DXP Enterprises, Inc. (NASDAQ:DXPE) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Kent Yee: Yes. We definitely think the 10% call is attainable. You hit it spot on. There was some seasonality in just some onetime unique cost, which we conservatively and I’ve emphasized conservatively included as add back to adjusted EBITDA and that put us at 9.8%. That said, as we move into Q2, Q3 and Q4, 10% definitely attainable given our mix today. And we would see that materializing.

Cole Couzens : And to expand on that a little bit, given your mix, is most of that going to be on the gross margin line I think you’ve seen some good improvement there? Or do you think you to drive leverage as well?

Kent Yee: Yes. I mean, hey, we’ve had consistent 30%-plus gross margins here more recently, and that’s definitely contributed to the lift in EBITDA margins, but we also get the operating leverage as we grow the business and grow sales per my comments in my script. But, and I think we’ll continue to see that once again, we expect to continue to get some sales growth. And with that, you get some operating leverage out of the system. The wins that are always challenging for everybody, not needing to us is there’s not just inflation. Inflation from a product perspective is good for DXP, but, from a people perspective, we’ve got to work through that as Merit and pay raise has come through the system. And we’ve done a good job thus far of managing that. But those pressures have been pretty consistent over the last 6 to 12 to 9 months very easily.

David Little: I’ll add to that a little bit. There’s a big push to get incremental gross profit margins up. And so not only to pass on inflation and cost of product going up, but actually to get a little more for ourselves because our people cost is going up and et cetera, things are going up. So we’re pushing the value. And then consistent with that on capital allocation is we’re doing our acquisitions and air compressors and water have higher gross profit margins and higher EBITDA margins. So that’s healthy.

Cole Couzens : Got it. And I’ll come back to capital allocation in a little bit. And, but just higher level too, I think you guys have more recently last quarter and I think this quarter in the press release, you guys talked about some growth initiatives here. Can you walk through what exactly those are and maybe what inning we’re in? And if everything goes right and you can execute the playbook kind of what you hope to achieve by executing that?

David Little: Well, that’s an interesting question. I’m not 100% sure I want to tell the world what I’m doing to grow sales. Being quite honest. And so we don’t talk about that. I think some things that are just obvious we’ll talk about a little bit, and that’s a team of people that are trying to capture national accounts on the rotating equipment side of our business. Every motion, AIT, people like that do national accounts on bearings and power transmission. So we’re in that process of doing that from a pump or rotating equipment scenario. That’s working for us. Sometimes, it doesn’t always lead to a 100% national account. But in every case, it’s creating incremental business for us. We’re also, again, I’m not going to tell you what, but we’re adding product and product capabilities and that’s incrementally working and it’s something that is consistent with the same customer, the same product.

It’s an attachment to that product. And so it’s being readily accepted by our existing sales force. And so there’s not really a lot of expense added to doing it. And so that is incrementally helping us. And then we’re all the time supply chain services is a really long sale. But when you get one, it’s $50 million or $60 million. So it’s a large sale. So they don’t happen every day. It’s a very lumpy business in that sense. But, so we’re always pushing integrated supply through our supply chain service offering. And we’ve had a little [indiscernible]. We’ve got a lot of opportunities on the table. And we hope to get some of those closed and if they are, they’re pretty significant. And then, we’re just always fighting the B2B channel and spend a lot of money on content development, et cetera, don’t play ourselves as in each commerce company or a productivity company designed to help it make it easier for our customers to do business with us.

So that’s always in the works getting something.

Kent Yee: I mean Yes. The only thing I’d add there, Cole, is then obviously, we complement that organic growth with acquisitions. And so I think when it comes to answering your question around our growth initiatives. We do think for strategic reasons kind of here. We disclosed less the world’s guidance. Copy caddish is the best way to put it. And so we strategically take the position of yes, articulating that we’re always focused on growth. We view ourselves as a growth company. And we always have organic plans if people know DXP, we also do that through acquisitions with absolute disclosure given other strategics private equity, et cetera. I think David hit it right on the nose. So.

Cole Couzens : Great. That’s good color and completely understand there. And lastly, just to circle up on capital allocation. You all have done a good job executing on some deals here and it sounds like there’s more in the pipeline. Is there any more color you can provide kind of on what those deals look like I know you mentioned earlier in the call that kind of some of your diversification efforts have reaped a lot of benefits. So just any color in terms of size or end market would be appreciated?