Operator
Operator
Visteon Corporation (VC)
Q1 2017 Earnings Call· Thu, Apr 27, 2017
$110.11
-2.68%
Same-Day
-0.03%
1 Week
-1.87%
1 Month
-3.51%
vs S&P
-4.72%
Operator
Operator
Bill Robertson
Management
Good morning. I'm Bill Robertson, Vice President of Finance for Visteon. Welcome to our Earnings Call for the First Quarter of 2017. Please note this call is being recorded and all lines have been placed on listen-only mode to prevent background noise. Before we begin this morning's call, I would like to remind you this presentation contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results and conditions or rather are subject to various factors, risks, and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed in these statements. Please refer to the Slide entitled forward-looking information for further details. Presentation materials for today's call were posted on the Investors Section of Visteon's website this morning. Please visit www.visteon.com/earnings to download the material if you've not already done so. Our Form 10-K was filed earlier this morning with the news release. Joining us today are Sachin Lawande, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Christian Garcia, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. We have scheduled the call for one hour and will open the lines for your questions after Sachin and Christian's remarks. Please limit your questions to one question and one follow-up. Thank you for joining us on our call today. Now I'll turn it over to Sachin.
Sachin Lawande
Management
Thanks, Bill, and, hello everyone. We are very pleased to report that Visteon had a solid first quarter with significant improvements across all areas of our business that resulted in record levels of sales and profitability for the quarter. On Page 2, let me briefly summarize our first quarter 2017 results for Electronics. In the first quarter, Visteon reported record sales, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA as a percent of sales. Sales were $810 million, $17 million higher than in Q1, 2016. Adjusted EBITDA was $101 million, $7 million higher than prior year. And adjusted EBITDA margin was at 12.5%, an increase of 60 basis points compared with the same quarter a year ago. We won $1.5 billion in new business in the first quarter, a 25% increase over new business won in Q1, 2016. Visteon executed very well in all areas in the first quarter. I'll provide more details on our operations in the next few pages before handing it over to Christian to discuss the financials. Moving to Page 3, on page 3 we highlight key accomplishments for the first quarter. As we did at year end, we are highlighting our progress in three key areas. Sales, profitability and returns and other key operational areas of the business. As noted on the previous page, we delivered $810 million in Electronic sales in the quarter. All regions showed positive growth. The domestic sales in China were the main driver outpacing market growth and increasing 17% year-over-year excluding the effects of currency. We had another strong quarter of new business wins securing $1.5 billion in new business. Business awards are inherently lumpy and we are pleased to start the year with the strong performance in the first quarter. This increased are order backlog to a record $16.7 billion at quarter…
Christian Garcia
Management
Thank you, Sachin, and good morning, everyone. On Page 13, we present our key financial results for first quarter 2017 versus the comparable period in 2016. As explained on prior calls, our financial results are impacted by a number of items that make year-over-year comparisons difficult. The adjusted financial information presented on this slide excludes these items and represents how we manage the business internally. These are non-GAAP financial measures that are reconcile to US GAAP financials in the attached appendix that starts on page 20. Also in 2016, Visteon had South America and South African operations associated with the former interiors and climate businesses. These operations were exited by the end of last year. As we've said previously, the majority of our climate and interiors businesses have been classified as discontinued operations on our financial statements. Although these businesses have all been exited, the company recorded an $8 million gain in discontinued operations in the first quarter of this year primarily related to the repurchase of the India Electronics operations related to climate transaction in 2015. Going forward, we do not expect to have any sales or adjusted EBITDA related to our other product group or discontinued operations. The financials on this slide reflect our ongoing Electronics product group and exclude discontinued and other operations. Electronic sales of $810 million in the first quarter increased by 2% compared with prior year. Adjusted EBITDA for Electronics was $101 million, representing $7 million increase over first quarter 2016. The year-over-year increase largely reflects higher volumes and strong cost performance partially offset by customer pricing. I'll provide more details on the following pages. Adjusted EPS was $1.73 for the quarter, growth of about 30% from prior year and more than doubling since Q1 of 2015. The year-over-year increase was driven by a…
Sachin Lawande
Management
Thanks Christian. Moving to Page 19, in closing, we are very pleased with Visteon's first quarter performance and with the value we delivered for our customers and shareholders. 2016 was a year in which we set the foundation for much stronger Visteon, the technology focused company poised to capitalize on emerging cockpit electronics trends. In 2017, we've gotten off to a strong start both financially and new business wins that will drive future growth .I am very proud of the work that everyone at Visteon has done to put us in the strong position. Thank you for joining us today. Now I'd like to open up the call for any questions.
Operator
Operator
[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Tavis McCourt with Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Tavis McCourt
Analyst
Hey guys. Thanks for taking my question. First one just a housekeeping item. If I think about your new business awards of $1.5 billion about $700 million above current revenue recognition but the backlog was only up $200 million. So can you kind of run me through the math there? That would be helpful and then Sachin you seemed to be a little more focused this quarter and recently on within China, the domestic OEM business. And I am wondering is there a historical context here on why Visteon was underweight the domestic OEMs and what you've done over the last year to accelerate win wins there. And then I guess finally would be on a SmartCore win. Is this the first time that the SmartCore win has included both instrument cluster and infotainment or is that something that you would expect on each SmartCore win? Thanks.
Sachin Lawande
Management
All right. Good morning, Tavis. So let me address the first question which is with respect to the new business wins. As we have mentioned before we update our backlog every quarter for things such as currency and volume movements. In this particular case, we had one customer program that was short cycled which is largely the reason why we did not see the backlog grow to the extent that it would otherwise have. However, being the incumbent in that particular business, we are very confident of winning the successor product and the successor program from that customer. So expect that lost backlog revenue to come back here shortly. With respect to China, in the past the focus in China was largely on two product segments, instrument cluster and audio. And as you also mentioned we have been focusing on the domestic OEMs primarily because over the last couple of years, the domestic OEMs in China have done really well with respect to the fastest growing segment within the vehicle a model which is SUV segment. And so we've invested last year in building up our sales and business development capabilities in China and have also made it a priority for the company to take all of our products and technologies in addition to clusters and audio into that market. So that's one of the reasons why you see us do particularly well in that market. But I should mention though that in new business wins do tend to get lumpy. We had a fantastic year last year in Europe and the first quarter we have done very well here in China but I do expect in the later quarters for us to do well in other regions of the world as well. With respect to the SmartCore question, no in fact we do expect every SmartCore win to include at least an entry infotainment capability in addition to the cluster as they are integrated domain controller for the digital cockpit. These two products infotainment and cluster become somewhat essential capabilities. There we see possibilities of extending beyond these two product segment are integrating head-up displays and some ADS functions such driver monitoring and surround view.
Operator
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of David Leiker with Baird. Please go ahead.
Joe Vruwink
Analyst · Baird. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. This is Joe Vruwink for David. Just a few quick ones on new business. Is the SmartCore award since you disclosed in April, is that included in the $1.5 billion? And then on the infotainment, the success in infotainment win this quarter, it sounds like there are engagements on Phoenix but is Phoenix reflected in the $1.5 billion at all yet?
Sachin Lawande
Management
So the first question -- so the SmartCore win is included in the $1.5 billion of the new business wins that we reported. And with respect to infotainment, as I've mentioned before the Visteon has a very competitive entry infotainment offering which if you remember last year we acquired AllGo which further strengthened our capabilities in entry infotainment. The AllGo acquisition brought inhouse expertise in media playback and smartphone integration capabilities and the business wins that we discussed or we talked about in this quarter are more entry infotainment business wins. One was an extension of a business that we've had for some time and this is a global infotainment product that we now are adding more market driven and market important features. And other infotainment then came out of China.
Joe Vruwink
Analyst · Baird. Please go ahead.
Okay. That's great. Thank you. I wanted to dig into SmartCore a little bit because automakers aren't aligned when thinking about two different purchasing things, one does infotainment and one does cluster. There is obviously different requirement from both. Cluster of ASIL certification, so to get automakers to buy in to the concept of both one ECU is in my mind really tough. You are beyond that hump. Now you are winning business and I am just wondering when these programs start to launch so when you add -- this goes from proof of concept to actually being market, does this just drive of flush of interest of more business coming your way because at the end of the day if they performs well and it's a cheaper solution, it should get a bigger industry buying that would seem.
Sachin Lawande
Management
Absolutely. As I've said before Joe, we've starting to see this trend really pickup in the industry. All digital cockpits right, so once you get to that point where your cluster is digital, of course you have your infotainment and other displays that are digital displays including head-up display, the approach of using a cockpit domain controller makes a lot of sense. And so we are now starting to see this trend really cut across almost all of the OEMs. I'd say that we are in discussions with at least half of our customer base with respect to SmartCore. And we, as you know are the only suppliers in the industry with all of the components that are required to build a complete product. We have our own virtualization technology. We have instrument cluster capabilities, now a complete set of infotainment, complete range of infotainment systems, head-up displays and ADS. So we are in a position to offer a complete system. So if a customer wants a supplier that has experience and all of the assets to build a cockpit domain controller, you would be at the top of the list. And that's what we are now starting to see happen in this industry. We have a very strong pipeline with SmartCore and we hope to talk more about SmartCore in the coming quarters.
Operator
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of David Lim with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.
David Lim
Analyst · Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, everyone. Just wanted to ask about the outlook geographically. I know that you gave some bit of color but can you sort of parse that out I mean I think some suppliers are mentioned that there could be a little bump in the road in Q2 and maybe successive quarters in China but wanted to get your take on China particularly. Then any other color that you could provide in other geography.
Sachin Lawande
Management
Hi, David. We provided some information I think it was slide 10 of the deck. First of all, Q1 was a strong quarter in terms of production in all regions. And as I am sure you are aware, IHS has been forecasting for the full year a growth in production that is more or less in line with their earlier estimates. We tend to agree with those that forecast. However, with one perhaps somewhat minor exception which is that we are more optimistic in our expectations for China than what HIS has been reporting. So that's the visibility that we have today. We are in ongoing constant discussions with our OEM customers and the guidance that we've given that we are essentially reaffirming takes into account all of the plant shutdowns and deductions that might be expected in the later periods of the year. So we are comfortable with our financial guidance. Our first quarter performance also gives us a good starting position in the year to have a pretty good finish for the full year.
David Lim
Analyst · Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.
Is your optimism in China or your outlook in China more from like a ground up analysis? I think you mentioned that you are talking with your OEM customers, is that how you come up with a general industry forecast?
Sachin Lawande
Management
That's correct. We have direct discussions with many of these OEMs, these customers in China and our forecast is directly based on the production releases and the forecast that they provide to us.
David Lim
Analyst · Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.
Okay.
Sachin Lawande
Management
David, if I can just add to that our forecast for China has not changed since Q4 of last year when there were a lot of discussions around what might happen to China because of the incentive program changes. We have thought that we've always projected that China's production volume growth in 2017 would be in the mid single digit. So that's not a change in our view of China.
David Lim
Analyst · Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.
Got you, got you. One follow-up on infotainment. Sachin, I know that it's a little early but can you give us like the progress you are guys making related to Phoenix and the discussions that are going there and maybe if you could quantify like how many OEMs are really -- how many OEMs are interested in this new technology that you guys launch back in CAS? Thank you.
Sachin Lawande
Management
Yes, sure, David. So we had a very good showing of infotainment of our Phoenix Infotainment I should say at CAS in January. We've talked about that before and following up on CAS we had several engagements that OEM customers globally including obviously for Phoenix. At this stage, we are right in the middle of deep technical discussions with several OEMs but I'd say realistically given that infotainment tends to be a long sale cycle product segment that we would not expect to really be discussing any customer award related activity until I'd say in the second half of this year or perhaps even early next year. So I'd want to wait on that specific question for maybe a quarter or two more before I provide you with more quantitative data.
Operator
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Matt Stover with SIG. Please go ahead.
Matt Stover
Analyst · SIG. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Most of my questions have been addressed. I did have one. There is -- I know you guys don't purchase lot of raw materials but there has been some concerned about rising raw material costs and sort of percolating to the chain. You folks had a pretty nice performance there in the first quarter, I am wondering as we look back to the sort of the final three quarters of the year, should we expect for that performance to sustain itself or dribble down as the year goes on.
Sachin Lawande
Management
Yes. So, Hi, Matt. So, first of all as we've been saying we've put a lot of focus on driving operational excellence across all of our operations in the business. And materials are obviously a very big part of that. So we have significantly improved our approach to sourcing and I do not expect to have any negative impact in the materials pricing for the remainder of the year. We have done well in the first quarter and I expect to see the benefits of that continue to flow through for the rest of the year.
Operator
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Steven Fox with Cross Research. Please go ahead.
Steven Fox
Analyst · Cross Research. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning. I just had one question. I was wondering given the recent success in China if there is anything that you would highlight that is differentiating yourself specifically in terms of one SmartCore features and functionality to that market. And then two, any progress or any help from the JV relationships because it seems like you have referenced companies not only that you have JVs with but also that you don't. So any help there would be great. Thanks.
Sachin Lawande
Management
Yes, sure. So as we've mentioned before one of the expense that we have in China which is also perhaps a differentiator with many of our competitors is that we have very strong joint ventures in China that give us a tremendous amount of access and reach with some specific OEMs. But beyond that as you've noted we've started to make our inroads into essentially domestic Chinese OEMs where previously we may have not been as focused on. So in terms of the product and technology differentiation the fact that we have a very strong base in China. We have close to about 1,000 engineers in China along with our JV partners, gives us a tremendous ability to bring new technologies quite rapidly into that market. And SmartCore is a great example of that. So within a year we've been able to introduce this technology from here into China and there is a tremendous amount of demand, tremendous amount of interest across the board with almost all of the customers that we have good relationship with over there for these technologies. So we are very optimistic about China in general beyond just production volumes, we are very optimistic about their interest and desire to pickup new technologies and introduce new technologies usually much faster than many other customers around the world. So we hope to continue to focus on China and continue to win more than our share of -- or fair share I should say of the market like we did in the first quarter.
Operator
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Colin Langan with UBS. Please go ahead.
Eddy Shayan
Analyst · UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi there. This is [Eddy Shayan] on behalf of Colin. I had a couple of questions. So one it look like customer mix worked against you in this quarter with Ford and Mazda down in an up market. How did you manage to offset that? Were you just on the right platforms of those OEM?
Sachin Lawande
Management
I don't think that we had any negative impact of the customer mix but I'd say that the thing that really helped us in this quarter was China and the growth in China. We saw positive improvements with the North American customers as well so I am not quite sure of specifically of what you maybe alluding to their.
Eddy Shayan
Analyst · UBS. Please go ahead.
Okay. Yes, that mean we are just looking at their production general for the quarter.
Sachin Lawande
Management
I see, I see, okay.
Sachin Lawande
Management
We are positive with our North American customers despite the production data may suggest.
Eddy Shayan
Analyst · UBS. Please go ahead.
Okay, that's fair. I was also wondering I mean it sounds like software engineers are in short supply across the industry. Do you feel like you have the staff necessary to develop your next generation to SmartCore, Phoenix and your autonomous driving technology? Would you possibly have to make any acquisitions that are require the right personnel there?
Sachin Lawande
Management
Talent especially into the -- in the space of software will always be in short supply and always be a challenge. But we have been doing quite well in terms of being able to recruit the talent that we need for not just SmartCore but also our autonomous driving platform initiative. So far we've been able to get the talent that we need. We probably will not look at an acquisition as a way to get talent. We may look at specific acquisitions to get capabilities and intellectual property in specific areas but with respect to talent, given our fairly diversified footprint, we are I'd say one of the more diversified companies our space with presence in areas of the world where there is a bigger pool of talent that's available to us. So we think we are in a pretty good position with kind of talent that we need given our market leading position, I think we'll be able to attract that talent and so far that has not been a problem but it's always a concern for anybody especially in the tech space as the demands will continue to rise.
Operator
Operator
The next question comes from the line of Brian Sponheimer with Gabelli. Please go ahead.
Brian Sponheimer
Analyst · Gabelli. Please go ahead.
Hi, Sachin. Hi, Christian. Congratulation on another great quarter. I want to talk about M&A from a couple different angles, you mentioned product platforms et cetera, can you talk maybe about where maybe this SmartCore product allows you essentially a platform to enter new areas where you could potentially be equative.
Sachin Lawande
Management
So in fact let me first address the question about what the SmartCore enable us to do and then talk about the other part of the question. So SmartCore essentially addresses a long-term trend of driving more of the cockpit functions using a single rich SOC, a system on the chip and software and that fundamentally has several benefits. One of the benefits is that it lowers total cost of implementation of the features which today are done through discreet separate products. The second benefit obviously is that it allows you to bring new user experiences which are not possible when you are building discreet separate products. Now when you look at it from where we stand and any M&A that might be a direct consequence of that. First of all, we really like our position as a company that's exclusively focused on corporate electronics. And I think that's essential for us to be able to react to the market demands quickly especially in the areas of technology as we transform ourselves into more of a technology company. We will continue to look for any opportunities where M&A could help us in executing our strategy, but at the same time as we've said before, we'll stay extremely disciplined with how we look at such potential actions. Beyond being a good fit from a strategic viewpoint, we'll also be very focused on ensuring that we agree with the valuation before we think of any M&A. As you can see from what we've been doing here for the last few quarters. We have been exercising that discipline and we do not at this point have anything to suggest that we will change our approach.
Brian Sponheimer
Analyst · Gabelli. Please go ahead.
All right, thank you. And I guess my next question is for Christian. Christian, with the ASR being just $125 million and given the optimism for what lies ahead why only that amount relative to the $400 million that's you've authorized. I would presumably getting this done sooner rather than later would be beneficial?
Christian Garcia
Management
Right, right. So clearly Brian we are not going to -- I am not going to telegraph my actions -- our actions on this call. But we are balancing our buy back program with other opportunities, the M&A opportunities being one of them. And as Sachin mentioned we've not found one that would satisfy our strategic and financial hurdles. But what I can tell you is that the remaining buybacks that we are going to do after this ASR will be through a combination of another accelerated ASR program and or open market. But we are still on track to complete the $400 million buyback authorized by the Board by March of 2018.
Operator
Operator
Your final question will come from the line of Brian Johnson with Barclays. Please go ahead.
Steven Hempel
Analyst
Yes, good morning. It's actually Steven Hempel on for Brian. Just want to drill down a little bit on your China business there. It looks like China this week actually announce that it's planning loosen some in JV ownership restrictions. Just wondering if I believe you guys have roughly 35% ownership investing on Electronics and 60% or 65% in Dongfeng, just how do you think about those ownership levels might that change moving forward and then kind of how we should think about those JVs moving forward?
Sachin Lawande
Management
Yes. So we are happy with the JVs that we have and we do not expect to see or need any change in that direction.
Steven Hempel
Analyst
Okay. And then if you look at the China profitability right now can you just discuss what that is relative to the overall corporate average? Is it higher or lower, similar? Then also equity income looks like we are expecting to be negative here in fiscal year 2017. So just wondering what your thoughts on that business and why it's negative and probably outlook for that performance --
Sachin Lawande
Management
So what I'd like to first say is that in terms of the product pricing and margins, China is on par with what we see in other parts of the world. There is absolutely no difference. And so fundamentally profitability wise we are looking at China again the same way that we look at other regions of the world. We have our own internal hurdles that we screen any new business opportunity before we accept it and so we do not see any for sure no negative impact out of our growth in China. And we in fact are quite optimistic about our potential there. And I'd at this point ask Christian if you would like to add anything to that.
Christian Garcia
Management
I would just reiterate what Sachin said that we like not only the sales profit we are seeing from our China domestic market but also the profitability that we are seeing from that country as well.
Steven Hempel
Analyst
Okay. And just quick question. Equity income why it is supposed to be negative?
Sachin Lawande
Management
No. We believe it's going to be positive.
Steven Hempel
Analyst
Got you. Okay and then just lastly SmartCore Gen 2 development initiative that here in this quarter or last quarter I should say. What are the kinds of hurdles that you are looking at with that product, any hurdle or changes and then also the kind of the cost profile of that business relative to Gen 1 and could that potentially be higher margin product?
Sachin Lawande
Management
So the Gen 2 essentially is an evolution of the technology of Gen 1 as you can imagine. When we started Gen 1 that was almost three years ago when we did the market introduction. There is a certain expectation that these capabilities will continue to evolve. As the silicon suppliers have launched products with more codes, it allows us the opportunity to integrate more on domains. So clearly from a total system cost viewpoint, it offers the potential to lower the total cost of ownership for our OEM customers. And so we think that it makes Gen 2 that much more interesting beyond what Gen 1 offered. So we are very optimistic about it. And we think this is what we'll really make the cockpit domain controller as sort of accepted approach to building next generation all digital cockpits. We see more and more trends towards the cockpit themselves going away from analog solutions towards all digital. And this technology coming along really offers them now a solution to build those products out at a very cost competitive levels. We are very upbeat on SmartCore in general.
Bill Robertson
Management
Okay. And with that, thank you Sachin. Thank you, Christian. And thank you to all for participating in today's call. I'll be available later today for any follow up calls. So please feel free to contact me. And at this point, we will end the Visteon call. Thank you.
Operator
Operator
Thank you. This concludes the Visteon's first quarter 2017 financial results conference call. You may now disconnect.