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IT Tech Packaging, Inc. (ITP)

Q3 2012 Earnings Call· Fri, Nov 9, 2012

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning and good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Third Quarter 2012 Orient Paper Inc Earnings Conference Call. At this time, I would like to inform you that this conference is being recorded and all participants are in a listen-only mode. With us today are Mr. Zhenyong Liu, Orient Paper’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Mr. Winston C. Yen, the company’s Chief Financial Officer. Orient Paper has announced its third quarter 2012 financial results through a press release after trading hours yesterday and is available on the company’s website at orientpaperinc.com. Mr. Liu will brief you on the company’s key highlights, and corporate developments over the quarter and Mr. Yen will walk you through the Company's financial and business review as well as the Company’s outlook and guidance. After that there will be a question-and-answer session. Before we begin I’d like to draw your attention to our Safe Harbor statement. This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements other than statements of historical fact in this announcement are forward-looking statements, including but not limited to, anticipated revenues from the digital photo paper business segment; the actions and initiatives of current and potential competitors; the Company's ability to introduce new products; the Company's ability to implement the planned capacity expansion of corrugating medium paper; market acceptance of new products; general economic and business conditions; the ability to attract or retain qualified senior management personnel and research and development staff; and other risks detailed in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties and are based on current expectations, assumptions, estimates and projections about the companies and the industry. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent occurring events or circumstances, or to changes in expectations, except as may be required by law. Although the Company believes that the expectations expressed in these forward looking statements are reasonable, it cannot assure you that its expectations will turn out to be correct, and investors are cautioned that actual results may differ materially from the anticipated results. There is a presentation document featuring management prepared remarks and is now available for download from the Company's website homepage by the corporate presentation page under the Company's IR website at orientpaperinc.com. Please note there will be discussions on non-GAAP financial measure or EBITDA or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. Please refer to our press release for a complete reconciliation of EBITDA to net income. As a kind reminder, all numbers are in the presentation are quoted in U.S. dollars and comparisons refer to year-over-year comparisons unless otherwise stated. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Liu. He will give his opening remarks in Chinese after which the interpreter will read out his detail in English. Please proceed.

Zhenyong Liu

Management

[[Foreign Language] Good morning, to our investors calling in today. I’d like to discuss our third quarter earnings for 2012, and give you an update of our Company’s activities. First, on slide 5, we’ll have a quick look at the key highlights for this quarter. In the third quarter, the paper industry continued to suffer from a weak pricing environment, which affected the margins of all our products. This, together with the production disruptions that occurred in the second quarter and the third quarter, has impacted our revenues as well. As a result, our revenues and profits are down. In lieu with this, we have revised down our full year guidance. However, we’re pleased that our earlier problems in operations are fully resolved and behind us now. In fact, we were able to ramp up the new production line to achieve over 72.5% utilization in September and 73.7% in October. And for the third quarter, we produce substantially more corrugating medium paper from this new line. Looking ahead, we plan to upgrade our old legacy production line and will seek future expansion to capture higher value in high growth tissue paper business. We’re also delighted to update you that the Board will implement a regular dividend pay out on top of the quarterly cash dividend declared in September this year. Now, I will let our CFO, Winston Yen, take you through the financial and business review before I return to give you a more detailed update of our operations and where we’ll like to take the company forward.

Winston C. Yen

Management

All right. Thank you, Mr. Liu. We will now take a closer look at our financial results in slide number 7, and this is the slide that you can download from our corporate website. So if you can turn to slide number 7, as you can see our total revenue for the third quarter was $37.7 million. Revenue growth has been affected as we continue to experience production disruptions caused by the installation and the inspection of the boiler in August. As you can see, both gross margin at 18.1% and operating margin at 16.4% have been under pressure in part due to the fall in product prices. If you can also see that they're back on track to trend, our operations have resumed to full functionality. Turning now to our income statement summary on slide 8, you can see our quarter figures as well as our nine month results here. Cost of sales was up 6% to $31 million, gross profit was $7 million down 15%, mainly due to the following average selling prices or ASPs. Overall, gross margin was 18% down from 22%. SG&A expense at $0.7 million up 53% mainly due to the currency exchange gain or loss between inter-company transactions. Increase in depreciation of properties and land use rights and amortization, and the increase in wages and salary in the third quarter of this year. Income from operations was $6 million, down 18%. Despite a difficult operating environment, we managed to achieve a respectable operating margin of 16.4%, which continues to lead with the industry reaffirming our cost comparative edge in this sector. EBITDA was $8 million, down 4% and net income was $4 million, down 19%. As a result, basic and diluted earnings per share was $0.24, down from $0.30 last year. Now moving on…

Zhenyong Liu

Management

Thank you, Winston. Now, let’s look at slide 16. I will now take you through our operational update. We are pleased to have resolved all operational issues that have disrupted productions previously. We have completed installation and the official inspection of the boiler in August and our rental new CMP production line. With the problem behind us, we manage to achieve near production milestones in September and October reaching new transition rate of 72.5% and 73.7% respectively. In fact, we are further ramping up the new production line and are inspecting an annual output to reach approximately 160,000 to 180,000 tonnes this year. Moving over to slide 17, we will embark on the renewal program of our facility by voluntarily phasing out the old 150,000 tonnes per year line and rebuild a new 250,000 tonnes line on the same foundation in the first quarter of 2013. Plans are underway to submit those renovations scheme to the government. We estimate poor renovation cost to be around $20 million to $25 million to be funded by a combination of loan or lease operating cash flows and government subsidies. We estimate that the upgraded facility can reduce energy cost by up to 40% and the estimated increment to CMP revenue is $70 million. We are taking this measure in anticipation of increasing regulatory concerns on energy efficiencies and to further upgrade the strength and quality of our CMP thereby maintaining our cost leadership position in North China paper market. I would now like to share other updates of the company in slide 18. The company's goal is to deliver long term shareholder value and to this intend, the Board is pleased to approve the payout of dividends to shareholders on a regular basis and drive cash flow from it. We understand investors sentiment…

Winston C. Yen

Management

Sure. So this is on slide 23. With the slowdown in China's economy, the outlook for the paper industry in China remained soft. In North China, we expect market corrections to continue in the construction and the real estate sector going particularly to paper products remains weak. We believe the ASP for CMP (inaudible) and they start recovery slightly towards the first quarter of 2013. Until the Chinese government announces any favorable new policies, the company will take a conservative approach and we would expect our results to be dropped down by low product prices. They were expected to increase in the sales and revenue. We also believe that the industry will experience more consolidation in the 12 months on to the weak demand in overcapacity. In lieu of this, we are revising our guidance for the full-year. So revenue are now expected to be in the range of between $146 million and $148 million, gross profit between $26 million and $28 million, net income between $15 million and $17 million, while basic and diluted earnings per share will range between $0.90 and $0.92. This concludes the management prepared remarks. We will now open the floor for questions.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Hello.

Winston C. Yen

Management

Hello.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Hi, can you hear me?

Winston C. Yen

Management

Yes, we can hear you.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Okay. Sorry, I think I was having some difficulties. So the first thing I just wanted to say is I certainly thought that company for the positive initiatives lets stay in the steps recently to bring the new line up to capacity, which results some of it production issues the amounts that to continue dividend payments as a regular thing, and the hiring of new Investor Relations firm all are very positive things. I think investors who have been committed in a long-term way to Orient Paper appreciate when you look at the stock price in the volume recently is pretty clear that there is in huge amount of interest stock right now that the average of volume at around 12,000 or so per day, shares traded and as you all know that the stock price is for undervalue. So I guess the question that I have is in light of the fact that just doesn’t seem to be a lot of either trust or interest in the sector notwithstanding the fact that the valuation was so good. What can Orient Paper do or what will it do that hasn’t already done to revive that interest?

Winston C. Yen

Management

Let me translate your question to Zhenyong Liu, before I answer your question. [Foreign Language]

Winston C. Yen

Management

I think, Steve, thank you very much for your long support for Orient Paper. We of course understand that our stock price is still very much undervalued, but we will actually like to take a long term approach to the issue of the stock price and overall value.

Operator

Operator

The speakers line disconnected. Please remain online as we reconnect the speaker’s line. Mr. Yen has rejoined.

Winston C. Yen

Management

Hello, I’m sorry, I fixed my telephone lines, so it was cut off. So just to complete my answer, we will have to take a long term view on our stock price, and I guess the best way to accomplish the regional stock price is probably to keep the expansion that continue to grow consistently and be able to prove that we can deliver we believe that this is probably at the current time we only contemplate to those stock price and to enhance the valuation of the company.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Am I still on?

Winston C. Yen

Management

Yes, Steve, I can hear you.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Okay. So I guess this is my follow-up question. Mr. Liu mentioned that there is no interest at this time of going private, does that mean that there also no interest in any kind of investment from a private equity or private investors outside of what happens in the open market?

Winston C. Yen

Management

We still, we see interest in contacts with some different groups of private equity investors and strategic investors, but I believe right now we welcome any investment from new investors, but not towards the goal of taking the company private.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Okay, very thanks.

Operator

Operator

Next question comes from Howard Flinker from Flinker & Co. Howard Flinker – Flinker & Co. LLC: I have a question about loans for related parties. Winston who are the related parties you own them at company money?

Winston C. Yen

Management

It is mixture; many years ago manage to our company. Howard Flinker – Flinker & Co. LLC: Okay, I mean you get the regular interest rate and no warrants or anything like that?

Winston C. Yen

Management

I believe we pay in 5.8% on the kind of interest. Howard Flinker – Flinker & Co. LLC: Okay. Just to stay 5.8%?

Winston C. Yen

Management

Yes. Howard Flinker – Flinker & Co. LLC: Okay. That’s it. And I'll say compared to your long-term view [never] happen to agree, if one things about the size of your business, you’re running at about $150 million of revenue per year. That’s pretty small compared to the Chinese economy. So if you look five or ten years down the road, you should be able to grow a lot and the patient investors should be rewarded, I’m telling, I have to say.

Winston C. Yen

Management

We hope so and thank you very much for… Howard Flinker – Flinker & Co. LLC: Okay.

Winston C. Yen

Management

…support, yeah. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Please hold for your next question. Your next question comes from Bean Miller.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Thank you for taking my line. During this phase out, I suppose your sales will go down and since it will I suppose take more than three months to install a new line, for how many quarters we will be faced with a decline in sales because of the renovations of 150,000 tonne line.

Winston C. Yen

Management

Of course, there won’t be loss of revenue and profit during the lead time for this renovation project. But the way we look at it is that, if you look at the current actual output of this 150,000 capacity loss is it contributes about 80,000 tons to 90,000 tons of CMP to our actual output. And in 2013 we actually project the 360,000 tonne new production lines compared to 2012, roughly a 80,000 tonnes to 90,000 tonnes of (inaudible) to compensate the loss of that old CMP production line. So we hope that, by the end of 2013, the new capacity comes to 360,000 tonnes line will be able to make that loss of the old production lines in the period. So we hope that despite taking that old production line now, you will not have significant (inaudible).

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Okay. And the new lines will be on stream by the end of 2013?

Winston C. Yen

Management

We officially target may be somehow in mid 2014. So I think we’re strictly conservative at this point is because it has less good line when we build during the 60,000 tonnes capacity in 2011. So just to be safe, we will like to schedule Q2 of 2013, but it will be the best to the completion of verification project as early as possible.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Okay. Thank you. The second question is, right now, as a producer of corrugated paper, that it is anonymous commodity, which is sold commercial industrially. A tissue paper is sold to retail buyers and with brand names. It’s a totally different market, completely different. In marketing in which you have no experience, you move new tissue paper, would you sell that to an existing brand producer or would basically a sub supplier to somebody else or would you try and start your own brand name?

Winston C. Yen

Management

Yes, you are totally correct. We are looking as a different market receptor and a totally different distribution channel for tissue paper product. Our current strategy is that we will be doing our home branding. We are actually in the process of registering a trademark in China under which we will be selling our own tissue paper. In the beginning we have enough money to package more than 50% of the tissue paper that we will make a strong to the production volumes. And so up to 50% of the tissue paper we say is OEM arrangements other companies that tissue paper. And overtime as we build strength and penetration in the market in tissue paper, we will like to increase the packaging capacity and hopefully be able to sell all of the tissue paper under our own brand. And the market technique that we are targeting right now is actually rural areas in North China, we will do not have any client (inaudible) those companies that are more established and have more pressures in big cities or metropolitan areas around their generic engine. I think they will start from rural areas of our own products and then gradually move to neighboring provinces in China and once we have a sizeable market share, we will be moving to vendors or more which part of the area.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Do you have any planned production date for the tissue paper in fiscal 2014 or so?

Winston C. Yen

Management

Yes, of course we hope – I mean if everything goes well may be in the first quarter of 2014 but again just (inaudible) we’re targeting second quarter of 2014 to our tissue paper product.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Okay, thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Next question (inaudible) from First Associates.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Given the extreme stock price and the good job you're doing in a bad environment and certainly add credence to the shareholders if you had a small buyback of your stock, why would you announcing that a little bit of your money to still confidence in investors and you have confidence of the company buyback something around stock?

Winston C. Yen

Management

Thank you very much. The stock buyback actually has a lot to do with the company's liquidity. And at this time, I think if we strip on to the liquidity of our stock. The more importantly, our Board of Directors believe that implementing a regular dividend policy is more of a long term solution to foster investors confidence in the company. So if we have cash that we can be use to (inaudible) we would drive to use of cash through dividends for long-term. And I think the stock price, if we are able to exit our business plan, the stock price will come back once we are able to demonstrate that we have promised.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Okay. Thank you.

Winston C. Yen

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from (inaudible).

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Hello, can you hear me?

Winston C. Yen

Management

Yes.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

I’d like to know about paper price, calendar paper price is low or high than the average selling price than last quarter, and then how likely the paper price drop another 10% in the next few months.

Winston C. Yen

Management

Sure. That’s a very good question. Of course if you look at most of the third quarter of 2012, it looks like the average sale price is still going down, but at least that it is now an industry consensus that the Chinese paper industry has already seen the pattern of the average selling price on a lot of different type of paper products. And as a matter of fact, some industry leaders in the packaging paper has announced that they have increased their selling price in the fourth quarter but basically just into the last month and I believe they have tried to increase the total price again by the end of the year. We have also tried to raise our sales price by the end of September. We have effectively done that without making any significant reach from our customers. So I would say that even though we cannot rule out any possibility that we are little bit more optimistic now about some modest recovery of ASP in the fourth quarter and the first quarter of next year, rather than expecting some more upside in ASP during the last two months of this year.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

That's really correct. Thank you very much.

Winston C. Yen

Management

No problem, thanks. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

You have two final questions. Your next question comes from (inaudible).

Unidentified Analyst

Management

I would like to know two things, one is what has the government done on the closing of companies that were not up to par on their energy saving and so forth? And the second question is about what time was the boiler installed and was there trouble with the inspection or did everything go fairly well, if you could answer those two questions? Thank you.

Winston C. Yen

Management

Thank you for your questions, Gary. The Chinese government is pushing out the policy to eliminate old and outdated capacities in the industry, and we have already seen statistics (inaudible) and I believe that by now – most of the capacity that are scheduled to the faced out have already been closed down by the government. So in that sense, I think this policy and in fact the industry is real, and hopefully I think we will also help to solve the problem that some of the – with the Chinese paper industry which is the overcapacity of the purchase. And then I’m sorry what was your second question?

Unidentified Analyst

Management

The boiler...

Winston C. Yen

Management

The boiler, yes.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Did that went pretty smooth?

Winston C. Yen

Management

Yes, the boiler wasn’t installed in August and the government – and before we could officially start, the government have to come in to do the inspection and give the license to the boiler. So the inspection was not completed until beginning of September. But what is still different is that, the inspection of the government will have more time to inspect all of the production lines because number one, the other three legacy production lines are approaching 10 years of use of life. At this time the government believes that it is necessary to pay a complete examination of all of these production lines. And second of all because we have these 360,000 tonnes of new production line and actually give the government more time to look at the safety measures of the facilities that were equipped this 360,000 tonne line. It actually took a lot of time because they both (inaudible) For example and that actually took pace to next space to go through. So the effect of market inspection on our production or the introduction of this inspection is more significant than the inspection that we had with regular inspections that we had in the previous year.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

I think under the circumstances that the company did very well this year. I know it was tough with lot of the problems, but I think most of these things are resolved, just one last comment with this tissue paper it will (inaudible) boiler that you got now or suffice it or you’re going to have to get additional boiler for that?

Winston C. Yen

Management

The new tissue paper production lines and all of the future production line with be build on a different location. We’re running all those space in our current factory, so anything will be built in different counties (inaudible) problems. We are in the final stage of those we’re going to lease and everything with the local government. So obviously we have to build new boilers on the new location.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Next question comes from Camilla Humberston.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Hello, him Winston.

Winston C. Yen

Management

Hello.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

I have a couple of quick questions. With the low confidence, low share price, low valuation what about the possibility of – possibly increasing the dividend and if that could be done when would that possibly take place in other words saying investors to wait well the company increases production capacity in those new lines. And then also part of that the [RTO and BIE] structure is there anything potentially that the company can do to a man with IE (inaudible) structure to make the company more appealing to potential new shareholders?

Winston C. Yen

Management

Sure. Thank you Camilla. Those are very good questions. Increasing the dividend payout decision the different payout. Simply because in the next 12 months the company will take on a lot of capital expenditures, so I believe we have two more quarterly dividends to go under the current year dividend policy. So hopefully by the end of the second quarter of next year the Board of Director was taking not assessment or cash flow acquisition and make it a decision at that time to see if that – if they can afford to increase the different payout. And on the issue of the structure in the last few months we have really examined a lot of different options, but the situation is that all of these options have their own limitations or concerns from the Chinese regulatory or tax perspective. So unable to give any specific answers right now, but for (inaudible) that I feel comfortable of disclosing at this moment that we will do everything to downplay the impact of this new IT structure to example. Today is our policy that from now all of the new capital expenditure projects will be conducted by our subsidiary in China the company that we refer to [bobbin swinger] paper (inaudible) company, which is 100% own subsidiary of Orient Paper in China. So if we keep building all of the new production lines until ownership of bobbin swinger, then I think over time we will see more and more revenue and profit generated from this – invest under direct control of Orient Paper and in the next years we’ll probably see lesser percentage from the revenues generated by the entity, which is the company that we called HTOP in our document. So I think to make sure that Orient Paper has more and bigger control over or shorter revenue in China and showing something that we can definitely do in the next few years. And theoretically during the next side maybe five to 10 years many of our 15 production line, which will probably be fully depreciated on the (inaudible) HTOP, so I think at that time we will be able to start maybe shipping more important business to our subsidiaries in China. So I think that will certainly help to improve investors confidence in Orient Paper Inc control in China.

Unidentified Analyst

Management

Thank you.

Winston C. Yen

Management

Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

At this time there are no further questions in queue. So I'd like to turn the call back over to Mr. Winston Yen, CFO for closing remarks.

Winston C. Yen

Management

Thank you very much for attending our third quarter earnings call. And last thing I want to add is that, is there any execution in investors who want to schedule a one-on-one telephone call, please contact our IR mail box and we will definitely schedule in time for a separate conference call to answer it any questions that you may have. And this concludes the entire earnings call. Thanks very much.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen this concludes our presentation. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Have a great day.