Flowserve Corporation (FLS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

I think we're ready to resume. Excited to have Flowserve's Amy Schwetz here with us today, CFO. Amy, thanks for joining us.

Thanks for having me, Joe.

Yes. So Amy, I don't know if you wanted to start with any initial comments, or whether you wanted me to just jump right in. I can do this every...

Let's just jump right in. I've seen a preview of the topics, and I think that we're going to hit the things that are on everyone's mind.

Okay, great. All right. So why don't we just start with the demand environment then first. So start us off, how are you feeling about the demand environment as we head into 2026?

Yes. I think we're feeling really pretty positive. As we kind of take a look at the landscape of where we play, there are certain markets that are showing strength that we haven't seen in several years. And so I'll start with power, which is something that we've been talking a lot to investors about over the last several months. But that's a market that we really see growing at a double-digit rates going in from 2025 to 2026. We see that as really being anchored by our nuclear portfolio, where we see opportunities around new build bookings, around life extension and just around the normal maintenance that we see in our aftermarket. And it's an area where, over the last 4 quarters, we've seen a run rate of business to a run rate of bookings at around $400 million, and we think that, that's kind of just the jumping off point. Maybe then moving through the remainder of the markets that we participate in, general industries, and I'll get more specific on general, is an area that we see growing at nice rates going into 2026. That's really, again, driven by 3 main areas where we're optimistic, and it's around pharmaceuticals. We started to see some pieces of this in the third quarter with 1 of our 3 largest bookings being a pharmaceutical booking in the range of about $15 million. We also see water, particularly out of the Middle East, providing some opportunities as well as mining, which will be -- which will benefit in from both our valves portfolio with the Mogas acquisition as well as our seals portfolio. And then if we kind of look at, kind of rounding the bases there, energy as an end market from a project perspective has been slower this year, from an aftermarket perspective has been extremely strong. We see that aftermarket environment continuing into 2026, and we continue to try and up our game commercially and operationally there to gain share. And so while the project environment is not expected to expand substantially going into next year, we're going to continue to do what I actually think that we do best at Flowserve, which is serve our customers through aftermarket. And then finally, I'll say chemical has been a headwind over the last couple of years, particularly as we look at our installation base out of Europe. And I think we've stabilized. And so I think there's part of me that, as we look at certain regions around the world, can be cautiously optimistic at what that end market might look like in 2026.

Yes, I had a company that was here earlier in the day, talk about how ending the year, the chemical business is going to impact the margins of one of their segments, but that they had also just recently booked a very large order in chemicals that -- so maybe the market is starting to turn there.

It seem like particularly as we look at regions in the chemical market, there are green shoots. And I would say that North America is one of those, in particular, where we see the potential for some improvement in 2026.

I'm smiling because maybe now our chemicals analyst will get a little bit more positive.

Nice to see smiles in the office...

For sure. For sure. So it's interesting. The aftermarket piece has been, I would like -- to your point, extremely strong, right? And it's been really great to see. You made a comment around like upping your game in aftermarket. I mean, you guys have really changed that business dramatically over the last several years and your entitlement has been a lot higher than it had been previously. We used to think that a $500 million order quarter was a great quarter, and now it's $600 million plus, right? So what else can you do to continue to drive like additional aftermarket growth going forward?

Yes. So I'll say I think the improvement really started with the reorganization that we did in 2023 and allowed us to look at the aftermarket business as really a global business versus regional. And that really changed the way that we serviced our customers. And one, it allowed us to think about cost in a different way to utilize low-cost country sourcing when lead time would allow. It also led to a little competitive tension between the regions, if you will, as well at times. And so a question of why margins couldn't expand in that area. And then I will say, commercially, what the reorganization did is it really allowed the allocation of resources in a smarter way across the organization. And so thinking about the pump segment as an example, looking at the business and saying, why don't I have more commercial resources dedicated to the aftermarket? This is where I'm generating a substantial amount of profit. And over time, I think that has become more of a team sport, if you will, where the business is more embedded with our customers than any other of our business units. And they really view that, that bookings number is something that they're working towards together rather than being just the commercial team driving that outcome. And then I'll add to that, some work that we've done operationally. So regionalization of our parts business, some small investments in that area as well to help with the digitization of plans and 3D printing in certain instances to help us service our customers more quickly on the pumps parts side. And then I'll end maybe with commercial tools as well around speed of quoting. And so our goal on this piece of the business is a quote in one day. And the view is, you've heard, if you've listened to the 2023 Investor Day, if you ever have an opportunity to hear our leader in the pumps division talk, he will undoubtedly say speed wins. And it's really speed in every element of the business around aftermarket. It's speed to quoting and its speed to delivery.

Yes, that's great. You've seen clearly the traction in that business. I'm curious, I mean, do you think this business could be an even higher run rate business going forward?

That is absolutely the game. You referenced $500 million as being sort of the first barrier that we needed to cross. We've been at $600 million the last 6 quarters. And actually, 2 of the last 3, we've been over $650 million. And so we continue to push this business, and they continue to push themselves to get better. And so think about ways that we can grow this. And some of you may have heard us talk before about the Flowserve Business System, and we've been really focused on over the last couple of years on what we've done operationally and what we've done from a portfolio perspective, which is 80/20, but commercial is the next area of the business system that we're tackling and sort of going through the first body of work that we're doing around commercial excellence. It is around cross-selling and cross-selling in the aftermarket specifically and making sure that we know where installed base is, we know where we've got customers who have bought pumps and maybe are even using us to repair pumps, but they're not buying Flowserve seals as an example. And so making sure that our commercial team is really aware of where those opportunities lie and using data to try and draw out opportunities.

Yes. That's great to hear. And we were talking before we went live about the recent reaction this past quarter. And I pointed out the fact that like, look, the earnings growth for the company this year was 30%. I know your stock was up about 30% when you reported. And a lot of it -- I think a lot of the feedback we got was around this nuclear opportunity. So I want to talk about that. But I do want to note that the operational performance of the company has been really good this year.

Thank you. And I -- we were laughing about it because I did not expect a 30% reaction on the day of earnings. But I'll tell anybody who will ask it, I'll not apologize about our current valuation because I still think that there's room to run. The valuation, frankly, pre that earnings call was why we had been pretty aggressive in the third and early fourth quarter around share buybacks. And so it is exciting to see some of that execution rewarded. And I will tell you, just as an inside -- insight here, I was feeling pretty bad internally because I kept telling our business unit leaders that the reason why we weren't getting the valuation that we deserved is because we needed to continue to expand margins. And they'd come to me and they'd say, "Amy, we're doing it. We're doing it. What's going on with the share price." And so I was finally able to say, "Hey, I might have been right."

Yes. Sometimes it takes the market a little longer to appreciate what's going on under the hood. So let's talk about power, right? So Q3 bookings up over 20%. It's been a clear strength for you throughout the year. Obviously, you laid out on the conference call, there's like 3 slides dedicated to nuclear and the opportunity, but let's like level set everybody. Your $5 billion total business today revenue-wise, nuclear today about 5%. Is that fair?

Yes.

Around 5% of your total revenue. So you laid out a $10 billion-plus opportunity over the next decade. Help us understand like in the near, medium and long term, what's addressable for Flowserve?

Sure. And I'll start out by saying -- by commenting that the $10 billion opportunity is from a bookings perspective. Not all of that revenue would necessarily flow through over that same period of time. But for the last several years, we've continued to support our nuclear clients, but we've not seen a lot of new builds in that mix. And so it's been primarily an aftermarket business that's comprising that. It could be between, call it, 5% and 7% in any given year from a revenue perspective. As we started to see Europe get more interested in energy security, there started to be more new builds activity come to light. And so I won't say that the first of our new build activity recently was in 2025, but it's been certainly a nice run for us. And so as we kind of draw out that opportunity, the way that we think about it is, we have content that is used in each of our large products, so pumps, valves and seals. And so if we think about traditional nuclear and new builds, that is an opportunity for us per reactor of about $100 million. And so thinking about what is possible for us to win, publicly available data of about 40 new reactors going under construction under -- in the next 10 years, that's a huge opportunity for us. Now that revenue will be on a cycle that is a bit longer than -- or I should just say, longer than our traditional business. And so those are orders that tend to play out over 3 to 5 to, call it, 7 years on the new build side. Now those are projects that we utilize PoC accounting for. And so there's revenue recognition and cost recognition over that life, but it is somewhat back-weighted. I think the next piece of this is, and I'm going to maybe then go to maybe the more of the run rate business around life extensions and restarts, which is another really exciting piece of the business as well. That content per life extension or restart is, call it, $30 million plus for us in that mix. And so it's an area that we're spending a lot of time being focused on with utilities and in their engineering firms and in positioning ourselves well. And to the extent that there's Flowserve content, we feel very good about our right to win there. And then our traditional aftermarket, it's been about a $100 million run rate business for us a year. That will only continue to grow and snowball over the next decade as we see these assets both work harder and also restart. And then I saved SMRs for last because I will say this is a piece of the business that has evolved very quickly over the last 12 months. I think that perhaps even last year, we talked about this, and I talked about that as being a longer-term story. There has been a lot of work that's been done around SMR. It's just given the need for power for data centers, in particular. And so we've actually had our first bookings around SMRs in 2025, relatively small orders around prototypes that are being built. But this is an area where there's been the announcement of 30 over the next 5 years. We've kind of taken that opportunity and saying probably another 30 the next 5 years. And so a relatively big opportunity there as well and probably the second largest opportunity that we have within that $10 billion...

Behind [indiscernible].

Yes. And so I think it's an exciting area. We picked about 10 or 12 companies that we're trying to work with around technologies with SMRs. We think that there are going to be -- this is a sprint to feasibility. And so we think it's important to both kind of spread the bet, but also try and pick some winners and not try and be everything to everyone within this space, but it's something we're really excited about. And I'll say, just like I referenced some of the resources that we brought to bear around the aftermarket, nuclear is the same. So we've brought in a dedicated nuclear resource, someone who's been with the Department of Energy, who knows the regulators around the world, who understands what our customers are looking for, is able to talk the same language as our customers and has been a real benefit for us in this space, both as we look to up our game commercially, but also as we look to understand this technology better.

And when did you hire that person?

He's been around for a little over a year at this point in time. Yes.

Interesting. When you put that all together, right, and you think about -- it's interesting, right? We cover a couple of few companies that sell into the space. But the reality is, like this has been a space that for the better part of like 20 years was...

It's unloved.

Unloved or nonexistent or underinvested in, right? So when you think about the -- maybe the competitive landscape in nuclear relative to like your core businesses, is your right to win higher? How do I think about like your share opportunity of that $10 billion opportunity? Because you're not going to win the whole thing, right? Like what do you -- how are you guys thinking about that entitlement?

So I'm going to start by saying, I think what my commercial team would -- or our commercial team would want me to say, which is we don't take our customers for granted. So we need to continue to show that we deliver, and we provide what our customers need. That said, I think this opportunity, we have a better right to win than the rest of the funnel that we have. And within that funnel, we have some end markets that we perform very well in. But I think there's both this idea that you pointed out and I use the term unloved, but this was an industry that went -- was probably underserved in some ways for a number of years. And so we've continued to maintain our supply chain in this area. We've continued to keep the technical and engineering resources that we need in-house, and we've continued to maintain our certifications. And so as we look at certifications around the world, in the U.S., it's an N-stamp. There's similar frameworks in different geographies around the world. Those are plant by plant. So it's not as if this is Flowserve has these certifications, and we can choose the start-up activities wherever we want. Our customers know that we've continued to invest in maintaining that service and that means something and particularly in a period of time where build-out is extensive, being -- having that relationship with the engineering, design and construction firm matters a lot. They know what to expect from a product perspective, and we are spec-ed into those designs, which is incredibly helpful. And then I'll just go back to kind of the restarts and life extensions. You're unlikely to switch from the original equipment provider at that point in time. You're looking for speed, you're looking to mitigate risk, and we're going to be positioned well to serve those customers as they look for those restarts and life extensions.

That makes sense. I'm going to open it up to the audience in a second, and I will forewarn you very few questions have come from the audience today. But the -- as you look into 2026, do you want to maybe just provide like an initial framework or initial thoughts on just growth, margins, free cash flow?

Yes. So we are obviously going to talk more about 2026 as we release earnings early next year. But I think overall, the headline is positive. I've kind of walked through the end markets at the beginning, and we think that's a very constructive backdrop for growth in 2026. And so looking to lean into that. And although I'm very confident around that growth, I am even more confident in our ability to continue to expand margins. I mean this is part of what is sort of foundational to who we are trying to become at Flowserve. And so as I think about the levers that we have to pull from 80/20 to continuing to operate better, to roofline consolidation, we're still opportunity rich from a margin expansion standpoint. And so I think the outcome of that is nice earnings growth again in 2026. And that's certainly what we'll continue to push the team for within Flowserve.

Great. One follow-up and then I'll go to the audience. Any way to think about like that opportunity rich or the productivity funnel like 2026 versus 2025? Is it comparable? Just any thoughts around that would be...

Yes. I think comparable in different areas. And so if you kind of look at the journey that Flowserve has been on since 2023, we have seen substantial improvement from our FPD segment. And so the margins have expanded. There have really been step changes in each of the years since then. And the progress within our FCD segment has been a little bit slower. And I'd comment that we think that we've made the right moves within FCD to expand margins, and now we're going to be in a position that, that accelerates a bit. And so if I think about 80/20, for example, they're probably 2 to 3 quarters behind where we're at right now within FPD from a maturity standpoint of the process. That will accelerate as we move into 2026. And so what I'm looking for from the business is more of a step change in FCD from a margin perspective and with FPD being more in a bit of the continuous improvement mode and the traditional type of margin expansion that you would see from 80/20.

That's helpful. Okay, I'll go to the audience. Any questions from the audience? All right. We got one. We got 2.

[indiscernible].

Yes. So I think for the webcast, question about whether or not there's capacity that needs to be added from a nuclear perspective? And right now, the answer to that is no. So we feel really good about the footprint that we have around the world, not just one facility, but sort of in multiple areas of the world from North America to Europe, to Asia to service the nuclear demand. Within -- I think that there -- it's possible that we will improve certain facilities over that period of time, whether or not that's testing capabilities or efficiency moves, but I think all of that can be done within the construct of our normal capital run rate.

It's Kevin Dreyer from Gabelli Funds. Curious about capital allocation. Obviously, you had a big deal that didn't go through. You got a bucket of cash, business is doing great, you lean to the share repurchases. Should we expect M&A to be meaningful for you in the, let's say, short to midterm going forward? Or are you more focused on the organic opportunities you have?

Yes. So I think that what you saw from a share repurchase perspective is -- was very opportunistic on our part, and we're going to continue to have the ability to be opportunistic around share repurchases. And I think it remains kind of the litmus test that we can compare inorganic growth against. Overall, we like M&A as a tool in the belts around growth and around expanding our exposure to end markets that we like more. So you saw us -- the Mogas transaction in 2024 is a good example of that. We wanted more exposure to mining. Mogas gave us that in a meaningful way with that deal. And so that's kind of the way that I think about programmatic M&A around does it fit the strategy, is it going to expand margins and improve our cash flow? And can we do it within the bounds of our balance sheet? And so I think you'll see us be disciplined, but hopefully active in the M&A space to really enhance the portfolio of opportunities that we have. That being said, I don't want anyone in the room to think for a minute that we're turning our back on sort of the self-help story internally. And so I'd like to believe that the second and third quarter of this year gave some indication that the improvements that we've made within Flowserve over the last several years around the business system have added an element of sustainability to performance that maybe we've not had the opportunity to demonstrate before. And so we had a small group of team members who are actively involved in advancing a transaction that we thought was strategic. And while we both negotiated and diligence that deal and ultimately shut it down, we delivered 2 great quarters. And so we'll continue to be disciplined and focused on the underlying business as we approach M&A.

Okay. Great. So maybe just talking through the margins and not giving up on self-help. I mean you gave us some good color across the different segments. In FPD, you're already above what your long-term margin target was, and you just said that you would expect to see margin expansion again next year. So that's great to hear. And maybe that talks to the sustainability that you're expecting out of that business going forward. In FCD, the businesses -- the business there doesn't have the same type of aftermarket content as FPD. I know that you're also integrating Mogas, so that was a headwind to margins. How do we think about like what the entitlement of that business really is going forward? Can it be FPD like based on where they are in their journey?

Yes. So I think that we are -- this is a business that traditionally has had very strong margins. And I think if probably after our Investor Day in 2023, if we would have said that FPD got to the margin target before FCD, people would have taken my temperature.

I would have been one of those people. Yes.

And so I think that there -- we see with the FCD business no reason structurally why we can't get back to the levels that we've been at in the past and even go beyond that. There's still a fair amount of work that we can do operationally. And I'll point to -- I use this as sort of a marker. FCD is actually the drag for us on working capital within the organization. And so as I think about that and the opportunity to improve working capital, I also see that as an indicator of how efficient are the operations. And so I think that there's more work that can be done around operational excellence. I think we'll be more aggressive around complexity reduction, which is what we call 80/20 internally with the product portfolio in 2025. And I actually think that the services and solutions model that we've set up in both of the segments, it's more obvious within FPD in terms of how we serve our customers within -- with the aftermarket, but that opportunity exists within FCD as well. And whether or not that's replacement valves or repairs, it's an area that we can continue to strengthen that relationship with our end user customers and grow margins over time.

Yes, that's a really interesting comment on working capital. Is that mostly on the services side of FCD?

It's actually more on the traditional product side of the business. And so it's an area that's getting a lot of focus from team members, both within the platform and corporate resources as we head into next year. But I think that the improvement in margins is going to come and we're going to see improvement in working capital...

I mean you've already made great strides in your free cash flow conversion. So it sounds like there's opportunity for further...

Yes. I think that -- I've shared this before that what's exciting about our free cash flow performance is there still is so much opportunity within working capital. And so rather than being disappointed that we haven't made even more progress in this area, I guess I sort of see it as just a way that we can continue to further enhance the business and generate free cash flow, which then we look to allocate in a disciplined way. It becomes a virtuous cycle.

So I know we asked -- the audience asked a question about capital allocation and then also a question around capacity additions for nuclear. Just marrying that question together, when you think about M&A and getting after the nuclear entitlement that we talked about earlier, do you need to add to your portfolio in the nuclear business? Is there a potential white space or adjacencies? What does that pipeline look like?

It's definitely -- it's not a have to have. But certainly, if we see opportunities out there to enhance our nuclear portfolio, that would be an attractive opportunity for us. So I think as we look at end markets that we see attractive out there, and nuclear is certainly one of them, general industries and sort of strengthening our role in for pharmaceuticals, even things that are a little bit more GDP driven like food and bev are appealing to us. So -- and I think the other piece that we continue to look at, and I've gone through the filter a couple of times today, so I apologize if I'm repeating myself here. But really, our strength in the aftermarket is something that we continue to look to utilize in our favor. And so that means businesses that are heavy in aftermarket already are attractive to us, but also businesses that we don't think have fully penetrated or taken advantage of what they can do from an aftermarket perspective is -- are attractive to us. We've invested in, call it, 150-ish quick response centers around the globe. Each of those was started in a capital-light manner. They're not -- it's not expensive to build 1, but it's relatively expensive to build 150. And so I think that, that network of service centers and of Flowserve talent is sort of unmatched in the industry and something that we need to continue to look to exploit.

Great. Amy, any last closing comments?

I think it's pretty obvious that I'm optimistic about the future for Flowserve. And so I think that we've done a nice job positioning the company market-wise and taking advantage of some of our strengths in our product portfolio. And then I'm very proud of the way that the team has responded to the changes and the adoption of the business system, and that's around really what we've done from an operational perspective, but also 80/20, which is a huge cultural shift for an organization to take that on. And the team has done fantastically with that. And then I think the last piece of that is really around what we can do commercially and continuing to serve our customers in a way that is perhaps more efficient for us internally, but also in a way that gets them the answers that they want in an even more timely way.

That's great, Amy. Thanks so much for being here. Congrats on all the progress.

Thank you.