MKS Inc. (MKSI) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Okay. I think we'll go ahead and get started. Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to this session for MKS. I'm Rob Mason, the senior analyst at Baird, that covers Advanced Industrial Technology. I certainly want to welcome MKS to the Industrial Conference. As you may be aware, MKS is a leading technology solutions and subsystems provider into leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing, electronics and packaging. Very pleased to have Ram Mayampurath, the Executive Vice President and CFO with us; as well as Keith Loop, who's the Vice President of their Vacuum Systems and Services business. Ram is going to go through a few slides. There should be a little bit of time at the end for Q&A. And if you have any questions, direct those up to us via the iPad, and I'll work those in.

Thank you, Rob. Hello, everybody. Let's just get right and we have quite a few. So MKS is a foundational leader in technology. We'll get into the details of that in a minute here. But we provide precision solutions to our customers. We are engaged in solving our customers toughest problems, if you may. And as the technology demand gets more complex, as the demand on equipment and technology increases, it's good for MKS as we get into product miniaturization and more technology requirements, it works to our advantage. We have a very strong close relationship with our customers. We do co-development with them. We -- the proximity to the customers and the technology discussions is a core strength for MKS. We are also very focused on driving value for our shareholders. Our execution remains very strong. We'll get into some of the numbers here in a minute, and we are very focused on driving profitability and cash flow. These are 2024 numbers, and we'll take you through year-to-date 2025 as well, but $3.6 billion. We spent about 8% on R&D. It's the technology differentiation that helps -- that separates us from our competition and also gives us the price and the margin advantage that we have. We are about 25% EBITDA, and we'll get into some of the other numbers here in more detail in the slides ahead, the 85% of surround the chamber strategy and the 70% of the steps in the chemical business that we are in. We'll talk about that in a little detail in the slides ahead. If you look at our main market segments, these are our 3 main market segments, semiconductor, which includes semiconductor -- traditional semiconductor that MKS has been involved in and also world-class optics, which is the litho metrology and inspection. Electronics and packaging that came out of the large acquisition we did about 3 years back of Atotech business; and specialty industrial, which is a collection of several markets, if you may, it includes automotive, it includes general industrial, it includes aerospace and defense, life health sciences and research. And by no way is it commodity business. It's very profitable, high-margin businesses, and we'll get into all of them in very much in detail here in the slides ahead. But just to give you an overview, those are the key market segments we play in. And to take you through the next couple of slides, Keith will take you through the technology part.

All right. Thank you, Ram. So as Ram said, semiconductor is our core business, as you saw on the last slide. And so -- as you can see, the semiconductor business has a long history of steady growth over the last several decades, whether it's semiconductors for PCs or semiconductors for your mobile or handheld device. There's been strong steady growth of chip sales over that period. And now as we look forward in the last few years and as we look forward, there's still strong growth drivers in the semi business, really driven by AI, big data or any other high-performance computing. And so there's a pretty broad consensus in the industry that the semiconductor industry is going to grow to about $1 trillion in revenue by 2030. And even there's some -- even more recent reports of even numbers significantly higher than that by 2030. So there's a lot of good strong end demand growth for semiconductor chips. And so walking the next layer back to kind of how that impacts MKS to make all those chips, you need to build factories and fill those with equipment. And so there's a measure called wafer fab equipment spending, which is how much money spent on equipment every year. And you can see in the last 5, 6 years, there's been a significant increase in equipment spending from about $30 billion 5, 6 years ago to over $100 billion now in the last several years. And so as the chips have become more complex to make the revenue that you saw there on the revenue side, it's the equipment intensity and the amount of money to spend to make that chip has gone up as well. And so again, more factories need to be built, more equipment needs to be purchased. And if we hit the $1 trillion in revenue by 2030, on kind of a similar intensity assumption, that's going to mean that we need to increase WFE from a little over $100 billion today to well over $150 billion in just the next several years by 2030. So a great spot to be, good and growth drivers and good strong end demand for our semiconductor industry. So if we go another layer down and say, all right, what is all this equipment that people are buying? What's in that factory? So if you go to a semiconductor fab, they're making that chip there that's in the middle. And it's kind of a complex drawing there cross-section of what a semiconductor chip looks like these days. And you can see multiple features, many layers, many different features that are made on that semiconductor chip. And to do that, you can see it's a circular repeating process in that semiconductor fab of photolithography, complex photolithography equipment to make the images etching and deposition equipment to put the patterns down and etch away and create the patterns that you need. And then you need to measure it and make sure everything is fine down to a nanometer scale. So every one of those segments has very complex equipment to produce that semiconductor chip. And so this cycle repeats over 80 -- 90 times over 1,000 process steps just to make one wafer and can take over 3 months to make that wafer. So not very simple. And so if you look at where MKS plays in this space, we're in 85% of those pieces of equipment that are on the fab floor. So broad exposure, true critical technologies that enable that equipment to run in every one of those steps. And so we're not just selling some components, a screw or other part. We are selling critical enabling technologies. One example is RF Power, which is critical for creating plasma and etching away very, very fine features. And so you need very precise power, very much controlled power, that's a key area of strength for MKS that we are, particularly in etch and deposition equipment where we provide that main kind of heartbeat of that piece of equipment. We also have been getting into the photolithography and inspection space with the acquisition of Photonics business back in 2016. And there, we're, again, enabling critical optics subassemblies into lithography and metrology systems to enable those to continue to push the limits of what we can do for our customers. So we go to the next slide, basically, as we look at the semiconductor business, you see strong end market growth, great long legacy position that MKS has had over the last 60 years of providing solutions in that semiconductor space, and emerging with the lithography and metrology space and the photonics that's growing and building a base of as well. But that chip can't run just having a chip. It's got to go into a system. It's got to go into an overall advanced electronic device, which includes wafer level packaging, package substrate and printed circuit boards. And so that leads into the next segment, which is electronics and packaging that Ram had covered. And so we play a critical role, just like we do in semiconductor space in the electronics and packaging space. We have electronic chemistry solutions that create those patterns on the printed circuit boards and those package substrates. We have equipment that goes along with that those chemicals. And we also have laser drilling equipment to create the features and the interconnects between the layers of the printed circuit boards. And so -- in the past, the semiconductor industry has improved performance, improved costs and improved power efficiency through improving the semiconductor chip. We've gotten to a point now where these -- especially these complex AI systems are creating needs that not -- we don't need just innovations on the semiconductor chip, but we need that package. Every layer you see below the chip to improve as well, need better performance, more layers, quicker connections, less power consumption. And so there's a lot of innovation now. You're probably hearing a lot about AI and packaging and the different constructions to help enable those complex systems and we're at the heart of that with our chemistry solutions and our laser drilling solutions. So to kind of finalize here on the market overview. The -- really, this chart really shows the value chain and the supply chain of where we play all the way from the components that we make to the equipment that we feed into. The manufacturers that make the chips and then ultimately to the end device OEMs. And you can see that both on the semiconductor side where we sell to the big 5 equipment makers. And on the electronics and packaging side, where we feed chemistry and capital equipment to printed circuit board manufacturers that you see there and package substrate manufacturers. We are foundational to both sides of those industries that equipment can't run without our subsystems and those PCBs can't be made without our chemistries. And as the technology continues to evolve, we are key enablers partnering with our customers to develop solutions in those areas.

So to catch you up a little bit on what 2025 key financials, if you may, you saw the 2024 numbers. If you look at our three quarters of actuals in our fourth quarter guide, we are well on our way to be a $3.9 billion, close to $3.9 billion of top line, which is about a 9% growth year-to-date from prior year. EPS, which had a strong growth in '24 -- '23 to '24 is projected to grow more at about 22%. This is again year-to-date growth. And free cash flow, in the first 3 years of -- first 3 quarters, I'm sorry, of 2025, we have almost made the free cash flow we did all of '24. So we are well on track to exceed our free cash flow growth this year compared to last year. Last year, we were about average 11% of revenue. In this quarter, we will be about 15% of revenue. So free cash flow generation has been strong. So we are very good at executing changing agile responding to the geopolitics and the market requirements, and we are very focused on managing our cost as we grow our top line. To get into some of the more specifics of each business segment that Keith just went over, $415 million in top line for semiconductor in Q3, that's a quarter-over-quarter, slightly down, mostly because the NAND upgrade cycle, which tends to be a little lumpy, was very strong in Q2 but was not as high in Q3. The fundamentals of the semiconductor business remains very strong, with the high Q2 NAND impact made the sequential comparisons negative. The year-over-year change, you can see is over 10%, and our guide for Q4 remains at Q3 levels. Again, we will see less impact of NAND because it's more driven by upgrades at this point. Electronics & Packaging, which is part of the acquisition that I talked about and the details of what Keith just went through. Quarter-over-quarter, 9% improvement in Q3. Year-over-year, we have a 25% growth in that business, and it's chemistry and chemistry equipment. And a good part of that equipment business, in particular, is driven by the AI demand. And we have a strong guide getting into Q4 as well at $295 million. Specialty Industrial, like I said, it's got a bunch of segments within it. GDP is a good measure to track that. PMI index is a good measure to go by. We are stabilized. It's still below what it used to be, but we started the year at about $270 million, $275 million a quarter. We're happy to exceed get to this $284 million level, $280 million level in Q3, Q4. And it's really tied to mostly auto industry and general industrial, which are the 2 bigger segments within that. And again, like I said, PMI is slightly started ticking above 50 now. And we hope as it gets to its more normal levels, we'll start to see much more profitability in cash generation. To touch upon our capital allocation strategy, we are expanding our CapEx to get closer to our customers, mostly and to modernize our -- manufacturing facilities. We are building a new plant in Malaysia, and we have acquired land and build a chemistry plant in Thailand. We also have some activities going on in China and in Europe and Romania. Our CapEx tends to be about 4% to 5% of our revenue, closer to the 4% range, and that will continue for 1 more year, and then it'll get back more to normal levels of 3% to 4%. So investing in ourselves, investing and supporting the growth of the business and continuity of the business is primary focus, investing in technology remains our primary focus for capital allocation strategy. And the second focus is we pay a modest dividend, about $60 million a year and strengthening our balance sheet by lowering our leverage. That's going to be our primary focus after the first 2 for the remaining period of time until we get our debt down to 2 to 2.5x net leverage. And the debt was -- is nothing new for MKS. We always borrow money for acquisitions. We borrowed money for the Atotech acquisitions, and we've been paying it down. It's just the discipline of paying it down. So that remains our primary focus. Once we get our debt down to more acceptable levels of 2.5x net, we can get into a more broader capital allocation strategy that includes returning cash back to shareholders, if you may, and also inorganic growth support, which is a core part of our strategy. We probably don't need to do any large acquisitions like the ones we have done in the past, the ones that for what we look at more will be tuck-ins and bolt-ons to our existing core businesses. We did buy back a small amount of stock in Q1 of this year, mostly to offset dilution, and that's very opportunistic. So to sum it up, we have some -- we are in some very secular growth markets as we went through the segments of market we are in. We are very focused on driving profitability and creating value for our shareholders, and we'll continue to focus on cash generation and deleveraging and strengthening our balance sheet. As we look at 2026, given the tailwind we have on the top line, given our cost structure and the cash generation and a strengthening balance sheet, we are looking at a very good 2026 as we look ahead. With that, I'll stop and take any questions.

Absolutely. If there are any questions, just feel free to raise your hand and we'll work you into the dialogue. So Ram, maybe just a high-level question. As you think about the technology portfolio that you do bring to bear. You checked a lot of boxes as we looked at the diagram around wafer construction or chip construction. How do you differentiate on the technology side versus your peers? Is it breadth just having the touch points that you do or just elaborate on that?

Absolutely. Keith, do you want to start with that? And...

Sure. So I think one of the key things we do is, again, with the breadth of the products that we have, we have close relationships with our customers. And what we ultimately do is we solve our customers' hardest problems, as Ram has said earlier. So we really do -- when those technological changes happen, we're right there with them. We can see it coming with them. We can develop those solutions and enable their equipment to do what it needs to do. And so I think it's really about customer intimacy, which our broad portfolio enables us to be even closer to see those inflections coming earlier and develop the solutions that are differentiating in the marketplace.

Yes. Yes. And the differentiation that our R&D does is reflected in the differentiation we bring to our product that provides the stickiness in the business, the price stability and the margin. So the R&D dollars we spend are very well put to use. That's the core strength there.

Yes. You mentioned service several times in your overview. How does that mix in with the service revenue streams, mix in with those that are going to be more directly tied to CapEx? What's the mix there? And are you trying to change that dynamic?

I'll start and Keith runs the Service business, so he can certainly talk more about it. So we are very, very happy with the service component in our business. The acquisition of the Atotech business and the growth of our E&P was primarily focused on driving broader portfolio of products to minimize the volatility of semiconductor business, if you may. The service side of our business, including the chemistry, provides -- it's about 40% of our revenue with a high -- very high margins. That -- as that grows, it provides more stability to our overall revenue stream. And Keith feel free to add on anything more you want.

Yes, yes. So I think the service business in total is about $500 million of that kind of 40% that you said. And so it's been growing. Obviously, as the installed base grows, as we sell more equipment, that service business naturally grows and then we've really focused on engaging the end users who are using the products and our OEM partners and finding ways to add more value even in the aftermarket, and we've been able to do that and kind of outpace the growth on the service side and bring more value leading to increased margins as well.

And we have service associated with both semiconductor, photonics and MSD. And to Keith's point, as the installed rate base increases, the service revenue potential is going to increase and the profitability of that segment is very attractive for us.

Yes. You made mention at the end, you feel good about where you sit heading into 2026 around growth. How should we be thinking about MKS growth in the context of the WFE growth as a barometer for how fast that you could grow?

Yes. And I can again start and Keith can talk more about the WFE impact to our business. But where we sit, we are very happy with the level of execution and the focus we have had in deleveraging and strengthening our balance sheet. We are happy with the investments in the portfolio that we have. And the general shift in the discussion that we are having with you folks from semiconductor, just semiconductor to electronics and packaging as well. So the acquisition that we did a few years ago is really hitting its stride now. We're seeing it in the top line and AI is going to only take it forward. And when you look forward into the years ahead, we think we are in a very well position to both drive top line and profitability. So that's what I meant. But WFE, you can talk more about it.

Yes. So again, I highlighted the kind of history of WFE growth and the forecast of it going forward from the industry analysts. And MKS has a long history of outperforming WFE. We've outperformed WFE about 200 basis points, and we've done that over the last several decades, and we -- everything we see going forward, we should be able to continue to outperform WFE by about that 200 basis points.

Okay. What about the margin profile, thinking about the near-term margin profile, the puts and takes on gross margin given where the business is currently trending?

Yes. So the -- if you look at 2024, all the way up to actually Q1 of 2025, we were well ahead of 47%. We finished Q1 at 47.4%. Since then, two things happened. One is we started the impact -- we started seeing the impact of tariffs in starting Q2. And we started seeing the impact of mix, the equipment side of the chemistry business that I talked about earlier, we started seeing the impact of that. That equipment business is not -- is lower than the corporate average margins, if you may. But it's a good problem to have because -- it guarantees future very high-margin chemistry sales. So among our competition, the main competition we have are -- we are the only ones who sell the equipment. And that model of equipment plus chemistry works very well for us because more equipment out there, it's more chemistry for us. And the attach rate after 5 years, we say it's about 85%. So in the earlier years, it's higher than that. So that's very attractive for us. So that mix did help did hurt our overall gross margin in the short term. Regard to tariffs, we had 115 basis points of impact in Q2, without which we would have been close to 48%. We had 80 basis points of impact in Q3, we'd have been 47.4% without that. As of Q4, we have offset the impact of tariff dollar for dollar. However, just because of math because we don't mark up those tariffs, especially pass through what we need to pass through, there will be a 50 basis points impact to the gross margin, although not -- no impact to the dollars itself. And we'll offset that. We are very confident of getting back to our mid-40s margin, 47% plus with just ongoing operational excellence, programs that we are running and once we get to a more normalized mix.

One thing that we've been asking all of the companies here is to try to get some sense as to how real is AI, right? And how you may be applying it? Yes, there's a lot of push to make it external customer, work it into customer solutions. But internally, I'm curious if you have any areas that there are examples that you could point to where you've applied AI tools and are driving some efficiencies or savings that you'd call out?

So internally, you mean within MKS or topline?

Internally.

Internally, I can start and Keith, if you can think of anything specific to. So we are early in our adoption of AI. We have teams of specialists in AI that's working with us. We are trying to train more experts to be embedded in the functions, if you may, functional leaders. So within finance, for example, there's a lot that AI can do, and we are early stages. We are scratching the surface. There's things we can do in R&D. And that is going to make our OpEx, in particular, a lot more scalable as we use more of that. But we are in very early innings right now. Anything specific you want to add, no?

Yes.

And did you effort to delever the balance sheet to your target level? Have you put a time line on when you think you could get to 2.5?

I haven't -- we haven't put a time line. We are very focused on getting 2 to 2.5x. And our past actions of prepayments, we've been putting money where our mouth is. The wildcard or the unknown there is really the top line. At our current muted top line, if you may, '23-'24 was very flat. We've been able to manage about $0.5 billion of payments around that every year prepayments and mandatory payments together. But as that top line comes back to more normal levels, we can certainly accelerate that. So that's the bit of the unknown plus anything else we can do from a portfolio point of view or to accelerate that, we will look at. So we haven't given a time line, but we are confident that we'll get to the levels we want to. And like I said, it's not uncommon for MKS. It's just that the last borrowing was larger and the market didn't get the top line where we needed it to be. So it's taken a little longer. But the discipline to get it back to acceptable levels is very critical for us. We've always done that.

Yes. Just on the Specialty Industrial segment. You mentioned that has crept up as the years unfolded from where you began the year. But are you seeing any green shoots of more substantive improvement in that part of the business? Any particular area?

So not really. So I think too, we have seen slight growth in aerospace and defense and in life health sciences, if you may. But the two big segments there are general industrial and auto. And as you all know, I mean, the auto news last one was slightly better, but not a meaningful impact yet. So unless we see something there, hopefully, the interest rate cuts will drive further demand. So unless we're something meaningful in those two segments, factory built and we have lasers that go into the factories. That's the Specialty Industrial component there. And the business related to the auto, we won't see a step change from where we are.

Yes. Is that a global business? Or is it -- pretty exposed to any particular region?

No, 100% global.

Okay. Any regions stand out as maybe better than another? I'm thinking maybe North America might be better than Europe?

No. We have businesses spread all over the world. We have local-for-local manufacturing all over the world. So I mean, if you look at MKS, our China exposure is about lower 20%, 22%. Most of that is related to the chemistry and the -- Chemistry business, if you may, and that China manufacturing is all local done in China. We have factories in Europe, and we have factories in North America.

Very good. Again, maybe the last call, if there's any questions before we wrap here? No. We'll call it then. Thank you very much, Ram.

Thank you. Thank you, all.

Thank you.

Good to see you.