Cummins Inc. (CMI) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and welcome to Cummins 2021 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. I'm Tom Linebarger, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Cummins, and I will chair today's meeting. We are again holding this year's meeting virtually due to the ongoing public health impact of COVID-19 and to support the health and wellbeing of our employees, shareholders and other stakeholders. We are encouraged by the vaccine rollout around the world and hope that you and your families are safe and healthy. As in past years, we will hold the business portion of the meeting first. If you have not voted your shares yet or wish to change your vote, please do so now by clicking on the voting button towards the bottom right of your screen and follow the instructions there as the voting will end when the meeting is adjourned. After the meeting is adjourned, I will give a brief prerecorded business update and then we will take live questions until 11:40. [Operator Instructions] So let's get started. The meeting is now called to order. On the call with us today is Sharon Barner, our Chief Administrative Officer and Corporate Secretary. She will assist me and act as Secretary of the meeting. Also on the call today are members of our Board of Directors, including our new director nominee. In the interest of time, I won't read all their names, but you can find their names and biographies in our proxy statement. In addition, several members of the Cummins leadership team as well as other officers of the company are with us on the call today. Also with us, representing our auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers, is Jon VanDrisse. And finally, Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. is serving as our inspector of elections and is in charge of the vote tabulations. A representative of Broadridge is with us today. Now we will begin the business portion of the meeting. Sharon?

Thank you, Tom. A notice of the annual meeting was properly given, a quorum is present, and the meeting is now open for business. Copies of the minutes of the last annual meeting held on May 12, 2020, are available if any shareholder wishes to see them upon written request to the Corporate Secretary.

And we have 4 matters of business to come before the shareholders today, all as set out in our proxy statement. The first is the election of the 13 directors nominated by our Board. The second matter is an advisory vote on the compensation of our named Executive Officers. The third matter is the ratification of PricewaterhouseCoopers as our independent public accountants for 2021. And the fourth matter is the consideration of a proposal from a shareholder. [ Christopher Hip ] will speak today on behalf of the shareholder proposal. Operator, please open the shareholder line for [ Mr. Hip. ]

[ Mr. Hip's ] line is open.

Good, thank you. According to the 2019 annual report, which lists the compensation of the named Executive Officers, our CEO received compensation of over $25 million, which was 341x that of the average employee. The pay the CEO receives could possibly be justified had he started the company himself. However, he's strictly a caretaker of the company and has been around -- a company that has been around for many years and was started by a predecessor. The CEO and other executives are handsomely rewarded with compensation and benefits that individual shareholders can only dream about. Our CEO is paid more in 1 year than most people will make in a lifetime. In addition to current compensation, the retirement pension he and other executives will receive, which, again, most of us do not have, will ensure that they will walk away with a lifetime income well above the average employee or shareholder. Be that as it may, one of the most upsetting benefits each of our NEOs receive is an allowance of between $12,405 and $15,935 for tax, financial and estate planning. For NEOs making between $8 million and $25 million a year, it's an insult to shareholders to have the company and us pay for a service that they can well afford. The rest of the world pays for these services out of their own pocket and do not have the luxury of having our employer pick up this expense. There's no valid reason for this other than the willingness of the Board to leverage as many benefits on our NEOs as possible since it is only "company money". Granted, the $90,365 for these benefits is a small amount in the grand scheme of things, but there still is no justification for continuing this fringe for our NEOs. It's requested that the compensation committee abolish this benefit and require our NEOs to pay for their own tax, financial and estate planning. They're more than able to do so with the pay they receive.

Okay. Thank you, [ Mr. Hip ], for presenting the proposal at today's meeting. The company has recommended against the shareholder proposal and our response is detailed in the proxy statement. There will be an opportunity following the meeting for questions on these or any other matters. Sharon, may we have the preliminary voting results?

Thank you, Tom. The polls for voting on the matters before this meeting are now closed. The preliminary tabulation of the inspector of election indicates that the shareholders have elected the slate of the 13 Board-nominated directors for the ensuing year. Shareholders also have approved the compensation of our named executive officers. Shareholders also have ratified the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as our auditors for 2021. And shareholders have rejected the proposal from a shareholder regarding the professional services allowance for our named executive officers. The final vote tabulations will be published in a current report on Form 8-K that we will file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission after the meeting.

Thank you, shareholders, for your votes. And that concludes the official portion of the meeting, and the meeting is hereby adjourned. Now I'd like to make a few pre-recorded remarks about our business. Following my remarks, I'll come back on and we can take live questions by shareholders. Now I'd like to make a few remarks about our business. I want to start by talking about the impact of COVID-19 and our response. Then I'll highlight our 2020 financial performance and share some examples of how Cummins continues our mission of making people's lives better by powering a more prosperous world. Finally, I'll discuss our outlook for the current year and our path forward. Following my remarks, we will have time for questions from the audience. COVID-19 had a devastating impact on our communities, our economy and our people. It's hard to think of a way that the pandemic has not changed our lives. Our business was impacted as well. We navigated many challenges, and our focus throughout the pandemic remained on what's most important, the safety and well-being of our employees, both physically and mentally. For our facilities that stayed open, we instituted mandatory health screenings before entry, required masks, enhanced cleaning protocols and redesigned spaces to allow for social distancing. We closed facilities that did not need to remain open, and many employees worked from home. We started making masks and supplied more than 10 million to employees. We also expanded employee health care programs and widely promoted counseling and leave options. We are now focused on vaccinations. We launched the vaccine education campaign. We organized on-site clinics where possible and are now offering paid time off to get the necessary shots. Throughout the pandemic, our commitment to the prosperity of our communities has not wavered. We disbursed a record $22 million in community grants, including about $2.6 million in pandemic-related relief. We partnered with 3M and DuPont to use our filter technology and masks for health care workers. And we assembled a safe work playbook with the procedures used to open and operate our facilities, which we shared publicly to help other companies. This is all possible because of the extraordinary efforts of our employees. They contributed beyond expectations while facing their own struggles during a global pandemic. I want to thank them for their hard work and their dedication to Cummins. I also want to thank our Board of Directors for their deep engagement and commitment throughout this challenging year. In 2020, we delivered strong financial performance despite the significant impact of the pandemic. For the full year, revenues were $19.8 billion, a decrease of 16% or $3.8 billion from 2019, and North American sales declined even more. Earnings before interest and tax, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, were $3.1 billion or 15.7% of sales for 2020 compared to $3.7 billion or 15.8% of sales in 2019, meaning that EBITDA margins were nearly level with 2019 despite our large sales decline. We had benefits from restructuring, lower compensation expense and temporary salary reductions as well as lower variable pay and really strong joint venture performance in China. These were offset by the negative impact of lower volumes. Net earnings were $1.8 billion for the year or $12.01 per diluted share. While this is a decline from our net earnings of $2.4 billion or $15.05 per diluted share a year ago, we extended our track record of raising performance over successive cycles, with earnings per share 46% higher than in the prior downturn of 2016. As I reflect on the full year, a couple of highlights come to mind. First, our employees' response to a sharp increase in customer demand. In the second quarter, we faced the most severe decline in our quarterly sales in our company's history, followed by a rapid recovery and a supply chain severely impacted by this pandemic. This created numerous challenges for our people, and they worked tirelessly to support our customers. Our ability to meet this demand remains the biggest challenge ahead of us. Another highlight from 2020 is that we delivered solid profitability despite the significant decline in revenue and considering the elevated costs tied to the constraints in our global supply chain. This strong financial performance drove significant shareholder value. The company delivered first quartile return on average net assets, or ROANA, 26% for the year. And return on invested capital, or ROIC, was 15% as compared to our peer group. Full year cash from operations was $2.7 billion, our second highest total. Strong earnings given the decline in revenues and lower working capital contributed to strong cash generation. We returned $1.4 billion of cash to shareholders or 52% of operating cash flow in the form of share repurchases and dividends, and we increased our cash dividend for the 11th straight year. We repurchased 3.9 million shares throughout the year. And in doing so, we completed the ninth share repurchase program approved by the Board and already began repurchasing under our 10th program. I'm proud of how we weathered the storm in 2020, and I'm optimistic about 2021, which I'll talk about in a few more minutes. In addition to achieving strong financial performance last year, we also made considerable progress on our environmental, social and governance efforts. We continued investment in our most important technology programs, which are critical to reaching our sustainability pledge of carbon neutrality by 2050. We are investing in a range of solutions to lead the industry on the path to zero emissions future, and we're taking steps today to turn our 2050 targets into real-world products and applications. We've already delivered a 20-megawatt PEM electrolyzer system to generate green hydrogen in Becancour, Quebec, making it the largest operation in the world. We provide fuel cells to ASKO, Norway's largest grocery wholesaler that were integrated into Scania trucks. We've also supplied fuel cells for FAUN, a leader in waste collection vehicles and sweepers in Europe for their electric refuse truck program. We are now the largest supplier of fuel cells for the rail industry, and we're using experience from these rail applications in our designs for other heavy-duty transportation applications to provide best-in-class solutions. In the battery electric market, we delivered 147 powertrains to Blue Bird in 2020 for use in the school bus market and 19 powertrains to GILLIG for use in the transit bus markets. Our products are now powering over 250 school buses, which are actively in service today, in addition to more than 20 transit buses operating in municipalities around North America. Finally, we performed the NPROXX joint venture to provide customers with high-pressure tanks and storage solutions on vehicle for both hydrogen and natural gas. We continue investment in key technologies for the future. We are targeting markets where commercial opportunities exist today or will emerge soon. As we develop the technologies of tomorrow, we need the partnership of others, though, to be successful. Industries and governments must work together to meet our global energy and environmental challenges. We are advocating for public policies that enable the energy transition while reducing emissions along the way. This includes innovating and scaling low-carbon fuels, modernizing the grid and developing the hydrogen economy. We have a history of more than 100 years of solving big problems. No matter the application, we will provide customers an economically viable solution, so businesses can thrive and we can sustain a vibrant economy while preserving the planet for generations to come. Our communities and businesses depend on a healthier planet, and this work is our mission in action. In 2020, we also initiated work externally and internally to drive racial equity in our communities and our company. Institutional racism is a disease. It's deeply rooted and longstanding, and it makes our society weaker. It will take decisive and sustained action to dismantle this system, and Cummins wants to be part of that action. From an external standpoint, we launched Cummins Advocating for Racial Equity, or CARE, to take a leading role in undoing systemic racism against the black community. CARE has 4 key focus areas: police reform; criminal justice reform; economic empowerment; and social justice reform in health care, housing, workforce development and civil rights and including voting rights and education. CARE brings together all of Cummins' capabilities, our people, our resources and our philanthropy, to combat racism. We are focused on selecting communities where we have operations, and we are already making progress. We recognize that Cummins alone will not undo systemic racism, but we want to do our part to better the communities that we live in. Internally, over the last year, we've added one black Board member to our Board, and we have another black Board member standing for election today. We promoted 6 black leaders as officers, and we continue to address our hiring, advancement and retention processes to ensure that we are living our value of diversity inclusion every day. We also made significant progress on our efforts to accelerate gender equality throughout -- through the Cummins Powers Women's program. By partnering with expert nonprofits and leveraging the unique skills and talents of Cummins' employees and leaders, this global initiative has positively impacted more than 17 million women and girls through 14 gender equality law and policy changes that stem from nearly 100 advocacy grids since it was launched just a few years ago in 2018. These are important steps, and yet there's just so much more work to be done. We effectively managed through 2020, and we are well positioned to capitalize on strengthening markets to deliver another strong year in 2021. I'm optimistic about this year as the global economy continues to improve. There is significant demand across most of our end markets, and in many ways, this has led to unforeseen challenges in the supply chain. One example is the global semiconductor shortage that has impacted many industries, including our own. And adverse winter weather conditions and significant delays across global ports have exacerbated the situation. The ability to supply is our key focus now, and we are doing everything we can to mitigate the impact. Before concluding, I want to highlight a few important strategic developments, which have happened this year. In the first quarter of 2021, we announced several exciting new partnerships to provide medium-duty powertrains to Daimler, Isuzu and Hino. These partnerships represent a terrific opportunity for each company to be more competitive, to drive global innovation and expand offerings to customers while reducing emissions. We look forward to working with each partner and all while exploring other potential opportunities to grow our company. As a leading independent global power solutions provider, Cummins is committed to offering customers a broad range of solutions, including advanced diesel, near-zero natural gas, fully electric, hydrogen and other technologies. We will continue to invest in the products and technologies that will fuel profitable growth in the future and return capital to shareholders while maintaining the flexibility to ensure that we can weather any volatility that lay ahead. Thank you, and I look forward to your questions. Now let me turn it over to Sharon Barner, our Chief Administrative Officer and Corporate Secretary, who will facilitate this portion of the meeting.

Thank you, Tom. We've had a couple of questions come in. So we're going to try and group these together for as many as we can. We will take questions until about 11:40. If a question posed is not otherwise answered, such matters may be raised separately after the annual meeting by contacting Investor Relations at www.cummins.com. The first question, Tom, could you discuss the Board's perspective on the concept of stakeholder model and what principles the Board would use to balance interest of various stakeholders as it develops and implements the company's long-term business strategy?

Thank you, Sharon, for that question. Let me just say this. The stakeholder model has been embedded in the company's approach to our business and our markets for as long as, certainly, I've been with the company and long before me. And so it's embedded in pretty much every leadership framework we use and our discussions at the Board. And the way we think of it is this, that all of our stakeholders benefit when we take all stakeholder concerns into consideration. So we -- essentially, we optimize for each of them by considering all. So we believe that shareholders win when we think through the concerns and the opportunities for all stakeholders rather than focusing on one at the expense of the others. It's a long-term perspective. It's thinking through how we can optimize for all stakeholders over a sustained period of time. And in the short run, one stakeholder may do better than another, but the idea is that all benefit most in the long run. And the way that comes out to play is when we develop strategies, we think through whether or not their financial returns are adequate, whether or not we can be an addition to the communities in which we're operating, whether or not we can offer high-quality jobs and pay to the employees that work for us, whether we can serve customers effectively and help them succeed in their markets and we consider all those things as we think about new strategies, how to enter markets, what products we want to develop, how we want to approach a given strategic question. So -- and that extends down to leaders at all levels of the company, the same considerations.

Thank you, Tom. I have another question related to compensation. The question says that today's public company executive compensation plans are largely formulaic peer-related plans and include annual say-on-pay voting. Would you speak to whether Cummins might be better served by an executive compensation plan tailored specifically to the company's particular circumstances and its unique long-term strategic business plan?

It's a terrific question. The talent management committee, which includes the compensation considerations of the Board, does think through exactly those parameters. They think through the long-term goals of the company and strategies of the company. In fact, those are the entry points for looking at our compensation plans, is looking at the long-term strategy and goals of the company, and then trying to align our compensation approaches to that long-term strategy. And one of the reasons that we revisit our compensation programs regularly on the Board is because our strategy adjusts year-to-year or period-to-period. And so they look at those long-term strategies, look at the specific considerations or comments as well as how peers and others are approaching compensation problems to make sure that we're offering fair and competitive compensation as we try to attract and retain executives at our company. So both how others do it as well as what the specific needs of Cummins are, are both considered in those, in our compensation programs. And we have an external consultant who advises the committee on different approaches to make sure they balance out the requirements of the specific needs of the company with the competitive environment for talent that we have to operate in.

Thank you, Tom. I have one more question that's come in, related to PowerGen. Regarding PowerGen, do you think Diesel Gensets, as we know them, will come to an end in the near future? Is CMI planning accordingly?

It's a terrific question. The technology in all of our major markets, including the generator set market is evolving dramatically, maybe more at any time in our history as a company. And new low-carbon or zero-carbon technologies are now available that were never available before. We have been developing and working on these technologies for decades, but they are beginning to reach a point where economically, they're viable, meaning that the cost of those technologies and the robustness of them is improving to a point where we can see a future where those will be potentially not only more sustainable, but economically more attractive than diesel and existing technologies. Each market, though, has a different time frame over which that's likely to occur. And it will be impacted by availability of fuels and other infrastructure as well as regulations and requirements in the industry. There's no question that diesel has a long life ahead of it. But it's also no question that it will be replaced by these zero-carbon technologies, eventually. So the answer to the question is, for sure, Diesel Gensets will see their end. The question is when. And my view is it depends on the application and it depends on the region when that point is. But we are not waiting. We are -- we have been, as I mentioned, developing these low-carbon technologies for a long time, and we have also gone out and acquired some new technologies to add to the ones we've developed in-house to ensure that we are not only ready, but that we will lead in these markets as they move towards low-carbon and zero-carbon technologies. And as a purveyor of both diesel technology, which has been successful and a great solution for customers for 100 years, as that begins to ramp down, which, as I mentioned, will take many, many years, depending on the segment, we will have bridge solutions, natural gas, hybrids and other things, that bring customers all the way to the zero-carbon technologies as they become both economically viable and as infrastructure supports them. The generator set market is just one of those markets where this will occur. And -- but we will be ready for all of them. And in the generator set market, we've actually gone specifically and acquired some technology for solid oxide fuel cells, which we believe will be -- is most likely to be the eventual solution there. So we have not only the best technology with regard to today's diesel, where we can offer, again, low emissions, high-efficiency solutions, but then we'll have bridge technologies and then the final solutions all the most competitive for customers in the genset market as well as others.

Thank you, Tom, for that response. So far, you have answered all of the questions in the queue, and there are no more questions.

Okay. Well, thank you, Sharon, and thank you all for attending today's meeting and for your support of Cummins. With that, we'll call it to a close, and thank you all again.