Earnings Labs

HNI Corporation (HNI)

Q2 2010 Earnings Call· Thu, Jul 22, 2010

$37.71

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

At this time I would like to welcome everyone to the Kimball International second quarter fiscal 2010 financial results conference call. (Operator Instructions) As with prior conference calls, today's call, February 5, 2010, 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 Jim Thyen.

Jim Thyen

Management

Welcome everyone to our second quarter conference call. We hope you had an opportunity to review our earnings release issued this morning on the results of our second quarter ended December 31, 2009. 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. At our last conference call I mentioned that we are seeing positive signs in our EMS markets and that our outlook for the furniture markets remain tentative and uncertain for the remainder of our calendar year. Now, three months later, we continue to see much of the same. Our electronics business is gaining momentum and I am very happy to note that our sales volumes have increased sequentially over each of the last three quarters. We have had several new customer wins recently and hopefully you have seen those press releases. These wins give us greater optimism, but it's important to note that the new programs contributing to the increase in electronic sales over the last three quarters are not the wins we recently announced. The current sales increases are the result of effective business development work in the previous fiscal year. We are pleased with the work that has been done by our electronics team to put us in this position of sequential revenue growth and profitability in the second quarter just ended. We are continuing to see positive trends with our customers in all four EMS verticals. Bob will talk more about the electronics results and progress. Our furniture business is continuing to feel the effects of the depressed economy, and the many components which reduce corporate demand for new office furniture and hotel demand for new hospitality furniture. Our sales of furniture…

Bob Schneider

Management

We reported today net sales in the second quarter of $275.2 million, which is a decrease of 16% from the same quarter of the prior year. The decline, as I mentioned in our last call, was very swift in our second and third quarters of last fiscal year, and while at a much lower level, it is good to see our quarterly sales were actually up slightly sequentially each of the last three quarters. Our EMS segment net sales were flat compared to the second quarter of last year, and have also shown improvement sequentially over each of the last three quarters. We saw improvement compared to a year ago in the automotive market, which offset declines in the industrial controls and public safety, resulting in our sales being flat in the EMS segment compared to the second quarter of last fiscal year. The furniture market was down 33% from last year and about half of that decline occurred in the second and third quarters of last year. We've had a trend of reduced quarters since then, with the quarter just ended being the lowest furniture sales level during that time. 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 our segment the mid-market office furniture brand has declined at a lesser rate than the contract market brand. With declining RevPar rates in the hospitality industry, that's revenue per available room, which was down 16.9% for calendar year 2009, hotel operators have been hard-pressed to build or even complete in some situations new hotels and also hard-pressed to refurbish existing hotel venues, which has put significant pressure…

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from the line of Matt McCall with BB&T. Sean Connor - BB&T: This is Sean Connor for Matt. I just wanted to get may be some clarity on the lack of I guess stabilization that you talked about in the furniture business. I wanted to see if there is anything different that you guys are seeing on the project side and the day-to-day side? Then may be also some commentary on what the pricing environment is looking like right now, any sort of color you can talk about in those items?

Jim Thyen

Management

In terms of the business activity in the furniture, certainly we are seeing projects that are being delayed. Generally there is a pattern. It seems in the industry that customers and clients, uncertain about their business outlook, tend to push out the shipment date for their projects. We are generally seeing projects in scope to be smaller than a year ago, physical size of the projects that are being asked to be quoted on or being awarded. There is some activity in the marketplace to refurb or to look at used product as opposed to new. It seems all to be grounded in availability and the cost of financing, as well as the uncertainty of the outlook as we look at all the debates that are occurring in our nation. So, it's kind of a tentative situation and the horizon and the vision is relatively short, 60 to 90 days. Beyond that there is a lot of uncertainty. In terms of the question there on pressure, clearly there is a lot of available capacity in the marketplace. Not only available capacity at Kimball, but at all of the players in the marketplace. There is a strong desire, need to fill that capacity, cover those costs and so that manifests itself in pricing pressures to win the fewer projects and the smaller projects that are out there. Sean Connor - BB&T: You talked about the projects being delayed and pushed down, are you seeing an increased level of cancellations or just the delay of these opportunities?

Jim Thyen

Management

No, we are not seeing cancellations. We are just seeing move-outs on the requested delivery date.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) I would now like to turn the call over, back to Mr. Jim Thyen.

Jim Thyen

Management

That brings us to the end of today's call. There continues to be a lot of economic uncertainty on the horizon and what improvement there has already been in the economy is quite fragile. At the same time at Kimball, we believe we are well-positioned with strong brands, strong businesses, and a strong balance sheet to take advantage of market opportunities as they arise. We appreciate your interest and we look forward to speaking with you on our next call. Thank you. Have a great day.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference. You may all disconnect. Have a great day.