AMETEK Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
May 2, 2024

Key Takeaways

  • AMETEK delivered a record Q1 with sales up 9% to $1.74 B, operating income up 10% to $446 M, EBITDA up 13% to $542 M, and EPS of $1.64 (+10%), beating guidance.
  • Raised full-year EPS guidance to $6.74–6.86, reflecting confidence in a strong back-half performance.
  • Organic sales were slightly negative in Q1 due to inventory normalization in the Automation & Engineered Solutions group, with a book-to-bill of 0.96 and order headwinds expected to persist through H1 before improving in H2.
  • Strong free cash flow conversion (123% of net income) and a net debt/EBITDA ratio of 1.2x underpin AMETEK’s robust acquisition pipeline, highlighted by the $1.9 B Paragon Medical deal and a $29.2 M integration charge with a sub-2-year payback.
  • AMETEK plans to invest an incremental $100 M in growth initiatives in 2024—primarily in R&D and engineering—driving a Q1 vitality index of 25% to support long-term innovation in medtech, clean energy, electrification, and aerospace & defense.
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Earnings Conference Call
AMETEK Q1 2024
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to AMETEK's first quarter 2024 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Kevin Coleman, Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasurer. Please go ahead.

Kevin Coleman
Kevin Coleman
VP of Investor Relations and Treasurer at AMETEK

Thank you, Julia. Good morning, and thank you for joining us for AMETEK's first quarter 2024 earnings conference call. With me today are Dave Zapico, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Dalip Puri, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. During the course of today's call, we will be making forward-looking statements which are subject to change based on various risk factors and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ significantly from expectations. A detailed discussion of the risk and uncertainties that may affect our future results is contained in AMETEK's filings with the SEC. AMETEK disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements.

Kevin Coleman
Kevin Coleman
VP of Investor Relations and Treasurer at AMETEK

Any references made on this call to 2023 or 2024 results or 2024 guidance will be on an adjusted basis, excluding after-tax acquisition-related intangible amortization and excluding a pre-tax $29.2 million or $0.10 per diluted share charge in the first quarter for integration costs related to the Paragon Medical acquisition. Reconciliations between GAAP and adjusted measures can be found in our press release and on the investor section of our website. We'll begin today's call with prepared remarks, and then we'll open the call for questions. I'll now turn the meeting over to Dave.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

Thank you, Kevin, and good morning, everyone. AMETEK delivered strong results in the first quarter of 2024 with outstanding operating performance leading to double-digit growth in earnings per share. During the quarter, we established records for sales, operating income, and EBITDA, and delivered robust core margin expansion and excellent cash flows. Considering our first quarter results and the positive outlook for the back half of the year, we are increasing our earnings guidance for the full year. AMETEK's continued success is a testament to the strength and resiliency of our growth model, the quality of our businesses, and the outstanding contributions from all AMETEK colleagues. Now let me turn to our first quarter results. Sales in the first quarter were $1.74 billion, up 9% over the same period in 2023. Organic sales were down slightly, acquisitions added nine points, and foreign currency had a small positive impact.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

Book-to-Bill in the quarter was 0.96, and we ended the quarter with a very strong backlog of $3.46 billion, near record levels. AMETEK's operating performance to start the year was excellent. Operating income in the quarter was a record, $446 million, a 10% increase over the first quarter of 2023. Operating margins were 25.7% in the quarter, up 30 basis points from the prior year. Excluding the dilutive impact from acquisitions, core margins were up a very strong 180 basis points versus the prior year. EBITDA in the quarter was also a record at $542 million, up 13% over the prior year, with EBITDA margins an impressive 31.2%. This outstanding performance led to earnings of $1.64 per diluted share, up 10% versus the first quarter of 2023 and above our guidance range of $1.56-$1.60. Now let me provide some additional details at the operating group level.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

First, the electronic instruments group. The electronic instruments group had a strong start to the year with tremendous operating performance leading to record operating margins and impressive margin expansion. Sales for EIG were $1.16 billion in the quarter, up 4% from the first quarter of last year. Organic sales were up 1%, and acquisitions added three points. Growth in the quarter remained strongest across our aerospace and defense and materials analysis businesses. EIG's operational execution in the first quarter was superb, with strong profit and exceptional operating margin expansion. Operating income was $353 million, up 14% versus the prior year, while EIG operating margins were a record, 30.5%, up a robust 280 basis points. This level of operating margin speaks to the quality and leadership positions of our highly differentiated businesses.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

The Electromechanical Group also delivered solid first quarter operating performance despite the headwinds from inventory normalization impacting some of our EMG businesses. EMG's first quarter sales were a record, $579 million, up 21% versus the prior year, driven by contributions from recent acquisitions of Paragon Medical and Bison Gear & Engineering. First quarter operating income was $120 million, while core operating income margins were 24.1% in the quarter. Our first quarter results reflect the unique capabilities of our growth model to successfully manage short-term market headwinds and deliver robust margin expansion, outstanding cash flow, and strong double-digit earnings growth. Our businesses remain focused on executing our strategic initiatives and delivering differentiated technology solutions to support our customers' most complex challenges. Our distributed operating structure enables flexibility in responding to market dynamics, while our robust cash flow and balance sheet provide ample support for our acquisition strategy.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

This acquisition strategy, along with our organic growth initiatives, is expanding AMETEK's presence within high-growth markets. These markets include MedTech, clean energy, electrification, and aerospace and defense, and help ensure our diverse portfolios well-positioned to capitalize on these attractive long-term secular growth areas. We remain committed to investing across our businesses to accelerate new product development and expand our sales and marketing efforts. In 2024, we expect to invest an incremental $100 million in growth initiatives, with a sizable portion of this in support of our research, development, and engineering efforts. The effectiveness of these investments is reflected in our vitality index, which was a strong 25% in the first quarter. AMETEK's commitment to invest in our D&E and continuously innovate ensures a steady stream of new products that support our customers' critical applications and position us for continued success.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

I wanted to take a moment to highlight an example of how the elements of the AMETEK growth model work together to deliver exceptional results. AMETEK Zygo, a global leader in the design and manufacture of advanced optical metrology systems and ultra-precise optical components, was recently awarded AMETEK's Dr. John H. Lux Award, an annual award provided to the AMETEK business that best exemplifies the commitment to continuous improvement in achievements and operational excellence. As part of its market expansion strategy, Zygo identified an attractive new market segment: virtual and augmented reality applications as a compelling growth opportunity for their advanced optical metrology systems. This led to Zygo's new product development and commercial teams working closely together to advance their technology capabilities and commercialize as a solution to support the highly precise requirements of this application.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

The success of this work resulted in strong demand and the need for Zygo to meaningfully increase production. Utilizing cross-functional teams and deploying tools like Value Stream Mapping and Lean Six Sigma, they achieved a remarkable threefold increase in production output, allowing them to meet the growing demand for the metrology solution. This achievement highlights the synergy between our new product development, global market expansion, and operational excellence strategies to help identify, develop, and deliver exceptional technology solutions to address an important market need and accelerate growth. Congratulations to the Zygo team for a job well done. Now switching to our acquisition strategy. The acquisitions we completed in 2023 are integrating nicely into AMETEK. We are leveraging our proven integration capabilities and our global infrastructure to help accelerate their growth, drive operational improvements, and deliver strong returns.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

We are very excited about these acquisitions as they are expanding our market presence in attractive growth markets, including the MedTech space through the Paragon Medical acquisition. Paragon Medical, which we acquired in December, is a leading manufacturer of highly engineered medical components and single-use and consumable surgical instruments. Paragon has an outstanding brand, leading innovation and design capabilities, and a strong position serving a number of high-growth market segments. Our integration efforts are focused on supporting and accelerating this growth while also leveraging AMETEK's infrastructure and operational excellence capabilities to drive efficiency improvements. The integration charge we took in the first quarter will allow us to drive these improvements and better position Paragon for accelerated growth and profitability. Looking ahead, our acquisition pipeline remains robust, and we are actively working on multiple opportunities. We have the balance sheet and financial capacity to deploy meaningful capital on strategic acquisitions.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

We look forward to delivering continued value to our shareholders through strategic acquisitions and prudent capital deployment. Now turning to our outlook for the remainder of the year. We expect the impact of inventory normalization to continue through the first half of the year, with improvements in the second half of the year, as we indicated on our last earnings call. As a result, for the full year, we continue to expect overall sales to be up low double digits on a percentage basis, with low to mid-single digit organic sales growth. Diluted earnings per share for the year are now expected to be in the range of $6.74-$6.86, up 6%-8% compared to last year's results, an increase from the previous guidance range of $6.70-$6.85.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

For the second quarter, we anticipate overall sales to be up mid- to high-single-digits, with earnings of $1.63-$1.65, up 4%-5% versus the prior year. In summary, AMETEK delivered a strong first quarter with earnings growth which exceeded our expectations, driven by exceptional operating performance. We are encouraged by these results and remain confident in our ability to navigate the current environment and benefit from improved sales growth in the back half of 2024. We are confident in the future of AMETEK, as our world-class talent and the adaptability of the AMETEK growth model will continue to drive long-term sustainable success for our stakeholders. I will now turn it over to Dalip Puri, who will cover some of the financial details of the quarter. Then we'll be glad to take your questions. Dalip?

Dalip Puri
Dalip Puri
EVP and CFO at AMETEK

Thank you, Dave, and good morning, everyone. As Dave highlighted, AMETEK had a very strong first quarter with record-level sales and exceptional operating performance, highlighted by strong core margin expansion and free cash flow conversion. Now let me provide some additional financial highlights for the first quarter. First quarter general and administrative expenses were $26.4 million, or 1.5% of sales, in line with last year's first quarter. For fiscal year 2024, general and administrative expenses are expected to be approximately 1.4% of sales. First quarter interest expense was $35 million, up $15 million from the prior year first quarter due to higher debt balances outstanding following the December 2023 acquisition of Paragon Medical. Other operating expenses were down $5 million, primarily due to higher interest income and higher pension income compared to the prior year's first quarter.

Dalip Puri
Dalip Puri
EVP and CFO at AMETEK

The effective tax rate was 18.9%, down from 19.5% in the first quarter of 2023. For 2024, we continue to anticipate our effective tax rate to be between 19% and 20%. As we have stated in the past, actual quarterly tax rates can differ dramatically, either positively or negatively, from this full year estimated rate. Capital expenditures in the first quarter were $28 million, and we continue to expect capital expenditures to be approximately $160 million for the full year, or about 2% of sales. Depreciation and amortization expense in the quarter was $98 million. In 2024, we expect depreciation and amortization to be approximately $400 million, including after-tax, acquisition-related intangible amortization of approximately $190 million, or $0.82 per diluted share. Operating working capital in the first quarter was 18.7% of sales.

Dalip Puri
Dalip Puri
EVP and CFO at AMETEK

Operating cash flow was $410 million, up 6% versus the first quarter of 2023, while free cash flow was $383 million, up 4% over the prior year. For the quarter, free cash flow conversion was a strong 123% of net income. For the remainder of 2024, we continue to expect strong key free cash flow conversion in the range of 110%-120% of net income. Total debt at March 31st was $2.9 billion, down from $3.3 billion at the end of 2023. Offsetting this debt is cash and cash equivalents of $374 million. At the end of the first quarter, our gross debt-to-EBITDA ratio was 1.3 times, and our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio was 1.2 times. We continue to have excellent financial capacity and flexibility, with approximately $1.8 billion of cash and available credit facilities to support our growth initiatives and our active acquisition pipeline.

Dalip Puri
Dalip Puri
EVP and CFO at AMETEK

While acquisitions remain our number one priority for use of our free cash flow, we also seek to opportunistically repurchase our shares and provide our shareholders with a consistently increasing dividend. In February, we announced a 12% increase in our quarterly cash dividend to $0.28 per share, our fifth consecutive year of 10%-plus annual increases. In summary, our businesses delivered strong results to start the year with outstanding operating performance, leading to robust core margin expansion and excellent free cash flow. Kevin?

Kevin Coleman
Kevin Coleman
VP of Investor Relations and Treasurer at AMETEK

Thank you, Dalip. Julia, could we please open the lines for questions?

Operator

Thank you. At this time, we will conduct the question-and-answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Deane Dray of RBC. Your line is now open.

Deane Dray
Deane Dray
Managing Director at RBC

Thank you. Good morning, everyone.

Dalip Puri
Dalip Puri
EVP and CFO at AMETEK

Good morning, Deane.

Deane Dray
Deane Dray
Managing Director at RBC

Hey, can we start off with the usual kind of tour of the end markets and geographies and maybe finish up with just kind of the destocking comments? It just continues to be drawn out, and we're seeing it in all kinds of pockets, so it's not AMETEK-specific in any way, but just kind of what you refresh for you on that as well. Thanks.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

Sure. Sure. Glad to do that all, Deane. I'll start with a walk around the company, and I'll start with our process business. Overall sales for our process businesses were roughly flat versus last year and in line with our expectations. Growth remained solid across our energy and semiconductor businesses, and we're really well positioned there to benefit from the sizable project and investment activity within these markets. For the full year, we continue to expect sales for our process businesses to be up low single digits. Next, I'll switch to aerospace and defense. Our A&D businesses had a strong start to the year with approximately 10% organic growth in the quarter. Growth was very solid across both our commercial aerospace and defense segments.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

For all of 2024, we continue to expect organic sales for our AD businesses to be up high single digits% , with similar growth across both our commercial aerospace and defense businesses. Next, I'll move to power. Our power businesses were up low double digits% in the first quarter, with contributions from the acquisitions of UEI and Amplifier Research being offset by a low single-digit% decrease in organic sales. These recent acquisitions, along with the acquisition of RTDS in 2022, expanded our presence within a number of highly attractive market segments which are expected to benefit from a strong investment cycle, including the expansion of renewable energy and the power grid infrastructure. For the power segment, we continue to expect low- to mid-single-digit% organic sales growth for 2024.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

Finally, going to the automation and engineered solutions market segment, overall sales for AES were up 20% on a percentage basis in the quarter. We're up mid-20s% in the quarter, with contributions from the acquisitions of Paragon Medical and Bison Gear & Engineering being offset by a high single-digit decrease in organic sales. As we expected, the impact from normalization of inventory levels across our OEM customer base continued in the first quarter, and we expect to see a return to growth in the second half of the year consistent with what we had indicated last quarter. Finally, as a result, we continue to expect organic sales for our automation businesses to be up low single-digits, with stronger growth in the back half of the year. That's the walk around the company.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

And I think you also asked for what's going on in the various geographies, so get to that too, Deane. The US was down 1%, against a pretty difficult comparison, and our strongest growth was in our aerospace and defense businesses. Moving to Europe, we were down 2%, so minus two organic, with notable growth in parts of our process and parts of our power businesses offset by weakness in automation. And in Asia, we were up low single digits, with strength across our process businesses. So we had a very good performance in Asia. And digging down into that a little further, China was flat in the quarter with solid growth in parts of our process businesses. So up low single digits in Asia, and China was flat. And then finally.

Deane Dray
Deane Dray
Managing Director at RBC

This all really helped. Go ahead.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

Yeah. You asked about the destock, Deane. I think that it's playing out as we had talked about the last quarter. I think the destock will continue into the second quarter, but in the second half of the year, we expect that to turn around. We're watching that closely, and it's really kind of playing out as we thought. I mean, the destock was probably a bit more than we thought it was going to be in Q1, but that may be positive for later in the year because we think the second half of the year is positive.

Deane Dray
Deane Dray
Managing Director at RBC

Great. And just a quick follow-up on the growth investments. We know this is your playbook. Is there anything unique in terms of how you're deploying that capital? I mean, typically, it's salespeople is a component, but any other kind of wrinkles here you could share?

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

Yeah. It's salespeople, but the largest chunk of it is in the engineering, the research, development, and engineering. We have a full slate of projects. We have excellent opportunities longer term, and we're getting after them. I'm very positive on what's happening in our new product development programs.

Deane Dray
Deane Dray
Managing Director at RBC

Great. Thank you.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

Thank you, Deane.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jeffrey Sprague of Vertical Research Partners. Your line is now open.

Jeffrey Sprague
Founder and Managing Partner at Vertical Research Partners

Hey, thanks. Good morning, everyone.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

Good morning, Jeff.

Jeffrey Sprague
Founder and Managing Partner at Vertical Research Partners

Hey. Hey, can you just address a little bit more, Paragon itself, how it's performing and the charge that you took? I don't recall a large charge like this on prior deals. Maybe there's smaller ones that you just absorbed but didn't break out, but kind of the nature of what you're trying to accomplish. And is this kind of a one-time deal in this quarter as you kind of bed down the asset?

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

Yeah. That's a great question, Jeff, and it's kind of what you said. I mean, we typically absorb the smaller acquisitions as we proceed through the years and quarters. And the last time we did something like this, we bought, I believe, Zygo. It's a bigger acquisition. And because of the size of the acquisition and because of the opportunities that we see, we wanted to take that integration charge because there are tremendous, tremendous opportunities to improve the business. So it's a one-time nature. It's for larger deals. As you know, Paragon was the largest acquisition that we had done. We spent about $1.9 billion. So as we dug into it, as we worked with their management team, we got really comfortable with this plan. Quite honestly, there's more opportunities than we thought.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

We have a good team of both AMETEK and Paragon leaders that are really getting after it now, so I feel really good about the business. The integration is being integrated into AMETEK well. It's very positive around the future. I think this restructuring is largely going to happen over the next couple of years, and we really see as a less than two-year payback on it. Excellent payback, and we've started on that. We're really positive what we're doing, and I feel positive about the deal.

Jeffrey Sprague
Founder and Managing Partner at Vertical Research Partners

Great. And then maybe just switching gears, and I'm sorry if I missed that I was on a little bit late, but can we just decompose revenue growth in the quarter for the segments, some color on what the organic performance was at the segment level, and if you have any color on price or other elements of revenue, be interested to hear about?

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

Sure. Yeah. If you look at our overall sales, we're up 9%. That's both groups. And the organic group, the organic growth was just down modestly, about 0.5 point. EIG overall sales were +4%. The organic growth in EIG was +1. EMG overall sales were +21%, and the organic sales at EMG were -4. So you had that defines the group dynamics for revenue.

Jeffrey Sprague
Founder and Managing Partner at Vertical Research Partners

Maybe just one last one, back to this kind of whole destock question. Just a comment that it was more in Q1 than you expected, and I know it's kind of hard to know what your customers are going to do, but just your confidence level that it actually is, in fact, destock, and do you have visibility on sell-through being better on the other side? Yeah, maybe just kind of address that if you could.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

Yeah. Yeah. The first point is when you look at AMETEK's first half, second half, we typically have 48% of our revenue and profits in the first half of the year and 52% of our revenue and profits in the second half of the year. That's exactly what we have this year. Our second half of the year is not backend-loaded, so we feel good about that. Another point that you may not see, it really appears our orders have stabilized. Specifically, when I look at Q4 2023 to Q3 2023, and then I look at the next quarter, Q1 2024 to the last quarter to compare to Q4 2023, so the last two quarters sequentially with all the acquired backlog removed, so really looking at a true run rate sequentially, we've seen low single digit growth in orders in both Q4 2023 and Q1 2024.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

So it feels like we've bottomed, and we're starting to see some modest improvements. At the same time, in Q1 2023, we had an extremely good quarter, so we have a difficult comp that we're battling. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we've had customer commentary that continues to communicate to us in the second half of the year that the destocking phase will come to an end, and we should return to a positive book-to-bill. So in terms of the economic environment, we're watching it closely, but for the balance of the year, we're just assuming modest economic growth, not any kind of economic acceleration, and at the same time, not a recessionary environment. We expect that we'll grow sales modestly each quarter, and the comparables get easier in the second half of the year.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

As I said, this 48%-52% split H1 to H2 is very much aligned with our historical averages.

Jeffrey Sprague
Founder and Managing Partner at Vertical Research Partners

I'm sorry. Did you have a comment on price? I missed it, and I'll cede the floor. Thank you.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

No. That's a good question, Jeff. Pricing continued to more than offset inflation. Pricing was approximately 4% in the quarter, and inflation was about 3%. The results speak to the highly differentiated nature of the AMETEK product portfolio and our leadership position in these niche markets around the globe. For the full year, we do expect that pricing to come in a bit and inflation to come in a bit, but we expect to maintain a positive spread between them.

Jeffrey Sprague
Founder and Managing Partner at Vertical Research Partners

Thank you.

Dalip Puri
Dalip Puri
EVP and CFO at AMETEK

Thank you, Jeff.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Brett Linzey of Mizuho. Your line is now open.

Peter Costa
Peter Costa
Senior Equity Research Associate at Mizuho

Hi, guys. This is Peter on from Brett Linzey. Okay. So as we look at a potentially more aggressive tariff regime, could you just talk about how nimble your supply chain configuration is and then your ability to flex around different regions if needed? Thanks.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

Yeah. It's a great question. I mean, we look at tariffs, and that became a bigger issue back in the 2017 timeframe. In the quarter, we had a minimal impact from tariffs, and they were completely offset for price. To give you an idea across the whole company, tariffs are only going to cost us about $0.01, like $3 million or $4 million. What happened there is we've aggressively rebalanced our supply chain. It's largely done. So we're not overexposed to any region of the globe. We have a strategy where from the U.S., we're largely sourcing from Mexico and other regions of the Americas and in Europe. We do a lot of sourcing from the Czech Republic and Serbia. In Asia, we do a lot of sourcing from Malaysia. So we've got a nice balance around the world.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

So I think the hard work that we did over the past few years of really rebalancing our supply chain, we're essentially finished with it, just a very, very small bit of work that continues. And we're very well positioned to be able to deal with an increasing tariff regime, specifically with China in particular. We don't have a real risk there. We do excellent business in China. It's a China for China strategy. It's about 9% of our sales, and largely, we source what we sell in China. So we're in pretty good position in terms of tariffs.

Peter Costa
Peter Costa
Senior Equity Research Associate at Mizuho

Perfect. Thanks. Then if you can just provide some color on the tempo or monthly cadence and some trends in the quarter and then looking into April? Thanks.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

Yeah. I mean, it was a pretty typical quarter. March was the strongest quarter. Yeah. Pretty typical quarter with March being the strongest on both orders and sales. So sales were the highest of the quarter in March. And then in April, we're right on plan. So we feel good about the guidance, and it's pretty, as I said, it's bouncing around there, but we're not seeing any incremental weakness at this point.

Peter Costa
Peter Costa
Senior Equity Research Associate at Mizuho

Perfect. Thank you.

Dalip Puri
Dalip Puri
EVP and CFO at AMETEK

Thank you.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Scott Graham of Seaport Research Partners. Your line is now open.

Scott Graham
Scott Graham
Senior Equity Research Analyst at Seaport Research Partners

Yeah. Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Really, maybe the first question is about the M&A environment. EBITDAs do seem to have firmed up, even though this first quarter, I think most would say the industrial landscape has been a little uneven. Nevertheless, when EBITDAs firm up, that's kind of when I think AMETEK does a lot of striking. And I'm just wondering, are we looking at a year this year that could mirror last year? I mean, what does the really near-term pipeline look like, Dave?

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

It's very, very difficult to predict the very near term. But Scott, the pipeline remains very strong, and we're actively looking at a number of high-quality deals across a broad set of markets. So we have $1.8 billion of existing cash and credit facilities post-Paragon. We have a balance sheet that would support if the deals meet our criteria, we could do over $4 billion of deals this year, and that would only take our leverage up to about 2.5 times. So we're really in an excellent position. And it's not a balance sheet issue. It's not a cash flow issue. We're performing extremely well. It comes down to finding the right businesses. And we have a good pipeline right now, a very good pipeline.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

And we really have the opportunity, as you said, we typically have this opportunity to differentiate our performance with the M&A element of our growth strategy with this strong balance sheet and with these strong cash flow positions. So in this market, it's a bit choppy. Our combination of OPEX and M&A and this proven acquisition strategy, I'm really looking to differentiate our performance with our M&A and our OPEX during the next couple of quarters.

Scott Graham
Scott Graham
Senior Equity Research Analyst at Seaport Research Partners

Thank you for that. You answered one of Jeff's questions earlier saying you're expecting sales to be up modestly each quarter. Were you referring to organic for the next three quarters?

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

Yeah. This is sequential, Scott.

Scott Graham
Scott Graham
Senior Equity Research Analyst at Seaport Research Partners

Okay. So sequentially, you're expecting sales dollars per quarter.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

Q1 will be a bit higher than Q2. Q3 will be a bit higher than Q2, and Q4 will be a bit higher than Q3, so.

Scott Graham
Scott Graham
Senior Equity Research Analyst at Seaport Research Partners

Okay. The last one is just sort of back on the orders. I know you do have a pretty significant comp that you're up against when you stack them. What were orders in the quarter in dollars and in organic?

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

Yeah. The orders were -8, and organic orders were -10. And again, we had a tough comp, and I went through the process of they sequentially grew low single digits the last couple of quarters. When you take out the comp, I think in Q1 of 2023, we had exceptional orders from some project business and EIG in particular. So when you take that out and you look at what's going on sequentially, we get more comfortable.

Scott Graham
Scott Graham
Senior Equity Research Analyst at Seaport Research Partners

Yeah. No. I get it. 2022 and 2021 were also exceptional organic periods for you. So okay. Thank you.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

Thank you, Scott.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Obin of Bank of America. Your line is now open.

Andrew Obin
Andrew Obin
Managing Director at Bank of America

Hey, guys. Good morning.

Christopher Glynn
Equity Analyst at Oppneheimer

Good morning, Andrew. Just a question how to think about the Paragon Medical integration costs. So what's the payback on this restructuring that's now because I assume it's extra. So what's the payback on this restructuring that's embedded in 2024 guide, and how much of it should I add to 2025?

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

Yeah. Well, in 2024, we had told you in a prior meeting that Paragon was going to contribute $0.08-$0.10 to AMETEK's EPS, and that still holds. When I look at that $22 million charge, we said the payback's going to be less than two years. And at run rate, so it'll take us a couple of years to get there, but the run rate, we have $70 million of benefits. So we spent approximately $29 million. We're going to get approximately $70 million of benefits. The payback is less than two years. So that really tells you what a great return it has. And it wasn't a lot of focus, and we can run things really efficiently. And I'm just excited that the management team sees it that way too. And we're really going to make Paragon an exceptional business from an operating perspective.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

Regarding 2025, I think we've come out and said that we should see a substantial increase in operating earnings related to Paragon in 2025. But I'm not willing to quantify what's going to happen in 2025. We're much too far away to do that. But again, the metrics I point you to are, we spent $29 million. We'll see $70 million in benefit at max run rate. And the payback for the project is a little less than two years, so we feel really good about it, good payback for our shareholders.

Andrew Obin
Andrew Obin
Managing Director at Bank of America

Sorry. I should probably take it offline, but just to make sure. I thought the Paragon restructuring was extra because you saw incremental opportunities. You were saying that that was embedded all along but was not in the guide? I'm sorry. I'm just.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

Yeah. I just think that it's a larger deal, and we saw a lot of opportunities. It'll take us a few years to do it, so we pulled it forward. So it's.

Andrew Obin
Andrew Obin
Managing Director at Bank of America

Okay. I'll take it offline because I'm not sure if I so I should have had it in my numbers, or this $0.10 is extra on top of your worth thinking? Just confirming that. I apologize. And I'm happy to take it offline with Kevin. I apologize.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

Yeah. I don't know what you have in your numbers, Andrew. I don't really look at them. But I can tell you that we're expecting to get $0.08-$0.10 of benefit from Paragon, and this restructuring doesn't change that.

Andrew Obin
Andrew Obin
Managing Director at Bank of America

Gotcha. That makes sense. And then just on revenue, and you did give very good color. Was basically the destock what drove, I guess, your expecting? I think you guided for low double-digit revenue in the first quarter, a little bit below. So it's just you said it's destock pulled forward. Correct?

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

Yes.

Andrew Obin
Andrew Obin
Managing Director at Bank of America

Thanks so much.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

Thank you, Andrew.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Christopher Glynn of Oppenheimer & Co., Inc. Your line is now open.

Christopher Glynn
Equity Analyst at Oppneheimer

Thanks. Good morning, everyone.

Dalip Puri
Dalip Puri
EVP and CFO at AMETEK

Good morning.

Christopher Glynn
Equity Analyst at Oppneheimer

Dave, I was curious just to go into the topic a little bit of the long-term multi-year kind of secular trends where you see an impact. It occurs to me maybe the power business could be on your leading edge with energy transition and electrification. But I'm curious about your comments in general on the kind of secular trends and, in particular, what you're seeing as kind of street-level evidence on the reshoring-type trend.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

Yeah. When I think about the long-term secular growth drivers, and we talked about a few of them in my talk, but a lot of project activity around the semiconductor market. And we're moving closer and closer to the point where that's going to start turning into business for us in the West. There's a lot of project work on semiconductors. The power market, as you said, and there's really two drivers there, the driver for renewables, energy, but also the driver for investments in the power grid. So our RTDS business, our power instrumentation business, are really levered to those. So that's starting to happen, it's working its way through. When I think about the aerospace and defense business, again, we had a great quarter again, and that's continuing. And I think both Airbus and Boeing have a nine-year backlog. So the commercial market looks good.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

We're in the right position in defense. We had another good quarter in defense. So I think about those kind of markets and those trends, I feel good about the future. And a lot of fiscal stimulus in the U.S., which has not been there in the past, but it takes time to work through the system. So I think longer term, I think we're in the right places to do well.

Christopher Glynn
Equity Analyst at Oppneheimer

Thank you.

Dalip Puri
Dalip Puri
EVP and CFO at AMETEK

Thank you, Chris.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Joe Giordano of TD Cowen. Your line is now open.

Zain Khan
Zain Khan
Equity Research Associate at TD Cowen

Hi. Good morning. This is Zain on for Joe. Sorry. I know destocking and bottoming of orders within automation has been discussed a few times. So just a quick follow-up. This is obviously something a lot of companies have been struggling with in the past few quarters. But some have also been talking about changing their internal processes to gain more visibility of end market and end users. Is there anything that you guys have done, potentially more frequent conversations or reaching out to end market users to understand a bit better their demand going forward? Anything you've changed recently?

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

I can't point to anything we changed. I mean, if you go back and you follow us, we kind of caught exactly what happened. We talked about the first half of the year of sales outpacing orders. So that means you'd have slightly below one book-to-bill. We talked about the destock in the first half, and we thought it would turn positive in the second half. We did that before this quarter. I think we have a pretty robust communication system with our field, but there's always opportunities to get better. We work on those and continuously improve our businesses. I feel like the information that we got from the field is pretty accurate, and we're on top of it. There's always rooms to improve, and we're always looking at ways to improve.

Zain Khan
Zain Khan
Equity Research Associate at TD Cowen

Great. Thank you. I'll relay that. Thank you so much.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

Thank you.

Operator

One moment for our next question. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Nigel Coe of Wolfe Research. Your line is now open.

Nigel Coe
Nigel Coe
Managing Director at Wolfe Research

Oh, thanks. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for the question. Hey, David. I just want to come back to the order math. I think you said down 8% and then down 10% organic. We've got about nine points of contribution from Paragon in our numbers. So just wondering, what am I missing? Because I'd expected there to be a significant contribution from Paragon in the order numbers. So just help me out with that math, please.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

Yeah. We had 9% acquisition growth, and Paragon is in the acquisitions, not the organic. So the Paragon sales.

Christopher Glynn
Equity Analyst at Oppneheimer

Orders.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

Sales, excuse me. Yeah.

Nigel Coe
Nigel Coe
Managing Director at Wolfe Research

Okay. But then the orders, +8% organic to -10% reported, -10% organic, was there no material impact from Paragon there?

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

Yeah. With Paragon, we had obviously a large backlog of orders in Q4. And then in Q1, there's a timing issue because Paragon's going through the same destock that the EMG businesses are. There's a bit of a destock there.

Nigel Coe
Nigel Coe
Managing Director at Wolfe Research

Oh, okay. Okay.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

That impacts the order. So the medical market, it's in both our EMC business and Paragon, we're seeing the same kind of destock in the EMG businesses. If we look at the medical procedures, they're all growing at mid to high single digits. But the medical device OEMs are destocking their inventory, correcting their inventories. It's kind of a widely communicated piece of information. We monitor the end procedures, and they're growing. So this destock, we think, is going to run its pace through the first half of the year.

Nigel Coe
Nigel Coe
Managing Director at Wolfe Research

Okay. Does that impact the full-year forecast? I think we've got close to $5 million of sales Paragon. Does that destock impact that outlook? But also, I do.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

Yeah. Go ahead.

Nigel Coe
Nigel Coe
Managing Director at Wolfe Research

Sorry. No, no. No, please go ahead, David.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

Yeah. I think for the year, when we bought Paragon, it was a little less than $500 million. The first year, we talked about the mid-single-digit growth. So that's still exactly what we have in our model. So we think that we get out of this year, and we think it'll be a double-digit grower the next couple of years. But the Paragon model, from the viewpoint of what we had going into the year and what it is now, is pretty much identical.

Nigel Coe
Nigel Coe
Managing Director at Wolfe Research

Okay. And then, just sorry, a follow-up on the $29 million. Is that all restructuring, or was there some inventory and accounting write-downs?

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

Yeah. I'd say the vast majority of it was restructuring. And there was a small part of it that were other integration costs. But the vast majority.

Nigel Coe
Nigel Coe
Managing Director at Wolfe Research

Does some of that come into TQ as well? Do we need to think about that into TQ?

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

Yeah. We started the effort in Q1. As I said, we pulled forward all the benefits that we had. I think the restructuring was done in Q1. I don't think we're going to have another restructuring charge in Q2, if that's what you're asking.

Nigel Coe
Nigel Coe
Managing Director at Wolfe Research

Okay. Great. Thanks, David.

David Zapico
David Zapico
Chairman and CEO at AMETEK

It's a one-off charge. It's a one-off charge. If you look at the Zygo business, we had a big acquisition. We did a similar thing where we got comfortable with what we could do. And we may have another charge with Paragon down the road if we think there's other ways to improve it. But right now, this is a one-time charge to dramatically improve the operating capability of that business. And the returns that I communicated to you are very positive.

Nigel Coe
Nigel Coe
Managing Director at Wolfe Research

Makes perfect sense. Thanks.

Operator

I am showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn it back to Kevin Coleman, Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasurer, for closing remarks.

Kevin Coleman
Kevin Coleman
VP of Investor Relations and Treasurer at AMETEK

Thank you. Thanks, everyone, for joining our call today. As a reminder, a replay of today's webcast may be accessed in the investor section of AMETEK.com. Have a great day.

Operator

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.

Executives
    • Dalip Puri
      Dalip Puri
      EVP and CFO
    • David Zapico
      David Zapico
      Chairman and CEO
    • Kevin Coleman
      Kevin Coleman
      VP of Investor Relations and Treasurer
Analysts
    • Andrew Obin
      Managing Director at Bank of America
    • Christopher Glynn
      Equity Analyst at Oppneheimer
    • Deane Dray
      Managing Director at RBC
    • Jeffrey Sprague
      Founder and Managing Partner at Vertical Research Partners
    • Nigel Coe
      Managing Director at Wolfe Research
    • Peter Costa
      Senior Equity Research Associate at Mizuho
    • Scott Graham
      Senior Equity Research Analyst at Seaport Research Partners
    • Zain Khan
      Equity Research Associate at TD Cowen
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