Avnet, Inc. (NASDAQ:AVT) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Yeah, and those shipments are going up and that’s good business for us. So make it no mistake. It just tends to be lower calorie margin, okay? Just still drives dollars, just not percent. So yeah, long assured, it’s going to take us couple of quarters or so to get back into that double-digit, maybe two or three quarters. Ken, on OpEx?

Ken Jacobson: Yeah. I think, Ruplu, you should think about the OpEx as things that we have to go after. It’s not all people, I want to be clear that a lot of it’s opportunities, freight savings, and some of those things. And just looking at the operations of the business a little closer that we’ve had kind of on the radar. But we need to pull in due to the overall demand and margin environment Farnell’s experiencing. But I think you can think about it being meaningful to Farnell but not necessarily meaningful to Avnet overall.

Ruplu Bhattacharya: Okay. Okay. And if I can sneak one more in, Ken? Inventory was up I think 2% sequentially. Are we now at a peak for inventory for your — for Avnet on inventory? I think you said something about EC inventory maybe going up a little bit in the first quarter. So just in terms of your thoughts on cash conversion cycle and working capital requirements over the next couple of quarters and free cash flow?

Ken Jacobson: Yeah. So I think EC inventory was up modestly this quarter compared to last quarter. And we’d like to term the word stabilized, so flattish inventory levels. But what we did comment on is, there are — there is an opportunity we have where we’re getting inventory late in the quarter and ship it out next quarter. So there is likely to be a temporary increase in inventory going into the first quarter, but we still believe stabilizing is the right term. From a cash flow perspective, we are happy to generate over $200 million this quarter. I think the cash flow will continue. You see the sales guidance being down a little bit sequentially, but it’s probably still going to take a few quarters to get the cash flow generated out of the inventory is how we look at it with stable inventory levels.

Phil Gallagher: Yeah, I’ll add to that, Ruplu, just good pickup and thanks, Ken. [Technical Difficulty] modeling with finance evolve and what’s the cash flow impact and return. So they’re not — it’s not just something that is happening, it’s very strategic, it’s positive for the company. It will just drive up the inventory a bit probably neutral to working capital and should be good returns for the company. Outside of that, the inventory should be stable, flat to down a little bit.

Ruplu Bhattacharya: Okay, thanks for all the details. Appreciate it.

Phil Gallagher: Thank you, Ruplu.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question is from Joe Quatrochi with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your question.

Joe Quatrochi: Yeah, thanks for taking the questions. The comments on some pricing pressure that you saw, is that solely in the Farnell business or are you also seeing that in the Electronics Components business as well?

Phil Gallagher: Yeah, good question, Joe. Predominantly, it’s in Farnell. It’s just the way that they — it’s pretty complex. I’m trying to explain it, but the way they procure products and sit on it, they have a lower inventory turns, one to two per year So they just got caught upside down a little bit on the FX and then just the natural pricing pressures where they had some, again, as we spoke up before, some additional inflation on a — in prior 18 months or so with pricing. On the component side, as we said in the script, when we got the pricing passed on to increased pricing from the suppliers, we just [hash] (ph) that on. We didn’t mark it up again to the end customer, right? So we made these long-term arrangements. So what we’re seeing is actually stabilization in pricing compression there, but always do.