Matthews International Corporation (NASDAQ:MATW) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Joseph Bartolacci: The most exciting part of that is we continue to refine the — both the economic model and customer desires through discussions. When we opened the [indiscernible] through our customers and let them see what’s coming. Their excitement is what’s driving our enthusiasm. Where we stand from a timing standpoint, it’s right on where we’ve kind of said the end of this fiscal year — end of the calendar year, early next year, months are not things that we can control completely, but we’re extremely bullish on this. Second, Dan, we’ve hired a few folks, we’ve spoken to few folks about, what we call, alternative uses. And we think we have something that is unique. And I mean, when I say alternative uses, I’m not suggesting that we’re going to go off into other areas that have nothing to do with what we do.

We’ve got enough different kinds of businesses in our portfolio today, but we clearly can license or produce and sell the chip to alternative uses and give us a great opportunity long term to monetize what we think is a very, very unique solution.

Daniel Moore: Okay. And last, again, when you talk about M&A on the software side, are these kind of $20 million to $50 million deals, or could it be something more like up into the $100 million because those obviously, can be very powerful, but also tend to be dilutive relative to your current margin structure?

Joseph Bartolacci: Yes. I mean, from a margin standpoint, it been pushing up into the $100 million, Dan, because they’re bringing pretty good margins. So I wouldn’t be as much concerned about the margins. We are sensitive to our debt ratio. So our ability to do the size will be dependent on where our cash flows are coming in. We are focused on getting ourselves to under 3, and we will continue to be focused. There’s a few things out there that we are aware of and we’ll make the right call at the same time. There are a couple of them in the 20s or a couple of them pushing 70, 80. What they will do though is — our focus is in trying to make our Industrial Technologies segment a more significant part of our overall portfolio.

Operator: There are no more questions at this time. I would like to turn the conference back over for closing comments.

Steven Nicola: All right. Thank you, Sherry, and thank you all for joining us today and your interest in Matthews. Just a reminder for additional information about the company and our financial results, you can feel free to contact me or visit our website. Enjoy the rest of your day.

Operator: Thank you. This will conclude today’s conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and thank you for your participation.

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