SEC Company Response from TITAN INTERNATIONAL INC (TWI) (CIK 0000899751) (TWI) — Dec 27, 2005
TITAN INTERNATIONAL INC (TWI) (CIK 0000899751)
Date: Dec. 27, 2005 · CIK: 0000899751 · Accession: 0000899751-05-000090
AI Filing Summary & Sentiment
Referenced dates: December 13, 2005
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CORRESP
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filename1.htm
TITAN
INTERNATIONAL, INC.
December
27, 2005
Rufus
Decker
Accounting
Branch Chief
United
States
Securities
and Exchange Commission
Washington,
D.C. 20549-7010
RE: Titan
International, Inc.
Form
10-K for
the fiscal year ended December 31, 2004
Forms
10-Q
for the period ended September 30, 2005
File
No.
1-12936
Dear
Mr.
Decker,
We
have
received your faxed letter dated December 13, 2005, regarding the review
of the
above mentioned filings of Titan International, Inc. (the Company). Please
see
the attached Exhibit A for the Company’s responses to your letter. If you have
any questions, please advise.
Sincerely,
/s/
Maurice M. Taylor Jr.
Maurice
M. Taylor Jr.
Chief
Executive Officer
EXHIBIT
A
- COMMENTS & RESPONES
FORM
10-K FOR THE YEAR ENDED DECEMBER 31, 2004
General
1.
Where
a comment below requests additional disclosures or other revisions
to be
made, please provide to us your intended disclosure. These revisions
should be included in your filings.
Response
to comment 1:
Titan
International, Inc. (Titan or the Company) has provided intended disclosure
for
comments below which request additional disclosure or other revisions to
be
made. These revisions will be included in the future filings of the
Company.
Properties,
page 11
2.
Specifically
state whether each of your properties is owned or leased. In this
regard,
we suggest you present a table summarizing your owned and leased
properties, and indicating whether such facilities are active or
idle. See
Item 102 of Regulation S-K for
guidance.
Response
to comment 2:
In
Part
I, Item 2, the Company’s property information was listed in paragraph form. The
property information in table format for December 31, 2004, would be as
follows:
Approximate
square footage
Location
Owned
Leased
Use
Segment
Brownsville,
TX
993,000
Manufacturing,
distribution
Idled
Cartersville,
GA
169,000
Distribution
All
segments
Des
Moines, IA
2,207,000
Manufacturing,
distribution
All
segments
Dublin,
GA
20,000
Distribution
All
segments
Elko,
NV
4,000
Distribution
Earthmoving/Construction
Greenwood,
SC
110,000
Manufacturing
Idled
Natchez,
MS
1,203,000
Manufacturing
Idled
Quincy,
IL
1,134,000
Administrative,
manufacturing
All
segments
Saltville,
VA
14,000
245,000
Manufacturing
Earthmoving/Construction
Walcott,
IA
378,000
Manufacturing
Idled
In
future
Form 10-K filings, the Company will provide its property information in a
table
format as shown above.
A
-
1
Management’s
Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of
Operations
Overview,
page 14
3.
In
light of your facility consolidations, discuss your current capacity
utilization and whether you have any current plans to increase
or decrease
your production capacity. Also, discuss the potential effects of
these
plans (if any) on your financial results with emphasis on any known
trends
or uncertainties. See Item 303 (a)(3)(ii) of Regulation
S-K.
Response
to comment 3:
In
Part
I, Item 2, the Company provided the following disclosure, “Management believes
that the Company has sufficient capacity to meet current market demand.” This
statement can be expanded to include the Company has sufficient capacity
to meet
current market demand with the facilities that are currently active and the
Company has no current plans to reopen the idled facilities. With the Company
having no current plans on capacity changes, there are no related financial
impacts. In future Form 10-K filings, the Company will provide a statement
on
production capacity along with additional information regarding its plans,
if
any, to reopen the idled facilities, when applicable.
The
Company may at times make strategic acquisitions; these acquisitions are
not
made, at this time, to increase capacity to meet current demand, but to expand
the Company’s business. Potential acquisitions involve a high degree of
uncertainty and confidentiality. The Company reports potential acquisitions
to
stockholders at the appropriate time. On February 28, 2005, Titan Tire
Corporation, a subsidiary of Titan International, Inc., entered into a
definitive agreement to purchase The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company’s North
American farm tire business. The Company filed a Form 8-K on the same day,
February 28, 2005, announcing this agreement. This agreement has not been
finalized at this time. However, this transaction is expected to close on
December 28, 2005.
Results
of Operations, page 19
4.
Please
disclose the extent to which each business reason discussed for
the
changes between periods in your results of operations contributed
to the
overall change in the various line items. In this regard, we note
that
when discussing changes in the various line items, you cite price
increases, higher demand, higher sales volume, and facility
consolidations. In circumstances where there is more than one business
reason for the change, quantify the incremental impact of each
individual
business reason discussed on the overall change in the line item.
See Item
303 of regulation S-K and SEC Release
33-8350.
Response
to comment 4:
The
Company’s Form 10-K includes the following in the Net
Sales
paragraph on page 19, “The increase in net sales on a comparative basis was
$113.2 million. Of this amount, approximately 26% was due to price increases
related to higher raw material costs being passed on to customers. The remaining
amount was primarily attributed to higher demand from the Company’s agricultural
segment.” When the Company cites certain business reasons, that information will
be provided, when applicable, in future filings. The net sales increase of
$113.2 million was comprised of $29.6 million of steel surcharges and the
remaining $83.6 million was primarily due to higher sales volume demand.
For
the
2004 Form 10-K, information regarding your comment would be as follows. For
the
Gross
Profit section,
the gross profit increase of $49.8 million was comprised of $8.4 million
as the
result of facility consolidations and the remaining $41.4 million increase
in
gross profit was a result of the higher sales volume demand.
For
the
Income
from Operations section,
income increased $49.5 million. This increase is comprised of the gross profit
increase of $49.8 million offset by a $0.3 million increase in administrative
expenses. Administrative expenses were negatively affected by goodwill
impairment charge of $3.0 million and idled asset depreciation charge of
$5.3
million. These charges were nearly offset by the $8.0 million reduction in
selling, general and administrative and research and development expenses
of
which $7.5 million related to the April 2004 sale of Titan Europe.
For
the
Interest
Expense
section,
interest expense was reduced by $4.0 million. The Company’s average debt
balances in 2004 were approximately $46 million lower when compared to 2003
resulting in a reduction of interest expense of $3.4 million. The Company’s
average interest rates in 2004 were 7.30%, which was approximately 25 basis
points lower than the average 2003 interest rates resulting in an interest
savings of $0.6 million.
A
-
2
Contractual
Obligations and Off-Balance Sheet Arrangements, page 29
5.
Please
revise your table of contractual obligations to include estimated
interest
payments on your debt. Because the table is aimed at increasing
transparency of cash flow, we believe these payments should be
included in
the table. Please also disclose any assumptions you made to derive
these
amounts.
Response
to comment 5:
The
Company will revise the contractual obligations table in future Form 10-K
filings to include estimated interest payments on debt. The table for December
31, 2004, would include the following estimated interest payments
information:
Payments
due by period
Contractual
Obligations
Total
Less
than 1
year
1-3
years
3-5
years
More
than 5
years
Long-term
debt - Estimated interest payments (a)
35,627
8,922
16,724
9,949
32
(a)
Estimated
interest payments are based on the Company’s year-end 2004 debt balances
and maturities including interest rates that are anticipated to
remain at
the current rates. The Company’s actual debt balances and interest rates
may fluctuate in the future. Therefore, actual interest payments
may vary
from those payments detailed in the above
table.
Note
1. Summary of significant accounting policies, page F-8
6.
Please
disclose the types of expenses that you include in cost of sales
line item
and the types of expenses that you include in the selling, general
and
administrative expenses line item. Please also tell us whether
you include
purchasing and receiving costs, inspection costs, warehousing costs,
internal transfer costs, and the other costs of your distribution
network
in the cost of sales line item. With the exception of warehousing
costs,
if you currently exclude a portion of these costs from cost of
sales,
please disclose:
·
In
a footnote the line items that these excluded costs are included
in and
the amounts included in each line item for each period presented,
and
·
In
MD&A that your gross profit margins may not be comparable to those
of
other entities, since some entities include all of the costs related
to
their distribution network in cost of sales and others like you
exclude a
portion of them from gross profit margin, including them instead
in
another line item, such as selling, general and administrative
expenses.
Response
to comment 6:
The
bulleted items in comment 6 are not applicable to the Company as the Company
includes all purchasing, receiving, inspection, internal transfer, and related
distribution costs in the cost of sales line. In future Form 10-K filings,
the
Company will include disclosures similar to the following in the summary
of
significant accounting policies:
Cost
of sales: Cost
of
sales is comprised primarily of direct materials and supplies consumed in
the
manufacturing of the Company’s products, as well as manufacturing labor,
depreciation expense and overhead expense necessary to acquire and convert
the
purchased materials and supplies into a finished product. Cost of sales also
includes all purchasing, receiving, inspection, internal transfers, and related
distribution costs.
Selling,
general and administrative expense: Selling,
general and administrative expense is comprised primarily of sales commissions,
marketing expense, selling and administrative wages, management information
system costs, legal fees, bank charges, audit fees, depreciation and
amortization expense on non-manufacturing assets, and other administrative
items.
A
-
3
Inventories,
page F-8
7.
You
should use one inventory method for similar types of inventories.
A
mixture of methods should only be used for different types of inventories,
particularly when there are valid business reasons for doing so.
Please
disclose which types of inventory you use each method for. Please
disclose
whether you use both methods for similar types of inventory. If
so,
disclose your basis for doing this. In a