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Goldman Sachs Industrials and Materials Conference

May 9, 2023

Beth Wozniak
Chair and CEO, nVent Electric

The world is electrifying. We connect and protect, those are critical things as we go forward. If you look at our business, we have three segments predominantly in North America. About 69% of our business is in North America, all of that presents opportunity. I think the key thing when we think about the world around us is that the world is becoming more sustainable and more electrified. For us, our products are critical and essential to that infrastructure. When you think about the grid that needs to be built out, when you think about decarbonization, when you think about renewables, whether it's grounding, bonding, Enclosures or Thermal Management, all of that is involved in these trends. Everything's becoming digital. Lot of excitement around ChatGPT.

For us, we see that just accelerating what we're doing in our Data Solutions business. Then of course, there's all the infrastructure investments, and some of that is yet to come. When you look at this, we think that the opportunity for us from some of the infrastructure and the IRA bills is, you know, somewhere between $250 million-$500 million over time, but it presents tremendous opportunity. I always like to say that we had a strategy that we put forth when we became a new company, and we just keep executing on the tactics. For us, that focus on high growth verticals has been really critical. When you look at our portfolio, infrastructure, which was in the teens, is now 25% of our portfolio's sales, and that's what's growing significantly.

New products last year added 3 points of growth, over our journey, our vitality has increased to about 20%. Of course, acquisitions have added $300 million. They've been growing faster than our core nVent growth last year. We just announced the ECM acquisition and many other things that we're doing to just strengthen the business. When we think about how is our portfolio positioned and more resilient, we think 60% of it is tied to these secular trends, where there is this infrastructure build-out, where there is smarter solutions, whether it's an energy transition. Our portfolio here is just going to grow with all the shifts that we're seeing. The last key thing I just wanted to talk about is we announced about a month ago our acquisition of ECM Industries.

This is a great fit with our portfolio. It's going to bring us about $400 million in revenue. What it does is it builds out our power connection and grounding solutions portfolio. Again, essential products in the build-out of electrical infrastructure. It provides us tools and test instruments that are used on the job site every day. It strengthens us in these high-growth verticals. We're very excited. We expect that to close in Q2 and to be as successful on the integration path as we've been with our other deals. Lastly, last year was an outstanding year for us. We're setting up for a strong 2023. We're well-positioned with these trends in electrification, sustainability, and digitalization. Where do I go from here? All right.

Speaker 3

Great. No, thank you. Thank you, Beth. That was great. Congrats. I mean the growth rates have been amazing.

Beth Wozniak
Chair and CEO, nVent Electric

Thanks.

Speaker 3

It seems like the portfolio is well positioned. You guys are investing. It is interesting, you know, you mentioned 60% of your portfolio, you know, has been growing at, like, a 15% CAGR over the last three years. How sustainable do you think that is, just given what you're seeing, what either that's from a secular opportunity, legislative opportunity, versus, like, how susceptible is that potentially to, like, a cyclical downturn as well?

Beth Wozniak
Chair and CEO, nVent Electric

Yeah, I think - y ou know, I don't think we're gonna continue to see those 15% growth rates, right? You know, we just gave out our long-term projections, you know, mid-single digits growth rates is what we anticipate. I think, you know, we see it. You know, the shift in - we just see the growth in data centers, for example. We see all the electrical infrastructure. I think you know, we see that we're going to have good growth, and some of that investment from the bills is yet to come.

You know, there's gonna be some areas perhaps that slow, but I think we're going to see in that infrastructure area some strong resiliency.

Speaker 3

Yeah. You mentioned $250 million-$500 million in incremental sales, from some of the, you know, legislative funding. $1.3 trillion is a big number.

Beth Wozniak
Chair and CEO, nVent Electric

It is.

Joe Ruzynski
President of Enclosures, nVent Electric

Right?

Beth Wozniak
Chair and CEO, nVent Electric

Yeah.

Speaker 3

As you think about, you know maybe the timing or the pacing of that funding or any hurdles that have to clear, how are you thinking about when that starts to impact your business and your ability to actually see some of the sales, the $250 million-$500 million?

Beth Wozniak
Chair and CEO, nVent Electric

Yeah. I think we think it's gonna be slow, but it's gonna take over several years. We've gone back and looked at other bills and how they, you know, how the spend got to the states. I mean, it's a long process. I think what we're gonna see that just some steady investment that could be five-plus years. And that's fine, right? Because our ability, I think one of the challenges we still see are labor constraints, and so the ability even of the states and the, you know, the different contractors and the projects to get executed, there's gonna be constraints around labor. I think towards the back half we start to see some of the money flow through the states.

Speaker 3

Okay. Great. You mentioned data centers. Joe, great to have you on stage with us as well, so why don't we bring you into the conversation? It's been a great growth area for you guys. You highlighted at the Investor Day still kind of, like, early stages on liquid cooling. Maybe just talk to us about what you're seeing from a trend perspective in that end market. It's a market that investors are very focused on today, and what you see as your opportunity there.

Joe Ruzynski
President of Enclosures, nVent Electric

Yeah. You know, the history of nVent and specifically our segment has been on system protection. I think we had, you know, the opportunity to take it in a few different directions because of the ubiquity of every system, every electronic connection, you know, every intelligent system needs some level of protection. Data centers was kind of a logical evolution for our company. About three or four years ago, we started to realize that we had really a great set of products to address that data center market. Managing not only the system itself, but managing the heat, which is the most critical part of a data center, as well as the power. We've made some acquisitions in this space. We've made some partnerships.

Really, from a data center standpoint, what we were really excited about 3 or 4 years ago just continues. If you look at some of the trends driving, you know, the explosion of data, I think two that we're most excited about, one is data analytics and AI. You know, maybe I'm sure you'll talk a lot about that over the next 2 days. Really with AI comes, you know, more computing, more heat, and the need to cool it. That liquid cooling becomes critical.

What we're finding in that space, we've made some investments, you know, and you know, I was listening to the last conversation with Richard at Dover, we need to continue to make more because you find these areas that the market needs, and we continue to do it. We see that trend continuing. We see heat and the need to cool that being the major driver, you know, and we're excited about that opportunity in the next few years. The other thing in addition to AI, supercomputing, et cetera, is just 5G. We really haven't seen 5G kind of lead into computing at the point of where it's needed in an airport, in a building like this, et cetera.

It's coming and I think that's an opportunity for us to miniaturize and standardize, which is something, you know, that I think we've demonstrated in the past.

Speaker 3

That's super helpful. I think you guys have said that only maybe 5% of data centers today have now gone on to use liquid cooling. What really helps maybe expediate that adoption? What are your conversations like with your customers today on your liquid cooling capability?

Joe Ruzynski
President of Enclosures, nVent Electric

I think two things. To your first question, what is going to make the need for liquid cooling, you know, ramp and ramp quickly? It's simply that the next generation of chips have to be liquid cooled. It's really not an option. If you wanna be able to manage, you know, the most intensive processing, you know, and AI is obviously an example everyone knows about, you can't, you can't use old chip technology. Those chips are basically being manufactured and ready to be put in that liquid cooled infrastructure and we see that, you know, speeding up and going faster.

I think the second thing, and where, you know, we've had the opportunity to grow and to kind of raise our presence in a very quick manner, is that we not only have the IP, we've got a lot of really smart people that have helped to build these systems and solutions. What our customers like about us, and we talk about this, is our ability to scale. Just in my segment, you know, we've got 16 factories around the world, and a number of those factories can produce this product. To have that flexibility, and some of that capacity is transitioning from maybe older technology and older products. We're repurposing it to make sure that we can meet the needs of our customers today.

I think where, you know, any new technology, the technology is great, being able to scale it comes right on its heels and we think we're well positioned for that.

Speaker 3

That makes sense. Beth, you mentioned earlier three points of your growth coming from, the investments that you're making. You can talk about it maybe more broadly across the portfolio. Joe, if you wanna touch on specifically, you know, in the Enclosures area where you're focusing your investments on, that'd be helpful.

Beth Wozniak
Chair and CEO, nVent Electric

As we think about new products, we always look at, is this a product that is differentiated, margin accretive, tied to a high growth vertical? That's really how we've been able to scale our Vitality from where it was, you know, low teens up to around 20%. It's really the whole, you know, when we launch new products, that we launch them through our channels with digital collateral. We think, you know, about the entire end-to-end process. The other amazing thing is that we've taken 20%-30% of our cycle time out of that whole new product introduction process, just as we think about velocity.

It's important 'cause we're a products and solutions business, and we wanna keep investing there and bringing great products to market because it helps us with our growth, and it helps us grow faster in these high-growth verticals.

Joe Ruzynski
President of Enclosures, nVent Electric

Yeah. Maybe I would add to that in addition, this has been I think a big change for nVent in the last few years, is getting new products to market faster. Maybe just to add to what I mentioned before about scalability, you know, new factory in Thailand, new factory in India, a new factory in Tucson here in the US, those factories are really built to support the new products, new technologies, and to be able to scale them quickly. I've been fortunate to have good support from a capital standpoint, it makes it easier when the markets are growing, the customers are asking for it, and we have the products to be able to scale.

Speaker 3

Yeah, that's great to hear. Maybe just - so we've been talking a lot about the long term and the investments that you're making. Just maybe on, from a near-term perspective, there's some commentary this quarter around destocking that you're seeing across your businesses. I'll just open it up.

Beth Wozniak
Chair and CEO, nVent Electric

Yeah.

Speaker 3

Can you just maybe clarify some of those comments?

Beth Wozniak
Chair and CEO, nVent Electric

Yeah. I think when you think of a year ago when supply chains were very disrupted, and there was all kinds of constraints and labor shortages, I think our distributors and customers, and lead times pushed out were trying to order as much product as they could. As we've gotten our lead times and as supply chain disruptions have diminished, our lead times have shortened. You know, that automatically creates a new trigger point for a distributor to destock or just adjust their inventory because you've got shorter lead times. I think that's what we, you know, we expected we would see it starting at the end of Q4 as supply chains improved. I think that's an ongoing adjustment to those inventory levels is, as, lead times get better.

Speaker 3

You mentioned when we were sitting here before the presentation started that, you know, you're meeting with your distributors in the coming weeks. I guess maybe what's the confidence level that you'll be through the destock in the next quarter or so? I just wanna make sure that, you know this isn't something that kind of lingers for several quarters.

Beth Wozniak
Chair and CEO, nVent Electric

I think the key thing is when we look at our sell-through, 'cause we're able to look at our sell-in and sell-through the distributors, the end customer demand and our sales through have been very strong. The demand is there, which is very positive. That's what we continue to hear from our partners, is that customer demand remains strong.

Speaker 3

Great. The segue, just given everything that's happened over the last several weeks with SVB and bank financing, I'm sure you're looking closely at your portfolio as well. It sounds like you're not seeing a real drop-off in demand today, but are there parts of your portfolio where you're already maybe considering taking actions? What are you looking for in terms of leading indicators as to whether the, you know, a potential credit tightness is actually gonna impact your business?

Beth Wozniak
Chair and CEO, nVent Electric

You know, we talked about this on our earnings call. You know, the area, we certainly have seen some slowness in resi. Our Thermal business has seen that, you know, commercial has started to slow. We look at all of those indicators. You know, I would say on the CADDY side of our portfolio, it's still been very strong. We're just, you know, ensuring that we're positioned where growth is. Even if some commercial activity is going to be slower, there's a lot of industrial construction going on because there's new EV plants and there's new battery plants, and so we just need to make sure that we're positioned where we see that growth and that investment. I think there's always offsets.

That's the great thing about our portfolio is that it's so ubiquitous, and even if we start to see some, you know, more further slowing in resi, which is a small part of our portfolio commercial, that industrial side or that infrastructure side, or even on remodel, you know, if you, if you need to have more data and power in any, you know, in a for Data Solutions or in a warehouse, I mean our products are really ubiquitous. We just make sure we're focused on those growing areas.

Speaker 3

This might be a good segue into a question I get, consistently from investors, about you and about nVent is really around the competitive moat of the business. I'd love for you to address what you think, you know, is your competitive moat and what allows you to be ubiquitous to serve markets that are growing.

Beth Wozniak
Chair and CEO, nVent Electric

Okay. I'll talk about it from an nVent standpoint and I'll let Joe talk about it, you know, from his Enclosures side as well. I think the key thing for us is that we have differentiated products. If you think about our Electrical & Fastening Solutions portfolio, we typically are a leader in North America, and we have designed to have labor-saving solutions. That's not something that you can do unless you have intimate knowledge of how your customer installs these products and uses them on the job site. It's really that value that we have by, you know, creating, you know, time savings and protection and connection and safety.

When I think about our Thermal Management business, where we are a leader, there's a lot of application expertise, and we're protecting millions of dollars of output and the certification levels that you have to get to in order to drive those controls. There's a lot of many years and you know, decades of experience. you know, we feel really good about our moat in terms of just our understanding of applications, it's the position that we have with our brands and our channels, and I'll let Joe, you know add on that further with Enclosures, where, you know, we are the leader in North America.

Joe Ruzynski
President of Enclosures, nVent Electric

Yeah. I think the comments on technology and IP certification, those are critical. Maybe just to add a few things. One is I think we really spend a lot of time trying to serve customers how they wanna be served. You know, one example of that is, you know, we were just talking about the distributors and our channel partners. They're critical to our success. I would say the fact that we're comfortable in serving multi-channels distributors are very important to us, but also working closely with big OEMs on technical projects where we can scale for them too. I think that ability to serve in addition to having IP certification and really partnering at that application level, I think those are two critical things for us.

Beth Wozniak
Chair and CEO, nVent Electric

Joe has, like, 3,000 distribution points just in North America alone. That's really hard for a small player to replicate.

Speaker 3

Yeah. That's a great data point. Joe I'm curious, when I think about your Enclosures business, I think of it being predominantly distribution. What portion of that business actually sells direct to the OEMs?

Well you know, it's growing just in the nature of the business, especially as we grow globally. We're still over two-thirds through distribution.

Okay.

Joe Ruzynski
President of Enclosures, nVent Electric

It's still a really important part of our business. You know, one thing I would say as we've gone down this path post-spin of building out these vertical teams, as Beth talked about, serving the best or, you know, the most fastest-growing market, we're seeing that change in our channel partners as well. They're building that capability to make sure that they can serve, you know, fast-growing needs, not just going to the same customers, the same partners, the same applications. We work with them to do that as well. Although I'd say you see a little bit of a shift to partnering more with OEMs, that relationship with channel partners, they're getting more sophisticated as well, using data, trying to understand and be predictive of their customers. That whole market and channel is changing too.

Speaker 3

Yeah, makes a ton of sense. One more question from me, and then I'll turn it over to the audience as well in case there's any Q&A there. Price cost has just been. - y ou know, this quarter we saw an inflection across a variety of companies. You know, the pricing that you guys have been putting through is probably best in class across our coverage. You know, number one, I guess, how concerned are you about, you know, now that commodities are deflating, potentially having to give back some price, then how do you expect that equation to kind of progress as the year progresses?

Beth Wozniak
Chair and CEO, nVent Electric

I think we've shown, you know, that we're really able to manage pricing very well. The fact that a lot of our products go through distribution, we have a good way of, you know, changing prices. Last year we did many price increases, right? Just because we saw an inflationary environment. Where we are today, I think, you know, we're prepared to act if, you know, if there is inflation, and even if we do see commodity metals decreasing, there's still so much inflation out there, right? Energy costs, labor inflation, right? Labor is still a shortage.

From that standpoint, I think you know, you're going to certainly see the spread between price costs, diminish over, you know, over the course of this year because a lot of the strength of our pricing was really in that back half last year, right? Q1, we have a really great run rate, but that spread is gonna, you know, it's gonna decrease as we go through the next couple of quarters. If we see changes, we're prepared to act.

Speaker 3

Maybe I'll turn to the audience. Any questions from the audience at this point? We'll keep going. Maybe just going back to that comment, when you talk about your distributors, I know you're meeting them in a few weeks, have they started to push back at all in any of the pricing that you put through, you know, last year or even like early parts of this year?

Beth Wozniak
Chair and CEO, nVent Electric

Generally distributors like, you know, price increases 'cause it, you know, holds the value of their inventory versus if, you know, if reduced pricing. I would say we're still in a - you know, there's still demand out there. From that standpoint, no. I'd say, it's still very healthy in terms of just where we stand, and everyone is still experiencing inflation.

Speaker 3

Joe, maybe turning it over to you. We talked about data centers. talk to us a little bit more about your industrial solutions business and what you're excited about there specifically. Like there's a lot of changes that are happening on the factory floor. How does that impact your business going forward?

Joe Ruzynski
President of Enclosures, nVent Electric

Yeah and you know, if you look from an industrial, that's a big part of our legacy and our history, from a manufacturing standpoint. you know, data and analytics, robotics, factory automation, obviously AI. I mean, all of these things, just the way that companies manufacture is going to be different in the future than it is in the past. and you know, we're no different. We're a large manufacturer. One of the things that you won't see on our shop floors that you saw, you know, even five, six, seven years ago is big, big bundles of paper and other things that travel with products as they're getting built. so how you create workflow and do all of this electronically is critical.

It's important for us to, you know, as Beth talked about predictability, managing price costs, managing our inventory, being able to see that and do that all online. The days of being able to run, you know, or having to run Excel spreadsheets and figure that out. All of those things are really brought into that idea of smart factories. I think the other thing, just from a trend standpoint that's important is, you know, we talked for years and years and years, and obviously I've been, you know, a part of this business for a while, about reshoring and about new factories. When you look at EVs, those are essentially new factories. When you look at solar, that's new business, new factories. When you look at data centers, a lot of the things that are being produced.

We're really seeing, you know, North America has been great, Canada, U.S., and Mexico, just a lot of investment. Those investments are new technology, smart factories, and still the need for our solutions to help, you know, build that infrastructure.

Speaker 3

That makes sense. Maybe we'll switch gears and talk margins for a second. Joe, why don't we start with you. You know, I think your long-term margin target is 19%-20%. You put up over 21%, I think, in the first quarter. Why shouldn't 20+ be the new baseline?

Joe Ruzynski
President of Enclosures, nVent Electric

No, no.

With Beth sitting right next to you.

No, I think it's a fair question. You know, I'd say a couple things. One is, you know, as Beth talked about before, part of it for us is getting price cost back in the right spot. You know, we've made good progress in Q4 and Q1. By the way, on the cost side, our factories are getting more efficient. Ramping up, huge unit volume increases over COVID and with the labor shortage was not easy. I know we're not the only ones that had that challenge. You know, we definitely see the fact that we're much more stable there. I would say going forward, you know we do expect margin expansion this year. We do expect good price this year.

The reason that, you know, we wanna be careful about committing to any specific number is exactly what I was talking about before, which is we have more capacity we need to add. We're in the works right now for two additional factories. One is an expansion of existing campus, but we know that we need to make those investments to meet the needs of these new verticals and markets. That's an important offset, or that's an important consideration, I should say, to make sure that we're taking that into account.

Speaker 3

Where are you expanding capacity again?

Joe Ruzynski
President of Enclosures, nVent Electric

You know I mean, I mentioned the factories before. From a data center standpoint, since, we've built a new factory in Tucson, Arizona, a new factory in Thailand. We've expanded and built in Bangalore, India. Legacy sites, even in Minnesota, where, you know, most of us are located, we've done a lot of factory expansion there. To support that, we've added or in the process of adding another factory on our campus in Mexico.

Beth Wozniak
Chair and CEO, nVent Electric

Mexico.

Joe Ruzynski
President of Enclosures, nVent Electric

It's a little bit of a chess game to make sure that we can use that capacity. In terms of new brick and mortar, not quite ready to announce it yet, but this is something we're working on right now in North America.

Speaker 3

Oh, great. Beth, EFS.

Beth Wozniak
Chair and CEO, nVent Electric

Yeah.

Speaker 3

Nice journey there as well. I remember visiting the Solon facility, years ago, pre-COVID. How far has that come along in terms of modernization and being able to meet capacity?

Beth Wozniak
Chair and CEO, nVent Electric

Yeah, it's on a journey so I'd say we've made great progress in terms of just adding capacity and, you know, in terms of just even some cobots and other things. We're still doing some digital implementation there just to, you know, making those investments, which is also key. So I'd say still runway in front of us, but, you know, it's a great business and we continue to have, you know, those high margins up in that high 20% level. Now, when we add ECM, that's gonna be integrated into that portfolio, and it's accretive to nVent, but you know, to EFS it probably brings it down somewhat. But I think, you know, we always see that portfolio in that high 20s, and we've got more opportunity on lean and digital to improve.

Speaker 3

Let's talk about ECM. Maybe just discuss a little bit the strategic rationale of the transaction, and we'll take it from there.

Beth Wozniak
Chair and CEO, nVent Electric

Yeah. You know, from a standpoint of we always look at, you know, high growth verticals and great product portfolios, and we've shared this before. We have a flywheel that when we're able to find a great product set that is targeted to high growth verticals, we know we can invest, we know we can scale it through our channels, our factories, digital, and it drives growth. That's been a model that we followed. With ECM, they have a strong portfolio in Power Connections as well as test instrumentation. It's completely complementary to what we do within our Electrical & Fastening Solutions segment. You know, it fits all the - you know, it checked all the boxes for us in terms of, you know, our ability to know how to integrate it and scale.

We're really excited because when you think about just power connections, when you think about just e-everything around electrification, this portfolio, you know, is really aimed right there.

Speaker 3

Okay. Makes sense. You talked about, you know, part of the, I guess, the rationale is to expand their products abroad as well. What's the certification process like?

Beth Wozniak
Chair and CEO, nVent Electric

It typically, you know, takes about a year. We know that they have very good products, but you have to go through all the testing, you know, whether it's IEC or whatever is required. You know, sometimes there's some adjustments on you need to make from an R&D standpoint, but that'll take about a year.

Speaker 3

Okay. I know, I think you mentioned like $10 million-$15 million synergies. I was actually surprised that it wasn't a little bit greater. Why is that the right number for you guys?

Beth Wozniak
Chair and CEO, nVent Electric

Well, you know, to start, you know, we know we wanna make investments like investing in the product portfolio to make it global. We know we wanna make some digital investments. To be able to expand, you know, one of the things, you've got to have all the digital assets. It's really that offset of some of the investments we wanna make to scale it to grow.

Speaker 3

Okay. Great. We haven't talked about thermal yet, so maybe switching gears there. The ISM's now sitting in, you know, 46, 47. Surprised that the industrial MRO business, you haven't really seen that decline at this point. Has that surprised you at this juncture? What are your kind of thoughts around that business?

Beth Wozniak
Chair and CEO, nVent Electric

Well, you know we have the largest installed base, you know, where we operate. Over the last several years, we've done a lot to modernize our controls and capability. Those controls are retrofittable products that we can sell. We've put Life Cycle Services and programs in place. From that standpoint, you know, we've put a lot around really mining that installed base with some very strategic programs. I think part of what we're seeing is just how we've gone after those growth opportunities and, you know, created value for our customers, right? In terms of upgrading their controls, in terms of better monitoring, in terms of more efficient controls, you know, systems.

Speaker 3

Yeah. Interesting. I mean I think you guys actually used the word robust in for the demand in that business. Your customers right now are still feeling good about the world and maintaining their systems. Okay, great. Turning over to the project side.

Beth Wozniak
Chair and CEO, nVent Electric

Yeah.

Speaker 3

I think I got an answer at your Investor Day on your content.

Beth Wozniak
Chair and CEO, nVent Electric

Yes.

Speaker 3

LNG facility which is nice to see. I'm curious though, are you already starting to see orders in LNG? Maybe just talk about like your broader project portfolio.

Beth Wozniak
Chair and CEO, nVent Electric

Yeah. I'd say, what we are seeing some orders, but we're seeing a lot of activity, investments that are being made from LNG to carbon capture to clean fuels, biofuels. This whole energy transition is an area that we're focused on. I would say the activity there and the investment that's going in there is quite significant. We're usually at the later end of that cycle of the construction. What we're seeing now in terms of that pipeline that we're going after, that's gonna drive some nice growth, you know, in the out years.

Speaker 3

Yeah. There was talk, you know years ago, especially when there was a real, downturn in project activity as to whether the Thermal business was going to be part of the portfolio going forward. It seems like there's really good runway over the course of the next decade in terms of the amount of investments, particularly on what's happening in LNG. How are you thinking of that business today and, you know, or it from a strategic perspective for the company?

Beth Wozniak
Chair and CEO, nVent Electric

Yeah. You know, I think from the standpoint, we have a great leadership position. It's a great margin business. It's a great cash flow generator. You know, we think with this energy transition that we've got lots of, you know, potential for some nice consistent growth. I would say this you know, and I've said this before, is that when we look at where we're going to do acquisitions though, we're really focused on the electrification of everything. You're seeing more acquisitions aligned to our Enclosures segment and our EFS segment. For Thermal, it's really about positioning that business to take advantage of just the energy transition and that large installed base that we have.

Speaker 3

Yeah. We talked about the ECM acquisition. I think you're targeting 1% growth per year from an M&A perspective, inorganic growth per year. Does ECM provide an opportunity to build on the connector space? Like, talk to me about, like, what the pipeline looks like today and where you're really, like, focusing your attention.

Beth Wozniak
Chair and CEO, nVent Electric

Yeah. I mean, yes, it does. What ECM does is it creates more capability for us around power connections, which is good, and also that gets us stronger into data centers, stronger into utilities, so all those high-growth verticals. We really, you know, we start with, as I said, like what extends what we do in Data Solutions or what extends what we do with our Enclosures business and cooling or what extends what we do in terms of just that electrical resiliency and finding companies that we just think we can scale. We look at product, great products aimed at high-growth verticals that we, you know, think can add to what we already have.

Speaker 3

Joe, what does your M&A pipeline look like in Enclosures?

Joe Ruzynski
President of Enclosures, nVent Electric

Well, there's a lot of things in there we're excited about. A few things that I would say, you know, to Beth's point about what can we acquire that can help us grow faster in some of these fast-growing verticals. You know, I think there's a lot more in cooling that we can do. There's a lot more in power management that we can do. We still look for opportunities to help us to get global and serve customers better. It's a combination of those things. Yeah, we're excited about it. We're excited about, you know, some of the some of the partnerships that we've announced over the past few years, have actually taken those to the next level and scaling them as well.

Speaker 3

I guess just, yeah, given the environment that we're in Beth, I'm curious, like for the right acquisition, what would you be willing to take your leverage target to?

Beth Wozniak
Chair and CEO, nVent Electric

Well, I think we said, you know, when you look at ECM, we're gonna get to, on a pro forma basis, like 2.7, 2.8. I mean that's really - y ou know, we always wanna operate between 2 and 2.5. For the next while, you know, I think we got ECM and, you know, perhaps there's some smaller deals in there. You know, we've said at the right point, it could be above 3, depends on the environment. I'd say right now, just with ECM and, you know, maybe a smaller deal in there we can look at, we're gonna be pretty busy.

Speaker 3

Okay, last question from me, this, you know, Sarah's not with us today, so you're on the spot on free cash flow. I think you put out a mid-teens type free cash flow margin target. What's it gonna take to get there from here?

Beth Wozniak
Chair and CEO, nVent Electric

For us, it's a lot of focus on just working capital efficiencies, because, you know, as a business, we're a good cash flow generator, but we know that we can be more efficient when we look at just our inventory management. Some of this is gonna come as we do some more investments in digital that really allow us to operate more efficiently in logistics and all of those things. I think it's a journey that we're on, and, we're gonna continue to, you know, be a good cash flow generator and improve upon that.

Speaker 3

Any closing comments on what we perhaps what we potentially didn't touch on or what you wanna leave for investors here today?

Beth Wozniak
Chair and CEO, nVent Electric

Well I think, you know, we've had a couple of strong years, and we look going forward that we're really excited about the trends with the electrification of everything. There's some areas that we just think we're really well and strongly positioned and we're just excited for the future. We always like to say the future is bright for nVent.

Speaker 3

Great. Thank you. On that note, Beth and Joe, thanks so much for being here with us today.

Beth Wozniak
Chair and CEO, nVent Electric

Thank you.

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