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Text: Our discussion today includes certain non-GAAP financial measures, which provide additional information we believe is helpful to our investors.
These measures have been reconciled to the related GAAP measures in accordance with SEC regulations.
Please consider the risks and uncertainties that are mentioned in today's call and are described in our periodic filings with the SEC.
Barnes Group delivered a very good quarter to begin 2021, with the recovery we had anticipated to occur later in the year starting a little earlier than expected.
Strong order intake continuing sequential revenue growth now for the third consecutive quarter and better than expected earnings performance add confidence to our view that the second half of the year will show meaningful recovery progress.
For the first quarter, organic sales were down 10% compared to a year ago as a result of lower volumes at Aerospace.
However, our Industrial segment generated high single-digit organic growth, which was better than our February expectation given solid orders and sales in March.
While we previously envision business improving as the year progressed, now with the stronger momentum exiting the first quarter, we have increased our outlook for the year.
Earnings per share were $0.38, down 46% from last year's adjusted $0.71, so firmly exceeding the high end of our February expectation.
Moving now to a discussion of end market dynamics, beginning with Industrial.
Our Industrial segment had a strong first quarter, with each of our SBUs generating year-over-year organic sales and revenue growth.
For the segment, orders were up 25% organically, with a book to bill of approximately 1.1 times.
Sequential orders were up 7% further exemplifying the momentum we're seeing.
On a macro level, manufacturing PMIs in the US and eurozone remain particularly robust.
China, while a bit softer, remains an expansion territory.
And despite the semiconductor issue that's impacting automotive bills, IHS still predicts 2021 global production to be up 12% over last year.
Within the segment, our Molding Solutions business had strong orders across all brands, up 35% organically.
Our larger end markets, automotive, medical, packaging and personal care, each saw in excess of 25% orders growth, some well above that.
Sequentially, orders improved high single digits, marking the fourth quarter in a row of sequential growth.
Organic sales were up mid-single digits, while sequential sales were up low single digits.
Book-to-bill was approximately 1.1 times.
Backlog, which is predominantly our longer cycle mold systems, grew by approximately 25% year-over-year and low double digits from the fourth quarter of 2020.
There is definitely a lot to like about the activity of Molding Solutions and the business has been recently adding more talent to the sales and marketing team with a clear focus on driving long-term growth and margin expansion.
While near-term investments in such talent coupled with our innovation and digital initiatives, that I discussed last quarter, will hinder short-term margins.
We expect long-term performance to benefit [Phonetic].
Our 2021 expectation for Molding Solutions has improved, as we now forecast organic sales growth to be in the low teens.
Moving to Force & Motion Control.
Organic orders were up low double digits with organic sales up high single digits.
FMC via sheet metal forming end market is seeing the benefit of its automotive customers push to electric and hybrid vehicles.
Year-over-year orders are up across each of our primary geographic markets, North America, Europe and China.
Likewise, we're seeing good demand in our general industrial end markets, particularly heavy-duty truck and industrial equipment.
Our FMC sales growth expectation has likewise increased, as we now anticipate organic sales to be up in the mid-teens for 2021.
Engineered Components generated organic orders growth in excess of 25% and organic revenue growth in the low double digits.
Sequentially, we saw a modest growth in orders and sales, constrained somewhat by the automotive semiconductor concern.
As a result of this issue, we estimate a first quarter impact of approximately $1 million, with the second quarter impact likely to be in the range of $4 million to $5 million before recovering in the second half.
General industrial markets remain very healthy.
Our 2021 outlook has increased for this business as well with organic sales now forecast to be up mid-teens.
Moving to Automation, we continue to see sequential performance in both orders and sales, up low teens and high-single digits, respectively.
On a year-over-year basis, organic sales were up high single digits and organic revenues up mid-teens.
A very good quarter of growth and execution from the Automation team.
Demand for our end-of-arm tooling solutions in automotive, medical and pharma and industrial automation applications remain good, as has been the trend now for a few quarters.
We now expect 2021 to deliver total growth of 20%, with organic growth in the mid-teens, again, better than our February expectation.
Overall, for the Industrial segment, we see 2021 organic growth in the mid-teens, with operating margins of approximately 13%.
Moving now to Aerospace.
Our Aerospace business experienced continuing impact from the pandemic as OEM sales were down 32% from the prior year and aftermarket sales were down 48%, not surprising as commercial aviation remain significantly disrupted.
However, we still believe that the bottom is behind us and that we're slowly recovering.
Case in point for the third quarter in a row, we have seen total Aerospace sequential sales improve.
In the first quarter, the sequential improvement was driven by our MRO business.
Our expectations for the Aerospace industry overall has not changed.
We continue to believe that OEM production levels for narrow bodies will show modest improvement, while wide bodies will remain pressured.
We did see a second consecutive quarter of good orders and OEM book-to-bill was approximately 1.5 times.
In the aftermarket, industry challenges of lower aircraft utilization, weakened airline profitability and government imposed travel restrictions all remain.
Recovery will depend on the pace and effectiveness of vaccinations.
Domestic travel activity will proceed any improvement in international travel.
We continue to expect aftermarket activity to gradually improve beginning in the second half of 2021.
In the meantime, the Aerospace team continues to execute on several items to best position our business for recovery.
For example, in the first few months of the year, we completed an extension of our West Chester, Ohio facility, expanding our capabilities, received supplier recognitions from Boeing and Rolls-Royce and announced a significant B-2 Bomber Exhaust System Contract award from Northrop Grumman.
Our 2021 expectation as for OEM sales to be up mid-single digits over 2020 and spare parts down in the mid-teens, both are unchanged from our prior view.
Our forecast for MRO is slightly improved, now down low single digits versus our prior view of been down mid-single digits.
Segment operating margin is anticipated to be approximately 13%.
Julie is a proven leader with significant experience, leading the financial operations of global businesses.
Her extensive background and proven strategic leadership in corporate finance, financial planning and analysis, mergers and acquisitions, and risk management will help us advance our long-term profitable growth strategy.
In closing, we're off to a good start in 2021.
Favorable macroeconomic indicators and our solid orders generation provide us with a high degree of confidence in our improved outlook for the year.
However, that's not to say there aren't challenges that remain, so our teams are proactively implementing risk mitigation plans.
As we move forward, we'll continue to add the necessary talent and skill sets to enable us to drive growth and improve profitability.
Those efforts will be supported by our organic investments in innovation, digitalization and strategic marketing.
Our focus remains squarely on controlling our own destiny and positioning the Company to prosper as global markets recover.
Let me begin with highlights of our first quarter results on Slide 4 of our supplement.
First quarter sales were $302 million, down 9% from the prior year period with organic sales declining 10% as ongoing impacts from the pandemic offset our Aerospace end markets.
The divested Seeger business had a negative impact of 2% on sales, while FX had a positive impact of 3%.
Operating income was $32.4 million versus $49.3 million a year ago.
Compared to last year's adjusted operating income of $51.7 million, the first quarter was down 37% and operating margin of 10.7%, decreased 490 bps from last year's adjusted 15.6%.
It's important to keep in mind that this result was not unexpected.
The first quarter of last year saw Aerospace aftermarket performance -- saw record Aerospace aftermarket performance, which generated very strong margins.
Interest expense was $3.9 million, a decrease of $400,000 as a result of lower average borrowings, offset in part by a higher average interest rate.
For the quarter, our effective tax rate was 28.1%, lower than last year's 31.5% tax rate.
The decrease is largely due to the absence of tax expense related to the completed sale of the Seeger business and the reduction of the statutory tax rate at one of our international operations, both of which occurred in the first quarter of 2020.
Offsetting these items is the impact of the global intangible low taxed income tax or GILTI tax on foreign earnings in the first quarter of 2021.
Net income was $19.4 million or $0.38 per diluted share, compared to $29.7 million or $0.58 per diluted share a year ago.
On an adjusted basis, net income per share was down 46% from last year's $0.71.
Last year's first quarter adjusted net income per diluted share excluded $0.13 of Seeger divestiture adjustments.
Turning to our segment performance, beginning with Industrial.
First quarter sales were $220 million, up 10% from a year ago.
Organic sales increased 8%.
The foregone sales from the Seeger divestiture had a negative impact of 3%, while favorable FX primarily driven by the euro to US dollar exchange increased sales by 5%.
Relative to the fourth quarter of 2020, sequential sales were up 5%.
So good news on the revenue front with three sequential quarters of improvement and a positive year-over-year result.
Industrial's operating profit for the first quarter was $21.3 million versus $17.9 million in the prior year period.
Operating profit increased from the contribution of higher volumes and productivity improvements.
These were offset in part by higher personnel costs, including incentive compensation.
Last year we saw a reduction in the quarter for incentive comp, while this year sees an uptick based on performance expectations for 2021.
On an adjusted basis, which excludes $2.4 million of Seeger divestiture adjustments last year, first quarter operating income was up 5% from last year's $20.3 million.
Compared to a year ago, adjusted operating margin was down 50 bps from 10.2%.
One of the contributing factors is the additional investments being borne by the Industrial segment.
As Patrick mentioned, these investments squarely put a focus on our long-term growth strategy.
While our end markets and businesses within Industrial showing -- are showing signs of the solid recovery, there are some supply chain concerns related to raw material availability and inflation, as well as increased freight costs.
With respect to raw materials, we've seen instances where certain customers have extended the time horizons of their order commitments, looking to ensure availability of supply and acknowledging the longer lead times required for some materials.
In the first quarter, we experienced approximately $1 million of combined freight and material inflation in the Industrial segment.
For the full year, we expect an impact of about $6 million, which is built into our outlook.
Our teams are working on [Phonetic] these issues, looking to decrease the risk exposure and to take actions to offset the inflation where appropriate.
Moving to Aerospace, sales were $82 million for the first quarter, down 38% from last year.
Operating profit of $11.1 million was down 65%, primarily driven by the lower sales volume.
Operating margin was 13.6%, versus a strong 23.9% a year ago.
You may recall, last year's margin was a high watermark, driven by the contributions of the aftermarket.
Aerospace OEM backlog ended the quarter at $600 million, up 5% from the fourth quarter and we expect to ship 45% of this backlog over the next 12 months.
First quarter cash provided by operating activities was $36 million, a decrease of $12 million versus a year ago, free cash flow was $28 million, versus $35 million last year, and capital expenditures of $8 million were down about $4 million from a year ago.
Regarding the balance sheet, our debt-to-EBITDA ratio, as defined by our credit agreement, was 3.1 times at quarter end, essentially flat to the prior quarter result.
The Company is in full compliance with all covenants of our credit agreements and maintains adequate liquidity to fund operations.
While we anticipated the leverage ratio to peak with our first quarter 2021 results, we performed better than expected with the stronger financial results of the first quarter.
We see leverage further declining from this point absent any acquisition activity.
Our first quarter average diluted shares outstanding was 51 million shares.
We now expect to resume some share repurchase activity to offset equity compensation dilution, with respect to incremental share repurchases that will depend on a number of factors related to capital deployment and growth opportunities that are available to us.
Turning to Slide 5 of our supplement, let's discuss our updated financial outlook for 2021.
We now expect organic sales to be up 10% to 12% for the year, an increase from our prior view of up 6% to 8%, driven by stronger industrial growth.
FX is expected to have a 2% favorable impact on sales, while divested revenue -- divested Seeger revenues will have a small negative impact.
Operating margin is forecasted to be approximately 13%.
At this point, we're not anticipating significant residual restructuring charges to come through, so no forecasted adjustments to 2021 net income.
EPS is expected to be in the range of $1.78 to $1.98, up 9% to 21% from 2020's adjusted earnings of $1.64, that expectation is an increase from our prior view of $1.65 to $1.90, and we expect the first half of the year to contribute approximately 43% of 2021's earnings.
A few other outlook items.
Interest expense is anticipated to be approximately $16 million, while other expense is forecasted at [Phonetic] $8 million, both a bit better than our prior view.
We now expect capex to be approximately $50 million, down $5 million, average diluted shares of 51 million and cash conversion of over 100% are consistent with our prior outlook.
And lastly, we forecast a full year tax rate of approximately 30%.
However, we continue to analyze potential tax planning strategies to manage and reduce our overall tax cost.
To close, a very good start to 2021, supported by healthy orders for both segments.
With our focus on driving growth across the organization, we'll continue to invest in the business through capital expenditures and the funding of key strategic initiatives.
We believe that these investments will help us accelerate the recovery in our financial performance.
Leverage remains very manageable and should improve from this point, so the balance sheet can accommodate our approach.

user
q1 gaap earnings per share $0.38.
q1 sales fell 9 percent to $302 million.
2021 earnings per share outlook increased to $1.78 to $1.98.
now expects 2021 organic sales to be up 10% to 12%.
company forecasts 2021 capital expenditures of approximately $50 million.

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