Kadant Inc. (NYSE:KAI) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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John Franzreb: Great. And in your prepared remarks, it sounded like you were surprised by the strength of the parts business in the quarter. Did I misinterpret that? And if that was the case, how would you expect the fourth quarter to compare to the third?

Michael McKenney: Yeah, hi, John. We — I would say, we are very happy with the parts performance, it was quite strong. And as I noted in my call notes that was the lead driver of the revenue beat. So we are — that helped us out in the quarter to produce the excellent results that we did produce. Looking at the fourth quarter in terms of the parts and consumables front, I think one thing that’s a little bit of a unique phenomenon for us is, as we go through the year, the parts bookings are usually their strongest in the first quarter, and then they just kind of slowly step down throughout the year. And I think we’ll see that here in the fourth quarter is what I’m anticipating. So I think when you stack it up against the third quarter, it will likely be a little bit weaker, but that would be, I’d say, normal course for us.

John Franzreb: Got it. And you had an excellent free cash flow quarter, in part due to the inventory drawdown. I guess two questions regarding that. Should we expect not as strong of an operating cash flow quarter as you rebuild the inventory for future capital projects? And now that you’ve completed that facility relocation, how should we think about CapEx in 2024 relative to 2023?

Michael McKenney: Well, I’d say, my hope is we are not done producing excellent cash flows. To your specific point on will we need to rebuild inventory, we had significant backlog in capital, which we’ve been working down and that’s why I made the comment on inventory finally has started to turn and has come down. So to that specific point, I don’t think we’ll — that will be an issue for us until we see the next robust buying cycle and the backlog growth. So I don’t think that that particular issue is going to be a headwind for us. What was the —

Jeffrey Powell: [indiscernible]

Michael McKenney: So, yeah, the facility project this year, I mean, I give numbers on that every quarter and I think we’re going to end up — of our overall CapEx, maybe $8 million to $9 million will have been for the facility in China. We have fairly robust demand for robotics from our sites. So I think you’ll see us continue to make investments. If I back off the — we had a facility project in China, we have a facility project in our Wood Group in Europe. If I take those out, our CapEx was projected to come in a little over 2%. So I’ll say for next year, that’s probably where we’ll be, in that 2% — little over 2% range.

John Franzreb: Perfect. That’s exactly what I was looking for. I appreciate the clarity, guys.

Michael McKenney: You’re welcome, John.

Jeffrey Powell: Thanks, John.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] And I’m showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the conference back to Jeff Powell for closing remarks.

Jeffrey Powell: Thank you, Amy. So before wrapping up the call today, I just want to leave you with a few takeaways. First, 2023 is shaping up to be the best year in our history across a wide range of metrics. We made solid progress this year on our efforts to accelerate revenue growth, win new business and boost our profitability despite the increasingly challenging macroeconomic environment. Our leverage ratio is 0.38, which positions us well to pursue new business opportunities, and as always, we expect to deliver excellent cash flows and optimize the allocation of capital to maximize the value for our shareholders. With that, we’ll conclude the call today. And I want to thank you for joining us.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

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