Distribution Solutions Group Inc (DSGR) 2023 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Greetings, and welcome to the Distribution Solutions Group's First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) Please note this conference is being recorded.

您好，歡迎來到 Distribution Solutions Group 的 2023 年第一季度收益電話會議。 （操作員說明）請注意正在錄製此會議。

I will now turn the conference over to your host, Steven Hooser, Investor Relations. You may begin.

我現在將會議轉交給您的主持人，投資者關係部門的 Steven Hooser。你可以開始了。

Good morning, and welcome to the Distribution Solutions Group First Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. In conjunction with today's call, we have provided a Q1 earnings presentation that has been posted on the company's IR website at investor.distributionsolutiongroup.com.

早上好，歡迎來到 Distribution Solutions Group 2023 年第一季度收益電話會議。結合今天的電話會議，我們提供了第一季度收益報告，該報告已發佈在公司的 IR 網站 investor.distributionsolutiongroup.com 上。

Please note that statements on this call and in the press release contain forward-looking statements concerning goals, beliefs, expectations, strategies, plans, future operating results and underlying assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. In addition, statements made during this call are based on the company's views as of today. The company anticipates that future developments may cause those views to change, and we may elect to update forward-looking statements made today, but disclaim no obligation to do so. Management will also refer to non-GAAP measures, and reconciliations to the nearest GAAP measures that can be found at the end of the earnings release.

請注意，本次電話會議和新聞稿中的陳述包含有關目標、信念、期望、戰略、計劃、未來經營業績和基本假設的前瞻性陳述，這些陳述受風險和不確定因素的影響，可能導致實際結果與實際結果存在重大差異那些明示或暗示的。此外，本次電話會議中的聲明基於公司截至今日的觀點。公司預計未來的發展可能會導致這些觀點發生變化，我們可能會選擇更新今天所做的前瞻性陳述，但不承擔這樣做的義務。管理層還將參考非 GAAP 措施，以及與可在收益發布末尾找到的最接近的 GAAP 措施的調節。

The earnings press release issued earlier today was posted on the Investor Relations section of our website. A copy of the release has also been included in the current report on Form 8-K filed with the SEC. This call is being audio webcast on the Internet via Distribution Solutions Group Investor Relations page. A replay of this teleconference will be available through May 18, 2023.

今天早些時候發布的收益新聞稿發佈在我們網站的投資者關係部分。該新聞稿的副本也包含在當前向美國證券交易委員會提交的 8-K 表格報告中。此電話會議通過 Distribution Solutions Group 投資者關係頁面在互聯網上進行音頻網絡廣播。此電話會議的重播將在 2023 年 5 月 18 日之前提供。

I'll now turn the call over to Bryan King, DSG's Chairman and Executive Officer. Bryan?

我現在將電話轉給 DSG 董事長兼執行官 Bryan King。布萊恩？

Thanks, Steven and thank you all for joining to review our first quarter results. Joining me for today's call is Ron Knutson, DSG's Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Distribution Solutions Group delivered another record quarter of outstanding financial performance with expansion in both revenue and profitability. Steven mentioned the slide deck that we're using in conjunction with our prepared remarks.

謝謝史蒂文，感謝大家加入審查我們的第一季度業績。與我一起參加今天電話會議的是 DSG 的執行副總裁兼首席財務官 Ron Knutson。 Distribution Solutions Group 在收入和盈利能力均有所增長的情況下，又創下了創紀錄的季度財務業績。 Steven 提到了我們正在使用的幻燈片和我們準備好的評論。

Starting on Slide 4, we delivered strong sales of 28% on a comparable basis, which included almost 14% of organic growth. In addition, we generated first quarter adjusted EBITDA of $39 million representing our fourth consecutive quarter of expanded EBITDA margin into the double digits. We believe that our scale and breadth of products and services continue to provide competitive advantages in the specially industrial distribution industry. Our DSG operational teams are working well together, and we're seeing good evidence of wallet share growth, volume increases and encouraging and validating cross selling wins, as well as continued identification of an initiatives to capture cost synergies across each of our verticals.

從幻燈片 4 開始，我們在可比基礎上實現了 28% 的強勁銷售額，其中包括近 14% 的有機增長。此外，我們在第一季度產生了 3900 萬美元的調整後 EBITDA，這是我們連續第四個季度將 EBITDA 利潤率擴大到兩位數。我們相信，我們的產品和服務的規模和廣度將繼續在特殊工業分銷行業提供競爭優勢。我們的 DSG 運營團隊合作良好，我們看到了錢包份額增長、銷量增加、鼓勵和驗證交叉銷售勝利以及持續確定在我們每個垂直領域獲取成本協同效應的舉措的良好證據。

The first quarter's results further confirm the financial and commercial logic of the combination that took place only a year ago. An improved business model we now enjoy. The strength, depth and strong collegiality across the combined expertise of our leadership team is enhancing our performance and accelerating building a best in class specialty distribution company with strong market leadership across several distinct but increasingly coordinated value added verticals.

第一季度的業績進一步證實了一年前合併的財務和商業邏輯。我們現在享受的改進的商業模式。我們領導團隊綜合專業知識的實力、深度和強大的合作精神正在提高我們的績效，並加速建設一流的專業分銷公司，在幾個不同但日益協調的增值垂直領域擁有強大的市場領導地位。

As shareholders, together we will continue to benefit as our team identifies and executes on myriad value creation opportunities. As we highlighted during our fourth quarter call we continued strong sales momentum in the first quarter. Our business has successfully captured market share, delivered incremental margin expansion and generated additional cash flow in our first fiscal period of this new year and culminated a strong first full year or season so to speak, working increasingly well together. We are actively engaging customers with a goal of providing a simple and efficient and even more value added and customized customer experience as we remain hyper attentive to reinforcing our value proposition to our existing in markets.

作為股東，隨著我們的團隊識別和執行無數價值創造機會，我們將繼續受益。正如我們在第四季度電話會議中強調的那樣，我們在第一季度繼續保持強勁的銷售勢頭。我們的業務在今年的第一個財政期間成功地佔領了市場份額，實現了增量利潤擴張並產生了額外的現金流，並且可以說在第一個全年或第一個季度達到了高潮，合作越來越好。我們正積極吸引客戶，目標是提供簡單、高效、甚至更多增值和定制的客戶體驗，因為我們仍然高度關注加強我們對現有市場的價值主張。

We continue to monitor the overall demand environment for our products and solutions. We believe that further leveraging our strong historic customer relationships adds to organic growth increasingly, through cross selling our expanding value added customer centric capabilities in each of our channels.

我們繼續監控我們的產品和解決方案的整體需求環境。我們相信，通過在我們的每個渠道中交叉銷售我們不斷擴大的以客戶為中心的增值能力，進一步利用我們強大的歷史客戶關係將越來越多地促進有機增長。

Moving to Slide 5, I'm pleased to comment on the previously announced plan to acquire Hisco expected to close during the second quarter of this year. Hisco is a leading distributor of specialty products serving high growth industrial technology applications, with 38 locations across North America, and over $400 million in annual sales. This business most closely aligns with test equity, although anecdotally and curiously to me, each of several distribution investment banking friends that called to enthusiastically congratulate on the surprise announcement that we were able to get Hisco to join our vision of building out a scaled up best in class specialty distribution platform, each thought Hisco's capabilities fit more closely with different of our verticals, understanding how well it fits overall and how it more tightly binds test equities capabilities to the Gexpro solutions and Lawson verticals.

轉到幻燈片 5，我很高興對先前宣布的收購 Hisco 的計劃發表評論，該計劃預計將在今年第二季度完成。 Hisco 是服務於高增長工業技術應用的專業產品的領先分銷商，在北美擁有 38 個分支機構，年銷售額超過 4 億美元。這項業務與測試股權最接近，雖然對我來說是有趣和好奇的，但幾個分銷投資銀行的朋友中的每一個都熱情地祝賀我們能夠讓 Hisco 加入我們建立擴大最佳規模的願景的意外公告在一流的專業分銷平台中，每個人都認為 Hisco 的能力更適合我們不同的垂直領域，了解它在整體上的適合程度以及它如何更緊密地將測試股票能力與 Gexpro 解決方案和 Lawson 垂直領域結合起來。

We are excited that they so strongly saw how it strengthens our DSG value proposition through 4 table stakes. First, similar to our existing verticals opportunities to expand engagement with historic customers and the inaugural successes we've enjoyed in this area, we see Hisco and its expansion of TestEquity's OEM and MRO efforts around electronic production supply and expansion and extension of cross-selling and wallet share opportunities to further expand how customers are more broadly engaging in and deeply embracing our breadth of value-added and leadership around solutions.

我們很高興他們如此強烈地看到它如何通過 4 個賭注加強我們的 DSG 價值主張。首先，類似於我們現有的垂直機會擴大與歷史客戶的接觸以及我們在該領域取得的首個成功，我們看到 Hisco 及其在 TestEquity 圍繞電子產品供應的 OEM 和 MRO 努力的擴展以及交叉銷售的擴展和延伸和錢包分享機會，進一步擴大客戶如何更廣泛地參與和深入接受我們在解決方案方面的增值和領導力的廣度。

Second, Hisco brings new distinct value-added capabilities across the platform. For example, the business adds specialty materials and products that are not currently included in our DSG offerings. In addition, Hisco offers vendor-managed inventory and RFID programs with specialized warehousing for chemical management, logistics services and cold storage. Next, we're projecting with the addition of Hisco's leadership, market knowledge, footprint and close collaborative customer relationships, a meaningful geographic pull-through that spans deeper into Mexico and South America that we believe will create further operating leverage for their resource investment and our platform's distinctive capabilities, leading to sustained revenue and profitability growth and accelerated returns.

其次，Hisco 為整個平台帶來了全新的獨特增值功能。例如，該企業添加了我們的 DSG 產品中目前未包含的特殊材料和產品。此外，Hisco 還提供供應商管理的庫存和 RFID 計劃，以及用於化學品管理、物流服務和冷庫的專業倉儲。接下來，我們計劃增加 Hisco 的領導地位、市場知識、足跡和密切的合作客戶關係，這是一個有意義的地理突破，跨越更深的墨西哥和南美洲，我們相信這將為他們的資源投資創造進一步的運營槓桿和我們平台的獨特功能，帶來持續的收入和盈利增長以及加速回報。

And finally, we expect Hisco to accelerate our time line to a higher structural margin profile at the TestEquity Hisco vertical. Not to mention the incremental returns generated from associated cross-selling revenue growth accruing to our other verticals, which collectively has a meaningful effect on the future state of overall DSG profitability, return on investment on working capital and critically, DSG's accelerating ability to generate and grow free cash flow.

最後，我們希望 Hisco 能夠加快我們的時間表，在 TestEquity Hisco 垂直領域獲得更高的結構利潤率。更不用說我們其他垂直領域的相關交叉銷售收入增長產生的增量回報，它們共同對 DSG 整體盈利能力的未來狀態、營運資本投資回報率以及至關重要的是，DSG 加速產生和發展的能力產生重大影響增加自由現金流。

Hisco is an exciting addition, bringing DSG closer to the total scale and connectivity we identified 2 years ago that we desired where the flywheel should accelerate value creation and durability of this leading specialty distribution platform we created and remixing TestEquity's total revenue to be tilted more significantly towards electronic production supplies focused on OEM and MRO solutions provides a stronger, more consistent ballast for that vertical, while offering us more embedded value-added engagements to daily reinforce our total value to the customer, including more opportunities to collaborate with them on their test and measurement needs. While we are enthusiastic about what the future will look like, the closing is still subject to certain regulatory approvals, although we are progressing as planned toward a closing in the second half of this quarter.

Hisco 是一個令人興奮的補充，它使 DSG 更接近我們 2 年前確定的總規模和連通性，我們希望飛輪應該在哪裡加速我們創建的這個領先的專業分銷平台的價值創造和耐用性，並重新混合 TestEquity 的總收入以更顯著地傾斜專注於 OEM 和 MRO 解決方案的電子生產供應為該垂直領域提供了更強大、更一致的鎮流器，同時為我們提供了更多嵌入式增值服務，以每天增強我們對客戶的總體價值，包括更多與他們合作進行測試的機會和測量需求。儘管我們對未來充滿熱情，但關閉仍需獲得某些監管部門的批准，儘管我們正按計劃在本季度下半年完成關閉。

Before Ron covers the consolidated and operating company financial results, I would like to talk about operational progress and value drivers for each of our business units. First, Lawson Products is a leader in the MRO distribution of C-Parts offering vendor-managed inventory services. During the first quarter of 2023, Lawson exceeded our initial 2023 plan, realizing significant margin expansion that many of us who have been investors in Lawson for the last decade have been expectedly waiting. I was pleased with how well the team managed pricing, expense control and growth within its customer base.

在 Ron 介紹合併和運營公司的財務業績之前，我想談談我們每個業務部門的運營進展和價值驅動因素。首先，Lawson Products 是提供供應商管理庫存服務的 C 部件 MRO 分銷領域的領導者。在 2023 年第一季度，Lawson 超出了我們最初的 2023 年計劃，實現了利潤率的顯著增長，而過去十年來一直是 Lawson 投資者的我們中的許多人一直在等待。我對團隊管理定價、費用控制和客戶群增長的能力感到滿意。

Ron will dig in a bit deeper, but a large portion of Lawson's growth is coming from long, well-established relationships within their larger or strategic accounts and Kent automotive lines. Along with attracting new customers, some of which are coordinated introductions from the other verticals. For example, within both the Lawson and Kent strategic businesses, unique ship-to locations this quarter grew approximately 9% over a year ago quarter. While experiencing good expansion in the quarter as a leadership team and sales force, we see many more opportunities with the network effect and current internal initiatives expanding and accelerating the vertical.

Ron 將深入挖掘，但 Lawson 的增長的很大一部分來自於他們在更大或戰略客戶和 Kent 汽車產品線中長期建立的良好關係。在吸引新客戶的同時，其中一些是來自其他垂直行業的協調介紹。例如，在 Lawson 和 Kent 戰略業務中，本季度獨特的送貨地點比去年同期增長了約 9%。作為領導團隊和銷售團隊在本季度經歷了良好的擴張，我們看到了更多的機會，網絡效應和當前的內部計劃正在擴大和加速垂直領域。

We are focused on a balanced but more aggressive approach to driving growth and engagement with customers. We're making strategic investments in additional sales channels to support our customers, including inside sales, strategic account managers, web enhancements as well as better positioning our field sales team to drive higher conversion with our high-touch customers that create greater long-term value. Lawson is also investing in lead generation capabilities and CRM tools, all of which will be rolled out in the second half of the year, with the goal of helping our sales representatives across all sales channels become more productive, better equipped for cross-sell opportunities and to better serve our customers and to help make them more money.

我們專注於採用平衡但更積極的方法來推動增長和與客戶的互動。我們正在對其他銷售渠道進行戰略投資以支持我們的客戶，包括內部銷售、戰略客戶經理、網絡增強以及更好地定位我們的現場銷售團隊以推動與我們的高接觸客戶的更高轉化率，從而創造更大的長期價值。 Lawson 還投資於潛在客戶生成能力和 CRM 工具，所有這些都將在今年下半年推出，目的是幫助我們所有銷售渠道的銷售代表提高工作效率，更好地為交叉銷售機會做好準備更好地服務我們的客戶，幫助他們賺更多的錢。

Secondly, Gexpro Services is a leader in the supply chain solutions of largely C-Parts, specializing in VMI programs for high-spec OEM customers. We delivered strong first quarter operating results, driven by growth in many of our diversified end markets such as industrial power, aerospace and defense, Europe and in our recent acquisitions. In addition, we're starting to see strong year-over-year improvements for renewables in both the U.S. and Europe. Customers are interested in our renewables value proposition to combine expanded electrical, mechanical and hardware product offerings with kitting supply chain services and domestic manufacturing capabilities.

其次，Gexpro Services 是主要 C 零件供應鏈解決方案的領導者，專門為高規格 OEM 客戶提供 VMI 計劃。我們在第一季度取得了強勁的經營業績，這得益於我們許多多元化終端市場的增長，例如工業電力、航空航天和國防、歐洲以及我們最近的收購。此外，我們開始看到美國和歐洲可再生能源的同比增長強勁。客戶對我們將擴展的電氣、機械和硬件產品供應與配套供應鏈服務和國內製造能力相結合的可再生能源價值主張感興趣。

We have won some recent mandates that should accelerate our leadership as a value-added channel partner for the leading OEMs in that marketplace, helping them with solutions not only on the OEM side, but across accelerating demand around the retrofit and upgrade cycle for the installed base. Specifically, regarding what we are currently seeing in our end markets, aerospace and defense has sustained double-digit growth, and we expect this to continue.

我們最近贏得了一些授權，這些授權應該會加速我們作為該市場領先 OEM 的增值渠道合作夥伴的領導地位，幫助他們不僅在 OEM 方面提供解決方案，而且在圍繞已安裝設備的改造和升級週期加速需求方面提供幫助根據。具體而言，就我們目前在終端市場看到的情況而言，航空航天和國防保持了兩位數的增長，我們預計這種情況將繼續下去。

Additionally, in industrial power, demand remained strong, primarily due to changing dynamics in oil and gas. Gexpro services value creation initiatives this year are leveraging the synergies of our acquisitions securing cross-sell wins with both Lawson and TestEquity, expanding kitting and project services as well as launching the e-commerce platform. Additionally, the 5 acquisitions we closed over the last 2 years have cross-selling opportunities within the Gexpro services vertical, like the increased capabilities I alluded to that secured the expansive retrofit opportunity in the renewable space.

此外，在工業電力方面，需求依然強勁，這主要是由於石油和天然氣的動態變化。 Gexpro 今年的服務價值創造計劃正在利用我們收購的協同效應，確保與 Lawson 和 TestEquity 的交叉銷售勝利，擴大配套和項目服務以及推出電子商務平台。此外，我們在過去 2 年中完成的 5 次收購在 Gexpro 服務垂直領域內提供了交叉銷售機會，就像我提到的增加的能力確保了可再生空間的廣泛改造機會。

We are also working through an expanded pipeline of opportunities where our customers are engaging us as partners to offer solutions around additional product and service capabilities in a thoughtful and customer-centric way. Winning initial OEM programs where you're embedded with a customer can be a tediously long lead time affair. However, with our expanded -- and expanding number of customers we now work with, we have found a surprising number of them have celebrated embracing our collaborative approach and the benefits gained through the last year's verticals, combinations and strategic tuck-in acquisitions that have increased our set of resources, geographies and collective expertise.

我們還在努力擴大機會渠道，讓我們的客戶以合作夥伴的身份與我們接洽，以深思熟慮和以客戶為中心的方式提供圍繞附加產品和服務功能的解決方案。贏得與客戶密不可分的初始 OEM 計劃可能是一件冗長乏味的準備工作。然而，隨著我們現在合作的客戶數量不斷增加，我們發現有驚人數量的客戶慶祝採用我們的協作方法，並從去年的垂直、合併和戰略收購中獲得收益增加了我們的資源、地域和集體專業知識。

Third, moving to TestEquity. January started strong with pent-up demand that landed in early 2023. We also saw growth in the VMI sector, somewhat offset by meaningful declines in tech sector capital spend. First quarter chamber production hit new record highs and continues to grow as supply chains begin to stabilize, and we expect profitability to significantly improve after a period of working off backlog priced in a different market. Overall, digital sales were up 10% in the first quarter, with growth primarily from the new test equity and tea equipment e-commerce sites. We continue to capture cost synergies and production efficiencies by moving our products into distribution centers that are closer to our customers, resulting in what will be improved delivery times and lower shipping costs.

第三，轉向 TestEquity。 1 月份開始強勁，被壓抑的需求在 2023 年初出現。我們還看到 VMI 行業的增長，但在一定程度上被科技行業資本支出的顯著下降所抵消。第一季度腔室產量創下歷史新高，並隨著供應鏈開始穩定而繼續增長，我們預計在處理不同市場定價的積壓訂單一段時間後，盈利能力將顯著提高。總體而言，第一季度數字銷售額增長了 10%，增長主要來自新的測試資產和茶具電子商務網站。我們通過將產品轉移到離客戶更近的配送中心，繼續獲得成本協同效應和生產效率，從而縮短交貨時間並降低運輸成本。

Higher cost of capital are impacting some of our customers' behavior as we have seen a delay or reduction in their 2023 capital spend on new Test and Measurement Equipment, not helped by some of the lead time and supply chain challenges with continued overhang in some of our key channel partners. We are seeing this influence more of our customers in the current cloudy economic environment and with some lead time challenges around new product, renewing their focus on refurbishing rental equipment, which we expect to be a growth area for us and where it offers us the opportunity for higher margins.

更高的資本成本正在影響我們的一些客戶的行為，因為我們已經看到他們在 2023 年新測試和測量設備上的資本支出有所延遲或減少，而一些交貨時間和供應鏈挑戰以及一些持續過剩的問題並沒有幫助我們的主要渠道合作夥伴。在當前多雲的經濟環境中，我們看到這種影響更多的客戶，並且在新產品方面面臨一些交貨時間挑戰，他們重新關注翻新租賃設備，我們預計這將成為我們的增長領域，並為我們提供機會以獲得更高的利潤。

And finally, as we discussed earlier in the Hisco transaction, we expect to accelerate our time line to a higher structural margin profile of TestEquity and expanded engagement around cross-selling initiatives with the other verticals, which will have a meaningful effect on overall profitability and cash flow generation for DSG. As you can likely tell, our team is very encouraged by our prospects and internal initiatives to improve and expand all 3 operating verticals for 2023 and beyond.

最後，正如我們之前在 Hisco 交易中所討論的那樣，我們希望加快我們的時間表，使 TestEquity 的結構性利潤率更高，並擴大與其他垂直領域的交叉銷售計劃的參與，這將對整體盈利能力和DSG 的現金流生成。您可能會說，我們的團隊對我們的前景和內部計劃感到非常鼓舞，這些計劃旨在在 2023 年及以後改進和擴展所有 3 個垂直運營領域。

Now I'd like to turn the call over to Ron to walk through the financials. Ron?

現在我想把電話轉給羅恩，讓他了解一下財務狀況。羅恩？

Thank you, Bryan, and good morning, everyone. Turning to Slide 7. We're excited this morning to share with you the first quarter results of Distribution Solutions Group. Let me remind you that given the reverse merger accounting treatment, Lawson Products was not in the prior year first quarter results in 2022. However, all 3 of the businesses are included for the first quarter of the 2023 GAAP results. For ease of comparing the results, the slides that we're utilizing this morning adjust and include first quarter Lawson's financial results for 2022. But let me summarize the first quarter results.

謝謝你，布萊恩，大家早上好。轉到幻燈片 7。今天早上我們很高興與您分享 Distribution Solutions Group 第一季度的業績。讓我提醒您，考慮到反向合併的會計處理，Lawson Products 不在上一年 2022 年第一季度的業績中。但是，這 3 項業務都包含在 2023 年第一季度的 GAAP 業績中。為了便於比較結果，我們今天早上使用的幻燈片進行了調整，並包括 Lawson 2022 年第一季度的財務結果。但讓我總結一下第一季度的結果。

On a combined basis, we reported strong top line and bottom line results. As Bryan mentioned, we reported total sales growth of 28%, with organic sales growing 13.7% through both price and volume expansion. The first quarter results reflect 4 quarters of sequential margin improvement with Q1 finishing above 11% of revenue. I'll now walk through some of the specific numbers on a combined basis, and most of this is on Page 7 of our presentation.

綜合來看，我們報告了強勁的頂線和底線結果。正如 Bryan 提到的，我們報告的總銷售額增長了 28%，通過價格和數量的擴張，有機銷售額增長了 13.7%。第一季度的業績反映了連續 4 個季度的利潤率改善，第一季度完成了超過收入的 11%。我現在將綜合介紹一些具體數字，其中大部分內容位於我們演示文稿的第 7 頁。

First, consolidated revenue for Q1 was $348.3 million, with the inclusion of Lawson on a comparative basis, revenue increased 28% or $76.3 million over the first quarter of 2022, driven by organic growth plus approximately $39 million coming from acquisitions. Second, reported GAAP operating income was $16.7 million compared to $3 million a year ago quarter. On an adjusted basis, excluding merger-related costs, acquisition costs, stock-based compensation, severance and other nonrecurring items, adjusted EBITDA improved by $16.7 million to $39.4 million or 11.3% of revenue. And third, we reported GAAP diluted earnings per share of $0.28 for the first quarter compared to a loss of $0.25 a year ago quarter. On an adjusted basis, diluted EPS was $0.52 for the quarter versus 0 a year ago quarter.

首先，第一季度的合併收入為 3.483 億美元，在比較基礎上包括 Lawson，收入比 2022 年第一季度增長 28% 或 7630 萬美元，這主要得益於有機增長以及來自收購的約 3900 萬美元。其次，報告的 GAAP 營業收入為 1670 萬美元，而去年同期為 300 萬美元。在調整後的基礎上，不包括與合併相關的成本、收購成本、股票薪酬、遣散費和其他非經常性項目，調整後的 EBITDA 增加了 1670 萬美元，達到 3940 萬美元，佔收入的 11.3%。第三，我們報告第一季度 GAAP 稀釋後每股收益為 0.28 美元，而去年同期為虧損 0.25 美元。在調整後的基礎上，本季度稀釋後每股收益為 0.52 美元，而去年同期為 0。

Now moving on to Slide 8. Slide 8 includes the full run rate of all closed acquisitions as of March 31, 2023, as if they were owned for each quarter presented. For clarity, since we have not yet closed on Hisco, it is not reflected on this page. As you can see from these charts, our full run rate inclusive of acquisitions has seen nice sequential margin expansion from quarter-to-quarter, reflecting strong performance of each of the 3 operating companies. You'll notice Q4 is historically our slowest quarter given fewer selling days than the other quarters.

現在轉到幻燈片 8。幻燈片 8 包括截至 2023 年 3 月 31 日所有已完成收購的全部運行率，就好像它們在每個季度都擁有一樣。為清楚起見，由於我們尚未關閉 Hisco，因此不會反映在此頁面上。正如您從這些圖表中看到的那樣，我們的全運行率（包括收購）的利潤率環比增長良好，反映了 3 家運營公司各自的強勁表現。您會注意到第四季度是我們歷史上最慢的季度，因為銷售天數少於其他季度。

Turning to Slide 9. Let me now comment briefly on each of the businesses. Starting with Lawson, recall that since Lawson is the accounting acquiree, it is not in the GAAP reported numbers for Q1 2022. However, for purposes of these slides, we've included the premerger results. Sales were $125.3 million for the quarter. Please note that this does not include Bolt Supply as they are now included in the -- all other reporting segment. The Lawson segment average daily sales or ADS grew 19.4% organically over the first quarter of 2022 on an adjusted basis, and ADS grew 8.7% sequentially over the fourth quarter of 2022. The increase over a year ago was driven by strong performance within the strategic business, up nearly 25%; Kent Automotive up 28%, the core business up nearly 14% and government up 40%. During the quarter, unit volume was essentially flat versus a year ago, however, increased approximately 3% sequentially over the fourth quarter of 2022.

轉到幻燈片 9。現在讓我對每項業務進行簡要評論。從 Lawson 開始，回想一下，由於 Lawson 是會計被收購方，因此它不在 2022 年第一季度的 GAAP 報告數字中。但是，出於這些幻燈片的目的，我們已經包括了合併前的結果。本季度銷售額為 1.253 億美元。請注意，這不包括 Bolt Supply，因為它們現在包含在所有其他報告部分中。 Lawson 部門平均每日銷售額或 ADS 在調整後的基礎上比 2022 年第一季度有機增長 19.4%，ADS 在 2022 年第四季度連續增長 8.7%。比一年前的增長是由戰略部門的強勁表現推動的商業，增長近25%； Kent Automotive 上漲 28%，核心業務上漲近 14%，政府部門上漲 40%。本季度單位銷量與一年前基本持平，但與 2022 年第四季度相比環比增長約 3%。

Lawson's growth during the quarter was achieved through an increased share of wallet with existing customers and new customer relationships, in particular, within strategic or large accounts in our Kent Automotive businesses. In both of those pieces of our business, we shipped to approximately 9% more unique locations this quarter than a year ago. Lawson continues to realize steady improvement in its gross margin percentage. While growth within our larger strategic customers is putting pressure on the overall gross margin percentage -- we continue to see margin expansion given price realization, lower net freight costs and leveraging our costs over a higher sales base.

Lawson 在本季度的增長是通過增加與現有客戶和新客戶關係的錢包份額實現的，特別是在我們 Kent Automotive 業務的戰略客戶或大客戶中。在我們的這兩項業務中，本季度我們運送到的獨特地點比一年前多了大約 9%。羅森繼續實現其毛利率穩步提高。雖然我們較大的戰略客戶的增長正在對整體毛利率構成壓力——我們繼續看到由於價格實現、較低的淨運費成本以及利用我們的成本來提高銷售基礎的利潤率擴張。

Lawson's adjusted EBITDA improved to $18.5 million compared to adjusted EBITDA of $8 million a year ago quarter, primarily driven by the sales and gross margin improvements, partially offset by increased compensation on higher sales. Lawson's adjusted EBITDA as a percent of sales was 14.7% in the quarter versus 7.7% a year ago quarter.

Lawson 的調整後 EBITDA 增至 1,850 萬美元，而去年同期調整後的 EBITDA 為 800 萬美元，這主要是由於銷售額和毛利率的提高，部分被更高銷售額帶來的薪酬增加所抵消。 Lawson 調整後的 EBITDA 佔銷售額的百分比在本季度為 14.7%，而去年同期為 7.7%。

Turning to Gexpro Services on Slide 10. Total sales for Gexpro Services were $101 million for the first quarter of 2023, an increase of $19.3 million over Q1 2022, of which $4 million was driven by acquisitions and $15.3 million from organic growth. In 2022, Gexpro Services acquired Resolux early in the year and Frontier at the end of Q1 of 2022. Excluding the impact of these acquisitions on the first quarter, organic sales grew by 18.7%, of which approximately 4% came from price. The increase in aggregate sales was primarily driven by new customers and the expansion of existing customer relationships. Gexpro Services adjusted EBITDA expanded to $11.7 million or 11.6% of sales as compared to $8 million or 9.8% for the year ago quarter.

轉到幻燈片 10 上的 Gexpro Services。2023 年第一季度，Gexpro Services 的總銷售額為 1.01 億美元，比 2022 年第一季度增加 1930 萬美元，其中 400 萬美元來自收購，1530 萬美元來自有機增長。 2022 年，Gexpro Services 在年初收購了 Resolux，並在 2022 年第一季度末收購了 Frontier。剔除這些收購對第一季度的影響，有機銷售額增長了 18.7%，其中約 4% 來自價格。總銷售額的增長主要受新客戶和現有客戶關係擴展的推動。 Gexpro Services 調整後的 EBITDA 擴大至 1170 萬美元，佔銷售額的 11.6%，而去年同期為 800 萬美元，佔銷售額的 9.8%。

And lastly, I'll turn to TestEquity on Slide 11. Sales for the quarter grew $35 million or over 48% to $107.4 million, primarily driven by recent acquisitions. During 2022, TestEquity closed on 3 acquisitions, TEquipment and National Test Equipment in Q2 and Instrumex in Q4. Of the $35 million sales increase for the quarter, approximately $34.9 million was generated from the 2022 acquisitions. Organic sales were essentially flat versus a year ago with a decrease in Test and Measurement sales, offset by an increase in the electronic production supply sales.

最後，我將轉向幻燈片 11 上的 TestEquity。本季度的銷售額增長了 3500 萬美元或超過 48%，達到 1.074 億美元，這主要是由最近的收購推動的。 2022 年期間，TestEquity 完成了 3 項收購，第二季度的 TEquipment 和 National Test Equipment 以及第四季度的 Instrumex。在本季度 3500 萬美元的銷售額增長中，約 3490 萬美元來自 2022 年的收購。有機銷售額與一年前基本持平，測試和測量銷售額有所下降，但被電子生產供應銷售額的增長所抵消。

As previously communicated, sales in the Test and Measurement business were lumpy throughout 2022, and as expected, slowed in the first quarter of 2023 as customers have delayed expansion projects, and we continue to face supply chain challenges. On an adjusted EBITDA basis, the first quarter ended at 7.1% of sales or $7.7 million, representing an increase of $2.2 million over a year ago quarter, of which approximately $2.4 million came from the 2022 acquisitions previously mentioned.

如前所述，測試和測量業務的銷售額在整個 2022 年都不穩定，並且正如預期的那樣，由於客戶推遲了擴展項目，2023 年第一季度銷售額放緩，我們繼續面臨供應鏈挑戰。在調整後的 EBITDA 基礎上，第一季度末佔銷售額的 7.1% 或 770 萬美元，比去年同期增加 220 萬美元，其中約 240 萬美元來自前面提到的 2022 年收購。

Moving on to Slide 12. From an access to capital, we have approximately $31.1 million of available cash and $70 million available under our existing credit facility. As part of our credit facility, we have also an additional $200 million accordion feature. We ended the quarter at a net debt leverage ratio of 2.7x, primarily on increased earnings. Our deleveraging that started in 2022 continued into the first quarter of 2023. For reference, at the time of the April 1, 2022 merger of the 3 businesses, our net debt leverage was 3.6x. This progress is consistent with our intention to prudently manage our debt levels and our leverage in the 3 to 4x range. Net capital expenditures, inclusive of rental equipment was $5.1 million for the quarter.

轉到幻燈片 12。從獲得資金的角度來看，我們現有的信貸額度下有大約 3110 萬美元的可用現金和 7000 萬美元的可用現金。作為我們信貸額度的一部分，我們還有一個額外的 2 億美元手風琴功能。本季度結束時，我們的淨債務槓桿率為 2.7 倍，這主要是由於收益增加。我們從 2022 年開始的去槓桿化一直持續到 2023 年第一季度。作為參考，在 2022 年 4 月 1 日合併這 3 家企業時，我們的淨債務槓桿率為 3.6 倍。這一進展與我們審慎管理我們的債務水平和我們在 3 到 4 倍範圍內的槓桿率的意圖是一致的。本季度淨資本支出（包括租賃設備）為 510 萬美元。

Before I turn the call back to Bryan for some closing remarks, I wanted to reiterate how pleased we are with the company's financial performance. We said that we are going to exit 2022 with margins exceeding 10%, which we did. We have maintained double-digit adjusted EBITDA margins into 2023, and we have substantially delevered the company within the first 12 months. As Bryan mentioned, we continue to be pleased with our long-term outlook. However, we are up against tougher sales comps going into the second half of 2023. All of the businesses continue to execute on their planned initiatives for 2023, which will make us a stronger company going forward. We will continue to prudently manage our balance sheet and financial position. Thank you to the operating teams at Lawson Products, Gexpro Services and test equity for their commitment and drive to deliver these great results in the first quarter.

在我將電話轉回給布萊恩做一些結束語之前，我想重申我們對公司的財務業績感到非常滿意。我們說我們將在 2022 年退出，利潤率超過 10%，我們做到了。到 2023 年，我們一直保持兩位數的調整後 EBITDA 利潤率，並且我們在前 12 個月內大幅降低了公司的槓桿率。正如布萊恩所提到的，我們對我們的長期前景仍然感到滿意。然而，進入 2023 年下半年，我們將面臨更嚴格的銷售計劃。所有業務都將繼續執行其 2023 年的計劃舉措，這將使我們成為一家更強大的公司。我們將繼續審慎管理我們的資產負債表和財務狀況。感謝 Lawson Products、Gexpro Services 和 test equity 的運營團隊，感謝他們在第一季度取得這些出色成果的承諾和動力。

I'll now turn the call back over to Bryan.

我現在將電話轉回給 Bryan。

Thank you, Ron. Let's turn to Slide 13 for a few additional comments before we get into the Q&A. Our approach to capital deployment and working capital investments are not unique. Our underlying philosophy is anchored in a discipline to allocate capital to the highest return projects while building the best positioned long-term specialty distributor with the deepest and widest smoke possible around our value-added focus areas of leadership for our customers. Since we are an asset-light business, our organic growth primarily comes in the form of investment in trade working capital and great people as well as inorganic investments through M&A.

謝謝你，羅恩。在我們進入問答環節之前，讓我們轉到幻燈片 13 以獲得一些額外的評論。我們的資本部署和營運資本投資方法並不獨特。我們的基本理念植根於將資本分配給回報最高的項目的紀律，同時建立定位最佳的長期專業分銷商，圍繞我們為客戶提供的增值重點領導領域盡可能深入和廣泛地發揮作用。由於我們是一家輕資產企業，我們的有機增長主要來自對貿易營運資本和優秀人才的投資，以及通過併購進行的無機投資。

We've invested significantly in all 3 over the last year. The returns on our incremental investments in working capital made to support organic growth or without a doubt, the highest returns on a pretax basis. They often approximate 80% to 100% or significantly higher, consistent with what we've observed over a long cycle have been and continue to be the returns of our peers of best-in-class specialty distributors. Our second best return on investment at this point is identifying and buying the most strategically enhancing but accretive acquisitions that make our specialty verticals, both individually and holistically more competitive. These acquisitions should enhance our ability to organically grow at a faster, more profitable rate.

去年，我們在這三個方面都投入了大量資金。我們為支持有機增長而增加的營運資本投資的回報率，或者毫無疑問，是稅前回報率最高的。它們通常接近 80% 到 100% 或更高，這與我們在長期週期中觀察到的情況一致，並且將繼續成為一流專業分銷商同行的回報。在這一點上，我們第二好的投資回報是確定併購買最具戰略性但最具增值性的收購，使我們的專業垂直領域，無論是在個體上還是在整體上都更具競爭力。這些收購應該會增強我們以更快、更有利可圖的速度有機增長的能力。

In turn, sustaining and driving higher returns on working capital, all of which will significantly cheapen back the purchase price. We certainly believe that Hisco like others we have done over the last years and others we are currently dialoguing with, will do that. While we are committed to this approach, we are not in any hurry to buy something that is only accretive. Along those lines, our debt leverage is an important focus, especially given the rising rate environment. And currently, our leverage remains below 3x ahead of the closing of the Hisco acquisition, which we expect to take us to somewhere between 3 and 3.5x. After the close, we will have approximately $450 million of net working capital pro forma alongside our accelerating cash flow to comfortably support and pay down that debt.

反過來，維持和推動更高的營運資金回報率，所有這些都將大大降低購買價格。我們當然相信 Hisco 會像我們在過去幾年所做的其他人以及我們目前正在與之對話的其他人一樣做到這一點。雖然我們致力於這種方法，但我們並不急於購買只會增值的東西。按照這些思路，我們的債務槓桿是一個重要的焦點，特別是考慮到利率上升的環境。目前，在 Hisco 收購完成之前，我們的槓桿率仍低於 3 倍，我們預計這將使我們的槓桿率達到 3 到 3.5 倍之間。交易結束後，我們將擁有大約 4.5 億美元的備考淨營運資金以及加速的現金流，以輕鬆支持和償還債務。

We also have a Board-approved share repurchase program to take advantage of opportunistic buybacks should our stock weaken unexpectedly inconsistent with our current trajectory to unlock earnings and accelerate shareholder value creation. We are constantly informed about the private value of our business and that a scarcity exists for exceptional specialty distributors with our size and line of sight around growth of revenue and earnings by strategic suitors as well as large private equity firms. It is not surprising the interest in DSG by those with the benefit of time as leading specialty distributors continue to be tremendous long-term compounding engines, which is why I have loved the space as much as I have for the last 30 years.

我們還有一個董事會批准的股票回購計劃，如果我們的股票意外走弱，與我們目前的軌跡不符，可以利用機會回購來釋放收益和加速股東價值創造。我們不斷了解我們業務的私人價值，並且我們的規模和視線圍繞著戰略追求者和大型私募股權公司的收入和收益增長，優秀的專業分銷商非常稀缺。那些有時間優勢的人對 DSG 感興趣並不奇怪，因為領先的專業分銷商仍然是巨大的長期復合引擎，這就是為什麼我在過去 30 年裡像我一樣熱愛這個領域。

And so much so that I don't want to sell this business prematurely that we have such tremendous line of sight on how to compound. If the marketplace offers an unnatural price with us generating strong cash earnings, the Board and I believe we should have the flexibility to buy back stock and think about ways to improve the value for the shareholders that want to continue to be partners with us on this journey. As I just alluded to, at the end of the first quarter, we had $352 million invested in our working capital with another $100 million or so coming with Hisco. Our investment in working capital over the last year reflected our expectation around many ways to continue to drive organic growth and how that drive is accelerating profitability for our shareholders.

如此之多，以至於我不想過早地出售這項業務，因為我們對如何復合有如此廣泛的看法。如果市場提供了一個不自然的價格，而我們產生了可觀的現金收益，董事會和我認為我們應該有回購股票的靈活性，並考慮如何為希望繼續與我們合作的股東提高價值旅行。正如我剛才提到的，在第一季度末，我們的營運資金投資了 3.52 億美元，另外還有 1 億美元左右來自 Hisco。我們去年對營運資金的投資反映了我們對繼續推動有機增長的多種方式的期望，以及這種推動力如何加速我們股東的盈利能力。

We invested more aggressively last year, especially with the business combination and with opportunities to add working capital that some of the follow-on acquisitions provided and with supply chain and inflationary pressures, it made sense. This year, we indicated that we expect to optimize our investment more than dramatically increase it. Our operating team understands my intent belief that prudently managing working capital is one of the best ways to drive meaningful return on invested capital and should be that -- and should the economic headwinds get tested, it is also the best way to free up the most liquidity along with timely but prudent cost leveraging opportunities to protect flexibility for growth in calmer environment.

去年我們進行了更積極的投資，尤其是在業務合併和一些後續收購提供的增加營運資金的機會以及供應鍊和通脹壓力的情況下，這是有道理的。今年，我們表示我們希望優化投資而不是大幅增加投資。我們的運營團隊理解我的意圖，即審慎管理營運資金是推動有意義的投資資本回報的最佳方式之一，而且應該是這樣——如果經濟逆風受到考驗，這也是釋放最多資金的最佳方式流動性以及及時但審慎的成本槓桿機會，以保護在更平靜的環境中實現增長的靈活性。

As I mentioned last quarter, our operating teams have a heavy focus on managing our working capital intensity for 2023. I want to continue to maintain a strong balance sheet and prudent financial position by providing ample liquidity to execute on our long-term growth strategies that maximize value for all shareholders. Our principal goal at DSG is to improve our overall return profile and continue to build profitable scale as a specialty distribution business with significant free cash generation. We have now cycled our merger transaction completed in April 2022 and are seeing the benefit of our working capital investments, our acquisitions and our collaboration across the 3 business units.

正如我在上個季度提到的，我們的運營團隊非常重視管理我們 2023 年的營運資本強度。我希望通過提供充足的流動性來執行我們的長期增長戰略，從而繼續保持穩健的資產負債表和審慎的財務狀況為所有股東創造最大價值。我們在 DSG 的主要目標是改善我們的整體回報狀況，並繼續建立盈利規模作為專業分銷業務，產生大量自由現金。我們現在已經循環我們的合併交易於 2022 年 4 月完成，並且看到了我們的營運資本投資、我們的收購和我們在 3 個業務部門之間的合作的好處。

We are finding more ways to leverage spend and to drive cross-selling through our embedded alignment with many of our closest customers. Hisco will significantly enhance both primary objectives. Aside from our work on Hisco, we continue to evaluate an active acquisition pipeline, analyzing opportunities that fit our strategic lens, acquisition criteria and hurdle rates.

我們正在尋找更多方法來利用支出並通過我們與許多最親密客戶的嵌入式對齊來推動交叉銷售。 Hisco 將顯著提高這兩個主要目標。除了我們在 Hisco 的工作之外，我們還繼續評估一個活躍的收購渠道，分析符合我們戰略視角、收購標準和門檻率的機會。

In summary, we are pleased with our first quarter results and appreciate the collaborative efforts across our leadership teams to deliver 4 sequential quarters of sales growth and margin improvements. And although we are excited to report adjusted EBITDA margins of 11.3% and commit to our partners that we have action plans over the coming years to take each of our verticals profitability and internal return metrics significantly higher from current levels. We also want to manage expectations that while the very discrete operating initiatives we are working on will yield meaningful financial improvements to performance metrics that we are all focused on, the results will not be linear, and we absolutely are not planning for the slope to track the last 4 quarters.

總而言之，我們對第一季度的業績感到滿意，並感謝我們的領導團隊為實現連續 4 個季度的銷售增長和利潤率改善所做的協作努力。儘管我們很高興地報告調整後的 EBITDA 利潤率為 11.3%，並向我們的合作夥伴承諾，我們在未來幾年內製定了行動計劃，使我們每個垂直行業的盈利能力和內部回報指標都比當前水平顯著提高。我們還希望管理預期，即雖然我們正在研究的非常離散的運營計劃將為我們都關注的績效指標帶來有意義的財務改進，但結果將不是線性的，而且我們絕對沒有計劃跟踪斜率最後 4 個季度。

We all can appreciate what some of the leadership teams are now facing with having delivered exceptionally in the last few quarters and me trying to move the goalpost forward on them at a faster clip. We will get to the next margin milestone threshold soon, but I want to temper all our expectations, mine included, that it likely will not be as linear or as steep as we just enjoyed and we will be comping tougher quarters later this year.

我們都可以理解一些領導團隊現在所面臨的問題，他們在過去幾個季度中表現出色，而我正試圖以更快的速度將球門柱向前推進。我們很快就會達到下一個利潤率里程碑門檻，但我想降低我們所有的期望，包括我的期望，它可能不會像我們剛剛享受的那樣線性或陡峭，我們將在今年晚些時候遇到更艱難的季度。

DSG is a specialty distribution solutions company, supporting a leadership position in several key vertical channels where customers rely on us to provide high-touch, value-added distribution solutions for their MRO, OEM and industrial technology needs with a combined addressable market of $57 billion. Our vertical channels to the marketplace offer customers replenishable industrial parts and products as well as specialized products. In addition, we offer managed solutions for companies that rely on outsourced expertise, labor, specialty capabilities and supplies with secure supply chain management.

DSG 是一家專業分銷解決方案公司，在幾個關鍵的垂直渠道中處於領先地位，客戶依靠我們為他們的 MRO、OEM 和工業技術需求提供高接觸、增值的分銷解決方案，潛在市場總規模達 570 億美元.我們的垂直市場渠道為客戶提供可補充的工業零件和產品以及專業產品。此外，我們通過安全的供應鏈管理為依賴外包專業知識、勞動力、專業能力和供應的公司提供託管解決方案。

It is daily reaffirmed that our unique competitive advantages are compelling to customers and are important to manufacturers, OEMs and businesses that use specialized products in their industrial and commercial industries. And expanding our distinct products and solutions makes the Hisco acquisition a compelling investment for us. Thank you for your time today. And now we would like to open up the line for investor questions. Operator?

我們每天都在重申，我們獨特的競爭優勢對客戶具有吸引力，對製造商、原始設備製造商和在其工業和商業行業中使用專業產品的企業也很重要。擴展我們獨特的產品和解決方案使對 Hisco 的收購對我們來說是一項引人注目的投資。謝謝你今天的時間。現在我們想為投資者提問開通熱線。操作員？

Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions) Our first question today is coming from Kevin Steinke from Barrington Research.

謝謝。此時，我們將進行問答環節。 （操作員說明）我們今天的第一個問題來自 Barrington Research 的 Kevin Steinke。

Ron, I appreciate your comments there about the fact that maybe the margin improvement won't be as when you're going forward as it has been but obviously, you've hit that and now exceeded that near-term 10% goal that you had discussed. And when you get Hisco layered in, you expect that to accelerate improvement in your structural margin profile. Have you given any thought about what kind of the next target could be that we should think about in terms of adjusted EBITDA margin? Or is it kind of too early to commit to a particular number?

羅恩，我很欣賞你的評論，即利潤率的提高可能不會像你前進時那樣，但很明顯，你已經達到了這個目標，現在超過了你設定的 10% 的近期目標討論過。當你讓 Hisco 分層時，你希望這能加速改善你的結構利潤率。您是否考慮過在調整後的 EBITDA 利潤率方面我們應該考慮什麼樣的下一個目標？還是承諾某個特定數字還為時過早？

This is Ron. I'll take that and then maybe Bryan will make a couple of comments as well. So we've not publicly put out any specific percentages. But as we indicated in both Bryan's prepared remarks as well as mine, we did exceed our plan that we had initially set up for the first quarter, seeing a nice improvement of 300 bps over Q1 a year ago and also 100 bps over Q4. We ended Q4 at 10.3%, and we got to the $11.3 million -- what I would say is that, I mean, there were really no, I would say, kind of onetime items that gave us a big benefit in the first quarter. So to Bryan's point, structurally, I think all 3 of the businesses are getting the benefit of a lot of the actions that we took in 2022. So again, probably premature to commit to a percentage, but we're seeing that spillover effect of those actions that we made in '22 into '23. I did in my prepared remarks, I did indicate that we're up against some tougher comps as we enter into the latter half of the year.

這是羅恩。我接受了，然後也許 Bryan 也會發表一些評論。所以我們沒有公開公佈任何具體的百分比。但正如我們在 Bryan 和我的準備好的發言中所指出的那樣，我們確實超出了我們最初為第一季度製定的計劃，比一年前的第一季度有 300 個基點的良好改善，也比第四季度有 100 個基點的改善。我們以 10.3% 結束了第四季度，我們達到了 1130 萬美元——我想說的是，我的意思是，真的沒有，我會說，在第一季度給我們帶來巨大好處的一次性項目。因此，對於 Bryan 的觀點，從結構上講，我認為所有 3 家企業都從我們在 2022 年採取的許多行動中受益。因此，再次承諾一定比例可能還為時過早，但我們看到了溢出效應我們在 22 年到 23 年所做的那些行動。我在準備好的發言中做到了，我確實表示我們在進入下半年時會遇到一些更艱難的競爭。

And I think to Bryan's point, certainly won't be as linear, and we're making investments within all 3 of the companies as well. So -- but we feel really, really good about the first quarter and not only the net margin expansion, but also the gross margin expansion as well. So I'll pause there and maybe if Brian wants to add some comments as well.

而且我認為在 Bryan 看來，肯定不會是線性的，我們也在所有 3 家公司內進行投資。所以 - 但我們對第一季度感覺真的非常好，不僅是淨利潤率的增長，還有毛利率的增長。所以我會在那裡暫停一下，如果 Brian 也想添加一些評論的話。

I think you said it well, Ron. What I would add to it is just to what Kevin's question about or alluding to structural margin. We demonstrated to ourselves and I think the marketplace, hopefully, that the business is able to generate now over 11% structural margins, and it's on a continuum that we see continuing to go up over time. There's going to be elements of -- when we pull TestEquity and Hisco together, we've said in our comments that together, it accelerates getting both of them up to similar margins to what the total company did this year, but coming from a lower level.

我認為你說得很好，羅恩。我要補充的只是凱文關於或暗示結構性保證金的問題。我們向自己證明了，我認為市場希望該業務現在能夠產生超過 11% 的結構性利潤率，並且我們看到隨著時間的推移它會持續上升。將有一些元素——當我們將 TestEquity 和 Hisco 合併在一起時，我們在評論中說過，它們一起加速使它們的利潤率達到與公司今年的總利潤率相似的水平，但來自較低的等級。

And then Lawson has -- we've been talking for years about the contribution margin that Lawson enjoys when revenue is growing and pulling the businesses together is unlocking an opportunity for Lawson to access some new customers and to enjoy some growth that we had struggled with. And there are some really exciting initiatives that Cesar and his team have been working on to continue that growth and to really free up more opportunities for our salespeople to go hunt new customers or to super serve the customers that they've got where they're continuing to grow wallet share.

然後 Lawson - 多年來，我們一直在談論 Lawson 在收入增長時享有的邊際收益，將業務整合在一起為 Lawson 帶來了接觸一些新客戶並享受我們一直努力實現的增長的機會. Cesar 和他的團隊一直致力於一些非常令人興奮的舉措，以繼續這種增長，並真正為我們的銷售人員騰出更多機會去尋找新客戶或為他們所擁有的客戶提供超級服務繼續增加錢包份額。

So that -- we would expect that as those efforts that we're rolling out more this year and we've been working on at the first part of this year, are getting traction, that loss in structural margin, which was 14.7% this quarter, significantly higher than what we had been seeing in the last few years, but part of the real strategy here that we had pulling DSG together. -- are going to continue to march forward. So we think the whole is going to get pulled up. I don't think it's going to be linear. The slope was dramatic, obviously, between last quarter and this over 100 basis points in a quarter. And that's what I was trying to make sure that we measure -- have a more measured perspective. Especially distributors that are out there that are public. We've gone back and studied them through their continuums over the last 30 years.

因此——我們預計，隨著我們今年推出更多的努力以及我們在今年上半年一直在努力的努力，正在獲得牽引力，結構利潤率的損失，今年為 14.7%季度，明顯高於我們在過去幾年中看到的水平，但這是我們將 DSG 整合在一起的真正戰略的一部分。 ——將繼續前進。所以我們認為整體將被拉高。我不認為它會是線性的。顯然，從上個季度到這個季度超過 100 個基點的斜率非常大。這就是我試圖確保我們衡量的東西——有一個更審慎的觀點。特別是公開的分銷商。在過去的 30 年裡，我們回過頭來研究它們的連續體。

And to get -- to line up where we would like to and where we want to be, several hundred more basis points is our objective, but it's going to take us 3, 5, 7 years to get to where we think that we can get this business. So hopefully, that's helpful.

為了——在我們想去的地方和我們想去的地方排隊，再增加幾百個基點是我們的目標，但我們需要 3、5、7 年才能達到我們認為可以達到的目標得到這個業務。希望這會有所幫助。

Yes, absolutely. Very helpful commentary. So where are we in terms of the journey with pricing? I don't know, Ron, did you mention the overall contribution to your 13.7% organic growth from price? And if not, what was that? And then I guess that would kind of play into the tougher comps perhaps as you move forward this year in terms of starting to lap some of those price increases?

是的，一點沒錯。非常有幫助的評論。那麼，就定價之旅而言，我們在哪裡呢？我不知道，羅恩，你有沒有提到價格對你 13.7% 的有機增長的總體貢獻？如果不是，那是什麼？然後我想這可能會在你今年開始應對其中一些價格上漲方面向前邁進時，可能會影響到更艱難的競爭？

Yes, I did not indicate the consolidated number, but out of the 13.7%, about 10 points of that was price related. And the other, call it, 3.5% to 4% was volume on a consolidated basis. And all 3 of the businesses we're taking -- continuing to take pricing actions and again, kind of the spillover effect from the actions taken in 2022 into 2023. So yes, you're right. It does play a bit into the tougher comps later in the year. I would say that we're still continuing to see some vendor cost increases come through, although they've moderated a bit from where we were in 2022. But all 3 of the businesses are keenly managing and expanding their gross margin percentage, not only from necessary pricing actions but other initiatives around freight, rebates, we put a portion of our costs up in the gross profit as well.

是的，我沒有指出綜合數字，但在 13.7% 中，大約有 10 個點與價格相關。另一個，稱之為 3.5% 到 4% 是合併的數量。我們正在開展的所有 3 項業務——繼續採取定價行動，並再次從 2022 年採取的行動到 2023 年產生溢出效應。所以是的，你是對的。它確實在今年晚些時候對更艱難的比賽起到了一定的作用。我想說的是，儘管與 2022 年的情況相比有所緩和，但我們仍在繼續看到一些供應商成本增加。但這 3 家企業都在敏銳地管理和擴大毛利率，不僅從必要的定價行動以及圍繞運費、回扣的其他舉措，我們也將一部分成本計入毛利。

So we're getting some basis points lift on just the increase in sales there on a higher sales base. So I think good progress on all fronts and certainly driving to expand that gross margin percentage over time as well. Short answer is about 10% of the 13.7% was price related for the quarter.

因此，我們只是在更高的銷售基礎上增加了銷售額，從而提高了一些基點。因此，我認為在各個方面都取得了良好的進展，並且隨著時間的推移肯定會推動擴大毛利率百分比。簡短的回答是 13.7% 中約有 10% 與本季度的價格相關。

Got it. No, great. That's helpful. Just wanted to touch too on Lawson and it seems like some really strong momentum there. And you mentioned the 9% growth in ship-to locations. Any more just commentary on what's contributing to that? You discussed your expansion to new sales channels and what have you and just trying to get a sense of the momentum that's building there and perhaps could continue to build as you start to roll out some of the CRM tools and build out those sales channels.

知道了。不，太好了。這很有幫助。只是想也談談勞森，那裡似乎有一些非常強勁的勢頭。你提到了送貨地點增長了 9%。還有什麼只是評論促成這一點的嗎？你討論了你向新銷售渠道的擴張以及你有什麼，只是想了解那裡正在建立的勢頭，並且當你開始推出一些 CRM 工具並建立這些銷售渠道時，可能會繼續建立。

Sure. So I can start and then maybe have Bryan jump in as well. So it's -- yes, very, very pleased on the Lawson results for the quarter, the 14.7% that Bryan quoted really nice improvement. And I would say that is primarily coming from sales growth as well as gross margin expansion and really leveraging our cost structure that we knew we could get. We've talked publicly about getting 30% to 40% flow through on the Lawson business. And I think you saw the power of that here in the first quarter of 2023. So relative to the 9% increase in unique ship-to locations, that's a metric that we're measuring across the entire business on all the segments and -- as I think about this for the investments that we've made in 2022 and not really just 2022, but even going back previous to that, Lawson has made some pretty significant investments in the strategic account area, where we develop long-term relationships with large customers servicing many of their locations with a pricing strategy and a rebate strategy.

當然。所以我可以開始，然後也許讓 Bryan 也加入進來。所以它 - 是的，非常非常高興 Lawson 本季度的結果，Bryan 引用的 14.7% 確實有很大的進步。我會說這主要來自銷售增長和毛利率擴張，並真正利用我們知道我們可以獲得的成本結構。我們已經公開討論過要將 30% 到 40% 的資金用於 Lawson 業務。我認為你在 2023 年第一季度在這裡看到了它的力量。因此，相對於獨特的送貨地點增加 9%，這是我們在所有細分市場的整個業務中衡量的一個指標——當我考慮到我們在 2022 年所做的投資時，而不僅僅是 2022 年，甚至可以追溯到那之前，Lawson 已經在戰略客戶領域進行了一些非常重要的投資，我們在該領域與大客戶通過定價策略和回扣策略為他們的許多地點提供服務。

So we have specifically invested in strategic account managers and customer support individuals to support that piece of the business as well as the Kent automotive business. As we look at the trajectory of those 2 pieces of our business over the last 5 years, they've really been the strongest. And I think it's been not only developing those core relationships with the larger customers that are very sticky slightly less gross margins. So we're up against that from a headwind perspective, but we're still seeing gross margin expansion on a consolidated basis. So yes, it -- we're driving our business really from both existing customers as well as new customers. And certainly, those unique ship-to locations is a big piece of the overall growth for us.

因此，我們特別投資於戰略客戶經理和客戶支持人員，以支持該業務以及肯特汽車業務。當我們審視過去 5 年這兩項業務的發展軌跡時，它們確實是最強大的。而且我認為它不僅在發展與大客戶的核心關係，這些客戶非常粘，毛利率略低。因此，從逆風的角度來看，我們面臨著這種情況，但我們仍然看到毛利率在綜合基礎上有所增長。所以是的，它 - 我們正在從現有客戶和新客戶那裡真正推動我們的業務。當然，這些獨特的送貨地點是我們整體增長的重要組成部分。

Okay. Great. I just wanted to ask lastly here about what you've seen in April in terms of sales growth trends. And you mentioned some moderation in a few markets perhaps related to the economy, but it doesn't sound like that's a meaningful headwind at this point, I guess. So just any costs on April and the trend and the economy.

好的。偉大的。最後我想問一下你在 4 月份看到的銷售增長趨勢。你提到了一些可能與經濟有關的市場放緩，但我想這在這一點上聽起來並不是一個有意義的逆風。所以只是四月份的任何成本以及趨勢和經濟。

So Kevin, yes, I would say for April, we've continued to see pretty positive results. I would say, we've seen a little bit of moderation in some of the end markets. We both Bryan and I commented on the Test and Measurement side within the TestEquity business. But kind of putting that aside, -- for the most part, I would say our April sales are kind of running in line with where we exited the first quarter on a consolidated basis with a couple of markets being up a couple of our verticals being up, losses being up versus where we exited the first quarter. T&M being down a little bit.

所以凱文，是的，我會說四月份，我們繼續看到非常積極的結果。我想說的是，我們在一些終端市場看到了一些緩和。我們 Bryan 和我都對 TestEquity 業務中的測試和測量方面發表了評論。但拋開這一點——在大多數情況下，我想說我們 4 月份的銷售額與我們在合併後第一季度退出的情況一致，幾個市場正在上升，我們的幾個垂直市場正在上升與我們退出第一季度的情況相比，虧損有所增加。 T&M 有點下降。

And I would say with injection of services, a little bit of a mix there, but we are seeing some growth now on the renewable side, which we were up against some weaker numbers a year ago. But overall, we feel pretty good about where April is finished from a sales perspective, and don't see any major red flags that sit out there here for the month.

我想說的是，通過注入服務，那裡有點混合，但我們現在看到可再生能源方面出現了一些增長，而一年前我們遇到了一些較弱的數字。但總的來說，從銷售的角度來看，我們對 4 月份的結束情況感覺非常好，並且沒有看到本月出現任何重大危險信號。

Kevin, I just would add that we're -- we spend a lot of time looking at all of our collective end markets that we're serving and trying to understand how to continue to add balance to them so that we -- between MRO and OEM, which Cisco does some very deliberate things for us. And so we are encouraged as we kind of look at what we're trying to build longer term in terms of kind of some of the -- I'm about to fall into my CFA talk, but correlation coefficients of the different industries and different economic backdrops. And so we're -- right now, we're seeing things like renewables where a year ago, the one acquisition that we had made at Gexpro Services that was actually -- when we reported last quarter, how exceptionally well, we brought down EBITDA multiples on acquisitions that we've made over the course of 12 months.

凱文，我只想補充一點，我們——我們花了很多時間研究我們正在服務的所有集體終端市場，並試圖了解如何繼續為它們增加平衡，以便我們——在 MRO 之間和 OEM，思科為我們做了一些非常慎重的事情。因此，當我們審視我們正在嘗試建立更長期的東西時，我們感到鼓舞——我即將進入我的 CFA 演講，但不同行業和不同行業的相關係數經濟背景。所以我們——現在，我們看到了一年前可再生能源之類的東西，我們在 Gexpro Services 進行的一次收購實際上是——當我們上個季度報告時，我們表現得非常好，我們降低了我們在 12 個月內進行的收購的 EBITDA 倍數。

The one that was the outlier to the negative, even though our average was very good was the fact that renewables had given us some challenges. And we knew that we had a tough backdrop there. And that backdrop is starting to really open up. And the strategy that Bob and his team put in place by pulling some renewable pieces together in order to have a much more robust offering for that market to firm up our leadership in that market is taking hold. And so while we aren't yet getting the benefit of that market being back at peak levels, the acceleration there is comping against much easier comps a year ago.

儘管我們的平均水平非常好，但與負面情況相比，可再生能源給我們帶來了一些挑戰，這是一個例外。我們知道我們在那裡有一個艱難的背景。這種背景開始真正開放。 Bob 和他的團隊通過將一些可再生能源整合在一起以便為該市場提供更強大的產品以鞏固我們在該市場的領導地位而製定的戰略正在站穩腳跟。因此，雖然我們還沒有從那個市場回到峰值水平的好處中受益，但那裡的加速正在與一年前更容易的競爭相提並論。

We're enjoying aerospace and defense is a strong space for Gexpro services right now. And so they have some verticals that are stronger. We went into the year anxious about their semiconductor end market, and it's softer than it was a year ago, and that impacted their first quarter, even though first quarter is great, but it weighed on it a little bit. And yet, it's firmed up a little bit from where we started the year and where we ended last year. So there's -- even as we look at kind of the cloudiness that's out there, our end markets seem to be performing well.

我們正在享受航空航天和國防是 Gexpro 服務的強大空間。所以他們有一些更強大的垂直領域。我們進入了這一年，對他們的半導體終端市場感到焦慮，它比一年前更疲軟，這影響了他們的第一季度，儘管第一季度很好，但它有點壓力。然而，從我們今年開始和去年結束的地方來看，它已經有點鞏固了。所以有 - 即使我們看到那裡的陰雲密布，我們的終端市場似乎表現良好。

The one area that we've tried to really emphasize on this call is that capital spending is where we're -- all of us across all of our portfolio companies, not just DSG and all of our investments in public companies. Capital spending is people are cautious about it. And so Test and Measurement Equipment to the extent that somebody can delay making a capital decision that we're seeing and have felt some sluggishness in the first quarter there. We saw a little bit of it at the end of the year. And so we went into this year expecting that, that could be the most sluggish part of our -- challenging part of our business, and it has been so far this year. Some of that was lead times and challenges with getting product to -- from our vendors to our customers.

我們在這次電話會議上試圖真正強調的一個領域是資本支出是我們所處的位置——我們所有投資組合公司的所有人，而不僅僅是 DSG 和我們對上市公司的所有投資。人們對資本支出持謹慎態度。因此，測試和測量設備在某種程度上可以推遲做出我們正在看到的資本決策，並且在第一季度在那裡感到有些疲軟。我們在年底看到了一點點。因此，我們進入今年時預計，這可能是我們業務中最具挑戰性的部分，而今年到目前為止，這可能是我們業務中最緩慢的部分。其中一些是交貨時間和將產品從我們的供應商送到我們的客戶的挑戰。

And what I did emphasize in the call is that we are seeing at some level, those customers who are well-capitalized large customers are asking more about rental and used, which we have higher margins on but it does impact top line. So that's the one place. And Hisco doesn't have that -- as we think about Hisco and how it lines up with what we're doing here, it doesn't have that Test and Measurement Equipment exposure in their revenue. But they do have some programs that we had identified that were rolling off. So when we get to talking about it next quarter, they've picked up some new mandates and we're not seeing real weakness in their end markets.

我在電話中強調的是，我們在某種程度上看到，那些資本充足的大客戶正在詢問更多關於租賃和使用的信息，我們的利潤率更高，但它確實影響了收入。這就是一個地方。 Hisco 沒有那個——當我們考慮 Hisco 以及它如何與我們在這裡所做的事情保持一致時，它在他們的收入中沒有測試和測量設備曝光。但他們確實有一些我們已經確定的正在推出的計劃。因此，當我們在下個季度談論它時，他們已經獲得了一些新的授權，我們並沒有看到他們的終端市場出現真正的疲軟。

But just like with any other OEM relationships like we would have at Gexpro Services, you can have end-of-life programs like a COVID testing kit, for instance. And -- so -- but you're picking up new programs along the way as well more than backfill on that revenue.

但就像我們在 Gexpro Services 擁有的任何其他 OEM 關係一樣，您可以擁有像 COVID 測試套件這樣的生命週期結束程序。而且——所以——但是你在這個過程中選擇了新的項目，而不是回填那筆收入。

And the next question is coming from Brad Hathaway from Far View.

下一個問題來自 Far View 的 Brad Hathaway。

Thanks, everyone. Thanks for an incredible job in the quarter and really impressed with both the organic growth and the incremental margins. I didn't think we'd see 11% this quickly, so well done on that. I wanted to ask you quickly, though, to double-click on the cross-selling, both between verticals, which I think you've talked about a bit before and also, I think you mentioned a little bit within verticals, I think you mentioned in the Gexpro section, something about with it. And I'd just love to understand kind of maybe a little more detail on some of the opportunities you see there both from -- between Gexpro and Lawson, but also within Gexpro, within TestEquity themselves.

感謝大家。感謝本季度的出色工作，有機增長和增量利潤率都給人留下了深刻的印象。我認為我們不會這麼快就看到 11%，這方面做得很好。不過，我想請您盡快雙擊垂直之間的交叉銷售，我想您之前已經談過，而且，我想您在垂直領域內也提到了一點，我想您在 Gexpro 部分提到過，一些關於它的東西。我只是想了解一些關於你在 Gexpro 和 Lawson 之間，以及 Gexpro 和 TestEquity 內部看到的機會的更多細節。

Ron, I'll lead on this, and then I want you to help me get some tightness on what I'm saying. Brad, the example I used on renewables is probably one of the best examples that we've got to show how -- pulling some of these acquisitions together inside of a vertical has accelerated opportunity. But then in addition to that, it's pulling what Bob coined early on, the power of 3, which is the way that he's been really firing his sales force at the Gexpro services to go out and engage with their embedded relationships. And so there's the renewables piece, we needed to land the -- some of the hearing a little bit of feedback.

羅恩，我會領導這件事，然後我希望你能幫助我對我所說的話有所了解。布拉德，我在可再生能源上使用的例子可能是我們必須展示的最好的例子之一——將這些收購中的一些整合到一個垂直領域中，從而加速了機會。但除此之外，它還拉動了 Bob 早先創造的東西，即 3 的力量，這就是他一直在 Gexpro 服務中真正解僱他的銷售人員以走出去並參與他們的嵌入式關係的方式。因此，在可再生能源方面，我們需要獲得——一些聽證會的一些反饋。

But we were -- we needed to land some of those major OEMs in the renewable space. We had some of them. We didn't have all of them. And so the acquisitions themselves are bringing deep engagements with certain customers that we knew that we had a broader product offering that we could set of solutions that if we could get tightly coupled with them that we could broaden out our engagement with. And so on the renewable side, there was one of the major OEMs in the wind space that we did not have as much of an engagement with or relationship with. And one of the acquisitions brought that relationship with then several of our acquisitions that we made on Gexpro solutions were deliberately mapped out to significantly expand our solution -- our ability to provide solutions for not only the OEMs that we were working with, but the OEM that we landed through an acquisition.

但我們——我們需要讓一些主要的原始設備製造商進入可再生領域。我們有一些。我們沒有全部。因此，收購本身正在與某些客戶進行深入的接觸，我們知道我們有更廣泛的產品供應，我們可以設置解決方案，如果我們能與他們緊密結合，我們就可以擴大我們的接觸範圍。因此，在可再生能源方面，風能領域有一家主要的原始設備製造商，我們與之沒有太多的接觸或關係。其中一項收購帶來了這種關係，我們在 Gexpro 解決方案上進行的幾項收購是有意規劃的，以顯著擴展我們的解決方案——我們不僅有能力為我們合作的原始設備製造商提供解決方案，而且有能力為原始設備製造商提供解決方案我們通過收購登陸。

And that has given Bob and his team an ability to take a much more robust set of offerings to them. We've led with being able to help solve for all of the guts inside of the towers connecting the base to the turbine and on their retrofits and their overhauls. And that -- we would not have had all those elements brought together had we not pulled those acquisitions together. So that's one way to think about it. But what that also does is that we're putting MRO elements or we're putting pieces of what Lawson does into that dialogue. And so there's an engagement there that is pulling some of the products of TestEquity on the electronic production supply side and the MRO SKUs that Lawson had.

這讓 Bob 和他的團隊有能力為他們提供一組更強大的產品。我們已經領先，能夠幫助解決連接底座和渦輪機的塔內部的所有問題，以及它們的改造和大修。而且 - 如果我們不將這些收購整合在一起，我們就不會將所有這些元素整合在一起。所以這是一種思考方式。但這也是我們將 MRO 元素或我們將 Lawson 所做的部分放入對話中的原因。因此，有一種參與正在拉動 TestEquity 在電子生產供應方面的一些產品和 Lawson 擁有的 MRO SKU。

And then to the extent that we are working inside of a facility, we're trying to pull some of that loss in capability, and we're getting good traction with some really key OEMs to -- where we had jet services specifically had very deep relationships, and we're basically able to pull in and unseat on those MRO and DMI pieces folks that were there before. And I think it's really how collaborative and the relationships already were and then being able to take that collaboration lens. And I think about it on a micro level, we're trying to work with the customers very -- in a very engaged way on a micro level on what their needs are.

然後就我們在設施內部工作的程度而言，我們正試圖彌補一些能力損失，並且我們正在與一些真正關鍵的原始設備製造商取得良好的牽引力——我們的噴氣服務特別有非常深厚的關係，我們基本上能夠吸引和取消以前在那裡的那些 MRO 和 DMI 部件。而且我認為這真的是協作和關係已經存在的程度，然後能夠採用協作鏡頭。而且我在微觀層面上考慮它，我們正在努力與客戶合作 - 在微觀層面上以一種非常參與的方式了解他們的需求。

And it's not as -- while we're working in our back office and our warehouse to try and improve automation, we're not taking a lot of that automation lens to the experience of some of these customers. And that's been successful. So and we think it will continue to be successful. We're just scratching the surface on some of the cross-selling candidly. The dialogues are expansive. The wins are more narrow, but the wins are still material to the financial performance. It's just the funnel is a lot larger. 40,000 more customers that we're picking up with Hisco.

而且它不是 - 當我們在後台和倉庫工作以嘗試提高自動化時，我們並沒有將很多自動化鏡頭用於其中一些客戶的體驗。這是成功的。因此，我們認為它將繼續取得成功。我們只是坦率地觸及一些交叉銷售的表面。對話內容廣泛。勝利的範圍更窄，但勝利對財務業績仍然很重要。只是漏斗要大得多。 40,000 多個客戶，我們正在與 Hisco 合作。

I would add, Brad, just there's an excess of 300 active leads. I think we talked about this on the Q4 call, where we are incentivizing our sales teams across all of the companies to bring these leads that Bryan referenced into the other organizations. So we're actively working in excess of 300 leads. And it has been realized sales multimillion already coming through. Now some of that happened in 2022. But I would say it's on a steeper scale as we enter into 2023. So I mean, it's not an 8-figure number yet from a sales perspective, but it's a few million dollars that we've been able to realize on top line growth.

布拉德，我要補充的是，有超過 300 條活躍的線索。我想我們在第四季度的電話會議上談到了這一點，我們正在激勵所有公司的銷售團隊將 Bryan 提到的這些線索引入其他組織。因此，我們正在積極處理超過 300 條線索。並且已經實現了數百萬的銷售額。現在其中一些發生在 2022 年。但我想說，隨著我們進入 2023 年，它的規模會更大。所以我的意思是，從銷售的角度來看，這還不是一個 8 位數的數字，但我們已經達到了幾百萬美元能夠實現收入增長。

And the next question is coming from Katie Fleischer from KeyBanc Capital.

下一個問題來自 KeyBanc Capital 的 Katie Fleischer。

On for Ken today. I wanted to follow up on your pricing -- or on the pricing question from earlier. Can you clarify if price cost was positive to margin? And what's the expectation for the rest of the year?

今天為肯。我想跟進你的定價——或者之前的定價問題。您能否澄清價格成本對利潤率是否有利？對今年剩餘時間的期望是什麼？

So yes. So Katy, yes, so the -- you're referencing back to the 10% pricing that I commented on. Yes. So we've seen more of that. I would say, here in the first quarter, given that we are lapping some of the price increases we put through during 2022. So we wouldn't expect as we enter into the latter half of the year for that pricing to stay at 10% of our combined increase on a quarterly basis for every quarter on a go-forward basis.

所以是的。所以凱蒂，是的，所以 - 你指的是我評論過的 10% 定價。是的。所以我們看到了更多。我想說的是，在第一季度這裡，鑑於我們正在對 2022 年期間的一些價格上漲進行調整。因此我們預計進入下半年時價格不會保持在 10%我們每個季度的合併增長在前進的基礎上。

I'd say as we think about timing in terms of some of those actions we did in 2022, they were probably later in the year versus even in Q2. So I think we're probably up against less headwinds from a pricing standpoint here in the second quarter, but probably more so in the latter half of the year. So I don't know if that answered your question or not. I mean we've not come out with any kind of formal guidance relative to what we think pricing will be from an overall perspective.

我想說的是，當我們考慮我們在 2022 年採取的一些行動的時間安排時，它們可能在今年晚些時候，甚至在第二季度。因此，我認為從第二季度的定價角度來看，我們可能會遇到較少的阻力，但在今年下半年可能會遇到更多阻力。所以我不知道這是否回答了你的問題。我的意思是，我們還沒有就我們認為從整體角度考慮的定價提出任何形式的正式指導。

But what I will say is we're still taking pricing actions in 2023 across the businesses. We're still, as I mentioned earlier, seeing some vendor increased cost increases coming through. And so we're certainly not sitting on those and absorbing those internally. We are passing -- continue to pass those -- that effect along. So -- and generally speaking, the customers have been understanding and willing to take those increases certainly in 2022 and so far here in 2023. Certainly, some conversations with some customers about tightening up a bit on that. But generally speaking, I would say that the customers are supportive in understanding those actions.

但我要說的是，我們仍將在 2023 年對所有業務採取定價行動。正如我之前提到的，我們仍然看到一些供應商增加了成本。因此，我們當然不會坐視這些並在內部吸收它們。我們正在傳遞——繼續傳遞那些——這種影響。所以——總的來說，客戶一直在理解並願意在 2022 年和 2023 年到目前為止接受這些增長。當然，與一些客戶進行了一些關於收緊這一點的對話。但總的來說，我會說客戶支持理解這些行為。

I mean, your question, I think, was pretty straightforward and that are we -- are our price actions more than eclipsing the inflationary pressure that we're feeling from our cost of goods sold to our vendors. And the short answer is absolutely. And then the longer answer is there's -- so yes, we are more than been able to capture margin and we're continuing to. The difference between specialty distribution and broadline distributors or commodity distributors is that in periods like this, even our other services and capabilities are giving us flexibility with our customers to not only make sure that we're protecting margin on the product side, but also on the value that we're bringing with the other capabilities and the people that are supporting it.

我的意思是，我認為你的問題非常簡單，那就是我們 - 我們的價格行為是否超過了我們從銷售給供應商的商品成本中感受到的通脹壓力。簡短的回答是絕對的。然後更長的答案是——所以是的，我們不僅能夠獲得利潤，而且我們將繼續這樣做。專業分銷與廣泛分銷商或商品分銷商之間的區別在於，在這樣的時期，甚至我們的其他服務和能力也使我們能夠靈活地與客戶打交道，不僅確保我們在產品方面保護利潤，而且在我們通過其他功能和支持它的人員帶來的價值。

And so we're absolutely continuing to look at and make sure that we are more than being rewarded for the total capabilities besides just the cost of the actual product that we're selling through. And so it has been margin enhancing at both the gross margin level and the EBITDA margin level.

因此，我們絕對會繼續關注並確保除了我們所銷售的實際產品的成本之外，我們還可以獲得總體能力的回報。因此，它在毛利率水平和 EBITDA 利潤率水平上都在提高利潤率。

And Ron, just to clarify one point that you made there. You mentioned before that the vendor cost increases, those are starting to moderate, correct?

羅恩，只是想澄清你在那裡提出的一點。您之前提到供應商成本增加，這些成本開始放緩，對嗎？

Yes.

是的。

Another question here. So you talked about easing lead times in some of the individual businesses. I was wondering if that's impacting inventory decisions at all. And if you think that could lead to faster backlog monetization at the customer level?

這裡還有一個問題。所以你談到了一些個體企業的交貨時間。我想知道這是否會影響庫存決策。如果您認為這會導致客戶層面更快的積壓貨幣化？

So we definitely have seen our supply chains get easier or easing. And we did take actions a year ago and even before to make sure that we had product on hand for our customers and that did increase our working capital investment and our inventory position. This year, we think that we're going to see some real tightening up on our working capital investment. That's one of the things that we went into the year as a focus point. And we're -- the different verticals are working on that.

所以我們肯定已經看到我們的供應鏈變得更容易或放鬆了。我們確實在一年前甚至更早之前採取了行動，以確保我們為客戶提供手頭的產品，這確實增加了我們的營運資本投資和庫存狀況。今年，我們認為我們將看到我們的營運資本投資真正收緊。這是我們作為焦點進入這一年的事情之一。而且我們 - 不同的垂直領域正在努力解決這個問題。

The incremental returns have been really good just because we've had the updraft of EBITDA to go along with the increase in working capital investment. But we think they can go even better. And -- but there's the anxiety, I think, on our part of making sure that we had product on hand for customers and maybe buying more aggressively or leaning into inflationary pressures from our vendors by stocking deeper is some of that abating. And so that allows us to operate with more confidence with a leaner inventory position.

增量回報真的很好，因為我們有 EBITDA 的上升趨勢與營運資本投資的增加一起。但我們認為他們可以做得更好。而且——但我認為，我們的焦慮在於確保我們為客戶提供手頭的產品，並且可能會更積極地購買，或者通過增加庫存來應對供應商的通脹壓力，這在一定程度上減輕了這種焦慮。因此，這使我們能夠以更精簡的庫存狀況更有信心地運營。

Ron, I don't know whether or not we're seeing -- I think part of your question maybe, Katie, are our customers changing their purchasing behavior because they are also not as anxious. And to the extent that they were -- they're buying from us, and we're stocking more around -- and this is -- Ron, you can correct me on this, but the way that we think about it and talk about it as a team is that our customers are giving us forecast around what their needs are going to be. And we're really holding that inventory oftentimes until we're loading it into their bends, putting it on their site or managing it at the production line as it would be for Gexpro solutions.

羅恩，我不知道我們是否看到——凱蒂，我認為你的部分問題可能是我們的客戶正在改變他們的購買行為，因為他們也不再那麼焦慮了。在某種程度上，他們是——他們從我們這裡購買，我們正在儲存更多——這是——羅恩，你可以糾正我，但我們思考和談論的方式作為一個團隊，我們的客戶正在向我們預測他們的需求。我們真的經常持有這些庫存，直到我們將其裝載到他們的彎道上，將其放在他們的網站上或在生產線上管理它，就像 Gexpro 解決方案一樣。

And so that has influenced or informed us more about what we need to have on our balance sheet and less about what we might have -- might be placing at their production facilities. So the -- it is allowing us to -- we certainly, I think, have reflected on the fact that our customers have padded those numbers some for us. So their production -- their end market production on their schedules may over the last 12 months have looked different than what they asked us to hold in inventory. And so that was partially driven by their anxiety making sure that we had key products on hand.

因此，這已經影響或告知我們更多關於我們需要在資產負債表上擁有的東西，而不是我們可能擁有的東西 - 可能會放在他們的生產設施中。所以 - 它允許我們 - 我認為我們當然已經反映了我們的客戶為我們填充了這些數字的事實。因此，在過去 12 個月中，他們的生產——他們按計劃進行的終端市場生產可能看起來與他們要求我們持有的庫存不同。因此，部分原因是他們擔心確保我們手頭有關鍵產品。

So as they needed it based on whatever their production output was going to be that we were not -- they were not caught short or we were not caught short being able to support them. So -- but I don't think that, that necessarily created pull-through where they were stocking inventory or they were safety stocking up much greater amounts of inventory on hand. The only place where we really had longer lead times were on Test and Measurement Equipment. And that was -- that's a place where we've already talked about.

因此，無論他們的產量是多少，他們都需要它，而我們不是——他們沒有被抓到，或者我們沒有被抓到能夠支持他們。所以 - 但我不認為，這必然會在他們儲存庫存或他們安全地儲存更多手頭庫存的地方產生拉動。我們真正有更長交貨時間的唯一地方是測試和測量設備。那是——那是我們已經討論過的地方。

There's been some customer behavior changes there over the last 4 or 5 months. But we don't think that that hasn't necessarily -- sometimes you end up with a little bit. That's one area where we have a backlog. A lot of our other places, we don't -- we aren't sitting on backlogs. We're sitting on kind of visibility around what we're going to be pushing through -- but we wouldn't say that there's a backlog where they're waiting on inventory. The chambers business is a place where we've had a backlog where we've not been able to manufacture at the pace that our customers were asking for chambers, and that's where we did get caught with some margin compression over the last several quarters because we had quoted in price product a year ago, and then we had inflation on our cost -- I mean, on our component prices, so our cost of goods sold went up on us, but our top line stayed the same.

在過去的 4 或 5 個月裡，那裡的客戶行為發生了一些變化。但我們認為這不一定 - 有時你會得到一點點。這是我們積壓的一個領域。我們的很多其他地方，我們沒有——我們沒有積壓。我們對我們將要推動的事情有一定的了解——但我們不會說他們在等待庫存的地方有積壓。腔室業務是我們積壓的地方，我們無法按照客戶要求的腔室速度進行製造，這就是我們在過去幾個季度確實遇到了一些利潤壓縮的地方，因為我們在一年前以產品價格報價，然後我們的成本出現了通貨膨脹——我的意思是，我們的零部件價格出現了通貨膨脹，所以我們的銷售成本上升了，但我們的收入保持不變。

And we're working through that overhang and ought to get margin lift in that area as well as an acceleration actually in revenue as we get further into this year. Ron, what else?

我們正在努力解決這一懸而未決的問題，隨著我們進入今年的進一步發展，我們應該在該領域提高利潤率以及實際收入加速。羅恩，還有什麼？

Bryan, I think well said. I think we're seeing certainly some easing taking place on some of the -- on getting product. What we don't believe we've seen is that the pull-through from our customers is decreasing because they were -- they had inventory stocked up at an excessive level. So we still saw in the EPS business at Test and certainly with injection services and Lawson, we saw nice volume increases as well, not just price. So we're not seeing significant pullback from our customers as they try and normalize their inventory levels.

布萊恩，我覺得說得好。我認為我們肯定會看到一些放鬆措施——在獲得產品方面。我們不相信我們已經看到的是，我們客戶的拉動正在減少，因為他們 - 他們的庫存水平過高。因此，我們仍然在 Test 的 EPS 業務中看到，當然還有註射服務和 Lawson，我們也看到了不錯的銷量增長，而不僅僅是價格。因此，我們沒有看到客戶在嘗試使庫存水平正常化時出現顯著回落。

And to Bryan's point, I mean, Gexpro is so well -- Gexpro services is so well connected into the production process with the customers that they've got a great read on what the future need is for their customers and they're able to go out and source that product on a timely basis to help their overall production cycle. So -- and within the Lawson business, there's certain items that are on back order with our customers. We track that. It's pretty isolated in terms of specific SKUs. But for the most part, we've seen a decrease in back orders as well, which is an indicator that the supply chain is easy for us to be able to get that product.

就布萊恩而言，我的意思是，Gexpro 非常好——Gexpro 服務與客戶的生產過程緊密相連，以至於他們對客戶未來的需求有了很好的了解，並且他們能夠及時出去採購該產品，以幫助他們的整個生產週期。所以——在 Lawson 業務中，我們的客戶有一些未交貨的商品。我們跟踪那個。它在特定 SKU 方面非常孤立。但在大多數情況下，我們也看到延期交貨訂單有所減少，這表明供應鏈對我們來說很容易獲得該產品。

Okay. That's helpful. And then just one last question for me. So I wanted to clarify on the margin cadence commentary from earlier. Should we expect an outsized move to margin sequentially versus normal seasonality? Is that what you're trying to get at?

好的。這很有幫助。然後是最後一個問題。所以我想澄清一下之前的保證金節奏評論。與正常的季節性相比，我們是否應該預期利潤率會出現大幅波動？這就是你想要達到的目的嗎？

Yes. Let me make sure I understand your definition of an outside movement beyond seasonality.

是的。讓我確保我理解您對超出季節性的外部運動的定義。

Yes. I guess just in terms of the sequential moves versus the normal seasonality, you're saying it's going to be less linear than it was in the past. In terms of sequentially, is that you're expecting an outsized difference versus prior years?

是的。我想就順序移動與正常季節性而言，你是說它的線性度將低於過去。就順序而言，您是否期望與往年相比有很大的差異？

Yes. So let me try and address that from a seasonality perspective. I would say, generally speaking, Q2 and Q3 across the platform are the strongest quarters. We did see, again, we saw the nice lift here in the first quarter. And -- but generally speaking, we would see Q3 and Q4 -- sorry, Q2 and Q3 being the strongest, probably Q4 being the weakest just because of fewer selling days and then Q1 fallen after Q2 and Q3. So I think our commentary around the linear piece of that really gets to the 300 bps improvement that we saw over a year ago quarter in that when you think about the second quarter of 2022 versus where we end up here in Q2 2023, it may not be that linear.

是的。所以讓我試著從季節性的角度來解決這個問題。我會說，一般來說，整個平台的Q2和Q3是最強的季度。我們確實再次看到，我們在第一季度看到了不錯的提升。而且 - 但一般來說，我們會看到第三季度和第四季度 - 抱歉，第二季度和第三季度是最強勁的，第四季度可能是最弱的，因為銷售天數較少，然後第一季度在第二季度和第三季度之後下降。因此，我認為我們對線性部分的評論確實達到了我們在一年前這個季度看到的 300 個基點的改進，當你考慮 2022 年第二季度與我們在 2023 年第二季度結束時的情況時，它可能不會是線性的。

As we think about where we exited the first quarter, certainly, we believe that we can still create margin expansion and operating leverage on the top line sales growth. So Again, I think what we're saying is don't expect a 300 bps improvement every single quarter as we move throughout 2023, but exceeding 11% sets a really nice baseline to start sequential growth on as we develop the rest of 2023.

當我們考慮第一季度的退出時，當然，我們相信我們仍然可以在收入增長的基礎上創造利潤率擴張和經營槓桿。因此，我認為我們要說的是，隨著我們在整個 2023 年的發展，不要期望每個季度都會有 300 個基點的改善，但超過 11% 會為我們在 2023 年剩餘時間裡開始連續增長設定一個非常好的基線。

So Katie, I kind of hit on that at the end of my prepared remarks. And I just wanted to make sure that we knew when we pull these businesses together, and we know from where we are today, what our longer-term objectives are. But -- and we've had conversations that we aren't going to try and give like near-term milestone guidance on where EBITDA margin should be. But what we did say a year ago was that we expected at this time of a year ago, we made the strong comment that we were -- and at that time, we were at 8.3% EBITDA margins or 8.6% EBITDA margins. And we said we -- pulling the businesses together, we expected to be -- to end the year at over 10% on a run rate basis. And we actually ended the year at slightly above that.

凱蒂，我在準備好的發言結束時突然想到了這一點。我只是想確保我們知道何時將這些業務整合在一起，並且我們知道從我們今天所處的位置，我們的長期目標是什麼。但是——我們已經進行了對話，我們不會嘗試給出關於 EBITDA 利潤率應該在哪裡的近期里程碑指導。但我們一年前確實說過，我們預計在一年前的這個時候，我們做出了強烈的評論——當時，我們的 EBITDA 利潤率為 8.3% 或 8.6%。我們說我們 - 將業務整合在一起，我們預計 - 將在年底以超過 10% 的運行率計算。我們實際上在今年結束時略高於該水平。

I think it was 10.4%, something like that. And now we've moved up to where we're operating -- where we had a strong quarter at 11.3%. And we know we've got a long march to a much different structural EBITDA margin objective for this specialty distributor. But we don't expect that we're going to be picking up a couple of hundred basis points a year or over a 12-month period again. It could happen. But really, what we think is going to happen is that we're going to be continuing to have significant milestone objectives at each of the verticals.

我認為是 10.4%，差不多這樣。現在我們已經上升到我們的運營水平——我們有一個強勁的季度 11.3%。我們知道我們已經為這家專業經銷商實現了一個截然不同的結構性 EBITDA 利潤率目標。但我們預計我們不會每年或在 12 個月內再次上漲幾百個基點。它可能會發生。但實際上，我們認為將會發生的是，我們將繼續在每個垂直領域擁有重要的里程碑目標。

And as those verticals move up from where they have historically operated, it's going to create a blended margin of -- for the DSG kind of from a specialty distributor perspective, that's going to move DSG up more consistent with what I would expect we should have out of this type of a scaled-up specialty distributor. And -- but it's just not going to be linear. And it's not going to be linear. We're rolling in Hisco. We've got some opportunities there to significantly leverage the test equity Hisco vertical, and there's going to be good movement there forward over the next 12 months on their EBITDA margin. And then that's going to contribute to the new blended rate. And then you've got Lawson is going to continue to have the benefit of, we think, cost leveraging across the platform as well as margin opportunity at the contribution margin level. And so it should operate better.

隨著這些垂直行業從他們過去經營的地方向上移動，這將創造一個混合利潤率——對於 DSG，從專業分銷商的角度來看，這將使 DSG 向上移動，與我期望的我們應該擁有的更加一致從這種規模擴大的專業分銷商中脫穎而出。而且 - 但它不會是線性的。而且它不會是線性的。我們在希斯科滾動。我們在那裡有一些機會可以顯著利用測試股權 Hisco 垂直，並且在未來 12 個月內他們的 EBITDA 利潤率將有很好的發展。然後這將有助於新的混合利率。然後你有 Lawson 將繼續受益，我們認為，跨平台的成本槓桿以及邊際貢獻水平的利潤機會。因此它應該運行得更好。

And Gexpro Services has done a great job of their relationships and their -- with their OEMs are tight, and it's not always easy to just raise prices the way we can on kind of transactional MRO activities like you can at Lawson or like you could on the MRO side of Hisco or could going forward on that on the Hisco side. On the OEM side, it's more sticky. And so they've done a great job of passing through and having constructive conversations because they are such partners with their OEM customers that's been very collaborative. But -- and that should continue to work in our margin favor on Gexpro services as well just because we're getting more scale there and we're able to have some of that pricing action continue to kind of flow through versus having it flow through more specifically on a date like it does on Lawson.

Gexpro Services 在他們的關係和他們的關係方面做得很好 - 與他們的原始設備製造商關係密切，並且像我們在勞森或像你可以在Hisco 的 MRO 方面，或者可以在 Hisco 方面繼續推進。在OEM方面，它更具粘性。因此，他們在通過和進行建設性對話方面做得很好，因為他們是與 OEM 客戶的合作夥伴，非常協作。但是——這也應該繼續對我們對 Gexpro 服務的利潤率有利，因為我們在那裡的規模越來越大，我們能夠讓一些定價行動繼續流動而不是讓它流動更具體地說，就像在勞森身上那樣。

Katie, just I just wanted to point you to on Slide 8 of the deck. We reflect what the margins are inclusive of all the acquisitions. In Q2, I think this gets to our points, Q2, inclusive of all the acquisitions that we made for the -- even the pre-acquisition period, our adjusted EBITDA percentage was 9.6%. The GAAP reported numbers was 8.3% Q2 a year ago, but inclusive of all the acquisitions that have been made, which certainly will be there in Q2 of '23 as well. If you were to look at that from a year ago, it's the 9.6%. So I think that's exactly to our point, is that kind of don't expect a 300 bps movement in over a year ago.

凱蒂，我只想告訴你幻燈片 8。我們反映了所有收購的利潤率。在第二季度，我認為這達到了我們的觀點，第二季度，包括我們為 - 甚至在收購前時期進行的所有收購，我們調整後的 EBITDA 百分比為 9.6%。 GAAP 報告的數字是一年前第二季度的 8.3%，但包括所有已經進行的收購，這肯定也會在 23 年第二季度出現。如果你看看一年前的情況，那就是 9.6%。所以我認為這正是我們的觀點，就是不要指望一年多前會有 300 個基點的波動。

So that margin percentage was not inclusive of the acquisitions, 9.6% in Q2, 9.9% in Q3, 10.3% in Q4. So it kind of comes back to the commentary around a lot of the actions that we took in 2022 helped drive the performance later in the year and accordingly, some tougher comps here in the second half of the year.

因此，該利潤率不包括收購，第二季度為 9.6%，第三季度為 9.9%，第四季度為 10.3%。因此，這有點回到圍繞我們在 2022 年採取的許多行動的評論，這些行動有助於推動今年晚些時候的表現，因此，今年下半年這裡有一些更嚴格的組合。

I would now like to turn the call back to Bryan King for closing remarks.

我現在想把電話轉回給 Bryan King，請他作結束語。

Thank you, operator, and thank you for those that joined us today for the call. And absolutely, thank you to all those folks that work for DSG for allowing us to have a great quarter and continuing to operate so well together as we look prospectively at what we're building. So thank you for your interest in DSG. We're excited about being your partner, and we are optimistic about the business that we will continue to be together with you on.

謝謝你，接線員，也感謝你今天加入我們的電話會議。當然，感謝所有為 DSG 工作的人，感謝你們讓我們擁有一個偉大的季度，並在我們前瞻性地看待我們正在建設的東西時繼續一起運作得很好。感謝您對 DSG 的關注。我們很高興成為您的合作夥伴，我們對我們將繼續與您合作的業務感到樂觀。

We look forward to talking to you next quarter. Have a great day.

我們期待在下個季度與您交談。祝你有美好的一天。

This does conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.

今天的會議到此結束。此時您可以斷開線路，度過美好的一天。感謝您的參與。