Watts Water Technologies Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
May 8, 2025
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Operator

and thank you for standing by. At this time, I would like to welcome you to the Watts Water Technologies First Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session. I would now like to turn the conference over to Diane McClintock, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations.

Operator

Please go ahead.

Diane McClintock
Diane McClintock
Senior Vice President FP&A and Investor Relations at Watts Water

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to our first quarter conference call. Joining me today are Bob Pagano, President and CEO and Shashank Patel, our CFO. During today's call, Bob will provide an overview of the first quarter, an operational update and an update on our outlook for 2025. Shashank will discuss the details of our first quarter performance and provide our outlook for the second quarter and for the full year.

Diane McClintock
Diane McClintock
Senior Vice President FP&A and Investor Relations at Watts Water

Following our remarks, we will address questions related to the information covered during the call. Today's webcast is accompanied by a presentation, which can be found in the Investor Relations section of our website. We will reference this presentation throughout our prepared remarks. Any reference to non GAAP financial information is reconciled in the appendix to the presentation. I'd

Diane McClintock
Diane McClintock
Senior Vice President FP&A and Investor Relations at Watts Water

like

Diane McClintock
Diane McClintock
Senior Vice President FP&A and Investor Relations at Watts Water

to remind everyone that during this call, we may be making certain comments that constitute forward looking statements. These statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. For information concerning these risks, see Watts' publicly available filings with the SEC. The company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. With that, I'll turn the call over to Bob.

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

Thank you, Diane, and good morning, everyone. Please turn to Slide three and I'll provide an overview of the first quarter. We began 2025 with better than expected first quarter results, including record adjusted operating income, adjusted operating margin and adjusted earnings per share. I'd like to thank the entire Watts team for their significant contributions during the quarter. Organic sales declined 2% in the quarter due to fewer shipping days, which we noted on our last earnings call, and continuing weakness in Europe.

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

We benefited from incremental sales from our Icon acquisition. However, the benefit was more than offset by unfavorable foreign exchange. Adjusted operating margin of 19% exceeded expectations due to better than expected volume, productivity and cost controls. As a result of our solid start to 2025 and expected cash flows for the remainder of the year, we announced a 21% dividend increase beginning in June. Our balance sheet remains strong and provides ample capacity to support flexibility in our capital allocation strategy.

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

From an operations perspective, we are proactively working to mitigate the impact of tariffs. We expect that our vertical integration strategy with the manufacturing close to our customers here in The U. S. Will benefit us. We have a proven track record of successfully navigating inflation and supply chain challenges and are confident in our ability to execute through the current environment.

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

I'll talk more about tariffs in a minute. We continue to drive productivity savings through automation, lean initiatives both inside and outside the factory walls, leveraging our one watts performance system and selective restructuring actions, including the previously announced exit from a manufacturing facility in France. The exit is progressing as expected and will be complete by year end. We're pleased with the progress of the integration efforts with our recent Icahn acquisition and our teams are working together to capitalize on synergies. We expect Icahn to be accretive to adjusted EBITDA margins and adjusted EPS in 2025.

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

Now an update on our outlook for the remainder of the year. Despite the uncertainty around the trade environment and resulting demand impacts, we are maintaining our full year organic sales and adjusted operating margin outlook. We anticipate that price increases, our global sourcing actions and accelerated onshoring of production should offset incremental tariff costs and any potential demand reduction in the second half of twenty twenty five. There are a few positives to note. Our solid first quarter and outlook for the second quarter are supportive of our full year outlook.

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

Mega project activity including data centers remain strong. We also expect to see a benefit from foreign exchange movements relative to the outlook we provided in February. Recently, global GDP forecasts have been revised downward including the first quarter contraction in The U. S. Given the uncertain impact of tariffs on inflation, we expect interest rates to remain higher for longer.

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

This may unfavorably impact residential and nonresidential new construction in the second half of the year. We expect continued weakness in Europe due to a slowdown in new construction amid continued economic weakness. We saw ongoing heat pump destocking in the first quarter and anticipate this to continue in the second quarter, but current market feedback suggests potential recovery in the second half of the year. Please turn to Slide four and I'll provide an overview of the cost impact of the current tariffs and the actions we're taking. The table on the left illustrates the estimated impact of currently enacted tariffs on our 2025 cost base.

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

We source globally and expect there will be some impact on most countries we import from with the biggest impact on raw material and components sourced from China. We've been proactively working on a number of actions to offset the cost impact, including implementing price increases, relocating our supply chain by leveraging our dual source supply base and increasing capacity across our U. S. Manufacturing footprint. We've invested in our North American footprint and supply chain diversification over many years and believe we're well positioned to mitigate the impact of tariffs on our cost base and stakeholders.

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

One last item I'd like to mention is that our search for a new CFO is ongoing and we're making good progress. We'll inform you as soon as we have identified a candidate. In the meantime, Shashank will stay on as CFO to ensure a smooth transition. With that, let me turn the call over to Shashank, who will address our first quarter results and our second quarter and full year outlook. Shashank?

Shashank Patel
Shashank Patel
CFO at Watts Water

Thank you, Bob, and good morning, everyone. Please now turn to Slide five, which highlights our first quarter results. Sales of $558,000,000 were down 2% on a reported and organic basis. As previously discussed, we had fewer shipping days in the first quarter, which unfavorably impacted our sales by approximately 3% across all regions. Americas organic sales were down 1% and reported sales were flat.

Shashank Patel
Shashank Patel
CFO at Watts Water

This was better than expected, particularly with the reduced shipping days. Sales from our Icon acquisition added $5,000,000 Europe organic sales were down 9% and reported sales were down 12% with declines across all geographies due to fewer shipping days, heat pump destocking and weakness in new construction markets driving destocking in the wholesale channel. APMEA sales increased 9% on a reported basis and 13% on an organic basis. Growth in China, The Middle East and Australia were partly offset by a decline in New Zealand, primarily driven by fewer shipping days. Compared to the prior year, adjusted EBITDA of $119,000,000 increased 1% and adjusted EBITDA margin of 21.4 increased 80 basis points.

Shashank Patel
Shashank Patel
CFO at Watts Water

Adjusted operating income of $106,000,000 increased 2% and adjusted operating margins of 19% were also up by 80 basis points and is a Q1 record for Watts. Adjusted EBITDA and operating income benefited from price, productivity, favorable mix and cost controls, which more than offset inflation, volume deleverage and investments. Americas segment margin increased 130 basis points to 23.4%. Europe segment margin decreased by 180 basis points to 13.9%, and APMEA segment margins decreased 70 basis points to 17.5%. Adjusted earnings per share of $2.37 increased 2% versus last year with operational contribution and reduced interest expense more than offsetting incremental tax expense and foreign exchange headwinds.

Shashank Patel
Shashank Patel
CFO at Watts Water

The adjusted effective tax rate in the quarter was 24.5%, up 70 basis points compared to the first quarter of twenty twenty four, primarily due to a lower tax benefit from the vesting of stock compensation awards that occur in the first quarter of each year. For GAAP purposes, we incurred $1,000,000 of pretax acquisition costs and $17,000,000 of pretax restructuring charges, primarily related to the exit of our site in France. These charges were partially offset by a nonrecurring tax benefit related to the reversal of a prior year tax liability. Our free cash flow for the quarter was $46,000,000 compared to $37,000,000 in the first quarter of last year. The cash flow increase was primarily due to the timing of income tax payments compared to last year.

Shashank Patel
Shashank Patel
CFO at Watts Water

We expect sequential improvement in our free cash flow and are on track to achieve our full year goal of free cash flow conversion greater than or equal to 100% of net income as previously communicated. During the quarter, we repurchased approximately 19,000 shares of our Class A common stock for $4,000,000 Additionally, as Bob mentioned, we announced a 21% increase in our dividends that will begin in June. The balance sheet remains strong and provides us with ample flexibility. Our net debt to capitalization ratio at quarter end was negative 9% compared to positive 3% in the prior year, and our net leverage is negative 0.3 Our solid cash flow and healthy balance sheet continue to give us capital allocation optionality. Now on Slide six, let's review our assumptions about our second quarter and full year outlook.

Shashank Patel
Shashank Patel
CFO at Watts Water

We are reaffirming our 2025 outlook, which reflects the market factors previously discussed by Bob and assumes that the current tariff structure remains in place for the remainder of the year. As previously mentioned, we anticipate that price increases, our global sourcing actions and accelerated onshoring of production should offset incremental tariff costs and any potential demand reduction in the second half of twenty twenty five. For full year 2025, we are maintaining our consolidated organic sales growth outlook at a range of minus 3% to plus 2%. Our reported sales growth is increasing to a range of minus two to plus 3% due to favorable foreign exchange movements, which are listed by region in the appendix. Regionally, we expect The Americas to be slightly better, but offset by Europe, which we expect to be down a point compared to our original outlook.

Shashank Patel
Shashank Patel
CFO at Watts Water

We are also maintaining our full year adjusted EBITDA and adjusted operating margin outlook consistent with our guidance in February. Our free cash flow expectation remains in line with our previous outlook as we expect to deliver free cash flow conversion of greater than or equal to 100% of net income in 2025. Next, a few items to consider for the second quarter. On an organic basis, we expect organic sales growth to be flat to up 3%. Regionally, we expect low to mid single digit growth in The Americas and low single digit growth in APMEA, partly offset by a high single to low double digit decline in Europe.

Shashank Patel
Shashank Patel
CFO at Watts Water

We expect approximately $7,000,000 of incremental sales in The Americas from acquisitions. We estimate that foreign exchange in the quarter will be neutral in total. Our assumptions by region are listed in the appendix. We expect we will begin to see the impact from our eightytwenty actions in the second quarter with an estimated $2,000,000 of product exits, primarily within The Americas. Second Quarter EBITDA margin is expected to be in the range of 21.6% to 22.2% or up 50 basis to 110 basis points.

Shashank Patel
Shashank Patel
CFO at Watts Water

Operating margins should be in the range of 19.1% to 19.7% or up 30 basis to 90 basis points. We expect that price and volume leverage in The Americas and APMEA will more than offset continued volume deleverage in Europe. Other key inputs for the second quarter and the full year can be found in the appendix. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Bob before moving to Q and A. Bob?

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

Thanks, Shashank. On Slide seven, I'd like to summarize our discussion before we address your questions. Our first quarter performance was better than we anticipated with record first quarter sales, adjusted operating income, adjusted operating margin and adjusted earnings per share due to a strong performance in The Americas and APMEA. We are actively working to manage the current trade environment and expect that our U. S.

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

Footprint, global supply chain and price increases will enable us to navigate it successfully. We are maintaining our full year organic sales and adjusted operating margin outlook despite the macro uncertainty and expectation of softer market conditions as the year progresses. Nonetheless, as we've proven, our business is resilient over the long term. Our portfolio is agnostic to end markets and our teams are pivoting to growing sub verticals. Additionally, our business model includes a large repair and replacement component that provides a durable base and drive steady revenue and cash flow.

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

Our balance sheet remains strong and provides ample flexibility to support our capital allocation priorities including M and A and continued investment in new product development and our digital strategy. In addition, we are increasing our dividend by 21% starting in June. We believe our highly experienced team is well positioned to proactively navigate current market conditions as we have done in the past. We're confident in our ability to control costs through our OneWatts performance system while capturing our fair share of demand and positioning us to capitalize on long term secular trends. With that, operator, please open the line for questions.

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Our first question comes from Nathan Jones from Stifel. Please go ahead.

Nathan Jones
Nathan Jones
Managing Director at Stifel Financial Corp

Good morning, everyone.

Shashank Patel
Shashank Patel
CFO at Watts Water

Good morning, Nathan.

Nathan Jones
Nathan Jones
Managing Director at Stifel Financial Corp

I wanted to start off right on that last thing that you said, Bob, there about winning your fair share. I wanted to talk about winning more than your fair share. I recall in 2022 when supply chains were messed up and your competitors couldn't get product in from China, that you guys won some additional shares. It was at very good margins because you didn't have to give the typical project discounts. It would seem that the same conditions have been created again here, not necessarily because competitors can't get products, but because it's so much more expensive.

Nathan Jones
Nathan Jones
Managing Director at Stifel Financial Corp

So maybe just talk a little bit about where you see opportunities to gain share, to to gain margin because of that advantaged manufacturing footprint that you guys have.

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

Thanks, Nathan. Well, sure. Listen. As you know, our primary strategy has been to make products in the regions for the region. However, there are products that we source from low cost countries such as China to be competitive in the marketplace.

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

So we don't directly talk about competitors or anything like that. But look at having our products close to the customer and in this tariff environment, that's very helpful because, you know, our cost structure with the tariffs are different or in a better position. And I think we used the example in the past of some of our gas connectors that we make in The U. S. Our primary competition is in China.

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

And certainly, were able to take share, as you said, during that time frame. But look at, we're going as I said in the last comment, we're gonna get our fair share of the market. And with all these tariffs moving around, you know, it's just a dynamic environment we're in now. So stay tuned. We we like I said, we'll get our fair share, and let's see how it progresses throughout the year.

Nathan Jones
Nathan Jones
Managing Director at Stifel Financial Corp

Fair enough. I guess maybe if you can just talk a little bit about the the pacing of the price increases that you put through. And then, you know, if these are all price increases rather than surcharges, obviously, there's talk about the, you know, the tariffs being reduced on China. If those do get reduced, what happens to your pricing structure? Do you need to give some of that back or would you hold on to it?

Nathan Jones
Nathan Jones
Managing Director at Stifel Financial Corp

And then I'll pass it on. Thanks.

Shashank Patel
Shashank Patel
CFO at Watts Water

With regards to price increase, Nathan, we had our annual price increase in January that we talked about during the last earnings call. Since then, the tariff related price increases, there's been one at the March and then there's one that takes effect May 12. Those are that's the latest status. And obviously, we'll talk about the realization on those price increases when we have the second quarter earnings call.

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

Yes. Regarding pricing in the future, look at these are big tariff amounts and adjustments. So we're going to be competitive in the marketplace and with a focus on taking care of our customers. So again, tuned. We're watching this very carefully and we'll be competitive.

Nathan Jones
Nathan Jones
Managing Director at Stifel Financial Corp

Great. Thanks very much for taking my questions.

Shashank Patel
Shashank Patel
CFO at Watts Water

Thank you.

Operator

Next question comes from Mike Halloran from R. W. Baird. Please go ahead.

Mike Halloran
Analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co

Good morning, guys.

Shashank Patel
Shashank Patel
CFO at Watts Water

Good morning, Mike.

Mike Halloran
Analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co

So can we just I just want to make sure I understand what you're saying with the front half versus back half margin and revenue cadencing. Is it fair to say that the incremental pricing you're getting is being offset by some assumption on incremental weakness from a volume perspective. The the the nuance, I guess, I'm getting at is I know there was originally some softness embedded in the guide coming in the back half of the year. Is that increased? And so, is it perspective or is it reactive?

Mike Halloran
Analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co

Meaning, it doesn't sound like you've seen any softening really in the business. It's been relatively stable, obviously, this quarter and what you think is gonna happen next quarter. Very good performance. So is this something you've seen or you're just saying, hey. Look.

Mike Halloran
Analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co

The environment is what it is, and we just wanna take a cautious approach, because the macro signals are suggesting something worse in the back half?

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

Yeah. I think it's the latter, Mike. It's just the uncertainty that's around there with all the tariffs. We've had a solid first quarter as well as April has been very good. So we're watching that.

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

Some of that is just people beating price increases, etcetera, in the marketplace. So we're just watching demand, wanna make sure it's not being pulled forward too much, and then we'll watch what happens. If these big price increases, like the China One Hundred And Forty Five Percent stay in place, I believe that will certainly impact demand in the second half. Again, it's a fluid motion. And and when you look at all the leading indicators and the market indicators, they've not really changed.

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

Right? So it didn't make sense for us to increase the second half of the year at this point in time. So we'll watch. It's only the first quarter. We'll watch and see how things flow through.

Mike Halloran
Analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co

Yeah. Agreed. No incentive to do that. And then just another question on the margins front half versus back half. Back half is down versus front half, probably a little more than normal.

Mike Halloran
Analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co

I'm sure some of that's the conservatism you just referenced. Is some of that just associated with the math behind putting an incremental pricing that is kind of more one for one on EBITDA dollars based on what you know today? Are there anything else I should be thinking about going into back half on the margin line?

Shashank Patel
Shashank Patel
CFO at Watts Water

Yes. No, Mike, primarily it's driven typically we have first half margins are higher than second half margins, so sequential margins from a historical perspective. And then secondly, there's going to be a piece of volume deleverage that impacts the second half. And again, that's to be ascertained. We'll just have to see how that goes as the quarter plays out.

Mike Halloran
Analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co

But implicitly, Shashank, are you saying that the pricing is not margin dilutive in the second half?

Shashank Patel
Shashank Patel
CFO at Watts Water

The the the pricing is, we're we're holding our margins, with the price, tariff cost impact in the second half.

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

Yeah.

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

And it's not only price, Mike. It's price, it's our global supply chain and our footprint adjustments. So all those together are maintaining our margin outlook.

Mike Halloran
Analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co

Great. That makes a lot of sense. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

Thank you.

Shashank Patel
Shashank Patel
CFO at Watts Water

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Jeff Hammond from KeyBanc. Please go ahead.

Jeff Hammond
Jeff Hammond
Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

Hey, good morning guys.

Shashank Patel
Shashank Patel
CFO at Watts Water

Good morning Jeff.

Jeff Hammond
Jeff Hammond
Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

Hey, Bob, you mentioned kind of controlling pre buying, but what have you seen from a pre buy ahead of these these May 12 increases? And and and are you doing anything to kinda limit, you know, the the impact of that?

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

Yeah. We saw some pre buy impact in the first quarter at the last at the end of the the last week of the month, actually. We saw some of that flow through about $5,000,000 in the first quarter. In the second quarter, April has been solid because people are doing that. We are controlling order input.

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

You know, we don't want everybody to buy years full of inputs, so we're basing it on prior history and making sure we're looking at that. But April was solid. We're just watching that flow through. It's it's difficult to understand what real demand is versus how much is that price increase. But I go back to the fundamentals.

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

The the market has not changed significantly. There's just more uncertainty, and, you know, people are just trying to get in front of this right now. But as you know, we have about three months of inventory on hand, we can we have that. Certainly, our price increases that Shashank talked about have been incrementally, going through at this point in time.

Jeff Hammond
Jeff Hammond
Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

Okay. And then what's informing the weaker Europe guide? It seems like we're hearing at least better news on the heat pump side. Just more color there.

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

Yeah. I think it's really the heat pump side, just like you, we think it's going to come back in the second half of the year. It's just new construction. We saw more destocking than we thought was going to happen inside of this. And there's just some uncertainty, in particular, in new construction.

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

So we just believe that, it's prudent at this point based on order trends and what we're seeing to be cautious with Europe at this point in time.

Jeff Hammond
Jeff Hammond
Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

Okay. If I could just sneak one more in. Just maybe update us on how things are going with, you know, with Bradley, Joe, Sam, Icon in terms of integration, cost revenue synergies, you know, underlying demand trends.

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

Yeah. All three of the businesses are doing really well. And I would say all our synergy tracking is ahead of schedule, which is exciting. The integration with the teams is going well, and we're seeing the benefit clearly. Joe Sam, if you remember, also has a benefit because it has U.

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

S. Manufacturing capabilities. And again, in this marketplace, that's a good thing.

Operator

You. Our

Operator

next question comes from Ryan Connors from Northcoast Research. Please go ahead.

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

Good morning.

Shashank Patel
Shashank Patel
CFO at Watts Water

Morning, Ryan.

Ryan Connors
Senior Managing Director and Research Analyst at Northcoast Research Partners LLC

So I I had a take a different angle on the price cost issue. I I know some of the peers in the brass bronze world have talked about specific elements in raw materials being in restricted supply. For example, bismuth as a key ingredient for some of the brass, products that I assume you use as well and that that's gotten really, really tight and, and as and as, you know, precipitating some of these price increases. Is that an issue as well? Or is really the main thing you're facing in terms of passing on prices that is it really exclusively tariffs?

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

I think it's a little bit of the raw materials, but it's mainly the tariffs and some of the more smaller of our products that we have that we get from China to be competitive in the current marketplace. So our team has done a nice job of securing our fair share of the allocations going forward of the components of our raw material, but it's something we continue to watch daily to make sure we know where we're at. But we have a good three months of inventory as well as supply chain availability for an additional three months related to our copper and some of our ingots that we use in our foundries.

Shashank Patel
Shashank Patel
CFO at Watts Water

Yes. I think, Ryan, more of the raw material restrictions have been on the rare earth metals. And we don't in our processes, we don't use hardly any of that.

Ryan Connors
Senior Managing Director and Research Analyst at Northcoast Research Partners LLC

Mhmm.

Ryan Connors
Senior Managing Director and Research Analyst at Northcoast Research Partners LLC

Okay. And then secondly, just conceptually on the price issue. So we have some competitors out there who are who source from China directly with these astronomical price increases. We've seen 60% or more. How do you look at that opportunistically?

Ryan Connors
Senior Managing Director and Research Analyst at Northcoast Research Partners LLC

Are there cases where you'd say, look, we don't really have to raise price any more than five or 10%, but maybe we'll go for 20 or 30 just because we've got this air cover of competitors that are out there. We can undercut them amazingly with a 30% price increase. I mean, is there is there that does the market allow for that kind of opportunism on price, or or or is is it is it gonna be more passing on what your actual tariff costs are?

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

Ryan, we always look at valuing and pricing to value we're providing to our customers. So we look at what competitors price. We try to be competitive in the regions and in the markets. And again, with some of these tariffs that are going in place, we don't believe they're sustainable and that they'll change in the long run. So I think it's you got to be careful to whipsawing.

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

A lot of these price increases are at list price levels, and it varies. There's big ranges of products where, you know, some of the products are, you know, low single digit increases and some are in high double digit increases. But, again, it depends on the component, the product, and we look at a customer region by region and making sure we're taking care of customers. So we'll be looking at that and certainly looking at getting our fair share of price in the marketplace.

Ryan Connors
Senior Managing Director and Research Analyst at Northcoast Research Partners LLC

Got it. Thanks for your time.

Shashank Patel
Shashank Patel
CFO at Watts Water

Thank you.

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

Thanks, Randy.

Operator

Our next question comes from Andrew Creel from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Andrew Krill
Andrew Krill
Director at Deutsche Bank

Hi. Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Wanted to go back to, I guess, your good morning. You're more US centric manufacturing, I guess, especially relative to some peers.

Andrew Krill
Andrew Krill
Director at Deutsche Bank

Just, like, could you comment on, like, your utilization of your facilities there? And trying to get a sense of, you know, how much more capacity you have to quickly ramp up those as you shift away from other areas like China. And are you planning any further CapEx to build these out this year, or is it a bit too early to, you know, expand further? Thanks.

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

Yeah. The the good thing is we're not fully utilized on our manufacturing footprint in North America. So we do have second shifts, but we can improve our second shifts, and and very few of our facilities are running a third shift. So we don't have to put significant capital expenditures, and we believe we have adequate footprint. We're just gonna expand shifts and capabilities as needed.

Andrew Krill
Andrew Krill
Director at Deutsche Bank

Great. That is helpful. And next for, on Europe with the margins, they're pretty impressive in one q around 14%. But for the two q guide, you have them stepping back pretty materially, you know, approaching 10% or so. Can you just expand a little on, you know, what went well in the first quarter and maybe why, you know, there's a pretty big step down for 2Q, I think, implied for the rest of the year, it doesn't improve that much from there?

Andrew Krill
Andrew Krill
Director at Deutsche Bank

Thanks.

Shashank Patel
Shashank Patel
CFO at Watts Water

Yes. Look, in Q1, you're right. The margin expansion Q over Q Q1 to Q1 was very good. Part of that was the volume driven piece of it, right? We talked about we shipped about $10,000,000 more than we had anticipated.

Shashank Patel
Shashank Patel
CFO at Watts Water

And some of that was pre price increase pulling about half of it. The other half was actually data center business, which was up significantly as well. As you look at sequentials, Q1 to Q2, we're still expanding margins by about 40 to 50 basis points Q1 to Q2. And then Q2 to Q2 prior year, it's still up to about 60 basis points at the midpoint. So there's still margin expansion going on.

Shashank Patel
Shashank Patel
CFO at Watts Water

But Q1 did benefit from some incremental volume as well as cost containment in Q1 as we saw the tariffs coming in.

Andrew Krill
Andrew Krill
Director at Deutsche Bank

Okay. Great. And so was that for the full company or Europe specifically?

Shashank Patel
Shashank Patel
CFO at Watts Water

No. That was that was in total. Europe specifically, I mean, we know, typically, Q1, Q2 are the strongest quarters. But year over year with the heat pump destocking, the compares have become more difficult because it depends when the heat pump destocking started and started in the second quarter of last year. And this year, we certainly expect that to continue in the second quarter of this year.

Operator

Our

Operator

next question comes from Joe Giordano from TD Cowen.

Joe Giordano
Joe Giordano
Analyst at Cowen

Hey, guys. Good morning.

Shashank Patel
Shashank Patel
CFO at Watts Water

Good morning, Joe.

Joe Giordano
Joe Giordano
Analyst at Cowen

Hey.

Joe Giordano
Joe Giordano
Analyst at Cowen

So on the Americas guide for revenue, you started off the year a bit better than I think you were thinking 2Q guide is coming in plus two plus five. I'm just trying to think of how to square that with like the full year guide. Seems very conservative in light of what you expect first half performance to be on easier comps in the back half.

Shashank Patel
Shashank Patel
CFO at Watts Water

Yes. So part of that is the demand destruction we talked about, right? So with the incremental tariff prices, we do expect demand might be impacted in the second half. Obviously, we're short book and ship business. We have visibility into the second quarter, but we're cautious about the second half.

Shashank Patel
Shashank Patel
CFO at Watts Water

So we've kind of baked that into the second half guide for now. And we'll see how things progress over the second quarter.

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

Yes. And Joe, look at a lot of people are trying to yeah. I know. A lot of

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

people are trying to beat

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

the price increases. And, again, we're watching that, and we just wanna make sure they're not pulling keep us called the second half demand into q two. So we're just watching that very carefully. Too many moving parts in the economy in the world right now, and I think it makes sense to be here also in the second half of this year until we the the world settles down a little bit and we understand true demand in this thing.

Joe Giordano
Joe Giordano
Analyst at Cowen

That's fair. And also on the margins for Americas, we don't have a lot of historical precedent at, like, the levels that you're at now, obviously, coming from the much lower levels in the past, and your guide for 2Q is kind of in that, you know, give or take 25% range. And where do you think this can go, like, from a add some additional portfolio as you integrate these deals? Like, what's the what's the potential for this business on the merchant side?

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

It moves different pretty breaking But I think you're asking more business, you know, ability. It would be as we've had a, you know, our full strategy around growing 30 to 50 basis points of margin year over year, and that's our target and our goals while we, you know, still invest in the business. So that that'll continue to be our goal. We're we're driving that to our organization in terms of we do.

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

And it's not just not cost. It's value of our new products, our new product, connected products, providing incremental value to our customers. So we're pricing it accordingly.

Joe Giordano
Joe Giordano
Analyst at Cowen

Thanks, guys.

Operator

Okay.

Operator

There are no further questions at this time. I'll turn the call back over to Bob Pagano, Watts Waters Technologies' CEO.

Robert Pagano
Robert Pagano
Chairman, President & CEO at Watts Water

Thank you for taking the time to join us today. We appreciate your continued interest in Watts and look forward to speaking with you again during our second quarter earnings call in early August. Have a good day and stay safe.

Executives
Analysts
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Key Takeaways

  • Watts delivered record adjusted operating income, margin (19%) and EPS of $2.37 in Q1 despite a 2% organic sales decline driven by fewer shipping days and European weakness.
  • The company is mitigating the impact of high tariffs with strategic price increases, global sourcing diversification and accelerated onshoring, and maintains its full‐year organic sales and margin guidance.
  • Integration of the Icon acquisition—and earlier deals like Bradley and JoeSam—is ahead of schedule, with synergies expected to be accretive to both adjusted EBITDA margins and EPS in 2025.
  • With Q1 free cash flow of $46 million and net leverage at negative 0.3x, Watts announced a 21% dividend increase, continues share buybacks, and has ample capacity for further M&A and investments.
  • Full‐year 2025 outlook is reaffirmed at organic sales growth of –3% to +2% (reported –2% to +3%), with Q2 organic sales flat to +3% and expected margin expansion, while anticipating ongoing European softness and potential H2 demand headwinds.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Watts Water Technologies Q1 2025
00:00 / 00:00

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