Gary Fields
Analyst · CJS Securities
Overall, we’re extremely pleased with third quarter results, record sales, production, EBITDA, earnings and record backlog. The Company is performing very well, particularly compared to where we were just a couple of quarters ago. Gross margin is still not where we want it to be, but we have made substantial progress. Gross margin and operating margin in the third quarter was the highest since second quarter of 2021. I’m very pleased with our operations and the overall team and want to continue to commend their performance. The last 18 months have been an extremely challenging environment. And to be able to say we just realized a third straight quarter of record production is truly commendable. Organic volume growth at 26.9% that was realized in the third quarter is pretty much unheard of in this industry. And the comp was not easy. Volume in the third quarter of the year ago period was down 1% from a record third quarter in 2020. On a two-year stock volume was up 25%. This performance is a result of several factors. First, as Rebecca mentioned, headcount of the legacy company was up 18%. We continue to do a good job with onboarding new employees. Second, productivity has improved significantly. When we look at our unit sales on a per day per production employee basis, the third quarter was the highest it’s been all year. And that’s when eliminating all the price increases. The legacy operation is operating at a much improved level. And I can say that this trend continued through October. Lastly, the volume growth is also a reflection of our premier sales channel and the backlog our rep partners have been able to generate for us. I’d like to thank all of our channel partners, as well as all of our internal sales support. Our sales channel has never been as strong as it is right now. And we’re seeing it through the share gains we’ve been realizing. Before diving deeper into the backlog and our sales channel, I want to discuss our pricing and gross margins. As we’ve discussed in the past, dealing with hyper-demand and hyperinflation while at the same time maintaining best practices with our channel partners has been challenging. We’ve been saying the margin profile or the backlog has been on track to drive a recovery in gross margins. I’m thrilled to report that’s exactly what we saw in the third quarter. The 27% gross margin realized in the quarter was up 430 basis points from the second quarter and up 100 basis points from the year ago quarter. It was the strongest gross margin since the second quarter of 2021. We’re very happy to see that. We’re still not where we need to be but gross margin improved throughout the quarter. The margin profile of the current backlog is the best it’s been in over a year, we’re going to continue to see productivity improvements going forward. Our gross margin’s well on track to fully recover. This improvement is largely related to a normalization of price versus cost. In addition, improved productivity is also a contributing factor. You can specifically see this at our AAON Coil Products segment, but it’s happening throughout the organization. In the third quarter AAON Coil Products generated almost the exact amount of gross profit that it realized in all of 2021. It’s not only a result of pricing, productivity improvements have been a driver to gross margin as well. We expect that factor will continue, especially as supply chain issues ease. Returning to the backlog and what we’re seeing with demand. Overall demand remains strong. Total backlog was up 183.1% from a year ago and up 10.9% for the end of the second quarter. Organically, backlog was up 109.6% from a year ago and up 4.7% from the end of second quarter. The fact that backlog continues to increase sequentially is a sign that demand remains strong, particularly because our production is also increasing. Organic bookings in the quarter were up year-over-year 28%. Sequentially, they were up 36.7%, which is mostly volume driven. Demand is very strong at BasX. Bookings at BasX compared to the second quarter were up 67%. Backlog at BasX is up 267.1% since the end of 2021 and up 33.8% from the end of second quarter. While both the legacy business and BasX continue to increase production to record levels, backlog continues to grow. Our lead times remain a contributing factor to growth in bookings of both the legacy business and BasX. Demand continues to be fairly broad based as far as end markets, lodging and office buildings remain soft. But outside of that most sectors are quite strong. Data centers and semiconductor markets are very strong, education remains solid, healthcare and manufacturing are still good. We’re seeing robust demand in the Grow [ph] facility. Warehouse seems to be slowing a bit, but remains still pretty good. Overall, demand is quite strong across the board. While we continue to monitor for the slowdown that it seems everyone is anticipating, we do not see it. Sentiment among our channel partners remains very positive and the macro data we track is also encouraging. Construction spending is back to pre-pandemic levels. And all of the leading indicators that we track such as the ABI, the Dodge Momentum Index, and construction starts are suggesting the next 12 months will continue to be strong. Our biggest challenge right now is ramping up production fast enough. While everyone is happy to see backlog growing, we’d actually like to see backlog start to come down, led by improving lead times, which I think we’re going to start to see in 2023. The team is doing a great job with adding headcount, while improving productivity at the same time, and we’re continuing to invest in capacity. Our CapEx this year is probably going to be about 8% of sales and CapEx both on an absolute basis and as a percent of sales will most likely increase in 2023. We want to continue to provide our channel partners and customers with the best lead times. To do this, we’re going to continue to invest in the business. We feel strongly that we have the best product offering at the best value to accommodate the increasing demands related to decarbonization, energy efficiency and indoor air quality. As we continued to deliver at a very competitive lead time, we’re going to set our channel partners up for maximum success enable them to continue to take share. I want to provide a little color on our water source heat pump business and the decision we made to exit a couple of product lines. In 2015, prior to my arrival, the company entered this market organically with the thought that it would complement our product portfolio of energy efficient equipment, and that the market had vulnerabilities we could capitalize on. We’ve determined to terminate a portion of this business, specifically our horizontal and vertically configured indoor units. This equipment is very standard and has minimal pricing power. And we haven’t been able to generate profit margins that we expect. Furthermore, the upcoming refrigerant regulations would require a capital investment we decided would not be the best use of capital. It’s not unusual for an innovative company like AAON to make changes like this. And as we’ve always done, we’ll continue to monitor the financial performance of our product portfolio. This portion of the business generated approximately $10 million of sales in 2021 and is on track to do similar in 2022. So, it’s only about 1% of sales. We wouldn’t normally address something so immaterial to revenue, but we’ve openly discussed the water-source heat pump business since inception. As such, we felt it would be appropriate to provide some information on what we’re doing. Also, by doing this, it’s going to lend more capacity for high margin, high growth equipment. We will repurpose headcount and equipment once the production of this product line has wound down which will be in early 2023. I also want to touch briefly on our parts business, parts still make up a small percentage of sales at 6.6%. But it’s something we’ve been focusing a lot on both internally and with our channel partners, we’ve been having great success. Parts sales in the third quarter were up 31.4% and were a quarterly record for the Company for the second straight quarter. The 31.4% growth was against a comp of 15.4% growth realized in the third quarter of 2021. Compared to 2020, part sales were up 51.7% this past quarter. Parts generate some of the strongest gross margins in our company. So, growing this business will continue to be a strong focus of ours. Before finishing up and handing off the call for Q&A, I want to provide some information on our outlook for the rest of the year. Based on the size of the backlog, the improving margin profile of the backlog and the increasing production capacity and productivity, we anticipate we will finish off the year on a high note. Sales in the fourth quarter most likely will be comparable to the third quarter due to the holidays we see in the quarter. Margins and earnings will continue to improve sequentially. We expect gross margins will finally fully recover to the target range of 28% to 32% that we’ve been talking about. Looking out to 2023, still early, but we remain optimistic. Backlog will be entering the year up substantially from a year ago. And we will continue to realize more price, which should pave the way for continued margin improvement. Long-term, we’re continuing to invest in capacity and growth. In closing, I want to finish by thanking all of our employees, sales channel partners and customers. Thank you. And I will now open up for Q&A.