Xylem Inc. (NYSE:XYL) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

A few others that we did not highlight in my comments were around the combination of digital enablement in both companies. Evoqua is already doing a fair amount in digital enablement of their services, really focused on productivity and growth, and we continue to progress quite nicely in our digital enablement of more on the product side and the aftermarket service side. Last area is, we believe between Ron and I and the team that there is tremendous opportunity in the area of joint R&D, innovation and portfolio enhancement, whether that be organic or inorganic, given the complementary nature of the businesses. So that’s what I can share with you right now, Nate. Obviously, we’re as excited as you all are at being in a position to come out and share numbers around this, but we — right now, we’re focusing on getting the deal closed.

Nathan Jones : I have one follow-up question on a specific avenue of revenue synergies. Xylem historically been a product company and Evoqua developed this service-based model. Is there — do you see the opportunity for you to implement new kinds of service-based business models on the legacy Xylem portfolio leveraging their service footprint?

Patrick Decker: Yes, we certainly do. I mean it will take some time. That will not be a day 1 synergy and likely not even a year 1 synergy. But absolutely, we see bringing some elements of their best-in-breed service offerings. And quite frankly, just their — the whole cultural model around services, we believe is going to be an enhancement to our more legacy traditional product-oriented aftermarket services that are out there. Two, they’ve already done a terrific work, and I realized that Ron would say they’re still on that journey. And I certainly appreciated that last week whenever I spent a few days with him at multiple sites is that they’re very much focused on outcome-based solutions. And so I think there’s an opportunity there to enhance our business models and offerings whether that be both on the utility side but also on the industrial.

There’s — as you know, Nate, there’s a fair amount of complementary nature of pulling through there. They’ve got some terrific products within their APT business on the treatment side that complement what we do and vice versa, our treatment portfolio, enhancing what they can deliver in their industrial services offering.

Nathan Jones : Yes, it seems to be a lot of avenues for growth there. So I look forward to hearing more about it over the next few months and few quarters.

Operator: And we’ll take our next question from Scott Davis with Melius Research.

Scott Davis : Every — just a couple — one kind of point of clarification then a real question. But are you still raising price here and now that we’re into ’23 or the price increases you did in ’22 pretty much enough to offset your inflation.

Matthew Pine: Yes. We did — Scott, we did the last round of price increases back in November of 2022. So really, the price increase, in essence would be for ’23 kind of heading into this year. So obviously, we’re continuing to watch the marketplace and understand not only the inflationary environment and how that continues on. It really — it’s moderated some, but it’s still up and also just also make sure we’re monitoring our win-loss rate in the marketplace and making sure that we’re appropriately priced accordingly in the market.