Greetings, and welcome to the Valmont Industries Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Renee Campbell, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Treasurer. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you and good morning. Welcome to Valmont Industries second quarter 2024 earnings call. With me today are Avner Applbaum, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Tim Francis, Interim Chief Financial Officer. This morning, Avner will provide a summary of our second quarter results, current market dynamics and strategic priorities. Tim will review our second quarter financial performance and provide our updated outlook and indications for the year with closing remarks from Avner. This will be followed by Q&A. A live webcast of the presentation will accompany today's call and is available for download from the webcast or on the Investors site at valmont.com. A replay will be available on our website later this morning. Please note that this call is subject to our disclosure on forward-looking statements, which applies to today's discussion is outlined on Slide 3 of the presentation and will be read in full at the end of today's call. Finally, to stay updated with Valmont's latest news releases and information, please sign up for email alerts on our Investors site. We also invite you to follow Valmont and our brands on the social media channels linked on our website. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Avner.

Thank you, Renee. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Beginning on Slide 5, our second quarter results reflect the commitment of our 11,000 employees worldwide to delivering exceptional value through innovation, quality and service. Their relentless dedication to customer satisfaction, operational excellence and cost management has enhanced profitability and fostered resilience in dynamic market conditions. As a result, we expanded operating margins to 14.2%, up 140 basis points over last year, with diluted earnings per share growing to $4.91. I'm pleased with the progress we're making in delivering stronger results even on comparable sales. Infrastructure segment sales were lower year-over-year. While volumes in transmission, distribution and substation, which we refer to as utility, were higher, we produced a greater mix of distribution and substation products this quarter to accommodate our customers. This shift, along with lower telecom and solar volumes and the effect of a lower steel index on price impacted sales growth. While a mix change can affect top line growth in any given quarter, we always aim to enhance profitability and return on invested capital. By focusing on footprint flexibility and leveraging strong market demand, we are steadily expanding and adjusting our factory output to meet evolving customer needs. Additionally, we continue strategic pricing actions to capture the value we provide. Agriculture segment sales were slightly higher this quarter. In North America, severe storm events in May and June, primarily in the Midwest and Southern U.S., drove strong demand for replacement equipment. During this summer of exceptionally severe weather, our team has shown an outstanding ability to quickly build and deliver equipment during the critical growing season. This responsiveness ensures our dealer and growers receive essential support precisely when they need it most. In international markets, continuing market softness in Brazil pressured growth this quarter.…

Thank you, Avner, and good morning everyone. Turning to Slide 11 and second quarter results. Net sales of $1 billion were similar to last year. Operating income increased 10.2% to $147.3 million and operating margins improved to 14.2% of net sales. Diluted earnings per share of $4.91, increased 16.6% year-over-year. This includes a tax benefit of approximately $3 million or $0.15 per share due to the reduction of a valuation allowance on a tax loss carryforward in a foreign subsidiary. The steps we implemented to control expenses and reduce our cost structure continue to have a favorable impact on our profitability. Turning to the segments in Slide 12, Infrastructure sales of $762.7 million decreased 1% year-over-year. We were pleased with higher volumes in utility even as the mix this quarter shifted to more distribution and substation structures. Also, average selling prices for utility products were slightly higher year-over-year. Through pricing excellence, our commercial team secured projects at pricing levels that offset the contractual price impact from steel index deflation. Telecommunications volumes were lower this quarter, but we do not expect any further year-over-year decline in telecom sales for the rest of the year. Solar volumes were also lower due to project timing. Operating income increased to $133.6 million, or 17.6% of net sales. Operating margin improvement was driven by improved commercial execution including pricing strategies, lower cost of goods sold due to declining steel costs and reduced SG&A expenses. We have begun to realize the benefits from strategic investments in our manufacturing facilities, enabling us to increase production of higher-margin products. Moving to Slide 13, Agriculture sales of $281.7 million grew slightly year-over-year. In North America, irrigation equipment volumes were significantly higher, driven by a large increase in replacement sales due to severe weather impacts. Average irrigation selling prices were…

Thank you, Tim. Turning to Slide 17. I'd like to close by thanking our global team. We're actively managing what we can by driving commercial and operational excellence, leveraging key strengths and enhancing productivity across the organization. Streamlining our administrative functions has improved operating margins and is creating sustainable shareholder value. Today, our company is more resilient and making steady progress on our strategic initiatives, positioning us to achieve our long-term financial targets. Our team is delivering innovative solutions to our customers in growing markets that address vital megatrends. I'm confident in our ability to continue delivering value for our stakeholders. I will now turn the call back over to Renee.

Thank you, Avner. At this time, the operator will open up the call for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Chris Moore with CJS Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking a couple of questions. Yes, I was hoping maybe we just go a little bit deeper on solar kind of on the strategic adjustments. Just trying to understand a little bit better in terms of some of the projects that you are going to be exiting and just how the overall strategy kind of impacts beyond '24.

Thank you for the question, Chris, and good morning. When we look at our solar business, we made a strategic decision to exit products that are really more commoditized, we cannot add our engineering expertise. We initially started along this road when we were supporting one of our customers. But as we looked into it, it's just not a business that we can add value, we can hit our financial targets. So what we're doing is we're focusing on the areas where we are -- where we can drive that value and drive financial results. And mostly it's in the DG space. So on the DG space where our margins -- we are improving them year-over-year. We are a large, stable player in a pretty much underserved market. So what we bring to the table there is our deep and knowledge expertise in the local countries that we play. We have a good track record going 15 years or so providing a solution that provides low operational costs, low maintenance costs. Actually, our tracker itself, it suits very well into the smaller fields. Some of these DG fields have odd shapes and our product fits very well in that area. That's easy to install and allows for labor flexibility. So when we look at the DG space, we're doing very well in that area. We've actually increased our revenue in that space around 30% year-over-year. We're very pleased with that result. We're able to support our customers in the utility space, providing them with additional products. So we're going to be highly focused on that area where we can drive strong growth. That market is growing 8% to 10% every year. So we're going to keep on serving that market and continue on that road.

Got it. It's helpful. I appreciate it. And maybe just for my follow-up, North America Ag was strong this quarter. A lot of replacement sales. The guide for the year didn't change. Just trying to understand if the mix between the decline of North America versus International is that changing at all, even though the overall 10% to 15% decline stays the same.

Yes, Chris, let me start off, give some background, and then Tim can jump in. But overall, we did have a strong quarter with storms. I would like to point out it is the unfortunate reality and a way of life for a grower where they get hit with these storms. I just want to point out it's not a given that we get that business. We utilize our strong dealer network. We're ready there with emergency stock, with our supply chain, and we're able to get the farmers up quickly in a very critical time for them. So we did have a very strong quarter. When we look more globally and look at some of the macros, what we are seeing, at least even in this quarter since last quarter, is that the grains themselves, the crops pricing is lower. I mean, going into last quarter, corn was closer to $5 -- $4.60 or so, and now it's closer to $4. You look at soy was over $12. Now it's a little bit below $11. So it is putting additional pressure on the farmer. And right now there's really no indication that the yields won't be good and stock-to-use ratio is still pretty high. So when you kind of factor those in, we're expecting to have a challenging year globally, both in North America and in Brazil. And Tim, I don't know if you want to add some color around that.

Yes. Good morning, Chris. It's Tim. To give a little bit more on the specifics, our current outlook would be that North America sales for the full year will decrease, approaching mid-single-digits. And then the decrease for international sales would be slightly more than the 15%. And really the -- Avner did a nice job. But just to summarize the reason for the changes, we did have the additional replacement volumes here in Q2, but we are moderating our outlook both for North America and Brazil for the second half of the year.

Very helpful. I will leave it there. Thanks, guys.

Our next question comes from the line of Nathan Jones with Stifel. Please proceed with your question.

Good morning, everyone.

Morning.

I want to start off with a few questions on pricing and on, I guess, price versus cost as well. You guys have talked about some specific areas for price declines in Agriculture and the contractual price pass-throughs in utility. You haven't talked about softening prices in any other part of the business. And steel prices have come down a lot. So I'm interested to hear your views on whether you can hold on to that lower input costs, whether you have to give back some pricing in some other areas and then what your views on that net of the input costs would be. So do you expect that to be accretive to margins and accretive to income, even if you're seeing some lower pricing?

Perfect. Nathan, I'll start off, just talk about the environment and our pricing strategies, Tim can go then into detail. So we're going to continue to maintain our pricing leadership. We provide some valuable solutions to our customers. Demand is strong in a lot of our end markets. We talked about the utility space, the transportation area, there's strong market demands and we provide our customers with these solutions and we're going to price accordingly. So there is no expectation that we will take broad-based pricing reductions. We're going to maintain our pricing and I don't see any reason for that. And even in the areas that we are adjusting pricing, it's very specific to every specific areas. We mentioned in Agriculture, it's a surgical approach, also making sure we're maintaining our market share. But overall, right now, I don't see any reason why we would take any actions to reduce our pricing.

Nathan, it's Tim. Let me expand a little bit. I'm going to talk about TDNS and I'll talk about Agriculture. For TDNS, about 50% of the sale of a utility structure is the cost of steel. And we have the contractual steel index in our alliance customer contracts. And we do expect a return to the cost of steel aligning to the contractual deflation we're seeing in that steel index as the year progresses. And then when you turn to Agriculture, there are lots of components to pivot. There are center drives, there are tires, there are the electronics, there are pieces that go into a control panel. So because of all the different components that we see in a pivot, we don't see a dislocation of what's going on with price versus cost. And as we said in our opening remarks, we are being very targeted on the regional pricing actions we're taking.

Thanks for that. I guess my follow-up question is on the Infrastructure business and the total margins there. For most of the last 10 years to 20 years, the combined margins of all of those Infrastructure businesses has been 10%-ish, low-double-digit kind of area, and we're pushing above mid-teens at the moment. What's your view on the sustainability of that versus the market competing those back down to where long-term averages have been? Just any thoughts you can give us on that?

Yes. Nathan, so we did mention that specifically, you look at the quarter, there are puts and takes, and I'll just look at it more broadly. We are -- it's a different environment, first of all, than it's been over the last decade. I mean, we are seeing a lot of strong market demand and some of these megatrends once-in-a-lifetime energy transition. We're seeing load growth for the first time in decades, driven by electrification of the grid, bringing more and more plants internally to the U.S., et cetera. So it is -- I'll start off with it is a very strong market environment and expecting that to continue. Now, we've taken actions internally as well. We've streamlined our organization, so we took out SG&A cost which we get the benefit from the cost, but we're also more effective and efficient. We manage our capacity very closely to make sure we can maximize our capacity. And we're driving continuous improvement. And we do that year in and year out to make sure we keep on driving our profitability. We're adding products, and over the years we have now a much bigger portion of our business goes through concrete. That is helpful. We do now more distribution and substation, specifically on the utility. So those are just some specific examples of what we're working on to overall continue to drive market expansion and overall achieve our long-term goals of increasing our margins over time. So overall, I would say we should keep on seeing margins improving.

Excellent. Thanks very much for taking my questions.

Our next question comes from the line of Brent Thielman with D.A. Davidson. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, thanks. Good morning. I guess just a question within the Infrastructure segment. Tim, I caught your comments just in regards to the telecom business. It's obviously been a difficult area for you. It sounds like maybe you're suggesting some stabilization here in the second half of the year. Any insights into what you're seeing from those customers and what gives you the confidence maybe that business is starting to inflect?

Yes, absolutely. Good morning. I'll take that question. Overall, if you -- we just take a step back and look at the telecom business over the last several years, the telecom providers, they spend significant amount of CapEx in -- or cash on both the CapEx and spectrum. And then as they're trying to monetize their investments, they got hit with higher interest rates which put some pressure on the carrier. So we've seen over the last several years slow down, spending less in that area. But we are starting to see some stabilization and we're cautiously optimistic. We're seeing better, better order intake at this point. But what we are seeing from the carriers, they're not spending now a lot of the resource and CapEx on specifically densification, which we initially thought would be the case, we're seeing them more focused on increasing capacity, operating more in the mid-band space, on the suburban and urban areas so they can actually add additional customers. So they're still working on strengthening their balance sheet. You just heard AT&T yesterday talking about that. And they're heavily investing in the 5G space as well. So we're seeing more business as usual, I'd call it that way. Our second half should absolutely be -- we should see some growth in telecom, which is positive for us. And when we look at our product offering that fits well with what we can offer in that space, specifically around mid-cell, our component business, some of our PIM product and so on. So overall, I'd say we're seeing positive signs and we're expecting to see more stabilization in the telecom area.

Okay. Very good. Avner, I appreciate that. And then on Agriculture, it seems like the project-based business is giving you some offset, notwithstanding that, a tough kind of overall spending climate in that segment. Could you talk about the pipeline for those sorts of projects and visibility you have into those? And what sort of visibility does that potentially lend you for 2025, I guess, especially if, in fact, this Ag -- weaker Ag market persists?

Yes. So when you think about that area has different drivers than -- specifically we talked before about North America and Brazil. When you look at that areas, which is driven by food security, water scarcity, and seeing very good activity in North Africa, Middle East, et cetera, we are doing well on the projects that we currently have in hand. And we continue to be very active with our dealers in the space, working directly with customers as well. And we have a pretty strong pipeline at this point. Now, it's always hard to determine exactly the timing of each one of these projects. And when you look back, we had some very large projects over the last several years, but we kind of look to pre-COVID, and today it's a lot more active, a lot more activity, and it looks very favorable on that end, and it is offsetting some of the weakness in the area. So I would say that is definitely a bright spot for us until the other markets, North America and Brazil, which we know the long term is going to be very strong for us based on water scarcity, labor availability, sustainability, and all these drivers that we're aware of. So, overall, I would say we're pretty positive on our pipeline in that area.

Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Our next question comes from the line of Tom Hayes with C.L. King. Please proceed with your question.

Good morning, gentlemen. Thanks for taking my questions.

Morning.

Morning.

I was just wondering, maybe just a follow-up to Nathan's question on the pricing, specifically on the irrigation business. You indicated that in the quarter, you took some targeted pricing actions. Just wondering if maybe you could quantify the magnitude of those actions. And were those more kind of a one-time, or is that kind of an ongoing review that you have as far as your pricing in that market?

Yes. So thanks for the question. Pricing in irrigation is very specific for us. It is -- every grower, every region is different, every pivot offering is different. And really, at this case, we had to do some small adjustments in specific areas. But overall, our strategy is we are protecting our market share, and every region could have some different dynamics. Overall, I'd go back and the pivot has a very strong value proposition for the grower. It could ensure he gets the yields he's looking for. He could help him optimize his cost. Without a pivot, you're basically not going to be able to get the yields that you're looking for. So we will utilize our dealer network, our strong offering, to make sure that we can address these needs. So, again, it's -- like I said, it's very specific in specific areas. We shouldn't expect us to see broad-based pricing reductions in irrigation.

I appreciate that. Maybe just a follow-up on the capital allocation plans, maybe your thoughts on the M&A environment and where maybe you could be targeting that going forward. Thank you.

So the M&A is part of our capital allocation strategy. Our number one is CapEx, and then we go right into acquisitions. I took a hard look at our pipeline and actually streamlined and reduced the size of the pipeline by taking out acquisitions that are not very strategic to us, that they either don't hit our financial criteria or our strategic criteria so we could really add value. They tied to our core competencies, to the markets that were strong, to our customers, the geographies that are appealing to us. So we took a hard look and streamlined the acquisitions. And right now we're continuing to build our pipeline. And there's no segment or area that we're focusing more than others. We're looking at the areas that we can drive growth and strong synergies. There are a lot of opportunities on the TDNS space, which we are looking very closely as well as others. So you'll be hearing more from us over the next several quarters as we keep on building the pipeline. It's very difficult to time when these acquisitions will happen, but overall, that is going to be part of our strategy. We're generating strong earnings, strong cash flows, and we're going to put that to work.

Thank you very much.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Brian Drab with William Blair. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, good morning. This is Tyler on for Brian. Appreciate you guys taking some questions. First of all, can you just elaborate on how a greater mix of distribution and substation sales negatively impact sales? Pricing was higher year-over-year for the segment. So I'm just trying to understand the ebbs and flows of the different mix.

Sure. This is Tim. I'll take that one. So I'll go back a little bit to my comment about that. If you think about sales of TDNS, 50% of a sale is the cost of steel. So as we make less large transmission structures, we are going to have less revenue. Now, we are excited about the ability of our commercial and our operations team to have increased the capacity to make the more distribution and substation structures to accommodate our customer demand. But again, all else being equal, the smaller the structure, with 50% of its cost being the cost of steel, the less revenue we're going to have.

Got it. Yes, that's pretty straightforward. I just wanted to confirm with that pricing was still up and that the negative impact was mostly just transmissions being down. And my follow-up question is, can you just give examples of the higher margin products you are producing due to the strategic investments in your manufacturing facilities? You mentioned on the call. I just want to get some examples of those.

Sure. It would be back to the distribution and substation product lines. So, every year we try to find that balance of taking orders from our alliance customers versus taking orders out in the bid market. As we looked at what was available in the bid market, we saw an opportunity to take more orders for the distribution and substation, and we were pleased at the margin profile of those orders.

Yes. And let me just jump in and just take a step back and take a look at. We're very pleased with what we're seeing in these markets. In all areas of transmission, distribution, substation, we're seeing strong growth, strong demand. And I wouldn't focus specifically, and quarters will also have move -- there will always be movements, different mixes. In this quarter, we were able to support some of our customers with exactly what they needed, and we have a broad product offering and we're able to address that. So we're very pleased that we're able to support our customers while driving a high quality of earnings. But looking at all areas, I mean, all areas are up around transmission, distribution, substations. Strong growth in some of the distribution, which has been a focus for us. We're a very small part of that market. It's dominated by Wood. But as you go into hardening, we could offer solutions anywhere from steel to concrete, et cetera. So overall, I mean, our -- looking at our backlog, looking at the demand, it's very strong, very pleased with our performance. And we're going to continue to drive growth in that area.

Okay. Really appreciate the color. I'll pass it along.

Our next question comes from the line of Jon Braatz with Oppenheimer. Please proceed with your question.

Good morning, everyone.

Morning.

Morning. Avner, last year you took made some major organizational changes at Prospera and I'm wondering where Prospero now sits in terms of your longer-term goals and Prospero's ability to add new technology to the agriculture to the irrigation business and where what are the plans for Prospera from this point forward?

Yes. Thanks for the question. Prospera now has been more integrated into our -- into our business and into our tech organization. I'd start-off with we're focused on how do we provide the highest-value to our growers through our offering. And we're going to be a -- we're focusing a lot more on the core on where we were very strong under irrigated acres, the pivot offering and how can we provide that value. So Prospera is helping in those areas and as we keep on developing the tech, which makes the farmer a lot more effective he doesn't have to go out to the pivot he can do things remotely we're going to embed more data science or we're embedding more, I should say, more data science, machine-learning into the pivot into many aspects of the pivot. So we will see the pivot getting smarter, more effective helping them address their -- their cost anything from their power and input costs all the way to just being more effective. So we're making great progress in that area where we're just being a lot more focused. Now on-top of that, Prospera has very strong talent that they brought in on the AI and ML side and we're exploring opportunities how they can help us in other aspects of the business including on the infrastructure side. How could they help us on the commercial end, on the engineering end, on the manufacturing side. So there's a lot of great talent that we got and value that they will continue to add to the organization, specifically on the pivot as well as other areas. So overall, I'm pretty excited about the opportunities for us to helping the growers solve some of their most pressing problems helping the growers being more productive and is going to be a key part of that value proposition.

Okay. Thank you Avner.

Thank you.

Thank you. We have no further questions at this time. Ms. Campbell, I'd like to turn the floor back over to you for closing comments.

Thank you. Thank you for joining us today. As mentioned, today's call will be available for playback on our website or by phone for the next seven days. We look-forward to speaking with you again next quarter. These slides contain and the accompanying oral discussion will contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause the actual results of the company to differ materially from the results expressed or implied by such statements including general economic and business conditions, conditions affecting the industries served by the company and its subsidiaries the overall market acceptance of such products and services, the integration of acquisitions and other factors disclosed in the company's periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as future economic and market circumstances, industry conditions, company performance and financial results, operating efficiencies, availability and price of raw materials, availability and market acceptance of new products, product pricing, domestic and international competitive environments, geopolitical risks and actions and policy changes of domestic and foreign governments. Consequently, such forward-looking statements should be regarded as the company's current plans, estimates and beliefs. The company does not undertake and specifically declines any obligation to publicly release the results of any revisions to these forward-looking statements that may be made to reflect any future events or circumstances after the date of such statements or to reflect the occurrence of anticipated or unanticipated events.

This concludes today's teleconference. We thank you for your participation and you may disconnect your lines at this time.