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spk05: Good morning. My name is David and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to Tenet Company's first quarter 2023 earnings conference call. This call is being recorded. There will be time for Q&A at the end of the call. Please press star one if you'd like to ask a question. After the Q&A, please stay on the line for closing remarks from management. If you have joined our call today via telephone and logged into the conference call presentation on your computer, Please mute your audio on your computer to avoid potential quality issues during the call. Thank you for participating in Tenant Company's first quarter 2023 earnings conference call. Beginning today's meeting is Mr. Lorenzo Bassi, Vice President, Finance for Tenant Company. Mr. Bassi, you may begin your conference.
spk06: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Tenant Company's first quarter 2023 earnings conference call. I'm Lorenzo Bassi, Vice President, Finance. Joining me on the call today are Dave Hummel, Tenants President and CEO, and Fay West, Senior Vice President and CFO. Today, we will provide you an update on our 2023 first quarter performance. Dave will provide you an update on our operations and enterprise strategy, and Fay will cover our financials. After our prepared remarks, we will open the call to questions. Please note the slide presentation accompanies this conference call and is available on our investor relations website at investors.tenanco.com. Before we begin, please be advised that our remarks this morning and our answers to questions may contain forward-looking statements regarding the company's expectations of future performance. Such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, and our actual results may differ materially from those contained in the statements. These risks and uncertainties are described in today's news release and the documents we file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We encourage you to review those documents, particularly our Safe Harbor Statement, for a description of the risks and uncertainties that may affect our results. Additionally, on this conference call, we will discuss non-GAAP measures that include or exclude certain items. Our 2023 first quarter earnings release includes the comparable gap measures and a reconciliation of those non-gap measures to our gap results. Our earnings release was issued this morning by a business wire and is also posted on our investor relations website at investors.tenantco.com. I'll now turn the call over to Dave.
spk00: Thanks, Lorenzo, and hello, everyone. Thank you for joining the call today. Tenet had a very strong first quarter with an all-time record for sales and balanced growth across all geographic regions and product categories, along with service and parts and consumables. Overall, we achieved organic year-over-year growth of 21%. Our sales growth was driven by both pricing and volume. 11% of our sales growth was driven by backlog reduction, and the remainder was attributed to growth in our base business. We saw good price realization in Q1, while volume benefited from improved parts availability, which boosted our manufacturing output. The actions we took in 2022 with respect to our supply chain are reading through. We remain cautiously optimistic that supply will continue to stabilize, which would enable increased and more predictable output. Price realization and moderating inflation led to an expansion of our gross margin, which is now back to pre-pandemic levels and demonstrates tenants' ability to perform when we're able to secure the parts we need to operate productively and efficiently. Adjusted EBITDA for Q1 was nearly $48 million, or 15.7% of revenue. Our top line and gross margin expansion allowed us to create strong operating leverage as we continued to be disciplined in managing our costs. And we converted 100% of our Q1 net income to free cash flow. Demand for tenant products continued to be robust in Q1 as total incoming Q1 order demand exceeded our initial expectations and was in line with our full year guidance. Our open order position of $298 million is still significantly above historic levels, and backlog is especially strong in industrial North America. Even so, Q1 was the first quarter of meaningful backlog reduction since Q2 of 2021, and we believe represents an important turning point in our efforts to mitigate persistent supply chain challenges and meet strong customer demand. As Faye will discuss, we are reaffirming our full-year guidance, and although macroeconomic uncertainty remains, Q1 demonstrated that we are ready and able to capitalize on any improvements in the supply chain environment. As such, we are monitoring order patterns closely and reacting accordingly. At the same time, our R&D and product management teams continue to work to enhance our current product portfolio. For example, In our small spaces category, our new iMop Lite delivers the cleaning performance of a mechanized scrubber with the mobility of a flat mop. This makes it ideal for all kinds of small, cluttered, or difficult to navigate spaces like public restrooms, stadium bleachers, and staff break rooms. The iMOP XL Plus includes more advanced features and is designed for slightly larger spaces like dining areas, meeting rooms, locker rooms, lobbies, and other common areas. At the top of the range, the iMOP XXL Plus matches the capabilities of a full-size walk-behind scrubber with enhanced maneuverability to clean around obstacles and irregular layouts. We continue to leverage the product platforms of our Gaume and IPC brands, and we introduced two new additions to our ride-on scrubber portfolio, the T681 and the T981. These models have the right combination of size, features, and maneuverability for budget-minded customers who want a simple but effective machine, but do not want to sacrifice quality or dependability. In addition to executing on our enterprise strategy initiatives, we formalized our commitment to a renewed and refreshed sustainability strategy. Specifically, we have set a goal of achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions across scopes 1, 2, and 3 by the year 2040, and have submitted a letter of commitment to the Science-Based Targets Initiative, or SBTI, for validation. To reach net zero, we plan to make deep emissions cuts across our operations and value chain. We will partner with customers to increase the energy efficiency of our portfolio, and we'll seek to source 100% of our electricity from renewable sources globally by 2030. We also are striving to electrify 100% of both our product offerings and our global vehicle fleet by 2040. Furthermore, we will collaborate with technology partners to drive innovation and development to lead the industry toward a cleaner future. Tenant is an industry leader with a reputation for innovation, and I am confident that we can effect change on a global scale. By embedding sustainable thinking into how we work, we will continue to deliver solutions that can help our customers solve their biggest cleaning challenges while addressing their own sustainability targets. Working within our own business and with our stakeholders, we will help people thrive and contribute to a healthier planet. With that, I will turn the call over to Faye for a discussion of our financials.
spk08: Thank you, Dave, and hello, everyone. As Dave noted, we reported a very strong first quarter. Net income of $24.3 million was up $14 million from the prior year period. Improved operating performance was driven by higher price realization and volume increases in all geographies, particularly the Americas, and was partly offset by higher variable operating costs, interest costs, and income taxes. Net interest expense increased to $3.7 million in Q1, up from $300,000 in the prior year period. The increase was due to higher debt levels coupled with rising interest rates on our variable interest rates debt. Adjusted income tax expense of $7.7 million increased $3.3 million over the prior year period, largely driven by an improvement to operating performance. The first quarter adjusted effective tax rate of 24.5% is in line with full year expectations. First quarter adjusted earnings per diluted share, which excludes amortization and restructuring charges, nearly doubled to $1.45 per share from $0.73 per share in the prior year period. For the first quarter of 2023, tenant reported net sales of $305.8 million compared to $258.1 million in Q1 last year. This represented organic growth of 21%, with roughly half the growth attributed to pricing and the other half driven by volume. Our backlog went from $326 million at the end of 2022 to $298 million at the end of the first quarter, as better parts availability and the increased predictability of our production output allowed us to better fulfill customer orders. Foreign currency translation unfavorably impacted sales by 2.5%. Tenant groups its sales into three geographies, the Americas, which includes all of North America and Latin America, EMEA, which covers Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, and Asia Pacific, which includes Australia, China, Japan, and other Asian markets. In Q1, all three geographic regions achieved year-over-year sales growth, Sales in the Americas grew 27.5% to $204.4 million, or 27.9% on an organic basis, while FX had a net unfavorable impact of approximately 0.4%. This significant year-over-year growth in our largest region was driven equally by price realization and volume increases across all product categories. Our North American production plants were able to obtain constrained parts and increase production to meet order demand and address elevated backlog levels. Sales in Amana increased 4.3% over the prior year to $82.1 million, or 10.6% on an organic basis. Broad-based growth across all product categories led by floor care equipment and across all direct geographies, especially in the UK and Iberia, drove this year-over-year increase. Sales in the Asia-Pacific region increased 1.4% over the prior year to 19.4 million, or 7% on an organic basis. This was driven by growth across all product categories, particularly equipment, and across our direct geographies, especially Australia, China, and India. China's improved performance was directly impacted by the lifting of COVID-related restrictions early in the first quarter. Turning to adjusted EBITDA. Adjusted EBITDA for Q1 was $47.9 million, an increase of $20 million, or 72%, versus the prior year period. Adjusted EBITDA was 15.7% of sales, an increase of 490 basis points versus the prior year. Our sales growth, driven by both volume and price, was the most significant driver of EBITDA growth. EBITDA margin was also driven by an expansion of gross margin and by operating leverage created by top-line growth. Gross profit margin improved 270 basis points to 41% in the first quarter compared to Q1 of last year. Continuing what has been a positive trend, Gross profit margin improved 140 basis points sequentially from the fourth quarter of 2022. The increases were driven by pricing realization, which offset the impact of multi-year inflation on materials and labor. Selling and administrative expense was $81.7 million for the first quarter of 2023, an increase of $5.1 million compared to a year ago. The increase was driven primarily by higher variable costs associated with increased operating performance, such as warranty costs and other employee costs. As a percentage of net sales, S&A expense for the first quarter decreased 300 basis points to 26.7% from 29.7% in Q1 of last year, driven by both leverage attributable to our top line and gross margin growth, as well as our cost containment initiatives. We are pleased with our first quarter performance, but at the same time, we remain cautious and continue to monitor order patterns and supplier performance closely to anticipate any moderating signals that would require swift action. As the year progresses, we will evaluate further investments to support our business. Overall, we believe our Q1 results have established a strong foundation for achieving our 2023 full-year guidance. Turning now to capital deployment. In Q1, net cash provided by operating activities was approximately $31.1 million compared to $10.1 million in the year-ago period. The increase was the result of improved operating performance coupled with moderating investments in working capital. Capital expenditures of approximately $7 million were in line with our expectations and are on pace to meet our full-year guidance. In Q1, we continue to return capital to our shareholders with dividend payments of $4.9 million and the repurchase of approximately 74,000 shares of our common stock for $5 million. These actions are aligned with our capital allocation priorities. Tenants' liquidity remains strong with a balance of $91.4 million of cash and cash equivalents at the end of the first quarter and approximately $242.3 million of unused borrowing capacity on the company's revolving credit facility. At the midpoint of our full year adjusted EBITDA guidance range, our net leverage was 1.38 times lower than our stated goal of 1.5 to 2.5 times. Turning to guidance, we reaffirm our guidance as detailed on the slide, including net sales of $1.115 billion to $1.155 billion reflecting organic sales growth of 3% to 7%, and adjusted EBITDA of $140 million to $160 million. Overall, we see continued strength in the demand for tenant products, and we remain cautiously optimistic about the improved stability of our supply chain, despite the uncertainty of global economic conditions. Moreover, our strong first quarter gives us confidence regarding our full year 2023 guidance, which is in line with our long-range financial commitment. With that, I will turn the call back to Dave.
spk00: Thank you, Faye. In summary, I am very proud of the global team and our ability to take advantage of the opportunities presented to us. This was a great start to the year and sets us up to deliver on our full year guidance. With that, we'll open the call to questions. Operator, please go ahead.
spk05: Thank you. At this time, I'd like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. We'll take our first question from Chris Moore with CJS Securities. Your line is open.
spk07: Good morning, guys. Great quarter. Thanks for taking a few questions. Good morning, Chris. Good morning. Backlog of $298 million. How would you characterize the pricing of your backlog? You know, the steel prices have gone up sharply year to date. Just curious kind of how you look at the current pricing.
spk00: Yeah, great question, Chris. And it's one that we've had to, out of necessity, get much more granular in trying to analyze how price will flow through our backlog. In aggregate, you can think about a quarter or a quarter and a half delay between a price increase and realizing it out into our P&L. Obviously, as we stated in the script, not all backlog is equal. Our backlog is more heavily weighted in North America. more heavily weighted around our industrial product globally so you can think about it in aggregate the other the other dynamic that makes it difficult to predict how price will flow through backlog is that we're not operating on a pure FIFO basis we are allocating based on customer demand customer needs and trying to satisfy as many customers as possible as we work to reduce work to reduce the backlog I think the But the positive point is that we have very strong price realization. And so as the orders flow through backlog at different rates, depending on the product category or the region, our realization is holding up very well. And you see that in the numbers that we just posted for Q1. You know, if you break down the 21% organic growth, about 11% of that growth came from backlog reduction, 10% from what I would call base business growth, and equally split between price and volume. So thinking about price realization as an impact on our business, we're getting strong price realization. It's rolling through our backlog on an uneven basis, but we're certainly benefiting. And as we look out in the future to the extent we can reduce backlog, we expect to continue to benefit from the prices that we publish into the marketplace.
spk07: Got it. Very helpful. So Q4 orders resume growth after a slower Q3, which followed, I think, seven quarters of growth. You indicated that Q1 orders exceeded your expectations. Did they grow sequentially or year over year?
spk00: Yeah, orders were up versus our plan, but we had calendarized the year to ramp. And I think we talked about this on last call. We had calendarized the year to ramp from Q1 to Q4. And so while we beat our Q1 plan, our orders were actually just in line. If you just straight line what we need for orders to deliver full year guidance, they were in line with what we need on a full year basis. So we were off a bit on the calendarization. They were up and in line with guidance. and on the trend that we established coming out of Q4. Got it.
spk07: So the adjusted EBITDA range is still 140 to 160. You have a quarter plus of data. How would you compare your kind of Q1 expectations a few months ago versus what you actually put up for the 47.9?
spk00: Yeah, as I said, we calendarized our year to start out quite modestly. You recall that we began some recovery from a parts shortage perspective in Q4, a bit above our expectations. That trend from a parts shortage availability, the availability of parts, continued into Q1. And so Q1, I would say, exceeded our planned expectations. But Q1 is really in line with the kind of quarters we need to deliver to achieve our full year guidance. So we're pleased with the quarter. When you look at what's underneath the performance, you know, the fact that we had strong orders, the fact that we had growth in our base business, this was our first quarter of meaningful backlog reduction, taking backlog down by 28 million, which I think is an important proof point to show that when we get parts, we can not only serve the base business growth, but also reduce backlog and get those customers a product that they've been waiting for. It's really a direct result of all the actions and investments the team has taken over the last, throughout 2022, and we've detailed those in a lot of detail as we've moved through the prior releases. I think the other important point about Q1, Chris, is that it demonstrates when we're able to get parts, that we can monetize the backlog and deliver. So one of the questions we've been posed with in the past is, given all the focus on parts shortages, if you start to get parts, do you have the labor and the production capacity to react quickly and turn it into revenue and work the backlog down? I think Q1 demonstrates that we are ready and can flex quickly.
spk07: Got it. Very helpful. I'll leave it there. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Chris. Thank you.
spk05: And next we'll go to Steve Ferrazani with Sidoti. Your line's open.
spk01: Good morning, everyone. I'm going to have to sort of follow up the previous questions in terms of guidance. Obviously, you significantly exceeded what we were thinking. You said you didn't exceed internal expectations. You said order rate was pretty much in line with what you were thinking. What is holding you back from raising guidance or at least narrowing it to the upper end?
spk00: Yeah, great question, Steve. And just to clarify, order rates were above what we had planned for, but in line with what we need to deliver full year guidance. So listen, having such a strong first quarter, it's logical to ask yourself how to approach guidance. And having overperformed on virtually every metric across the P&L, it's a mathematically logical question. And actually, it's one we've thoughtfully considered in preparation for release. So let me give you a few of the points that we thought about as we held and reaffirmed our current guidance. Now listen, the Q1 results give us an increased confidence in full-year guidance. And so it's a positive, and we're feeling good about the guidance range that's out there. When you look at Q1, we're really only through one quarter of the year, and so we still have three quarters to deliver. If there's anything I've learned and we've learned from the last three years is that the environment can change very rapidly within a year. And so continuing to monitor signals from the marketplace, both demand signals and sort of outlook from key customers, is a really important component that we take into consideration. People are still reasonably optimistic for the year, but there's certainly reasons for uncertainty when you think about the macro environment we're operating in. The other factor we thought about was the parts availability that we've struggled against for really, you know, you could say the last seven quarters, eight quarters. We began a more positive trend from a parts availability perspective, really in the last 100 days. It started in earnest kind of end of Q4, and we saw some improvement in parts availability that fueled our Q1 performance and results. But we are still managing part shortages. We cannot get all the parts that we want and the quantity that we want. And not all suppliers are delivering predictably. And so while we're encouraged by a 100-day pattern, we're not confident enough to extrapolate that to a full year's worth experience. And we're still working to try to improve the parts availability so that we can ramp production. The next point I would make is relative to orders and backlog. And I mentioned this in the script. Our backlog is heavily weighted in North America and our backlog is heavily weighted on industrial products. So we have pretty good coverage from the backlog in terms of delivering on guidance in those categories and in those in that geography in the rest of the product categories and the rest of the regions of the world. Incoming order demand matters because if we don't get the incoming order, we won't have the revenue to ship and deliver on the full year guidance. So we're monitoring order patterns very closely. While orders were strong in first quarter, there is seasonality in our business. And I would point to North America, our largest supplier. our largest business unit, and I think we've talked about this in the past, there's Q2 seasonality, particularly driven by the education vertical, where schools, as they close for the school year, they tend to buy their equipment fleets, renew their equipment fleets, and they do most of their restorative floor cleaning over the summer while students aren't there to prepare for the fall. We need to see that Q2 seasonality materialize to bolster our commercial order rate so that we can fill that part of the funnel and deliver on full-year guidance. And lastly, when we thought about the uncertainty that was in place when we laid the plan for the year, kind of end of 2022, when we look across the macro environment, I wouldn't say it's gotten any worse, but it certainly hasn't gotten materially better. Interest rates are at an all-time high. People are uncertain about potential for looming recession. The Ukraine war continues on. So the macro environment, we don't see more certainty. Now, having said that, I wouldn't want anyone to infer that our not raising guidance was somehow linked to something we saw on the horizon. We don't see anything negative looming. We're just exercising, I would say, a degree of prudent caution as we move into the year to make sure that we can continue to build on our predictability by delivering on the guidance that we communicate.
spk01: That's extremely helpful. Very detailed. I appreciate the thoughts on that. When I think about another unpredictable event, area, China. We've started to see it reopen, but I'm guessing what you saw in Q1 could be just the start, right? How are you thinking about a fully open China, what that could do in 2023, if indeed that plays out?
spk00: Yeah, so we had baked into our guidance and improving China. China did have a solid first quarter and some of the promise and hope of a reopened China that we heard. I think the last time we talked, the government had taken the action, but our customers and our channel partners were still a little cautious whether it was going to hold and it would remain in place. We've since seen real demand generated. Our distributors have begun to stock up in response to that demand, and it's getting back to more normal. We posted double-digit revenue increase in China in Q1, and so we're optimistic for China and hopeful that the government will continue the status quo so that we can continue to capitalize on the lost time that we lost during the shutdowns. We're bullish on China because it represents such a fantastic opportunity for us. If you just look at the data around the market potential, China could be the single largest cleaning market on the planet in our lifetime. And so we want to make sure that we have a very firm footprint and that we're on solid ground with our product portfolio and our channel reach and our brands. and prepare to capitalize on the cleaning mechanization as it happens and drive the mechanization. So still really bullish on China. Early returns are good, and we're optimistic for the near term.
spk01: That's great. And if I can get one more in, just in terms of if you can provide any kind of color. You've obviously rolled out a number of new products over the last six months, probably more so than I can remember. In terms of how that's impacting results and any kind of update on the robots?
spk00: Yeah, absolutely. You know, Tenant has a rich legacy of being the innovation leader in our marketplace and that's been punctuated in recent times. We've been aggressively expanding our, I'll start with robotics, our robotics portfolio and our T7 and T380 AMRs were largely focused on retail and sort of lighter commercial applications. Our T16 AMR is focused on industrial applications and actually as we look across the portfolio, we love our position and we're excited about retail and the more commercial type applications, but industrial plays to our strengths. And while it may not be the large fleet orders that you can get in retail or in a school system, industrial tends to be smaller unit volume orders. We have a unique strength in our industrial verticals with our factory direct service organization and our factory direct sales organization, and we're really comfortable operating in that environment. We think the adoption could actually be accelerated because it doesn't have the public walking through those environments. Those industrial customers are more adept at investing in automation to drive their business, and it's inside their four walls. and so they can more efficiently measure the return on the investment that they're able to achieve. So robotics did contribute to our results, continues to contribute, very bullish on robotics. At its base, it solves one of our customers' biggest problems, which is their labor challenges. They can't find labor, and when they do, it's costing them more to employ labor for cleaning. The other new products you referenced, yeah, we do have a full suite of products. And when you think about, we have some line extension products that we've launched. These were products, platforms that we got through acquisition of the IPC business in 2017 through the Galmay business acquisition. And these are products that are designed to competitively compete, to be competitive at different price points and different value props. We accelerated the launch of those products as we were parts challenged on some of the legacy tenant product lines. We accelerated the launch of those other offerings that allowed us to compete at different price points. It's been very well received by the marketplace. And it's great for our business. And so we'll continue to deploy that strategy. It allows us to serve more customers and be more competitive in more segments of the market. and serve them profitably. And the last one is our small space offering. We've launched the IMOP products. We have the IMOP XL, IMOP XL. These are fantastic products that allow our customers to clean smaller spaces. And the great part about this product is we can sell it very efficiently because there are small spaces in every one of the verticals we currently serve. And so while we're in and entrenched with larger equipment for their larger floor spaces within the building, we can now sell them a product for their smaller spaces and we outline some of those on the script. So when you look across our recently launched product, we have new products for every member of our sales organization to go out and sell and something new to talk about to every existing customer and new customers in the vertical markets that we focus on. So we're really well positioned from a new product perspective to have exciting things to talk about to any customers. And these are great door openers. We can get meetings with customers and demonstrate product. Once we're in demonstrating a new product, we can then sell the full suite of tenant solutions to those customers.
spk01: Fantastic. Thanks for all the detail, Dave. You bet. Thanks, Steve.
spk05: Okay, next we'll go to Tim Moore with EF Hutton. Your line's open.
spk03: Thanks, and congratulations on the strong sales growth beat and the amazing operating leverage, including your SG&A expense. Dave, thanks for clarifying your pretty conservative guidance and the factors that could alter the top end of your EBITDA and organic sales growth. I just want to start out with a two-part question. You explained that a lot of the volumes seem to be, or at least half the volumes seem to be conversion of the backlog. Was there any pull-in from the June quarter that you can tell of? Any orders that maybe sipped late March from the Americas that might have boosted a little bit more of the March quarter, taken a little bit out of the June quarter?
spk00: I'm sure that happens from time to time, but largely speaking, no. We've got our backlog. We're working down our backlog, given the size of the backlog. That's our focus. Those are customers that value the tenant value proposition, have placed their order, have been patiently waiting, and those are the customers we're focused on serving in addition to the base demand.
spk03: um not not aware of any pull-ins and i think what you mean is where we had a where we had a future order and we pulled it in or do you mean when a where a customer pre-ordered because they wanted they wanted a product or either i'm just wondering if you know you notice any abnormal behavior of things that maybe shift out quicker towards the end of march no not at all good good that's great i just want to clarify um the pricing the realization pricing boost cadence on a quarterly basis. If I remember correctly, and please, you know, feel free to correct me on this. Some of your pricing hikes started to get more realized in September or so. So I'm just trying to think about, it would look like maybe the fourth quarter of this year, we'll probably have the lowest pricing tailwind if that was kind of already in place. And obviously the fourth quarter places faces a harder 10% year ago, organic sales growth comparable. So, um, Just trying to get a sense, pricing will probably start to lap in a meaningful way in the September quarter.
spk00: Yeah, you can think of – listen, we price at different levels and at different times in different geographies, but with multiple price increases across 2022, I think your logic holds. We'll begin to lap price increases as the year goes on, so the year-over-year impact will start to be moderated.
spk03: That makes sense. That's what I was talking about.
spk00: The only thing I would add, Tim, is obviously we are closely monitoring inflation and market opportunity, and we are pricing as we need to. So what could change that is if we have the need to move on price yet again, and we're getting pretty good at it after the last couple of years, that would change the picture in terms of what we're able to lap and deliver for price realization. I'll just add, we're getting really strong realization, and part of it is obviously due to operating in an inflationary environment, but it's not easy. We sell kind of the world's largest companies in each of our verticals. They are very adept at pushing back and negotiating price, and I think it shows the power of our brand and our value proposition, but it also shows the power of our selling organization. and the fact that they're able to go in and articulate and make a compelling case for why the price is still a good value to the customer and get it to stick.
spk03: That makes sense, and I didn't want to belittle your pricing at all. I know it's been very strong, and it's not just cost inflation. It's the enhancements and features that you're adding and the value prop for the customers. I just have a question now on your impressive gross margin back to pre-pandemic levels. Can you maybe give us a rough sense of the split maybe how much of that expansion was driven by net pricing and then maybe what came from what you were kind of categorizing maybe better predictability you know supply chain components got a little bit better maybe there's less under absorption of your manufacturing facility i'm just wondering if you know if it's two-thirds pricing and a third just the manufacturing efficiency is getting better because of the supply chain yeah i think pricing drives a significant portion of the increase uh in gross margin year over year
spk08: But there's also operating efficiencies as we continue to move volume through the plant, through the plants, I should say. And so you're seeing kind of that ratio almost the way that you laid it out. And we've also been able to cover multi-year inflation, too. And that's also helping us in gross margins.
spk03: Great. Thanks, Faye. And Faye, just on free cash flow, I know you haven't guided free cash flow and you had very strong $24 million in this quarter. Do you think that you can achieve maybe close to $85 million this year? I mean, do you have any sense of maybe what's going to happen to the working capital as you get through the summer or fall?
spk08: Yeah, and you're right. We don't guide to free cash flow, but I think some of the components are there to consider. We had a very strong first quarter that was driven by operations. That kind of kind of came through the the operating cash flow line item. The other thing I would say is we anticipate Increased contribution from working capital in the next three quarters of the year So I think we should start to see that contribution coming through and helping with the free cash flow perspective That's trippy color I appreciate that my last question is is there a
spk03: Could you just maybe update us on the ERP project evaluation and maybe the timeframe around for making that decision or not?
spk08: Yeah, so we're actually in the process of evaluating that right now. We anticipate that that work will largely be done over the summer and into early fall, and we'll likely have some additional color to provide in our Q, probably a Q3 release on the path forward.
spk03: Terrific. That was it for my questions. Thank you. Thanks, Jim.
spk05: Okay, next we'll go to Brett Kearney with Gabelli Funds. Your line is now open.
spk02: Hi, guys. Good morning. Brett's on the strong execution, all the hard work the team's been doing over the past year plus.
spk00: Thanks, Brett.
spk02: I'm curious, you know, now that Tenant has, you know, very credible sustainability goals out there, very much aligned with where some of your larger customers are going, you know, when you think about your position you have in autonomous, curious anything that factors into conversations with some of your larger customers in terms of, you know, chemical water efficiency that these machines unlock or the data that you guys are capturing coming off the machines? that's very much needed for, say, the larger retailers to hit their own sustainability targets. Does that factor into the conversations at this point?
spk00: You know, it's a great question. It factors in to varying degrees depending on the customer. But I think in general we see it increasing over time. And so it can take a number of different forms. But, you know, we think sustainability is going to be part of the conversation and the selling process for a long time to come as customers catch up. And it's one of the areas I'm most excited about with our new sustainability strategy is that we can achieve our sustainability goals by helping our customers solve for their sustainability goals. Our products can play a pivotal role, not only in, for example, electrifying our product portfolio so that we can help customers eliminate internal combustion engines from their environment, which helps their emissions on site. It's that scope three area of greenhouse gas emissions. But also, like you said, we're uniquely positioned. We have our products use water. We have chemical-free cleaning technologies. We have data and robotics that can potentially contribute to our customer sustainability goals. And we also participate. We recondition machines, which can contribute to product circularity. And so I think there's multiple potential points. of value, that we can add real value to our customers that also has a sustainability benefit. But ultimately, it's helping them reach their goals and solve their problems. It's not a sideline activity around sustainability. It's really integrated into who we are as a partner and what they're trying to do and where they're trying to go with their business.
spk02: Excellent. And then with the strong growth you guys have been seeing in kind of your core industrial market in North America, you know, we obviously hear about... some of the plants and suppliers coming back to this region. I was curious whether you're seeing as good an opportunity with some of the customers you have a strong existing position with or new customer opportunities popping up from some of this potential, call it reshoring activity.
spk00: I would say we're seeing opportunity in both. We hear a lot of talk about reshoring. Some customers have capacity where they're just moving some of their production back into existing footprint. Others are adding footprint to existing facilities. The ground up new facilities, that has a pretty long lead time to it. So it's not that we can't really quantify how many new starts There's been, and we are a late stage purchase. If you think about procuring the land, building equipment, putting in the production equipment, staffing, and then getting up and running, then you would buy the property maintenance equipment and then the cleaning equipment. So we're a late stage purchase and a long cycle process from a new square footage perspective. But I think reshoring, onshoring could be a trend that helps us. I think having lived through The challenge is post-pandemic with freight and with part shortages availability and now looking at continuing geopolitical turmoil. We see, and you read the same thing as we do, a lot of companies are considering being in more complete control of their own destiny by having their production close to home or more of their production in one geography or in the geography that it serves to eliminate the potential for those other disruptions. So we think that's a positive trend for us as companies have to add square footage, and then obviously it needs to be cleaned.
spk02: Yep, very helpful. Thanks so much, Dave.
spk04: Thanks, Brad. And once again, as a reminder, it's star one. If you have a question, we'll pause for just a moment. Since there are no further questions at this time, I'll now turn the call back over to management for closing remarks.
spk00: Thank you. Before we close, please note that we will be posting to Tenant's IR website a second in our series of quarterly videos that offer a deeper look into our business and growth strategy. You can be notified of each new video by signing up for email alerts at investors.tenantco.com. This concludes our earnings call. Have a nice day.
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