Jason Feldman: No, again, the guidance increase was strength of projects specifically on European chemical. I think we’ve commented that we expect that down double digits this year.
Damian Karas: Okay, fantastic. Thanks. Best of luck, guys.
Operator: And our next question will come from Mariana Perez Mora [ph] at Bank of America. Please go ahead.
UnidentifiedAnalyst: On aerospace and electronics, could you guys give us a little color on how you are thinking about the rest of the year for how long the aftermarket strength can continue for both military and commercial? And if you’re seeing even higher pricing being able to get pushed through relative to the whole segment.
Max Mitchell: Sure. So, well, for military, I’ll start there. We entered the year with sort of a double-digit guide on where we thought military aftermarket was going to be just given what we were saying entering the year. I would say that’s largely unchanged. We still see really good strength in that end market, whether that’s R&O, spares, retrofit, etcetera. On commercial aftermarket, we did have a really robust quarter, this quarter in Q1. Some favourable comps helped us there as well and then as we move through the balance of the year, we still are seeing an outlook of basically low double-digit, which is what we said coming into the year this year. So, you’ll see it, you’ll see the year-over-year as we move forward, be a little bit more muted than what we saw here in Q1, but still pretty strong.
From a pricing point of view, we’re continuing to, seize all those opportunities as you’d expect us to, whether that’s through indexing that exists and other opportunities strategically for us to take price up. Jason.
Jason Feldman: Yeah, no, on the more muted growth rate as we progress through the year, just remember to look at the comps, right? The comparisons in the second half are a lot more challenging than the first half. If you look at the fourth quarter, two years in a row, 24% in the fourth quarter of ’22, 33% up last year, they do get a lot more challenging, but the trend itself on a dollar basis continues to be quite favourable.
Operator: [Operator instructions] And our next question will come from Justin Ages with CJS Securities. Please go ahead.
Justin Ages: I was just hoping you could give us an update on the hydrogen business that was called out as one of the pillars of growth. Does the recent acquisition fit into that? Or is that going to be a separate business because of the end market served there?
Max Mitchell: Yeah, great question. Thank you. So it absolutely fits into the current strategy. So we’ve, and we’ll give an update on Investor Day as well. We previously talked about our investment in the CRYOFLO brand and creating our own vacuum jacketed pipe as well as valves and fittings and entering into the market. We’ve got a line of valves. We’ve already announced the strategic partnership with Chart on some of that. We were getting traction right now with approvals across major gas producers. This is where the focus has been working on design, starting this business. So we have a site in Conroe, Texas that is going to be — was the core CRYOFLO vacuum jacketed pipe producing facility as we move forward. CryoWorks brings to us immediately a presence on the West Coast and you tend to see regional strength with the vacuum jacketed and vacuum insulated piping systems for hydrogen and cryogenic solutions.
What we plan to do is leverage the existing teams sales growth investment and also technology to expand range, expand into still keep the growth into the Texas facility for East Coast and Gulf positioning and continuing to grow and take share at an accelerated rate. So it brings immediate acceleration of our product development initiatives as well as sales expansion for CryoWorks in the vacuum insulated piping solution, which will then help us in terms of the full solution, valve fittings and vacuum insulated piping. So very synergistic.
Justin Ages: No, that’s very thorough. Appreciate it. Thanks for taking the question.
Operator: And with no further questions in queue, I would — this does conclude the Q&A portion of today’s call. I would like to turn the floor back to Max Mitchell for closing remarks.
Max Mitchell: Thank you, operator. What a great start to the year and looking ahead, we’ve got a great event planned for May 14 and I hope to see many of you there at our Investor Day where we will further share our growth strategy for the future. In the words of the late great interior and fashion designer, Iris Apfel, you can’t go to the future if you haven’t come from the past and past strategic development, deployment and execution has clearly been at the heart of our present performance. We look forward to explaining our future strategic direction, expectations and path forward for profitable growth in May. Thank you all for your interest in Crane and your time and attention this morning. Have a great day.
A – Jason Feldman: Stay classy, Max.
Operator: Thank you. And this does conclude today’s Crane Company first quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Please disconnect your lines at this time and have a wonderful day.
