Earnings Call Transcript - JBTM Q4 2024

Operator, Operator

Good morning, and welcome to JBT Marel's Earnings Conference Call for the Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024. My name is Pam, and I will be your conference operator today. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. At this time, all lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. I will now turn the call over to JBT Marel's Director of Investor Relations, Marlee Spangler, to begin today's conference.

Marlee Spangler, Director of Investor Relations

Thank you, Pam. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our conference call. With me on the call today is our Chief Executive Officer, Brian Deck; President, Árni Sigurdsson; and Chief Financial Officer, Matt Meister. In today's call, we will use forward-looking statements that are subject to the Safe Harbor language in yesterday's press release and 8-K filing. JBT Marel's periodic SEC filings also contain information regarding Risk Factors that may have an impact on our results. These documents are available in the Investor Relations section of our website. Also, our discussion today includes references to certain non-GAAP and non-IFRS measures. Reconciliation of these measures to the most comparable GAAP and IFRS measures can be found in the Investor Relations section of our website. With that, I'll turn the call over to Brian.

Brian Deck, Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Marlee, and good morning. We are excited to be hosting our first earnings call since uniting JBT and Marel. The combination, which we completed on January 2, represents the culmination of more than a year of work bringing together two leaders in the food technology industry. We are now seven weeks into integration and are increasingly confident in our ability to generate long-term value for our customers, shareholders, and other stakeholders. Given our focus on realizing the benefits of this combination, I will begin today's call providing an update on our progress. Then Árni will provide color on the integration process and talk about Marel's 2024 performance. Lastly, Matt will provide an overview of JBT's 2024 performance followed by guidance for the combined company in 2025. In uniting JBT and Marel, we have the ability to be an even more valuable partner to our global customers by providing holistic equipment solutions with enhanced application knowledge, service capabilities, and innovative technology. In terms of integration, our efforts are focused on best serving our customers' constantly evolving needs that starts with a purpose-built company leveraging talent from both organizations. We have already made significant progress establishing the JBT Marel organizational design and expect to be materially complete by the end of March. We're also focusing on a customer-centric go-to-market commercial strategy that adopts an end market focus. This will allow us to cross-sell the breadth of our solutions. We believe this customer-driven approach versus one organized by technology will streamline our commercial presence and enhance our value proposition to the customer. In fact, our diverse technology solutions were on full display at the recent IPPE trade show, otherwise known as the poultry show. The combination of JBT and Marel's complementary portfolio of innovative technology and service capabilities allows us to integrate primary, secondary, further and end of line processing under one brand. This matters for our customers, as it reduces the complex engineering required to integrate and commission full line solutions, and it also leads to improved operational efficiency, machine uptime and traceability in high volume operations. Additionally, our software and digital solutions are a differentiator as customers increasingly adopt digital technologies to optimize processing efficiency and improve profitability. Overall, our many productive conversations at IPPE along with the recently reported financial results of our customers confirm the strong fundamentals of the poultry industry. We believe we will see incremental investment in 2025 as customers look to take advantage of our technology to support automation and efficient operations by investing in existing facilities as well as consider Greenfield opportunities in a more meaningful way than we have seen in some time. I am pleased that we are already seeing the commercial strategies created by the combination. We secured a few significant orders at IPPE that included equipment we booked on the strength of each other's existing relationships. Speaking of orders, as you saw in our earnings release, JBT reported record orders of $523 million in the fourth quarter. Marel also reported record orders of €474 million. Together orders totaled more than $1 billion for the period benefiting from broad-based strength. Geographically, we enjoy the pickup globally with the sole exception of Asia-Pacific. From an end market perspective, as already mentioned, the poultry industry remained strong in the fourth quarter and is expected to improve further in 2025. Other proteins, we enjoyed a very solid quarter for both meat and fish. While the fundamentals of these markets remain uncertain, we are starting to see increased pipeline activity for pork and remain confident in the long-term fundamentals for fish. We also enjoyed strong order demand in the fruit and vegetable and pharmaceutical markets, which have continued into the first quarter of 2025. While the beverage end market was weaker through most of 2024 due to challenging industry fundamentals, we saw some pickup exiting the year. Lastly, both pet food and ready meals performed well in the quarter while AGV, our automated material handling business experienced another solid quarter of demand. Our positive view on the key end markets must be balanced against macro concerns including U.S. and potential retaliatory tariffs and the prospect of higher inflation. However, we believe that end market dynamics are generally favorable for investment while our recurring revenue franchise for parts and service is expected to provide resilient growth and close to half of our total revenue. Most importantly, we are increasingly confident in the value created by this combination as it relates to serving our customers. Now let me turn the call over to Árni.

Árni Sigurdsson, President

Thanks, Brian. When JBT and Marel began exploring the potential to combine the two businesses it quickly became clear that we share a common purpose, which is to transform the future of food. We achieve that purpose by helping our customers improve their operations, solutions uptime and sustainable processes. I'm very pleased to see and experience the momentum generated in just the first few weeks as JBT Marel. Right after finalizing the transaction, we launched our new JBT Marel brand. We also introduced our new purpose, vision and values, which resonated well with our teams as it builds on the two company cultures, while we transition to a new and exciting future. We also went on the road hosting Welcome Days at key locations around the world introducing the leadership team and the strategic pillars of JBT Marel. It was a great success and I'm excited about the future. We also recognize the respective strengths that each company brings to the table that makes this combination so exciting. For example, I'm very proud of the reputation that Marel has for its industry-leading technology and ongoing investment in innovation and JBT beyond its technology brings a highly disciplined and efficient operational culture focused on continuous improvement. We realized that a combination of this scale requires rigorous execution and oversight by an experienced team of operators across the organization. The integration teams are co-led by top talent from our respective legacy organizations and report directly to Brian and me. Throughout this integration, our highest priority is to ensure business continuity and a seamless experience for our customers. Moreover, we are focused on cultural integration as our talented teams across the world represent our greatest asset. Since the close of the transaction, we have been able to have full transparency with one another allowing us to do a deeper analysis into the benefits of the combination. Based on this extensive work, we have raised our expectations for cost synergies to an annual run rate savings of $150 million and that's by the end of year three. That compares with our prior guidance of greater than $125 million. Most of that increase is the result of supply chain savings as we leverage our purchasing power and optimize our combined footprint. Looking at Marel's performance in 2024, I'm happy to report that we had a strong fourth quarter to close the year. On an IFRS basis, record orders of €474 million increased 18% sequentially and reflect the improvement we have been expecting. We saw sequential growth in orders for meat, fish, and pet food while poultry had another healthy quarter. The strong book-to-bill of 1.11 increased the order book 8% sequentially to €600 million. Marel's full year revenue of €1.64 billion declined 4.6% compared to the prior year due to lower project revenues. At the same time, there were continued gains in recurring revenue with a record fourth quarter. For the full year, recurring revenues were €821 million and grew 5%. Full year adjusted EBITDA of €200 million included a net year-end adjustment of €17 million resulting from initial efforts to align policies related to balance sheet reserves as a part of our combination with JBT. Underlying performance improved year-over-year as a result of cost discipline and efficiency improvements. Excluding the balance sheet adjustments, Marel's adjusted EBITDA margin for 2024 was in line with our most recent guidance of 13% to 14%. I want to take this opportunity to commend the dedication and valuable contribution of our teams across the world. We are excited by legacy Marel's momentum entering 2025 underpinned by order growth and strengthening order book and our ability as JBT Marel to do even greater things for our customers with a combined and highly complementary product portfolios. With that, let me turn the call over to Matt.

Matt Meister, Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Árni, and good morning. Let me begin with a quick recap of JBT's performance in 2024. We ended the year with extremely strong orders in the fourth quarter up 25% year-over-year and 19% sequentially. For the full year, orders increased 7%. JBT's full year revenue increased 3% or about 3.5% organically excluding the impact of foreign exchange. Adjusted EBITDA of $295 million increased 8%. The adjusted EBITDA margin of 17.2% for the year was an improvement of 80 basis points driven by supply chain savings and continuous improvement initiatives. Specific to the fourth quarter, our results came in at the lower end of our guidance due to a mix of lower than expected volume on quick turn book and ship revenue and some delayed equipment shipments. On the expense side, we had higher than expected employee healthcare costs. That said, adjusted EBITDA margins for the quarter were 19.7%, which represented 150 basis point improvement over the prior year. Beginning in 2025, we are revising our adjusted EPS calculation to exclude acquisition related items such as intangible amortization expense. We believe this change will better reflect our core operating earnings and improve comparability versus peers. When further adjusted for this change, JBT's 2024 standalone adjusted EPS would have been $6.15, compared to the reported figure of $5.10. Finally, for 2024, we delivered strong cash flow performance driven by more efficient management of inventory and higher deposits from the strong order growth. For the year, we generated free cash flow of $199 million, an increase of 20% from the prior year period. Now, let's move to the results and expectations for the combined JBT Marel business. On a combined basis, which reflects adjustments to align Marel's IFRS results with U.S. GAAP, 2024 results were as follows: orders of $3.6 billion, revenue of $3.5 billion, and adjusted EBITDA of $479 million, representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of 13.7%. In 2025, we are forecasting full year revenue growth on a constant currency basis of 4.5% to 6.5%, which excludes a projected negative foreign exchange impact of approximately $75 million or 2% due to the recent strength in the U.S. dollar. We are guiding to adjusted EBITDA margin of 15.75% to 16.5% in 2025, which represents more than 200 basis points of improvement. We expect to realize cost synergies of $35 million to $40 million in 2025 and exiting the year estimate achieving run rate synergies of $80 million to $90 million. For the full year, we are projecting adjusted EPS of $5.50 to $6.10, which includes certain one-time items and acquisition-related costs, which were outlined in yesterday's press release and investor presentation. For the first quarter of 2025, we expect revenue to be in the range of $820 million to $850 million inclusive of an estimated negative $23 million of year-over-year FX translation impact. The first quarter is historically JBT seasonally lightest. For Marel, pickup in orders occurred in late 2024. And given the large project nature of its business, the conversion time from order to revenue is longer. We are forecasting adjusted EBITDA margins of 12% to 13% and adjusted EPS in the range of $0.70 to $0.90. On the balance sheet, we expect CapEx of $90 million to $100 million for the year. Starting leverage post-merger was just under 4x, which excludes the benefit of any projected synergies. We continue to expect to delever to below 3x by year-end 2025 due to higher adjusted EBITDA, which includes realized cost synergies and strong cash flow generation. Let me turn the call back to Brian for some concluding remarks.

Brian Deck, Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Matt. There's been a tremendous amount of hard work getting to this point where we can leverage our combined expertise and achieve more for our employees, customers and communities at JBT Marel. Together we've established an unmatched position across the value chain as the premier global food and beverage solutions provider. Thank you to everyone across the organization for all you've done. We look forward to the exciting things to come as we transform the future of food. Now let's open the call to questions. Operator?

Operator, Operator

Thank you. We'll now begin the question-and-answer session. And your first question comes from Saree Boroditsky with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Saree Boroditsky, Analyst (Jefferies)

So I wanted to touch on the synergies. So you are now kind of two months into owning Marel and you are able to increase the cost synergy guidance on the kind of supply chain synergies. So can you talk more about what gave you confidence to raise the guidance, like a little bit more color on the supply synergies? And was there a lot of low-hanging fruit that you were able to identify after owning them? Thank you.

Brian Deck, Chief Executive Officer

Yes, good question. So we've been working together, the two companies for the last year or so, but there have been certain limitations on vendor names, customer names, et cetera, that until we combined we were able to have access to. So after getting access to that, we were really able to determine our strategy as it relates to supply chain savings and including some of the early hits, we do feel that the $35 million to $40 million first year savings will include some early hits on the supply chain side as well as some of the organizational design things that we're doing. So the confidence really came from access to information that we otherwise didn't have in the past.

Saree Boroditsky, Analyst (Jefferies)

Got it. Great, thanks for the color. And I guess, kind of staying on the synergy on more on the revenue side, I think you noticed some benefit to customers providing integrated solutions and opportunities to cross-sell. So can you provide more color on kind of revenue synergy opportunities?

Brian Deck, Chief Executive Officer

Yes. We're really excited about this. As I mentioned in the prepared remarks, we had a really excellent IPPE show, the poultry show, and the conversations were great. Frankly, the thing that was most exciting about it was the way our commercial teams interacted with one another. They really fell right into understanding each other's product lines. We obviously have experts across the industry, so it was fairly natural for them to be able to engage in conversations with customers on a combined basis. As part of that, what we also found was each legacy company has particularly strong relationships with certain customers and that facilitated conversations about providing either JBT or Marel solutions to some of the projects that they were considering that perhaps they had not considered one or the other in the past. That really developed nicely. We announced earlier $75 million of revenue synergies by year three. We haven't updated that, but we are taking a close look at it. Now that we have access to customer data and conversations on a more combined basis, we are reviewing that and we'll follow up in the next quarter or two on what that means.

Árni Sigurdsson, President

And just briefly to add on that, I think what was exciting around what we heard and saw at IPPE was a lot of conversation in the prepared foods area where our portfolio is quite complementary. We've talked in the past, for example, about a chicken nugget line where you see the different technologies across the same line. That's where we saw some interesting opportunities. It was confirming what we believe, and it was nice to see that really happen.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from Mirc Dobre with Baird. Please go ahead.

Mirc Dobre, Analyst (Baird)

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. And I'll apologize in advance; I actually have a bunch of questions, so hopefully you humor me here. I guess, maybe we can start with a clarification. Maybe I missed this in the guidance slides, but free cash flow for 2025, how should we think about that? Yes, let's start with that. Let's start with free cash flow.

Matt Meister, Chief Financial Officer

Yes, Mirc, I think from a free cash flow perspective, it's still a little early for us to provide specific numbers around that. I'd say we need to get a better feel for how the cadence of cash flows will go through the year. But the fundamentals of the combined business remain strong with relatively low CapEx, high recurring revenue, and deposits from customers. When we account for some of the one-time items on the P&L side, our expectation is that we should be able to achieve 100% free cash flow for the year.

Brian Deck, Chief Executive Officer

On adjusted net income, right.

Matt Meister, Chief Financial Officer

Right.

Brian Deck, Chief Executive Officer

So yes, we'll provide more guidance. But if you think about the general profile of this business Mirc, it's quite attractive when you think about the math between CapEx spend versus depreciation and how that flows. We will have a lot of one-time costs in 2025 as mentioned in the press release. But if you look away from that, it's certainly a profile of more than 100% of adjusted net income.

Mirc Dobre, Analyst (Baird)

That's helpful. One of the things that also stood out to me was the order intake. Marel had a tough comp and yet they were able to grow off of that. You had quite a bit of growth in legacy JBT. Maybe talk a little bit about what's going on here. We heard from you that the poultry markets are getting better, but I guess it's more than just poultry. The question is on sustainability into 2025. Was this quarter simply a bit unusual? Was there like a CapEx flush that helped you out, or are these trends sustaining into Q1? We're almost through February. What have you seen in Q1 thus far?

Brian Deck, Chief Executive Officer

Sure, I'll provide some comments on legacy JBT and Árni can provide a little bit on legacy Marel and how we're thinking about this going forward. On the JBT side, from an end market perspective there are always pluses and minuses: fruit and juice up, beverages down, because these are lumpy projects. You see a lot of variability and it often evens out by the end of the year. However, in the fourth quarter there was really no weak market, which is unusual. Everything kind of hit. We mentioned ready meals, pet food, AGV, fruit and juice, even beverage improved. Poultry remained strong. So it flowed through nicely. I can't say this was a CapEx dump, but here's how I think about it generally: a $900 million baseline for orders and the billion-dollar period was extraordinarily strong. I still think we'll coalesce around that baseline plus or minus, with variability due to the lumpy nature of the business. I do think there will be some reversion, but overall the markets are strong now. I put a caveat regarding tariffs, but aside from that conditions seem strong.

Árni Sigurdsson, President

On the Marel side, we were very pleased with the orders in the quarter. The poultry market continues to be attractive and we see that in the results of some of our customers, who are showing robust numbers on the poultry side. Sequentially we also saw improvement in the other segments. On the pork side, market sentiment is improving from a low level; with low investment through the cycle, there needs to be catch-up on renewing the install base and more automation. We saw improved pipeline in the fourth quarter on pork, which was encouraging. Fish also improved sequentially, but I am not yet as confident about that market, even though we believe in its fundamentals.

Brian Deck, Chief Executive Officer

And Mirc, to clarify, that $900 million baseline is for the combined company quarterly baseline for orders.

Mirc Dobre, Analyst (Baird)

Thank you for the clarification. I want to move on to your outlook, your guidance. Apologize for the math here, but I'm trying to understand the moving pieces. At the midpoint, your EBITDA guidance is $582 million. On a combined basis the company did pro forma $479 million. So we're looking at $103 million of EBITDA growth, $37 million of that is synergies, so the rest $66 million would be lift from the two businesses. When we look at this $66 million, how much of it comes from legacy JBT versus lift in Marel's business relative to the prior year?

Matt Meister, Chief Financial Officer

On the $479 million for 2024 Mirc, you have to adjust for the year-end piece at Marel which was about €17 million, roughly US$20 million of year-end adjustments. If you add that back, you're starting closer to $500 million for the combined company and then you add in the synergies and you're at about $538 million. So the flow-through from the combined business is closer to 35% to 40% and it's a little higher than we would typically expect. There's also a benefit from Marel on some of the restructuring activities they took in 2024 that's coming through and we estimate that around $8 million to $10 million benefit in 2025.

Brian Deck, Chief Executive Officer

So you've got the benefit of the synergies, the volume as well as some rollover of the actions Marel took last year. Overall, more of the improvement is coming from the Marel side given their higher growth rate in forecasted revenues versus JBT because of the continued recovery of the poultry market as well as some restructuring actions that will flow through this year.

Mirc Dobre, Analyst (Baird)

To be honest, based on what you've told me, it seems like the opposite — where ex-synergies you end up with maybe less than $50 million of EBITDA lift, and a good chunk of that would probably come from JBT and the growth you have on your business, assuming normal incremental margins on that organic revenue growth. Maybe I'm missing something where you're just being conservative, which is fine. Just looking to make sure we understand the moving pieces.

Brian Deck, Chief Executive Officer

I think we've given revenue guidance for the two businesses individually. If you apply roughly 30% flow-through on that incremental volume and then add the synergies, that is the way we modeled it. We're happy to walk through in more detail from here, but our math shows a bit more contribution from the Marel side than the JBT side, at least from an EBITDA perspective.

Mirc Dobre, Analyst (Baird)

Perfect. Then my final question is on Marel specifically. From our math, the fourth quarter looked like a sequential step down in margin and perhaps tougher than prior quarters in 2024. Maybe you can give context as to what's been going on with margins in the fourth quarter and big picture how you think about progression through 2025. Maybe comment on fish and meat specifically because poultry is doing all right but the other two segments have struggled. Thank you.

Árni Sigurdsson, President

We saw healthy margins absent the balance sheet adjustment. Excluding that adjustment, we saw good margins in Q4, improving sequentially and year-over-year. Progress is moving in the right direction for fish and meat, but there's still work to be done. We will continue initiatives such as standardizing the portfolio, more rigorous project control, and selecting projects carefully. The combined organization is being designed to benefit from greater scale in emerging markets, embedding service capabilities, and other designs we've taken. Those actions should help further improve margins in 2025.

Brian Deck, Chief Executive Officer

To add, we're bringing continuous improvement capabilities to meat and fish. We're applying an 80:20 approach to the business, looking at segmentation of larger customers, larger projects, and product lines to ensure the right resources are in the right places. We're focusing on discipline around pricing and project costing and strong execution. Meat and fish are receiving focused attention up to the top of the organization.

Matt Meister, Chief Financial Officer

Just to clarify on the Q4 margins, we want to look at them with and without the year-end adjustments booked at Marel in December. Those adjustments were alignment on accounting policies and procedures between Marel and JBT and relate to some older inventory and AR valuation reserves. They are somewhat one-time in nature. If you look at the underlying business, Árni is right that they are seeing improvements in margins heading into 2025.

Mirc Dobre, Analyst (Baird)

I'm sorry, just to clarify, the €20 million — that was a €20 million add back. So the fourth quarter IFRS margin at Marel would be somewhere close to 15%? That's my last question.

Matt Meister, Chief Financial Officer

It's about €17 million, roughly $20 million. We're not adding that back from an adjusted perspective; it's a different accounting approach. I don't want to blur the underlying performance of operations with those adjustments.

Mirc Dobre, Analyst (Baird)

Understood. Thank you.

Brian Deck, Chief Executive Officer

But you're correct Mirc. If you look at the reported results IFRS €200 million, that is burdened by about €17 million or €18 million of one-time items.

Matt Meister, Chief Financial Officer

Absent that, you would have EBITDA margin for the full year a little bit north of 13%, and fourth quarter was more healthy than that.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from Ross Sparenblek with William Blair. Please go ahead.

Ross Sparenblek, Analyst (William Blair)

Matt, you touched on this in your opening remarks, but can you remind us of the timing for backlog conversion for JBT and Marel and what that mix looks like on a pro forma entity going forward?

Matt Meister, Chief Financial Officer

For JBT, about 50% of equipment revenue is in backlog that we'd expect to convert. Backlog for equipment is historically in the $450 million range for legacy JBT, and only a small portion bleeds into next year. We did take some bigger pharma and fruit and veg projects that will bleed into 2026. For Marel, they have some larger Greenfield-type projects with longer lead times. I don't have exact timing, but I would expect their revenue cadence to look similar in terms of backlog for equipment; probably 80% to 85% of their equipment backlog would result in revenue in 2025.

Brian Deck, Chief Executive Officer

As a whole, when you consider stability of recurring revenue and add that into visibility on the equipment side, we have roughly 70% visibility for full year revenue.

Ross Sparenblek, Analyst (William Blair)

With that expectation, recurring revenue is probably implied over 50% in your 2025 guidance?

Brian Deck, Chief Executive Officer

Actually a little bit less because combined we were right about 50% last year. We do expect equipment growth to outpace aftermarket growth in 2025, so while both will grow, the equipment mix will increase due to outside growth on the equipment side.

Ross Sparenblek, Analyst (William Blair)

Okay, that's helpful. And then just going back to a prior question on the Marel margin list for next year. The filings called out 11,700 employees, which implies some material attrition over the past year. Can you give a sense of timing around the reductions and how to think about the sizing of that benefit in context of the 8 to 10 Marel prior restructuring actions stepping up next year?

Matt Meister, Chief Financial Officer

Two things: first, there are definitional differences between what was reported historically for Marel and what we reported at 11,700, so that's part of the difference. Marel also took significant actions in 2024 to reduce FTEs. Those actions are already built into our guidance and are part of the additional self-help in terms of margin uplift for Marel, and that is before we think about the benefit from synergies.

Ross Sparenblek, Analyst (William Blair)

Okay. And is there any definitional difference between the recurring revenue for Marel and JBT? It looks like there might have been something…

Brian Deck, Chief Executive Officer

Slightly. The big question is refurbishments and how we both treat those. We haven't fully harmonized definitions yet. We'll do that as we report the first quarter, but it's not a material difference.

Ross Sparenblek, Analyst (William Blair)

Okay. Thank you, guys.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from Walt Liptak with Seaport Research Partners. Please go ahead.

Walt Liptak, Analyst (Seaport Research Partners)

Hi, thanks. Good morning and congratulations on the deal.

Brian Deck, Chief Executive Officer

Good morning. Thank you.

Walt Liptak, Analyst (Seaport Research Partners)

What is about the year one synergy savings, and I wonder if you could just help bucket it for us in terms of procurement versus people costs versus plant consolidation. And then on the procurement side, how are you thinking about pricing and tariffs this year? If there are inflationary pressures, how do you expect to deal with those?

Matt Meister, Chief Financial Officer

I'll take the first part, Walt. Of the $35 million to $40 million, approximately 45% to 50% is related to procurement and cost of goods sold. The remainder is related to redundant contracts, logistics and other SG&A redundancies between the two businesses.

Brian Deck, Chief Executive Officer

As it relates to tariffs, it's a little early to tell. We don't know all the specifics of tariff policies or potential retaliation, so we haven't factored a material amount into the numbers. Based on what has been announced, we can largely manage through it with our supply chain. Over the last few years we've enhanced supply chain diversification and options, so we are well-positioned relative to competition given our global scale, strong procurement organization and diversified manufacturing footprint. We'll monitor how it plays out, but at least for 2025 we don't see a material impact from what we know today.

Walt Liptak, Analyst (Seaport Research Partners)

Okay, thanks. I wanted to ask a follow-up about the segmentation and 80:20 work. Is this homegrown or are you bringing in external experts? How robust of a program are you thinking about?

Brian Deck, Chief Executive Officer

We are experts in continuous improvement and 80:20 within the company, so we have enough resources in-house. We'll get specific by looking at revenue streams, segmenting them, analyzing underlying concentration and costs, and ensuring we serve our best customers and product lines optimally. We'll also focus on pricing discipline, project costing, and execution. There are many tools beyond just the 80:20 approach and we will employ them.

Walt Liptak, Analyst (Seaport Research Partners)

Okay, great. Thanks. And regarding the change in focus to end markets, has that happened already or what's the timing?

Brian Deck, Chief Executive Officer

It's happening now. Organizational design started in the fourth quarter and continues through the end of the first quarter. We expect to be done with the transition organizationally by the middle of the year.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from Justin Ages with CJS Securities. Please go ahead.

Justin Ages, Analyst (CJS Securities)

Hi, how's everyone doing?

Brian Deck, Chief Executive Officer

Great, thanks.

Justin Ages, Analyst (CJS Securities)

During the prepared remarks, there was a comment about some Greenfield opportunities. Hoping to get a little more color on either end market or where that is.

Árni Sigurdsson, President

First and foremost, that is in the poultry segment. The fundamentals have been improving. Marel spoke to a big project in Q4 2023, which explained a tough comp for Q4 2024. We've seen improvement in the second half of 2024. Also, interesting technologies we've been introducing in the U.S. market, such as a line split solution that allows customers to increase line speeds. Marel has strong technologies to advance the industry and help U.S. customers invest. There are a few very interesting opportunities; it's early but we're optimistic.

Brian Deck, Chief Executive Officer

To follow up, Marel's poultry technology is best-in-class. The line split technique allows unleashing of speed while remaining compliant with USDA policy. This technology enables customers to improve efficiency—potentially closing two old facilities and consolidating into one new Greenfield facility with higher capacity. We're also seeing Greenfield opportunities in the Middle East on the farmer side. Those are areas with good activity.

Justin Ages, Analyst (CJS Securities)

That's helpful. Thanks. And one more on AGV — I know it's a smaller portion of the combined entity now — can you give more color on expectations for that segment looking ahead?

Brian Deck, Chief Executive Officer

AGV is a great business and was our most improved business in 2024. Demand was strong in the fourth quarter. Going forward, we expect continued double-digit revenue growth and margins in the 20% range, so it's accretive on growth and margins.

Operator, Operator

There are no more questions. I will now turn the conference back over to Mr. Brian Deck for closing remarks.

Brian Deck, Chief Executive Officer

Thank you all for joining us this morning. As always, our Investor Relations team will be available if you have any additional questions.

Operator, Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.