Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Apogee Enterprises Fiscal 2023 Second Quarter Earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your speaker for today, Jeff Huebschen. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, Lisa. Good morning, and welcome to Apogee Enterprises Fiscal 2023 second quarter earnings call. With me today are Ty Silberhorn, Apogee's Chief Executive Officer, and Mark Augdahl, Interim Chief Financial Officer. I'd like to remind everyone that there are slides to accompany today's remarks. These are available in the investor relations section of Apogee's website. During this call, we will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures. Definitions of these measures and reconciliation to the nearest GAAP measures are provided in the earnings release and slide deck we issued this morning. As a reminder, the prior year results for the Architectural Framing Systems and Architectural Services segments have been recast to reflect the move of Sotawall from framing into services. Pro forma segment results reflecting this change are included in our earnings slide deck. I'd also like to remind everyone that our call will contain forward-looking statements.
These reflect management's expectations based on currently available information. Actual results may differ materially. More information about factors that could affect Apogee's business and financial results can be found in today's press release and in our SEC filings. With that, I'll turn the call over to you, Ty.
Thank you, Jeff, and thanks everyone for joining us today. This was another strong quarter for Apogee. Execution of our strategy is clearly driving improved results with both revenue and earnings per share reaching new quarterly records. I'm incredibly proud of our team execution this quarter and the progress they've delivered to date. This morning, I'll offer insights into how our strategy drove our record results this quarter, provide some commentary on our end markets, and review our outlook for the rest of the year. I'll turn it over to Mark for more details on the quarter and our guidance. After that, we'll be ready to take your questions. It's now been about a year since we began to execute our new enterprise strategy. As a reminder, our strategic framework is shown on page four of today's presentation.
Last year, we began to take actions to address each of the three pillars. We announced a restructuring to align and simplify our portfolio, bring more clarity to our go-to-market approach, and improve our cost structure. These efforts were primarily focused on framing systems and glass, the segments with the most opportunity to improve their margin performance. We also relaunched our Lean and Continuous Improvement program. This is the foundation of our new operating model. Our initial emphasis was in the glass segment, and we are expanding it to other parts of the business. Our focus in these early days is on the production floor with an approach of win the hour, win the shift, win the day. Our goal is to drive near-term improvements using short cycle feedback to make course corrections and drive repeatable results.
We work to build control plans to support a new baseline and then start the improvement efforts all over again. We've made tremendous progress over the past year, which is especially evident in the glass segment's results. We also launched several important initiatives to strengthen core processes and systems. We're building center-led functional expertise in human resources, procurement, and finance. This will enable more efficient operations with more capabilities and greater scalability, which will also support future M&A work. Finally, we have added talent in key roles across the organization and brought new energy and content to our talent development programs. The results of our efforts are evident in our performance this quarter and further strengthens our foundation for future quarters. The highlights from Q2 are shown on page five in the presentation. We had record revenue with 14% growth in the quarter.
Adjusted operating margin increased more than 300 basis points, and adjusted earnings per share doubled compared to last year, coming in at a record $1.06 per share. In addition to the progress on our strategy, our team has done a terrific job managing through cost inflation over the past several quarters, demonstrating stronger operational muscle across the company. We've improved our discipline around cost management. We've worked with our suppliers and customers to minimize the impact of inflation and supply chain disruptions, and we've strengthened our approach to pricing. We still have work ahead of us to reach the financial goals we set at our Investor Day. A year into our new strategy, we are very proud of our progress, and we're more confident than ever in the path ahead of us.
We are controlling what we can control with price, productivity, and cost management, while setting the stage for meaningful shifts in the coming years to further support our goal of being an economic leader. Now, as we've spoken with investors over the past few months, the state of our end markets is top of mind for many of you. I would like to provide an update on what we are seeing. Of course, we're closely monitoring inflation, rising interest rates, and overall economic conditions to understand how they might impact demand in our end markets. At this point, however, most indicators for nonresidential construction remain favorable. The Architecture Billings Index has been positive for 18 consecutive months. New construction starts have been strong, and the federal government has passed several bills that provide significant support for infrastructure and construction spending.
These indicators suggest that our industry is building a strong pipeline of new projects. Nearly every industry forecast for non-residential construction calls for continued growth through calendar 2022 and calendar 2023. This corresponds to what we are seeing in our own business. We continue to see solid quoting and bidding activity. This quarter, we won several new projects, especially in the services segment. Looking at all the data, we have a positive view of our markets well into next year. More importantly, our strategy is better positioning the company to outperform regardless of the state of our end markets. We're diversifying our business mix, shifting to align with changes in the market. We've won new transportation and infrastructure-related projects, expanding our backlog in these and other non-office segments like healthcare and education.
We're aligning our product and service offerings to take advantage of continued demand for premium office space and more energy-efficient buildings. Across our business, we're focused on those parts of the market where we have differentiated offerings that provide the most value for customers. Over time, this will build a more resilient business model with more sustainable profitability. We have meaningful organic growth opportunities in several of our businesses. These include investments to scale and grow the services segment, capacity investments in Large-Scale Optical, which will enable more diversification of their revenues, and geographic expansion opportunities in both framing systems and architectural services. In addition, we are working to strengthen our M&A capabilities. We're building a pipeline of potential acquisitions to accelerate our strategy, and we're developing a stronger approach to integration to ensure that we capture meaningful cost synergies in future deals.
With this set of opportunities, we're confident that we can deliver on our goal of growing faster than the overall nonresidential construction market. Let me wrap up with some comments about our outlook. Generally, we see the trends from the first half of the year continuing into the second half. This has led us to increase our earnings guidance for the full year. We expect continued top-line growth primarily from framing systems, and we anticipate continued year-over-year margin gains led by framing systems and architectural glass. The biggest variables will continue to be the overall impact of inflation and how we manage costs and pricing. We have demonstrated stronger operational execution around pricing, cost management, and productivity. Stepping back and looking beyond this year, we are driving sustainable improvements in our business. Our priorities for the year have not changed and are listed on page six in our presentation.
Making progress in these areas will enable profitable growth in this and in future years. We're only beginning to scratch the surface of the productivity improvements from our Lean program. We are increasing our mix of differentiated products and services, which will be a driver in fiscal 2024 and fiscal 2025. We're investing to develop talent across the company, and we're driving further progress on our transformation initiatives. Through this work, I'm increasingly confident that we will achieve or exceed the financial goals we have set for ourselves. With that, let me turn the call over to Mark for more details on the quarter and our guidance.
Thank you, Ty, and good morning, everyone. I'm happy to be joining you this morning. This was another strong quarter for Apogee with continued positive momentum in our business. Let me provide some details, starting with consolidated results on page seven of our presentation. Second quarter revenue grew 14% to a record $372 million. This was led by double-digit growth in both framing systems and architectural services. Large-Scale Optical also grew 7% by 7%. Operating income increased to $32 million, driven primarily by pricing and productivity gains that more than offset inflation. Operating margins improved to 8.6%. This was 320 basis points higher than the adjusted margin of 5.4% last year. Notably, this was our third consecutive quarter with adjusted operating margin greater than 8%.
Interest expense increased by $600,000, primarily due to a higher debt balance. Our GAAP earnings and EPS included a $13.7 million deduction on the income tax line for a worthless stock loss. Absent this deduction, our tax rate in the quarter would have been 21.6%. This was slightly lower than our long-term rate of 24.5% due to several discrete tax items. Finally, our diluted share count was 22.2 million, down from 25.1 million a year ago due to our share repurchases over the past year. Putting it all together, adjusted earnings grew to $1.06 per diluted share. This was double last year's adjusted earnings and a new record for Apogee. Let's move on to the segment results on Slide eight. Starting with Architectural Framing Systems, Framing had another exceptionally strong quarter.
Revenue grew 26%. This was primarily driven by pricing actions taken to offset inflation. Operating income was $2.5 million, nearly double adjusted operating income in last year's second quarter. Last quarter, we said that framing profits benefited by $4 million due to volatility in aluminum pricing and the timing of inventory flows. That benefit continued into this quarter, but at a much lower amount of about $1 million as our average cost of aluminum increased compared to the first quarter. Nonetheless, second quarter margin came in at 11.9%. This is near the top end of our target margin range for framing systems of 9%-12%. The improved margins were driven by pricing to offset inflation, improved mix, and the benefits from last year's restructuring. Turning to the architectural services segment.
Revenues grew 11% to $107 million. This was driven by higher volume as we executed projects in our backlog. Operating margins came in at 5.1%. As expected, this was nice sequential improvement from the first quarter, but below our 7.4% in last year's second quarter. The year-over-year change was primarily due to investments we're making to enable future scale and growth in services. Also, the integration of Sotawall continued to suppress overall segment margins. Over time, we expect this transition will drive operational improvements and stronger profitability for the combined operations. Looking at orders and backlog, services had a strong quarter. Backlog increased 15% to $785 million. We had several new project awards, including notable wins in transportation and healthcare segments. Our sales pipeline remains healthy.
Quoting activity is strong, and we're optimistic about the opportunities ahead of us. As a reminder, services, orders, and backlog are typically a small number of large orders, so backlog amount can vary significantly from one quarter to the next. In architectural glass, the team continued to make impressive progress in its strategic shift. Like the past few quarters, revenue was down compared to the prior year. This reflects the closure of the Velocity business and our strategic shift away from some lower-margin sales. Operating margin continued to trend higher, reaching 8.3%. Adjusted operating margins in glass have now improved sequentially each quarter since we announced our new strategy. Margins benefited from pricing that more than offset inflation, productivity gains from our Lean program, and cost savings from the restructuring we completed last year. Finally, LSO continues to deliver steady performance gains.
Revenue grew 7%, primarily driven by higher volume, and the operating margin was 23.8%, up 50 basis points from a year ago. Let's turn to the cash flow and the balance sheet on page nine. In the second quarter, we had positive cash flow from operations of $28 million, rebounding nicely from the first quarter. Year-to-date, our cash flow remains negative and below last year's level. This is primarily due to increased working capital to support our growth and the impact of inflation on working capital. We also had higher than normal tax payment in the first half. We expect cash flow will continue to improve as we move through the year. Year-to-date capital spend was $9 million. This will ramp up the rest of the year as we put capital to work on high return projects and evaluate opportunities to further invest in our business.
We now expect full-year CapEx to be approximately $40 million. During the quarter, we reduced net debt by $17 million. We also refinanced our primary credit facility during the quarter. This extended the maturity out to 2027, increased our revolver capacity, and lowered our borrowing costs. Let me wrap up by discussing our outlook, which is found on page 10. Based on our year-to-date results and increased confidence in our outlook, we are raising full-year earnings guidance to a range of $3.75-$4.05 per share. At the midpoint, that is a 57% growth over last year's adjusted EPS. For the year, we expect 8%-10% revenue growth. This will primarily be driven by framing systems.
As a reminder, framing normally has lower revenue in the fourth quarter due to seasonality, and we expect that same trend to continue this year. In the other three segments, we anticipate second half revenue to be similar to that of the first half. We expect to drive continued year-over-year margin expansion, primarily in framing systems and glass. We will continue to benefit from the productivity and cost reductions that we've seen. We also expect continued volatility in the aluminum and glass and other commodities. This volatility does make it more challenging to forecast our business, particularly in the framing segment. Interest expense in the third and fourth quarter should be similar to that of the second quarter, and we continue to expect long-term average tax rate of approximately 24.5%. With that, I'll turn it back over to Ty for some concluding remarks.
Thanks, Mark. Our results this quarter continue to demonstrate how we are executing our strategy. We're improving operational execution through sustainable productivity improvements, effective cost and price management, and navigating supply chain challenges. Our team continues to do a terrific job managing through these challenges, staying focused on serving our customers, and driving the execution of our strategy. Our bidding and award activity is also positioning us for a stronger mix shift in the years ahead, which we also hope to accelerate with M&A work as well. Let me close by congratulating the entire Apogee team on our record results this quarter, and I know they're already working to continue our momentum through the rest of our fiscal year. With that, we are ready to take your questions.
Thank you. If you have a question, please press star one one on your telephone. One moment while we compile the Q&A roster. The first question that I have is coming from Chris Moore of CJS Securities. Please go ahead.
Good morning.
Your line is open.
Chris, are you there?
Yes. I'm sorry. I got cut off. Good morning. Thanks, guys. So the guidance increase, is that more a function of better than expected Q2, or that the second half of the year is now looking better than perhaps three months ago?
Yeah. Good morning, Chris. This is Ty. As you look at our performance in Q2, I mean, that was a very strong performance. Looking at how that and now how the first half has performed, we factored that into our guidance for the rest of the year. You can do the math, I think, in kind of looking at the second half. We do still see upside opportunity in that second half that's reflected in our range, but we also know the questions and concerns around the broader economy, and so we're trying to factor that in as well, that we could see some softness. Although, like I said in my opening comments, we're just not seeing that right now on our order run rate and especially in our bidding activity.
Got it. That makes sense. The 14% growth in Q2, can you give a little sense in terms of what volume growth looked like there? Was there any volume growth?
Sure, Chris, this is Mark. We did see nominal volume growth, although it was mixed across our segments, and mix also played a part of it. It was primarily driven by really nice pricing, specifically that pricing to offset the inflationary costs that we were seeing.
Yeah. I think that if you look at where we did see negative volume, Chris, it was in the areas that we expected and wanted to see that negative volume. Glass still posted negative volume and, you know, flattish, if you will, revenue. That is a result of us walking away from some of the lower margin offerings that they were selling, and they still had this last quarter of Velocity history. Then within framing, our Window and Wall business unit, where we saw an opportunity and still do to see some significant improvement in margins, they have purposely stopped quoting in a number of different project types and product offerings that we just looked at and said, even if we are, you know, best in margin, doesn't get us to where we wanna be from a profitability standpoint.
They've seen some negative volume year to date as a result of that as well. When you look across the rest of the business, the volume has been positive, you know, even if it's low single digit positive volume growth.
Got it. No, that's interesting. Then the last one for me, just the framing backlog. It's down a little bit, but I just was trying to get your thoughts here. From what you just said, there are some projects that maybe you're not bidding that you would have. Then the other piece of that question is before Sotawall moved to services, you used to talk roughly half framing was quick return, half longer lead time. What does that ratio look like now?
Well, let me answer the first question in terms of that backlog in framing. Where we saw a drop in backlog in framing, that was primarily driven by our storefront and finishing solutions, and that is a shorter cycle business. Frankly, with some of the demand that they have seen, as well as managing through some of the continued supply chain and labor conditions, they actually were building a backlog and pushing out some of their lead times, which is something that they do not wanna see. We actually saw that as good news. The drop in framing was driven by storefront and finishing, and that was reflective of them starting to catch up on some of those orders that were starting to push out a number of their lead times.
Maybe to give you some points of reference there, Chris. Storefront still represents about 60% of our overall AFS business, and 40% then would be the Window and Wall. Again, you know, the shorter lead time business would have a greater impact on the fact that it didn't have a backlog.
That makes sense. I will leave it there. I appreciate it, guys.
Thanks, Chris.
Thank you. The next question is coming from Eric Stine of Craig-Hallum.
Yeah. Good morning, Ty, Mark. It's Aaron Spychalla on for Eric. Thanks for taking the questions.
Morning, Aaron.
Hi, Aaron.
First, maybe on services, you know, nice job on the backlog growth there. You know, can you just talk about how the margins are on that new backlog? Any update on how you're thinking about the right split between growth for that business while trying to maintain the profitability targets?
Yeah, it's a really good question, Aaron. Reminder, you know, services, we moved Sotawall out of framing into services. That was an underperforming business. Both our Harmon-branded project backlog and Sotawall backlog, what they are executing and job flowing and revenue recognizing right now is work that was mostly won, you know, at the bottom of the pandemic period. That's when demand was very weak. There was pressure on margins. You saw more competition chasing fewer jobs. They are working through that now in this fiscal year, and some of that will trail into next fiscal year. In addition to that, we saw an opportunity to significantly improve operational execution within Sotawall by applying Architectural Services operating system, and that work is underway as they fully integrate that business into Architectural Services.
Just as we saw sequentially an improvement in margin, we think that each quarter going forward, we will start to see sequential margin improvement as they address some of those challenges in the former Sotawall business. Then as we look forward, just to what we've talked about, we have seen strong demand, strong bid activity, and so as that is building in our backlog, too early to guide on that, I would say that we're seeing as we build that backlog, margin improvement from where we are today, and we expect that as that flows in our fiscal 2024 and 2025, that that will provide some tailwinds, particularly as we get into 2025 and 2026, as that project work starts to fully execute as well.
All right. Thanks for the color there. You know, maybe second for me on the M&A. I know actively managing the portfolio is part of the three pillars that you're focusing on, and you talked about the pipeline building there. Can you just maybe give an update there on, you know, the process and the opportunity evaluations, any areas that you're kind of looking to fill in?
Yeah, I'll give you just kind of at a high level, Aaron. We've invested in that year to date. We've added resources in terms of people and working with third parties to support that work. Our goal is to be strategic here. We're strategically looking for the right fits in terms of product or services that complements what we have today, in our portfolio and maybe moves us out, maybe one adjacency, from the market segments and applications that we're serving today. That work right now is really focused on building that pipeline, identifying those targets. That's not to say we'll be opportunistic as things come to market that we think make sense.
We will definitely jump in and look at those. I would say there's a bigger emphasis on being strategic, which, you know, may mean we see this process still play out for another year or so. When we look at the types of targets, we are looking for businesses that fit strategically, that are accretive to our long-term financial goals, and that fit also should allow us to drive meaningful cost synergies in that first year. The fact that we're going to take an aggressive integration approach on those new acquisitions will help drive those cost synergies, and that's a big shift from how we managed acquisitions in the past.
All right. Thanks for the color. I'll turn it over.
Thank you. Our next question will be coming from Brent Thielman of D.A. Davidson. Your line is open.
Hi. Thank you. Good morning.
Good morning.
Hey, Brent.
Hey, guys. Hey, thanks for taking the questions. Just on framing, Ty, I mean, it looks like aluminum prices, some of the other input cost components to the business have pulled back at least some. Are you seeing that reset in terms of quoted prices in the market now, or are things still pretty strong?
Well, I think there's two things to remember there. One, if you look at our Q1, we did note that framing saw a benefit on cost flow that helped boost those margins. There was about roughly $4 million of benefit on lower cost aluminum that was working its way through our system while we had already moved to adjust price to reflect the higher aluminum cost. There was still a slight benefit in Q2, but it was approximately maybe $1 million. We saw that as good news, right? That they worked through that and we expected margins to come down, but they still performed, you know, double-digit margin for the quarter. In terms of market pricing, it, as you know, it's a competitive market, so we need to stay on top of that.
We want to grow our business and particularly want to build that storefront and finishing solutions business. Where we need to, you know, we will make pricing adjustments. We do anticipate some of that will start to show maybe in our Q4, and that's why, you know, as we looked at our guidance and looking at how we performed in the second half. While they're working through that, they're gonna be focused on working to maintain margins in that long-term goal of 9%-12%, and I think they're on track. They're probably gonna be in the middle of that as they close out the year. While we've seen some adjustments on pricing, we haven't seen a wholesale drop across the market with respect to pricing. That can change, and we're staying on top of it.
Yep, understood. Ty, on the glass business, it looks like some of the margin improvement also comes from the Velocity business shutdown. Can you help us understand where sort of the core business stands in terms of the initiatives you put in place to drive better profitability?
Brent, this is Mark. Sure, I can give a little bit of color as it relates to what we're doing in our core business. We are really trying to drive, as our strategic plan had highlighted, we're trying to drive to higher priced, higher complex type products, not projects. It's really core to the overall glass business. They have products that are a little bit more proprietary in that space, and there are plenty of opportunities for us to explore in that area. That's the primary emphasis as it relates to that. I also wanna point out the margin improvement in the quarter was also highly contributed, or I should say, productivity contributed highly to the quarterly results.
Not only are we moving from a mix perspective, but we've also taken costs out of the business, and that includes the costs associated with the Velocity business.
Yeah, I'll just reinforce Brent that Lean has been a big driver on the margin expansion. Obviously, we've captured the restructuring benefits. That's showing up. Productivity on the production floor is showing up in Lean. As Mark alluded to, that mix shift, we're seeing that showing up in the bid and award activity. I think that's a tailwind for that business as we go into fiscal 2024, because a lot of that isn't going to flow through the plant and revenue recognition until the very end of this year, and it's more of a 2024 story that gives some additional tailwinds for that business.
Okay. Thanks. Just the last one on the services business. I mean, I think you said you expected sequential margin improvement through the fiscal year. That's typically what you tend to see seasonally. Are you, I guess, as some of these growth initiatives, costs for growth initiatives fade, should we see some year-on-year margin improvement as well as we move into the back half?
I think as you look at that, you know, they have a goal, what we've set out on Investor Day of being at 7%-9%. I think as we get into our Q4, if you look at Q4 standalone, we see them as probably getting into the bottom of that range. But for the full year, right now, it looks like they'll be outside of that range. That's a combination of the integration costs related to Sotawall, shoring up some of the execution on some large projects that Sotawall is driving right now from its backlog. as you alluded to, yes, you know, we're putting $a few million of investment to help scale and grow that business, and that'll continue through the rest of the year and probably a little bit into the beginning of next year as well.
Okay. Thanks, guys. Look forward to seeing you this week.
Thank you, Brent.
Thank you. Our next question will be coming from Julio Romero of Sidoti.
Hey, good morning. Could you just talk about the award mix you're seeing? I believe you called out you've won some new transportation and infrastructure-related projects. If you could give any additional detail on those projects won during the quarter and maybe how much runway do you have there to further diversify the business?
Yeah. Good morning, Julio. That has been an effort of ours. You know, everyone's had a lot of questions about the future of office. I think I would be remiss if I didn't reiterate. We continue to see strong demand for premium office space. That continues to be a driver in our backlog. That being said, as we have focused to make sure that we're going after other opportunities in that space, what we saw in our backlog growth this quarter was really non-office. There were some office projects that were won, but we saw a significant increase due to some wins in the transportation segment. Think airports, airport terminals, new construction. We saw additional project wins in healthcare and education.
again, there was some office space, but when we looked at that in total, the drivers was non-office. At least in this quarter, you know, that significantly reduced the percent of our backlog that is office in there. We see that as both of those as good things. It's great that we're seeing a diversification of the mix. We think there's some tailwinds in that transportation, government, healthcare, and education space because some of the federal funding that's come through. We think some of the funding and tax rebates that are coming through for energy efficiencies bodes well for our glass business and even for our services business, because those are more complex or higher value products that would go into curtain walls.
Those are positives for us as well as we look at that backlog that we're building.
Got it. I appreciate the commentary there. I guess on the framing segment, specifically on the storefront and finishing side, you mentioned it's a shorter lead time business and the lead time shortening and that kinda drove the framing backlog number. I guess to clarify, the lead times normalizing, you view as kind of a good sign and more of a normalization off a high base and not necessarily as an indicator of any slowing activity there?
Correct. We still see very solid order volume on that. Again, across all the businesses, the trend line's up. It is choppy month to month, but the trend line continues to be up. They were seeing earlier demand in Q1, and as they went into Q2 and then just working through some supply chain issues, and this was happening across that market in that space, lead time started to push out again. They've been working to get those lead times back under control, and that drove a reduction in their backlog. I think we expect that they're gonna continue to improve on those lead times this quarter as well, because that short lead time, the service component is a very strong part of their value proposition in the marketplace.
They're very focused on driving improvements there.
Got it. That's helpful. I guess, you know, what are you seeing on the LSO side in regards to state of the consumer? Is that giving you any kind of indicator one way or the other?
We are watching it. Right now it's still healthy conditions. Our leader for LSO sees the news and the CPI headlines, et cetera. They are not seeing a falloff in their demand at this point. We've probably been a little conservative in anticipating maybe some of that will start to show in Q4. Right now, as they finish the second quarter and as they look at their order rates into Q3, that it is holding up very well.
Got it. Thanks very much for taking the questions.
Thanks, Julio.
Thank you. I would now like to turn the call back over to Ty Silberhorn for closing remarks.
Well, thank you again for everyone joining us today. I just wanna reiterate and thank our team again for really strong execution in this quarter. More importantly, as we alluded to earlier in the call and through this Q&A, we see really strong momentum in driving our long-term strategy of really building a strong business, being the economic leader, and driving those margin improvements and setting ourselves up to outperform the market regardless of that outlook, both from a revenue and an income basis as we go forward. Thanks, everyone, for joining us today, and we'll talk to you again in a few months.
Thank you, everyone, for joining. Have a good rest of your day. Everyone may disconnect.