Columbus McKinnon Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCO) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

And we’re seeing a better view on stabilization around economic activity, perhaps or a later cycle recession, if there’s a view, there is a recession. And so people are moving forward with investments that they were pausing on, as we saw them pause through the last couple of quarters. So the quotation activity, if I miscommunicated, that is not an issue. Demand, visibility looks good. It’s more the conversion and the timing on those projects and how they’re coming through.

Walter Liptak: Okay, great. Great. Thanks for that clarification. That sounds very good. And maybe just a last one for me. On the gross margin conversation you guys have that 40% target, which is great. And it sounds like there’s a little bit of a headwind this quarter. How are you thinking — once you get through that rail, gross margin issue, how do you — are you looking for more step change, if you had in 2023 and 2024 is going to be more incremental?

David Wilson: Yes, I’ll take that. Walt, it’s really going to be a continuous improvement process that we’re going to step up, in essence we’ll be exiting this year at roughly the 37% gross margin level. And over the next four plus years, we really would need about 300 basis points to get to the 40% gross margin in fiscal ’27. So we think it’s going to be more of a steady level. I think it’s going to be steady and progressive. We’re going to try to put more proof points on the board each time we report and to how we’re climbing that hill. But if you think about it on an linearize basis, you might be thinking it’s a 75 basis point kind of climb per year to get to that 40%. And there will be some lumps and there with some larger initiatives that we have planned that maybe a more year plus out in terms of timing and impact, but the progression through productivity improvements 20 work, the work that we’re doing around better management in the supply chain and the visibility to our planning will enable us I think, to show steady and consistent progress.

Walter Liptak: Okay, sounds great. Okay, thank you very much.

David Wilson: Thanks. Walt.

Operator: Thank you. The next one question is coming from Patrick Baumann of JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Patrick Baumann: Right. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions.

David Wilson: Hey, Pat. Good morning.

Patrick Baumann: Good morning. A quick one. Just mechanically on the backlog just with book-to-bill below one in the quarter. How was it — how did it hold up sable sequentially? Or like was — like, what are kind of the moving parts there?

David Wilson: Yes. So it was more FX driven, I guess.

Greg Rustowicz: Yes.

David Wilson: That then than anything else, if you think about the move and FX in the period, we saw book-to-bill that was less than one we shipped 230, we booked 215. And the gap is really the FX adjustment in the period. It’s all FX, Pat. So the backlog is mark to the U.S dollars as of December 31. So — and as you know, moved quite a bit from basically being below one in — at the end of September to roughly I think today, it’s around 109 would have been around one away, roughly at the end of December.