Vertiv Holdings Co (NYSE:VRT) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Amit Daryanani: Got it. That is really helpful. And then if I can get your perspective on this. There’s an expectation that new data center deployments will add, I don’t know, 15, 20 gigawatts of incremental power consumption in the next few years. And you think about these racks going from 10 kilowatts to 50, 100. Can you talk about what does it do to your power management side of the portfolio? Do we need a completely different set of power solutions versus what we have today? What does that imply for work at this [ph] I think Edwards [ph] always focused on the cooling side, which is obviously incredibly positive. But I’d love to know how does it play out on the power management side as we shift into these higher density racks?

Giordano Albertazzi: Well, it’s an absolutely good point that – it’s a very important part of our portfolio as well as a thermal part and one that will benefit from the expansion, the acceleration, the gigawatts that you are mentioning. Fundamentally, the powertrain that we have, from medium voltage switchgear all the way to busbars and PDUs, so the entire powertrain, it’s not going to change dramatic. It’s just going to be more, deployed more, because it’s more power that needs to be transferred from the grid to the chip. So it’s good news. It’s a net volume increase. There will be some fine-tuning in what exactly happens in terms of power distribution inside the rack. Some PDU solutions will be designed for high density, but it’s a relatively small portion of the total powertrain that will expand as a lot.

The other aspect is positive for the power side of our business is that power is, as we said several times that the industry is very vocal about that, an overall constraint, power availability for new data centers. And that drives operators to think about alternative ways to power. So dynamic power solution, microgrids, battery, energy storage systems, et cetera, are all future opportunities that we are keenly looking into and for which we are cooperating with the big players in terms of proof of concepts, et cetera. Something – a future good opportunity for us.

Amit Daryanani: Perfect. Thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from Nigel Coe from Wolfe Research. Nigel, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Nigel Coe: Okay. Good morning, everyone. And thank you for the preview on the Investor Day. I just want more – yes I just wanted a bit more detail on the geographics. EMEA, negatives this quarter. You talked about some project delays. It looks like it’s bounced back nicely in the fourth quarter. How does that break in 2024? Where do you see the pockets [ph] of strength or weakness in Europe right now, especially given the macro? And then you called out China, you’re not expecting that to recover until back end of ’24. But is there enough growth in India, Philippines, et cetera, to drive – to kind of offset that in 2024?

Giordano Albertazzi: Well, I think it’s a little bit premature to – no, absolutely. To be exactly tail on – even geographics within APAC. But again, we are very encouraged from what we see in India and Southeast Asia. China, again, we of course, continue to be a strong player in China, a strong local player in China. But we have kind of a prudent posture in the way we look at the next year. When it comes to EMEA, I am encouraged by the pipeline. I’m very encouraged by pipelines in EMEA and also the conversations with the various customers. And you do say that the macroeconomics are not phenomenal in EMEA. And the geopolitics are as hard as it gets. There is clearly a big question mark when it comes to the Middle East, for us, not a big part of our market. Absolutely not a big part of our, let’s say, our revenue. But yes, it’s – we don’t know what will happen. But overall, for what we can control, absolutely a strong position in EMEA and good pipelines.

Nigel Coe: Great. Thanks. A quick one on pricing, because I think it’s important to sort of like bet this because there is some concerns around price rollback. Are you seeing any price sensitivity or price-based negotiations or price-based competition across your businesses in any meaningful extent? And then maybe, David, if you could opine perhaps on the carry forward from 4Q pricing into 2024. We calculate about two points-plus of price carry forwards. Is that in the right zone?

Giordano Albertazzi: So Nigel, I’ll start with the general comments about the market. I mean, we will live in a commercially active world. Don’t get me wrong. So different geographies, especially different types of market, different go-to markets have slightly different dynamics, from a price standpoint. But overall, we are optimistic about our ability, to continue to have a commercial advantage.

David Fallon: Yes. And Nigel, on your question on pricing carryover, unfortunately, probably a little premature to give specific numbers that there certainly will be some benefit. It probably is not reasonable to anticipate 8% pricing every year going forward like we’ve seen this year and even the 7% last year. But we do anticipate to have some carryover impact. And the one thing we can safely say, it’s certainly our intention going forward, even beyond ’24, to be price/cost positive.

Nigel Coe: Okay. I appreciate the color. Thanks.

Operator: Our next question comes from Andrew Obin from Bank of America. Andrew, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Andrew Obin: Yes, good morning.

Dave Cote: Good morning, Andrew.

Andrew Obin: Can you hear me?

Dave Cote: Hi, how are you? Yes, can you hear you well?

Andrew Obin: So as you look at your AI – yes, yes, as you look at your AI-related pipeline, so are we building more for new build locations? Or is it more retrofit of existing data centers? What does it look like from your perspective?

Giordano Albertazzi: Retrofit will be an opportunity, definitely. In this moment, we predominantly but not exclusively see new build. But there is also quite encouraging conversations about retrofit. But it’s – things are very much in flux. Things are very much in flux. We participate in both conversations very actively.

Andrew Obin: And just a follow-up. Where are you guys in terms of – and I know these questions have sort of been asked, but U.S. capacity utilization today? And how much extra U.S. capacity would be in place by year-end ’24? And the current plans. And also curious to know how flexible can you be – and when I say you – if I include Mexico, but how flexible can you be in pulling capacity from other regions into the U.S. as there are very different electrical standards? Thank you.