Q4 2024 Watts Water Technologies Inc Earnings Call

Welcome to Watts Water Technologies Incorporated fourth quarter and full year 2024 earnings call. At the end of the presentation, we will open the line for questions. I will now turn the call over to Dayan McClintock, Senior Vice President, FDNA and Investor Relations.

Thank you and good morning everyone. Welcome to our fourth quarter and full year 2024 Earnings Conference Call.

Joining me today are Bob Pagano, President and CEO, and Shashank Patel, our CFO. During today's call, Bob will provide an overview of 2024 as well as an update on our expectations for 2025.

Shashank Patel: Shashank will discuss the details of our fourth quarter and full year financial results and provide our outlook for the first quarter and full year 2025.

Shashank Patel: Following our remarks, we will address questions related to the information covered during the call.

Shashank Patel: Today's webcast is accompanied by a presentation, which can be found in the Investor Relations section of our website. We will reference this presentation throughout our prepared remarks. Any reference to non-GAAP financial information is reconciled in the appendix to the presentation.

Shashank Patel: I'd like to remind everyone that during this call, we may be making certain comments that constitute forward-looking statements.

Shashank Patel: These statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially.

Shashank Patel: For information concerning these risks, please see WOT's publicly available filings with the SEC. The company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. With that, I'll turn the call over to Bob.

Thank you, Diane, and good morning, everyone.

Bob Pagano: Please turn to slide 3 and I'll provide a recap of 2024 and an overview of the key drivers for our 2025 outlook.

Bob Pagano: We finished the year with a solid quarter that exceeded our expectations, including record fourth quarter adjusted operating margin and adjusted EPS.

Bob Pagano: We drove record full-year sales, operating income, earnings per share, and free cash flow. Organic sales decreased by 1%, largely driven by weakness in Europe, and adjusted EPS increased by 7%.

Bob Pagano: Adjusted operating margin decreased only 10 basis points versus the prior year, despite 60 basis points of acquisition dilution. Significant volume de-leverage from weakness in Europe and incremental investments in our long-term strategy.

Bob Pagano: We generated record-free cash flow of $332 million, an increase of 18%, with a conversion rate of 114%, well above our expectations.

Bob Pagano: Our balance sheet remains strong and provides us with the flexibility to continue investing for the future. Strategic M&A, high return investments, competitive dividends, and stable share buybacks remain our top capital allocation priorities.

Bob Pagano: Moving to operations. Over the course of 2024, we were able to drive significant productivity savings through investments in automation, our focus on lean initiatives, both inside and outside the factory walls, leveraging the OneWatts performance system and selective restructuring actions.

Bob Pagano: These savings enabled us to mitigate the dilutive impact of acquisitions and the impact of European Volume D leverage on our operating margins.

Bob Pagano: We expect to continue investing to enhance productivity in our factories and drive margin expansion.

Bob Pagano: As previously announced, we close on our acquisition of Icon Systems on January 2nd, 2025. Icon is a leading provider of innovative plumbing and water management solutions.

Bob Pagano: This strategic acquisition will expand our digital offerings and provide growth opportunities in the correctional facilities niche of the institutional market.

Bob Pagano: Integration is underway and progressing well. We expect ICON to be modestly accretive to adjusted EPS in 2025 after factoring in incremental interest expense and normal purchase accounting adjustments.

Bob Pagano: Last week our board authorized a restructuring program involving the exit from a manufacturing facility in France.

Bob Pagano: We'll be moving the production from this plant to existing plants in France and other locations.

Bob Pagano: This action will help to simplify our manufacturing structure and provide incremental productivity. The majority of the expected costs for this program will be recorded in the first quarter. Full year run rate savings should be realized in 2026.

Shashank Patel: Shashank will provide more financial details on this in a moment.

Speaker Change: As discussed in our last earnings call, we introduced our new intelligent water management solution, NEXA.

Speaker Change: We continue to work multiple go-to-market strategies, and the pipeline is growing nicely.

Speaker Change: Feedback from customers has been positive with concrete results of value creation from risk mitigation, reduced water consumption, and improved occupant comfort. We look forward to continued scaling of our ecosystem of digital solutions in 2025.

Speaker Change: As part of our OneWatch performance system, we regularly assess our portfolio and phase out low-performing products under our 80-20 model.

Speaker Change: As part of this process, we have identified approximately $10 million to $15 million of sales we expect to eliminate over the course of 2025, a significant portion coming from our integration of Bradley.

We expect these actions will be margin accretive in 2025.

Speaker Change: Now, an overview of the drivers for our Outlook for 2025.

Speaker Change: We believe that price, as well as repair and replacement activity, will continue to drive growth in 2025. Global GDP, a proxy for our repair and replacement business, has slowed but remains positive in our key end markets.

In the Americas, non-residential new construction indicators are mixed.

The ABI remains below 50, implying a slower 2025.

Speaker Change: The Dodge Momentum Index is slightly more positive, suggesting growth in non-residential products will continue into 2025, primarily supported by strength in institutional and mega-projects, including data centers.

Speaker Change: However, we believe growth in institutional and mega-projects will be partly offset by more challenged sub-verticals including offices, retail, warehouses, and recreation.

Speaker Change: For residential new construction, we expect single-family will be flat to slightly up. Multifamily permits were in decline for most of 2024. With interest rates remaining elevated, we expect multifamily starts to decline double digits throughout 2025.

Speaker Change: As a reminder, multifamily new construction accounts for less than 10% of our total sales.

Speaker Change: With the uncertainty surrounding the direction of inflation and policy under the new U.S. administration, we expect interest rates to remain higher for longer, which may delay construction projects.

Speaker Change: We expect Europe residential and non-residential new construction to remain weak. In addition, we expect the heat pump destocking that has unfavorably impacted our OEM partners in Germany and Italy to continue in the first half of 2025.

Speaker Change: The reduced volume will have a more significant impact on earnings due to our higher fixed cost base in Europe.

Speaker Change: In addition to the planned closure of the manufacturing site in France, we implemented headcount restructuring actions in the fourth quarter that will help reduce the impact of volume deleveraging.

Europe sales represent approximately 20% of our business.

Speaker Change: We expect growth in the Asia-Pacific region, with stronger growth in China data centers, and in the Middle East, along with modest growth in Australia and New Zealand.

Speaker Change: We continue to monitor U.S. policy uncertainty, including potential tariffs and geopolitical uncertainty in the Middle East and Europe. We expect to proactively address any direct or indirect impacts to our customers and supply chain.

Speaker Change: With that, let me turn the call over to Shashank, who will address our results for the fourth quarter and full year, and offer our outlook for Q1 in the full year of 2025. Shashank?

Thank you, Bob, and good morning, everyone.

Speaker Change: Please now turn to slide four, which highlights our fourth quarter results.

Speaker Change: As previously discussed, we had fewer shipping days in the fourth quarter, which unfavorably impacted our sales by approximately 5% across all regions.

Speaker Change: America's organic sales were down 3% and reported sales were up 3%.

Speaker Change: This was better than expected, particularly with the reduced shipping days.

Speaker Change: Some of this favorability was a result of several large projects shipping earlier than expected.

Speaker Change: Sales from our Joe Salmon Bradley acquisitions added 23 million dollars.

Speaker Change: Europe organic and reported sales were down 15% with declines across all geographies due to fear shipping days, heat pump destocking at our OEM partners in Germany and Italy, and weakness in new construction markets triggering some destocking in the wholesale channel.

Speaker Change: APMEA delivered 3% organic growth while reported sales growth of 4% was favorably impacted by 1% from foreign exchange movements.

Speaker Change: Double-digit growth in China and the Middle East was partly offset by declines in Australia and New Zealand, primarily driven by fewer shipping days.

Speaker Change: Compared to the prior year, adjusted EBITDA of $104 million increased 6% and adjusted EBITDA margins of 19.3% increased 140 basis points.

Speaker Change: Adjusted operating profit of 91 million dollars increased 5% and adjusted operating margins of 16.8% was up 100 basis points.

Speaker Change: Adjusted EBITDA and operating income benefited from price, productivity, favorable mix and cost controls, which more than offset inflation, volume deleverage, investments, and acquisition dilution.

Speaker Change: America's segment margins increased 160 basis points to 21.8%, Europe's segment margins decreased by 480 basis points to 10.2%, and APMEA segment margins increased 490 basis points to 17.5%.

Speaker Change: Adjusted earnings per share of $2.05 increased 4% versus last year with benefits from acquisition, operational contribution, and reduced interest expense more than offsetting incremental tax expense.

Speaker Change: The adjusted effective tax rate in the quarter was 24.6%, up 230 basis points compared to the fourth quarter of 2023, primarily due to the recognition of additional R&D credits in the fourth quarter of 2023.

Speaker Change: Moving to the full year results, please turn to slide five.

As Bob mentioned, we delivered record operating results for 2024.

Speaker Change: Sales were $2.25 billion, up 10% on a reported basis and down 1% organically.

Acquisitions accounted for 11% or $250 million of incremental sales.

Globally, foreign exchange had an immaterial impact.

Speaker Change: Adjusted EBITDA $454 million, increased 11%, and adjusted EBITDA margin of 20.1%, increased 20 basis points.

Speaker Change: Adjusted operating income of $400 million increased 9%, and adjusted operating margins of 17.7% decreased 10 basis points.

Speaker Change: As Bob noted, adjusted operating margin decreased only 10 basis points versus the prior year, despite 60 basis points of acquisition dilution and significant volume deleverage from weakness in Europe.

Speaker Change: Similarly, the America's segment margin was unfavorably impacted by 140 basis points of acquisition dilution.

Speaker Change: Excluding acquisitions, the Americas Core Business Operating Margin was up 100 basis points and Appian was up 170 basis points, a very strong performance by both teams.

Speaker Change: Adjusted EPS of $8.86 increased by 59 cents or 7% versus the prior year.

Speaker Change: benefits from acquisition, operational contribution, and reduced interest expense more than offset incremental tax expense.

Speaker Change: For GAP purposes, we incurred after-tax charges of $16.1 million in restructuring and acquisition-related costs.

Speaker Change: These charges were partly offset by $10.3 million of non-recurring gains on the sale of assets, the settlement of the terminated Bradley pension plan, and other investment gains.

Speaker Change: Free cash flow for the full year was $332 million, an 18% increase compared to 2023, and was a company record.

Speaker Change: The increase was driven by higher net income, improved working capital, and cash flow generated by acquisitions.

Our 2024 free cash flow conversion was 114%.

Speaker Change: We returned $73 million to shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchases in 2024 and increased our annual dividend return by 20%.

Speaker Change: Our net debt-to-capitalization ratio at year-end was negative 13% compared to negative 4% at year-end 2023.

Our net leverage ratio at year-end is negative 0.4.

Speaker Change: A balance sheet continues to be in excellent shape and provides substantial flexibility to fund our capital allocation priorities.

Speaker Change: Now, on slide six, let's review our outlook for the full year 2025 and our expectations for the first quarter of 2025.

Speaker Change: Our 2025 Outlook reflects the market factors previously discussed by Bob.

Speaker Change: Starting with the full-year assumptions on both a reported basis and organic basis, we expect sales to range between down 3% to up 2%.

Regional expectations are as follows.

Speaker Change: America's from down 3% to up 3%, Europe from down 8% to down 2%, and APMEA from flat to up 5%.

In addition,

Speaker Change: We expect approximately $25 million of incremental sales in the Americas.

from Acquisitions.

Speaker Change: to be offset by the impact of 80-20 product rationalization of between $10 million and $15 million and the unfavorable impact of foreign exchange across all regions, which equates to a decrease of $28 million in sales and $0.11 per share in EPS versus the prior year.

Speaker Change: Adjusted EBITDA margin is expected to be in the range of 20.4% to 21% or up 30 to 90 basis points.

Speaker Change: Adjusted operating margin should be in the range of 17.7% to 18.3% or flat to up 60 basis points.

Speaker Change: From a regional perspective, the America's segment margin is expected to be flat to up 60 basis points.

Speaker Change: We anticipate the segment margin in Europe will be down 30 basis points to up 30 basis points, and apnea will be flat to up 60 basis points.

Speaker Change: We expect the margin improvement to be driven by price, productivity, and restructuring savings, which will more than offset inflation and volume deleverage.

Bob Pagano: As Bob mentioned, we have completed negotiations to exit a facility in France.

Bob Pagano: Total pre-tax exit costs are estimated to be approximately $22 million.

Bob Pagano: We will record a majority of the cost in the first quarter and provide more detail during our first quarter earnings call.

Bob Pagano: Most of the costs are severance related and are expected to be incurred in 2025.

Bob Pagano: Full-year pre-tax run rate savings are estimated to be $3 million, which should be fully realized in 2026.

Bob Pagano: We expect about $1.5 million in savings this year, largely in the second half.

Bob Pagano: We expect to deliver free cash flow conversion of greater than or equal to 100% of net income in 2025.

Finally, a few items to consider for Q1.

Bob Pagano: On a reported and organic basis, we expect sales to decrease between 3 and 7 percent.

Bob Pagano: Regionally we expect a low to mid single digit decline in the Americas and a high single to low double digit decline in Europe, partly offset by apnea, which is expected to be flat.

Bob Pagano: Based on the calendarization in 2025, we'll have fewer shipping days in the first quarter versus last year, which will unfavorably impact sales by approximately 3%.

Bob Pagano: We also expect Europe to remain weak as heat pump destocking is expected to continue at least through the first quarter.

Bob Pagano: We expect approximately $5 million of incremental sales in the Americas from acquisitions to be offset by the unfavorable impact of foreign exchange across all regions, which equates to a decrease of $7 million in sales and $0.03 per share in EPS versus the prior year.

Bob Pagano: We do not expect a significant impact from our 80-20 actions in the first quarter.

Bob Pagano: First quarter EBITDA margin is expected to be in the range of 19.4 to 20% or down 60 to 120 basis points.

Bob Pagano: Operating margins should be in the range of 16.9 percent to 17.5 percent or down 70 to 130 basis points.

Bob Pagano: This is primarily due to the volume de-leverage impact of fewer shipping days and continuing European weakness.

Bob Pagano: Other key inputs for the first quarter and the full year can be found in the appendix.

Bob Pagano: With that I'll turn the call back over to Bob before moving to Q&A. Bob.

Bob Pagano: Thanks, Shashank. On slide seven, I'd like to summarize our discussion before we address your questions.

Bob Pagano: We delivered a strong 2024 performance with record sales, operating income, EPS, and free cash flow. While we expect mixed global markets in 2025, our portfolio is agnostic to end markets and our teams will pivot to the growing sub-verticals.

Bob Pagano: Our business model, which includes a large repair and replacement component, provides a durable base that drives a steady revenue and cash flow stream.

Bob Pagano: We continue to invest in our digital strategy, including the recent introductions of NEXA. We look forward to growing this solution to expand our suite of offerings for our customers.

Bob Pagano: We believe our highly experienced team is well-positioned to proactively navigate current market conditions by controlling costs and driving productivity through our one-watts performance system, while capturing our fair share of demand and positioning us to capitalize on long-term secular trends.

Bob Pagano: Our balance sheet continues to be strong after our strategic acquisition of ICON and provides an ample flexibility to support our balanced capital allocation priorities.

Bob Pagano: Our acquisition pipeline remains active and we'll continue to pursue attractive opportunities to expand our solutions, geographic presence, and growth. With that, Operator, please open the lines for questions.

Speaker Change: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin our question and answer session. If you have dialed in and would like to ask a question, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star one again. Thank you. Your first question comes from the line of Andrew Creel with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Andrew Creel: Hi, thanks. Good morning, everyone. I want to ask on the 80-20 actions, which I believe are new for the company. You have to do the math. It looks like they're about a point of a sales drag for the company.

Andrew Creel: I'm going to assume these could be break-even margin businesses. And do you expect this, you know, the sales drag to be done in 2025? Or you know, could this dynamic happen again in 2026? Thanks.

Andrew Creel: Good morning, Andrew. Yes, so 8020 has been part of the OneWatts performance system.

Andrew Creel: Since I got here 11 years ago. So if you remember, we exited about 175 million of undifferentiated products. So it's in our

It's in our arsenal of tools that we use.

Andrew Creel: We called this out specifically because Bradley was a larger acquisition, it's a mid-size acquisition, and part of our overall process when we do acquisitions is to really look at their profile and focus on you know, improving margins and eliminating, you know,

Andrew Creel: products that don't make a lot of money for us or have low margins. So that's all we're trying to do is call that out. These are niche accessory type products and that we're just exiting because it doesn't make sense to do it. So they're basically break-even products. There's probably another incremental five or 6 million of Bradley that moves into next year, but we called it out just because it was a bigger item this year.

Andrew Creel: Great, that's helpful. And then just on the, I think, a note and prepare remarks.

Speaker Change: sales shift a bit earlier in 4Q, ISP size that and which segment that impacted. Thanks.

Shashank Patel: Yeah, it's probably in the Americas there, Shashank. It's probably in the Americas and it was some project pull-ins we had in our in our commercial business on the on the boiler side. Approximately four million dollars is what was pulled in.

Great. Thanks, guys.

Thank you.

Speaker Change: Your next question comes from the line of Nathan Jones with Cecil. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone.

Speaker Change: Good morning. Good morning. I guess I'll start with the topic du jour with the US administration imposing 25% tariffs on aluminum and steel.

Speaker Change: Watch has had a very good track record in inflationary periods over the last several years of being able to pass inflation through to customers.

Speaker Change: Maybe we're in a little bit, you know, weaker demand environment now. So, I mean, just any color you can give us on what your exposure is to those tariffs, how you would plan on dealing with them.

Speaker Change: And whether or not you think the market is in a position to bear cost increases, not just from you guys, but, you know, across suppliers.

Speaker Change: Well, Nathan, it's always top of mind for us to stay in front of these type of

Speaker Change: tariffs etc and we'll continue to do that. We will be raising prices as soon as you know we see these and we'll be passing them on.

Speaker Change: Certainly, we don't know the implications on the construction industry related to tariffs if that eventually slows things down or not, but I think we'll continue with our track record. We'll continue to push and offset those costs.

Speaker Change: So it would be your intention that you would fully offset any tariff impact with price?

Yes.

Okay, cool. That's the answer I was looking for.

I guess maybe on the...

on the product rationalization side at Bradley.

Speaker Change: I'm hoping that you could give us a little bit more color on how you're using 80-20. I mean, you guys have, as you said, Bob, you've been using these tools for 10 years, but it's the first time you actually called out 80-20.

Speaker Change: More over the next few years or is this just you know, maybe it's just because it was 15 million this year It was warranted calling out

Speaker Change: Yeah, I think it was the latter. It was just a bigger...

Speaker Change: amount, and we inherited some backlog from Bradley that went through, and stuff that on a go-forward basis, we weren't going to do it. We're also looking deeply inside of Europe right now, given the market conditions, and re-looking at that in our product portfolio, as well as our footprint, so as we always do. So, as we take advantage of opportunities where we see it, when there's sound volume, we continue to look at optimizing as discussed in the closure of this recent France facility.

Speaker Change: So we're always looking, we're always improving, always looking at 80-20 and profitability by customer and channel all the time. So it was just a bigger number and I thought it was important to call that out. And you'll probably see more work inside of URIC as we head into 2026.

Speaker Change: And then maybe just one on Icon, you talked about that adding to the digital capabilities of the company, but it sounds like a pretty niche-y end market going into correctional facilities. May, any information you can give us on, you know, valuation of the business and then how you think you can leverage Icon's technology into the rest of the portfolio? Thanks.

Speaker Change: and I'm going to be talking about the the the the the the the the the the the the the the

Speaker Change: Yeah, I mean, we've agreed not to discuss the purchase price. But I can tell you, it's EBITDA neutral for the company.

Speaker Change: It's clearly less than nine multiple we paid on it, so it was a good acquisition. We really like Icon because it's a growing market, it's a niche market, but they have controls on the front of the wall products.

Speaker Change: And that's something we're very interested in, we could leverage through our Nexus system. So that was the appeal to us. It's a growing market and a profitable market. So it's a nice acquisition.

Thanks for taking my questions.

Thank you.

Speaker Change: Your next question comes from the line of Brian Blair with Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Morning, everyone.

Good morning.

Speaker Change: I wanted to circle back to Bradley and Joseph and maybe offer a little more of an update on integration there how the

IOP and L contribution is tracking.

Speaker Change: relative to deal model and if you're willing to disclose you you'd say this you know accessory type products kind of break even but are you willing to note which product line specifically you're exiting via 8020 this year?

Speaker Change: Yes, so the acquisitions are going really well. They exceeded both exceeded our profit and synergy targets this year, which is great And the teams are off to a good start If we get into the very detail, it's non-core safety products lockers and accessories

Speaker Change: Understood, appreciate the detail and it would be great to hear more on the the rollout of NEXA. Yeah, the opportunity to...

to view the dashboard in person yesterday.

Speaker Change: That's actually quite impressive. Just curious how that impacts your digital strategy now, what you're hearing from customers in obviously the early stages of the rollout. Any results you can speak to in terms of value add on the customer side, and then.

Speaker Change: perhaps remind us of your run rate SAAS revenue and how NEXA should influence that going forward.

Speaker Change: Yeah, we're really excited about Nexon. I'm glad you had the opportunity to take a look at it. It's early stages. We just launched it in August. A lot of trials out there, but many savings from customers.

Speaker Change: and Hospitality. If you go on our website you can see the customer testimonials and case studies.

Speaker Change: But like any new product, people got to test it, they got to try it, they got to appreciate it. But what's even more important about this product, it protects our core products. And as you know, we've been driving this smart and connected initiative for a long time, and all of our products are going to be integrated by the end of this year into the Nexa platform. So we continue to add scale capabilities. And I haven't heard one customer that has disliked it.

reports scaling in.

Speaker Change: I appreciate the color and just ask again, what is current SAS revenue for your team?

Speaker Change: It's not a lot at this point in time. It's a growing part of our business. Our leak detection group has some of that, some of our other products, but it's negligible, and we'll be trying to continue to grow that, leveraging the NEXA platform.

Okay, understood. Thanks again.

Thank you.

Speaker Change: Your next question comes from the line of Mike Halloran with Baird. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, everyone.

Morning. Morning, Mike.

Speaker Change: So, just on the demand outlook, nothing seems overly surprising there, so just kind of a two-fold question. One, has the thought process changed much in the last...

Speaker Change: you know, quarter, 90 plus days here. And then secondarily, what are you hearing from the channel? Is the channel saying something similar, more or less optimistic in any signs that some of those distressed markets from the channel perspective?

Speaker Change: might see a little bit more of a turn at some point this year.

Speaker Change: I think generally, as we saw in the last quarter, it's carried through to the fourth quarter and probably into January. I think, as you know, uncertainty in the market.

Speaker Change: pauses new construction. So there's been a bunch of uncertainty recently. But I think general there's optimism at this point in time. There's some, you know, the...

Speaker Change: multifamily. It's going to take a while for that to come back. We saw that

Speaker Change: really hit us in the second half of the year, and as we said, we're going to see that at the beginning of the year. Institutional is still strong. We're monitoring that, driving that, but

Speaker Change: You know, Mike, I would say it's kind of the same. There's some optimism at the recent ASHRAE show. There's some optimism in the commercial markets. But let's see. Let's watch how interest rates go. And we'll follow through on that.

Speaker Change: Thanks for that. And then just thoughts on the European margin.

Speaker Change: You know, once you get through the restructuring piece here and once the mix normalizes a little bit with the heat pump side and some of the OE pressure.

Speaker Change: How should we think about the sustainable margin range for that region? Is this getting back to kind of that historical range? Are there pressure points that we're keeping below? Can these restructuring moves help maybe nudge you above? Just kind of a generic thought process, please.

Speaker Change: Yeah, so the margins in Europe, as you know, have been lower.

Speaker Change: than the U.S., primarily because we have more of an OEM channel there.

Speaker Change: behind us, we'll start seeing some margin drop through. So team's focused on that and we'll be watching closely on that.

Appreciate it. Thanks, Bob.

Thank you.

Speaker Change: Your next question comes from the line of Jeff Hammond with KeyBank Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

David Tarantino: Hey, good morning guys. This is David Tarantino on for Jeff.

Morning, Davey.

Speaker Change: Sticking with the margin line, could you just walk us through the puts and takes on the company level margin line, particularly given it looks like volumes are expected to be down at the midpoint. What are the key buckets driving the improvement this year?

Speaker Change: Yes, it's a combination of you know there's a little bit of price in there right so we announced price increases in January, February, March.

Speaker Change: So those price increases are baked in. Productivity is another big piece of it. And as you know, in productivity, it's global sourcing savings. We did quite a bit of restructuring last year. It's productivity in the factories, outside the factories. It's a combination of all of that.

Speaker Change: And that obviously pays for the incremental investments as well as inflation and the net result. And we do have volume de-leverage at the midpoint, slight volume de-leverage compared to last year. And with all of that is what's driving the net margin expansion.

Okay, great. Thanks, sir. And then maybe.

Speaker Change: To get a bit more color on Europe, I guess, is surprised by the degree of remaining pressure coming into 2025. So maybe could you walk us through?

Speaker Change: What are the puts and takes here? How should we expect the implied weakness to progress through the year?

Speaker Change: Yeah, at least for the first half, we believe heat pump destocking will continue.

uncertainty in the marketplace with the war and...

funding of the war, etc. So I think

Speaker Change: you know, we're, you know, the first half will be probably the most challenged.

Speaker Change: and we'll be looking to pick it up in the second half. But as you know, I'm usually cautious on Europe, so we're going in with low assumptions so we can make sure our cost structure is in place, and we'll take any upside with volume if it happens, but we're not planning on it at this point.

Speaker Change: And as you see the full year guide, the midpoint minus five, most of that minus five. Five, as Bob said, is happening in the first half. Q1 is, you know, the midpoint is like ten percent. So second half we do get easier comps with the big declines we had in second half last year.

Okay, great. Thanks for the color, guys.

Thank you.

Speaker Change: Your next question comes from the line of Joe Giordano with TD Cabin. Please go ahead.

Speaker Change: Hi, good morning. This is Vanod for Joe Giordano. Good morning. I want to touch on tariffs again.

Speaker Change: Good morning. Just wanted to touch on tariffs again. If we see a scenario of reciprocal tariffs in Europe, does that impact your competitive positioning at all? I'm assuming that's not the case since you manufacture there as well, but if you could comment on that.

Speaker Change: Yeah, for the most part, you know, our model is manufacturing where we sell. Certainly, like in North America, we do get some components from China.

Speaker Change: But in Europe, for the most part, we are manufacturing in the Europe base, so if there are tariffs on imports from the U.S., the impact will be minimal.

Speaker Change: Got it. Thank you. That's very helpful. And you mentioned the correctional facilities niche as a growing niche that will be an attractive one. And obviously, I understand that the fundamentals of that market will be unique, but is there anything specific from a water product standpoint that is unique in that market that you would want to call out?

Speaker Change: I think it's just a refurbishment. Many of these facilities are very old so their plumbing system inside of the cells need to be refurbished and it's a unique specialized product from a safety point of view that's in there. So a lot of renovation in that market.

Appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you.

Speaker Change: Your next question comes from the line of Nick Cash with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Speaker Change: Hi, yes, this is Nick Cashaw from Bryan Lee. Can you all hear me?

Yeah, good morning.

Speaker Change: Hey, good morning. Just wanted to touch back on, you know, the ICON acquisition. Just, I guess, a small question. One, is that going to be, I guess, going through wholesale distribution channel? And two, if it is or if not, you know, is there any other, I know you mentioned, you know, Nexus, but are there any other cross-selling opportunities there? Thank you.

Speaker Change: It's primarily a direct customer model. There are opportunities to leverage some of their products through the Bradley rep channels and we're evaluating that at this point in time. So small synergies but on the sales side but mainly cost synergies leveraging our global sourcing and capabilities.

Awesome. Thank you.

Thank you.

Speaker Change: Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and 1 on your telephone keypad.

Speaker Change: As there are no further questions at this time, I would like to turn the call over to Bob Pagano for closing remarks.

Bob Pagano: Thank you for taking the time to join us today. We appreciate your continued interest in WATS, and we look forward to speaking with you again in May to discuss our first quarter results. Have a good day and stay safe.

Bob Pagano: That concludes today's conference call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect.

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