Veralto Corporation (NYSE:VLTO) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Page 5 of 5

Andrew Buscaglia: So, I just wanted to check on the water quality side. You’re talking about really strong industrial demand in your guide — you did much better than your guidance. I’m wondering what changed, I’d say, from December, January to what transpired throughout the quarter? And then just the sustainability around that? What’s driving that really?

Jennifer Honeycutt: Yes. I mean I think we still see pretty strong industrial output here, particularly in North America. I think as we mentioned in our prepared remarks, we do see food and beverage coming back which across the portfolio is the largest continuous industrial segment that we play in. But likewise, chemical processing, mining and power generation all continue to be strong. We do see opportunities around the reshoring activity as well as the world becomes a little bit more fractured relative to its trade relationships and so that’s providing great opportunity, particularly with respect to microelectronics and the CHIPS Act [ph] and so on. So we do see a good macro environment here, particularly in North America for our industrial sector.

Andrew Buscaglia: A lot of little things it sounds like. Yes, yes. And you got a lot of questions on M&A. Obviously, that’s where a lot of interest lines. I’m wondering if you can comment on your margins, especially in water quality are quite high. How are you thinking about margins as you add M&A to your portfolio? Is there enough out there where you could see some accretion or generally long term, is this not really — should we not expect those margins to stay where they are if you’re adding deals?

Sameer Ralhan: Yes, Andrew. As you’ve kind of stated in the past and when it comes down to M&A, it really — we follow a very disciplined and rigorous approach around markets, companies and valuation with respect to the financial metrics, it really is a combination of multiple factors, right? We look at ROI, we look at margin, what are the things that we can add to the portfolio that can drive overall core growth and create synergies, how do we apply VES into the acquired businesses to really create the differentiated value. So it really comes down to the value creation potential and ultimately, that’s based on a combination of all these different financial factors that we kind of look at as part of our rigorous process. So, I wouldn’t really focus on one metric versus the other. It really comes under the combination of all to see how they will create long-term value.

Operator: We’ll take our next question from Brian Lee with Goldman Sachs.

Brian Lee: Lots has been covered on the call. So maybe just a few follow-ups, I guess, on PQI. Can you remind us how far out does your visibility extend on the equipment backlog and then the recent strength you’re seeing in bookings? And then also maybe remind us what are the mix implications? You kind of alluded to them but mix implications for margins in PQI as you move through the year. And it does sound like equipment will grow relative to consumables, how should we think about that in the context of margins?

Jennifer Honeycutt: Yes. I mean, I think what we see here is visibility for equipment in the 60- to 90-day time frame, right? This is a short-cycle business. So a lot of our confidence around equipment here in the second half is a product of history, right, where we see cycles of food and beverage and consumer packaged goods sort of decline in recovery. We see typical patterns which is pretty intuitive of the inks and solvents, spare parts, consumables recovering first as these lines are brought back online and then equipment following when funds are available to do line expansions, equipment upgrades and so on and so forth. So you do see in the guide that we’ve projected a rebalancing of kind of consumables and equipment here in the back half of the year. And so we’ve accounted for that.

Brian Lee: And then just one on Water Quality. I think a couple of questions ago, you were talking, Jennifer, about the demand in water reuse, water recycling somewhat from an ESG footprint from a growing subset of your customers. I think there’s also a growing subset of customers and industries here levered to power gen growth. We’re seeing low growth on the grid in the U.S. especially. First time in a while really seeing some positive inflection. So can you kind of give us a sense of from your vantage point, the different technologies, product sets you have the microelectronics sector, how much of the mix it is? And then it seems like there’s just incremental volume growth opportunities there. Maybe if you could just speak to that a little bit.

Jennifer Honeycutt: So the business that benefits most from the CHIPS Act [ph] and microelectronics is Trojan that sells UV treatment systems in for high-purity — ultra-high-purity water. That water has to be exceedingly pure given the manufacturing requirements for semiconductor wafer fab. But there are pockets of other equipment and analytics and so on that get sold into that space. But we’ve really seen some nice growth in our UV treatment business as a result of the onshoring or reshoring of fabs here in North America as well as the ones that continue to be built in China.

Sameer Ralhan: And Brian, the only other thing I would add to that is as you’re going to look at the bid activity that our teams are seeing, we’re seeing a pretty healthy bid activity that’s kind of tied to the reuse point that earlier Nathan [ph] had as well on the municipal side and then on the semi side for the UV treatment system. So the bid activity is actually pretty good on both sides. That kind of tie back into the Trojan business.

Operator: And it appears that we have no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Ryan Taylor for any additional or closing remarks.

Ryan Taylor: Thanks, Shelby and thanks, everybody, for joining us today. We really appreciate your time and engagement. As normal, I’ll be available for follow-ups today and throughout the next coming days and weeks, should you want to talk, please reach out to me. And at this time, we’ll conclude our call. Thank you so much again, and we’ll join you next time.

Operator: That concludes today’s teleconference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

Follow Veralto Corp

Page 5 of 5