Enerpac Tool Group Corp

NYSE:EPAC

Earnings Call Analysis

Enerpac's Q1 FY2024 Performance and Outlook

Enerpac Tool Group kicked off fiscal 2024 with a solid Q1 following a strong FY2023. Organic revenue grew by 5.5% to $142 million. Adjusted EBITDA saw a significant increase of 31%, reaching $35 million, resulting in an adjusted EBITDA margin of 24.6%. Diluted GAAP earnings per share stood at $0.33, while adjusted EPS was up by 34% year-over-year to $0.39. Despite neutral to cautious market sentiment, Enerpac is affirming its full-year fiscal 2024 guidance. The balance sheet remains healthy with net debt at $97 million and a leverage ratio of 0.9x EBITDA. M&A activities continue with strategic targets being identified to expand into key markets like infrastructure and rail, with a disciplined approach to acquisition and integration.

A Solid Start Affirming Positive Outlook for Fiscal 2024

Coming off a strong fiscal year 2023, Enerpac commenced fiscal 2024 on a solid footing. Despite ongoing global economic and geopolitical uncertainties, the company confidently upholds its full year fiscal 2024 guidance, a testament to Enerpac's robust financial underpinnings and strategic execution efficiency.

Organic Revenue Growth and Operational Efficiency

Enerpac's first quarter organic revenue saw a 5.5% rise from the previous year, amounting to $142 million. This increase is notably reflected in the Industrial Tools & Service segment, which enjoyed a 5.8% growth, thanks to product pricing and service expansion strategies. The first quarter also showcased significant operational improvements, with adjusted EBITDA jumping by 31% to reach $35 million, which indicates a remarkable adjusted EBITDA margin of 24.6%. The organic growth figure comfortably surpasses the annual projection of 2% to 4%.

Margin Expansion and Profitability

Gross margins expanded by 360 basis points to 52.3% during the quarter, driven by successful lean initiatives and price advantages. Additionally, SG&A efficiency improved, decreasing by 21% from the previous year owing to cost management and organizational streamlining. The synergistic approach to enhancing operational efficiency directly contributed to the company's impressive 31% year-over-year growth in adjusted EBITDA and an expansion of 550 basis points in EBITDA margins.

Capital Allocation and Shareholder Returns

Enerpac boasts a solid balance sheet and strong liquidity, which supports the company's capital distribution strategy that encompasses organic growth investments, strategic acquisitions, and share repurchases. The company returned $26 million to shareholders through buybacks and has a remaining authorization to repurchase about 3 million shares. Regarding future plans, the company is actively assessing acquisition opportunities with a disciplined approach to drive further growth.

Geographical Trends and End Market Diversification

Enerpac is restructuring its operations into three geographical segments – Americas, EMEA, and Asia Pacific, each showing varying degrees of growth and potential. The Americas is expected to grow in the low single-digits, while EMEA has experienced high single-digit growth led by product and service expansion. Asia Pacific, although slower, is anticipated to yield higher revenues. Notably, the oil and gas sector, Enerpac's largest market, is poised for further modification in its share due to planned growth in other focused vertical markets like infrastructure and wind.

Technological Advancements and Brand Diversification

Enerpac is making strides with its technological upgrades such as Enerpac CONNECT for equipment monitoring, expanding its geographic footprint in Asia Pacific, and rolling out its second brand, Larzep. With a focus on training and customer engagement through Enerpac Academy, the company is committed to deepening market penetration and enhancing brand loyalty.

Continued Focus on ASCEND and Margin Targets

The ASCEND program has been successfully integrated into Enerpac's continuous improvement strategy, with an active pipeline of initiatives poised to enhance productivity and cost-effectiveness. The company's financial goals remain unchanged, targeting an adjusted EBITDA margin of 25% by fiscal 2025.

Strategic Acquisitions and Market Expansion

Enerpac has successfully acquired Track Tools, aligning with its strategy to focus on its core verticals. This acquisition offers unique technology and significant growth potential for global expansion. Alongside this, the company's acquisition pipeline reflects a wide array of opportunities, ranging from product-specific tuck-ins to substantial deals that align with its innovation and market expansion goals.

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q1

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Enerpac Tool Group's First Quarter Fiscal 2024 Earnings Conference Call.

As a reminder, this conference is being recorded, December 20, 2023.

It's now my pleasure to turn the conference over to Travis Williams, Director of Investor Relations. Mr. Williams, please go ahead.

[Travis Williams, executive]

Thank you, operator. Good morning, and thank you for joining us for Enerpac Tool Group's First Quarter Fiscal 2024 Earnings Call. On the call today to present the company's results are Paul Sternlieb, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Tony Colucci, Chief Financial Officer.

Our slides and a recording of today's call will be available on the Enerpac website in the Investors section.

Today's call will reference non-GAAP measures. You can find a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures in the press release issued yesterday.

Our comments will also include forward-looking statements that are subject to business risks that could cause actual results to be materially different. Those risks include matters noted in our latest SEC filings.

Now I will turn the call over to Paul.

[Paul Sternlieb, executive]

Thanks, Travis, and good morning all. Following on the heels of Enerpac's strong financial performance in fiscal 2023, we started fiscal 2024 with another solid quarter.

While we remain cautious as to how the full year will unfold given the economic and geopolitical uncertainty, we are affirming our full year fiscal 2024 guidance. Our results clearly reflect the continued benefits of our ASCEND transformation program, our 4-pillar growth strategy and the changes across the organization that are making Enerpac more efficient, more productive and easier to do business with.

As you can see on Slide 3, first quarter organic revenue, what we previously referred to as core revenue, was up 5.5% from the year ago period to $142 million.

Moreover, we captured significant improvement in operating and SG&A efficiency. With that, adjusted EBITDA expanded 31% to $35 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2024, enabling us to achieve an adjusted EBITDA margin of 24.6%.

I'll let Tony review our first quarter performance and fill on the details about the positive year-over-year gains. Then I will speak about geographic trends, provide some details about a few exciting areas of our growth strategy and introduce our estimates of revenue breakdown by end market. Tony?

[Anthony Colucci, executive]

Thanks, and good morning. We are now on Slide 4. As Paul said, Enerpac enjoyed solid top line growth and outstanding EBITDA expansion in the first quarter of fiscal 2024. Reported revenue growth of 2% year-over-year reflected the sale of the Cortland industrial business in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023.

On an organic basis, which excludes divestitures and the impact of foreign exchange, revenue expanded 5.5%. For the Industrial Tools & Service segment, organic revenue growth was 5.8%, comprised of a 4.5% increase in product revenue and a 10.1% expansion in services. The segment enjoyed a positive contribution from price as well as volume and mix.

Overall, Enerpac revenue growth was slightly offset by a 2.3% decline in Cortland Biomedical. The expected decline was primarily a timing issue related to some specific customer programs.

On Slide 5, from a profitability standpoint, gross margins expanded 360 basis points to 52.3% in the first quarter of fiscal 2024. This was driven by the continued success of our lean initiatives, focused on operational excellence and price benefits. Among our initiatives, we improved freight expense by optimizing routes and renegotiating rates. Gross margins also benefited from the divestiture of the Cortland Industrial business.

Similarly, we continue to benefit from initiatives that improved our SG&A efficiency. SG&A expense declined 21% year-over-year, primarily due to lower ASCEND charges. Adjusted SG&A expense, which excludes ASCEND and other onetime charges from both periods declined 5%. This benefit was achieved by streamlining our organizational structure and offshoring certain finance and IT functions along with further optimization of all back-office functions. On an adjusted basis, SG&A was 29% of sales, down from 31.2% of sales in the year ago period. As we have said, our financial framework goal is to bring our SG&A spend in line with best-in-class industrials, and we continue to move in that direction.

Turning to Slide 6 with both top line growth and margin expansion, adjusted EBITDA increased 31% year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA margins expanded 550 basis points, from 19.1% in the first quarter of fiscal 2023 to 24.6% in the most recent period.

On a GAAP basis, diluted earnings per share from continuing operations totaled $0.33 in the quarter. Adjusted EPS increased 34% year-over-year to $0.39, compared with $0.29 in the prior year. This increase was primarily the result of EBITDA expansion, along with a lower share count and despite a higher but more normalized adjusted effective tax rate of 21.9% in the first quarter of 2024 compared with a 15.6% rate in the year ago period. We continue to expect our adjusted effective tax rate for the full year to be in the 20% to 25% range.

In the first quarter of fiscal 2024, operating cash was a use of $7 million, resulting from higher ASCEND related cash payments and the timing of the cash bonus payment. In fiscal 2023, the bonus was paid out in the second quarter.

On Slide 7, as we have discussed, Enerpac's strong liquidity and balance sheet support our capital allocation priorities, including internal investments to drive organic growth, strategic acquisitions, and opportunistic share repurchases. At the end of the first quarter, net debt was $97 million, resulting in a net debt leverage ratio of 0.9x adjusted EBITDA.

Total liquidity was approximately $500 million. Additionally, we have the option in the credit facility to request an M&A accordion up to $300 million.

As previously mentioned, with a full-time corporate development leader in place, we are actively exploring acquisition targets while adhering to our disciplined financial and strategic criteria.

During the quarter, we returned $26 million to shareholders through the repurchase of approximately 1 million shares. At quarter's end, we had about 3 million shares remaining against the 10 million share board repurchase authorization.

With that, let me turn the call back to Paul.

[Paul Sternlieb, executive]

Thanks, Tony. As we discussed on our year-end fiscal 2023 call, we streamlined our organization into 3 geographic regions: Americas; EMEA, which includes Europe, Middle East and Africa; and Asia Pacific. The realignment has enabled some early cost synergies. We anticipate additional cost savings as well as revenue synergies going forward.

In the Americas, we continue to see a neutral to cautious sentiment among our channel partners. We are generally expecting low single-digit growth in calendar 2024. The mid-single-digit organic growth experienced in the first quarter was broad-based across our verticals with strength in construction, wind, and rail. Overall, we believe channel inventory is appropriate with perhaps a few exceptions.

In our newly combined geographic region, EMEA, we have solid top line growth in products and services, yielding organic growth in the high single digits. While as previously discussed, we exited certain low-margin service business in the Middle East, we more than offset that with new projects. Looking forward, overall dealer sentiment is neutral to cautious.

The Asia Pacific region saw a low single-digit organic growth in the quarter, but strong order growth, which should translate to solid revenue growth in subsequent periods. We're encouraged by the pace of investment activity and inquiries associated with infrastructure spend in Japan, power plant investment in China, and wind opportunities, especially in India.

Switching gears, as you know, Enerpac's highly diversified end market participation add stability and provides growth opportunities. We know that investors are interested in greater insight into our end market mix. To that end, we've developed our best estimate of Enerpac's revenue by vertical market, which we show on Slide 9.

As you can see, oil and gas, which is primarily downstream, along with the general industrial sector, are our 2 largest end markets. As it relates to our targeted verticals, rail is included in the infrastructure category, which totaled about 9% of sales in fiscal 2023. Wind is included in the power generation sector, a 10% category. The other category includes the company's exposure to shipbuilding, automotive, aerospace, off-highway vehicle repair, military, paper and wood, marine, and rescue.

Finally, I'd like to provide some color on two of our growth pillars: innovation and expansion in Asia Pacific. On the innovation front, as we've mentioned, over the past 2 years, we have reconfigured our new product development program with a disciplined process and road map focused on customer needs and align with our 4 key vertical markets.

For example, we recently launched 2 new battery-powered portable pumps, rounding out Enerpac's best-in-class cordless pump portfolio. These pumps have competitive advantages in terms of speed, run time and oil capacity. They are capable of serving applications across a wide array of end markets with clear advantages within the MRO, rail, and wind sectors. And we believe these battery pumps can take share from competitors in applications where small electric or air pumps are currently being used.

Moreover, these products are equipped with Enerpac CONNECT, allowing customers to receive detailed product information, perform firmware updates and track service records.

In Asia Pacific, as I mentioned, we're excited about infrastructure, power plant and wind projects in the region. One of the images on the slide shows the critical role of Enerpac equipment in use at the Narita International Airport in Japan, where a 450-ton overpass road bridge was removed ahead of a planned runway extension. Lack of space prevented the use of a crane for the bridge removal. Instead, our customer used Enerpac JS500 jack-up units, mounted on self-propelled modular transporters to remove the entire bridge overnight, thus minimizing traffic disruption on the expressway.

We're also advancing the rollout of our second brand, Larzep, a mid-tier offering targeting a relatively untapped market segment, which we believe could be roughly at par with the size of the premium segment on a dollar basis. To date, we've signed up several new distributors and are pleased with early order activity.

We've also added new commercial leaders in Southeast Asia to help accelerate growth. And we're leveraging our Enerpac Academy in Singapore to train new distributors and customers in the region, drive demand and build brand loyalty. As we know from our experience in other regions, providing training on our equipment is a critical component of customer engagements and penetration.

As you can see from our performance, this quarter and over the past 2 years, Enerpac is capturing consistent benefits from our ASCEND transformation initiatives, our growth strategy, and the programs we've implemented to enhance operating efficiencies. We are confident that there is more to come as we work to achieve our long-term financial framework.

Before we open the call to questions, I'd like to extend my sincere thanks to our global workforce for their deep commitment to our customers and for advancing the initiatives that are making Enerpac a premier industrial tools and service business.

Now we'd be happy to take any questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question today is coming from Tom Hayes from CLK.

[Thomas Hayes, analyst]

Congratulations on the start of the year. Paul, I was wondering if you could give us a little bit more color or detail on the -- like market conditions in the Americas, it sounds like you were up mid-single digits for the quarter. It sounds like maybe you outperformed the market a little bit. I think you mentioned that the expectations from some of your customers were low single-digit growth for the year. I was just wondering any other color you can give us as market conditions as it's your largest region there.

[Paul Sternlieb, executive]

Sure. Yes. I think as I've mentioned in my prepared remarks, what we hear from channel partners is probably more of a neutral to cautious sentiment. And that's really not new. We've been talking about that for several quarters. And we referenced that they are -- for their business overall, generally expecting kind of low single-digit growth in calendar '24. We did outperform that.

I think the strength of our business in globally and certainly in Americas is that it is very broad-based. We are quite diversified in terms of end markets. And I think we're still quite bullish about what's to come yet from the infrastructure bill. Still early days here in the U.S. I wouldn't say we've seen any significantly meaningful impact. But our expectations are that, that will become a nice tailwind for us in the coming quarters and years.

So I think where we remain optimistic despite some of the cautious sentiment that we hear from our channel partners.

[Thomas Hayes, analyst]

Okay, fabulous. And then Tony, maybe on the strong gross margin performance, certainly outpaced what I was expecting. Any granularity that you could provide as far as -- you called out several drivers of that? And just any color there. And then maybe just touch on the sustainability of that margin rate. Is that something that we should start thinking about for the balance of the year as far as margin trends, certainly, probably not that much of a quarter-over-quarter improvement? Just any thoughts you can give us on gross margin rates as they trend through the year.

[Anthony Colucci, executive]

Sure. Yes. I mean, first of all, we're very happy with the performance on gross margin, 360 basis points improvement there. I would say, that pertains to several factors. We certainly have the operational efficiencies that we're seeing to come through, [ BSN ] and other initiatives. I would also say that a stronger mix of more profitable products that we saw here in Q1.

Gross profit will fluctuate throughout the year with different regional growth rates and mix. But we'll also continue to see benefits through our initiatives while we still have some investments coming through here in automation and other capacity needs as well.

So I mean, it will fluctuate up and down here throughout the year is what I would say.

[Thomas Hayes, analyst]

Okay. Maybe 2 more, if I could. One, I'm still kind of getting a little bit up to speed on the story. Is there anything that we need to think about as far as seasonality, as we go through the year? Has anything changed versus previous years?

[Anthony Colucci, executive]

No, no changes. Still kind of first half versus second half dynamic that we'll continue to see.

[Thomas Hayes, analyst]

Okay. Maybe just last one for me. I appreciate it. As far as wind projects, I think you called out that, that area seems to be okay, but we're seeing some new stories lately pertaining specifically to offshore wind projects. I was just wondering if you could maybe talk about your exposure to offshore wind. It sounds like maybe some of those projects may be slowing or moving to kind of a pause. Is that an issue? Or just any color you can provide on that would be great.

[Paul Sternlieb, executive]

Yes, sure. So as I mentioned, we've broken out, provided a bit more color in terms of our exposure that we estimate by end market. We show power gen is a roughly 10% category for us. The wind is part of that.

So today, wind is still a relatively small part of overall Enerpac revenue, but it is obviously a meaningful and growing market in our view that still has very significant potential. And we're still bullish on the sector.

We still see plenty of demand for installations. If it's not offshore, it's onshore. We have a good, I would say, connectivity to both. So we're not overly reliant on 1 or the other, onshore versus offshore. In fact, onshore makes up the bulk of the U.S. wind power market today.

And based on what we see from industry research and experts, the expectations is offshore wind will ramp up again. In fact, there was a recent article published, sighting some statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that employment of wind turbine service technicians is going to increase 45% over the next decade, and that will be the fastest-growing occupation in the U.S.

So I think just another data point that gives us increasing confidence over the over the short, medium, and long term about the growth in that sector, just given the dynamics around the need for the shift to clean energy. And I think we're incredibly well positioned to play a meaningful part in that.

[Thomas Hayes, analyst]

Great. Appreciate the color. I'll jump back in the queue.

[Operator]

Your next question is coming from Larry De Maria from William Blair.

[Lawrence De Maria, analyst]

Just maybe a follow up on that, the wind. Can you maybe talk about the geographical opportunities? I think you mostly were referencing domestic opportunities. But are there -- what does it look like outside of the U.S.?

[Paul Sternlieb, executive]

Yes. No, I think a few points I would make there. So first off, we have broad exposure across the whole, what I would call life cycle on wind. So we have established good relationships with OEM, wind turbine manufacturers and some of their key suppliers, as well as folks that are doing installation and commissioning, as well as O&M or operations and maintenance work, and ultimately, even decommissioning of older turbines. So I think we have broad exposure. We're not overly relying on any single part of that market.

And I would say similarly from a geographic standpoint, earlier in my comments were about the U.S., but we have significant pipeline of activity that we're looking at in other markets, including in Europe and parts of Asia. So I think we have really good broad-based exposure geographically. And we see increasing interest in investment activity in different parts of the world for wind, again, just given the shift to clean energy.

[Lawrence De Maria, analyst]

Okay. That makes sense. Second question, you talked about your growth outlook. Well, you talked about the orders and sort of how to think about, I guess, Europe is most cautious and there's some optimism brewing in APAC.

Can you maybe drill down and give some more magnitude in terms of regional growth for the year?

[Paul Sternlieb, executive]

Yes. I mean we haven't broken it out by region. I mean, you can see what the actuals are. I would say, I mean, the sentiment is probably similar across Americas and Europe, sort of neutral to cautious, I think we said in terms of the channel.

So I think ultimately, we've affirmed our full year guidance at this point. We don't have any reason to believe differently 1 quarter in. I mean we're pleased that this quarter, we delivered 5.5% organic growth above our 2% to 4% expectation for the year, but we still have 3 quarters to go.

So we'll see where dynamics take us in 2024, but I think we're just being mindful of some of that neutral to cautious sentiment that we hear from the channel.

[Lawrence De Maria, analyst]

Okay. Makes sense. Last question. Obviously, good start to the year with about 24.6% adjusted EBITDA margins. We're tracking in on that ASCEND targets. So can you just update how do we think about ASCEND in '24 and beyond? And update, when might we get an update, I guess?

[Anthony Colucci, executive]

Yes. So again, we're really pleased with the performance that we have here in EBITDA margins in Q1 of the 24.6%. And we're tracking well in line with what we guided to for the full year, perhaps a bit ahead of schedule from that perspective. Again, we'll have some fluctuations here through the rest of the year in both gross margins and EBITDA percentages with various timings that we have with benefits coming through and investments that we're making here as well. But I would say, at least on track with -- we're expected to be, if not, a bit ahead.

So really happy to see that. From an ASCEND perspective, there are still more initiatives that are coming through. As we mentioned last year, as we ended fiscal '23, we achieved our ASCEND benefits a year ahead of schedule. So we're really excited about that. Still getting not only the tailwinds from that here in FY '24, but new initiatives that we're executing against.

And as we said in our last call, we're going to -- we're not breaking out the ASCEND benefits from just natural benefits as really, the business has migrated into just a comprehensive view at this point. So -- but still improvements to come is what I'll say. And we're on track with what we guided.

[Paul Sternlieb, executive]

Yes. And my only comment I would add to what Tony said is, yes, we're continuing to execute ASCEND, but I think he's right. It evolves much more into our continuous improvement program and framework. We're pleased with the progress we've made. But we still got a very active funnel of initiatives that we're at various stages of maturity. So we feel good about that.

And I would say, likewise, our guidance on -- or our financial framework around targeting an adjusted EBITDA margin of 25% by fiscal '25, that remains at this point, we've not revised that. But certainly, given what we're able to deliver in Q4 last year, and this Q1 gives us increasing confidence about our ability to meet or beat that framework for fiscal '25.

[Operator]

Next question is coming from Steve Silver from Argus Research.

[Steven Silver, analyst]

So the earnings presentation cites oil and gas and petrochemical as the largest areas of end market exposure for the company. I was just wondering if you could expand a little bit more on this, as you mentioned that the business upgrades primarily downstream compared to up and mid? Just curious also in terms of that market's exposure to new builds versus maintenance markets. Just trying to get a sense as to how we should think about the growth in that end market broadly.

[Paul Sternlieb, executive]

Yes, I think certainly, it is our largest market. That has come down, I would say, considerably from the highs of Actuant days, our predecessor company.

Our expectation is that will likely come down further, not on an absolute dollar basis, but as a percentage over the coming years as we drive accelerated growth in our more focused verticals like infrastructure, rail, industrial, and around wind.

But in the oil and gas sector today, the majority of what we do is largely in the downstream area of that and a little bit of midstream. It's also largely tied to maintenance. So I would say, the exposure to new build-out in CapEx is relatively minimal there. It's not 0, obviously, but most of what we do is tied to maintenance on existing assets.

So certainly, oil and gas is a cyclical sector. But by and large, I would say that our exposure is the less cyclical part of that overall sector. And so we'll continue to see some fluctuations, obviously, given the market dynamics, but we think we're well positioned with what we do in that space.

[Steven Silver, analyst]

That's helpful. And one more, if I may. Regarding the recently announced Track Tools rail acquisition, can you speak to your views on the growth opportunity there and maybe perhaps what synergies you see with the core business?

[Paul Sternlieb, executive]

Yes, absolutely. We're really excited to complete that acquisition. And although it was small, not material for us, it is very strategic. Certainly, it's the first of our acquisitions that are linked towards what we're doing in our focused verticals, in this case, rail.

And the exciting part for us about Track Tools is, first and most importantly, it's very differentiated technology for the marketplace that really creates some significant benefits and functionality for end users in that space, which, obviously, was our key interest in the acquisition.

Secondly, although it's a very relatively small brand in business today and essentially only focused in the U.S., what we're excited about is our ability to scale that globally, given our presence really in all major markets and our existing customer relationships in the rail sector in many of those markets, and we're actively working on that as we speak. So we're excited about the commercial growth potential. And frankly, over time, some of the cost synergies as we can drive out some of the overall cost of the product and improve the production efficiencies over time.

So it was a really exciting acquisition, early days, but we're pleased with the progress we're making.

[Steven Silver, analyst]

Congratulations on the quarter as well.

[Paul Sternlieb, executive]

Next question today is coming from Gary Prestopino from Barrington Research.

[Gary Prestopino, analyst]

Just a quick question on your building and acquisition pipeline. Would it be safe to say that a lot of these acquisitions are small private companies that are very product specific to your markets? Or are they really across the board in terms of the kind of things you're looking at?

[Anthony Colucci, executive]

Yes, Gary. So from a size perspective, I'd say it's a bit across the board in terms of what our funnel has. I'll go back and just say from what the types of companies that we're looking for are -- we're really trying to stay close to our knitting here, is what I would say. We're looking for product tuck-ins. We're looking for targets that would help us expand in our key vertical markets that we've been discussing. And then the targets that help us expand our technology or innovation here as well.

So I mean, that's what we're focused on in terms of our targets, and that's what we have in our funnel.

[Paul Sternlieb, executive]

Yes. And I would add to that, Gary. Our current funnel, I would say both quality and quantity, has significantly improved as we brought on a full-time corporate development leader about half a year ago now who's fully dedicated to that.

I'd say the second thing is we have what I would classify as both small or medium and larger-sized kind of deals in that funnel. So many of them, yes, could be characterized as more privately held kinds of businesses. But we've got all different kinds in there and we continue to have good, meaningful conversations as we know these things tend to be episodic and depend on asset availability.

So we've got a pretty disciplined process from early stage target identification through to outreach and cultivation, ultimately transacting and integrating deals.

[Gary Prestopino, analyst]

Okay. And then just lastly, on the ASCEND program. It was a prior question, I think you hit, at least this quarter, close to your adjusted EBITDA margin target.

Going forward, as you move from ASCEND to maybe just continual cost control productivity improvement, whatever. What are you targeting areas that would help to drive the margin even further? I mean, assume that a lot of the lower-hanging fruit on ASCEND has been taken care of.

So what do you bank on to grow the margins going forward? Is it products, higher-margin products? Are you still able -- you're going to go through a program where you're going to really tightly control SG&A expenses? Any vision you can give us on that, that would be helpful.

[Paul Sternlieb, executive]

Yes, sure. I think there are a few things. From a cost of goods perspective, we still believe we have ample opportunities to drive more manufacturing productivity and efficiencies, somewhat through investment, as Tony referenced earlier, in automation, other capital investments, and we're actively exploring those.

I would say, secondarily, we still believe we have opportunities in sourcing. We still have a relatively complex supply chain and there are definitely opportunities to drive more best cost country sourcing, more vendor consolidation, more value engineering work. We continue to evaluate our footprint and look for opportunities there.

And then on the SG&A side, as Tony referenced in his remarks, I mean, we're pleased with the progress we've made. And yet I would say we're still high relative to what we see as best-in-class industrials, I think there's more opportunities over time to drive greater efficiencies there as we've been doing.

And then, of course, there will be some pricing and ultimately mix benefits, especially driven, I would say, particularly by our focus on our core verticals and the work that we do in innovation. I would say, generally speaking, most of our innovation, we would expect to be margin accretive, especially if it is a truly differentiated product in the marketplace, which is really what's in our funnel.

So all that should be favorable over time. Of course, some of that we may choose to reinvest to drive accelerated organic growth. So not all of that will drop to the bottom line. But on balance, we still see opportunities for margin expansion.

[Anthony Colucci, executive]

Yes, I agree. I would just add that we have a lot of opportunities and initiatives in our pipeline here across the board, did a lot of work over the last 2 years, but there's still more opportunities that are there that we are driving. And we really are taking this to the next level here as well in terms of the ideation that we have and just really moving to a continuous improvement type of mindset.

[Paul Sternlieb, executive]

Okay. Well, thank you very much.

[Operator]

Thank you. That does conclude our question-and-answer session. Do you have any further closing comments?

[Paul Sternlieb, executive]

I would just like to say thanks again for joining us this morning. As always, Travis will be available to take any follow-up questions. Best wishes to everyone for a wonderful holiday season and a happy new year.

[Operator]

Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference webcast. You may disconnect your line at this time and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.