Earnings Labs

HNI Corporation (HNI)

Q1 2010 Earnings Call· Thu, Apr 22, 2010

$37.39

-1.32%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Heather and I will be your conference call facilitator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Kimball International First Quarter Fiscal 2010 Financial Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on listen-only mode to prevent any background noise. After the Kimball speaker opening remarks, there would be a question-and-answer period where Kimball will respond to questions from analysts. (Operator instructions) As with prior conference calls today's call November 5, 2009, will be recorded and may contain forward-looking statements as defined under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Risk factors that may influence the outcome of forward-looking statements can be seen in the Kimball Form 10-K and today's release. The panel for today's call is Jim Thyen, President and Chief Executive Officer of Kimball International; and Bob Schneider, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. I would now like to turn today’s call over to Mr. Jim Thyen. Mr. Thyen you may begin.

Jim Thyen

Analyst

Thank you, Heather, and welcome everyone to our first quarter conference call. As in our last conference call, our format today will start with my overview comments on the quarter, followed by Bob's financial review. We will then open the call to your questions. We hope you had an opportunity to review our earnings release, which was issued this morning on the results of the first quarter, ended September 30, 2009. Sales in the first quarter of fiscal year 2010 decreased 19% when compared to the prior year fiscal ’09. Our Electronic Manufacturing Services segment has seen more positive signs of recovery from this recession than we are in the Furniture segment. The decline was 10% in the EMS segment compared to the prior year. We did see sequential improvement in the last two quarters with the first quarter sales increasing 9% from the fourth quarter, and the fourth-quarter sales improved 8% from the third quarter. The decline in the Furniture segment was 30% versus last year. A decline has also been experienced when compared to the fourth and third quarters of fiscal ’09, as we are now experiencing the full impact of the recession in the furniture markets. I will say more about that as we review the various market sectors. Our consolidated gross profit as a percent of net sales for the first quarter remained constant compared to the prior year. Bob will discuss that in more detail. Our balance sheet remains solid, containing significant strength and flexibility for these economic uncertainties. We continue to exhibit excellent cash control and excellent cost control. Bob will also expand on those facts. As you know, Kimball International provides a variety of products from its two business segments. This diversification does bring some leading and lagging aspects to our results, when…

Bob Schneider

Analyst

Thanks, Jim. We reported today net sales in the first quarter of $274.7 million, which is a decrease of 19% from the same quarter of the prior year. As Jim mentioned, the decline was very swift in our second and third quarters of last year, and while at the very low level, it is good to see our first quarter sales. We're actually up slightly from the immediately preceding fourth quarter. Our EMS segment was down 10%, compared to the first quarter last year, but we need to recall, though that all of this decline actually occurred during the second and third quarters of fiscal 2009. A very encouraging sign is the improvement in our EMS segment in the first quarter, where sales increased 8.6% over the immediately preceding quarter on improvement in the automotive, medical, and industrial control markets. The furniture market was down 30% and about half of that decline also occurred in the second and third quarters of last year. And we have had a trend of reduced quarters since then with the quarter just ended being the lowest sales level since the beginning of the economic downturn. Jim spoke of the overall economy and how furniture purchases tend to be deferrable. As companies have focused on conserving cash and liquidity, it is clear that many are still deferring purchases of furniture, along with other capital expenditures. Within our furniture segment, the mid-market office furniture brand has declined at a lesser rate than the contract market brand, and with declining RevPAR rates in the hospitality industry, that's revenue per available room, which is forecasted by the way to be down 16.1% for calendar 2009, hotel operators have been hard-pressed to build or even complete in some situations new hotels, and they are also hard-pressed to refurbish existing…

Operator

Operator

(Operator instructions) As there are no further questions in queue at this time, I'd like to turn the call back over to Bob. Thank you.

Bob Schneider

Analyst

Thank you, Heather. And that brings us to the end of today's call. We're operating in a volatile environment with significant legislative question marks on the horizon regarding healthcare, cap and trade, and unemployment tax increases just to name a few. That coupled with financial markets that appear to be stabilizing, but yet are fragile, continues to drive tremendous uncertainty in this economy. At Kimball, we are well positioned with strong brands, strong businesses and strong balance sheet to seize market opportunities as they arise. We appreciate your interest. We look forward to speaking with you on our next call. Thank you. Have a great day.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes the presentation. You may now disconnect. Have a great day.