Mick Lucareli
Analyst · Noah Kaye with Oppenheimer & Company. Please go ahead
Thanks Neil, and good morning, everyone Please turn to Slide seven to review the segment results. Climate solutions is off to a strong start with a 31% increase in adjusted EBITDA and a margin over 20%. Our heavy focus and resource shift to the data center market continues to pay off driving strong revenue growth and an improved sales mix. Data center sales grew 138% or 94 million driven by strong demand from hyperscale customers along with sales from the acquired Scott Springfield business. HVAC&R sales increased 7% or 5 million including revenue from our acquired businesses. The heating market bounced back this quarter with encouraging signs for an improved market this year. Heat transfer product sales were down 21% or 29 million. The decline primarily related to a significant drop in sales to European heat pump customers and lower demand in certain other commercial and residential markets. Overall, we're very pleased with the climate solution strong earnings conversion resulting in a 100-basis point adjusted EBITDA margin improvement to 20.1%. Our 80/20 discipline remains at the heart of our quarterly earnings margin improvements including a positive mixed impact with data center sales continuing to drive a meaningful margin increase. In addition, our acquisitions are meeting or exceeding the goals we established which is further supporting the positive momentum and outlook for climate solutions. Please turn to Slide 8. Performance technologies also started the fiscal year off very well with a 25% increase in adjusted EBITDA and a 390-basis point improvement in adjusted EBITDA margin. Revenue decreased 10% which was in line with our expectations driven primarily by the German divestitures along with lower sales to automotive and off-highway customers. Excluding the negative 24 million impact of divestitures and FX rates sales decreased 1%. Performance technologies is leveraging our 80/20 model to focus on improving earnings and margins. While the sales line may be flat or down the team continues to exit certain lower margin businesses and grow other targeted areas. Advanced solution sales were higher by 12% or 3 million driven by higher sales of EV systems to commercial and specialty vehicle customers partially offset by lower EV auto sales. Liquid cooled application sales decreased 23% or 31 million primarily due to the divestitures along with lower end market demand across auto commercial vehicle and off-highway markets. Lastly air-cooled application sales were lower by 2% or 4 million mostly driven by lower volumes in the agriculture and construction markets along with the impact from last year's divestitures. These items were partially offset by strong order intake and sales for products that go into GenSets. We said that revenue is not the primary focus for performance technologies in our transformation and I'm very pleased with the high level of earnings conversion in the quarter. Performance technologies drove a 390-basis point margin improvement resulting in a 14.1% EBITDA margin. Now let's review the total company results. Please turn to Slide nine. First quarter sales increased 6% driven by acquisitions in organic growth and climate solutions partially offset by 24 million divestitures and planned 80/20 initiatives in performance technologies. Excluding the impact of acquisitions, divestitures, and FX rates, organic sales increased 4%. Our gross margin was significantly higher with a 400-basis point improvement to 24.6%. The margin improvement has continued over the last two years benefiting from 80/20 initiatives and a strategic shift in our business mix. SG&A increased 21 million which is larger than normal but in line with our expectations and outlook. The SG&A change includes SG&A in the acquired businesses and incremental amortization expense tied to the acquired intangible assets. In addition, we recorded higher salary and incentive compensation expenses in our base businesses. Adjusted EBITDA was extremely strong again this quarter with an increase of 25% or 21 million. The adjusted EBITDA margin was 15.3%, a 240 basis point improvement from the prior year. This now represents the 10th consecutive quarter of year-over-year margin improvement. Adjusted earnings per share was $1.04, 22% higher than the prior year. We're very pleased with another exceptional quarter resulting in an EBITDA margin that confirms we're on the right path for 80/20 journey. Now moving to the cash flow metrics, please turn to Slide 10. We generated 14 million of free cash flow in the first quarter. This was primarily driven by higher operating earnings partially offset by CapEx and payments for incentive compensation. This also included 11 million of cash restructuring payments primarily in Europe and integration costs paid during the quarter. Net debt of $363 million was $9 million lower than the prior fiscal year end. This resulted in a leverage ratio of 1.1. The balance sheet remains strong, and we anticipate another year of good free cash flow. We remain in a great position to support more organic growth and acquisition initiatives. Now let's turn to Slide 11 for our fiscal '25 outlook. I'm pleased to report we're raising our sales, earnings, and adjusted EPS outlook for fiscal '25. Our first quarter results exceeded our expectations, and our improved outlook reflects this along with some revenue adjustments across a few product groups. We're raising the total company sales growth to a range of 6% to 11%. In the climate solution segment, we have an improved sales outlook driven by a large increase in our data center sales projections, which is partially offset by adjustments to HVAC&R and heat transfer products. We now expect data center sales to grow 80% to 90%, which is a substantial increase from our initial guidance of 60% to 70%. Moving to HVAC&R, we continue to see strong growth but are adjusting to be up in the range of 15% to 20%. And for heat transfer products, we now anticipate that HTP sales will be flat to down 5% with improvements later in the fiscal year. Within performance technologies, we're adjusting advanced solutions growth to be in the 15% to 25% range driven by new program launches. We continue to expect a decline in sales for liquid cool products driven by the remaining impacts of the German divestitures and further attrition of non-strategic businesses. Our air cool business continues to see higher sales of products to the GenSet and power generation market. However, we've also experienced the reduction in orders from customers in the ag and construction markets. As a result, we now anticipate that sales in this product group will be flat to down 10%. As I discussed at the beginning of the fiscal year, we're anticipating slightly lower sales than performance technologies. But this is consistent with our long-term strategy and expect improvement in EBITDA dollars and margin during fiscal '25. Now moving to our earnings outlook. While it's early in the fiscal year, we're raising the earnings outlook mostly based on the strength of our first quarter. We now expect fiscal '25 adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $375 million to $395 million. In addition, we anticipate another year of good cash flow and expect we'll generate a similar level of free cash flow as in fiscal '24. As part of our cash flow outlook, we anticipate the fiscal '25 capital spending to be in line with the prior year. We're expecting adjusted EPS to be in the range of $3.65 to $3.95, which is also an increase from the previous guidance. This reflects key assumptions for interest expense, taxes, and amortization and depreciation expense, including the impacts from the acquisition of Scott Springfield. These assumptions are summarized in the appendices attached to this presentation in our press release. To wrap up, we're very pleased with the results from the first quarter, and we're off to a strong start to the fiscal year. As a reminder, we're holding an Analyst and Investor Day on the 11th of September at our headquarters. There's still time to register, but the window's closing soon. Please contact Kathy and our investor relations team, if you're interested in attending. With that, Neil and I will take your questions.