I thank you, everybody. Sorry, we're a couple of minutes late with Gates, a little technical issues, but that's the worst issue around the pandemic for us. Today, doing everything virtually, not so bad. Again, apologies, a little late for tech reasons. Again, I'm David Raso, Head of Industrial Research for Evercore ISI. Very excited to have Gates with us today. We have Bill Waelke from Investor Relations, Ivo Jurek, CEO. In the interest of time, we'll jump right in. Ivo, we'll just go into Q&A and start it off.
Sounds good. I was curious. I mean, your cash flow conversion historically has been strong. There's no question about that. When you think of the proper leverage for the company, just so we know, we kind of go from deleveraging to leaning forward. What sort of is that bogey where you start to lean forward? I guess I'd ask also why. Is it a credit rating issue, just your kind of comfort with how you think of the appropriate leverage?
David, our objective is to get kind of to two times levered. It is predominantly because we view ourselves as a premium industrial company. We certainly recognize that if we want to reside in that neighborhood, that is kind of the leverage that the public investor is comfortable with at that level. As you said, the company generates a tremendous amount of free cash flow. We will continue to deliver. We have a line of sight to less than 3x levered through the midpoint of our 2021 guidance. We believe we will make very good progress as we move forward.
Terrific. When I think of the growth initiatives that you have, I was curious if you could rank them in the sense of your confidence in achieving them. It is also not on you. It is also the market adoption and the market growth. Personal mobility, precision motion, and industrial chain to belt. When you go through those, which are the ones that seem to provide the most low-hanging fruit? Not even just the size necessarily, but the very few impediments to make that happen.
Absolutely. I mean, we believe that we are making terrific progress on personal mobility. There's a convergence of really interesting factors. Maybe all the unfortunate issues with the pandemic have been some that are helping us out. I also think that there's an incredible electrification play here. It is much easier to electrify a personal mobility device like a bicycle, e-bicycle, motorcycle versus an automobile. Batteries are less of a problem. Charging is very easy. And Gates manufactured belts, differentiated carbon-reinforced belts, are really the right solution for electrified personal mobility devices.
We believe that with the content play, which is almost 2x the content that we have on an internal combustion engine, as an example, taking into account the secular trend that we see with this initiative, we believe that we can scale it up to a very nice kind of a quarter billion dollar type opportunity for the company over the very short midterm.
Terrific. I'm curious to go through your end markets. I definitely want to talk to the EV opportunity a little bit later. Going through the end markets, I'm curious. We constantly hear about supply constraints. The market recovery has generally been stronger than most people expected. From your customers and the balance between, obviously, your 2/3 replacement, 1/3 first fit. At times, when the customer demand is that strong on the first fit, you sort of acquiesce and maybe pull some product away from replacement to first fit. Just knowing how strong you are in the replacement cycle, I'm curious, how do you balance that? Is that what we're seeing a little bit today? Maybe a little pull away from the replacement because the first fit is that strong and you want to be there for your customer on the first fit?
David, you almost have to go to the second half of 2020. In 2020, we have seen a really nice recovery that was led by our replacement markets. Really nice stability. What we have talked about is, hey, that is providing the business resiliency. I think it played itself out in 2020. As you pointed out, we are getting to 2021. Businesses are recovering. People are coming back. There is more demand from some of our first-fit customers. We will balance the customer needs. We want to be a good steward, good partner, and we want to support our customers. I will say that we will always err on the side of not changing the mix. That 60/40 mix is kind of a right mix for us.
There may be a quarter or two that that mix gets kind of to 60/40, and then maybe a couple of quarters that it is more like 65/35. I mean, that's kind of the right mix for us. We believe that the capacity we've put in place, we can continue to balance the needs of our customers and, frankly, help all of our clients to support their business.
When you provide guidance with the implied pretty healthy incrementals, I assume the mix that's playing out, that strong first-fit demand, was generally contemplated in the guide, or has it shifted a little more first fit than you would have thought initially?
Look, absolutely. When we look at our guide, we wanted to make sure that we are being pragmatic first and foremost. Obviously, we do have a little bit of a preview of what's playing itself out in the present quarter at that point in time, early in Q1. We felt that we have taken our leverage up on incremental revenue into account, taking into account the mix shift that you may see in 2021.
Going through the end markets, the off-highway, the ag, the construction, those feel like some of the hotter markets right now. What are you seeing in that channel in the sense of accepting? They're not usually that accepting. Price increases given you have to believe some of the input costs related to oil are starting to flow through to you. How does that mechanism work with those larger first-fit customers? At the same time, have you already put through a pass-through on the replacement channel?
Look, there are a couple of different facets in here. Number one, on the replacement side, we've played offense and we've put incremental price increases in as we exited 2020. Generally speaking, we kind of have a 90-day window. We anticipate that those will filter through as we exit Q1 into Q2. I think we're in a good shape there. On the first-fit side, you kind of have to bifurcate it. There are customers where we have material escalation clauses. They work both ways, right? They are pro-customer when there is a deflationary environment. They play themselves out right side up for supplier when there is an inflation coming in. That being said, not all of our first-fit contracts do have material escalation clauses.
For the ones that we don't have material escalation clauses, we have spoken a lot about the innovation that we are putting forward. It's that innovation that we believe and the adoption of these newer products that give us an opportunity to stay above inflation and continue, frankly, our journey to drive margin expansion regardless of what's happening there with inflation. We believe that we can balance both inflation and price in a way that we have demonstrated over the last five years has been right side up for Gates and our shareholders.
The material escalator, are those 20%, 1/4 , 1/3 of your first-fit business? I'm just curious how much exposure on non-contracted escalators?
I think that you should think about it that about 40% of our customers in the first-fit side have material escalation clauses in there. We have been pretty proactive as these contracts came for renewals. We wanted to make sure that we have a fair and equitable treatment there and that if customers want to get more competitive prices, it is not just a one-way street. I mean, I believe that over the next cycle or so, we will have the entire portfolio of first-fit customers on material escalation clauses as well.
The auto opportunity in China, given you're still relatively early in that process, and there's also just a major growth of the fleet. On a first-fit basis, though, just given the replacement cycle is still developing, right? So it's a little more first-fit for you in China than North America, let's say. That market looks like the comps are pretty easy for the next few months, and then it gets harder. I'm just trying to balance where you are in the market. You're not that big, so maybe you can grow through a slower period. Is your order book suggesting you can grow throughout the year in China? Excuse me. Or some of the maybe tougher comps and slower industry growth, you're already big enough, you'll feel some of that in the second half.
Yeah, look, the way that I look at this and the way that my team is managing in China, first of all, we have a China for China team. It's a terrific set of individuals in there. China is the biggest industrial economy in the world. My view is that we have many decades to be able to deliver terrific growth in China. When I take a look at our automotive replacement side of the business as an example, that business has been growing in high teens for four or five years since I got to Gates. I believe that we have a long period of time ahead of us that we can continue to drive that level of growth. On the automotive first-fit side, we have started to defocus that.
We do not need that first-fit in auto in China, just like we do not need it in a developed world. I think that we are the biggest brand in the aftermarket in China for the products that we manufacture. Frankly, I feel quite good about our ability to grow. On the industrial side, despite the fact that I want to think that our business in China is good scale, I believe that it is still reasonably small, and we will be able to grow through some of the challenges that comps will provide us in the second half of the year. My view, our view on China for 2021 is actually quite constructive. We believe that we should be able to grow high single digits throughout 2021.
I'm not sure if you can answer this perfectly, but if I gave you the same volume in FP, the fluid power segment, with your three new factories, I don't want to say fully loaded, but appropriately loaded, versus the business before those three factories, what kind of margin impact do those three factories alone make on FP's margins? Is it 100 basis points, 50 basis points? I don't know the scope of those three factories, how large they are, and what kind of reduced cost they bring you. Of course, they also give you the needed capacity, but more the margin side.
They also gave you the opportunity to drive some of the consolidation restructuring that we have spoken about. When we spoke about the $40 million of incremental earnings improvements through restructuring program, frankly, that could not have happened if we did not have those receiving facilities there. Dave, I think that the best way to think about it is that we have kind of reconfirmed our midterm targets from 2019, frankly, kind of on the same scale. We still believe 2022, 2023 timeframe is a good timeframe for us to target at $4 billion of revenue, kind of 24% + in EBITDA margin. As you look at kind of a baselining that from where we came from in 2020, that is a pretty sporty improvement that we believe we can deliver kind of over the next three years or so.
Can you take us through, as quantifiably as possible, the shift from internal combustion engine to the opportunity you see? I think you do a nice job of hybrid and then the stages to get to. What is the full cooling requirements, EV, obviously the water pump? If you can help quantify the exact impact. We always talk content and revenues, but I'd be also curious how you view the profitability of that content versus your margins today in auto.
It's a great point. Look, let me start with something that goes away. I don't get accused of selectively talking about the opportunities and don't talk about some of the things that go away. What goes away is basically belts that are driven from an alternator. They provide power to the mechanical water pumps, as an example, that are in a car and turbos, right? That goes away. That content is about, call it $19. Let's start with we are $19 in a hole. If I take a look at what we have in terms of thermal management or engine cooling, use whatever vernacular you would like to, we have about kind of $8-$15 in mechanical water pumps. We have kind of $15-$28 in molded coolant hoses on ICE. Great.
Now, when I take a look and say, okay, what does that mean for my fully electric platform? On a fully electric platform, let me start with the fact that I need to cool the batteries, the inverter, and the motors. It is really important, by the way. It is more important on an electric than it is on an ICE because what you want to prevent is a thermal runaway event, also known as fire. What you do there is you have water pumps that are now electric. By the way, the reason that they are electric is because they need to be on demand. If the battery gets hot, you really want to make sure that you have a maximum flow.
If the battery is kind of at a reasonable temperature range, you go on and off, and you cycle through that power of that water pump so you do not consume actually the power from that battery. Those water pumps are in a range of $30-$135, depending on wattage, right? That wattage goes from 100 W to kind of 1.2 KW, depending upon application. Now, when you go back to kind of the molded coolant hoses, you are starting to look at hoses that run through the entire platform of that vehicle because the battery runs through the entire platform of the vehicle. The battery may be 3 m long versus being 1 m long inside of an ICE engine compartment. Now, it is many branches because it runs from center to the right and left.
Those branches are now costing somewhere between $110 and $130 per platform. I have announced on our Q4 earnings call that we have just won another platform in this sum on an on-road industrial application, so heavy-duty truck. The content there is $600 in just the modular branch hose assemblies. Our content really goes kind of $19 goes away. Maybe call it $15 + $28 becomes kind of a $65 + $150. The content scales up quite dramatically with products that we manufacture today. We have a right to play. Frankly, we are developing technologies that are highly differentiated. We are winning platforms today that are available for grab.
When do these turn into revenues? How far out before these platforms provide real scale to really show up in the financials?
My sense is that we're going to start seeing some meaningful revenue on the engine cooling side kind of from 2020 to 2023 model years. One of the things that's a misnomer, and we haven't spoken about it a lot, is that we have content today on electric platforms. We have kind of, I would say, $10 million or so that we classify in our out-of-first-fit revenue in electrics. That is on electric power steering. It is in some branch hose assemblies. It is in electric power braking. It is in soft close. All of these devices basically get powered from an electric motor, and they need to power some actuators.
Whether or not it is your steering rack, or it is a parking brake, or it is soft closing doors, Gates belts today are powering these electric platforms and making it more convenient or safer to drive these vehicles.
I'm trying to think when I hear hose opportunities and belt opportunities, who out there offers, I mean, I know my host companies. Who offers the belt and the hose? I'm trying to think who has both offerings. Do you have many?
I don't know of anybody that does that. Gates is very unique in that.
When you go to the market, is it a bit of a package sale? I mean, or is it still no, there's still a distinction between the hose opportunity and the belt? Or do you actually sell them together, so to speak?
Actually, they are separate, David. They are very different types of devices that go into different types of appliances, for lack of better words. We are just going to be good at both of these product lines. I believe that we are quite good at both of them.
When I think of competitors, the business feels very fragmented. Any work in the channel, you can tell your belt is pretty clearly the best out there in the replacement channel. The hose is a little more debatable, but it's definitely a top two or three. On the belt side, when I think of the names I believe are legit competitors, I think Bando, they've got the Bando brand, GM's ACDelco, Schaeffler, Continental. The distinguishing feature between those companies and yourself, would you argue it's largely just the technology, or is there something else about the way you go to market? How would you characterize the differentiating feature between you and those players? Or is the market just so fragmented there's really nobody that's having to butt heads with you necessarily for your market position?
I think it's our technology, number one. By the way, one out of the three companies that you have listed uses rebranded Gates belts, just to be clear about that. I would tell you that the Gates brand is the most solid, the best brand in the world in belting, unequivocally. Our technology is just highly differentiated. The investments we continue to make to stay number one are unparalleled. I believe that some of the growth opportunities we talked about, the personal mobility, the only reason that we can't compete with roller chain is because we have a belt that is by far better than roller chain. You cannot destroy the Gates belt. You can destroy roller chain. I mean, the Gates belt will wear, so it will need replacement, which is important. I mean, it will be very tough for you to take box cutters and cut that belt. It's just almost impossible.
The water pump on the EV side, I mean, your confidence in the technology there, your competitive dynamic around that, where is that confidence coming from? And where would you stack your where you are and where you need to be to really win those EV platforms?
Yeah. David, that's really actually a very intelligent question and an interesting one because if you think about the water pumps in ICE applications, they have been commoditized over the last 25 years. The differentiation in technology is actually not that great. Now, when you start attacking the electric problem, you actually start having some opportunities to do some very unique things. For us, what we have challenged ourselves is we said, "Hey, look, we want to, as a figure of merit, we want to generate 30% more power output from the same footprint." Okay? To be able to do that, you have to challenge yourself on a machine construction and then, frankly, on the electronic side. The electronic side is less of a problem. The machine construction is much more challenging.
We will be launching mid-year this year a very differentiated electric water pump that is going to offer our customers one out of two things. Number one, you can get 30% more power output from the same footprint of present electric water pump. Or we can give you the same power output with 30% smaller packaging. Both of these things are very, very important on any automotive platform. Weight and power output and power consumption are the three things that are really critical when you are talking about consuming electric power that you really want to use to propel your wheels.
To my question of just trying to take advantage of your relationships, if the hose is sold fairly distinctly from the belt, can the water pump be sold with the belt? I'm just trying to leverage your belt relationships as much as possible, essentially. Is it still at the moment feels like it's going to be distinct?
I think that you will marry that water pump more closely with that modular branch engine cooling hose or the battery cooling hose. You are trying to solve a thermal management problem that's getting more complex. When we started to make our investment two or three years ago in electric platforms, that technology has undergone almost two generations of upgrades. These battery cooling techniques have gotten more complex because people are trying to pack more power, and they want to make sure that they have much more efficient use of that electric power in that battery. To be able to do that, they've got to keep these batteries at a very nice temperature level without major intrusions, hot or cold. That's where we come in. Our products will allow you to give you that capability to do that.
We are out of time. I could spend hours talking to you, learning more about where this platform's going on EV and some of the opportunities you have in the traditional belt and hose businesses. We'll have to stop it there for now. Look forward to speaking with you again. Again, thank you so much for taking the time today. Greatly appreciate it.
Thank you, David. Thank you for your time. As you can imagine, we are quite excited about it as well. We certainly look forward to having the opportunity to speak with you more.
Great. Thank you. Have a great day.