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Transcript
OP
Operator
Operator
Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Q3 2015 Smith & Wesson Holding Corporation's Conference Call. My name is Tia, and I'll be your operator for today. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. We will conduct a question-and-answer session towards the end of this conference. I would now, let's turn the call over to your host for today Liz Sharp, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please proceed.
ER
Elizabeth Sharp - Vice President-Investor Relations
Management
Thank you, and good afternoon. Our comments today may contain predictions, estimates and other forward-looking statements. Our use of words like anticipate, project, estimate, expect, intend, believe and other similar expressions is intended to identify those forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements also include statements regarding revenue, earnings per share, fully diluted share count and tax rate for future periods, our product development, focus, initiatives, objectives and strategies, our market share and market demand for our products, market and inventory conditions related to our products and in our industry in general, growth opportunities and trends, and the expected benefits of our acquisition of Battenfeld Technologies. Our forward-looking statements represent our current judgment about the future and they are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Risk factors and other considerations that could cause our actual results to be materially different are described in our securities filings, including our Forms 8-K, 10-K and 10-Q. You can find those documents, as well as a replay of this call on our website at smith-wesson.com. Today's call contains time-sensitive information that is accurate only as of this time and we assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained herein. Our actual results could differ materially from our statements today. I have a few important items to note with regard to our comments on today's call. First, we reference certain non-GAAP financial measures on this call. Note that the reconciliations of GAAP financial measures to non-GAAP financial measures can be found in today's 8-K filing, as well as today's earnings press release, both of which are posted to our website. Also when we reference EPS, we are always referencing diluted EPS. And finally, please note that this call references only our continuing operations. For the results of our discontinued operations, please refer to our 10-Q for the…
OP
Operator
Operator
The first question comes from the line of Cai von Rumohr with Cowen and Company. Please proceed.
CL
Cai von Rumohr - Cowen and Company, LLC
Analyst
Good performance, guys. Very impressive.
P. James Debney - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks, Cai.
CL
Cai von Rumohr - Cowen and Company, LLC
Analyst
Can you give us a little color on what are you seeing in terms of the impact of foreign currencies going down? Are we seeing more competition from some of the competitors like Beretta and Glock in terms of price cutting? And maybe talk generally about what you're seeing in terms of price cutting during the quarter and entering this quarter?
P. James Debney - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Just on overseas competitors, we do track import data quite closely and we're actually seeing that decline – the volumes – in terms of units decline. We don't believe that currency is giving them a benefit that is translating into more aggressive cost price promotions and again we closely monitor that situation as well. I'm sorry, Cai, what was the second part of the question?
CL
Cai von Rumohr - Cowen and Company, LLC
Analyst
Just general pricing trends. What were they in the quarter? What are you seeing, the color in terms of as we've gone into the current quarter, has it improved or just any color on demand?
P. James Debney - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. Staying within the third quarter, we pretty much saw what we said last time just a continuation of a lot of discounting going on at retail, as retailers were looking to move on some of the inventory where they were heavy, this particular product categories where that is much more clear. I mentioned one, Modern Sporting Rifles, 1911s for example is another one, where you do see a lot of discounting going on. You also see it with certain full-size polymer pistols as well. So numerous rebates at the counter, a lot of those are cash rebates and some of them are for example two free magazines, should you buy this firearm and so on. So, not much change there I would say.
CL
Cai von Rumohr - Cowen and Company, LLC
Analyst
Okay. And then it looks like you're going to have another $4.8 million of accounting-related issues to BTI and Hooyman in the fourth-quarter. Can you give us some color how those split, how much is acquisition, transaction costs for Hooyman? And how much is going to be in gross margin, how much is in amortization in G&A?
Jeffrey D. Buchanan - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Executive VP: Right. Cai, this is Jeff. There's no acquisition cost in Q4, it really breaks down just between the inventory step-up, which will only occur one more quarter, which is, I think, it's going to be about two points, at $4 million in Q4.
CL
Cai von Rumohr - Cowen and Company, LLC
Analyst
Okay.
Jeffrey D. Buchanan - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Executive VP: And then the ongoing amortization, which will be in G&A and that's going to be ongoing for a long time and that's about the same. So.....
CL
Cai von Rumohr - Cowen and Company, LLC
Analyst
$4 million?
Jeffrey D. Buchanan - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Executive VP: No. $2.3 million, I'm sorry it's about, yeah, so we have about $2.4 million above the line and which is just albeit going to occur for one more quarter. And $2.3 million below the line in OpEx is going to occur every quarter.
CL
Cai von Rumohr - Cowen and Company, LLC
Analyst
Got it. That's great. And the Hooyman acquisition, how big was that profitability? Little color?
P. James Debney - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: It was very small. We haven't really disclosed a lot of information on there. We are not going to breakout, the really small acquisitions, but it was under a couple of million dollars. It's part of the strategy of BTI, where they purchase in essence of product. And so they didn't take any SG&A expenses where that they basically bought a product that was well developed and had a great brand and then just folded it into their business.
CL
Cai von Rumohr - Cowen and Company, LLC
Analyst
Got it. Last one. You did great in terms of the cash flow and certainly looks like you're going to do great again in the fourth quarter. What are you thinking about doing with the cash potentials to reduce the debt? Just talk a little bit about that?
Jeffrey D. Buchanan - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Executive VP: Yeah, I mean, we're probably get in, in the quarter with between $90 million and $100 million of cash. So there's obviously lots of choices and we're going to have to just wait and decide – you can pay down the revolver, a portion of the senior notes are going to be pre-payable or callable after June of this summer. Yeah, those are the higher interest rates – the ones that are callable at close to 6%. So you could do that, or if there is other inorganic acquisition or there's other acquisitions that we're interested in. So, we'll just have to wait and you could also buyback stock. And as James always says, we look at the best use of cash for the company and I think we're going to wait and make any decisions with respect to the balance sheet until after Q4.
CL
Cai von Rumohr - Cowen and Company, LLC
Analyst
Thank you very much. Good work.
Jeffrey D. Buchanan - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Executive VP: Thanks, Cai.
OP
Operator
Operator
The next question comes from the line of Brian Ruttenbur with CRT Capital. Please proceed.
BL
Brian W. Ruttenbur - CRT Capital Group LLC
Analyst · CRT Capital. Please proceed.
Yes. Thank you very much. I had a question regarding the market. If you could talk a little bit about what you're seeing in terms of the proposed ban on 556 that everybody is talking about and if you're seeing any impact to your business because of that?
P. James Debney - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: In terms of impact to our business, we haven't really observed anything yet. In Q3, as I really said in the script – we're doing very well with our M&P15 Sport, modern sporting rifle. In terms of ammo, in discussions with some of the ammo manufacturers, one in particular, if that does seem to be renewed interest with the consumer in terms of that part of the ammo categories, so 223 and 556. Even skews outside of that type of ammo that are in 223 and 556 are actually seeing some renewed interest from the consumer.
BL
Brian W. Ruttenbur - CRT Capital Group LLC
Analyst · CRT Capital. Please proceed.
Can you talk a little bit about if you have any plans on the hunting rifle side? And then also if you could talk a little bit about how you did, and you don't normally talk about this, breaking it down, giving us a little bit more color on revolvers versus pistols? Are you seeing an uptick from the shows in one category or the other or are you seeing any uptick in MSRs? There was a lot of questions all together.
P. James Debney - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: That was an awful lot of questions together....
BL
Brian W. Ruttenbur - CRT Capital Group LLC
Analyst · CRT Capital. Please proceed.
Do you want me to break it down? Let's start off with just rifles. How about that? Hunting rifles?
P. James Debney - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I'd like to say, an awful lot that we really don't breakout, as you know we only go down to handgun and long gun and that's it and we don't go beyond that. I just go back and say definitely overall, in terms of smaller handguns designed for concealed carry are extremely popular. The SHIELD itself, is very much a dominant player when it comes to market share in that part of the category, so doing very well. Smaller frame revolver is, obviously doing very well as well. In terms of long guns, not much really to add other than I've said. We have three brands, one of those is a hunting brand Thompson Center and remains very much a strategic focus of ours. Certainly, as we've said the acquisition of BTI helps us delve further into the hunting part of the market and we're very excited about that as we explore that and understand it more.
BL
Brian W. Ruttenbur - CRT Capital Group LLC
Analyst · CRT Capital. Please proceed.
Great. Well, thank you very much.
P. James Debney - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you.
OP
Operator
Operator
The next question comes from the line of Scott Stember with Sidoti. Please proceed. Scott L. Stember - Sidoti & Co. LLC: Hi, that's Stember. Thank you. Question on commentary about how sales picked up in January and it seems as if since then, given your commentary, that business has accelerated. Can you maybe just talk about going forward, what we can expect as far as a mix of product? I know that you were selling some of the lower margin products in recent quarters. Can you just talk about what you've seen in recent months since the quarter as far as the mix of product going up? P. James Debney - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Tough to really comment. I mean obviously, as you know we give guidance, we build everything into guidance. Going back to Q3, yes, in terms if you're talking about lower margin, I'm not quite sure where you're going there. Certainly, opening price point products for sure generally carry a lower gross profit, obviously, in the current environment, some of those in certain product categories have proved extremely popular with the consumer. We've definitely observed that, but it's tough, sorry Scott to go into much more detail. Scott L. Stember - Sidoti & Co. LLC: Okay. Fair enough. And on the professional side it was off 7% and you said, talking about general lumpiness there. Can you maybe give a little bit more color on what you saw in the segment in the quarter? P. James Debney - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. It's really just peaks and troughs in terms of when we win large contracts, that's what we really refer to in the lumpiness of professional part of our business. And as you know, it's a small part of…
OP
Operator
Operator
The next question comes from the line of Chris Krueger with Lake Street Capital Markets. Please proceed.
CL
Chris Krueger - Lake Street Capital Markets LLC
Analyst · Lake Street Capital Markets. Please proceed.
Good afternoon. I just have one question. It's been over a year since those restrictions in the State of California went into effect and you had to kind of reconfigure how you go to that market. Can you give us an update of how that market has been for you this past year and just an overall update on that?
P. James Debney - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Sure. In terms of mix checks, Chris, it remains a very strong market for us, particularly with the products that we've kept on the roster, really in terms of products on the roster since we updated a year ago, there hasn't been any change. But the most important thing to note here is that we have a couple of very important products on the roster and that's both our SHIELD 9-millimeter and 40-caliber and our SDVE opening price point polymer pistol both in 9-millimeter and 40-caliber as well. So those products nationwide proved to be extremely popular with the consumer. We have touched on the SHIELD many times before on how successful that's been and those are readily available for sale in the State of California.
CL
Chris Krueger - Lake Street Capital Markets LLC
Analyst · Lake Street Capital Markets. Please proceed.
All right. Great. Thanks. That's all I've got.
P. James Debney - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks, Chris.
OP
Operator
Operator
There are no more questions in queue at this time. I would now like to turn the call back over to management for closing remarks.
P. James Debney - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you, operator. Please note that we will be participating in the UBS Consumer Conference, which takes place tomorrow in Boston. Please feel free to join us via webcast, which will be accessible on our website. In closing, I'd like to welcome, everyone, of Battenfeld Technologies to the Smith & Wesson family. I also want to thank all of our employees on maintaining their focus on delivering solid results. Thank you all for joining us and we look forward to speaking with you next quarter.
ER
Elizabeth Sharp - Vice President-Investor Relations
Management
Conference is Thursday, I'm sorry, my fault. Thursday.
P. James Debney - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Sorry. Correction, the UBS Conference is on Thursday of this week in Boston.
ER
Elizabeth Sharp - Vice President-Investor Relations