Good day and welcome to the Snap-on Incorporated First Quarter 2022 Results Conference Call. Today’s conference is being recorded. I would like to turn the conference over to Ms. Sara Verbsky, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Jess, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to review Snap-on’s first quarter results, which are detailed in our press release issued earlier this morning. We have on the call today, Nick Pinchuk, Snap-on’s Chief Executive Officer and Aldo Pagliari, Snap-on’s Chief Financial Officer. Nick will kick off our call this morning with his perspective on our performance. Aldo will then provide a more detailed review of our financial results. After Nick provides some closing thoughts, we’ll take your questions. As usual, we have provided slides to supplement our discussion. These slides can be accessed under the Downloads tab in the webcast viewer as well as on our website, snapon.com, under the Investors section. These slides will be archived on our website along with a transcript of today’s call. Any statements made during this call relative to management’s expectations, estimates or beliefs or otherwise state management’s or the company’s outlook, plans or projections are forward-looking statements and actual results may differ materially from those made in such statements. Additional information and the factors that could cause our results to differ materially from those in our forward-looking statements are contained in our SEC filings. Finally, this presentation includes non-GAAP measures of financial performance, which are not meant to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for their GAAP counterparts. Additional information regarding those measures is included in our earnings release issued today, which can be found on our website. With that said, I’d now like to turn the call over to Nick Pinchuk. Nick?

Thanks, Sara. Good morning everybody. As usual, I'll start the call by covering the highlights of our first quarter and along the way, I'll give you my perspective on our results; they are encouraging. In our market, we are looking positive and our progress, we believe we're stronger than ever. We'll also speak about what it all means. We believe it means that we're positioned for more, much more. Then Aldo will move into a more detailed review of the financials. These are interesting times, filled with multiple axes of turbulence, but this isn't our first rodeo. We know it's always something. And it's our job to confront and to overcome with the resilience of our markets, the strength of our strategic and tactical advantages and the insight and energy of our consistent and capable team, and we've done just that. Here are the numbers that support that view. Our reported sales in the quarter of $1.0978 billion were up 7.1%, including $8.5 million in acquisition-related activity and $15.7 million of unfavorable foreign exchange. Organic sales growth was 8% with gains in every group. And compared to the pre-pandemic levels in 2019, our clear upward drive shines right through; versus 2019 sales in this past quarter rose 19.1% as reported and 16.9% organically. In fact, it's our seventh straight quarter being above the pre-virus levels. We believe we're continuing an ongoing trend of accelerating expansion, momentum, increasing higher and higher, demonstrating that we're only getting stronger every day. The contributions from our Snap-on Value Creation processes—safety, quality, customer connection, innovation, and rapid continuous improvement, or RCI—all combined to drive that progress, and progress there was. Opco operating income of $223.1 million increased $22.2 million from last year. The operating margin was 20.3%, up 70 basis points from last year and 120 basis points from 2019, as adjusted for the favorable legal settlement in that period. For financial services, operating income of $70.4 million increased 7.8% and credit losses were down, continuing the positive trends, despite the lingering effects of the pandemic. That result combined with Opco for a consolidated operating margin of 24.8%, a 90 basis point improvement from last year and 120 basis points from the as adjusted 2019 result. First quarter EPS was $4, up 14.3% from last year's $3.50 and 32.9% above the as-adjusted $3.01 recorded in 2019. To risk repeating myself, we believe Snap-on is stronger now than when we entered this great withering and our first quarter results are solid testimony. Now let's talk about our markets. Auto repair remains quite resilient. I think we would say spending on vehicle maintenance and repair is up and technicians are earning more than ever. They've been working, performing essential tasks, making a nice living. They're undaunted by the turbulence, and they are optimistic about the future of their profession, about the outlook of individual transportation, and about the greater need for their skills as the vehicle part changes with new technology. All of that has led to an expansion in the ranks with the automotive repair technician count moving upward at its highest point for, I think, at least three decades. And as shop owners and managers will tell you, there’s a need for many more. Vehicle repair is a strong and resilient market. You can hear it in our franchisees' voices. You can feel it in a technician's wallet, and you can see it written across our numbers. Also in auto repair, spanning right next to the tax, there are shop owners and managers, where our Repair Systems & Information Group (RS&I) applies its trade. Demand for new and used cars is high, despite the limited supply. Dealership repair, maintenance, and warranty is rebounding, and dealers are starting to invest again. New vehicles are being released with a greater variety of drivetrains than ever, from internal combustion engines, hybrid to plug-in electric, to full electric, and the range of options is growing, with more driver assist, more vehicle automation, and increasing vehicle complexity. To tell you, it's all music to our ears. And we’ve been able to take advantage with our lineup of intelligent diagnostic products, including the ZEUS, the TRITON, and the APOLLO handheld units, along with our celebrated Mitchell1 ProDemand repair information, our award-winning Tru-Point Advanced Driver Assist calibration system, and our 3D alignment systems like the new Hofmann Geoliner, all representing new technologies and big data deployed to make work easier right in the shop. Vehicle repair looks more promising than ever and Snap-on is poised to capitalize. Finally, let's talk about critical industries. With Snap-on, we roll out of the garage, solving tests of consequence. This is where C&I operates, the most international of our operations. These customers continue to be impacted hardest by the lingering virus, but they have been recovering. And in the quarter, our results showed that trend. Despite some significant headwinds like supply chain disruption, commodity cost increases, and some challenged business sectors like the military and international aviation or aerospace, and troubled geographies, conflict-impacted countries and those more prone to business interruptions as a means to control the virus. Well, C&I had it all. Despite the variation, though, we did see growth and improvement in various geographies, Asia and Europe, and in a range of sectors like general industry, education, and natural resources. They all combined to author organic growth against the continuing turbulence. So overall, I'd describe our C&I markets as challenged, but improving. And looking forward, we believe they represent clear opportunity. Viewing the overall picture, we believe there's been substantial progress along our runways for growth, enhancing the van network, expanding with repair shop owners and managers, extending to critical industries and building in emerging markets, leveraging our broadening product lines, wielding our strong brand, and deploying the increased understanding of the work that is the hallmark of Snap-on people, even in the throes of the pandemic shock. Two years ago, as we entered the virus, we recognized the resilience of our market and the strength of our model and projected a V-shaped recovery, and that's how it played out. You can see it in the trends. Now let's turn to the segments. In the C&I Group, first quarter sales were $340.1 million, down $5.6 million due to $9.2 million of unfavorable currency, and a $3.6 million or 1.1% organic growth. As we said, across C&I, results were mixed. But the period did see gains in Asia with Japan, India, South Korea, Thailand, and Indonesia rising. Europe was also up, with Sweden, Belgium, Poland, and France leading the way. C&I's operating income was $45.7 million, down $5 million, reflecting $2.2 million of unfavorable foreign currency, with the organic volume gains more than offset by supply chain inefficiencies. Compared with the pre-pandemic levels of 2019, sales were up 5.5%, including a 3.6% organic gain, and the OI margin of 13.4% was down 100 basis points, but against 150 basis points impact of acquisitions and unfavorable currency. C&I has simply been more affected by the difficulties, macroeconomic challenges, geopolitical uncertainty, and varying COVID conditions. It makes sense. But the operation is spread over more countries and more industries. It’s challenging, but we are making headway and we're enthusiastic about the possibilities going forward. As part of that view, we remain committed to extending in Critical Industries, and we'll keep strengthening our position to capture opportunities as they arise. Enabling that effort is our expanding line of innovative new products, designed to match the demands of the industries that we serve and to make critical work easier. One example is our family of microelectronic torque wrenches. I've been discussing Snap-on electronic torque products for some time. But these smaller versions of our flagship offerings are gaining particular strength in the critical markets. Our latest, the connected Bluetooth model, offers customers a solution when they need torque certification data in real time. The Snap-on Control Tech Micro Bluetooth wrench fills that requirement and combines it with the benefits of reduced size and lower weight, shorter than 12 inches and less than one pound, better accessibility and reduced operator fatigue, all while allowing users to interface with a Snap-on app or directly with the customer's operating system. The Control Tech Micro Bluetooth offers a wide range of torque, from five to 240 inch pounds, an all-steel body construction, progressive LEDs for enhanced user guidance and a 72-inch quarter-inch drive enabling efficient operation in tight areas, all with plus or minus 2% accuracy. It’s a package well suited to critical sectors like aviation. In the first quarter, our customers’ orders confirmed that belief emphatically. Well, that's C&I. Hard-won progress against the turbulence. Now on to the Tools Group. Sales of $512.1 million were up $33.8 million, including $3 million of unfavorable currency, and a $36.8 million or 7.7% organic gain, with double-digit growth in the U.S. being partially offset by challenges in the international operations. The operating margin was 22.7%, up 200 basis points from last year's historically high level of 20.7%. Compared with the pre-virus levels, sales grew 24.8%, and this year’s 22.7% operating margin was up 630 basis points compared with 2019. The Tools Group is responding to the challenges of the day, taking advantage of increasing vehicle complexity, increasing its product advantage, fortifying its brands, and further enabling its franchisees, and the results show it. I keep saying that, but that's what's evident across our performance this quarter. We do believe our runway for coherent growth, enhancing the franchise network represents a resilient and expanding opportunity. And we're realizing some of that potential across the van channel. The evidence is unmistakable in our franchisee metrics. Again this quarter, they remain clearly favorable. And based on those measurements, we believe the franchisees have never been stronger, and they say so themselves emphatically—pumped in time for more, that's what they are. In our direct interactions at events like the past January's kickoff, back again this year in person, it was a great affair—well-attended, strong orders, visible commitment to our brand. Our franchisees, entrepreneurs, and professionals all are enabled by their increased selling capabilities, broadly and deeply confident in their prospects, in the company's prospects, and eager to reach higher. That's an important factor. And there are a number of reasons for that optimism, but a big one is rooted in Snap-on value creation, customer connection and innovation, authoring new products, clearly making work easier, born out of observing changing work in shops on an everyday basis, just like the franchisees. And that's the reason our tool storage sales were up nicely in the quarter, driven in part by our exciting new line of mobile carts. Over the last several years, we've been enhancing our carts. One example is our KRSC range of mobile storage solutions, the only professional-grade carts in the market. They’re built in our Iowa plant. I just saw them running down, I was just there seeing those units roll down the line. The KRSC is designed for maximum strength and durability. They’re constructed with heavy gauge steel to form a one-piece, fully welded body with reinforced corners—that’s a significant and unique benefit in the mobile storage arena. These carts make it easy to move even the heaviest tools from bay to bay. They come in an attractive range of colors and trims, just like they’re full-sized Big Brother boxes. They’re offered in either a sliding split top, providing a usable work surface while allowing substantial access to the top drawer, or a single-piece flip flop, allowing quicker and broader access to the most frequently used tools. Our new cart also features full wide drawers for maximum flexibility and offers power options for charging cordless tools. The KRSC — you can summarize it in these three words: durability, versatility, and functionality. They’re great for newer mechanics as an affordable way to own some serious Snap-on tool storage. At the same time, they’re attractive for veterans, giving them the opportunity to improve productivity by expanding their mobility around the shop. This quarter, as repair work and tech wages are on the rise, we received record orders, proving that when innovation meets a resilient market, demand follows. We said that vehicle repair was growing, and it is. Complexity would accelerate the market upward, and it has. We’re working hard to position our franchisees to take advantage, and you can see it in the Tools Group results—seven straight gangbuster quarters above pre-pandemic levels. Now let's speak of RS&I. First quarter sales rose $50.6 million or 14.6%, with gains across the board. Organic growth was 13.3%, driven by undercar equipment and OEM dealership activity, delivering double-digit expansion, along with diagnostics and information products, advancing low single-digits. Compared with 2019 sales, compared with 2019, sales grew $70.3 million, or 21.4%, including $56.9 million or 17.4% organic gain, $15.2 million from acquisitions and $1.8 million of unfavorable foreign currency. Operating earnings of $91.6 million increased $10.2 million from 2021, and the OI margin was 23%, down 40 basis points but primarily due to acquisitions and the rise of lower-margin undercar equipment. We clearly see the potential of our runways for growth in the RS&I Group, expanding Snap-on's presence in the garage, with coherent acquisitions and a growing line of powerful products. The organic growth in the quarter was broad-based, but once again, undercar equipment expanded double-digits, and progress in one of our newest product groups, collision repair, helped to author that positive change. And we're doubling down on the potential in that arena by utilizing the same broad database with deep content as used in our ProDemand vehicle repair solutions. Big data aimed specifically at the body shop, vehicle measurements to guide body work, repair information to aid in standard shop work, and calibrations to restore the sensor networks that support ADAS or advanced driver assistance systems. It's a combination that's increasingly essential for every collision shop, and we believe it will be a big seller. RS&I also got a nice boost from winning several significant essential tools and equipment programs for OEM dealerships. As we expected, we started to see new launches for both electric power and internal combustion vehicles, and RS&I is right at the forefront. So, we're quite positive about RS&I's expanding position with vehicle repair shop owners and managers and are very confident in the opportunities as the vehicle industry evolves. So that's the highlights of our quarter: progress in the turbulence, C&I, growing despite the headwinds, the Tools Group, strong and confident, RS&I solid. Overall organic sales rose 8%, Opco operating margin was 20.3%, and EPS was $4, up significantly. Most importantly, more testimony that Snap-on has emerged from the turbulence much stronger than when it entered. It was an encouraging quarter. Now I'll turn the call over to Aldo. Aldo?

Thanks, Nick. Our consolidated operating results are summarized on slide six. Net sales of $197.8 million in the quarter increased 7.1% from 2021 levels, reflecting an 8% organic sales gain and $8.5 million of acquisition-related sales, partially offset by $15.7 million of unfavorable foreign currency translation. The organic sales gain this quarter principally reflected double-digit growth in the Repair Systems & Information Group and high single-digit growth in the Snap-on Tools Group. Consolidated gross margin of 48.7% declined 140 basis points from 50.1% last year. Higher material and other costs were partially offset by contributions from the higher sales volumes, pricing actions, benefits from the company's RCI initiatives, and 30 basis points of favorable foreign currency effects. In the quarter, we believe the corporation through pricing and RCI actions continued to navigate effectively the cost and other supply chain dynamics of the current environment. Operating expenses as a percentage of net sales of 28.4% improved 210 basis points from 30.5% last year. The improvement is primarily due to higher sales volumes, savings from RCI initiatives, and lower costs associated with stock-based expenses. These improvements were partially offset by 40 basis points of unfavorable acquisition effects. Operating earnings before financial services of $223.1 million in the quarter compared to $200.9 million in 2021. As a percentage of net sales, operating margin before financial services of 20.3%, improved 70 basis points from last year. Financial services revenue of $87.7 million in the first quarter of 2022 compared to $88.6 million last year. Operating earnings of $70.4 million increased $5.1 million from 2021 levels, primarily reflecting continued favorable portfolio performance, which resulted in lower provisions for credit losses. Consolidated operating earnings of $293.5 million compared to $266.2 million last year. As a percentage of revenues, the operating earnings margin of 24.8% improved 90 basis points from 23.9% in 2021. Our first quarter effective income tax rate of 23.7% compared to 23.5% last year. Net earnings of $217.4 million or $4 per diluted share increased $24.8 million or $0.50 per share from last year's levels, representing a 14.3% increase in diluted earnings per share. Now let's turn to our segment results. Starting with the C&I Group on Slide 7. Sales of $340.1 million decreased from $345.7 million last year, reflecting a $3.6 million or 1.1% organic sales gain, which was more than offset by $9.2 million of unfavorable foreign currency translation. The organic growth primarily reflects a double-digit increase in sales in the segment's Asia-Pacific operations, partially offset by a mid-single-digit decline in sales to customers in Critical Industries. Within Critical Industries, lower sales to the military more than offset solid gains in general industry and technical education. Gross margin of 36.4% declined 230 basis points from 38.7% in the first quarter of 2021, primarily due to the higher material and other input costs, partially offset by benefits from pricing actions and the segment's RCI initiatives. Operating expenses as a percentage of sales of 23% in the quarter improved 100 basis points from 24% in 2021, primarily reflecting savings from cost efficiencies. Operating earnings for the C&I segment of $45.7 million compared to $50.7 million last year. The operating margin of 13.4% compared to 14.7% a year ago. Turning now to Slide 8. Sales in the Snap-On Tools Group of $512.1 million increased 7.1% from $478.3 million in 2021 reflecting a 7.7% organic sales gain, partially offset by $3 million of unfavorable foreign currency translation. The organic sales increase reflects a double-digit gain in our US business, partially offset by a low single-digit decline in our international operations. Sales in the United States were up over Q4, 2021 as well, reflecting strong sequential performance in power tools and tool storage. Gross margin of 45.5% in the quarter declined 40 basis points from last year, primarily due to higher material and other costs, which were mostly offset by higher sales volumes, pricing actions, and 30 basis points from favorable foreign currency effects. Operating expenses as a percentage of sales of 22.8% improved 240 basis points from 25.2% last year, primarily reflecting the higher sales, savings from RCI initiatives, and lower stock-based expenses related to the company's franchisee stock plan. Operating earnings for the Snap-On Tools Group of $116 million compared to $98.9 million last year. The operating margin of 22.7% improved 200 basis points from 20.7% last year. Turning to the RS&I Group on Slide 9. Sales of $398.2 million compared to $347.6 million a year ago, reflecting a 13.3% organic sales gain and $8.5 million of acquisition-related sales, partially offset by $3.6 million of unfavorable foreign currency translation. The organic gain is comprised of double-digit increases in sales of undercar equipment and in sales to OEM dealerships, as well as low single-digit gains in sales of diagnostics and repair information products to independent shop owners and managers. Gross margin of 44.6% declined 140 basis points from 46% last year. This was primarily due to increased sales in lower gross-margin businesses and higher material and other input costs, partially offset by benefits from pricing actions and 50 basis points from acquisitions, as well as from 30 basis points of favorable foreign currency effects and savings from RCI initiatives. Operating expenses as a percentage of sales of 21.6% improved 100 basis points from 22.6% last year, primarily due to the benefits from sales volume leverage, including higher volumes and lower expense businesses, and savings from RCI initiatives. These improvements were partially offset by 110 basis points of unfavorable acquisition effects. Operating earnings for the RS&I Group of $91.6 million, compared to $81.4 million last year. The operating margin of 23% compared to 23.4% a year ago. Now turning to slide 10. Revenue from financial services of $87.7 million decreased $900,000 from $88.6 million last year, primarily due to a decline in the size of the average financial services portfolio during the quarter as compared to last year. Financial services operating earnings of $70.4 million compared to $65.3 million in 2021. Financial services expenses of $17.3 million were down $6 million from 2021 levels, primarily due to $5.6 million of decreased provisions for credit losses, resulting from favorable loan portfolio trends, including reduced year-over-year net charge-offs, which support lower forward-looking estimated reserve requirements. As a percentage of the average portfolio, financial services expenses were 0.8% and 1.1% in the first quarter of 2022 and 2021, respectively. In the first quarter of 2022 and 2021, the average yield on finance receivables was 17.6% in both years, while the average yield on contract receivables was 8.5% and 8.4%, respectively. Total loan originations of $245.6 million in the first quarter decreased $16.2 million or 6.2% from 2021 levels, reflecting a 5.1% decrease in origination to finance receivables and an 11.5% decrease in originations of contract receivables. In the United States, finance receivable or extended credit originations were down low single digits. Moving to slide 11. Our quarter-end balance sheet includes approximately $2.2 billion of gross financing receivables, including $1.9 billion from our US operation. The 60-day plus delinquency rate of 1.6% for US extended credit remained the same as both the fourth quarter of 2021 and the first quarter of 2021. As it relates to extended credit or finance receivables, trailing 12-month net losses of $39.9 million represented 2.34% of outstandings at quarter end, down 21 basis points as compared to the same period last year. Now turning to slide 12. Cash provided by operating activities of $193.9 million in the quarter compared to $319.3 million last year. The decrease from the first quarter of 2021 primarily reflects a $106.7 million increase in working investment and higher payments for variable compensation, partially offset by increased net earnings. The change in working investment dollars is largely driven by greater demand, resulting in increased receivables and higher levels of inventory this year as compared to a reduction of inventory in 2021. In addition to demand-based requirements, the increase also reflects higher in-transit inventory amounts as well as incremental buffer stocks associated with the supply chain dynamics in the current macro environment. Inventory turns at the end of the first quarter of 2022 are unchanged sequentially. Net cash used by investing activities of $6.6 million included $20.2 million of capital expenditures and net collections of finance receivables of $10.1 million. Net cash used by financing activities of $106.3 million included cash dividends of $75.7 million and repurchase of 136,000 shares of common stock for $28.8 million under our existing share repurchase programs. As of year-end, we had remaining availability to repurchase up to an additional $442.2 million of common stock under existing authorizations. Turning to slide 13. Trade and other accounts receivable increased $49 million from 2021 year-end. Days sales outstanding of 61 days compared to 58 days at 2021 year-end. Inventories increased $60.3 million for 2021 year-end. On a trailing 12-month basis, inventory turns of 2.8% were the same as year-end 2021 and compared to 2.6% at the end of the first quarter in 2021. Our quarter-end cash position of $861.1 million compared to $270 million at year-end 2021. Our net debt-to-capital ratio of 7.4% compared to 9.1% at year-end 2021. In addition to cash and expected cash flow from operations, we have more than $800 million under our credit facilities. As of quarter end, there were no amounts outstanding under the credit facility, and there were no commercial paper borrowings outstanding. That concludes my remarks on our first quarter performance. I'll now briefly review a few outlook items for 2022. We anticipate that capital expenditures will be in a range of $90 million to $100 million. In addition, we currently anticipate, absent any changes to the US tax legislation, that our full year 2022 effective income tax rate will be in the range of 23% to 24%. I'll now turn the call back to Nick for his closing thoughts.

Thanks, Aldo. Well, that's our first quarter. At some level, we could summarize the environment by saying these are interesting times and the hits just keep on coming. But despite the challenges, the quarters are pretty much playing out as we said they would. The Snap-on team is prevailing against multiple axes of turbulence. Our markets are resilient, with their essential nature shining through, repair spending is up, tech numbers growing, wages rising, and the increasing complexity—electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids, improved internal combustion power plants and ADAS—it’s all driving demand. Our continuing investments in product, brand, and people all through the pandemic are paying off. Our franchisees are selling more effectively and are prospering. We’ve come out of this great withering stronger than when we entered. C&I is seeing the most turbulence, borne from multiple geographies, a range of industries and a wide product footprint; serious challenges, but still progressed, up 1.1% organically in the quarter. The Tools Group, prospering. Sales up 7.7% versus last year, rising 24.1% over 2019. OI margin, 22.7%, up 200 basis points from last year. RS&I, seeing 13.3% growth, OI margin 23%, down 40 basis points but more than explained by acquisitions and business mix. The credit company, profits up, losses down, and it all came together for an overall organic growth of 8%. And Opco OI margins of 20.3%, up 70 basis points year-over-year and rising 120 basis points compared with before the pandemic as adjusted, and an EPS of $4, which is up versus every comparison. It was an encouraging quarter. We have momentum. And looking forward, we are optimistic and confident. Confident in the special resilience and potential of our markets, confident in the power of our strategic and tactical advantages, and confident in the capability of our people and experienced team that sees progress against turbulence as fundamental to their expectations. We believe that unique combination, turbulence tested, will propel us to a consistent and ongoing positive trend throughout 2022 and well beyond that. Before I turn the call over to the operator, I’ll speak directly to our franchisees and associates. Many of you I know are listening. When we say we are encouraged, optimistic, and confident, it's deeply rooted in your extraordinary capability and energy. For the part you've played in our success, you have my congratulations. For the skills you bring to our enterprise, you have my admiration. And for the commitment you unfailingly display to our team, you have my thanks. Now I'll turn the call over to the operator.

Thank you. We'll move to our first question from Gary Prestopino of Barrington Research. Gary, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, everyone.

Good morning, Gary.

Nick, could I just get – or from Aldo, a couple of – I couldn’t write down fast enough on both the C&I and the RS&I business, what was the growth in organic sales versus Q1 2019 pre-pandemic levels?

For C&I, it was 3.6%, and I think in RS&I, I believe 17.4%.

Yeah. 17.4%, absolutely right.

Okay. Thank you. Could you maybe just talk about how the cadence of your business trended in continental Europe and the UK throughout the quarter? Did it start off strong and start to wane because of the impacts of what was going on in Ukraine and the Russia sanctions?

No. Look, I don't think Ukraine reached that far for us. We didn't see the conflict in Eastern Europe reaching that far. The UK was soft in this quarter, pretty much across a lot of different areas. What we see happening is our opinion is, the problems or the turbulence associated with the Brexit situation weren't solved during the pandemic, and they're starting to emerge a little bit more in that region. We really didn't see any major changes; it was pretty much flat throughout the quarter. I think the international business had some issues last quarter, particularly in the Tools Group.

Okay. I have a couple more questions. In the Tools Group and across your automotive segments, what kind of demand are you experiencing for specialized tools? Can you mention some items related to electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids, and similar categories? I believe they accounted for about 9% of all new car sales last year, indicating they are beginning to represent a larger share of production.

They are. Those are new car sales, but they are still a relatively micro percentage of the car park itself. Our world reacts to it. New car sales, as you remember, were around what I think there were about 14 million and change last year, 15 million and change this year, and 9 percent of that, but that's compared to $283 million of total vehicle park. Where we see them is in the early warning where the OEMs are identifying the idiosyncrasies associated with electric vehicles, asking us to provide different kinds of tools for dealerships that are not normally available when they come in. One thing I mentioned in RS&I was that this business actually was up strong; that particular project business was off strong double-digits in the quarter, and that was a key driver for us. Some companies will ask us to provide hand tools and particular types of products to deal with batteries and other parts that are specifically designed for electric vehicles.

Is there anything on the diagnostics side that you're seeing? There's a demand or need for that you supply to that segment of the market?

The diagnostic systems, although—the category electric vehicles rolls right in. There isn't anything particularly about electric vehicles that are different for our diagnostic systems except for the data you load on the diagnostics. And so those things are happening for us. But the same kind of bodies and approach in terms of diagnostics will work; you just have to expand on the data that we have—like 2.5 billion repair records with 240 billion or 250 billion data points—and that just keeps growing to include electric vehicles, including plug-in hybrids. The plug-in hybrid volume and hybrid volume exploded last year too in Europe.

Okay. And then last question. In terms of tool storage, years ago when tool storage was really driving the boat in the tools segment—has that come down as a percentage of sales overall and become a little bit more diversified on the growth side?

Actually, well every quarter is a new story and you can't get excited about any quarter. But I would say the word to describe tool storage sales for us in this quarter is Boom Shaka Laka. The thing is it was up strong. It was one of our stronger categories. So big ticket was up. The thing is you might ask why weren't originations up? Part of the reason is when I was talking about tool carts that are lower in terms of their per-unit sales price. That's why they sweep in all these new technicians. So via the carts we're getting new customers as well as selling some and raising our sales to old customers because they're veterans and they want more mobility. The new guys can’t afford maybe to own a Snap-On box; we're going to get a Snap-On quality professional cart that passes for a Snap-On box. That's partially why our tool storage went great in the quarter.

We'll take our next question from Christopher Glynn with Oppenheimer. Your line is open.

Yes. Thanks. Good morning. So on SOT and this kind of growth that's been enabled here, seeing some of the administrative processes and driving front-end production and ease for the franchisees is part of the story. Curious your response to that and if there's any specific color and sense of headroom on that curve?

Well, the franchisees are telling me demand is off the charts. They’re saying they want more. I was just on a van down in Arkansas, and this guy tells me, at the SFC, I ordered 45 full-size boxes, and you can already see an order at the SFC and they get delivered over the fall. He is out of them, and he wants more because the guys are asking him. So I'm telling you, I think this is why we try to emphasize that people are driving after the pandemic. New technology is driving demand, focusing on meeting the needs for those who can handle the complexity, focusing on the importance of technicians and their wallets are burgeoning with higher wages and more work. They’re looking for more of the stuff. Our task is to get our franchisees to deal with the higher sales, to be more efficient; it seems like that’s working. Of course, you have to have new products. One of the great advantages—that's why I talked about the carts, because we had that old segment that we were getting to, but we wanted to get to more, and the carts hit them right in the bullseye. So that worked pretty well for us. Those are the kinds of things that are happening there. I think we could have—if you think about their numbers, the Tools Group has left pre-pandemic levels behind in their growth. If you think about the last five quarters, they were at 10, 15, 20, 21, and 24 versus pre-pandemic levels. They're just expanding their lead.

Great. Thank you for that color. And just a couple on price and the 8% organic sales growth, any sense of what the mix split of volume and price was there?

Go ahead.

Yes. Okay. So yes, just any comment there. And also, curious if you're seeing any pockets where you're seeing areas elastic to price where you can price more.

We don’t see that at all. Snap-On sets the price. One of the things is we control the customer interface. So fundamentally, we’re the price leader. And so we can do that. I mean you have to keep—there is a point of irritation, I suppose, but we're not seeing that in this situation. But the thing about it, Chris, is we have three mechanisms for pricing and they aren't also straightforward to the customer or even easy to measure. First, we do have list price increases, which we do. Then we have the idea, we roll out new products like these new products associated with new carts and newly enhanced carts. Well, I assure you in an inflationary time, we get our value for those new carts. And so that tends to give us nice margin. And then there's the idea of every week on a van, there are a couple of promotions, and those promotions can be rich or lean. The problem is the list price can have variations in discounts off the list price that happen. There can be take up on promotions that are high or low, depending on the individual promotion. And there can be variations around the margins in what you call it, whether you say that price comes out of the fact that I'm got the new power tool—power bank option on a tool storage or just because I've pushed up the pricing. It’s hard to measure those things. But whatever happens, we like it because the margins in the Tools Group were 22.7%, an all-time high.

Great. Thank you.

Yes, good morning, everyone. Nice quarter, Nick.

Hi there.

Yeah, nice quarter, remarkable given the 25% year ago growth and then the systems outage during the quarter. How much of this growth was due to the timing of shipments? I mean, responding to the previous question, you were talking about your guy down in Arkansas waiting for his boxes. How much of the growth was due to the timing of shipments that were delayed from 4Q?

Actually, you could ask that question in the same way. I mean the point is that I would say our calendarization of shipments were because of the interruption that were pushed a little bit deeper into the quarter. So we might—you might have argued we could have shipped more if we didn't have—I think the way the interruption occurred, we kept pretty much selling in prior ways. But I would call it nonstandard work in terms of kaizen, and it could cause a little inefficiency. Our factories kept rolling pretty much, but the shipping was a little bit up and down in this period. There was a little bit of back-end loading in this. So it didn't come out of the fourth quarter. It wasn't an overrun from the fourth quarter and diminishing; if anything, things are getting higher. I think probably if you ask the franchisees—franchisees I talk to were all screaming, telling me, can you give me more? Do you have any influence in the factories, Nick Pinchuk? And so those are the kinds of questions.

Nick, how much were off the truck sales up?

Off the truck sales were up not as high as our own sales. They go up and down in situations. But a lot of that—some of that is due to the calendarization of the deliveries that came off over there. But inventories are on a nice level. The inventory turnovers are up nicely from pre-pandemic levels. So we feel pretty good about that situation. You could argue whether we want large inventories on a truck or not. I’m more for a large inventory guy, and it's a little bit lower than I'd like it to be. But still, I think sales off the truck was moving along, not as high as the Tools Group in this quarter. But if you look back every year, it always evens out. Every quarter, there’s some little story around it, but it always generally evens out. We wouldn't let it get out of whack.

Okay. And can you just talk about the systems outage during the quarter and the impact that might have had on growth or profitability? Did that out to result in maybe a little bit of push forward into 2Q?

David, I don't know. You get one of these things, and it's like red alert. I remember, I stayed up all night on this situation, watching the effect, and we were—credit to our team. They were really professional. We were back up able to do stuff right away, now in a non-standard way, but part of it didn’t really interrupt us very much. The big interruption, I think, was the calendarization of the shipping. And I would say, well non-standard work is less efficient. That’s why we call it standard work in terms of continuous improvement. So it’s inefficient, but you still accomplish your goal. We said the number one priority was to deliver to our customers, and we generally did. Maybe we could have done a little more, I don’t know. But the point is—so I don’t think—if you step back and look at the numbers, you say, well, it doesn’t look like I can see a lot of effect there. I assure you, there is extra cost in those numbers associated with this. I don’t know if we’ve dimensioned it all because it’s hard to capture it all. When franchisees have to be serviced by the field because their approach is non-standard, they’re still servicing, they’re still selling, but it’s non-standard. Then what’s that cost? It’s hard to capture it. But we don’t focus on that much because of the 20.7% OI margin.

Great. And just on those costs. I mean, your operating expenses and tools of 22.8% were down 240 basis points, which is pretty remarkable. But despite the systems outage and all the incremental costs you just referenced, you're saying it would have actually been better?

Well, yes, I think there might have been some of that. I don't know. I don't want to comment on that. We're not giving guidance on what the OE margins will be. I may decide to spend—we may decide to have a big party or something at some point; I don’t know. But for the franchise but look, I think we certainly, in the quarter, we don’t manage—the gross margin or the OE. We manage the OI. That’s how we measure it because when you’re in inflationary times, the price goes up, there’s no real—usually, when you have commodity price goes up, there’s no real cost increase in your support. On top of that, we have, as you said, the interruption that would have cost us something. So there’s a complex cocktail. So we look at, boy, and our divisions look at, give me OE, give me OI.

Nick, Aldo, good morning.

Luke, good morning.

I wanted to start this morning with the market turbulence you're going through right now. And what I'm wondering is, to what extent does the fact that inflation is obviously very highly visible right now help you to manage through the current environment? And specifically, are there ways that you changed your approach to price cost in an environment where inflation is as top of mind as it is right now for franchisees and your customers?

Well, it makes it a lot easier. We've always said for a long time that we can price for visible inflation. So it helps. If everybody is getting up and looking at the paper, watching TV or looking at their iPhone and hearing the costs are going through the roof, they get that inflation message. It makes them more receptive and they tend to realize that’s a bargain even at a higher price. The other thing is, this isn’t our first rodeo. And one of the things I learned back in the Carter era—which I hate to say that even than I was senting during that period—is it's about urgency. It's about riding to the sound of guns. We get right on. When we see costs going up, we’re out there working on it right away, either as a continuous improvement initiative or redesigning. For example, we’ve done a lot of redesigning our products around chips that are available—it’s not even the cost. Steel is starting to peak a little bit. But you can’t get stuff, so you’re out buying it on the stock market. It’s not the base cost of things; it’s how you have to buy it. We tend to make sure we can deliver. So we buy on the stock market. I just reviewed several new air conditioning units where we redesigned them all and particularly three or four of all the electronics inside to get chips that we could use. We are doing the same kind of thing in diagnostics and in our undercar equipment. So those are the kinds of things you got to do, but you got to do it with alacrity.

Well, yes. I’d say broadly speaking, Luke, is that RS&I and C&I, when they do have to entertain pricing actions, there is a lag basis. The reason for that is unless you're going to invoke force majeure, which you don't want to do if you don't have to, sometimes you have one-year contracts in place with certain key customers like national accounts, or certain large industrial customers. Oftentimes, we have distribution relationships that require a 60 or 90-day advance notice. So you have to be more measured because they don't use exclusively the Snap-on brand. The Snap-on brand is a powerful brand, which the Tools Group does enjoy. There are cases for C&I and RS&I where they have to be cognizant of what's happening in and around them because they don't operate in a vacuum. There are some big competitors in and around them. They cannot make pricing decisions alone. As Nick mentioned earlier, you could argue that Snap-on and the Tools Group is the price leader and it sets the umbrella for others. In the case of C&I and RS&I, they have to be aware that they are a major player and that they are an influencer, but they do not walk alone.

I really appreciate that. That was super helpful color. Last question, I just want to ask something a little bigger picture. Nick, you mentioned last quarter that you were taking a more refined approach to data mining as an area right now. Just wondering if there's any color you can share there on specific areas where you see the opportunity to be, I guess, I’d call it smarter in the tools business, or alternatively, any areas where you’re already seeing traction ultimately? Just trying to get a feel of where you're leaning in with this initiative. Thanks.

The whole purpose of that is to try to model the individual customer—specifically, to call in the air strikes of the selling approach for the van driver so that his selling will be more efficient, and therefore, he can call and spend more time with tougher customers, reach more customers—while that is the principal focus of that. We’re making progress in that regard, but I don't really have any palpable things to report right now. We've been a little busy this quarter. But still, we're working on that, but I don’t have anything to lay out; just that’s the principal focus. And we’re kind of optimistic that it will work, because if anyone knows technicians, it's Snap-on.

Hey, good morning, guys.

Hi, Bret.

One more question, I guess, on pricing, trying to sort of distill it down some. Obviously, lots of labor, materials, and supply chain expenses. I get your point about sort of mix can change or you throw in an extra charger to enhance the value proposition. But, is there any sort of base way to look at like a like-for-like screwdriver versus a screwdriver in the prior year period on price? I just sort of try to get a feeling for what that contribution was to organic.

We’ve thought about that. I don't think I can help you; it's just too complex. I mean we raised—that we raised the list price. But even the list price raise doesn’t necessarily make it through. It tends to move it up in varying places depending on the product line. So it's hard to measure really. And the point about the individual promotions, they just vary all over the place. We simply manage on a macro basis because when you got trucks that have 4,000 SKUs on them and have a catalog of 40,000 SKUs, it’s kind of a fool's errand to try to figure all this out, trying to get macro out of the individual. We simply try to measure how we're doing and try to see what worked before and try to make sure that we get pricing along all those quarters—list, promotions, and new products. I generally believe that it’s going to get us in the right situation; generally, so far it has. Our own sales—if you look at sales for Snap-on in terms of growth, I think our last five quarters were at 9%, 10%, 11%, 13%, and now 16.9% above pre-pandemic levels. So somehow it's expanding growth. And not all of that is pricing because you can see the margins go up right in tune with it.

Okay. And then one big picture question. I guess, as you talk about the increasing vehicle complexity and the shortage of technicians and the aging demographic; are you seeing any sort of change in total shop rooftops? And are big groups getting bigger as they've got access to the diagnostics and technology, or is it pretty even?

I would have said that maybe before the pandemic, but I'm not seeing it now so much. I don’t know. But you might say, I do think service doesn't scale so easily. It has—that’s been a problem in many industries. So I’m not sure. Collision scales because it’s almost like manufacturing in many ways. But service is a little tougher to scale, I think. So I don’t know how much of that we’ll see unless you see like a specialized group. Now maybe we will, and we have those as our customers too. We do see multiple shops, but they don’t seem to be nationwide or anything like that. Sometimes, we’re seeing opportunities call localized multi-location situations. Mitchell One has made a meal out of that with their ProDemand, and those things have worked there. But in terms of the franchisees, I don’t think they report that as much.

We'll take our final question from Sarah Park with Bank of America. Sarah, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hi. This is Sarah Park on for Liz Suzuki. I think you had mentioned this a little bit earlier, but I was just been wondering if you could speak to any kind of material disruption in March from the security breach and network shutdown, if you have any more color on that? That would be helpful.

No. Actually, I don’t think—there were, what I would call non-standard ways of operating and serving our customers for a matter of days, not weeks. And as I said before, it principally set back the shipping processes, whereby, the calendarization of the quarter shipments tended to coagulate around the rear end. But generally, we didn’t have any—we didn’t really have real disruption. There’s been a lot of speculation, but we were hacked by a ransomware company. We didn’t pay a ransom. We didn’t have to pay a ransom in this situation. We felt we got out of this and managed it pretty well. So that's really the story there, more inefficiencies than disruption and recalendarization.

Thank you all for joining us today. A replay of this call will be available shortly on snapon.com. As always, we appreciate your interest in Snap-on. Good day.

Ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude today's call. We thank you for your participation. You may disconnect.