Xylem Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
February 4, 2025
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Operator

Welcome to Xylem's Fourth Quarter and Full Year twenty twenty four Results Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen only mode. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Keith Buettner, Vice President of Investor Relations and FP and A. Please go ahead.

Keith Buettner
Keith Buettner
Vice President - IR at Xylem

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Xylem's fourth quarter twenty twenty four earnings call. With me today are Chief Executive Officer, Matthew Pine and Chief Financial Officer, Bill Grogan. They will provide their perspective on Xylem's fourth quarter and results and discuss the and outlook. Following our prepared remarks, we will address questions related to the information covered on the call.

Keith Buettner
Keith Buettner
Vice President - IR at Xylem

I'll ask that you please keep to one question and a follow-up and then return to the queue. As a reminder, this call and our webcast are accompanied by slide presentation available in the Investors section of our website. A replay of today's call will be available until midnight February eighteen and will be available for playback via the Investors section of our website under the heading Investor Events. Please turn to Slide two. We will make some forward looking statements on today's call, including references to future events or developments that we anticipate will or may occur in the future.

Keith Buettner
Keith Buettner
Vice President - IR at Xylem

These statements are subject to future risks and uncertainties, such as those factors described in Xylem's most recent annual report on Form 10 K and in subsequent reports filed with the SEC. Please note, the company undertakes no obligation to update any forward looking statements publicly to reflect subsequent events or circumstances, and actual events or results could differ materially from those anticipated. Please turn to Slide three. We have provided you with a summary of key performance metrics including both GAAP and non GAAP metrics with references to the prior year segment metrics being made on a comparative basis reflecting the change in segments as of the beginning of the year. For the purposes of today's call, all references will be on an organic and or adjusted basis unless otherwise indicated and non GAAP financials have been reconciled for you and are included in the appendix section of the presentation.

Keith Buettner
Keith Buettner
Vice President - IR at Xylem

Now please turn to Slide four and I'll turn the call over to our CEO, Matthew Pine.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

Thank you, Keith. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. The results we released earlier today reflect a strong finish to a record breaking 2024. In a year of transition and significant transformation for Xylem, the team served our customers and communities with discipline and delivered on our commitments and the results show their impact. Full year revenue, EBITDA margins and EPS all set new benchmarks for us.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

Revenue grew 6%. We expanded EBITDA margins 170 basis points and EPS was up double digits for the year. The team's operating discipline was apparent across all segments and the integration of Evoqua is delivering cost synergies significantly faster than expected. In a moment, I'll ask Bill to drill down on the but the headline numbers reflect a big finish to a big year. The team executed well on resilient underlying demand with all segments delivering orders growth of mid single digits or better.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

That has given us great pace coming into the New Year. We anticipate demand will continue to be healthy overall through 2025 despite uncertain dynamics in a few end markets and regions. The team is doing a great job managing what we can control and is committed to the transformation of Xylem we began in 2024, enabling us to improve focus, increase our speed and drive accountable execution. The transformation is behind our eight K filing last week, which follows through on our discussion at Investor Day, when we indicated our intent to simplify Xylem's operating model. We're moving from a matrix to a structure with a single axis or segments.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

The plan streamlines our organization, which will strengthen our competitive positioning, enable us to better serve our customers. We've also taken several targeted capital deployment actions since our last earnings call, all aimed at optimizing our portfolio for growth and profitability. In Dec. 0, we increased our stake in Adrica to a majority ownership and management control of the technology platform at the heart of XylemView, which is a strategic growth priority for us as utilities continue to digitize. We also acquired a few tuck ins to enhance our offerings in water solutions and services and water infrastructure.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

Finally, just last month, we signed a definitive agreement to divest a non core business that came with the acquisition of Evoqua and represents about 1% of revenue. As our 2024 performance indicates, transforming our operating model has energized the enterprise and that's reflected in the 2025 guidance we issued earlier today, which is in line with delivering the long term framework we committed to Before we go into more detail on that full year outlook, I'm going to ask Bill to unpack the team's performance, which provides the foundation for our momentum into 2025.

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

Thanks, Matthew. Please turn to Slide five. As Matthew mentioned, we are very pleased with the strong finish to 2024. The team stayed focused and consistently delivered throughout the year, exceeding on our expectations, delivering record revenue, EBITDA and earnings per share for the and the full year. Demand remains positive with our ending backlog of $510,000,000,0.0 essentially flat from the prior year, driven by progress executing at MCS on their past due backlog, but offset in part by growth across the other three segments.

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

Our book to bill ratio was near one in the quarter and exceeded one in the year. Orders were healthy, up 7% in the quarter, driven by strong performance across all segments with Water Infrastructure leading the way with 10% orders growth. Revenue growth was robust, up 7% in the quarter, despite a challenging comp of 9% growth in the same period last year. The team's operational discipline delivered quarterly EBITDA margin of 21%, up 140 basis points from the prior year. This improvement was driven by productivity, price and volume more than offsetting inflation and investments.

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

We also achieved a record EPS of $1,.18 surpassing the midpoint of our guidance by $0,.05 and marking a 19% increase over the prior year. Our balance sheet remains in great shape with net debt to adjusted EBITDA at 0.5 times. Year to date free cash flow increased by 29% from the prior year. The conversion rate of 116% was driven by higher net income offset by higher net working capital and increased CapEx. Working capital efficiency in the quarter was negatively impacted by timing of sales, but our overall performance for the year was strong.

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

Let's turn to Slide six. In Measurement and Control Solutions, we continue to convert the backlog, though total MCS backlog remained at roughly $190,000,000,0.0 in line with the prior quarter. This is a 13% organic decrease from the prior year driven by smart metering conversion. Orders were up 6% driven by smart metering and analytics demand. Revenue was up 6% again driven by smart metering demand and backlog execution.

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

EBITDA margin of 17.1% was 120 basis points lower than prior year driven by mix, inflation and investments more than offsetting productivity, price and volume. As expected, there was a sequential margin headwind for mix in the quarter as energy meters accounted for a larger portion of sales. In Water Infrastructure, orders were up 10% in the quarter with strong demand in transport. Revenue increased 8%, driven by treatment and transport demand across most regions. EBITDA margin for Water Infrastructure was up an outstanding three sixty basis points.

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

Productivity, price, mix and volume more than offset inflation and investments. In Applied Water, orders were up 5% and book to bill was roughly one, lifted by large project wins in The U. S. And strength in Europe. As expected, revenues were essentially flat to prior year, primarily driven by softness in emerging markets.

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

Segment EBITDA margin increased 60 basis points year over year. Productivity, mix and price more than offset higher inflation, lower volumes and other costs. Finally, Water Solutions and Services saw robust demand with orders increasing 8%, driven by strength in capital projects and dewatering. Revenue growth was up strong at 11% with strength in capital projects, dewatering and services. Growth was also fueled by projects coming online faster than anticipated as we enter the quarter.

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

Segment EBITDA margins was 22.8%, up 10 basis points versus prior year, driven by productivity, price and volume more than offsetting inflation investments and mix. Now let's turn to slide seven for our 2025 segment outlook. Before I go through our overall guidance, I want to highlight that we have not factored in any impact for the recently inactive tariffs by the U. S. Administration.

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

At this time, we do not believe that there will have a material impact on our full year 2025 results, but it is obviously a fluid situation and we will update our guidance accordingly as we learn more. Heading into 2025, our markets remain positive and our teams are delivering on our commitment to simplify Xylem, focus on our customers and expand margins. We are providing full year organic revenue guidance for the segments that is largely in line with our long term framework. In MCS, we expect growth of high single digits. We are seeing some pockets of softness in Europe, but overall demand is still healthy and our pipeline is strong.

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

Our expectation is energy meters will drive a majority of the growth in 2025 and water meters will grow low single digits. We expect to see sequential revenue improvements throughout the year supported by a backlog and easier comps. In Water Infrastructure, we expect growth of mid single digits. We anticipate resilient OpEx demand due to the mission critical nature of our applications and solid CapEx demand. Healthy utility end markets across most regions of Okwa synergies and price capture will drive strong growth in the year.

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

However, as expected, we will see headwinds from eightytwenty actions as we simplify Water Infrastructure's offerings and we do expect weakness in China's utility market. In Applied Water, we expect modest growth of low single digits. We see growth across developed markets, particularly in The U. S. With large projects coming online and a general recovery in their end markets.

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

Growth will be offset in Applied Water as well by eightytwenty actions as we exit unprofitable businesses. WSS growth is expected to be mid single digits, driven by strength in outsourced water projects and solid demand into watering. This segment is supported by a $1,000,000,000 backlog and strong funnel activity across all of their businesses. Now let's turn to Slide eight for our full year 2025 and guidance. The growth outlook by segment translates to full year revenue of $860,000,000,0.0 to $870,000,000,0.0 resulting in revenue growth of 0% to 2% and organic revenue growth of 3% to 4%.

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

This is on the low end of our long term framework due to the eightytwenty actions we are taking across our segments that will be a larger impact in early phases of implementation. EBITDA margin is expected to be 21.3% to 21.8%. This represents 70 to 120 basis points of expansion versus the prior year, driven by productivity and price more than offsetting inflation in our investments in the business. We will also benefit from our simplification efforts, which help to mitigate mix pressure from MCS. This yields an EPS range of $4.5 to $4.7 up 8% at the midpoint over the prior year.

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

FX will be a meaningful headwind in the year and excluding those impacts, EPS growth would be double digits at the midpoint. As a reminder, we are committed to low double digit free cash flow margin in our long term financial framework. However, cash flow will be impacted in 2025 by our recently announced restructuring actions that may drop us slightly below our long term goals. Drilling down on the We anticipate revenue growth will be in the 0% to 2% range on a reported basis and 1% to 2% organically. We expect EBITDA margin to be approximately 19.5% to 20%, up 30 to 80 basis points, driven by higher volumes, price realization and productivity gains, as well as impacts from our simplification efforts.

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

We do want to note that MCS EBITDA margin will be down year over year driven by the energy and water mix we highlighted earlier, but will be up sequentially from This yields EPS of $0,.93 to $0,.98 We are entering the year with momentum and in a position of strength. Our balanced outlook reflects our strong commercial position, the durability of our portfolio and benefits for our simplification efforts. While we also continue to monitor broader market conditions and volatility including potential new or additional tariffs and fluctuations in FX. Regarding tariffs, we are ready to take additional price actions as needed to offset any increases and take cost actions to mitigate the impact on our margins. Overall, our expectations for the year remain positive as we build on our strong momentum.

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

With that, please turn to Slide nine and I'll turn the call back over to Matthew for closing comments.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

Thanks, Bill. We spend a lot more time looking forward than back, but the full year results do offer a moment for reflection and appreciation. We had a smooth leadership transition coming into 2024 and then we spent the year digging in and frankly getting a lot more done. The results tell a great story, but not the whole story. What we've accomplished in just one year is a huge credit to our colleagues around the world.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

They delivered for our customers at the same time is doing the difficult work of deep change. I really appreciate how the team has leaned in and embraced our transformation as an energizing challenge. Earlier, I spoke about simplification and taking complexity out of our structure. That work on structure goes hand in hand with refining our operating model more broadly, sharpening our high impact culture, streamlining our processes and systems and optimizing our portfolio with targeted capital deployment. At the same time, we've amplified our commitments on sustainability, raising the bar again with our 2030 sustainability targets.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

And in 2024 alone, the team responded to more than 40 water related disasters, serving communities in times of crisis from India to Spain to the Carolinas to Brazil. Together, the team is transforming Xylem to be better positioned to fulfill on our purpose to empower our customers and communities to build a more water secure world. In 2025, our transformation initiatives will improve our profitability, further optimize our portfolio and make it easier for customers to do business with Xylem. We know this kind of transformation takes time and may not happen in a straight line. But we've made a great start.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

We have an outstanding team, the right strategy and privileged positions in attractive markets. Building on the progress we made in 2024, we're looking ahead to a strong 2025 and delivering on our long term commitment to profitable growth and sustainable value creation. With that, operator, I'll turn the call back over to you for questions.

Operator

The first question today comes from Deane Dray with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Deane Dray
Deane Dray
Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets

Thank you. Good morning, everyone.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

Hey, good morning, Dean.

Deane Dray
Deane Dray
Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets

Maybe we can start with the restructuring announcement. And just based upon your analyst state last year, you knew that there was this was a next step coming. And maybe be helpful if you kind of gave more color on the plan. Is it all SG and A? It seems like it's headcount.

Deane Dray
Deane Dray
Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets

What's the mix between North America, outside of North America and maybe some payback expectations?

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

Yes, I'll start us off and I'll let Bill get into some of those details in terms of the timing and geography and things of that nature. But I just want to say these actions, however necessary, mean that value colleagues are leaving Xylem and we don't take that lightly. We're going to make sure we have ensure a smooth transition and that colleagues are treated respectfully and fairly. So I want to start there. To your point, Dean, the plan is consistent with our twenty four Investor Day in May 0, really about taking complexity out of our business, which includes not only simplifying our structure, but really the implementation of eightytwenty.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

It's a little bit of both in terms of the eight ks filing, the structure and the bottoms up we've done from the initial eightytwenty work. We are focused on reducing that complexity, making it easier for our colleagues to do their job, but also making it easier for our customers to do business with us. And we've already seen here in the back half of 2024 and as we enter 2025, the organization is moving much faster. They're definitely more focused and we have much more end to end accountability. Maybe one other point I would call out is, this is in service of growth.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

And at the same time we're doing this work, it does allow us to redeploy our resources and our effort across the business to focus on A customers. And in many cases, through we have been moving some of our B customers to channel partners that can better serve them to be more efficient. So the majority of the workforce reductions are expected to be complete in 2025 with some of them moving into 2026 subject to local laws, but maybe I'll pause there and let Bill give you a little bit more color on some of the numbers.

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

Yes. And just to level set everyone for those who didn't see it, as we highlighted in our eight K last week, we expect to incur total pretax charges of approximately $95,000,000 to $115,000,000 We incurred some initial costs in but the bulk of the remaining expense will be realized in 2025 and We expect to realize about $130,000,000 of net benefits for the program over the next two years with about $75,000,000 of the benefit coming in 2025. Timing of the benefits will be more back half weighted as we work through the labor negotiations and different processes around the globe as Matthew mentioned. So think of it as kind of thirty percent first half, seventy percent second half. Again, these actions are going to impact all of our segments and corporate functions with water infrastructure and applied water having the two largest impacts, and Europe probably the most impacted region.

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

The plan impacts a little bit less than 10% of our workforce and is mostly concentrated in SG and A.

Deane Dray
Deane Dray
Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets

Great. I appreciate all those details. That's a big help. And then the second question unrelated, just given the administration change, there's some anxiety about potential rollbacks of PFOS. We saw a halt of a industrial PFOS test that just what's your expectation here?

Deane Dray
Deane Dray
Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets

I realize PFOS is not in your framework that was made very clear at your Analyst Day. But just the understanding on and how what might be done differently from the industrial side versus drinking water side, but I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thanks.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

Thanks. Yes, Demian, to your point, I'll just echo, we didn't have any PFAS regulatory impact in our guide or in the LRP. For municipal or industrial, industrial is the one that was still kind of a draft rule. And that specific draft rule, and I think you mentioned this recently in a note, Dean was dropped with the Trump executive order to pause all regulations. And it was I think it was aimed largely at the chemical industry and really designed to set an affluent limitation or guideline for PFAS chemical manufacturers.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

So I would say that this has no impact on the drinking water regulation that when that rule went final last year. And maybe a comment I would make, I'd say Lee Zeldin recently stated in his confirmation testimony for EPA, Head of EPA that he would be an advocate for PFAS cleanup. So it'll be kind of a wait and see when it comes to the industrial side, but we don't see any rollback of the municipal side. And I think the Trump administration is a lot of people know, were the ones that initially started the PFAS regulation for municipal drinking water in the first term. So in general, we're still bullish on PFAS.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

We know that the timing is going to push out, but states as we've talked about in the past have taken action of their own. And then specifically on the industrial side, Dean, we've seen a few states, specifically Georgia recently set standards for industrial affluent. So it'll be a little bit of a tailwind from a state by state basis. But from a federal perspective, the industrial side will probably push out, but the muni side is still tracking.

Operator

The next question comes from Mike Halloran with Baird. Please go ahead.

Michael Halloran
Associate Director of Research at Robert W. Baird & Co

Hey, good morning, everyone.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

Good morning, Mike.

Michael Halloran
Associate Director of Research at Robert W. Baird & Co

So first on the MCS side, maybe just talk through how you think about the margin progression through the year. I know you said sequentially improves through the year. What are we thinking for an exit rate or an approximate exit rate, all else equal, once mix normalizes and given all the restructuring things you're doing?

Michael Halloran
Associate Director of Research at Robert W. Baird & Co

And then on a related basis, maybe just talk through what you expect to see in the end markets through the year that gives you confidence in that high single digit margin? Because I know some of it's backlog, but I have to imagine some of it's what your customers are saying, front logs, stuff like that too.

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

Yes. Maybe I'll take the first shot. So if we start just with the margin performance and first just highlight again that's really related to the mix shifts between water and energy. There's a couple few small one timers, but fundamentally mix is the biggest driver of the year over year decline. We talked about that last quarter and highlighted that.

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

Then I think we need to just talk about the adjustment period over the next couple of quarters as we do go from less water meter customer volume as they rephase their deployment schedules, continue to work with our partners and customers to get home access and labor scheduling nailed down. We'd said that was one to two quarters, it's probably closer to three quarters inclusive of And this is going to shift that balance of sale towards the energy meters that we saw in and expect that through the first half of the year. And then I just want to make sure again from the full year perspective, MCS margins was were phenomenal, right? They were up three seventy basis points last year. And some of those core elements we will see next year as they continue to capture strong price.

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

The teams continue to drive solid productivity. Obviously, with this restructuring actions, they're going to get some benefit. Mix is probably the only thing that's an outlier relative to our short term margin expansion journey for them. We said, I think is probably the bottom. They'll sequentially improve through the year as mix normalizes some of the impact from the restructuring starts to take hold.

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

And for the full year, we will see expanded margins. First half, there's a little bit of contraction, but then we'll see significant expansion in the back half with net net. 2025 will exit at a higher rate than 2024. And then the second part of

Michael Halloran
Associate Director of Research at Robert W. Baird & Co

the question was just help me get to the high single digit organic guide and what that means from a customer perspective?

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

Yes. So overall demand is still healthy, right? The team has a very strong pipeline. We won a couple of verbal awards that we haven't just received in the backlog yet. Really, Europe is the only place we've seen some softness, but the fundamentals across majority of the business are still solid.

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

We're kind of a long way to go in the AMI adoption curve. Really the short term noise is just along this project rephrasing. And just to remind everyone, right, in the North American Water business over the last two years has grown 30% per year, which is absolutely phenomenal relative to our peer set in that market. So as we look to next year, again, the energy meters relative to the refresh that they're going through will grow at a significant rate, close to 40%. It's the refresh cycle and we've had a couple of projects in backlog that we have full visibility to with defined ship dates.

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

And then on the water side, relative to the backlog phasing that we have and line of sight customer projects that we've won that have yet to just get into our backlog, we're pretty confident in the ramp that we'll see there in the back half. But again, on the water meter side, kind of low single digits and energy being the significant driver of growth.

Operator

The next question comes from Nathan Jones with Stifel. Please go ahead.

Nathan Jones
Nathan Jones
Managing Director at Stifel Financial Corp

Good morning, everyone.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

Hey, good morning, Nathan.

Nathan Jones
Nathan Jones
Managing Director at Stifel Financial Corp

I wanted to go back and follow-up on some of Dean's questions on the restructuring. I think you said 75000000 that you'll realize in benefits in 2025, which is about 90 basis points of margin expansion and kind of accounts for all of the margin expansion you're expecting at the midpoint of the guidance for 2025. You get some organic growth. There should be some simplification benefits. There should be some pricing and other productivity benefits.

Nathan Jones
Nathan Jones
Managing Director at Stifel Financial Corp

Maybe you can just help fill in the gaps there on what the headwinds are that doesn't actually have margins up a little bit more with the benefit of this restructuring?

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

Yes, yes. No, the simple walk, Nate, here is, yes, if we look at roughly the midpoint of 100 basis points, our productivity and price are more than offsetting all of our material and labor inflation as well as our continued investment in the business, giving us about 50 basis points of expansion with that group. Then to your point, we're getting the benefit of our restructuring actions and the balance of the Evoqua synergies gives us about another 125 basis points of favorability. So about 175 basis points there. But then the biggest piece in the math is really the negative mix within MCS that puts about 75 basis points of pressure, again, due to that energy and water mix shift netting out to the 100 basis points.

Nathan Jones
Nathan Jones
Managing Director at Stifel Financial Corp

That's helpful. And I guess then you're still pretty early in the rollout. And I wouldn't imagine that this restructuring program gets you to the end state that you're looking for. Are you able to comment on the potential to see opportunities to do some more restructuring in 'twenty six or 'twenty seven or whenever you get through this and start looking at the next round?

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

Yes, I would say that the announcement in the eight ks does roll into 2026. So some of that's baked into that initial announcement in the eight ks. I would just maybe highlight that part of this eight ks was focused on our operating structure and part of it was And it was really driven by the kind of first wave of with predominantly focused on our legacy Xylem business with a lot more focus on applied water and water infrastructure and a little bit on MNCF. So obviously we didn't get through the entire segment. I think we talked about having about 40% of the business kind of exiting '24 fully through the tool and through the we'll have about 70% of the business.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

So absolutely there's going to be more opportunity as we continue to really optimize the portfolio and the customer line simplification. So this is a journey. We need to move from a we talked about a transformation. It's really developing a transformative mindset in the business. And that means you're kind of never done optimizing.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

So, for sure there'll be more things that we look at over time.

Operator

The next question comes from Andy Kaplowitz with Citigroup. Please go ahead.

Andy Kaplowitz
Andy Kaplowitz
Analyst at Citigroup

Hey, good morning, everyone.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

Hey, good morning, Andy.

Andy Kaplowitz
Andy Kaplowitz
Analyst at Citigroup

Matt or Bill, can you give a little more color into the bookings environment that you're seeing and maybe some of the cyclical headwinds in the emerging markets and or in applied water that you've seen and when they might turn. Orders up 7% obviously seem solid in Would you expect that kind of order strength to continue in the 25%? And it looks like you're predicting a modest turn in applied water. Can you talk about the visibility into that?

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

Yes. I think orders in the overall for all of our segments was extremely strong. So we're continuing to be pleased with the commercial momentum we have across all of our businesses. Specific to Applied Water, yes, they'll be back to growth in 2025. We do see momentum across the developed markets, particularly in The U.

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

S. They continue to have some larger project wins that we realized through 2024. A lot of those will be coming online. And then just a general recovery in a lot of their end markets after a fairly challenging year. We did talk about growth will be offset a little bit by some of our eightytwenty actions exiting unprofitable businesses as we really look for applied water to simplify their product portfolio and geographic presence to your point.

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

It has seen some challenges in emerging markets. Really where we want to leverage our technology and specific applications to win in those markets and to double down on our our core here in our developed markets with our largest customers through some new technologies and better overall operating performance. So Applied Water is back to growth with a little bit of pressure from some of the eightytwenty actions. But even on the eightytwenty side, I think the incremental pricing they're getting from that toolset is really positive. So bottom line performance for them in 2025 will be really strong.

Andy Kaplowitz
Andy Kaplowitz
Analyst at Citigroup

Very helpful. And then it appears Xylem passed on some large water assets that were available for a while, but you do have a very strong balance sheet. So how are you thinking about M and A right now versus other methods of deploying repurchases? How should we think about ultimately what happens here? And obviously, you talked about the majority ownership in Madriga, what does that mean for you moving forward?

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

Yes. Thanks, Andy. First, I just want to say how proud I am of the team's execution on the integration of Evoqua. I don't want to skip over that. I mean, that was a big transaction and we've delivered eighteen months early in our cost synergies.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

So we've built a lot of muscle and actually that muscle has translated well into our operating model transformation. We formed a transformation management office largely for some of that team that did the vocal integration into Xylem. Andy, as we laid out in Investor Day, we want to be more consistent deployers of capital and helping to move us to the mid teens EPS over the long range plan. We talked about we'd be optimizing the portfolio whether that divestitures or just excess of products or business lines through that are underperforming or no longer fit. One thing I'd highlight and I might have mentioned this on the last call, but we put in place a very strong kind of acquisition committee process and it's a much more strong bottoms up process to drive more consistency and help us gain momentum.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

Obviously, we want to deploy capital, obviously to our core, but second to that, we want to do accretive M and A and we'll do opportunistic share buybacks if needed, but really we want to be consistent deployers of capital. And hopefully you're starting to see this as we exit 2024. And to your earlier point, we're going to remain disciplined and we're going to also going to be very aligned to our strategy and the value mapping work that we completed last year. So that's a little bit on capital deployment. And in terms of Adrika, we signed and closed that in and moved our ownership to majority.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

So we could more deeply integrate and rationalize the R and D investments of that joint venture and with the legacy Xylem business. And quite frankly, leverage the platform across is a standard for Xylem to help us be more efficient. We have a lot of confidence in the platform and its ability to solve a lot of our customers biggest pain point, which is trying to manage their data in application management. So I think that's a really good fit for us and a lot of good momentum in that acquisition.

Operator

The next question comes from Scott Davis with Melius Research. Please go ahead.

Scott Davis
CEO & Chairman at Melius Research LLC

Hey, good morning guys.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

Hey, good morning Scott.

Scott Davis
CEO & Chairman at Melius Research LLC

Guys, I wasn't maybe I missed it. Is it fair to assume that the eightytwenty headwind is about two points? Does that sound kind of ballpark?

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

If you said it,

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

I apologize, I didn't hear it.

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

No, no, we didn't. It's a little less than two points.

Scott Davis
CEO & Chairman at Melius Research LLC

Okay.

Scott Davis
CEO & Chairman at Melius Research LLC

And then just to take a step backwards, Matthew, when you joined, on time deliveries was kind of when it went through kind of a dark day, had to get to the other side of it. Where do you stand now on on time deliveries? And maybe just some context to where do you stand now? And perhaps where do you think you'll be in a year, assuming you're not where you want to be now?

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

Great question. I just did a tour of North American factories a couple of weeks ago. And the two biggest thing I focus on, Scott, is quality and on time performance. If you do those things right and you have a great product with a fair price, you're going to win. And so we have made improvements in on time performance.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

It's only going to get better through because will help us simplify our factories and have better flow and just better execution. We've already started to see it happen. We don't really get into quoting our on time delivery, but I would just say that we probably over the course of 2024 made a 500 basis point improvement. And we have about, I would say, seven zero five to 700 basis points more to go to hit our kind of what I would call our entitlement or where we think best in class is. And if I look at our roadmap and our KPIs, we will come close to that this year.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

So we're keenly focused on that metric.

Operator

The next question comes from Brian Lee with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Brian Lee
Brian Lee
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Hey guys, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. Good morning. I guess one on the free cash flow. I know you're talking about this kind of being a little bit of a softer year.

Brian Lee
Brian Lee
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

If I back into it, I mean you've given us conversion targets in the past, I think this year implying around maybe 70% to 80%. So one, is that kind of the fair range to be thinking about? And then two, what are some of the biggest factors here in 2025 that you have visibility or confidence around will revert back in 26% and is the target for 26% to be back to that 100% or higher free cash flow conversion?

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

Yes. I think again a little bit in the prepared remarks is really the largest negative factor is the cost of the restructuring program weighing on overall cash flows. We highlighted a little bit too we've got some larger build on operates that's going to that will aid our top line and bottom line, but some upfront capital associated with them will impact. And then lastly, as we continue to improve our systems across the organization, some incremental investments to support that activity. Those are the three biggest things with the restructuring being the 80 out of that.

Brian Lee
Brian Lee
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

All right, fair enough. And then I know you mentioned also in the prepared remarks, you're not factoring in any tariff impacts, you're not expecting anything at the moment. Just to kind of level set us, none of the dust is settled here obviously, but just as we think about your potential exposures, can you sort of walk us through some of your key kind of geos where you do have either supply chain or procurement exposure to some of the regions that are being talked about in terms of being potentially impacted by tariffs? Thank you.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

Yes, I'll start us off and turn it over to Bill to get into some of the numbers. We don't believe that tariffs will have a material impact on our full year results for 2025. Our teams were ready, sprung into

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

action yesterday to help offset the

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

tariff increases. And to help offset the tariff increases. And we were out obviously with our China increase, we had to pull back on a couple of others that we thought will be going out yesterday that we were quick to take action. And, and we have taken action with regards to China. And we're obviously we're moving and mobilizing our supply chain where possible to make sure that we're taking advantage of second sources.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

We spent a lot of time over the past two to three years on diversifying our supply chain, especially as we look at Asia. And then lastly, just making sure that we're buttoned up on discretionary costs to mitigate any impact. So the teams are ready and we've taken some action with regard to the China tariff. We'll continue to monitor the situation over the next thirty days and see what comes of Canada and Mexico and obviously monitor our customers and our channel partners and just try to understand how this may or may not impact their order patterns. So that's something that we'll keep a close watch on.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

So maybe I'll pause there and turn it over to Bill just to give a little color on the numbers.

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

So if we look at, let's just call it the proposed tariffs for Canada and for Mexico and the enacted for China, they impact about 5% of our material costs as a percentage of sales. The Canadian tariff impact is really negligible. And to Matthew's point, the team's done a phenomenal job post COVID, lessening our dependency on supply from China and the supply chain there is really just for in country production. The Mexico tariff is the 80 for us and primarily impacts MCS and Applied Water. Again, both segments are taking the appropriate actions actions to mitigate the impact on our customers and on our bottom line.

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

So, I think we're well positioned. It's obviously a very fluid situation. So, we're keeping a close eye on it and taking any and every action necessary to mitigate the impact.

Operator

The next question comes from Andrew Buscaglia with BNP. Please go ahead.

Andrew Buscaglia
Executive Director at BNP Paribas

Hey, good morning guys.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

Hey, good morning, Andy.

Andrew Buscaglia
Executive Director at BNP Paribas

I just wanted to check on your Water Solutions, had a really good quarter. I'm just curious what the trends are in that segment. I know that can be pretty lumpy, but what do you see going into the first portion of the year? And then you had a couple of months to digest President Trump and his new EPA pick. And obviously treatment can be influenced by some policy there.

Andrew Buscaglia
Executive Director at BNP Paribas

Could you just talk a little about specifically what you guys think of this new administration as how it pertains to Water Solutions?

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

Yes. Maybe I'll hit WSS first. I mean was really the antithesis of The projects that customers were waffling on timing, you ended up starting or progressing a lot faster than we had anticipated. We knew there was a chance of this happening, but low enough probability that you want to build it into the expectations for the quarter. Again, to your point, I think it's worth mentioning that we are seeing an increased demand for outsourced water solutions and sometimes that can drive some lumpiness in WSS's performance where there's an on-site revenue stream associated with the build out of the system before we get the long tail of recurring revenue.

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

So as we build that business, it can be quarter to quarter some variations before things smooth out as that business builds over time. But going into next year, I think we're expecting another strong year from WSS. As they continue to leverage synergies with the combined portfolio, Dewatering had a very strong year in 2024 and we look for that to continue next year. Again, the outsourced water projects, the funnel is extremely strong and we have line of sight to some larger wins here later in the year. So I think we're excited about what that that segment has only been in effect for one year and the combination is really delivering some strong consistent performance.

Bill Grogan
Bill Grogan
Senior VP & CFO at Xylem

So maybe I'll turn it over to Matthew to talk about the regulatory environment.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

Yes. So maybe I'll just start by saying, we operate in a sector where there's, from my perspective, strong bipartisan consensus regarding the need for safe, clean, affordable water services. So on a number of issues, we see strong support on both sides of the aisle. We anticipate that water infrastructure funding will likely remain at kind of the historical norms. And we do checks obviously with the several utilities in The U.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

S. And we've confirmed continued OpEx and CapEx spending increases into 2025 to improve a significant aging infrastructure in The U. S. We'll stay close to our government affairs team, myself and some other key leaders, we're going to stay close to the incoming administration as they take their new positions and we'll just keep a close eye to them and we've had great relationships. And with regard to Leezel that I mentioned earlier on Dean's question that water remains a key priority for him and the administration.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

And again, in his nomination hearing, he did talk about PFAS and the need to make that a top priority. So I'd say net net, we're pretty positive on the new administration's focus on water and we'll continue to drive those relationships to make sure we understand it.

Andrew Buscaglia
Executive Director at BNP Paribas

Okay. All right. Thank you guys.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

Thank you. Okay. We'll wrap it up there. Thanks for your questions and thank you to everyone who joined today. And as always, we appreciate your interest in Zai Lab.

Matthew Pine
President & CEO at Xylem

All the best.

Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

Executives
    • Keith Buettner
      Keith Buettner
      Vice President - IR
    • Bill Grogan
      Bill Grogan
      Senior VP & CFO
Analysts
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Key Takeaways

  • Xylem closed a record-setting FY24 with 6% revenue growth, 170 bps EBITDA margin expansion and double-digit EPS gains, while delivering Evoqua cost synergies significantly ahead of schedule.
  • Q4 orders rose 7% with a stable $5.1 billion backlog, led by Water Infrastructure’s 10% order growth, 8% revenue increase and 360 bps margin improvement.
  • For 2025, Xylem forecasts organic revenue growth of 3–4% (0–2% reported), EBITDA margins of 21.3–21.8% (+70–120 bps) and EPS of $4.50–4.70 (+8% midpoint, double-digit ex-FX), with segment growth ranging from low to high single digits.
  • The company is simplifying its operating model to a single-axis structure, announcing $95–115 million in restructuring charges to achieve approximately $130 million of savings over two years via SG&A and <10% workforce reductions.
  • Capital deployment includes gaining majority control of Adrica to accelerate XylemView digital offerings, bolt-on acquisitions in water solutions, and divesting a non-core business (~1% of revenue) to sharpen its portfolio.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Xylem Q4 2024
00:00 / 00:00

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