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Joseph Elgindy | Director, IR & Strategic Planning |
Fusen Chen | President, CEO & Director |
Lester Wong | CFO & General Counsel |
Thomas Diffely | D.A. Davidson & Co. |
Craig Ellis | B. Riley FBR, Inc. |
David Duley | Steelhead Securities |
Christian Schwab | Craig-Hallum Capital Group |
Robert Mertens | Cowen and Company |
Operator Greetings and welcome to the Kulicke & Soffa Fourth Quarter Results Conference Call. At this time | all participants are in a listen only mode. |
A brief Question and Answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference | please press *0 on your telephone keypad. As a reminder - this conference is being recorded. |
It is now my pleasure to introduce your host | Joseph Elgindy - Senior Director of Investor Relations and Strategic Initiatives for Kulicke & Soffa. Thank you - Mr. Elgindy you may begin. |
Mr. Elgindy: Thank you | |
Welcome everyone | to Kulicke & Soffa’s fourth quarter fiscal 2019 conference call. Joining us on the call today are Fusen Chen - President and Chief Executive Officer and Lester Wong - Chief Financial Officer and General Counsel. |
For those of you who have not received a copy of today’s results | the release - as well as the latest investor presentation - are both available in the Investor Relations section of our website at investor.kns.com. |
In addition to historical statements | today's remarks will contain statements relating to future events and our future results. These statements are "forward-looking" statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Our actual results and financial condition may differ materially from what is indicated in those forward-looking statements. |
For a complete discussion of the risks associated with Kulicke & Soffa | that could affect our future results and financial condition - please refer to our recent SEC filings - specifically the 10-K for the year ended September 29 - 2018. |
I would now like to turn the call over to Fusen Chen for the business overview. Please go ahead Fusen. | |
Fusen Chen: Thank you Joe. | |
Since the March quarter, we observed a gradual recovery in our overall businesses | improved field utilization rates, increased demand within both capital equipment and APS segments, continued progress within our Advanced Packaging program and we recognized revenue of several Pixalux mini and micro LED systems. |
Considering these improvements and the state of our industry | we will include comparisons from the March quarter - in addition to sequential comparisons - to provide a broader perspective - during today’s call. |
In parallel with improving market conditions, we continued to operate very efficiently | generating strong gross margins, and executing on near-term cost saving opportunities - without jeopardizing our ongoing development projects. |
For the September quarter we recognized revenue of 139.8 million dollars | an increase of approximately 10 percent sequentially - and over 20 percent from the March Quarter. |
The sequential increase in both Capital Equipment and Aftermarket Products and Services segments was driven by improvements in general semiconductor | LED and Advanced Packaging. Demand from General Semiconductor and LED - our largest end market - increased by nearly 17 percent sequentially and 74 percent from the March Quarter. We have also continued to see improving demand from our OSAT customers - during the September quarter. |
As you may recall | demand from memory and automotive end-markets declined fairly dramatically in the June quarter - partially offsetting the same period improvement within the larger general semiconductor and LED market. |
However | demand has largely stabilized within Automotive and Memory end-markets through the September quarter. This stabilized demand - improved NAND pricing and growing semiconductor opportunities in Automotive - provides confidence. |
Overall | our Automotive and Memory solutions remain highly competitive and we anticipate general recovery in Memory and Automotive throughout fiscal 2020. |
Capital Equipment sales within the September quarter increased 12 percent sequentially | and increased 25 percent from the March quarter - which again - we believe represented trough demand. The prior two quarters of sequential revenue improvement - help to highlight the resilience of our end markets and also our ability to generate demand for new products through the cycle. |
Within Capital Equipment, we experienced increased sales within many of our businesses | ball bonding, wedge bonding, Electronics assembly and advanced packaging. Within Advanced Packaging, revenue for five more Pixalux systems – our mini and micro LED tool – were recognized. These system sales provided strong margins, which Lester will share more detail on shortly. |
Our aftermarket products and services segment | APS - has increased by 11 percent from our March quarter - and 6 percent sequentially - to 39.4 million dollars in the September quarter. |
This demand is consistent with our longer-term quarterly APS average of approximately 40 million dollars in quarterly revenue | which supports our view of a healthy utilization rate for our large installed base of ball and wedge bonding systems. |
Healthy APS sales | improved utilization rates - increased demand from global OSATs and ongoing traction with our new products provides increasing confidence for stronger 2020 performance. As we look ahead - we remain focused on customer engagement and operational readiness of our new products and are very confident of our competitiveness in these new markets. |
I would now like to turn the call over to Lester Wong who will cover this quarter’s financial overview in greater detail | Lester? |
Mr. Lester Wong: Thank you | Fusen. My remarks today will refer to GAAP results - unless noted. |
Net revenue for the quarter was 139.8 million dollars | gross margins of 46.8 percent generated 65.4 million dollars of gross profit and net income of 6.4 million - or 10 cents per diluted share. Gross margins were clearly stronger than we expected last quarter - this was partially due to our ability of recognizing 5 Pixalux tools ahead of schedule. In addition to receiving acceptance earlier than anticipated - these initial Pixalux systems generated gross margins above corporate average. Similar to other newly developed products - the majority of the bill of materials is expensed through R&D until products have received market acceptance. We anticipate recognizing revenue on the final 2 fully expensed Pixalux systems during the December Quarter. |
Operating expenses also came in more favorably than our expected target model of 53 million dollars of fixed expenses plus 5 to 7 percent of variable expense tied to revenue. | |
We have also restructured a small fraction of our global R&D team | which resulted in a discrete 1.6 million dollar expense in the September quarter. We continue to seek out opportunities that will enhance the quality and efficiency of our global organization. |
Over the coming quarters we maintain our current operating expense target of 53 million of fixed quarterly expense plus 5 to 7 percent of variable quarterly expense | tied to revenue. While we are cautious of cost in the soft environment - we continue to invest heavily in our ongoing R&D programs which will drive meaningful long-term value and market share expansion. |
Turning to tax | we booked a net tax expense of 3.8 million dollars - which was inline sequentially. |
Over the long-term | we continue to target an average effective tax rate of approximately 18 percent. |
Turning to the balance sheet | we ended the September quarter with a total net cash and investments position of 532 million dollars - or 8 dollars and 28 cents on a diluted share basis. |
During the September quarter | we have continued our repurchase activity - and deployed 15 million dollars to repurchase 680 thousand shares. At the end of our September quarter we had approximately 97.1 million dollars remaining under the existing share repurchase authorization. |
Cumulatively | over the last 5 years - from the repurchase program’s inception through the September Quarter - we repurchased 17.2 million shares in open market transactions - at a total value of 302.8 million dollars. Roughly 1/3rd of this total value - 100.6 million dollars - was deployed in our fiscal 2019 period alone. |
The repurchase program | combined with our dividend program - prudent M&A and aggressive market expansion through new product development provide a powerful platform for long-term - sustainable - shareholder value creation and delivery. |
On a book value per share basis | we closed the September quarter with 12 dollars and 6 cents - an increase of 3 cents from the June Quarter. |
Working capital | defined as accounts receivable plus inventory - less accounts payable - was effectively flat at 207 million dollars - down 1 million dollars sequentially. |
From a DSO perspective | our days sales outstanding increased from 107 days to 126 days. Our days sales of inventory decreased from 129 days to 108 days and days of accounts payable decreased from 56 days to 44 days. |
This concludes the financial review portion of our call. I will now turn the discussion back over to Fusen for the December quarter’s business outlook. | |
Dr. Fusen Chen: Thanks Lester. | |
We have clearly experienced a recovery in the general semiconductor and LED related business | while Automotive and Memory seems to be near - or at - trough levels. We continue to anticipate ongoing and gradual recovery in all of the end markets we serve over the coming quarters. |
Uniquely for K&S | we are also aggressively pursuing several new revenue opportunities throughout fiscal year 2020 that expand our served markets and further increase the diversification of our broadening portfolio. |
Looking into the December quarter | we are forecasting revenue in the range of [130 to 150] million dollars - representing a flat outlook. Considering the historical seasonality in our business - we believe this supports our view of gradual and ongoing demand recovery for our products and services. |
Over the past 5 years, the sequential revenue change | December over September - represented an average 14 percent reduction, with a range of plus 3 percent to negative 45 percent. Considering this 5 year trend, our December outlook indicates an improving and fairly resilient end-market demand. |
We have also made fundamental improvements to our core business | development process - ability to identify and target new market opportunities and also delivering shareholder returns. |
More specifically | for the past three fiscal years - we have dramatically increased our market share in the high-volume LED business - rapidly developed and recognized revenue on several new tools - entered the high-growth mini and micro-LED market and collectively returned approximately 250 million dollars to investors through the repurchase and dividend programs. We continue to believe these improvements are fundamental in nature - demonstrate our ability to expand served markets - and provide a sustainable platform for future value creation. |
With that said, I’d like to provide a brief update on our Advanced Packaging initiatives. Overall, we continue to be very focused on working towards new customer qualifications within all of our advanced packaging businesses | Liteq, APAMA, Katalyst and Pixalux. These tools continue to be very promising and highly competitive. We expect they provide new growth prospects and will contribute meaningfully to long-term profitability. |
Our lithography | thermo-compression and high-accuracy flip-chip businesses - continue to be at various engagement levels at multiple customers - supporting qualifications and also high-volume production. Overall - these products are delivering new solutions to our customers - higher levels of productivity and continue to driving new customer interest. |
In addition to our view of a gradual core-market recovery | we also anticipate our Advanced Packaging progress to accelerate through fiscal year ‘20 as we ramp production with existing customers and proliferate these solutions to new customers. |
For our mini and micro LED tool | PIXALUX - we recognized revenue on an additional 5 machines in the September quarter - 8 machines in total. We are currently aggressively preparing for a production ramp. As a reminder - backlighting within the display market is a main target market for Pixalux system - although we are also very focused on opportunities within direct-view displays - automotive and also consumer electronics. |
We continue to anticipate Pixalux will ramp through 2020 and enhance overall profitability. | |
In summary | we are highly confident our core market is past trough and also that our newly-developed - market-expanding offerings will provide the industry with enabling technologies. We believe our enabling solutions are increasingly aligned with major trends such as the evolution of Electric and Autonomous vehicles - the rollout of 5G technology - the proliferation of IoT devices - the increasing attention of Advanced Packaging and emerging opportunities within the Display market. |
Our entire organization remains extremely committed to execute toward our long-term strategy of value creation and delivery. | |
This concludes our prepared remarks. Operator | we will now be happy to take questions. |
[Operator Instructions].
Our first question today is coming from Tom Diffely from D.A. Davidson.
Yes.
So I guess first question on the PIXALUX line.