Operator
Operator
Good afternoon, today's call is being recorded. Beginning today's meeting is Pamela Padgett, Vice-President of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications. Please go ahead.
L3Harris Technologies, Inc. (LHX)
Q3 2010 Earnings Call· Wed, Apr 28, 2010
$324.86
+1.37%
Same-Day
+9.28%
1 Week
+0.20%
1 Month
-5.78%
vs S&P
+2.60%
Operator
Operator
Good afternoon, today's call is being recorded. Beginning today's meeting is Pamela Padgett, Vice-President of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications. Please go ahead.
Pamela Padgett
Management
Thank you. Good afternoon everyone and welcome to our third quarter fiscal 2010 conference call. I am Pamela Padgett, Vice-President of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications. And on the call today with me is Howard Lance, Chairman, President and CEO, Gary McArthur, Senior Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we get started the few words on the forward-looking statements. In the course of this teleconference, management may make forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve assumptions, risks and uncertainties; they could cause actual results to differ materially from those statements. For more information on the discussion of such assumptions, risks and uncertainties, please see the press release and filings made by Harris with the SEC. In addition on our press release and on this teleconference, we will discuss certain financial measures and information that are non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation with the comparable GAAP measures have included in the tables of our press release and on the Investor Relations section of our website, which is www.harris.com. A replay of this call will also be available on in the Investor Relations section on our website. And with that, Howard, I'll turn it over to you.
Howard Lance
Management
Thank you, Pam. And welcome everyone to our third quarter fiscal 2010 earnings call. We had another excellent quarter of financial results. And perhaps even more importantly we set ourselves up for continued growth in the fiscal fourth quarter and in fiscal 2011. Our gross strategies are clearly working. We are gaining market share in our core markets while also moving the company into important adjacent markets to capitalize on growth opportunities. Our mission critical assured communications capabilities are in strong demand across a broad range of market applications. Revenue in the third quarter was $1.33 billions, 10% higher than 1.21 billion in the prior year. Non-GAAP income excluding acquisition related cost was $170 million or $1.30 per diluted share. An increase of 27% compared with the prior year $136 million or $1.02 per shear. Our bottom line continued to be driven by excellent program performance and award fees across the Government Communications segment. And strong gross margins and operational efficiencies in the RF Communications segment. New orders for the company were very strong again this quarter at $1.45 billions offering excellent forward momentum. They were significantly higher than orders of $1.03 billion in the prior year and higher than third quarter revenue. Third quarter revenue for the RF Communications segment was $551 million compared with $439 million in the prior year. Tactical radio communications business revenue for the quarter was $429 million, about flat with the prior year while the public safety and professional communications business revenue contributed $122 million in the quarter. Non-GAAP segment income was $208 million in the third quarter. That's excluding charges related to the Tyco Electronics Wireless Systems acquisition. And it is compared to $151 million in the prior year. Segment operating margin was exceptionally strong again this quarter at 38%. We are continuing…
Gary McArthur
Management
Thank you, Howard. Good afternoon, everyone. Q3 was a very strong balance sheet quarter for Harris. We ended the quarter with $406 million of cash and cash equivalents on hand. Return on invested capital was 21%. Return on equity 25% and debt to total capital was 36% down from its recent high of 41% following the May 2009 Tyco wireless acquisition. Further our entire $750 million revolving credit facility is available to us with no long-term debt maturities coming due until October 2015. Cash flow from operations increased $99 million to $314 million versus $215 million in the third quarter of the prior year. Primarily, as a result of strong performance at our RF communications and government communications system segments. In light of this, we are increasing our expectation for cash flow from operations for fiscal year 2010 to arrange of $700 million to $725 million up from our previous guidance of $650 million to $700 million. Depreciation and amortization for the third quarter was $40 million as compared to $44 million for the third quarter of 2009. Our expectation for depreciation amortization for fiscal year 2010 continues to be in the range of $160 million to $170 million. Capital expenditures were $94 million for the third quarter, as compared to $30 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2009 and included the acquisition of new 573,000 square foot manufacturing facility near Rochester, New York, where four existing RF communications manufacturing sites will be consolidated. And the purchase of a new facility in the mid Atlantic region for use by our government communications system business, our guidance for fiscal year 2010 for CapEx is now $200 million to $210 million, up from our previous guidance of between $150 million and $160 million. During the quarter, we used $50 million to…
Howard Lance
Management
Thanks, Gary. Before we open the line up for your questions, let me provide some additional perspective on the revisions and increases we have made to our earnings outlook for fiscal 2010. And a little color around our initial earnings guidance for fiscal 2011. First, for 2010, we have once again increased our full-year non-GAAP earnings guidance to a new range of $4.35 to $4.45 per share. It represents a $0.10 per share increase compared to the previous range of $4.25 to $4.35 per share. Revenue in fiscal 2010 is still expected to be $5.2 billion to $5.3 billion. In the RF communications segment, fiscal 2010 revenue is now expected to be in the range of 18% to 19% higher than fiscal 2009. Now, this includes the contribution of course, the acquired public safety and professional communications business, coming in at about $500 million. Segment operating margin for the year. For the RF communications segment is now projected to be higher in the range of 34%, 35%, as compared to our previous guidance of 33%. The higher operating margin continues to be driven by more favorable tactical radio product mix, cost reductions and improving operational efficiencies. The acquired public safety and professional communications business is performing that as expected this year. For government communications systems, we expect revenue for fiscal 2010 to be about flat with the prior year on a reported basis. Now, after you adjust it for the impact of acquisitions and excluding the ending of the FIDCO program, the guidance reflects with a very strong organic growth for the year of about 8%. And operating margins are still expected to be about 12.5% for fiscal 2010. In Broadcast Communications for fiscal 2010, we reduced expected revenue to a new range of $480 million to $490 million. We…
Operator
Operator
(Operator Instructions). We'll take our first question from Gautam Khanna with Cowen & Company. Gautam Khanna - Cowen & Company: Hi, thanks for taking the question. I just wanted to ask about the MRAP-ATV programs and could you give us a sense for how much you booked year-to-date on that program last quarter? I think its 554 M-ATV. And then also what the opportunities that might be on the 4,000 vehicles which you have got an order already?
Howard Lance
Management
Right so, for what we call Phase I, which is the first 6,644 vehicles, year-to-date orders totaled 719 million. And we are in the same place we were last call with regard to opportunities in the Phase II, which we have said at the time were up to about $300 million. And we still think that's a reasonable range, as you indicated, we did receive the first order $101 million and we have potential, we think of maybe up to another 200 on top of that. Gautam Khanna - Cowen & Company:
Howard Lance
Management
We remain very confident that the capabilities of the 117G will lead to its broad deployment across multiple different applications in the army as well as the other services where we have seen great success. In terms of any specific timing, I don't have anything to share with you. But we are making significant process, as the radios are field dated and as I talked about in my prepared statement, as customers are able to see the real value in their day-to-day mission accomplishments from the radio. That is more value than any amount of advertising or demos that we could perform. So, the troops on the ground are the greatest advocates. And we are very confident we will continue to see a success. And the accelerating orders in the Falcon III not only from U.S. but as we have indicated now starting it with the International customers.
Operator
Operator
Raymond James & Associates Chris Quilty - Raymond James & Associates: Hi, guys. Question for you on the broadcast business, I know, you have gotten some government military orders in there. Have they gotten to the point where they are starting to be a significant portion of what you are seeing in broadcast and could they be a driver here over the next 6 to 12 month?
Howard Lance
Management
Well, on the latter part of your question Chris, we certainly hope so. To date, I think, specifically around the FAME program, it represents about $11 million of revenue. So, on year-to-date basis that's may be 2%, 3%. I think the opportunity pipeline certainly could have that growing to the 5%, and maybe a year or two out, maybe as much as 10% of revenue. So, we think, it is a significant driver. Not just with the products we are offering now the solution but, we are continuing to enhance that with additional products. Chris Quilty - Raymond James & Associates: Does that 5% to 10% estimate in the out year assume International customer base?
Howard Lance
Management
No, I think, we primarily would think about that in terms serving the needs of the U.S. as they continue to deal with this very, very large and growing amount of video surveillance content and how they actually utilize it to make real time decisions and create value out of that intelligence that is being gathered.
Operator
Operator
We'll take our next question from Larry Harris with C.L. King.
Larry Harris - C.L. King
Analyst · C.L. King.
Thank you. You have been quite and first off congratulations on the results here for the quarter. And you have been quite forthcoming in terms of 2011 guidance here at this early date. But I was wondering is there any comments you can make even at this point in terms of seasonality within 2011 based upon what you are seeing in the order of pipeline?
Gary McArthur
Management
A little hard to say, Larry. You know that we are going to be starting the year with a very large backlog. And still have DoD priority shipment requirements for the MRAP vehicles. So, certainly that is going to be a factor. But we also have a lot of other opportunities in the pipeline. So, I just don't have tremendous visibility, would like to wait until probably the next quarter. Once it is done, we have a real good view then to backlog. And orders expected in the first half were probably to provide a little more color. But I think, we will come out of the gate pretty strong in the first quarter as a result of that very strong starting backlog.
Larry Harris - C.L. King
Analyst · C.L. King.
And with International sales, would they be higher, say here in 2011 than 2010?
Gary McArthur
Management
Absolutely. As we have discussed, orders, International orders this year we expect to be much higher than revenue, because we had to defer the shipment of many International customer orders because of the requirements to ship the MRAP vehicle radios this year. So, we do expect to see a significant growth in International. I don't know exactly what the split next year will be. A year or so ago, we were kind of 60/40 DoD and International that skewed a little bit this year because of which I certainly would expect as directionally to go back more toward where we were in the past.
Operator
Operator
We'll go next to Joe Nadol, JPMorgan
Joe Nadol - JPMorgan
Analyst
Thanks, good afternoon. Thanks for the detailed guidance for next year. Some of the question on the RF mix next year, if we're, I guess, we are saying, we are going to be closer to 50/50 International and into the 40s. If you look at the U.S. piece, and you know, 800 million or 900 million and your guidance for tactical, can you just breakout what is in there, roughly for MRAP and 117G and other? Give us some sort of sense as to how you are thinking about it?
Howard Lance
Management
Not in specific, certainly Joe a portion of that will be the Phase II MRAP vehicles, the orders we received. Some of Phase I won't ship until our next fiscal year. And then the upside opportunity from MRAP, so MRAP will be an element of that. Certainly continued adoption and acceleration of the 117G is going to be an important part as well. And then International market, we think make up the rest of that guidance. DoD is expected to be lower in revenue than this year, but more than compensated by the International growth and all in all we think the tactical radio communication business will be up year-over-year, as we have indicated in the preliminary guidance. As we moved to the next quarter and get through the first quarter, I am sure, we will have more granularity around the make up of the business as you start to see other orders get announced.
Operator
Operator
We'll go next to Jim Mcilree with Merriman
Jim Mcilree - Merriman
Analyst
Thank you, good evening. Over $1 billion in backlog that you think you will exit this year in RF, can you give us some feel of what you think that split between International and domestic will be?
Howard Lance
Management
I am not sure I have that at my finger tips, Jim. So, I don't really want to quote something that turns out to be wrong. I think its, I am going to suggest, it is probably more than 50% is International because we have held some of the orders this year but I might not be right on that, because quantity of DoD orders is still very large.
Jim Mcilree - Merriman
Analyst
Okay. And secondly, public safety, margins fiscal '11 versus fiscal '10 directionally up sideways, up significantly.
Howard Lance
Management
Yes. Higher. And so, it is helping to mitigate some of the reduction and tactical radio margins that we are providing in this initial guidance, as a result of expectations of more typical product and program mix. So, the tactical radio, margins mitigate a little bit, although they are still very good. And then, we get the benefit of some improvements in the public safety margins. When we bought that company, herein I talked in terms of our goal of about 500 basis points of improvement over a three to four year period. And so, we are, I think, at this point, we would say very much on track to achieve that and have kind of baked that into the initial guidance for next year.
Pamela Padgett
Management
I think that wraps it up. I thank everyone for joining us and hope that you are going to be able to join us for our Analyst Meeting in Rochester. That's going to be our venue for this year. And thank you for joining us today.
Operator
Operator
That does conclude today's call. We thank you for your participation.