Sara Zawoyski
Analyst · KeyBanc
Thank you, Beth. I’m pleased to be here today. In the coming months, I look forward to reconnecting and meeting with many of you. And I’m excited about accelerating our One nVent strategy, delivering growth and productivity with a focus on returns. So let’s turn to Slide 5, titled Third Quarter 2019 nVent Performance. Results, overall, met our expectations as we delivered on both sales and profit commitment. Organic sales declined 1% on the low end of our guidance, driven mainly by thermal management while EFS grew 3%. Adjusted earnings per share of $0.49 was up 7% year-over-year and at the midpoint of our guidance range. Segment income for the quarter was $115 million, flat versus last year on lower sales. Notably, return on sales expanded 10 basis points with positive net productivity in the quarter. We realized about half of the $25 million in productivity and cost actions planned in the second half, often in part by investments in R&D. Free cash flow was a solid $88 million in the quarter, up 7% versus prior year and over 100% conversion of net income. Now please turn to Slide 6 for a discussion of our third quarter segment performance. Starting with enclosures. Sales declined 1% organically and grew 1% on a reported basis with the addition of our Eldon acquisition. While we saw industrial demand soften with sales down low-single digits, we continue to see good execution and positive offset with our One nVent initiative; specifically, growth in data and networking solutions, commercial, rail and transit as well as in our top channel partners. In addition, our recent acquisition of Eldon added approximately $8 million in sales during the quarter. Enclosures segment income was flat year-over-year and return on sales declined 20 basis points to 18.1%. This includes the impact from Eldon, while our base enclosures business saw a modest return on sales expansion during the quarter. The team executed well operationally in the midst of a challenging quarter with positive net productivity and almost 2 points of price realization. Year-to-date, enclosures was up 2% in organic sales and expanded return on sales, 50 basis points. Looking at the fourth quarter, we expect similar trends to the third quarter with the declining industrial vertical, somewhat offset by growth in our One nVent focused verticals. We are expecting return on sales expansion as a result of productivity gains and cost structure actions. Moving now to thermal management. Sales of $148 million declined approximately 5% organically. The commercial business returned to growth while longer cycle energy projects continued to push out to the right. Sales in industrial MRO slowed ending the quarter flattish relative to last year. However, we believe that this was timing-related and we expect to see better growth in future quarters. While projects continued to be delayed, our optimism towards returning to growth improved throughout the quarter as the team won a number of larger projects that we expect to translate into revenue growth in 2020 and beyond. Importantly, orders grew high-teens and backlog grew high-double digits year-over-year in the quarter. This marks the second quarter in a row with order and backlog growth. We made progress in thermal management to improve return on sales on a sequential basis by aligning our cost structure with current trends. Return on sales declined 50 basis points to 26.1%, driven by the impact of lower volumes. Year-to-date, thermal management organic sales were down 2% and return on sales contracted by 50 basis points. As we close out the year, we continue to expect longer-cycle projects to be delayed. While uncertainties remain with the macro environment and timing, we are optimistic in the long-term growth prospects of this segment as bidding activity remains healthy and backlog grows. Now onto EFS. Sales of $150 million grew 3% organically, driven by price realization of approximately 2 points and volume growth of 1 point as volume contributed positively during the quarter. Return on sales of 27.6% expanded 110 basis points with price, volume and productivity gains realized in the quarter. If you recall, we expected return on sales expansion in the back half of this year as the changes we made over the past few quarters in leadership, capacity and systems began to read out. Year-to-date, EFS organic sales were up 3% and return on sales expanded 30 basis points. Looking at the fourth quarter for EFS, we expect the commercial verticals to grow, although slower than recent quarters, as macroeconomic indicators adjust downward. We continue to expect strong return on sales expansion versus prior year. Turning now to Slide 7, titled Balance Sheet and Cash Flow. In the third quarter, we drew down on our revolver to fund the purchase of Eldon, and also paid down approximately $5 million in short-term debt. At the end of the third quarter, our net debt was approximately 2.4x EBITDA, and we also returned $30 million to shareholders via dividends in the quarter. Year-to-date, we have paid over $90 million in dividends and repurchased over $230 million in shares, which represents roughly 5% of shares outstanding. We continue to expect full year free cash flow conversion of approximately 100% of net income, and our capital allocation strategy continues to be; maintain investment-grade metrics, invest in our core businesses, look for attractive bolt-on acquisitions and return cash to shareholders. Moving now to Slide 8, titled Fourth Quarter 2019 nVent Outlook. We expect fourth quarter organic sales for nVent to be down 2% to flat relative to last year. This outlook reflects continued softness in thermal management and we expect a currency headwind of approximately 1 point in fourth quarter. Our adjusted EPS guidance in the fourth quarter is $0.42 to $0.46. From a segment standpoint, this reflects positive performance in both EFS and enclosures, offset by declines in thermal management. Corporate and other costs are expected to be similar to third quarter, and the effective tax rate in the quarter is expected to be between 23% and 24% as we anticipate the finalization of the proposed U.S. tax regulations. Recall, this expected increase in our effective tax rate is a one-time impact as we expect the tax rate in 2020 to move back towards 18% as we execute our mitigation strategies. Turning to Slide 9, titled Full Year 2019 nVent Outlook. We are tightening our full year organic sales growth guidance to be flat to up 1%. At the segment level, we are now guiding each segment to be at the low end of the previously issued guidance range. With this revised outlook, full year return on sales is expected to be flat to up 30 basis points, mainly driven by lower outlook in thermal management and the impact of the Eldon acquisition. We are also updating adjusted EPS expectations for the full year to be $1.74 to $1.78. We continue to expect Eldon to have no material impact to 2019 adjusted EPS due to the late third quarter close and higher financing costs. For sales, we expect over $20 million during the fourth quarter. We continue to expect Eldon to be accretive within 12 months and to generate returns exceeding our weighted average cost of capital within two to three years. Although preliminary, we expect Eldon to add approximately $0.03 to adjusted EPS next year. This concludes my comments on guidance, and I will turn the call back over to Beth.