Valmont reports Q4 EPS $3.18, consensus $3.04

Reports Q4 revenue $1.02B, consensus $1.04B. CEO Avner M. Applbaum commented, “The Valmont team delivered fourth-quarter results in line with our expectations. Despite lower sales volumes, we expanded gross profit margins year-over-year through successful pricing strategies and improved operational efficiencies in our facilities. In Infrastructure, our solid results reflect continued strong utility market demand, and we achieved another quarter of adjusted operating margin improvement year-over-year despite lower Telecommunications volumes. In Agriculture, as expected, North America sales were lower as backlog levels were more normalized this year compared to fourth quarter 2022. International sales growth was driven by Middle East project shipments and sales from our recent acquisition of HR Products, offset by lower sales in Brazil due to slowing market demand amid lower grain prices. Reflecting on the full year, our global teams performed extremely well in 2023, despite industry-wide demand challenges in North America agriculture and telecommunications markets that pressured the top line. I’m very pleased with our progress in reducing inventory, which helped deliver strong operating cash flows. Turning to 2024, we remain focused on what we can control. We are sustaining higher gross profit margins through ongoing improvement in operational efficiencies and commitment to our pricing strategies. We are reducing SG&A expense through the realignment program we announced last quarter. We expect these efforts to help mitigate the bottom-line impact of softer demand in agriculture and telecommunications markets, and to position our business for incremental profit when those markets normalize. Turning to the segments, in Infrastructure, demand for our products remains strong and we are making strategic capacity investments to meet the needs of our customers and take advantage of the visible opportunities ahead of us. In Agriculture, we expect lower sales this year amid more challenging global market conditions due to lower grain prices and farm income projections. Across both segments, we will continue to deliver operational efficiencies and benefit from our realigned organization. Our market leadership, combined with a relentless focus on strong cash flow generation, return on invested capital and a disciplined capital allocation framework gives us confidence in our actions to enhance shareholder value for years to come.”