Type it in and we'll get to as many as possible, with time permitting. Room's still filling in, but I don't want to waste any more time. We're so happy to be welcoming back Brady, the ticker is BRC, having completed a very sizable transaction this year. There's certainly an awful lot to cover, and we're so pleased to welcome, for the first time at our conference, new CEO, Vineet Nargolwala, also joined by CFO Ann Thornton, who many of you will remember. With that, let me turn it over to Vineet and Ann.
Thanks, Steve. Good morning, everybody, and really appreciate the opportunity to talk about Brady. As Steve said, we've just completed the largest transaction in the company's over 100-year history. I thought what we would do today is talk a little bit about Brady, for those who might be new to the Brady story, and then talk about our acquisition of Honeywell's PSS business, which is now rebranded Intelligent Productivity Solutions within the Brady Corporation. Ann, if you can go to the next slide, please. Just at a high level, this is what we reported last year. This is the core Brady business, now named Brady Identity Solutions. About $1.7 billion in revenue, approaching 20% EBITDA margin. We're a global supplier of identification and workplace safety solutions. We serve a wide variety of end markets. You can see them here in the bottom left corner.
No single market is more than 5% of our revenue. You can see from a geographical split standpoint, largely focused on U.S. and EMEA, and then we are starting to see pretty good growth in Asia as well. We serve customers through an omni-channel presence, so direct distribution and also e-commerce. Next slide, please. I want to give you a sense for some of our products. If you walked into any factory, an industrial facility, a warehouse, you have likely interacted with our products, even though you may not have realized they come from Brady. Our largest portfolio is that of product and wire identification. This is labels that go onto various products, assets, wires, pipe markers.
What we do here is we sell printers and connected devices like scanners, that essentially take in data in a variety of ways from our customers and then are able to print highly differentiated performance labels that can be printed on a variety of materials, including metal, plastic, composites, and so on. Think of this as the razor blade model. We sell printers, and that unlocks a revenue stream, which is recurring, of high performance, differentiated, high margin consumables. In our safety business, this is really OSHA or compliance driven. Similar story where we sell industrial printers that print safety tags, labels, and then we are drawing through a pretty big consumable stream.
You'll get the picture. Our healthcare business, which is the smallest business, also takes the same formula where we sell industrial healthcare printers and scanners. We sell a lot of consumables, which are really the wristbands for patient identification at the time of entry. One statistic that we are very proud of is that 90% of babies born in the U.S. have a Brady manufactured wristband label on their wrist when they are born. Next slide, please. Brady has been around for over 100 years, and over that period, it has constantly evolved and transformed. It got its start really as a sign company and a catalog company, and then started pivoting towards, through acquisitions and organic growth, to a more of electronics and a consumables model.
That really takes us to today, where we have just closed in August on Honeywell's Productivity Solutions and Services business, which really positions us as an industrial technology company, moving more towards selected verticals and broad industrial, and squarely focused on identification and productivity solutions. Next slide, please. You can see that in the recent years, we have had an enviable track record of continuing to drive GDP plus, delivering predictable, high-quality revenue, consistent margin performance. Over the course of this period, we have also diversified our product portfolio, and we are putting more technology to work in solving customer problems. As we think about Brady's journey, the IPS acquisition is really the biggest step forward in our transformation journey.
As I said before, we were putting more technology to work in how we solve customer problems. We had sort of been building that portfolio that we coveted around more mobile PCs, printers, scanners, RFID, and in one fell swoop, we have been able to achieve that. If you go to the next slide. This deal, we believe, has really compelling strategic and financial benefits. Let's start with the comprehensive portfolio. We had been building towards this, but now complementing our printer and consumable portfolio, we have a full suite of connected devices and workflow software.
We are also unlocking a lot of growth. We are adding scale with a $1 billion platform from IPS, which brings really strong positions in selected verticals like retail, transport, and logistics. They also have a healthcare offering that becomes very complementary to our healthcare offering. All of this is new and complementary to Brady. The third thing I would tell you is that it has got a great platform for recurring revenue. Just like Brady has a great platform for recurring revenue from its consumables, the IPS business brings recurring revenue opportunity from software and services.
There is an installed base of over 3.5 million devices that are under service contracts, which have a refresh cycle. Incumbency matters a lot in these markets, and so we are in a really good position to continue winning our customers' business and add to it and add more share of wallet as we add more software and services offerings. Then financially, it is accretive out of the gate. Double-digit accretion and has laid out a goal of $0.80 of accretion in year one.
We've taken on a little bit of debt, which we feel very comfortable with at about 2.5x . We're generating a lot of cash, and we have a clear de-leveraging path within two years to get below 2x while continuing to support our current capital allocation strategy. If you go to the next slide, you can see the portfolio that we are getting with the IPS business. Yes, there is a very strong hardware platform here around mobility, around scanners, around print. But what we get excited about is the software, the voice-activated solutions, which really adds to productivity, freeing up both hands when you think about operators in a factory or in a warehouse or in a logistics environment. There is a huge services component, which is very profitable, that we're going to add to our business.
There's a smaller piece around OEM business where we sell or provide barcode engines for third-party manufacturers to integrate into their offerings. If you go to the next slide. This really starts to show the big market that we can now address. Brady was already addressing roughly about a $4 billion-$5 billion market, and with the IPS business, the Productivity Solutions business, we now are expanding our end market served to total about $14 billion. When we think about what we're going to serve that business, that end market with, we've got common elements across Brady and the IPS business of printers, scanners, and RFID. Each brings unique elements around performance materials, direct part marking business, and the IPS business brings mobility, software service, and tools. It's really a very complementary acquisition for us. Next slide, please.
From a geographical standpoint, we're both in the same places, so that gives us a lot of synergies to work with. Ann has put out a target of $25 million of cost synergies by year three and we are very confident of getting to that number, and hopefully a little bit earlier. Next slide, please. When you then think of a manufacturing environment or an industrial environment, whether it's logistics, warehouse, or back of retail, you now start to see how Brady has a comprehensive offering covering everything from identity to intelligence. It's identify the products, collect the data, that's the identification and capture part, through a variety of means. It's standard high performance, standard labels, high performance labels, RFID labels. The scanning part is through handheld scanners, fixed scanners. You have workflow solutions, which include software that resides on devices as well as in the cloud.
We also have voice solutions that automate a lot of that, making the operator more productive. In addition, we have safety offerings, which help to, help the facility comply with whatever safety regulations there are, whether it's OSHA in the U.S. or a variety of safety regulations in Europe and in Asia. You can start to see now how we have the ability to take a high degree of share of wallet from customers across the industrial space, in retail, in transport, in logistics. We feel really good about how the portfolio comes together to bring a very comprehensive solution to our customers. Next slide, please. This really then becomes the combined company as we think about the future.
A trusted industry leader that is delivering a comprehensive solution from identity to intelligence, serving broad markets in manufacturing and industrial, along with key verticals in retail, transport, logistics, and healthcare. Going to market through a multiple of channels. Yes, we are in distribution. We have a direct presence, but we also are inheriting a value-added reseller channel that is going to be super valuable as we think about serving the enterprise customers and high quality recurring revenue opportunities from software, from services, and from media.
Next slide, please. This is the view of the combined company. Approaching $3 billion in sales, close to 10,000 employees. What I am really excited about is the capability within the company, the innovation heritage, both from the Brady side, but also from the IPS side, and I feel really strongly about our position to go serve this $14 billion addressable market. Now we are positioned as an industrial technology company that helps customer solve problems and challenges from everything from identification to intelligence. As we think about our future, I could not be more excited and really optimistic about what we can deliver in terms of customer value, but also create a lot of value for all of our shareholders. Okay.
Thanks so much, Vineet. Appreciate it. Just a reminder to everyone, we have about 15 minutes remaining. If you do have a question, we see the queue starting to fill up, click on the Q&A button at the bottom of your screen, type it in, and we will get to as many questions as we can. More of a general question we got out of the gate here, Vineet. How should we think about Brady's new normalized organic growth rate over the next several years? What are the biggest drivers? I would add on to that, how does the addition of IPS change what you would think is your longer-term growth rate?
Yeah. I think that is a great question, and we will take it one by one. The core Brady business has really proven itself to GDP plus, call it 3%-4% type grower. There are parts of the business that grow faster, of course, and I would say our engineered products business, which is our printers and consumables, now have had a pretty good run rate over the past few quarters. There are parts of the business, especially in Europe, which look a lot more like distribution businesses. They are more buy resale, and so they tend to grow more at GDP. I think collectively, the Brady IDS business, I think you should think about it as mid-single digit grower over the next few years. The IPS business, here is how we think about it.
Obviously, we are now six to seven weeks into owning the business, so there's a lot we're still learning. When we look at the end market, roughly $10 billion growing at about 4% CAGR for the next few years. We are a very distant number two to Zebra Technologies, which is obviously the big player in this space. We think about this space as more, there is a lot of blue ocean in front of us.
There's a lot of work to do as well. We have to make sure we're investing in the right products and solutions in the sales and marketing effort. We think that over the course of the next few years, we'll return this business back to growth. We haven't really guided for what that growth rate could be. If the market's growing at 4%, our aspiration will definitely be to grow faster than that market. So, we'll provide more specific guidance, I think, as the year unfolds.
Okay. Because we've heard Zebra's guidance, which is on the top line, pretty strong for growth.
Yeah.
Are they taking share?
Yeah. I think it's very early days.
Yeah.
I think Zebra's built a really compelling business. They are doing a lot in terms of new technology. I think as we learn about the business, it's clear that there's a great technology foundation, but there is a lot of work to do to make sure that that solution set is more competitive in the marketplace than it is today. I think we have work to do.
Okay. Are there things you can do differently that maybe Honeywell was not as focused on as a smaller piece for a much larger business that maybe-
Yeah. Exactly. That's exactly the way to think about it, right? For Honeywell, this was a billion-dollar, a rounding error as part of the portfolio, not really strategic. For us, it's going to be 40% of the company right now. I think what's exciting is the synergies we're seeing already from a product and a solution set standpoint. We're strong in printers. They're strong in mobility, in scanning, in software. Collectively, we're going to invest $200 million plus in R&D. We have now over 1,000 engineers and scientists that we can now bring together to focus on solving these specific problems.
So, I would say, us and Zebra are in the same waters, but two very different organizations and two very different positions. With a lot of respect for what Zebra is doing and what they've achieved, but we're obviously going to be in a very different space. I think there are things we can do around our customer base and our products and solutions, which are going to be differentiated, which should result in a lot of value creation for our shareholders.
That's very helpful. Another question we have, how are you thinking about paying down debt after the PSS acquisition? Is getting below 2x net leverage within two years still the target?
Yeah. I think it is, and I'll start, and Ann can jump in. I think let's start with we are very profitable and cash generative, right?
Yeah.
2.5x, which is our current leverage, is a very comfortable place to be. Even though Brady has not been there for a while. We feel really good about our ability to maintain our capital allocation strategy while paying down debt. Ann, I don't know if you want to add more.
Sure, absolutely, yeah. Thanks, Vineet. We reiterated this on our Q4 earnings call as well, that our expectation is to get below 2x net leverage within the first two years of owning this business, and we are comfortable with that. Our last fiscal year not only was another record adjusted EPS year for Brady, it was also a record cash generating year. The organic business generated $244 million of cash flow from operating activities, which was up 35% from the prior year. That streak has been very consistent, where we generally do have the ability to generate cash in excess of our net earnings, which is fantastic. The organic business is firing. We are doing a fantastic job, and we keep that continual approach, cash-based decision-making long term, and that serves us well. We feel very good about that.
Well, I know I asked you about this on the earnings call specifically because I was surprised at the relatively low CapEx, given the size of the enterprise now.
Yeah.
I think, Vineet, both of you commented on the assets you are acquiring were in great shape, and it is an asset-light acquisition. This could actually be a further contributor to-
Exactly right.
...sort of a cash flow yield or a cash flow margin.
Exactly right.
We believe so. We believe so, yep.
Yep. Steve, you picked up on an important point to note as well, that our CapEx for the organic business in 2026, the year that we just finalized and released, was a little over $50 million. The reason for that, and the reason as you do look back, reason for some increases in certain years are really just facility purchases. Over time-
Right.
...as certain leased facilities have reached the end of a lease term, and if it's the right long-term decision for us, we've converted those into owned facilities. So from a historical perspective, that's really what drives the spike. We're generally pretty CapEx light.
Yeah.
It's a good point to note.
Absolutely. You were touching on this a little bit earlier, Vineet, and I want to just sort of hone in on it a little bit. When we've talked about the synergies, it's really been cost synergies. You haven't talked too much, I know it's early going, in terms of revenue synergies and cross-selling. When I think about Brady, and I know this isn't entirely fair, I think about generally serving small and midsize businesses. We could name the larger, we know the larger businesses you do. We think about what you're acquiring, which sort of they're thought of as being serving a larger businesses. Does that lend itself to obvious cross-selling? Given you're in the same end markets, but maybe serving different customers.
Yeah, it's a great question. We think about the growth synergies in two ways, right? Yes, there are some cost synergies, but frankly, that's not why we acquired this company. When we think about growth synergies, we start with this acquisition unlocks nearly a $10 billion addressable market for us that we don't play in today. It is largely focused on enterprise, even though there are small to medium business opportunities here, right? You're right in thinking that Brady today is really masterfully serving the small to medium business enterprise, as well as smaller facilities which are part of a larger enterprise, right? We do serve factories of large conglomerates.
Right.
We serve aerospace and defense from a safety standpoint and a product identification standpoint. But really what we are now able to do is go to, at the enterprise level, selling to CIOs, CTOs, a very comprehensive workflow solution that is deeply embedded in their productivity calculations, right? When you think about retail operations, and you have scanners in the front of the house, if you will, where associates are using our scanners to ensure, tell customers what they have in stock, and then the back office where the operators are using our scanners and printers to make sure that they're being more productive in the warehouse operations.
Whether you look at transportation logistics and airlines, top of the wing, below the wing, we are now able to bring the entire portfolio to bear for those customers.n I think the second way to think about the growth is around the portfolio. I referenced this earlier that we have some overlap in printers and RFID as an example.
Yeah.
But really other aspects of our portfolio are very unique. And so that's a great opportunity for us to bring, for example, ruggedized handhelds through the small to medium business channel into a Brady IDS business. And at the same time, take our printer portfolio, which is really best in class for small to medium business, and bring feature sets over to the IPS business platform where they have really underinvested in the printer side.
Okay. Fair enough. It's very helpful. Do have a question coming in in terms of, it's only been six to seven weeks, but what surprised you so far, positive or negatively, regarding IPS? And obviously for Brady, this is, as you've noted, much larger than we've seen in recent history. Clearly, there's going to be additional integration challenges maybe you hadn't thought of or had thought of but hadn't necessarily dealt with historically. How are you meeting those challenges and developing those muscles which maybe are new to Brady?
Yeah. So it's a very good question and a fair question, and I want to start by saying it's still very early. Seven weeks, it's still very early.
Sure.
To me, integrations always start with people, and so I think where we are learning the most right now is getting to know the team, getting to know the capabilities. I'm on the road a lot, as is Ann, spending a lot of time in the facilities of the acquired business, meeting various people, and learning about the operations. And I think what has been a really good surprise for us is the depth of talent, the caliber of people, and how committed they are to the business and to serving the customers, right? So I think when you hear about sometimes business that is neglected within a larger enterprise, you worry that there's been a lot of talent flight.
Yeah.
I think that was one of the concerns we had, and I think that's been largely dispelled because we're really pleased with the caliber of people, the leadership team. It's not to say that we don't need to make investments, and we don't need to think about how do we go forward. But on the whole, I would say we're very pleased.
The second area which I think has been a positive surprise is you always worry is the portfolio competitive? I think as we've dug under the covers, both the strength of the customer relationships, the strength of the portfolio, the stuff that is on the roadmap, I think is pretty encouraging. We are very encouraged with what we're seeing there. In terms of integration surprises, look, this is a carve-out from Honeywell, so for the next 12, 18 months, we're under transition services agreements on a bunch of things from finance to IT to HR to legal.
So really no major surprises because now it's been a few weeks of the two teams working together. We're still sort of finding our groove. I think from an integration standpoint, IT systems always tend to be the longest pole in the tent. No surprise that's what it is here. Thankfully, we are on the same ERP platform and the same instance of the ERP platform, right?
That's not a small thing. That's not a small thing.
That's not a small thing. It doesn't make it easy.
Right.
But it's a huge, we're in the same ballpark, right?
Yeah.
So that makes a huge difference. I think all signs are very encouraging at this point, but obviously, a lot of work to do to make sure that we are winning more than our fair share in the market.
Fair enough. If we could pull back a little bit, could you talk a little bit about the macro dynamics you're seeing out there? I think we saw a little bit in the most recent quarter, and we're certainly hearing that from our industrial group. It's just definitely a divergence U.S. versus Europe, and how you're managing those two markets, which are clearly not recently been moving in the same, maybe in the same-
Yeah.
...direction, but at very different paces.
That is right. That is right. I think that has been true for a couple of years now. I think in the U.S., it is pretty clear that the data center CapEx boom is trickling through all sectors of the economy, and it is benefiting industrial activity at a pretty large scale. When you think about our core Brady business, you have to directly tie it to industrial activity, right? So higher industrial activity or measured as higher PMI in this case, will result in more orders for our core IDS business, right? Because we are present in all industries, really at the ground floor in manufacturing and industrial spaces. So we love that. The European side, on the other hand, I think has been really facing a lot of macro headwinds, right?
The Ukraine crisis, the energy crisis as a result of over-reliance on Russia for gas, for energy. The conflict in the Middle East has sort of exacerbated the pressures they were already feeling. Our focus has been unique, right? So in North America, we are focused on capitalizing on the growth that the market is offering us and how fast can we grow, invest with new products, and so on. In Europe, the focus has been more on how do we manage our costs, and what does the right portfolio look like. I am really encouraged that our European team has focused on what they can control, optimize the portfolio, manage their costs, and we are starting to see some growth, green shoots around the engineered services, so placing more printers and pulling in more consumables, right?
Yeah.
That is a smaller part of the portfolio versus North America and Asia, but it is starting to become more meaningful.
Okay. We are close to end of time. I do want to just touch on what you are seeing now, even post-earnings around inflationary pressures getting harder. How are you grappling with them?
Yeah. I would say inflation is still there, though maybe the pace of inflation has moderated a little bit.
Okay.
I think when we think about the core Brady business, electronics is not as huge of a buy as compared to the IPS business.
Yeah.
General inflation, diesel is obviously a tax on all industries. We're seeing sort of general inflation, and I think the team is doing a nice job of staying ahead of it. On the IPS business, it's a bigger electronics purchase.
Yeah.
Memory's a bigger part of the, for example, the mobility PC segment, and that's where I think the team is making sure that they're staying ahead of things, and that's where we're working with them pretty actively, right? Continues to be one of the challenges of this year.
Yeah. Fair enough. No, we are just about out of time. I think it's been a very informative half hour. I do want to give you a chance, Vineet, if you have any closing thoughts.
Thank you for the opportunity, Steve. Thanks everybody for joining. This is a great time at Brady. We are on the ground floor of what is going to be, or early innings of what I think is promising to be a very successful and high potential next couple of years. So really appreciate you guys giving us some time to talk about Brady and what we've got going for us.
Vineet Nargolwala, CEO of Brady Corp, as well as Ann Thornton, CFO. Thanks so much for being here.
Thank you.
Hope everyone has a great remainder of the conference.
Thank you, Steve.