Advanced Energy Industries - Q3 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Greetings. Welcome to Advanced Energy's third quarter 2023 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad, and a confirmation tone indicates your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you'd like to remove your question from the queue. Participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star key. Please note, this conference is being recorded. At this time, I'll turn the conference over to Edwin Mok, Marketing and Investor Relations. Mr. Mok, you may now begin.

Edwin Mok (Senior VP of Strategic Marketing and Investor Relations)

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Advanced Energy third quarter 2023 earnings conference call. With me today are Steve Kelley, our President and CEO, and Paul Oldham, our Executive Vice President and CFO. Before I begin, I'd like to mention that we will be participating in several investor conferences. If you have not seen our earnings press release and presentation, you can find them on our website at ir.advancedenergy.com. Let me remind you that today's call contains forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially and are not guarantees of future performance. Information concerning these risks can be found in our SEC filings. All forward-looking statements are based on management's estimates as of today, October 31st, 2023, and the company assumes no obligation to update them.

Any targets beyond the current quarter presented today should not be interpreted as guidance. On today's call, our financial results are presented on a non-GAAP financial basis, unless otherwise specified. Excluded from our non-GAAP results are stock-based compensation, amortization, acquisition-related costs, facility expansion and related costs, restructuring charges, and unrealized foreign exchange gains or losses. A detailed reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP measures can be found in today's press release. With that, let me pass the call to our President and CEO, Steve Kelley.

Steve Kelley (President and CEO)

Thanks, Edwin, and thanks to everyone for joining the call today. We delivered solid results in the third quarter, with earnings at the high end of our guidance range on slightly lower revenue. We delivered record operating cash flow of $73 million, benefiting from improved operating margin, effective inventory control measures, and execution of our cost control initiatives. In a more challenging demand environment, we continue to deliver solid profitability and cash flow. Our strong financial performance through the business cycle gives us the freedom to invest in new products and technologies, as well as improvements in manufacturing efficiency. We expect that these investments will drive future revenue growth and market share gains. We continue to make great progress on the new product front. Year to date, we have launched 19 new products across our market.

In addition, we have expanded our quick-turn customization activity, which enables us to quickly adapt our products to the particular needs of our customers. In our targeted markets, we are experiencing strong design win momentum in a variety of high-value applications. We continue to expect a record number of design wins in 2023, building a solid foundation for growth. To improve our operational efficiency, we are working to optimize our factory footprint, with the goal of consolidating nearly all of our manufacturing into highly efficient, large-scale factories. As part of that ongoing effort, we are closing two smaller factories in the current quarter. This is in addition to the Shenzhen factory closure we completed last December. Last month, we broke ground for our new flagship factory in Thailand. Construction will start next year, and we expect the facility to ramp in 2025.

This new Thailand factory, together with our large factories in the Philippines, Malaysia, and Mexico, will provide the capacity to meet our future needs. Supply chain issues continue to abate and are no longer a significant constraint on revenue. There are still components with very long lead times, such as power MOSFETs, but we think that supply will catch up with demand in the coming months. Now I'll provide further color on each of our markets. In semiconductor, third quarter revenue increased sequentially to $185 million. We saw increased demand for RF products used in etch and deposition applications. In addition, we achieved record revenue for our high-voltage products, which are used primarily in ion implanters. Service revenue decreased sequentially due to lower fab utilization.

For the year 2023, however, we expect to set a service revenue record based on our larger installed base and a richer menu of value-added services. We continue to work closely with our key customers to design in our next-generation eVerest and eVoS platforms. We have received numerous orders for these recently launched platforms and are working hard to satisfy the near-term demands of our customers. We believe that eVerest and eVoS will enable our customers to more effectively overcome the technical challenges of sub-two nanometer processes. These new technology platforms have the potential to drive meaningful revenue growth for many years to come. Moving to Industrial and Medical. Third quarter revenue was $115 million, down sequentially following several record quarters. Revenue came in slightly below our plan, due primarily to softer market conditions late in the quarter.

We launched five new products into the Industrial and Medical market, including the iHP Liquid, a fully sealed, liquid-cooled power supply designed to operate in harsh manufacturing environments. In the industrial market, we secured notable design wins across robotics, factory automation, and thin-film manufacturing applications. Our medical design win activity was particularly strong in the third quarter, with significant wins in diagnostic and therapeutic applications. In August, we launched the new Advanced Energy website. Creating the content for this website was a company-wide effort, and we are pleased with the quality and ease of use of our new site. We expect the new website will enable us to reach a much wider cross-section of Industrial and Medical customers. In early 2024, we will add e-commerce capability to the website, providing another way for our customers to order and rapidly evaluate our product.

Overall, we believe that our design win pipeline and improved go-to-market strategy should partially offset the potential impact of macroeconomic softening. In Data Center Computing, third quarter revenue increased sequentially to $68 million, as expected. Strong revenue from the ramp of a hyperscale design win for AI applications offset lower sales to enterprise customers. Telecom and networking revenue decreased sequentially to $41 million, in line with our expectation. Now let me share a few closing thoughts. At the beginning of 2023, we expected that semiconductor revenues would be down year-on-year, and that the rest of our business would be flat to up. We also said that our semiconductor business would trough in the second quarter, largely how things have played out in 2023, despite a softer macroeconomic environment in the second half of the year.

Looking forward, we will continue to move full speed ahead, executing the strategy we first articulated two years ago. New products and technologies, a more aggressive go-to-market strategy, and improved manufacturing efficiency will remain our primary areas of focus. With our recently completed convertible note offering, we have secured low-cost financing, which can potentially accelerate our growth. We continue to look for M&A opportunities, which make strategic and financial sense for the company. Leveraging a broad offering of highly differentiated products, a record number of design wins, improved manufacturing efficiency, and a strong balance sheet, we believe that Advanced Energy is well positioned to grow faster than our markets. Paul will now provide detailed financial information.

Paul Oldham (EVP and CFO)

Thank you, Steve, and good afternoon, everyone. Q3 was a quarter of solid execution, with earnings that came in at the high end of our guidance on slightly lower revenue. We saw some demand softening late in the quarter, largely due to macroeconomic factors. However, actions we took to improve our operations and control discretionary spending enabled us to deliver sequentially higher gross and operating margins. Together with higher interest income and lower taxes, earnings increased 16% sequentially on 1% lower revenue. Importantly, operating cash flow was at the highest level ever for the company. Finally, with shortened lead times, customers are adjusting their order patterns, and our backlog came down to $514 million. We continue to expect our backlog will settle to a level of $400 million-$500 million by the end of the current quarter.

Overall, despite a softer demand environment, we believe the year is shaping up as we had expected. We are focused on driving new product activity and improving our cost structure while preparing for the next upturn. Now let's review our financial results in more detail. Total revenue was $410 million, down 1% sequentially and 21% from our peak quarter a year ago. Revenue in the semiconductor market was $185 million, up 7% quarter-over-quarter, consistent with our view that Q2 was a near-term bottom. Revenue in the Industrial and Medical market was $115 million, down 10% from last quarter and 4% year-over-year. Following several quarters of record results, Industrial and Medical saw some softening in demand late in the quarter.

Looking forward, we expect incremental revenues from prior design wins to largely offset the impact of a sluggish macroeconomic environment in Q4. Data Center Computing revenue was up 16% sequentially to $68 million, due to the ramp of a hyperscale customer for AI applications. Sales declined 22% year-over-year due to the cyclical downturn in the enterprise server market. Telecom and Networking revenue at $41 million was down 26% sequentially and 3% year-over-year, as we fulfilled overdue backlog. Q3 gross margin was 36.1%, up 50 basis points from Q2 on lower volume, as we benefited from improved mix and lower material costs. Premiums we paid for critical components continued to taper.

As costs from prior quarters roll through inventory to the P&L, we expect to see the full benefits of lower premiums in the first half of 2024. We also continue to take actions to optimize our operations footprint and manufacturing efficiency. Consolidating capacity into larger, more efficient factories should contribute to higher gross margins over the course of 2024. Operating expenses were $97.3 million, down from last quarter. OpEx was below our guidance as we managed our cost structure and controlled discretionary spending. Q3 operating margin was 12.4%, up 50 basis points sequentially. Depreciation was $9.7 million, and our adjusted EBITDA was $61 million. Non-GAAP other income was $1.3 million due to higher net interest income, partially offset by foreign exchange losses.

Looking forward, we expect our non-GAAP other income to be in the range of $3 million-$3.5 million for the next few quarters, given our level of cash and current interest rates. As a reminder, in the fourth quarter of 2022, we initiated a restructuring plan to optimize our manufacturing operations. We are on track to our plan and expect to see the benefits of our actions translating to better margins over the course of 2024. Consistent with this plan, we recognized $5 million in restructuring costs in Q3 and expect to incur an additional $5 million-$8 million in the fourth quarter. Our non-GAAP tax rate was 7.2%, below our Q3 target of 17%, due to discrete benefits related to tax strategies we implemented this quarter.

As a result of these strategies, we are now modeling our Q4 and 2024 GAAP and non-GAAP tax rate at around 16%. Third quarter EPS of $0.28 was at the high end of our guidance of $0.13 and above Q2 of $0.11, but down from $2.12 a year ago. If you apply our prior target tax rate of 17%, Q3 EPS would have been $0.15. Turning now to the balance sheet. Total cash and marketable securities at the end of the third quarter were $986 million, and included approximately $482 million in net proceeds from transactions associated with our 2.5% convertible senior notes offering that we completed in September. Operating cash flow from continuing operations was a record $72.7 million.

Excluding the convertible offering and related transactions, cash increased from $455 million to $504 million. Net cash at the end of the third quarter was $66 million. Inventory decreased to $28 million, down 7% sequentially and 11% year-over-year, as actions to monetize on-hand inventory started to contribute to cash flow. As a result, inventory days decreased from 132 in Q2 to 125 in Q3, and turns improved from 2.7x-2.9x. Days payable decreased two days sequentially to 48 days, and DSO increased three days to 59 days. Net working capital was 136 days. CapEx was $13 million, or 3.2% of sales, and below our near-term target of approximately 4%.

We continue to expect our CapEx for this quarter and the next year to remain around 4% of sales, which includes the cost of our manufacturing consolidation plan and the investment in the new Thailand factory. During the quarter, we made debt principal payments of $5 million and paid $3.8 million in dividends. Finally, as part of the convertible note offering, we used $40 million. We repurchased 370,000 shares of our common stock. Now, let's turn to our guidance. Consistent with our commentary from last quarter, we expect that second half semiconductor revenue will be flat to up versus the first half. For our non-semiconductor markets in aggregate, we continue to expect 2023 revenue to grow slightly from last year, with low double-digit growth in Industrial and Medical and Telecom and Networking, offset by cyclical weakness in Data Center.

However, looking forward, we expect Telecom and Networking revenues to continue to normalize towards $30 million a quarter over the next couple of quarters. As a result, we are forecasting our Q4 revenue at $405 million, ±$15 million. We expect Q4 gross margin to be similar to Q3 on slightly lower volume. We expect Q4 operating expenses to be about flat with Q3, with timing of investments in new products offset by other cost reduction. Based on a tax rate of 16%, we expect Q4 non-GAAP earnings per share to be $1.15, ±$0.20. Let me make a few concluding comments. Overall, we are executing our plans for 2023. Our diversification strategy is enabling us to mitigate the impact of a sluggish macroeconomic environment and ongoing corrections in some of our markets.

We continue to expect to perform better than our markets and significantly better than in previous semiconductor cycles. Looking forward to 2024, we expect semiconductor revenues to continue to bounce around these levels for the next few quarters, but are prepared for upside if the market recovers sooner. We expect performance in our other markets to be paced by macroeconomic factors, timing of customer orders in hyperscale, and normalization of revenue levels in telecom and networking, all partially offset by opportunities for growth from new products and channel investments. In the meantime, we are focused on improving gross and operating margins while investing in critical programs to prepare for the next cyclical upturn. We believe our actions to control costs, improve operational efficiency, and shift mix towards higher margin products position the company to reach our long-term gross margin target of over 40%.

Finally, with solid operating cash flow and a strong cash position, we have financial flexibility and multiple paths to create value for our shareholders. With that, let's take your questions. Operator?

Operator (participant)

Thank you. At this time, we'll be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad, and a confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press Star two if you'd like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment please, while we poll for questions. Thank you. And our first question today comes from the line of Jim Ricchiuti with Needham & Company. Please proceed with your question.

Jim Ricchiuti (Senior Analyst)

Hi, good afternoon. I wanted to pursue the the areas of the I&M business where you've seen some softness. I wonder if you could just maybe expand on that, and then conversely, just as you talk about some of the recent design win activity you've had there, where you see some pickup potentially offsetting some of this weakness.

Steve Kelley (President and CEO)

Yeah, Jim, this is Steve. Yeah, we saw a little bit of weakness in I&M towards the end of the quarter. We actually had orders to fulfill, you know, our forecast, but we weren't able to get the kits together in time to ship in Q3. So what we're in now is more of a short lead time environment. So we don't have a, you know, long-term backlog like we did for much of the past year. So, you know, it's really on us to try to scramble and meet the needs of our customers in the short term. That said, you know, looking at Q4, it'll be about the same as Q3 for Industrial and Medical.

As we look forward into 2024, again, it's a short lead time environment, so our applications. I think the weakest areas right now are probably test and measurement, because that's tied into semiconductor, and probably some of the horticulture applications have slowed down as well. Maybe just a little more color on Industrial and Medical. you know, this is the one area where we sell a fair amount of product through distribution. So roughly 45% of our I&M business goes through distributors. And so we track that inventory and the resale information pretty closely. And I can tell you, as we exited Q3, we had a little less than three months of inventory in the channel, and that's a very comfortable place for us.

And the resales have actually increased each quarter in 2023. So we think we're in pretty good shape in the distribution channel. The other thing I'd like, just like to note is, you Industrial and Medical is a fairly new area for us, a new area to focus on at least, and we've been doing it for the last two years. And I think it's making a difference. We're seeing some of the effort we put into it turn into wins, and some of those wins are turning to revenue. And the other positive data point is on the customization side, which I mentioned during the call. You know, we're seeing record turnover in the customization area.

And so those two aspects where we put more focus on I&M and also doing more customization work to counteract any macroeconomic issues we face in the general market.

Jim Ricchiuti (Senior Analyst)

Got it. That's some helpful color, Steve. My follow-up question, and I realize you're not going to be able to be very specific, but with respect to the M&A pipeline, how much activity are you seeing in the I&M area of the business? And if you were to maybe be a little bit more specific as to whether you see more opportunities or would, you know, prefer one area versus the other in terms of where you'd like to focus some of the resources.

Steve Kelley (President and CEO)

Yeah. So first, let me just start with the general approach to M&A that we have, and then I'll zero in Industrial and Medical. so I think first of all, we're fortunate that we're a consistent cash generator. You know, even in down cycles, we generate a lot of cash. So it gives us the ability to, you know, to make strategic investments and to go on the hunt for acquisitions. So the types of targets we're looking for are gonna be primarily in Industrial and Medical space. We're looking for targets that are a good strategic fit, that are clearly accretive from a financial standpoint and have a reasonable payback period. We look for companies with strong technology and/or solid product portfolio, preferably with a significant percentage of revenue coming from sole source products, similar to our portfolio.

We look for long lifecycle products and technologies. So Industrial and Medical, we are looking for larger acquisitions, if possible, and we intend to integrate those acquisitions quickly, like we did last year with SL Power. I think that acquisition worked out pretty well for us, very complementary portfolios, and it helped us a lot in the medical area in particular. I think the biggest hurdles we're looking at now in M&A are just valuations, because valuations are in flux, and so it'll probably take longer than we would expect to get a deal done. But I think the important thing to realize is we're, you know, we're not in a rush to make a deal.

So we're gonna maintain financial discipline, but we have nearly $1 billion sitting on our balance sheet, so we have a lot of dry powder, and I think we're an attractive acquirer.

Jim Ricchiuti (Senior Analyst)

Got it. Thanks. Thanks very much. I'll jump back in the queue. Thank you.

Steve Kelley (President and CEO)

Thank you, Jim.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is from the line of Krish Sankar with TD Cowen. Please proceed with your questions.

Krish Sankar (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking my question. I have two of them. First one may be a two-part question on semi. Paul or Steve, you said semi revenues bounce around these levels, so is it fair to assume flattish sequentially for December? And then along the same path, Steve, you mentioned that the semi revenues were strong in ion implant, not dep and etch. And it seems like ion implant is more levered to mature technologies than Silicon Carbide. If that's true, can you help us understand how much of your semi revenues, or even ion implant, came from mature versus compound semi? And then I have a follow-up.

Steve Kelley (President and CEO)

Sure. I'll start, and you can finish, Paul.

Paul Oldham (EVP and CFO)

Sure.

Steve Kelley (President and CEO)

So, basically what we've seen the entire year, Krish, is there has been weakness in the etch and dep market. The overall volume has been weak, and that's, that's well known. We've been able to offset some of that weakness in three ways. One was with our service business, which has been very robust this year. The second is with design wins, which have been ramping, and the third is in the high voltage area. And your specific question about high voltage and where it's used, it is primarily ion implanters. And to the best of my knowledge, you know, the vast majority of that is going for mature technologies, Silicon Carbide as well as silicon technologies. You know, it's there to meet the surge for high voltage technologies or for EVs and other types of applications.

That's about where we stand with high voltage.

Paul Oldham (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, I guess more broadly, what we said is that we still expected that semiconductor would be flat to up a little for the second half versus the first half. So you can kind of take a look at the math there, but yeah, I think bouncing around these levels I think is accurate. If you look at that math, you're probably flat or up a little bit in Q4. And look, as we've talked with our customers, I think they've generally said they expect business to be about flat as we look into 2024. But at the same time, you know, we've worked hard to be, I'll say, financially prudent in terms of how we planned our business, but also be operationally prepared, 'cause we realize that when the semiconductor starts to turn, it can turn quickly.

And so we're prepared if we see the business start to rebound more quickly over the course of next year.

Krish Sankar (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Got it. Got it. That's very helpful. And then a follow-up on Data Center. You know, obviously the Data Center revenues grew nicely, like 15% quarter-over-quarter, but it's still down 22% on a year-over-year basis. I think, Steve, you mentioned as one hyperscaler customer is ramping for AI. So I'm just kind of curious, was the incremental $10 million revenue largely driven by that one customer? Are you sole source, or is it still, like, multi-source? And kind of like, what is your strategy on a go-forward basis? Because a year ago, if I, if I'm correct, or maybe the terminology is too, exaggerated, but you kind of de-emphasized hyperscalers and focused on I&M. So is there a new renewed focus on Data Centers? Thank you.

Steve Kelley (President and CEO)

Yeah, that's a good question, and let me just... It's a multi-part question, so I'll give you a multi-part answer. So first of all, yes, it's a soft environment today from a demand standpoint in Data Center. But, we do have this sole source design win, which we touched on, on last call as well as this call, and that's been ramping, and it acted as a shock absorber, basically. So we're not seeing the degree of correction that some others may be because of this ramping design win. You know, I think this is a cyclical market. We don't know exactly when the demand's gonna snap back, but if history is any guide, you know, it could snap back as soon as first half 2024.

Because the last time we went through this inventory digestion, it took us about three quarters to get through it. So we're ready for a snapback in the Data Center market. You know, we think the fundamentals are great. Still a lot of data being generated and transmitted and stored. So the long-term story is very strong. We think there are a couple accelerators next year. One is AI, of course. The second is the transition to 48 volts. So we think there, you know, there's some positives on the horizon for Data Center, but our strategy remains unchanged. We're still going after opportunities where we can get paid for the engineering value that we provide.

And so again, we're trying to keep our margins going up and to the right, and we're not as concerned about revenue growth in Data Center.

Mehdi Hosseini (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Thanks a lot, Steve. We appreciate it.

Steve Kelley (President and CEO)

Yep.

Operator (participant)

Our next questions are from the line of Steve Barger with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please proceed with your questions.

Steve Barger (Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks. You talked about inventory being in good shape in the channel, but can you expand on your comment about having a more aggressive go-to-market strategy and tie that into the efforts to cultivate distribution and bar relationships? Because it seems like that'll be an important force multiplier if end markets do get a little bit weaker going forward.

Steve Kelley (President and CEO)

Yeah, Steve, I think we've done a lot on the go-to-market strategy. Let me just list some of the things that we're doing that are, I think, most important. The first is probably our website. We launched a new website in August, and it's been a big hit with our customers and our distributors. If we take a look at some of the statistics, today, we're seeing roughly double the number of hits on a daily basis on our website, and we've tripled the number of customers who are downloading and interacting with the website, typically downloading data sheets or application notes. So we're very happy with that. And then when we add the e-commerce capability next quarter, I think that's gonna help us as a company. It's also gonna help our distributors as well.

That's, that's a big plus. The second big thing we did was, on the sales side, where we basically split our sales force into two parts, and one of those parts is focused exclusively on Industrial and Medical. Those, those people, the apps engineers, and the sales engineers, only get paid on Industrial and Medical design wins and revenue. It's brought a tremendous amount of focus, you know, to our effort, not just through distributors, but also directly with customers. That's, that's been a big, you know, a big plus for the company. And thirdly, I think we've raised our game in the marketing communications area and our ability to train our distributors and sales force on how to sell our product and how they fit, you know, from a customer standpoint.

So I think we're in much better shape than we were two years ago.

Paul Oldham (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, I'll just add to that, Steve. I think our prepared comments were such that we think the inventory and the distribution channel is about right, but we've actually seen more sell-through. You're right, as market forces potentially weaken, getting broader reach is one of our primary strategies, and the distribution channel is certainly a key part of that. There's even potential for us to expand further, from a distribution channel perspective as we focused on that.

Steve Barger (Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Thanks. And Paul, backlog was down about 50% year-over-year to $514 million, which I think is the high end of what you consider a more normal range. Can you talk through segment exposure in backlog, timing of delivery, and maybe talk through book-to-bill for semiconductor and Industrial and Medical?

Paul Oldham (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. So you're right, the backlog's down. Frankly, the backlog we had a year ago is extremely unusual. If you go back historically, before the part shortages we saw, you know, roughly 24-30 months ago, we would typically carry backlog that was, you know, 60% of quarterly revenue. And that's because a lot of our products are relatively short lead times, and we have many customers who don't technically give us orders, so there's not really a book-to-bill because we fill revenue through JIT bins or through hub pulls. And we'd expect to move back towards that situation, and that's, that's exactly what's happening. I think by the end of this Q4, we'll be back well within that $400 million-$500 million range. You know, about $400 million is about a quarter's worth of backlog.

You know, that's probably a quarter or quarter plus is kind of probably where things will run, probably a little more than they did historically. So we think the contraction in backlog is pretty natural, and it mainly just reflects those shortened lead times and people returning to their normal ordering patterns. You know, from that perspective, if you look at what's in backlog, the majority of it is relatively short orders now, I'd say within, you know, a quarter and a half or less. It's also still heavily weighted towards Industrial and Medical and Semiconductor. And as we, you know, look forward, again, it's hard to say a particular book to bill because many of our customers don't order that way.

Steve Barger (Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Appreciate the detail. Thanks.

Paul Oldham (EVP and CFO)

Yep.

Operator (participant)

Our next question is from the line of Mehdi Hosseini with SIG. Please proceed with your question.

Mehdi Hosseini (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Yes, sir. Thanks for taking my question. Paul, just wanna go back to the backlog. When I look at commentary by some of your customers in Industrial and Semi, it seems like they don't really have a whole lot of visibility looking into calendar year 2024. And as such, could there be a scenario where your backlog would actually move towards the low end of that $400 million-$500 million band?

Paul Oldham (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, I think it could. Again, our estimate there is a little bit of... you know, based on market factors and where things, you know, could end up, historically, we've run under that level, and that would be normal. So I think as, you know, customers move back to more normalized patterns, we, you know, we could certainly move towards the low end of that. That wouldn't be a surprise. Again, that would still be about a quarter's worth of backlog, which would be higher than the historical norm.

Mehdi Hosseini (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. And then, just a double-clicking on your Semi business. If your customers are right now thinking or elaborating or talking about 2024 as flat in terms of the system shipment or system revenue compared to 2023, does that imply that just some inventory refresh of components would lead to some growth in Advanced Energy's Semiconductor business unit?

Steve Kelley (President and CEO)

Yeah, I think that's a fair scenario, Mehdi. You know, like you said, the customer consensus seems to be that their end customer shipments will be roughly flat year-over-year. Right. But we do see some room for growth in the JIT bins, and we see some room for growth in our new products as well. And that should push us into slight growth year-over-year.

Mehdi Hosseini (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah. Got it. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question today, you may press star one from your telephone keypad. The next question is from the line of Mark Miller with Benchmark. Please proceed with your question.

Mark Miller (Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you for the question. You talked about the implant was driving your high voltage opportunity. In the last couple of weeks, so there's been concern about slowing in the EV market. EV sales in China this past quarter were down 27% sequentially. Are you seeing any slowing of quoting activity or orders as a result of this? Ford also delayed its capacity additions because of slowness.

Steve Kelley (President and CEO)

Yes, Mark, the short answer is no, we have not seen that. So, right now, our backlog is still very robust, very strong, and we're not getting any signals yet from our customers that they're going to tune the forecast downward.

Mark Miller (Equity Research Analyst)

Next question, Telecom area. Are any of your customers dealing with an inventory, digestion situation?

Steve Kelley (President and CEO)

Your question was specific to Telecom?

Mark Miller (Equity Research Analyst)

Correct.

Steve Kelley (President and CEO)

Or just in general?

Mark Miller (Equity Research Analyst)

Just, just Telecom.

Steve Kelley (President and CEO)

Just Telecom.

Paul Oldham (EVP and CFO)

I'm not aware that they're dealing with a lot of inventory, but it's also clear if you look at the telecom manufacturers, you know, they're in a pretty, very severe down cycle right now. So I don't think there's a lot of inventory overhang there, but I also there's not a lot of orders. So one of the reasons I talked in our prepared remarks about that we would anticipate that our, you know, telecom and network business is continuing to trend back towards, you know, $30 million run rate versus where it's ran the last, most of the last year.

Mark Miller (Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Pavel Molchanov, with Raymond James. Please go ahead with your question.

Pavel Molchanov (Senior Investment Strategist)

Yeah, thanks for taking the question. You know, we're talking about all of the macroeconomic headwinds in a lot of the verticals, but you also said that valuation perspective M&A are too expensive. From the perspective of the sellers who are insisting on these high deal multiples, what are they looking at?

Steve Kelley (President and CEO)

You know, I can only comment for Advanced Energy, and I think, you know, valuations have adjusted over the past year and a half. I think different parties adjust the new valuations at different rates. I think, you know, that's gonna... I think the answer to your question is gonna vary depending on which target we're talking about. But we think over the next six to 12 months, we'll probably be able to come to a deal, you know, with one or more of these targets. But again, it's going to depend on if it makes financial sense for Advanced Energy and strategic sense for the company.

Pavel Molchanov (Senior Investment Strategist)

Right. You also mentioned that for M&A, you're looking for, you know, kind of chunkier deal sizes versus maybe what you would consider historically. If, if Artesyn was the largest M&A deal in the company's history, compared to that, are you looking to do something even larger?

Steve Kelley (President and CEO)

I think if you want to put a goalpost, I would say, you know, SL Power would be the smallest kind of deal we would like to do in I&M, and Artesyn would be the largest type of deal. So it's going to be somewhere in between those two goalposts.

Pavel Molchanov (Senior Investment Strategist)

Okay. That's, yeah, that, that's interesting. And lastly, within Industrial and Medical, I periodically ask this question. More and more headlines about new solar manufacturing, not just in the United States, but more broadly outside of China. Can you talk about your opportunities in that infrastructure build-out?

Steve Kelley (President and CEO)

Yeah, I think in solar, our primary opportunity is probably in the plasma space, where many of these solar cells, solar panels need extremely precise thin layers of various things deposited on a flat surface. And this is an ideal type of application for plasma. And so we provide basically RF solutions for thin film manufacturers, which includes solar.

Pavel Molchanov (Senior Investment Strategist)

All right. Thanks very much.

Steve Kelley (President and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. This, ladies and gentlemen, this will conclude this. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and thank you for your participation.