Cadre Holdings, Inc.

Good afternoon and welcome to CADRE Holdings' third quarter ended September 30th, 2023 conference call. Today's call is being recorded. All lines have been placed on mute. If you would like to ask a question at the end of the prepared remarks, please press the star key, then the number one on your touchtone phone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Matt Berkowitz of the IGB Group for introductions and the reading of the Safe Harbor Statement. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, and welcome to CADRE Holdings' third quarter conference call. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that during today's call, we will be making several forward-looking statements, and we make these statements under the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements reflect our best estimates and assumptions based on our understanding of information known to us today. These forward-looking statements are subject to the risks and uncertainties that face CADRE and the industries and markets in which we operate. More information on potential factors that could affect CADRE's financial results is included from time to time in CADRE's public reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Please also note that we have posted presentation materials on our website at www.cadre-holdings.com, which supplement our comments this evening and include a reconciliation of certain non-GAAP financial measures. I would like to remind everyone that this call will be available for replay through November 22, 2023, starting at 8 p.m. Eastern time tonight. A webcast replay will also be available via the link provided in today's press release, as well as on CADRE's website. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to CADRE's Chairman and CEO, Warren Kanders.

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining CADRE's earnings call to discuss our results for the third quarter of 2023. am joined today by our president brad williams and our chief financial officer blaine browers coming off of the third quarter of 2023 i continue to be very proud of the focus and execution our management team has demonstrated in achieving record results in adjusted ebitda and adjusted ebitda margins for the second consecutive quarter brad blaine and the team's implementation of the CADRE operating model is driving these results. As I said last quarter, this execution creates operating leverage by using superior operating tools and business processes to produce profitability improvements above our natural growth rate. We've continued rolling the model out across our entire portfolio, and we are gaining momentum as we do. Brad and Blayne will go into more detail later but the results here speak for themselves. For the third quarter, while revenues were up 12.1%, gross profit increased 22.7%. We achieved record adjusted EBITDA margins of 19%, record quarterly adjusted EBITDA of 23.7 million, adjusted EBITDA grew 14.4%. and fully diluted net income per share for the quarter increased 123%. Looking at the nine-month year-to-date results underscores the performance outside the lenses of a single quarter. Revenues up 7.1%, gross profit up 18.7%, adjusted EBITDA up 22.1%, and adjusted EBITDA margin up to 18.2% from 16%. We as a team are exceptionally proud of how we have been able to deliver for our shareholders. Before moving to M&A, I would like to comment again on the macros driving our business. We are in an environment where geopolitical conditions seem to get worse by the day, and the level of internal conflict inside most countries is on the rise. Domestically, the levels of danger facing first responders have not abated to any appreciable degree, if at all. Our role is to provide mission-critical, life-saving equipment to the professionals around the world who work to keep us safe. We have the distribution and manufacturing capabilities to cover a substantial part of the world, and we see no sign that the secular trends driving demand for our products are going anywhere but up. As our business has grown, we have experienced increasing capacity requirements and have reacted accordingly. Our ability to do this is a testament to our management team and our many dedicated employees, suppliers, distribution partners, and other stakeholders. It also speaks to the quality of our products, the strength of our brands, superior execution and deliveries, and the trust our customers and end users place in CADRE's equipment. Having said that, to be clear, the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East have not impacted our businesses in any material way. As we have mentioned previously, we do not expect, as these events eventually abate, there may be an opportunity for CADRE to play a larger role through a number of our products, most notably through our various EOD offerings. Lastly, an update on our M&A program. I am pleased to report that we signed a letter of intent approximately three weeks ago with a business that we have been in discussions with for a number of months. The business in its most recent fiscal year ended during the summer, achieved approximately 19 million of revenues with gross margins in excess of 50% and EBITDA margins in excess of 25%. While we cannot be more specific due to confidentiality obligations, the business is in a category that we have targeted as a priority for a tuck-in type deal. Confirmatory due diligence is underway, and we hope to speak more about this soon. More broadly, we continue to work hard on our M&A pipeline, and we believe we are starting to get more traction. As you are all aware, the credit markets remain very weak. They started going south in mid-2022, and this time last year, bankers were predicting conditions would improve in the first or second quarters of 2023. That did not happen, and the credit markets have only gotten worse. In the context of our company, we have been patient and disciplined in our approach to M&A while generating substantial free cash flow to deliver and fortify our balance sheet, with net debt standing at less than one times net debt to adjusted EBITDA at the end of the quarter. As weak credit conditions and an anemic M&A market have persisted for such a long time and not shown signs of improving, sellers of many different types, including financial sponsors and founders, have decided to engage in discussions to sell, and valuations are adjusting to reflect these realities. In addition to the current letter of intent we have executed, we are seeing more actionable opportunities and our balance sheet and financial performance position as well capitalize on these opportunities as they present themselves. Lastly, we are in constant contact with our banks and they have indicated their support for our approach given the way in which we have delivered on our commitments to them over the years. In conclusion, I am proud of our results for this quarter and for the first nine months of the year. We are happy to be able to increase our earnings guidance for the year again based on our performance and as the remainder of the year comes into focus. As I have said before, our businesses are resilient, our operating model is showing results, and we are excited with how we think this year will play out and how things are setting up for 2024. With that, thank you for being with us today. and I will turn the call over to Brad. Brad, over to you.

Thank you, Warren. On today's call, Blaine and I will provide a Q3 update and business overview, including recent trends and financial performance, followed by a Q&A session. Before I dive into our third quarter results, I'd like to take a moment to expand on Warren's comments about our operating model and success continuing to fulfill CADRE's mission of Together We Save Lives. We're excited about our progress advancing the CADRE operating model as we engage the organization in pursuit of the idea of better every day. Our team members feel an extraordinary sense of purpose supporting our special mission, which lives not just in the hearts and minds of our associates, but extends to our channel partners and end customers. As many of you know, we have what we call the SAFE Club. which was set up many years ago to recognize first responders that survive life-threatening situations using or wearing our products. This club has grown to 2,177 saves. We're averaging about 34 saves per year. So if you think about that a minute, that equates to approximately three men or women that get to come home and live their lives with their families and friends every day. We're proud of who we are and what we do, and look forward to continuing to provide best-in-class equipment that protects the law enforcement, military, and security professionals who keep us all safe. Turning now to our third quarter, we'll begin on slide five. During the quarter, we continued to capitalize on cadres and TRIPS positions in law enforcement, first responder, and military markets as the company increased quarterly revenue, net income, and gross margins sequentially and year-over-year. Our outstanding results reflect the team's continued strategic execution combined with strong, sustained demand for our mission-critical safety and survivability equipment. We value the strong relationships we have with customers, and we continued to have success in the third quarter managing our portfolio of premium products in the market. Combined with favorable Q3 product mix as well as productivity gains driven by the continued implementation of our operating model, We achieved significant margin expansion. Third quarter adjusted EBITDA margin of 19% was our highest since going public, and gross margins increased by 370 basis points. Truth Theory product mix reflected favorable Armour product mix in the quarter. Looking ahead, we maintain a strong orders backlog, which was $126.2 million as of September 30th, an $8.3 million increase since the start of the year. We remain focused on executing M&A and believe our funnel is still healthy in opportunities that we continue to actively evaluate. As Warren mentioned, we have recently signed an LOI to acquire a new business and expect to be able to share more soon. Based on our low CapEx model, we continue to generate strong free cash flow that enables us to take advantage of attractive growth opportunities while returning capital to shareholders. Last month, we declared our ninth consecutive quarterly dividend of $0.08. On slide six, we highlight the macro tailwinds supporting a sustainable growth opportunity for CADRE in the foreseeable future. We continue to see a broad push to prioritize public safety in both the U.S. and abroad and believe CADRE is ideally positioned to capitalize on these secular tailwinds over the medium and long term. Turning to slide seven, I'll take a moment to zoom in on current market trends and their impacts on our business. We have not seen any signs that police hiring is becoming easier, but healthy police budgets continue to drive increased spending per officer. CADRE's mission-critical protective equipment is consistently prioritized when departments are determining officer needs, no matter the economic environment. Police protection expenditures have continued to trend upward even during past financial and industrial recessions. Moving to the next bullet, in terms of the current geopolitical landscape and consequences for our core businesses, we continue to engage with partners and customers globally to meet orders that fit our model. With that said, we expect there could be movement that creates demand for our products moving forward as the war in Ukraine shifts to its next phase. For example, we anticipate active discussions we've been having about providing EOD tools and equipment could lead to opportunities down the road. Based on the situation on the ground, it will take decades to clear the vast amount of unexploded ordnance in Ukraine, which expands the cycle of opportunity on the EOD side for CADRE, but likely will be focused on a higher mix of demining protective wear rather than EOD suits. Turning to supply chain and labor trends, the environment has been stable in recent months. Our team continues to do an outstanding job at practically addressing supply chain issues, and the extended lead times that we saw last year appear to be mostly behind us. We continue to be pleased with our progress with tracking and retaining labor to meet our needs. On the consumer side, we saw 5% growth in our duty gear sales driven by our focus on new products in this space. One example that has been very successful is the launch of the NCOGX holster which we launched in partnership with Haley Strategic. In fact, the NCOG-X holster won Guns and Ammo Holster of the Year. CADRE's commitment to innovation is a key differentiator and allows us to maintain our premium position in our core law enforcement, first responder, and military markets. Following the introduction of our HyperX Tactical Armor Platform, ExpertFit 3D Body Sizing App, and Safari Vault line of holsters, All launched in the last nine months, we continue to hear positive feedback from customers. Of note, we've experienced a 47% increase of tactical soft armor in the first three quarters of 2023 compared to the same period of last year, with growth directly related and tied to HyperX. I'll now turn the call over to our CFO, Blaine Browers.

Thanks, Brad. I'll begin my remarks by discussing our M&A strategy and the general acquisition environment. Slide 8 summarizes the key criteria that drive CADRE's M&A process. We view potential transactions within three categories, those that will expand our suite of products, those that will enable us to enter new markets, and those that will grow our geographic footprint. We target businesses with high margins, leading market positions, and strong recurring cash flows and revenues. Per Warren's earlier remarks, we cannot be more specific about the recent LOI we signed due to confidentiality obligations. But I can share that this business fits well within our platform and its profile is very much consistent with our key criteria. Regarding broader M&A markets, it continues to be a tough financing market as lenders have significantly tightened their lending standards. In fact, Bloomberg recently reported that the average multiple on new LBO deals is down 1.4 turns from a year ago, reflecting this new environment that shows us that the gap between buyers and sellers appears to be closing. The next two slides detail the third quarter financial performance. As you can see in slide nine, we increased net sales, gross margin, net income, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted EBITDA margin in the third quarter, both on a sequential and year-over-year basis. The increase in net sales reflects our significant orders backlog and was mainly driven by higher domestic demand for armor products and large orders for crowd control products. This was partially offset by decreased agency demand for hard goods. Third quarter net income was 11.1 million, or 29 cents per share, grew nearly 125 percent compared to last year's Q3. As we continue to implement our operating model and manage the positioning of our portfolio of premium products during the third quarter, we achieved significant margin expansion. For the second consecutive quarter, our adjusted EBITDA margin of 19 percent was our highest since going public, and gross margins increased 370 basis points year over year. Illustrated on slide 10 is net sales and adjusted EBITDA growth year over year. As you can see, driven by increased revenue and improved gross profit margin, CADRE's nine-month 2023 adjusted EBITDA was up 22% versus last year. Based on our third quarter performance and management's outlook for the remainder of the year, we have raised the midpoint of our full-year adjusted EBITDA guidance range and increased the midpoint of our 2023 net sales guidance. I'll discuss our new guidance in a moment. On slide 11, we present our capital structure as of September 30th. Our net debt was $74 million, a further reduction of 15% since the end of Q2. This gives us net leverage of 0.8 times. These levels, we maintain significant financial flexibility to grow both organically and inorganically through acquisitions. We provided updated 2023 guidance on slide 15. We've tightened our full-year net sales range, raising the midpoint. We do expect 2023 net sales to be between 477 million and 481 million. Our upwardly revised adjusted EBITDA guidance range of between 82 and 85 million implies 10% annual growth on adjusted EBITDA versus our initial forecast of 4% to begin the year. Additionally, whereas the midpoints of our original guidance implied adjusted EBITDA margin of 16.2, Our success in the year to date has significantly increased our expectations for the full year margins. Based on the updated midpoints, adjusted EBITDA margins rise to 17.4%. While in the prior year, Q4 was our largest revenue quarter of the year, we now expect that Q3 will be the high watermark for revenue. One of the large international orders that we expected to ship in Q4 was actually shipped ahead of time in Q3, changing this expectation. We do expect armor volume to be down sequentially and the mix to return to normal. Based on these developments, along with the mix in EOD shifting to less profitable products, we expect margins to be lower sequentially. I would also like to reiterate that for the most of our businesses, we only have 45 to 60 days of backlog visibility at any given time. I'll now turn it over to Brad for concluding comments.

Thank you, Blaine. In summary, we are highly pleased with our strategic execution in the year to date. which is reflected in our strong third quarter and nine-month financial results. Once again, we generated record EBITDA margins and quarterly adjusted EBITDA as we continue to implement our operating model focused on attaining and sustaining exceptional results. We are pleased to raise the midpoints of both our full-year 2023 adjusted EBITDA and revenue outlook. M&A continues to be a focus, and we recently signed a letter of intent with the business that meets our key criteria. We expect to capitalize on additional attractive growth opportunities and remain confident that we will see more of these opportunities in the months ahead. Backed by macro tailwinds related to increasing public safety budgets and favorable industry dynamics, we believe Cadre is ideally positioned to further grow our leading platform of premium safety brands moving forward. With that, operator, please open up the lines for Q&A.

At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press stars and the number one on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from the line of Daniel Embro with Stevens. Your line is open.

Yeah, hey, good evening, everybody. Thanks for taking our questions. Hey, Daniel. Maybe one on the international market side. I think it was encouraging to hear you guys won a contract there. Warren, I think your comments kind of signal that it wasn't the Middle East that hasn't really materialized into new business yet. So one, can you comment on what markets you won the international contract? And then two, given what's going on globally, how long would it be before you expect that evolving conflict to materialize into some safety orders for you guys' products?

Yeah, let me – I can take the first part, and Warren, you can jump in. When I referenced the large international contract in Q3 that was originally planned in Q4 that was – actually in a North America outside the U.S. order on control products. We do have, you know, we have had some orders for Ukraine, but I think consistent, as we've said, it's not been material to this point, and really it'll be in that demining side of the world for the EOD suits. So it won't be in the suits. It'll really be in that demining, which is a less protective version of the EOD suit, if that makes sense, Daniel.

Got it. And could you quantify maybe that contract that was pulled from 4Q into 3Q at all, Glenn?

We can't disclose it due to sensitivity, but it was significant for the business. I think as you kind of go through and look at the change in consensus, that'll give you a feel for the size and scale of it.

Got it. And then maybe taking a step back here more in cash continues to build on the balance sheet, even for this pending deal, but let's call it a few million bucks to be, but you still should have excess cash assuming a normal, a normal multiple. What do you view as, as the strategic or best uses of that cash? Are there CapEx projects you could pull forward? You guys don't have a ton of that. Is it a special dividend? Just how do you foresee deploying that capital back to shareholders in the absence of deals?

Yeah. So, well, um, The good news is we don't have an absence of deals. I mean, we're working on a number as we speak. In fact, one we thought had gone away. I think the last time we spoke, we talked about deals that we had bid on that we had been withdrawn. One of those is back. So our pipeline right now is quite full. And, you know, as the guys said before, You know, the multiples are now reflective of, you know, the cost of capital and, you know, the overall environment. So we couldn't be more excited. So our objective is to use, to, you know, to reinvest our cash, you know, in transactions. The company that we're buying, you know, that we have an LOI on, you know, is similar to our existing businesses. And that one also has, you know, low CapEx transactions. requirements and has, you know, margins. And I think, you know, from the last couple of transactions we've done, you know, we are trying to target EBITDA margins in excess of 20%.

Got it. And then last one for me, Brad, you mentioned productivity gains and some self-help on the three key margin. Other than the timing of that contract, anything one time in that leverage or are you unlocking more savings maybe as you continue to scale the business and just turn over more stones on the productivity side? Thanks.

No, I mean, there's nothing significant one time, Daniel, as we look at productivity. This is really, you know, that mantra of doing things, you know, just a little better each day. Because we kind of look sequentially, right? We use that as a good gauge of improving not just on a year-over-year basis, but, you know, were we better than, you know, this quarter than last quarter. So this will be something we continue to build on. We've certainly seen some, you know, very strong gains from the team on a year-on-year basis and sequentially. So we're Really pleased with everyone's progress really across the globe when it comes to the adoption of the operating model and daily management. Really just pushing all the businesses forward.

Understood. Appreciate the call, Aaron. Best of luck.

Thanks, Daniel.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Jeff Van Senderen with B. Reilly & Co. Your line is open.

Hi, everyone. So just wanted to go back to the demining suit, I guess you would call it, the less productive version of the EOD suit. Can you just remind us of the dollar price point there versus the full suit?

Yeah, when you think about a full bomb suit, right, you're upwards of $30,000 or right around there. This would be a demining suit. It can vary, right? And there's There's actually a level in between, you know, Jeff, as we talk about what's commonly referred to as a TAC-6 suit or a TAC-4 suit. As you move down to demining, you know, you're certainly above, you know, kind of the body armor level, but below even the TAC-6 protection. You know, and that can vary depending on, there's variation there, but you're really talking generally sub-5,000, you know, and north of 1,000. The difference on that one, though, is one of the restrictions around EODs is we kind of talk about the market. It's a fairly limited market, right, with about 20,000 operators across the globe. So there's just a limited number there, right? And we'll continue to sell those in. We continue to be the proven product of choice for those operators. As you move down, though, what demining allows you is you don't have to have the same level of, of training you do with the EOD, and you're addressing different levels of threat, right? That's the reason for that different level of protection. The demining, though, is a much higher volume game, so the teams are working very diligently with partners and really kind of working with Ukraine and different embassies across the globe to ensure that, hey, when the time is right, here's the suite of products that we have available ensure we protect the men and women that are out there making the country safe again.

Again, the timing of that will be when the hostilities cease, right? Because you can't go in and do that kind of work. And that same work will need to be done in Gaza as well.

Right. That was going to be my next question was just, have you had any inquiries yet around what's happening in the Middle East?

So, so we are, we, I mean, we, we get inquiries, um, you know, they, you know, they, you know, um, you know, Israel is a, is a customer and, um, um, you know, we're, we're doing, uh, you know, what we, you know, what we, what we can, but obviously the, uh, The, you know, a lot of the stuff that's going over there right now is kind of big conditions related to Iron Dome and just the bombs that go up.

Right. Right. Okay. Okay. That's helpful. And then just, I guess, anything, just a quick follow-up if I could, just any update on the blast protection, I'm sorry, the blast sensor product, just wondering. kind of where we are with that.

Jeff, are you talking about Blatt sensors?

Yes, yes, the sensor.

Yes, okay. I just wanted to make sure. So, on the Blatt sensor side of things, still the same status as, you know, previous quarter. We expect what we're being told right now is the first quarter of next year is when we'll receive that feedback on the current phase of the project that we're in. So, you know, we're still in that wait and see phase in terms of any changes in requirements. as we go forward with that project. But, you know, so far, no news is good news.

Okay, great. Thanks for taking my questions. I'll take the rest offline.

Okay. Thank you, Jeff. Talk to you in a little bit.

And we will pause for a moment to compile the Q&A roster.

And the next question comes from the line of Sheila Keoglu with Jefferies. Your line is open.

Hi, guys. This is Sam Gatsas on here for Sheila. Congrats on the quarter. You know, I just wanted to ask quickly, you know, another strong quarter of gross margins and EBITDA margins, you know, continued sequential performance is strong. You know, you mentioned EOD and armor mix should continue to normalize into Q4. Can you just help us frame some of these other moving pieces within the implied EBITDA guide that steps down a few points sequentially here in Q4?

The two biggest pieces are really armor mix.

We do have some larger armor orders in Q4 that we have visibility today on that we know will be the lower margin that we experienced in Q3 and really more of that normalization And then on the EOD side, as we think about the different products, this would be moving away from EOD suits to doing more volume in some of our other product lines, such as tools and robots, which are just a lower margin profile in that quarter. That's really the two drivers, along with a little bit of volume leverage, obviously, with the lower top line that's implied in that guidance.

Got it. That's helpful. Thanks. And I guess... Maybe just to step back and talk a little bit more on top line, strong 12% year-over-year growth and up 3% sequentially against typically a seasonally soft Q3. Can you just help us kind of bucket the growth drivers within that? You mentioned the large international order, but is there anything like timing of backlog or price or just more volume out the door that got pulled forward here in Q3?

Yeah, you know, it's really volume. I mean, there's some price, but, you know, price sequentially is not a significant component there. You know, I think as you kind of think about the drivers, there's nothing other than the large international order I mentioned in the craft control side. There's nothing that really sticks out significantly. You know, the armor team, you know, in particular has had some significant volume. Brad mentioned HyperX, which is that soft tactical that continued to deliver. some hard armor products as well coming off the, driven really by the Uvalde school incident last year, which is really going to be plates and shields. And those are really those kind of drivers there. Other than that, there's nothing that really kind of sticks out. But those are significant numbers. When you think about that large international order, that's a very significant number for that business. That certainly had an impact in the quarter. And again, it's kind of implied where we can't really talk about the size of the order, but It's certainly implied when you look at the changing guides and certainly kind of Q3, Q4 change. Great.

Really helpful. Thank you. Absolutely.

Your next question comes from the line of Matt Corandro with Roth MKM. Your line is open.

Hey, guys. Good evening. You covered the margin swing for the fourth quarter, but I wanted to maybe get a better understanding of the swing factors on the top line guide. for the fourth quarter, I guess, implied in the guide, you have like a $10 million range. Maybe just talk about the factors that swing you to the high end or the low end of that guidance range, and then just are there any large orders we should be thinking about that could get pulled in or pushed out that kind of factor in there?

Yeah, the push and pull is really implied in that kind of range, Matt, and certainly when we get to the end of the year, If time gets critical, you hit holidays. So anything that, you know, certainly when you think internationally, anything that gets pushed out into kind of maybe decision point kind of mid-December then or even earlier than that tends to have some risk to it. So there's, I think as we always get towards the end of the year, we get a little cautious on those orders. You know, certainly kind of where we sit today, we feel confident on, you know, the range and the guide. But there's a couple significant orders really in armor. is really going to be the kind of make or break, you know, and that's the thing about the business and that visibility, right, that really tends to be armor and duty gear that have that shorter visibility, whereas the EOD tends to have that larger visibility. So when you think about the armor and duty gear, it's about those orders coming in. When you move to the EOD side, you know, that's typically driven by, you know, maybe customer changes on delivery dates, right, where you have the firm order in place, or it could be driven by, you know, payments where we're prior shipment, we're waiting on a prepayment or a full payment. Those are really the kind of the two components that impact the range there as we move into Q4.

But I would say overall, Matt, we factored in when we built that revised range overall for any of those kind of potential situations that Blaine was just referencing.

If we kind of think about that too, Matt, that's not a loss. No, we don't think about that as losing. That would just be a push.

Gotcha. Okay. Helpful, guys. And then just on the acquisition, I know you probably don't want to say too much on it, but just curious, the language you used was that it's similar to the existing business. Does that mean that it could be an existing product or maybe just any flavor for sort of –

We're not going to go there. Just say it's a very comfortable business. We know the people and we're very excited about the opportunity. Obviously, we need to go through all the things that we go through to acquire businesses working through the contracts and the diligence and so on. We're We're encouraged by this one, and I think when we can speak about it specifically, you'll agree with us that it's a very strong deal.

Okay, great. Had to try there, Warren. Thank you. I know. It's okay.

And the next question comes from Ron Epstein with Bank of America. Your line is open.

Hey, good evening, guys. A lot's been asked, but let me see if I can open the aperture a little bit. So Warren, when you think about M&A, security is a broad definition, right? So there are verticals that you don't currently play in, maybe more technically oriented, tech like electronics, that kind of thing. When we think about potential deals you could do, How are you thinking about adjacencies and other verticals that aren't where you're playing currently?

Yeah, that's a great question. So, you know, we have an extraordinary management team, you know, led by Brad and Blaine. You know, as you know, they all have, you know, an operating model background. And so, you know, whatever we look at, you know, those opportunities will need to benefit from, you know, the operating models, which, you know, we have been developing for our own business here over the last number of years and where you are seeing the, you know, we're all seeing the benefit of that, you know, right now. So, you know, the transaction that we talked about earlier, you know, that's right on top of everything that we do Today, we would be looking at adjacencies in areas that could involve electronics. We have some capabilities in-house on that. Brad, in particular, has had personal experience in those types of things, industrial safety and so on. we are looking for those businesses that can benefit from the operating model and discipline that we have. And I think also we spoke previously about the types of margins that we would want to experience in those businesses. You know, we are looking only at opportunities where the margins are, you know, in excess of 20% and, you know, where, you know, there's not a lot of capex required to, you know, maintain and grow those businesses. But there seem to be more today available than there have been. I think we're going to see, and, you know, Ron, you probably know this from talking to a lot of your – companies you cover, there's going to be more internal thinking about, you know, what, you know, for some of these larger companies and what they have, what the mix is, you know, and divesting certain things that, you know, don't fit in. And so, you know, it's pretty ripe for us. Also, private equity, you know, as you probably have read, it's very difficult for new funds to be raised, even for the largest firms. And there are a lot of firms out there today that are orphans. And, you know, with higher interest rates, that's a problem. And so that is forcing a lot of private equity firms to, you know, reevaluate, you know, what they have, you know, how long they can keep it, what they need to do with those assets. So we're as encouraged as we could be right now about who we are, what we do, our balance sheet. As you know, we're very careful about that. And Blaine's very focused every day, not just on the operating aspects of the business, but also on our balance sheet as well. These are the disciplines that they would take forward with us as we're looking to buy.

Super. Thanks.

Your next question comes from the line of Mark Smith with Lake Street Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Hi, guys. Sorry if I missed this earlier in the call, but can you discuss kind of new products, how those are performing, especially a lot of those that we saw kind of introduced early in calendar 23?

Yeah, no. Hey, Mark. This is Brad. So new product-wise, what I talked about a little bit earlier, we're really proud of the progress we've made. And I know you've seen some of those HyperX product, you know, expert fit, 3D body sizing, the Safari Vault line, and then we have a whole host of consumer holsters that we've launched. And, you know, most notably, our NCOGX holster, just one guns and ammo holster of the year. So We're really, really proud about what we're doing from a new product perspective. When you look at the growth overall for the consumer side of things, you know, we, in our remarks, showed a 5% increase on duty gear on the consumer side for us. And then HyperX is, you know, reported, you know, 40, 45 plus percent growth on the HyperX side of things. We love engineers. The world would be a better place with more engineers, quite frankly, and our team's having fun with innovation and, quite frankly, spending a lot of time with customers and just understanding pain points and where we can continue to improve things and make their lives better and continue to uphold our mission around saving lives. So I'm really proud of the results we're seeing.

Okay. You bring up the consumer side of the business doing well. Any commentary? We've seen higher demand in October following events in the Middle East, even domestically for some of those products. Any insights you can give us in maybe October, what those trends look like on the consumer side of the business?

I think October has been consistent with our expectations. Yeah, I think it's kind of the framework we've seen all year now. Our expectations are probably a little bit different than what you'd expect in the market, and that's really driven by these new products that, as Brad mentioned, have had great success. So, yeah, I think when you look at the statistics, the consumer markets generally kind of, certainly in this kind of space, kind of down to maybe flattish to down, whereas with those new products, we're able to continue to expand our share and grow on those markets. It's what we're seeing kind of early part of the Perfect.

Thank you. Thanks, Mark.

And there are no further questions at this time. Brad Williams, I will turn the call back over to you.

Thank you, operator. I'd like to thank everyone again for joining us on today's call and your continued interest in CADRE. Thank you.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you and have a great day.