Hubbell Incorporated (NYSE:HUBB) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call January 30, 2024 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Dan Innamorato - VP of IR

Gerben Bakker - Chairman, President and CEO

Bill Sperry - EVP and CFO

Conference Call Participants

Steven Tusa - JPMorgan

Jeffrey Sprague - Vertical Research

Tommy Moll - Stephens

Nigel Coe - Wolfe Research

Julian Mitchell - Barclays

Brett Linzey - Mizuho

Joe O'Dea - Wells Fargo

Nicholas Amicucci - TD Cowen

Christopher Snyder - UBS

Scott Graham - Seaport Research Partners

Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Hubbell's Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.

I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Dan Innamorato, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Dan Innamorato

Thanks, Phoebe. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Earlier this morning, we issued a press release announcing our results for the fourth quarter of 2023. The press release and slides are posted to the Investors section of our website 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, considered incorporated by reference to 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

Great. Good morning, and thank you for joining us to discuss Hubbell's fourth quarter and full year 2023 results.

Hubbell delivered a strong finish to an exceptional year. For the full-year 2023, we achieved 9% sales growth, over 500 basis points of operating margin expansion, and over 40% growth in operating profit and earnings per share. These results were driven not only by our strong positions in attractive markets but also by the consistent execution of our people and maintaining industry-leading service levels for our customers while driving price and productivity across our businesses.

Our strong financial performance also enabled us to invest back into our business and capacity, innovation, and productivity initiatives. We invested $165 million in capital expenditures in 2023, almost double our investment levels from 2021. We are confident that these investments will drive future growth and productivity for our shareholders, and as we will describe in more detail later, we intend to grow profitably off of a strong multi-year base of performance.