Weatherford International plc (WFRD) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

We'll move on, and we'll move on to oilfield services. And we got with us Weatherford International. We got Weatherford CEO, Girish Saligram with us. Girish, thank you for joining us.

My pleasure. Thank you.

So for a quick introduction, Girish joined the company in September of 2020, so right in the middle of the COVID pandemic. It's been 3 years now, Girish, really, the results show that it's a very different company. So maybe -- a lot of people know Weatherford, a lot of people have not focused on Weatherford in the past 3 years, why don't you recap for us the journey from the restructuring to you joining the company in 2020 and where we have come thus far.

Sure. Happy to. You're absolutely right. It's a completely different company today. And to me, it's a company that's characterized really by value creation for all of our stakeholders but most importantly, our shareholders. I've often said that for the past 25 years, Weatherford's made a lot of money, it's made a lot of money for bankers, lawyers, for ex executives and so on. But it's not made money for 2 constituents, its employees and its shareholders. So our focus has actually been on neither of those, it's been on customers because that's actually where value gets created. But as we have created that value with customers, it is to channel it into those 2 places to make sure we've got an employee base that's well engaged, that's excited about coming in, but also making sure that we are creating shareholder value. So look, the journey has been pretty straightforward from a retrospective look. It's been a very exciting one for the past 3-plus years. We came out of Chapter 11 in December of '19, right after that COVID hit, the bottom fell out of the market, we lost another $1.3 billion in equity as the stock fell, had to take another $500 million in debt. So when I joined the company, we were, order of magnitude, [ about ] $200 million of market cap, $2.6 billion in debt with a very high interest burden. So since then, we've really focused the company on a simple North Star, which is all about driving sustainable profitability and free cash flow generation. Sounds simple, sounds basic, but that's really what it's been about, saying that's what we're going to do. And we have done that very consistently quarter after quarter for the last 13 quarters, continued to improve margins, our margins have gone up over well over 1,000 basis points. We have now generated cash for 3 years in a row, on a track to do it for the fourth year in a row. And that's not remarkable because that's what companies should do. It's just that we have never done it in our entire history. We've now generated more cash in 3 years than we have in the prior 20 years combined. We were net income positive for the first time last year, excluding the year where we went bankrupt, writing off $7-plus billion of debt has that effect. And so we've been doing that through really a few things. The first and foremost is a completely new leadership team. So leadership team that I am incredibly proud of, I would put toe to toe against anyone in the sector. We've got a set of leaders who are incredibly hands-on, incredibly committed and have deep expertise within their domain. We have coupled that with transparency and communication internally and externally a very strong operating cadence and innovation, both in terms of technology, in terms of business process and in terms of business model. And as we have generated cash, we've really focused on simplifying our capital structure, making it more efficient. We have paid down over -- almost $800 million of debt in the past 3-plus years. We've reduced our interest expense by over $100 million. We have had multiple credit ratings upgrade. So all of that's really resulted in where we are today. But the really exciting part is, we've just begun because we think we are still a very underappreciated, undervalued story. So we think there's a lot more to come...

Right, right, right. No, on the credit rating upgrade side, we saw Fitch initiate a rating on you, we saw S&P upgrade you, we saw Moody upgrade you just in a span of the last, I think, 3 weeks, something like that 3 to 4 weeks.

It's a little bit of a domino effect. You get one and the rest follow. They do operate on a slightly different clock speed. But no, we're very pleased with that. It really reflects the strong operating performance of the company.

Right. Right. Right. Let's focus a little bit on what the company does because more or less, you do pretty much everything more or less what your big 3 peers do, right? But you have your own niches, right? You've talked about 4 of them tubular running services, MPD, cementation products and fishing and reentry services. So why are these the focus point for Weatherford? Why are you good at them? What are you doing to stay the best at them?

Yes. No, it's a great point. Look, let me start with the portfolio as a whole, right? What I think is very unique about the Weatherford portfolio is, as we said, we can go toe to toe with the bigger players in the industry [indiscernible] services starting from [Technical Difficulty] Weatherford has changed a lot but what remained the same is the differentiation in technology and in people. What we weren't so good at in the past was commercializing that technology, was figuring out how to actually articulate the value proposition, was figuring out how to combine those things together, the different offerings in the form of a value-added solution to customers. So that's what we are focused on now. So just as a couple of examples, as we talk about the market-leading product lines, those we are head and shoulders about, we are #1 in the market without a question. But in MPD, the reason I'm excited is, it's not about getting more share. It's about increasing adoption. Still order of magnitude, about 10% of the wells drilled with MPD, we don't expect that to go to 90%. But if we can get that to 12%, if we can get that to 15% that's a massive increase in the market, and we actually welcome new players in because it means there's more interest, and we're seeing that more and more -- more announcements now coming out on MPD from various other players. You look at a business like TRS, one of the most exciting developments, one of the most exciting product launches to me is something we announced, not in this call, one before, called StringGuard. I think of this as fundamentally a guarantee to customers that we'll never drop a string, which is what TRS should do, but it's one of the biggest issues in the industry. What I love about the solution, though, it's almost like [indiscernible] designed it [indiscernible] that's what happened, right? We did. But it also comes with a commercial model that's very different. It's not selling a widget. It's essentially selling that peace of mind, right? You look at fishing and reentry, it's about how do you make that offering ubiquitous, how do you take that expertise that is people dependent and say, "I will offer it using digital technology around the world." But then you look at the rest of our product lines, you look at something like drilling services. If you look at it on a global basis, sure, we are not #1, #2 or #3 or maybe even more. But we've got very exaggerated sense of differentiation in high temperature markets. So as a result, we went back into the Haynesville after we exited the U.S. drilling market in a completely different business model, asset rentals with higher returns. We are a leader in the Gulf of Thailand. So where we can actually deliver value is what we are focused on. You look at a business like completions, people don't normally think of us when you think about completions, but it's one of our fastest-growing businesses. It's a tremendous business. We've got all kinds of technology [ modes ], including RFID technology. We've got digital fiber optic technology. And these are [ modes ] that allow us to win bigger contracts. So we won -- we are one of the winners out of 2, the largest ADNOC completions contracts that are awarded and that was with [indiscernible]. So as you look at it across all of the different product lines, a lot of differentiation [Audio Gap] accentuated by digital [indiscernible], we've got a leading platform in ForeSite in production optimization, for example. So multiple different things in the portfolio to be excited about it.

Right. Right. Right. Girish, you mentioned digital, I'll come back to that in a moment. But one product line that the old Weatherford, the old Weatherford management team used to talk about a lot was artificial lift. Of course,, it was [ big dollars ] for you, but I don't hear a lot about artificial lift from you now. Can you give us a little more context about the market, about how you think about that market?

Yes. It's interesting. Just if you'll indulge me in a moment of nostalgia. The first time I did an interview was on Bloomberg about 2.5 years ago, and the first question I got was on artificial lift, and I don't know exactly why they are asking it. But look, It's a terrific business. It really is. It's predominantly North America-focused business. We do conventional rod lift. We have the largest installed base. It's a fabulous business from a cash standpoint. It's a great mover of cash for us. It throws off good returns, really minimal CapEx investment that goes into it because it's a product sale business. The reason we don't talk about it as much is, look, this is a business that is very different. It's all about commercial intensity, operational execution. You've got a lot of different players in it. So it is a market that on the lower end is a little bit commoditized. We've got a terrific offering on the higher end with Rotaflex, our long-stroke pumping unit that brings a lot of technology into the marketplace. But this is a [ knight fight ] every day. But what is really exciting about artificial lift is what it also allows us to do on the production optimization, so I mentioned ForeSite that -- because of our deep installed base, because of our connectivity and connection to customers, it allows us to really work closely with them to say, how do we solve your production challenges, how do we optimize that for you, and ForeSite becomes a huge play and it really builds on our artificial lift business. So yes, you're right. We don't talk about it as much, but it's an integral part of the company, a huge business for us, especially in North America. But it's more than just North America. We do a variety of different forms of lift, pretty much everything other than ESPs.

Okay. Okay. Like I said, I want to come back to digital a little bit. It's a buzzword, everybody wants to talk about it, right? But you held your digital conference earlier this month. And interestingly, it was the 19th Annual Conference, not the first or the second or the third iteration. You've done this a long time, right? So talk to us about that. Where do you sit in that digital capability versus your peers? And what's the adoption looking like? What are your customers telling you?

Yes. Look, it's a space that I'm incredibly excited about. I think there's a ton of potential. And you're right, there's a lot of buzz, there's a lot of hype about it. And sometimes that gets a little bit ahead of the substance. But as you pointed out, we've been doing this for a very long time. So it's the 19th year at the conference. It started out as effectively a CygNet conference. CygNet is our SCADA system. We are the only OFS company that has its own SCADA offering. Most other players go to someone like Honeywell or [indiscernible], companies that do that across industries. We're the only OFS company that provides it. And the reason that special is because we actually understand our customers -- we deal with it every single day. Tremendous installed base. But what that gives us is that connectivity directly with customers. Then you couple that with our production optimization, you get edge connectivity and that entire ecosystem of data becomes a huge platform. So for us, the 19th Conference, it's moved a lot more from CygNet. Now it's not just about digital as an offering, but it's also about digitally enabling our other product lines. How do we have digital running through in MPD. So we've got a software system on MPD called Victus. That's a huge part of the effectiveness of our MPD offering. How do we enable Vero in TRS, right? We've got software, we've got artificial intelligence that runs through that. I talked about completions and fiber optics, right, the data analysis that goes through behind that. That becomes really critical. So it's really thread -- sort of proverbial digital thread that runs across all of these different product lines, all of these different offerings. That's something we are very focused on. And what is really cool about the conference is, it wasn't just us talking and saying, here's our different product. We had several customers present. We had customers like Shell, we had customers like Total, Aramco. And to me, that's a testament to, again, the connectivity we have with the customers, but also their confidence in our platforms, in our capabilities. We also had several other partners like AWS present at the conference, multiple workshops, not just on core software, but how does it permeate across these product lines. So we think it's going to continue to grow. I think there's a lot of value to be had. But everyone is still figuring this out a little bit. It's an exciting space for multiple players. But digital is a little bit different because it comes down to what is the effectiveness you can drive? What is the customer outcome you can, and how can you really get first mover advantage to get that initial stickiness?

Right. Right. right. Okay. Okay. I know it's too early, right, maybe to quantify the impact of that, and it really permeates your portfolio, right? So it's not just a separate [ offer ] it's enabled in your product.

No, it is. And look, in some day, I hope that we will be able to call it out reported as separate segment or what have you. But what's exciting about it is the growth rate. Today, we see just our core digital offerings will outpace the company in terms of revenue growth. What's even more exciting is the margins are accretive, just sort of naturally, it's an assumption, but we see that in reality that the margins are accretive to the company. So as we continue to grow that, I've talked about our bridge in terms of how do we get to that mid-20s EBITDA margin and a critical component of that is new technology. Digital forms an inherent component of that new technology because it is so margin accretive.

Right, right. Okay. Awesome. Let's pivot to a little bit, maybe, on the geographical side of things because roughly 80% of your revenue comes from the international markets, 20% from [ North America ] markets. You talked about your expectations during the third quarter call, maybe recap that a little bit, maybe give us a little more [Audio Gap] do you expect the most growth to come from next year?

I'll start actually with North America because even though you talk about it in terms of it's only 20%, 20% is big deal. Look, what I'm really -- what our team's done in terms of margin performance, I mentioned this on the call. As we came into the year, we actually had a much more optimistic view of North America. We thought it would grow from a revenue standpoint. Clearly, things have changed from a revenue standpoint, and we're still seeing some growth, but it's nowhere close to what we expect, and we've seen in the last couple of quarters a lot more softness. But what's terrific about what our team has done is really drive margin enhancement, and that's what it was. North America has historically been the Achilles heel for us. It's a market we struggled to make money in. So we've put a lot of emphasis on facility optimization, cross-training people, focusing on several product lines and exiting unprofitable businesses. So even though it's a leaner business today, it's a lot more profitable, is at par with the rest of the company. So we are excited, and we think about North America as 3 separate businesses. It's really our Canadian business is one, which actually resembles much more of the international side. It's multiple different customers. We just had the panel before and you already got a flavor just of that of the spectrum of customers we've got. And it's a market that we think is going to continue to grow. Then you've got a very stable, very resilient, high-margin business in offshore with the Gulf of Mexico, right? That's, again, where some of our market-leading product lines give us tremendous advantage, exaggerated value proposition, et cetera, then you've got a U.S. line business. Now what's interesting about our portfolio is it's much more production oriented, so with our artificial lift piece that we talked about. So we are not really susceptible to the same extent for rig counts dropping. We are not immune to it, but definitely a little bit more insulated. And so we are able to capitalize more on the production needs of customers, and we are seeing production continue to be very healthy in the U.S. market as well. Then as you look at the international markets, I'll start with Latin America. This year, Latin America has been terrific. It's been a tremendous source of growth. It's really given the Middle East run for their money and kind of neck and neck in different places and multiple countries. You've had the offshore piece in Brazil. You've had Mexico perform very strongly; Argentina, despite some of the challenges in Argentina and in the first half; even Colombia. So a lot of growth in multiple countries. We expect Latin America to continue growing as we get into next year, not to the same rate though. It's going to start to reduce a little bit because just this year it's been phenomenal. I think it's going to take a little bit of time for the system to catch up and things are going to -- the rate of change will be a little bit lower, but we still expect it to be in the sort of high single-digit kind of growth rate, which is pretty impressive given the base that we already have. Then you've got Europe, which I'm actually really pleased with. Last year, we thought Europe would grow quite a bit, but it didn't. This year, the markets come back. We have started to see more activity now with the North Sea. So we think there's growth to be had in Europe. Sub-Saharan Africa, we are starting to see a lot of green shoots, some intrinsic challenges given some of the government situations, some of the other logistics and infrastructure and security challenges. But we think offshore, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa is a growth area. Then you've got Asia Pacific. Asia Pacific is a smaller region, but again, continues to grow reasonable double-digit kind of a clip, which leaves us with the Middle East, which is really the bulk of the growth, and it's the tip of the spear when it comes to our growth projections. This year, the Middle East has been a huge region for us, and you do expect that, that will carry off -- carry into 2024 and probably into '25 as well. So our customers' thesis around [indiscernible], they've been very steadfast with their [ plans ], with their additional rigs, with their capital investments. So we are trying to keep pace with that and make sure we are supporting them. And you've seen that in our Middle East growth numbers. And it's really secular across, spearheaded by Saudi but then you've got UAE, you've got Kuwait, Oman, Iraq, Egypt, so multiple different countries that are all stepping up and really there is an investment, a little bit of catch-up on the several years that there was underinvestment, but we're obviously excited about that region and think that there is more value to be had in there.

Right, right. Girish, I think you said on the call, 15% to 20% kind of growth you expect in the Middle East, in MENA region?

Yes.

Okay. Geopolitics, right, geopolitics is a complicated, none of us are experts in that. You are more of an expert...

I wouldn't say that, but yes.

On a relative basis. But so putting geopolitics to the side, right, I mean what are the risks, right, because we all know about the opportunity, right? You talked about the opportunities. What are the risks, OPEC cutting production, potentially something else going on in the future, how do you think about the risk in the Middle East region?

Yes. So look, -- so the biggest one is the geopolitical one, so we'll sort of leave that aside because quite frankly, [indiscernible] projections, we'll all go home [indiscernible] it's a tough one to predict, and we've just got to figure out how to respond to that. But leaving aside that, I think, look, the #1 risk for us is actually execution. We've got to make sure that we continue to keep our eye on the ball that we do not lose focus and that we're delivering quality to our customers every single day. We can't take our business for granted. So that's really the main thing that we focus on is what we can control and execution is the first one. The second piece of it really is macroeconomics, which, to a certain extent, is influenced by the geopolitics, but it is still a world where the macroeconomic situation is a little unclear, right? China demand never really came back to the extent that everyone projected, even though it is still fairly healthy. If the world and multiple significant geographies step into a significant recession, it's still a possibility that curtails demand dramatically that could have an effect. We think it's unlikely just given the thesis our customers have and what we see on the demand signals. We think it's unlikely but in terms of a risk that's always there. The last piece that I will point to is supply chain disruptions. That's something that we still contend with. It's a little bit more sporadic. We are starting to see the rate of inflation go down, but it's still a reasonably inflationary world. But more importantly, the supply chain bottlenecks. We still don't have the lead times back to where they used to be in sort of the "normal" world. I don't know if we ever come back to that. Fundamental supply chain disruptions have happened. So we've got to figure out how to work within that. So those are sort of the things that we think about and say, how do we navigate through that.

Okay. Okay. One thing I want to ask is on Russia because you still operate in Russia. A lot of people exited. You and one other big competitor operates in Russia. How do you manage the risk in operating a country like Russia given all the sanctions and the risk of those sanctions ramping up over time?

Yes. Look, first of all, there are several companies still operating in Russia. What we have said and continue to say is Russia represents about between 5% and 7% of our revenues, and we've not moved from that range. We will continue to operate in Russia as long as 3 fundamental conditions are met. The first is that we can keep our people safe. The second is that we can operate profitably and that includes the ability to take cash out of Russia. And the third and maybe more significant is that we are in full compliance with all laws, including international sanctions as well as local Russian laws. I feel really good about the third piece that what we have done. Quite frankly, we got a little bit fortunate. Back in 2013 -- 2010 to 2013, Weatherford had a lot of challenges. We had SEC violations, we had tax fraud, we had all kinds of -- we had a DOJ monitor. And as a result, we had to put a completely new compliance program in place. And we put a world-class compliance program that I think is absolutely top-notch. But right after that, in 2014, the Crimean sanctions got imposed on Russia. So we actually use Russia as a bit of a test case on our new compliance framework. And so what we were able to do is really create a very robust mechanism kind of wall Russia off, so it operates on its own system. And that made it a lot easier for us this go around, when the sanctions came, we were better equipped to be able to deal with the sanctions, we were better equipped to be able to respond and to make sure that we were upholding the integrity of our operations as well as all of the applicable laws. So that's really what our framework has been. Having said that, yes, I've commented on our calls multiple times, it is not a situation that is getting any better. The sanctions continue to get more onerous, they continue to get more complex. We made a decision on the 24th of February last year as soon as the invasion happened that we will stop shipping anything into Russia. So we made a proactive decision that we completely seized all shipments. We have not shipped a crew into Russia since February of 2022. We also made a commitment that we're not investing any new technology or new CapEx into Russia. So we haven't done that. So when you have all of those factors at play, it does become more difficult. And so the business tends to get more complex, it will tend to atrophy little bit, but our team in Russia continues to focus on the things that they can control and deliver to the extent. And like I said, we've been able to get cash out of Russia, so I feel good about that. And then we will continue to manage and monitor it. If one of those situations changes on those 3 conditions, then we'll reevaluate our position.

Okay. I want to come back to Latin America a little bit, right? You said, obviously, it grew really, really fast, given Middle East a run for its money in 2023. It's slowing down on a relative basis, for a large part of it is tougher comps, right? But I want to spend a little time on what's going on within the countries. Mexico, that's a big part of your business, right? You talked about that in your Q, it's 14% -- 13%, 14% of your revenue. What should we expect in Mexico in 2024? And then I don't want to stick to a year, right, but the next 2 to 3 years, what do you expect to happen in the country?

Yes. Look, Mexico is one of these countries. It's always had tremendous potential, a lot of activity. It is a profitable country. Obviously, the challenge with Mexico is payments, right, and every operator faces that. The way we think about it is, it's not really a credit risk for us. It's a liquidity issue, right? And so -- and we price that risk in, right? So we have never had a situation where we've had to write off our receivables. We've never had a situation where we've not gotten payment, it just takes a little bit of time. But we manage that, we price that in. So we think that given the domestic agenda that the government has, there will continue to be investment. They will continue to be a focus, and there will be continued to be activity increases. I think next year will be more of a flattish kind of a year. This year was just tremendous. And it will be much more of a year of catching up on that receivable balance and sort of reharmonizing, if you will. But over the long term, we think that there is a lot more opportunity in Mexico, which is why we've got a focus there. But look, we manage that cash balance very carefully, we pay a lot of attention to it. And we just want to make sure it never goes completely out of kilter where we can't meet our commitments externally.

Right. Okay. Let's pivot, Girish, maybe let's talk about margins a little bit because that's been a very, very, very bright spot in the Weatherford story. So like you said, you have improved margins by more than 1,000 basis points, right, you would be at plus or minus 23% this year, and you've talked about mid-20s percent, which people [indiscernible] 25% just to be clear on that. So what's the path from that 23% to 25%, how much of that is in your control versus the help you need from the market?

Yes. So look, whenever we set margin targets, our philosophy, and our approach is, we want to do it organically. We don't really count on a volume increase or activity increase contributing to that. We look at that and say, we've got a set of initiatives, we've got a set of things that we're going to work on [ that given ], and we plan our world around a flat activity basis. So that's why we think it's on a 2-year journey. Now if activity comes in, comes in at higher [indiscernible] that only accelerates it, which is what's been happening in the last 3 or 4 targets that we've set, right? So it's not so much that we've suddenly done far better. But we've always said we've got a path and then activity will accelerate it. So our path is really comprised of 4 elements. The first one is pricing. We talked a little bit about supply chain disruption. So it's still a very inflationary world. So we've had a very robust pricing environment in '22 and '23. We think that '24 will continue to be a constructive pricing environment, probably not to the same extent. So what we want to make sure that pricing is there at a minimum, we're offsetting our inflation. Right? But we still think it will be a net positive for us. The second and probably most significant aspect is new technology. So you've seen in our earnings calls of several of the new technologies that we have launched. Each of these, what we really want to target is the value gap improves. So very simplistically, everything that we do has got to come in at a lower cost point at a higher price point than anything it either replaced or supplanted or is going to take the position of. Our goal is to continue to improve the mix that we have from new technology coming in at more accretive margins. So that's the second leg. The third is our fulfillment initiative. This is a multiyear journey. This is all about manufacturing, our procurement, sourcing, supply chain, repair and maintenance, logistics, the entire sort of ecosystem of delivering to our customers. It's about contemporizing our manufacturing network. It's about improving cycle times in our repair centers. It's about getting a more cost-effective supply base. We talked in the previous earnings call about increasing our spend 5x in lower cost countries. So things like that, that will not just improve our margins by giving us a lower cost point, but also will be a part of our working capital improvement thesis. And the last piece is our cost infrastructure. Look, we have taken out a tremendous amount of cost over the past 3 years. And we are finally now at a point where we're investing back into the business, but we still think there's efficiencies to be had. Weatherford was never designed to be what it is today. So our cost infrastructure was never designed for a $5 billion company. It started off as a, call it, a $1 billion company that scaled up to $15 billion, but it was sort of all bandaged together then crashing down. it was never really thought of said, okay, here's the white sheet of paper, this is what we want it to be. So we're working through that. It's a difficult challenge, especially when you've got something in flight, so it's kind of like doing open heart surgery when you're careening down a highway on a flatbed truck at 80 miles an hour. But that's something that we are very focused on. So these 4 elements, we think give us that bridge of 200 basis points, but activity should accelerate it, and that's why we have talked about it as a 2-year journey.

Okay. And I want to hone in on pricing a little bit. I think you said you still expect net pricing to go up, right? But should we expect net pricing to go up less in 2025 than it did in '23?

I think so. Look, I think the reality of it is as much as we want to drive value, a lot of that initial bulk has gone up. So it's going to be that sort of law of bigger numbers, small percentages, if you will. But again, it's all about creating the differentiation in value proposition. So it's -- we're very, very focused on it. Our whole commercial team has really rallied around this notion of pricing and how do we get after that.

Right. Right. Right. Okay. Let's maybe pivot a little bit to free cash flow.

Sure.

So you've given guidance for this year at least $450 million in free cash flow that translates to, I think, close to 40% -- 39%, 40% kind of EBITDA to free cash flow conversion. How should we think about that going forward? I know a big part of that is just interest payments, right? So that's going to depend on what you do on the debt side, right? But other than interest payments, what are the other moving pieces?

Yes. So look, ideally, we want to continue to keep improving that conversion rate. And sometime in the distant future, I'd love to see us closer to that 50% mark. But you're right, interest is a big part of that. We've still got a significant amount of debt on the balance sheet. The interest cost is very manageable, but our interest coverage is still lower than some of our larger peers. So that does create a factor. Look, the biggest lever that we have though in improving that is working capital. So we've set an aspirational goal of 25% of revenues on working capital. We're not quite there yet, but we continue to make improvements step by step. And it comes down to all of the 3 components. It's much more of a better focus on receivables. The part that we control the most is really our ability to invoice. So there's a huge focus on days to invoice. Then inventory, how do we manage inventory, better planning, more just in time, the proverbial stuff. But again, that's when our fulfillment initiative really kicks in and some huge factor in how we do that. And then payables. The thing about Weatherford that not everyone fully appreciates is, when you go through bankruptcy, it's kind of interesting. Your customer is really supporting because they want your technology, they want you to survive. Your vendors [indiscernible] right? And they don't extend terms, and they say, "Pay me immediately, if you want me to deliver." So what happens during the Chapter 11 is your payment terms from your vendors go haywire, they become very onerous. So if you look at our DSO, it's kind of in line with everyone else. Our DSO, we've made some terrific improvements but our DPO still lags. And that's just because we are still coming out of that. So we've been working with our vendors on getting more manageable, more rational, reasonable terms for the company that we are today. Clearly, the credit ratings improvements help. But it's been a big focus for us, for our supply chain team on how do we manage that and how do we continue to extend that. So working capital becomes a huge factor. And then the last piece is CapEx, right? So we've put a lot of thought, a lot of effort into how we think about capital, what should get reused, what should get redeployed, how much do we actually build, what are the returns that we expect. And I think the industry has fundamentally shifted. It's no longer a case of an upcycle, build it and they will come, right? It's a much more focused, much more returns-oriented view. We laid out this thesis of 3% to 5% a while ago, and now we see a lot of other people converging towards that. The historical norm used to be 5% to 7% of revenue and in an upcycle, sometimes 10%, right? I mean there's a lot of CapEx. Now it's, we've got a very tight band and we manage within that, and we know what our priorities are, but we look at returns, that's really what it's. So it's far more than that range, it's, are we getting that return. And so we've got to have line of sight versus let's just go build it.

Right. Right. Right. Okay. And then one part, Girish, you talked about a little earlier, it's kind of related to free cash flow when you said, we are now profitable, we are at a point where we can start reinvesting in the company, right? And you started investing in your logistics management system last year, your human capital management system this year. How should we think about what else needs to be done internally and how much CapEx or OpEx might need to be invested in.

Yes, look, you don't normally get CEOs to sit and talk about small IT systems that we really invest in. Part of the reason we've done that is we want to be completely transparent with the state of the company and what we are investing in. So that's part of the thesis. Second is, we've said it, and I will reiterate, we are never going to let that investment requirement become a crutch for us to not deliver the profitability or to deliver the cash flow that people expect of us. So it will be fully contained within our guidance. This year, we've talked about the Oracle human capital management system, it's contained within our capital guidance. Same thing. So that 3% to 5% is not going to change because we've got to do it. But over the next 3 to 4 years, we will be modernizing more of our systems infrastructure. We've got obsolescence issues to deal with. But more excitingly, we've got an efficiency improvement that we can get after just given some of the slightly older nature of our businesses. We are actually in a good position because we -- the majority of the company runs on one ERP. So we've got terrific controls in place. That's not the issue. It's more about modernization to get efficiency. But it's always going to be with that same returns lens and that same returns mindset, and it's never going to be something that comes on top and says, "Hey, surprise, we've got to go spend $100 million, $200 million or something like that." That's not going to happen.

Yes. No, I mean one of your large competitors just announced I think last quarter, $200 million that...

Yes. Well, look, sometimes necessity is the mother of invention. So we don't have the $400 million lying around to go do that. But for us, look, it's methodical, it's systematic -- what's nice still is the world we live in today with a lot of cloud-based ERP systems is you don't have the need for this sort of big, monolithic system that you've got to go implement in one bang. So our approach is module by module, do it in the cloud. And we are okay taking time. We've got a road map. We've got a plan on how we're going to get it done. But part of also what drives us is we've got to make sure the previous implementation is successful, that we're getting the benefits from that and that then feeds the next one so then it becomes less onerous. We are starting this year to realize the benefits of our logistics investment. We are starting to see the number of shipments that are covered in the system reach an all-time high. We are seeing a reduction in our freight charges. We are seeing a reduction in the number of personnel required to manage it. Just better visibility, better management. On the people management side, sometimes that's not so obvious. But it gives us visibility into our talent base in terms of what we need to do, et cetera. So that will go live next year. And as we get these, we'll get to the next one, et cetera.

Okay. Okay. Girish, we don't have a lot of time left. Let's cover shareholder return a little bit and in the context of the fact that you put in a new credit facility. What are the terms and conditions? Are they onerous from a return standpoint? Just describe that...

Yes. Look, the credit facility is a terrific accomplishment. It sort of finally signals the banks are back at Weatherford, right, we had the bondholders come back, we had shareholders come back and now we've got the banks come back, and I think that's fantastic. It gives us a significant amount of liquidity. We've always said -- the reason we had so much cash on the balance sheet was simply because of event risk, we wanted to manage that. We didn't have a credit facility. Now we've got that so we can really focus on the other things. The terms on this facility are dramatically improved than the previous one, a lot of the restrictions have been removed. We have also reduced the cost on this credit facility by eliminating the SOFR component on the letters of credit. So all around a terrific accomplishment by Arun and his team putting this in place. For us, as we have talked about, our capital allocation priority continues to remain debt -- the secured notes, especially, we've been paying them down. We issued a call notice, we've been buying on the open market. So at the end of -- when we had our earnings call, we had $249 million almost left in secured notes. We still have restrictions -- restrictive covenants on those. So that's [Audio Gap] deal with that, as we have pointed out, we'll be in a position to talk about shareholder returns. And we think at this point, the best thing for us to continue to do is to drive that debt down, specifically the secured notes and then [Audio Gap]

[Audio Gap] the good things. But one very last thing, I don't know if we talked a lot about gross debt, interest coverage, right, I don't want anybody to go away thinking that, that is an issue in anyway, right? So maybe talk about liquidity very quickly.

Yes. Look, we've been in a great -- really great position. So we have now got a credit facility. We've got $300 million of liquidity. We've got cash on the balance sheet. We have enough and more liquidity to drive investment in the company, to drive all of our strategic priorities. We really have no restriction from that standpoint. It's actually incredibly liberating. For the first time, we've got these multiple degrees of freedom to actually go out and target the things that we want to do from a growth mindset versus just a turnaround, right?

Right. Plus your net debt leverage is 0.9x, right, which is lower than your...

[indiscernible], right?

Exactly.

Right. So in terms of Weatherford, going from where we were to now best in class in terms of -- we still have some work, as you said, on the gross debt, on the interest coverage, but we're generating more than enough cash at this point to deal with it. So for us, it's all about how do we continue to do more of that, chip away at the debt, not go crazy, we take a very prudent view on capital allocation, but everything that we do is all geared towards creating shareholder value.

Right, right, right. No, I mean, more room to go means more room on the stock price. So that's all good.

All good, indeed.

Okay. Girish, I think let's wrap up over here. Thank you very much.

Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.