Lindsay Corporation

Good morning. My name is Joe, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Lindsay Corporation fiscal year 2023 first quarter earnings call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode today. And should you need any assistance, please submit a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then 1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw a question, please press star, then 2. 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 do note that today the event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Randy Wood, President and Chief Executive Officer.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to our fiscal 2023 first quarter earnings call. With me today is Brian Ketchum, our Chief Financial Officer. We were pleased to start our fiscal year off strong, delivering revenue growth and earnings that more than doubled compared to last year's first quarter. I'd like to thank our employees, dealers, and suppliers around the world for their contributions. The relentless focus on our customers and execution of our business strategies continues to generate positive results for our shareholders and supports our mission of conserving natural resources, expanding the world's potential, and improving quality of life. I continue to be very proud and appreciative of the job they're doing. Looking at the macro environment. We continue to see supply chain constraints impacting certain areas of our business. Our teams have done a great job mitigating the impact of these challenges, and we expect to see continuous improvement in the situation as the year progresses. Overall inflationary pressure on raw materials and other input costs have moderated. Price realization remains strong, and even in a competitive market, we remain disciplined in our approach to passing cost increases through to the market. In the area of technology and innovation, We were pleased to recently announce our strategic partnership with Cirrus Imaging. This addition to FieldNet expands our SmartPivot platform and provides our customers additional choices and sources of high-resolution imagery and analytics to help them make the best agronomic decisions for their crops. Allowing flexibility in customer choice is a fundamental part of our imagery strategy, and we anticipate additional strategic partnerships in the future. Turning to irrigation market conditions. We continue to see strong market fundamentals in the North American market, including high commodity prices, leading to record net cash farm income in 2022. Drought conditions have eased somewhat in the Far West, but we're seeing conditions worsen year over year in the core Midwest markets, including Nebraska and Kansas. This highlights the importance of irrigated agricultural and should be supportive of a strong market. Customer sentiment is cautious at this stage, due mainly to future concerns about profitability of the 2023 crop and rising interest rates. This may temper market upside, but we don't expect this to create a significant headwind at this time. In the international regions, we see the same strong market fundamentals connected to global commodity prices and farm income having a positive impact in the developed markets, particularly in Brazil. The presidential transition in Brazil has resulted in some market latency that may delay second quarter deliveries, but we don't expect it to impact our full year results. Project activity and visibility across Central Asia and the Middle East continues to be strong. Timing of execution is difficult to predict, but we're pleased with what we see in the market and our ability to leverage our global footprint to compete for and win these projects. Moving to infrastructure. We expect to see the positive impact of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in the road safety business. November year-to-date state and local government contract awards for highway and pavement projects are up 24% compared to a year ago, supporting an increase in construction activity in the second half of our fiscal year. The full impact of this increase is being somewhat offset by inflation and construction costs. We continue to actively manage the road zipper sales funnel and completed shipment of our large project in Massachusetts in the first quarter. Our global teams continue to identify applications for the road zipper in both permanent installations and temporary lease applications to help mitigate traffic congestion and provide positive protection during roadway construction. I'll now turn the call over to Brian to review our first quarter financial results. Brian.

Thank you, Randy, and good morning, everyone. Total revenues for the first quarter of fiscal 2023 increased 6% to $176.2 million, compared to $166.2 million in the same quarter last year. Net earnings for the quarter were $18.2 million, or $1.65 per diluted share, compared to net earnings of $7.9 million, or 72 cents per diluted share in the prior year. Irrigation segment revenues for the first quarter increased 4% to $152.1 million compared to $145.9 million in the same quarter last year. North America irrigation revenues of $83.9 million increased 6% compared to last year's first quarter. The increase in North America irrigation revenues resulted primarily from higher average selling prices as unit sales volume was comparable to the prior year. In the international irrigation markets, revenues of $68.1 million increased 2% compared to last year's first quarter, including unfavorable effects of foreign currency translation differences of approximately $1.6 million. Higher sales in Brazil and other markets more than offset the impact of lower sales in Ukraine and Russia as well as Egypt project sales of $9 million in the prior year that did not repeat. Total irrigation segment operating income for the first quarter was $28.6 million, an increase of 66% compared to the prior year first quarter, and operating margin was 18.8% of sales compared to 11.8% of sales in the prior year first quarter. The increase in operating income and operating margin resulted primarily from improved price realization, less inflationary impact on input costs, and a more favorable margin mix of international irrigation revenues compared to the prior year first quarter. The prior year first quarter included LIFO expense of $5 million, while the current year LIFO impact was minimal. Infrastructure segment revenues for the first quarter increased 19%, to $24.1 million compared to $20.2 million in the same quarter last year. The increase resulted from higher road zipper system project sales, which were partially offset by lower road zipper lease revenue and lower sales of road safety products compared to the prior year. During the quarter, we delivered the remaining $8 million of the $24 million barrier replacement project in Massachusetts that began in our fiscal fourth quarter last year. Infrastructure segment operating income for the first quarter increased 22% to $3.4 million compared to $2.8 million in the same quarter last year. Infrastructure operating margin for the quarter was 14% of sales compared to 13.7% of sales in the prior year. Improved current year results resulted primarily from higher revenues and less inflationary impact on input costs compared to the prior year first quarter. This increase was partially offset by a less favorable margin mix of revenues compared to the prior year first quarter because of lower road zipper lease revenue. Turning to the balance sheet and liquidity, our balance sheet remains solid, and our total available liquidity at the end of the quarter was $160.6 million. With $110.6 million in cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities, and $50 million available under our revolving credit facility. Through an ongoing focus on working capital management, we expect to improve our free cash flow generation in fiscal 2023 and further enhance our position to invest in growth opportunities that create value for our shareholders. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to the operator to take your questions.