Plexus Corp (PLXS) 2024 Q4 法說會逐字稿

My name is Bailey and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Plexus fiscal fourth quarter, 2024 earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions)

I would now like to turn the call over to Shawn Harrison, Vice President of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Good morning and thank you for joining us today. Some of the statements made and information provided during our call today will be forward-looking statements including without limitation, those regarding revenue, gross margin, selling and administrative expense, operating margin, other income and expense taxes, cash cycle capital allocation and future business outlook.

Forward-looking statements are not guarantees since there are inherent difficulties in predicting future results and actual results could differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. For a list of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed. Please refer to the company's periodic SEC filings particularly the risk factors in our form 10-K filing for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2023 is supplemented by our form 10-Q filings in the Safe Harbor and Fair Disclosure Statement in our press release.

We encourage participants on the call this morning to access the live webcast and supporting materials at Plexus' website at www.plexus.com clicking on investors at the top of that page.

Joining me today are: Todd Kelsey, President and Chief Executive Officer; Oliver Mihm, Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer; Patrick Jermain, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

With today's earnings call, Todd will provide summary comments confirming before turning the call over to Oliver and Pat for further details. Before I turn the call over to Todd, please note that during our fiscal first quarter, Plexus will participate in Stifel's Midwest one-on-one conference in Chicago on November seventh and Raymond James 2024 Consumer Conference in New York City on December 10. With that let me now turn the call over to Todd Kelsey.

Thank you, Shawn. Good morning, everyone. Please advance to slide 3.

Plexus exited fiscal 2024 with exceptional performance. A testament to the dedication and focus of our more than 20,000 team members globally.

Our team's commitment to delivering customer service excellence resulted in Plexus gaining market share throughout fiscal 2024 positioning us for a solid fiscal 2025 and capturing pull in data late in the fiscal fourth quarter leading to the exceptional quarterly results.

In addition, our team's ongoing focus on driving efficiency and increasing operating margin resulted in Plexus achieving our 6%-plus non-GAAP operating margin goal one year earlier than anticipated producing robust quarterly EPS.

We also generated record free cash flow of $194 million in the quarter. The stellar free cash flow performance pushed our fiscal 2024 free cash flow generation to $341 million. Representing more than two times our previous record annual free cash flow.

We continue to anticipate revenue growth for fiscal 2025 while loading trends within our market sectors remain mixed. We anticipate another strong year for our aerospace and defence market sector aided by ongoing share gains and new program ramps.

While we expect modest growth from health care, life sciences and industrial market sectors supported by demand recovering in certain subsectors new program ramps and share gains.

We remain focused on maintaining our strong operating margin performance of recent quarters, producing meaningful growth in EPS and generating free cash flow that will continue to be deployed to creating additional shareholder value.

Please advance to slide 4. We delivered tremendous fiscal fourth quarter financial results. Revenue of $1.05 billion exceeded our guidance range. As the quarter progressed, we experienced stronger demand and a pull in of activity with customers across multiple market sectors that more than offset ongoing demand weakness in the industrial market sector and the EMEA region. Non-GAAP operating margin of 6.2% met our long-term goal extending 40-basis-point sequentially and exceeding our 5.6% to 6.0% guidance range.

Our focus on driving operational efficiency led to healthy margin leverage on the late quarter demand surge. Non-GAAP EPS of $1.85 also exceeded our guidance range benefiting from revenue upside robust operating margin performance for the reduction in interest expense and a favourable tax rate.

Please advance to slide 5.

For the fiscal fourth quarter, we won 26 manufacturing programs worth $230 million in annual revenue when fully ramped into production. Included in this result is another strong quarterly contribution from the health care life sciences market sector of $148 million. For fiscal 2024, our go to market team generated more than $1 billion of manufacturing program wins including a record $568 million of program wins in the health care life sciences market sector supporting our anticipation of exceptional revenue growth for this market sector over the long term.

Please advance to slide 6. We continue to create value for our shareholders, our team members, our customers and communities through our sustainable and responsible business practices. The following are highlights from fiscal 2024.

We reduced our waste to landfill by over 10% globally double our 5% goal through increased recycling and re-use strategic vendor selection and reduced waste generation. We reduced our scope one and two emissions by over 5% across Plexus' global manufacturing sites. As we continue to approve, improve operational efficiencies, optimized technology and transition to cleaner sources of energy.

In support of our social impact efforts, we donated more than $1 million globally through the Plexus Community Foundation. Our team members contributed over 20,000 paid volunteer hours to their local communities surpassing our fiscal 2023 engagement and we continue to drive sustainable and responsible business practices across our value chain. We assessed over 50% of our global supply chain spend on environmental and social factors as we help our customers deliver more sustainable products to the market.

Finally, this past quarter, we were thrilled to be named one of the top 100 us internship programs for 2024 by Yellow, recognizing the investment in our people who are at the heart of who we are and what we do.

We also received the Business Friend of the Environment Award for sustainability in the large company category presented by Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce. This is in recognition of our dedication to environmental stewardship, sustainable business practices in our vision to help create the products that build a better world.

Thanks to all of our team members who supported these achievements that will continue to build upon throughout fiscal 2025.

Please advance to slide 7. We begin fiscal 2025 in a strong position. Given healthier improved conditions for many of our market sectors and subsectors. Solid fiscal 2024 new program wins performance inclusive of market share games enabled by our focus on delivering customer service excellence.

The expansion and profitability witnessed throughout fiscal 2024 associated with our focus on driving efficiency and increasing operational performance. And the EPS leverage created from deploying our outstanding free cash flow to reducing our borrowing and completing our share repurchase program.

We're guiding fiscal first quarter revenue in the range of $960 million to $1.0 billion. Non-GAAP operating margin of 5.7% to 6.1% and non-GAAP EPS of $1.52 to $1.67. After the stronger than anticipated finish to fiscal 2024 along with an ongoing challenge demand environment in Omaha, we expect sequential revenue growth to pause with our fiscal first quarter before resuming as the fiscal year continues.

For fiscal 2025, we expect robust revenue growth within aerospace and defence reflecting a continuation of end market strength, new program ramps and market share gains. Moderate growth in health care life sciences as we navigate through any remaining inventory corrections while benefiting from new program ramps, share gains and a modest rebound in health care market demand and moderate growth in industrial reflecting robust growth in semi-cap exceeding third party market recovery forecasts but a broader industrial market that remains challenged by inventory corrections and weak demand.

We anticipate our efforts to continue to increase operational efficiency will result in maintaining the strong operating margin performance of recent quarters while EPS should witness meaningful expansion, leveraging revenue growth, strong profitability and the ongoing benefits from deploying our substantial free cash flow generation toward creating shareholder value.

I will now turn the call over to Oliver for additional analysis of the performance of our market sectors. Oliver?

Thank you, Todd. Good morning.

I will begin with a review of the fiscal fourth quarter performance of each of our market sectors. Our expectations for each sector for the fiscal first quarter and some directional sector commentary for fiscal 2025.

I will also review the annualized revenue contribution of our wins performance for each market sector and region and then provide an overview of our funnel of qualified manufacturing opportunities.

Starting with our aerospace and defence sector on slide 8 ,revenue increased 3% sequentially in the fiscal fourth quarter above our expectation for flat revenue. Multiple customers drove the revenue upside reflecting increased demand inside the quarter and stronger than anticipated demand for our engineering solutions which more than offset cautiousness stemming from uncertainty and the commercial aerospace subsector.

Consistent with prior guidance, fiscal 2024 represented a very strong growth year for the aerospace and defence sector with revenue up 21% exceeding the robust growth we saw in fiscal 2023 of 17%. We expect revenue for the aerospace and defence sector to decline high single digits in the fiscal first quarter. With the pool of activity into Q4 and customer conservatism in the commercial aerospace subsector more than offsetting strength in our space subsector.

Our wins for the fiscal fourth quarter for the aerospace and defence sector were strong at $45 million and included a complex product assembly for our Boise Idaho Facility. This program win further solidifies our relationship with one of the largest defence prime contractors.

We also won our first manufacturing award from a defence customer where we have maintained a long-standing engineering solutions engagement. This program will be built in our Neenah Wisconsin facility.

Finally, engineering solutions wins for the aerospace and defence sector hit a record high in fiscal 2024 reflecting continued progress and diversifying our opportunities to generate growth.

Our fiscal 2025 aerospace and defence market sector outlook continues to be bullish supported by new program ramp strength in our in our defence subsector and our expectation that uncertainty in the commercial aerospace subsector will resolve as the year progresses.

Please advance to slide 9. Revenue in our health care life sciences sector was up 9% sequentially for the fiscal third quarter. On the strength of inside the quarter, demand increases and a pool of demand for a new product launch.

This beat our expectations of a mid-single digit increase. Fiscal 2024 for our health care life sciences sector saw a 17% revenue decline as a result of inventory corrections and demand softness as well as the discussed headwind from the normalization of previously procuring components at above market prices.

For the fiscal first quarter, we expect the health care life sciences the sector to decline high single digits reflecting some continued inventory corrections and the pooling of activity into the fiscal fourth quarter.

This dynamic is more than offsetting continued momentum from our engineering solutions. Health care life sciences sector wins for the fiscal fourth quarter marked the second consecutive quarter of strong performance at $148 million. Wins included two significant awards from an existing customer for our Neenah Wisconsin manufacturing facility.

One of these awards represents new outsourcing work and reflects on the depth of our experience in the subsector. The strength of our historical execution from our ongoing sustaining services, engagement and our ability to contribute world class engineering commercialization and development resources in support of customer success. We also want the production of a therapeutic device for an existing customer based on a historical execution in support of their new product launches. This product will be produced in our Chicago Illinois facility.

The aggregate wins for the healthcare life sciences sector for fiscal 2024 reflect a record high and a remarkable 69% year-over-year increase. As we look to our fiscal 2025, we remain optimistic for a return to growth for the health care life sciences sector benefiting from the ongoing strength and program ramps, modest and market improvements and normalization of inventories.

Advancing to the industrial sector on slide 10, revenue increased 12% sequentially in the fiscal fourth quarter. The result was above our expectation of a high single digit increase and primarily driven by inside the quarter demand increases from customers in our semi-cap and energy subsectors.

Fiscal 2024 saw a 3% revenue decline for the industrial sector as strength in new program ramps and the beginnings of a semi-cap subsector recovery were more than offset by generally soft demand in various subsectors working through an inventory correction.

Looking ahead to the fiscal first quarter, continued demand improvement and semi-cap is being more than offset by some industrial subsectors continue to work through demand instability. The revenue upside experience in the fiscal fourth quarter and near-term program volatility with two customers.

As a result, we expect revenue to decline [mix] mid-single digits in the industrial sector for the fiscal first quarter. The industrial market sector wins for the fiscal fourth quarter of $37 million included a next generation product win with an existing test and measurement customer. Our wings also included share gains on two platforms for an existing semi-cap customer. These products will be built in our Penang Malaysia campus.

We are also pleased to note that an existing customer with a leadership position in the energy sub-sector has audited our Boise Idaho facility and confirmed the Plexus quality system as compliant to NQA-1. This is ASME nuclear quality assurance standard for firms providing services in support of nuclear energy. Compliance to this standard expands our differentiation enabling continued revenue growth.

Our expectation for the industrial sector of a return to growth in fiscal 2025 remains unchanged. Our view is the general subsector instability will resolve as the year progresses with market outgrowth and semi-cap offsetting industrial subsector market weakness.

Advancing to slide 11, we can review the regional highlights of the manufacturing wins for the fiscal fourth quarter. The America's wins were exceptionally strong at $195 million. This marks the second consecutive quarter of strong regional wins performance. Wins included a share gain award for our Neenah Wisconsin facility from an existing customer in our space sub-sector that is seeing increasing product market acceptance.

This win reflects the strength of our collaborative relationship in support of helping launch the product into the market. The APAC region's fiscal fourth quarter wins of $30 million included new programs with two of our existing semi-cap customers. These assemblies will be built in our Penang Malaysia campus.

The awards are a result of our continued strong execution. The aggregate fiscal 2024 wins for the APAC region increased 46% over the prior fiscal year. The mayor region's fiscal fourth quarter wins of $5 million included a new program award from an existing semi-cap customer. This award for our team in Scotland reflects continued share gain perplexes as our customer executes to the strategic supplier road map.

Please advance to slide12 for a review of our funnel of qualified manufacturing opportunities. The funnel of qualified manufacturing opportunities remains robust at $3.5 billion with a sequential decline reflective of the robust harvesting activity by our team and typical funnel management.

In summary, the strength of wins in fiscal 2024, the continued progress of new program ramps and the normalization of sub-sectors currently experiencing either uncertainty or inventory corrections gives us optimism for growth in fiscal 2025. I will now turn the call over to Pat for an in-depth review of our financial performance. Pat?

Thank you, Oliver and good morning, everyone. Our fiscal fourth quarter results are summarized on slide 13. Gross margin of 10.3% exceeded our guidance and was sequentially higher by 50 basis point. We recognize significant fixed cost leverage as revenue sequentially increased 9% while fixed manufacturing expenses decreased slightly from last quarter.

Efficiency gains and productivity improvements across all three of our manufacturing regions led to the better than anticipated results. Selling and administrative expense of $54 million was above our guidance primarily due to additional incentive compensation expense linked to improved operating and cash flow performance.

non-GAAP operating margin of 6.2% exceeded our guidance due to the strong gross margin performance and delivered on our target margin one year earlier than expected. Non-operating expense of $8.4 million met expectations, while we experienced a substantial reduction in interest expense due to our robust cash flow performance. We did see higher levels of foreign exchange losses this quarter.

non-GAAP diluted EPS of a $85 exceeded the top end of our guidance due to the factors mentioned along with the benefit from a favourable tax rate. Turning to our cash flow and balance sheet on slide14, we were extremely pleased with our free cash flow performance as we wrapped up the fiscal year. We delivered $220 million in cash from operations and spent $26 million on capital expenditures resulting in free cash flow of $194 million. This result was well above our expectations.

As Todd mentioned, this was the highest performance in company history. For fiscal 2024, we generated record free cash flow of $341 million in outcome representing more than double our previous record and three times our fiscal 2024 net income.

With the strong performance, we reduced our total debt during the quarter by $102 million while continuing to support our share repurchase program. For fiscal 2024 we reduced our total debt by $184 million.

During the quarter we purchased approximately 166,000 shares of our stock for $19.5 million which completed the previously authorized $50 million share repurchase program. For fiscal 2024 we purchased $55.7 million of our stock at an average price slightly below $104 per share.

We have now begun purchasing shares under the new $50 million program authorized during the fiscal fourth quarter. We ended the year in a net cash position. Cash of approximately $347 million was sequentially higher by $78 million.

At the end of the fiscal year, we had $50 million outstanding under our revolving credit facility with $450 million available to borrow under the facility.

Our gross debt EBITDA ratio was at a conservative level of less than one. For the fiscal year we delivered a return on invested capital of 11.8% which was 360-basis-points above our weighted average cost of capital. Cash cycle at the end of the fiscal year was 64 days,16 days favourable to expectations and sequentially improved by 19 days. This level of cash cycle was the best result delivered in the past four years.

Please turn to slide15 for details on this exceptional performance. Our cash cycle improvement primarily came from a combination of lower accounts receivable and inventory days. Sequentially days and receivables improved by seven days led by fiscal year end collection efforts.

Increased revenue and continued progress on our working capital initiatives contributed to a sizable inventory reduction of 24 days. Our teams delivered a sequential reduction in gross inventory of $123 million and a reduction of over $250 million when compared to the fiscal 2023 yearend balance.

As Todd has already provided the revenue and EPS guidance for the fiscal first quarter, I'll review some additional details which are summarized on [516]. Fiscal first quarter gross margin is expected to be in the range of 10.1% to 10.4% at the midpoint gross margin would be similar to the fiscal fourth quarter.

We expect selling and administrative expense in the range of $46.6million to $47.6 million which is inclusive of approximately $4.6 million, the stock-based compensation expense. Fiscal first quarter non-GAAP operating margin is expected to be in the range of 5.7% to 6.1% exclusive the stock-based compensation expense and any restructuring activity. Non-operating expense is anticipated to be approximately $6 million .This would represent a sequential improvement as we continue to deploy excess cash to reduce our borrowing and related interest expense.

For the fiscal first quarter, we are estimating an effective tax rate between 14% and 16% and diluted shares outstanding of approximately 27.7 million.

Our expectation for the balance sheet is that working capital investments will increase compared to the fiscal fourth quarter. Based on our revenue forecast, we expect this level of working capital will result in cash cycle days in the range of 71 to 75 days.

This would be sequentially higher by nine days, primarily due to the return of advanced payments linked to our continuing inventory reduction efforts. With higher investments to support anticipated revenue growth for fiscal 2025, we expect the usage of cash for the fiscal first quarter, a trend we have experienced the last several quarters.

Despite this usage, we expect to follow up the fiscal 2024 result with robust free cash flow in the range of $50million to $100 million for fiscal 2025.

We plan to continue to deploy any excess cash to create additional shareholder value.

One additional comment on the full year, we expect capital spending in the range of $120million to $150 million which is inclusive of approximately $60 million related to footprint expansion on the mainland of Penang, Malaysia. We continue to see significant growth opportunities in this region and are investing to ensure we support broad based customer interest in our services within the region.

With that [bill], let's now open the call for questions.

(Operator Instructions)

David Williams ,The Benchmark Company.

Hey, good morning, everyone. And congrats on the really solid results here.

Thanks David. Good morning.

So I guess, the first question for me is really around the aerospace and defence and you talked a bit about this in your script, but just kind of curious how you're thinking about that for the year. Obviously, Boeing without the contract being renewed or resolved as we had hoped. And maybe some of the conversation yesterday from their print, just about the timing of that production coming back.

How are you thinking about that? And, and maybe how do you avoid the risk that could be associated with that as we think about the full year in aerospace and defence?

Yeah, I'll start and maybe Oliver will want to add as we go through the discussion here.

But, you know, certainly disappointing, that the Boeing strike wasn't resolved yesterday has I think a lot of people were anticipating. But one of the things in our projections or as we went through our preparation for the call, we have been conservative in the way we've looked at Boeing.

So when we talk about strong growth anticipated in aerospace and defence, that takes a relatively conservative look at how the Boeing situation plays out. So, I think, you know, if we get some resolution in that could provide some potential upside opportunity for us. We think at this point, we're reasonably [de] risk for what the situation is today.

So with that said, when we think about the aerospace and defence sector for fiscal '25 looks like another strong growth year, you are not at the 21% level of fiscal '24 but certainly has the potential to be into the double digits. And a lot of that is driven through strength in new program ramps within our defence subsector.

Okay.

Very good. The great colour there certainly appreciate it. And then maybe secondly here is just on the semi-cap equipment space. There's been a lot of I think, variable discussion around the demand trends there, some up some down, it sounds like, you've got several new program wins this quarter and it's been an area of opportunity for you. So maybe just as you think about the semi-cap equipment space, is there anything that you're concerned with? And, and how do you view that generally? Have you de-risked that, do you think for the trends and just I guess maybe anything that goes into that, estimation of demand for the year on semi-cap? Thank you.

Yeah, I think in general we're at a relatively conservative look at semi-cap as well too. Now, we would expect to and as I mentioned in the prepared remarks, we'd expect to outgrow the market and outgrow market forecast because of share game. So, I think you can take any projections that you see out there for WFE or semi-cap in general and expect that we're going to outperform that as we have for the past decade or so. So, I think that's the way to think about semi-cap. So, we would expect it to be you know, well into the double digits from a growth here this year, even taking a conservative.

Fantastic. Well, thank you for the time. And congrats again.

Thanks, David.

Melissa Fairbanks, Raymond James and Associates

Hey guys. Thanks very much and I'll echo the congrats on the great quarter. I've got one for Oliver. Wondering if we could dig into the non-semi-cap business in industrial. On the last call, you had guided to some recovery in the broadband communications sector had been pretty weak for quite some time. Just wondering if you could give us an update on that business and what the expectations are going forward.

Yeah, thanks Melissa. Sure, happy to answer that.

Yeah, our outlook for communications and what we build in here, is a much flatter look. Certainly, recognize the macro tailwinds that exist, and we talked about that entire quarter. Certainly, our growth is, tied to certain projects coming to [fruition]. But we also recognize that the those projects in the past of [fruition] is not always linear.

No kidding.

A lot of experience with that over the years.

So for my follow up maybe for Pat, on the cash cycle outlook, Obviously, really great reduction in Q4. I know it's been a focus of the whole team. You've guided to the bump hire in Q1. Can you remind us of what the longer-term target is? How should we view peak to trough levels of investment? What the cash cycle days look like? Especially with that $50million to $100 million free cash flow target for the year?

Yeah, sure can. I mean, going back to the first quarter of fiscal '24 we're at 95 days. So, to have a mid-point now for Q1 to 25 days to 73 days, a 22-day improvement, really pleased with and to go to your question of, you know, a year ago, what would we have been pleased with? We, we were kind of signalling mid-70s for cash cycle as a target and obviously hitting 64 at the end into this year, kind of resets our expectation.

So as I look to fiscal '25 Melissa, yeah, 73 days in Q1, we'll see an investment of cash in Q1 and just to correct maybe something I said in the script, that's something we have typically seen every first quarter, last several years, not several quarters, last several years, we've seen an investment of cash in the fiscal first quarter. I expect us to continue our inventory improvement efforts going through fiscal '25, we will see some return of advanced payments along with that inventory reduction. So, my expectation is 73 will be a high point for Q1 for '25 and then we'll start to steadily bring that down. Expectation would be to get back into the 60s. Whether we get back to the 64 level, we'll see, but it has kind of reset my expectations that I'd like to see us more in the high 60s.

Wow, that's fantastic. That's great. Maybe if I could just squeak in one quick follow up. And you did mention the return of advanced payments. Are your customers now that we're in kind of like a more normalized supply environment? Are your customers still eager to, you know, give you some of those advanced payments? So like if we see inventory going up, do you expect that to still be a balance of some customer commitments along with your own working capital investment?

Yeah, I think when we see those typically is when inventory starts to age and get to a point of excess and [obsolete] is where we're pursuing those type of advanced payments. So, I think that can still happen. But obviously with supply chain improving, we're seeing less of that excess inventory.

Okay, great. Thanks very much. That's all for me.

Jim Rutti, Needham and Company.

Hi, good morning. This is Chris Grenga on for Jim Rutti. Congrats on the results.

Is there any one thing that you could point to or that you could describe the pull in during the quarter? You mean you mentioned there's a broad I guess broad pull in. And that drove the stronger than expected results. Is there any anything in particular that you would, you'd call out as a driver of that?

Yeah, the interesting thing was it impacted every sector. So, we saw and there were different reasons for the pull ins that we saw some success of new program ramps. Others were, demand, just demand uptick that people saw with their end customers where they were looking for this. So, we saw what we saw. It is quite broad based, to the tune of close to $40 million. So, one of the things, I mean, we're, we're certainly cognizant that our, our revenue sequentially down in Q1. But I think that that $40 million impact or near $40 million impact is really what's causing that. That fact.

Got it. And do you have a sense for how much longer the, the inventory imbalance or, or correction is, is expected to persist in, in health care. Do you in, in conversations with customers or, or do you have any visibility into how much longer you expect that dynamic to persist?

Yeah, I don't think that. This is Oliver, certainly difficult to predict exactly when that's going to come out. I think last time, last quarter, we already talked about the fact that as we look at our portfolio as a whole, we thought that the inventory correction dynamic, we had worked through 85% to 90% of that. I'll also note that we talked about engineering solutions revenue momentum here in this last quarter. And we view that as generally a good leading indicator of decision making and outlook for that sector. And so, I think that gives us optimism here as we look to fiscal '25 for continued revenue growth.

A little additional colour that I'd add here, Chris is, we're seeing the corrections, flow through faster in health care than in life sciences overall. And there are a couple, but within health care there's a couple of one-off situations where the, the corrections are still fairly significant.

Got it. Thank you very much.

Steven Fox, Fox Advisors

Hi, good morning.

Just following up on the pull-ins that you mentioned, can you draw any conclusions or I know you said it was broad based, but is there any conclusions to draw from a macro standpoint or you just think it was all, you know, customers program specific and along those lines, does it, I know, I understand why the pull-ins would sort of, you know, reduce your growth in FQ one. But what does it preclude you from growing, say 10% for fiscal '25?

Yeah, so maybe, Steve, I'll start by answering the '25 question and I'm going to pass it over to Oliver to provide some additional detail on the pull-ins. When we look at fiscal '25 I think with the call it slower start from a revenue standpoint with the, the pull-ins impacting the comparable of '24 as well as the revenue and in '25 I think double digits look difficult, I would say we're projecting mid singles maybe a little higher as we look to fiscal '25. So, we think we can make good progress and we expect some pretty strong sequential revenue growth on a quarterly basis once we hit Q2 and move through the balance of the fiscal year.

Yeah, and then adding on to that, I think as we, reflect on the pull-ins, there were certainly a number of just customer specific situations Todd mentioned earlier, a specific program launch that had pulled in more aggressively from the customer. Taking a step back and looking for some macro themes we mentioned earlier in our remarks, space subsector showed strength showing strength in Q1. We also talked about the semi-cap subsector. So that grew sequentially in Q4 and continues to show underlying demand pick up. That would be I think our other macro reflections on the overall trend and we look at all of that and we think we're again, I say well positioned would be the term that comes to mind as we contemplate the macro fiscal '25 outlook.

Great. That's not it.

And [Sean] one more thing, I want to go back to the statement, you know, made about aerospace and defence just, you know, we added some conservatism in there as well. And so, trying to adjust for, you know, the unknown and it related to the Boeing supply chain.

Got it that's helpful.

And then just curious on the program volatility, you called out with two customers. Can you give us any further details on what that was about and whether that's an ongoing issue beyond the last quarter? Thanks.

Yeah, I'll, I'll just note that for both of those that are one off situations, we are working with our customer to help them resolve that dynamic. And I also note that from my perspective, the demand for both of those programs is not perishable.

Understood. Thank you.

Steve Badger, KeyBan Capital Markets

Hi, good morning. This is Jacob Moore. I'm for Steve Barger. Thanks for taking the questions.

Absolutely.

My first here is on operating margin. Really accelerating achievement of that 6% target by a full year. I'm sure that there was some benefit from the pull forward in the quarter. But my question here is, what are the structural actions do you think that margin performance reflects the most and really how much more work is there to be done on those or other actions?

Yeah, I'll start and open up to my colleagues if they have any additional comments they want to add. This is Oliver. Certainly, we have a continued focus on manufacturing efficiency. I'll note that we, we hit that from two different angles both in terms of profitability and capital equipment intensity.

I also note that generally focusing on investment, continued investments and automation, would it continue to help us there? By way of example, we deployed a significant warehouse automation project in our Penang campus in fiscal '24 and expect that to propagate more broadly through the organization and we see both pick great efficiency improvements as well as space utilization improvements as a result of that. And then last, I just say organizationally, we've aligned around a technology and innovation organization as well as driving both pieces of the innovation and the optimization and continuous improvement. And we think all of those things will continue to bear fruit as we drive margin enhancement, our margin performance through the fiscal year.

And Jacob as I look at kind of the quarterly performance we expect in fiscal '25. You're right.

For Q1, I'm guiding a midpoint of [5.9]. So, we are losing some fixed cost leverage on the lower revenue. The March quarter is burdened by merit increases. So, we will see margins coming down at that point before we start improving margins on the back half of this year with productivity improvements. Oliver pointed to but I think what this tells us is we can achieve the target of [52] May. I'm sorry. [62] just may not be hitting that every quarter.

Thanks, that's helpful. So maybe just to follow on to clarify there, do you think you can hit 6% non-GAAP for the full year? And is there a threshold level of sales growth you need to get there?

I think the sequential revenue growth that we're going to see starting the second quarter is going to benefit us whether we get to 6% for the full year. We'll see could be slightly below that. But exiting the fiscal '25 is what we want to be hitting that. 62.

Got it. Okay, I got it there. And maybe the last one for me, this is actually my first question was on the sustainability of the past two months or free cash flow quarters, which you mostly addressed. I think it's going to come down some but maybe to expand a bit here. Could you touch on near term capital allocation priorities and like what do you see as your highest return opportunities to use that cash going forward?

Yeah, I think, well, I think we've done a great job bringing down debt. So, we've only got $50 million outstanding under the revolving credit facility. So, we do have the new share repurchase authorization of $50 million that we're executing upon. And next month we're going to be visiting with our board about other opportunities to deploy the significant free cash flow we've generated over the last two quarters. So, from a priority standpoint, I'd say share, we purchase program maybe some further debt reduction. But again, as we get later in the year with growth, we will see some investment in working capital. And as I mentioned, we do have the footprint expansion in Malaysia.

Yeah, I just add to that too. I mean, when we think about capital allocation, obviously, one of the first things that comes to mind is supporting growth and we're expecting a good growth year this year. So that's going to going to have an impact certainly on our free cash flow as compared to fiscal '24.

Okay. Got it. That's it for me, helpful answers and thanks for taking the questions.

Absolutely. Thank you.

Matt Sheerin, Stifel.

Yes, thanks. Good morning, everyone. Just to follow up on the last question regarding margins and particularly the strength you're seeing in gross margin. You're guiding gross margin down just a little bit on what a 6%or 7% sequential drop. And I'm just wondering if in addition to the things you talked about factory automation, more efficient processes.

Are you also benefiting from mix? You talked about a higher percentage of engineering services? The defence aerospace sector has been a higher percentage of revenue. So could you talk about maybe margin profile within the different segments and what's going to drive that as we go forward.

Yeah, I can start. Matt, you, you're right. I mean, we're probably losing about 50-basis-points of fixed cost leverage in the first quarter. We're covering that with higher contribution margin. Some of that's coming from mix of services and customer mix. Along with, again, as Oliver touched on further automation and productivity improvements from a sector perspective, it's not much of a difference between the sectors. So, I wouldn't say any additional waiting to a certain sector is necessarily driving better profitability. It almost comes to within customers

And then add on to that, in terms of mix rather than hitting that from a sector perspective, we expect our engineering solutions revenue to pick up as the fiscal year progresses and that certainly hits a higher margin number than our, than the rest of our operations.

Could you remind us how big that business is?

It's greater than $100 million is kind of the way we framed it. We don't do a lot of specifics

But with very high margins relative to your business, right? Yeah Okay. All that. That's it for me. Thanks so much.

Sure.

Thanks man.

Anja Soderstrom, Sidoti & Co., LLC

Anja. Can you hear me? Just that you're really faint.

Hello.

Yes, much better.

Hello. Can you hear me better now?

We can. Yes.

Okay. I'm sorry. So, in terms of the Malaysia expansion to what magnitude do you expect to are expanding it? And, and what kind of products do you support there? And when do you expect the expansion to be completed?

Yeah, so we support all of our market sectors in Malaysia. We have a quite large campus there that currently consists of five different facilities. So, this would be our sixth in the Malaysia area. When we think about the new facility, some of the growth we're targeting is a on semi-cap and around health care, life sciences in particular. But that's not again within Malaysia in our Penang campus, we support all of our sectors. So, regarding completion is

We expect to be able to hit some first customer shipments late in the fiscal year.

Okay. Thank you. And in terms of the nuclear energy compliance, what led you to get them to attain that and what's involved in getting that and what do, what can we expect from you having that?

Yeah, so that was driven by our customers. So, we had an award that involve some products that part of the nuclear energy supply chain. And so, the customer came out and audited us to that standard.

Okay. Thank you.

It’s a fairly rigorous standard that supports the again, the nuclear energy sub-sector and we've already had additional customers that have an interest in the fact that we have this ability.

Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. That was all for me.

Thank you, Anja.

There are no further questions at this time. I will turn the call back over to Todd Kelsey, President and Chief Executive Officer for closing remarks.

Yeah, thank you, Bailey.

I just like to summarize a bit of our call and the key themes of our call. So, first of all, I want to thank our shareholders, investors, analysts and our plexus team members who joined the call this morning.

We appreciate your support as always reiterating the key themes of today's call. We're positioned for a solid fiscal 2025 creating additional shareholder value through delivering revenue growth, robust operating margin and sustained free cash flow generation.

As we look to fiscal 2025, we anticipate strong aerospace and defence revenue growth given robust end markets and new program ramps as well as moderate health care, life sciences and industrial revenue growth, aided by share gains and new programs. We've displayed our ability to leverage our focus on increased operational efficiency by achieving our target non-GAAP operating margin goal of greater than 6% 1 year earlier than projected. This positions us to continue the strong operational performance of recent quarters in fiscal '2025.

Finally, we delivered record free cash flow in fiscal '2024 allowing us to reduce debt and generate additional shareholder value. The combination of these factors positions Plexus to deliver strong EPS growth in fiscal 2025.

Thank you again and have a nice day.

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.