Allient - Q3 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning, and welcome to the Allient Incorporated third quarter fiscal year 2023 financial results conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Craig Mychajluk, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Craig Mychajluk (Head of Investor Relations)

Yeah, thank you, and good morning, everyone. We certainly appreciate your time today as well as your interest in Allient Inc. Joining me on the call are Dick Warzala, our Chairman, President, and CEO, and Mike Leach, our Chief Financial Officer. Dick and Mike are going to review our third quarter 2023 results and provide an update on the company's strategic progress and outlook. After which, we'll open up for Q&A. You should have a copy of the financial results that were released yesterday after the market closed. If not, you can find it at our website at allient.com, along with the slides that accompany today's discussion. If you are reviewing those slides, please turn to slide two for the Safe Harbor statement. As you are aware, we may make forward-looking statements on this call during the formal discussion as well as during the Q&A.

These statements apply to future events that are subject to risks and uncertainties, as well as other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from what is stated on today's call. These risks, uncertainties, and other factors are discussed in the earnings release, as well as other documents filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission. You can find these documents on our website or at sec.gov. I want to point out as well that during today's call, we will discuss some non-GAAP measures, which we believe will be useful in evaluating our performance. You should not consider the presentation of this additional information in isolation or as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with GAAP. We have provided reconciliations of non-GAAP to comparable GAAP measures in the tables accompanying the earnings release and slides.

For that, please turn to slide three, and I'll turn it over to Dick to begin. Dick?

Dick Warzala (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Thank you, Craig, and welcome, everyone. Before we jump into the quarter results, I just wanted to remind everyone that we had our inaugural Investor and Analyst Day at the end of August, where we highlighted our expanded available markets and how we plan to leverage our proven pro-process to ensure we achieve our future goals and objectives. Please visit our website, Investor Relations website, where you can view a replay of the event or the transcript. Now, on to the quarter. We continued to execute our strategy and delivered solid top-line results, record gross margin, and robust cash generation that enabled us to reduce our debt and make an acquisition during the quarter.

Once again, our industrial markets led the way with 32% sales growth over last year's third quarter, largely driven by industrial automation projects and power quality solutions focused on the HVAC and oil and gas end markets. Also contribute to our industrial sales growth with continued improvements within the supply chain environment, which supported the shipping of some long lead projects. Our other three targeted verticals saw contraction during the quarter, though those numbers don't tell the whole story, as there are a number of positive elements within each. Aerospace & Defense sales reflected program timing, largely within the space industry during the quarter. On the defense side, we have experienced a high level of quoting and activity over the last few quarters, and we secured a large defense order, which is reflected in our third quarter orders.

I will talk about our orders and backlog later in the presentation. Within our vehicle markets, our automotive customers are ramping up as expected this year, although the growth was more than offset by lower demand within agricultural vehicles, given the softness in Europe, largely influenced by the Ukrainian conflict. Lastly, medical sales were nearly flat as we continued to see a return to a more normalized sales environment focused on surgical and instrumentation-related end markets. We did experience softness in medical mobility, which largely reflects a reduction in the demand that we experienced during the last few years for those products. Driving higher, higher margins continues to be a focus, and we saw a nice expansion of our gross margin during the quarter.

The 32.7% gross margin rate does set a new high water mark for Allient and largely reflects the favorable mix from the end markets I just highlighted. On the operating performance, you will notice we had a jump in business development cost of about $1 million year-over-year. Those expenses were in support of the recent acquisition and some limited operations rationalization to position us and drive stronger operating leverage in the future. Overall, we delivered net income per share of $0.41, and on an adjusted basis, net income per share was $0.61. On a year-to-date basis, we generated significant cash from operations of more than $27 million, as we have seen modestly improved inventory turns.

We did utilize some of that cash to reduce our debt balance by more than $11 million and to acquire Sierramotion at the end of the quarter. While Sierramotion is a relatively small acquisition, it is very strategic and enhances both our application design and development efforts and our customer-facing market strategy. Sierramotion excels at providing rapid product development, prototyping, and low-volume production to improve speed of play for customers. We further believe we can leverage their team's skills and capabilities to advance our integrated motion solution strategy and to expand our reach into our targeted end markets.... We also see the potential to enhance their capabilities by leveraging the Allient global manufacturing footprint in order to provide larger scale production capabilities for Sierramotion customers.

Looking ahead, we still see exciting opportunities as we expand our presence in targeted market verticals, launch innovative solutions, and further streamline our business for greater efficiency. With that, let me turn it over to Mike for a more in-depth review of the financials.

Mike Leach (CFO)

Thank you, Dick. Starting on slide four, we provide some details regarding our top line. Third quarter revenue increased 8% or $10.9 million-$145.3 million. The favorable impact of exchange rate fluctuations on revenue was $1.8 million in the quarter. Excluding FX, organic revenue growth was 7%. The growth rates for our four targeted markets are noted on the slide, and Dick reviewed the pertinent changes within each. The acquisition of Sierramotion did not have a material impact on sales during the third quarter. Slide five shows the change in our revenue mix by market on a trailing twelve-month basis and the drivers behind the change. Industrial continues to be strong and remains our largest market, making up 43% of total TTM sales.

That's an increase of 500 basis points since the comparable period in 2022. The 38% growth in the industrial space was driven by the same markets as the current quarter. Defense program timing contributed to substantial growth and performance in A&D, and the 200 basis point increase in share for the TTM period. Medical growth has benefited from a more normalized sales environment, and vehicle market revenue was comparable on a trailing twelve-month basis as commercial, automotive, and power sports demand offset weaker agricultural demand. As highlighted on slide six, our third quarter gross margin was 32.7%, up 50 basis points from the prior year period. Higher volume and favorable mix more than offset elevated elevated raw material costs. Consistent with our stated objectives, you can see the progress we are making by executing our strategy in the annualized chart.

Moving on to slide seven. We delivered third quarter operating income of $11.9 million, or 8.2% of sales, which was down 50 basis points. Operating costs and expenses as a percent of revenue were 24.5%, up 100 basis points, of which 70 basis points was attributable to higher business development costs in the quarter as we continue to rationalize our manufacturing footprint and execute our M&A strategy. On slide eight, we present GAAP net income and adjusted net income, along with our Adjusted EBITDA results. Our net income and Diluted EPS have been adjusted for certain items, which we believe provides a better understanding of our earnings power, inclusive of adjusting for the non-cash amortization of intangible assets, which reflects the company's strategy to grow through acquisitions as well as organically.

Net income increased 1% to $6.7 million, or $0.41 per diluted share, and on an adjusted basis, was up 3% to $10 million, or $0.61 per diluted share. The effective tax rate was 23% in the quarter, and we adjusted our expected income tax rate for the full year 2023, balanced slightly to be approximately 23%-25%. Adjusted EBITDA increased 5% to $20.8 million, or 14.3% of revenue. We use Adjusted EBITDA as an internal metric and believe it is useful in determining our progress and operating performance. Slides nine and 10 provide an overview of our balance sheet and cash flow.

As a reminder, in the first quarter, we made a $6.25 million deferred cash payment for our prior acquisition, which was reflected during the cash position at the end of the third quarter. Total debt was approximately $224 million, down $11.1 million from year-end 2022. Debt, net of cash, was about $201 million, or 48.1% of net debt to capitalization. Our bank leverage ratio was 2.9x. We generated $27.1 million of cash from operations year-to-date, a significant increase in cash usage during the prior year period. The increase reflects higher net income and improved working capital management. Based on our cash flow projections, we expect to continue to drive strong cash flows consistent with historical trends.

Year-to-date, capital expenditures were $7.9 million and were largely focused on new customer projects. Due to project timing and supply chain impacts, we adjusted our 2023 CapEx expectations to now range between $12 million-$15 million, down from $16 million-$20 million. Inventory turns improved to 3.1x in the third quarter, compared with under 3x last year, and our DSO is at 57 days, largely reflecting timing and mix of customers. With that, I'll now turn the call back over to Dick.

Dick Warzala (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Thank you, Mike. Slide 11 shows our orders and backlog levels. Third quarter orders of approximately $155 million resulted in a book-to-bill ratio of 1.1x and a backlog of nearly $310 million. Order levels are up 23% year-over-year and 13% sequentially, largely due to a $31 million defense market order received during the quarter. This order is from an existing program and is expected to convert to sales over the next two years, with shipments beginning early next year. Our backlog increased 4% from the sequential second quarter of 2023, reflecting defense order and strong demand for power quality solutions, partially offset by continued improvements from the supply chain environment. This has enabled the shipping of some long-lead projects as customer order patterns return to a pre-COVID-19 environment.

As a result, we do expect our backlog to decline in the near term, as our book-to-bill ratio drops below one. The time to convert the majority of backlog to sales is within the next nine months. Turning to slide 12, we expect our business for the remainder of the year to reflect a pre-COVID-19 environment and be consistent directionally with our fourth quarter results from prior years. This means there is a higher likelihood of seasonality for holiday shutdowns and customers managing their own inventory levels at year-end. Demand is expected to continue at relatively strong levels within our industrial markets and to benefit from our increased market presence around industrial automation, material handling, and power quality solutions. Our other targeted markets are expected to exhibit puts and takes from the end markets, similar to this past quarter.

Driving cash conversion and paying down debt is a priority, and we will continue to focus on this area as we round out this year and move into 2024. Our debt reduction efforts are expected to support our planned M&A activities, which is a key element of our overall growth strategy. As always, we are actively grooming potential opportunities and building out our M&A pipeline. The increasing global unrest we are all experiencing has the potential to present additional challenges in our day-to-day operations, but we are confident that the Allient team has the experience and dedication to navigate through these uncertainties while still remaining focused on executing our long-term strategy. Overall, we are excited and confident in our future, and we believe we are well positioned to create additional value for all of our stakeholders.

Lastly, for those that didn't get a chance to see our Investor Day presentation, the image on the left is what we call the House of Allient. It is a refined structure that layers on a strong vertical market focus on top of our key technology pillars of motion, controls, and power. This is the basis of how we plan to accelerate our future success. With that, operator, let's open the line for questions.

Operator (participant)

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question today is from Greg Palm with Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Please go ahead.

Greg Palm (Senior Research Analyst)

Hey, thanks. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions.

Dick Warzala (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Thank you, Greg.

Greg Palm (Senior Research Analyst)

Maybe, you know, just starting with the outlook. You know, early November, you know, normally you don't have great visibility and, you know, year-end inventory management shutdowns, et cetera, but you sort of directionally guided for kind of that, you know, decent size seasonality, you know, versus Q3. So I'm just kind of curious, is that, you know, kind of what your visibility levels are, your confidence around that? Is that kind of what you're hearing from customers, or is it more, you know, on the basis of, look, it's, you know, pretty uncertain macro environment out there, and you're just, you know, wanting to add a, maybe an extra level of conservatism in there?

Dick Warzala (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Well, that's a lot of stuff that we added to there, huh, Greg? I think, as we know, and maybe for our shareholders that have been here over several years, the reason why we highlighted pre-COVID-19 environment is that, we have, in prior years, gone through the seasonality, and the fourth quarter would reflect that. And many times the fourth quarter was a crap shoot because, especially some of our larger customers would conserve cash and would, you know, hold shipments until after the first of the year and so forth. And, you know, so that comes into play, and we really don't know what that impact is and how that, how much that's going to affect us until literally late in December.

With regard to our visibility, we see what we will call a normal pre-COVID-19 environment with some seasonality. Okay? So we're being a little bit... We are gonna be cautious, and we're gonna say that we cannot anticipate what might happen later in December. But given what we have in our backlog today and so forth, we do, we do see, you know, some of that seasonality coming into play. And let's just call it the normal environment that we've operated in prior years.

Greg Palm (Senior Research Analyst)

Understood. That, that makes a lot of sense. And in terms of the quarter itself, you know, one of the highlights was gross margin. And I know you talked about mix, but I'm hoping you can go into a little bit more detail around it, because, you know, if we look at mix by end market, you know, in Q3, it doesn't differ a whole lot versus what the mix by end market was in either Q1 or Q2. But, you know, under a slightly lower level of revenue, you still improve gross margins quite a bit by either of those quarters. So maybe just help us understand a little bit of the delta there.

Dick Warzala (Chairman, President, and CEO)

... Mike, do you want to? So, John, I'll add it to it.

Mike Leach (CFO)

Sure. Well, certainly, I think we've spoken before that within our four market verticals, right, there's niche markets, and I would say margins can differentiate significantly. You know, within industrial, I think we've highlighted in the past areas like automation, oil and gas, HVAC. I mean, those are areas that we enjoy some premium margins, and I think we're particularly strong, have been strong, but we're particularly strong in Q3. And then from an A&D perspective, too, again, there's differentiation between what markets we sell into within A&D, whether it's space or defense. And as we've been highlighting, we've been getting more defense orders as of recently, and we've had an uptick in shipments, and I think we've done a good job to protecting ourselves from a pricing standpoint.

You know, been opportunistic with some of those orders as well, that have helped with margins as well. But, from a general perspective, right, we continue to drive from a strategy margin improvement, whether that's footprint rationalization or, driving cost out from a global supply chain approach or the like. You know, there's. I would say there's an underlying current of those activities behind the mix as well.

Dick Warzala (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Yeah, and I think, Greg, it really says it all, is that, you know, we have a wide variety of customers and a wide range of end markets, and certainly the solution set that we offer, you know, Mike talked about premium pricing. I'll mention, I'd say it's more of a pricing that reflects the markets and the end applications that we're working on. And while... And we, and so happens that in those markets that we've seen accelerated shipments over prior quarters or prior years, those do happen to be, you know, in the, in, provide some enhanced margins versus some of the other product lines that we would have shipped in the past. But again, it's a continued process that we're working through.

We talked about delays and getting price increases through, and so forth, and, you know, the impact of those, and some of that came into play as well. But it is primarily the reflection of the shipments and the mix that we did have in the quarter, and, you know, our emphasis on some of those markets that we've had in the past, even, you know, in acquisitions and in investing in current operations. Greg?

Greg Palm (Senior Research Analyst)

Makes sense. I will leave it there. Best of luck going forward. Thanks.

Dick Warzala (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Thank you, Greg.

Operator (participant)

The next question is from Ted Jackson with Northland Securities. Please go ahead.

Ted Jackson (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks. Good morning.

Dick Warzala (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Morning, Ted.

Mike Leach (CFO)

Morning.

Ted Jackson (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

So, just, Greg hit actually on some of the things I really wanted to drill into, but, I'll ask a few ones around it. So, let's just start with CapEx. So you've taken CapEx down. If I think about CapEx for 2024, I mean, would we be thinking that you would go back to kind of your sort of more like the $16 million-$20 million-ish range? Or are you gonna, you know, you know, kind of on a go-forward basis, you know, you know, keep it a little, you know, you know, closer to the trunk of the tree, if you would, with regards to some of your expenditures?

Mike Leach (CFO)

That would be my expectation, Ted. I think, again, as high as highlighted, right there's, I mean, the, the reason we didn't hit what we originally projected, I would say, is driven by customer patterns and behaviors in terms of driving projects, projects that haven't gone away, but just in terms of customers' engineering resource availability to drive some of those things, and then supply chain, right? There's just. It's just harder to get some of this material, capital equipment, and it, it just tends to slow the process down as well. A combination of the two, I think it's, it's the environment continues to get better.

As I said, these projects are still in line to take off here in the future, and there'll be capital needs to support those projects, which we expect will just push somewhat into 2024, but still be in line with that range you described. You know, that's kind of a target, internal target to manage our CapEx spends, that range that you may reference.

Dick Warzala (Chairman, President, and CEO)

And again, I'll add to that, Ted, is that you know, Mike's giving you directionally where we should be. And I will say to you that there's a real emphasis internally on looking at the return on investment and some of the opportunities that we have internally. So, you know, there's been some caution, but we do see that there's significant opportunities to continue to reinvest in our operations and with a stronger focus on ensuring that the investments we are making are in the high-value programs and encouraging and actually. So I would have sat here and told you that I would expect our CapEx investments to maybe be slightly down next year.

But I would also say that we are seeing some real opportunities internally to enhance our, you know, operating performance, and those require some investment, so we're absolutely encouraging that. The slight change being that as we continue to grow as a company and refine our systems and processes, we really are looking at funding those opportunities that provide the best return. We should have always done that, but I'm talking about from a corporate standpoint. There's a certain amount of discretionary CapEx up to a certain level in each of our units, but then when you get to the corporate level, when, you know, the investments become larger, our focus and emphasis as we line those up is on really the high-value return, you know, and not necessarily for really long-term projects, but more where we can convert it much more quickly.

Ted Jackson (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

... Thank you for the answer. Kind of just sort of a macro-ish question, maybe around industrials. You know what I mean? I mean, Rockwell reported this morning, I haven't gone through the release, stock's down, so clearly, you know, there was some unhappiness with something that, you know, came out of those numbers. You know, and then they clearly, you know, Rockwell, most of the, you know, bigger kind of integrators like that, Rockwell and Emerson and such, you know, I wouldn't say that the last quarters for them were, you know, home runs either. I mean, we're definitely, you know, in an area, and you're highlighting it yourself, Dick, that, you know, people are, you know. I mean, every company I listen to, everything I pay attention to, everyone's cautious with regards to 2024.

You know, but if I think about, say, like a Rockwell and an Emerson and companies like that, you know, is it fair for me to, you know, infer from, you know, kind of their commentary that, you know, it's, you know, it's part and the same in terms of kind of, you know, what's impacting their business is, you know, it's headwinds for you as well, and it's a fair inference, and that you-- You know, I guess what I'm saying is that, you know, you're kind of, you know, for better or for worse, you know, tied to them. Like, how do I think about that in terms of a relationship, you know, between those companies like that and Allient?

Dick Warzala (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Yeah, great question. Well, first off, a conscious effort that we made, you know, many years ago, was to diversify our business. And we think that diversification has served us well, so that... You know, I'd love to see the day when everything's firing, you know, full cylinders here, and we're seeing everything, you know, growing and expanding in, you know, a very positive manner. But that's not the reality. We always see that there is... You know, while we see certain of our markets that are growing and expanding and exhibiting certain successes, and even go back to COVID, I mean, our medical markets and some of the, you know, instrumentation that we provided, you know, we saw, you know, consistency that many other companies didn't.

While you saw others that were really heavily focused and that grew fast, but they dropped just as fast. So I think we take great pride in our efforts to diversify our business and to minimize the impact of any one. You know, we've set our goal. If we could set a goal here for the four key markets we identified, being 25% each, we would be very happy. Well, that's, you know, 25% each, maybe over a long term may occur, but we still have additional investments to make in some of those markets to increase our share, while not necessarily decreasing our top line in the other markets, but growing the business in order to achieve that. So, yes, as our major customers feel impacts, I mean, we will certainly feel it as well.

But I will say to you that it's because of our diversification, that we feel more confident that we can ride through some of these downturns in any one individual market.

Ted Jackson (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

I agree with all that. Sticking on kind of individual market themes and just going over to the vehicle market, you know, you had an important customer in that area, and, you know, they're clearly facing their own macro headwinds. You know, they also, though, are seeing... You know, they have had a bunch of new product launches as well, and kind of given the give and take, that, you know, kind of the aggregate market and, you know, kind of the, you know, the sports vehicle market, if you would, is weak, but there's a bunch of, you know, there's new product going out there. How do we think about that, you know, vertical and as it relates to Allient?

Dick Warzala (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Sure. Right. Another good, great, great question here. I think from the standpoint of looking at that particular market, we have to mention that when we talk about sports utility vehicles, and so forth, you know, much of that is used in the industrial marketplace or commercial applications. So there's the consumer side of it, and then there, and then there's the business side of it, let's call it. So I do think, you know, depending on the sentiments, that you might see some downturn in consumers, you know, the larger share of that business for us is really driven around the commercial and industrial end uses. So I would tell you that, yes, you know, we don't see any significant impact there. We see pretty stable year-over-year.

And that's maybe for a couple reasons, continuing to expand our reach into that market and expand our customer base, as well as, you know, the emphasis or focus more on the commercial or industrial product versus the, the consumer product. So, and that's another one. You know, of course, we can be impacted by it. We will be impacted by it. We're not driving the demand in the end market, but as, the diversification of our business and, and the impact that it could have today versus let's go back 10 years ago, it's a, it's a much smaller percentage of our business today than it was back then. And to answer some part of your question specifically, I mean, we have... It have been and continue to be active participants on new product launches with those customers.

Ted Jackson (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, that was a superb answer. I got two more for you, and they're a lot more fun. One is, you have this new defense win, and congratulations on that. And, you know, I think, you know, a lot of investors have wondered if, if you're gonna see some, you know, pick up in activity within, you know, Aerospace & Defense with all the, you know, conflicts going on in the world. And, I mean, and, and just to the extent that you can, I mean, I guess could you provide a little more color in terms of the application that drove that win? And then, are you seeing further-...

You know, pick up strengthening in terms of, you know, activity projects within that vertical, that you know could prove to provide some, you know, growth or strength as we think about kind of, you know, the coming quarters or year?

Dick Warzala (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Sure. So first off, we'll talk about in the coming quarters and year and sit there and say that we mentioned increased quoting and activity. And part of that increased quoting and activity, not just the quantity of those, but the volumes that we're seeing. That, that win was in munitions, okay? So munitions are being consumed at a pretty high rate, and we are on many of those programs. So we fully expect that this, that this will continue with other programs. I mean, they're being consumed, and they need to be replenished. Yes, there were stockpiles, which surprised us, is how big the stockpiles have been, and been able to reach into the stockpile, but they do have to be replenished.

So from an ammunition standpoint, you know, we are designed into many applications, and we fully expect that over, you know, the coming quarters and year, we'll see some increased activity and some orders that need to get replaced. What we are hearing as well is what's perhaps delaying some of those orders is not because of our ability to deliver. We're faster than other suppliers can be for the end product. So what's delaying some of this is the inability for the other suppliers of other content to provide, you know, their products in the solution. So as that catches up, and we will see, we fully expect to see that the demand will continue to increase and the volumes will increase.

These are long-term programs that we've been designed in for years, that, you know, it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. On the other side, let's call it the other side of the defense business, you know, and some of the trends that are occurring there that are longer term, but we do see some acceleration in, and we think we're very well positioned. We acquired FPH in Canada. You know, their key core technology is lightweighting, composite lightweighting, products and technologies, as well as the ability to do application engineering and assembly of electromechanical systems. So the combination of electromechanical systems with lightweighting technologies is especially now driven towards the electrification of the vehicles, and weight becomes a, you know, a major element of that.

We're well positioned, and we're seeing some activity there. We're seeing programs that, quite frankly, we're, you know, moving along at a snail's pace, which is not unusual for those programs, starting to accelerate. So we might see some short-term activity, but longer term, we believe we are very well positioned to capture a decent share of that market. And we are—it's one of those markets where we're, we're strongly emphasizing and investing in internally, and we do see some excellent long-term growth there as well. So we're uniquely positioned as a company to provide not only the, you know, the composite, lightweighting, and structural side of it, this is where we, we focus and emphasize, as well as the electromagnetic and mechanical solutions, as well as all the other technologies that Allient can bring to bear.

This is one of the areas where I highlighted out the house of Allient and said, "Here's our key technology pillars and motion controls and power." We talked about the further emphasis of certain verticals and bringing the power of Allient to that market, and that's one of them. So I, you know, I would tell you that, you know, I would fully expect that we're gonna see a ramp up in munitions side of the business, and we're also gonna see a slower but very strong growth opportunities into the future here, longer term, beyond the one year, in the electrification of ground-based defense vehicles.

Ted Jackson (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Well, I'm gonna plug your Investor Day, 'cause. And I can tell you're very enthusiastic about the composites and the electrification, 'cause you were just as enthusiastic in New York. So, I will look forward to seeing what happens within that business, because it's, you, you clearly are fired up about it. My last question is just, again, fun and more simple, is just talking about the M&A pipeline. You know, congratulations on the acquisition. I know it's a very important part of the growth for the company and obviously, a key driver of getting to your long-term growth goal of $1 billion in sales. You know, what's the environment like with regards to the M&A front? I mean, you know, can you give some color around the pipeline, around kind of what you're seeing with valuations?

You know, I mean, you know, the competition with regards to, you know, other competitors or PE, given what's happening with cost of capital. Just, you know, basically just kind of paint me, you know, in broad brushstrokes, a picture of what you're seeing and kind of how we should think about, you know, the opportunities for you to execute on something in the next, say, 12-18 months. And that's it. Thanks.

Dick Warzala (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Sure. M&A is an ongoing process for us, and I mean, of course, we have a balancing act here to play, as well, from understanding the capital markets and how we're gonna fund these and what we're gonna do. We had a big flurry in the recent past, and we brought on tremendous amounts of technology here that we have not fully leveraged yet, and we're working on leveraging. So I will say to you that we are very focused on certain opportunities. We are building longer-term relations for other opportunities, and we are very selective in that process. But it's ongoing, and we fully plan to continue to manage our business in those areas from an M&A standpoint, consistent with what we did in the past. We're not going to overpay. We're going to pay a fair, fair price.

It's going to have to be additive in certain areas. We do take a long-term view on some of the acquisitions, that they don't necessarily come out of the chutes delivering, firing on all cylinders, but the getting them aligned within the company, using, taking advantage of the talent that we're bringing on board, as well as looking at the new end markets and opportunities that we have for continued growth. So I would say to you, that's where emphasis and focus has been in the recent past. We're also saying to you that looking at the Investor Day and really highlighting Allient and the, and the change to Allient, and the, the three pillars, is that it does expand our opportunity to look at, you know, true value-added strategic acquisitions in areas beyond motion.

And so we do believe we have several viable opportunities here that all have to come into the balance of understanding where we are in the capital markets, understand where the environment we're in, and understanding the impact it can have on the future growth and success of the company. And we will continue to do that. We mentioned, you know, if we acquire something in the past, we acquired a company that said, "Hey, don't expect much from this, but the long-term impact to this is very strategic and very strong." And without going into details, you know, it absolutely turns out to be the case and positions us extremely well in key markets where the necessary investment was there but did not, you know, prove to benefit the bottom line much at that time. So it's active.

We continue to grow, we continue to groom. We have a team in place, and the beauty of that is, just like the team growing everywhere else, you know, to see it develop and to see the relationships that, you know, the expanded team can build to help us in that area. I mean, it's powerful. I would like to talk about. You mentioned our most recent acquisition of Sierramotion. So we happen to be, just for our shareholders' understanding, that we happen to take our board meetings out into our facilities, not just sit in the corporate office each quarter and meet there and, you know. But we like to take, and our board likes to visit our facilities. And we took the opportunity to visit.

We have an expanded facility in Tulsa, which is really state-of-the-art and represents and reflects the, you know, positive, growth that we've seen over at by in Tulsa and prepares us for future growth opportunities as well. So our new acquisition, Sierramotion, we had the, you know, management team come in at the same time, get a chance to meet the board, get a chance to spend time with the team in Tulsa, which is where there is a really, significant opportunity, and the synergies that we see between the two of them. But we mentioned Sierramotion and the front-end ability to really respond and react quickly on pro-project developments and program developments. And, but also, they, they take it up another level from a systems integration, which we've been talking about for, you know, many years here, system solutions.

So to bring those two teams together, to have to see the excitement of, you know, each of them recognizing the quality of what the other brings in terms of their product designs, their technology, their production capabilities, their ability to get to the market quickly, the experience levels, and to, you know, let our board see that and say, "Hey, when we talk about making investments and setting the stage for the future, the excitement that it comes around, it comes with that." So, you know, our acquisitions, they, Sierramotion is something we've been talking to the key leadership for, you know, a couple of years here now, and we both just kept saying that they are such a great fit, and it gives us an opportunity to leverage the strengths of both to really grow this business.

So we will, we will continue in M&A. We are very excited about the M&A that has happened, and we're very excited about leveraging some of the skills and the strengths of the teams that are coming together here to help us continue to execute this strategy in the future. So hopefully, that gives you some color and tell you that, yes, we're in the market.

Ted Jackson (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

All right. Thanks very much, Dick. I'll talk to you later.

Dick Warzala (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Thank you, Ted.

Operator (participant)

Again, if you have a question, please press star then one. Please stand by as we poll for questions. Showing no further questions, this concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to management for any closing remarks.

Dick Warzala (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Well, thank you, everyone, for joining us on today's call and for your interest in Allient. We will be participating in two upcoming conferences, the Baird Global Industrial Conference on November 9th in Chicago, and then the Roth Technology Conference on November 15th in New York City. As always, please feel free to reach out to us at any time, and we look forward to talking with all of you again after our fourth quarter, 2023 results. Thank you for your participation, and have a great day.

Operator (participant)

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.