Operator
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to Textron's First Quarter Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your Vice President of Investor Relations, Mr. Doug Wilburne. Please go ahead, sir. Douglas R. Wilburne – Vice President, Investor Relations: Thanks, Alex, and good morning everyone. Joining me today are Lewis Campbell, Textron's Chief Executive Officer and Ted French, Ted is Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin I'd like to mention, our discussion today will include remarks about future estimates and expectations. These forward-looking statements are subject to various risk factors, which are detailed in our annual SEC filings and also in today's press release. Finally, you can also find a slide deck containing key data items from today's call in the IR section of our website. Beginning with this quarter, we are reporting Textron Systems as a separate new segment. We've named this segment Defense and Intelligence. Correspondingly, Bell Helicopter will also be reported separately as the Bell segment. Historical financial statements have been recast to reflect the new segment reporting structure, and these recast financials for the years ‘03 through ‘07 can be downloaded from the Investor Relations section of our company's website. Moving now to our results for the first quarter. Revenues were $3.5 billion, up 18.7% from last year's first quarter. Earnings per share from continuing operations were $0.93, up 19.2% from $0.78 a year ago. You'll see on the free cash flow calculation attached to our press release that we’ve modified our calculation to make our definition more consistent with that being used by most of our peers. Our new definition no longer includes adjustments for capitalized leases and will result in a slightly lower reported free cash flow for the year, but we're not changing our targets. A schedule of free cash flow for the years 2003 through 2007 is included in our key data package accompanying today's call, which again is available on our website. So, free cash flow in the quarter on this new basis was $78 million compared to $28 million a year ago. With that, I'll turn the call over to Lewis. Lewis B. Campbell – Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer: Thank you, Doug, and good morning everyone. With our strong first quarter results, we're not only off to a good start for the year, but we also created excellent future growth opportunity, as global demand continues to be brisk across our aircraft and defense businesses, which in turn led to another significant expansion in our backlog during the quarter reaching a new record level. One major contributor to expanding backlog during the quarter came from the V-22 program, as we booked $1.2 billion for the first lot from the new multi-year contract that we inked with the DoD in March. We're quite pleased that we're able to reach an agreement for a multi-year commitment, because that essentially removes funding risk, it provides a predictable supply chain environment, and allows us now to focus even more strongly on production improvement and costs. The new contract calls for 167 total units over five lots with deliveries beginning in late 2009 and running through October 2014, and we'll be reaching an annual production rate of 38 per year by 2013. Importantly, the customer also has an option to add five additional units each fiscal year, so there is potential upside there depending on funding availability and mutually agreeable delivery dates. And looking even further in the future, we look forward to additional multi-year contracts at the conclusion of this one, and by that time possibly producing for foreign military demand as well. In the meantime, we're now fully engaged with our supply chain to effect this substantial ramp up in delivery volume and to be prepared for even higher levels of demand, should the government exercise any of its options. We also had a nice addition to the backlog at the commercial side of Bell, as we added 51 new helicopter orders reflecting strong demand at the Singapore Air Show and HAI. And we have additional purchase agreements from the shows that will go into backlog, as we complete the contractual requirements necessary to put them into backlog, including orders for the 429. And operationally at Bell, we had good margin performance in our commercial business, as cost reductions and positive pricing contributed to improved profitability. On the H-1 program, this aircraft continues in Phase II of operation evaluation as it should be, and we anticipate a successful outcome later this summer. Also during the quarter, we came to an agreement with our new cabin supplier with respect to revised delivery schedule and cost targets and we're new working these issues with the customer for future lots. A Defense Acquisition Board review for a full rate production decision on the H-1 is scheduled for early fall, and we anticipate a contract award for Lot 5, which calls for 15 aircraft soon after that. On the Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter or ARH, systems development and demonstration activity is going well, and we just received the RFP for the first two lots, which call for 38 aircraft with deliveries beginning in earnest in 2010. We're now working on contractual details of the ARH program with our customer. Turning to Cessna, demand also continues unabated at our Cessna unit, as we booked 235 new jet orders. We're quite pleased that this included 36 of our new Columbus model, an excellent start on the initial order book, as well as another validation of the general business jet demand environment. Additionally, we're excited that we booked our 500th Mustang order during the quarter, an impressive milestone for this young aircraft. With our target annual production rate of 150 units, we now have Mustang backlog into 2011. Geographically, the overall order pace for business jets on the international front remains robust. However, I have to be quick to point out that the U.S. demand is also strong, as we took 80 orders during the quarter. So, with another quarter of solid global demand, our expectation for increasing jet deliveries over at least the next three years remains solidly intact. We also saw strong demand for our newly acquired model 350 and 400 high-performance single-engine products and increased 2009 production plans as a result. On the other hand, we are seeing some slowing in demand for our legacy single-engine piston line in Independence. Financial performance at Cessna was also excellent once again, as we made up most of the profit shortfall associated with delivering nine fewer jets than expected in the quarter. By the way, these delivery misses derived primarily from transactional issues around international deliveries, not production shortfalls. And therefore, we're confident we can hit our full-year target of 470 jets. Turning now to our new Defense and Intelligence segment, the integration of AAI is going quite well. In fact, well enough that we just announced the promotion of Fred Strader, he was the former head of AAI to the position of chief operating unit... Chief Operating Officer for the entire segment. We backfilled Fred's position with Ellen Lord, who was an executive at Textron Systems. Earlier this week with our partners, Boeing and SAIC, we submitted a proposal for the 27-month technology and development phase of the JLTV program, which is a family of future light tactical vehicles for the U.S. Army and Marine Corps. With an estimated 10-year contract value of $30 billion, the JTLV is an important program and we will be making the appropriate developmental expenditures to make our offering competitive. At Industrial, excluding foreign exchange, revenue was up about 1%. E-Z-GO and Jake were down reflecting soft golf and turf markets. However, E-Z-GO had a very successful launch of the new RXV golf car, and based on that excellent response we've increased our mix of RXVs in our production targets for the year. Organically, Greenlee was approximately flat in the quarter, but has begun to see a slight falloff in demand in future quarters. On the other hand, we have a strong year at Fluid & Power with record backlogs and double-digit revenue growth in the quarter. And we're holding our own to Kautex, as global volumes were up ever so slightly as the rest of the world overcame weakness in the U.S. Finally, I'll make a few comments about Textron Financial. Coming into the year, we discussed our expectations for higher loan loss provisions and unfavorable borrowing spreads, which was the primary reason our original outlook was flat on a year-over-year basis. As it turned out, the first quarter was worse than we had planned on both of these accounts. Ted will get into the first quarter details in a minute. But let me continue with a few comments relative to the rest of the year at finance. Our revised outlook now reflects a more conservative view based on the expectation that the general economy continues to soften moderately and corporate financing markets remain challenging, but do not deteriorate too much further. On this basis, we're reasonably confident in our outlook reflecting the high quality of asset classes in our portfolio and the rigor of our traditional strong conservative underwriting process. However, we recognize in today's environment there is a risk to any finance outlook, but we believe our risk at TFC is manageable. And importantly, we believe the strength and opportunities in the rest of our enterprise substantially offset this risk. That's a key point. In conclusion, we're very pleased with the first quarter, both on the basis of what we've accomplished and in terms of what it signals for our future. We continue to work on our transformation journey, and our selection as one of Fortune's Most Admired Companies this year was confirmation that we are indeed making progress. But let me assure you that that recognition has not caused us to relax in any way relative to our commitment to continuous improvement and our strong determination to create increasing shareholder value well into the future. With that, I'll turn the call over to Ted. Ted R. French – Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer: Thank you, Lewis. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for being here with us. I want to start with a comment about our aircraft and defense backlog, because as large as it is at $22 billion, with the V-22 multi-year it's really over $26 billion if you allow for the unfunded portion of the contract. And on top of that, keep in mind we have another $1 billion in potential backlog for the Bell 429. So, while we have to carefully navigate our way through the current economic challenges, we have tremendous growth ahead of us with excellent visibility. Now, let's move back to our analysis of what drove first quarter results. Earnings per share from continuing operations were up $0.15 from a year ago, volume and mix provided $0.07, higher pricing of about 2.8% added $0.22 a share, and inflation also 2.8% cost about $0.18 a share. Performance was a positive $0.15 and miscellaneous items, including favorable foreign exchange and a lower share count collectively provided about $0.03. The headwinds of engineering, R&D, and depreciation cost a dime, Textron Financial was lower by $0.03, and corporate expense cost us about a penny. You may be wondering how a $10 million year-over-year decrease in corporate expenses, if you look at our financial statements, could result in an unfavorable EPS causal impact. The answer lies in understanding how we hedge our stock-based compensation exposure to Textron’s stock price movements. Due to the non-taxable nature of gains or losses from the hedge, the impact flows through both corporate expense and the tax rate. Taken together, the effect is EPS neutral, and we remove the impact from both corporate expense and tax rate when we do our causal analysis. So, excluding the impact that our drop in share price had on compensation expense, corporate expenses were actually up about $2 million, which rounds to about a penny a share. Now, let's review each segment starting with Cessna. Cessna's revenues increased $278 million in the quarter from last year, reflecting delivery of 95 jets compared to 67 last year, improved pricing, and revenues from the Columbia acquisition. Segment profits were up $52 million, reflecting the additional 28 jets, improved pricing, and favorable warranty performance, partially offset by inflation and increased engineering and product development expense. Cessna's backlog at the end of Q1 was $14.5 billion, up from $12.6 billion at the end of ‘07. Bell's revenues decreased $6 million for the first quarter, while segment profits were up $28 million. As a reminder, these results are for Bell Helicopter, as the new Defense and Intelligence segment results would follow. U.S. Government revenues increased $50 million in the quarter due to higher V-22 volume and higher spares and service revenue. These increases were partially offset by lower H-1 program revenue. Revenues for the commercial business were down $56 million due to lower helicopter volume, partially offset by higher pricing and a benefit from newly acquired businesses. The lower volume reflects our emphasis this year to support long-lead component manufacturing for the V-22 ramp up. In the meantime, we're making the necessary manufacturing capacity adds to allow us to significantly ramp commercial deliveries over the next several years. U.S. Government profits increased $27 million as a result of improved cost performance and higher volume. Improved cost performance reflected the impact of a $25 million charge for the H-1... excuse me, the ARH program that we took in the first quarter of last year. In the H-1 program during the quarter, we recorded $4.5 million in net cost, reflecting a number of items, including a charge for the impact of the cabin supply issue on the remaining Lot 3 and Lot 4 deliveries. On the commercial side of the business, profit was up $1 million, as favorable program performance and higher pricing more than offset the unfavorable impact of lower volume and inflation. I want to point out that the impact of the favorable commercial margin performance while continuing will not be at the same magnitude through the year, so we're forecasting slightly lower margins at Bell for the rest of the year. Bell Helicopter backlog at the end of the first quarter was $5.2 billion, up from $3.8 billion at year-end ‘07. Moving to the Defense and Intelligence segment, revenues increased $216 million in the quarter due to the acquisition of AAI, partially offset by the impact of a reimbursement related to Hurricane Katrina in the first quarter of ‘07. Segment profits increased $5 million year-over-year, reflecting the benefit of the AAI acquisition and ASV program adjustments to recognize positive program performance, partially offset by last year's $28 million Katrina reimbursement, inflation, and unfavorable pricing. The ASV benefit in the first quarter is not expected to repeat, so we expect lower margins at D&I for the balance of the year. Backlog at the segment was $2.3 billion, down slightly from year-end. Revenues in the Industrial segment increased $62 million, reflecting favorable foreign exchange and higher pricing, which more than offset slightly lower overall volumes. Lower volumes reflected decreases at Jacobson and E-Z-GO offsetting increases at Fluid & Power and Kautex. Profit decreased $10 million, as higher pricing only partially offset inflation and asset impairment at Kautex and project launch costs at E-Z-GO. Revenues in the Finance segment increased $4 million. This increase reflects an increase in securitization gains and other fee income, higher revenues resulting from higher average finance receivables, and the impact of a residual value impairment charge last year, partially offset by a decline in market interest rates. Profit in the Finance segment was down $10 million due to an increase in the provision for loan losses, primarily in our asset-based lending and distribution finance businesses, and an increase in borrowing costs caused by market conditions, partially offset by the increase in securitization gains and other income. The 60-day delinquency percentage declined to 0.33% of finance receivables from 0.43% at the end of last year. However, non-performing assets increased to 1.84% of finance assets, up from 1.34%, but still well within a normal range. The higher NPA primarily reflected softer credit performance in the asset-based lending and distribution finance portfolios, while NPAs remained favorable in our resort, aviation, and golf portfolios. Now for our earnings outlook. For the full year, we're forecasting EPS in the range of $3.80 to $4.00 a share, and for the second quarter we expect earnings between $0.90 and $1.00 a share. Our cash flow provided by continuing operations forecast of about $1.3 billion remains unchanged. And likewise, our ‘08 capital program forecast remains about $550 million, which results in expected free cash flow between $700 million and $750 million. In closing, we're pleased with our performance in the first quarter, and in spite of remaining economic risk at our Finance and Industrial segments, we remain reasonably confident about the rest of this year. And now I'm going to turn it over to Doug to give you some additional ‘08 modeling information. Douglas R. Wilburne – Vice President, Investor Relations: Thank you, Ted. I'll begin with our second quarter outlook. At Cessna, we're expecting revenue to be approximately $1.5 billion with margins of about 16.5%. Our expectation assumes about 115 jet deliveries for the quarter. At Bell, we expect second quarter revenue of around $575 million with margins of about 8%. These revenues reflect anticipated deliveries of three V-22s, one H-1, and about 35 commercial helicopters. At D&I or Defense and Intelligence, we're expecting revenue to be $540 million, with margins of about 9.5%. This forecast reflects about 150 ASV deliveries. Industrial revenue is expected to be approximately $1 billion, with margins around 6%. Finance revenues are projected to come in at $180 million, with segment profit of about $45 million. Now for the full year. No appreciable change for Cessna, but to recap we're expecting ‘08 revenue of approximately $6 billion on delivery of about 470 jets, with margins around 16.5%. At Bell, we expect revenue of around $2.6 billion, with margins of 8.5%. Our full-year delivery forecast reflects 17 V-22 deliveries, nine H-1s, which is one fewer than our previous estimate, and about 160 commercial helicopters. At D&I, we're expecting revenue to be about $2.2 billion, with margins of 10%. Industrial revenue is expected to be approximately $3.7 billion, slightly higher than our previous target primarily due to foreign exchange, with margins of approximately 5.5% to 6% reflecting higher commodity costs driven by the weaker dollar. At our Finance segment, our new outlook is for revenues of $765 million, with segment profit of around $200 million. We expect interest expense of about $135 million on the year and corporate expenses of $240 million. Our full-year tax rate is expected to be about 32.5%. With that, that concludes our prepared remarks, and before we go to questions, we'll ask that each of you please limit yourself to one question with an optional follow-up to be fair to the other callers. So, Alex, with that we're now ready to open the lines. Question and Answer