Good morning, everyone. My name is Mike Halloran, an analyst here with Baird, and we're pleased to welcome nVent with us today. Joining us today, Beth Wozniak, CEO, Sara Zawoyski, the CFO, and JC also helping on the IR side and other hats. Presentation today is gonna be pretty normal. Beth is gonna give some prepared remarks, and then we're gonna dive right into the Q&A session. If you have any questions, please use the portal. Those questions will come directly to me, and I'll make sure we weave them into the conversation. Or if you're more comfortable, please just email me at mhalloran@rwbaird.com. I'll make sure I weave all the questions in that we have time. With that, Beth, please, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Mike. Well, just to introduce nVent, if we go to the very next slide. You know, we talk about being a company that's focused on electrical products and solutions, and what we do is we connect and protect. Three segments, Enclosures being our largest, followed by Electrical and Fastening and Thermal Management. When we look at electrical opportunities, we have a very strong industrial base, but we see this infrastructure as an area of a lot of growth. When we look at the composition of our business, we're fairly North American-centric, and that's one of our growth strategies. That's overall who we are. We just announced our Q3 earnings. Very outstanding quarter for us. Our sales were up 26% year-over-year. Our EPS was up 18%. Very strong margins, very strong cash flow.
We have momentum. Our orders were up 40%, and I really do think we're doing a fairly good job managing our supply chain to be able to deliver for our customers. Now, what I'm really excited about, if we go to the next slide, is just where things are headed. We talked about this in our Investor Day, that everything is becoming electrified. I think you see these trends of technology, connectivity, ESG, sustainability, a growing population, middle class, investments in infrastructure, all of that is driving growth into these key verticals that you see listed here in the middle. We're excited about that because we provide products and solutions that support all of that infrastructure, all of that technology, automation. It's how we've been positioning and growing our business with acquisitions and new product development.
We believe we're really poised for some long-term growth here as a result. Our strategy since we spun off as a new company has been really the how do we scale what we do, whether it's digital platforms or our partnerships with channel, we call that One nVent. Our growth areas, really, we invested even through the pandemic, and as I talked about those high growth verticals, an area like data centers, where we've really invested with acquisitions and new products. Speaking of new products, they're driving over a point of growth. We're going to do over 50 new products this year. We did 50 new products last year. Globally, our growth rates are actually higher outside North America. I think the investments we're making there are paying off. I want to point out we've done four acquisitions since we became a new public company.
Those acquisitions, we've actually seen the growth rates higher than what we've seen in our core business. Again, it's because we've really ensured that they're positioned in those areas of electrification, data centers, industrial automation growth, et cetera. Underpinning all that is just driving digital, being efficient with our working capital, and we talk about productivity and velocity. In closing, we're so excited about this electrification of everything because we're one of the best positioned companies for success here and for growth. Another quarter growth this year of our sales and EPS exceeding guidance. We have great margins and cash and plenty of runway. We're executing well on those growth initiatives. Our capital allocation is focused on growth. Full year, we're expecting double-digit sales and EPS growth.
Really, we talked about last year, we wanted to emerge stronger, and we believe we have done that, and we're now really positioned to grow with the electrification of everything. That concludes my formal remarks.
Great. Thanks, Beth. What really stuck out to me in the prepared remarks and looking at the release was how well you seem to be managing the supply chain on a relative basis. Maybe talk about what's unique to your processes or your products or how you're attacking what is a challenging environment that sets up what seems to be some nice differentiation there.
You know, I would say there's a couple of things. When we first became a new public company, we really looked at our supply chains and wanted to regionalize them. That was important for our ability to respond quickly to customers. We talk a lot about velocity. The regional supply chains for most of the materials and suppliers and our manufacturing is done within a region, allows us to respond. I think that's one thing. Second, we started to have scenario planning a year ago, saying, "We're going to come out of this pandemic, and we're going to start to see demand recover. Are we positioned for it?" We invested in capacity in our factories. We looked at our supply base and dual sourcing, things like that. Then I would say another area for us is our digital transformation. Take our Enclosures portfolio.
We really focused in our EFS portfolio to guide customers to more standard products through some of our digital configurators where we had strong product availability versus more custom solutions. I think that approach, that digital approach and how we designed our supply chains, has allowed us to grow and really respond to customer demand. I think that having 28% growth and delivering on that really speaks to that ability.
How do you envision the supply chain headwinds playing out for you? Obviously, no one's got a crystal ball here. So anyone who sits here and says, "I know when supply chain is," is probably not going to be accurate. When you think about the fourth quarter, are you expecting a comparable type of impact? Then how are you envisioning things playing out as we look to next year?
Yeah, I would say we're, you know, we think about fourth quarter as going to be similar to third quarter in terms of just all the challenges. You know, while we're managing it well, I don't wanna say it's not without a lot of effort from our supply team. I believe, you know, we're still in this very strong inflationary environment, so we're working through that, managing that on the price side. I do believe these challenges that everyone is speaking of, we're gonna see them through the fourth quarter, but I believe we're gonna manage them the same way we did in Q3.
You brought up price there, obviously strong price in the third quarter. Maybe talk about the pricing dynamics across your businesses. You know, competitively seems like a good environment to be pushing through price. How are you thinking about the price cost curve and your ability to maintain and hold on to those prices depending on commodity and other inflation pressures too?
Go ahead, Sara.
Yeah. Well, I mean, I would start by saying, you know, you're right, we got strong price in Q3, and that was really important given that inflationary environment. Price was up 9 points. We also had volume up 11 points, so combined to that 10% organic growth. I would say it starts really with strong brands and leadership positions. I would say secondarily, we always say we provide an outsized value to our customers, which certainly helps. When you think about many of our products are gonna be a low cost on that overall bill of material, and we're providing outsized value in terms of protecting, you know, very expensive electronics and electrical equipment that is responsible for millions in output. We're responsible for, you know, putting in that data infrastructure.
We provide that outsized value for our customers. I think a couple other points here, too. Certainly it helps, as Beth outlined, we were delivering for our customers. Being able to deliver, right, helps in terms of that price realization. I think the other thing too is just reminding folks that two-thirds of our revenue goes through distribution, and we have a very good process, you know, for passing along that price, you know, through distribution. You mentioned kind of, you know, how do we think about it in terms of holding on to it or that stickiness. You know, if we look back at history, it does suggest that we hold on to this, and we believe that would continue to be the case.
You know, some of it, no doubt, you know, as inflation abates, a bit of pricing abates, too. Largely, we would expect to hold on to that price. You know, I think across all the segments, we've done a tremendous job of executing multiple prices across the year, with our locking strategy in our metals, it really allows us to have good visibility so that we're front-footed, you know, from the price up to the offsetting that inflation.
It seems like you're doing a decent job on the price cost curve. Incremental's probably slightly pressured here in the short term. My guess is that's more a function of just adding price, maybe getting a little bit, but you're still adding a lot of price, and you don't necessarily get the same incremental margin on that price. Maybe help understand how that margin progression works out. Just a better way to think about it, and we'll talk about orders and revenue in a sec, but underlying demand is good. When do you think you can get back to that more normal incremental you guys have talked about into that, in that mid thirty range?
Yeah. I'd start by reiterating that is, I mean, if you look at the, you know, strong margin profile across every one of our segments, right? It takes to that 30% cost incrementals. If you look back at history, right, that's where we've been as well. In this time, right, we've got two things that are just side by side, in a half, you know, pressuring that ROS, those incrementals. Price costs. You know, even while we were price cost positive in Q3 and expecting to be again in Q4, and that's all in costs, that's raw material, that's wages and logistics. It's still gonna compress, right, those incrementals and margins. The other piece is these temporary costs, you know, year-over-year, and we sort of circled back.
You know, for Q3 that was a 230 basis point impact on the raw side. I think the third thing is just the supply chain is unprecedented. We don't necessarily have a crystal ball of exactly when that's going to abate, but we are making those trade-off decisions every day to say, "What are we gonna go invest in to ensure that we can deliver for our customers?" We believe that that's enabling us to win share. From an overall margin standpoint, I think it's gonna really, you know, I think the price cost, right?
I would say the inflationary environment, because again, we're front-footed on the price cost side, that inflationary environment and that supply chain challenges, I think those are gonna dictate in terms of how soon we can get back, you know, to that incremental and that ROS, you know, expansion that we've been able to deliver, you know, pre these, you know, supply chain pressures and these unprecedented inflationary environments. My guess is that that's gonna, you know, be a pressure point in that first half of next year, and then looking for, you know, a better incremental in that back half.
Yeah. It certainly seems the message on EBIT or EBITDA dollars is pretty constructive because a lot of the challenge is more math oriented. Then, yeah, you have some supply chain and incremental costs that you have to layer on top of it. It seems like the EBITDA messaging on a dollar basis is constructive.
Absolutely. I like to give the example of Enclosures, you know, where we had 28% income growth. Yes, we had some raw contraction in the quarter of Q3. But nonetheless, I think the Enclosures team has done an excellent job of converting those orders to sales and growing those income dollars.
Let's switch gears a little bit to the order, the backlog side of the business. You know, just specifically, you know, [audio distortion] mentioned 40% orders. Maybe talk about the drivers and maybe more importantly, the sustainability of that type of momentum. Obviously, 40% order growth would be lovely to continue with security. You know, the momentum behind it, I think, is what people are more interested in versus the
Yeah. Well, you know, when we had our earnings call, we did share that October looked very much like Q3. We're seeing strong momentum continue. Remember, even the prior quarter, we had 37% orders growth. I think what we're seeing are, one, a lot of the growth initiatives and a lot of these areas where we're seeing infrastructure for data centers, investments are being made, and we've positioned our portfolio there. My points there are just, you know, whether it's data centers or whether it's growing globally, areas where we wanted to have a focus, we're seeing or our acquisitions are performing stronger than what our core growth is. I think that this will continue. We'll see, as we get in.
You know, one thing we would say is there are some orders that are being placed to give us more visibility because customers and OEMs want us to. Where they might have ordered over a 3- to 6-month window, maybe they're giving us another quarter in, for some OEMs, again, a lot of those through our distribution channel. That tends to turn quickly. I do think we're seeing some of that play out. As we go into 2022 with the infrastructure bill, with this, you know, as I laid out, the shift in technology that we're seeing, I think is going to play out to have strong growth in 2022.
A couple things in there. One, you mentioned in the lead time, essentially backlog visibility. You know, the sense we've gotten from most of the companies we deal with that is that this really isn't a double ordering scenario. It's far more people wanna make sure they can line up-
Exactly.
order basis to meet some timelines. Is that something similar to what you're seeing?
Yes, it is. I think, you know, that our customers want to ensure that we see their demand so that we're placing orders on our suppliers so that we can, you know, shore up the supply chain. That's exactly what we're seeing.
The inventory then from external perspective, I'm guessing is still pretty lean.
I would say that it's turning, you know, in terms of, you know, we're seeing what we sell in is turning and meeting the sales going out. So there isn't any, you know, significant stock-up or anything like that because there's a strong demand for it.
Yeah. That makes sense. When you think about the backlog here, obviously, we just talked about how it's been stretched. Any nuance by segment, anything that you would point to in your various pieces?
No, I would say, you know, again, where we see some of that, you know, backlog, it tends to be more of our OEM customers than it tends to be through distributors.
Mm-hmm.
We're seeing it across all three segments, where we have nice, you know, strong backlog increases.
How do you manage the backlog in an aggressive inflationary market like this? Obviously, you're putting through a lot of price. Backlog and pricing dynamics don't always match. Are you managing how much you're putting in backlog? Are you making sure there's price escalation? Are you going back and repricing the backlog? Or are you just making sure that the customer relationships stay pretty firm through the process and balancing the whole thing?
Yeah. Generally, the way that works, so if we're getting some longer-term orders placed on us, we reprice that in the backlog because by the time that converts and that hits, you know, the inflation levels may be very different. That's typically how it's positioned or built into those contracts. In some cases, we do have escalators as well.
Yeah. No, that makes sense. Maybe go a little bit higher level here. You know, we're 18 months removed from a bottom. Healthy demand trends across the board, good momentum. How are you looking at the cumulative cycle from here? You've had some different pieces, and so those cycle dynamics are going to vary depending on what business you're looking at. But I'd love to hear your higher-level thoughts and whether you think we can see a little bit stronger industrial cycle this time around than maybe what we saw the previous 10 years, which were more margin cycle, less volume cycle.
I think it is different. I go back to how we look at these trends, and I think we're at a different point, and I think it's the technology shift. You see all kinds of other constraints that are driving towards this electrification. Take industrial. Every company today is talking about labor shortages. They're also talking about having stronger regional domestic supply chains. In order to do that, you have to invest in automation. Well, for us, you know, we have a lot of products, Enclosures or Fastening Solutions that are all geared towards industrial automation. When you think about just data and networking solutions, when you think about where we're trying to, you know, get more to grid or more sustainable technologies or electric vehicles, these are trends that are longer-term trends where we're seeing investment.
These are you know, that investment is going to take a while for it to, I think, really flow. I think we're going to see some longer-term growth that's more sustainable than we might have seen in cycles of the past. I think it just goes back to, again, where we're at in terms of the electrification of everything. Automation is here. You know, we're seeing changeover in industries with different energy sources. All of that is gonna play out. We're very excited about it. You know, that's kinda how we position this portfolio to really win with those trends.
Makes sense. A couple questions here that I got from the audience. First, from a competitive perspective, how would you describe the environment, like the various environments you play in? Any areas you're seeing any signs of more acute competitive pressure than normal?
You know, I think when I look at how our portfolio is performing and I you know, I really believe that we're performing well and, you know, from the standpoint of we're able to deliver, you know. I hear that from our distribution partners, that we're doing a better job than other electrical suppliers and competitors. I think that's allowed us to win and gain new customers as a result. You know, we feel good about that. You know, really what we're seeing right now is more who can fulfill the demand. Do you have the right solution? Can you provide that value? And can you fulfill the demand? That's where we're seeing the most competitive pressure.
I think we keep continuing to invest in new products and digital technologies to just further strengthen our ability to compete.
Another one from the audience. Thoughts on the recently announced infrastructure bill, the type of impact that can have on your portfolio.
Yeah. I mean, one, we're very excited about the infrastructure bill passing. Because when you look at all those categories of investment, it all plays to the nVent portfolio. And there's $ billions that are going to be invested in everything from 5G and telecommunications to EV charging stations to renewable energy to hardening the grid. You know, all of those things, right? We're gonna see smarter buildings features. You know, all of those areas are where we play. You know, when we look at, you know, our vertical mix in infrastructure and just see between industrial and infrastructure, even commercial with more power and data in buildings, you know, $ billions of investment, I think the ability to be able to respond to the supply chain, you know, is going to be critical as we go forward.
That makes sense. Let's talk capital allocation for a little bit. Maybe just start high-level model, [Beth] . How are you thinking about the balance between organic, inorganic investments at this point? On the inorganic side, you know, shareholder returns versus M&A.
Well, let me just start by saying, you know, we've had a consistent capital allocation strategy. As we've always stated, you know, we wanna invest in growth. Even through 2021 and this year, you know, we prioritize that investment in new products and in digital investments. This year, we completed two acquisitions. You know, we have return metrics that we wanna make, but, you know, we're gonna have a consistent investment in our core business, new products, making sure our factories have the capacity. Then, you know, we compete in a very fragmented environment. We think there's still lots of opportunities for us to find good M&A that further strengthens this portfolio. That's been our core priority.
How does that funnel look? How does the M&A side look? Obviously, just making two nice acquisitions in the second quarter. You know, thoughts on the pricing environment, the opportunity environment, and how actually you think that funnel looks?
We have a really rich funnel. I would say, you know, we always say that we play in a trillion-dollar space, and it's very fragmented. I think, you know, we see a long runway to do M&A, and we'll have plenty of M&A opportunities, you know, in 2022 and beyond. I think it's, you know, we've executed well. I'm very proud of how we've integrated and executed. I think, you know, that gives me confidence that we could even do larger deals. I believe you're gonna continue to see us do some M&A, over the next, you know, several years.
Any particular focal points or themes that I should be thinking about on what you're trying to layer on?
If you look at the deals that we've done, I think they're really characteristic of how we think about growth. Our Eldon acquisition gave us a global portfolio and strengthened our position to be able to have you know, electrical enclosures to provide anywhere around the world. If you look at what we did with CIS Global or our WBT acquisition, that strengthened our portfolio in data and networking solutions and gave us new product categories that we could scale through our channels and globally. The Vynckier acquisition provided a non-metallic enclosure portfolio, strengthened what we already had, but started to position us more stronger for 5G, for solar, for some of that alternative energy, where those type of enclosures play well.
I think that's characteristic, that we're thinking about high growth verticals, product portfolios to extend what we do and some global growth as well.
Let's talk about the organic investment side. You know, one, how do you guys determine where you wanna allocate your capital? Is there just a segmentation approach? Maybe some other strategy. We'll talk about [RIG] next.
I'll let Sara talk about how we think about our returns.
Yeah. I was just gonna maybe build on that, this question that you had in terms of organic or inorganic. I think we've said that, you know, it's both, right? From an organic side, I think last year gave good indication of how we think about the value we can go create with these organic investments. Because while
Many folks are kind of, you know, pulling back on CapEx. We actually held steady, you know, from a capital expenditure standpoint similar to what it was in 2019. Really focused around two areas, you know, one around new products. What can we do to accelerate on that new product side? We're seeing that actually pay off from a return perspective in that providing one point of growth for us this year. The second piece is really around digital investments. We do have, you know, a portfolio council that says, okay, there's a lot we can do on the digital front. You know, what makes sense to do first, you know, second and third.
For every one of those digital investments, we have the KPIs and the value creators, right, that we talk about and track, and ensure that we're hitting. You know, I think one is making sure that we're you know, steady and firm right on those investments, and two, ensuring that we can get, you know, get to those KPIs and those firm metrics, overall.
When you think about the new product introduction, seems like a pretty consistent outlay, decent vitality. How would you frame how that's impacting the growth? And maybe to tie on what you were just talking about, Sara, you know, the ability to be very targeted in the approach, you know, how has that helped pursue some of these better growth areas, et cetera?
Well, you know, when we think about new products, it's our ability to solve problems for customers, whether that's providing a new controls capability around global management, which is important for better monitoring and efficiencies, whether it's adding to our fastening portfolio that allows us to provide labor savings where shortages of contractors, or whether it's just looking at areas where we really wanna extend our position in data and networking solutions. How do we have a more breadth of offerings that we can provide? We look at it in multiple ways. We start with, you know, what is the market need? Are we solving a problem? Is this new product going to be differentiated? Is it something we scale through our channels, et cetera? You know, those are all.
We will, you know, kill products in our new product process if we can't find a differentiated solution. We're very disciplined about that.
I just got a question from the audience as well. Maybe just talk about your M&A process. You know, how you go about discovering, sourcing, et cetera, and how you think it might be differentiated.
Okay. Well, we start with an understanding of, you know, where do we think there's going to be higher growth? Is there a gap in our portfolio or something that can extend what we do? We identify those targets. Sometimes we already have those relationships with those targets. Sometimes those are things that banks might have brought to us or distribution partners have pointed out to us. And then we evaluate, right? We look to say, are we the right owner? Is it synergistic? Can we scale this? That's really important for us, right? If it's a product portfolio that we know that we can scale it, whether it's through our channels or our global presence, global manufacturing, et cetera. And then, you know, we have a good due diligence process.
I would say what we've demonstrated is we're very good at the integration process. Not only do we identify, you know, the sales, the cost synergies and the sales synergies, and we have a very disciplined approach about how we execute on that. Which is why all of our acquisitions that we've seen return metrics faster than what our models show for us. There's a lot of discipline there.
Great. Well, unfortunately, we're out of time. Thank you so much for the presentation today. Super helpful. Hopefully next year we can do this in person. Session one coming up next, Oshkosh Corporation. Session two is Pentair. Session three is Crown Holdings. Session four is Concrete Pumping Holdings. Session five is Johnson Controls. Session six is L3Harris. Appreciate the time. Really, really good job. Thank you.
Thanks. Thanks, Mike.