inTest Corporation

Greetings and welcome to the Intest Corporation first quarter 2023 financial results. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star and then zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Sean Southard of Administrative Relations.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. We appreciate your interest and thank you for sharing your time with Intest Corporation. Here with me are Nick Grant, our president and CEO, and Duncan Gilmore, our chief financial officer and treasurer. You should have a copy of the first quarter 2023 financial results, which we released earlier this morning. If not, you can access the release as well as the slides that will accompany our conversation on our website at intest.com slash investor dash relations. After our presentation, we will open the lines for Q&A. If you'll turn to slide two, I'll review the safe harbor statement. You should be aware that we may make some forward-looking statements during the formal discussions, as well as during the Q&A session. These statements apply to future events that are subject to risks and uncertainties, as well as other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from what is stated here today. These risks, uncertainties, and other factors are provided in the earnings release as well as in other documents filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These documents can be found on our website or at sec.gov. During today's call, we will discuss some non-GAAP financial measures. We believe these will be useful in evaluating our performance. You should not consider the presentation of this additional information in isolation or as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with GAAP. We have provided reconciliations of non-GAAP measures with comparable GAAP measures in the tables that accompany today's release and slides. With that, please turn to slide three, and I'll now turn the call over to Nick.

Thank you, Sean, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. on our first quarter 2023 earnings call. We delivered another strong quarter as the team is continuing to execute well on our five-point strategy for growth. I would like to once again thank the entire organization for their commitment to our strategy and for delivering the plan. Revenue grew 33% year-over-year to $32 million, driven by strong performance across most markets, with particular strength shown in front-end Semi for silicon carbide crystal growth and epitaxy applications, as well as defense aero and life science markets. The revenue growth was all organic as we now have a full year of the acquisitions under our belt. I believe our results are demonstrating the success we are having with the integration of those three businesses. Under our five-point strategy, we are beginning to unlock their potential. I should point out that we believe innovation is at the heart of our success, which is validated with every new product we launch. For example, our compact EcoHeat system is now a standard offering in our induction heating solutions. We've made significant headway in our electronic test business with our high voltage, high current superset interface solution for testing higher power chips, as well as our continued expansion of our automated manipulator portfolio with our new LSC and LSL manipulators. And we are excited about Videology's new ScaleX ZoomBlock camera with AI-capable edge computing technology, which formally launched last quarter and will start shipping in June. Innovation is driving demand. Our sales and marketing efforts to expand our business are also validated by our continued success. We are consistently adding new customers deepening our reach into existing customers and key markets while expanding into new applications. A good example of this is our industrial-grade embedded video cameras, which are finding their way into pipe inspections for the energy industry. Our opportunities also continue to expand in silicon carbide and gallium nitride as those markets develop. We are supporting our customers in this space as they ramp capacity and optimize operations. Profitability in the quarter increased year-over-year on favorable mix and realization from our ongoing pricing efforts. Our year-over-year expanded operating margin also demonstrates the power of operating leverage as we achieve higher sales. As to demand, we continue to see strength in semiconductor, industrial, defense aero, and life sciences markets. These markets drove first quarter orders of $31 million, up 23% versus the prior year. Larger orders can often create lumpy comparisons quarter to quarter. For example, while auto EV orders were down year over year, they were up sequentially, and we just announced this morning a nearly $2 million order from an EV customer for a brand new application utilizing our chiller solutions. In fact, this is just another example of where our focus on this target market is helping to uncover new opportunities in the manufacturing of EVs for our portfolio of technologies. And our backlog at the end of the first quarter remained solid at approximately 46 million. Organizationally, we continue to add talent to the team, and we are pleased to have announced the addition of Michael Tanneru as President of our Environmental Technologies Division. He joins us from Cincinnati Test Systems, and I had the opportunity to work with Mike in the past at both Emerson and Ametek where he had a track record of success. We are excited to welcome him to the team and look forward to seeing the impact he will have in the role. With that, let me turn it over to Duncan to review the financials in more detail. Duncan, over to you.

Thank you, Nick. Starting on slide four, revenue for the first quarter 2023 was $31.9 million, up 32.5% or $7.8 million versus the same period last year, and at the top end of our guidance range of 30 to 32 million. This revenue growth of 7.8 million was entirely organic, and as Nick mentioned, was driven by strong demand across SEMI, defense aerospace, life sciences, security, and other markets. In the case of SEMI, increased demand for induction heating technology solutions for silicon carbide crystal growth and epitaxy applications combined with strength in supporting trailing edge or less capital-intensive technologies for analog and mixed signal applications, drove semi-sales to 17.7 million, up 32% year over year. The automotive EV market was down 6% on a tough comp, and the large order we announced this morning we believe shows the decline is less meaningful than it might first appear. Moving to slide five, Gross margin of 47.2% in the quarter was up 150 basis points compared with the prior year Q1 period due to higher volume, better product mix, and improved pricing. Compared with the trailing quarter, gross margin improved 100 basis points reflecting favorable product mix and improved pricing. Our trailing 12 months gross profit of 57.5 million or 46.1% of sales is in line with our updated outlook this year of gross margin between 46 and 47%. As you can see on slide six, our operating expenses were up 1.3 million versus the prior year, but down 630 basis points as a percentage of revenue, driven by operating leverage as the business scales up. Versus the trailing quarter, total operating expenses were up 600,000 at 11.5 million, This was a little higher than anticipated due to slightly higher selling commissions and non-cash stock compensation expense as we saw higher and more profitable revenue and an increased stock price. We continue to invest in sales and marketing as we execute on our strategy to drive growth. Turning to slide seven, you can see our bottom line and adjusted EBITDA results. We had net earnings of 2.8 million or 25 cents per diluted share for the first quarter, which is up from 600,005 cents per diluted share in Q1 2022 and at the upper end of our guidance range. Adjusted EBITDA was 4.8 million, up from 2.1 million last year. Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 620 basis points to 15.1% year over year. On an adjusted basis, non-GAAP EPS was 29 cents per diluted share compared with 12 cents per diluted share in the first quarter of 2022. Adjusted EPS reflects adding back tax-affected acquired intangible amortization. On an after-tax basis, our acquired intangible amortization amounted to 452,000 in the first quarter. We expect after-tax intangible amortization for the second quarter to be similar. Slide eight shows our capital structure and cash flow. We had a strong quarter of cash generation, adding 2.5 million from operations. Given our modest capital requirements to grow the organic business, free cash flow was 2.2 million, or about 80% of net earnings. Cash and equivalents at the end of the first quarter were 15.4 million, up $2 million from the trailing quarter. We also have $500,000 in restricted cash related to a prepayment on a customer order. In addition, we have $30 million available with our delayed draw term loan and an incremental $10 million available under our revolver. Our current leverage ratio is also below 1 at 0.81x, giving us considerable flexibility to continue to pursue our acquisition strategy. As we did in each of the prior quarters, we repaid 1 million of debt, bringing it down to 15.1 million. Note that repayment of debt does not increase funding available under the terms of our 30 million term loan facility. Turning to our order activity, as previously mentioned, our first quarter orders of nearly 31 million was a 23% increase versus the prior year. This reflected increase across all end markets except in automotive EV, which declined 600,000 due to the timing of orders received. While orders are generally lumpier from quarter to quarter, demand in that market remains strong, as noted by the order we announced this morning. Sequentially, overall orders were down a modest 1.6%. Growth in demand in both front-end and back-end semi, automotive EV, and industrial EVs help to offset sequential declines in security, defense aerospace, life sciences, and other markets. Again, while we think most of these sequential declines are primarily driven by the timing of underlying customer projects, we are seeing more cautious spending from customers with smaller order sizes and POs taking longer to get sign-off. While not unexpected given the macro environment, we are optimistic about our funnel activities, which remain healthy. Our backlog? At March 31st, 2023 was 45.7 million, a 30.5% increase over the prior year, although down 2.3% compared with December 31st, 2022, mostly on variability and timing of orders and shipments. Approximately 45% of the backlog is expected to ship beyond the current quarter. Turning to slide 10, let me review our updated outlook for 2023. We continue to be excited about where we're headed this year. While we expect the quarterly cadence of orders to be lumpy, we believe we can achieve our revenue target, which represents high single digit organic growth. In addition, we continue to pursue strategic acquisitions and partnerships to expand our portfolio and better serve our target markets. We expect revenue for the second quarter of 2023 to be in the range of 31 to 33 million with a gross margin of approximately 46%. Second quarter operating expenses, including amortization, should run between 11.4 and 11.7 million. This is elevated to reflect annual merit increases, stock compensation expense, and continued sales and marketing investments. Intangible asset amortization is expected to be approximately 540,000 pre-tax or 450,000 after tax. Given loan balances and current rates, our interest expense should be approximately $190,000 for the quarter. We anticipate second quarter 2023 EPS to be in the range of 21 to 26 cents, while non-GAAP adjusted EPS should be in the range of 25 to 30 cents. As a reminder, we simply adjust for tax-affected amortization expense in this latter non-GAAP measure of profitability. We expect our growth this year to be driven by strong demand across nearly all technology offerings and then markets. The progress we are making with our five point strategy is being realized through the implementation of discipline processes and sales and marketing and accountability across the entire organization. We are holding our guidance and outlook for 2023 annual revenue of 125 to 130 million which represents a 9% organic increase year over year at the midpoint of the range. This, of course, does not include the potential impact from any acquisitions we may make this year. We are, however, raising our gross margin outlook for 2023, which is now expected to range between 46% and 47%, driven by anticipated improved mix and pricing realisation. Offsetting this increase at the gross profit line are likely higher operating expenses for the year, which should be in the range of 45 to 47 million. This includes intangible asset amortization expense of approximately 2.1 million for the full year. This translates to tax-adjusted amortization expense of approximately 1.7 million for determining adjusted non-GAAP earnings. Our effective tax rate is expected to be similar to 2022 or approximately 16% to 17%. Finally, our capital expenditures for 2023 are expected to continue to run between 1% to 2% of sales. With that, if you would turn to slide 11, I will now turn the call back over to Nick.

Thanks, Duncan. Slide 11 shows that we are making solid progress towards our 2025 revenue goals. of $200 million to $250 million. Including our 2023 expectations, we will have grown the company at a greater than 30% CAGR since we implemented our five-point strategy at the start of 2021. Excluding future acquisitions, we expect to continue driving high single-digit growth with our base business. With future strategic acquisitions, it should enable us to achieve our 2025 goal of between 200 and 250 million in revenue. We have an active pipeline of acquisition and partnership opportunities, and we have flexibility with our capital structure that we believe will allow us to execute on our plan. If you'll turn to slide 12, our revenue growth goal should translate into strong earnings growth. Our plan is to deliver divisional operating income of over 40 million, adjusted EBITDA of over 30 million, and improve earnings power to over 20 million in 2025. Let me sum up on slide 13. As I have noted, our five-point strategy is delivering results for our shareholders. Our engineered solutions that enable our customers to improve productivity or create more effective solutions within their own portfolio are in high demand. Our growing sales force is reaching more prospects and our new organization structure with three technology-focused business segments has driven greater focus and collaboration across the company. We believe this, in turn, will create even more opportunities for growth. We continue to unleash the potential of InTest on our journey to becoming a supplier of choice for innovative test and process technology solutions. We are driving organic growth and actively pursuing acquisition opportunities to build our technology base deepen our market penetration, and broaden our market reach. With that, operator, let's open the lines for questions.

Thank you, sir. We will now be conducting a question and answer session.

If you would like to ask a question, please press star and then 1 on your telephone keypad. You will hear a confirmation tone to indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star and then 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. Participants using speaker equipment may find it necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star key.

Our first question is from Jason Schmidt of Lake Street. Please go ahead.

Hey guys, thanks for taking my questions and congrats on a nice start to the year. Just want to start with the silicon carbide business. I mean, you guys continue to see some really nice traction there. Just curious how much of the revenue pie is coming from those type of applications this year. And I guess relatedly, is this ramp in the business more driven by overall market growth or continued share gains as well?

Hey, good morning, Jason. And, uh, Thanks for acknowledging the performance in the quarter. Yeah, as you said, SICK continues to perform well for us. Our front end SEMI business in the quarter was roughly, Duncan, about 30% of our SEMI number. We saw a nice strength in our back end SEMI business in Q1. And then within that front end SEMI, 60% of it, probably, or more is SICK related, I would say. Yeah, correct. Maybe 70%. 70%. Yeah. So, yeah, it's an area that we, you know, we have identified as a nice growth avenue. And given the market trends out there, we believe SICK will be a, you know, a nice driver for growth for us for quite some time.

Okay. No, that's great to hear. And when you look at that full year outlook, thinking about sort of the low end versus the high end, is SEMI in general really just the biggest swing factor?

I would say, yes, SEMI obviously, you know, is a big part of our business, so it can impact the full year. I would say, though, our ramping of our acquisitions will also be a big factor. part of the full year achievement there that we're driving. Duncan, would you agree?

Yeah, I mean, I think across all the markets we serve, there's obviously more optimistic and more pessimistic potential outcomes. So I don't think it's just semi. I think the fact we're playing across a number of interesting kind of sectors and markets It actually kind of helps us from a diversification perspective. So it's not just Semi that is swinging our business.

Yeah, and as you probably saw, Jason, our automotive EV order this morning, those kind of wins and new applications for our product lines really positions opportunities for future growth.

Okay, and that's a good segue into my last question, and then I'll jump back into Q. Looking at that announcement this morning, it definitely seems really interesting. Just curious if this is with a new or existing customer, and if you could provide some additional color on the potential for follow-on orders, or how you're looking at this sort of new opportunity in this market.

Yep, absolutely. As you know, we've been serving this automotive EV space for quite some time with our induction heating solutions. And then with the acquisition of AcuLogic at late 21, we added our battery inspection equipment, which expanded our customer base. So this customer is a traditional automotive big player that has been working to establish their electric vehicle production system. lines. And this win is really exciting because it's driven also by SICK and the higher power devices that are going into the electric vehicles. And what they have to do or what they would like to do is test as well as thermally control the process with these chillers as they manufacture these inverters that manage the power from the battery to the to the wheels and that. So pretty exciting. It's obviously something that we believe is applicable outside of just this particular customer and something we're going to explore and exploit as much as possible.

Okay, that's helpful.

Thanks a lot, guys.

Thanks, Jason.

Thank you very much. The next question is from Kate Jackson of Northland Securities. Please go ahead. Thanks.

Excuse me. Thanks. And I'd also reinforce it was a very nice quarter. Congratulations.

Thanks, Ted.

I'm going to ask a couple of questions. One's probably more just for Duncan. I'd like to have a little discussion or maybe provide some commentary about it. you know, the working capital structure and how you see that playing out on a go-forward basis, you know, I mean, not to knock the cash flow generation because it was, you know, the free cash flow number was a very nice number, but, you know, your inventory was, you know, you know, it was up quite a bit and, you know, it could have been even better, you know, and so I guess what I'm asking is, you know, how should I think about your, um, the structure of your working capital and, you know, looking at kind of the current quarter, you know, with a particular focus perhaps on inventory and trends we might see there as we roll through 23?

Sure. I think you kind of hit the nail on the head there, Ted. I think we had a nice free cash flow quarter, as you pointed out, but it could have been even better. We do continue to invest in inventory, although the supply chain world is certainly a lot better than it was. You know, we do still we are still being cautious with certain kind of parts and so on. We want to make sure we have enough supply. You know, we do have a nice strong backlog as well as we talked about. So, you know, the inventory levels we have, you know, are certainly supported by backlog. It is something that as we go forward, supply chain continues to moderate. You know, we will be looking to kind of squeeze that and push that, you know, a little bit more than we have. But I think, as you said, you know, really nice cash flow generation in the quarter. and the opportunities there to see that continue.

Would it be fair to – would we be – if I thought about your inventory numbers through the forward part of the year, would I think about, you know, the – it kind of trending sideways on a dollar basis on the balance sheet, or would I think about it, you know, as you kind of execute against the backlog and supply chain issues fade that – we would see inventory levels trend down and kind of days, inventories, or turns, or however you want to look about it, kind of move back to... Yeah, I think it's really a case of... Sorry, I think it's really a case of executing against backlog.

As I said, we have 46 million of backlog there that we obviously need to deliver on. Certainly, there's components within inventory there where we are making sure we have the right parts and pieces and so on on hand to be able to deliver against that. If backlog trends down, then we would expect to see inventory trending down. Top line is obviously another factor in terms of where that's trending. based on the kind of outlook, we see kind of nice, steady top line, but not explosive top line growth there. So we'd expect to see inventory really moderate around where it is. We are, as I said, looking to kind of work that down as we slowly get our supply chain challenges kind of behind us here, as I said, as that world moderates. Okay, thanks.

And then my second question, which is, Honestly, I think probably it will be a fun question for you guys to answer. It ties into the previous line of questioning, and that goes around your acquisitions and your ramping of those acquisitions, seeing them bear fruit. Where I'm going with it is, when you had put out the announcement in the quarter with regards to the distribution arrangement for your what was it, your ultra cold, you know, what do you call those things, chillers, refrigerators, you know, you and I had a discussion, I had touched base on it. And you had talked about how, you know, you, this was part of the efforts that you are making in terms of growing, you know, what was, you know, albeit a small acquisition and really, you know, taking it and bringing it to the next level and creating value. And with that kind of thought in mind, you know, as we, think about that spread in terms of your guidance and the ability of you to come to the higher end with some of that being, you know, success on the acquisitions. You know, maybe you guys could take a little bit of time and talk about, you know, in these acquisitions, some of the actions and things that you've done on an operational basis to grow those businesses, you know, in terms of you know, like actions in terms of, you know, improving the sales function, improving the products, or reducing costs, or you see what I'm saying? Just kind of how you're going about generating value, because you're not just buying a business, plugging it in, and just letting it run on its own, per se. You're actually buying a business that is perhaps resource-starved, or, you know, that provides some kind of leverage to Intest, and then, you know, making a... It's not a one plus one equals two. It's a one plus one equals three kind of scenario. Is that fair? Is that a question that you can answer?

Yeah, happy to address the acquisitions here. So, yeah, as we've noted that, you know, these acquisitions were really lifestyle businesses, you know, ran to a certain level, and we saw the ability that being part of N-Test, getting them integrated into our our processes and procedures and the way we operate, we believe we could scale these things. And each one's a little different in some areas where investments were needed, but in general, it's about driving innovation into these businesses, building robust product roadmaps that are market-driven is one of the key avenues for growth that we're driving across all three. And I'll give you an example. You know, the North Science's freezers and refrigerators that you were referencing there, we completely rebranded, I would say upgraded some of the designs and launched the new product lines, you know, after acquiring that business and then have continued to expand our capability and functionality of these products with adding, you know, cloud-based monitoring, et cetera, into the product. So making them smarter there, you know, is just one example for that product line on innovation to create demand. We've touched on Videology and the new Scalex product that we've launched beginning of this year and will be starting to ship In Q2 here, this is really a state-of-the-art kind of AI-capable edge computing ZoomBlock camera out there, so it can actually take embedded software and run it on the camera versus having to feed the data back to a cloud computer or a server or wherever, run the analysis, and then make the determination. It can actually... do that on the camera now. And we've gotten a lot of interest after launching this product from a lead generation perspective, so we're excited to see where that goes. And then last but not least, our archeologic innovation area is there. We've been focusing on driving, I would say, enhanced measurement capabilities in their flying probes. systems that they have out there to better serve these battery markets and the trends we're seeing out there. And we've got some new technology there that is non-contact technology for measuring properties of these batteries, which customers are looking for that we believe will be a nice demand generator as well. So innovation is a key part of it. Obviously, investments in sales and marketing. adding direct sales heads, building out the channels. That announcement we did for North Sciences was just another example of a channel partner we brought on to help us go after more government opportunities out there. And so, yeah, we're excited about the progress we're making with these businesses. And, you know, now that they're integrated and in test and look forward to seeing the results that we get.

That was nice. I'm going to ask one last question and then I will get out of your hair. Since we were talking about M&A and the acquisition strategy, you commented that you've got a good pipeline and the pipeline's full. Is there a chance we'll see some action on that front within the fiscal year? With all the turmoil we're having with regards to you know, capital access with the banking crisis and interest rates going higher. What are you seeing in terms of valuations? Is it driving any, you know, people to feel more of a need to execute in terms of maybe selling a business or something? You know, kind of what's the general activity and how has it changed given all the drug notes we're seeing in the capital markets?

Yeah, as we said, our pipeline's healthy. We remain very active on the M&A front, have done so through 2022 after completing the 2021 deals. You know, lots of opportunities to look at, but, you know, we remain diligent to our criteria and being able to, you know, identify and close deals that we believe will bring shareholder value for the company, better position us with our customers, our target markets, and that. So timing of closures of deals vary out there in that, so it's very difficult to say. But we remain diligent at it. As for valuations, yeah, I think the credit markets that's out there is certainly – you know, brought multiples more realistic, if you will, where you don't see a lot of, you know, teens, multiples, or anything like that off of EBITDA with, you know, PE firms that are sitting on a bunch of cash and that. It's absolutely kind of moderated the expectations from the owners, the sellers, on what they you know, their businesses are worth in that. So it's a good opportunity out there, and we're remaining very active in it. Duncan, would you add anything? No, I think you captured it, Nick.

Great. Thanks very much. I'm done.

Thanks, Ted. Appreciate it.

Thank you very much. The next question is from Tim Moore of EFT Hutton.

Please go ahead.

Thanks, and congratulations on the strong gross margin beat in the quarter and the continued execution of your strategic plan. A couple of my questions were already asked, but I'll start off with asking about, I believe, a comment you made during your open remarks. It seems like, which is going on with a few other competitors, that there are smaller order sizes coming from smaller customers, just as they maybe buckle down or delay for macro concerns. Could that be possibly... enough upside to move the needle on your sales guidance if some of those possible delay orders come through in the September or December quarters? Did they make up enough of an amount of a smaller customer side to maybe move the needle?

Well, I would say you're exactly right. The smaller order size is a bit of the economy you see, but also in the fact that the supply chain has improved so much, lead times have come down, and they're more confident on the ability for suppliers to be able to deliver. So they've kind of moved to that trend, which, you know, is a good thing for us. Our lead times are down as well. So, you know, we're able to, as you said, respond more quickly when opportunities come. So if the demand surges to the point where that, you know, creates a lot of opportunity for shipments later this year, that can certainly have an impact. You know, we've kind of modeled in what we believe to be a very doable case here that we've laid out. We'll keep marching towards that, but we'll see how the quarter plays out. Our funnel activities remain very active, very robust. If something changes in order patterns, we'll be able to capture it.

Thanks. That's helpful. I want to follow up on a news announcement you had a few weeks ago. Coincidentally, you I think the stock was up 14% that day. But just on the stellar scientific ultra-low temp biomedical storage news, the partnership for the U.S. government agencies, have you thought about maybe how sizable that could be? Have you gotten any indication or RFPs on that? I mean, could that be $4 million in sales over the next 12 months or something like that?

You know, we're optimistic on, you know, with all of our channel partners on what they're able to achieve there in that. Too early to say what that number could be, you know, in the next few months or in that. But, you know, we're excited to add these really quality channel partners as we build out our go-to network for these freezers and refrigerators and our – or transportation chillers as well.

Great. That's helpful. Just switching gears for geographic opportunities, it seems like Europe and Southeast Asia could be a pretty proactive expansion opportunities now that you've implemented your overall strategy. Are you starting to focus there? And maybe related on that question, it seems like some of the low-cost regions you can maybe penetrate more with automated back-end testing where Some of the competitive offerings only do manual. Are you seeing more opportunity for that on the automation backend side and the Southeast Asia and Europe?

Yeah, no, absolutely. That's part of our globalization strategy out there is, you know, Europe and Southeast Asia are two target areas that we want to expand our presence in. And so, yeah, we believe we could better serve customers those regions we made some progress with acquisitions of AccuLogic and and Videology in Europe they're both brought a small footprint to us but expanded our exposure there and yeah we're currently assessing how do we better serve Southeast Asia and some of our customers as you know our back-end test businesses is you know ships a lot into Asia and Southeast Asia regions there, so in particular. With that said, obviously a lot of activity with investments in regionalization, of course, in the U.S. here, and then Europe recently announcing their versions as well. So, yeah, we've got to make sure we're well positioned to capitalize on those.

Great. Thanks for that, Collar. And my last question is, What efforts are you maybe making to grow your aftermarket service business? Have you added more dedicated workers there over the last two or three quarters?

Yeah, we have expanded with service personnel within our organizations here across our businesses and that filling gaps where we've got the customer base and we can better serve them locally and that Likewise, ramping up our service capabilities on product offerings, as well as trying to better serve customers through more service agreements and helping them to ensure their equipment is optimized out there as well. So it's a multi-pronged approach to expanding our service out there, and we had some good Good service numbers, right, Duncan?

Yeah, I mean, our service business, a bigger piece of the pie in Q1, getting into the kind of low teens, so that's nice to see. I wouldn't say we're claiming victory at all. Nice to see that the strength in the quarter certainly helped the margin side, but we'll continue that journey. There are plenty of opportunities for us as we move forward here. Great.

Thanks, Nick and Duncan. I appreciate that. That's it for my questions.

Thanks, Tim.

Thank you. The next question is from Peter Wright of Interact. Please go ahead.

Great. Good morning, guys. Thank you for taking my questions and congratulations on the great quarter.

Thanks, Peter.

Nick, I got a couple questions for each of you. Nick, my first question is kind of on the innovation cycle. I'm hoping you can share with us some insight into how product evolution is changing at InTest, whether it be more aggressive new product introductions, a faster next generation kind of enhanced product cycle, any insights into kind of what is changing on the innovation curve and how it's reflected in the ASPs of your product over time relative to kind of the long-term trajectory or curve there. Sure. Perfect.

Go ahead. Sorry to interrupt.

No, and then just kind of tagging a little piece onto that on the service business as you build that out, is more of the innovation customer-driven or is it still primarily engineer slash in-test driven?

Okay. Okay. Let me start with the innovation there. And, you know, kind of describe this, and it's part of our strategy here, the innovation is really driving these businesses that really do a fantastic job with our engineering know-how and expertise of solving customer problems. But the focus in the past had been more of from one customer to the next customer to the next customer. And we're taking more of a market-driven approach to our innovation, you know, developing new product portfolios, product lines that are applicable to a broader number of customers versus one individual customers, but allows for the flexibility of late-stage customization to specifically address the needs for those applications with that customer. So you're seeing much more of that standardization, sub-assembly-type approach in our product funnels. you know, the EcoHeat, compact EcoHeat and the compact workheads, good examples of that where we've reduced the size, but now we have, you know, a wide variety of power settings, power options, as well as, you know, we design our coils and solutions around the particular applications as late-stage customization. So being more market-driven is one of the big changes. You know, we commented last year throughout the supply chain challenges. Unfortunately, innovation has took a bit of a backseat on some of our R&D projects as we had to qualify new suppliers, new vendors on products and that. So I would say now that things are more stabilized, we're able to put more focus on that and excited to see that kind of ramp back up here going forward. Shifting to the service side of things, I'd say it's a mix. Some of the service avenues and growth that we're driving here are requests we've seen from our customers, and others are more of in-test driven, just specifically trying to place individuals in regions to better serve, better response time, et cetera, et cetera, out there, as well as framing up these agreements that we could expand our service capabilities and solutions that we're providing from a service perspective to the customer. So it's a mix across the board.

And any comments on kind of ASP trajectory that you guys are, you know, there's in the evolution from kind of component to solution, usually there's some decent ASP lift. Is there anything you can point to there yet that's materializing?

I would just say that, you know, as we take the market-driven approach, we're looking for trying to assess, you know, market pricing rather than a cost plus in the past, you know, so that gives us the opportunity to validate that we're not leaving money on the table out there and that. But, I mean, it varies across the product that's being developed and across the businesses and that, so from an ASP perspective.

Fantastic. And then on the acquisition strategy, if I look, congratulations on your margins really kind of already hitting long-term plan on an EBITDA margin basis. I guess what I'm really asking is their upside to the long-term target. But when you look at your acquisition strategy, obviously there's integration and everything of the sort. But any thoughts there in kind of the landscape of BizDev that you're looking at? what is the best way to think of your acquisition strategy's impact on kind of your margin profile?

Yeah, I mean, I think, as I think we've talked about a little bit before, our business is kind of running ballpark at those longer-term margin profiles. However, we do need inorganic activity to move us into that next bracket, that $200 million to $250 million margin. There are inefficiencies, there are costs associated with acquisitions, integrations, et cetera. So our long-term profile takes that into account. It takes into account that growing organically, yes, we should see continuing operating leverage and improvements there, but there is a cycle of inefficiency as we execute inorganically. and integrate businesses. So that's factored into our thinking there, Peter.

Fantastic. And Duncan, a follow-up if I could on that. Your commentary suggested that there might be some moderating signs of a little bit of moderation. The guidance really doesn't reflect that. So I'm trying to understand the change in visibility. So is it, is there some push outs? Is it just slower incremental bookings? Is it phasing out of larger, you know, orders that were pressured from supply chain? What, what is the impact that's causing kind of the moderate moderation? And my very last little part, I'll just add into it. Is there any commentary you can share with us on kind of tool utilization or any of the other kind of forward looking things that you're looking at that is making you add that, that slightly cautious comment?

I think Nick touched on it in one of the earlier answers. We're seeing less of these very large orders where people are buying well in advance because of significant concerns around the global supply chain. It doesn't mean overall activity is dropping. It just means those orders are smaller. They're perhaps only ordering a quarter, a couple of quarters ahead instead of a year ahead, let's say. It does mean visibility by definition you know, can be hampered a little bit. Doesn't mean the demand's not there. We're seeing the demand. We're maintaining backlog levels even in spite of that dynamic. So that's really what we're talking about. It just makes that visibility, you know, a tiny bit tougher versus the situation where you're getting orders for, you know, next year and even beyond.

Very clear. Very healthy. Great. Thank you guys for the update. Yeah, thanks, Peter. Thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, just a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and then 1. The next question is from Brian Kingslinger of Alliance Global Partners. Please go ahead.

Great. Nice results. Just one question for me. You mentioned a couple of times, are price increases occurring across the board? Are there pockets of strength based on certain solutions or verticals? Any further detail around the price landscape would be great.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, let me try and address that, Brian. I mean, pricing, as we talked about a little bit in the past, has been very dynamic, continues to be dynamic. And what I mean by that is, you know, the inflationary environment, cost inputs, you know, changing quite dramatically very quickly over the course of the last kind of 12 months or so. Obviously, we're looking at that constantly. If our prices go up, we have to move and push. If our costs go up, we have to move and push our prices up. And our teams have absolutely been doing that and constantly reassessing that. And that process continues. Our input costs, we're seeing a little bit less in the way of that rate of change, but that's an ongoing process. And then the other element of that that Nick alluded to is we continue to push around more kind of a market-driven view, what's the value of our product, and continue to kind of push on making sure we're getting value in the marketplace from a pricing perspective. So that's another angle from a longer-term perspective that we continue to kind of work with our teams on. But it's really across the board. There's no one single product, one single market, or anything like that, Brian. I mean, it's really across the board with respect to those two elements.

Yeah, and I would just add another dynamic from pricing realization is this whole order trend of, you know, if they're placing a blanket for four quarters, these large, you know, those prices are locked in on those orders basically. And we have little ability to change, you know, as now the smaller orders are a couple quarters or so. you know, we have more flexibility to be able to adjust pricing and that. So it gives us, you know, a better opportunity there.

Great. Thanks. Nice results again.

Thanks, Brian.

Thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have no further questions in the queue. And I would like to hand the floor back over to Nick Grant for some closing comments.

Thank you, Chris. I want to reiterate that I'm exceptionally proud of our global team who continue to deliver outstanding results. We look forward to connecting with some of you on May 10th at the EF Hutton inaugural global conference in New York City. We really appreciate you taking the time to join us today on our call and for your interest and interest. Thank you all and have a great day.

Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time.

And thank you for your participation.