Earnings Labs

Zurn Elkay Water Solutions Corporation (ZWS)

Q4 2015 Earnings Call· Wed, May 20, 2015

$51.90

-1.71%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

-6.50%

1 Week

-4.28%

1 Month

-3.83%

vs S&P

-3.36%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon and welcome to the Rexnord Fourth Quarter Fiscal 2015 Earnings Results Conference Call with Todd Adams, President and Chief Executive Officer; Mark Peterson, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Rob McCarthy, Vice President of Investor Relations for Rexnord. This call is being recorded and will be available on replay for a period of two weeks. The phone numbers for the replay can be found in the earnings release the company filed on 8-K with the SEC today, May 20, and are also posted on the company's website at www.rexnord.com. At this time for opening remarks and introduction, I'll turn the call over to Rob McCarthy.

Robert McCarthy - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Thank you, Adrian. Good afternoon, and welcome, everyone. Before we get started, I need to remind you that this call contains certain forward-looking statements that are subject to the Safe Harbor language contained in the press release we issued today as well as in our filings with the SEC. In addition, some comparisons will refer to non-GAAP measures. Our earnings release and SEC filings contain additional information about these non-GAAP measures and why we use them. Today's call will provide an update on our overall performance for the fourth quarter and full fiscal 2015, our launch of an important strategic initiative and our initial outlook for fiscal 2016. We'll cover specifics on our two platforms followed by an overview of our financial statements and liquidity and cash flow highlights. Afterwards, we'll open up the call for your questions. With that, I'll turn the call over to Todd Adams, President and CEO of Rexnord. Todd Alan Adams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks, Rob, and good afternoon, everyone and thank you all for joining us today for an overview of our fiscal 2015 fourth quarter and full year financial results. We've a lot of ground to cover this afternoon. So, I'll try to move quickly through my comments, so we can get to your questions. Starting on page four, we definitely saw evidence of a broadly weaker industrial end market environment in our fourth quarter as end customers and distributors alike broadly became more cautious about their CapEx, MRO spending and inventory levels to start calendar 2015. The combination of weaker energy prices, persistently weaker hard commodity prices, the strength of the U.S. dollar and some other drag on the seasonal ramp of new construction activity were all headwinds that were a click worse than what we expected a…

Mark W. Peterson - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Thanks, Todd. Consistent with prior quarters, we'll speak primarily to adjusted operating profit and EBITDA, adjusted net income, adjusted earnings per share as we feel these non-GAAP metrics provide a better understanding of our operating results. Please also note that our discussion of our fourth quarter and fiscal 2015 financial performance excludes the results of the divestment of the Mill Products business from both years given that is now reported in discontinued operations. Slide 11 and 12 of the presentation take our reported results and reconcile with the adjusted results. Turning to slide 13, I'll discuss our operating performance highlights for the fourth quarter. Fourth quarter sales decreased 8% from the prior year period to $519 million as adverse currency translation amplified the sales decline by 5%. Acquisitions contributed 2% year-over-year but core growth was down 5%, with over 300 basis points driven by the previously discussed delayed shipments and weather impact. With also well anticipated headwinds and excluding the currency drag, our sales would have been roughly flat year-over-year. Adjusted operating income was $57 million and adjusted EBITDA was $96 million with margins diversely impacted by reduced volume and a one-time $10 million reserve or receivable associated with a water system project in Venezuela. Excluding the reserve, our margins would have been approximately 200 basis points higher. Fourth quarter adjusted net income was $57 million resulting in adjusted earnings per share of $0.54 which increased 8% from the prior year primarily due to the contribution from a lower year-over-year average tax rate that more than offset the impact of the receivable reserve I just previously discussed. Cash flow was solid in the quarter. We generated $53 million of free cash and achieved a new record level for the fiscal year. Going to slide 14, I'll quickly go over the…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We'll now begin the question and answer session. . And our first question comes from Sarah Dobre from Robert Baird. Please go ahead. Mig Dobre - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Hi, good afternoon everyone. This is Mig Dobre with Baird. Todd Alan Adams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hi, Mig. Mig Dobre - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): I guess, can you may be provide us with a little more clarity as to what's going on with this delay in water infrastructure shipment. Sort of what's causing and when are you making it up. And then I guess how confident are you in your outlook for a low single-digit growth for European water and RW water and infrastructure? And what gives you that confidence in your outlook I guess. Todd Alan Adams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I'll hit the delay first, Mig. As you know, most of these projects are hundreds and hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars and we're a component there. If there is a small blip in the site preparation or some of the upstream activity, things get pushed. These particular orders were going to the Middle East and therefore the transit time and everything else didn't afford us the opportunity to record the revenue. It's done, it's on the way and we're very confident that it will ship in our first quarter. So, I think that's one that is fairly easy. In terms of what gives us confidence in EU and rest of the world, a lot of it has to do with backlog as well as visibility on some projects and things that we know that are coming down the pike. So, we would characterize as we think about water infrastructure…

Operator

Operator

And the next question comes from Rob Wertheimer from Vertical Research. Please go ahead.

Rob C. Wertheimer - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst

Hi, good afternoon. Todd Alan Adams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hey, Rob.

Mark W. Peterson - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Hey, Rob.

Rob C. Wertheimer - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst

Thanks for all the detail and I apologize if I missed this but you talked about the inventory destocking in the channel happening and that's happened already and you expect it to happen next quarter, did you quantify it for the quarter or embedded in the outlook and I know you've given a lot, I'm just asking. And then more broadly can you talk about what that feels like when you're talking to customers, I mean is everybody seeing a real slowdown preparing for, is everybody just getting nervous maybe if you could just give your opinion on what's going on there? Todd Alan Adams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: And Rob maybe just to clarify, we're talking about our PMC platform and primarily our PT business and we'll talk about that. We didn't disclose exactly how much impact was in the quarter, there was a little bit. I think we've incorporated more of that in our first quarter and for the year it's a point or two, I would say in the impact of the overall growth. We hope we're wrong but I think it's reasonable given the types of conversations in the environment we're seeing. If you look at these process based industries, the commodities are in sort of the fourth inning or fifth inning, fourth year I should say of deflation and that coupled with energy, I think people are sort of just sort of very cautious in their spending both on the CapEx and MRO side of things. And so, I think our guidance is sort of taking the sort of sentiment more than anything and saying looks it's going to be a tough start to the year. We're assuming that sort of extends throughout the year and sort of running the cost assuming that and then trying to win business where we can. And so, I would say our conversations are generally a little bit subdued, right. I think customers on these process industries are really struggling to make sure that they don't get over their skis and therefore they are watching their spending pretty carefully.

Rob C. Wertheimer - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst

And then – that was great. And then if you could just maybe, is that true that cautiousness, is that true across industry that really should have no real contact with mining and energy and the beverage and the general, I mean is there just sort of a general cease up with people's desire to hold inventory or not? Todd Alan Adams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: No. Again I think on the beverage side, the answer is no. But when you look at mining energy and then you start to look at all the adjacent industries and in our case customers that serve those adjacent industries in general industrial, they've been experiencing a nice run over the last several years as oil and gas has done pretty well. They don't know exactly why but now all of a sudden some of the components that are in their factories, manufacturing these components, they don't have the same demand, right. So, I would say we're feeling in obviously in the process and resource base industries as well as the broader industrial economy in the U.S. that's been benefiting if you will for the last few years as the oil and gas run up has happened.

Rob C. Wertheimer - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst

Perfect. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And the next question comes from Jeff Hammond from KeyBanc. Please go ahead.

Jeffrey D. Hammond - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Hi, good afternoon guys. Todd Alan Adams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hi, Jeff.

Mark W. Peterson - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Hi, Jeff.

Jeffrey D. Hammond - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

So, you mentioned in the guidance discussion fiscal 2015 didn't come out as planned, you kind of walked through the variances, can you just maybe speak to how you may be approached fiscal 2016 guidance differently to kind of avoid that, where do you see potential conservatism, contingency kind of as you lay out that plan and that guidance?

Mark W. Peterson - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Well, I think we tried to highlight where we pegged the market last year and I think when you look back on it, I think we got the water side of it pretty close, perhaps some shipment delays that impacted the timing in the year. The markets were pretty close to what we thought. I think where we sort of missed it is we – the U.S. industrial distribution was going to be a little better. We thought mining was going to be a little bit better and on food and bev, Europe for us was a little bit of a challenge for a couple of reasons; one, some key customers sort of pushed out of CapEx cycle and then as you know there was some competitive dynamics with a transaction that took place in (34:34) and from a shared standpoint people got sort of aggressive and we think we covered that. We think we've got rational behavior pattern in the marketplace and we've got a better outlook there. So, we missed it in the big buckets of broad U.S industrial, we missed it a little bit in mining and I will say on the food and bev side it was sort of mixed a little bit and obviously energy was rolling along for us, the first six months of the year really a strong end market for us and a market that wasn't that big that we were taking share in key categories and that sort of shut off here the last call it six months. So, I think we've taken a much more sanguine view of the industrial economy globally and hopefully that's reflected in the way we've portrayed the market outlook and guided people this year which is a little bit maybe pessimistic, but I don't think we are missing on the down side with this sort of view.

Jeffrey D. Hammond - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Okay, great. And then just with this broad supply chain initiative, can you maybe just talk about management capacity to kind of handle both the operational moving pieces as well as M&A and maybe just speak to the M&A pipeline and how you are thinking about balance sheet capacity? Todd Alan Adams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah, with respect to the supply chain and footprint repositioning we've been adding resources really for a year. And so, this is not something that we wanted to go into under resource. So, the cost and impact of that are sort of largely behind us with the exception of a little bit of stuff that I talked about $0.05 that's in our 2016 number. So, we felt like we needed to make sure that we were ready to execute this because of the brands, because of the market share, because of the margins and because we simply didn't want to do anything that would impact our customers in anyway. We perhaps over invested over the course of the last year to be ready. So, from a management capacity, we're ready to go and we're confident that we're going to get it done. We got great people on it and we're ready to go. In terms of M&A, we've been very active looking at a lot of different things, the funnels are building. I think we'll definitely get some things done in fiscal 2016. We did three really good acquisitions over the course of the last year, invested $138 million and I think we'd like to do more in fiscal 2016 given the free cash flow we're generating. But as you know the timing on these things are a little bit dodgy. We're not going to grouse about valuations, they are what they are. Our job is to continue to develop that proprietary funnel, play in auctions and processes where we have an angle, an advantage and go get these things done and integrate them and create value. So, we think we'll get some M&A done this year for sure and we've got the management capacity to do it.

Jeffrey D. Hammond - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Okay, great. Thanks, guys.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Julian Mitchell from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

Unknown Speaker

Analyst

Hey guys, Charley. Todd Alan Adams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hey Charley.

Mark W. Peterson - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Hey Charley.

Unknown Speaker

Analyst

Just on my way back from EPGs right now and sorry to kind of maybe ask another question on M&A, I felt like every company that stood up this week, just talked about how multiples were hard and they kind of had it relax their kind of ROIC assumptions and things of that nature. So just to know if kind of that's the same for you, I feel like that's been a problem that you guys haven't had in the past, you guys have been able to find cheaper deals and source cheaper deals and also just if some of the shake up in the energy markets or kind of elsewhere in industrial, is maybe kind of opened some doors for you, and maybe made some things cheaper, so just to know either by vertical or anything you could share with respect to kind of the M&A pipeline and things like that that will be great? Todd Alan Adams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Sure. One of the things we sort of highlighted in our early remarks Charley was the fact that we've embedded some business development resources into our various groups to grow the proprietary side of the funnel. And we expect that over the course of the year that's going to yield some positive results for us. We haven't relaxed and we haven't passed on anything because of valuation. And so from our standpoint, it's very much about finding the right strategic fit that create the right value over the right timeframe. And I don't think we're in the business of sort of opening up or relaxing the acceptable return hurdles just to get something done. We're going to lean into things that we need to lean into because we think we can create the value for shareholders over time and we haven't passed on anything because of valuation. So in terms of where we are, obviously the funnel is in varying stages of development across our groups and make sure that you will see us get some things done over the course of fiscal 2016.

Unknown Speaker

Analyst

Great. Thanks, guys. Todd Alan Adams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yep.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from David Rose from Wedbush Securities. Please go ahead.

Unknown Speaker

Analyst

Good afternoon. This is actually James calling in for David. Thank you for taking my questions. So, my first question is actually on PMC, just looking at margins, decrementals for PMC in the quarter were certainly very high and I know you talked about some incremental investments along with unfavorable mix, but can you talk about that little bit more, help us understand the margin impact there, I know this unfavorable mix kind of happened last quarter as well, would we expect similar trends in 2016 or with food and beverage getting back to a positive territory kind of help us get back to margins that you expect for the segment?

Mark W. Peterson - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Yeah, I think this is Mark. I think if you look at the quarter the bucket that we talked about number one, the mix piece, back half of the year, if we go back six months we saw some headwinds coming in, in the beverage end market for us in Europe and rest of world and that as we discussed is a more attractive margin profile, end market for us. So, we knew we're going to have some of the mix headwind there. Todd alluded to the de-stocking that we saw starting in our fourth quarter earnings and it's been into our first quarter that clearly was a piece of the puzzle and our energy end markets are nice margin products for us as well. So, you add those three up and that's majority of the mix impact we had in our fourth quarter. That coupled with some of the money we've been putting into some strategic growth initiatives including the footprint actions that we talked about, and supply chain optimization was the piece of the puzzle and overall just with the volume declines, just the decremental, (41:38) of that impacted Q4. And going forward the next fiscal year, as Todd said, we think we'll see that PMC margin in that 24% to 25% range and when you use the midpoint of the guidance and you look at the sales decline inclusive of currency, you'll see it's going to be a pretty solid decremental margin because we do see some of the mix issue coming back in our favor. We obviously continue to drive productivity, cost reduction over the balance of the year to drive that margin improvement. So I think those are the major piece of the puzzle and that kind of gave us some confidence in being able to keep that margin in the general zip code given some of the top line pressure we could be facing in fiscal 2016.

Unknown Speaker

Analyst

Okay. I appreciate that. And going to water, I know you're exiting some of the non-strategic infrastructure related product lines going forward and I know you probably can't touch upon it too much. But can you talk a little bit more about may be what product lines or regions you may be kind of considering and how does that impact sort of your margin expectations as well, I know previously you were expecting to continue to improve margins going to 2016, does that kind of slow down or if you could provide some color there, it will be great.

Mark W. Peterson - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Yeah, I know, I think we have a lot of confidence around the margin expansion opportunity in the water platform going into next year as well as beyond, even with some of the footprint and supply chain optimization on the side even before that. So when you think about – the first part of your question related to some product categories. Yeah, some of our valve and gate products and we're talking volumes that are less than $50 million here in total that we consider to be overall not required to be part of our strategic product portfolio were exited. They are lower margin products and overall that products will be net margin accretive to the platform as we get out of those product categories over the next several quarters in the end of fiscal 2016. So, that's going to be margin accretive, what we're hoping and continuing to do around RBS-led productivity initiatives, supply chain initiatives and overall continue to focus on optimizing, going to be more efficient with our goal of VAG (44:19) cost structure are going to be the key ingredients to drive net margin expansion in water over the next fiscal year.

Unknown Speaker

Analyst

Okay. And lastly on M&A, I know you touched upon that quite a bit but as you talked about, you made sizable acquisitions in the past year largely in line with the target that you provided of adding at least $25 million of EBITDA, do you have a similar target in mind for 2016 obviously given the weaker than expected environment and some new cost saving initiatives you guys are launching, would you be somewhat constrained in keeping up that pace? Todd Alan Adams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: We don't think so James. I think in terms of a target, look whether it's $20 million or $30 million, we think $25 million is a reasonable way to think about the M&A that we're thinking about in terms of earnings added to the base over the coming year, and so I don't know that we would call it a formal target, obviously if we can only find things that are $15 million that makes sense to produce the returns we want, we'll do $15 million. If it's $30 million, we'll do $30 million and so, there'll be some M&A in there and I don't think you're thinking about it directionally wrong.

Unknown Speaker

Analyst

Okay. Thank you for your time. Todd Alan Adams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: You bet.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Karen Lau from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Karen K. Lau - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Hi, good afternoon. Todd Alan Adams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hi, Karen.

Mark W. Peterson - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Hi, Karen.

Karen K. Lau - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Hi, I apologize if I missed it, but did you guys call out what's the expectation for core growth in the first quarter and how does that split between water and PMC? Todd Alan Adams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: We didn't call it out. Core growth will be in the range that we provided for the year. Water will be better sort of in the range that we provided for the year and so will PMC. So, I think what we're saying is the first quarter looks like a range that we provided for the year and at the Rexnord level as well as within the segments.

Karen K. Lau - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Okay, so mid single-digit for water?

Mark W. Peterson - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Yeah, you'll see, the kind of mid single-digit that come from water and mid-single digit decline in PMC.

Karen K. Lau - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. And the PMC number would be inclusive of I think the 1 points to 2 points of de-stocking that you had mentioned?

Mark W. Peterson - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

That's correct.

Karen K. Lau - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. Todd Alan Adams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: In the given quarter it could be a little bit more.

Mark W. Peterson - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Right.

Karen K. Lau - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. Makes sense. And then a lot of moving pieces with the guide I'm just wondering what would be the embedded EBITDA number apples-to-apples for fiscal 2016, just so we have a comparison.

Mark W. Peterson - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Yeah, so our reported number was $396 million. That EBITDA number, that midpoint of the range is going to be in that $400 million to $405 million range.

Karen K. Lau - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

$400 million to $405 million.

Mark W. Peterson - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Yep.

Karen K. Lau - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

And then the $0.05 of non-restructuring cost, I think it amounts to may be like $7 million that would be included in the EBITDA number as well? Todd Alan Adams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Correct.

Mark W. Peterson - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

That's correct.

Karen K. Lau - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. And just for modeling purposes what would be the magnitude of the stock comps and the LIFO that was previously excluded in EPS, what will be the magnitude of the number that we should now include in the EPS calculation for 2016?

Mark W. Peterson - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Yes. If you kind of add them, stock comps could be in that $9 million to $10 million of expense and LIFO would be low single-digits, call it two to four, somewhere in that range.

Karen K. Lau - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. So for modeling we should add back the $55 million of non-cash amortization?

Mark W. Peterson - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Correct.

Karen K. Lau - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

And subtract kind of amounts sort of maybe like $10 to $15 million of items that you previously excluded.

Mark W. Peterson - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Yeah and then.....

Karen K. Lau - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

(48:02) the LIFO. Todd Alan Adams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Right.

Mark W. Peterson - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Yeah, that's right. Todd Alan Adams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: And then Karen relative to fiscal 2015 at current exchange rates EBITDA is impacted by about $15 million on currency translation.

Mark W. Peterson - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Correct. Year-over-year translation. Todd Alan Adams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Year-over-year translation.

Mark W. Peterson - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Management

Yeah.

Karen K. Lau - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Okay, got it. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

We have no further questions at this time. I'll now turn the call back over to the speakers for closing remarks. Todd Alan Adams - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks everyone for joining us on the call today and we certainly appreciate your interest in Rexnord and hope that you're able to join us at our Investor Day at New York on June 2. If you're unable to attend, we obviously will report our first quarter results in early August and look forward to catching up then. Thanks a lot. Bye.

Operator

Operator

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's conference. Thank you for participating, you may now disconnect.