Worthington Industries WOR
Q4 2012 Earnings Call Transcript

Operator: Good afternoon and welcome to the Worthington Industries' Fourth Quarter Earnings Results Conference Call. All participants will be able to listen only until the question-and-answer session of the call. This conference is being recorded at the request of Worthington Industries. If anyone objects, you may disconnect at this time.

I'd like to introduce Ms. Cathy Lyttle, Vice President of Corporate Communications and Investor Relations. Ms. Lyttle, you may begin.

Cathy M. Lyttle - VP of Corporate Communications and IR: Thank you, Kathy. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our fourth quarter earnings conference call. As a reminder, certain statements made on this call are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are subject to risk and uncertainties and could cause actual results to differ from those suggested. Please refer to our fourth quarter earnings release issued this morning for more detail on those factors that could cause actual results to differ materially. For anyone interested in listening to this call again, a replay will be made available on our website, worthingtonindustries.com.

On the call today are John McConnell, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; George Stoe, President and Chief Operating Officer; Andy Rose, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; Richard Welch, Controller; and I have the pleasure of welcoming Mark Russell, our incoming President and Chief Executive Officer.

John McConnell will lead us off.

John P. McConnell - Chairman and CEO: Well, Thank you, Cathy. Good afternoon to all of you on the call, thank you for joining us. As you can likely tell from my voice, I'm in the midst of working through attack of the creeping crud this summer. While improving somewhat, I'm still prone to sudden and occasional uncontrollable bouts of coughing, so I'm going to do my best not to disrupt the call or damage your hearing, but I do want to provide fair warning.

I'm pleased to report that we had an excellent fourth quarter and fiscal year. I believe, especially strong when you consider we experienced significant inventory holding gains last year and inventory holding losses this year, also negatively affecting fiscal 2012 were cylinder recall which while I hope will never happen again, I believe was executed very well, and some additional restructuring charges. Andy will speak further about those items.

I am very proud of all of our employees and pleased to see their efforts and hard work of over four years of transformation really beginning to pay off.

Let's get started with the deeper look at the quarter and the year as I turn the call over to our Chief Financial Officer, Andy Rose.

B. Andrew Rose - VP and CFO: Thanks, John and good afternoon. The Company's performance in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2012 was very good, aided by volume increases in cylinders and steel, and solid earnings from our newly acquired Engineered Cabs business.

Quarterly earnings per share, excluding restructuring, were up 9% from the prior year. Inventory holding gains added approximately $0.03 to our Steel Processing results for the fourth quarter. In the prior year fourth quarter, inventory holding gains added $0.22 a share. For the year, earnings per share excluding restructuring costs were up 13%. Inventory holding losses reduced current year results by $0.12 per share, as steel prices declined for most of the year, while inventory holding gains added $0.19 per share to our earnings in fiscal year 2011.