ITT - Q2 2023

Transcript

Luca Martinotto (President and CEO)

I'd like to begin, as I always do, by thanking our employees around the world, who work hard every day to ensure we deliver on our commitment to all our stakeholders. To our shareholders and customers for their ongoing support and investment in ITT. Last quarter, the ITT story was about growth and execution, in Q2, the story is again growth and execution, with a significant step up and record results on many fronts. Our order growth rate accelerated. We expanded our margin, especially in Industrial Process and Motion Technologies, our teams generated significantly higher cash, and we deployed it. Let me share some of the highlights. 12% organic revenue growth, 280 basis points of segment margin expansion, 36% EPS growth, and more than $120 million improvement in free cash flow since Q1.

On top of that, orders up 13% organically and 6% sequentially. Now, let's get into the details. On growth, Industrial Process delivered a 23% revenue increase and a 15% organic orders growth, with another record quarter driven by projects and aftermarket. On aftermarket, our daily order rates in parts and service remain at historically high levels, and we are realizing further pricing. On projects, orders grew 41% despite a tough prior year comparison. These include a significant pumps award on an LNG project for one of the world's most prestigious engineering firms. Green project orders are up more than 100% in Q2, and year to date are already more than double the amount for all of 2022. Additionally, our Bornemann twin-screw and multiphase pump technologies are capturing share.

For example, Bornemann was recently awarded content on one of the world's largest decarbonization projects in Australia, that produces roughly 16 million tons of LNG per year. When I visited our Bornemann site in Germany, I saw firsthand how the team's outstanding project management capabilities are driving market share gains. IP is quickly developing best-in-class project management with strong leaders and rigor across the organization. With IP outperformance ramping, I'm pleased to announce that Fernando Roland has joined ITT as President of Industrial Process, succeeding Dave Stedman, who retired early this year after 30 very successful years of service to Goulds Pumps and ITT. With more than 2 decades of senior leadership experience at large multinational companies, Fernando has the expertise to help grow our premier flow business and enhance IP's differentiation. Fernando, welcome to ITT.

Continuing with growth, Motion Technologies grew revenue 10% organically, driven by Friction OE outperformance, which in Q2 was nearly 500 basis points. This quarter, we won content on 67 new electrified vehicle platforms with premier auto OEMs, including Tesla, BYD, Porsche, Polestar, and BMW. Stepping back from the quarter for a moment, one of the unique aspects about Friction is the team's ability to serve our customers by anticipating their challenges and developing solutions to meet their needs. With each market disruption, Friction found ways to differentiate and accelerate our market share gains. It happened with copper-free bypass. It's happening with the EV transition, and the next opportunity is the eventual rollout of Euro 7 initial regulations. The Friction team has been proactively developing Euro 7 compliant products in partnership with our customers ahead of the expected rollout.

As you might remember, in 2022, our ITT Ventures fund invested in Wöhrle, a German company specializing in highly customized rotor coating technology. Today, together with Wöhrle, we are developing low-emission braking technology to help our customers achieve Euro 7 compliance, 2 years before regulation are expected to be enacted. We expect this will drive further market share gains once again. Lastly, on growth, Connect and Control Technologies deliver record orders in the quarter, growing 7% organically versus prior year. Aerospace components grew 25%, fueled by increased commercial aero and defense demand in North America. Despite the challenges in distribution, connectors orders grew 2% year-over-year and 24% sequentially, with a strong performance with our North American OEM customers in commercial, aero, and defense. Well done, Art and the entire connectors team.

On execution, we grew IP margin more than 600 basis points, driven by volume, pricing, and shop floor productivity, eclipsing our long-term target of 20% for the fourth straight quarter. We deliver this margin performance while continuing to invest in the business. Our team is increasing IP's manufacturing capabilities and advancing the lean transformation in Seneca Falls, and we now expect to have 5 one-piece flow lines running next month. We're also progressing with the foundry closure, which will provide additional cost benefits beginning in 2024. In MT, margin improved 150 basis points to 16%, and 120 basis points sequentially, as we anticipated. With the progress in 2023, we believe MT will return to roughly 18% margin in 2024, as this stocking in the auto aftermarket abates. Moving to capital deployment.

On M&A, we didn't waste any time getting to work with our recent acquisition. The connectors and Micro-Mode teams are working together to execute on the commercial synergies and grow the pipeline. The teams are sharing customer opportunities, exploring new ways to package our products, and expand distribution. We believe Micro-Mode's differentiating miniature and high-frequency design capabilities will enhance ITT's product portfolio and customer base, and provide further entry into attractive defense and space markets. Feedback from our customers has been positive, and this is leading to other commercial opportunities for our connectors business. Beyond M&A, we also paid down over $60 million of outstanding commercial paper and repurchased $60 million of ITT shares year to date, including $30 million in Q2. Next, to our outlook.

With an outperformance through the first half, a large profitable backlog, and our order acceleration, today we're raising the midpoint of our full-year EPS guidance by $0.25. We're confident in our ability to deliver over $5 of EPS or 14% growth for the year. Notably, the high end of our previous range now becomes the low end of the new guidance, thanks to the performance in MT and IP. Cash generation ramped considerably since Q1, with plenty of room still to grow on a path to nearly $400 million of free cash flow in 2023. With our exposure to growing end markets, including auto, energy, aero and defense, and the backlog of more than $1.2 billion, ITT is in a strong position entering Q3.

I'm incredibly proud of the team's accomplishments this quarter. We are ready to conquer what lies ahead. Now, I would like to share with you another growth opportunity for ITT. In June, I joined the Friction team for a groundbreaking ceremony at MT's facility in Termoli, Italy, to announce a 50 million EUR investment that will position ITT to quickly gain share in the underserved and profitable high-performance vehicle segment. The investment comprises a new facility, upgraded production equipment, and an expansion of our fast prototyping, testing, and R&D capabilities. We're also installing solar panels that we expect will provide more than 20% of the entire Termoli site electricity needs, demonstrating Friction's ongoing commitment to sustainability. This opportunity was largely driven by feedback from customers about their need for a responsive, high quality, and high-performing partner.

We have earned their trust by understanding their needs, delivering highly customized solution, and performing, and today, they are trusting us again to deliver the same quality for their most prestigious platforms. This is a win-win. Our customers will benefit from having a trusted and known partner that they know will deliver, and the expected returns for ITT are attractive. Congratulations to Luca Martinotto, Friction, and the entire Termoli team. You have earned this investment. Let me now turn the call over to Emmanuel to discuss our Q2 results and full year outlook in more detail.

Emmanuel Caprais (SVP and CFO)

Thank you, Luca. Let's begin on slide 5. We continue to see strong top line growth in both Industrial Process and Motion Technologies. In IP, project grew over 100%, while baseline pumps and aftermarket grew mid-teens. In MT, Friction's perfect on-time delivery performance drove double-digit revenue growth. As indicated at a conference in June, Friction's outperformance ramped this quarter. We also saw strong volume and pricing growth in KONI and Axtone, thanks to share gains in rail. In CCT, the growth in our aero components business largely offset declines in industrial connectors associated with continued destocking in distribution, especially in Europe. The team is addressing the dynamics of strong demand, coupled with a challenged supply chain in commercial aerospace by reducing our internal lead times. Moving to our margin performance. Our incremental margin this quarter was nearly 40% and 50% in IP.

This is driven by over 300 basis points from volume and price, and over 200 basis points of productivity, which collectively outpaced cost inflation and unfavorable foreign currency impacts. Motion Technologies delivered a strong sequential and year-over-year improvement. This will continue as productivity ramps and commodity inflation eases further. Finally, this quarter, we divested a small product line in CCT and incurred acquisition expenses related to Micro-Mode, which drove a net $5 million gain, or $0.05 of EPS. This amounted to 50 basis points of margin improvement that will not repeat. On adjusted EPS, Q2 showed another big step-up in performance. The 36% growth is largely the result of strong operational performance, pricing realization that is now outpacing cost inflation. Finally, on cash, another impressive performance, both year-over-year and compared to Q1. Free cash flow margin was almost 15% this quarter.

The $145 million increase in free cash flow year-to-date came from a combination of higher operating income and improved inventory management. What's even more encouraging are the benefits that are still to come from further optimization of working capital. We also continued to repurchase ITT shares while reducing interest expense from Q1, given our strong cash generation. With this quarter's performance, we have line of sight to nearly $400 million of free cash flow for the year. Let's now turn to slide six to look at the EPS drivers in Q2. We delivered high quality results in Q2. We're growing operating income through share gains, pricing, and productivity. In fact, the operating income growth rate was almost triple our revenue growth rate this quarter. Pricing is outpacing cost inflation.

We overcame large unfavorable year-over-year foreign currency impacts. We are making strategic investment in new and emerging technologies to sustain our differentiation over the long term. All of this will help to deliver this high level of performance for many years to come. Let's turn to slide 7, to discuss the full year outlook. The positive demand we saw through the first part of Q2 continued and even ramped at the end of the quarter. The result is a large and profitable backlog that provides greater visibility into the second half of 2023. In IP, our project margin in backlog expanded over 200 basis points year-to-date, as we continue to drive project management excellence. In CCT, orders in North America are growing sequentially, thanks to OEM share gains, offsetting the fact that our distributors are continuing to work through elevated levels of inventory.

With all this considered, we expect to be solidly at the midpoint of our current organic revenue guidance range of 6%-8%. On margin, IP has far exceeded our expectations for several quarters. This, and the improved performance in MT, are driving our four-year segment margin outlook to over 18% at the midpoint. We see signs of easing inflation and are progressing on our lean transformation. With a 25 cent increase to our EPS midpoint to $5.05, we now expect growth of 11%-16%, firmly above our long-term target. Looking ahead briefly to the third quarter, we expect low to mid-single digit organic growth, led by Industrial Process. Segment margin should be roughly flat sequentially, with continued improvement in Motion Technologies. Earnings should be up mid-single digits year-over-year. Our effective tax rate remain at approximately 21%.

Let me turn the call back to Luca on Slide 8 to wrap up.

Luca Martinotto (President and CEO)

Thank you, Emmanuel. A few points to reiterate before our Q&A. First, growth. We are positioned in attractive and growing end markets, and we are outperforming. Second, the team's execution in these end markets has been outstanding. They are fighting still challenging supply chain conditions, removing bottlenecks, and finding new ways to deploy lean processes. Before you ask, let me assure you, we will have new long-term margin targets for Industrial Process in the not-too-distant future, given its current performance. It has been 1 year since we established a long-term segment margin target for CCT of 20%, and at 18.7% in Q2, we are already well on our way to achieving our target. Third, we're not losing sight of the long term.

We're investing today in innovation, product development, and capacity to support growth in pump projects, in electrified vehicles, in the high-performance vehicle market, and in aero and defense. Our teams have been working throughout the summer on their long-term strategic plans. I'm sure that we will deliver on them as we have done so far. We've been improving our balance sheet for several years now, which enabled us to go on offense. We are deploying capital while cultivating a strong M&A pipeline and investing in our business organically. Lastly, we raised our full year guidance to over $5 of EPS at the midpoint. CCT is entering a new, stepped-up level of performance. Thank you for your time today and your interest in ITT. Ellen, please open the line for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. At this time, if you have a question or comment, please press star followed by 1 on your telephone keypad. If at any point your question has been answered, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star followed by 2 on your telephone keypad. Again, we do ask that while you pose your question, you pick up your handset to provide optimum sound quality. Please limit your questions to 1 question and 1 follow-up question. Thank you very much. Our first question comes from Damian Karas at UBS. Damian, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Damian M. Karas (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hi, good morning, everyone.

Luca Martinotto (President and CEO)

Morning.

Emmanuel Caprais (SVP and CFO)

Hi, Damian.

Damian M. Karas (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, congrats on the quarter. Luca, I was hoping maybe you could-

Luca Martinotto (President and CEO)

Thank you.

Damian M. Karas (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Share some more. Absolutely. Maybe you could share some more color on what you're seeing across ITT. I know you guys had expected some short cycle pressures, in the back half. What are you seeing on the short cycle side? Maybe if you could also just speak to the project funnel.

Luca Martinotto (President and CEO)

Sure. Thank you, Damian Karas. When we're talking about the, the orders overall, the orders are very positive, as you see, 15% growth. If you look at, at the, the full picture, we are in a kind of, I will call it reinforcing cycle. The revenue is up 23%, the orders are very healthy with the book-to-bill of 1.2, our backlog goes up to record level. Also the funnel is up sequentially, year-over-year. Overall, a very good level of demand. Now, let's go specifically on the short cycle. On the short cycle, the orders stay at elevated level, the growth rate decelerated. Just to give you an example, parts were very strong. Parts grew 14% in the quarter. 7% was price, 7% was volume.

When you look at the July orders, the July orders are still solid and growing year-over-year. As I said, project is still healthy across the board, across the different regions.

Damian M. Karas (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Terrific. Maybe switching to margins. Obviously, you've seen some really nice expansion year-to-date, and you called out the 39% incrementals in the second quarter. It looks to me like the guidance suggests just a good bit lower incremental. Is my math correct? Maybe like 15%-20% in the back half. If you could maybe just talk about your margin expectations from here, you know, any factors that might be leading to a little bit less uplift. I guess just more generally, like, how should we be thinking about, you know, the incrementals for your business?

Emmanuel Caprais (SVP and CFO)

Yeah. Thanks, Damian. We expect segment margin to be generally in line with Q2 for Q3 and Q4. Here it's important to keep in mind that MT continues to improve sequentially, while IP will probably settle between 21% and 22%. I think it's important also to remember that last year in the second half, there were a few one-off positives that impacted mostly IP, and that we'll need to lap in the second half. Overall, I think it's fair, a little bit of deceleration of incrementals in the second half, but still very, very healthy.

Damian M. Karas (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Understood. Thank you very much. Best of luck.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, Damian. Our next question comes from Jeff Hammond, from KeyBanc Capital Markets. Jeff, your line is now open. Please proceed.

Jeffrey Hammond (Managing Director)

Yeah. Hi, good morning, guys. Just wanted to really get an update on the destocking progress in, you know, industrial connectors in Europe automotive. I think you, you pointed out, you know, some better orders in connectors, and, and, you know, looked like the orders were pretty good in MT as well. I'm just wondering if those issues are starting to resolve themselves ahead of, ahead of plan or, or still thinking it kind of runs through the year.

Luca Martinotto (President and CEO)

Thanks, Jeff. Good, good morning. When you look at the aftermarket in Motion Technologies, the aftermarket is still destocking, so the situation there is not, has not changed. The destocking probably will continue for all of 2023. This is when it comes to automotive. When you look at the connectors, connectors had a very good quarter in terms of orders, and it was a record, as a matter of fact. I think that we are still facing destocking, particularly in Europe, like Emmanuel was sharing in the prepared remarks. What the team has been able to do is to perform incredibly well on the orders with OEM, and also they worked very hard in the distribution here in North America to enlarge the product portfolio that we put through distribution.

This has led also to a very good orders intake in distribution North America in Q2.

Jeffrey Hammond (Managing Director)

Okay. Then, this $0.05 gain, is that in CCT? Am I thinking about that the right way?

Emmanuel Caprais (SVP and CFO)

Yes, this is, this is in CCT. This is a small product line, roughly $3 million of sales annually, that we decided to sell to focus really on the core business of CCT.

Jeffrey Hammond (Managing Director)

If you take out that $5 million gain, the margins were pretty low there. Maybe just what's going on with, you know, with the underlying margins in CCT?

Emmanuel Caprais (SVP and CFO)

Yeah, yeah, you're, you're right, Jeff. CCT had had a little bit of an issue in Europe, dealing with low levels of demand and adjustment of the cost base. We now we're happy to report that as of June, really, the second part of June, and also what we saw in July, we're back on track, and we're back to the previous levels of performance. We feel pretty confident that CCT is gonna be higher than 17% in the back half of the year.

Jeffrey Hammond (Managing Director)

Okay. Good call. Thanks, guys.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, Jeff. Our next question comes from Joe Ritchie from Goldman Sachs. Joe, your line is now open. Please go ahead with your question.

Joe Ritchie (Managing Director)

Hey, guys. Good morning. A couple of quick questions. First one, just on the organic growth that you guys saw this quarter in MT, would you break that down a little bit further for us? Like, what have you seen in Friction versus the rail business, and then, like, any other geographic color would be helpful too.

Luca Martinotto (President and CEO)

Okay. First of all, when you look at Friction and automotive, I think that there was a positive performance when you look at the OE. We outperformed the market by 500 basis points. Especially performing was China, where we were almost twice the growth of the market. We continue to win awards. I will give a little bit more color later. The aftermarket is still the stocking. Overall, the OES was positive, but independent aftermarket negative growth year-over-year. Rail had a very good order intake. When you look at KONI, for example, KONI orders in the quarter were up 25%, and we expect the orders to be up double digit for all of 2023. Also Axtone.

You may remember Axtone, you know, 25% of the Axtone business was actually in Russia, and we got hit pretty hard, last year. Now, the team has worked incredibly hard to offset those Russian orders with more passenger orders in Western Europe and other regions. We expect the orders for 2023 to fully offset the business that we suspended in Russia. Overall, positive across the board.

Emmanuel Caprais (SVP and CFO)

Joe, to round it all up in terms of revenue, Friction. Strong growth in Friction, mid-teens. This is really driven by Friction OE, plus 21%, which is a really strong number, as Luca was mentioning, based on the outperformance. Rail also was up 25%, and this is both coming from KONI and Axtone. Not only we had strong revenue, and the team really increased the output of our factories, but on top of that, we had really strong orders, as Luca was mentioning.

Joe Ritchie (Managing Director)

Awesome! That's great to hear, guys. My, my quick follow on. I saw the price cost was a, was a nice contributor to, to earnings on a year-over-year basis versus last quarter, I think you guys were flat. What's, what's the expectation into the back half of the year, Emmanuel, for, for, for price costs and how that's expected to contribute on a year-over-year basis?

Emmanuel Caprais (SVP and CFO)

Yeah. You're, you're right, Joe. We, we had a nice contribution from price cost, clearly positive from a dollar basis, and, and, more than 100 basis points of margin, margin expansion, thanks to that. Let me, let me, just precise that when we talk about price costs here, we, we talk about price versus all our costs. Not only material, it includes also, labor and overhead. In the, in the second half of the year, I would say that we should still see a positive trend on, on price cost. Definitely positive from a dollar basis, and then from a margin basis, a little less than 100 basis points.

Joe Ritchie (Managing Director)

Perfect. Thanks, guys.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, Joe.

Luca Martinotto (President and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Vlad Koshinsky from Citigroup. Vlad, please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Emmanuel Caprais (SVP and CFO)

Morning, Vlad.

Operator (participant)

Vlad, please go ahead. Your line is open.

Emmanuel Caprais (SVP and CFO)

We can't hear you, Vlad.

Vlad Koshinsky (Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, good morning, guys. Sorry about that. Sorry about that, guys. Can you hear me now?

Emmanuel Caprais (SVP and CFO)

Yep. Yeah.

Vlad Koshinsky (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, great. I just wanted to ask you guys about channel destock in CCT connectors and, you know, where you think that channel is in, in the destocking cycle, and, and what you're hearing in terms of actual end market dynamics there.

Emmanuel Caprais (SVP and CFO)

I think what we're seeing is the destocking that we're seeing is happening in Europe. We're not seeing destocking for the moment in North America. What we hear from our distributors partners is that their customers are destocking, but we're not seeing a clear destocking movement at our customers in North America. I would say from a from a demand standpoint, we feel pretty good. As Luca was mentioning, we have been able to expand our product lines with our distributors, especially in North America, and that has yielded significant share gains. We'll continue to really in CCT, develop new products, especially including the ones that we acquired with Micro-Mode, to really boost our presence with distributors.

Vlad Koshinsky (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, that's, that's helpful. I just wanted to shift on the, the Friction announcement that you, that you mentioned. That's quite interesting. I guess just any color you can give on, you know, when you're expecting that plant to come online and how you're thinking about visibility to demand for, for the, for product offerings out of that, out of that facility. And, you know, is this sort of displacing incumbents or more focused on winning new content on, on new vehicles as they're introduced? Just how, how are you thinking about ramping that capacity you're bringing online?

Luca Martinotto (President and CEO)

Sure. Thank you. Thank you, Vlad. The first part of the question is that the plant will be up, the building will be up by September next year. The equipment will be installed in September next year, and the line will be running in October 2024. You're talking about 15 months from now. Yeah, 14, 15 months from now. That's the timing. When it comes to awards, we've already won some of the awards that we will be producing in those plants, so we got a very good visibility. Also, this is something that we have been working in the last 12 months together with the customers. That is gonna be a good start up with the line running from day one.

Emmanuel Caprais (SVP and CFO)

Vlad, this is a underserved market, we're lucky enough to be able to guarantee our customers the same performance we, we, we deliver to them on conventional vehicles, on those high performance vehicles. Given this, the differentiation we have with the competition, we feel very confident that this is a high success rate here. In fact, we, we already, as Luca was mentioning, got some awards. It was a great combination because the awards that we got were for high performance vehicles, but also, including low emission brake options, which are fully fitting the Euro 7 requirements that we'll have to face in two years. It's, it's also a great testing ground for this new technology.

Vlad Koshinsky (Equity Research Analyst)

That's, that's all great to hear. Appreciate it. I'll get back in the queue. Thanks. Good night.

Luca Martinotto (President and CEO)

Thank you, Vlad.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, Vlad. Our next question comes from Matt Summerville, from D.A. Davidson. Matt, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Matt Summerville (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Morning, Matt. Morning. Thank you. Morning. Couple questions. First, just on Friction OE, what sort of production outlook are you looking at for 2023? And maybe an early thought on how you're building your business plan around the 2024 production outlook. Regional color would also be helpful. And then, you know, maybe touch on, you know, 500 basis points of outperformance. I guess I thought you guys had talked about that gap maybe starting to close, but indeed, you know, you're still holding on to a pretty wide margin relative to global vehicle output. Maybe touch on that a little bit.

Luca Martinotto (President and CEO)

Sure. Thank you, Matt. Q1 and Q2 production have been, you know, a pleasant surprise because they were better than the original forecast. The first half is roughly +11% worldwide. When you look at the forecast for the full year, today is a mid-single digit. This is what IHS is saying, roughly 86.7 million vehicles produced. We tend to be more conservative, we are more on the low single digit worldwide, right? 84 million-85 million vehicle produced, we continuously expect to outperform that market growth. You ask about the region. We think that Europe is probably growing mid-single digits. Year to date, they grew 16% for H1. We think China is gonna be probably flattish, whereas North America is probably growing mid-single digits.

This is when it comes to, to the market and, and the region. As I said, we still expect to outperform. We are quoting 500 basis points in outperformance in Q2. I would say, the outperformance was outstanding in, in China. China did extremely well. I will, I will, talk a little bit about that in a second. We expect the outperformance to continue, Matt, because, we, we, we keep on winning a very fair share of new platforms. To give you an idea, we have been awarded 100% of the front axle and 100% of the rear axle of a major EU premium OEM EV platform. This is, for Friction, the largest award ever. The launch will be in 2025, and OE will last for 10 years.

OES will last for 20 years. Think about the visibility that you have on this platform. We, we won with BYD, we won, you know, the front axle of the Cybertruck with Tesla. We continue to see that electrification is really a tailwind for our outperformance in the future.

Matt Summerville (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

That's great. Appreciate all that color, Luca. Just maybe comment on the M&A pipeline actionability, what you're seeing from a multiple standpoint among the three business segments, maybe where you're seeing the most near-term activity, and maybe what your expectations are for incremental deals to close?

Luca Martinotto (President and CEO)

M&A, you know, you know we have built a strong M&A function. We continue to build the pipeline. We see some good, interesting opportunities move through the pipeline, and those range from the bolt-ons to larger scale transaction. We stay focused on the strategic fit and the asset quality, and I would say the area that we are making progress on, particularly because the pipeline is richer and because it's also our focus, are really in flow, which means pumps and valves and connectors.

Emmanuel Caprais (SVP and CFO)

From a multiple standpoint, I would say that we, that we see still pretty high multiples. I think it's difficult for sellers to give up on those high multiples that they had before. Then so that's why we pay real attention to the, the, the business case that are presented to us with those opportunities. And I think that we've been pretty successful in rationalizing those, those, those business case and really discussing with sellers the logic of those and, and, and in some cases, debunking also their ... us, because we wanna make sure that we stay close to the returns we've been able to provide so far.

Matt Summerville (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Thank you, guys. Appreciate it.

Luca Martinotto (President and CEO)

Thanks, Matt.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, Matt. Our next question comes from Mike Halloran, from Baird. Mike, your line is now open. Please proceed with your question.

Michael Halloran (Associate Director of Research)

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. two questions here. First, on the, on the margins for Motion, certainly you heard Emmanuel's comments about sequentially up as you move into 3Q. Maybe just talk about the timing of the recovery curve, given all the moving pieces on the, on the costs, volume, et cetera, side of things.

Emmanuel Caprais (SVP and CFO)

Mike, we're very excited with the Motion Technologies performance at 16%. You know, as we mentioned, this is 150 basis points over year prior year, and then 120 sequentially. There's still more to go after. You know, the growth engine in terms of margin expansion for Motion Tech is productivity, and it'll continue to be productivity. We see many more opportunities, especially as we grow rapidly our top line and expand into new types of products, new types of technology for our brake pad. Productivity. If you look at our rail platform, KONI and Axtone, we see many opportunities, both from a pricing standpoint and also a productivity standpoint.

Here in pricing, we have just scratched the surface, but there's still seeing all the impacts of pricing yet in our P&L. We're gonna continue to drive this, and with further margin expansion from KONI, Axtone as well as from Friction, we expect really Motion Technologies to be in a position sometime in 2024 to be at this 18% mark.

Michael Halloran (Associate Director of Research)

That's helpful. Appreciate it. Then following, you talked about a pretty robust funnel, just a little help on the composition of that funnel. In any way you can delineate between underlying, health of the underlying markets versus what's clearly some share gain going on in your efforts there?

Luca Martinotto (President and CEO)

Just a couple of stats. 38% year-over-year, and is up 11% since January 1st. Is across most of the region, is very strong in North America, is up. Also when you look at the market, we're talking about, you know, both up in the oil and gas, and the funnel is also up on the chemicals. I think if you look at our booking in terms of in project as is very, is very good, and today they represent roughly 33% of all the orders that we booked, we booked in projects. We have a good size of opportunities in the funnel there as well.

Michael Halloran (Associate Director of Research)

Great. Really appreciate it. Thanks.

Luca Martinotto (President and CEO)

Thanks, Mike.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Nathan Jones, from Stifel. Nathan, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Luca Martinotto (President and CEO)

Good morning.

Nathan Jones (Managing Director and Head of Industrials Research)

Things that have been asked. First one on the, the capacity addition, for MT.

... can you just give us a number for what capacity this is adding, and over what time period do you expect that to be filled up?

Emmanuel Caprais (SVP and CFO)

Anthony?

Luca Martinotto (President and CEO)

Okay. In, that's, you know, you're talking about that these are high-performing vehicles. These tend to be, you know, low volume, high mix, and they tend to be high value in terms of, of products. You're talking about, you know, anything that could go from 5 to maybe 10, maximum 15 million pads, probably in the next, let's say, 7-10 years.

Emmanuel Caprais (SVP and CFO)

So, and so in terms of capacity, you know, you know how we, how we operate. You know, we, we only book incremental capacity when we have our orders by more than 70%. So that's the infrastructure. Then we're gonna fill it up with new presses as we receive orders. We already started receiving some orders, especially from Porsche, and also from, from Daimler with the Mercedes-AMG segment. I think it's fair to say that There will be lower unitary volumes per platform. The price is gonna be much higher than what we're selling today. I would say our expectation from a profitability standpoint is that it'll be higher than our business with conventional brake pads.

Nathan Jones (Managing Director and Head of Industrials Research)

While we're at it, I was gonna get, ask for an update on the smart pad. I haven't heard an update on that for a while. Just any update you've got on the progress being made there?

Luca Martinotto (President and CEO)

Sure. The smart pad is part of, you know, the, the initiative that we have on the innovation. We have several projects going on on the smart pad. We have a smart, a, a project on one sensor, where we are working together with some, I would say, unconventional customers in terms of some fleet management, and look at that as a business opportunity different than the OEM side. Then we are working together with a couple of OEMs in Tier 1 on the three sensors. As you know, there are a lot of changes happening from a technology point of view on the, on the braking with autonomous vehicle, et cetera, and those are progressing well as well, Nathan.

Nathan Jones (Managing Director and Head of Industrials Research)

Thanks. Just one final one on the CCT destocking. Clearly, in industrials, we've seen, you know, a lot of destocking going on. People built too much inventory in 2022. Some places you're seeing end markets softening, lead times are coming down, supply chains are improving. There's multiple inputs on, on why destocking is happening. Do you have any color on, you know, how much of this is being driven by the fact that lead times are getting shorter, people maybe built too much inventory last year, versus actual softening of underlying demand, which, you know, pretty clearly is going on in parts of Europe?

Luca Martinotto (President and CEO)

I, I think that when we look at the at the destocking through the connectors in distribution, as Emmanuel said before, we are seeing that particularly on the European side, Nathan. North American distribution was incredibly strong in Q2, the area where we were strong was aero defense and also industrial in terms of orders. This is also thanks to the great job that the team has done in terms of enlarging the product portfolio that we are offering through the North American distribution. Distribution in North America and distribution worldwide, because exceptional performance in North America has been strong for CCT connectors in Q2.

Nathan Jones (Managing Director and Head of Industrials Research)

Great. Thanks very much for taking my questions.

Luca Martinotto (President and CEO)

Thanks, Nathan.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our last question today comes from Joe Giordano from TD Cowen. Joe, your line is now open. Please proceed.

Emmanuel Caprais (SVP and CFO)

Morning, Joe.

Zane Connell (Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, guys. Hey, morning, this is Zane Connell in for Joe Giordano. Congrats on the quarter, guys. My first question is on Motion Technologies, the 18% margin you guys mentioned. Just wanted to confirm how you guys view the sustainability of that margin. Like, do you view that as a run rate margin? I know there's some pricing still being worked through, but long term, how do you view that?

Emmanuel Caprais (SVP and CFO)

I, I think the 18% that we talked about is just the first step to get to our 20% target. You may remember that, that last year we committed to those targets, and for Motion Technologies, they were, they were 20% long term. I would say we feel pretty good about this 18% first step. We, we continue to drive productivity. We continue to drive pricing also, as I mentioned, especially in rail. I think that as aftermarket recovers next year, and we also have the platforms, the new platforms, with a better coverage in terms of cost inflation that are kicking into production next year and in 25, we feel that structurally, Motion Technologies will be at a higher level of profitability.

We have definitely good line of sight for that 18% in 2024, and then to build on that and get to our 2020, to our 20% long-term target in the next three to four years.

Zane Connell (Equity Research Analyst)

That's awesome. Thank you for that. Last question would be just on your backlog. You guys have currently, I think, $1.2. Broadly speaking, how much visibility or coverage do you guys think that provides into 2024?

Emmanuel Caprais (SVP and CFO)

Yeah, backlog has been a really strong data point for us. A really strong performance from a commercial standpoint. Our backlog in IP is almost $700 million. It's up $50 million in Q2 versus Q1. Think about that. We grew a revenue by almost 23% in IP, despite that, we were able to grow our backlog by $50 million. Here today we have 1.2 book-to-bill. Definitely we expect that with this level of backlog, we'll be able to grow in 2024 in IP. In CCT, we continue to also drive a lot of backlog accumulation.

Backlog was up $25 million versus Q1, 11% year-over-year, and the book-to-bill is at 1.15. Also here, really strong performance from a commercial aerospace standpoint. Here, you know, in commercial aerospace and in defense, we accumulate long-term backlogs, so this bodes well for CCT's revenue in 2024. As I mentioned in MT, backlog is mostly centered around rail and defense, and here we're accumulating also some strong orders. Overall, I would say, this definitely gives us really good line of sight for the second half, and also because of some of the long cycle awards that we got into 2024.

Luca Martinotto (President and CEO)

It's not just the size, but it's also the profitability of this backlog, which is better and higher than it was, as an example, one year ago.

Zane Connell (Equity Research Analyst)

That's awesome. Thank you very much.

Luca Martinotto (President and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you all. This does conclude today's teleconference. Please disconnect your lines at this time and have a wonderful rest of your day.