Helios Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:HLIO) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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Mig Dobre : Thank you for the question. I want to follow up on Hydraulics as well. Trying to get a sense of how you think about revenue sequentially here and sort of what’s embedded in the guide in second quarter versus second half. And when you kind of look at Americas versus EMEA, EMEA is over indexed to agriculture where obviously we know that production is coming down quite a bit for OEMs, but what are your assumptions around Americas that sort of support your revenue outlook? Thank you.

Sean Bagan : Hey, Mig. It’s Sean. Thanks for the question. So yeah, you’re spot on in terms of geographic mix with respect to EMEA and our faster business highly indexed to agriculture and that’s where certainly some of the pressure is felt from a top line perspective and the growth would be more so coming from our some Hydraulics business, which is more indexed to the Americas, but also Asia and some of that strength, I mentioned, in Asia earlier is contributing to some of that. From a kind of quarterly look, we expect Hydraulics to look pretty similar every quarter in terms of the top line. And again, the faster business will be pressured. We expect just given the current order demand that we’re seeing and the kind of run rates, but overall more of that growth will come from some business.

Mig Dobre : I see. And the net effect then for margins through the year here, is there a sort of kind of like cost management component that you’re applying to this specific segment or should we sort of think that margins are going to be similar to Q1 given what that revenues are going to be similar to?

Sean Bagan : No, we’re going to expect to see increasing margins despite revenue levels being similar. The key drivers there is a lot of the pricing actions that went into play in Hydraulics was at the end of last year. And so we really didn’t get much of that uptick in the first quarter because those orders were already in play. In addition, there’s been some Center of Excellence movements, as you know, in the Americas that we went into play last year that is really starting to hum now. We still are working through a bit of a past-due backlog with our Daman and Manifold, Center of Excellence. But similarly in Europe, we’re going through a bit of a consolidation as well that is, as you know, we’ve grown inquisitively in Europe, whether that’s with Faster or NEM, and so really looking to leverage those facilities in addition to our Sun, our existing footprint there.

So those will help support the growing margins as we go, and certainly we’re being very disciplined on cost, particularly the areas where our top line is under pressure.

Mig Dobre : Okay, one final one if you’ll allow it. Going back to the commercial food discussion here, I guess I’m trying to get a better sense for exactly what it is that you’re selling into this vertical. Are you selling full controls for things like high-speed ovens or something like that? And when I’m thinking of the classic innovation control type offerings, they don’t seem to sort of fit that vertical. So I’m assuming this is probably something that comes out of your Balboa Group that’s been adapted. So maybe you can clarify that, and I’m also curious as to what the opportunity is here. So if I look at, say, marine in your Electronics business, I think that’s what, $15 million to $20 million worth of business. Can commercial food be of similar size as marine at a point in time? I mean, how do you frame this opportunity for investors? Thank you.

Josef Matosevic : Yeah, Mig, good morning. In terms of framing the opportunity, you mentioned $20 million, and could it be larger or bigger? We look at that market much larger than that over the years to come. As you know, it’s a significant market space. In terms of products that we are selling, it’s actually, as you remember, we had a Good, Better, Best strategy in place, and we’re certainly leveraging those products. We have developed and invested in new products internally to enter the market space, leveraging Balboa’s and innovation capabilities, if it’s either through different screen sizes or motherboards or algorithms or software and hardware. So our focus was not so much selling commodities versus selling a system, so that will include a system, and in many cases sub-system and replacements. We are starting pretty much at a level of hot and cold side, and then over time expand into the beverage area, which is kind of where we are.

Mig Dobre : Okay, thank you.

Josef Matosevic : Thank you, Mig.

Operator: Thank you. We have reached the end of the question-and-answer session. Ms. Almond, I would now like to turn the floor back over to you for closing comments.

Tania Almond: Thank you, everyone, for joining us today and for your interest in and support of Helios Technologies. We will be attending a number of Investor Conferences over the next couple of months, so we look forward to seeing all of you on the road. Please feel free to reach out to me with any follow-up questions. Have a great day.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today’s teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation, and have a wonderful day.

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