Sensata Technologies Holding plc (NYSE:ST) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Jacob Sayer: Thanks, Matt for the question.

Operator: The next question comes from Luke Junk from Baird. Please go ahead.

Luke Junk: Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Jeff, you stated in your prepared remarks and has followed up Samik, you may just, this strong foundation you’ve built for future growth. Now you’re focused on leveraging the benefits of those investments. Want put a finer point on the M&A piece of that. You go at this time, you laid out a vision of annual M&A growth of 400 basis points to 600 basis points, are you pulling that back today? Just how should we think about squaring what you’re seeing today versus the vision you laid out a year ago and what has changed specifically? Thank you.

Jeff Cote: Yes. So yes, we are. So we’ve been very clear that in the past, our capital allocation was to ensure we pay the dividend and then to do M&A to make sure that we were prepared for the future with our customers. And we feel as though we are well prepared now the NBO opportunity to support that, that we’ve won and the engagement with the customer supports that. And we believe now is the time to really continue to invest organically. And we’ve also said that we’ll stay at that $65 million to $70 million organic investment level to bring those products to market to realize the potential associated with this. So the M&A focus is going to go away at this point. We’re going to digest the M&A-related activity that we’ve done and continue to drive organic growth in the business to a level that is commensurate with the opportunities that we see in the market. Thanks for the question.

Jacob Sayer: Thanks, Luke.

Operator: The next question comes from Mark Delaney from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Mark Delaney: Hi guys, good morning. Thanks for taking the question and nice to see the EBIT margin expansion. When you think about the plan to expand margins over the course of 2023, how secure is the pricing needed to achieve that? And do you need several OEMs to still accept higher pricing? Or is the pricing mostly or entirely set at this point?

Paul Vasington: I can take it. So we do expect elevated pricing in 2023 over 2022. And it comes in many different forms, depending on the end markets. They have all different behaviors around pricing. But much of the pricing that was secured last year continues into 2023. Now, we have to continue to secure new pricing as inflation or other costs drive up, and so we’ll continue to work with customers. But we have a very good track record now in a process with our customers to have those conversations to engage with them around the cost that we’re seeing and the cost that we want to pass on to them.

Jacob Sayer: Thanks Mark.

Operator: Our next question comes from Christopher Glynn from Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

Christopher Glynn: Thanks. Good morning. So curious on the pretty notable new business wins. In 2023, do you think you can replicate that level you put up for 2022? Or should we think of 2022 as naturally interim peak on design and cycles?