John Bean Q1 Numbers Way Off

JBT's 2009 First Quarter Off Substantially!  

Revenues of $169.0 million for John Bean Technology Corp. (JBT - Snapshot Report) were down 35.0%. Gross Income declined by 24.2% to $46.9 million; however, the Gross Margin did climb from 23.8% to 27.8%, which is a positive.

Although S,G&A dropped 11.2% to $34.8 million, it wasn't enough to keep the expense ratio from rising from 15.1% of Sales to 20.6%. Similarly, R,D,T&E dipped 27.3% to $4.0 million, but rose as a percent of Sales from 2.1% to 2.4%. Other Income/Expense dropped 85.7% to $300 thousand, while Interest went from a positive $100 thousand of Income to a negative $2.2 million of Expense.

Income Taxes declined by 71.6% to $2.1 million, as the Tax Rate dropped from 38.1% to 33.9%. Net Income from Continuing Operations was off by 65.8% to $4.1 million and went from 4.6% of Sales to 2.4%. Fully-Diluted EPS from Continuing Operations were 15¢ versus 43¢, off by 65.1%; on a pro-forma basis, they were 15¢ versus 37¢, a decline of 59.5%. The number of Dully-Diluted Shares was up by 2.5% to 28.2 million. JBT's Incoming Orders were off by 19.6% to $187.9 million and Backlog was down by 15.5% to $314.2 million.
 
Drilling down further to the Segment data (JBT has two segments), FoodTech Sales were down by 36.6% to $94.9 million, while AeroTech Sales declined by 34.1% to $73.6 million (there was "Other" Revenue of $500 thousand). FoodTech Operating Profit was off by 45.8% to $7.8 million, and the Operating Margin went from 9.6% to 8.2%; AeroTech Operating Profit dropped by 38.9% to $5.5 million, and the Operating Margin fell from 8.1% to 7.5% (rounding out the Operating Income situation was "Corporate and Other" which fell 16.1% to $5.1 million, but rose as an expense from 2.4% of Sales to 3.1%).

FoodTech's Incoming Orders were down 33.2% to $99.5 million; however, AeroTech's Incoming Orders were up 2.1% to $88.5 million. FoodTech's Backlog was down by 6.1% to $157.4 million, and AeroTech's declined by 23.4% to $157.5 million. 
 
JBT's Cash Flow went from a positive $2.2 million in Q1-08 to a negative $21.2 million in Q1-09, which is a reversal of $23.4 million.

With respect to the Balance Sheet, between the end of Q4-08 and Q1-09, the number of Days in Receivables rose from 62 to 67 and the number of Days in Inventory soared from 52 to 111, while the Current Ratio went down a bit from 1.4 to 1.3. JBT still has a negative Equity of $6.9 million, although it's not quite as bad as it was at year-end '08, when it was a negative $8.8 million.

All-in-all, it wasn't the most heartening of quarters. Management did observe that market conditions are "challenging." However, it does expect results in Q2-09 to be better than Q1-09 because of the seasonality of the Company's business. The outlook for the second half of 2009 and beyond is "clouded!"