Crane Company (NYSE:CR) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Richard Maue: Yeah. Good question, Nathan. When we set that 7% to 9% target a few years ago, there was clearly a set of assumptions that we had in mind, whether that was project wins in defense, how we sort things rolling out in commercial, more EV wins, type wins, the high-power defense and so forth. So what I would say is since then, we clearly have won a little bit more than we had anticipated in that 7% to 9%. I think every A&E is a platform that’s been out there available for bid and quote and we’ve, I think we’ve won all of them. The other thing, so we’ve seen more momentum in project wins, I think is the part of the answer. The other part of the answer would be our success on, and future, I would say more longer-term runway as it relates to price. So we do see further opportunity there, I would say relative to when we first set the 7% to 9% growth rate.

Max Mitchell: I think we’ll update on the longer-term vision at Investor Day as well, Nathan.

Nathan Jones: I wasn’t going to actually ask you to go 8% to 10% or 9% to 11% today. I figured we might get that in mail something. While we’re all making jokes today. So just a question on PFT, clearly things have turned a little bit there. Some of the leading indicators, macro leading indicators that we all look at turned up and are looking better. I think the outlook is fundamentally looks a little bit better, but you guys are taking it up a little bit, but remaining pretty cautious. Could you talk about the things that keep giving you some caution on the outlook there, what the risks you see to the outlook that maybe keep it where it is, and it doesn’t move up throughout the year, or that maybe it even comes in below where you’ve got it to?

Max Mitchell: Oh my goodness, the uncertainty just remains what’s outside of our control, quite honestly. You have a highly charged political environment. You have wars. We have unknown inflationary environment and Fed action. There’s just a lot of global uncertainty that is I think the right reason to be cautious and be prepared for anything. Having said that, what’s within our control and what we see immediately, it feels high confidence. I would say that, I see if this trend continues, a little downside risk with some upside potential opportunity, what could influence that potentially, Europe coming back a little stronger potentially, that’s how I’m thinking about it.

Richard Maue: Yeah, I would echo, it’s probably maybe the inverse of the question is when do we see things, what would be a positive indicator for us and it really is more probably that’s the way we’re thinking of things, there could be these things that could go wrong, but European chemical, getting better faster. So to the extent that that happens, we would see upside to what we’ve shared today at the midpoint.

Operator: Our next question will come from Damian Karas at UBS. Please go ahead.

Damian Karas: First I just wanted to congratulate Jason on your recent promotion. From my perspective, very, very much deserved.

Jason Feldman: Thanks for comment. Agreed.

Damian Karas: No, absolutely. And Rich, maybe it doesn’t have to be now, but maybe sometime you can just explain to us the history of San Diego. So let me ask you something actually about aerospace. Sorry if I missed this, but you’ve talked in the past about unmet demand and I know you’re still facing some supply chain bottlenecks. Could you just give us an update on where you think that unmet demand, the size of it, kind of what it represents and kind of what it would take to maybe see some of those constraints removed?

Max Mitchell: Yes, thanks, Damien. So it’s still in that $50 million to $60 million range. It’s a rough estimate. Remember this supply chain we’ve described, it moved from true supply chain post-COVID supplier shortages ramping up, so forth, electrical components. It’s improved broadly in terms of just on time delivery issues to become more general supply chain challenges around everything from capacity to turnover in our supply base, general challenges that moves around. I wouldn’t call out any one commodity. I wouldn’t call out any one supplier. Castings can continue to be problematic over time, things like that. So as we think about this, and it’s not the same $50 million or $60 million, our customers were not impacting customer deliveries.

It moves to the right, but generally it’s in the same. That’s good news as well. So it’s not worsening. It’s stable and we continue to see modest improvement, and that’s in our guide, which is just continued modest improvement. So to the degree that things can continue to improve, then we would expect to be able to pull some things in a little sooner. If not, I think we feel confident in how we’ve planned and guided so far.

Richard Maue: I agree. And Damien, the one thing that I would add is the order of strength that we saw in the quarter as well, much of it was beyond ’24 delivery, right? So where you might say, well, why isn’t that $50 million or $60 getting bigger, a good portion of what we saw in the way of strength is for delivery in ’25 and ’26, frankly.

Damian Karas: Okay, great. That’s really helpful, guys. And then you gave some commentary around PST and market verticals and regions. Would you possibly be able to just give us some numbers around, okay, so European chemicals and construction was a drag on, won’t use, sales, like how much of a drag was it and what are you faking into the full year guide, thinking about that 1% organic growth? Like how much of a headwind are you currently factoring in for European chemical and construction?

Max Mitchell: Let me see if I can tackle what you’re asking now. I would say that we’re not expecting a lot of the repair and maintenance activity right now to improve significantly in European chemical. Our revised guidance reflects some project activity that’s been building, as you know, over the last few quarters that some of it will spill here into the 2024 period largely in U.S. opportunities, China opportunities. So in terms of the overall guide revision on plus 1%, I would say, it’s stable in that maintenance area, MRO area, and increasing in chemical North America, China. Jason, would you add anything else?