Okay. Kelvin, are you dialed in on the line?
Yes, I'm here. Hopefully, you can hear me.
Okay, terrific. So with that, next up is AMETEK, headquartered in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, a place near and dear to my heart. AMETEK is a leading global manufacturer of electronic instruments and electromechanical devices. The company has 232 million shares outstanding. The stock is at $188 for a $43.6 billion market cap, $1.7 billion in net debt, and a $45.3 billion total enterprise value. AMETEK operates in two segments: Electronic Instruments, or EIG, and Electromechanical, or EMG. The company achieves earnings growth through the AMETEK Growth Model: operational excellence, strategic acquisitions, global and market expansion, and new product development with a focus on cash generation and capital deployment. So joining us today from AMETEK, once again, is Kevin Coleman, Vice President, Investor Relations and Treasurer. And I think with that, we will dive right into questions, if that's okay with you, Kevin.
Yes. Great. Thank you.
So I guess, first of all, we've talked a lot about M&A today, both the environment, the company's appetite for it, and regulatory dynamics regarding it. It's always been a big priority for you. It does feel a bit like you've been talking more about your capacity and appetite for acquisitions and your pipeline than in the recent past. And also, along those lines, you did just announce the acquisition of Kern Microtechnik. Maybe you could review the rationale for that deal and how you sourced it, and if you expect more deals along those lines or larger deals like Paragon.
Yeah, sure. Yeah, good place to start. I mean, for those of you who know AMETEK, know that we're very acquisitive. It's a core element of our growth model, in addition to organic initiatives and operating capabilities. So we do look to deploy the very strong cash we generate on acquisitions, and the focus on acquisitions, just to maybe size it and put it in context of our growth algorithm, is we target and have delivered over decades now a high single-digit sales CAGR and translate that into low to mid-teens or into per-share CAGR, so very, very good history of driving that level of growth. Breaking down the 9% target sales growth, we look to have that pretty balanced now between organic and acquisitions, so let's just, for argument's sake, say four of organic and five of M&A, so that's kind of our target.
In any given year, we may look a little bit above or below either of those, but generally speaking, that's how we view it, and so we do put a big focus on acquisitions. Our strategy is to acquire companies like Kern, which you noted, which I would call very much a traditional-type deal of size and strategy in that it bolts right into something we currently do or a business we currently have, and then we also look or are now looking to do larger acquisitions, so we did a deal about 14 months ago called Paragon Medical, which was larger, still very strategic and a good fit with what we do, but larger from the viewpoint of its size and the capital we deployed, so given our aspirations to keep growing, we want to do a mix of both.
We want to do the traditional-sized deals, and we want to do the occasional larger deals, and our pipeline largely reflects that fact, so we feel comfortable about that. Specific to Kern, that's, again, a nice bolt-on acquisition for one of our existing businesses called Creaform, and really, they provide very unique capabilities around quality control and metrology. I'm sorry, Creaform was a prior acquisition. This is a fit for a business called Precitech, which provides very precise, accurate machining capability down to the nanometer level, so very, very high-end, very niche capabilities, and what Kern does is really add to the existing capability we have within our existing business. It really rounds out that technology portfolio, so great business. We're able to expand their geographic presence, given they're largely European-based.
So we have that ability to allow them to scale and really the ability to combine their product set with ours to provide a customer or broader solution. So it's ultimately going to be a really good deal for us.
Great. And correct me if I'm wrong, but a lot of times that your acquisition model, usually you'll go in and buy a company with margins, call it either high teens or low twenties, and then you very quickly ramp those margins up as you implement the AMETEK Growth Model onto that company. Is that a fair way of assessing that?
Yeah. Yeah. I think we're somewhat agnostic as to the profitability levels of the business we acquire from the viewpoint of if we find a business that's, call it mid-teens, pre-tax, if we see line of sight to improving those margins, at least to AMETEK levels and ultimately above, because of the value we can add. In many cases, these businesses are just undermanaged, is the term we often use, right? Good quality businesses, great technology, great market position, but just generally undermanaged. Those are great deals because we can add a ton of value. But we've found a lot of acquisitions of businesses, or we've acquired a lot of companies with profit margins at or above AMETEK already. But in those cases, we're still able to add value, right? We can still improve those margins. So for us, we're happy to acquire companies like that as well.
But the key is strategically, how do they fit? Competitively, where do they stand in the market? How sustainable is that competitive position? And then can we add that value through our operating model? And if you piece all those things together, you have a great deal. We generate great returns on the capital we deploy, which is reflected in our total return on capital at the AMETEK level. And really, the thing we're very proud of is the consistency of that return on capital. We're one of the very few multi-industry companies that hasn't seen that return on capital decrease over time by acquiring companies overpaying, let's say. So we feel like that's a core capability of us and something that we believe is very important to investors to see that return on capital history.
Absolutely. Maybe with that, diving into the business a little bit, can you talk about your end markets by industry? I mean, you touch a lot of different aspects of the economy, maybe especially for those less familiar with AMETEK. Kind of give us a rough breakdown of those end markets, where you're currently seeing strength, and what areas, at least so far in 2024, were a bit more challenged?
Yeah. Yeah. So very diverse, certainly. I'll give a quick rundown, and then we can get into more of the market-specific commentary. Largest market for us is medical or medtech. It's about 20%-21% of sales. The next largest is aerospace and defense. So combined, that's about 18%. So right there, we have almost 40% of sales tied to medtech and A&D. And then you get into three markets that are all about 10% in size: power, research, which think of that as high-end instruments selling into a laboratory or a testing environment, and then 10% into what we call discrete automation applications. So a bit of a unique market, but nonetheless, it's discrete automation. So those are about 10% each. So they're 70%. Then we have semiconductor of about 6%-7% and energy or oil and gas at about 5%.
And then below that, you get into general industrial and some miscellaneous markets. As far as market dynamics, not surprisingly, the strongest market the last couple of years has been A&D. It's been our biggest or best grower, if you will. I would say medtech, parts of medtech have been very strong the last couple of years, with the only exception being a business like Paragon that I mentioned. They're going through an inventory destocking dynamic with their customer base. And I think, as you may be aware or others that are familiar with that space, a lot of these medical component providers or medical life science providers are seeing their customer base work down excess inventory from the supply chain crisis. So we're certainly not immune from that same dynamic, and we're seeing a weaker top line because of that.
You get into areas like oil and gas or energy in general, probably next in line. Power markets have been solid. I think the markets generally have been good, other than those areas that have seen that destocking over the last 18 months.
Gotcha, and on the life science and medical aspect, any concern there in terms of government funding and how that makes its way into labs that use your products?
Yeah. Not particularly. I think we're diverse. We touch a lot of markets. We touch a lot of customers. Directly, yeah, I won't see a ton of impact, but will there be indirect impacts potentially as cuts happen throughout different organizations? Potentially. I think we would tie that into some of what we've been saying the last couple of quarters, where you're seeing projects just generally get delayed a little bit. Not across the board, but there's semblances of things getting delayed. And we would chalk that up to a combination of uncertainty, maybe funding levels having to be reassessed. Nothing from a viewpoint of lost business or competitive dynamics. It's really more just delays as this uncertainty plays itself out. So yeah, don't expect anything meaningful there as far as a headwind.
Okay. Maybe then looking at in your Q4 results, you had record sales, but organic sales were down 3%. It's generally been, I think, the last few quarters where organic sales have been a little bit sluggish, but your orders have been positive. Looking forward, how should investors expect you to convert your backlog of $3.4 billion into sales where that organic growth is hopefully going to inflect positive at some point in 2025?
Yeah. Yeah. So given the diversity of businesses, as you can imagine, we have a lot of different cycles from the viewpoint of we have many long-cycle businesses. I mentioned aerospace and defense, power, oil, and gas. So their backlog is out six, nine, 12 months. So a lot of that $3.4 billion backlog you quoted, which is about half of our sales, is longer-term in nature. It's not book and ship, right? It's not going out all in the next month or quarter. So there is a need to continue to drive order growth to support the short-term organic growth in addition to the backlog we have. So it's good. It gives us good visibility, but again, it doesn't get you all the way there. You have to rely on incoming order patterns to help you.
And I think the positive we've seen, and I think the reaction from investors has been positive. That we've seen two quarters in a row now after four, I think it was five, quarters of negative orders growth. We've seen two quarters in a row of positive organic orders growth. So again, it speaks to a little bit of the stabilization we're seeing in some of those destocking markets starting to turn up, right? We're cautious as to how quickly, but we're seeing some stabilization that is leading to those positive orders. So we hope we continue to build on that momentum. And that ultimately will certainly translate into organic sales here at some point as we get through the year.
I guess along those lines, in addition to the destocking dynamic, you've cited for the last couple of quarters project delays due to uncertainties over interest rates, the election, macro. Kind of where are we at? We have new uncertainties now. There are tariffs, which I'm happy to hear you comment about the impact of those, what those might be to AMETEK. But what do we need to have happen, do you think, for those delayed projects to eventually go forward and not turn into cancel projects?
Yeah. Really good question. There's not one or two magic things that have to happen. It's just the accumulation of uncertainties that have been building over the last 12-18 months, right? As we all know, it just creates a bit of caution from CEOs or customers where they say, "You know what? Maybe I need to rescope this project," or, "Maybe I want to just wait and see how this clears," or there could be some funding dynamics in certain instances. What I would say is some of those project delays we've spoken to have turned into projects or turned into orders or sales. It's just that there's another set that maybe happens that creates that continuous stream. It'll get better. I think the election cycle certainly created some uncertainty. After the election was over, the question we get is, did it change? No.
People did not all of a sudden say, "Great. We're back." I think, as we all know, the last couple of months have been nothing short of just confusion and uncertainty. So yes, the election helped us determine who's going to be running the show, but there's still a ton of uncertainty. So that uncertainty will continue to play its way through and likely lead to some continued project delays for a period of time. And there won't be one magic thing that changes it. I think it's just going to naturally have to improve as we get a little more visibility. I think what customers need and certainly what the markets need is just visibility, right? Good or bad. If tariffs are going to be X%, that's fine. Let's just know that so we can move forward. I think the uncertainty is what's the issue.
And on tariffs, your manufacturing tends to be very localized, but if you could just kind of review that with people and talk through where would you be potentially impacted the most there?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we manufacture globally. I mean, as we said, we're very diversified. We have a large number of businesses globally. They all have manufacturing facilities: U.S., U.K., Europe, certainly the predominance of them. But we do have a number of what we call low-cost manufacturing centers throughout the world, a couple in Asia, a couple in the Southeast, a couple in Eastern Europe, and two in Mexico. So we have the capability for our businesses to produce locally there a portion or a majority if they want, but a portion of their products if they want. And we have that flexibility to react. And that's what we did in 2018 when the China tariffs became a real issue. We had the flexibility to shift production and also sourcing that we had done in China to other parts of the world, I'd say fairly efficiently, right?
It took a little bit of time for some products, but we got things moved pretty quickly. But while we were doing that, we were able to pass tariff costs on through price increases. So that would be the same set of actions or the same playbook we would use if and when tariffs come into place now, right? Pricing in the short term, maybe even the medium term, depending, and then look to re-juggle or reallocate your production and sourcing as needed. But because of the global manufacturing footprint and the fact that we have capacity if needed in other places, it's not going to be a really large incremental cost to us to reallocate that.
Great. I'm going to go to the audience now for questions. Mario?
Oh, Kevin, before I get into how you rooted for Brunson and the other guy as a wildcat, can you go over some little dots? Your CapEx maintenance is $150 million-$175 million, more or less, and that's why you get that extra cash flow. From a deal point of view, if you were in the administration, what tax dynamics? 100% bonus depreciation, you would like to get a 15% max cash tax. How do you have any tricks that would stimulate your customers and you to kind of have a little more clarity? And then the third part of that is obviously with the change in deal structure, the FTC, the DOJ, the Vestager in Europe are changing. Does that change your attitude towards the size of deals or the tuck-ins that you might look at?
Yeah. Sure, Mario. Good questions, and yeah, I need a couple of big wins from Villanova to get us in the tournament this year.
No comment about that.
All right.
I was more thinking about the 76ers versus the team where your expats are all.
That's right. That's right. Yeah, so as far as the first question, when I think about internally, and you noted our CapEx, relatively modest, right? We're a light CapEx company, 2% of sales. There's nothing that would lead us to become more incented to deploy capital, right? It's just a really minimal capital need. A good portion of that's tied to, I'll call it maintenance CapEx, but there's an element of growth CapEx tied to efficiency improvements, modernizing our production capacity. So it's really, to us, depending on the tax structure and tax incentives, is not going to change our view there. Will it change customers? Some, yes. We don't view it to say we would like this to happen or that to happen, and if it does, it's going to stimulate demand.
I think a lot of the things the administration has been talking about doing would be pro-growth. Now, we got to balance that with the potential tariff and trade wars. But I do think generally it would be pro-growth in many cases, less regulation, which then gets to your second point around M&A. Given the size of the deals we do, and even if we move up and do some larger deals like Paragon, go ahead.
No, sorry. I'm signaling for a mic for somebody else.
Okay. Yeah. So given the size of deals we do and the amount of capital we deploy and really the types of deals we do, we have not seen much in the way of any, for that matter, regulatory issues with the deals we do. Yes, we need to do filings and antitrust filings, of course, for the deals, but have never really had an issue and don't envision that changing. We're not changing our philosophy. Now, the fact that there may be less regulation tied to that, we would say is a good thing because if nothing else, it may stimulate some more demand or more opportunity for the M&A market. So we think that would be good. But I don't necessarily sit here and feel like we're being hampered today and we'll benefit if things change. But net, I think it would help us.
Great. I think we've got another one back here, and then Tony next.
Hi. This is maybe a little bit out of left field for your A&D business, especially. I'm sure you know the Department of Defense, especially through DARPA, are increasingly looking to introduce companies of your size and your technology infrastructure to the defense industrial complex of other allied nations, such as Australia, Japan, Israel, U.K., so that you guys can coordinate technology development in your very niche areas. I wonder, do you have any experience with your own staff being involved either with the Department of Defense in those efforts or promoting it yourself, contacts with small and mid-sized companies in the allied nations, defense industrial complexes like the countries I just named?
Yes. Absolutely. And one data point I'd give you is if you think about our defense sales, which is about 10% of AMETEK, a good portion of that, close to 35%, even 40%, is selling into non-U.S. defense military or countries for that matter. So we do have good exposure outside the U.S. The way we sell into that space is typically as a tier one or tier two systems provider, component provider, technology provider into a tier one or a large systems integrator. So to answer your question, do we directly need to go to foreign militaries to sell our products? In some cases, yes, that does benefit us. But in many cases, we are somewhat agnostic when it comes to the platforms we're on. We have content essentially on all platforms on the defense and military side as well as the commercial side.
So we tend to get pulled through as those opportunities arise. So we do find it as a good opportunity, and it's been a really nice balance to what we've had in the U.S. and with the U.S. DOD.
Thank you.
Great. As we're waiting for the mic to move, maybe I'll just jump in on a couple of bright spots. Recently in EIG, ZYGO and CAMECA, could you just help us out with the products that they make? What's been driving the success there in those businesses?
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, two really good stories, two really good acquisitions that we did many years ago, both some of the, I'll say, higher growth businesses in the portfolio and probably two of the more technology unique businesses, right? Higher technology capabilities. ZYGO, some of you may recall going back almost 15, 12, 15 years ago, was a small public company. So we acquired ZYGO, and they provide optics, very unique, very differentiated, very precise optical devices that are used in things like space, defense, research, semiconductor manufacturing. So a lot of very, very high-end applications that require very advanced optics and development of those optics. So they have the capability and engineering pedigree to do that. So they're seeing good growth tied to a lot of those markets. I noted very good market position in the areas they play.
It's been. We shared this before and certainly can do it again, but we shared the performance of ZYGO since we've acquired it. It's very much a case study in how we've been able to integrate a business, drive profit improvement. In the case of ZYGO, really refocus them on the right markets and opportunities to accelerate that growth, right? That's often an underappreciated element of our model where we can redirect or make sure they're aligned as opposed to being too broad and too diverse. We focus them in on the best opportunities. CAMECA is another tremendous business, locations in Madison, Wisconsin, and in France outside of Paris. They provide high-end atom probe technology that's really sold into a research and laboratory environment. You think about next-generation material science research space, environmental monitoring, semiconductor development, next-generation semiconductor.
They provide these very technologically rich, multi-million-dollar instruments into that customer base. So again, tremendous story. We've been able to take that business, bolt on an acquisition, improve them operationally, and it's a really good business and one that's got good growth potential because of its leadership position in those markets.
Great. And Tony, you want to jump in?
Yeah. Thanks, Kevin. Kevin, great job. Regarding the aerospace side, the OE, sort of the shift to the OE as we start to see the ramp coming in 2025, 2026, 2027, how are you positioned there maybe versus the aftermarket? And then where do you sit as far as we've been talking a lot about DOGE here and the 17 exclusion areas for the Department of Defense? How do you guys feel positioned there?
Yeah. Yeah. So to size it, I mentioned defense is about 10%. So commercial is about 8% of total AMETEK sales. Pretty balanced between commercial OEM products that we design and manufacture and then commercial aftermarket. So very good balance, both nicely profitable businesses. And yeah, you're right in that the last couple of years have been led a little bit more by the aftermarket, not surprisingly, but we've still seen solid growth on the OEM side. Those could probably, to your point, come back into a little better balance, if not being led by OEM at some point here in the next couple of years. But we have a good healthy balance between the two. And again, I mentioned we were agnostic, and this is very much true for commercial.
If you do look at the large players, Boeing and Airbus, very balanced and very agnostic when it comes to platforms. We do not have an outsized position on one and an undersized position on another platform in that when the issues with the MAX surfaced, right? Yes, we have good content on them. We want to continue to grow that content, but it wasn't sizable enough to impact AMETEK. So that's kind of been our approach. We don't have any one customer or program for that matter that can truly impact us. So we want to benefit from that upcycle and the growth rates and the build-out of that capacity, certainly, and the aftermarket, listen, a really good place to be, and we see our businesses continuing to develop the capabilities of the service for their products.
But we also have a, we call it a third-party MRO business that is able to provide service and maintenance capabilities to a broader suite of products. And that business is very well -positioned and has seen good growth because of the dynamics. And then lastly, relative to DOGE, don't see a ton of concern there. I think we're going to monitor it directly given the areas and the departments and the functions they're focused on today. Don't see a direct impact to AMETEK. But as we all know, these things tend to filter out and spread out. So there could be some indirect impact. We'd have to monitor over time, but nothing directly today as we're aware.
So I probably just have a couple of final quick ones. First, exposure to AI, whether selling products into AI semiconductor companies or use of it within the organization?
Yeah. So kind of both ways. And now we do sell some technologies into AI applications. Like many, we have some content within the data center space. I'd say it's smaller size, relatively small, but higher growth, obviously. And one thing our businesses have done a nice job is identifying those programs or opportunities to attach themselves. So we think that's going to be one of the better growth markets moving forward, albeit off of a lower base. Semiconductor, much the same. A lot of the research businesses we do, a lot of the optics and quality control businesses we have tie into that broader space that's utilized tangentially within that AI space. And then internally, there's a number of different work streams that are underway, some at corporate, many of them at our business levels to continue.
And we say continue because the concept of AI was called something different a couple of years ago. So we've continuously just built on what we've been doing to really, our view is drive efficiency, right? You want to drive efficiency in your service capabilities, your R&D processes, your production environments, your back office, right? There's a lot more you can do in the back office if you utilize technology in the right way. So we're definitely going down a path with a number of different opportunities that are really driving that efficiency improvement. So yeah, it's a great space. You have to be careful, of course, but it's a space we're going to see become a larger part of the internal operating structure.
Okay. Last one here. Just, I know the focus is on M&A for cash deployment, but you did approve a new share repurchase program, $1.25 billion this year. You haven't really used share repurchase to really shrink the share base much over time. Is that something that could change going forward, or we're still going to be pretty squarely focused on M&A?
Right. Yeah. I mean, the focus is still and has been for a while deploying the majority of our cash, free cash on acquisition. So we don't view changing that strategy. So if you look historically, 75% roughly of our free cash has been deployed on acquisitions. The balance pretty much split between buybacks and a dividend. I think fast forward, that's a good optimal mix that we would like to see. Now, we'll be opportunistic, though, as we tell investors, like we'll step in if we see a dislocation, not afraid, and we have that capital available to be able to do all of the above. So yeah, if we see a dislocation, we'll step in, and that's what we've done before.
And when we do it in large chunks like that, to your point, it's kept the share count flat, but we don't necessarily, as part of our strategy, want to see that share count decline. Certainly, if it comes in place of M&A, we really don't want that to happen.
Yep. Great to clarify. Thank you again for joining virtually. I know you're on the road today, so we really appreciate it and look forward to hearing from you again next year.
Thanks, Kev. Thanks, everyone. Have a good day.