Eaton Corp PLC

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Eaton's first quarter earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press 1 and then 0 on your touch-tone phone. You'll hear an acknowledgment tone that you've been placed in queue. You can remove yourself from queue at any time by repeating that 1-0 command. If you're on a speakerphone, we ask that you please pick up your handset before pressing the numbers. And if you should require any assistance from an operator during the call, please press star and then zero, and an operator will assist you offline. As a reminder, today's conference is being recorded, and I would now like to turn the conference over to our host, Eaton's Senior Vice President of Investor Relations, Mr. Yen Jin. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, guys. Thank you all for joining us for Eaton Fourth Quarter 2021 Earnings Call. With me today are Craig Arnold, our Chairman and CEO, and Tom Okere, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Our agenda today, including opening remarks by Craig, highlighting the company's performance in the fourth quarter. As we have done on our past calls, 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 www.eaton.com. This presentation including adjusted earning per share, adjusted free cash flow, and other non-GAAP measures. They're reconciled in the appendix. 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 result may differ materially from our forecasted projection due to a wide range of the risk and uncertainties that are described in our earnings release and presentation. With that, I will turn it over to Craig.

Thanks, Ian. Appreciate it. Hey, we'll start on page three with recent highlights. And first, I'll just say, you know, we had a terrific quarter, and we're significantly increasing our full-year guidance, as you saw. Our teams have just done an outstanding job of managing through this dynamic market environment which is reflected in our strong results. Q1 adjusted earnings per share of $1.44, or a solid 15% increase year-over-year, and 18% above the midpoint of our guidance. Our Q1 revenues of $4.7 billion, or up 0.5% organically, which was well above the high end of our guidance range, or down 3%. This outperformance was driven primarily by the two electrical segments, as well as our vehicle business. We also posted a Q1 record for segment margins of 17.7 percent. And looking at our incrementals, we generated $73 million of higher profits despite having $97 million of lower revenues. This was the result of, we'd say, strong execution, ongoing improvements in the cost structure from the multiyear restructuring program that we announced in the second quarter of 2020, as well as, you know, closely managing price and inflation in the quarter. Our cash flow was also very strong, adjusted operating cash flow increased by 42%. And our adjusted free cash flow increased by 62%. And we have another successful quarter of M&A closing free deals. We're also making good progress towards the closure of the previously announced acquisition of Cobham Mission Systems, as well as the divestiture of hydraulics. And finally, We recently announced the agreement to acquire 50% of Jiangsu, meaning electric busway business in China, an important part of our growth strategy for the Asia-Pacific region. Having been quite busy on the M&A front, we thought it would be helpful to provide a summary of these three recent deals. We covered Triplight and Cobb Emissions Systems acquisitions in some depth during the investor meetings, But each of these three deals here certainly advance our strategic growth objectives in our electrical business. First, Green Motion, based in Switzerland, expands our capabilities in the electrical charging market where we expect to see significant growth over the next decade linked to energy transition. Their proven charger designs and advanced power management capabilities and billing software are valuable additions to our existing energy storage and power distribution offerings that support our view of everything as a grid. We also closed our previously announced investment in Hanyu. Hanyu is based in China and provides a strong portfolio of products that will open up significant growth opportunities in our business throughout Asia Pacific. They make cost-effective circuit breakers and contactors, and that give us access to Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets in Asia Pacific. And finally, last week we were pleased to announce the agreement to acquire 50% of Zhengzhou Yining's electric bus lane business in China. Yining's strong bus lane capabilities in China, combined with Eaton's broad portfolio of products, will really position us well to participate in the high-growth data center, industrial and high-end commercial segments, and allowing us to pull through related electrical products. You know, the Hunyu and Yining transactions, I'd also add, significantly expand our addressable market in China and in Asia Pacific, certainly allowing us to accelerate our growth rate in the region. Moving to page five, we summarize our Q1 financial results, and I'll just note a couple of points here. First, acquisitions increased sales by 1%. but this was more than offset by the divestiture of lighting, which reduced sales by 5.5%. And you'll recall that we sold the lighting business in March of 2020. Second, segment margins of $831 million were 10% above prior year, and this is despite a 2% decline in total revenue. This was largely the result, I'd say, of solid execution, restructuring savings, and really our ability to effectively manage price and inflation during the quarter. We expect the inflation impact to worsen certainly in Q2, but we will more than fully offset this for the full year. And lastly, our adjusted earnings of $577 million, up 12%, and when combined with our lower share count, we delivered a 15% increase in our adjusted EPS. Turning to page six, You see the results for our Electrical America segment. Revenues were up 2% organically, driven by strength in data centers, residential and utility markets, which offset weakness in industrial and commercial markets. The acquisition of Triplight and PDI added 2% to revenues, while the divestiture of lighting reduced revenues by 14%. We're very pleased to also have closed the Triplight acquisition process sooner than planned and to welcome their team to the family operating margins as you can see increased sharply up 330 basis points to 20.5% a quarterly record and as you can see profits were 24 million dollars higher on significantly lower revenues. These results once again were driven by good execution cost savings and really favorable mix due to the divestiture of lighting. We're also pleased with the 11% orders growth in the quarter. This was driven by, once again, strength in data center and residential markets. Our backlog was actually up 23% versus last year, and due to ongoing strength in, once again, data center and residential markets. And we were also encouraged to see some very large orders in select commercial markets, perhaps a sign here that these markets, too, are beginning to turn positive. And while it's difficult to judge, we do think the water strength could have been due to some concern about some of the supply chain shortages that you certainly have been reading about. Next, on page seven, we show the results for our electrical global segment. We posted a 5% organic growth with 5% favorable impact from currency, largely due to the weaker dollar. Organic revenue growth was driven by strength in data centers, residential, and utility markets. You can see the pattern here. We also delivered 250 basis point increase in operating margins and posted a new Q1 record of 17%. Our incremental margins in the segment were also strong, more than 40%, and were also driven by, you know, good cost control measures, saving from actions taken from our multiyear restructuring programs. Orders grew 7% in the quarter, and like sales, the primary contributors to the growth came from data centers, residential, and utility markets. As I say, dragged down by the earlier COVID-related declines, orders declined 5% on a rolling 12-month basis. And lastly here, our backlog was up 17% versus last year, driven by the same three end markets. Moving to page eight. We summarized our hydraulic segment. Revenues increased 11%, with a strong 9% organic growth and 2% positive currency impact. Operating margins stepped up significantly to 15%, a 420 basis point improvement over last year. And our Q1 orders were also very strong, up 53%, driven primarily by strength in mobile equipment markets. As we anticipated, Danfoss did receive conditional regulatory approval from the EU to acquire the hydraulics business, which is an important step in the process, and this sale is still expected to close in the second quarter here. Turning to page nine, we have the financial results for our aerospace segment. Revenues were down 24%, including 26% organic decline driven by the continued downturn in commercial aviation. Currency, as you can see, added 2% to revenues. And as you can also see, operating margins were down 310 basis points to 18.5%, you know, down but still at very attractive levels overall. You know, our team, I give them a lot of credit. They moved quickly to flex the business and were able to really deliver better than normal decremental margins of approximately 30%. Orders were down 36% on a rolling 12-month basis, once again due to the ongoing downturn in commercial aerospace markets. However, I would add, on a sequential basis, we are starting to see some improvement, as orders were up 14% from Q4. And lastly, our previously announced acquisition of Copper Mission Systems remains on track, and we expect the transaction to close at the beginning of Q4 2021. Next, on page 10, we show the results of our vehicle segments. As you can see, revenues increased 9% and were much stronger than anticipated. The strongest growth came from global commercial vehicle markets and from the Chinese light vehicle market. Just as a point of reference here, Napa Gladys 8 production was up some 12%. Operating margins also improved significantly here to 17.3%, another quarterly record, and a 380 basis point increase with incremental margins of nearly 60%. The strong margin performance was driven certainly by increased volume and also from savings from the multi-year restructuring program that we've undertaken. And despite volumes that were still below pre-pandemic levels, this business is approaching our target segment margins of 18%, so making very strong progress in our vehicle segments. And one additional noteworking development in this segment was the introduction of the new automated transmission for the heavy-duty truck market in China for our Eaton Cummins JV. This product, I'd say, is already getting great traction and seeing strong growth in the market. Turning to page 11, we summarize our e-mobility segment. Here, revenues increased 15%, 13% organic, and 2% from currency. We experienced solid growth in global vehicle markets, which was driven here both by high and low-voltage products. Operating margins were a negative 8.4% as we continued to invest heavily in R&D. And as I've reported in the past, we continue to manage just a really robust pipeline of opportunities. Of note in Q1, we secured a multi-year agreement with a leading global automotive customer to buy our next generation brake door circuit protection technology for battery electric vehicles. This award represents $33 million in mature year revenue sales, and we hope to be awarded additional vehicle platforms using the same technology. This win, I would say, really does highlight the strength of our electrical pedigree and how we're able to leverage this strength to grow in the e-mobility markets. And on slide 12, we've updated our organic revenue guidance for the year. As you can see, we're significantly increasing our organic revenue growth for the year with strong Q1 results. We're optimistic about the remainder of 2021. Our strong order book and growing backlog persists that markets and market demand is really increasing and improving across most of our end markets. We now expect overall heat and organic growth to be up 7% to 9%, and this is up from 4% to 6% previously. And while we're experiencing some supply chain issues, we have confidence in our team's ability to manage through these temporary challenges. As you can see, we've kept our forecast for aerospace unchanged. Vehicle has increased by 600 basis points. Electrical global has increased by 400 basis points. and all other segments have increased by 300 basis points. You know, encouragingly, I'd say here about our electrical segment, we're seeing higher than expected demand across all of our markets, with the exception of utility, and that market remains in line with our original outlook, which was for mid-single-digit growth. So really strong performance in the electrical segments. Moving to page 13, we show our updated segment margin guidance for the year. where we're also significantly increasing our guidance. For Eden overall, we're increasing segment margins by 50 basis points at the midpoint with a range of 17.8% to 18.3%. And we've raised our margin guidance in each of our segments with the exception of aerospace and immobility, which are unchanged. Compared with our original guidance, we expect to deliver better incremental margins for sure on this higher volume. I'd also note that for the full year, we continue to expect net price versus inflation to be neutral. And on page 14, we have the balance of our 2021 guidance. We're raising our full year adjusted EPS by 50 cents to $5.90 to $6.30, a midpoint of $6.10. And this is a 9% increase over our prior guidance and a 24% increase over 2020. With our recent M&A activities, we now expect a net 4% headwind from acquisitions and divestitures down from our prior outlook of 8%. I say it's also worth noting here that our segment margin guidance of 18.1 to 18.5% is 190 basis point increase at the midpoint over 2020 and will be an all-time record. It's also, just as a point of reference, above our pre-pandemic margins of 17.6%, which we posted in 2019, which was also an all-time record. So we're off to a strong start, and I'd say well on our way to achieve our longer-term targets of getting to 21% segment margins. The remaining components of our full-year 2021 guidance remain unchanged. And lastly, for Q2, our guidance is as follows. We expect to be between $1.45 and $1.55 on earnings for organic revenue to be up 24 to 28% and for segment margins to come in between 17.5% and 17.9%. And if I could, just finally on page 15, I'll wrap up with a kind of a high-level summary of why we think Eaton remains an attractive long-term investment. And I'd begin with first, You know, our intelligent power management strategy really does position us to capitalize on these key circular growth trends that we've talked about, you know, for the last couple of years. Electrification, energy transition, and digitalization. And we're gaining traction here in all of these areas with a number of new wins. Our technology solutions, including our bright-layer platform, are being well-received by customers. And as a result... And we continue to expect higher than historic organic growth rates for the company. And over the next five years, we're reaffirming our view that 4% to 6% outlook looks very much in hand. Now, this accelerated growth, plus our what I call proven ability to deliver margin expansion, will allow us to deliver on average 11% to 13% EPS growth per year over the next five years. We'll also continue to deliver very strong free cash flow, which provides the optionality to invest in organic growth, to add strategic acquisitions, and to return cash to shareholders. And our commitment to ESG remains strong. We'll continue to develop sustainable solutions for our customers, for our own businesses, and certainly for the environment that we all share. So with that, I'd like to turn it back to Yen. Obviously, we're very pleased with a really strong start to the year and And looking forward to answering your questions.