Vertiv Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
October 25, 2023

There are 14 speakers on the call.

Operator

Good morning. My name is Bruno, and I'll be your conference operator for today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Verdeli's Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. Please note that this call is being recorded.

Operator

I would now like to turn the program over to your host for today's conference call, Lynn McSiner, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Great. Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to Vertiv's Q3 2023 earnings conference call. Joining me today are Virtive's Executive Chairman, Dave Cote Chief Executive Officer, Giordano Albertazzi and Chief Financial Officer, David Fallon. Before we begin, I'd like to point out that during the course of this call, we will make forward looking statements regarding future events, including the future financial and operating performance of Virtu.

Speaker 1

These forward looking statements are subject to material risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward looking statements. We refer you to the cautionary language included in today's earnings release, and you can learn more about these risks in our annual and quarterly reports and other filings made with the SEC. Any forward looking statements that we make today are based on assumptions that we believe to be reasonable as of this date. We undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events. During this call, we will present both GAAP and non GAAP financial measures.

Speaker 1

Our GAAP Results and GAAP to non GAAP reconciliations can be found in our earnings press release and in the Investors slide deck found on our website at investors. Vertiv.com. With that, I'll turn the call over to Executive Chairman, Dave Cote.

Speaker 2

Good morning, everyone. Well, we've delivered another strong quarter, built squarely on getting the fundamentals right. Good operational execution throughout the organization It translated nicely, outperforming guidance in the Q3. I believe you're starting to see a trend and one we plan to continue. Financial and operating performance continues to strengthen significantly across the board.

Speaker 2

And the most exciting part of that is, We're still early in our path of improvement. Alignment to great end market matters. We have a great position in good industry and our technology differentiation continues to strengthen. Data continues to proliferate in good times and bad And that portends a very favorable end market environment for the foreseeable future. We're intending to finish the year strong.

Speaker 2

The benefits of our seed planning are taking hold and still to be fully realized. Our end markets remain resilient. Operational execution continues to improve and there is still a lot of runway ahead. That is a great setup as we think about 2024 and beyond. So with that, I'll turn the call over to Gio.

Speaker 3

Well, thank you, Dave. In the last 12 months, we have created intense focus on operational execution, Including margin improvement and cash flow generation, combined with a sense of urgency, which underpins our high performance culture. This quarter shows progress across the board, exceeding our own expectations, demonstrating there is still more value the business Here are some highlights. 3rd quarter sales were up 17% organically. Americas continues to lead the growth, Up 40%.

Speaker 3

We continue to see headwinds in APAC, specifically in China, More on that in a few slides. Very pleased with our orders, up 11%, excluding FX. We were not totally surprised by the strength in orders. We have seen pipelines built, but Timing is never certain. We are encouraged by the order booking acceleration.

Speaker 3

We believe this is a sign of good things to come. Adjusted operating profit that was $296,000,000 and adjusted operating margin of 17%. Operational execution is sharpening and certainly translating into margin performance. We had another strong cash flow quarter, an area of intense focus and we are delivering. Of course, this has a nice effect on our leverage, which was 2.4 at the end of September And guidance gets us close to 2x by year end.

Speaker 3

Given our performance year to date, we are raising our full year guidance Again, we're now expecting sales for the full year to be up 21% organically, AUP between $10.20 $10.30 million and adjusted free cash flow of $625,000,000 At the midpoint, a very strong year continues to unfold and we see that momentum enduring. Let's turn to Slide 4. No changes on the market environment slide. Things are consistent with the picture we gave 90 days ago, healthy markets overall. The data center end market remains strong With the cloud hyperscale and colocation continued to lead the growth.

Speaker 3

We see accelerating demand And a strong overall market for the foreseeable future. Different customers are at different points in their demand cycle, But they all recognize that strong future demand is coming. There are encouraging signs from enterprise. We are hearing a more positive outlook, but still balanced against some macro concerns. Telecom is still weak.

Speaker 3

Some technical carriers have delayed investments and there is a lull in the market after a few years of strong 5 gs investment. Regionally, APAC remains soft, mainly due to a slow Chinese market, partially offset by encouraging signs in India And rest of Asia. We don't anticipate a sharp recovery in China and expect that it will stay soft until the back end of 2024. Now to the bright spots in APAC, India is quite convincing. A lot of investment happening and the trend is likely to continue for quite a while.

Speaker 3

We are also seeing good activity in Malaysia, The Philippines and Southeast Asia in general. I continue to be quite encouraged by the market signals. We are seeing the demand formation in the pipeline, in the order book, in conversations with customers all over the world. There's a Very good segue to slide 5. Let's go to slide 5, please.

Speaker 3

Orders in Q3 were up 11 Percent year on year and 16% sequentially. I have said throughout the year that pipeline activity is strong. We are seeing that translate into orders, so not entirely surprising, but encouraging velocity. We anticipate Q4 orders will also be positive year on year. I wouldn't be surprised if Q4 growth was like Q3's Velocity is increasing.

Speaker 3

Now we get a lot of questions on the amount of AI activity in our order book. Those questions are often formulated as binary questions. Is it AI or is it not AI? But there is no binary answer. If we talk about technologies that uniquely are applied to high density GPU or compute, As an example, liquid cooling, CDUs or some rack level power distribution solutions, I will still say our order book is in the tens of 1,000,000 of dollars.

Speaker 3

But many elements of our portfolio, Chillers, direct expansion cooling, heat rejection systems, switchgear, busbars, UPS, you name them, are used Regardless if GPU or CPU compute, high density or normal density, so the volume supporting AI or Future AI proved data centers is way larger than that tens of 1,000,000. Also, many data centers are being designed to be multipurpose. So the majority of our products will support many types of compute, Including AI. That is the beauty of having a comprehensive portfolio of all critical infrastructure technologies Across the entire span of the powertrain, the thermal chain and IT Widespace Infrastructure, So I think that very few companies truly have. Different players, hyperscale, colocation, but also enterprise and edge We'll have different approaches to AI.

Speaker 3

I know that suits us well, complexity, customization at scale, all things we're good at. So overall, AI is coming and we anticipate it will show up in a more pronounced manner in 2024. Now on to supply chain. We are in a much different place than we were historically, much different. I'm not just talking about incrementally, Better than 90 days ago.

Speaker 3

If you look at the progress over the last year, you tangibly see this in reduced lead times. Suppliers of key components have been making substantial capacity investments and we are seeing the benefit. We have qualified many additional suppliers With a sharp eye on geopolitical diversification and overall supply chain resilience, we are doing Capacity locks in key areas to make sure the supply base is strong for today and for the future under various growth scenarios. We will be ready. Let's move to slide 6.

Speaker 3

Here we want to provide some additional color around capacity. An important topic given the different growth scenarios that are indeed possible. We start in a strong place with 22 manufacturing plants Around the world, it's much more believable to say you can scale with this strong starting point. The existing footprint was built with the idea that future growth would need to be accommodated. So you've seen us scale, expand existing facility, Ramp up the 2 facilities, the 2 new facilities to support growth.

Speaker 3

And we have buffer capacity in our plants today, Roughly around additional 25 percent to support more intense growth periods and can flex across facilities to optimize our production. And of course, we continue to invest. Productivity is another capacity lever. The utilization and productivity opportunities are plentiful and candidly just starting. Vertiv operating system is being deployed vigorously I enjoyed tremendously running a plant during my early years with the company.

Speaker 3

So there is a manufacturing in January is near and dear to my heart. It has my and Anders' full attention. We'll continue to make capital investments to support growth. We will be ready for what is ahead, but this can be done in a measured way that does not Significantly changed the cash flow profile of this business. We can invest for growth prudently And with that, over to you, David.

Speaker 4

Great. Thanks, Gio. Turning in the presentation to page 7. This slide summarizes our Q3 financial results. As you can see, strong financial performance continues across the board.

Speaker 4

Organic net sales Up 17% with 9% from volume and 8% from pricing. Which was up 40% organically, drive the growth engine, particularly in this past Q3. Adjusted operating profit was $162,000,000 higher than last year's Q3, mainly driven by $100,000,000 price cost benefit and $45,000,000 of volume. Adjusted operating profit was $40 plus 1,000,000 higher than our prior guidance, driven by $15,000,000 higher than anticipated pricing And $30,000,000 lower inflation as we have seen some core metals, notably steel, trending lower in the past quarter. We did have a one time $7,000,000 benefit from a commercial concession as we note on this slide.

Speaker 4

That also contributed to the favorability versus prior guidance. This commercial concession also favorably influenced adjusted operating margin By 40 to 50 basis points as adjusted operating margin reached 17% in the quarter And that's 7.90 basis points higher than last year, a great indicator of the significant progress we have made in a relatively short period In driving operational execution, certainly more work to do, but 3rd quarter results should provide some confidence in our ability to achieve our longer term margin targets. Moving to the right on this slide, we had another strong quarter of adjusted Free cash flow generating $221,000,000 in the quarter, a year over year improvement of $241,000,000 We continue to see the benefit of higher profitability and improved working capital management really across the organization. Cash taxes were higher, the inevitable result of driving higher profitability. But in general, we are driving much more consistency Fully appreciate that sales and profitability mean little if they do not translate into cash flow, which is absolutely essential to Last on this slide, if you look at the bottom right hand corner, Net leverage declined to 2.4 times at the end of the quarter and is expected to be approximately 2.1 times by year end.

Speaker 4

Of course, this net leverage improvement certainly correlates with improved cash generation. Clearly, our balance sheet in our November 29 investor conference. Next, turning to Page 8. This slide summarizes our 3rd quarter segment results. The Americas region continues its strong growth trajectory with organic net sales up 40%, Including 28% from volume and 12% from pricing, we continue to see substantial year over year improvement Operating margin in the Americas, up 9 10 basis points, which is largely driven by favorable price cost and fixed cost leverage.

Speaker 4

APAC top line, moving to the center section of the graph, continues to be negatively impacted by China With organic net sales in that region declining 7% from last year. From a sub region perspective, the rest of Asia, so everything side of China continues to grow nicely year over year, up low double digits in the 3rd quarter. Adjusted operating margin for APAC remained flat year over year despite the lower sales, at 19.1 Really a strong testament to their focus on cost control, while continuing to drive margin enhancements. Now we do anticipate that APAC will return to mid to low single digit year over year growth in the 4th quarter, in part due to typical 4th quarter seasonality in China. But this region will likely be down for full year 2020 3 versus 2022, and we are not planning for a sharp recovery in China at the beginning of 2024, rather we are expecting sales activity to muted at least until the back half of next year.

Speaker 4

The EMEA region was relatively flat organically in the 3rd quarter, which was slightly better than we anticipated in guidance. Flat year over year sales in the quarter was mostly due to timing As we expect a significant sequential increase in the 4th quarter with full year organic sales growth in that region in the upper single to low double digits. EMEA continues to deliver strong adjusted operating margin, almost 28% this quarter, an increase of 10 30 basis points compared with last year's Q3 with the improvement driven by favorable price cost and good fixed cost control. And finally on this page, corporate costs in the Q3 were approximately $7,000,000 higher than last year, driven by Both R and D investment and an incremental $3,000,000 foreign exchange loss. Our current guidance assumes second half corporate costs In the aggregate to be consistent with the first half.

Speaker 4

Next, turning to Page 9. This slide summarizes our 4th quarter guidance. We expect a strong finish to the year With adjusted operating profit in the range of $295,000,000 to $305,000,000 And adjusted operating margin at 16.3 percent at the midpoint, 360 basis points higher than last year's 4th quarter. Adjusted operating margin is expected to be down sequentially from the 17% in the 3rd quarter As regional mix plays a role with higher APAC volume and recall that the Q3 was favorably impacted by the commercial Concession that we talked about a couple of slides ago. Adjusted free cash flow is also projected to be lower sequentially as we expect CapEx to ramp up about $35,000,000 a lot of that driven by timing.

Speaker 4

And working capital use Should be approximately $35,000,000 higher in the 4th quarter versus the 3rd quarter as sales are expected to increase about $100,000,000 Sequentially. China cash collections are our watch item for the Q4, with larger customers paying a bit slower given the macro environment there and the impact on cash availability. Next, moving to Slide 10, our full year guidance. We are increasing projected full year sales by approximately $30,000,000 and adjusted operating profit to 1.20 to $1,030,000,000 an increase of over $580,000,000 from 20.22. This revised guidance $75,000,000 higher than previous guidance, with $40,000,000 from the 3rd quarter beat and $35,000,000 from the raise in the 4th quarter.

Speaker 4

Full year adjusted operating margin is expected to be 15%, 7.30 basis points higher than last year, with approximately 500 basis points from higher variable contribution margin And over 200 basis points from fixed cost leverage. And finally on this page, we are increasing adjusted free cash flow guidance by $75,000,000 to $625,000,000 at the midpoint, dollars 885,000,000 higher than last year. This improvement demonstrates our focus on cash and the operational process improvements that have taken a hold across the organization And our commitment to delivering strong and consistent free cash flow is a crucial part of our high And I believe this could be a harbinger of continued good things to come. And with that said, I turn it back over to Gio.

Speaker 3

Well, thank you, David. Thanks a lot. And let's go to Slide 11. So some initial thoughts on 2024. I must say we see more tailwinds than headwinds.

Speaker 3

Our starting point is strong. The data center market continues to accelerate The AI is forming a tailwind that will likely be more evident in 2024. Our supply chain Our supply chain resilience is at a much greater level of maturity. This is important as we think about the demand profiles that may emerge for next year and beyond. Balance investments in the business will continue R and D capacity, Things that will support the growth of the business for the years to come.

Speaker 3

We will continue our relentless focus on operational execution and implement the Vertiv operating system increasingly deeply. This will support continuous improvement consistently. We have started making progress, But much more to come. There are headwinds too. Certainly, China is slow and recovery doesn't appear near term.

Speaker 3

Worth noting, we anticipate more normal seasonality returning in 2024. And for Vertiv, That typically means our financial measures in absolute dollars get stronger sequentially as the year progresses. Let's go to Slide 12. Once more remind everyone that we have our 1st investor conference on the 29th November. So, here are the topics we plan to cover that day, and we'll be sharing a lot of exciting information.

Speaker 3

I look forward to spending the day with you Talking about our strategy, technology, use on the market, operations and financial framework. We hope you will be able to join us preferably in person or remotely. Let's go to slide 13. I'd say we have meaningfully evolved from where we were a year ago. You can see that across all the key takeaways on this slide.

Speaker 3

A lot of improvements. It has been quite intense and fun and we are still quite far from our full potential. I want to thank our team around the world for the passion and the hard work, tackling challenges every day, Making sure we exceed our customer expectations, helping the entire industry scale and holding ourselves accountable for delivering Strong results every quarter. I am sure you can see the early signs of a high performing culture. With that, over to the operator.

Speaker 3

Over to you, Bruno.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Now we will pause for just a moment to compile the Q and A. Our first question comes from Scott Davis from Milos Research. Scott, your line is now open.

Operator

Please proceed.

Speaker 5

Hey, good morning everybody, including Dave Cody. Good morning.

Speaker 2

Good morning, Scott. How are you?

Speaker 5

We're I'm looking at I'm good, Dave. I'm not as good as you are. In the last couple of quarters, you've net worth has gone up a little bit, But I am a share owner, so I appreciate it. Where I'm looking at Slide 11, Yes. Where does telecom fit in this tailwind, headwind?

Speaker 5

Or is it the lack of kind of telecom being on here mean it's more of a neutral? Or just, I don't know, I'll just stop there.

Speaker 3

Yes. No, it's Scott. I would say Telecom is neutral Right now, I need this whole picture. Honestly speaking, the fact that Telecom is soft is no new news this quarter. That's something that we already signaled for at least the last two calls.

Speaker 3

So we see that continuing in 2020 Sure. So if anything, we can be surprised by the opposite. In the industry, There is some expectations that sooner or later, the extreme edge will happen in the, let's say, Telecom, perimeter of operations, but again, not counting on that, but having the right technology Available and the customer reach if that happens.

Speaker 5

Okay. That's helpful. And This is a quick follow-up. Price, this has been an industry historically where price wasn't really a big deal So you had the not meaningful contributor one way or another until you had the supply chain debacle and needed to get after some. But Do you have to start giving back some of that when you get into 2024?

Speaker 5

Is there a new paradigm just because you're perhaps you're Kind of value based selling and kind of figure out how to hold that Hold the line on price a little bit more effectively than maybe in the past?

Speaker 3

Yes, Scott. Certainly, value is a big element. The industry and the underlying technology is becoming more complex. We will talk certainly about high density. We'll talk about the overall Net increment on installed power and the need for total cost of ownership, efficiency, etcetera.

Speaker 3

So The world is becoming more complex. Value in terms of the technology that you deliver matters. And we talked about Wirtief's ability to exercise the pricing muscle, both in terms of process and in terms of Translating value in the initial price, both in terms of project price process and general Pricing new technology. But it's also true that the industry in the industry in general, there is more Demand than capacity. So that is certainly a favorable environment in many respects.

Speaker 3

I must say that we see in the future diminishing price gains. We have certainly enjoyed A lot of that kind of catching up after inflation. But again, we continue to be positive about the future in that sort of respect.

Speaker 5

Sounds encouraging. We'll see you all at the Analyst Day. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Looking forward.

Operator

Our next question comes from Nicole DeBlase from Deutsche Bank. Nicole, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Thanks. Good morning, guys.

Speaker 3

Good morning, Nicole.

Speaker 6

Maybe we could just start with the comments that you guys made about 2024. I think it's an important distinction with 1 half versus Two halves since the comps are really difficult in the first half. And I guess the follow-up to that comment is, do you still expect to be able to grow organically in the 1st half of the year or is that going to be totally back half weighted just because of the comp dynamic? Thanks.

Speaker 3

As Nicole, as we as I mentioned, let me elaborate on that. As I mentioned, we are going more towards a normal is What is historically normal, first half, second half, 2023, in many respects, a little bit abnormal In the sense that we had pent up backlog, let me say, almost a 2022 Backlog residue that we moved because of the shortage of components, etcetera, Move to the first half of the year, so that makes certainly a more flat H1, H2 year. In this moment, we are thinking something that probably will be around a 45%, 55% top line first half, second half, give and take something. It's Too early to say, but that's probably the thought that's our process. I would be surprised and it's again early, but I would be surprised If H1 2024 were below 2023.

Speaker 3

So we I think it was going to be Positive all the way through, but again, we like to be clear about the seasonality. That's all.

Speaker 6

Thanks, Gio. That's really helpful. And then the comments that you guys made about capacity and investing in the business, I guess if we kind of Look at the multiyear CapEx picture, are you trying to send the message that CapEx does need to grow from current levels? Or do you think that you can kind of expand capacity gradually at the levels of spend. Thanks.

Speaker 3

There will be some CapEx growth, as a matter of fact, just as our top line grows. I mean, there will be an element of proportionality, but it will probably be a little bit more than that. Again, I think this is a unique trend in the industry, the main industry that we serve. And as we said, we have many ways to make sure that we make the capacity available, productivity being 1. We make Sure.

Speaker 3

We use everything that we have created in terms of capacity over the last couple of years. But, yes, We if the conditions as we believe will favor that, we think we can be a little bit more aggressive. But I want to once more Highlight the fact that we do not believe that this will materially meaningfully Change the cash flow profile of the business overall.

Speaker 6

Thanks, Gio. I'll pass it on.

Operator

Our next question comes from Amit Daryunani from Evercore. Amit, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 7

Thanks for taking my question and congrats on a really good set of numbers here. I guess the first one I had was, your orders accelerated really nice, I think it was up 11 Year over year, you sound more positive going forward on this as well. How much of this uplift do you think in orders is driven by volume versus pricing? And any sense if the duration of order that customers are putting in is starting to stretch out as well and maybe that's something also. Anything you can talk about pricing versus volume versus duration on orders would be really helpful.

Speaker 3

Okay. So I would say that there is a lot of volume in the orders that were taken. As I was saying, we are printing nice price Numbers this year, sales, we expect that to trim a little bit. And the growth and the future Growth will have a very good volume components. When it comes to the duration, I think you're asking duration in terms of How far out are the orders that we're receiving covering?

Speaker 3

And I would say it's a little bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, there are shortened lead times that I mentioned in a few occasions and also earlier today are Favorable in terms of accelerating what is the so called run rate more territory business, which is always good, great also In terms of installed base creation for future service revenue, but we see also increasingly

Operator

The big part of the

Speaker 3

business, the big players, be them hyperscalers or be The large collocations players increasingly look out in terms of coverage. So it's really a good combination of the 2.

Speaker 7

Got it. That is really helpful. And If I could get your perspective on this, there's an expectation that new data center deployments will add, I don't know, 15, 20 gigawatts of incremental Power consumption in the next few years, and you think about these racks going from 10 kilowatts to 5,000,000, Can you talk about what is the duty of power management side of the portfolio? Do we need a completely different set of power solutions versus what we have today? What does that imply for Vertex?

Speaker 7

Because I think everyone's always focused on the cooling side, which is obviously incredibly positive. But I'd love to know how does it play out on the power management side As we ship into these higher density

Speaker 3

racks? Well, it's an absolutely good point that it's Very important part of our portfolio as well as a thermal part and one that will benefit from the expansion, the acceleration, The gigawatts that you are mentioning. Fundamentally, the powertrain that we have From medium voltage switchgear all the way to busbars and So the entire powertrain, it's not going to change dramatically. It's just going to be more Deployed more because it's more power that needs to be Transferred from the grid to the chip. So it's good news.

Speaker 3

It's a net volume increase. There will be some fine tuning in what exactly happens in terms of power distribution inside the rack. Some PDU Solutions will be designed for high density, but it's a relatively small portion of the total powertrain that will Expand as a lot. The other aspect is positive for the power side of our business is that Power is, as we said several times, as the industry is very vocal about that, an overall constraint, Power availability for new data centers and that drives operators to think about alternative A ways to power. So dynamic power solution, microgrids, battery, Energy storage systems, etcetera, are all future opportunities that we are keenly looking into And for which we are cooperating with the big players in terms of proof of concept, etcetera, something A future good opportunity for us.

Speaker 3

Perfect. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Nigel Coe from Wolfe Research. Nigel, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 8

Thanks. Good morning, everyone. And thanks for the preview on the Investor Day. Just wanted a bit more yes, I just wanted a bit more detail on the geographics. EMEA negatives this quarter, you talked about some project delays.

Speaker 8

It looks like it's bouncing back nicely in the Q4. How does that break in 2024? Where do you see the pockets of strength and weakness in Europe right now, especially given the macro? And then you talked you called out China, You're not expecting that to recover until back end of 2024, but is there enough growth in India, Philippines, etcetera, To drive to kind of offset that in 2024?

Speaker 3

Well, I think it's a little bit premature. No, absolutely. To be exactly sale on even to graphics Within APAC, but again, we are very encouraged from what we see in India And Southeast Asia. China, again, We, of course, continue to be a strong player in China, a strong local player in China, But we have kind of a prudent posture in the way we look at the next year. When it comes to EMEA, I am encouraged by the pipelines.

Speaker 3

I'm very encouraged by the pipelines in EMEA. And also the conversations with the various customers. And you do say that the macroeconomics are not phenomenal in EMEA and the geopolitics are as hard as it gets. There is clearly a big question mark when it comes to the Middle East. For us, not a big part of our market, Absolutely not a big part of our, let's say, our revenue.

Speaker 3

But it's we don't know what will happen. But overall, for what we can control, absolutely a strong position in EMEA and good pipelines.

Speaker 8

Great. Thanks, Jeff. A quick one on pricing because I think it's important to sort of like vet this because there is some concerns around Price rollback. Are you seeing any price sensitivity or price based negotiations or price based competition Across your businesses and any meaningful extent. And then maybe, David, if you could opine perhaps on the carry forward from 4Q Pricing into 2024, we calculate about 2 points plus of price carry forwards.

Speaker 8

Is that in the right zone?

Speaker 3

So, Amir, I'll start with the general comments about the market. I mean, we all live in a commercially active world. Don't get me wrong. So different geographies, especially different types of market, different Go to markets have slightly different dynamics from a price standpoint. But overall, we are Optimistic about our ability to continue to have a commercial advantage.

Speaker 4

Yes. And Nigel, on your question on pricing carryover, unfortunately, probably A little premature to give specific numbers that there certainly will be some benefit. It Probably is not reasonable to anticipate 8% pricing every year going forward like we've seen this year and even the 7% last year. But we do anticipate to have some carryover impact. And the one thing we can safely say is it is certainly our intention going forward even beyond

Speaker 8

Okay. I appreciate it, Kevin. Thanks.

Operator

Our next question comes from Andrew Obin from Bank of America. Andrew, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 9

Yes. Good morning.

Speaker 5

Good morning, Andrew.

Speaker 3

Good morning, Andrew. Can you

Speaker 9

hear me? Hey, how are you? Yes.

Operator

Can you

Speaker 9

hear me? Yes. So as you look at your AI Yes, yes. As you look at your AI related pipeline, so are we building more for new build locations Or is it more retrofit of existing data centers? What does it look like from your perspective?

Speaker 3

Retrofit will be an opportunity, definitely. In this moment, we predominantly but not exclusively See new build. But there is also quite encouraging conversations about retrofit. That is things are very much in flux. Things are very much in flux.

Speaker 3

We participate in both conversations very actively.

Speaker 9

And just a follow-up, what are you guys in terms of and I know these questions have sort of been asked, but U. S. Capacity utilization today and how much extra U. S. Capacity would be in place by year end 2024 And the current plans and also curious to know how flexible can you be and when I say U.

Speaker 9

S, I will say I include Mexico, but How flexible can you be in pulling capacity from other regions into the U. S. As there are very different electrical standards? Thank you.

Speaker 3

Yes. No, absolutely. I would say that the general plus 25% that we were signaling during The slideshow earlier is definitely applicable to pretty much homogeneously across the world And certainly true for the North American business as of now. And as I was saying, we will continue to invest. But we do have a very Explicit and well orchestrated initiative to make sure that we use and leverage the global capacity Also for the U.

Speaker 3

S. And something that we're doing already partially today, different degrees, different lines of business. But it's something that we will be able to accelerate and accentuate as we go ahead. In terms of American codes versus other type of codes, That's something that is just about having the right certification of a plant outside the North American or American region, and it's something that we have or that we are accelerating depending on the technology. So very, very much in focus and very much something we do and that we will accelerate going forward.

Speaker 9

Thanks so much.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Andy Kaplowitz from Citigroup. Andy, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 10

Good morning, everyone.

Speaker 3

Good morning. Good morning. Good morning.

Speaker 10

I know you said that the good morning. I know you said that the positive order inflection you're seeing hasn't really been that unexpected, But can you talk about how you're thinking about the longevity of the current order inflection? Would you expect order growth to continue to accelerate Into 2024? And then how are you thinking about the duration of the up cycle? Do you see the AI contribution as sort of a big gold rush and then it flames out?

Speaker 10

Or could it last quite a long time?

Speaker 3

The second of your second the last part of your question. We believe This is a long term trend in a sense that we will believe that AI will be pretty pervasive. And this is just the beginning. This is a multiyear, truly many years cycle, Many years cycle, we believe.

Speaker 10

And Gio, maybe just in thinking about the mix of orders, You mentioned enterprise markets, maybe some encouraging trends there. How much of the incremental order growth is from For scale and colo customers, are they now a larger percentage of your orders versus enterprise? And then how would you characterize the enterprise market? You mentioned the positive signs, but obviously rates are higher and concerns around the economy. So color would be helpful.

Speaker 3

Yes, definitely, colocation and hyperscale are a very large part of our mix and our order And our order intake and growing actually in terms of speed of growth. So well, Very well covered there. What we see is that the acceleration in compute power and anywhere utilization And volume of data that is further accentuated by AI is going to require some Actually also on the enterprise side of the equation, more distributed compute, more edge compute or sometimes Even on prem or proprietary data centers. So clearly, the biggest part of the acceleration is coming and it will come from The hyperscale, colo and cloud, but we are optimistic and positive about the enterprise business. Plus, the enterprise business constitute a big portion of what I was referring to, our more distributed territory, Territory go to market and type of segment.

Speaker 3

And we are Helped by improving lead times, we are accelerating that part of the market.

Speaker 10

Appreciate it,

Speaker 3

Gio. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Mark Delaney from Goldman Sachs. Mark, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 11

Yes. Good morning. Thanks for taking the question and congratulations on the good results. So maybe you could elaborate a bit more on what you're seeing In China and some of the causes of the weakness. And on a related topic, to what extent you think geopolitics and export restrictions for AI could impact Virtu in China, even if it's an indirect In fact, VERTI's own products aren't directly put on to any sort of export control list?

Speaker 3

Yes. Well, we see China as really a general market situation, more so than anything to do with the Export restrictions in our case, just want to remind everyone that no data flow through our stuff. If anything, We power and cool IT infrastructure. So clearly, The market is not strong in China right now and we participate to the market As a very local supplier, as a very local player, The majority of supply chain is local. So we operate as a chain supplier and we Move with that market and that market in this moment is not strong.

Speaker 8

That's helpful. Thanks for that Gio.

Speaker 11

My other question is just around pricing and came in better than your guidance in the Q3. There's now a larger Tailwind in terms of pricing in 2023 guidance relative to what you'd assumed last quarter. Can you just talk a little bit more on what's been driving the Pricing strength that you're seeing in 3Q and for the year and to what extent it's more about next or like for like pricing? Thank you.

Speaker 3

Well, again, there is a number of actions that we have implemented from a pricing standpoint. But clearly, the mix, the sequence of orders that we execute and A certain degree of being on the safe side and in guiding have all contributed to this Price cost upside.

Speaker 11

Got it. Thanks so much and congrats again on the good results.

Speaker 3

Thanks a lot, Mark.

Operator

Our next question comes from Steve Tuza from JPMorgan. Steve, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Hey, how are you guys?

Speaker 3

Hey, Tim. How are you? All good.

Speaker 4

Hello. Good. So I just wanted to delve into the comments around the First half of next year a little more. We've been hearing that there have been some and you guys sound pretty confident on this in the 4th quarter, some Not only early indications of orders for next year from hyperscalers, but like some real big orders in the last couple of weeks. And that the only real concern is like when they're going to actually want delivery, I.

Speaker 4

E. Like when suppliers are going to produce. I'm just curious as to if you're kind of seeing that profile, if you're seeing those orders yet and that your kind of caution on next year is Just more about not knowing really when those things will ship, given that we're in kind of a very growthy and perhaps Fluid situation where these guys are still figuring out the best way to go about this. I'm just curious as to how tangible That demand is early in October and I think I don't know it would make sense to me that you guys are talking a lot about Capacity here and proving that you have a capacity, which would be juxtaposed against What I think people are viewing is a soft start to next year. I'm just trying to kind of put that all together and understand how concrete this visibility on orders Is it you guys have early in the quarter here, in Q4?

Speaker 3

No, as I said, when we're sharing the slide going through the slides, We have we expect a 4th quarter that is probably going to be up more or less the same. We think something around what we experienced in Q3. So we're quite optimistic about that. I would say that we should not read too much in the first half, second half. That's the normal nature of the industry.

Speaker 3

And again, it would have been the same of 2023 first half were it not For the supply constraint that marred the entire 2022 for us and for everyone else. So that If anything, there was an artificial drift of backlog from, Let's say the second half of twenty twenty two to the first half of twenty twenty three, that balanced the 2 halves in twenty twenty three In a way that is not so kind of a normal in our type of business. So I would not read too much into it. We are happy about our pipeline. We're happy about The order pace and yes, a lot of those orders will be coming from hyperscale and Colo and that type of market, then really those orders are placed today for tomorrow.

Speaker 3

Those are aligned with big side deployments with fairly Forward looking project plans. So I look at it as Something quite normal, starting to happen again.

Speaker 4

Right. That makes sense. And then just one last one on any updates on how this liquid cooling strategy is progressing? And I assume we're going to hear more about on the 29th, but Any updates there on how you guys are going about that solution?

Speaker 3

Well, we are happy, Very happy about the way things are progressing in terms of portfolio, in terms of partnerships, etcetera. And yes, as we said in several occasions, we see that as We see this piece as additive because it's adding a link to the Cooling chain, so to speak, so thermal chain. We'll certainly have More details at Investor Day here, but pretty feel pretty good about what we're doing also With our partners and the biggest chip manufacturers.

Speaker 4

Great. Thanks a lot.

Operator

Our next question comes from Jeff Sprigg from Medical Research. Jeff, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 12

Hey, thank you. Good day, everybody. And just a couple For me, what if we could talk about service a little bit. Obviously, isn't growing anywhere near the rate of equipment, which I think is It's tied to the mix of where the equipment is going, but all this talk about system integration, complexity and the like, What is the prospect for kind of service growth to accelerate here or service revenue per unit or Per megawatt deployed, however you might frame it, maybe you could give us some perspective there?

Speaker 3

Yes. Service is accelerating for us towards a double digit growth territory, which of course we like. It is in the nature of service, especially the lifecycle part I always like to think in terms of project services, the services that you sell with new equipment say And you said the life cycle, the duration of the life of the kit. The latter It's very important from a profit standpoint, from a customer experience standpoint, but also very important because it compounds over time. But It's built on installed base that we are growing.

Speaker 3

So we are happy about the direction. We want to accelerate further and will accelerate further. But definitely a component of service that is being able and uniquely given our global Footprint and experience uniquely able to accompany our customers in the complexity From an installation commissioning startup standpoint or retrofit standpoint, The company are a customer on the journey of high density, be it cooling high density, very complex, And power high density is something that, a, we are well equipped for, uniquely Experienced and geographically positioned, but also getting ready Farid, so I am I've never been more excited about our service opportunity going forward.

Speaker 12

Then maybe you could address capital deployment A little bit more and maybe we'll hear more about that next month, but maybe your appetite for M and A, Your view on whether the organization is up to digesting something else or share repurchases in the cards, maybe just what the priorities might be?

Speaker 3

I would say that this is certainly a very relevant question. And our Investor Day is relatively soon, about a month. And I think the best Thing is to just ask you to be patient for us with us for another month and we will certainly go into those details together on the 29th November. Bear with us for now.

Speaker 12

Great. Thank you. See you then.

Speaker 5

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Lance Vitanza from TD Cowen. Lance, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker 13

Thanks guys. My question is around how Vertiv is positioned specifically with respect Liquid Cooling and Direct to Chip Technologies. Are there notable gaps in your product Folio and if so, how do you expect to address them?

Speaker 3

Hey, Lance. We feel very good about our liquid cooling portfolio. And it's a broad Portfolio, and it's a portfolio that stretches direct to chip immersion cooling. So we feel good with what we have today in the portfolio. And again, absolutely

Speaker 4

Go ahead.

Speaker 3

More when we're together. Yes, go ahead.

Speaker 5

No, no, please continue.

Speaker 3

No, I was saying that would be a big

Speaker 13

Yes. So just specifically, do you worry about potentially being disintermediated, so to speak, By either hyperscalers or chip manufacturers directly embedding their own or someone else's technology Into the chip or into the rack and thus bypassing Vertiv, is that something that you worry about?

Speaker 3

We are working very closely with both hyperscalers and chip manufacturers And the whole landscape of high density cooling and power looks very promising to us. And again, more when we're together, also in the interest of TAC.

Speaker 5

Thank you.

Speaker 3

Thanks a lot.

Operator

We currently have no further questions. So I would like to hand over back to Georgiano for closing remarks.

Speaker 3

All right. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. So again, 2023 Certainly shaping up as a strong year. We're happy about that.

Speaker 3

Again, an An opportunity for me to thank the Vertiv team around the world for their hard work, dedication and focus. So we definitely have seen the benefits of a stronger execution, and we really appreciate your support. We look forward to connecting with all of you in November at our Investor Conference. With that, thank you very much, and have a splendid day.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.

Powered by Quartr

Key Takeaways

  • Q3 organic sales rose 17% led by 40% growth in the Americas, while APAC declined 7% due to a soft China market partly offset by India and Southeast Asia.
  • Order intake accelerated with an 11% YoY increase (16% sequentially), and management anticipates continued positive order growth into Q4 driven by AI and hyperscale demand.
  • Adjusted operating profit reached $296 million (17% margin), topping guidance, and free cash flow was $221 million, helping reduce leverage to 2.4× and target ~2× by year-end.
  • Full-year guidance was raised to 21% organic sales growth, adjusted EPS of $10.20–$10.30, and $625 million in free cash flow, reflecting stronger-than-expected performance.
  • For 2024, Vertiv expects data center and AI tailwinds, bolstered by improved supply chain resilience and scalable capacity, although China is likely to remain soft until late 2024.
A.I. generated. May contain errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Vertiv Q3 2023
00:00 / 00:00