Allegion plc

Good morning and welcome to the Aligun Q3 2024 Coherence Call. All participants will be listed in early mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing star then zero on your telephone keypad. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Josh Pokavinsky, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Sasha. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for Allegiant's third quarter 2024 earnings call. With me today are John Stone, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Mike Wagnus, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Allegiant. Our earnings release, which was issued earlier this morning, and the presentation, which we will refer to in today's call, are available on our website at investor.allegian.com. This call will be recorded and archived on our website. Please go to slide two. Statements made in today's call that are not historical facts are considered forward-looking statements and are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of federal securities law. Please see our most recent SEC filings for a description of some of the factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from our projections. The company assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements. Today's presentation and commentary include non-GAAP financial measures. Please refer to the reconciliation and the financial tables of our press release for further details. Please go to slide three, and I'll turn the call over to John.

Thanks, Josh. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. We can sum up this quarter with stable markets and strong execution. Q3 marks another quarter of strong execution by the entire Legion team. resulting in revenue growth and margin expansion, demonstrating the resilience of our business model. I'm especially pleased with the top line growth in the quarter and overall demand remains stable and is supported by our broad end market exposure and specification expertise. Institutional markets have continued to lead while commercial verticals have been more mixed. We have accelerated capital deployment in 2024, returning cash to shareholders and growing our business with accretive acquisitions. Our strong cash generation balance sheet and pipeline of opportunities continue to position us well for future capital deployment, creating long-term value for our shareholders. As we push to year end, I feel we're performing at a high level. We're raising our full year guidance for EPS, and we're affirming our overall revenue with some small updates at the segment level. Additionally, we're affirming our available cash flow outlook. Later in the call, we'll discuss these full year updates as well as provide some initial thoughts on how we see the market shaping up for next year. Please go to slide four. Let's take a look at capital allocation. First, we continue to invest in the core to drive organic growth. In June, we introduced a new product line of exit devices, the Von Duprin 70 Series. Our 70 Series combines the quality and trust Von Duprin is known for as the creator of this product category. with the performance and value ideal for many modern applications ranging from warehouse, industrial, office, multifamily, retail, and hospitality spaces. This new product line is backed by our expert safety and security consulting, specification writing, technical support, and training. And it highlights what we do well with our flagship brands like Von Duperen. We innovate for new markets while still expanding the core, a capability that's difficult to match but is a strength of Allegiance. With the Von Dupern 70 Series, we're leveraging more than a century of experience in developing high-performance exit devices to meet the safe entry and egress needs of customers today. Allegiant continues to be a dividend-paying stock. In the third quarter, this amounted to approximately $42 million in cash returned to shareholders. Turning now to M&A, and as announced last week, we recently closed the acquisition of Sauce Door Hardware. Sauce manufactures premium door hardware primarily sold across North American non-residential markets. Best known for their line of invisible hinges, Sauce complements our core mechanical portfolio with fire-rated heavy-duty solutions for industrial, commercial, and institutional spaces. And like our other well-known brands, Sauce is an industry pioneer with more than a century of experience that makes it a category leader today. Sauce is a small bolt-on with Allegiant-like margins. We expect Sauce to deliver solid returns, accretive to EPS in 2025 in a space we know well as a pure play leader in security and access. Lastly in the quarter, we made share repurchases amounting to approximately $40 million. To sum up this slide, Allegiant will continue to take advantage of the strong cash generation our business drives for the benefit of our shareholders. Mike will now walk you through the third quarter financial results.