Anixter International (AXE) Q1 2019 Earnings Call Transcript

Anixter International (NYSE: AXE) Q1 2019 Earnings CallApril 23, 2019 10:30 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good morning. My name is Jesse, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Anixter International Inc. first-quarter 2019 financial results conference call.

[Operator instructions] Kevin Burns, senior vice president, investor relations, and treasurer, you may begin your conference.

Kevin Burns -- Senior Vice President, Investor Relations, and Treasurer

Thank you, Jesse, and welcome to Anixter's first-quarter 2019 earnings call. With me to review our financial results are Bill Galvin, president and CEO; and Ted Dosch, executive vice president and CFO. Following our prepared remarks, we will take your questions. Today's presentation includes both GAAP and non-GAAP financial results, which are reconciled in our earnings release and accompanying slide presentation posted on our investor relations website.

During our comments today, we will be referencing these slides. Before we begin, I want to remind everyone that we will be making forward-looking statements, which are subject to a number of factors that could cause Anixter's actual results to differ materially from what is indicated here. We do not undertake to update these statements and refer you to our SEC filings for more information. With that, I will turn the call over to Bill.

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Bill Galvin -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our first-quarter 2019 earnings call. This morning, I will begin with an overview of our first-quarter financial performance including sales and gross margin trends. I will then turn the call to Ted to review our financial performance in more detail and provide additional thoughts on our outlook for 2019. As you saw from this morning's release, sales in the quarter increased 7% to $2.1 billion, which is the highest first-quarter sales in our history.

Our strong sales performance included organic growth in all segments as well as record first-quarter sales in both NSS and UPS segments. Adjusting for the favorable impact of the security acquisitions completed in the second quarter of 2018 and the unfavorable impacts of lower average copper prices and generally weak foreign currencies, organic sales increased by 8%. Sales growth was above our outlook range of 3% to 5%, driven by the NSS segment with strong growth in global accounts and Security and Utility customers in our UPS segment. In addition to strong sales growth, we delivered meaningful year-over-year improvement in gross margin for the second consecutive quarter driven by actions we have implemented across the business.

This reflected excellent sales execution and is evidence of the value we continue to provide to our customers. Overall, first-quarter 2019 GAAP earnings per diluted share was $1.14. And adjusted earnings per diluted share increased 15% from prior year to $1.33. Let me now review our sales trend by segment, beginning with Network & Security Solutions.

As shown on Slide 6, record NSS quarterly sales of $1.1 billion increased 12%. Unfavorable currency offset the benefit from acquisitions resulting in organic growth of 11%. Growth was broad-based included in all key strategic sales initiatives. It was driven by global accounts, complex integrated supply programs and our security, wireless and professional audio/video businesses.

We had strong growth with global technology companies and with service providers in the emerging markets. By region, NSS North American sales of $825 million increased 8% on an organic basis, driven by growth in both security and network infrastructure, including our wireless and professional A/V initiatives. In EMEA, NSS sales of $94 million were flat on an organic basis. We had solid global activity in Continental Europe, which was largely offset by declines in the U.K.

and Ireland due to uncertainty surrounding Brexit and lower first-quarter project activity in the Middle East. Emerging market sales of $194 million increased 31% on an organic basis with strong growth in both CALA and APAC. The growth in CALA was broad-based with strength in all major countries and continued strength with existing and new service providers in that region. Turning to the security slide of the NSS business.

Sales of $476 million or approximately 43% of segment sales increased 15% driven by strong organic growth of 11% and the acquisitions completed in Q2 of 2018. Booking activity and backlog continued to build especially with our global customers and continued strong project activity. Going to Electrical & Electronic Solutions on Slide 7. The first-quarter sales of $566 million were flat.

Adjusted for the unfavorable impacts of lower average copper prices and generally weak foreign currencies, organic sales increased 2%. Looking at EES by region, North American sales of $443 million increased 2% on an organic basis, as growth in the U.S. and Canadian commercial and industrial business was offset by declines in the OEM business. The OEM softness was primarily in the semiconductor and industrial manufacturing verticals.

In EMEA, EES sales of $59 million declined 10% on an organic basis. We saw a declining -- we saw declines in both C&I and OEM businesses in Europe and the Middle East. The decline in North America OEM business and the EMEA business is consistent with the deceleration reflected in the U.S. and Euro area PMI indices.

In EMEA markets, EES sales of $64 million increased 19% -- I am sorry, in emerging markets, EES sales of $64 million increased 19% on an organic basis driven by industrial project strength in CALA. We continue to have positive book-to-bill ratios, and the backlog is up in all geographic regions with the exception of EMEA. Finally, our Utility Power Solutions segment achieved record first-quarter sales of $430 million, resulting in 8% growth on an organic basis as shown on Slide 8. This represents the ninth consecutive quarter of growth for this segment.

Growth was broad-based with strong sales resulting in both -- result in both IOU and Public Power and across U.S. and Canada. The IOU business achieved strong growth with existing customers, while our Public Power business had strong project activity especially in utility-contracted customers. The fundamentals of this business continue to look good in both in the U.S.

and Canada as reflected in our bookings and backlog. Let me turn to gross margin on Slide 9 of our presentation. As we discussed on our Q4 call, we have implemented long-term strategies across the business to improve gross margin. We believe gross margin expansion represents a significant opportunity and plan to invest a portion of the gross margin improvement in our innovation and business traNSSormation initiative while still delivering operating margin expansion.

first-quarter gross profit improved 9% to $419 million resulting in gross margin of 19.9%, an increase of 30 basis points year-over-year. The sequential decrease is due to segment and customer mix and is typical of what we see from Q4 to Q1. For 2019, our goal is to continue to improve gross margin by approximately 20 to 40 basis points from the full year of 2018 levels. To summarize, our strong first-quarter sales performance reflected good execution by the team and benefited from a relatively stable economic backdrop.

We achieved organic growth in all segments in all geographies with the exception of EMEA. Our market data indicates that we maintained or gained market share in our major businesses. As we look to the rest of 2019, demand backdrop continues to be favorable in most of our geographies as our backlog continues to increase and our pipeline is healthy. The indicators most relevant to Anixter, such as U.S.

PMI remains in expansion territory, and capex spending remains solid, although growth trends have decelerated in recent months. As we look across our regional businesses, our European business is experiencing the most uncertain economic environment. And we expect those challenges to continue for the foreseeable future. While we are concerned about some of the broad political and macroeconomic uncertainty including ongoing trade tensions, Brexit and uncertainty in others EMEA markets, we remain cautiously optimistic that our overall growth trends will continue for 2019.

Based on our strong first quarter, the generally solid trends we're experiencing, and the success of our focused sales initiatives tempered by ongoing uncertainties in the external environment, we are increasing our outlook for the full-year 2019 organic sales growth to the 4% to 6.5% range. With that, let me turn the call over to Ted for a more detailed analysis of our results and our outlook for 2019.

Ted Dosch -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Bill, and good morning, everyone. As a reminder, today's earnings release includes non-GAAP measures, which are reconciled to GAAP measures in the financial tables that accompany our release and are in the appendix of our accompanying slide presentation. We believe the non-GAAP measures we disclose provide the best representation of our ongoing operational performance. Bill covered our strong sales and gross margin performance, so I will begin with operating expense.

Looking at Slide 10, first-quarter operating expense of $344 million compares to prior year operating expense of $323 million. Excluding the non-GAAP operating expense items detailed on page 10 of our release, adjusted operating expense increased 7% or $22 million to $336 million. As a percentage of sales, current quarter adjusted operating expense of 15.9% compares to 16% in the prior year. The primary drivers of the increase in adjusted operating expense were $8 million related to the acquired companies, $7 million related to our innovation and business traNSSormation initiative as well as volume-related costs associated with our 8% sales growth.

Adjusted EBITDA increased by $13 million to $97 million due to strong volume and margin improvement in the segments and was partially offset by investment in innovation and business traNSSormation expenses at corporate. Adjusted EBITDA margin of 4.6% increased 40 basis points from 4.2% in the prior year. With our gross margin actions and expense control efforts, we expect modest EBITDA improvement this year with accelerated benefits next year and beyond. As we discussed on our Q4 call, our continued investment in innovation and business traNSSormation with a focus on customer-facing technologies will enhance our digital capabilities and enterprise efficiencies.

As part of this multiyear initiative, we are also streamlining and standardizing our global business processes as we migrate to a more efficient operating model. Let me now review adjusted EBITDA trends by segment. Beginning with NSS, as shown on Slide 13, adjusted EBITDA increased 33% to $78 million. The resulting adjusted EBITDA margin of 7% compares to 5.9%, with the improvement driven by gross margin improvement and strong operating leverage.

EES adjusted EBITDA decreased 6% to $33 million resulting in a 30-basis-point decline in adjusted EBITDA margin to 5.8%. While gross margin showed improvement, lower volumes and higher employee costs contributed to the decline. Finally, UPS adjusted EBITDA of $23 million compares to $21 million. The corresponding adjusted EBITDA margin of 5.3% compares to 5.2%.

This performance was driven by volume growth combined with solid operating leverage. Moving down the income statement. Interest expense of $20 million compares to $18 million in Q1 of 2018. The increase was driven by higher average borrowings under the revolving lines of credit due to the acquisitions in Q2 of last year and to support volume-driven higher working capital requirements.

We expect interest expense to be flat in the second quarter of 2019 compared to Q1. Our other net income $2 million was roughly flat with the prior year quarter. However, we expect other net to the expense in the $2 million to $2.5 million range per quarter going forward. Turning to taxes, our first-quarter 2019 U.S.

GAAP effective tax rate of 30.3% compares to 29.7% in the first-quarter of 2018. And our adjusted ETR of 29.8% compares to 28.5%. The higher ETR is due to country mix of earnings. We expect the Q2 tax rate to be consistent with the Q1 tax rate, as this rate is based on our projected full-year ETR.

Moving down to earnings per share, our adjusted diluted EPS of $1.33 increased by 15% or $0.17 from the year ago quarter. As we discussed, we experienced both copper and currency headwinds in the quarter. The $37 million impact on sales translates into a $0.08 unfavorable impact on diluted EPS. The diluted share count is 34.2 million shares.

Looking ahead, we would expect our share count to be flat for the remainder of 2019. Turning to Slide 16, our working capital ratio of 19.6% compares to 20% in the prior year quarter. This 40-basis-point improvement was driven by our ongoing focus on working capital efficiency. While working capital dollars have increased to support the higher sales growth, we continue to drive improvements on our working capital processes to enable more efficient use of our balance sheet.

We used a $114 million in cash from operations in the quarter, which compares to $71 million used in 2018, with the change driven by an increase in working capital to support growth in the business despite the improvement in working capital efficiency. Finally, we invested $6 million in capital expenditures in 2019, compared to $11 million in 2018. This resulted in a free cash flow use of $120 million for the quarter. Turning to slide 17, our first-quarter 2019 debt-to-capital ratio of 45.8% compares to 44.4% at year-end 2018, within our target range of 45% to 50%.

Our debt-to-adjusted EBITDA ratio of 3.2 times, compared to 3 times at year-end 2018 and is slightly above our target range of 2.5 times to 3 times in the year. The increase in our leverage metrics since year-end 2018 was due to the increase in debt levels to support increased working capital needs of business. Our weighted average cost of borrowed capital of 5.3% compares to 5.3% at the end of 2018. And our liquidity position remains strong with total available liquidity under revolving lines of credit and secured accounts receivable and inventory facilities of $484 million at the end of the quarter.

In Q1 2018, Anixter adopted the new FASB accounting standards for leases. We recognized approximately $250 million of right-of-use assets and liabilities upon adoption. There was no P&L impact from the adoption of this new standard. Turning to our outlook for sales growth, as Bill said, our outlook range for full year 2019 organic growth is 4% to 6.5%, which compares to our previous outlook of 3% to 6%.

Based on trends in the business through the month of April and supported by generally favorable economic indicators, we are estimating second quarter 2019 organic growth to be in the 3% to 5% range. While this outlook may seem conservative compared to our Q1 sales growth of 8%, please keep in mind that Q2 is a more challenging comparison for us, as we delivered 4.9% growth in the second quarter of last year. Our 2018 and 2019 2-year cumulative growth for Q1 was 9%. And our Q2 2-year cumulative growth would also reflect 9% growth at the midpoint of our outlook range.

As Bill indicated, we expect gross margin to improve for the year by 20 to 40 basis points from full year 2018 results. In the first quarter, we saw a 30-basis-point improvement in year-over-year margins. And as we look at the second quarter, we expect 20 to 40-basis-point improvement in gross margin on a year-over-year basis. Turning to operating expense.

For the full year, we expect adjusted operating expense as a percentage of sales to increase slightly. We expect the actions we are taking to improve gross margin will both fund investment in innovation and business transformation and create operating margin expansion. Looking at the second quarter, we would expect our adjusted operating expense dollars to increase on a sequential basis due to higher volume. To further help with your modeling.

we've provided our estimates for the impacts of currency, copper and the acquisition on our second-quarter and full-year 2019 sales on Slide 19 of today's presentation. Looking ahead, we expect to generate $95 million to $115 million of free cash flow for full-year 2019, consistent with the outlook we provided last quarter. We expect to generate cash flow from operations of $150 million to $175 million for the full year of 2019 and to invest $55 million to $60 million in capital expenditures in 2019, with the year-over-year increase primarily due to our increased investment in innovation and business traNSSormation. Based on the current value of the U.S.

dollar against other currencies, we estimate a sales headwind of $20 million to $25 million for the second quarter and a headwind of $55 million to $65 million for the full year. Based on recent copper prices of approximately $2.90, we estimate unfavorable sales impact of $5 million to $10 million in the second quarter and $0 to $5 million for the full year. As a reminder, average copper price was $3.09 in the second quarter of 2018 and $2.93 for the balance of the full year of 2018. Finally, the sales impact from the acquired businesses will be approximately $25 million in the second quarter and $50 million for the full year, reflecting an incremental five months of ownership.

Let me conclude by comments by reiterating that we were pleased to deliver strong sales growth in the first quarter. We believe our differentiators provide a competitive advantage and leave us positioned for strong growth into the future. We delivered on our additional priorities of improving gross margin and increasing earnings in the first quarter. We are pleased that we are continuing to see the benefits of the actions we have implemented.

We are in the early stages of our innovation and business traNSSormations, which will deliver state-of-the-art customer-facing technologies and best-in-class enterprise efficiencies. We expect our investment in innovation to deliver significant long-term benefit with the goals of improving profitability, increasing cash flow from operations and creating value for all of our stakeholders. With that, we will now open the call for questions.

Questions and Answers:

Operator

Thank you. [Operator instructions] Your first question comes from Allison Poliniak with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Allison Poliniak -- Wells Fargo Securities -- Analyst

Hi, guys. Good morning.

Bill Galvin -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Good morning.

Allison Poliniak -- Wells Fargo Securities -- Analyst

I could go to -- back to EES? I guess, the first thing, the OEM weakness, has that changed your view for the entire year in that segment? And then also just looking at the adjusted EBITDA margin target for '19 for that segment, it looks like you brought it down a little bit. Any color on that?

Bill Galvin -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes, I don't think we brought down the estimate for the year but as it relates to the OEM business, Allison, we did, and I think the market has seen weakness in that semiconductor space. We also saw it in the industrial space. I think our view is that we are continuing -- and our pipeline looks better as we go into the second quarter and for the full year. But as we've said in the past, the the margin in the OEM business is higher than it is higher than -- it is higher than the other businesses in EES, therefore, impacting the EBITDA results.

But again, I think our outlook says that we see that improving throughout the year but overall the total year outlook this is roughly the same.

Ted Dosch -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Yes. And, Allison, just to clarify we did not change our projection for the EBITDA outlook for any of the segments. We still showed 6% to 6.5% for EES for the full year, compared to 6.2 % for last year. And keep in mind from a kind of a normal seasonality of our business, our Q1 margin tends to be lower on a consolidated basis for the total company, which is what we saw in EES as well.

Allison Poliniak -- Wells Fargo Securities -- Analyst

Thanks. That's helpful. And then on NSS, nice operating leverage there, pretty high. Was that just the volume? Any reason that would come down? Anything unusual driving that EBITDA leverage this quarter?

Ted Dosch -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Well, it's a combination of a few things. Obviously, the volume, and we get leverage on the volume, Allison. And of course, the mix of the business was also good, very strong content and services business that we've been talking about, and we feel like that's just a solid performance by the NSS business.

Bill Galvin -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes. The only thing I would add to that, Allison, is keep in mind that Q1 of last year was the weakest quarter for NSS. And you will remember, it was the last quarter of somewhat flattish growth in that business before it really began to take off in Q2 of last year. So we had somewhat of a depressed EBITDA margin in Q1 of last year although that 110 of EBITDA margin improvement this year should continue at or close to that type of a rate of improvement over the course of this year.

Ted Dosch -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Allison, I'd also comment that the -- if you remember last year it was -- the pipeline was slower to come to billings in the first quarter on the global accounts that we saw strengthening and that continued to improve. So we saw a really strong performance this year and the first quarter for global accounts the services business. And as we said in the notes, the overall initiatives that we're driving with things like wireless data and so on, that really performed well.

Allison Poliniak -- Wells Fargo Securities -- Analyst

Great. Thank you. That's helpful.

Operator

[Operator instructions] Your next question comes from Shawn Harrison with Longbow Research. Your line is open.

Shawn Harrison -- Longbow Research -- Analyst

Good morning, everybody, and congrats on the results.

Bill Galvin -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Shawn.

Shawn Harrison -- Longbow Research -- Analyst

If I were to think about -- I don't know if legacy is the right term but the -- what I'll call legacy NSS business related the kind of data-center non-res construction, etc. How did that perform in the first quarter? And did your view get more positive on that business as it relates to 2019 in terms of the guidance increase?

Bill Galvin -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes, I think it -- great questions, Shawn. I think it performed exceptionally well and I think the hyperscale data center business was very strong, the global account activity was very strong. So the traditional business was solid, obviously, with the results. But again, I highlight the content and service performance and some of the big programs as well as a lot of the initiatives in -- again wireless and so on really performed well.

So the data center business was definitely good. And if you remember we commented this time last year where that was the part that took a longer time to recover, quite frankly.

Shawn Harrison -- Longbow Research -- Analyst

And just on the large projects either be with the pro-AV, the in-building wireless or kind of the traditional data center, I know that can be lumpy. But how is the visibility in terms of what those projects could look like as the year progresses?

Bill Galvin -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes. As we said in the comments, Shawn, it's solid. The performance, and the bookings and backlog, pipeline all looks solid. So we're confident that we're going to continue to be able to deliver on that from Q2 and the visibility looks good.

Shawn Harrison -- Longbow Research -- Analyst

OK. And then on, I guess, cost inflation. If I think back to last year and nearly you're lapping it now this year with transportation, logistics cost, other inflationary measures, where are you at in terms of full price recovery? Did you get there in the first quarter or is it -- you'd be there by mid-year?

Bill Galvin -- President and Chief Executive Officer

I wouldn't say we got all the way there, Shawn, but I I would say that, first of all, the inflation of that has has flattened out. We're not seeing the significant growth that we saw in the first quarter last year but that continues to be the effort to move those price increases and inflationary pressures into the market. And I can tell you we still have opportunities to do more of that.

Shawn Harrison -- Longbow Research -- Analyst

OK. And then lastly for me just on the UPS strength. How much of that is market versus, I mean, past years you've been taking a lot of market share winning new programs. I mean, what was it, seven or eight straight quarters of this type of growth is pretty remarkable.

Bill Galvin -- President and Chief Executive Officer

I think the market's grown, Shawn, but I do think our performance has outperformed the market. So I think we've had a lot of good wins across the broad space. And if you remember, in Canada that was a bit of a headwind for us and that's performing well now so I think we've addressed where the weaknesses were. But I do and I'm very happy with the team's performance to continue to drive wins in that business.

It ebbs and flows but I think overall it's performed exceptionally well.

Shawn Harrison -- Longbow Research -- Analyst

Thanks a lot/

Bill Galvin -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator

There are no further questions at this time. I turn the call back to the presenters for any closing remarks.

Bill Galvin -- President and Chief Executive Officer

OK. Another questions just came in. OK. So, Jesse, we'll take that other question that just came in.

Operator

All right. Certainly. It's from David Manthey with Baird. Your line is open.

David Manthey -- Baird -- Analyst

Hey, good morning, guys. Got it in under the wire here.

Bill Galvin -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes. How are you doing, Dave?

David Manthey -- Baird -- Analyst

Good. So a question on the emerging markets. Historically you've had some timelines where you've had larger projects that have moved in and out of that number. I'm just wondering if there's anything we need to think about relative to the strength you're seeing right now that we might see as it plays out over the course of this year.

Bill Galvin -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes. Good question, David. In the past, we've actually had -- you remember we had headwinds and everyone did in Brazil and things like that. But this growth is really based on long term programs, so we feel very confident about the ability to continue to repeat that type of base because the these longtime programs have been great long-term wins for us.

So I think that sets up well for that continued performance.

Ted Dosch -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

And I think [Inaudible]

David Manthey -- Baird -- Analyst

So, maybe as -- I'm sorry, Ted. Go ahead.

Ted Dosch -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

No, I was just going to emphasize one thing to bring clarity because you were asking about projects and whereas we always do have projects in the emerging markets the lion's share of this quarter's growth year over year. And what we would expect to this year is more ongoing program related than just onetime projects.

David Manthey -- Baird -- Analyst

OK. So then as the comparison gets more difficult through the year maybe the growth rate tones down a little bit but you feel pretty good about the strength you're seeing there?

Bill Galvin -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes, I think that's fair. David, I think that explosive growth rate that we saw will normalize but still be positive.

Ted Dosch -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Yes, absolutely. So 28% growth -- organic growth in the quarter, it is not sustainable over an extended period of time but we would expect emerging markets to have a higher growth rate than both EMEA, certainly and EMEA, which will be weaker but even higher than North America.

David Manthey -- Baird -- Analyst

OK. And finally can you talk about your your leverage or your contribution margins in the emerging markets? I think maybe a bit dated but I know historically you had a fairly sizable under absorption in a lot of those markets. I mean, you saw this kind of good growth, it was -- it translated very well to high levels of profitability. Is that still the case or is the contribution margin not quite as strong in emerging markets today?

Bill Galvin -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes, your memory is correct there, Dave. The contribution margins in the emerging markets is not as high as North America. But if you stop and think about it, we've got much, much more critical mass in North America so we get much much better cost leverage throughout the whole distribution network across the businesses in North America. The emerging markets, yes, we've got just off the top my head, probably 30 countries, 30 and 35 countries were operating in between APAC and CALA, so we -- outside of countries like Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Australia most of those other countries across CALA and APA have -- are a much smaller business.

So I think the inherent difference is more due to operating costs leverage in those businesses as opposed to North America. Having said that though, the operating margins in emerging markets are in between the much higher margins in North America but still higher than EMEA. And I think that's been the case for quite some time and we would expect that to continue to be the case as that business grows.

David Manthey -- Baird -- Analyst

All right. Thanks very much, guys.

Bill Galvin -- President and Chief Executive Officer

OK. That concludes the call today. If you have additional questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to Kevin. As always thank you for listening to today's call.

Operator

[Operator signoff]

Duration: 34 minutes

Call Participants:

Kevin Burns -- Senior Vice President, Investor Relations, and Treasurer

Bill Galvin -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Ted Dosch -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Allison Poliniak -- Wells Fargo Securities -- Analyst

Shawn Harrison -- Longbow Research -- Analyst

David Manthey -- Baird -- Analyst

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Contents:

Prepared Remarks:

Questions and Answers:

Call Participants: