Ooh! Well, thank you for everyone for coming to this, panel discussion with Expro and Weatherford. For those of you that don't know me, I'm Ati Modak. I cover service on behalf of Goldman with Neil, and have Alexa from our team as well. And then obviously, we've got Girish, CEO at Weatherford, and Mike Jardon, CEO at Expro with us. Thank you for taking the time.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So I guess I'll start high level. I mean, a lot of the conversations throughout last year were to the tune of trying to place you guys on the map, because relatively new stories, turnaround element, you know, a lot of investors haven't heard about what the new Expro is compared to what, FTSI, et cetera, used to be. So how, how do you think that narrative has changed over the last few years here? And from here, now that investors have a better understanding of where you guys are on the map, what do you think is the next leg? What do you think is the next rung of the story that drives your stocks? Maybe, Mike, I'll start with you.
Sure. So, Ati, first of all, thank you to Goldman for having us here this week. Appreciate it. It's been already some really good discussions with some investors and certain some industry colleagues. You know, I guess for us, I would start off, you know, the Expro story is really pretty simple. We're offshore, we're international, we're technology-focused, we don't own boats, and we don't own rigs. And although we've been a relatively newly minted public company, we've only been public for just over two years, we've got an 80-year history of services to our customers. We have a fantastic reputation. You know, they call us for the challenging wells, they call us for the difficult operations.
What we've really tried to spend a lot of time with our investors on is helping build that same level of confidence in the company with our investors, is what our customers have. And so for us, that's really what it's been focused on, is how do you communicate, articulate? We're very much offshore, we're very much international, and there's a very growing trend of investor sentiment interest in the offshore international space.
Great.
Ati, thanks again for having us and to Goldman. I think it's a terrific forum. Look, for Weatherford, you know, some of the same echoes as Mike said, but I'll start with what I tell people all the time. You know, Weatherford, over the last 25 years, has made a lot of money. It's made a lot of money for bankers, for lawyers, for consultants, and for ex-executives. It's not made money for two constituents: employees and investors. Our entire focus, though, is on customers and taking the value that we generate from customers and channeling it into those two places. Weatherford's got a legacy of differentiation, and that's something that we wanna continue, but differentiation that comes with incredibly high returns for our investor base, and that's something that we've been focused on for the last 3 years.
As you pointed out, the stock's done pretty well over the last couple of years. We've had some terrific success. And as we look to the next leg, right, number one thing for us is shedding this notion of it's the old versus the new. It is the new, and that's what it is. It is a company that is based on differentiation of technology, solving probably the most challenging customer problems through technology. It is also about delivering returns that are at the higher end of the industry. So that's really what it's about, getting that story of differentiation out there, shedding this concept of it's a post-emergence company. The turnaround is done. Now it's about how do we scale the company for growth while preserving the same discipline that we've exhibited over the last few years.
Okay, Mike, I know I mentioned FTSI. That's probably the wrong name. It's Frank's International. I was trying to think about the ticker, but apologize for that. But, you know, there are a lot of similarities and differences also within your companies, right? Like, you both have TRS, and I think when we speak to investors, that's one of the things where the relative differentiation starts becoming a little bit of a difficult one for a lot of investors to completely understand. So maybe, Mike, if you wanna spend a few minutes trying to outline how you are different, you know, the production cycle versus the beta to activity, and then, Girish, maybe where you stand on the landscape, just help differentiate that-
Sure.
between the two of you.
So really, for us, it's, you know, about 70% of our activity comes from customer CapEx spend. So, you know, as you start to see, you know, FIDs in terms of dollars, in terms of numbers being approved, you start to see it increase. That's very good for that 70% of our business. But we also have 30% of our business that is basically tied to more production-related, production optimization, production enhancement, incremental oil, incremental production. That's a very stable business. That's one that's gonna be there today, tomorrow, next week. Doesn't matter what the price of oil is, doesn't matter, you know, what happens, you know, in, in the industry, and that's a very important cycle for us. So that's really around production.
So a lot of the production projects we do, you know, that kind of gives us that true cycle resilience. And ultimately, for us, we wanna get ourselves back to where we're more of a 55/45, 60/40 kind of split between customer CapEx and customer OpEx spend. Because, you know, after having been in the industry for 30+ years, it's a cyclical business, and the more you can cycle-proof yourselves, the better off you are, you know, as an employer and as a, and as an organization. So for us to kind of be able to, to strengthen that, prop that back up, to be more differentiated around, you know, the production cycle and those type of things. We invest tremendously in technology.
Pretty much in all of the main service offerings we have today, we have a number one or a number two position, and we do that through technology, technology investment. That's really how we maintain differentiation. So whether it's, you know, deep water, ultra-deep water, high-rate gas, or really challenging sour environments, that's where we're gonna thrive, and that's where we have a really good reputation with our customers.
Yeah, Ati, look, for us, yeah, we've got three segments that really follow the well life cycle. We've got our drilling and evaluation, well construction and completions, and then our production and intervention. Now, within each of these segments, we've got multiple product lines, and each of these segments has product lines that are market leaders. So, you know, strong positions in the marketplace. In the DRE segment, we've got MPD, Managed Pressure Drilling, which is really kind of the flagship of the company. In the WCC segment, we've got cementing products and TRS, so two: one product, one service. And then on the PRI side, we've got our intervention service business. And what we've really tried to do is make sure we've got leading positions, again, driven through technology differentiation.
But even in the rest of the product lines, our focus over the last three years has been ensuring that we've got a product line strategy that hinges around differentiation. What do we bring? What is the value that we bring? And what we are not looking to do is drive global share. What we are looking is at the intersection of every product line and country, saying each one of those needs to be relevant, needs to generate cash, needs to be accretive to the company, and have a strategic rationale that is sustainable on a through-cycle basis. And that's really that focus is what's enabled us to now get to a point where our margins are industry leading.
We are, you know, we ended the third quarter at just over 23% EBITDA margins, but more importantly, with significant cash generation, which is not something that we have had in the past. But it's that true focus on how do we solve tough problems? Then you look across the product line and say, how do we bring them together? And there's two elements on that. One is intertwining different product lines and creating solutions. So for example, you know, we've got case studies that show our MPD with our drilling services, you really reduce the risk of a lost-in-hole kind of an incident. And the second piece is digital. So running that digital thread, which starts actually, for us, started with the SCADA system. We're the only OFS company that has its own SCADA platform, which is CygNet.
We added production optimization to that, but then as far back as drilling with real-time drilling visualization, our Centro, and weaving that proverbial digital thread across all of these to not just have digital products, but digitally enabled services.
That's helpful. Thank you both. To take a step back, maybe more on a macro level, can you talk about your activity expectations for 2024? How's the growth rate shaking out for North America versus international? And then are there any regions where you're seeing particular strength or weakness that you'd highlight? And we can start with Mike, and then maybe you, Girish.
Yeah, I guess I would. I'll let Girish comment more about—I'm sure he'll want to talk about North America. I'll let him talk about that one in particular. I think internationally, we're seeing really strong growth rates, kind of across the pitch. You know, Latin America is very, very strong. Middle East, North Africa continues to have a tremendous focus on production expansion and incremental capacity, particularly in the Kingdom. You move into Asia, you see strong, you know, strong strength there, as well as, as well as Australia.
I think the one area that it's easy—if you go back and you look at the data, and you look at 2013, 2014, West Africa is still not back to that same level, still not back to the same level of the number of FIDs being approved. I, I think that's coming. I believe that from our customer engagements, those technical discussions, the technical inquiries, as they're building budgetary pricing, I think we're really gonna start to see West Africa, in particular, ramp up. And I think that's, it's one of the reasons why I'm convinced that this isn't just a 2 or 3-year cycle recovery. I think it goes beyond that, and that's because we're gonna start to get some legs behind us from the West Africa standpoint.
We see really strong, robust activity, you know, across the pitch.
Yeah, look, I would, I would concur. I, you know, I'll start with, with North America, that Mike, so kindly handed to me. You know, I think North America, you know, we've all been consistently wrong on saying it's bottoming out, so I'll go ahead and say it's probably bottoming out. You know, North America, we think will, you know, will sort of be in this sort of ±5% band of kind of where we are right now. It's unlikely to have a significant inflection up, but hopefully also, the, the flip side of it is, is true. But it is also the most dynamic of markets. And for us, look, North America is really three separate businesses.
It's Canada, which is actually a lot more similar to international businesses, but a little bit more longer cycle, a more diversified portfolio. Then you've got a very stable, very robust Gulf of Mexico business on the offshore side, and then a U.S. land business, which for us is mostly production oriented. You know, Latin America was really the story of 2022. It's the most pleasant surprise, because we always knew the Middle East would have very significant growth. We are very pleasantly surprised that Latin America gave the Middle East a run for its money in terms of the rate of growth, partly the market, and partly we were able to get some significant share gains. We think Latin America will continue to grow in 2024, not at that same rate.
So we think it's probably a mid single digits kind of a growth rate coming in. Europe, I think, is finally getting everything together, and it's probably gonna be up about a double digit one, just on normal activity, but we're also seeing a lot of plug and abandonment and slot recovery activity that is really positive for our business. And then, as Mike pointed out, look, I think, on the Sub-Saharan Africa side, again, a very robust year for us in 2023. We expect to see again a year that's double digit. Asia is kind of finally coming out of its post-COVID hangover, and one could argue the post-2014 hangover, 'cause it never really came back. All of the different markets, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Australia, we are seeing a resurgence.
We think that'll be up about double-digit as well, which leaves us with two more regions in the world, and I'll start with Russia. You know, Russia is something that we think will continue to be difficult to operate from a complexity standpoint, just localizing of supply chains and navigating sanctions. Plus, you've got the volatility of FX with the ruble that is really hard to predict. So we think Russia will be negative. But then the Middle East, which is quite the opposite, very robust growth signals. Again, not as much as 2023, but you know, sort of low- to maybe even mid-teens kind of growth. So, you know, overall, you put that together on the international side, a pretty decent double-digit kind of an environment.
Girish, you mentioned three buckets in the North America business. Is there a way to size how much the U.S. operations, the U.S. onshore business impact is? And do you think that estimates need to be recalibrated given that it's gonna be relatively more flat?
Yeah, look, we don't break it out to that, to that level, but you know, what I will say is our business is almost 80% international. North America is 20%, and U.S. land is one of three segments. So, you know, what we have seen over the course of 2023 is we have had softness in North America, but we have more than made up for that on the international side, and so I really don't see any, significant reason to recalibrate, anything at this point in time. Again, we will give very specific guidance when we come out with earnings in February, but the overall landscape, shouldn't get affected.
Sounds good. And Mike, you've had some ongoing sort of rationalizations in the North America onshore market. I recognize it's probably small for you also, but, like, can you give us a scale of what that size is? And then how far along are you on that? Like, can you give us an update on what that rationalization is looking like?
Sure. And so just to clarify, part of the reason why I passed the North America land, U.S. land in particular, off to Girish is we have a small position in U.S. land. We're single digits of our revenue comes from there, you know, 7%-8% of our revenue. Over the course of 2023, we have really started to rightsize that organization. We've moved assets into basins with better returns. You know, we have situations in which we were in markets in which we had 34 competitors. And when you have 34 competitors trying to get pricing traction, trying to move pricing up and to the right like we all need to, just doesn't happen because the smaller companies don't have the same demands on their capital like the, you know, us bigger guys do.
So we were going through a process to rationalize our assets, focus them on key basins in the U.S., and then we were starting to reemploy some of those assets outside the U.S. into, you know, more appropriate, return places like Saudi, like Argentina and others. So we've really started, you know, it's an ongoing process that we've gone through and will continue. As long as we can, we can have the right returns on our assets in U.S. land, we'll continue to support it. But if we can make better returns elsewhere, it's a market that's small for us. It doesn't move the needle one direction or the other, with the one caveat is it's a great place for us to trial some of our new technology.
As we've rolled out things around automation, as we've rolled out things with machine learning, with, you know, with the ability to robotically control equipment and those type of things, it's been very advantageous to be able to do field trials in U.S. land. So for us to have the right size of footprint to be able to continue that from an engineering standpoint is helpful for us as well.
Okay.
To switch to the pricing side of the equation briefly, as contracts reset this year, what are pricing conversations looking like with customers? And then on top of that, how should we be thinking about net pricing and then the subsequent margin uplift? We can start with Girish.
Yeah, look, unfortunately, I've not yet come across a customer who welcomes us in and says, "You should really raise." I'm looking forward to that, to that day. So these conversations... Let me just say, robust. But look, I think it is still a very constructive pricing environment. I think customers recognize that capacity is constrained, especially when you're more differentiated, and also wanna have that security of supply over a longer period of time. They're also very understanding of the fact that we have been through a very inflationary environment over the last few years, and that hasn't fundamentally changed, especially on the, labor side of it. And lastly, customers understand, I think, which is very different from previous cycles, that it's very important to have a healthy service sector.
There isn't a whole lot to be gained by saying, you know, "Let's just push the service sector down and, you know, sort of maximize every dollar," because ultimately we add value into their operations. So you know, our view of it is pricing is still gonna be a net positive in 2024, not to the extent that it was in '22 and '23. '22 and '23 were, were really very strong, but it'll be enough to offset the effects of inflation that we are still feeling and still contribute to our margin expansion story.
Yeah, and I guess, what I would add to it is, for us, we're a little bit more mid-cycle, because of the nature of, of some of our activities. So we probably didn't, enjoy and appreciate as much of the impact of the net pricing in 2023. We'll start to see more of that in, in 2024. I think really that there's, there's three fundamental things that have to happen for the industry to get net pricing. One, is there has to be an increase in demand, and I think capital dollars increase and spending increase and activity increase. You know, there has to be, capital discipline across the service sector, and I think there has been.
I think that everybody's been very careful about the capital we've spent, the number of new, additional equipment strings we've added, those type of things. And the third one is you really have to have that focus on a willingness to go out and push price.... 'cause as Girish rightly said, customers don't welcome that conversation. They don't welcome that we need to raise prices, so you have to have an internal commitment to do it. Those first two things are very much in play. The third thing that I think is important, you know, many of the oil fields are structured in a matrix structure, a geography, and a product line. One of the things that we do is we very much monitor and approve pricing on a centralized basis.
So when I stand up and say, "We're pushing pricing," I can say it hand over heart, that I know we're pushing pricing because, you know, the tenders, the reviews, those kind of things are going on at a centralized level, and that's how you start to- I think I probably see a hundred-ish to 150 that is probably more directly attributable to, you know, to pricing impact. And we'll continue to push that as much as we can. I think everybody, if you kind of go back to the summertime, in particular, like the Barclays conference, I think lots of us that were exposed to international all had a belief that we were gonna see mid-teens, top line growth going into 2024. I think everybody has kinda, kinda set that back just a little bit now.
I think everybody's kind of around that high single digit, low double digit. I think we're still gonna have good room and you know, good activity for growth and to push things. So I think the pricing discussions will price increase discussions will still happen, maybe not at quite the same rate as what we had anticipated a couple of quarters ago, but I think that more moderated high single, low double-digit growth through the industry, I think is healthier. I think it's better for us as an industry. We can respond more quickly, we can add resources more quickly, and I think that'll let us get the long-term effect of increased pricing overall.
Staying on that margin point, you mentioned 150 basis points coming from pricing alone. There are other aspects that you have been working on throughout the year that would drive margin additionally. Can you talk about what's done, what's left, what the next stage is, and then maybe touch on free cash flow conversion also, if you can, and, Girish, I'll come to you after that.
Yeah. So I'll start off. I think for us, you know, when we, when we announced the transaction of bringing Expro and Frank's International together, one of the things we talked a lot about was very strong, tangible cost synergies that we'd be able to identify and take out in the first 12 months, and then over the course of the next 24-36 months total. We overachieved that in the first 12 months. We took out, you know, about 8% more cost in the first 12 months than we'd anticipated, but those are very, very sticky costs. If you look at the support organization, pre-merger of the two organizations, it was 31% of revenue was for support costs. We operated throughout 2023 at, on average, just under 20%.
That's very much sustainable for us going forward because those are sticky costs that we took out. It was structural things we did. It was structural changes we made. That's gonna be very much sustainable for us going forward, and those will grow at an inflationary rate. Those won't grow at that same, you know, low double-digit revenue growth. They'll grow at more of an inflationary rate. So we're in very good, you know, position for that, and I think there's more things that we'll be able to continue to do as we continue to consolidate functions. We move to more of a, of a, you know, bi-hemisphere, shared service organization, those type of things. We're really gonna have some good cost efficiencies we continue to take out.
Got it. Girish?
Yeah, look, for us, on the margin expansion, we've laid out this path to 25% EBITDA margins. We've come off of, or will be coming off of a couple of years where we have had some substantial margin expansion, several hundred basis points. And if you put it in perspective, Weatherford did about $5.2 billion of revenue in 2019, and $578 million of EBITDA. We're gonna do about the same revenue in 2023 and double the EBITDA. So you know, it's a fairly dramatic change from a margin expansion standpoint. But the next step is 25%, and there's four things that contribute to that. The first is pricing, like we've talked about. The second is new technology introduction.
You know, we've announced a series of product launches over the course of the past few months. We've got several more in the pipeline. It's taken us a while to get that pump primed, but now they're starting to come out, and each of these, we believe, will be accretive to the overall portfolio. The third element of this is our fulfillment initiative. We launched this about a couple of years ago, so you know, we've said this is about a 4-5-year journey. We are sort of halfway through it. We're starting to see some of the benefits. We'll see a little bit more in 2024, and then really sort of the full effect of it in 2025, 2026. This is everything from manufacturing, repair and maintenance, sourcing, our supply chains, logistics, how we manage that entire network.
It's a fairly herculean effort to really modernize it, bring it to the state that we want to tie to what the company is gonna go forward, basis, but something that is incredibly important and we think will be an advantage for us as we go forward. And the last is our overall cost infrastructure. You know, this, again, we were never really designed to be what we are today, so we've still got a lot of fundamental inefficiencies. We've got a lot of manual processes. So this right now is still a little bit of investment into the company in terms of better processes, in terms of better systems, IT and otherwise, and helping us modernize the company, but again, should give us cost advantage as we go forward.
So we've laid out this path, you know, to get there in a couple of years, by 25. And then, you know, our philosophy has always been, we put a target out there, we lay out a path to get there, hit it, make sure we're sustainable, and then we set the next one. And we've always viewed activity increases as an accelerant more than anything else, 'cause we really wanna drive it on an organic basis, and then activity just helps us get there faster.
... Given your growth expectations, just to talk briefly on free cash flow, how should we think about working capital requirements? And then if maybe you could talk about the 2024 free cash flow case, be helpful.
Yeah, you know, working capital is really about, for us, improving efficiency. That's been the entire goal. You know, when we started the journey, we were, you know, in a fairly bad place, so we made a lot of improvements on there. You know, the third quarter, about 28%. Our longer-term aspiration is to get that to about 25%. And it's a variety of different things from improving our days to invoice that we can control with customers on the DSO side of it to drive collections, better inventory management, S&OP processes, again, this whole fulfillment initiative I talked about.
Then on the DPO side, right, when you go through a Chapter 11 process, interestingly enough, the one thing that happens to you is, more than your customers or investors, everyone else, you know, is understandably, your suppliers have a very negative view and really go to very onerous terms. So our DPO is still behind, what the industry is. We've been working very hard on pushing that. You know, on a, as you look at the end of Q3, our working capital has continued to improve this quarter-to-quarter fluctuations, but that 25% is kind of where we look to get to. You know, we've not given guidance specifically yet for 2024. We'll come out and give that. But I think, look, again, conceptually, every year we've gotten better.
Our free cash flow conversion has gotten better, both as a function of reduction in our interest coverage, higher EBITDA, but also operating efficiencies, and I would expect that 2024 is no different.
Yeah, I guess the only thing I would add for us is, I think the last couple of years, there has been a part of our working capital challenge, I think it's been consistent for most of the service companies, really has been on the back of slow paying from customers. Yes, there's internal efficiencies that we, you know, we're working on as well to drive our internal days to bill and those type things down. But fundamentally, I think our customers have also been, they've been a little bit slower on payment terms and those type things, especially if you're, as we are, we have a very strong activity set with the NOC type customers, and they always tend to have some longer payment cycles.
I think we'll continue to see that kind of normalize as we go from 2023 into 2024. We'll have a bit of a catch up. There's a bit of that kind of pig in the pipeline, so to speak, that has to work its way through. But I think as you're starting to see activity ramp up, our customers recognize, kind of as Girish said earlier, they recognize that, sometimes that pricing needs to happen to have a healthy services industry. I think they've also got a little bit better recognition that, they've got to get back to the payment terms that really has been contractually agreed to. So I think it just kind of works its way through the system.
You both also have potential stock and share repurchases as catalysts, dividends and share repurchases as catalysts for your stocks. You've also had some limitations around initiating it. Mike, to start with you, how are you thinking about capital returns, steps to get to that target?
Sure. I think for us, publicly, is we want to return a third of our free cash in some of share repurchase or dividend time towards share repurchase, but that's a discussion we have routinely. I think one of the things that becomes important is for companies to a dividend really is two: One, is the sustainability. Number two, you know, is it gonna be competitive across the pit? So for us, you know, we've been, you know, very focused on generating, improving free cash flow. You know, we'll be in a 7%-10% flow as a percentage of revenue in 2024 and kind of start to grow into that. So for us, you know, we were able to achieve, for instance, share repurchases in 2023.
We did have some limitations, because of the revolver we had. We've now reset our revolver facility, so we have some more latitude, and that was why we announced a expanded board-approved share repurchase program that we could initiate, at the end of 2023.
And then, Girish, do we expect our 2Q dividend at 2%-3%?
You'll have to wait for our 2Q earnings call for that, happy, but we'll see. Look, for us, our focus has been on paying down debt. You know, while we came out of Chapter 11, we still came out of it with a substantial debt load under very high interest cost. We've gone through a series of steps to refinance and pay down that debt. And I would, look, personally argue that paying that debt down is a shareholder return program. It's, you know, moving from one pocket to the other, and enterprise value's not done too badly over the time frame, right? So, you know, we've still got some restrictions around the senior secured notes that we have. So our first priority is to take that out.
We've got $249 million, that was left in, that we announced on our October call. So that's really the key priority. And once we've dealt with that, you know, we've said at some point this year, we hope to come back and lay out a framework in terms of what we would then do with the free cash flow that we, that we generate.
And then as we think about the next leg of your company, are there any organic growth opportunities that you'd highlight? Any areas you're looking to expand? We can start with Girish.
Yeah, look, I think there's a lot on the organic side. It's something that I'm tremendously excited about in every single one of our product lines. Technology funding has been the number one budget line item, both in terms of absolute as well as the incremental year-on-year basis. So like I talked about earlier, we have primed that pump. We're starting to get a lot more out of it, you know, whether it's Modus in our MPD, which is a new performance tier offering, or it's something like StringGuard in our TRS, which is a fail-safe mechanism to new advancements in the intervention business. A lot of different things that are coming out, so I'm tremendously excited.
But like I said, for us, what we really think about with each one of these is they've got to come in at a price point that is higher and hopefully a cost point that's lower, so that value gap really gets strengthened with this. You know, they have limited impact the year they're announced because it takes time to ramp up, and right now, with supply chain lead times, when you have service items that require tools, it does take a little bit of time to get them out there. But over time, we think they'll be a significant contributor to the company. So on the organic side, I think a lot of excitement, something I'm very passionate about.
I would also say, look, on the inorganic side, I think it's an industry that has a lot of opportunity for consolidation, and so I think that's gonna be a more interesting and a bigger part of the equation going forward.
Yeah, you know, we've really been focused on both the organic and the inorganic. You know, when we brought the two legacy companies together, both had extremely strong engineering functions, a lot of R&D efforts that were going on, a lot of new technology development. And what we've really been able to do is bring those two engineering groups together very seamlessly, very efficiently, and it's really allowed us to start to accelerate some of our own internal technology development. And as we've rolled out some of our new technology over the course of last year, we've really benefited from that.
It does, it continue to create a barrier for entry, continues to give us some technologically differentiated services to our customers, and it's really focused around efficiency, automation, reducing the number of personnel on board, removing people from the red zone. And those are things that are all very important to our customers. And it's very important to us because if you can reduce the number of personnel on board, you know, if you normally had a crew component of 9 and now you've got a crew component of 2, those other 7 personnel, we don't fire them. We can now cover another 3.5 rigs worth of activity. So that efficiency really brings a lot of, you know, strength for us and gives us some operational flexibility.
And then, you know, conversely, we've been -- we've done a number of small bolt-on, technology M&As. We think that they fit in very well from us, with us from a technology standpoint. All of these have to start with the industrial logic. If the industrial logic makes sense, you know, I'll never forget when we announced the Expro-Frank's transaction, and I went to visit a number of senior customers to say, "Hey, here's what we're doing, and here's why we're doing it." And most of the time, this is what I got from them: "You don't have to explain it to us. It makes perfect sense." Very similar companies, very similar operating DNA, and those are the kind of things we like, things that we can bring in.
The industrial logic makes sense, and if you can come to, you know, the commercial logic, the commercial engineering, that makes sense to make those happen. I think there's a lot more of those type of transactions that should be happening in the industry than what we've seen over the last couple of years.
Well, we're almost out of time, so thank you so much. Appreciate both of you taking the time to talk to us today, and, look forward to the rest of the day.
Perfect. Thank you so much, Alex. Appreciate it. Appreciate it.