Zurn Elkay Water Solutions Corp Q1 FY2021 Earnings Call

Good morning, and welcome, everyone. Before we get started, I need to remind you that this call contains certain forward-looking statements that are subject to the safe harbor language contained in the press release that we issued yesterday afternoon as well as in our filings with the SEC. In addition, some comparisons will refer to non-GAAP measures. Our earnings release and SEC filings contain additional information about these non-GAAP measures, why we use them, why we believe they're helpful to investors and contain reconciliations to this corresponding GAAP data. Consistent with prior quarters, we will speak to core growth, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted earnings per share and free cash flow as we believe these non-GAAP metrics provide a better understanding of our operating results. However, these measures are not a substitute for GAAP data, and we urge you to review the GAAP information in our earnings release and in our filings with the SEC. With that, I'm pleased to turn the call over to Todd Adams, Chairman and CEO of Rexnord.

Okay. Thanks, Rob. Good morning. As Rob said, we're going to cover our financial results for the June quarter. We'll also provide a little bit of an update on our operating environment, some detail on the platforms, particularly highlighting some of the key initiatives and priorities to give us some confidence in our ability to perform moving forward, the strength and positioning of our balance sheet and our cash flow profile, and finally, a look at how we're planning for the September quarter. I'm on Slide 3. To cut to the chase, we performed really well in the quarter. From our view, it was gratifying and the most important thing to take away from this quarter and really the last 6 months is to reflect on how agile and resilient our teams and business model have been in the face of something unprecedented. In the March quarter, our incremental margins were 43%. 90 days later, amidst a pretty tough environment, our decremental margins were only 13%. Using our new fiscal year convention through the first half of our fiscal year '20, our sales were down 5%, and our adjusted EBITDA is only down 2%. Specifically, looking at the June quarter, core and reported sales were each down 12% at the Rexnord level, with Water Management leading the way down only 2% and 5% core, respectively; PMC was down 15%. And while we had talked about a moderating impact from 8020 in PMC, we did choose to get a little bit more aggressive in our simplification efforts in a couple of product categories given the environment, and that turned out to be almost a 2-point drag to PMC's reported numbers in the quarter. Adjusted EBITDA was $103 million, and our margins actually grew 120 basis points year-over-year to 23%, with segment margins up 160 basis points to 24.6%. Adjusted EPS in the quarter was $0.36. I think taxes were probably just a little bit higher than what was embedded in the last consensus number I saw. The strong quarter in Water Management is a result of the compounding benefits of executing our strategic plan. We're pretty confident we delivered significant competitor and market outgrowth and delivered record margins of 29.1%. Over the course of time, we get asked if margins can go higher. I think we posted 26.4% in the 12 months ended in March. And I think this quarter is a pretty good down payment on the fact that we can. I think it's also important to note that given the success we're having in several of our breakthrough initiatives, we made the decision to actually increase the level of investment in a number of our strategic areas compared to what we anticipated just 90 days ago, and we expect to continue to do that over the remainder of the year. In PMC, despite a 15% core sales decline in the quarter, we were able to deliver a 26% decremental margin, which speaks to the greater flexibility that we've engineered into the cost structure in recent years through our SCOFR and our ongoing 8020 simplification efforts. As I said last quarter, our plan was to use the June quarter to learn and evaluate what a recovery in our outlook might be and that we would likely be making some course corrections. Similar to what we're doing in Water Management, in PMC, we're making some incremental investments around a couple of focused areas and capabilities that we're building, while also making some course corrections on the cost side given some of the potential for some end markets to be lower for longer. Overall, we're very pleased with our performance relative to our views on the market and the competitive landscape. From a balance sheet and capital structure perspective, we ended the quarter in a really good spot, with leverage flat for March at 1.9x, and we have repaid all the outstanding debt we had borrowed amidst the crisis in March. Finally, back in January, we communicated a comprehensive capital allocation strategy, one that we had worked at being able to holistically and consistently deliver and implement for a number of years. 90 days ago, we communicated that we were taking a pause and implementing a couple of pillars of that strategy, namely share repurchases and likely M&A. Today, given how we view our competitive position and also taking into account the general level of uncertainty that's probably going to be around for a while, we're communicating that likely you'll see both of those elements of our strategy back in play as we finish up our second half of our fiscal year and turn the quarter into FY '21. I'll move to Page 4. As I said last quarter, I'm going to say it again, if you take away one thing from today's call, it's that culture matters. The Rexnord business system, which is simply the way we work in our common language, is without a doubt, the single biggest competitive advantage we have. It's about everyone being on the same page and always doing the right thing for our associates, for our customers, and shareholders. It's about being nimble and entrepreneurial. But being nimble and entrepreneurial inside of a framework of disciplined tools and processes that allow everyone to be fact-based and decisive. Our philosophy of engaging our people around the plan, with proven processes that drive performance is something that's ingrained in our culture. While it's always more fun to do this in a growth environment, you can see when we harness the power of that culture during difficult times, how rewarding it is to take market share and beat competition. Our teams have done an exceptional job over the last 6 months and in the June quarter, in particular, adjusting to having to work and be productive in different ways. The way we've supported each other, our customers, and the communities we live and work in has been simply amazing. Our return-to-work plan for our non-plant associates has been very measured. We have only about 15% of our people back in the office, ensuring maximum social distancing and safety for our associates and their families. Our overall case numbers are generally quite small and managed along established safety protocols, and all of our facilities are open and remain operating with the typical intermittent challenges that we've all come to have to deal with. If we've learned one thing over the course of this pandemic, it is that having an established business system with a common language with tools and processes that can be deployed anywhere while empowering and engaging our teams to deliver at the point of impact to an outcome is powerful and something that we're really proud of. I'm so thankful and proud of our team for all they continue to perform at high levels through this unprecedented period. The hardest part of this whole experience is the uncertainty it creates for basically every aspect of a person's life. What we're doing is staying connected and transparent with our associates around communication about what we know, what we don't know, but we're also listening. We're asking what can we do better? Or would you like to see changed, whether it's healthcare-related, childcare, technology, or tools we can provide, it's all on the table. We're actually visiting our factories visually, virtually, and continuing to engage with our teams to foster and actually grow the fabric of the culture we've built. The punchline of this page is that we've been preparing for a really tough environment for some time. More than 4 years ago, we launched a multiyear initiative to streamline our operations, build flexible and robust supply chains while reducing our fixed costs and the capital intensity of the company to raise the sustainable level of free cash flow. Things like successfully establishing a new campus in Mexico, an Engineering Center of Excellence in India and 8020 are now broadly behind us. We can clearly see the benefits, and most importantly, we can take advantage of the competitive advantage we've built and take market share. I'll move to Page 5. Here, I'll touch on just how we've used some of those investment dollars and capacity we've created over time. It was about 4 years ago when we made the decision to create the framework to be able to run almost all aspects of our business as close to 100% as possible digitally. We still believe deeply in building long-lasting relationships and human-to-human interactions, and believe we'll get back to that reasonably soon. Our priority was to get ahead of where the market and competitors were, whether it's engineering, sales, operations or supply chain. Today, we're able to interact and perform at levels we couldn't have even imagined 4 years ago. Our digital foundation is also enabling us to expand our channels to market in order to meet the customer where they want to do business, and it's delivering growth multiples ahead of our traditional channels and at a fraction of the cost. As we made this digital push, we developed and launched connected products, essentially leveraging sensors and other performance-monitoring information to provide a better solution for customers to ensure uptime remotely without having to physically be on-site in critical infrastructure environments. We think over the next several years, this long-term secular change will only accelerate, and we're incredibly well-positioned based on the work we've done over the last several years. The huge success we're having today in hygienic solutions revolves around hand hygiene and restaurant tools, hospitals and office buildings. The ability to do that without touching anything and having all of the critical information around maintenance, usage, even consumables integrated into a customer's building management system of choice is a powerful package, and one that we're uniquely positioned to capitalize on. The nice thing about the growth investments we've made over the last several years is they're sort of in their sophomore or junior year in terms of evolution. We've developed the solutions in concert with our customers and the market. We've done the pilots, we've made the course corrections and now they're starting to ramp. Over the course of the year, it's going to be resourcing and driving those as we stand up a couple of new growth initiatives that are enabled by some of the foundational work we've already done. There's definitely more to do, but we believe we're at a stage where our solving smarter growth concept has real momentum. Before I hand it over to Mark, please turn to Page 6. From a capital allocation strategy perspective, the overarching plan we outlined in February is essentially unchanged. As I said earlier, keep leverage at 2 to 3x, and in this environment, as close to 2 as possible. We've clearly committed to our dividend, having just announced it last week. Systematically buy back shares below the intrinsic value of the company. While we paused this out of prudence during the March quarter, this is definitely something we're going to resume in the back half of the year. Finally, continue to make the right high-returning organic investments to grow our business and augment that with strategic acquisitions, all inside our free cash flow and leverage envelope, focused around water and consumer end markets. With that, I'll turn it over to Mark. And after he's done, we'll take your questions.

Thanks, Todd. Please turn to Slide #7. On a consolidated basis, our June quarter financial results demonstrated the resilience we built into the company over the last 4-plus years since becoming an independent public company. On a year-over-year basis, our total sales and core sales growth were both down 12%, net of a roughly 1-point impact from our product line qualification actions. Currency translation and acquisition contributions to growth were offsetting. Our adjusted EBITDA margin expanded by 120 basis points year-over-year to 23%, as EBITDA declined only 7% year-over-year to $103 million, and a 12% top line decline, which translated into a 13% consolidated decremental margin. Please turn to Slide 8, and we'll review our platform, starting with sales in PMC. PMC sales were down 15% year-over-year on a core basis as we experienced sales declines in most end markets, generally in the double-digit percentage range, and we accelerated some 8020 simplification actions that reduced year-over-year sales by approximately 190 basis points. We did generate positive growth in Asia and in renewable energy, but together, they only account for about 10% of PMC sales in the quarter. Year-over-year sales declines were moderate relative to the platform average in our consumer-facing and power-generation end markets, but higher than the platform average in our process industry and aerospace end markets. Our North American distribution business was choppy, and the year-over-year decline in the quarter was slightly above the platform average, as sell-through was broadly weak, although it improved in June after bottoming in May. Overall, and given support from backlog, OEM end-user growth outperformed global MRO in the quarter on a sales basis. Outside of our aerospace markets, demand patterns improved in June, and it remained stable in July. Operating execution was strong as we benefited from our scope for structural cost-reduction initiatives executed in recent years off the cost actions we limited or initiated last quarter in response to the pandemic. PMC management achieved a 26% decremental margin despite some adverse mix through the relative weakness in our aerospace business. Turning to Water Management, sales were down only 5% on a core basis and just 2% after factoring in the contributions from the acquisitions of Stainlessdrains.com and Just Manufacturing in the prior 12 months. Both acquisitions delivered positive year-over-year growth in the quarter, and Just Stainless Steel Sinks have proven to be a timely addition to our suite of hygienic solutions. Regional construction site shutdowns early in the quarter were a drag on Zurn's top line, but we saw very strong growth in our touchless sensor products. Overall growth rates in the platform improved as the quarter progressed and into July. Zurn delivered an 8% increase in adjusted EBITDA as the margin increased 270 basis points from last year's June quarter to 29.1%, alongside strong cost control, benefiting from the relative strength in touchless products and contributions from our recent acquisitions. Please turn to Slide #9. With visibility still challenging and given a wider than usual range of potential outcomes for the upcoming quarter and the next 6 months, we will again limit our forward commentary to the upcoming quarter and continue to incorporate wider-than-typical ranges around our assumptions for revenue growth and margins. The planning guideposts we're providing for September quarter are similar to what we provided a quarter ago. Our focus is on providing relatively precise guidance for elements where we can exercise substantial control over the results and incorporating some downside risk for those elements where we have less control. With that said, based on demand trends through July, a modestly lower backlog in PMC than a quarter ago, and the elevated uncertainty given the persistent strength of the global pandemic, we're projecting that our consolidated revenue could decline between 12% to 17% in the September quarter. Based on that sales range and incorporating our cost-reduction initiatives and other common measures, we would expect the combined adjusted EBITDA margin at the platform level, which excludes our corporate expenses, to finish the September quarter between 22% and 24%. We expect our corporate expenses to be approximately $8 million in the quarter or down about 20% on a year-over-year basis. Lastly, our interest expense for the quarter is expected to be approximately $12 million, and our depreciation and amortization will come in at around $23 million. Please turn to Slide #10. On this slide, we're maintaining the high level of transparency regarding our free cash flow outlook that we provided last quarter. In the top half of the slide, you can see our updated outlook for the 9-month interim period, now factoring in the results from the June quarter. The forecasts are largely unchanged, although the cash used for restructuring is down slightly as the pandemic has pushed some of our SCOFR projects to the right by a few weeks to a few months. In addition to the 9-month numbers, we've included a set of forecasts for the full calendar year 2020 on the bottom half of the slide, which takes our actual results for the March quarter and adds them to the 9-month outlook. The bottom line is that we currently expect to extend our track record of free cash flow conversion above 100% for the coming 9 months and the entire 2020 calendar year. Moving on to Slide 11. I'll finish with a look at our free cash flow and our balance sheet. Turning to the chart on the far left and on a year-over-year basis, our free cash flow tripled on a low base of $39 million in the June quarter and our calendar year-to-date free cash flow to $147 million. We believe we are well-positioned to deliver free cash flow of more than $100 million in the 9-month interim period and therefore, more than $200 million with overall calendar year 2020. Moving to the chart in the center, you can see our financial leverage, measured by our net debt leverage ratio, was unchanged at 1.9x and finished the quarter just under the low end of our long-term target range of 2 to 3x. Finishing with the chart on the far right, in March, we borrowed on our revolver and our AR facility effective short-term liquidity, and the potential magnitude of any downside risks from the early days of the global COVID-19 outbreak were unknown. With the quarter behind us now and a better feel for potential downside risks to our liquidity, we are comfortable repaying the borrowings on the facilities. We repaid the $250 million of borrowings on our revolver in June. In early July, we repaid the $75 million of short-term borrowings under our asset securitization facility. Before we move to questions, I'd like to mention that in order to help simplify modeling the transition of our fiscal year-end to 12/31, we filed pro forma quarterly financials for calendar year 2018 and 2019 in the 8-K with our earnings release yesterday, and we'll be posting them to our investor website. With that, we'll open the call up for your questions.

And our first question comes from Jeff Hammond from KeyBanc.

I want to discuss the 3Q guidance. I believe it represents a decline from the resilient 2Q. Can you explain the differences between the two segments? Additionally, could you provide more insight into the backlog compared to the previous quarter and the order trends leading into July that might clarify that range?

Well, I read your note, I figured you might be asking the question. So here's the thing. When you look at Q3, holistically, it just doesn't look a whole lot different on an absolute basis relative to Q2. And if you look at seasonality, if you look at margin performance, if you look at a lot of different things, then I think what we're pointing you to is we had a really good quarter. July is sort of tracking pretty well or tracked well, I should say, the quarter is over. And we're guiding to a range that is clearly comfortable for us. But in absolute terms, it doesn't look a whole lot different holistically than Q2. And that's, I think, really the way to think about it more than anything.

Okay. Can you just talk about the drivers of the Water margins, how much of that is mix? How sustainable is that high level? And then just talk about where you're stepping up investments, specifically given what you've kind of been finding in the markets?

If you look at the overall margin, we benefit from two mix elements. First, a larger percentage of our sales is in the retrofit market than ever before. Ten years ago, it was around 5% to 10%, but now it's been running in the mid-30s. I believe there's potential for that to rise to 40% to 45% in the next 12 months, which is a clear advantage. Additionally, the categories related to hygienic products are also positively affecting our mix. When considering Zurn margins, it's important to note that this isn't just about strict cost controls; we implemented some modest measures early in the quarter but later decided to invest in initiatives, particularly around hygienic products. We're developing a model that has strong potential in the aftermarket on a maintenance, repair, and operations basis, allowing for easy installation and service anywhere in the country. We're also exploring what future restrooms may look like, focusing on connecting all components to ensure they work seamlessly together. We are accelerating this investment. I believe a margin of 29.1% is a solid indication of our capabilities. It's not an overly ambitious figure, but considering seasonal factors, Q3 should look promising. As we approach the construction season, we expect a decline in margins during the December quarter due to volume changes. However, we see this as a legitimate figure, and we feel very optimistic about it.

Our next question comes from the line of Joe O'Dea from Vertical Research.

First I wanted to ask on PMC and the organic down mid-teens. And over the course of results so far this quarter, seeing a lot of short-cycle industrial down in the sort of 25, 30 kind of range. And outperformance is not a new thing, but just any degree to which you can bridge some of that difference in terms of where you're seeing some of the greatest outperformance opportunities across your portfolio?

We haven't seen many of our peers report their results yet, so we expect to learn more in the coming weeks. However, I believe much of this relates to the strategic decisions we've made over the past few years to increase our exposure to consumer-driven markets, power generation, and marine sectors. We are seeing clear benefits from these shifts. However, our aerospace segment faces challenges in order volumes, as is widely known. We do have some backlog, which is helping us, so when we look at the mid-teens decrease, there is some impact from backlog release this quarter. Overall, considering the various factors, our decline is significant, but there are many outliers to consider. We will have to see how our competitors perform. I think the declines, which may be better than anticipated, are largely due to the structural changes we've implemented over the last three to four years.

Got it. And then, Mark, it looks like you've got EBITDA setting up for the year, sort of trending $400 million plus and the cash cost items that you laid out on Slide 10 are in the $135 million to $140 million range, which would give a lot of cushion versus the north of $200 million free cash flow you're talking about. Are there any other cash items to call out in addition to what's laid out on Slide 10 in terms of where we kind of frame on free cash flow?

Joe, we're trying to lay out the big pieces in the puzzle. There are smaller things, puts and takes here and there, such as pension cash contributions and whatnot. But we try to lay out the big items to help people frame out the number, I think. But we feel very comfortable with the $200 million-plus number at this point in time with 2 quarters to go. So I think we laid out the big pieces. There's really nothing that is of substance or size that we haven't put on that page, Joe.

Joe, he did say plus. He just didn't tell you what the plus was.

Okay. Got it. And then, Todd, you were sort of framing a return to cash deployment. Any bogeys that you can set on that in terms of what we should be thinking about repurchase levels that you're comfortable with, and then the confidence in the back half M&A, where you think that's kind of directed from a segment perspective or any kind of cash use that goes toward that?

I believe we will gradually implement the buybacks. In February, we discussed an annual figure ranging from $75 million to $100 million, but that will be lower. We have already secured about $30 million through March. There may be some additional amounts, but we expect to find a balance across Q3 and Q4. Regarding mergers and acquisitions, we are optimistic about finalizing one or possibly two opportunities in the Water segment. These could be tuck-ins or bolt-ons, and we anticipate that these developments are likely to occur within the next six months.

Our next question comes from the line of Bryan Blair from Oppenheimer.

On Hygienic Solutions, and I'm sorry if I missed any of this detail. But could you parse out sales growth versus order growth in the quarter? I guess, related question, is the team facing any material supply chain issues in trying to meet the ramp in demand there?

Well, for competitive reasons, we're not going to give you the size of it. But suffice it to say that it's almost a double on a run rate basis at this point. We think that that has the chance to sustain for a period of time. The supply chain aspect of it, as we've migrated to a more distributed model, we've obviously run a bunch of scenarios. We didn't stress test the doubling or tripling in the course of a 12-month period. But we think that by the mid- to end of this quarter, we'll be in a spot to catch the current run rate demand. So the order rate is substantially above sales rate; therefore, we did build backlog in the quarter. The success we're having is not a sort of one-off. It's major restaurant chains; it's major retailers, banks, universities, and these are orders measured in the tens of thousands of units. So for us, it's really about continuing to ramp the supply chain to meet demand, pulling lead times, and then really start to capitalize on the unique value proposition we have and being probably less vertically integrated than anybody we compete with; that's an area of high priority and focus. I think we feel really confident that in the span of a 3- to 6-month period, we're able to sort of absorb and deliver against and actually pull in lead times against the business that's doubling. So that's sort of the way to think about the hygienic piece.

Okay. I appreciate all the color. And then Zurn's core growth was understandably restricted by shutdowns early in the quarter and then you mentioned some acceleration. If we think about the trajectory of hygienic sales, and I'm assuming we can layer on 2 or 3 points of contribution from Just, is it realistic that Water Management returns to growth in the back half?

I believe it is possible. Assuming no disruptions or unexpected events occur, the outcome should be favorable. However, my view is that we are still facing challenges. If you observe the number of states experiencing setbacks, along with job site restrictions, travel limitations, and state quarantines, it is clear that we should not get ahead of ourselves. We had a strong first half and have capitalized on this hygienic opportunity, as well as connected products, to drive significant growth. July was particularly good for us. Nevertheless, predicting September, August, or even November and December is uncertain. Our focus remains on outperforming our competitors, exceeding market growth, and investing in our business so that when conditions improve, we are well-positioned to succeed rather than scrambling to catch up. This is our approach to growth for the second half, while keeping our perspective in check.

Our next question comes from the line of Mark Dobre from Baird.

I guess, just trying to follow-up to some degree on Jeff's question at the very top, trying to get a little more clarity about what's embedded in your outlook at the segment level for Q3? How we should think about PMC versus Water Management? And also, sort of related to this, as you're looking at your order trends into July, I'm curious if you're hearing anything different from either customers or distributors in both of your segments that might be operating in some of the states that have seen some of these COVID spikes. Are you starting to see some impact on business already? Or is this not a factor yet?

Well, Mig, I think you have to separate the guidance numbers and set those off to the side, right? I think what we're trying to do is provide you with a range of outcomes based on what we see. Obviously, as you saw in the last two quarters, we outperformed what we said. We're not trying to set this up. We're trying to give you the range of outcomes that we see. Obviously, as you saw in the last 2 quarters, we outperformed what we said. So we're not attempting to win a guidance contest against consensus. We're trying to do those 5 things extraordinarily well. And if you look at the body of work, over the last several years, especially for the last 6 months, I think it reads out pretty well.

We have no further questions in queue. I'll turn it back to the presenters for closing remarks.

I'd like to thank everybody for joining us today on the call. We'll be back to you again in late October to report on our September quarter results. I hope everybody has a great day, and please stay safe.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.