Methode Electronics, Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Method Electronics fourth quarter fiscal 2022 results. At this time, all participants on the listen-only mode. After management's prepared remarks, there will be a question and answer session. I would now like to turn the call over to the host, Vice President of Investor Relations, Robert Cherry. Sir, please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning. And welcome to MetaElectronics Fiscal 2022 Fourth Quarter Earnings Conference Call. For this call, we have prepared a presentation entitled Fiscal 2022 Fourth Quarter Financial Results, which can be reviewed on this webcast or found at meto.com on the Investors page. This conference call contains certain forward-looking statements, which reflect management's expectations regarding future events and operating performance, and speak only as of the date hereof. These forward-looking statements are subject to the safe harbor protection provided under the securities laws. Method undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statement to conform the statement to actual results or changes in Method's expectations on a quarterly basis or otherwise. The forward-looking statements in this conference call involve a number of risks and uncertainties. The factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations are detailed in Method's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. such as our 10K and 10Q reports. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Mr. Don Duda, President and Chief Executive Officer.

Thank you, Rob, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for a fiscal 2022 fourth quarter earnings conference call. I'm joined today by Ron Zumis, our Chief Financial Officer. Both Ron and I will have opening comments, and then we will take your questions. Let's begin with the highlights on slide four. Our sales for the quarter were $289 million. Helping our sales by $7 million were successful spot buy and premium freight cost recovery efforts. However, our automotive segment encountered demand headwinds in North America and Europe due to program roll-offs and the ongoing global supply chain disruptions. Also in Europe, the extent of the weakness in the auto market due to the conflict in Ukraine was worse than expected. Also unexpected were the COVID-19 lockdowns in China, which led to weaker than forecasted sales in Asia. While the overall sales for the quarter were in our expected range, sales could have been better, reducing the effects of other headwinds. We continue to face the ongoing supply chain challenges in the quarter. Our team worked diligently to mitigate these challenges, which required remedial actions such as spot buys and expedited shipping. We have worked relentlessly with our customers to share in the absorption of these increased costs. You may recall that we had made solid progress on this front in the third quarter. However, in the fourth quarter, we saw even more acceleration in our material, labor, and freight costs. Our ability to obtain reimbursement for or to offset these costs is likely to lag as a matter of process as long as inflation continues. In addition, the demand weakness in Europe resulted in unfavorable product sales mix. All of these factors, along with some unanticipated expenses, significantly changed the landscape from the time that we provided guidance until the quarter closed at the end of April. Going forward, We will work to mitigate the cost increases and product mix impacts as we have successfully done in the past. Ron will elaborate further on this later in the call. On the order front, we had another very strong quarter with over $100 million in program awards. Of these awards, approximately 90% were EV applications with a variety of products, customers, and regions. I will provide more color on awards in a moment. Focusing on EV, last quarter we reported that sales into EV applications were 19% of the consolidated sales. This quarter, EV sales were 70% of consolidated sales. The lower percentage was directly related to the COVID-19 lockdowns in China. Nonetheless, it was still our second best quarter ever for EV sales. Given the ongoing momentum in our EV activity, we are expecting sales to reach 20% of our total sales in fiscal 2023. In the quarter, we further reduced debt and now have the lowest debt level since the Greycon acquisition. We also made progress on reducing working capital and delivered strong free cash flow of $34 million. Last Thursday, in addition to our quarterly dividend, we announced a $100 million increase to our existing stock buyback authorization. As of the end of the fourth quarter, we now have approximately $129 million of capacity in the authorization, which expires in June of 2024. Moving to slide five. Methode had another very strong quarter of business awards. The awards identified here represent some of the key wins in the quarter and represent over $100 million in annual sales at full production. As a reminder, the full launch timing of most of these programs could be anywhere in the range of one to three years from now. Also, some of these awards are notable volume increases on existing OEM programs. As you can see, the list is dominated by EV programs representing 90% of the dollar value What's also clearly noticeable is the rich variety among the awards. They include power, lighting, and sensor products. They cover the top hat and skateboard of an EV. They are with seven different auto OEMs and they are in our three main geographic regions, Europe, the US, and Asia. The EV market growth trend and our exposure to it continues to be robust. In other applications, We're awarded programs for an e-bike sensor, an off-road vehicle control module, and a data center bus bar assembly. All strategic and growing markets and applications for method. Overall, it was a very successful quarter for awards that will drive organic growth in future years. Turning to slide six and our fiscal 2022 highlights, we delivered sales growth for the fifth year in a row. and finished with record sales of $1,164,000,000 for the full year. Even excluding $22 million in cost recovery and a favorable impact from foreign exchange, we had over 4% year-over-year sales growth. Supply chain challenges and the market disruptions during the year took a toll on earnings. However, program awards were very strong, reaching almost $300 million. We had record sales into EV applications for the year, and they reached 70% of our total sales for the full year. As I already mentioned, we see that number reaching 20% in fiscal 2023. Our balance sheet story is one that we continue to be proud of, with our debt level now at the lowest level since the 2018 acquisition of Greycon. While our free cash flow generation was down year over year, It was still healthy and supported the purchase of over 1.4 million shares of stock, as well as our ongoing dividend program. With a strong award pipeline for the past two years and the effort Method has made to diversify its product portfolio further into lighting, power, and sensors, we're now confident to announce a three-year organic sales compounded annual growth rate target of 6%. This target demonstrates that our business model is not just healthy, but is prospering from the strategic steps that we have taken to grow the business. Turning to De Beard, it achieved over 4 million sales for the year. The key factor to the success of this business has always been and will continue to be the ability to conduct product evaluations at hospitals. While the interest in the product has remained high in recent years, the COVID-19 pandemic has been a headwind over the last two-plus years, to our ability to execute these evaluations. As such, the sales growth of the business has been stunted and continues to be hampered as sales always lag evaluations. However, we remain confident in those prospects, but we're also exploring options to engage external mechanisms to help accelerate the growth of the business going forward. To conclude, it was a challenging year, and a year plagued by ongoing demand headwinds and supply chain challenges. However, our worldwide team still delivered organic sales growth through the year. Moving forward, I am confident with the team's experience and operational expertise that Method is positioned to mitigate these pressures and deliver sales and earnings growth for fiscal 2023. Looking beyond 2023, We are confident in our strategy, and our award pipeline continues to be robust. This firmly puts Method on a path to deliver on our 6% compounded annual sales growth target over the next three years. At this point, I'll turn the call over to Ron, who will provide more detail on our fourth quarter and full year finish. Ron?

Thank you, Don, and good morning, everyone.

Please turn to slide eight. Fourth quarter net sales were $288.7 million in fiscal 22, compared to $301 million in fiscal 21, a decrease of $12.3 million or 4.1%. Fiscal 22 sales included $7 million of spot buy and premium freight cost recovery, partially offset by an unfavorable foreign currency impact of sales of $5.7 million. Excluding the spot buy premium freight cost recovery and foreign currency impact, Sales decreased by 13.6 million, or 4.5%. Sales declined in the automotive, industrial, and interface segments, but increased in the medical segment. The decrease in the fourth quarter sales was mainly due to program roll-offs in North America, supply chain issues in North America, and weakness in Europe due to the conflict in Europe. While year-over-year sales in Asia were higher in fiscal 22 as compared to fiscal 21, The lockdown in China due to the zero COVID policy impacted our fourth quarter results, especially to our expectations to our March guidance issuance. This weakness was partially offset by higher sales of EV product applications, which amounted to 17% of sales in the quarter and for the full year. We now expect EV sales to represent over 20% of our full year fiscal 23 consolidated sales. Income from operations decreased to $14.6 million from $33.7 million, mainly due to higher costs due to material cost inflation, spot buys, and increased unreimbursed freight, which accelerated during the quarter, and our ability to fully recover the increased cost from our customers was hampered from a timing perspective. Also, reduced sales and unfavorable product mix contributed to the decline in the operating margin. Fourth quarter net income decreased 14.9 million to 16.2 million or 43 cents per diluted share from 31.1 million or 81 cents per diluted share in the same period last year. Please turn to slide nine. Fiscal 22 fourth quarter gross margins were 19% as compared to 25.1% in the fourth quarter of fiscal 21. A key factor in the decline of consolidated gross margin profile was the sharp decline in the industrial segment margin profile, which is our highest margin segment by far. Industrial segment gross margins decreased to 24.4 percent in the fourth quarter, down sharply from the 40 percent gross margin in fiscal 21 4Q and the fiscal 22 third quarter year-to-date gross margins of 34.3 percent. Of the overall margin decrease in this segment, approximately 50 percent was due to material cost inflation and premium freight and related issues, and 25 percent was related to inventory-related items such as unfavorable absorption due to the China lockdown, increased profit in any inventory eliminations, and other year-end inventory adjustments. While some of the items may recur in fiscal 23, we anticipate the impact to be noticeably less than what was incurred in the fourth quarter. In the automotive segment, the margin decrease was due to higher costs due to material inflation and premium freight, spot buys, lower sales volumes, and unfavorable product mix. Cost recovery actions did not keep pace with the accelerated inflation and other increased costs. It will take time to catch up on cost recovery, but actions are in place in process for recovery in future periods. Our inability to pass along premium costs to our customers amounted to $3.4 million or approximately $0.07 per diluted share in the fourth quarter. We do anticipate cost inflation and supply chain disruptions to continue in our fiscal 23. Fourth quarter selling and administrative expenses as a percentage of sales was flat at 12.3% in both relevant quarters. Our selling and administrative expenses percentage of sales is consistent from a cost structure perspective and should yield an efficient flow through from gross margin to income from operations. Please turn to slide 10. Net income was negatively impacted from the items mentioned prior and lower other income partially offset by a lower tax expense. The effective tax rate in the fourth quarter of fiscal 22 was 5.8% as compared to 15% in the fourth quarter of fiscal 21. Most of the effective tax rate difference was due to a mix of jurisdictional earnings and the impact of U.S. GILTI tax on foreign earnings. Shifting to EBITDA, a non-GAAP financial measure, fiscal 22 fourth quarter EBITDA was $30.8 million versus 50.8 million in the same period last year. EBITDA was negatively impacted by higher costs due to material cost inflation, spot buys, and premium freight, lower sales volumes, unfavorable product mix, and lower other income. Please turn to slide 11. Full-year net sales increased 75.6 million to 1,164,000,000, which is a record, and the fifth consecutive year of increased sales. Sales included $22.1 million of spot buy and premium freight cost recovery and $5 million attributed to foreign exchange. Without the cost recoveries in foreign exchange, sales increased approximately $48 million or 4.4%. For the full year, income from operations was $111.7 million, a decrease of $16.2 million or 12.7%, from the $127.9 million of income from operations in fiscal 21. Income from operations was negatively impacted by lower gross margins and increased selling and administrative expenses, mainly due to increased stock compensation expense, as fiscal year 22 had 12 months' worth of expense as compared to seven months in fiscal 21. Fiscal 22 diluted earnings per share was $2.70 compared to $3.19 in fiscal 21, mainly due from the impact from higher costs due to material cost inflation, premium freight spot buys, higher selling and administrative expenses, and a higher effective tax rate of 13.8% as compared to only 9.3% in fiscal 21, which benefited from a significant amount of foreign investment tax credits. Please turn to slide 12. In fiscal 22, we reduced gross debt by $29.6 million. Since our acquisition of Grey County in September of 2018, we have reduced gross debt by $147 million. Net debt, a non-GAAP financial measure, increased by $31.6 million to $38.5 million in fiscal 22 from $6.9 million at the end of fiscal 21, mainly due to the share repurchases of $64.5 million, and unfavorable working capital changes, especially related to inventory, which increased significantly due to the supply chain-related challenges. We ended the fourth quarter with $172 million in cash. Our debt to trailing 12 months EBITDA ratio, which is used for our bank covenants, is approximately 1.19, well below our covenant threshold of 3.5. Our net debt to trailing 12 months EBITDA ratio was 0.22. Please turn to slide 13. Re-cash flow, a non-GAAP financial measure, is defined as net cash provided from operating activities minus cash. Fiscal year 22 fourth quarter free cash flow was 33.6 million as compared to 31.2 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 21. Improvements in working capital allowed for the higher generation of cash in the quarter. For the full fiscal 22, we generated net cash provided by operating activities of nearly 99 million as compared to 180 million in fiscal 21. Lower net income of $20 million and a nearly $77 million unfavorable swing in changes in working capital accounted for most of the difference. For the full fiscal 22, we generated free cash flow of nearly $61 million as compared to $155 million in fiscal 21. CapEx was higher by $13 million in fiscal 22 as compared to fiscal 21. For fiscal 22, cash generation was solid but trailed the following year. mainly due to fiscal 21 working capital reductions, which were noted at the time as not being likely repeatable in fiscal 22. We expect free cash flow to improve in fiscal 23 as we target reduced inventory levels and other positive working capital initiatives. The strengthening of the USD in fiscal 22 caused a nearly $12 million unfavorable swing in the FX on cash and cash equivalents in the cash flow statement year over year. Regarding capital allocation on June 16, 2022, we announced a $100 million increase to our existing stock buyback program, of which approximately $29 million remains, bringing the total amount available for purchases to approximately $129 million. The authorization expires in June 2024. Investing for future organic growth and vertical integration remains a key priority from a capital allocation strategy perspective. especially as we rationalize our global footprint for the future, including expanding our EV capabilities so we can better support our build where we sell strategy and better position ourselves to capitalizing on the EV megatrend. We do have a strong balance sheet, and we'll continue to utilize it by continuing to invest in our businesses to grow them organically, pursue opportunities for inorganic growth, and measure return of capital to the shareholders. Please turn to slide 14. Regarding fiscal 23 guidance, it is based on management's best estimates, including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the headwinds from the ongoing semiconductor shortage, and both short and long-term supply chain rationalization, other logistic challenges, the conflict in the Ukraine, and the related impacts on our financial results, which remain an ongoing challenge. While we have experienced some success in recouping some cost recoveries, we weren't as successful in the fourth quarter as we were in the third, and we do expect some of these headwinds will likely be with us for the majority of fiscal 23. The revenue range for full fiscal 23 is between $1,160,000 to $1,210,000. The anticipated growth at the midpoint of our range considers the impact of the GM T1 program roll-off, which had sales in fiscal year 22 of over $100 million. We expect EV sales to be at least 20% of consolidated sales in fiscal 23, up from 17% in 22. The diluted earnings per share range is $2.70 to $3.10, unchanged from the June 14th pre-announcement, and contemplates continued headwinds from supply chain inflation and other macroeconomic events. We are expecting softer earnings in the first quarter of fiscal 23 with EPS improving as the fiscal year progresses. Our estimated effective tax rate is between 16 and 18% without any discrete items. We anticipate increased CapEx of between 40 and 50 million as we expand our capabilities to support the growth in EV sales and strategically position our footprint to support production of our significantly increased order pipeline that we have built over the last two fiscal years. Depreciation and amortization expenses expected to be between 54 and 58 million. Lastly, based on the strong bookings we have realized over the past two fiscal years, much of which is for the EV market, we announced the 3-year organic compounded annual growth rate target of 6%. This CAGR takes into account the anticipated roll-off of the relevant programs and reinforces our organic growth strategy is putting the company on a nice future organic growth trajectory. Don, that concludes my comments.

Well, thank you very much. Callie, we are ready to take questions.

Certainly. The floor is now open for questions. If you have any questions or comments, please press star 1 on your phone at this time. We ask that while posing your question, you please pick up your handset, if listening on a speakerphone, to provide optimum sound quality. Please hold a moment while we poll for questions. Your first question is coming from Luke Junk with Baird. Please pose your question. Your line is live.

Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions today. Good morning, Luke. For starters, I wanted to start on the top one, hoping you could help us unpack the lower sales and power distribution that you said in the quarter. Should we read that as purely a reflection of the market and the weakness that you called out in China, and I would assume probably Europe to some extent as well, or is there anything else that we should be aware of there?

I would say there's nothing unusual, just the way the orders flowed. Ron, do you have any additional comment? It was the slowest quarter in the last several, but nothing particularly notable, but Ron.

Yeah, Luke, I think the lockdown that we experienced in China negatively impacted our ability with power products as well. As that has lifted, we would expect that to relieve that pressure in the first quarter of this year after the lockdown has lifted.

Okay, thank you for that. And then switching to margins but staying with industrial, maybe a question for you, Ron. Can you just help us understand the earnings bridge versus last year in this segment and You know, if I look at the top line, down a few million dollars, but income from operations off more than 10. And what I'm wondering is how much of this is timing-related or temporary in terms of things like mix or whatnot, as opposed to something that you'll need to ultimately recover from your customers and could have more of a lasting impact as we look into the first half of next year like that.

Sure, Luke. I took extra care to talk about the industrial segment because it is our highest margin segment, and you're absolutely right. I think if we look at some of the margin missed compared to our year-to-date or 40% margin last quarter, of that margin missed, about 50% of it was due to the commercialization the material excess freight and spot buys of which we don't anticipate. We anticipate some recovery in the future. And then part of it was due to some of the inventory related items that I had mentioned, whether they be booked to physical adjustments, a profit elimination and ending inventory based on the amount of inventory that's on the water. We would expect those types of costs to not continue or certainly much harder to forecast. So we anticipate in fiscal 23 our industrial gross margins gravitating more towards where we have historically been as opposed to what we experienced in the fourth quarter.

Okay, thank you for that clarification, especially the last comment there. And then The last thing I wanted to ask is a related question, but in the auto business, and just want to make sure we're reading the $7 million of spot buy and premium freight cost recovery in the quarter correctly. Specifically, I don't know if you can disclose how much of that pertained to the current quarter, i.e., offset to cost of the experience in the quarter, versus some kind of clawback of cost that you'd incurred in prior quarters.

I would say probably half and half, Luke, at a high level, 50% each.

Okay, great. Well, I will go ahead and leave it there. Thank you.

Yeah, and Luke, I just want to clarify on your first question. When you're talking about power and asking the effect, I agree with Ron. The EV power is certainly affected by the shutdown in Asia, but also our Well, non-EV power had a slower quarter than in the past. And, again, there's nothing special there, perhaps a little bit affected by the lockdown, but more just the order rate. But I just wanted to clarify that. There's really two areas of our power group.

Once again, if there are any questions or comments, please press star 1 on your phone at this time. Your next question is coming from John Franz Reb with Sidoti and Company. Please close your question. Your line is live.

Good morning, guys, and thanks for taking the questions. Just to take a step back, you carved out freight, labor, and material as the reasons for the margin degradation. For the company as a whole, okay, How much either dollar values or percentages did it impact the fourth quarter on either relative or sequential basis?

So on the fourth quarter, it was about $3.5 million net impact.

On all three of those buckets or?

Yeah, so what we billed as price recovery and what we incurred as price recovery was a net negative of about $3.5 million.

Okay. And when you look at the slope of clawing back those costs, is it something that's going to take time for any specific reason, or could you get that back relatively quickly?

Ron, let me answer that. First, let me say this. In my career, I've never had to go back to a customer twice in such short order for price increases or to regain expedited costs. So it's very unusual in auto and in the commercial vehicle group. So what we have seen, and we do recover those costs when the team did up until the third quarter, I thought it was a very good job. In the fourth quarter, we ran into more resistance because this has been going on for a while. I think I've said in the past, that can be a six to 12 month process. Now, if you have a situation where you presented to the customer, we can ship you parts, but we have to incur extra overtime or something very unusual in the customer agrees or increase in the purchase order, well, that will occur in the same quarter. But generally, if you're going for material price increases, even freight recovery, it's a process. And customers are getting the same pressures that we are. And we saw a fair amount of resistance in the fourth quarter. Not that we won't prevail. Over the years, we've done a good job of that. But it is a headwind that, as I said in my prepared remarks, it's going to be there until inflation subsides. Do I think whatever we incurred here in the fourth quarter, are we going to recover at some point in this new fiscal year? Yes. The timing of that is a bit unpredictable.

Okay. Regarding the GM T1 program, are you supplying, is there any more revenue from that program that's going to be hit in the first quarter this year?

On the GM T1 lightweight truck program that has rolled off, we will have zero revenue this quarter. It is fully rolled off this quarter.

Right, right, let's just make sure of that. And you referenced that you expect the first quarter EPS to be soft. I'm just wondering if you're comparing it to a year ago or you're comparing it to the fourth quarter?

Comparing the cadence from, for the full fiscal year that we anticipate quarter by quarter basis for this year coming up, that will be, we anticipate that being the softest. So kind of a continuation, I guess, for the lack of a better word, just coming out of the fourth quarter, our first quarter, we anticipate that being starting off soft.

Okay. So in cadence-wise, it's the softest, but you're not suggesting that it's going to be down versus the fourth quarter?

That's correct.

Perfect. Okay. And just, I guess, one last question regarding your CapEx. Are there any significant programs you plan on initiating that we should be aware of in the coming year?

Well, a fair amount of our CapEx is going to be increased capacity for our programs that we've won. It's going to be a significant amount of CapEx to do that. So I don't know that there's any particular program that will be CapEx intensive that is rolling on this year. But overall, with the two years of robust bookings that we've had, especially in the EV space and the power side especially, we're going to have to increase our CapEx to accommodate that growth.

Okay. Thank you very much for taking my questions. I appreciate it.

Thank you.

There appear to be no further questions in queue at this time. I would now like to turn the floor back over to Donald Duda for any closing remarks.

Thank you, Kelly. We'll thank everyone for listening and their questions and wish everyone a very safe and pleasant summer. Good day.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This does conclude today's conference call. You may disconnect your phone lines at this time and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.