Hubbell Incorporated (NYSE:HUBB) Q3 2023 Results Conference Call October 31, 2023 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Dan Innamorato - VP of Investor Relations

Gerben Bakker - Chairman, President and CEO

Bill Sperry - Executive Vice President and CFO

Conference Call Participants

Jeff Sprague - Vertical Research

Steve Tusa - JPMorgan

Nigel Coe - Wolfe Research

Brett Linzey - Mizuho

Chris Snyder - UBS

Joe O'Dea - Wells Fargo

Operator

Thank you for standing by. And welcome to Hubbell's Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call [Operator Instructions].

I would now like to hand the call over to VP of Investor Relations, Dan Innamorato. Please go ahead.

Dan Innamorato

Thanks, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Earlier this morning, we issued a press release announcing our results for the third quarter of 2023. The press release and slides are posted to the Investors section of our Web site at hubbell.com. I'm joined today by our Chairman, President and CEO, Gerben Bakker; and our Executive Vice President and CFO, Bill Sperry. Please note our comments this morning may include statements related to the expected future results of our company and are forward-looking statements as defined by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Therefore, please note the discussion of forward-looking statements in our press release and consider it incorporated by reference into this call. Additionally, comments may also include non-GAAP financial measures, those measures are reconciled to the comparable GAAP measures and are included in the press release and slides.

Now let me turn the call over to Gerben.

Gerben Bakker

Thanks, Dan, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us to discuss Hubbell's third quarter results. Third quarter results demonstrate continued execution off of strong first half and multiyear performance. Price realization remains strong as prior actions to offset inflation continue to stick in the marketplace, supported by our leading position and service levels in attractive markets. Additionally, improved productivity and lower year-over-year raw material costs also contributed to another quarter of significant operating margin expansion. As anticipated, we accelerated our investments in capacity, productivity and innovation initiatives in the third quarter to drive long term returns for shareholders. We expect that grid modernization and electrification will continue to drive GDP plus growth in our markets over the next several years, and Hubbell is uniquely positioned to solve these critical infrastructure needs for our customers in front and behind the meter. These investments we are making in the second half of this year will effectively position the company to capitalize on these visible growth opportunities through best-in-class quality and service as well as through the introduction of new products and solutions. More near term, we detailed last quarter how normalizing supply chain dynamics have enabled improved manufacturing lead times and allowed our channel partners to normalize their order patterns in response to more predictable product availability. This process continued into third quarter. Bill will walk you through more of the details in a few minutes. But overall, we continue to view this as a natural outcome of supply chain normalization.