Earnings Call Transcript - IR Q2 2021

Operator, Operator

Good day and thank you for joining us. Welcome to the Ingersoll Rand Second Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. Currently, all participants are in a listen-only mode. I will now turn the call over to Christopher Miorin, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please proceed.

Chris Miorin, Vice President of Investor Relations

Good morning, everyone and thank you for your patience with the technical difficulty this morning. Welcome to the Ingersoll Rand 2021 second quarter earnings call. I'm Chris Miorin, Vice President of Investor Relations. And joining me is Vicente Reynal, President and Chief Executive Officer and Vik Kini, Chief Financial Officer. We issued our earnings release and presentation yesterday that we will reference during the call. Both are available on the Investor Relations section of our website, www.irco.com. In addition, a replay of this conference call will be available later today. Before we start, I want to remind everyone that certain statements on this call are forward-looking in nature and are subject to the risks and uncertainties discussed in our previous SEC filings, which you should read in conjunction with the information provided on this call. Please review the forward-looking statements on slide 2 for more details. In addition, in today's remarks, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. You can find a reconciliation of these measures to the most comparable measure calculated and presented in accordance with GAAP in our slide presentation and in our earnings release, both of which are available on the Investor Relations section of our website. On today's call, we will provide a company strategy update, review our company and segment financial highlights and offer updated 2021 guidance. For today's Q&A session, we ask each caller to keep to one question and one follow-up to allow for time for other participants. At this time, I'll turn the call over to Vicente.

Vicente Reynal, President and CEO

Thanks, Chris. And good morning to everyone. As you can see on Slide three anchoring to our purpose, we're realizing the achievement of our desired targets. You will hear three key themes today. First, we're effectively allocating capital to advance our portfolio transformation to generate significant value for shareholders. Second, you will hear about how we are outperforming and raising guidance which illustrates our organic investments in new product development and demand generation are also working. And third, we will touch on our ESG journey. I have never been more excited about the state of Ingersoll Rand. The combination of a highly engaged workforce who think and act like owners along with the use of IRX is what makes us highly unique. I want to thank our employees all around the world for their dedication and determination. We continue to support our employees with an unwavering focus on health, safety, and mental well-being. Moving to Slide four, our five strategic imperatives are how we stay grounded on priorities and areas of focus. You will see on the right-hand side, during Q2 we have achieved substantial traction in all five imperatives. Operate sustainably in strategic imperative; we achieved another major milestone that I'll touch on the next slide. Moving to Slide five, a couple of weeks ago we published our 2020 sustainability report. The report reflects our 2020 ESG data, celebrates our progress, and details our further goals with a high focus on measurable targets and accountability. We'll spend more time on this next Friday during our scheduled ESG and sustainability report investor update. What I want to emphasize right now is the team's strong commitment to action over the last year as you can see on this page. We have focused and delivered on diversity within our board and extended leadership team which is now 50% and 43% respectively. We have launched aggressive 2030 and 2050 goals and improved our new product development process to address these goals. We have established stockholder rights through corporate governance changes. And one of the things I am most proud of on behalf of our employees is granting $150 million in equity to employees, which we believe is the largest employee equity grant ever provided by an industrial company. We see broad-based employee ownership as a game changer. We know underrepresented populations increase area have done well if they’re employed in organizations that offer equity grants, and that’s a powerful aspect of our thinking and acting like an owner. That even ties into how we directly impact global ESG efforts. I look forward to sharing more with you next week. Moving to Slide six, the signing off agreements to acquire Seepex and Maximus Solutions, both of which will become part of the precision and science technology segment, are representative of the key characteristics we're targeting to drive our inorganic growth strategy. Seepex is, by our estimation, the number two global progressive cavity pump manufacturer, and it is a highly recognized brand as a premium player in the market that adds a new positive displacement pump technology to our portfolio. Maximus Solutions is a leader player in the agritech software and controls market, whose technology we intend to pull through to other markets and leverage across the Ingersoll Rand portfolio. Both of these companies have shown strong high single-digit to double-digit organic growth since early 2017 and are focused on sustainable end markets that tend to grow well above GDP rates. In addition, both have strong asset market profiles enhanced by digital revenue streams, including software as a service. We anticipate both acquisitions to yield single-digit synergy adjusted EBITDA purchase multiples by year three of ownership. With these two acquisitions, we're expecting to add approximately $3.8 billion to PST addressable market, which is an impressive 40% expansion. The profiles and characteristics of these high-quality, high return on capital and highly strategic acquisitions are indicative of how we're structuring our M&A funnel. Which leads us to Slide seven. We continue to execute our M&A funnel using IRX as its backbone. Our funnel is comprised of six stages and is probability weighted according to likelihood of closing when we calculate our funnel site. For instance, Seepex has been in our funnel for some time, and it was not until the owner became actively engaged and we were in active discussions that it was moved from 0% weighted revenue contribution to 50% and then 100% assignment and now it is out of our funnel calculation. Last quarter, we just learned how our M&A funnel has grown materially since the Ingersoll Rand Gardner Denver transaction was completed. At this current state, the funnel size remains approximately five times the size it was versus Q2 of 2020 with average revenue larger and velocity accelerated meaningfully. To be clear, this describes the funnel even after removing the 32 targets we passed on in the second quarter, as well as our signed deals of Seepex and Maximus and it also excludes SPX Flow. As you can see, we have significant momentum in the funnel and our flywheel is in full motion. Regarding SPX Flow, we saw that they issued a press release this Monday stating that they will pursue strategic alternatives. Our $85 per share offer was preemptive and fully accounted for SPX Flow's improvement plan which is ahead of consensus estimates. In terms of SPX Flow's strategic alternative process if we participate, we intend to remain disciplined in our approach, as we do with all of our M&A transactions. And there can be no assurances that we will confirm our preemptive offer as part of any such process. It is also very important to know that when we received the second rejection from SPX Flow more than a month ago, we pivoted to executing on other funnel opportunities. We have always demonstrated a very disciplined and highly visited approach with everything we do and when we believe it is much more important now in this current environment. As stated even with SPX Flow excluded, our funnel remains as robust as it did last quarter, which exemplifies the volume and quality of our future potential opportunities. We have sufficient cash in hand to execute on these opportunities with $4.7 billion in liquidity. However, as noted, we intend to remain very disciplined in this environment. It is also important to know that we continue to review our capital allocation priorities with our board and plan to communicate more formally on this topic later in the year. I will now turn the call to Vik to provide an update on our Q2 financial performance.

Vik Kini, CFO

Thanks, Vicente. Moving to Slide eight, we continue to be pleased with the performance of the company in Q2. Q2 saw a strong balance of commercial and operational execution fueled by the use of IRX with continued performance across industrial end markets. Total company orders and revenue increased year-over-year by 48% and 25%, respectively, with strong double-digit organic orders growth across each segment. Given the comparisons to 2020, which are materially impacted by the prior year impact of COVID, we think comparing this performance to 2019 is a better representation of how the business is improving. We are very pleased with the momentum we are seeing as organic orders in Q2 are up 9% and 6% on a quarter-to-date and year-to-date basis respectively, as compared to 2019. Our organic growth on both orders and revenue in the quarter were records for the company, eclipsing Q1 and setting us up well as we move into Q3. Our commitment to delivering $300 million in cost synergies attributable to the Ingersoll Rand industrial segment acquisition remains intact as we continue to drive performance on productivity and synergy initiatives using IRX as the catalyst. The company delivered second quarter adjusted EBITDA of $292 million, a year-over-year improvement of $75 million and adjusted EBITDA margins of 22.8%, a 160 basis point improvement year-over-year. One item to note, these financial metrics do not include the high-pressure solution segment or the specialty vehicle technology segment, both of which were classified as discontinued operations as of Q2, with the relevant prior periods restated to conform to the current presentation. We will not report on either segment moving forward. Free cash flow for the quarter was $136 million, yielding total liquidity of $4.7 billion at quarter end, up approximately $2 billion from Q1 as we received the gross proceeds from both divestitures in Q2. This takes our net leverage to 0.2x, a 1.7x improvement from Q1. Turning to Slide nine, for the total company orders increased by 40% and revenue increased by 19% both on an FX adjusted basis. The IT&S and P&ST segments both saw strong double-digit organic orders growth in the quarter. Overall, we posted a strong book-to-bill of 1.14 for the quarter, an improvement from the prior year level of 0.96. We remain encouraged by the strength of our backlog moving to Q3 and beyond. The company delivered $292 million of adjusted EBITDA, which was an increase of 34% versus prior year. The IT&S and P&ST segments both saw year-over-year improvements in adjusted EBITDA and strong margin expansion. Finally, corporate costs came in at $38 million for the quarter, up year-over-year primarily due to higher incentive compensation costs, as well as targeted commercial growth investments in areas like demand generation and other targeted strategic investments. We expect corporate costs to remain elevated at comparable levels in both Q3 and Q4 due to the same drivers. Turning to Slide 10, free cash flow for the quarter was $136 million on a continuing ops basis driven by the strong operational performance across the business and ongoing prudent working capital management. CapEx during the quarter totaled $12 million and free cash flow included $12 million of outflows related to the transaction. In addition, free cash flow also included $36 million in cash tax payments related to the historical earnings profile of the HPS and SVT segments. As is customary in these types of divestitures, cash tax payments are included in cash flows from continuing operations, due to the complexities involved in specific attribution with consolidated returns. However, the $36 million represents our best quantification of the impact. Given our reported financials including revenue, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income, and free cash flow are shown on a continuing ops basis, we're calling out the $36 million in cash tax outflows to provide a better representation of the underlying cash flow of the ongoing business. From a leverage perspective, we finished 0.2x, which is a 1.7x improvement as compared to the prior quarter and this included the gross cash proceeds received from both the HPS and SVT divestitures. We expect to pay the cash taxes for both divestitures later in 2021. If you were to pro forma the Q2 leverage to account for these tax outflows, leverage would have been closer to 0.6x. On the right side of the page, you can see the breakdown of total company liquidity, which now stands at $4.7 billion, based on approximately $3.7 billion of cash and nearly $1 billion of availability on our revolving credit facility. We have considerable balance sheet flexibility to continue our portfolio transformation strategy with M&A coupled with internal investments to drive sustainable organic growth. Moving to Slide 11, we continue to see strong momentum on our cost synergy delivery efforts. Due to the funnel we have built that stands in excess of $350 million and strong execution, we are reaffirming our stated $300 million cost savings target. To-date, approximately $250 million of annualized synergies have already been executed or are in motion, which is slightly higher than 80% of the overall target. As a reminder, and consistent with previous guidance, we delivered approximately 40% of our $300 million target in 2020, which equals approximately $115 million in savings. In addition, we expect to deliver an incremental $100 million of savings in 2021, which would bring the cumulative total to approximately 70% at the end of this year. We expect a cumulative 85% to 90% up to $300 million in savings by the end of 2022, with the balance coming in 2023. The bottom of the page shows the progress we've made across the different areas of synergy delivery, with the most notable progress coming from direct material initiatives in procurement as well as I2V. In addition, we're starting to see some of the initial wave of savings from our footprint actions, and we expect these savings to ramp into 2022. On the right side of the page, we did want to highlight that despite the headwinds we've seen on the cost side, which are largely coming from direct material and logistics, as well as some of the expected return of one-time and discretionary costs and strategic growth investments, we do continue to expect to be positive from a price versus cost perspective on a total year basis. This is entirely due to the team's use of IRX to proactively implement and deploy targeted pricing actions in the first half of the year. In addition, we continue to evaluate the overall landscape particularly with regards to inflation and are evaluating potential incremental pricing actions for the second half of the year. Overall, we expect to achieve further adjusted EBITDA margin expansion for the total company in the second half of the year, although not at the same levels we delivered in the first half. I will now turn it back over to Vicente to discuss the segments.

Vicente Reynal, President and CEO

Thank you, Vik. And moving to Slide 12, starting with industrial technologies and services. Overall organic orders were up 41% and revenue up 17%, leading to a book-to-bill of 1.15. In addition, the team delivered strong adjusted EBITDA of 41% and adjusted EBITDA margin of 24.7%, up 250 basis points year-over-year with incremental margin of 34%. Let me provide more detail on the order performance. Starting with compressors, we saw orders up in the mid 40%. Further breakdown into oil free and oil lubricated products shows that orders for both were up above 40%. From a regional split for orders on compressors, in the Americas, North America performed strong and was up low 40%, while Latin America was up in the mid 70%. Mainland Europe was up low 50% while India and the Middle East saw continued strong recovery with order rates up in excess of 100%. Asia Pacific continues to perform well with orders up low 30% driven by low 30% growth in both China and high 20% across the rest of Asia Pacific. From a vacuum and blower perspective, orders were up in the mid 40s on a global basis with strong double-digit growth across each of our regions. In power tools and lifting, the total business was up high 50% in orders and so continued positive growth driven mainly by our enhanced e-commerce capabilities and improved execution on new product launches. On the right-hand side, we're highlighting one of our new exciting products, which is a result of our continued commitment to organic investments in our portfolio. In this case, we completed the launch of our new line of refrigerated drive portfolio. The basic function of the air dryer is to remove moisture from the air by cooling it with a refrigerant, thus water vapor is condensed and the air can be easily compressed. The result is dry compressed air, which can be used in compressed air equipment without causing any damage. Air dryer technology is sold as an accessory to all rotary oil lubricated and oil-free air compression technology, which enhances the overall quality of air provided to the customer. This is a very important requirement, especially in oil-free compression where customers demand high air quality in terms of dryness and particulates. It is noteworthy that it generates good aftermarket business as the filters or desiccants need to be changed often. In this case, we leverage a technology developed by Aztec, which was a company owned by legacy Ingersoll Rand. Since the merger of Gardner Denver and IR, we've accelerated our organic investments in new products for Aztec, and we're now leveraging that technology to serve Gardner Denver, Ingersoll Rand and, in the future, our champion compressor customers. The even more exciting part here is that we're doing this while helping the environment. This new dryer portfolio is 20% more energy-efficient and reduces greenhouse gas emissions by over 50%. Moving to Slide 13, in the precision and science technology segment, overall organic orders were up 20% driven by the Medical and Dosatron businesses, which serve lab life science, water and animal health markets. These businesses saw double-digit growth, and we also recorded strong performance in our ARO and Mytholmroyd broadened lines. The momentum in our Haskel hydrogen solution business continues to build, and we saw some solid funnel activity. Revenue was up 12% organically which is encouraging, as we have some tough comparisons from Q2 2020 for the medical business. Additionally, the PST team delivered strong adjusted EBITDA of $71 million, which was up 20%. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 30.7%, up 40 basis points year-over-year with incremental margins of 33%. Today, we want to highlight our hydrogen refueling business to give you an update on where we are and the investments we're making. As we have discussed before, during our Q4 earnings call, we made investments in developing a hydrogen dispensing unit leveraging our Haskel high-pressure technology and we're now ready for market with this business. We have line of sight over $45 million in organic investments over the next five years to both build high capacity and fund ongoing product development in the hydrogen refueling space, with approximately $10 million of this investment expected in the next 12 months. Since our last call, we have seen our funnel grow 3x to over $250 million in potential projects. I also feel confident that this is a business where we will see meaningful growth for years to come, driving our decision to expand two of our factories in Europe to support anticipated growth. Additionally, we want to highlight that Ingersoll Rand is designing and developing state-of-the-art hydrogen refueling stations to support the hydrogen power and remote joint venture. Moving to Slide 14, given the company's performance in Q2 and continued strong outlook, we're increasing guidance for 2021. Our guidance excludes both the high-pressure solutions and specialty vehicle technology segment, as well as the pending acquisition of Seepex and Maximus. Our prior revenue guidance was up low double digits on a reported basis comprised of high single-digit organic growth across both of our segments. We're now guiding up to the mid-teens in total, with low double-digit organic growth across both segments. This reflects approximately 250 to 300 basis points growth in organic growth for the total company as compared to prior guidance. FX is expected to continue to be a low single digit tailwind. Based on these revenue assumptions, we are increasing 2021 adjusted EBITDA guidance to $1.15 billion to $1.18 billion, which represents approximately a $30 million improvement from prior guidance at the midpoint of the range. We also highlight that these also include the increased copper cost of approximately $6 million per quarter for both Q3 and Q4 as compared to prior guidance as mentioned on the right-hand side of the slide. In terms of cash generation, we expect free cash flow to adjusted net income conversion to remain greater than or equal to 100%. CapEx is expected to be approximately 1.5% of revenue. Finally, we expect our adjusted tax rate for the year to be approximately 20%, and this includes a $35 million benefit from a tax restructuring plan that was recently completed, which reflected approximately 40% in the Q2 rate with the balance in the second half of the year. Moving now to Slide 15, as we wrap today's call, Ingersoll Rand is in an outstanding place. 2021 is poised to be a great year. To our employees, I'd like to say thank you for how we come together every day to be there for our customers, solve problems, lean on each other, and collaborate. We take our role as sustainably minded industry leaders seriously, and our employees eagerly embrace IRX to put us in that leadership position. I'm confident we will continue to transform Ingersoll Rand and deliver increased value to all of our shareholders. So with that, I'll turn the call back to the operator and open up for Q&A.

Operator, Operator

Your first question comes from the line of Mike Halloran. Mr. Halloran, please provide your company name and proceed with your question.

Mike Halloran, Analyst

I'm with Baird. Thanks for taking the question. Focusing on the supply chains, inflation pressures, component shortages, things like that. Maybe some thoughts on how that's impacting results in the second quarter and how you see that playing out over the next couple quarters? When does normalization start materializing? And how are you thinking about that price cost equation internally?

Vicente Reynal, President and CEO

Yes, Mike. Good morning. We definitely continue to see that the price cost equation is positive, even as we look into the second half. As you may recall, during the last earnings, we mentioned that we began to see inflation creeping up since Q4 of 2020, and we acted on that when building the budget for 2021. Since the end of Q1 of 2021, we have seen inflation increase, particularly in direct materials and logistics, which is the reason why we acted on additional pricing actions. I will say those pricing actions are offsetting the incremental inflation that we're expecting to see in the second half. We're also continuing to focus on mitigating these headwinds with a very heavy focus on I2V initiatives. So I think in terms of moving forward, I will also categorize direct material inflation as being a continued headwind but generally stabilizing, while we do expect to see continued pressure on the logistics side in the second half of the year compared to the first half. This is consistent with how we model our business and we are clearly working every day to ensure that our supply chain team is finding ways to mitigate the potential cost pressures. As things materialize and we see good outcomes from these continued price increases, we expect the margin profile to continue to improve.

Mike Halloran, Analyst

Thanks for that. And then, the follow-up is obviously good momentum in the quarter, underlying trends are healthy. What are the customers saying about sustainability at this point, large versus small sized projects maybe OE versus run rate? How are those tracking? And what is the visibility in the CapEx reinvigoration as you're thinking forward? And again, what are customers saying about that topic?

Vicente Reynal, President and CEO

Yes, Mike. I think if anything, what we saw is that, as we have some long cycle businesses, particularly in the Nash Garo and some of the large compressors, we saw in the second quarter order momentum continue to improve compared to the first half. We saw orders accelerating on these large projects. So that is a good indicator in terms of the feedback that we’re receiving from customers who feel more confident about releasing CapEx for some of these large projects. At least in our view, that’s good news. We also see a good funnel momentum building around hydrogen refueling networks, which is developing solid investments that will turn into revenue for our business.

Julian Mitchell, Analyst

Just wanted to start on acquisitions. And I think you've made it clear with flow that you weren't aggressively chasing that. Maybe on the announced transactions, could you help us understand, as you're thinking about sort of a full year EBITDA accretion, first 12 months or 2022 from Seepex and Maximus combined, what sort of number roughly should we be expecting there? And also, Seepex margins, I think you're assuming that you can move those up quite substantially over several years. Could you help lay out sort of some of the big moving parts within that?

Vicente Reynal, President and CEO

Yes, Julian, thanks. We're really excited about these two pending acquisitions, and we actually see both companies as we look ahead into next year to continue to grow low double digits on the top-line. As we have stated, Maximus is already at the precision and science technology margin profile. Seeing that Seepex, even though below, is expected to reach a low 20 margin as we enter 2022. We don't anticipate any barriers to get Seepex margins up to the precision and science level. It’s a solid business with over 40% recurring aftermarket, and they have launched a very strong digital platform where we have cracked the code on creating edge devices for this type of pumps, which tend to be highly cost-effective. So we’re excited with what we’re seeing with Seepex, along with the valuable product portfolio and IoT technology that it brings to the table.

Julian Mitchell, Analyst

Thank you. And then just my second question around sort of near-term margin dynamics in the base business. Looking at Slide 11, you've called out less of a margin increase in the second half year-on-year than in the first half. So completely understand that, but the implied sort of incremental margins still look pretty high in the sort of mid-30s plus in the second half year-on-year. Just wanted to make sure that's roughly correct and whether you think that's appropriately conservative, given that backdrop of higher corporate costs, price cost pressures, and so forth.

Vik Kini, CFO

Yes, Julian, and this is Vik. I'll take that one. First and foremost, in terms of the second half of the year, as we mentioned, and I think the left side of that page highlights the inflationary pressures and headwinds that we have been experiencing. However, we've taken a couple of distinct actions. Our pricing measures have allowed us to keep the price-cost equation positive. We are 100% still committed to the $100 million of incremental synergies that we are expecting to be delivered this year. Some of those distinct actions are coming from the direct material side, and we see good progress amid ongoing inflationary pressures. We do believe that we can continue to achieve EBITDA margin expansion in the back half of the year, although not at the levels we delivered in the first half, given these headwinds.

Jeff Sprague, Analyst

Hey, Vicente, can you give a little bit more color on the funnel that you really built here on the M&A side? First, I would imagine the vast majority of it is in PST, so please confirm or elaborate on that. I'm also interested if there's any common theme on what you're actually passing on, would it just primarily be valuation?

Vicente Reynal, President and CEO

Yes, sure, Jeff. In the funnel, 60% is primarily in PST, and the other 40% is still in industrial technologies and services (ITS). We see some favorable momentum on the ITS side as well. The characteristics of our funnel right now are largely bolt-on in nature, with some medium to large size targets. We continue to be prudent and assess the ROIC to be achieved in the mid-teens by year three. While valuation is an important threshold in how we screen deals against our financial metrics, we also focus on the future growth profiles of the businesses. In some cases, we've seen expectations of inflated future growth due to ongoing COVID-related demand, and we maintain a disciplined approach.

Rob Wertheimer, Analyst

I had a couple of questions, specifically on the Maximus acquisition. I'm curious if the IoT aspect and growth are a little bit different than asset, and whether connectivity, IoT, or other attributes play a larger role in the backlog or in the acquisition funnel.

Vicente Reynal, President and CEO

Yes, Rob. I think the Maximus IoT growth is a phenomenal find in terms of acquisition. We have a good pump business called Dosatron that plays really well in the animal health and agricultural market. It creates dosing and movement of water using the flow itself and is a unique technology. In many specialized applications, such as hydroponics, Maximus leads in agritech controls, and we have a strong leadership position there. Our thought process is how do we bundle our pumps with the Maximus software and IoT solutions, and then utilize and leverage it for other end markets? We believe this strategy will allow us to capture significant market share and drive future growth.

Joe Ritchie, Analyst

Hey, Vicente, I know we've talked a lot about the M&A funnel. Just a quick question, as you're thinking through the types of opportunities, are you looking more for fixer-uppers where you can utilize the IRX system to drive better margin expansion? Or is there a good balance of margin-accretive type acquisitions that you're looking at as well?

Vicente Reynal, President and CEO

We're looking for businesses that can continue to raise the bar for Ingersoll Rand in the sense of making it a great company. The focus is on strategic deals that align with our product portfolio and support our margin expansion and top-line growth for the company's future value. Seepex and Maximus are both great businesses, for example, that are driving double-digit growth along with great technologies. Maximus is already at our desired margin profile in precision and science, and while Seepex has room to improve, we find it an exciting technology for our portfolio. It's about the overall enhancement of the company and growing our foundation for future success.

Vik Kini, CFO

Yes, Joe. The good thing here is we have always had strong visibility going forward, particularly on the orders side. We've seen a strong mix of orders from core compressor and blower business that typically ship within the next quarter and longer cycle orders which come from larger projects that can be longer in lead time. As a result, we're looking at how previous years played out, and we're optimistic about where we stand for both Q3 and Q4 amid ongoing strength in backlog visibility and order metrics.

Markus Mittermaier, Analyst

Great. And then, maybe just a quick follow-up on hydrogen. You've mentioned a $250 million funnel. How should we think about that timing on the conversion of that funnel? Ultimately, how fragmented is that market?

Vicente Reynal, President and CEO

In terms of the fragmentation, there are not that many players in the dispensing market. There are roughly three main players with us being one of them. It’s a highly specialized market where Haskel has a solid history of dispensing hydrogen for decades. We foresee the funnel growing over the next horizon of years, and while timing varies from project to project, the funnel momentum is promising and will support our current advancements and plant expansions in Europe.

Vik Kini, CFO

John, you're exactly right. The free cash flow typically tends to be a bit more second-half weighted due to two factors. One is the company's revenue and earnings profile, which tends to be a little back-end weighted in context. The other is the working capital side, which follows a seasonal path. We expect to see a nice tailwind on working capital in the second half of the year, and it's going to be important to monitor our overall cash flow dynamics closely.

Vicente Reynal, President and CEO

Thank you so much. I want to express my gratitude to all of the employees who are listening to the call. I appreciate all your hard work and dedication. Thank you to all of the investors and potential investors for your participation and interest in our company, and I look forward to speaking to many of you over the next days and weeks.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.