Alcoa Inc. Earnings Call Nuggets: Portfolio Changes, The Global Bauxite Market

On Tuesday, Alcoa Inc. (NYSE:AA) reported its first quarter earnings and discussed the following topics in its earnings conference call. Take a look.

Portfolio Changes

Michael Gambardella – JPMorgan: I have a question. Klaus, you’ve mentioned the word ‘portfolio’ when you were talking about your businesses, and it is a portfolio of different businesses that you have, and some are doing very well, some Downstream businesses, some have more work to go like the primary side of the business. Would you consider maybe changing the portfolio and maybe selling some of the things that are doing extremely well now, like record profit and putting more of that money to work in some of the things that maybe aren’t showing as good a results right now, but do you think it has promise them?

Klaus Kleinfeld – Chairman and CEO: Mike, if you look at the history and also the recent history. We’ve pretty substantially, I would say, over the last four years already modified all portfolio. And the big questions always behind that Mike and we haven’t had many conversations. I mean, how do you best create value. I’ve said that (indiscernible) my presentation. I mean, I would say pretty much everybody at our core understands that they have to earn the right to earn a certain assets and the point is, if we can’t prove to be a better owner of that asset and then to have better performances being rolled cash as well as innovation and profitability, all of these wonderful things. I think then we are creating substantial shareholder and that’s the main driver that we will continue to follow here.

Michael Gambardella – JPMorgan: If you’re – I understand you’re creating value but it’s another question whether it’s being recognized by the market or not.

Klaus Kleinfeld – Chairman and CEO: Mike the interesting this is, I mean, my experience in life is the market has a lag time. Frankly, if you look at how many people are realizing what we’re doing in the mid and downstream street. I would absolutely be with you see say, people are only starting now to recognize what we’re doing in that business gives us credits for us and partially I think it was also our fault because you know Alcoa for a long time. I think we’ve only started to talk about and also perform well in the mid and downstream business. I mean, we show the 10-year historically there; as of relatively recently, So, I have a certain understanding for people they gives us credit for. I think you always have to, as I said before, earn the right to gain the credit, but from the conversations that we are having with investors, I see a more and more interest and more and more people that are otherwise only covering those markets and the aerospace markets seeing us and seeing our strength in that market.

The Global Bauxite Market

Anthony Rizzuto – Dahlman and Rose: I’ve got a strategic question on the global bauxite market which I’ve always viewed as maybe a limiting factor and I heard what you were saying about all of the challenges China is facing, but should we think about that as a next critical part of the value chain and do you think the western players, Klaus, are in a position to maybe limit the ability perhaps for the Chinese growth build out and how do you view, particularly with all the challenges that seem to be emanating out of Indonesia these days?

Klaus Kleinfeld – Chairman and CEO: Tony, I couldn’t be more with you. I mean, because what I did see is that out of the 60% of the bauxite needs of China gets imported. Out of that 60%, 80% of the imports come from Indonesia. I mean, you’ve all read the discussions in Indonesia around saying we’re not going to allow that any long and we are going to restrict it because we don’t want to be, I mean, the resource where stuff gets out of the ground and then simply shipped over and no value-add other than a big hole left here in our country. I think you’re absolutely spot on and I would another point here and that’s why I hope you forgive me for this complicated chart. I think the other point that we have to understand is also the water affect because I found that very interesting to look at the water resources in those regions and I think that is very difficult to replace if not impossible to be honest.

Anthony Rizzuto – Dahlman and Rose: Just a follow-up question if I may in regards to the productivity gains, how should we think about the ramp-up in the balance of the year?

Klaus Kleinfeld – Chairman and CEO: Well, you’ve seen that. I mean we are handling home huge productivity here and pretty much when you look at how this has happened last year, we tried to frontload as much as possible and at same time continue to have good ideas on how we can not only reach it but probably also overreach it, so that’s how you should think about it and the target I think, we have a history of making the target in the last years and we will certainly make it this year. Chuck, do you want to add anything to this?

Charles D. McLane Jr. – EVP and CFO: The only think I would add to it, Tony, is that the goal we have out there is $800 million and that’s year-over-year whereas the productivity that you are looking at on the bridge right there is sequential. So, right now against the $800 million, we are tracking on a year-over-year basis at a fourth of that right now, and we are on path to hit the targets.

Klaus Kleinfeld – Chairman and CEO: Maybe there is one point, because Tony – to follow-up on Tony, I mean because some people might be saying how does that whole thing with the productivity work, and for some we have talked more privately about the system that we have in place and which I call our strategic advantage and disciplined execution. But this is not just the target. Behind that currently in our system are around 8,000 plus specific actions that we have worldwide and that we are tracking and where we pretty much know how much they are going to bring with who’s in charge of it. I mean, who’s going to do this, how much productivity it’s going to bring and at what point in time this is going to come. So, there’s a system behind the madness, if you want to say it that way. Let’s move to the next question.