Thank you for standing by. And at this time, I would like to welcome everyone to today's Atmus Filtration Technologies Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Todd Chirillo, Executive Director of Investor Relations. Todd, please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Atmus Filtration Technologies second quarter 2024 earnings call. On the call today, we have Steph Disher, Chief Executive Officer, and Jack Kienzler, Chief Financial Officer. Certain information presented today will be forward looking and involve risks and uncertainties that could materially affect expected results. Please refer to our slides on our website for the disclosure of the risks that could affect our results and for a reconciliation of any non-GAAP measures referred to on our call. For additional information, please see our SEC filings and the Investor Relations pages available on our website at atmus.com. Now, I'll turn the call over to Steph.

Thank you, Todd, and good morning, everyone. Our team delivered another strong quarter of performance even as we see softness in many of our global end markets. On the call today, I will provide an update on our performance in the quarter, an update to our outlook for the year and provide some insights on our growth strategy. Jack will then provide additional details regarding our financial performance. During the second quarter, we reached a significant milestone of one year as a publicly-listed company. Whilst this is an important milestone, more important is our sustained strong performance over the last 12 months. I want to take an opportunity to thank all our global employees for their hard work and dedication to deliver consistently. This has positioned us to recently announce our first quarterly dividend and a share repurchase program. Capital return to shareholders is an important part of our ongoing commitment to strengthen total shareholder value. Now let's turn to second quarter financial results and our updated outlook for 2024. We delivered strong financial performance in the second quarter. Sales were $433 million compared to $414 million during the same period last year, an increase of approximately 5%. Adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter was $93 million or 21.4% compared to $80 million or 19.3% in the prior period. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter excludes $4 million of onetime standalone costs and $9 million for the same period last year. Adjusted earnings per share was $0.71 in the second quarter of 2024 and adjusted free cash flow was $34 million. Adjusted free cash flow includes $23 million of onetime separation related items. Now let me provide some insight into our global markets. Beginning first with the aftermarket. Softer freight activity continued during the second quarter and we have yet to…

Thank you, Steph, and good morning, everybody. We delivered another quarter of strong financial performance. Sales were $433 million compared to $414 million during the same period last year, an increase of approximately 5%. The increase in sales was primarily driven by higher volumes of 3% and pricing of approximately 2%. We outperformed in many of our global markets through gains in market share. Gross margin for the second quarter was $132 million dollars, an increase of $18 million compared to the second quarter of 2023. In addition to volumes and pricing, we also benefited from lower commodity costs. Selling, administrative and research expenses for the second quarter were $60 million, an increase of $1 million over the same period in the prior year. The increase was primarily driven by higher people related and consulting costs as we continue to stand up our own team and separate our functions from Cummins. Joint venture income was $8 million in the second quarter, flat to our 2023 performance. This resulted in adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter of $93 million or 21.4% compared to $80 million or 19.3% in the prior period. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter excludes $4 million of onetime standalone costs compared to $9 million for the same period last year. We continue to believe these costs will be in a range of $10 million to $20 million in 2024 and be substantially complete by the end of this year. These onetime costs primarily relate to the establishment of functions previously commingled with Cummins, such as information technologies, distribution centers and human resources. Adjusted earnings per share was $0.71 in the second quarter of 2024, compared to $0.63 last year. The results reflect higher interest expense from a full quarter of debt issued at our IPO in May of…

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] And it looks like our first question today comes from the line of Joe O'Dea with Wells Fargo. Joe, please go ahead.

Hi, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. Clearly, really good EBITDA performance in the quarter. And Jack, it looks like EBITDA was up $12 million sequentially on revenue that was up 6%. So, you talked to price, volume and cost, but could you kind of break that down a little bit more and in particular what you saw on the cost side? And then related, it does look like guide implies that the EBITDA margin doesn't stay as strong in the back half of the year. So, any bridge details there?

Yes. Maybe I'll start on the sequential bridge, Joe. Thanks for the question. Good morning. So, I would say, really, as we bridge from the first quarter to the second quarter, it's really primarily a volume story. Volume was up about $8 million in total revenue, which converted to about a 30 basis point benefit. In addition to that, we also saw some benefits from an absorption standpoint as we had really strong performance across our manufacturing footprints in the second quarter. And as we look towards the back half of the year, we would expect some softening in terms of hours in the plants and production levels. So that's really what drove. We did have a few other moving pieces. If you recall, we had some headwinds from a freight perspective in the first quarter, which did not repeat in the second quarter, and a little bit of tailwinds from warranty. But mostly it was a volume story in the plants and just really strong performance in the second quarter and really the first half overall. Maybe I'll turn it to Steph if you want to talk about kind of the first half-second half story.

Yeah, I think that's great. Hi, Joe, good morning. Firstly, as I talked about in my market outlook, I think we see a drop off in the second half relative to the first on volume. And the driver of the margin associated is really very much volume related. So, the two big drivers of the volume decline, second half versus first half, is really firstly the first-fit decline, which we've been discussing for some time now and is broadly aligned with previous expectations. But in addition to that, I would say, on the aftermarket side, freight activity, we were expecting to turn positive by now. We've been in a long and subdued decline on freight activity, but that turn in the aftermarket or freight activity, we're now seeing later in the year of 2024 and perhaps early into 2025. So really, volume drivers leading to a lighter second half relative to first half, that is driving the margin outcomes. I certainly acknowledge that it implies a challenging decremental margin environment. We have certainly delivered strong incrementals, as well -- and this still implies a midpoint of 19% adjusted EBITDA in our guide, and that delivers strong incrementals year-over-year is how I'm thinking about it. We are still establishing a standalone company. Obviously, the cost structure that goes with standing up as a separate company and separating activities from Cummins. And we expect to see growth into the horizon, so don't really expect to be taking short-term cost out if you like. Hence, the decline you see in margins in the second half is really directly related to the volume story.

Got it. Those are helpful details. And then, Steph, wanted to touch on -- I think, some really good color related to aftermarket and what you're seeing in that market. I guess, when we think about the components of growth and think about visibility into the rest of the year and aftermarket for you, I would think that the pricing is in place at this point. The destock is a comp situation. And so, the swing factor seemed like it would more so be related to outperformance and market trends. And so, could you just talk about the visibility that you have into continued outperformance versus the market, and how you think about the variability of the market into the back half of the year?

So, let me talk about the outperformance. We do feel that we've demonstrated outperformance in the first half in share, in aftermarket, and we see that -- the way that we've assumed in our guide, we believe that will continue here through the second half, and we have strong confidence in that. And so that's -- I'd say that continuing at this trend. I think the variable that is a little more unknown for us is just really when does the freight activity turn. There's a lot of uncertainty in the market around that. I think it's certainly a prolonged downturn period that we're experiencing. And so right now, we've assumed that happens into the back half year of 2024. I think there's just a question of how that plays out. But that -- we've taken a view that we're not going to see much recovery of that inside 2024 and we're going to still see downwards pressure in freight activity and that's what's implied in our guide.

Got it. Thanks very much.

Thanks, Joe. And our next question comes from the line of Tami Zakaria with JPMorgan. Tami, please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. Thank you so much and very nice quarter. So, a couple of questions. Just following up on that aftermarket question from before. So, how much was aftermarket down globally in the first half versus the 2% to 4% decline you expect this year? The genesis of my question is, do you expect the global aftermarket to be worse than the 2% to 4% in the back half?

Yeah. Good morning, Tami. Great to speak to you, and thanks for the acknowledgment on the strong quarter. I guess, two dynamics playing out here that I would club together. I'd broadly say our downturn on market in the first half in aftermarket was about 2%. We offset that by just under % in destock in the first half. What we're going to see in the second half is, still strong downturns, so down between that 2% to 4%, at the 3% at the midpoint. And then you've got destocking playing a positive role that offsets that slightly more here in the second half. We saw destocking really start to -- start with our customers last year in the second quarter, and customers did that at different pacing throughout the year, and it's spread out through the fourth quarter. So, that's the two dynamics that play. Similarly, declining market conditions offset by more favorable tailwinds on destock in the second half.

Thank you. That is very helpful. So, the follow-up question is, when I look at the guide, full year revenue guide, to get to the midpoint of the sales guide, the back half needs to be down, call it, about 1% year-over-year, versus the growth that you've seen in the first half. So, are you expecting back half to be down year-over-year? Is that the trend you're seeing quarter-to-date?

That's right, Tami. And the big driver of that is the first-fit market decline. So particularly in heavy-duty truck or Class 8 truck, that has certainly been implicit in our guide, but that's the big driver of the decline year-over-year.

Understood. Okay. Thank you.

Thanks, Tami. And our next question comes from the line of Rob Mason with Baird. Rob, please go ahead.

Yes. Again, nice work, Steph and Jack. Maybe to circle back again just to the aftermarket business. So, just so I'm clear, you've raised the outlook for the full year in aftermarket, from flat to 2% to flat to up 5%. And again, it sounds like maybe the market conditions are a little bit worse. So, it sounds like share gains are better in your outlook. Could you put a little more color around that in terms of where you're gaining share, whether it's domestic or international, whether it leans more on road versus off road, just -- or products in particular? Just a little more color there, please.

Absolutely. Yeah. Good morning, Rob. Certainly -- I'd just comment on the overall. I think you've crafted it right. We've tried to give a more complete picture in our opening comments this time on aftermarket. So I think we may have got ourselves caught up a little bit in the comparisons between the, call, flat to 5% versus the flat to 2%. The flat to 2% really reflected the view of the market story previously only, and now we've tried to give them more comprehensive view of aftermarket revenues. So, if you think about a midpoint, we were assuming of market previously of 1%, we're now saying that it's between 2% to 4% down, so a midpoint of 3% down. That's the -- that's what we've seen is the sort of decline in market conditions in the aftermarket completely driven by a push out of a positive inflection of freight activity. So that's just a link to the market story. We've continued to see ongoing share gains in the aftermarket is how I would describe it. Very strong in North America from a geographic perspective is where I would characterize it. Really driven, I would say, by a combination of the activity of improving our distribution network, access to our products. You heard in my opening comments that we've been very deliberate on building brand presence with a new campaign on filtration science and how our Fleetguard products protect. And we really think that the combination of these factors are building greater awareness of our product in the aftermarket, coupled with a much stronger distribution capability to be able to service that. It's how I would broadly characterize those wins.

That's very helpful color, Steph. Appreciate that. Just as to my follow-up, could you speak to the expansion of your capital allocation strategy here, I guess, in the near term in terms of how you might be looking at share repurchases versus M&A just, I guess, given what you have may have right in front of you in the M&A pipeline?

Sure. I was really excited to be able to launch the capital returns program. I know it's something I've been asked about for most of this year as we started out 2024. So, I feel really good about that. As I think about the share repurchase program, this really gives us now the mechanics and the tools to be able to return cash to shareholders as we move forward and balance that against our stated capital allocation priorities of investing in the growth of the business. And, obviously, the flexibility that comes with a share repurchase program alongside M&A is a really good tool for us from our perspective as to how we do that. Look, I think as this plays out, we'll be able to give more clarity. I think what we can give as clarity here right now is it's great to have the tools and the mechanism in place to deliver on a share repurchase program. We'll obviously balance that against opportunities that we see in the M&A pipeline to give us enough dry powder to be able to act on growth opportunities that will create value for shareholders. So that's how I'd characterize it right now. As the quarters play out, obviously, we'll be able to give further color to this, but really pleased to be able to have this mechanism now in place.

Sure. Thanks, Steph. Appreciate it.

All right. Thank you, Rob. And our next question comes from the line of Andrew Obin with Bank of America. Andrew, please go ahead.

Thank you. This is David Ridley-Lane on for Andrew. Could you just maybe give us an update on, your progress in adding independent distributors to the Fleetguard network?

So, good morning, David. We've spoken many times about the strength of our channel to market. We have a particularly strong path to market and channel partners across the US. And then, that positioning differs across the world is what I would say. And so, I think our focus on independent channels and adding those largely has been in more emerging markets like Latin America as an example. And we've certainly been aggressive there in identifying new partners, and that has contributed to fueling our growth in that region in particular. And then, I would say, we're focused very much on other emerging markets as to where we will look to build those independent distributor channels. Certainly, there's still some opportunities still do that in the US, and we expect to still pursue some of those opportunities here in the second half and beyond. But I would say we've got a very strong channel position here in the US that we look to leverage further.

Thank you. And then maybe a quick one for Jack, just a clarification point. Does the guidance now have 1.5% price for the year or was that just an aftermarket specific comment?

Yeah. So that's the full year picture, David. Obviously, most of the pricing activities, generally occur in the aftermarket, so that 1.5% heavily weighted towards the aftermarket, and that's up from approximately 1% at the beginning of the year. So obviously that difference is a very modest pricing action taken for the second half.

Thank you very much.

Thanks, Andrew.

Thanks, Andrew. Excuse me, David. And our next question comes from the line of Jerry Revich with Goldman Sachs. Jerry, please go ahead.

Yes. Hi. Good morning, everyone.

Good morning, Jerry.

Good morning.

Steph, Jack, hi. On gross margins, just to come back to the quarter, you had a massive step up sequentially this year over 30% gross margins on pretty similar sales, which I think is well ahead of normal seasonality. So, what about the business accelerated 2Q versus 1Q? Is it normalization of costs? Is it new price increases? And then, as I think about that within the context of the back half guide, obviously, you folks have a track record as a public company and have continually beating expectations. So, it does sound like that's part of the framework for the guide, unless you tell me there was something not recurring in the quarter?

Well, good morning, Jerry. Thanks for that. I'm going to ask Jack to take the piece on margin step up, and then maybe I'll circle back on the guide comments.

Yeah, absolutely. So, Jerry, there's really a few different things at play as I was describing to Joe. So, there is a bit of a volume step up sequentially. There really is no impact from a pricing perspective sequentially from Q1 to Q2. And then, there's a few bits and pieces of favorability. So, a little bit of favorability from freight, same on materials, same on warranty, all of which taken together contribute to a healthy step up. And then the last piece and probably the biggest piece is just strength in the manufacturing cost environment. That's both evidence of really strong production. That contributed to the strength of our ability to deliver for our customers over the first half. And you can see a little bit in our elevated inventory balances as well. As we think about then the -- what's one time, if you will, and -- there's really nothing one time. There's just a collection of favorability, and then the rest is the volume story from a first half, second half standpoint.

Yeah. So -- and I might just take up this point on the guide and the comments he made. We believe the guide is a prudent guide as we still head into a declining environment here in the second half. Declining on first-fit and Class 8 truck production and not seeing a positive inflection on freight activity, really driving downside in our aftermarket versus our relative guidance -- our previous guidance provision -- position. So, in terms of the margin performance associated with that, we've certainly been discussing that, I would say. And the way I would characterize it, I don't see a lot of flexibility that I have in the short term to take out fixed cost. Jerry, we're a brand new company standing up a capable organization, that can deliver on our commitments and while we're separating from Cummins. And so certainly no intention to sort of pull out fixed cost here in the short term. And we do see recovery of the markets that we're talking about and we want to be well positioned to continue to grow through that cycle in a business that is not very cyclical, frankly, like, we're with a large aftermarket content, and so we really want to be continuing to position our business for long-term growth.

Okay, super. I appreciate it. And then, Jack, can we just follow-up on capital deployment policy? One of the big opportunities we've discussed over the past couple of years for your business separate from Cummins was to build out the industrial filtration part of the franchise. And given the dividend and the stock buyback authorization, I'm wondering if you can comment on, a, is the M&A pipeline maybe less robust than we thought over the past couple of years, and what does that tell us about the M&A opportunity set over the next 12 to 18 months?

Thanks for that question. We always viewed that capital returns to shareholders will be part of the mix of our overall shareholder value creation. And so, we always expected to be doing this in time. Feels good to be doing that a year out of the gates with a modest dividend return and the balance of that being a flexible program around share buybacks. Obviously, the world of M&A is opportunistic somewhat and based on the opportunities that present themselves. So, we really wanted the balance of this capital returns to be in share buybacks so that we could balance, capability, from an investment perspective, to be able to invest in M&A opportunities as they presented it. In terms of our progress there, we are making really good progress. I'd say, building the M&A muscle, the strength of our pipeline, we've continued to look at a number of opportunities and worked through diligence processes on those, and we continue to do so. And we will balance out our foresight to M&A opportunity with returns to shareholders. But very much the premises here, we are looking to enter into industrial filtration to grow our business, to increase overall shareholder return. And that's our driver, and it's not certainly not growth for growth's sake. And so, we're taking -- it's taking time for us to find exactly the right targets there, which is how I would describe it.

Appreciate it, Steph and Jack. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Jerry. [Operator Instructions] And our next question comes from the line of Bobby Brooks with Northland Capital. Bobby, please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, guys. Thank you for taking my question. Just wanted to kind of double click on the buyback. So, it sounds like the buybacks is more opportunistic than programmatic. Just given your commentary earlier [indiscernible] buyback is maybe the swing factor with how have you leaned into a buyback would be with the M&A opportunities, or am I maybe reading into that too much and then it's just -- it'll be a mix of both maybe a pro -- a base programmatic approach and flex harder or lean harder into it and what M&A looks like?

Thanks for the question. I think our priority right now was to get a framework in place to be able to return cash to shareholders. And certainly, we'll look to act on that in -- an opportunistic way is a good way to describe it coming out of the gate. And then, I expect us to be able to get a clearer view of exactly what that looks programmatically adding to 2025 and beyond, and we'd be able to share more as we shape that. But I think right now, the way you should hold it, it's good to have the framework in place. There'll be a base level that that we look to build as programmatic, that we'll communicate more on as we go forward. And then there'll be a balance that is based opportunistic against our M&A options.

Got it. That's great color. Thank you, Steph. And then, could you just maybe remind us so, obviously, there's a tailwind in the quarter was lower raw material cost. Could you just remind us what maybe are the three most important raw material costs to the business?

Okay. Yeah, I'll hand that to Jack.

Yeah. Absolutely. So, I mean, the biggest, is steel, Bobby. And so, we've seen the index bumping along a little bit, but we do expect overall for the year a favorable impact for our business. As a reminder, as you're kind of tracking the index and thinking about the impact to our financials, there is about three-month lag, so about a quarter lag relative to movement in that index. The next would be, kind of plastics and resin overall, as you think about our, as you think about our products. And then there's a number of other small categories, if you will, media, packaging, things like that.

Got it. Thank you. Yeah, I'll turn it over -- turn it back to the queue. Congrats on a great quarter, guys.

Thanks, Bobby.

Thank you. Thanks.

Thanks, Bobby. And that is all the questions we have today. So, I will now turn the call back over to Todd Chirillo for closing remarks. Todd?

Thank you. That concludes our teleconference for today. Thank you all for participating and your continued interest. As always, the Investor Relations team will be available for your questions after the call. Thank you and have a great day.

Thanks, Todd. And again, ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining and you may now disconnect.