UL Solutions - Earnings Call - Q4 2024

Executive Summary

• Q4 revenue rose 8.0% to $739M with 9.5% organic growth; Adjusted EBITDA grew 27.1% to $169M with margin expanding 350 bps to 22.9% as Industrial led and Consumer improved efficiency.
• Diluted EPS increased 37.9% to $0.40 and Adjusted Diluted EPS rose 69.0% to $0.49; net income margin expanded 240 bps to 11.5% on operating leverage and lower SG&A ratio.
• 2025 outlook: mid‑single‑digit organic revenue growth, Adjusted EBITDA margin to ~24% (up from 22.9% FY24), capex 7–8% of revenue, and ETR ~26% (vs. 16.9% in 2024).
• Call color: Q4 ongoing certification services (OCS) growth accelerated to ~12% (vs. ~8% in Q1–Q3), likely modest pull‑forward; expect normalization in 2025. Pricing/volume mix roughly even for certification testing and electrification testing; FX could be a ~<1% revenue headwind in 2025 if forwards hold.
• Stock reaction catalysts: durable Industrial growth tied to energy transition and AI data center power needs, margin expansion trajectory toward 24%, and higher 2025 tax rate (OECD Pillar 2) partially tempering EPS leverage; watch normalization in OCS after Q4 pull‑forward.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

• What Went Well

  • Industrial delivered 13.9% organic growth (11.6% total) and 510 bps adj. EBITDA margin expansion to 32.0%; strength in electrical, renewables, component certification, and added lab capacity.
  • Consumer growth (6.5% organic) with 230 bps adj. EBITDA margin expansion to 14.6% on retail and consumer tech demand and operational efficiency; management: “we're adding capacity...to meet increasing testing demand”.
  • Strong cash generation and balance sheet flexibility: FY24 CFO $524M; FCF $287M; investment‑grade ratings; deleveraging through $165M net debt repayment in 2024.
  • CEO: “Robust organic revenue growth, margin expansion and strong cash flow generation underscored the resilience and predictability of our business model”.

• What Went Wrong

  • Software & Advisory grew 5.2% but margins were flat; management cited higher services/materials costs and professional fees; S&A margins lagged expectations in prior quarter as well.
  • Services and materials costs rose with volume and use of third‑party labs; some spend reflects bridging capacity until in‑house investments come online.
  • 2025 ETR expected to rise to ~26% from 16.9% in 2024 due to OECD Pillar 2 and non‑recurring 2024 reserve releases, a headwind to after‑tax earnings growth.
  • FX likely to be a ~<1% revenue headwind in 2025 (largely expense‑offset at EBITDA, but still a net drag).

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning, and welcome to the UL Solutions Fourth Quarter 2024 earnings call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal conference specialists by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's remarks, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your touch-tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mitchell Ji, Senior Vice President of Corporate Finance. Please go ahead.

Mitchell Ji (SVP of Corporate Finance)

Thank you, and welcome everyone to our Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024 earnings call. Joining me today are Jenny Scanlon, our Chief Executive Officer, and Ryan Robinson, our Chief Financial Officer. During our discussion today, we will be referring to our earnings presentation, which is available on the Investor Relations section of our website at ul.com. Our earnings release is also available on the website. I would like to remind everyone that on today's call, we may discuss forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements may include, among other things, statements about UL Solutions' results of operations and estimates and prospects that involve substantial risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause actual results to differ in a material way from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements.

Please see the disclosure statement on slide two of the earnings presentation, as well as the disclaimers in our earnings release concerning forward-looking statements and the risk factors that are described in our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31st, 2024. We assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof, except as required by law. Today's presentation also includes references to non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation to the most comparable GAAP financial measure can be found in the appendix to the earnings presentation. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Jenny.

Jenny Scanlon (President and CEO)

Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us. This time last year, we were gearing up for our IPO and the roadshow to highlight what makes UL Solutions unique and worth your time and investment. As we met with potential investors, we talked about how we are a global safety science leader and a mission-driven growth company in the fragmented and consolidating testing, inspection, and certification industry. Hallmarks of our business include long-standing deep customer relationships and recurring revenue streams, global scale and operating leverage, a healthy balance sheet, and a disciplined capital allocation strategy aligned with the mega trends propelling growth. Against this backdrop, I'm delighted to report that UL Solutions has concluded an extraordinary year with another quarter of outstanding performance. In our first year as a public company, we've delivered strong organic growth, enhanced profitability, and generated robust cash flows while maintaining an investment-grade balance sheet.

What's particularly gratifying is the balanced strength we've seen across all segments, service offerings, and geographic regions. The key mega trends we've identified, including the global energy transition, the electrification of everything, and digitalization, continue to drive strong demand for our industry-leading services. I'll cover three areas before turning the call over to Ryan. First, our full-year performance highlights. Second, notable achievements and activities across 2024. And third, our financial position and capital allocation strategy for 2025. 2024 marked a pivotal year in UL's 130-year history. Our successful transition to a public company, while maintaining focus on delivering superior results, demonstrates the exceptional execution capabilities of our team. I want to express my deep appreciation to our employees whose dedication to safety, scientific excellence, and customer service defines our culture and drives our success.

Ryan will dive into the fourth quarter numbers in a minute, so let me hit the high notes of our full-year 2024 results. We built strong momentum across the course of the year, delivering revenues of $2.9 billion, up 7.2% versus 2023, and up 8.7% on an organic basis. Our Industrial segment led the way with 9.4% full-year growth, including 11.9% on an organic basis, while our Consumer segment grew 5.6%, including a 6.9% on an organic basis. Our Software and Advisory segment completed the year with 5% top-line growth, including 4.4% on an organic basis. Our results reflected growth across all geographic regions. Adjusted EBITDA for the full year grew 16.5%, and Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded by 190 basis points. We generated an 18.8% increase in Adjusted Net Income and $287 million of Free Cash Flow for the full year.

Next, let me highlight our major accomplishments this year, as well as a few achievements and drivers of performance this quarter and subsequent to its end. After a long and proud history as a private company, we completed our successful initial public offering in April, as well as a follow-on offering of shares from our largest shareholder in September. We made two acquisitions in our industrial segment related to the global energy transition: Battery Testing Company, BatterieIngenieure and Hydrogen Testing Company, TesTneT. Our recent accelerated pace of capital spending resulted in the opening of our state-of-the-art battery testing lab in Auburn Hills, Michigan. We also expanded capacity at our Mexico lab to meet growing product demand in Latin America and announced plans to construct an advanced automotive and battery testing center in Korea. Finally, let me comment on our disciplined approach to capital allocation activities during the year.

Our strong revenue growth and resilient business model, along with an investment-grade balance sheet, allowed us to generate robust cash flow. Key actions, in addition to the two acquisitions I just mentioned this year, included reinvesting organically $237 million in capital expenditures to drive growth, paying down $166 million of borrowings from our credit facility, and paying $100 million in dividends. We believe that we enter 2025 in an even stronger position than when we began our public company journey. Our management team remains focused on maintaining our investment-grade rating and conservative leverage while actively pursuing strategic M&A opportunities and returning excess capital to shareholders. Now I'll turn the call over to Ryan for a detailed review of our fourth quarter results and 2025 outlook.

Ryan Robinson (EVP and CFO)

Thank you, Jenny, and hello, everyone. I also want to thank all of our team members for delivering another strong quarter and full year 2024. Jenny did an excellent job of summarizing our outstanding financial results for the full year, and I'll focus my comments on the fourth quarter and segment results before closing with some comments on our initial 2025 full-year outlook. We are proud to report in our fourth quarter, on a consolidated basis, a continuation of strong growth, adjusted EBITDA margin expansion, and solid cash generation. As Jenny mentioned, it's encouraging to see that revenue growth once again occurred across all of our segments and all of our geographies. Now let me dive into the details of the quarter. Consolidated revenue of $739 million was up 8.0% over the prior year quarter, including organic growth of 9.5%.

The increase reflected particular strength in the Industrial segment, which delivered robust 13.9% organic growth. Cost of revenue for the quarter increased by 6.0% as compared to the prior year period due to increased depreciation related to capacity expansion, services and materials costs related to high volumes, and lab startup and employee compensation. SG&A expenses as a percentage of revenue decreased 200 basis points, 33.8% in the prior quarter, to 31.8% in Q4 of 2024. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $169 million, an improvement of 27.1% year over year. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 22.9%, up 350 basis points from the same period a year ago on particular strength in both the Industrial and Consumer segments.

Our effective tax rate for the full year was 16.9%, and in the fourth quarter, we benefited from a reduction in uncertain tax positions as a result of the expiration of a statute of limitations. Adjusted net income for the fourth quarter was $102 million, up 64.5% from $62 million in the fourth quarter of 2023. Adjusted diluted earnings per share was $0.49, up from $0.29 in the fourth quarter of 2023. Now let me turn to our performance by segment, starting with Industrial. The mega trends of Global Energy Transition, Electrification of Everything, and Digitalization are driving tremendous innovation and demand for our services in the Industrial segment, helping it once again deliver the strongest revenue growth of the three segments for the quarter. Revenues in Industrial rose 11.6% to $328 million, or 13.9% on an organic basis as compared to the fourth quarter of 2023.

This marks seven consecutive quarters of double-digit organic revenue growth. Those impressive gains were driven by growth in all of our service lines. In the quarter, we believe ongoing certification services growth benefited from increased activity from manufacturers ahead of potential tariffs. Certification testing growth was led by energy and automation, and we expect a normalization of demand in ongoing certification services in 2025. Adjusted EBITDA for the industrial segment increased 32.9% to $105 million in the quarter, while Adjusted EBITDA margin improved 510 basis points to 32.0%. The higher organic revenue was partially offset by increases in services and materials. Now turning to the consumer segment, revenues in consumer were $309 million, up 5.5% from the 2023 quarter, or 6.5% on an organic basis. The improvement was driven by demand across non-certification testing and other services, certification testing, as well as ongoing certification services.

We saw particularly strong demand across retail and consumer technology. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter in Consumer was $49 million, an increase of 25.0% versus the fourth quarter last year. Adjusted EBITDA margin for the quarter was 14.6%, an increase of 230 basis points year over year driven by higher revenues. Solid organic revenue growth was partially offset by increases in employee compensation. Expense actions taken in 2023 reduced the impact of these cost increases and contributed to margin improvement. We mentioned last quarter how we're adding capacity at various consumer facilities, increasing our footprint, and improving how we connect with customers in order to meet increasing testing demand, and that work continues. Our third segment is Software and Advisory. Revenues for that segment were $102 million, an increase of 5.2% year over year on both a total and organic basis.

The improvement was driven by strong demand for software, including retail product compliance and sustainability solutions. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter for software and advisory was $19 million, up a 5.6% increase as compared to the fourth quarter of last year. Adjusted EBITDA margin for the quarter was 18.6%, flat year over year, as higher revenues were offset by increases in services and materials. Turning to our cash generation. For the full year 2024, we generated $524 million of cash from operating activities. That compares to $467 million in the prior year. The improvement was driven by business performance and lower cash incentive payments. Capital expenditures for the full year 2024 were $237 million, compared to $215 million in 2023. We continue to make important investments in global energy transition opportunities throughout 2024, which remains a focus area for UL Solutions.

Free cash flow for the full year was $287 million, compared to $252 million in 2023, despite a higher level of growth investments. We finished the year with $298 million of cash and cash equivalents. The strength of our balance sheet is reflected in our investment-grade credit ratings. A robust balance sheet and cash flow generation give us great flexibility to invest in organic initiatives, accretive acquisitions, and to pursue a number of value-enhancing ways intended to produce best-in-class shareholder returns. As Jenny said, in 2024, we opened new labs, we broke ground on others, and completed two acquisitions to better align our business with the mega trends driving demand for our services. In addition, we paid down $166 million on our credit facilities and returned $100 million to our shareholders through quarterly dividends. Now turning to our initial 2025 full-year outlook.

As a reminder, organic growth is constant currency and excludes acquisitions and divestitures. We expect 2025 consolidated organic revenue growth to be in the mid-single digits range as compared to our full year 2024 results. It's a testament to the strength and diversity of our offerings and the outstanding execution by our team that we believe we're in a position to deliver mid-single digit revenue growth following 8.7% organic revenue growth in 2024. We expect to drive further adjusted EBITDA margin expansion improvement to approximately 24% for the full year 2025, which I'm pleased to say is in line with our longer-term targets communicated last April at the time of the IPO. As a reminder, we have a number of ways to drive margin expansion for the company.

They include operating leverage from top-line growth, a mixed benefit as industrial growth outpaces the other segments, and a continued focus on productivity gains. Additionally, we look at M&A opportunities in our strategic end markets that present a path to margin and earnings accretion while also evaluating portfolio realignment. We expect capital expenditures to be approximately 7%-8% of revenue in 2025, with investments in new labs and customer-facing software continuing as we seek to match continued strong customer demand in all three segments. This is down modestly from our rate of spend in 2024 as a percentage of revenue, but roughly flat sequentially and still above our longer-term historical average. We estimate our effective tax rate in 2025 to be approximately 26%.

This compares to an effective rate of 16.9% in 2024, with the anticipated change due primarily to additional implementation of the OECD Pillar Two provisions, which affects how multinational corporations are taxed. We also experienced a benefit in 2024 from a significant release of tax reserves that is not expected to recur in 2025. While our guidance is for the full year 2025, let me provide you with some additional color with regard to seasonality. As a reminder, Q1 is typically our lowest revenue quarter in terms of dollars, given the Lunar New Year holiday impact on our customer operations and fewer UL workdays as compared to the other quarters. This results in slightly less operating leverage and therefore profitability in Q1 compared to the other quarters. In addition, we face increasingly challenging comps in the second half of 2025.

We enter 2025 with strong momentum, growing faster than the market while improving profitability and cash generation. Our investment-grade balance sheet provides flexibility for strategic capital deployment as we work to deliver superior shareholder value. Now let me turn the call back to Jenny for her closing remarks.

Jenny Scanlon (President and CEO)

Thanks, Ryan. As I mentioned last quarter, occasionally we will highlight for you some important and high-profile work we do as a leading expert in safety science. In late December, we announced that the U.S. Federal Communications Commission named UL Solutions as lead administrator of the new U.S. Cyber Trustmark program, which will help equip qualifying smart products such as voice-activated speakers or kitchen appliances with a cybersecurity safety label.

We were honored to receive this designation as UL Solutions will support the FCC and other stakeholders in establishing the technical requirements and other details that will help launch and grow the program. The voluntary Cyber Trustmark program is designed to help consumers make informed decisions about the products they bring into their homes, differentiate trustworthy products in the marketplace, and create incentives for manufacturers to meet cybersecurity standards. Congratulations to our team for all of their hard work on this program. To wrap up, our exceptional 2024 performance builds on our successful IPO and should position us strongly for 2025 and beyond. While we've just achieved remarkable results in our long history, in many ways, we're just getting started. We stand on the shoulders of generations of safety scientists who have made the world a better place, and we carry that legacy forward with pride.

We believe the mega trends driving our markets from the global energy transition to sustainability align well with our capabilities and market position. With our strong balance sheet, robust cash flow, and clear strategic direction, we believe that we're well positioned to deliver exceptional long-term value to all stakeholders. Let's open the line for questions.

Operator (participant)

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touch-tone phone. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we'll pause momentarily to assemble our roster. And our first question comes from Stephanie Yee from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Stephanie Yee (Equity Research VP)

Hi, good morning. I was wondering if you can comment on your 2025 outlook by each of your three segments.

Ryan Robinson (EVP and CFO)

Sure. Well, we're pleased to continue our path of growth after a strong year in 2024, and we see opportunity in each of the three segments. The primary trends within the industrial segment continue. Our progress in consumer, including adding some new capacity and improving those operations, continue. And we're pleased with progress in the last quarter with software and advisory, particularly on the software side of the business. So I say our outlook for revenue growth is on a consolidated basis, but we see each of the segments contributing to that.

Stephanie Yee (Equity Research VP)

And I guess, could you comment on comparison versus 2024, in particular with industrial? Whether you expect the strength to continue? I noticed you mentioned that ongoing certification, maybe there is some pull forward into the fourth quarter. Maybe that piece is going to moderate or normalize in 2025. But any other comparison to 2024 in the industrial segment you could provide?

Jenny Scanlon (President and CEO)

Great question, Stephanie. And I'll start just by saying we are really proud of the fact that our industrial team has seven consecutive quarters of double-digit growth. And what we saw in 2024 is every end market, every region. And so it comes down to those mega trends that we talk about. The global energy transition is real, and we see it in power and controls. We see it in the uptick in data centers, particularly to serve the AI market, which those data centers need about twice as much power as a normal data center.

And that ties into that digitalization trend and the ways in which you have to change out hardware or storage systems to better use power to be more efficient, and then surround that with cooling and HVAC systems and energy storage systems, and then extend into the grid. So these trends in industrial are real, and we're excited about working with our customers on both new certification testing and non-certification testing. And then we also understand that there's a balance of all four of our service lines across each of our segments. And so we have to look at the way that those services balance across all of that demand.

Ryan Robinson (EVP and CFO)

And Stephanie, just to build on your question about ongoing certification services, and as you know, the majority of our revenue streams are not affected by production volumes.

They're based on the number of models in the market and the pace of new product innovation. However, some of our services within ongoing certification services are affected by manufacturer activity. And it's difficult to precisely attribute increases in ongoing certification, which we experienced in Q4, directly to tariff anticipation. However, we did see a material pickup in revenue. And so, as an example, for the first three quarters of 2024, ongoing certification grew about 8%. In Q4, it grew about 12%. And the increase in growth on a consolidated basis contributed about 1% to our consolidated revenue growth. And it's possible that pulling forward some of that demand may result in slightly lower growth in 2025, and that's also a comparison in Q4 in particular.

Stephanie Yee (Equity Research VP)

Okay. I appreciate that. If I can just ask one question on certification testing across the portfolio, it seems like it had been growing very strongly through the third quarter. In the fourth quarter, it decelerated a little bit to 6%. Can you kind of comment on what's driving the trend there? Is there any potential risk to certification testing in a more deregulatory environment under the current administration?

Jenny Scanlon (President and CEO)

Yeah. We don't believe that there is a threat to certification testing. Some of this is timing. Some of it is what demand our customers and customers have. And as you know, we had talked in the third quarter that Consumer was particularly strong in the third quarter. And it's no reflection on the fourth quarter. We just had a really strong third quarter in Consumer.

So I think across the board, we're very confident and focused on both our certification testing and our non-certification testing and the demands around that because you can't have innovation without safety.

Stephanie Yee (Equity Research VP)

Okay. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from George Tong from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

George Tong (Business and Information Service Analyst)

Hi, thanks. Good morning.

Jenny Scanlon (President and CEO)

Good morning.

George Tong (Business and Information Service Analyst)

Hi. You talked about mega trends around energy transition, the electrification of everything, digitization, all driving demand in industrial. Since these trends are very much longstanding, should the industrial segment be able to sustain the double-digit growth that you've seen over the past seven quarters into the foreseeable future?

Ryan Robinson (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. Appreciate the question. Our revenue guidance is on a consolidated basis, but we do see opportunity in each of the segments. I would say the fundamental things that have been driving industrial, we don't see material changes in those tailwinds.

We'll continue to invest against those opportunities. Our comparisons are getting steeper, and we want to set realistic expectations that we expect to achieve.

George Tong (Business and Information Service Analyst)

Understood. And then you touched on this a little bit earlier, but can you elaborate on how you expect higher tariffs to impact the business, either positively or negatively, across the business?

Jenny Scanlon (President and CEO)

Yes, George. Historically, tariffs have not had a material impact on our business. And as you know, our revenue is largely not dependent on volumes but dependent on the product innovation, new product development life cycles. Now, what we've seen, and we've seen this since 2017, 2018, when tariffs were first introduced on Chinese goods, appliances, and other items, what we've seen was that actually, in the early days, our revenue increased in 2018 and across 2019. And the majority of that was organic.

And where that comes from is, as a manufacturer, when you're facing tariffs, you're thinking about how do you balance out your costs and your situation. So you may start to shift your supply chain, change where you're manufacturing products. You may change out raw materials, and you're most likely value engineering your products to swap out components or just change the overall design. In many cases, each of those require retesting. So for us, regardless of tariffs, we follow our customers as they make the good business decisions that they make about their product cost, their manufacturing locations, their end market mix.

George Tong (Business and Information Service Analyst)

Very helpful. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Andrew Nicholas from William Blair. Please go ahead.

Tom Rashawn (Analyst)

Hi, good morning. This is Tom Rashawn for Andrew Nicholas. Thanks for taking my question. I want [crosstalk] to touch on the margin guide.

I want to touch on the margin guide for 2025. So you plan to reach your 24% long-term margin target. I was wondering if you can kind of provide your thoughts on how you think about that as a jumping-off point into 2026 and beyond and kind of the structural margin expansion going from there and how high those levels can go.

Ryan Robinson (EVP and CFO)

Thank you. Yeah. We appreciate the question, Tom. And you're right. At the time of the IPO, we were coming off 2023, where we recorded 21.0% Adjusted EBITDA margin. And we had said that we had longer-term targets of greater than 24%. So that would be a 300 basis point increase. We were pleased to increase 190 basis points in 2024, and we were comfortable guiding towards approximately 24%, which would be another 110 basis points improvement this year.

So, moving towards those longer-term objectives in our second year as a public company. We're not going to stop there. We do see opportunity in all three segments to grow from there. We're not in a position to update that longer-term guidance more precisely at this point, but we're pleased with the progress that our teams are making.

Tom Rashawn (Analyst)

Thank you. And then on the Certification and Non-certification Testing in the quarter, I was wondering if you could provide some detail on the balance between volume and pricing driving growth there, and then, if possible, if you could have that also at the segment level between Industrial and Consumer. Thank you.

Ryan Robinson (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. On a consolidated basis, those two revenue streams in the quarter comprised about 57% of our consolidated revenue, and they lend themselves better to price volume comparisons because we are paid to complete a test.

There is a measurable unit of activity. And those revenue categories grew roughly 8% in the quarter. And it was a pretty even mix between price and volume, and we're pleased with that. We're continuing to show the ability to gradually increase and compound price over time, as well as getting increased demand and volume from our customers.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Andy Whitman from Baird. Please go ahead.

Andrew Wittman (Senior Research Analyst)

Yeah. Great. Thanks. I guess I just wanted to talk about the margins in a little bit different way. I mean, obviously, the quarter had very good adjusted EBITDA margin expansion. And so I was just wondering maybe for you, Ryan, if you could just talk about, was there a comp issue that made the EBITDA expansion so strong here? I'm just trying to think.

350 in the quarter, obviously more than last quarter and more than what you're guiding for the year ahead. So I just want to understand if there's something in there. I think it might have to do with the prior year CSAR expense that didn't repeat. But if there was anything else besides that, maybe you could just talk about the build-up to this year's margin performance.

Ryan Robinson (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. Thank you for the question. I'd say the primary thing is operating leverage. When we grow on an organic basis, 9.5%, we get disproportionate flow-through. So I think if you look at the relationship of organic revenue growth to organic expense growth, top line is the primary explainer. We did have some CSAR expense in the fourth quarter of last year, and that reduced operating income and Adjusted EBITDA. This year, we're adding back stock-based compensation. But that's not the story.

The dollar amounts are similar. And if you look at operating income margin, which removes that noise of stock-based compensation and CSARs, it was about 300 basis points of expansion. So I would say, overall, we had good expense management. And when you grow businesses at this pace, you get higher flow-through.

Andrew Wittman (Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. Yep. That makes sense. Appreciate that. And then I guess two other ones quickly here. Just as it relates to the potential pull forward on the ongoing certification testing, I understand that it's always hard to totally deduce. I thought your data that you provided earlier here about the fourth quarter being up 12% was helpful. But I mean, the tariffs haven't been in effect yet. I would imagine it takes more than a few months to kind of stockpile, I guess, for lack of a better term.

Are you seeing so far in the quarter that there's a downtick on the ongoing cert? Or maybe you could describe why maybe you don't think that's going to at least benefit the first quarter here, if not the second, when we've got a little bit of a reprieve, a little longer reprieve than many expected, even a couple of months ago on the tariffs?

Ryan Robinson (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. Yeah. We're not in a position to talk about first-quarter activity yet. And you're right. It's difficult to know the exact drivers. We can objectively say that we had an increase in activity and help quantify that. And following clarity on the election and the likely impact on tariffs, that likely did have an impact. But it's very difficult to isolate that as a single factor.

Jenny Scanlon (President and CEO)

And Andy, I would add our customers have been facing tariffs since 2017.

So when I'm out talking to them, like I was just in Mexico recently, they've made a lot of decisions. They make decisions around their product mix. They make decisions around how they're value engineering. They make decisions around where they're putting factories. And in many cases, those decisions, they've made them, and now they're figuring out the right positioning for where they put their inventory or how they're going to manage their pricing. So this all plays out over a long period of time. And so we may have seen a little bit of a reactionary shift in the fourth quarter as customers were positioning themselves for 2025, but we're not expecting we're expecting it to all balance out over time as it always has.

Andrew Wittman (Senior Research Analyst)

Yeah. Okay. And then just a quick punch list one here, Ryan.

If FX rates were to stay where they are now, just for us to all calibrate our models here, what is the FX headwind, either in dollar terms or percentage terms, as you look at the 2025 revenue versus the 2024 revenue?

Ryan Robinson (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. There have been some movements in the currency markets. In local markets, typically, we do business in the currency of our customers, so the euro and the yen, the RMB. Based on what the market is predicting as forward rates, that would have just under 1% headwind on a reported basis for a full year, 2025. And it certainly will be different than that number, but that's the wisdom of the market right now. As a reminder, our expenses in those markets, we pay our people in those currencies. So the majority of those items, the majority of the revenue headwind is offset by an expense change.

So just to put it in context, we had a currency headwind in 2024. That was about $24 million in revenue. But on an EBITDA basis, it had a $5 million impact. So $19 million was offset with the translation of expense reduction.

Andrew Wittman (Senior Research Analyst)

Super helpful. Thank you so much. Have a good day.

Ryan Robinson (EVP and CFO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Josh Chan from UBS. Please go ahead.

Josh Chan (Executive Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Hi. Good morning, Jenny and Ryan. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe a bigger-picture margin question. Not that you have visibility into doing 24% EBITDA margins. That level is obviously solidly above what the company did pre-IPO, obviously ahead of 2023 and 2024. And so I guess, as you take a step back, what is enabling you to achieve 24% margins versus maybe high teens and low 20s several years ago?

Jenny Scanlon (President and CEO)

I think the best place to start on that, Josh, is really fundamentally. I'm in my sixth year here. Ryan's in his eighth year here. We each came from industries that have a strong focus on continuous improvement. We've put forth a number of changes both in single global instances of technology that then have second and third-order effects in business processes, productivity, and overall improvements on behalf of our customers and customer service. We continue down a path of location consolidation that gives us better, just better overall usage of our management and our overhead. We've extended our positions with our global and strategic accounts and really focused on their innovation needs and then down their supply chains. And so it's not one singular thing. I think it's an overall attitude of continuous improvement that our entire executive team and leadership team has as a philosophy.

Josh Chan (Executive Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thank you for that, Jenny. And congrats on that. And then for your 2025 guidance of mid-single-digit organic growth, I was wondering if you could give us some color in terms of the drivers behind volume versus price versus lab capacity increases, kind of how much all of those pieces are adding to the total organic growth. Thank you. Yeah.

Ryan Robinson (EVP and CFO)

Thanks for the question. I would say we expect continuation of what we experienced in 2024. So we're still making progress on our pricing processes. We're still expanding capacity. We're still improving our go-to-market processes and acquiring new customers and growing our share of wallet. So I would say we don't anticipate a material change in the mix of what's driving revenue growth.

Josh Chan (Executive Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks, Ryan. And thank you both for your time.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Stephanie Moore from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Harold Antor (Senior Equity Research Associate)

Good morning.

This is Harold Antor on for Stephanie Moore. So I guess just wanted to touch on the M&A front. You guys have done a few tuck-in acquisitions in 2024. Just wanted to know how you're thinking about 2025 on the M&A front. Would is the company interested in looking at doing any platform or larger deals or just continue to focus on tuck-in deals, any specific segments the company is looking to target, anything around your M&A policy would be great.

Jenny Scanlon (President and CEO)

Thanks, Harold. And we're very active in every one of our segments in being in conversations all over the world for any size scale that makes sense with our strategy. Our strategy is around product safety being propelled by those mega trends.

And what we find time and time again in these conversations is because we've been in business for 130 years, and we're recognized as an attractive permanent home for many founders across safety, security, and sustainability in product tech. The way we see it is M&A timing reflects opportunities as they're presented to us. And as we go through that analysis around strategic fit, the interface with the mega trends, and overall supporting our mission. So that's how we think about it.

Harold Antor (Senior Equity Research Associate)

Great. Thank you. And I guess you guys have it looks as though you have several mega trends that you're focusing on. But in the global HVAC, it seems as though that's been a really mega trend the company has leaned in.

So if you could talk, discuss the demand trends you're seeing there and any other increased investments with respect to your lab that you'll be planning to make in 2025. And I guess just to piggyback off the last question, and I'm sorry if I missed this, but could you provide what you expect pricing to run in 2025 and what's internal inflation running in the company? And I guess on those price increases, any pushback you're getting. Thank you.

Jenny Scanlon (President and CEO)

I'll start with the mega trends, and then I'll let Ryan answer the pricing. Our continued focus on that global energy transition, it's real. So we've completed last year our Auburn Hills, Michigan battery lab, our Korea battery lab. We've announced extensions into our Mexico labs that also reflect the needs that are tied to these underlying trends in the global energy transition and the electrification of everything.

We also announced just last week our Global Fire Science Center of Excellence investments that we're making, and where that really fits in, again, on this energy transition, on these mega trends, is testing the building and the fire safety. One of the biggest challenges in battery safety is thermal runaway, and so testing connectors and closures and other building and fire safety products is essential, and this is needed all over the world, and we're also excited about investing in greater degrees of applied R&D in those areas, so we're continuing down our trajectory of CapEx to support what we view as exciting developments in all parts of the world, and they are connected. As I said earlier, when you look at digitalization and you talk about the way that that's changing both consumer technology, it's also changing the power energy needs in data centers.

And that is contributing to the increased growth in power generation, changing the needs around transmission, changing the needs around storage, changing the needs around usage. So it all fits together with both our industrial and our consumer business. And we love these mega trends.

Ryan Robinson (EVP and CFO)

And then in regard to internal inflation, we've definitely seen a moderation in the last two years in wage inflation compared to a few years ago. It's still a competitive market for talent. People costs are our largest expense. But I would say it's a slower pace of growth. We're pleased that we offset that last year with our pricing initiatives. So at this point, we're not anticipating material headwinds in wage and other cost inflation.

Harold Antor (Senior Equity Research Associate)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Arthur Truslove from Citi. Please go ahead.

Arthur Truslove (Director)

Hi, Jenny. Hi, Ryan. Thanks very much for taking my questions.

A few, if I can. First question from me. Obviously, there could be a reasonably substantial FX headwind in 2025, which obviously you touched on. Can you just talk about the impact on margins arising from FX? Because clearly, your peers talk about this quite a lot. And I was just wondering whether you could sort of say whether there is a margin headwind or indeed tailwind arising from FX. Second question. You talked about the potential pull forward of revenues within ongoing certification. Are you able to say whether that was within the Industrial division or whether it was in the Consumer division, or was it indeed a bit of both? Just keen to sort of understand a little bit about that. And then I guess the third question, really, on the consumer side.

So obviously, margins are a little bit below what consensus had in mind, but obviously still up. I was just wondering if you could talk about how significant the contribution of staff incentives were to any margin headwind. I just wanted to confirm that it was right to think that any sort of staff bonuses awarded in Q4 or accrued in Q4 would relate to the full year 2024, so not just Q4 performance. Thank you.

Ryan Robinson (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. I'll start by going a little bit deeper into foreign exchange and the impact on our business model, and the current forward rates would imply roughly a 1% headwind. I would say to see the impact on our business, we do break out historically the impact of FX on a constant currency basis in revenue and on operating income, and so you can infer the impact on expenses.

And we do that also by each segment. So there's a fair amount of detail on a historic relationship. We are a profitable company. So when there is a reduction in revenue, that's more impactful than the reduction in expenses. So we're not immune to it, but it's offset. It's mostly offset by reduction in the translated cost of expenses. I would say, and what you will see in that by segment is that our Consumer segment is more susceptible to FX changes. It is a very global business. All of our businesses are global, but that business in particular has had a bit more FX volatility. Okay. And then Ongoing Certification Services, in my comments, we talked about it in the context of Industrial. So it's reasonable to infer that it had a larger impact on Industrial than Consumer.

But ongoing certification services are an important revenue stream for both our consumer and industrial segment. We don't break out those revenue streams by segment, but it is reasonable to think that that was a bigger impact in industrial.

Jenny Scanlon (President and CEO)

Incentives on consumers.

Ryan Robinson (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. So we recognize incentives in our expenses over the period in which they're earned. So there weren't material changes in the fourth quarter related to incentives compared to last year. There were changes in the geography in which they're reported and what those incentives were from cash-settled incentives to stock-based compensation. But the dollar amount in Q4 of last year and Q4 of this year was very similar.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Shlomo Rosenbaum from Stifel. Please go ahead.

Shlomo Rosenbaum (Managing Director of Business Services)

Hi. Thank you for taking my questions.

Jenny, you touched on this a little, but maybe you could just go back and give us a little more detail on what's going on in the demand for the battery labs. And are you thinking of building new ones? Can you discuss any plans you might have over the next several years in that area? And you mentioned, I think, beforehand, a lot of what you're building, you have a lot of kind of, I don't know if you'd call it pre-leasing, but a lot of demand to fill it up. Can you discuss how this is trending, and is this going in the way that you thought, better, worse, just start on that? And then I have a couple of follow-ups. Great. Our battery testing business is going very well. And when you step back and look at the progression, we opened Changzhou, China, in 2021.

Jenny Scanlon (President and CEO)

We opened. We then announced the Korea battery lab. We announced the building of the North American battery lab. Last year, we did the acquisition of Battery Ingenieure in Germany that serves as a hub for a European battery lab in perspective. We've got global coverage. We continue to see this growth in battery testing needs, not just in vehicles. You need it not just autos, buses, commercial vehicles, construction equipment, agricultural equipment. Electrification of everything is occurring across all vehicles. Even more broadly than that, the energy storage systems that are required as there's a shift in energy sources. The more you shift to renewables, the more opportunity or requirements or needs that there are to store that energy that's created for use in times that the sun's not out or the wind's not blowing.

The rapid growth in the AI data centers is also contributing to the types of industrial-scale batteries, as well as just the overall industrial environment as they're shifting their sources of fuel and adding in their needs for energy storage systems. We are very pleased with what's going on in our battery labs. We continue to believe that this global energy transition will propel that business.

Shlomo Rosenbaum (Managing Director of Business Services)

Okay. Thank you. Then, Ryan, on slide 11 in the presentation, you have a comment on the margin, that revenue growth partially offset by increases in services and materials. What does this mean exactly? Is that wage inflation? What are the materials and what are the services? Do you have consultants in there?

Ryan Robinson (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. Sometimes when volume grows, we subcontract a portion of our testing services to other parties.

Sometimes a test is very complicated, and we're accredited for every part of the test that needs to be done, and other times, we choose to work with partners for portions of it. So the comment there was just with 13.9% organic revenue growth, our volume-related expenses related to we put it in a category, services and materials, broad category, but it's mostly outsourced labs and professional services.

Jenny Scanlon (President and CEO)

And let me add, Shlomo, I think you'll remember our CapEx philosophy is that we want to understand what the demand is in the marketplace in advance of us committing capital, and so what you also see sometimes in services and materials is that we're out there working with customers to service their demand, but we haven't completed our capacity yet, and therefore, we need to supplement that with outside professional services.

Shlomo Rosenbaum (Managing Director of Business Services)

Is that what was going on this quarter, or was primarily there so much volume that it was mainly subcontracting to handle the volume?

Ryan Robinson (EVP and CFO)

I would say it was both. I would say it's both. We're evaluating some new service lines. And a mix of that is third-party services. And that may change over time. If we see sustained demand that fits with our customers' needs in ways that provide attractive returns, we may bring that capability in-house over time.

Shlomo Rosenbaum (Managing Director of Business Services)

Great. Thank you.

Ryan Robinson (EVP and CFO)

Great. Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Jason Haas from Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Jason Haas (Executive Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Hey, good morning. And thanks for taking my questions. I'm curious if you could talk about the drivers of the acceleration in the software business, which was nice to see. I remember last quarter, you announced the win of a large beauty retailer.

So I was curious if that helped drive that acceleration. Thanks.

Jenny Scanlon (President and CEO)

I'm so glad you asked because I love talking about the prospects of our software business, and in particular, the way that ULTRUS, our platform, is helping contribute to growth there. And we saw software growth really in all of our businesses and all of our regions. I do want to give a little shout-out to our Japan team. They are out there doing a great job with software. But we are seeing, as to your point, particular strength in the retail product compliance. So as we indicated last quarter, a large beauty retailer coming on to our WERCS latform, which extends through their supply chain. We also saw strength in ESG data and reporting, as well as the benchmarks offering that we have that really helps compare and contrast the strength of processors in systems.

So I would say our sales transformation is taking root. The things I've been looking for is, is renewal churn down? Is average contract renewal times up? Are we seeing improvements in annual recurring revenue? Are we seeing increases in bookings? And all of these things contributed to our fourth quarter organic growth in software.

Jason Haas (Executive Director and Senior Research Analyst)

That's great to hear. And this was touched on in some of the earlier questions, but I wanted to follow up on the expectation for CapEx being 7%-8% of revenue. You're clearly getting really good ROI on your CapEx. So I'm curious what sort of conversations you had when deciding that number for this year. Is it a function of you still have plenty of capacity in the existing facilities you've built? Are you waiting to see how supply chain shifts?

Just any insights of how you're thinking about that would be helpful. Thank you.

Jenny Scanlon (President and CEO)

I'll start. Our teams have no shortage of good ideas. They're out there talking to customers qevery single day, from our field engineers who are making hundreds of thousands of visits in a year to customers' factory locations, to our engineers and our safety scientists who are getting insight into new product development pipelines, to our global and strategic accounts managers who are out there talking with our largest customers, those global customers all over the world. So no shortage of ideas that come in. And then our process is to really evaluate where do we believe those services, those needs are durable, and then what is the best way for us to be providing them. And we continue to really fundamentally be very pleased with the outcomes of our CapEx, our return on capital there.

And we'll continue to invest where there are great returns.

Jason Haas (Executive Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Got it. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Jenny Scanlon for any closing remarks.

Ryan Robinson (EVP and CFO)

Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. As always, we appreciate your support, and we look forward to updating you on our progress in the next quarter.

Operator (participant)

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.