Celestica Inc. (TSX:CLS)
569.51
+11.83 (2.12%)
May 1, 2026, 4:00 PM EST
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Earnings Call: Q1 2020
Apr 29, 2020
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Celestica First Quarter 2020 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speakers' presentation, we will conduct a question and answer Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speakers for today, Craig Ulberg, Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Development. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us on Celestica's Q1 2020 earnings conference call. On the call today are Rob Mionis, President and Chief Executive Officer and Mandeep Chala, Chief Financial Officer. As a reminder, during this call, we will make forward looking statements within the meanings of the U. S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and applicable Canadian securities laws.
Such forward looking statements are based on management's current expectations, forecasts and assumptions, which are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual outcomes and results to differ materially from conclusions, forecasts or projections expressed in such statements. For identification and discussion of such factors and assumptions as well as further information concerning forward looking statements, please refer to our press release, including the cautionary note regarding forward looking statements therein and our annual report on Form 20 F and other public filings, which can be accessed at sec.govandsedar.com. We assume no obligation to update any forward looking statement except as required by law. In addition, during this call, we will refer to various non IFRS including operating earnings, operating margin, adjusted gross margin, adjusted return on invested capital or adjusted ROIC, free cash flow, EBITDA, gross debt to non IFRS trailing 12 month adjusted EBITDA leverage ratio, adjusted net earnings, adjusted EPS, adjusted SG and A expense and adjusted effective tax rate. Listeners should be cautioned that references to any of the foregoing measures during this call denote non IFRS measures, whether or not specifically designated as such.
These non IFRS measures do not have any standardized meanings prescribed by IFRS and may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other public companies that use IFRS or who report under U. S. GAAP and use non GAAP measures to describe similar operating metrics. We refer you to today's press release and our Q1 2020 earnings presentation, which are available at celestica.com under the Investor Relations tab for more information about these and certain other non IFRS measures, including a reconciliation of historical non IFRS measures to the most directly comparable IFRS measures from our financial statements. Unless otherwise specified, all references to dollars on this call are to U.
S. Dollars and per share information is based on diluted shares outstanding. Let me now turn the call over to Rob.
Thank you, Craig. Good morning, and thank you for joining today's conference call. Before we discuss Celestica's results, I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge the commitment, teamwork and creativity displayed by our global team as they have risen to the challenge of steering the company through the COVID-nineteen pandemic. Our priority was to put plans in place to help ensure the health and safety of our employees as we maintained business continuity across network. I would also like to thank our customers and suppliers for their partnership and finding ways to work through a variety of restrictions.
Since the beginning of the crisis, Celestica has implemented several preventative and proactive measures to help protect the health and safety of our employees, suppliers and customers. We continue to promote a range of protocols that include a global work from home policy, physical distancing, enhanced screening, providing personal protective equipment and shift splitting. We will continue to put safety first, while we work to maximize production uptime. Now turning to our Q1 results. Even in this challenging environment, we were able to achieve improved year over year operating margin, generate robust free cash flow and pay down long term debt.
COVID-nineteen presented a number of challenges that negatively impacted our financial results this quarter. 1st quarter revenue fell slightly below our withdrawn guidance range, but profitability was ultimately in line with beginning of quarter Our CCS segment posted solid margin performance on lower than expected revenue, expanding segment margin sequentially for the 4th consecutive quarter and operating at the high end of its 2% to 3% target range. In our ATS segment, we are encouraged by Capital Equipment's return to profitability. Capital Equipment had posted a loss for the last five quarters and we are pleased that our restructuring actions and improved mix have accelerated its recovery. However, increasing headwinds in A and D contributed to ATS segment margins below our target range of 5% to 6%.
I will provide some additional color on our end markets, but first, I will turn the call over to Mandeep to give you further details on our Q1 results.
Thank you, Rob, and good morning, everyone. As a reminder, on March 17, 2020, we withdrew our previously disclosed financial guidance for the Q1 of 2020 in response to the uncertainty created by various government mandated site closures stemming from COVID-nineteen. Notwithstanding the disruptions caused by COVID-nineteen, however, other than revenue, which was $6,000,000 below the low end of our guidance range, our other results were firmly within the ranges originally provided. Our first quarter revenue came in at $1,320,000,000 lower than originally expected mainly due to an estimated negative impact of approximately $85,000,000 from COVID-nineteen. Revenue decreased 12% sequentially and was down 8% year over year.
Our non IFRS operating margin was 2.9%, up 50 basis points year over year and flat sequentially. Non IFRS adjusted earnings per share were $0.16 compared to $0.12 for the Q1 of 2019. Our ATS segment revenue was 41% of our consolidated revenue, up from 40% compared to the Q1 of last year. ATS revenue was down 7% sequentially and down 5% compared to last year. In addition to impacts from COVID-nineteen, the year over year decline was driven by reduced revenue in Energy due to previously planned disengagements and weakness in our A and D business, partially offset by improvements in capital equipment demand.
The sequential decline was mainly due to COVID-nineteen materials and manufacturing constraints and demand weakness in A and D driven by the 7 37 MAX halt, partially offset by improvement in capital equipment. Our CCS segment revenue was down 15% sequentially and down 10% year over year. The year over year decline was primarily driven by portfolio shaping actions. Within our CCS segment, the communications end market represented 39 of our consolidated Q1 revenue, the same as the Q1 of last year. Communications revenue in the quarter was down 10% year over year, largely due to COVID-nineteen impact, partly offset by continuing strength in our JDM business.
Our enterprise end market represented 20% of consolidated revenue in the Q1, down from 21% in the same period last year. Enterprise revenue in the quarter was down 10% year over year, largely due to planned disengagements as part of our CCS segment portfolio review, partly offset by higher program specific demand, including in JDM programs. Our top 10 customers represented 66% of revenue for the quarter, down from 68% last quarter and up from 62% in the same period of last year. For the Q1, we had one customer contributing greater than 10% of total revenue compared to 2 customers year over year and sequentially. Turning to segment margins.
ATS segment margin of 2.7% was down 30 basis points relative to last quarter due to demand softness related to COVID-nineteen and headwinds in the A and D business, partly offset by strength in capital equipment. Capital equipment returned to profitability for the first time since the Q4 of 2018 and as expected delivered profitability in the single digit millions. Year over year, ATS segment margin was up 10 basis points as improvements in capital equipment performance more than offset inefficiencies due to COVID-nineteen and headwinds in A and D. CCS segment margin of 3.0% came in at the high end of our target range of 2% to 3% despite lower than expected revenue. Segment margin was up 10 basis points sequentially and up 70 basis points year over year.
Both sequential and year over year improvements were driven by favorable mix, including strong growth and operating leverage in JDM and continued productivity efforts. Moving to some other financial highlights in the quarter. IFRS net loss for the quarter was negative $3,200,000 or negative $0.02 per share compared to net earnings of $90,300,000 or positive $0.66 per share in the same quarter of last year. Earnings per share for the Q1 of 2019 included a $0.75 per share benefit from the sale of our Toronto property. Adjusted gross margin of 7.3 percent was up 30 basis points sequentially and up 70 basis points compared to last year.
Despite lower revenue and negative impacts from COVID-nineteen, sequential and year over year improvements were largely driven by improved mix and productivity. Our adjusted SG and A of $50,000,000 was down $2,500,000 sequentially, primarily due to favorable foreign exchange impacts and lower variable spend. Our adjusted SG and A was down $1,000,000 from the prior year period, primarily due to foreign exchange benefits. Non IFRS operating earnings were $38,100,000 down $5,600,000 sequentially and up $3,000,000 from the same quarter of last year. Our non IFRS adjusted effective tax rate for the Q1 was 24% compared to 27% both sequentially and for the prior year period.
For the Q1, adjusted net earnings were $20,700,000 compared to $15,800,000 for the prior year period. Non IFRS adjusted earnings per share of $0.16 was up $0.04 year over year, mainly due to higher non IFRS operating earnings and lower interest expense. Non IFRS adjusted ROIC of 9.5 percent was down 1.1% sequentially and up 1.6% compared to the same quarter of last year. Moving on to working capital. Our inventory at the end of the quarter was $1,100,000,000 an increase of $80,000,000 sequentially and flat relative to last year.
Inventory turns were 4.8, down 0.7 turns sequentially and down 0.2 turns year over year. Capital expenditures for the Q1 were $12,000,000 or approximately 1% of revenue. Non IFRS free cash flow was $54,000,000 in the Q1 compared to $145,000,000 for the same period last year, All but $32,000,000 of our Q1 2019 cash flow was attributable to the sale of our Toronto property. Cash cycle days in the Q1 were 69 days, up 7 days sequentially and flat year over year. Our cash deposits at the end of the Q1 of 2020 were $135,000,000 up $13,000,000 sequentially as we continue to work with our customers on working capital improvements.
We continue to improve our working capital performance and we remain focused on generating more than $100,000,000 of non IFRS free cash flow in 2020. Moving on to our balance sheet and other key measures. Celestica continues to maintain a strong balance sheet. Our cash balance at the end of the Q1 was $472,000,000 down $7,000,000 sequentially and up $14,000,000 year over year. As a result of our high cash balance and our $450,000,000 revolver, which remains undrawn, Celestica's liquidity exceeds $900,000,000 We believe this liquidity amount is sufficient to meet our current business needs.
As a result of continuing free cash flow generation, we were able to make progress in the Q1 towards deleveraging our balance sheet by retaying $61,000,000 of long term debt. Our gross debt position was $531,000,000 at the end of March, while our net debt was $59,000,000 down $53,000,000 sequentially and down $177,000,000 from the Q1 of last year. Our gross debt to non IFRS trailing 12 month adjusted EBITDA leverage ratio improved 0.2 turns sequentially to 2.0 turns. At the end of March, we were compliant with all of our financial covenants under our credit agreement. In the near term, our priority is continue to reduce our leverage, providing us with increasing levels of flexibility and reduced interest costs.
Over the long term though, our capital allocation priorities remain the same. We will continue to work towards generating strong free cash flow and plan to return approximately half to shareholders while investing the other half into the business. In the Q1, we incurred $8,000,000 of restructuring charges. While restructuring costs are forecasted to be lower than anticipated for the Cisco disengagement in 2020, we anticipate taking additional restructuring actions in 2020 associated with adjusting our cost base to reflect shifting demand. As a result, restructuring costs for 2020 will be greater than the forecasted $30,000,000 We believe that Celestica has a strong operating model and solid balance sheet to weather the current COVID-nineteen disruption.
As we look to the next quarter, we see continued uncertainty surrounding COVID-nineteen. While our operations are largely stabilized, the size and geographic diversity of our network exasperates the high degree of variability surrounding government imposed workforce restrictions impacting not only our operations, but that of the global supply base. Therefore, consistent with many of our large customers, we do not believe it would be prudent to provide any specific financial guidance for the Q2 at this time. While we're not providing guidance, we do anticipate the Q2 to be largely in line with our Q1 results should conditions neither improve nor deteriorate further. I'll now turn the call over to Rob for additional color and an update on our priorities.
Thank you, Mandeep. COVID-nineteen presented 3 primary challenges in the Q1 increased material constraints, deferred demand and operational inefficiencies. First, material shortages increased by approximately 50% in Q1 2020 as compared to the end of 2019. We are actively engaged with our supply base to secure materials and while we are making progress, there continues to be uncertainty due to COVID-nineteen. 2nd, while we are experiencing demand strength in capital equipment and service provider, which is fueled by our JDM hardware solutions, we have seen softness in other areas such as A and D and industrial.
We are working with customers to adjust and optimize future production schedules. And at this time, we anticipate that most of the estimated demand shortfall resulting from COVID-nineteen will push into later quarters. Finally, while we have been impacted by government mandated shutdowns, we are pleased with the work our teams have done to get us back online to meet our customers' requirements. Currently, our global network is operating at approximately 80% to 85% of normal workforce levels. However, certain sites continue to operate at lower capacity levels as a result of government mandated operational restrictions currently in effect.
Others are operating at near normal levels with China at 95 plus percent. As we think about 2020, we are pleased that we're able to start the year with a solid foundation in CCS and with improving performance in capital equipment. While we are now facing a number of near term headwinds as a result of COVID-nineteen, we believe the strength of our portfolio will help mitigate some of these challenges. Turning to ATS. Our capital equipment business was and continues to be negatively impacted by COVID-nineteen due to shelter in place orders in various geographies.
Currently, our capital equipment facilities in the Bay Area, Oregon and Malaysia are operating at approximately 60% normal workforce level, while Korea is at full capacity. Despite these challenges, revenue was up 28% year over year in the Q1 and unfulfilled demand from Q1 is expected to be fulfilled in subsequent quarters. The business returned to profitability in the Q1 in the single digit $1,000,000 range. The sequential improvement in profitability was helped in part by our productivity initiatives, improved mix and new program ramps. The display market remains depressed.
And while volumes are improving, we continue to expect near term softness with a modest recovery late in the year, driven by increased demand for next generation smartphones and next generation large form factor displays. As the industry shifts from LCD to OLED, we believe that we are well positioned to support our customers' growth and have already begun ramping new programs. In our semi cap business, we are seeing full year demand strength on a year over year basis. However, our near term results were softer than expected driven by COVID-nineteen. We are pleased with the improved profitability in our capital equipment business and continue to take a long term view of this market.
With our specialized vertical capabilities, we believe we are well positioned to capitalize on potential long term demand drivers for this business. Across the balance of ATS, the challenges we are experiencing from COVID-nineteen are impacting growth across several markets, while also creating some opportunities. Within industrial, in the near term, we are seeing a modest demand reduction for certain end market products as a result of COVID-nineteen. In A and D, we are experiencing headwinds as a result of continued material constraints that have been exacerbated by COVID-nineteen and a temporary halt of the Boeing 737 MAX program. As a result, A and D was largely breakeven in the Q1 of 2020.
However, we are expanding on the actions taken in the Q1 to adjust our cost base to this reduced level of demand. Barring any unforeseen increased negative impacts from COVID-nineteen, we anticipate the business to improve its profitability in the near term. The aviation industry is among the hardest hit industries by the pandemic. And as such, we anticipate that COVID-nineteen will continue to pressure our A and D business in 2020 as weakness spreads to the commercial market, partially offsetting anticipated strength in defense. While we are facing challenges in our commercial aerospace business in the near term, we are pleased that our defense business bolstered by Atren continues to perform well.
We are excited that Atren has received its 6th 4 Star Supplier Excellence Award from Raytheon in the Q1. This award is a recognition for our team's focus on quality and on time delivery each and every day. Also as mentioned last quarter, we are in the process of expanding one of our Atrient facilities to accommodate additional ITAR capacity as well as the expansion of our licensing business. We are pleased that these expansion efforts are on track and expect them to be substantially complete by the end of the year. Within HealthTech, we expect to see strong growth in 2020.
While we are seeing a modest near term decline in demand for products used in elective procedures due to COVID-nineteen priorities, we are pleased with HealthTech's growth, including a number of recent wins to partner with our customers in the fight against COVID-nineteen. We are working with Medtronic to quickly ramp the production of ventilators. In addition, we're also collaborating with a Canadian based medical company to produce ventilators for the Canadian government. Celestica is happy to do our part in combating COVID-nineteen. Turning to CCS.
Our CCS segment delivered sequential margin improvement for the 4th consecutive quarter and operated at the top end of our 2% to 3% target range, driven by portfolio actions and improved mix, including more JDM. We are pleased with the performance of our JDM business. At the end of 2019, JDM accounted for $500,000,000 of revenue. And in the Q1 of this year, JDM revenue grew approximately 40% year over year. This high level of growth was fueled by a number of wins in the service provider market.
Celestica now supports 8 out of the 10 world's largest hyperscale service providers, developing technologies which are deployed throughout their data centers. We are seeing increased demand from service providers as they expand their data centers in support of growing cloud and online requirements. Current demand growth is largely driven by 2019 wins and accelerated by the recent surge in remote workers consumption of digital content and the need for artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to help global governments and agencies combat COVID-nineteen. While we are seeing strong growth within JDM and service provider customers, communication OEM demand softness and portfolio shaping continues to adversely impact our revenue amplified by COVID-nineteen. Our Cisco disengagement is progressing as planned, and we expect the transition to be largely complete by the end of 2020.
We continue to work with Cisco to ensure an efficient, seamless and successful transition. We are pleased with the progress of selectively backfill Cisco revenue with higher value add solutions and continue to have many inquiries about available capacity at our Thailand facility. We have a large funnel of opportunities to backfill Thailand and we already experienced strong bookings in the Q1 of 2020. We believe we are on track to meet our bookings targets with a richer mix of programs. While there is uncertainty surrounding the impact COVID-nineteen may have in the near term, including in our A and D segment, we remain confident in our long term outlook.
We believe that our strength in CCS hardware solutions to support the growing demand for cloud and bandwidth, coupled with our limited exposure to consumer oriented markets, provides us with a solid foundation during these uncertain times. We are excited about our future opportunities for sustainable, profitable growth. I'd like to thank all of our employees who are focused on keeping our operations running and working together to help mitigate the risks for our customers. Their effort and commitment to working together to adapt to has been nothing less than extraordinary. We look forward to updating you over the coming quarters.
With that, would now like to turn the call over to the operator to begin our Q and A.
Certainly. Gus Papageorg with PI Financial. Your line is open.
Thanks for taking my questions and congratulations on a good decent quarter given a challenging environment. I just want to hit on the Cisco disengagement. I mean, I imagine it was a pretty complicated undertaking under normal circumstances, but with all the chaos that's going out there in the supply chain, I mean, you're how certain are you that it's going to happen this year? And has do you know if Cisco has found other providers? And if they don't if they aren't able to find other providers within the timeframe that you plan, I mean, what is the plan for maybe extending it?
I mean, are there is there any other contracts that would be beneficial for you if Cisco were to extend their supply agreement with you?
Hi, Gus, it's Rob. Yes, the transition plan that we've worked out with Cisco is complete. So they have found other providers and we're working with them on a seamless and efficient transition. So while things could change amidst the COVID pandemic, I think they have homes for all the work and we're working through the transition plan. In our side, we're encouraged by the very strong bookings that we've seen to date backfill the Cisco work with programs that are more aligned to our strategy.
We're seeing some strength, a lot of strength in our service provider business. We have a lot of new wins for Cowen in specific and we have a very strong funnel of other growth opportunities both in comms and enterprise.
Okay, great. And sorry, if I could just one more. I mean, good cash flow in the quarter. When do you think you'll be do you think by the end of the year, you'll be in a net cash position? I mean, obviously, your inventory levels are higher because of material constraints.
But if you kind of continue at these levels, do you think by the end of the year, we'll be you guys will be in a net cash position?
Hi, guys. Mandeep here. Yes, so we're very pleased with the cash flow generation in the Q1, dollars 54,000,000 As we mentioned, we're targeting above $100,000,000 for the full year. And so that would imply that we'll get pretty close to that. But what I would just say is that the timing, of course, will be up and down given the COVID impact right now.
So we do expect to continue to generate strong free cash flow as we go through 2020. And our number one focus right now is to delever. So if the cash generation does come in as expected, we should be getting close to a net cash position.
Great. Thanks for taking my questions.
Thanks, guys.
Todd Coupland with CIBC. Your line is open.
Yes. Good morning, everyone.
Good morning.
Just a follow-up on the free cash flow. I think you said all the free cash flow was from operations except $32,000,000 Was that right? So
Actually, hi Todd, Mandy here. Actually, no, we were just providing a bridge on a year over year basis when you back out the Toronto property sale. And so what we were indicating is that our cash flow was stronger than the previous period when you back out the Toronto sale. Okay.
I just wanted you to give us the goalpost to get to $100,000,000 for the year, particularly given you've done pretty well in quarter 1 in terms of getting halfway there. So just talk about the puts and takes would get you to $100,000,000
Sure. So if you look at our cash cycle performance, we were relatively flat on a year over year basis. And that is with inventory levels being elevated. And so if the and as you're aware, in the EMS space, if revenue was to decline, it has opportunity to go much more cash. We currently do have visibility to generating that levels of cash flow and it's a combination of slightly lower revenue, but then also continuing working capital performance, specifically in the areas of inventory and deposits.
We feel like we're making good progress in those areas.
Okay. And then my second question, follow-up question is, from what you're seeing from your customers at this point and the various government requirements, Do you have an opinion on the strength of the recovery? I mean, this is obviously a major debate across a number of companies, but is the V, is it a U, is it a L? I imagine some of your segments will take longer to come back such as aerospace, but excluding that, talk about what your customers are telling you in terms of how quickly the business come back once the various regions open up? Thanks a lot.
Hey, Todd, it's Rob. Good question. It's certainly a conversation we've been having with all our customers and it does depend, I think, in our CCS business, especially in the service provider and in areas that support the hyperscalers, they see things accelerating, driven the COVID pandemic and the thirst for bandwidth. But in other areas, especially like aerospace, I think it's going to be down for a good couple of years. Industrial, I think it's probably more of a U.
Health tech, there's some puts and takes. But generally speaking, we see that as a growth business for us and also for industries as the while there's a push ahead of elective surgery equipment, there's a pull in of everything else in terms of diagnostic equipment. So it depends on people's mix. But generally speaking, HealthTech will be a growth business for us as well. So it really depends on the segment.
But the general sentiment, I think, is people are hopeful for the pessimists are saying an L. There's a lot of optimism for
Great. Thanks a lot. Appreciate the color.
Paul Steep with Scotia Capital. Your line is open.
Hi, good morning. Rob, could you maybe talk just a little bit longer term if you've had any discussions yet or how clients would be thinking about maybe shifting manufacturing capacity. We know we've had some commentary out there about people realigning supply chains and shifting things. How would Celestica think about that? And then I've got one quick follow-up from Andy.
Thanks.
Yes. Right now customers are being very measured in terms of how they're thinking about the long term footprint. I think early on in the first couple of innings, there was the tariff situation and now there's a lot of discussion about localization and things along those lines. Nobody's going over rotating at this stage of the game in terms of looking at onshore and or anything drastic. I think everybody is looking to have a balanced portfolio that kind of has total landed costs that are optimized.
So not a lot of discussion right now on any hardware interactions.
Perfect. And then Mandeep, how should we think about the operating costs, obviously, taking into effect your commentary around 30. But if we think about the operating cost in Q1, did we fully have the savings reflected in there at sort of the prior run rate? Or should we think that there's significantly more to come? Thanks.
Let me
know if I'm answering your question properly, Paul. So we're pleased with the performance that we had in the Q1, but there were puts and takes in there. So as we mentioned, revenue was impacted by about $85,000,000 because of COVID-nineteen. And so had we not had that headwind, revenue would have come in a lot stronger. And then with leverage, you would have seen margins potentially expand from there.
We also did incur some direct costs relative to COVID-nineteen, about $3,000,000 or so. And so that's weighing down on the results. But we had other benefits on the other side. We had some foreign exchange benefits. We saw some benefits on our tax rate as well.
And so while we're not providing guidance going into the 2nd quarter, we expect that there is going to be some moving pieces. You hit on one of them, which is the improved profitability in certain areas. A and D was approximately a breakeven business in the Q1. Now we've already started to take some cost actions, but we need to take more cost actions and right size that business. And right now, the plans that we have are indicating a greater level of profitability in A and D as we move into Q2.
And so the actions are continuing. And I'll just touch briefly on the year. The good news is that because of the strong growth that we're seeing in Thailand, not only from new wins that we're getting into backfill Cisco, but also a lot of demand strength from service provider. We are able to redeploy more resources and assets than what we had planned. And so that original 30 is coming in lower.
However, as we add on additional actions to, as we've mentioned, we are seeing that that will add to it. So right now, our restructuring outlook for the full year is in the range of $30,000,000 to $45,000,000
Perfect. Thank you.
You're welcome.
Rob Young with Canaccord Genuity. Your line is open.
Hi, good morning. The $85,000,000 impact that you're talking about, I think people might use that as a way to calibrate Q2. So I was curious if you could talk about how much of that was driven by China? And if part of that $85,000,000 would have happened maybe in the second half of March as the impact of COVID-nineteen radiated outwards?
Sure.
So actually let me talk about COVID-nineteen for a moment and Rob can add on as needed. So there's kind of 3 legs to the stool here. There's the demand side, there's impacts on the material side and then there's operations. On the demand side, we talked about the $85,000,000 About 2 thirds of that was in the CCS business. And as you know, the majority of CCS' operations are in the Asia region.
But one of the challenges that we've been having has been on the material supply. So the demand outlook, as Rob had mentioned in one of his earlier responses, is pretty strong. Although there's some puts and takes, in aggregate, the demand outlook continues to be relatively strong. The material constraints were a challenge, and that's one of the reasons that inventory has increased a little bit. That's one of the reasons we had the $85,000,000 of gated revenue.
And it really has to do with our suppliers being able to get back fully online. And right now, there is a portion of our suppliers that are not yet fully online, which is causing some of these challenges. The other big unknown right now is we're very pleased that the operating network is running at 80% to 85% utilization. And we would hope that over time that, that would improve. But it's a very large unknown right now.
And so right now, we're anticipating as we go into Q2 that the it won't get materially better, but it also won't get materially worse.
Right. So if I set aside A
and D, it sounds as though the bigger impact is it's not demand, it would be your ability to operate some of the facilities and then the ability to secure enough supply to build. Is that
what you're saying? Correct. So it's the operating efficiency to your point and then it's material supply. I mean if you look at our network right now, across our network there's only one site that's actually currently not operating and it's a relatively small site And our expectations are that that site will be back online within the next few weeks. And so on the operating side, you just don't know if there's going to be another government mandated shutdown in whichever country you pick.
On the supply side, we've been seeing a good level of improvement. And what we're finding is that the supply constraints are not coming out of China. They're coming of areas that have been hit after the China pandemics or after the pandemic hit China. And so right now, about 15% of those suppliers are currently at some level of disruption. And so the answer to your question is, yes, demand we and we have dedicated resources on that and they're making very good progress.
And then on the operational side, we're pleased again that we're at the 80 to 85.
Okay.
And then last question for me, just directionality on the operating margins going forward. I heard a bunch of different things. It sounds as though restructuring AMD may actually be positive for that. The CE business is profitable. 2.9% operating margin this quarter was strong.
Do you think you can improve on that as you go through the year? Or is it just too uncertain to tell?
We'll be careful not to provide guidance. There is a lot of uncertainty. And so I think the prudent thing would be to do that. It wouldn't really be in any of our benefits to declare that we have tremendous clarity when many of our customers themselves are saying that they don't. But what we would say is that if you go back and look at kind of how we were thinking about 2020 earlier on, we are looking to expand margins in 2020 compared to 2019 and we're looking to grow our EPS as well in 20 20.
And so the 2.9% in Q1 was up 50 basis points on a year over year excuse me, it was up on a year over year basis. And so if that 50 basis points improvement was there in Q1, we're looking for margin expansion as we go through the remainder of the year, but we're not going to give a number at this time.
Okay. Thanks a lot.
Thanks, Rob. Thanos Moschopoulos with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Hi, good morning. Mehdi, just to clarify, you said that as we head into the next quarter, you'd expect to see some profitability improvement in A and D. And so what would be the key offsets given that all else equal, you would think that Q2 looks similar to Q1 at a corporate level?
Well, there are some, again, some impacts from direct costs around COVID. Those will continue to be a little bit of an unknown. We had benefits in the Q1, as I mentioned, around taxes as well as foreign exchange. Those won't necessarily repeat themselves going into Q2. And so while we are expecting improvement in A and D and we expect continuing contribution, profit contribution from capital equipment, that they may be slightly offset.
The other thing I would say is that we're very pleased with the performance that we saw in CCS. CCS was at 3% of their margins and that's the high end of their range. I would say at this point, it's not necessarily something that we can assume is going to continue to be at that level. The business had a very strong level of performance in Q1. We're still anticipating good performance for the remainder of the year.
But if the business falls a little bit below 3%, that wouldn't be very far off of our expectations.
Okay. And just to clarify in terms of the 80 5 percent capacity that you're running at currently, What segments are being most impacted by the constraints and the production truck falls? Yes. Hi, it's Rob. Right now, capital equipment is running at about 60% to 70%.
They're probably one of the most impacted. That's largely driven by some low utilization in the Bay Area and also Malaysia. As of late, we do expect some of the issues we're having in Malaysia to get better as the company gets over the surge, if you will. That's one of the lower ones. And we're really tracking it more by region than by business.
Again, China is almost back to normal levels. Europe is running very strong at 90 plus percent. Thailand is running at 90 plus percent. Like I mentioned, Malaysia is getting better, but in the 70% range right now. So overall, I guess, I would have to thinking aloud, I would have to say capital equipment probably has the longest way to go.
Okay. Thank you. That's fine. Okay.
Ruplu Bhattacharya with Bank of America. Your line is open.
Hi, thanks for taking my questions. On the CCS side, just looking at enterprises, the revenues came in better than you had expected. You had guided down mid-20s. It came down 10% year on year. Also on the communication side, it looks like it was slightly worse, down 10% versus flat you had guided.
So maybe if you can drill down like what did you what was better, what was worse in each of these enterprise and communications end markets?
Sure. So what we saw in enterprise in Q1, we saw a strong demand in storage and compute supporting the hyper scalers that was somewhat offset by portfolio shaping and the balance was resulting from demand dynamics. As we look forward in enterprise, we see again continued portfolio shaping and that will again comms, what we saw was obviously COVID pressure. We had product and technology transitions and some weaknesses in traditional comms programs that was partially offset with some new program ramps supporting service providers. And looking forward, we do see some of the unfilled demand in comms from Q1 pushing into Q2.
We have some new program ramps in networking supported by our JDM portfolio. We've seen some demand strength in some existing programs in the networking area and that's being partially offset with some technology transitions.
Okay. Thanks for the color, Rob, on that. For my second question, just on A and D, can you help us quantify what the dollar impact was on of the material shortages that you saw on A and D revenues and also the dollar impact of the Boeing 737 MAX program? And the genesis of my question is, I mean, A and D is a big part, I mean, you're a leader in A and D EMS. So given that that segment will be weak over the course of the year, do you still expect ATS segment to grow year on year?
Or do you think the weakness in A and D just kind of masks the growth you're seeing in other parts of the business? Thanks.
Yes. I'll maybe take the piece around profitability and the outlook and Rob can add on as well. A and D is our largest segment within ATS and A and D has been performing very well for a number of years. The challenges around the 737 coming out of the end of last year have already been factored into our were already factored into the numbers we're looking at as we think about this year. And so we haven't seen a material change at this point in what's happening around the 737.
We won't give specifics on the direct impact, but what I will share or reiterate from last time is 7 37 was just a little bit under 10% of our overall A and D revenues in last year. And so the 7 37, it's not moving too much. On the other side of things, though, there were a lot of inefficiencies. So some material continues to be constrained, and that's creating inefficiencies within the network. We saw shutdowns in the Q1 as well, which drove some of the inefficiencies.
But the we are expecting a level of profitability as we go into Q2. To address your question on the 5% to 6% maybe range on the organic growth rate. I mean commercial aerospace is down significantly and we are expecting a double digit decline in our aerospace and defense business in 2020 as a result of that. And so because it's our largest segment, we likely will not hit the 10% growth rate in ATS this year that we're targeting. We're pleased that we were able to get to that rate, 9% for the last 2 years.
This year, we may not see that. But that being said, we're still in the early innings. Capital equipment demand continues to strong and we'll see how much of the decline in A and D can be offset by capital equipment.
Okay. Thanks for all the color. I appreciate it.
And
with respect to the material constraints, out of the $85,000,000 about I guess about 40% or so was pointed towards APS. The balance was in about CCS. A lot of the shortages within that 40% were within A and D. Some of them were COVID related, but also some of them were just other issues that we're working through. We've had some high reliability parts on some very specific programs that have been on allocation for a period of time and we're working through with that supplier to increase their capacity to reduce the backlog.
So those continue to impede our ability to get revenue out the door.
Okay. Thanks, Ram. Appreciate it.
Paul Treiber with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Thanks very much and good morning. Just want to follow-up on a prior comment you made about capital equipment being at 60% to 70% utilization. How does that compare to either last quarter or last year? And then how do you see utilization changing over the year? Is that a fairly rapidly moving item or are you looking for that to improve with displays ramping up towards the end of the year?
Yes. So the utilization comment was really just on what percent of the total hours available are our employees consuming, if you will. And the 60% to 70% relative to last year is about we usually run at about 100%. What's bringing that down is just in Malaysia specifically government mandates on how many people could be in the building at any given time any given point in time. And based on conditions improving in Malaysia, Malaysia, we see that the restrictions being pulled back and our utilization improving over the next several weeks to the full quarter.
California is still on the shelter in place order, so that will probably still be in place for some period of time. So we're waiting to see that. With respect to display, Korea has been at about 100% utilization. They have not been impacted significantly by COVID, thank goodness. So right now, we're seeing some sequential quarter over quarter improvement in display.
But as mentioned during the call, we don't see volumes materially improving till perhaps towards the end of the year into next year as some of the cell phone, smartphone sales start picking up in the industry.
Thanks. That's helpful to understand. For my second question, just in light of globally the financial constraints and the uncertainty in this environment, do you think it would lead to an overall greater willingness from your end customers for to consider outsourcing maybe more so than what they did in the past? Or have you seen any signs of that at this point?
Yes, that's a very good question. I think that's especially true in high reliability markets. What we've seen in past cycles as customers work through their cost challenges and EMS providers like ourselves that are the leaders, in A and D we're a leader, in capital equipment we're a leader, they look to the leaders in those industries to help support them, to help supply drive supply chain efficiency. So in areas of A and D in particular, we do see a potential benefit as the industry goes through its down cycle for us to actually pick up some incremental share where these OEMs were reluctant to outsource in the past. At this stage of the game, they probably have a lot of Swiss cheese in their factories, a lot of underutilized factories.
And we could certainly help them through their efforts in terms of lifting and shifting and helping them to facilitate consolidation and optimizing also on our existing footprint. So we do view that as opportunity and especially as an impact for many of our ATS markets.
Matt Sheerin with Stifel. Your line is open.
Yes. Hi, good morning. This is Kurt Swartz on for Matt. Question on the HealthTech business and the ramping of some new COVID related programs. Just wondering if you can offer a little bit more color on how you expect the incremental COVID related demand, how long you expect that to be sustained potentially?
And whether this will be a net benefit in the next few quarters given the reduced demand for surgical products?
Yes. Hi, Kurt. Yes, so COVID is actually having a positive impact on ventilators IVD monitoring devices. So we expect the demand for these devices to be strong for the balance of the year. Some of our recent awards that we won for the ultrasounds, for diagnostic equipment, there are accelerations of products that we're currently producing.
We also have some incremental awards. So we think the net benefit for us this year will be north of $75,000,000 probably fulfilled in the back half of this year. So that we already had a fairly high growth rate in our HealthTech businesses will actually add to that high growth rate.
Understood. Thank you. And then just another question. Looking at the capital equipment outlook, you mentioned that you expected some of the unfulfilled demand in Q1 to probably come back in future quarters. But I'm just wondering if you may have any commentary on the competitive dynamics in this market and what the timeline may be for that demand coming back.
I think one of your peers also indicated that it believed it was gaining share due to semi cap in semi cap due to supply constraints. So just wondering when those constraints may be lifted and how that competitive dynamic shakes out?
Yes. As I mentioned, a lot of the Q1 demand that was supply chain constrained, basically really from our suppliers not being that fully up to speed, we'll push into Q2 and subsequent quarters. From a broad market perspective, what we're seeing is technology buys continuing in areas of logic and 3 d NAND. We're seeing memory pick up in the hopefully in the back half of the year in DRAM and NAND. A large portion of our growth this year is not just increased demand, but it's new program ramps.
We won a fair amount of business last year. That business is now in ramp mode. So a good portion of our demand strength is actually coming from these new program ramps. And then again, more broadly speaking, through the COVID dynamic, we have not heard of any major change in fab plans or expansions or upgrades or pullbacks on technology advancements. A lot of the issues that we saw in Q1 in the semi cap industry was really due to logistic issues of our customers having issues with moving people around, the materials around, they're doing the installs or things along that.
So we expect that to get better in subsequent quarters. And also our supply base, as Mandeep alluded to before, is slowly or actually not that slowly, but coming online as those government restrictions are improved, they're getting back online and we're getting improved flow of parts.
Yes. I'll just add to Rob's comment just to reiterate what we had said in our prepared remarks, which was capital equipment was up 28% on a year over year basis in the Q1. And so although there was some demand that pushed out into subsequent quarters, we're seeing very strong levels of top line growth and it is very much largely on the back of wins that we've had in that space in 2018 2019. And so we do expect a good level of growth just from those share takeaways and new program ramps even though some ultimate demand may shift between quarters.
Great. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Daniel Chan with TD Securities. Your line is open.
Hi. Good morning, guys. So in the past, you said that if the inventory you're holding your books, if some of your customers don't hit certain inventory turns that they essentially pay you fees for holding that inventory for them, Can you give us details on the conditions under which that applies? Obviously, with if there's demand doesn't hit certain their expectations and they do less inventory spend as they'll pay. But what about in this environment where you're finding it tough to actually fulfill the request that they're ordering from you?
Yes.
Hi, Dan. Mandeep here. Actually, I'll take a step back for a moment and talk about how we looked at the CCS portfolio going back the last 2 years. Our primary filter has been around ROIC. And so while we ultimately have announced a number of programs that we're just engaging from because we weren't able to address that either by having less invested capital in play or improved profitability.
Sometimes it's led to us to making a decision to disengage. However, there were a number of customers in our CCS business where we were able to come to favorable terms on. And some of those terms are where we have an inventory turn cash model in place with them. And so if their demand is dropping off or if they need us to buy a lot more inventory to fulfill certain spikes, a lot of times a cash deposit will come in to help offset that. And one of the things you'll notice is our cash deposits now are up to $135,000,000 That's up $15,000,000 from the Q1 of last year.
And so the conversations we have with our customers are before we tie up even more working capital, let's understand when you're going to use it. And if the time that you needed is a little bit longer than what would be normal, let's have a conversation around deposits and we found that our customers have been very open to those discussions. Yes. Thank you.
Thanks, Dan.
Jim Suva with Citigroup. Your line is open.
Thank you very much. It's a pleasant surprise that you actually are talking about Q2 being similar to Q1 and kind of more of a demand push out as opposed to more of a demand destruction that other companies are talking about because the coronavirus unemployment, economic slowdowns and things like that. You help us kind of bridge the difference about why your outlook is just so much more positive? Is it a factor that you just have so much more exposure to things like semiconductor equipment and less exposure to maybe like cell phones and PCs or television and things like that. But it just seems like your outlook calls for a lot better demand than some of the other companies that we're hearing out there.
Thank you.
Hey, Jim. Thanks for the question. Yes, I think a lot of it has to do with the mix as you mentioned. We view semi cap as continuing to be strong. Certainly, our service provider business continues to be quite strong.
HealthTech continues to be right strong. The headwinds that we're seeing in industrial, we view that more of a push out versus a demand destruction. A lot of our customers' customers, factors are not operating where they can't do installs. So they're just on pause until the factors come online. I guess the exception would be A and D.
Obviously, we announced last quarter we were seeing some 737 MAX headwinds, which is a demand reduction. And now with the lack of flying and 60% of the world's aircraft being parked, We don't view A and D demand being pushed out. We view A and D demand being decreased. But again, that's really in our commercial business, about 40% of our AD portfolio is in defense and we see that growing in the mid single digits as well. And as we announced, we're also expanding our Atran facility, which is going to be housing just about all defense work as well.
Thank you so much for the details and clarifications. It's greatly appreciated.
Thanks, Jim.
There are no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back over to the presenters for final remarks.
Thank you. Given the volatile macro environment, I think we executed well. We're able to drive sequential operating margin improvement, generate strong key cash flow and pay down long term debt in the quarter. Within CCS, our portfolio continues to perform well. We had margins firmly within their target range and this our portfolio shaping actions.
And in ATS, I'm pleased with the continued growth and improved profitability of our capital equipment business. And while we face business uncertainty amidst this pandemic, I'm confident in the Celestica team and our ability to successfully navigate the challenges that may lie ahead. I believe we're taking the appropriate actions to keep our people safe while remaining focused on delivering for our customers. Thank you all for joining. I look forward to updating you as we progress throughout the year.
And best to you and your loved ones in these trying times.
This concludes the Celestica Q1 2020 earnings call. We thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.