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Motorola Solutions, Inc. (MSI)

Q2 2015 Earnings Call· Wed, Aug 5, 2015

$437.07

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, and thank you for holding. Welcome to the Motorola Solutions Second Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded. If you have any objections please disconnect at this time. The presentation material and additional financial tables are currently posted on the Motorola Solutions Investor Relations website. In addition, a replay of this call will be available approximately three hours after the conclusion of this call over the Internet. The web address is www.motorolasolutions.com/investor. At this time, all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode and the line will be open for your questions following the presentation. I would now like to introduce Mr. Shep Dunlap, Vice President of Investor Relations. Mr. Dunlap, you may begin your conference.

Shep Dunlap - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Thank you and good morning. Welcome to our 2015 Second Quarter Earnings Call. With me today are Greg Brown, Chairman and CEO; Gino Bonanotte, Executive Vice President and CFO; Mark Moon, Executive Vice President, President of Sales; Bob Schassler, Executive Vice President, Solutions and Services. Greg and Gino will review our results along with commentary. Mark and Bob will join us for Q&A. We posted an earnings presentation and news releases at our website motorolasolutions.com/investor. These materials include GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliations, which we encourage you to refer to. A number of forward-looking statements will be made during this presentation and during the Q&A portion of the call. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from these forward-looking statements. Information about factors that could cause such differences can be found in this morning's earnings news release and the comments made during the call, in the risk factors section of our 2014 annual report 10-K and in other reports and filings with the SEC. We do not undertake any duty to update any forward-looking statements. I'd now like to turn the call over to Greg. Greg Brown - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks, Shep. Good morning, and thanks for joining us today. I'd like to make a few opening comments about the second quarter and the overall business before Gino takes us through the results and the outlook. First, Q2 was another solid quarter. North America grew 5%, marking its third consecutive quarter of growth and the overall business grew 2% when adjusting for foreign exchange. Operational execution continues to drive improved profitability and cash flow generation as reflected in our double-digit growth of EPS and double-digit growth in free cash flow per…

Shep Dunlap - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Thanks. Before we begin taking questions, I would like to remind callers to limit themselves to one question and one follow-up so we can accommodate as many people as possible. Operator, would you please remind our callers on the line how to pose a question?

Operator

Operator

The floor is now open for questions. Thank you. Our first question comes from Tim Long with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Tim Long - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open

Thank you. Just on the question if you could just talk a little bit about the visibility the rest of the year, I think that full-year guidance implies similar to last year with a pretty big fourth quarter. So I understand backlog is up, so is that mostly a backlog-driven number? Or how should we think about risk into Q4? And then the clarification just a little bit more on the gross margin side. It seems like there's some positive developments on the Product side most likely offsetting a little bit of mix shift. But we've been a few years of seeing the gross margin come down. Gino, if you can talk a little bit about what we could see to get that gross margin line moving back up, that would be great. Thank you. Gino A. Bonanotte - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: I'll take the first question first, on visibility in the second half. As you mentioned, the first half to second half linearity, it's approximately the same as it was last year. From a backlog perspective, Q3 and Q4 is slightly below what our historic average has been, really given the over-performance in Q2, backlog that we anticipated being in the second half, shipments in the second half reflected in Q2 actuals. So with the over-performance in Q2, we remain confident on the full year and the full year outlook. With respect to gross margin, as we've talked about in the Q4 call and the Q1 call, the gross margin has been affected largely around systems integration in the Services segment, predominantly related to a couple large project deployments that have been occurring, Q4, Q1. We saw a little bit of an improvement in Q2. We continue to expect Services gross margin longer-term to be in the 35%, mid-30% range, approximately 35% and the Product gross margin is stable despite some currency headwinds.

Tim Long - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Pierre Ferragu with Bernstein. Your line is now open. Joe Del Gaudio - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC: Hey. Good morning. This is Joe Del Gaudio standing for Pierre. I had a couple of questions. One is, in addition to the $2 billion you mentioned in buyback and tender offer, are you expecting to buy anything else in the open market on a regular basis in addition to that? And the second question is, if you can comment a bit on your guidance for next quarter, it seems a bit conservative and low in terms of sequential growth. Thank you. Gino A. Bonanotte - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: ...question first. The – what we've guided to at the end of Q1 was approximately $600 million to $650 million a quarter, representing about $2.5 billion of buyback. Inclusive of the $2 billion tender, we now intend to repurchase approximately $3.5 billion in 2015. So after the legal cooling-off period at the conclusion of the tender, we expect to be back in the open market. Greg Brown - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: And Q3 guidance? Gino A. Bonanotte - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Q3 guidance, I'm not sure if you were referencing top line or bottom line, so I'll address both. Q3 guidance top line, clearly over-performance versus expectations. Our expectations in Q2 is driving some of that. And from an earnings perspective, it's really similar to Q2 and the incremental sales and associated gross margin driving the EPS range. Joe Del Gaudio - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC: Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Tavis McCourt with Raymond James. Your line is now open. Tavis C. McCourt - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Hey, Greg and Gino. Nice quarter. I guess another question on the Silver Lake capital. Should we view that as specifically being earmarked for acquisitions? Or I guess the other way to answer that is, should we think about it any differently in terms of how the balance sheet will look or how the cash balance will look exiting next year than we would've thought about it previously? And then in terms of LTE, the revenue rec of $100 million this year, remind me, I've kind of lost track in terms of what's been announced on LTE. Where would that leave you in terms of LTE backlog exiting this year? Thanks. Greg Brown - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: ...LTE first. We still estimate that we will achieve the approximately $100 million in Public Safety LTE revenue in this year. We expect – we'll be focused on the existing deployments and revenue derived from them, the two in the Middle East and in LA. So while we're not guiding for next year, we expect the Public Safety LTE revenue in 2016 to expand at a reasonable clip of which details will follow. On Silver Lake, Gino talked about our balance sheet. So we are in a net debt position exiting Q2. We clearly have a lot of capacity in capital, hence our intention to commence a tender. And even after the share repurchase that Gino outlined, which could be as much as $3.5 billion this year all-in, we have firepower remaining given the earnings and cash flow generation of the business moving forward to do more. I think Silver Lake brings us organic and inorganic opportunity…

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Paul Silverstein with Cowen & Company. Your line is now open.

Unknown Speaker

Analyst · Cowen & Company. Your line is now open

Thank you. This is Greg (25:59) for Paul. I appreciate taking my question. Just two quick questions, on the FX impact to revenue, can you just talk about the pricing impact, specifically is discounting more of a factor in the past quarter than it has been? And then around the OpEx tailwind from FX, can you provide some clarity on numbers or some type of contribution? Thank you. Gino A. Bonanotte - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Sure. The FX impact on pricing depends on regional specifics. There is some impact in Latin America on pricing. We haven't really seen any margin erosion or ASP reductions, so we've been containing the FX pressure at least on pricing. With respect to the FX impact in budgets, I think was the second question, obviously interrelated, both questions. What we've said in the past is that we expected an EPS impact of about $0.05 to $0.10 for the year with respect to currency movement, with FX impacting BGM or reducing – the $175 million reduction year-over-year in cost, approximately a third of that is a result of the stronger dollar. If we look at our BGM profile, about 40% of it right now is denominated in something other than USD. So in conjunction with the Services business and our efforts around moving to low-cost centers, we've built in a hedge for FX movement, so it really doesn't impact the bottom line as much as it does the top line. Greg Brown - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: I think that on the revenue FX impact, it's about $50 million in Q2. We anticipate it being about $50 million in Q3, and on the full year, given the spot rate, it's about $190 million. I think that the only other thing I'd comment is, I think the more pronounced FX pressure have been a contributory factor to the compressed results in Latin America in particular. But we're managing it accordingly and it's incorporated into the overall guidance we're providing. Mark Moon - Executive Vice President and President, Sales & Marketing: And along that line, as we continue to monitor pricing, ASPs have been holding, as Gino indicated, so we haven't really seen it affect product pricing, so to say, as Greg mentioned, just really the buying power because of Latin America being U.S. dollar-denominated for our projects and the impact of the currency there locally.

Unknown Speaker

Analyst · Cowen & Company. Your line is now open

Great. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Rod Hall with JPMorgan. Your line is now open.

Ashwin X. Kesireddy - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is now open

Hi. This is Ashwin on behalf of Rod. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to go back to the discussion around Silver Lake. Back in February, you guys already talked about some of the growth initiatives in the Services segment and some of the focus areas for you. I was wondering if you kind of identified new areas of initiatives or new technologies that you need to develop that correlate to this partnership with Silver Lake. Greg Brown - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: I think that – good question. Thank you. As we said in February, we're emphasizing Smart Public Safety Solutions as well as Services. And I think the Silver Lake partnership is right in the sweet spot of extending and accelerating our existing strategy in this regard. I think they bring significant expertise in technology products and information solutions. They're smart, they're savvy, I think they'll help us on surgical M&A as well, both in terms of looking at the funnel of opportunity and executing on good deals potentially to supplement and complement what we already have there. We've been acquiring already. We did an analytics company a few months ago. We did a command-and-control software company with Emergency CallWorks, that's gone very well. We did a push-to-talk interoperable software company with Twisted Pair. So I think Silver Lake will – I think of it – them as accelerating and extending what we already have. We're bringing in new talent into the company. We have a new CIO and many of the people in IT are new. Tom Guthrie, who runs Smart Public Safety Solutions, has come in through an acquisition with Twisted Pair. I feel very good about the relationship, the capacity and the technology savvy that I think will be complementary to what we're doing already.

Ashwin X. Kesireddy - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is now open

Is it fair to characterize this as – your strategy as going after more tuck-in acquisitions rather than making any big ones? Greg Brown - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: I think that's probably fair, but I would say that if there's something more material and it's compelling and accretive, we'll consider that, too, so exciting times for what we're doing going forward.

Ashwin X. Kesireddy - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is now open

Okay. Thanks. Just last question on public, on police video, do you see that as a growth opportunity maybe next year or even later? And do you think you need – do you have all the technologies necessary to benefit from any spending there? Greg Brown - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Just to make sure I understood, was your question around video?

Ashwin X. Kesireddy - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is now open

Yes, police video. Greg Brown - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah, I think video is a very compelling opportunity for us in many ways. I mean, you see front-and-center all of the rhetoric and narrative around body cameras and capturing video information at an incident with first responders, combining it with their communications. Video is one of the critical components in our Smart Public Safety Solutions strategy, not just the edge devices that may capture it, but the analytics aggregation, dissemination and pushing of that data and the high-bandwidth video into a first responder to a full-fledged complementary converged device. So I think video is very important to what we're doing going forward. I see it as growing in importance. And I think that will be also front-and-center with the value proposition that we engage Silver Lake on.

Ashwin X. Kesireddy - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is now open

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Simona Jankowski with Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open. Simona K. Jankowski - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Hi. Thanks very much. A clarification first, if you can just comment on the split of infrastructure versus device sales for the quarter in terms of their growth trajectory. And then it looks like you're well on your way to hitting or even maybe exceeding the $175 million OpEx savings for this year. Can you comment on the potential for that number to go higher both for this year and then any incremental opportunities for savings into next year or do you feel like you've largely exhausted the opportunity for savings once you get through this program? Greg Brown - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: I think on the cost side first, I think I would characterize the $175 million of cost reductions this year as probably in the seventh or eighth inning of our journey on cost reductions. Clearly, the majority of them are behind us. And I think the team has done a really good job, not just cutting expense but restructuring the business in a more thoughtful and simple way, doing things that we don't need to do after selling the enterprise business, getting after footprint, capacity, requirement, duplication. There might be a little bit more there going forward. We'll always be prudent on looking at the cost structure. But as we pivot now, and especially with today's announcement with Silver Lake, I think of this company's trajectory going forward more about growth, more about investment and more about expansion. Gino A. Bonanotte - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Simona, this is Gino. On the device versus infrastructure, devices in Q2 contracted slightly, and infrastructure was up, systems were up. Importantly, though, devices in North America were up. The contraction's really due to Latin America and the other geographies, not North America. Simona K. Jankowski - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Thanks, Gino. And infrastructure in North America, was that up as well? Gino A. Bonanotte - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yes. Simona K. Jankowski - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Ryan (sic) [Brian] Modoff with Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open.

Brian Modoff - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Yeah. Hi, guys. So I guess we can also look at Silver Lake investment today as really kind of a change in strategy. At one point, you'd been considering potential sale of the business. Looking at this, clearly you're moving in the direction of growing your business. Is that a fair statement? Greg Brown - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: I don't think that's a fair statement. I think our focus has always been on growing the business and adding capacity and competency. I think, Brian, it's a logical extension of the path that we've outlined, which is: optimizing our balance sheet, which is a big part of today; improving the operating and the financial performance of the company, which is also a big part of today; building backlog, which gives us momentum for growth. So, I look at this as a continuation of what's been my focus and management's focus, which is growing this company.

Brian Modoff - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. And then could you give me an update on FirstNet, where you see that standing? And then also, can you talk about your view of the importance of lower frequency radios and their stickiness to the business relative to perhaps the idea of using voice-over-IP over LTE at some point in the future as your main communication source for voice? Thanks. Greg Brown - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. On FirstNet, I think we continue to work very closely with them. We're actively participating and engaging with them through the draft RFP process. By their own articulation, I think this will carry forward into an RFP, another RFP, by the end of the year or early next year. And I think that – I think their whole initiative will be very measured and elongated, and we're staying closely in touch with them along the way. As a sidebar, in terms of LA-RICS and that Public Safety LTE deployment, I think we remain on track. And Bob Schassler and his team have done a nice job accelerating what we need to get implemented by the requisite deadlines of that contract. In terms of your last point on voice-over-LTE, we've been specific in pointing out that there's voice-over-LTE and then there's mission-critical voice-over-LTE. And we believe that mission-critical voice communications that are embedded in these private networks for LMR have a long, long life. And Public Safety LTE, if you will, and instantiations therein are additive to the LMR business both domestically and internationally. So we feel good about our position, and we'll monitor it going forward.

Brian Modoff - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Kulbinder Garcha with Credit Suisse. Your line is now open. Kulbinder S. Garcha - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Hi. Thanks for the question. I joined a bit late, so maybe this was answered. But I just wanted to clarify what's the best way of understanding the seasonality of operating margins in Q3 and Q4 because I was previously under the kind of impression that Q3 gets back and Q4 rises and Q2 dips. But that doesn't sound like that's how you wanted to model it this year. So is it something that happened in Q2 that we should be aware of that helped margins maybe? That's the first question. Second one is once this tender offer on share repurchases is done, what's the best way of thinking about the ongoing buybacks? You were kind of modeling it more smoothly through the end of 2016 at current run rates, there's obviously going to be a step down in the share count. I just want to make sure I get that right. Thanks. Gino A. Bonanotte - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: I'll – Kulbinder, this is Gino. On the margin question, our expectation for margin in Q3 and in Q4 is in line with what we've seen in prior, certainly last year and in prior periods. Kulbinder S. Garcha - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Okay. Greg Brown - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: And I think on seasonality, I believe that our expectations on the second half of this year are generally comparable with last year. Kulbinder S. Garcha - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Okay. Greg Brown - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: On the tender, as Gino mentioned earlier, we'll see how it shakes out. And after the tender closes out, there will be the opportunity for us to enter into, after the tender is completed in an open market capacity as we evaluate that accordingly. Kulbinder S. Garcha - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): But just to be clear, Greg, on that point, you remain committed to ongoing share repurchases, in a sense, thanks to free cash flow being distributed beyond this as well, right? Gino A. Bonanotte - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yes. No change to the capital allocation framework that we outlined. Kulbinder S. Garcha - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Okay. Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Keith Housum with Northcoast Research. Your line is now open.

Keith M. Housum - Northcoast Research Partners LLC

Analyst · Northcoast Research. Your line is now open

Great. Thanks, guys. Good quarter. Hey, Gino, real quick, you'd mentioned that after the tender is over, you're going to have to take a timeout according to the rules. How long is that going to be in effect for? Gino A. Bonanotte - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: It's 10 business days, Keith.

Keith M. Housum - Northcoast Research Partners LLC

Analyst · Northcoast Research. Your line is now open

Oh, just 10 days. Easy enough. Good. And then if you can just drill down a little bit deeper into the North American business, up 6%. It's another good quarter for you guys there. Can you provide a little bit more color on where that strength is coming from? Is it the PCR business? Is it the federal business? Just a little more color there, please. Mark Moon - Executive Vice President and President, Sales & Marketing: Hey, Keith. This is Mark. Actually the strength has been across the board. As we'd mentioned earlier, we've been getting strength in the systems business as well as the device business. The PCR business last quarter was relatively flat, but it had been growing prior to that. And again, if you think about overall North America, growth has been 4%, 6% and 5% the last three quarters, so a little stronger than what – or it's certainly at the high end of our expectations. The federal business has also grown the last two quarters. And we expect it to grow again in the second half and to have modest growth again for the full year. So don't want to declare victory yet, but as we said, we thought that the narrow-banding effect had worn off and it looks like North America, even given when we talk about North America, they're facing some FX headwinds of about $20 million in Canada, but across the board, seems to be good growth and solid, if you will, pipeline to where we're looking at the future.

Keith M. Housum - Northcoast Research Partners LLC

Analyst · Northcoast Research. Your line is now open

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Michael Genovese with MKM Partners. Your line is now open.

Michael E. Genovese - MKM Partners LLC

Analyst · MKM Partners. Your line is now open

Great. Thanks a lot for taking the question. First, on the Silver Lake investment, I'm just trying to understand what additional business opportunities or end markets or product areas will this investment allow you to target? I'm just – I'm confused about these new business opportunities, what they are. Greg Brown - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: I don't think, Michael, I don't think they're new business opportunities. I think the Silver Lake deal is more about bringing additional capacity for us to go achieve them and go seize them. As somebody mentioned earlier, this is exactly consistent with – we outlined in our Financial Analyst Day in February. So this is all about doubling down on software and services, more specifically Smart Public Safety Software and our Services business. I don't think it's new. I think it's a reaffirmation of our commitment and an acceleration therein.

Michael E. Genovese - MKM Partners LLC

Analyst · MKM Partners. Your line is now open

Great. That's helpful. And then the second point is that with this $2 billion tender offer, it's obviously going to reduce the share count above and beyond what we already thought, but yet we're getting the EPS guidance that's consistent with before. It doesn't seem to take the reduction in the share count into – I mean how is that taken into account in your guide? Gino A. Bonanotte - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: In the guidance – so it's important to note and, as I said earlier, the $2.5 billion in what we've guided to for the year and now it's $3.5 billion, but it's also important to note that from an accounting perspective, the Silver Lake investment, the shares represented in that investment will also be included in EPS.

Michael E. Genovese - MKM Partners LLC

Analyst · MKM Partners. Your line is now open

Right. Okay. Thanks. I appreciate the clarifications. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

I will now turn the floor back over to Mr. Shep Dunlap, Vice President of Investor Relations, for any additional or closing remarks.

Shep Dunlap - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Thanks. We made a number of forward-looking statements during the call. That's including statements relating to the investment by Silver Lake and the use of proceeds and benefits thereof; the intent to commence the tender offer; our intent to maintain liquidity and investment grade; outlooks relating to sales, EPS, cost savings, operating leverage, operating cash flow and free cash flow as well as gross margins; effective and cash tax rates, currency; Public Safety LTE sales; regional growth; acquisitions and capital return, share repurchases as well as backlog. Thanks for joining us today and we'll talk to you soon.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's teleconference. A replay of this call will be made available over the Internet in approximately three hours. The Web address is www.motorolasolutions.com/investor. We thank you for your participation and ask that you please disconnect your lines at this time. Have a wonderful day.