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On Tuesday, 11 March 2025, Columbus McKinnon Corporation (NASDAQ: CMCO) presented at the J.P. Morgan Industrials Conference 2025, unveiling its strategic acquisition of Keter Crosby. This move aims to bolster its position in the intelligent motion solutions market, with both promising synergies and challenges in integration and market expansion.
Key Takeaways
- Columbus McKinnon announced the acquisition of Keter Crosby, forming a $2.1 billion intelligent motion solutions platform.
- The company expects $70 million in net cost synergies within three years, with significant focus on deleveraging post-acquisition.
- Columbus McKinnon aims to capture 20% of the $8 billion lifting market, leveraging industry megatrends.
- The company plans to mitigate tariff impacts through strategic pricing and resourcing.
Financial Results
- Synergies: Anticipated $70 million in net cost synergies over three years, with phased realization: 20% in year one, 60% in year two, and full synergy by year three.
- Free Cash Flow: Expected to generate approximately $200 million in the first year, with growth driven by synergy realization and EBITDA expansion.
- EBITDA: Pro forma adjusted EBITDA margin is expected to be in the mid-twenty percent range, with a trailing twelve-month adjusted EBITDA multiple of approximately eight times.
- Debt: Secured financing includes a $500 million revolver, with a primary focus on debt reduction using free cash flow.
Operational Updates
- Keter Crosby Acquisition: The acquisition is set to close quickly following financing and regulatory approvals, with HSR filing expected soon.
- Synergy Realization: Cost synergies to be achieved through procurement improvements, facility optimization, and SG&A savings.
- Geographic Expansion: Plans to utilize Keter Crosby’s APAC presence alongside Columbus McKinnon’s Latin America and EMEA reach.
Future Outlook
- Deleveraging: Strong emphasis on reducing leverage to approximately two times net leverage ratio.
- Strategic Focus: Continued growth in the intelligent motion category and enhancing customer value proposition.
- Market Trends: Positioned to benefit from reshoring, labor shortages, infrastructure investments, and sustainability focus.
- Tariff Management: Strategies include offsetting cost increases through price adjustments and resourcing.
Q&A Highlights
- Market Share: The merged entity is expected to control about 20% of the lifting market.
- Customer Sentiment: Positive feedback with robust commercial demand and opportunity pipelines.
- Capital Expenditure: Plans to optimize existing facilities and machinery to maximize benefits from the acquisition.
Readers interested in further details can refer to the full transcript below.
Full transcript - J.P. Morgan Industrials Conference 2025:
James Kirby, Analyst, JP Morgan: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is James Kirby. I cover industrials here at JP Morgan. Very excited to welcome the Columbus McKinnon team to the JP Morgan Industrials Conference. We have David Wilson, CEO Greg Russellowitz, CFO and Treasurer and Head of our Christy Moser.
I think David is going to kick off with presentation, and then we’ll have plenty of time for Q and A.
David Wilson, CEO, Columbus McKinnon: Thanks. Thanks, James, and welcome, everyone. We appreciate you joining us this afternoon. For those of you who are not familiar with Columbus McKinnon, we’re going to start with a brief overview of the business and our recently announced pending acquisition of Keter Crosby before we jump into Q and A. CMCO has been a leader in the material handling space for over one hundred and fifty years.
Building on this foundation, we’ve grown into a global leader in intelligent motion solutions with a carefully curated portfolio of assets that enable the precise movement and orientation of materials to solve our customers’ critical material handling needs. Four years ago, we set out on a transformation journey to scale our business and create platforms for growth with a holistic portfolio of solutions, further differentiating our business and delivering improved financial results. Today, we operate in a $20,000,000,000 total addressable market. Not only is our TAM growing and larger, but there are pockets that remain highly fragmented. We are generating significant free cash flow, which provides dry powder to reinvest in the growth and attractive cash on cash returns where we have multiple levers to drive scale.
Our free cash flow conversion in the business is typically around 100% annually, and we have a track record of investing in growth and deleveraging quickly to our targeted net leverage ratio of approximately two times. Our products are engineered to be professional grade and help our customers work smarter while improving the safety uptime and productivity of their operations. Our intelligent motion solutions combine equipment used to lift, move and position materials with industry leading controls and automation technology. Working together, this technology is helping our customers solve high value problems that are critical to their business. With scarcity of labor challenges, the need to improve productivity and ensure continuous uptime, we believe there is no one better positioned to help our customers automate and streamline their material handling needs.
That will be even more important as customers onshore in response to the impending tariff increases. As companies embrace AI to deal with scarcity of labor and optimize efficiency, we are positioning ourselves to be the connective tissue that links the digital and physical the virtual and physical worlds by precisely positioning materials to enable fully automated Intralogistics. Whether customers need a hoist, a linear actuator or a conveyance solution, we can simplify and automate their material handling and intra logistics processes. As we lean into vertical market selling strategies, we’re able to bring a more holistic suite of solutions customized to the needs of that end market. Our business operates across four product categories serving the intelligent motion needs of our customers across industries.
First, our lifting solutions business consists of products that lift and orient materials from above. This area includes our hoist and rigging products, which are very well known established brands with a broad range of lifting capacities from oneeight of a tonne to 140 tonnes, where we have a leadership position across key categories. Our Precision Conveyance business is our newest platform that supports the precise movement of materials and enables complex automation processes like robotics and the real world application of AI. We entered this category in 2021 with the acquisitions of Dorner and followed this with the acquisitions of Garvey and Montratech. This category provides exposure to vertical end markets with secular growth trends.
Our linear motion and specialty actuation solutions that push or lift and position materials up to 50 tons round out our product portfolio, serving the intelligent motion needs of our customers. Finally, all of those product categories are wrapped up in automation solutions for our product portfolio that increase uptime, enhance productivity and improve customer safety while enabling precise movement of custom materials throughout their facilities. As a small publicly traded company, we have a strong track record of M and A and are realizing benefits from improved scale. And as part of our eightytwenty process, we regularly review our portfolio. This has led to a few divestitures and is an ongoing assessment we regularly complete on our portfolio.
We have a proven track record of successfully integrating acquisitions and exceeding our original cost synergy estimates. Our previous acquisitions have been integrated into our base business and we’re excited about the long term potential of these businesses adding incremental value for our customers. Most recently, we announced our agreement to acquire Keto Crosby, a highly complementary deal that we believe will enhance our scale, market position and deliver top tier financial performance. For those of you who are not familiar with KetoKrozbe, they are a leader in lifting and securement products, including hardware and consumables with globally recognized brands in a manufacturing footprint across 50 plus countries. We have a long and great respect for KetoKrozby’s strong portfolio of offerings and we look forward to welcoming them to the Columbus McKinnon team.
Bringing together a complementary portfolio of assets focused on safety, productivity and uptime, we’re well positioned to deliver solutions for our customers. 54% of the portfolio is lifting securement and consumables, which are lowest ASP products that drive consistent replacement demand and are relied upon in mission critical applications, where safety is paramount and failure is not an option. Bringing our two businesses together, we are effecting a meaningful improvement in our scale. This is critical. That not only gives us a broader reach, but also combines the significant capabilities of both businesses to deliver and enhance value proposition to our customers.
Thus creating a scaled intelligent motion platform with over $2,000,000,000 in sales, enhancing our holistic offering in material handling solutions and increasing the resilience of our portfolio through geographic diversification and adding lifting securement and consumables to our portfolio in a meaningful way. We will be positioned to benefit from growth tailwinds developing from industry megatrends, including companies reshoring to reduce risks, stabilize supply chains and enhance logistics efficiency, workforce gaps and accelerating automation adoption across manufacturing and logistics aging U. S. Facilities modernizing to stay competitive and meet rising demand government spending driving automation in transportation logistics and smart infrastructure government spending, market growth driven by key secular trends, including near shoring, labor shortages, infrastructure investment and a focus on sustainability. It’s likely that these megatrends will accelerate in the current policy environment, and we are positioned to capitalize on the opportunities with great people, a more fulsome portfolio across a broader set of geographies.
With this combination, we’re creating a highly attractive financial profile, underscored by a doubling of our revenue, a tripling of our adjusted EBITDA and strong free cash flow generation. This financial profile is enhanced by approximately $70,000,000 worth of net cost synergies enabled by operational efficiencies and long term value creation that best positions us to capture a broader share of customer wallet. Finally, it’s important to drive home the point that our business is naturally cash flow generative, and that strong cash flow will enable swift deleveraging over the next few years, which will be our focus for capital allocation in the near term. Over the long run, this cash flow also gives us the financial flexibility to reinvest in our flywheel of growth. Acquiring Keter Crosby will enable Columbus McKinnon to accelerate the realization of our intelligent motion solution strategy faster than on a standalone basis, given the top tier financial performance, strong free cash flow generation and rapid deleveraging we anticipate following the completion of this transaction.
After we’ve successfully deleveraged, we will have a fortified balance sheet with significant free cash flow generation to move to more impactfully advance our intelligent motion strategy across a fragmented landscape of opportunities. When KKR decided to bring Keto Crosby to the market, it created a very unique opportunity to bring together two highly complementary and synergistic businesses that are much more valuable together than they are apart. The Keto Crosby business is a business that we know very well. While it’s a complementary portfolio, we serve many of the same customers leveraging similar supply chains and operating similar manufacturing processes on much of the same machinery. This gives us a high degree of confidence that we will successfully integrate the businesses and deliver on our synergy expectations.
Together, we will be better positioned than ever to deliver superior offering with our new products across a broader set of geographies underpinned by a synergistic combination that will deliver customer value and significant financial results. We will also participate meaningfully in the lifting, securement and consumables business, which is a more resilient segment of the market. This strategic business combination positions us to create value for our stakeholders. Industrial companies with similar profiles command higher valuations for their shareholders over time. As we execute on our near term objectives, delivering synergies and paying down debt, we expect to achieve attractive financial results and believe that there will be meaningful upside to our valuation over time.
Looking more closely at our net cost synergies, we expect to achieve $80,000,000 of synergies on a gross basis before adjusting for 10,000,000 of DISC synergies, given that we need to bring Keto Crosby to public company standards and expect some reinvestment will be required given they were owned and operated in a private equity environment for over a decade. In addition to our own analysis, we engaged a top tier consulting firm who specializes in synergy and integration work to independently validate our assumptions and findings. Cost synergies will come in three areas: procurement, where synergies will come through improved input prices given greater economies of scale and price harmonization facility optimization, realized through optimizing supply chain and factory logistics higher volume on standard runs with less machine change over times footprint simplification resulting in reduced facility overhead and optimized distribution and warehousing resulting in improved customer experience. Finally, SG and A savings, which includes the elimination of redundancies, overlapping technologies and third party spending. We expect to achieve the $70,000,000 in net annual run rate synergies over a three year period with 20% expected in year 60% in year 2100% in year three.
While not included in our modeling, we expect incremental benefits realized through revenue synergies given the complementary nature of our business combination, including bringing a more fulsome product portfolio to existing customers, attracting new customers with a broader integrated one stop shop portfolio, geographic expansion opportunities, for example, Keter Crosby’s APAC footprint leveraged by CMCO and CMCO’s Latin America and EMEA footprint leveraged by Keto Crosby, among others. In the first year alone, the business combination is expected to achieve approximately $200,000,000 of free cash flow. And our primary focus on that cash flow or for that cash flow will be to pay down debt on a quarterly basis to reduce leverage and accelerate free cash flow generation. Debt reduction, the execution of our growth and margin expansion plans and realizing our targeted synergies will collectively increase adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow further reducing net leverage. This is consistent with the approach we have successfully taken with prior acquisitions.
As you can see, following the Dorner and Garvey acquisitions, as well as our most recent Montratech acquisition, we have successfully deleveraged to below 2.5 times within a short period of time. This demonstrates our track record and highlights our conviction regarding our deleveraging plans and our plans to deleverage quickly as we integrate the Quito Crosby acquisition. We remain on track to close the Quito Crosby acquisition as expeditiously as possible following or from a financing and regulatory standpoint. We have secured fully committed financing and completed the syndication of that credit facility with the $500,000,000 revolver. We expect to pursue permanent financing in the coming months, but that process would not delay or prevent closing.
And we expect to submit our HSR filing in the coming weeks and to begin moving through the next stage gates to closing. Our combination with Keter Crosby is a highly complementary deal that we expect will drive compelling value creation for all of our stakeholders. This acquisition enhances our scale, market positioning and will deliver top tier financial performance. Bringing our two businesses together creates a $2,100,000,000 intelligent motion solutions platform with enhanced scale and leadership in material handling. It increases the resilience of our portfolio through geographic diversification and adding lifting securement and consumables.
Collectively, not only will we have scale, we will also have a top tier margin profile with adjusted EBITDA margin on a pro form a basis in the mid-twenty percent range, supported by strong standalone financial performance and approximately $70,000,000 of cost synergies expected by the end of year three. This business combination produces strong free cash flow, which will enable significant debt reduction following the transaction. And on a post synergized basis, the trailing twelve month adjusted EBITDA multiple is approximately eight times on a synergized basis. The acquisition of Quito Crosby will create significant value, strengthening our core business, which will allow for greater flexibility in the future to accelerate our strategy to grow in the intelligent motion category. We are focused on working towards closing and integration with an expected strong deleveraging as we capture cost and revenue synergies from the deal as well as an enhanced financial profile for Columbus McKinnon.
Thank you for your attention. I’m going to turn it back over to James.
James Kirby, Analyst, JP Morgan: So I wasn’t counting, but you said scale a lot in that. Yes. You know, Columbus McKinnon was the number one market share of hoist in North America before the deal. Mhmm. Quito was one of your biggest competitive peers.
Maybe any more color you can provide in terms of the consolidated market positioning in the lifting landscape?
David Wilson, CEO, Columbus McKinnon: Yes. So you saw in my reference to the TAM for lifting, it’s an $8,000,000,000 category. So $8,000,000,000 of market. And on a combined basis, when you look at the two businesses combined, I think in the pie charts in the appendix of the document that we produced, it shows that roughly 76%, around it, 80% of $2,000,000,000 on a combined basis, $1,600,000,000 roughly, is going to be our position in lifting, which approximates 20% of that $8,000,000,000 in TAM. And so we think on a combined basis, we’re kind of across different categories depends on how you slice and dice it, but we might be approximately 20%.
James Kirby, Analyst, JP Morgan: Got it. That’s helpful. I guess, David, since you’ve been CEO in 2020, the company was on a business transformation path away from a cyclical industrial legacy company. You oversaw the Garvey and MatchStack acquisition. Maybe just in terms of timing of this acquisition, from a strategic standpoint, why is now the right time for this?
Yes.
David Wilson, CEO, Columbus McKinnon: Thanks, James. And I’m going to talk about this first, I think, to address the first point you made, which is, yes, I joined the company in 2020, and we very quickly looked at the portfolio and assessed opportunities for the portfolio. We developed a strategy that said we were going to strengthen the core, grow the core, expand the core and reimagine the core, right? And that core includes lifting as a core as a very substantial, the largest part of our total business. We focused our early efforts as we look to diversify the portfolio and participate more in secular growth oriented markets in areas of precision conveyance after dissecting the landscape and looking for areas where we had a right to play.
And we identified those areas as key, and we’re very excited about those deals. They’re great deals and they’re adding value to the portfolio and will continue to over time. So we made the decisions to invest in Doerner first, then Garvey, then Montra Tech, diversified the portfolio, provided some new faster growing access, but we were looking and developing the core part of the portfolio, the lifting portion of the portfolio more from an organic perspective. KKR came to market with the asset. We’ve known this business for a very long time.
We looked at Crosby when it went to market ten years ago. When I joined the company, I had conversations with Yoshio Kido, who is one of the family members of the original founders who runs and was the CEO of Keto before its acquisition by Keto Crosby. These are businesses we had interesting, we knew of all along. Their combination in Keto Crosby and then their proposed sale by KKR was something that was of interest to us to understand at a minimum. And as we learned more, became very compelling from a value creation opportunity potential.
And from a timing perspective, that transaction sale timing kind of leads to why now, right? It was available. It’s kind of a once in a lifetime opportunity to put two companies together that are a very complementary, very synergistic, create a leading position from a scale standpoint, as we talked about, I’ve mentioned it a bunch of times, from a scale standpoint and a top tier financial profile. And that combination in combination with the cash flow generation properties of business will enable us to delever rapidly and have a business that is very well positioned from an intelligent motion solution strategy perspective. So this wasn’t so much a deviation from strategy.
This was in line with strategy, but a way to scale that core, strengthen and grow that core as part of the strategy that we’ve articulated for a very long time, create a very valuable portfolio in doing so, delever rapidly and have a more impactful potential to pursue that intelligent motion solution strategy over time in a highly fragmented set of landscapes once we get beyond that phase of delevering.
James Kirby, Analyst, JP Morgan: Got it. Makes sense. Is there any questions? I’ll keep going if not. If you maybe could just turn back to the slide, I don’t know if you have the power to the just the first pro form a, I guess, cash flow source and uses, which is really helpful.
David Wilson, CEO, Columbus McKinnon: I think you want to go more.
James Kirby, Analyst, JP Morgan: Yes. Thank you. So that’s year one, right, in terms of free cash generation of the $2.00 $2,000,000 I think it was the other slide maybe. Sorry. Sorry, I don’t want to keep making you play around
David Wilson, CEO, Columbus McKinnon: with the slides.
James Kirby, Analyst, JP Morgan: Yes, thank you. So that year one, dollars two zero two million, maybe how does that look for year two and year three? Are there any in terms of maintaining CapEx number for year two given what you see as the synergies with facility overlap, is that number going to come down? Or how should we think about any of the moving pieces there for free cash flow in year two and year three to hit your delevering targets?
David Wilson, CEO, Columbus McKinnon: Yes. We believe free cash flow will expand from year one to year two and then to year three. And there are specific drivers for that, that include this realization of synergies, the de levering, which reduces interest expense, the growth of the core business and increase of EBITDA translating to the bottom line from that. And we’re a CapEx light business. Their business is a CapEx light business.
There are certainly opportunities for synergies through facility capacity leverage, but they have like equipment, like facilities. So there’s an opportunity to leverage existing footprint, existing facility and machinery to get benefit from the combination. And so we believe that those numbers will expand over time. And Greg, if you wanted to enumerate a little further, I’ll hand it over to you.
Greg Russellowitz, CFO and Treasurer, Columbus McKinnon: Yes. So in the $2.00 $2,000,000 you can see on the third line where we’ve got synergies to be achieved. So as those synergies are going to be recognized, that extra $56,000,000 that’s going to show up in free cash flow by the end of year three. In addition, as we pay down debt, we’re going to see our interest, our cash interest go down. And so that will further drive it along with the EBITDA margin expansion from our existing programs.
For instance, we’ve got a major program underway now to consolidate facilities where there’s going to be probably additional opportunities with the combined companies just given the overlap that we have. So yes, we would expect this to grow over time.
James Kirby, Analyst, JP Morgan: Got it. And I think it’s worth noting in your assumptions there’s no revenue synergies. But given the product overlap, which is a lot in terms of maybe Quito, Crosby makes more shackles, but you guys are hoist and also make shackles. Is there it should be in terms of revenue synergies, how do we think about how much can be realized?
David Wilson, CEO, Columbus McKinnon: Yes. It’s interesting. We haven’t quantified that, so we’ve not gone out with a number. But there is a material level of opportunity when you think about the global reach of the company. And just looking at geographic footprint, Columbus McKinnon has roughly $50,000,000 of business that we sell into Asia, and a large portion of that is shipped in.
So it’s not manufactured in region for region. The infrastructure doesn’t really exist in region as fulsomely as we’d like it to. And Quito Crosby, on the other hand, has a business that approximates $250,000,000 in that region. And so they had and that’s in region for region, an infrastructure team, reach capabilities. And our ability to tap into that team’s strong capabilities and reach with product portfolio that is not represented in Asia for either company today is a terrific opportunity for us on a combined basis to grow the Columbus McKinnon portfolio.
Likewise, we have reached into certain geographies in Europe, as well as in Latin America and including in Europe, The Middle East, where we could combine and strengthen the Keto Crosby business, leveraging our roof line and reach and capabilities. And so that’s something that provides a nice opportunity for both businesses on a combined basis. You also think about where we serve customers today together, both companies serve the same customer. Our ability to create an increased value proposition for customers because we can become a more one stop shop, if you will, for that customer, We can create easier transactions, one invoice, a simpler method of ordering today from two companies and the future from one company. I think that ease of doing business, value proposition opportunity is material.
I also think as you look at areas where we want in the same geography where we both operate, each of us have access to different channels or different customer segments. The opportunity to bring products that aren’t yet represented in those categories is something that exists there too. So we’ve not put a number on that, but we think it could be material. And what we wanted to focus on was what’s in our four walls, what we can control and what we’ve demonstrated historically a strong ability to deliver on and frankly exceed with other acquisitions is where we sign up to deliver net cost synergies, and we’re going to go deliver those, and we’re going to pursue these opportunities that we know will be incremental and accretive over time.
James Kirby, Analyst, JP Morgan: Got it.
Unidentified speaker: Thanks. Thanks. As we think about the 30% pro form a Consumables as a percentage of sales, What’s the margin profile difference? Or is there one between consumables and the balance of the business?
David Wilson, CEO, Columbus McKinnon: Yes. It’s a the average ASP on those products and just to back up to the 30%. So the portion of Keter Crosby’s business that is in this category is 54%. Also in the prepared materials. We have a business that’s about 8% in the same category.
So on a pro form a basis or a combined basis, it approximates 30% or a little more than 30%. That portion of the business has a resiliency and an average ASP that’s $500 or less. These are shackles, hooks, other mechanical or manual related elements, mostly forged items that have risk of being shock loaded or worn or subject to exposure to either humidity or, so moisture, saltwater, and freezing temperatures, changes in temperatures that can change their characteristics and render them less, you know, less capable of managing loads under stress, right? And so the potential is that those end up being replaced because they’re low cost and they’re used in a very critical application. And so that by its very definition, high criticality, low price gives an opportunity from a margin performance perspective for that to be a high margin product.
And so that is the case in this product category. And it’s an opportunity to build up the Columbus McKinnon portfolio with a more resilient piece of business that is more of a consumable type business, less CapEx intensive, more MRO or simple low cost spend that has a resiliency and a margin profile that’s very attractive.
Unidentified speaker: So just to try to quantify a little bit, like are we talking 1,500 basis points better margin?
David Wilson, CEO, Columbus McKinnon: Yes. We haven’t disclosed the different margin profiles of the businesses. And so I don’t want to, at this stage, get into a process of doing that. But it’s an attractive portion of the portfolio with a nice margin profile. And when you look at the two businesses, what you see is that Quito Crosby’s business as a total business has a higher gross margin profile than Columbus McKinnon’s business does.
And 54% of its portfolio is driven by that portion of the business.
Unidentified speaker: Great. And then just in terms of market share, I know you said about 20% of the overall lifting market. Are there as we think about the Consumables portion of that market share, is the market share higher within Consumables within that subsegment?
David Wilson, CEO, Columbus McKinnon: I mean, the competitive landscape is pretty fragmented in all cases. There’s a large degree of competitors that are local and regional. It’s an evolving landscape with global competitors that have been entering the market. And so it’s hard for me to specifically quantify that break in this session. But it’s, I would say that it’s probably consistent, perhaps a little bit more.
Christy Moser, Head of IR, Columbus McKinnon: And the one thing I would point out is, you know, while there was a really strong consumables and hardware component of the Keto Crosby business, you know, it was a fairly smaller, fairly small part relative to the Columbus McKinnon business, you know, under 10%. So, you know, rounds out in aggregate to about 30, which is highly attractive. It’s a business that we frankly really like and we’ve been making inroads in. So this just really accelerates the journey bringing it together given the resilience and the, you know, superior kind of return profile of of that product category. So business that we very much like and so it brings us to scale, but I don’t think in an outsized way given that our original core business was in the single digits.
James Kirby, Analyst, JP Morgan: Great.
Unidentified speaker: Thank you.
David Wilson, CEO, Columbus McKinnon: Thank you.
James Kirby, Analyst, JP Morgan: Thanks. We have about three minutes left. We can go over since this is the last, but I won’t keep you guys here long. I know you guys have a long day. Maybe not to shift away from the acquisition, but you guys didn’t have a chance during your earnings call really to talk on the macro outlook.
That was about three weeks ago. Your short cycle orders were down. How are customer conversations going now that there is not some clarity, but maybe some guardrails in terms of what a tariff environment would look like? Greg, I know you were CFO during Trump one point zero. Any lessons learned there for the business?
Greg Russellowitz, CFO and Treasurer, Columbus McKinnon: Yes. So from a so first, when as it relates to tariffs, we have a page in the deck that actually quantifies what the exposures are, but we’ve done a really good job of offsetting the impact of cost increases, whether they’re tariffs or just general material increases with price. And we’ve got a long history of having price in excess of material inflation that goes back to when I started with the company. And with the initial tariffs with China, we obviously pass through those tariffs, but we also look to resource where we could and where it made sense product to other regions of the world. And our strategy is really around in region, for region.
And so we’re we’ll take the same approach. We’ll look to pass through pricing where we can, but we’re also sensitive to what we charge our customers. And we want to make sure that we make the best decisions with the highest quality subcomponents to protect our brand.
David Wilson, CEO, Columbus McKinnon: Yes. And James, just relative to customer sentiment, conversations are encouraging. There is real commercial demand, even if there is some financial markets disruption right now and a lot of news that’s coming out every five minutes it seems relative to what’s on and what’s off and how to react to that is something that people are trying to figure out. But what I would say is that when we entered this quarter and reported on Q3, we talked about how we saw softness in November and December, and we anticipated that, that would continue through the January like we typically does seasonally as we enter the first calendar quarter, and that things would accelerate business demand would pick up from there. And what I would say is that we see that demand continuing as expected, and that the conversations we’re having with customers regarding real short term and mid to long term opportunities, both on the more build to order product as well as configured and project related activity is encouraging.
And our partners, see a good opportunity that’s resulting in our funnels, our opportunity funnels being at near record levels across each one of our product categories. And we’re seeing conversion on those funnels begin to gain traction, which is encouraging.
James Kirby, Analyst, JP Morgan: Got it. I think that is just the time. So thank you, Colin and King, for coming. Appreciate it.
David Wilson, CEO, Columbus McKinnon: Thank you, everyone. We’re really excited about this opportunity and know that it will be a compelling transaction for the company and for everybody who’s invested.
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