Annual Needham Growth Conference. Appreciate you joining us today. We're going to be having a discussion with the management of Benchmark Electronics. With us today is the company's CEO, Jeff Benck, and CFO, Bryan Schumacher. My name is Jim Ricchiuti. I'm a senior analyst covering the industrial technology companies here at Needham, so we'll go ahead and start the presentation. The fireside is what we're going to do, but Jeff, I think you know most of the audience is familiar with Bench, but it's probably worth giving a brief overview and talk to us a little bit about the you know the current breakdown of revenue by market sector, and then we can kind of dive in to some of these.
Sure. Yeah, sure. So for those of you that may not be familiar with Benchmark, Benchmark's a global outsource manufacturer for OEMs that don't want to build their own product. We tend to, you know, build manufactured product around the world for our customers. We also have a pretty, meaningful design engineering outsource business where we can help a customer develop their product, design it, and then ultimately build it, globally. And so that's a bit of a differentiator for us because we do more product development than some of our peers. And we love that. We love the helping a customer accelerate their time to market by building, products as well. Through the course of the discussion, I'm sure we'll talk about forward-looking statements. I refer you to our disclosures on our website. If any risks and uncertainties, you want to know more about that, they're there as well.
We are diversified across a number of sectors. If you look at Benchmark, ten years ago, we were more than 60% compute and telco. And I was talking to one investor. We built, you know, a ton of Sun gear back in the day. But over the last, you know, I've been CEO of the company six years. We've kind of continued on the journey, moving to higher value ground, got really out of the commodity business, commoditized business. We don't really do consumer products. We really are focused on five, five, vertical markets: semiconductor capital equipment, more wafer front-end equipment there. We do industrial products, of course. Medical is a key sector for us. The medical sector, we back 40 years ago spun out of a medical equipment company. That was the genesis. So we're strong in medical. And then we've got aerospace and defense as a vertical.
And then last is the advanced computing and communications sector. They're all in that, anywhere from 17%-25% of the share of the company. So, semi-cap is a little more than 25%. If you look at advanced computing and communications, it's down in the high teens. And then medical and industrial kind of around that 20% clip, as well. And aerospace and defense a little below 20%, but it's pretty diversified. We like that, that we have that diversification. So, for example, a year and a half ago when semi was going through a down cycle, we saw strength in industrial that kind of helped offset that. And it allows us to weather the ups and downs in the markets being diversified. But we're pretty selective in what business we take on.
We tend to like, as I mentioned before, complex work that might be highly regulated, whether that's something that's secret for defense or maybe it's the life-sustaining medical product. We tend to like the complexity, and we also tend to be a little higher mix and maybe lower volume, but higher value add because of that, and semi-cap plays in that similarly, so maybe that's a little bit more.
No, it's a good snapshot, and I want to go into, I'd like to go into some of those, more of a discussion on those verticals. You know, before we do, I think we'd probably be remiss if it's the question everybody's getting at this conference talking about, one, you know, the recent election. How are you thinking about, you know, potential tariffs and, you know, more broadly? I think it does apply to Benchmark, is the trend toward reshoring, the supply chain. You guys have a pretty strong domestic footprint, so why don't you tell us.
Yeah, yeah, we do. We have the largest domestic footprint of as a percent of our revenue of the top six kind of EMS players. So we've got a lot of capacity in the U.S., around the country if customers want to bring back. You know, there's been a bit of a renaissance in manufacturing in the U.S. So that's a good trend for us. We're comfortable with that. The whole tariff discussion, I mean, certainly China we've been dealing with and we've seen, obviously both sides of the political spectrum have supported higher tariffs on China. So we have seen some customers want to move to Southeast Asia or want to move to Mexico from China. We only have one factory of our 25 factories around the world. We only have one in China.
Tends to be building product for China, for China, where we build product that's sold in the country for typically U.S. customers. So I'm kind of in some ways thankful that we don't have a bigger footprint there, but we can provide that capability for customers. So I know there's talk of, you know, obviously the tariffs there are stepping up. Mexico is probably the new discussion on what the Trump administration do with tariffs on Mexico. And we're watching it closely. And we've got some customers that have been looking at moving into Mexico that are now looking at, you know, do we look at domestic and staying in the U.S. and not being in Mexico? And we're kind of seeing that play out and we'll kind of stay close to it in our space.
I mean, obviously we would end up working with our customers and passing through those tariffs. So it does have the risk of driving inflation and the cost of manufacturing and ultimately the cost of those products. But we'll kind of see, you know, how that lands and how measured that is in the coming, you know, weeks and months. I think.
It's still pretty fluid.
Yeah, exactly. But I do like our footprint in the sense that we've got a strong position in Malaysia and in Thailand. If someone wants to go into Southeast Asia, we've got the low-cost region in Europe with Romania. And then, our position in Mexico, both with Tijuana and Guadalajara is good, but we can also do more in, you know, Phoenix, for example, or Huntsville or areas domestically in the U.S.
Okay. Let's get to the verticals. You mentioned semi-cap, and through the first nine months, it grew a bit faster than anticipated, at least versus what we were thinking maybe at the start of the year. What was it that drove the, you know, if you characterize it as modest overperformance?
Yeah, I mean, we did grow. I mean, we've said, of course, we're in that quiet period on fourth quarter, but our guidance reflected that we thought we'd do double-digit growth in semi and that's in a market that is clearly not growing at that speed. We've done well in gaining some share in that space. I think we have also worked at driving more vertical integration where some of the outside processes we've been able to insource, and that's given us an opportunity to capture more wallet share with the customers that we do have. And unlike some of our competitors, we even starting in 2019 and 2020, we've been continuing to invest and deploy capital. We just opened a brand new facility in Malaysia, and it's brought us more capability.
We could do large frame builds as well as assembly of complex systems in clean room environments. And so based on that, we've been able to just continue to gain share. And I think that's played out well for us. And it's been a good growth driver, even in an environment where the macro for wafer fab equipment had been more softer, but you know, it certainly stabilized in 2024.
So it sounds like, with some of the investments you've made and some of the areas of focus, Benchmark is well positioned for the next upturn. Are there some areas in particular of WFE that you feel you're better positioned?
I think, you know, we're pretty. We support both logic as well as memory. So, you know, we get exposure across both and have seen, you know, the memory improvement happen a bit faster. And you know, we think, you know, logic is kind of following that. I do think we're well positioned because we have invested in incremental capacity and been able to be more of a one-stop shop for some of our OEMs where they maybe used to rely on a frame build with one supplier and then they would do more assembly with someone else. I mean, I've seen us be able to offer a wider array of services and, you know, value it for the customer that is interested in that.
And so, you know, that's really been intentional and having the capacity and investing in what was the downturn in 2022 and 2023, as the business has come back has positioned us well. And like you said, we've got upside capacity as well.
Yeah. Industrial is a broader category for you. And you know, that's been an area where we've just seen mixed demand. And what is it that you think has led to this soft overall environment? Is it still a case of you know some of the customers? And I'm sure this is also true of medical, and we'll touch on that in a minute, just having you know excess inventory. And what about industrial, what areas have performed better than others? And you know, how are you thinking about the industrial market?
Yeah, industrial, you're right. It was softer, although last year, it did stabilize. And I think we did see where coming out of the pandemic, some folks drove inventory in the channel or their channels. And so we saw some softness as customers talked about burning through inventory and bringing that down. I think we saw that stabilization last year and we started to see some sprouts, right? Some green grass sprouts that start to show signs of growth. We think industrial will do better in 2025 for us. There are areas that there is a tremendous amount of interest. You know, there's still that move towards electrification, even if I take like HVAC market as an example where the growth in heat pumps, you know, furnaces tend to be on or off and don't have as much electronic content.
But as you think about heat pumps being variable speed, then you need electronics in that and control systems. And that's where we play in that whole trend is good for us in that, you know, sub-sector, for example. We've also seen more growth in AGVs, automated guided vehicles and automation and some of those as the war on talent is still going on a bit, right? And how do we do more with less and how do we leverage those systems? LiDARs and other area that, you know, we do play that can be automotive, but it also gets used a lot in these guided vehicles that might be used in a factory like ours, right? And so those are some sectors in industrial we're excited about and hold good potential.
But I do think, as you kind of touched on that whole inventory reconciliation, has largely worked through in industrial from what I see. But then we'll see what the macro, you know, how the macro economy helps in 2025.
Yeah. And that, that issue has probably been more pronounced in the medical market. I feel like we've been waiting for more of a recovery in that end market. And that's, you know, it, I think it's fair to say that's probably been the area that's been more disappointing. And you're certainly not alone. We've heard it from other players, other component companies as well.
Sure. Yeah. I would say unlike industrial with medical, it feels like we're still in the process of working through that channel inventory position. I think, you know, a lot of times it's where your exposure is. I mean, we have a diversified medical business, but we do play in some areas where they were down quite a bit in the pandemic because, you know, people maybe weren't out and about as much. I'll just take defibrillators as an example, maybe where AEDs, you know, they use stadiums, airports, areas like that, where during the pandemic people weren't going out, so the demand was off, then it surged back like crazy as things started to open back up, but then, you know, did people get a little bit in front of themselves and say, you know, wow, this is the new normal?
I think we've seen that sort of rebalance. So, we're still working through that. We love the medical vertical and certainly believe, you know, it will come back and we continue to pursue new business there. And we have capabilities, you know, we do life-sustaining product builds for customers, and FDA certified products. And we also really enjoy quite a bit of global manufacturing of medical equipment. And so, you know, we're long in the space, but it has been a little slower. And we think 2025, we still probably have some headwinds as that sort of works through that, the remaining inventory position that people have.
And then one of the significant bright spots has been aerospace and defense. And probably some of this is due to the fact that you guys just have such a strong domestic footprint, but there's clearly, you know, a good market environment. Can you help us maybe understand a little better about the areas that Benchmark is participating in and how sustainable the demand is?
Yeah. A &D is a commitment. You know, it's not only complex work, but there's uniqueness to it, right? You might build these systems for 10 or 20 years. And so what we found in the pandemic is they weren't as quick to redesign. And of course, you gotta get government approval many times, even though if we're not selling directly to the government, we're selling to a prime, and then they have to go to the government. And so they weren't as quick on substituting or broker buying parts. So I would say there was a lot of, you know, pent-up demand that we weren't able to fulfill because we were still chasing components. That kind of resolved itself last year, but that definitely, you know, there was some backlog that we clearly worked through in 2024.
But I think the A& D market is still a strong growth market for us. I see commercial air. You know, we saw record travel, you know, at the holidays and people are traveling international again. And so we get good exposure to aircraft, both single and wide body. For a while, their wide body was really depressed and the large planes that would travel, you know, internationally. So I think the aerospace demand continues to be strong. And then on the defense side, you know, there's a lot of conflicts around the world, unfortunately. And so, you know, I think again, the spending on defense is kind of a bipartisan issue. And I think that that'll continue.
It might pivot a little bit, you know, maybe less aircraft and more naval or, you know, and we do have exposure to systems that really are, you know, land-based, sea and as well as air, good exposure across a number of OEMs. So, you know, we don't have concentration in just one contract supplier, right? We end up having pretty good exposure across a number of defense customers, and that helps us, you know, that diversification. We also are seeing demand. We do some work for the Border Patrol, and so, you know, we see opportunity there where we're building systems that are, you know, helping with, you know, the border protection and certainly a lot of focus and intention around that.
And so, you know, where we can help provide that virtual wall with our surveillance systems is an area that will be, you know, should be good in 2025.
Yeah. One of the areas historically, it's been a legacy business that, over the years you've transformed, but computing. And then we have the advanced communications markets. What, talk to us about the trends in that part of the business.
Yeah. I think with comms, you know, there was a lot of deferral of capital spend and some of that, you know, 5G deployment and some of that we certainly saw moderation in the choppier macro environment, and that provided some headwinds. We've won some new business, but we've also had some transitioning business. That's sort of offset a bit for the communication space, and then on the compute, we really do look at the high complexity. We've done a lot in the high performance computing space, water-cooled systems. We've participated in helping build some of the platforms that are, you know, in the top five in terms of supercomputers around the world, and those tend to be a little cyclical because, you know, chipset generation will drive that.
And right now we're. We built out a lot of large systems and we're just starting to work on the next generation. And so we think that'll be a bit of a headwind in 2025 just because the timing of the next gen platform and the chips that go with that. We're probably most discriminating in advanced compute and communications 'cause it had traditionally been lower margin business, a little more commoditized or outsourced for the long term, a lot of it with ODMs. The question remains a little bit, does more of that come back to U.S. manufacturers, because of the sensitivity around China and the like. And so that's something that we're, you know, continuing to decide where we play, you know, there and what else we could do.
Okay. You touched on this earlier, but I think it's worth maybe going back to the engineering expertise, that offering. How much of a differentiator is that for Benchmark?
We think it's key. It's one of the key differences for us because when a customer comes to us, we, you know, we really engage them and say, you know, what else do you need? And, you know, I talked to my team a lot about close rate, you know, it's like you go get an EMS win, but are we doing the test development? Are we helping with design for manufacturability? Where are they in the design? Have they completed it? Do they need help with documentation? Or if it's a legacy product, maybe they wanna work on the shiny new project. Can we do the refresh and do the design on that? And I just think it makes us much more interesting to OEMs to say, wow, if I have a problem in the factory, I can actually rely on your engineering expertise to help us solve it.
And so while it's not, you know, it doesn't come anywhere near the size of our EMS business, it's really a secret sauce for us where we have know-how and have done product development and a bit of our legacy. You know, I've been in three product companies before coming to Benchmark. And part of the reason the board was interested in my background was that I had done a lot of engineering. And so I know, you know, what a VP of engineering at an OEM would be looking for. And so I think that engineering capability is unique. And we kind of look at attach rates and say, you know, three quarters of our deals, you know, should have an engineering component.
That's important to us and does make us a little different than some of the high volume guys that maybe, you know, are less focused on it.
Yeah. And you mentioned the high volume guys. And one of the things that I think about with Benchmark is it's a smaller customer base to some extent. How do you go about, you know, evaluating companies that you wanna work with? In some cases, they may be smaller companies. There are, you know, companies, for instance, that are emerging in the robotics space. How do you look at, you know, where you may decide to place some bets? You've got obviously some very established customers. I'm thinking about the process of looking at newer customers. Yeah. Take those one.
Yeah. I mean, we go through a process and making sure one of the creditworthiness and everything as we're ramping up and making sure we're comfortable with that side of it. We typically, as we ramp, I mean, we look at 50% new logos, 50% kind of internal. So we really try to evaluate that as we're going into it. And then it's who's their backers and that type of stuff and what kind of product are they delivering. And again, we're looking for the complex piece of it, not consumer oriented and something that will really drive that margin and be attributed to that. So with the engineers, what expertise can we bring to it to help them kind of ramp up to where they need to go and help them? That's kind of how we look at them kind of as we're going through the process.
So it's not something we are just gonna jump into. I mean, we turn away a lot of business. It's gotta be aligned with our kind of portfolio and what we're trying to do and drive the margin side of it along with our long-term goals.
Yeah. And I think, you know, there are customers that are, if they're really early stage, it's probably not a fit. And so we'll look at that and, you know, not that we won't do young companies, but we're very mindful of, like Bryan said, the creditworthiness and are they really well funded and, you know, it's just, there are just times where we just say, you know, probably not the right stage for where a company is.
And we're pretty disciplined around that because we've worked hard to, you know, to improve our margin profile and to shift our business in the direction. And so we're not just about, you know, we don't think calorie-free revenue is not that exciting to us. So, but we do still wanna grow and still think it's important that we drive growth. But as Bryan said, I think, you know, we've really, and he plays a key part in that too and helping us decide, you know, is this a customer we wanna take on?
Yeah. If looking at those verticals that you discussed, there are varying degrees, I guess, of those sectors, subsectors outsourcing. Where do you see the biggest opportunities? I mean, you mentioned defense historically is somewhat more reluctant to outsource. Is that fair to say?
Yeah. That is fair.
Yeah.
Yeah. Defense has been a little more reluctant, although I see, as they've hit capacity limits, they've had to rely more on outsourcing. So that's almost been because that's grown and they need help. And so, you know, we, we'd love to, to help them with that and engage, even if we're the second source to an internal factory for a defense manufacturer. We still see, you know, the medical industry might be at 50%. So, you know, there's still a lot of, where we end up competing with internal manufacturing. And, a lot of times you'll say, okay, you still wanna play a role in some secret sauce you might have, but do you really need to build the boards? Like, does that, does that value add that you think you can bring?
We, you know, have moved up and built a lot more higher level assemblies beyond just the base board, but it oftentimes starts with the electronics, right? That's still an opportunity where there's more outsourcing and rationalization. I think industrial is so large and there's so many companies there. I hired a Chief Commercial Officer, David Moses 18 months ago, and he spent a lot of time in industrial in his former life at one of our competitors. So I think we see a lot of opportunities there and we've got quite a bit of business development, go-to-market resources, with attention on industrial. Also an opportunity there where not everyone's outsourced, but we think that the industrial will be a bigger play for us.
And frankly, it's just with our affinity and our interest there.
You know, one of the questions I get from investors, and this is looking more broadly at the EMS sector in general, you know, we've seen a rerating of the stocks in this group, and you know, it's part of it, I think, is just due to the improvement we've seen in operating margins. We just haven't, and certainly it's true of Benchmark. I mean, you know, even in a tough, challenging top line environment where you're seeing weakness in some of these end markets, you've been generating pretty consistent margins and in some cases margin expansion over the last couple of years, so yeah, help us understand what's changed. Is it just more discipline across the industry, and certainly it's gotta be something specific to what you've done.
Yeah, so if you look at the overall revenue mix and what we've really focused on there from a margin standpoint and the complexity continue to drive that piece of it, even as revenues decline, and then the operational execution behind that. I mean, there's been a real awareness across the organization. If you look at how we're operating as revenue comes down, how are we really adjusting our headcount and other things to keep the OpEx kind of a lower pace, and if you look at COVID, there's been a lot of discipline around that as you exited COVID and kind of how much emphasis is put on that, and we're getting rewarded for what we are actually bringing to the market from the sales and actually contribution on that front, so there's a good piece of that as you think about that.
And then as you look at us overall and you look at our kind of SG&A and we're gonna continue to drive that and capitalize on our base. I mean, we're a global company, so we've had revenue decline and operating income increase, and we'll be able to leverage that going out in the future, ideally as revenue increases, our footprint and our cost will stay stable, so we're able to kind of maximize on that, so you're looking at the top line, very disciplined on that front mix, and then kind of fall into the bottom line as we're able to capitalize on our SG&A expense.
And just to, just to reinforce, I think mix has been a big thing. If you think about, you know, 60%-70% compute and telco 10 years ago, now it's less than 20%. And yet, you know, you bring in semiconductor capital equipment, which is on the higher margin end of our, you know, of our sectors. Medical and, and aerospace and defense tend to be above corporate margin. Industrial tends to be kind of more average and then compute and telco tends to be below. But I think the mix has played a significant role in us, you know, continuing to step up there. Of course, our margins are still substantially less than many of our customers, but that's the, the nature. But I also think there's discipline around where, where is the value capture? What do we bring?
We take on quite a bit of risk and quite a bit of responsibility for our customers, and I think our peers have all recognized, like giving stuff away just doesn't make sense in this environment. So there's been a good discipline. You know, I get asked about pricing environment and are people like just giving stuff away to grab revenue, and I think the days of that have shifted a bit, which has kind of helped rerate the whole sector and brought more interest back into it. And then I also think, as Bryan said, you know, for us specifically, just with, you know, we also brought on a new Chief Operating Officer. He's very metric driven, looking at lean methodology and how do we get more operationally efficient.
And for us, it's also about getting the demand and getting the new business where we might be underutilized to get better absorption. And so part of that is like getting the business in the right areas can help in terms of the, you know, better leveraging the cost structure. And as we, you know, you've seen, we went from, you know, in my tenure, we've closed or divested six facilities that were either subscale or in a region where customers didn't wanna be. But now we've started to invest in new capability, but we're doing it in the footprint we have. So we've built a new building in Malaysia where we already had two other buildings. We've expanded our footprint in Romania, but we already had a facility. We just doubled the manufacturing capacity at that footprint.
That allows us to leverage this SG&A and not need more HR, IT, or finance folks to run the business, but just be more efficient in the footprint we're in, and I think that that's paid dividends as well. So it's really been a multi-pronged attack here.
And maybe on the topic of footprint, Penang, open Q3?
Yeah. September we did a grand opening.
So how is that going?
Yeah. Fully online. We had that facility start with very semiconductor capital equipment focused, really gives us the ability to build these very large frames. We can do that in-house now where we had to maybe leverage the supply chain in the past, and also bring new capability to the region like e-beam welding and some sophistication with having more space to do that. We really were able to invest in the downturn in the semi space and it, our OEMs have taken notice and said, okay, you guys are committed to this segment even with the downturn. And it's enabled us to gain share, a lot of capacity opportunity, but we also have enough wins that we see that we'll get the utilization up. It's not like far away, although there is, you know, a ramp going on there and some of the new stuff.
How do we think about capital spending going forward? You made some investments, Romania.
Yeah. We continue to evaluate it. It's right around a 1.5%-2% kind of revenue. That's how we've thought about it historically. We'll continue to look at kind of what we need to do on the expansion front and aligning with our customers. But as you think about it, that's usually the mix that we try to target towards on the capital spend piece of it. We had a little bit last year. I mean, given the softer macro, we definitely modulated our capital spend probably a little lower than you know, than where we would normally run.
But as Bryan said, it sort of, as we look at that being under the 2% mark kind of company's done a great job, in terms of, managing and working capital. You guys have generated quite a bit of free cash flow over the last year. You know, some of that is just inventory levels, right? Coming down. Maybe you can just speak to that as well.
Yeah. So what we've guided to is around a $70-$90 overall free cash flow, on an annual basis as you mentioned. I mean, we far exceeded that this last year. The team over the last 12-18 months has really done a great job of focusing on inventory, bringing that back down out of COVID. We ramped up during COVID, been able to capitalize on that on the backend as we break it down. So historically, and right now in Q3, we announced it was like four turns of inventory. We're gonna continue to drive that closer to five, five and a half that we had, before kind of the COVID timeframe. So that's kind of our goal is to get back on track, and continue to optimize the working capital and the free cash flow on that page.
So, still a little bit more to go, a little bit more of a tail.
Yeah. I mean, we'll continue to focus on the turns of inventory.
I mean, inventory certainly, you know, was a key contributor to the free cash flow, but we, you know, we should be a cash generator. You know, as we, as we see growth, we will have to invest in inventory to support the growth and sometimes capital equipment, as we've talked about in some of the factories that are needed for that. So, you know, we, we probably tend to generate a bit more free cash flow actually in a softer environment, but, but we've, you know, if you look historically through the COVID cycle was awful in terms of free cash flow because there was so much investment in critical inventory for our customers and all of that. But it's, it's good to see it kind of return to normalcy.
I mean, it's been a bit better in the last year, as Bryan said, we brought the inventory down. Okay. Why don't you touch on the balance sheet, which is in good shape, and just in general, how the company is thinking about capital allocation.
Yes. The capital allocation, I mean, we continue to focus on the dividend payout. That seems, that's a focus of ours. And then you look at the revolver, that's accretive to the bottom line. So we're continuing to pay that down over time. And then as far as kind of share repurchases, we continue to evaluate that, optimally. I mean, what we'd like to do is offset any dilution that we have on that front. And then of course you look at the acquisition front and we're not just gonna go out and buy companies for top line revenue. I mean, it's gotta be accretive, whether it's a tuck-in or something in that environment. So that's kind of how we've looked at the overall picture of our capital allocation. And we'll continue to evaluate it.
But right now, I mean, again, the dividend and revolver are top line and then we'll continue to look at share buybacks as we go.
Yeah. We probably pivoted. Well, we definitely, you know, looked at more bringing the revolver down versus the buyback just 'cause it was so accretive to do that and to bring that down. So as we've become net cash positive, you know, it sort of gives us some more optionality to look at buyback and other things, right? M& A or otherwise. But. Yeah. When I think of M& A, you guys have not been active nor have many of the other players. What is it that would make sense if you were to go down that path?
I mean, we've kind of said, again, just you gotta be careful in our space because just, you know, sometimes buying another EMS company, you might have common customers. And if a customer wants to be dual source, then, you know, do you have that one plus one doesn't equal three, it ends up one and a half. So we would be more interested in, you know, is there a capability that we could add to maybe it's engineering services or maybe it's a capability in a region where we don't have a footprint. That's why, you know, Bryan said sort of the small tuck-in, we see that playing an opportunity or, you know, could play a role for us. But we've been really stingy, you know, as you said, the company before I joined grew a ton through acquisition.
You know, then when I joined, it was sort of a federation of sites and we didn't really have a lot of, you know, one Benchmark going on. And I've been more about, you know, how do we do common services? How do we centralize SG&A? How do we operate consistently and look more alike whether you're in Thailand or in Minnesota? And, and really, really drive a more unified company structure and centralize where it makes sense to centralize. We still have obviously unique differences by region, but, but that, that's been the key play for us. And also felt there was plenty of opportunity to grow organically. And, and you know, when I joined the company five years ago, or a little more than five, it's like we were at $2 billion of revenue and, you know, now we're approaching $3 billion.
And we demonstrated there was plenty of opportunity and we had the capacity. So for us, it's not just a revenue acquisition play when it comes to M& A. It would really be more, looking at it strategically and is there a tangential space that we could add capability to what we're doing?
Might have time for one more question if there's one in the audience.
You mentioned 2025 could be a down year for advanced computing. And I was wondering kind of based on the timing, you said, timing the next gen platform chips that go with it. So what makes you think that 2025 would be a down year? And then is that just that fewer systems will be built or?
Yeah. It's some of that, less systems. It has a lot to do with, you know, there's a new chipset that comes out that supports the next gen platform. And so sometimes it's like we get schedules from our OEMs to say, you know, here's when the next platform arrives. So we get some visibility to, you know, where that design cycle is and how that leads to that. We also, we've won some incremental programs with the current customer, but we know that that's ramping in the second half of 2025. We also talked about a large customer that left at the end of 2023 and that's wrapping around. So just from the dynamics we have, we just know that that's a more challenging sector for growth for us in 2025.
Okay. I think we're gonna end it there.
Cool.
Jeff.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yep. Thanks for the time.