MSA Safety Incorporated Price & Performance (MSA)

Non GAAP reconciliations are available in the appendix of today's presentation. The presentation and press release are available on our Investor Relations website investors.msasafety.com. Moving on to today's agenda. First, Steve will highlight the importance of our mission and provide a business update from the and full year 2024. Will then review our financial performance 2025 outlook. To conclude, Steve will outline our 2025 strategic priorities before providing closing comments. With that, I'll turn the call over to Steve Blanko. [indiscernible] Thanks, Larry, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for your continued interest in MSA MSA. 2024 marked MSA Safety's one hundred and tenth year as a purpose driven company. Over that time, we've remained dedicated to our mission that men and women may work in safe and the day, their families and their communities may live in health throughout the world. Today, we are better positioned than ever to help our customers solve their toughest safety challenges. As we move forward into 2025, we remain focused on fulfilling our mission and protecting the more than 40000000 workers around the world that place their trust in the MSA brand. I want to personally thank all of our associates for their continued commitment to our singular mission [indiscernible] Before we get into our recent performance, I'd like to acknowledge and thank the more than 15000 first responders, including our customers from the Los Angeles County and Los Angeles City Fire Departments who have been heroically fighting to end the devastating fires in Southern California.

As we've done with past disasters, MSA is partnering with And our team continues to monitor the situation for additional opportunities to provide support. Now on Slide 5 to provide a business update on the quarter and full year. Our team executed well against the backdrop of a dynamic operating environment to conclude 2024. Financial results for the quarter were mixed as we achieved margin expansion through SG and A management, earnings growth and solid free cash flow generation despite sales growth that was lower than expected. Sales were impacted by pockets of industrial market weakness and softer U. S. Fire service demand as well as foreign exchange headwinds. That said, overall demand was resilient across our product categories as evidenced by healthy order pace in the and we continue to see order momentum so far this quarter. Sequentially, backlog reduction was attributable to seasonal customer deliveries as well as From a commercial perspective, we announced the award of a ten year $33,000,000 breathing apparatus contract with the U. S. Coast Guard. And delivered on the second tranche of the U. S. Air Force order. Additionally, we received our largest ever order for the MSA Plus connected portables. Which was a competitive win from a large energy customer in North America.

We remain encouraged by our pipeline for connected devices in 2025. As we continue to meet our customers where they are on their connected journey. Moving now to our product categories, Sales in fire service on a reported basis were up high single digits year over year, primarily due to double digit growth in SCBA. Which benefited from positive impacts of shipping the final units of the U. S. Air Force order as well as strong performance international markets. Sales and detection were down low single digits year over year on a contraction in Fixed Gas and Flame Detection. Primarily due to a challenging comp, partially offset by high single digit growth in portable gas Detection, which continued to perform well across traditional, and connected devices. Industrial PPE sales were down mid single digits for the year. We had low single digit growth in industrial head protection offset by a low single digit decline in fall protection as well as double digit contraction From a full year perspective, net sales growth finished the year up 1% on a reported basis and 2% on an organic basis compounding on top of the 17% reported growth we delivered in 2023. While top line growth was more modest than we originally anticipated, we remain encouraged by the positive long term trends in industrial safety tech our innovation pipeline and the overall resiliency of the business.

Strong operating leverage driven by resilient gross margins and SG and A management enabled adjusted operating margin expansion and 10% adjusted earnings growth. Turning to Slide 6. At our Investor Day last May, we introduced our strategy, which we refer to as accelerate. To deliver long term profitable growth as well as twenty twenty eight financial targets. The progress we have made this year on advancing this strategy provides us with a strong foundation to build on in 2025 and beyond. And it reinforces our confidence and commitment to our twenty twenty eight financial targets. I'd like to take a few moments to highlight a few of the key accomplishments in 2024. First, we leveraged our market leading innovation and new product development process, which includes a high focus on voice of customer to introduce innovative products and solutions across our categories. In Fire Service, we launched the new Karnes eighteen thirty six fire helmet and we completed work on our next generation G1 SC which we recently submitted to the NFPA for its approval to the 2025 standard. In Detection, we bolstered our fixed gas and flame detection portfolio with the release of the FL5000 multi spectrum IR flame detector.

And in industrial PPE, we released our newest industrial head protection solution, the V Guard H2 Safety HONEST. And continued leadership the premium safety solutions market. We also leaned into the implementation of targeted growth accelerators. This included accelerating our customer solutions and recurring revenue through our MSA plus Connected Worker platform. Connected portables were our fastest growing category in 2024 and we expect further growth in 2025 via customer acquisitions, existing conversions of customers and additional product development. As an organization, we continue to apply the principles of the MSA business system. To drive continuous improvement in all we do. We further deployed our broad operational excellence program with a strong focus on maximizing our customer experience and operating margin enhancement. Our goal remains to deliver productivity and sourcing savings, manage price and inflation improve quality and deliver an exceptional customer experience. These initiatives are paying dividends and resonating within the organization. Helping us drive continued expansion of gross and operating profit while improving customer satisfaction. Finally, our strong financial profile and balance sheet enabled effective capital allocation through organic growth investments and the return of capital to shareholders in the form of dividends, and share buybacks. Addition, we remain highly disciplined in our approach to M and A. And we continue to evaluate inorganic growth opportunities that meet our strategic and financial goals.

With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Lee to walk us through the and full year 2024 financial results in more detail and our 2025 outlook. Thank you, Steve, and good day, everyone. We appreciate you joining the call. Let's start on Slide 7 with the quarterly financial highlights. Sales were $500,000,000 an increase of 1% on a reported basis and 2% organic over the prior year. Healthy growth in the fire service was partially offset by a low single digit contraction in detection, and a mid single digit contraction in Industrial PPE. We had contributions from volume and pricing in the quarter, and currency translation was a 1% headwind to overall growth. Order pace remained solid in the up 14% year over year. And orders are up 10% versus the same prior year period. While macro and geopolitical conditions remain dynamic, we continue to see mixed but generally resilient market conditions and retain an active new business pipeline. Consistent with normal seasonal patterns, our book to bill is slightly below 1 times and as we anticipated reduced backlog, following an increase in the Backlog conversion was largely in fire service, more specifically related to the G1 SCBA.

Now moving on to margins. Gross profit in the was a resilient at 46.9%, down 120 basis points over the prior year. Gross margin contraction was attributable to inflation, and large project mix, which was partially offset by price and productivity programs. GAAP operating margin was 23.5%, 70 basis points over the prior year and incremental operating margin of 113%. The margin increase was largely due to effective SG and A management, and lower variable compensation expense. Along with our sustained price inflation focus and continued productivity execution, Our laser focus on driving sustainable margin improvements continues to yield results. GAAP net income in the quarter totaled $88,000,000 or $2,.22 per diluted share, On an adjusted basis, diluted earnings per share were $2,.25 up 9% over the prior year. The increase was largely due to higher operating profit, driven by sales growth, effective SG and A management. Lower interest expense as a result of ongoing deleveraging and a lower year over year effective tax rate. Now I'd like to review our segment performance. In our Americas segment, sales increased 1% year over year a reported basis. As growth in fire service, was partially offset by contractions in detection and industrial PPE.

Currency translation was a 2% headwind. Adjusted operating margin was 30.7% up 90 basis points year over year. Expansion was largely driven by price realization, productivity and SG and A management. In our International segment, growth was flat year over year on both a reported and organic basis. Double digit growth in Fire Service, was balanced with mid single digit contractions in Detection and Industrial PPE. [indiscernible] Currency translation was relatively neutral the quarter. And adjusted operating margin was 17.6% a year over year decrease of 60 basis points due to inflationary pressures partially offset Now moving on to Slide 8, where I'll review our full year 2024 results. Relatively broad based demand offset some pockets of weakness throughout the year leading to total net sales of 180,000,000,0.0 up 1% reported and 2% organic compared to last year. Positive contributions from price were partially offset by modest FX pressure primarily in Latin America. Both segments contributed low single digit growth Gross profit margin was 47.6% in 2024 about flat year over year. Adjusted operating margin was 22.9%, up 70 basis points compared to the prior year. Incremental operating margins were 81%. Adjusted diluted earnings per share were $7.7 up 10% over the prior year.

Our continued ability to generate capital efficient growth was evidenced by our 22.9% adjusted return on capital employed. Now turning to Slide [indiscernible] Free cash flow in the was $93,000,000 representing a conversion rate of 105%. Free cash flow is driven by higher earnings, backlog conversion and solid working capital execution. With an improvement of working capital efficiency of 70 basis points year over year. We With that said, we did finish the year slightly below our target levels tied to the sales shortfall and balance sheet hedging programs. We invested $14,000,000 in CapEx repaid $43,000,000 in debt and returned $20,000,000 in dividends to shareholders and repurchased $10,000,000 of shares. For the full year, free cash flow was $2.42,000,000 dollars compared to $3.97,000,000 in the prior year which was adjusted for the divestiture of MSA LLC. Completed in Full year conversion rate of 80% was below our targeted levels primarily due to working capital and higher cash compensation and tax payments related to our strong performance in 2023. During 2024, we invested $54,000,000 in CapEx, repaid $94,000,000 of debt, returned $79,000,000 in dividends to shareholders and repurchased $30,000,000 of shares. Net debt at the end of the year was $3.43,000,000 dollars including cash of $165,000,000 Adjusted EBITDA for the full year was $4.69,000,000 dollars or 26% of sales.

We strengthened our financial position in 2024 ending the year with significant liquidity and net leverage of 0.7 times. Our overall financial strength provides us with ample liquidity enables our balanced capital deployment strategy and continued investments in growth Through the continued implementation of MSA business system, we made great progress this year reducing our backlog to normalized levels and lowering back orders. This has had meaningful benefits, including improved delivery times and fill rates. As well as greater productivity measures, and reduced working capital. And while we're still in the early innings of implementing our business system, it has been very rewarding to see these projects come to life across the globe. I'm now on to Slide 10, Before turning to our 2025 outlook, wanted to take a minute to reflect our financial performance trends. A high level, our resiliency is reflected in the organic growth, incremental margins and our improved balance sheet. As I look towards our 2028 goals, we can look at the last three years as a baseline why we remain optimistic even with a dynamic 2025 upon us. Let's turn to our 2025 outlook on Slide We've taken a balanced approach Our outlook based on the positive long term dynamics inherent in our industry that underpin demand.

The essential nature of our differentiated products and solutions, and the stability and diversity of our portfolio and end market. However, the operating environment will be dynamic with continued uncertain macroeconomic and geopolitical climate. Additionally, we've noticed since our May 2024 Investor Day, we have challenging comps to the delivery of the U. S. Air Force, orders and incremental backlog conversion in 2024. [indiscernible] Overall, Fire Service remains healthy and we have confidence in our strategy to navigate the upcoming which would be in our normal mid single digit range if not for the comparison headwinds I just mentioned. Finally, I would also note that our sales cadence in 2025 we'll be in line with historical trends. For modeling purposes, I will also provide some below the line drivers that impact the results. We expect our tax rate to be between 2425% of 2025 and based on current rates, interest expense is expected to be approximately $24,000,000 to $27,000,000 We expect pension and other non operating income to be $45,000,000 higher than 2024 levels. Addition, while we expect organic sales growth to be up low single digits, certainly current foreign exchange rates imply a further headwind to reported sales. We are not immune to external factors that could impact our top and bottom line.

But we will continue to be agile in the event of the operating environment differing meaningfully from our expectations. For example, while we do not include tariffs in our outlook, we stand ready to navigate any potential impact we see. Finally, I'd like to share my gratitude to our global team for their solid execution and operating performance in 2024. We are well positioned entering 2025 and we will continue to be fully focused on executing our accelerate strategy delivering on our financial commitments, and creating sustainable value for our shareholders. Now, I'd like to turn the call back to Steve. He can outline the key areas of focus for 2025. Thanks Lee, and I'm on Slide 12. As I look ahead into 2025, our team around the world can continues to maintain their focus on serving our mission, and executing our strategy while controlling what we can control. Our 2025 initiatives strongly emphasize growth and extending our leadership position in safety technology through innovation, implementing the MSA business system and delivering continued improvements in operations and maintaining our disciplined approach to capital allocation. On Slide 13, overall, we executed well in what we see as a dynamic environment 2024 a tribute to the team's focus on serving that mission and the inherent resiliency of our business.

As we turn to '25, we remain focused on driving profitable growth and building on the foundational work we completed in 2024 I'm confident our focus and determination and continue to make MSA safety the preferred choice for our customers [indiscernible] With that, I'll turn the call back over to the operator for Q and A. Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. And your first question today will come from Ross Berenblak with William Blair. Please go ahead. Hey, good morning, gentlemen. Good morning, Ross. Hey, Steve. You called out firming orders. In your commentary there. Can you maybe just help us size the cadence as we move through the quarter and into Jan. 0? And maybe just frame some of the puts and takes as you think about the growth expectations throughout 2025? Yes, for you mean the order pace we've seen thus far? Exactly, yes. Yes. Yes. So if we looked at the overall we started out we would say, where we hope to be in Dec. 0 was lighter than we anticipated. A lot of that industrial wise, slower Dec. 0 than we thought. I think it fit that thesis of that choppiness in industrial, which our distributors kind of shared with us [indiscernible] So we weren't seeing what we thought maybe in Dec. 0, but as we looked into year to date thus far it's been a really solid start.

Across the board, especially in our Detection business. Fire service has been good. As we look at it, Overall, I think we look at the 25 story, the incoming and the pipeline, really matching up with what we anticipated. As we talked even back to Investor Day, I think it fits really well with what we initially thought strategically we'd focus on and how we've kind of moved forward in the detection space and fall protection is clearly a category as well. So so far, I'd say the order pace is just as as we hoped it would be. And the pipeline is the same. Okay. I mean with the coming NFPA standard change, do you get the sense that there's been any deferred ordering anticipation of the new product launches? Yes, that's a good question too. So first, the fire service business continues to be resilient and the pipeline is good. I would say that the pace of ordering wasn't to the level we anticipated as we ended the year. Had the fire service the Air Force order, which was nice, but we actually expected it to be a little stronger. Now, again, we're not seeing any competitive accounts take those orders from us but a slower pace.

As we look into 25, we are cautious because of the NFPA standard change in the latter part of the year. The promulgates probably but I think we're really well positioned. Our team has done a nice job really talking to the customer base on who will potentially wait and who won't. And in our view, we've got a pretty good base of business that won't wait. There were certainly are customers that are going to consider I want to wait and see what the new standard is. Okay. That's very helpful. And then just 1 more for me. You also referenced a large MSA plus order. If you missed it, was this a new or existing customer? I just like to better understand some of competitive dynamics and This was new. This was yes. Thanks for the question. So this was a competitive conversion. Large customer in North America. Great competitive conversion where we competed against all of the primary competitors you might expect. And the team did a fantastic job Thanks, Ross. Your next question today will come from with Jefferies. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. Maybe just focusing a little bit on the margins, America margins exiting the year at almost 31%.

Like how does this set you up as you think about the margin potential heading 2025?

Yes. So good morning. Well, I'd probably bring you back to our goal each year is to target 30 to 50 basis points of improvement. That's certainly what we're going to do each year. I would say when we think about '25, that will be a bit harder. Certainly FX is out there I've said this a number of times, we go after that type of improvement. And if something goes wrong, you've got something about it. So I mean right now I'm not going to get into the game of predicting FX, but we certainly know it's if I look at the rates today, it's at least a point and times even in the last few weeks has been more than that. But I still think for for the year, we're looking to to move the margins up and it's going to be more in the gross margin area than in the SG [indiscernible] as we think about our outlook for 2025 That's helpful. Then maybe switching to international, [indiscernible] 2025? How do you think about the step down into the sequentially? And then how should margins trend through the remainder of the year?

Yes, good question. I think for international, but also just for the entire portfolio, there's definitely a step down in just simply because of volume leverage. And that's how we see it. Made a comment about just the outlook for the year You're going to see a more normal seasonal pattern in our sales. Last couple of years, you've had some anomalies because of large orders or backlog and things like that. There is a variability in international. It doesn't have the same market position and market dynamics that we do in North America. But we are working on the same things. We're working on productivity, launching NPD, We certainly have done restructuring over time to to attack our cost base. And I think it's more of a long term play. There are structural differences between the international markets in North America, so there'll be a difference. But certainly, we have this margin objectives We're going after it across the globe.

I appreciate that. And then just just 1 more, you mentioned just the normal seasonality for the year, but if we just kind of focus on Americas and Fire Service, just talk about how you're thinking about the cadence to the Fire Service sales given the challenging comp in the Yes, sure. Yes, so I'll give you a couple dynamics to think about. So we're talking about low single digit organic growth is our our target for the year. It certainly say, a normal seasonal pattern. That's always going to again have that lower a little bit step up this the and there's a larger back half. Typically, our sales overall are probably about 47% to 48% in the of the year and remainder is in the back half. So when you drop that in, into '25, that's going to give you just a different V because in the we had Air Force. We also had kind of our final rundown of of extra backlog. In fire overall, as we shared, we think for the year, it will be a negative growth year because of those comps. And certainly the harder comp isn't is in the first half of the year.

Versus the second half. I'll just add to that because beyond that, that's we've talked about that since May 0. We still have our focus on on detection being our leading growth segment. That's still our view for 2025 as well. And then industrial PP, certainly default protections are focused to get that into a positive as well in 2025. And your next question today will come from Jeff Van Sinderen with B. Riley FBR. Good morning, everyone. Touched it a little bit about this on your prepared comments, but wondering if you can speak a little bit more about what you're doing terms of product innovation in 2025 and I guess even into '26. And then could some of those innovation initiatives create demand for replacements and upgrades in the Detection segment. Just curious about what you're seeing Yes. Thanks for the question. So I mean broadly speaking, as you know, and we talked a bit about this in the prepared comments. But innovation is where we lead and it helps us differentiate who we are in the market place We spend a lot of time with our customers a lot of VOC or voice of customer activity to inform us and gain the insights to really come up with solutions to the challenges they identify.

So I would look at 2526. '25, you think about what we talked with fire service, We've taken advantage of this switch to enhance the G1 specifically what we see as the next generation G1 that we'll showcase this year's FDIC. And that's focused on optimizing comfort, functionality, ergonomics, etcetera. And then if you lean in the detection space a little bit more, I think what's really good for us, and I'll talk about this in 2 categories because we see detection as the fixed monitoring and then we look at the portable side of this. So if you look at the portable side of this business, We really are leaning into the connected platform a lot We have the IO4 We also have a robust plan of products, software updates and cloud capabilities that will continue to roll out throughout 2025 and beyond.

So you'll see some of that show up this year. Certainly, that does have that's part of our strategic initiative set, the accelerate strategy we talked about in May 0, that's coming to fruition and should see some really nice benefits. A lot of that might be the latter half of the year, As far as when you see the revenue side of that, but really good progress there. And in the fixed side, that fixed monitoring space it's a really strong business, great diversity in the portfolio, And we've got an expanded solution set because of our HVAC refrigeration, and automation and that came through Baccarat, came through the MSA [indiscernible] That adds to the strong base in energy that we already have, including clean, including the best storage space where we play in and that strong installed base. So I think when we think of detection, it's really fitting out or filling out really well with what we expected and it's going to be a key growth driver into the future. Okay, terrific. And then just wanted to follow-up a little bit on the new NFPA standard change this year.

As you think about that, what do you feel needs to happen for that business to normalize under the new standard? And then I guess, I know this is a tough question, but how do you see sort of the timeframe of that playing out?

Well, these standards come out usually every five to six years. So this is something that's not new So we do have a lot of experience with this.

Typically, what you see is you see customers evaluate where they're at in the buying cycle and a lot of customers can't wait. And then they also evaluate what's changing in the standard and how do they view that relative to the needs they have as a specific [indiscernible] So the 25 standard, which the timing is really up to the NFPA when they get through all of the approval processes. They have to do all the testing. We've submitted our platform MSA certainly our competitors we think are doing the same. But they have to go through all of that process and then they validate those different platforms for approval. And we would expect that to propagate probably Again, we don't know the timing exactly, but that would be likely. But if you look at that standard, the changes on it, relative to typical standard changes are fairly minor. They're not significant in nature. So that's kind of the thoughts our team has. There certainly will be customers that wait. We expect that to happen. There always are. But it's a fairly normalized standard change in our view. And we did, as I said, I think we look at our G1 platform [indiscernible] and we've continued to enhance that for our customers.

So So including the 18 standard, we've made each or taken advantage of each standard change opportunity to really upgrade that But this latest enhancement for the G1 and what we've done on the next gen we think the timing is perfect. So next year when it promulgates, this 25 standard, we'll be twelve years out from that. First twenty fourteen G1 perfect timing for those first units to come back up.

We feel really good as we go into the future on this. 25 is going to be a little choppy, The comp for Air Force and certainly the standard change we think we're well prepared.

Good to hear.

Thanks for taking my questions.

You bet. Thanks for the questions. This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Larry De Maria for any closing remarks. Thank you. We appreciate you joining the call this morning. And if you can interest in MSA safety. Missed the portion of today's call, audio replay will be made available later today on our Investor Relations website and will be available for the next ninety days. [indiscernible] look forward to updating you on our continued progress again next quarter. The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.