Perfect. So why don't we get started? I'm Joe Quatrochi, the component distribution analyst here at Wells Fargo. Excited to have the CEO of Arrow, Sean Kerins, and as well as the CFO, Raj Agrawal. Thanks, guys, for joining us.
Thanks for having us.
Great to be here. So maybe to start, Sean, I know you've been with the company for a long time, newer to the CEO role. Maybe, you know, start out with kind of help us understand what do you think is misunderstood or underappreciated most in the Arrow story by investors?
Sure, Joe, and thanks for having us. So, you know, when I think about the evolution of Arrow Electronics, I think there's three things that, you know, we probably should be talking more and more about. One is just the sheer, you know, size, scope, depth, and reach of the company. If you think about it, we've got 22,000 employees throughout the world. Most of them wake up every day thinking about all of our suppliers and customers. We operate in 90 countries out of over 200 locations, more than 40 of which are pointed at our warehousing, logistics, and supply chain services capabilities.
You know, we think all of that spells incredible reach, and is increasingly appealing to our suppliers who are trying to get to the four corners of the world, but also now our multinational customers, especially given the geopolitical environment. We don't say enough about all that. I think the second thing that comes to mind is just the extent of what I would call the value add that sits inside the Arrow portfolio. Whether that's services in the realm of supply chain management or design services, where we actually augment the design teams of large OEM customers for a fee basis, or even what we do in our IT business to provision, manage, and bill for cloud-related subscription services in the IT channel. Those are all becoming, you know, more relevant to our mix overall.
The other part of that I'd talk about in the value add space is just the sheer depth of our engineering capability. You know, we've always leaned into the role and value of engineering, especially at the field application engineering level, because we believe the design in and demand creation, margin, opportunity, and potential, especially in the mass market, has still got some really good runway in it, and we're fortunate to have thousands of engineers throughout the world leading the charge on behalf of our suppliers every day. And then the last piece of our value add I would point to is really our media and digital platforms.
We don't talk often about those, but they play a really important role in attracting, you know, engineering and IT eyeballs to our line card, among other things, and our capabilities in a way that ultimately points to, you know, more lead gen and more demand gen, and that's, you know, kind of what we're there for, to help people grow. Lastly, you know, you'll see this in the K every year, you know, we've got 210,000 customers throughout the world, which means we have a lot of opportunity to sell things, not just to those customers, but to go expand the customer base overall. It's a good indication of the reach, you know, that we represent on behalf of our suppliers.
So I don't get a chance to talk about those things typically on an earnings call, so I appreciate you letting me draw those out here for a couple of minutes today, Joe.
Yeah, that's perfect. I mean, and I guess, you know, those things you listed, as you look over the next three to five years, what do you think is the biggest opportunity relative today for the company, and what are you maybe most excited about?
I think, you know, I'll talk a little bit more about the electronics piece of our business, you know, as it relates to this question. But I think if you look at, you know, the projections for the semiconductor industry, it wasn't long ago that the use cases for semiconductor technology were really limited to things like mobility, and compute, right? The scope of the opportunity was somewhat narrow. Now look at the diversification of, semiconductor technology. We talk about the electrification of everything. This technology is now being designed into every walk of life, you know, both residential and commercial, you know, just about throughout every minute of our day. So I think the sheer diversity of demand alone will be a very healthy thing for the industry.
I think most of the projections talk about an industry with a total TAM of maybe $600 billion right now, moving to $1 trillion by the end of the decade. We like that CAGR. You know, we think that that's something that we'll continue to invest in, and we're well positioned for. So the outlook is tremendous. I think if there's anything different in the way we look forward, or think about our strategy as we look forward, is that we wanna focus even more deeply on, you know, the fewer things that are more accretive to that opportunity. So specifically, that starts with our engineering leadership for demand creation margin. It means, you know, more penetration of the market for Interconnect, Passive and Electromechanical technology, because that's such a good adjacency to the, the semiconductor technology.
We think it means, you know, more investment and more sales capacity pointed at our value-add services, specifically design services in the engineering realm, and then supply chain management. And then lastly, it also means that, you know, we continue to make steady progress in the IT transition to a market for what I call All Things IT as a Service, you know, which changes the structure of our ECS P&L over time, and it leads to more recurring revenue, more infrastructure software, more related services, and more cloud, which, you know, we ultimately think is a good thing for the business model as well.
... That's perfect. I mean, and, and Raj, you know, I think I asked you these questions last, last year when you were sitting here. You've been here a little bit longer now. I mean, anything you'd like to add to that in, in terms of just, you know, what you view as great opportunities for Arrow?
Yeah, it's hard to believe that it's been a year already. It's gone by fast. I think Sean really covered most of the key points. The only other things I would add is that, you know, we continue to be very cost-focused. It's a discipline inside the company that certainly I've learned, the company's very focused on, and certainly really treating the working capital and the capital that's invested in the business, very tightly, and optimizing that at every turn that we get. So I think those are, you know, embedded disciplines within the company, which is good to see.
Perfect. Maybe shifting gears a little bit to the component side, you know, in the current kind of demand environment, obviously, you know, no, no two cycles are alike. But I guess, how do you think about, you know, the current downturn that we're in relative to prior, you know, couple corrections? You talked about, you know, last earnings call, last two earnings calls, two to three quarters, kind of, you know, what a normal cycle is.
Mm-hmm.
Just kind of, given, you know, where inventory at your customers are, your own inventory, and just kind of demand, I guess, how do you characterize the current cycle, where we are and what should we be looking for in terms of, you know, those guideposts for a recovery?
Certainly. So I think you're right. All cycles are just a little bit different. This one, it turns out, you know, to have been a little bit more dramatic than maybe, you know, anything we've seen in recent history. And when you think about it, there was such a significant disconnect between supply and demand, that some sort of a correction was probably, you know, inevitable. We see this one really being driven by supply finally catching up to a whole lot of delinquent demand.
As a consequence, you know, we're right in the middle of, you know, the correction you speak of, where we're rescheduling a lot of orders, canceling fewer, but working with our customers who gave us visibility to, you know, production schedules, you know, several quarters out, as their demand patterns now change, to work through the excess inventory as quickly as we can. You know, I think the picture I was trying to draw, Joe, is that if you were to hold demand constant, and I would say we all understand that, you know, the Chinese economy, broadly speaking, is down. It's not immediately clear when it gets up, back up on its feet in a more material way.
Demand patterns in the West have held a little bit steadier, but if you took all that and said, "Demand doesn't really change, and we're just dealing with managing the excess inventory alone," given what we see in our backlog and what our customers tell us about their production schedules, I think it is, you know, this quarter and next, before we, you know, we get a look at whether or not things start to normalize in the second quarter. That being supply and demand starting to, you know, come more in sync, which means net new orders. It will be things that we can fill in the near term, versus today, we don't get as many net new orders because we're still serving backlog that we received, you know, multiple months and quarters ago.
So I still think, you know, roughly, we're talking about the same timeframe, just given what we've experienced historically. I think the wild card is really the macro environment. If the macro economy were to accelerate for some reason, be it in China or elsewhere, I think things could move a little bit faster. I think if it were to get worse, I think, you know, things could take a little bit longer. I can tell you very confidently, you know, we've seen the movie before. We know how to navigate this. You know, we keep our eye on the ball when it comes to cost. We keep the pressure on working capital discipline.
At the same time, we don't lose sight of those, you know, creative growth priorities I talked about, so that we can emerge from this thing even stronger when the market does fully normalize. But I think we're in it for this quarter and next before we get a shot at seeing something that, you know, starts to look a little bit more normal in the spring quarter.
I guess, you know, typically, book-to-bill is kind of that metric that, you know, investors are focused on. Is that still the right thing we should be looking at, just given kind of all the dynamics with supply chains and things and backlogs?
I think it's the simplest.
Yeah
... you know, way to sort of aggregate, you know, where we really are in the correction. As you know, we've said our, our book-to-bills are, are below parity, but they have held steady. As I mentioned a few minutes ago, the managing through this has been more about rescheduling activity than it has been cancellations, so backlogs are not, you know, drying up. In fact, our backlog is still multiples bigger than it was, you know, pre-pandemic, pre the start of the, the good side of the cycle. So that gives us some confidence as we continue to validate those backlogs, that we will work through this. You know, we're hell-bent to continue to bring down, you know, inventory again in Q4 and generate cash again in Q4, and we're reasonably confident we'll do that.
I think those are all healthy signs that the normal patterns that should play out through a correction, you know, are playing out, and we're managing it, you know, the right way to bring those conditions about.
You kind of touched upon it, that, you know, regionally speaking, right, like, Asia has been much weaker, right? Like, component revenue, I think from the peaks down, you know, close to, like, 25%, where, you know, the West, the Americas and, and Europe are more down, you know, kind of teens range.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, is that kind of the path we should think about as, you know, being similar? Or how do you think about the mix differential? Because I think, you know, Asia is historically a little bit stronger, consumer electronics-
Mm-hmm
... device, you know, related. How do you think about those kind of dynamics?
So I think, you know, the way these cycles tend to play out is the opportunity, or in this case, the problem, shows up first in Asia, then it works its way to the U.S., and then eventually it plays out in Europe. And so this is no different in that regard. We're experiencing the same sort of shift in demand patterns over time. I would say, again, demand patterns are holding up a little bit better in the West than they have been in China. Having said that, more recently, you know, sequentially, you know, we were only down slightly in our third quarter in Asia. And, you know, we've seen better activity levels of late, at least compared to more recent times.
I think it's too early to call for, you know, a broader recovery in that market, but it could be that things are gonna steadily improve there just a little bit while we work our way through the problem in the West. As you know, Joe, regional mix has a lot to do with our operating margins.
Yep.
And so when the West is strong relative to the East, you know, that calls for one operating margin outlook and vice versa, when Asia is a little bit healthier relative to the West. We're used to those dynamics and, you know, we'll be able to kind of track to our longer term guidance as this plays out. But I think the two markets are a little bit different, and the big question is, you know, when do we see the Chinese market look more attractive again? Or do we assume that it never really gets back to the, you know, the sort of double-digit rates that the industry came to enjoy, you know, over many years? And we're in the middle of, you know, that assessment right now.
Yep. Yep, no, that makes sense. And just kind of, you know, inventory, obviously, you kind of touched upon it. I guess, why has Arrow's inventory been, call it, stickier than other cycles? I guess, how do you, how do we think about, like, that going forward? Like, as maybe if we're finding somewhat signs of, like, things bottoming, at least in Asia, and maybe, you know, we're working our way towards improved maybe demand, looking in the second half of next year, you know, elsewhere. Like, how do I think about, like, the inventory dynamic-
Yeah
... within Arrow and then at your customers as well?
I assume when you say sticky, that's not a good thing, right? So look, the, you know, the inventory obviously is key to our working capital performance. We're laser-focused on it. I think you get underneath our inventory mix in total, you'll find that the majority of it is what we would call proprietary. And that is, you know, the chipsets that we're involved in designing in at board level are very bespoke, you know, for verticals and specific customers and specific use cases. And that gives us a degree of confidence in the, you know, the relevance of what we carry over time, even if it takes a little bit longer for it to sell through.
That certainly helps us from a gross margin perspective as well, because it's indicative of our work to drive, you know, more design reg and design win activities, so we can participate in demand creation, revenues, and margins. I think, you know, our inventories came down in Q2. As you know, they would have come down in Q3 had we not made a more strategic decision, related to, you know, a single opportunity. We do expect them to come down again in Q4, and we'll generate cash again in Q4, as I said. So we think the demand patterns are playing out as they should, and we're managing them properly. I don't worry about the overall health of the inventory from an obsolescence perspective.
Raj and team do a good job of making sure that, you know, when it comes to things like shrink reserves, we're, you know, behaving as normal and normal methodologies would warrant. So we feel like we've got, you know, good visibility to where that sits. I think the incremental difference between maybe this cycle correction and others when it comes to inventory itself is a couple things. One, you know, we've been intentional about our commitment to the market for IP & E, which requires a different working capital commitment than semiconductor more broadly. Secondly, as we do more supply chain work for more customers, on occasion, that does require inventory. We like the returns profiles of both of those motions, so we make those inventory decisions wisely.
But you probably are seeing some incremental inventory in the overall mix as we work through the excess as a result of our strategy, right, which we know will pay off for us, you know, in the medium to longer term.
Yeah. And maybe on that, Raj, you know, one of the questions I get a lot is talking about the protections in place and, and how to think about, you know, we can talk about pricing in a second, but just can you remind us of just the protections you have in place with your suppliers for, you know, inventory obsolescence and the changes in pricing?
Yeah, I would say, and Sean's gonna be more well-versed in this area than I am, but you know, from a price protection standpoint, for some of the proprietary types of products that we sell, we have a fair amount of protection in place. For the more commoditized products that we might sell, we sort of negotiate those prices at market and not as well protected. But, you know, this space, as I've learned over the last year, is really about long-term relationships and making sure that nobody is stuffed with a bad outcome, whether it's our customers or our suppliers with us. And so I think really everyone's goal here is to make sure that every, you know, the outcome is right in nature.
Having said all of that, we really just don't see any significant changes in the pricing environment, at all. You know, not any significant price pressure in the market. And so there's not a big change or shift happening, where price reductions have to take place, in terms of that coming up. So I don't know, Sean, if you want to add anything more to that?
Yeah, the only thing I would add is that, you know, we're fortunate to have a real good number of great supplier relationships. And by and large, our experience with them has been very collaborative through this cycle. So we've been able to manage the inbound as best as possible under the circumstances, while the outbound, you know, demand patterns change in our customer base. Point being, part of the inflation in the inventory itself is a function of price increases because units are down year to date for us on a full year basis, year-on-year. Which tells you, you know, part of that problem, if you will, or opportunity, is a function of price. And if pricing holds up and it takes a little bit longer to sell, that's ultimately a good thing for the top line and the margin line.
So we're, you know, we're optimistic that the price increases that the industry implemented over the past couple of years will largely remain intact, just based on the underlying cost pressure that, you know, they're all, you know, grappling with.
Well, I guess, like, you know, maybe just double-clicking on that. I mean, this time it's different in terms of pricing. Like, how do you... I guess, how do you think about it? Because I think, at least from my seat, I would think about, you know, looking at maybe some of the foundries or some of the, just like the, as a proxy for them starting to maybe lower their wafer costs. Like, is that what you look at in terms of, you know, as a proxy for thinking about component pricing? Or how do you—what guide points do you look at for confidence in that pricing stability?
So I think, you know, you got to look at it through a couple different lenses. One lens, and the semiconductor suppliers are better experts at this than I am, but you know, the cost of the product is not just about the fabrication process itself, right? It's the raw material, it's the packaging, it's the whole end-to-end supply chain. Many of those costs remain elevated, right? And so they have the cost pressure I referred to as an incentive to keep the prices where they got them. In addition to that, you know, we all witness you know, the uptick in capital investment, whether that's to diversify, you know, fabrications throughout the world, or to move manufacturing to other parts of the world, or some combination of both. You know, those costs still have to be borne by the businesses over time.
So I think, I think they're rightly focused on making sure, you know, they can protect the margins as best as possible. However, the other vector will be, you know, the largest account or OEM space versus the mass market. You know, fortunately, you know, the lion's share of our strategy is about the mass market, where I think, you know, the price concessions aren't gonna be, you know, as severe. You know, the, the way that they get price savings or cost savings, if you will, is through redesign activity throughout their product line. So that tends to take some time, right? Certainly, in the high end of the market, and as it relates to fulfillment volumes, I think you will see some price pressure over time as those big accounts either renegotiate, you know, terms with the largest of their suppliers.
I don't think we're entirely immune, but I also think that prices have a better chance of withstanding, you know, market dynamics than they would have in prior cycles.
Okay. That's, that's helpful. Maybe on the operating margin side, talk about the stability of components, EBIT. You know, why is it sustainable for this cycle in terms of just kind of what you're seeing? And then you've also talked about some of the structural changes that you put in place in terms of just processes and things, and versus just pricing pass-through. So maybe talk about, like, how do you think about the structural benefits to EBIT versus pass-through pricing or just higher revenue and mix?
Yeah, I mean, look, I think what we're seeing now is proof positive that, you know, margins are structurally higher than they were. We're about 100 basis points higher than we were in the last down cycle within our components business, and it's because of all the things that Sean talked about earlier, the value add areas that we're driving here. Obviously, pricing is a factor in there, and then regional mix also is a factor. You know, the last two years and even this year are abnormal in nature, right? The last two years, we went through the heights of the pandemic and the shortage market.
Now we're sort of going through the cycle correction, but when we do get back to a normalized market, to be determined when that's gonna be, we still are confident that, you know, component margins will be in that 5.5%-6% range because of all the things that we've been laying the foundations for. You know, as we look at optimizing the business, we're always looking to reinvest back in these growth areas, the things that are gonna make a difference for us the next few years. You know, and that's gonna be, again, supply chain services, demand creation, design services, and then just overall engineering capabilities that we're driving into the market. So, we think that's why, you know, the margin profile of the business will continue to be quite strong in the future.
Okay, that's helpful. One of the things that questions I get from investors is, you know, this year, I think we've seen pretty significantly, China putting a focus on the semiconductor industry and trying to build their own industry. And obviously, because of the export restrictions, they're very focused on some of these mature markets that maybe overlap with some of your existing suppliers. So I guess, like, how do you think about, you know, China's increased focus on the semiconductor industry? Have you seen... I think there's even some Chinese distributors. Have you seen increased competition? How do you think about that also, just as a having margin implications as well?
So we, you know, we went through a strategy exercise with our board in July, and we sort of stepped back and looked at, you know, the entire global landscape and looked at Asia, obviously, as a big part of that. Historically, we focused primarily on the Chinese market, and that served us well. We have a significant business in that market and, you know, we fully intend to continue to compete in that market. Our strategy there has principally been about the industrial mass market in mainland China. Said another way, we never leaned in too aggressively to what I would call the ODM origin business out of Taiwan, which is primarily focused at you know, the mobility in the compute space, where you tend to find higher volumes, but lower margins and lower returns, right?
That was largely intentional on our part. So now as we look out to go forward in Asia, you know, I'd say, I'd say three things. I'd say, one, longer term, we've got to think about, you know, opportunities in rest of Asia, beyond China. And we are, and we've organized ourselves internally, to kind of create, you know, that, that extra visibility to things beyond China that we wanna think about down the road. Secondly, within China, you know, there's a couple different, you know, pieces to it that we, we, we benefit from. One is the multinational, customer landscape that manufacture in China, right? And so some of that will stay, some of that has moved, some of that will move, and we're doing a really good job following the money, if you will.
Part of that will go to other parts of Southeast Asia, part of that could go to Mexico, part of that will go to Eastern Europe. We know what that looks like, and we'll stay close to those customers and their contract manufacturers. Then, if you look at, alongside that, the indigenous Chinese customer base, which to us is massive, right? That speaks to the heart of the industrial mass market, and we're talking about tens of thousands of customers that our suppliers really want us to help them go after. We still think there's demand creation opportunity for us that still makes sense. We still see potential in that play.
Having said that, over time, if the, you know, the market, you know, should start to trend to something that sounds a little bit more like China for China, well, we have and will continue to build out a China for China line card and a China for China strategy, so that, you know, we've got, you know, the right offerings to continue to compete in that market for the long term. So I think that'll play out over time, not overnight, but we've thought about it in multiple threads. You know, we don't just see it as one problem or one opportunity. It's ultimately gonna be a good place for us, but the nature of it will change over time.
Do you see in China, like, some of the your distributor peers or, like, the native China distributor peers, is there much demand creation at this point by them, or is it mostly just still kind of fulfillment?
You know, from what I can tell, it's more about fulfillment than demand creation.
Got it.
And I say that just based on knowing what we know about what we do, and where we play and who shows up. But I couldn't speak to, you know, their particular strategies in great detail. There are a good number of small, local and regional distributors. There's only a short list of more substantial regional distributors, and we know who they are and, you know, we've competed against them for years.
Sure. Okay. Maybe shifting gears a little bit, you know, to the ECS business. Talk about just kind of your view for enterprise spending for 2024. I mean, I think 2023 has been kind of an interesting year in the fact that, like, a lot of IT budgets maybe-
Yeah
... changed mid part of the year, right? To, to kind of go after AI. So how do you think about, you know, 2024?
Yeah, I think you're right. Over the course of the year, IT budgets in general became a little bit more conservative. I think in the larger enterprise space, you know, what we've seen here in the back half is what I call more big deal scrutiny, which has slowed down a lot of, you know, traditional enterprise IT demand. That's been more evident in our North American business just based on, you know, our mix in this market. We found the mid-market to be a little more resilient, and that shows up in our European performance. It tends to be more of a mid-market economy and very representative of where we're also going in North America. We're just not as far along as we are in Europe.
I think the, you know, the outlook for next year is maybe incrementally better, Joe, but I don't think anybody's calling for a V-shaped recovery. I think the talk is more of something more gradual. You know, but we think we have an opportunity to grow in that business next year, certainly on the bottom line, if not the top.
Okay. What about, like, the acceleration of in demand for AI-related hardware products? I mean, has that... Have you seen a benefit from that? Like, where does Arrow fit in that kind of equation?
So you can think of us as participating in the, you know, the build-out of AI-related infrastructure, i.e., GPUs, primarily through our supply chain services offering, right? And enabling, you know, the bigger data centers and hyperscalers to establish AI-related infrastructure and capabilities. You know, that continues to be a bright spot in the market overall. The good news, bad news is, while we're participating in that, and it certainly benefits us, you know, on the operating margin line, it's not so big that if it were to change dramatically, that it would be overly disruptive to us in the near term. Obviously, what we wanna see is the broader business, you know, normalize and recover, you know, more optimistically going forward. And, you know, we'll see when that happens.
But I think, I think the AI space is gonna be good for the industry long term, and we're, we're still in the early days of seeing, you know, its full potential play out in the, in the enterprise and commercial realm, and it would be my estimate.
Okay. Maybe just kind of to level set a little bit, but, like, the revenue dynamics within that business right, has been continuing to kind of go through a transition, moving more to software, you know, that from a revenue standpoint, the growth is somewhat dampened because of the accounting. Like, talk about just kind of how we think about, like, that product-
Yeah
... mix shift and, like, where are we in that transition in terms of trying to kind of... Where, like, could we start to see, like, more accelerated growth just because of the... you know, the mix within it has changed.
You're, you're exactly right, and, you know, I hate to talk about accounting. I leave that to that guy over there. But we've been very intentional in our pivot to, you know, the market for IT as a service. That means, you know, more cloud-related solutions, be they hybrid or multi, more infrastructure software, and there's lots of good demand drivers for that. And then obviously, related services for both, right? And it means that all those things are becoming a bigger piece of our total mix on a billings basis. By the way, the good news is, as a subset of that mix shift, more and more of that is recurring in nature. And at the right time, we'll be able to kind of walk you through that in more detail.
But what it means from a top-line perspective, because we account for that differently, is, you know, the GP associated with that transaction is the sale. So it won't be a top-line story, it'll be a story about GP dollar growth, you know, bottom line profit growth, and ultimately, you know, a growing, you know, portfolio of recurring revenues. You know, from cloud solutions, from the transition from, you know, perpetual to subscription-based software licensing, and then all the, you know, related services attached to those solutions that, you know, increasingly we're trying to provision and manage on a digital basis. So it'll take some time for us to get, you know, to the same place in North America that we enjoy in Europe.
The good news is, you know, we know exactly what goodness looks like, and it does require some incremental investment, but I think the future is bright, just given our size and scale in the IT market more broadly and the size of our install base. You know, we have a good shot at being very relevant in that space in the future.
Okay, helpful. I guess, you know, in that business as well, you know, with that dynamic at play, how do you think about just kind of the trajectory of operating margins and where we could see, you know, that move over time?
So, you know, we had this conversation a little bit this morning. I would say historically, if you look at that business, we've operated in the five-point realm. I think this year's been a little more challenging, just given what's going on in the broader market, but that's not an unreasonable expectation, you know, moving forward. So we're confident, just given mix alone, that, you know, we should be headed in that direction. And then obviously, if we benefit from a more vibrant market across all those categories in which we're really looking to drive the volume, then, you know, that certainly is gonna make it very achievable.
So I guess to get... You know, maybe see some improvement, is it more- is it largely just volume, or how does the mix... You talked about a little bit about the mix, but, like, how do you-
Yeah.
If you had to kind of rank order, like, what's gonna be that driver that-
I'm really, I'm really comfortable with where we're heading from a mix perspective. What we need now is more volume.
Gotcha.
You know, to really, you know, play out the, you know, the GP dollar and OI dollar growth that I think that this model should yield.
Okay.
Again, we, you know, 2023 being a little bit of an anomaly, and hopefully, that's gonna look better for us in the market overall next year.
Okay. Maybe in the couple of minutes we've got left, I'll pick on Raj for a little bit. You know, talk to us about, you know, the working capital needs relative to free cash flow generation. You know, I think if it does play out that, you know, this cycle is 2-3 quarters, and we start to see some kind of improvement, you know, mid part of the next year, is there a scenario where, you know, your working capital stays pretty elevated relative to kind of in the past cycles we've seen, you know, a decent amount of free cash flow generation? Like, how do we - how should we think about that?
Yeah, I would say they're all connected. You know, our, our capital priorities are really going to be to continue to invest in the business, and then we, we certainly look at M&A. Although we've not done anything material for several years, we're gonna be very disciplined there. And then we use our excess cash to buy back, stock, all with an investment-grade credit rating. The working capital and free cash flow sort of go hand in hand. We wanna invest in the business. We know that we're gonna generate cash in the next several quarters as we go through the cycle of correction. Will working capital be elevated versus past cycles? Maybe, because of some of those things that, Sean talked about earlier with respect to, you know, the IP&E segment and, and, demand creation, some other things there.
But, you know, we know that this is not the right level of working capital for the size of the business that we have, given the cycle that we're going through, and that we will generate cash, and working capital levels should come down over the next several quarters. Not gonna stay where they are.
Maybe just sneak one last in. I know we're over time, but right, right amount of leverage relative to, you know, buying back stock, given where interest rates are today?
Yeah, it's all, again, it's all connected.
Yeah.
We wanna manage with an investment-grade credit rating, so that's really our priority, and we are flexible within that constraint to manage working capital where we need to. We'll certainly buy back stock as we have been the last, you know, several years. You can see our history. But, you know, we also understand as we go through this down cycle, we've got to make sure we're managing the debt levels appropriately, and that's certainly our focus as well.
Perfect. I think we're out of time.
Okay.
Thank you both.
Thank you. Thanks.
Thank you, Joe.
Thank you. Thanks.
Thanks, Joe. Good job.