Belden Inc. (NYSE:BDC) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

And here I think it’s more short-term uncertainty with a lot of robust investment focused on the longer-term trends. And I think we’ve talked about this across our markets. On the industrial side, there’s reshoring, there’s the labor and skills gap, there’s investment in automation. On the smart building side, there’s more digitization, hybrid networks. On the broadband side, of course, there’s the DOCSIS transition, all sorts of investments in broadband, including from the federal government, and that’s true in multiple jurisdictions. So this feels like a very different situation in that sense. The question is how long will this temporary weakness last? Like I said, previously, we expect that on the broadband side it will turn faster, and it will persist a little more in the industrial and the smart buildings market given how those markets plan investments how the cycles work.

But yes, I think it’s different from 2015, 2016 in that sense. I think we as a company have come out much better over each cycle that we’ve gone through. I think this cycle is going to be different because of the technology investments we’ve made.

Reuben Garner : Okay. Thanks. I guess, it doesn’t sound like — I recognize the targeted incremental or decremental margins. It doesn’t sound like you necessarily have any material or restructuring or cost initiatives right now. What would it take I guess for something like that to need to come into play as another quarter of what we just saw? How would things have to progress before you have to make some other moves?

Ashish Chand: Well, I think, our current thought processes that — based on our anticipated — like we said Q4 is going to be probably the weakest point and then it will take a couple of quarters more before things start turning. I think for that we are well set with the plans we have. We feel good about the 20% to 30% decremental margins we’ve articulated. We do want to protect our solutions transformation. So there’s a lot of investment we’ve already made in go-to-market and in technology. We don’t have to repeat all of that. There’s a lot of leverage over there, but there are obviously pieces that we need to protect. So as you said, at this point, we don’t have any dramatic restructuring in mind. We have articulated a plan and started executing upon that for the current period. I think for that to be expanded, we would have to see continued weakness going into the second half of 2024.

Jeremy Parks : Yes, if I could just jump in Reuben and add a little bit to Ashish’s response. If you do the math on the second half of the year, the decrementals are actually a little bit better. Decrementals are around 15%. On a year-over-year basis, SG&A and R&D are both coming down substantially from first half to second half based upon this guidance. So we are taking some cost actions. We’re managing the cost structure very proactively and tightly. Obviously, if volume continues to be low, as Ashish said, we’ll evaluate other options. But I don’t want you to leave this call feeling like we’re not doing anything substantial because I think we are.

Q – Reuben Garner: Okay. Thanks. Good luck with the results here.

Ashish Chand: Thank you.

Operator: We go next to the line of Steven Fox with Fox Advisors. Please go ahead.

Q – Steven Fox: Hi, Good morning. A couple of questions from me if I could. First, on the industrial comments that you’ve made. Given the sudden change in what you’re seeing in the markets in that distribution, what are the points that give you confidence that this is an elongated cycle that’s just starting? You mentioned maybe a couple more quarters of downturn, but if this is sort of a starting point or even if Q2 was the starting point it’s not unusual to see these cycles in the last four to six quarters especially, with historically high interest rates. So is there any data points you would say besides obviously, secular trends that I’m not arguing are still in place that can give you some confidence in making some of the comments you made so far about the turn?