Crane Holdings, Co. (NYSE:CR) Q4 2022 Earnings Conference Call January 24, 2023 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Jason Feldman - Vice President, Investor Relations

Max Mitchell - President and Chief Executive Officer

Aaron Saak - President and Chief Executive Officer, Crane NXT

Rich Maue - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Matt Summerville - D.A. Davidson

Damian Karas - UBS

Kristine Liwag - Morgan Stanley

Nathan Jones - Stifel

Operator

Greetings and welcome to the Crane Holdings Company Fourth Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the call over to Jason Feldman, Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Jason Feldman

Thank you, operator and good day, everyone. Welcome to our fourth quarter 2022 earnings release conference call. I'm Jason Feldman, Vice President of Investor Relations.

On our call this morning, we have Max Mitchell, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Rich Maue, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Aaron Saak, who is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Future Post separation Crane NXT.

We'll start off our call with a few prepared remarks, after which we will respond to questions. Just a reminder that the comments we make on this call may include some forward-looking statements. We refer you to the cautionary language at the bottom of our earnings release and also in our annual report 10-K and subsequent filings pertaining to forward-looking statements. Also, during the call, we'll be using some non-GAAP numbers which are reconciled with the comparable GAAP numbers and tables at the end of our press release and accompanying slide presentation, both of which are available on our website at www.craneco.com in the Investor Relations section.

Now, let me turn the call over to Max.

Max Mitchell

Thank you, Jason. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining the call today. Well, we had an exceptional end of 2022 with outstanding fourth quarter results. Fourth quarter adjusted EPS was $2.13, an increase of 63%, compared to last year. We have broad-based strong operational execution with core sales up 11% and we drove adjusted operating margins up 660 basis points to a record 18.6%.

On a full-year basis, adjusted EPS was a record $7.88, up 15% compared to last year, driven by 6.4% core sales growth and 220 basis points of margin expansion to a record full-year adjusted operating margin of 17.7%. Adjusted free cash flow of $395 million was also very strong and above the high-end of our last guidance range. As a reminder, last quarter we reaffirmed and tightened our adjusted EPS guidance range to $7.58 to $7.72 dollars with a $7.65 midpoint. At that time, we said that we felt that the high-end of guidance could only be achieved, if we had supply chain improvement and an ability to turn specific shipments quickly.