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Griffon Corporation (GFF)

Q4 2012 Earnings Call· Tue, Nov 13, 2012

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Griffon Corporation Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2012 Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Mr. Doug Wetmore, CFO. Please go ahead, sir.

Douglas Wetmore

Management

Thank you, Catherine, good afternoon, everyone. And with me on the call is Ron Kramer, our Chief Executive Officer. Before we get into the details of the call, there are certain matters that I want to bring to your attention. First, I'll mention again that our call today is being recorded and will be available for playback. Details regarding the playback are provided in our press release issued earlier today and are also available on our website. Second, during our call, we'll make certain forward-looking statements about the company's performance. And such forward-looking statements are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed. For additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ from those discussed in our forward-looking statements, you should refer to the cautionary statements contained in today's press release, as well as the risk factors that we discuss in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Finally, some of today's prepared remarks will adjust for those items that affect comparability between reporting periods. These items are laid out in our non-GAAP reconciliations, which are included in our press release. Thank you, all. Now, I'll turn the call over to Ron.

Ronald Kramer

Management

Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining the call. We're pleased with our fourth quarter results. They were in line with our expectations and underscore how well we believe each of our businesses is operating in this challenging global economic environment. In particular, Telephonics had another strong quarter and achieved record profitability for the year, benefiting in part from a more favorable product mix. Plastics continued to show improvements from the initiatives undertaken to address the manufacturing inefficiencies that arose from our capacity expansion. Home and Building Products benefited from our doors business, but several of our customers' carryover inventory of snow tools from last year's unbelievably unusually warm winter contributed to lower sales and profitability at Ames in the current quarter. Consolidated revenue decreased by 8% to $447 million compared to the prior year quarter. HBP, Telephonics and Plastics revenue decreased 5%, 13% and 6%, respectively, in comparison to the prior year quarter. Our consolidated segment adjusted EBITDA was $37 million, which was 10% lower than the prior year quarter. And for the full year, we achieved EBITDA of $171 million. Fourth quarter EPS was $0.06 per share compared to $0.06 per share in the prior year quarter, and our adjusted EPS was $0.04 compared to $0.07 in the prior year quarter. Let me take you through each of the operating segments in greater detail so that you can better understand the direction in which each is heading and why we're confident about their long-term prospects. I'll start with Telephonics, which continues to perform extremely well because of our position on mission-critical programs, insulated categories of procurement, proprietary technology and excellent execution. Telephonics revenue in the quarter declined $18 million compared to the prior year quarter. Core revenue, which excludes sales associated with the CREW 3.1 program, for which…

Douglas Wetmore

Management

Thanks, Ron. Good afternoon, again, everybody. Consolidated revenue totaled $447 million in the quarter, and that represents a decrease of 8% in comparison to the prior year quarter. As Ron mentioned, all 3 business segments saw reported revenue declines in comparison to the prior year. Telephonics revenue declined $18 million to $122 million. And as Ron again noted, the decrease in the quarter was partly attributable to a decline in CREW 3.1 revenue, where we serve as a contract manufacturer. Excluding that CREW 3.1 revenue from the current and prior year periods, Q4 2012 core revenue [indiscernible] the prior year quarter by $8.7 million or 7%. That variation due to timing of orders regarding mobile surveillance capability, integrated fixed tower, as well as the timing of awards for Ground Surveillance Radar. Telephonics adjusted EBITDA of $13.7 million was roughly equivalent with the year ago quarter, while segment EBITDA margin increased 160 basis points. While Telephonics full year revenue of $442 million declined 3% compared to 2011, core revenue, again excluding CREW 3.1 revenue from both years, increased 2%. Importantly, we achieved record profitability with segment EBITDA of $61 million and segment EBITDA margin of 13.7%. This compares to $51 million and a margin of 11.2% for the prior year. Telephonics' improved profitability has been a function of favorable product mix and manufacturing efficiencies, as well as lowered selling, general and administrative expenses related to the timing of proposal in research and development activities. Operating results also benefited from cost reduction activities undertaken -- the voluntary yearly retirement plan undertaken in the prior year and other restructuring activities implemented earlier this fiscal year. Importantly, the improvements to the Telephonics cost structure are not only contributing to current profitability improvements, but they're also making business more cost competitive in bidding on future…

Ronald Kramer

Management

Again, we're pleased with our overall performance for the year. We're well-positioned for today's uncertain business and economic environment. Telephonics is poised to grow. Plastics will continue to improve, and we expect Home and Building products to benefit from a recovery in housing. We see excellent growth opportunities, both in the existing businesses and through strategic acquisition, particularly with smaller tuck-ins that can meaningfully boost profitability. With any improvement in the global economy, we expect to see our profitability significantly expand. We believe that all of our businesses have room to grow and should outperform their competition. We have ample resources to invest in these businesses to support their growth, and we remain excited about their prospects. We've not only built a strong business, but we have talented management in each of our businesses to take us forward, enabling us to continue to create value for our shareholders. Thank you. And with that, operator, we'll open it up for questions.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] We'll take our first question from Bob Labick with CJS Securities.

Bob Labick

Analyst

You guys have touched on a lot. I just wanted to drill down a little further on some of your comments. Starting with HBP and Ames, obviously, you have the very tough comparison with the nonexistent winter last year. Could you just help us understand what it'll take -- how long will it take to get through that inventory correction, and what are your more normalized margins once we get through that?

Douglas Wetmore

Management

Bob, we could go through that inventory correction very quickly if we had just a couple of heavy snow falls like we had in the East last week.

Ronald Kramer

Management

And I'll tell you, at this point last year, 11% of the country was covered in snow. At this point this year, 31% is covered in snow, and that was on the morning news. Look, obviously, the business -- the better the snowfall in the United States and in Canada -- and I want to point out, Canada has had 2 record years of low snow. We're the dominant snow shovel provider, snow tool provider in Canada in Garant, and they've had 2 horrifically low snow falls. We own this businesses with a very long-term horizon. There'll be good years, there'll be bad years. It's out of our control. And we are hopeful that we have more snow. As a skier, I'm always looking for better ski conditions, so maybe this will be the year.

Douglas Wetmore

Management

I think the credit to the Ames folks that forecast the impact in the fourth quarter on the under-absorption that we saw because of anticipated lower snow sales. So we had a pretty good handle on that. The one thing that they're just not capable of predicting is when the snow is going to fall. And the only way to eat through the inventory at -- for customers and to drive further demand for snow tools on the part of Ames is to get snowfall, and that's one thing that we're just not that good at predicting.

Bob Labick

Analyst

Fair enough, fair enough. Jumping over to Telephonics. Any updated clarity, postelection, on any impact if there might be from sequestration? And then, if not on that, can you give us an update as well on Fire Scout, where it stands and how that program is progressing?

Ronald Kramer

Management

Look, we can't add anything to the much bigger conversation. Sequestration is a really bad idea. We are hopeful that the fiscal cliff is avoided and that there is a deal. I think it's clear that it's good for the economy. It would be, in my -- and this is a personal view -- a horrific result for the U.S. economy for us to actually have to deal with the effects of sequestration. But this is not a new problem. And as I said in the remarks, we've been looking at this since last summer. And we have taken steps in dealing with what we expect to be a continued pressure environment for defense contracting whether or not sequestration happens. We are very well positioned on Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance programs. And particularly, that our confidence is not dependent on the result of what's going to happen or not happen in Washington over the next several months. We have funded backlog of $450-odd million going into this year. We have good visibility on our programs, particularly our radar base programs, going through 2013. The Fire Scout program was never intended to go into production until the back end of 2013, so that's a funded program. How that might be impacted if and when sequestration ultimately happens is, of course, an issue. But for us, it was always a 2014, '15, '16 impact on our growth in that business. Look, when we look back and we look at where Telephonics was in 2008, to where they are today, we've grown our top line by over 25% and we've grown our EBITDA line by nearly 50% [ph]. We really like this business. It's done an absolutely outstanding job of being able to grow in difficult times. There's going to be continued issues around the world and, regardless of what the defense budget ultimately turns out to be, we think our products are positioned extraordinarily well to be a beneficiary of whatever spending is going to be there to provide for national defense. We've taken all the other initiatives to grow internationally to be able to offset whatever slowdown in growth might happen in the U.S. market.

Douglas Wetmore

Management

And meanwhile, they've done a very good job of rightsizing their cost base.

Bob Labick

Analyst

Okay, great. And I'll ask one more and I'll get back in queue. Just jumping over to films, you've obviously driven a lot of growth this year, the 10% volumes is great. What's needed to get to your 10%-plus margins from here and how long roughly should that take?

Douglas Wetmore

Management

Well, you know, it's an evolutionary process, and I think Ron and I would be the first ones to admit that it's taken longer to get there than we initially thought, and that's why we extended the time frame for meeting those expectations earlier this year. It's into 2013, and we're going to have to continue to update, because a lot of it depends, as well as continue to getting -- getting top line growth and volume growth, because this is a business that needs that volume throughput to absorb the expenses. And as Ron mentioned, particularly, the European economy is weak, and that impacts profitability for the Plastics business. So we're continuing with a number of initiatives to improve the yield and improve efficiency. They've made a great deal of progress on that, and they deserve credit for the progress made, but we expect them to continue to improve further. Having said that, we were at the 9% EBITDA margin, just under it this quarter, and that is a substantial step forward from the past several quarters and certainly from a year ago. So they're making great progress.

Ronald Kramer

Management

Yes, and I'd add to that that Alan Koblin has been running the Plastics business since January. He's done an outstanding job. He's rebuilt the team around him. I expect him to continue to do that. Our relationship with our key customers is good and we are going to make it better. We're committed to growing this business. We can't deal with the slowdown in Europe any other way than how we have been dealing with it. We're trying to offset higher resin prices, which is somewhat counterintuitive in a declining market, but we like where the business is today better than we like where it was sequentially a quarter ago and certainly where it was a year ago, and I hope to be able to say the same thing both sequentially over the next several quarters and over the next several years. I think we're on the right track of positioning the business, and look, North America is clearly carrying the business today, and the rest of the German and Brazilian businesses have shown significant improvement. But we like the trends that we see in that business.

Operator

Operator

And we'll take our next question from Tim Quillin with Stephens Incorporated.

Timothy Quillin

Analyst · Stephens Incorporated.

Just looking at Ames historically, if you go back to '07, '08, they were doing something like $500 million in revenue and, apples-to-apples, excluding out a couple of acquisitions since then, you're probably below $400 million in revenue. So the question is, how much of that is, that delta, is weather, and how much is the economy? And what would be -- what would you think would be a normal revenue year if weather was "normal"?

Ronald Kramer

Management

Well, let me -- I think there are a couple of questions in there. Let me break it down. First is that we believe that Ames has maintained market share, and in fact, we believe we gained market share, and we've positioned the company, going into 2013 and beyond, to be able to maintain our position with all of our key customers. Clearly, that has happened with some level of margin erosion, and that's a reflection of weak economy, both domestically, and global overcapacity, where we've had to deal with price competition. The broader point is that it's pointless to talk about the impact of weather because it didn't happen. But if you had to put a number on this year, and I don't want to try to go back to the years prior to us owning the business, but this is a $25 million top line impairment by having no snow season.

Douglas Wetmore

Management

It's probably -- it could arguably be north of that, Tim. It's just a question of how much remains in the inventory of our customers, which we think we have an estimate of, but that's the cascade effect that we'll really only have the true answer for at the end of this winter season when we evaluate the performance. So it's usually a bad -- I guess, we've learned that bad snow seasons lead to 2 bad snow seasons because of the impact of the inventory adjustment.

Ronald Kramer

Management

And it's not just snow. We had 2 hundred year events. Remember spring of '11, we had no spring because of excess rain and there was no lawn and garden sales, and we've had a winter in both North America that was problematic this year and in Canada for the last 2 years. So clearly, we've struggled with weather impact on the business. The offset to that has been, we've reduced the manufacturing cost. We're going to continue to rightsize our manufacturing as we go forward, and we'll continue to look at product innovation, which is really the key to growing back the margins, in addition to working for tuck-in acquisitions, so we clearly understand that the top line of this business needs to improve. Part of that comes from a better domestic economy and part of it comes from a better set of weather patterns than what we've experienced.

Timothy Quillin

Analyst · Stephens Incorporated.

And then on your most recent tuck-in acquisition on Southern Patio. First of all, do you have the specific revenue contribution in the quarter?

Douglas Wetmore

Management

It's a couple of million dollars. It's a very small quarter. That typically is in the -- at the end of our first fiscal quarter and the bulk is in the second quarter.

Timothy Quillin

Analyst · Stephens Incorporated.

So how much would -- so in your first quarter, how -- is it that low, or is it a little bit higher? Is that how it kind of ramps up seasonally?

Douglas Wetmore

Management

Southern Patio?

Timothy Quillin

Analyst · Stephens Incorporated.

Southern Patio, excuse me.

Douglas Wetmore

Management

Southern Patio ramps up significantly the latter stage, let's say December, and then substantially in the January-to-May timeframe.

Timothy Quillin

Analyst · Stephens Incorporated.

And then just generally, as that performed, has the revenue contribution met your expectations or exceeded?

Ronald Kramer

Management

It's met our expectations and exceeded our profitability.

Timothy Quillin

Analyst · Stephens Incorporated.

And you mentioned...

Douglas Wetmore

Management

That was very complementary as well with the existing dynamic design business.

Ronald Kramer

Management

It was a good tuck-in acquisitions for us, and it was as we had advertised. We thought we were picking up incremental revenues at a very low multiple.

Timothy Quillin

Analyst · Stephens Incorporated.

And are there others like that, that you've identified?

Ronald Kramer

Management

We are always looking. There's never a day where we're not searching for those types of opportunities.

Timothy Quillin

Analyst · Stephens Incorporated.

And then on Telephonics, what are you thinking about right now for bookings in the December quarter and the March quarter as we have all this swirling nonsense around sequestration?

Douglas Wetmore

Management

As we said, at September 30, the book is at a record high, and we have had strong bookings to date through October. And so I think the backlog that we have, combined with rightsizing the cost structure, has insulated Telephonics for the first part of our fiscal 2013. And if they don't get the cliff addressed by 12/31 and they kick it down the road a little bit, which would not be surprising, at least Telephonics will continue to be in a very good position with the funded backlog and a cost structure that will allow us to maintain profitability at or close to the current levels.

Ronald Kramer

Management

So while sequestration is clearly a broader issue, we very much have visibility within Telephonics through 2013. And the pattern there has been quite positive over the last several years.

Timothy Quillin

Analyst · Stephens Incorporated.

And on the CREW program, do you expect additional revenue in your fiscal '13, or what's the outlook there?

Douglas Wetmore

Management

Yes. We do expect some. And it might be very well spare parts for existing units, or it might be some additional orders. It's kind of hard to say because there's no real pattern for that. And also, you aren't seeing the anticipated drawdown of our troops, which should impact that. So the guidance that we provided was exclusive of any CREW 3.1 revenue, and then we'll always continue to highlight CREW 3.1 as either increase or decrease, simply because we are a contract manufacturer for that.

Timothy Quillin

Analyst · Stephens Incorporated.

And then just lastly what are -- to get the that mid-single digit growth in Telephonics, excluding CREW 3.1, what are some of the specific programs that you feel like will drive some of that growth?

Douglas Wetmore

Management

Tim, probably the same ones that have in the past. As Ron mentioned, the LAMPS MMR, very strong. We got the second contract with Lockheed Martin for that, I think, in May of 2012. And Telephonics also has the benefit of having several programs, so not singularly reliant on any one. And based on order activity, foreign military sales and so forth, it's really across a broad base of programs.

Ronald Kramer

Management

And it's got some near-term significant growth possibilities, particularly around mobile surveillance. So again, we like the trajectory that it's been on and we like the products in the backlog going into this year and beyond.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] We'll go to Zahid Siddique with Gabelli and Company.

Zahid Siddique

Analyst

A couple of questions. First one on the Ames True Temper business, what was the revenue growth for the non-snow-type business. So for spring or summer-type business, or landscaping-type business, what was the revenue growth in the quarter?

Douglas Wetmore

Management

Well, that's pretty much -- that's a pretty small part of the business this time of year. You're selling leaf rakes. It seems to be that one of the only things you could predict with a great deal of regularity is the fact that the leaves will fall in September and October. But remember, the spring lawn and garden season is where the bulk of lawn and garden new revenue is from. And remember, earlier in the year, one of the other weather events that we've enjoyed this year is, one, very weak snow, but also after a very strong April, the balance of the spring and lawn garden season was really dealing with drought conditions, which impacted lawn and garden sales.

Zahid Siddique

Analyst

Okay. And then in terms of the profitability of that segment, and I guess the Building Product segment in general, I mean there was -- it seems like there is a sizable volatility, if you look between Q3 and Q4, it seems like there is a sizable drop, and -- a year-ago period, in terms of profitability, I mean -- what's the rationale then to be in a business that can be so much volatile in that respect?

Douglas Wetmore

Management

Well, first of all, it's been around 1774, so it's probably weathered some unusual weather patterns before. But the volatility on the profitability in the fourth quarter, in our fiscal fourth quarter, was really driven by the absence of production of snow tools. And again, that was because of the excess of inventory at our customers. And that's why I mentioned earlier on the call that I complimented Ames True Temper folks for having foreseen that slowdown in production in the fourth quarter and taken that into account in providing the guidance that we provided when we released second quarter earnings, which we said we'd be at around 170 and we came in at 171. There is volatility because it's a business that you need to produce and get throughput. It's not dissimilar to Plastics in that regard.

Ronald Kramer

Management

To your point, Zahid, we actually are quite pleased. Of course, we would have liked to have more revenue and more profitability. But everyone wants to talk about the long term, and we own a business that we think has leading market share position that's complementary to our existing Garage Door business in terms of our relationship with customers. And in spite of the worst possible impact, we still did better than $70 million of EBITDA, and we generated, on the Ames part of the business, cash of more than $20 million. So this business is good for us. It's strategic, and we're going to continue to grow it. There'll be good years hopefully in the not-distant future for that business. But the balancing of owning it among a group of companies, in my mind, is far better than owning that as a single asset or single finance spend today. So we very much like what our blended performance and what our blended credit profile looks like in owning that business.

Zahid Siddique

Analyst

Okay. And just moving on to the Garage Door. In the quarter, revenue grew about 1%. I felt that was a little light. If we look at any building products company that has reported with the housing market recovering -- I mean, today, Home Depot reported recently, we have had manufacturers report -- why is that number not 15% or 10% when we are seeing such improvement in the housing market? What's -- you were 7% in the quarter before, so what's the shortfall there, and was that a profitable segment or a subunit?

Douglas Wetmore

Management

First of all, the sales actually declined 1%, as we said, although we did have favorable mix. And for the year, we were up between 4% and 5%, which I think is a really outstanding performance when there has been such a persistently weak housing market for this year.

Ronald Kramer

Management

Yes, let's not confuse -- there is an improvement to the housing market. There has not been a recovery in housing. So this is the beginning of a recovery in new starts, in new construction. And from where we are, from a capacity standpoint, we're still the leading Garage Door manufacturer in the United States. And we absolutely are pleased with what we're seeing in that business. But there is not a broad-based 15% growth pattern for that business.

Zahid Siddique

Analyst

Okay. And was that profitable?

Ronald Kramer

Management

Yes, sure.

Zahid Siddique

Analyst

In the quarter?

Ronald Kramer

Management

Yes. Look, remember, it was profitable for the quarter, profitable for the year that -- remember, we don't break out the profitability of Ames True Temper and doors individually, but both businesses are profitable, have been profitable throughout this year, and have been profitable since the day we acquired Ames True Temper.

Zahid Siddique

Analyst

Okay, great. Just last real quick question, did you say the tax rate would be 46% to 48% for 2013?

Douglas Wetmore

Management

Yes.

Zahid Siddique

Analyst

Okay. And why is it high? You might have explained that. Why is it higher?

Douglas Wetmore

Management

Because of non-deductibility -- certain permanent differences that are nondeductible. Most significantly, some restricted stock that is nondeductible. It's the same reasons that have been disclosed in past press releases and in 10-Q, and I believe actually the last year's 10-K.

Operator

Operator

And we will continue to on to Marty Pollack with NWQ Investment Management.

Martin Pollack

Analyst

Sorry to beat more questions on ATT, but I just want to wonder, clearly, last 2 seasons have been very poor. I mean, you saw that in last year's sales as well in the June number, most of that attributed to the snow, low snow environment. The additional rankle this year was the drought impact? Because clearly -- because I'm just wondering, the $25 million you suggested was, I think, a number that was maybe light, did that include the drought impact as well?

Douglas Wetmore

Management

That was only the snow. The drought, which really impacted us in the May, June through July and August timeframe, is very difficult to quantify per se. But obviously, it led to excess inventory at our -- at many of our customers, which impacts follow-on sales for restocking. But we did not quantify the drought impact. We just know that it was an element that affected our business as well as a number of other lawn and garden companies.

Ronald Kramer

Management

Yes. But point-of-sale it retails significantly down in our fourth quarter.

Martin Pollack

Analyst

I'm curious, on the operating rate, I'm just wondering whether in that -- in this quarter, what did you see during -- I mean, does the operating translate into lower production, and then lower sales as well? Just going from a timing.

Douglas Wetmore

Management

Yes, it was both of those. But remember, this time of year, believe it or not, in August and September, Ames would typically be shipping their -- the fill-in for snow shovels. And we saw very little of that. There was some, but many of our customers were left with extraordinary amounts of inventory because of the absence of snow last winter. As a result of that and in the planning process, we foresaw that our customers had excess inventory, we didn't produce additional snow shovels, or as many snow shovels as we might otherwise do. And remember, not only were our customers left with snow shovel inventory, but we were left with excess inventory. Which, I mean, it didn't go bad. A snow shovel doesn't go obsolete...

Ronald Kramer

Management

Fortunately, they don't go out of style.

Douglas Wetmore

Management

But we shipped them in August and September, as well as October, when we ideally would have shipped them last January and February.

Martin Pollack

Analyst

And operating rates would have been historically at a low level during this quarter, then?

Douglas Wetmore

Management

Compared to a normalized year, yes. The expense absorption at the main manufacturing location for Ames True Temper was markedly impacted by the reduced snow shovel production. And that flowed through as a period expense.

Martin Pollack

Analyst

Okay. Just turning to Telephonics for a moment, the most recent this quarter still showed pretty strong margins, around 12%. Just going forward with the sort of what looks like an improved mix and a lot of things that remain very resilient. Is this likely to be the kind of a new normal margin? I mean could you have historically been near the 11% area? We clearly had the June quarter was unusual, but September quarter coming back still fairly strong. Is this more indicative of future Telephonics margins, the 12% type number?

Ronald Kramer

Management

It is, and it's what we've been working through on taking costs out of the business, and we're going to continue to look at improving margins there.

Douglas Wetmore

Management

We counseled earlier this year that no one should model Telephonics at a 14% or 15% sustained EBITDA margin level but -- because we were getting the benefit of costs taken out that were not replaced, but they've lowered our cost base and that will allow them to be more competitive moving forward. But I think realistically, we also said that a business that historically was 10% to 11% EBITDA margin could reasonably be modeled at a 12% to 13% EBITDA margin long-term, and it's going to vary a little bit year-over-year depending on product mix.

Martin Pollack

Analyst

Yes. And lastly, just on your comments about being prepared very early for the possibility of sequestration. To what extent will -- did you do anything unusual so that, in effect...

Ronald Kramer

Management

Well, Martin, it's more than sequestration. It's obvious that the defense budget is going to be under pressure. And we're consolidating facilities. We've dealt with rightsizing human resources. We are preparing ourselves to be increasingly more profitable on what we expect to be not particularly robust top line growth. And the way you make more money is to take costs out of your business. That was obvious to us last summer that things were going to be more difficult. Joe Battaglia has executed the strategy brilliantly, and the results speak for themselves. We think that's here to stay.

Douglas Wetmore

Management

Remember, we took out -- we had a voluntary retirement program at the end of last fiscal year. We reorganized certain business units in the first quarter of this fiscal year. There was some additional early-retirement actions taken in this fourth quarter, which was a restructuring charge for Telephonics. And we consolidated facilities at Telephonics during the course of this fiscal year to better streamline manufacturing and reduce overheads. So -- and all of those things were driven based on knowing, in the summer of 2011, that the potential for sequestration was facing us. So as Ron said, kudos to Telephonics management for taking those actions early on. Is it enough? No one knows.

Ronald Kramer

Management

Look, it gets back to we believe our products are necessary, are valuable, and that we deliver great product and great value to our customers. So we're going to be here. Telephonics has been around for -- it'll be celebrating its 80th anniversary next year. This is a really good business, really well run, and we're going to continue to invest in people, in facilities, and regardless of where the defense budget goes, we expect to continue to perform.

Operator

Operator

And we will take our final question from Philip Volpicelli with Deutsche Bank.

Philip Volpicelli

Analyst

I have 2 questions, I'll just put them both out there and you guys can address it separately. The first is, there has been talk of Kimberly-Clark moving out of Europe with their diaper business, and just wondering what effect, if any, will that have on your business. The second question is, with potential changes to tax policies, what are your thoughts regarding a onetime special dividend before the end of the year, assuming that the government can change things that quickly?

Ronald Kramer

Management

First, on the Kimberly Clark, we do business with them where we look to continue to do business with them. And the reflection of their -- and it's more than talk, as I understand it. They have formally announced that they're exiting a number of businesses in Europe. I think that's a reflection of my earlier comment. It's just how difficult the European economy is and how much overcapacity is there. And at some level, this is a positive for us because we're hopeful that some of that business goes to some of our other customers in the market and that we get some more absorption in our German facilities. So on balance, I think it's got some upside, though this is -- remains a very difficult and moving set of variables on what's going to happen to the European economy, let alone what's going to happen to the U.S. economy. To your comment about special dividends, while we've increased our quarterly dividends, we have no intention on paying out a special dividend. We're going to build this company. We've built a very liquid balance sheet. We're going to use that to opportunistically grow. We've bought back stock. We're going to continue to buy back stock at these levels. I think it's mispriced, but we'll take care of that on our own. And we like the position of our company. We like where your balance sheet is, so there's no intention to do a special dividend.

Philip Volpicelli

Analyst

And Ron, just to go back to the diaper piece, there's none of your competitors that could displace you? In other words, there's no one else that's vertically integrated that would possibly gain the share that Kimberly-Clark is going to lose and would displace you?

Ronald Kramer

Management

We're going to continue to compete for every piece of business that we can profitability win with every customer that we could do business with. It's -- there is no shortage of competition for everything we do, in every market we do it in, and we're going to win because we are able to satisfy very complex customers at competitive prices.

Douglas Wetmore

Management

If I may add 1 bit of color to -- in response to an earlier question, one of the reasons that door sales was down 1% this year versus the prior year quarter, very difficult comparison. Doors increased just about 10.5% last year in the fourth quarter, so they had a very strong performance at that point in time. So I think difficult comparison. So again, it speaks more to the logic of comparing on a year-to-year basis, because you will get some impact of shifting from one month or one quarter to the other. Ron?

Ronald Kramer

Management

Yes, I guess, are we out of questions?

Operator

Operator

And with no additional questions, I'll turn things back over to our speakers, please go ahead.

Ronald Kramer

Management

Okay, well, thank you all for joining us. Again, we think we're very well-positioned and we look forward to continuing to report as we go into the balance of 2013. So thanks again. Goodbye.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And again, ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude today's conference. Thank you, all, for your participation, and have a good afternoon.