FEI Company (NASDAQ:FEIC) Q2 2015 Earnings Conference Call - Final Transcript

Greetings and welcome to the FEI Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host Jason Willey. Thank you, Mr. Willey. You may begin.

Thank you and good afternoon, everyone. As Amy said, I am Jason Willey, FEI's Investor Relations Director. With me today at our headquarters in Oregon are Don Kania, our President and CEO and Tony Trunzo, EVP and CFO. We have again posted slides under events and presentations in the Investor Relations portion of our Web site.

(Forward-Looking Cautionary Statements)

I will now turn the call over to Don -- I'm sorry -- 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. FEI delivered strong second quarter results with revenue, gross margin, operating margin, earnings, cash flow and return metrics all performing well. Quarterly revenue of $224 million was at the upper end of our expectation. Our gross margin reached 50% for the quarter and operating margin was above 20%. Net earnings rose by 50% and earnings per share of $0.89 were a second quarter record.

This strong profitability along with sequential improvements in working capital resulted in $66 million of cash flow from operations for the quarter equivalent to 176% quarterly net income. Year-to-date cash from operations of $89 million is double the amount from the first half of last year and equates to 136% of net income. We returned $32 million to shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchase during the quarter. Organic revenue was flat compared with Q2 2014 and above the mid-point of guidance provided in late April.

Revenue in the second quarter was negatively impacted by $13 million due to the stronger US Dollar with most of that impact in our science segment. Our science segment posted Q2 revenue of $105 million up 5.7% on an organic basis compared with last year as growth remained strong in North America offset by slower activity in Europe and Asia. Our science business continues to be impacted by macroeconomic uncertainty and currency volatility in emerging markets and some European countries.

Our industry segment reported revenue of $120 million, a decline of 5.2% on an organic basis from last year's record second quarter performance. The decline reflects slower activity from leading foundry and logic semiconductor customers and a smaller contribution from oil and gas customers. However, revenue contribution from regional semiconductor customers was at the highest level for any quarter over the past four years demonstrating the expanding breadth of applications for our workflows as more industry participants need to manage growing design and manufacturing complexities.

We believe the slower order and revenue activity from the larger houses is temporary and will improve over the coming quarters. Gross margin