Graco Inc. (NYSE:GGG) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

And for us, the value is really on the production side. We’ve got great manufacturing on the engineering side. I think we bring some skills there. And then, of course, channel sales, marketing and the infrastructure that we have around the world. So I feel really good about the — where we’re at in the journey here. We kind of stepped things up last year. All the business units now have decent pipelines, there’s activities going on. We’ll see what happens. The market has been a bit frothy, as everyone knows, over the last 18-months or so. But with rates coming up and multiples coming down, I think that could create some opportunities for Graco to help add some growth through good strategic acquisitions.

David Lowe: Yes. I would just add to Mark’s point that the corporate group has spent a lot of time with the operating teams and really has fleshed out attractive segments. And from there, attractive, what I would call a prospect list with an eye towards reaching out, perhaps building up a relationship, learning about their businesses before there’s a day where there’s an event. We’ve been in those situations before when we’re in a reactive mode, and that’s not the greatest. As far as just — without getting specific on applications, I would say that things that we like, markets that have characteristics we like, we like niche markets. We like markets that are business-to-business. We like markets that have large installed base, because that puts long-term participants and extremely strong positions.

Of course, we like recurring revenue. And there’s no doubt about it, markets that will pay a supplier for quality and innovation is important to us because it’s central to our value proposition.

Will Jellison: That’s great. Thank you for taking my question.

Mark Sheahan: Thanks.

Operator: Thank you. One moment for your next question. Your next question comes from the line of Joe Ritchie from Goldman Sachs.

Joe Ritchie: Thank you. Good morning, everyone.

Mark Sheahan: Good morning.

Joe Ritchie: So I just want to make sure I understand the framework for the low single-digit guidance for 2023. I guess the expectation is pricing is going to come in pretty much low-single-digits, the volumes may be flat to down. Is that — did I understand that correctly?

Mark Sheahan: Yes. We didn’t really break out price versus volume in our outlook. But when you roll it all up, that’s where you get the low-single-digit guide. We do have a lot of built-in price realization in the outlook because, of course, we raised prices a couple of times last year. And those — as we kind of roll through €˜23 versus €˜22, there should be some favorability there. But we didn’t really break out volume in the overall outlook.

Joe Ritchie: Okay. And then maybe just on the pricing comment, as you’re exiting 2022, how much of that pricing carries forward into 2023?

Mark Sheahan: Well, again, last year, we started the year, kind of, let’s call it, ground zero. We had a big price increase that came through in January and then another one in the September time frame. So at least for the first nine months or so, you will — you kind of get that double effect of those two price increases in that. And as we get to September, we should be on par with where we were at, at that time a year ago.