Brady Corporation (NYSE:BRC) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

This is a long journey that started with a purchase of Code and Nordic. We knew it was going to take a substantial amount of development effort to make them sufficiently rugged that they were, industrial use contractor, use case products. But you can look to see those in the coming year.

Steve Ferazani: Are you guys excited about tracked — industrial track and trace that market as you were, I guess, when the previous CEO announced the purchase?

Russell Shaller: Yes, we absolutely are. For us, it’s all part of our automation solutions. Now it’s important to recognize what that means for us. We’re not really in distribution centers, that’s not part of our business or freight shipping or what have you. We’re very intimately involved in manufacturing environments and what I’ll call niche manufacturing of parts. I think there is a tremendous opportunity for Brady in what I’ll call the medium sized corporations out there that manufacture things. So those would be the $1 billion to $2 billion companies. We’re actively engaged with many of them. And I think the overall trends towards improving productivity, saving labor, is something that will help us for years to come.

Steve Ferazani: Thanks, Russ.

Operator: Thank you. That concludes the question-and-answer session. At this time, I would like to turn it back to Russell Shaller for closing remarks.

Russell Shaller: Sure. Thanks everyone for your time today and your questions. We performed very well this quarter, and we have positive momentum throughout the entire organization. We’re also in an incredibly strong financial position fiscal ‘21, ‘22 and now ‘23 were all record EPS years, and we’re once again guiding to another record year in 2024. Like many other companies we have to navigate through an uncertained and rapidly macro environment. We’re focused on controlling what we can control and consistently delivering on our priorities, which are: to continue to invest and grow the topline and continue our evolution to a faster growing company; to further develop our product offering to support our customers’ automation initiatives; to execute operational efficiencies and ensure that we grow profitably; and to effectively deploy our capital to drive long-term shareholder value through organic investments, acquisitions, and returning funds to our shareholders through dividends and share buybacks.

I’m looking forward to the future and I know that our global team has the ability to overcome challenges and continue to deliver results. Thank you all for your time this morning and for your interest in Brady. Operator, you may disconnect the call.

Operator: Thank you for your participation in today’s conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.