Brady (BRC) Q2 2019 Earnings Conference Call Transcript

Brady (BRC 0.63%)
Q2 2019 Earnings Conference Call
Feb. 21, 2019 10:30 a.m. ET

Contents:

• Prepared Remarks
• Questions and Answers
• Call Participants
  
  See all our earnings call transcripts.

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Q2 2019 Brady Corporation earnings 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 with that time. [Operator instructions] As a reminder to this conference being recorded.

I would now like to introduce the host of this conference call, Miss Ann Thornton. You may begin, ma'am.

Ann Thornton -- Chief Accounting Officer

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to the Brady Corporation's fiscal 2019 second-quarter earnings conference call. The slides for this morning's call are located on our website at www.bradycorp.com/investors. We will begin our prepared remarks on Slide No.

3. Please note that during this call, we may make comments about forward-looking information. Words such as expect, will, may, believe, forecast, and anticipate are just a few examples of words identifying the forward-looking statements. It's important to note that forward-looking information is subject to various risk factors and uncertainties which could significantly impact expected results.

Risk factors were noted in our news release this morning and in Brady's fiscal 2019 second-quarter Form 10 Q, which was filed with the SEC this morning. Also please note that this teleconference is copyrighted by Brady Corporation and may not be rebroadcast without the consent of Brady. We will be recording this call and broadcasting it on the internet. As such, your participation in the Q & A session will constitute your consent to being recorded.

I'll now turn the call over to Brady's President and Chief Executive Officer Michael Nauman.

Michael Nauman -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Ann. Good morning and thank you all for joining us. We released our financial results for the second quarter of fiscal 2019 this morning. I'm pleased to report another quarter of year-on-year pre-tax earnings growth with an increase of 4.8% compared to the second quarter of last year.

At constant currency, this would be an increase of approximately 8%, which is another quarter of very strong growth and marks our 14th consecutive quarter of pre-tax earnings growth and our seventh consecutive quarter of organic sales growth with an increase of 2.3%. Focusing on our consistent set of priorities has been essential to our ability to deliver profit improvement every quarter for more than three years. We're investing in research and development, and we continue to bring innovative new products to our customers. We're investing in automation in our manufacturing facilities.

We're driving sustainable efficiency throughout our SG&A structure, and we're focused on improving our underperforming businesses. Our ability to consistently improve our financial results is a direct result of the entire Brady team's focus and dedication to consistently delivering on these objectives. Over the last four years, we've worked hard to significantly enhance Brady's long history of innovation. We've taken many actions to build a much stronger culture of innovation, including many events where new product ideas are pitched.

Innovation day events where teams worked offsite on new product offerings. And even large global innovation events that engage the entire Brady organization. We now have a much stronger R&D organization and even an innovation incubator that is working on some of our more challenging new product ideas. And our R&D spend is anticipated to be at an all-time high this year which bodes well for our future organic sales growth.

We believe that our commitment to innovation is having a positive impact on Brady's culture and is also having a positive impact on Brady financial results. Beyond organic sales growth. Innovation is not just about new products. It's also about how we approach and solve problems, and this type of innovative thinking that's positively impacting our financial results in areas such as SG&A expense, where we've seen a relatively steady decline in our non-customer-facing SG&A expenses over the last several years.

We will remain committed to strengthening our innovative culture and remain committed to development of new products. In fact, this quarter, we announced the launch of another new printer in our identification solutions business, and we have a robust new product pipeline which should result in a steady stream of innovative new product introductions in the coming quarters. Organic sales were driven by our identification solutions business with growth of 3.6%. We saw increased sales in all three regions and within all major lines, except for our healthcare product line which declined in the low single digits.

The good news is that our healthcare unit ended the quarter on a positive note. We have work ahead of us to drive consistent organic sales growth in the healthcare product line, but we're adding to our sales force and building a new product line which we believe are the right moves to set up for long term success. Organic sales on our workplace safety business declined 0.9% this quarter. We continue to see consistent organic sales growth in our European and Australian businesses where we're increasing sales volumes and improving our digital presence.

The organic sales decline this quarter was driven by our North American business. To address the performance of this business, we took quick actions for the end of the quarter to enhance our digital platform by moving to a new platform. And we also took actions to further rightsize our cost structure in North America. We remain on track to improve WPS Americas in the back half of the year.

We're halfway through our fiscal year 2019 with solid performance so far, but we still have work ahead of us to improve our businesses in WPS North America and our healthcare product line in the IBS business. We're focusing on the long term by taking actions today that will set up -- set us up for success in the future. We're investing in new product developments, manufacturing automation and efficiency throughout our global cost structure. We're growing sales and generating strong cash flow while driving an improvement in the bottom line.

We continue to identify opportunities for efficiency and work being hard to capitalize on these opportunities every single day. I'll now turn the call over to Aaron to discuss our financial results for the second quarter, then I'll return to provide specific commentary about our identification solutions and workplace safety businesses. Aaron.

Aaron Pearce -- Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Michael, and good morning everyone. The financial review starts on Slide No. 3. Sales decreased 1.9% to 282.4 million in the second quarter which consisted of organic sales growth of 2.3%, a decrease of 2.6% from foreign currency translation, and a reduction of 1.6% from the sale of our runelands business which was finalized in the fourth quarter of last fiscal year.

We increased pre-tax earnings by 4.8% when compared to the second quarter of last year. Looking at after tax earnings, we finished at 29.2 million, which was up substantially compared to last year's earnings of 4.3 million. In last year's second quarter, we took a tax charge of 21.2 million related to the U.S. tax legislation passed by congress in December of 2017.

Without this tax charge, our prior-year net earnings would have been 25.4 million. Diluted earnings per share was $0.55 this quarter compared to diluted EPS of $0.8 in last year's second quarter. The income tax charge that I just mentioned reduced the EPS by approximately $0.40 last year. Without this charge, our prior-year second quarter EPS would have been $0.48.

Cash flow from operating activities was 25.4 million this quarter compared to 7.7 million in last year's second quarter; and free cash flow was 19.3 million compared to 3 million in last year's second quarter. Much of this improvement is a result of the timing of our annual incentive compensation payments. Moving along to Slide No. 4, you'll find our quarterly sales trends.

Organic sales growth was driven by our IDS business while we realized a slight decline in WPS organic sales due to the performance of our North American business. Our gross profit margin trending is summarized on Slide No. 5. Our gross profit margin finished at 49.5% this quarter, which is down 40 basis points from last year's second quarter gross profit margin of 49.9%.

This decline was due to an increase in certain cost, including freight and labor in both our IBS and WPS businesses. We've been able to partially offset increased costs in our IDS business with increased volume, selective price increases, and ongoing efficiency gains. In our WPS business. We've also focused heavily on efficiency gains and cost controls, but it hasn't been enough to fully offset input cost increases.

We continue to drive efficiency gains across all of our businesses and increase prices where feasible, which we expect will offset the majority of input cost increases and enable us to maintain a strong gross profit margin in future quarters. Moving along to Slide No. 6, you'll find our SG&A expense trending. SG&A was 92.7 million this quarter compared to 97.6 million in last year's second quarter.

The decrease was due to a combination of foreign currency translation, reduced SG&A from the sale of our runelands business, and our ongoing efficiency activities. As a percentage of sales, SG&A expense decreased from 33.9% in the second quarter of last year to 32.8% this quarter. Turning to Slide No. 7, you'll find the trending of our investments in research and development which decreased from 11.3 million in the second quarter of last year to 11.1 million this quarter.

Year to date, R&D the expenses are up 2.6%, and we expect to finish the year with our R&D expense up around 6% for the full fiscal year ending July 31st as we continue to increase our investment in the development of new products. Slide No. 8 is the quarterly trending of pre-tax earnings where we've experienced year-on-year growth each quarter for more than three years. This quarter, we increased pre-tax earnings by 4.8%, finishing at 36.7 million compared to 35 million in the second quarter last year.

Moving to Slide No. 9, you'll find the trending of quarterly earnings per share and net earnings. As I mentioned, in last year's second quarter, we recognized additional income tax expense equal to approximately $0.40 of EPS from the enactment of the U.S. tax reform.

If you exclude this item, our diluted EPS increased from $0.48 in last year's second quarter to $0.55 this quarter. Slide No. 10 details our quarterly cash generation. We generated 25.4 million of cash flow from operating activities compared to 7.7 million in last year's second quarter, and free cash flow was 19.3 million compared to three million in the same quarter of last year.

The increase in cash generation in the second quarter was due to our improved earnings, along with a change in the timing of our annual incentive compensation payments to employees. Last year, all of these payments were made in the second quarter, whereas this year, the payments were split between the first and second quarters. So the best way to look at our cash flow performance is to remove this timing noise by simply looking at our year-to-date cash flow from operating activities which was up 4.1%. This quarter, we used our cash to invest in the organic business and to return funds to our shareholders in the form of dividends as well as a modest amount of share repurchases.

Turning to Slide No. 11, this chart outlines the trending of our net cash position, as well as a snapshot of our debt structure at the end of the quarter. We increased our net cash position by 12.8 million this quarter and finished in a net cash position of 150.6 million at January 31st. Our debt consists of a 45 million euro-denominated private placement scheduled for payment in May of 2020, and we have no borrowings outstanding on our 300 million line of credit.

Our approach to capital allocation is consistent. We are disciplined and we're patient. First, we use our cash to fund organic sales and efficiency opportunities throughout the economic cycle, which includes funding investments in new product development, sales generating resources, I.T. improvements capability, enhancing capital expenditures, and capital expenditures to increase efficiency and automation in our factories.

And second, we focus on returning cash to our shareholders in the form of dividends. After funding organic investments and dividends, we then patiently deploy our capital in a disciplined manner for acquisitions where we believe we have strong synergistic opportunities, and we use our cash to improve shareholder returns through opportunistic share repurchases. We have approximately 1.9 million shares authorized for repurchase as of January 31st. Overall, our cash generation is strong.

Our balance sheet is strong. And we're focused on driving long-term value for our shareholders through the disciplined allocation of capital. Slide No. 12 summarizes our fiscal 2019 guidance.

We're increasing our full-year EPS guidance from a range of 2 20 to 2 30 per share, to our new range of 2 25 to 2 35 per share. Our increased guidance range is primarily due to the lower than originally anticipated full-year income tax rate which is now expected to be between 22 and 24%. This guidance is based on foreign currency exchange rates as of January 31st, which is a headwind due to the strengthening of the U.S. dollar.

We also expect organic sales growth to be at the lower end of our previously provided range of three to 5% for the full fiscal year ending July 31st 2019. Included in this guidance is an increase in our R&D expense of approximately 6%, depreciation and amortization expense of approximately 26 million, and capital expenditures ranging from 30 to 35 million. Included in our CAPEX guidance is approximately 10 million of expenditures related to the construction of certain facilities that are currently leased. Excluding this incremental cap extra facility construction costs, we're still running a bit higher than our historical average due to the increased investments we're making in automation and manufacturing capabilities which are meant to drive efficiency gains and increase our capabilities.

Lastly, we're not anticipating any restructuring charges, and we're not excluding any onetime items from this guidance. I'll now turn the call back over to Michael to cover our divisional results.

Michael Nauman -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Aaron. Slide No. 13 summarizes the second quarter financial results of our identification solutions business. IDS sales increased by 1.3%, finishing at 29.2 million, with organic sales growth of 3.6%.

Foreign currency translation decreased IDS sales by 2.3% this quarter. Organic sales increased in the mid-single digits in the Americas and Asia, and in the low single digits in Europe. We had organic sales growth in the majority of our product lines, with the strongest growth in safety and facility identification. Our healthcare identification product line decreased in the low single digits this quarter.

We have work ahead of us to expand our sales force and to grow our pipeline of new products, and to ultimately return this product line through consistent level of meaningful sales growth and profit improvement. We did end the quarter in an improving situation. We're developing a strong team, and I'm confident that we're making the right long-term moves, and that we're on our way to building a stronger business in healthcare. Our European businesses increased organic sales in the low single digits this quarter.

We continue to see growth in the testing facility I.D., product I.D., and wire I.D. product line. Sales growth was led by our U.K. business as well as emerging markets.

Organic sales increased in the mid-single digits in Asia this quarter. Sales increased throughout our Asian businesses, with low single digit growth in China and high single digit growth outside of China.Consistent with last quarter, our sales growth in China was behind the average for the rest of the region, and it appears that the general economic growth rate has slowed. Segment profit in the IDS division was 37.9 million in the second quarter, which was an increase of 11.1% compared to the second quarter of last year. As a percentage of sales, segment profit improved to 18.1 percent this quarter compared to 16.5 percent last year.

The IDS business continues to lead the company's improved financial performance. We've been able to consistently grow segment profit while increasing our investment in R&D and investing in automation and efficiency throughout our SG&A functions. I'm pleased to announce another new project in our IDS business. This quarter we launched the i3300 industrial label printer with Wi-Fi.

This is a mid-volume industrial label printer that is ideal for identification needs throughout a facility, including everything from wires and panels, to safety and facility labels. It's lightweight and compact to save space. It has easy-to-use touchscreen and is Wi-Fi enabled. The i3300 can be used in a variety of industries and applications, including barcode labeling, cable and wire marking, GHS and chemical labels, pipe and tile markings, and arc flash labels.

This quarter, we also launched our first new product out of our innovation incubator which helps complement an existing product line that had very limited new product introductions in the last several years. I'm proud of the work we're doing in R&D to improve our new product pipeline and to improve the cadence of our new product launches. Our expectations for IDS of 2019 are consistent with guidance that we released last quarter, which is for a whole year, organic sales growth up four to 5%. We'll continue to invest in R&D, to efficiency activities in our manufacturing sites and throughout SG&A will provide benefits that will more than offset our investment in R&D.

Moving to Slide No. 14, you'll find our workplace safety review. This quarter WPS organic sales declined 0.9%, foreign current sales by 3.3%, and the sale of a runelands business in Sweden resales by 5.8% compared to the quarter of last year. This decrease in organic sales was due to the performance of our North American business which declined in the high single digits this quarter.

We took action by changing one of our digital platforms toward the end of the second quarter, and we also took action to further address our cost structure. We believe these changes will set us up to drive future organic sales growth and profit improvement. Meanwhile, our Australian and European WPS businesses, which together, make up more than two-thirds of the total of WPS division revenue, continue to drive solid financial results. Our Australian business was the strongest performer in WPS segment this quarter, with mid-single digit organic sales growth.

We continue to both win new customers and expand into additional target markets. in Australia. We've realized a meaningful growth in sales in this business. This team has been executing extremely well, and we have positive momentum.

Our WPS Europe business grew organic sales in the low single digits this quarter. We continue to execute our strategy to improve our online presence, and our sales to the digital channel increased by nearly 12% this quarter. This business has steadily improved its business fundamentals while gaining efficiencies in its cost structure, which sets it up for long-term profitability improvements. Our WPS strategy is focused on three priorities.

First, we're improving the buying experience for our customers as simple as possible, reaching our customers the way they would like to be reached, whether it's online, mobile, catalog, in-person, or through a combination of these channels, It's essential to gain market share and grow this business. Second we're increasing our customer interactions to provide more value than simply fulfilling orders. This allows us to better understand what our customers are dealing with from a safety and identification standpoint, and to better serve those needs by offering our compliance expertise and complete solutions. Third, one of our strengths is our ability to customize products and to quickly turn orders.

We're improving our portfolio of products by introducing more customized and proprietary products that our customers need, while providing our extensive safety and compliance expertise. Returning our North American business to profitable organic sales growth is our top priority in the WPS division. WPS segment profit was 4.7 million compared to 7.1 million in last year's second quarter. The decline in segment profit was due to the reduced sales volumes in North American business and approximate one million dollar asset write-off, the sale of the runelands business and foreign currency translation.

Given that a full 50% of our WPS business is in Western Europe, the strengthening of the U.S. dollar versus the euro has a much larger impact on our WPS business than our IDS business. We continue to expect the WPS business to grow organic sales by between one and 3% this fiscal year. Overall, we have a solid start to 2019.

We're growing sales. We're investing in research and development. We're upgrading our machinery, investing in automation. And we can continue to identify and execute efficiency operations throughout our SG&A structure.

Our IDS business is strong and continuously organic sales growth and profit improvement. WPS Europe and WPS Australia continue to drive organic sales growth and profit improvement as they consistently execute their strategy. But we have work ahead of us to improve our WPS North America, and to bring our healthcare identification product line to consistent growth and profit improvement. Competition for labor continues to be challenging, which makes our focus on efficiency and automation in our manufacturing processes essential to our ability to control input costs over the long term.

I know we're taking the right actions today to drive sales and profit improvements for the long term. We have the leadership in place in WPS North America and in our healthcare product line to invest in the right areas while acting quickly to stop what isn't working. We'll continue to invest in some resources and in R&D by driving operational excellence in each of our daily decisions. I believe that a consistent focus on key priorities is essential to driving long-term shareholder value.

An organization that routinely changes its goals and its plans to achieve those goals can be left with an employee population that is confused about their roles and responsibilities prioritization and expectations. At Brady, we've maintained consistent priorities. We've defined goals, and we're clear on expectations. We have a talented group of employees who are focused on developing innovative new products, improving automation within our manufacturing processes, driving sustainable efficiency throughout our SG&A functions, and improving our underperforming businesses.

We've been working on these fundamentals for several years, and we have a highly engaged, motivated, accountable Brady team to show for it. I'd like now to start the Q&A. Operator, would you please provide instructions to our listeners. 

Questions and Answers:

Operator

[Operator instructions] Our first question comes from George Staphos with Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

George Staphos -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Hi, guys. This is actually Molly Baum sitting in for George. I just wanted to go into a bit more detail on WPS North America. I know you mentioned last quarter that you expect the supplier issue we're experiencing to get resolved.

Can you provide a bit more detail on what this new platform is that you're moving to? Is this focused specifically on digital? And kind of how you expect it to play out in the back half of the year. Thank you.

Michael Nauman -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Good morning, Molly. Glad to have you on the call. You're correct. We have resolved the issue as we promised.

We don't go into the details at that level on our digital platforms, but I will tell you that we are moving to a rapidly more cohesive digital platform structure that allows all of our different regions to cooperate and coordinate their resources from a back-end point of view. We want to make sure that the experience to our customer on the front-end is geared toward their different cultural and business needs by location region and business unit. But on the back end we want to make sure that we can leverage our technical capabilities and our abilities to move forward. And so that is the direction we're heading with that platform that we spoke about in general, the entire WPS platform stream.

Molly Baum -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Got it. Thank you for that. And then another one on WPS on the margin side. Can you, one, and the different items that you mentioned that were impacting margins, can you size those relative to kind of what you've experienced in the fiscal first quarter? And then when you're looking at margins for the full year, I know in the few quarters back, you had said that you could see WPS margins being flat for the full year, has that expectation change at all on that sense.

Thank you.

Aaron Pearce -- Chief Financial Officer

Molly, this Aaron. I can answer that question. Specifically compare -- if we specifically compare the second quarter of last year to the second quarter of this year, we basically called out three items which would be the sale of our runelands business in in the fourth quarter of last year. That had an impact of about 400,000.

We -- Michael mentioned a fixed asset write off of approximately a million dollars. Foreign currency, unfortunately, continued to be a headwind as well, which was another 400. And then effectively, the call it the base business, if you will, declined 600,000. So that's what I'm trying to do, is effectively bridge our Q2 segment profit of 7.1 million last year to the 4.7 this year.

And then as we look at the margin expectation for this business, as you see, it's clearly down a bit. We haven't commented too much on the expectations for the back half of the year. But as you look at the revenue guidance specifically, we're sticking with our revenue guidance of one to 3% organic sales growth in this business, which year to date, we're at 6%. So clearly we're anticipating an improvement in the back half of the year.

Molly Baum -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Great, thanks. I'll turn it over.

Operator

Our next question comes from Joe Mondillo with Sidoti & company.

Michael Nauman -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Morning, Joe.

Joe Mondillo -- Sidoti and Company -- Analyst

Hi, guys. Good Morning. Could you, first off, let me know what the SG&A year-over-year change was, excluding the currency in the divestiture?

Aaron Pearce -- Chief Financial Officer

Again, foreign currency had about a 2.1 million impact on SG&A, and the divestiture was about 1.3 million. So effectively, that leaves a 1.5 million reduction in our base SG&A.

Joe Mondillo -- Sidoti and Company -- Analyst

OK. So I guess the follow up is that you guys have done a really good job at taking down SG&A. Going forward, do you anticipate continued strength here? Is there any slowing at taking down its SG&A? Or do you still see a lot of opportunity to reduce your SG&A?

Michael Nauman -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Joe. Good morning again. Unequivocally, we do not see a slowing of that effort initiative. And as I said in the past, and continues to be a core philosophy, there's a couple of things that really are critical to how we view it.

One, the reason we continue to have opportunities is I have a core mentality that I pass on, and now, it's been embraced by almost everyone within Brady, of lowering the water, seeing the rocks, getting rid of the rocks, and lowering the water. And what that effectively means is that we look at the biggest issues and challenges. We address them head on. We don't get distracted with the small issues.

And then when we lower the water, we determine what the next level of biggest opportunities are. We're continuing to do that, but we never do that from a mentality of just looking for reductions. So if we take a look at our different business groups they have looked at where they think they ought to be. They set targets for that.

We absolutely look at restructuring how we do business as compared to coming out with a specific target of reducing headcount and costs. So we actually have many ongoing projects to make ourselves a more efficient and effective organization. And the end result of that is we drive out those costs from the organization. So we are excited about our ability to continue driving that down.

As you can see, our R&D efforts simultaneously is going to be driving up our revenue. So we've moved into the phase optimization where I'm excited that we have an opportunity in both sides of that equation.

Joe Mondillo -- Sidoti and Company -- Analyst

OK. Thanks for that. And then on on R&D, the last few quarters are indeed, in terms of the year-on-year growth, has slowed, but the sort of what you guided to suggests a pretty big ramp up in the back half of the year. Could you just talk about what's going on in your R&D programs, the volatility there, what you've seen benefits from so far? You're obviously anticipating a ramp up in R&D.

Could you just talk about that in general?

Michael Nauman -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Let's start with the term volatility. I do want to let everybody know that we actually have amazing stability in our R&D group, and I credit the interesting, exciting products and the dynamic innovation-oriented culture that has been created within Brady. Our R&D people are excited about the future, excited about their interactions with end users, and their ability to really create products that will solve real problems. It's an amazing misnomer.

Many people think that technical people want to sit in the back office and just create cool things that don't have any relevance to the world. It's quite the contrary. They really want to make sure that their products and their ideas and their voices are heard. And that's one of the reasons that you've been seeing an improvement in the new product innovations in our groups.

They are buying into the fact that we really care about the success of those products in the marketplace and their input in that. So let's talk about the fundamentals of our groups and where we're headed, and why we're going to continue growing that group. Our base core original leg of our technology stool was materials. To that, we added mechanical.

We've been driving into electrical, and driving into software, so that we have a totally integrated approach to our customers. That results in our need to particularly add resources in the newer areas while increasing the resources in our base areas, but more of the increase comes from our newer legs of the stool. We're going to continue to be doing that throughout the quarter. We're making sure we're building out groups in a sustainable method.

And although you won't always see an exact linear coil, you're going to see as we establish new groups and new efforts, that the growth is significant and sustainable. And we're on track to growing R&D within our internal plans and structure exactly as we announced to you. So we don't see a change in our in our direction. And very very excited, not just about the size of the group, the technology of the group, but the energy of the group is dynamically different than it was just a couple of years ago.

Joe Mondillo -- Sidoti and Company -- Analyst

All right. Great. And then last question for me. The incremental margins at IDS, 140% or so, really strong.

Just wondering if you could sort of break down sort of the components that are driving that. And do you think that, you know, that kind of -- obviously, I'm sure that the 140% is not sustainable, but could you just talk about sort of the margin expansion going forward as well?

Michael Nauman -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Well, we don't actually break down the elements as you well know, but I will talk philosophically about it. One, our core technology base in the proprietary nature of our products is getting stronger. In addition to that, our ability to differentiate through customization is getting stronger. Our rapid response to our customers is getting stronger.

And the most important element, our touch points within users have become dramatically improved. ,And so we're able to really give them more value. Fundamentally, Joe the margins are dependent on us creating differential value to our customers so that they can provide differential value to their customer sets. And we believe we've been able to do that and do that well.

The other half of that though is mix. Different time periods, different strengths in different markets at different times will generate a different mix in our product sets that do have varying margin levels based on all the elements I mentioned above. So you will see these different mixes as different cycles of the economy and in different economies in our different segments are more dynamic.

Joe Mondillo -- Sidoti and Company -- Analyst

So just to follow up on that, was mix the biggest factor in the quarter itself? And looking at the mix itself, how do you think about the next few quarters relative to this quarter?

Michael Nauman -- President and Chief Executive Officer

The mix comment was more holistic. I would actually say that we actually were driven more by high-quality differentiating products this quarter. And I do think that's a strength that we can work to carry on. Honestly, in a dynamic world, mix is something that is more problematic to predict.

We literally have hundreds of thousands of products, 73 locations, 31 countries, six continents. So as different economies move forward and backwards, mix is something that is not as easy to anticipate in the future. The fundamentals of why we did better last quarter are actually a stronger reality for us. I do have to mention mix because in absolute times, makes a significant difference.

Joe Mondillo -- Sidoti and Company -- Analyst

OK. And then just finally, I hate to continue to push back, but could you clarify the difference of high-quality differentiating products and mix, because that, to me, sounds very similar. Just trying to understand better

Michael Nauman -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Now we have an overall effort to drive more proprietary technology and use more product sets. That's what I'm talking about of high-proprietary products. Now we may have some product sets that we've talked historically such as our healthcare products that has a lower or a lower margin set. If that mix, for instance, sells more, then we are going to have lower margins.

At the same time. If we're adding new higher price or proprietary products into healthcare over time that overall margin set will improve for healthcare products. So straight out, if we sell significantly more healthcare products, that may lower our margin slightly, but we're at the same time working hard to improve all of our product sets' capabilities so that the total margin for each of those product sets is improving.

Joe Mondillo -- Sidoti and Company -- Analyst

OK, great. Thank you.

Michael Nauman -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Charlie Brady with SunTrust Robinson Humphrey.

Charlie Brady -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst

Hi, thanks. Good morning. Hey, just want to -- on workplace safety, I guess I just want to try and understand a little bit better about the growth outlook. The organic growth outlook for the year, and I guess really into the second half.

Is to given what's going on first, what drives -- I mean, what's the big turnaround in the second half that gets you to kind of that net full-year core guidance rate of up one to three as opposed to being flat to down for the year.

Michael Nauman -- President and Chief Executive Officer

So we divide that group into three regions, segments. We do expect continued, and even possibly, improving results in Australia. But we'll say continued. We expect strong results out of Europe, and it had good solid results in Europe.

And then the real differentiator is we believe the elements that are in place, and I guided to this last quarter, for improvement during the latter half of the year based on all the different changes we're making in our WPS Americas business. Part of that is, you know, our digital platform, and we are definitely seeing better traction in our digital platform due to our move to a more sustainable platforms in the recent weeks. So we feel like, and we're confident, that we'll be able to sustain and improve that, which will lead to particularly in the latter half of the second half of the year, much stronger overall results there that will lift that part of the boat, which will allow the other two parts to help drive our overall growth

Charlie Brady -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst

OK. That's helpful. Thanks. And I guess just on the margin side, for both of the segments, I didn't see provide specific kind of margin expectations for the year again.

Are you -- should we expect -- particularly on workplace safety, to see a year-over-year increase in margin if the back half is going to be as strong organically as you're saying it's going to be? Or are other factors such as the costs are not fully offset kind of being a headwind to keep that down year on year from an operating margin perspective?

Aaron Pearce -- Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. So as you look at the workplace safety in the back half of the year, let me just say it this way. I absolutely expect our segment profit margin. So as a percent of sales to increase from what you saw in the second quarter of this year.

But if you remember back to the fourth quarter of last year, we had a very strong fourth quarter from a profitability standpoint. So I'm certainly not going to commit and say we're going to grow over what we saw last year, but I can absolutely tell you this, and that is we're headed in the right direction with this business, and segment profit as a percent of sales should move up from what you just saw in the second quarter

Charlie Brady -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst

OK. No, that's helpful directionally. And I guess I would ask a similar question. It sounds like from the IDS perspective, the margin profile's clearly different, that margins ought to be up nicely on a year-over-year basis for IDS.

Is that fair?

Michael Nauman -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes. That's absolutely fair. We feel that the business is strong, and the new products that we're innovating are strong. You know, you've observed this for a while, Charlie.

I think you'll see, as the other people have, that our cadence of new products, printers, technologies, has become very dependable and reliable, and that is not something historically, I think, we could say. That cadence is even more significant than the particular specific products. I think you know we have a large number of products in our portfolio, although we will highlight some that we find interesting during the calls, many, many more are actually being released throughout each month and each quarter and throughout each year. So the end result is that we have a steady stream of new products that are going out from all of our different product lines every quarter, and that is definitely a change that we believe will help with that, and also revenue in general.

Charlie Brady -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst

All right. Just one more for me, and maybe not for you to answer it, but I'll ask it African anyway. If you look at the two segments, profitability profiles are different, the growth profiles are very different, geographic exposures are very different. With IDS being three quarters of sales, roughly 80-plus-percent of operating profit, is there any thought given to does workplace safety still seem like a core asset that ought to be part of the company, or not?

Michael Nauman -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Charlie, we challenge ourselves in who we are and who we should be on a regular basis. Actually, we literally just got out of a strategy review and a strategy update, so there is no question that we put a spyglass, a magnifying glass to all of our businesses, all of our product lines, asking the questions how do they interrelate? How do they help each other? We absolutely do that. I won't get into specifics on the call, obviously. I think you knew that with the way you worded the question.

But I will tell you that we don't, in any way shape or form, see ourselves as some kind of conglomerate. We -- I fundamentally believe, and our leadership fundamentally believes, that to be of value as an organization, we have to take a look at how we work together and make each other stronger. We feel that the units that are involved in our business today absolutely do that. There are times that we will look and reevaluate that.

A great example was our furniture division. We really looked at our furniture division and saw that it was good business, a solid business, but we didn't really see how we really helped them significantly enough, and vice versa, how they helped our business significantly enough. So we will continue to look at not just WPS, but all of our businesses, to make sure that we're being realistic and honest in our assessment of the fact that we're lifting each other up

Charlie Brady -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst

Thanks. I appreciate the answer. Thank you.

Michael Nauman -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Charlie.

Operator

Our next question comes from Keith Housum with Northcoast Research.

Michael Nauman -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Good morning, Keith.

Operator

One moment...

Keith Housum -- Northcoast Research -- Analyst

Michael, on the healthcare -- can you hear me?

Michael Nauman -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Good morning, Keith. Yes, we can hear you.

Keith Housum -- Northcoast Research -- Analyst

Great. Thank you. Michael, question for you on the healthcare business. If I recall conversations from earlier in the year, the thought process was in the second half of year, the healthcare practice would be a flattish-type business.

Do you still feel like you're on that trajectory, that that business is going to be flattish for the second half of the year?

Michael Nauman -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes. I think as you watched us fix and build each of our different businesses, we do go through those transition moments. We feel that we're definitely on track. I will tell you that that business is headquartered out of California.

I was just there a week ago. We do full deep dive reviews with all the team. I feel very good about the new leadership in place there. The direction they're heading.

I also describe it as peeling an onion. When you look at needing to change the outside, often, you find incredible depth and capability within the organization. I feel very strongly that all the indications are really blooming capability within that group, and that they can continue the trajectory that we mapped.

Keith Housum -- Northcoast Research -- Analyst

OK, got it. If i can turn my attention over to WPS. Can you give us some comfort here that the issues that we see in the North America segment or the America segment won't come down the line, in effect, the Australia and the European business. Because if I think about the WPS business, it's been in trouble in the Americas since as long as I can remember.

And I just want to make sure that these issues are more isolated geographically as opposed to being secular, that the other geographies might be a few years later to encounter.

Michael Nauman -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Well, first, I do believe we can and will address some of the fundamental issues in North America. But yes, there is a differentiation. You take a look at the business in Europe. It is much more of a segmented business.

Very strongly segmented. Whereas you look at North America, and you look at it as a more homogenous effort. And without getting into details of mistakes of the past, we believe we made some fundamental different moves in -- we know we made some fundamentally different moves in North America than we made in Europe that have had lasting impacts and that have been very challenging to overcome. So we believe we ran the business in a much more strategically effective way in Europe.

In addition, it's much more segmented and will remain so. I have, in fact, my confidence to that has grown and not decreased. Now you look at Australia, we're able to bring the full weight of all of 4D capabilities to Australia through that business. It is a more isolated region.

They have unique sets that we're here to respond to. So once again, although it is a smaller market, even within that market, we actually segment it fairly effectively. There are very different business needs in different areas of that -- of Australia that are identical to Europe, but certainly are not identical to the United States.

Keith Housum -- Northcoast Research -- Analyst

OK. I appreciate that. And if I can squeeze one more here for Aaron. Aaron, as I look at your inventory levels at the end of the quarter compared to say last quarter, even last year, it looks like we're up almost 5% on an FX adjusted basis.

Do I read that in terms you guys are building up for higher growth levels that you expect in the next quarter? Or is it due to some the machinery you're putting in and just need to account for time lapse there? Or am I missing something else?

Aaron Pearce -- Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. I wouldn't try to read too much into our inventory levels. Inventories absolutely are up this quarter. As we look at it, we increased inventories in a handful of locations.

Frankly, an element of our increase in inventory levels is in response to working to reduce our shipping costs. So for instance, if we would have multiple shipments into a location in the same month or week, we've consolidated some of those shipments in order to save on shipping costs. And frankly, it's been working. So that's a piece of it.

We also built up a bit of inventory in advance of Brexit in a couple of our European locations which we think is the prudent approach. And also just from a timing standpoint, in a couple of locations, we built up some inventories. We obviously look at inventories. We're not in the business of intentionally growing inventories for no reason at all, so we do look at it closely.

And we believe that the increases that we saw this quarter were appropriate from an overall standpoint. But don't read too much into it other than basically what I just said.

Keith Housum -- Northcoast Research -- Analyst

Fair enough. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question is a follow up question from Joe Mondillo from Sidoti & Company.

Joe Mondillo -- Sidoti and Company -- Analyst

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my follow up. Just wanted to ask sort of the sales guidance that you provided, Aaron, you pointed to the lower end of the three to 5%. Considering that and considering that you're anticipating an acceleration in sales at WPS, your -- it sounds like you're assuming improvement in the healthcare business in the back half of the year.

You have R&D costs going up, so that sort of tells me that sort of your core IDS ex healthcare could potentially see some headwinds to margin expansion, at least compared to the second quarter. Is that a fair read for the back up there?

Aaron Pearce -- Chief Financial Officer

Not necessarily. So we have our guidance out of three -- three to 5% organic sales growth. If you look at where are we year-to-date, actually, we're at the lower end of that guidance range right now on a year-to-date basis. And actually, as you look at healthcare, I just want to make sure we're all square.

Healthcare grew slightly in Q1, declined slightly in Q2. When you look at it, we're effectively flattish year to date. And as Michael just mentioned, that's about where we expect to end up this year, is still in that flattish range, if you will. So I wouldn't read too much into our IDS margins as a result of our guidance.

Business is super strong, and they're doing very well

Joe Mondillo -- Sidoti and Company -- Analyst

OK. And then just a couple housekeeping items, if you will. The $1.4 million of non-operating income that hit the quarter, I know you saw something similar to last year. Not sure what hits that line.

But can you just comment on that? And is there anything baked into the guidance for the back half of the year in that -- on that line at all?

Aaron Pearce -- Chief Financial Officer

Sure. So instance, if you compare Q1 of this year to Q2 of this year, in our first quarter, it was effectively zero, effectively flat in the investment and other income line. And in our second quarter, it was 1.4 million. There's one item that plays a significant component in that, which is the accounting for our deferred comp plans.

So to put this in perspective, in the first quarter, we actually had some expense on our deferred comp plans in investments and other income. That is a net zero impact on our total income statement however, because the way that the accounting works is you take an expense in investment and other income, but you also get a benefit in SG&A expense. Now fast forward to the second quarter. It's the exact opposite of what happened.

We have a benefit in investments and other income expense, and additional G&A expense. So it really comes down to swings in the assets that are that are in these Rabbi trusts. So beyond that, nothing unusual flows through these lines. It's basically some interest income and some foreign currency gains and losses.

Joe Mondillo -- Sidoti and Company -- Analyst

OK. And then the -- so the accounting in terms of going forward, is that -- that switch, will that be consistent with the quarters going forward?

Aaron Pearce -- Chief Financial Officer

Unfortunately, I can't answer that question because it's contingent upon what the market does, because these investments are mark-to-market every quarter. So you continue to see some volatility -- and again it's a net zero on our on our pre-tax income. It's just a classification between SG&A and investment and other income.

Joe Mondillo -- Sidoti and Company -- Analyst

OK. And then the tax guidance that you provided, it seems like it implies a mid 20% range that your original sort of guidance was for the back half of the year. Is that a fair tax rate to continue to use going forward?

Aaron Pearce -- Chief Financial Officer

Well our tax rate guidance for this for this year is 22 to 24%. We had guided to a slightly higher tax rate in previous quarters, so we would expect our tax rate, I guess, it's implied to be in the neighborhood of 23% for the back half of this year, which was basically a couple of only a couple of points lower than what we had originally anticipated.

Joe Mondillo -- Sidoti and Company -- Analyst

But isn't the first half of the year more like 21 and a half or 22%, so the net-net average would be a little higher than 23 in the back of the year?

Aaron Pearce -- Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. I think our first quarter tax rate was 23.2%, and second quarter was 20.3. So if you do the math on it with our third and fourth quarters, we basically fall right in the middle of that 22 to 24% range. It's all it's all very close.

Joe Mondillo -- Sidoti and Company -- Analyst

OK. And then lastly, the CAPEX. It looks like you're anticipating a decent ramp up in CAPEX. Could you just talk about the investments that you're making? And you sort of alluded to bringing that down potentially closer to 30 million, potentially, compared to the 35 that you're originally guiding to.

Is this just a timing thing? So you know things are pushed out a little bit into fiscal '20. Just talk about the investments that you're making and sort of that timing or lumpy aspect of it.

Aaron Pearce -- Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. I definitely will. So our guidance for this year is 30 to 35 million. The only change in that guidance relates solely to timing of some of our some of our facilities that are currently leased facilities that we're constructing new facilities to effectively remove that lease.

We continue to invest at a pretty healthy clip in machinery and equipment that's meant to drive efficiency gains and to increase our capabilities. It's all timing related to these facilities.

Joe Mondillo -- Sidoti and Company -- Analyst

OK. And I guess the follow up, just last follow up. Could the new facilities, is this just to so that you're not leasing anymore, or is there also productivity gains and aspects of that with these new facilities that they're brand new? And could you talk about what you're doing there?

Michael Nauman -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Sure. We invest in the long term, we think long term. And philosophically, that has been somewhat of a different change. I think it was more of a private equity model for a few years, years ago where you looked at a shorter tenure.

What I believe fundamentally is you're very small. You're a sales type facility, ones that are likely to dynamically change, maybe need locational changes. Those should be least. But your core facilities, the backbone of your different businesses, your core manufacturing, if you lease those, what we find is that we don't invest properly in technology capabilities because there is always a mentality of this is a leased facility.

Also the secondary benefit is your cost structure does go down as well. So you get more stability. Your employees realize you have more stability. You have more flexibility about how you handle and run the buildings.

And as I said, the final benefit is going down. But what you -- or the cost will be going down. But what you really will see is a continuation of that as major leases come up on facilities that we really believe should be operating in the long term.

Joe Mondillo -- Sidoti and Company -- Analyst

OK. Thanks.

Michael Nauman -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator

And I'm not showing any further questions at this time. I'm going to turn the call back over the company's CEO Michael Nauman. You may continue, sir.

Michael Nauman -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you. I'd like to leave you with a few concluding comments this morning. We've had two solid quarters behind us in fiscal 2010. Our organic sales growth is 2.3% this quarter, and our pre-tax earnings increased by 4.8% which represents our 14th consecutive quarter of year-over-year pre-tax earnings growth.

We increased our investment in R&D consistently over the past two and a half years, and we will continue to do some so throughout the balance of this year, demonstrating our commitment to new product development and innovation to drive organic sales growth over the long term. We've increased capital expenditures through improved automation in our factories. And we continue to identify and execute improvements in our SG&A cost structure. We're focused on improving our underperforming businesses in WPS North America and the healthcare product line.

And we have strong leadership in place to turn these businesses around. We've done well and I know we can do better. We're pushing ourselves to deliver more for our shareholders, our customers and for our employees. I'm motivated, and I know that the entire Brady team is engaged and focused on delivering results.

As always, if you have questions, please contact us. Thanks for participating today, and have a great day. Operator, would you please disconnect the call.

Operator

[Operator signoff]

Duration: 60 minutes

Call Participants:

Ann Thornton -- Chief Accounting Officer

Michael Nauman -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Aaron Pearce -- Chief Financial Officer

George Staphos -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Molly Baum -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Joe Mondillo -- Sidoti and Company -- Analyst

Charlie Brady -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst

Keith Housum -- Northcoast Research -- Analyst

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