William Grogan
Analyst · Robert W. Baird
Great. Thanks, Andy. I'll start with our third quarter financial results on Slide 4. Q3 orders of $586 million were down 5%, both overall and organically, driven by softness across all segments and tough comps versus last year. Q3 sales of $624 million were flat overall and organically. We did see growth in FMT and HST, but it was offset by a decline in FSD that was primarily driven by project timing. We expanded gross margins in the quarter by 20 basis points to 45.2%. However, excluding the $3 million fair value inventory step-up charge related to the Velcora acquisition, adjusted gross margin was at an all-time high of 45.7%, up 70 basis points. This was primarily due to strong price capture and productivity initiatives partially offset by continued investments in engineering related to new product development. Q3 operating margin was 22.7%, but adjusting for both the fair value inventory step-up and restructuring expenses, adjusted operating margin was 25.2%, an all-time quarterly high for IDEX and up 120 basis points compared with the adjusted prior year period mainly driven by our gross margin expansion and lower SG&A costs, which were driven by decreased variable compensation expenses and tighter cost controls across the business. Included in the restructuring charges was an approximate $10 million impairment charge related to the wind down of a small business line within HST. Our Q3 adjusted effective tax rate was 19.1%, which was lower than the 20.3% in the prior year period mainly due to changes in U.S. Treasury regulations as well as the mix of global pretax income among our jurisdictions. The adjusted ETR of 19.1% was also 340 basis points lower than our previously guided ETR due to a higher excess tax benefit from greater-than-expected stock option exercises as well as a favorable impact from the 2018 income tax return to provision adjustment. This lower ETR provided $0.06 of EPS favorability in our quarterly results compared to our previous guide back in July. Q3 adjusted net income was $117 million, resulting in a record adjusted EPS of $1.52, up $0.11 or 8% over prior year adjusted EPS. Finally, free cash flow was very strong at $146 million. It was up 28% over last year and 125% of adjusted net income. This was our highest free cash flow of all time. I'll now turn to the segment discussion. I'm on Slide 5, starting with Fluid & Metering. Q3 orders were down 1% overall and flat organically mainly driven by softening demand in the industrial market and continued declines in agriculture. Q3 sales were up 1% overall and up 2% organically, attributable to the growth in our pumps, valves and energy businesses due to strong performance around our targeted growth initiatives but partially offset by the slowdown in the industrial short-cycle book-and-turn activity during the quarter. The municipal water business remains solid with stable spending projected for the remainder of '19. In regards to the agriculture market, the market dynamics remain unchanged due to continued tariff pressures and depressed commodity prices, which has put pressure on the Banjo business all year. Preseason orders are flat compared to prior year period, and we are not forecasting any near-term change to the U.S. agriculture market performance. Finally, operating margin was outstanding at 32.2%, up 270 basis points over the adjusted prior year quarter mainly due to a widening price cost spread driven by the team's ability to continually capture value for their products and deliver on their productivity initiatives. FMT really executed during the quarter. Let's move on to Health & Science, turning to Slide 6. Q3 orders were down 4% overall and 6% organically mainly driven by continued market pressure in semicon and automotive as well as the industrial slowdown impacting about 1/3 of the sales in HST that are industrially exposed. Orders were also impacted by timing as a few large life science blankets got pushed into the fourth quarter. From a sales perspective, Q3 sales were up 3% overall and 1% organically driven by strength in the life science business as they continue to experience growth tied to new product development and collaboration with our key customers. At Gast, we continue to see MPT project wins, but as discussed earlier, we started to see challenging market conditions in the third quarter due to weakened North American industrial distribution demand. For MPT, strong results in Q3 were driven by shipments of some long lead time projects, reversing the negative trend we experienced in the first half of the year. We're seeing positive momentum within key pharma markets, and our commercial funnel continues to grow. Expectations are to deliver positive growth for the year. Finally, within Sealing, pressure across the semiconductor, industrial and auto markets continue. Although we're beginning to see signals of reaching the bottom of the semi decline, their orders and sales are still challenged. From a margin perspective, excluding the fair value inventory step-up charge and restructuring expenses, operating margin increased 30 basis points to 23.8%. This was primarily due to the higher volume and price capture partially offset by higher growth investments and amortization related to the Velcora acquisition. I'm now moving to our final segment, Diversified. I'm on Slide 7. Q3 orders were down 10% overall and 9% organically mainly driven by pressure on the projects side of the business as customers remain cautious around making large investments, as well as tough comps in dispensing and rescue to large project orders in the prior year period. Both dispensing and rescue orders were down over 20% organically in the quarter. Q3 revenues were down 5% overall and 3% organically, and I'll provide a little bit more color on that in a minute. Adjusted operating margin of 27.2% decreased 50 basis points in the quarter. This was mainly due to the reduced project volume. Sequentially, the segment was up 10 basis points versus the second quarter. FSD's performance was mainly driven by the following: on the fire side, core OEM and municipal markets continue to perform well. We're experiencing steady growth across our product offerings as well as continued momentum around our new SAM product launch. Turning to rescue. Sales declined mainly due to project delays associated with political uncertainty, coupled with a tough comp from the prior year period. U.S. performance was slow due to a delay in FEMA spending, but expectations are that we'll see a rebound in the fourth quarter. BAND-IT performance remained strong based on wins with our targeted growth initiatives. Even as we see general softness in the auto and energy markets and pressure within the industrial space, BAND-IT continues to take share and grow in these areas. Finally, dispensing story remains similar to the first half of the year due to a tough comp against some large project wins in 2018 with no new projects occurring this year. As such, the business was down double digits compared to prior year, but we do expect to cycle back to growth in 2020. I will now pass it back to Andy to provide an update on our 2019 guidance.