Mueller Water Products - Q1 2024

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Welcome and thank you for standing by. I would like to inform all participants that your lines have been placed on a listen-only mode until the question-and-answer session of today's call. Today's call is being recorded. If anyone has any objections, you may disconnect at this time. I would now like to turn the call over to Whit Kincaid. Thank you. You may begin.

Whit Kincaid (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on Mueller Water Products' first-quarter conference call. Yesterday afternoon, we issued our press release reporting results of operations for the quarter ended December 31st, 2023. A copy of the press release is available on our website, muellerwaterproducts.com. I'm joined this morning by Martie Zakas, our Chief Executive Officer, and Steve Heinrichs, our Chief Financial Officer and Chief Legal Officer. Following our prepared remarks, we will address questions related to the information covered on the call. As a reminder, please keep to one question and a follow-up, and then return to the cue. This morning's call is being recorded and webcast live on the internet. We have also posted slides on our website to accompany today's discussion. They also address forward-looking statements and our non-GAAP disclosure requirements. At this time, please refer to slide two.

This slide identifies non-GAAP financial measures referenced in our press release, on our slides, and on this call. It discloses the reasons why we believe that these measures provide useful information to investors. Reconciliations between non-GAAP and GAAP financial measures are included in the supplemental information within our press release and on our website. Slide three addresses forward-looking statements made on this call. This slide includes cautionary information identifying important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those included in forward-looking statements. Please review slides two and three in their entirety. During this call, all references to a specific year or quarter, unless specified otherwise, refer to our fiscal year, which ends the 30th of September. A replay of this morning's call will be available for 30 days at 1-888-566-0411.

The archived webcast and corresponding slides will be available for at least 90 days on the Investor Relations section of our website. I'll now turn the call over to Martie.

Martie Zakas (CEO)

Thanks, Whit. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our earnings call today. I'll start with a brief overview of our first-quarter performance. We delivered a solid start to the year as we expanded margins versus the prior-year quarter despite the expected decrease in net sales. First-quarter net sales, which exceeded the high end of our previously announced expectations, were down year-over-year as we lapped strong sales in the prior year, which benefited from elevated backlogs, mainly for iron gate valves and hydrants. Additionally, we believe that channel and customer inventory levels were largely normalized by the end of our first quarter. Our municipal end market remains resilient, and the new residential construction end market appears to be stabilizing relative to a challenging 2023. Our operating and corporate teams worked tirelessly to recover from the cybersecurity incident announced in October 2023.

We believe that there was a small impact to net sales, mainly associated with the timing of shipments for some specialty valve products. Our first-quarter results have been adjusted for the costs we incurred relating to the incidents. Going forward, we have made and expect to make further investments to strengthen our cybersecurity resources and processes, which are reflected in our annual SG&A guidance. I am grateful to our teams who worked tirelessly to support our customers and helped quickly return our business to normal operations. I am also grateful to our customers and vendors who likewise supported us during the aftermath of the incident. Our ability to expand gross margins despite lower volumes and the challenges associated with the cybersecurity incident reflects our improved execution and agility.

The team's focus on customer service and driving operational and supply chain efficiencies led to a 410 basis points improvement in gross margin compared with the prior year. During the first quarter, we benefited from labor and material efficiencies along with lower freight costs. We also benefited from price realization, which once again more than offset inflationary pressures. We generated strong operating cash flow in our first quarter, reflecting our improved execution and some benefit from the timing of payables resulting from delays caused by the cybersecurity incident. Our initial fiscal 2024 Adjusted EBITDA guidance reflects higher margins despite a forecasted decrease in net sales versus the prior year.

Our improving operational and commercial performance leads to our expectation that our consolidated gross margins will improve relative to the prior year, even though we face lower volumes resulting from lapping the elevated short-cycle backlog, mainly for iron gate valves and hydrants. We expect gross margin to continue to benefit from operational and supply chain efficiencies, which will help offset the headwinds from expected lower volumes. With price increases recently announced for the majority of our iron, specialty, and gas products, we anticipate that price realization will continue to more than cover ongoing inflationary pressures, including higher labor rates. Our teams remain focused on delivering the benefits from our strategic capital investments in specialty and large gate valves and service brass products. These products are poised to benefit from the increased federal infrastructure funding beyond fiscal 2024.

I am proud of our brass foundry operations teams as they continue to sequentially improve operations in the new foundry, which utilizes state-of-the-art equipment and a new sustainable lead-free alloy. We continue to ramp up volumes in our new brass foundry as we look to return to normalized lead times for all of our service brass products. We continue to target to have it running full steam by the end of calendar 2024. The external environment remains uncertain, especially considering the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

As a reminder, we have operations in Israel through our Krausz repair products business, which accounts for less than 10% of our consolidated sales. This did not have a material impact on our first-quarter results due to our strategic level of finished goods inventory for our Krausz repair products. However, we expect to see higher manufacturing and freight costs resulting from the war starting in our second quarter.

We have made incremental operational investments at Krausz to help ensure we meet customer demand. These include labor and supply chain investments to return to normalized production levels. These costs will be a headwind to our margins in fiscal 2024 as production levels ramp up. Our team in Israel has done a remarkable job adapting to the impacts of the war, and we will continue to support them in our business as the situation evolves. Overall, I am very pleased with our start to the year, especially considering the headwinds our teams faced during the quarter. We are on track to improve our gross margin for a second consecutive year despite expected lower overall volumes.

Our performance is a testament to the operational investments and improvements we've made over the past year as we look to deliver more consistent execution and further strengthen our customer service to drive future sales and margin growth. With that, I'll turn it over to Steve.

Steven Heinrichs (CFO and Chief Legal and Compliance Officer)

Thanks, Martie, and good morning, everyone. For the quarter, our consolidated net sales were $256.4 million, a decrease of 18.6% compared with the prior year. Although we exceeded our top-line guidance, net sales primarily decreased due to lower volumes at both Water Flow Solutions and Water Management Solutions, which were partially offset by higher pricing across most product lines. As a reminder, our iron gate valve and hydrant sales in the prior year quarter benefited from serving an elevated backlog. The backlog at quarter end for these products was down more than 80% versus the prior year. In the first quarter, gross profit of $86.3 million decreased 7.4% compared with the prior year. Gross margin of 33.7% increased 410 basis points compared with the prior year and reflects our highest quarterly gross margin in over two years. Benefits from higher pricing and improved manufacturing performance more than offset lower volumes.

This includes improved labor, material, and freight efficiencies. For the quarter, total SG&A expenses of $56.9 million were $6 million lower than the prior year. Compared with the prior year, the decrease was primarily driven by lower personnel-related and incentive costs and reduced third-party fees, partially offset by inflationary pressures and unfavorable foreign exchange expense. Operating income of $22.8 million decreased 32.9% in the quarter compared with the prior year. Operating income includes strategic reorganization and other charges of $6.6 million in the quarter, which have been excluded from adjusted results. This includes approximately $1.5 million of non-recurring expenses associated with the cybersecurity incidents, which Martie referenced earlier. This amount includes the expected benefit of insurance recoveries. Turning now to our consolidated non-GAAP results for the quarter. Adjusted operating income of $29.4 million decreased 3% compared with the prior year.

The benefits from higher pricing, favorable manufacturing performance, and lower SG&A expenses were more than offset by the decrease in volumes. Our adjusted operating margin improved 190 basis points to 11.5% compared with the prior year despite the lower volumes. Adjusted EBITDA of $44.8 million increased 1.4% in the quarter. Despite the expected lower volumes, our adjusted EBITDA margin improved 350 basis points to 17.5%. For the last 12 months, adjusted EBITDA was $202.7 million, or 16.7% of net sales, a 190 basis point improvement compared with the prior 12-month period. Net interest expense for the quarter declined $400,000 to $3.3 million compared with the prior year, primarily as a result of higher interest income. For the quarter, our effective tax rate was 15.4% as compared with 23.5% for the prior year.

The lower income tax rate in the quarter was primarily due to a $1.6 million income tax benefit associated with the expiration of an uncertain tax position that expired on December 31st, 2023. This tax benefit was offset by the release of a $1.6 million indemnification receivable in other expense. For the quarter, adjusted net income per diluted share of $0.13 was flat compared with the prior year. Turning now to quarterly segment performance starting with water flow solutions. Net sales of $141.3 million decreased 14.7% compared with the prior year. Lower volumes, mainly for iron gate and specialty valves, were partially offset by higher pricing across most of the segment's product lines. Net sales for iron gate valves were down double digits compared with the prior year, primarily due to normalized lead times.

As a reminder, iron gate valve sales in the prior year quarter had benefited from serving an elevated backlog. Specialty valves were also down double digits compared with the prior year, primarily due to production challenges, which were mainly caused by disruptions and delays related to the cybersecurity incident. Despite lower net sales, adjusted operating income of $27.4 million increased 13.2% in the quarter. The benefits from higher pricing, favorable manufacturing performance, and lower SG&A expenses more than offset lower volumes. Adjusted EBITDA of $36.7 million increased 15%, and adjusted EBITDA margin also improved 670 basis points to 26%. Turning to quarterly results for water management solutions. Net sales of $115.1 million decreased 22.9% compared with the prior year. Lower volumes, mainly in hydrants and water applications, were partially offset by higher pricing across most of the segment's product lines.

Net sales for hydrants were down double digits compared with the prior year, primarily due to normalized lead times, which, as a reminder, had benefited from serving an elevated backlog in the prior year quarter. Adjusted operating income of $15.1 million decreased 23% in the quarter. Benefits from higher pricing, favorable manufacturing performance, and lower SG&A expenses were more than offset by the lower volumes. Adjusted EBITDA of $22.1 million decreased 16.9%. However, adjusted EBITDA margin improved 140 basis points to 19.2%. Moving on to cash flow. Net cash provided by operating activities for the quarter was $67.9 million, an increase of $74.4 million compared with the prior year. This was primarily due to improvements in working capital compared with the prior year. This included a smaller increase in inventories, higher receivables collections, and an increase in payables, largely related to delays caused by the cybersecurity incident.

We expect the benefits from the increase in payables to reverse in the second quarter as those processes have normalized. During the quarter, we invested $5.7 million in capital expenditures, which is $4.2 million lower than the prior year quarter. The decrease was primarily due to the timing of spending on our new brass foundry in the prior year and some short-term delays related to the cybersecurity incident. Our free cash flow for the quarter increased $78.6 million to $62.2 million compared with the prior year, driven by higher cash from operations and lower capital spending. At the end of the first quarter, our total debt outstanding was $447.4 million, and we had cash and cash equivalents of $216.7 million. Our net debt leverage ratio was 1.1x at quarter end. As a reminder, we currently have no debt financing maturities before June 2029.

We did not have any borrowings under our ABL agreement at quarter end, nor did we borrow any amounts under our ABL during the quarter. I will now review our outlook for fiscal 2024. We are slightly improving our expectations for consolidated net sales. We now anticipate net sales to decrease between 2%-6% in fiscal 2024 as compared with the prior year. This takes into account our first quarter performance and recent pricing actions. As a reminder, we still expect year-over-year volume headwinds related to lapping the elevated short-cycle backlog, mainly for iron gate valves and hydrants, which decreased by nearly 90% in fiscal 2023. In addition to updating our net sales growth expectations, we are now providing initial guidance for fiscal 2024 Adjusted EBITDA. Despite lower forecasted volumes, we anticipate that our Adjusted EBITDA will increase between 3%-7% compared with the prior year.

Additionally, we expect our free cash flow as a percentage of adjusted net income to be more than 65% for fiscal 2024 as compared with 62.7% in fiscal 2023. With that, I'll turn it back to Martie for closing comments.

Martie Zakas (CEO)

Thanks, Steve. I want to highlight a few key items before opening it up for Q&A. Mueller plays a critical role in helping our customers deliver clean, safe drinking water to hundreds of millions of people. We wouldn't be where we are today without our dedicated team members, customers, and suppliers. Despite the external challenges we have faced, we remain focused on delivering value to our customers while also driving further efficiencies in our operations and supply chain. We continue to ramp up the new brass foundry and are committed to meeting our goal of having it running full steam by the end of calendar 2024. Mueller has been a trusted partner for water utilities for over a century. Our broad portfolio of products and solutions allows us to play a critical role in addressing the challenges and opportunities facing the water infrastructure industry.

The municipal water end market is poised to benefit from increased attention and investment towards addressing the aging water infrastructure. Our products, solutions, and large-capital projects position us to benefit from the infrastructure bill once funds begin to flow. With a solid start to the year, we are at an inflection point with our strategic investments and operational improvements that will expand margins. I am confident that the actions we are taking to execute our strategy will position us to deliver long-term, sustainable organic growth and margin improvements. That concludes my comments. Operator, please open this call for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now begin our question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one. Please unmute your phone and record your name slowly and clearly when prompted. Your name is required to introduce your question. Again, that is star one if you would like to ask a question. Our first question comes from Deane Dray with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Deane Dray (Managing Director and Multi-Industry and Electrical Equipment Equity Analyst)

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. That's a strong start to your fiscal year.

Martie Zakas (CEO)

Hey. Good morning, Deane.

Steven Heinrichs (CFO and Chief Legal and Compliance Officer)

Thank you.

Deane Dray (Managing Director and Multi-Industry and Electrical Equipment Equity Analyst)

Hey. Martie, you mentioned the new foundry progressing nicely. I'd love to get some more details there. The certification process, how many shifts are you running now and the expectation through the year? And what does that mean for outsourcing that you had to do while this ramp-up was happening? So give us a sense there. Thank you.

Martie Zakas (CEO)

Yeah. So overall, I think in terms of looking at where we are with respect to the new brass foundry, we are pleased with the continued ramp-up that we were seeing there. I think importantly, I want to hit the point that we're continuing to run the old brass foundry. And just as a quick reminder, part of the reason for that is we want to continue to bring down the backlog that we have with the service brass products that we have and we continue to meet the customer demand. But with respect to the new foundry, we are continuing to make improvements with the production level. We do have a couple of shifts that are running in that facility right now. We have some additional pouring equipment, part of the capital expenditures that we will still need to complete this year as well.

As we said, we expect to have it fully ramped up by the end of our calendar 2024. The new foundry will have higher capacity than the old foundry as well as greater efficiencies with respect to our old foundry. We'll remind you as well that the brass foundry not only supplies our service brass products, but it also is a source of supplying components for our iron gate valves as well as our fire hydrants. As part of this, I know we've talked about the outsourcing that we've done. As we are continuing to ramp up that foundry, it will also allow us to reduce some of the outsourcing that we have been doing.

Deane Dray (Managing Director and Multi-Industry and Electrical Equipment Equity Analyst)

Has that outsourcing reduction started? Just kind of is it maybe 1% versus last year?

Martie Zakas (CEO)

Yes. So absolutely, the outsourcing is coming down. It's one of the benefits that we have seen contributing to the gross margin improvement. And yes, I'd say that outsourcing is probably down over somewhere, let's say, in the range of 50%-60%.

Deane Dray (Managing Director and Multi-Industry and Electrical Equipment Equity Analyst)

All right. That's really good news. I'm glad you were able to size that for us. And second question, it was really interesting to hear about some of the resi business stabilizing. And that's consistent with what we're seeing on housing overall. And you're more exposed to these larger neighborhood development projects, and the supply looks pretty good there. So to the extent that you can kind of size for us where that stands, what the timing is in terms of the development of those properties that you're seeing today.

Martie Zakas (CEO)

So look, overall, in the guidance that we've given, we think the muni market has been fairly resilient. No question, 2023 was a challenging year for the residential construction market as well as land development. That certainly is reflecting the increase in interest rates and consequently, the mortgage rates as well, which have contributed to that. So we do think that after a challenging 2023 where you saw housing starts down about 9% in the last 12 months, we think we could start seeing some normalization as the single-family housing starts have been a little bit higher over the last couple of quarters. We do think that some of the home builders are benefiting from the inventories of developed lots, as you talk about.

But as we looked at the land development, we think there could still be some lingering headwinds there, certainly as they are continuing to face the higher interest rates as they consider their funding, as well as permitting challenges as well. Certainly, looking at the residential construction as well, looking across the U.S., I would say certainly not all regions are equal. We may see stronger activity in some as opposed to others. But overall, as we look to 2024, we think resi construction will be a little bit more of a headwind for us, but we could see some improvements as we look beyond 2025. But I think certainly where interest rates ultimately go will also be an influencing factor on that.

Deane Dray (Managing Director and Multi-Industry and Electrical Equipment Equity Analyst)

Terrific. It's not a question, just a comment. A shout-out to Steve and the team. That was fabulous free cash flow generation this quarter. Thanks.

Steven Heinrichs (CFO and Chief Legal and Compliance Officer)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Mike Halloran with Baird. Your line is open.

Pez Saini (Senior Research Analyst)

Hey. Good morning, everybody. You have Pez on for Mike. I want to go back to the outsourced brass. Obviously, healthy margin outperformance in the quarter. Can you maybe talk about how much of the reduction in outsourced brass was maybe a surprise and how much that's tracking versus expectations? I know you talked about the foundry timing being unchanged, but maybe it feels like a little bit of positive surprise in the quarter and maybe how you're thinking about that trending versus expectations we talked about back in November?

Martie Zakas (CEO)

Yeah. So I think let me see if I can overall hit that. I wouldn't use the word surprised in terms of looking at where we are. I think as we have identified the areas that we know that we can make improvements, I think certainly as the execution and the teams that we have on the supply chain side, as well as I'll say broadly, there are certainly less disruptions in the supply chain than we've seen if we look over the last couple of years. But I think with respect to the benefits that we've had from a performance, we have been just effective in improving our sourcing overall, which has contributed to that. And over time, it's allowed us, as we said, to bring back some of the outsourcing that we've done, bring back in-house, which has certainly helped as well.

I think the other piece, certainly in looking at the margin improvements that we have had, even though volumes were lower overall, the manufacturing performance, we have continued to see improvements there and efficiencies that have also helped. So I would say it's been a few things that we've seen. Certainly, we've had higher inflation, particularly with respect, I'd say particularly on the labor side. But I would say it's largely due to performance improvements with the achievements we've had from our operations team as well as our supply chain team.

Steven Heinrichs (CFO and Chief Legal and Compliance Officer)

Yeah. The supply chain team has done a really great job managing that and reducing that. And we do think that the improvement in outsourcing cost is one of the main reasons for our gross margin improvement. And we expect that to continue going forward.

Pez Saini (Senior Research Analyst)

Got it. That's helpful. Maybe switching gears here. In the DAC, you highlight capacity for M&A, and obviously, the balance sheet is in healthy shape. Can you maybe talk about how you think about management bandwidth for acquisition integration? Can you touch on the state of the current pipeline? And really, what I'm getting at is how heavy-handed are you having to manage the foundry transition at this point? And how much free time do you have for the M&A pipeline at this point?

Martie Zakas (CEO)

Yeah. So look, overall, and we've certainly talked about M&A over the years and continuing to look for the opportunities where we can broaden or deepen our product line, specifically within water and/or gas and/or related industries. I would say, let me start with the balance sheet and our capacity there. I think certainly the capital structure that we established a number of years ago certainly gives us flexibility as well as capacity. We talk about the overall capacity that we have not only with the cash that we have on hand but as well as additional liquidity that we have resulting from our asset-based lending agreement. So I think from that perspective, we continue to believe that we are very well positioned. From a management perspective, we continue to look for the opportunities that we think are going to be the right value-enhancing opportunities for our shareholders.

I would say from a bandwidth perspective, the management team does have the capacity and interest in looking for and then ultimately, when we find them, delivering on those M&A opportunities.

Pez Saini (Senior Research Analyst)

Great. Thank you. I appreciate it. I'll pass it on.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from Joe Giordano with TD Cowen. Your line is open.

Speaker 8

Hi. This is Zane on for Joe Giordano. Good morning.

Martie Zakas (CEO)

Good morning.

Steven Heinrichs (CFO and Chief Legal and Compliance Officer)

Good morning.

Speaker 8

I just wanted to touch base on you mentioned you're expecting price benefits for 2024. Could you compare that against what you're seeing for inflation and what the differential looks like? And what you've been seeing for inflation recently, has it stayed at relatively high levels, or is it continuing to normalize?

Steven Heinrichs (CFO and Chief Legal and Compliance Officer)

We expect a more normalized seasonality for our business. This year's lead times for the majority of our products have normalized. In this normalized inflationary pricing environment, we typically announce price increases in the spring as we have done. Historically, average price realization has been in the low single-digit range. We're pleased with our price realization to this point, which reflects the strength of our commercial team and our customer relationships. We think there's a more stable inflationary environment this year with most of the inflationary pressures coming from higher labor rates. We expect our price realization for the 2024 year to be in the low to mid-single-digit range. This includes our recently announced price increases on the majority of our iron, specialty, and gas products and some carryover pricing from prior periods.

As a reminder, we typically expect our price realization will continue to more than cover ongoing inflationary pressures, including higher labor rates.

Speaker 8

Thank you. That was very helpful. Just a separate question on your capital projects. Could you talk about the sequential spend across the year? Is it expected to be more towards the back half? When you're thinking about them ramping down and moving towards a more normalized free cash flow?

Martie Zakas (CEO)

I want to be clear. Your first question, I just want to make sure we heard it correctly. You wanted to talk about sort of the rate of capital expenditures through the year. I just want to make sure we heard it correctly. Can you talk about capital?

Speaker 8

Yes. Yes. That's correct.

Martie Zakas (CEO)

Okay. Okay. Very good. So I think first of all, overall, looking at capital expenditures, our guidance for the full year is $45 million-$50 million. We were certainly light in the first quarter. And I think as we shared in some of our opening comments, lighter in the first quarter, some of it is comparative relative to the brass foundry expenditures that we had last year. We also did experience probably some short-term delays that were related to the cybersecurity incident. That said, we're still looking for our guidance in the $45 million-$50 million range. We have talked about overall level of capital expenditures. It has been at a higher level in recent years, and that is because of the three large capital projects that have been underway.

As we said, we are closing to the finish line in terms of those expenditures, with the last being our brass foundry. Our expectations going forward are that capital expenditures will be less than 4% of net sales. So we do expect that we will continue to see the expenditure levels as a % of our net sales to decline. That said, I will certainly remind you that we are, by and large, a vertically integrated manufacturing business. We do have three large foundries because we are melting the iron for our hydrants, for our valves, our iron valves, as well as for our service brass products. And so certainly, we will always have a certain level of maintenance expenditures that we need to make as a result of the manufacturing processes and being vertically integrated.

Steven Heinrichs (CFO and Chief Legal and Compliance Officer)

Yep. As it relates to cash, we're obviously pleased with our strong first-quarter operating cash flow. It's obviously significantly higher than the prior period. This improvement was really due mostly to improvements in working capital management, a smaller increase in inventories, higher receivables collections, and an increase in payables. As you heard in our prepared remarks, just a reminder here that there was a benefit in the first quarter from payables as a result of delays caused by the cybersecurity incident, which affected some of our systems. We expect those benefits to reverse in our second quarter as our payable systems processes have now normalized. So we're pleased with that, the strong cash performance. I look forward to continuing that going forward.

Speaker 8

Great. Thank you so much. That was helpful.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one. Our next question comes from Walt Liptak with Seaport Research. Your line is open.

Walt Liptak (Industry Analyst)

Hi. Good morning, guys.

Martie Zakas (CEO)

Good morning, Walt.

Walt Liptak (Industry Analyst)

Morning. I wanted to ask a follow-up to Dean's question about the outsourcing. I want to make sure I heard this right. So with the outsourcing, you've reduced sort of that parallel cost by, I think you said, 60%-80%. Is that right?

Martie Zakas (CEO)

I said probably, let's say, around 50, maybe 50%-60%. But I think it's with we have as we look to the margin improvement that we've seen, I think certainly one of the reasons for that, and we talked about it, I think, last quarter, talking about it again this quarter, is we have been able to reduce our outsourcing expenditures, which are contributing to the margin improvements.

Walt Liptak (Industry Analyst)

Okay. And it sounds like some of the backlogs are down like 80%. So you've gotten through most of that past-due backlog. Do we see more of these outsourcing costs come out next quarter, or do we wait until year-end for that to wind down?

Martie Zakas (CEO)

So first of all, I think an important question that you've or comment that you've made in and around backlog. So with respect to our short-cycle backlog or the products that have a short-cycle backlog, it's typically our iron gate valves, our fire hydrants, and our service brass products. And when we look at our iron gate valves and we look at our fire hydrants, those two products, we would say when we look at lead times, we are really pretty much back to normal. And the elevated levels of backlog essentially are eliminated at this point. We still do have a higher-than-normal backlog level for our service brass products. We reduced that somewhat in the first quarter. And we are working to continue to reduce those backlog levels to get to sort of the normalized short-cycle backlogs as we work through the balance of our 2024.

We did make a meaningful improvement in that in our first quarter as well. The corollary question that you're asking in and around the outsourcing costs, I know in past calls, we have commented that that has been one of the contributing factors to the higher cost levels that we have. I think as we are improving the production levels at our new brass foundry as well as with the less disruptions on the supply chain and, importantly, the work of our supply chain team, we are continuing to see improvements with the outsourcing costs that we have had. We've seen some meaningful improvements there. I think we can continue to see more generally moving forward.

Walt Liptak (Industry Analyst)

Okay. That sounds good. Thank you for that. I just wanted to back up to the SG&A cost reduction that's been going on for the last couple of quarters. Are we done with the actions taken, and are we seeing full benefits now from the SG&A cost cuts?

Steven Heinrichs (CFO and Chief Legal and Compliance Officer)

Yeah. And good question. During the third quarter of last year, as you know, we restructured our sales department organization and streamlined other areas of our organization to bring our business teams closer to our customers. We took additional actions to streamline our other G&A expenses, including at corporate, which includes some of the support function roles. And we are tracking to achieve the $25 million in SG&A savings that we highlighted previously and achieved a big chunk of those in 2023. As a reminder, we do see inflation in SG&A going forward. And it's probably going to be in the range of around 5%. So when you start to compare prior periods, please realize that there is inflation in SG&A.

Walt Liptak (Industry Analyst)

Okay. Okay. Thanks for that. And then last one is just on the leadership transition. Is there anything that you can tell us? Any timing? Is the search still going on, or have things wrapped up?

Martie Zakas (CEO)

So yeah. We do not have any updates to share at this time. Our board is focused both on the board refreshment piece as well as the CEO search process. As they said, they have retained an executive search firm. They're considering both internal and external candidates, but they have not announced a timeline for this process.

Walt Liptak (Industry Analyst)

Okay. Great. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our last question comes from Bryan Blair with Oppenheimer. Your line is open.

Bryan Blair (Managing Director and Senior Analyst of Industrial Machinery and Flow Control)

Thank you. Good morning, everyone.

Martie Zakas (CEO)

Hey. Good morning.

Bryan Blair (Managing Director and Senior Analyst of Industrial Machinery and Flow Control)

To drill down a little more on price-cost trends, it's been favorable for a bit. You have momentum there. Are you willing to parse out the price-cost impact from fiscal 1Q and what is directly contemplated in guidance as of now?

Martie Zakas (CEO)

Yes. Let me try to hit on your question. So let me talk on price first. And some of this, I think, goes back over the cycle that we have just lived through, and I think have gotten on the other side. With the extraordinary levels of inflation that we experienced largely starting in 2022 and 2023, the supply chain disruptions, all of that, I know that we talked for a while and I'm going back a few years now, I think, to give you the context. But we were, for a while, upside down with respect to the price inflationary costs. And we implemented, certainly, a series of price increases.

And as we stated throughout that time period, the objective was to recover, if you will, sort of the inflationary costs, get on the other side of that, and then ultimately continue to have the pricing more than covering the inflationary costs that we are experiencing. I think now we are in a more normalized inflationary and pricing environment. So we're sort of at this point, we're beyond what we experienced. We did announce that we just put in a price increase for our iron specialty and gas products. From an inflation perspective, we are probably seeing the most inflation with respect to labor costs as we look at that as a factor going on.

But with more stability in the inflationary environment, we think that we can have that as we look ahead. At this point, we feel that the pricing that we are forecasting will more than cover what we could see with respect to inflation and, importantly, preserve margins.

Steven Heinrichs (CFO and Chief Legal and Compliance Officer)

Yeah. That is in our sales and guidance. We do expect the improved manufacturing performance that's been demonstrated and the pricing vis-à-vis inflation that Marietta just referred to offset lower volumes that we're also guiding to. Hopefully, that's helpful to you.

Bryan Blair (Managing Director and Senior Analyst of Industrial Machinery and Flow Control)

Yeah. Appreciate the color. As a follow-up, you've called out that over time, IIJA spending should be a catalyst for your business. And there are a few areas in which that's identifiable, but likely fiscal 2025 and beyond, and that's understood. There are some areas of spending, front-end kind of work, where I suspect you are participating to some extent. What sticks out to me is Echologics with the pipe condition assessment work that you can do to help with LSL mapping and planning. Has that been a catalyst for Echologics to date, or is that expected to ramp as that front-end work intensifies?

Martie Zakas (CEO)

Yeah. I would say specifically with respect to Echologics, I can't tell you that we haven't seen the infrastructure bill be a catalyst for Echologics. And as we said, we really don't feel that from what we're seeing, we don't expect to see much impact from the infrastructure bill in 2024. And look, I think part of this is just appreciating that sometimes the devil is in the details on these items. And certainly, we are very positive on the bill long term. We love certainly the focus that you see with the dollars that will be allocated to water infrastructure.

But currently, what is going through is just sort of the governmental process as you have to work through various government agencies, which not only include the EPA, they can include, let's say, DOT, HUD, and others just to put specification around the provisions that have to be met for the projects that then receive the funding. So look, overall, we think it is going to be beneficial to us, but we just don't expect to see any meaningful impact in our fiscal 2024. I will highlight that given the nearer-term focus that the administration has certainly put on the lead and copper and lead service line replacement, that one of the products that we sell, the service brass products, are generally needed in conjunction with the lead service line replacement.

Steven Heinrichs (CFO and Chief Legal and Compliance Officer)

Yeah. As part of the infrastructure bill, nearly $12 million was deployed to that program. And the inventory that the municipalities are required to complete is due at the well, really, the start of our fiscal 2025 at the end of this calendar 2024. So those benefits will start coming in when those lines start getting replaced.

Martie Zakas (CEO)

Yeah. It's actually $15 billion, I think, that was the Lead Service Line replacement and $12 billion in other areas of water infrastructure. Yeah.

Steven Heinrichs (CFO and Chief Legal and Compliance Officer)

That's correct. As $55 billion going into the industry is always a good bill.

Bryan Blair (Managing Director and Senior Analyst of Industrial Machinery and Flow Control)

All understood. Appreciate the detail there.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. At this time, we have no further questions.

Martie Zakas (CEO)

Very good. Well, look, thank you all again for joining us today. While we are very pleased with our first quarter, it's early in the year, and there does remain a great deal of uncertainty in the external environment. But our team members have done exceptional work overcoming some of the recent external challenges. And I am really confident that we are better equipped to navigate any outside of our control. Mueller is at an inflection point. We have made meaningful strategic investments and operational improvements today. We are well-positioned, as we just discussed, to benefit from the tailwinds for the increased investment in the water infrastructure. And we have the capabilities to help municipalities address their accelerating challenges. We are on a path to continue increasing our margins, improving our operational performance, and enhancing the position that we have with our customers, suppliers, and employees.

We thank you for your continued interest in Mueller. Operator, with that, we can conclude the call.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. That concludes today's conference. Thank you for participating. You may disconnect at this time.