Earnings Labs

Snap-on Incorporated (SNA)

Q2 2015 Earnings Call· Thu, Jul 23, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Please stand by, we're about to begin. Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Snap-on, Inc. 2015 Second Quarter Results Conference Call. As a reminder, today's conference is being recorded. And at this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Leslie Kratcoski. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Leslie H. Kratcoski - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

Thanks, Aaron, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today to review Snap-on's second quarter results, which are detailed in our press release issued earlier this morning. We have on the call today, Nick Pinchuk, Snap-on's Chief Executive Officer; and Aldo Pagliari, Snap-on's Chief Finance Officer. Nick will kick off our call this morning with his perspective on our performance. Aldo will then provide a more detailed review of our financial results. After Nick provides some closing thoughts, we'll take your questions. As usual, we've provided slides to supplement our discussion. You can find a copy of these slides on our website next to the audio icon for the call. These slides will be archived on our website along with a transcript of today's call. Any statements made during this call relative to management's expectations, estimates or beliefs or otherwise state management's or the company's outlook plans or projections are forward-looking statements and actual results may differ materially from those made in such statements. Additional information and the factors that could cause our results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements are contained in our SEC filings. With that said, I'll now turn the call over to Nick Pinchuk. Nick?

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

Thanks, Leslie. Good morning, everyone. I'll start this call with some highlights of our second quarter. I'll speak about the general environment and about the trends we see, and I'll take you through some of the progress we've made. Then, Aldo will move into a more detailed review of the financials. Our second quarter results were encouraging. We believe they once again offer strong evidence of clear Snap-on advancements along our runways for both growth and for improvement. Organic sales were up 8.4% from last year. The operating margin expanded by 100 basis points. And earnings per share, they reached $2.03, up 12.8% compared with the $1.80 reported last year. Our reported sales increase was 3.1%. That total includes the continuing weight of unfavorable foreign currency translations this quarter, an impact of $43.4 million. Including the incremental $2.8 million from last year's Pro-Cut acquisition, our total reported sales for the period – our sales for the period were $851.8 million. The opco operating margin reached 17.7%, up from 16.7% in 2014; and as I said, representing 100 basis points increase, more than offsetting the 40 basis point impact on profit from unfavorable currency. Financial Services operating income grew to $41.4 million from last year's $34.8 million, driving our consolidating operating margins, financial services plus opco to 21.1%, higher by 140 basis points. It wasn't our encouraging quarter. From an overall macro perspective, we believe the conditions remain favorable for our businesses serving automotive repair customers, the businesses like the Tools Group and the Repair Systems & Information, our RS&I Group. In the second quarter, the Tools Group organic activity increased 11.2%. The tailwinds of changing vehicle technology and the ageing of the fleet continue to provide opportunity. And the rising strength of our van network and our robust continuing line…

Aldo J. Pagliari - Snap-on Inc.

Management

Thanks, Nick. Our second quarter consolidated operating results are summarized on slide six. Net sales of $851.8 million in the quarter were up 8.4% organically. On a reported basis, net sales including $43.4 million of unfavorable foreign currency translation, increased $25.3 million or 3.1% from 2014 levels. As you know, Snap-on has significant international operations and is subject to foreign currency fluctuations. Largely due to the strengthening of the U.S. dollar, foreign currency movements adversely impacted our year-over-year Q2 sales comparisons by 570 basis points. Consolidated gross profit of $419 million increased $18.6 million from 2014 levels, primarily due to benefits from higher sales, savings from RCI initiatives and lower restructuring costs, partially offset by unfavorable foreign currency effects. The gross margin of 49.2% in the quarter improved 80% from 48.4% a year ago. Operating expenses of $268.2 million increased $5.9 million largely due to higher volume-related and other expenses, including higher pension expense, partially offset by favorable foreign currency translation and savings from RCI initiatives. The operating expense margin of 31.5% improved 20 basis points from 31.7% last year. No restructuring costs were incurred in the second quarter of 2015. In the second quarter of last year, we incurred $1.4 million of such costs. Pension expense in the quarter was approximately $2 million higher as compared to the prior year, mostly reflecting the impacts of lower discount rates as well as increased life expectancies. As a result of these factors, operating earnings before Financial Services of $150.8 million in the quarter, including $12 million of unfavorable foreign currency effects increased 9.2% and as a percentage of sales improved 100 basis points to 17.7%. Financial Services revenue of $58.7 million in the quarter increased 13.5% from 2014 levels, while operating earnings of $41.4 million increased 19%. The increases in both…

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

Thanks, Aldo. Well, that's the Snap-on results. Once again, we believe the period stands as clear testimony to the opportunities abundant along our runways for growth and for improvement. And it confirms our team's capability to keep taking full advantage despite the challenges, like unfavorable currency, turbulent economies and varying industry dynamics, we are progressing along our runways for growth. C&I organic sales rising 11.2%; OI margin 14.3%, up 100 basis points, extended to critical industries, gains in aviation and the military, building in emerging markets. The Tools Group enhancing the van channel, wielding the network more powerfully than ever. Organic sales up 11.2%; OI margins 17.1%, a 70 basis point increase. And RS&I, organic sales up 3.3%; OI margin 24.4%, an increase of 120 basis points. And the overall corporation growing organically at 8.4%, overcoming the headwind. And we demonstrated progress down our runways for improvement. The Corporate OI margin was 17.7%, up 100 basis points more than offsetting 40 basis points of unfavorable currency impact. Putting it all together with Financial Services' contributions, earnings per share reached $2.03, up 12.8% against the wind. Second quarter was encouraging and we believe it demonstrates again that Snap-on has the inherent advantages, the opportunities and the capabilities to advance, to resist the turbulence, to keep progressing, and to extend our positive trend of performance as we go forward. Before I turn the call over to the operator for questions, I'll speak a moment to our franchisees and associates. As always, I know many of you are listening, please know that the encouraging results of the second quarter would not have been possible without your dedication and capability, your demonstrated skill, clear commitment, and extraordinary contribution to our team; you have my congratulations and you have my thanks. Now, I'll turn the call over to the operator. Operator?

Operator

Operator

And we'll take our first question from David MacGregor with Longbow Research.

David S. MacGregor - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst · Longbow Research

Yes. Good morning, everyone. Congratulations Nick on a great quarter.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

Thanks. Thank you.

David S. MacGregor - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst · Longbow Research

I guess I'm struck by the slow originations growth, up 8.9%, and what looks like divergence against a double-digit growth in big ticket. And I'm mindful that credit typically exists on the sell-through. Is it possible that your franchisees are just seeing a much higher level of inventory right now and that would have explained that divergence or maybe you could help us understand that?

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

There's a lot of vintage in that. Fundamentally, there is questions of timings, there is a secondary market that comes into that, there is the questions of the how much – what are those actually sold at versus what we sell, what sales price we book versus what the van driver books. The numbers are something like this, I think they're – what were they, 8.9% this quarter?

David S. MacGregor - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst · Longbow Research

Yeah.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

And originations in 11.2%. But last quarter, they were reverse, it was 14.2% versus 12.9%. And the quarter before that it was – in other words, 14.2% was the originations and 12.9% was the Tools Group, and 7.5% (36:16) was the originations in the fourth quarter and 11.8% was the Tools Group. So they don't match up perfectly. We are unconcerned – we're not concerned about anything like that. And we don't see anything like buildup of inventory in the vans at all. This is just a matter of timing and the differences I pointed out.

David S. MacGregor - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst · Longbow Research

Okay. And that big ticket growth, you were talking about the double-digit growth. Is there any way you can help us understand the difference between price mix growth versus volume growth?

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

You mean – well, I think – look, the big ticket items are – you mean, in terms of big ticket growth itself or the effect on Tools?

David S. MacGregor - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst · Longbow Research

Yes. No, the big ticket growth. I'm just trying to understand how much of that was from – I'm presuming you're talking about revenue growth and I'm just wondering how much of that...

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

Yeah, yeah. No, if you're talking about revenue growth. Generally, big ticket prices are – when we're talking about – when I talk about big ticket growth, I'm talking about what the big ticket items were a year ago, and they've grown actually at double-digits, a little faster than the Tools Group. And, in fact, that's, I would say, apples-to-apples in terms of pricing. So it's pretty much volume growth in that situation.

David S. MacGregor - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst · Longbow Research

Volume growth. Okay. And then last question, just – there's been a lot of talk about competition within the diagnostic space and there's been a lot of evolution lately in terms of how people are going to market the value prop and how it's packaged. Are you feeling the increased presence of competitive product in the market? That might explain the lower organic growth rates in RS&I or how should we think about that?

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

I don't think so. I mean, first of all, it's one quarter; that's one thing. And that can be moved up and down. But the diagnostics and information business – the sale of diagnostics and our information products into independent repair shops, which is the space we're talking about, was up fairly strongly in the quarter. I think we said high single digits. So – mid-single digits. So that was a little bit better than RS&I. And then second thing is, I would offer that – I was just on these Rock N' Roll – I was on one of these techno vans recently. And the van driver told me, he said, we're not associated – we're not worried about competition, our biggest competition is the difficulty in getting to a technician and explaining to him the product, getting him to appreciate the value of our business. He didn't cite any competitors at all. In fact, I never see – I was just with 1,200 customers over the weekend and that – 10 days ago, and they were talking about this product and basically they talked about the idea that it was better than anything else we had – better than anything else we had brought out. Secondly – I mean, thirdly, I would suppose that when you – when we survey independent technicians, when we ask them what's your preferred form of diagnostic, it's still overwhelmingly Snap-on. I think the numbers, the latest numbers we have are 60 for Snap-on, 11 for number two. So you see all those. Now, if you come back to RS&I, I suppose your question was RS&I; I personally think, we were encouraged by the RS&I growth because of the equipment business, which tends to get dinged because of Eastern Europe. So ironically, equipment business was – grew, I think Aldo said, low single-digits. So it's somewhat of a drag from a volume point of view, but from a margin point of view, because in my remarks, I talked about that new aligner, the V2400, hey, that's a great product and it's selling very well and it's a great margin generator for us. So what you saw from an equipment business actually was a little bit of drag on RS&I revenues, but a boost on RS&I margins, because of the aligner business, because it helps you understand RS&I a little bit more. But we don't see, actually we don't see, at least in my interactions from the market. So logically or at least in talking to market we don't see much pressure and then empirically, we don't see it in our numbers as pressure either.

David S. MacGregor - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst · Longbow Research

Is there any way you can size for us the size of the Eastern European undercar business as a percentage?

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

I don't think I want to get into that granularity, but...

David S. MacGregor - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst · Longbow Research

Sure.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

...but I can just say that that business is bigger for equipment -bigger than for equipment than anybody else, because – and it becomes a historical thing. We made better inroads in Eastern Europe and the Middle East than almost any of our other businesses. And so it has been particularly impacted by this particular downturn and in this particular set of economic dynamics. Now, we have other – we're not mourning or wringing our hands over that, but when you start slicing the corporation down into pieces, that you start to see it a little bit more like it comes out in RS&I.

David S. MacGregor - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst · Longbow Research

Okay. Thanks very much. Great quarter.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

Sure. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And we'll take our next question from David Leiker with Baird. Joe D. Vruwink - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Hi. This is Joe Vruwink for David.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

Hi, Joe.

Aldo J. Pagliari - Snap-on Inc.

Management

Hello, Joe. Joe D. Vruwink - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Sticking with diagnostics, Nick, when you originally started throwing out a gross target for that segment and thinking it would grow kind of near to 5% rate. I believe the strategy at that time was to sell a diagnostics unit to a repair shop, and now you're talking about selling diagnostics units to each technician within that shop. And so how might that change maybe the longer-term growth profile for the business knowing the evolution of that strategy?

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

Well, first of all, I'm not abandoning the idea we're selling for the shops. I think we still have a lot of runway in terms of, what I would call, the downtown diagnostics, the things that will stand up and tell your fortune, the higher level ones that a shop would buy and might have one or two of them in the shop. We still have a lot of runway in that area, so – and it's a very important product line for us. And, in fact, we feel pretty positive about the possibilities and the opportunity for that opportunity, but I think what you say is very true. We now know that more and more of the repair activities in a shop are going to require diagnostics. I think I said possibly on the last call that roughly 40% of repairs require diagnostics today, and the new cars 80% of the repair. So you can see how that's going to go as new cars roll into the marketplace. And so maintenance techs as opposed to the repair techs, guys who do oil changes and battery changes, and just tune up the cars are going to have to use diagnostics to do these kinds of things to reset some of the parameters that they start with, that they change when they make these changes. And so we'll be looking to sell diagnostics, those things. That's the purpose of the ETHOS Tech. So you would expect that that would add a boost to that. But I would still say, I would still say – let's not talk of 4% to 6%, I would still say that if you look at the long-term sort of over the horizon opportunities for our businesses, I would rank C&I with the critical industries and the emerging markets as the highest growth opportunity. It's got unbounded opportunity. If you look at – I would say, this particular one sits in the middle. And then the Tools Group, we've been able to wield that model better and better reach more technicians, but at the end of the day, it is bounded. So I'd put them in those pieces. Now maybe you might (43:58) between the 4% to 6% number, but I – for our overall business, but I still see RS&I in that middle, in middle. Joe D. Vruwink - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Okay. And I probably won't get you to update the range itself today. So I guess I can move on to my next question.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

Really, what I'm saying – let me just try to clarify. When I said 4% to 6%, I meant generally we can grow at that level. If you want to look at the Tools Group, we said it'd be at the bottom. We can grow at that level, roughly double GDP, without necessarily coming up with things that would make our models more powerful. We could capture more customers, we could add more – no accelerators. Now, you see what happened in the Tools Group, we got accelerators on top of that breaking through the barriers of space and time. I was just on a techno – I just said I was on a techno van, we talked about that. We always – we always thought about that, well, it saves time. And what it does is both the Rock N' Roll cab and the techno van save time for the franchisees, because when the franchisee rides in parallel with these vans a couple times a year, it's like a training seminar. Because the guy who's running the van is an incredible salesman, and it saves our franchisee from going to a training center – seminar to learn how to sell tool storage or to learn how to sell diagnostics. And that's one of the reasons why the sales are up, we not only added to the retail space, but we also boosted the capabilities of our franchisees. That's why same-store sales have been up greater than 6% 20 of the last 21 quarters, that's the kind of effect. So I think if we keep discovering ways to do that, we'll beat that 4% to 6%. Joe D. Vruwink - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Sure. Now, that's great color. Shifting gears a little bit, what's your experience around China before Snap-on and while at Snap-on? Is there anything going on in that region that gives you pause or areas of concern that you might be seeing just given your experience there?

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

Look, China is – I would see China through Tiananmen. you got to remember. So I was there when – I remember going to the hotel, The Shanghai Hilton and I stayed there three days, I never saw another guest. And three months before that, it was like going to the gold rush. So you see a lot of variations in China, I think this is quite normal. You're seeing some variation, but nothing that would affect my view of the long-term trajectory. I see opportunities for us. The repair ways will rise, we will take advantage of it. The shape of that advantage, we have to figure out going forward; that's really our situation. Of course, Asia is now – I think it's correct and popular to say that Asia is varying and it is. You see variations in India, Modi isn't catching on quite a bit. You see Indonesia coming back actually. Japan is actually getting a little better. We had a pretty good – we had a reasonable quarter in Japan. Korea came back, even though MERS has given us some problem, we had a good quarter in Korea. So you have variations, but nothing that interdicts the long-term view. And I spend six weeks a year there. Joe D. Vruwink - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): And nothing – if the long-term in China is so positive, what about more the near-term, any risks or volatility?

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

Well, yeah – sure, there's volatility, but we're not looking for a meltdown, that kind of thing, there's volatility. There is volatility in China of course. We have good – we have great quarters, we have medium quarters, those kinds of things. Our Asia-Pacific business, as Aldo said, they grew double-digits in a quarter. Okay? Joe D. Vruwink - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Okay. Great. Very good. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And we'll go next to Liam Burke with Wunderlich.

Liam D. Burke - Wunderlich Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Wunderlich

Thank you. Good morning, Nick. Good morning, Aldo.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

Morning, Liam.

Aldo J. Pagliari - Snap-on Inc.

Management

Morning.

Liam D. Burke - Wunderlich Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Wunderlich

Nick, I'm sorry, I'd like to stay on Asia-Pacific for a moment. You have had a fair amount of upfront investment there. It seems like you're getting growth. But in generally, directionally, are the margins you're getting out of the region or the direction of the trends, are they on track with expectations?

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

Sure. Actually, we have no worry about, I think, the margins in that regard. I mean, it's the geography, it's the P&L geography. I think, you saw in Aldo's discussion again on C&I how – I think, gross margins were down 70 basis points and we made it up on SG&A, well it was SG&A up 170 basis points. And what's – the principle component of that was the geography of certain big players, and Asia-Pacific is one of them, lower gross margin, lower SG&A, but OI margin kind of on track for what we like to do, if you adjust for that forward investment. So we feel okay about that. I think we continue to be confident in that regard.

Liam D. Burke - Wunderlich Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Wunderlich

Okay. And staying with C&I, you mentioned power tools as being a driver of growth. Typically that's – is that unique to the quarter or is there something going on in the market where you're getting a step-up in demand there?

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

I don't think it's anything in the market, I think it's – look – I think – actually, I think we hit a bonanza this quarter and you know what we did? We actually took power tools and garbed them in the 95th anniversary colors. And remember me talking about the box, how people like, signed up for this $10,000 box to put, in effect, a shrine to our corporation in the workplace. Well, if you offer it to them at a couple hundred dollars, they're even more enthusiastic. So part of what we're seeing there is this kind of push. We put the – our half inch pneumatic impact, which is a popular product, but we garbed it in the 95th anniversary or the cordless ratchet or our air hammers, things like that, or our cordless impact, and those have become popular. I don't think it's a special demand thing. I think power tools are kind of people – they wear out, people buy them periodically and it's like a new car, you show up with a new color and especially 95th anniversary colors for Snap-on is a collector item and it's a particularly compelling color. And so they like that.

Liam D. Burke - Wunderlich Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Wunderlich

Thank you, Nick.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

That's what's driving it.

Liam D. Burke - Wunderlich Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Wunderlich

Okay. Great. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

And we'll go next to Tom Hayes with Northcoast Research.

Tom L. Hayes - Northcoast Research Partners LLC

Analyst · Northcoast Research

Hi. Good morning gentlemen.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

Hi, Tom.

Aldo J. Pagliari - Snap-on Inc.

Management

Morning, Tom.

Tom L. Hayes - Northcoast Research Partners LLC

Analyst · Northcoast Research

Hey. Just wondering – staying on the C&I Group for a little bit, you called out, Nick, aviation and military doing well. I was just wondering if there's any segments that were lagging your expectations. And then just...

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

Yeah...

Tom L. Hayes - Northcoast Research Partners LLC

Analyst · Northcoast Research

...maybe just kind of a follow-up is, just kind of reset where you have the larger international exposure in the C&I Group?

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

Sure. We had a good quarter – this happens every quarter. We have variations because we have six or seven critical industries in that area. This quarter, we happen to have a good – we had good progress in aviation, heavy duty – the heavy duty sector was strong for us, railroads were strong, oil and gas was weak. I think – but actually, I'm not so sure, last time it was up against the wind. And I think, for us, we're just starting to penetrate these areas. So they're not so driven by the economics as they are, when you're just starting to penetrate, you can get quite a variation from quarter to quarter, that's the kind of thing we saw. We saw some flatness in things like mining, stuff like that. But, generally, that's the – military was up double-digits. We kind of expect C&I to keep – the idea of extending to critical industries to keep going, to keep moving. Now, I don't say it happens every quarter. I mean, this is a great example. I mean, I say every second quarter that we feel very good from a C&I – we feel very good right now about our Commercial & Industrial trajectory, we feel very good about our Tools trajectory, we feel very good about our software and diagnostics trajectory. But that's the trajectory – and without giving – I'm not warning anything or saying anything about – third quarter's always squirrely. I mean we have vacations in the third quarter and so on. So you can't tell what sectors will be going in and out, because we have our franchisees going on vacations sometimes usually in the third quarter, Europe is on vacation. So it's hard for me to predict it for every quarter. But I can tell you, we feel very encouraged by the trajectory. And I'm not in any way trying to say that we're going to have a tepid third quarter or anything like that.

Tom L. Hayes - Northcoast Research Partners LLC

Analyst · Northcoast Research

Okay, great. And then just following up on the Tools Group, certainly there's a nice step up in operating margin both on a sequential and year-over-year basis. Being relatively new to the story, I was just wondering if there is anything unique in the quarter kind of one time that moved it up or does it just reflect continued strong growth in the RCI and maybe new tool roll outs?

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

Yeah, it's all of those. Look, I think what's happened in the Tools Group is in the quarter – as you know, we focus on quarters, but the limited information – the limited indication of what's going on in the Tools Group though has been doing this for some time now. Like I said, the numbers are something like this, what, 11.2% this quarter organically, 12.9% the quarter before that, 11.8% the quarter before that, 6.2% the quarter before that, 6.6% the quarter before. So they're kind of – they've been growing at 6% plus for, as I said, 20 of the last 22 quarters in effect almost defying GDP gravity. And so they're learning, they've learned. This management team has been in a while. They're learning how to wield this capable, tremendous model even better, things like the Rock N' Roll cab, the TechKnow Express, learning what products, learning the power of garbing the power tools into the 95th anniversary, figuring out how to do that, figuring out how to do – that's the things that are occurring. And that when you marry it up with RCI, that allows you to do these things more effectively, allows you to drive profitability upwards as well as volume. One other thing is that – I think I've said this is that – one of the things that works for us, kind of a tailwind in a way is that we're a company that has complex product offerings, 65,000 SKUs and we keep turning out more, because we try to solve everybody's – we try to solve a wide array of problems well the idea of modern technology, 3D printing, finite element analysis, X-ray diffractometers that allows you to look more accurately at the metallurgy, the kinds of things we get out of – more accurately getting the information out of customer connection into the mark – into our innovation process; those kind of things accrue with amplified advantage to somebody who has a complex product line, you're seeing some of that.

Tom L. Hayes - Northcoast Research Partners LLC

Analyst · Northcoast Research

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And we'll go next to Gary Prestopino with Barrington Research.

Gary Frank Prestopino - Barrington Research Associates, Inc.

Analyst · Barrington Research

Good morning, everyone.

Aldo J. Pagliari - Snap-on Inc.

Management

Hey, Gary.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

Good morning, Gary.

Gary Frank Prestopino - Barrington Research Associates, Inc.

Analyst · Barrington Research

Good morning. A couple of quick questions. Your emerging markets business, Nick, I don't think I either quoted or you said it, but what was the growth there? And what's the percentage of sales now out of emerging markets?

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

It's 10%. And the growth was – well, it depends if you talk about Eastern Europe as emerging markets, right. Eastern Europe.

Gary Frank Prestopino - Barrington Research Associates, Inc.

Analyst · Barrington Research

Right.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

Right. Okay, so I mean. Yeah, okay, if you want to roll that in, it ain't so good but the thing is Asia-Pacific grew double-digits. So you can look at it that way. I think – we actually have some businesses that weren't so bad in Eastern Europe, but, generally, it was an element of pain this period. And I – so I think you could call that an offset. Asia, okay. Asia, okay. Middle East, if you want to call that emerging market, that was kind of weak. South America was okay, Chile was up, Argentina was up. So you kind of got a balance there, a cocktail of things. So let me just summarize. Asia-Pacific double-digits. I think South America, the South – the Latin American countries, the bigger ones for us were up more – kind of double-digity type stuff. Eastern Europe tough, down. And Middle East, down. So that's where we are. And you roll it all up, when you classify something reasonably, a rational man would classify as emerging markets 10% of our business.

Gary Frank Prestopino - Barrington Research Associates, Inc.

Analyst · Barrington Research

Okay, great. Thank you. And then, you – at times in the past you've talked that you try and do 40 plus products, new product introductions that generate over $1 million of sales. It just appears to be, from the last couple of calls that that number has increased. And could you comment on that?

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

Actually – go ahead, sorry.

Gary Frank Prestopino - Barrington Research Associates, Inc.

Analyst · Barrington Research

No, I was just going to add. I would assume that as newer cars proliferate, that is going to dictate to you – your company as to what new products you're going to come out with as the car part (57:39)?

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

I agree. You're right. Actually, I agree. I think we have great opportunities. And the thing I've said is, the way we measure the effectiveness of our innovation process, one of the measures is the number of hit products, $1 million sellers in the first year of after first year of being on the market. And I think you and I have been in this conservation that we were four, five – in the last couple of years, we were four times, five times what we were just in 2006 and we keep pushing that envelop. It's not so much – I think we're getting better at doing that. It's not so much a number counting game it's getting better and they're having more impact and they're driving more sales and they're doing better things. Like – just like, I'll tell you what, it sounds like not so important. But the idea of the combo ratcheting wrench that will have a low profile, 25% more – 25% more strength, 95% more life, will get in smaller spaces, that one is going to be a great product for us, and people are so excited about it. People are saying that's the kind of thing we're – so I think we're not only bringing out a lot of them, bringing out better ones, because the whole product development process, we're more effective at it.

Gary Frank Prestopino - Barrington Research Associates, Inc.

Analyst · Barrington Research

Thank you, Nick.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

Okay, Gary.

Operator

Operator

And we'll take our final question from Richard Hilgert with Morningstar.

Richard John Hilgert - Morningstar Research

Analyst · Morningstar

Thanks. Thanks for taking my questions this morning. Congrats on the quarter.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

Thank you.

Aldo J. Pagliari - Snap-on Inc.

Management

Good morning, Richard.

Richard John Hilgert - Morningstar Research

Analyst · Morningstar

Just curious about – on the new product development side, we're seeing more and more penetration of things that are related to active safety and autonomous driving or assisted-driving automated systems, these kinds of things.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

We love it.

Richard John Hilgert - Morningstar Research

Analyst · Morningstar

Yeah. I was just going to ask, are you already preparing for these kinds of things...

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

Yeah, we love that.

Richard John Hilgert - Morningstar Research

Analyst · Morningstar

...like what you're hearing from customers?

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

Sure. Because we love this thing. I mean, if you think about it, okay, autonomous driving. The thing is that – if they go to autonomous driving, there used to be an incredibly – before autonomous driving, there would be an incredibly complex computer system for any imprecisions on the car, that was called the human brain. Think about alignment for example, if the car was a little bit out of alignment, you could adjust the wheel a little bit. Now, if you have autonomous driving, let's say automatic parking, you better not be out of alignment, you're going to hit the parking meter. And so that's going to require many more procedures and more precise procedures and we're the company to give it to you. So we love those kinds of actions. And so we're thinking about it, particularly around anything around calibration very much helps you. And that's sort of the equipment business – that's why we're so excited about the new V2400 aligner, because it's kind of a downtown aligner which creates more accuracy and therefore fits right into this.

Richard John Hilgert - Morningstar Research

Analyst · Morningstar

Okay. Very good. Thank you.

Nicholas T. Pinchuk - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

Sure.

Leslie H. Kratcoski - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

Operator?

Operator

Operator

And with no questions in the queue, I'll turn it back over to our speakers for any comments or closing remarks.

Leslie H. Kratcoski - Snap-on, Inc.

Management

Okay. Thanks, Aaron, and thanks everyone for joining us today. A replay of the call will be available shortly on our website. And as always, we thank you for your interest in Snap-on. Have a good day. Bye.

Operator

Operator

And this does conclude today's conference. Everyone, we thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.