Rob Rehard
Analyst · Baird. Please go ahead
Thanks, Louis, and good morning, everyone. I’d also like to send my thanks to our global team for continuing to execute with discipline in what remains a very challenging environment. So now let’s turn to our second quarter segment financial performance. Starting with our Motion Control Solutions segment, or MCS, organic sales in the second quarter were up 6.4% from the prior year. The results reflect broad-based growth, but with particular strength in the general and industrial marine and metals and mining end markets partially offset by lapping prior year large project activity in alternative energy. As in recent quarters, supply chain disruptions continued to impact our ability to deliver, resulting in increased backlog and posing a headwind to the top line, a dynamic that continues to impact all of our segments. Adjusted EBITDA margin in the quarter for MCS was 26.4%, down 70 basis points compared to the prior year factoring updated corporate cost allocations, higher freight costs, commodity inflation, FX headwinds and mix largely offset by tailwinds related to favorable price realization, synergies, restructuring actions and higher volumes. As expected, the segment posted a nice sequential improvement in margin, and we see this trend continuing in each of the remaining quarters of 2022, driven in large part by accruing synergies. Orders in MCS for the quarter were down approximately 3%. However, book-to-bill in the second quarter was slightly above 1.0. Turning to Climate Solutions. Organic sales in the second quarter were up 14.8% from the prior year. The increase was driven by strength in North America residential HVAC and North America general industrial markets by positive price realization and by continued share gains in the quarter. The adjusted EBITDA margin in the quarter for Climate was 17.1%, down 390 basis points versus the prior year period. Factors impacting this margin include commodity inflation, higher freight costs, supply chain-related frictions and weaker mix, partially offset by strong price realization. As Louis mentioned earlier, the Climate segment made some intentional, proactive decisions to overserve certain high-value customers, which resulted in higher freight and component costs. Finally, while not a material impact in the quarter, there was a fire at one of our key suppliers of electronic components that occurred during the second quarter that further disrupted our access to components. While we have found alternative supply, this will have a moderate impact to the Climate segment results through most of the third quarter. All that said, we do see this as temporary. And while we still expect to see some continuation of this margin pressure into the third quarter, we fully expect to return to more normal margins for this segment in the high teens or low 20s as we transition to the fourth quarter. Orders in Climate for the second quarter were down approximately 5% on a daily basis. However, book-to-bill in the second quarter was 1.0. Turning to Commercial Systems. Organic sales in the second quarter were up 14.6% from the prior quarter – prior year. Growth in the quarter reflects strong performance in North America general industrial pool pump and large commercial HVAC. Our Commercial business also continues to achieve meaningful share gains tied to its digital investments. The adjusted EBITDA margin in the second quarter for Commercial Systems was 16.5%, up 70 basis points compared to the prior year, reflecting favorable price realization partially offset by commodity, freight and other non-material inflation, product mix and costs associated with supply chain disruptions. Shifting to orders. Segment orders for the second quarter were down 6%. However, book-to-bill in the second quarter was close to 1.0. In Industrial Systems, organic sales in the second quarter were up 9.4% versus the prior year. Principal drivers include strength and outgrowth in America’s general industrial markets. The adjusted EBITDA margin in the quarter for Industrial was 16.2%, an increase of 830 basis points versus the prior year period. We are extremely pleased with the performance at Industrial. And after two quarters of significantly improved performance, feel this business has turned a corner and is on a sustainable path to stronger performance. As Louis mentioned, the team’s persistent adherence to 80-20 principles and their continued deployment of lean tools have had a meaningful positive impact. That said, some of the business performance in the quarter does relate to temporary benefits associated with our annual cost roll, which are also likely to benefit the third quarter and then to a lesser extent, the fourth quarter. These benefits aside, we believe the underlying operational performance of this business in 2022 is consistent with a low teens adjusted EBITDA margin, and we do expect further upside to those levels and improvements we are making to the business continue to gain momentum. Orders in Industrial for the quarter were up approximately 14% and book-to-bill in the second quarter was 1.2%. On the following slide, we highlight some key financial metrics for your review. A couple of notable highlights. First, on the right side of this page, you’ll see we ended the quarter with a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 1.5 times or 1.4 times on a pro forma basis. Second, our free cash flow in the quarter was $91.6 million, which equates to a conversion rate of roughly 65%. While we are tracking a bit behind historical cash conversion levels as we close out the first half of the year due to both the supply chain challenges and some intentional investments we made to better serve our customers, we continue to expect free cash flow conversion of over 100% for the year. We expect much of this improvement to come through inventory reductions in the third and fourth quarters. Finally, we spent $70 million on purchasing our shares in the second quarter, bringing our total spend on share purchases to roughly $184 million through the first half of this year. And now have $250 million remaining on our share purchase authorization. Moving to the outlook. We are raising our expectation for adjusted earnings per share to a range of $10.20 to $10.80 from our prior range of $10.10 to $10.70. The modestly higher range primarily reflects the impact of our strong second quarter performance, along with our stock purchase activity. In addition, we are raising our expectation for organic revenue growth to high single digit from our prior range of mid to high. To be clear, our underlying confidence in the outlook remains high, owing to the team’s strong operational execution and the sizable tailwinds we’re seeing from synergies, among other factors. Despite this confidence, we felt it was prudent to maintain the breadth of the guidance range to reflect a rising global macro risk. But assuming business conditions in the back half do not change materially from what we are seeing today, we would expect to come in a bit above the midpoint of our revised guidance range. I’ll wrap up this call by saying that on the whole, we are very pleased with the Q2 results and our team’s ability to execute in an extremely challenging environment. We are meeting all of our expectations with MCS and ASPU. And while the macro outlook has certainly become less certain, our outlook remains very positive, considering the tremendous amount of self-help we have in front of us on the growth, margin and cash flow front. And with that, operator, we are now ready to take questions.