Mark Carano
Analyst · Oppenheimer
Thanks, Gene. It was another very strong quarter for SPX Technologies. In Q2, our adjusted EPS grew 49% year-on-year to $1.06. The adjustment from GAAP results covered earlier by Paul, are consistent with our historical practice. Total company revenues increased 19.6% year-on-year, including 14.6% organic growth, with similar increases in both our HVAC and Detection & Measurement segments. Acquisitions contributed 5.3% growth and FX was a modest headwind. Segment income grew by $28.3 million or 50% to $84.4 million while margin increased 410 basis points, driven by a strong operational performance in HVAC. Price/cost remained a margin tailwind. For the quarter, in our HVAC segment, revenues grew 20% year-on-year. On an organic basis, revenue grew 15%, driven by Cooling, while heating's organic revenue was roughly flat. Acquisitions contributed growth of 8.6%, which included a full quarter of TAMCO in our cooling platform and 1 month of ASPEQ in our heating platform. FX was a modest headwind. Segment income increased by $26.9 million and segment margin increased 760 basis points. The year-on-year increase in HVAC segment income and margin has a number of drivers. In our cooling business, we continued to achieve strong plant throughput facilitated by our investments in plant automation and continuous improvement. This favorable operational execution was aided by a high level of backlog and a more stable labor and supply chain conditions. By comparison, in the prior year quarter, cooling experienced headwinds related to supply chain, labor and price/cost that drove lower than typical margins. For heating, segment income margin improved notably year-on-year due primarily to favorable price/cost and channel mix. In addition, our TAMCO and Aspect acquisitions were both accretive to HVAC segment margin. Bookings remained strong despite record Q2 sales, HVAC segment backlog ended the quarter at $337 million, including $31 million from acquisitions. On an organic basis, backlog was up 13% sequentially. For the quarter, in our Detection & Measurement segment, revenues grew 14% year-on-year with organic growth across all our platforms, strong project revenues from CommTech, Transportation and AtoN were key drivers. Segment income increased by $1.4 million, while margin declined 160 basis points due to less favorable sales mix. As we have noted previously, our 2023 Detection & Measurement revenue includes certain project sales in our CommTech platform that contain pass-through content, resulting in a lower than typical incremental margin. In addition, in Q2, we began to experience a one-off supply chain disruption that is constraining sales of a limited number of locator products. We have implemented a solution to address this issue and we are confident in the normalization of production during the second half. Segment backlog at quarter end was $234 million, down 4% sequentially due to the timing of project deliveries. Overall, we continue to experience a strong environment for project sales. Turning now to our financial position at the end of the quarter. We ended the quarter with cash of $95 million and total debt of $676 million. Our balance sheet reflects the completion of 2 acquisitions during the quarter. While we deployed more than $500 million in Q2 to acquire TAMCO and Aspect, our net leverage remains at a modest level of 1.8x or below the midpoint of our target range of 1.5 to 2.5x. At this point, we anticipate a further decline in leverage to approximately 1.5x or lower by year-end as we typically generate the majority of our cash flow in the second half of the year, positioning us to continue investing for growth. Moving on to our guidance. We are increasing our 2023 guidance for adjusted EPS to a range of $4.15 to $4.30. The new midpoint reflects year-on-year growth of approximately 36%. In our HVAC segment, we anticipate revenue growth of approximately 24% at the midpoint. We are raising guidance for the HVAC segment income margin to approximately 20% compared with a prior range of 18% to 19%. This represents a year-on-year margin increase for HVAC of more than 500 basis points. The anticipated strong revenue and margin performance in HVAC reflects a combination of continued solid demand trends, high backlog, strong operational execution at the plant level and the benefit of easing labor and supply chain conditions. In our Detection & Measurement segment, we anticipate revenue in a range of $590 million to $605 million or a year-on-year increase of approximately 9% at the midpoint. Due to the supply chain constraint mentioned earlier, we now anticipate a less favorable margin mix, resulting in segment income margin of approximately 20% compared with our prior range of 20.5% to 21.5%. With respect to the cadence of second half guidance, we would expect segment income to rise sequentially in both Q3 and Q4. However, we would expect adjusted EPS to be sequentially lower in Q3 than in Q2, primarily due to higher interest costs associated with acquisitions and the timing of certain corporate expense items. As is typical, we expect Q4 to be the highest adjusted EPS quarter of the year. As always, you'll find modeling considerations in the appendix to our presentation. I'll now turn the call back over to Gene for a review of our end markets and his closing comments.