Cubic Reports Second Quarter Fiscal Year 2017 Financial Results and Updates Guidance

• Sales of $343.7 million for the quarter and $678.4 million for the six-month period.
• Net income of $0.5 million or $0.02 per share for the quarter and net loss of $2.4 million, or $0.09 per share for the six-month period.
• Adjusted EBITDA(1) of $16.8 million for the quarter and $36.9 million for the six-month period.
• Cash flows from operating activities of $11.0 million for the six-month period compared to cash used in operations of $37.7 million last year.
• Total backlog of $2.626 billion as of March 31, 2017.
• Sales guidance for fiscal 2017 revised to $1.50 billion to $1.54 billion; EBITDA(1) guidance revised to $65 million to $85 million; Adjusted EBITDA(1) guidance revised to $105 million to $125 million.

San Diego — May 8, 2017 — Cubic Corporation (NYSE: CUB) today reported its financial results for the quarter and six months ended March 31, 2017. 

“We are particularly pleased with our improved operating cash flow and the critical, strategic investments we made in all of our businesses during the quarter. These investments will contribute significantly to the growth of the company,” said Bradley H. Feldmann, president and chief executive officer of Cubic Corporation. “Our strategy remains sound and we continue to expect increased order intake in the near term that will drive expanded sales and Adjusted EBITDA going forward.”

 

Financial Results Comparison

	Six Months Ended	Three Months Ended
	March 31,	March 31,
	2017		2016		2017		2016
	(in millions)
Sales	$678.4		$679.8		$343.7		$366.0
Operating loss	$(6.2)		$(17.2)		$(2.1)		$(9.1)
Adjusted EBITDA (1)	$36.9		$41.6		$16.8		$30.3
Net income (loss)	$(2.4)		$4.7		$0.5		$10.1
EPS	$(0.09)		$0.18		$0.02		$0.38
Acquisition-related costs (excluding amortization) (2)	$0.7		$24.0		$(0.1)		$19.7
Strategic and IT system resource planning expenses (2)	$14.6		$15.9		$6.0		$9.4
Depreciation and amortization expense	$25.7		$19.0		$12.3		$10.0
Research and development expense	$21.9		$9.6		$12.9		$6.1
Income tax benefit	$12.1		$24.7		$7.0		$21.2

Sales for the second quarter and first half of fiscal 2017 would have been $6.2 million higher and $14.9 million higher, respectively, absent the negative impact from changes in foreign currency rates compared to last year. Sales from recent acquisitions for the first half of fiscal 2017 were $40.8 million compared to $13.7 million for the same period last year, but were not significantly different between the second quarter of fiscal 2017 and the second quarter of last year. The decreases in operating losses for the second quarter and first half of fiscal 2017 were primarily driven by the reduction in acquisition-related expenses from businesses acquired in the Cubic Global Defense Systems (CGD Systems) segment.

The decreases in Adjusted EBITDA(1) for the second quarter and first half of the year are primarily attributable to increases in research and development (R&D) activity, a $3.0 million loss incurred in the second quarter of 2017 on a transportation tolling project due to learning curve-related cost growth, and an adverse impact of foreign currency exchange rates of $1.1 million for the quarter and $2.3 million for the first half of the year. The change in net income was primarily caused by a change in the effective tax rate between quarters. In the second quarter of fiscal 2016, a discrete net tax benefit of $16.3 million was recorded related to an acquisition.

 

Outlook for 2017

Presently, guidance for the current fiscal year is highly dependent on the order intake for our short order cycle businesses (primarily in Cubic Mission Solutions). Until Congress succeeds in funding the government through regular order budgets rather than continuing resolutions, the company's ability to precisely forecast order intake and, consequently, backlog, revenue and EBITDA(1) on a quarter-by-quarter basis will continue to be inherently limited. We are slightly lowering and narrowing our sales guidance range with a net effect of lowering our midpoint by $10 million. We are lowering our operating income, EBITDA(1) and Adjusted EBITDA(1) guidance ranges by $15 million. These adjustments reflect continued pre-contract award engineering spending on the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)  contract and the impact of Department of Defense related timing delays.

• Sales guidance for fiscal 2017 revised to between $1.50 billion and $1.54 billion.
• EBITDA(1) guidance revised to $65 million to $85 million.
• Adjusted EBITDA(1) guidance revised to $105 million to $125 million.
• EPS guidance has been withdrawn due to the potential for income tax expense volatility. Significant variability in recognized income tax expense may result from changes in the valuation allowance on our U.S. deferred tax assets. Due to the difficulties in forecasting income tax expense within a reasonable range, we have withdrawn our guidance with regards to EPS for fiscal 2017.

(1) EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA are non-GAAP financial measures - see the section titled “Use of Non-GAAP Financial Information” for additional information regarding these non-GAAP financial measures. Key foreign exchange rates (full-year average estimated rates) used in the forecasts of sales, EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA compared to the U.S. dollar were as follows: British pound — 1.25; Australian dollar — 0.76; New Zealand dollar — 0.70.

(2) See the section below titled “Use of Non-GAAP Financial Information” for a description of the composition of these items.

 

Reportable Segment Results

	Six Months Ended	Three Months Ended
	March 31,	March 31,
	2017		2016		2017		2016
Sales	(in millions)
Cubic Transportation Systems	$271.5		$274.5		$139.6		$148.7
Cubic Global Defense Systems	$220.9		$212.2		$108.4		$116.3
Cubic Global Defense Services	$186.0		$193.1		$95.7		$101.0
Total Sales	$678.4		$679.8		$343.7		$366.0
Operating income (loss):
Cubic Transportation Systems	$17.5		$23.4		$7.8		$19.8
Cubic Global Defense Systems	$(4.9)		$(24.6)		$(4.4)		$(21.2)
Cubic Global Defense Services	$1.6		$4.5		$2.0		$4.3
Unallocated corporate expenses	$(20.4)		$(20.5)		$(7.5)		$(12.0)
Total operating income (loss)	$(6.2)		$(17.2)		$(2.1)		$(9.1)

Cubic Transportation Systems (CTS) sales were lower primarily due to the adverse impacts of foreign currency exchange rates. CTS operating income was lower due to increases in R&D expenditures, including $2.2 million and $3.4 million of costs incurred in the second quarter and first half of fiscal 2017, respectively, for the development of technologies that will be used on a transportation contract that is expected to be awarded later in fiscal 2017. CTS incurred a $3.0 million loss in the second quarter of 2017 on a transportation tolling project due to learning curve-related cost increases.

CGD Systems sales were affected by the sales from acquired businesses. Revenues from businesses acquired in fiscal years 2017 and 2016, all within the CGD Systems operating segment, were $15.3 million and $40.8 million for the second quarter and first half of fiscal 2017, respectively, compared to $13.7 million for both the second quarter and first half of fiscal 2016. The change in CGD Systems operating results was primarily driven by the effects of accounting for business acquisitions in fiscal 2016 and 2017. Including the impacts of business acquisition accounting and amortization expense, the businesses acquired in fiscal years 2017 and 2016 had operating losses of $5.6 million for the second quarter of fiscal 2017 compared to $20.9 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2016. Acquired businesses incurred operating losses of $7.4 million in the first half of fiscal 2017 compared to $22.7 million in the first half of fiscal 2016. In addition, CGD Systems increased R&D expenditures primarily in the development of innovative ground live and virtual training technologies.

Cubic Global Defense Services (CGD Services) sales for the second quarter and first half of fiscal 2017 were lower primarily because of decreased activity on U.S. Army contracts, excluding the contract with the Joint Readiness Training Center, as well as lower activity supporting Special Operations Forces training. The decrease in CGD Services operating income was primarily driven by the decreased activity on the U.S. Army and Special Operations Forces training contracts noted above. In addition, certain contracts that were retained after re-compete were won in the first quarter of fiscal 2017 at reduced pricing due to an extremely competitive bid environment.

Conference Call

Cubic management will host a conference call to discuss the company’s second quarter and first half of fiscal 2017 results today, Monday, May 8 at 4:30 p.m. EDT/1:30 p.m. PDT, which will be simultaneously broadcast over the Internet. Bradley H. Feldmann, president and chief executive officer and John “Jay” D. Thomas, executive vice president and chief financial officer, will host the call.

Conference Dial-In Information

Financial analysts and institutional investors interested in participating in the call are invited to dial:

• (877) 407-9708 for domestic callers
• (201) 689-8259 for international callers

Please dial-in approximately 10 minutes prior to the start of the call.

Audio Webcast

A live webcast of the conference call and presentation slides will be accessible on our website under the “Investor Relations” tab at www.cubic.com. Please visit the website at least 15 minutes prior to the call in order to register, download and install any streaming media software needed to listen to the webcast. A replay of the broadcast will be available on the “Investor Relations” tab of Cubic’s website. 

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that are subject to the safe harbor created by such Act. Forward-looking statements include, among others, statements about our expectations regarding future events or our future financial and/or operating performance; our strategic investments contributing significantly to the growth of our company; increased order intake in the near term driving expanded sales and Adjusted EBITDA going forward; limitations on the company’s ability to forecast order intake until Congress succeeds in funding the government through regular order budgets rather than continuing resolutions; and our expected award of a transportation contract in fiscal 2017. These statements are often, but not always, made through the use of words or phrases such as “may,” “will,” “anticipate,” “estimate,” “plan,” “project,” “continuing,” “ongoing,” “expect,” “believe,” “intend,” “predict,” “potential,” “opportunity” and similar words or phrases or the negatives of these words or phrases. These statements involve risks, estimates, assumptions and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in these statements, including, among others: our dependence on U.S. and foreign government contracts; delays in approving U.S. and foreign government budgets and cuts in U.S. and foreign government defense expenditures; the ability of certain government agencies to unilaterally terminate or modify our contracts with them; the effect of sequestration on our contracts; our assumptions concerning behavior by public transit authorities; our ability to successfully integrate new companies into our business and to properly assess the effects of such integration on our financial condition; the U.S. government’s increased emphasis on awarding contracts to small businesses, and our ability to retain existing contracts or win new contracts under competitive bidding processes; negative audits by the U.S. government; the effects of politics and economic conditions on negotiations and business dealings in the various countries in which we do business or intend to do business; risks associated with the restatement of our prior consolidated financial statements, including our identification of material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting; competition and technology changes in the defense and transportation industries; the change in the way transit agencies pay for transit systems; our ability to accurately estimate the time and resources necessary to satisfy obligations under our contracts; the effect of adverse regulatory changes on our ability to sell products and services; our ability to identify, attract and retain qualified employees; our failure to properly implement our ERP system; unforeseen problems with the implementation and maintenance of our information systems; business disruptions due to cyber security threats, physical threats, terrorist acts, acts of nature and public health crises; our involvement in litigation, including litigation related to patents, proprietary rights and employee misconduct; our reliance on subcontractors and on a limited number of third parties to manufacture and supply our products; our ability to comply with our development contracts and to successfully develop, introduce and sell new products, systems and services in current and future markets; defects in, or a lack of adequate coverage by insurance or indemnity for, our products and systems; and changes in U.S. and foreign tax laws, exchange rates or our economic assumptions regarding our pension plans. In addition, please refer to the risk factors contained in our SEC filings available at www.sec.gov, including our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. Because the risks, estimates, assumptions and uncertainties referred to above could cause actual results or outcomes to differ materially from those expressed in any forward-looking statements, you should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date hereof, and, except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof.

Use of Non-GAAP Financial Information

We believe that the presentation of Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) and Adjusted EBITDA included in this report provides useful information to investors with which to analyze our operating trends and performance and ability to service and incur debt. Also, we believe EBITDA facilitates company-to-company operating performance comparisons by backing out potential differences caused by variations in capital structures (affecting net interest expense), taxation, variations in organic vs. inorganic growth (affecting amortization expense) and the age and book depreciation of property, plant and equipment (affecting relative depreciation expense). We believe Adjusted EBITDA further facilitates company-to-company operating comparisons by backing out items that we believe are not part of our core operating performance. Items backed out of Adjusted EBITDA are comprised of expenses incurred in the development of our ERP system and the redesign of our supply chain, business acquisition expenses including retention bonus expenses, due diligence and consulting costs incurred in connection with the acquisitions, expenses recognized related to the change in the fair value of contingent consideration for acquisitions, restructuring costs, gains and losses on disposals of fixed assets, and income and expenses classified as other non-operating income and expenses which may vary for different companies for reasons unrelated to operating performance.

In addition, EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA are key drivers of the company’s core operating performance and major factors in management’s bonus compensation each year. Management has excluded the effects of these items in these measures to assist investors in analyzing and assessing our past and future core operating performance.

In addition, we believe that EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA are frequently used by securities analysts, investors and other interested parties in their evaluation of companies, many of which present EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA and/or other adjusted measures when reporting their results.

EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA are not measurements of financial performance under GAAP and should not be considered as alternatives to net income as a measure of performance. In addition, other companies may define EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA differently and, as a result, our measures of EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA may not be directly comparable to EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA of other companies. Furthermore, EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA have limitations as analytical tools, and you should not consider either of them in isolation, or as a substitute for analysis of our results as reported under GAAP.

Because of these limitations, EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA should not be considered as measures of discretionary cash available to us to invest in the growth of our business. We compensate for these limitations by relying primarily on our GAAP results and using EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA only supplementally. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on EBITDA or Adjusted EBITDA.

The following table reconciles EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA to net income (loss), which we consider to be the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure to EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA.

	Six Months Ended	Three Months Ended
	March 31,	March 31,
	2017		2016		2017		2016
	(in thousands)
Net income (loss)	$(2,407)		$4,730		$461		$10,144
Add:
Interest expense, net	7,375		3,180		4,082		2,240
Income taxes	(12,086)		(24,675)		(7,013)		(21,247)
Depreciation and amortization	25.736		18,977		12,292		10,029
EBITDA	18,618		2,212		9,822		1,166
Adjustments to EBITDA:
Acquisition related expenses, exluding     amortization	666		23,955		(130)		19,658
ERP system development and supply chain process redesign expense	14,645		15,935		5,980		9,429
Restructuring costs	1,600		(75)		709		311
Loss on sale of fixed assets	405		-		-		-
Other non-operating expense (income), net	945		(398)		398		(223)
Adjusted EBITDA	$36,879		$41,629		$16,779		$30,341

 

Financial Statements