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Text: Sales in the fourth quarter were $123 million, up 7%, compared to the same period in 2019.
Full-year sales were $424 million, compared to $469 million last year impacted by the pandemic in 2020.
Today all of our plants are operational with varying levels of capacity from 85% to 100%.
Fourth quarter gross margin was up 110 basis points to 34.7% from the same period last year.
EBITDA margin of 21.4% was up from 20.3% in the fourth quarter of 2019.
Fourth quarter adjusted earnings per share of $0.43, were up 16% from $0.37 in the fourth quarter of 2019.
Full-year adjusted earnings per share of $1.12 were down from $1.45 last year.
New business wins for the year were $442 million, down from the prior year as several OEMs push that sourcing decisions in 2020.
Operating cash flow for 2020 was $77 million, up 19% and $64 million in 2019.
In the fourth quarter, we acquired Sensor Scientific, a temperature sensing company, primarily serving medical customers.
Ashish Agrawal, our CFO is with me for today's call as usual and he'll take us through the Safe Harbor statement.
To the extent that today's discussion refers to any non-GAAP measures under Regulation G. The required explanations and reconciliations are available in the Investors Section of the CTS website.
I will now turn the discussion back over to our CEO.
In the fourth quarter, our sales increased to $123 million, up 8% sequentially and up 7% from last year.
For full-year 2020 sales were down 10% from 2019, driven lower by the impact of the pandemic.
The quarter's performance was solid.
However, we are operating cautiously as we enter 2021 and monitor for any new pandemic disruptions, semiconductor shortages for our OEM customers and the consistency of the recent robust recovery.
We continue to prioritize safety in our operations, our team's ability to effectively manage through the crisis, their resilience as well as the commitment and strength of the senior leadership team greatly helped us navigate these unprecedented market conditions this past year.
The restructuring plan we announced last year is progressing with small delays due to the impact of COVID-19.
We are still planning to deliver an annualized earnings per share improvement in excess of $0.22 by the second half of 2022.
More importantly, we're focused on returning to growth, building on our performance in the fourth quarter and leveraging the recent acquisition of Sensor Scientific.
Sensor Scientific is a manufacturer of high quality thermistors and temperature sensor assemblies, serving OEMs for applications that require precision and reliability in medical, industrial and defense markets.
Sensor Scientific's products are used in a variety of medical applications; including neonatal equipment, lab freezers, fluid warmers and analytical instruments.
SSI has locations in Turkey and New Jersey and in the Philippines.
The acquisition expands our temperature sensing portfolio has complementary capabilities with our existing platform and expand CTS's presence in medical.
The annualized revenue is in the range of $6 million, the purchase price was slightly less than 2 times revenue.
We remain focused on our strategic growth investments as part of our planning for 2025.
Growing our business and expanding our range of products that Sense, Connect, and Move is the priority.
New business awards were $104 million for the quarter, we added six new customers in the quarter; four in transportation; one in medical and one in telecom.
In Transportation, we were awarded passive safety sensor wins with three OEMs; one of the wins was with a North American customer for electric trucks, a new customer for CTS, this builds momentum on the large passive safety win we recorded last quarter with a Chinese electric vehicle application.
We have accelerated our module wins with several OEMs across China, Europe and North America.
A few of these wins were on plug-in hybrid electric platforms.
We also added the new customer for passive safety sensors in Asia and a new Chinese JV customer for accelerated modules.
We continue to focus on electric vehicle applications and products that are technology-agnostic and are not impacted by the transition from internal combustion engines to EV's.
New electric vehicle applications in current temperature sensing and advanced E-break our innovation projects in our pipeline, as well as next-generation chassis right high sensing.
Total EV wins for the year were in the range of 20% of new business awarded.
In Europe, we continue to leverage our footprint and capabilities in Denmark and the Czech Republic with Tier 1 defense customers and are currently in sample qualification.
In addition, we were awarded funding from a European Agency for the development of next-generation ceramic materials.
We saw softness in the medical market in the fourth quarter.
However, we are making progress in applications and renewed business with three ultrasound customers in the quarter with one for a multi-year period.
We also secured a win for sleep apnea control application and a win for a medical temperature application.
In other electronic components we had wins with application in EMC, as well as a Microactuator application.
In Asia we secured a win for a two-wheeler throttle sensor application.
With temperature sensing, we secured orders in pool and spa applications, which continue to be strong.
We also have temperature wins in industrial for hatchback and a win for a satellite application.
We are gaining momentum with our precision frequency product enabled by our reference design position.
We secured wins for 5G applications linked to large telecom OEMs and shipped the quarter million of samples in the quarter.
More recently in January, our product was designed in for a 5G application selected by India's largest telecom provider.
The low power crystal product is also in sample testing with a new North American customer.
Building and strengthening our M&A pipeline is the priority.
This is more challenging due to the COVID restrictions, we are actively building relationships with companies in line with our strategy.
We seek to expand our range of technologies, products, customers and geographic reach, while we continue to diversify our end-market profile and enhance the future quality of earnings.
Given our strong balance sheet, we seek to gain momentum with the right strategic fit and evaluation.
The focus 2025 initiatives, which we have previously highlighted has an important emphasis on building stronger customer relationships.
As part of this initiative, we continue to focus on our go-to-market capabilities and skills.
We are working to improve the quality of the sales funnel, optimize our target new accounts and align our functional areas to be more responsive and solution-oriented in line with our core values.
As we progressed into the first quarter of 2021, we've seen a positive start and expect a good first quarter given current customer demand.
As I mentioned earlier, we remain cautious for the full-year in case of unexpected pandemic supply chain disruptions and the current semiconductor shortage.
We are monitoring the consistency of demand in this recovery, given there may have been some pull forwarding demand in 2020.
We are all aware of the backdrop of higher unemployment and the potential for depressed economic and consumer confidence.
Though, we are not experiencing it at this time.
We are facing some headwinds on commodity pricing, higher freight charges, increased absenteeism due to the impact of COVID-19 and working diligently to offset these with our continuous improvement projects.
We expect to stay within our targeted gross margin range.
For the US light vehicle transportation market, volume is expected to improve in the 14 million to 16 million unit range.
On-hand days of supply are now at 59 days.
Approximately 9% below the five-year average of 65 days.
We currently see reasonable control of inventory levels, European sales are forecasted in the 18 million to 19 million unit level, though there is some uncertainty given the recent lockdowns throughout the region with some OEMs announcing volume reductions.
Our exposure to the European market is lower.
The Chinese market is expected to remain solid with volumes of 24 million to 26 million unit range this year.
The commercial vehicle market is on an improving trend that started last year.
Larger backlogs and heavy duty are driven by increasing fleet orders.
In the mid range and lower, demand has been driven by the increase in e-commerce deliveries.
The medical end market is expected to remain soft in the first half of 2021, due to lower elective surgeries.
We see good growth in industrial and defense markets.
In terms of guidance for full-year 2021, we expect sales to be in the range of $430 million to $490 million, and adjusted earnings are expected to be in the range of $1.20 to $1.60.
We are closely monitoring the impact of COVID-19 supply chain disruptions and the broader level of economic activity.
We expect to narrow the range as the year progresses.
In this more remote working environment, we continue to place an emphasis on connecting with our customers, monitoring products and development, effectively navigating supply chain improvements, innovations and importantly, our performance and results driven culture.
Our employees globally continue to provide a tremendous support and demonstrate resilience to serve our customers, while operating safely.
We are confident in our strategy and are using this pandemic period to enhance our foundation, strengthen our core business and to advance our technology capabilities.
Our 2025 initiatives is focused on four key areas: 10% annualized profitable growth with active portfolio management; working more closely with our customers, building relationships and aligning our technology and product road maps; number three building the foundation of CTS's operating system to execute globally on a consistent basis, while we enhance our continuous improvement capabilities; and finally, advancing organizational capability to leadership and culture aligned to our customers' needs, our business performance, our core values, supporting our communities and environmental priorities.
At this time Ashish will take us through the financial performance.
Fourth quarter sales were $123 million, up 7%, compared to last year and up 8% sequentially.
Sales to transportation customers increased by 12% versus the fourth quarter of 2019, sequentially we were up 17% in sales to transportation customers.
Sales to other end markets were essentially flat year-over-year.
We saw solid growth in sales to both the industrial and defense end markets and softness continued in the medical end market.
Our gross margin was 37% for the fourth quarter, up 230 basis points, compared to last quarter, and up 110 basis points, compared to last year.
Adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter was 21.4%, up 240 basis points sequentially and up 110 basis points from last year.
Fourth quarter 2020 earnings were $0.46 per diluted share, adjusted earnings per diluted share were $0.43, compared to $0.37 last year and $0.34 last quarter.
For full-year 2020, sales were $424 million, down 10% from 2019.
Sales to transportation customers declined 19% and sales to other end markets increased by 7%.
Industrial and aerospace & defense end markets sales experienced double-digit growth.
Medical end market was soft, but sales down 7%.
Our gross margin was 32.8% for the year, down from 33.6% last year.
The major driver was lower volume attributable to COVID-19, which was partially offset by temporary and other cost reductions implemented throughout the year.
Our focus is to drive improvements and move toward the higher end of our target range of 34% to 37% gross margin.
In the second half of 2020, we generated $0.05 of earnings per share and savings from our restructuring program announced in July 2020.
Foreign currency rates impacted gross margin favorably in 2020 by approximately $3 million.
Based on recent exchange rates currency could impact our 2021 gross margin unfavorably by approximately 100 basis points.
SG&A and R&D expenses were $92.1 million or 21.7% of sales for the year.
Consistent with prior communication, we expect 2021 operating expenses to be higher as a result of the reinstatement of temporary cost measures.
Our 2020 tax rate was 23.7%, we anticipate our 2021 tax rate to be in the range of 23% to 25%, excluding the discrete items.
This is subject to change, due to the impact of any changes that may be introduced by the new US administration.
2020 earnings were $1.06 per diluted share, adjusted earnings per diluted share were $1.12, compared to $1.45 last year.
Now I'll discuss the balance sheet and cash flow.
Our controllable working capital as a percentage of sales was 15.5% in the fourth quarter, improved slightly from the third quarter.
We have made progress over the last couple of quarters, but still have more work to do.
We are balancing improvements in working capital with having some safety stock to minimize risk of supply chain disruptions.
Capex was $14.9 million for the full-year, down from $21.7 million in 2019.
We continue to manage capex carefully given the current environment.
In 2021, we are expecting capex to be in the range of 4% to 4.5% of sales.
The primary focus being on growth-related projects.
We finished 2020 with a healthy balance sheet and a strong liquidity position.
Our operating cash flow in the quarter was $26 million, for the full-year operating cash flow was $77 million, compared to $64 million in 2019.
The end of the year with $92 million in cash, compared to $100 million in December 2019.
In the fourth quarter, we reduced our long-term debt balance to $55 million from $106 million at the end of the third quarter.
Our debt to capitalization ratio was at 11.4% at the end of 2020, compared to 19.7% at the end of 2019.
The combination of a strong balance sheet with a net cash position and access to over $240 million through our credit facility gives the flexibility to appropriately deploy capital toward our strategic objectives.
We are progressing on our SAP implementation as we communicated earlier, more than 80% of our revenue comes from sites that are running on SAP.
We expect to complete the implementation in the second half of 2021.
However, COVID-related restrictions could cause some delays.
This concludes our prepared comments.

user
compname announces q4 adjusted earnings per share $0.43.
q4 adjusted earnings per share $0.43.
q4 earnings per share $0.46.
q4 sales $123 million versus refinitiv ibes estimate of $117 million.
sees fy 2021 sales $430 million to $490 million.
adjusted earnings per diluted share for 2021 are expected to be in range of $1.20 to $1.60.
aims to narrow guidance range as year progresses.

assistant