Badger Meter, Inc. (NYSE:BMI) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Bob Wrocklage: Yes. So I certainly won’t dissect the $41 million of SEA. But I think the way to think about that, Tate, is exactly what we’ve been saying for the last four years is that, SEA leverage because of our — I am going to say a term I hate to say, growth algorithm. Because of our growth algorithm, we believe while still being an innovator and doing the things that you talked about, R&D, integrating new businesses that we’ve acquired, et cetera, we can still do all those great things, but grow SEA at a rate slower than sales. And that creates automatic SEA leverage. I mean, we are not more than three years removed from a time when we were running at 25%, 26% SEA as a percent of sales, and we just closed the quarter at 22.2%.

And I think for the full year, we are in that kind of high 22% range. So, the story of SEA leverage is real improvement over the last three years, and we believe to continue that while being steadfast and being invested in organic investment as our capital allocation priority number one. We continue to gain that leverage as a point of operating and EBITDA margin expansion. So, there is nothing unique in the third quarter. It is more of the continuation of that trend that we have been talking about over the last three years.

Tate Sullivan: Great. Thank you. And then the addressable market slide, thank you for including it. And then, to understand the meter market part of that, I mean, I would — if it is fair to categorize mostly the replacement market, how much of the $20 billion — remaining $20 billion market, I mean, I thought maybe you are creating, so to speak. I mean, are you creating some of the real time water quality markets and the software markets? Are you are you replacing existing solutions? Can you talk more about the pie chart in there?

Ken Bockhorst: What’s exciting to us, and I know sometimes the acquisitions that we’ve done can appear small. But given our brand name, our 118-year history, things we’ve done in the water market, when we add these companies like ATi, s::can and Syrinix, it opens up these much larger markets to us. And as we continue to integrate and develop software, it opens up these other markets to us. We do tend to enjoy and look for niche opportunities within these spaces. We are not looking to follow some of the giants and some of these spaces that have established markets that are more difficult to get into. For example, our water quality, Hach is a really strong, great business, but there is room for several other technologies and everyone to be successful in a wonderfully large growth market.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] As we have no further questions, I will hand the call back to Karen Bauer for any concluding remarks.

Karen Bauer: Thank you, operator. Thanks, everyone, for joining our call today. For your planning purposes, our year-end call is tentatively scheduled for January 26, 2024. I’ll be around all day to take any follow-up questions you have. Have a great day.

Operator: This concludes today’s call. Thank you very much for your attendance. You may now disconnect your lines.

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