SPX Technologies - Q2 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Today, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q2 2023 SPX Technologies earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there'll be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone, and you will hear an automated message advising your hand has arrived. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised today's conference call is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Paul Clegg, Vice President, Investor Relations Communications. Paul, please go ahead.

Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations Communications)

Thank you, operator. 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 second quarter 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 August 9th. 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 from 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 certain discrete tax items. Finally, we will be conducting meetings with investors over the coming months, including at the Seaport Global Virtual Conference in August and at the Jefferies Industrials Conference in New York in September. With that, I'll turn the call over to Gene.

Gene Lowe (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 second quarter. We'll also provide an update on our full year guidance for 2023. Our Q2 results were outstanding. This performance was driven by overall demand strength across our end markets and strong execution, particularly in our HVAC segment. Considering our strong year-to-date performance and outlook, we are raising our full year 2023 guidance for adjusted EPS to a range of $4.15-$4.30, reflecting year-over-year growth at the midpoint of approximately 36%. Our success this quarter is, in part, the result of hard work on our value creation initiatives, which have driven durable improvements, resulting in a new level of margin performance in our HVAC segment.

As we look ahead, we see significant opportunities to continue executing on these initiatives to drive further value for shareholders. Turning to our high-level results. For the quarter, we grew revenue by approximately 15% organically, with strong contributions from both HVAC and Detection and Measurement. Adjusted operating income grew 64% year-on-year, with 450 basis points of margin expansion, reflecting primarily the strong performance of our HVAC segment. I am very pleased with our Q2 and year-to-date performance and our positioning for the remainder of 2023. With a strong backlog, overall solid order trends, and excellent operational performance, I feel confident in our ability to achieve our updated guidance and to continue progressing towards our SPX 2025 target of $5 for a share of adjusted EPS.

As always, I'd like to update you on our progress in our value creation framework. During Q2, we continued to make progress on several key initiatives. In our new product initiatives, our SPX Cooling introduced a water-saving and optimization system called Marley WaterGard, which can significantly reduce water usage in our evaporative cooling products. In digital, we continued to expand customer adaption of our CUES' AI-enabled GraniteNet Software, which helps drive significant efficiencies for customers when inspecting and assessing the condition of water and wastewater assets. In continuous improvement, our cooling facility in Olathe, Kansas, is seeing benefits from the optimization of our plant layout and investments in automation to reach new levels of operating margin performance.

The changes we have been making are driving durable improvements in our ability to supply more of our customers' needs with greater efficiency, while providing higher returns for our shareholders. I'm very pleased with the hard work of our team across the company and see numerous opportunities to continue our progress. Now, I'll turn the call over to Mark to review our financial results and guidance.

Mark Carano (CFO and Treasurer)

Thanks, Gene. It was another very strong quarter for SPX Technologies. In Q2, our adjusted EPS grew 49% year-on-year to $1.06. The adjustment from GAAP results, covered earlier by Paul, are consistent with our historical practice. Total company revenues increased 19.6% year-on-year, including 14.6% organic growth, with similar increases in both our HVAC and Detection and Measurement segments. Acquisitions contributed 5.3% growth, and FX was a modest headwind. Segment income grew by $28.3 million, or 50%, to $84.4 million, while margin increased 410 basis points, driven by a strong operational performance in HVAC. Price cost remained a margin tailwind. For the quarter, in our HVAC segment, revenues grew 23% year-on-year. On an organic basis, revenue grew 15%, driven by cooling, while heating's organic revenue was roughly flat.

Acquisitions contributed growth of 8.6%, which included a full quarter of TAMCO in our cooling platform and one month of ASPEQ in our heating platform. FX was a modest headwind. Segment income increased by $26.9 million, segment margin increased 760 basis points. The year-on-year increase in HVAC segment income and margin has a number of drivers. In our cooling business, we continued to achieve strong plant throughput, facilitated by our investments in plant automation and continuous improvement. This favorable operational execution was aided by a high level of backlog and a more stable labor and supply chain conditions. By comparison, in the prior year quarter, cooling experienced headwinds related to supply chain, labor, and price cost that drove lower than typical margins. For heating, segment income margin improved notably year-on-year, due primarily to favorable price cost and channel mix.

Our TAMCO and ASPEQ acquisitions were both accretive to HVAC segment margin. Bookings remained strong. Despite record Q2 sales, HVAC segment backlog ended the quarter at $337 million, including $31 million from acquisitions. On an organic basis, backlog was up 13% sequentially. For the quarter, in our Detection and Measurement segment, revenues grew 14% year-on-year, with organic growth across all our platforms. Strong project revenues from CommTech, Transportation, and AtoN were key drivers. Segment income increased by $1.4 million, while margin declined 160 basis points due to less favorable sales mix. As we have noted previously, our 2023 Detection and Measurement revenue includes certain project sales in our CommTech platform that contain pass-through content, resulting in a lower-than-typical incremental margin.

In addition, in Q2, we began to experience a one-off supply chain disruption that is constraining sales of a limited number of locator products. We have implemented a solution to address this issue, we are confident in the normalization of production during the second half. Segment backlog at quarter end was $234 million, down 4% sequentially due to the timing of project deliveries. Overall, we continue to experience a strong environment for project sales. Turning now to our financial position at the end of the quarter. We ended the quarter with cash of $95 million and total debt of $676 million. Our balance sheet reflects the completion of two acquisitions during the quarter.

While we deployed more than $500 million in Q2 to acquire TAMCO and ASPEQ, our net leverage remains at a modest level of 1.8x or below the midpoint of our target range of 1.5x-2.5x. At this point, we anticipate a further decline in leverage to approximately 1.5x or lower by year-end, as we typically generate the majority of our cash flow in the second half of the year, positioning us to continue investing for growth. Moving on to our guidance. We are increasing our 2023 guidance for adjusted EPS to a range of $4.15-$4.30. The new midpoint reflects year-on-year growth of approximately 36%. In our HVAC segment, we anticipate revenue growth of approximately 24% at the midpoint.

We are raising guidance for the HVAC segment income margin to approximately 20%, compared with a prior range of 18%-19%. This represents a year-on-year margin increase for HVAC of more than 500 basis points. The anticipated strong revenue and margin performance in HVAC reflects a combination of continued solid demand trends, high backlog, strong operational execution at the plant level, and the benefit of easing labor and supply chain conditions. In our Detection and Measurement segment, we anticipate revenue in a range of $590 million-$605 million, or a year-on-year increase of approximately 9% at the midpoint.

Due to the supply chain constraint mentioned earlier, we now anticipate a less favorable margin mix, resulting in segment income margin of approximately 20%, compared with our prior range of 20.5%-21.5%. With respect to the cadence of second half guidance, we would expect segment income to rise sequentially in both Q3 and Q4. We would expect adjusted EPS to be sequentially lower in Q3 than in Q2. Primarily due to higher interest costs associated with acquisitions and the timing of certain corporate expense items. As is typical, we expect Q4 to be the highest adjusted EPS quarter of the year. 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.

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Thanks, Mark. Current market conditions remain supportive of our outlook. Across our HVAC segment, supply chain and labor have been more stable overall, which is helping us to improve plant level efficiency and throughput. 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 overall, driven by commercial and industrial demand and residential replacements. In Detection and Measurement, our run rate demand is steady overall, with some regional variations, while the environment for project orders remains strong. In summary, I'm pleased with our strong results for the quarter and performance year to date. Our focused execution on our key value creation initiatives has helped drive durable gains in our margins and growth profile. Looking forward, I see significant opportunity for further improvements as we execute on our roadmap.

We also remain well positioned to continue investing for growth, given our solid balance sheet, strong cash generation, and active M&A pipeline. With a strong backlog position and good operational momentum, I feel confident in our updated full year guidance, which reflects approximately 36% year-on-year growth at the midpoint. With that, I'll turn the call back to Paul.

Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations Communications)

Thanks, Gene. Operator, we are ready to go to questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now conduct our question and answer session. As a reminder, please, to ask a question, please press star 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 roster. Our first question comes from Bryan Blair, from Oppenheimer.

Bryan Blair (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Thank you. Another great quarter, guys.

Mark Carano (CFO and Treasurer)

Thanks, Bryan.

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Thanks, Bryan.

Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations Communications)

Thank you.

Bryan Blair (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

I was hoping you'd offer a little more detail on the continued step up in, in HVAC guidance. We know, you know, the high-level drivers. Curious if you could parse out, whether expectations for ASPEQ, which, you know, per your deal call, coming in $75 million or so in sales contribution, high 20s margin, whether that has increased again now that, you know, the asset is in your portfolio, or if the incremental lift is on the side of legacy operations or TAMCO, or some combination thereof.

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Yeah, Bryan, why don't I, why don't I, I'll run through that. Let's step back at a high level and look at our segment income large margins at, at the SPX level first, because we've been applying our business system across the enterprise, and we, we think it's made a, a positive impact. If you just step back, 2020, our segment income margins were 15.4. 2021, they were 16.4. Last year, we had a lot of challenges with supply chain, labor, PPV. They were 17.1. We thought that 17.1 was a little bit lower than what it should have been, and where we sit today is 20% at segment income margin. Steady increase, basically 460 basis points in three years.

You know, what that says to me is I do believe in our business system. I think it's working, and I do believe our strategy is sound. If we, if we drill down into HVAC specifically, the way I think about the business is, historically, we've thought about that as a 15%-16% business. Last year, as we talked about, we had a lot of headwinds, and last year we ended up at around 14.8%, right under 15%. Again, we think a lot of the improvements that we had made in lean, in the plant layout, some of the investments in automation equipment was masked by some of these headwinds. If you look at where 2022 ended to where we are in 2023, a couple things have driven improvement.

One is operating leverage, so we're having growth. The second is the investments that I've talked about. The investments in automation, productivity, and lean are really making an impact and are very, very positive for that business, very sustainable. The third would just be the reduction of some of the issues we had last year, labor, supply chain, some, some of those types of items. Then we did add accretive acquisitions, ASPEQ and TAMCO, which we're very pleased about. We think those have structurally brought up our segment income targets, probably 100 basis points. You know, when, when, when we looked at it before, we thought 15%-16% was the right target. Where we sit today, we think 18%-20% is a very sustainable target for us going forward, the volumes that we see.

So we think we've significantly structurally improved the HVAC business and, you know, we feel good about that. That, that'd be how I break that, that down.

Bryan Blair (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

That's very helpful color. The, you know, 20% for this year, so that, that'll be the, you know, high end of normalized ranges, at least for the time being. You know, should we see that continue to expand going forward? You know, as the, you know, platforms that comprise HVAC continue to scale, fine-tuning continues, I suspect that you'll have, you know, further accretive deal flow over time. Just curious any incremental color you can offer there.

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Yeah, and I think one of the things- some of the things that I think were a little bit of a headwind last year with PPV being negative, we, we saw some positives this year and, and are in our numbers this year. You know, when you look at, you know, the obvious question I think you're trying to get to is what's the right jumping off point? You know, there could be up to 100 basis points of, of, of those more one-off types items in, in this year's results, but we feel very good that we have structurally improved the margins of this segment several hundred basis points. You know, Mark, anything you'd like to add here?

Mark Carano (CFO and Treasurer)

Yeah, I think, you know, to add on to Gene's comments, I mean, from a, from a kind of a price cost perspective, because that, that often comes up, we, we do believe we're in a more stable or normalized environment, and we believe that's gonna be the case going forward. As you look ahead, really one of the key drivers in both sustaining and maybe improving those margins is gonna be around some of the capital that we're investing in the plant footprint. We're in the early stages of that. We'll continue to do that. You, you'll see it in our, you know, our CapEx comments that we've made for the year.

That's really gonna, you know, should make a, a meaningful difference, you know, in the efficiency that you see in those plants, whether that's reducing labor required or just driving increased throughput.

Bryan Blair (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

That's, again, very helpful, and the evidence of structural improvement is, you know, obviously there already. Switching to D&M, well, I guess, you called out two factors in terms of some margin compression in the quarter and near-term headwinds. Could you quantify the impact of, you know, negative mix from the CommTech pass-through relative to the, you know, supply chain constraints in locators and how much both, you know, are affecting the, you know, relative moderation? Seems like some conservatism now being baked into the back half outlook.

Mark Carano (CFO and Treasurer)

Yeah, Bryan, what I would say on that, it's really a combination of both. Probably more heavily weighted to this kind of isolated supply chain issue that we called out with respect to the locator product line. It was really a combination of both. I mean, both the supply chain issue is temporary in nature. I think you referred to it as one-off. You know, that is not something that we expect to recur. You know, the project mix is a dynamic that has benefited us from an income standpoint this year, obviously, but those projects, as we have called out in the past, are at slightly lower margins than the historical D&M business margins.

Bryan Blair (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Yeah, understood. I'll leave it there. Thanks, guys.

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Thanks, Bryan.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Lawrence De Maria from William Blair.

Lawrence De Maria (Group Head of Global Industrial Infrastructure)

Hey, thanks, Larry here. Good afternoon, everybody.

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Hey.

Lawrence De Maria (Group Head of Global Industrial Infrastructure)

Hey, a few questions here. First, seems to me you have more pricing power maybe than we thought in HVAC, where you have credit for in the last few years. Do you think you still have a fair amount of room to go on price, positive price in HVAC over the next coming years, or is that more inflationary? With the 24% growth I think you're looking at, how does that break down in price and volume?

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Well, why don't I start on pricing power, Larry? I think, you know, we've always said, if you look at our portfolio of businesses, we do believe we have pricing power in, in our HVAC and our Detection and Measurement. The businesses that we did not feel we had pricing power, we divested, you know, really the transformer business, some of the old, you know, legacy businesses. You know, having said that, you know, we are in competitive markets and, and, you know, where we sit today, we think is, is a balanced position. We don't think our prices, you know, are too high and coming down. We, we, we think we're aligned with our value propositions.

Mark Carano (CFO and Treasurer)

On the, I'll, I'll answer on the price volume question. For the quarter, if you look at SPX in total, it was fairly balanced between volume and price, a little more heavily weighted in terms of price. That's with D&M being more volume weighted and HVAC being more price weighted. If you look at the full year, and you look at our organic guide for the full or our organic growth implied in our guidance for the full year, it's probably gonna be something more like 60/40 price volume, and that's with us getting more price in on the front half of this year in comparis- comparison to the prior year, where price was still a little bit weaker.

As you get into the later quarters, it's a little bit tighter in terms of the comparisons.

Lawrence De Maria (Group Head of Global Industrial Infrastructure)

Okay, thanks very much for that. I want to ask about boilers. Some companies are seeing weakness in boilers. It doesn't seem to be the case for you guys. Just what are you guys seeing, and any kind of clues on why there's a divergence in the market and, you know, why you guys are not maybe seeing the weakness that others are seeing?

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Yeah, I mean, I think, we have a very strong position in boilers, hydraulics. You know, our trade brand, very strong. You know, I think that what we have seen is over the past year or two, there's been tremendous demand, tremendous backlog, and working through that backlog. What we see today is a pretty balanced position, and this is one of the few areas, you know, most of our products are engineered to order, you know, so we go have less, where we go through channels. Here is where we do have a channel for our resi boilers, and we do have pretty good information about whether they're balanced or they're overstocked, understocked. What we see today is it's pretty balanced. You know, the other portion, so that's kind of on the resi side. The non-resi side, it's been healthy.

I do believe our NPI initiatives have been taking share. We talked about our share gains last year. We rolled out the ECO Tec, which was very successful, won product of the year last year on the residential side. On the non-resi or commercial side, our Patterson-Kelley business has expanded their footprint, their tonnage, and we believe we're taking some share there as well. What I would say is, when I look at the boiler business, the hydronics business, it feels like we're back to normal. We're not sitting like in our cooling business, where we have a mountain of backlog, but it's like a normal business where you're kind of booking and shipping.

As you look towards Q4 and Q1, you know, the weather will have a determining factor on that market size, as, as it usually does for the residential portion of that market. Yeah, we actually feel comfortable with what we're seeing on, on the boiler side.

Lawrence De Maria (Group Head of Global Industrial Infrastructure)

That's good. Good color. Thank you. If I could just sneak one more in, then I'll hang up there or pass it on. Obviously, there's some weakness in the industrial world out there this summer, seeing tends to be more around big, you know, more capital-intensive stuff, I suppose, and big projects and orders. How did orders trend through the quarter? Anything troubling, anything, any signs of weakness or just, you know, any color as we can get more comfortable around some of the industrial economy that's out there that, you know, you guys don't seem to be seeing the weakness yet, but others are?

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Yeah, you know, Larry, overall, we're feeling good. I would say I'll break it down, you know, across the segments. On the HVAC side, the cooling business is strong. We are seeing a lot of projects there where our solutions are very well suited. We're also seeing some reshoring activity going on, you know, some particular areas of strength there would be semiconductor, data centers, batteries. You know, if I look at our EAM business or Engineered Air Movement, that's healthy. That tends to be generally a diversified industrial. One of the businesses is pretty heavy in medical, institutional, pharma. They have a substantial amount of backlog, I believe, going all the way into next year. On the heating business, we talked about boilers.

Actually, the electric heating business, which probably has some of the best mega trends in our business, has been booking very solidly. Then if I switch to the D&M side, if I break it down, we've talked about our projects. The projects are very strong this year, but they're also strong looking into next year, particularly Transportation, CommTech, AtoN, and our run rate's steady. I would say on the infrastructure bill, we're seeing limited visibility. We see it hitting our transportation business, but not too much elsewhere. Mark, anything you'd like to add? You want a little more color on the, the, the numbers and data?

Mark Carano (CFO and Treasurer)

I think, I mean, Larry, when you look at sequential growth of orders, you know, quarter-over-quarter, they've been strong. You know, as, as Gene alluded to, very strong in the HVAC segment, but really across the entire platform, we're seeing positive order growth. On a total company basis, I'd put it kind of in the high singles.

Lawrence De Maria (Group Head of Global Industrial Infrastructure)

Fantastic. Thank you very, very much for the color, and good luck.

Mark Carano (CFO and Treasurer)

Thanks, Larry.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Steve Ferazani from Sidoti.

Steve Ferazani (Senior Equity Analyst)

Evening, Gene, Mark. Just wanted to follow up briefly on the, on the last question, which is, you know, typically, Gene, you've said in a, in a slowing economic environment or, or recessionary environment, the one place, particularly in D&M, you might feel it is locators, but it sounds like your only locator issue right now is, is supply chain. Is that accurate, and are you seeing any kind of demand change on locators?

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

No, I'd say, you know, what we're seeing on locators is it's steady. I wouldn't say it's growing rapidly. We're actually feeling optimistic about the back half of the year, some recent wins that we've had. But no, I don't see anything. You know, I think it's a good question because locators can be the canary in the coal mine because, obviously, so much economic activity goes through there, whether you're laying, you know, fiber, whether you're putting gas lines, whether you're building new houses or buildings or refurbing. It touches a lot, but it's, it's been holding steady. I would say flattish, I would say, not, not high growth this year. Mark, anything you'd like to add?

Mark Carano (CFO and Treasurer)

Yeah, I think, I think that's right. I mean, you know, it is, it is one of our more global businesses, though, and we haven't really seen any weakness around the world in all the markets, that they participate in. So,

Steve Ferazani (Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay. When, when you're guiding for leverage, you noted stronger cash flow in the second half, just when I run through the numbers, your expectation is not to start paying down debt anytime soon. Is that accurate or, or not?

Mark Carano (CFO and Treasurer)

No, Steve, we, we, we're using free cash flow that we generate throughout the year to, to pay down debt that we have outstanding. All our debt is prepayable.

Steve Ferazani (Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay.

Mark Carano (CFO and Treasurer)

It's, it's all bank debt, we will continue to use free cash flow to drive down leverage. You'll, you'll see leverage come down both from from the repayment of debt and, of course, you know, from the denominator perspective, an increase in EBITDA.

Steve Ferazani (Senior Equity Analyst)

Right.

Mark Carano (CFO and Treasurer)

You've kind of got both elements working.

Steve Ferazani (Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay. When I think about that, to, to pay down debt now, does that provide us any kind of clue on what the pipeline's looking like? You wouldn't necessarily rush to pay down debt if you're gonna be in the market for acquisitions in the near term. Is there any read-through on that?

Mark Carano (CFO and Treasurer)

No, I wouldn't read through anything on that. You know, I think the, the best use of our capital right now is to pay down debt, but, you know, I think of it through the context of our leverage capacity and our ability to support a transaction in the market. We've got, we've got access to plenty of capital when the right transaction.

Steve Ferazani (Senior Equity Analyst)

Including the revolver, obviously.

Mark Carano (CFO and Treasurer)

Exactly.

Steve Ferazani (Senior Equity Analyst)

Which is $500 million.

Mark Carano (CFO and Treasurer)

Exactly. Yeah. From a liquidity standpoint, we have a revolver that's, you know, $500 million in size.

Steve Ferazani (Senior Equity Analyst)

When, when we think about your 2025 target, which now, you know, maybe a couple of years ago, seemed like far away, now it seems, one, we're getting closer, but on EPS, you're getting a lot closer, even this year. Do you, to get to the $5+, are you assuming you need additional acquisitions, or can you get there with what you have?

Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations Communications)

Yeah, I mean, Steve, this is Paul. I think at this point, we're clearly above on a couple of different metrics here, and we're looking at options to, you know, update or replace this construct. Our current thinking is that that's gonna make the most sense to do that in the context of 2024 guidance in February. Yep, I guess, I guess what I'd say is, you know, we typically have talked about, you know, a model where we grow at around mid-single digits on the top line and organically kind of double that at the bottom line. Then, then you add maybe another 8% or 10% associated with acquisitions if we do that, you know, I think what I, what I think we're safe saying is that we, we feel like we're within striking distance of that, one way or the other.

Steve Ferazani (Senior Equity Analyst)

Perfect. Thanks. I think about the, the corporate expense guidance you have in, in the appendix. It seems like it would indicate corporate expense lower in the second half versus first half, but in your third quarter guidance, you, you indicated 3Q may be up. Can you just give us a sense of, of trending on corporate expense, particularly given you clearly had some integration costs in the first half, particularly with the very large deal, the ASPEQ?

Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations Communications)

Sure. On an adjusted basis, Steve, our corporate expense in the first half of the year, and here I'm just talking about the corporate expense line without the stock-based comp.

Steve Ferazani (Senior Equity Analyst)

Yeah

Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations Communications)

was $0.5. That's with $13 million in the first quarter and $11.5 in the second quarter. Actually, in the second half, we're expecting it to be up a little bit.

Steve Ferazani (Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay.

Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations Communications)

It was a little bit of timing rub between 2Q and Q3, where some of the costs that we were originally anticipating going into 2Q, are, will actually go into Q3, so that'll be a little bit higher. Then, typically, 4Q is our highest.

Steve Ferazani (Senior Equity Analyst)

Yep. Okay, perfect. Great. Thanks, everybody.

Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations Communications)

No problem.

Mark Carano (CFO and Treasurer)

Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Walter Liptak from Seaport Global.

Walter Liptak (Managing Director and Senior Financial Analyst)

Hey, thanks, and congratulations from me, too. The 2025, $5, that did seem like it was far way away and, you know, so, so congratulations on making all the progress.

Steve Ferazani (Senior Equity Analyst)

Thanks.

Walter Liptak (Managing Director and Senior Financial Analyst)

You know, a lot of the questions, a lot of the stuff's already been covered, but I wanted to ask about, you know, one thing with the that locator thing, not to beat a dead horse, but, you know, if, if with the supply constraints, was there a push into the third quarter from the second on sales? I wonder if you could size that up for us.

Mark Carano (CFO and Treasurer)

Yeah, Walt. That supply chain issue, you know, it's largely been resolved at this point, but we will, we will ship that product that was impacted by it, you know, in the back half of this year, and some of it will, will obviously go into next year as well. A part of it will be sliding into 2024.

Walter Liptak (Managing Director and Senior Financial Analyst)

Okay. You were able to maintain it, just push it out. There wasn't any lost share or anything like that, I guess?

Mark Carano (CFO and Treasurer)

Not related to that. It was just purely a timing issue.

Walter Liptak (Managing Director and Senior Financial Analyst)

Okay, great. Then in D&M, you talk about project orders. I usually think of that as transportation. I wonder if you just, you know, maybe provide a few more details. Is that infrastructure related? Is this, you know, big city projects that are in the funnel?

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Yeah, you know, when we talk about projects, the two areas that are the most prevalent, 1 is transportation, which we have just seen very healthy demand for this year, but also, you know, looking ahead over the next couple years. I would say that's the one area in our business that we do believe the infrastructure bill has made a change in behavior.

We are seeing just a lot more activity there, so I'd, I'd say that's a real positive. The other projects that we typically see is in our contact business, and those have been steady. We've had a lot of wins in 2022, 2023. Looking into 2024, we feel very good. Yeah, overall, the project volume, you know, I would say these two or three years have been among the strongest that I've seen in eight years. I do think we've expanded our portfolio of what we're offering, and it's, it's just nice to see.

Walter Liptak (Managing Director and Senior Financial Analyst)

Okay, great. Okay, thanks much.

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Thanks, Paul.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Damian Karas from UBS.

Damian Karas (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, good evening, Gene, Mark, Paul.

Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations Communications)

Hey, Damian.

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Hey, Damian.

Damian Karas (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Who would have thought in just a few quarters, you'd take us from basically needing 150 basis points of margin expansion after this year to get to those 2025 goals to being there today? Very well played.

Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations Communications)

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Thank you.

Damian Karas (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah, yeah. Gene, curious, I mean, do you think with the backlog that you've got today, plus the continued demand strength you're seeing, would you say that, you know, it's lining up such that you've already got visibility into organic sales growth again in 2024?

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Yeah, what I would say is, you know, we feel good about what we're seeing. You know, it's probably premature to give 2024 guidance, but what I would say, and as, you know, Mark alluded to, our orders, our backlogs, our projects, you know, you look at, really, HVAC cooling is the big portion of HVAC. You know, had a great quarter, a great shipping quarter two, and backlogs went up again. I mean, there's even more opportunities. What I would say is, on the cooling side, we, we feel good about the opportunity over the next couple of years. It really, we, we feel like there's a, a very attractive opportunity there. On the heating side, I think we're back to more normal on, on the hydronics, on the boilers.

On electric heat, I would expect growth there, you know, due to all the, the growth drivers that, that, that are out there that, that are very attractive. What I would say on the D&M, we have, like we've talked about over the past couple of quarters, projects have been strong. We still see that holding strong, and we'll keep our eye on the run rate. If there were to be a recession, the first place we would see it would be in, in the run rate in our D&M, in particular, as we talked about, Radiodetection. We're not seeing that now, but you know, where I sit today, I feel I like what I'm seeing in the end markets as we go into 2024.

Damian Karas (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Good to hear. Thanks for that color. I'm curious how we should be thinking about the seasonal shaping for the HVAC business going forward. Historically, you know, the fourth quarter was always a strong margin quarter, I think kind of due to the, the boiler seasonality. Has cooling more or less, you know, kind of, is it at parity with heating at this point? Just with some of the new acquisitions, you know, what's that, what's that seasonality look like for HVAC?

Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations Communications)

Yeah, I think Damian, we'll still be somewhat more seasonal towards the fourth quarter because we'll continue to have that impact of the heating demand in the fourth quarter. For example, when we look at the shaping of the quarters for this year, we would still expect fourth quarter to be the largest. You do bring up a good point, that your, your blend is a little bit different. I think you, you guys have all seen, you know, the rough numbers on the acquisitions. ASPEQ was about, on a run rate basis, around $120 million. If you kind of run rated that or, or distributed it evenly across quarters, that's probably not wrong at this point.

TAMCO is more than $50 million annually, and I think for the moment, doing the same thing there would probably make sense. The, you know, you're gonna have puts and takes there with respect to the margin performance of those businesses quarter to quarter, but I think you're still looking at a seasonally stronger four two in any case.

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Cooling is typically highest in Q4 as well. That's from a lot of work that's scheduled.

Damian Karas (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, great. Then maybe if I could just ask you about, you know, your acquisitions this year. How, how has the deal integration gone? You know, have you learned anything new that you, you didn't necessarily know, kind of going into those, deals? How the business has been performing, thus far in the current environment?

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Yeah, Damian, I would say it's early, but what I would say, both are on track to their deal models. You know, the TAMCO one is, is, I would say, an easier integration in the sense that that's being plugged right into our Engineered Air Movement. It feels like that's already integrated, and there's really a lot of progress being made there. Whereas the ASPEQ, as we've talked about, we're taking two electric heat businesses, two great businesses, and we're really putting those together. That's a little bit more complicated, takes some time, but what I would say is nothing's changed in our view. We're actually very, very positive about both of them.

Frankly, if you think about the M&A side of where the opportunities sit, we really like the continued opportunities to continue to build out our electric heat business, which has now become quite scale, very large, very impactful for us, as well as our Engineered Air Movement, which also has become very impactful for us. So yeah, I think, early days, the results are positive, but still a lot of work ahead of us and a lot of wood to chop.

Damian Karas (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Understood. Thanks a lot, guys. Best of luck.

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Thanks.

Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations Communications)

Thanks.

Operator (participant)

I'm showing no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the conference back to Paul Clegg for closing remarks.

Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations Communications)

Thank you all for joining us on the call today. We look forward to updating you over the next quarter, seeing you on investor visits and at conferences. Take care.

Operator (participant)

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.