Emerson Electric Co. (EMR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

All right. Steve Tusa, electrical equipment, multi-industry analyst here at JPMorgan. In case you don't know, we're very happy to move on with Emerson Electric. Probably maybe change that name at some point, maybe Emerson Automation or think about that. Yes, think about that.

I'll happen. I'll happen, Steve.

President and CEO, Lal Karsanbhai; as well as CFO, Mike Baughman. Guys, thank you so much for being here. I have obviously a bunch of questions but maybe I'll just hand it off to you for maybe an intro and any kind of messaging around what you're seeing out there in your businesses macro-wise or state of affairs.

Yes. Thank you, Steve. Great to be here. Thanks for the invitation. I really have enjoyed the meetings today and thank you, everyone, for attending our sessions. No, look, I -- first of all, maybe I'll begin by just saying that I'm very optimistic about the future of our company. We've undergone a very significant transformation in our portfolio over the first 4.5 years of my CEO-ship. We're now entering a different phase. We've completed that. We now have created a company that I wanted to be CEO of a global automation company with a very differentiated technology stack, serving the world's most essential industries. The growth opportunity for this company is very different from the Emerson of old in a framework of 4% to 7%. We've improved gross margins in the company by 1,000 basis points. We've increased EBITDA margins in the company by 700 basis points. And we have a company that generates phenomenal cash flow and is highly differentiated from a cash flow margin and ultimately getting over to the 100% cash measure as well. So I feel really good about that. In terms of the environment, secondly, look, this has been a year characterized by geographies and verticals, some of strength that got stronger as the year went on and some of weakness that got -- either stayed weak or got weaker as the year progressed. Most notably, on the strength side, the United States started strong, got stronger as the year progressed. Middle East and Africa, very strong in India. Those 3 markets, those 3 geographies across a cross section of verticals continue to be very strong. On the weak side, we planned a positive China, we end up with a negative China. Europe, we planned a positive Europe. We end up with a weak Europe. So those markets are not de minimis in size for Emerson and they certainly hurt us as we navigated the year. So right now, Steve, as we have a few days left in the fiscal year, thinking about the guide that we gave for the fourth quarter. On the orders, we guided 5% to 7% on orders. We will likely come in at the lower end of that guide in the fourth quarter. The reason is weakness in Europe progressed through August and into September. China continued to remain very weak. On sales, we guided in the quarter 5% to 6%. We are likely going to come in at the lower end of that guide. And the reason being the book-to-bill that we expected in the quarter did not materialize and came in weaker and we weren't able to convert to the higher end of the sales guide. On earnings, we expect to be at the upper end of our guide because the execution in the company despite the lower sales guide -- lower end of the guide on sales continues to be incredibly strong. So that's how we're seeing it come in at this point in time with, as I said, 14 days to go. Of course, in November, we'll see where everything falls in.

Well, thanks for the color because most companies just say September is a big month and we'll talk to you in October. So...

It is big, though. But again, we have phenomenal -- and Mike can speak to this, visibility in our businesses and our financial processes. As you know, we do close the books of this company every month. And we run processes every week of the month to understand where the quarter falls in, right?

Yes. Absolutely.

Okay. So we can just end there and go get a cup of coffee or something. Let's just dig into the details. So you mentioned the geographies. Maybe if you talk about the verticals and what you're seeing in those various geographies and what's just the incremental rate of change to get you to the low end of the range on sales and orders, what sort of verticals?

The 3 verticals on the upside that continue to be strong for us are power. And you certainly understand all the dynamics around power, particularly in North America, China, that's one of the bright spots, in China. And I think you know the story there in terms of the Ovation growth and the 40% orders that we've seen. Now that's a multiyear type of strength that we see going out as well. If you think about LNG, we continue to see strength in LNG, driven by energy security and just generally energy needs, strong in the U.S., strong in the Middle East. And Lal talked about the strength in those markets. Certainly, LNG is a big part of that. And then life sciences and continue to see good strength in life sciences in the U.S., Europe and one of the small bright spots there. So that would be on the upside. Factory automation continues to be kind of improving but not yet strong. T&M recovering, as we've talked about as well with 20% orders last quarter or 16% last quarter, expecting near 20% this quarter. So -- and that is still going to be around there but perhaps not quite as high as Lal talked about.

And so when you think about the weak spots, I guess, on the -- I guess, some of those would be on the traditional process side, if power, LNG, life sciences are the good guys, factory automation improving but maybe not to the extent, what are you seeing in more of the kind of core process industries, refining, upstream oil and gas, chemical, acknowledging it's not as big of a part of your portfolio as it used to be?

Yes, solid, but perhaps not as solid as we had expected. But still positive.

But not getting worse, you'd say.

No. The one market there that remain -- was weak coming into the year and remained weak was the bulk chemicals. which really impact the U.S., Germany and China. And that's an overcapacity. And honestly, I don't foresee that to turn positive as we go into 2026. Automotive, on the discrete side, very weak, impacts us both in the heritage discrete business at Emerson, but also in T&M. T&M was positive in automotive last quarter but that's really a comparison -- easy comparison basis. There really isn't enough activity in battery test, which is overcapacitized or in ADAS at this point. Beyond that, the refining business for us is an MRO business. It's an -- there's no capital deployment that we see there. So it's really a replacement business. Beyond that, semiconductor showing some good signs of life. That's about it.

And European machine builders, any visibility into that channel getting better? I mean, I know those guys have been destocking for a couple of years and maybe that's over but clearly no real uptick.

Not real uptick. You understand the bulk of what we sell is made to order. So we have some but not much that sits on shelves, made to stock. But having said that, we see the OEM activity on machine makers relatively directly and we have not seen strong acceleration in those markets. If you just think about consumer weakness in China that fueled a tremendous amount of machine building in Germany and Italy, those markets are really weak. And they haven't reflect -- they continue to reflect into the machine making business.

And then I know we don't use this term anymore, the KOB but the MRO seems like it's probably in line and this is more on the greenfield -- really the greenfield than brownfield side.

That's right. That's right.

Okay. Got it. Maybe just touch on -- so I guess, the orders funnel. Last quarter, down a couple of hundred million bucks, I think, because of the sustainability business. Are we -- have we kind of cleared out all that sustainability-related business that could be cleared out? Or does the funnel continue to kind of just fade a little bit here as the bulk of the business that was expected to happen? I mean it's really across the industrial economy. There's this pipeline that people have been talking about and it's not really moving. Do we see that continue to fade? Or is that at kind of more of a stable level?

No. As the quarter went on, I certainly continue to see erosion of sustainability projects at the customer level, particularly in the United States. Now those projects that were in our funnel were relatively small in scale. So these $200 million of projects that came off the funnel last quarter, there were over 50 projects that they comprise. So they're relatively small. These are not large...

Yes. These are mega projects.

Mega projects. But we continue to see erosion in the United States around sustainability and decarbonization. Europe, a little more stable but certainly the U.S.

Yes. That makes sense with the, I guess, the political and tax environment we're in, when it comes to that stuff. Just one more on orders. Will book-to-bill -- will you build backlog? Will book-to-bill stay above 1? Or does backlog -- you eat a little bit into backlog?

Typically it goes down sub 1 and...

Typically and seasonally. Seasonally.

Yes. yes.

Yes, slightly, I'd say, south of 1, right about 2 for the year.

Yes. Okay. When we think about the -- I guess, within T&M though, that sounds like it's more, I guess, in line if semis continues to come back a little bit, aero remains probably pretty strong. Maybe just talk about T&M and how you see that advancing. And the order rates are very strong because of easy comps. But how do you see that advancing?

Yes. What was interesting at T&M, if you look historically at T&M recoveries in cycles, the portfolio business recovers first. That's comprised of over 30,000 customers in a vast segment of the industrial complex around the world. That did recover first, both first sequential -- quarter-over-quarter then sequentially, followed by what was -- stayed strong essentially since -- over the last 3 years, which is aerospace and defense and now a recovery in semiconductor. The mathematics on the automotive, that's the pure math. There isn't any substantive recovery there. But we continue to see that accelerate as we've gone through the quarter. It was every market, every world area in the third quarter and we expect that to accelerate as we go into the fourth.

So that would be the portfolio business or the total orders for T&Ms?

Total orders. Total orders. [indiscernible]

And portfolio is continuing to come along. So that's a pretty good sign.

Very good sign. So we're pretty excited to see what's going on in semiconductors and the overall T&M portfolio.

So what do you think is going but before we kind of like turn the implications maybe beyond this year, what do you think is going on out there in the industrial economy? How are you guys talking about things in the boardroom? Decision-making seems to be pretty slow. Obviously, all these uncertainties.

One of the things that we focused on is, what we're calling the Age of America. And I don't -- I mean that very significantly that there is an opportunity here of investment in the United States that is unprecedented. If you think about the factors that have been implemented and decisions made by the administration around energy policy, power generation, life science and semiconductor near-shoring, corporate tax policy, depreciation on investments. There's a whole collection of things that will drive investment in the United States. And we believe because of population dimensions, just number of people that automation will play a main, main driving factor in those investments. So we feel very well positioned there. We're also speaking about the position of the company in the Middle East. We've made significant investments in manufacturing in places like Saudi Arabia. We continue to invest in India, which we continue to see as a pathway to $1 billion. And in a world which is going to be very different, Steve, over the next decade, in China. China, which we're in our 46th year of, grew on average high single, low double digits over 45 years for Emerson. But I project that the next 10 years, possibly the time or shorter that I'm CEO, China will be a mid-single-digit grower. And so we have to prepare for what that means for our China structure in terms of cost, how we're organized but also what other geographies can supplement that growth.

Right. I may still be here in 10 years, so we'll have to come back and do this again at that point.

LaI was wrong. It didn't grow.

So when we think about that outlook, what -- your order rates are, I guess, decelerating a little bit. And I know you guys have equated those order rates to what -- how you think about next year. You guys have made some comments about these order rates support that trend line, 4% to 7% next year. Does what you're seeing at the end of the year color the picture at all as far as growth for '26? Is there a little more caution around that growth?

No, to be honest with you, I think process, hybrid profit will come out in the mid-single digits still as we finish the year. Discrete will accelerate. You've talked about T&M here. I believe -- and we'll get to this in November, I'm not going to guide '26 but that we'll guide inside of that framework.

Inside of the 4% to 7% framework. Okay. Okay. One last one for you. You mentioned all these tailwinds. How are you guys thinking about your investments? Are you looking at -- you've obviously got the positives but then you've got the negatives of tariffs and trying to manage that. It seems like corporate America has, that uncertainty is currently outweighing all these positive factors. How are you guys thinking about that in your boardroom?

Yes. So we will continue to spend where we need capacity. And we usually have a handful of big projects every year that accommodate capacity that we need and we'll continue with those. We're -- we've got the confidence to do that and the capital intensity of the business, as you know, is 2%, 2.5%. We expect to continue to spend CapEx at sort of that level. We will have sufficient cash flows to continue to spend on R&D at that 8% level and we'll continue to do that and see good opportunities there. So we are continuing to invest.

But you're not necessarily onshoring, so to speak, whatever kind of minimal capacity needs you have, like you're not onshoring?

No. Look, we're very regionalized as a manufacturing and a supply chain organization, America for the Americas, Europe for Europe, China for China, India for rest of Asia and the Middle East and Africa. So we feel really good about that structure that really has taken us 20 years to build and was advantageous to us through the pandemic, of course, because we're not putting relevant material on boats or airplanes. And it's become really advantageous to us, as you've seen in our tariff exposure in this period of time. So we feel good about that structure. And as long as there's some semblance of a North America trade agreement that is inclusive of Mexico, which -- and our products are generally, as you've seen, comply with USMCA, then we're okay.

Right. Until he decides to pull out a few components and tell everybody that those are not anymore -- I mean it's day-to-day.

we'll manage accordingly.

On the -- one last one on kind of the growth outlook for the core business outside of software. These growth markets, power, LNG, life sciences and then aero, you can throw in there, I guess, as well. Are these kind of the pillars that you look at for the next 3 to 4 years? And then the others are just really much more of a cyclical element as opposed to these that are really sustained multiyear above average.

I would add, I would certainly suggest LNG tied to energy security and affordability, certainly, life sciences, whether that's new drugs, GLP-1 investments, biologics, personalized medicine or nearshoring or reshoring of life sciences, certainly power and that's both the generating and the transmission distribution. So it's a very large swath of market investment, which represents 10% of our sales. And then on the discrete side, I think you're right. I think aerospace is a big deal. I think that's going to continue to drive growth. Semiconductor will be in a very important period of time as well. I suggest those 5...

[indiscernible] something like a stage of cycle. Power is probably early, life sciences, LNG, mid but still has legs. So, yes.

Yes. No, the power business here is underappreciated for sure. It's been always a strength and it's coming back really strong, obviously. Moving over to Aspen and the strategy there. Maybe just talk about how you look at that business, think about, I guess, the performance next year, there's going to be maybe a little bit of a disconnect between ACV and revenue and earnings. Maybe just talk through that a little bit because I think there's still a bit of a lack of visibility for people on how that's trending. And then we'll talk about the strategy there.

Sure. No, look, I feel really good, really good execution this year and we'll continue as we go forward to share with you that visibility through the ACV numbers, which is the best, most credible way that we can put a performance of a software business in front of our investors. And we'll manage through next year's guide when we talk in November as we look at ACV to revenue, what the impacts there are. But certainly feel really good about a very strong asset there.

Absolutely. And the ACV growth, as you know, has been high single digits there. And yes, there is the disconnect, Steve, between the GAAP revenue and the ACV at times. Again, it's $1.2 billion of the total. So it's not quite as big within the $18 billion in total. But certainly, it was a good year for us.

Yes. This year was very good.

Was very good.

Maybe talk about Aspen as part of your Boundless Automation initiative, virtual DCS, maybe in a little bit of a dumb down terms to help explain it. But this is a key part that I think people need to probably pay more attention to as far as your differentiation.

Yes. And I think the best way to think about it is many companies, inclusive of ours but many companies, many of our customers have undergone or tried to undergo digital transformation journeys over the last decade or so. Most of those have failed. And the reason they failed is because the data hasn't been accessible across the enterprise. Data exists. Most of it's not used but it's typically siloed and organized by department. To truly take advantage of a digital transformation journey that will optimize the facility, increase safety, productivity and profitability, you have to first start by having all your data in one place and all your data in the same language. So creating that unified data fabric is at the core of the vision of Emerson AspenTech. The large job that we won with Total is exactly that. Before we can start optimizing performance of an individual plant, I think it's for the enterprise value, important to have that contextualized data in one place. Secondly, you have to ensure that you have the latest Zero Trust cybersecurity elements around the processes. So that's an element that we're driving into the construct of the data with our Inmation software. And then thirdly, it's the ability to take what has been a hardware-centric DCS control system and turn it into a software-enabled hardware agnostic system. Can you run I/O out of a server? Do you need controller boxes? And the processing capabilities of blade servers versus controller boxes, not only is it significantly lower cost but higher productivity and processing speed. So that's the overall vision. That's what we can do with AspenTech and Emerson and we're very excited. We've been rolling out some of these products already, the edge device, contextualize some of the data already and then, of course, the data fabric with Inmation.

What industries do you expect this to penetrate first? And we're obviously -- just to be clear, an inning [indiscernible]

Yes, we're warming up at the batting cage, I think, on that analogy. But Total is a leader. What they did is there's a visionary in that company, a digital officer. She has a vision for the enterprise. She convinced the CEO and the CEO convinced that Emerson was the best positioned company to deliver on that promise. Everybody is watching our implementation at Total. It's very important, obviously, for us but for the industry as a whole because it's a game changer. We continue to have very high-level conversations with other customers but we're -- that's across multiple industries, the traditional chemicals, petrochemicals, life sciences. And we believe there are opportunities within power generation industries as well.

Yes. Siemens has been talking about this for a couple of years and they did an implementation with Audi. And it's still very -- customers are risk averse. They -- so it takes a little while for this stuff to catch on.

One of the things that we stressed with Total is that we're completely agnostic to the control system. So if you walk into Total and I'm going to make up a number, it's not correct but take it as directionally correct. And across their facilities, they may have 100 distributed control systems. Well, of the 100, less than 20 are DeltaVs. The other 80 are everybody else's. That's okay. That's okay. It doesn't really matter to -- because what we're going to do is, we're not going to ask them to replace any of those. If you take that approach, it's going to create huge barriers to investment and cost. We're going to layer the fabric right on top, utilizing investments that have been made over time, whether that's your [ Pi Historians ] or your DCSs and then use that data to drive the optimization software that sits on top of it in their enterprise-wide clouds.

So moving on to margins. Clearly, from the commentary today, the margins are still -- I would assume the EPS at the high end of the range is a segment margin -- a bit of segment margin upside, not like below the line like tax or something like that, check the box on that question.

There's a mix, but yes, segments are performing very well.

Okay. Any implications from the Section 232 component tariffs that were announced in August? I mean it's probably too late in the quarter but maybe for next year and any moving parts there?

Nothing we see that's significant there, Steve.

So the incremental margin has been fantastic the last 2 years. I think your current guidance is [indiscernible]. Yes, something like that. It's so high, I can't even really contextualize it. But what is the normal incremental margin that we should think about going forward? Your gross margins are fantastic, mid-50s-ish, something in that range.

52-ish.

Yes. So 52-ish. Typically, I think about incrementals as gross margin minus some investment. So maybe just what is the normalized incremental we should think about? Because I don't think it's 70 but [indiscernible]

It's been a phenomenal 4 years for us in terms of the margin. And what's interesting and I'll answer your question more directly. But what's interesting, Steve, is if you look about, I'd say 1,000 basis point improvement in GPs, 600 basis points came from the M&A activity. 400 basis points came from the legacy Emerson GP improvements. If you look at the 700 basis points of EBITDA improvement, $600 million of those came from legacy Emerson EBITDA improvement. The work that we do every day to drive cost reductions, to drive SG&A leverage, balancing the innovation investments and other things we have to do in the company, $100 million of it came from the M&A.

So what's the difference between how you're operating or the former management team was operating before and what you're doing now? Is that a little more price, being a little bit tighter on the costs? What -- I mean, price has definitely been a factor for everybody.

Yes. But we were always price positive in the automation business. It was our HVACR business that had fluctuations in price. I will say that Emerson, you could go back 40 years at this company, has managed costs incredibly well, arguably. The challenge for Emerson was the lack of growth. That's which we try -- we're addressing with the portfolio. But the cost management has always been a unique piece of how this company has been managed.

Yes, the margins have always been pretty.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Now to answer your question more directly, I think an expectation somewhere around the 40% is the right expectation on incrementals.

Okay. Going forward. And that would include, obviously, Aspen and whatever growth, whatever growth you're getting there. That's an all-in segment incremental.

Correct. And we'll -- look, Steve, we have a Capital Markets Day in November, which we've announced. We'll certainly come in and lay out that framework, growth, incrementals, expectations on earnings, et cetera but that's the number to be thinking about.

And as -- can we think about in the near term, a more normal year? Or is there still an unusual amount of tailwinds into next year from a segment margin perspective?

I think next year, you should be thinking about more of a normal year.

Okay. How do you -- this price discussion, what is price in software and in control? And I get what price is in Intelligent Devices and T&M. But in Software & Control, like what is price?

Escalations. So as you sign a contract, there's generally pricing escalations. And so that would be how we think about price in that business.

And if it's a 2- or 3- or 4- or 5-year contract, those escalations are built in by year.

That's right.

Right. And as far as the mix next year, I mean, I would assume that with the brownfield and greenfield, stuff maybe not growing quite as fast, that mix impact should be more -- less of an issue than perhaps if it was inflecting off of the bottom.

Should be still in that -- for MRO business? Yes, still be in the 60s and the low 60s.

Okay. And as far as the different businesses and the degree of margin opportunity, when you look at T&M versus Software & Control versus ID, where do you see the most opportunity? Or is it going to be pretty broad-based across the portfolio?

So Steve, I think the right way to think about it is, we did a lot of work at T&M on profitability. We did $200 million of cost takeout, which has largely been executed by the team. That positions the company now with -- we'll come out and guide the top line sales in November but assuming a high single-digit, mid-single-digit to high single-digit sales growth to leverage pretty strongly. We stay committed to the 31% EBITDA margins that we talked about for Test & Measurement and I think we'll be well on our way to get there. So those are very important.

The 31% is the as kind of the target. For what year was that target?

2028.

2028. Okay. Got it. So that's obviously going to be a positive lever. Any mix dynamics within ID that we have to keep in mind by vertical, whether it's discrete or...

Not really.

Yes, really.

Not really.

At least by subvertical?

Yes. And there's still opportunity in both the control systems and software business as well as the intelligent devices to continue to expand margins. So...

One of the things, Steve, to think through is in the softwareization, the virtualization of the DCS, you're turning a company that is hardware-centric with embedded software into a software company without hardware. So if you just think about that flip, for DeltaV and Ovation, that's a huge amount over time of profitability and price and everything else that gets unlocked there.

Right. And you guys still make a decent amount on your -- I mean, your hardware, for lack of a better term, I mean, your field devices are great barrier to entry, phenomenal pricing power. It's a really good business but software, obviously, higher margins.

Higher margins.

You got it. And that commitment around investment has been in -- across all the differentiating elements of the tech stack has been important and will continue to be important.

Anything below the line heading into '26 that's just mechanical that we have to keep in mind, whether it's tax rate or stock comp or any of these other items?

Pretty consistent. Interest will be a little bit higher because of the Aspen full year impact. But other than that, pretty consistent.

And Aspen synergies generally, what are we expecting next year, $75 million?

$100 million.

$100 million.

We'll tell you about it in November but feel really good about the execution there by the team.

Okay. I'll wait for November just to follow up on that.

You get another shot at me in a couple of weeks.

Yes, that will be fun. Any questions from the audience on fundamentals, sales, segment margins before we kind of get on to the strategic stuff? No. Okay. 1 question over 2 sessions. It's fine.

It doesn't mean they don't like you.

It's not about me. It's never about me. Just kidding. Cash conversion, you guys talked about getting to 100%. What's the pathway to get there? And what's maybe the timing on the 100% conversion if that's [indiscernible] incremental headwinds.

We'll be getting closer next year. We'll end this year in the low 90s. That will move up to the mid-90s or higher next year, we think. The more important metric for us is free cash flow margin, around 18% this year with some headwinds from the deal costs. And so we'll continue to expand that as well. So the free cash flow conversion, we think, is great. We'll be working that, continue to work the balance sheet for working capital opportunities and believe that there's some improvement coming there. But the free cash flow margin is the one I like, as we've talked about because it's just free cash flow to GAAP numbers divided into revenue and another GAAP numbers. So there's nothing adjusted about it. And we feel good about where we sit top quartile with that metric.

When you think about this year, $3.2 million odd of free cash flow with $200 million of transaction costs in there, fees that don't repeat in the forward state that unlocks a lot of opportunity here from a free cash flow perspective.

And is that the main lever? Or is -- are there other things that can get maybe a little less -- be a little less of a drag? It's a much more simplified P&L now because you're not -- you have to like adjust out Aspen.

Exactly.

So anything else other than the $200 million of transaction costs in the bridge?

We're always working the balance sheet for more efficiencies in the working capital where the opportunities are. So nothing unusual but we'll just continue to work that and...

Phenomenal earnings growth that will supplement that.

On capital allocation, I think you guys would have probably liked to have been at a bit of a lower level of leverage at this stage given safety and productivity. What's the -- first of all, will you reevaluate Safety & Productivity at some point in time? Or is that now in the portfolio and we kind of go from here?

No, we got to go from here. We did a lot of work, Steve and we need stability in this portfolio. There's a role that Safety & Productivity will play in terms of funding a lot of what we need to do. We're not going to starve that business, certainly not. It's a good business, a North America business predominantly with a good European base. So we wanted to, when we came out in the second quarter and concluded the review, be very affirmative that this is the company that we're going to run. And so that for our investors, after a large period of time, a significant period of time where it's been disruptive from a portfolio perspective, you can now understand what you're investing in when you own a share of Emerson. In terms of capital deployment, look, it's been 4 years of investment in M&A to reshape the company. The future, the next 3-plus years are going to be about returning cash to shareholders. We have a number of levers there. Of course, we have a phenomenal track record on dividend and there's levers we can pull there. And we have the share repurchase as well that we can look at. There'll be bolt-on opportunities. But we'll continue to invest in our business, as Mike talked about, it's not a capital-intensive business, between 2%, 2.5%. We'll continue to invest in innovation in our company, which we've taken from 2% to 8% of revenue in the last 4 years, some of that inorganically, some of that organically in our businesses. No one is going to be cash starved but the ample cash, as we'll talk about in November, to bring back to the shareholders in this next phase.

So share repo, real focus, dividend is obviously growing in line with earnings-ish.

We'll talk about what dimension we want to think about the dividend.

What -- how do you define a bolt-on? I think Eaton last week made it very clear that a bolt-on 5 years ago when they were a much smaller company, it's very different. They're now $160 billion market cap. So a bolt-on is now upwards of $7 billion. So how do you guys look at -- what is kind of the threat...

I haven't really changed. It's $1 billion purchase price for us.

Okay. So truly bolt-on.

Truly bolt-on. That's the kind of M&A we're talking about over the next 3 years or so.

And that type of M&A, is there a part of the portfolio, whether it's software, T&M, I'm sure, higher on the list? Or there -- is there a part of the portfolio that's higher on the list for bolt-ons than others?

The last 2 we did, we did one in our sensing business, Flexim, a German company, phenomenal flow business. We did one in our discrete business, Afag, electrical linear motion company based in Switzerland. So we'll continue to look for opportunities to bring new technology, differentiated technology accretive to growth and where we have margin improvement opportunities. So T&M certainly is a focus. Tough to find bolt-on software companies sub-$1 billion of purchase price. We'll look. But we don't see gaps in the software portfolio at this point in time that we can't do organically.

Okay. Just maybe second to last or third to last, AI. How are you applying AI? I mean we all think about AI and data centers as a -- and power as a driver of demand. How are you applying it in your business internally? And what are some of the early interesting applications that you're seeing progress in and around?

Yes. Internally, the -- well, AI, generally, the landscape is changing. We've been using AI, simple things like chatbots for a long time. We see opportunities around customer service for sure, any sort of transaction processing, we're taking a hard look at. So finance areas are certainly ripe for some implementation of various agentic AI. And then around coding, there are plenty of opportunities as well. So all of the DCS work that gets done, AI tools there to advance and gain productivity, all represent good opportunities for us as we move forward.

And as far as the offerings within the products, I mean, we were in Austin last year, I thought it was super interesting how configuring a test and measurement test was always a, I don't know, like 50-hour like process and AI can make that 2 hours or something like that. I mean any good examples of stuff that's embedded in your products now that's making a difference?

Two very important -- 3 very important releases in the last quarter. One is exactly what you saw in Austin, Nigel. now in the market. That is the AI agent within LabVIEW. It's sold as an incremental subscription within the LabVIEW suite. Again, it writes that first test procedure based on documentation that is fed into the agent. So technical specs, some circuits, et cetera, dimensions, will give you the first run. So it takes hours, hours out of the work of an engineer. Very interesting. We've also introduced an AI agent within AspenTech, AVA and an AI agent around Ovation. So all 3 of those are in the marketplace today. I just want to go back to one thing that Mike said, and I've challenged the organization is that we played a game for many years of taking high-cost jobs to best cost locations. The next challenge for us is to take best cost jobs to machines. And the challenge I've given the organization, Steve, is if it's transactional and repetitive, it should not be done by a human. And if you just think of that in terms, it means that they're in every function of a daily life of a corporation, there are such opportunities where the work that is at hand is transactional and repetitive. So that's the path we're on. It's a long journey to get there but we -- we have work underway in every single one of the functions to develop the AI agents that we need to do that.

And does that result ultimately in a decline in employment or it's just stable employment where you're just hiring less people and letting more people attrit? I mean, how does -- just from a macro -- from a CEO's perspective, how do you think about it?

The way I think about it is a decline in employment for those specific types of talent.

Right. For the total company?

For the total company, probably not. You're probably going to invest in differentiating skill sets. Can I hire more engineers now and increase my innovation? That's certainly a capacity that it brings. But all of that ultimately will be reflected in the incrementals that we deliver to the marketplace, pull that productivity up.

The 40% -- the 4% to 7%. Any other questions from the audience on strategy, capital allocation, AI? Okay. I guess I'll go with a real basic one here to finish up. Since you've taken the seat, there's been a ton that's gone on, not only for Emerson but also politically and globally. And what is -- as a CEO, what has maybe surprised you the most? What was maybe your biggest challenge that you didn't foresee that you learned something from? What's -- where is your -- have you matured as a CEO?

It's a great question. I came into the job with a deep appreciation of the requirement to have the best people around me. And I was very intentional early on. And as you know, Steve, I moved very quickly to make organizational changes in the company because I knew that to perform at our best, to do the difficult things that we did, to envision them and to execute them, I needed the best people. the Ram Krishnans of the world, obviously, Frank, then Mike, the Colleens, the right people in the right jobs to transform the company. That was number 1. And that hasn't changed. Number two, I'm not sure my predecessors had as much to deal with the outside noise. Yes, political relationships are important, geopolitical impacts of business, always important. But the number of opportunities that now exist for CEOs to comment to their internal populations about external activities, it's a little bit of a quick sand and you have to be very careful how you communicate those. And that's been a learning lesson for me. There is a natural curiosity in the population of our company. What does Lal think about it? What is Lal's response to some executive order? I have to tread very carefully in how I respond. I work under the assumption and I have great advice in our company and from our Board that, look, what I write internally is an external document very quickly. So we have to be very conscientious of that but you also have to be responsive and continue to drive engagement in the company. So it's a fine line to traverse given all that noise that's out there.

Would you guys welcome -- again, this is very topical but would you welcome half year reporting versus quarterly reporting?

What was the emoji that Colleen put on that when I sent her the story yesterday? It was kind of like -- look, I think it's...

It would make conference season a lot longer but obviously...

It would but look, I think it's important to comment towards as a public company on performance. It just seems to me like 6 months is a long time. Just think about the -- what's happened in this year or any given year. There's a lot [indiscernible]

Right, from February to June it is, it's a lot.

Think about liberation day. Just happened in the middle of that. So that's a long time to not talk to investors about your financial performance.

And then you'd issue something and everybody would ask about it. So you're running around during the quarter anyway trying to explain stuff that you're worried about the disclosure around all that. It's -- I don't know.

Thirds would be nice.

Thirds? We can try that.

Trimesters.

Trimesters.

We're kind of used to the quarter thing.

I just passed my 100th quarter at JPMorgan. And so yes, that's -- I mean, it's not that big of a deal. It's actually kind of pathetic that I'm still doing this after 25 years but well, anyway...

Well, you're doing a fine job.

Yes. Okay. Great question and a fine job. You know when the CEO says stuff like that, it's not a good question and he's patronizing you. Anyway, that's all I have. Thanks a lot for taking the time and thanks, everybody, for joining us today.

Thanks, Steve.

Thank you.