All right, excellent. Thanks so much, everyone, for joining us. My name's Adam Seiden. I lead the U.S. Machinery and Construction effort at Barclays. For this session, we're really thankful to have with us. Joining me on stage is Gabe Bruno, most of you know, Chief Financial Officer, as well as also someone you know, Amanda Butler from the IR team, who's in the audience there. So the format of this session is a fireside chat between Gabe and I. We certainly do invite your participation in the event here. So if you have a question, please let us know. And also, we will potentially be going to the audience response system a bit later in the session here. So those ground rules out of the way. Gabe, thanks so much for being here.
It's great to be here, Adam. Thanks for hosting.
You got it. Welcome back to Miami. So I wanted to start off just to set the scene here because you were here about a year ago.
Sure was.
And where about a year ago, the expectation was the first half was going to be a bit slow. The second half could potentially pick up. Now, into 2025, the first half could be a bit slow. The second half could potentially pick a bit up. And of course, there could be some macro things that could be impacting that view as well. But just curious, how is this year different than last year, essentially?
Yeah. So Adam, I think that's a great point of reflection. I think about, while it may seem similar in terms of the end result, in terms of our positioning on our full-year assumptions, a lot of differences in how we look at the markets. As we came into 2024, we had a significant level of quoting activity, backlog, orders progressively, and automation. And we look to automation to be the driver of organic growth in 2024. Well, that turned pretty quickly in the second quarter of 2024. You had the whole ICE and EV and short cycle within automation, which is about 50% of our automation business. It just changed. And so our posture changed significantly as we progressed into the second quarter because of our automation footprint. And then as we came into 2024, heavy industry.
I mean, we started seeing some of the destocking activity, but we didn't see the full impact until progressively deep into the second quarter, and then you've seen now second half of 2024, what compression looks like for us and heavy industry. Now you see that carrying forward now into 2025, so now you look into 2025 and you think about what are the key drivers now to how we look at the business. Second half of the year, obviously easier comps, so when you think about the progression in real volumes, we think the first part of the year we're going to have continued some pressure on volumes that will continue through the second quarter. Easier comps give you kind of a framework of a more flattening out year-over-year type comparison, so those are dynamics that are different coming into this year.
When you think about pricing, for example, we've already taken actions. We took actions in the first quarter last year, so we know kind of what the impact is. But we also have different dynamics when you look at total sales on currency. Fourth quarter, the strengthening of the U.S. dollar created a whole another dynamic for us with our U.S. and international mix of business. And we talked about that. We see a whole different trajectory in how we look at currency. So that's different. And then acquisitions. The acquisitions that we executed, three acquisitions in 2024. They don't anniversary into the second quarter and into the third quarter. So we're pretty confident in what those businesses are going to contribute to top line. So those are the key differences in the markets today, in our performance, in the drivers today versus a year ago.
Similar, maybe, outcomes in how we were posturing. We didn't believe 2024 when we started the year outside of automation to see much growth. We're hopeful in areas like general industry that we saw in January turn positive PMI, but certainly no trend. So we're hoping we're more hopeful that new orders and industrial production, in fact, continues to expand. So those are the dynamics and how we see top line activity entering this year different from last year.
That's helpful. We'll certainly get back to some of those end markets and so forth. If that's the top line picture, maybe pivoting a bit more towards the cost side and a very strong year in terms of your abilities to deliver decremental margins well within expectations and certainly exceeding them, I would say, from our end. Can you maybe just take us through a bit of the cost actions that have been taken, what sort of visibility that gets you for 2025 to deliver the decrementals that you've talked about to the street? Then from when you think about those particular cost actions, I mean, how much of those are reflective of the cycle versus things that you would have done anyway to reposition?
Yeah. So Adam, I think that's key for us. So when we saw the continued compression in our business into the third quarter, we decided to pull out our playbook, what we call it, cost savings actions. And they're always categorized into temporary and permanent. The permanent actions are those things that we, on an ongoing basis, are thinking of how we shape our business model. So those are areas in manufacturing or distribution or organizationally that we were contemplating already. And it's a function of do we accelerate actions. And you see that continuing throughout the operating model posture. So that goes without saying. But the temporary actions are where we are leveraging kind of discretionary type spending to offset the impact of demand. And that's important for us because as we see improvement in demand, those are levers that we will reintroduce.
Frankly, we really executed well in the fourth quarter. We knew that'd be a ramping up to achieve our objectives that we had talked about during our third quarter earnings release. We exceeded expectations. A little bit of that is just operating in the fourth quarter with the holiday schedules and the manufacturing schedules in general. Our teams just did a great job in executing on the temporary side. Now we have that posture coming into 2025. We'll hold on to those temporary cost savings actions until we see consistent, meaningful improvement in the demand profile of our business. That kind of just offsets. You think about the margin performance for the fourth quarter, record OP, 18.2%. The execution of our team just did a great job. That kind of drives us into holding the line now into 2025.
Got it. So just if I could press for a second on that. So if you think about some of the things that we talked about, the comps getting easier, the cost savings having played through a bit here, what prohibits decrementals from being similarly below 20% the next few quarters versus where you're thinking?
No, on the decremental side, we'll see ourselves into the mid to high teens. So we're postured for that. I think that the key driver, we talked about incrementals being in the low 20s because we do assume some level of sales growth, although modest. I appreciate that. But we'll continue to perform and manage the costs of our business to meet those objectives.
Got it. So when you think through the segments a bit, on the international side, there's been a nice improvement story for some time. As you think about into 2025, how should we think about the spread between the margin performance in the international business versus the Americas business?
Yeah, I don't see any significant changes in the spread. Within the international part of our business, we believe we have a model that can execute within that target range, that 12%-14%. But we need some volume improvement. We had a relatively strong on the margin side fourth quarter, back within the range, but we need more consistency. And we'll continue to look to shape in the model there. On the converse side, Americas, 80% of our automation business is in the Americas segment. So when you see the kind of margin improvement within the automation business on top of our core Americas welding business, you're going to continue to see expansion in margin as well. So Americas has been performing above the range. And the automation business has just done a great job in executing alongside our Lincoln Business System.
Our EBIT margins within automation were 200 basis points ahead of the prior year for the fourth quarter in a pretty challenged environment. We're pleased with the progression. I see that gap continuing, which is not a negative on the international side. It's just that we continue to perform and extend the performance in pockets of our business that we know we have opportunity like in automation.
Got it. So you brought up earlier as far as seeing some of those macro trends be positive at ISM PMI in January. You have the one month here. So we'll see how that plays out over the next couple of months and quarters and so forth. But are there any rules of thumb? Is there anything that you're looking for in the business to solidify that some of that improvement is sustainable in the industrial markets?
Yeah. So the key thing, Adam, is looking at production. When you see production, a little over half of our business is consumables. And that's short cycle. And that's a function of industrial production. So when you see consistency in industrial production and PMI indices, that then should translate into more short cycle activity. And you'll see that in spades in consumables. And that will then translate into standard equipment and so forth and confidence in capital investment. So that's pretty key for us. And we mentioned on the call that distribution within the Americas segment was down only low single digits. So that's what we're looking to. So you see consistency in the short cycle metrics like PMI, where a third of our business is tied to general industry. That's going to be a key indicator to see where growth heads.
Right. You also mentioned earlier a bit about price and having taken those actions. Just first, to be clear, those pricing actions aren't tied to any sort of related tariff impacts that may or may not be out there. When you think about pricing, is that spread dispersed amongst the businesses? Is that tied to one part of the business versus the other?
No, it'll lean more so on the Americas side. These are actions that we took already this year, as well as anniversarying some of the actions that we took at the end of the first quarter last year. So we had pretty modest impact in 2024 on pricing. The outlier there is Harris. So about a third of the Harris business is more of a formula that's driving pricing. Outside of that, it's driven by silver and copper type pricing changes. So that's more of a mechanical adjustment every month. But in general, most of that, I would say, lean more so on the Americas side, maybe a little bit on the international side on pricing.
Got it.
Is it right? Sorry to interrupt you, but you're right. It does not include any actions related to tariffs.
Got it. And we'll touch on tariffs here in a sec. But if we flip to automation a bit, a key part of the Lincoln story. So maybe first, if you could talk through a little bit of the performance that you saw in Q4 from automation seemed like quite strong. And then ultimately, where are aspirational margins in the automation business today, given the performance that now the companies put up in what was a more challenging year relative to what expectations were at the start?
Yeah. So I'll start with the margin profile. So we're about 200-300 basis points off our corporate average target. So we've essentially doubled the margin profile within our automation business from 2020- 2024. And one of the key drivers there is what we talked about, the Lincoln Business System, where over a long period, we integrated them all into a consistent platform to execute. So we've got a few hundred basis points still to go in our margin profile. This gives you a sense of the opportunity there. So we're pleased that when you look at the trajectory of our business in the year, back to your first part of the question, a lot of the automation projects and execution end up being a little bit more heavily weighted in the back half of the year because of automotive content in that versus the first half.
So you'll see a flip in some of the overall revenues tied to automation fourth quarter versus first quarter. But in general, we're pleased with the execution in the fourth quarter. Our automotive component within automation was actually up mid-single digits in the fourth quarter. So that was pretty positive. We pointed to some of the longer lead time types of projects as we're starting to see some positive trends there. So we're hopeful that that leads to a continuation of investment on the automotive capital side.
Great. So maybe on that question or on that point specifically, that optimism that you have on automotive and some of the model launches, how broad-based is that? Is that across different regions? Is it specific to platforms that you can see? And what type of visibility? How far out does that go?
Yeah. So we're mostly anchored on the North America kind of commentary on that. But one of the things that we point to is that there are two key dates in the automotive industry where this is a global type of definition on program launches, so in April and October of every year. And so if you remember back in the second quarter of last year and third quarter, we saw a significant change in the booking of orders relating to EV and ICE. And we didn't see that yet in the industry metrics, but we did see it confirm in October. We kind of mentioned that on the earnings call a little bit. But so we have visibility now to where the industry has projected out program launches in 2025, 2026, 2027, 2028.
What we saw in mid-teens declines in program launches in 2025, 2026, we saw that in spades in our business, particularly progressively second quarter towards the end of the year, so when we talk about longer lead time items, we're talking about items that are really tied to 2027 launches and that. And so as we progress throughout the year, you should see a little bit more tightening up of order activity and investment tied to 2027 launches. So still pretty contracted in 2025 and 2026, but that's current year launches, and then we should start seeing that. That's newer to our business since we acquired Fori. We acquired Fori at the end of 2022. So that gives us a new perspective of our positioning within the automotive industry. So that's a positive for us.
Yeah. So people are going to have to think of, instead of Lincoln being so short cycle, a little less short cycle going out.
Yeah, and that's key for our automation strategy.
Strategy, right? You guys touch a bit about what automation is by mix by end market. Clearly, automotive is a big spot. Maybe if you could talk a little bit about what you're working across in the other areas. And then you brought up Fori as well. So I'm curious, how much of the business has been acquired essentially, or how much of that revenue pie has been acquired versus you've seen organic growth to get you to that next?
Yeah. So I mean, I think it's a great question. So beginning of the strategy cycle 2020, our automation business was about $400 million in sales. In 2024, we're at $911 million in sales. About half of that, a little more driven by acquisitions and organic growth, the difference. So this is why we believe that not only the M&A component of growth is pretty key for us in automation, but also the organic growth. We believe that automation from an organic standpoint is going to grow two times that as core welding. So this is why we're so invested into that. When we think about end markets, prior to the acquisition of Fori, I mean, we continue to drive balanced engagement across automotive, heavy industry, and general industry. And so as we're introducing more applications, more capabilities in industrial automation, we want to see that broaden out.
The Fori acquisition tilted us back into being heavier on the automotive side. So our mix in 2024 was 45% automotive. Still real strong because you're starting to see the mix now of lead times and larger scale, longer term type projects versus some of the Tier 1, Tier 2, maybe shorter cycle. But that anchors a broader perspective on automotive. Meanwhile, we're introducing technologies like Cobots, continuing to develop our robotic cell capabilities that tie to a broader adoption in small and mid-sized fabricators. So you've seen us talk a lot about our Cooper software, Cobots. Those are key to furthering an adoption into general industry. So our strategic focus is to be more balanced in how we're serving end markets across general industry, heavy industry, and automotive.
And I guess maybe we can broaden this question now to both the conversation we're having on automation, but then across broader welding as well. And that's around your share position. So whether it's been building the automation business and touching some of that organic growth you're talking about, do you get the sense that Lincoln is displacing others that would have other potential suppliers in the industry? And then more so from the welding side, how fluid is share across whether it's the consumables or the equipment side of the business?
Yeah, so for sure, we believe we're capturing market position in automation. You can just see it in the numbers and growth, right, so when you look at core welding, the businesses are a little different between how ITW's position in North America versus us. This is like we like to reinforce how we've done on industrial distribution. We kind of pointed to we believe we're capturing pockets of market share within our relationships on distribution. Then on the ESAB side, they're heavy into gas equipment and to some of the emerging markets, and we're not as penetrated in certain of those markets, but very hard to shift and talk about movement within the core three competitors in welding, but we're holding our line. We see opportunities in different parts of the markets. This is why it's so important for us to continue to drive innovation, technology introductions.
We've had a big year in 2024 in new product introductions. In the long- term, we like to think about 100-200 basis points at CAGR driven by innovation and technology. We just updated our Vitality Index in our deck, and 50% of equipment sales in 2024 were from new product introductions over the last five years, so we're well positioned. We're pretty aggressive in technologies we're acquiring and building into our portfolio.
Yeah. And that's a pretty good context about how Lincoln is growing in the market. One thing that I did in preparation for this, I was pulling up slides from fields like from 10 years ago to where we are today in the broader market. And a lot of the slices of the pies amongst Lincoln and your peers are very similar. Now, what I don't know is that maybe there's just not enough industry data there to really get a better idea of what the picture is. But just general, if you look out there, are you seeing share changes amongst the broader competitive set? And then also just within the regional side, who are these regional competitors serving as opposed to the ITWs and the ESABs, etc.?
Yeah. So you go back 10 years. That's an interesting time because in 2015, 2016, you'll see it in our investor communications that we were pruning different parts of the markets where we didn't see our value proposition being appropriately served. So we contracted in whether some of the emerging markets. We had acquired early key welding, if you remember. We pruned some of that part of the business where just the margin profile was not in line to where our long-term strategic objectives are. So we went through those dynamics. That's behind us now. And we're looking to continue to deploy application technologies that are going to drive growth. And that's continue to drive innovation that's going to differentiate our offering in quality or productivity for the welding type of user.
But it's very much focused on the key end markets that we're serving to drive productivity in the welding experience. And to simplify, like in the automation discussion we just had, simplify the adoption on technologies that can be meaningful to deal with the labor constraints that are in the market. So those are dynamics that all of our competitors are facing. Regional players are more product specific. So while we're talking about a broad welding application tying in a consumable and power source and automation together into an offering, the regional players may be just speaking to equipment or a consumable or an automation, maybe as an integrator on the automation side. So you're talking more holistic presence and how we approach the markets.
Got it. So we talked a bit about some of the margin improvement that you've seen across the broader business. And from your higher standard, your 2025 strategy, certainly you've made a lot of progress in reaching those targets. So just when you think about when you think about sales versus the profits, on the sales side, I think Lincoln does something that you don't see on a lot of companies is they don't give themselves full credit for price. And I think that's admirable. So just given that there's been some inflationary price that's benefited folks, some not necessarily structural. So that's the sales side. Your guys are trickling it up already for us. Maybe if we think a little bit more about from the margin side, how much of that margin improvement would you say has been driven by various different buckets, price, M&A, whatever it may be?
Yeah. So you're right, Adam. So I would take pricing out of the discussion because we just want to make sure that the margin trajectory of our business isn't impacted by the cost pricing dynamics we have there. So the big drivers, when you think about the 200 basis point improvement that we've made, think about business process capabilities that we've introduced. So I mentioned automation, for example. And that's all about how all these acquisitions we've done, how they integrated into a single platform. We're leveraging the people, the facilities, the capabilities to be able to improve margin performance. That's doubling. When I talk about mid to high single digits in 2020 to mid-teens, that's a doubling of the margin. Think about Harris. Harris, we've significantly expanded the margin profit. They're exceeding the targets that we have set for the 2025 strategy of 13%-15%.
17% kind of trajectory is what they're on. We continue to see areas for improvement there. International, those are all business model cost plays that we've done in shaping the business model. The biggest outside of just traditional management of volumes and costs are the shaping of our business models across all of our segments. You have the dynamics of volumes. Volumes are always going to give us leverage. We expect incrementals into that low-to-mid-20s as we execute on volumes. The shaping of our business is so important for us and also identifying opportunities progressively to continue to expand our margins.
That's fair, and so opportunities to continue to expand margins. We're in 2025. I think even on this most recent call, there was mentions of 2030, so I'm sure there will come a time and a place to talk more about that, but general thoughts are the Lincoln team is happy with the strategy that they have today.
Absolutely. And we're continuing to drive similar strategies and expanding the business, the value proposition that we introduced first from a customer standpoint with the welding technologies and the investment innovation that we have in acquisitions, M&A, inorganic types of activities to continue to grow a model. So we continue to think about how can we grow into that high single digit, low double digit framework. And we'll continue to think about now what are the opportunities to expand the margin profile. And you've seen through each of the cycles. You go back 20 years. We've been very consistent in expanding the margins by 200 basis points plus. So that's kind of where we're anchored on. How do we continue to expand the margins? Where are the opportunities? I just shared a couple of them that we continue to see to expand and improve on the business model performance.
We're pretty well positioned for the long- term.
Great. So maybe we'll switch over here to the audience response questions for a sec. So for this, there's a gadget on your table here that you could participate in that once the clock shows. So for the first question, it's, do you currently own this stock? Yes, overweight, market weight, underweight, or no? You can start the clock. All right. Don't own most of the room. Next question, please. What is your general bias towards the stock right now? Positive, negative, or neutral? You can start the clock. All right. A little over half is neutral, almost two-thirds. Next, please. In your opinion, through cycle EPS growth for Lincoln, will be above peers in line with peers or below? You can start the clock. About in line with peers. Next one up, please.
In your opinion, what should Lincoln do with excess cash, bolt-on M&A, larger M&A, repos, divvies, debt paydown, or internal investment? You can start the clock. All right. About half the room with bolt-on M&A and a little repo and internal investment. So, Gabe, what do you think about that? How does that drive with some of the ambitions that Lincoln has?
We have a very balanced capital allocation strategy, but we will always prioritize growth, which is one, bolt-on M&A, and six, internal investment. High return investments always start off on the internal model we have. So we're going to be really focused on maximizing that. You've seen that we've moved that level of internal investment, CapEx, to $117 million this past year. We're in that $100-$120 million range. So we know that. And M&A, look, we have our strategies to be CAGR at 300- 400 basis points. Our last 10 years tracking is 3.6% CAGR through bolt-on type acquisitions. So that's where we're focused. And then any excess strategic cash, we define it. That's where share repurchases go. Our dividend rate has increased 29 years in a row. And we look at any excess strategic cash to look at share repurchases.
Excellent. All right. We'll move on to the next question, please. In your opinion, on what multiple of 2025 earnings should Lincoln trade on, less than 10 times up to higher than 21 times? Standardized ranges for the conference here. You can start the clock. All right. Mostly in the 16-18 count. Move into the next one, please. What do you see as the most significant share price headwind facing Lincoln? Core growth, margins, capital deployment, or execution? You can start the clock. All right. Core growth. That is the most resounding answer for core growth. It's 100% for those on the line. But that is not unique to Lincoln Electric.
So, I guess maybe just to wrap up and pass it back to you, Gabe, is just the concern of the room is core growth, but ultimately Lincoln is able to execute and manage on the cost side, so when you look at 2025 and beyond, as we stare out into 2030, how much do you feel like it's in your control to deliver the results as an organization?
The execution is fundamental. When we talk about growth, particularly on the automation side, there's a bit of work in navigating through the capital investment cycle. But that's execution for us too. How do we continue to leverage the applications that we continue to build on to drive a value proposition that's going to provide the returns that our customers desire? So that's in our control. A little bit of market dynamics for sure. When you look at other aspects of end markets, there's a bit of short cycle discussion around we just talked about whether it was general industry or what's going on with the destocking on heavy industry. So for us, what can we control? We can control how well we introduce new technologies, how we drive applications, how we continue to drive a value proposition that's differentiated in the marketplace.
Yeah, well, certainly you see, zero people replied on margin expansion. He's done a great job improving our profitability, so well, if you could join me in thanking Gabe and the Lincoln team for being here. Appreciate that. Thanks so much.
Great. Thank you.