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Flex Ltd.
5/4/2022
Good afternoon and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the FLEX Fiscal Fourth Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. Presently, all participants are in the listen-only mode. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Mr. David Rubin. You may begin, sir.
Thank you, Carl. Good afternoon, and welcome to Flex's fourth quarter fiscal 22 earnings conference call. With me today is our Chief Executive Officer, Revathy Abethi, and our Chief Financial Officer, Paul Lundstrom. Both will give brief remarks, followed by Q&A. This call is being webcast live and recorded. Slides for today's presentation, along with a copy of the earnings press release and summary financials, are available on the investor relations page at flex.com. As a reminder, today's call contains forward-looking statements. are based on our current expectations, assumptions, and predictions. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. For full discussion of these risks and uncertainties, please see the cautionary statements in our presentation and press release of the risk factors section in our most recent filings with the SEC. Note this information is subject to change and we undertake no obligation to update these forward-looking statements. Unless otherwise specified, we will refer to non-GAAP metrics on this call. The full non-GAAP to GAAP reconciliations can be found in the appendix slide of today's presentation, as well in the summary financials posted in Investor Relations website. As previously disclosed, the draft registration statement on Form S-1 relating to the proposed initial public offering of Nextracker's Class A common stock remains on file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The initial public offering and its timing are subject to market and other conditions and the SEC's review process. We made this announcement in accordance with Rule 135 under the Securities Act. Following SEC regulations, we will not make any further statements or answer any additional questions on the next track or filing at this time. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to our CEO, Revathy.
Thank you, David. Thank you and good afternoon, everyone. Today, we'll talk about our results for our fiscal Q4 and also our full year results, which was another outstanding year in the midst of lots of macro challenges. Paul will then take you through the detailed results. First, I'll start by saying I'm very proud of our team for delivering exceptional results for our customers and all our stakeholders. Their continued dedication helped us deliver strong performance this fiscal year. I also believe that in the midst of crisis is when true partnerships are built. and we have significantly strengthened our partnerships with our customers and suppliers as we navigated through the dynamic supply chain environment. While delivering record performance this year, we have kept our eyes focused on the longer-term direction of our company. We laid this out for you in our most recent Investor Day, which sets the stage for our next phase of profitable growth. Now going to the next slide, let's look at some of our accomplishments. Q4 was up over 9% year-over-year and over 3% sequentially. As you all know, seasonally, this is usually our weakest quarter with overall revenue typically down about 10% sequentially. Our ability to deliver revenue growth shows the continued strength and demand across the portfolio as well as the team's incredible execution while operating in this environment. A good example is in our automotive business. Despite the major industry disruptions, our automotive business grew both sequentially and year-over-year, while S&P global auto production volumes declined. Both industrial and CEC also had very strong quarters, all of which led to strong revenue and record-adjusted EPS levels in the quarter. For the full year, revenue was up about 8% year over year, and we delivered record full-year adjusted operating margins, as well as a record EPS on both an adjusted and gap basis. Our industrial business was also very strong for the full year, with ramps in a number of key markets, including next-generation robotics, EV charging stations, and multiple ramps in renewables and power technologies. Remember, these ramps and renewables are in addition to our Nextracker business, which is now its own separate segment. As you will see, Nextracker also saw very strong revenue growth this year. Livestock strength continued, driven partially by strong current demand, but more importantly, much of this is from winning new business as we solve increasingly complex challenges and provide customers with value-added services such as logistics and fulfillment, and expanding our circular economy activities. I will also point out that we executed on our capital allocation strategy this year as we stepped up our investments in future growth. We increased CapEx by about 60%, with over 60% of that allocated specifically for funding anticipated organic growth. We also completed our eNord Martix acquisition, expanding our presence in data center critical power, which creates cross-selling opportunities with our core data center business. And in addition, we repurchased a record $686 million worth of stock. Now turning to slide four. As we covered in our recent Investor Day, there are several macro and secular trends driving growth in outsourced manufacturing. At its core, These trends are about increasing complexity that many companies are finding more difficult, sometimes even impossible to solve by themselves. This complexity is creating higher value growth opportunities for Flex because we have the right capabilities. We have the global footprint and the scale to solve these challenges for our customers. We have transformed into a more adaptable, a resilient, advanced manufacturer. And in recognition of our progress, we're honored to have been recently recognized with three manufacturing leadership awards for outstanding leadership and achievements in the categories of enterprise integration and technology, operations excellence, and sustainability. And our focus on strengthening our core capabilities in each of our six business units and delivering in key end markets continues to manifest in new wins that will drive growth in the years to come. At our investor day, we highlighted just three of these key end markets that we've doubled down on. They were the next generation mobility, the digital healthcare, and cloud expansion. Now, putting these three markets in perspective, next-gen mobility, for example, is fueling our growth with new wins in support of EV and autonomy technology transitions. Our technological knowledge and domain expertise is leading to new opportunities and expanding collaborations. Of course, an exciting example of this is our recent announced partnership with NVIDIA's DRIVE program for level two plus to level five autonomy. We also recently announced a major win with Enphase, a leading global energy technology company, and that's expanding on 15 years of partnership where we have been selected to support Enphase's European market expansion for microinverter solar solutions. In our health solutions group this year, we began several medical device ramps addressing multiple aspects of chronic care, and these wins will drive growth through the next few years. And in our cloud business, we initiated multiple new ramps with a few of our hyperscale partners late in the year, which led to strong growth for CEC in Q4, but more importantly, will contribute to accelerating growth for fiscal 2023. Again, These are just a few examples from the diverse end markets we play in. We're in a strong position to capitalize on these long-term opportunities through our continued focus on manufacturing and supply chain technology and targeted growth markets. We remain focused on the factors that will drive sustainable growth, margin improvement, and creating shareholder value. With that, I'll turn it over to Paul to take you through our financials. Paul?
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