SPX Technologies - Q3 2023
November 2, 2023
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q3 2023 SPX Technologies Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a 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 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 recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Paul Clegg, VP of Investor Relations and Communications. Please go ahead.
Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)
Thank you, 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 third 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 this webcast will be available on our website until November ninth. 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 continuing 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-related costs, non-service pension items, mark-to-market changes, and amortization expense. Finally, we will be conducting meetings with investors over the coming months, including at the Baird Industrials Conference in Chicago and at the UBS Industrial Summit in Palm Beach, Florida, both in November. With that, I'll turn the call over to Gene.
Gene Lowe (President and CEO)
Thanks, Paul. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. On the call today, we'll provide you with an update on our consolidated and segment results for the third quarter. We'll also provide an update on our full-year guidance for 2023. We achieved strong results in Q3, including significant year-over-year revenue and margin growth and solid performances from our recent acquisitions. During Q3, our businesses executed well, and we saw strong demand continue across many of our end markets. Considering our strong year-to-date performance and outlook, we are raising our full-year guidance for adjusted EPS by $0.05 at the midpoint, reflecting year-over-year growth of approximately 38%. During the quarter, we finalized an agreement with Mitsubishi to settle all remaining claims between us related to the projects in South Africa.
This is a very positive development, which, after many years, brings an end to our involvement in these projects and allows us to further focus on growth. Mark will discuss this in more detail. Overall, I'm pleased with our third quarter performance and continued strong execution on our value creation roadmap. Turning to our high-level results.
For the quarter, we grew revenue by approximately 21%, including organic growth of 10.5%, driven by strength in both our HVAC and detection and measurement segments. Adjusted operating income grew approximately 57% year-on-year, with 390 basis points of margin expansion. With strong backlog, solid order trends, and positive operational momentum, we are well positioned to achieve our updated full-year guidance. As always, I'd like to update you on our value creation efforts.
During Q3, we had several successes, including in our digital and sustainability initiatives. On the digital front, we continue to drive value for our customers with the rollout of new software platforms that offer enhanced functionality. In our fare collection business, we are getting significant customer interest in the newly launched 2.0 version of our Genfare Link platform. This new cloud-based solution enables more efficient use of public transit assets by providing faster and easier data collection and enhanced reporting features. In our locators business, we recently launched Radiodetection Manager Online, a cloud-based solution that provides value-added insights such as scan quality and geospatial data. These help to improve the performance of technicians in the field and further reduce incidents of damage to underground assets.
On the sustainability front, our most recent company report reflects significant progress towards our carbon reduction target and notable improvements in water usage. These results validate the process improvements and investments we've been making to help drive efficient resource utilization and reduce costs. The report is available on our website. And 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 strong quarter for SPX Technologies. In Q3, our adjusted EPS grew 31% year-on-year to $1.06. The adjustments from GAAP results covered earlier by Paul are consistent with our historical practice.... Total company revenues increased 21.1% year-on-year. HVAC and detection and measurement contributed about evenly to organic growth of 10.5%. Acquisitions contributed 10% growth, and FX was a modest tailwind. Segment income grew by $28.2 million, or 44.5% to $91.6 million, while segment margin increased 330 basis points. For the quarter in our HVAC segment, revenues grew 27% year-on-year. On an organic basis, revenues grew 10.6%, driven by cooling.
Acquisitions contributed growth of 16.3% and included TAMCO in our cooling platform and ASPEQ in our heating platform. Segment income grew by $25.2 million, or 76%, while segment margin increased 570 basis points. Segment income and margin continued to benefit from strong demand and operational performance in our cooling platform. Our recent acquisitions were accretive to segment margin. Despite strong Q3 deliveries, backlog was virtually unchanged from Q2 at $338 million, reflecting strong orders. For the quarter in detection and measurement, revenues grew 11.8% year-on-year. Each of our platforms contributed to organic growth of 10.4%, while currency had a favorable impact of 1.4%. Our project businesses showed particular strength, including some earlier than anticipated deliveries.
Segment income increased by $3 million, or 9.9%, and margin was similar to the prior year. Segment backlog at quarter end was $234 million, or flat with Q2, despite strong deliveries. Overall, we continue to experience a solid environment for project orders. Turning now to our financial position at the end of the quarter. We ended Q3 with cash of $102 million and total debt of $674 million. Our leverage ratio declined to 1.7x from 1.8x in Q2. Year to date, adjusted free cash flow is approximately $112 million, and we continue to expect full year adjusted free cash flow to be similar to our adjusted net income.
During Q3, we finalized an agreement with Mitsubishi to settle all the remaining claims between us related to the legacy South African projects. After many years of successfully reducing the risks associated with these complex projects, this agreement ends our involvement in South Africa and finalizes our repositioning away from legacy power-related businesses as we reprioritize resources to strengthen our focus on the growth of our HVAC and D&M segments. For the full year 2023, we now expect net cash usage related to South Africa dispute payments of approximately $12 million. This includes a settlement payment in Q3 associated with the agreement, cash awards received during the quarter, and a tax benefit. After the settlement payment in the third quarter, we remain in a net positive cash position relative to Mitsubishi on the cumulative awards that were granted by various legal dispute bodies.
In 2024, we anticipate one final settlement payment of approximately $19 million, including the related tax benefit. We are very pleased to put this chapter behind us. This agreement removes residual uncertainty related to the dispute resolution process and reflects favorable economics, including the elimination of future legal spending of $15 million-$20 million annually, roughly in line with the remaining settlement payment. Importantly, we see no impact on our capital deployment capacity and continue to anticipate a net leverage ratio at year-end of 1.5x or lower. Moving on to our guidance. We are increasing our 2023 guidance for adjusted EPS to a range of $4.22-$4.32, from a prior range of $4.15-$4.30.
The new midpoint of $4.27 reflects a year-over-year growth of 38%. Our HVAC segment guidance remains unchanged. We continue to anticipate segment revenue growth of approximately 24% at the midpoint and segment income margin of approximately 20%. In our detection and measurement segment, we now anticipate revenue in a range of $610 million-$620 million, or a year-over-year increase of approximately 12.5% at the midpoint. This compares with a prior range of $590 million-$605 million. We continue to anticipate segment income margin of approximately 20%. The increase in D&M guidance results largely from stronger project deliveries in the third quarter. As always, you will find modeling considerations in the appendix to our presentation. I'll now turn the call back over to Gene for review of our end markets and his closing comments.
Gene Lowe (President and CEO)
Thanks, Mark. Current market conditions remain supportive of our outlook. Within our HVAC segment, we continue to see strong demand for cooling products across a broad set of end market applications, including data centers, semiconductor plants, and various other industrial facilities. In heating, commercial and industrial demand remains solid, and channels remain balanced. As anticipated, heating backlog has continued to normalize from last year's elevated levels. ... As a result, weather is once again a key factor in influencing the level of demand during the winter months. In detection and measurement, our run rate demand is steady, with some regional variation, while the environment for project orders remains solid. In summary, I'm very pleased with our third quarter and year-to-date performance. With a strong backlog and positive operational momentum, we are well positioned to achieve our updated full-year guidance.
Looking ahead, I see multiple opportunities to continue investing for growth, including through our active M&A pipeline. I'm also pleased that our settlement agreement in South Africa brings to an end our long involvement there, with a favorable economic outcome and the elimination of this risk. I remain very confident in our ability to continue executing on our value creation framework in the near term and for years to come. With that, I'll turn the call back to Paul.
Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)
Thanks, Gene. Operator, we are now ready to go to questions.
Operator (participant)
In order to ask a question, please 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 the line of Brian Blair with Oppenheimer. Your line is now open.
Bryan Blair (Managing Director and Senior Analyst of Industrial Machinery and Flow Control)
Thank you. Good afternoon, guys.
Mark Carano (CFO and Treasurer)
Hey, Brian.
Gene Lowe (President and CEO)
Good afternoon.
Bryan Blair (Managing Director and Senior Analyst of Industrial Machinery and Flow Control)
I was hoping you could provide a little more color on the order rates in early Q4, and if there's any divergence from the underlying trends that were obviously favorable through Q3, then it would be great to hear how you're thinking about demand visibility and growth opportunities into 2024 across SPX platforms.
Gene Lowe (President and CEO)
Yeah, Brian, I'll take a crack at that. I think overall, we feel very good about what we're seeing. If I break it down, you know, across our different segments, what I would say is cooling remains very strong. There's a couple of drivers there, but even across the board, we're seeing nice strength in our overall cooling business, which is really our largest platform. So I think we're very well positioned as we look forward into 2024 there. Shifting over to our heating business. Our heating business is largely normalized. A lot of that is replacement demand, and I think we're in a more normal situation.
So on the hydronic side, to the boiler side, you're gonna see steady growth there every year, and, you know, the weather of any particular winter can drive demand up or suppress it a little bit. And then electric heat, we're seeing solid demand there across the board. So we feel good about what we're seeing across our HVAC businesses today, and actually feel good looking ahead to 2024. If I look on the detection and measurement side, what I would say is, you know, we typically think about the projects and the run rate businesses. We've had a very strong year on projects. Both, you know, over the past two years, we've done a nice job booking and revenuing a lot of orders, but we feel very good on the projects going into 2024.
So there's been a lot of awards, and we think we're very well set up on that side of the equation. And then really, you get to run rate businesses, and run rate remains steady. So I think that our markets are holding up. You know, obviously, we got to keep an eye on the economy and what's going on there. But from what we see today, we feel very good about the balance of the year, and we feel like... You know, it's still early, and we're still pulling together our planning for 2024, but I would say we're moving in a positive direction there. Mark, I don't know if there's anything else you'd like to add?
Mark Carano (CFO and Treasurer)
Yeah. Thanks, Gene. You know, I would say, Brian, when I look at the tailwinds and some of the broader drivers across the business that we've talked about over the last handful of quarters, I mean, they, they remain solid and positive in many cases. And I think some of the, whether it's some of this federal spending, government spending from the Infrastructure Bill, that's driving both opportunities in D&M or on the HVAC side, whether it's reshoring or just general sort of industrial activity, all those trends remain positive today. So we feel good about the backdrop and I don't think it's really changed as we sit today.
Gene Lowe (President and CEO)
Yeah, and interestingly enough, as you look ahead to 2024, even though we're really accelerating our shipments this year and having a very good revenue year, we believe we're gonna be nicely up on backlog as we go into 2024. So I think we're gonna be starting in a strong position. So yeah, from what we see today in our end markets, we're feeling positive.
Bryan Blair (Managing Director and Senior Analyst of Industrial Machinery and Flow Control)
No, that's great to hear. Appreciate all the color. And would you be willing to put some numbers to, how much data centers and semiconductor plants factor into your confidence on the HVAC side? And what kind of growth has the HVAC segment seen in those verticals in 2023, and what should we expect in 2024?
Gene Lowe (President and CEO)
Yeah. Let—I can make a few comments there. We do... You know, we've always been in data centers, and actually, we need to-
Mark Carano (CFO and Treasurer)
Yeah, probably about 10% of this year's cooling revenue, we anticipate would come from data centers. For example, Brian, that's up pretty nicely from the prior year. And as you probably have heard us say also, we are seeing an increasing amount of exposure for semiconductor manufacturing and battery plants. And all three of those, if you look at those, the customer base there has pretty good visibility into their forward years, so we feel very good about the opportunity there.
Gene Lowe (President and CEO)
Yeah, and then the other thing I would say is, even if you strip out those end markets, we're seeing nice growth across our other end markets. So you take hospitality, institutional, education, you know, so it's those are nice growth drivers, no doubt, and we do feel like there's some nice forward demand there, and that TAM, that market has expanded. But even in our other segments, we're seeing nice success there as well. So yeah, we feel good about that, Brian, as we look into 2024 and 2025.
Bryan Blair (Managing Director and Senior Analyst of Industrial Machinery and Flow Control)
Yeah. Again, very encouraging. And the last one, any additional detail you can offer, update on TAMCO and ASPEQ? That would be great. You know, how is integration tracking? How is financial contribution relative to the year one deal plan in both cases? And any update on, you know, the partial year 2023 accretion, and how should we think about carryover into 2024?
Gene Lowe (President and CEO)
Yeah, I'll start. I think, overall, we're feeling very good. I'm feeling very good about both of them. The TAMCO one is a little bit more straightforward in the sense that that's going bolting into our EAM business. Those guys have really done a nice job. We're actually seeing some nice cross-selling there. We're seeing some data center wins there. So, you know, on the TAMCO side, that machine is, is, is feeling feeling very good. I really feel like we've made a lot of progress there. As we've talked about all along, on the ASPEQ side, it is a little bit more complex because you're bringing two scale businesses together. ASPEQ is performing very well. They are...
I believe, both of them are ahead of their, you know, their profit plans and the models that we built for the business. But it is a little bit more of a complicated integration there. We are tracking very well there. We have a very seasoned leader there, Randy Data, who's overseeing all of the integration processes there, and we're actually feeling really good about the direction of those businesses coming together. But that is - that will take, you know, a little bit more time to really fully integrate those. So but, you know, on site is very good. Anything else you guys like to add with regards to?
Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)
Yeah, I would just say that, you know, they're on plan from a financial perspective, Brian, as we had, you know, originally outlined, when we made the acquisition. So we feel really good about their financial performance. I believe we indicated earlier this year that'd be about $0.20 of accretion related to those two businesses, net of the, obviously, the funding cost. And we still hold true to that and believe that will be the case.
Bryan Blair (Managing Director and Senior Analyst of Industrial Machinery and Flow Control)
Yep. Understood. Thanks again, guys.
Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)
Thanks, Brian.
Operator (participant)
One moment for your next question. Your next question comes from the line of Lawrence De Maria with William Blair. Your line is now open.
Lawrence De Maria (Group Head and Global Industrial Infrastructure Equity Research)
Thanks. Good morning, everybody, or good afternoon, rather. Hey, so, you know, obviously, the big question that people are focused on is you just beat by $0.09. You only raised by about $0.05. So question is, you know, is there some conservatism built into the fourth quarter, or are you seeing any, you know, signs to be wary of? And, you know, how come, obviously, you know, maybe we pulled forward some demand. So can you just talk to that aspect of the guidance, please?
Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)
Yeah, Larry, this is Paul. We are raising by five cents. In terms of our whether, you know, for a lot of the models out there, we beat by about six cents for the quarter. About half of the improvement that we saw relative to what we were expecting was due to some pull forward from the fourth quarter, and that was in the detection and measurement segment on a project basis, and that was about three cents, actually, of that. We also did get a tax impact this quarter that was a bit higher than what we were originally anticipating, and that had to do with the repatriation of some cash. The impact there was about four cents.
Lawrence De Maria (Group Head and Global Industrial Infrastructure Equity Research)
Okay.
Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)
I would say, just from a guidance perspective, I mean, I think, you know, we view it as sort of balanced given the market conditions that we're seeing out there today, so.
Lawrence De Maria (Group Head and Global Industrial Infrastructure Equity Research)
Okay. Makes sense. Thanks for the clarification. Then, you know, obviously, as much as we care about 4Q, we're also looking towards 2024. And, you know, you guys have been doing exceptionally well. Are there any pockets of weakness? We talked about, you know, some of the strength we're seeing. Any actual tangible, you know, signs of weakness, concerns out there other than, you know, the macro tea leaves. So just kind of what are you seeing that's concerning specifically out there, if anything?
Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)
Larry, we're not really seeing anything, you know, as we sit today, that sort of tangible weakness, right? We are monitoring the kind of the broader economic environment, which, you know, depending on your perspective, could be positive to mix in the markets you're in.
But, you know, overall, you know, we're not seeing anywhere. We continue to monitor our run rate businesses, and we watch those very closely. You know, we've kind of characterized them as steady, and largely on target. So, it's kind of where we see as we sit today.
Lawrence De Maria (Group Head and Global Industrial Infrastructure Equity Research)
You know, you talked about having, you know, a higher backlog, I think, exiting the year and some of the strength you're seeing out there and trends and things. So if we're going to assume we're talking about incremental margins next year, can you just talk, in terms of our modeling, how would should we think about is it either incremental margins or versus just overall margin improvement next year based on continuous improvement? Just some perspective on how we should be thinking about that.
Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)
Yeah, Larry, we have, we have, Gene mentioned several tailwinds that we think are blowing, you know, favorably for us in the, HVAC space around cooling. So we think we're in a very good position there. You've heard us talk about some of the continuous improvement processes, that we have in place and some of the investments that we're making this year to improve our overall throughput and, even expand capacity somewhat for the, cooling business. I think we feel very good there about our margin opportunities. We did mention previously that there was probably, about 100 basis points of, you know, price cost, benefit in our, in our HVAC, segment overall.
That, at some point, if we were to see some, you know, regression in the price-cost equation, we could get some of that back. But, yeah, I think overall, Larry, we feel good about our opportunities in HVAC to continue pushing the margin profile. In Detection and Measurement, as you know, we had about 100 basis points headwind this year associated with some mix in our communication technologies business and a supply chain issue that we had in the third quarter, which has been resolved at this point. We're expecting those to go away next year.
So, you know, as we set the stage, set the table for next year with project orders, which we think look pretty good for us, I think we feel good about our opportunities there also.
Lawrence De Maria (Group Head and Global Industrial Infrastructure Equity Research)
Okay, very good. Thank you. Good luck.
Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)
Thanks. Thanks, Larry.
Operator (participant)
One moment for the next question. Your next question comes from the line of Steve Ferrazzani with Sidoti. Your line is now open.
Steve Ferazani (Senior Equity Analyst of Diversified Industrials & Energy)
Evening, Gene, Mark. Want to follow up some of the other questions. I'm obviously with a quarter left, we can sort of back into to how you're guiding for 4Q. You addressed it a little bit, could right, because I can back into D&M for fourth quarter, and that looks flat to down in another quarter where margins are down year-over-year. And you, I think you just said some of the pressures on margins are through this quarter. I'm just trying to get a better sense of your expectations of the D&M, you know, particularly when we're looking at another quarter of down margins and flattish to down revenue, you know, how you pick that up next year? And was that just simply projects hitting 3Q versus hitting in 4Q the year ago?
Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)
Yeah. So you did... If you look, you are looking at the year ago period, you're absolutely right that that was our highest quarter in D&M in the prior year. I think our margins in that quarter were almost 24%, which is on the higher end of what we've been doing in that segment. And that was due to a concentration of some more favorable mix products in the prior year. This year, we did call out that we did have, again, that 100 basis points impact from a couple different items. One was the, again, the mix in CommTech and a supply chain issue that's been resolved. We would still expect to see fourth quarter as our highest margin quarter in detection and measurement this year.
You know, you know, we would expect to benefit from the absence of those same issues in the subsequent year.
Steve Ferazani (Senior Equity Analyst of Diversified Industrials & Energy)
When we think about moving forward with infrastructure funding, which has clearly been funneling at least through the summer, as well as Inflation Reduction Act and some other federal funding that could directly impact you, are you seeing it now, and can you see a bigger impact from some of those funding opportunities next year?
Mark Carano (CFO and Treasurer)
Yeah, Steve, we, we have seen some benefit from, from some of that government funding, particularly in our, transportation business. Some of those projects have already, have benefited from availability of that funding, and we anticipate that next year, we will begin to see, you know, additional dollars benefit, you know, many of the businesses, you know, across the platform. We've talked about, you know, where that could benefit AtoN, as well as our location and inspection businesses. And then clearly, you may see some benefit from, some of the HVAC businesses as well. So we're watching that carefully. We anticipate that we'll see more of those dollars flow out. I think most people believe that, that the, the distribution of those funds has been slower than I think anyone anticipated.
But, you know, we believe we'll benefit from those next year and beyond, quite frankly, the next few years.
Steve Ferazani (Senior Equity Analyst of Diversified Industrials & Energy)
Great. Already starting to delever out of the, ASPEQ deal, it's clearly continue to be a strong cash flow generator. Any targets on where you want, where you, we are expecting or targeting, net leverage to go near term versus longer term?
Mark Carano (CFO and Treasurer)
Yeah, I think, Steve, well, I mean, we've communicated that, you know, we're most comfortable in a kind of a net leverage range between 1.5x and 2.5x. You know, and I don't think anything has changed with respect to that today. Obviously, you know, leverage will be, you know, dependent on acquisition activity. But, you know, as we look into next year, we'll see what sort of opportunities present themselves and whether, you know, there's anything that makes sense from an M&A perspective.
Steve Ferazani (Senior Equity Analyst of Diversified Industrials & Energy)
Any reason to think you lean towards smaller after making the larger ASPEQ deal?
Mark Carano (CFO and Treasurer)
No, not necessarily. You know, I think we'll kind of consider any and all opportunities that are out there, right? You know, small ones are obviously can be nicely accretive, but some of these more mid-sized transactions that we completed this year, you know, fit nicely as well. I think it'll be a function of, you know, what opportunities are there and, you know, is there a strategic rationale for them, along with a value creation path? I think that that's more important, obviously, than size.
Steve Ferazani (Senior Equity Analyst of Diversified Industrials & Energy)
Right. Sure. Okay. Thanks, Mark. Thanks, Gene.
Mark Carano (CFO and Treasurer)
Thanks.
Operator (participant)
One moment for the next question. And your next question comes from the line of Walter Liptak with Seaport Research. Your line is now open.
Walter Liptak (Managing Director and Senior Financial Analyst)
Hi. Thanks. Good evening, everyone. Great quarter, guys.
Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)
Thanks, Walt.
Mark Carano (CFO and Treasurer)
Thanks, Walt.
Walter Liptak (Managing Director and Senior Financial Analyst)
I wanted to ask about the D&M segment. It did a little bit better than I was expecting, and it was up quarter-over-quarter. And you mentioned in Larry's, you know, question that there was some pull forward of projects. I wonder if you can give us a little bit more on that.
Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)
Yeah. So, we had about... We sized it at about $0.03 of impact, well, for the third quarter coming from the fourth quarter, and that was largely related to our fare collection business, but we also had a little bit, we also did a little bit better in our AtoN business than anticipated.
Walter Liptak (Managing Director and Senior Financial Analyst)
Okay, great. And then maybe the same thing on orders. You know, the backlog looked pretty strong to me and, you know, looks like the orders might be up sequentially and year over year. I wonder if you can talk about what's going well in the different businesses within D&M for orders.
Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)
So, yeah, our backlog overall for the, at the end of the quarter, Walt, was around $234 million, and that's about flat sequentially. As you know, in our D&M business, our backlog tends to flex up and down a little bit as you bring in the large projects in terms of orders and then deliver them. So the variances, you know, maybe are a little less meaningful than the absolute size of backlog. But I think what I would say is the project businesses, which make up the vast majority of D&M backlog, are very high relative to historical levels, and CommTech and our fare collection business are really the largest contributors to that, as where. But we also have seen, you know, some nice backlog in our AtoN business.
Walter Liptak (Managing Director and Senior Financial Analyst)
Okay, great. And I guess thinking about those larger projects, is that, are those going to ship in fourth quarter, or are these the kind of projects that are going to be shipping in, in, you know, say, 2024, in the first half or whatever?
Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)
Yeah, it's a good question. We do have some of that backlog that goes into next year, Walt. So I feel like we feel like we're starting to be well set up for 2024. There's a little bit of it that would roll even into the subsequent year, into 2025.
Walter Liptak (Managing Director and Senior Financial Analyst)
Okay, great. Okay, thanks much.
Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)
Thank you.
Mark Carano (CFO and Treasurer)
Thanks, Walt.
Operator (participant)
Again, in order to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone. That is star one one on your telephone. And your next question comes from the line of Damian Karas with UBS. Your line is now open.
Damian Karas (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Hey, good evening, guys.
Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)
Hey, Damian.
Mark Carano (CFO and Treasurer)
Hey, Damian.
Damian Karas (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Congrats on the official end to Medupi and Kusile. I remember the days when we were talking about that literally quarter in, quarter out, if not more. Some pretty vivid memories of all that.
Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)
Thank you.
Ve-very vivid.
Mark Carano (CFO and Treasurer)
Very vivid.
Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)
Yeah.
Yeah. It's,
Damian Karas (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Sure you don't want to get any-
Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)
Go ahead, Dan.
Mark Carano (CFO and Treasurer)
Are you sure you don't want to get involved in any, mega coal power, projects, Gene?
Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)
Yeah, I think, that's a pretty safe assumption, and, particularly augmented by the fact that we sold all of those businesses about six years ago. So it's,
Mark Carano (CFO and Treasurer)
We'll mark that off.
Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)
Pretty clearly good to put that in the rearview mirror.
Damian Karas (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Most definitely. So appreciate all the color on the demand environment. But I think to the last question that was asked, you know, so you've mentioned solar order trends. I don't want to make any presumptions about the level. You know, could you just share any numbers around the actual order rates, like, you know, year-over-year in the quarter, and how they're lining up?
Mark Carano (CFO and Treasurer)
Maybe what I could give you is that our Book to Bill in really both segments is one or better. And going into the next quarter, into the fourth quarter, we'd expect it to be a little bit better than one.
Damian Karas (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Okay, great.
Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)
Again, that's coming off, coming off, you know, fairly strong quarters in terms of deliveries.
Damian Karas (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Yeah, thank you. And then I wanted to ask you about, you know, your distribution partners, right? A lot of manufacturing companies, certainly in the HVAC industry, you know, they've been experiencing destocking challenges. It's not something that you guys have really touched on. I recognize you have more, you know, built to order, you know, aspects to your HVAC business. But could you just remind us, kind of across, SPX, you know, where you do rely on kind of third-party distribution? And, you know, I'm curious to hear if you're seeing any indications of distribution partners may be carrying some excess inventory.
Gene Lowe (President and CEO)
Yeah, Damian, what I would say is you, you're exactly right. I think the bulk of our business is engineered to order, so it, it's not really going into that distribution zone. I would say there are a couple exceptions to that. Probably the biggest one would be our residential hydronics or residential boiler business. And that is where we actually have very good visibility into how you know where the distributors are, what they're carrying. Not at every distributor, but a good chunk of them and a good feel for the market. This is something we spend a lot of time on in making sure that we feel like we know whether the distribution is balanced or high or low.
What we see today is it's pretty balanced, you know, on that side, so we don't really have any concerns there. Right now, on the boiler side, we're keeping our eyes more on the weather. Now, typically, a cold snap will drive a big chunk of extra orders and so forth there. But, I'd say that's the biggest place that we keep our eyes on. The second one, I would say, which is smaller, but would be Radiodetection. And I would say that we've seen perhaps a little bit of destocking there. That's already in our numbers this year.
You know, obviously, with interest rates going up, we are seeing that some distributors who really, you know, leverage who finance their inventory, it's becoming a lot more expensive to finance inventory, and therefore, you know, some of these smaller distributors, mid-size distributors, are very careful about what they own. But those would be the two places I would say that we need to think about it. And I don't know anything else that I missed here with regards to that, Matt?
Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)
I think you covered it.
Gene Lowe (President and CEO)
Yeah.
Damian Karas (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Okay, very helpful. Thank you. And then one last quick one. So speaking of hydronics, so the DOE, you know, has proposed some rules recently on water heater efficiency. I'm curious if, you know, that proposal could move at all, you know, kind of into your business or any discussions out there that might be happening on the regulatory front for gas boilers?
Gene Lowe (President and CEO)
Yeah. No, I think the DOE is very, very, systematically regulates hydronics, and, typically, they do five years. We actually just finished upgrading all of our residential line to the appropriate AFUE, the appropriate efficiency. And then after that was the commercial update, which again is moving towards more high efficiency. So yeah, and I think that's a part of the, you know, a never-ending part of what's going on in our business. Typically, the standards are always getting higher, the efficiencies are getting higher. And we actually view that as something that typically benefits us.
What you see is a lot of those new specifications are very hard to do, and it takes a lot of engineering, a lot of rework, and so you, you have to have some scale to be able to build those new, higher efficiency solutions. So, you know, and I think this is true in, in hydronics, but I think this is true in almost all the markets that we serve. Because we're typically leaders in the markets that we serve, when we see the standards being raised, we're typically the company that's most well-positioned to take advantage of that, and then typically, I would view as a net positive. So, so yeah, those, those are still going on, and we would anticipate those to continue going on. Typically, on the with the EPA, it's typically a five-year cycle.
Damian Karas (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Understood. Thank you very much. Best of luck.
Gene Lowe (President and CEO)
Thanks, Damian.
Operator (participant)
I see no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Paul Clegg.
Paul Clegg (VP of Investor Relations and Communications)
Thank you all for joining us, and we look forward to catching up with you at upcoming conferences. Please reach out if you have questions.
Operator (participant)
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.