Tyco Earnings Call NUGGETS: Transition to ADT, Product Strength

On Tuesday, Tyco International Ltd (NYSE:TYC) reported its third quarter earnings and discussed the following topics in its earnings conference call. Take a look.

Transition to ADT

Steven Winoker – Sanford C. Bernstein: You know what, I think it deserves mention before my questions just to say Ed, congratulations, your 10-year anniversary, you saved this Company. I remember 10 years ago when I was at UTX and all of this news broke out and we really wondered about the future of the Company. I just think it’s worth mention to say congratulations.

A Closer Look: Tyco International Ltd Earnings Cheat Sheet>>

Edward D. Breen – Chairman and CEO: Thank you, Steve and thank you by the way for your comment about Tyco on Bloomberg the other day.

Steven Winoker – Sanford C. Bernstein: Well, just easy to say and look you’ve made the numbers today. So I’m happy. Let me ask couple of questions, if I could then, transition to ADT. Naren, could you maybe give us a little bit more color on the pricing actions that you took in the quarter, the impact relative to last quarter? How many more quarters of this can you sustain?

Naren K. Gursahaney – President, Tyco Security Solutions: Well, Steve as I mentioned in the last call we’re continuously trading off our five value drivers. We saw an opportunity in the business to be a little bit more aggressive on the pricing side, primarily because during the economic downturn 2009, 2010 and 2011, we had been very cautious there and actually held back that. So we made the decision to accelerate some of our escalations into Q2 and Q3. In total, it was about 900,000 accounts that we escalated during those two quarters and I would say we are pretty much caught up at this time. There is a little bit of a tail there that we’ll carry into the fourth quarter, but at this stage we will be moving back to our normal annual cycle around price escalation. So, pricing will continue to be an important value driver for us as we look at ARPU, but I would say the acceleration that we did over the past couple of quarters will definitely slow down as we look to the fourth quarter and beyond.

Steven Winoker – Sanford C. Bernstein: But you covered, what is it, around 30% of your account base or what percentage of your account base have you covered with the last two price increases?

Naren K. Gursahaney – President, Tyco Security Solutions: In total it was about a little less than 30%, but again part of that would have been in our normal cycle, the rest of it (exceed) – about half of that or little less than half of that would have been incremental to what we would have normally done.

Steven Winoker – Sanford C. Bernstein: Then the other thing as I know I ask this all the time, but I just want to know every quarter any progress from cable and telco perspective in terms of their pricing and share impact, are you experiencing any kind of change in trajectory or impact from the increased investment from those guides?

Naren K. Gursahaney – President, Tyco Security Solutions: Well, again, as we’ve mentioned in the past, we track our progress in those markets where we have the cable competition very closely and we’re looking at our performance every week. As I look at specifically, the third quarter performance and again, I feel very good about how we’re performing in those markets. There are some specific performance metrics like our Pulse take rate and the upfront dollars that we’re getting from our customer that are better in those markets than what we’re seeing in some of the other markets, and that I think is a reflection of the fact that there is more advertising around interactive services there. So, there is a little bit of a lift in the water level. But, overall, I still feel very good about our performance. There is nothing in there that surprises me or it has me concerned. So I still feel very good and more importantly, I feel good about both the products and services that we have to compete with those players in the marketplace.

Product Strength

Jeffrey Sprague – Vertical Research: Let me add my thanks and congrats, Ed. I hope you get some good time off, but also hope you resurface somewhere where we can see you soon. Just back in the (rein) for a follow-up on ADT and Pulse, I think the $45 and $0.12 number you threw out is your dealer account ARPU and I guess that’s a blend of Pulse and non-Pulse. Can you just give us a little color on where your actual Pulse ARPU is running and kind of I forgot if you call it gold, silver, bronze but those kind of price levels that how are people breaking into those different buckets?

Frank Sklarsky – EVP and CFO: Jeff, just to clarify, the $45.12 number I gave you, that was new sales ARPU for our direct channel. So that was not a dealer number. The Pulse ARPU is consistent with what we have seen over the past several quarters hovering right around that $50 range. I would say the mix between the different Select, Advantage and Premier again is pretty consistent about 70% in the Select and then it’s kind of building up from that. But no significant changes either on the ARPU side or that mix between Select, Advantage and Premier.

Jeffrey Sprague – Vertical Research: Just flipping over to George, George can you share a little color on what drove the product strength in your business?

George R. Oliver – President, Tyco Fire Protection: I mean if you go back, Jeff, we have been investing pretty heavily into these businesses for a number of years now, and I think that investment really acknowledged beginning to pay off. We are not extending the portfolio, but making sure that we are positioned within the growth markets, both the emerging markets as well as the vertical markets to be able to capitalize on the growth opportunity. So the organic piece, we’ve also done some nice strategic bolt-on acquisitions, which have really complemented our portfolio, enabling us to better serve the customer base that we serve with our current channels as well as capitalize on the new channels that they have brought to the business. So it is a combination of the two that really is driving that strength.

Jeffrey Sprague – Vertical Research: Then just on Europe, have you been able to defend or even improve those margins despite the fact that you’re now hitting some revenue headwinds there?

George R. Oliver – President, Tyco Fire Protection: If you go back, over the last few years we have done a tremendous amount of work restructuring these businesses and making sure that we are focused on how do we grow profitably within these markets. I can say across the board when you look at our current performance, our products are up modestly relative to the growth, service is relatively flat with install just slightly down. So overall, given what’s happening within Europe, I’d say we are performing pretty well and I think the work that we’ve done in restructuring these businesses, the investments that we’re making and our focus on profitable growth is really paying off and across the board now, we’re operating with double-digit margins.

Antonella Franzen – IR: Jeff, I would just add that if you kind of take a look back, remember that those margins in EMEA region were once at that mid-single digit range and now they are in the double digits and all that progress happened during an economic environment where we weren’t getting any growth in the Europe region.

George R. Oliver – President, Tyco Fire Protection: All of our businesses, Jeff, is within the U.K., within Continental Europe, across Security as well as Fire now is operating with double-digit returns.

Jeffrey Sprague – Vertical Research: That’s great. I remember one there was a minus sign in front of the margins.