Good morning, and welcome to Dover's second quarter 2022 earnings conference call. Speaking today are Richard Tobin, President and Chief Executive Officer, Brad Cerepak, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Jack Dickens, Senior Director of Investor Relations. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer period. If you would like to ask a question during this time, press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, please press the pound key. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, this conference call is being recorded, and your participation implies consent to the recording of this call. If you do not agree with these terms, please disconnect at this time. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Jack Dickens. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, Emma. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call. An audio version of this call will be available on our website through August eleventh. The replay link of the webcast will be archived for three months. Dover provides non-GAAP information. Reconciliations between GAAP and adjusted measures are included in our investor supplement and presentation materials, which are available on our website. Our comments today will include forward-looking statements based on current expectations. Actual results and events could differ from those statements due to a number of risks and uncertainties, which are discussed in our SEC filings. We assume no obligation to update our forward-looking statements. With that, I will turn the call over to Rich.
Thanks, Jack. Good morning, everybody. Let's start with the performance highlights on slide three . Our team delivered a strong second quarter performance, which related to record quarterly revenue and sequential year-over-year earnings growth. Consolidated organic revenue growth was 7% in the quarter as our businesses continued to capitalize on strong backlogs and pricing actions continued to take hold. We believe our ability to execute and provide needed capacity in today's challenging environment has led to noteworthy share gains in multiple markets, which is positive for our continued growth. Component shortages and COVID lockdowns in China did negatively impact shipment volumes and consequently efficiency and fixed cost absorption in several businesses during the period.
Despite these difficulties as well as FX headwinds, our absolute segment profit increased year-over-year, and operating margin improved sequentially in the quarter, driven by cost controls, good volume, and meaningfully improving price cost dynamics. Our strong balance sheet provides flexibility for value-creating capital allocation initiatives. We are investing in capacity expansions and productivity improvements across many of our operating companies to capitalize on secular revenue growth opportunities, capture market share, and drive improvements in operational performance. The recently announced Malema acquisition will enhance our biopharma business, closed on July 1st, and we continue our pursuit of attractive bolt-on acquisitions. We also repurchased $85 million worth of shares in the second quarter and will continue to proactively evaluate capital deployment alternatives through the remainder of the year.
Our strong backlog, constructive demand outlook, and execution playbook position us well to deliver growth in revenue and earnings amidst an increasingly uncertain macroeconomic backdrop. We are maintaining our 2022 adjusted full year guidance of $8.45-$8.65 per share. I'll skip slide four, which shows the detailed quarterly results. Let's move on to slide five to discuss segment performance. Engineered Products revenue was up 19% organically in the quarter on broad-based strength across the portfolio in major geographies as well as pricing actions. Margins were up 130 basis points sequentially, and we expect the trend to continue through the second half as price cost spread continues to roll forward.
Clean Energy and Fueling volumes were driven by strength in clean energy components, vehicle wash, and below-ground fueling components, offset by the expected roll-off of EMV-related demand in North America, which peaked in the comparable quarter last year. Margins in the quarter were down year-over-year on lower volumes and constrained inputs, and to a certain extent, mix. The sequential margin improvement was significant, however, at 410 basis points versus last quarter, driven by improving cost dynamics and product mix. In Imaging & Identification, our volumes in our core marking and coding business were constrained by electronics and other input shortages as well as COVID lockdowns in China, which offset growth in our serialization and brand management software businesses.
FX is a material negative headwind to absolute revenue profits in the segment, given its large base of international revenue. Q2 margins in Imaging & Identification were impacted by lower volumes and production stoppages in Asia, but improved sequentially. The team has done a good job in cost containment and finding alternative suppliers to alleviate supply chain constraints, and we are confident about good margin conversion in the second half. Pumps & Process Solutions posted a 7% organic growth on strong double-digit growth in our core non-COVID biopharma business, as well as robust growth in medical and thermal connectors, industrial pumps, polymer processing, and precision components. Operating margin in the quarter remained robust at 31%+, despite a mix shift towards industrial components.
Top line in Climate & Sustainability Technologies continued to be strong, posting 11% organic growth on solid volume in heat exchangers and beverage can making, as well as pricing across all businesses. Volumes in Food Retail were constrained by supply chain challenges which negatively impact cost efficiency and will result in shipments pushing out into Q4. Comparable and sequential margins were up in the quarter on better mix and price cost, though partially offset by production inefficiencies and input shortages. As you can see, we're marching towards our mid-teens operating margin target in this segment. I'll pass it on to Brad here.
All right. Thanks, Rich. Good morning, everyone. Let's go to slide six. The top bridge shows our organic revenue growth of 7% driven by increases in three of our five segments. FX was substantial at 4% or $74 million headwind to our revenue growth and also to our profitability, resulting in -$0.08 EPS in the quarter. We expect FX to remain a headwind for the year compared to our prior expectations. In all, changes in foreign currency translations from April until today are estimated to have a full year 2022 impact of an incremental $0.10. M&A contributed $49 million to the top line in the quarter, a product of $84 million from acquisitions, partially offset by $34 million from the Unified Brands divestiture. We saw organic growth across the U.S. and Europe.
Asia was flat organically in the quarter as China was down 4%, driven principally by COVID lockdowns, offset by growth in other parts of the region. Our businesses in China have resumed operations and are currently seeing recovery in production in regionally sourced components. On the bottom of the chart, bookings were down year-over-year, primarily due to foreign exchange and a one-off $74 million debooking in beverage can making due to customer financing limitations. Likewise, our backlog was negatively impacted by the aforementioned debooking, as well as a negative impact from FX. Let's go to the earnings bridges on slide seven.
Before I get into the charts, I want to remind everyone we now exclude the impact of acquisition amortization accounting from our segment earnings, which avoids the deal-related noise quarter to quarter and better aligns the basis of our segment earnings presentation with our consolidated adjusted EPS. This change had no impact to our GAAP earnings or adjusted EPS. Now to the charts. Segment earnings were up $9 million in the quarter on improved volumes and price costs, though partially offset by supply chain constraints and foreign exchange headwinds. Segment margins were down 80 basis points. Adjusted net earnings improved by $10 million, driven by higher segment earnings and favorable corporate expenses, partially offset by higher taxes. The effective tax rate, excluding discrete tax benefits, was approximately 21.5% for the quarter, comparable to the prior year period.
Discrete tax benefits were lower than the prior year at $4 million in the quarter, or approximately $0.03 of EPS. This compares to discrete tax benefits of 8 cents in the second quarter of 2021. We expect our back half tax rate to be in the range of 21%-22%. Our cash flow statement is on slide eight. Free cash flow declined in the first half of the year, driven by working capital investments and inventory necessitated by the high backlog, supply chain constraints, and exacerbated by input shortages preventing completion of some work in process inventory in the quarter, as well as higher receivable balances on growing sales. The quarter also included $43 million tax payment related to the sale of Unified Brands. Capital expenditures were up year-over-year and are principally in support of our robust growth expectations across several businesses.
Free cash flow was 6% of revenue in the quarter and would have been 8% excluding the UBT tax payment. We expect cash conversion to improve in the second half of the year, more in line with typical cash conversion seasonality in our businesses, driven by earnings conversion and inventory reductions. With that, I'm going to turn it back to Rich.
All right. Thanks, Brad. Let's go to slide nine. This slide is our current view of the demand outlook, operational environment, and margin drivers for the remainder of 2022 by segment. We expect top line in Engineered Products to remain robust based on elevated backlogs and implemented price increases. Vehicle Service Group continues to see a constructive demand environment across all geographies, with particular strength in North America. Demand for refuse collection vehicles and parts remains very strong, and our connected collections digital business is significantly outperforming expectations. Our backlog includes fully implemented price actions that support the projected recovery in margins. We expect volume, productivity, and improved price cost spread to be positive drivers of earnings accretion and margin improvement in the second half of the year.
At Clean Energy and Fueling, we expect to see robust growth in the second half of the year. After a roughly flat first half, we continue to see solid demand in North America for below-ground retail fueling, fuel transport, vehicle wash, and software solutions. Our acquisitions in Clean Energy components continue to outperform their year one acquisition models, and we have already begun to deploy capital in these businesses to expand capacity and improve productivity. We expect margin performance to improve in the second half on stronger volumes and mix, which will drive improved full-year margins in this segment. We expect volumes in Imaging & Identification to improve as component shortages subside, with China recovering from second quarter COVID shutdowns.
We continue to work to identify alternative electronics providers to alleviate component bottlenecks going forward, and we're beginning to see some inquiries and approved order rates for large-scale printers and digital textile printing, a positive development in an industry that has experienced a prolonged recovery. We expect margin to improve in the second half and better volume and cost containment while keeping a close eye on FX. In Pumps & Process Solutions, activity in industrial pumps remain solid. Polymer processing has booked several big projects that lay the foundation for a very strong second half, and we recently received our single largest order ever for the business in early July. Precision Components continued its upward trajectory in both bearings and compressor components across all geographies as investments in energy sector pick up.
We expect the current below-normal demand trend in biopharma to continue for the balance of the year as biopharma manufacturers finish transitioning their R&D pipelines and production systems from COVID-related businesses to other growing biologic therapies. We expect Climate & Sustainability Technologies to post double-digit organic growth this year, driven by large backlog and pricing initiatives. Demand remains robust across all lines in Food Retail, while input shortages have hampered Food Retail shipments, they are expected to improve, resulting in a catch-up of deferred shipments into the second half of the year. Our heat exchanger business is positioned well on strong order rates across all geographies and end markets, in particular, in the European heat pump business. In Belvac beverage packaging equipment business continues to work through its record backlog.
We have already been awarded new projects in Q3 to materially offset the debooking in Q2. We expect margins to improve year-over-year on volume leverage and positive price-cost dynamics and normalizing supply chains. Let's go to slide 10. I presented this slide at a recent conference, but it bears repeating as not everyone attended the event, and the topic continues to be actively debated. There is a view that booking rates are the sole predictor of demand and revenue growth, and negative year-over-year bookings on top of a record 2021 are somehow spelling trouble. None of us know what the future holds, especially in the current environment, but let's level set on the basics here. First, if you look at our revenue and bookings, they have historically been correlated.
Because of demand wave coming out of the pandemic, coupled with extended lead times from supply chain issues and some change in product mix, our bookings jumped in 2021 to $9.4 billion, well ahead of our revenue last year and our guide for 2022 revenue. That resulted in backlogs that are at record highs, roughly double where they have normally been on a 12-month revenue basis. That over time should come down, which is healthy because it means our lead times are coming down and global supply chains are improving. Our backlog is sufficient to feed revenue growth for a significant period, and it's worth noting that our backlogs midway through the year are still higher than they were at the beginning of the year.
Despite a decline in bookings, our book-to-bill ratio so far this year is still above one and in line with historical trends. Our current booking and backlog trends should position us to enter 2023 on solid footing. Let's move to slide 11, and we show historical first half versus second half margin performance. Historically, Dover has generated higher margins the second half of the year. Last year was an anomaly as input inflation and supply chain constraints and COVID shutdowns hit the second half. Our sequential margin trajectory is upward and progressing largely as expected, and we remain confident about the positive second half margin dynamics in line with historical seasonality. Although I would note that Q4 will contribute more to absolute profits than normal on backlog and order timing, and as we liquidate a large work in progress balances of inventory.
Make no mistake, we remain concerned with the inflation trajectory and general macro backdrop and the different demand scenarios that are possible in 2022. We have a playbook to act decisively to adapt both from a cost structure and working capital perspective on the different demand conditions. Sitting here today, looking at our backlogs, significant portions of our portfolio are sold out for 2022, so we would expect order rates to inflect positively as we go into the second half. We have levers that are not demand dependent. We have positive contributions from our organic capital deployment and productivity initiatives, and our four enterprise pillar efforts will positively contribute to next year's earnings. We also have very interesting and underappreciated portions of our portfolio, where secular demand growth will outperform the broader industrial market.
In closing, I'd like to thank my colleagues around the globe for their continued dedication to strong performance in a demanding operating environment. Jack, I'll hand it back to you, and we can get to the Q&A.
If you would like to ask a question, simply press the star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, please press the pound key. We ask participants to limit themselves to one question and one follow-up. We'll take our first question from Andrew Obin with Bank of America.
Hi, yes, good morning. Just, you mentioned FX impact in the quarter, $0.08. What was it versus expectations? What is the new guide assumed for FX impact on EPS basis versus the previous guide?
Well, okay, I'll take that. You know, I think within the quarter.
Thanks, Brad. Good morning.
Within the quarter, you know, the impact was about $0.02 of our EPS against our expectations. I said for the full year, you know, from here forward, it would be about $0.10. I think you're asking me, you know, specifically what kind of forecast rate are we using. I could say we're using a euro of about 1.05. Today, it's trading at about 1.02, so maybe the headwind's a little bit higher. We'll see. We'll see what happens now, going forward, especially with the ECB raising rates.
Gotcha. Then, just another question on commodities. You know, commodities broadly down from their peak. How should we think about, you know, you definitely highlighted that supply chain is getting better into the second half, but how should we think about, you know, that flowing into Dover COGS? Is it a six-month lag? Is it a 12-month lag?
On the commodity side, we get the majority of it in the second half, right? All of that has been in inventory for some period of times, and what we've been waiting for is the pricing to roll forward. We've seen a significant improvement in Q2, and the expectation is on the backlog, the raw materials being fully priced in the back half of the year, in those businesses that are exposed to raw materials, and that's why we're confident about the margin accretion potential.
Is there any sort of incremental margin, just as effects create some incremental headwinds? Is there incremental margin of safety from commodity decline as we think about, you know, towards exiting the year?
You know, that's too complicated for me, Andrew. We run it. You know, over the last couple weeks, we've watched a significant devaluation of the euro against the dollar, and we were modeling if that pace was to continue. It's pretty drastic. As Brad mentioned, I think there's been some recovery and some noise out of the ECB about raising interest rates buffering that impact. You know, we're gonna have to see. Remember, too, that we're gonna convert at average rates, so you've got to be careful about taking spot rates and then.
Right.
Trying to run the math on the second half of the year.
I would just add that, you know, as it relates to pricing commodities, you know, I feel good about the fact that all of our price actions are enacted going into this back half. We'll see what happens with commodities. I mean, that's basically all we can say is we'll see.
Rich, Brad, always a pleasure. Thanks.
Thanks.
Our next question comes from Jeff Sprague with Vertical Research.
Hello. Hello, everybody.
Jeff.
Hey, just two from me. First, Rich, just on this Belvac situation. You know, we tend to think of the customers, Coke, Pepsi, Crown, Ball, et cetera. A little surprised to hear somebody had a financing issue. Could you just elaborate a little bit more on what happened there? Then, maybe the backfilling you're talking about is somebody stepping in and taking those slots?
Yeah. I mean, look, capacity has been constrained in can making for three years now, right? That's what's been driving a lot of the capital investment by the can makers. What you've also seen is a lot of companies that rather than going to the can makers are vertically integrating. That happened to be a particular project in Eastern Europe, which was a vertical integration play with the blow-up of the equity markets and financing conditions changed, the order got canceled. Having said that, like I said, subsequent event, we got a $40 million order last week. You know, we had to de-book it. That's life. None of the revenue and earnings for that particular order impact 2022. That was actually a 2023 project.
Great. Interesting. Then just on the trajectory for the year here, I mean, clearly what you're saying about price cost and trends would indicate a sequential improvement in Q3 versus Q2, but you also are signaling a, you know, a little bit more Q4 weighting. Could you just give us a little more color on how you expect the back half to play out here, just to make sure we're all properly triangulated?
Sure. Look, I mean, at the end of the day, this was the quarter where we really had to chin the bar because that was the highest profitability quarter since the demerger, or the spin-off, that we had to chin the bar. To the extent that we chinned the bar considering everything was going on, this is the one we're probably most worried about this year, and we chinned the bar. So my comment on just the seasonality of the back end of the year, you can see the chart that we put into the presentation. I would just caution that because of this issue about all this work in process that we have, I would expect that to continue through Q3, meaning that we're gonna actually pushing a lot more out the door in Q4 than we historically have been.
As you know, generally speaking, we would kind of run flat out and then run for cash in Q4 historically. The supply chain issues are not repairing themselves, at least sitting here today, at the speed that would allow us to deplete a significant part of our backlog and our WIP in Q3, so it's gonna move into Q4, which is all baked into the full year forecast. It was more of a comment of just be, you know, not that we give a damn about quarterly results, we're a full year company here, but I think that Q4 will be higher proportionally in terms of earnings than the historical trend.
Great. Thanks a lot.
You're welcome.
Our next question comes from Scott Davis with Melius Research.
Hey, good morning, guys.
Hey, Scott.
The sharp move we saw in FX, I mean, is there a point where there's a demand destruction challenge? Perhaps framing how much of your product is kind of moving from dollar-based regions to non-dollar-based regions would be helpful in that regard. Is there a certain point where you start to get nervous?
I'm more nervous about the European macro than I am about FX. We don't ship hardly anything from the U.S. into Europe, where we run into problems with euro dollar of any consequence. It is a bit of a, you know, I don't think that there's a significant competitive advantage that we've been taking advantage of with, you know, a lower dollar versus the euro over time. From a demand point of view, I don't think FX is an issue. I think that European macro is more of an issue. We don't see the effects of it today, but I mean, we're not naive. I mean, things aren't great with energy costs where they are and everything else there.
How about emerging markets, where perhaps they have to buy in US dollars for product?
Again, you know, we do a lot of for region, in region. The products that we ship into emerging markets. What, how do I wanna put this? I mean, there is no Asian competitor for Maag, for example. So we'll come under some pressure from a pricing point of view, maybe in the future, if we assume that the dollar remains strong against emerging market currencies. But right now, you know, I think that between, you know, some of the bigger capital goods side, like the Maags and the Belvacs of the world, I think we can weather that.
Okay. Just quickly last, the Imaging ID business, any of your consumer goods customers delaying orders or talking about, you know, any slowdown in demand there?
No, not really. I mean, we just had some operational problems in Q2. I mean, we are levered from a production point of view to Asia, to China specifically. So we've had some issue. We had to shut our operations down there in Q2 for a period of time during the lockdown, and we are caught up in some of the supply chain on electronics components there. That, you know, ended the quarter with a decent improvement there. So I would expect that at least on the printer portion of the business, we'll catch up in the second half. We do not see a deterioration on the consumable side.
Yeah, I would say we lost in that segment about four points of growth because of the shutdowns in China and the component supplies within that business, which catches up in the back half.
Okay. Thank you, Brad. Thanks, Rich. Take care.
Thanks.
We'll go next to Joe Ritchie with Goldman Sachs.
Thanks. Good morning, everyone.
Joe.
Hey, Rich, can we start on pricing and the expectation first for the rest of the year that you guys put up that 6 points of price this quarter. There's a lot of discussion right now around, you know, base metal prices are deflating. You know, how are companies gonna have to give back some pricing as commodities deflate? Can you maybe just provide some context for how that's gonna work across your business?
Yeah. It's gonna be an interesting dynamic. Number one, price-cost inflects materially positive in the second half. All of our pricing is done for the year. So any pricing action we're taking now is more of a 2023 issue. Raw materials costs are coming down. We didn't reprice our backlog into the headwind, and we have no intention of repricing our backlog into the tailwind, and that is something that's been an active dialogue with our customers now for what seems like forever, but I guess the last year.
If prices have to come down because raw materials are deflating, that's actually positive to margins because, you know, if we look at price cost on a rolling twelve-month basis, you basically took a big headwind in the back half of last year into the Q1 of this year, and then you get a tailwind in the balance of the year. You end up mostly, at least on the capital goods side, a net neutral over time. It's just you have the spread between the liquidation of the backlog timing. If it comes down in pricing, yeah, it is a headwind to revenue, but it's actually a positive to operating margin.
Maybe just kind of following up on that, on the piece of the business that's not backlog sensitive for most of your business, right, the short cycle piece, would you expect to be just, you know, in a deflationary backdrop, dollar neutral? You know, would you be dollar positive? I'm just trying to get a sense whether you get to keep some of it, as we kind of progress over the next 12 months.
Yeah. On the short cycle portion of the business, I wouldn't expect that there's not that dynamic of input cost tied to market pricing. I mean, that's really the capital goods portion of the business, both ourselves and our customers, that is an ongoing dialogue just because of the proportionality of the input costs, and you can see what the dynamic is on the raw material side. On the short cycle portion of the business, there is not that direct link. I mean, barring the competitive environment becoming incredibly aggressive in 2023, I would expect that, you know, it's our intention to keep the pricing that we've laid in.
Got it. No, that's helpful. If I could just sneak one more in. Just the Pumps & Process margins finally saw some degradation this quarter. You guys have been kind of calling out mix in that business for the last couple of quarters. Is this kind of like the right new level? Is this like 31% type margin? Do you expect further degradation in the coming quarters?
Yeah, look, I mean, let's not get into quarter-to-quarter performance. You know, I think that we've been clear over the last 18 months or so that, you know, that 30% margin is pretty much the new normal. There'll be some volatility quarter by quarter, clearly based on mix. You know, and it's not all bad at the end of the day. I think on the biopharma side, you know, the demand as our customers convert is gonna be slow, as I said, in the second half of the year. We believe in terms of, our ability to retain our share of that marketplace is absolutely solid. We're specced in a significant amount of our customer base, so it's just as biopharma transitions. Remember too, there's other portions of that business that are dilutive to that margin.
When we post an organic growth number, I believe it was 7% more or less in DPPS for the quarter, a lot of that growth was from the industrial component side, which is dilutive to that margin. We don't try to manage segment margin. Basically, we're pushing all these companies as much as we can, so if we have dilutive mix, that's not necessarily a bad thing. We want every piece of that segment to grow over time. We're actually quite pleased with the performance of Maag. As I mentioned, that is its backlog is going up well into 2023 now, and the turnaround that we're seeing in precision components, which is levered to the energy sector.
Makes sense. Thanks, guys.
We'll go next to Steve Tusa, J.P. Morgan.
Hey, guys. Good morning.
Hey.
Morning.
Just to be clear on kind of these price cost questions. I think Andrew was trying to ask about when you guys would see deflation given where commodity prices are today. I interpret your answer as it's not like you're seeing it in the second half, that's more of price catching up with the inflation. So at what point would you see, you know, lower steel, lower copper, you know, run through your revenue line item? You know, 6 months, 9 months, 12 months?
Yeah. I mean.
What's the timing on that? Just to be clear on that answer.
Sure. I guess, you know, now we're gonna go operating company by operating. I'll give you two examples. I mean, I think in SWEP, because that has got an inflation deflator that probably rolls every 90 days or quarterly, you would begin to see that a little earlier. It's net neutral in SWEP in terms of its operating margin or its performance. In the other capital goods side, specifically on ESG, we wouldn't see that until mid-next year, probably, based on backlogs.
Right. Kind of blended for the cap goods businesses, six months?
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Okay. Yeah, yeah. Beginning of next year. You're not seeing that in this year is the point in that. That's mostly price catching item.
Look, I think it's completely manageable. I mean.
Yeah
The issue is going to be what happens to the competitive environment going into 2023, and we'll see there, depending on what demand looks like. For us, you know, I like where we stand in terms of our competitive stacks, right? The vast majority of our business have very few global competitors, and I don't expect to see, you know, if demand comes down, that you've got, you know, some significant headwinds in terms of the pricing environment from a competitive point of view outside of what's happening in raw materials.
Got it. Just a question on orders.
Mm-hmm
Your reported orders, including that deep backlog, you know, the cancellation.
Mm-hmm
So are you saying that those orders next, in the third or just the run rate for the second half, that those will actually be up sequentially because of that impact of the $75 million bucks or whatever it is? Or
What I can tell you.
Maybe just color on sequential orders.
Yes. What I can tell you is that the bar that we had to clear for margin and operating profit and order volume was Q2. Right? So.
Right
... We've been guiding for a year now that this can't go on forever and orders are gonna come down. If you noticed, I'm sure you did, that our backlog didn't deplete at all. I think what Brad was trying to call out, you gotta be really careful going forward here because FX has an impact not only on revenue and profit translation, but on balance sheets also. We'll endeavor-
Right
... to take care of that over time. Again, I'm not worried about our orders. I mean, we've got a significant portion of our portfolio that's sold out for the year.
Right
Can book-to-bill be above one on a reported basis for the next couple of quarters?
Can it be? Yes.
Okay. Is that in your forecast? I mean, anything can happen here.
To be perfectly frank, we don't measure projected book-to-bill. Right?
Right.
We've got revenue forecasts and earnings forecasts, but, you know, no one's running around trying to count orders into the future.
Except us. Thanks.
Yeah. Well, we had a discussion around here about book-to-bill orders and backlog, whether that's too much is too much. At the end of the day, look, you know, this notion that order rates coming down is somehow a precursor of 2023 demand. I think I'd be very careful about that.
Great. Thanks.
You're welcome.
We'll go next to Andrew Kaplowitz of Citigroup.
Good morning, guys.
Morning.
Rich, maybe just to follow up on that, can you give us a little more color on the puts and takes of your revenue guidance for the year? I know we just talked about currency and FX, but you actually raised your organic growth guidance for the year despite lowering expectations a little bit in DII and DPPS. Does your higher organic growth forecast come from more momentum in specific businesses, you know, DEP, DCEF, or is it more confidence in supply chain easing?
Well, let's see. Number one, the back half is actually an easier comp. I'm gonna repeat myself again. Q2 was the comp that we had to clear, and we actually grew over Q2. If you look at the growth that we posted for Q2, which was the highest bar that we had to clear, if you take a look at what happened in the second half of last year, right, in terms of absolute growth, we're in pretty good shape there. You know, Brad went through what our estimates are on FX, and we're gonna be like everybody else. We're just gonna have to watch that as it progresses through the year.
Look, if you take a look at our cash flow, which is negatively impacted by largely inventory, you know, we've got a significant amount of not so much finished goods, but a lot of raw materials and WIP. Our intention is to convert a significant portion of that, which means selling it at the end of the day against our backlog, which drives the top line, and we are gonna run like crazy between now and the end of the year to liquidate that inventory position, which should be really good for the cash flow going forward. I mean, you know, the one watch point is going to be how much we ship in December and whether that gets hung up in receivables or not. You know what? That, that's irrelevant, quite frankly. It's a timing difference.
We're looking at the one that we're driving at the most is we've got to clear that WIP out of inventory, which would have the knock-on effect of clearing the raw material position that we have.
Rich or Brad, maybe I can follow up on the cash flow. Obviously, you've had your initial cash flow guide out there, 13%-15% of sales. I know cash flow improves sequentially, but as you were just talking about, Rich, you know, it seems pretty back-end loaded. You know, any update on sort of that original guidance or how to think about, you know, cash flow conversion over the next couple quarters?
Look, Andy, it's basically what I said, right? There's nothing changed here about the cash flow dynamic. Our earnings are going up for the year. That's a positive. We have brought in more inventory because of all these supply chain issues. I'm not worried about it because our inventory position proportionally against the backlog that we have is fine. We're going to flush a significant portion of the inventory in the second half of the year. What happens in payables and receivables based on timing and everything else, I think the only watch point would be on the receivables balance at the end of the year. Then, you know, the world doesn't end on January 31st. I'm not calling out that we've got an issue with the guidance, and we're gonna drive towards making it.
You know, look, I think from a cash flow point of view, we're in no different position than we've been in the past, and our earnings are higher.
Appreciate it, Rich.
You're welcome, Andy.
Our next question comes from Jeff Adelson of Morgan Stanley.
Good morning, guys.
Jeff.
Rich, you mentioned there. I apologize, I jumped on the call a couple minutes late. You know, watching Europe maybe a little bit more closely than, you know, kind of worrying about the macro at large. Anything in terms of progression through the quarter order rates, mix of business? You know, I know there's a couple particularly economically sensitive businesses there. I would think that retail fueling when, you know, your $8 a gallon, you know, gas maybe isn't feeling awesome. Anything there that you guys, you feel the need to point out?
It was just a comment on a watch item, you know, where I think the question was more, are we more worried about FX? FX is what it is at the end of the day. I don't think it changes the dynamic where we think it's a headwind of our ability to compete in the Eurozone because of some, you know, that we're shipping dollarized products into Europe. We don't. Clearly, Europe, from a macro point of view, is a watch item. We're not naive here. We don't see it yet, but we're paying very close attention to it. Then we run a variety of scenarios depending on what we think could happen to demand, what we do to our cost structure.
That was the comments I made in the presentation of, you know, we've got a playbook here that says, you know, when things start moving, how quickly we can move, and we believe that we can move faster than the macro moves.
Got it. That's helpful. Then I guess maybe zooming out a little bit more strategically. You've been talking about, you know, nearshoring or kind of, you know, broader supply chain investment by the industrial world for a while now. You know, at the same time, you know, you're seeing some of that, I guess, start to improve. Anything that you think with improvement, you know, people sort of forget about or move on from? How are you guys thinking about, you know, this transition maybe from like triage mode to how you want to address some of these supply chain, you know, issues on a longer term basis?
Yeah, look, I mean, we've been the recipient unfortunately in the first half of the year of our own suppliers going through that transition, which has led to some of the headwinds that we've seen. I think from a longer-term perspective, it's healthy. You see quite a bit of capital investment going in, let's call it NAFTA for lack of a better word. That's, you know, these are industrial products, and they're not easy to move around, and we're all kind of going through that transition. Interestingly, from a CapEx point of view, our CapEx related businesses are very strong. The order rates that we're seeing in Belvac and Maag and what's going on in Precision Components and what's going on in Refrigeration, those are all what we call them CapEx related businesses.
From a backlog perspective and a demand perspective, I mean, they're so all sold out for the balance of the year, and we're actually booking into 2023. I know there's a big debate going on out there between consumer recession versus industrial recession. You know, the CapEx sitting here today, you know, I think that we're more positive than negative in terms of CapEx demand or CapEx related demand going into 2023.
Makes sense to me. Thanks.
Okay, thanks.
Our next question comes from Deane Dray with RBC Capital Markets.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone.
Good morning.
Hey, maybe we'll just stay on that same CapEx theme. Any change in your thoughts regarding CapEx spending expectations for the year for you guys?
Our own? No. No, I think that what we have modeled in for ourselves through the year is we're all done. I mean, I don't think we can't spend what we've got in the plan now. No. I don't think barring, you know, a customer showing up and saying, "I want X," which clearly we would invest behind. Right now, I think that we're done in terms of commitments, whether and you'll see it reflected in the cash flow as we go through the balance of the year.
Got it. Yep, in reference to the earlier discussion about counting orders, can you talk a bit more about that single largest order? You said it was in Pumps and Process, what the application is, how competitive, and how might the margin shake out versus the segment normalized average?
It's polymer processing where the order came from. It's in Asia, and it's slightly dilutive to the consolidated margin, but still very good margin.
Got it. How competitive was that?
They're all competitive. Having said that, it's better to be competing against two other people versus ten people. By and large, the vast majority of the portfolio is competing against two or three people. It's competitive, but not crazy.
That's helpful. Just last one, if I could. Last quarter when we talked about pricing, Rich, you said you might be pressing more along the lines of surcharges. How has that played out?
You know what? I don't think that because of the dynamics of raw materials, we haven't had to do surcharges since then. I think it was an option that we were basically. I think that when we had the discussion last time was we've done a significant lot of pricing here that's all modeled in the roll forward for the balance of the year. Kind of like our pricing was done, assuming, you know, what we have in our EPS forecast. That I think the response to the question is, well, what if we see input costs go up again? What are you gonna do? The answer was, at this juncture, we'd probably take a look at doing surcharging. We've done some, but very little because of the fact that we haven't seen a degradation.
It's more of a tailwind going forward input cost than it's been a headwind over the past year.
That's real helpful. Thank you.
You're welcome.
Our next question comes from Brett Linzey with Mizuho Americas.
Hey, good morning, all.
Good morning.
Yeah, I wanted to come back to capital deployment. You made a comment about proactively evaluating other various alternatives. Could you just put a finer point on that? Is it buyback, special dividend? What, like what's all under consideration? If it is the buyback, would you consider levering up, or was this just a balance between you know, bolt-on buyback with the free cash flow?
I think that the capital markets would have to get pretty grim before we levered up to do it. It was more on deployable cash flow. Meaning that if our pipeline from an inorganic point of view was low, that we would not sit on our projected cash flow balances for a prolonged period of time. We have optionality for capital return to shareholders. Our bias there is share repurchase over doing a special dividend as we sit here today, but that's always a discussion with the board of directors.
Okay, great. Just shifting to the European pump business there. How large is that on a run rate basis currently? I know the order rates have been pretty good there, but could you just speak to the scope of further opportunity in that business? Specifically, how Dover is competitively positioned for the opportunity.
Yeah, we don't really get into giving out revenues by segment because that's a slippery slope that these conference calls will last a thousand years. It's material to the full year revenue. I think the reason that we called it out was the scale of the particular purchase order as a proxy for kind of CapEx demand going forward. It's a good order proportional to the revenue. That business is sold out for the year. It's all 2023 that we're booking for now. It's a precursor for the solidity of that particular business' revenue stream going into 2023.
Got it. Thanks. I'll pass it along.
All right. Thanks.
Our final question comes from Nigel Coe with Wolfe Research.
Good morning. Thanks for the question. Just I thought it'd be useful to go back to the guides. Maybe Brad, this is for you. So $0.10 from FX, the headwinds at current, you know, kind of current pound rates, sounds like that's offset by a point better organic growth. Is there anything else in the plan that's moving around? Seems like tax is coming in a bit better, but anything on corporate, et cetera, that we should bear in mind?
No, I don't think so. I think corporate was a little bit favorable in the quarter for reasons of, you know, bookings at lower rates and things of that nature. Corporate kind of gets back to a normal pace in the back half of the year. As I said, the headwinds is $0.10 versus our last expectation. That's built into our guide, same as it is on the revenue side. Revenue and earnings are reflective of what we said was our current thinking about FX rates. You know, the organic increase, you know, another way to think about that is we raised the bar in Q2, and we had a good Q2. We see that helps us for the full year as well. Solidifying price is also helpful, so there's no real huge movements there. It's more refinement than anything else.
Okay. Great. That's great. Rich, maybe for you, a bit more expansive question on Europe. The sort of the top-down view on Europe is dismal. The micro sort of company data is actually coming in a lot better. It's a little bit surprising. Just wondering, you know, what you're seeing on the ground in Europe, and I'm just wondering how concerned are you by, you know, prospect of gas rationing, energy inflation, and are you seeing anything sort of unusual in terms of behavior from customers in Europe right now?
Nothing unusual. I mean, you know, Europe is probably more levered for export than NAFTA is for us. The proportionality of Europe for Europe is actually lower than it is for NAFTA, which proportionally is very high. There is a bit of a buffer there. I mentioned before with Maag having its single biggest order, it's a European company that's shipping into Greater Asia, and that business remains strong. Look, it's hard to tell right now. We don't see a lot of negativity. We don't see any cancellations of orders that we have in backlog in Europe right now. It's just more of a
When we talk to our customers and we talk to our employees, this isn't good and what's gonna happen here, but right now, we don't see anything where things are rolling over. Clearly, we are running scenarios, a variety of them, if Europe was to run into some problems, you know, what are we gonna do? Like I mentioned before, I think that we've got a playbook that allows us to protect operating margins under a variety of demand scenarios, and I think we proved that in 2020. We would just run that same playbook back again. I mean, I wish I could be more specific. Right now, everybody's concerned about what's going on in the macro in Europe, but we don't see it rolling to a situation where it's overtly negative yet.
Sounds great. Thanks, Rich.
You're welcome.
Thank you. That concludes our question and answer period and Dover's Second Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. You may now disconnect your line and have a wonderful day.