Earnings Labs

Global Industrial Company (GIC)

Q4 2011 Earnings Call· Tue, Feb 28, 2012

$33.73

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Systemax Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2011 Earnings Teleconference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded today, February 28, 2012. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Jeff Majtyka of Brainerd Communicators. Please go ahead.

Jeff Majtyka

Analyst

Thank you, operator. Welcome, everyone, to the Systemax Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2011 Earnings Conference Call. I'm here today with Richard Leeds, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Systemax; and Larry Reinhold, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Today's discussion may include certain forward-looking statements. It should be understood that actual results could differ materially from those projected due to a number of factors, including those described under the caption Forward-looking Statements in the company's annual report on Form 10-K. This call is property of and is copyrighted by Systemax, Inc. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Richard Leeds.

Richard Leeds

Analyst

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us for today's fourth quarter and full year 2011 earnings call. Overall, our balanced focus on both the top and bottom line is delivering results as we saw improvements in gross margin, operating margin and EPS for the quarter and the full year. Performance in the quarter was highlighted by our business-to-business operations, which delivered very strong results as we continue to benefit from prudent investments in our sales force and our focus on building managed accounts. Within our B2B results, the strongest performance was delivered by our Industrial Products segment, which generated another quarter of exceptional sales growth of over 27%. This reflects our expanded product line offerings, improvements in all our core categories and great execution. Our North American technology B2B business also had strong sales growth over the prior year as we capitalized on our broader sales presence. Additionally, the European B2B technology business delivered sales growth on a local currency basis as we benefit from solid top line results from our U.K., Holland and Ireland operations. Overall, we consider our European results to be impressive, specifically given the current macroeconomic situation in Southern Europe. Turning to our consumer channels. Revenue performance in the quarter was disappointing and not entirely unexpected given our decision to focus on higher profitability and not fully engage in free trade and other promotional price activities during the holiday selling season. Sales of products through television shopping networks, which are included in our consumer channel sales, were down significantly and were the largest single factor contributing to the consumer sales decline during the quarter. We were also in the process of restructuring our private label product program in North American technology, which is being modeled after our highly successful Industrial Products private label business. This…

Lawrence Reinhold

Analyst

Thank you, Richard. Our fourth quarter consolidated sales were $979 million, down 3% compared to the fourth quarter of last year. Full-year consolidated sales were $3.7 billion, up nearly 3%. On a constant currency basis, consolidated sales for the quarter were down 2% and, for the full year, were up 1%. Results for the quarter and year were driven by strong growth in our B2B operations, including our Industrial Products Group, our North America and Europe B2B technology business, this strong growth in B2B was offset by weakness in our consumer channel sales. Turning to our channels, our fourth quarter B2B channel sales grew 9% compared to last year. Our fourth quarter consumer channel sales declined 13%. Full-year B2B channel sales grew 12% compared to last year, and consumer channel sales declined 7%. On a geographic basis, our fourth quarter North American sales were $698 million, a decrease of 4% compared to last year and accounted for 71% of our total sales. Our fourth quarter European sales were $282 million, essentially flat compared to last year and accounted for 29% of our total sales. Full-year North American sales grew 2% to $2.6 billion compared to last year, and European sales grew 5% to $1.1 billion. Turning to our business units, in our Technology Products Group. Our Technology Products group's fourth quarter worldwide sales were down 5% to $895 million and up 1% to $3.4 billion for the full year compared to last year. Technology Products' fourth quarter operating income was $17.7 million or $18.3 million, excluding one-time charges, and $68 million for the full year or $62.4 million, excluding one-time gains. Our European Technology business had modest fourth quarter sales growth on a local currency basis, driven by the U.K., Holland and Ireland markets. Our other European markets were soft,…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Anthony Lebiedzinski from Sidoti & Company.

Anthony Lebiedzinski

Analyst

First question is on the weakness in the television shopping networks. The weakness I assume was in the flat panel TVs. And if so, can you talk about the trends that you saw during the quarter? And have you seen any changes so far in the first quarter?

Richard Leeds

Analyst

Anthony, it's Richard. When you look at the TV shopping channels, right, you have to remember that there's only a few players in there and they are very large customers that we deal with. And we are somewhat subjective to what they want to air, whether they want to air, electronics or jewelry. In the quarter, they made a decision to air less electronics. Their -- that's their decision, and we are somewhat at the whim of their decision. So I hope that answers your question.

Anthony Lebiedzinski

Analyst

And has that trend continued so far in this quarter over here?

Richard Leeds

Analyst

We are working continuously to get their volume up with them. We believe that the selling of electronics on TV is a good channel for us, and it's a good channel for them and ultimately, a good channel for their customers. So I mean, we're working on that very feverishly to get that back -- to get their volume back up.

Anthony Lebiedzinski

Analyst

Okay. And just wanted to get a better sense of the magnitude of the free-shipping promotions you mentioned that you did not fully engage in the free freight and the promotional pricing during the season. So just if you could just give us a little bit more color as to how you approach the promotions fourth quarter of 2011 compared to fourth quarter of 2010?

Richard Leeds

Analyst

Well, I mean, some of our competitors drive promotional on free shipping. I mean, one of our competitors lost almost $1 billion on freight in the fourth quarter alone and went out and really affected their earnings by that and by being -- as well as by being promotional on pricing. we worked -- we were competitive with free freight in the quarter, we didn't go all-chips-in for the entire quarter and we were somewhat surgical in it and the side, as we said in our press release and previously, we decided to be judicial about where we're going to be promotional on freight and price and try to protect our bottom line.

Anthony Lebiedzinski

Analyst

Okay. And in the mobility centers, where do you see that trending over the course of the year? I think you said was 29 at the end of Q4?

Richard Leeds

Analyst

Yes. They're still new, I mean we think they have a lot of potential to go up because of .... They're basically new in the stores, new to our customers and as our customers learn that we have the mobility centers in the stores and we get better at selling to our customer these products, we think that has a real opportunity for us.

Operator

Operator

This ends our Q&A session. I will turn it back to management for closing remarks.

Richard Leeds

Analyst

All right. Thank you, everybody, and we look forward to reporting our first quarter results. Take care.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's program. This concludes the program. You may all disconnect.