Resideo Technologies, Inc.

Good afternoon. My name is Kathleen, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Residio 2024 fourth quarter and full year earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. And if you would like to withdraw your question, press the star one again. Thank you. I would like to hand the conference over to your host today, Chris Lee, Global Head of Investor Relations. You may begin your conference.

Thanks Kathleen. Good afternoon everyone. And thank you for joining us for Residio's fourth quarter and full year 2024 earnings call. On today's call will be Jay Geldmacher, Residio's Chief Executive Officer, Mike Harlett, our Chief Financial Officer, Rob Arnes, President of Residio's ADI Global Distribution Business, and Tom Saran, President of Residio's Products and Solutions Business. A copy of our earnings release and related presentation materials are available on the investor relations page of our website at .residio.com. We would like to remind you that this afternoon's presentation contains forward-looking statements. Statements other than historical facts made during this call may constitute forward-looking statements and are not guarantees of future performance or results and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements as a result of a number of factors, including those described from time to time in Residio's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. We identify the principal risks and uncertainties that affect our performance in our annual report on Form 10K and other SEC filings. With that, I will turn the call over to Jay.

Thank you, Chris, and thanks to everyone for joining us today. Let me open by saying how happy I am with how the products and solutions and ADI business segments finished 2024 strongly, delivering revenue growth, healthy gross margin expansion, and record free cash flow generation in a global macroeconomic environment that is still mixed. As a result of our team's continued excellent execution, Residio exceeded the high end of the range for all the metrics we provided in our annual financial outlook. Reported total net revenue of approximately 6.8 billion grew 8% year over year. Total adjusted EBITDA grew 17% year over year to approximately 700 million. Total cash generated from operations was 444 million, a new record, and was well above our outlook of at least 375 million. Let's now go into some of the annual highlights for each business segment. Products and solutions continue to improve as fundamentals experiencing growth in organic revenue and gross margins in 2024. The year over year annual change in organic net revenue improved approximately 300 basis points versus 2023, resulting in a positive growth rate that rounds to flat year over year. Organic growth excludes the impact of currency and the divestiture of Genesis. This was due to realize price increases across substantially all product categories offset by volume declines. Reported gross margins for 2024 expanded by 240 basis points year over year due to structural improvements that increased operational efficiency. Our commitment to new product introduction was evident in 2024 with the launch of the Focus Pro Thermostat and VISTA security products in the last two quarters. And customer reception demand for these products continues to be very positive. We are excited for these products and for a range of new products scheduled to be introduced in 2025. ADI achieved 2% organic net revenue growth year over year in 2024 after excluding the impact of currency and the acquisition of SNAP1. ADI overcame soft market conditions during the first half of the year with digital channels and product categories such as video surveillance, residential security and fire and access control showing second half strength. We acquired SNAP1 in June, 2024 and its integration into ADI continues to progress very nicely. We achieved approximately $17 million of run rate synergies in 2024, approximately 40% higher than expected. In summary, we had a strong end to 2024 and this momentum is setting us up well for continued revenue growth, gross margin expansion and durable free cash generation. Before I hand the call off to Tom, Rob and Mike to talk about the drivers of the fourth quarter, we want to comment that the global macro environment remains mixed with continued US dollar strength and the potential for changes in the tariff environment adding uncertainty to 2025. The Residio team is prepared with comprehensive planning to address potential tariff changes including detailed actions that are designed to address the potential impact. Examples include commercial actions, price increases and operational and supply chain moves. Let us now turn the call over to Tom who will provide additional details in the fourth quarter for products and solutions.

Thanks, Jay. The fourth quarter was another period of solid execution in operational progress for products and solutions highlighted by the seventh consecutive quarter of year over year gross margin expansion. Gross margin continues to expand due to structural improvements that increased operational efficiency. In the quarter, gross margin was .8% up 130 basis points year over year. Moving on to net revenue, after excluding the impact of currency and the divestiture of Genesis fourth quarter organic net revenue declined by approximately 1% year over year. Our HVAC, OEM, electrical distribution and retail channels continue to be strong. However, these results were offset by softness in the security channel. Let me walk through the puts and takes. The HVAC channel achieved both price and volume growth in the quarter buoyed in part by the successful launch and shipment of the connected and non-connected Focus Pro thermostat devices during the quarter. Inventory levels of our products within the key North American HVAC channel continue to be healthy. The OEM channel was another bright spot in the quarter, posting growth for the first time in many quarters. OEM posted a double digit growth percentage year over year led by strong EMEA demand for boiler, furnace and other products that drove increases in both price and volumes. The retail and electrical distribution channels continue to perform well in the fourth quarter. Volumes of our BRK branded safety products sold to professionals through our electrical distribution partners continue to be healthy. We saw both an uptick in the number of home builder relationships and an increase in content per new home due to the quality and trust associated with our BRK product law. Those same attributes are also associated with our First Alert and Honeywell Home brands. Retail sales were again strong, near the record high established in the third quarter. The security channel continues to experience soft market conditions. However, I am encouraged by two things in the quarter. First, security sales with a large customer were better than anticipated. And second, customer reception for the new VISTA product introduced in the quarter was very positive. This new product is the first among the full line as we upgrade the VISTA portfolio. I remain excited about our return to a regular cadence of new product introduction and the profitable growth opportunities we are targeting. I started my comments by stating that the business is making operational progress amidst an ongoing turnaround. A primary goal of Residio has been to get products and solutions healthier and in a better position for future profitable growth. We have made meaningful progress towards this goal in 2024 and believe we will soon capitalize on this momentum. We are energized about the profitable growth opportunities associated with the new products slated in 2025, the first of which was the Matter Enabled Smart Thermostat announced at the Consumer Electronics Show. As we release more new products, we look to sustain and improve upon the year over year gross margin expansion trend we have achieved. With that, let's turn the call over to Rob.

Thanks, Tom. ADI achieved 39% year over year growth in reported net revenue in the fourth quarter. Growth was driven by the inorganic contribution from the acquisition of SnapOne, broad-based organic growth across product categories and accelerating digital revenue. All of my following remarks on growth year over year represent organic business activities and do not include the impact of currency or the SnapOne acquisition unless otherwise noted. In the fourth quarter, organic net revenue growth was 9% year over year, driven by strength across nearly every product category and from large commercial customer activity. Our daily sales average in the quarter achieved another record high. From a product category perspective, we saw double digit percentage growth year over year in multiple categories with notable contributions from the video surveillance and Friar product categories, partially offset by low single digit percentage decline in the residential audio visual category. We continue to achieve healthy expansion into our strategic growth verticals, a professional audio visual and data comp. E-commerce net revenue grew 22% year over year, achieving another quarter of sequential revenue dollar growth and a new record high in daily sales average. Our ongoing strategic investment in E-commerce continues to yield positive returns. E-commerce is structurally accreted to total ADI gross margin and is becoming a bigger contributor to total gross profit dollars. Our investments also position ADI well as a leading omnichannel distributor. During the quarter, we enhanced the onsite search experience using a leading AI product discovery technology and saw an almost immediate improvement in conversion rates. We are really excited about our exclusive brands. Net revenue increased 34% year over year and we launched almost 80 new products in the quarter. We are already seeing the strategic benefit of a combined ADI and Snap1 as we offer a greater amount of more profitable products across more stores to drive higher customer engagement and cross sales opportunity. As Jay mentioned, the integration of Snap1 is going very nicely. We have achieved approximately $17 million of run rate cost energies in 2024 since welcoming Snap into Residio. As we move into year two of our integration, we are seeing early positive signs in exclusive brands cross-sell opportunities that complement some of the store consolidation activity planned for 2025. Our customer first ethos is integral to how we execute operations. It was foundational to our fourth quarter performance and is foundational to our future as we look to carry the momentum and continue driving profitable growth in our strategic focus areas, achieving further deal synergies and running an efficient organization throughout 2025. Let's now turn the call over to Mike to discuss our fourth quarter's financial results and 2025 outlook.

Thanks, Rob. Good afternoon, everyone. Let's get straight into the quarterly results, starting with revenue. Fourth quarter total company net revenue was 1.86 billion, up 21% year over year and up 5% on an organic basis, excluding the impact of currency, the Snap1 acquisition and the Genesis divestiture. Reported total company net revenue exceeded the high end of our outlook range. Both Tom and Rob spoke earlier about the drivers of that revenue and the respective businesses. Total company gross margin in the quarter was up 28.5%, up 100 basis points year over year. The increase is primarily driven by the continued operating efficiencies gained in product and solutions, partially offset by more competitive pricing in certain categories at ADI. Fourth quarter total company fully diluted adjusted earnings per share was 59 cents and gap fully diluted earnings per share was 8 cents. Adjusted earnings per share was toward the high end of our outlook range. Total company adjusted EBITDA was 187 million in the quarter, growing 26% year over year and exceeding the high end of our outlook range. The primary driver of the increase was the positive contribution from Snap1. We exceeded our annual outlook by generating 444 million of cash from operations. This was driven by better than usual working capital metrics that resulted in a more efficient cash conversion cycle as well as by the positive contribution from Snap1. Before I provide our 2025 financial outlook, let me walk you through some of our market perspectives and forecast assumptions for 2025. Let's start with our market perspectives. We have a relatively cautious market outlook as the current macroeconomic environment remains uncertain. Despite some signals that new US residential home building is back to normal levels and the outlook for US repair and remodeling has reverted to modest low single digit percentage growth, US mortgage rates remain high, the existing US home resale market is still soft and inflation remains persistent globally. Our 2025 financial outlook does not include assumptions for changes in the current tariff environment. We cannot predict what tariff change will occur. But if tariff change is implemented, then we have detailed action plans designed to substantially mitigate the impact as Jay indicated. Our 2025 financial outlook is based on December 31st, 2024 currency rates. Note that those December 31st, 2024 rates reflect US dollar strengthening against many currencies during December of 2024. We have no assumptions in our 2025 financial outlook for future currency rate fluctuations. Now, our forecast assumptions. We anticipate both business segments to achieve year over year net revenue growth in 2025. We forecast the growth rate of ADI in 2025 to be higher than products and solutions. From a linearity perspective, we expect higher revenue in the second half of 25 versus the first half in line with our historical seasonality. Two items to note on net revenue. Relating to ADI, we are updating our synergy target to now achieve at least 75 million of annual run rate synergies from the SNAP-1 acquisition exiting year three. As Rob noted, we are seeing the potential for some revenue synergies to occur earlier than anticipated. And relating to products and solutions, we communicated on the 2023 fourth quarter call that we expected 2024 North American Residential Security Hardware Sales with ADT to decline by approximately 100 million with a similar additional reduction in 2025. We saw better results than expected from ADT in 2024. And we also expect a better than previously communicated impact in 2025. ADT remains an important customer and we continue to work with them on our long-term relationship. Moving to 2025 gross margins, we forecast 100 to 150 basis points of expansion and total company gross margin versus 2024. This is supported by higher gross margins forecasted for each business segment in 2025 versus 2024. We are also investing in each of the business segments in 2025 to drive future growth. This includes the strategic growth initiatives that Rob mentioned for ADI, as well as driving speed to market and awareness for the new product introductions that Tom mentioned for products and solutions. We have a durable cashflow generation engine evidenced by our conversion of over 100% of gap net income into free cashflow in each of the last two fiscal years. In 2025, we forecast a healthy free cashflow conversion ratio, but one that will be lower than 2024 due primarily to ADI's higher capital expenditures for strategic store expansions and consolidations, as well as the implementation of a new ERP system. Considering all of these assumptions, here is our 2025 financial outlook. For the full year, we expect total company net revenue to be in the range of 7.285 to 7.485 billion. Total company adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of 725 to 805 million. Total company fully diluted earnings per share to be in the range of $2.23 to $2.47. And cash provided by operations to be in the range of 345 to 405 million. For the first quarter of 2025, we expect total company net revenue to be in the range of 1.72 to 1.77 billion. Total company adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of 150 to 170 million. Total company fully diluted earnings per share to be in the range of 27 cents to 33 cents. Our earnings presentation includes our outlook ranges, along with some modeling assumptions, which can be found on our investor relations website. So in closing, Residio is building upon the business momentum it has generated, while also investing for future profitable growth. New product introductions and accelerating synergies from the Snap-on acquisition will contribute to growing revenue, expanding gross margins, and generating durable cash from operations in 2025. Let's now open the call up for questions, operator.

At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, please press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. In the interest of giving everyone an opportunity, we appreciate that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Your first question comes from the line of Corey Carpenter of JPMorgan. Your line is now open.

Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for the question. I wanted to end in a follow-up. So to start, just hoping you can talk a bit more about the new product innovation that you've been working on that certainly seems to be a key theme. Maybe just expand a bit on what you've done so far and how it's been received, and then also what you can tell us about the product roadmap for 2025.

Yeah, hi, Corey. Good question. Okay, so let's start with what we're doing. We're revitalizing the products lines that we have in our existing markets to our existing customers in the current product categories. And we're making those investments to improve the value our customers receive. And so in terms of the products that we've released so far, we've had two that have gone to the market. And I couldn't be happier with actually how they were received. They've exceeded expectations in terms of the response we've gotten. In terms of where we're going, we're gonna continue that. We've got a number of products in our thermostat product line where we revitalized that whole line. We've got new offerings coming in the security products. We've got new offerings in our safety. So you are going to see a cadence coming up here in 2025 and thereafter. As we get past revitalizing the current product categories and current lines that we have, we'll be expanding into new product categories for the existing markets we serve. And then subsequent to that, we'll be expanding into new markets for our customers.

Does

that help?

Yeah, thank you. And then just to follow up, I wanted to ask a little bit more on tariffs. Thank you for the color on what you're assuming. And it sounds like you have a lot of contingency plans. But maybe what would be helpful is if you could just kind of go over your kind of supply chain footprint today. I know that's a loaded question, but what you can cover and kind of where you feel like and talk through some of your contingency plans. Thank you.

Any questions, Jay? Good question. In my remarks, as you know, I addressed a couple of examples, but let me first start off with, and I'm going to give a little more color on those examples. But to start off with, as you know, following us the last few years, I've been here five years now. And one of the big investments that we've made is extra investments with our customers to deepen the relationships we have, which has really paid off in a lot of different ways. But in terms of what we, as we looked at kind of a playbook to address this, we reached out to all of our customers in a very proactive way, both the products and solutions division with Tom and his team, as well as Rob of ADI Snap to contact all our major customers and say, hey, we need to sit down and talk with you right now and go through what the possibilities are to be and talk about, you know, that maybe price, what we're doing other things operationally, supply chain wise, it's offset, but price may have to go this way, depending on what happens with the tariffs. They all responded in a very positive way and saying thank you. We were like one of the few that reached out in a proactive fashion like we did and said, we fully understand and we'll work together. For the most part, that was a very positive response from most customers for both divisions. So that was good. In terms of levers, you've heard me say already about price, so that's pretty straightforward in terms of opportunities there. You know, commercial actions is quite a laundry list of things that both divisions have looked at, I mean, such as like an inventory buy-in, but there's many other things. Then operational and supply chain moves, you know, there's things that you can do in the short term and things you can do in the long term, but we have come up with, which we feel a pretty comprehensive playbook that makes, you know, who knows exactly what's gonna happen, right? But I think we have the comprehensive playbook, I think, puts us in a pretty good spot.

Great, that's helpful, thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Amit Dalyanani of Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Great, this is Michael Wanparama. Thanks for taking my question. Just curious on the ADI gross margin up 360 basis points year over year, which is pretty impressive, and I'm just wondering, you know, within that improvement, the 34% growth in exclusive brand revenue, is there any way to quantify how much that contributed to the improvement and just maybe how to think about the margin upside potential from exclusive brand going forward?

Yeah, so let me make sure, great question by the way, Michael, something I think about quite a bit. Let me first just go back to some of the question yourself. So the 34% growth that I mentioned in my remarks was growth on the ADI legacy exclusive brands product, not the comprehensive all in product with Snap. So just level set there first. But obviously, now that we have the Snap exclusive brands product, combined with our legacy ADI exclusive brands, we see a great opportunity, especially with the Snap product, to distribute and get those in the hands of our ADI's client customer base, which was significantly larger than the Snap customer base. And any opportunity we have to drive a higher mix of those exclusive brands is obviously going to be accreted to overall gross margins. So you can expect that to be a focus area for us for the foreseeable future. Does that help?

Yeah, definitely, thank you. And then, you know, also on the Snap one, it looks like, you know, synergies are coming in well ahead of the expectation, both already realized and what you're looking forward. Can you just talk about what's driving that? Like, where are you seeing maybe a bit stronger benefit than you anticipated?

Yeah, so I'll first just say, couldn't be prouder of what the team accomplished to get to that $17 million and really just six and a half months post-close. So we're really pleased with that and just how the entire integration is progressing. The majority of that I'll state, just to answer your question, is from cost. So I'll say that right up front. But the other part of your question in terms of how that's happening, I really attribute that to the manner in which we've approached the integration. You know, I think I said on the last call that we've taken a lot of time to make sure we bring the best of both of these organizations together to include in starting with our leadership teams. My leadership team is 50-50 Snap Legacy ADI, as is the next layer down and as is the next layer down. We took those steps early on post-close. That has allowed both sides of the business to really understand at an accelerated rate each other's businesses go to market and subsequently to identify those synergy opportunities faster and then allow us to act on those. So that is the primary driver behind the liver of that $17 million number in 24. And also what will continue to be the driver as Mike mentioned to deliver north of that $75 million as we exit the third year. Great, thanks for taking my question. Thanks, Michael.

Your next question comes from the line of Eric Woodring of Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.

Hello, thank you for taking my question. This is Kansi on behalf of Eric Woodring. So just a question on tariffs. Would you say that most of your competitors are facing similar issues where there's a lot of production in Mexico and then I have a follow-up?

Some of our competitors are in Mexico, some of our competitors are in other locations too. So it's a mix. And as you might guess as part of the comprehensive review that my teams have done, we've looked at all that. So it's really a mix in terms of locations of different manufacturers. I mean, as you might guess, some of our competitors are in China. So it's really a mixed bag.

And just on ADI, you mentioned record growth in your exclusive brands and e-commerce. How would you expect these strong areas of demand to translate to pricing power over time in ADI? And would you still describe the market as competitive in terms of pricing? And that's it for me, thanks.

Yeah, so maybe I'll take your second question first. The market certainly throughout the year last year became more and more competitive. I would say the height of that was really in Q4 where we saw the majority of those competitive pricing pressures. That and then the mix of our commercial, large project business presented headwinds for us in Q4. However, that said, and a great point that you bring up, two of the more margin accretive parts of the business, in fact, the most margin accretive parts of the business are from e-commerce channel, as well as exclusive brands. And the investments we are making in our omnichannel experience, bringing new products to market are all geared to try and drive the mix of those two categories higher into this year as well as next year. I think that's the single biggest thing we can do along with pricing, along with our investments in ERP that Mike mentioned, which should unlock for us greater pricing disciplines and capabilities are all gonna benefit us in the future. I'd also say that we were, I mentioned, I think last time that we had lapped all of the deflationary impacts in Q3, we did not have any of those in Q4 and we don't expect any of those going forward.

Again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. And your next question comes from the line if Ian Zafira of Oppenheimer, your line is now open.

Hey, good afternoon guys, this is Isaac Salasin, I'm Ian, thanks for taking all the questions. My question is just on ADI and SNAP-1, maybe if you could provide some details on the organic growth assumptions for ADI and some of the main drivers of growth there between video and fire, some of the strengths and weaknesses that you've seen towards the latter half of 2024 and then I have a follow-up, thanks.

Sure, Ian, thank you. What I would say, and I think I said this last time, is I remain costly optimistic about our ability to deliver growth into 2025, despite the macro environment being mixed. And I say that because as I look at our opportunity pipeline right now, especially in the commercial categories, it remains at a record level, our backlog remains very, very healthy and our project bid level is very, very strong. So that gives me a lot of confidence that we're gonna be able to see continued growth throughout 2025. And look, we're seeing nice pickups from the SNAP business, especially from Control 4 dealers, they delivered generally in line with our expectations into Q4 and we expect them to continue to do the same throughout the year, this year.

Okay, great, yeah, thanks very much. And then just on the follow-up on SNAP 1, it's very large business, I guess, contributing to growth this year. Just maybe some of your assumptions and growth drivers and sort of what you expect as far as margin accretion there, thanks.

Yeah, so I think I've mentioned this on the last question I answered. First of all, I will say that SNAP is incredible at launching new products, launching new products that continue to be accretive to our business. I mean, we launched over 400 new products last year, we're continuing to do the same thing this year. So a very strong roadmap. There are several enhancements coming in Control 4 products, including the user experience. We announced that at CDA with the X4 launch that is going to be later this quarter, early second quarter. So we think there's some real opportunity there. And then second of all, to be able to take the SNAP product line into the ADI customer base, which again is much larger than the SNAP customer base, represents a real opportunity to expand overall margins as we drive a higher mix there in complement to what's happening on the e-commerce channel as well. Okay, understood, thanks very much.

There are no further questions at this time. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.