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spk07: Greetings and welcome to the TARIC second quarter 2024 results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, John Patterson, Vice President and Treasurer. Please go ahead.
spk11: Good morning and welcome to the Terex second quarter 2024 earnings conference call. A copy of the press release and presentation slides are posted on our investor relations website at investors.terex.com. In addition, the replay and slide presentation will be available on our website. We are joined by Simon Meester, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Julie Beck, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Their prepared remarks will be followed by Q&A. Please turn to slide two of the presentations, which reflects our safe harbor statement. Today's conference call contains forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks that could cause actual results to be materially different from those expressed or implied. These risks are described in greater detail in the earnings materials and in our reports filed with the FCC. In addition, we will be discussing non-GAAP financial information, which is useful in evaluating the company's operating performance. Reconciliations for these non-GAAP measures can be found in the conference call materials. Please turn to slide three, and I'll turn it over to Simon.
spk10: Thanks, John, and good morning. I would like to welcome everyone to our earnings call and appreciate your interest in Terex. I first want to thank and recognize the Terex team for their extraordinary commitment and dedication to our customers, our company, and our people. We closed another strong quarter, and I continue to be impressed by our team members and their passion to do what's best for our stakeholders while keeping each other safe and healthy at the same time. Please turn to slide four. Over the past five years, we transformed Terex into a strong, diversified, agile company with significantly improved financial performance. We're posting another strong quarter, generating revenue of $1.4 billion and delivering adjusted earnings per share of $2.16. And we're on track to deliver a full-year adjusted EPS in the range of $7.15 to $7.45. I am proud of our global team that continues to perform at a high level, achieving our near-term objectives and implementing our long-term strategy of execute, innovate, and grow to make Terex an even stronger company in the future. Turning to slide five, we're seeing a mixed set of global economic variables playing out on what we believe is still a very solid long-term macro backdrop for Terex. We like the resiliency of the US economy. GDP continues to outperform expectations and inflation continues to recede, including a monthly decline in June. Construction spending remains high, and certain regional and local soft spots are more than offset by the ramp up of mega projects. Our U.S. rental customers are highly disciplined capital managers, and as the operating environment normalizes, we are seeing them return to more customary ordering patterns. In MP, many of our dealers are rebalancing their inventory as more of their customers are renting machines while the interest rate outlook remains uncertain and more predictable and shorter lead times are allowing more precise inventory management. Overall, we expect demand in the US market to remain robust. The European economic situation is less clear with conflicting indications. That said, I like our market position across the EU which was further enhanced by the recent anti-dumping decision. We expect to outperform the market as the macro situation unfolds. We also remain encouraged to see emerging markets such as India, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America increasingly adopt our products. Please turn to slide six. We believe Terex is poised for consistent, sustainable growth, long-term opportunities driven by megatrends, and continue to be bullish on our long-term outlook. This is being driven by strong market dynamics in the U.S., such as onshoring, technology advancements, and federal investments, including the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, CHIPS Act, and Inflation Reduction Act. This legislative environment is driving record levels of megaprojects and data centers, EV and battery manufacturing plants, semiconductor plants, and others, with more projects expected to come online from 2025 to 2027. We anticipate increased activity from infrastructure investments from roads and bridges to airports, railways, and the power grid. We expect to continue driving growth on top of our current baseline through innovation while continuing to optimize our business operations. Please turn to slide seven. Our execute, innovate, and grow strategy underpins our strong financial performance and positions as well for accelerated growth. We have a very strong portfolio of businesses, businesses that are leaders in their respective markets. My predecessor did a great job leading our effort to clean up the portfolio, so we are in a strong position when you look at the fundamental makeup of Terex. Now, later on, the work that we have done in the execute pillar of our strategy focused around implementing our Terex operating system, principles like ensuring alignment of manufacturing and sales plans and reducing fixed costs, helped make our financial performance more consistent and predictable. I'm proud to say that we're on track to deliver more than $7 of earnings per share and more than $300 million in free cash flow for a second year in a row. When it comes to innovation, we think about it in two broad ways. First, how do we leverage technology externally to deliver more value to our customers? Over 20% of our sales are related to products that we have introduced in the past three years. This is something of which we are particularly proud. We have a very exciting new product development pipeline that will continue to bring new products to market that increases our customers' ROI. When our customers are more successful using our equipment, we will be more successful. Second, we're leveraging technology internally, making investments in robotics, automation, digitizing work streams to make us more efficient and more flexible. our roadmap to continuously make us more competitive and more resilient, regardless of market dynamics. And last but not least, growth. Over the past several years, under the leadership of its president, Keir Hagerty, MP has grown at a double-digit CAGR and is now a $2 billion business with consistent, strong financial performance. AWP is on track to generate about $3.2 billion in revenue this year, both businesses are now posting strong operating margins. And when looking at the market fundamentals, are well positioned for long-term growth. Then, when you layer on the recently announced agreement to purchase Environmental Solutions Group, or ESG, which further diversifies our portfolio and is accretive to our performance, we're truly transforming and growing the company. Please turn to slide eight. Pictured here is Terex's first fully electric minerals processing multi-plant operation. Our customer, a leader in sustainable building materials, road construction, and building products, was looking for a solution that met its output requirements and was eco-conscious. Our design dramatically reduced emissions and diesel consumption while improving output material shape and throughput rates. A great example of the Terex value proposition, where we add tangible value in real-world applications. Slide 9. The recently announced agreement to purchase ESG, the largest in Terex's history, accelerates long-term shareholder value growth. This acquisition checks all of our boxes. It adds a non-cyclical, financially accretive, and market-leading business to the Terex portfolio with tangible synergies in the fast-growing waste and recycling market. We're very excited about the transaction and feel privileged to soon welcome the ESG team to the Terex family. They have truly built a remarkable business. And with that, let me turn it over to Julie.
spk04: Thanks, Simon, and good morning, everyone. Let's look at our second quarter financial performance on slide 10. Before I dive into our results, I'd like to remind everyone that the second quarter of 2023 was a historically strong quarter, primarily due to sales growth and operational efficiencies executed this time last year. Our net sales were approximately $1.4 billion, a slight decrease of 1.5% year over year, with strength in North America offset by declines in the rest of the world. We experienced strength in our AWP segment, with rental activity and equipment replacement product cycles remaining strong. AWP net sales were up nearly 7% year-over-year and 14% sequentially. Our MP segment was impacted by continued softness in the European market. Gross profit of 23.8% declined due to unfavorable product mix and anticipated manufacturing inefficiencies as we ramp up production in the Monterey facility. Our SG&A expenses are comparable to prior year and approximately $2 million favorable to prior year when adjusted for the $2 million one-time gain related to the sale of our Oklahoma City facility last year and this year's $2 million severance investing charges. Corporate SG&A is down $4 million from the prior year. Income from operations was $193 million with an operating margin of 14%. Interest expense was relatively consistent with the previous year, while other expense increased $2 million from the prior year, primarily due to deal-related costs. The second quarter global effective tax rate was 19.2% compared to 16.7% in the second quarter of 2023 due to the reversal of a state tax valuation allowance in the second quarter of 2023. We reported second quarter GAAP EPS of $2.08 per share. We believe adding adjusted EPS to our disclosures provides investors with a better view of our operating performance. Adjusted EPS, which excludes non-recurring and unusual items, was $2.16 per share. Free cash flow for the second quarter was $42 million. The second quarter of 2023 free cash flow included the one-time proceeds on the sale of our Oklahoma City facility. Turning to bookings and backlog on slide 11, the quarter played out as expected. Our current backlog at $2.4 billion is approximately two times our historical norms. We expect our bookings and backlog to continue to transition to normal patterns as lead time stabilized, including AWP customers returning to customary seasonality with bookings highest in the first and fourth quarters. Our AWP segment backlog is approximately 2.4 times normal Q2 levels. Our MP backlog is also slightly higher than pre-pandemic levels. For perspective, normalized backlog for MP hovers around $400 to $500 million. Let's take a look at our segment results. Please turn to slide 12. Over the past few years, MP's operational excellence delivered higher top line growth and double digit margins in the mid-teens. For the second quarter, MP continued to demonstrate operational excellence by performing well in a dynamic market with sales of $499 million. Sales were impacted by market pressures in our German-based hooks material handling business and dealer inventory rebalancing in our aggregates business. MP reported operating profit of $77 million with strong OP margins of 15.4%. The change in operating profit was due to reduced volume and unfavorable product mix partially offset by expense discipline. MP is taking action to protect our strong margins, including reduced work schedules, factory layoffs, and further cost reduction activities. MP ended the quarter with backlog of $558 million. Please turn to slide 13, which details our AWP performance. We delivered solid performance in the second quarter with sales of $882 million, up nearly 7% from last year, primarily reflecting higher demand in North America. In fact, AWP is up 9.5% in sales on a year-to-date basis. AWP reported second quarter operating profit of $134 million. Operating margins were consistent with prior year, when adjusting for Monterey manufacturing startup inefficiencies and a one-time gain recorded in 2023 for the sale of our Oklahoma City facility. AWP backlog is at $1.8 billion, approximately 2.4 times higher than normal levels for the second quarter. Please turn to slide 14. We have a very healthy balance sheet that enables us to continue to grow and invest through the cycle. Tarek says ample liquidity with net leverage of 0.5 times. We are reaffirming our 2024 free cash flow outlook range of $325 to $375 million. Our strong balance sheet and expected free cash flow generation continues to provide significant capacity to fuel our strategic growth initiatives, including our agreement to purchase ESG as well as return capital to shareholders. As we close on the ESG transaction, we anticipate a net debt to EBITDA leverage of 2.2 times, which is below our 2.5 times target through the cycle, and we will utilize our enhanced free cash flow position to further deleverage. We're planning for capital expenditures this year of approximately $145 million or about 2.8% of sales at the expected midpoint with the largest investment related to our Monterey facility. We would expect CapEx to take a step down next year and to be a benefit to free cash flow conversion in 2025. Through July 29th, 2024, Terex has returned $50 million to shareholders through share repurchases and dividends, essentially offsetting equity compensation dilution. We have approximately $105 million remaining under our share repurchase authorization. We reported a return on invested capital of 25.9%. Terex remains in a very strong financial position to continue investing in our business and executing our strategic initiatives while returning capital to shareholders. Now turn to slide 15 and our full year outlook. It is important to realize we are operating in a complex environment with many macroeconomic variables and geopolitical uncertainties, and results could change negatively or positively. With that said, this outlook represents our best estimate as of today. Our outlook does not incorporate any ESG activity. Our sales forecast range has been updated to $5.1 to $5.3 billion, with strength in the AWP business helping to offset some of the weakness in our MP business. For Terex overall, we continue to expect the first half sales to be slightly higher than the second half, with the third quarter sales higher than the fourth quarter, as we return to more seasonal customer delivery patterns. We are pleased to increase our full year operating margin for Terex overall to a range of 12.9% to 13.2%, solidly above our full year 2023 performance. We have lowered our corporate and other expenses to $18 million per quarter in the second half of the year. We expect interest and other expenses of $55 million for the full year. In addition, we are lowering our effective tax rate to 21%. Due to strong operational execution, cost-out activities, and prudent expense management, our outlook is an EPS range of $7.15 to $7.45 on an adjusted basis. This is the second year in a row we expect to deliver earnings per share over $7. Let's review our segment outlook. We expect MP sales to be 1.95 billion to 2.05 billion for the full year with margins in the range of 15.1 to 15.4%. Sales for the third and fourth quarters will be consistent with Q2 sales while operating margins are expected to improve slightly from Q2 levels due to management actions taken. For AWP, We expect our 2024 sales range to be $3.15 billion to $3.25 billion, an operating margin in a range of 13.7% to 14% for the full year. We expect the second half sales to be lower than the first half, with the third quarter higher than the fourth quarter as we return to normal seasonal shipping patterns. We expect margins in the second half be approximately 200 basis points higher than in 2023 as monitoring inefficiencies abate and we realize the benefits of our new facility. We are anticipating a full-year AWP incremental margin greater than 25%. Now, I will turn it back to Simon.
spk10: Thanks, Julie. I will now turn it to slide 16. Overall, Terex is well positioned and we're excited about our long-term future. Perixx is a very different company than five years ago, let alone 10 years ago. We are a diversified leader in many different industrial segments. We're more agile and less vulnerable to cyclicality with a strong portfolio, strong operating system, and last but not least, a highly engaged competitive team. I'm incredibly proud and feel blessed to have been given the trust to lead this company and I'm very excited about the years ahead. Expect a lot more to come from Terrix. And with that, I would like to open it up for questions. Operator?
spk07: We'll now begin the question and answer session. If you have dialed in and would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star 1 again. If you are called upon to ask your question and are listening via loudspeaker on your device, please pick up your handset and ensure that your phone is not on mute when asking your question. We do request for today's session that you please limit your question to one and one follow-up. And once again, for any questions or comments, please press star 1 now. Your first question will come from Stanley Elliott with Stifel.
spk09: Hey, good morning, everybody. Thank you for the question. Can you guys talk about, I mean, with some of the near-term softening you're seeing in Europe and some of the general construction markets, how does that impact how you all are thinking about pricing, you know, really across the portfolio with the context that the past couple years have been so strong?
spk10: Yeah, hey, good morning. Thanks for the question. So, yeah, I mean, we stick to our target of being price-cost neutral. That's what we're aiming for. There's still very much, you know, cost inflation in the market. Steel's coming down, but value-add components still show signs of inflation, like electronics and hydraulics, logistics, labor costs. So we're still in an inflationary environment, and as such, we're still striving for price-cost neutrality at this point in the journey.
spk09: Great. And in terms of the MP business, is the softness exclusively Europe? Are you seeing anything in the Americas? And then curious, where do you think inventory in the channel is today? I understand there's a reluctance, I guess, from – For some to hold on to it, and a lot of these are kind of on more of a rent-to-own sort of an operation, but just curious kind of the health of the channel and then also kind of what you're seeing in North America.
spk10: Yeah, great question. We don't think the inventory is necessarily limited. The issue here is, and it's a little bit of a mixed bag. In Europe, it's very much and demand driven. And what I mean by that is there's just lower productivity because there's less projects. And we think that the inventory in general has been right sized for it. In North America, it's a little bit more complicated. There's still a lot of fleet productivity. We just see less rental conversions. Inventory, again, is not necessarily a problem. We think most of the right sizing has been done. But what's happening is that we sell, especially in MP, a lot through rent purchase contracts. And typically, they converge, let's say, within six months. And now customers are just holding on to their rental units for just a few more months to see what's going to happen with interest rates. So in North America, it's mostly interest rate anxiety, if you will, a caution for what's going to happen with interest rates before they convert from rent to purchase. But if we look at fleet utilization, still very high in North America. There's still a lot of work, and our units are working in North America. That's kind of the mixed story here.
spk09: Perfect, Simon. Thanks for the color, and good luck in the back half of the year.
spk06: Thank you.
spk07: Your next question will come from Jamie Cook with True Securities.
spk06: Hi, good morning. Nice quarter. I guess two questions. You know, one, Julie, on access equipment, you know, your margins, you know, it sounds like had 100 bps headwind because of Monterey, yet you're still able to raise your margins and you're talking about an incremental margin greater than 25%, which is better than your target. So what's driving that and to what degree do we think Monterey can help structurally improve incremental margins. I'm just wondering if there's a better longer term story here. And then my second question just on materials processing, to what degree, I mean, I've never seen a 10%, I think your guide implies sales down 10%. I've never seen a business down this much. To what degree do you think this business is over earning or the declines could continue into 2025? So I guess I'll stop there. Thanks.
spk04: Okay. Thanks, Jamie. So, you know, our second quarter margins native key, you know, we're, you know, really when you adjust for the moderate inefficiencies, which were about $5 million, which was better than we anticipated for the quarter. So the moderate facility is just going extremely well. We're very excited about the facility. And so as we go through the rest of the year, you know, our margins improve because those inefficiencies, you know, start to abate. Those go down. Last year, we also had the gain of the Oklahoma City facility. So, if you take those two items out, our margins were relatively consistent last year to this year for AWP. So, going forward, we would expect to experience less disruption and that this facility, you know, completes and gets to where the original intention at the end of the fourth quarter. And so we would expect to start to see those margins improve. And indeed, we put in a 200 basis point margin improvement in the second half of the year from where we were a year ago. So again, we're still a target to achieve those 200 basis points of margin improvement as we go forward.
spk06: But my question is, is there a reason to believe your incremental margins in this business can structurally be higher than the 25%?
spk04: So, for this year, they'll be higher than 25%. You know, our outlook implies roughly 26%. And so, we'll continue to work on improving margins as we go.
spk06: Okay. And then, sorry, the follow-up on materials processing.
spk10: Yeah. Thanks for the question. Yeah. MP is a collection of five verticals, if you will. within those verticals, there's a lot of things happening. If I take Fuchs, for example, our material handling, our scrap handling business, you know, it's very biased to Germany, very biased to Europe, very biased to scrap prices. And that business is clearly struggling. That was what we called out in the first quarter. Still, what we're calling out now in the second quarter is the business that is probably struggling the most within the MP portfolio. um and um you know and because if you look at the european economy overall it's germany and italy that are that are struggling uk and france are seem to be coming back a little bit and then spain is the is the positive outlier so it's a little bit of a double whammy if you will for our for our foods business although we are encouraged to see that germany's steel production has been creeping up since February. Our rolling three-month book to bill is actually greater than one in June for that business. And then also our quoting activity seems to pick up too early to call for signs of a bottom, but we do see some positive signals in Fuchs. And then the other business that has been struggling is also a business tied to Europe, which is our cranes business. And they are headquartered, as you know, in Italy, which is the second European market that's currently struggling. And both those countries, Germany and Italy, are just very manufacturing focused. They struggle with the exports because Europe is down overall. But I would just say MP overall in the last 10 years, their business has grown almost double digit consistently for the last 10 years. And it's been a very, very steady performer for us. Again, you know, north of 15% operating margins in the current environment, we think is great performance of the business. And the reason we're still, you know, very encouraged is because of what we're seeing in North America, high utilization. And we believe that if, you know, if the right thing happens with interest rates, then we are actually heading towards bulk lending opportunities. There's plenty of upside in North America coming from the mega project alone. So that's a little bit of a story around MP.
spk06: Thank you so much.
spk10: Thank you. Thank you.
spk07: Your next question will come from David Rosso with Evercore ISI.
spk08: Hi, thank you. I'm trying to figure out the initial look into 25 and AWP with how you think about your book to bill and AWP the rest of the year. I'm just trying to think through. I mean, before the last few years where you had a huge backlog starting the new year, the backlog would usually in the year, you know, call it 40% of the following year sales. And I'm just trying to figure out to get lower than that, right? To feel 25 is more at risk of a down AWP year than normal, given you're starting the year with a low backlog. It would imply your book to bill, even in the fourth quarter, really can't even be above one. Historically, it's well above one. So I guess the direct question is to get a sense of where the backlog could end the year. From your conversation so far, I know it's early, is there any reason to believe your book-to-bill in the fourth quarter for AWP should not be comfortably above one? I just want to know how hesitant your conversations have been already on commitment at all for 25 on AWP demands.
spk10: Yeah, I mean, it's a tough question to answer. You know, obviously, we get qualitative data points, not really quantitative. We're not guiding for 2025, first and foremost. But, yeah, generally speaking, the discussions are, they have just started, David, as you know. We typically start discussions for the next year in Q3, and then it will hit the backlog in Q4, and very often in Q1 as well. So I would say a general response to your question is we do expect, obviously, Q4 book to build to be better than Q3. But what the exact number is going to be, it all depends on how 2025 is going to pan out. And it's too early for us to really pack that down. So far, the discussions that we've had with our customers are positive for 2025. Whether it's up, down, slightly flat, it's too early for us to tell.
spk08: I know it's a bit of an unfair question, but it's just the whole idea of how much goodness of the large backlog that we went into 24 with we can still leave 24 with, at least relative to history. In that same conversation, are we already at least getting customers bringing up the idea of there's a lot more capacity coming to the industry in 25, or are we starting to have those conversations where Clearly, you were in the driver's seat with pricing the last couple of years, and now the pendulum of power is swinging the other direction. I'm just curious, the industry capacity issue, be it Chinese manufacturing in Mexico, JCB opening up San Antonio, you name it. I'm just curious how that's playing out in conversation so far.
spk10: Yeah, we don't share that concern over capacity in North America and in Europe, for that matter. Now, China is a different story. There's definitely overcapacity and undisciplined, you know, price management in our mind, or irresponsible price management, I would almost say. But in North America and Europe, we don't share that concern in terms of capacity. We can only speak for ourselves, and we've shared On our last call, kind of where we stand in terms of capacity, we're not adding. We're just changing. But, yeah, we see some of the headlines as well. We don't think it necessarily adds up to a massive overcapacity of the industry. So I did not have any personal discussions with customers where they kind of turned it back on us saying, well, what's going on here? Is it excessive? We haven't seen that.
spk08: Okay, that's interesting. All right, thank you so much. Thank you.
spk07: Your next question will come from Jerry Revich with Goldman Sachs.
spk02: Yes, hi, good morning, everyone, and congratulations again on the acquisition announcement. Simon, I just wanted to ask if you wouldn't mind just expanding on your comments on the European Union ruling. How does that impact the competitive landscape at face value? It looks like everyone except the French manufacturer is getting hit by a similar amount, but I'm wondering if you could just peel back the onion for us and just talk about the competitive landscape if the suggested tariffs are implemented.
spk10: Yeah, thanks for the question. I mean, we're very excited by the ruling. We were encouraged that two of the industry players filed the complaint and that the commission ruled favorably. I think it was mid-June that it came out. We were very pleased with the evidence that the Commission found that there was actually dumping happening in the European market, and as such, they imposed tariffs. So we think it's the right thing for the industry. We obviously encourage level playing field. We don't necessarily think it will change much going forward. It would just, in our mind, avoid that the market would go down this negative spiral. So we're happy that the ruling was made and we continue to be price leaders for the European market going forward. And we think we're in a great position to compete going forward. So happy with the results.
spk02: Super. And would you mind just commenting on how the utilization numbers are looking at in the U.S. based on your telematics data? It looks like based on a couple of rental company reports, pricing for AWP is still positive, but time might be dipping year over year. I'm wondering if you could just talk about what your data shows on utilization specifically.
spk10: Yeah, as a general statement utilization is holding, we do see that particularly products that are more commonly used in megaprojects are doing better than projects that are used in more of the local projects, the smaller projects. So there's a little bit of a divergence happening there, but if you add them together, still strong utilization year over year. Thank you.
spk07: Your next question will come from Tammy Zakaria with JP Morgan.
spk05: Hi, good morning. Thank you so much. So my first question is on the current backlog. Can you give us a sense of how much do you expect to deliver or work down by the end of this year for both AWP and MP? I'm basically trying to understand if the backlog can provide support to sales even next year.
spk10: Yeah, it's kind of hard to answer the question without getting into 2025 guidance, but if we look at overall backlog coverage today, and if you look at Terex, you know, our outlook is $5.2 billion midpoint, which means we have another 2.5-ish to go for the remainder of the year. We have $2.4 billion in backlog. Roughly, let's say a third of that is already allocated to 2025. So that means we have two-thirds coverage for the remainder of the year, and that's still higher than where we normally are in July in terms of backlog coverage. So we feel we have pretty good backlog coverage to get to our outlook. Now, what's going to happen for 2025 is a little too early to tell and how that's going to pan out. But we feel good. to be laid out.
spk05: Got it. No, that's very helpful detail. And then the second question is probably for Julie. Just wanted to understand the updated EPS guide. I think you restated the first quarter EPS and margin. So how much of the new EPS guide is driven by restatements versus changes in the different line items? for the rest of the year. It seems like EPS guide is essentially the same extra restatement, but am I thinking about this the right way, or is there anything to think about there?
spk04: Yeah, I would take to the question, Tammy, and I agree with you that in essence our adjusted EPS outlook is consistent with what we provided in the Q1 earnings outlook. our Q1 midpoints and add in the Q1 callouts, you know, you come, you know, pretty close to what our adjusted ETH midpoint is. So it's relatively consistent.
spk05: Got it. Thank you.
spk00: Thank you. Thank you.
spk07: Your final question will come from Angel Castillo from Morgan Stanley.
spk00: Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to go back to the price-cost neutral comment. You talked about some of the dynamics perhaps within MP, but just more broadly, customer decisions to perhaps rent a little longer driven by interest rate decisions, et cetera. Just curious from a price sensitivity perspective of your customers, as you're seeing trends such as that, could you just talk about what gives you confidence in being able to pass through any incremental inflation if customers are showing kind of greater price sensitivity? in both MP and AWP would be helpful.
spk10: Yeah, it all comes down to just being transparent. And we've been transparent all along with our customers. And this is obviously a daily conversation. You know, we are still seeing cost inflation in our industry. And, you know, we need to be disciplined on how we treat the cost inflation. It was a very tough story obviously during the pandemic, but coming out of the pandemic, there's still cost inflation, as I mentioned earlier, even those fields coming down. And so that we're just by being very transparent on the cost that we have to pass on as an industry. And as I mentioned, in electronics, in hydraulics, even in heavy fabs, there's still cost inflation, but also labor, obviously, as everyone can see. And also in logistics and ocean, ocean freights, we're still in an inflationary environment. So just by being transparent, Anquil, anything to add, Julie? No, that's exactly right.
spk00: That's very helpful. Thank you. And maybe just another stab at kind of the 2025 question. Just thinking about it, you know, less so from maybe what you're hearing today, but just more specific to kind of the age of the fleet that you're seeing out there and some of the underlying factors. that would typically drive kind of replacement demand for your products in particular. What do those kind of imply as you think about, you know, prepare for 2025, that replacement demand would be versus 2024?
spk10: Yeah, I mean, if you think about the last kind of wave, if you will, 2018 was a big wave of machines making their way into the market. And that's now all hitting the five, six-year mark. theoretically, you know, that is coming up for replacement. But I would say all our customers, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, are very seasoned, you know, fleet managers, and their fleet age is all within targets. You know, it's probably, you know, varying a couple of months here and there, but overall it's in the 48 to 52 months range. So fleet age is where it needs to be. But there is a little bit of a replacement tailwind, if you will, because of that peak supply in 2018.
spk00: Very helpful. Thank you. Thank you.
spk07: Your final question will come from Steve Barker with KeyBank Capital Markets.
spk01: Hey, thanks. Hey. Simon, going back to your comment on interest rate anxiety for rental conversion and MP, Where do you think the interest rate sensitivity is? Meaning, do people need to see 50 basis points over the next year? Are they looking for 100 basis points? Just trying to figure out what they're waiting for.
spk10: Yeah, great question. I really don't know how to answer that. But I would say it's maybe not so much the number other than the number the perception that the market is heading towards a soft landing. I think that's more the issue. And if that's 25, 50, or 100, whatever it takes. But I think we just need to get to a place where people feel confident that we're going in the right direction. That would be my answer.
spk01: Understood. Thanks. I got on late. That's all I had today.
spk09: Thank you.
spk07: There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Simon for any closing remarks.
spk10: All right. Thank you, operator. If you have any additional questions, please follow up with Julie or John. And with that, thank you very much for your interest in Terex. And operator, please disconnect the call.
spk07: Thank you. And ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's conference. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect.
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