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8881a9da0112e6e867cccd0f80e06262 | And just a follow-up on that, how much of your revenues, and I guess just maybe the recent quarters, have been from some non-M&A advisory businesses just from Cogent and from restructuring? I know it probably changes quarter-to-quarter, but if you kind of gave a range on that, that would be helpful. | I don't really want to go into more detail than that. I mean one of our competitors used to break out restructuring advisory unlike anybody does. So I guess Houlihan Lokey still does because, for them, it's such a large part of their the firm. But I think the other ones, the more M&A-oriented firms, I think have not do... | intermediate | [
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1fc4ebcb4e9c34922fc84930e0e58908 | Just wanted to dive into the MD headcount. So last quarter, you ended with 79 MDs. This quarter, it looks like you promoted five, and you're at 79 MDs currently. So is the delta there just retirement driven? And then as you think about 2020, are you still targeting? I think your target is about 10, plus or minus, net a... | Yes. Yes, I would say the target is roughly the same. I mean what happened in the fourth quarter in terms of sort of accounting for pluses and minuses and managing directors mostly was the number of people moving from managing director to senior advisor status, which is not a retirement move, but it's maybe a later-in-... | direct | [
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29c319749ae701a9b18d3b940ea296df | One, kind of just clean-up-wise, non-comp expense, if we kind of take this quarter, is $21 million; and back out the two items you broke out, it gets us to like $18.5 million. Is that kind of a reasonable base to build off of going forward? | Yes. I think that's pretty reasonable. We have, like a lot of firms who have taken a close look at all that stuff, in this year, we had, some years, you have a little bit of sort of foreign currency gains. Some years, some losses. This year, a flip from a gain to a loss. And we had something that's very unusual for us,... | direct | [
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f6fde1b7eca545b97291f233c32c6135 | And you had mentioned kind of capital advisory or the capital markets kind of having a strong quarter. And I know we're kind of used to looking at Cogent and kind of being guided, so it used to be close to $40 million a year of revenues. Can you resize that secondary business at all for us? Is it still kind of similar ... | No, it's definitely become meaningfully bigger. I mean I would say the first, we bought it, again, going back to sort of the way we structured the earnout that we originally put on the deal, we bought it on the basis that it would turn out to be an attractive transaction for us and they would get their earnout payment ... | direct | [
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c163d5e78339553f673e08b8e627c8aa | And kind of looking at the revenue outlook for 2020. When we look at kind of the visible transaction pipeline, which admittedly can be a dangerous past time, but if we kind of take out, really, the largest transaction that, at least, the companies don't think will close until early part of next year, we're looking at a... | Yes. And look, and I guess that was really the case for Q3 and Q4 as well, especially Q4 when expectations were so much lower than the reality. Look, I think it's a lot of things. I think there certainly are a lot of things we're working on that we have strong expectations for announcements that will lead to transactio... | direct | [
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3485d6e5e508546def54a3940a4a68de | The first question is, I guess, the tone around this call as well as for the peers this earnings season has been focused on Europe on the M&A front. Is there any dialogue that you've heard? Or can you talk about the client dialogue in the U.S. M&A environment, especially in light of the fact that the industry data for ... | Yes. Yes. I think the reason we and perhaps others speak of Europe more than the U.S. is, it has been a reasonably good environment in the U.S. for some years now, and we, at least, continue to feel, as I think a lot of our peers do, that it continues to be a pretty favorable environment in the U.S. We've got low inter... | intermediate | [
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66513d27bb7bde5bf2cd475b93b28160 | And then the final cleanup one is, in the past, you've given the interest income number for the quarter. I know it wasn't in this release. Is there any way you could size that for the quarter? | I would just call it trivial, really. We've tried over the years, I mean we used to, many years ago, be in the investment business in a pretty big way. And then for years, we broke out investment income, and then later, we changed it to interest income. I mean we're actually have become, over time, a very simple busine... | intermediate | [
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cde2a36accd3b1d55abb7ceab54362e8 | So my question is on the lead generation package side. So basically, we can see that, this year, the auto market has been recovering quite well in the second half, and if you look at our lead gen package in this year have not been any price hike. So, just wonder, if -- we are approaching the year-end and I think we are... | Okay. Let me take the question first, then I'd like to tell Mr. Haifeng to follow on the answers. It's the right time at every year to ask the question whether we are going to raise the price or not?
As you know, last year, we experienced the negative growth of the auto market. So we said that we are not going to rais... | direct | [
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9e547d77e61b26c5603f72978f89e87a | Mike, I have a follow-up question on the pricing for lead generation product. Can management give us more color on the details of the product, for example like, is the floating price model an add on these membership product or is a stand-alone product and where the dealers are -- can choose either of them? And also any... | Talking about your first question about the floating pricing model, it is not complicated. Actually, it's simple.
So basically, it's very simple, because, as we said, the auto market experienced negative growth and we have the COVID-19 epidemic. So based on this big picture, we are not going to raise up the price, but... | intermediate | [
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b9965fa110dab5a2e5491cca68c66f70 | Okay. I will translate myself. I still have a question, a follow-up question regarding the floating pricing model. So management just mentioned some customer already spend for such pricing model. So my question is based on the sales leads plus the track record for those customers, what's the initial view of management ... | I'll try to answer your question. I think floating pricing model actually is a testing of our ability to generate high-quality leads. You know in the past consecutive seven years to eight years, every year the pricing will go up by 20%. In 2019, there are some dealers who have some complaints and different opinions ove... | intermediate | [
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5df03da8d48cb38c39e924774fc5feb4 | I will translate the questions myself. Thank you for taking my questions. I have a question about the way [Phonetic] or how to generate more high quality leads for the future. So other than the methods, like for example the big data and also the technology behind the platform. So what about the new sort of used growth ... | Yes. To answer your question, we have already tried quite hard to go granule into the third tier or fourth tier, even fifth tier cities, by launching the light version of Autohome HP [Phonetic], which is very different from our [Indecipherable]. We will start more marketing and promotions of this light version HP [Phon... | direct | [
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9a91b993664cce3e98c640a51f29a0d1 | Hi, good evening. Thanks management for taking my question. Can you comment about the outlook about the industry, the pathway [Phonetic] momentum in 2021? | Now talking about the outlook of the market of 2021, we communicated with OEM and we also have our own observations. We believe that 2021 would be a growing market over 2020.
And we believe the growth can be around 6%.
However, if we compare next year with 2019, actually it still will be down.
We also see another tr... | direct | [
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3a5fe286b56416d943918323b514d6b7 | Good evening management. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two questions here. First one is a follow-up question on your data product. Could management help us to break down the data products revenue by OEM and dealers? And second question is about the used car market, as we noticed Autohome increased the investme... | Thank you. To answer your first question, actually for the matured product we have a different product targeting at OEMs and these pillars. They [Indecipherable] which is the Intelligent-based solution for OEMs and the [Indecipherable] which is smart-based solution is for the dealers. The ratio is between 50-50 maybe O... | direct | [
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5a2483f74c38eb163bccff3eefc4ea20 | Is the efficiency ratio -- Obviously, quite strong this quarter and you gave us the full-year outlook. Does that contemplate the additional costs layering in to the expense structure, or is that just the strong leverage on those seasonally good collections in Q1, how do we think about that? | Yeah, good question, Mark. Thanks. We're really focused on efficiency and I think our expenses are likely at a good run rate, where we sit now. So, that impact, as we go through the year, is really more of the second part of your premise, which is the seasonally high collections in the first quarter here. And that's re... | direct | [
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8656c22a97c242444207737cdb194565 | And Kevin, did you talk about collections on a monthly basis, and maybe a little insight around the month of April in thinking about the trend, or what does that expense level mean relative to collections? Are you still seeing strong results here early in 2Q? | I didn't share anything in this call. I would say that we've done that before. So, I'll go ahead and give you some insight to it. I mean, -- So, April looks pretty strong as well. So, April has got a good strong start to it. Well, it's over now, but... So, I would agree with you that April is still a little bit strong.... | intermediate | [
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d7f7441a13e2b340cf8c349d3519d5f9 | Yeah. And then, Pete, what's the formulation you used about purchasing and kind of rebuilding ERC or maintaining ERC? What was that, again? | Yeah. We're just trying to give some indication of, for lack of a better term, a replenishment rate. So, if you consider the average purchase price multiple for the book globally in the first quarter, you can do the math to figure out how much we'd have to buy in order to replace the amount of ERC that we projected to ... | intermediate | [
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e1332053663e7e200eee71fa83e4bfda | Okay. And then, just final question along those lines. Purchase multiples. I assume I'm not confused out, but purchase multiple, how do they compare to full-year 2020 in the important categories? | Pretty consistent. The table's in the press release. So, pretty consistent in U.S. Core, actually up a little bit in Europe Core. So, those are the two big categories that are going to be the drivers. | direct | [
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1af59c39985edde30923249fa9b6cee6 | So, I just wanted to follow up briefly on the benefits you've seen from digital. Do you expect to give any of those benefits back over the remainder of the year, or are those benefits that will persist and even grow into '22 and '23, gradually, of course? | I think digital is going to grow. | intermediate | [
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398c2d811bf2e4464e1f436ab4e75a32 | Okay, thank you. And then, one quick follow-up. Why the Australian market? What makes that attractive relative to your two larger markets? | No, it's just another market. It's a well-established market. I think I've shared in the past, but we've been looking to get into Australia. I -- I'll get -- I won't get this exactly right, but we set up a company somewhere around 2011, kind of a shell company down there, looking to get into there, and it just never ma... | intermediate | [
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b9c0cb6af0146ec316af4435088040b2 | Hi, guys, and thanks for taking the question. I mean, on -- First one, just a housekeeping question. The fee, income and other revenue, I mean, particularly the other revenue, was up a bunch. Was that just one of those kind of spikes from [indecipherable]. So, is that something that's changed there in terms of servicin... | Nothing real huge there. We -- During the quarter, we sold some of the PCI claims in the CCB business, just to kind of derisk the settlement in their portfolio. And that came through as other income. So, you kind of lock those -- I would lock those two together, but it's more an anomaly in the quarter as opposed to a r... | direct | [
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3c3f26896897d91b2db525b72015fe09 | Got it. And then, this one is a little obscure. When I look at your -- where the vision change in expected recoveries came, right, and I like the disclosures [Phonetic], obviously, a large revision -- net revision up in the U.S. and Europe. Americas insolvency was, I mean, basically net to zero, I mean, it's $41,000. A... | Yeah, it's really around what we've experienced during COVID. The insolvency portfolios really haven't had the same sort of shock as we've experienced in the core portfolios. And so, it's really just kind of normal variation that you're seeing there in the insolvency book compared to some real outsized performance vers... | direct | [
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91dd71c306980c220e70e3877f9288b2 | Got it, got it. Thank you. And I have one more, and this one is an unfair question. If I look at the cash efficiency ratio, if I were to take out, hypothetically, the $103 million in excess cash collections over and above what you were planning for in the quarter. Obviously, the cash -- I can calculate the cash efficie... | Yeah, I -- it's -- you've asked a question that's sort of unknowable. I guess what I would say is, in terms of looking forward, we think our expenses as we sit now, are kind of a good run rate. And there is a potential for us to have additional over-performance as we go through this year. And if we do, that will be -- ... | intermediate | [
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6098b6323362aca00ab2120799d44270 | I was wondering if you could just kind of give some rough guidance. I completely understand the expense level for legal is pretty much out of your control. But based on the last call, I think you guys said that 2021 expenses will be near two-thirds or so of 2020 levels, which would kind of -- it would definitely imply ... | No. I think, yeah, what we said last time was we expected in the second half of the year for expenses not to ratchet down dramatically, but start to step down as this look back completed -- is completed and as the securities class action is completed and then hopefully, some of the other matters start to wind down. So ... | direct | [
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8cdea28d4f4b3b54d3367f560a625d2d | Do you have any line of sight into -- opportunities to repurchase more advantage loans? I get that they're somewhat out of your control and the timing and windows of opportunity are pretty narrow. I'm just curious of if you see any kind of inconcrete moments over the next six months, so you could repurchase more? | Yeah, yeah. We are -- we finished one repurchase during the quarter. And you're right, they do take some time and documentation. It's kind of a complex operation. We have one more we're expecting in this quarter that is a somewhat larger than the one we completed in the first quarter. I think that was about $88 million... | direct | [
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6cb342c798594a4cf9bb80337e2ba154 | The selling of the Bellevue, Washington branch, I was kind of curious -- I get that it's not really your "footprint," and that it was a little bit more of a one-off. I'm just curious how that process went or anything you're open to talking about in sort of like a bid-ask? Or was it completely sold to one person -- or t... | Well, there's two parts of it. First is the motivation. And really, it is exactly as you said, the Bellevue, Washington branch had been fairly successful, but it was a single branch in a very, very remote market for our core business. We had some good business there, some very good employees. And so that's why we look ... | direct | [
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13b409ca98ec33261750f16c7e32f1b7 | On the liability side, can you remind us how much of the CD portfolio is expected to mature in the second quarter and your current offering rates there? | Yes, I can speak to that. Yes, we have CDs maturing in the second quarter of $474 million approximately, which is about a third of the CD portfolio. We're expecting those to reprice down pretty substantially, assuming that they choose to remain with the bank. A significant piece of that $474 million are our 12-month CD... | direct | [
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846d64e02e037f95112f729567ad40d1 | Do you anticipate loan demand ramping up in the coming periods? Or is it pretty likely to be consistent in the near term? | I think in the near term, it's going to look like the past -- the recent past. We spend an awful lot of time on going through the portfolios that we have and with the regulatory overhang, it's not exactly easy to ramp up. So we'll continue to meet the credit demand in the communities that we're in, but I wouldn't look ... | direct | [
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783b5e13d6aff60400d8f390813eac00 | A quick question on the cash balance, you still have a pretty elevated cash balance. I know that you have some CDs coming due and a purchase of advantage loan portfolio. Are there any other ways you're thinking about using the cash? | No. We had to build cash, Jeremy, because we weren't really -- there was no way to determine the level of advantage loans that we ultimately would repurchase. So we had to be prepared for all of that. And then whatever deposit flows happen to be, given some of the news that was coming out last year with the delayed qua... | direct | [
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d426ebf3bb03a73b47064689de881145 | When you buy back the advantaged loans, are you buying them back at par? Are these performing loans or nonperforming loans? | Well, we buy back the portfolios with the -- with those who're interested in taking us up on it. And the mortgage loan purchase agreement that we entered into at the time sets forth the formula for the repurchase. But it's basically such that we pay on the reduced principal balance, the premium that we were paid on the... | direct | [
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dcd4928603e0148a08b41c6813299faf | You were also looking at unload it to small portion of the resi portfolio. Has there been a lot of interest on that? And do you think you'll unload that a par at -- or I mean, at your mark rather than any sort of discount or -- | We yes, we marked them down. We marked about $22 million or $23 million of nonperforming advantaged loans to held for sale at year-end. And at the time, what I was saying is that we intend to sell them -- we just had so many things going on in the first quarter that I just didn't want to overload the system. So we had... | direct | [
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07ea716bc77bc5d37cf3b9c946562d73 | How hard did you try to find charge-offs this quarter? | We always try to make sure we're careful with that. But this one is a little bit more of a benign quarter than one might expect. But that's why I said in the press release, Anthony. We're going to have some. It's undoubtable. What other institutions may or may not face, who knows. But I think just given, especially the... | intermediate | [
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14519d3f7c138f1f25ed545e4c6fc815 | Now, that $72 odd million in allowance that you have, I assume a high percentage of that is allocated toward that worrisome portfolio. And if we had an increase in charge-offs, we wouldn't necessarily have a like increase in provision in the quarter? | Yes. No, as I mentioned, the credit quality has been pretty stable, which is -- and we had some recoveries in the allowance during the quarter. So that's why that really didn't move so much. I think that's a fair assessment, Anthony, that if we have deterioration or actually realized losses on some of the commercial an... | direct | [
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b9bec462b83c2dd311ca46f7ca3b42f9 | How big was the Bellevue branch? | Seventy million, Steve, $70 million?
Yes. I'd say $78 million in deposits. | direct | [
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ce6ffbbd184c9c167437b682001ebfb4 | Do you have a pretty good handle now? A good idea of where the -- what size this company will be by the end of the year? Or is that still a pretty moving target? | By the end of the year, that's probably a little harder to guess. Ideally, if you look at the structure of the retail distribution, in California, the number of branches, the product mix, and all that it's -- and the capital levels, you'd say, ideally, this is a low $3 billion balance sheet in my opinion. | direct | [
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573fb0d25ac4046df76b8c6aa9b87981 | Maybe just wanted to start with loan growth. It looks like you guys had some positive growth in the quarter, which is encouraging. I think the last quarter, you talked about the pipeline, had built to prepandemic, if not higher levels, kind of how should we be thinking about loan growth in '21 kind of based on what you... | Brad, this is David. We're currently budgeting a mid- to high single digits right now. And based on the pipeline that we have in place, that we believe is readily attainable at this point. The pipeline continues to be refreshed on a monthly basis. We're seeing good deal flow. And excited about the prospect of being abl... | direct | [
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e2da7b80ce6a384089559f9903ca9186 | OK. Great. And then, Allison, I noticed you took some of the liquidity that you had and maybe built out the securities portfolio a little bit more. With the loan growth that you have coming, do you think you're finished there? Or might you use some of the additional liquidity to add to securities? Or are there other op... | Yeah. So we're currently modeling that and seeing -- really, we got a lot of deposits in at the end of the year from the Main Street lending program. So we're really trying to evaluate how sticky those deposits are actually going to be. But I think after we'll reevaluate the liquidity position, once the effects of the ... | intermediate | [
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be64f4dac1a01ba305a60a902661ccab | OK. I think I heard Allison, you said that you thought the margin would kind of maybe modest compression, but it would be sort of manageable in your view over the near term? | Yeah. We -- so core net interest margin for Q4 was 4.21%, which declined 7 basis points from Q3. Again, the majority of that was due to compression in loan yields, which decreased 10 basis points linked quarter. We still expect to see some release on cost of fund side as 22% of our higher rate CDs are going to reprice ... | direct | [
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8f1e3d84e05898ff86987332e7f47553 | So I wanted to take a closer look at the loan growth that occurred during the fourth quarter, excluding the PPP forgiveness. Was there any particular portfolio segments or geography that really drove the growth this quarter? Or was it more broad-based? | Woody, this is David. I would characterize it as more broad-based. All of our markets are performing very well. And so we're seeing activity throughout the state. And we're seeing some good opportunities that -- and new relationships that were kind of muted last year, to be honest with you, but there's no single cat lo... | direct | [
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cd41ef6875831d2ab62e8a111614eb39 | Got it. That makes sense. And then looking at the expense side, you mentioned in your opening remarks, you were going to continue looking at the branch optimization into 2021. I was just trying to figure out, do you think expenses could take a take a step down from the 4Q level? Or is that a pretty good run rate headin... | So I'm expecting our quarterly core non-interest expense to be consistent with what we saw in Q4 going forward. We made a lot of progress in 2020 through bridge optimization. And then reducing our redundancies related to our acquisitions. So I really think that allowed us to determine what our core run rate would be go... | direct | [
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761f7da4c0ee12f8a3c66b924bb7900a | OK. That's helpful. And then last from me. I understand the organic growth is a top priority at this point. But just was wondering if you had any thought -- updated thoughts around share repurchases, just with the stock trading around $11, $12 at tangible book value right now? | Yeah. So we've got an additional $6 million remaining to repurchase shares. We took advantage during 2020 by actively repurchasing our shares when our stock price was trading at a discount. However, now that we're trading above tangible book, we've tapered that off significantly, and it's not been as active. But again,... | direct | [
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c883637a9db6702ef9b9887f9eaecf7d | Of the remaining $3.3 million in PPP fees, can you give me an idea of when those will be recognized? | So I'm modeling those currently. Again, that's really dependent upon what the government decides to do, but I'm modeling those evenly throughout Q1 and Q2. | direct | [
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6eeccfe42ea1171acc1f062da3140e47 | OK. Yeah, that sounds good. And then with the Main Street lending program, it got extended in the -- like January 8, 2021. Are there going to be any more fees recognized through that? Or is that completely over? | We closed the last Main Street loan in the nation on January 4 or 5. And so that fee income would come into the first quarter. | direct | [
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93031cc52564a27df279626ae428afb8 | OK, thank you. Just one last one for me, actually. Can you give me an idea of what happened with the classified and watch list as of December 31? | Nothing significant. We're just continuing trying to work on that list of customers that was impaired and trying to get them off our books. | direct | [
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2043e195d396553d5cbb4d3dc7f2d493 | You mentioned an improvement in September at both brands and I think you said positive at one point in -- at Pollo. So just wondering if you could you give us some additional color in terms of the level of improvement there and if that continued into the quarter-to-date period? | Yeah. So just in terms of our overall trend in October, we can say that the trends -- that positive trends has continued. For Pollo Tropical we have outperformed the benchmark comparison on both the traffic and the comp sales basis. To date in October and at Taco Cabana we have outperformed the benchmark index on a tra... | direct | [
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7a9cc2c570cca8aec79c392c46e4f8fb | On Pollo, could you talk a little bit more about your recent approach to value. I know you've had some changes there and how you're thinking about the current strategy that we've seen recently versus any changes that may need to be made going forward? | Sure. Hey, Will, it's Rich. As the Pollo Time platform has been significant to the brand, it especially in difficult times, as we see right now in South Florida. As you know, we just announced a Naptrack, the year-to-date, the worst performing ADI is a tie, between Honolulu, Hawaii and Miami, Florida. So there is no do... | direct | [
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5e7e7deacf9c61eb5bd2a6c9f3f4500a | Exciting news to have the executive team filled out, welcome aboard. Excited to see what initiative and ideas you have. I realize it's early but was curious if you might be able to share some early thoughts on the brand and the portfolio brands, where you think there is opportunity? Anything that can give us a sense fo... | Sure, this is Dirk. So I mean, I think, I would say that, both Hope and I are really excited about, about the opportunities here. And I can't say enough about the quality of the management team. I mean, at a general level the strategies in the priorities that Rich laid out at the beginning of the call, it really are wh... | intermediate | [
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3e464c0e33a61738f7dd50b187c12527 | Curious on, any sort of investments or additions on your teams to help kind of make some those revenue optimization initiatives possible just trying to get a sense for the potential timeline of when we might be able to see a lot of these ideas come to fruition? | Sure, I'd say on the staffing front, not a material level of staff increases to -- I think to implement those strategies. We are evaluating bringing in a big data research firm to help us just run some of the analytic support behind that -- behind that effort, which a lot of the companies in the restaurant retail space... | intermediate | [
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5d7ab110041b838c89e0444368cb9696 | In terms of the opportunity to grow Pollo both in new markets and existing markets. Haven't followed the brand for a while now. We've seen some different opportunities over time where the brand has expanded outside of its core markets. Curious on what we've learned over those last couple of years in terms of doing rese... | Hi, it's Rich. That's what -- this heavy research going forward as it relates to the food, as to exactly what brand positioning we need to have in core, versus what brand positioning we need to have outside of core in Florida, as well as the brand positioning in other new markets. And that's to be determined and we'll ... | intermediate | [
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c1ae035136a4dc2b5c69a63a8bed93f2 | Excited about the 12 remodels at Pollo of this year. How much of the base needs to be touched after you go through these 12 remodels? And how should we be thinking about kind of the look-feel changes that will be going on, in this dozen or so units, is that consistent with what we've seen previously, are there some new... | Well, right now, again it's Rich. We're projecting for next year, probably about the same amount of remodels. We don't have the work done yet and what the new positioning, brand made or may not look like. So right now, it's just again about the same number about the same capital -- capex that we spend in the normal typ... | intermediate | [
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d14488f36789edd1e65459577a99e730 | I just wanted to circle back on Pollo Time and the TC Time. I know it's still early days at Taco Cabana there but could you elaborate on the sales mix that you're seeing in each brand within those programs? And do you think that that's the right balance on value for each in the current environment? | Sure. So in terms from a mix perspective, the Pollo mix is trending at about 12% of total revenue. And it's early days on Taco, we just launched in September. But the Taco mix is running at about half that 67% of the total mix. And I'm sorry, could you repeat the second part of the question?
I'm very comfortable to da... | direct | [
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3d09c24a70dd8231fd5653c12eca071f | And then on the commodity outlook, could you elaborate a little bit on the contracts that are in place over the key proteins, looking into 2020. | Sure. So I mean at broad level, we locked in about 80% of our total commodity complex for the year. We're pretty happy with that, I think we're actually little bit ahead of schedule from where we've been in prior years. And as we said, we're looking at pretty stable year-over-year costs as we look out through 2020. | intermediate | [
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8cee89c32d215ef1b28fcd5e08f08d91 | Great. Thanks for taking my question. Good morning and congratulations on the performance in '20. I guess, first question is, could you just provide an update maybe on spot pricing in electrodes and needle coke? Obviously there has been a nice improvement as you referenced in steel pricing and utilization rates. Have y... | Sure, Arun. Thanks for your question and your interest in the company. So, as I referenced earlier, there is a lag, but we believe that as we've transferred through the -- into the first quarter, once pricing is bottoming out and volumes have started to pick up, so we're -- that's why we're optimistic about 2021. We th... | intermediate | [
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ec3b57c6da8faf7c53345ccf54ef9780 | Okay. And thanks for that. And I guess, a couple more so. I guess, in the past, you'd referenced some months of inventory still in the industry on the electrode side. How would you size the inventory position now with your customers? I think, in the past, you'd referenced something in the six-month range. Is that still... | Sure. One of the reasons you have the lag is because people work down inventory as there -- before they start placing new orders obviously as they see shifts to be sure that the market is continuing in that trend. So we are seeing that that inventory has been worked down significantly and approaching as we -- the stock... | intermediate | [
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dcc9cd86f8e19618abc0bbf54047e651 | Okay. Great. And then, I guess, just looking ahead then, you've laid out the LTA volumes that you expect for the next couple of years. What do you expect -- as far as maybe some of the merchant and spot volumes, how do those evolve through the year? Do you see a scenario where maybe in '22 you'd get back to kind of you... | So we're optimistic about the spot order book to be sure. I don't think today that we would be brave enough to be trying to predict what 2022 is going to bring. But we are certainly optimistic as we go through this current year and see a sizable increase in the amount of spot business that we do in 2021 compared to wha... | intermediate | [
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064dfed6a9df8721ac053d84c879bfda | Okay. And then just lastly for me, when you think about the uses of cash, I guess, in '21, deleveraging was obviously a focus in '20, but maybe you're in a slightly better position to return capital to shareholders in 2021, I guess. Is that the case? And maybe Quinn, you can just layout kind of how you're seeing priori... | Yes. So, as we noted in our comments, Arun, I mean, first and foremost, I think we will focus on making the appropriate investments in our business, maintain our high quality assets, continue to invest in high return projects, anything that would improve our operations and have a high return. And as I mentioned, we pla... | direct | [
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0362413de8e58aca7bfbf66e4fced54f | All right. Great. Thanks for taking my questions. I think Arun had hit a lot of them. But I just want to follow-up on the capital allocation policy, drill down a bit further on the philosophy there, the last comment. Obviously substantial progress in reducing debt levels and what was obviously a challenging year. And o... | Yeah, sure. David, thanks for that. So the way I would characterize it is, we do quite a bit of discussion at the management level, at the Board level on an ongoing basis, as you know, as we've discussed before. And with regards to the target debt level, we have -- and fairly consistent, we have been very consistent in... | intermediate | [
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c1cc0e2324c7b1e223c8e0f15b44975e | Okay. Understandable. I think though, if one did the basic math on kind of run rate cash generation and apply that to the outyears if GrafTech shifted to a sort of a -- even a 50-50 capital allocation, probably similar to the one in 2019. You would be effectively below 1.5 times leverage on a normalized EBITDA of $500 ... | No, Dave, I think it's just -- I think you're spot on. I think, we could drop down below, again, the 2 times and be comfortable with that. And as I noted, we continue on an ongoing basis to discuss at the management and Board levels and we'll continue to assess and when the right time is to shift to return more cash to... | direct | [
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b380fc5924bdab02c63184bae9d4242e | Okay. That's perfect. Thanks. And then, just one last one for me. Short-term, can you just give us a little more color on your -- given that we're five weeks into the first quarter on your volume expectations for the first quarter. That's it from me. | Sure. Thanks, David. I think, as we came out of the fourth quarter, which was a good quarter for us, we saw some late LTA improvement as people were trying to clean up some obligations, which we were appreciative of. And as we move into the new year, we start the cycle. Again, I think we'll see an increase in some of t... | intermediate | [
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14b014991d62f2ba4aad5f09dd91c84f | Yeah. Good morning, Dave and Quinn. Thanks for taking my question. Most of them were already asked. But I do have a couple. Firstly, you talked about the priority being reinvesting in the business, capex remains relatively low. And obviously you have excess capacity in your current operations in St. Marys. Are there ca... | Alex, I think this is a sustainable level of capex. With the best vision we have today in the market that we're servicing, certainly I can tell you, we don't have any visions of anything that would take us to a number that's over a $100 million as you suggest. But we do remain flexible in terms of, if there was an oppo... | direct | [
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6622cb7482a212003a0061f8a0a2e4f5 | Thanks so much. And then, the second question. I'm asking this question at least 12 months too early. But philosophically, do you see yourself wanting to sign long-term contracts again as we approach the end of -- in 2022, when the original five-year contracts are going to start rolling off. Do you see yourself wanting... | Sure, Alex. Look, I think one of the things that we're particularly proud of and I think that provides GrafTech a leg up because we do offer a variety of ways in which to do business with us. And because of our vertical integration, we're the only one that's capable of providing the longer-term contracts in a sustainab... | intermediate | [
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943f1a27032c6203389277f9239c1f60 | Start with warehouse automation. When do you expect to be able to get back into your customers' facilities? Just curious if we should see any meaningful revenue ahead of this year's holiday peak shipping season, or is that benefit likely to get pushed out to calendar 2022? | I think it's a combination of both. We're expecting strong results compared to last year, but we don't expect to get every last dollar out during the next six months. The fact of the matter is places like Canada haven't opened up their borders. We have some foreign installations that we'd like to get to, as well, that ... | intermediate | [
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a50fa143f8bdd815c9c0e75c1c73195a | Helpful. And then, I was going to ask, and you commented on it already, but the pickup in higher-margin product ID sales, we're hearing a fair bit of increased optimism in the general industrial front. So maybe if you can just provide any additional color there? | Sure. We saw a pretty good intake of inks, the largest consumable part of our product identification business, which bodes well and is reflective of what's going on in the economy. That is very, very helpful to our bottom line, but is indicative of the general economy that we see. PID, the product identification produc... | direct | [
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b0e7e9066209214416288be7f9fcc4d7 | And then, energy storage obviously seeing momentum building. Can you just maybe update us on how the market's evolving and remind us who you're competing with in that arena? | So the market is evolving very, very, very rapidly. Our position in the market is somewhat unique today. I mean, we don't expect to remain the only unique solution that's out there. But I would tell you that we have years of head start in a lot of these opportunities that we're dealing with.
The process really begins ... | intermediate | [
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86ef4222647c6ef222253ef55d991644 | Very helpful. Last one for me, memorialization. Just can you talk about your expectations for funeral home products volumes for the quarter relative to what you experienced in March? Just want to make sure we are sizing it correctly. | Yes. That is probably the biggest unknown. I mean, as you know, Daniel, we have a lot of forecasting ability when it comes to large contracts in PID or warehouse or energy or SGK. We've got some visibility. But when it comes to caskets, it's almost a two-day backlog. So it's not like you have a lot of visibility.
Our ... | intermediate | [
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af3474a98ae1afc3de295c3e11d594b6 | Joseph, I mean, it's pretty clear that your casket sales will start normalizing sometime this year. Could you give us a sense as to the margin trade-off with, call it, deferred marker or memorialization product sales and the pickup in cremation? | Well, it's difficult, but let me make sure I understand. You're asking me what is the margin differential between the incremental memorialization sales derived from the pandemic? Is that the question?
No. What I was suggesting is you've generated very nice EBITDA margins in the second quarter. That's driven by higher ... | intermediate | [
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5930e0294c57455e59123f7e7c71d8c0 | Sure, I understand that. And if I look at the deferred cemetery product sales, are you still looking at as much as a two-year backlog there? Or you're reporting good sales numbers recently. Is that time frame coming in less than the two years that you originally talked about? | So we have an estimate that our total revenue that has been deferred, or the incremental revenue associated with it, could be better than $40 million worth of cemetery-related products. We're seeing some of that starting to ramp up now. Generally, this is a pretty good quarter for us in that business because of Memoria... | direct | [
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6acee0498c8d40d2a3555851b5e5058b | Great. And just one more on SGK. You said that the CPG, or the consumer packaging business, is stable, you're adding accounts. Could you give us a sense of if you're expecting growth out of that business now looking into the second half of the year? And do you expect any contribution from private brands? | So that's a two-part question. The first part of that, on the CPG side, what we're seeing out of CPGs today is let's wait and see what happens to retail to understand what they have to do. They've gone through a fair amount of innovation during the pandemic. I mean, as you look across the shelves, sanitation products a... | intermediate | [
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5f58a65205ed17163067183222793ddc | Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my question, and congratulations on the quarter. I just had a relatively simple capital structure question. You've paid down a lot of debt over the past 12 months. And you have, at this point, relatively high coupon for where you sit on that steps down toward the end of the year. Are you con... | So Austin, when you say the high coupon, you're referencing our bonds, correct?
Yes, the bond is callable. I mean, everything else is on the revolver, right?
Understood, yes. So right now, we're not looking at the bond in terms of calling it anytime soon. I do know that our bonds are trading above par today. It does ... | direct | [
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27d189acac61862cbadb0d6ebf6b64b2 | SG&A to gross has been getting incrementally better in recent quarters and it was very strong in 2Q as well. Can you maybe talk a little more about the specific actions you are taking there and where do you see that number growing to over time? Do you think about the mid-to-high 50s is kind of the limit or can it get e... | Well, we certainly feel like the topline can continue to grow at a healthy rate. So that's going to help with that ratio. And then in addition to that, we do expect to continue to see some improvements on the credit loss line. We're working hard, we're running the play at a higher level and our operations team focused ... | intermediate | [
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11f5af76dbdb9f4ddabc34aa721308bb | And can you just remind us what percentage of your SG&A is fixed versus variable? | Most all of our SG&A is going to be fixed. I think a large -- majority of our cost are salaries are benefit related, but almost all of our costs are fixed in nature. So incremental volumes are extremely important to us. | direct | [
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187fe8b268db9972410abcd66ae97b59 | And then, can you maybe give us some details on the sales cadence through the quarter? Was it kind of an even growth throughout or were there any particular month that was stronger or weaker than other? | No it was a pretty solid quarter, pretty consistent between months. | direct | [
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999f2b7a64cdad7b6a4b1ecdb18e3c1c | As we think about kind of the change in unit volume growth over the past couple of quarters versus seeing a nice improvement and rebound this quarter, can you just give us a little bit more as to kind of what the bigger drivers of that are? Are you seeing benefits from the online credit app or the digital inventory? I ... | Yeah, it's a combination of all the things you mentioned. It does start with inventory, and we've made a good push to improve the quality of inventory and also increase the volumes of cars we have at our dealerships, so we're working hard to get titled on display units out front and that's attracting more traffic to ou... | direct | [
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9736b32c37d0176ba56569ce6eb7c2a5 | You've talked a bit about the procurement process and maybe working a bit more with some of your larger wholesalers to source higher quality inventory, maybe kind of reduce some inventory costs and so on. If you can give us an update on where things stand with that and the potential to see an improvement in the coming ... | Yeah. We've made some good progress with procurement efforts. We are looking at leveraging our size more than we have in the past, sourcing from maybe a few less sources but holding those sources more accountable, creating partnerships through the chain. And so we've got a lot of good things going on with the procureme... | intermediate | [
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6acf9ff6c32994f494d7b9f8e00de259 | When you think about kind of the repossession process with the car consumer defaults, can you give us a sense -- how much do you typically going to an auction in order to kind of liquidate the asset versus and maybe scrapping the car and going through that channel or something else? | Well almost all of our repos are going to be run through the auction. We don't do anything straight to salvage. Most of our repos are processed and sold at auction. | direct | [
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dd3227456437ed512a6a6ff1465ab713 | Jeff, just to follow-up on the last question, most cars get repossessed and then sold at auction. But there's got to be a percent, I mean I always remember you talking about a good percent hitting or going for scrap value. Is there a rate of cars that don't hit minimums in the auction lanes, where there's no bid that t... | Yeah, that's going to be fairly minor. I think our average sales price with wholesales at this point is around $2,000. So there are a few in that average that are at the $200, $300, 400 range, but I don't think that's a big piece of our puzzle. | intermediate | [
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43afada0a1b8b7f4bdf1285bbd30b290 | You've always talked about reduction in used car values as being a positive, right. You can put a better car on the live, get consumers and some manage [Phonetic] probably more mechanically sound, which obviously is really the number one reason why people would, you'd have to repossess a car if it stopped running. So, ... | Yeah, I think the positives far outweigh the negatives. As you say, when prices are going down, it gives us a chance to put our customers in a better car for the same money. So it's a very good thing for our business. There is a -- you might say, there might be a slight negative as far as short-term recovery rates, but... | direct | [
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93c7ace103ddfad23fe5d580e162c5f7 | And then just to clarify, the duration numbers that you gave Vickie, I think it was 32.3 months total weighted portfolio term versus 32.1 last year. Is that correct? | Yes, 32.3 this year, 32.1 last year. | direct | [
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683c07723a84872fa3f7f36ff3c4a26f | And then any comments on CECL? Whether or not you're going to implement it? What you see happening to the allowance under CECL scenario? | Sure. The CECL scenario should not result in any significant change to our financials. We already provisioned for our entire portfolio through the term, especially with our term being a little shorter. So we're not expecting a financial impact. There will be some additional disclosures, once we do adopt it. | direct | [
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18bf8d6ad07e1a4b15dbffbeccd402da | In terms of the same-store sales acceleration in the quarter, I know you touched on an increase in inventory as well as some of the sales initiatives you were talking about. But I think it'd be helpful if you could comment on the overall competitive environment as well? | Yeah, we -- competitive environment has been pretty, pretty stable for quite a while now, we're not seeing any positives or negatives to speak of on the competitive front and the improvements we are seeing internally is really efforts that we put in place within the company to carry more product with title, better prod... | direct | [
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5112a52373ee33fd6148274286de3115 | Just in terms of credit, obviously it sounds like you guys are putting a better car out there, and just -- just weighing macro factors, the health of your underlying consumer as well as your accelerating growth and the fact that you've had improving credit for numerous quarters, just can you give us an outlook from whe... | Well, I think that we've got a couple of factors here. One, the increasing selling price that we've been dealing with. So we may have to at some point, make some term adjustments. But I think overall, with the quality of the car we're putting out there and the service that we're talking about for this customer after we... | intermediate | [
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e177fe1fd9aa23a74fe0754218cc8c7a | You mentioned the improved quality of inventory aiding traffic as well as sales for the company. How do you feel about the inventory mix heading into this quarter versus where things stood heading into the last quarter, I know the overall level of inventories is higher quarter-over-quarter, but how would you say that y... | We feel like the mix and the quality is improving -- improving quickly and we feel like it's in better shape today than it was a year ago and will continue to get better as we move forward. | intermediate | [
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968cff8f7690884c746296246805ebe1 | In the press release, you also mentioned the dealership in Chattanooga, Cabot, as well as one coming on at some point in Edmond. Can you give us a sense as to the time horizon we should be thinking about those coming on and opening up? | Yeah. We're looking at the fourth quarter for Chattanooga and Cabot. And we're still a little new with the Edmond at least to have a time specified yet, but all three of those dealerships are going to be very good for us and we're trying to get those open just as quickly as we can. | direct | [
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6b7f6f2a6a759d877bc736f6c40d2f4c | Obviously, you've talked about how the bench of managers will play an impact in terms of the longer-term outlook for dealership openings. How do we think about maybe calendar 2021 and where you think the bench is now and the ability to kind of open dealerships beyond the ones that you've talked about now? | Yeah. Our bench is getting stronger. Our training efforts are very good and getting better. And so we feel like we're on a good track to have a bench of qualified folks to run dealerships and we're getting closer in that area. We do plan to open a few dealerships a year, but when we open a dealership, it's going to be ... | intermediate | [
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fde5d3a71a9029c97f21c06ef801c014 | Obviously as we think about the rise in the average selling price, should we think that that's predominantly driven by the increase in repeat customers and kind of going up the credit spectrum a little bit for the right customer, how much is that really playing a factor? I know it's an initiative that you've had, but a... | Well, our repeat business is increasing. And we know that what we offer consumers is a better financial deal than they might get down the street with a longer term and a higher interest rate. So we're really trying to educate our markets about the financial benefits of a Car-Mart transaction and it is making deals [Pho... | intermediate | [
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3c6ce4b68fc46448a864576c5776930e | Scott, maybe talking about industrial first. In terms of your revenue guide for Q4, it came in at the lower end. And last quarter, you said you expected a pickup in sequential orders. What you did see, just focusing on downstream for a second. Obviously, your Q1 assumptions for downstream are still quite muted. So can ... | Sure. So in down. So for -- let's start with Q4, what happened in downstream. So we had a difficult compare year over year. Last year in Q4, our downstream business was up about 50%. So this year, you see a in a fairly significant drop in orders as a result of the difficult compare. If you look at industrial overall ex... | direct | [
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84d08ad69da5bb82721cca0cc0d44e9d | Thanks. Got it. And then you were maybe a similar question for Defense. You're pretty confident coming into '21, at least when you're talking last quarter, it seems like some of these projects and programs are pretty lumpy. So you're talking about Q1 being down here. So I guess my question, has anything changed? Is it ... | So the -- in our defense business, as you know, we can get very lumpy orders. We can get orders $10 million, $15 million, $20 million in defense that fundamentally will change the nature of a quarter. We did see some big orders push from Q4 on the navy side into the first half of 2021. What you see on the navy spares p... | direct | [
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dc58885749fc1bab9d6944f7db8874dc | Thanks, Scott. And then last question for Abhi. Obviously, good cash flow in Q4. Maybe just talk about the working capital situation. You mentioned improvement in inventory further improvement expected in '21. So maybe give us a little bit more color on that, sort of what's the potential on the working capital side to ... | Yeah, absolutely. So look, as you think about 2020, and we've been talking about throughout 2020 is that we have opportunity on the working capital side, specifically in inventory. So if you look at 2020 on a year-over-year basis, we drove about $6 million of inventory out. That said, we have further work to go do. So ... | intermediate | [
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d8f0dca79aa229dbc076ccd393060fc5 | So I think the biggest variance in the framework versus my model is industrial. And I just thought given kind of how easy the comps are, we'd see more growth, and I understand some markets are maybe turning faster. But just want to get a better sense of beyond the downstream discussion, what you're seeing in some of th... | Yeah. I think -- so let me start. For industrial specifically, we're seeing some pieces of that business lead in terms of recovery. We saw it in Q4, and we're expecting that to continue in Q1. So the industrial orders were up about 12% sequentially in Q4, and we're expecting they're going to be up again rough order of ... | direct | [
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edc7069758a1d056d9aacb96a4b67dc1 | OK. Great. And then on aerospace, defense, your guide for the full year is low to mid-single digits. Is there a way to break out how you think about commercial growth versus how you think about defense growth? | Sure. Yeah, we can do that. So we when you look at commercial, we're expecting a modest recovery as build rates start to improve and have been announced to improve and as aircraft utilization starts to improve. So we -- when we look at our commercial business, it was down along with the whole market significantly in 20... | intermediate | [
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ae419b6ebb4b11d392ede0458f5b53ae | So they're both kind of in that low to mid-single band? | That's exactly -- yeah, that's right. Keep in mind, as we progress through the year, the comps in commercial Aerospace get pretty easy too. So you may start to see that growth come through, which kind of ties back to the guidance we laid out. And a lot of this is linked to specific platforms. We're seeing good growth i... | direct | [
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ce3a69c1492215614cca161c242ff764 | OK. And then just on the cost side, how do we think about -- I don't know if I missed this in the prepared remarks, but how do we think about temp costs coming back? | Yeah. I can answer that question. So before I answer that question, let me set the stage a little bit just so that we can all be on the same page here. But if I think about 2020, right, we talked about the $45 million of cost out. There are three pieces to it. There's a $20 million piece to it, which is structural. Now... | direct | [
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b7b0aa90e7facfcf7306f69e912f5db9 | I think quite a bit of the inflation in the system here recently. Can you guys talk about price cost? Are you able to pass this through? Are you able to pass it through quickly? And what's the assumed contribution from pricing in the revenue guidance this year? | So on -- we'll start with the -- your inflation question. So we are -- I think the way to think about inflation for CIRCOR, let me start by what we buy. It's rare that we're buying raw commodity. We're almost always buying components and parts that we're assembling. And so when you think about our businesses, in genera... | direct | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | A |
8d851f081b837b3711c4bb987de414ff | Hearing about some supply chain shortages, some supply chain disruptions. Can you guys talk about anything that you're seeing out there? And any mitigating factors that you're undertaking? | So at this point in time, we're -- all of our factories are up and running at the levels of demand. So we're not experiencing any meaningful disruption. Of course, we have some shortages here and there that we manage day-to-day, but there's nothing meaningful like we saw a few times last year. So the world seems to hav... | direct | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | A |
1305027f5919ecedf7695940110b9b64 | Why doesn't Loews purchase the outstanding public shares of CNA? What is the benefit of maintaining CNA as a public company? | So right now, we believe that the public float in CNA, while small, is a very, very important for a number of reasons. First of all, it provides transparency. Transparency for credit agencies and regulators, which I think they value very much and they like seeing a public stub for CNA. No. 2, it's a barometer for all L... | direct | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | A |
47da0670630d53e84937ae07c8baf894 | What has been the impact of the coronavirus on Loews Hotel business? | So at this point in time, it hasn't had much of an impact at all. Yes, the virus is affecting areas like China and Asia dramatically, but we haven't seen so much of an impact here in the United States. Our hotel people are continuing to monitor the situation. In terms of inbound travel to Loews Hotels from China, repre... | direct | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | A |
434709975f38db6b0eb6146f7647dfd7 | What's the role of Diamond in the Loews portfolio? | So Diamond may have a big impact, in a GAAP sense, on our Loews' results. But our downside is really limited to our stake in the company which today represents less than $1 per Loews Corporation share. I would say that the current share price diamond is really trading more like an option than it is like a stock. Regard... | direct | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | A |
1df8794899e9e0c86d46e42f6e58058a | I was wondering, if maybe we can start with the thought process around the guidance for fiscal '21. You sort of had a COVID impact just for 1Q and so forth, wondering if you can sort of talk about that for a little bit? Is there potential obviously with where cases are, could there be an impact to 2Q that you would the... | Sure. Thanks Shneur. In terms of estimating the COVID impact as we enter the fiscal year, as you point out, it has sort of a differential impact on different customer segments or demand segments in our business. Without a doubt we see incremental demand in the cylinder segment, have seen it since the beginning of the p... | intermediate | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | B |
4c0e9b67dbe3d225b746860a53e724ea | And then just to transition a little bit here, when I sort of think about your guidance for this year and I sort of think about where your capex might end up. Obviously your EBITDA is going up, which changes your leverage calculation. But at the same time, it appears that you're going to be net free cash flow positive,... | Sure I'll comment briefly, and then I'll certainly let Ted comment as well. Fundamentally, we're fortunate to have the cash generation capabilities across our businesses that we have. So as you noted, that puts us in a really strong position in terms of being able to address the priorities, which for us are in the shor... | intermediate | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | B |
1318814d851feba6b487433e001f8f48 | Perfect. Really appreciate that. And maybe just a couple of small clarifications; if you can remind us -- first of all, like you changed the 15 year weather to 10 year weather. If I remember correctly, from a prior call, that was about a negative $0.04 impact, little more sort of comparing apples-to-apples. And you've ... | Shneur, this is John. Just on the weather, you're right on the weather impact. On the third quarter call, we talked about that change, and it was roughly $0.04. On your question on the transformations, there will certainly be through FY '21 and into '22, additional charges related to those transformations because they'... | direct | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | A |
cb7862c26b352e9f8a4e1457a2c24ffd | Yeah that's what effectively what I was trying to figure out. Like I knew you have to spend some money on it, what was classified as capex versus opex. And I saw that in your slides, I was just trying to -- wondering if that was kind of like a negative on that incorporated into your guidance, that you're assuming these... | We would remove that opex from -- so we're adjusting for that one-time investment, right, and once we've made those investments, we will no longer be making adjustments for it. I mean, these are onetime non-recurring investment costs, right, that are made up of capital and opex and the opex portion we're pulling out. | direct | [
"direct",
"intermediate",
"fully_evasive"
] | A |
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