Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the nineteenth annual Oppenheimer Industrial Growth Conference. Next up, we have the Lincoln Electric team, led today by CFO Gabe Bruno. Morning, Gabe. Good morning, Bryan. Always nice to do these firesides with you. All right. Same here, same here. Before we get going, just for the audience, there is a dashboard. You can submit questions. You know, Gabe and I will, you know, take the vast majority of the time, but I will do my best to fit in any audience questions as well. So feel free to ping me. So that said, Gabe, for those a little newer to the LECO story, maybe offer some background on, yeah, on the company, your portfolio of technologies, key strategic priorities, and of course, highlight Higher Standard 2025, the success your team, you know, is at today. Great. Thanks, Bryan. Thank you all for your interest in Lincoln Electric. So we are the leaders in welding and cutting. We lead with technology, so we've been around since 1895, and so we are very much focused in how do we introduce solutions to our customers to have them and their welding experiences become more productive, more efficient, as they're continuing to look at their own fabrication needs. We operate with three segments, the Americas, International, and Harris. I mentioned technology, and so we're very much tracking and reporting out innovation and all the work we're doing from a technology standpoint. We track measures like the Vitality Index. As an example, our equipment sales for 2023, 57% of those sales were from new product introductions over the last 5 years. We have been investing over the last 10 years in accelerating our automation business and how we engage in what we believe is an accelerator for growth over the long term, and we've seen the results of that from both an organic and inorganic type of perspective. So, we lead with solutions technology, where in our 2025 strategy that Bryan has alluded to, very much focused on growth. We have targets of high single-digit to low double-digit type of CAGR. We are exceeding that. Within that framework, we point to acquisitions of 300-400 basis points of CAGR. We also are focused in driving improvements to our business model, of which we measure the average operating profit throughout the strategy period against our targets. Our targets have been, if you look at our investor deck, to expand the operating profit profile of our business by 200 points on average throughout the last 20 years in different cycles we've operated. And so our teams are very much focused on how do we drive continuous improvement? How are we shaping our business models to create more value? And so that's been a key part of our work. That's on top of very strong cash flows, very disciplined capital allocation strategy, focused first on growth, both internal investment as well as acquisitions, and then returning cash to shareholders. And our ROIC is very healthy, 24.1% over the last year, and so very disciplined in the execution of our business with a very experienced and seasoned management. Gives you a little bit of perspective there. Excellent walkthrough. Thank you. As I noted, Higher Standard 2025 strategy, you're certainly pacing ahead. There are some moving parts there, but overall, you know, good momentum, and I suspect we'll have Higher Standard 2030 rolled out, you know, relatively soon, so the- Yeah, we're shaping that, Bryan, as you point out, we're shaping through our 2030 strategy, and we'll be communicating that as we start to wind down the 2025. Understood. Your team has pretty diverse end market exposures. You touch a lot of the global industrial complex. Yeah, maybe walk us through, you know, what you're seeing, you know, across key, you know, end sectors, as well as geographies this far of the year. Yeah. So Bryan, it's, it's always helpful for investors to appreciate the broad footprint that we have across end markets. The welding technologies and solutions are different across different end markets, and so it's important that we manage how we engage, and that does provide different perspectives of the different cycles, whether they're short-term or long-term. We've been very intentional to also invest, as I mentioned, automation, that's a longer cycle, heavy, much more heavy, heavy capital investment. So that balances out a lot of the short cycle activity that we tend to point to on a quarter-by-quarter basis. But let me just kind of walk through some of the end markets. So the largest of which is general industries. It's about 28% of our business. You'll see a profile within our investor deck of the mix of end markets... with 20% of general industry. We were down in this first quarter, and I'd say it's a mix of business as well as some softness we're seeing in equipment in the European markets, some in the US. One of the key things that we point to when we think about general industry is what's happening in short cycle and what's happening across consumable activity, 'cause that feeds into factory activity. We like to point to industrial production trends, sentiment, like PMI sentiment in the index, and what does it mean for progressive short cycle activity? We had seen, as we point to, last couple of months entering May of some strength in the US in sentiment. That's typically a leading indicator for us. We did comment that consumables in Americas and general industry was holding steady, so that was positive for us. On the contrarily, on the European side, more pressure, as you've seen, on industrial production sentiment being softer among the European markets. So you're seeing that softness in the international sector. So that's general industries. Then we have about 23% of our business within the automotive end markets. You saw that first quarter, we were down low 20s. That's largely driven by timing on capital investment. And so the comps, for example, year-over-year, were much stronger first quarter, second quarter of last year. So you have a little bit of that, but also the timing of just investment in capital. We don't see a pullback in capital investment, just our automation business, strong in orders, strong in backlog, but we do see a timing of how that will be comparably on a quarter-by-quarter basis. Within automotive, the consumable side of our business was softer in the first quarter, and that's we believe is largely driven by production levels historically, 2020, 2023, 2022, that of which the markets were building back inventory levels back to pre-COVID levels. So a little bit of that is just the comps between personal activity. We see production generally flat within the automotive sector, so that should progress. On the heavy industry side, we were down low- to mid-single digits during the first quarter. More strength on the capital side. We did point to some progressive softening on the consumable side of heavy industry that was driven by production schedules around some of the larger players in heavy industry. And we see that as part of their own destocking strategies that should progress into this second quarter of a little bit of more softness in demand from a heavy industry standpoint. Structural infrastructure was down mid-single digits. A lot of that's gonna just be timing on capital projects, but we're still bullish on the long term, some of the drivers for growth there, particularly on the infrastructure side. And then lastly, energy was relatively stable. And that's a good place to be. We know there was some strength in the Middle East in oil and gas, and we expect that to continue. So that's kind of a profile of end markets, some of the drivers by the various geographies that we serve. Much appreciated. Now, you did touch on some of this in your walkthrough, but obviously the start to the year was a little slower than anticipated, you know, not quite as robust as recent quarters. You know, some of that's comp driven. You mentioned Americas consumables being relatively steady as with PMIs, these being favorable leading indicators, automation backlog here remains strong. Are those the key points in terms of maintaining your full-year guide after the softer Q1? Are there other things to take into account, you know, that your team is seeing on a run rate basis that gives you confidence looking forward? Yeah. So just keep in mind, Brian, that these are overall operating assumptions that we provide the markets. And we pointed to February, an organic assumption into that low- to mid-single digits. And we've talked about that consistently to be driven by accelerated growth in automation. So that's consistent, and we continue to be, bullish on what we see in orders and backlog for automation. And you'll see a large part of that is 80% of automation is within our Americas segment. So we expect that. We had a little bit of, pull forward in automation activity into the fourth quarter, so you saw a little bit of that impact the first quarter. But that's the driver that we pointed to in February, and which we pointed to also in our first quarter call, and we continue to see just good strength orders backlog within automation. We also pointed to, in our last call, some strength we're seeing on the Harris side. Albeit the last few quarters are gonna be were challenged with volumes, particularly on the retail and destocking activities there, and the comps do become easier. But we do believe that on the Harris side, that we're starting to see green shoots and points of some inflection on volume. So we do see some strength there. But we talked about some of the challenges in Europe. We don't see any of that changing in the short term based on what we're tracking and seeing in industrial activity in Europe. So we expect to see more of the same of that as we are into this now, the second quarter. But the drivers for our overall assumptions are driven by an acceleration of growth in automation. And just to point out. In 2023, organic sales growth for automation was 8%. So it accelerated beyond the core welding business. Understood. And setting aside automation just for now, you know, a great, you know, aspect of the LECO story, we'll certainly dig in there. But even, even outside of that, your team's gotten a lot more credit, we think, you know, appropriately so, for kind of mega trend exposure. You know, reshoring, infrastructure spending, electrification of everything at this point. Maybe touch on, you know, where you play, you know, in each of those, you know, kind of themes, and, you know, what confidence you have, sustained growth going forward. Yeah. So, so Bryan, thanks for asking that, 'cause these point to a lot of the long-term dynamics that we see strategically as being accelerators to growth. Reshoring is an interesting opportunity in that we know that there's additional capacity being built out in the Americas, particularly in response to some of the supply chain issues that the market's gonna work through since the pandemic. But it's hard to track specifically, but we know that as more industrial capacity plays out into the Americas, that we're gonna have an opportunity to also grow with that level of reshoring. So we're real positive about what reshoring means long term, whether it's in Mexico or the U.S., it's a nice opportunity for us. It builds into construction, into also the inherent infrastructure behind that. So we see that as a long-term driver in positioning our strength in the Americas. When we think about the electrification, you know, we see that as a very good long-term opportunity for us. You see what we're doing with DC fast chargers that are tied into that. It's an accelerator. It's not built into our targets, but are some upside opportunity. You see from an automotive standpoint, whether it's ICE, whether it's EV, those are areas that we're very strong in positioning automation capabilities there. So we see that as a long-term growth driver that we're gonna be actively participating in. When I think about infrastructure, you know, you think about the IRA, Inflation Reduction Act that was passed. hard to track a lot of the specific what the projects mean to us in terms of long-term growth, but when you have bridges, construction-type projects, it's good business for us. So we see that as good long-term drivers for growth. And so when you tie, you know, we put this on our investor deck. When you think about the electrification and renewables being an opportunity for us, that's almost 10% of our exposure. And so we see these long-term drivers as enablers for accelerated growth. So we're very, very pleased with our positioning in the markets. That, on top of what we believe is a driver for long-term growth, but automation positions us very well in the long term, which ties into our high single- digit, low double- digit types of targets for growth. All makes sense. Yeah, it's certainly a lot of steel-intensive investment, just thinking of, you know, everything that you walk through at a high level. So the utilization of that much steel, you know, what has to be done to it, you're going to play in a lot of spaces. Yeah, the joining and fabrication, I mean, obviously, that's our sweet spot, of course. Absolutely. Now, related to DC Fast Charger initiative, you know, remind us the, you know, the impetus of getting into the space, you know, what, what your team identified in terms of, you know, market opportunity, how you could, you know, clearly differentiate, you know, relative to some of the challenges in, in the, the fledgling industry, and where, you know, what those points are in terms of technology, service, footprints, et cetera. Yeah, so let's back up a little bit. So we had an engineer who had an opportunity to see the technology footprint of the DC Fast Charger and recognize that a lot of what we do with power sources and welding have the same types of capabilities that we could potentially leverage within this DC Fast Charger market. So our teams went through a proof of concept, it went well, and we decided to do some market research and develop a potential strategy surrounding this early stage type of market. And one of the key drivers around some of the research was, and this is focused, by the way, in the U.S., that a high need for availability, reliability, quality in the market, and that fits what we do. So we decided that, the value proposition and, and the model that could achieve that fits very well to how we operate. We've got the engineering resources, the technology. We can leverage our operational footprint, which is what we've done. We've made a, modest investment in power electronics, PC board type manufacturing, at $15 million, that can source, needs for both this DC fast charger, but also our, our core welding business. So fits very nicely for us, and we are very much focused, and we can be patient with this, in developing the product that meets our expectations and our brand, to be able to introduce in the, in the market. We're in a, a beta phase right now, working with, charge point operators, like engineering firms that source or charge point, point operators or fleet managers. We just think this is a nice upside opportunity where we're leveraging all of our capabilities to be able to address a real need in the market. Being early in the development of the infrastructure is so important for us within the U.S. here, so we think this is a nice upside opportunity. Got it. And I mentioned, you know, it being a fledgling, you know, industry, it's pretty rapidly evolving. You know, since your team officially launched the initiative, there are a lot of new entrants. But whether they're real viable competitors, that remains to be seen. But a lot of new entrants, a lot of moving parts in terms of the, you know, direction or potential direction of the industry. Has any of that shifted your team's perspective, or I guess, confidence more directly, you know, in terms of the, the medium-term growth path and, you know, Lincoln's right to play in the market? No, look, I think it just reinforces the strength we have within our business model to be very patient as we're working through these early stages of the market. I think what you're seeing a little bit is, you know, what type of business model can be supportive of growth? And the investment profile we have, while modest, other players have to build up their own facilities, capabilities to be able to compete in a market that's early stages. So it just reinforces the value that we introduce in the product, in this commercialization, but leveraging all the capabilities we have. So the developments in the markets, we think, provide opportunities for us. We're gonna be shaping that, and what does it really mean for us in the short term and the long term? But what you've seen just reinforces the strength of a business like us to be able to navigate changes in the market early on and frankly, not be a drag on the rest of our business. And it's very much an opportunity, and the capabilities we have will foster that kind of enabling of where the market needs are. And so we're pretty excited about what this means for us. I appreciate the color. And then just one more on the EV initiative to level set. Is it still the expectation that as volume ramps, the revenue stream will be mix accretive to Lincoln overall? Yes, for sure. And I think the thing to think about, with that, Bryan, is for us, this is as if we're just introducing a new product that leverages all of our capabilities within, very mature client operations. It's engineering resources, very much, focused on that. So yes, accretive and, leveraging the capabilities we already have. So not much incremental investment, and that is a, is a nice recipe for introducing a, a new offering, that should be strong from a margin perspective. Understood. Yeah. Price cost is always a focus for investors, so I'd be remiss if I didn't ask, you know, what's your team's, you know, view on your run rate, price cost impact, expected cadence throughout the year, and how does that bake into guidance? Yeah. So, Bryan, just to start off, so very disciplined, 'cause the markets know about our company and how we look at cost drivers and response and price. So our philosophy is to be price cost neutral. When you look at this first quarter as an example where our margins have expanded nicely, overall pricing held. We have taken additional actions in this first quarter. You'll see some of that mature into the second quarter. I've talked about being in the range of 50-100 basis points incremental pricing impact to our model. We should see that relatively steady for the balance of the year. But it just comes back to very disciplined approach in managing pricing, in protecting our model, and ensuring we've got the right focus in the margins of our business. Understood. Now, we've remained bullish on your automation platform. It's been, you know, fantastic growth driver. Continues to be. I do wish your team would cite more specifics in terms of order rates and backlog position and so forth, but understood that we're not going to get those details. But the, you know, the evidence of, you know, winning in the market and sustaining momentum, we get quarter by quarter in your press release. At this point, you actually have a fair amount of automation that is not booked. You know, fits with the integrator role that you're playing overall. Maybe speak to how your team's gone about, you know, developing those capabilities, and mostly acquiring along the way, and then piecing together the kind of holistic solution set that you now have. Yeah. So Bryan, let me just back up, give a big picture perspective of our automation business. So, you know, we just talked about, you know, arriving at our billion-dollar run rate. Yeah, in 2020, we were at $400 million. So it gives you that kind of perspective of growth from 2020 and what-- and why we are so excited about, organic growth from automation as well as organic opportunities. And we've been very intentional as, as you see the mix of business in broadening out our level of engagement across end markets.... automotive, heavy industry, general industry, structural fabrication, infrastructure, and engaging in such a way to, accelerate adoption in automation capabilities. So from a product offering standpoint, we've got, cobots, which provide kind of that introductory small midsize to mid-sized fabricator an opportunity to, engage in automation. Then you've got kind of the middle-of-the-road robotic cells that are more of the historical, traditional robotic offering. And then you got multimillion-dollar types of projects that cover the gamut on factory automation. You mentioned, we talked about this at the call we had for the first quarter, but we provided a framework of mix. So 55% of our automation business, we estimate, is anchored around welding, welding fabrication, 45% in non-welding automation capabilities that tie to the solutions that we continue to build out in factory automation. So for example, this recent acquisition, RedViking, touches on material handling capabilities that complement some of the work we're doing with Fori on material handling capabilities that introduce factory automation capabilities across the industrial space. We estimate that the automation TAM now, there's the addressable market now is over $35 billion incremental in automation. So that provides us, I, I believe, a lot of opportunity for growth, both organic and inorganic. And the capabilities we keep building on are providing solutions that will accelerate, we believe, how we are engaging with customers and looking at factory automation opportunities. So, we believe all these complement to an accelerator for long-term growth. Yeah. Well, momentum is certainly there. And you commented on the call that you've now sold over 1,000 cobots. So that's a nice round number to anchor on and evidence of the success there. You know, what gives you confidence in sustained momentum with, you know, your cobot offering, and how do you differentiate, you know, versus competitors? There seems to be kind of, you know, broad momentum in the space, a lot of focus. You've perhaps led that. Just curious how, at this point, your confidence in, you know, product and technology differentiation. Yeah. So, Bryan, that's a great question. We were very excited about achieving that 1,000 cobot milestone. As I mentioned, it's another part of our offering that accelerates adoption, particularly when you look at the small mid-sized fabricator. So we're pretty excited about it. So when you think about differentiation, I like how our president for our automation business says this, is that we have put all of our know-how in this Cooper brand of cobot. That's our software that allows the user to not know welding and being able to use the Cooper robot for its purpose, versus our competitors offering a more into, you need to be a welder using a robot. So our offering differentiates, and the testimonies here are being able to operate a Cooper cobot within 10 minutes or so. Because you don't need to be deep in, in welding technology to know the settings, the amps, and the configuration requirements to, to get a good weld. So much more simplified, differentiated type of offering with our Cooper cobot than our competition, that requires you to be a, a welder to be able to operate, a robot, a cobot in that kind of environment. So we're very pleased with our positioning in the market. Got it. Automation margins and run rate, low teens. You have a stated goal of getting to mid-teens. What are the remaining steps to get there, you know, in terms of, you know, platform build-out? And then is mid-teens kind of entitlement margin, or are there reasons that as the strategy continues to develop, you would be capped in that range, or is there perhaps further upside once that's achieved? Yeah, I'll start with that part of the question, Bryan, is no, we're not capped. That's a target. That's an objective, knowing that we have steps to take to progress our portfolio towards that corporate average 16%. So we ended 2023 in the low teens, saw a nice progress into this first quarter, so we have a line of sight to be able to arrive at that target, that 16% corporate average target. Fundamentally, there are two key drivers. One is the disciplines surrounding our business model and what we call Lincoln Business System. The second is volume. So we'll continue to drive accelerated type growth, and volume should be a good leverage there with incrementals that are above the corporate average, so we expect that. When we think about what, what we term the Lincoln Business System within our automation business, it goes from the disciplines in quoting, being very much aligned to the solutions we're providing our customers, understanding the drivers, engineering, otherwise, to be able to meet those requirements. Then you get into project management. So now you're into the project, managing the expectations and requirements to be successful with our customer, and that's being very disciplined with the engineering, with the time schedules, with cost drivers, and whatever else it is, to be able to make sure that the expectations in managing a project are met. And then, as you can expect, there are times that you're dealing with changes, and so we need to have the right disciplines, and we have continued to develop them to make sure that if we have a change on a particular project or contract, that we are processing change orders to be able to be aligned to what that expectation would evolve from a value standpoint. So the disciplines around surrounding Lincoln Business System, the disciplines surrounding sourcing and engineering, all tied to that, are a driver for the incremental margins that we have experienced, but then also the volume leverage that we expect to continue to play into over time, being an accelerator to growth within our business. So that's kind of how I would frame the margin expectations. Yeah, very helpful color. You mentioned within Higher Standard 2025, strategy and that targets 300-400 basis points of, you know, average M&A revenue contribution per year. And you've been, you know, successful in driving that. Maybe offer some color on how the current deal pipeline looks, whether the macro volatility that, you know, continues to play out, be it the rate environment or otherwise, whether there's been any impact there, and what assets outside of automation are, you know, of real interest to your team? You know, Harris comes to mind, in thinking about that. So just any color you can offer on that. Yeah. So maybe I'll, I'll back up first, Bryan, I think strategically. So our teams very much understand the strategic drivers around the 300-400 basis points of CAGR through acquisitions. And we have senior executives that are working within our teams to identify targets, opportunities within the automation portfolio or within each of the segments. So we know that's an opportunity for us to grow. So there's an active level of engagement in looking at a pretty fragmented market outside of the Big Three and some of the regional players within core welding. And then we just see a lot of opportunities within the automation space for bolt-on acquisitions, similar to what we just announced at the beginning of April with RedViking. So it's very much ingrained into our strategy and how we execute in looking at additional opportunities to drive accelerated growth, and we've proven that. We've proven to do it on top line, but also in a very healthy way, the return expectation within these acquisitions. So we have a very active pipeline. As you know, we have a very strong balance sheet. Our capital allocation is very much focused on growth. And so while a lot of the macro dynamics and the noise in the markets continue to progress, we don't see that to be a detractor in how we look at opportunities. When you look at making a marriage work between seller and for us as a buyer, it's finding the right alignment, either technology, the platforms, the geography, the positioning in a channel that provides us the level of excitement, that there are a lot of opportunities to drive accelerated growth. So our pipeline is very active, and our priority and capital allocation is growth, so we're going to continue to navigate that, and we've been very successful in driving that strategy over the long term, and we'll continue to keep very much focused on that. Well, very encouraging to hear. I think we're about at time. Thank you very much for all the, you know, color and insightful comments there. All right. Well, thank you, Bryan. It's great to be able to talk with all of you. All right. Thanks again.