Allient - Earnings Call - Q4 2024

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day, and welcome to the Allient Inc. Fourth Quarter Fiscal Year 2024 Financial Results 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 a touch-tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star and 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. Good morning, everyone. We certainly appreciate your time today, as well as your interest in Allient. Joining me on the call are Dick Warzala, our Chairman, President, and CEO, and Jim Michaud, our Chief Financial Officer. Dick and Jim are going to review our fourth quarter and full year 2024 results and provide an update on the company's strategic progress and outlook, after which we'll open up the line 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 on our website at allient.com, along with the slides that accompany today's discussion. If you're 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 with 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, as well as the slides.

With 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. As we conclude 2024, I want to acknowledge our team's resilience and commitment to execution in what has been a dynamic and, at times, challenging market environment. Despite headwinds in key industrial and vehicle markets, we continue to execute with discipline, driving operational efficiencies and positioning Allient for sustained long-term growth. In the fourth quarter, we delivered $122 million in revenue, with a sequentially improved gross margin of 31.5%, even as volume remained soft. Importantly, orders increased 15% sequentially, resulting in a book-to-bill ratio of nearly one, largely driven by strengthening demand in power quality and defense. For the full year, revenue totaled $530 million, reflecting the anticipated demand softness, largely due to inventory rebalancing and customer utilization of excess inventory in the channel.

However, we remained focused on financial discipline, generating nearly $42 million in operating cash flow and ending the year with $36 million in cash. Total debt reached approximately $240 million at the end of the first quarter of 2024, following our acquisition of SMC. Since then, we have been committed to reducing debt, lowering our total by $16 million over the year. On a net debt basis, given our stronger cash position, we are essentially back to where we were at the end of 2023, despite adding SMC. SMC has progressed as expected. It is a well-established company, and their offerings have complemented our current power quality capabilities. This was our first tuck-in acquisition in support of our power technology pillar, and we are excited about the synergies developing as a result.

A driver of our margin improvement has been our Simplify to Accelerate Now initiatives, as highlighted on slide four. This program has been instrumental in refining our organizational structure, reducing redundancies, and optimizing production processes. In 2024, it delivered $10 million in annualized savings, improving our cost structure and overall agility. By simplifying operations, we are enhancing our responsiveness, leading to faster time to market, improved customer service, and stronger competitive positioning across key industries. Our goal is to drive an additional $6 million-$7 million in annual savings in 2025. Building on this momentum, in early February, we announced the expansion of machining capabilities at our Dothan, Alabama, facility, an initiative that is expected to support our goal. While there will be some one-time implementation costs, the investment is expected to pay for itself within a year.

We anticipate realizing the initial benefits by late 2025, further strengthening our operational efficiency and cost structure. Jim will provide additional details on the associated restructuring changes and charges. Leveraging advanced machining techniques, our Dothan facility will focus on producing complex fabricated parts that are strategically aligned with the needs of our key markets and customers. Additionally, we will transition current assembly operations from Dothan, consolidate these capabilities into our facilities in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Reynosa, Mexico, where final assembly, integration, and testing are core competencies. This realignment will sharpen our business focus and optimize our global footprint, enabling us to deliver high-precision system solutions for demanding applications across diverse sectors, including aerospace and defense, medical, and electronic test and assembly equipment. While these transitions involve complexities and require focused execution, we are confident in the long-term efficiencies they will create.

Looking ahead, we are actively identifying new opportunities to drive efficiency, innovation, and growth, ensuring we remain aligned with evolving market conditions and customer demands. By continuously optimizing our operations and making strategic investments, we are strengthening Allient's financial performance, enhancing operational flexibility, and unlocking greater earnings potential. This forward-thinking approach is critical to maintaining our competitive edge and delivering sustained value to our stakeholders. With that, let me turn it over to Jim for a more in-depth review of the financials.

Jim Michaud (CFO)

Thank you, Dick, and good morning, everyone. In the fourth quarter, we reported revenue of $122 million, a decrease from the same period last year, aligning with our expectations. The impact of foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations was nominally unfavorable by $300,000. Our geographic sales mix shifted, with U.S. customers accounting for 54% of total sales, down from 59% in the fourth quarter of the previous year. The percentages were similar to full-year sales mix as well. This change reflects demand challenges, including lower industrial automation sales and softness within our vehicle markets. Breaking down our results further, let's take a closer look at how each of our key market sectors performed during the fourth quarter. Aerospace and defense sales were a bright spot, increasing 20% due to the timing of certain defense and space programs.

We are actively pursuing several promising opportunities in the defense sector, which we anticipate will contribute to growth in the future. Medical market revenue also increased, up 5%, driven by solid demand for surgical instruments and respiratory and breathing equipment. The sales and vehicle markets continued to face headwinds, decreasing 46%. This decline was primarily driven by reduced demand for power sports, as the market has struggled to rebound following the surge in demand driven by the pandemic. Additionally, our strategic decision to focus more on margin-enhancing applications contributed to the overall decrease. Industrial market sales declined 11%, despite a strong performance in power quality sales, particularly to the HVAC and data center markets. We also saw incremental sales from the SMC acquisition. However, these gains were more than offset by reduced demand in industrial automation, primarily due to significant inventory destocking by our largest customer.

Slide six illustrates the shift in our revenue mix across markets over the full-year period, highlighting the key catalysts driving these changes. The industrial sector remained our largest market, contributing 47% of the trailing 12-month sales. This market was primarily driven by strong demand in power quality, as well as growth in vehicle handling and semiconductor equipment. While industrial automation initially benefited from supply chain improvements earlier in the year, sales in this sector slowed significantly, as inventory levels have reset across the industry. In the vehicle market, we experienced increased demand in commercial automotive, driven by a ramp-up of several new model programs. However, this was offset by shifting recreational spend trends in power sports and softer demand in the agricultural sector. While we saw stronger sales in surgical products, our medical market experienced ongoing weakness in medical mobility solutions.

Aerospace and defense annual sales reflect variability driven by contract award and government budget cycles, combined with long lead times. That said, defense has seen positive growth, offset by declines within the space industry due to program timing. Finally, our distribution channel, while smaller, showed modest growth, representing 5% of total sales over the trailing 12-month period. As shown on slide seven, gross profit for the quarter was $38.4 million, resulting in a gross margin of 31.5%. Gross margin remained flat year over year, despite top-line softness and expected margin dilution from our most recent acquisition. The 10 basis point sequential increase in margin was primarily driven by a favorable product mix, as well as the continued implementation of our lean toolkit across the organization.

Notably, from the low margin point of 29.9% in the second quarter, we have seen a 160 basis point improvement in gross margin, reflecting a strong sequential recovery. We have been closely evaluating the potential impacts of evolving tariff policies, assessing our options in this highly fluid environment. With manufacturing operations in Canada, Mexico, and China, we recognize tariffs may affect our supply chain, leading to increased costs. As the situation continues to develop, we will consider changes in trade policies to our pricing strategies and continuous operational improvements. We remain confident in our ability to pass most, if not all, of the potential tariff impact onto customers, ensuring operational stability while maintaining the quality and value our markets expect. Looking ahead, our ongoing supplication initiatives, coupled with the integration of SMC and its added capacity, position us well to drive continued margin improvement over time.

Despite current market challenges, we remain focused on improving profitability and driving operational efficiencies. As highlighted on slide eight, we reported operating income of $6.4 million, resulting in an operating margin of 5.3%, which was an increase of 30 basis points year over year and was flat sequentially. In the fourth quarter, we incurred minimal restructuring charges, bringing the full-year total to $2 million. These charges were primarily cash-based and largely tied to severance expenses. As Dick mentioned, our Simplify to Accelerate Now program is well underway, and we are actively implementing additional cost-saving measures. During 2025, we are targeting an incremental $6 million-$7 million reduction in annualized costs, with initial benefits expected later in the year.

One-time implementation costs of the Dothan initiative are estimated to be approximately $4 million-$5 million and are expected to be substantially incurred in 2025 and are anticipated to produce a full payback within a year. Slide nine highlights our bottom-line results, showing continued sequential improvements. For the quarter, net income reached $3 million, translating to earnings per diluted share of $0.18. Adjusted net income was $5.2 million, or $0.31 per diluted share, which excludes non-cash amortization of intangible assets, as well as business development, restructuring, and realignment costs. Our effective tax rate for the quarter was 22.2%. The prior year's fourth quarter tax benefit of $400,000 reflected realization of certain NOLs and R&D credits and incentives. For the full year 2025, we expect our effective tax rate to range between 21%-23%. Internally, we used adjusted EBITDA as a key metric to measure our operational performance and progress.

Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $14.1 million, or 11.6% of revenue. We are targeting further improvement in EBITDA margin through our ongoing simplification efforts. Sequentially, our adjusted EBITDA margin rose by 10 basis points, demonstrating the effectiveness of these initiatives. Turning to cash generation in our balance sheet on slides 10 and 11, we remain disciplined in managing working capital while continuing to invest in strategic priorities. For the full year, cash from operations reached $41.9 million, reflecting strong working capital efficiencies and non-cash adjustments that help offset lower net income. At year-end, cash and cash equivalents increased 13% to $36.1 million, further reinforcing our financial flexibility. Capital expenditures for the year totaled $9.7 million, compared with $11.6 million last year, as we refined our capital allocation strategy to focus on high-value, high-return projects.

In 2025, we anticipate moderate CapEx growth, with spending projected between $10 million and $12 million, aligned with our targeted investment priorities. Our days sales outstanding increased to 60 days, primarily due to customer mix and timing. Inventory management remained a top priority. Inventory turns remained flat sequentially at 2.7 times. Throughout 2024, we navigated the impact of extended supplier lead times, receiving inventory for orders placed up to a year earlier. As a result, inventory levels remained elevated, but we are actively aligning stock levels with current demand. Encouragingly, total inventory declined 5% year over year, and excluding SMC, was down approximately 11%. On the debt reduction front, total debt stood at $224 million at year-end, reflecting the SMC acquisition. However, we remained committed to deleveraging, reducing debt by $7.2 million in the fourth quarter.

Net debt finished the year at $188 million, representing a net debt-to-capitalization ratio of 41.5%, which was lower than year-end 2023. To enhance financial flexibility, we amended our 2024 credit facilities in the fourth quarter, securing less restrictive covenants and expanded EBITDA add-backs to support long-term planning. Our year-end leverage ratio, as defined in our credit agreement, was 3.43 times. Additionally, to mitigate interest rate risk, at the end of the quarter, we entered into a new three-year interest rate swap, hedging $50 million of debt, providing stability amid slowing rate fluctuations. These actions, reducing debt, optimizing capital allocation, and managing financial risk, reinforce our ability to execute our Simplify to Accelerate Now strategy with discipline. Looking ahead to 2025, our financial priorities remain clear and focused. First, we are committed to reducing inventory and strengthening working capital management.

We have already made progress in aligning inventory with current demand conditions, and this will remain a key area of focus to further improve cash conversion. Second, we will continue to drive cost reductions through operational efficiencies. Our Simplify to Accelerate Now program is in full execution mode, and we are implementing additional initiatives to streamline operations and enhance profitability. Finally, we are dedicated to reducing debt as we remain disciplined in capital deployment and cash management. We have already begun deleveraging following the SMC acquisition, and we will continue to take strategic actions to strengthen our financial position. With that, if you advance to slide 12, I will now turn the call back over to Dick.

Dick Warzala (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Thank you, Jim. The underlying fundamentals of our business remain strong. Fourth quarter order rates demonstrated solid momentum, increasing 15% sequentially.

Growth was primarily driven by strength in power quality and defense, while orders also rose 12% year over year, benefiting from similar end-market tailwinds and contributions from our recent acquisition. Although backlog has declined due to shifting customer ordering patterns, we remain focused on positioning the business for sustained demand recovery and the normalization of run rates. Our diversified portfolio is well aligned with key macro trends, including data center expansion, electrification, energy efficiency, automation, and the electric hybridization of all types of vehicles, including those in the defense sector. We are actively engaged in several promising new program opportunities in our newly formed Allient Defense Solutions Unit, which we announced in a press release in the fourth quarter of 2024.

We are also continuing the strategic realignment within our company to support the significant opportunities available to Allient in this sector, as well as in some of our other targeted verticals. Our outlook is outlined on slide 13. We anticipate a moderated pace of orders across most markets through the first half of 2025, but expect continued strength in areas benefiting from long-term macro trends, particularly data center expansion. Customer inventory adjustments appear to be nearing completion, and as we move forward toward mid-year, we expect greater stability in order flow, supporting a strong return to revenue levels that improved operating margins as we capitalize on emerging growth opportunities. As part of the Dothan transition, we expect some near-term inefficiencies, including dual production lines and temporary inventory buildup across multiple locations. However, these are necessary steps to ensure a smooth transition and position us for long-term operational improvements.

Ultimately, these initiatives reflect our commitment to building a more efficient, agile, and sustainable foundation for future growth. At Allient, we are actively driving innovation and efficiency through targeted investments and strategic realignment. Our focus on operational excellence, exemplified by our Simplify to Accelerate Now program, ensures we remain agile and competitive in a dynamic environment. By optimizing our cost structure, streamlining operations, and leveraging our global footprint, we are strengthening our ability to deliver high-precision solutions that meet the emerging needs of our customers. I am proud of what we have accomplished this past year and remain optimistic about our path forward. Our strategic initiatives, combined with our team's dedication, position Allient well for the future. 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 touch-tone phone.

If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press Star and then two. Our first question comes from Greg Palm with Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Please go ahead.

Greg Palm (Senior Research Analyst)

Hey, morning everybody. Thanks for taking the questions. And congrats on a better end of the year. Some improved execution for sure.

Dick Warzala (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Thank you, Greg.

Greg Palm (Senior Research Analyst)

If we could just start at maybe a high level, Dick, just give us a little bit more color on kind of what you're seeing out there across geographies and markets, anything that you think is worth noting, and maybe how that relates to, A, sort of the potential to return to growth for the year, and maybe the cadence of how you think 2025 plays out.

Dick Warzala (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Sure. Let's start with geography. I would say to you that North America continues to strengthen.

I think what we're looking for there is for the industrial sector to come back to life and get back to normal rates and growth. We do see some challenges continuing in the power sports area. The inventory levels at the dealers seem to be pretty high and so forth, so we don't expect that to return to the COVID days where it just went through the roof here. As far as Europe goes, I would tell you that in Europe, driven certainly by Germany, they still have some softness, and it's expected to persist into mid-year. They have an administration change they're going to be going through, so depending on what happens there and the policies that we see implemented there, hopefully that they'll also see some return emphasis on automation and growth in the industrial sector as well.

The global, and primarily for us, it is North America where we see the benefits of the data center expansion, and our capabilities to support that are very encouraging. That's continuing to have some pretty strong tailwinds, and we expect that to continue throughout the year and to be a pretty good beneficiary of that. Defense sector, the programs that we're working on, and we look at defense. We call it the we created the new business unit as we announced last year and talked about a little bit here. There's many new programs that we're working on, and we believe we have a product set and a solution set that makes us kind of unique in the space, and it's gaining tremendous traction.

We've put resources in that have proven track records of growth and expansion, and we're really emphasizing that this is going to be a strong area for us and opportunities in the future based upon these new programs. We, in the past, have talked about the munitions and how the inquiries went up based upon the conflicts that were occurring, but we hadn't seen increased demand. We have seen increased demand there. The demand is going up, and I think we'll see that demand continuing to expand into the future here. There are other areas. When we talk about our Simplify to Accelerate Now strategy, I think many people relate that to say, "Well, you're streamlining operations, you're creating operating efficiencies, you're reducing costs," and that's really what's generating the fixed cost reductions that we're going through.

I will tell you, even more so than that, is the ability to respond quickly, to get these organizations aligned much closer to customers so that we can support them better and we can move very quickly on. Yes, we have the benefit of simplifying, of reducing the amount of overhead that sits in some of these silos, but making them more effective by working closely together with our customers, and we think improves our responsiveness to our customers, which ultimately leads to growth in business. That's a pretty quick highlight of the market. I didn't discuss Asia. As you know, that's not a significant part of our business, but it still remains stable.

Greg Palm (Senior Research Analyst)

Yep. That makes sense. I'm curious, Europe specifically, given recent news there, proposed stimulus, kind of almost like a whatever-it-takes moment.

I mean, I know that's been a challenging market, Germany specifically, where you have a lot of exposure, but probably too early to tell now. Do you feel like there could be any green shoots that emerge, or is it more of a wait-and-see mode and see how that kind of year shapes up?

Dick Warzala (Chairman, President, and CEO)

I would say it's a wait-and-see mode, Greg. I do not think we have enough information. Yes, there have been discussions on their stock, but our feet on the ground in Europe tell us that they are continuing to hold the line on expenditures and looking at operational efficiencies and so forth, and focusing on new product development and programs that they think will kick off, but they are still thinking mid-year and beyond before we start to realize any of those benefits.

Greg Palm (Senior Research Analyst)

Yep. Okay. Makes sense.

Lastly, you talked about it a couple of times, about data center exposure and some of the strength there. Can you just kind of remind us exactly from a revenue exposure standpoint, and just in terms of growth rates, what did you see last year? Any sense on what you're expecting kind of this year, and what's the overall opportunity there in that space?

Dick Warzala (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Yeah. I think certainly from our perspective, one of the advantages that we have that we feel will help us outpace the industry and the growth is that we do have some higher power solutions that are quite unique in the marketplace. That does give us a competitive edge, and I commend the team that made a bet that that's where the market was heading several years ago, and the bet was correct.

Therefore, we are positioned quite uniquely and have the ability to take advantage of that. From an overall standpoint, we're looking at pretty significant growth that we've had year over year in the 40% range, and we do expect that that opportunity, maybe not at those levels, but has the ability to continue well into the future.

Greg Palm (Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. All right. I'll leave it there. Best of luck. Thanks.

Dick Warzala (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Thank you, Greg.

Operator (participant)

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

Ted Jackson (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Thanks. Good morning. Good morning. Dick, I'd like to talk about both power sports and actually medical as well to start with. If you look at those businesses, the medical business, I know there's a lot of moving parts underneath the hood, but the medical business seems to have stabilized at around, let's call it $20 million for the last two years.

Is that kind of a sort of a base-level run rate? Can you just sort of talk a little bit about what's going on underneath the covers? I mean, it just seems to me that that business is based out. Exactly a similar thing with regards to the power sports, which also seems to have kind of based out at around $20 million on a run rate basis for the last, call it, two quarters. Is that a way to kind of think about this business? Is that as these two business lines for you that they're kind of just sort of flatlining along? They've kind of found their floors, and what we have to wait for is those markets to stabilize and turn around? That's my first question.

Dick Warzala (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Sure.

Looking at medical first, I mean, when we talk about medical, and I've mentioned this before, that we look at the applications at a more finite level internally. We call them FOAs or field of applications. We look at our medical and basically group them and lump them in two different parts. One would be medical mobility, and the second would be instrumentation. Instrumentation being treatment equipment or surgical robotics and other types of diagnostic equipment, instrumentation type. The other type we talk about is the medical mobility and/or patient handling. You're looking at wheelchairs, patient beds, rehab. We have other applications in there that in the past, I mean, for example, respiratory and breathing during COVID times, obviously that went way up, and we saw that come back down to levels below what we saw in the past.

I think it's kind of leveling out now and stabilizing, but then we have other applications that are in various different types of pumps applications. I would tell you that we are focused on areas that we think will have some continued growth well into the future. Surgical robotics and instrumentation and diagnostic and test equipment, higher-end equipment that in the innovation that's occurring there, that's not going to go down. That's only going to increase. As it starts to expand its reach into the world market, we think that there's definitely some opportunities there, and we're investing there. The other markets aren't going down either. I mean, the insulin pumps and the blood pumps and other types of, I'll call it more home care or individual care. I don't think that those are going down.

I think there's definitely going to be a growing market, but maybe not as fast as, and maybe from our standpoint, it doesn't have the same technology that we would see in the higher-level robotics and instrumentation markets. As far as respiratory and breathing, I think that'll be stable. Unless we have some change that occurs in the environment here, that's probably going to stabilize. We see, for us, our emphasis being on providing the higher-end, higher-level solution, continue to expand in there, expand our reach in there. As we look at the vertical, as I mentioned to you, we do look at it in two different ways.

One is a more competitive, different type of structure for handling and some of the other individual products, consumer-type products as well, but the instrumentation and surgical robotics and so forth requiring, continuing to require higher-end, faster, better solutions that we think will have some continued growth out into the future. You asked about, is it stabilized? I think we have some room to return it to the growth levels that we have not seen yet, but I do think we have growth opportunities there, and it is one of the key verticals for us. Power sports, you have the same questions for that?

Ted Jackson (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Yep.

Dick Warzala (Chairman, President, and CEO)

I think it is going to be a challenge. If you take a look at the market and you take a look at the major players in the industry and so forth, I think they are all talking the same way that it is a challenge market.

It's also the dynamics of that market have certainly changed over the years. I mean, clearly when we were one of the innovators in power steering, selling it to the market, the volume has gone up tremendously. You see the chain, the retail chain that's being sold in the big box stores, whether it's the sporting goods stores or whether it's in the warehouses, you're seeing that, as well as you still have the dealers. I think there's a squeeze going on. What's the margin potential? As the volumes have gone up, you've seen some competition outside of North America, which claims to be taking some market share. I do see that into the future as definitely a challenging market.

Our customers, they've got battles on their hands to retain share, to drive cost out, and to figure out how to work with the new channels and the cost reductions that they're seeing in their end products. That is where we have to support them.

Ted Jackson (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Is there a case to be made that as you get towards the back part of this year, that the business has at least bottomed out? Regarding you, you do have exposure within that segment to the commercial vehicle market. The outlook for the commercial vehicle market, second half of 2025 and through 2026, looks very encouraging because of sort of pre-buy for EPA regulations and such. When you think about the vehicle segment in aggregate, do those balance each other out, or do you think you can actually grow it?

Dick Warzala (Chairman, President, and CEO)

I would say to you that there has been an offset that's occurred there for us. I mean, we do have growth in the commercial vehicle market. I also want to repeat what I seem to be saying in every one of our conference calls, that we look at this market as the opportunity to sell into the automotive or vehicle markets itself, and mostly automotive from a volume standpoint, gives us some critical mass and core unit volume that we can leverage into other markets, not just other vehicle markets, but also in some other markets within the company. That in itself, we have enough volume there now where we feel we can take advantage of that and we can leverage that, but it is not for us. In fact, we are looking at, and we've already made the decision internally that we want more than niche applications.

We're not interested in mainstream. We're not interested in competing with people who will do this thing to run their businesses at extremely low margins, if any at all. The challenges are going to be there. Fortunately for us, we are positioned in some niche applications. It's growing. It's profitable. We can leverage that into other areas. It has offset some of the drop that we've seen in the power sports, but not all of it. I mean, power sports, as everyone knows, was certainly our biggest customer was in that space, no longer our largest customer. In fact, no longer is in a reporting requirement for us. That's good and it's bad. I mean, from the standpoint of we always worked very diligently on diversifying our business in the other sectors, which we've done.

The goal was not to reduce the volume there and grow it everywhere else. The goal was to maintain the volume and grow our business elsewhere. For the most part, we've done that. There has been some offset, but not enough to cover the power sports drop.

Ted Jackson (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. I've got one more bigger question, then a couple of little tiny ones for Jim. I want to move over to the inventory stuff and your largest customer. When Rockwell put out their quarterly stuff, they actually pretty much put a flag in the ground saying that they had seen a lot of their inventory within the segment kind of pushed to normal. With that in mind, I mean, obviously, it's not a one-for-one in terms of timing.

When you see that business normalizing and you see it turning around, can we talk a little bit about the cadence of that? I mean, is it something that we should see like you'll report first quarter, and then you'll see a level of improvement in second quarter, like level improvement in third quarter, level improvement in fourth quarter? Am I reading your guidance right or your commentary right with regards to the cadence of the year that you see that the inventories within that channel being normalized by the time we get into, say, the third quarter of the year? I got two just real quick ones for Jim.

Jim Michaud (CFO)

Sure. What I have to caution everyone on is that, again, we talk about broader markets.

When we talk about automotive, we talk about industrial, we talk about medical, so forth, that we do focus, and I mentioned this to you, that we have these FOAs that we feel that we gain some competitive advantage there, and then we look to leverage that into all the opportunities that are out there for the same type of solution. From the industrial automation standpoint, I can appreciate that Rockwell has talked about that they've gained momentum and they're kind of cleaning out the channel and getting their inventory levels adjusted. That is great news, because we have suffered from that. It was a big headwind for us this year.

I would tell you it was overrated that it was a situation where we had a pretty strong backlog based upon long lead times of component parts, mostly electronic component parts, that we had to go out and secure. Rockwell also was supporting that effort to get out and get these components secured. When we got them and we were able to produce, they were taking everything we could produce. There was something that I would tell you that must have been off in the planning system because it hit a cliff and it dropped.

It tells me, and this being totally open about it, it tells me that we probably had a higher level of inventory in their channel than some of their other customers might have seen, and that perhaps we would have a longer climb out of the four as they return to improving automation projects and utilization of our products. Your statement about are we seeing improvement, the answer is yes. Is it going to continue to improve month after month, quarter after quarter? Yes. When will it return to what we will call a normal state? I will say to you that I do not expect that to occur until later in the year. That is based upon the improving demand that we are seeing and the cadence of that improvement that we are seeing.

I'll also caution us that we had a surge last year, a very strong surge, and we talked about a $40 million headwind that we would have coming into the year based upon the surge. That level of business that we did have last year, we don't see that repeating in the near future. We see that it's going to be that was pent-up demand, and it was a surge demand based upon not an inability to get product. Now that that's freed up and it's flowing, inventories are being consumed. We will return to some type of normal demand, but it will be below the surge that we saw last year. That's one of the headwinds that we will face going forward. Does that answer your questions?

Ted Jackson (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

It does. Thanks very much. My last two questions, which are really kind of short.

The one is with the Dothan restructuring and the costs, we'll just call it $4.5 million. It's going to come through in 2025. Are you going to break that out, and how are you going to structure the breakout if you are within your financial statements? Pretty simple, just kind of want to understand kind of how we're going to see it, and then any kind of color you can give in terms of when we're going to see it would be helpful as well. One more behind that.

Dick Warzala (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Yeah. We don't typically break it out, but what I would tell you is that it's well underway, the effort.

We know that quite candidly, I'd love to be able to tell you that it's going to be ratably, our investments are going to be ratably over the year, but I think it's going to be a little lumpy, Ted. I would tell you it's probably going to be more towards the back half of the year when we start seeing the greater costs. I mean, we are going to incur costs in the first half of the year, but I think it's going to be weighted towards the second half.

Ted Jackson (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

You won't even show that within your financial statements?

Dick Warzala (Chairman, President, and CEO)

As you know, we normally put our restructuring in business development.

Ted Jackson (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. Just making sure. We will see it in there, but we'll be able to, you know what I mean?

You won't call it out individually, but we'll see it in there in terms of the line item and understand what it is.

Dick Warzala (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Yeah.

Ted Jackson (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Then my last question, just to make sure, I think I have the rate down, but what is the interest rate for your swap that you put in, that $60 million? I think I have 3.2. Is that correct?

Jim Michaud (CFO)

That sounds about right, but I'll confirm that up for you.

Ted Jackson (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. Okay. That's it for me. Thanks for the patience with my questions.

Dick Warzala (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Thank you, Ted.

Operator (participant)

Again, if you have a question, please press star and then one. This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to management for any closing remarks.

Craig Mychajluk (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you, everyone, for joining us on today's call and for your interest in Allient.

We will be participating in the Roth conference on March 17 in Dana Point, California. Otherwise, as always, please feel free to reach out to us at any time, and we look forward to talking to you all again after our first quarter 2025 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.