Randall J. Hogan
Analyst · Robert W
Thanks, Jim, and good morning, everyone. Let me begin with our second quarter performance, which is on Slide 3 of the deck. Pentair's second quarter was strong for many reasons. We were very pleased with our 4% core growth in the quarter and saw 2 of our 3 segments grow, which highlights our narrowly diversified portfolios balance. All 3 segments drove operating margin expansion greater than 100 basis points, and Water & Fluid Solutions achieved a 15% operating margin, a record for that segment. Our adjusted EPS came in at the high end of our guidance. It has been 9 months since we closed the flow control merger, and every day we see further support for the rationale of the deal. We remain confident in our ability to deliver on the synergy targets we've outlined given Pentair's proven track record of execution and the actions we continue to identify to drive our success. This is important since many of our end markets around the globe are sending mixed signals ranging from sluggish and pessimistic to moderate optimism. Our continued North America residential recovery, strength in Food & Beverage, and steadiness in Energy, is helping counterbalance the ongoing headwinds in Industrial, where many had anticipated a second half acceleration does not appear to be materializing. Before I go through the second quarter results in detail, I want to note that we will be discussing our operating results on an adjusted basis to better address the core operating performance of our businesses, and referring to 2012 on a pro forma adjusted basis to provide a more accurate apples-to-apples comparison that includes flow control in the results. With that, here are the numbers. As I mentioned a moment ago, second quarter revenue grew 4% on an organic basis with foreign exchange neutral in the quarter. Adjusted operating income grew 13%, while adjusted operating margins increased 120 basis points to 13.7% as price and productivity once again more than offset inflation. Adjusted EPS grew 19% year-over-year to $0.92, which came in slightly higher than our expected range. Free cash flow for the quarter was $331 million, which is greater than what we generated for all of 2012. And we expect to deliver full year free cash flow greater than 100% of net income once again. We continue to build momentum on the elements within our control, and we see opportunities to deliver double-digit EPS growth, even as we wait for better economic conditions around the globe. Now let's turn to Slide 4 for a performance review of our largest segment, Water & Fluid Solutions. Water & Fluid Solutions sales were up 8% on a core basis, made up of 7% volume growth and 1% of price. Sales in the Residential & Commercial vertical, which represents roughly half of the segment, grew 8% in the quarter, as the North American residential recovery continued. We once again saw a double-digit sales gain in our Aquatics business and our Filtration and Flow businesses also performed very well. The European residential market remained sluggish, but the North American market is more than offsetting this continued weakness. Our Food & Beverage vertical, which accounts for nearly 1/5 of Water & Fluid Solutions sales, grew revenue 25% in the quarter with agriculture, beverage and foodservice all delivering strong double-digit gains. Our Infrastructure vertical, which accounts for nearly 20% of Water & Fluid Solutions sales, was up modestly, as our North American break and fix business continue to shift from its backlog. And we're, at long last, seeing signs of stabilization in our European business, particularly with desal customers in the Middle East. The right half of the page shows second quarter Water & Fluid Solutions operating profits and margins for the quarter. Water & Fluid Solutions adjusted operating margins improved 120 basis points and hit a record 15% as the benefits the productivity and price drove the expansion. With the North American residential recovery gaining momentum, we again saw a strong drop through to the bottom line as a result of the cost structure we built during the prolonged housing downturn. In addition, we made good progress with our recent repositioning actions, which have begun to show benefit, too. In summary, Water & Fluid Solutions delivered a second consecutive strong quarter, driven by our Residential and Food & Beverage verticals. Now let's turn to Slide 5 for a review of our Valves & Controls segment performance. The second quarter performance in Valves & Controls is beginning to show the power of PIMS adoption. Lean implementation continues to go better than we had anticipated, and we saw further improvements in on-time delivery rates for the business. We've made good progress in Valves & Controls reorganization moves, and our clear focus on service has produced some nice wins. In addition, we continue to be more disciplined in pursuing large projects, as evidenced by improving margin in backlog. Also in the second quarter, we're encouraged that backlogs remain near-record levels and orders grew. We continue to expect to deliver low-single-digit growth for the full year based on our backlog and shipment schedules. After our top line decline in the first quarter, Valves & Controls sales grew 4% in the second quarter driven by volume, as FX and price were both flat. Oil and gas and mining sales both increased at a low-double-digit rate, while power sales were flat and industrial process sales declined modestly. We also saw a strong growth in service across Valves & Controls, but the top line at low-double digits and MRO growing in a mid-single digit range. We'll discuss orders and backlogs in further detail in just a moment. The right half of the page shows second quarter Valves & Controls operating profits and margins. Operating margins were up 160 basis points to 13.5%, owing to productivity improvements. We've seen broad adoption of PIMS, particularly in Lean enterprises, and synergies are also contributing to the margin expansion. As we discussed last quarter, we have deployed 8 senior operating leaders to help accelerate the deployment of Lean and over 10,000 PIMS e-learning modules have been completed by over 4,000 Valves & Controls employees. In addition, over 1,000 Valves & Controls employees have participated in PIMS growth training already. In summary, Valves & Controls growth in second quarter followed a modest contraction last quarter, highlighting that there may be some quarter-to-quarter variability around the timing of shipments, but our long-term outlook in this segment remained quite positive. Now let's move to Slide 6 for a look of the orders and backlog for Valves & Controls. As you can see on Slide 6, the Valves & Controls backlog is broken down in 4 key industries, 3 of which fall into our energy vertical: Oil and gas, power and then mining, and one in our industrial vertical, which is the process business. Backlog was essentially flat overall and remains at a near-record level of $1.4 billion. Process saw a small decline in its backlog, while orders grew. There continues to be some slowness in the Asia Pacific region, but North American quoting activity has picked up as a result of projects aimed to take advantage of inexpensive North American natural gas. Within oil and gas, backlog remains strong globally and orders grew 10% after declining in the first quarter. The power business saw a decline in orders against a tough comparison, but backlog remains strong and we still expect the second half to show some growth in power shipments. Second quarter orders in mining increased as a large project was booked, but the near-term outlook on the overall industry remains challenged. Mining backlog remains at a record level with many projects scheduled to ship through the remainder of the year. Now let's move to Slide 7 for the review of Technical Solutions. Sales for the segment declined 4% for the quarter led by another double-digit decrease in Infrastructure, consisting largely of Datacom, telecom and networking, which remains weak, particularly in Europe. Industrial sales declined 2% as many customers continue to delay capital spending. After seeing daily industrial order rates improved in April and May, we saw a decline in June. It's too early to tell if this is a further destocking of customers further lowering their capital spend, but the outlook for industrial remains less than favorable. Energy sales were down 9% as our Thermal Management business saw continued delays with megaprojects, mostly in Canada. The right half of the page shows second quarter Technical Solutions operating profits and margins. Technical Solutions operating margin increased 200 basis points to 17.6%, owing the positive contributions from price, productivity and mix, which offset inflation in the quarter. As we've seen in the past few quarters, Technical Solutions' profitable business grew, while the lower margin Infrastructure business declined. We expect the top line to remain pressured in Technical Solutions, as an anticipated acceleration in second half industrial activity does not appear to be materializing. However, we anticipate further margin improvement as mix remains favorable and standardization efforts continue to gain momentum. Let's now turn to Slide 8 for a closer look at Pentair's growth in the first half. Given the top line challenges that persist and continued mix of economic signs, we thought it would be helpful to provide an update on the trends in our key geographies in our 5 key verticals. The U.S. has been a bright spot in the first half as the long-awaited North American residential recovery gains momentum. We've also seen improvements in our Infrastructure break and fix business, where backlogs remained steady for over 4 quarters. Canada has been slower with a number of delayed projects in Energy, but we've not seen many cancellations. Western Europe continues to send mix signals, but we saw modest growth in the second quarter after several quarters of decline. While the European Residential & Commercial business remains weak, we've seen strength in Food & Beverage and are starting to see signs of stabilization in Infrastructure, or at least tougher comps flattening out. Fast growth regions have also been mixed with China declining, Southeast Asia and Latin America growing at a double-digit rate and the Middle East showing nice gains. Looking within our 5 verticals, we still expect Energy sales to grow at a low-single-digit rate for the full year. Based on our backlogs, we see second half growth in oil and gas, power and mining. As we alluded to earlier in our Valves & Controls discussion, Energy will be the vertical with the most lumpiness due to project shipment timing. Industrial has been a wild card all year and the anticipated second half acceleration does not appear to be materializing. The process business in Valves & Controls as backlog has shift, but the shorter cycle Technical Solution business continues to see customers pull their purse strings tight. Residential & Commercial is finally a bright spot, which we don't get tired of saying that after a 6-year downturn that we've suffered in North American residential. While there is some second half seasonality that should contribute to the growth rate moderating, we still expect mid-single-digit growth in Residential & Commercial for the full year. We have yet to see much in the way of recovery in commercial construction, so we expect sales of residential customers to continue to drive the top line in this vertical. Infrastructure sales have been tracking as expected for the year with the rate of decline moderating, while sales in Communications customers within Technical Solutions remains weak. We've seen Water & Fluid Solutions sales in North America post respectable growth, and European sales appear to be stabilizing after an 18-month contraction. Finally, Food & Beverage remains a great story. We're seeing strong gains in all 3 of our focus areas in this space. Agriculture continues to post near double-digit gains, driven by demand in both irrigation and crop spray. Beverage is seeing strong demand, particularly within the beer industry. And Foodservice is having a good year as the business is well positioned with key customers that are expanding globally. Now let's turn to Slide 9 for an update on our guidance. We're tightening our 2013 EPS guidance to a range of $3.15 to $3.25 from a range of $3.10 to $3.30. We've seen positives during the first half, such as better productivity and synergies, but the outlook for the top line remains murky. In particular, the lack of second half in acceleration in Industrial, as well as FX becoming a headwind, has led us to bring down the top end of our range by $0.05. At the same time, the elements within our control give us the confidence to raise the lower end of the range by $0.05. Now let's turn to Slide 10 for first half recap and full year outlook. We delivered on our first half expectations as our proven operating disciplines help to offset the ongoing external challenges on the top line. As we enter the second half, we've seen signs that Europe is finally stabilizing but don't see that as a signal that it's returning to growth. We expect price to continue to offset inflation, synergies continue to move ahead of our initial expectations and our record backlog to contribute to growth in the second half. As mentioned previously, the top line will also be negatively impacted by FX translation in the second half, which in addition to the small divestiture that occurred at the end of the first quarter, has led us to trim our revenue forecast by 1 point. In the meantime, we continue to execute on the elements within our control and we expect operating margins to expand in excess of 150 basis points, putting us on track to deliver strong double-digit adjusted EPS growth. We've completed $825 million of our $1.2 billion authorized share repurchase program and we expect our free cash flow to be greater than 100% net income conversion for the year once again. With that, I'll turn the call over to John.