Fortive Corporation (NYSE:FTV) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Operator: And we do have time for one last question. Again, this will be our last question of the day. The line comes, I’m sorry, the question comes from Joe O’Dea from Wells Fargo.

Joseph O’Dea: First question just related to the price volume composition of organic and implying volumes kind of flat to up 1% for the year. And I’m trying to understand where kind of the upside risk might sit on the volume side and whether the embedded assumptions are more sort of moving sideways and there can be some upside risk on maybe easier short-cycle comps in the back half of the year? Or just how you’ve thought about that volume piece of the equation and if there’s anything embedded within that as things getting better over the course of ’24.

James Lico: I think when you look at and I’ll take the hardware business here. When you look at the hardware businesses, there’s not a big inflection point as we go through the year. So probably I would say we don’t see a big volume, we don’t need a big volume inflection as we go through the year simply because of that. I would say, secondly, we’re not really expecting a lot of restocking here. So I would say there’s probably some volume upside to restocking if we were to see that. But I would say we’re certainly not counting on that; and if it was probably more a second half dynamic.

Joseph O’Dea: Okay, makes sense. And then on the productivity front, can you just talk about the margin contribution you anticipate from productivity in ’24 and the degree to which that’s kind of carryover from ’23 actions or additional actions to drive kind of more productivity gains in 2024?

Charles McLaughlin: Yes. I think that normally, we would expect 40% incremental margins. And for the year, we’re going to end up at 45%. There’s some puts and takes earlier in the year that that we’ve seen but we’re seeing probably if you think about probably $0.07 or $0.08 of productivity coming into, from those actions that are selling into 2024.

Joseph O’Dea: Meaning actions you’ve already taken and so that’s just carrying into ’24.

Charles McLaughlin: We’re done with the productivity actions, just the benefits are coming in, not that we’re taking any more. Sorry about that.

Operator: And I’ll now turn the floor back over to Jim Lico for closing remarks.

James Lico: Thanks, Kristina and thanks, everyone, for taking the time today. I know it’s a busy day for all of you. Hopefully, what you heard today was our really the benefits of the work we’ve been doing for several years, both in ’23 and how we anticipate ’24 to play out. So we’re, we feel very, very comfortable with where we stand today. Lots going on in the world, as many of you know but I think how we built constructed the portfolio over the last several years, post-Vontier, is we feel and expect to have a good setup for this year. We’re certainly around for any questions. We want to thank everyone, for your support for ’23. We know we’ll probably see a lot of you out on the road here over the next few weeks. We look forward to that. And obviously, our team is available for questions and follow-up and then over the next several days. So, thanks. Have a great day. Have a great earnings season and we’ll see you on the road.

Operator: Thanks. Thank you. And this does conclude today’s conference call. You may now disconnect.

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