SPX Technologies, Inc.

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q22-2023 XTS Technologies Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you need to press star 1-1 on your telephone, and you will hear an automated message advising your hand as arise. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please be advised today's conference call is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Paul Clegg, Vice President, Investor Relations Communications.

Paul, please go ahead. Thank you, operator, and good afternoon, everyone.

Thanks for joining us. With me on the call today are Gene Lowe, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Mark Carano, our Chief Financial Officer. A press release containing our second quarter 2023 results was issued today after market close. You can find the release in our earnings slide presentation as well as a link to a live webcast of this call in the investor relations section of our website at spx.com. I encourage you to review our disclosure and discussion of GAAP results in the press release and to follow along with the slide presentation during our prepared remarks. A replay of the webcast will be available on our website until August 9th. As a reminder, portions of our presentation and comments are forward-looking and subject to safe harbor provisions. Please also note the risk factors in our most recent SEC filings. Our comments today will largely focus on adjusted financial results and comparisons will be to the results of continued operations only. You can find detailed reconciliations of historical adjusted figures from their respective GAAP measures in the appendix to today's presentation. Our adjusted earnings per share exclude primarily acquisition and strategic transformation costs, non-service pension items, mark-to-market changes, amortization expense, and certain discrete tax items. Finally, we will be conducting meetings with investors over the coming months, including at the Seaport Global Virtual Conference in August and at the Jefferies Industrial Conference in New York in September. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Gene.

Thanks, Paul. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. On the call today, we'll provide you with an update on our consolidated and segment results for the second quarter. We'll also provide an update on our four-year guidance for 2023. Our Q2 results were outstanding. This performance was driven by overall demand strength across our end markets and strong execution, particularly in our HVAC segments. Considering our strong year-to-date performance and outlook, we are raising our full year 2023 guidance for adjusted EPS to a range of $4.15 to $4.30, reflecting year-over-year growth at the midpoint of approximately 36%. Our success this quarter is, in part, the result of hard work on our value creation initiatives, which have driven durable improvements resulting in a new level of margin performance in our HVAC segment. As we look ahead, we see significant opportunities to continue executing on these initiatives to drive further value for shareholders. Turning to our high-level results. For the quarter, we grew revenue by approximately 15% organically, with strong contributions from both HVAC and detection and measurements. Adjusted operating income grew 64% year-on-year with 450 basis points of margin expansion, reflecting primarily the strong performance of our HVAC segment. I'm very pleased with our Q2 and year-to-date performance and our positioning for the remainder of 2023. With a strong backlog, overall solid order trends, and excellent operational performance, I feel confident in our ability to achieve our updated guidance and to continue progressing towards our SPX 2025 target of $5 per share of adjusted EPS. As always, I'd like to update you on our progress in our value creation framework. During Q2, we continued to make progress on several key initiatives. In our new product initiatives, our SPX cooling business introduced a water saving and optimization system called Marley WaterGuard, which can significantly reduce water usage in our evaporative cooling products. In digital, we continue to expand customer adaption of our Q's AI-enabled GraniteNet software, which helps drive significant efficiencies for customers when inspecting and assessing the condition of water and wastewater assets. In continuous improvement, our cooling facility in Olathe, Kansas, is seeing benefits from the optimization of our plant layout and investments in automation to reach new levels of operating margin performance. The changes we have been making are driving durable improvements in our ability to supply more of our customers' needs with greater efficiency by providing higher returns for our shareholders. I'm very pleased with the hard work of our team across the company and see numerous opportunities to continue our progress. And now, I'll turn the call over to Mark to review our financial results and guidance.

Thanks, Gene. It was another very strong quarter for SPX Technologies. In Q2, our adjusted EPS grew 49% year-on-year to $1.06. The adjustment from GAAP results covered earlier by Paul are consistent with our historical practice. Total company revenues increased 19.6% year-on-year, including 14.6% organic growth, with similar increases in both our HVAC and detection and measurement segments. Acquisitions contributed 5.3% growth, and FX was a modest headwind. Segment income grew by $28.3 million, or 50%, to $84.4 million, while margin increased 410 basis points, driven by a strong operational performance in HVAC. Price costs remained a margin tailwind. For the quarter in our HVAC segment, revenues grew 23% year on year. On an organic basis, revenue grew 15%, driven by cooling, while heating's organic revenue was roughly flat. Acquisitions contributed growth of 8.6%, which included a full quarter of TAMCO in our cooling platform and one month of Aspect in our heating platform. FX was a modest headwind. Segment income increased by $26.9 million, and segment margin increased 760 basis points. The year-on-year increase in HVAC segment income and margin has a number of drivers. In our cooling business, we continue to achieve strong plant throughput facilitated by our investments in plant automation and continuous improvement. This favorable operational execution was aided by a high level of backlog and more stable labor and supply chain conditions. By comparison, in the prior year quarter, cooling experienced headwinds related to supply chain, labor, and price costs. that drove lower than typical margins. For heating, segment income margin improved notably year on year, due primarily to favorable price cost and channel mix. In addition, our TAMCO and ASPEC acquisitions were both accretive to HVAC segment margin. Bookings remained strong. Despite record Q2 sales, HVAC segment backlog ended the quarter at $337 million, including $31 million from acquisitions. On an organic basis, backlog was up 13% sequentially. For the quarter, in our detection and measurement segment, revenues grew 14% year-on-year, with organic growth across all our platforms. Strong project revenues from ComTech, Transportation, and ATON were key drivers. Segment income increased by $1.4 million, while margin declined 160 basis points due to less favorable sales mix. As we have noted previously, our 2023 detection and measurement revenue includes certain project sales in our ComTech platform that contain pass-through content, resulting in a lower than typical incremental margin. In addition, in Q2, we began to experience a one-off supply chain disruptions. that is constraining sales of a limited number of locator products. We have implemented a solution to address this issue, and we are confident in the normalization of production during the second half. Segment backlog at quarter end was $234 million, down 4% sequentially due to the timing of project deliveries. Overall, we continue to experience a strong environment for project sales. Turning now to our financial position at the end of the quarter. We ended the quarter with cash of $95 million and total debt of $676 million. Our balance sheet reflects the completion of two acquisitions during the quarter. While we deployed more than $500 million in Q2 to acquire TAMCO and Aspect, our net leverage remains at a modest level of 1.8 times, or below the midpoint of our target range of 1.5 to 2.5 times. At this point, we anticipate a further decline in leverage to approximately 1.5 times or lower by year end, as we typically generate the majority of our cash flow in the second half of the year, positioning us to continue investing for growth. Moving on to our guidance. We are increasing our 2023 guidance for adjusted EPS to a range of $4.15 to $4.30. The new midpoint reflects year-on-year growth of approximately 36%. In our HVAC segment, we anticipate revenue growth of approximately 24% at the midpoint. We are raising guidance for the HVAC segment income margin to approximately 20% compared with a prior range of 18 to 19%. This represents a year-on-year margin increase for HVAC of more than 500 basis points. The anticipated strong revenue and margin performance in HVAC reflects a combination of continued solid demand trends, high backlog, strong operational execution at the plant level, and the benefit of easing labor and supply chain conditions. In our detection and measurement segment, we anticipate revenue in a range of $590 million to $605 million, or a year-on-year increase of approximately 9% at the midpoint. Due to the supply chain constraint mentioned earlier, we now anticipate a less favorable margin mix, resulting in segment income margin of approximately 20%, compared with our prior range of 20.5% to 21.5%. With respect to the cadence of second-half guidance, we would expect segment income to rise sequentially in both Q3 and Q4. However, we would expect adjusted EPS to be sequentially lower in Q3 than in Q2, primarily due to higher interest costs associated with acquisitions and the timing of certain corporate expense items. As is typical, we expect Q4 to be the highest adjusted EPS quarter of the year. As always, you'll find modeling considerations in the appendix to our presentation. I'll now turn the call back over to Gene for a review of our end markets and his closing comments.

Thanks, Mark. Current market conditions remain supportive of our outlook. Across our HVAC segment supply chain and labor have been more stable overall which is helping us to improve plant level efficiency and throughput. In HVAC cooling, we continue to see growing demand for our products in North America and the APAC region. In our heating business, bookings remain steady overall, driven by commercial and industrial demand and residential replacements. In detection and measurement, our run rate demand is steady overall, with some regional variations, while the environment for project orders remains strong. In summary, I'm pleased with our strong results for the quarter and performance year to date. Our focused execution on our key value creation initiatives has helped drive durable gains in our margins and growth profile. Looking forward, I see significant opportunity for further improvements as we execute on our roadmap. We also remain well positioned to continue investing for growth given our solid balance sheet strong cash generation, and active M&A pipeline. With a strong backlog position and good operational momentum, I feel confident in our updated four-year guidance, which reflects approximately 36% year-on-year growth at the midpoint. And with that, I'll turn the call back to Paul.

Thanks, Gene. Operator, we are ready to go to questions.

Thank you. We will now conduct our question and answer session. As a reminder, please, to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 1 again. Please stand by while we compile the roster. Our first question comes from Brian Blair from Oppenheimer.

Thank you. Another great quarter, yes. Thanks, Brian.

Thanks, Brian. Thank you.

I was hoping you'd offer a little more detail on the continued step up in HVAC guidance. We know the high-level drivers, but curious if you could parse out whether expectations for ASPEC, which per your deal call coming in $75 million or so in sales contribution, high 20s margin, whether that has increased again now that the asset is in your portfolio. or if the incremental lift is on the side of legacy operations or TAMCO or some combination thereof.

Yeah, Brian, I'll run through that. And let's step back at a high level and look at our segment income margins at the SPX level first, because we've been applying our business system across the enterprise, and we think it's made a positive impact. If you just step back 2020-2021, our segment income margins were 15.4. 2021, they were 16.4. Last year, we had a lot of challenges with supply chain, labor, PPV. They were 17.1. We thought that 17.1 was a little bit lower than what it should have been. And where we sit today is 20% at segment income margin. So steady increase basically 460 basis points in three years. So what that says to me is I do believe in our business system. I think it's working, and I do believe our strategy is sound. So if we drill down into HVAC specifically, the way I think about the business is historically we've thought about that as a 15%, 16% business. Last year, as we talked about, we had a lot of headwinds. And last year we ended up at around 14.8%, right under 15%. But again, we think a lot of the improvements that we had made in lean, in the plant layout, some of the investments in automation equipment was masked by some of these headwinds. So if you look at where 2022 ended to where we are in 2023, a couple things have driven improvement. One is operating leverage. We're having growth. The second is the investments that I've talked about. The investments in automation, productivity, and lean are really making an impact and are very, very positive for that business, very sustainable. The third would just be the reduction of some of the issues we had last year, labor, supply chain, some of those types of items. And then we did add accretive acquisitions, ASPEC and TMCO, which we're very pleased about. We think those have structurally brought up our segment income targets, probably 100 basis points. So when we looked at it before, we thought 15% to 16% was the right target. Where we sit today, we think 18% to 20% is a very sustainable target for us going forward, the volumes that we see. So we think we've significantly structurally improved the HVAC business, and we feel good about that. So that would be how I break that down.

That's very helpful, Keller. Thank you. 20% for this year, that'll be the high end of normalized ranges, at least for the time being. Should we see that continue to expand going forward? As the platforms that comprise HVAC continue to scale, fine-tuning continues, I suspect that you'll have further accretive deal flow over time. Just curious, any incremental call you can offer there?

Yeah, and I think one of the things, some of the things that I think were a little bit of a headwind last year with PPV being negative, we saw some positives this year and are in our numbers this year. So, you know, when you look at, you know, the obvious question I think you're trying to get to is what's the right jumping off point? You know, there could be up to 100 basis points of those more one-off types items in this year's results. But we feel very good that we have structurally improved the margins of this segment, several hundred basis points. Mark, anything you'd like to add here?

Yeah, I think to add on to Gene's comments, I mean, from a from a kind of a price-cost perspective, because that often comes up, we do believe we're in a more stable or normalized environment, and we believe that's going to be the case going forward. So as you look ahead, really, one of the key drivers in both sustaining and maybe improving those margins is going to be around some of the capital that we're investing in the plant footprint. We're in the early stages of that. We'll continue to do that. You'll see it in our you know, our CapEx comments that we've made for the year. And that's really going to, you know, should make a meaningful difference, you know, in the efficiency that you see in those plants, whether that's reducing labor required or just driving increased throughput.

Again, very helpful. And the evidence of structural improvement is, you know, obviously there already. Switching to D&M, was D&M I guess you called out two factors in terms of some margin compression in the quarter and near-term headwinds. Could you quantify the impact of negative mix from the ComTech pass-through relative to the supply chain constraints in locators and how much both are affecting the relative moderation It seems like some conservatism now being baked into the back half outlook.

Yeah, Brian, what I would say on that is really a combination of both. It probably more heavily weighted to this kind of isolated supply chain issue that we called out with respect to the locator product line. But it was really a combination of both. I mean, the supply chain issue is temporary in nature. I think we refer to it as one-off. You know, that is not something that we expect to recur. And, you know, the project mix is a dynamic that has benefited us from an up-income standpoint this year, obviously, but those projects, as we have called out in the past, are at slightly lower margins than the historical D&M business margins.

Yeah, understood. I'll leave it there. Next question. This one?

And our next question comes from Lawrence DeMaria from William Blair. Hey, thanks.

Larry here. Good afternoon, everybody. Hey, a few questions here. First, it seems to me you have more pricing power maybe than we thought in HVAC where you have credit for in the last few years. Do you think you still have a fair amount of room to go on price, positive price in HVAC over the next coming years, or is that more inflationary? And with the 24% growth, I think you're looking at, how does that break down in price and volume?

Well, why don't I start on pricing power? I think, you know, we've always said, if you look at our portfolio of businesses, we do believe we have pricing power in our HVAC and our detection and measurement. The businesses that we did not feel we had pricing power, we divested, you know, really the transformer business, some of the old, you know, legacy businesses. You know, having said that, you know, we are in competitive markets and, you know, where we sit today we think is a balanced position. We don't think our prices, you know, are too high and coming down. We think we're aligned with our value proposition.

On the, I'll answer on the price volume question. So for the quarter, if you look at SPX in total, It was fairly balanced between volume and price, a little more heavily weighted in terms of price. And that's with D&M being more volume weighted and HVAC being more price weighted. If you look at the full year and you look at our organic growth implied in our guidance for the full year, it's probably going to be something more like 60, 40 price volumes. And that's with us getting more price on the front half of this year in comparison to the prior year, where price is still a little bit weaker. And as you get into the later quarters, it's a little bit tighter in terms of the comparisons.

Okay, thanks very much for that. I want to ask about boilers. Some companies are seeing weakness in boilers. It doesn't seem to be the case for you guys. So what are you guys seeing and any kind of clues on why there's a divergence in the market and why you guys are not maybe seeing the weakness that others are seeing?

Yeah, I mean, I think we have a very strong position in boilers, hydropics, you know, our trade land, very strong. You know, I think that what we have seen is over the past year or two, there's been tremendous demand, tremendous backlog and working through that backlog. What we see today is a pretty balanced position. And this is one of the few areas, you know, most of our products are engineered to order. you know, so we go have less where we go through channels. Here is where we do have a channel for our resi boilers. And we do have pretty good information about whether they're balanced or they're overstocked, understocked. And what we see today is it's pretty balanced. You know, the other portion of that's kind of on the resi side. The non-resi side, it's been healthy. And I do believe our NPI initiatives have been taking share. We talked about our share gains last year. We rolled out the Ecotech, which was very successful, one product of the year last year on the residential side. On the non-resi or commercial side, our Patterson Kelly business has expanded their footprint, their tonnage, and we believe we're taking some share there as well. So What I would say is when I look at the boiler business, the hydronic business, it feels like we're back to normal. We're not sitting like in our cooling business where we have a mountain of backlog, but it's like a normal business where you're kind of booking and shipping. And as you look towards Q4 and Q1, you know, the weather will have a determining factor on that market size as it usually does for the residential portion of that market. So yeah, we actually feel comfortable with what we're seeing on the boiler side.

That's a good color. Thank you. If I could just sneak one more in and then I'll hang up there. We're passing on. Obviously, there's some weakness in the industrial world out there that some are seeing. It tends to be more around big, more capital-intensive stuff, I suppose, and big projects and orders. How do orders trend through the quarter? Anything troubling? Any signs of weakness or just any colors we can get more comfortable around some of the industrial economy that's out there that you guys don't seem to be seeing the weakness yet, but others are?

yeah you know larry overall we're feeling good i i would say i'll break it down you know across the segments on the hvac side the cooling business is strong and we're seeing we are seeing a lot of projects there where our solutions are very well suited we're also seeing some reshoring activity uh going on but you know some particular areas of strength there would be semiconductor data centers batteries You know, if I look at our EAM business, our engineered air movement, that's healthy. That tends to be generally a diversified industrial. One of the businesses is pretty heavy in medical, institutional, pharma. They have a substantial amount of backlog, I believe, going all the way into next year. On the heating business, we talked about boilers. Actually, the electric heating business, which probably has some of the best mega trends in our business has been booking very solidly. And then if I switch to the DNM side, if I break it down, we've talked about our projects. Our projects are very strong this year, but they're also strong looking into next year, particularly transportation, ComTech, ATON, and our run rate's steady. I would say on the infrastructure bill, We're seeing limited visibility. We see it hitting a transportation business, but not too much elsewhere. Mark, anything you'd like to add? You want a little more color on the numbers and data?

Yeah, I think, I mean, Larry, when you look at sequential growth of orders, you know, quarter over quarter, they've been strong, you know, as Gene alluded to, very strong in the HVAC segment, but really across the entire platform, we're seeing positive order growth. on a total company basis, I put it kind of in the high-seconds.

Fantastic. Thank you very, very much for the call, and good luck.

Thanks.

Our next question comes from Steve Feranzani from Sedati.

Evening, Gene, Mark. Just wanted to follow up briefly on the last question, which is, Typically, Gene, you've said in a slowing economic environment or recessionary environment, the one place, particularly in DNM, you might feel it is locators. But it sounds like your only locator issue right now is supply chain. Is that accurate? And are you seeing any kind of demand change on locators?

No, I'd say what we're seeing on locators is it's steady. I wouldn't say it's growing rapidly. We're actually feeling optimistic about the back half of the year, some recent wins that we've had. But no, I don't see anything. I think it's a good question because locators can be the canary in the coal mine because obviously so much economic activity goes through there, whether you're laying fiber, whether you're putting gas lines or the building new houses or buildings or refurbing. So it touches a lot, but it's, it's been holding steady, but I would say flattish, I would say, uh, not, not high this year. Mark, anything you'd like to add?

Yeah, I think, I think that's right. I mean, you know, it is, it is one of our more global businesses though, and we haven't really seen any weakness around the world and all the markets, uh, that they participate in. So, um,

Okay. When you're guiding for leverage and you noted stronger cash flow in the second half, but just when I run through the numbers, your expectation is not to start paying down debt anytime soon. Is that accurate or not?

No, Steve. We are using free cash flow that we generate throughout the year to pay down debt that we have outstanding. All our debt is prepayable. It's all bank debt, so we will continue to use free cash flow to drive down leverage. So you'll see leverage come down both from the repayment of debt and, of course, from the denominator perspective, an increase in EBITDA. So you've kind of got both elements working.

Okay. When I think about that, to pay down debt now, does that – provide us any kind of clue on what the pipeline's looking like? Because you wouldn't necessarily rush to pay down debt if you're going to be in the market for acquisitions in the near term. Is there any read through on that?

No, I wouldn't read through anything on that. You know, I think the best use of our capital right now is to pay down debt. But, you know, I think of it through the context of our leverage capacity and our ability to support a transaction in the market. So we've got access to plenty of capital when the right transaction, including revolver. Exactly.

Which is 500 million.

Exactly. Yeah. So we've got, from a liquidity standpoint, we have a revolver that's, you know, 500 million in size.

When we think about your 2025 target, which now, you know, maybe a couple of years ago seemed like far away. Now it seems when we're getting closer, but on EPS, you're getting a lot closer even this year. Do you, to get to the $5 plus, are you assuming you need additional acquisitions, or can you get there with what you have?

Yeah, I mean, and Steve, this is Paul. So, I think at this point, we're clearly above on a couple of different metrics here, and we're looking at options to update or replace this construct. Our current thinking is that that's going to make the most sense to do that in the context of 2024 guidance. In February, I guess what I would say is, you know, we typically have talked about, you know, a model where we grow at around mid single digits in the top line and organically kind of double that at the bottom line. And then then you have maybe another eight or 10% associated with acquisitions if we do that. So, you know, I think what I what I think we're saying is that we we feel like we're within striking distance of that one way or the other.

Perfect. Thanks. I think about the corporate expense guidance you have in the appendix. It seems like it would indicate corporate expense lower in the second half versus first half, but in your third quarter guidance, you indicated 3Q may be up. Can you just give us a sense of trending on corporate expense, particularly given you clearly had some integration costs in the first half, particularly with a very large deal with Aspect?

Sure. So on an adjusted basis, Steve, our corporate expense in the first half of the year, and here I'm just talking about the corporate expense line without the stock-based comp, was $13.5 million. That's with $13 million in the first quarter and $11.5 million in the second quarter. So actually in the second half, we're expecting it to be up a little bit. It was a little bit of a signing rub between 2Q and 3Q. Q3, where some of the costs that we were originally anticipating going into 2Q will actually go into Q3. So that'll be a little bit higher. And then typically 4Q is our highest.

Yep. Okay. Perfect. Great.

Thanks, everybody. No problem. Thanks. Our next question comes from Walter Liptak from Seaport Global.

Hey, thanks, and congratulations from me, too. And the 2025, $5, that did seem like it was a far way away. And, you know, so congratulations on making all the progress. Thanks. I wanted, you know, a lot of the questions, a lot of stuff's already been covered. But I wanted to ask about, you know, one thing with the locator saying not to beat a dead horse, but... You know, with the supply constraints, was there a push into the third quarter from the second on sales? I wonder if you could size that up for us.

Yeah, well, so that supply chain issue, you know, it's largely been resolved at this point, but we will ship that product that was impacted by it, you know, in the back half of this year, and some of it will obviously go into next year as well. So, It's sliding into, part of it will be sliding into 24.

Okay, and you were able to maintain it, just push it out. There wasn't any lost share or anything like that, I guess.

Not related to that. It was just purely a timing issue.

Okay, great. And then in DNM, you talk about project orders. I usually think of that as transportation. I wonder if you just, you know, maybe provide a few more details. Is that infrastructure related? Is this, you know, big city projects that are in the funnel?

Yeah, you know, when we talk about projects, the two areas that are the most prevalent, one is transportation, which we have just seen very healthy demand for this year, but also Looking ahead over the next couple of years, I would say that's the one area in our business that we do believe the infrastructure bill has made a change in behavior. We are seeing just a lot more activity there, so I'd say that's real positive. The other projects that we typically see is in our ComTech business, and those have been steady. We've had a lot of wins in 22, 23. Looking into 24, we feel very good. So, yeah, overall, the project volume, you know, I would say these two or three years have been among the strongest that I've seen in eight years. And I do think we've expanded our portfolio of what we're offering, and it's just nice to see.

Okay, great. Okay, thanks much. Thanks, Will.

Our next question comes from Damon Kores from UBS.

Hey, good evening, Gene, Mark, Paul. Hey, Damian. Hey, Dan. Who would have thought in just a few quarters you'd take us from basically needing 150 basis points of margin expansion after this year to get to those 2025 goals to being there today. So very well played.

Thank you.

Appreciate it. Yeah, yeah. So, Gene, I'm curious, I mean, Do you think with the backlog that you've got today, plus the continued demand strength you're seeing, would you say that, you know, it's lining up such that you've already got visibility into organic sales growth again in 2024?

Yeah, what I would say is, you know, we feel good about what we're seeing. And, you know, it's probably premature to give 24 guidance, but What I would say, and as, you know, Mark alluded to, our orders, our backlogs, our projects, you know, you look at, you know, really HVAC cooling is the big portion of HVAC, you know, had a great quarter, a great shipping quarter too, and backlogs went up again. I mean, and there's even more opportunities. So what I would say is on the cooling side, we feel good about the opportunity over the next couple of years. It really, we feel like there's a very attractive opportunity there. And on the heating side, I think we're back to more normal on the hydronics and the boilers. And then on electric heat, I would expect growth there, you know, due to all the growth drivers that are out there that are very attractive. And then what I would say on the DNM, we have like we've talked about over the past couple of quarters, projects have been strong. We still see that holding strong, and we'll keep our eye on the run rate. If there were to be a recession, the first place we would see it would be in the run rate in our DNM, in particular, as we talked about, radio detection. So we're not seeing that now, but where I sit today, I feel... I like what I'm seeing in the end markets as we go into 2024. Good to hear.

Thanks for that, Culler. And I'm curious how we should be thinking about the seasonal shaping for the HVAC business going forward. Historically, you know, the fourth quarter was always a strong margin quarter. I think kind of due to the boiler seasonality. But has cooling more or less, you know, kind of, Is it at parity with heating at this point? And just with some of the new acquisitions, what's that seasonality look like for HVAC?

Yeah, I think, Damian, we'll still be somewhat more seasonal towards the fourth quarter because we'll continue to have that impact of the heating demand in the fourth quarter. So, for example, when we look at the shaping of the quarters for this year, we would still expect fourth quarter to be the largest quarter. um it it but you do bring up a good point that your your blend is a little bit different and i think you you guys have all seen you know the the rough numbers on um the acquisitions uh aspect was about a you know on a run rate basis around 120 million dollars if you kind of run rated that or or distributed it evenly across quarters it's probably not wrong at this point and uh tamco is more than $50 million annual. And I think for the moment, doing the same thing there would probably make sense. So you're going to have puts and takes there with respect to the margin performance of those businesses quarter to quarter, but I think you're still looking at a seasonally stronger 4.2 in any case. And cooling's typically highest in Q4 as well.

That's when a lot of work gets scheduled.

Okay, great. And then maybe if I could just ask you about... you know, your acquisitions this year? How is the deal integration gone? You know, have you learned anything new that you didn't necessarily know kind of going into those deals? And how have the businesses been performing thus far in the current environment?

Yeah, Damon, I would say it's early. But what I would say, both are on track to their deal models. You know, the TAMPCO one is, is I would say an easier integration in the sense that that's being plugged right into our engineered air movement. We have, it feels like that's already integrated and there's really a lot of progress being made there. Whereas the aspect, as we've talked about, we're taking two electric heat businesses, two great businesses, and we're really putting those together. And that's a little bit more complicated, takes some time. But what I would say is nothing's changed in our view. We're actually very, very positive about both of them. And frankly, if you think about the M&A side of where the opportunities sit, we really like the continued opportunities to continue to build out our electric heat business, which has now become quite scale, very large, very impactful for us, as well as our engineered air movement, which also has become very impactful for us. So So, yeah, I think early days, the results are positive, but still a lot of work ahead of us and a lot of wood to chop.

Understood. Thanks a lot, guys. Best of luck.

Thanks.

I'm showing no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the conference back to Paul Clyde for closing remarks.

Thank you all for joining us on the call today. We look forward to updating you over the next quarter. on investor visits and at conferences. Take care.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating in Manau Disconnect.