IDEX Corporation
Q4 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 4 Feb 2021

[Operator:]

Greetings and welcome to the IDEX Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2020 Financial Highlights. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host Mike Yates, Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer for IDEX Corporation. Thank you. You may begin.

[Mike Yates:]

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. This is Mike Yates, Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer for IDEX Corporation. Let me start by saying, thank you for joining us for a discussion of the IDEX fourth quarter and full year 2020 financial highlights.

[Eric Ashleman:]

Thank you, Mike. I'd like to start by thanking our people all around the world who have risen to the occasion during such a challenging year. It's been a year full of challenge and change, with the numerous safety protocols and disruptions in the marketplace. In that environment, our people continue to shine. So to all the IDEX team members listening in on this call, thank you. Because of the protocols we have in place, the disruptions in our operations have been limited. The COVID trends across Europe, North America and India have been troubling and we continue to follow those developments closely and remain steadfast in providing a safe place for our employees to work. We continue to deliver solutions for our customers during a challenging year, focusing on the critical innovation we need to support our long-term strategy, as well as producing new products to help the fight against the pandemic. Bill will walk through the details shortly.

[Bill Grogan:]

Thanks, Eric. I'll start with our consolidated financial results on slide 11. Q4 orders of $679 million were up 10% overall and up 7% organically. Organic orders increased across each of our segments, with drivers highlighted by Eric in his previous comments. For the year orders were down 3% overall and down 4% organically, with strong organic order recovery in the fourth quarter, partially offsetting the 18% organic order decline we saw in the second quarter at the height of the pandemic. Fourth quarter sales of $615 million were up 2% overall, but down 1% organically. Our industrial and energy markets led the decline, but did have positive organic growth of around 60% of our reporting units led by strong performance in our ceilings MPT and dispensing businesses. Full year sales of $2.4 billion were down 6% overall and down 9% organically, driven by the impact of COVID, industrial market softness and challenges in oil and gas. Q4 gross margins contracted 20 basis points to 43.8%, driven by a decline in volume and unfavorable sales mix, partially offset by price capture. For the full year, gross margins contracted 140 basis points.

[Eric Ashleman:]

Thanks Bill. Before questions, I would like to once again thank our employees and stakeholders for their contributions to what I consider exceptional execution in a challenging environment. We have proven the resilience of our businesses and clearly demonstrated the impact of the IDEX difference in our operating model. While we are not completely out of the woods this is a time for optimism. And I believe that our businesses are well positioned to focus on the critical priorities that will accelerate our growth on the other side of the pandemic. With that let me pause and turn it over to the operator for your questions.

[Operator:]

Our first question comes from the line of Allison Poliniak with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your question.

[Allison Poliniak:]

Want to go back to your comment Eric on M&A and this concept of technology and investing there, could you maybe give us a little bit of color on what that means in terms of size or if there's verticals? And then also how are you reconciling those opportunities with the historical discipline that IDEX has always held with M&A?

[Eric Ashleman:]

Yes. Well it's great to talk to you Allison. Thank you. So look I -- we talked a little bit here before about obviously we think that the technology cycle is compressed a lot. And no doubt it was already kind of flying in a dynamic way. So as we're thinking about that at IDEX, we're thinking about organic bets and development that we're going to do internally, but no doubt we're going to have to appropriate some of this from the outside world. And I think that -- you can think of that as a range of technologies. I mean for a lot of our component products it's probably going to come down to things like sensors and data readouts. From other businesses that we have it might be more analytical in nature. So it's going to take some of the inputs that we're able to provide in a severe duty space and come up to some determinant outcome and present that to our customers. So I think it would run the gamut from -- everything from embedded sensors and control elements up to frankly some software pieces that might be out there that would stick and sit very nice comfortably next to some pieces of our business. And I just think ultimately the call on that is going to be speed, speed and the ability to impact a solution in a way that we think will give us some differentiated edge. No doubt, when you're looking at assets especially on the inorganic side the economics can often work in different ways. And so we challenge our teams to think about value creation in a different way as well, in terms of how it might extend our solution bring us closer to customers lead to other open doors. So we're spending an awful lot of time on that as a team; Bill and I and the rest of the senior team and really putting our heads together and what that will look like for IDEX but we're excited about it.

[Allison Poliniak-Cusic:]

That's helpful. And then I just want to go to your comment on capital projects. It sounds like you're getting some inquiries or they're starting to increase there. But the balance of that going forward potentially sounds like it's almost like a reopening kind of theme there. Are you feeling like there's starting to be sort of this pent-up demand as people look out into the balance of 2021? Just any thoughts there.

[Eric Ashleman:]

Yes. Well I think so. As you know I mean, especially I'll just take the FMD segment in general. There's a ton of support there on the day rate side and much of the improvement that we've seen in Q3 and Q4 and that's where it's coming from. The system is working. People are adding shifts. There's just more output. And we come along with that. And then there's an important component of project business that we would need to see to kind of take it to the next level. And I will say that you don't see a lot of that yet in the actual order numbers that we have as good as they are. But the discussions that support that the discussions around spec points and applications and problems that we can solve you can feel that building. And I think that's behind some of the optimism that we feel, coming ahead particularly as the virus the course of the virus becomes more understood.

[Allison Poliniak-Cusic:]

Great. Thanks a lot. I’ll pass it along.

[Eric Ashleman:]

Thanks, Allison.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Deane Dray with RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

[Deane Dray:]

Thank you. Good morning, everyone.

[Eric Ashleman:]

Hi, Deane.

[Deane Dray:]

Hey, Eric. So congratulations. You get your first quarter under your belt. And as we look at the results and the quality of the earnings it looks just like vintage IDEX and seeing the incrementals come back. But could you share with us any like high-level thoughts here now where do you think you'll be focusing a little bit differently where might there be an Eric imprint here as CEO? Is – I suspected a lot of it is just continued focus on 80

[Eric Ashleman:]

Yes. Sure Deane. Look I think some of it we touched on in my opening comments. I mean I would actually start with the cultural aspects. I think one of the reasons we performed as well as we have we've been as nimble as we have I mean it really comes back to what we built here in terms of a culture and an organizational mentality that allows us to course correct and really focus on things without frankly a lot of control coming from Bill or I or the rest of the team. So in an environment that probably has even more of that, going to the next level there is hugely important. Then I think, partially thinking back a bit to the comments around Allison's question technology and how that's going to layer across the solution sets that we have at IDEX, recognizing we've got a lot of different states of evolution depending on the companies, that's a place where I'm spending an awful lot of time to make sure that we're thoughtful and not in some ways kind of overdoing it with a center-led answer because that's not really the appropriate response. And then I would end with certainly capital allocation and a lot of focus on how we can frankly put some more of it to work. The environment's tough but we're doing some things around focused resources, focused pieces of the company and a lot of just very iterative thinking as a team of how we can tackle that and frankly capitalize on the engine that we really built over the last two years. I mean I think we're uniquely positioned here even in a difficult environment to bring that to bear.

[Deane Dray:]

That's really helpful. And I think you've given some good insight into how you're thinking about the end markets, that Page 9 was especially helpful, as was the bridge that Bill walked us through. So if I could just take a moment and ask for more specifics on your muni outlook, because that came up a couple of different times where you talked about the toll that COVID is taking. But there's like two pieces to muni. One is water, which tends to be more resilient in Fire & Rescue a little more CapEx. But what are your assumptions on muni budgets and spending here on those two areas?

[Eric Ashleman:]

Yes. I mean, no doubt that's definitely an area that we're watching with a lot of focus. As you know, I mean those markets tend to lag an awful lot. And so something bad happens in the world and it takes a while for it to read through. And then of course, if you think of kind of our exposure layered on top of it, particularly the two areas that you mentioned, we're doing very important work that that many times is buffered against some of it. So on the water side we're heavily tilted towards the analytical side, analytical services and support. And so even if a system has to make do with infrastructure might have to delay some kind of – lay out a heavy infrastructure, they often turn to our kind of work to make sure that they're leveraging the system that they do have. Frankly, also on the water side, I mean if we go into an era, where the environmental compliance has stepped up a bit, that's another dynamic that helps us there. So that's against that sort of other trend that we are watching around budget support and budget assurance. So the two things are kind of working there together but we see that same resiliency. Fire & Rescue, again this is one of the most global stories that we have. And so no doubt in the more mature spaces CapEx purchases, considering where the source of that funding is going to come from is always something that we're thinking about and tracking. But we are – we course, correct a bit here. And so it's a different story in some of the emerging markets where we've got great presence and frankly a lot of technology and people on the ground. So I think that global breadth helps us on that side as well. But no doubt we're watching the same dynamics that you all are. As we go forward, we're looking to see if there's backstopping and support or not all over the world and -- but we think we're well positioned.

[Deane Dray:]

Appreciate it. Thank you.

[Eric Ashleman:]

Thanks, Deane.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Mike Halloran with Robert W. Baird. Please proceed with your question.

[Mike Halloran:]

Hey, good morning everyone.

[Eric Ashleman:]

Hi, Mike.

[Mike Halloran:]

So let's start on the demand curve here. Obviously, understand the optimism comments. Really good to hear. Is that -- how is that optimism embedded in the guidance range? How are you thinking about trends as you work through the year here? And any commentary on how customers are thinking about what their spend patterns look like, and how much optimism is there in the channel when you're having those conversations? And I guess one more tail to that what do you think that means for the next couple of years?

[Bill Grogan:]

Mike maybe I'll start off with the first part of your question relative to how we're thinking about pacing through the year in our guidance, I think, it's kind of consistent sequential improvement as we progress through the year. When you look at the 6% to 8% and where we are in the first quarter, there is kind of a gradual improvement that we need to achieve each quarter that's reasonable. When you think about the 6% to 8% between the segments, HST a little bit on the high end FMT and the middle and FSD on the lower side. So, generally balanced with small sequential improvements as we progress. And obviously, we have some targeted growth things that will phase out through the year that could inflect that plus or minus. But we're not looking for significant growth in any specific quarter as we progress through the year.

[Eric Ashleman:]

Yes. Mike I just would continue to point to, I mean, in many ways what we're calling internal is sort of predictable uncertainty. There's a lot of stuff going on no doubt, but it's at least found a level where one of the things we've noticed all around the world is certainly -- we're going to keep the machines on keep the factories running, keep the borders open, keep product moving. It might be difficult at times, but that assurance is there. And certainly with some good signs in terms of virus mitigation that provides another piece of assurance. And then I think most people recognize, there's a lot of pent-up energy more broadly that if things continue to go this way, it would be released at some point. And again IDEX has such broad exposure. We think we'd participate in that.

[Mike Halloran:]

So, third question just maybe some thoughts on supply chains how they look for you specifically; what channel inventories look like? And then lastly, how are you thinking about price cost dynamics?

[Eric Ashleman:]

Yes sure. On -- with no doubt the supply chain is tricky to maneuver. I mean, we're seeing that as well as everybody else. I mean, the ports are clogged up and they've got some staffing issues in both of the coasts. And the containers are in the wrong places all of that stuff. And just frankly, there's not enough aircraft in the sky. So we're not immune to that. However, as you know, we are very localized generally in terms of our supply our production and our sell-through into markets. It's a very localized model. And so I think relative to a lot of people we probably don't experience it at the same levels Our teams now for quite a while frankly even going back to the times where we were talking a lot more about tariffs and things like that have been thinking about where we have key sources of supply how we can make that frankly more flexible. And to this day every Tuesday we kind of go around the horn and talk both about kind of how we're holding up in terms of the virus how we're navigating supply chains. And fortunately we've been able to react and navigate around that and that's the go-forward assumption for us.

[Mike Halloran:]

Appreciate it. Thank you.

[Eric Ashleman:]

Thanks Mike.

[Operator:]

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

[Matt Summerville:]

Thanks and good morning guys. Can you maybe talk about a little bit about the order of cadence you experienced through the quarter? It sounds like things got better what you've seen so far in January and if you wouldn't mind adding some geographic overlay to that as well.

[Eric Ashleman:]

Yes. So relatively the order pattern through the quarter we mentioned it a little bit in the prepared remarks our day rate businesses continue to progress as we march through the fourth quarter. We had some timing of OEM blanket that made the absolute month numbers a little bit choppy. But for the things that we look as indicator the sequential improvement was there and that's continued on to January with another positive month of broad-based order improvement across all of our businesses. On the geographic side, I think it was a really strong performance in Asia in Europe. And North America lagged a little bit only because of hey that's where most of our core industrial and energy exposure is. It was the only area that was the lowest out of the 3 but again still sequentially improving.

[Matt Summerville:]

And then realizing dispensing's a fairly small piece of overall IDEX it can still kind of bounce around FSD a bit. I would imagine some of the orders you received maybe for future periods. Is there any sort of sequential cadence we should be thinking about as it pertains to FSD because of some of that lumpiness as we fine-tune our models?

[Eric Ashleman:]

Yes. It's obviously a strong order quarter for dispensing. I would say it's going to pace out through the first three quarters of the year for the most part maybe a little bit more heavily weighted towards the first two quarters, because we did receive some orders for the full year from several customers.

[Matt Summerville:]

Great. Thank you.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Scott Graham with Rosenblatt Securities. Please proceed with your question.

[Scott Graham:]

Hey, good morning. Eric congratulations on your first solo quarter. Good luck.

[Eric Ashleman:]

Thank you, Scott.

[Scott Graham:]

So I wanted to maybe get a little bit more on your 6% to 8% organic for the year, which obviously suggests a pretty steady, but pretty healthy improvement 2Q, 3Q, 4Q. And maybe specifically in FMT, where you're kind of saying that's sort of like in the middle what are the markets that you're looking at in FMT that are going to be the drivers for that level of growth as the year progresses?

[Eric Ashleman:]

Well, I mean, as you know, Scott, I mean, FMT is such a broad collection catch-all of a wide variety of industrial markets. But it – honestly it runs the gamut. So food production is in there. Anything related to – starting to work on infrastructure and build-out of highways and buildings and things we're going to participate there as well. So the chemical sector kind of coming back to life. We've got a significant presence there. I mean, it really is that sort of broad-based support coming from the industrial sector largely in kind of our mature geographic markets that just day rates that's kind of in the first chapter of it. I think the projects that we talked about earlier are starting to come on starting to get funded. You put those two things together that's sort of what the picture would look like in it. We see it as a pretty steady march. I mean, it's not like a hockey stick out there. We just think the line sort of continues as the world heals.

[Scott Graham:]

Right. Well, you're shorter cycle, so that makes sense. Bill one for you. Could you give us an idea, I know you guys have been kind enough in the past to kind of share with us your revenues that are from OpEx which includes the day rates versus CapEx. What was the exit rate on that?

[Bill Grogan:]

I would say, it's more heavily OpEx related. Again to Eric's comments relative to the larger capital projects, I think the conversations around those are picking up. We haven't seen a significant increase in order book relative to those things falling through the unknown.

[Scott Graham:]

Would you say Bill that OpEx is maybe 70%, 75% of the revenue run rate right now?

[Bill Grogan:]

Yeah, plus or minus. It's around there.

[Scott Graham:]

Great. Thanks.

[Eric Ashleman:]

Thanks, Scott.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Buscaglia with Berenberg. Please proceed with your question.

[Andrew Buscaglia:]

Good morning, guys. I wanted to focus on Health & Science Technologies for a second. So you gave some color there on the rapid tests coming roughly in line with kind of what you thought revenue-wise. But what are the puts and takes elsewhere in the business throughout the year? Because it seems – I 'm actually surprised that life sciences is more stable and analytically instrumentation just given what we're seeing with other companies. I don't know. I guess, what are you seeing in 2021 in that segment and how that is going to ebb and flow throughout the year?

[Eric Ashleman:]

Well, I mean, look I think the analytical instrumentation story for us it's a pretty mature business. It was – obviously it faced some headwinds last year like a lot of life sciences did related to sort of up and down the street medical things and analytical services. We did see a nice bounce back there in the fourth quarter for AI. I think it kind of returns to its sort of historical rates as we go forward. The IVD/BIO side, which is also pretty mature that's the one that's still got the most pressure on it. It's much more dependent on people going and visiting labs and then has a consumable stream that tends to be out ahead of capital purchases and that's kind of where we come in. So consider that a bit of an offset to the AI story. And then pretty quickly, we get into the more dynamic pieces of this related to the works that we do in genomics. And obviously, the rapid test is the most dynamic of them all. So we put all that together. I think we tried to lay that out here. But I would say in general look this is a robust sector. It's obviously doing work that the world needs right now. We think we're well positioned in all of it. And the single biggest catalyst for us still remains that that work we're doing around the testing program.

[Andrew Buscaglia:]

Okay. Is – based on your orders order trends what – I guess, looking out to 2021 for the full year, is it safe to say Fluid & Metering probably leads followed by HST and then Fire & Safety, or I guess can you rank order those organically?

[Bill Grogan:]

For orders or sales?

[Andrew Buscaglia:]

For sales I mean.

[Bill Grogan:]

Yeah. No, I think I mentioned a little bit earlier. I think HST is probably on the higher end FMC is down the middle and FSD's on the low end. If you picked –

[Andrew Buscaglia:]

Okay. Sorry I missed that. Okay. And then just one last one. On M&A, you guys indicated a quarter or two ago that there were some deals in HST perking up. Anything – any update there or anything just broadly on M&A?

[Eric Ashleman:]

Well, look as I said in the – both in the comments at the beginning and some of the questions here, I mean, we've got a lot of work going on in frankly all three segments. So I wouldn't say, that one is tilted more than the other. I mean we've got good opportunities in all three. We've got teams associated in and positioned in places where we're focused in all three. So, I'd hesitate to color it, as landed one way or another.

[Andrew Buscaglia:]

Okay. All right. Thank you guys.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Joseph Giordano with Cowen. Please proceed with your questions.

[Francisco Amador:]

Hey guys. Good morning. This is Francisco on for Joe. I wanted to ask with regards to slide 9 which is obviously very helpful, your general thoughts on automotive. We've seen some headlines on potential production cuts coming from the shortage in semiconductors. How exposed are you to that, and if you can just provide some incremental commentary there, please?

[Eric Ashleman:]

Yeah. Well, I mean, no doubt, we've seen the same headlines. I mean, this is still a relatively small piece of IDEX. I mean, we have exposure there in a couple of businesses and none of which is related to the electronics side. So, look, I think what we've seen so far the momentum is the recovery of an industry that was largely kind of shutdown for decent parts of the year. And then, frankly, most of our growth there is through growth of platforms. The technologies where we're actually focused, our team has done just a great job of being able to introduce that to more and more people, more and more players in the market. And then, secure those wings. And then -- wins and we would see them run out over several years. So, we haven't seen a big interruption. But again, we're not in that sort of same area the part spends. And we've got really good exposure to the platform wins in a couple of businesses.

[Francisco Amador:]

Thanks. That's helpful. And just going back quickly to the M&A topic, just on the environment, would you say, it's more favorable than it was a couple of quarters ago? I think you guys mentioned, at some point that, multiples were still pretty high and people were maybe not as willing to sell. How has that changed in the last couple of months?

[Eric Ashleman:]

Well, I mean, like the valuation remains certainly high and rich. And maybe because of that and some of the confidence that, we're seeing generally put those two things together I would say, the flow of properties for sale is better. And it continues to grow, kind of with the confidence in insurance, kind of same things that we're citing here. So, valuation was frankly high before. We think it's high now. We think it will stay at these elevated levels as we go forward. That's the challenge for us. But, we think we've got the -- certainly have the firepower to do the work both in terms of the teams the franchises we're thinking of building around and the demonstrated ability to execute and drive value in a company.

[Francisco Amador:]

Great. Thank you very much.

[Eric Ashleman:]

Thank you.

[Operator:]

There are no further questions in the queue. I'd like to hand the call back to management, for closing remarks.

[Eric Ashleman:]

Okay. Well, hey, thanks for everybody joining. And I know there's always a lot of IDEX folks that join this call as well. So, I do want to -- once again I want to thank, everybody across IDEX for the really, really hard work and solid execution in 2020 and frankly a great start already to the year here. So thank you for your efforts there. I think, as you can see, I mean, we're pretty -- we're cautiously bullish. And we're leaning forward. We're generally optimistic about, where things are going here. No doubt, there's a lot of uncertainty that's still out there. But I think if we learned anything in 2020, it's how resilient everybody is. And how quickly we can kind of course correct and I think our company does that, better than many. So, we've got the people in place. We've got the teams. We've got focus. And I'm just really, really pleased to be here and leading the charge with Bill and others. So, thanks for your interest and time today.

[Operator:]

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's teleconference. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect your lines, at this time. And have a wonderful day.