Fortive - Q4 2023
January 31, 2024
Transcript
Operator (participant)
My name is Christina, and I will be your conference facilitator this afternoon. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Fortive Corporation's fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings results conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during that time, simply press Star, then the number 1 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press the pound key. I would now like to turn the call over to Ms. Elena Rosman, Vice President of Investor Relations. Ms. Rosman, you may begin your conference.
Elena Rosman (VP of Investor Relations)
Thank you, Christina, and thank you everyone for joining us on today's call. With us today are Jim Lico, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Chuck McLaughlin, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. We represent certain non-GAAP financial measures on today's call. Information required by Regulation G are available on the investors section of our website at fortive.com. Our statements on period-to-period increases or decreases refer to the year-over-year comparisons unless otherwise specified. During the call, we will make forward-looking statements, including statements regarding events or developments that we expect or anticipate will or may occur in the future. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks, and the actual results may differ materially from any forward-looking statements that we make here today.
Information regarding these risk factors is available in our SEC filings, including our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the day that they are made, and we do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements. With that, I'll turn the call over to Jim Lico.
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Thanks, Elena. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I'll begin on slide 3. Fortive delivered outstanding operating performance again in 2023 through our proven formula for value creation. Our transformed portfolio businesses is delivering consistent through-cycle performance, reflecting a more durable company with mid-single-digit core growth in 2023, despite a mixed macro environment. Strong execution by our teams drove another year of record margins, with adjusted gross margins now approaching 60% and adjusted operating margins nearing 26%. Throughout 2023, we focused on unleashing the full power of FBS, reflected by record participation in Kaizen events, including our largest ever CEO Kaizen week. The results of these Kaizens were tremendous, including an average of 50% productivity and 50% lead time conversion improvements.
Our industry-leading free cash flow generation funded accretive capital deployment, including our best year executing on bolt-on acquisitions, accelerating our growth strategy across all three of our segments. We also opportunistically bought back shares and increased our dividend, enhancing shareholder returns. In summary, we remain committed to our strategy and its success is evident given the consistency of our results, which I'll highlight on slide 4. We built Fortive to drive growth, drive progress, and drive value. Reflecting on our evolution, we made significant steps again in 2023 towards our vision of a premier company. This includes 5% core growth and 160 basis points adjusted operating margin expansion. The benefits of our portfolio transformation are reflected in our progress today, averaging rule of 35 performance over the last 5 years.
FBS is driving commercial success as we expand into new growth markets, speed innovation cycles, and maximize investment returns across our three operating segments. For example, in 2023, we saw a 33% increase in our revenue attainment on new product launches. Many of these new products are contributing to the approximately 60% of our revenues that positively impact climate, health, and safety concerns and align to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Our operating companies are seeing a greater than 20% acceleration in software development time through the use of GenAI, improving our ability to deliver more value to customers. Our culture of innovation, learning, and continuous improvement is contributing to gains in our industry-leading employee engagement scores, a critical component of our sustained success.
Lastly, our acquisition performance contributed to our record free cash flow in the year, underpinned by industry-leading net working capital performance and accelerated returns on invested capital. On slide 5, you see how our portfolio is strategically positioned to increasingly benefit from secular growth trends. Every day, we are helping our customers harness the power of emerging automation and digitization technologies, streamline crucial workflows, and embrace the energy transition. Some highlights in the fourth quarter include: in IOS, Fluke's new family of multi-product calibrators are providing the broadest workload coverage across some of the fastest-growing markets. Gordian's recent bolt-on of RedEye is helping to transform customers' digital experience with a modern, centralized hub for engineering document management, solidifying your current leading position in that market.
In PT, Tektronix is harnessing the power of open source software with the first release of its Python native drivers to help our customers automate their instruments and accelerate their testing times. Together with EA, which closed in early January, Tektronix is expanding its addressable market, adding complementary performance solutions to their best-in-class electronic test and measurement suite, serving the fastest-growing areas of the power market. In AHS, Landauer is helping customers reduce energy usage, waste, and carbon emissions with their new digital dosimetry solution. And ASP launched their new sterilization monitoring products in North America and Asia, helping customers achieve greater efficiency and assurance as they work to keep up with rising clinical demand. Turning to slide 6 and a spotlight on M&A performance. Our two most recent large deals provide an excellent example of the Fortive flywheel for value creation in action.
In 2021, we accelerated our segment strategies with the acquisitions of ServiceChannel and Provation. These two world-class software offerings are creating compelling value for our customers and Fortive, having fully embraced the power of FBS to drive double-digit ARR growth and significant margin expansion. For example, ServiceChannel exited 2023 with adjusted operating margins in the mid-20s, up from breakeven when it was acquired. Probation delivered 112% net dollar retention in its GI solutions, up approximately 8 points since its acquisition. The execution of our disciplined acquisition strategy is strengthened by the value FBS creates, and is a critical component of how we achieve sustained results over time. You see that reflected in their industry-leading net dollar retention as our innovation and customer centricity tools are helping them retain and grow their existing base. Turning to slide 7.
Our ability to deliver differentiated results is enabled by our world-class business system. Across Fortive, we leverage FBS to better understand our customers, accelerate innovation, expand market share profitably, improve operations, and forge the leadership skills we need for the future. One of the best things about FBS is that we never stop improving it. As our portfolio evolves, we are expanding the toolset and capabilities that allow us to set and deliver on high expectations, as you just saw in the ServiceChannel and Provation examples. In 2023, Fortive, our center of excellence for software, data, and AI, expanded its capabilities to further support digital transformation and drive innovation, next-gen products, and productivity across Fortive. Core to our success is how our leaders immerse, teach, and lead from the front with FBS.
Together, they make Kaizen the way of life for our 18,000 team members, reinforcing our strong culture of inclusion, where everyone's contribution matters. Looking at the chart on the right, what is unique and differentiated about Fortive is the breadth of results that are compounding over time. Since 2019, we have sustained our target of mid-single-digit through-cycle core growth. We have delivered outstanding margin expansion above our annual commitments. We have converted more revenue to income, growing adjusted EPS at 14% compounded rate, and converted more income to cash, compounding free cash flow at an average of 19% over time. With that, I'll turn it over to Chuck to provide more color on our fourth quarter financials and our 2024 outlook, starting on slide 8.
Chuck McLaughlin (SVP and CFO)
Thanks, Jim, and hello, everyone. We ended the year with a high level of performance, generating earnings growth of approximately 3 times revenue growth. Core revenue growth of 3% in the quarter reflected an acceleration in IOS and healthcare, partially offset by anticipated slowing in Precision Technologies. We achieved record margins in the quarter and full year, driven by the strength of our brands, accelerated innovation, and the benefits of our productivity initiatives. Highlights of our fourth quarter performance include 220 basis points of adjusted gross and operating margin expansion, adjusted earnings per share of $0.98, reflecting $0.04 operational beat at the midpoint, with earnings up 11% year-over-year. Free cash flow was $413 million, down versus the prior year as expected, and up 56% on a two-year stack basis.
For the year, core revenue growth was 5%, exceeding our initial outlook of 4%. Adjusted gross margins expanded by 180 basis points to 59.5%. Adjusted operating profit grew 11%, margins expanded by 160 basis points. Adjusted EPS of $3.43 grew 9%, and we delivered on our free cash flow forecast of $1.25 billion, which represents 32% growth on a 2-year stack. Turning to slide 9, I'll now provide highlights on the fourth quarter performance of each of the 3 segments, beginning with Intelligent Operating Solutions. Q4 core growth was 6%, reflecting continued momentum across this segment, with stable POS trends in all regions and new logos and customer bookings contributing to strong ARR growth.
Adjusted operating margins expanded 300 basis points to 34.2%, driven by margin expansion in all businesses, accretive software mix, and price realization and productivity initiatives. Overall, we have seen better durability in Fluke throughout the year, given the benefits of innovation and customer adoptions in key growth verticals. Environmental Health and Safety continues to see strong iNet growth at ISC and double-digit SaaS growth at Intelex. Facilities and asset lifecycle, a double-digit core growth throughout most of 2023, driven by continued strength in SaaS, contributing to record margin expansion. Moving on to precision technologies.
Core revenues in the quarter were slightly ahead of expectations, down 1%, driven by lower sensing revenues, more than offsetting growth in power, food and beverage, and aerospace and defense markets. Adjusted operating margin has expanded 270 basis points to 29%, enabled by favorable price and productivity benefits funded throughout the year. Additional highlights include Tektronix, which had a record year with 9% core growth, up 25% on a two-year stack basis, reflecting the benefits of our focused innovation and vertical markets growth initiatives. While sensing technology revenues were down low single digits in 2023, they were up low double digits on a two-year stack and ended the year with a return to growth in two of our four businesses. Now on to Advanced Healthcare Solutions. Q4 growth was 3%, driven by an acceleration to mid-single-digit growth at ASP.
Excluding Invetech, AHS core growth would have been approximately 6%. Adjusted operating margins expanded 160 basis points to 25.7%, driven by flow through on consumables, price realization, and productivity. Additional highlights include at ASP, we are through the North American channel transition from indirect to direct, driving 7% consumables growth in the quarter. Our software businesses continued their pace of double-digit SaaS growth with new logo success at Censis and Provation. We expect to sustain this momentum in 2024. Turning to slide 10. You can see total growth in the fourth quarter of 4% was driven by expansion in the core, with minor contributions from FX and bolt-on acquisitions. By regions, we had mid-single-digit revenue growth in North America, driven by growth in all segments, including stronger growth in consumables benefiting AHS.
Western Europe revenue was up slightly, as growth in software was offset by normalizing growth in hardware products. Asia saw continued strength in India and Japan. However, was more than offset by high single-digit decline in China. As a reminder, we anticipated growth in China would be down as we lap outsized growth in prior years. Turning now to slide 11, we're introducing 2024 guidance. Starting with the full year, we expect growth of 6%-8%, with core revenues up 2%-4% and acquisition contributions of approximately $215 million. Adjusted operating profit is expected to increase 10%-13%, with margins of approximately 27%.
Adjusted diluted EPS guidance of $3.73-$3.85, up 9%-12%, includes a 13-cent headwind from higher interest expense associated with funding of the EA acquisition. The effective tax rate is expected to be approximately 14.5%-15%, in line with the average of the last two years and reflecting the benefits of the EA acquisition. Free cash flow is expected to be approximately $1.38 billion, representing conversion in the range of 100%-105% of adjusted net income and 21% free cash flow margin. For the first quarter, we anticipate revenue growth of 3%-5%, with core flat to up 2%, driven by the continued momentum in our IOS and AHS segments, partially offset by a low- to mid-single-digit decline in PT.
Adjusted operating profit is expected to increase 6%-10%, with margins of approximately 24.8%. Adjusted diluted EPS guidance of $0.77-$0.80, up 3%-7%, includes a 4-cent headwind from higher year-over-year interest and free cash flow of approximately $180 million, reflecting normal seasonal variation.
Moving to slide 12 and the outlook for 2024 by segments, you can see we expect positive growth and operating margin expansion in each segment in 2024, supported by our alignment to secular tailwinds, new product introductions resulting from our robust innovation efforts, the continued resilience of our software and other recurring revenue businesses, the expected delivery of the remaining approximate $100 million of excess backlog in our hardware products businesses, another year of FBS-driven execution, and the carryover benefits of the productivity initiatives that we executed in 2023. By segment for the year, we are planning IOS to continue its momentum with mid-single-digit core growth and another 100 basis points of margin expansion. Key drivers include stable demand and NPI traction in the hardware products, and continued ARR growth, supported by strong 2023 SaaS bookings.
We are planning for PT revenues to be up 10% at the midpoint in 2024, with core growth up slightly, reflecting the benefits of the EA acquisition and normalization of orders in hardware and products businesses in 2023. We expect EA to be accretive to adjusted operating margins in 2024, and together with the benefits of our productivity initiatives, we expect PT margin expansion of over 100 basis points. PT's outlook also reflects the realignment of Invetech into Sensing Technologies Group as we explore strategic alternatives for Invetech's design and engineering business. The remainder of Invetech includes product revenues that align more closely to our automation businesses in sensing. For comparison purposes, we have provided pro forma segment results for 2023 in the appendix.
In AHS, we are planning mid-single-digit core growth with operating margin expansion of over 125 basis points, driven by volume, price realization, and productivity. We expect an acceleration in the growth at ASP, driven by their improved channel position, NPIs, and procedure volumes, and new logos and a SaaS migrations are expected to drive continued software growth in healthcare. Before opening it up for questions, I'll pass it back to Jim for closing remarks.
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Thanks, Chuck. I'll start this wrap up on slide 13. I'm incredibly proud of the contributions of our 18,000 team members to make 2023 another record year for Fortive. Over the last couple of years, our success executing our strategy to build a more resilient company reflects our strong foundation and enduring principles that underpin our unique and compelling culture. Talk about the operating rigor and leverage of FBS tools to innovate and drive growth across our segments. In addition to higher core growth, the deals we have done are contributing to our multi-year track record, including strong performance again in 2024. Since 2019, we are sustaining 7% revenue growth, delivering 120 basis points adjusted operating margin expansion per year, driven predominantly by higher gross margins, compounding earnings and free cash flow double digits.
We've cut net working capital's percent of sales nearly in half, yielding 50% more free cash flow per dollar of revenue. This is a testament to our portfolio transformation and the power of FBS, fueling our current and future success, and with a $60 billion served market, we have substantial runway to accelerate growth organically and inorganically. This brings me to slide 14 and how we drive differentiated performance and value creation for our shareholders. With a consistent and compelling 2024 outlook, including 6%-8% total growth and over 100 basis points adjusted operating margin expansion in every segment, we are on track to our 2025 targets of $4.50 of earnings and $1.6 billion of free cash flow.
We're confident in our ability to differentiate our performance and believe our outlook is appropriately balanced, remaining agile to deliver for customers and shareholders should the environment differ dramatically. As we showed at our 2023 Investor Day, by executing the Fortive formula, we expect to roughly double our earnings per share and generate more than $8 billion of free cash flow over the next 5 years. Our M&A funnel remains strong, and our acceleration of capital deployment, as demonstrated in 2023, further positions Fortive as a higher growth cash flow compounder and a premier company delivering exceptional value to shareholders. With that, I'll turn it back to Elena.
Elena Rosman (VP of Investor Relations)
Thanks, Jim. That concludes our comments. Christina, we are now ready for questions.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press star, then the number 1 on your telephone keypad, and we'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Steve Tusa from JP Morgan. Your line is open.
Jeff Sprague (Founder and Managing Partner)
Good morning, guys. How's it going?
Steve Tusa (Managing Director, Equity Research)
So just the kind of trend in the shorter cycle businesses, Tek and Fluke, maybe just an update on where you stand, book to bill, how the revenue did this quarter, and then, you know, how you're thinking about how the year plays out next year?
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Yeah, Steve, it's Jim. I think number one, I would differentiate Fluke and Tech here. I think, I think we certainly have saw-- you know, we saw mid-single-digit growth at Fluke. In the quarter, we saw growth in orders, point of sales in those mid-single digit around the world. So I think we're seeing the real benefits of the number of transformation things that we've done from an innovation perspective, also with some of the M&A work we've done, and, and in good shape. And I would say, you know, Tech, Tech was low single digits in the quarter, but quite frankly, off a 20% growth comp in Q4 2022. So still saw some good performance there. We felt really good about the quarter they produced as well. And certainly, the year that Tektronix had is unprecedented.
It's a record year, as we said in the prepared remarks. So, as we go into the next year, I think it's, I think more of the same at Fluke. We've really seen the resilience and durability activity that we've talked a lot about over the years playing out there. Tech will probably have a quarter. They're in about their fifth quarter of negative bookings, and obviously, we've been working off backlog there. And we would anticipate that they that book to bill there turns positive in probably Q2. So, we feel good. North America was really good for Tech, where a little bit of slowing that we saw was in China, as we talked a little bit about our China growth in total in Chuck's prepared remarks.
But obviously, part of that, Tektronix's one of our bigger businesses in China. Part of that story is the Tektronix there. So I'll pause there, and if you got any follow-up, I'll certainly cover it.
Steve Tusa (Managing Director, Equity Research)
Yeah, and then, and then just how much price do you assume in the for the guide for 2024?
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
I'm more thinking about 2%-3%.
Steve Tusa (Managing Director, Equity Research)
Okay, great. Thanks a lot.
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Thanks, Steve.
Chuck McLaughlin (SVP and CFO)
Thanks, Steve.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from the line of Nigel Coe of Wolfe Research. Your line is open.
Nigel Coe (Managing Director, Head of US Capital Goods Equity Research)
Thanks. Good morning. Not too well, actually, good afternoon, from our side. Let's not get into that conversation.
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
No worries.
Nigel Coe (Managing Director, Head of US Capital Goods Equity Research)
Just like on the reclass of Invetech to PT, I mean, it's a small business. It seems like margins are relatively, you know, depressed, maybe 6%-7% margin. Just wondering, you know, I think, Chuck, you went through some of the logic of that. Just maybe talk about, you know, what this achieves, this reclass, and maybe just in terms of the importance of this ASP, or rather AHS acceleration, kind of like how is that benefiting sort of the outlook for AHS? Because, you know, were you assuming that Invetech recovers? And just trying to like think about AHS on a like-for-like basis here.
Chuck McLaughlin (SVP and CFO)
Thanks for the question, Nigel. I'll take the margin question first. What we're talking about the business expanding 125 basis points, but that's on a like for like basis. If you really look at where we ended with Invetech and up, we're up to probably 250 basis points. But the business is generating margin expansion of 125 basis points, and that's what we've got in the guide. I think the rationale for switching it is the design engineering piece just isn't as big as we thought it was going to be, and it's not really moving forward. And so it, the part that is now the majority of this business really fits better in sensing.
Elena Rosman (VP of Investor Relations)
Yeah, Nigel, I'll just add, and we called out, in the slide materials, that Invetech was a headwind in the quarter for healthcare to the tune of about 280 basis points. That's probably, you know, the largest year-over-year headwind that Invetech had seen. I wouldn't expect the size of that to continue, but probably still in the 1%-2% range had it continued to be in healthcare throughout, 2024, but that's now reflected in PT.
Nigel Coe (Managing Director, Head of US Capital Goods Equity Research)
Okay. That's, that's helpful. And then, maybe just on the, the transition, you know, ASP consumables, just confirm, that's now fully behind us. There's, there's no lingering impact there. Sounds like it is. But maybe, you know, I, I think we can see the clear sort of margin benefits that we should see coming through from capturing that distributor margin. But maybe talk about the opportunities to drive better growth and, you know, having that direct, customer connection. You know, how-- what do you see as, as a potential for revenue, benefits?
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Well, Nigel, I would say number one, yeah, we're definitely fully through it, so you saw the benefit of that. I think, you know, we—as we said in the prepared remarks, consumables in North America were up about 7%. Consumables in around the world were up about 4%. So, so good performance there. We think mid-single-digit guide for ASP for the full year is a good number. Certainly, opportunity to go and, on the margin front, which we're going after. We were just with the team last week. We actually had them, with, we had our board meeting there, and we had the team there for an operating review, highlighting the level of innovation. Talked about the prepared remarks.
We now have a new set of consumables around steam sterilization that are going to now be in the U.S. and Asia that are certified. So a number of opportunities here to continue to improve the growth. Those are obviously all in consumables, which obviously have higher, higher pass-throughs. So we like the guide here. Overall health up 125 basis points in margin expansion, mid-single-digit growth. We think that's a great launch point. It certainly certifies, I think, a lot of the things we've been saying about the direct North American strategy and certainly more broadly around the strategy at ASP and how health will just be a real durable grower for Fortive in 2024.
Nigel Coe (Managing Director, Head of US Capital Goods Equity Research)
That's great. Thanks, Jim.
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Thanks, Nigel.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from the line of Julian Mitchell of Barclays. Your line is open.
Julian Mitchell (Managing Director, US Industrials Equity Research Analyst)
Hi, good morning. Just wanted to check on the sort of margins in the first quarter. So realize it's not a big sequential decline in sales, but you've got a very heavy sort of sequential step down in margins there in Q1, you know, 100% or so kind of drop through. So is that reflecting maybe something on mix in any of the businesses in first quarter versus the fourth? I'm just trying to understand maybe on Precision in particular how their margins are starting out the year in Q1.
Chuck McLaughlin (SVP and CFO)
Nigel, the biggest thing is there's just a seasonal step down in revenue dollars from Q4 to Q1, and that's what gives you us a normally seasonal step down in the margins, pointing out that, you know, our Q1 guide is up 75 basis points. So that's a pretty good expansion there. So I think we're seeing pretty good performance across the segments in margin expansion, too.
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Yeah, and I would just say, you know, that guide represents record operating margins in the first quarter for Fortive. So I think when you just look at... you know, we do have some expenses that start back up at the beginning of the year, obviously, salaries and some of those things. There's a little bit of that, but at the end of the day, if you just step back, record, that'll be a record first quarter in the history of Fortive.
Julian Mitchell (Managing Director, US Industrials Equity Research Analyst)
Thanks very much. And then my follow-up would just be, you know, it's typical, I suppose. You give guidance for year one, and then someone asks about year two. But if I look at slide 14, you know, you do have that, I guess, it seemed medium-term, you know, when you gave it, but you've got that $450-ish or maybe it's, you know, $430, excluding capital deployment number for 2025. And obviously, a year from now, that will be a formal guide, whatever you end up giving, not a medium-term aspiration. So I guess I'm trying to ask kind of how, given it is only 11 months away now, that period, you know, how seriously should investors treat that number of $450? It does require a fair amount of M&A over this year? So any thoughts around...
You know, the M&A market backdrop, one of your acquisitive peers was saying it's maybe looking a little bit better now.
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Yeah, well, a couple things. I think when you look at our history and it, in terms of double-digit EPS growth and the compounding of free cash flow, I think it's not, not an enormous leap to get to that $4.50. It's why we put those numbers out there a year ago, and we reiterated them in the guide and on the presentation. So we obviously feel good. Long way away, a lot can happen, but, but, we feel good about it. I think relative to the M&A market, we just closed a quarter where we did basically 5 deals between, including kind of closing in the early part of January. So it's, you know, across the board in every segment, variety of different sources, from private equity to private ownership, founder-led companies, good, good breadth across a number of our workflows.
So we feel really good about the M&A environment, and we just demonstrated really good progress against the M&A environment. EA is starting off really well with, and where we start, we now think that's gonna be accretive in the year, only right after closing it, so we've seen really good things there. So I would say the environment... What we've done, we're really proud of that work. Good work, gonna set us up well, back to your comment about 25. Both EA and those other deals are gonna be helpful in 25, for sure. And quite frankly, when you look at, when, when you look at the environment that we're in right now, probably a little bit better. Certainly, we've demonstrated that.
You know, we wanna continue to, as always, as you know, Julian, we're always busy, and we're excited about the opportunities that are in front of us, but we're also incredibly excited about the teams that have just joined Fortive.
Julian Mitchell (Managing Director, US Industrials Equity Research Analyst)
That's great. Thank you.
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from the line of Jeff Sprague of Vertical Research Partners. Your line is open.
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Hi, Jeff.
Jeff Sprague (Founder and Managing Partner)
Hey, hello, everyone. Hope you're doing well. Hey, just a couple from me. Just, back on ASP and the consumables growth, 7% sounds pretty healthy. Is there some kind of a, I don't know, kind of channel fill in the direct model that had to happen? You know, as you flipped from distribution to direct, just something abnormal about that number? What are you expecting for consumables growth, in the U.S. for 2024?
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
We'll be in the mid-single-digit range. There's probably a hint of catch-up from Q3 there, but not a lot of inventory build. We would expect it to be mid-single digit for them across the board. And obviously, I wouldn't wanna be a predictor of 7% every quarter, but as we said, we validated the strategy, I think, in Q4 with what we wanna do. As I mentioned, you know, with the team last week, they're incredibly optimistic about where they stand today and where they stand for the year and in the future years as well. So I think we're in a good place.
Jeff Sprague (Founder and Managing Partner)
And then just on EA, obviously, you didn't own it in Q4, but, any color on how it, how it grew in Q4? And, can you just, be a little more specific on what, what you expect for growth in 2024? Again, it'll be in M&A, but kind of the underlying growth in the business in 2024.
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Yeah. We first of all closed the first week of January. We're off to a good start. 100-day plan is scheduled. We've got our Obeya room set up with integration. Our teams are really excited about the work we can do together. As you remember, Jeff, when we announced the deal, we said we'd have the opportunity to take our big Tektronix sales force and sell those solutions. We started our annual sales kickoffs over the last couple weeks. A lot of excitement about that. Relative to specifically to your question, December was a record order month for the business, so they ended the year strong. You know, there's a tremendous amount of growth opportunities there in front of us. They've got a good backlog situation, so we feel good.
We feel good about the revenue base for the year and what that can grow. Obviously, won't be in our core, but until 2025, we feel good about the growth. Relatively, you know, we now think this is a, you know, probably a mid-single-digit break in 2024, which is up from the original thesis around the deal, so we're already ahead of the game. Growth should be good, and we think the business is probably in the $190 million-$195 million range. That's probably where it'll end, where it'll be for the year. So we're in a really good place with the business. It's a good team, as I mentioned before, and it's gonna...
You know, that's why I think when you step back and look at the deals we did, the previous question, we feel good about the year. 6%-8% overall growth for the year stands up, obviously, EA being one of the big parts of that, but the other acquisitions adding some as well.
Jeff Sprague (Founder and Managing Partner)
And then, just—I'm sorry—a little quick housekeeping one, too. Just this design piece of Invetech, is that a divestible business, or are you just winding it down, and how big is that piece?
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
It's in the $20 million range of revenue. It's break even, so you know, we're gonna look at a number of options. I think we've got. There are buyers out there for sure. The team's working on some different things. So, the other part of that business is called Dover Motion. So, you know, as you can imagine, it really was originally in our sensing and automation businesses. It's really it has life science and customers, but like our other sensing businesses, quite frankly, it has more of an industrial aspect to from an OEM perspective. That business has done pretty well over the last few years. So we'll anticipate keeping that as part of the portfolio, but we're gonna look for options on the other part.
Jeff Sprague (Founder and Managing Partner)
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Thanks, Jeff.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from the line of Dean Dray from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Thank you. Good day, everybody.
Deane Dray (Managing Director, Multi-Industry & Electrical Equipment Equity Analyst)
... Hey, the word destocking didn't crop up in any of your prepared remarks, which is a relief. Any color there in terms of inventory in the channel, Fluke, sell-in, sell-through, any issues there?
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Yeah, I think it to the second part of your question, mid-single-digit POS growth at Fluke around the world in the fourth quarter. So good solid growth, you know, down from the double-digit we've seen for a while. But still, I think that we take that number pretty solidly. A little bit of destocking in tech in the US, $ single-digit millions, but a little bit and some in China, maybe more broadly. I would say that's we now think China is likely to probably not grow in the year. That's embedded in our guide, and some of that is gonna be just...
I would say less destocking than it is just conservativeness on the part of Chinese distributors and Chinese channel partners to sort of see how the macro evolves out there over the year. But again, that's embedded in our guide.
Deane Dray (Managing Director, Multi-Industry & Electrical Equipment Equity Analyst)
Just to clarify on China, that's flat for the year, is the expectation? I-
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Probably down low single for the year. So that would be our anticipation at this point. Couple things there. Just, you know, starting what we've seen thus far is, you know, customers are, you know, a little bit more conservative, as I mentioned. As you know, Dean, we've talked about this over the years, you really don't know China till you see March. You get out, you get to after the Chinese New Year, see how channel partners and customers are gonna unfold for their year. We've seen more conservativeness up to this point in the year, so our anticipation is that as the year sort of progresses. We had a really tough comp in the first quarter in China.
We had great growth in China last year in the first quarter, but we would anticipate for the full year that China would probably be down about low single digits.
Deane Dray (Managing Director, Multi-Industry & Electrical Equipment Equity Analyst)
Great. Just one clarification for EA. I believe you said that you were targeting 100 basis points of margin improvement for this year, and that it would be the tech sales force would be selling. Did they come with a sales force at all, and where is that 100 basis points?
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Did I-
Deane Dray (Managing Director, Multi-Industry & Electrical Equipment Equity Analyst)
Is there any kind of manufacturing efficiencies? You know, what are the drivers around the improved margins?
Chuck McLaughlin (SVP and CFO)
So, so Dean, couple of things to unpack there. When we got EA, and they come with 40% incremental margins. I think the 100 basis points is about core growth that it adds to PT, is what we called out. We would expect the volume growth that there's, you know, gonna go from 40 to 41. Yeah, that wouldn't be super surprising for them. But I think that was more about the impact on core growth for everyone for PT. And then on the sales force, I think Jim can give a-
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Yeah, I mean, if they came with about a sales force of roughly 40 folks, we 10x that with Tektronix. We have the ability to sell that solution across the board. The teams are working through their cross-selling strategies, and that-- one of the things we said when we announced the, the deal was that we thought a real opportunity, primarily outside of Europe, to really accelerate the business through the addition of the Tektronix sales force. So yeah, so as Chuck mentioned, already a very profitable company. They had great growth to the... They're a good growth company, great growth company, and even with their size, they add growth to Tektronix and PT. So we're excited about that opportunity. Obviously, that's not in the core for the year.
They'll be in 25, but so far, we're really excited about the business joining the board.
Deane Dray (Managing Director, Multi-Industry & Electrical Equipment Equity Analyst)
Thank you.
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from the line of Andy Kaplowitz of Citigroup. Your line is open.
Andy Kaplowitz (Managing Director, U.S. Industrial Sector Head)
Hey, good afternoon, everyone.
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Hi, Andy.
Andy Kaplowitz (Managing Director, U.S. Industrial Sector Head)
Jim and Chuck, maybe just a little more color on the expected AHS improvement in 2024. But could you talk about Fluke Health? They were discontinuing product lines in 2023, as you know, which is causing you some noise. Are they over the hump here in 2024? And when you look at ASP, I know you're still building out your overall international infrastructure and supply chain. Are you over the hump there in terms of progress, and how much restructuring is helping your margin in 2024?
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Well, I take the first part of that. Yeah, Fluke Health will probably be in the mid-single digit range for the year, so pretty close to the segment growth. Maybe a little bit less in the first quarter and a little bit better or first half and a little bit more in the second half. So, but they are through some of the things that you described as well.
Chuck McLaughlin (SVP and CFO)
You know, with, with regards to the margin expansion, you know, probably the bigger issue, bigger driver behind the margin expansion at, Health, is the growth at ASP and the top line growth, getting through that dis-, distribution, you know, and, and show- and having consumables in North America show up like they did in Q4. I think that's probably, I had to score 80% of what's driving the margins there.
Andy Kaplowitz (Managing Director, U.S. Industrial Sector Head)
It's helpful, guys. Then maybe just a little more color on price versus cost expectation in 2024. I know you said price, Chuck, but one of your industrial peers reported today and reported, you know, quite rocky results in terms of its handling of the global supply chain. You know, it seems like sort of it's handling supply chain quite well. You know, pricing obviously remains sticky, but could you elaborate on what you're baking in for price versus cost and how you would rate the predictability at this point of the global supply chain?
Chuck McLaughlin (SVP and CFO)
Well, I think that there's a couple of things. In terms of the inflation we're seeing, we're seeing that come down, and that's why you're seeing the price we're putting into the market come down. But we will expect to stay ahead, as we always do.
...on the price cost. To supply chains, they continue to get incrementally better every quarter, but that doesn't mean they're back to what we would call normal, and problems can crop up from time to time. But we think that, you know, incrementally better is what we see there. Remember, we're not open to big commodity exposures that can cause maybe some of our peers or other companies that we have a pretty good line of sight and great. You know, every month, Jim and I are meeting with the OpCo teams, hearing what we're seeing on inflation. But it's trending the right way in meaning the rate of inflation is coming down.
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Yeah, and I would just add the proof point. You know, our gross margin expansion over the last several years has been very consistent. I think that speaks to our ability to manage the situation, not just on the price side, but on the cost side. And our working capital continues to get better, and as we noted, as a percent of sales. So, you know, we're doing that while not having to have significant increases in working capital. In fact, our working capital is getting better. So I think what we'll see this year, and Andy, just to add on to that, is that our teams have done a really nice job. We were just with all of our teams a couple weeks ago, and they're doing a really nice job on design savings as well.
So not only on the negotiated savings, but also looking at our designs and what we call our value engineering effort. And our value engineering—I think we'll have a record. Right now, our plans for value engineering would be our cost reductions out of value engineering will be at a record in 2024, when we deliver on that through the year. So number of things we're doing to continue to stay ahead of price cost, knowing that probably price wasn't gonna be able to stay at those levels that we had over the last few years. We've always been a good price company, so we'll continue to get our fair share. But, but I think what we're also trying to do is really push our teams hard on the opportunities on the cost side as well.
Andy Kaplowitz (Managing Director, U.S. Industrial Sector Head)
Appreciate all the color, guys.
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Thanks, Andy.
Operator (participant)
Once again, if you do have a question, you may press star one to enter the queue. Again, if you do have a question, please press star one at this time to enter the queue. Your next question comes from Scott Davis of Melius Research. Please go ahead.
Scott Davis (Chairman & CEO)
Thanks, uh-
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Hey, Scott.
Scott Davis (Chairman & CEO)
Thanks, Jim and Chuck and Elena. I'm not very good at the star one thing. It's a skill, I guess. But anyways, a lot of questions have been answered, but I'm kind of curious on ServiceChannel and Provation. If you combine those deals, you know, combined, they're pretty darn important to the, in a long-term growth story, but, you know, pretty dilutive the first, you know, year and change. But where, where do you think you'll be in 2024 versus a deal model and those things combined? Will you, will you be back, you know, in, in the positive on those things? And, and I would imagine they compound, right?
I mean, the growth is so it should be high enough, the margin's high enough that the returns on capital kind of go through, you know, kind of hockey stick at some point. Are we there yet in when you think about 2024?
Chuck McLaughlin (SVP and CFO)
It's, Scott, a number of things. First of all, from a top-line standpoint, and really the bottom line, we think we're on track to running ahead. So, but I think when you're talking about diluting as the ROICs come from, you know, low single digits, they're in mid-single-digit territory and accelerating going forward. We think so we think those two are right on. But accreting now that they've to the top-line growth. So let me stop there and see if I understood that part of the question.
Scott Davis (Chairman & CEO)
Good, kind of. I guess kind of my point, and perhaps we can do this after, is that when you announce those deals, it was, I think the language Jim used at the time is, "You'll be really happy we own these assets someday," you know, just given the growth rates. And I'm just kind of curious if you feel the same way.
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Yeah
Scott Davis (Chairman & CEO)
... I-
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Maybe just to give you a little bit. I think we anticipated, if I remember correctly, in the first year, $0.10 of accretion, we ended up with $0.12 of accretion. So in the first year, we overdelivered on the accretion side. As Chuck mentioned, we're incredibly happy with these businesses, maybe just to take your point. You could see on the chart, and that's why we really put them on the chart. When you look at the growth rates in the businesses, they're very strong. Provation was already a very high-margin business, one of the highest in Fortive already. ServiceChannel, obviously, was a break-even business, so there was some concern.
Could we get that business into the sort of accretive margin rate that we see in, you know, that's so strong in Fortive and obviously in IOS? And we're obviously there on the Fortive side, and they're approaching the IOS side. So we feel really good in that regard. And the other part of it, we were trying to really make a point in the prepared remarks, Scott, and I know you understand this, but is really how FBS has really made a difference here. You see the net dollar retention, where that's at now, the ARR growth. The really FBS has really made it. Both teams have really embraced FBS on the growth and innovation front.
They've done a nice job in that in a short period of time, and that's how you see these, you know, these net, net dollar retention numbers, which are obviously extremely good. And the business is well positioned for the future. And to your point also, they don't stop at 10% ROICs, right? They're gonna continue. And if you've got 110-100+ % net dollar retention margins in this structure and growing at this rate, obviously, the ROICs are gonna go above 10% in the outyears.
Scott Davis (Chairman & CEO)
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Just real quick, guys, does Invetech get worse before it gets better? Just, partially just given, Sprague's question on kind of the wind down or the sale of, of the design business. But, but these things, you know, selling into some pretty tough markets. But does, does that end up getting a little bit, worse before it gets better in 2024, or are we already there?
Chuck McLaughlin (SVP and CFO)
You know, I think we're gonna run into some easier comparison in the second half, and so it'll stop being this and a tough compare for us. And I think that, you know, yeah, we need some of the dynamics of those markets to recover. Keep in mind, this is a business that's less than $100 million in total. And so it's not quite as impactful as, you know, bringing some of these other movers like EA and ASP right now.
Elena Rosman (VP of Investor Relations)
I would say, Scott, embedded in the PT core growth outlook, you know, for Q1, there's about a 1% headwind to core growth in PT due to Invetech.
Chuck McLaughlin (SVP and CFO)
Okay. I-
Andrew Obin (Managing Director of Equity Research)
A little bit more decline than leveling out.
Chuck McLaughlin (SVP and CFO)
It's a statement that you've had a good quarter when you—we have to pick on a $100 million business, right? So good job. Well, pass it on. Thank you.
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Thanks, Scott.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Rob Mason from Baird. Your line is open.
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Yeah, thank you.
Robert Mason (Senior Research Analyst, Advanced Industrial Equipment)
Hello. I may have missed this, Jim, but how do you think about your overall software growth in 2024 relative to the 2%-4% core growth? How does that roll up?
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Yeah, we, we feel really good about it, Rob. I think when you look at not only, maybe starting with 2023, we had really good, really good growth in 2023. We'll have high single-digit software growth in 2024. So when we look at the ARR numbers, they're good. Obviously, we're just talking about ServiceChannel, Provation in the previous questions, but I think across the board, VAL is gonna have high single-digit growth. So we, we feel good about where it's at, and I think it's a testament to the strength of how FBS is really adding value, and it's a testament to those businesses and the work they're doing.
We didn't talk a lot about AI, but it—we'll start to see as we get into, into late 2024 and 2025, how some of our—how some of our data analytics and AI solutions are also gonna help the growth rates there. So we're in a, we're in a very good place, and I think the strategy is playing out the way we anticipated, which is it would—those, those businesses would have more durable, higher growth rates, and ultimately, that would, that would benefit Fortive, not only on the growth side but on the margin front. You certainly saw that in 2023. You absolutely see that with our double-digit EPS kinda, kinda numbers that we'll, we'll show in 2024.
Robert Mason (Senior Research Analyst, Advanced Industrial Equipment)
Very good. Just as a follow-up, specific to sensing, how are some of your semi cap customers, you know, certainly starting to tee up expectations around a better 2025. I assume that's, you know, you didn't mention that in market, specifically aerospace, defense, food, and beverage, maybe do better this year. But how are you thinking about that market turning in that business for you, semicap equipment?
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Yeah, well, you know, in sensing, we're about six quarters of negative order rates, so we would anticipate to see the overall order rate start to change. The book-to-bill there, probably in around one in the second half for sure, probably starting sometime in the second quarter. So we start to see things move. We didn't talk about it, but maybe more broadly about sensing, one of the things we saw in the fourth quarter was, rather than get 12-month blanket orders, which we would typically get with OEMs, we got 3-month blanket orders or... So we will see that those orders pick up probably in the second half. So that's the state of the world.
Relative to the semi index and where it's at, we're starting to see the green shoots of customers that are starting to talk about orders in our businesses that are maybe in the earlier stages there, a little bit of Japan, a little bit of China, a little bit in our Keithley business at Tektronix. We're they're starting to see customers talking about, you know, the second half of this year. So we think that, you know, just overall, we'll start to see some things. We're not anticipating a big step up there. We'll let the fact patterns determine that, but we do anticipate at least seeing some of that turn in the second half of the year.
Robert Mason (Senior Research Analyst, Advanced Industrial Equipment)
Very good. Thank you.
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Thanks, Rob.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Obin from Bank of America. Your line is open.
Andrew Obin (Managing Director of Equity Research)
Yes. Hi, how are you? Good afternoon.
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Hi, Andrew.
Andrew Obin (Managing Director of Equity Research)
Yeah, just maybe, and I don't know if, when you were talking before sensing, you were specifically referring to sensing or tech, but maybe just confirm, you know, what's happening with tech book-to-bill and what kind of exit rate are we at in tech, right? Just sort of, you know, if you look at the peer orders, you know, Keysight, NI, you know, you still have orders down, you know, let's call it mid-teens. So to understand correctly, we're thinking that based on the feedback we're getting on the comps, revenues will be up low to mid-single digits next year, right? Is that the right framework?
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
For Tektronix, we think business will be about low single digits for the year. So just from a revenue perspective, we've had five quarters of negative orders there. We'd probably see that in the first quarter. We'll start to see things turn, the book to bill starts to turn in and around the second quarter there. So just to kind of give you a sense, and that's, you know, we've had aerospace and defense has been good. It's continued to be good, but it's mostly broadly around electronics and things like that, so some semiconductor customers as well. So and in the comments I made around sensing, semi, I also made the comment about Keithley, which is the, you know, most of the exposure we have in Tektronix relative to semiconductors.
Andrew Obin (Managing Director of Equity Research)
Yeah.
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
So we think the business is a good place. Obviously, low single digits in the fourth quarter against a 20% comp from a year prior, so still in a good place. Record year for Tektronix from a revenue perspective, and but probably, you know, a quarter or two here of absorbing continue to absorb some of the, some of the market dynamics we described and put the business in a good shape and exit rate into 2025, probably in a good, in a, in a good place.
Andrew Obin (Managing Director of Equity Research)
Where are we on book to bill? Sorry.
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Well, I think in fourth quarter, probably $0.85 probably, but we're always below $1 in the fourth quarter.
Andrew Obin (Managing Director of Equity Research)
Gotcha. And just a broader question, because it's certainly been a weird 2023, and it seems like 2024 is gonna be strange as well. But you know, I think if you analyze it, and it's just sort of going back to Julian's question, you did outline the 2025 target, but you also outlined longer term targets, right? And if you look at 2025 target, we sort of, I think, CAGR is 12.5%, longer-term target is 13.5%, right? We printed 9% EPS growth last year. This year, target is 9%-12%. I totally get there's cushion here, right? Invetech is out of the way.
We're probably gonna do some M&A, but from your perspective, what needs to sort of go back to normal change from a macro standpoint, what's the biggest lever that needs to change, right, to sort of get back to, quote-unquote, "normal," where you guys can sort of accelerate EPS growth from what we've seen last year and what we sort of got into this year? Or, or is it all just M&A? Sorry for an extensive question, but yeah.
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Well, I think when you look at our track record over four years, and, you know, what we try to do is not take any one particular year, because when you average them out, when we're talking about the out years here, we're talking about the, you know, the average, right? And when you look at the average, they're not too different future versus prior history. So I think what passes a bit prologue here, if you look at the success we've had over the last four years relative to EPS growth, and you sort of fast forward, you know, we've continued to use our free cash flow. Obviously, we had interest expense a little higher last year than we anticipated, which is why that number with single digit will delever through the year, as you know, so that has some improvements as well.
But, you know, I think at the end of the day, we're in a very good place relative to those targets, and I think this reflects it. So there's, there's obviously, the macro is always and geopolitical situation is probably always one of those things you think about, but that's why we said in the prepared remarks that we've got, you know, some scenarios to continue to be, agile and dynamic based on what the economic, you know, situation looks like, is the best way to say it. So, you know, software and healthcare is gonna continue to compound at higher rates of growth and higher rate-rates of margin expansion, and that's gonna continue to mix up the portfolio, particularly if you take a longer period of time, like in 2028. So, I would say those are the dynamics.
You got to continue to see those businesses continue to get better, like, like they will this year and like they've been doing, and then continue to do the things that we've been doing relative to productivity and innovation that'll continue to help us work through the various markets, secular drivers that we've attached ourselves to broaden the workflow. And I think the last thing I'd say, Andrew, is the 5 deals that we did over the last 30 or, you know, 3 months or so. They all have an opportunity to continue to accelerate our compounding. They're all attached to good growth drivers. They're additive growth, growthier, and margin from a margin perspective, from a bolt-on standpoint. They're all making their associated businesses better over time. And when you take a few years out, they're gonna become a bigger part of that.
So some of them are small, but if you take a 2-year, 3-year out period, they'll be additive as well, so. And then, as I said, the M&A environment is still, you know, looks like it continues to get better here, and we're excited about that.
Andrew Obin (Managing Director of Equity Research)
If I could just squeeze in one more, should we start to think about Fortive as increasing dividends annual and some framework around share buybacks, maybe offsetting share issuance, as long as we're there?
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Well, in terms of the dividends, what we tried to signal is that as our free cash flow and earnings per share increase, you'll see our dividends increase on the same trajectory. With share buybacks, what we did is we restocked to where we had. You know, over the last two years, we've been opportunistic on buying some shares back, and we just went back to the level we had two years ago. M&A is still the priority.
Andrew Obin (Managing Director of Equity Research)
Thanks so much.
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Thanks, Andrew.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Joe Giordano from TD Cowen. Your line is open.
Joseph Giordano (Managing Director, Diversified Industrials, Automation & Robotics)
Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Just a couple on the M&A side and capital deployment, kind of piggybacking on what Scott was talking about. So, I mean, you highlighted Provation, and you highlighted ServiceChannel, and I think it's pretty clear as to how companies like that can lever up growth, and they can accrete to EPS and what they can do to margins. I'm just curious, like, the ROICs of these things, because I think, like, on Provation, the math was something like it needed to grow 15% a year and have margins expand to, like, you know, almost into the mid-50s from the mid-30s or something like that, to hit, like, a 7.5% return in year 5. Like, it looks like at least that slide suggests it's under those targets.
Like, how do you evaluate where you are in ROIC on deals like that?
Chuck McLaughlin (SVP and CFO)
So, first of all, we look at our ROICs and go back to looking, you know, where the revenue needs to be. Margins started off great on Provation, as talked about, and we're running ahead of where we thought we'd be on the top line. So that we can maybe talk offline exactly, you know, what the original assumptions were. But that's where we know we- for both of those deals, and so we're on track or ahead of where we thought we'd be a couple of years in. I think that's as simple as I can put it.
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Joe, I would just maybe just add on is, the reason, you know, the reason why we highlighted these, these two companies two years out is 'cause when we bought the companies, there were some skeptics, quite frankly. People didn't think we could get ServiceChannel margins into the twenties as quickly as we did. People didn't think that Provation would grow during COVID the way it did.
So, yeah, I wouldn't necessarily say that these were slam dunks because, you know, there were some doubters out there, and I think what we tried to do in with two years in, is to suggest or to demonstrate that, "Hey, we're exactly where we thought we were, in case we're ahead of the game." We were ahead of the game first year out, as I mentioned in the previous call, relative to EPS. So these businesses are in good shape, and as we highlighted back in May, these are, you know, this is consistent with a number of the other deals, and that's really what you see in 2024, is the portfolio durability based on the success of those deals.
So, I would just add that into the broader view of M&A and how it's continuing to add... ROIC continue to get better, and it's adding more durability and capability to the organization.
Elena Rosman (VP of Investor Relations)
Just to add, to clarify, this came up earlier, but the combined ROIC, and certainly for Provation, is already in the mid-single-digit range for 2024.
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Thanks.
Joseph Giordano (Managing Director, Diversified Industrials, Automation & Robotics)
Just maybe to piggyback on that, like, you've done deals now across like SaaS type deals, and you've done hardware-centric deals. As you kind of run FBS through these businesses, I mean, it flexes different muscles that you need to use depending on these. Are you finding, like, one type of deal somewhat easier to accomplish the goals that you set out in the at the outset?
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Well, I would say, you know, certainly hardware deals is something we've been doing for 20 years, and there's a, you know, to use your muscle framework, there's a lot of muscle around that. You saw that in even with some of the COVID challenges in ASP, our continued ability to do things like really improve the free cash returns on the business because of working capital. So, so, you know, I would certainly say that that's, that's, those are things that we've done for a long time. But I think, and this is really one of the reasons why we put it on the slide, is, is that we've really built tremendous capability around software, FBS for software.
And we didn't talk about it, but we've now got a FBS suite of AI tools, which are really helping drive innovation, drive commercial activities for the software broadly, but also for the software businesses. So we've really. I'm really proud. I said it in the prepared remarks around how the FBS is itself, in and of itself, getting better, and that really means more broadly. It's really. I think what we're really proud of is the fact that if you look at the forward of the portfolio today, FBS means as much to a software business or a healthcare business or a traditional industrial business. FBS may mean different tools, it may mean different applications, but the rigor and discipline is exactly the same.
Joseph Giordano (Managing Director, Diversified Industrials, Automation & Robotics)
Thanks, guys.
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Thanks.
Operator (participant)
Thank you, and we do have time for one last question. Again, this will be our last question of the day. The line comes... I'm sorry, the question comes from Joe O'Dea, from Wells Fargo. Your line is open.
Joseph O'Dea (Managing Director, Equity Research)
Hi, thanks for fitting me in.
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Hi, Joe.
Joseph O'Dea (Managing Director, Equity Research)
First question... Hi, is, first question is just related to sort of the, the price-volume composition of organic and, and implying volumes kind of flat to up 1% for the year. And I'm trying to understand, you know, where kind of the, the upside risk might sit on the volume side, and whether the embedded assumptions are more sort of moving sideways, and, and there can be some upside risk on, you know, maybe easier short cycle comps in the back half of the year or just, you know, how, how you've thought about that, that volume piece of the equation, and if there's anything embedded within that as, things getting better over the course of 2024.
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
I think when you look at... and I'll take the hardware businesses here. When you look at the hardware businesses, there's not a big inflection point as we go through the year. So, probably, I would say we don't see a big volume need, we don't need a big volume inflection, as we go through the year simply because of that. I would say secondly, we're not really expecting a lot of restocking here. So I would say there's probably some volume upside to restocking if we were to see that. But I would say, you know, we're certainly not counting on that, and if it was, it's probably more a second half dynamic there.
Joseph O'Dea (Managing Director, Equity Research)
Okay, makes sense. And then on the productivity front, can you just talk about the margin contribution you anticipate from productivity in 2024 and the degree to which, you know, that's kinda carry over from 2023 actions or additional actions to drive kind of more productivity gains in 2024?
Chuck McLaughlin (SVP and CFO)
Yeah, I think that normally we would expect 40% of incremental margins, and for the year, we're gonna end up at 45%. There's some puts and takes earlier in the year that we've seen, but we're seeing probably, if you think about what, probably 7 or 8 cents of productivity coming into... from those actions that are spilling into 2024.
Joseph O'Dea (Managing Director, Equity Research)
Meaning actions you've already taken, and so that's, that's just carrying-
Chuck McLaughlin (SVP and CFO)
Yeah
Joseph O'Dea (Managing Director, Equity Research)
... into 2024. That's seven, eight-
Chuck McLaughlin (SVP and CFO)
Yeah, we're done with the productivity actions, just, you know, the benefits are coming in, not that we're taking any more. Sorry about that.
Joseph O'Dea (Managing Director, Equity Research)
Understood. No, thanks a lot.
Operator (participant)
Thank you, and I'll now turn the floor back over to Jim Lico for closing remarks.
Jim Lico (President and CEO)
Thanks, Christina, and thanks everyone for taking the time today. I know it's a busy, busy day for all of you. I hope hopefully what you heard today was our you know really the benefits of the work we've been doing for several years, both in 2023 and how we anticipate 2024 to play out. So we feel very, very comfortable with where we stand today. Lots going on in the world, as many of you know, but I think how we've built and constructed the portfolio over the last several years, post-spin, is we feel and expect to have a good setup for this year. We're certainly around for any questions. We wanna thank everyone for your support in 2023.
We know we'll probably see a lot of you out on the road here over the next few weeks. We look forward to that, and obviously, our team is available for questions and follow-up and then over the next several days. So thanks. Have a great day, have a great earnings season, and, we'll see you on the road. Thanks.
Operator (participant)
Thank you, and this does conclude today's conference call. You may now disconnect.
