CNH Industrial N.V. Q2 FY2022 Earnings Call

Hello and welcome to the CNH Industrial Second Quarter Call. My name is Judy, and I will be the coordinator for today’s event. Please note that this call is being recorded. For the duration of the call, your lines will be in listen-only. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the call. The operator will now provide instructions. I will now hand you over to your host, Noah Weiss, Head of Investor Relations, to begin today’s conference. Thank you.

Thank you, Judy. Good morning and good afternoon to everyone. We would like to welcome you to the webcast and conference call for CNH Industrial's second quarter results for the period ending June 30, 2022. This call is being broadcast live on our website and is copyrighted by CNH Industrial. Any other use, recording or transmission of any portion of this broadcast without the express written consent of CNH Industrial is strictly prohibited. Hosting today's call are CNH Industrial CEO, Scott Wine; and CFO, Oddone Incisa. They will use the material available for download from the CNH Industrial website. Please note that any forward-looking statements we might be making during today's call are subject to the risks and uncertainties mentioned in the Safe Harbor statement included in the presentation material. Additional information pertaining to factors that could cause actual results to differ materially is contained in the company's most recent Form 20-F and EU Annual Report as well as other periodic reports and filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and equivalent authorities in the Netherlands and Italy. The company presentation may include certain non-GAAP financial measures. Additional information, including reconciliations to the most directly comparable U.S. GAAP financial measures is included in the presentation material. I will now turn the call over to Scott.

Thank you, Noah, and welcome to everyone joining our call. We finished the first half of 2022 with record second quarter revenues of 17.5% year-over-year in spite of a 3% currency headwind. I am proud of the team's resolute performance in the face of the dynamic and challenging global economic and geopolitical environment. Their efforts exemplify our commitment to meeting our agriculture and construction customers' needs as their customers depend on us to feed and house an ever-growing population. Our solid performance and even our optimistic near-term outlook contrast with an extremely precarious macro environment and a steady stream of recessionary signals. Whether we face a global recession in 2023 is up for debate, but we are preparing for this eventuality. It is worth noting, however, that historically we are more impacted by the Ag cycle than recessions. Soft commodities were down notably in the second quarter, but they rebounded of late and remain at or above historic levels. Dealer sentiment and orders also remain positive. We generated an impressive double-digit industrial activities margin of almost 12%. Raw material, labor, and freight cost escalations are sadly familiar to us. But we are finally starting to see signs of their impact diminishing. During the second quarter, farmer sentiment deteriorated as increased pressure on the cost and availability of fertilizer and other inputs met an easing of soft commodity prices. The Ag cycle nonetheless still appears to have legs as our order backlog for new equipment continues to grow. We remain compelled to restrict order windows in order to consider future cost and availability issues. Supply chain constraints, while modestly improving, are a complex variable in our forecasting process, and they continue to hamper our production capacity in the second quarter. This elevated factory inventory was the primary driver of our $380 million year-over-year decrease in free cash flow. Thanks to our otherwise strong operating performance we did generate more than $400 million in cash in the quarter and are confident we will deliver our full year cash target by reducing plant inventory in the second half. Part of the solid progress we are making with the Raven integration involves completing the divestiture of their non-core divisions, including the sale of the Aerostar business, which we closed this week. The teams in Sioux Falls and Scottsdale are now completely dedicated to solving great challenges for our farming customers by coupling great technology with our great iron. Momentum remains strong entering the back half of the year, allowing us to reconfirm guidance while tightening up the bottom of the net sales range. Net sales for the agriculture business were up 22% year-over-year on a constant currency basis, as we sold a better mix of products at higher prices, particularly in North and South America. For the quarter, Derek Nielsen and his ag team drove pricing up 13%, again more than offsetting rising costs, and we expect this dynamic to continue through the back half of the year. Our plants finished the quarter with far too many tractors and combines waiting for components. Reducing this fleet inventory in the second half will enable us to better serve our customers and improve our cash position. Dealer inventories of new equipment remain very lean, especially in North America for row crop machinery and in Europe, where supply constraints are most critical. While overall ag demand remains strong, especially with high horsepower tractors, we did begin to see diminishing demand in the hand- forged sector. Low horsepower tractor demand is also starting to deteriorate after several strong years as the small hobby farmers who comprise the segment are beginning to plan for a tougher economic environment. Our overall tractor order book was up 5% year-over-year, driven by strong growth in EMEA and Asia Pacific and combined backlogs are very healthy as well. We waited until the beginning of June to open orders so that we could secure the best pairing of cost and price. We also limited the window for orders only into the first quarter of '23 for North America, and even shorter for Brazil as inflation and cost volatility are complicating projections of future machinery pricing. Stefano Pampalone and his construction team continued to execute their impressive turnaround of our construction business. We closed the quarter with net sales at $891 million, up 12% on a constant currency basis, mainly driven by pricing, volumes in South America and the addition of Sampierana in our business. Adjusted EBIT in the quarter was $34 million at a 3.8% margin, a continuous quarter-over-quarter improvement in line with the trajectory we outlined at our capital markets day. The Sampierana acquisition is delivering ahead of plan and is playing a pivotal role in accelerating profitable growth in Europe, where we saw market share gains in all major product categories aside from large excavators. We are currently integrating with dealer networks and will be increasing Sampierana’s manufacturing capacity to better support the light end of our excavator range. Order books continued to build up more than 20% year-over-year in both heavy and light with increases in all regions excluding heavy equipment in APAC. In North America our 2022 production slides are essentially sold out. On Tuesday, August 2, we will be breaking new ground with the launch of the revolutionary new product that will create its own category within the construction market. All I'm allowed to say for now is that this unique machine combines ripping, dozing and loading functionality and we're very excited to deliver it to our customers. While we continue to make substantive progress across all of our five strategic priorities, today I want to highlight some notable advancements in brand and dealer strength. Scott Harris and Carlo Lambro, global brand leaders for Case IH and New Holland respectively, are developing joint product and go-to-market plans which are engendering cooperation and coordination between the two brands. This work is inspired by dealers and employees and also investors, and it is rewarding to see it coming to fruition. Early efforts include complementary product, network and programming decisions all designed to strengthen our dealer network and enhance customer support and experience across the company. We are leveraging our broad knowledge base and channel partnerships to improve areas such as service standards, warranty procedures, and performance expectations. The truly meaningful change here is effective cooperation, which is positioning our network, our brands and ultimately our company to win. Our net promoter score, which has increased over 3% in the first six months of 2022, attests to our progress. All of this is forging a clear path to profitable growth while simultaneously improving dealer engagement and ultimately customer satisfaction. These same benefits accrue from Titan Machinery's recently announced acquisition of Heartland Ag Systems. Heartland is the largest Case IH application equipment distributorship in North America and with customer-inspired innovation accelerating across our sprayer portfolio, this transaction should unlock value for all stakeholders. We made a related acquisition with the acquisition of Specialty Enterprises, North America's largest premium aluminum spray boom manufacturer. Specialty is known for its advanced engineering and high-quality workmanship as a world-class aluminum welding operation. The direct ownership of spray boom production is the latest step in Case IH’s strategic roadmap for an industry-leading sprayer production platform. As the company works to enhance its application product offering the inclusion of longer lighter booms enables the accelerated development and deployment of new technologies. I will now turn the call over to Oddone to take us through some of the key financial results.

Thank you, Scott. And good morning, good afternoon to everyone on the call. Second quarter net sales of industrial activities of $5.6 billion were up 17.5% year-over-year despite FX headwinds of around 3%. Pricing was the main driver for our top-line growth; volume and mix accounted for around 5%. Adjusted gross profit of $1.2 billion was up $174 million year-over-year as pricing once again helped offset increasing production cost. Adjusted gross margin of 22% was slightly down in the quarter versus 2021 but in line with the first half of 22.1%. Adjusted EBIT of $654 million was up $82 million from Q2 2021 with a corresponding EBIT margin of 11.7%, some 30 basis points below the record second quarter last year. Free cash flow from industrial activities was $404 million and industrial activities net debt ended at $1.6 billion, an increase of $438 million from December 31, 2021, largely due to working capital absorption in the first half of the year. Adjusted net income for the quarter was $583 million with adjusted diluted earnings per share of $0.43, up $0.06 on the back of the better operating performance. At the end of June 2022, our available liquidity stood at $8.8 billion, down $1.7 billion from December 31, 2021, as we grew our financing portfolios and the euro-dollar exchange played negatively on credit lines denominated in euros. On Slide eight we have the details of industrial activities adjusted EBIT performance in both segments: we see volume and mix were positive while the higher pricing again this quarter was able to offset the remarkable increase in production costs. SG&A reflects increased activity levels and the cost carried by the newly acquired businesses. R&D expenses increased as we are investing more in our precision Agriculture portfolio. Agriculture’s adjusted EBIT increased by $81 million, with a margin of 14% driven by favorable mix particularly from the Americas, partially offset by higher production cost and growth in R&D expenses. Gross profit was up $150 million from the same quarter last year with adjusted gross margin of 23.4%. Construction equipment EBIT was $34 million, with a margin of 3.8% up 80 basis points versus last year, thanks to favorable volume and mix and positive price realization only partially offset by higher production cost. Gross margin stood at 13.8% up 140 basis points despite increased costs in the quarter. For our financial services businesses, net income was $95 million, up $10 million compared to the second quarter last year mainly as a result of higher recoveries on U.S. equipment sales and a higher average portfolio in all regions. These were partially offset by income taxes and higher risk cost reflecting the growth of the credit portfolio. For the quarter, retail originations were $2.4 billion and the managed portfolio including JVs at the end of the period was $21.1 billion, up $1.7 billion on a constant currency basis. Delinquencies were flat year-over-year at 1.5% and remain at a historically low level. Next on Slide 10 we have the free cash flow and net financial position performance for our industrial activities. Free cash flow of industrial activities was $404 million on the back of the strong operating performance. Working capital build-up is mainly due to inventory growth in our plants; at the end of June we continued having elevated levels of components and semi-finished goods as our production is constrained by a choppy supply chain. Total gross debt was $20.8 billion at June 30 and industrial activities net debt position was $1.6 billion. Moving to our capital allocation priorities, we continue spending in CapEx and R&D to foster our equipment and digital product pipeline; CapEx was stable in Q2 compared to last quarter supported by a sound cash flow from operations and funds from the sales of Raven Engineered Films, offset partially by the payment of our annual dividend. During the quarter, the company returned over $400 million in buybacks and dividends. Share acquisitions continued till the month of July under the share buyback program announced on March 1. The Board approved the setup of an additional program for up to $300 million, within the shareholders' authorization renewed in April to buy back up to 10% of our outstanding shares. In terms of inorganic growth, as Scott mentioned at the outset of the call, we have completed the divestiture of the non-core Raven businesses. In addition, during the quarter, we acquired Specialty Enterprises, North America's largest manufacturer of premium aluminum spray booms, and we continued scanning for opportunities. This concludes my prepared remarks and I will now turn it back to Scott.

Thanks, Oddone. Well, there are plenty of storm clouds on the horizon. We still like to set up for Ag. We expect global industry demand to remain healthy, with a supportive backdrop of low soft commodity stock levels, positive grain and oilseed prices and aging fleets. Low crop commodity prices are down but they remain volatile and mostly positive compared to the historical mean. There are two notable changes to the 2022 Ag industry demand estimate we issued in May 1. First, we have reduced our expectation for low horsepower tractors in North America due to the aforementioned weakness in the end markets after a couple of strong years. We have decreased our projection for EMEA tractor demand because of the impact of the rest of the Ukraine conflict and the currency devaluation in Turkey. Our construction equipment estimates have also been updated to reflect improvement in the rest of the EMEA region, while APAC is now expected to be a bit worse. We're seeing some softness in North America residential while commercial construction remains strong. In Brazil, election year spending is exceeding expectation, although it's somewhat offset by higher interest rates. While risks are persistent and unlikely to wane, we are confirming our '22 guidance for industrial activities. We've narrowed the bottom end of our range and now expect full year net sales to grow between 12% and 14%, including currency translation, which has been reset to a less favorable level. We will continue to invest to improve our business but expect to keep SG&A at or below 7.5% of net sales, one of the leanest ratios in the industry. Free cash flow for industrial activities is expected to exceed $1 billion again. R&D and CapEx will be approximately $1.4 billion combined spend for the year. Supply chain and logistics challenges remain the fulcrum on which our short-term results pivot. We managed our urgent freight costs better in the second quarter, and we're starting to see these pressures ease somewhat. There could be more relief in the second half; raw material costs will continue to restrain profitability. The many ramifications of the war in Ukraine have had many significant impacts on our European operations, but less so on demand. We are working diligently to mitigate energy and supply chain challenges to ensure we can properly serve our dealers and customers. Pricing should be stronger in Europe in the second half, and that along with improving production should support better margins in the region. Our order books remain strong and dealer inventories are low. We intend to somewhat replenish our dealer channels over the next 12 months, but the stock levels will be well south of where they were in the last cycle. In early May, the United Auto Workers initiated a strike at our Racine, Wisconsin and Burlington, Iowa facilities. We've made a fair and equitable offer to resolve the strike and very much want to have our workers back in our plants for us and for their families. We have consistently maintained our willingness to meet and are pleased that the union has agreed to resume negotiations in mid-August. To support our dealers and customers, we implemented mitigation efforts to keep both facilities operational. We are making good progress and production continues to improve, but our main goal is still to resolve this ongoing dispute as soon as possible. In the second half, we'll be launching our strategic sourcing program and two supplier conventions to be held in Milan and Nashville. These events will invite current and future suppliers to partner with us as we build a more efficient, productive and responsive supply chain over the next several years. Raven and our Precision team are making great strides and helping to drive agriculture's growth. We will highlight some of our new work next month at Farm Progress and in December we'll be holding a tech day to showcase current and future products and services. That concludes our prepared remarks. We will now open the line for questions. Judy, please go ahead.

Thank you so much. The first question is coming from the line of Michael Feniger from Bank of America.

I guess just on the implied second half. I look, I mean, ag price in Q1 really strong 11%? I believe I think it actually picked up in the second quarter 13%. You said it should trend well in the second half. How should we think about that with the deceleration in the second half on the growth outlook on a year-over-year basis? How do you help us frame that?

Well, there's a couple of factors that you need to consider. First of all, implied in that is a lower currency rate with the dollar and the euro, which will have a several hundred million dollar impact. So that brings a little bit of a down. Pricing will still be double digits but slightly less. So that brings a little bit more. And then, we're still, I wouldn't say hedging, but we're cautious about what we can get out of our supply chain. It is still improving, but it's precarious. So obviously, we're being prudent in understanding what we can do. But the primary factors are adjusting for a stronger dollar and slightly less pricing, but still very strong.

Okay. And then just, with pricing where it is, some of the improvement like you mentioned, is incremental operating margins on the ag for next year, at least we see that normalized in the 20% to 25% range, I guess, how much of this pricing do you think is sticky as we enter next year, when hopefully some of these supply constraints should be easing, and less cost pressure?

Well, yes, we think that the margin will be normalizing. And, of course, we have been very strong on pricing year-over-year and also to cover the cost. We still have very lean dealer inventories; there's still strong demand. So we will follow very closely what happens there. But we don't plan on giving up our margins. This is one of our key goals for our three-year plan: keeping gross margin up and increasing.

Okay. Thank you for your question. The next question comes from the line of Steven Fisher from UBS.

In your comments, you said you're positioning for a recession. I'm curious what that means in practical terms. How do you see a recession affecting your business? What actions are you taking to prepare for that?

Yes. Well, Steven, I said in the remarks that we were anticipating that but the business is also much more correlated to the ag cycle than to a recession. So we're not turning out all the lights and everything else. But we are being prudent with our hiring practices. Obviously, we're still making efforts to improve our tech stack. We're still recruiting engineers as quickly as we possibly can. But we're also managing somewhat cautiously how we're spending our SG&A. We're still spending a tremendous amount on research and development. And I don't think there's any environment that's going to take us off that, but we're just not going to make discretionary spends such as travel. Mostly it's just being careful with hiring and overall what we spend as we think about a more difficult environment. But again, the setup near term and probably for the first half of '23, for the ag business is still quite good.

Okay. That makes sense. One practical question related to the stock in terms of the listing. I think you've talked in the past about potentially taking actions to move towards filing U.S. statements and shifting focus to the U.S. listing. Can you give us your latest thinking there? The stock had some perhaps extra volatility this year related to European trading. So just curious what you're thinking about now?

We are still studying it. Obviously, with the divestiture or spin off of Zecco Group, we know we have a much less significant presence; we still have a very large presence. Remember, our revenue still splits essentially 37/37 between the two regions, North America and Europe. But there's good arguments for it, and there's good arguments against it. We're going to weigh all of those and then make a decision, but no decision yet.

Okay. Just lastly, if I can, quick clarification perhaps for Oddone on the overall revenue guidance. I think, Scott, you might have said several hundred million of currency difference just kind of trying to figure out what in practical terms this means for what the overall volume and price is embedded in the guidance for this year. Were we thinking before that it was somewhere in the mid-teens, and now it's kind of closer to the low 20s area? Is that how we should be thinking about what this currency and guidance change means?

So we moved in our expectation. We moved the euro-dollar from 1.10 we had last quarter to 1.05, which basically implies that we are assuming the euro-dollar staying at parity from now to year end. And this creates a translation of our European volume, in particular, to come to a lower level. So we expect the headwinds coming from FX for the second part of the year to be between 4% and 5%, probably closer to 5% to 4%. As Scott said, we assume continued double-digit pricing in the second half. And the balance of it is a volume assumption, which is somehow softened by risks that we still have in the supply chain.

But still positive volume overall?

Yes.

Thank you for your question. The next question is coming from the line of Kristen Owen from Oppenheimer.

I wanted to follow up on your comments about building dealer inventories modestly over the next 12 months. Just give us a sense of how much you feel like the supply chain can support in dealer inventory build and how we should think about sort of production cadence moving to the second half of the year?

Yes, well, we actually had a reasonable internal debate about what timeframe to put on building dealer inventory, because it is uncertain. And I mentioned in my prepared remarks, the supply chain is the fulcrum that manages our results. It really is getting better — I hate to say it because it's so brutal. A slight improvement doesn't make it good at all. But we're still mindful and watching that. When I meet with dealers recently their biggest request is for more shipments and that's what they want from us. That's what we're trying to deliver. The third quarter probably won't make much progress with inventories, I don't think, but the fourth quarter, as we continue to make more progress and we see a little bit of easing in the supply chain, we should be able to start towards the end of the year improving dealer stocks a little bit and then we'll see what happens in 2023. But that still remains: getting product availability and even allocation where we are constraining it is the biggest concern from our dealer network.

And then somewhat related question, the cash flow guidance of greater than a billion dollars in industrial activities, obviously a pretty healthy swing in the second half of the year. Can you just help us understand how much excess inventory you expect to end the year with and maybe talk about the mix of the inventory as it stands today? What sort of red-tag was elevated: raw materials? Just any incremental color you can provide there would be helpful? Thank you.

Yes, I would say the majority of our inventory today is in the plants as opposed to finished goods. And that's a combination of raw material or semi-finished goods. So what we call fleet, which has been built, assembled but waiting for missing components and poor components and raw material and work in process. We expect to recover significantly out of this in the second half of the year, and that will have the main contribution to the cash flow for the second half, of course, along with continued strong generation from the operating performance or from adjusted EBIT.

Thank you for your questions. The next question is coming from the line of David Raso from Evercore ISI.

My question is about the order book for '23. When do you believe you will open the order book beyond 1Q '23? And what are the key metrics you're looking for to get comfortable to open that up? Thank you.

Thanks, David. We are probably going to open that up, I would say late third quarter or early fourth quarter. The variables we're watching include inflation. Inflation was supposed to be transitory and then it continued to spike. We are seeing what might be a peak in inflation; I don't know that for sure. That's what we're watching for now. If that's true, the pricing that we've got should be reasonable. But we can't take the risk to our P&L or to our dealers by getting this wrong. I think by the time we get three months from now and then into the fourth quarter we'll have a better view and we'll take that timeframe whether we open up for the rest of '23 or through the first quarter. We're keeping a variable view because it remains slightly improving but very volatile.

And the input costs do appear to be coming down. When can we expect that to hit your P&L? Do you have any hedges on logistics? I'm trying to get a sense of when lower input costs could flow through by early '23, is that fair?

It takes some time, David, as you can imagine, to flow into the P&L. Logistics and freight costs will come earlier on, and then the cost of raw materials will take more time to come in. We're not seeing the full effect yet.

Could some of the orders that ship in the first quarter benefit from some costs coming down, or is that still six to nine months away?

That's a fair assumption.

And last quick question: level set, I know you're not giving gross margin guidance, but can you just give us a sense of how much your gross margin target for '22 changed in the last three months?

It didn't change.

Thank you for your question. The next question is coming from the line of Dillon Cumming from Morgan Stanley.

Just wanted to check in on the European side of the portfolio. I think Scott you mentioned that order trends have been holding up a bit better in the context of geopolitical dynamics. Can you reconcile some of the deterioration we've seen in some of the sentiment indices in recent months versus what you're seeing in your own order book?

I think the sentiment is what you read in the newspapers; we know what's going on. But because of supply constraints our dealer inventories in Europe are leaner than they are in other regions and the Ag sector continues to do quite well. In fact even in Ukraine we've been able to support reasonable farm equipment usage this year. So the demand side has not been as impacted as the production side and the overall industrial economy. The Ag segment in Europe is reasonably good and that's reflected in our order book.

Got you. That's helpful. Longer term, in November you guys will have Raven under your belt for about a year. In terms of how you've been integrating that for the new model year and product portfolio, can you provide an update around uptake on the major technologies and how integration is going more broadly?

I would say we're thrilled with what the Raven team is doing for us. It was difficult because they had operated as one business and there were a couple of divisions that are better served with different owners and we completed those transactions. That was a bit of a distraction but overall what Parag Garg, John Preheim and that team are doing to inspire customer-focused innovation is excellent. Derek Nielsen is driving them to understand how we can most quickly and effectively bring precision and autonomy capability to our farmers and growers. We'll display some of that at Farm Progress and we'll have a Tech Day in early December in Arizona. The Raven demand we're seeing for the core Raven product is strong and one of the benefits of integration is how much we can help them with supply chain to accelerate output when demand for their core products increases. It's about getting the tech stack right. We're ahead of where we needed to be financially and strategically with Raven, but there's a lot of work to do to capture the value for our customers that we expect.

Thank you so much, Dillon, for your question. The next question is coming from the line of Larry De Maria from William Blair.

Hey, I just wanted to get a clarification on the early order program. Can you just give us a handle on, I know we're selling into 1Q, but there's other products and stuff in there? How did that trend from June to July? And what was that year-over-year? Because I don't think that corresponds to the up 5% tractor order book or maybe it does. So can you just clarify that please?

Larry, we didn't hear you very well but I think you were talking about the order book and the trend in the orders.

I was talking about the trend in the early order program.

Yes, the order program is doing very well. The difference to last year is that our order program is limited in time. We're not keeping an open order book. We allowed our dealers to order with allotments that will cover production through the first quarter of next year in North America, but we're not extending it over yet. That makes the growth of the order book less impressive than it has been in previous quarters. But still we have an order book which is more than three times higher than what it was pre-pandemic.

Okay, that's very helpful. Thank you. And then the second question, if I may, the North America dealer consolidation is ongoing obviously you're trying to reduce some channel conflict. Where are we in the reduction of channel conflict? And how much of a headwind do you think that has been without the ability to bundle product broadly?

I don't know that we're engaged in a massive dealer reduction effort. We're encouraged by our dealer network now. There's a very concerted effort to be more strategic and thoughtful about how our dealers interact between the two brands. As I discussed, Scott Harris and Carlo Lambro are driving the brands to see how we can serve communities and farmers better together instead of competing. We competed for a long time and our dealer network reflected that. Now we're looking at how we can leverage these two historic brands to bring more value to all stakeholders and we're seeing early signs of that. The work is not to take out a bunch of dealers; it's to make the experience we provide for dealers better and ultimately serve customers. The Titan acquisition of Heartland Ag was a good example of cleaning up a different distributor model than the rest of our network, and now Titan can make our sprayer business more consistent for customers. So you'll see us make moves like that but don't expect a dramatic reduction in dealer count. That's not the strategy.

Thank you, Larry, for your questions. The next question is coming from the line of Nicole Deblase from Deutsche Bank.

Maybe we could start with margin. I guess maybe we could talk about the puts and takes into the second half. It feels to me that price versus cost should be improving on a year-on-year basis and so there is the impetus for margins to continue to grow year-on-year. Any thoughts you guys have would be really helpful.

Yes, we expect margins — as I said — we don't see a change in our margin outlook compared to what we had before. We keep pricing and we keep having cost increases compared to last year. So that relationship will still be there. We still want to have pricing at least at the level of the cost increase and we are confident we can get there. Dollar amounts will be higher for sure and that's how we're working.

Okay, got it. Thank you. And Scott, could you elaborate a little bit on what you're seeing with the supply chain? I haven't heard a ton of companies saying things are getting better so far, although it's mixed company by company. Is that chip-related? I'd love a bit more detail on what you're seeing.

Let me be careful to clarify: when we say getting better it is very, very modestly better. It's been so much worse for so long that a slight improvement doesn't make it good. We're seeing it in some of the expedited freight costs; we've improved at managing that. Some oil price drops have helped, but overall it's just the supply chain generally getting a little bit better. This time last year we were panicked about semiconductors and we're less so now. We still have to manage it but it's not dramatically better — slightly better than it was.

Thank you for your question. The next question is coming from the line of Tami Zakaria from JPMorgan.

Most of my questions have actually been asked, so I have a couple of quick ones. Input prices like fuel are coming down, so can you remind us at what lag you expect this to benefit your P&L? Will it start to flow through in the back half or more in early next year? And second, any updates on upcoming product launches from Raven in the next 12 to 24 months?

We see input prices stabilizing more than going down. We don't expect a huge impact this year. We expect to have some tailwinds or improvement this year compared to last year on some of the logistics costs and hopefully also in some of the production costs in our plants which have been affected by reworks and complications in recent quarters. You'll see more benefit next year than this year.

And not necessarily early next year.

Got it, okay. And my second question on Raven product launches?

We don't generally discuss new product launches in detail, though I hinted at a new construction product next month. Farm Progress will show how Case IH and Raven can work together to bring innovation to market, and our Tech Day in December will be more detailed. Farm Progress will be a good example of the type of product where we can bring best-in-class innovation to the market.

Thank you so much for your question. The final question for today is coming from the line of François Robillard from Intermonte.

Most of my questions were asked, so just a couple of follow-ups on the second quarter numbers. Given the market trends that were broadly negative in the retail market in the second quarter, can you give us more color between volume and mix in your second quarter figures and then consequentially also for your second half implicit expectations? So just a clearer split between volume and mix. Thank you.

What's happening in the market is that what we sell from a mix perspective is literally what we can produce. It's not so much about us strategically managing mix; it's about what we can get out of our factories. There are many variables we've discussed. Our mix has been okay and we expect the second half, as we get more combined shipments coming out, to continue to have reasonable mix. But mix is really based on production constraints, not a strategic mix play.

Okay, thank you. And on the Sampierana addition, can you give us a hint of Sampierana's contribution in the second quarter, first half and for the second half of the year?

I don't think we're going to give a specific contribution number for Sampierana. But we've got a profitable construction business in Europe for the first time and that's certainly enhanced by what Sampierana is doing. We are ramping up their capacity quickly. Their innovation focus is a huge boost; we're ahead of our financial forecasts for the acquisition and we continue to see a positive outlook as we ramp up capacity and capability. The innovation they're bringing in the mini and mini-excavator market in Europe is important for our business overall.

Thank you so much for your question. And the final question is coming from the line of Daniela Costa from Goldman Sachs.

Hi, good afternoon. Two questions. First, given the energy risks in Europe that could impact steel and metal suppliers, how are you mitigating for that and how significant is your production in Europe relative to your sales? Second, regarding Raven, in past calls you said you were 80% where you wanted to be in terms of Precision Ag to match a large competitor. Can you talk about M&A outlook from here? You did a few small deals; multiples are coming lower. How much more inorganic would you ideally need to close the gaps? Thank you.

We are spending a lot of energy trying to understand the impact of gas availability and overall energy availability in Europe. Earlier in the year we had near-term supply shocks with foundries when the Ukraine situation first escalated; foundries were shutting down and it affected our ability to get parts. We've learned from that. Importantly, we have significant manufacturing presence in Europe but not in Germany, which has been one of the hardest hit regions. Italy has some impact. We can mitigate by moving production between factories, finding other sources and we have some long-term contracts for electricity which helps. So overall we're watching it closely but we have less exposure in the most impacted markets relative to others. As for Raven, I'm elated with what that team is doing in the short term but it's a journey and not plug-and-play. We've got a couple of years of work. On future acquisitions, we're constantly evaluating make-or-buy decisions to improve the tech stack and I'm confident there will be opportunities where buying is the better choice. We have a long list and others in the industry are looking at the same opportunities. Don't forget we also have a strong relationship with Trimble which is very beneficial and there's more we can leverage in that partnership.

Okay, everyone, thank you for your questions today. There'll be no further questions taken. So I'd like to hand it back over to your host to conclude today's conference.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, everyone for connecting on today's call. You may now disconnect your handsets. Host, please stay connected.