Developing advanced processes at SMIC could become an unrealized dream of co-CEO Liang Mong Song?

In this article, we discuss the top 10 CRISPR stocks to buy. If you want to see more stocks in this selection, check out Top 5 CRISPR Stocks To Buy.  Molecular biology, genetics, and genomics are in a significant period in history where technical capabilities and methods enable the editing of specific DNA segments and […] In this article, we discuss the top 10 CRISPR stocks to buy. If you want to see more stocks in this selection, check out Top 5 CRISPR Stocks To Buy.  Molecular biology, genetics, and genomics are in a significant period in history where technical capabilities and methods enable the editing of specific DNA segments and base pairs in living organisms and cells. The convergence of clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR) genome editing, along with advancements in computing and imaging technology, has ushered in a new era where scientists can diagnose and predict human diseases based on personal genetics, as well as take action on this information. Over the last decade, RNA-programmed genome editors have been discovered, engineered, and used in various applications. These editors use the fundamental ability of CRISPR-Cas9 to create targeted genetic disruptions in genes or gene regulatory elements, leading to successful creation of knockout mice and other animal models, genetic screening, and multiplexed editing. In addition to traditional CRISPR-Cas9 knockouts, the use of base editing, which involves engineered Cas9 enzymes that can modify the chemical structure of DNA bases, has proven to be a useful strategy for generating specific and precise point mutations at desired sites. According to Allied Market Research, in 2021, the gene editing market worldwide had a value of $3.9 billion, and it is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.7% from 2022 to 2031, reaching a value of $7.4 billion by 2031. Genomics can be applied in various fields such as identifying human genetic abnormalities, drug discovery, agriculture, veterinary sciences, and forensics. There have been significant developments in the CRISPR space. For example, a one-time gene editing therapy developed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (NASDAQ:VRTX) and CRISPR Therapeutics AG (NASDAQ:CRSP) for treating sickle cell disease could be considered cost-effective if priced at a maximum of $1.9 million. The companies are seeking approval for the world’s first therapy that utilizes the Nobel prize-winning CRISPR technology, to treat two types of blood disorders – sickle cell disease and transfusion-dependent beta thalassemia.  Cathie Wood, the founder of ARK Invest who is known for her innovative and disruptive investment strategies, focuses on technologies such as robotics, artificial intelligence, and genomics. Cathie Wood stated in a 2018 video that “monogenic stem cell therapy” could generate $2 trillion in revenue, while “polygenic” versions of the therapy could be worth “many trillions” more. This is one example of the bold statements Wood frequently makes. In recent months, Wood has had to defend her investment strategy after many of the companies in her funds were heavily impacted by a significant market correction.  On January 4, 2023, Wood mentioned a BBC news article that reported on Alyssa, a patient diagnosed with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, who was successfully treated with the help of base editing by doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital. Despite this breakthrough, Wood noted that the news was overshadowed by the financial market downturn in 2022, and some analysts are even disregarding the technology’s potential. Elon Musk also favored Wood’s stance on the gene editing market outlook. Markets Insider cited Cathie Wood, who noted that investors are fleeing from gene editing stocks given their downward market performance:  “In our view, US equity markets today are 180 degrees away from those in the tech and telecom bubble in the late nineties. Unlike the case then, the technologies are ready and the costs are low enough for prime time. Investors chased the dream then. Now, they are running away.” Some of the best CRISPR stocks to buy in order to benefit from this emerging sector include CRISPR Therapeutics AG (NASDAQ:CRSP), Intellia Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTLA), and Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (NASDAQ:VRTX). Investors can also check out 11 Most Promising Gene Editing Stocks and 10 Most Promising Gene Therapy Companies.  Photo by CDC on Unsplash Our Methodology  We scanned Insider Monkey’s database of 943 hedge funds and picked the top 10 companies that provide services in the CRISPR market with the highest number of hedge fund investors. These are the best CRISPR stocks to buy according to hedge funds. Top CRISPR Stocks to Buy 10. Twist Bioscience Corporation (NASDAQ:TWST) Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 17 Twist Bioscience Corporation (NASDAQ:TWST) is a company that deals with synthetic biology, producing and vending synthetic DNA-based products. Twist Bioscience Corporation (NASDAQ:TWST)’s DNA synthesis platform enables the manufacturing of synthetic DNA by writing DNA on a silicon chip. Their selection of products includes synthetic genes, sample preparation tools, antibody libraries for developing and discovering drugs, and DNA as a form of digital data storage.  On February 6, Catherine Ramsey Schulte, an analyst at Baird, maintained an Outperform rating on Twist Bioscience Corporation (NASDAQ:TWST) but reduced the price target on the shares from $33 to $29. The analyst stated that although there are some areas of short-term weakness as the company begins to increase commercial volumes in their Factory of the Future, management remains positive about their primary business. The analyst also indicated that the company’s revenue guidance for 2023 remains unchanged. According to Insider Monkey’s fourth quarter database, 17 hedge funds were long Twist Bioscience Corporation (NASDAQ:TWST), compared to 18 funds in the prior quarter. Cathie Wood’s ARK Investment Management held the largest stake in the company, with 6.70 million shares worth $159.5 million.  Like CRISPR Therapeutics AG (NASDAQ:CRSP), Intellia Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTLA), and Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (NASDAQ:VRTX), Twist Bioscience Corporation (NASDAQ:TWST) is one of the best CRISPR stocks to watch.  Jackson Square Partners made the following comment about Twist Bioscience Corporation (NASDAQ:TWST) in its Q3 2022 investor letter: “Twist Bioscience Corporation (NASDAQ:TWST): market leader in synthetic DNA manufacturing with its highly differentiated silicon platform; poised to unlock a multi-year outsourcing wave as new manufacturing processes and products dramatically improve the turnaround time, cost, and quality of silicon-based DNA manufacturing.” 9. Beam Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:BEAM) Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 18 Beam Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:BEAM) is a biotech company in the US that focuses on the development of genetic medicines for serious diseases. They have research collaborations with Pfizer, Apellis Pharmaceuticals, Verve Therapeutics, Sana Biotechnology, Orbital Therapeutics, and the Institute of Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology Basel for various diseases such as genetic diseases of the liver, muscle, and central nervous system, cardiovascular disease, impaired vision, and blindness. Beam Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:BEAM) is one of the best CRISPR stocks to invest in. On February 28, the company reported a Q4 GAAP EPS of -$0.54 and a revenue of $20.04 million, outperforming Wall Street estimates by $0.81 and $7.31 million, respectively.  On March 21, William Pickering, an analyst at Bernstein, began coverage of Beam Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:BEAM) with a Market Perform rating and a price target of $37. Although the analyst has enthusiasm for the company’s technology, they are unable to meet the consensus estimates without assuming significant revenue from future pipeline assets that have not been identified yet. Therefore, the firm’s estimated revenue from sickle cell disease and most of Beam Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:BEAM)’s other assets fall below the consensus. According to Insider Monkey’s fourth quarter database, 18 hedge funds were bullish on Beam Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:BEAM), compared to 27 funds in the prior quarter. Thomas Steyer’s Farallon Capital is a prominent stakeholder of the company, with 3.4 million shares worth approximately $133 million.  Here is what Baron Health Care Fund has to say about Beam Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:BEAM) in their Q1 2021 investor letter: “Beam Therapeutics Inc. is a biotechnology company pioneering a novel technology called base editing, which allows for individual base pairs (the letters of DNA) to be modified. Shares fell along with other biotechnology stocks driven by a sudden rise in treasury yields. Early stage biotechnology stocks are particularly sensitive to interest rates because their cash flows are further in the future. We believe we are entering into a phase of significant advancement for the gene editing field that will eventually lead to curative therapies, and we think Beam has a unique platform technology.” 8. Editas Medicine, Inc. (NASDAQ:EDIT) Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 20 Editas Medicine, Inc. (NASDAQ:EDIT) is a clinical stage genome editing company, focused on developing transformative genomic medicines to treat a range of serious diseases. It develops a proprietary gene editing platform based on CRISPR technology. It is one of the best CRISPR stocks to invest in.  On February 23, Geulah Livshits, an analyst at Chardan, reduced the price target for Editas Medicine, Inc. (NASDAQ:EDIT) from $35 to $22. Despite this, Livshits maintained a Buy rating on the shares following the fiscal 2022 results. Editas Medicine, Inc. (NASDAQ:EDIT) has reaffirmed its guidance for a data update in the mid-23 on EDIT-301, an ex vivo gene-edited hematopoietic stem cell therapy for sickle cell disease. According to the analyst, the company is undergoing a retrenchment phase after stopping internal investments in inherited retinal diseases and preclinical iNK programs. According to Insider Monkey’s fourth quarter database, 20 hedge funds were bullish on Editas Medicine, Inc. (NASDAQ:EDIT), compared to 21 funds in the prior quarter. Michael Rockefeller and Karl Kroeker’s Woodline Partners is the biggest stakeholder of the company, with 2 million shares worth $18.4 million.  7. Verve Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VERV) Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 23 Verve Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VERV) focuses on creating gene editing medications to treat cardiovascular diseases. The company has collaborated with and obtained license agreements from Beam Therapeutics, entered into a development and option agreement with Acuitas Therapeutics, and acquired a Cas9 license agreement with The Broad Institute and the President and Fellows of Harvard College. It is one of the best CRISPR stocks to invest in. On March 2, Verve Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VERV) reported a Q4 GAAP EPS of -$0.67 and a revenue of $1.01 million, beating market estimates by $0.09 and $0.57 million, respectively.  Whitney Ijem, an analyst at Canaccord, initiated coverage of Verve Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VERV) with a Buy rating and a price target of $29 on April 11. The analyst cited the company’s advanced gene-editing technology, clinically validated non-viral delivery methods, and well-established genetic targets as reasons for the favorable rating. The firm has taken into account some commercial concerns that need to be addressed, but it has made conservative market share assumptions and still sees significant potential for combined peak sales of over $5 billion for the company’s leading programs, VERVE-101 and VERVE-201. According to Insider Monkey’s fourth quarter database, 23 hedge funds were long Verve Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VERV), compared to 18 funds in the prior quarter. Eli Casdin’s Casdin Capital is the largest stakeholder of the company, with 2.3 million shares worth $44.3 million.  6. Pacific Biosciences of California, Inc. (NASDAQ:PACB) Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 25 Pacific Biosciences of California, Inc. (NASDAQ:PACB) manufactures and designs equipment for sequencing that is used to solve problems involving complex genetics. The company offers sequencing systems, as well as consumable products like single molecule real-time (SMRT) cells and specialized reagent kits made for specific workflows. In the fourth quarter of 2022, Pacific Biosciences of California, Inc. (NASDAQ:PACB) received record orders, including orders for 96 instruments, which included orders for 76 Revio systems from 43 customers across 13 countries and representing a wide range of applications. On March 31, TD Cowen analyst Dan Brennan upgraded Pacific Biosciences of California, Inc. (NASDAQ:PACB) to Outperform from Market Perform with a price target of $15, up from $13. The company is viewed as a “growth transformation story” under the leadership of CEO Christian Henry, and investor sentiment has become more positive. However, the stock’s high multiple and expectations may deter some investors. According to the firm’s customer survey, there is potential for growth in placements and pull through, as well as a shift towards long-read sequencing in budget allocations. TD Cowen believes that it is a good time to invest in this multi-year story, as long-read sequencing technology will become more significant in the genomics and sequencing market, and Pacific Biosciences of California, Inc. (NASDAQ:PACB) is likely to benefit from this trend. According to Insider Monkey’s fourth quarter database, 25 hedge funds were long Pacific Biosciences of California, Inc. (NASDAQ:PACB), compared to 21 funds in the earlier quarter. Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management is the largest stakeholder of the company, with 5.3 million shares worth $43.6 million.  In addition to CRISPR Therapeutics AG (NASDAQ:CRSP), Intellia Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTLA), and Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (NASDAQ:VRTX), Pacific Biosciences of California, Inc. (NASDAQ:PACB) is one of the best CRISPR stocks to buy.  Jackson Square Partners made the following comment about Pacific Biosciences of California, Inc. (NASDAQ:PACB) in its Q3 2022 investor letter: “Pacific Biosciences of California, Inc. (NASDAQ:PACB): emerging player in genomic sequencing with its highly differentiated long-read technology; poised to unlock a multi-year share shift towards long-read sequencing as new products dramatically improve throughput and cost to competitively advantaged levels.”     Click to continue reading and see Top 5 CRISPR Stocks To Buy.    Suggested articles: 14 Best Passive Income Stocks To Buy Now 15 Best Financial Stocks To Buy Now 10 Best Emerging Tech Stocks to Buy Now   Disclosure: None. Top 10 CRISPR Stocks To Buy is originally published on Insider Monkey......»»

Radian Group Inc. (NYSE:RDN) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript February 9, 2023 Operator: Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Radian Group Fourth Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speakers’ presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session . Please […] Radian Group Inc. (NYSE:RDN) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript February 9, 2023 Operator: Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Radian Group Fourth Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speakers’ presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session . Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, John Damian, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Investor Relations. Please go ahead. John Damian: Thank you, and welcome to Radian’s fourth quarter and year end 2022 conference call. Our press release, which contains Radian’s financial results for the quarter and full year, was issued yesterday evening and is posted to the Investors section of our Web site at www.radian.com. This press release includes certain non-GAAP measures that maybe discussed during today’s call, including adjusted pretax operating income, adjusted diluted net operating income per share and adjusted net operating return on equity. In addition, specifically for our Homegenius segment, other non-GAAP measures in our press release that maybe discussed today include adjusted gross profit and adjusted pretax operating income or loss before allocated corporate operating expenses. A complete description of all of our non-GAAP measures maybe found in press release Exhibit F and reconciliations of these measures to the most comparable GAAP measures maybe found in press release Exhibit G. These exhibits are on the Investors section of our Web site. Today, you will hear from Rick Thornberry, Radian’s Chief Executive Officer; and Rob Quigley, Controller and Chief Accounting Officer. Also on hand for the Q&A portion of the call is Derek Brummer, President of Radian Mortgage. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that comments made during this call will include forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations, estimates, projections and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties, which may cause actual results to differ materially. For a discussion of these risks, please review the cautionary statements regarding forward-looking statements included in our earnings release and the risk factors included in our 2021 Form 10-K and subsequent reports filed with the SEC. These are also available on our Web site. Now I’d like to turn the call over to Rick. Photo by Blake Wheeler on Unsplash Rick Thornberry: Thank you, John, and good afternoon. Thank you all for joining us today and for your interest in Radian. Despite headwinds in the macroeconomic environment and continued cooling across the mortgage and real estate markets, I’m pleased to report another solid quarter for Radian. In a few minutes, Rob will discuss the details of our financial results, expense management progress and capital actions. Before he begins, let me share a few thoughts on the environment, our strategic focus and how we are positioned to navigate the road ahead. In terms of the macroeconomic environment, the weakness in the economy continues to be driven by the dual headwinds of high inflation and interest rates. Although there are concerns related to a potential recession, inflation has begun to ease somewhat in 2023, which the Fed recognized with a reduced interest rate hike last week. And despite these economic factors, there continues to be a strong labor market with the lowest unemployment rate in more than 50 years. And from a mortgage and real estate market perspective, despite near term challenges, our outlook for housing remains surely positive over the near and long term. In 2022, the doubling of interest rates negatively impacted volumes with mortgage applications falling to recent record lows. For 2023, recent industry mortgage origination forecasts call for a bottoming out of the origination market with a decline of approximately 20%, followed by a return to growth in 2024 with increased purchase loans and expected strong participation by first time homebuyers. And after a two year run where the real estate market saw a significant gain in home prices, many regions across the country are seeing home prices coming off their record highs that we believe should support a healthy real estate market in coming years. And although the rapid rise in mortgage rates has created pressure on affordability, another important variable in the market is the supply and demand imbalance. There are millions of millennials expected to continue to reach the prime homebuying age for the next several years. And there is an extreme shortage of affordable housing stock, which is further impacted by homeowners that have a mortgage note rate in the mid 2% and low 3% range and are less likely to move. While the shortage of affordable housing, combined with the strong market demand creates affordability challenges for first time homebuyers, it is a positive for our insured and portfolio as it helps to mitigate downside risk in terms of home values. And it is also creating pent up demand, which is expected to drive purchase market growth in 2024 and beyond. As you’ve heard me say from a strategic perspective, our team remained focused throughout the year across our three areas of strategic value creation, growing the economic value and the future earnings of our Mortgage Insurance portfolio, growing our Homegenius business and managing our capital resources. In terms of growing the economic value of our Mortgage Insurance portfolio, by leveraging our proprietary analytics and RADAR Rates platform focused on driving economic value along with our deep customer relationships and dynamic pricing strategies, we wrote $68 billion of high quality Mortgage Insurance business in 2022. This contributed to a 6.1% growth in our mortgage insurance in force portfolio year-over-year. We’ve been able to calibrate our dynamic risk based pricing to address the risks and opportunities that we see in the current market. We increased our prices in 2022 based on the environment, particularly in the second half of the year and have continued to increase pricing in 2023. While we believe NIW volumes will slow over the next year, we expect to see continued opportunity to put our capital to work at attractive risk adjusted returns. Higher mortgage interest rates are driving higher persistency across our large and valuable $261 billion insurance in force portfolio, and the increase in interest rates has resulted in higher yields across our $5.8 billion investment portfolio. The higher yield support returns on our Mortgage Insurance business and generate incremental income that flows directly to our bottom line. In terms of growing our Homegenius business, during 2022, we experienced a decline in Homegenius revenues due to the rapid decrease in industry wide mortgage and real estate transaction volume. Over the last few quarters, we’ve been making adjustments to our Homegenius cost structure that are reflective of the depressed market environment. We remain focused on building awareness of our Homegenius suite of products and services and continue to believe in the growth opportunities for this business, albeit at a slower pace than originally expected due to market conditions. Throughout the year, the team concentrated on expanding our market reach in a number of ways. We launched Geniusprice, our intelligent pricing engine for more accurate home price estimates and Homegenius Connect, a digital referral and rebate network that seamlessly connects homebuyers with our network of high quality real estate agents. We introduced the real estate sector’s first automated valuation model that uses both artificial intelligence and computer vision technology. We also increased the availability of our purchase title offering by adding 22 states and further enhancing the digital features of our Titlegenius platform. And most recently, we launched a new version of homegenius.com, positioning us to transform the search to close experience for homebuyers. And in terms of managing our capital resources. In 2022, we returned significant capital to our stockholders, paying dividends of $135 million and purchasing $400 million of Radian Group common stock, representing 11% of total shares outstanding. As we announced last month, we completed a series of capital actions in the fourth quarter that resulted in a $382 million distribution from Radian Guaranty to Radian Group. And for the first time since the beginning of the great financial crisis 15 years ago, Radian Guaranty is positioned to resume paying recurring ordinary dividends to Radian Group this year, which we project to be between $300 million and $400 million in 2023. Ordinary dividends in 2024 and beyond are expected to approximate Radian Guaranty’s ongoing statutory earnings. In addition, last month, our Board approved a new share repurchase program of $300 million over two years. And at December 31st, Radian Group maintained nearly $1.2 billion of total holding company liquidity. It’s also important to note that we continue to make the necessary adjustments to manage our expense structure across all of our businesses based on the changes that we see in the environment with a focus on driving greater operational efficiency. While this effort involved very difficult decisions related to our people, I’m pleased with the team’s focus on addressing the dramatic market shift, and I believe the result will help position us as a stronger, more agile competitor while continuing to deliver exceptional service to our customers. Rob will provide more details regarding the expected savings related to these initiatives. Let me spend a few minutes discussing how we are positioned to successfully navigate the current environment. For our Mortgage Insurance business, in terms of defaults and claims paid, one of the most important factors is the ultimate level and duration of unemployment through the cycle. As I mentioned, the labor market currently remains strong with very low unemployment. Our insurance portfolio has been well underwritten and has a strong overall credit profile with meaningful embedded equity. Credit trends remain very positive with new default counts back to pre-pandemic levels. We expect new notices of default to increase throughout the year as the portfolio naturally seasons and the economic environment potentially becomes a bit more challenging for borrowers. As I mentioned previously, we’ve been increasing our pricing to reflect the environment and continue to see evidence of price increases among our mortgage insurance peers as well. And perhaps most important is the quality of the mortgage industry’s loan manufacturing and servicing processes remain strong, including exhaustive efforts to support borrowers experiencing hardship. And we continue to execute our aggregate, managed and distributed Mortgage Insurance business model focused on lowering the risk profile, mitigating tail risk and through the cycle volatility of the business by utilizing risk distribution structures, optimizing between the capital and reinsurance markets. As you’ve heard me say before, our company is built to withstand economic cycles, significantly strengthened by the PMIERs capital framework, dynamic risk based pricing and the distribution of risk into the capital and reinsurance markets. We remain committed to our business strategy across our Mortgage and Homegenius businesses and have made adjustments to our cost structure that are reflective of the economic environment to help ensure our success. Additionally, we believe the strength of our capital position following the transformative year end transaction significantly enhances our financial flexibility now and going forward. And while we continue to navigate through the reality of lower industry volumes for the near term, we will remain nimble in this economic climate, leveraging our outstanding customer relationships and our diversified set of innovative products and services as well as our experienced and passionate team to provide the solutions our customers need and to drive our future success. Now I’d like to turn the call over to Rob for details of our financial position. See also Lithium Battery Production by Country and 13 Most Profitable Stocks in the World Rob Quigley: Thank you, Rick, and good afternoon, everyone. I appreciate the opportunity to speak today on behalf of the Radian team about our fourth quarter and full year results, especially given the strength of those results and the positive impacts from the capital actions that we completed during the quarter. As reported last night, in the fourth quarter of 2022, we earned GAAP net income of $162 million or $1.01 per diluted share compared to $1.07 per diluted share in the fourth quarter a year ago. For the full year, net income was $743 million or $4.35 per diluted share compared to $3.16 per diluted share in 2021. Those earnings helped produce an 18.2% return on equity for the full year 2022 compared to 14.1% for 2021 with the year-over-year improvement driven primarily by favorable credit trends that benefited our mortgage insurance loss provision. Adjusted diluted net operating income per share was $0.04 higher than the GAAP amount for the fourth quarter and $0.52 higher for the full year as reflected in the detailed reconciliations provided in our press release. Turning to more detail behind these results. I will first address our revenue and related drivers, which were impacted by the broader macroeconomic environment in both positive and negative ways. As detailed on Exhibit D in our press release, we reported total net premiums earned of $233 million in the fourth quarter of 2022. Compared to prior periods, this amount reflects a decline in revenues, resulting from fewer single premium policy cancellations in our Mortgage Insurance portfolio as well as lower title insurance volume, both due primarily to the significant reduction in mortgage refinance activity during 2022. Changes in the size and average premium yield of our in force Mortgage Insurance portfolio also impacted our net premiums earned. Our primary insurance in force grew 6% year-over-year to $261 billion as of December 31, 2022, including 10% year-over-year growth in monthly premium in force, which is expected to be the most significant driver of our future revenues and now represents 86% of our total insured portfolio. Contributing to this growth was $68 billion of new insurance written for 2022, including nearly $13 billion written during the fourth quarter. In both the fourth quarter and full year 2022, monthly and other recurring premiums accounted for 95% of our new volume. The new insurance written in 2022 reflects a decline from the record pace experienced in 2020 and 2021 due to the reduction in the overall mortgage origination market. However, while the market slowdown in purchase and refinance originations has had a negative impact on our new insurance written, it has significantly benefited our persistency rate. In the fourth quarter, our persistency rate increased to 84% on a quarterly annualized basis compared to 72% a year ago. We expect our persistency rate to remain elevated, in particular, since approximately 86% of our insurance in force had a mortgage rate of 5% or less as of year end 2022 and are therefore less likely to cancel in the near term due to refinancing. Given the shift in mix of our insured portfolio in recent years toward our monthly premium products, we believe this increase in persistency is an especially positive indicator for our future premiums earned and recurring cash flows. As shown on webcast Slide 13, our in force portfolio premium yield for our Mortgage Insurance portfolio was approximately 38 basis points for the fourth quarter of 2022, reflecting a decline over the past year that was more moderate compared to prior years and consistent with our previously stated expectations, as the composition of our insured portfolio continued to shift to more recent vintages. Given elevated persistency rates and the current industry pricing environment, we expect the in force portfolio premium yield to stabilize further and remain relatively flat over the course of 2023. As a reminder, the total net yield of our insured portfolio can fluctuate from period to period due to several other factors such as changes in our risk distribution programs, profit commissions earned and single premium policy cancellations. In addition to the positive impact on persistency rates, another benefit from the rising interest rate environment has been a notable increase in our investment income to $59 million in the fourth quarter of 2022 compared to $37 million in the fourth quarter of 2021. The book yield on our investment portfolio increased to 3.5% as of year end 2022 and the higher rate environment should continue to be positive for the reinvestment of future cash flows. In contrast, rising interest rates have had a negative effect during the year on the fair value of our investment portfolio, resulting in increased unrealized losses that had a temporary negative impact on our book value since these unrealized losses are primarily recorded directly to our stockholders’ equity, as shown on webcast Slide 9. We do not currently expect to realize these losses as we have the ability and intent to hold these securities until recovery, which may be to their maturity dates. As Rick noted, the industry wide decline in mortgage and real estate transactions also negatively impacted our Homegenius segment revenues, which totaled $19 million for the fourth quarter of 2022 compared to $25 million for the third quarter of 2022 and $45 million for the fourth quarter of 2021. Our reported Homegenius pretax operating loss before allocated corporate operating expenses was $25 million for the fourth quarter of 2022 compared to a loss of $20 million for the third quarter of 2022 and income of $3 million for the fourth quarter of 2021. The loss for the fourth quarter of 2022 included $5 million in severance and related charges as we made necessary adjustments to our expense structure to align with current market conditions. Moving to our provision for losses. The positive trends that we have been experiencing continued this quarter. As noted on webcast Slide 16 and consistent with the direction in recent quarters, we had a net benefit of $44 million in our mortgage provision for losses for the fourth quarter of 2022 due to favorable prior period reserve development. For full year 2022, we had a net benefit of $339 million in our mortgage provision for losses, which was the result of $160 million of loss provision for new defaults, more than offset by $499 million of benefit from positive reserve development on prior period defaults. The number of new defaults reported each period is the driver of our provision for new defaults, along with our estimates of both a number of those defaults that will ultimately be submitted as a claim and the corresponding average claim paid. As noted on webcast Slide 17, our new defaults of approximately 10,700 in the fourth quarter of 2022 were slightly elevated by defaults in areas affected by Hurricane Ian as well as by an operational reporting change introduced in the quarter, neither of which are expected to have a material impact on our reserves or ultimate claims paid. Although current cure trends have been more favorable due in large part to forbearance programs and the strong home price appreciation experienced in recent years, we maintained our key default to claim rate assumption for those new defaults at 8%, given the risks and uncertainties associated with the current economic environment. Similar to recent quarters, we lowered our ultimate claim assumptions in the fourth quarter for defaults from certain prior periods due to continuing favorable cure trends, resulting in the release of $89 million of prior period reserves in the quarter. Turning to our other expenses. For the fourth quarter of 2022, our other operating expenses totaled $110 million, an increase compared to $91 million in the third quarter of 2022 and $80 million in the fourth quarter of 2021. Our other operating expenses were elevated in the fourth quarter of 2022 due primarily to two items; $15 million in impairment of long lived assets and other nonoperating items, primarily from impairments to lease related assets, as well as $12 million in total severance and related charges. Based on our expense savings actions to date and consistent with our previously shared estimates, we anticipate our 2023 full year consolidated other operating expenses to be approximately $330 million to $340 million, while 2023 full year cost of services are expected to be approximately $50 million to $60 million. On a combined basis, these amounts represent a reduction in total expenses on a year-over-year basis of $60 million to $80 million or 13% to 17%. As a reminder, these expenses can fluctuate due to changes in items such as variable incentive compensation and volume related costs. Moving finally to our capital and available liquidity. As Rick highlighted, we reached an important milestone for the company this quarter with the return of Radian Guaranty’s ability to pay ordinary dividends, following a series of capital actions completed as part of our ongoing efforts to enhance financial flexibility. In December, we completed an agreement with an unrelated third-party insurer to novate the entire insured portfolio of our Radian Reinsurance subsidiary, which consisted of credit risk transfer transactions issued by the GSEs. Following the novation and as part of this overall strategy, we completed the merger of Radian Reinsurance into Radian Guaranty, our flagship mortgage insurer. Once this merger was completed, the Pennsylvania Insurance Department approved a $282 million return of capital and a $100 million early repayment of an outstanding surplus note from Radian Guaranty to Radian Group, and both were paid at the end of 2022. As a result of the favorable impact of these capital actions as well as our outstanding financial results discussed earlier, Radian Guaranty ended 2022 with a positive unassigned funds balance of $258 million as shown on webcast Slide 22. As Rick highlighted, given this favorable position, we expect Radian Guaranty to resume paying recurring ordinary dividends to Radian Group without the need for prior regulatory approval beginning in the first quarter of 2023. It is important to note that the payment of recurring ordinary dividends does not prohibit us from seeking approval from the Pennsylvania Insurance Department to pay an extraordinary distribution, which we’ve been able to do successfully in the past. As Rick also noted, based on current balances and projections, we expect the amount of the ordinary dividends to approximate $300 million to $400 million in 2023. Beginning in 2024, when more sizable contingency reserve releases are scheduled, we anticipate Radian Guaranty’s ordinary dividend capacity to be primarily driven by the entity’s ongoing statutory earnings, consistent with the limitations under Pennsylvania insurance laws. Radian Guaranty’s excess PMIERs available assets over minimum required assets increased during the fourth quarter to $1.7 billion, which represents a 45% PMIERs cushion. Our available holding company liquidity increased during the fourth quarter from $573 million to $903 million as a result of the capital actions described earlier. During the fourth quarter of 2022, we returned approximately $33 million to stockholders through both dividend and share repurchase activities. While for the full year 2022, we returned over $535 million to stockholders through these activities. While we are mindful of the risks and uncertainties in the broader macroeconomic environment, we believe we are well positioned to deliver meaningful value to our customers, policyholders and stockholders, given the expected future cash flows from our in force Mortgage Insurance portfolio, the level of risk distribution we have in place and the current financial strength and flexibility at both our holding company and Radian Guaranty. I will now turn the call back over to Rick. Rick Thornberry: Thank you, Rob. Before we open the call to your questions, I want to highlight that we are pleased with our results and remain focused on executing our strategic plans. We are driving operational excellence across our businesses and aligning our overall expense structure and resources to reflect the market environment. Our $261 billion mortgage insurance portfolio is highly valuable and is expected to deliver significant earnings going forward. We continue to strategically manage capital by maintaining strong holding company liquidity and PMIERs cushion, opportunistically repurchasing shares and paying the highest yielding dividend in the industry and stockholders, and are now positioned to pay recurring ordinary dividends from Radian Guaranty. We continue to focus on our ESG efforts and recently issued our first DEI annual report. I am also pleased to report that Radian was named for the fifth consecutive year to the Bloomberg Gender Equality Index in recognition of our commitment to advancing gender equality in the workplace. And as I’ve mentioned previously, we are extremely proud of our success over the years in ensuring the American dream of homeownership and we know we are in a unique position to do even more. As a cornerstone partner of the MBA’s Convergence Philadelphia Initiative, we look forward to the launch next month into working together with the MBA and other local partners to help address homeownership barriers for people and communities of color. And finally, I want to thank our team for helping to drive our 2022 results and for the outstanding work they do every day. Now operator, we would be happy to take questions. Q&A Session Follow Radian Group Inc (NYSE:RDN) Follow Radian Group Inc (NYSE:RDN) We may use your email to send marketing emails about our services. Click here to read our privacy policy. Operator: Our first question comes from the line of Doug Harter with Credit Suisse. Doug Harter: Hoping you could talk a little bit about how you’re viewing the competitive environment. It still seems like there are still big market share shifts kind of across the industry and just kind of how you’re seeing the competitive pricing dynamics. Derek Brummer: So I wouldn’t say we’ve seen necessarily bigger market share shifts. So we typically do see shifts when we see kind of a change in terms of cycle. So you tend to see market share shifts if you’re in a down cycle from pricing or an up cycle. And I would characterize that we’re in an increasing cycle right now. I think we’ve seen, on the competitive side, more increases in Q4. We actually started increasing prices in July and have continued into 2023. So overall, I would say in the aggregate, an increasing cycle continue to be very focused on picking our spots where we find the most economic value with a particular focus on geographic pricing, and that’s played out pretty well for us. We’ve been pretty aggressive in terms of how we price geos. And we’ve seen pretty good correlation geos that we’ve priced up that we’ve been under allocated from a share perspective. And that has also correlated closely with the geos where we’ve seen more of a decrease in home prices recently, and I would say the reverse was true. The geos that we were leaning in, we have outsized market share and we’ve seen prices hold up better. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Bose George with KBW. Bose George: The unusual expenses that you mentioned, how much of that was at Homegenius? And also, what do you think Homegenius could do — I mean, could you think Homegenius could get to breakeven if the mortgage market remains sub $2 trillion, say, for the next couple of years? Rick Thornberry: Let me — Bose, thank you for the question. And Rob may add to this, but let me just give a little bit of a Homegenius kind of update, because I think that covers both of your questions. I think 2022 is really kind of a — was a challenging year from many perspectives across Homegenius. Kind of a bit of a perfect storm and so like many others in the space across the mortgage and real estate markets, we saw a rapid decline in volumes, as you’ve seen in some of the other businesses that you follow. And that clearly disrupted our kind of near term plans for growth. We anticipated some of that change in our plans, but we also — like we all know, the market volume declined at a pace and size that no one contemplated. Certainly, the speed at which it occurred. So the greatest impact across our plans throughout the year and even today has been the rapid decline in title business as the revenue and contribution from this business is off materially year-over-year. Regardless of the reasons, the ’22 financial performance of Homegenius was just not acceptable from our perspective, which is why we took aggressive expense management actions and are making other adjustments to better position us for 2023 and beyond. So for Homegenius, we reduced overall direct and allocated expenses, to your question, including cost of services, approximately 15% to 20% through today. And so given the volatility in the business that continues and specifically related to market volumes and the direction that volume will go both in the real estate and mortgage market, we’re not able to provide guidance related to this business. But based on all the seasonality factors and the current run rates in the overall market that are somewhat challenged, we expect the first quarter to be — continue to be challenging, but albeit at a lower expense base, right, as we prepared for it. That being said, our team remains focused on developing the high level components of our platforms and continuing to navigate this business towards a profitable contribution, and that is the focus. And I think by virtue of our actions that we took throughout last year as we saw really the market changed dramatically, I think we’re positioned better now, obviously, than we were throughout 2022, positioned towards benefiting from growth, benefiting from a lower expense base. And I think in certain of our businesses, we certainly see them bottoming out. We see new technologies that we’re bringing to the market that we’re receiving positive feedback, too. And so as we look forward in the year, our focus is to kind of guide this back — not guide, from a financial guidance point of view, but to navigate the business back to profitability. So that’s our focus, and I think that’s a little bit of the history of how we’ve operated throughout the year. Bose George: And then actually just one more. Just given the increased, I guess, flexibility on statutory capital, can you just remind us of sort of the other constraints like debt to capital that you have as we kind of model what could be the level of capital return over the next couple of years? Rick Thornberry: So maybe again, Rob and I can maybe tag team this. I think in terms of — one of the great things that occurred in the fourth quarter is we crossed over a very important threshold, which was to — that was 15 years in the making, really since the great financial crisis to kind of move from a regulatory point of view, our negative out of sight surplus to positive, right, which puts us in a situation to pay ordinary dividends from Radian Guaranty to Radian Group on a recurring basis, right? And so that — for us, that’s a transformational change in the overall capital structure. When you think about like binding capital, obviously, the regulatory requirements, I think we’re in good shape on from an overall kind of risk perspective. When you look at PMIERs, we’ve got significant cushions. So from a Radian Guaranty, I think the strength of the current capital structure puts us in a position to pass capital to Radian Group, as Rob and I both stated in our comments. When you look at leverage, the overall leverage of the business today, we feel really comfortable where we sit. And I think this business, one of the great things about our business is that it naturally deleverages very quickly, and so you can see that kind of over time. We also have kind of maturities on our two debt securities, which we commented on when we did the 2025 maturity issuance, that they align very well with the capital flows. So we feel like we’re in a great financial flexibility position to manage leverage, feel good about where we’re at and we don’t think it really creates any barriers for us in the future in terms of our ability to leverage our financial flexibility across our capital structure. Rob Quigley: I’ll add a constraint on the statutory side. As we said in our remarks, we expect Radian Guaranty for 2023 to distribute $300 million to $400 million up to our holding company. We’d expect that to happen relatively evenly throughout the year. And then in future years, we’d expect the distributions from Radian Guaranty to Group to mirror the statutory earnings of Radian Guaranty. And that is still one of the constraints around ordinary dividends under the Pennsylvania insurance laws. So in terms of sizing that amount of capital flowing up to Radian Group, we think it would mirror closely Radian Guaranty’s statutory earnings. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Mihir Bhatia with Bank of America. Mihir Bhatia: I did want to ask about the Radian — I wanted to follow up on Bose’s question about just the capital distribution. Maybe talking another way, does the fact that you now have ordinary distributions available, does that change in any way your view around capital return weighting between dividends? Maybe you want to grow the stock dividend a little bit more because now you have more confidence, you don’t have to go through the extra approval process. Anything on that? Rick Thornberry: By the way, we love the sounds of children in the background. We’ve all gotten used to that over the last three years, and never feel like you got to apologize for that. But look, I think we have — thank you for the question. Really, really, I think, thoughtful. We’ve been good — I think we have a history of being great stewards of capital. I think over the last five years, we returned $1.7 billion of capital to shareholders. Last year, we returned $535 million through a combination of $135 million of dividend and $400 million of share buybacks, of which we bought back about 11% of our outstanding shares. And our Board just recently authorized the $300 million in January from a share repurchase plan over the next two years. So I think our track record and our history kind of says we take managing capital very seriously. And I do — as you highlighted and Bose highlighted, this change for us that occurred in December is transformational. It gives us tremendous financial flexibility around how we connect earnings to capital flows to Radian Group, how we manage the overall capital growth from — capital position to kind of drive growth. So having said that, the team has worked incredibly hard to get to this point. I couldn’t be more proud of them. It’s a big monumental accomplishment. As you know, that’s a long winded way of giving you this answer. But as you know, we don’t comment on kind of future capital plans. But I think again, our track record speaks for itself. And I think we have a track record of managing it appropriately. We will obviously manage this on any kind of share buybacks as we have in the past on a value based approach. I think given the economic environment that we’re all kind of monitoring very closely today, we’re going to take a very balanced approach and make sure that we’re considering the changes in the economic environment as we navigate through our capital plan. And then as we have in the past, we’ll update you each quarter on kind of our plans and our planned execution from a progress point of view and different capital activities. But we’re very proud and very happy with where we sit today in terms of our overall capital position and the ability, as Rob described, to continue to release capital from Radian Guaranty based on future earnings as we go forward, and puts us in a position to exercise our capital strength as we go forward. Mihir Bhatia: And just one other question for me. In terms of going to the — last thing you mentioned about just the economy and where we fit in just some kind of general softening. Is there anything, whether in your portfolio that you’re seeing, in the environment that you’re steering from originator partners, that makes you worry about housing credit specifically? Like obviously, I understand the macro concerns and potential if you have a recession, unemployment goes up. But is there anything related to like credit standards or some — or just something related to housing specifically that is giving you pause, making you maybe be a little bit more cautious? Rick Thornberry: It’s a great question. It’s one Derek and I probably talk about it on a daily basis kind of in the teams. I would say today, and I think we’re cautiously optimistic about kind of where things are because the economy, there are legitimate fears about a recession. I think more economists are kind of leaning towards the direction of that being not an extended harsh kind of environment. But that the things that we’re encouraged by from a housing credit, housing value point of view, are really unique to this environment, so maybe coming out of COVID where we have a significant home price appreciation, kind of embedded equity within our existing portfolio. Today, we have a supply — demand-supply imbalance across the housing market where you have millennials — as my comments suggested, where you have millennials entering the market at just huge numbers with no homes to buy, especially in our market. Remember, we operate in kind of the bread and butter market of the housing market across the country. We’re not in $10 million homes in New York or in Naples, Florida or in San Francisco. We’re in the basic first time homebuyer, middle income, that market is undersupplied by significant numbers. So from a home price appreciation, we see and we challenge every day, we actually see more balance in that and are, I guess, more comforted by that than you might otherwise expect going into a recession. So I think when we look at it, we’re — obviously, I wouldn’t want to leave you with the impression that we’ve let our guard down at all. But we do have a level of confidence around housing today that I think informs our view about the future and makes us feel good about kind of our overall position. Derek, do you want to Derek Brummer: I would just add. I mean, the credit quality, the underwriting quality continues to be very solid as well as the servicing quality. So when you look at all of those metrics, very positive. From a macroeconomic perspective, Rick alluded to the fact of just supply and demand imbalance, which is kind of helping from a home price perspective. So when we talked last quarter, at that point, the FHFA Index, again, most representative of the business that we write, we saw that decrease in July and August. We’ve actually seen that kind of flatline the last several months. So we’ve talked in the past, our base cases still for home prices did go down. I would say I’m a bit more optimistic than what I was last quarter in terms of some of the data we’re seeing from a home price appreciation perspective at this point. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Eric Hagen with BTIG. Eric Hagen: I think I got a couple here. I’m curious how to think about the loss provision on current period defaults going forward. Like which cohort of loans do you see defaults maybe being concentrated, what are the variables at the loan level which you’re looking at to make that determination? And then I’m curious how you see pricing developing in response to lower mortgage rates from here? Like are there any cohorts of the market where you could get maybe more aggressive because rates are lower and there’s more visibility for certain elements of that kind of borrower cohort? Derek Brummer: I’ll take the two parts. In terms of cohorts or what we’re looking at in terms of defaults, a lot of it is going to be driven by seasoning. So as you kind of have certain vintages go through their peak kind of default years, you’re going to see those go bit higher rate. But in terms of the indicators, I think the traditional ones you’re going to look at, right? So it’s going to be driven by FICO and LTV. What we’re finding in terms of new default is the embedded equity is holding up. So we talked about the embedded equity in our default portfolio. But when we look at new defaults in Q4, again, they gradually shift from a vintage perspective but importantly, they still have significant embedded equity. So that’s what we’re looking at. Then on the macro side, what we’re looking at is our home price projections and unemployment and reemployment rates, right? So the propensity to cure is driven very much by that reemployment rate and the HPA or embedded equity in the houses, that’s why it’s very important when we construct the portfolio that we’re doing it at a very kind of granular geographic level, because that embedded equity can be quite a bit of dispersion in terms of performance embedded equity. So those are some of the things we look at there. In terms of your second question in terms of products and given — I think it was related to interest rates and the decline, not a huge impact. The way we would view it is depending upon where rates are, it will affect the persistency potentially. So as we kind of think about that, you’ll have different durations. And so that can affect how we would price it. But I would say on the margins, I don’t think rates being down 100 basis points significantly affects how we’re pricing in different segments. Operator: And I’m currently showing no further questions at this time. I’d like to hand the call back over to Rick Thornberry for closing remarks. Rick Thornberry: Thank you. And thank you all for joining us today and for your interest in Radian. Before we sign off, I have to note the excitement of Sunday Super Bowl match up as the Philadelphia Eagles, which is home to many of our Radian team, as I’m surrounded by many of them here in Wayne, Pennsylvania, take on my Kansas City Chiefs. We hope you enjoy the game as much as we will. Whoever you favor, I want to wish my Philadelphia based teammates good luck, but I will be rooting for the Chiefs as they’re all quite aware. And we hope you take care, and we look forward to talking to you soon. Thank you again for joining us today and we will talk soon. Take care. Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Follow Radian Group Inc (NYSE:RDN) Follow Radian Group Inc (NYSE:RDN) We may use your email to send marketing emails about our services. Click here to read our privacy policy......»»

Real estate teams are not only changing the face of the real estate landscape, they are defining the future careers of hundreds of thousands of real estate professionals. Findings from a recent National Association of REALTORS® Team Survey noted that 26% of its members belong to a real estate team, and 30% are considering joining […] The post Cracking the Team Code appeared first on RISMedia. Real estate teams are not only changing the face of the real estate landscape, they are defining the future careers of hundreds of thousands of real estate professionals. Findings from a recent National Association of REALTORS® Team Survey noted that 26% of its members belong to a real estate team, and 30% are considering joining one. According to Brian Buffini, founder and chairman of Buffini & Company, the nation’s largest business coaching company, teams are at the heart of an industry transformation that will bring unprecedented revenue opportunities and seismic shifts in marketshare. A generational sea change the industry has not seen since the 1950s is underway. An African proverb sums it up best: If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. Leading a team can maximize your earnings, increase your work-life balance and help you build a legacy business. When built, organized and operating correctly, a team can be a powerful and liberating business-building move. You’ll enjoy the benefits of developing talented agents with complementary skills, all striving together toward accomplishing goals—goals that would be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve alone. Having a team is not without its challenges, however. Many successful agents go into the endeavor of creating and running a team with more high hopes and unrealistic expectations than solid business plans only to be met with frustration and failure. From struggling with lead generation and sales conversion to implementing critical systems and processes, there’s a lot to consider when leading a team. First and foremost, to build and maintain a world-class team, you need to consistently hone your leadership skills. This expanded role can be challenging as individual mega producers evolve from a “one-man-band” mentality to that of an orchestra leader. Great leadership requires delegation, accountability and establishing a unified culture. It requires a well thought-out strategy of building a cohesive lineup of talented, like-minded professionals from the ground up, which essentially replicates the service and values that made you a highly successful agent. So how do you transition from being a top-producing, solo agent to a respected leader of leaders? How do you build and organize a team? How do you essentially clone yourself to ensure your team is providing the same level of service you consistently provided to build your business? How will you succeed as a leader? Creating, crafting and conducting a team efficiently and effectively in 2022 doesn’t have to be a mystery. With structure, systems and support, you can crack the team code from the get-go to build a team that’s right for your business. At Buffini & Company, our members don’t go on the team journey alone. We have invested over 25 years of gathering, sharing and codifying team best practices, coaching insights and systems. We are able to glean insights from some of the best team leaders in the industry. Build a Winning Team If you can no longer handle the amount of leads coming your way, you should consider building a team. Building a team requires you to transition from being a successful agent to an inspiring leader—to build a talented and motivated group around you to nurture leads, close deals and build the business. The first step in building your dream team is understanding what you actually need—what model would be best for you and your business? Your team size and structure is a personalized, customized decision. Your personality, leadership style and goals should all factor into the model you choose. Don’t make the mistake of reacting to market forces when making this decision. Each model type can work and be profitable—it’s all about choosing the one that’s best for you. A coach can be a great help in determining this. The Five Team Models Referral Agent: Creates low-cost expansion Partnership: Multiplies your efforts Standard Team: Shows your commitment to growth Group: Facilitates significant growth Mega Group: Operates like a profitable brokerage Brian Buffini identified five models that work when building a team. “When it comes to building a team, one size does not fit all. You’ve got to have a personalized, customized approach. All five models can be extremely profitable. It’s all about you and where you want to go,” says Buffini. Before you start recruiting agents, you need to hire an excellent assistant who will be the foundation for the team. A coach can guide you through the process of hiring an assistant. They can help you find someone who will complement your skills to help you accomplish more. Once an assistant is onboard and trained, recruiting and retaining winners is the next critical step. Determine the different roles each individual will play on the team. For example, one agent might handle buyer phone calls on listings, while another agent might be in charge of hosting open houses. Another might write purchase offers, manage the lending process or attend home inspections. Keep in mind, roles will depend on the agent’s expertise and preference, and duties will likely overlap. The goal is to secure talented agents who align with your business values and your approach to business. Understand Your Team As a team leader, it is your job to provide individuals the environment, systems and guidance to thrive both personally and professionally. But if you don’t know what drives them, sets them apart or motivates them, you will have a difficult time getting the most out of your team. Identifying and understanding your team members’ strengths will bring clarity to each member’s role. By discovering each agent’s unique abilities, you can leverage their selling, communication and serving style to better understand your team and to help your team better understand each other. Natalie McArtor of Long & Foster in Gainesville, Virginia, leads a team of five people and subscribes to Buffini & Company’s Team Coaching program after 18 years as a One2One Coaching member. Her team coach has helped not only pinpoint her team members’ strengths in a short amount of time—think one hour versus one year—but has allowed her to easily slate each member of the team in a role that suits their strengths. “Coaching has affected everybody’s productivity. Everybody seems to be a lot more focused. They all know what their job description is now. They are motivated to work cohesively as a team—not one person individually, but as a team,” says McArtor, who closed 63 transactions for $37.4M in sales volume plus $49K in referral fees in 2021. Knowing everyone’s individual strengths will also help you cultivate a productive and positive team culture. It will help you manage your team more efficiently and with less conflict. Whether there are too many different personalities, or everyone is too similar, tapping into your agents’ strengths will help you delegate effectively and take your team’s collaboration and production to the highest level possible. “Having a coach has really impacted our team because it’s brought the best out in everybody,” McArtor shares. Organize Your Team You’ve got your team in place, you have a solid understanding of their strengths—now you need a system to get everyone organized and accountable. Invest in a system that defines and tracks performance metrics, organizes when clients need to be contacted and provides valuable insights about your team’s business performance, leads and pipeline. A reliable customer relationship management system (CRM) designed for teams will allow you to easily organize the management and performance of your team and get instant feedback on how their leads are converting. Dan and Maria O’Dell were introduced to Buffini & Company over 20 years ago. At that time, they were struggling with developing systems and had little structure. By implementing a systematic approach of contact and client support, their business started growing exponentially. They grew from helping turn each other’s transactions to leading a 13-member team turning more than 319 transactions and $123M in volume in 2021. “As a family-run real estate team, Team Coaching with Buffini & Company has allowed us to level-up our communications with the principal partners, and in turn, reinforced our value proposition with team members,” says Maria O’Dell. “The systems we have in place help keep our team accountable and focused,” adds Dan O’Dell.” The team is more focused and engaged than ever before.” Having a reliable, fully developed CRM in place will prevent poor lead handoffs, confusion and decreased productivity. Mishandled leads can result in tens of thousands of dollars a year in missed business, according to Buffini. Don’t leave this potential income on the table. Ensure you have a strong method for lead management and a way to organize your team. Train Your Team A recent survey by the National Association of REALTORS® revealed that the typical REALTOR® has eight years of experience, down from nine years’ experience in years prior. Furthermore, 20% of REALTORS® have had their license for a year or less. With so many inexperienced real estate agents in the market, training your team on the fundamentals and a philosophy that aligns with yours is crucial. Training your team, no matter their years in the business or skill level, will provide them with proven systems that work, but more importantly, shows you are invested in their success. One of the most common challenges in team leadership is having team members who don’t handle clients the way you would. Training is the best way to transfer your values, techniques and expectations to your team. It should give you the confidence to know that your stellar reputation will stay intact, and your clients will continue to be served at the highest levels. Training your team during the onboarding process is critical and will essentially be the best way to provide consistent fundamentals and philosophies of serving clients. But, don’t think training stops after the onboarding stage! Great teams continue to innovate and grow by committing to advanced training and implementing systems that empower team members to take your collective productivity to the next level. Connect With Other Leaders While training and organizing your team to perform at the highest level is important, it is even more crucial to dedicate time and energy to your own personal and professional development. One of the most invaluable practices to incorporate is a commitment to connect and synergize with other like-minded leaders. Whether you join virtual webinars, attend an industry conference or engage in an online community, surround yourself with other team leaders who will help you be more productive and master the market. Amy Somerville is Buffini & Company’s vice president of corporate development and industry engagement and hosts Buffini & Company’s 7-Figure Club—LIVE. The highly interactive monthly broadcast is a virtual “think tank” of the best-of-the-best team leaders in the industry, providing peer-to-peer content to keep members on top of real estate trends and technologies. “7-Figure Club is a driving force for success. It brings like-minded leaders together to share best practices for developing synergistic and highly effective teams as well as creating and delivering dynamic learning strategies that result in high engagement, growth and retention rates,” says Somerville. Stay on Track When you’re the leader, you need a trusted advisor to navigate the ins and outs of leading a team. You need someone who will challenge yet inspire you; someone to help you stay on track while seeing the bigger picture. With a coach by your side, you gain an incredible asset and ally for building a rock-solid, productive team. “As a leader, your team looks to you for the vision and plan. Having a coach who understands you as a leader will guide you in your journey and help you see your blind spots,” says Dermot Buffini, chief executive officer of Buffini & Company. “Knowing you have someone who will keep you on course while helping you achieve your professional and personal goals is invaluable in today’s market.” Jeff Morabito of Keller Williams Realty Buckhead in Atlanta,Georgia, has led a team with and without a coach. “I think sometimes you get lost in the day trying to figure out how to take care of everyone. Team Coaching allows me the opportunity to step back and say, ‘Okay, I’m responsible for these folks,'” Morabito explains. “I’m responsible for the team being successful, but I’m also responsible for each team member’s own success, whether they decide to stay with the team or not, because I want them to feel successful in their business.” A coach will work with you to understand your business and what you are trying to accomplish. They will be someone you can trust to objectively help you choose the team model that’s right for you and show you how to optimize your team’s strengths. A team coach will help you become a world-class team leader by guiding you through the journey of leading a team from start to finish. Teams are transforming this industry and Buffini & Company’s dynamic Team Coaching program is at the forefront of the movement. Engage a coach to maximize and elevate your leadership talents to make your dream team a reality. For more information, please visit www.buffiniandcompany.com/teamcoaching. The post Cracking the Team Code appeared first on RISMedia......»»

The Metaverse Is Big Brother In Disguise: Freedom Meted Out By Technological Tyrants Authored by John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute, “The term metaverse, like the term meritocracy, was coined in a sci fi dystopia novel written as cautionary tale. Then techies took metaverse, and technocrats took meritocracy, and enthusiastically adopted what was meant to inspire horror.” - Antonio García Martínez Welcome to the Matrix (i.e. the metaverse), where reality is virtual, freedom is only as free as one’s technological overlords allow, and artificial intelligence is slowly rendering humanity unnecessary, inferior and obsolete. Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, sees this digital universe—the metaverse—as the next step in our evolutionary transformation from a human-driven society to a technological one. Yet while Zuckerberg’s vision for this digital frontier has been met with a certain degree of skepticism, the truth—as journalist Antonio García Martínez concludes—is that we’re already living in the metaverse. The metaverse is, in turn, a dystopian meritocracy, where freedom is a conditional construct based on one’s worthiness and compliance. In a meritocracy, rights are privileges, afforded to those who have earned them. There can be no tolerance for independence or individuality in a meritocracy, where political correctness is formalized, legalized and institutionalized. Likewise, there can be no true freedom when the ability to express oneself, move about, engage in commerce and function in society is predicated on the extent to which you’re willing to “fit in.” We are almost at that stage now. Consider that in our present virtue-signaling world where fascism disguises itself as tolerance, the only way to enjoy even a semblance of freedom is by opting to voluntarily censor yourself, comply, conform and march in lockstep with whatever prevailing views dominate. Fail to do so—by daring to espouse “dangerous” ideas or support unpopular political movements—and you will find yourself shut out of commerce, employment, and society: Facebook will ban you, Twitter will shut you down, Instagram will de-platform you, and your employer will issue ultimatums that force you to choose between your so-called freedoms and economic survival. This is exactly how Corporate America plans to groom us for a world in which “we the people” are unthinking, unresistant, slavishly obedient automatons in bondage to a Deep State policed by computer algorithms. Science fiction has become fact. Twenty-some years after the Wachowskis’ iconic film, The Matrix, introduced us to a futuristic world in which humans exist in a computer-simulated non-reality powered by authoritarian machines—a world where the choice between existing in a denial-ridden virtual dream-state or facing up to the harsh, difficult realities of life comes down to a blue pill or a red pill—we stand at the precipice of a technologically-dominated matrix of our own making. We are living the prequel to The Matrix with each passing day, falling further under the spell of technologically-driven virtual communities, virtual realities and virtual conveniences managed by artificially intelligent machines that are on a fast track to replacing human beings and eventually dominating every aspect of our lives. In The Matrix, computer programmer Thomas Anderson a.k.a. hacker Neo is wakened from a virtual slumber by Morpheus, a freedom fighter seeking to liberate humanity from a lifelong hibernation state imposed by hyper-advanced artificial intelligence machines that rely on humans as an organic power source. With their minds plugged into a perfectly crafted virtual reality, few humans ever realize they are living in an artificial dream world. Neo is given a choice: to take the red pill, wake up and join the resistance, or take the blue pill, remain asleep and serve as fodder for the powers-that-be. Most people opt for the blue pill. In our case, the blue pill—a one-way ticket to a life sentence in an electronic concentration camp—has been honey-coated to hide the bitter aftertaste, sold to us in the name of expediency and delivered by way of blazingly fast Internet, cell phone signals that never drop a call, thermostats that keep us at the perfect temperature without our having to raise a finger, and entertainment that can be simultaneously streamed to our TVs, tablets and cell phones. Yet we are not merely in thrall with these technologies that were intended to make our lives easier. We have become enslaved by them. Look around you. Everywhere you turn, people are so addicted to their internet-connected screen devices—smart phones, tablets, computers, televisions—that they can go for hours at a time submerged in a virtual world where human interaction is filtered through the medium of technology. This is not freedom. This is not even progress. This is technological tyranny and iron-fisted control delivered by way of the surveillance state, corporate giants such as Google and Facebook, and government spy agencies such as the National Security Agency. So consumed are we with availing ourselves of all the latest technologies that we have spared barely a thought for the ramifications of our heedless, headlong stumble towards a world in which our abject reliance on internet-connected gadgets and gizmos is grooming us for a future in which freedom is an illusion. Yet it’s not just freedom that hangs in the balance. Humanity itself is on the line. If ever Americans find themselves in bondage to technological tyrants, we will have only ourselves to blame for having forged the chains through our own lassitude, laziness and abject reliance on internet-connected gadgets and gizmos that render us wholly irrelevant. Indeed, we’re fast approaching Philip K. Dick’s vision of the future as depicted in the film Minority Report. There, police agencies apprehend criminals before they can commit a crime, driverless cars populate the highways, and a person’s biometrics are constantly scanned and used to track their movements, target them for advertising, and keep them under perpetual surveillance. Cue the dawning of the Age of the Internet of Things (IoT), in which internet-connected “things” monitor your home, your health and your habits in order to keep your pantry stocked, your utilities regulated and your life under control and relatively worry-free. The key word here, however, is control. In the not-too-distant future, “just about every device you have—and even products like chairs, that you don’t normally expect to see technology in—will be connected and talking to each other.” By the end of 2018, “there were an estimated 22 billion internet of things connected devices in use around the world… Forecasts suggest that by 2030 around 50 billion of these IoT devices will be in use around the world, creating a massive web of interconnected devices spanning everything from smartphones to kitchen appliances.” As the technologies powering these devices have become increasingly sophisticated, they have also become increasingly widespread, encompassing everything from toothbrushes and lightbulbs to cars, smart meters and medical equipment. It is estimated that 127 new IoT devices are connected to the web every second. This “connected” industry has become the next big societal transformation, right up there with the Industrial Revolution, a watershed moment in technology and culture. Between driverless cars that completely lacking a steering wheel, accelerator, or brake pedal, and smart pills embedded with computer chips, sensors, cameras and robots, we are poised to outpace the imaginations of science fiction writers such as Philip K. Dick and Isaac Asimov. (By the way, there is no such thing as a driverless car. Someone or something will be driving, but it won’t be you.) These Internet-connected techno gadgets include smart light bulbs that discourage burglars by making your house look occupied, smart thermostats that regulate the temperature of your home based on your activities, and smart doorbells that let you see who is at your front door without leaving the comfort of your couch. Nest, Google’s suite of smart home products, has been at the forefront of the “connected” industry, with such technologically savvy conveniences as a smart lock that tells your thermostat who is home, what temperatures they like, and when your home is unoccupied; a home phone service system that interacts with your connected devices to “learn when you come and go” and alert you if your kids don’t come home; and a sleep system that will monitor when you fall asleep, when you wake up, and keep the house noises and temperature in a sleep-conducive state. The aim of these internet-connected devices, as Nest proclaims, is to make “your house a more thoughtful and conscious home.” For example, your car can signal ahead that you’re on your way home, while Hue lights can flash on and off to get your attention if Nest Protect senses something’s wrong. Your coffeemaker, relying on data from fitness and sleep sensors, will brew a stronger pot of coffee for you if you’ve had a restless night. Yet given the speed and trajectory at which these technologies are developing, it won’t be long before these devices are operating entirely independent of their human creators, which poses a whole new set of worries. As technology expert Nicholas Carr notes, “As soon as you allow robots, or software programs, to act freely in the world, they’re going to run up against ethically fraught situations and face hard choices that can’t be resolved through statistical models. That will be true of self-driving cars, self-flying drones, and battlefield robots, just as it’s already true, on a lesser scale, with automated vacuum cleaners and lawnmowers.” For instance, just as the robotic vacuum, Roomba, “makes no distinction between a dust bunny and an insect,” weaponized drones will be incapable of distinguishing between a fleeing criminal and someone merely jogging down a street. For that matter, how do you defend yourself against a robotic cop—such as the Atlas android being developed by the Pentagon—that has been programmed to respond to any perceived threat with violence? Moreover, it’s not just our homes and personal devices that are being reordered and reimagined in this connected age: it’s our workplaces, our health systems, our government, our bodies and our innermost thoughts that are being plugged into a matrix over which we have no real control. It is expected that by 2030, we will all experience The Internet of Senses (IoS), enabled by Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), 5G, and automation. The Internet of Senses relies on connected technology interacting with our senses of sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch by way of the brain as the user interface. As journalist Susan Fourtane explains: Many predict that by 2030, the lines between thinking and doing will blur. Fifty-nine percent of consumers believe that we will be able to see map routes on VR glasses by simply thinking of a destination… By 2030, technology is set to respond to our thoughts, and even share them with others… Using the brain as an interface could mean the end of keyboards, mice, game controllers, and ultimately user interfaces for any digital device. The user needs to only think about the commands, and they will just happen. Smartphones could even function without touch screens. In other words, the IoS will rely on technology being able to access and act on your thoughts. Fourtane outlines several trends related to the IoS that are expected to become a reality by 2030: 1: Thoughts become action: using the brain as the interface, for example, users will be able to see map routes on VR glasses by simply thinking of a destination. 2: Sounds will become an extension of the devised virtual reality: users could mimic anyone's voice realistically enough to fool even family members. 3: Real food will become secondary to imagined tastes. A sensory device for your mouth could digitally enhance anything you eat, so that any food can taste like your favorite treat. 4: Smells will become a projection of this virtual reality so that virtual visits, to forests or the countryside for instance, would include experiencing all the natural smells of those places. 5: Total touch: Smartphones with screens will convey the shape and texture of the digital icons and buttons they are pressing. 6: Merged reality: VR game worlds will become indistinguishable from physical reality by 2030. This is the metaverse, wrapped up in the siren-song of convenience and sold to us as the secret to success, entertainment and happiness. It’s a false promise, a wicked trap to snare us, with a single objective: total control. George Orwell understood this. Orwell’s masterpiece, 1984, portrays a global society of total control in which people are not allowed to have thoughts that in any way disagree with the corporate state. There is no personal freedom, and advanced technology has become the driving force behind a surveillance-driven society. Snitches and cameras are everywhere. And people are subject to the Thought Police, who deal with anyone guilty of thought crimes. The government, or “Party,” is headed by Big Brother, who appears on posters everywhere with the words: “Big Brother is watching you.” As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, total control over every aspect of our lives, right down to our inner thoughts, is the objective of any totalitarian regime. The Metaverse is just Big Brother in disguise. Tyler Durden Thu, 11/11/2021 - 23:40.....»»

The Metaverse Is Big Brother in Disguise: Freedom Meted Out By Technological Tyrants Authored by John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute, “The term metaverse, like the term meritocracy, was coined in a sci fi dystopia novel written as cautionary tale. Then techies took metaverse, and technocrats took meritocracy, and enthusiastically adopted what was meant to inspire horror.” - Antonio García Martínez Welcome to the Matrix (i.e. the metaverse), where reality is virtual, freedom is only as free as one’s technological overlords allow, and artificial intelligence is slowly rendering humanity unnecessary, inferior and obsolete. Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, sees this digital universe—the metaverse—as the next step in our evolutionary transformation from a human-driven society to a technological one. Yet while Zuckerberg’s vision for this digital frontier has been met with a certain degree of skepticism, the truth—as journalist Antonio García Martínez concludes—is that we’re already living in the metaverse. The metaverse is, in turn, a dystopian meritocracy, where freedom is a conditional construct based on one’s worthiness and compliance. In a meritocracy, rights are privileges, afforded to those who have earned them. There can be no tolerance for independence or individuality in a meritocracy, where political correctness is formalized, legalized and institutionalized. Likewise, there can be no true freedom when the ability to express oneself, move about, engage in commerce and function in society is predicated on the extent to which you’re willing to “fit in.” We are almost at that stage now. Consider that in our present virtue-signaling world where fascism disguises itself as tolerance, the only way to enjoy even a semblance of freedom is by opting to voluntarily censor yourself, comply, conform and march in lockstep with whatever prevailing views dominate. Fail to do so—by daring to espouse “dangerous” ideas or support unpopular political movements—and you will find yourself shut out of commerce, employment, and society: Facebook will ban you, Twitter will shut you down, Instagram will de-platform you, and your employer will issue ultimatums that force you to choose between your so-called freedoms and economic survival. This is exactly how Corporate America plans to groom us for a world in which “we the people” are unthinking, unresistant, slavishly obedient automatons in bondage to a Deep State policed by computer algorithms. Science fiction has become fact. Twenty-some years after the Wachowskis’ iconic film, The Matrix, introduced us to a futuristic world in which humans exist in a computer-simulated non-reality powered by authoritarian machines—a world where the choice between existing in a denial-ridden virtual dream-state or facing up to the harsh, difficult realities of life comes down to a blue pill or a red pill—we stand at the precipice of a technologically-dominated matrix of our own making. We are living the prequel to The Matrix with each passing day, falling further under the spell of technologically-driven virtual communities, virtual realities and virtual conveniences managed by artificially intelligent machines that are on a fast track to replacing human beings and eventually dominating every aspect of our lives. In The Matrix, computer programmer Thomas Anderson a.k.a. hacker Neo is wakened from a virtual slumber by Morpheus, a freedom fighter seeking to liberate humanity from a lifelong hibernation state imposed by hyper-advanced artificial intelligence machines that rely on humans as an organic power source. With their minds plugged into a perfectly crafted virtual reality, few humans ever realize they are living in an artificial dream world. Neo is given a choice: to take the red pill, wake up and join the resistance, or take the blue pill, remain asleep and serve as fodder for the powers-that-be. Most people opt for the blue pill. In our case, the blue pill—a one-way ticket to a life sentence in an electronic concentration camp—has been honey-coated to hide the bitter aftertaste, sold to us in the name of expediency and delivered by way of blazingly fast Internet, cell phone signals that never drop a call, thermostats that keep us at the perfect temperature without our having to raise a finger, and entertainment that can be simultaneously streamed to our TVs, tablets and cell phones. Yet we are not merely in thrall with these technologies that were intended to make our lives easier. We have become enslaved by them. Look around you. Everywhere you turn, people are so addicted to their internet-connected screen devices—smart phones, tablets, computers, televisions—that they can go for hours at a time submerged in a virtual world where human interaction is filtered through the medium of technology. This is not freedom. This is not even progress. This is technological tyranny and iron-fisted control delivered by way of the surveillance state, corporate giants such as Google and Facebook, and government spy agencies such as the National Security Agency. So consumed are we with availing ourselves of all the latest technologies that we have spared barely a thought for the ramifications of our heedless, headlong stumble towards a world in which our abject reliance on internet-connected gadgets and gizmos is grooming us for a future in which freedom is an illusion. Yet it’s not just freedom that hangs in the balance. Humanity itself is on the line. If ever Americans find themselves in bondage to technological tyrants, we will have only ourselves to blame for having forged the chains through our own lassitude, laziness and abject reliance on internet-connected gadgets and gizmos that render us wholly irrelevant. Indeed, we’re fast approaching Philip K. Dick’s vision of the future as depicted in the film Minority Report. There, police agencies apprehend criminals before they can commit a crime, driverless cars populate the highways, and a person’s biometrics are constantly scanned and used to track their movements, target them for advertising, and keep them under perpetual surveillance. Cue the dawning of the Age of the Internet of Things (IoT), in which internet-connected “things” monitor your home, your health and your habits in order to keep your pantry stocked, your utilities regulated and your life under control and relatively worry-free. The key word here, however, is control. In the not-too-distant future, “just about every device you have—and even products like chairs, that you don’t normally expect to see technology in—will be connected and talking to each other.” By the end of 2018, “there were an estimated 22 billion internet of things connected devices in use around the world… Forecasts suggest that by 2030 around 50 billion of these IoT devices will be in use around the world, creating a massive web of interconnected devices spanning everything from smartphones to kitchen appliances.” As the technologies powering these devices have become increasingly sophisticated, they have also become increasingly widespread, encompassing everything from toothbrushes and lightbulbs to cars, smart meters and medical equipment. It is estimated that 127 new IoT devices are connected to the web every second. This “connected” industry has become the next big societal transformation, right up there with the Industrial Revolution, a watershed moment in technology and culture. Between driverless cars that completely lacking a steering wheel, accelerator, or brake pedal, and smart pills embedded with computer chips, sensors, cameras and robots, we are poised to outpace the imaginations of science fiction writers such as Philip K. Dick and Isaac Asimov. (By the way, there is no such thing as a driverless car. Someone or something will be driving, but it won’t be you.) These Internet-connected techno gadgets include smart light bulbs that discourage burglars by making your house look occupied, smart thermostats that regulate the temperature of your home based on your activities, and smart doorbells that let you see who is at your front door without leaving the comfort of your couch. Nest, Google’s suite of smart home products, has been at the forefront of the “connected” industry, with such technologically savvy conveniences as a smart lock that tells your thermostat who is home, what temperatures they like, and when your home is unoccupied; a home phone service system that interacts with your connected devices to “learn when you come and go” and alert you if your kids don’t come home; and a sleep system that will monitor when you fall asleep, when you wake up, and keep the house noises and temperature in a sleep-conducive state. The aim of these internet-connected devices, as Nest proclaims, is to make “your house a more thoughtful and conscious home.” For example, your car can signal ahead that you’re on your way home, while Hue lights can flash on and off to get your attention if Nest Protect senses something’s wrong. Your coffeemaker, relying on data from fitness and sleep sensors, will brew a stronger pot of coffee for you if you’ve had a restless night. Yet given the speed and trajectory at which these technologies are developing, it won’t be long before these devices are operating entirely independent of their human creators, which poses a whole new set of worries. As technology expert Nicholas Carr notes, “As soon as you allow robots, or software programs, to act freely in the world, they’re going to run up against ethically fraught situations and face hard choices that can’t be resolved through statistical models. That will be true of self-driving cars, self-flying drones, and battlefield robots, just as it’s already true, on a lesser scale, with automated vacuum cleaners and lawnmowers.” For instance, just as the robotic vacuum, Roomba, “makes no distinction between a dust bunny and an insect,” weaponized drones will be incapable of distinguishing between a fleeing criminal and someone merely jogging down a street. For that matter, how do you defend yourself against a robotic cop—such as the Atlas android being developed by the Pentagon—that has been programmed to respond to any perceived threat with violence? Moreover, it’s not just our homes and personal devices that are being reordered and reimagined in this connected age: it’s our workplaces, our health systems, our government, our bodies and our innermost thoughts that are being plugged into a matrix over which we have no real control. It is expected that by 2030, we will all experience The Internet of Senses (IoS), enabled by Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), 5G, and automation. The Internet of Senses relies on connected technology interacting with our senses of sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch by way of the brain as the user interface. As journalist Susan Fourtane explains: Many predict that by 2030, the lines between thinking and doing will blur. Fifty-nine percent of consumers believe that we will be able to see map routes on VR glasses by simply thinking of a destination… By 2030, technology is set to respond to our thoughts, and even share them with others… Using the brain as an interface could mean the end of keyboards, mice, game controllers, and ultimately user interfaces for any digital device. The user needs to only think about the commands, and they will just happen. Smartphones could even function without touch screens. In other words, the IoS will rely on technology being able to access and act on your thoughts. Fourtane outlines several trends related to the IoS that are expected to become a reality by 2030: 1: Thoughts become action: using the brain as the interface, for example, users will be able to see map routes on VR glasses by simply thinking of a destination. 2: Sounds will become an extension of the devised virtual reality: users could mimic anyone's voice realistically enough to fool even family members. 3: Real food will become secondary to imagined tastes. A sensory device for your mouth could digitally enhance anything you eat, so that any food can taste like your favorite treat. 4: Smells will become a projection of this virtual reality so that virtual visits, to forests or the countryside for instance, would include experiencing all the natural smells of those places. 5: Total touch: Smartphones with screens will convey the shape and texture of the digital icons and buttons they are pressing. 6: Merged reality: VR game worlds will become indistinguishable from physical reality by 2030. This is the metaverse, wrapped up in the siren-song of convenience and sold to us as the secret to success, entertainment and happiness. It’s a false promise, a wicked trap to snare us, with a single objective: total control. George Orwell understood this. Orwell’s masterpiece, 1984, portrays a global society of total control in which people are not allowed to have thoughts that in any way disagree with the corporate state. There is no personal freedom, and advanced technology has become the driving force behind a surveillance-driven society. Snitches and cameras are everywhere. And people are subject to the Thought Police, who deal with anyone guilty of thought crimes. The government, or “Party,” is headed by Big Brother, who appears on posters everywhere with the words: “Big Brother is watching you.” As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, total control over every aspect of our lives, right down to our inner thoughts, is the objective of any totalitarian regime. The Metaverse is just Big Brother in disguise. Tyler Durden Thu, 11/11/2021 - 23:40.....»»

In this piece, we will take a look at the ten international stocks billionaires are loading up on. For more stocks, head on over to 5 International Stocks Billionaires Are Loading Up On. The global economy is yet to recover from the shock of the coronavirus pandemic. After 2020 saw global lockdowns that shut down […] In this piece, we will take a look at the ten international stocks billionaires are loading up on. For more stocks, head on over to 5 International Stocks Billionaires Are Loading Up On. The global economy is yet to recover from the shock of the coronavirus pandemic. After 2020 saw global lockdowns that shut down manufacturing plants, rapid vaccination provided some semblance of a return to normalcy. This normalcy was starting to make its way in 2022 when the Russian invasion of Ukraine kicked off. This upended the global commodities and energy market, and, especially for Europe, ushered in painful inflation that often crossed double digits. At the same time, the U.S. Federal Reserve, eager to finally act on inflation that had started to creep up in 2021, rapidly started to raise interest rates. Entering 2023, the worst of last year’s inflationary wave is over. Prices are coming down in the U.S. and all over the world, however, the inflationary worries are now supplanted by fears of a recession. Particularly in the U.S., there is a growing consensus that the economy might contract soon, but internationally, the picture varies by country. For instance, Europe’s largest economy Germany has already entered into a recession. Germany was one of the worst hit countries from the fallout of the Russian invasion as it had grown to rely on cheap Russian gas to fuel its economic engine. Data from the German statistics office show that the economy contracted by 0.3% in Q1 2023 after contracting by 0.5% in Q4 2022 – marking two consecutive quarters of a slowdown to meet the technical definition of a recession. At the same time, though, the German central bank struck an optimistic tune as it predicted that the economy will slightly grow during the second quarter on the back of falling industry prices and supply chain easing. One of the world’s premier financing institutions and a watchdog of the global economy the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has some fresh estimates. The IMF believes that global economic growth is expected to slow down to 2.8% this year from 3.4% last year. However, 2024 will be a relatively better year as growth will recover to 3% – yet still be below 2022, which was the first year when the economic recovery from the pandemic started to take place. The financial institution adds that advanced economies such as the U.S., the U.K., and Germany will see slower growth than global averages with the base case scenario seeing 1.3% in growth. Breaking down international GDP growth projections for 2023 country wise, the developed world will be led by the United States whose economy is expected to grow by 1.6%. Canada and Spain follow with 1.5% economic growth. The UK’s economy is expected to contract by 0.3%. The picture is much rosier for emerging and developing economies, with India expected to take the lead and grow by 5.9% this year and China coming in at second place with a 5.2% rate. The interconnectedness of the global supply chain has also led to crucial companies that sit at the heart of some of the biggest industries seeing their primary operations become isolated to geographical areas. Nowhere else is this more evident than in the semiconductor industry. Two crucial firms, namely the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (NYSE:TSM) and ASML Holding N.V. (NASDAQ:ASML), are some notable examples. TSMC is the world’s largest contract chip manufacturer – but all of its leading edge chip manufacturing facilities are located only in Taiwan. And the machines that TSMC uses to make these chips are built only by ASML – whose facilities are concentrated in Europe. This leaves a multi-billion dollar industry at the mercy of geopolitical developments – particularly for TSMC which is located in the tension-filled region of the South China Sea. TSMC itself is struggling from a global slowdown in the semiconductor industry, and during its latest earnings call, the firm’s chief executive officer Dr. C.C. Wei shared: In addition, the recovery in end market demand from channels reopening is also lower than our expectation. Therefore, the fabless semiconductor inventory adjustment in first half ’23 is taking longer than our prior expectation. It may extend into third quarter this year before rebalancing to a healthier level. For the full year of 2023, we do our forecast for the semiconductor market, excluding memory, to decline mid-single-digit percent while foundry industry is forecast to decline high single-digit percent. We now expect our full year 2023 revenue to decline low to mid-single-digit percent in U.S. dollar terms and our business to do better than both semiconductor ex memory and foundry industries, supported by our strong technology leadership and differentiation. So, with these details in mind, let’s take a look at some of the world’s largest companies that are also a favorite among billionaire investors. Some top picks are ASML Holding N.V. (NASDAQ:ASML), Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (NYSE:TSM), and Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN). Photo by Chris Liverani on Unsplash Our Methodology To compile our list of international stocks that billionaires are buying, we first narrowed down to the forty largest international companies in terms of market cap whose shares trade on American markets. Then, the number of billionaire-owned or billionaire-led hedge funds that have bought their shares as of March 2023 was determined from our list of billionaires. The top ten international stocks with the highest number of billionaire investors were chosen for this article. 10 International Stocks Billionaires Are Loading Up On 10. British American Tobacco p.l.c. (NYSE:BTI) Number of Billionaire Investors In Q1 2023: 7 British American Tobacco p.l.c. (NYSE:BTI) is one of the largest tobacco companies in the world. The firm is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom, and it was set up in 1902 – making it one of the oldest companies on our list. 22 of the 943 hedge funds part of Insider Monkey’s database had held a stake in British American Tobacco p.l.c. (NYSE:BTI) during Q1 2023. Out of these, the firm’s largest investor is billionaire Rajiv Jaiv’s GQG Partners with an $882 million stake. Along with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (NYSE:TSM), ASML Holding N.V. (NASDAQ:ASML), and Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN), British American Tobacco p.l.c. (NYSE:BTI) is a hot international stock being bought by billionaires. 9. Novo Nordisk A/S (NYSE:NVO) Number of Billionaire Investors In Q1 2023: 10 Novo Nordisk A/S (NYSE:NVO) is a Danish healthcare firm. It is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world and develops drugs for diabetes, weight loss, growth disorders, and other ailments. After sifting through 943 hedge funds for their first quarter of 2023 portfolios, Insider Monkey discovered that 46 had bought Novo Nordisk A/S (NYSE:NVO)’s shares. Out of these, the firm’s largest investor is billionaire Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies with a $1.7 billion investment. 8. Canadian Pacific Kansas City Limited (NYSE:CP) Number of Billionaire Investors In Q1 2023: 11 Canadian Pacific Kansas City Limited (NYSE:CP) is a railroad company based in Calgary, Canada. The firm focuses its operations primarily in the U.S. and Canada and it has thousands of miles of rail track through which it transports different products such as freight, fertilizers, and coal. 48 of the 943 hedge funds part of Insider Monkey’s database had held a stake in the firm as of March 2023. Canadian Pacific Kansas City Limited (NYSE:CP)’s largest shareholder is billionaire Chris Hohn’s TCI Fund Management with a $4.2 billion stake. 7. Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Number of Billionaire Investors In Q1 2023: 11 Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) is another Irish company and one that is also headquartered in Dublin. It is a technology consultancy firm that enables customers to leverage advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence into their business processes and operations. After sifting through 943 hedge funds for their first quarter of 2023 shareholdings, Insider Monkey discovered that 60 had invested in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN). Its largest investor in our database is Nicolai Tangen’s Ako Capital with a $534 million investment. 6. Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. – Petrobras (NYSE:PBR) Number of Billionaire Investors In Q1 2023: 13 Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. – Petrobras (NYSE:PBR) is Brazil’s premier and state owned oil and gas company. It explores, extracts, refines, and transports crude oil products. It was set up in 1953 and is headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Insider Monkey’s March quarter of 2023 survey of 943 hedge funds revealed that 39 had invested in Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. – Petrobras (NYSE:PBR). The firm’s largest shareholder in our database is Rajiv Jain’s GQG Partners since it owns 211 million shares that are worth $2.2 billion. ASML Holding N.V. (NASDAQ:ASML), Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. – Petrobras (NYSE:PBR), Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (NYSE:TSM), and Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) are some top international stocks on the billionaire radar.   Click to continue reading and see the 5 International Stocks Billionaires Are Loading Up On.   Suggested Articles: 10 Most Undervalued Hong Kong Stocks To Buy 10 States that Banned Plastic Bags 15 Stocks that will 10x in 5 Years Disclosure: None. 10 International Stocks Billionaires Are Loading Up On is posted on Insider Monkey......»»

In the rapidly evolving landscape of hydrogen, the global push for low-carbon hydrogen production is accelerating the exploration of sustainable, ... Read more In the rapidly evolving landscape of hydrogen, the global push for low-carbon hydrogen production is accelerating the exploration of sustainable, scalable, and economically viable technologies. While blue and green hydrogen have been spotlighted as the eminent options for medium and long-term decarbonization, the less-publicized turquoise hydrogen, generated via methane pyrolysis, has been advancing in terms of technology and commercial demonstrations. So, where does methane pyrolysis fit into the future hydrogen economy, and how significant will its role be? This article explores this topic and delves into the various methane pyrolysis technologies, their benefits, drawbacks, and the key commercial activities shaping this industry. For a comprehensive exploration of methane pyrolysis as well as the blue hydrogen market, please see IDTechEx’s brand new market report, “Blue Hydrogen Production and Markets 2023-2033: Technologies, Forecasts, Players”. A Comparison of Blue and Green Hydrogen The spectrum of hydrogen colors. Source: IDTechEx In the hydrogen production spectrum, blue and green hydrogen have emerged as key solutions to a low-carbon future. Blue hydrogen is produced by reforming natural gas with steam or partially oxidizing it with oxygen while capturing and storing the CO2 emissions from the process. On the other hand, green hydrogen is generated through the electrolysis of water powered by renewable energy sources such as wind or solar, rendering it carbon-free in terms of Scope 1 and 2 emissions. Turquoise hydrogen, however, offers a different approach to hydrogen production. It is generated via methane pyrolysis, a process where methane is decomposed into hydrogen and solid carbon at high temperatures without releasing any direct CO2. This makes turquoise hydrogen a more environmentally friendly option than blue hydrogen, as it avoids the need for carbon capture and storage (CCS). Compared to green hydrogen, the production of turquoise hydrogen is typically more cost-effective and easier to scale due to its reliance on the abundant and currently more affordable natural gas as a feedstock. In addition, the process is thermodynamically much less energy intensive than water electrolysis, requiring around seven times less energy per mole of H2 produced. This is especially advantageous, considering that many methane pyrolysis process variations can be fully electrified, thus removing Scope 2 emissions. The use of biogas as a feedstock could potentially make the process carbon negative. The process also results in a solid carbon by-product, which can potentially be utilized in various industries depending on its grade – rubber black is used as a reinforcement material for rubbers and specialty black can be used in the production of polymers, inks, coatings, battery materials and many other applications. Research is also underway to investigate its use as a soil additive. Some methane pyrolysis processes can also produce hydrocarbons, graphite, or more advanced carbons like graphene. The generation of such products could yield useful revenue streams for pyrolysis plant operators. The Spectrum of Methane Pyrolysis Processes Source: IDTechEx IDTechEx identified three broad types of methane pyrolysis processes. Overall, these processes are all quite different in terms of their working principles, pros and cons, stages of development and the relative number of players developing them. Of course, there are more variations of these, such as the plasma-catalytic process. Thermal: non-catalytic thermal decomposition using very high temperatures (1000-1400°C). Heating is supplied via the reactor walls or heat exchange tubes (if combustion is used). Companies developing this process include BASF (resistive heating of reactor walls) and Ekona Power (heating by combustion of tail gases). Catalytic: thermocatalytic process that employs either a molten catalyst in a bubble column or catalyst particles in a fluidized bed reactor. Companies developing this process include C-Zero (molten salt catalyst) and Hazer Group (solid iron ore catalyst). Plasma: methane molecules are split by high-temperature plasma (via plasma torches) or microwave-generated low-temperature plasma. Companies developing this process include Monolith (high temperature) and Transform Materials (low temperature). IDTechEx believes that plasma pyrolysis processes are by far the most advanced in terms of the stage of technological development and the number of players. They are also the most energy-efficient processes, as heat is delivered directly to the methane gas instead of the reactor or catalytic medium. In addition, the quality of carbon products is usually higher than that of other process types, although some catalytic processes can also produce quality products. However, the process requires precise control of the plasma to not form side products since the methane radicals tend to combine into hydrocarbon molecules. Transform Materials utilized this behavior in their microwave process to generate acetylene – a valuable chemical used in the production of polymers like PVC and chemicals like butanediol. Commercial Interest And Activity In Methane Pyrolysis The companies developing methane pyrolysis span across multiple regions, with North America (primarily the US) and Europe (primarily the UK, France, and Germany) dominating development in terms of the number of players and their technological readiness levels (TRL). However, a few players do stand out in terms of commercializing their technologies. Monolith is a US-based company and is probably the most advanced player on the market, as it has had an operating commercial-scale facility since 2020 (Olive Creek 1) that produces 5 kilotonnes of hydrogen and 15 kilotonnes of carbon black annually. The company is currently expanding this facility (Olive Creek 2) to produce 275 kilotonnes of low-carbon ammonia and 194 kilotonnes of carbon black. The plant is scheduled for commissioning in 2023 and is expected to be the largest methane pyrolysis plant globally. Monolith has recently announced that its carbon black product will be used in Goodyear’s new ultra-high performance ElectricDrive™ GT tires. As mentioned previously, Transform Materials is another US-based company with a microwave plasma process that can produce acetylene. The company positions itself as a provider of a clean acetylene process – an alternative to the existing carbon-intensive carbide and acetylene cracker processes. Therefore, its process is likely of most interest to acetylene end-users, where hydrogen would be considered a valuable by-product. The company does not yet have a commercial plant, but it is generating lots of commercial interest from companies like DSM Nutritional Products. Hazer Group is an Australian company commercializing its catalytic pyrolysis technology that uses iron ore pellets as the catalyst in a fluidized bed reactor. Its process generates a relatively high-purity graphite product that can be used in a wide range of applications, including lithium-ion batteries, if purified to the required degree. The company is developing its first commercial plant in Australia at the Woodman Point Wastewater Treatment Facility, which will produce 100 tonnes of H2 annually and is scheduled for commissioning in H2 2023. Although this is still quite small in capacity compared to Monolith’s Olive Creek 1, the company is seeing lots of interest in its technology from multinational corporations like Engie and Chiyoda Corporation. Several smaller players, such as Plenesys and Graforce, are developing more modularized pyrolysis processes that could be located close to customers’ facilities. This provides an alternative pathway to decentralized smaller-scale hydrogen production, which could compete with electrolysis in the future. However, commercial efforts using such plants are still relatively limited. More information on players and their activities can be found in IDTechEx’s report. Outlook On Turquoise Hydrogen Of course, the technology does come with some drawbacks. The need for methane (natural gas) is a shared challenge with blue hydrogen as it means hydrogen production will rely on natural gas. Additionally, the hydrogen yield per mole of natural gas used is lower than that of blue hydrogen processes, such as steam-methane or autothermal reforming (SMR & ATR). There are also some challenges associated with the carbon by-product – off-take agreements can only be established for a quality carbon product; otherwise, the carbon would have to be sequestered underground. In addition, methane pyrolysis generates 3 kg of carbon black for every kg of hydrogen. Therefore, pyrolysis plants would only be able to scale to very large scales (in the millions of tonnes of hydrogen) if suitable markets for the by-product are available – otherwise, the process economics may be prohibitive. As seen in the article, many commercial efforts are taking place and many smaller to medium-sized companies are developing technologies. Each company has a different business model depending on the scale of its process and the type or purity of its carbon by-product. Overall, IDTechEx believes that the use of methane pyrolysis will be rather limited in the hydrogen industry compared to blue and green hydrogen, at least in the medium term. The technologies still need to develop and be demonstrated at commercial scales. However, that does not mean that methane pyrolysis and turquoise hydrogen should be overlooked since various industries could benefit from such technologies. IDTechEx’s new market report, “Blue Hydrogen Production and Markets 2023-2033: Technologies, Forecasts, Players”, analyzes and compares all these processes, providing insights on the activities of key players and their projects. It also includes 10-year market forecasts for the blue hydrogen industry broken down by technology, end-use and region. About IDTechEx IDTechEx guides your strategic business decisions through its Research, Subscription and Consultancy products, helping you profit from emerging technologies. For more information, contact research@IDTechEx.com or visit www.IDTechEx.com......»»

Fears of recession, higher inflation, higher interest rates and geopolitical tension stopped this market from charging higher To the surprise of most, 2023 has been a very strong year for the stock market. Fears of recession, higher inflation, higher interest rates and geopolitical tension haven’t been enough to stop this market from continuing higher. As is often the case, the market climbs a wall of worry.One way to keep up with a strong market is to invest in stocks with relative strength and improving earnings estimates. Dassault Systemes DASTY, Transdigm Group TDG, and Shake Shack SHAK are all outperforming the market YTD, and are on the Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) list. Additionally, each of these companies have unique competitive advantages making them compelling investment opportunities.Image Source: Zacks Investment ResearchDassault SystemesDassault Systemes is a renowned global leader in 3D design, engineering, and collaborative software solutions. The company, founded in 1981 and headquartered in France, offers a comprehensive portfolio of innovative products and services that cater to various industries, including aerospace, automotive, manufacturing, and life sciences.Dassault Systemes' flagship software, CATIA, is widely recognized as a leading design and modeling tool, while its other offerings, such as SOLIDWORKS and SIMULIA, provide advanced simulation and virtual testing capabilities. With a strong focus on digital transformation and sustainable innovation, Dassault Systemes empowers businesses to enhance their product development processes, improve efficiency, and drive meaningful customer experiences.Through its cutting-edge technologies and industry expertise, DASTY continues to shape the future of design and engineering, enabling companies to stay at the forefront of their respective sectors.DASTY stock has had an impressive performance over the last twenty years, compounding at an annual rate of 14.3%, and returning a total of 1,385%.Image Source: Zacks Investment ResearchAnalysts have almost unanimously upgraded DASTY earning estimates across timeframes. Next quarter earnings have been revised higher by 15.4% and FY23 earnings estimates have been boosted by 9.2% over the last two months.Current quarter earnings estimates have been revised 11% higher, and are expected to grow 7% YoY, while current quarter sales are expected to climb 8.8% YoY.Image Source: Zacks Investment ResearchDassault Systemes applications are the leader in PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) and Engineering software. It is estimated that it owns the largest share in the market at 17% and increased that share by 8.3% over the last year. DASTY has over 300,000 customers in more than 140 countries.Transdigm GroupTransdigm Group is a prominent aerospace and defense company that specializes in manufacturing highly engineered aircraft components and systems. With a diverse portfolio of proprietary products, TDG has established itself as a leader in the industry, providing critical solutions for commercial and military aircraft.The company's products encompass a wide range of applications, including cockpit controls, power systems, sensors, and safety equipment. Transdigm relentless focus on innovation and quality has earned it a reputation for delivering reliable and technologically advanced solutions to its customers.Additionally, the company has a unique business model that emphasizes acquiring and integrating complementary businesses, allowing it to expand its product offerings and customer base.Transdigm stock has put up an epic performance over the last 15 years. Over that period, it has compounded at an annual rate 30.3%, which is a 5,400% total return. TDG has dramatically outperformed the market, its industry, and all major competitors.Image Source: Zacks Investment ResearchEarnings have seen significant revisions higher over the last two months. Current quarter earnings have been revised higher by 7.7% and are expected to climb 30% YoY. FY23 earnings were upgraded by 7.5% and are expected to increase by a whopping 40% YoY.Sales growth is expected to be extremely strong as well. Current quarter sales are projected to grow 19.7% YoY, while FY23 sales are expected to increase 19.5%.Image Source: Zacks Investment ResearchShake ShackShake Shack is a prominent player in the fast-casual dining sector, known for its iconic brand and high-quality menu offerings. Since its inception as a New York City hot dog cart in 2004, Shake Shack has experienced impressive growth, expanding its footprint both domestically and internationally. With a focus on sourcing premium ingredients and providing an elevated dining experience, the company has cultivated a loyal customer base and established a strong brand presence.SHAK’s commitment to culinary excellence and hospitality has translated into robust financial performance, with consistent revenue growth and strong profitability. Furthermore, the company's strategic initiatives, such as new store openings and menu innovations, demonstrate a proactive approach to capturing market share and driving future growth.As Shake Shack continues to expand its footprint and enhance its brand equity, it remains an intriguing investment opportunity in the dynamic fast-casual dining industry.Shake Shack’s stock performance has been admittedly underwhelming over the past five years. However, with improving business economics, upgraded earnings and a compelling technical chart pattern SHAK may be in the early stages of a major bull run.Image Source: Zacks Investment ResearchAfter developing a large base over the last year SHAK has consolidated and broken out from a convincing bull flag. This is exactly the kind of price action you see when large institutions are building positions.Now, the stock is forming a descending bull flag and this continuation pattern could send the stock higher yet again. If SHAK can trade above $66, it should move forcefully higher in a short time. Alternatively, if it trades below $64.50 the pattern is invalid, and investors may want to wait for another trade setup.Image Source: TradingViewThe road to success for fast casual restaurants is extremely challenging, as it is a highly competitive market with numerous entrenched contenders. However, from a completely subjective position, I have to say SHAK is my favorite food-chain restaurant out there. Its smashed burgers are cooked to perfection, and basically melt in your mouth, while the shakes and custards are insanely delicious with some unique flavor combinations.Additionally, the restaurants are always tidy and well managed. Many people I know have similar views of the brand as well. I think for consumer brands, personal experiences can be a useful way to gauge a company’s prospects, although certainly not a complete methodology.Bottom LineIt is hard to deny that the stock market has resumed its long-term bull trend, and many leading stocks are moving aggressively higher. By utilizing the Zacks Rank, investors can easily identify stocks with strong near-term expectations, and find companies to further dive into.By focusing on firms with industry leading technologies, and deeply satisfied customers, investors can stay on the right side of the market. Of course, picking stocks is just one aspect of the process, focusing on risk and portfolio management will always be critical for successful trading.  Just Released: Free Report Reveals Little-Known Strategies to Help Profit from the  $30 Trillion Metaverse Boom It's undeniable. The metaverse is gaining steam every day. Just follow the money. Google. Microsoft. Adobe. Nike. Facebook even rebranded itself as Meta because Mark Zuckerberg believes the metaverse is the next iteration of the internet. The inevitable result? Many investors will get rich as the metaverse evolves. What do they know that you don't? They’re aware of the companies best poised to grow as the metaverse does. And in a new FREE report, Zacks is revealing those stocks to you. This week, you can download, The Metaverse - What is it? And How to Profit with These 5 Pioneering Stocks. It reveals specific stocks set to skyrocket as this emerging technology develops and expands. Don't miss your chance to access it for free with no obligation.>>Show me how I could profit from the metaverse!Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Transdigm Group Incorporated (TDG): Free Stock Analysis Report Dassault Systemes SA (DASTY): Free Stock Analysis Report Shake Shack, Inc. (SHAK): Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research.....»»

The infrastructure upgrade for digital transformation, fiber densification and 5G rollout should help the Zacks Communication - Infrastructure industry thrive despite near-term headwinds. COMM, DZSI and WTT are well poised to benefit from the continued transition to cloud network. The Zacks Communication - Infrastructure industry appears mired in raw material price volatility due to elevated inventory levels amid a challenging macroeconomic environment, uncertain market conditions and sharp inflationary pressure. Moreover, high capital expenditure for infrastructure upgrades for 5G deployment, inflated equipment costs and margin erosion due to price wars have dented the industry’s profitability.Nevertheless, CommScope Holding Company, Inc. COMM, DZS Inc. DZSI and Wireless Telecom Group, Inc. WTT are likely to benefit from higher demand for scalable infrastructure for seamless connectivity amid the wide proliferation of IoT, transition to cloud and related next-gen technologies and accelerated 5G rollout.Industry DescriptionThe Zacks Communication - Infrastructure industry comprises firms that provide various infrastructure solutions for the core, access and edge layers of communication networks. Leveraging proprietary modeling and simulation techniques to optimize networks, the firms offer high-speed network access solutions across Internet protocol, asynchronous transfer mode and time division multiplexed architecture in both wireline and wireless network applications. Their product portfolio encompasses optical fiber and twisted-pair structured cable solutions, infrastructure management hardware and software, network racks and cabinets, fiber-to-home equipment like hardened connector systems, wireless network backhaul planning and optimization products, couplers and splitters, indoor, small cell and distributed wireless antenna systems and hardened optical terminating enclosures.What's Shaping the Future of the Communication - Infrastructure Industry?Infrastructure Ramp-Up: With exponential growth in video and other bandwidth-intensive applications owing to the wide proliferation of smartphones and increased deployment of superfast 5G technology, the industry participants are considerably investing in LTE, broadband and fiber to provide additional capacity and ramp up the Internet and wireless networks. These companies are rapidly transforming from legacy copper-based telecommunications firms to technology powerhouses with capabilities to meet the growing demand for flexible data, video, voice and IP solutions. The industry participants are also focusing on leveraging wireline momentum, expanding media coverage, improving customer service and achieving a competitive cost structure to generate higher average revenue per user while attracting new customers.Demand Erosion: Efforts to offset substantial capital expenditure for upgrading network infrastructure by raising fees have reduced demand, as customers prefer to switch to lower-priced alternatives. Moreover, efforts to build resilient infrastructure facilities to withstand natural catastrophes such as hurricanes and floods add to operating costs. In addition, the latent Sino-U.S. tension relating to trade restrictions imposed on the sale of communication equipment to firms based in the communist country has dented the industry’s credibility and will likely lead to a loss of business. The industry is battling hard-to-mitigate operating risks stemming from volatility in demand, an unpredictable business environment led by the virus outbreak and challenging geopolitical scenarios.Network Convergence: With operators moving toward converged or multi-use network structures, combining voice, video and data communications into a single network, the industry is increasingly developing solutions to support wireline and wireless network convergence. Although these investments will eventually help minimize service delivery costs to adequately support broadband competition and expand rural coverage and wireless densification, short-term profitability has largely been compromised. Nevertheless, the industry players have enabled enterprises to rapidly scale communications functionalities to a vast range of applications and devices with easy-to-use software application programming interfaces. The firms support high user volumes without affecting deliverability and cost-effectively eliminate performance degradation.Depleting Margins: Although the supply chain woes have declined progressively, the industry is facing a dearth of chips, which are the building blocks for various equipment used by telecom carriers. Moreover, high raw material prices due to inflation, the prolonged Russia-Ukraine war and the consequent economic sanctions against the Putin regime have affected the operation schedule of various firms. Although steps have been taken to address the global shortage of semiconductor chips and devise ways to increase domestic production, the demand-supply imbalance has crippled operations and largely affected profitability due to inflated equipment prices.Zacks Industry Rank Indicates Bearish TrendsThe Zacks Communication - Infrastructure industry is housed within the broader Zacks Computer and Technology sector. It carries a Zacks Industry Rank #179, which places it in the bottom 28% of more than 250 Zacks industries.The group’s Zacks Industry Rank, which is basically the average of the Zacks Rank of all the member stocks, indicates bleak prospects. Our research shows that the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1. The industry’s positioning in the bottom 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries is a result of a negative earnings outlook for the constituent companies in aggregate.Before we present a few communication infrastructure stocks that are well-positioned to outperform the market based on a strong earnings outlook, let’s take a look at the industry’s recent stock market performance and valuation picture.Industry Lags S&P 500 & SectorThe Zacks Communication - Infrastructure industry has lagged the broader Zacks Computer and Technology sector and the S&P 500 composite over the past year.The industry has lost 40.8% over this period against the S&P 500 and the sector’s growth of 1% and 8.5%, respectively.One Year Price PerformanceIndustry's Current ValuationOn the basis of the trailing 12-month enterprise value-to-EBITDA (EV/EBITDA), which is the most appropriate multiple for valuing telecom stocks, the industry is currently trading at 6.64X compared with the S&P 500’s 12.75X. It is also below the sector’s trailing-12-month EV/EBITDA of 11.90X.Over the past five years, the industry has traded as high as 12.05X, as low as 6.42X and at the median of 8.38X, as the chart below shows.Trailing 12-Month enterprise value-to-EBITDA (EV/EBITDA) Ratio3 Communication - Infrastructure Stocks to Keep a Close Eye onCommScope: Headquartered in Hickory, NC, CommScope is a premier provider of infrastructure solutions, including wireless and fiber optic solutions, for the core, access and edge layers of communication networks. Since its inception in 1976, the company has created a niche for itself, helping customers scale network capacity, delivering better network response time and performance, and simplifying technology migration. CommScope expects to capitalize on industry tailwinds driven by the increased adoption of HELIAX SkyBlox, which helps operators to put reliable mobile networks in place. The CommScope NEXT initiative is expected to drive future growth that outpaces the market, optimize business processes and unlock shareholder value. The stock has a long-term earnings growth expectation of 17.2% and delivered an earnings surprise of 8.9%, on average, in the trailing four quarters. It has a VGM Score of A. CommScope carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Price and Consensus: COMMDZS Inc.: Founded in 1996 and based in Plano, TX, DZS offers network access solutions and communications platforms for service provider and enterprise networks in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Korea and other Asia Pacific countries. The company is likely to benefit from the secular trend of 5G deployment across the globe with healthy traction in the fiber LAN ecosystem. With better visibility and solid order trends, the company is aiming to gain cost efficiencies and introduce new products to the market. The stock carries a Zacks Rank #3.Price and Consensus: DZSIWireless Telecom Group: Headquartered in Parsippany, NJ, Wireless Telecom manufactures advanced RF and microwave components, modules, systems and instruments. The company is likely to benefit from the secular trend of 5G deployment globally with healthy traction in the fiber LAN ecosystem and a robust portfolio of products and services in the wireless connectivity space. With customized solutions targeting niche segments of large and growing end markets, WTT is likely to benefit from the wide proliferation of 5G, network densification, private networks and satellite communications. The collaboration agreement with NXP Semiconductors further expands its scale of operations and reach with several monetization opportunities for the high-margin business of software stack for private LTE/5G networks. This Zacks Rank #3 stock has gained 43.7% over the past year.  Price and Consensus: WTT Zacks Names "Single Best Pick to Double" From thousands of stocks, 5 Zacks experts each have chosen their favorite to skyrocket +100% or more in months to come. From those 5, Director of Research Sheraz Mian hand-picks one to have the most explosive upside of all. It’s a little-known chemical company that’s up 65% over last year, yet still dirt cheap. With unrelenting demand, soaring 2022 earnings estimates, and $1.5 billion for repurchasing shares, retail investors could jump in at any time. This company could rival or surpass other recent Zacks’ Stocks Set to Double like Boston Beer Company which shot up +143.0% in little more than 9 months and NVIDIA which boomed +175.9% in one year.Free: See Our Top Stock and 4 Runners Up >>Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report CommScope Holding Company, Inc. (COMM): Free Stock Analysis Report DZS Inc. (DZSI): Free Stock Analysis Report Wireless Telecom Group, Inc. (WTT): Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research.....»»

Intel (INTC) collaborated with various enterprises to develop cutting-edge assistive technology, enhance hearing aid Capabilities and support individuals with hearing issues. Intel Corporation INTC has collaborated with various leading organizations to boost accessibility of hearing aids, support individuals with hearing issues and promote social inclusion. According to WHO statistics, more than 1.5 billion people worldwide are affected with hearing loss. This disability impacts the affected person’s communication and cognitive ability, leading to educational and professional limitations, reduction in the quality of life and higher socio-economic exclusion. Intel is undertaking positive action and initiating several projects to develop advanced assistive technology and integrate them with other technologies and boost inclusivity in society.In today’s professional world, use of various technology is unavoidable. It is difficult for a person with hearing issues to wear a headset in addition to their hearing aids and then join meetings and operate various devices at the same time. Intel is working with leading hearing aid vendors to develop a wireless connection between hearing aids and PCs and bridge this compatibility gap. People with hearing disabilities face challenges when working in noisy environments. In partnership with Intel and Accenture, 3DP4ME is leveraging 3D printing technology to scale up production of customized hearing aids in Jordan. It replaces traditional labor-intensive methods with faster and more cost-efficient manufacturing processes.Intel’s CCG (Client Computing Group) Accessibility project goes beyond the horizon of compatibility issues. The “All Ear” initiatives leverage AI and recognize sounds and deliver visual notifications on the user’s screen pertinent to various noises in the surroundings such as a phone ring or a door knock. This enhances the computing experience for individuals with hearing issues and also immensely boost their productivity.Intel, the world’s largest semiconductor company and primary supplier of microprocessors and chipsets, is lowering its dependence on the PC-centric business by moving into data-centric businesses — such as AI and autonomous driving. It is witnessing a healthy momentum in data center business with integrated affordable solutions. Heavy investment in research and development to drive technological innovation and concerted focus on increasing market diversification are tailwinds. Healthy traction from Mobileye’s technologies related to in-car networking, sensor-chips, cloud software, machine learning and data management are  also boosting growth.Shares of the company have lost 27.9% in the past year compared with the industry’s rise of 40.6%.Image Source: Zacks Investment ResearchIntel currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.InterDigital, Inc. IDCC, sporting a Zacks Rank #1, delivered an earnings surprise of 170.89%, on average, in the trailing four quarters. In the last reported quarter, it pulled off an earnings surprise of 579.03%.It is a pioneer in advanced mobile technologies that enables wireless communications and capabilities. The company engages in designing and developing a wide range of advanced technology solutions, which are used in digital cellular and wireless 3G, 4G and IEEE 802-related products and networks.Workday Inc. WDAY, carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), delivered an earnings surprise of 7.67%, on average, in the trailing four quarters. In the last reported quarter, it pulled off an earnings surprise of 11.24%.Workday is a provider of enterprise-level software solutions for financial management and human resource domains. The company’s cloud-based platform combines finance and HR in a single system that makes it easier for organizations to provide analytical insights and decision support.Meta Platforms Inc. META, sporting a Zacks Rank #1, delivered an earnings surprise of 15.46%, on average, in the trailing four quarters. Meta Platforms is the world’s largest social media platform. The company’s portfolio offering evolved from a single Facebook app to multiple apps like photo and video-sharing app Instagram and WhatsApp messaging app owing to acquisitions.Meta is considered to have pioneered the concept of social networking, which is why it enjoys a first mover’s advantage in this market. As developed regions mature, Meta undertakes measures to drive penetration in emerging markets of South East Asia, Latin America and Africa. Zacks Names "Single Best Pick to Double" From thousands of stocks, 5 Zacks experts each have chosen their favorite to skyrocket +100% or more in months to come. From those 5, Director of Research Sheraz Mian hand-picks one to have the most explosive upside of all. It’s a little-known chemical company that’s up 65% over last year, yet still dirt cheap. With unrelenting demand, soaring 2022 earnings estimates, and $1.5 billion for repurchasing shares, retail investors could jump in at any time. This company could rival or surpass other recent Zacks’ Stocks Set to Double like Boston Beer Company which shot up +143.0% in little more than 9 months and NVIDIA which boomed +175.9% in one year.Free: See Our Top Stock and 4 Runners Up >>Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Intel Corporation (INTC): Free Stock Analysis Report InterDigital, Inc. (IDCC): Free Stock Analysis Report Workday, Inc. (WDAY): Free Stock Analysis Report Meta Platforms, Inc. (META): Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research.....»»

CommScope (COMM) unveiled a high-speed connectivity solution to support service providers and improve end-user experience with next-generation features and advanced consumer services. CommScope Holding Company, Inc. COMM recently introduced HomeVantage line of fiber gateways and optical network units (ONUs) to support service providers and improve user experience with next-generation features and advanced consumer services. The speed of digitalization in the current world is unprecedented. With the rise of remote work, online education, healthcare and financial services, reliable and fast connectivity have become essential.To cope with this rising demand, service providers faced various challenges related to high cost and time for broadband deployment, management of various software applications and poor Internet speed due to infrastructure limitations. CommScope’s latest addition HomeVantage fiber gateways aims to bring a cost-efficient, high-performance solution that addresses these requirements and enables the service provider to meet the growing demand of the connected home environment.The fiber gateways support the full 2.5 Gbps broadband speed of GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Network) and enable the seamless delivery of voice, data and streaming video services. It supports service providers by simplifying broadband deployment, efficiently managing software applications and integrating the leading Wi-Fi management solutions to enhance end-user experiences.CommScope’s strategy of developing high-speed connectivity solutions will help it better serve customers. The successful implementation of this policy will boost its acceptance in the communication infrastructure market and promote business outlook.CommScope has been pursuing strategies that focus on reducing operational costs and optimizing the overall cost structure. The company announced an initiative, CommScope NEXT. It is a multi-faceted program to drive future growth that outpaces the market, optimizes business processes and unlocks shareholder value. Despite the ongoing global supply chain challenges, CommScope expects to capitalize on industry tailwinds such as the demand for 5G and the increased adoption of HELIAX SkyBlox to meet the demand for network upgrades while helping operators to put reliable mobile networks in place.CommScope aims to be a preferred partner for all telecommunications businesses, as the entire industry moves toward 5G. With operators moving toward converged or multi-use network structures, combining voice, video and data communications into a single network, CommScope is dedicatedly developing solutions designed to support wireline and wireless network convergence, which will be essential for the success of 5G technology. With the enterprise market moving toward more cloud-based and hyperscale data centers, CommScope is actively in talks with numerous key customers. This augurs well for its long-term growth prospects. The company continues to be one of the leading suppliers of intelligent antenna platforms for FirstNet deployments.The stock has lost 36.6% in the past year compared with the industry’s decline of 32.6%Image Source: Zacks Investment ResearchCommScope currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.InterDigital, Inc. IDCC, sporting a Zacks Rank #1, delivered an earnings surprise of 170.89%, on average, in the trailing four quarters. In the last reported quarter, it pulled off an earnings surprise of 579.03%.It is a pioneer in advanced mobile technologies that enables wireless communications and capabilities. The company engages in designing and developing a wide range of advanced technology solutions, which are used in digital cellular and wireless 3G, 4G and IEEE 802-related products and networks.Workday Inc. WDAY, carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), delivered an earnings surprise of 7.67%, on average, in the trailing four quarters. In the last reported quarter, it pulled off an earnings surprise of 11.24%.Workday is a provider of enterprise-level software solutions for financial management and human resource domains. The company’s cloud-based platform combines finance and HR in a single system that makes it easier for organizations to provide analytical insights and decision support.Meta Platforms Inc. META, sporting a Zacks Rank #1, delivered an earnings surprise of 15.46%, on average, in the trailing four quarters. Meta Platforms is the world’s largest social media platform. The company’s portfolio offering evolved from a single Facebook app to multiple apps like photo and video-sharing app Instagram and WhatsApp messaging app owing to acquisitions.Meta is considered to have pioneered the concept of social networking, which is why it enjoys a first mover’s advantage in this market. As developed regions mature, Meta undertakes measures to drive penetration in emerging markets of South East Asia, Latin America and Africa. Zacks Names "Single Best Pick to Double" From thousands of stocks, 5 Zacks experts each have chosen their favorite to skyrocket +100% or more in months to come. From those 5, Director of Research Sheraz Mian hand-picks one to have the most explosive upside of all. It’s a little-known chemical company that’s up 65% over last year, yet still dirt cheap. With unrelenting demand, soaring 2022 earnings estimates, and $1.5 billion for repurchasing shares, retail investors could jump in at any time. This company could rival or surpass other recent Zacks’ Stocks Set to Double like Boston Beer Company which shot up +143.0% in little more than 9 months and NVIDIA which boomed +175.9% in one year.Free: See Our Top Stock and 4 Runners Up >>Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report InterDigital, Inc. (IDCC): Free Stock Analysis Report Workday, Inc. (WDAY): Free Stock Analysis Report CommScope Holding Company, Inc. (COMM): Free Stock Analysis Report Meta Platforms, Inc. (META): Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research.....»»

The Club Of Rome: How Climate Hysteria Is Being Used To Create Global Governance Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us, In the early 1970s the US and much of the western world was shifting into a stagflationary economic crisis. Nixon removed the dollar completely from the gold standard in 1971 with the aid of the Federal Reserve (or perhaps under the direction of the Fed) which ultimately escalated inflation pressures. Europe’s post war boom came to an abrupt end, while prices on goods (and oil/gasoline) in the US skyrocketed up until 1981-1982, when the Federal Reserve jacked interest rates up to around 20% and created a deliberate recessionary crash. Interestingly, the IMF had created the SDR system in 1969 just before the gold standard was cut (the same SDR which the IMF is poised to use as the foundation of a global digital currency mechanism).  And, the World Economic Forum was founded in 1971. The time period is often depicted in films as a happy-go-lucky era of disco, drugs, hippes and rock n’ roll, but the reality is that the early 1970s was the beginning of the end for the west – it was the moment that our economic foundations were sabotaged and the affluence of the middle class was slowly but surely stolen by inflation. In the midst of this economic “malaise,” which Jimmy Carter later referred to as a “crisis of confidence,” the United Nations and associated globalist round table groups were hard at work developing a scheme to convince the population to embrace global centralization of power. Their goals were rather direct. They wanted: A rationale for governmental control of human population numbers. The power to limit industry. The power to control energy production and dictate energy sources. The power to control or limit food production and agriculture. The ability to micromanage individuals lives in the name of some later defined “greater good.” A socialized society in which the individual right to property is abandoned. A one-world economic system which they would manage. A one-world currency system. A one-world government managing a handful of separate regions. One of the most revealing quotes on the agenda comes from Clinton Administration Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbot, who stated in Time magazine that: “In the next century, nations as we know it will be obsolete; all states will recognize a single, global authority… National sovereignty wasn’t such a great idea after all.” To understand how the agenda functions, I offer a quote from globalist Council on Foreign Relations member Richard Gardner in an article in Foreign Affairs Magazine in 1974 titled ‘The Hard Road To World Order’: “In short, the “house of world order” will have to be built from the bottom up rather than from the top down. It will look like a great “booming, buzzing confusion,” to use William James’ famous description of reality, but an end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece, will accomplish much more than the old-fashioned frontal assault.” In other words, the globalists knew that incrementalism would be the only way to achieve a one-world power structure that OPENLY governs, rather than hiding the rule of elitists behind clandestine organizations and puppet politicians. They want a global empire in which they become the anointed “Philosopher Kings” described in Plato’s Republic. Their narcissistic egos cannot help but crave the adoration of the masses they secretly hate. But even with incrementalism, they know eventually the public will figure out the plan and seek to resist as our freedoms are eroded. Establishing an empire is one thing; keeping it is another. How could the globalists come out of their authoritarian closet, eliminate individual freedoms and rule the world without a rebellion that ultimately destroys them? The only way such a plan would work is if the people, the peasants in this empire, EMBRACE their own slavery. The public would have to be made to view slavery as a matter of solemn duty and survival, not just for themselves but for the entire species. That way, if anyone rebels they would be seen as a monster by the hive. They would be placing the whole collective in danger by defying the power structure. Thus, the globalists win. Not just for today, they win forever because there would no longer be anyone left to oppose them. We got a big taste of this brand of psychological warfare during the pandemic scare, in which all of us were told that a virus with a tiny Infection Fatality Rate of 0.23% was enough to erase a majority of our human rights. Luckily, a large enough group of people stood up and fought back against the mandates and passports. That said, there is a much larger “greater good” agenda at play that the globalists plan to exploit, namely the so-called “climate crisis.” To be clear, there is ZERO evidence of a climate crisis caused by man-made carbon emissions or “greenhouse” gas emissions. There are no weather events that are out of the ordinary in terms of Earth’s historic climate timeline. There is no evidence to support “tipping point” theories on temperatures. And, the Earth’s temps have risen less than 1°C in 100 years. The official temperature record only goes back to the 1880s, and this narrow timeline is what UN and government funded climate scientists use as a reference point for their claims. I explain why this is fraudulent science in my article ‘The Gas Stove Scare Is A Fraud Created By Climate Change Authoritarians.’ The point is, the UN has been promoting hysteria over a fake doomsday climate scenario, just like the WEF and WHO promoted hysteria and fear over a non-threat like covid. And, it all began back in the early 1970s with a group tied to the UN called The Club of Rome. The globalists have been scheming to use environmentalism as an excuse for centralization since at least 1972 when the Club Of Rome published a treatise titled ‘The Limits Of Growth’. Funding a limited study of industry and resources in a joint project with MIT, the findings appeared to be scripted well ahead of time – The end of the planet was nigh unless nations and individuals sacrificed their sovereignty. How convenient for the globalists bankrolling the study… Twenty years later they would publish a book titled ‘The First Global Revolution.’ In that document they specifically discuss using global warming as a vehicle to form supranational governance: “In searching for a common enemy against whom we can unite, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like, would fit the bill. In their totality and their interactions these phenomena do constitute a common threat which must be confronted by everyone together. But in designating these dangers as the enemy, we fall into the trap, which we have already warned readers about, namely mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers are caused by human intervention in natural processes, and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy then is humanity itself.” By making humanity’s very existence the great threat, the globalists intended to unify the public around the idea of keeping themselves in check. That is to say, the public would have to sacrifice their freedoms and submit to control in the belief that the human species is too dangerous to be allowed liberty. The following news special from the Australian Public Broadcasting Service was aired in 1973, not long after the Club Of Rome was founded. It is surprisingly blunt about the purposes of the organization: What can we derive from this broadcast and its message? The globalists want two specific outcomes most of all – They want the end of national sovereignty and the end of private property through socially incentivised of minimalism. The exact same objectives the Club Of Rome outlined in the 1970s are the driving policies of the UN and the World Economic Forum today. The “sharing economy” concept that Klaus Schwab and the WEF often proudly promotes was not thought up by them, it was thought up by the Club Of Rome 50 years ago. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy: They spend half a century inventing a crisis, drum up public terror, and then offer the very solutions they wanted to enforce decades ago. In the end, the climate agenda has nothing to do with environmentalism and everything to do with economics. The plan began in the midst of a very real stagflationary crisis, a moment when the middle class populace was most afraid for the future and prices were rising rapidly. This crisis was not caused by the scarcity of resources, it was caused by the mismanagement of the financial system. It’s not a coincidence that the culmination of the global warming scheme is taking place today just as another stagflation disaster is upon us. The Club of Rome is now a shell of its former glory filled with silly hippies, most likely because the UN and other globalist think-tanks have taken on the role the group used to play. However, the shadow of the original Club is ever present and its strategy of climate fear-mongering is being wielded right now to justify increasing government suppression of energy and agriculture. If they are not stopped by the public, totalitarian carbon mandates will become the norm. The next generation, living in engineered poverty, will be taught from early childhood that the globalists “saved the world” from a calamity that never really existed. They will be told that the enslavement of humanity is something to be proud of, a gift that keeps the species alive, and anyone who questions that slavery is a selfish villain that wants the destruction of the planet. *  *  * If you would like to support the work that Alt-Market does while also receiving content on advanced tactics for defeating the globalist agenda, subscribe to our exclusive newsletter The Wild Bunch Dispatch.  Learn more about it HERE. Tyler Durden Sat, 05/20/2023 - 09:20.....»»

CommScope (COMM) unveiled a high-speed connectivity solution to support service providers and improve end-user experience with next-generation features and advanced consumer services. CommScope Holding Company, Inc. COMM recently introduced HomeVantage line of fiber gateways and optical network units (ONUs) to support service providers and improve user experience with next-generation features and advanced consumer services. The speed of digitalization in the current world is unprecedented. With the rise of remote work, online education, healthcare and financial services, reliable and fast connectivity have become essential.To cope with this rising demand, service providers faced various challenges related to high cost and time for broadband deployment, management of various software applications and poor Internet speed due to infrastructure limitations. CommScope’s latest addition HomeVantage fiber gateways aims to bring a cost-efficient, high-performance solution that addresses these requirements and enables the service provider to meet the growing demand of the connected home environment.The fiber gateways support the full 2.5 Gbps broadband speed of GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Network) and enable the seamless delivery of voice, data and streaming video services. It supports service providers by simplifying broadband deployment, efficiently managing software applications and integrating the leading Wi-Fi management solutions to enhance end-user experiences.CommScope’s strategy of developing high-speed connectivity solutions will help it better serve customers. The successful implementation of this policy will boost its acceptance in the communication infrastructure market and promote business outlook.CommScope has been pursuing strategies that focus on reducing operational costs and optimizing the overall cost structure. The company announced an initiative, CommScope NEXT. It is a multi-faceted program to drive future growth that outpaces the market, optimizes business processes and unlocks shareholder value. Despite the ongoing global supply chain challenges, CommScope expects to capitalize on industry tailwinds such as the demand for 5G and the increased adoption of HELIAX SkyBlox to meet the demand for network upgrades while helping operators to put reliable mobile networks in place.CommScope aims to be a preferred partner for all telecommunications businesses, as the entire industry moves toward 5G. With operators moving toward converged or multi-use network structures, combining voice, video and data communications into a single network, CommScope is dedicatedly developing solutions designed to support wireline and wireless network convergence, which will be essential for the success of 5G technology. With the enterprise market moving toward more cloud-based and hyperscale data centers, CommScope is actively in talks with numerous key customers. This augurs well for its long-term growth prospects. The company continues to be one of the leading suppliers of intelligent antenna platforms for FirstNet deployments.The stock has lost 36.6% in the past year compared with the industry’s decline of 32.6%Image Source: Zacks Investment ResearchCommScope currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.InterDigital, Inc. IDCC, sporting a Zacks Rank #1, delivered an earnings surprise of 170.89%, on average, in the trailing four quarters. In the last reported quarter, it pulled off an earnings surprise of 579.03%.It is a pioneer in advanced mobile technologies that enables wireless communications and capabilities. The company engages in designing and developing a wide range of advanced technology solutions, which are used in digital cellular and wireless 3G, 4G and IEEE 802-related products and networks.Workday Inc. WDAY, carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), delivered an earnings surprise of 7.67%, on average, in the trailing four quarters. In the last reported quarter, it pulled off an earnings surprise of 11.24%.Workday is a provider of enterprise-level software solutions for financial management and human resource domains. The company’s cloud-based platform combines finance and HR in a single system that makes it easier for organizations to provide analytical insights and decision support.Meta Platforms Inc. META, sporting a Zacks Rank #1, delivered an earnings surprise of 15.46%, on average, in the trailing four quarters. Meta Platforms is the world’s largest social media platform. The company’s portfolio offering evolved from a single Facebook app to multiple apps like photo and video-sharing app Instagram and WhatsApp messaging app owing to acquisitions.Meta is considered to have pioneered the concept of social networking, which is why it enjoys a first mover’s advantage in this market. As developed regions mature, Meta undertakes measures to drive penetration in emerging markets of South East Asia, Latin America and Africa. Free Report: Top EV Battery Stocks to Buy Now Just-released report reveals 5 stocks to profit as millions of EV batteries are made. Elon Musk tweeted that lithium prices have gone to "insane levels," and they're likely to keep climbing. As a result, a handful of lithium battery stocks are set to skyrocket. Access this report to discover which battery stocks to buy and which to avoid.Download free today.Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report InterDigital, Inc. (IDCC): Free Stock Analysis Report Workday, Inc. (WDAY): Free Stock Analysis Report CommScope Holding Company, Inc. (COMM): Free Stock Analysis Report Meta Platforms, Inc. (META): Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research.....»»

Intel (INTC) collaborated with various enterprises to develop cutting-edge assistive technology, enhance hearing aid Capabilities and support individuals with hearing issues. Intel Corporation INTC has collaborated with various leading organizations to boost accessibility of hearing aids, support individuals with hearing issues and promote social inclusion. According to WHO statistics, more than 1.5 billion people worldwide are affected with hearing loss. This disability impacts the affected person’s communication and cognitive ability, leading to educational and professional limitations, reduction in the quality of life and higher socio-economic exclusion. Intel is undertaking positive action and initiating several projects to develop advanced assistive technology and integrate them with other technologies and boost inclusivity in society.In today’s professional world, use of various technology is unavoidable. It is difficult for a person with hearing issues to wear a headset in addition to their hearing aids and then join meetings and operate various devices at the same time. Intel is working with leading hearing aid vendors to develop a wireless connection between hearing aids and PCs and bridge this compatibility gap. People with hearing disabilities face challenges when working in noisy environments. In partnership with Intel and Accenture, 3DP4ME is leveraging 3D printing technology to scale up production of customized hearing aids in Jordan. It replaces traditional labor-intensive methods with faster and more cost-efficient manufacturing processes.Intel’s CCG (Client Computing Group) Accessibility project goes beyond the horizon of compatibility issues. The “All Ear” initiatives leverage AI and recognize sounds and deliver visual notifications on the user’s screen pertinent to various noises in the surroundings such as a phone ring or a door knock. This enhances the computing experience for individuals with hearing issues and also immensely boost their productivity.Intel, the world’s largest semiconductor company and primary supplier of microprocessors and chipsets, is lowering its dependence on the PC-centric business by moving into data-centric businesses — such as AI and autonomous driving. It is witnessing a healthy momentum in data center business with integrated affordable solutions. Heavy investment in research and development to drive technological innovation and concerted focus on increasing market diversification are tailwinds. Healthy traction from Mobileye’s technologies related to in-car networking, sensor-chips, cloud software, machine learning and data management are  also boosting growth.Shares of the company have lost 27.9% in the past year compared with the industry’s rise of 40.6%.Image Source: Zacks Investment ResearchIntel currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.InterDigital, Inc. IDCC, sporting a Zacks Rank #1, delivered an earnings surprise of 170.89%, on average, in the trailing four quarters. In the last reported quarter, it pulled off an earnings surprise of 579.03%.It is a pioneer in advanced mobile technologies that enables wireless communications and capabilities. The company engages in designing and developing a wide range of advanced technology solutions, which are used in digital cellular and wireless 3G, 4G and IEEE 802-related products and networks.Workday Inc. WDAY, carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), delivered an earnings surprise of 7.67%, on average, in the trailing four quarters. In the last reported quarter, it pulled off an earnings surprise of 11.24%.Workday is a provider of enterprise-level software solutions for financial management and human resource domains. The company’s cloud-based platform combines finance and HR in a single system that makes it easier for organizations to provide analytical insights and decision support.Meta Platforms Inc. META, sporting a Zacks Rank #1, delivered an earnings surprise of 15.46%, on average, in the trailing four quarters. Meta Platforms is the world’s largest social media platform. The company’s portfolio offering evolved from a single Facebook app to multiple apps like photo and video-sharing app Instagram and WhatsApp messaging app owing to acquisitions.Meta is considered to have pioneered the concept of social networking, which is why it enjoys a first mover’s advantage in this market. As developed regions mature, Meta undertakes measures to drive penetration in emerging markets of South East Asia, Latin America and Africa. Free Report: Top EV Battery Stocks to Buy Now Just-released report reveals 5 stocks to profit as millions of EV batteries are made. Elon Musk tweeted that lithium prices have gone to "insane levels," and they're likely to keep climbing. As a result, a handful of lithium battery stocks are set to skyrocket. Access this report to discover which battery stocks to buy and which to avoid.Download free today.Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Intel Corporation (INTC): Free Stock Analysis Report InterDigital, Inc. (IDCC): Free Stock Analysis Report Workday, Inc. (WDAY): Free Stock Analysis Report Meta Platforms, Inc. (META): Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research.....»»

In this article, we discuss 10 best scientific instruments stocks to buy. If you want to see more stocks in this selection, check out 5 Best Scientific Instruments Stocks To Buy.  Scientific instruments are tools used to measure, record, and indicate physical quantities, aiding in scientific research and new product development. These instruments are designed […] In this article, we discuss 10 best scientific instruments stocks to buy. If you want to see more stocks in this selection, check out 5 Best Scientific Instruments Stocks To Buy.  Scientific instruments are tools used to measure, record, and indicate physical quantities, aiding in scientific research and new product development. These instruments are designed to accomplish theoretical research and can be used to measure, analyze, and verify the properties of materials and elements. Scientific instruments play a crucial role in developing new products and improving existing ones. As per Data Bridge Market Research, the scientific instruments market is predicted to increase from $41.13 billion in 2022 to $58.05 billion by 2030, experiencing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.4% between 2023 and 2030. According to the latest report by IMARC Group, the global market is being driven by the increasing emphasis on R&D in developing new products and the growing collaboration between governments and manufacturers to improve the effectiveness of scientific instruments. The growth of testing and research facilities in biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, along with heavy investments in the healthcare sector by many countries, is also contributing to market growth. Additionally, the rising demand for generics and biosimilars, and pharmaceutical companies’ focus on improving drug development processes and product quality, is driving the demand for high-quality scientific instruments. The market is further boosted by the growing need for better analysis equipment and the rapid advancements in neuroscience and applied microbiology.  Allied Market Research has categorized the global scientific instruments market into different segments. The firm stated that the clinical analyzers segment is expected to generate the highest revenue during the forecast period from 2021 to 2030, driven by the increasing adoption of point of care testing devices and laboratory automation, and the rise in chronic conditions that require clinical analyzers for diagnosis. Moreover, the research segment is expected to experience the fastest compound annual growth rate due to the rising demand for scientific instruments in the research of chronic conditions such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and neurological diseases, and the development of advanced instruments for research purposes. Lastly, the hospitals & diagnostic laboratories segment is the dominant end-user segment, driven by the escalating number of outpatients and inpatients in hospitals, and the adoption of newer methods and advanced instruments for research purposes in diagnostic laboratories.  To benefit from the growth opportunities in the scientific instruments market, investors can pick up stocks like Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (NYSE:TMO), Agilent Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:A), and Danaher Corporation (NYSE:DHR).  Our Methodology  We scanned Insider Monkey’s database of 943 hedge funds and picked the top 10 companies that operate in the scientific instruments sector with the highest number of hedge fund investors. These are the best scientific instruments stocks to buy according to hedge funds. Vereshchagin Dmitry/Shutterstock.com Best Scientific Instruments Stocks To Buy 10. Mirion Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:MIR) Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 28 Mirion Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:MIR) offers a range of products and services related to the detection, measurement, analysis, and monitoring of radiation. The company is divided into two main segments – Medical and Industrial, each focusing on specific areas of expertise. Mirion Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:MIR) serves a wide range of customers including healthcare facilities, research laboratories, military organizations, government agencies, industrial companies, power and utility companies, reactor design firms, and nuclear power plants. On May 3, the company reported a Q1 GAAP EPS of -$0.22 and a revenue of $182.1 million, up 11.6% year-over-year and beating estimates by $2.90 million.  On February 15, Citi analyst Andrew Kaplowitz raised the firm’s price target on Mirion Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:MIR) to $11 from $10 and maintained a Buy rating on the shares following the “solid” Q4 results. Kaplowitz considers Mirion’s initial 2023 guidance to be both cautious and promising, suggesting a continued growth trajectory for the company. According to Insider Monkey’s fourth quarter database, 28 hedge funds were long Mirion Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:MIR), compared to 26 funds in the prior quarter. Anand Parekh’s Alyeska Investment Group is the largest stakeholder of the company, with 7.7 million shares worth $51.2 million.  Like Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (NYSE:TMO), Agilent Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:A), and Danaher Corporation (NYSE:DHR), Mirion Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:MIR) is one of the best scientific instruments stocks to invest in.  Here is what Baron Growth Fund has to say about Mirion Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:MIR) in its Q4 2021 investor letter: “This quarter, the Fund initiated a position in Mirion Technologies, Inc., a leader in ionizing radiation detection and measurement technologies to the medical, laboratory, and nuclear power industries. The business consists of a portfolio of niche, mission-critical products that represent a small portion of a project’s costs but can cause extensive collateral damage if they fail. Products include dosimeters that monitor radiation levels of medical professionals, quality assurance equipment and software for nuclear medicine treatments, and instrumentation and equipment that is core to the construction, operation, and decommissioning of nuclear power plants. We think that Mirion has the potential to be a compelling industrial compounder. The company is already the largest player in over 80% of its end markets, and in aggregate is approximately 3.5 times larger than its nearest competitor. We estimate that Mirion’s end markets should grow at 5% to 6% annually, driven by favorable secular trends and a consistent replacement cycle. We expect Mirion to grow in line with or ahead of its end markets on an organic basis, as it leverages its scale advantage to take modest market share. Organic growth should be complemented by Mirion’s successful acquisition strategy, driving aggregate growth into the double digit range. In addition, we believe the company has an opportunity to expand markets by 500 bps-plus of margin over time through a favorable mix shift, higher utilization rates, and ongoing M&A synergy realization. We believe that Mirion boasts a capable and accomplished senior management team. CEO Tom Logan has been with the company since 2005 and has led the strategy that has grown Mirion’s revenues from $123 million at inception to approximately $700 million currently. The new chairman of Mirion, Larry Kingsley, has a strong history of shareholder value creation as the former CEO of industrial technology leaders Pall Corporation and IDEX Corporation. We think his expertise will be well utilized as Mirion embarks on its next stage of growth.” 9. Fortive Corporation (NYSE:FTV) Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 33 Fortive Corporation (NYSE:FTV) specializes in the design, development, manufacturing, marketing, and servicing of professional and engineered products, software, and services. Fortive Corporation (NYSE:FTV)’s Intelligent Operating Solutions segment focuses on providing advanced instrumentation such as electrical test and measurement tools. These offerings cater to a wide range of industries such as manufacturing, process industries, healthcare, utilities and power, communications, electronics, and others. It is one of the best scientific instruments stocks to invest in.  On April 26, Fortive Corporation (NYSE:FTV) reported a Q1 non-GAAP EPS of $0.75 and a revenue of $1.46 billion, outperforming Wall Street estimates by $0.02 and $40 million, respectively.  JPMorgan analyst Stephen Tusa raised the firm’s price target on Fortive Corporation (NYSE:FTV) on April 27 to $78 from $77 and maintained an Overweight rating on the shares. The analyst informed investors that Fortive reported better-than-expected results for Q1, surpassing expectations in terms of organic growth and margins. As a result, the analyst has raised estimates to reflect the company’s strong performance at the beginning of the year. According to Insider Monkey’s fourth quarter database, 33 hedge funds were bullish on Fortive Corporation (NYSE:FTV), compared to 29 funds in the prior quarter. Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s Adage Capital Management is the largest stakeholder of the company, with 4.48 million shares worth $288.3 million.  Cooper Investors made the following comment about Fortive Corporation (NYSE:FTV) in its Q4 2022 investor letter: “Fortive Corporation (NYSE:FTV) completed several acquisitions and had probably its best year operationally since the 2016 spin-off from Danaher, reporting several quarters in a row of double-digit organic growth and margin expansion that beat market estimates. The business has now unlocked the potential we always saw in it, with software accounting for almost a quarter of revenues today, providing a nice element of recurring cash flow to support the more cyclical industrial parts of the group.” 8. Teledyne Technologies Incorporated (NYSE:TDY) Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 34 Teledyne Technologies Incorporated (NYSE:TDY) delivers technological solutions that drive growth in industrial markets worldwide. The company’s Instrumentation segment specializes in providing monitoring and control instruments used in marine, environmental, industrial, and other applications. Additionally, Teledyne Technologies Incorporated (NYSE:TDY) offers electronic test and measurement equipment, as well as power and communications connectivity devices for distributed instrumentation systems and sensor networks. It is one of the best scientific instruments stocks to watch.  On April 26, Teledyne Technologies Incorporated (NYSE:TDY) reported a Q1 non-GAAP EPS of $4.53 and a revenue of $1.38 billion, topping Wall Street estimates by $0.10 and $10 million, respectively.  Needham analyst James Ricchiuti maintained a Buy rating on Teledyne Technologies Incorporated (NYSE:TDY) but lowered the firm’s price target on the shares to $470 on April 28. The analyst informed investors that Teledyne Technologies Incorporated (NYSE:TDY)’s Q1 results were considered solid, with consistent demand and margins. However, the company’s earnings guidance fell short of consensus expectations. Nevertheless, Needham highlights Teledyne Technologies Incorporated (NYSE:TDY)’s diverse portfolio of businesses, its demonstrated track record of success even in uncertain economic times, and its strong financial position, all of which should provide support to the stock at its current levels. According to Insider Monkey’s fourth quarter database, 34 hedge funds were long Teledyne Technologies Incorporated (NYSE:TDY), compared to 38 funds in the prior quarter. Select Equity Group is the biggest stakeholder of the company, with 2.26 million shares worth $906 million.  Here is what Artisan Partners specifically said about Teledyne Technologies Incorporated (NYSE:TDY) in its Q2 2022 investor letter: “We trimmed our position in Teledyne Technologies Incorporated (NYSE:TDY) during Q2 as shares approached our PMV estimate. Teledyne is a supplier of enabling technologies to sense, transmit and analyze information for a diverse group of end markets, including aerospace & defense, factory automation, medical imaging, oil & gas, pharmaceutical research and environmental monitoring. The company is delivering healthy organic growth despite headwinds from semiconductor shortages, led by particular strength in its dental and industrial imaging. Margins and cash flows have accelerated as management has successfully integrated its 2021 acquisition of FLIR Systems, a leader in thermal imaging systems. Meanwhile, Teledyne’s shares have recently benefited from an anticipated increase in demand from Western governments seeking to supply Ukraine with military equipment. The company’s aerospace and defense segment is not core to our thesis—Teledyne’s margins and top-line growth have benefited for over a decade from reducing exposure to this area and placing more emphasis on asset-light businesses—though in the current environment it will likely experience a period of elevated demand.” 7. PerkinElmer, Inc. (NYSE:PKI) Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 34 PerkinElmer, Inc. (NYSE:PKI) offers a wide range of products, services, and solutions to various markets including diagnostics, life sciences, and applied services. The company operates through two main segments – Discovery & Analytical Solutions and Diagnostics. Via the Discovery & Analytical Solutions segment, PerkinElmer, Inc. (NYSE:PKI) provides scientists with instruments, reagents, informatics, software, subscriptions, detection, and imaging technologies. These offerings aim to facilitate research breakthroughs in the life sciences research market, as well as provide contract research and laboratory services. It is one of the premier scientific instruments stocks to invest in.  On March 9, Citi analyst Patrick Donnelly put “positive catalyst watches” on shares of PerkinElmer, Inc. (NYSE:PKI) following the Q4 reports. For PerkinElmer, Inc. (NYSE:PKI), the analyst expects potential upside from a China diagnostics recovery and a “compelling valuation.” According to Insider Monkey’s fourth quarter database, 34 hedge funds were bullish on PerkinElmer, Inc. (NYSE:PKI), compared to 30 funds in the last quarter. Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group is a prominent stakeholder of the company, with 1.28 million shares worth $179.5 million.  Renaissance Large Cap Growth Strategy made the following comment about PerkinElmer, Inc. (NYSE:PKI) in its Q4 2022 investor letter: “Conversely, we sold our position in PerkinElmer, Inc. (NYSE:PKI) following a deterioration in fundamental factors. After a careful review, we believe the prudent decision is to step aside until the company completes the divestiture of its Applied, Food, and Enterprise Services business to private equity. While it allows PerkinElmer to become a pure-play Life Sciences & Diagnostics business, the divestiture will also produce a company that may operate with under-utilized assets until the new management team can deploy capital to rebuild its revenue base following the loss of approximately 30% of revenues.” 6. Roper Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:ROP) Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 41 Roper Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:ROP) specializes in designing and developing software, as well as technology-enabled products and solutions. Furthermore, Roper Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:ROP) also provides scientific products and devices such as ultrasound accessories, dispensers, metering pumps, automated surgical scrub and linen dispensing equipment, water meters, optical and electromagnetic measurement systems, as well as medical devices. On April 27, the company reported a Q1 non-GAAP EPS of $3.90 and a revenue of $1.47 billion, outperforming Wall Street consensus by $0.04 and $20 million, respectively.  On May 2, TD Cowen analyst Joseph Giordano increased the price target for Roper Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:ROP) to $525 from $500 while maintaining an Outperform rating on the company’s shares. According to the analyst, Roper Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:ROP) delivered one of the strongest reports among similar companies during this season, and their diversified portfolio, focused on software in niche markets, is highly appealing as the market appears to be entering a period of cyclical weakness. According to Insider Monkey’s fourth quarter database, 41 hedge funds were bullish on Roper Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:ROP), compared to 44 funds in the earlier quarter. Henry Ellenbogen’s Durable Capital Partners is the biggest stakeholder of the company, with 1.68 million shares worth $727.70 million.  In addition to Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (NYSE:TMO), Agilent Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:A), and Danaher Corporation (NYSE:DHR), Roper Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:ROP) is one of the top plays in the scientific instruments market.  Wasatch U.S. Select Strategy made the following comment about Roper Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:ROP) in its Q4 2022 investor letter: “Roper Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:ROP) was another large contributor. The stock was up after the company released strong third-quarter financial results, including revenue and earnings growth that exceeded consensus expectations. Roper develops software and other engineered products for a variety of niche markets and industries. The company owns 26 independent businesses, most of which enjoy strong barriers to entry and leadership positions in their respective markets. The management team has done an exceptional job, in our view, of improving the operating performance and free cash flow generation of the businesses in its portfolio, then deploying that cash into acquiring new businesses that fit a similar profile. Roper’s ability to put up strong results in what’s been a challenging operating environment for many businesses speaks to the durability of the business.”     Click to continue reading and see 5 Best Scientific Instruments Stocks To Buy.    Suggested articles: 20 Most Valuable Smartphone Companies in the World 15 High Paying Jobs for Felons That Offer a Second Chance 15 Part Time Jobs for 18 Year Olds With No Experience Required   Disclosure: None. 10 Best Scientific Instruments Stocks To Buy is originally published on Insider Monkey......»»

CNH Industrial N.V. (NYSE:CNHI) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript May 5, 2023 Operator: Hello and welcome to CNH Industrial. My name is Caroline and I will be your coordinator for today’s event. Please note this call is being recorded and for the duration of the call your line will be on listen-only mode. However, you […] CNH Industrial N.V. (NYSE:CNHI) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript May 5, 2023 Operator: Hello and welcome to CNH Industrial. My name is Caroline and I will be your coordinator for today’s event. Please note this call is being recorded and for the duration of the call your line will be on listen-only mode. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the call. I will now hand over the call to your host Jason Omerza, Vice President of Investor Relations to being today’s conference. Thank you. Jason Omerza: Thank you, Caroline. Good morning and good afternoon to everyone. We would like to welcome you to the webcast and conference call for CNH Industrial’s first quarter results for the period ending March 31, 2023. This call is being broadcast live on our website, and is copyrighted by CNH Industrial. Any other use, recording or transmission of any portion of this broadcast without the expressed written consent of CNH Industrial is strictly prohibited. Hosting today’s call are CNH Industrial’s CEO, Scott Wine; and CFO, Oddone Incisa. They will use the material available for download from the CNH Industrial website. Please note that any Forward-Looking Statements that we might be making during today’s call are subject to the risks and uncertainties mentioned in the Safe Harbor statement included in the presentation material. Additional information pertaining to the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially is contained in the Company’s most recent annual report on Form 10-K, as well as other periodic reports and filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and the equivalent reports and filings with authorities in the Netherlands and Italy. The Company presentation includes certain non-GAAP financial measures. Additional information, including reconciliations to the most directly comparable U.S. GAAP financial measures, is included in the presentation material. I will now turn the call over to Scott. Scott Wine: Thank you, Jason. And thanks, everyone, for joining our call. With a record first quarter margins in both agriculture and construction, we had a solid start to the year. Robust demand for large agricultural equipment continues especially in North America. In construction we benefited from better capacity utilization and higher volumes in North America and Europe. The margin growth in both businesses reflects our progress and I’m increasingly encouraged by the resilience of our end markets. Our lean manufacturing and strategic sourcing programs are introducing simpler, more efficient processes across the company. The teams are doing a lot of foundational work right now and we will accelerate these results along the way as we implement these multiyear margin improvement plans. We are successfully employing a variety of approaches to develop our tech stack and the benefits to our customers and business will be significant. In addition to our R&D and capital expenditures we also announced three key acquisitions, bolstering our strong precision agriculture and alternative fuel portfolios. With increased volumes and continued price realization in both agriculture and construction, revenues were up 15% in the quarter. Industrial EBIT was up 29% with a margin of 11.6% up 130 basis points over the first quarter of 2022. And also up sequentially from Q4 as supply chain improvements allowed our manufacturing teams to be less encumbered by fleet inventory completion. And as it should, all of this translates into higher bottom line results, visible in our solid year-over-year EPS increase. Derek Nielsen’s Ag team is laser focused on delivering for customers reflected in net sales of agriculture rising 16% with growth across all regions. Ongoing industry demand, especially in North America row crop market, strong year-over-year pricing, and a favorable mix all contributed to the higher sales. Rebounding retail sales in Brazil led to decrease dealer inventories for our brands from the end of 2022. So we are well positioned to compete and win in that market. Healthy construction demand is leading us to increase production on certain products, and Stefano Pampalone and his team continue to align our portfolio with customer needs. At ConExpo we previewed innovative new products like the L100 mini track loader, which was developed in conjunction with our SAP Ariana team and cases E Series wheeled excavator. By focusing on premium capabilities and operator experience, we continue to break new ground for our customers. With interest rates rising and banking challenges increasing, it is imperative that we have a healthy captive finance to serve our dealers and customers. Oddone and his financial services team have decades of accumulated experiences leading this business. Many of them even successfully fought through the 2008 financial crisis. It is reassuring to have a sound and conservatively managed finance business where the portfolio’s continue to grow even as interest rates temporarily pressure margins. And for a great example of winning the right way in February CNH industrial received the highest score in our industry from the 2023 S&P global sustainability yearbook, which puts us in the top 1% of all companies in industries. Our company strategy is centered around five key pillars customer inspired innovation, technology leadership, brand and dealer strength, operational excellence and sustainability stewardship. In operational excellence we reaffirm our annual savings target of 550 million by 2024 year-end when compared to our 2021 baseline. Ombre Biden’s team is driving our Strategic Sourcing Initiative and by the third quarter of this year, they will have visited and vetted about 450 vendors around the world to ensure we select the best suppliers for our needs. This program will transform our supply chain to sustainably improve quality, delivery and cost in 2024 and beyond. We are ramping up our CNHI business system or CVS rollout across the company. To-date we have trained over 2000 employees on how to apply lean principles at their locations and more are trained each week and we are increasing the pace of Kaizen events by the I also want to highlight accomplishments in two other pillars today. CNH is committed to building technology that continuously improves productivity and field experiences for farmers and builders, we constantly break new ground with the goal of marrying great iron and great technology. Last year, we revealed our high horsepower, medium heavy duty tractor platform, which combines best in class technology with premium comfort. The T7 and Optim tractors are leveraged across New Holland and Case IH respectively, sharing common componentry, while retaining brand specific features. We designed this tractor to provide a full suite of benefits requested by farmers. In its first full-year in the market, it is receiving excellent quality ratings, leading to low warranty cost and we are gaining market share in this important segment. This customer inspired design approach is a win-win because delighted buyers may improve gross margins that drive a high return on investment. We are continuously working to become a technology leader, spurred by significant investments. Our goal is to accelerate adoption of ever better precision solutions, thereby bringing additional value to farmers and builders. From 2022 to 2024, we are committed to nearly doubling our R&D and CapEx investments versus the prior three-years. Building out our tech stack and launching new tech enabled products. Some of the latter will arrive in 2023 and 2024, but from 2025 on the pace will dramatically increase. Since our acquisition of Raven we have hired over 500 tech engineers who are developing the next generation precision solutions that will seamlessly integrate with our grade iron. We also recently announced two acquisitions that will further propel our technology innovation and a third that advances our alternative fuel solutions. First, we purchased Augmenta, whose technology on our tractors and sprayers increases yield boost sustainability and reduces application time, effort and input cost. Augmenta will operate within Raven. Secondly, we announced our agreement to purchase Hemisphere a global leader in high performance satellite positioning technology. Hemisphere’s capabilities will allow us to rapidly develop automated and autonomous solutions for both agriculture and construction we expect to close in the third quarter. For more than two decades, we have been at the fore of alternative propulsion, exploring innovative offerings that support farmers and advance our strategic priorities. During the quarter, we took a controlling stake in Bennamann, whose methane capture capabilities are paving a path toward a carbon negative future on farms, further cementing our sustainability stewardship with a platform that is poised to deliver value and growth. We are making judicious and promising strategic investments to grow and innovate our brands. Our team is demonstrating how we can provide value in any economic environment and we remain focused on executing our growth strategy. I will now turn the call over to Oddone to take us through the financial results. Oddone Incisa: Thank you, Scott. Good morning, good afternoon to everyone on the call. First quarter net sales of industry activities of $4.8 billion were up roughly $600 million or 17% of the customer currency year-over-year. This was mainly driven by favorable price realization and higher sales volumes. Adjusted net income for the quarter was $475 million, with adjusted diluted earnings per share of $0.35, up $0.07 on the back of ongoing strong operating performance. Free cash flow from industrial activities was negative 673 million, about a $390 million improvement versus the first quarter of 2022. Quarter one as a normal season or build up a finished inventory in preparation for the spring selling season. Agriculture net sales were up 60% to $3.9 billion supported by favorable price realization, higher volume and favorable mix. Gross margin was a record 26.2% mainly due to higher volume and pricing across all regions offsetting higher manufacturing costs and purchasing cost. Agriculture’s adjusted EBIT increased by $144 million or 33% to reach $570 million, with a margin of 14.5%, mostly driven by the gross margin improvement. We are still seeing high carryover price and cost inflation when comparing year-over-year, and that will continue into Q2. That is also true for our SG&A and the expenses which like our manufacturing cost have been heavily impacted by inflationary pressure from the second half of last year. Carryover pricing will fade in the second half but that is also when our proactive efforts to contain costs and especially SG&A would be more evident. We have solid plans to increase the full-year margins versus 2022 by reduce volatility overtime. Construction lead sales were up 6% driven by favorable price realization as well as positive volume and mix in North America and in Europe. These more than offset the close of operations in China and Russia and lower wholesalers in South America where dealers were the stocking. Gross margin was 15.9% up to 160 basis points mainly due to higher volume, improved fixed cost absorption and favorable price. This was partially offset by higher raw material manufacturing cost. Construction adjusted EBIT was $44 million, with a margin of 5.2%, 120 basis point increase from last year. We did have one-month of strike at the Burlington plant in the quarter and with the workforce back from February, production is ramping up to full capacity there. The same 2023 quarterly dynamics in Ag apply to construction as well. For our financial service business, net income was $78 million down $4 million compared to the first quarter of last year. We saw favorable volumes in all regions but this was more than offset by margin compression in North America, higher risk cost and increased labor cost. While rapid rate increases contributed to the margin pressure, they are managed through a site asset to liability ratio metric. We have a limited impact on our result, and that is mainly linked to the long retail delivery delays in 2022, which created the lag from when a customer financing was contracted to when it was funded. Retail originations were $2.2 billion in the quarter, they managed portfolio including JVs at the end of the period was $24.5 billion. The receivable balance greater than 30-days past due as a percentage of receivables was 1.4% as agriculture and construction customers remain in good financial health. As we look at our capital allocation priorities, Scott already touched on our organic and inorganic growth investments. I want to mention that in April, our financial service business issued size $600 million in bonds, initial $870 million ABS transaction to continue funding or growing receivables portfolio. The fact that our financial service business is able to raise capital in these times is a testament of the sound credit worthiness and steady market presence of this part of our business. As part of the Board approved share repurchase program, the company executed over $70 million buyback in Q1 and this program is continuing in the second quarter. On my third our annual dividend was distributed to our shareholders worth over a $0.5 billion. And now provide a brief update on our delisting from Borsa Italiana Milan. We have had constructive dialogue with the exchange management. And we are now confident that the delisting process will be completed by the end of 2023. Understanding that investors with a European mandate may be required to divest their shares when the delisting happens, the Board is prepared to do a special buyback program to offset the impact if needed. As our balance sheet and our cash generation allow for it. We remain confident that the opportunities for passive investments in CNH stock will increase as a result of our respected inclusions in the U.S. indices. Overall, we have had a very positive feedback from shareholders regarding the further simplification of our profile with a single listing in New York. This concludes my prepared remarks and I will turn it back to Scott. Scott Wine: Thank you, Oddone. Most of our 2023 estimates for industry unit performance are consistent with our last earnings call. We have slightly increased our projections for combines in North America, but marginally lowered construction estimates in South America and APAC. Our order backlog remains solid well above 2019 levels, and agriculture and construction order books are full through the third quarter. Model year 2024 list price updates will be announced later this month and we will be opening the queue for order books shortly thereafter in most markets. Based on feedback from our dealers we expect the Q4 order slots to fill rapidly. Our dealers remain on allocation for products, where demand is outstripping our ability to produce, especially our large agricultural equipment with precision technology. Dealer inventories for high horsepower tractors and combines remain at historically low levels. On the other hand, with persistent small Ag demand softness, we are lowering production of the relevant equipment to keep dealer inventories near optimal levels. We saw an uptick in dealer inventories for light construction equipment due to high shipments in the month of March. But the inventory to sales ratio for these products remains quite low. As demand for row crop products is strong, pricing levels are proving durable order backlog remains solid and dealer feedback is positive. We are raising and narrowing the range of our full-year net sales guidance to about 8% to up 11%, compared to our prior forecast about 6% to 10%. We are reaffirming our previous 2023 guidance for the remainder of our metrics. With the progress we have shown so far and at today’s sustained volume levels, it is evident that we may approach or even meet our sales margin and earnings per share targets from Capital Markets Day a year early. What you should retain is that we are working to make CNH a highly profitable and cash generating business regardless of industry conditions. It is too early to call volumes for 2024, but the drivers in most regions remain strong. I want to conclude with a few thoughts on 2023 priorities and outlook. As we look at the overall business conditions for 2023, we feel optimistic about our positioning in the industry and are encouraged by an improving supply chain and resilient Ag and construction markets. Commodity prices are softening with wheat, bean and corn prices depressed versus this time last year. But many farm input costs are down and farm incomes remain elevated. We see continued strength of our markets, our growers in Brazil and in North America Cornville. Regardless of the macro backdrop, we are continuing to invest in R&D technology to build and enhance our precision enabled products. Customer engagement and retention will sustainably improve as we feel automated solutions enabling near seamless workflow and increased yield and productivity. The Raven integration continues to go well, and we look forward to building on that momentum with our new acquisitions. Results from our margin improvement programs will play an important role in our journey to deliver escalating value to shareholders. Our investments and progress are making us better for our customers, strengthening my conviction that our future is bright. That concludes our prepared remarks. Karolina will now open the line for questions. Q&A Session Follow Cnh Industrial N.v. (NYSE:CNHI) Follow Cnh Industrial N.v. (NYSE:CNHI) We may use your email to send marketing emails about our services. Click here to read our privacy policy. Operator: Sure, thank you. We will take the first question from line Daniela Costa from Goldman Sachs. Your line is open now, please go ahead. Daniela Costa: Hi, good morning thanks for taking my question. I just have two questions, if possible. The first one sort of surrounding the current – given all the current credit situation. If you could give some color on how much of the equipment that you are selling, you are currently financing versus third parties and whether you plan to take on maybe more of their risks related to what maybe is not yet financed by you or for some reasons, that is sort of out of scope and what could that mean? And the second question, just on your comments on the journey you are making towards precision Ag. Can you maybe elaborate on that journey in terms of your inorganic journey, where do you think you are at the moment in terms of like the, the ideal product set that you have you got to where you want, and now it is more about growing up organically do you still miss certain parts that you would like to strengthen and which are those? Thank you. Oddone Incisa: Daniela let me take the first one. So in terms of retail financing, depending on regions and business about between 25% and 45%, of what is retail is financed by us. This is actually in a highly competitive market, there are other players their financing. We may with if there is some lower liquidity in the market, we may see an uptick on all of our penetration. But we don’t see this as an issue. Scott Wine: Yes, and as it relates to the tech stack, obviously, as you have heard me say before, I mean, I feel good about the actual precision technology and automation that is currently on our products. And what Raven does it rapidly accelerate our ability to go faster and do more, our autonomy is as good as anyone in the industry, but really enhancing the precision suite in our products, off Board, on Board, all of those things. What the team is doing now making tremendous progress, to make that whole system work better and easier for our customers. It is a journey, and we have got a ways to go there. But when we add competencies like Augmenta and Hemisphere, it just allows us to go much, much faster. The history of Raven, they added these bolt on acquisitions along their journey as well. So it is not, because I do think we have the capability, we have added over 500 engineers to the Raven team, we have the internal capability to do everything we need to do now. There might be opportunities for small acquisitions to enable us to go yet faster yet again. But I feel good about where Mark and Parag are and their teams are in ensuring that we can deliver value for customers along the way as we get this tech stack build out complete. Daniela Costa: Thank you. Operator: Thank you. We will take the next question from line Michael Feniger from Bank of America. Your line is open now, please go ahead. Michael Feniger: Yes, thank you for taking my question. Scott, could you talk about the cost savings. I know there is the first wave and second wave. When do we think you will see this run rate savings you talked about, you are already kind of in line a target for your sales margin EPS, but it doesn’t feel like you have actually gone through with some of these savings initiatives that got pushed out so can you kind of give us an update of where we are in that story right now? Scott Wine: Yes. Actually, Oddone helping make it easy to answer that question because we did recommit this morning to the $550 million, that will be next year. And most of that actually comes in 2024. Obviously, the significant inflation that we experienced last year, and then this year, the beginning of this year, made some of that hard. But the work that we are doing, I talked about the progress, the strategic sourcing teams making Scott Moran and our CBS team are doing tremendous work in the plants, Derek and his team are driving better solutions, making the products that we design easier to assemble and source parts for. So it is a holistic approach to cost and I think, the fact that we will get many hundreds of millions in 2024, to get to that 550 million gives you a little bit of insight into what is to come. But certainly a lot of this stuff, as we see, supply chains improve, our lean programs improve, our strategic sourcing improved, our designs improve, really gives us a lot of confidence that the record margins we delivered, this quarter can be big in the years ahead. Michael Feniger: And Scott, just to follow-up on that. I mean, obviously, nobody has a crystal ball, there is a huge debate on what 2024 looks like. But with the line of sight you have on your cost savings. You think you could expand add margin in a backdrop where units or maybe flattish even slightly down next year? Scott Wine: Yes. Michael Feniger: Okay, thank you. Operator: Thank you. We will take the next question from line Jamie Cook from Credit Suisse. The line is open now, please go ahead. Jamie Cook: Hi, good morning and congratulations on a nice quarter. I guess just my first question. Can you just give a little color, more color on, what you are seeing in Brazil. I think last quarter, you are a little more cautious. It sounds like maybe there is some weakness on the smaller horsepower side, but large horsepower seems to be okay. So that would be my first question and then I have a follow-up after that. Scott Wine: Well, the situation in Brazil, just the timing of our earnings call last quarter affected how we looked at that and there was a lot of, for lack of a better term constipation with the government transition and our dealers there were incredibly cautious. Literally a week after the earnings call, we started to see things turned around, we had already made the decision to lower production. So it allowed us to reduce dealer inventory in Brazil, and we feel very, very good about where we are positioned now, with leaner inventories than anyone else in the industry, and a great product lineup, and more importantly, a really, really solid team in Brazil, to manage that market. So, we think Brazil is going to be a decent market this year, not going to grow as much as it did last year, but still a very, very good market for us. Jamie Cook: And I guess just my follow-up question based on what you guys said about the cost savings kicking in 2024. And where your margins are today and related to the last question, Scott not to put words in your mouth, but it seems like we need to update the street favorably or positively, increase your targets that you laid out at the Capital Markets Day, at some point, just given what you said in the previous question. And so one confirm that, obviously, you don’t have to tell us what it is today. But my second question is, does the optimism just relate to the farm equipment side and sort of where are you in that process within construction equipment. Is it all Ag driven or where is construction relative to what you would have thought, relative to your capital market targets? Thanks. Scott Wine: Yes, well, we did put a comment in our prepared remarks about how we expected to get to some of those 2024 targets and we knew it was just a matter of time before that question. So thanks for getting a sweat out of the way early, we do feel good. The markets – remember what we had anticipated at the time of Capital Markets Day and it went over like a lead balloon was the markets would be relatively flat in 2024. What we have seen is the markets had just been better for us. And, as you can see, we are taking advantage of that and now as we sit here, the positive momentum that we have had looks like it is going to continue from a market perspective, and again, not at the same levels, but still the overall fundamentals are good. As we talked about, as my last question, we are putting just tremendous energy and how to make the margin and expansion opportunity as we serve our customers better, how do we deliver, better margins along the way. And I think with that backdrop the updated guidance will be reasonably good, but we would expect that to happen about a year from now. We haven’t put a date out there yet but, we want to get into 2024, have a better understanding of what that can be and I think we would update our long-term guidance, sometime in the first half of 2024. Jamie Cook: Okay and it just a follow-up Ag versus construction, do you want to comment there. Do you feel better on Ag versus construction or is it sort of equal? Scott Wine: It is sort of equal. Obviously, I think the Ag cycle kind of exempts us a little bit from economics and construction doesn’t have that same exemption, but what we are seeing with really, really good innovation now the St. Pierre Jana acquisitions helping. But the optimism I saw from our team and our dealers at ConExpo gives me confidence that our construction business is going to going to do well for the remainder of this year. And it is positioned well to do well after that, but again, a little bit more susceptible to the overall economic woes if the economy tips over than Ag. Jamie Cook: Okay, great. Thank you so much. I will get back in queue. Operator: Thank you. We will take the next question from line Steven Fisher from UBS. Your line is open now, please go ahead. Steven Fisher: Hi thanks, good morning. Just curious how you are thinking about margins later in the year. It sounds like the price is going to moderate but your costs will also moderate lots of different mix puts and takes there. So curious, how do you see that netting out relative to Q1. I guess I’m mostly thinking about the Ag side but curious on construction of wealth of course. Oddone Incisa: We will have variability over the year, quarter-over-quarter as we always have, but we are confident that year-over-year for the full-year we can increase our margins as we plan to do. So of course pricing as we have anticipated will start to fade in terms of year-over-year comparison but so will cost and we are putting all this costs reduction initiatives, including in SG&A that will come to fruition in the second part of the year. Steven Fisher: Could we still see some higher margin later in the year relative to the first quarter in Ag? Oddone Incisa: We could, yes. And again for the full-year, we expect margins to be better than they were last year. Steven Fisher: Sure yes, okay. And then on inventories that how aligned would you say CNH and CNH dealers are on the desired level of inventory for thinking about for the next year and I think dealers have been clamoring for more inventory. Does that still hold and how much of a desire do you have to build normal levels to meet their higher levels of demand? Scott Wine: Well, I got to be really careful as I answer this, because I have got a few dealers that will call me immediately after the call, if I say we are not committed to giving them the products they need. So in many markets, especially cash crop around the world, they just need more inventory. It is too low and what I have told our dealers is, we do not want to get back to the 2019, 2018 levels, where they are slightly over what they would like to have. We want to keep dealers relatively lean, we are not perfect at that. I mean, if you look at our, we are lowering production of the lower horsepower Ag equipment, because we didn’t slow down soon enough. So we are going to crack that very, very quickly. But overall, many of our cash crop markets are still too low on inventory, and we are ramping up production to try to meet those, other parts of the market, really low horsepower. And in some parts of Europe, we are trying to make sure that we pull back. So we get their inventories in better position. But I personally, and we, as a company, do not want to get to historical levels, we thought it was probably a little bit too high. And we would like to keep the DSO a little bit lower. Steven Fisher: Perfect. Thank you. Operator: Thank you. We will take the next question from line Tami Zakaria from JP Morgan. Your line is open now, please go ahead. Tami Zakaria: Hi good morning, thank so much for taking our questions. So my first question is, can you give us some color on market share trends for large Ag by region for this quarter or maybe over the last 12-months, if that is a better gauge of the trend, where you saw the most gains where you saw some relative weakness? Scott Wine: Yes. We said it all of last year and it is really true now as well, market shares based on who can build it in the large Ag and cash crop segment. And I hate to say it, but we are still ramping up production of high horsepower tractors, and that is not helping us. Our combined performance is exceptionally good. We have industry leading products and that gives us an opportunity to gain share in most markets. Europe is spotty for us, there is some markets where we are doing better than others. I think overall, we are probably down a little bit in market share and looking forward to turning that around in the second half. But generally speaking, I think our overall opportunity for market share is going to improve quarter-over-quarter, year-over-year, as we get a return on the investments we are making. Tami Zakaria: Got it, that is really helpful, thank you. And then my second question is, can you help us understand the bridge to the revenue guidance. How much of that is lower FX headwind versus higher organic sales growth outlook for the rest of the year. It seems like it is mostly driven by FX. But just curious how you how you thought about it? Oddone Incisa: Compared to the first quarter, there is going to be, yes, effects is going to be better and volumes and pricing, but will be a little bit lower than what we had in the first quarter from what we say. Tami Zakaria: Got it. Thank you. Operator: Thank you. We will take the next question from line Larry De Maria from William Blair. The line is open now, please go ahead. Larry De Maria: Hi, thanks and good morning everybody. Scott, you mentioned new list prices coming up in the month, obviously opening up 2024 onward. Market seems healthy, though commodity price has been volatile, especially an upward curve. Curious how you thinking first on list pricing, maybe even in general terms of just a breather year, or we can continue to push pricing into next year. And also with that commodity curve, what are you hearing, what are you seeing in terms of any incremental question is or is it still sort of all systems go from what you are hearing and feel? Thanks. Scott Wine: You know I think with pricing, what we are seeing, after a couple of years of unprecedented price increases, we are expecting, we haven’t finalized it yet, so I can’t say. But pricing is going to normalize and you know, what is normalized mean 2% to 3% based on features. But generally speaking, we expect 2024 pricing and maybe the next couple of years to be in that normal range. And you are a little bit swamped. So I didn’t catch the second part of your question, can you could repeat that. Larry De Maria: I was just talking about the forward curve and commodities obviously, lower. Just curious about how you are seeing and what you are hearing in the field from dealers, is there any incremental cautiousness creeping up or is it all systems sort of go still at this point? Scott Wine: You know, the general feedback that I’m getting is, it is all systems go with a slight to call it I mean, the produce report came out yesterday, so farmers sentiments improving. The overall setup for soft commodities is relatively good. Overall, if the dollar movement also has an inverse relationship with commodity prices. So, generally speaking, I think, we expect, and it is part of the help, we are getting commodity prices are going to moderate at a level that we think is above historical norms, which helps farm income and ultimately helps us. We have to manage that as well, because we are expecting, as you have seen, steel comes down has come down tremendously, we are seeing shipping rates come down dramatically. So we kind of need to play both sides of it, keep the soft commodities relatively high and the rest of commodities that affect our input cost relatively low, and right now that seems to be working for us. Larry De Maria: Okay, thank you and good luck. Operator: Thank you. We will take the next question from line Marta Bruska from Berenberg. The line is open now, please go ahead. Marta Bruska: HI good morning everybody. My question is on the margin, but I already asked her several times and was very helpfully answered. So I would like to just ask if you could please command on the decline in the under 140 horsepower tractors, is that driven by the dairy market was newcomers coming under pressure now or rather that comes from the general macroeconomic situation as under 140 is relatively broad category, if you would include also the under 140 horsepower tax declines, perhaps strongly? Scott Wine: Yes. The decline in the low horsepower market is really, it is related to the very high sales that happened during the pandemic and then post early years after the pandemic. So I think it is just a somewhat of a return to normal in that market. But what unfortunately, what happens is when not just us, the industry got caught a little bit surprised on how quickly it turns out, the dealer inventories a little bit higher. So what you are seeing is higher promotion rates there and all of us working through that situation. Operator: Thank you. We will take the next question from line David Raso from Evercore ISI. The line is open now, please go ahead. David Raso: Hi, thank you. One question on pricing and one on the commentary around 2024. First, just indulge me for a second. If you pull pricing out of Ag revenues for this quarter and last quarter, it suggests the revenues were down sequentially in Ag 22%. But then the pricing gains fell 55% sequentially. And that same kind of math going back to a few quarters the relationship has been positive, meaning pricing gains up sequentially or better sequentially than what was happening on revenues, X pricing. Was there a certain mix issue in the first quarter, why would the pricing have slow that much relative to what we have been seeing and relative to the let’s call it volume, X price sequentially down, were something unique in the mix? Oddone Incisa: Well, there are many mix components. The first quarter is smaller quarter in terms of sales. We have also relatively slower sales in South America in the first quarter. And we talk about it and this mainly because of the stocking of the network that we have been doing. But we are pretty happy about how the prices play out in the first quarter actually. And if you compare it, I mean, if you think we started growing pricing in the second part of 2021. And as you say we have sequentially, price increased quarter-over-quarter and we also have been very clear that we don’t expect this to continue at this pace forever. But we need to have cost reductions in the industry in the system in the supply chain before we start increasing pricing. David Raso: No, I appreciate that. But I think by capturing volume revenue X price, we are sort of just looking at it sequentially. Why such a larger sequential slowdown in price than and then let’s call it volume. And it just the gap, is a gap some positive for multiple quarters. And obviously the costs are coming down, but it is a very unique gap, they are down 22 price revenue X price and down 55 on price? Oddone Incisa: Let’s look at what we focus at the price cost relationship and that has actually been better in the first quarter than it was in the fourth quarter. David Raso: – down in price slows as much? Oddone Incisa: No, I get it. But that is what is relevant for us is the fact that price cost is continued to be positive and is actually sequentially better compared to the fourth quarter. Then as you say, there is many mix components quarter-over-quarter and again, the first quarter is a relatively small quarter. So any variances there probably is sort of amplified. David Raso: And under 2024 comments, encouraging your comments about margins for 2024, sort of not requiring our growth for volume. Can you give us a little bit of understanding of when you, I’m not trying to ask for 2024 guide on incremental margins but when you think of a smoother supply chain, obviously, no labor issues assumed, when you think of the cost improvement, if we did give you volume up, I’m just curious how you are thinking about incremental margins, relative to what we have seen of late that kind of more low 20s, how would you think about a 2024, if you did have a little volume health? And then secondly on 2024, any order books extending into 2024 right now they can least give us a little early color? Thank you. Scott Wine: Well, let’s take tackle the margin, before I don’t answer your second question, I will tell you about the margin situation. It has been a really a brutal two-years with supply chain debacle in the supply chain, some labor issues affecting our ability to produce and because we were fighting those, we were not able to get as much traction with our margin improvement opportunities, as we expected. So what we are seeing now is those teams are starting to really, really get those projects underway and they don’t hit immediately so we are going to see the ramp throughout the year, which is why we got in better margins for the year. But as it gets into 2024, what we see is an opportunity really for with strategic sourcing is going to be better, our lean programs are going to be better, our product portfolio is going to be better. And don’t forget, we do get a margin boost from our tech stack improvements. And that stuff is a is a gift, it is going to keep on giving for a while. So I don’t think it is going to take, 26.2% gross margin for Ags pretty darn good. I’m sure there is room for us to make it better but from an industry perspective it is reasonably good. And what we are committing to is that is not as good as we can do and we see an opportunity for improvement. And construction as well, I think construction is going to continue to surprise you with our ability to drive margin expansion and combined together, that is a pretty good story for us. David Raso: Any order book commentary or is that a no answer? Scott Wine: That is a no answer. David Raso: Alright. I appreciate it, thank you. Operator: Thank you. We will take the next question from line Mig Dobre from Baird. The line is open now, please go ahead. Mircea Dobre: Hi, thank you, good morning. Scott, I wanted to get you to talk a little bit about Augmenta and Hemisphere. Curious how you are looking to integrate this product and your equipment and kind of what the goal is here how these folks are going to be working with the Raven team. And maybe you can update us a little bit on the progress that you are making internally, from a tech stack perspective, considering that you have changed your relationship with Trimble. So I’m curious, your engineering folks, what are they doing to sort of address that in the near-term and how you are thinking about the next 18-months to 24-months on that? Scott Wine: First of all, we are thrilled to welcome the Augmenta team to the portfolio. What they give us is seeing act technology at a much more value oriented place than what other people in the industry offer. I have actually been in the field and seeing the product work and it is really, really encouraging. So and farmers can get into the augment to program and get see and spray opportunities at a much, much lower cost than anything else available in the industry. And that is encouraging. It is why we made the initial investment when we were a minority partner, and why we ultimately brought him to acquire. Now, we are still with Raven’s capability, doing a lot more work to advance our see and spray see and act capabilities, but we are just better with Augmenta and they will fold into the Raven team and John Preheim and the team there will really advanced what they can do for us from an automation and an autonomy perspective that gets better with augmented. With Hemisphere, we have had, you know, a really, really strong relationship with Trimble and NovAtel over the years. So we know that there are other solutions out there. But when it doesn’t, when you have to buy it from a partner, you don’t have the ability to innovate and integrate as fast as you would like. And so, what Hemisphere gives us is a really, really good team with a strong manufacturing base, which surprised us a little bit. But the opportunity just to go faster and as I talked to dealers and customers, their request is that we go faster, and this opportunity with both of these businesses, just allows us to do that. But that said, the work that – the benefit that we are getting from Raven, and then the team there have helped us bring on an additional 500 engineers, just gives us so much more software capability. Now, I hope I’m clear that we are nowhere near delivering for customers, what we will and what we expect to give and that is coming, and it is going to be incremental benefits through this year, and in the next year. But as I said in the prepared remarks, it is really 25, where we feel like we get to true, extremely great technology and products for our customers, but we are encouraged where we are on the path and how we are progressing there. And as it relates to Trimble, they made the decision to exit the relationship. And Rob and I are good friends, and we are managing through that so both of us can have a positive future going forward. Really with Raven, we have the ability to take over that work and really not miss a beat for our customers. And that is what we are striving to do. Mircea Dobre: Got it. My follow-up is on construction. I’m curious to get an update from you on what you are seeing in terms of orders, especially on the heavy construction side backlog maybe. One of the things that kind of puzzles me a bit is your commentary seems to be positive in the press release and slides. But if I’m looking at your Slide 16 at your outlook for both light and heavy construction, it is basically down across product across geography. So I’m trying to square relatively positive commentary with the industry output that you have provided there? Thank you. Scott Wine: Well, part of there is two things that are helping us in construction. First of all, dealer inventories are low and secondly, we have introduced a tremendous amount of new products. And as I mentioned in my earlier remarks, you were very careful about managing dealer inventory. But we also need to get these new products out there to our dealer network, and that is allowing us to put in settings. Now, that is from a kind of an input internal perspective. If you look at a market perspective, housing is actually a little more resilient than I expected, which doesn’t make sense to me from an economic perspective. But nonetheless, housing is a little bit better than we thought. And I don’t like the program, but the Inflation Reduction Act is actually putting money into infrastructure that is going to bleed out and help us and others over time. So I think that is giving us a little bit more encouragement from a construction side than we might otherwise have. Mircea Dobre: So you are saying your outlook is too conservative then, on this slide? Scott Wine: I very specifically didn’t say that. I’m just saying overall – I mean, we are not on an island saying this, it is not going to be a great year for construction but we are going to do a little bit better because of those opportunities that I spoke up. Mircea Dobre: Okay. Thank you. Operator: Thank you. We will take the next question from line Timothy Thein from Citi. The line is open now, please go ahead. Timothy Thein: Thanks, good morning. Just the first as a clarification. Oddone on the comment earlier about the revenue guidance change, you mentioned FX, obviously was a positive. But did you say that that was offset by lower volumes and pricing? Oddone Incisa: No, no, I would say that relative to Q1, the growth in driven by volume and price needs to be a little bit lower relative to the Q1 growth. Last year, volume price and FX. Timothy Thein: And then on the, Scott, you mentioned that back to the market share comment in thinking from a high horsepower tractor standpoint. Where are you on the in terms of the progress of getting ramped back up and racing and how does that play into – assuming you are not at back to 100% as the year progresses, does that provide a more of a mixed tailwind for you, as you presumably, output there, I’m guessing is increasing as we go through the year, but maybe just to comment on that, and how meaningful that could be? Scott Wine: Yes. I probably won’t comment on how meaningful it could be. But I will tell you, we had our Board meeting earlier this week in Raisin. So I got a chance to be on the floor and see the work that they are doing. We are ramping up, but by our no means where we need we want to be or where our customers need us to be. There is a tremendous backlog globally for our high horsepower tractors and the teams, the team is working really, really hard. I was encouraged by what I saw, but there is a lot of work to do there. And I’m confident that week-after-week, month-after-month, we are going to continue to produce more for the racing plant And you know, that will obviously be a benefit to our customers and into our financials as well. The high horsepower market, cash crop market continues to be very strong, and I think our ability to continue to produce for that will be helpful for us. Timothy Thein: Got it, thanks a lot. Operator: Thank you. We will take the next question from line Dillon Cumming from Morgan Stanley. The line is open now, please go ahead. Dillon Cumming: Hey good morning, thanks for the question. Wanted to see if you put a finer point and some of the comments around the Lean initiatives and the sourcing savings again, say we get to a point call it middle of next year where supply chains a lot better price causes and we have an issue. Where do you see the greatest relative opportunity between the two segments in terms of how impactful the savings opportunities, the lean initiatives? Scott Wine: Yes. Well, obviously, just by a size perspective, Ag is going to get much more of the benefit. But Stefano and his team have already done a lot of lean work in Wichita, we are seeing actually, the margins they delivered in the first quarter. And I think you will see as the year plays out shows a little bit of the benefit that we can get, as we drive lean throughout the system. But obviously, because of the size and nature of Ag, we get more savings there. We are going to get meaningful and consistent savings from lean throughout. But I think a bigger nut comes from the strategic sourcing. And obviously, I don’t get lucky very often, but that strategic sourcing is a little bit, it doesn’t happen right away. It is not an immediate negotiation. So we are actually going to be doing the negotiations later this year. And I think, as we do that, we are going to be entering and this is a multi wave program. So we are in the first wave, what is likely to be four or five. But that first wave of negotiations is going to come when overall inflation is better commodities is going to be, supply chain commodities are going to be down. So I think we will be in a good position to get meaningful savings as we work through that. So we are encouraged by both the lien and sourcing initiatives, what they mean in 2023, but really, really what they mean in 2024, and beyond. Operator: Thank you. We will take our final question from line Kristen Owen from Oppenheimer. The line is open now, please go ahead. Kristen Owen: Great, thank you for fitting me in. I will be brief here. One is just a clarification again on the CE margins and obviously very strong pricing. But do I understand correctly, there was still a fair amount of strike drag there and just any commentary that you have around the regional exits and the impact that that may have had on margins in the segment? Scott Wine: Yes. The Burlington plant is also like racing is ramping up. The construction team did take advantage to get some alternative sourcing done, so that also helped from a margin perspective. But I think both that will benefit the year. The exits of China and Russia, obviously, it is not helpful to us, but we have got those in the rearview mirror and really didn’t hurt us much from a margin perspective in the quarter. But again, Stefano and his team have really done a lot of work with the portfolio and we are encouraged what we will be able to talk about next quarter when we have the call. Kristen Owen: Okay, that is helpful. I think I was maybe assuming that perhaps those exits at least from China might be accretive to margins, not necessarily dilutive. Before you respond to that just want to fit my second question and in the interest of time. It is not a topic that we talk about very often I feel like on these calls, but can you just give us an update on aftermarket and parts, what percentage of revenue is that today, how much of that is Raven and just how to think about the aftermarket business specifically now that you are integrating more of these new acquisitions? Thank you very much. Scott Wine: First of all, China was the reason we exited because we weren’t very good, and so it wasn’t a big enough business to impact our margins negatively before or positively going forward, so that that is kind of a wash. Aftermarket business is really, really good for us. Our team does a really, really nice job of managing that. We finally got our inventories up a little bit so we can serve our customers, better there. Overall it is about 18% or 20% of our business and Raven was an aftermarket business so they are really, really good at it and as we ramp up our capability with our tech stack, a significant portion of that is in aftermarket. Obviously what we are most excited about is the integrated solutions that we can put in with the production but there is a very, very notable opportunity for growth, share gains and margin expansion with the aftermarket from Raven and what we build out there. Kristen Owen: I think you covered it. Thank you very much. Scott Wine: Alright. Thank you. Operator: Thank you. There is no further questions, so I will hand it back over to your host to conclude today’s conference. Scott Wine: Thank you, everyone for joining us today and have a great day. Operator: Thank you for joining today’s conference. You may now disconnect. Follow Cnh Industrial N.v. (NYSE:CNHI) Follow Cnh Industrial N.v. (NYSE:CNHI) We may use your email to send marketing emails about our services. Click here to read our privacy policy......»»

Carriage Services, Inc. (NYSE:CSV) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript May 5, 2023 Operator: Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Carriage Services First Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers’ presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. Please be advised that […] Carriage Services, Inc. (NYSE:CSV) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript May 5, 2023 Operator: Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Carriage Services First Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers’ presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Steve Metzger, Executive Vice President, Chief Administrative Officer and General Counsel and Secretary. Please go ahead. Steve Metzger: Hi, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss our first quarter results. In addition to myself, on the call this morning from management are Mel Payne, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer; Carlos Quezada, President and Chief Operating Officer; and Kian Granmayeh, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. On the Carriage Services website, you can find our earnings press release, which was issued yesterday after the market closed. Our press release is intended to supplement our remarks this morning and include supplemental financial information, including the reconciliation of differences between GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. Today’s call will begin with formal remarks from Mel, Carlos, Kian, and me and will be followed by a question-and-answer period. Before we begin, I’d like to remind everyone that during this call, we’ll make some forward-looking statements, including comments about our business and plans, as well as 2023 guidance. Forward-looking statements inherently involve risks and uncertainties and only reflect our view as of today. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, factors identified in our earnings release, as well as in our SEC filings, all of which can be found on our website. Thank you all for joining us this morning, and now I’d like to turn the call over to Mel. Mel Payne: Good morning, everyone. It brings me a miss joy to join you all today following weeks of rigorous rehabilitation. Through support and thoughtful prayers and wishes I have received from so many people across our company during my recovery have been nothing short of heartwarming, even humbling and I will be forever grateful for each and every one of them. Although my rehab journey to full recovery continues, I am fueled with unwavering motivation and optimism by the overwhelming encouragement from everyone at Carriage, but especially from our senior executive team, Carlos, Steve and Kian, who together with me comprise our Strategic Vision and Principles group. I formed this group of senior leaders almost three years ago as part of my succession plan to serve as a vehicle from which I would develop and mentor the future executive leaders of Carriage. And after working with Carlos, Steve and Kian intimately, over the last two months on various issues for Carriage, I am delighted to report that the future executive leadership at Carriage is indeed in great hands. Nearly 33 years ago, I embarked on a journey to build a great company in this industry, not to be the biggest, but to be the best. Today I am proud to see that dream come to fruition, as Carriage has evolved into a high-performance culture company. And despite our challenges, which we view as opportunities, our progress is a testament to our unyielding commitment to excellence and our vision and mission of being the best. Thanks all of you for your interest in our company, and I will now pass it on to Carlos for more color on the first quarter performance. Carlos Quezada: Thank you, Mel. Good morning everyone. We are pleased to announce that our first quarter financial performance exceeded our expectations. As we mentioned during our last earnings call on February 23, we anticipated a challenging first quarter compared to the record-breaking first quarter of 2022, which was highly driven by the spike in COVID-19 cases. To put things into perspective, our first quarter of 2022 had 10.5% or 1,409 of our at-need funeral volume attributed to COVID cases. In contrast, this year, only 2% or 242 cases were attributed to COVID-19, representing a swing of 8.5% or 1,167 cases. With this in mind, let’s review our operating performance. For the first quarter, our total funeral operating revenue was $66.5 million, a decrease of $3.7 million or 5.3%. However, when we offset the COVID-19 volume in the first quarter of both 2022 and 2023, we saw an increase of 1.2% in funeral volume over 2022. As a result, our total funeral field EBITDA was $26.6 million, a decrease of $4.6 million or 14.9% with a total funeral field EBITDA margin of 40.1%, a decrease of 440 basis points. In the first quarter of 2022, we had a record year, with record margins, so the bar was very high. Additionally, inflationary costs put some pressure on our margins, mainly from salary benefits and general and administration expenses. However, we continue to work to adapt and pass on this cost increases to the consumer. Moving on to our cemetery portfolio, after overhauling our whole cemetery sales strategy over the last two years, we are very excited at all the hard work starting to pay off. For total, cemetery operating revenue for the quarter was $21.6 million, an increase of $1.1 million or 5.5%. Our total cemetery field EBITDA was $8.4 million, a decrease of $202,000 or 2.4%, with a total cemetery field EBITDA margin of 38.8%, a decrease of 320 basis points. Our preneed teams were instrumental in driving the total cemetery revenue performance. In the first quarter of this year, we ended at $14.5 million in preneed cemetery sales production, reflecting an increase of 4.8%. Even after a record high comparison our preneed teams executed very well and we see the positive impact of the sales edge, and our preneed cemetery strategy is making broadly. Additionally, I mentioned in our last call, that we have been working on recruiting new sales customers and strategically upgrading a few sales leadership positions. I am excited to report that we have achieved these goals. Just in March alone, we experienced year-over-year growth of 17.3%, with these positive trends against challenging comps, I feel very positive about delivering high performance in preneed cemetery cells. As I mentioned in other calls, this is only the beginning for preneed cemetery cells at Carriage and we have many opportunities to grow over the next three to five years. Consequently, we confirm our previously communicated 2023 target of low double-digit year-over-year growth in preneed cemetery sales. Regarding total revenue, we ended the quarter at $95.5 million, a decrease of $2.6 million or 2.7% and our total field EBITDA was $41 million, a decrease of $4.4 million or 9.7%. This variance is driven by the record first quarter during COVID-19 pandemic spike that led to higher volumes and margins. In addition to this year’s inflationary cost. However, when we compare the first quarter results of this year, to our 2019 base year, we have grown at an 8.4% CAGR in total revenue, a 9.7% CAGR in total field EBITDA. Furthermore, the total EBITDA margin in the first quarter of 2019 was 41% compared to 43% in the first quarter of the year representing 200 basis points of improvement. Now let me share an update on the progress of our new system Trinity. We are pleased to announce that Trinity has achieved a significant milestone, over the past quarter by completing the discovery phase, which involve documenting requirements that will inform the product’s final design. This work involved more than 150 hours of workshops with internal experts, who provide details on critical processes within courage services accounting, finance and operations. Information gathered will be used to finalize the functionality of Trinity, during the design and build phase, which is expected to conclude in the third quarter of this year. This project is currently tracking to its original plan and will begin testing levy this year. A full-scale deployment is anticipated to commence at the beginning of the first quarter of 2024. Upon deployment, Trinity will provide exceptional value by enabling unique digital experiences for families, enhancing efficiency through highly automated processes and supporting Carriage ambition 10-year growth plan, through scalability and improved productivity. Moving on to other great news. I am thrilled to share exciting updates. Firstly, have you had a chance to produce our 2022 shareholder letter, which is packed with valuable insights and outlines our bold 10-year goal. If we haven’t had an opportunity to dive in yet, I encourage you to do so at your earliest convenience. Now to the news, that are sure to pick your interest. As communicated on our last call, we have been working tirelessly on our new pre-arranged funeral strategy, and I am delighted to announce that it came down to the wire with two finalists. As a result, we are ready to make the final evaluation and we will announce the new partnership that will work alongside us and bring this vision to fruition, before the end of this month. With this new partnership, we’re going to revolutionize the way we serve and protect families through the power of preplanning, while also creating substantial financial value for our shareholders. The possibilities are endless and we cannot wait to share more information. So stay tuned for updates, as we embark on this new exciting journey. As I close my prepared remarks, I am thrilled to share that we are pleased with our first quarter performance. We remain fully committed to maintaining our consistency and discipline in executing with excellence to achieve our goals. With the COVID-19 pandemic high comparables now behind us, we have a clear path to delivering high performance through market share gains, delivering exceptional results through seamless acquisition integrations, driving growth in our preneed cemetery sales, and optimizing financial performance in each of our portfolio of businesses. I want to express my gratitude for entire team’s hard work and dedication, without whom none of this would be possible. And with that, I’ll now pass it over to Kian. Thank you. Kian Granmayeh: Thank you, Carlos. Before I dive into the review of our quarterly financials, I wanted to express my gratitude to Mel, Carlos and Steve as well as the broader Carriage family on welcoming me to the Carriage team and to the company’s strategic vision and Principles Group. This week marks my sixth week, in the seat. And as you can imagine, I’ve been drinking through the fire hose, as I work my way up the learning curve. I’m fortunate to have assumed the leadership of a hard-working, first-class team, within my CFO organization and working with my stellar colleagues across Carriage. I am super excited to have joined Carriage at such a pivotal time, and I look forward to being a part of the company’s continued success to drive long-term shareholder value and performance. Now turning to a review of the quarterly financial results, for the first quarter of 2023, under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, Carriage reported total revenue of $95.5 million and net income of $8.8 million or $0.57 per diluted share. This compares to total revenue of $98.2 million and net income of $16.4 million or $1 per diluted share in the same period in 2022. Now looking at our adjusted financials, which are reconciled in the Appendix tables of our press release this quarter, we reported adjusted consolidated EBITDA of $27.8 million, adjusted consolidated EBITDA margin of 29.1% and adjusted free cash flow of $17 million. This compares to adjusted consolidated EBITDA of $32.5 million, adjusted consolidated EBITDA margin of 33.1% and adjusted free cash flow of $12.4 million in the first quarter of 2022. As you can see, a comparison of the financial results for the first quarter of this year to last year reinforces the point Carlos made earlier that an elevated first quarter 2022 performance was driven by a spike in COVID-19 cases. Nonetheless, we are excited with how the first quarter of this year turned out relative to expectations. Taking a look at this quarter’s income statement compared to the same period last year, Carlos already touched on field level revenue and EBITDA, so I will focus on the other corporate expenses. First, I’ll start off with total G,&A which includes regional and other corporate costs. In the first quarter 2023, total G&A increased approximately $0.7 million primarily related to an increase in salaries, benefits and incentive compensation. Second, interest expense increased nearly $3, million mainly driven by the average interest rate for our credit facility, increasing from 2.1% in the first quarter 2022 to 7.9% this quarter. Lastly, income tax expense decreased $1.6 million as a result of our lower taxable income for the quarter. Turning back to adjusted free cash flow. We saw an increase of $4.7 million or 37.8% this quarter over the same quarter last year. This increase was attributed to favorable working capital changes and lower maintenance capital expenditures through our disciplined approach to capital outlays. From a leverage perspective as the team signaled on the fourth quarter call back in February, the first quarter of 2023 would hit a peak leverage ratio with the Greenlawn acquisition. Despite a $44 million cash outlay for Greenlawn in the quarter, we only borrowed an additional net $23 million from our credit facility. Using our bank covenant compliance ratio as defined by our credit agreement, we ended the quarter with 5.5 times leverage. Our expectation, which is aligned with our 2023 guidance is that the quarter end leverage ratio will continue to steadily decrease throughout the year. With all the positive momentum in the first quarter, we are reaffirming 2023 guidance of $375 million to $385 million in total revenue, adjusted consolidated EBITDA of $110 million to $115 million, adjusted diluted earnings per share of $2.25 to $2.40, and adjusted free cash flow of $50 million to $60 million. As we continue to realize our results and deliver on our plan through the year, we will tighten up or update our guidance ranges. With that, I’ll pass it over to Steve. Steve Metzger: Thank you Kian. As it relates to our growth through acquisition strategy, we were excited to enter the Bakersfield, California market in the first quarter by closing on the purchase of Greenlawn Funeral Homes and Cemeteries. Greenlawn is a significant addition for us as it generated roughly $18 million in revenue last year and is the market leader in Bakersfield with an approximately 40% market share. In addition to our recent acquisitions in Charlotte and Orlando, Greenlawn continues our strategic focus of acquiring premier businesses in large growing markets. Our team will continue to focus on the integration of Greenlawn throughout the year as we maximize the growth potential that continues to make this such a unique and attractive opportunity for us. As Mel referenced during our December release, outlining our high-performance credit profile restoration plan, we’ve identified a few potential divestiture opportunities that involve businesses that no longer align with our long-term strategy, and which we believe can potentially generate a premium valuation. As we grow through acquisition of larger businesses in bigger markets, we will also look to prune our portfolio when and where it makes sense. Our intent is to then use those proceeds to support our efforts to pay down debt. We expect to have more to share in this area in the upcoming quarters. Finally, as Carlos mentioned earlier we included a comprehensive outline of our long-term growth plan in our annual shareholder letter. In that letter we noted that a key focus for this year is adding new talent to our Board of Directors. As we pay down debt and reposition ourselves for continued significant growth opportunities in the future, we want to ensure that we have the right expertise and experience supporting those efforts at the Board level. To that end, we’ve engaged Russell Reynolds to assist with our search and we are committed to strengthening our Board this year through further diversification of our directors including gender, experience and skill set. We look forward to identifying and welcoming at least two new directors within the next six months. We’ll continue to keep our shareholders apprised of our Board refreshment efforts in the coming quarters. And with that, we’ll open it up for questions. Q&A Session Follow Carriage Services Inc (NYSE:CSV) Follow Carriage Services Inc (NYSE:CSV) We may use your email to send marketing emails about our services. Click here to read our privacy policy. Operator: Thank you. At this time, we will conduct the question-and-answer session. Our first question comes from Alex Paris of Barrington Research. Alex, your line is live. Alex Paris: Thank you. Thanks for answering my questions. First of all, congrats on the better than expected first quarter results. Second, I wanted to welcome Mel back to the call. It’s so good to hear your voice. And lastly, welcome Kian in general his first call and look forward to working with you. So as for my questions. I have a couple. Starting first with the acquisition activity since you did a pretty good overview of the organic results in the quarter. So you made three acquisitions over the last 12 months significant including Greenlawn. Could you give us sort of an order of magnitude on those three acquisitions what they ought to contribute to 2023 revenue either actual or since Greenlawn was just closed recently on a pro forma basis, if you added the revenue of the three up and the adjusted EBITDA contribution from the three for 2023? Steve Metzger: Good morning, Alex. This is Steve. So, I think, in terms of order of magnitude Greenlawn, obviously, not only the largest of the three, but quite frankly I think we were talking about this yesterday the largest from a revenue perspective that we’ve added in the history of Carriage. So that $18 million that they did last year we’re looking to hopefully grow on this year. So that one is going to take a lot of our focus on integration. So that would be at the top of the list. And then in Charlotte with Heritage, which we talked about on the last call that’s another one that has a lot of opportunity for us. It’s a little bit larger than San Juan in Orlando, which we did in August. They have the potential on the cemetery side. They have multiple funeral homes. So that’s probably number two on the list. And then San Juan, which is just a very different business for us very high call rate. They do a ton of business had two smaller locations in Orlando. They focus on a very particular demographic that we really think about. And so their growth opportunities are a little bit different from the two that have the cemeteries attached to it. From a pro forma revenue perspective roughly speaking we’re looking at kind of $25 million to $30 million this year in pro forma revenue. Still working on what that EBITDA will look like as we’re taking some opportunities to work on prices in both Charlotte and Bakersfield. So we’ll have some more detailed information on that as we go through that price change. Alex Paris: Great. That’s helpful, Steve. Thank you. Then Carlos you gave us a little bit of an update on Trinity. This is the new ERP system that’s going to be part of funeral services going forward. And I believe it’s integrated in fact into — or will be integrated into sales edge on the cemetery side. What is it that you hope to accomplish with these two new technology platforms on the funeral services and cemetery side going forward? And to what extent are they rolled out? I believe Trinity is nearly rolled out. So just an update there on those two technology platforms. Carlos Quezada: Yes. So Alex we’re still in the process of the rollout itself will be somewhere around the first quarter of 2024. Right now we’re in the process of finding what our processes are here compared those to the ERP that we call Trinity. And then closing that gap over programming and actually the development of the tool itself is very, very broad in terms of its capacity. But at the end of the day we really believe Trinity will enhance how we service families in the front of the house we just call it that as well as being able to be more efficient and productive on our funeral reporting accounting processes and overall how we work. We serve families in general terms. We will be able to do cemetery contracts digitally, which right now is still on a manual basis. That will be a huge driver because then we will be able to close pre-need cemetery sales on site at the moment whether that’s a family home and events and things of that nature. From a reporting perspective, it will enable us to have very tight reporting more than anything live because right now we work based on batches from house keepers, the reversal guest information from the field. And we certainly are going to get some benefit from a productivity perspective. So it is very broad, but we’re not close to a pilot. The pilot is programmed sometime around the last quarter of this year and started deployment in 2024. Alex Paris: Great. Thank you for that. And then my last question I’ll direct this one at Kian. And understanding fully that you’ve only been in the seat for six weeks. But given the outperformance of the first quarter, you’ve reaffirmed guidance for the full year. And again that could be related to your tenure in the seat as well as some element of conservatism. But just wondering what sort of color you can give me there? And is it safe, or is it aggressive? Is it safe or aggressive to say that you’d more likely be at the higher end of full year guidance ranges? Kian Granmayeh: Thanks, Alex. Really appreciate that. I think you’ve somewhat answered your question or your question with your question. So yes the conservativism and also me being kind of new to the seat. As I mentioned I’m six weeks here and for us what I would prefer is that we have a little more visibility in kind of how we’re performing in the second quarter and kind of how the forecast looks for the rest of the year before we tighten up guidance. So look for us too as we get more visibility for us to either tighten up guidance or update guidance. Now for us to guide today as to whether we’re tracking towards the high end of the range again that’s not something that we have full visibility on, or I just want to make sure that we have that confidence level of meeting that guidance range. So right now we’re just not comfortable providing that update. Alex Paris: That’s fair. I appreciate the extra color. Thank you very much and those are my questions for now. Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Liam Burke from B. Riley Financial. Liam, your line is live. Liam Burke : Thank you. Mel, it’s great hearing you back on the call. Mel Payne : Glad to be here, Liam. Liam Burke : First question, I had was on the funeral home business. Could you give some sense as to how cremation sales were either on a year-over-year or a percent of revenue basis? And how that contributed in terms of relative margin? Mel Payne : Yes, absolutely. As you know, the cremation mix continues to change somewhat consistently over the last few years. For this quarter, we got a little uptick on our cremation mix around 2%. The positive side you were able to offset a lot of that with $134 increase in our average that 2.5% improvement year-over-year. This is comparing Q1 to Q1. That’s for total. As it relate to same-store 2.2% of our cremation mix went up, but our average when were higher by 189% and that’s 3.5% offset from a source average perspective. We’re not really, really concerned. We do have a very good strategy as it relates to cremation conversion. That means families are going to a funeral home that want to have a cremation, how we present them with all of the options, they can choose a cremation with service or a different type of celebration of life allow us to then make up some of that cremation exchange. So pretty much where we thought it would be and look at strategies to continue to tackle on that front. Liam Burke : So I just want to make sure, I have it straight. You saw year-over-year growth in cremation sales and then higher per sale realization. Mel Payne : That is correct. Liam Burke : Okay. Now how about on the EBITDA margin side? Have they been better than traditional burials or the same, or how has that contributed to the EBITDA margin? Mel Payne : So we don’t really look at the EBITDA contribution by business in each category, right? We look at cremation EBITDA, burial EBITDA, or funeral with service EBITDA. We just look at EBITDA in general terms business-by-business. I can tell you that the margins, they’re really, really strong, right. So ending up where we ended up, which is 40, I mean, look at 40.1% those are very strong margins. When compared to Q1 of 2022, yes, there is 440 basis points drop. But those margins to status are sustainable are very, very difficult. Actually we feel very proud of the margin, we have as in my opinion are probably some of the highest in the industry by far. And so we feel pretty strong. There’s opportunities nevertheless to continue to maximize that on both funerals cemetery businesses to continue to pass down some of those inflationary costs through the families that we serve. But we’re keeping pretty good track. Now always explain Liam that it’s a fine balance, right? We never want to just push prices up. This is a managing partner decision and they’re really, really wise as to how they do it, because they never want o volume for the sake of improving margins right by raising prices. So we keep managing this delicately keeping up serving business on a monthly basis and we’re pretty satisfied with the progress so far. Liam Burke : Great. And on the cemetery side it looks like you’re getting great traction on pre-need sales. The guidance is for double-digit growth. Where are you in terms of building out the marketing or the sales force or the marketing effort however you want to couch it? Mel Payne: Yes. We actually made tremendous progress. As I mentioned in other calls, when COVID-19 suddenly stopped somewhere around Q3 2022 the family that will typically go in for the previous three years to ask about pre-need were no longer going, righ.? So there was a shift of mindset in strategy and really pushing customers and managers to go out and find the business. It took a little bit of time to realign that strategy to provide the support the development tools made that happen. And we start to make progress as the coming months came after September and very, very happy to report that we have it very tight right now. We feel very confident to say that we have a full roster of very talented sales managers. Our recruiting capacity from a counselor perspective has been very, very good as well. We have actually new teams that we did not had the year before. We have and example we now have an advanced planning team at Fairfax, which on their first month, they almost tripled their target. And so very good strategy, very happy with the performance of the team and the whole director support and the leadership team of our sales are doing. And that’s why we feel confident that this trend will continue. Liam Burke: Great. Thank you, Carlos. Carlos Quezada: Thanks, Liam. Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from JP Wollam of ROTH MKM. JP, you are live. JP Wollam: Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the question and Mel great to have you back on the call here. If we can maybe first start with a couple of housekeeping items. On the last quarter release, you shared the consolidated funeral contract number. I think that was as part of a way to simplify reporting going forward. I was just curious if you could share that number for Q1 here? And is that something that you’re going to be sharing normally going forward or is that just a one-time kind of annual number? And then the second one is just how you get to the $17 million of adjusted free cash flow. If I start at $25 million of cash from ops I’m guessing that backs out the cash from the trust and then maintenance CapEx. But if you could share any color there that would be great. Mel Payne: JP Wollam, I’ll address the first question and then Kian will follow-up to the second one. So what I explained on the last call is that for pretty much many, many years, Carriage will have an approach of five years keeping their acquisition business separately from same-store. And we thought that was a very unfair comparison to other companies, where they have it on one year. And once you have an integration, you keep it for five years, you’re not really being fair to year-over-year growth on your acquisition portfolio. So we decided to move it to one year for the polling purposes effectively Q4 or last report in Q4 2022. The thing that we have right now is that we only – by doing so or doing that we only have now three businesses on our acquisition segment, which will be the recent one Bakersfield or Greenlawn or Charlotte with business acquired in North Carolina and then San Juan. And so what we wanted to wait for before deciding whether we wanted to split same-store and acquisition is to see the magnitude of the numbers right because those three businesses. Now given that Greenlawn is significant that we just got it on the last week of March, we haven’t been able to really track all of that we need to in order to consider that point. If this become significant then we’ll probably do that. But then think about it next year, which will not be acquiring additional businesses based on our amendment to the credit facility. We’ll then basically remove those three businesses from that line and it would be zero reporting on acquisitions and will be all just in stores. So we thought it will make sense just to keep it on total for now until we’re able to get back on track aggressively on our decisions. Kian Granmayeh: Right. And JP I’ll answer the second question you had regarding the reconciliation to adjusted free cash flow. We actually have a table, the last table in the appendix of our press release is kind of just a quick overview. When we start from cash provided by operating activities of cash flows from operations, we’ll then take out maintenance CapEx, which is a little bit – it’s about half of what we spent in the same period last year. And then you’re correct in identifying that the rest of the adjustment is related to about $7 million that we withdrew from a premium cemetery trust investment. JP Wollam: Great. And I must have missed that. That is laid out there. So apologies for that. Second question just on a comment from the prepared remarks. Regarding the inflationary costs and I know the comment was something about being able to push some of the pricing on to customers. But just curious kind of where you’re seeing the biggest cost pressure? And if that has normalized at all in the most recent months or if it’s lingering throughout the year in your expectations? Kian Granmayeh: Yes, absolutely. So when you think about the increases, right? So as the trend continue to do increases there will be a catch-up because we see that throughout the year, right? So as they improve or increase the rates also people increase prices consequent to that we have pressure on that side. As it relates to Q1, we have just about shy of $0.5 million on insurance increase about $750,000 on salary benefits, about $500,000 on G&A in administrative. That adds to $1.7 million increase and that – when you divide that to our revenue that’s about 1.8% of the margin that’s lost on that front. We continue to keep a very close eye on what’s going on. There is a competition out there in terms of your employees. And if we want to keep our employees that are loyal to our company you have to be able to satisfy their niece there’s pressure on their pockets as well. So we try as much as we can to continue to be passing those additional costs to the foundries. As I mentioned earlier, we wanted that carefully and thoughtfully with some strategy so that we can definitely not lose volume, right? I mean you can increase your prices a little bit, but then you lose a few calls and then your wash or down to your revenue. So we’ll continue to keep track. We have this on a very close eye month-to-month business-by-business basis and we do feel confident it will continue to progress. Last that I’ll share on that is that even with the margins where they were the right now from a total EBITDA perspective on both funeral cemetery those are very high margins standard for the industry above like I said most of the competition is not confident we can continue to keep them at the year. Mel Payne : Coming out of 2021 where we had record lift from COVID in the revenues and volumes in our industry which has high fixed cost the operating leverage is a big deal. So if you have left in your revenues from a pandemic or market share your margins go up and your profits go up. We suffered when the pandemic started to phase out on our revenue and our margins in 2022. And a lot of that was volume driven in ways that we could change. Some of it was cost driven visionary costs like Carlos mentioned. And what we’ve seen that we laid this out in our high performance and credit profile restoration plan. We call ourselves being in the high-value personal services business and sales and when you’re in that business you on pricing power or better than your competition. And I think over the last six or seven months our people in the field have been raising their prices without losing market share. And what we started to see in March and now in April is year-over-year volumes are good other than expected in a post-COVID environment, but the average revenue per contract has also been going up and that’s because of pricing power on what they were doing before and also new services being offer and accepted. So we began to see year-over-year positive variances in revenue in both our funeral portfolio and our cemetery portfolio which is also translating into higher margins at field level. That’s a really good trend makes my day and we hope that continues in May June and the rest of the year. JP Wollam: Great. Thank you and best of luck. Mel Payne: We’ll take luck shows up. But so far I’ve never counted on luck all the hard work and you got to work smarter and harder to get the lucky. Operator: All right. I would now like to turn it back over to Mel Payne for today’s closing remarks. Mel Payne: As we end today’s call, I am more excited than ever about where we are as a company and what we call good to great journey that never ends. To get some sense of why I’m so excited about where we are. I think Carlos touched on it you should refer to the 2022 shareholder letter. It was a beautiful collaboration between Carlos, Steve and me. And as much — as I was so impressed with the content I laid out we captured the essence of carries both past present and future. The presentation of the shareholder letter was all done in-house our A.J. and his marketing team and I want to congratulate them and thank them today. It was first class all the way the graphics the design and the layout first class in total quite a story of our people and the company. So A.J. thank you so much. And to close, I’d like to mention we have outlined our financial goals and a plan to restore our high performance and credit profile by the end of 2024. And this plan has been executed with excellence Carlos and his operating new sales teams. So for Carriage for sure the best is yet to come and we look forward to keeping you updated as we make that progress on our journey. So thanks to all of you for tuning in today and I’m just so happy to be back. That concludes our call today. Thank you. Operator: Thank you. Thank you for your participation in today’s conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect. Follow Carriage Services Inc (NYSE:CSV) Follow Carriage Services Inc (NYSE:CSV) We may use your email to send marketing emails about our services. Click here to read our privacy policy......»»

TC Energy Corporation (NYSE:TRP) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript April 28, 2023 Operator: Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the TC Energy First Quarter 2023 Financial Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. And the conference is being recorded. After the presentation there will […] TC Energy Corporation (NYSE:TRP) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript April 28, 2023 Operator: Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the TC Energy First Quarter 2023 Financial Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. And the conference is being recorded. After the presentation there will be an opportunity to ask questions. I would now like to turn the conference over to Gavin Wylie, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Gavin Wylie: Yes, thanks very much and good morning everyone. I’d like to welcome you to TC Energy’s 2023 first quarter conference call. Joining me are Francois Poirier, President and Chief Executive Officer; Joel Hunter, Chief Financial Officer along with other members of our senior leadership team. Francois and Joel will begin today with some comments on our financial and operational results. A copy of the slide presentation that will accompany their results is available on our website under the Investors section. Following the remarks, we’ll take questions from the investment community. We ask that you limit yourself to two questions and if you’re a member of the media please contact our media team. Before Francois begins, I’ll remind you that remarks today will include forward-looking statements that are subject to important risks and uncertainties. For more information, please see the reports filed by TC Energy with the Canadian Securities Regulators and with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Finally, during the presentation, we’ll refer to certain non-GAAP measures that may not be comparable to similar measures presented by other entities. These measures are used to provide additional information on TC Energy’s operating performance, liquidity and its ability to generate funds to finance its operations. A reconciliation of various GAAP and non-GAAP measures is contained in the appendix of the presentation. With that, I’ll now turn it over to Francois. Francois Poirier: Good morning, everyone. I’m pleased to report that our strong financial performance in 2022 has continued into the first quarter of 2023. High utilization and availability across our system have enabled us to generate exceptional results in the first quarter. This is a testament to our people, the continued strong demand for our critical energy assets and the resiliency of our low risk business. For the remainder of 2023, our priorities are clear. First, executing on our major projects and industry leading high quality secured capital program; Second, accelerating our deleveraging targets by advancing our $5 billion plus asset divestiture program, which we expect to complete throughout the year; And third, safely and reliably operating our assets that provide essential energy services across North America. We firmly believe that achieving these priorities will unlock value and maximize shareholder returns. And based on our strong start to 2023, we reaffirm our 2023 comparable EBITDA outlook of 5% to 7% higher than in 20 22. Underpinned by our focus on strong operational performance, first quarter results had comparable EBITDA up 16% from the same period last year, while comparable earnings per share rose by 8% year-over-year. During the quarter, we placed a total of $1.4 billion of project in service and we remain on track to place $6 billion of assets in service during 2023. In Canada Gas, we brought $1.1 billion of projects into service, further adding incremental market access for our customers in the basin. In March, we also placed the Port Neches Link pipeline into service, under budget, extending our Keystone system to include last mile connectivity to the largest refinery in North America. In our U.S. Natural Gas business, 2022 was a record year in terms of compressor reliability across our fleet. And so far in 2023, we are on track to meet or even exceed that performance. This year, we’ve set a multiple of all-time records for deliveries to LNG export facilities, reinforcing the criticality of our assets. And in Power and Energy Solutions, Bruce Power delivered exceptional availability of 95% and we expect 2023 to average in the low 90s. Unit 6 MCR is proceeding on schedule and on budget and is now in the final stages of the installation phase. Execution of our major projects is our central priority for 2023. I’m pleased to share that Coastal GasLink is continuing along our revised cost and schedule and progressed through the winter on plan. We accomplished several major milestones with the overall project now 87% complete and approximately 570 of the 670 kilometers of pipeline has been backfilled and restoration activities are underway in many areas. Commissioning work on the Wilde Lake compressor station has begun and natural gas has been introduced as part of the transition of the facility to operations. More than 85% of all classified water crossings are now complete and we have safely completed the excavation of Cable Crane Hill ahead of schedule and are now installing the final pipe through this critical path section. We continue to target mechanical completion by the end of the year. Our second offshore project in Mexico, the Southeast Gateway pipeline is also proceeding according to cost and schedule. We’ve achieved our first milestones with the acquisition of land for compressor stations and offshore landfalls. We’ve obtained key federal environmental authorizations and local permits for the project. Critical long lead items including the offshore vessel have been secured and we’ve begun receiving materials. We anticipate commencing onshore construction for our compressor stations this summer. In fact, civil work has already begun and our offshore pipe installation will commence toward the end of 2023. As a reminder approximately 70% of the total project costs are under fixed price contracts providing greater certainty around cost and schedule and we continue to target completion by mid-2025. Following the Milepost 14 incident on the Keystone System in December, we’ve been diligently working to restore the area to its original state. We’re pleased to report that we’ve recovered over 98% of the release volume. A big thank you for the continued support from the Washington County community and we are dedicated to ensuring the affected area is fully restored. We’ve received the independent third-party root cause analysis and with these findings, we are committed to implementing a comprehensive plan to enhance our pipeline integrity program and overall safety performance. Now looking to the future. Our North American footprint means, we have access to a diverse set of high quality growth opportunities. And this is a high grade problem to have, but we must consider both financial and human capacity when evaluating incremental projects. We recognize we are in a period of increased development spend. However, post 2024, we are committing to limiting annual sanctioned capital expenditures to $7 billion or less. In fact, we will strive to manage annual capital spending to approximately $6 billion, providing the flexibility to further reduce leverage or buyback common shares. When sanctioning new projects, a key consideration will be the timing of the capital spend and it must fit within our annual capital expenditure parameters and deleveraging targets. We’ve also enhanced our governance practices and placed higher standards around sanctioning large or complex projects that includes the requirement for a Class 3 estimate, as well as an independent third party assessment as was the case with the Southeast gateway. As always, we’ll continue adhering to our long established risk return preferences. I’ll highlight that 98% of our secured capital program is underpinned by long term take or pay contracts or rate regulation where we take no commodity price or volumetric risk. The resiliency of our business and capital allocation strategy is supported by a long term view on energy fundamentals. Natural gas will continue to play a pivotal role in North America’s energy future and that aligns well with our current portfolio, as well as our sanctioned projects. Lower carbon energy solutions will gradually increase in market share and we will intentionally migrate our portfolio composition, but gradually over time. And with an emphasis on building firm capacity in areas such as nuclear, pump storage, hydrogen, and carbon transportation and sequestration. Renewable energy will play a complementary role in our decarbonizing of our own assets and we can also extend that service and product to our customers. However, the pace at which we allocate capital to these areas will ultimately be driven by their affordability, their reliability and their sustainability. Thanks. And I’ll now turn the time over to Joel. Joel Hunter: Thanks, Francois. Building on the record results we achieved in 2022, we set a new quarterly record during first quarter 2023 that reflects high utilization, availability and continued operational performance across our asset base. First quarter 2023 comparable EBITDA was up 16% year-over-year with comparable earnings growth of 12% and 8% year-over-year increase in comparable earnings per share. We continue to demonstrate the certainty and stability of our cash flow growth that reflects our assets being over 95% rate regulated or underpinned by long term contracts. Our strong performance during the quarter was driven by a combination of the strength in our North American natural gas pipelines along with higher contributions from our Power and Energy Solutions business. Our rate regulated Canadian Natural Gas pipelines saw a year-over-year increase in net income of 11%, primarily driven by growth in the NGTL system average investment base. Average NGTL system deliveries rose year-over-year reaching $14.5 billion cubic feet per day. 14% growth in our U.S. Natural Gas pipelines comparable EBITDA was largely due to higher earnings from ANR following the FERC approved rate case settlement, as well as contributions from growth projects placed in service. Throughput for the quarter averaged 28.5 billion cubic feet per day with several of our assets performing at near record levels when demand was at the highest. In Mexico, comparable EBITDA increased 16% year-over-year, reflecting the North section of the Villa de Reyes pipeline and the East section of the Tula pipeline that were placed into commercial service last year. Year-to-date, the operational reliability of the Keystone System has been more than 95% supporting the safe and reliable delivery of all contracted volumes for our customers. Power and Energy Solutions generated outstanding results with a 79% increase in comparable EBITDA year-over-year. In February, our Alberta cogeneration power fleet reached 100% peak price availability for the first time in company history, while pricing remains strong, averaging $142 per megawatt hour. Bruce Power achieved 95% availability during the quarter with fewer planned outage days and higher contract pricing relative to the first quarter 2022. We are reaffirming our expected 2023 comparable EBITDA growth of 5% to 7% compared to 2022. We also expect comparable earnings per common share to be modestly higher. We are confident in this outlook despite the environment of rising interest rates and inflation. And as a reminder, any fluctuations in these variables and other factors could impact our 2023 outlook and we will look to revise throughout the year if necessary. Global markets have been experiencing heightened volatility and I want to take a moment to discuss the confidence I have in our outlook and ability to meet our financing requirements. The chart on the left highlights the rapid increase in rates during 2022, which were similar across the curve, driving the year-over-year increase in interest expense. However, we are beginning to see 10 year government bond yields moderate from their recent highs. We continue to demonstrate cost competitive access to capital markets as evidenced during Q1 when we executed over $6.5 billion of new issuance across a variety of maturities and geographies. The fixed rate debt tranches of these issuances have a weighted average cost of 5.6%. We have a manageable debt maturity profile with a weighted average maturity of approximately 18 years and average pre-tax coupon of approximately 5%. Roughly, 15% of our debt portfolio is exposed to floating interest rates. We have programs in place to actively manage our exposures. Now turning to our funding program. A key priority for us is capital discipline. Without sacrificing operational safety or reliability, beyond 2024 we will manage our annual sanctioned capital spending to $7 billion or less, inclusive of maintenance capital. As Francois mentioned, we will strive to manage annual capital spending to approximately $6 billion. This enhances our financial strength, while providing optionality to further deleverage or buyback shares. I’ll note that the sources and uses outlined on this chart do not include the impact of potential asset divestitures that are expected to be realized through 2023. You can expect our incremental funding requirements to be reduced as our asset divestiture program progresses, allowing us to further accelerate our deleveraging target. With respect to the dividends declared on February 13, 2023, the participation rate in our dividend reinvestment plan was 38%, resulting in approximately $360 million reinvested in common equity under the program. The discounted dividend reinvestment plan is expected to be in place for dividends declared for the quarter ending June 30, 2023. Finally, I want to bring to your attention two charts that truly capture the resiliency of our value proposition. First, TC’s Energy Board of Directors has declared a second quarter 2023 dividend of $0.93 per common share, which is equivalent to $3.72 per share on an annual basis. Second, we have delivered strong results. This is a testament to the strength of a utility like business model, unwavering focus on safety and operational excellence and North America’s increasing demand for our essential services. We’ve created significant shareholder value despite market volatility and macroeconomic challenges and I’m confident that we’ll continue to do so. Thank you. Now I’ll pass the call back to Francois. Francois Poirier: Thanks, Joel. In summary, our priorities for the year are clear. Continue to execute on our major projects, such as CGL and Southeast Gateway. Accelerate our deleveraging targets by managing our capital spending and advancing our asset divestiture program. And third, achieving safe, reliable and sustainable operations and are focused on operational excellence to drive higher returns. To reflect our commitment to these priorities and to better align with our shareholders, we have introduced new performance measures that explicitly tie executive compensation to cash flow per share, deleveraging and greenhouse gas emission reduction targets. I’m confident that the future opportunity set combined with our capabilities and reflecting capital discipline will unlock additional value and deliver superior shareholder returns well into the future. Thanks, and I’ll now turn the call back over to the operator for questions. Q&A Session Follow Tc Energy Corporation (NYSE:TRP) Follow Tc Energy Corporation (NYSE:TRP) We may use your email to send marketing emails about our services. Click here to read our privacy policy. Operator: Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. First question comes from Rob Hope with Scotiabank. Please go ahead. Rob Hope: Good morning everyone. First question is just on capital allocation. In the prepared remarks, it was noted that sanctioning new capital must fit with the financial capacity of the organization. How does — while small, how does the wind acquisition fit with this? Why not pursue a more capital light strategy for your renewables here just given you are selling some assets? Corey Hessen: Good morning, Rob. This is Corey Hessen. These opportunities are the product of a 2022 process that’s closing in 2023 and was already in our capital plan. These are high quality operating assets with best-in-class equipment, generating immediate EBITDA for the enterprise. We have a long term service agreement in excess of 15 years with the original equipment manufacturers for both locations that include availability guarantees for both facilities. We are in advanced discussions with creditworthy counterparties for the power generation and the environmental attributes from these facilities. In summary, the Texas Wind Farms are within our capital plan and a modest capital investment to help TC Energy execute on our decarbonization goals. Rob Hope: All right. Appreciate that. And then just moving over to Coastal GasLink, with the winter behind us, it looks like you had some successes on keeping the project on time and on budget here. However, as we look to the summer construction season as well as the end of 2023 in service date, what do you see as the key risk factors on keeping the cost and schedule? And how are you progressing against those? Bevin Wirzba: Rob, it’s Bevin. I’ll take that question. So you’re right. We made very good progress this past season. We’re laser focused on safely getting this project to the finish line. And as we noted in the remarks that, we’ll reaffirm our targets on both cost and schedule here for the year. Really what we need to be looking for during the balance is no different than what we’ve been working on today is that, there are tremendous number of work fronts as you can appreciate on a project of this scale. We’re migrating primarily from kind of mainline construction to really a focus on small discrete work scopes, whether that be creek installations or rock bluffs. And so, we’ve been developing mitigation plans for any eventuality that happens on those smaller discrete work scopes. And so, while we’re progressing extremely well on the entirety of the project, we’ve had to move to really a front foot on being proactive on having backup plans to backup plans. And so, when we provide updates, we’ll be focusing mostly on how we’ve moved forward through these critical last areas of the project and we’re necessarily implementing some of our backup. So just to give you some proof points on that, we pre-located some equipment to allow us to work through some of the spring break up periods of time so that we can provide a bit more flow to the schedule. So, as Francois alluded to in his remarks, we’ve completed the trenching on Cable Crane Hill. That’s three months ahead of schedule. So we’re trying to wherever we can provide a significant buffer for us, because we know that any of these critical work scopes could have us really going to plan B and plan C. And so, that’s really where the focus is. But we had the successful introduction gas into Wilde Lake that’s on — that was executed as planned. We had over 1 million man hours safely completed there. So we’re very encouraged, but we’re extremely focused on managing these final critical scopes that are in the balance of the year. Rob Hope: Thank you. Operator: The next question comes from Theresa Chen with Barclays. Please go ahead. Theresa Chen: Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. First, I’d love to get some more details on where you are in the asset sale process at this point. Now that has been several months in the making, do you have additional clarity on the types of assets you’re looking to divest and how should we think about the valuation? Francois Poirier: Thank you, Theresa, and I appreciate that there’s lots of interest in our asset sale processes and our deleveraging plan. As I mentioned, it’s one of our three key priorities for the year. I’ll just remind everyone that we are at a very commercially sensitive point in our discussions, we have multiple processes underway at the moment. And so, we’ll refrain from making any specific comments on any particular asset or on where valuations are trending. I’ll reiterate, however, that our tension is to maintain the quality of our portfolio. So we will be monetizing assets or interest in assets in various parts of the portfolio to maintain our cash flow composition that we view as very high quality. Theresa Chen: Thank you. And if I can ask Stan on the progress on Southeast Gateway at this point. What percentage has been done? How much capital of the $4.5 billion has been spent and what should the next milestones that we should be looking for (ph)? Stanley Chapman: Hey, Theresa, this is Stan. First of all, I’ll reiterate it upfront. Our Southeast Gateway pipeline continues to track toward mid-summer 2025 in service date, $4.5 billion of CapEx, both of which is unchanged from when we FID the project this summer. I would note that, we’re really pleased with our partnership with CFE. They have and will continue to play a very key role for us in helping to secure both land and permits. In terms of activities that have been ongoing, steel plate is being delivered, pipe is being rolled and preparations for its concrete coating are underway, so that the subsea pipeline lake can commence at the end of this year. Specifically to your questions, there are three key milestones that we are focused on this summer, diligently focused on, I should add. First is, commencing construction on our two compressor stations. Second is securing the right of way for our onshore pipeline, which you recall, it’s relatively small at about 21 kilometers. And lastly is, commencing preparations for the onshore construction work associated with the micro tunnel, so that the micro tunneling itself can take place in early 2024. So overall, we continue to incorporate the lessons learned from prior projects such as , but we’re really pleased with our projects progression as of now and we’ll continue to update you as the project develops over the coming months. Theresa Chen: Thank you. Operator: And the next question comes from Linda Ezergailis with TD Securities. Please go ahead. Linda Ezergailis: Thank you. Wondering if you could maybe give us some sense of what your expectation for 2024 capital expenditures specifically might look like? And what sort of magnitude of additional wind or solar power acquisitions might be embedded in your budget for this year or next year or potentially even added to what you’ve baked in? Francois Poirier: Thanks, Linda. It’s Francois. I’ll take that one. As we’ve talked about before, once the project is in construction and we break ground, we’ve probably been add it for a couple of years from a perspective of permitting and project planning and having ordered long lead items. And one of the reasons why we’re going to strive for building some optionality below our $7 billion capital run rate going forward is that, we do want to make sure we maintain some capacity for further debt reduction or share buybacks going forward. It’s going to take us the balance of this year and 2024 to work our way down to that $7 billion or really $6 billion run rate. And so, you can expect us to be well below the $11.5 billion to $12 billion of capital that we have in the plan for 2023, trending towards that $7 billion run rate, but not quite there yet because of the dynamic that we’ve identified. With respect to plans for additional renewables or other assets in our program going forward. Remember, these are very small capital dollars, tens of millions to low hundreds of millions over time. We will be utilizing project financing and tax equity wherever possible to get our equity checks down to very modest levels. And as we have worked through our capital program and tested our ability to maintain a stable balance sheet, grow our cash flow per share, grow our dividend, have strong payout ratios, to get to a level of comfort where we can say that $6 billion to $7 billion is our run rate. We have factored in to our capital program some additional renewables as well as some additional investment in our other businesses. Linda Ezergailis: Thank you. And just as my follow-up, just trying to round out my understanding of Coastal GasLink. Can you advise if you’ve used any of the contingency in your budget this year to add to your schedule buffer or for any other reason? And do you see a high likelihood of at this point of dipping into your contingency to pay for some of the buffers and the plan B contingency that you’re winding up to ensure you stay on schedule? Bevin Wirzba: Thanks, Linda. It’s Bevin here. So right now, we’re tracking really closely to our cost and schedule targets. Certainly as we pre-position certain work scopes, we spend some of those dollars a little ahead of plan or otherwise, but we actually incorporated that in our thinking at the time of the CSRA. And so, we look at this probabilistically and so under certain scenarios, we’re certainly going to draw down on some of the contingency. But right now, we’re tracking — we’re tracking where we’ve been or where our plan was to be at this time. So, a lot of when we’re making the trade-off decisions to pre spend on different activities, those are well within the plan. We maintained access to the and another critical path scope removing a ton of snow, we put that in the plan. So we’re very thoughtful when we came forward with our revised budget last quarter to make sure that we had a variety of scenarios, not just a single scenario in mind in terms of the finishing or the executing of the project. Linda Ezergailis: Thank you. Operator: The next question comes from Jeremy Tonet with JP Morgan. Please go ahead. Jeremy Tonet: Hi, good morning. Francois Poirier: Good morning. Jeremy Tonet: Just wanted to come back to the CGL construction from a little a bit of a different angle. I think there might have been kind of competition for labor between CGL and TMX and I was just wondering if you could comment there and I guess how you see TMX progressing at this point if it’s close to kind of winding down? Does that lead to kind of less stress, less pull on the labor pool and how would that impact CGL? Francois Poirier: Jeremy, I’m not going to speak to TMX. I don’t know exactly what their plans are. What we’re seeing on our project is, we’ve had great retention of the contractor labor. We’ve seen increase of quality and actual productivity this year. And like I mentioned earlier, we’re migrating to a very different type of scope of work. And what I can say is that scope of work looks a lot different than what TMX is focused on in this year’s construction. And so we’re very mindful that there is competition for labor. We will be focused on seeing how our labor force returns post the breakup, but post the Christmas break up where there was the same type of competition from TMX, we actually came back stronger. So, we had nearly 6,500 folks on the right away through the first quarter of this year at a time when TMX ramped up their labor force significantly more than what they were last year. So, we’re maintaining a pretty strong position with our labor force right now which we’re thankful for and we’re working really closely with our contractors to just be laser focused on retaining the right people to get this thing done by the end of the year. Jeremy Tonet: Got it. That’s helpful there and just wanted to pivot a little bit to Columbia. There is news out there with regards to, I think, a lightning strike that might have impacted the compressor station and led to a force majeure and realized this is all very kind of real-time here, but didn’t know if you could help us with any color on how to think about that? Tina Faraca: Yeah, thank you. This is Tina Faraca with the U.S. Gas Pipeline business. We did have a lightning strike this morning, very early this morning that caused a fire within our fence line at the compressor station, the fire has since been extinguished, very minimal impact to facilities, we’ve managed through that and plan to get the station back online later this afternoon. Jeremy Tonet: Okay. So this is just like a one-day impact type of thing. Tina Faraca: Yes. Jeremy Tonet: Thank you for that. Operator: And the next question comes from Robert Kwan with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Robert Kwan: Great. Thank you. If I can come back to the commitment to keep the CapEx below $7 billion, just a question here. So first, does that include acquisitions? Second, the current period elevated CapEx is really — part of it’s been driven by cost overruns, so I’m just wondering how you’ll think about managing your cost risks differently going forward? And then third, just cyclically does this — what does this mean for or are you excluding project level financing from that $7 billion number? A – Francois Poirier Hey, Robert. It’s Francois. I’ll take that one. So, with respect to managing cost overruns, we have prudent project management. We have a reasonable contingency for each of the individual projects that we have in our capital program. And so, striving to work towards a $6 billion run rate program going forward and that gives us flexibility and optionality around further debt repayment and share buybacks. It also gives us additional flexibility to the extent, we have any unforeseen circumstances around any one individual project. $6 billion or $7 billion is our sanctioned capital to the extent we have partners that would be in addition or outside of that number. With respect to the specific peculiarities of any individual project in terms of project financing that may or may not be considered depending on the project. A project like Ontario pumped storage is a significant undertaking. And so this is not only a financial equation, it’s also a human capacity equation. When you think about having a very large capital program, our ability to manage a smaller program reduces execution risk and allows us to continue to grow our dividend at a — the stated rate grow or cash flows at or above that rate and keep a stable balance sheet and maintain stable and very conservative payout ratios. So you won’t see the capital program far outstrip our sanctioned capital, but for reasons of human capacity and as we move forward with different projects we’ll be contracting for them differently, mitigating risks using (ph) EPCs where appropriate and looking for commercial mitigations to manage those outcomes, as well. So, on all of the above-basis, you should think about that $7 billion striving for $6 as our sanctioned capital going forward. Robert Kwan: Just on acquisitions included or excluded. Francois Poirier: Thank you for reminding me of that. We don’t distinguish, there is no M&A in our plan, we don’t think that M&A is required for us, given our opportunity set to grow our distributable cash flow per share at a rate at above our dividend growth and maintain stable payout ratios and a stable balance sheet. It’s just really not in our radar right now and if it were, Robert, it would be included in that cap. Robert Kwan: That’s great. If I can finish just on capital allocation and just back framing against the wind acquisitions. You noted that while they’re in the 2023 capital program, you previously talked about just generally the ability to defer capital and this seems like something that could have been eliminated. So while they’re operating, I assume you acquired it for higher than 5 times EBITDA and less than a 15% FFO yield, i.e. acquiring should be dilutive to the credit metrics. So was there something bothering you to complete these deals or can you just talk about the strategic nature of the two assets and the synergies that provides to the existing asset base. Corey Hessen: Hi, Robert. It’s Corey. I would say that, yes, this was in our plan. And what I would emphasize is that, we have decarbonization goals for our enterprise. These are critical in nature for us to meet our decarbonization goals, which are long-term commitments to our shareholders and constituents across our jurisdictions. Robert Kwan: Okay, thanks very much. Operator The next question comes from Robert Catellier with CIBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Robert Catellier: Hey, good morning. I know you’re trying to avoid discussing any particular asset, but I wonder if you can discuss as an asset class the merchant power. Alberta power prices have been quite strong over the last year or so. So how does this influence your view on this asset class as a candidate for portfolio management? In other words, the market support a stronger valuation or would you rather retain them for their currently strong cash flow? Francois Poirier: Robert, it’s Francois. What I would tell you is, divestitures — the purpose of our divesture program is to deleverage. And so, we call that raising internal equity and internal equity is driven by the valuation in excess of 5 times debt to EBITDA. And so, as we choose which assets to monetize we consider what the EBITDA multiple is above that 5 times amount, because we have to have to maximize that spread over 5 times EBITDA to maximize our deleveraging. So to the extent our Alberta assets could achieve multiples well in excess of 5 times debt to EBITDA, we would be open to proceeding and I’ll leave it at that. Robert Catellier: Okay. Maybe a question here for Stan. It looks like the volumes were pretty good on the deliveries to LNG facilities again, I’m wondering if you can provide us some progress update on any additional positioning you have for the U.S. gas portfolio and development projects to address additional LNG opportunities. Stanley Chapman: Hi, Robert. This is Stan, and as you heard me say before, our best-in-class pipeline footprint has and it’s going to continue to provide us with more than ample growth opportunities at attractive build multiples. Our challenge today, as you heard is, less with originating new projects and it’s making sure that we have a way to fund them. So given that, our origination efforts are highly selective and focused on strategic opportunities will be to leverage our existing footprint, specifically in regions where projects can be permitted and constructed at attractive build multiples. So these opportunities today exist with respect to additional LNG exports, particularly in Louisiana, as you noted. And increasing the connectivity that we have to our (ph) customers, which are backed by long-term 20 year contracts. So in some instances where appropriate, we also may consider taking on a strategic joint venture partner. But equally important, I just want to point out that we are laser-like focused on ensuring operational excellence and reducing our costs and doing so without sacrificing the safety or the integrity of our assets and ensuring that we place our projects in service on time and on budget. Francois Poirier: And Robert, it’s Francois. I’ll just add to Stan’s comment. As we look to sanction capital going forward, the timing of the spend will be a critical factor in our assessment. We are laser-like focused on staying below that $7 billion and actually $6 billion run rate of capital spend. And so, as you look to sanctioning projects in the future and given the size of our capital program to date, really as we sanction projects going forward they will have significant — the significant capital spend will be in later years. That’s fine. It typically takes a couple of years to permit and — permit a project and get the long lead items in place. And so, projects we’re looking at developing right now and competing for have spent in that 25%, 26%, 27% timeframe where we do have additional capacity to sanction projects and stay within that $6 billion annual limit. Robert Catellier: Yes. That’s very helpful color. Thanks everyone. Operator: The next question comes from Ben Pham with BMO. Please go ahead. Ben Pham: All right. Thanks. Just wanted to go back to the renewables side of things and your strategy there. I think for some time what was holding you back bit on expansion is more of the lofty multiples on renewable power assets and you have the aggregation model as well that you’ve introduced last year. Can you talk about now the trends you’re seeing, is it better to buy versus build. How does it compare to aggregating power? And maybe an update on strategy there? Francois Poirier: Ben, it’s Francois. I’ll take this one. As we talked about before, we’re focused on sanctioning capital over the long run, on the basis of affordability, reliability and sustainability. Renewables will be a complementary asset class in our portfolio to help achieve our own decarbonization goals, while at the same time helping our customers decarbonize their own energy consumption. Where possible, we will adopt a capital-light approach. We talked about the aggregation activities last year which are continuing to proceed. In some instances where we see value and it fits within our capital plan, underscore that it fits within the capital plan and the $6 billion per year limit will consider ownership in projects. But, as Stan mentioned, in the context of our U.S. gas business, across our whole portfolio one of the things we’re going to be looking at is joint ventures and partnerships with financial firms and other strategics to make sure we can advance our decarbonization goals, our market share aspirations and in the U.S. LNG market, but still stay within our annual a sanctioned capital limitations going forward. Ben Pham: Okay. Maybe next on (ph) for share buybacks, maybe you can expand on that a little bit. How do you see into your calculus? Where do you need to be less leverage to think about that? Francois Poirier: Yes. Look, over the next couple of years, that’s not an option. Our priority for 2023 and 2024 is to deleverage. Our goal is to get at or below 5 times debt to EBITDA as quickly as we can without compromising shareholder value and then remain there. What I wanted to convey in my comments is, it’s very difficult to stop a project once it’s been committed to, just because your stock price is at a level that you think is attractive in terms of share buyback. By the time you break ground on a project you can just tell your customer that they’re not going to receive the transportation service they’ve been planning on and waiting on for many years. So by building flexibility and the flexibility would come from the gap between $7 billion and $6 billion into our program on an annual basis, we will have the option in each and every year with that incremental capital to live within our means to either pay back debt or to buy back shares. But to be clear, we don’t see that as an option until we get at or below our 5 times debt to EBITDA and we’re confident that we’re going to remain below. Ben Pham: Okay, got it. Thank you. Francois Poirier: You’re welcome. Operator: The next question comes from Andrew Kuske with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. Andrew Kuske : Thanks, good morning. The question is really for Francois and the emphasis on the limiting the CapEx post 2024 to the $7 billion and then, getting it down to the $6 billion. Does that effectively allow you to high grade your capital allocation process to higher returning projects? Francois Poirier: I would say most definitely, Andrew. It’s not just about unlevered after-tax IRRs. We do want to migrate the portfolio, we think about having a high quality and diverse portfolio with low volatility, that’s part of our value proposition. But there’s no question, as I’ve said in the past, we see way more opportunity to deploy capital then we have financial and human capital to execute. And what that’s going to allow us to do actually is to high grade projects. And in fact, when you look at what we sanctioned in 2022, unlevered after-tax IRR is in the 10% range and that’s above the weighted average IRR of what we sanction in 2021, which was, I think, in that 8.5% to 9% range. So we’re seeing an upward trend in the returns on the projects that we’ve sanctioned over the last couple of years, and clearly by limiting our capital spend to living within our means, it’s going to give us the opportunity to high grade to our higher returns. But we also are going to consider having a proper diversity and migrating the portfolio to an appropriate supply mix. Andrew Kuske: Appreciate that. And then maybe not to but the trend of high grading returns, your earlier comments on bringing on partners, whether they’d be financial, strategic or otherwise? Does that allow you to engage in some kind of asset management model, get a promote on a project? How do you just sort of conceptualize and think about it? Francois Poirier: First and foremost, Andrew, that’s a great question is, we’re going to focus on our human capacity. We have an ability to manage a capital program of a certain size. And we are going to make sure that we have the capacity and the capability to adequately manage the capital program we have underway. And asset management model would suggest developing and building projects for others and we’re going to be very mindful of maintaining a size of capital program that’s within the capacity of our team. Andrew Kuske: Thank you very much for that. Francois Poirier: You’re welcome. Operator: The next question comes from Patrick Kenny with National Bank Financial. Please go ahead. Patrick Kenny: Thank you. Good morning. Just on Keystone here, as you look to implement your enhanced integrity program going forward. Can you provide a little bit more detail with respect to the cadence of these additional in-line inspections and excavation work that needs to be completed across the system? And I guess what the total cost of this program might do to your prior maintenance CapEx guidance, as well as the process for recovering these costs through your total structure or other means? Richard Prior: Yes, sure. This is Richard Prior. I’ll take that. And so, as we mentioned in our release, there’s additional remediation work that we need to do. So we need to work through our remedial work plants with respective to Milepost 14, as well as the FINSA corrective action order. That is going to include additional excavations as you mentioned and in-line inspection runs. So we’ve already started that work, and to date, we’ve actually run 300 miles of tool runs on the pipeline adjacent to the incident site and we’ve not found evidence of similar features. In addition to this, we’re also going to be completing engineering assessments. So this time we did just received the root cause failure analysis last week, as did FINSA. And so there is going to be some more work to do to continue to study that and develop the details of this program. And I don’t have a timeline I can provide to work these remedial work plans and results of corrective action order, but I can say that we are fully committed to expediting this work. I also don’t have a cost estimate for this integrity scope I can share at this time. However, this work — it would form part of our operating maintenance and integrity scope for the system and that would be recoverable through our variable tools. Patrick Kenny: Okay, great. Thanks for that. And then just in terms of, I guess, an update on the egress picture out of Western Canada. And I guess in light of where natural gas prices are at currently. Can you comment on where you’re seeing customer demand for incremental market access for California, Gulf Coast, East Coast. And I guess what this mean for near to medium term debottlenecking activity across GTN, Mainline, ANR and so on? Greg Grant: Sure. Thanks a lot, Patrick. It’s Greg Grant from the Canadian Gas business. I’ll start and then hand it back to the U.S. gas business. First, it’s been great to see both from an operational perspective and from our capital programs, we continue to get assets in the ground and we’re actually — we’re a few weeks ahead of time on coming out of our 21 program and some of our (ph) build this spring. So last year, you would have normally we put about 1.3 bcf of intra-basin in egress, this quarter added over 700 mcf and soon to be another 500 here. So that’s been great to see the team and the performance there. That hasn’t stopped up the demand, I would say, we still have significant demand coming in on all parts of — all points of egress, I would say, and intra basin. You would have seen, we’re about a bcf again on the supply side. So that’s year-over-year, two years we’ve been over bcf added to the system. So while we’ve added that capacity we are still at high utilization levels. So, you will see probably in the next couple of weeks, months, we did announce some open seasons will be coming. So the team are looking at ways that we can continually optimize the system and create additional capacity where we can, that includes both existing and some new opportunities which we’ll talk about in the following quarter. Francois Poirier: On the US side, just think of us as a big catcher’s mitt. Greg those fall and we try to catch it. We have an expansion project. As you’re aware, on the GTN system right now, our GTN XPress which is currently pending before FERC and we’re anxiously awaiting our certificates. We can get that capacity constructed and in service either later this year or early 2024. We also have the ability to attract volumes in on our Great Lakes system. And again, working closely with Greg’s team as they submit open seasons on their side of the border to get additional capacity down to the U.S. And the other thing I would point out of late is, there seems to be some interest from the LNG market in Louisiana to have additional exposure to Canadian volumes as well. So we’re pursuing opportunities to expand our ANR systems as appropriate and get more Canadian gas down to the LNG terminals. Patrick Kenny: Okay, great. Thanks for that update, guys. I’ll leave it there. Operator: The next question comes from (ph) with UBS. Please go ahead. Unidentified Participant: Good morning. Thanks for sneaking me in. Maybe as a follow-up on some of the prior labor questions, you mentioned that you’re at 6,500 on the job now. So curious just what’s the assumption for peak labor and project — for the projects for Coastal GasLink this summer to reach completion goals for mechanical completion as labor starts to roll on TMX this summer. Thanks. Francois Poirier: Yes. Thanks, Brian. We’re effectively at peak and will be winding down now. So coming back from spring fresh at will not be bringing back the same level of crews, but a significant number of folks will be coming back. As I mentioned, we’re at some discrete scopes now were effectively finishing off any of the traditional kind of mainlining activities where we have significant number of crews. So I would say come to the fall will be in a much more significant ramp down of folks out there in the field. But our ability to continue to successfully manage and mitigate all our risks during the summer and the fall construction will be the key determinant in our ability to meet our cost and schedule goals. So we’re more focused on managing the risks and inclusive of that is the labor front, but we feel that we’re in a good position there. Gavin Wylie: So, I think we’ve got time for just one last question if you don’t mind. Unidentified Participant: Yes. Great, thanks. And just on — just touching on the credit rating. TransCanada has been put on negative outlook by S&P. So my first part of my question is, is TransCanada committed to defending that credit rating at any cost, perhaps in the context of M&A sales? And then second, how does TransCanada handle asset sales versus perhaps impacting its earnings mix? Thanks. Joel Hunter: Thanks, Brian. And it’s Joel here. It’s that last question for the day I finally get to respond. With regard to the credit ratings. We do value the credit ratings, as you’ve highlighted, we are negative outlook right now with three of the agencies being S&P, Moody’s and DBRS, we were downgraded following the announcement on the CGL cost overruns by Fitch. We put a lot of value on the rating, we believe with our plan here to sell plus $5 billion of assets that we will be able to get our leverage down to our target as Francois has mentioned, that 5 times in the near term and then ultimately down to 4.75 times. That’s our objective. And so with the plan that we have right now with plus $5 billion of asset sales with a growing EBITDA, you just saw us today’s mentioned we had a 60% year-over-year increase in our EBITDA. The combination of those two that we believe that we can get down to the 5 times and ultimately get the negative outlook removed from the agencies and reaffirmed our ratings going forward. With regard to — I think your question around asset sales. And I think you said with perhaps if I’m not mistaken, we balanced both here. We’ve got the plus $5 billion of asset sales, as we mentioned. And in our plan, we always factor around 15% of our capital structure be comprised of hybrid securities and preferred shares and that won’t change going forward. Patrick Kenny: Great I’ll leave it there. Enjoy the rest of the morning. Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the question-and-answer session. If there are any further questions please contact Investor Relations at TC Energy. I will now turn the call over to Gavin Wylie. Please go ahead, Mr. Wylie. Gavin Wylie: Yes. Thanks everybody for your participation this morning. For the questions that we didn’t get to, please reach out to Investor Relations and the team is happy to have discussions later this morning. We thank you very much for your interest in TC Energy, and we look forward to our next update. Have a great day. Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day. Follow Tc Energy Corporation (NYSE:TRP) Follow Tc Energy Corporation (NYSE:TRP) We may use your email to send marketing emails about our services. Click here to read our privacy policy......»»

The Zacks Electronics - Miscellaneous Components industry players like NVT, CTS and ROG are set to gain from the solid adoption of AI and the democratization of IoT techniques. The Zacks Electronics - Miscellaneous Components industry is benefiting from the ongoing automation drive, and increased spending by manufacturers of semiconductors, automobiles, machineries and mobile phones. Notably, industry players like nVent Electric NVT, CTS Corporation CTS and Rogers ROG remain well-poised to benefit from the solid adoption of AI and the democratization of IoT techniques, which are transforming robotics, industrial automation, transportation systems, retail and healthcare.However, worldwide supply-chain disruptions and end-market dynamics due to the pandemic are concerns for the underlined industry. Rising inflationary pressure, growing geo-political tensions and foreign-currency headwinds are persistently taking a toll on industry players.Industry DescriptionThe Zacks Electronics - Miscellaneous Components industry primarily comprises companies providing a wide range of accessories and parts used in electronic products. The industry participants’ offerings include power control and sensor technologies to mitigate equipment damage, testing products for safety and advanced medical solutions. They cater to varied end markets, such as telecommunications, automotive electronics, medical devices, industrial, transportation, energy harvesting, defense and aerospace electronic systems, and consumer electronics. Its customers are mainly original equipment manufacturers, independent electronic component distributors and electronic manufacturing service providers.3 Trends Shaping the Future of Electronics - Miscellaneous Components IndustryAutomation Boom a Tailwind: The requirement for faster, more powerful and energy-efficient electronics is leading to increased automation. The use of control systems, such as computers and robots and information technologies for handling different processes and machinery, is driving the industry. The growing installation of collaborative robots, which add efficiency to production processes by working with production workers, will benefit industry participants. IoT-supported factory automation solutions are other contributing factors. The evolution of smart cars and autonomous vehicles is expected to drive growth for the industry.Miniaturization Remains a Key Lever: The industry participants are benefiting from the ongoing transition in semiconductor manufacturing technology. Demand for advanced packaging, enabling the miniaturization of electronic products, remains strong. The consistent shift to smaller dimensions, the rapid adoption of new device architectures, like FinFET transistors and 3D-NAND, and the increasing utilization of new manufacturing materials to increase transistor and bit density are driving the demand for solutions provided by industry players.Supply-Chain Disruptions Remain Worrisome: These companies are reeling under the impacts of the coronavirus-induced macroeconomic woes. Supply chains are still disrupted by the pandemic-led shelter-in-place measures and lockdowns. These disruptions are severely affecting industry players. Production delays and the underutilization of manufacturing capacities remain major concerns. The pandemic aggravated the concerns related to the economic downturn, persistently hurting these company’s spending patterns and new bookings.Zacks Industry Rank Indicates Bright ProspectsThe Zacks Electronics – Miscellaneous Components industry is housed within the broader Zacks Computer and Technology sector. It carries a Zacks Industry Rank #109, placing it in the top 44% of more than 250 Zacks industries.The group’s Zacks Industry Rank, basically the average of the Zacks Rank of all the member stocks, indicates bearish near-term prospects. Our research shows that the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries outperforms the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1.Before we present a few stocks worth considering for your portfolio, let’s look at the industry’s recent stock-market performance and the valuation picture.Industry Underperforms S&P 500 & SectorThe Zacks Electronics - Semiconductors industry has underperformed the Zacks S&P 500 composite and the broader Zacks Computer and Technology sector over the past year.The industry has lost 13.6% over this period compared with the S&P 500’s decline of 4.6% and the broader sector’s decrease of 6.3%.One-Year Price Performance Industry's Current ValuationBased on the forward 12-month price to earnings, a commonly-used multiple for valuing electronics - miscellaneous components stocks, the industry is currently trading at 20.45X compared with the S&P 500’s 18.28X and the sector’s 22.62X.In the past five years, the industry has traded as high as 25.96X, as low as 14.55X and recorded a median of 19.74X, depicted in the charts below.Price/Earnings Ratio (F12M) 3 Electronics - Miscellaneous Components Stocks to BuyRogers: The Chandler, AZ-based company is riding on strong momentum across ADAS, general industrial and renewable energy markets. Its focus on bolstering customer engagement and developing and commercializing unique material solutions for leading-edge applications are constantly driving its business growth.The Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) company, which offers electronic and elastomeric materials that are used in applications for automotive safety and radar systems, EV/HEV, renewable energy, mobile devices, wireless infrastructure and energy-efficient motor drives among others, is well-poised to witness strong momentum among converters, fabricators, distributors and original equipment manufacturers on the back of its robust Advanced Electronics and Elastomeric Material solutions.You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Rogers has lost 39.7% in the past year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for ROG’s 2023 earnings has been revised 10.9% upward to $4.49 per share in the past 30 days.Price and Consensus: ROGnVent Electric: This London, U.K.-based entity has been gaining from portfolio strength and modular and digital platforms. NVT’s growth, profits and cash strategies remain noteworthy. Strengthening relationships with strategic channel partners are expected to drive its performance.The Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) player, which is a provider of electrical connection and protection solutions, is optimistic about strong demand for its products and solutions. A solid execution of its strategy across high-growth verticals, product introductions, global expansion and strategic acquisitions are other tailwinds.nVent Electric has gained 22.8% in the past year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for NVT’s 2023 earnings has been revised 3.5% upward to $2.66 per share in the past 30 days.Price and Consensus: NVTCTS: The Lisle, IL-based company is well-positioned to keep gaining from solid momentum across premium non-transportation end markets. Disciplined capital allocation and strategic acquisitions bode well. The company’s TEWA Temperature Sensors acquisition, which has bolstered its presence in Europe, is anticipated to keep contributing to its financial performance in the days ahead.This Zacks Rank #2 company manufactures sensors, actuators and electronic components and supplies these products to OEMs in the aerospace, communications, defense, industrial, information technology, medical and transportation markets. CTS is expected to continue gaining from its growing traction among new electric vehicle applications.CTS has gained 13.6% in the past year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for its 2023 earnings has been revised 2% upward to $2.60 per share in the past 30 days.Price and Consensus: CTS  Top 5 ChatGPT Stocks Revealed Zacks Senior Stock Strategist, Kevin Cook names 5 hand-picked stocks with sky-high growth potential in a brilliant sector of Artificial Intelligence. By 2030, the AI industry is predicted to have an internet and iPhone-scale economic impact of $15.7 Trillion. Today you can invest in the wave of the future, an automation that answers follow-up questions … admits mistakes … challenges incorrect premises … rejects inappropriate requests. As one of the selected companies puts it, “Automation frees people from the mundane so they can accomplish the miraculous.”Download Free ChatGPT Stock Report Right Now >>Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report nVent Electric PLC (NVT): Free Stock Analysis Report CTS Corporation (CTS): Free Stock Analysis Report Rogers Corporation (ROG): Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research.....»»

T-Mobile US, Inc. (NASDAQ:TMUS) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript April 27, 2023 T-Mobile US, Inc. beats earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $1.58, expectations were $1.48. Operator: Good afternoon. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Jud Henry, Senior Vice President, Head of Investor Relations for T-Mobile US. Please go ahead, sir. […] T-Mobile US, Inc. (NASDAQ:TMUS) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript April 27, 2023 T-Mobile US, Inc. beats earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $1.58, expectations were $1.48. Operator: Good afternoon. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Jud Henry, Senior Vice President, Head of Investor Relations for T-Mobile US. Please go ahead, sir. Jud Henry: All right. Welcome to T-Mobile’s First Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. Joining me on the call today are Mike Sievert, our President and CEO; Peter Osvaldik, our CFO; as well as other members of the senior leadership team. During this call, we will make forward-looking statements, which involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from our forward-looking statements. We provide a comprehensive list of risk factors in our SEC filings, which I encourage you to review. Our earnings release, investor fact book and other documents related to our results, as well as reconciliations between GAAP and non-GAAP results discussed on this call can be found in the Quarterly Results section of the Investor Relations website. With that, I will turn it over to Mike. Mike Sievert: Okay. Thanks, Jud. Hi, everybody. Well, welcome to the call, and as you can see, we are coming to you live from Bellevue, Washington at our headquarters and I am here gathered with a great group of our senior leadership team as we share with you some terrific results that we are posting today to kick off 2023. And I will start by saying our results for Q1 continue to demonstrate that no matter the competitive environment, our unique formula of offering the best network and the best value continues to produce best-in-class outcomes. We again led the industry in postpaid and broadband customer net adds, while continuing to deliver the best profitability growth. And our consistent focus on reliably translating customer growth into industry-leading postpaid service revenue growth and unlocking substantial cash flow gives us the confidence to raise our full year guidance just one quarter into the new year. Now I will also say Q1 was a quarter of celebration at T-Mobile. I am so proud of how our now 10-year history of more than 20 Un-carrier moves have transformed to this wireless industry and more recently, broadband for the benefit of customers, and as you often hear us say, we won’t stop. So we announced last week our latest Un-carrier move with Phone Freedom, a move aimed to free customers and other wireless providers locked into those three-year contracts, while they are subjected to relentless pricing changes and gadgets. We continue to make it easier for customers to come to T-Mobile and switch to T-Mobile for peace of mind, knowing that with price lock, we won’t raise their price for top text and data. And now with new one too are part of Phone Freedom, they will be upgrade-ready in two years, because three years is too long to force customers to wait. Here’s kind of a crazy sort of fact to get your head around, AT&T reported the lowest postpaid phone churn in the industry this quarter and yet quantitative research states that their customers have the highest self-reported likelihood of switching away. Their customers report being almost 50% more likely to switch than Verizon’s or T-Mobile’s customers. The lowest churn, but the highest apparent dissatisfaction. And to me, that means one thing. Their customers are trapped and we are here to solve it and that’s what our latest Un-carrier move is all about. That’s what Phone Freedom is all about. And it’s the way we have been designing our groundbreaking Un-carrier moves for a full decade now. And as you know, we hit another milestone this month, the three-year anniversary of our merger. We are wrapping up an integration that many have deemed, and I think, we will conclude that it is, the most successful merger in telecom history. And most of all, we are celebrating what it was always about, the dream we had of leapfrogging from last place in the 4G era to leadership in the 5G era, smashing the biggest pain point of all by finally giving customers in this industry both, the best network and the best value from the same provider. And you know what? We did it and we did it ahead of schedule, meeting our commitments and unlocking massive value in the process. And yeah, we brought about a new level of competition to this market and a 5G network to America that would not have been possible without this merger and that makes customers and businesses everywhere, the real winners. Speaking of network, another round of results are in and our team is again celebrating wins as the largest, fastest and most awarded 5G network as well as the best overall network for the second quarter in a row according to Ookla. And this is not just a snapshot in time. It is a durable network lead. And I am confident that Ulf and team in his new role as President of Technology, congratulations and thank you for stepping in to lead us… Ulf Ewaldsson: Thank you. Mike Sievert … will continue to keep us ahead in this race over the next years with our great spectrum assets in both depth and breadth deployed rapidly and our rapid execution of our unique process called customer-driven coverage, and finally, continued leadership in implementing advanced technologies such as standalone 5G and multi-carrier aggregation. All of these things, importantly are contributing to the best capital efficiency in our sector. All of these strengths, coupled with our unique opportunity in underpenetrated markets are what enables a differentiated and profitable growth strategy that separates us from the competition, and you know what, we showed that again in Q1. We added 287,000 postpaid account net additions, the highest reported in the industry once again. And that means we are winning the switching decisions in the market, because this looks at it at the account level. And we had postpaid net additions of 1.3 million, more than AT&T and Verizon combined. This included postpaid phone net adds of 538,000. We won a higher share of net adds year-over-year even as the industry continues to moderate, just like we predicted we would in previous calls. Our increased share was driven by our strong phone gross adds, as well as being the only national wireless provider to improve postpaid phone churn year-over-year. Our consistent approach to profitable growth continues to deliver right on and sometimes even above our ambitious plans and that’s even as the competitive landscape continues to shift and evolve. In recent quarters, we have seen cable giving away three first lines that don’t, by the way, appear to be incrementally pulling from existing customers and incumbent providers but definitely are driving their ARPUs down. We have seen AT&T and Verizon significantly outspend us in media advertising. I mean Verizon alone spent almost 60% more than T-Mobile in Q1. And we continue to see, as I mentioned earlier, others lean into expensive long-term device contract offers to lock up their customers, while T-Mobile was the only one who improve churn year-over-year and have the lowest upgrade rate. Improving churn, but with the lowest upgrades, that’s because our approach is not to slam customers with expensive unwanted upgrade contracts to tie them down for three years. Customers genuinely choose to stay with T-Mobile for the network, for the value proposition and for the experiences. And you know what? That’s how we want it to be. You have heard us say before, our strategy is differentiated and durable, because it’s driven by taking share in the places where we continue to be underpenetrated relative to the market, but where we now have new permission to win. This profitable growth playbook and the momentum we saw in Q1 is exactly what gives us the confidence to raise our postpaid net add and financial guidance for the year. A perfect example of this, T-Mobile for Business where we just posted one of our highest ever phone net add quarter in Q1 with the lowest business phone churn in our history and we are profitably taking share with more business account net adds and more business phone net adds than Verizon in the quarter. On the consumer side, we are winning with prime network seekers in the top 100 markets who increasingly recognize that T-Mobile offers the best combination of network coverage and capacity for their needs. In fact, our prime customer base hit an all-time high again this quarter. And in smaller markets and rural areas, we are now capturing a win share of switchers in the upper 30s and that’s in the roughly two-thirds of this geography where we are competing. This is great news, because it’s showing that our strategy here is very much on track. In addition, we added 523,000 high-speed Internet customers as we have continued to grow our gross adds every quarter since we launched two years ago. I would expect that we added more broadband customers than AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Charter combined for the fourth consecutive quarter. And not only did we have the highest net adds, but our focus on profitable growth translated into strong financial performance with core adjusted EBITDA up 9% year-over-year and free cash flow up over 45%. Our Q1 results were just the latest example of how we have lots of room to run at T-Mobile and I am confident in our ambitions for this year and beyond. One thing you have come to expect from this management team is that we are never satisfied, and you saw that again with our latest Un-carrier move to free customers from three-year contracts and introduce new Go5G plans that offer even more value than before. As proud as I am of what we have accomplished in our 10 years as the Un-carrier and in Q1 most recently, I am even more excited about what’s ahead for T-Mobile and I am so thankful that all of you are on this journey with us. Okay. Peter, over to you to talk about the key financial highlights and our updated guidance for 2023. Peter Osvaldik: Absolutely. Thank you, Mike. 2023 is positioned to be another year of best-in-class profitable growth based on our Q1 results and the updated guidance I will share with you in a moment. Our continued increases in postpaid accounts and postpaid ARPA resulted in the best postpaid service revenue growth in the industry, up 6% year-over-year. Our disciplined focus on profitability resulted in a 9% year-over-year increase in core adjusted EBITDA and we grew our core adjusted EBITDA margin by 270 basis points year-over-year, while AT&T and Verizon were flat to down. In addition, as Mike mentioned, free cash flow was up over 45% and unlock the highest free cash flow margin relative to our peers. We expect our industry-leading free cash flow margin to be a durable and differentiated unlock of shareholder value going forward. This strong financial performance also supported our share buybacks as we repurchased 33 million shares for $4.8 billion in Q1, with a cumulative total of 59.4 million shares repurchased for $8.5 billion as of April 21. It was also great to see our continued execution on profitable growth reflected in the recent rating upgrades from both Moody’s to Baa2 and Fitch who recently upgraded us two notches to BBB+. These rating increases further strengthen our access to lower cost capital in the deep investment grade market. All right. Let’s jump into the details of our increased guidance for 2023. We now expect total postpaid phone net customer additions — total postpaid net customer additions to be between 5.3 million and 5.7 million, up 250,000 at the midpoint, reflecting growth across all of our market opportunities and we continue to expect nearly half of postpaid net adds coming from phones for the full year. Our focus on profitable growth allows us to fund those higher customer net adds and still increase our core adjusted EBITDA expectations, which are now expected to be between $28.8 million and $29.2 billion, this is up 10% year-over-year at the midpoint based on higher service revenues and merger synergies, of course, excludes leasing revenues of approximately $300 million, as we transition substantially all remaining customers off device leasing by year end. Our merger synergies are expected to be between $7.3 billion to $7.5 billion in 2023, approaching the full run rate synergy target from our Analyst Day a year ahead of schedule as we build towards the recently raised run rate synergy target of $8 billion in 2024. We continue to expect merger-related costs, which are not included in adjusted or core adjusted EBITDA to be approximately $1 billion before taxes and we also continue to expect cash merger-related costs of $1.5 billion to $2 billion for 2023 as they have underrun the P&L recognition to-date. Net cash provided by operating activities, which includes payments for merger-related costs is now expected to be in the range of $17.9 billion to $18.3 billion. We continue to expect cash CapEx to be between $9.4 billion and $9.7 billion, driven by a capital efficiency unmatched in our industry on the back of our network integration and 5G leadership. We expect Q2 to remain elevated, just slightly lower than Q1 and then moderating in the back half of the year. Together, this results in higher free cash flow, including payments for merger-related costs, which is now expected to be in the range of $13.2 billion to $13.6 billion. This is up approximately 75% over last year. Thanks to our margin expansion and capital efficiency and does not assume any material net cash inflows from securitization. And as I mentioned, this also represents a free cash flow to service revenue margin, which is multiple percentage points higher than peers and based on the cadence of CapEx, I would expect free cash flow in Q2 to be slightly higher than Q1 and then ramp in the back half of the year. We continue to expect our full year effective tax rate to be between 24% and 26%. And finally, as we execute our strategy of winning and expanding account relationships, we continue to expect full year postpaid ARPA to be up approximately 1% in 2023. All right. Before I wrap up, I want to give a quick update on the sale of our wireline assets to Cogent. The process is progressing very smoothly led by Dave and the team at Cogent, and we now expect the transaction to close in early May. On a quarterly basis, this will lead to approximately $125 million lower wholesale and other service revenue and approximately $175 million lower cost of service expenses with a nominal impact to SG&A. With the mid-quarter closing, we expect a partial impact in Q2 with the full quarter impact beginning in Q3. So, in closing, we expect 2023 to be another year of profitable growth and even greater free cash flow expansion as we continue to extend our network leadership and further scale our differentiated profitable growth opportunities. And with that, I will now turn the call back over to Jud to begin the Q&A. Jud? Jud Henry: Thanks, Peter. All right. Operator, let’s take our first question, please. Q&A Session Follow T Mobile Usa (NYSE:TMUS) Follow T Mobile Usa (NYSE:TMUS) We may use your email to send marketing emails about our services. Click here to read our privacy policy. Operator: Our first question comes from Phil Cusick with J.P. Morgan. Please proceed. Phil Cusick: Hi, guys. Thanks very much. Maybe we can start with the revenue per user. I think you said the same thing about ARPA this quarter that you did last approximately up 1% in 2023. We have been looking at the Go5G plans, which were launched recently. Can you remind us of the path of customers moving to Magenta MAX, how long that took and sort of the and is that a good guide for the pace of the Go5G upgrades and how that drives that ARPA lift? Mike Sievert: Hey, Phil. I will start and maybe turn to Mike and Peter. First of all, we are really excited about this new lineup. But I want to point out a couple of things. One, Magenta MAX continues to be in the lineup and so this is being added to Magenta MAX. And as we think about the price point represented by these kind of mainstream popular plans, we are going to be kind of thinking of it as Magenta MAX and higher. So that would include Magenta MAX, it would include the new Go5G Plus Plan kind of as a category. And what you see is, our expectation is that, that run rate we have been seeing in that 60s will carry forward and we have certainly seen that since the launch and it was true for Magenta MAX all through Q1. So really great to see that our popular plans are also our highest value plans packed with the things T-Mobile customers are looking for. And maybe, Mike, you can talk about — unpack that a little bit. Mike Katz: Yeah. I mean, I think like Mike said, it’s a great representation of the differentiation of our strategy, particularly as it comes to the way that we construct rate plans and do pricing, because with Go5G and Go5G Plus, you see new plans that are incremental to our portfolio that really give customers choice. And with these plans, we packed in the most benefits that we have ever done in the plan with increased roaming in Mexico and Canada, which is the most popular destination for our customers, increased hotspot, which we are seeing utilized more, especially in a post-pandemic world where people are moving around and working everywhere and with Go5G Plus. The first plan, we are guaranteed in the plan, new and existing customers get the same deal on phones, not a promotion like you see from other folks. So we are really bullish on these plans. The early response to them has been really good. One of the things I will say about ARPU is ARPU is a mix-driven metric. And one of the things that you see with us, particularly with the success in some of the segments that we have talked about as being opportunities for us, whether it’s business or 55-plus. The mix of our success in those segments is reflected in our ARPU and it’s one of the reasons why we look a lot at ARPA and we focus a lot on opportunities where we can attract customers and retain customers that demonstrate a really high CLV, like we see with business customers and like we see with 55-plus customers. So you will see us continue to focus on those kinds of accretive value creating opportunities in our portfolio. Mike Sievert: Peter? Peter Osvaldik: Yeah. I think the only thing I add and Mike said it really well is, it’s such a mix-driven metric. And for example, on the segments that Mike spoke about 55-plus brings in customers with CLVs that are actually above the average CLV, right? They may have lower ARPUs but very high accretive CLVs, because that’s how we really model everything and the growth that we are trying to drive, as you know, is profitable growth for us. So on an ARPU-based metric, because of that mix shift, I’d probably expect it to be sequentially relatively flat. But, yes, as you pick up some more mix of potentially 5G Plus — Go5G Plus, excuse me, 5G everywhere here, then you could see some opportunity in the latter half of the year. But ARPA and accounts is really where the focus is to create that value expansion in the company. Phil Cusick: That’s helpful. Thanks, guys. Mike Sievert: Thanks, Phil. Yeah. Operator, next question, please? Operator: Our next question comes from Simon Flannery with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed. Mike Sievert: Hey, Simon. Landon Park: Hi. This is Landon on for Simon. Thanks for taking the question. Mike Sievert: Okay. Landon Park: I am wondering if we could start on the home broadband side. Maybe can you talk about how you are seeing churn in the different cohorts there and what your latest thoughts are on some of the fiber trials you have been running, as well as the latest thoughts on a potential millimeter wave overlay on that front? Mike Sievert: Yeah. I will start and then we will see who wants to jump in. There’s a bunch there. First of all, you are asking about our fiber trials. And I don’t have a lot new to report there, other than this is a team that, obviously, through our leadership in high-speed Internet and 5G is very committed to being winners in broadband. And so for us, being able to get involved, learn, understand what drives CLV, understand the service models, the technology models, et cetera, is something that’s very important and you see us continuing to do that. We haven’t taken any decisions beyond that other than anything we learn there is accretive to us being in this business and you see that we are already in this business as a major player in the 5G variant. As it relates to what we are seeing in the business itself, I am very pleased. I mean Net Promoter Scores for this business continue to be higher than average cable and higher-than-average fiber in the country. So people love what T-Mobile is serving up to them and that’s important and it informs the churn models, as you are saying. Now we have a very young base and so to your point, we look at it on a cohorted view and some of those aging customers from earlier, we really like what we are seeing in terms of their retention. So really pleased and you can see Net Promoter Score as kind of an indicator of that. Mike, why don’t you jump in, anything else you want to share on that? Mike Katz: I would just say to Mike’s point, as the customer base is growing as we are seeing more cohorts in the longer tenures, we are seeing sequential decreases in churn. And it really does start with what Mike said, this is a great product. It’s a product that really that doesn’t require any trade-offs from customers. It’s got a great NPS and you are seeing it pull heavily from cable. Cable is the biggest contributor to our customer base in this business. And we have built a model and a go-to-market process that now is reliably delivering plus or minus 500,000 customers a quarter, which gives us a lot of confidence in this number that we talked about a couple of years ago of us getting to several millions at the end of this planning period. Mike Sievert: Okay. And last part of your question was about where do we go beyond our current model and I want to remind everybody what the current model is before answering that, because it kind of speaks to the opportunity here, because others have side eye to what we are doing and said, well, you know there’s a limited opportunity to that. What they are doing over there, and we are like, well, right. I mean we have said that all along. We expect this to be a 7 million unit to 8 million unit opportunity the way we are doing it right now, which is essentially selling excess capacity on our network. So remember, the way this works is, we have created a nationwide mapping of every household in this country, map them to every sector on every tower and determined which sectors no normal amount of mobile wireless use will take up our rapidly expanding capacity and that is where we approve applicants for high-speed Internet on 5G. So we are essentially selling our excess capacity. We see that, that takes us into those high single-digit millions of households in the planning period. Now the question that you asked about millimeter wave is really part of a broader question that says, whether for millimeter wave or not, would we entertain the idea of a capital burden to 5G home Internet plan. And yeah, we would entertain that. It would have to be smart. We would have to have a way to make it capital efficient. We haven’t taken any decisions on that. I don’t know if you want to share a little bit of our thinking or kind of what we see as the opportunity of, but the short answer of it is we haven’t taken a decision on it, but of course, we are interested in it. Neville Ray: Well, thanks, Mike, and great question, Simon. And I would say that our 2.5 spectrum that we are using today is serving us so well, because we have so much excess capacity. We are moving now from 200 — this quarter we are reporting 275 million POPs covered by with this mid-band spectrum and we are moving towards 300 coverage by the end of the year, giving us new opportunities also to serve other HSI opportunities. Then I would say that we are always looking at millimeter wave when we are doing trials and testing, but it’s limited in reach and we have to remember that it’s limited in reach and we will put it into an economic formula over time to see if it makes sense to pursue it. Mike Sievert: Terrific. Thanks for joining the call. Landon Park: Thank you very much. Mike Sievert: All right. Operator, next question, please. Operator: Our next question comes from John Hodulik with UBS. Please proceed. Mike Sievert: Hi, John. John Hodulik: Great. Hey, Mike. Maybe a couple of questions. First just on the competitive environment. You mentioned Verizon has been a little bit sort of ladder from an advertising statement. I think from a promotion standpoint, too, and Comcast we had some success with their sort of free line offer similar what Charter has been doing. Just how would you characterize the competitive environment in wireless as it stands today and sort of what gives you the confidence to sort of raise the postpaid numbers as we look into the rest of the year? And then on the buyback, a bit higher than we thought and you are sort of pretty far along on the authorization, should we expect the buyback to slow through the year as you bump up against that existing authorization? Thanks. Mike Sievert: Great. So competition and buyback. I will start on competition and then turn to Jon Freier. I would say, it’s competitive out there. And that being said, I have probably done 50 of these calls for T-Mobile and that’s been the case for all 50 of them. It’s competitive out there and we have made it more competitive through the creation of this version of T-Mobile. What I said in my prepared remarks is that we have demonstrated time and time again that regardless of the competitive mill, we find our way through to accretive profitable growth, and that’s because our strategy is so differentiated. So I am not going to repeat all that here, other than to say, of course, it’s really competitive. I find the industry a rational level of competition, even the competitors you talked about have been pulsing in and out. Some of the offers have been eyebrow raising but they pulse in and out. I think to me, it feels competitive and rational and we look at our differentiated strategy. And what we have within our control and we see our way through to increasing our overall guidance for the year. But maybe tell us on the ground, Jon, what your team is seeing as we compete last quarter and this quarter. Jon Freier: Yeah. You bet. So, yeah, like Mike said, it is a competitive environment, but that’s nothing really new for us and we are seeing — continuing to see real solid demand out there. When you look at our overall traffic, when you look at the interest, we are seeing incredible demand that you can see, obviously manifested in our Q1 numbers. And even so far in Q2, we are seeing really strong demand and like we said earlier in our prepared comments, not only strong demand as a whole, but strong demand around prime customers and the fact that we had our highest mix of prime customers. We are continuing to see a very healthy activating revenue number in terms of new accounts switching to Magenta MAX and now Go5G Plus, and since we even launched that on Sunday, we are seeing really good numbers kind of an early peek into what’s happening there. And then I would just tell you, too, from what’s happening in the marketplace is, again, our differentiated position in what we are doing in smaller markets and rural areas. And one of the things that we talked to you about in 2021 at Analyst Days, we had this ambition to move from 13% share of households to 20% by the end of 2025. And what we are really excited about is that we are already halfway there. We are now at 16.5% in terms of our share in household position. So more than halfway there or halfway there, but in less than half the time over that planning horizon. And when you look at what we are doing relative to others, it’s really coming down to four things in smaller markets, rural areas. One, is we are building out this — the markets out there with network and distribution. We are now playing in two-thirds of smaller markets in real areas, 140 million people, 50 million households, 40% of the U.S. Two, we are really unlocking switching and getting switching moving. Last quarter, I told you that switching was up 350 basis points on a year-over-year basis, we are sustaining that with now postpaids win share in the upper 30s. Three, is when you look at what’s happening with high speed Internet, we talked about that just a few moments ago, but that’s a new front door for us that gets, even before people are thinking about switching mobile, we can get into the household as a catalyst for customers to be thinking about moving their mobile services into T-Mobile from AT&T, Verizon, et cetera. And then lastly, what we have that’s different in those particular markets is we have a dedicated and focused team where we are building out hundreds of stores about a little bit more than 400 stores since we have started this venture out in the smaller markets and rural areas. So when you look at what’s happened under the ground, strong demand really getting after it in 40% of the U.S. from smaller markets and real areas and then when you look at the overall health and the quality of the customer that we are talking to, it’s never been better. Mike Sievert: So it’s been two years and we have made our way halfway from 13% to 16.5% market share and we are only really competing in two-thirds of the space. It’s just been this rapid fire deployment, and it’s — you should be so proud of what’s happening there. Jon, at the risk of filibustering your competition question, I have one more thing. I feel like we shouldn’t answer a question about competition unless we talk about cable. Jon Freier: Right. Mike Sievert: And we are a very competitive company, so one thing I will give our team a little bit of credit on is that, we have pretty good diagnostics and telemetry on what’s going on in the marketplace and so we are able to kind of see what happens with each of the competitors as the quarter unfolds and I can make a couple of predictions for you. You saw it in Comcast numbers this morning, very strong. Charter had a blockbuster quarter, we think, in phone net additions and we saw that unfolding through the quarter. But one of the things we try to do when we sort of make out — at least for us, when we make our operating decisions is we try to figure out, well, what’s behind it and double click into it. And what we see going on is that, for example, in this big number, they are about to report, about 75%, we think, of the uptick from prior normal levels, let’s say, a year ago, are in non-parts sort of printed net adds, like drop you a free line in the bag or kind of low calorie net adds. And so we try to kind of adjust for that when we make our operating decisions as to how fast to run and where and how to compete, because they are really — it’s kind of a quantitative easing happening in the marketplace. There’s just new adds being printed that don’t appear to be coming from any of the incumbent players. So it’s kind of important to adjust for all that, at least for us, as we make our operating decisions. It looks to us about 75% of the uptick has been those kinds of nets. So you actually asked two questions, yeah, your second question was about the buyback. John Hodulik: Right. Mike Sievert: And let me say a couple of things and I will turn it over to Peter. Like, I wouldn’t read too much into how fast we are going and I cannot make any predictions for you as to how that will play out in the future. I could just tell you that generally speaking, we are going fast because we think we are getting a relative great deal on the stock and it’s not normal for management to talk a lot about valuation. But since you have hired us to conduct this buyback on your behalf, we have to make operating decisions with an idea in mind about whether or not we are getting a relative value. And our team thinks and our Board thinks it is and so we have authorized moving quickly, because we look at this rapidly developing cash flow picture and a lot of people are increasingly valuing T-Mobile on our value relative to cash production and we see a lot of potential ahead for a diminishing opportunity for us to be able to grab shares at these share prices and so we are moving really fast. I cannot predict for you, though, what that means going forward, obviously, we are going to take it one step at a time. Peter Osvaldik: Yeah. The only thing I’d add, Mike, is, of course, we — I am personally very excited about how it’s gone and while we can’t speak about anything more than the $14 billion target, that’s been approved by the Board, remember, what allows all of that is the cash flow generation of this business, as you have mentioned. And frankly, both with regards to the longer term and the underpinning of that opportunity for up to $60 billion in share buybacks through just the end of 2025 and here we are in 2023 already. Remember, this machine and this free cash flow production continues into 2026 and beyond. But the one thing I look at is that is the underpinnings that allows the shareholder return machine to go and you just saw us once again raise what was already ambitious guidance for the year based on our confidence just a quarter in. So in that regard and how the share buybacks are progressing, I am very pleased. Mike Sievert: Okay. We better keep moving. We gave you quite an answer there, John. John Hodulik: Okay. Thanks. Mike Sievert: Operator, next question? You bet. Operator: Our next question comes from Jonathan Chaplin with New Street Research. Please proceed. Mike Sievert: Hey, Jonathan. Jonathan Chaplin: Hey, guys. I am going to ask two questions as well, if that’s okay. The color you just gave us on small markets, some of the progress you are making on market share is super helpful. I am wondering if you can give us exactly the same context for business in terms of where you are in share and any color you can give us around sort of the number of business accounts or business lines you have would be super helpful? And then on the Phone Freedom Plan which looks like it really has the potential to unlock trapped customers, as you suggest. Can you help us understand what the impact of that is on EBITDA expectations for the rest of the year? You have got, on the positive side, obviously, you are pushing people into higher ARPU plans. But then presumably to trigger a higher upgrade rate and so that’s a cost against it and how do those two things net together in the guidance? Mike Sievert: Okay. Sounds great. Well, let’s go first to Callie. I will just say she’s going to give you exactly what you asked for, which is some color on what’s going on, but probably not what was behind what you asked for, which is lots of racking and stacking of market share numbers and things like that. We are moving really fast here and we want to keep it competitive as to some of the details. But maybe tell us what you are seeing in the marketplace? Callie Field: Yeah. Thanks, Mike, and thanks, John, for the question. You know we have a longstanding goal to be the growth leader in business and I am really pleased to see that we are making very nice progress towards doubling our market share. We are growing in customers and in revenue. And we are taking share from AT&T and Verizon. In fact, in Q1, as Mike mentioned in his opening remarks, our business account growth, our phone net adds and our phone churn were all better than Verizon. And while AT&T reported declines in FirstNet quarter-over-quarter, we saw a 2.5 times growth in Connecting Heroes. So we are winning and we are winning across every segment. In Enterprise, we were selected to be the exclusive partner nationwide for AAA to develop roadside connectivity using partners like Dialpad with a collaboration tool and in our phone solutions. Siemens Energy selected T-Mobile their exclusive partner, UPS, Oracle, Dell Resorts. These are all companies that are choosing T-Mobile, because of the quality, the value and the performance of our network. In the government space, I will add, I am actually really proud of the team for the work that we have been doing with Veteran Affairs. The VA just selected T-Mobile as a primary partner for nine years with over 50,000 phone lines, as well as to create health care 5G solutions in the vertical. So we are very excited about that. In SMB, what I can say in SMB is that, we have seen net positive port trends versus Verizon for four quarters straight in a row. So it’s great profitable rates, great CLVs, competing not only like I said, on the best value, but also a superior product and experience. You know businesses buy because they have tested the product and we surpassed the competition. Mike Sievert: It could be a little bit of a canary in the coal mine for us, too, because of that fact, that last fact that you just shared, Callie, that businesses aren’t going so much on brand reputation. They actually check out the phones, like sometimes hundreds of them before making these decisions and compare us head-to-head. And so businesses through their testing now that we now have the best network and we do get questions about, well, how are you going to keep competing if the incumbent guys just keeps slashing their prices to hang on to those customers. And what is missed in that dialogue is that that’s not actually the only factor going into this decision process. Callie Field: Yeah. Mike Sievert: I mean businesses have corporate liable lines for a reason. They want to take responsibility for this connection, because it’s mission-critical and we can save them some money. I mean we are the Un-carrier, but they are picking us because we are the best network. And that’s been a breakthrough that I would say was not the case the same way a couple of years ago. So you are hearing a lot of optimism there. One thing we did here as we listened in, were some in the industry is kind of saying, hey, there’s a sort of a sector decline happening, lots of layoffs, companies aren’t interested in business lines anymore, there’s sort of a pause going on. That is not our experience and you can hear that in the optimism of what Callie is saying. Okay, your second question was about Phone Freedom and what’s going on there. So maybe we will start with Mike and then there was a particular EBITDA outlook question associated with Peter. Mike Katz: Yeah. Like I mentioned before, Phone Freedom kind of had two big components to it. One was the rate plan Go5G, Go5G Plus, which, Jonathan, as you indicated, has this benefit of upgrade built into it. And then the second thing, which I think is also an important input to the second part of the question you asked is, we launched a promotional program called the Easy Unlock. And what the Easy Unlock, the insight it’s really going off of is both what Mike talked about in terms of the dissatisfaction that AT&T customers have, 50% more reports that they want to leave their current carrier than in Verizon and T-Mobile. And when they want to leave, it’s incredibly difficult, both because of long-term contracts, but also because they have the most customer unfriendly unlock process in the entire industry. And what we wanted to do is make switching incredibly easy and that’s what we did with that program. And I think that’s one of the things that will really help us unlock the switcher pool a little bit, which when we know happens, T-Mobile is the disproportionate winner. Peter Osvaldik: Yeah. And with regards, Jonathan, to the EBITDA guidance, I mean, frankly, even at year end, we had already assumed a certain level of opportunity here. Customers were clearly telling us, especially through the back half of last year that they are looking for what this best value, best network combination can provide in the form of Magenta MAX at the time. And so that was an inspiration that we said we were going to pack an even more fully featured plan out there. So I’d say all of the revenue assumptions around this, as well as customer acquisition leading to high CLVs is all packed into core EBITDA, the guide that we provided to you. I know there was also a question on social around — well, how does that impact the contract asset, and frankly, to say that was — the contract asset went up sequentially from Q4, but that was really some of the promotions that we had in place and continued into Q1, as well as some of the business promotions. But in the current core EBITDA guidance that we put out there, there’s an assumption actually that the contract asset will decrease to quite an immaterial net impact for the year, and again, in the current guide that we gave. Mike Sievert: Good stuff. Okay. Jonathan Chaplin: Great. Thanks, guys. Mike Sievert: How do we go over to the ones coming in on Twitter. So all get ready, there’s — you are always popular and your topic is always popular online. Let’s see. I will go to Bill Ho , I want to talk about the network. And this is really about — he’s giving some stats here, but I think the question is really about, can you tell us about depth and breadth. So we have 275 million people covered by ultra-capacity 5G mid-band and we are going to 300 million. How easy or hard is it in these last 25 million or how easy or hard is it in the last 100 million and that’s kind of interesting if you compare to where the competitors are right now and what’s still ahead of them. But then in that, can you also talk about the depth, how much spectrum is where we are going? Ulf Ewaldsson: Right. I mean if we start with the breadth, we continue to build out and we are now reporting the 275 million as you catch here and we are — have about 25 million to go. We are very confident that we are going to reach the 300 million by the end of the year. It gets harder and harder. And as a rule of thumb, I would say that, it’s about 3 times harder for every 10 million that you add. So that’s about how hard it gets. And the reason is, of course, the geography of the U.S., where it’s a very vast geography with a very high population density in some communities. So it’s very easy when you start out and it gets harder and harder to do it. But we are very confident that we are going to reach that with the build plan that we have today. When it comes to the depth of the network, it’s just amazing how we continue to just move more and more frequency assets over from LTE to 5G. We today have 150 megahertz dedicated on our mid-band, which is giving us tremendous speeds. We have increased our speed advantage on the downlink speeds compared to competition in this last quarter and we are actually going to end up the year with 200 megahertz of dedicated spectrum just on the mid-band. So it’s just fantastic to see that journey moving forward with our tech team. Mike Sievert: Which means with each passing day, the overall capacity of this network is rapidly expanding. It’s a fascinating thing when you listen to what Ulf says too, about how the easy part is that first 100-and-something million POPs, right, which generally corresponds to where our competitors are. And so we get questions a lot about, hey, you guys jumped out with a couple of year lead in 5G, aren’t they catching you. And hopefully, you can understand when you see where we already are and where we are at the end of the year. Now there’s still years behind us because that last part is really difficult and it’s really important for the overall perception that a customer has about the brand. You have to be great outside the core urbans with a high capacity offering for somebody to believe you have a high capacity offering. And that matters to them even if they don’t leave that space all the time. So it’s really important, and it’s one of the many reasons why we have a durable leap. Okay. Should we go back to the calls? Let’s do it. Operator, next question, please? Operator: Our next question comes from Brett Feldman with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed. Brett Feldman: Yeah. Thanks for taking my question. Mike Sievert: Hi, Brett. Brett Feldman: Hi, Mike. So you made an interesting observation when you were talking about churn. You pointed out that you had the best year-on-year improvement in churn, but you also noted that you don’t yet have the lowest churn in this category. And that’s interesting because you also noted that you have very large cohorts in your customer base and as a group exhibit a lower churn profile than comparable cohorts at your peers. So it certainly seems like there’s an opportunity to keep driving churn down across the base. So when you look at the pockets of your customers where the churn profile is still elevated, why is that — how do you think about how much of an opportunity that is and is it actually part of your underlying business plan to continue driving churn lower or do you think you have hit some sort of plateau? Thanks. Mike Katz: Yeah. Thanks, Brett. Listen, I think, we are at a fascinating sort of historical moment in the history of our company. If you think about it, we have spent six years on the chapter of our company comprised of dreaming about and then completing and then integrating the merger that would allow us to leapfrog AT&T and Verizon from being last place in the LTE era to first place in the 5G era. And now we have generally gotten that done, we have the best network in the country, we have the best values and we have generally completed that merger. And so now we have work to do to convince the American public that it’s true. And to me, I am inspired a little bit by the journey of standalone T-Mobile that did achieve the lowest churn rates in the industry, even without the advantages of the network strength. And so now you see us really focused on prime customers. We have the highest prime rate in the history of our company right now. You see us focusing on business customers. You see us focusing on travelers, some of the best customers in the industry now waking up more and more to the fact that T-Mobile is the best choice for them and that’s a journey, convincing the country that what’s true is true, will take some time. But let me tell you this, our goal — the answer to your question is, yes, our goal is to have the lowest churn in the industry on postpaid phones. And we already have it on prepaid, we are going to have it on postpaid phones. Of course, we should. I mean we have the best network and the best prices. That means we should have the lowest churn. And so we have been through this worst to first journey before we standalone T-Mobile. We are kind of midway through it with the new version of the company and full of optimism about where it can finally land. Those big sort of quarter-by-quarter kind of merger-driven lurches forward are mostly behind us, right, because the integration is behind us. So now it’s that hard slog just like we showed you we could do when we were standalone T-Mobile. Brett Feldman: Okay. Thank you. Mike Sievert: Okay. You bet. Great. Next question, please? Operator: Our next question comes from Michael Rollins with Citigroup. Please proceed. Mike Sievert: Hey, Michael. Michael Rollins: Thanks and good afternoon. Hi. Two questions. First, going back to the customer unlock opportunities, where is the industry and T-Mobile on eSIM capabilities and is this a topic that’s important to helping you propel unlocks and switching opportunities? And then just secondly, do you have visibility on whether or not DISH will exercise its option to buy your 800 megahertz spectrum, and if they don’t, what is the next steps for T-Mobile with respect to that spectrum band? Mike Sievert: Great. I will start with the DISH one and then give Mike a chance to think up and answer on the eSIM one. The — no, we don’t have visibility into it yet. DISH asked for an extension in the decision. We didn’t object to that of about 60 days. And the way our consent decree works is it’s entirely up to them. We are here to support them and so we will wait to hear what they decide. I am in touch with Charlie. So as I learn more, we may engage and be able to be helpful in that. But it’s — the way it works is it’s entirely up to them and so if they want the spectrum under the terms of the consent decree, it’s theirs. And if not, the way it works is that it would go to auction and it would maybe be in the hands of someone else. And so we will wait and see how it all unfolds and we are here to support whatever decision that they make. On eSIM, this is fascinating how this has all happened across the industry and there hasn’t been that much discussion about it. One of the limiters has been this phone locking phenomenon that we are talking about with Phone Freedom. Because what happens with an eSIM is on a locked phone, even though that second SIM is available, if the phone is locked, you still can’t use that second SIM very easily and so there’s been some barriers to the friction coming out of the system, the way eSIM may be promised. But we are big fans of it. You saw us a few months ago, introduced great switching capabilities for you to actually try our network on the second SIM if your phone allows that. That’s been a lot of fun for people to be able to test drive our network. But, Mike, maybe you can give some color on what we are seeing. Mike Katz: Yeah. I was going to say something really similar. We are big fans of eSIM, really for two big reasons. One, we think it’s a much better customer experience. You don’t have to deal with plastic and switching in and out of your phones every couple of years when people are upgrading. And for a company that wins when switching happens, eSIM does make switching easier and we have tried to take advantage of that with the technology that Mike mentioned earlier, where we launched an app where you can easily test the T-Mobile network side-by-side with your incumbent network on the same phone and when you are ready to switch, you can just do it in a couple of clicks. So we are fans of eSIM. We are really supportive of it, and we are optimistic that it will help accelerate even programs that we talked about today with that Phone Freedom. Mike Sievert: Okay. How about… Michael Rollins: Just real quick… Mike Sievert: … twitter, Roger Adler want to talk about T-Mobile for Business. I think we hit most of that, unless you want to provide any color on what we are seeing with HSI in T-Mobile for Business. And then a separate question about, with our new Go5G plans, they are raised prices, do we think that will impact our subscriber growth. And I am glad you asked that, because, no. And in fact, the way we kind of did this is we added these plans and that won’t be immediately obvious to everybody, but we added them. So if you present at retailer online, you can still get Magenta and Magenta MAX. But these new plans in the early days, now that we have put them out there, they are really turning out to be very popular and so I am not worried — even notwithstanding the fact that they are being added, I am not worried at all. These are going to be really popular plans, because we design them right to the needs that we are hearing customers want in the marketplace. And this is really an interesting thing, because we called it Go5G for a reason. Our 5G customers are using massive amounts of data on our network. And people say, what’s the killer app of 5G. There are a lot of killer apps of 5G, but one of them is usage on your smartphone, which if you have T-Mobile and Magenta MAX or now Go5G Plus, you have massive connectivity and customers are soaking it up and that’s a real differentiator for us. And so we want to play into that advantage and encourage that kind of usage, because once they see what their phone can do, they are not going to want to live without it. We are already seeing that now at scale with millions of customers at Magenta MAX or above. Okay. So let’s go back to the phone, Jud. Jud Henry: Let’s do it. Mike Sievert: Operator, next question, please? Operator: Our next question comes from Craig Moffett with MoffettNathanson. Please proceed. Craig Moffett: Yeah. Hi. Two questions, if I could. One is I want to stay with the DISH theme for a minute. It’s becoming more and more openly discussed that DISH may eventually be a liquidation story. If that were to happen and if the FCC were willing, how much appetite do you have for more spectrum? And it sort of leads into my second question, which is just with respect to 5G, the new applications have been somewhat slower to develop than might have been expected. I wonder if you could just update us on 5G usage growth and how quickly the consumption of network resources is proceeding with 5G and if that is the differentiator you had hoped and expected it to be given your spectrum and network advantage? Mike Sievert: Yeah. Look, on the first one and I will turn to Mike for the second one. On the first one, Craig, I am not going to answer it, because my friend, John think he kind of did answer it and I think he was very unfairly misquoted. He gave an innocent answer to a hypothetical kind of along the lines of any time there’s spectrum, of course, we are interested and there are all kinds of headlines whether he wants to buy a DISH of the spectrum. Listen, first of all, I will say, I think, it’s a little premature question too. I don’t count DISH or Charlie out very easily. I have known him for a long time. So I think it’s a premature question. But then finally, it raises a larger issue. And if you reframe it this way, which is, does this wireless industry have enough spectrum over the long haul for American competitiveness. I’d say never, always there’s an opportunity for more and that speaks to public policy. The FCC lost its auction authority this year and T-Mobile and others have been urging Congress to restore that, because we need our strong regulatory body to be able to work with other agencies, create an ongoing long-term pipeline of spectrum for all the players in this industry so that we can continue to have connectivity in this country that’s the best in the world. And I know the FCC feels that way. I presume my competitors feel that way. But I think it’s very important that we get back on track with this and that actions that are completed get put to use for the American consumer, because there’s work that’s pending there and that the FCC regains its authority quickly to be able to lead in this space going forward, the way they have done so well in the past. And I think that’s very important for our company, for our competitors, but also for American competitiveness. Your second question is about apps in 5G. 5G — it was sort of — it kind of came out and I will say our competitor’s kind of led the way on this with a lot of hype and euphoria around 20 gigabit connectivity in millimeter wave and it’s going to change the world and we are all going to be kind of human cyborgs and stuff like that. And we kind of never felt that way. I mean early on, we went right to 5G is a much better, like 10 times better at least 4G and that the killer apps are going to be smartphones at first and they are going to be our ability to get after home broadband. And we focused on the mid-band asset and eventually the rest of the industry followed. We were right. And the average T-Mobile customer is getting 10 times the connectivity that they got in 2018, 10 times faster. That’s amazing. And so what they are doing with it is amazing and so that obviously is unfolding. But there’s still the kind of side eye questions people get, which is where is all this augmented reality you said would come? And I’d say, well, first of all, our job is to create a great network and we have the best in the country. And as hardware and software developers look to a network to create innovations around, I think, they will choose T-Mobile. Whether they are moving faster or slower than predicted, doesn’t directly affect our business that much. We need to be the network that they choose as they get inspired with massive connectivity, not just in fits and starts and parts of the country, but all across this country the way T-Mobile can uniquely provide and that’s why we work with developers the way we do. But the rate and pace they go, that’s up to them. Anything to add? Mike Katz: The only other thing I’d add is that, let’s not forget about HIS, because HSI, I do think is still one of the big killer apps for 5G that you are seeing play out right now. 3.2 million customers running their home Internet in their house over our 5G wireless network and using hundreds of gigs a month on average, both in the big top 100 markets. But also importantly, many customers in rural areas, some of which this is the first high-speed option that existed and it only happened because of 5G. So I don’t think we can forget about HSI being one of those big killer 5G applications. Mike Sievert: Terrific. That’s right. Craig Moffett: That’s helpful. Thank you. Jud Henry: All right. Operator, we have got time for one more question. Mike Sievert: Oh! It’s the last one already. We are just getting warmed up. Operator: All right. Great. Our next question comes from David Barden with Bank of America. Please proceed. David Barden: Thanks so much guys. Yeah. Hey, Mike. Thanks for taking the question. I am glad you are warm. The — I guess the first question would be with the stock. The performance of the business has been great and the stock kind of just keeps bumping up against this 150 level. And I want to come back to this notion of the SoftBank top-up shares 48.8 million. Has there been any evolution in your thinking or conversations between yourselves and DT and SoftBank about using the remaining buyback authorization to simply clean that whole exercise up? It seems like it would be the most elegant and non-disruptive way to do it, and I’d love your comments on that? And then the second question is and I kind of know what your answer is, but I just kind of want to hear how you frame it, which is that you originally for most of the states, not every state, pledge that you would not raise prices in T-Mobile for three years and that expired in April 1, 2023, and then you came out with your new Un-carrier plan. But it’s within your toolkit now to be able to raise prices if inflation or other things happened, could you kind of give us a sense as to how you think about that relative to kind of T-Mobile’s brand positioning in the market? Thanks. Mike Sievert: Yeah. Sure. We maintain and have for the entire decade long journey of the Un-carrier an envelope of superior pricing versus our benchmark competitors and we intend for that to continue. Now as things shift and move, we maintain that envelope and it’s not a matter of sort of a static price or being dogmatic about price has always got to be static, but we always want to be a relative value. And we can do that sustainably because we have a great balance sheet, we have the right capital structure, we have the right spectrum structure and other advantages that allow us to continue to profitably have a pricing envelope superiority versus our benchmark competitors. But as things move in the market with inflation or otherwise, of course, there’s an opportunity for us to move along with those things. But we have the customers are North Star and our brand value proposition to take care of. That’s why you have seen us so focused on offering higher value offers that customers self-select up to and it really shows their love for our brand that when we put something out there like Magenta MAX or now Go5G Plus, they flock to it. They — our customers are buying up our rate card voluntarily in an era of inflation, because they appreciate the value of what we are putting in front of them. That speaks a lot about the brand and about the covenant between us and our customers on this brand. Okay, your first question was about the SoftBank true-up shares. And just to kind of remind everybody, there is this 48 million some shares that would trigger upon $150 stock price being at an average 45-day VWAP. And the short answer to your question is, of course, I mean, of course, we talk to them. They are a close partner of ours. We talk to DT all the time. We are aware of this question and this issue. But we have nothing to report. And so — but I mean it’s of interest, and it’s not lost on us why you are asking the question. If there ever was to be a transaction, it has to be something that would work for everyone. I will say this, and the earlier question about our buyback pace, we have already bought back more shares than this potential dilution event and we intend to buy back a lot more shares going forward, should our capital program continue to support that as we have outlook it would. And so this is actually a fairly small potential event in the grand scheme of the shareholder remuneration that our cash flow production supports. And so anyway, with that, anything to add to that? Peter Osvaldik: No. Great. Mike Sievert: Perfectly said. Anything to add to the whole show? Peter Osvaldik: The show must go on. Mike Sievert: All right. Well, we appreciate you guys. Thanks for tuning in and for asking all these questions. I am so proud of our team. It’s a fascinating year. It was fascinating for us to watch how it all started and the different perceptions people have. But one thing I hope that you take away from us is that, we are a team maniacally focused on delivering for you what we promised you we would do and that’s what we show up and try to do every single time and I am so proud that this was one more quarter where we were able to put down great results and outlook for you in 2023 that we are going to be proud of. So thanks for tuning everybody. See you later. Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the T-Mobile first quarter earnings call. We thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Have a pleasant day everyone. Follow T Mobile Usa (NYSE:TMUS) Follow T Mobile Usa (NYSE:TMUS) We may use your email to send marketing emails about our services. Click here to read our privacy policy......»»