Eaton Corp PLC

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Eaton Third Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this point, all the participant lines are in a listen-only mode. However, there will be an opportunity for your questions. If you'd like to ask a question. Mr. Jinn, can you hear me? Please go ahead.

Okay, now I can hear you. Okay, good morning, everyone. I'm Yan Jin, Eaton City Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you all for joining us for Eaton Third Quarter 2020 Earnings Call. With me today are Craig Arnold, our Chairman and CEO, and Rick Freon, Vice Chairman and the Chief Financial and Planning Officer. Our agenda today includes the opening remarks by Craig highlighting the company's performance in the third quarter. As we have done on our past course, we'll be taking questions at the end of Craig's comments. The press release and the presentation we'll go through today have been posted on our website at .eaten.com. Please note that both the press release and the presentation, including reconsiderations to non-GAP measures, a webcast of this call is accessible on our website and will be available for replay. I would like to remind you that our comments today will include statements related to the expected future results of the company and are therefore forward-looking statements. Our actual results may differ materially from our forecasted projection due to a wide range of risks and uncertainties that are described into our earnings release and our presentation. They're also outlined in our related 8K filing. With that, I will turn it over to Craig.

Okay, thanks, Yan. You know, let's start on page three with a highlight of our Q3 results. And I'd say, to begin by saying I'm really pleased with how the entire Eaton team has continued to deliver and perform during this ongoing pandemic and economic downturn. And our results, while certainly below last year in absolute terms, they were much better than our guidance for the quarter. Q3 earnings per share at $1.11 on a GAP basis and $1.18 on an adjusted basis, which naturally excludes the five cents of charges related to acquisitions and divestitures and two cents related to a multi-year restructuring program. Our Q3 revenues of $4.5 billion, down 9% organically compared with last year, but up 16% versus Q2. Segment margins were 17.6%. These margins were 290 basis points above Q2 levels. And our decremental margins of 25% were at the low end of our guidance range. Our organization, I just must say again, is doing an outstanding job of managing discretionary costs. We also generated strong cash flow in the quarter. Operating cash flow was $921 million. And our free cash flow was $832 million. As a result, we are reaffirming our 2020 guidance for cash flow with a midpoint of $2.5 billion of free cash flow and narrowing the range to $2.4 to $2.6 billion. And lastly, we repurchased $177 million of shares on the quarter. And we're at $1.5 billion on a -to-date basis. Turning to page 4, we summarize our Q3 results. And I'll just highlight a few items here. First, acquisitions increased sales by 2%. But this was more than offset by the 8% impact of our divestitures. And this was primarily, as you'll recall, the lighting business. Second, our second margins at .6% were down versus last year, but still at very healthy levels, especially given the reduction in revenue. And lastly, I would just remind the group that we now record all charges related to acquisitions and divestitures and restructuring costs at corporate rather than at the segment level. And we hope it just makes it easier for you to model our results on a going-forward basis. Next, on page 5, we show our results for the Electrical America segment. And we're very pleased that our largest operating segment returned to positive organic growth of 3% during the quarter. So it's better than the high end of our guidance range, which was up 2%. And this was really driven by particular strength in residential and utility markets. Revenues were naturally impacted by the sale of the lighting business, which reduced sales by 19%. And negative currency impacted sales by 1%. Operating margins increased 280 basis points to 22.2%. And so our margins continue to be impacted by the divestiture of lighting as well as by ongoing cost containment actions. Our America's business continued to show resiliency also when you look at our orders and backlog. Orders were down 1% on a rolling 12-month basis, excluding lighting. And we saw once again, particular strength in residential and also in data center markets. Similar to what you've seen from others, circular growth is being driven by really this increased focus on

the

home and this work for home environment and all of our growing dependence on digital connectivity. On a rolling 12-month basis, residential orders were up 14%. And data center orders were up mid-single digit. And sequentially, Q3 orders were up 16% from Q2. Lastly, our backlog was up 11% from last year, delivering by once again this noted strength in residential and data centers, but also by utility markets as utility markets are benefiting from the increased investment in smart grid and this energy transition that's taking place. On page six, we have a summary of our electrical global segment. Revenues were down 8%, with 10% decline in organic revenues, partially offset by 2% tailwind from currency. Lower organic sales were principally driven by weakness in oil and gas and industrial markets. If you excluded oil and gas and industrial businesses, our European business was slightly negative and our Asia business was slightly positive. Operating margins declined 280 basis points, 16.6%, but we're up 60 basis points on a sequential basis. Orders declined 6% on a rolling 12-month basis, but declines driven once again by oil and gas and industrial markets, partially offset by strength in residential data centers and utility markets. It's also worth noting here that data center orders were very strong in this segment, increasing some 40% on a rolling 12-month basis. We also had solid sequential growth in orders, up 12% from Q2. And lastly, we continue to draw our backlog, which increased 7% versus last year. Moving to page seven, we have the results of our hydraulic segment. Revenues were down 15%, which was all organic, but this was much better than the 25% organic decline at the midpoint of our Q3 guidance, as end markets recovered faster than anticipated. Operating margins were .8% flat with last year. And encouragingly here, I'd say, we saw a momentum in our Q3 orders, which increased 8% with strength in both agricultural and construction equipment markets. And lastly, we remain on track to close the Danfoss sale by the end of Q1 next year. Next, on page eight, we have the financial summary of our aerospace segment. Revenues declined 13%, down 26% organically, partially offset by a 12% increase from the acquisition of Soria and a 1% positive currency impact. And as you would expect, organic revenue declines here were driven primarily by the continued downturn of commercial aviation, which was partially offset by growth in military. On a sequential basis, organic revenues were up 15% from Q2 levels. And while at healthy levels, operating margins declined to .5% due to lower sales volume and margins were certainly impacted by the impact of the Soria acquisition. I would note here that margins were up 370 basis points from Q2,

and

that the business is really doing an outstanding job of right sizing and reducing discretionary costs. Orders were down 22% on a rolling 12-month basis, and the backlog was down 11%. Turning to page nine, we summarize the results for our vehicle segment. Revenues were down 25%, including 20% organic decline, the divestiture of the automotive fluid convenience business impact of revenues by 4%, and we had a 1% negative headwind from currency. The 20% decline in organic revenues was, once again, much better than what we expected. We had 32% decline at the midpoint of our guidance, and both light motor vehicles as well as truck markets have rebounded more quickly than we anticipated. In fact, organic revenues were up some 75% from Q2. Global light vehicle market production in the quarter was down 4%, and class 8 OEM build was down some 34% in Q3. But given the strength that we now are seeing, we now project NAFTA-classy truck production of some 200,000 units for the year, and this is up 14% from our prior forecast. Operating margins were 14%, down 430 basis points on a -over-year basis, but up 20 basis points from Q2. And we're also pleased to see the 31% decremental margin performance in this business, given the magnitude of the revenue reductions due to end markets. And we certainly would expect these trends to continue through the balance of the year. Moving to page 10, we have the results of our e-mobility segment. Revenues were flat, with organic revenue declining 1% offset by 1% positive currency impact. Operating margins were a negative .5% as we continue to really increase investment in R&D in this segment. Our focus in this segment continues to be on executing key program wins, as well as actively managing what we're looking at now as a multi-billion dollar pipeline of opportunities. We continue to see the electrification market as a significant growth opportunity, and we'd expect to see a sharp recovery as the market improves. In fact, some analysts are estimating a -over-year increase of more than 30% in Q4 alone. Turning to page 11, we provide our Q4 outlook on organic revenues versus last year. For electrical Americas, we expect organic revenues to be between flat and up 3%, with continued strength in residential and utility, data centers, healthcare, warehousing, and also in water waste water, offset by some weakness in industrial markets, principally in office and lodging. For electrical global, we estimate organic revenues will decline between 7 and 10%, with strength in the Asia Pacific region and data center markets, but being offset by weakness really in Europe and some declines in the oil and gas market. For aerospace, we project organic revenues will be down between 23 and 26%, with continued strength in military, but with continuing and ongoing weakness in commercial OEM and commercial aftermarket. For vehicle, we expect organic revenues will decline between 7 and 10%, with strong demand in China and other markets really continuing to recover from the Q2 lows. And for e-mobility, we estimate organic revenues to be between flat and up 3%, with recovering global vehicle markets, and then with particular strength in electric vehicles as well. And lastly, for hydraulics, we estimate a decline of between 6 and 9%. As overall, we're estimating organic revenues to be down between 5 and 7%, and this would be another quarter of sequential improvement as the global economy continues to improve. Moving to page 12, we note our outlook for Q4 and for the full year. As I just noted, we expect organic revenue declines between 5 and 7%, with modest sequential improvements versus Q3. We also expect our Q4 decremental margins to be 25%, which is once again at the low end of our prior guidance range, which was between 25 and 30%. Our Q4 tax rate on adjusted earnings is expected to be 14%, and then turning to the full year, we're reaffirming the $2.5 billion midpoint of our 2020 free cash flow guidance and narrowing the range to be between $2.4 billion and $2.6 billion. I say it's worth emphasizing once again the predictable nature of our free cash flow. We initiated guidance in the midst of the downturn back in April, and we really expect to be in line with this number. Free cash flow as a percentage of revenue continues to be very strong, and for 2020 it's on track to exceed 2019, which was 13.4%. I'd also note in our free cash flow to adjust at earnings ratio, which is 142% on a -to-day basis, and it's also well above 120% levels achieved in 2019. An important element of our free cash flow has been our working capital management, where we've reduced networking capital by more than $350 million -to-date, and this was driven principally by the reduction in the inventory. We plan to buy back $200 to $400 million of our shares in Q4, and we're also reaffirming our full year guidance, which is between $1.7 and $1.9 billion. So I think you'll agree that our cash flow generation remains resilient, and it does really position us well for the upcoming economic recovery. Next, on page 13, we show our preliminary 2020 outlook by end market within both the electrical and industrial sectors, and once again these numbers reflect, if you look at these end markets, the percentage of the sector revenue that is accounted for by these various end markets. Within our electrical sector, data centers, utility, residential, institutional, and infrastructure end markets make up some 50% of our revenue, and each of these markets is holding up well and expected to continue to grow. Industrial end markets, which represent some 30%, where the outlook is more mixed with some areas of strength, like in machinery and industrial facilities, but also some areas of weakness, and particularly in oil and gas. We understand that there's been some concern raised about the near-term growth of commercial construction, but I think it's important to note here that commercial construction only represents 20% of electrical sector revenues. Within commercial construction, we do see some areas of strength, like in warehousing, that can partially offset areas of potential weakness that we would see, certainly in the office and lodging segment. It's also worth noting, I'd say here, that retail is only 2% of total commercial construction markets, whereas the warehouse segment accounts for about 5% of the market, so there's clearly some puts and takes in this market. And lastly, within the industrial sector, our preliminary outlook for 2020 includes growth within all of the end markets, with particular strength in truck and electric vehicles. And finally, while we continue to manage through the short-term challenges of the pandemic, now we also remain focused on our broader strategic and financial goals, which we summarize on page 14. I begin by first saying that we continue to move the company in the direction of becoming an intelligent power management company that's really taking advantage of these important secular growth trends that we've talked about in the past. Electrification, energy transition, IoT connectivity, digitalization, and our recent announcement of the Bright Layer Digitalization Initiative is a prime example of how this transformation continues. In simple terms, Bright Layer for us is really where we extract data from our intelligent devices. It's where we use data science and machine learning to create new insights and software, and it's where we partner with customers to develop value-added solutions. But I'd also say that the overriding goals of the company remain the same, and that's to create a company that has better secular growth, that has higher margins, and better earning consistency. And with the added benefit of our own free cash flow, we'll continue to be smart in how we deploy it, investing in organic growth, paying a top quartile dividend, buying back shares, and actively managing our portfolio while being a disciplined acquirer. And while perhaps delayed by a year or so, our long-term financial goals remain unchanged. They include 2 to 3 percent organic growth, 20 percent segment margins, 8 to 9 percent EPS growth, and $3 billion a year in free cash flow. And so with that, I'll stop and I'll turn it back over to Yan, and we'll open up Q&A.

Okay, thanks Craig. Before we begin the Q&A section of the call today, given the time constraint only for an hour, I appreciate that you can limit your opportunity just to one question and follow up. Thanks in advance for your cooperation. With that, I will turn it over to the operator to give you guys the instruction. Okay.

Thank you. And once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press 1 then 0 on your telephone keypad. You may withdraw your question at any time by repeating the 1-0 command. And first, we'll go to line of Jeff Sprague with Vertical Research. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Morning, Jeff. Morning. A couple things. First, just on cash flow, Craig, the numbers have been very robust, and thanks for kind of reiterating your longer-term target. I am wondering, though, as we think about this 2021 you've laid out with kind of a return to growth, if those greens and yellows are correct, do you see the ability to actually grow free cash flow in dollars next year, or does kind of the the natural working capital swing and maybe other things kind of coming back into play mute the ability to grow cash flow? I would assume the conversion would still be pretty good, but

really

talking about absolute

dollars. Jeff, maybe I'll take that. Yes, the conversion will remain strong, but as you know, we have a lot of amortization that lowers the net income, of course, that's non-cash. We continue to believe that we have further progress on things like days on end inventory. I mean, we have improved markedly, but as we talked about, over 300 million generated so far this year, but we believe we probably can take another couple hundred million out of that over time, and so that'll be just an efficiency improvement that will help us. And of course, we'll have to put a little bit back into receivables, simply to reflect sales growth, but absent hydraulics coming out, and you've got to remember if assuming hydraulics closes at the end of March, you will lose the free cash flow from hydraulics, and that'll of course reduce free cash flow, but apart from that, we think that the puts and takes are likely to allow us to maintain the free cash flow about at the levels it's been.

And as we've shared in the past, I mean, you know, our free cash flow is remarkably consistent, you know, through periods of economic expansion and contraction, as the higher net income that we generate tends to be the offset for the increased consumption or use of working capital. And so we do think that, you know, next year will be a very good year as well, a free cash flow. And maybe on

the topic of hydraulics, I don't know if there's anything else to say about the closing timeline, but what is your thinking in terms of, for lack of a better term, kind of replacing those earnings, whether it's kind of more of a running start on share repurchase in the early part of 2021, or perhaps the M&A pipeline is active, just know that you're probably not working to precisely, you know, manage the ins and outs, but it's still be interesting to hear how you see that playing out in 2021.

You know, I appreciate the question, Jeff, and certainly as we think about, you know, our strategy around what we'd like to do with the company, you know, in the near term, and in the longer term, it's really to take funds and reinvest in growth. And we've said from a priority standpoint, our priorities are largely, you know, around the electrical business. And certainly as we think about, you know, aerospace, if we can, you know, pick up an asset that's got relatively speaking higher defense exposure and valuations coming to line, we still like the aerospace market as well. But I would say that, you know, from where we sit today, what we've committed is that we won't let cash just build up on the balance sheet if we don't feel like we line of sight to, you know, meaningful M&A that will continue to buy back shares as a way of returning cash to shareholders. But I would say in terms of, as you think about, you know, the way 2021 will likely unfold is that we're not going to take, you know, roughly $2.9 billion of proceeds. And then as soon as we receive those proceeds, you know, go back and buy back a bunch of shares. So we'll try to be, as we've done in the past, more opportunistic in terms of our share buyback program and buying at the right times into the market.

Great. I'll leave it there. Thank you. Thank

you.

And our next question is from Scott Davis with Mellios Research. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning, guys. Hi, Scott. Craig, you mentioned in your remarks around aerospace, around restructuring and right sizing, or maybe more specifically, I think you use the word right sizing. What does that mean? What is the new normal? How do you kind of plan for, you know, I notice obviously aerospace is green in your chart on slide 13. But is there a specific target of, you know, 20% down or 15% down or something that you're right sizing to? Or are factories going to flexible enough to, you know, moderate down, you know, or moderate back up, I should say, because, you know, the decremental margins are pretty tough in the quarter in that business?

Yeah, no, I'd say, you know, obviously, if you think about all of our end markets, the aerospace market probably is the one that is certainly most challenged and probably where you have the least certainty around what the future looks like in terms of the rate of improvement in that market. We do believe coming off of a positively, you know, horrific year this year, that we do see some modest growth in the commercial aerospace market next year. But once again, coming off of a very, very low base, which is why we, you know, that market will be green for us and the military market will continue to, you know, be performed as fine. But I'd say we have done already, based upon the actions that we've already taken in the business, we have already sized the business for the level of economic activity that we're experiencing today inside of aerospace. And so we have, you know, very quickly moved, you know, going all the way back to Q2 to really, you know, what I call right size the business for the level of economic activity that we're experiencing. And to the extent that, you know, the world recovers faster than what we're currently envisioning. And I think what we've said in the past is we don't think that this market really returns to 2019 levels until probably sometime in, you know, late 23, 24. And so we really are prepared for a long term kind of downturn in that business. And we've structured the business in a way that allows us to deliver attractive margins, even at 18.5%. And I call those very attractive margins for the aerospace business in the context of this economic environment. And so we've done the work that we need to do to prepare the business to really continue to deliver attractive margins in this environment.

Okay, thanks, Craig. And just moving on to the grid, what does Smart Grid really mean for you guys? And as it relates to and add on to historic growth rates, I know utilities have never been all that fantastic of a growth rate. Historically for you guys, probably more like two to three percent. Does Smart Grid add meaningfully to that historic growth rate so we can expect something higher? Or is there just a mixed shift of spend that, you know, gets taken from one side into the other and the overall growth rate and utility is the same?

You know, we do think that, you know, this energy transition that we're going through, which includes, you know, Smart Grid does add meaningful growth to the historical utility business. And so I'd say that if you think about, you know, today the amount of investment that's going into renewables, if you think about today in the context of, you know, everybody today is both a consumer and a seller of electricity, of electrons. As we think about everything as a grid that we, you know, that Udi Yadav spent some time sharing with the group during our investor meeting. We do think that the investments that will be required to first of all harden the grid, build more resilience into the grid, and then to think about, you know, how do you manage, you know, this environment where electrons are moving, you know, in many different directions. You have to manage that power very differently. If you think about all of the growth in things like electric vehicles that are coming online and the additional load that that's going to put on the grid, you know, the grid is going to have to get smarter in the way that it manages all of these various loads and that's going to mean more opportunities for our electrical equipment and gear and software and the solutions that we bring to market. And so while the utility market maybe historically has been, you know, let's say a relatively slow growth market, we do think, you know, the future for the utility market for at least, you know, at least the near term and into the midterm is going to be very attractive.

Okay. Good luck, Craig. Thanks, guys.

Thank you. Thanks.

Our next question is from Ann Diamond with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Yeah. Hi. Good morning. Actually, Craig, maybe along similar lines but a different region, you mentioned in your comments that Electrical Global Europe was still very weak. Are you seeing any signs of life in that region in terms of the huge investments they're considering making in things like hydrogen and all the infrastructure that would have to be built out to support that? And also more recently they announced their intention to retrofit all old buildings. I'm just curious whether all of those investments that they're talking about in Europe, you know, are going to be years out and require private funding or whether you're hearing any signs of life over there on the back of any of these humongous secular changes that they're talking about.

Thanks. Yeah. I appreciate the question, Ann. And I'd say maybe addressing the specific one around hydrogen, I think it's a little early for us to really understand the role that hydrogen is going to play kind of in the overall energy equation, although there's massive amounts of investments that are going in. I would say to your broader point around building electrification, it's obviously a very significant opportunity for Eton both in Europe as well as in the U.S. As I'm sure you're aware, buildings say account for directly or indirectly some one-third of energy consumption and nearly 40% of the direct and indirect CO2 emissions. And so as we highlighted as a part of our energy transition growth discussion at the Investor Day, we think energy transition and the changing electrical power value chain is creating this, what we call everything as a grid environment, and with it is going to come just, we think, very large opportunities for us. So with customers once again producing, selling, consuming electrons, you're really entering into an environment that is so much more complex that's going to require our type of equipment and our type of solutions. Specifically, the EU, the legislation that you mentioned, a large emphasis on climate-friendly investments, building innovation, and obviously Eton is very well positioned to capitalize on this market growth. The EU Green New Deal, they committed what, 550 billion euros to be spent on climate-friendly investments. A lot of that going into building renovation, doubling of spending in things like energy storage and digital solutions. And so all of those things are just really beneficial to our company, and I think we're very well positioned to take advantage of it.

And so you do think you have the portfolio well enough positioned to take advantage of those opportunities when they arise?

Yeah, yeah, we do. And I'd say there's certainly some work that we need to do around some of these things, and we're making those investments in things like energy storage and software solutions to be able to manage, you know, the power. But I'd say by and large we are well positioned to participate and take advantage of it.

Okay, I'll leave it there in the interest of time. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you.

And next we'll go to Nicole de Blayze with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks. Good morning, guys.

Good morning.

Can we maybe start with Electrical Americas? I was pretty impressed by the margin performance there during the quarter. I'm just curious, you know, how you think about the sustainability of the margins that you're currently seeing there into the fourth quarter and into, you know, 2021, particularly given that some of these temporary cost cuts start to come back.

You know, I appreciate the question. And, you know, we did, like so many other companies, put in place on, you know, quite a few cost measures as we dealt with the pandemic. And I'd say there was a few of those cost measures that were in place in Q3 than there were in Q2, and there'll be fewer in Q4 than there will in Q3. But for the most part, our base assumption is that, you know, most of those costs largely come back during the course of 2021. You know, but having said that, you know, the margin story in our Electrical Americas business, I say, you know, you should be expecting margins that are in this, you know, range for this business, you know, I'd say, into the foreseeable future. A lot of what we're doing is around improving our execution. As you know, we've also, as a company, run and taken a number of restructuring programs that we would expect that would deliver benefits, you know, to offset some of the, you know, one-time cost measures, although some of those could be more back-end loaded. But no, I would think that the margins that you're seeing today in the Americas business is very much in line with the way we expect that business to perform.

Got it. Thanks, Craig. That's really helpful. And then for my follow-up, just thinking about, you know, channel inventory, and I guess, did you guys start to see any early signs of restocking in the channel, particularly, you know, in the electrical business in the quarter, or, you know, maybe you could characterize just overall inventory levels as well?

Yeah, we did, in fact. I mean, we certainly saw in Q2 a pretty large inventory drawdown, specifically in the electrical Americas business, and certainly during the course of Q3, we did see some restocking that took place with most of our distributors. And so as we come into Q4, I would say that, you know, distributor inventories today are pretty much well in line with where they've been historically. When you go back to the number of days on hand that would be sitting in a distributor inventory right now in the fourth quarter versus where we were, let's say, in Q1, those days on hands are about the same. And so we think inventories today are very well aligned, you know, for the level of economic activity that we're forecasting, you know, into Q4 and into next year. So we don't think there's another inventory build in front of us, but nor do we think that there's an inventory drawdown either. So we think it's pretty well balanced right now. And

Nicole, I might make just one addition to that, that the only area where inventories have not yet really been rebuilt are in auto dealer lots. I mean, auto inventories are about 50 days. Normally they're mid-60s. And because sales have been so strong, the auto OEMs have had difficulty building enough cars to get the lots restocked. So they're probably in Q4 and maybe into Q1 you'll see some benefit from that.

Got it. Thanks, guys. I'll pass it on.

Thank you. And next we'll go to Nigel Ko with Wolf Research. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Good morning. I wanted to go back to the 2021 framework, if that's the right word. And obviously, you know, industrial is one of the amber and markets. And obviously that's not a monolithic end market. There's lots of different parts of that. Is the caution just tied to oil and gas and maybe heavy industrial markets? Or would machine tool OEM be sort of a flash number as well? I mean, any kind of color you can give us on the different end markets there would be great.

Yeah, I mean, I think you hit it, you know, in your commentary there, Nigel. I'd say that, you know, certainly everybody's, we all understand what's going on right now in the oil and gas markets and some of the industrial markets. But MOEM segment of the market, the manufacturing segment of the market, we do think that those markets are, you know, become positive during the course of 2021. And that's a little bit of the offset. And why we think in aggregate that market still grows. And then obviously think about markets like data centers, right? In the context of what's going on. Data center markets, I talked about those orders being up some 40% in the quarter. So data center markets continue to be very robust.

Right. Yeah, I mean, I just would have put industrial as a green, but I'm just as curious what drove it down to be an amber. Yeah,

I mean, largely, largely oil and gas. Largely

oil and gas and petrochemical and on balance, if you put it, net it all together, Nigel, it's probably going to be down, but not dramatically down.

Okay, that's fair. That's very fair. My following question is sticking with 2021, the outlook for aerospace and military. You know, there are some question marks around military with DOD budget constraints. I'm just wondering kind of how good is your visibility into sort of the next year for military? And are there any constraints on commercial air recovery? I mean, there's a lot of, again, concerns around park planes and, you know, cannibalized parts from park planes. Do you think that's a risk for 2021?

You know, maybe dealing with the first part of the question around the military side, I'd say, you know, we do typically have fairly good visibility. Those orders tend to be longer lead time. We do sell obviously into some of the depots that service the military market, which tends to be, let's say, more short term. But by and large, we have fairly good visibility. And if you take a look at the, you know, defense budget and defense spending, we don't anticipate that those things are going to be dramatically changed as we look out into the future. And so we do think that that market holds up fairly well and, you know, not, you know, let's say runaway growth, but solid growth nonetheless. In commercial aerospace, there's no question. I think what you're seeing today in the market is that there are, in fact, a lot of park planes. What has happened in the industry historically is that, you know, a lot of these park planes never come back into service. They end up being parted out, which then has an impact on the aftermarket. I can tell you from where we sit today, you know, given the level of, let's say, revenue passenger miles, revenue passenger kilometers, activity levels have been so low that we've not seen a bunch of cannibalization of park aircraft. But we do anticipate as that market, you know, improves and some of these older aircraft are not brought back into the market, we do anticipate that that will happen again at this point in the economic recovery. And so we have, you know, a relatively muted view, quite frankly, of, you know, what the aerospace market is going to look like next year. And so we have some, like I said, some modest growth coming off of a pretty horrific downturn this year, but we've already factored in those numbers into our outlook for the year.

That's great. Great talk. And next we'll go to John Inch with Gordon Haskett. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. So Craig and Rick, you know, a lot of temporary costs, if not most of them coming back next year. What kind of incrementals are you planning for? And I ask in the context that your incremental or your decrementals have been beating and, you know, given all the cost takeout you've done and you've got some pretty leverageable operationally businesses such as vehicle in the portfolio, you'd be looking at some pretty big incrementals despite some of these temporary costs coming back next year. What sort of framework should we be thinking about?

I appreciate the question. And it's obviously one of the things that we're trying to work through right now as we work on our internal plans, which have not quite finished for next year. But I do think it is important to once again note the fact that we have taken out very sizable, let's say, one time costs this year, much of which have been temporary costs. And much of that cost will come back next year. And that return of costs will have a muting impact on the incremental margins out in the fiscal year, in our calendar year, 21 year. You know, having said that, we also have some offsets and some of the offsets being the fact that we've announced and launched this restructuring program, which is going to obviously add, you know, to be additive to the incremental margins year over year. But I would say as we think about, you know, for planning purposes, we'll certainly provide you some more guidance as we come out of our Q4 earnings call. But at this point, I would say that you could, you know, you probably should be planning on incrementals that are a little bit lower than what you would typically see because we will in fact see costs come back next year that were one time costs that we're dealing with this year.

That makes sense, Greg. Can I just as a supplement to my question, are you managing toward incrementals at this point? I say this because, you know, Ford has this framework that they say, well, it's just going to be 35% incrementals and if it's higher, we'll spend the money away. I think that's kind of their implication. Is that how you're thinking about it? In other words, let's just say because of vehicle and other operational gearing, we had a better than expected recovery. You had big incrementals. Were you just going to let those flow through or would you be predisposed to try and take that money and apply it to kind of keep the incrementals in check or in a range?

Yeah, I mean, if I understand the question, I mean, you know, every one of our businesses has a normal incremental rate, you know, percentage of fixed versus variable cost. And so every business is expected to essentially manage their business in a very proactive way to manage margins on the way up and the way down, flexing our variable costs. And so I think that that expectation is absolutely built into every one of our businesses. And then to the extent that we do better than that because we go beyond, we're more effective or more efficient, you know, those benefits would tend to flow through and which is why we're delivering better than normal decremental margins this year. But the results are the results. They flow through, you know, as they come. We don't we don't really have much latitude around, you know, managing them other than that.

That makes sense. And then maybe just as a follow up, this might be for Rick. You know, if Biden and the Democrats win, you know, the platform is to jack up corporate tax rates. I think they're trying to going to go after the guilty tax striking that you guys as an Irish company are far better positioned than other companies that are U.S. based or domiciled. Rick, any preliminary thoughts about how you respectively might manage this to try and keep your tax rate down, which has obviously been very value additive to shareholders over the past several years?

Well, no, you're exactly right, John, to point out that as an Irish domiciled company, we don't really have issues with things like guilty. You know, our non U.S. earnings are are essentially not taxed at U.S. rates or by U.S. provisions. And so the only real impact of of what has been suggested by Biden that the corporate rate comes up is that our our income in the United States would face a higher tax rate. But our our our income outside the U.S. would really not be affected at all. And that's very different than a typical U.S. domiciled company that would see both its U.S. income and its non U.S. income affected by the Biden proposals.

Yeah, makes sense. Thanks very much.

I think we can say confidently that, you know, we have an advantage today and that advantage at least maintains, if not improves in the event of a. It

should improve by several points for us compared to a typical U.S. multi industrial.

Our next question from David Russell with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning. More near term, I was curious why the electrical America's organic sales growth rate in the fourth quarter is a little slower than the third quarter. I mean, it feels in the channel residential is accelerating, seem like utility maybe is as well. And I'm just trying to understand why the slower growth rate is data is data center starting to come off of it or is industrial not even showing a second to improvement. Just trying to understand in case I'm missing something there.

Yeah, appreciate the question, baby. And I'd say it's in obviously it is, you know, uncertainty in terms of whether we're going to ultimately end up. But the biggest delta in terms of Q2 versus Q3 really is this inventory rebuild that we talked about that we saw in the distribution channel largely in the Americas. And so we did in fact see some restocking that took place in the electrical America's business. And that's what's having, you know, what we think about a quarter over quarter quarter quarter quarter basis, a little bit of a muting impact on what the growth trajectory looks like. But I say, no, we've not seen any slowdown in the key markets that are strong, whether that be residential or data centers or utility. Those markets are continuing to perform just fine. And as we think about, you know, the growth rates that we've laid out for the quarter, it's very much in line with what we saw at the end of September and into October.

And just to clarify the comment about the margins for electrical America's from this 22 percent level we just saw when you said we should expect that type of level. I mean, do you feel this is a business all else equal, you know, even include any seasonality around the first quarter that there should be a two handle on the operating margin? Or is the mix is maybe the restock data center strength, something that is providing a positive mix? We should maybe take that comment, maybe quite as literally as you meant that I just want to make sure I understood your comment.

No, and if you think about, you know, one of the things you say, if you think about what is it that's driving these margins to the levels that we are seeing now, one of the big things is we've sold the lighting business. And so the fact that we divested this dilutive lighting business has certainly helped margins quite a bit in the electrical business. And our teams are doing a very effective job of running the business, executing and taking out discretionary costs. And so I say, you know, we're not prepared to make a call on a given quarter. But if you think about the business on a 12-month basis, you know, we think that level of profitability is very much in line with where this business should perform.

Terrific. Thank you for the clarification.

And next we'll go to Joe Ritchie with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Good morning. Maybe just following up on John's question from earlier, obviously a big day here in the U.S. And I know his question was kind of limited to the tax implications. But I'm curious, Craig, just to hear your views on election outcomes and what that could potentially mean for your business over the next 12 to 24 months.

And I mean, at this point, I mean, it is clearly speculation because we're not exactly sure of, you know, what the proposals would be from either one of the administrations. But I would say that by and large, I think, you know, infrastructure spending is certainly an agenda item for both administrations. And I think that, you know, we're hopeful and would expect, you know, probably an infrastructure bill of some sort, you know, coming from either one of the candidates. I think a lot of the things that we talked about that are really secular trends that are impacting our industry, we talk about electrification, digitization, you know, energy transition. These things, I think, are much bigger than what's going on in the U.S. and in the U.S. administration. I can tell you, you know, despite the fact that the current administration perhaps has not been as focused on green, you know, we continue to see increasing investments around the world in essentially energy transition and the greening of the economy. So I think there are these secular growth trends that we're experiencing inside of the global economy that are essentially bigger than any administration in the U.S. and I think are going to be positive for us independent of who's in the White House.

Got it. That's helpful, Craig. And then maybe just my one follow on, I know we've talked a little bit about, you know, incrementals and decrementals, but just maybe honing in on the electrical global business. We just saw decrementals pick up in 4Q. So maybe just a little bit more color what's happening there and whether we should see just kind of improved performance on the decrementals going forward.

Yeah, I mean, I'd say that, you know, we talk about the company, we've given you, you know, 25% decrementals is what we expect for all of Eaton. And in any given quarter, you know, depending upon what's going on in the business and what went on last year, you can have some, you know, parts and pieces moving around in their individual segments. And so I would say there's nothing specifically that you should worry about with respect to the electrical global business. That business is doing well. They're executing, you know, incrementals, you know, could move around slightly higher, slightly lower than the rest of the company, depending upon what quarter. But by and large, we're very comfortable with the guidance that we provided in delivering the 25% decrementals in Q4.

Okay,

got it. Thank

you.

Our next question is from Julian Mitchell with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning. Maybe, Craig, circling back to your comments around slightly lower than normal incrementals next year. So is the way to think about that, that your gross margin is around 30% and so, you know, a slightly lower than normal incrementally is something in the sort of -mid-20s? Is that a reasonable sort of placeholder for now?

Yeah, I'd say Julian would be higher than that. I mean, you know, we are, you know, typical incrementals, but, you know, would say would be probably north of the number that you started with. And so it would be certainly higher than that number. And then once again, we're not done with our plans for next year, and we would hope to be in a position when we do our Q4-ings to give you a more definitive number, but certainly higher than the number that you just quoted.

Thank you. And then just homing in perhaps on the aerospace segment and the margins there. I understood they were down a fair amount year on year, but I suppose what I found most interesting was very high sequential incremental margin in aerospace, you know, 40% plus. So I just wondered, you know, you're at that high teens margin run rate in the third quarter. Is that a good sort of baseline now when you look out to your end market prognosis and the cost actions that I imagine a fair proportion of those are in the aerospace division? And also related to that longer term, you talked about the aero market top line getting back to the old peak, maybe in three to four years' time. Should we assume aero can get back to prior peak margins perhaps before that? And what do you think the peak margin entitlement is for that business?

Yeah. I would say that if you think about, you know, the margin expectations for the business, you know, as we go forward and we're dealing at these levels of economic activity, I think it's reasonable to assume that, you know, the most recent quarter is probably a good predictor of where that business is expected to perform at, at this level of economic activity and this level of revenues. You know, to the question around the longer term, without a doubt, we would certainly expect this business to get back to, you know, prior peak margins that the business posted, which were close to 25%, you know, as the market recovers. Whether or not we can get back there earlier or not, I think it's really going to be a function of, in many ways, what happens with the underlying mix of the business and what happens principally with aftermarket. As I think everybody understands in aerospace, you know, world, most of the margins are made in aftermarket, which means, you know, revenue passenger miles, which means consumers have to get on planes and start. And so I think it really will be a function of to what extent does the aftermarket business return and or consumers and businesses comfortable putting people on planes and flying again. And so too early to call at this juncture in terms of when it returns. We certainly know that it will return, but at this juncture, just too early to ascertain when.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next question is from Andrew Obin with Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead.

Yes. Good morning.

Good morning, Andrew.

Just a question on immobility. You guys sort of, I think, made some intriguing statements about potential ramp in revenues into the fourth quarter. Just taking a longer term view, how much of a ramp should we expect over the next couple of years? And, you know, you keep talking about, I guess, the investment cycle. You know, how long is the investment cycle until this business really starts contributing a material until this business starts moving the needle on profitability for Eaton?

Yeah, and it's, and I'm sure you appreciate, Andrew, with the automotive industry. I mean, these product development life cycles are quite long. I mean, they can be, you know, five years or so, especially when you think about launching a new technology. And so what we've said before is that really you're talking about something around, you know, from start to finish, you know, probably a 10-year cycle by time it really starts to contribute. You know, meaningfully to the profitability of the company. But the ramp will largely depend upon the rate at which the automotive OEMs start launching new vehicles into the marketplace. But if you think from a standing start to when does it really start delivering meaningful margin contributions to the company, I think something in the order of magnitude of, you know, five to 10 years would be a reasonable expectation.

Gotcha. And sustainability of the revenue ramp in your term?

You said the sustainability of the revenue ramp?

Yeah.

Yeah, and Andrew, one way to think about it is probably the easiest way to think about it. About two-thirds of the revenues now in e-mobility go into internal combustion cars. So this is electrical equipment going into that. And a third goes into the battery electric and hybrid cars. And so you're going to have different growth rates in those two. But right now we're in a big recovery period from the sharp down of Q2. And so you're going to see, you know, pretty good growth in both of those two categories over the next several quarters.

Gotcha. And just a follow-up question on capital allocation and M&A. I know you guys said that electrical and aerospace are a focus, but, you know, there are a couple of deals in the industry, I guess, both OSI companies that went at a very, very high multiples. How does Eaton think participating in these kind of deals? And, you know, how do you think about just M&A in the software and IoT space? Is that an option given where the multiples are? Thank you.

No, I mean, appreciate your reference to the M&A. And one of the things that we've prided ourselves on, you know, over many, many years is the fact that we try to be a very disciplined acquirer. And recognizing for sure that, you know, software companies grow faster, they trade at higher multiples. And the two deals that you referenced and understanding those businesses and seeing the multiples that they went for, we just think that there are much better ways of deploying capital and creating shareholder value than the kind of multiples that those two transactions went at. I mean, they just went in extraordinary multiples. And we just think we have better, more attractive alternatives than that that will deliver a better return for our shareholders. You know, but we will say, you know, our capital allocation strategy, you know, continues to be focused on electrical. And we are, in fact, you know, looking at a number of opportunities there. There's nothing, obviously, that is imminent. But we have, in fact, seen the deal pipeline pick up a bit. We continue to look at things in and around aerospace. And once again, as I mentioned, you know, valuations would have to come in, you know, line and be reflective of the current reality and uncertainty in that market before we would do anything. But, you know, we're obviously having some conversations and discussions in that space as well. But we always have the option of buying back stock. I mean, it's not the first choice. We would love to grow the company. But, you know, once again, if we were not able to deploy capital in a shareholder friendly way towards an acquisition, we don't have to do a deal. We're very comfortable with our ability to invest in the company organically, grow the company organically, and, you know, acquisitions, you know, are a way of accelerating a strategy, of augmenting a strategy. But the prime path for us will continue to be the things that we're doing to focus on growing the company organically.

Thank you very much, Craig. I appreciate your extensive answer. Thank you.

Our final question will be from Jeff Hammond with KeyBank. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks for putting me in, guys. Just on data center, the order rates have been, you know, really strong. And I know this is a good secular market, but there tends to be these lulls from time to time. Anything you can speak to in the quoting activity that would, you know, point to continued strength or any kind of lull into 21?

Yeah, not really, Jeff. In fact, you know, we had a very strong quarter. If you take a look at our global data center orders for the quarter, we were up some 9 percent. And what we really saw over the last number of months is a really return of hyperscale. And as we've talked about on these calls and prior earnings calls, hyperscale tends to be lumpy. These orders come, you know, and they go, and they come when they come, and they come in large increments. And so, I mean, there's really nothing that we've seen in data centers that would suggest that the market is in any way pulling back. And if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense,

you know,

especially in the context of the environment that we're living in today, where everybody's working remotely, everybody's, you know, zooming and WebExing and, you know, teaming, you know, all of these technologies that we're all using to conduct business remotely, just add more kind of accelerant to a market that is already growing quite rapidly. And as the world continues to digitize and connectivity and we're living in a 5G environment in the not too distant future, all of these things will continue to add to kind of the momentum that we're seeing in the data center market. So we think that becomes a, continues to be a very attractive market for the foreseeable future.

Okay. And then truck cycle seems to be inflecting here. Just give us a sense on how that, you know, your truck business within vehicle acts the same or different, you know, given the, you know, the JV structure.

You know, I'd say that, you know, one of the things that we try to do by putting the joint venture together is really to kind of dampen some of these, you know, big cyclical swings in the outside impact that the truck business in North America had on the overall company. And so I would, you know, what you ought to expect is that to see, you know, in the bottom of a downturn, to see a much smaller impact on the company and in the event of a big upswing, you're probably going to see a more muted impact on that side as well. But keep in mind that, you know, the JV today is basically in North America class eight, you know, automated transmissions. I mean, everything else globally, clutch business, aftermarket business, all the other elements of that business we still own. And so we do expect to see, you know, attractive, you know, growth in our vehicle business as this market returns the growth into 2021 and into the fourth quarter.

Okay, thanks a lot,

Craig. Okay,

good. Thank you all. I think we reached the end of our call and we do appreciate everybody's question. As always, Chip and I will be available to address your follow-up questions. Thank you for joining us today and have a great day.

Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude your conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.