Wajax Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
August 9, 2024

There are 6 speakers on the call.

Operator

Thank you for attending Wachex Corporation's 2024 Second Quarter Financial Results Webcast. On today's webcast will be Mr. Igi Domagalski, President and Chief Executive Officer Mr. Stuart Old, Chief Financial Officer and Ms. Tanya Casadino, VP Controller.

Operator

Please be advised that this webcast is being recorded. Please note that this webcast contains forward looking statements. Actual future results may differ from expected results. I will now turn the call over to Tanya Casadino. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, and thank you for participating in our Q2 results call. This afternoon, we will be following a webcast, which includes a summary presentation of Wajax's Q2 2024 Financial Results. The presentation can be found on our site under Investor Relations, Events and Presentations. To begin, I would like to draw your attention to our cautionary statement regarding forward looking information on slide 2 and the non GAAP and other financial measures on slide 3.

Speaker 1

Please turn to slide 4. And at this point, I'll turn the call over to Igi.

Speaker 2

Thank you very much, Tanya. I will provide highlights on our Q2 before turning it over to Stu for commentary on backlog, inventory and the balance sheet. This slide provides an overview of Wajax. The corporation has 166 years of Canadian operating history and operates across 119 branches with a team of more than 3,250 employees. During the quarter, our heavy equipment categories and revenue sources made up approximately 59% of our total revenue, while Industrial Parts and ERS generated approximately 41%.

Speaker 2

Turning to slide 5. Slide provides an overview of our purpose and values. Wajax's purpose statement is empowering people to build a better tomorrow, which we strive to achieve by living our values and delivering an exceptional experience for our people, customers, suppliers and the communities we serve. By living our purpose and values, we will continue to build a people first company that is strong, resilient and profitable. Our purpose and values guide our decision making and allow us to execute on our strategic priorities.

Speaker 2

Turning to slide 6. Slide provides an overview of our strategic priorities, which were refreshed and enhanced in 2023. Management is completely focused on executing against these priorities. Between our purpose and values and these six priorities, we have the foundation to continue growing our company for many years to come. Turning to slide 7.

Speaker 2

In the Q2, Wajax saw higher gross profit margins, which helped offset the decline in revenue. Revenue of $568,300,000 decreased $17,900,000 in the quarter. The decrease resulted primarily from lower construction and forestry equipment sales in Western Canada and Central Canada and lower mining sales in Western Canada due primarily to the delivery of a large mining shovel in Q2 of 2023 with no such delivery in Q2 of 2024. These decreases were offset partially by higher equipment sales in the construction and forestry category and higher overall sales in the power systems category in Eastern Canada. Gross profit margin of 20.9 percent increased 100 basis points compared to the same period of 2023, driven primarily by higher margins on ERS sales and a higher proportion of and higher margins on product support sales.

Speaker 2

Selling and administrative expenses as a percentage of revenue increased to 14.4% in the Q2 of 2024 from 12.8% in the Q2 of 2023. Selling and administrative expenses in the Q2 of 2024 increased $6,800,000 or 9.1% compared to the Q2 of 2023 due primarily to higher personnel costs. Adjusted EBITDA of $54,700,000 decreased $2,500,000 or 4.3 percent from the Q2 of 2023, noting the adjustments recorded on this chart. The decrease resulted primarily from lower sales volumes and higher personnel expenses, offset partially by an improved gross profit margin. Adjusted net earnings of $1.06 per share decreased 16.3% or $0.20 per share from the Q2 of 2023 noting the adjustments recorded on this chart.

Speaker 2

At the end of Q2, the TRIF rate was 0.81%, a decrease of 28% from the Q2 of 2023. The Q2 TRIF rate was up 50% from the Q1 of 2024. Safety continues to be Wajax's number one priority and management is committed to continuously improving our safety programs to improve on this result. We thank everyone on our team for their ongoing dedication to workplace safety. Turning to slide 8.

Speaker 2

Revenue decrease of 3.1% in the 2nd quarter resulted from lower revenue in the Western and Central regions. Western Canada sales of $240,000,000 decreased 10.8% in the quarter due primarily to lower construction and forestry equipment sales and lower mining equipment sales driven largely by the delivery of a large mining shovel in the Q2 of the prior year with no such delivery in the current year. Central Canada sales of $97,000,000 decreased 6.4% in the quarter due primarily to lower equipment sales in the construction and forestry category and lower industrial parts sales. And Eastern Canada sales of $231,000,000 increased $8,300,000 or 8.3% in the quarter due primarily to higher equipment sales in the construction and forestry category and higher overall sales in the power systems category, partially offset by lower industrial parts sales. Please turn to slide 9.

Speaker 2

An update on equipment and product support sales and year over year variances are shown on this page. Equipment sales of $180,000,000 decreased $10,000,000 or 5% compared to last year due primarily to lower construction and forestry equipment sales in Western Canada and lower mining equipment sales in Western Canada driven by the previously mentioned large mining shovel. The decreases were offset partially by higher construction and forestry sales in Eastern Canada. Please turn to slide 10. An update on industrial parts and ERS sales and year over year variances are shown on this page.

Speaker 2

Industrial parts sales of approximately $147,000,000 decreased $8,000,000 or 5%, primarily due to lower sales in Central and Eastern Canada, offset partially by higher sales in Western Canada. Turning to slide 11. This slide summarizes sales at a category level for our company's overall groupings of heavy equipment and industrial parts and services. In the 2nd quarter, the heavy equipment categories decreased $6,000,000 or 2%, driven primarily by lower mining equipment sales in Western Canada. In the Industrial Parts and Services categories, lower industrial parts sales in Central and Eastern Canada were partially offset by higher industrial parts sales in Western Canada.

Speaker 2

These less cyclical categories remain a core element of our broader growth strategy. I will now turn the call over to Stu.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Yigit. Please turn to Slide 12 for my comments on backlog and inventory. Our backlog of $544,900,000 decreased 42,200,000 dollars or 7.2 percent compared to backlog of $587,100,000 at Q1 and decreased 6,400,000 percent on a year over year basis. The sequential decrease was due primarily to lower Construction and Forestry, Material Handling and ERS orders. The year over year decrease was due to lower Construction and Forestry, Material Handling, ERS and Industrial Parts offset partially by higher mining orders.

Speaker 3

Inventory decreased $22,500,000 compared to Q1 2024 due primarily from lower equipment inventory in the construction and forestry category and lower parts inventory as management focused on reducing inventory levels. Inventory increased $99,700,000 compared to Q2 2023 due to increases in most categories. Please turn to Slide 13, where I will provide an update on cash flow, leverage and working capital. Cash flows generated from operating activities in the quarter of $35,800,000 compared with cash flows used in operating activities of $6,000,000 in the same quarter of last year. The increase in cash generated of $41,800,000 was mainly attributable to decreases in inventory and trade and other receivables offset partially by decrease in accounts payable and accrued liabilities.

Speaker 3

Our Q2 leverage ratio decreased to 2.17 times from 2.2 times in Q1 due to the lower debt level in the current period. The Corporation's leverage ratio is currently outside our target range of 1.5 times to 2 times at the end of Q2, primarily due to the investment in inventory during the year. Our available credit capacity at the end of Q2 was $214,900,000 which is sufficient to meet short term normal course working capital and maintenance capital requirements and fund our acquisition program and plan strategic initiatives. We continue to focus on working capital efficiency, which is a key component in managing our overall leverage targets. The Q2 working capital efficiency was 26.5 percent, an increase of 80 basis points from March 31, 2024, due to the higher trailing 4 quarter average working capital and the lower trailing 12 month revenue.

Speaker 3

Excluding the debentures, which are classified within current liabilities, working capital efficiency was 27.8 percent, an increase of 150 basis points from March 31, 2024. Finally, the Board has approved our Q3 2024 dividend of $0.35 per share payable on October 2 to shareholders of record on September 16, 2024. Please turn to Slide 14. And at this point, I'll now turn it back to Igi.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Stu. Our outlook is summarized on slide 14. In the Q2 of 2024, Wajax delivered revenue of 568,300,000 down 3.1% from the Q2 of 2023. The year over year decrease in revenue was primarily due to the delivery of a large mining shovel in the Q2 of 2023 with no such delivery in 2024. Gross profit margin increased to 20.9% in the Q2 of 2024 versus 19.9% in the Q2 of 2023, primarily due to a larger proportion of and higher margins on product support, industrial parts and ERS During the quarter, we rolled out our new ERP system to a further 57 industrial parts and ERS branches, some of which are co locations.

Speaker 2

With this, we now have a total of 99 branch locations operating on our new ERP system, representing approximately 90% of 2023 annual revenue. We continue to see solid fundamentals in certain, of the markets that we serve, particularly in mining and energy, but have observed reduced activity in industrial and forestry. Management is continuing to monitor end markets and customer purchasing patterns, while being prudent with costs and maintaining focus on the execution of our 6 strategic priorities for 2024, which were set out on slide 6. Management continues to evaluate options to repay or refinance corporation's $57,000,000 in secured and senior unsecured debentures, which are maturing on January 15, 2025. Thank you very much.

Speaker 2

And I will now turn it back to the operator and open the line for questions.

Operator

Thank you. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Thanks. Good afternoon, guys.

Speaker 2

Hey, Devin.

Speaker 4

Look, industrial parts and ERS demand, they're both soft in Q2, something that we've seen from others as well. I think you touched on a bit of this in your opening comments, but just wondering if there are specific regions or end markets that are driving this or do you feel it's more broad based?

Speaker 2

Yes. Where we're seeing it a little bit more is industrials and forestry, specifically pulp and paper for us. So we're seeing a bit of softness there. And a small part of our decrease this quarter was the rollout of our ERP. It usually takes us about a quarter to really get fully back up to speed and it was rolled out mid quarter.

Speaker 4

Okay. And has the demand trend continued into early Q3? And just wondering if there are any indicators that you think would suggest there could be a turning point coming or should we be expecting kind of a similar revenue profile in the second half?

Speaker 2

We're not expecting too many changes.

Speaker 4

Okay. And then if you could back out the 2 acquisitions you did in 2023, so like Polyphase and Beta, you have a sense for what the organic or same store organic revenue growth decline would be in the ERS and Industrial Parts?

Speaker 2

Yes, that's not a number that we would disclose, Devin.

Speaker 4

Okay. Okay. Maybe just switching over equipment inventories, some improvement in Q2 and bringing that down, but it's still above early 2024 levels. Just wondering if we should be expecting the sell down of inventories to be maybe a bit more gradual compared to that I think there was mention of 2 quarters back in May. And just maybe just could you speak to the quality or age of inventory currently in the system?

Speaker 2

Yes. We feel good about the quality of the inventory that we have and it's all good sellable equipment in our yards. We do definitely expect it to come down over the next two quarters and we would hope to see a significant decline.

Speaker 4

Okay, thanks. I'll get back in the queue.

Operator

Thank you. Next question comes from Michael Tupholme from TD Securities. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Thank you. Good afternoon.

Speaker 2

Hey, Mike.

Speaker 5

Hi. I guess the first question would be, if I look at the description of what you saw in the various regions, You had sales down in both Western Canada and Central Canada, but saw some growth in Eastern Canada. I know there is the dynamic, at least in Western Canada with respect to the lack of a large shovel this quarter versus the prior year. But can you maybe just talk about what you're seeing that may be different in the different regions, because again, we did see some strength in Eastern Canada there?

Speaker 2

To be honest, Mike, I don't think there's any specific thing to call out. When we talk about the various end markets, mining continues to be strong. So Eastern Canada Base Metals, Western Canada Oil Sands and Coal, those markets are still looking pretty strong and quoting activity remains strong. Forestry, as mentioned, is still soft and it has been for a few years. And industrials have started to soften up a little bit, which impacts our IP and ERS business.

Speaker 2

I wouldn't say that it's really specific to any region. But, yes, I think it's I think I would leave it at that.

Speaker 5

Yes, fair enough. I mean, I guess one of the reasons I was wondering is because I think the strength in Eastern Canada was attributed to higher equipment sales and construction and forestry, which is not what you saw in the other regions. So I guess I was a little bit curious about the fact that it was a source of growth in Eastern Canada, but not sure if there's anything further to add or not, but that was kind of where it was coming from.

Speaker 2

Yes. I don't think there would be anything specific that we would call out, Mike. When we talk about equipment, we did have a pretty good rebound from Q1. Q1, we were pretty slow on equipment sales and equipment sales were up 84% in the Q2 versus Q1. And a lot of that a good chunk of that was due to the new financing program that Hitachi launched, which has been received very well by our customers as expected.

Speaker 2

And so some customers were quicker to jump on that than others.

Speaker 5

Okay, fair enough. And then specifically, I guess, on the new financing program, if I'm not mistaken, I think that became available at the beginning of March. Is there still an incremental benefit or additional benefit that could be realized as a result of having that as we look to the Q3 results relative to the Q2? Or the fact that you had that in place at the beginning of March meant that kind of Q2 was the full benefit of that was realized in Q2?

Speaker 4

I would say that most of the benefit was realized

Speaker 2

in Q2. It was out to the the customers. And then once they place the orders, it can take between 1 3 weeks for us to get a machine to the customer. So there's I would say the 1st few weeks of the second quarter probably didn't have the full benefit of it, but after that it was it's baked in there. So I would say the incremental from Q3 to Q2 would not be that large based on specifically on the financing program.

Speaker 5

Okay. That's helpful. Gross margin was quite strong on a year over year basis, up 100 basis points. How should we think about gross margin here in the second half of the year and the sustainability of this kind of level?

Speaker 2

I would characterize it as stable. I think over the past year, we've been working really hard on a number of margin improvement activities in our company and some of those are starting to bear fruit, which is excellent. And you really saw it come through in product support in ERS, which is where we've been doing a lot of that focus.

Speaker 5

Okay. And then I know you were asked about inventory coming down further earlier. But if we think about changes in non cash working capital as a whole, can you talk about where you would expect that to or how we should expect that to trend over the next couple of quarters here?

Speaker 3

So I think Mike commented that we believe we'll continue to see and are working towards further reduction in inventory. I call it more gradual as we go into the 3rd Q4, but we'd like to see it continue to come down.

Speaker 5

Okay. And then with respect to the ERP implementation and now being rolled out to a greater number of locations, can you talk about what benefits that may provide for you? I mean, I don't know if they begin to be realized in the second half, but maybe looking at even a little further, sort of benefits that you guys will get from having this in place?

Speaker 3

Yes. So I think we've talked before about when we put this in place, we didn't sort of justify it based on kind of long term efficiencies. We did it primarily because of the aged infrastructure and obviously wanted to have one system in place for all of our locations. So we're pretty much there. And now what we are seeing not immediately, but I would expect over time, we will see efficiencies a year from now, 2 years from now as we start follow standard processes, follow standard procedures, take advantage of I think I've given an example before of a location where I might share a location, but I have 2 warehouse people working and probably I only need 1 if we're on one system.

Speaker 3

And also advantages of using things like mobile field service, where it's not paper based anymore. So I can close off my work orders quicker and turn that into a receivable much quicker than I would if it was paper. So I don't think you'll see much this year, Mike, but I think we'll start to see some stuff next year. And I don't have a quantification right now.

Speaker 5

Fair enough. Thank you. And then just lastly, when I think about the inorganic growth opportunities and the tuck in acquisition strategy, Can you provide an update, just a general update on what you're seeing there right now, the pipeline? And also, I guess, I'd be curious to know if with this softening that you've seen in industrial parts and it sounds like maybe also ERS, like what that means for the M and A landscape and the opportunity to continue to acquire?

Speaker 2

Yes. I would say the M and A pipeline continues to be quite full and we're working hard on trying to get deals across the line. And so we're that continues to be a pretty important part of our strategy. In terms of the softness in the market, I think it's company specific. Some companies are softer, some aren't.

Speaker 2

And all of that would obviously be considered in the price that we pay.

Speaker 5

But does that change either the competitive dynamic or the willingness of different groups to look at a sale? Just curious if it's had any impact of that nature besides

Speaker 4

just what you're going to pay for something? I

Speaker 2

would say it's too early to tell. I mean it's really only been 1 or 2 quarters of softness. And in the public company world, we really think about quarter to quarter, but in the private company world, that's really thought of more year to year. And so it hasn't really made its way into those conversations yet.

Speaker 5

Got it. I will leave it there. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Mike.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is a follow-up from Devin Dodge at BMO. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hi, thanks. Just the outlook section was talking about, I think you mentioned in your remarks about an upcoming maturity of a senior unsecured debenture. Can you just talk us through some of the options that you're thinking about?

Speaker 3

So the immediate option is that we can basically pay it off with our line of credit. So that would be one option, but we're looking at what else might exist out there. As you probably know, Devin, the list of debenture market doesn't really exist anymore. So we'd have to look at potentially other vehicles if we wanted to do something similar.

Speaker 4

Okay. Okay. And then the favorite question here, this timing of deliveries of mining shovels in the second half of the year and then what's currently in the backlog for 2025?

Speaker 2

If you look at our Q2 financials, in the backlog, we have 5 minuteing shovels. But since the quarter closed, we landed a sale for another 3 minuteing shovels. So we now have 8 large mining shovels in the backlog, which is definitely the most in recent history. The timing for those deliveries is we will likely have 3 of them delivering in Q4. Then we have 4 of them delivering throughout next year.

Speaker 2

And I would say that's fairly evenly throughout the year. I don't know if it will be exactly 1 per quarter, but that's a good estimate. And then we would have one delivering in early the following year.

Speaker 4

Okay. That's great. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Devin.

Operator

Thank you. There are no further questions. I'm sorry. We do have a follow-up from Michael Tupholme at TD. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Thanks. Just actually a follow-up on that last question. Sorry, are these all EX8000 Ziggy or what can you help sort of explain in more detail what exactly the units are comprised of?

Speaker 2

Yes, sure. Of those of the 8, 7 are EX8000s and all on kind of regular sales. And one is EX-five thousand six hundred, which is currently out on RPO and we expect it to convert in Q4 of this year.

Speaker 4

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. We have no further questions. You may proceed.

Speaker 2

Thank you very much for tuning in and for your interest in Wajax. Have a great day.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference for today. We thank you for participating and we ask that you please disconnect your lines.

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Wajax Q2 2024
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