Fastenal Co (FAST) CEO Will Oberton discusses Q2 2014 earnings results – conference call transcript
Company: Fastenal Company (FAST)
Event: Q2 2014 Results Earnings Conference Call
Date: July 11, 2014 10:00 AM ET
FAST Q2 2014 Earnings Call – Webcast Audio
Operator: Good day, ladies and gentlemen. And welcome to the Fastenal Company second quarter 2014 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. (Operator Instructions)As a reminder, this call is being recorded.
I would now like to introduce your host for today’s conference, Ellen Trester of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, ma’am.
Ellen Trester – IR
Welcome to the Fastenal Company 2014 second quarter earnings conference call. This call will be hosted by Will Oberton, our Chief Executive Officer; and Dan Florness, our Chief Financial Officer. Also present for today’s call is Lee Hein, our President.
The call will last for up to 45 minutes. The call will start with a general overview of our quarterly results and operations by Will and Dan, with the remainder of the time being open for questions-and-answers. Today’s conference call is a proprietary Fastenal presentation and is being recorded by Fastenal. No recording, reproduction, transmission, or distribution of today’s call is permitted without Fastenal’s consent.
This call is being audio simulcast on the internet via the Fastenal Investor Relations homepage, investor.fastenal.com. A replay of the webcast will be available on the website until September 1, 2014, at midnight, Central Time.
As a reminder, today’s conference call includes statements regarding the company’s anticipated financial and operating results, as well as other forward-looking statements based on current expectations as defined by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
Forward-looking statements may often be identified with words such as we expect, we anticipate, upcoming, or similar indications of future expectations. It is important to note that the company’s actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. Information on factors that could cause results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements are contained in the company’s periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and we encourage you to review those carefully.
Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements, as there is no assurance that the matter contained in such statements will occur. Forward-looking statements are made as of today’s date only and we undertake no duty to update the information provided on this call.
I would now like to turn the call over to Will Oberton. Go ahead, Mr. Oberton.
Will Oberton – CEO
Thank you, Ellen, and thank you for everybody who is joining us on the call today. Looking at the second quarter 2014, I would rate it as a good quarter, not a great quarter, but a good quarter. The most positive numbers being in the sales area, we had 12.1% sales growth for the quarter.
Some of the highlights as I see it, our older stores grew right at 10% and even stronger in the last two months of the quarter. So, when our store historically – when our older stores are growing in the double-digit Fastenal does very well.
Our sequential pattern from January to June, which we follow the sequential pattern very closely was up 14.8% from January to June. Our fastener sequential growth was up 15.1% from January to June and our construction business was up more than 20%. To see those number — to see number similar to that you would have to go back, all the way back to 2010, where we had similar results and you can see how it came out after that.
So, from a sales standpoint, we’re feeling very good about what we’ve done. We believe a lot has to do with us adding the people back at the end of — or during 2013 and continuing to be committed to drive more sales costs.
On the EPS side, we were somewhat disappointed, we thought we would do a better job or produce higher earnings per share and it’s really a margin story. I think Dan did a nice job in the earnings release stating our margin and some of the pressures we’re having with larger accounts and things like that, and that we are not going to push the margins so hard internally that we make start — put our people in a position to make bad business decisions.