Earnings Labs

John B. Sanfilippo & Son, Inc. (JBSS)

Q4 2009 Earnings Call· Wed, Aug 19, 2009

$76.84

-2.06%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the John B. Sanfilippo & Son, fourth quarter and fiscal 2009 year-end earnings conference call. My name is Fab, and I will be your coordinator for today. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. (Operator instructions). I would now like to turn the presentation over to your host for today’s call, Mr. Mike Valentine, Chief Financial Officer. Please proceed.

Michael J. Valentine

Management

Okay, thank you, Fab. First, we would like to thank everybody for participating in our quarterly conference call for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended 2009. Before we start, we want to remind everyone that we may make some forward-looking statements today. These statements are based on our current expectations and involve certain risks and uncertainties. The factors that could negatively impact results are explained in the various SEC filings that we have made the past, and then in the current year’s Form 10-K, which will be filed shortly. We encourage you to refer to these filings to learn more about these risks and uncertainties in our business. Starting with the income statement, the current quarter net sales increased by 1.8% or $2.2 million to $127.5 million, in comparison with net sales in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008. Total pounds shipped to customers increased by 9.5%, pounds of almonds, cashews, fruit and nut mixes, mixed nuts, peanuts, snack mix, mixes, and walnuts shipped to customers increased in the quarterly comparison. Pounds shipped increased in the consumer, industrial, and export channels and decreased in the food service and contract packaging channels. The increase in net sales was driven mainly by the addition of a new customer, and increased shipments to an existing customer in the consumer channel. Increased supplies of walnuts fueled the increase of pounds shipped in the industrial and export channels. Fiscal year net sales increased to $553.8 million from fiscal 2008 net sales of $541.8 million. Total pounds shipped to customers decreased by 1.8%, decreases in pounds of almonds, pecans, peanuts, and walnuts shipped to customers were offset in part by increases in pounds of cashews, fruit and nut mixes, and snack mixes shipped to customers in the yearly comparison. Pounds shipped declined in all distribution…

Jeffrey T. Sanfilippo

Management

Thank you, Mike. Good morning everyone. Our fourth quarter and year-end fiscal 2009 results demonstrate that the decisions and efforts made by our management team and driven by our 1350 dedicated employees were the right ones for our customers, our shareholders, and our company. We accomplished a great deal this past year and returned to profitability in fiscal 2009. As Mike pointed out, we’ve reduced our debt level significantly. We limited capital expenditures and increased cash flow. At the same time, the company improved operational efficiencies, grew our sales with key accounts, and aligned our workforce to respond quickly to changing customer and consumer demands. We have made very difficult but necessary decisions over the past three years, to build a more competitive company and to execute initiatives that support our strategies for the future. I have commented several times on previous calls that our management team and our employees continue to focus on two key priorities to drive value in our organization. Profitable volume growth and operational efficiencies and we are succeeding. In addition our improved financial position allows us to devote more resources to become a stronger, strategic partner for our value–added customers globally. Over the last several months, our senior management team developed a five-year strategic plan and built a framework from which we intend to maximize the potential of our brands, our people, and our processes. The newly adopted strategic plan deepens our focus on resource allocation in several key areas. First, growth opportunities. The company will expand efforts in the consumer, food service, and international channels, while maintaining a strong base of innovative premium customers in the industrial and contract manufacturing channels. In the consumer channel, we are committed to grow our Fisher and private brands business in club stores and alternative channels, as well…

Jasper B. Sanfilippo, Jr.

Management

Thanks, Jeff. The company formally created a continuous improvement department to work on improvement projects in both manufacturing and non-manufacturing areas, as well as to create a culture within our organization that is always looking for a better way to do things. As a result, inventory management improvements led significantly to a 21.2% decline in finished good inventory dollars, while concurrently, the company improved and maintained our average service levels to our customer to that above 99%. As Mike stated earlier, improvements in our Elgin efficiency and our production lines has also led to improvements in our gross margins. We’ve also made improvements in material scrap accounts that relates to both Elgin production lines, as well as yield improvements in our shelling plant operations. We have also consolidated packaging with material suppliers, which has allowed us to further leverage our purchasing power, while increasing the overall quality of our packaging materials, which helped us improve the equipment efficiencies in our Elgin operations. Now I will turn it back over to Jeff.

Jeffrey T. Sanfilippo

Management

Thank you, Jasper. To execute the strategic plan, another key focus and something that's extremely important is focused on people. Our company will continue to expand and diversify our management team and workforce with experienced leaders with multiple areas of expertise, we will be expanding our sales and marketing departments in the consumer, food service, and export channels, and we will expand our management team. Many of you may have seen the press release we sent in May announcing the hiring of Robert Sarlls to fill a newly created position of Vice President, Strategy and New Business Development. A critical part of our growth strategy is new business development, finding blue oceans, and meeting unmet consumer needs. Having specialized exclusively on the food industry for more 10 years, Rob brings excellent experience and leadership in mergers and acquisitions and will be instrumental in pursuing strategic alliances, acquisitions, and joint ventures to expand our market presence both domestically and globally. Now turning to results for fiscal 2009. Our net sales were $553.8 million for fiscal ’09 a $12.1 million or 2.2% increase over fiscal 2008. While pounds shipped decreased marginally in fiscal ’09, pounds shipped increased over 9% for both the third and fourth quarters compared to fiscal ’08. The increase in sales volume has allowed us to utilize the extra production capacity generated by our new production facility in Elgin. But there are still enormous opportunities and available capacity to grow. Let me comment on some of the highlights from our business channels. First consumer. Net sales in the consumer channel increased by 7.8% in dollars and 5.5% in volume in fiscal ’09. Private label consumer sales volume increased by 7.3% in fiscal ’09, primarily due to a significant new customer for the last half of fiscal ’09, expansion of…

Michael J. Valentine

Management

Thanks Jeff. At this time, we will open the call for questions. Operator, would you please queue up the first question?

Operator

Operator

Thank you. (Operator Instructions) And our first question will come from the line of Bruce Baughman from Franklin. Please proceed. Bruce Baughman – Franklin Templeton Investments: Good morning.

Unidentified Company Representative

Analyst

Good morning, Bruce

Unidentified Company Representative

Analyst

Good morning, Bruce Bruce Baughman – Franklin Templeton Investments: Congratulations on another nice quarter.

Unidentified Company Representative

Analyst

Thank you. Bruce Baughman – Franklin Templeton Investments: Obviously, the developments on the balance sheet are welcome and very nice to see. Would you anticipate a continued debt reduction during the coming year? And, do you have a particular leverage metric in mind that you consider an appropriate one?

Michael J. Valentine

Management

Bruce Baughman – Franklin Templeton Investments: Okay, is there a level of debt or some kind of benchmark metric that you can cite as a point place, where once want to arrive there you consider yourself appropriately capitalized?

Michael J. Valentine

Management

Well I think, I think even the level that we have at the end of this fiscal year, I would characterize as appropriately capitalized. If we do reduce it further, that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s where we want it to stay. If there are good investment opportunities, both in say the Fisher brand or even other M&A activities, then we certainly would take advantage of that. Bruce Baughman – Franklin Templeton Investments: Okay, and then just getting back to working capital for a moment. In your comments you suggested there is still some opportunity there. How much of that opportunity might come from continuing to improve efficiency at the plant versus other steps you might take?

Michael J. Valentine

Management

I’ll let Jasper Sanfilippo, Jr., take this one.

Jasper B. Sanfilippo, Jr.

Management

Well as Mike stated before, we still have improvements within the – managing of our inventories. As you know, we are vertically integrated in some of our major commodities and with respect to making improvements in our inventories there, and it is difficult although we will continue to look at that. Our main point priorities we are looking at all of raw materials purchased from outside vendors, as well as continuing to focus on our finished goods inventories. We have a substantial focus in terms of improving the efficiencies of the lines. We really can’t quantify how much improvement we expect in terms of cash flow or working capital, although we continue to increase the inventory turns of our finished goods, that is a direct result of having higher and more efficient lines because we can run finished goods orders much closer to ship to – you kind of have that double-whammy by increasing our efficiencies of our lines. We reduced our operating expense, but it also helps us turn our inventories quicker. Bruce Baughman – Franklin Templeton Investments: .:

Michael J. Valentine

Management

Thanks Bruce.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from the line of Mike Traynor from Milwaukee Private Wealth. Michael Traynor – Milwaukee Private Wealth Management: Hey, good morning, gentlemen.

Michael J. Valentine

Management

Good morning. Michael Traynor – Milwaukee Private Wealth Management: Congratulations on the nice quarter. Just two real quick questions. What was the capacity utilization for this quarter, and then for the entire fiscal year ’09? And how did that compares to Q4 ’08 and I guess fiscal year ’08 as well?

Michael J. Valentine

Management

Well, I can’t really nail it down for the quarters, but in terms of year-over-year, as you know you saw our volume dip a little bit in terms of pounds shipped to customers. However our actual produced pounds mainly because we shifted to more value-added items, it was up in the end. And so just roughly speaking, I would say our utilization probably went from, roughly about 50% here in our Elgin facility to probably somewhere around 55%. Michael Trainor – Milwaukee Private Wealth Management: Okay. Thank you.

Michael J. Valentine

Management

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) And our next question will come from line of [Peter Abramson]. Please proceed. Peter Abramson – Private Investor: Oh, thank you. Nice quarter. I have a question on retail distribution. Do you have plans to distribute Fisher in grocery stores, or maybe in particular to the Chicago market? Are you in grocery stores in Chicago like Dominick's and so forth? And can you get in those stores? Or are you already in there on the private-label side?

Jeffrey T. Sanfilippo

Management

Actually, this is Jeffrey. We do have distribution in the Chicago market and it is one of our core markets, obviously, since our corporate headquarters is here. We did have some success this past year in growing Fisher distribution in the Chicago market. We've invested additional marketing dollars in the market. In Chicago, just this past year, Fisher snack gained 2.2 points in unit share and 2.6 in dollar share for the last 12 months. So we have some successes in the Chicago market. And obviously, the grocery channel is extremely competitive. We've got strong competitors with Planners and Emerald and private brands in the marketplace. So we are very selective on the areas that we invest in, really focus more on product innovation in the Chicago market and really in grocers across the country. Peter Abramson – Private Investor: Okay. And then in food service, I noticed food service was down. Where does the product end up? Is it Chinese restaurants, or McDonald's. I know you are in McDonald's and on their dollar menu they have those sundaes. So I didn’t know if that was driving some sales for you, and I don’t know if you could comment on the mix in your food service channel on where the product ends up?

Jeffrey T. Sanfilippo

Management

Sure, what we’ve seen a shift in food service consumption, people we saw a shift from the white tablecloth type of restaurants to more of the fast food, McDonald's type of restaurants. And so we did see a lift in our granulated peanut products that we supply McDonald's, but really the bigger piece of that is, through companies like U.S. Foodservice and SYSCO, where we package both Fisher products for them as well as their own private brands, and that is going to restaurants around the country where they are using nuts in salads as ingredients in main courses and as well as desserts. Peter Abramson – Private Investor: Okay. Any update on the leasing front for the office buildings?

Jeffrey T. Sanfilippo

Management

We actually just have a new tenant that has just completed the contract and they will be a tenant in May of 2010. Its actually a University that will be coming onboard in our building. And we continue to actively seek new tenants for the facility. Peter Abramson – Private Investor: Okay how many years is the lease or and how much space do they take?

Jeffrey T. Sanfilippo

Management

It’s a 7 year lease, and its about 14,000 square feet of space. Peter Abramson – Private Investor: Okay. As your ultimate goal with that building to get it leased up and then do some sort of sale-leaseback transaction at some point? Or do you have long-term strategy for it?

Michael J. Valentine

Management

Our strategy is, this is Mike Valentine, the strategy is to get the space leased out by 75%, the other 25% is not developed, In addition to that, we do not have enough parking to lease out that space. It would be a considerable capital expenditure, probably somewhere in the neighborhood of about $10 million. We don’t believe the return on that is as good as the return we could get by investing in our own core business. So again, our goal is to get the building 75% leased out. Right now it’s pretty close to about 50. Peter Abramson – Private Investor: Okay, thanks. Appreciate the update.

Michael J. Valentine

Management

Thanks Peter.

Operator

Operator

And there are no further questions in the queue. I would now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Michael Valentine, for closing comments.

Michael J. Valentine

Management

Again, on behalf of all my colleagues here, we would like to thank everyone for their time and interest in JBSS and we wish everyone a good day. Thanks again.

Operator

Operator

Thank you for your participation in today’s conference. This concludes the presentation. You may now disconnect. Have a wonderful day.