Okay, good morning, everybody. Thanks for joining us. I'm Ian Zaffino. I am the equity research analyst over here at Oppenheimer, covering Enpro. Very pleased to welcome Eric Vaillancourt, who is the company's CEO, Joe Bruderek, who is the company's CFO, and then James Gentile, who is the vice president of IR. So again, I have an outperform rating on the stock. I've, you know, liked this ever since these guys were dealing with asbestos issues. That's all now in the past. You know, wanted to give you guys a warm welcome. So thanks for joining us.
Thanks for having us.
Thank you, Ian.
Okay. And can we just start maybe with an overview, maybe for people who aren't familiar with the company, maybe provide us with a brief overview of Enpro's segments and how the company's positioned today? Thanks.
Sure. I'll go ahead and lead through that, Ian. Thank you. As Ian mentioned, you know, the company was born out of the Goodrich Corporation in 2002 as a way for Goodrich to kind of wall off the asbestos liability in some of those businesses and really existed in that way as a public company, really until 2017. And at that point, we very successfully dealt with the asbestos liability and a little bit of a landmark case, but very successfully dealt with that. It's now behind us, completely resolved. And then in 2017, really embarked on a portfolio reshaping journey in that time period, focusing on companies that had lower CapEx, higher margin, faster growth opportunities, and divested the businesses that didn't fit that criteria. So we went through that period for about four or five years.
Up until about last year, we had 13 divestitures. During that time period, reshaped the company into who we are today. We invested in four acquisitions and deployed about $1.5 billion worth of capital. And those four acquisitions really kind of formed the, the majority of the AST business that we have today, focused on the semiconductor industry. Over that time period, we saw a really strong appreciation in value. The company doubled in overall market cap and stock price and is positioned the way it is today. You know, in the last quarter or so, we kind of hit all-time highs in our in our stock price and market cap and feel like we're very positioned for the very well positioned for the future. We've got plenty of room to grow from here, and I'm feeling really good about where we're positioned.
You know, today we're an industrial industrial technology company that provides critical applications that touch our lives every day. We do business in two segments. The Sealing Technology segment, which is where we do business in three specific brands and businesses: the Technetics business, Stemco, and Garlock. And in those businesses, we have application engineering expertise, with solutions that safeguard critical environments. And, you know, we're positioned in the commercial vehicle aftermarket, aerospace, space exploration, nuclear, food and pharma, and in the general industrial space. We have high aftermarket exposure and feel like we have a very strong position in some of those spaces, with good margin and sort of sticky potential in those spaces.
In the AST business, Advanced Surface Technologies , we pretty much have a semiconductor business, which is about 80%-90% of where we are there, and a 10% optical filter business. The semi business is comprised of NxEdge, Technetics Semi, and our LeanTeq business. And the optical filter business came to us through our Alluxa acquisition. Here we're providing critical tools, very high performance, very technological tools that provide capability within the semiconductor production chamber for chip manufacturing in many, many of the leading foundries in that space. We also have a performance coatings business, and we have a very nice advanced technology cleaning and aftermarket refurbishment business there. So we're very well positioned with some of the leading players in that space, and we're positioned to grow, as the cycle improves there.
So we feel very good about where we're positioned and have a nice set of businesses.
That, that's very helpful. You know, and if we could just maybe go back to Sealing Technologies , I know you talked through the three different businesses you have. Can you maybe tell us a little bit about, like, what you're doing in those areas, and then, you know, how have you changed the portfolio and the portfolio's exposure over time? And then maybe if we could talk about more currently, what's, you know, doing good, what's doing less good, and help us understand that too. Thanks.
I can jump in on that one. So over the last several years, if you go back, it really started somewhere around 2018, our commercial vehicle business, we divested a lot of the, I'll call it the commodity-type businesses, a lot of brakes as an example, and moved into areas where we have some technological advantage. Our commercial vehicle business, we just launched an industry-changing product, already won a bunch of awards called Auto- Torque. In a very simplistic way, when you install a hub, you can just literally put it on with your hands. Now, it used to require over 100 pounds of torque, and it works kind of like your gas cap in your car. You turn it until it clicks, and it really saves a ton of time, safer, installs easier.
So we've positioned the portfolio over time so that we're in areas where we have some intellectual property that's hard to replicate. And you can see it on our margin profile. If you look back for a number of years, that business was in the teens, EBITDA, and today we've in the last quarter, I think we're a little over 30%. And so you can see that we've been able to leverage the technology we have. Where the interest where that business is doing well, or the businesses are doing well right now, overall we're doing well. Backlog grew last quarter as an example, but we're doing very well in the nuclear space and this resurgence in France and Europe especially. You're seeing that nuclear resurgence throughout the world.
There's a very large ITER project going on in France right now called the ITER project, I-T-E-R, if you're interested, take a look. It's basically replicating nuclear fusion, which is what happens with the sun. Leading edge position. We are very involved in that project. 35 countries coming together to create that. So we play on the leading edge of technology in those areas. Areas where we're struggling a little bit, and I don't think we're struggling, it's just the market is struggling is a better way of saying it, is just commercial vehicle OEM. And that business is projected to be down about 25% this year. What you'll also notice, it hasn't affected our results. So our sales are still strong, and our profit performance is great because we've been able to take share in the aftermarket, which of course is more profitable than the OEM business.
In addition, the OEM business is going to come back strong. It's a little bit artificially low this year and primarily due to, our fleets investing in trucks because of some pollution controls that are coming in 2027. So they're spending more money on trucks than they are on trailers right now. We're stronger in trailers. So that business will come back next year, and that the following year looks even stronger. So overall, we're positioned very well. Life is good, and we're excited about those segments.
Okay. Thank you for that. And then can you maybe just remind us what the exposure is of OE versus aftermarket? And then as you kind of look out, you know, how's backlog doing? You know, where is it doing well? Thanks.
Yeah. If you look at, so speaking specifically in sealing still,
Yeah, sealing, yes.
In sealing, Garlock is positioned almost 80% aftermarket, 20% OEM. Stemco is about 70/30. And Technetics would be almost, I would say, 90% OEM, 10%. But in those situations, it's very, very sticky. So you're looking at aerospace or space where you're spec'd in at OEM level. There just isn't necessarily a lot of aftermarket in those parts. But we do very, very well there. As I said earlier, the backlog grew in all three segments last quarter.
Okay. Anything that you would call out on the backlog as far as, you know, what areas were very strong? And then can you maybe also talk about if you're seeing still destocking in any areas?
So what was strong last quarter, space. I think we're on every space launch in the U.S. So as you see more launches, you see that grow. And nuclear is still very strong. General industrial is, I would say, average. I mean, just moving along at GDP, a little bit more than that with some innovation. I forgot the rest of your question. I'm sorry.
It was at the destocking piece of it.
Oh, destocking. The only place we're really seeing that, I think, in any meaningful way is still a little bit up in our food and pharma business. That seems to be just chopping along the bottom. Even that business backlog grew last quarter, but it hasn't got the strength it had in the past. So I would call it as choppy, but I think it's bobbing along the bottom and actually looking to get some foothold and maybe have momentum from this point forward.
Okay. Can you and then.
We reported Q1 on Tuesday morning, and you know, we cited some you know, strengthened orders in the shorter cycle areas and a variety of end markets where we're seeing bigger kind of industrial weaknesses in our you know, smaller Asian exposure. When you look at the backlog-driven business that Eric was talking about relative to Technetics, you have the combination of good visibility from a new platform perspective, both on high-value aerospace applications where we have to offer technological advantages, strong positions in sustainable power generation, particularly nuclear, which we think is you know, part of the solution to the green energy you know, movement as fossil fuels are becoming a little bit less desirable in terms of power generation and space exploration. It's been a pocket of strength and excitement from an organic perspective.
In addition, you know, while we are seeing still a little soft action in that food and pharma business, we are seeing kind of orders stabilize. So we imagine as the year progresses that smaller but important end market will be, you know, additive. But we're delighted with the underlying, you know, positioning of the Sealing Technologies business. And, you know, we did forecast a sequential improvement from Q1 into Q2 when we reported on Tuesday morning.
Okay. Now can you maybe talk about some of the pricing in sealing again? If we're going to stay in sealing, do you have pricing power, you know, and why do you have pricing power? And, you know, what do we expect that pricing to be?
We have pricing power, but I would say what it's going to return to a more average, annual increase than it has been over in this inflationary environment. The reason we have pricing power is a few things. There isn't any customer that's a huge part of that business, and there isn't any customer concentration. That's one thing. The other thing I always say, we play in the space between elephants' toes. So when you look at an overall maintenance spend for a typical plant, it's somewhere around 2%-3% of the plant's maintenance, and we're a very small part of that. In addition, small but critical. So it takes reliability engineering in most cases to make a change.
Our customers will tell us that it costs somewhere around $50,000 or more to begin to do reliable engineering testing, and there's bigger opportunities in the products than what we sell. And so typically, we don't get a lot of focus there. So it's critical. It's catastrophic failure when it happens, and they don't want to take the risk for such a small part of their business in general. So we maintain pricing power throughout. It's also a fair amount of intellectual property built into it. These aren't just plain rubber seals. You can place one for the leak. There's some engineering involved in it as well.
We have down.
I would add, you know, in the past, we've seen tremendous, you know, tailwinds from the pricing environment over the last couple of years in the post-COVID, you know, kind of supply chain tightening, you know, period. And we've had pricing be a big contributor to what we've done from a value creation standpoint and specifically in sealing. And as Eric mentioned, we're kind of returning to normal annual, you know, part of your DNA-type pricing activity in the 2%-4%. It's just going to be what we do on an annual basis. It's very sticky, as Eric mentioned, and it'll just be part of our commercial activity on a yearly basis. And we expect that, you know, we'll be able to do this this year, and it'll hold and continue on.
You can look back at the margin expansion we've had. I always say pricing is there we breathe, and it's really a continuous improvement effort from everything from the supply chain to actually taking cost out of what you're doing, efficiency in the plants. We execute very well. And so you see that show up in our margins and in our pricing efforts. We're very good at capturing what we have. I always say we also value price. So we get the key the value we create.
Okay. Understood. And then, you know, maybe just, just a final question on, on sealing is, you know, maybe talk about this AMI acquisition you did. You know, what does that add to the portfolio? You know, why'd you do it? And then kind of what are you expecting for it going forward as you integrate it?
Sure. I'll cover that. So yeah, AMI was an adjacent move from a technology perspective in the test and measurement space. So here's an opportunity where we make testers and sensors that go in its core market in the midstream natural gas space. And it's testing for moisture, you know, oxygen and other trace chemicals, partly driven by regulation, partly driven by, you know, data collection and analysis and safety, critical safety factors. It also has opportunities in a lot of other adjacent spaces, so not just in the midstream natural gas space, but in other, you know, industries like food and pharma, general chemical, and other industries where that sensing technology is playing a critical safety or other analytical function. We're really excited about this, this acquisition.
We think it brings us other capability and technology and intelligence that we can apply in some of the other critical sealing spaces that we play. The very beginning of the integration has gone extremely well. So we bought the business and closed on it in late January. First two months, it's performed very well. It's ahead of expectations. And we're very happy with that. You know, and that's the type of acquisition that we're going to target and continue to focus on, as we go forward. Our pipeline is quite active, and we'd love to find another AMI.
We also have an exceptional leadership team, and their culture is very similar to ours. So it was an easy integration from a culture and leadership standpoint. Tavin does an outstanding job there, and we're glad to have him on the team.
Okay. That's an important facet on the capital allocation and, you know, strategic direction of, frankly, both segments, although, you know, we feel comfortable with what we have in Advanced Surface Technologies and, you know, tooling up and getting ready for good, strong organic performance in coming years, both based on our leading edge technological advantages and that thread that ties each of our businesses together in both segments or that small percentage of total customer spend, absolutely critical to our customers' process. Any failure or variance in the performance of our products is, you know, either economically or environmentally catastrophic to, you know, the environment in which our products and solutions are used.
You know, we have spec process of record, you know, very high barriers to entry with our leading edge material science capabilities that customers have come to quite enjoy over time. So we're delighted with the process there in terms of, you know, incremental capital allocation towards strategic M&A. We have strategic roadmaps in a few tentacles of our business. That would be food and pharma, continuation of compositional analysis, other areas where we would be able to kind of expand our capabilities concentrically to, you know, offer even more value to our customers. We don't have any gun to our head to rush to lever up to do any sort of acquisitions.
These would be absolutely, you know, strategic and, you know, necessary and lean the portfolio toward, you know, higher organic growth in addition to the incremental organic investments that we're making across the company to position the business for future growth.
Great. Thank you. And then if we could maybe shift over to AST, you know, maybe walk us through it. I know we touched on it briefly, the you know, the different businesses there, you know, and how they're really positioned to capture the growth that's coming in the semi-market.
We have so we have three different businesses in the space. We have Technetics Semi, which does a lot of the refurbishment and also some new parts. We have NxEdge that does the coating. They also do some cleaning and also do some precision engineering as well. Then we have LeanTeq, which is a premier cleaning business. We're positioned throughout the U.S., Asia. We're in Taiwan and Singapore, several facilities in the U.S., Boise, Arizona. And if you've been listening to earnings call, we've invested significantly in Arizona, and that facility is getting close to being up and operational. We're getting ready to be doing testing at the end of this year, be ready for launch next year in full capacity. Singapore, we just made a meaningful expansion. We continue to invest in those spaces. We're really excited about those businesses. We have leading edge coating, cleaning technology, and refurbishment.
So our customers enjoy that technology. You've recently heard the industry is moving into production on 2 nanometer at the end of next year, towards the second half of next year, and we're positioned very well to take advantage of that. In addition, we have capacity for expansion in all the facilities we have today. So we've been positioning this business for growth to take advantage of the semi-surge that's coming. It's still industry's still expecting to double over the next 7-10 years. They keep moving the needle a little bit on that. They say 2030 plus or minus, but there isn't any doubt that the industry's going to double over a period of time. And we're positioned in the right place to take advantage of that.
In addition, you read constantly about all the CHIPS Act money and the stuff that's going on there from the government trying to promote the semiconductor manufacturing business in the U.S. We have six facilities in the U.S. We're positioned so that we can do a vertical integration play. We can make a part in the U.S., clean it, coat it, and put it into production all in the U.S. and without losing any of the chain of custody. So our customers can enjoy cutting the supply chain time frame in half, typically from going back and forth to Asia several times to that wholly inside of the U.S. In addition, they have this chain of custody. So you have traceability all within one Enpro family versus handoffs where then you get the chance to place blame on each other when something goes wrong.
So we can keep it all in the family. And I think we're uniquely positioned to do that. So we're really, really excited about that space.
Yeah. In addition, we know we're in sort of the down part of the cycle. We've talked about for us specifically the first quarter being sort of the trough of the current semiconductor cycle. But through this cycle, you know, we continue to focus on, you know, kind of repositioning and making sure we're adjusting our cost base to the lower volumes while still maintaining the flexibility and the overall capacity to participate in the upside when it comes, and all through the cycle investing in the future. So we've talked about we're doubling our investment in CapEx in 2024 compared to the last few years. The majority of that is going to be behind organic strategic growth programs in this AST business.
Eric mentioned our investment in Arizona, but we're also investing in Singapore and other positions, behind leading edge technologies to make sure that we're able to capture on that market growth as it comes, all while still maintaining 20%+ EBITDA margins, you know, at sort of the depth of the semiconductor cycle. So it just goes to the value and the strategic position that, that we hold in this space. So we're very enthusiastic for the next couple of periods in our AST business and our ability to capture the upside in the industry, but also continue to position ourselves to grow and, and behind some of these leading edge technology positions that we've, we've been able to, to gather.
It's important to note we're kind of in the middle of a few very significant mega trends that are going to be, you know, where Enpro's actually specifically positioned quite well. You have evolving chip architectures, you know, very similar to some of the themes that you see coming out of the Sealing Technologies business. Process yield efficiency and contamination control is an important aspect of certain tools. And we do focus in the chamber tools. So to kind of dimensionalize some of the tools that we bring to our customers, an analogy would be that, you know, our tools are the heart and lungs of the chamber.
We these critical components make sure, you know, especially as you're moving down node, the number of, you know, the contaminants in the environment is actually quite caustic, which requires more cleaning and more coating of these high-value tools, which kind of annuitize our business as we move forward, particularly as new platforms evolve, as chip architectures become more complex, and as we position things from a process node perspective, as Eric mentioned in the 2 nanometer area. But also, I mean, few years down the line, we might see, you know, discussion at the Angstrom level. And we have a seat at that table with critical applications and technologies and are, you know, are incredibly excited and well positioned about the long-term secular drivers behind AST.
Okay. And then maybe can you just walk us through a little bit more on AST, talk about, you know, some of the advanced node cleaning, and just sort of the business and how it moves, you know, versus, let's just say, like, long-term capital equipment investment going forward? Thanks.
Sure. So you can analyze basically, you know, our tool, our design prototype machine manufacturer exposure on the capital expenditure piece of the business is tied to core WFE spending. We're leaning toward more, you know, logic versus memory, although we do have exposure on both sides. And then you have that other layer where, you know, where we're focusing on advanced nodes on the cleaning, coating, and refurbishing side of the house, where we're capturing the entire life cycle of the production of wafers. We basically have exposures in the cleaning, the coating capabilities, which annuitize the, you know, the positions there. I think that answers your question.
The cleaning business isn't and grew through the whole down cycle. So as things get more critical in terms of 3 nanometer, 2 nanometer, etc., requires more multiple cleanings that weren't required for the higher for the larger nodes. And so as it gets more critical, we get more revenue from that, and there's more turns of the crank, if you will. And so often these parts are cleaned as many as four times before they see service. And so our cleaning business has done very well throughout this whole cycle and will continue to do well.
Okay. And then when we look at, just the market in general, some of the recovery's been pushed out to the right a little bit. And what's driving that? And, you know, how do you operate in that type of environment?
I mean, regardless of the precise timing, I mean, these are giant multibillion-dollar investments with government support and things like this. So, of course, you know, the timing and magnitude of recovery is quite difficult to pinpoint. We've seen that throughout this and, you know, in recent months with a number of companies that have similar market exposures. But beyond a shadow of a doubt, you know, fab capacity expansions, you know, we've begun to see the first tranche of CHIPS Act support developing, you know, fab capacity in the United States and incrementally the supply chain development within the United States and other areas outside of Taiwan, where we're incredibly well positioned. So, you know, there's some big drivers there.
So it's exactly. It's a little difficult to pinpoint exactly, you know, when, you know, we're going to see that reacceleration. However, you know, there's no doubt that qualification work, which we have visibility on new platforms sometimes, which take a minute to reach any sort of scale, absorption. And, you know, but it's moving. The frontier is moving toward the leading edge mega trends such as data storage, accelerating computing power, and artificial intelligence. You know, these are just, you know, incredible, incredible secular trends where, you know, there's almost an open-endedness to the absorption of these chips and the reason why the world is increasing capacity.
Yeah. And we are seeing signs of recovery. You know, we talked about we expect the second quarter to be slightly incrementally better than the first. We're building backlog in our semi-facing businesses as well. You know, we're seeing some initial signs of recovery for the second half. We expect the first kind of step forward, coming in the second half at some point, really a major move in 2025 as far as a recovery in the WFE space. But as James mentioned, you know, regardless of the timing of when that happens, you know, we feel very strong in our position to be able to participate in the upside. And, you know, so strong leverage on our incremental margins as we grow back in that space. And it's just a matter of when it's coming, you know, not if.
We feel very good about our position there and our ability to participate as the market recovers.
It's very important to reiterate the fact that through this entire downturn, we've continued to invest both in talent, technology, incremental efficiencies throughout our manufacturing footprint, and also, you know, making sure that we're ready. We're getting ready for a ramp, and our teams are laser-focused on that.
The other thing you'll notice is our commercial pipeline continues to grow, both the size and number of opportunities and also the different number of customers. And we continue to win new business. And so that will start to ramp at some point as well. It's going to take a little time. You land these you land the customer now, and it may take 6 or 8 months before you actually start to see revenue. But, we are winning new business as well. That's exciting.
Okay. And then, on capital allocation and just balance sheet, etc., can you maybe just talk about your financial profile? You know, what should we expect for investments, M&A, buybacks, any other kind of color you could give us?
Yeah. I mean, we continue to through this entire period have a very healthy balance sheet. You know, we have ample liquidity. We've maintained anywhere between 1.5-2.5 times leverage through the majority of our portfolio reshaping activity over the last four or five years. We expect to stay in that range and maybe flex a little bit here and there when we have the opportunity to take advantage of a nice acquisition opportunity. But we see ample opportunity to invest in a robust pipeline, both organically and inorganically. We've talked about some of our organic investments around growth programs. You know, we continue to see and build opportunities for organic growth over the next, you know, three- to five-year cycle. We have very discerning criteria.
So now at these margin levels, and our expectations on return on invested capital, we have very strict criteria on what we're going to invest in. And that goes both for organic and inorganic investments. Our M&A pipeline continues to be very robust. I mean, we're looking at deals every week. We're very active in that space. We're not, we don't feel pressure to do something, but we want to be ready when an asset that we've really studied well and feel very strong about comes to market, and we're going to be aggressive in going after companies that fit our Enpro criteria and that would look good in our portfolio. So we continue to see plenty of opportunities there and expect our capital allocation will be done on a very disciplined, very rigorous approach in both those organic and inorganic areas.
We love the AMI acquisition. You know, that was in the test and measurement space. As James mentioned before, you know, we're looking in food and pharma , hygienic technologies, and additional opportunities in test and measurement and other adjacencies. I think most of our activity in the near term will be in our ability to build continue to build out in the sealing space. On the AST side, we're focusing on organic growth and our ability to capture the upside on the ramp and some of the other organic opportunities that Eric talked about in the sealing side. You know, we have organic growth opportunities, but I think that's where you'll see us be active, systematically on the M&A side.
And just to build on that, Joe, if I may, our organization is generating the best free cash flow it ever has, and in its 22-year history as a public company. And, you know, as we proceed through this year, you know, we're expecting leverage to get into the lower end of our ideal ranges. We also have a programmatic, you know, incremental dividend policy where we've increased it nine years in a row since it was initiated in 2015. And we have a $50 million buyback authorization in place.
But without a doubt, and it deserves reiteration, you know, the excess cash at these return levels is much better used to reinvest in our business, to drive incremental organic growth and position ourselves to lean the portfolio from that inorganic to organic process as we consider, you know, the strategic adjacencies, through acquisition.
Okay. And I know we only have less than two minutes, so maybe you guys could just touch upon, like, what should we expect as investors and analysts, for the company to look like, let's just say, in five years from now? You know, the portfolio or how does it look? Yeah.
We have to be in the market for it. I think you look for continued growth and continued investment. We've already iterated that we're interested in the test and measurement space, compositional analysis, food and pharma, life sciences. And you also look for bolt-ons that meet our financial criteria. We expect to be somewhere in the, let's call it, 30% EBITDA range in both segments over a period of time, ±200 basis points one way or another, depending on mix. But we're going to be operationally excellent as we are now. We'll be one of the safest companies in the world. And we have a great team, and we're ready to exploit it. So we are just on the beginning of capturing momentum. You look back a few years, you'll see that we've grown dramatically in our financial performance.
And I just look for more to continue. It's just, I think we've gone through and if you look at Good to Great or one of the books like that, we've gone through the first turn of the crank, and now I look for more momentum over time.
Okay, great. This is very helpful, guys. I think we're out of time. I really appreciate you doing this and all your one-on-ones. And I know you have a busy schedule, so we'll let you get back to that.
Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thanks, Sam.
Thanks, Sam.