FEI Company (NASDAQ:FEIC) Q1 2015 Earnings Conference Call - Final Transcript

Greetings and welcome to the FEI Company First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

I'd now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Jason Willey, IR, Director. Thank you, Mr. Willey, you may now begin.

Thank you, Manny, and good afternoon, everyone. As the operator said, I am Jason Willey, FEI's IR Director. With me today at our headquarters in Oregon are Don Kania, our President and CEO; and Tony Trunzo, EVP and CFO. We appreciate your interest in FEI. We have again posted slides under Events & Presentations in the Investor Relations portion of our website.

(Forward-Looking Cautionary Statements)

Risk factors that could affect these forward-looking statements are cited in today's press release, the slides posted for this call, and FEI's most recent 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K documents and other filings with the SEC. Investors are urged to read these documents. Copies of the SEC filings are available free of charge on the Commission's website at sec.gov, on our website or from FEI's IR department at 503-726-2533.

The company assumes no duty to update forward-looking statements set out in those documents or made on this call. This call is the property of FEI Company. It will be archived in the Investor Relations section of our corporate website at www.fei.com.

I will now turn the call over to Tony to go through the financials. Don will then discuss our business and outlook. We will then be glad to take your questions.

Thank you, Jason, and good afternoon, everyone. As Jason mentioned, we've posted slides on our website that provide a significant amount of information on our first quarter results. I refer you to these slides for more detailed information on the highlights that follow.

FEI delivered solid results in Q1, with revenue of $221 million and earnings per share of $0.66. Our gross margin and operating margin both exceeded the outlook we provided in February.

For the first quarter, currency movements aided reported earnings per share by approximately $0.07 compared with the first quarter of 2014. We benefit from a strong U.S. dollar due to our significant manufacturing and functional operations in Europe, despite the negative impact a strong dollar has on our reported revenue. We also saw approximately $2 million of benefit in Q1 from the restructuring activities we undertook during 2014.

Q1 bookings were $216 million, resulting in a book-to-bill ratio of 0.98. Ending backlog of $510 million was reduced by $21 million due to currency movement. Organic revenue growth was 4% year-over-year, in line with guidance provided in early February, due to the strong performance of our Industry segment. Revenue in Q1 was negatively impacted by $15 million due to the stronger U.S. dollar, with most of that impact felt in our Science segment.

Our Science segment posted Q1 revenue of $109 million, up 1% from Q1 last year on an