Selim Bassoul
Analyst · Robert W. Baird. Your line is now open. Josh, if your line is on mute, can you please unmute it
Thank you. I would like to thank everybody for being with us today. I would like to talk a little bit about where I see the future of Middleby, and why we remain very optimistic and excited about where we are going. So one, we continue to execute on our four-pronged approach, which is continue to innovate by creating new product and service. Grow our recurring revenue by exceeding the growth of the industry. We have always said that. We said whatever the industry will grow, we will be growing faster than the industry. We are going to continue executing on our cost structure, and then we are going to continue being very disciplined in our acquisition program. So as we look at how we do that, we continue a very unique, driving our excellence and executing. We are looking back at how do we create customer value. We continue to look at looking at things like shipping, lead time, improved quality, and on-time delivery. In addition to creating innovation that has very quick short payback. From a shareholder value, I'm looking at improving our margin, so in the next three years I'm interested in going today we are roughly at 22% to 23% EBITDA to sales ratio, I would like to start going almost to 30% EBITDA to sales ratio. That’s almost 700 basis point extra. We continue to drive our cash flow, and if you look at cash flow per share, it continues to do very well in certain instances it exceeds our earnings per share. We look at our employees, and how we have done with our employees. We are proud of our 98% retention. Another year where we continue to have, so 15 years in a row, we have had 98% retention of our employees. So when you look at that, we are very proud of our initiatives. Now, when you think of Middleby, I'm going to bring it specifically to you. If you eat or drink something today, there is a good chance Middleby played a role in its preparation. Today I think it’s more than one out of three restaurants in the world use our equipment. I think we are almost getting closer to 2 out of 3 restaurants use our equipment around the world. So if I look at Middleby every day, what do we do? If you are having breakfast, if you are basically at an airport, if you are at grocery shopping, if you are having lunch. If you are attending the meeting, if you are basically having dinner, if you are basically at the stage, or playing golf, most probably Middleby is involved somewhat in delivering the food throughout our experience and we have created some unique brands and we are proud of our customers who stuck with us. That’s one another thing, that we are very, very proud. We have a fantastic relationship with our customers, and they keep on asking us to get closer to them in penetrating more and more of their operations. So when I look at the trends, which is labor, we have been the first to automate the pizza oven, the burger, and the kitchen of the future. When you look at energy, I always say it. In 2000, there were only two companies in the world that were really addressing energy from a corporate standpoint. It was us and Toyota, where we are really putting all our corporate resources on energy, and today we are a leader in energy saving and appliances. If you look at waste, so you look at waste today. So today is being regulated. Waste is being regulated, how you disburse waste, how you get rid of waste, where you do, and it is getting more costly, and today our waste management system being designed at IMC is getting traction. I'm very excited that today four states have passed a higher minimum wage to-date. Four states. And that works well for our automation. Our customers have no choice but to automate their kitchen, and we are the leader in automation, bar none. We continue automating, and when I look at it, this is the second year in a row that now we are advancing the robotics in the kitchen, which is becoming a reality. So I continue looking at our execution day in and day out. The integrity and accountability of our team, which has been with me almost 20 years. We have the lowest turnover of any of our competitors, in terms of management and leadership. Every day we put customer first. We solve their problem and create value for our customers. So I am going to give you something unique. We created Middleby Connect, which connect to kitchen of our customers through data analytics and sensors, so I can figure out if their business is down, I can figure out how many cup of coffees they deliver every day, how much of it is cappuccino versus espresso, versus American coffee. We are now pushing it all the way through, into figuring out whether the fryer and the sensor and the oil, when they need to change the oil. And then second is Middleby Advantage, which basically allow our customers to basically service their equipment across a whole chain, by looking at data. There is so many data that we created Middleby Connect and Middleby Advantage. Then I look at strategic sourcing, and that I have mentioned that we are looking at a minimum of 3% annualized savings across our platform. Then we look at our acquisition, where we have been able to create value for our customers and our shareholders, as we continue growing the acquisition platform for us. So where we are strong and attractive, we are strong and attractive through our customer intimacy. Through our track record of providing solutions to our customers. We have differentiated technology and highly disruptive. Our global presence and our basically regional service sales and engineering is unique. We have an amazing customer base, and a large installed base of equipment. That continues working hard day in and day out for our customers. And they require parts and service, and they keep on coming back to us for recurring revenue to keep those ovens, and those fryers, to keep on going. You look at our position in emerging markets in China, in India. In China and India we have created an engineering manufacturing innovation center, the same in Brazil. The same in the Philippines. We are today really attacking those markets in a way that nobody else has done, and major investments that we have done long before anybody else, and we stayed with them, even when they were hard years where everybody said let's retrench, and we did not. So I look at where we are going in durable shareholder value creation, 700 basis points within the next three years. We are going to continue expanding those margins, reinventing and reinvesting for organic growth. And we are going to continue stronger OIC. Not against only our peers, but against the best-in-class companies out there. We are going to continue double-digit EPS growth. Now I look at another thing that just came to mind. We have gone to ventless faster than anybody else. We created our ventless technology five to six years ago, and we continue pushing ventless better than anybody else. So as I look at our next step strategy which not only will accelerate our top line growth, it will also drive a huge margin expansion for us. Thank you for attending our conference call today and congratulations today on an election in the United States. Thank you. Bye-bye.