Eaton Corp PLC

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Eaton third quarter 2021 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Later, we will conduct the question and answer session. If you wish to put yourself in the question queue, please press one then zero on your telephone keypad. If you should require assistance during the call, please press star then zero. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to our host, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations, Yen Jin. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, guys. I'm Yen Jin, Eaton Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you all for joining us for Eaton's third quarter 2021 earning call. With me today are Craig Arnold, our Chairman and CEO, and Tom Oakry, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Our agenda today includes opening remarks by Craig, highlighting the company's performance in the third quarter. As we have done on our past calls, we'll be taking questions at the end of the Craig's comments. The price release and presentation we will go through today have been posted on our website at www.eaton.com. This presentation including the adjusted earning per share, adjusted free cash flow, and other non-GAAP measures. There's a recount sale in the appendix. A webcast of this call is accessible on our website and it 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 projected future due to a wide range of risks and uncertainties that are described in our earnings release and the presentation. With that, I will turn it over to Craig.

Okay, thank you, Ian. And we'll start on page three with highlights for the quarter, and by noting that our team delivered record results in Q3, despite kind of the well-publicized supply chain challenges in this environment. We had strong execution across all of our businesses as we focused on controlling what we could control. And as you can see, we posted an all-time record for adjusted EPS of $1.75. Supply chain constraints did have an impact on our revenue, but we still posted 8% growth in the quarter. And for the third quarter in a row, we delivered record segment margins at 19.9% in Q3. It was an all-time record and an increase of 230 basis points over prior year. On top of record margins, we're also pleased with our incremental margins, which were 46% in the quarter, due to actions that we took to mitigate inflationary costs, the portfolio changes that we have undertaken, and savings from restructuring programs. We did have a bit of help from favorable mix as well in the quarter. And while revenues were lighter than expected in our Electrical America segment, we're very pleased to see the strength in orders and the growing backlog. Overall demand remains very strong. For the electrical businesses overall, orders were up 17% on a rolling 12-month basis, and our backlog was up more than 50%, another all-time record. Next, on page four, we summarize our Q3 results, and I'll note just a few points here. First, on 9% revenue growth, we increased our operating profits by 23%, which reflects strong operating leverage and benefits from our portfolio actions. Our acquisitions increased revenues by 7%, which was fully offset by the sale of hydraulics. We're naturally pleased to have replaced the hydraulic revenue with a collection of businesses that are, I'd say, higher growth, higher margin, and have more earnings consistency. And last, our margins of 19.9% were well above our guidance range of 19 to 19.4%. as our team did an outstanding job of executing despite the lower than expected revenues. Moving to page five, we have the results of our Electrical America segment. Revenues were up 9%, including 1% organic and 8% from the acquisition of Triplight. Organic sales growth was driven by strength in data centers and residential markets, partially offset by weakness in large industrial projects and sales to utilities. As I mentioned earlier, revenues were impacted by supply chain constraints. Our Electrical America segment suffered from the general supply chain constraints that we're all feeling, but was actually disproportionately impacted by a few unique suppliers who were especially impactful to this business. We're naturally addressing these and other supply challenges and expect to do better in Q4. Operating margins continue to be strong at 21.7%, and we're up 40 basis points from Q2. This is consistent with our expectations, and we're doing a good job of getting price to offset inflation. I'd say the biggest highlight in this segment is the continued growth in orders and in backlog. On a rolling 12-month basis, orders were up 17% organically, and this was an acceleration from up 13% in Q2 The strongest segments were utility and residential markets. And the backlog is up more than 50% from last year and up 9% from Q2. Both, I'd say, are encouraging signs and support our expectations that the missed shipments will simply be pushed into future quarters. Turning to page six, we summarize our electrical global segments results, which I'd say were just strong across the board. Organic growth was 18% with broad strength in really all-in markets and currency at 1%. We also posted all-time record operating margins of 20.1% and had very strong incremental margins of nearly 40%. The margin performance was driven by volume leverage, strong cost control, and savings, once again, from restructuring actions. Orders were very strong, up 17% organically on a rolling 12-month basis, with particular strength in the quarter in industrial, commercial, and institutional markets. Like our America segment, the backlog is up more than 50% and at record levels. Before we move to the industrial businesses, here's the way I'd summarize the performance of our electrical businesses. When you add the two together, they delivered solid organic growth of 8%, built a sizable backlog, which strengthens our outlook for future quarters, and they improved margins by 110 basis points. So on balance, I'd say a very strong set of quarterly results for our electrical businesses. Moving to page seven, we have the financial results of our aerospace segment. Revenues were up 38%, 4% organic and 33% from the acquisition of Cobham Mission Systems and 1% from currency. Organic growth was primarily due to higher sales in commercial markets partially offset by weakness in military markets. Operating margins were 22%, up 350 basis points from last year, and 100 basis points sequentially. This strong performance gives us confidence that as aerospace markets continue to recover, we'll meet or exceed the 24% margin targets that have been set for this segment. In the quarter, we also had strong organic incremental margins, which were driven by Favorable mix, primarily from the growth of commercial aftermarket business, and as a result, once again, from savings from the restructuring actions that we've taken. And by the way, Q3 was the first full quarter where carbon emission systems were a part of the company, and we're very pleased with the financial performance of the business, and the integration process is going very smoothly. As we look to the future, we're seeing encouraging signs of recovery in this segment, with both orders and backlog now trending positively. On a rolling 12-month basis, orders were up 4%, primarily with strength in the business just segment, and our backlog has increased by 5%. Next, on page 8, we have the results of our vehicle segment. Organic revenues increased 11%, with solid growth in North America Class A truck business and strength in South America that more than offset the weakness in North America-like vehicle markets. And as you're all well aware, light vehicle production has been severely impacted by supply chain constraints. Operating margins were 18%, and we generated very strong incremental margins of more than 50%. In addition to strong execution, we also had some favorable mix in the quarter. Specifically, in North America, the truck business benefited from strong aftermarket, where sales were up some 40%. and attractive aftermarket margins. And our North America-like vehicle motor business also benefited from favorable mix as customers prioritized programs with more of our content, more full-size pickups and SUVs and fewer small cars. So good mix, good volume growth, and savings from the multi-year restructuring program all contributed to very strong quarterly operating results here. Turning to page 9, you'll see the financial results of our e-mobility segment, where revenues increased 6% organically. Like a vehicle business, customer production levels were reduced by supply chain constraints here as well. And given the nature of the products that we sell in this segment, they were more significantly impacted by the semiconductor shortages that we've all read about. As a result, our backlog is up significantly here. Operating margins were negative 9.5%. once again due to heavy R&D investments and startup costs associated with new programs. We continue to be pleased with the progress in this business, which has won programs worth nearly $600 million of mature year revenue, and we expect to see a significant ramp up in revenues in 2023, which positions us well to achieve our long-term revenue targets of $2 to $4 billion by 2030. On page 10, we provide an update at our organic growth and operating margins for the year. With supply chain constraints in Q3 continuing into Q4, we now expect overall organic revenue growth of 9% to 11% for 2021. For electrical Americas, we expect 5% to 7% growth. You'll note the implied guidance for Q4 is actually 7% to 9%, which is a solid step up from the 1% in Q3. Organic revenues in aerospace are expected to be roughly flat, with strength in commercial markets being offset by weakness in military markets. And the other segments had some minor reductions in revenue as well, but just minor. Despite, you know, slightly low organic revenue growth outlook, we're increasing our operating margin guard guidance by 20 basis points from 18.6 to 19%. And I'd note that the but this guidance on track to generate strong incremental margins of approximately 40% for 2021 which we see naturally is outstanding performance given the current inflationary environment. Moving to page 11 we have the remaining items of our guidance for the year we expect for your just EPS between 6,059 cents to 6,069 cents. At the midpoint. This represents 35% growth over 2020. We're also delivering significant margin improvement, up 240 basis points from last year at the midpoint of our increased margin guidance. So I'm pleased that we have strong operating performance in the face of what we call historic supply chain challenges, and the businesses are doing well. Next, given more active M&A activities, we now expect share repurchase to be between $375 million and $425 million. And lastly, our Q4 guidance includes earnings between $1.68 and $1.78, organic revenue growth between 7% and 9%, and segment margins between 18.8% and 19.2%, an increase of 160 basis points at the midpoint versus prior year. So overall, once again, a strong 2021 with solid revenue growth, strong orders, and good execution, allowing us to deliver record margins. Next, on page 12, we did want to provide some preliminary assumptions for our end markets for 2022. And as you can see, we're expecting attractive growth in nearly all of our markets, with very good growth in data centers and industrial facilities in our electrical business, in our commercial aerospace business, and certainly in all vehicle markets. We'll provide more detailed color on organic revenue growth assumptions when we provide our 2022 guidance in February, but we did want to share some of our preliminary thinking here. We would also expect to see carryover benefits from pricing actions taken, which would also help our year-over-year growth next year. And lastly, on page 13, we provide just some summary thoughts here, and I'd say, first, I'm proud of the record quarter results and particularly our strong margin performance. Our team has demonstrated that we can manage through a challenging operating environment, supply chain constraints, inflationary pressures, and still improve margins and EPS. And the long-term secular growth trends of electrification, energy transition, and digitalization are playing out just as we expected or maybe even better. We also see 2021 as a transformative year for Eaton in terms of portfolio management. We're a higher growth, higher margin, and less cyclical company today. And with strong year-to-date performance, we're well on our track to deliver a very strong 2021 with double-digit organic revenue growth and 35% adjusted EPS growth. And I'd also add, you know, we have great momentum, you know, going into the Q4 and into next year. We have strong order growth. We have a full backlog. and many of our end markets are poised for recovery. And you'll recall at the beginning of the year, we set medium-term targets of 4% to 6% organic revenue growth annually, 400 to 500 basis points improvement in margins, and 11% to 13% annual growth in adjusted EPS. And so evaluating our progress about one year in, I'd say that we're running ahead of expectations. And with that summary, I'm pleased to turn it back over to Yen and to open The session up for Q&A.