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spk06: Good morning. My name is Rob and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Barnes Group, Inc. first quarter 2022 earnings conference call and webcast. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one in your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, again, press star one. Thank you. Bill Pitts, Vice President, Investor Relations. You may begin your conference.
spk07: Thank you, Rob. Good morning, and thank you for joining us for our first quarter 2022 earnings call. With me are Barnes Senior Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer, and Interim Chief Executive Officer, Julie Strike, and Vice President, Controller, Marion Acker. If you have not received a copy of our earnings press release, you can find it on the investor relations section of our corporate website at orangegroupinc.com. During our call, we will be referring to the earnings release supplement slides, which are also posted on our website. Our discussion today includes certain non-GAAP financial measures which provide additional information we believe is helpful to investors. These measures have been reconciled to the related GAAP measures in accordance with SEC regulations. You will find a reconciliation table on our website as part of our press release and in the form 8K submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Be advised that certain statements we make on today's call, both during the opening remarks and during the question and answer session, may be forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Please consider the risks and uncertainties that are mentioned in today's call and are described in our periodic filings with the SEC. These filings are available through the investor relations section of our corporate website at barnesgroupinc.com. Let me now turn the call over to Julie for her opening remarks. Then Marion will provide a review of our first quarter financial results and our updated outlook for 2022. After that, we'll open up the call for questions. Julie?
spk04: Thank you, Bill, and good morning, everyone. Before getting into the quarter's details, I'd like to take a moment to address the humanitarian crisis continuing in Ukraine. Our thoughts and prayers go out to those affected by the ongoing violence and devastation. All of us at Barnes hope for a quick resolution of the hostilities, a return to peace, and the rebuilding of the many lives disrupted. Barnes begins 2022 with solid first quarter earnings performance, exceeding our February expectation in the face of some significant headwinds. While January started slowly, we saw sequential sales growth each month, ending with strong results in March. One of the quarter's highlights was a book-to-bill ratio of 1.15 times, indicative of a supportive demand environment, with both segments seeing a greater than one times ratio. First quarter organic sales grew 6% from a year ago and adjusted earnings per share were up 8%. Our performance was driven by aerospace, which generated strong revenue growth and margin expansion. Industrials saw several pressure points accelerate in the first quarter, which weighed on margin performance. While macro environmental headwinds will likely persist throughout 2022, We anticipate the pressure will moderate and with demand remaining healthy, we expect the first quarter to be the low point for the year for revenues, margins, and EPS. With the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, we have examined potential impacts across our portfolio, including trade with Russia. For industrial, our Russian exposure is minimal with annual revenue in the $1 to $2 million range. However, We have seen delivery and other logistical challenges, including increased freight costs, as a result of the conflict. For aerospace, we do not sell into the Russian OEM market, so there is no direct impact. With respect to indirect OEM sales or with aftermarket sales, we anticipate minimal impact. For Barnes, the watch item will be the continued availability of titanium through our Russian supplier. At this point in time, titanium has not been sanctioned by the U.S. government, and procuring this material is not a current issue. We maintain buffer inventory for the components we manufacture, and we are working to assess alternate titanium supply channels should the need arise. Barnes is complying with all global sanctions and has stopped shipping into impacted regions in accordance with such sanctions. Within our segments, industrials organic orders declined 2% and organic sales declined 1% versus a year ago, though they were both up modestly on a sequential basis. From a macro standpoint, the first quarter proved to be a tough environment. Sales were impacted by supply chain challenges, lockdowns in China, and weakness in certain end markets. Operating margin was squeezed by broad-based inflation and costs associated with spikes in COVID-related absenteeism across our businesses. That said, our teams around the globe rallied, showing great agility to rapidly adapt and mitigate much of the downward pressure. Across industrial, we estimate approximately $2 to $3 million in net absenteeism-related costs in the quarter. While we expect a greater than normal level of absenteeism to continue, it has trended down since early in the first quarter. We forecast approximately $2 to $3 million of similar net absenteeism costs over the remainder of 2022. In addition to the absenteeism costs, we saw $8 million in gross raw material freight and utilities inflation in the quarter, Through pricing and procurement actions, we were able to mitigate approximately $5 million, resulting in a net $3 million of inflation impact. We also expect a $2 to $3 million net impact in the second quarter. While we see gross inflation continuing at a high level in the second half of 2022, the momentum behind our pricing, procurement, and productivity actions are anticipated to offset much of this impact. At Molding Solutions, organic orders were flat year over year. Automotive orders were positive. Medical was flat, though up sequentially. And packaging and personal care, while at healthy levels, were down compared to a year ago. That said, orders improved through the quarter, with March up significantly. Organic sales decreased 2%, with personal care and general industrial down, and medical and packaging solidly up. For 2022, we continue to expect molding solutions organic sales growth to be up mid-single digits. At force and motion control, organic orders were up 1% and organic sales up 3%. Our general industrial markets created the lift. We anticipate high single-digit organic sales growth for the year up from our prior mid-single-digit expectation. Engineered components saw organic orders decline 11%, while organic sales decreased 3%. Automotive production markets were the primary driver, though interestingly, both automotive orders and sales improved considerably on a sequential basis, up more than 20%. In the first quarter, we did see automotive revenue pushouts of $5 million, a bit less than the $6 million we expected, and an improvement from the $8 million in Q4. We anticipate a further impact of $3 million in the second quarter. Full-year organic sales growth is anticipated to be up mid-single digits, unchanged from our prior view. Within automation, organic orders were down 4% and organic sales were down 5%. We had anticipated a slow first quarter to begin 2022. Our full year view has not changed as we foresee organic sales growth in the mid-teens. For the industrial segment, we continue to forecast 2022 organic growth in the mid to high single digits. However, with the macro headwinds I discussed, we have lowered our adjusted operating margin expectation to a range of 10.5% to 11.5%. Moving to aerospace, the recovery continues as sales increased 23% over last year's first quarter. Both original equipment manufacturing and aftermarket businesses delivered very strong growth. Adjusted operating margin improved 300 basis points from a year ago. In our OEM business, orders grew 21% in the quarter with a book-to-bill of 1.55 times and sales grew 18%. OEM backlog reached $716 million, up 5% from December and up 19% versus a year ago. We expect to convert approximately 45% of this backlog to revenue over the next 12 months. We continue to anticipate high single-digit OEM growth in 2022, supported by increased production of narrow-body aircraft at both Airbus and Boeing. For the aftermarket, we generated 34% sales growth with MRO and RSP businesses delivering strong year-over-year performance, up 24% and 59% respectively. The positive recovery should continue as airlines are showing strong demand and business travel looks to be returning. For the year, we anticipate sales growth for MRO to be in the high 20% range with spare parts up in the low 20s, the latter an increase from our prior outlook. Aerospace adjusted operating margin is now forecast to be between 16.5% and 17.5%, a slight uptick benefiting from higher spare parts sales. To close my aerospace comments, I'd like to take a minute to welcome Ian Reason as our new president of Bonds Aerospace. Ian brings broad industry experience and understanding of the commercial and defense aerospace markets, making him the ideal person to lead this business through its next phase of profitable growth. I would also like to offer best wishes to Mike Beck in his well-deserved retirement. We thank Mike for his many years of service and dedication to Barnes. Shifting gears, I'd like to provide an update on our environmental, social, and governance initiatives. Barnes is deeply committed to corporate responsibility and furthering ESG principles.
spk01: In march of policies and products that benefit stakeholders, the environment, and society. This month, we published our baseline metrics and progress for Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions and water usage.
spk04: Both documents can be found on our corporate website under About ESG. We remain committed to corporate accountability and are honored to have been recognized as one of America's most responsible companies by Newsweek in 2021 and one of America's most trusted companies by Newsweek in 2022.
spk01: Before concluding, I'd like to acknowledge Patrick Dempsey and our earnings expectation, and our global team showed tremendous resilience. Aerospace results continue to be strong, and we expect their end markets to remain supportive. We also expect...
spk04: that pricing, procurement, and productivity actions taken will gain traction, improving industrial margin performance. Clearly, the macro environment holds significant uncertainty, but with solid orders in the quarter and management squarely focused on driving the business forward, we anticipate... Now, let me pass the call over to Marion for a discussion of the financial detail.
spk01: Good morning, and thank you, Julie.
spk03: Let me begin with highlights of our first quarter results on slide five of our supplement. First quarter sales for $312 million, up 4% from the previous year. Adjusted operating income was $31.8 million this year, down 2% from an adjusted $32.4 million last year. Adjusted operating income to the prior year period.
spk01: Net income was $20.8 million. for diluted share compared to $19.4 million or $0.38 per diluted share a year ago. On an adjusted basis, net income per share of $0.41 was up 8% from $0.38 a year ago.
spk03: Adjusted net income per share in the first quarter of 2022 excludes $0.01 of restructuring charges from previously announced actions. In the quarter, interest expense was $3.6 million, a decrease of approximately $400,000 as a result of lower average borrowings compared to a year ago. Other expense was $1.6 million, essentially in line with last year. The company's effective tax rate in the first quarter was 21%, down from a rate of 28.1% a year ago. The primary drivers are an increase in projected earnings and low-tax jurisdictions and the absence of additional tax expense related to the global intangible low-income tax, or GILTI, recorded in last year's first quarter. Now I'll turn to our segment performance, beginning with industrial. First quarter sales were $212 million, down 4% from a year ago. Organic sales decreased 1%. while unfavorable foreign exchange lowered sales by 3%. Operating profit was $14.7 million, down 31% from the prior year period, while operating margin was seven per charges this year. Adjusted operating profit was $15 million, down 29% from a year ago. And adjusted operating margin declined 260 bps to 7.1%. As Julie mentioned, There are several macroeconomic headwinds facing our industrial segment. The decrease in operating profit was primarily due to broad-based inflation, including labor, raw material, utilities, and freight. Coupled with supply chain challenges and lower productivity due to COVID-related absenteeism, it certainly was a difficult quarter. At aerospace, sales were $101 million. an increase of 23% from a year ago, benefiting from the ongoing recovery in aerospace and markets. Original equipment manufacturing sales increased 18%, and aftermarket sales increased 34% compared to the prior year period. Operating profit was $16.4 million, up 48%. Excluding approximately $400,000 of restructuring costs this year, adjusted operating profit of $16.7 million was up 51% from a year ago, benefiting from the contribution of higher sales volumes, offsetting part of the supply chain challenges.
spk01: Adjusted operating margin was 16.6%, up 300 bps.
spk03: With respect to cash flow performance, cash used by operating activities was $9 million versus cash provided from operating activities of $36 million and increased working capital in the current year period. Free cash flow was a use of $17 million compared to a source of $28 million last year.
spk01: Capital expenditures were $7 million down slightly from a year ago.
spk03: Regarding the balance sheet, our debt to EBITDA ratio, as defined by our credit agreement, was 2.4 times at quarter end and flat to where we ended one time.
spk01: In light of the rising interest rate environment, I wanted to mention that Barnes recently amended our revolving credit agreement, which favorably changes the interest spread pricing grid.
spk03: This change is forecasted to benefit interest rates by 12.5 to 25 bps, depending upon the computed quarterly leverage ratio. The amendment also adopts SOFR as the base rate, replacing LIBOR, which will be expiring in June of 2023. You'll note a reduction in our interest expense forecast for the year when we discuss outlook. Our first quarter averaged both approximately 51 million shares. During the quarter, we did not repurchase shares and approximately 3.6 million shares remain available under the board's 2019 stock repurchase authorization. Moving to slide six of our supplement, let me discuss our updated 2022 outlook. We continue to expect organic sales to be up eight to 10% for the year with FX having a 2% negative impact. Adjusted operating margin is forecast to be between 12.5% and 13.5%, down slightly from our previous expectation due to the ongoing pressures in our industrial segment, $0.20 to $2.40, up 13% to 24% from 2021's adjusted $1.94 per share. The updated EPS range was reduced by 5 cents at the high end of our previous range. For the year, we expect $0.03 impact on EPS for residual restructuring charges, with a penny forecasted for the second and third quarters. We continue to forecast a 40% first half, 60% second half split in EPS. We realize this indicates a significant pricing and other actions gathering steam, and absenteeism pressures subsiding. We believe our forecast reflects achievement. Rounding out a few other outlook items, interest expense is anticipated to be $13.5 million, about half a million lower than our previous outlook.
spk01: Other expense of approximately $4 million, an effective tax rate of 24% to 25%. CapEx of $50 to $55 million.
spk03: average diluted shares of approximately $51 million, and cash conversion of greater than 100%. In closing, despite the first quarter's challenges, we exceeded the high end of our earnings expectations shared on our February call. We expect macro headwinds to continue through 2022. However, we see the first quarter as the peak of those pressure points. Future quarters should benefit from the momentum of pricing and other actions taken to mitigate the impacts. Operator, we'll now open the call for questions.
spk06: At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from the line of Christopher Glynn from Oppenheimer. Your line is open.
spk09: Thanks. Good morning. Good morning, Chris. I was curious on the titanium from Russia, potential impact if there's a major issue, timing to, you know, set up alternative supply. Maybe if you could just ring fence the extreme there.
spk04: Sure. Thanks for the question, Chris. So we have already begun working with alternative suppliers so that we have a backstop ready should something happen. And as I mentioned, we also do have many months' worth of buffer stocks in our inventory and we're partnering with our customers to talk to them about alternative sources and quality checks and what they would expect, I apologize, should something happen.
spk09: Okay. So would you overall feel you're ready to weather it with minimal follow-up if there's a, you know, Some sudden issue. What proportion of your titanium is from the Russian source?
spk04: It is our primary source.
spk09: Okay. And you think you have backfill's pretty good prospects there?
spk04: Yeah, the open market has availability. It's just, you know, there's a cost associated with it. So that's the tradeoff.
spk09: Okay. Great. And then... For industrial, just curious how to think about the progression sequentially of revenue and margin. You know, obviously, I think both increase through the year. We have our 4060 EPS, but, you know, rather than leave it to triangulation, just curious if you could talk about kind of sequential cadence there, margin improvement, you're seeing 2Q over 1Q.
spk04: So we would expect a gradual ramp throughout the year, with the second quarter continuing at this point. So you should, from a modeling perspective, really look to see a pickup in the second half of the year.
spk09: Okay. Great. And any direct or indirect on the China lockdowns? I didn't hear you mention that, if you did.
spk01: So there's been part of the China lockdown has been contributing to some of the productivity issues.
spk04: We started the year with lockdowns in our Tianjin facility. And while Tuzhou has not been locked down thus far, there are impacts from the Shanghai lockdown that disrupt our customers' ability to accept products
spk01: that disrupted some impact that factored into our second quarter forecast, and we, at this point, anticipate that those impacts will lessen in Q3 and Q4.
spk09: Great. That makes sense. Thank you. Thanks, Chris.
spk03: Thanks, Chris.
spk06: Your next question comes from a line of...
spk02: Here with me, Sam Shrewsaker from Truist Securities.
spk06: Your line is open.
spk05: Yes. Hey, how are you doing? Good morning, guys. Sorry about that. I'm on the mic this morning in terms of what your contracts might be structured like. to be able to pass through some of that pressure?
spk04: Yeah, thanks for the question, Sam. From an aerospace perspective, all of our long-term agreements have raw material pass-through, so we're really not facing the same headwinds on the aerospace side from inflation that we're seeing on the industrial side.
spk05: Okay, great.
spk02: And then you guys said you're okay on titanium, at least – with your current kind of planning.
spk05: Are there any other kind of materials that you guys are at all concerned about on the aerospace side or industrial too, I guess?
spk04: You know, there's been intermittent challenges with some of our basic supplies, nothing that's alarming. And then there's ongoing supply chain challenges been flowing in respectively. So I would offer that there's really no, we don't have any major concerns that would disrupt our production at this point.
spk05: Okay, great. Thank you. And then just one last one here. It seems like there's a possibility that with increased demand, supply chain could be getting a little bit worse. So just kind of curious how you guys are viewing that in relation to some of the confidence for industrial moving forward throughout the rest of the year.
spk01: Can you repeat the first part of the question again, please?
spk05: Yeah, sorry. Just with the possibility that it looks like supply chain could be potentially worsening given increase in demand moving forward throughout the rest of the year, how do you guys kind of gauge that with your confidence in industrial moving forward throughout the rest of the year?
spk04: Yeah, no, we're definitely keeping a close eye on what's happening from a supply chain perspective, as I think there's a lot of dynamics. We're increasing our buffer stock in some areas. We're looking for alternate supply sources for parts that may be in areas that that could be more significantly impacted by shutdowns, as an example, if they were coming from China. And our logistics and procurement teams are just staying on top of everything as closely as they can to help mitigate that. That said, it's a dynamic environment, and there is risk we could have some impacts. But I think the team leveraging our enterprise system is staying on top of the challenging environment.
spk07: Again, Sam, some of the indirect impacts or direct impacts of that, Marion referred to as the increase in working capital impacting cash flow in the month. You can see on our balance sheet inventories have creeped up a bit, and part of that is in anticipation of what the supply chain may bring.
spk05: Great. Makes sense. Thank you very much, guys. Thank you. Thanks, Sam.
spk06: Your next question comes from the line of Miles Walton from UBS. Your line is open.
spk00: Good morning, Lou. Hey, Lou. Hey, Julie, Erin, Bill. I want to come back to the incentive top. I just want to make sure, is there anything different about this year than prior years or that used to spread it out and it's all in one quarter? Anything going on, I guess, just with that number?
spk03: Hello, this is Marion. So on the cash flow, what you see is the payout of the prior year incentive comp. So we pay out in the first quarter. So 2021 was a much better year. The payout we saw in 2022, of course, was higher than what we saw a year ago coming off 2020, the first year of COVID.
spk00: Okay. There's nothing wrong in there. And then if we switch over to industrial, I guess the you know i do i appreciate the commentary about you kind of had i think you mentioned eight million of sort of added costs and you were able to sort of offset that with five million still have an extra three million of um you know impact i guess as we think about that sort of going forward the rest of 22 and even into 23 does that make getting the margins up to that mid-teen level sort of incrementally more difficult is there anything else more you can do in that business
spk04: So there's a number of things we're focusing on. Clearly, as long as the inflationary headwinds continue, we're working to offset them, and it will have an impact. However, leveraging, again, the enterprise system, we're looking at how we take costs we're focusing on what we can control how do we take costs out of our system how do we optimize flow through our facilities how do we seek different sources at this point we we do anticipate as i mentioned that in h2 we'll be at a net neutral position and given the productivity we're driving there i have total confidence that the portfolio will get back to that mid-teen level, not in 2022, but going forward without question. We have the potential to be there.
spk00: Okay, great. And just on the aerospace side, is there the pull from your customers? I guess, are you seeing anything – Out of the ordinary, are they pulling as expected? Is there any, again, I understand your supply chain, but you going out into their supply chain, is that sort of all normal there on the OE side?
spk07: Yeah, Lou, I haven't seen any kind of variance to what our expectations have been on the aerospace side, whether it's timing, nothing out of the ordinary.
spk00: No, no. Okay, great. And then just one, Drew, just want to make sure I heard you correct, Mary. You said the other income was going to be $4 million this year instead of the $7 million previously? Correct. All right, good. Thank you very much. Thanks, Luke. Thanks, Lou.
spk06: Your next question comes from the line of Sam Somerville from DA Davidson. Your line is open.
spk08: Yeah, this is actually Matt. Good morning, Matt. Good morning.
spk01: Hey, Matt.
spk08: Okay, so I want to talk about the industrial business, put a finer point on this, you know, with, I think, orders down to... Book-to-bill looked okay, but the guide up mid-single to high single digits helped give me confidence that we're going to see that kind of ramp in this business through the remainder of the year with global auto still being heavily disrupted, I would assume at least through year-end, supply chain continuing to be challenging at least through year-end. So just help me get comfortable with that for organic view.
spk04: Yeah, it's a good question. And the first step is starting with where we are today. And the order book and the demand we saw ramp in the first quarter supports the trajectory going into the second quarter. So that's the first step. In addition, we are continuing to leverage our strategic marketing and sales initiatives to go after penetration of new markets, grow outside of our traditional spaces, and the team is confident that they will deliver upon our expectations there, which allows us to ramp into the second half of the year as we forecast. That said, there's not without risk, right? And anybody in this environment who would say there's no risk hasn't looked around very much. Step one, do you have the orders to support your next quarter sales? And I would offer that, yes, that was our first piece of confidence.
spk07: The good news is, as Julie mentioned, as we went through the quarter, things sequentially got better and better, and March was pretty strong.
spk02: So we see the underlying demand environment remaining supportive, and that's what gives us confidence.
spk01: One other thing on the inflation, we talked about the impact.
spk03: We look at the mitigate most of that given the pricing actions that are taking hold.
spk08: You know, when I look at this business and kind of compare And it might not necessarily be a fair comparison, but I'm going to do it anyways. You know, when I think about my broader coverage universe, the overwhelming majority of my companies are printing, like, record operating margins.
spk02: And at 7%, this is the worst margin performance in industrial in, like, 10 years.
spk08: I guess I'm really just trying to understand structurally, you know, given that you've migrated into automation, given how that molding solutions platform has evolved over the years, how are we... Well, go ahead, Julie.
spk01: No, no, no, that's okay. It's a fair question, and it's certainly not where we would have...
spk04: hope to be at this point in time, but how we are where we are has a lot to do with the volume we see coming through the facilities, the inflation impacts, We were hit heavily by absenteeism. There's a level, Matt, that I'm sure you perhaps an entire cell out. We had locations that had up to 25% of the population out for COVID during parts of the quarter, earlier in the quarter, which significantly impacted our January performance. And while we quantified it as $2 million, which is about 100 basis points of margin in the quarter, My estimate is it could be ballpark a little bit higher than that. So we have the inflation that hit us, and the team did a great job with their recovery efforts. I don't want to underplay what the team did to offset our inflation. We had some absenteeism, and there's that other productivity that comes with having people doing jobs that they don't normally do, having people out. And that's how we landed where we are. That said, we see that the absenteeism going down, which should have an immediate impact on productivity. We see volume coming up, which will also drop of productivity. Our inflation and surcharge efforts will continue to gain traction, offsetting more of the inflation. And we have our teams leveraging the operating system to double down our efforts in increasing our own internal productivity and focusing on what we control within our own four walls. So not sure if that answers your question, but that's where we're at.
spk08: Understood. understand the titanium issue. I realize you source it from Russia. I'm sure that's been the case for a long time. How much titanium inventory do you have on hand now? And if you are forced to resource that from another supplier, would the same pass-through mechanism still be valid under that scenario, or would you be more open and susceptible to spot pricing in the market? Thank you.
spk04: Thanks, Matt. So we have a substantial amount of buffer stock for titanium. And as I mentioned earlier, many of our contracts have passed through raw material pricing. So should we need to shift to more costly sources of titanium, the vast majority of that would be passed through via our contracts.
spk07: There are protections in the long-term agreements that we have, Matt. Okay. Understood. Thank you, guys. Thank you.
spk06: And there are no further questions at this time. Mr. Bill Pitts, I turn the call back over to you for some closing remarks.
spk07: Thank you, Rob. We would like to thank you all for joining us this morning, and we look forward to speaking with you next on July 29th with our second quarter 2022 earnings conference call. Rob we will now conclude today's call.
spk06: This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
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