Celestica Inc. (NYSE:CLS) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Mandeep Chawla: It’s primarily driven by data center growth rates as well. As you know, we do multiple things for our customers. So we can have a customer where we’re doing both HPS programs and non-HPS programs with them. We actually find that being able to provide those both services create secure relationships. And so when we’ve been seeing growth in our non-HPS programs, they’re with largely hyperscaler customers for data center deployments.

Paul Treiber: That’s helpful. Thank you. I’ll pass the line.

Rob Mionis: Thanks, Paul.

Mandeep Chawla: Thanks, Paul.

Operator: Thank you. Your next question comes from Robert Young from Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.

Robert Young: Hi. Good morning. I’m just curious about the supply chain. It sounds like there’s — you’re expecting to be better in 2023 and I’m just curious how it — how that evolution impacts your visibility. You benefited a lot from maybe better understanding of your customers’ build schedules. And then as footprints are changing, people shifting towards onshore, maybe away from China, how does your footprint match up with where your customers want to go? Two questions related to supply chain there.

Rob Mionis: Thanks, Rob. Yeah. From a supply chain perspective, the constraints are certainly eased from last quarter. And as we enter 2023, I think we’re getting close to pre-COVID levels. Nevertheless, supply lead times are still elevated, especially on some of the older chip technologies such as the narrow space and some automotive products as it relates to lift us, as it supports the EV market. With respect to giving us visibility on build schedules, build schedules and visibility is really function of lead times, so given that lead times are still relatively high, again, semiconductor lead times were about 15 weeks. There are now about 34 weeks coming off a higher 40. So based on the increased lead times for semiconductors, we still have increased lead times and visibility into our customers’ forecast, which is a positive.

And regarding our footprint, we think we’re really well positioned. Right now, we’ve announced some expansions in Malaysia to support some growth there and we also announced some expansions in Mexico to support some growth there and that’s really to facilitate customers wanting supply chain resilience and having multiple nodes supporting them and also to support additional onshoring.

Robert Young: Okay. And then second question, I wanted to dig into the EPS guide for 2023. You said that EPS, adjusted EPS is now a key performance measure. And so it seems odd that the guide for 2023 is 5% growth and 10% — at the midpoint 5%, at the midpoint and then 10% in 2024 and 2025. So I’m just curious what the driver is that leads you to be a little more cautious on EPS growth in 2023?

Mandeep Chawla: Yeah. Hey, Rob. So we’ve been consistent with our EPS outlook for 2023 from what we had provided in October $1.95 to $2.05. To your point, when you look — off of the very strong results that we had in 2022, it’s a single-digit growth rate. 2022, as you know, is an exceptional year. If you looked at our EPS growth on a two year stack basis, we’re above 20% growth. What we are seeing right now is continuing growth going into next year on the top line. We are being prudent to be very frank at this moment given its January only of 2023. And we would hope that we would continue to see strong performance even as we exit Q1 and going into the rest of the year. So we will provide updates along the way. But right now, as you can see with our guide in Q1, the near term visibility is quite robust.

Robert Young: Okay. And just last quickly on PCI. I think you said that you had a recovery there? Did you recover everything from the fire and is that back to normal? And then I’ll pass the line.