout the United States integrated services helps us in that regard. Deposit automations and the recent deposit automation has been slow to take in terms of regional bank space has been a number of things, but one of the critical things has been that many of these smaller banks, unlike the biggest banks, are dependent upon networks and processors to handle deposit automation. Most of the networks and processors were not prepared to handle the deposit automation capabilities. So while you can equip the unit with it, and someone may make a deposit automation transaction, if the processor doesn’t handle it as such, it basically defeats the whole purpose it. So we’ve spend a lot of time in 2009 helping work with the processors and network to be prepared as more of the smaller banks begin to move. So we see that infrastructure being critical for smaller banks moving and we think we’re in much better shape beginning in 2010 than we were before, relative to infrastructure. Banks still have to make that decision as I mentioned before is somewhat cautious. The second thing I had mentioned is a lot of our integrated services capabilities and skill sets applied very much to deposit automation. Due to the complexity of installing deposit automation, changes required from an operational standpoint and the process change the bank needs to make in many cases that leads to a discussion of integrated services, which works out to very good, but the discussions take a little bit longer. So from our standpoint, it’s the regional bank and the middle bank space, we have a lot of opportunities from deposit automation kind of going forward. When I look at the banks 40-20, you would say that we are exceedingly well positioned in several of those banks are 100% Diebold’s kind of accounts, others have a mix of providers, but in all those cases we’ve got, what I’d call meaningful relationships with those players and while many of them are in pilot today and don’t have large plans to rollout. In the beginning of 2010, we would see probably again the second half of 2010 and into 2011 as maybe some meaningful rollouts. We’re working our way through each one of those accounts. We’ve account teams that work with those and we’re pretty close to those customers, so I feel pretty good about our opportunities as you start moving out to the rest of the environment.

Gil Luria - Wedbush Securities

Analyst

It seemed like a lot of the variability in your results has to do with the financial line. First of all, on tax, I think last quarter we were talking about 18%, 23%, and now we’re talking about 28% for next year. So first of all, what is the big swing factor there? Is the 28% more what we should expect going forward as a more steady state tax rate?

Brad Richardson

Management

I think, again, in answer to your question, I think the 28% is where we think we’re going to be in 2010, and that’s a good tax rate for planning purposes on a go forward basis. As we mentioned in the presentation, our guidance, as you pointed out, had been 18%, but there was six percentage points associated with the Brazil tax valuation allowance, and we would expect that to continue, so that brings your rate up to 24%. As we look to 2010 and we look at the mix of income, the actions that we’re taking here in North America, higher tax jurisdictions, but it’s designed to improve our overall profitability out on North America. So that weights towards the higher tax jurisdiction and then as Tom, I has spoken to some of the growth that we have coming out of Europe, again, another higher tax jurisdiction. So it’s those factors, which I think support the 28% tax rate that we’ve provided you in the guidance, as well as for planning purposes.

Gil Luria - Wedbush Securities

Analyst

Then your other line of the financial line was positive, I think for the first time in a little while. Part of it, I’m sure, that your net debt is lower, although returns on your cash were probably not very good. So what was the big driver of making that a positive number?

Brad Richardson

Management

Yes, there are a couple of factors. Certainly, the currency and the translation of our working capital balances that contributed kind of about $8 million to the swing that you’re pointing out. So that was quite favorable in the quarter. Again as you pointed out, our debt balances are lower. So our overall net debt cost and so basically, again, net interest costs coupled with the higher interest income, call it $6 million or so favorable. So those were the two large items that swung that other line to a positive, as you point out.

Gil Luria - Wedbush Securities

Analyst

Last question about uses of cash, now that you have a lot of cash on the balance sheet, your net debt is much lower than it has been historically. What’s the baseline level of cash that you feel you need to operate the business? How much cash do you think you have available for the kind of renewed buy back? Although it sounds like you tend to have a cautious buyback, how much cash do you think you have available for that? How much cash do you intend to retire debt early? I imagine those are the two primary uses of cash going forward.

Brad Richardson

Management

Yes, let me just without getting into all the details, certainly as you’re probably aware, some of our cash clearly is outside of North America to support the operations outside of North America. Also, obviously, there are tax consequences of repatriation of cash. So we have to weigh this very, very carefully, and our treasury team does that quite well. So what I would say again is at this point is, certainly we find ourselves in a position where the net debt is low, our capitalization ratio is low, but we’re going to be quite careful here as we go forward in terms of evaluating stock buybacks, because we have to weigh that also again against tax consequences in some of the repatriation activity, as well as and more importantly that the need to fund the growth of the business through some of the smaller bolt on type of acquisitions.

Gil Luria - Wedbush Securities

Analyst

So how about retirement of debt? Is that on the table in terms of taking that some of the debt that you have on the books right now?

Brad Richardson

Management

Certainly, again, as we look to repatriate cash and to the extent that cash isn’t used for small bolt on type acquisitions, absolutely we would look to retire debt.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Paul Coster - JP Morgan.

Paul Coster - JP Morgan

Analyst

A couple of quick questions, your visibility into a stronger second half seems to be quite good on the top line. Can you just give us some sense of the margin outlook as well associated with the order book?

Tom Swidarski

President and CEO

Yes, I would say, you take a look at the margin let me comment on service and then product, if I can, as well. On the service side, we’ve been able to walk up the margin relative to service pretty effectively as we mentioned 10 consecutive quarters and our goal this year would be able to increase that modestly again. So my expectation for 2010 on the service side is to improve our gross margins there. That’s a result of productivity; it’s a result of keeping prices in a relatively stable environment kind of globally, and our ability to manage that very, very closely. So I feel pretty confident in that regard. On the product side, it’s a little more challenging, because you have more impact of mix. So as we’ve talked, trading off regional banks in the U.S. for growth in Asia and EMEA, it was a difficult trade off in that regard. So I would say that, I’m not as confident in terms of what the gross margins on product, but I do think that expecting it to be with all the actions that we’re taking to be right around the neutral range would be kind of what I would be expecting for what we’ve seen so far.

Paul Coster - JP Morgan

Analyst

Why is it that you don’t have any range in EPS expectations around the contribution from the Brazil Electoral Systems program? Is $0.25 good or bad?

Tom Swidarski

President and CEO

Well, the contract is pretty locked in terms of the pricing this time was very fixed. I think it ends up being about US $700, for the 160,000 terminals, and everything is very locked down relative to every aspect of that, so and since, Brad mentioned before what we’re doing from a hedging standpoint, there’s not going to be fluctuation that we experienced last time. Last time, it worked in our favor. We were concerned about it. This time we took that risk off the table. So in essence, it is pretty locked.

Paul Coster - JP Morgan

Analyst

You sound pretty relaxed about the customer acceptance and timing of deliveries there.

Tom Swidarski

President and CEO

Probably relaxed is not in my nature, but I’m glad it came across that way. I can assure you I always on the phone with our folks from Brazil, probably more than they cared to, but I think the good news for us is, we have delivered and this is a different technology this time, which is making it more complicated, but we’ve delivered in this regard. We’ve got a service organization and capability on there from a project management and engineering standpoint, and our resource and capability there is exceedingly high and very talented, which is what put us in this position. So I have a great deal of confidence of our ability to deliver and deliver a very high quality on time election for them.

Paul Coster - JP Morgan

Analyst

Changing subjects, you’re seeing some strength in Europe in the second half of the year from your order book. What is it that is actually happening in Europe? Is it a few big accounts? Is it broad-based? Is it specific geographies? Is it deposit automation? Can you give us some color?

Tom Swidarski

President and CEO

Yes, I would say it’s a couple of large accounts. Deposit automation plays a big role there of branch reengineering and reinvigoration that includes deposit automation as part of it. We were fortunate to have done some pretty successful programs in the past in Belgium that we’re now able to leverage into other regions within EMEA, which is a good entry for us, because we don’t want to compete relative to trying to come in with just a cash dispenser. So we’re talking about a redesigning offices and as part of that, deposit automation is playing a big role. So that’s been good. Relative to the Middle East, we’ve got some good prospects there that we’re working very closely with. So there’s been more activity, and what I would call more meaningful activity, throughout EMEA than we saw through really in the first three quarters of 2009 in EMEA. So that’s kind of the general outlook.

Paul Coster - JP Morgan

Analyst

Two more questions. Actually, Brad, at what percentage of revenues actually originates in the U.S. in 4Q? While you’re looking that up, can I just ask one more question of Tom? Brazil looks like it’s going to get pretty competitive. NCR has opened up a domestic operation there seems, a domestic supplier of rates seems to be doing pretty well. Are we sort of headed for a really tough environment in Brazil a year out from now?

Tom Swidarski

President and CEO

I would say there are very viable competitors in Brazil, and there always have been. Certainly, there’s NCR and others see a healthy market and want to participate, but the difference in Brazil is, you need a very specific product. So while you may be able to produce a product there that you’re shipping to other parts of the world, you can’t take your product from other parts of the world and bring it go to Brazil and be successful. So part of our success there is the operations, and what we’ve done from an integrated services and outsourcing standpoint, understands the dimensions of what goes on within that market. So I’m confident in terms of our capabilities there. Will the market get more competitive? I think so, but I don’t really think that from our standpoint, it should materially shift in terms of our experience and our expectations going forward.

Brad Richardson

Management

Just the North American revenue was about 50%, about half of our total revenue.

Tom Swidarski

President and CEO

Donny, I know there are a number of callers still in the queue. Unfortunately, we only have time for one other question. For the others that are in queue, we’ll make an effort to reach out to you at the conclusion of this call.

Operator

Operator

Your final question comes from Zahid Siddique - Gabelli & Co. Zahid Siddique - Gabelli & Co.: I have a couple of questions I’ll try to make it quick. The first one is on net debt. You talked about that on slide 26. From September ‘09 to December ‘09, during that three month period, your net debt has improved by roughly $150 million and your cash has gone up by $120 million in that period. What are the components of that $120 million cash that you generated in Q4?

Brad Richardson

Management

When you say components, are you talking about I mean, basically the components, as we’ve pointed out here, certainly we find ourselves in a very strong position, and some of our customers were accelerated payments to Diebold and that was roughly about $50 million of accelerated payments, so that clearly came through the working capital. In addition, just the way that our contracts typically work on a certain contracts that we have, our year-end, if you look at it historically, typically the fourth quarter is always strong cash generation quarter. Zahid Siddique - Gabelli & Co.: So $50 million was the accounts receivables and then the rest was just natural cash generation?

Brad Richardson

Management

Yes, accelerated cash generation, which again is something we typically, if you look at the pattern of the some of the terms and contractual terms we have with our customers, we typically queue to fourth quarter.

Tom Swidarski

President and CEO

Just to clarify, the $50 million were early payments. That’s not total accounts receivables. Those were ones that came in earlier than the due date.

John Kristoff

Management

The other thing, Zahid, I would say that our DSO improvement, yes, we worked very hard on that. Our DSO improvement was significant in almost every region that we touched around the globe this year. So the fourth quarter was outstanding performance, certainly from a finance teams. Zahid Siddique - Gabelli & Co.: Tom, on the elections business, any strategic review, or what’s your take on that the Brazilian Election business?

Tom Swidarski

President and CEO

Yes, we’re obviously focused on delivering on the current contract that we have, so we’ve got all resources and project management, tightly coupled with them. Our goal is to provide them the technology they need and they take it from there in terms of how they use it and run the elections, but my expectation will be that this will put us in very good stead when they have generally gone out to bid every two years. So my expectation would be when they go out, if this technology performs as we think it can, it will put us in very good stead kind of going forward. They have somewhere in the neighborhood of 400,000, 425,000 terminals that they use every time they run these elections. So if in fact we’re replacing 160,000 or 170,000 now that gives us a pretty good opportunity if it runs the way they think it is going to run for being in a position to continue to take advantage of that. As we mentioned before, they have the opportunity, even from this current win, to order an additional 90,000 terminals under the terms of this contract, and they have through the end of 2011 to do that. So again, I think, if they exercise that option that would be a good signal to us that they really like the technology and it’s proving out well. Zahid Siddique - Gabelli & Co.: So just so I understand, you plan to stay in the business, as far as you can tell?

Tom Swidarski

President and CEO

Yes, in Brazil? Zahid Siddique - Gabelli & Co.: Yes.

Tom Swidarski

President and CEO

Yes. Absolutely, I’m sorry. I was answering a different question. Absolutely, it’s run by the federal government, it’s one body makes a decision, here’s the spec. You meet the spec, they take responsibility to run the election. So it’s a very different environment than other places in the world we’ve been involved. Zahid Siddique - Gabelli & Co.: Last question on slide 28, you talked about the revenue mix shift being moved lower. You talked about the U.S. regionals and the international geography. Could you talk about that lower mix aspect?

Tom Swidarski

President and CEO

Yes, so that revenue mix really has to do with a couple of key factors. First of all, as we commented, more of the mix is going to be coming outside the United States than inside the United States. So you’ve got just from a comparable standpoint, a lot of times the margins there are lower than they are within the United States. You also have the phenomena, that continues relative to the bigger banks get bigger inside the United States and there’s fewer smaller banks. So you’ve got more orders from the largest institutions for us, and then I think the last effect is Asia Pacific. Certain countries within Asia have a different impact in terms of margins. As we continue to grow, certain countries like India and Indonesia don’t carry the same margins as Thailand or China would for us. The last aspect of that is the Brazil outsourcing contract, which we had enjoyed for many years with one of the major government banks they’ve in-sourced a lot of that. So that also had good margins associated with it. So when you mix all that together, that’s really reflected on that revenue mix slide of $0.15, whatever slide that was a reconciliation slide.

Operator

Operator

That does conclude the question-and-answer session. I’ll turn the call back over to Mr. John Kristoff.

John Kristoff

Management

Thanks, Donny, and thank you, everyone, for joining us this morning. Again, my apologies to those in the queue that we were unable to get to from a Q-and-A standpoint, and we will reach out to you following the call. Again, if any of you have follow-up questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to us, and thanks again for joining us today.

Operator

Operator

That does conclude today’s call. We thank you for your participation.