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b75cd43533488565a3c16e75433ef162
Wonder if you could talk a little bit -- give some more color about Q2 and how Q3 has started? I believe last quarter you mentioned that April was down more than -- a little bit more than 20%, May was down 20%. How did June finish up? And how is that trending into July?
Sure. So sequentially through Q2, as we thought, May was the valley, April was down in the sort of 20-ish, May was down in the upper-20s and June was down in the lower 20s, averaging out to give or take down 23% for the Q. Sequentially, July is is better than June. And as we progressed through Q3 and into Q4, every mon...
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A
7b647fa46b94ee6281318af15ddefab2
I wonder if you could talk a little bit about as you've seen economies reopen, I know last quarter you were hopeful that casinos would have some big improvements as some get the approval to open. I wonder if you could talk about casinos, but as well -- but also, what verticals did you start seeing some nice recovery in...
Sure. On the good news verticals, and I mentioned a few, but I'll throw in a couple of others. Services recovered nicely, that's mostly attorneys. I didn't mention those earlier. Education has been a real star work for us as it appears that there's just a lot of confusion around what's going to happen in the next few w...
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4a31e4b5dbe454c3c3b1caa02be476fa
Good morning, everyone. Nice to see the progress and the continuing progress on Soma. As you think about the marketing that you've put in place to elevate the styling and product at Chico's and White House black market, how do you see the path of top line and margin evolving there? And can you just give us any further ...
Yes. Good morning, Dana. First of all, let's address the apparel. You know, our turnaround strategies are on track and we're not simply bouncing back from COVID. We are retooling a company that had six years of declines in -- specifically, the apparel brands and we are being methodical and strategic about that. So, the...
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2234a6675cc49891d7e8c22543997330
Hi. Good morning. Nice to see the improvement in the business. I was curious if you could talk about the margins and how you view them longer term. It looks like the gross margin guidance put you a little bit below 2019 gross margin levels. So, I'm curious if you think you can get back to those '19 levels, or would you...
Thank you, Susan. The biggest factor for margin as you look back in the many years has been our over-purchasing and having too much inventory and having to be too promotional. So, we are very disciplined in how we are managing, in particular, our apparel margins. As, you know, when we look at this that we are in the mi...
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7b4cb3b50ec0538778121f8afa0cb84b
Great. And then just on the inventory levels, it looks pretty lean across the brands. It sounds like maybe there was even some more demand than you have supply. Can you maybe talk about those areas where you wish you had more inventory and then also, are there still some areas that remain high maybe in the more fashion...
Sure. The apparel product that's selling indicates optimism and excitement. Actually, our customers are emotionally responding to color print and novelty. They're very -- had a very high level and we see strong categories are in woven and dresses, also with strong business across bottoms, in the denim pants, and short ...
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508740d25750154c03149d31a931c457
Great. That sounds good. And then if I could just add one last one. I assume you saw the sales accelerate throughout first -- as what you went throughout the first quarter. I'm curious if that momentum continued into second quarter or if you've even seen it accelerate as more and more people get vaccinated and people a...
Yes, Susan, that's exactly what we are seeing. In particular, you know, the -- our -- the two apparel brands, in particular, are for women. You know, we don't have a teen business, so in comparison to other retailers, you have to look at how the woman is spending her time and how she was vaccinated. And you saw it both...
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ace1928381ddf7e840f03a1917cd19e1
Hey, guys. Congrats. Great improvement. I guess a couple of follow-ups in some of the questions. Could you talk a little bit about some of the delivery delays? I know White House was having some issues, and so -- I think it was in the fourth quarter. Could you talk a little bit about the impact it had to the brands in ...
Yes. Deliveries, yeah. I think every single one of us has been tried to a supply chain challenge and unfortunately, we are not out of that yet. It's been a whole host of different challenges that we have -- we've experienced whether -- and none of it actually has been factory-related. Our factories and our deliveries h...
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2b06f47c2065b814bf48e002cf532c15
Sherry, obviously the situation in Trinidad is very fluid. And I was wondering if there's been any change in Trinidad from the end of the quarter to where we are currently? Any difference, any, any change in that situation?
There has been a slight easing of the restrictions on the sale of goods in our clubs because the government released an amendment to their order that is now allowing us to include things like construction products and hardware and paper and school supplies and essential things for business to be able to continue functi...
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0ad99be0ffc288819cb3c30133ff723a
Okay. Okay. To the extent that maybe things open up again and with oil prices up and Trinidad being a energy-sensitive country, do you -- would you see maybe some improvement in the illiquidity situation, the conversion situation, would you see that improving a little bit?
Well, generally speaking whenever there's improvements to an economy, one would expect that that would lead to some improvement in terms of liquidity. But I -- Michael, I think you might be able to provide a better answer to that. Yeah, we're seeing very positive signs in this calendar year, especially versus the end ...
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b176403abab6df99c7e4bcb024541e60
Okay. Sherry, one last question. This year you've spent heavily on technology, on people and to improve that piece of your business. And certainly I expect you to continue to invest in that area. But will the pace of spending ease a little bit? Could we possibly see some leveraging of those costs next year compared to ...
Well, the approach we're taking to our spending is to make sure that we are investing appropriately to build the capacities we need. We've already seen the benefits of for example certain technology tools that have been developed for us and how that has really protected us especially in this very volatile environment a...
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d1b5126046a5d8105f311052728834df
I had two, one on sports betting, and then one on cost. But on sports betting, you talked about that to start the year, Mary. As you look at the size of the category today, how much runway do you have as more states legalize betting? Is that going to be a top five category over time, and has the growth of the category ...
With regard to the category it's still -- it still remains to be seen. There are handful of states that are legal at this point, not even half the states. And we have a terrific footprint in many of those Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Michigan. And as I said, we think there is upside as it relates to how big, I think it doe...
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14fb536b66758b6feb74a2f5fd2f35c9
You indicated that you plan to take out additional costs. I'm just following up on John's question, can you give us a sense of where those costs are being cut at this point?
Hi, Michael, it's Frank. Well Mary talked about some of the areas in her answer and what we're focusing. I'll first start by saying that this is a continual process for us. In our third quarter earnings call, we went through a very specific cost exercise. In the middle of the summary, she indicated that our run rate ex...
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e9adb5331f2cf769b27c93582bdda8fe
And in terms of political last year, what -- I know that a lot have got -- a lot of radio station capped Bloomberg money and so forth. Can you give us a sense of what political was on a pro forma basis for Q1 last year?
Last year, Q1 was a little bit over $4 million.
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5644bbad66c0cb5ca6a6e8a7ab68f9c2
And then in terms of the -- you indicated that pacing so far is down 20%. Can you give us a sense of what that is versus network, local, national?
We won't give you the specifics and breakdown, but I would say that the network is -- the network and national are doing better than local at this point. And that's a pattern that we saw toward the second half of last year.
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3f18b061df6006b4daf912d48839424b
In terms of just the general economies of your markets, I mean -- can you -- this a sense of what -- are there specific areas of the country that is performing better than others. I mean to kind of give us a sense of the geography of what's happening?
Well it's interesting. Last year, we saw a fairly consistent but narrowing gap between our PPM markets and our dairy markets, as we're going into the first quarter that gap has narrowed, which is nice. I think part of that could be the fact that our PPM markets are not -- and exclusively but not generated -- they're no...
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6e9583bfc1b3670021e02528fa9b6f1a
Got you. And I know that advertising appears to be booking later and later. Is there any indication at this point, people booking into the second quarter at this time? Do you have any thoughts on how that's shaping up?
No, no, it's -- listen, I mean obviously we did get some monies from the upfront for our network, which we always get. But in terms of flows at this point to make any representation in the second quarter, it's still way too early and as Mary talked about, March is going to be interesting because we had a very robust fi...
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a0418193bafdc8ca51c0d6e206cd2bb6
Got you. And then just on the sports betting, on the relative size of the sports betting category for you last year, would it -- where would it rank like -- would it rank in the top 25 at this point or is it just really very small at this point?
It was -- it's an emerging space for us and it certainly was not in the top 10.
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5b860c1da3a8018fad7c77acf1849c78
The first one is just around some of the categories that were more heavily impacted by COVID-19 last year, travel, entertainment, hospitality, what percentage of revenue was that for you guys in 2019? And what are your expectations for that to recover this year?
Look, we don't give a breakdown in terms of what each of our individual categories are, not surprising when we looked in the first quarter, some of the categories most impacted, which are large categories for us are still under pressure and that includes entertainment, restaurants and automotive, but having said that, ...
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e2b6e3f6de8d555decd036c0b681b213
Got it. And then just around podcasting, I don't know if you can give us a sense of how big -- you mentioned us in the prepared remarks, but how big that is in terms of the overall digital bucket and we've seen a lot of podcasting assets exchange hands for multiples that are well in excess of where the market values yo...
So our podcasting as you know, as reported in our digital segment for reporting purposes, and historically we've said that there is three lines of businesses which are streaming, C-Suite and podcasting roughly a third, a third, a third. And not surprisingly, with the strong growth in broadcast -- podcasting that is now...
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192b6961f299c507469b41087c850067
All right, thanks for taking my question. Just two quick ones. One, I didn't catch the details on the pending use of proceeds. So I think you said term loan was going to be paid down in the spring. And then there would be a split between the bonds and the term loan in the fall. Did I catch that correctly?
Yes, let me repeat that. So we do have the reinvestment bucket of $133 million. Allen, we remind you that reinvestment back is pretty broad. We can use that for capex and turn with investment acquisitions. So, absent any reinvestment by virtue and this was negotiated in the term loan when we put that in place. The DC l...
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a91230f600f6f0b5f5276e6748cf14db
Got it, got it. And then second question on the disclosure around political revenue and political EBITDA, when I look at it, it seems like in the fourth quarter, looks like a $14 million revenue contributor but then close to a $13 million EBITDA contributor. So what's the cause between -- for the margin being so high t...
It's just a high -- it's a high margin revenue product and that's what you see for the entire industry. And so our cost is basically just a cost-of-sale and obviously marginal cost to put it on the year. So it's very high margin for us, but frankly, when you look at our book, the unit economics of our local radio, that...
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3e729868a696b310b2102dd9e79cb659
I just wanted to focus a bit on the recreational business. So I just wanted to understand, it looks like, from my math, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like the Rec 2.0 sales as a percentage kind of declined a bit sequentially. So it seems like more of the strength was in the flower side. So just was hoping f...
Sure. Thanks, Tamy. So on the growth in terms of the product set or the distribution of the products within the category, we actually saw good growth in quarter-over-quarter Q3 among all of our products, but it was led by flower. So we saw solid growth in vapes, edibles and oils across the board. So I would say that we...
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5005e02bd7d8c5b06b8cabf910616630
So for me, I want to just ask this question on Manitoba harvest. So just I can get some more color in terms of kind of the reason for some of the management changes. So I realize that down pretty good amount sequentially. You talked about a shift to private label for a large customer, which seemed to avoid not only on ...
Looking at Manitoba harvest historically. The company and its products have been extremely successful historically in Costco. We've seen a lot of success in Amazon and Whole Foods as well. Those are clearly our three largest customers. Looking at the move to private label at Costco, the company has always had a small p...
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7335130094b7115438293a50bf27de1c
So I guess just going toward the current quarter, Q1, are you guys providing any forward commentary in terms how you think about sales or EBITDA for the current quarter?
Rupesh, I think if this were if this were not -- I mean -- but let me start out. So I think we're really pleased with the results that we delivered for 2020 in its entirety and specifically Q4 on the commercial side of the business, the cost side of the business and obviously, down through the EBITDA line. There are ob...
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b3ebe490ee7890395c3df671481c7ec3
On the adult-use side of the business, which you indicated was primarily driven by flower as well as the other product. But within flower, at what price point did you see the most market traction given the reset that you guys did in the third quarter?
Yeah. Well, I mean, I'd say, Steve, and let me just pull up some information here. So we continue to see our sales predominantly in the mid and high potency, as we indicated. And our sales continue to be in the premium -- the mainstream and premium segments. So as we indicated, we had 60%. We did have some additional v...
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a52708ff9e3b98bb2734aeb7677aacbe
Brendan, if I can ask two questions here. The first one, maybe it comes across as a stupid question, but given the great quarter you had and the very good news you had in the export markets in the last month. The big gap in the valuation within Aphria and Tilray, is there room to renegotiate the exchange ratio? It woul...
Great. Thanks, Pablo. I can't speak to short-term individual shareholder sentiment. Obviously, I can now speak to my perspective. And when I look across every metric, financial, operational, product, geographic reach, the new Tilray, the combined Tilray, I think, offers shareholders the greatest return. I've been in th...
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2db5106bda4cff74fae3e7da87060a40
I just wanted to come back to the U.S. You certainly I believe you're well positioned for that. And I think referred to yourselves as a clear favorite for succeeding. And I think you touched on some of the reasons why, but I'd love to understand maybe a little bit of your thinking on timing, in part, maybe what you exp...
So on the medical side, we're very active. We have -- we're one of the few companies that has performed multiple imports into the U.S. with DEA and FDA approval. And I'd say multiple, I think it's around half a dozen so far for clinical trials. And when I look at the agreements we have around the world, we have I think...
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55defe6550deef92952c947deac523cd
I have couple of questions, is regarding the reasons behind the fourth-quarter guidance range. So if you could elaborate a little bit, will be better. So which apps that you have seen most of the app coming from in 3Q and how should we think about the apps that contribute with the 4Q guidance rate? And also when we loo...
So yes, our performance this quarter was better than we expected. And our business started to bounce back in this quarter, based on the latest operation data. We're very optimistic about the coming quarter and our long-term growth. And that is why we have raised our revenue projections by 28% for Q4 from implied $37 mi...
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30c69fda31b10d4801514b8140273360
First one is, we understand that CooTek's in-house ad system is growing really fast. And then mitigate some of the impact from the Google incident. So, can management give some color in terms of the key metrics for this ad system such as ROI and the ECPM? And how the revenue growth trend will be like for next year for ...
One of our strategic go is to strength our advertising business by reducing external dependency. In the first quarter of this year, we officially launched the CooTek Ads Platform. And this year -- this quarter, we achieved a significant progress as the CooTek Ad Platform started to contribute the significant percentage...
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3e238c76d1b216a5b2aee99fd9baad30
So in the third quarter, we have the engagement ratio, was it DAU divide by MAU, came down to 35%-ish and that's compared to the last quarter we have over 40%. So can you expand -- there will be more why we have these -- we have lower engagement ratio and also why should we think about these -- the trend going forward?
So the engagement rate of our portfolio apps was 35.4%, in third quarter, down 7% sequentially. There are two major reasons. First, we could not use Google push notification service to reach and activate our users, after our developer accounts would disable. So push notifications email push and the retargeting advertis...
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37fa9579cda5f0bc816f8a551ff7d9d8
So, Karl, I have a follow-up questions on the sales and marketing spend. You mentioned, since I --you're increasing the budget in 3Q, which drove help to drive the DAU and MAU growth. And then the sales and marketing percentage is actually higher than the revenue for the third quarter. So was these also one of the reas...
Yes. So we are investing more to acquire users because we're pretty confident on our user growth and the overall ROI and unit economics is pretty good, even without Google Play. So that's why we are confident to put more money to drive the user growth. And yes, because the ROI, the total assets at the entire ROI of our...
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030f7fb5d6f231ded35279f6fe2661f3
Brian, maybe I'll just ask a two-parter with respect to the revenue guide for Q4. Can you help us better understand some of the comments you made around the exit velocity, specifically with respect to the U.S. e-commerce business or the AWS business and how that might inform some of the lower-than-seasonal trends that ...
Sure thing, Eric. Thanks for your question. As I look ahead to guidance for Q4, I think the biggest individual factor is still going to be foreign exchange. This guidance includes 460 basis points of unfavorable impact year over year. FX is a bigger issue for us on our revenue growth in dollars than it is on our income...
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ea52feb0a613aabbc752f3e438a01af2
Brian, free cash flow generation has always been Amazon's focus in the past, but that went negative last year and likely this year as well. Can you just talk about the path to restoring meaningful free cash flow? And do you think that capex tied to data centers and the AWS ramp can ultimately step back, similar to what...
Yes. I think if you look at our free cash flow, there's multiple factors here. One is the drop-off in income for the trailing 12 months versus the 12 months before it, and a lot of that is driven to things that we've talked about on these calls. Ops cost, our network doubled over the last two and a half years. While we...
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105a96a4b7d07fb027a3a9bb60a97c38
Let me ask two profit questions. AWS margins were a little lower than we would have thought. Is that just a reflection of the full quarter impact of that kind of stock-based compensation granted to those employees earlier in the year? Is that the new normal for AWS margins? And then international losses also were a lit...
Sure. Let me start with AWS. So we did see a deceleration or a drop in op margin sequentially quarter over quarter. The broad disclaimer on AWS margins is that they will fluctuate over time as we balance investments versus renegotiating pricing with the long-term customer commitments, all as headwinds to the business, ...
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20e95917eb66016e49a200e1af5d0c60
Brian, on AWS, I'm just curious when you talk about optimizing and efficiency, can you talk to what you're seeing from your customers why perhaps you're seeing such a big pullback in terms of near-term demand? How would you characterize those conversations? And I think the other question is related to backlog. Backlog ...
Let me have David answer the backlog question first. Dave Fildes -- Vice President, Investor Relations Yes. It's Dave here. So I think our current backlog balance for Q3 is $104 billion. So it's about a little less than 60%, I think about 57% up year over year. And the new customer pipeline is healthy. I think with a ...
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df4a61a0e3adb9906c92171f7c825998
Two questions. First, could you provide some more details on the cost structure initiatives and when we could see those initiatives hitting the P&L? And then second, on the holiday season. It's a bit implicit in your guide and remarks thus far, but just curious of your expectations for consumer demand this holiday seas...
Sure. Let me start with the holiday. So we're ready to roll. We've got the best selection we've ever had. In-stock levels are really high. Delivery speeds are getting very close to where we want them to be. And we're ready to have a really good holiday season with our consumers this year. And the Prime Early Access sal...
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a8404dfd2af46f1028d9dac38a34fc35
Just two clarifications on what you just said. So first, on retail, you did see some good efficiency gains in 3Q, and you talked about $1.5 billion. As we look forward, if those three areas you just mentioned do turn favorable, how quickly do you think you could get back to kind of historical North America retail opera...
Let me start with the efficiency. I just outlined a lot of it in the prior answer. But just to clarify, we were aiming for about $1.5 billion improvements sequentially versus Q2 and Q3. We feel like we came up about $0.5 billion short on that. Mostly in our productivity, with the Prime Day and the preparations for the ...
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980d24664a5ecfc9a4691b7cf6ac6f8f
John, not a lot of room for questions, very thorough on the explanation here. But maybe if we can just talk -- take tax first, just on your thoughts on the sort of the competitive landscape and sort of your promotional activity. Obviously, we've seen a lot of commercials about going with an actual CPA that's been, sort...
Dan, thank you, and thanks for the question. I'll unpack it in sequence there. And let me start with overseeing, sort of, big picture. As noted in the prepared remarks, we're definitely seeing upticks in overall spending and noted as well the shift for more toward live. Our belief is that sort of -- I'm thinking about,...
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17f7919f2d0066d8687c805155d3863b
Do you have a sense John, where you're finished kind of last year in terms of brand awareness and now, obviously, still early in the season. Any metrics you can share around either repeat or things that can give us sort of an update on brand awareness, which has obviously been the one issue, I think, that's play TaxAct...
Yes. We don't show those numbers and clearly with spend levels lower than others and being in a category that is, generally speaking, a once a year event. We're going to be that player that whose brand recognition fits with our market share, meaning we'll be third in brand recognition. But we think that the differentia...
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12518287b24b25526fda9ea7ce00913b
OK, last -- then just last on wealth management. Just so I can understand, John, it sounds like integration, it was -- I think, we all sort of take for granted the size of the integration and shift you guys did to the new clearing platform. It sounds like even though by your standards, maybe a little bit of noise, I gu...
Dan, thank you for that question as well. So the way to think about this one is that it's -- I'm going to make two comments, first is, as noted, we actually took on three conversions in one. We actually debated when we ought to have more of a rolling thunder approach with the conversion to the -- on the National Financ...
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So John, I think, you discussed in the prepared remarks some of the monetized units outlook for this year. Could you indicate the trend that monetize unit for tax season to date? I may have missed it.
So -- well, thanks for the question, good morning, appreciate that. The headline here is a sharply favorable shift in mix toward monetized units. We've explained a little bit of that in the prepared remarks, but as you know and folks on the call know, we've been in a multiyear effort to shift our focus toward monetized...
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cd5049b4d522d8f81ddd19256c70967f
Great. So turning to wealth management. So there's been a lot of noise around tax season this year. As we think about that, has there been an uptick in conversations from tax professionals that are looking to get into the wealth management business? And relatedly it seems like what the conversion it may possibly have c...
So let me cover the second point first around onboarding. There's really -- there's no negative with regard to the new advisor coming in. In fact, it's all positive and the reason for that is we're starting out of the gate with this terrific package of National Financial plus Envestnet plus eMoney. So they're working w...
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a53a30ace93f6c13d9513fca6b2a40cd
Hi, guys. Good morning. This is actually Andrew Nicholas, on for Chris. I guess, first, can you talk about customer utilization at the refund market place so far this year. Obviously, it's early in the season, but any sense of what the average bonus is that you've seen customers get? And maybe even a sense of the econo...
So Andrew, good morning, thank you, the question. John, here, I'll take that one. It is early, but we're seeing some nice uptick in the marketplace. we're experimenting with how we present it. It's a -- in a way -- I mean the value proposition is clear, right? Hundreds of dollars up to $599, we're experimenting it with...
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9bfaf625c86224fa9a464cedfa4ee3ff
Got it. And then turning to wealth management. I know you mentioned stronger relative growth among higher producing advisors, driving up the payout rate in the quarter, just curious, one, if there's also any seasonality in that number in the fourth quarter? And then two, if there's a way for us to think about that payo...
Andrew, this is Davinder, I can think that. To take the first part of that question, there really isn't any seasonality that I would model in, it's typically pretty constant throughout the year. And in terms of thinking about going forward, in my remarks, I mentioned that we did have, we do have a bonus that we expect ...
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4c74b5acffffec0b60dcf363a07d3275
OK. And then one last modeling item, if you don't mind, Davinder. Can you tell us what the tax rate is that you assumed in the Q1 guide? And any outlook for the full year?
Yes. As a reminder, Andrew, so we're still in a net NOL situation. So we don't expect to be a federal taxpayer this year. We do pay cash taxes or state taxes and that typically been around 2% to 3%, which is what we're using for Q1 and for -- really for the full year.
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54f44c6981fc9aa7a3e5548f9f5bb376
Why did Q3 revenue grow but gross margin declined?
In Q3, we had increased depreciation, higher power costs and we recognized higher bonus costs due to the higher profit in Q3. Gold material inventory valuation loss compared to previous quarter.
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A
0b7df6adb43b3cf463b1efc14abc589d
Could you provide more color about Q4 revenue and gross margin?
As we move into the fourth quarter, in memory, despite demand increasing in consumer and auto electronics, there is a semiconductor supply imbalance that may impact overall Q4 demand in the segment. Therefore, we are taking a conservative view about memory in Q4. And in DDIC, our ASP continues to increase, driven by cu...
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2fdbb5589f5ed4f48aba239772552083
Any impact to Unimos from the power shortage in China recently? If any, is there any counter measure?
There was no impact and Unimos has been turning profitable.
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A
9e28cc58fe816cd86135a06df7c32266
Is there any customer input seeing signs of wafer supply improvement? How is ChipMOS offsetting the impact on operations of wafer supply shortages?
So far, we are not seeing any real wafer supply relief. Under such situation, we did see customers optimizing product mix causing a longer test time. Currently, better UT for high-end testers led and worst UT for the others.
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4cfb4abe3e15b2f60061f4d4c5dda2b8
Business momentum for memory products in Q4 by ranking, which is stronger, NOR, NAND or DRAM?
NOR flash is better owing to auto and NTWS [Phonetic] application demand. Secondly, would be 2D NAND and then [Indecipherable] DRAM.
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A
72b9e33075767cbf2fffa36a07e94733
How is the tax rate of 2021?
As usually, about 18%.
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A
fcdc5625bd066ec5498e2b0e294ddeea
The question is asking about your '22 dividend?
We don't expect any major changes to our dividend payout ratio, 50%, 60% of EPS. However, the final dividend will be discussed and proposed by our Board and need to get approval at our normal annual AGM.
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B
9bec0d2ff8ff0e8d67e13c1a57dafe9f
The first question is on communications and enterprise. Rajesh, you talked about 30 new designs. Is there any way you could talk a little bit about the timing, and when those will start ramping into production.
Yeah. I mean actually, Tore, thank you. We are ramping up on these right now. It's a slow ramp. It's not an overnight ramp. And as we have discussed in past calls, they're not all just pure play 5G, some of them are satellites, some of them are computing, some of them are in the networking area. And so as such, the ram...
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A
f45259bbb9eab1f0632be12044de0bea
And you talked a little bit about 400-gig optical modules and that being an opportunity based on our work that market's going to start ramping quite meaningfully in the second half of this year. Would that be -- would you expect that design wins to start ramping.
Probably the middle of next year is my forecast because these -- a lot of work that we're doing with the future standard bodies, I think they're still in work. They're still in flux. There are still some details that are needed to be ironed out. So I would say about a year from now, maybe slightly more, but around a ye...
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A
0176afeb6ce68fdac7dcd79217707c09
Just one last question for Art. Art, your inventory days are at 60 days, pretty low, but I think all companies now have low levels. Could you walk us through a little bit, how you expect to increase your capacity -- your inventory throughout the year.
Sure. Our inventory, as I mentioned in my commentary, actually went down during the quarter, even though sales went up, of course, those two are somewhat related. We will start to build inventory back up during the course of 2021. So you should expect it to increase in Q1 and beyond. We are ordering ahead on wafers, bo...
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A
9092d7194f1617bd4525a960b5ac7cbd
So my first one in terms of the positive revision to the December quarter guidance, can you just walk us through what changed within the few weeks after you provided your guidance for the fourth quarter on your September earnings call? And just any color there on what drove the upside would be helpful.
Sure. So I'm actually going to walk us back to Q3 for a minute because it's the same trend that we saw in Q3. Going into Q3, we provided guidance. We've had pretty substantial sequential revenue growth going from Q2 to Q3, so we felt good about that. We gave that guidance. The order rate just was extremely strong throu...
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A
df0adc70f9c0b6b10beb3bbc1d6b078f
And for my follow-up with the supply chain issues that have taken place last year in the quartz industry. Is that leading your customers to change how they view and assess the diversity within their supply chain. Just kind of wondering if there are any opportunities for you guys just based-off on customers trying to di...
Yeah. So we had a very specific event that we talked about earlier, which was a constriction in the supply of quartz. That was of course a kind of a very short-term event, but it was very pronounced. But what it led to was many of the consumers of the quartz products did not, for example, know that they were -- for exa...
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421957069e9ebf5b88903f8efae26645
Following up on the last question about the ordering and visibility. Can you talk about -- if I missed this already, the lead times you're going to customers and whether you've been able to keep them under check by ordering wafers aggressively.
Yeah. I think one thing we have done is we've sort of played it wisely for the company both ways, while we have been very good at ordering and giving our supply chain a lot of transparency into our needs. I think we've done a very good job of that, whether we're dealing on our MEMS wafers or TSMC wafers, or indeed the ...
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B
abeaf7af12aa441271a2e927b1f515e6
And then Art, if you talked about this already, the first-quarter outlook. Can you talk about what that is by segment just to get some color around the guidance.
So, I'm not going to refine my guidance that precisely for Q1, but what I will say is the decrease in Q4 to Q1 is all in the mobile IoT and consumer space. We're expecting segment growth in industrial and comms and enterprise going from Q4 to Q1. And the decrease in mobile IoT consumer that is just kind of our normal s...
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B
207d349ba0306ff6e7e57f60790751f4
And then last quick question for Rajesh. In optical, it's impressive you're winning there. What are the factors that are helping you win design? Do you think versus the competition as that market starts to come online.
Yeah. I mean, it's very specific, it's the bandwidth, but it's bandwidth with size and temperature. So I think those are very, very important pieces in there. And the fact that we have also performance factors like jitter and stability to go with it. I think it's -- I'm very gratified with that win design -- design win...
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fc2f8fda90a5b355239e31c437c78886
So you talked a lot about ordering add-on wafers and some other materials. Just curious if you have any view on the impact of the supply constraints on the gross margin trajectory in both the near and kind of longer-term.
Well, we think there may be in the future. We haven't seen anything yet. But most of our gross margin is pretty -- it's not based on our increase in gross margin is not based on either increasing prices because of shortages or a decrease in gross margins because of costs from our supply chain. But I think it's possible...
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2517244ce626bc965bdcd9408e585926
Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions. Kudos on the solid quarter here. I guess in terms of guidance, Sid, I'm just trying to understand a little bit about the thought process. And reiterating guidance, you just did $134 million in Q1 revenue. So you're basically implying flat revenue for the next three quarter...
So Brian, in terms of -- I apologize for that. In terms of our guidance for the year, we do believe that the 560 -- the $530 million to $560 million is in the range that we expect for the year. I know that when you do the math, it doesn't quite look like there's -- as we said on the other call, we expect the second hal...
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B
34f1e65db3e75f929d55ba2e0f273b38
Okay. Fair enough. Just to be clear, there's nothing unique about Q1 like pull forward or inventory builds like we've seen in certain periods over the past several years. You wouldn't -- there's nothing you called out. So I'm assuming it's -- if there's nothing notable about the sort of demand patterns you saw in the q...
No. There's nothing in there. I mean, historically, as you've seen, quarter-by-quarter, it can be lumpy by customer. And as you can see in this quarter with Chinese customers being higher versus last quarter.
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A
ee38aedbae4e8ecc796e708ca66aa079
Fair enough. And then last one for me also on the guidance, and I'll pass it on. Gross margin, 74% on materials. I know it's going to be lumpy and bounce around. It's proven to be that way, just if you look at Q4 to the Q1 progression. But coming into the year, it sounded like you had a bit more muted view on what the ...
No. Obviously, our gross margins are, as we stated, dependent upon our product mix. And this quarter's product mix really translated into about 70% gross margin range. We still think that for the year, it's going to be 65% to 70%. And as we talked about in the fourth quarter, there were some things in the fourth quarte...
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A
1748e5f5ef482d0ad42f1db41f8470ac
You have [Indecipherable] my question. I had two of them. First one, really good sales from China, and I understand your largest customers obviously expanding in China. I'm just wondering, as they expand and as their efficiency and yield improves, do you think there is a risk that the business from that customer might ...
It has historically, with Chinese customers, been lumpy. And so yes, it's difficult for us to predict. I mean, obviously, we spend a lot of time talking to our customers, and we've built in what we believe to be where we think we'll be for the year into our guidance. But it really -- there is a number of issues that wi...
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591e61c88d6a8c90f875658c95f2814b
Got it. Got it. That's very helpful. And then as a quick follow-up. Sir, how should we think about the OpEx growth for this year? Is this the seeing as you reiterated last quarter?
Yes. We gave guidance in the last quarter of OpEx growth, which -- when talked about it, we expect it to increase in the range of 20% to 25% year-over-year. R&D up about 25%, SG&A, about 15%, which -- and increased spending on OVJP and that -- and developing that technology. And we expect our tax rate to be about 19%, ...
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779b7d1429d35662f7e3cced9320d8e9
Yes. Thank you. And Steve, thanks so much for all the details, especially with the evolving end market penetration and landscape. I just want to reconcile something. When I look here at Samsung and LG, it seems to me that over the past maybe three to six months, there is less of a OLED capex and especially with China, ...
Well, I think right now, in terms of what the customers are saying and all of our customers have noted on recent calls, they're committed to OLEDs. And I think that there has been -- there's obviously demand and market issues that may caused some changes, but we believe that the proliferation of OLEDs is really in the ...
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26077fe05329e4df28f81199e412b6e5
Got it. Thank you. And then -- and I'm just trying to better understand end market dynamics. And I do think that OLED TVs offer something unique, especially with Samsung trying to build out a market presence in the high end with the quantum dot OLED. But is there anything other than that like in terms of quality of the...
Well, mini LED is an LCD technology. I mean OLED technology is -- has been -- it's power efficient. It gives you the best picture quality, whether it's TVs or from mobile devices. And it's not a backlit technology. It's less complicated. And as you see that for mobile devices, we're almost -- we're 1/3 of the smartphon...
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df26e1c20b23afb668889fd98244942b
Hi. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking the question. I guess first question, pretty surprised your deferred revenues actually increased Q-on-Q, and your LG revenues came in a little bit light, at least versus our expectations. So curious, is that a result of your new agreement with LG? And I guess, could you expand o...
Yes. The new extended 5-year agreement with LG and Visionox were effective on January 1, 2021. They end at the end of 2025. The impact is under ASC 606, we expect just to continue. But the fact that we did this, this is a new agreement essentially for LG. So you do see changes because we signed these agreements in defe...
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d214dc690f45661a47c51c200cb99ae3
So was there an expectation for greater revenues here in 2021 before signing that agreement? And what kind of change has that had on your outlook for calendar '21 revenues?
We're comfortable with our guidance where we are. I didn't expect it to change our 2021 revenue guidance by signing these agreements. I mean when we gave our guidance, we kind of knew what was going on with these agreements. They just weren't executed until then. But we knew what the results would be.
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c105a2ef9a27eff00e6645cca963729f
Great. As my follow-up, you had big numbers from both BOE as well as Tianma. And I guess the question here is, is that supply chain risk mitigation in terms of building some inventory? Or is there concern in China around getting access to materials out of the U.S. given rising U.S.-China tensions?
No. The revenues in China did increase obviously. But historically, they have really been lumpy. There's nothing that we've called out specifically in this quarter as we have in the past when the customers told us that that's what they're doing. We just think that it's customer-by-customer and purchasing department by ...
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4ed44791c2cb1e1b4f51d404e7730d95
Thank you very much. Just a couple of questions. You said you have about -- I think this was right, 30% of the smartphone market at this point. What percent of the market do you think is addressable to you given where pricing is maybe in the next couple of years? Just trying to think of what opportunity for upside ther...
Yes. I think that the addressable market, eventually, we believe, will be the entire smartphone market. Samsung is moving from the high end to the mid-range. And they now have some low end phones that -- I think entry-level phones that are in the $240 range or something like that. So we do think that this will continue...
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A
2ef507ac92bf16d9c2d2893134f8c3c1
And how are you thinking about China TVs from an OLED perspective -- not necessarily the vendors, but the market in general, I know there was some pressure on China's TV market. I guess it was last year. And are you expecting to see it kind of rebound when you look at the second half?
In terms of market perspective, and where -- it's difficult for us to talk about one area specifically in another. I mean I think that OLED TVs are the best TVs ever. I think that some of the pressure that you saw was pretty much across the board on the demand side, there was weakness because of COVID-19.
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826160fe8ae091bfbf5a6ca439fd2927
Okay. My final question is just with regard to inflationary pressures that people are seeing out there. Are you seeing any pressures on materials required by PPG? And do you feel like you have the opportunity, if you need to I'm not sure you even would need to hear, but to push pricing through to some of your partners,...
There's two answers to that question. One, as we've stated in the past, our contracts have pricing for the length of the contract. So pushing something or would be difficult. The one thing that we talked about is iridium and iridium has gone up. We've we have actually, for a number of years, been managing iridium, and ...
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114c4a3c48adb0e599c13be0f796af6d
Thanks for taking my question. My first question is in reiterating your full year revenue guidance, it sounds like you're being a little conservative because of the supply chain disruption, do you have an estimate how much that may impact your revenue guidance for this year? And if you can follow-up to that is where ar...
Well, I mean, to be honest, I mean, given -- we obviously don't give quarterly guidance or give guidance in all the components that we are seeing. But one of the issues that I just talked about with China was iridium. But our materials have already in it, but that's not the only component. So that there's a number of -...
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58e68c9ef77eb53db8a53f6777a006b6
Okay. Maybe my follow-up question is on the IT side of things, I know there are a number of models that companies have announced but Apple has officially announced the mini LED display. Does that change your deal about your opportunity for OLED display? And specifically in the IT market? I know you addressed the TV mar...
Well, I think that the industry is still young. You've heard there's a big push from Samsung on the IT market. I think talking about Apple and mini LEDs. Their tablets are LEDS or LCDs anyway. So -- but I think there is a big push for the benefits of OLEDs, and we just continue -- we feel that, that will continue to gr...
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5dcb99a940298664187f7103579c0627
I think within the follow up. I just want to check, Sid or Steve. To the extent you can talk about. Obviously, there's a Display Week coming on, and everyone has read about the Samsung abstract and the blue. So let's see if you can talk about it, kind of curious your view on it. And along the same path, if and when blu...
Well, thank you. Obviously, Display Week is coming up, and there's a lot of chatter about what will happen. There's really nothing we can say until the papers are presented. So regarding that, there's nothing we can talk about what was coming up. We do obviously talk about a paper that was talking about blue that has t...
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d9a6e32b67bac81a3a9a34960e87db47
I wanted to just spend a minute on kind of the earnings outlook for 2021. I guess kind of a long-winded question here. But if we think about kind of the core earnings power of fiscal 2020 I think plus or minus I had it in like the $93 million to $96 million range. And I guess as we think about how that transitions into...
Mike this is Glen. I'll take a shot at that. So, yes, H&R Block will be additive in 2021. And as it relates to our other businesses we would certainly expect organic growth in a number of them. I would also point we have some runoff portfolios though primarily in the Community Bank and also the student loan portfolio t...
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a1880a8ceebaced388c913750e99e24c
I was curious if you could just maybe comment, I think the -- I'm sure someone else will ask about kind of Crestmark and pipelines. But there's obviously the balance sheet side here. But as we think about the fees and the payments side of the business here, what are the kind of one or two or biggest growth opportunitie...
Well. As we said we signed some new deals. The H&R Block will certainly have an impact on that side as well, since we took over the breadth of their business, which includes their card programs, in addition to their tax loans and business. So that will have an impact on that portfolio as well. We also have started to s...
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ce91fd5328d69ab2d6e1338d62a920d6
Starting with just kind of like loan yields they were up nicely over quarter-over-quarter and definitely seeing a remixing within the portfolio here this quarter especially on an EOP basis. Just kind of curious, how you're thinking about loan yields going forward here just into the fourth quarter? It seems like a poten...
Yeah. So we would agree with that. It's in certain portfolios are going to come in higher than others or lower given the rate environment. But as we continue to shift that mix the Community Bank has lower yields those run off. We do more commercial finance. So we run off securities portfolio and Community Bank. Just th...
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eee150024a5f1f5eecfa059f41263eea
And then just on the business front just kind of curious, as to what you're seeing for non-interest-bearing deposit growth from your card business? I know the EIP deposits kind of steer, what's going on there.
Yeah. This is Brad. When we take out the EIP piece, we still have some growth that has occurred year-over-year the last couple of years and would expect that to continue to go. We're in that business. We're seeking that business and we'll be picking more up. The EIP bubble just hides it a little bit. Yeah. What's hard...
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3ef33d3aad00e9533cdd1f1f19dc0164
And then I'm not sure that this was answered. Just on the commercial finance portfolio, you had good quarter-over-quarter growth. I know you guys alluded to more normalization in certain portfolios. But how is that pipeline looking? And how are you thinking about loan growth? You tend to see pretty good growth in the D...
Yes. I mean, I think we're seeing more transactions to take a look at in the pure commercial finance. So you're talking about your asset-based lending and your factoring some of the other things because of yield, the markets are coming down and there are some cases where we're choosing not to play, because the yield is...
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5294f2795c736947f67f01b17b63bf63
Just on the deferrals where they were at the end of the quarter, is there any expectation or any color you can give based on your conversations with borrowers of what percentage -- what piece of that 6% may need further attention at the end of the deferral period?
Well, so obviously the biggest piece of that is the hotel-motel portfolio that we have in the residual Community Bank. And we are seeing improvement particularly with the type of properties that we have. But certainly, they're going to need continued assistance through the winter months. And then when we come out in th...
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b723361865b4bb3b0710c83ec06d733f
And then you also talked about if we look at where Crestmark sort of the net charge -- cumulative net charge-offs in the last downturn in the Great Recession, I think you put it at 2.5%. Is there any -- as we sit here today and as you look out and obviously a lot of uncertainty still on the credit side. But do you expe...
Well, one of the things that's a good indicator of how that's going to go is the pure commercial finance. I'm talking about asset-based lending and factoring. You'll notice the balances have gone down considerably, which means that those products are working exactly as designed, which as the volume comes down you colle...
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69339b333e55a7e36be3f6feb94015d2
I wondered if you could provide any help with the run rate on the expense side, particularly, I don't know if there's anything you can break out of other expense and where that might trend going forward.
Yeah. We called out a couple onetime items. We prepaid $110 million of long-term debt that we don't need anymore and our borrowings. And then, there were some employee severance costs and some other year-end type of expenses as we prepared to invest for 2021. I would expect outside of the March quarter that our expense...
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bc9f01502fdf90f51bc97fc5637661a3
Maybe just trying to think about some of the moving parts on net interest margin first. Could you one just break out what the purchase accounting accretion was in the quarter? What the expense savings will be from the FHLB prepay? And then, it looks like of the 110 basis points of pressure from the EIP deposits it look...
Hey, Wally, this is Glen. The latter. We think the final tail, they'll pay down another leg this quarter, but the final tail peers -- people are using them for the savings account or certain folks are. And so we expect to have some level of those deposits throughout fiscal year 2021 and we'll deploy them as we have opp...
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112650e8e8223bbc000378d24c8aed6b
On the buyback you said, I believe that your appetite would be governed by your internal capital constraints. Any commentary you could provide around, what capital levels would make a buyback unlikely or however you could frame the capital conversation? And then also, are there any constraints at the holding company as...
Yeah. No constraints at this time. And we've signaled on a -- our capital ratios will move around a little bit during the year i.e. tax season. But on an average, we're going to be looking in the 9% leverage or north of that and 12.5%, 13% on risk-weighted.
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f2a9fe8180fb5547c2f7da58d7a8c9a4
Yeah. You got it right. Thank you. Good morning, everybody. It was kind of hard to hear everything, so forgive me if I'm repeating something you guys said, but trying to understand the underlying strength in the business. I think you said $10 million to $15 million didn't ship in the quarter. If it did, the book-to-bil...
So Larry, a couple of questions in there. So first of all, most of that backlog that didn't ship in the first quarter was in the U.S. area. So you saw some lower growth in the U.S. areas around gas detection and head protection. Fall protection was strong, but the backlog continued to build there also, and that was bec...
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9979d006e570318bd8ada465a462ed20
OK. Great. Thanks. And then this is my second question, and I'll let it go. You guys talked about LUNAR, and obviously, we saw that the -- at the fire show recently. I'm curious, can you just remind us on the regulatory approval time frame and the commercialization time frame for that product?
So for that particular product, Larry, there is no approval process, and that's just a matter of getting the product to market. We anticipate launching that product sometime in 2020. Hopefully, we're in a position to take orders at next year's FDIC. That's the goal for the product. But that's on us as far as getting th...
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7c276575588f78cb790f5a5db18b327f
Hey, guys, how are you? The one thing that stuck out was the margin in the international business. You talked about kind of -- you framed out the Middle East, and maybe you could kind of elaborate on maybe what that project work was, how much that cost in revenue and then ultimately earnings, and then what country that...
Hey, good morning, Ed. Yeah, really, the shortfall and the challenges we had when we are in international were predominantly around the Middle East, as Ken mentioned earlier. The good news with the Middle East is the fact that the backlog has built up there significantly in the issues around fixed gas and flame detecti...
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77385411ab50171c5aac75e2e523d039
Are you willing to quantify the revenue and earnings impact that you saw in the quarter as it relates to that?
The only way that I would -- I guess, I would look at it is, we had margin improvement in Europe, we had margin improvement in China and in Southeast Asia. So we had good margin improvement across that swath of business. The challenge we have that is in the Middle East. It is very much dependent upon project-oriented b...
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9afa174104df0a26d887545445a1781a
Got it. And I just want to be clear, this is more to do with timing, not to do with geopolitical or economic conditions in any particular country, so for instance, Turkey.
Absolutely. It's a matter of timing of business, and it's all project-based. And so what we're seeing is fairly normal cycles.
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b35f0bf95159d0b5af21bebf50f59e8a
Got it. And the other thing that kind of stuck out in the release was the fall of projection. You had some really good growth in the Americas, constant-currency growth internationally. I just wanted to be certain, and I don't think there is, and you talked about the backlog and the order trend. So it doesn't sound like...
No, not at all. Actually, that growth we're seeing is really robust, and really, when you look at fall protection seasonality, it should improve second and third quarters. The incoming business is really strong. We've really hit the mark on these new products that we've developed and launched over the last 18 months, o...
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A
59c5bfe72da00bd1421082cbc7201d50
And just to get a sense as we kind of work through some of this backlog, where do you -- let's look three years out, where's the business today from a percent of revenue of the quarter? And where do you anticipate that business will go?
Yeah. Obviously, the core business continues to grow and become a larger portion of our overall business. We continue to see that trend moving in that direction. Clearly, we're making significant investments in those core products, and the growth of the core product areas is outpacing the adjacent product areas. So we ...
intermediate
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B
5efaab800d5d738d09d0d2e145ff5ba4
Hey, guys. I was just curious on the cost side. You guys continue to show really great cost control. Was there anything kind of either more one time or short term in nature related to the strong cost control in the first quarter? Or is that the kind of expectation we should have going forward?
Hey, [Inaudible]. No, there wasn't anything in there from a one-time standpoint. We just continue to look for opportunities to improve our efficiencies throughout the organization, and I think what you saw in the first quarter was a result of that. So as we go forward we continue to look for those opportunities to leve...
direct
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A
77dbfa66a97d34389bbd7e155c46a4ae
OK. And then just on the acquisition announcement, is there any approximate way of thinking about the accretion that's likely to come from that over, I don't know, either the first 12 months or after you've gotten to your synergies? Or what is the new way of thinking how that's going to contribute?
Thanks. Yeah. Hey, [Inaudible], it's Ken. Thanks for the question. What we have disclosed to date is that the synergized adjusted multiple to be around seven times. So we do expect some accretion in the first 12 months. What we'd like to do is to get through the closing activity. We intend to close it at some point pro...
intermediate
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B
2579631a8af4be2aa4046c89f8b50f9a
Could you share about what percent of the engine sales in the first half were light-duty?
Okay. The light-duty sales will be -- just hold on a minute. You're talking about four-cylinder engines here, right? So it'll be about... It should be about 53% of the sales.
direct
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A
c770d9328e2f0353051e9eac9368da31
As far as the gross margins, what initiatives are you guys putting in place or -- to get those back to somewhere close to more historical levels? So they've obviously been falling quite a bit lately.
Yes. So I think the -- one of the main reasons for the decline in the negative gross margin -- sorry, the gross margin is that we're selling more off-road engines this year compared to last year. And that has an impact on the mix and directly has an impact on the gross margin. And, we're also selling more National VI e...
direct
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A
ce25d8a8743c30475d1a9a25c08ce21d
On the economies of scale, because you've talked about that a few times in the past, what's the unit amount or the target where you'll hit that point and we'll see the margins improve from that?
I mean this is a -- when we negotiate with a supplier then we will have to have certain volume commitments, right? So as volume increases, especially now after the implementation of the National IV engines going forward, most of the engine sales will be National VI except for those we export to some of the developing c...
intermediate
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B
cf7221a0c0e2e55e61faf88d1dacdb57
So I mean, between everything going to National VI now, the negotiation with suppliers and possibly getting retroactive pricing on that, gross margins in the second half should be quite strong, correct?
It should be better for the National VI engines, yes.
direct
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A