SPX Technologies - Q1 2023

Transcript

Eugene Lowe III (President and CEO)

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the SPX Technologies Q1 2023 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone.

You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being co-recorded. I would like now to turn to hand the conference over to Paul Clegg, VP of Investor Relations and Communications.

Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)

Thank you, Operator, and good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us. With me on the call today are Gene Lowe, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Mark Carano, our Chief Financial Officer. A press release containing our Q1 2023 results was issued today after market close. You can find the release in our earnings slide presentation as well as a link to a live webcast of this call in the investor relations section of our website at spx.com.

I encourage you to review our disclosure and discussion of GAAP results in the press release and to follow along with the slide presentation during our prepared remarks. A replay of the webcast will be available on our website until 11 May. As a reminder, portions of our presentation and comments are forward-looking and subject to Safe Harbor provisions. Please also note the risk factors in our most recent SEC filings.

Our comments today will largely focus on adjusted financial results, and comparisons will be to the results of continued operations only. You can find detailed reconciliations of historical adjusted figures to their respective GAAP measures in the appendix to today's presentation.

Our adjusted earnings per share exclude primarily acquisition and strategic transformation costs, non-service pension items, mark-to-market changes, amortization expense, and a gain on the change in the value of an equity security. Finally, we will be conducting meetings with investors over the coming months, including at the William Blair growth stock conference in Chicago on June seventh. With that, I'll turn the call over to Gene.

Eugene Lowe III (President and CEO)

Thanks, Paul. Good afternoon, everyone, thank you for joining us. On the call today, we'll provide you with an update on our consolidated and segment results for the Q1. We'll also provide an update on our full year guidance for 2023 and our recent M&A activity. Our Q1 results exceeded our expectations and were the strongest for our Q1 in more than a decade.

This performance is driven by a combination of a high starting backlog, continued demand strength across our end markets, and efficient execution by our teams, which is helped by more stable supply chain and labor conditions. Strong performances in both segments helped drive revenue growth of approximately 30%. HVAC in particular had very strong results, achieving segment margin of 19%, the highest ever for a Q1.

In April, we announced the closing of one acquisition in our HVAC cooling platform. More recently, we announced an agreement to acquire a two company in our HVAC heating platform. Together, we expect these acquisitions to add more than $170 million in run rate revenue and to enhance the margin and growth rate of our HVAC segment. I'll speak about these acquisitions in a moment.

Considering our strong performance in the acquisition of TAMCO, we are raising our full year 2023 guidance for adjusted EPS to a range of $3.80 to $3.95, reflecting year-over-year growth at the midpoint of approximately 25%. I'm pleased to say that with TAMCO, our revenue guidance for our HVAC segment is now more than $1 billion, a new milestone for our company. Turning to our high-level results.

For the quarter, both HVAC and Detection & Measurement grew revenue by more than 30% organically. Adjusted operating income grew 132% year-on-year, with 640 basis points of margin expansion reflecting the strong segment results. I'm very pleased with our Q1 performance and our positioning for the remainder of 2023.

As you look ahead, we continue to see solid demand across our end markets. With a strong backlog, robust order trends, and operational momentum in our plants, I feel confident in our ability to achieve our updated guidance and to continue progressing towards our SPX 2025 targets. As always, I'd like to touch on progress in our value creation framework. During Q1, our teams worked hard to drive efficiencies in our plants and accelerate delivery times to our customers, reflecting the benefits of our continuous improvement initiatives.

We also continue to introduce our customers to the benefits of our new digital tools and software applications that can significantly reduce labor in the field, improve quality, and streamline planning and workflow, which enhances customer experience and loyalty. This includes our CUES AI-enabled GraniteNet software, which helps customers with the inspection and condition assessment of water and wastewater assets, and Weil-McLain's ProTools app, which helps field technicians solve problems on-site, eliminating the need for multiple site visits.

We've also made significant progress on our inorganic growth initiative. On 3 April, we announced the acquisition of TAMCO, and this week we announced an agreement to acquire ASPEQ Heating Group. TAMCO is a market leader in motorized and non-motorized dampers that control airflow in large-scale specialty applications in commercial, industrial, and institutional markets.

They are well-known for eco-friendly solutions with very low levels of airage in critical thermal applications such as data centers and healthcare facilities. TAMCO further extends our positioning in the attractive engineered air movement market within our cooling platform. We see significant opportunities for further growth in this market by combining TAMCO's high-quality solutions with SPX Technologies' global footprint, marketing and channel infrastructure, and existing air movement offerings.

TAMCO has annual revenue of more than $50 million, and its anticipated margins and revenue growth rate are higher than the HVAC segment average. This week, we announced an agreement to acquire ASPEQ Heating Group, which provides electrical heating solutions for high-value applications in industrial and commercial markets. We anticipate that ASPEQ will have run rate revenue of more than $120 million in 2023, with higher than average margins.

The closing of this transaction is subject to antitrust regulatory approval, and we currently anticipate completion of the transaction in late Q2. This will be our largest acquisition since the spin and will more than double the size of our electric heating product revenue, an area where we see attractive growth opportunities, including decarbonization.

Through the combination of ASPEQ with our Marley Engineered Products business, we see multiple opportunities to drive value for our customers, including more efficient distribution channels, voice of customer-led innovation, digital tools, and the development of next-generation eco-friendly products. I am very excited about the positioning and growth opportunities that both TAMCO and ASPEQ create for our HVAC segment, which I believe will provide significant value for our customers and shareholders alike. Now I'll turn the call over to Mark to discuss our financial results in more detail.

Mark Carano (VP, CFO and Treasurer)

Thanks, Gene. It was an outstanding quarter. In Q1, our adjusted EPS grew 133% year-over-year to $0.93. The adjustments from GAAP results covered earlier by Paul are consistent with our historical practice. Overall, revenues increased 30.2% year-over-year, including 30.6% organic growth, with strength in both our HVAC and Detection & Measurement segments.

The acquisition of ITL in April 2022 contributed modest inorganic growth, and FX was a headwind of 1.1%. Segment income grew by $34.8 million, or 88% to $74.4 million, while margin increased 570 basis points. These increases were driven by strong operational performances in HVAC and Detection & Measurement. Price cost remained a margin tailwind in both segments, due primarily to our pricing actions over the last 12 months.

For the quarter, in our HVAC segment, revenues grew 30.3% year-over-year. Heating and cooling both contributed to organic growth of 30.9%, driven by a balanced contribution of increased volume and price in both platforms. FX was a modest headwind. During the quarter, we continued to drive strong throughput in our plants, particularly in cooling, as a result of process improvement, favorable operational execution, and a more stable supply chain and labor conditions.

Segment income increased by $27.1 million, and margin increased 830 basis points, reflecting operating leverage on higher volumes and favorable price cost trends. In Q1, we also experienced an incrementally higher mix of aftermarket parts sales in our cooling business, which benefited our segment income margin.

By comparison, in the prior year quarter, we experienced headwinds related to supply chain, labor, and price cost. Bookings remained strong despite the historically high Q1 HVAC sales. Segment backlog increased again this quarter, up modestly year-over-year to $270 million and up 11% sequentially from Q4.

For the quarter, in Detection & Measurement, revenues grew 30% year-over-year. Organic growth of 30.1% was driven by increases across all of our platforms, but was particularly strong in our project-focused businesses, CommTech and Transportation. The acquisition of ITL contributed inorganic growth of 1.8%, and FX was a headwind of 1.9%. Segment income increased by $7.7 million, and margin expanded 130 basis points.

We continue to experience solid run rate demand and a strong environment for project sales. Segment backlog at quarter end was $245 million, up 60% year-over-year, primarily due to large project orders in CommTech and Transportation.

Turning now to our financial position at the end of the quarter. Our balance sheet remains strong, and we have significant liquidity available to support our strategic growth initiatives. At quarter end, we had cash of $213 million, including $67 million from borrowings under our credit facilities to fund the closing of the TAMCO acquisition, which took place after the end of the quarter. Net leverage remained at 0.4x. On a pro forma basis for TAMCO, net leverage was 0.8x.

With the anticipated closing of the acquisition of ASPEQ in Q2, we have amended our credit agreement to include an incremental $300 million term loan based on similar terms to our existing credit facility. We expect to draw on this facility to fund the acquisition.

Following closing, we would expect our leverage ratio to increase to approximately two times by the end of the Q2, and then subsequently decline to approximately 1.5 times by year-end, as we typically generate the bulk of our annual cash flow in the second half of the year. In line with typical seasonal patterns, adjusted free cash flow was a nominal use for the quarter. As we noted last quarter, we expect to return to a more normalized run rate of cash generation for the full year 2023. Moving on to our guidance.

We are increasing our 2023 guidance for adjusted EPS to a range of $3.80 to $3.95. The new midpoint reflects a year-on-year growth of approximately 25%. In our HVAC segment, we now anticipate revenues in excess of $1 billion or a year-on-year increase at the midpoint of approximately 14%.

Segment income is anticipated to be in the range of 17.25% to 18.25% or a year-on-year increase of approximately 300 basis points at the midpoint. The anticipated strong revenue and margin performance in HVAC reflects a combination of continued solid demand trends, a high starting backlog, improved pricing, strong operational execution at the plant level in both heating and cooling, and the acquisition of TAMCO, which has higher than segment margins.

In our Detection & Measurement segment, we anticipate modestly higher revenue in a range of $570 to 590 million or a year-on-year increase of approximately 6%. We continue to anticipate full year segment income margin in a range of 20.5% to 21.5%.

With respect to the cadence of the quarters, we expect the year to be modestly second half-weighted, with Q4 being our highest quarter for adjusted EPS, as is typically the case. We would expect Q2 earnings to be sequentially lower than Q1, but up year-on-year. We currently anticipate closing the ASPEQ acquisition in late Q2, subject to antitrust clearance. Once closed, we intend to update our full year 2023 guidance to reflect the transaction.

Including the impact of increased interest costs associated with financing the acquisition, we would expect ASPEQ to be modestly accretive to the second half of 2023 and increasingly accretive in subsequent periods as we grow the business and reduce debt with cash generation. As always, you'll find modeling considerations in the appendix to our presentation. I'll now turn the call back over to Gene for a review of our end markets and his closing comments.

Eugene Lowe III (President and CEO)

Thanks, Mark. Current market conditions remain supportive of our outlook for the remainder of 2023. Across our HVAC businesses, supply chain and labor have been more stable overall. In HVAC cooling, we continue to see growing demand for our products in North America and the APAC region.

In our heating business, bookings remain steady, driven by commercial and industrial demand and residential replacements. In Detection & Measurement, our run rate demand is solid overall with some regional variations, while the environment for project orders remains strong. In summary, I'm pleased with our very strong start to the year. I am excited about the significant opportunities we see to drive value through our recently announced acquisitions and continued execution on our key initiatives.

With a strong backlog and good operational momentum, I feel confident in our updated full year guidance, which reflects approximately 25% year-on-year growth at the midpoint. With our highly capable, experienced team, I look forward to continuing to drive towards our SPX 2025 targets and executing on our value creation roadmap for years to come. With that, I'll turn the call back to Paul.

Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)

Operator, we are ready to go to questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. At this time, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Damian Karas with UBS.

Damian Mark Karas (Senior Equity Research Analyst and Executive Director)

Hey, good evening, everyone.

Eugene Lowe III (President and CEO)

Good evening.

Mark Carano (VP, CFO and Treasurer)

Good evening.

Damian Mark Karas (Senior Equity Research Analyst and Executive Director)

Really nice work, I have to say, looking like the best result and outlook update I've seen this earnings season. Gene, maybe we could just start with the so you made some brief comments on just some market trends. Maybe you could just You know, elaborate on that and talk to us about the order trends, you know, you've seen as you kind of moved from the Q1 into April. You know, you highlighted some areas where there's stable orders or maybe still up are there any pockets where you may be seeing things flip at all, or generally speaking, you know, just overall order expansion to date?

Eugene Lowe III (President and CEO)

Yeah, sure, Damian. I think, overall, we feel really good about what we're seeing across our platforms. The way that I think about it, I'll break it down to the platform if you start at HVAC cooling, which is our largest platform, we just feel really good about the demand drivers there. As you saw, we had a very strong quarter there, we actually grew our backlog. We just, I believe, we're very well positioned there. I would say the one area of lightness there would be in commercial office buildings.

That's a relatively smaller portion of our business new commercial might be around 5%. If you look at a lot of the other markets, I'll highlight data center, battery storage, semiconductor, not to mention institutional and education we're just seeing very strong drivers there.

With that, we feel very good about 2023 and frankly, very good about 2024. As I think about heating is starting to get back to its more normal cadence, where we're largely, you know, we're getting to more similar lead times, and we're in a market that will grow. In the winter, you know, winter, the weather will have an impact on us, whereas last year, you know, we had so much backlog, it was just getting the product out the door overall, we're seeing, as we've talked about previously, we've seen some nice share shift i think our products are winning in that market.

We talked about the Ecostream last year and the success we're having on that. Yeah, we're feeling very positive about the heating business as well, which, you know, is a heavy replacement market. If you look at detection and measurement, the way we usually think about this is really the projects and the run rate business the projects are about 1/3, run rate's about 2/3.

The project strength is very strong, we feel very good about what we're seeing for 2023 and frankly, looking into 2024, across all of our platforms there on the run rate, I would say it's steady. There's some pockets that are stronger. There's some pockets that are a little bit flatter would say continental Europe's a little bit flatter. That's pretty small portion of our business.

You know, with what we see today, we feel very good about the demand profile for this year. Even, you know, as we think early about looking into 2024, I like the backlog we're building and the wins that we're getting, particularly in these large projects. With what we're seeing, we're feeling positive. Mark or Paul, if you guys have anything you'd like to add to this overview.

Mark Carano (VP, CFO and Treasurer)

No, I think you largely covered it, Gene.

Eugene Lowe III (President and CEO)

Okay.

Mark Carano (VP, CFO and Treasurer)

Sentiment is positive really across the board.

Damian Mark Karas (Senior Equity Research Analyst and Executive Director)

That's really helpful insight. You guys have obviously been quite busy on the deal front. If you had to boil things down, what would you say drew you most to TAMCO and ASPEQ, and how do you foresee them integrating with your business? Just thinking about potential cross-selling opportunities or cost savings.

Eugene Lowe III (President and CEO)

Sure. Sure, I'll start. As you know, Cincinnati Fan was acquired last year. Very good business we're very pleased with what we're calling the engineered air movement business. TAMCO fits very nicely right next to Cincinnati Fan, and then Strobic is the other brand. We actually see some nice opportunities there, you know, with regards to cost synergy, shared procurement, how we do things there. There's also a really nice customer overlap, in particular with Strobic.

Strobic serves very much of the similar channels as TAMCO, which tend to be the more, the harder, you know, the more, the higher performance applications so those would be things where they have thermal requirements, low leakage levels these are things like data centers, healthcare, pharmaceutical, and that has a high amount of overlap with our Strobic business.

You know, the reason we're bringing these this will be managed by the same business unit. The leader who's responsible for Cincinnati Fan and Strobic will now also be responsible for TAMCO we see some really nice synergies on the cost side, but more importantly, we see some really nice opportunities on the growth side. We're very excited about TAMCO. We think it's a really nice addition to the team. With regards to ASPEQ has been our number one target in our heating business since the time of the spin this is a really good business.

We really like the team. We really like their positioning. It's a high margin, high growth business they have very strong competitive positions. They have great brands. INDEECO is the trade brand there that is very well known in the market. Interestingly, they have a very nice mix of commercial and industrial. Industrial is actually larger there. Their product lines are largely complementary we don't overlap with them a lot, we're very little.

They have a great ESG story because electric heat is really growing at the expense of steam and gas heat, you're seeing that more and more we believe ASPEQ is very well positioned in that market, we think that's gonna, you know, allow it to grow faster. They have very customized products. They, you know, they don't sell kinda just a standard off the shelf product very often a lot of what they do is work with a customer, get a engineered product for them, and become the basis of design oftentimes with larger OEMs. What this means is you get a lot of recurring revenue.

You know, when you look at it, We think it's a great fit for us. We're very excited for both TAMCO and ASPEQ. I will highlight, TAMCO obviously is closed. ASPEQ is, we've signed a definitive agreement, but that's in Hart-Scott-Rodino review right now we would anticipate that really being closed, you know, assuming things stay on track by towards the end of Q2 at that point in time, we plan on giving a, you know, having a call and diving into a little bit more details here, how this all fits together overall--

-we're very pleased with these businesses. You know, I think one of the questions we've had is, well, what does this do to your debt? You know, how do you think about your balance sheet? You know, as Mark pointed out in our prepared remarks.

This would move us up to about two times net debt, probably a little bit below that, and then 1.5% or less by the end of the year as we've always stated, our target range is 1.5% to 2.5%, and we feel very comfortable in that range. We feel very good about where we are, and we think that these two businesses are very aligned with our strategy and are really gonna strengthen our platforms.

Damian Mark Karas (Senior Equity Research Analyst and Executive Director)

Thanks for all that color. I'll pass it along.

Mark Carano (VP, CFO and Treasurer)

Thanks, Damian.

Operator (participant)

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Bryan Blair with Oppenheimer.

Bryan Blair (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you. Good evening, guys.

Eugene Lowe III (President and CEO)

Hey, Bryan.

Mark Carano (VP, CFO and Treasurer)

Hey, good evening.

Bryan Blair (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Fantastic start to the year, I'm wondering if you can offer a little more color on how we should think about the revenue and earnings seasonality going forward, just given the, you know, the outsized nature of the Q1 beat and, you know, kind of netting to your revised revised framework. Particularly curious about, you know, HVAC given, you know, just really standout performance from the segment in Q1.

Mark Carano (VP, CFO and Treasurer)

Yeah. I'll start, Bryan. Maybe I'll start with HVAC just first because, it was such a strong performance in the quarter. You know, it's interesting, you look back to Q4, we had very strong performance in HVAC then, and the business was really kinda starting to hit on all cylinders, given some things I'll talk about in a minute really turning that corner, I think, as we looked into Q1, you know, our sense was, some of that may or may not have been durable. It turned out to be the case.

You know, I think about the labor environment and the supply chain environment that we were facing earlier in the year that began to improve we didn't really feel like we were out of the woods in Q4, but I think it has continued to stabilize, at least for the time being. We've been doing a lot of work.

We've talked about some of the capital that we're deploying incrementally higher than prior years to really improve, really across all the platform, but cooling is an area of particular focus and some of the CI efforts that we have employed there that are driving what I would call structural cost improvements in the business. That combined with, you know, the pricing actions from last year, creating a price cost benefit to us, really set us up for, you know, frankly, a very strong Q1.

There was a unique dynamic that I referenced in my prepared comments around some aftermarket work that we had in that quarter, and we've kind of circled that at about $4 million of operating income or segment income, if you will, of a benefit. You know, that was something that probably isn't gonna recur again throughout the year that's sort of a unique opportunity where we had some SPXC and some aftermarket opportunities there, which were fairly substantial and related to some large projects.

If you kind of pro forma that out, you've got a quarter that looks from a margin perspective, very similar, I think, to where our guidance is for the full year, call it in the 17.5% range. If you kind of take that and then you look forward to the full year and you know, what we're guiding there, you know, I would say, listen, I think our view is it's pretty balanced. We've tried to kind of weigh both the risks and the opportunities that are out there. We feel good about the cooling business and the performance. I think that will continue to be strong throughout the year.

You know, the heating business, you know, our backlog there has normalized, which actually is a good thing. We're back to more of a steady state. The flip side of that is that we're gonna largely be tied to the heating season that will take place, you know, here in late Q3 and into Q4. Depending on those trends, that will drive that business.

You know, with D&M, you know, while we're in a good position with respect to our project businesses and the opportunity there, you know, part of that business is short cycle in nature, right? It is sensitive to the kind of the near term economic environment. I think we're being, you know, cautiously optimistic around that business as we look at the back half of the year. Hopefully that gives you some color as to how we think about the full year and particularly the second half.

Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)

Yeah, I'll just jump in with a little bit of modeling help here. As we said on the call, the Q4 as is typical, will be the largest quarter. That's in part because of higher heating revenue, as Mark and Gene referenced earlier of course, last year, we were more we had a lot of backlog. We were not dependent on the weather when you do the year-over-year comparisons, when we set guidance for the full year, we are going to, in our model, assume a more normalized long-term winter in the Q4 of this year.

The only other thing I would add is that as you look at the detection and measurement, quarters, we would look for a similar margin progression to what we saw last year in 2022, where some of the mix of projects and of, let's call it, the timing of certain projects that have more margin associated with them, are realized closer to the back half of the year, or more in the back half of the year.

Bryan Blair (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, very helpful. Sorry if I missed the detail, but what is being baked into the updated guide for Tamco accretion in the back half? Similarly, if, you know, ASPEQ closes on, you know, on time by the end of the Q2, perhaps quantify the modest accretion there. Then most importantly, looking forward, what's a, you know, a full combined, you know, year one accretion run rate and with some debt pay down and the actions that your team has planned, you know, a year or two lift from the acquisitions?

Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)

Yeah, Bryan, for the TAMCO part of it, $0.10, and I think if you just kind of run rate that across three quarters, that's fine that's gonna include obviously some interest cost impacts over those quarters. With respect to the combined businesses, we're going to hold off on giving more detail on this. We did say modest when it came to ASPEQ, and we'll get into more detail about that i think one thing that we could say to give you a more magnitude here of the overall impact of these two acquisitions.

Once we close on the ASPEQ transaction and it becomes part of SPX, the combined annualized EBITDA for those two businesses, for TAMCO and ASPEQ together, would be approximately $45 to 47 million. That, you know, as I think you picked up from our press releases, we'd also expect a combined growth rate of above the company average.

Bryan Blair (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Understood. Appreciate the color there and then last one. You know, sounds like, you know, both sides, detection measurement, your run rate business and project, you know, trending well, near-term outlook is positive. If we look later in the year and into, you know, 2024 and likely 2025 and beyond, you know, where should we see infrastructure spending read through as a catalyst for the businesses? In what sequence is it reasonable to expect that?

Mark Carano (VP, CFO and Treasurer)

You know, I think, Bryan, you know, the infrastructure spending is sort of interesting. We are just, I think, on the front end of seeing some of those dollars come through. My expectation is we'll really begin to see that at the back half of this year and into 2024 we are seeing some of those dollars in, let's just say, for example, our Transportation business. I think one of the dynamics with all these dollars that I think everyone is seeing, the money's been allocated, it's available, but, you know, if there's not a project ready to go.

You know, there's nothing there to use those dollars in the near term. It's probably been a little bit more delayed relative to maybe what everybody has thought. You know, in sum, I think it's probably the back half of this year and into 2024 is when we'll really see that benefit.

Bryan Blair (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Understood. Thank you again.

Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

One moment as we bring up our next question. Our next question comes from Lawrence De Maria with William Blair.

Lawrence De Maria (Research Analyst and Group Head of Global Industrial Infrastructure)

Hey, thanks. Good afternoon, everybody. Just staying on the, on the deal questions there, obviously begs the question after two deals here, one obviously hasn't closed yet. Are we in a holding and digest pattern? Also, is there, you know, does D&M become a priority at this point? Just kind of curious about the cadence going forward.

Eugene Lowe III (President and CEO)

Yeah, Larry, I'll start there. I think, you know, we've always said we really like... You know, our portfolio has changed quite a bit over the years and where we sit today, we really like both segments. Our six platforms. you know, we have done a lot more D&M deals you typically see smaller deals, but more of them. We really like these both of these HVAC opportunities if I were to think about your question, the way that I think about it is, in this market, we're being very careful on debt levels.

You know, you think about where we'll be sitting at the end of year, 1.4x, 1.5x debt. You know, we still have capital to deploy. We actually have a very robust front log. you know, I think that we have a flywheel, a way that we've done these bolt-ons. As you know, ASPEQ would be our 13 acquisition over the past several years. I think that we are still out there, but having said that, being very careful and cognizant of debt levels and, you know, Mark, Paul, anything else you guys like to add on this topic?

Mark Carano (VP, CFO and Treasurer)

I think, I mean, there's sufficient liquidity out there, obviously, in the event that we decided to pursue something, you know, here later this year. To Gene's point, I think we're gonna be very thoughtful about the balance sheet, making sure that we remain, you know, within leverage levels that we think are appropriate for the business.

Lawrence De Maria (Research Analyst and Group Head of Global Industrial Infrastructure)

Okay, thanks. That's a good color and makes sense, obviously. I think you said the D&M backlog is $245 million. Can you quantify the HVAC backlog and the mix in there between obviously heating and cooling? Secondly, price was obviously important in the quarter. Can you just let us know how to think about it, how it plays out for the rest of the year, and whether that contribution tails off on maybe pricing comps? Just how to think about, you know, pricing as we go through the year as a contributor.

Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)

Yes. Sorry, Paul. On the backlog question with respect to HVAC. Backlog for HVAC was $270 million, which was actually up a little bit, about 11% from the Q4, despite the very strong results in the Q1. At this point, the majority of that backlog is actually now in cooling 80% or 85% or so. Whereas, you know, if you look at that the middle of last year, it would have been 60/40, something like that. That's just a reflection of us seeing the heat, you know, heating backlog getting now closer to normal levels there.

Your other question was on, I think, price if you look at the Q1 price and volume were distributed not quite evenly, but we were about 60/40 volume price, and the HVAC was more price-weighted, D&M was more volume-weighted. As you look across the year, our guidance implies around 11% growth, let's call 2% or 3% acquisitions, another 8% or 9% organic. We would look for that to be a little bit flipped in the other direction, 40% volume, 60% price.

Lawrence De Maria (Research Analyst and Group Head of Global Industrial Infrastructure)

Okay. That's a really good color. Thanks, Paul. Good luck to share.

Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)

Thanks.

Mark Carano (VP, CFO and Treasurer)

Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Stand by for our next question. Our next question comes from Steve Ferazani with Sidoti.

Steve Ferazani (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Evening, everyone. I echo some of the other comments in terms about it being one of the stronger earnings releases of the quarter. I mean, to me, the big difference is we've seen a lot of companies beat pretty handily Q1. Given the economic uncertainty that's developed, you know, since Q4 calls, a lot of caution on the second half, you don't seem to be as concerned it sounds like bookings project orders is reducing your concern. Just what gives you the confidence, given what we know is clearly some economic uncertainty into the second half?

Eugene Lowe III (President and CEO)

Steve Ferazani, I think if you look at on the HVAC side, I think we have very good visibility for 2023 and even projects going into 2024. I'm talking more on the cooling side. Not only do we have a very high amount of backlog, but we have good visibility, good bidding. We, you know, if there is a recession, and it would, let's say, a severe recession, it would take some time to work through and really hit that market, and it would not be this year, we don't believe.

I think that, if you look at the heating business, as we've alluded to, that's gonna be much more of a normal business that's the business that grows [inaudible] a year, the weather can drive the market, you know, up a little bit or down a little bit. The weather impacts the TAM of the market in the winter season. I think that'll be looking like a normal, you know, a normal year for us. We have a normal level of backlog and the channel is pretty balanced.

As you know, most of that business is replacement, so we don't see a lot of deviation there. If you look at it on the D&M side, the backlog we have on projects is very strong. We feel very good about that part of the business.

On the run rate, what I would say is if we were to go into a severe recession, let's say, you know, the back half of the year, you know, that could affect some of our run rate businesses in Detection & Measurement that would be the area that we'll keep our eyes on. We've always said our earliest Canary in the coal mine is our Radiodetection business.

As you know, a lot of our businesses tend to go to government or municipal or buyers that are not as, they don't whipsaw as much with regards to GDP they tend to be more stable a lot of our stuff you have to buy think of our AtoN lighting, or think if you're working on water or wastewater pipes. You're not really doing that for fun. You're doing that 'cause you need to do that work.

You know, the example I would go back to is during COVID, many of our peers were down 20% in revenue when everything shut down and the world went into a recession. Our revenue we certainly got impacted we had some business lines that went down. All in, our revenues were flat. I think that's a testament to, you know, some of the markets we serve in i would say if we were to get into a recession or a severe recession, we'd keep our eyes on the Detection & Measurement run rate businesses, 'cause I'd say that would be the portion of our business that is most closely linked to GDP.

Mark Carano (VP, CFO and Treasurer)

Steve, I might add, you know, this infrastructure spending dynamic or federal dollars that are flowing into the market while the timing has been longer, we should benefit from that. Maybe it's not a 2023 impact as much as we would like, but certainly it ought to be in 2024. That, you know, that's a ballast to parts of that side of the business for sure.

Steve Ferazani (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

That's helpful. Thank you. I ask you this every time I speak to you, Gene it's probably a much easier answer this time in terms of your confidence level in hitting 2025 targets. Seems a lot easier now. Is there much more work left to be done?

Eugene Lowe III (President and CEO)

There's always work to be done. There's always a lot of work to do. A lot.

Steve Ferazani (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

On the M&A side.

Eugene Lowe III (President and CEO)

I tell you, we are very pleased with both TAMCO and ASPEQ, you know, knowing ASPEQ's not closed yet. We really like these businesses. We really like the people that are part of these businesses. We really think they're gonna strengthen our platforms. We think we can add a lot of value and we'd like to help them grow faster.

This certainly does take a big step in the direction. You know, as you can see from our guidance this year, before anything with ASPEQ, we're starting to push up on the high end of close to $4. As we've said, you know, $5.25, I have good conviction that we're gonna get there, and I think that we're doing the right things.

It's not easy there's a lot of hard work there's a lot of new products there's a lot of new CI. There's a lot of digital we gotta put out there we gotta win in the markets. Yeah, I'm feeling very, I like where we are, and we feel very good about meeting our commitments there.

Steve Ferazani (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. I know we don't ask about this too much 'cause you managed it so well, but I think what we did see in Q1 from a lot of companies that were having very significant supply chain constraints was very clear easing now you've managed it well, but would you echo that supply chain constraints are making things a little bit easier on your end? Also on labor side, given the growth projections, are you fully staffed to meet the growth?

Mark Carano (VP, CFO and Treasurer)

Yeah. I would say from a supply chain perspective, I mean, it has eased, right? Whether that's steel or some of the big commodity input costs. Lead times can be long on certain areas still, like printed circuit boards, and areas like that, but availability is much greater than it was before. I think on the labor front, I mean, listen, we're not probably out of the woods on that front entirely. There's still strong competition for labor out there, particularly in certain markets. We are in a much better place than we were a year ago, you know, and probably even a couple quarters ago.

Eugene Lowe III (President and CEO)

Yeah, much better. Not, you know, there's still supply chain challenges that you're wrestling with, but there's much improvement in both of those, and I think that is, that trend has been why, as we talked about, a key contributor to the operational performance.

Steve Ferazani (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Right. Thanks, Gene. Thanks, Mark.

Eugene Lowe III (President and CEO)

Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Stand by for our next question. Our next question comes from Walter Liptak with Seaport Research.

Walter Liptak (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Hi. Thanks. Great quarter, guys.

Eugene Lowe III (President and CEO)

Hey, Walt.

Mark Carano (VP, CFO and Treasurer)

Thanks, Walt.

Walter Liptak (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

A question I've got is about the DNM backlog. I wonder if you could help us just kinda review the timing. I think you said it was $245 million, up 60%. Was that the number? You know, I guess one question is, you know, I think the orders started picking up around this time last year. You know, are you starting to comp that higher backlog in the Q2 or Q3?

Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)

Yeah. You did see the increase in backlog occur the, Q2, Q3. That's right. Where a lot of it did happen last year, Walt. Your number of, 60% was right as we look through the remainder of this year, You know, we'll see some of that, you know, roll out of our backlog and into revenue, obviously. As you know, in detection and measurement, because of the project nature of some of the businesses, that can be a little bit lumpy.

Where we sit today and looking at our front log and looking at the discussions we're having about many of these same products that are doing quite well and in markets, you know, I'm not sure that we would expect our backlog to go down this year actually, I think we were looking for quite a good setup for next year, as Gene mentioned.

Walter Liptak (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Oh, that sounds great. You mentioned that it was CommTech and Transportation, that are both up. Are those both up equally, or is there a higher weighting towards one or the other?

Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)

Yeah. Actually much more heavily weighted towards CommTech in terms of the increase.

Walter Liptak (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay, great. Mark, in your prepared remarks, you mentioned again that, you know, first half revenue a little bit weaker or not weaker, but, you know, a lower percentage and then more weighting in the back half i think last quarter you guys talked about 43% in the first half, 57% in the back half can we still use that?

Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)

If you don't mind, I'll talk that one.

Walter Liptak (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Go ahead.

Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)

I think the reference that you're making was we said it would be more like the prior year, in terms of the split, in DNM. It's probably not far off, you know if it was if you were, you know, 45%, maybe 45%, 55% first half, back half. You know, as I think an important thing to point out is that if you look at the margin profile.

The mix and the timing of those key projects, it becomes important. We would model out a progression of the margins that is similar to what you saw last year in 2022, where you saw the margins getting progressively larger throughout the year as more of those higher margin projects were being delivered in the back half.

Walter Liptak (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay, great. All right, thanks, guys.

Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Stand by for our next question. Our next question is from Damian Karas with UBS.

Damian Mark Karas (Senior Equity Research Analyst and Executive Director)

Hey again, guys. Just had a quick follow-up question on the heating business. One of your large public boiler competitors lowered their outlook this past quarter, and they talked about inventory destocking taking place. Gene, you sounded like you're seeing your business as more stable, but just curious where you think channel inventories are. I know you had some outside supply chain issues last year, but what's your sense for how you're performing versus the overall boiler market?

Eugene Lowe III (President and CEO)

Yeah, you know, just to, so you know the process I do, I talk to all the presidents of every business on the, on the day of these earnings calls. We actually run through a lot of the numbers and so forth. The gentleman who runs Weil-McLain, they actually have good visibility to the channel and the stocking, not for all of the distributors, but a good chunk of them.

You know, I think that where we sit today is it's actually very balanced. We feel good it's not overstocked, it's not under stocked. The only place that we are behind in delivering, where we just have more orders than we can handle is standard efficiency or really our cast iron commercial boilers.

That we're still... I'd say the rest of the businesses are more operating in a normal cadence, and we have a balanced, you know, we believe the channel is balanced, but that's the one that we're still trying to get a lot of products out the door and get back to our normal lead times.

Damian Mark Karas (Senior Equity Research Analyst and Executive Director)

Understood. Thanks again. Best of luck, guys.

Eugene Lowe III (President and CEO)

Thanks, Damian.

Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)

Thanks, Damian.

Operator (participant)

At this time, I would like to turn it back to Paul Clegg for closing comments.

Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)

Thanks all of you for joining our call today, and we look forward to speaking to you again next quarter or during the quarter at one of the events we're attending. Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.