Methode Electronics, Inc. Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Ron Tsoumas: Sure. If we look at that the segment, the power piece of it. The datacenter and the EVP’s had the biggest growth and then the second factor would have been our commercial vehicle lighting and then behind that would have been our Hetronic Radio Remote Control in that order.

John Franzreb: Okay, fair enough. And it sounds like your — the M&A pipeline. They have improved or changed from three months ago. Can you talk a little bit about what you’re seeing out there as far as potential inorganic growth?

Ron Tsoumas: Sure. I would say the pipeline stays robust we brief, the Board once a quarter of what opportunities there. Those have not — they’ve maintained their pace nothing that is imminent, but I’m not unhappy with the amount of looks that we see. The credit facility that was expiring. So we needed to re-up that and then take the opportunity to avail ourselves of more borrowing capacity, if we needed it. Prices I don’t know that they’ve come down appreciably yet. We think they will perhaps private equity is a little bit on the sidelines, which gives us maybe an advantage, but we’ll have to see how things pan out, if we get to the point of discussions of pricing with a particular target.

Don Duda: Yes, I would agree on those assessments and getting the expanded credit facility as it was a good thing for us and certainly gives us more flexibility and latitude to — from that part of the capital allocation strategy.

Ron Tsoumas: And I think that gives us an advantage. We’re talking to targets down the pay, hey we’re ready to go, we can get to the right due diligence and the right price. So I think that’s a definite advantage.

John Franzreb: Fair enough. I guess one last question, you’ve been far more aggressive buying back stock than repaying debt, what are your thoughts on that on a go forward basis? Or it’s maybe to phrase it differently, do you have a lower share count embedded into your guidance for this year when you closed at the end of the second quarter?

Ron Tsoumas: John, I think it’s, it’s more about timing within our strategy over the next couple of years in terms of how we foresee allocating capital and absent an acquisition, we have been allocating more capital towards share repurchases. In terms of debt reduction prior to the facility that we just updated on October 31, there was a term loan a component to that. And if we were to repay that we would basically lose the ability to reborrow against that and now under the new facility that doesn’t have that components so will have more flexibility without it being punitive and our ability to reborrow. So mainly, we just, we just continue to generate cash and allocate capital towards share repurchases and we can pivot and deviate if we were to do an acquisition.

John Franzreb: Got it, thanks for the info. I appreciate guys. Thanks for taking my questions.

Don Duda: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from David Kelley with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

David Kelley: Hey, good morning and thanks for taking my questions. I wanted to follow-up on the earlier power distribution and busbar EV discussion. I was hoping you could talk about the bidding opportunity there versus what you’re seeing with win rates with customers. Are you seeing a step up in both and thus implying some market share gains there?

Don Duda: Yes. We’ve been shipping busbars since 2006 and Methode has been in the busbar business probably since the 60s maybe. So we’re well versed in how to make those that gives us a competitive advantage. We also are — we are a solid Tier 1 supplier that with a great quality record. So we get — we don’t always get the wins, but we get a lot of looks across the Board on busbars, and as I said earlier, moving into power distribution and the motor busbars. So are we gaining market share? Yes, we have our threshold of pain; however, and we’re pretty disciplined on that. We track our wins we’ve talked in the past about how we looked at our booking opportunities. We have embryonic. We have — we put a percentage to at 50% and then we have 75% and we track over the years what our win rate is, and I think the last one we looked at and this is across the board for Methode is not just EV, 75% is we’re in the 60 some percent rate.

If we lose, we lose because we’ve reached a price point that we don’t want to go. So I think that’s a definite market share gain for us and we’ve talked about that.