Second quarter 2017 financial results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session, and instructions will follow at that time. If you require operator assistance during the program, please press star then zero on your touchtone telephone. I would now like to introduce today's conference call, Mr. Brian Henry, Senior Vice President, Business Development and Investor Relations. You may begin.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for today's second quarter 2017 financial results conference call. Participating on today's call are John Garrison, President and Chief Executive Officer, and John Sheehan, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Following the prepared remarks, we will conduct a question and answer session. Last evening, we released our second quarter 2017 results, a copy of which is available on our website at terex.com. Today's call is being webcast and is accompanied by a slide presentation, which includes a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures that we will use during this call and is also available on our website. All per share amounts in the presentation are on a fully diluted basis. We will post a replay of this call on the Terex website under investor events in the investor relations section.
Let me direct your attention to slide 2, which is our forward-looking statement and description of non-GAAP financial measures. We encourage you to read this as well as other items in our disclosures because the information we will be discussing today does include forward-looking material. With that, please turn to slide three. I'll turn it over to John.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us and for your interest in Terex. I will start by summarizing our second quarter performance, followed by a review of the progress we are making executing our strategy and a discussion of our business segments. John will cover the capital market actions we are taking and review the financial results, including details of our improved full-year 2017 guidance. I will follow with a brief summary before we open up the line to your questions. We continue to make progress in the second quarter. Sales of $1.2 billion were better than anticipated, driven by a stronger than expected North American market for Aerial Work Platforms. Cranes returned to profitability in the quarter as we are seeing the benefits from their restructuring actions. This is a significant accomplishment by the Cranes team.
AWP benefited from higher than expected volume, although margins remained under pressure. MP continued its strong performance. We delivered adjusted earnings per share of $0.51 and generated $23 million of free cash flow. For the second straight quarter, we grew year-over-year backlog in each segment. When we remove the impact of the divested businesses, our backlog grew 36% and bookings grew 17%. Combining first half results with the current view of market dynamics, operational expectations for the second half of the year, and our ongoing capital market actions, we are increasing full-year adjusted EPS guidance to $1.05-$1.15. John will walk through the details of our financial results and improved outlook. Turning to slide four.
I am pleased by the progress we have made over the past 12 months with our strategy to focus the portfolio, simplify the company, and implement our Execute to Win business systems. We are starting to see the benefits in our operating performance. We recently completed our annual business strategy reviews. Each of our segments have clear, executable plans centered on their innovative product development plans and company-wide transformation priorities. A lot of work remains. We are on track to meet the financial commitments announced at Investor Day last December. Turning to slide five. We made meaningful progress on each of our strategic priorities in the quarter. We can close the sales of our loader backhoe business in the U.K. and India. These sales complete the focus aspect of our strategy.
We delivered on our commitment to focus the portfolio on three segments, Aerial Work Platforms, cranes, and Materials Processing. We further simplified our manufacturing footprint by completing the closure of our cranes facility in Jinan, China. In Germany, we signed a contract to sell our manufacturing location in Bierbach and reached agreement with the Works Council, which provides the flexibility to implement the remainder of the Cranes Germany restructuring program. A noteworthy element of the Bierbach sale is an agreement to utilize the testing platform where we currently test our largest AC and crawler cranes, so we avoid having to make a costly investment at another location. We reduced SG&A by $21 million year-on-year, excluding the impact of higher incentive compensation. Turning to Execute to Win, our commercial excellence initiative continues to make progress.
We remain focused on enhancing performance management tools and improving process discipline in sales pipeline and account management. Second quarter highlights include starting the salesforce.com deployment for AWP EMEA, filling key roles in our crane sales and commercial teams, and launching targeted growth plans within MP. We are starting to see the benefits from the commercial excellence initiative in our growing bookings and backlog. We continue to implement the initial steps of our new disciplined strategic sourcing process in our wave one categories. We recently hosted two supplier conferences, one in Mannheim, Germany and one in Dallas, Texas. In total, over 2,000 people representing over 1,200 companies attended. Our team did an outstanding job executing the events. This was the first time that Terex was presented as a total company to our supply base. We clearly demonstrated the substantial opportunity we are offering current and potential new suppliers.
I was very encouraged by the discussions I had with both incumbent and prospective suppliers. Incumbents are very focused on maintaining and growing their business with us, and potential new suppliers expressed their eagerness to win our business. We have a lot of work ahead of us, but I am confident we will achieve significant benefits from our strategic sourcing initiative. To ensure we maximize this potential, we are making a significant investment in our global sourcing organization. We have dedicated approximately 100 team members to the wave one teams, including engineering and supplier quality resources to support the process. The incremental annual cost, which is reflected in our corporate SG&A, is approximately $10 million. This is a headwind to our 2017 performance, as we do not expect to see meaningful savings until the second half of 2018. Turning to slide six, I'll review our segments, starting with AWP.
Please note that the financial highs, backlog, and book-to-bill information can be found in the appendix. The momentum of a stronger than forecasted North American market for AWP products continued through the second quarter. Growing residential and non-residential construction demand is helping mitigate the effects of the replacement cycle. Construction demand is driving better utilization for rental customers. While customers are seeing a generally more favorable rate environment, not all customers are seeing year-over-year rental rate increases. The combination of higher utilization and recovering rates is positively influencing our customers' CapEx decisions for 2017. The European markets remain stable. We saw good growth in China. However, the South American market remains significantly depressed. Our Q2 AWP margins were lower than prior year. Margins were impacted by competitive global pricing dynamics, higher steel costs, and the stronger U.S. dollar, primarily versus the British pound.
In May, I reviewed our five-year strategic plan with the AWP leadership team in Redmond, Washington. The centerpiece of that strategy is the continued focus on maximizing rental ROIC for our customers and maintaining Genie's position as a market leader in innovation. Genie is well-positioned to take advantage of the expected global growth cycle for aerials. Looking ahead, we are encouraged by the continued growth in bookings, up 14%, and backlog of $499 million, which is up 46% year-on-year. Backlog increased for the second quarter in a row in North America, Europe, and Asia. Our margin outlook is tempered by pricing and steel cost headwinds that we expect to persist through the balance of the year. We are now anticipating full-year sales for AWP to be down about 4% from last year, with an operating margin of about 8.5%. Turning to Cranes.
Our Cranes segment turned the quarter and was profitable in Q2. We expect this trend to continue. This is a major turnaround and a credit to the entire Cranes team. Sales were in line with expectations. The aggressive restructuring actions focused on reducing footprint and cost structure are starting to be reflected in our results. The global crane market remains challenging, but we see signs that it is stabilizing. In Europe, demand for large crawler cranes remain lower in the wind energy sector due to the regulatory changes in the German energy market. We see this continuing through the balance of 2017. In North America, stable oil prices, increasing rig counts, and construction growth are leading to higher utilization rates, which is helping to stabilize the market. Investment in the Australian market is beginning to return after the steep decline that started in 2014. Our Utilities volume is stable.
However, profitability increased as a result of operational improvements, including the closure of our Waukesha, Wisconsin facility. Globally, Cranes bookings grew 26% and backlog grew 29% year-over-year. Included in the growing backlog is a notable increase in orders for tower cranes, driven by demand in the U.K. and North America. As a result of the progress in the Cranes restructuring program, stabilizing markets, and our improved order book, we are increasing full-year guidance. We now anticipate sales to be down about 6% with an operating loss of approximately 1%. Moving to Materials Processing. Our MP segment had another strong quarter. Sales were up 9.5%, or about 14% when the impact of foreign exchange is removed. MP grew its operating profit by $6.4 million, representing a margin expansion of 130 basis points. Growth was driven by our Concrete, Fuchs, and Crushing and Screening businesses.
After an extended period of low scrap metal prices and high channel inventory, our Fuchs material handling business is starting to grow. Fuchs made headway in North America, benefiting from improvements to its commercial capabilities in the region. Crushing and Screening is stable in North America and Europe, while the Indian and Australian markets continue to improve. Segment backlog is up 33% year-over-year, driven by Crushing and Screening in Fuchs. We are increasing MP's full year outlook to sales growth of approximately 9% with an operating margin of about 11%. It is important to understand the prominent role that Materials Processing has in our more focused portfolio of businesses. With expected annual sales of greater than $1 billion, MP represents about a quarter of our sales volume and a substantial portion of our operating profit. As a proven, consistent performer, MP will remain an important contributor going forward.
I'll now turn it over to John Sheehan to review our capital market actions and our financial performance.
Thank you, John. Slide nine demonstrates how we continue to execute our disciplined capital allocation strategy. In May, we monetized 7 million Konecranes shares for proceeds of $277 million, bringing our year-to-date proceeds up to $549 million. As planned, in April, we repaid the remaining $254 million of our 6.5% notes. This completed the debt refinancing program that in total will reduce our annual interest expense by approximately $30 million in 2017 and $35 million on an annualized basis starting in 2018. We are investing in our Execute to Win priority areas. We are making transformative changes that will benefit Terex for years to come. We continue to fund restructuring programs that are removing structural costs and simplifying the company. Finally, we continue to return capital to shareholders. We repurchased approximately 15.9 million shares for about $517 million in the first six months of the year.
We continue to repurchase shares. As of last Friday, we had approximately $128 million remaining under the previously announced authorization. This disciplined capital allocation strategy, including the efficient return of capital to shareholders through share repurchases, will continue to govern how we deploy capital. Turning to slide 10. Overall, the financial results in the quarter were better than forecasted. Revenue of $1.2 billion was down about 9% from the prior year, driven largely by a reduction in sales from the divested construction businesses. Sales in AWP were flat, Cranes was down 15%, and MP was up almost 10%. The impact of foreign exchange rates on sales was most pronounced in MP. Excluding the impact of foreign exchange rates, MP sales grew approximately 14%. On an as adjusted basis, our operating margin was 6.9%.
Lower volume in Cranes, pricing and steel cost pressure in AWP, and the unfavorable impact of foreign exchange rates were drivers of the margin compression. Another factor was higher corporate costs, which included an increased accrual for management incentive compensation. The accrual was increased as a result of our better than expected first half performance and our improved outlook for the balance of the year. On a comparative basis, last year, we reduced our incentive compensation accrual in Q2 to reflect the situation at that time. Corporate costs also included the investment in our strategic sourcing organization and negative impacts associated with foreign exchange. I would also note that we reversed the negative impact of the provision we established in Q1 for a transactional tax issue outside the U.S. as the matter was favorably resolved, an excellent result by our team.
Our net interest expense was approximately $11 million less than the prior year, demonstrating the benefits we derived from our capital restructuring. As a reminder, our overall effective interest rate of 4.8% represents the lowest rate in the company's history. We raised the full year effective tax rate to reflect the settlement of a non-U.S. transfer pricing tax audit that spanned multiple years. We generated positive free cash flow of $23 million in the quarter, even as we continued to invest in our restructuring and transformation programs. In Q2, we used $24 million to fund restructuring and transformation, bringing our year to date total to $65 million. A key contributor to cash flow was our continued management of net working capital, which we reduced to 22% of sales, representing a significant improvement compared to last year. I will now summarize the adjustments we made in the quarter.
Please note that details associated with the adjustments can be found in the appendix of the presentation, including the income statement line items against which they were applied. We expanded our disclosure of these adjustments this quarter in response to your feedback. We hope you will find it useful. We recorded $13 million of favorable restructuring charges, which included an $18 million reversal of a Cranes restructuring charge we booked in Q4 last year. The reversal resulted from higher than expected production volume and additional workforce flexibility achieved through the German Works Council agreement, ultimately leading to fewer employee reductions than previously anticipated. We invested $18 million in external resources across our transformation priority areas of commercial excellence, life cycle solutions, and strategic sourcing.
Finally, our ownership interest in Konecranes generated a mark-to-market benefit of $53 million, and the sale of our Konecranes shares contributed a gain of about $8 million. Let's turn to slide 11, and I will walk you through our updated guidance. Based on our first half results, our backlog, and our market assessments, we are improving our full year sales outlook from down about 12% to down approximately 6%. We are increasing our operating margin guidance to approximately 4.75%. The expected improvements in the operating results in our three business segments is partially offset by investments in our strategic sourcing organization, increased accruals for incentive compensation, and negative FX impacts. These factors are reflected in the revised guidance for corporate and other. We are increasing our EPS guidance range from $0.80 to $0.95 to $1.05 to $1.15 per share, which I will bridge for you on slide 12.
We are maintaining free cash flow guidance of zero to $50 million, as we expect the cash flow benefit of our positive operating performance to be offset by higher working capital requirements in the latter part of 2017, as we prepare for 2018. Turning to slide 12. The main driver of our improved sales outlook is volume, followed by foreign exchange. The major offset is the sale of our construction businesses. The EPS bridge illustrates the updates we made in Q1 that included the Konecranes dividend, reduced share count, and MP's Q1 performance, which brought us to the $0.80 to $0.95 range. We are now adding approximately $0.15 for improved operating performance, $0.04 from interest and other, and $0.07 from share repurchases. Less $0.04 from the change in the effective tax rate, driven by the non-U.S. tax issue that I mentioned earlier.
This takes us to our current full year EPS outlook of $1.05 to $1.15 per share. With that, I will turn it back to John.
Thanks, John. To summarize, we are increasing full year guidance for the second consecutive quarter due to stronger than expected end markets, continued progress on our transformation program, and the implementation of our disciplined capital allocation strategy. The North American market for AWP equipment is improving sooner than we expected. Our Cranes segment is executing on its restructuring program, and results are improving. Materials Processing, our most consistent performer, is having a strong year and becoming a more important part of our portfolio. While our progress and momentum are encouraging, we have a lot more to do. We met our commitment to focus on our three core segments. We continue to simplify the company, implementing our footprint and cost restructuring plans. We will continue to build capabilities through our Execute to Win priority areas that will enable us to meet our longer-term performance commitments.
Finally, we will continue to execute our disciplined capital allocation strategy and return capital to shareholders. With that, let me turn it back over to Brian.
Thanks, John. As a reminder, during the question and answer session, we ask you to limit your questions to one and a follow-up to ensure we have time to get to everyone. With that, I'd like to open it up for questions. Operator?
Ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question or a comment at this time, please press star then the one key on your touchtone telephone. If your question has been answered and you wish to remove yourself from the queue, please press the pound key. Our first question comes from Jamie Cook with Credit Suisse.
Hi, good morning. I guess, two questions, one on Cranes and then the second on Aerials. Even ex the adjustments, the profitability in the Cranes segment was surprisingly positive in the second quarter. Can you just give more color on the drivers behind the profitability? Does that speed up how you're thinking about your longer-term targets? Just the backlog surprise too, I guess, how sustainable is that? How much is end market demand versus market share? My second question on the aerial side, the margins were a little lower than what one of your peers put out this morning. You talked about material cost headwinds, you also raised your margin target for the year. I'm just trying to understand the drivers behind that. Do the pricing headwinds become less of an issue in the second half? Thanks.
Thanks, Jamie. In terms of cranes, it was a major milestone for us to return the cranes business to profitability in Q2. We are pleased with the progress the team is making. They are focused on executing our strategy, simplifying improvements in our bookings and backlog that were up significantly over the prior year. On the market side, a lot of hard work. The market remains challenging, but it clearly is stabilizing as we go around the world. On the profitability, it's really being driven by the execution of our restructuring program. In Q2, we did close the Jinan manufacturing site in China. Then we're beginning to see the benefits of the closed plants from previous Waverly, Waukesha, the exiting of the Montceau-les-Mines, and exiting aerials business in Brazil. Those activities are showing up.
We also saw a better product mix, and we expect that product mix to continue into the second half of the year. With the better visibility that we have to the order book and order coverage on the crane side, we expect that's also going to help drive manufacturing productivity for our cranes business. We're on track. The team's working hard. A lot of work to continue to do to execute the restructuring program. Clearly, we're pleased to see the business return to profitability in the quarter.
Okay, thank you.
On the AWP.
Yeah. On the aerial side, yeah.
Yeah. Thanks, Jamie. On AWP side, again, from a market standpoint, we were encouraged as we saw the significant increase in the year-over-year bookings and backlog. Again, what was encouraging about that, Jamie, was really across the globe. We saw that North America, Europe, and Asia. So that was encouraging. Sales were higher than we had forecasted, driven principally by the North American market. Again, as we put that in context, as we went into this year, it was the third consecutive year of lower aerials volume. The good news is the strength in the construction cycle is mitigating the replacement cycle impact. On the revenue side, we feel pretty good about where the market is. As you indicated on the margin side and in my comments, we did see margin compression really driven by four factors. The global pricing dynamics continues to impact us.
I think putting that in context, many of our large customer agreements were entered into in the fourth quarter of last year, a very different economic environment in terms of what we anticipated and I think what the market anticipated the sales to be. That impacted the agreements that we did have. Again, as we go forward into the year, that does impact us for the remainder of the year. We do have customers that are not on program agreements, and we're entering into discussions about that. We did see higher steel costs, as we talked about in our Q1 earnings call. We saw a pretty significant rise in steel plate, especially in Q4, went up about 42% and stayed elevated.
The other thing that did impact us in the quarter, as a result of our higher production volumes, we actually did have to go into the steel spot market that wasn't covered by some of our steel contracts and purchase more steel on the spot market, which impacted our margins in the quarter. FX did impact us. Unfavorable euro and the pound sterling offset somewhat by favorable RMB in China. Then we also had a slightly unfavorable product mix in the quarter. Those are the four things that impacted the margin in the quarter. We do expect steel prices to remain a headwind for the second half. We've factored that into our guidance.
On the pricing side, we've already started the conversations with our customers about 2018 pricing. Also more importantly, the customers that aren't covered by program agreements about the impact of things like steel on the cost structure. Finally, we believe we're going to see better manufacturing productivity in the second half of the year with better order visibility, especially compared to what we saw in the fourth quarter of last year. I think that's what's driving some of the margin activity in AWP. Overall, though, encouraged by the market dynamics, we're working on the margin aspect.
Okay, thanks. I appreciate the color. I'll get back in queue.
Thank you, Jamie.
Our next question comes from Nicole DeBlase with Deutsche Bank.
Yes, good morning, guys.
Good morning, Nicole.
I just want to start by following up on Jamie's question on aerials. You mentioned that you're currently talking to customers about increased pricing related to pushing through higher steel costs. I guess, what do you think the likelihood is that you'll be able to get higher pricing since the market's been competitive for a while? I guess from a competitive perspective, do you think that everyone in the market is trying to increase pricing, or is this something that's a little bit unique to Genie?
No, I think, overall, we don't control what the market pricing is. We know it's a competitive industry. What we can do is not to oversupply the market. We try to keep what we believe the supply and demand balance to be in place. I do think there's an opportunity to have informed conversations with customers. They're business people as well. When you look at some of the cost inputs that we've seen and the dramatic increase in steel, that that's a conversation that you can have. Now, clearly, it will not impact our annual agreements that were in place for this year, our program agreements. Where we don't have program agreements, then setting up the conversations for 2018, we believe we can begin to have that price realization conversation.
I think also with an overall improving market dynamic, basically globally, I think that's also going to help, Nicole. As I said, it's been three successive years of year-over-year declines in this business, seeing the demand environment firm up will help the pricing conversations that need to be had.
Okay. That's really helpful. Thanks. Then just a quick one on the guidance. Understand that you've now embedded the repurchases that you've done in the second quarter, you mentioned that you've continued to buy back stock through Friday. Have you included any incremental repurchases in 3Q in your guidance? I guess maybe like last quarter, I think you gave us the approximate share count that was embedded in the full-year guidance.
Yeah, the full-year guidance that we provided, the $1.05 to $1.15 per share, does include the completion of the existing share authorization, it does assume an average of 95 million shares outstanding for the full year.
Okay, thanks. I'll pass it on.
Thank you, Nicole.
Our next question comes from Ann Duignan with JPMorgan.
Hi. Good morning.
Good morning. Morning, Ann.
Can you give us an update on the strategic sourcing endeavors that you've undertaken? I mean, it seems like there is significant opportunity there, but at a, I think you said $10 million cost this year. Can you size the opportunity, timing of the opportunity? Any color you can give us? Then, it sounds like sourcing was not centralized previously. A, is that true, and B, why would we not have been buying at least steel centrally previously?
Thanks, Ann. Let me start by saying we were very excited about the supplier days that we had. We had well over 2,000 suppliers, basically 1,000 each, representing 1,200 companies in Mannheim, Germany for European and Asian suppliers, then in Dallas for North American suppliers. There was a keen interest. Ann, it's really the first time that Terex has presented itself to the supply base. We've grown through 80 acquisitions over time, if you were a supplier, you kind of had to know which door to go through. Centralizing our strategic sourcing under one organization is something that is new for us. We have implemented that. We have not leveraged spend horizontally across Terex with the minor exception in some cases in steel buy in North America. It's an opportunity for us to leverage the overall global spend.
We decided to make the investment to increase our strategic sourcing organization. As we said, it's about $10 million. That's Paul and his team. It's important to note that it's centrally coordinated. The team members are on wave teams. They remain in the businesses. They're cross-functional teams. It's not just strategic sourcing people. It's engineers, it's quality supply engineers and the like. We think that's an investment that's going to pay off significantly for the company as we go forward. In terms of timing, Ann, the timing associated really, we are following a very rigorous process to ensure that we can maximize the potential from the activity. After the supplier conferences, we put out the RFIs and RFQs to our wave 1 commodity suppliers. That will take us about six to nine weeks to get that back.
The team's going to have to evaluate the RFIs and the RFPs, we'll down select the suppliers that we're going to want to visit with. That will occur in-- visit them in Q4. We'll further down select who we're going to do the final negotiations with the commodities, that will be kind of the end of Q4 into Q1 with the selections made of the suppliers going forward in Q1, then we'll begin the transition process. We do have highly engineered equipment across all three of our segments, it will take some time to transition to the extent we do transition suppliers, that's needed. That's why we say we won't see meaningful improvement until the second half of 2018 as a result of the strategic sourcing initiative. That's the timing. Then Ann, you asked the question about sizing it.
Right now, the way we want to continue to size the opportunity, I'll go back to what we said at our Investor Day in terms of implementing our overall strategy and really looking at driving operating margin of greater than 10%, also focused on improving ROIC. As you said, we've got a 2020 target of greater than 20% ROIC from about 6% today. We said 3% of that was coming from focusing the portfolio. We're there. We've got one small business, and we'll be complete. 4%-5% of that's going to come from Simplify. We're continuing to execute that on our restructuring initiatives. Then we said 7%-8 percentage points of that 20 were going to come from our Execute to Win transformational priorities.
I would say of this 7%-8%, a sizable portion of that is going to come from our Commercial Excellence and Strategic Sourcing initiatives. That's how I'd like to size it at this time. As we go forward, we'll get a little bit more precise, but I think given what we're seeing right now, I think, one, we're confident that there's a significant opportunity, and two, we think it's going to help drive sustained improvement in the business. Again, we won't see it until second half of 2018. Does that help?
Okay. It does. Should we anticipate seeing it show up in gross margins first or SG&A? Is the low-hanging fruit in things like material costs, or is it in indirect spend? If you could just help us there.
Yeah. Thanks, Ann. Principally, it's going to show up in gross margin. Direct material cost is going to be the principal driver. We do have some indirect teams. One of the first wave teams is an indirect team, so we anticipate some improvement on the SG&A side on the indirect spend. I would say the lion's share should show up in improvement in gross margin.
Okay. I appreciate the color. I'll get back in line. I'll leave it there. Thanks.
Thanks, Ann.
Our next question comes from Steven Fisher with UBS.
Thanks. Good morning.
Morning, Steven.
It sounds like the improving market conditions in AWP is going to help the segment with a lag, as you just have to wait for some of those Q4 resets. As you think about where you are today with the margins and what's possible with all the initiatives, and if you assume your base case of market demand, do you have any line of sight to getting back to double-digit margins in AWPs in the next one to two years?
I think describe, Steven, the impact on AWP margin near term. Overall, driving margin improvement is something that we recognize that we have to do. We'd expect to see incremental margins much closer to the 25%-30% range on incremental volume in AWP, which would drive to that double-digit margin that you're talking about. We are focused on the AWP team in that margin improvement, and that's what we'd anticipate going forward in that business. In a competitive environment, we still think that's achievable.
Okay. That's helpful. John Sheehan, you mentioned that working capital is going to be a bit of a headwind later in 2017 and setting up for 2018. Can you just quantify that a little bit and give us some color around what you need to do there to set up for 2018?
I would start by saying that this company, from my perspective, being the new guy, is doing absolutely outstanding job on working capital at 22% of sales for Q2. I think the working capital is managed very well. As we see the stronger backlog that we're experiencing, as we see the stronger markets, we are building inventories in the second half of the year in anticipation of 2018. I would point out that we maintained our free cash flow guidance in the $0 million-$50 million range as a result of that, as the positive performance in the operations and the cash flow from that is being offset in the free cash flow area. I wouldn't necessarily put an exact size on it, but I would say it's in the $50 million-$100 million range. This company will continue to manage working capital very tightly.
Great. Thank you.
Our next question comes from Andrew Casey with Wells Fargo.
Good morning, everybody.
Morning.
I'd like to go back to the sales guidance, where the declines were kind of cut in half to down 6%. What if any change in that was related to currency?
I would say that overall, the change in revenue is really being driven much more by volume than it is by currency. You can see in the chart that we provided with respect to the guidance change that was in the chart set, the components of the change in the revenue for the full year, currency is not a significant impact. I would also say that in general, as we've been seeing a stronger euro, in general, a stronger euro is better for us, especially within our AWP and Materials Processing businesses, and therefore, that could be a benefit for us on a going-forward basis here.
Okay. Thanks, John. I guess following up quickly on your AWP comment, the guidance implies about 160 basis point improvement in the second half to about 9.3% on margin. You mentioned working on price and manufacturing productivity. Are you factoring any of that reversal in currency as benefit within the margin?
I wouldn't say that we're factoring a significant amount of currency benefit into the revised guidance that we've provided here today for AWP. You are correct that we are projecting improved margins in the second half of the year.
John, when he was speaking earlier in his comments, laid out several of the factors. Just to reiterate some of them, we are expecting a more favorable manufacturing productivity in the second half of the year as we increase the production rates, especially as compared to last year. We will be producing in Q4 ahead of the sales volume as we build inventory for 2018. Number two, we did have very low sales volume in Q1, and you may recall that there were operational issues that affected AWP back in the first quarter and reduced their margins. Steel will continue to be a headwind in the second half of the year, but with the sales volumes being lower, we do expect less spot market buys for steel. We are expecting an improved product mix in the second half of the year, fewer sales under program agreements.
Overall, those are the factors that are really driving the improvement in the margin in the second half of the year.
Okay, thanks. If I can ask a second set of questions on cranes. You mentioned, excuse me, improved tower crane orders in the U.K., and I'm wondering whether that was concentrated at the beginning of the quarter or if you saw some of that strength potentially extend into July. Then secondly, can you comment on whether any of your product line availability within cranes might be taking orders for 2018 at this point, specifically interested in the All-Terrain segment? Thanks.
Yeah. Thanks, Andy. On the last part of the question, we have been successful with the relaunch of our All-Terrain cranes with Demag, and we are taking orders and filling in and are actually starting to fill on some models the late 2017 into 2018. That launch has been successful. On the tower crane side, I would say we saw good tower crane order activity and volume, basically driven by the U.S. and the U.K., principally. In terms of commenting on the order activity in July, again, we don't want to get into specific months, but again, the underlying market dynamics have remained constant through this period of time. I can say this, we're not seeing a precipitous fall-off in any market activity. Overall, I think the underlying markets have been pretty consistent from what we've seen, higher than we had anticipated.
That's what's driving both the bookings and the backlog year to date.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Andy.
Our next question comes from Stephen Volkmann with Jefferies.
Hi, good morning.
Good morning, Stephen.
I'm wondering if we can stay with cranes for a minute here and just talk a little bit about the competitive dynamics in that market. We've talked a little bit over the past few quarters about pricing pressures in certain types of cranes, especially, I think, coming out of Asia. I'm just curious how that's coming along.
Thanks. Overall, the cranes market, it remains challenging. It clearly has stabilized. We've seen a stabilization around the world. Pricing is the cranes, unlike AWP, the cranes transactions are more transactional based, so it's transaction by transaction. Commercial excellence is helping us there, having visibility. It still is a competitive market. We try to compete aggressively, but prudently on the pricing dynamics. As we think about the cranes markets, as we go, just do a around the world walk, we did see some lower sales in Europe. Again, that was principally driven in the crawler crane business by the change in the German subsidies. Our Demag all-terrain cranes, a lot of those produced go into the Middle East, and that market's been a little bit softer for us. North American market is stabilizing. It's not robust by any stretch of the imagination, but it has stabilized.
We think stabilization on the oil side of the business is helping us there. Again, markets like Australia, which in my opening comments, I said we haven't really seen any volume since 2014. We're beginning to see not only volume for imports, specifically our German cranes produced, our Demag line, but also seeing our Pick & Carry line pick up. Towers, as we indicated, picked up, and our utilities business is relatively stable, principally a North American based business, but we do have sales into China, and they're doing a decent job on the operating side to drive operating margin improvement. As I look at cranes, that's the market dynamics. It's still challenging, but clearly we're seeing a stabilization as we go around the world in our crane efforts.
John, you made a comment on AWPs that when volume improves, pricing discussions get a little bit easier. I guess that would apply here, too?
It would. The cranes business and our forecasting is a challenge. It's not quite as clear on the AWP side. We do believe that there is this replacement cycle. It can be modeled. We've shown the model. It varies a little bit. The cranes replacement cycle is not nearly as clear as the AWP cycle, but clearly as volume picks up and there's opportunity, that does help firm up the pricing conversations. No doubt about that.
Great. Just another one. As we think about 2018, volume would be whatever it is, we can come up with our own estimations there. But I'm just curious, relative to the things that you've been doing here in 2017, how should we think about the carryover Kind of EBIT benefits from the various cost saves that you've achieved in 2017. What's the carryover impact of that in 2018 if we hold everything else kind of stable here?
Yeah. Overall, the simplify part of our plan and the restructuring activities yielded about $25 million thus far, specifically in the Cranes business, in 2017. We think that's going to be a $30 million kind of run rate going forward on the Cranes side. Our SG&A savings, as you recall, we took about $41 million out in 2016. Another $21 million out this year. Of course, we had the incentive comp that offset that in the strategic sourcing. Those types of activities are what we're seeing going forward. John, did you want to comment any more on that?
No, I would also just add that, as you know, we did restructure our capital earlier this year. That will drive a $35 million reduction in interest expense on an annualized basis. The Cranes business has dropped our break-even now down here to $1.2 billion versus where it was much higher previously as a result of the positive results from the restructuring. I think it's also important to look at the MP business. The MP business is one that doesn't get as much focus externally, but it's been a consistent contributor for us. The sales were up 9.5% this quarter and the margin up 130 basis points up to 12.7%. We've seen great growth in our Concrete, our Fuchs, and our Crushing and Screening businesses. That's been, quite honestly, a consistent performer for us and an increasingly important part of our portfolio.
I would also think about that as you think about modeling 2018.
Okay, thank you.
Our next question comes from Joe O'Dea with Vertical Research Partners.
Hi, good morning.
Morning, Joe.
First, just to understand a little bit more on comments around stabilization in Cranes. When you look at backlog, it's up 29% and think first half of 2017 orders are running north of 20% better than last year's run rate. It seems like it's a little bit better than stabilization at the bottom, and you're seeing some growth. So just for clarification on expectations that current demand levels are sustainable in your view, and that would actually set up pretty nicely in terms of what it means for growth next year.
Right. Clearly don't want to get into the 2018 revenue guidance at this time, but I can say as part of our commercial excellence initiatives in working on the account management and the pipeline management, we are having better visibility to quoting activity. Quoting activity is picking up, not necessarily always leading to orders. As I talk with Cranes customers, the word that they're using is more stabilizing versus a return to significant growth. That's what we're characterizing it. We're obviously pleased by the backlog increases that we're seeing, but again, off a relatively small base as well. Yes, we are encouraged. I'm not downplaying that. Stabilization on the Cranes market is the word we're using for now. As we see it going forward, we could potentially change our outlook, but that's the word we're using right now.
Got it. Do you think you're getting a bigger piece of the pie than you were getting a year ago on some of the initiatives that you've implemented over the past six to nine months?
Where we have implemented, and I would say this across our product offerings, it's a competitive marketplace out there. When you bring a competitive product, when you listen to the customer and bring to the customer a competitive product that meets their needs, you're successful. We have seen where we've launched our new product introductions really across our portfolio. When we've brought those new products to marketplace, we do see an increase in order activity and hence an improvement in our overall market position as a result of those new product and service introductions. We are pleased, and that's why product development and innovative product development is a critical part of our strategy. It's not just the transformational priorities.
They're absolutely needed across the business, but we also are focused on innovative products that meet the needs of the customer, drive ROIC for the customer, and in doing that, we find that we're able to be successful in the marketplace. Yes, we are pleased with where we've brought new products to the market, Cranes specifically, but I'd make that comment generally across the portfolio. New product introductions, new service introductions, meeting the needs of the customer, we can be successful. That's why it's going to continue to be an important part of our capital allocation of driving organic growth through product and service development.
Very helpful. Thank you.
Our last question comes from David Raso with Evercore ISI.
The share count fully diluted at the end of the quarter, I'm just trying to get a feel for how much share repo do you have in the second half of the year to get the full year average share count down to 95? It seems fairly substantial. I just want to make sure I know where we're starting the third quarter at.
At the end of June, we had 91 million shares outstanding, there's common stock equivalents at this company of about 1.4 million. There was 91, 92 million shares outstanding, and here as of yesterday, we were in the 89 million range of shares outstanding.
Okay. I would think that implies the rest of the Konecranes shares are no longer there by the end of 2017. When we think about the dividend for 2018 in late March, early April, we should assume no dividend?
Well, in terms of the Konecranes shares, obviously, we've sold down a significant percentage of our interest. We own about 6.6% of Konecranes. Let me say that obviously, if you looked at the appreciation of the Konecranes shares, it's driven about $300 million of value for us, we think it's been a tremendous transaction for our shareholders as well as the Konecranes shareholders. The dividend percentage into 2018, David, would be significantly reduced even if we held our shares for the remainder of the year into 2018. I'm not going to comment about timing of share sales. We're obviously watching it very closely. We've been prudent with that investment, and we would see a significant reduction for no other reason than our ownership percentage has fallen from 25% to 6.6.
It appears when you think of 2018, the share count, as much as you're saying 95 for the average for 2017, the math seems to suggest you're going to end the year, kind of how you start your 2018 modeling, as low as about 85 million shares, 86 million shares. Is that fair?
Yeah, I think it's fair.
Below 85, 84?
Yeah, I think it's fair to think about a number like that. Just to reiterate it again, though, the assumption in the guidance with the 95 million shares is the completion of the existing share authorization. Nothing further after that.
Okay, that's helpful. Two small things. If my memory serves me, when Fuchs starts working, that historically, when it was Barratt in construction, was a pretty high margin business. Is that still the case? Can you size that business a little bit? I think it used to be $150 million, $200 million. I don't think it's that big anymore, but can you remind me the Fuchs margins relative to MP's average?
Right now, David, in terms of Fuchs' contribution, it is pulling down the overall average of MP. As the volumes return, it has been a profitable business. It's one of the reasons why we decided to keep the business. It fits in the MP portfolio. We would expect overall Fuchs to be a positive contributor to the overall MP margins versus a drag on margins that is today as volume improves. In terms of sizing, I don't think, David, we're going to want to get into sizing the specific components of the overall MP at this time. I will say it's not helping margins today, but as the volume returns, it will be a positive contributor to MP's overall margins.
All right. I appreciate the time. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's presentation. Thank you for your interest in Terex. If you have any additional questions, please follow up with Brian.
Thank you all again. Thank you for your interest in Terex and for your time. Again, if you have any questions, please follow up with Brian or John or myself. Thank you.
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