Woodward, Inc. (NASDAQ:WWD) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Noah Poponak: So Chip, are you just explaining that 4Q industrial had some things kind of tucked into the end of the year that don’t repeat? Or just why does the growth rate immediately decelerate? The compare in the fourth quarter wasn’t that difficult, the compares don’t really change. I guess why would all of those things Mark just described not kind of continue at a better than low single-digit growth rate?

Chip Blankenship: A little bit of FX there, I think, is the big factor.

Noah Poponak: Okay. Okay. In the aero €“ sorry, go ahead.

Mark Hartman: Yes, we intend to do better and get more delivered. There’s plenty of demand. It’s on us. We’ve €“ have to deliver to improve. Right now, we’re forecasting that we’re going to be steady into the next quarter on deliveries. And if we can do better, we will.

Noah Poponak: Okay. That makes sense. On the Aerospace segment margin, it’s now declined year-over-year on growing revenue, three quarters in a row. The guidance for next year, depending on where you put everything in the ranges, it seems to imply kind of a clean, historical 30% incremental margin to the upside. How do we get confident that you can sort of flip that on a dime heading into the new year here.

Chip Blankenship: I think the numbers that I’m more comfortable talking about are the 100 to 150 basis point improvement that we’re €“ is in our guidance for margins. So that’s collecting some of the improvement that we’ve lost over the past quarter saying, okay, here are the things that we are working to improve. Number one, the efficiency of labor utilization. Number two, having the parts here on time so we can build and deliver on time. And then also the price that we’ve shown in the fourth quarter that we plan on having come through this following year, and then we’ll have the escalation formulas and the other opportunities in the coming years. So it’s really just better cost and performance inside our four walls, supplier performance and then the price that we’ve accumulated over the fiscal 2022 and then what’s planned for 2023.

Noah Poponak: Okay. Appreciate that. And I wanted to ask one more, if I may, which is back to free cash flow, Mark. You guys have talked about being able to have multiple years of free cash well in excess of net income because you’re coming out of a CapEx cycle, so you’ll have D&A well in excess of CapEx. Does this R&D tax law change eat into that for a few years? Or how should we think about that? And do you have an outstanding target for cumulative $2 billion of free cash. Is that still a good target?

Mark Hartman: Yes. So I’ll take the second one first, and then I’ll go back to the R&D impact. Related to kind of our go-forward look, I mentioned during the call that we’re planning on an Investor and Analyst Day in June of 2023. We’ll update our forward look at that point. Related to the R&D, this year will be the biggest impact because of the way that the law works is as you go every year, you get another 25% of the €“ in essence, the one and four years starts accumulating over the four years. So 2023 is the biggest impact. It will then be smaller in 2024, I’ll say very minor in 2025. And then by the time you get to 2026, it flattens itself out. There is no impact because you’re getting to amortize in essence, four years by the time you can get there. So 2023 is the largest impact, and that’s the headwind that again, I think most companies are going to see here in the U.S.

Noah Poponak: Okay, thanks for taking my questions.

Mark Hartman: You’re welcome.

Operator: The next question is from Michael Ciarmoli with Truist Securities. Your line is open.