Yahoo Finance Baker Hughes Co (BKR) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript Highlights: Robust Growth and Strategic ...
EBITDA Margin: Increased by 100 basis points year-over-year.
IET Orders: Booked over $2.9 billion, including significant awards from Aramco and Black & Veatch.
LNG Equipment Orders: Totaled almost $200 million during the quarter.
EPS Growth: 50% year-over-year increase.
Free Cash Flow: Generated over $500 million.
Dividend: Increased quarterly dividend by $0.01 to $0.21, an 11% increase year-on-year.
Share Repurchases: $158 million of shares repurchased.
New Energy Orders: Booked $239 million during the quarter.
Total Company Orders: $6.5 billion, maintaining strong momentum.
Revenue Outlook: For 2024 expected to be between $26.5 billion and $28.5 billion.
EBITDA Outlook: For 2024 forecasted to be between $4.1 billion and $4.5 billion.
Release Date: April 24, 2024
For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript.
Q & A Highlights
Q: So your IET margins were quite strong despite a headwind from more equipment revenues, which is great to see. And Lorenzo, you walked through the multiple drivers. Looking at 2Q, IET guidance is above our forecast, but you did list the full year. So can you walk through how you think about those margin drivers continuing? How do you think about the impact on the second half for IET? Are there reasons to believe the normal seasonality may be a bit more muted for both revenues and margins in the second half? Or is the high end of the range for full year revenues and EBITDA will be more likely now for IET? A: Lorenzo Simonelli - Baker Hughes Company - Chairman, President & CEO: Yes, Scott, first of all, very strong quarter for the company. And as you said, led by also IET, but overall, very pleased by both segments. And IET, a very strong, solid quarter. And as we've said, we've been committed to our journey on IET towards the 20% EBITDA, and you're starting to see some of those levers coming through as you look at first quarter and as you look at the rest of the year, again, you've got strong backlog conversion in Gas Tech equipment.
Q: Got it. And then turning to the production side of OFSE. We recently saw one of your big competitors moved to enhance their position. How do you see the market evolving for the production vertical where you have a strong position? Does the growth rate for production start to rival the growth rate for drilling and completion spend in '25 and beyond? And how do you think about the competitive dynamics in the market? Your team was quite excited by your production optimization solutions at your annual meeting? A: Lorenzo Simonelli - Baker Hughes Company - Chairman, President & CEO: Yes, Scott, it's a very good point. And for us, what's happening from the external perspective and the dynamics doesn't change the strategy, and we've been firmly focused on a strategy around production solutions for some time. As you know, from the comments that I made at the annual meeting, 70% of the world's production comes from mature assets. And a mature asset being a well that's produced 50% of its reserves or has been in production for over 25 years. And when we look at the future, there's a tremendous focus on improving that optimization.
Q: Lorenzo, I want to start with the Saudi MSC reduction. I wanted to get your perspective on the potential impacts to Baker from the changing mix of activity with the higher mix of onshore versus offshore. And perhaps you could just comment on the gas side of the equation with higher infrastructure spend chemicals and new energy spend, what that means for Baker as we think about rest of this year and into next year? A: Lorenzo Simonelli - Baker Hughes Company - Chairman, President & CEO: Yes, Arun. We remain confident in the international market outlook. We expect E&P spending to be up high single digits this year. And as we look at, in particular, the MSC reduction, as we said in the last call, we don't anticipate any real changes. And in fact, when we look at Saudi, we see it as opportunities outside of just the upstream area given our presence. As you know, natural gas production is set to grow by 60% through 2030, and it's going to benefit our IET business. You saw the announcement that was made in 1Q relative to the Master Gas System 3, the pipeline project. There's going to be more opportunities down the road.
Q: Great. That's helpful. Maybe a follow-up, maybe for Nancy. Nancy, I want to get your take on some of the puts and takes around the 2Q guide. It looks to be about 3% above our model and it looks like just slightly better margins. And so just wondering if you could talk about some of the puts and takes and just the fact that you kept the back half, maybe a follow-up to Scott's question, the full year is the same. And are you getting a little bit more confidence on the full year outlook given what's transpiring in the first half of the year? A: Nancy K. Buese - Baker Hughes Company - CFO: Yes, happy to take that one. So on Q2, I'd really say the strength in our guide for that quarter highlights our differentiated portfolio. And we've really been talking about how that's helping us to frame up more durable earnings and strong free cash flow generation and growth. Our midpoint for EBITDA guidance in Q2 really represents about 16% year-over-year growth, and that's about 20% EBITDA growth in the IET business. So there are a lot of good drivers there. We've talked about the really robust backlog levels that are driving the Gas Tech equipment acceleration and much higher margins in the backlog as we convert as we've been signaling. And then we're also seeing broadening strength across Industrial Tech.
Q: I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the non-LNG side of the IET Gas Tech equipment order side. I think you made a couple of comments on there, you talked about is these have tripled this quarter and you expect to be up 50% this year. Could you kind of dig into that a little bit about where that's being driven from? I know we had an offshore side, which tends to be a little lumpier. I know you had the MGS3 award in there, but could you just sort of talk about the mix of that non-LNG business, please? A: Lorenzo Simonelli - Baker Hughes Company - Chairman, President & CEO: Definitely, Dave, and thanks for the question. Obviously, we've spoken a lot about LNG, and we will, I'm sure, in the future. And I think at times, we don't get a lot of time to talk about the non-LNG sector, and it's a very important part of our portfolio, and it's very expensive as well in the equipment and solutions that play across a number of end markets, including the upstream, midstream, refining, petrochemical, as you look at the pipelines and various industrial and other end markets. And it's really the versatility of our equipment that not only goes into LNG but goes into these other end markets. And 1Q was evident of that. And as you said, tripled in 1Q versus prior year.
Q: And Lorenzo, sort of expanding upon that, I'd like to dig into maybe a little bit of what's going on in Saudi here. You touched on here a bit. Obviously, we saw the award we saw this quarter. But I'd be curious if you could talk about how you're differentiated versus your competitors on both the IET side and the OF
For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript.
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