Watts Water Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:WTS) Q3 2023 Earnings Conference Call November 2, 2023 9:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Diane McClintock - Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Financial Planning and Analysis
Bob Pagano - President and Chief Executive Officer
Shashank Patel - Chief Financial Officer
Conference Call Participants
Mike Halloran - Baird
Adam Farley - Stifel
Ryan Connors - Northcoast Research
David Tarantino - KeyBanc
Michael Anastasiou - TD Cowen
Joe Ahlersmeyer - Deutsche Bank
Operator
Good morning. My name is Emma, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Watts Water Technologies Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] Diane McClintock, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Financial Planning and Analysis, you may begin your conference.
Diane McClintock
Thank you and good morning, everyone. Welcome to our third quarter earnings conference call. Joining me today are Bob Pagano, President and CEO; and Shashank Patel, our CFO. During today’s call, Bob will provide an overview of the third quarter and discuss the current state of the markets and our operations. He will also update you on our recent acquisition of Bradley Corporation. Shashank will discuss the details of our third quarter performance and provide our outlook for the fourth quarter and for the full year. Following our remarks, we will address questions related to the information covered during the call. Today’s webcast is accompanied by a presentation, which can be found in the Investor Relations section of our website. We will reference this presentation throughout our prepared remarks. Any reference to non-GAAP financial information is reconciled in the appendix to the presentation.
Before we begin, I’d like to remind everyone that during this call, we maybe making certain comments that constitute forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. For information concerning these risks, see Watts’ publicly available filings with the SEC. The company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
With that, I will turn the call over to Bob.
Bob Pagano
Thank you, Diane, and good morning, everyone. Please turn to Slide 3, and I’ll provide an overview of the quarter and our markets. We delivered another quarter with better-than-expected results, including record Q3 sales, operating margin, earnings per share and free cash flow. As a result, we’re raising our full year 2023 operating margin outlook. Organic sales were flat to prior year as we expected due to a tough comparison to a strong third quarter in 2022, where organic sales were up 12%. Strong growth in our Americas nonresidential core valve products was offset by double-digit declines in our gas connectors, radiant heating applications and commercial marine instrumentation.