Lindsay Corporation

Q4 2021 Earnings Conference Call

10/21/2021

spk05: Good morning, everyone. My name is Jamie, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Lindsay Corporation Fourth Quarter Fiscal Year 2021 Earnings Conference Call. During today's call, if you should need operator assistance, please press star and then zero. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please also note today's event is being recorded. During this call, management may make forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties which reflect management's current beliefs, estimates of future economic circumstances, industry conditions, company performance, and financial results. Forward-looking statements include the information concerning possible or assumed future results of operations of the company and those statements preceded by, followed by, or including the words expectation, outlook, could, may, should, or similar expressions. For these statements, we claim the protection of the safe harbor for forward-looking statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Please note today's event is being recorded and I'd like to turn the conference call over to Mr. Randy Wood, President and Chief Executive Officer.
spk00: Sir, please go ahead. Thank you and good morning, everyone. Welcome to our fourth quarter earnings call. With me today is Brian Ketchum, our Chief Financial Officer. Fiscal 2021 was an extraordinary year. We prioritized the health and safety of our employees while maintaining business continuity. Through transformational actions taken over the past several years, we were well positioned to capitalize on market tailwinds and irrigation while navigating persistent headwinds presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. We operated from a position of strength and set shipment records in several businesses due to the commitment and resiliency of our people. We have great teams around the world that continue to execute well, meeting commitments to our customers and driving growth in our business. I thank them for all they're doing to make Lindsay successful. That's particularly true on the factory floor, where we continue to operate our global footprint safely and efficiently. Material cost increases, labor shortages, supply chain disruption and logistics availability continue to impact the business, and we continue to make decisions and prioritize investments that mitigate this impact on our company and our customers. Capacity and efficiency investments in Brazil, China, Turkey, and the U.S. have allowed us to satisfy demand and leverage our global footprint. Our innovation pipeline continues to advance with the development of the SmartPivot platform and irrigation and the RoadConnect platform and infrastructure. Both products share a common architecture and are moving through our voice of the customer, new product development process, and initial field trials. Feedback from users and our strategic partners is helping us further refine the tools, and we're very pleased with the feedback we're receiving. We're also pleased to congratulate our technology product manager, Reese Andrews, who was recently recognized by the Irrigation Association as the recipient of the 2021 Innovator Award for his significant and tangible contributions to the industry. Rhys has played an important role in our field net and innovation work since the inception of the platform, and we're very proud to see this recognition for his work. In the environmental, social, and governance, or ESG space, we continue to move our strategies forward, In July, we published the third edition of our sustainability report where we outlined our five-point focus on investing in sustainable technologies, improving our operational footprints, empowering our people, engaging our local communities, and operating with integrity. Turning to market conditions. The domestic irrigation market entered the seasonally low fourth quarter with strong commodity and farm income projections. Although commodities have receded slightly, they're still well above historical norms observed through the ag down cycle. Net farm income is projected to increase another 19.5% in 2021 after growing by approximately 19.6% in 2020. Year-over-year price increases have been unprecedented in North America. We've made progress on price realization but still see some latency due to the significant backlog as customers pull forward purchases to get ahead of projected price increases. Recent external market surveys indicate farmer sentiment may be waning due to inflationary cost pressures they're experiencing in all of their business. We continue to see strength across most mature and developing markets in the international irrigation business. Shipment records have been set in both Turkey and Brazil, where activity has more than doubled in each business on a year-over-year basis. We've also seen shipment records from our facility in France and increased exports from our facility in South Africa in order to meet global demand. In Brazil, we're benefiting from strong market fundamentals and investments in the dealer channel that have allowed us to grow our presence in mature and emerging regions within the country. This continues to be a very competitive market, and we see some of the same cost escalation that we've seen in the U.S. That's added pressure to margins. We continue to manage production and pricing actions to maintain business quality. In the Europe, Africa, and Middle East region, we continue to shift the large project into Egypt without disruption by leveraging our global footprint. We expect those shipments will continue early into the second quarter of our 2022 fiscal year. We see additional opportunities in this market and are well positioned strategically to compete for this project business. Moving to infrastructure. The road zipper business continues to experience headwinds caused by the global pandemic. While our strong project sales funnel remains at pre-COVID levels, our team has noted that prioritization of COVID response plans and travel restrictions limiting face-to-face meetings have impacted the pace of movement through the funnel. These headwinds are beginning to subside as business and travel activity return to normal levels. However, we do not see project exits from the sales funnel until the second half of the fiscal year. The Fixing America's Surface Transportation or FAST Act expired temporarily on September 30th. The Senate has approved a short-term extension which provides funding for an additional 30 This creates a window for the infrastructure bill to pass. If an agreement cannot be reached, we do expect another extension could be negotiated. The pending infrastructure bill continues to make its way through the approval process in Washington, D.C. The President has been working to pass both the $1.2 trillion bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the $3.5 trillion Build Back Better Act. We're optimistic that some form of infrastructure bill will ultimately pass due to the bipartisan support it has received However, the timing and size remain uncertain. This may keep some projects in a holding pattern while states wait for certainty on the incremental funding availability. When passed, we expect this legislation will provide a positive tailwind for the infrastructure business, including road zipper, road safety, and our technology products. I'll now turn the call over to Brian to review our fourth quarter and four-year financial results. Brian.
spk03: Thank you, Randy, and good morning, everyone. Total revenues for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021 increased 20 percent to $153.6 million, compared to $128.4 million in the same quarter last year. Net earnings for the quarter were $5.8 million, or 53 cents per diluted share, compared to net earnings of $14.7 million, or $1.35 per diluted share in the prior year. Net earnings for the quarter were reduced by an after-tax LIFO impact of approximately $4.5 million or 41 cents per diluted share. Total revenues for the full fiscal year 2021 increased 20% to $567.6 million compared to $474.7 million in the prior year. Net earnings for fiscal 2021 were $42.6 million, or $3.88 per share, compared to net earnings of $38.6 million, or $3.56 per diluted share in the prior year. Irrigation segment revenues for the fourth quarter increased 63% to $125.3 million, compared to $77 million in the same quarter last year. North America irrigation revenues of $53.5 million increased 30% compared to last year's fourth quarter. The increase in North America irrigation revenues resulted from a combination of higher irrigation equipment unit sales volume and higher average selling prices. In the international irrigation markets, revenues of $71.7 million increased 100% compared to last year's fourth quarter. The increase in international irrigation revenues resulted primarily from higher unit sales volumes, along with higher selling prices and a favorable foreign currency translation impact of $2.8 million. The largest sales volume increases were in the Brazil and Middle East markets. Total irrigation segment operating income for the fourth quarter was $10.6 million an increase of 78% compared to the prior year fourth quarter. And operating margin was 8.4% of sales compared to 7.8% of sales in the prior year fourth quarter. The impact of higher irrigation system unit volume was partially offset by the impact of higher raw material and other costs. We continue to face some margin headwind as the realization of pricing actions lags the impact of cost increases. Fourth quarter operating results were also reduced by approximately $5 million, resulting from the impact of the LIFO method of accounting for inventory, under which higher raw material costs are recognized in cost of goods sold rather than in ending inventory values. During the quarter, we added additional inventory as a buffer against supply chain uncertainty, expected cost increases, and as part of a build ahead plan in connection with the temporary shutdown at the Lindsay, Nebraska facility to install productivity upgrades. We expect to realize some benefit of this fourth quarter LIFO impact in future periods as inventory quantities decline. For the full fiscal year, total irrigation segment revenues increased 35% to $471.4 million. compared to $349.3 million in the prior year. North America irrigation revenues of $273.9 million increased 22% compared to the prior year, and international irrigation revenues of $197.5 million increased 59% compared to the prior year. Irrigation segment operating income for the full fiscal year was $63.2 million an increase of 53% compared to the prior year. And operating margin was 13.4% of sales compared to 11.8% of sales in the prior fiscal year. Infrastructure segment revenues for the fourth quarter decreased 45% to $28.4 million compared to $51.4 million in the same quarter last year. The decrease resulted primarily from lower road zipper system sales compared to the prior year. Revenues in the prior year included a large project in the United Kingdom that did not repeat in the current year. And in the current year, we've continued to see the timing of certain projects impacted by coronavirus-related delays. Infrastructure segment operating income for the fourth quarter was $5.8 million. compared to $19.9 million in the same quarter last year. And infrastructure operating margin for the quarter was 20.5% of sales compared to 38.8% of sales in the prior year. Current year results reflect lower revenues and a less favorable margin mix of revenues compared to the prior year fourth quarter, and were also reduced by approximately $1 million resulting from the impact of LIFO. For the full fiscal year, infrastructure segment revenues decreased 23% to $96.3 million, compared to $125.3 million in the prior year. Infrastructure operating income for the full fiscal year was $20.2 million, compared to $42.7 million in the prior year. And operating margin for the year was 21.0% of sales, compared to 34.1% of sales in the prior year. Turning to the balance sheet and liquidity, our total available liquidity at the end of the fiscal year was $196.7 million, with $146.7 million in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, and $50 million available under our revolving credit facility. Our total debt was $115.7 million, almost all of which matures in 2030. At the end of the fiscal year, we were well within our financial covenants of our borrowing facilities, including a gross funded debt to EBITDA leverage ratio of 1.4 compared to a covenant limit of 3.0. We are well positioned going forward to invest in growth opportunities that create value for our shareholders. At this time, I would like to turn the call back over to the operator to take your questions.
spk05: Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we'll begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star and then one using a touch-turn telephone. If you are using a speakerphone, we do ask you please pick up your handset before pressing the keys to ensure the best sound quality. To withdraw your questions, you may press star and two. Once again, that is star and then one to ask a question. We'll pause momentarily to assemble the roster. Our first question comes from Adam Farley from Spiegel. Please go ahead with your question.
spk04: Hey guys, this is Nathan. Start off with a question just on LIFO. I mean, this is obviously caveated by assuming that raw materials stay where they are, which obviously won't happen. But is there an expectation for more LIFO charges in fiscal 2022? Do you expect some of that to come back as you bleed down inventory? So maybe is it a LIFO benefit in 2022? Just any way you can, any guidance you can give us on that?
spk03: Yeah, Nathan, this is Brian. Yeah, you know, assuming, let's assume inflation stays stable from here on out, obviously we wouldn't expect any additional LIFO headwinds. You know, based on the additional inventory we took in in the fourth quarter that those higher prices went through cost of goods sold. So at the end of the year, our inventory is valued at more historical prices, especially as it relates to steel. So as our steel quantities come down, we would expect to see some of that LIFO impact come back in future periods. Probably not in the first quarter, as we're in the build for our fall selling season. Quantities come down later in the year, we expect to see some benefit come back.
spk04: Do you think the whole thing would reverse or a partial return of the charge that you had in the fourth quarter?
spk03: You know, it's really hard to say. It depends on the, you know, the index of inventory. But I would say a fair amount of that should reverse if, you know, inventory quantities come down, which we would expect at some point they will.
spk04: Okay, thanks for that. I wanted to ask a couple of questions about RoadZipper and the infrastructure business in general. I think, Randy, in your comments, you stated that the funnel is about the same size, but things are moving more slowly through it due to COVID. And you didn't expect to see much exit that funnel until the second half of 2022, which I assume means that we don't see revenue until 2023. Is that similar for the rest of the infrastructure business? Should we be expecting revenue in the overall infrastructure segment to be somewhere around flat plus price in 2022? Just any help you can give us with how to frame that. Sure. You bet. Good morning, Nathan.
spk00: The comments were really specific to road zipper projects. And the reality is we're much closer to those projects. We've got much more visibility. We're at the table. as implementation plans are discussed and negotiated. So it's given us a level of insight that we maybe haven't had historically. And the comments about the second half of our fiscal year 22 is a very specific project that we know are making their way through the approval and implementation process. The rest of the infrastructure business isn't impacted in the same way. So in the non-Roads Zipper portion of that infrastructure revenue, we'd expect more traditional and historic revenue patterns.
spk04: So we should expect probably some growth in infrastructure this year, primarily driven by the non-RoadZipper part of the business?
spk00: We see certainly price is going to support growth, and we see good stimulus money potentially coming at a point in time, but the demand drivers are still good in that business. So we would project some natural growth, some pricing lift in the non-RoadZipper business for sure. Great. That helps.
spk04: Thanks very much. I'll pass it on.
spk00: You bet.
spk05: Our next question comes from Brian Drab from William Blair. Please go with your question.
spk06: Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. I'm first just curious if you could give any granularity on how much impact price has had in each of these segments. And it would be great to know, you know, fourth quarter and the full year. I don't know if that was details yet. I just see in the slides higher average selling prices. If you could quantify that, that would be great.
spk03: Yeah, Brian, this is Brian Ketchum. If you look at just the North America pivot business, we saw the biggest impact of price in our fourth quarter as the earlier pricing actions have really taken hold. So if you just look at the pivot business, I would say price was above 30%. terms of the the growth pivots for the fourth quarter and if you look at full year it's into you know double digits but you know as you recall in the first couple of quarters pricing was was fairly flat year-over-year on the infrastructure side price has not been as big of an impact I would say it's probably approaching a 10% overall, but that's, you know, a little bit different mix of particularly steel in the infrastructure business.
spk06: Okay. Okay. Got it. And is it fair to, I guess it's fair to kind of use the 30% and the double digit for the full year for the pivot business as a proxy for the full irrigation segments? or is it, it's probably a little bit below whatever it is that you'd haircut it for the full segment, I guess, obviously. So you're getting the most price and pivots.
spk03: If you're looking at North America and I assume you're talking about 2021. Yeah.
spk06: I was still talking about 2021 there. Yeah.
spk03: Yeah. So North America, you would see for the full year, double digit price as part of the increase there on the, on the international side, you know, the, the great majority of the increase has been volume. We're starting to see, obviously, more price in the fourth quarter for international, but by and large, the increase in international for the year has been mostly volume.
spk06: Okay. Thanks. In the infrastructure segment, there was a nice sequential increase just from the third quarter to the fourth quarter. Is that... I mean, typically the third quarter and the fourth quarter are the stronger seasonally, obviously. But is there anything specific that drove that sequential improvement? And were there any – was there any revenue from – there was not any revenue from larger road zipper projects, right? In the fourth quarter, there's no major projects in progress at this point, right?
spk03: Yeah, if you look at third quarter to fourth quarter, third quarter we really didn't have Any projects, fourth quarter, I would say we had a few smaller projects. And then we still have, you know, year over year, the leasing has been higher throughout the year. But that's sequentially. And then road safety, as you mentioned, road safety products are generally stronger in the fourth quarter.
spk06: So there's just generally that seasonality in the fourth quarter from the third, too. Okay. Yeah. Okay, and then just the last one, do you mind giving that breakdown, Brian, that I was asking for the dry land replacement conversion in the irrigation segment?
spk03: Yeah, so for our fourth quarter, dry land was 25%, conversion 27%, and replacement was 49%. Okay, I'll pass it on. Thanks very much.
spk05: And once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and then one. To withdraw your questions, you may press star and two. Our next question comes from John Brat from Kansas City Capital. Please go ahead with your question.
spk01: Morning, Randy, Brian. Morning, Jack. Morning, Brian. You know, a common theme we're hearing across these conference calls is rising costs. And, you know, at some point, your customers or anybody's customers might reach a breaking point and say, enough is enough, I can't take it. And, you know, as they all say, the cure for high prices is high prices. And you mentioned that some of the farmers have been pulling orders forward to avoid the higher prices coming. You know, do you sense anything any impending resistance to higher prices and that there is going to be some demand destruction if this continues? Any thoughts on that?
spk00: Sure, you bet, John. This is Randy. Right now, we are seeing anecdotal comments around sticker shock and somebody that maybe hasn't bought a pivot for a year or two years. So there's some comments on sticker shock. There's some external market surveys talking about input costs on fertilizer and tractors, and almost everything that our customers are buying today, obviously, have been impacted by inflation. But when you look at the return on investment of a piece of irrigation equipment, the payback generated, right now, fortunately, we're seeing, you know, the linear trend in cost increases matched by the linear trend in commodity prices. So from an income perspective, the relative payback on a pivot hasn't moved significantly. So while there's still some sticker shock, we haven't seen customers exit the market at this point, and we don't think that that will have a significant headwind impact on volume demands, provided we continue to see strong farm income support.
spk01: Okay. So the key is keep an eye on the grain prices, and that's pretty much always the case. any decline there is, you know, the return on investment obviously begins to decline. That's correct. Yeah. Okay. All right. We'll watch that. I think that's about it. Thanks very much, Randy. Great. You got it. Thank you, John.
spk05: And we have an additional question from Chris Shaw from Monash Crespi. Please go ahead with your question.
spk02: Yeah. Good morning, everyone. How you doing? Morning, Chris. Morning, Chris. If I could first ask on that road zipper funnel, I guess it doesn't – not specifically about the funnel, actually. What percent of the projects that – I guess maybe on the firm side that you're pretty sure of, how is that breaking down between leasing and buying at this point? And how is that different than what historically it's been?
spk03: Yeah, Chris, this is Brian. I would say while leasing continues to increase incrementally, it's still – a smaller portion of the overall road zipper business. The project sales are the biggest portion of it.
spk02: Why do you think customers still prefer to buy? Is there an advantage for buying? I'm trying to figure that out in my own mind.
spk03: I think a lot depends on the budgetary constraints. you know, at the government levels. But I think, you know, most of our road zipper installations are permanent installations. So those would be, you know, have more of a tendency to be purchased. You know, where we see more of the leasing are on temporary construction-type projects, although we do have a couple of longer-term leases. But most of the installations are permanent, which would lend itself more to a purchase rather than a lease. Okay, that makes sense.
spk02: And if I can switch to irrigation, in North America, I often find I feel like farmers are on a good income year like this is, that they're, you know, looking to minimize their tax burden at the end of the year. They're looking to spend some of that money before they have to give it to the government. So, and then this year, too, often that, well, Usually it goes into capital equipment, and this year it seems like tractors and combines are hard to find. Are you seeing any extra sort of demand as we maybe finish up the calendar year from that kind of sort of tax buying and the limited availability of other sort of large capital equipment purchases for the farmer, or is that just anecdotal?
spk00: I would say it's anecdotal, but there's going to be a lot more proof as we get through harvest and a lot of the growers are making tax-oriented purchase decisions. You're exactly right. There's not going to be a lot of capital goods that they're going to have access to to invest the capital in. And we're in a great position right now with our global footprint, our global capacity. We're going to have the ability to fill orders and ship orders before the end of the tax year. So we're absolutely planning for some sort of a of an end-of-year bump, but I think more of that might come as they finish up in the combines, as they finish up harvest, and start looking at what their financial year looks like. So we're prepared for that. There's line of sight, and I think you've picked up on a trend that's going to have some impact as we finish the calendar year. Got it. Thanks so much.
spk05: And, ladies and gentlemen, at this point, there appear to be no more questions. Mr. Wood, I'll turn the call back over to you for closing remarks.
spk00: Thank you for your interest and participation today, everyone. In the past fiscal year, we continued to invest in innovation and technology differentiation to support our customers' need for more sustainable and efficient solutions. We leveraged our global footprint to meet rising global demand and continue to evolve our own sustainability journey with our enhanced ESG focus. We remain optimistic about the growth potential for our business segments, tied largely to the needs of a growing population for safe and uncongested roadways. increased transportation capacity, food security, and the efficient utilization of water and energy resources. This concludes our fourth quarter earnings call. We look forward to updating you on our continued progress following the close of our fiscal 2022 first quarter. Thank you for joining us.
spk05: Ladies and gentlemen, with that, we'll conclude today's conference. We do thank you for attending. You may now disconnect your lines.
Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

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