Fortive Corporation

My name is Pasha, and I will be your conference facilitator this afternoon. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Fortis Corporation's second quarter 2021 earnings results conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during that time, simply press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press the pound key. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Griffin Whitney, Vice President of Investor Relations. Mr. Whitney, you may begin your conference.

Thank you, Pasha. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us on the call. With us today are Jim Liko, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Chuck McLaughlin, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. We present certain non-GAAP financial measures on today's call. Information required by SEC Regulation G relating to these non-GAAP financial measures are available on the Investors section of our website, www.4div.com, under the heading Investors Quarterly Results. We completed the separation of our prior Industrial Technologies segment through the spinoff of Von Thier Corporation on October 9, 2020, and have accordingly included the results of the Industrial Technologies segment as discontinued operations. The results presented on this call are based on continuing operations. During the presentation, we will describe certain of the more significant factors that impacted year-over-year performance. All references to period-to-period increases or decreases and financial metrics are year-over-year on a continuing operations basis. During the call, we will make certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including statements regarding events or developments that we expect or anticipate will or may occur in the future. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, and actual results might differ materially from any forward-looking statements that we make today. Information regarding these factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements is available in our SEC filings, including our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2020. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date that they are made, and we do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Jim.

Thanks, Griffin, and good afternoon, everyone. We were very pleased with our second quarter results. As you can see on slide three, our performance once again highlighted the benefits of our strategy to provide differentiated, connected workflow solutions for our customers, creating a portfolio with enhanced resilience and long-term earnings power. During the quarter, we capitalized on accelerating point-of-sale trends across a number of our larger businesses, continued growth from our software offerings, and improving conditions across our key end markets. Against this backdrop, we delivered core revenue growth and adjusted operating profit margins that exceeded the high end of our guidance, driving exceptional earnings growth and pre-cash flow conversion. As we highlighted at our investor day on May 19th, we are building on the foundation of our advantaged hardware positions and expanding our software capabilities to address our customers' critical workflow needs and accelerate their ongoing digital transformation. In the second quarter, our SaaS offerings delivered low double-digit growth and we also drove significant improvement across our professional services offerings. We continue to see strong momentum at eMate, including increasing demand from its expansion into the food and beverage, pharmaceutical, and healthcare verticals. Gordian and the current both had strong quarters as they executed on opportunities provided by increasing demand from facility owner-operators and improvements in access to customer sites. Both companies are well-positioned to capitalize as customers focused on post-COVID return-to-work challenges and digital transformation priorities. Census also performed very well in the quarter as access to hospital customers improved, executing on strong demand for its SAS offerings among existing and new independent delivery network customers. Looking across the portfolio, we continue to be excited about our expanding offering of EHS workflow solutions, which are well positioned to meet the significant long-term sustainability requirements of our customers. ISC and Intellects performed well, capitalizing on strong, broad-based growth across end markets and key geographies. At the same time, we are excited with the early progress at EHS AI, where the company closed its largest deal to date in its first joint marketing campaign with Intellects and generated strong growth in its sales pipeline. Throughout the second quarter, we continue to apply the Florida business system across the portfolio to drive innovation, growth, and share gains. Deployment of our lean portfolio management tool set which significantly accelerates the efficiency and impact of R&D investments, achieved a greater than 40% increase in our on-time program delivery. The application of FBS and digital analytics in search optimization generated 25% growth in digital traffic from pre-pandemic levels across the portfolio. Meanwhile, the use of FBS growth tools has accelerated innovation at Fluke Health Solutions over the past 18 months and continues to drive excellent top-line performance. We have created good early momentum in our partnership with Pioneer Square Labs, including the recent spin-in of TeamSense, a provider of innovative workflow solutions to streamline communications with hourly workers. This marks the first business incubated at Pioneer Square Labs to be integrated into the Ford portfolio. While still very early, we are pleased with the progress thus far at TeamSense and are excited to develop additional technologies that accelerate safety and productivity solutions for customers within our core markets. In early July, we announced the acquisition of Service Channel. The transaction brings a differentiated, high-growth software business with an integrated service provider network and significant proprietary data assets to the portfolio, enhancing our ability to meet the evolving needs of facility owners around the world. Following the expected closing of the acquisition in Q3, we will have significant balance sheet capacity supported by our strong and resilient free cash flow generation. As we highlighted at our investor day, we see substantial runway across our $40 billion surf market for disciplined capital allocation to accelerate our strategy. Turning to a quick summary of the results in the quarter on slide four, we generated year-over-year total revenue growth of 26.7% as revenue strength exceeded the high end of our guidance. Adjusted operating margin was 22.2%, while adjusted earnings per share was 66 cents, representing a year-over-year increase of 53.5%. Given the outperformance for both top line and our adjusted operating margin, we delivered $282 million of free cash flow, which represented 118% conversion of adjusted net income. On slide five, we take a closer look at the intelligent operating solution segment. IOS posted total revenue growth of 31.2% in the second quarter. This included mid-20% core growth in North America, low 30% core growth in Western Europe, and low 20% core growth in China. Fluke's core revenue increased in the mid-30% range. Fluke also grew by mid-single digits on a sequential basis as it continued to see robust demand across its businesses, highlighted by growth at Fluke Industrial. Fluke Industrial generated share gains across a range of key channel partners and retail accounts as point-of-sale accelerated through the quarter. Fluke's broader II900 acoustic imaging product line also continues to perform very well, as revenue approximately doubled in the quarter on strong growth across both Western Europe and North America. Fluke Networks also performed well, driven by the recent launch of its LinkIQ product line, which continues to exceed initial expectations tied to office reopenings and network modifications. In Fluke Reliability, our efforts to accelerate performance-approved technique are gaining traction, as we took advantage of increasing demand for alignment and other services. while E-Mate also delivered another strong quarter. With the accelerated pace of orders that flew, we did see some backlog build due to supply chain responsiveness. Industrial scientific increased by mid-teens, driven by strong execution and instruments in rental, as demand from oil and gas markets rebounded and the business continued its expansion into new end markets. The company's INET offering remained resilient, increasing by mid-single digits, with net retention solidly above 100%. IntellX grew by high single digits in Q2, reporting a record revenue quarter. IntellX continues to leverage FBS and has driven improvements in lead generation and funnel conversion. Also in the second quarter, IntellX closed multiple deals for its enhanced ESG platform to help customers launch, scale, and optimize their sustainability programs and meet increasing demand for transparency on a growing set of critical non-financial reporting metrics. Accurrent grew by mid-single digits in the second quarter with low double-digit growth in its SaaS business. Accurrent generated strong sales and bookings for its Meridian solution for engineering document management and its maintenance connection CMMS offerings. The business also capitalized on the strong demand for its EMS event, workspace, and resource scheduling offerings as companies plan and execute their return-to-work strategies. The company continues to generate new customer logo wins and improving growth in recurring bookings. Importantly, Accruant also delivered improved performance in its professional service business, which generated mid-single-digit growth as customer site access continued to improve. Gordian increased by mid-teens, driven by low 20% growth in the procurement business and high teens growth in estimating. Gordian generated a record month for procurement revenue in June, with accelerating timelines for key projects across a number of large customers. This included increased project spend, by the New York City Department of Education and School Construction Authority. Moving to slide six, precision technology segment posted a total revenue increase of 25.1% in the second quarter. This included low 20% growth in North America, mid 20% growth in Western Europe, and mid-teens growth in China. Tektronix increased by approximately 30%, with another quarter of strong demand across its product businesses, including accelerating point of sale trends in each of its major regions. Both mainstream and performance oscilloscopes had a strong quarter with high demand for semiconductor, industrial manufacturing, and communications applications. Tektronix's service business again showed its stability and resilience, increasing by low teens. Tektronix continues to benefit from the accelerated focus on driving innovation, with Q2 new product introductions performing very well, including its family of automated test solutions for high-speed data transfer. In the second quarter, Tektronix held six regional innovation forum events, which stimulated the adoption of its TechScope platform, resulting in accelerated funnel creation for the company's broader hardware and software offerings. Sensing technologies increased by low teens in the second quarter, with growth driven by continuation of the broad market recovery. Sensing performed very well in China, with another quarter of mid-teens growth driven by demand for factory automation solutions. Elsewhere, Anderson Negla continues to make progress with its approval of its paperless process recorder IoT solution aimed at the dairy industry, with broader commercial rollout expected in the second half of the year. Sensing also continues to drive market share gains elsewhere across its portfolio, particularly at Cetra, led by its differentiated critical environment solution and strong demand across its HVAC customers. Taxi EMC grew in the low 20% range, with the business seeing some alleviation of the COVID-related shutdowns and approval delays that impacted shipments in previous quarters. Pax IMC continues to see good growth in the commercial space market with the resumption of launches by OneWeb, providing recurring revenue for smart controllers and initiators. Also, on July 20th, we were excited to watch the company's mission-critical technology ensure safe and reliable separation of Blue Origin's New Shepard capsule from its booster during its maiden voyage. Moving to advanced healthcare solutions on slide seven. Total revenue increased 21.8%, including 11% core growth. This included high single-digit core growth in each of North America, Western Europe, and China markets. ASP grew by high single digits in the second quarter, led by strong growth in Western Europe and China. ASP also realized improved growth in North America, highlighted by high single-digit growth in the U.S. Overall, ASP grew its consumable revenue high teens as the rate of elective procedures across most geographies continued to improve. While elective procedure volumes increased on a year-over-year basis, Q2 volumes came in a bit lower than expected at approximately 93% of pre-COVID levels, which was consistent with the Q1 exit rate. ASP also continued to expand its global installed base of terminal sterilization capital equipment, which grew at a 3.5% annualized rate in Q2. We expect this continued installed base expansion to provide an additional tailwind to consumable revenue as procedure volumes normalize going forward. Census increased in the mid-20% range with mid-teens growth in its census track SAS offering, as well as strong growth in its professional services business. Many hospital customers are now allowing access to vendors, which resulted in a significant increase in activity in the second quarter, particularly with integrated delivery networks. Fluke Health Solutions increased by low double digits, even as it lapped a sizable COVID-related revenue tailwind in the prior year. FHF saw high teens growth from its optimized and one QA software solutions, which benefited from accelerated growth of investments over the last 18 months. With that, I'll pass it over to Chuck. We'll take you through some additional details on our margins, free cash flow, and balance sheet. Thanks, Jim, and good afternoon, everyone. We delivered solid margin performance in Q2, driven primarily by strong fall through on our revenue outperformance. Adjusted gross margins were 57.3%, up 100 basis points on a year-over-year basis. This increase reflected 130 basis points of price realization as we delivered another quarter of solid performance managing price cost across the portfolio. Q2 adjusted operating profit margin was 22.2%, 170 basis points above the high end of our guidance, also driven by stronger volume and high associated fall throws. We reported 240 basis points of core operating margin expansion, including 570 basis points of core OMX at the iOS segment. Both Fluke and Tektronix delivered strong core operating margin expansion through disciplined application of FBS to drive sales conversion as demand accelerated across their end markets. At the same time, strong contributions from some of the acquired pieces of our portfolio, including ISC, Gordian, Census, and Landauer, also contributed to the margin outperformance across the segments. On slide 8, you can see that in the second quarter, we generated $282 million of free cash flow, representing a 118% conversion of adjusted net income. Free cash flow over the trailing 12 months increased 15% to $943 million. Today, our net leverage is approximately one times, and we expect net leverage to be around 1.2 times at year-end, including the funding of the acquisition of a service channel, but excluding any additional M&A. This gives us significant capacity to continue to deploy towards our key capital allocation priorities. Turning now to the guide on slide 9. Given the strong performance in the second quarter and the improvement in our outlook for the rest of the year, we are once again raising our 2021 guidance. For the full year, we now expect adjusted diluted net earnings per share to be $2.65 to $2.75, representing a year-over-year growth of 27% to 32% on a continuing operations basis. This assumes total revenue growth of 13.5% to 15%, adjusted operating profit margins of 22.5% to 23.5%, and an effective tax rate of 14% to 14.5%. It also assumes total revenue growth of 8.5% to 11% in the second half of 2021. We continue to expect free cash flow conversion to be approximately 105% of adjusted net income for the full year. We are initiating third quarter adjusted diluted net earnings per share guidance of $0.62 to $0.66, representing year-over-year growth of 24% to 32%. This assumes total revenue growth of 11.5% to 14.5%, adjusted operating profit margin of 21.5% to 22.5%, and an effective tax rate of 14% to 14.5%. For the third quarter, we expect free cash flow conversion to be approximately 105% of adjusted net income. With that, I'll pass it back to Jim for some closing remarks. Thanks, Chuck. Before we move to questions, I want to provide a quick update on our sustainability and inclusion and diversity efforts, which is shown on slide 11. During our Investor Day program on May 19th, we introduced an accelerated greenhouse gas reduction goal. which now targets a reduction of 50% in greenhouse gas intensity for scope one and scope two emissions by 2025 relative to our 2017 base year. During the second quarter, we also issued our 2021 sustainability report, which included Florida's second annual GRI index, first annual SASB index, and the 2017 to 2020 greenhouse gas emissions profile. During the quarter, we also became a signatory to the UN Global Compact, committed to alignment with the task force on climate-related financial disclosure by 2022, and announced our 2025 aspirational inclusion and diversity goals. We continue to make significant strides and are highly committed to accelerating our sustainability and inclusion and diversity progress in the coming years. I'd also like to take the opportunity to thank our team and all of our stakeholders for your support over the first five years of our journey as an independent company. Across all three of our strategic segments, we are expanding on strong established positions with offerings that address the critical workflow needs of our customers in markets with attractive long-term growth drivers. Our strong earnings and free cash flow performance in the first half of this year clearly demonstrated the benefits of this strategic focus and the momentum building in our portfolio. As we look ahead, we will continue to invest in expanding the capabilities of the Florida business system as we accelerate operating improvements and innovations to increase the value we offer to our customers. With strong free cash flow and significant M&A capacity, we are well positioned to pursue the key organic and inorganic growth initiatives that will drive consistent double-digit earnings and free cash flow growth in the years to come. With that, I'll turn it back to Griffin.