Stanley Black & Decker, Inc. (SWK) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary
November 16, 2021
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Nicole DeBlase
analystGood afternoon, everyone, and thanks for tuning in to Deutsche Bank's Industrials Conference. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Nicole DeBlase, the lead analyst for both multi-industry and machinery sectors here at Deutsche Bank. I am very pleased to introduce Stanley Black & Decker for our next session. Here, we have CFO, Don Allan; the CFO of Tools & Storage, Lee McChesney; and the Head of Investor Relations, Dennis Lange. The format of today's presentation is going to be fireside chat, although Don is going to kick us off with some opening remarks. For the audience, please feel free to submit any questions in a little chat window that you should see below our faces. I'll be monitoring those throughout the discussion, and I will ask any questions that you have anonymously on your behalf, should there be any. And with that, I'll pass it to you, Don.
Donald Allan
executiveGreat. Thank you, Nicole, and good afternoon, everyone. And as Nicole said, I would just like to walk through a couple of slides we've sent out and just a little bit of a refresher on Stanley Black & Decker and then the focus we have on really continuing the growth story of our company as well. So if you look at Page 3, obviously, you see the makeup of our company, a large portion of the Tools & Storage, outdoors included within that category or segment, last year, about $10.3 billion in revenue, in 2020. The company was about $14.5 billion. This year, we've experienced significant growth in Tools & Storage, in our Security business as well as portions of our Industrial segment. We expect to grow somewhere between 16% and 17% organically on the top line in 2021. That will put us somewhere around $17.5 billion in size. So we're excited about the growth that we've experienced, and we really think it aligns well with the strategic framework that we've had in place, our long-term financial objectives as a company and then the vision that we put out there almost 5 years ago of a company that wants to be known for innovation beyond the industries that we serve, continue the top quartile performance as it relates to our TSR over the long term and then continuing to focus on social responsibility and the role that our company and we as leaders need to play in topics such as climate change and other social types of challenges and issues that we see across the globe. So if we flip to the next page or the last page I want to touch on is we really believe that the growth that we've experienced in 2021 is it's a great launching pad for us to continue to demonstrate strong organic growth. We also have inorganic opportunities, as many of you know. We will be closing with MTD and Excel this month. Actually, Excel just closed the other day, so that one is behind us. And MTD should close by the end of this month, and we'll have 1 month of activity in our fourth quarter results and a full year for both these acquisitions in 2022. So we're excited about that impact. It's going to create a $4 billion outdoor platform for us, when you take our roughly $1 billion in handheld outdoor products and combine it with MTD and Excel. It's an exciting jump start to a category that we think has a lot of growth associated with it as we really try to electrify that industry over the next 5 to 7 years and beyond. But why do we believe growth is something that's going to continue across our company? And you can see on this page that we have a lot of different levers around growth, such as the reconnection with the home and the garden that's experienced in the pandemic, that we don't see that fading away in the short and midterm, that people will continue to have that be a center for their lives as they look at their professional lives, maybe migrating partially back to the office into some type of hybrid environment, which is what most companies are thinking about for the future, but still spending a fair amount of their time at home as they perform their professional jobs or careers. And then, obviously, their personal lives will continue to be enhanced in their own home environment. And travel will slowly start to improve, but I think that will be a slow ramp-up and so as the dollars will not shift dramatically away from the investments they're going to make in their home. And we believe that's a strong catalyst that we will continue to experience in '22 and likely '23 as well. E-commerce is a great story for us. We've made a lot of investments in our e-commerce programs over the years, especially coming out of the merger with Stanley and Black & Decker over 10 years ago. That's 20% of our Tools business revenue today. And we see more growth in front of us as we continue to expand that globally, with a really intense focus in certain emerging markets, in addition to the mature markets. I mentioned electrification and what a great growth opportunity that is and then our Security business, which is now experiencing strong organic growth as many of the health and safety solutions they've designed over the last 2 or 3 years are perfect for the environment we're currently in as well as the environment we will likely migrate to in both the retail and commercial space. So we're excited about these catalysts. We think there's a lot of growth in front of us. We talked about that in our call about 3 weeks ago for earnings. And we think we have a plan and the likely outcome of close to 10% organic growth next year, with about half of that coming in price and half of it coming in volume. And many of those catalysts are due to innovation. And some of the things we've announced, such as POWERSTACK, which is a great new battery innovation and technology, that will expand upon our existing DEWALT platform of products and battery solutions and charging solutions. And then we have things such as reviva under the Black & Decker brand, that is a new eco-friendly solution that we can continue to build out those types of products across the Black & Decker brand as well, in addition to this, the normal innovation we do every single year. So we're excited about that. We're in a very transitory period of time, where we have to be aggressive to recover our margins because we've seen significant inflationary headwinds in Q3 and in Q4. We'll start to see the offsets from a price perspective occurring here in Q4, with a bigger impact in Q1 and then Q2 of next year. And then we believe, in the back half of next year, we'll start to see ourselves getting back to some of the stronger margins that we've experienced over the last couple of years. So a lot of things happening on the growth and margin front, but we're excited about all the different levers we have to pull to ensure that we get the right type of growth performance over the next 2 to 3 and maybe even 4 years. So with that, that wraps up my comments, and I'll pass it over to you, Nicole.
Nicole DeBlase
analystPerfect. Thanks, Don. Thanks for teeing that up.
Nicole DeBlase
analystSo I wanted to start with maybe some of the current in -- like the current environment. I'll ask some questions about that, and then I'll get into some of the longer-term drivers. So it's been a few weeks since you reported earnings, but this is a very dynamic situation, obviously. So just curious on what you guys are seeing now from a supply chain perspective in real time. Have conditions improved? Have things kind of stabilized? Have they gotten worse? If you could just kind of characterize that for us.
Donald Allan
executiveYes. I do think, in the last 60 days, the supply chain has shown some stability. And so we're not seeing continued inflationary increases. Commodities seem to have stabilized. The cost to serve, which we define as freight container cost, the length of the supply chain is much longer, so the absolute dollars are going up as a result of that. Our Tools & Storage business used to take about 30 to 40 days to get products from Asia into the United States or Europe. It's about 3x as long, so it's up in the 90-day range at this point for the length of the supply chain just due to the logistical challenges of getting things in and out of ports, getting them on trucks and eventually, to the end state, where you want them to land. So that's been a significant cost spike as well. And the good news is it appears we've definitely stabilized, and it appears maybe we've hit a peak in the cost associated with this. Because I think we've worked through a lot of the product that needed to get into the markets for the Christmas holiday season. And a lot of those products are either in the store or in local warehouses to be put in the store in the coming weeks. So I think that surge that really began to happen in July, because a lot of companies were trying to get product in, in a sooner time frame than maybe they historically have done because of the concerns about the supply chain, it did create this massive bottleneck. That being said, I don't think we've solved all the supply chain constraints and issues. But I do think we've worked through with this massive bottleneck. And now, we're kind of dealing with things that are going to continue to be challenges as we figure out more permanent long-term solutions to the companies that provide the containers, the companies that provide the truckers and the trucking and how do we continue to expand that capacity over time. But I think that's going to take a while to work through. So I'm hoping we've hit the peak, and now, we actually see things begin to moderate a little bit going forward.
Nicole DeBlase
analystYes. Definitely. Fingers crossed. It's good to hear stabilization, at least. That's a start. I guess you kind of alluded to this in your comments, Don, but I was just going to ask, like the level of confidence that you guys have that you can satiate all of the holiday-driven demand just with what's going on with how extended freight timing is.
Donald Allan
executiveYes. So we have -- like everybody else, we started bringing in things sooner than we maybe normally would for a holiday season. So we shipped -- I think we've talked about this a little bit on the earnings call. We shipped a significant amount of volume in September to our major retailers that were really holiday promotional volume. And they -- because they wanted to get it into the stores earlier, and so they've done that. So a lot of these products have been in the stores since early to mid-October. And as a result, we've really met the demand requirement associated with the, what I would call, the first wave of the holiday season. And then there's the question of is there a second wave that happens coming out of Thanksgiving, that's a bit of a restocking that's going to play out in many of our customers in the early part of December. We'll see how that plays out at this stage, but it feels like we're in a good position to take advantage of that as well.
Nicole DeBlase
analystOkay. That's good news. And I think on the earnings call, you guys had talked about North America retail POS still up in the mid-single-digit range. I know Home Depot has had positive comments about tools, in particular, this week. So I assume that you're still kind of seeing that mid-single-digit range growth, but any update there?
Donald Allan
executiveYes. We said in the earnings call that, for the previous 4 weeks, we were averaging mid- to high single-digit POS, with the last week being actually over 10% of those 4 weeks. Since then, we've continued to see over 10% type of POS performance. So the strength is there. The demand is there. Some of it could be a little bit of early holiday shopping that's going on because of the reasons I articulated. But whatever the reason is, whether it's that or whether it's something else or a combination of multiple factors, which is usually what it is, we are continuing to see strong demand, which is encouraging for us because we did a significant wave of price increases in Q3. And that really does not appear to have had any impact on the demand. And now, we're doing a second wave of price increases as we speak here in the month of November. So we'll be watching that closely, but our belief is we don't think that's going to impact demand either because the demand is just so strong at this stage.
Nicole DeBlase
analystGot it. That's great to hear. And I guess, I would say that as I talk to investors, the biggest concern, and this has been the case for a while, is how tough the comps are in the first half of '22. I mean the comps are tough now. I understand that they get tougher. But is it in the cards that you could potentially grow Tools & Storage organically in the first quarter? I mean you have the pricing and then if POS stays strong, just curious how you're thinking about that.
Donald Allan
executiveYes. We do believe that we can grow in the first half of next year for Tools & Storage. And actually, when you look at the numbers for 2021 by quarter, the comps are harder in the back half of next year than they are in the front half. And so I think sometimes people look at the 40-plus percent we grew in the first half and they say, "Oh, my goodness. Those are really significant comps," which we understand. But when you look at the absolute dollars, the absolute dollars are actually bigger in the back half for Tools & Storage this year. And so we feel pretty good about our ability to grow in a fairly significant way in Q1 and Q2. And I think the biggest challenge we're really trying to work through is just to make sure we have the supply because we've talked about how we're really building out more capacity in our supply chain, so we could demonstrate some significant growth next year if the market allows us to do that. And so that's starting to happen now. It's going to get better in Q1 and even better in Q2 and beyond. And so we've built a road map that we think would allow us to grow 10% to 15% or maybe even a little bit more in Q1 and Q2 if the market is there. And then the last thing I would mention on this topic is that we haven't really, at this point, been able to really restock our retail partners' inventory to the levels we want to get them to. I mean we're at decent levels, and so we're able to meet the demand in the stores because the product is there. But it's -- we would like to have maybe 2 to 3 more weeks, in some cases, 4 more weeks of inventory in the stores, which that's -- we've talked about that being a $300 million to $400 million opportunity, that likely plays out at some point in '22. It could be in the first half, but it might actually play out in the back half if demand continues to be strong.
Nicole DeBlase
analystGot it. Yes, that's very clear. And I guess, on the earnings call, when you guys kind of helpfully gave us some insight into 2022, which was nice, how many companies are doing that right now, I think you said mid-single-digit organic volume growth, but that doesn't include the impact of the carryover pricing, right? So are we looking at -- I know you talked about first half feeling pretty confident in 10% to 15% growth. Are we talking about a full year that can potentially be up double digits?
Donald Allan
executiveWell, I think right now, we see a path for organic growth of high single digits, maybe up to 10%, for the full year. And could the growth be stronger in the first half versus the second half? Yes, it could be. We'll see how the year plays out because I do think the comps get marginally more difficult in the back half of next year. But the good news is when you look at Tools & Storage, it's not a dramatic difference. So we've pretty much been somewhere between $3 billion to $3.3 billion in quarterly Tools revenue this year, and that's likely where we'll end up somewhere in the higher end of that range in Q4. But the first half is at the -- in the low 3s. So we'll probably see strong growth in the first half and then maybe we see more moderate mid- to high single-digit growth in the back half of next year.
Nicole DeBlase
analystOkay. Okay. Got it. And then I feel like we spend so much time talking about North America. I guess what are you guys seeing from Europe and emerging markets? Are things just as robust there? And do you also have the inventory opportunity?
Donald Allan
executiveYes and yes, but I'll let Lee give you more color on that one.
Lee McChesney
executiveYes. So it's a good question. It's -- we talked about the broad demand in the pro, continued growth in do-it-yourselfers. It's going on around the world, Nicole. It's the -- and it has been a bit of a shift. You still have the do-it-yourself strength, but the pro is a very significant driver across the globe. So if we go to Europe, really broadly, there's a couple of countries, maybe they have some different comps because they have some different COVID numbers, but is quite strong. And as we plan '22, to Don's point, there's a lot of confidence there as well. Latin America has been -- you just saw incredible growth numbers. That's the mindset as we look forward here as well and then the same thing in Asia. One, the catalyst could be e-commerce. E-commerce is strong. Let's talk about the North America business, it's a very strong catalyst across the globe. I'll give you an example. In Latin America, the markets just changed. E-commerce has taken a bigger share. We have a very good e-commerce business. So you have this dynamic you see in many industries where e-commerce is carrying. Even though when -- coming back to stores is picking up, there's a lot of go online and pick up in store and things like that. So we have a very positive view across the globe. It's nice to have the diversification we have with the share we have across the globe.
Nicole DeBlase
analystGot it. Okay. Great. And maybe just focusing a little bit on the short-term margin picture too in Tools & Storage, the other kind of hot topic right now. I think when we consider the $350 million of the price cost headwinds that you guys are facing in 4Q, it seems like low double-digit margin framework for T&S is where you kind of shake out. But I guess, how do you think about how that phases into 2022? And what I would be interested in, in particular, is can you get back to that 20%-plus margin level that we were seeing like during COVID? Or was that a special scenario and it's unlikely that the business can be that profitable going forward?
Donald Allan
executiveYes. And I'll let Lee answer the kind of sequential migration of margins over the next 3 or 4 quarters and where we expect that to go. But I think we said, at some point, in the last 3 or 4 quarters, that we felt that kind of the long-term sustainable margin for Tools & Storage is somewhere between 18% and 20%. And we still feel that's definitely the right range. And we think, in the back half of next year, we'll get back into that range, probably somewhere between 18% and 19% in the back half of 2022. But it feels like the right place to be for the business. And I think that over 20% was due to a lot of positive things that were happening at the time. We had taken a lot of kind of temporary cost actions because we weren't sure where the pandemic was going. We had people on furlough and suspending merits, et cetera, et cetera, a lot of indirect costs that we really couldn't sustain over the long term. And so I think that bolstered that up by probably a couple of points, and so the right range is really 18% to 20%. But Lee, maybe give a little more color on how we see the progression over the next 3 or 4 quarters.
Lee McChesney
executiveYes, sure. So as Don mentioned earlier in the call, we have this first wave of pricing we put in place in the third quarter. That's -- you're going to see some of that benefit here in the fourth quarter. And then we're in the middle right now, executing in North America these surcharges and really around the globe, permanent price changes. So the fourth quarter will have the peak of the pressure, but you will start seeing the next wave of price come through. So as you step into 2022, the first quarter sequentially is going to be better than we exited the fourth quarter. You'll see the second quarter even improve. And I think there's an opportunity to be in that 18% zone in Tools in kind of the summer time frame and really for the back half of '22. And then when you start thinking about '19 and '20, I think it's probably more of a '23 dynamic based on what we see now. But underneath that is this -- you asked earlier about just the environment. We've assumed the commodities, the cost to serve that we have a view of. We've assumed it's going to continue. So if there is some moderation, there's obviously some opportunity to adjust your plan. But in both cases, there's that we should catch up to these headwinds by the middle of next year.
Nicole DeBlase
analystGot it. Okay. And I mean, I think you guys sounded pretty optimistic that we're not seeing any sort of demand destruction from the price increases that you've seen so far. How do we think about the stickiness of pricing on the other side of this, assuming that we do start to see some of these costs moderate?
Donald Allan
executiveYes. I mean that's a really good question. I mean it's -- but if we go back in history and look at where we've done price increases, there's usually a period of time at the beginning where we're not getting the offset in price because we're negotiating with our customers and working through all those dynamics. That can be anywhere from 3 to 6 months of time. And then at the back end of an inflationary cycle, where inflation starts to recede, we're able to sustain those price increases for a similar time frame, usually about 6 months. And so when you look at the whole period of time, you can -- you get a sense of the recovery as a percentage of the headwind you've experienced. And so we feel like that will be the case this time around as well. I mean we've done permanent price increases, except for, in North America, the second one we're doing, we're doing as a surcharge, and we're tying it more to, a large portion of it, to the cost to serve dynamic that we're seeing in the supply chain and a lot more costly it is to move product along the ways that I described earlier. And so I'm sure our customers are really on the ball here on this topic, so I'm sure they will be watching those costs and monitoring them. And they will be looking for adjustments as things play out. So the surcharge might be a little bit different than what we've experienced in the past, but we've also just went through 4 or 5 months of really high cost to serve that we had no price recovery on. And so you would really like to make sure you get that on the back end as those costs begin to moderate. And so that's our strategy, and that's why we think it makes sense. It's based on how it's historically worked out over time. And we believe that's like how this will likely play out this time.
Nicole DeBlase
analystMakes sense. Okay. And I started to get more questions in just the past week around tariffs and I think some optimism that maybe there could be some sort of a rollback of the tariffs we've been experiencing related to China. Can you remind us how much of a tailwind that would be for Stanley if that scenario played out?
Donald Allan
executiveYes. It's -- we've heard the same thing, and there does seem to be some optimism. We're getting some positive messaging from our folks we have in D.C. that have relationships with various different agencies down there as well as the White House. So I'm not sure how real it is yet, but it feels like there's a positive trend to it. So we'll see how that plays out. It would be fairly substantial to us. It probably could be as much as $75 million to $100 million of a positive impact. The interesting part is that the gross tariff number has actually grown as we've grown. So the absolute number before the price offset is in the high 100s, close to $200 million. And so when you factor in some of the price that will likely go away if the tariffs went away, it kind of feels like it's somewhere in that $75 million to $100 million range. So it's substantial.
Nicole DeBlase
analystYes. Definitely. Let's hope. That will be nice.
Donald Allan
executiveYes.
Nicole DeBlase
analystAnd the other topic out of D.C. is obviously infrastructure. It's always hard to size this, right, especially for you guys because I think it's hard to get a grasp on how much of your tools are actually going into things like infrastructure versus nonresi versus resi. So just curious if you have any perspectives on the potential impact and when it could potentially start showing up in your revenues.
Donald Allan
executiveYes. I mean it is difficult to really calculate that. And we've had some folks and Lee's team do some work to try to figure that out, and it was pretty abstract work. So I'm not sure it's really something we would want to talk about publicly. But we -- when you look at the trends and you say, "Okay. We're going to be building new bridges. We're going to be building new railroads. We'll be reconstructing various roads around the country, et cetera, et cetera," these are all things that require our tools in some way, shape or form. And so our view is it's clearly a positive. It will result in some uptick of some magnitude. Could it be 1 point or 2 of revenue each year for the next few years? It could be. It could certainly be of that magnitude. Or it might be 0.5 point to 1 point. But it's a positive number. It's just difficult to really gauge exactly how much of an impact it would be. But we were supporters of this infrastructure bill for obvious reasons. Myself and Jim had multiple conversations with various senators and folks from the House of Representatives as well. And I think it's a necessary thing, frankly, for our country to do. And we happen to see the benefit of it in our Tools & Storage business in particular. So I wish I could give you a number, Nicole, but I would be -- I would really be guessing.
Nicole DeBlase
analystThat's okay. We've tried to, and all I can get too is a guess. We're on the same page. Okay. And I want to move on to outdoor just because I'm getting some questions from investors in the audience about the -- about MTD. And I'm going to read this question here for you, guys. What technologies, capabilities, advantages does Stanley possess that give it confidence in being a leader in electrifying the outdoor space?
Donald Allan
executiveYes. I think we've had such a long history and experience of moving from corded to cordless products and power tools and to our handheld products. And we've really gained a lot of impressive resources in battery cell technology and how it can be effectively used in our different products. And so we really believe that, combined with some relationships that we've entered into with 2 strategic partners in the battery cell space, that most people can probably guess who those 2 partners are and they're very large Asian companies, I'm really building out not only a solid supply chain of battery cells and certain commitments and dedicated production lines, but probably just as important, if not more important, is the strategic partnership on co-innovating certain technologies for these types of products going forward. And so we believe all that together actually puts us in a unique position to be able to continue the journey of electrifying more and more products in outdoor. And so the walk behind mowers, you're starting to see momentum in those products, where more of those products are being run by batteries, and the price points are getting better and better and the functionality and the technology is getting better and better. And so a significant portion of that market is starting to convert over. And then you move to ride-on mowers, where not as much is converted yet. The technology is there. The price point is still relatively high. So that's an area of focus and energy that we'll be working on to get to more reasonable price points and continued improved functionality in those products. And then the third horizon is really the pro landscaper and building out the right technological solution for those particular products, which is a little bit further down the road. So it's our history that we've had in this area. It's the relationships that we have with certain key suppliers that allow us to feel like we can be the company that is actually the first movers in this space, that really is able to accelerate the electrification trend that is, we all know, is going to happen, it's just a question of how fast does it happen and who are the major players. And we think that those are the reasons why we think we're well positioned to do that.
Nicole DeBlase
analystGot it. Okay. Very clear, Don. And then, I guess, Excel, the acquisition that just closed recently, what does that bring to you guys from an outdoor perspective?
Donald Allan
executiveReally, it's 2 things primarily. I mean it brings more than 2 things. But if I think about condensing it down to a couple of things, one, its entire presence is in this independent dealer network. So they used to sell the retail. They didn't really -- they were not successful in doing that. So they got out of the retail channel in the last 3 years or so. And they're fully dedicated to this independent dealer network, which is really where the pro landscapers go for their products. And they have a good brand in the Hustler there. It's kind of a mid-price point brand. And when you combine that with us using DEWALT as the premium brand, it actually fits nice in that particular channel. And so they -- and they're heavily weighted to the Western part of the United States, where the MTD presence in the dealer channel is a little more heavily weighted to the Eastern part of the United States. So they fit well together from that perspective. And then they have been innovators in the zero turn mower category. And so they were one of the first companies to really come out with a very effective zero turn mower. And they have continued to innovate that in a very significant way. And so they have a really impressive innovation track record as well that we think we can leverage and really optimize even more with some of the skill sets and expertise that we have on our side as well as in the MTD organization.
Nicole DeBlase
analystGot it. Okay. And then one last question on outdoor. There's been a lot of debate, I think, around whether you guys can actually hit mid-teens margins in this business, how good of a business it is. What gives you the confidence? And I guess, what kind of a time frame are we looking at to get to mid-teens?
Donald Allan
executiveYes. I think they're high single digits today. And the synergies from a cost perspective probably gets you 3 or 4 points of profitability improvement. Maybe you take a little bit of that and reinvest in certain areas where they're a little light on the investment side. That kind of gets you to maybe 12% or 13%. And then the opportunity to get to 15% is really in this dealer channel I mentioned because that's where a lot of the profitability exists for outdoor. So that's where the pro landscaper goes, where they're looking for these high functionality-associated products that are big platforms. That is really where you're going to get to 40%, 45%, 50% gross margins. And using the DEWALT brand with the innovation track record that these 2 companies and we have, while we're electrifying the industry as well, we think creates a great growth opportunity at much higher margins that you see versus the retail space, which is primarily focused, as you know, on handheld, walk behind and riding mowers. The last thing I would say is we've been very successful in the retail space with our handheld products and improving the profitability of that. I mean there was a time, 10, 12 years ago, that many of those products barely made money. They were low-margin products. Today, they're in line with the entire Tools & Storage portfolio. So they're mid- to high-30 percentile gross margin. The operating margin rate is in the mid- to high teens, depending on the product. And so we've been able to do it in the handheld. We think because of this extra channel that we now have outside of retail and that track record in retail, we think it really gives us the ability to achieve that outcome.
Nicole DeBlase
analystGot it. Okay. And I know we're running out of time here, but I did have another good question from an investor that I wanted to hit on. And it's we talked about like the longer-term sustainable margins within Tools & Storage. What does that look like for Industrial and Security?
Donald Allan
executiveIndustrial is -- I think before the pandemic and before some of the cyclical things we saw in automotive, they were in the high teens, the Industrial segment. I think the right number is probably somewhere between 15% and 18% for that segment, where they're trending towards the bottom of that range through this kind of transitory period of time until automotive and aerospace start to demonstrate some healthy recovery. But I think over the long term, it should be 16%, 17%, occasionally 18%. Security, kind of around 10% now. They're going to continue to improve, a lot of investment going there to help stimulate organic growth. So I still think there's a path to get to mid-teens. It's just probably going to be a little bit longer period of time than maybe we were envisioning a few years ago.
Nicole DeBlase
analystOkay. That makes sense. And I have 45 seconds. So a quickfire question for you, Don. With MTD closing pretty soon, how soon can you guys be back in the market to think about M&A?
Donald Allan
executiveWell, I think if something significant comes along, it could be soon, but it may result in us having to sell our Security business to fund it. So I think what's nice about our position is that we're not over-leveraged. Our leverage will be a little bit high with these 2 transactions. But as we go into next year, we have opportunities to -- if we need capital, we could sell our Security business. If we don't need as much capital to do an M&A within our Tools business or Industrial segment, that could be something that we would do in 2022. We also think that there's probably a good opportunity to buy back our stock if it continues to be at the values we're at now. And so that's another thing we will evaluate as we go into 2022 as well.
Nicole DeBlase
analystGot it. All right. Well, I think we ran out of time. I'm going to let you guys get to your next one. Thank you so much for participating today. I really enjoyed the conversation. Good to catch up with you, guys.
Donald Allan
executiveGood to see you, Nicole.
Lee McChesney
executiveThank you.
Dennis Lange
executiveTake care.
Nicole DeBlase
analystYes. Bye.
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