Q1 2024 Integer Holdings Corp Earnings Call

Participants

Andrew Senn; Senior Vice President, Strategy, Business Development and IR; Integer Holdings Corp

Joseph Dziedzic; Chief Executive Officer; Integer Holdings Corp

Diron Smith; Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President; Integer Holdings Corp

Brett Fishbin; Analyst; KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc.

Matthew O'Brien; Analyst; Piper Sandler Companies

Craig Bijou; Analyst; Bank of America

Kristen Stewart; Analyst; CL King

Nathan Treybeck; Analyst; Wells Fargo Securities, LLC

Presentation

Operator

Thank you for standing by. My name is Kathleen, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the first quarter 2024 Integer Holdings Corporation earnings call. (Operator Instructions)
I would now like to turn the call over to Andrew Senn, Senior Vice President, Strategy Business Development, and Investor Relation.

Andrew Senn

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to Integer's fourth-quarter 2024 earnings conference call. With me today are Joe Dziedzic, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Diron Smith, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.
As a reminder, the results and the data we discussed today reflect the consolidated results of Integer for the periods indicated. During our call, we will discuss some non-GAAP financial measures. For a reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures, please refer to the appendix of today's presentation, today's earnings press release, and the trending schedules which are all available on our website at integer.net.
Please note that today's presentation includes forward-looking statements. Please refer to the company's SEC filings for a discussion of the risk factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially.
On today's call, Joe will provide his opening comments, and Diron will then review our adjusted financial results for the first-quarter of 2024 and provide an update on our full-year 2024 outlook. Joe will come back to provide his closing remarks, and then we'll open up the call for questions.
With that, I'll turn the call over to Joe.

Joseph Dziedzic

Thank you, Andrew, and thank you to everyone for joining the call today. We appreciate the sell-side analysts who have initiated coverage on Integer over the past year, and welcome Kristin Stewart from CL King, who initiated coverage of Integer. Last month, we had a strong start to 2024, with sales growing 10% year over year and adjusted operating income up 26%, our 2.7 times the rate of sales growth compared to the first quarter of 2023. In addition, our adjusted earnings per share grew 31% year over year and gross margin expanded 120 basis points versus first quarter 2023, primarily due to the execution of our manufacturing excellence initiatives and an improved supply chain and direct labor environment, we are reiterating our full year outlook.
We continue to expect sales growth of 9% to 11% and adjusted operating income growth of 13% to 20% versus 2023, a strong year-over-year increase. We are also confirming 2024 adjusted earnings per share of $5.1 to $5.43 and free cash flow of 85 to 105 million. The strategy that we developed in 2017 and began implementing in 2018 is now producing sustained above-market sales growth and margin expansion. We also continue to manage our debt leverage within the range of 2.5 to 3.5 times trailing four-quarter adjusted EBITDA, while executing our inorganic growth strategy. It is an exciting time at Integer because we have a strong pipeline of new products concentrated in faster-growing end markets. Our margins are expanding as a result of our manufacturing excellence initiatives, and we continue to acquire and integrate tuck-in acquisitions that add or compound differentiated capabilities. I am grateful for our associates around the world that are delivering for our customers and making a difference for patients.
I'll now turn the call over to Diron.

Diron Smith

Thank you, Joe. Good morning, everyone, and thank you again for joining our discussion today. I'll provide more details on our first quarter 2024 financial results and provide an update on our 2024 outlook. We started in 2024 with a strong first quarter's sales of 415 million, delivered 10% year-over-year growth on a reported basis and 6% on an organic basis, which excludes the impact of our recent in Morocco, impulse acquisitions, the strategic exit of the portable medical market and foreign currency fluctuations.
We delivered 81 million of adjusted EBITDA, up 15 million compared to the prior year or an increase of 22%. Adjusted operating income grew 26% versus last year, more than 2.5 times the rate of sales growth. We continue to make progress on our year-over-year margin expansion. First Quarter 2024 adjusted operating income as a percent of sales was 15.2%, which represents approximately 200 basis points of improvement versus a year ago. Adjusted net income for the first quarter of 2024 is 39 million, delivering $1.14 of adjusted diluted earnings per share of $0.27 or were 31% from the first quarter 2023, the MD. and CRM. and N. product line sales, which represent approximately 91% of our total sales continued strong year-over-year growth on a trailing four quarter basis in the first quarter of 2024. For our cardio and vascular product line, trailing four quarter sales increased 18% year over year with double digit growth across all C and D markets, driven by strong customer demand and sales from the America impulse acquisitions.
Cardiac rhythm management and neuromodulation. Trailing four quarter sales increased 12% year over year, primarily driven by double digit CRM growth from strong customer demand and double digit neuromodulation growth from emerging PMA customers further product line. Details are included in the appendix of the presentation on our website at Integer.net to provide more insight into our first quarter 2024 performance. We delivered 39 million of adjusted net income, up 10 million versus a year ago. Operational improvements, which include improved manufacturing efficiencies and operating cost leverage, delivered 10 million versus first quarter 2023, while improvements in our adjusted effective tax rate were more than offset by higher interest expense and slightly unfavorable foreign exchange. On a tax-effected basis, adjusted total interest expense was approximately $1 million higher than last year. This is primarily due to a higher average debt balance during the period, driven by funding for the acquisitions of NourishCo and PULSE technologies using our available revolver capacity.
Our adjusted effective tax rate was 18.1% for the first quarter of 2024 compared to 19.8% in the prior year. Our lower adjusted effective tax rate compared to the prior year was primarily due to discrete tax benefits recognized upon vesting of restricted stock units during the first quarter of 2024, we continue to expect our adjusted effective tax rate to be between 19% to 21% for 2024. As discussed in our previous earnings call, this is mostly driven by the recent adoption of the OECD. Pillar two framework by the EU member states establishing a minimum effective tax rate of 15% as well as the residual effect of the Malaysian tax holiday expiration.
In the first quarter 2024, we generated 23 million in cash flow from operations, up 17 million from a year ago. The improvement driven by higher sales volumes, improving margins and effective management of working capital was partially offset by higher annual bonus payments which are made in the first quarter of every year.
Our CapEx spend of 29 million in the first quarter is on track to our expected full year spend of 90 to 110 million as a result, free cash flow in the first quarter was a usage of $6 million. Net total debt ended at 1.1 billion for the first quarter of 2020 for an increase of $162 million compared to the fourth quarter 2023 ending balance. This increase was driven by the approximate $140 million acquisition of Pulse technologies in January of this year. Net total debt leverage at the end of the first quarter 2024 was 3.4 times trailing four quarter adjusted EBITDA, which is within our strategic target range of 2.5 to 3.5.
As Joe mentioned in his opening remarks, we are reiterating our 2024 outlook for sales, profit and cash, we expect to deliver sales in the range of 1,735 million to 1,770 million an increase of 9% to 11% versus last year with organic growth of 6% to 8%, which is 200 basis points above our underlying market growth rate estimate of 4% to 6%. In addition to our organic growth, we expect in Morocco and Pulse acquisitions, partially offset by the portable medical market exit to contribute 3% inorganic growth. We anticipate adjusted EBITDA of between 335 to 375 million, reflecting growth of 15% to 21%.
Similarly, we expected adjusted operating income to grow 13% to 20% to between 272,000,290 million at $281 million, which is the midpoint adjusted operating income as a percent of sales is expected to grow 91 basis points compared to the full year 2023, we expect adjusted net income between 171 and $185 million, which is growth of 8% to 18% compared to the prior year, with adjusted earnings per share of $5.1 to $5.43, which is growth of 34 to $0.76 versus 2023. First Quarter 2024 results were in line with our expectations. We further expect the first half of 2020 for sales to grow high single digit year over year, with sales continuing to increase throughout 2024 from new product introductions and emerging PMA customer growth. We expect adjusted operating income as a percent of sales to expand throughout the remainder of 2024, driven by continued improvement in manufacturing efficiency and sales growth, outpacing our growth and operating costs.
Similar to our outlook on profit and loss, we also reiterate our cash flow outlook and net total debt projections for 2024, we expect cash flow from operations between 185 to 205 million, which represents an 8% year-over-year increase at midpoint of outlook. Our outlook for capital expenditures remains at 90 to 110 million as we continue invest in organic capabilities and capacity. As a result, we expect to generate free cash flow between 85 and 105 million, inclusive of our approximate $140 million acquisition of Pulse technologies in January of this year, we expect our 2024 year end net total debt to be between 1,010,000,001 billion dollars 30 million, which is up 60 to $80 million year over year. We expect to end the year with our leverage ratio within our target range of 2.5 and 3.5 times trailing four quarter adjusted EBITDA.
With that, I'll turn the call back to Joe. Thank you.

Joseph Dziedzic

Thanks, Diron. With our strong start to 2024, we are reiterating our outlook of 9% to 11% sales growth and 13% to 20% increase in adjusted operating income. The execution of our strategy, both organically and inorganically, is producing results as we continue to demonstrate above-market sales growth with expanding margins. We remain focused on executing our strategy to create a premium valuation for our shareholders.
We will now turn the call over to our moderator for the Q&A portion of the call.

Question and Answer Session

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions) Brett Fishbin, KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Brett Fishbin

Yes, thank you. Just the potential impact of maybe some inventory build at customers that they were looking to reduce or take down. So just curious and looking across the different product areas, you might have seen some pockets where customers needed to actually take down their inventory before some of the ordering activity returned more than minus the underlying trends that we're seeing.

Joseph Dziedzic

Good morning, Brett. Thanks. Thanks for the question. On my I guess my immediate answer is we have an order book that's 900 ish million dollars. That gives us really good visibility of what our customers demand is. We have really good visibility and particularly in the second quarter and into third quarter. And so our guidance is based upon what customers are telling us they need in the near term based on actual orders come in.
We highlighted last year on the third quarter earnings call and year end earnings call that last summer we saw customers adjusting what we thought were adjusting inventory levels. We got some of the their supplier letters on inventory adjustments that they do. And when they oftentimes, we did do mass mass adjustments. And we what we're seeing and experiencing now is normal inventory management by our customers I think it's clear our customers, many of them have said that they are working to reduce their inventory levels. We've got all of that factored into our guidance. We think we started off the year with a strong first quarter of up 10%. And for the full year, we're confident in our 9% to 11% sales growth.

Brett Fishbin

I certainly know very helpful. And then maybe on the other side, in terms of the potential tailwinds, a lot of conversation around no emerging PSA product. So I'm just curious if there's any way that you could frame and maybe the contribution of some of those products to the trends we're seeing in cardio and vascular? And then maybe just around the broader electrophysiology subsegments and the contribution to the quarter and how you're thinking about it for the rest of the year as contemplated in the guidance? Thank you very much.

Joseph Dziedzic

So certainly, so we talked a lot about our we believe we have a very strong position in electrophysiology, everything from from access devices through diagnostics as well as the ablation therapy itself, where we're highly vertically integrated. We're on a number of new programs, and we're excited to support our customers and bringing new and innovative therapies in that space, in particular to the marketplace. We've experienced very strong electrophysiology growth last year. We had very strong growth in electrophysiology that continued into the first quarter, and we expect that to continue throughout the year. We have our best estimate factored into our guidance, and that's what we built in based upon our customers' ramp programs and their launch programs.
I would highlight our emerging customer emerging PMA customers. We increased the growth forecast for those customers at the end of last year or beginning of this year, which we had done in the previous year as well. We're excited about those new programs, many of them are in emerging neuromodulation therapies and applications. We have structural heart programs that are launching that we're excited about. So we're excited about a lot of the new products that we're launching with our customers. And that's the result of the focus we've had on getting designed into the faster-growing end markets and into the therapies that our customers are counting on to drive their growth. So we're excited about the last year's strong top line growth at 16% and this year, we think 9% to 11% on top of that continues to demonstrate the success of our strategy of partnering with our customers.

Brett Fishbin

Maybe definitely, I think one other thing that stood out to you quantified the two biggest segments are now over 90% of sales, but just given the magnitude of the decline in biomedical, just curious maybe if you could touch on what the key driver of that was and then we should think about it getting a little bit more toward I mean, I guess really how to think about it for the rest of the year, maybe sequentially compared to the baseline from 1Q?

Joseph Dziedzic

Sure. So we've given guidance on Electrochem, the non-medical segment that we expect 32 to 36 million of sales for the year, which will be a drag of 50 to 75 basis points for total Integer. You can do the math on a year-over-year basis in the first quarter, it was it was a drag of about 7 million. So almost almost 200 basis points in the non-medical segment. So medical segment in the first quarter was actually up 8.5% organically. You can see that in our press release and when we file the Q, we provide that level of detail on the in particular the first quarter and what we expect the first half to be down on a year-over-year basis, Electrochem had a couple of significant supply chain disruptions that suppress their sales back in the 2021, 2022 time period. And we recovered from those supply chain challenges and had a bolus of backlog orders that we fulfilled in late 22 and the early part of 23. So we've what we're seeing is we're seeing that normalize to what we expect to be a run rate for that business of 32 to 36 million for 2024. And then we would expect that to grow mid-single digits going forward.

Operator

Matthew O'Brien, Piper Sandler.

Matthew O'Brien

Thanks, for taking the question.
Just a follow-up a little bit more on the electrophysiology side of things. Joe, are you guys would you say you have the most exposure of any of your competitors to, as you know, growing PSA and dynamic that we're seeing in the market? And then do you have exposure across the board? Because I know there's a bunch of different companies developing products here or sorry, you'll be able to supply everybody or they just focus on a couple of companies. And I'm sorry for the long-winded question, but is it like the full catheter that you're going to be able to supplier just component of individual catheters.

Joseph Dziedzic

So thank Thanks.
Thanks for the question, Matt. Unfortunately, you know how much we would love to be able to tell you about the details of who we're supporting and what exactly we're doing for them. But again, I can't provide that level of granularity. Our customers don't want us getting in front of them talking about their their most exciting programs and products that are driving driving their growth. What I can say is we're highly vertically integrated We do everything from components to finished device delivery. It's obviously not we're not we don't have the same content on every device in the market and every device that's coming into the market. But given the breadth and depth of our capability, we can do anything for everyone on. But it is different customer to customer. And so there absolutely is the variable of who wins and who wins in the short medium and long term does affect us. But we have such a broad portfolio both in access, so think guidewires and guiding sheaths think the diagnostic catheters that are necessary as well as the ablation catheters. And so we are very strong in access and diagnostics that oftentimes can be more agnostic to the therapy itself. And so as the overall market grows, we grow with that. And then on the therapy, in particular, what we're designed into and doing for customers can have a bit more of the impact of who wins based upon what dollars per unit or what content on the bill of material we have with that specific customers. But as electrophysiology grows, we'll win because of our access delivery and diagnostic capabilities and how we're serving the market. And I'll just reinforce we had we had very strong growth in electrophysiology last year that continued into the first quarter, and we expect that to continue throughout the year.
Got it.

Matthew O'Brien

And then the follow-up question is on UNSi and B specifically, you had a tough comp here in Q1, it's still put up pretty good growth, but I think it's maybe just a little bit below what some folks were expecting. And so I'm just wondering with all the new PMA products that are coming and you anticipate a lot more contribution from from those products here in kind of the last three quarters of the year. And they have really strong performance out of that C and B business for the remainder of 24 or so.

Joseph Dziedzic

So CMBS grew a reported 16% for the first quarter.
We think that that's a pretty strong result given the broad mix of products and markets that we serve up 18% on a rolling four-quarter basis. We also have the acquisitions in there that are that are helping that. So obviously that that includes the benefit of those acquisitions. But even without that on an organic basis and we still grew high single digits. So very, very strong results for the CME business, and we would expect CMV to continue to grow throughout the year and continue to add new programs launched across structural heart electrophysiology. And as we get the commercial synergies from the pulse of the neuro go acquisitions, although that won't necessarily be organic this year because of the time of the acquisition. But that's a fuel organic growth when we get into 25 and beyond.

Operator

Craig Bijou, Bank of America.

Craig Bijou

Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. So another one on the EP business and <unk>, I recognize that you guys don't provide a lot of color on customers. But if you look at the business that you have today in the aggregate? I mean, is there any way too quantify or directionally give some color on that portion of the business that's components versus full catheters today? And then how how does that change with with the new PFA launches? I believe you guys have said that you could see more content and in the aggregate on PFA devices versus your existing portfolio?
Yes.

Joseph Dziedzic

Great. Great. Great question. Thank you on. So I would start with we're strong in components and assembly and assembly. You can think of that from from a few components to a significant number.
We did.
We do have finished device capability. We do finished devices today, but the majority of our business is going to be in components and subassembly of those components are our customers oftentimes want final device assembly. We've said that consistently, but there aren't there are absolutely finished devices that we're doing today. But as we move into new programs, we are always working to take advantage on our vertical integration to help customers accelerate their speed to market, give them the synergies of having more of the device under under one company, one roof one supplier so that they have fewer people to work with, which is the benefits, the strategic advantage of vertical integration. So we are always working to get a higher percentage of the bill of material and have more components on the device. And so and that's our strategy is with every next-generation device to get a higher percentage of the bill material.
Great.

Craig Bijou

That's helpful. And on operating income growth, obviously was pretty strong at 26% in Q1, but you didn't change the guide for the year, which implies a bit of a slowdown or less leverage, if you will. So is it simply conservatism or are there are there things that we should be considering as you're moving through throughout the year that that may affect the amount of leverage you guys can deliver?

Joseph Dziedzic

Sure, Dave, thanks for noting 26% is a very strong quarter like last year, I'll start with 2023. We got progressively better throughout the year. On the margin rate, you can see the adjusted operating income grew every quarter on a sequential basis. And so if you look at 2023 by quarter, the first quarter was the lowest. The fourth quarter was the highest. We would expect that pattern and that trend to repeat itself throughout 2024.
I'll point to the supply chain environment has continued to improve. And if you compare where we are today to where we were last year, we are significantly better. The number of disruptions has reduced significantly and the impact of those has reduced significantly. We talked about the direct labor turnover that we had some significant turnover challenges in 2022. In particular, we got better throughout the year 2023. That trend has continued into 2024. Our direct labor turnover continues to improve and that has helped us drive that margin expansion. And so we would expect throughout 2024 to be able to sequentially grow both sales and profit on a sequential basis which is consistent with the pattern last year. So the comps, the comps, obviously, as you get better sequentially, the comps get tougher as the year goes. So I would just point to look at look at the quarter splits last year and think about the pattern of growth at the high end of our guidance. We're growing profit 1.9 times the sales rate of sales midpoint one seven, we think we think 13% to 20% profit growth for the year is very strong, and we're excited to get off to a great start in the first quarter with 26%, what was the first quarter.

Craig Bijou

Got it. Helpful. If I can just squeeze one more in on PFA., I think you said that it's included that you've included your best estimates in your guidance. What would have to happen from PFA. or NPFA. for you guys to see upside to your guide this year?

Joseph Dziedzic

Yes, I think I'll answer that by saying if you think about what we do for our customers, we manufacture components, sub-assemblies and finished devices and if it's a component or subassembly, it gets shipped to one of our customers' manufacturing plants. They then build that into a product. They then put that into their distribution channel and then it goes into a procedure. And so what would have to happen is our customers would have to place significantly more orders into our order book and increase their manufacturing plans to drive incremental volume on us. And so you think about what when we build a product in the second quarter of 2024, that's not going into a procedure until the second half of 24 and maybe even not until early 2025. And so if you just got it, you got to think about the demand on us relative to procedure volume timing. And so if customers increase their manufacturing and they increase their orders on us, and then we'll deliver that for them. And given our primarily sole source nature we ultimately get whatever their end market demand is.

Craig Bijou

Got it.

Operator

Kristen Stewart, CL King.

Kristen Stewart

Congratulations on a good quarter and thanks for taking my question. I was wondering if you could just share a little bit more further details on in neuro and Pulse technologies, how they performed in the quarter and expectations for the year? And then any update on your thinking on M&A perspective?

Joseph Dziedzic

Certainly. So NourishCo I paused are off to great starts. They both had strong first quarters on its own. It's always good when when they come out and meet or exceed the plans that you have for them in the first couple of quarters, we're seeing we're seeing operational synergies say that there are benefits and things we learn from how they operate. We think we've been able to share some of the things we do, but it's very much been a two way sharing, and we believe we're going to see synergies operational synergies in the year.
From a commercial standpoint, we have a strong pipeline of conversations and activities with customers that we believe is going to going to help us accelerate those businesses. And we're very excited about having them to be part of part of Integer, the integration process is well underway and we're excited about what they bring and bring to the business. And we expect to see organic growth accelerate from those two businesses when we get into 2025?

Kristen Stewart

And then just thoughts on the M&A landscape.

Joseph Dziedzic

Sorry of this. Mr. second part, we continue to curate a number of opportunities in our pipeline. We never stop that process. The variable really is when do we have the debt leverage capacity to be able to do an acquisition? We ended the first quarter at 3.4 times leverage, and that's after the two acquisitions in October of last year and January of this year. So we're well within our strategic range of 2.5 to 3.5 times based on cash flow and or an EBITDA growth, we would expect to have more capacity in the second half of the year.
The continuing to do the tuck-in acquisitions, while maintaining that leverage on. We think we've got we've got a competitive advantage in being able to curate the opportunities for these tuck-ins with founder-led or individual home businesses. And we'll continue to execute the strategy that we think has been working well for us.

Operator

Nathan Treybeck, Wells Fargo.

Nathan Treybeck

Thanks for taking the question, Joe. Just a high level question.
How are you thinking about your long-term outlook?
You know, 4% to 6% market growth plus 200 basis points above this. You had said this framework several years ago, and it seems maybe this could have changed the new industry developments like PSA and the tricuspid therapies. Could this potentially mean a higher structural growth rate for your business?

Joseph Dziedzic

That's a great.
Great, great. Great question, Nathan. And I would say absolutely the ultimately over time as the mix of the business shifts into a higher percentage in the faster-growing end markets that we've been targeting, we would absolutely expect the the way I'm Gur, if you will, the weighted average market growth rate of our sales mix to increase of the market growth. Because when we define market growth, we use our sales mix. So I absolutely would expect over time as the amount of sales we have in electrophysiology and structural heart, neuromodulation and neurovascular, that's what absolutely increase our Win Bigger. And with that, having having 80% of our development programs that we're working with customers on in those targeted growth markets will absolutely lead to that faster way under what it will also do is it'll it'll continue that pipeline of new programs that allow us to stay at least 200 basis points above that Lam group because that's that's our ultimate measure of success is are we growing faster than the market. That's how we know that we're winning. So it's a great, great point. And yes, over time, the mix of sales will absolutely lift the longer of the business, which will lift the total, say, organic sales growth rate.

Nathan Treybeck

Okay, thanks for that. And how are you thinking about gross margin in 2024? Can you talk about the cadence relative to the 20% in Q1. You previously talked about pricing being flattish in 2024, but are you able to take price to offset any lingering inflation?

Joseph Dziedzic

So we are pricing through that through the year is largely established, but there still will be will be some pockets of opportunity as the year progresses. But we're we're comfortable with where we are on the flat flattish pricing for 2024. And we would we would expect to see some continued gross margin improvement throughout the rest of the year, where at midpoint we're at 91 basis points of operating margin, adjusted operating income margin improvement. And we would expect some of that to come from gross margins. But we also work very hard to control the operating expense, SG&A and the R&D expense that we keep after after that are recovering some from our customers, we'll work to get that operating expense leverage as well. So we would expect that to come from both gross margin and operating leverage.

Nathan Treybeck

Okay.

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Joanne Wuensch, Citigroup.

And this is fully bill more on for Joanne. I'm just quickly, I was wondering if you could just touch on like that and just how like internal and external investments are that you're making to build out the portfolio, I guess, how you're seeing consolidation of share across your customers as you kind of expand your portfolio? Thank you.

Joseph Dziedzic

But certainly, if the question's about an internal and external investment. I point to the CapEx investments that we're spending this year, which is still at a slightly elevated level because of the two Irish facility expansions that we've talked about on maybe from a CapEx timing, I would expect the first half CapEx to be high in the second half to step down because we take possession of the those two facilities up middle of this year. And so we will have finished the build-out of those facilities.
So CapEx, from a run-rate standpoint, I'll step down in the second half. You can see that first quarter is at a higher than average level from an external investment. If you mean the acquisition or in our inorganic and the two acquisitions we just closed, we're very excited about and we would expect to have more debt capacity as we get into the second half of the year.
And maybe there's a question about what we're seeing with customer or supplier consolidation. We continue to see our customers and hear from them that they want. They want fewer, stronger, more strategic partner suppliers. We think we think that plays to our strengths we think we're incredibly well positioned to help them consolidate the supply chain, whether it's through the acquisitions or whether it's through continued vertical integration, even if we're not doing a finished device, vertically integrate, integrating components and doing subassemblies or a significant portion of the of the device from an assembly standpoint gives us for vertical integration capabilities that are we view a competitive advantage, and we think it enables us to accelerate our top line while helping our customers execute their strategies.
Great. And then on operating margins, I mean, you were able to expand margins about 200 bps in the quarter. And I'm just wondering like where did you have the most success and where do you see the most room for opportunity for the rest of the year, certainly, well, it was it was a combination of the improving supply chain and direct labor turnover enabled us to recover some of the inefficiencies while while also now annualizing some of the prices to pass through the inflation pass-through that we did last year. And as the supply chain and labor environment continues to stabilize, we're working some of those inefficiencies out. And I would also just point out that we don't expect to have 26% growth in operating profit for the year that 13% to 20% remains our estimate for the year, and it's really every week every quarter into 2023. On a sequential basis, we improved our operating profit and our margin rate, and we would expect to see that continuous improvement throughout 2024 as well. So we are working on that steady continuous improvement approach and would expect 2024 to follow a similar pattern.

Operator

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference back over to Anderson for closing remarks.

Andrew Senn

Okay, great. Thank you everyone for joining the call today. As always, you can access the replay of this call on our website as well as the presentation that we just covered. Thank you for your interest in Integer. And that concludes our call.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.