The Middleby Corporation (NASDAQ:MIDD) Q2 2024 Results Conference Call August 1, 2024 11:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Timothy FitzGerald - Chief Executive Officer
James Pool - Chief Technology Officer & Chief Operations Officer
Bryan Mittelman - Chief Financial Officer
Steve Spittle - Chief Commercial Officer
Conference Call Participants
Mig Dobre - Baird
Brian McNamara - Canaccord Genuity
Jeff Hammond - KeyBanc Capital Markets
Tim Thein - Citigroup
Tami Zakaria - JPMorgan
Walt Liptak - Seaport Res
Operator
Good day, and thank you for joining us for The Middleby Second Quarter 2024 Conference Call. With us today from management are CEO, Tim FitzGerald; CFO, Bryan Mittelman; Chief Technology and Operations Officer, James Pool; Chief Commercial Officer, Steve Spittle; and Vice President of Investor Relations, John Joyner.
We will begin the call with the opening remarks, then open the lines for questions. [Operator Instructions]. Please note this event is being recorded.
I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. FitzGerald. Please go ahead.
Timothy FitzGerald
Good morning, and thank you for joining us today on our second quarter earnings call. As we begin, please note, there are slides to accompany the call on the Investor Relations page of our website.
We are pleased with the performance of our second quarter as we posted strong profitability despite revenue declines versus 2023, reporting margin expansion at both our commercial Foodservice and our food processing businesses. In our Residential business, we demonstrated margin improvement from the first quarter while we continue to navigate the disrupted housing market, which remains at near all-time lows.
We were also pleased to report another record quarter in operating cash flow, both for the quarter and the first half of 2024. Cash flows generated by our business have normalized following the disruption from supply chain, and we have rapidly reduced our leverage over the past year. While at the same time, making investments in critical strategic and operational initiatives positioning us for the future. Although, we reported Q2 revenue declines versus the prior year, orders trended positive in the quarter, and we realized order growth at all 3 businesses in comparison to the prior year.
Activity levels have generally improved with the order quoting and projects in the pipeline. We're also excited to see the interest in our many new product innovations across all our businesses. Although we are well positioned, we remain cautious given macroeconomic factors, including high interest rates, and the impact of inflation on the consumer, which continues to present a challenging backdrop carrying into the second half of the year.