Stephen Volkmann (JPMorgan): The advances were negative on cash although you still seem to be getting lots orders. How do you think about that?
Ronald M. DeFeo: 10% to 15% when you get an order, and as you get closer to the delivery time frame when it is ready to ship you might get 60% of the cash, and then the remainder closes out and you recognize revenue basically on commissioning. In the fourth quarter, we were in the process of delivering several of these including the twin-boom 8800 we talked about over several quarters; we finally completed that in the first quarter of the year. We still will achieve cash advances on the larger orders, but given those and the RH 400s we delivered in Canada we are hitting to 60% number in the prior year and then completing it this year as they roll through.
Stephen Volkmann (JPMorgan): Where your expectations are for the longer term in terms of margin opportunities in the segments and you have talked about localizing production more globally?
Ronald M. DeFeo: When I committed to the 12 by 12 in 2010 goal, I did expect that we would have both positives as well as negatives. The currency will not always help us, but raw material costs will not always be as strong a headwind as we have here as well. We will not always have Construction at low margin and Roadbuilding and Utility at a low margin, nor did I expect necessarily that the AWP would stay at an 18% to 20% margin all the time, but nor did I expect Cranes to continue when we started at the high-single digits margins, which is now in the 13% operating margin. I looked that this in the fullness of a cycle and said we ought to be able to deliver 12% operating margin when not everything is going well. Our margin ought to be in the mid-teens, on the flipside if everything goes bad all at once, which has happened once or twice but not recently, but now I think we got ourselves positioned so we are in the high-single digits at least. Our business is so different today than it was a number of years ago, and it has to be almost by definition. We have come from nothing, we are $11 billion company that has the best returns on capital in the industry, and if not the best right there with the best. My feeling is that we have totally changed how this company has been positioned. We do not have deeply rooted processes that we can say are as sustainable as we like to have, which is why we are building in the lean processes, why we are building in a Terex Management System, why we are changing our manufacturing footprint supply chain, why we are initiating many supply chain programs.
Andrew Obin (Merrill Lynch): I noticed a language change on Roadbuilding where you are talking about possibility to re-evaluating the fair value of the business. Could you elaborate on that?
Ronald M. DeFeo: As disclosed in our 10-k, we do an annual assessment of fair value of our goodwill and intangibles as of October 1st. The Roadbuilding portion of our business is one that is the closest to the fair value difference versus what we are carrying that. When you look at the performance of that business, if there is a triggering event or performance does not meet our expectations, we may have to reevaluate that. We did not get to the second step of reevaluation of the first quarter, but if continued performance does not realize versus our plans, we may have to go further in terms of that. In total, we have about $34 million of goodwill in that business.
Andrew Obin (Merrill Lynch): What is the tax rate for the rest of the year?
Phillip C. Widman: We are not changing from our guidance of the 35% but it is one area that we are expecting some opportunity in.
Charlie Rentschler (Wall Street Access): Could you give projection for 2009 on Cranes and Materials Processing & Mining?
Ronald M. DeFeo: Over the course of time, our businesses have essentially been North American and European based and our industry has essentially been North American and European based. When North America went down, Europe was sure to follow, and we got a periodic boost from Asia, but it was not that big of a driver of the businesses. That is different today in a big way and that we are seeing in our Materials Processing, in our Mining business and we are seeing that in our Cranes business as well. In part that is because we do have economies that are being driven by some of the changes in raw materials as those economies go through drastic growth periods. It is India, China, Russia, many other markets in Asia, many markets in Eastern Europe, and as you see the petrol or the oil effect, which is essentially taking dollars from those that need the oil to dollars to markets that have the oil and then having those markets reinvest in their own infrastructure such as the Middle East, that is what is different today and that is not about late cycle, it is about longer cycle and the longer cycle is in play in our Crane business and is in play in our Materials Processing and Mining business. I do believe it is long enough to take us well past 2010, and I think whatever disruptions or bumpiness you will see in our Aerial Work Platform business we will be back in a strong period in the 2010 period. Aerial Work Platforms will be a product for the developing markets also.
Robert Wertheimer (Morgan Stanley & Co.): Your Mining business was solid. Can you talk about the sustainability of the production?
Ronald M. DeFeo: We did not have any second quarter pull-forward. We are still behind some of our customer expectations, still behind our customer expectations. We have done excellent job in most of our mining facilities and taking lean to a higher level to get productivity and production out of the door. We are pumping up against some capacity constraints, not just in the supply base but in fewer factory footprint, and as a part of our capital plan both this year and into next year, we are going to be taking both the German facility up in footprint and beginning to transition some of the products into lower cost markets.
Robert Wertheimer (Morgan Stanley & Co.): What is driving the strength in the crane market and is that a reflection of pent-up demand from the dealer base related?
Richard Nichols: We would see some effects of the housing market in the Crane business. Boom trucks would be down per say on a year-over-year basis, but earlier, our mix in the business is changing to the much larger crane part of our portfolio with the larger rough-terrain cranes, the larger crawlers, and larger all-terrain cranes, that is where the need of the market is.
Robert Wertheimer (Morgan Stanley & Co.): Does that mean that a lot of this incremental RT businesses going offshore?
Richard Nichols: Some of it is and in addition I would say do not discount the fact that some of these RTs are good at working on petrochemical operations and non-housing related applications. It is easy to say that everything is housing related, but the reality is this country has got infrastructure, it has energy resources that are rusting away, and we have a carne rental fleet that got pushed out of this country in the last downturn that has been replaced, still is in need of being replaced and so I am still positive about the RT opportunities.
Robert McCarthy (Robert W. Baird and Co.): As part of your prognosis for the Roadbuilding and Utility segment that you were looking at moving some plant consolidation, which would involve some incremental expense. Are your comments about the Roadbuilding segment remaining challenged this year to show a lot more profitability than in first quarter part of that?
Tom Riordan: Ron made a comment about beginning to synergize manufacturing assets between Construction and Roadbuilding. The specifics behind that is not necessarily plant consolidation as much as it is an opportunity to take a number of product lines in the Construction arena that we are under-serving North America on the basis of what we believe to be an eventual turnaround over the next several years of the U.S. market begin to produce some of these products in the U.S. and position those in Roadbuilding excess facility plants that we have got today. My comments on the profitability of the segment are nothing related to any consolidation or excess cost of facilities.
Unidentified Analyst: The Mining business had a quarter that was bigger in revenue than one of the publicly traded companies that is approaching a $5 billion market cap. What are the primary drivers behind the materials and mining business growth?
Ronald M. DeFeo: We see strength in both ore and coal, the Materials Processing piece is are aggregates business. That has historically been a dependable, high margin business for us with reasonable growth. The real change, the delta in that segment has been the substantial increase in our mining shovel business; our Terex O&K shovel business, as well as some growth in our mining truck business and some growth in our drill business and the addition of superior Highwall, which is a great franchise improvement.
|