Vertiv Holdings Co (VRT) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Okay. Great. Thank you, everybody, for joining us. My name is Mark Delaney, and I have the pleasure of covering Vertiv for Goldman Sachs. With me today, I have yet again this year from Vertiv, Gio Albertazzi, Vertiv's CEO; and David Fallon, the company's CFO. Thank you both for joining.

Thank you for having us. Always a pleasure.

Thought we could start off with a demand question. The company reported very strong orders on your 2Q earnings call. Trailing 12-month orders were up 11% year-over-year. 2Q orders were up 15%. Maybe talk a bit more, Gio, if you could kick us off about what's driving some of that strength?

Well, first of all, thanks for reminding the very good numbers we printed in the second quarter, very strong TTM. And I'd like to remind everyone that our competitors were very strong. So very, very encouraging. And as encouraging is the market landscape where we operate. This is certainly reflected in our backlog book-to-bill in our orders, but it's very much reflected in our pipeline. We've been vocal about our pipeline, the strength of our pipeline during the last earnings call. And as we said then, we see that strength across the globe, and we see that strength becoming stronger quarter-by-quarter. So very encouraged by what we see. And we don't see a sign of abating.

That's good to hear. And one of the common topics so far this week at the conference and some of the company's earnings calls across the broader sector has been around a broadening of the kinds of companies that are booking business, doing more in AI, Neocloud, sovereigns. To what extent is Vertiv seeing some of that?

No, absolutely. This is something that we see. And it's not just, of course, hyperscalers. And I think the hyperscalers numbers in terms of CapEx are pretty well known and super analyzed by everyone. So they are fueling growth. But we see that on the back of that, but not only because of hyperscalers, but in general, data center capacity demand, we see a strong colocation market and demand. And then the big novelty, if you will, of the last few quarters is the acceleration of neocloud. Neocloud is real and neocloud is accelerating. So they certainly see a lot of market demand as a consequence, that translates into demand for infrastructure, data center infrastructure and for us.

We've seen such strong growth from hyperscale and colocation customers. Maybe help us better understand how big as a percentage of your business that now is, I think as of your last Investor Day, it was about half of the company's total revenue. Is that still a good framework? Or is it more now?

Well, we will not kind of go exactly in the details of what portion it is. But if you think about the colo and hyperscale as probably the fastest-growing part of the market. And if you think in terms of Vertiv gaining market share, compare our first half sales growth and our orders trajectory where the market is, I think it's fair to say that we're gaining market share. So absolutely, that's the situation. Don't be surprised if the growth in the fastest-growing part of the market will transform into a growth for Vertiv.

And we speak a bit around AI driving some broadening of the customer profile, you spoke around sovereign, you mentioned neocloud. What about traditional enterprise? Are you seeing some of the traditional enterprises start to spend on AI? And if not yet, what do you think it might take to get them to do that?

We are optimistic about the enterprise part of AI and not only. I mean there is certainly data center infrastructure. We were talking about AI as -- sorry, enterprise as more or less kind of a mid-single digit when we had our Investor Day in November last year. What we see is certainly a lot of interest in enterprise for AI, and that certainly is encouraging for the future. Now we're not expecting enterprise accelerate at the speed of hyperscale, colo and neocloud, but very optimistic about the long-term trajectory in enterprise. And I would say that we have historically traditionally been very strong in terms of enterprise go-to-market. So we are super well positioned to capture on that acceleration.

I think a lot of the AI strength has been concentrated in North America, a lot of the major hyperscale companies located here. Talk a little bit, if you could, please, around what you're seeing in some of the other regions in terms of AI investments, be it Asia or Europe?

Well, clearly, what happens in -- what is happening in North America is particularly intense, let's say, and continues to be particularly intense. The rest of the world is lagging a little bit, which is normal in this type of transitions, dynamics, new technologies. We have seen that historically. We -- as I said, we have seen pipeline and we are seeing pipeline strengthening very much across the board, very much in every region in which we operate. If you look at our growth rate, for example, in the second quarter, you see growth across all regions of the world. We're particularly encouraged by what we see in Asia. We have been vocal about EMEA being a little bit slower than the rest. That's particularly true for Europe. If you will, the historical lag is a little bit more pronounced this time around, but strong pipelines. And the need for AI exists in EMEA just as it exists everywhere in the world. So we are optimistic. We always use the kind of a coil spring analogy when it comes to Europe for reasons that maybe we'll have time to elaborate upon. So we're convinced that's the case.

And maybe just on the broader demand backdrop, we put AI to the side for just a moment. As you think about just the broader set of industrial, commercial customers, telecom kinds of customers, what are you seeing in the other parts of the business?

Well, we are positive with what we see in telecom and -- but also C&I with, let's say, nearshoring or repatriation of our manufacturing capacity, for example, in North America, all markets that create opportunities for us. Certainly, markets in which we have operated traditionally for many, many years and decades in the case of telecom, very well positioned. We expect growth, and we see demand growing. Clearly, the data center speed of growth is unique in many respects.

Maybe talk about lead times, if you could, in light of the strong demand overall that you've been speaking to. I think at times, you guys have described lead times that could be 12 to 18 months. Is that still a good range to think about? Or are lead times expanding, contracting, stable? Help us better understand if you could, please.

Well, first of all, let's separate 2 things. One is the lead time that we can offer our customers when the customer needs a short lead times. And those have been shrinking quite systematically and not just accidentally, but because we have worked very hard to make sure that we can offer a short lead times, shorter than market lead time to customers when they need it. Very often and more often than not, it is the customer requested lead time, as we call it internally, that defines when we ship relative to when we get an order. So the overall lead time. Customers are constrained by their kind of building plans, et cetera. But when necessary, we can deliver in much shorter times, and we believe that, and we have seen a proven that is a competitive advantage. Now going into the details of the lead time, we should go into the specific product lines. Lead times and requested lead time for liquid cooling are different from, let's say, switchgears or we can go across the spectrum. But all said and done, when we look at what customer on average, demand in terms of lead time, we are on that 12, 18 months, if anything, lately, we've seen those shrinking. So an acceleration in the build-out.

Okay. That's helpful. Is it fair to say, though, that based on the conversations with customers that they're telling you about their projects, you're looking at your pipeline that you've got some visibility that's even out beyond 12 months, 18 months or maybe even a bit further?

Yes. Well, what I was talking about here, lead times, we're talking about our backlog. So orders that are, if you will, in -- already with us and that we are planning our production against, et cetera. When we look at the pipeline, so pipeline, all the opportunities we are working on, well, that expands also certainly beyond the 12 months. But again, one thing that I mentioned in July during the call is that when it comes to pipeline and the growth of pipeline, whether the kind of the buckets from a time perspective of the pipeline have not dramatically changed. So it's not that our pipeline is growing because an elongation all of a sudden, we go from seeing 12 months just hypothetically to seeing 48 months. Now that kind of mix in terms of when we expect orders to land and then revenue to occur has remained pretty much the same. So the visibility is well beyond the 12 months. And again, pipeline is one thing, but we know and they are not -- may not be yet pipeline the way we define that pipeline definition for us is very strict. We are very strict because we use pipeline really as a strong leading indicator where the business is going, but we have conversations and commitment to with customers in terms of capacity that go well beyond what we have exact logging into our pipeline.

Yes. Very helpful. Maybe you could talk about how some of the tech trends in the market are impacting your content opportunity. I think you've described in the past your revenue opportunity per megawatt for advanced compute as being about $2.75 million to $3.5 million. As you look out with the visibility you have in the market and you think about ASICs, you think about Rubin or other GPUs even beyond Rubin, where should investors expect that number to go? Is that still a good range to have in mind or maybe move to the high end of it? Or does it need to be revised? Just more context on the revenue per megawatt.

No, absolutely. It's still a good range. In a sense, a range that covers the entire spectrum from traditional compute and cloud or enterprise compute all the way to the upper end of a high density. Clearly, the higher the density, the more kind of skewed towards the right of that spectrum. There is -- you were talking about the technology trends, Big technology trends ongoing. And for us, innovation and being ahead of those technology trends actually being a trendsetter ourselves in cooperating and partnering with NVIDIA and the big players in the industry is essential in our strategy as we have demonstrated. So we all have seen the evolution, the technology evolution taking place in cooling, with liquid cooling and additional segment to the spectrum of our thermal chain. We like it a lot. We're very satisfied about the acceleration in that part of the market. But think about the same happening in power as density increases, if you think about the rack going all the way maybe in the future to 1 megawatt, 1 megawatt is a lot of power guys', is a lot of power, and you have it inside a rack, then that influences the entire powertrain. So expect the powertrain to evolve from a technology standpoint a lot, just like the thermal chain has evolved. But again, innovation for us and technology trend is a lot more complexity in the white space and white space is where exactly around the IT and just in the proximity IT, the white space is becoming more complicated from a technology standpoint. So we've been, as Vertiv, kind of at the periphery outside the white space, the gray space, power and thermal, mechanical, electrical, but all that is becoming absolutely relevant inside the white space. So for example, our Great Lakes acquisition racks, high end, let's say, and high-spec type of racks is exactly because that space inside the data hall is becoming more complex. So bringing power and thermal inside the rack and working on the entire white space infrastructure is becoming central. One more thing, and I've been long-winded here, but it's an important subject, is everything around prefabrication. At end system level, 2 things that I'd like to distinguish. Our portfolio is broad. It's very broad, and we are -- continue to strengthen our portfolio because we believe that owning the powertrain, the entire system, the thermal chain, the entire system is a strong competitive advantage and is an advantage that we can give our customers. But you see that becoming also an opportunity for prefabrication. We've been announcing a product that we call SmartRun. That is a kind of a prefabricated white space fit-out module or modules or technology that enables the reduction of the fit-out time for a newly built data center by an order of magnitude. That means that the time to revenue for our customer is greatly increased. And you see that if you look at that prefabrication, you see power, liquid cooling, secondary fluid network, you see all the elements combined in a system that is then deployed. And this is about an example. I could go [ far for ] us, but you will throw something at me.

I promise I won't throw anything at you. Maybe just on that topic, you already mentioned Vertiv is gaining share. You just spoke about a few of the things that positioned you well, prefabrication and having a broad portfolio. But when you hear from your customers, what is it in particular that you think is leading to your strong share position or even share gain?

Well, one thing that we like a lot and I believe we do very well is combining our decades long plural, like 50-plus decades in the space with a very strong innovation. So we know the space very well. We know the industry very well. We know the players in the industry very well. And we have a great legacy, but that legacy is for us the springboard for tremendous innovation. Our investment in engineering and R&D is growing double digits year-on-year, we were talking about 15% CAGR at Investor Day. This year, we will be closer to 20%. We truly believe that technology is key for all the reasons that I just mentioned answering the previous question. So the 2 things together are very important. We have strong partnerships on the silicon side, on the large customer side, and that allow us to influence together with them, define what the future technology needs to look like to really answer the challenges that are paused by an always evolving IT stack, if you will, and a great evolution of the IT stack. So we have seen that in the last 1.5 years, 2 years, that really sitting with all the partners that I just mentioned to define what future looks like gives us that kind of a technology thought leadership that is so critical. But then we have demonstrated an ability to scale. Our story with liquid cooling is a story of technology and an ability to scale. We were talking more than 40x the capacity expansion in 2024 and counting, of course, after 2024. So -- but all these things together, including the reach -- market reach and a tremendously strong service organization that corroborates things in an industry that is fundamentally a critical infrastructure industry. So all these things together, I think constitute a very strong moat.

Yes. It dovetails nicely to my next question, which is on services. It's something you've mentioned many times in the past as being part of your competitive differentiation and key value you're providing to customers. What is different about Vertiv service relative to some other options that customers may have? And are there any markets in particular where you have the most traction for services? Is it stronger in hyperscaler kinds of applications better in enterprise? Just double-click a bit more on services, please.

Yes. We like to call -- and we indeed call services internally and externally our superpower, one of our superpowers, let's put it this way. So it is about an extraordinarily experienced field engineer base, more than 4,000 engineers, dedicated and very, very experienced in data center and critical infrastructure. It is about an ability to grow that capacity. People do not think that you have to think in terms of service capacity, the same way you think about manufacturing capacity. So having very strong, as we call it, Vertiv academy, and ability to train new people, bring them up to speed and have technology and technical information at the tip of their fingers is absolutely essential. We believe that our capabilities there are unmatched. The -- a very good example is with liquid cooling. Liquid cooling is complex, and it's very complex from a commissioning and life cycle management standpoint. And we've been matching the growth that we were talking about in terms of manufacturing supply chain capacity with an equivalent strength and growth of our field execution, huge for our customers.

Are -- a question on the competitive environment. In July, one of the big hyperscalers announced a plan to do some of its own cooling products in-house in terms of the design. How do you think Vertiv is affected by these sorts of trends? And are there still opportunities for Vertiv to participate to the extent a hyperscaler is doing at least some, if not all, of some of these products themselves?

Yes. So first of all, we were not surprised nor were we shocked about what was announced. No 2 hyperscalers behave in the same way. So the degree to which a hyperscaler is into the technology of their data centers varies. Some are -- they all know technology very well. They all are very strong from an engineering standpoint. But the degree to which they decide to vertically integrate into the engineering itself varies. So we have seen that announcement. We know which hyperscaler we're talking about. Well, in that case, you talk about an hyperscaler that has been behaving like that pretty much all the time. So they are -- they own the design pretty much of everything they have in their data center. So this was not new. That was not surprising. And data say, them as many others need vendors like us to deliver those product solution systems that they engineer themselves. And more often than not, that engineering activity is not done in isolation, but it's done with the contribution of the relevant players in the industry, let's put it this way. So to your point, are we concerned about kind of a wholesale change in the dynamics from a make or buy standpoint for the hyperscale market? No, we're not.

Very helpful. Maybe we could ask a few financial questions, David, let me bring you into the conversation. I wanted to ask you a bit on the tariff environment. The company had guided to effectively offset tariff costs exiting 2025. Where are you in your tariff mitigation strategy? And how have discussions gone with your customers as it relates to potentially passing on price?

Sure. We can spend the next -- or the last 11 minutes on tariffs, if you want. But anything that we do comment on is as of our earnings date, July 28. And at that point, we did express confidence based on tariffs that were in effect at that point in time of materially offsetting those as we exit 2025. And the 2 levers, of course, are supply actions, which I'm sure you'll touch upon in a little bit that's created some operational challenges for us, but also pricing. And I would say, from a pricing perspective, certainly, customers don't roll over, just like we don't with our suppliers. But I would say the conversations have been very productive. Tariffs are an input cost. And we think in the long run, when we do hit equilibrium, at some point, we will hit an equilibrium point with tariffs that it will just be another input cost. So we're not on an island here, right? Our competitors are going through something similar, and we don't think any of us are at an extreme advantage or disadvantage. But we are very pleased with the progress that we've made, both with the supply actions and with pricing. And we'll provide an update in October. Of course, a whole slew of new tariffs came out with the Section 232, and we're actively reviewing those, and we'll provide an update in October.

I think your objective is to remain price cost positive. So as you think about some of the competitive dynamic, the demand environment that we've been talking about, when you think about tariff costs and needing to deal with maybe either tariffs or supply chain changes, what does that mean for this goal of being price cost positive going forward?

Yes. I would say the dynamic of tariffs does not change that ambition. So if you look at our price and inflation impact for '25, whether or not you include the pricing for tariffs or the inflation that we think is secondary related to the tariffs, we're still price/cost positive. And as we were talking last night, I think our approach from a pricing perspective is a bit different than what it was several years ago when we saw some of the supply chain shocks there. We're very strategic, very data oriented to the extent that we look at price/cost positive as something that we would expect every year going forward. And we see that as a lever as it relates to margin expansion.

One of the other factors that was influencing margins as of the time of the last earnings call was Europe. There were some challenges the company encountered in Europe. And this question can be for both of you and just in terms of the operations as well as the financial impact. But where are you in terms of rightsizing some of that headwind that you're seeing in the European market?

Well, I go back to the comment about Europe, let's say, demand not being as strong as we all expect, especially compared to -- as we said, compared to other markets is almost as if our frame of reference has changed dramatically in the industry than the frame of reference we would have had 3 or 4 years ago, which is fine. It's absolutely cool. But there clearly is a need to make sure that from an execution standpoint, everything is in line in EMEA. And being vocal about the fact that we have -- we are enacting active operationally oriented, execution-oriented improvement actions, and those are ongoing. I am personally very much involved. And yes, I think optimistic and positive about it.

So as you think about some of the different geographic demand dynamics, you think about tariffs and just the broader supply-demand backdrop for the industry, what does that all mean for your objective to hit a 25% EBIT margin in 2029?

Yes. So we reiterated on the call that we think we are still very much on the path to that 25% target in '29. And if you look at the progression of our operating margin as we go through the year, 16.5% in Q1, 18.5% in Q2. We anticipate increasing Q3 to 20% on lower volume, which very much indicates that we expect to make progress with some of the operational issues and then exiting the year at over 23%. So you can look at the 23%, you can't annualize that and say that's going to be what we would expect for full year '26 because of seasonality and other things. But at 23% plus in Q4, we think we're pretty well positioned to hit that 25% in about 4 years or so.

I'll hold you to it. Let's put the 2029 session right now.

Well, I think in the last investor deck, we put a plus as it relates to our long-term target, and we're not quite ready to do that at this point in time, but we also would not necessarily look at 25% as an upper constraint as well.

We spoke a lot about the demand backdrop. How are you guys thinking about capacity and CapEx? Do you have what you need? Or do you need to make meaningful incremental investments? And if so, is that going to change the free cash flow percentages of the company in the next couple of years?

We don't think so. So we certainly are taking a step up in 2025 as it relates to CapEx. We're projecting between $250 million and $300 million. So in the 2.5% to 3% of sales range. But our cash flow remains strong. I think we're projecting 95% conversion this year. We were at over 100% the last couple of years. So you could look at maybe the reduction from over 100% to where we expect in the 95% range. CapEx is contributory towards that. But there's still a ton of opportunity from a trade working capital perspective. So to the extent we need to increase the CapEx spend, we think there's opportunities to drive additional free cash flow operationally.

A comment further how we operationalize. We want to make sure -- we actually make sure that we're not caught unprepared relative to the growth that we see. So you have seen us grow significantly in terms of year-on-year revenue. That's because of the very rigorous process that we have in terms of anticipating the demand that is coming and then responding to that actually, let's say, anticipating that with the capacity expansion. Capacity expansion can be new CapEx certainly is for us, a lot of efficiency and lean applied to everything we have. And again, we always try to leave a 25% wiggle room in our capacity because, again, forecasting is not an exact science. So we're pleased with what we have done so far, and we're certainly not relenting in terms of the operational rigor and making sure that we have the capacity we need for long-term growth.

Very helpful. Speaking of cash flow and the leverage being in a better spot or a very strong spot at this point, opens up the potential for M&A. You guys have announced a few smaller to midsized deals recently, including Great Lakes. But as you consider your technology portfolio, the capacity you have from a financial perspective, should investors think about Vertiv starting to do M&A more regularly or in larger size? Talk a bit more about that because I think that's opportunity to kind of continue to broaden out the returns of the company?

So I think this very directly goes back to the free cash flow question because based on the strong free cash flow, we should have significant capital to deploy over the next 5 years. We estimated over $12 billion. Quite frankly, it would be hard to deploy that without some good combination of M&A and share repurchases, and we think both will be a lever used to deploy. But we don't look at M&A as an end in and of itself. We have a strategy that strategy evolves and we look at what we potentially need to do to execute that strategy. It could be inorganic or organic. And to the extent we can accomplish something quicker with a higher return with a deal, whether it be a smaller deal or a larger deal, we'll be more than willing and capable because of where we are from a leverage perspective to execute some of the larger M&A deals that may be out there.

Certainly, from my vantage point, investing in the business makes sense and should be the priority. But you do have a large buyback you announced a few Analyst Days ago. I think there's only been one time you guys have been active buying back stock. So what's your framework for doing buybacks? And how do you weigh that versus some of these other potential uses of cash?

Yes. I would say no change from what we've talked about the last couple of Investor Days. We'll continue to be opportunistic. As you mentioned, we did a $600 million, $700 million buyback soon after getting that authorization, and we'd be open to do the same thing. There's certainly a valuation perspective there, but it's also very dependent upon potential alternate uses of that capital. So we'll be opportunistic. We won't be bashful in deploying capital in general. And we look at it as a very good mix of continuing to invest organically, M&A and then also the share repurchases.

Well, unfortunately, we are out of time for the session. I want to thank both of you for joining us yet again this year.

Thanks a lot.

Thanks, Mark.