Federal Signal Corporation (NYSE:FSS) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Walt Liptak: Okay, great. All right. Thank you.

Jennifer Sherman: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions]. Our next question comes from the line of Dave Storms with Stonegate Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Dave Storms : Good morning.

Jennifer Sherman: Good morning, Dave.

Ian Hudson: Hi, Dave.

Dave Storms : So it looks like there was a slight divergence in sequential order patterns for ESG and SSG with SSG just seeing orders down slightly since last quarter. Is that just a blip from orders being inherently lumpy? Or is there more to that story that we should be thinking about?

Ian Hudson: Yes. There’s some lumpiness in terms of large fleet orders. And I think we talked about a large fleet order that we got in the first half of the year for the SSG business. We also, I think, on the last call, made reference to Ford was having a model year changeover for its — some of its police vehicles. So that had some impact it probably was less of an impact than we originally anticipating in Q4, but that could have had some impact, and that’s primarily timing. People wouldn’t place deals in Q4, but then they’ll place them in Q1. So I wouldn’t necessarily say within SSG, there’s anything that we weren’t expecting. Probably the opposite that the orders probably came in certainly higher than we had expected with that model year changeover.

Dave Storms : Understood. Very helpful. And then just a quick one on your cash deployment priorities. I know you touched on it, but it seems like you did everything in 2023 from buybacks, dividend raises CapEx and M&A, if you had to prioritize them for 2024, what would that look like?

Jennifer Sherman: Sure. Number one, investment in organic growth initiatives; number two, M&A; number three, competitive dividend yield, number four, opportunistic share buybacks.

Dave Storms : That’s very helpful. Thanks for taking my questions.

Jennifer Sherman: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our question-and-answer session. I’ll turn the floor back to Mr. Sherman for any final comments.

Jennifer Sherman: Thank you. We would like to express our sincere thanks to our stockholders, employees, distributors, dealers and customers for their continued support. Thank you for joining us today, and we’ll talk to you soon.

Operator: Thank you. This concludes today’s conference call. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.