ESCO Technologies Inc. (NYSE:ESE) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Operator: And our next question will be coming from John Franzreb of Sidoti. Your line is open.

John Franzreb: Good afternoon guys and thanks for taking the questions. Just curious about the pricing versus cost equation, how much of headwinds is higher inflationary costs still impacting you? And when do you expect to maybe be equilibrium with price increases kind of matching up to those higher input costs?

Chris Tucker: Yes. I would say by the fourth quarter, we kind of got ahead of that a little bit. I think you saw that in the test margins. I think you saw that in the A&D margins as well. Even in the utility side, I think we have done a good job on the price there to stay in front, but we talked about some of the mix issues there earlier that caused the margins to hold back a little bit. So, we would say, in general, that we feel like we have priced pretty well, and we are kind of favorable on that equation right now, John.

John Franzreb: Got it. Great. And when you think about the cadence of revenue for this year, is it €“ how heavily weighted is into the second half of 2023 relative to the first half as far as order deliveries and timing?

Vic Richey: Yes. I would say the sales growth is a little bit more €“ it’s not super back-end loaded from a growth perspective. If you look at the year-over-year growth, so because of the backlog, we are coming in with. But from a margin and EBIT perspective, it’s a little more back-end loaded. But fundamentally, we think the sales growth will be pretty even, a little lower Q1 and a little higher Q2, Q3 and then maybe a little lower Q4 or something like that.

John Franzreb: Got it. And just on the balance sheet. Why not be more aggressive in paying down debt in a higher interest rate environment?

Chris Tucker: Yes. We honestly €“ what you see in the September financials there, we had some €“ we had a really strong cash flow really late in the year, so we ended up with pretty high cash and a little higher debt. We have already kind of fixed a lot of that here since we have started fiscal €˜23. And yes, we are definitely going to be managing the debt pretty aggressively given the interest rate environment as we move forward.

John Franzreb: Okay. Thanks for taking my questions. Congratulations guys.

Vic Richey: Thank you.

Chris Tucker: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you for your question. This concludes the Q&A session. I would like to turn the call back over to Vic Richey, Chairman and CEO, for closing remarks. Go ahead, sir.

Vic Richey: Okay. Thanks so much for everybody joining us. And I look forward to Bryan and Chris talking to you next quarter. Thank you.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you and you may all disconnect. Have a great rest of your evening.

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