Time will tell but the initial "Trump bump" in stock price from the election will likely fade when Q1 results become public. The price spike works out well for a small number of execs and board members who get to cash in before the holidays. For the rank and file, not so much holiday cheer.
What's Blake going to say on the next earnings call? Weakness in end user demand? Distributors working through excess inventory build up due to covid?
You'll likely get a couple "recurring revenue" growth comments. Thanks Lifecycle services...
What won't be discussed - topline growth contributions and margin expansion from acquisitions. You'll get one or two "strategic wins" in from the quarter but no real depth. Based on Automation Fair, you probably won't hear about a slew of new and differentiated products/services coming to market either.
It would be interesting to hear a sell side analyst question the dividend coverage ratio based on all the acquisitions and shrinking topline. Share buybacks, increased quarterly dividends coupled with a declining sales forecast don't paint an optimistic picture for employees.
What you should brace for is - "we continue to take long-term programmatic steps to reduce cost and improve margins." Hope to be wrong but ROK leadership has proven completely untrustworthy based their actions over the last 24 months.
Remember that time during covid when you took reduced salary, less hours, or were furloughed in an effort to "share the pain" and avoid mass layoffs? Blake talked about the need to protect employees because it takes a long time to develop the skilled workforce ROK needs. Then a "leaders" who never stepped on a production floor or wore PPE got hired from IBM, Accenture, Oracle... How's that working out for growing topline? Some of these "leaders" are now gone but the damage is done.
Arrogant and ineffective leadership cost many good people their livelihood and is contributing to the erosion of partner and customer relationships in the key north american market.
Guess you can say "we had to make some tough business decisions" or "that's how capitalism works." Blake's recent payouts are a sad testament to what Rockwell has become. Its shameful because the company was a place to be proud of not too long ago.
If leadership in an organization treats its employees this way, how well do they treat their customers and business partners? They just got paid, their long term incentive programs are intact, and nothing is changing about it.