Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: So something we've already touched upon, and this is this
Speaker 2: letter from sixty CEOs of Minnesota based companies. More than sixty,
Speaker 2: i should say, have called for an immediate de escalation
Speaker 2: of tensions between state, local, and federal authorities as the
Speaker 2: state is reeling from another fatal shooting of an American
Speaker 2: by immigration agents. The chief executive officers of companies They
Speaker 2: include Target, Best Buy, Land of Lakes, Cargil, General Mills,
Speaker 2: United Health Group, as well as professional sports teams including
Speaker 2: the Minnesota Vikings, among the signatories of the letter that
Speaker 2: was shared yesterday Sunday by the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce.
Speaker 2: We're laying that out for those who are watching on
Speaker 2: streaming and TV, just to get to the crux of it.
Speaker 3: Though.
Speaker 2: The open letter says, we are calling for an immediate
Speaker 2: de escalation of tensions and for state, local, and federal
Speaker 2: officials to work together to find real solutions. This is
Speaker 2: why Tom Holman is headed to Minnesota.
Speaker 1: Our next guest is head of a company in the
Speaker 1: great state of Minnesota. We're talking about fasten Now recently
Speaker 1: Reporter Earnings, the stock selling off on the day of
Speaker 1: the report, but rallying the day after the most in
Speaker 1: nine months. That trade reaction had us scratching our heads.
Speaker 1: So we're grateful Carol to have back with us to
Speaker 1: talk about the release of the Outlook. The CEO of
Speaker 1: the close to fifty billion dollar market cap company fasten Ow,
Speaker 1: Dan Flornes, is back with us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so delighted. Let's get to it. Dan, good to
Speaker 2: have you here. Happy New Year. We do love talking
Speaker 2: with you. We feel like we get a great read
Speaker 2: on the US economy, the manufacturing world. You've seen a
Speaker 2: lot in your career, and we want to get to
Speaker 2: all of this. But I really do feel like we'd
Speaker 2: be remiss to not ask you about what's going on
Speaker 2: in your home state. And I feel like those who
Speaker 2: are listening might be curious if you were asked to
Speaker 2: sign this letter of CEOs who want a de escalation
Speaker 2: of what's happening in Minneapolis specifically. So can you were
Speaker 2: you hear that this letter was happening or were you
Speaker 2: asked to sign it?
Speaker 3: Was?
Speaker 4: First off, Happy New Year, and thanks for allowing me
Speaker 4: to participate today. I was not aware of it. We're
Speaker 4: outstate Minnesota, We're about two and a half hours from
Speaker 4: the Minneapolis Saint Paul market, and so it's not uncommon.
Speaker 4: It's a pretty tight knit group up in the Twin
Speaker 4: Cities and was not aware of it going out with that.
Speaker 4: Sid was not surprised by going out and it seemed
Speaker 4: to be pretty common sense of Hey, that's style down
Speaker 4: the heat.
Speaker 2: So would you have signed it though, if asked.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would sign that.
Speaker 2: What's We talked so much about leadership at this time,
Speaker 2: and I am curious what you see as the responsibility
Speaker 2: of leaders in the United States when we see situations
Speaker 2: happening where it feels like and again I don't want
Speaker 2: to get political, I don't want to take sides, but
Speaker 2: it does feel like Americans are being what some would
Speaker 2: say is targeted unfairly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I think as a leader, one of
Speaker 4: our one of our tasks are to create some calm
Speaker 4: in the air. You know. I think back a few
Speaker 4: years ago when when COVID was going on, it seemed
Speaker 4: like every everybody, every day turned everything into a political thing.
Speaker 4: And sometimes it's the case of, you know, if you're
Speaker 4: around a bunch of people that that are high at
Speaker 4: risk in the case of COVID, put a mask on.
Speaker 4: If you're If you're not and you don't want to
Speaker 4: be there, then go someplace else, you know, same thing here.
Speaker 4: Let's try to dial the heat down and focus on
Speaker 4: what we're trying to accomplish, not how we can see
Speaker 4: who can be the most boisterous in the in the
Speaker 4: market of throwing ideas out and that that's not both
Speaker 4: sides of the of the fence, Dan.
Speaker 1: One thing that we're trying to figure out is getting
Speaker 1: a good read on the economy. And you guys have
Speaker 1: such a great read on it given that you touch
Speaker 1: so many sectors. I mean, if you're using nuts, bolts, screws, anchors, rivets,
Speaker 1: any kind of fastener, industrial janitorial safety supplies, you guys
Speaker 1: do it. On earnings, you mentioned the broader market conditions
Speaker 1: remained mixed. What exactly did you mean by that when
Speaker 1: you say mixed? What's the good? What's the bad?
Speaker 4: Well mixed. From the standpoint, we focus a lot on
Speaker 4: the Personing Manager's Index, okay, published by ISM, and that's
Speaker 4: been you know, sub fifty for thirty six of the
Speaker 4: last thirty eight months. So from the standpoint of the
Speaker 4: economy has not given us any lyft. We are getting
Speaker 4: good traction in the marketplace, and we finished out the
Speaker 4: last half of twenty twenty five with double digit growth.
Speaker 4: That's really an exercise of taking market share more than
Speaker 4: the wind is to our backs.
Speaker 2: And I know we've talked about this too, Dan with
Speaker 2: you about being in a prolonged downturn in the industrial economy.
Speaker 2: Any green shoots that you were seeing or signs of
Speaker 2: an inflection, and if so, I'm just curious what markets
Speaker 2: might you be optimistic and which are maybe running weaker
Speaker 2: than you anticipated, and maybe we'll canntinue to this year.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is a little bit an anecdotal answer, so
Speaker 4: I apologize for that. We're seeing in some of the
Speaker 4: published data some industrial production numbers improving late in the year.
Speaker 4: We aren't seeing that directly in our business, but for
Speaker 4: us November December is a seasonally week period, so that
Speaker 4: doesn't surprise me that we won't see it. So don't
Speaker 4: know if there's some green shoots there. I can tell
Speaker 4: you this from my travel if it's a business that's
Speaker 4: you linked to certain industries and data center is an
Speaker 4: example from a recent trip I had on the East
Speaker 4: Coast where I was visiting a mechanical contractor and their
Speaker 4: business was on fire and seventy percent of their activity
Speaker 4: was around data centers.
Speaker 2: So that's the good part, right, and that that's the
Speaker 2: good part that story. We keep hearing about the AI
Speaker 2: build out, the data center build out. You saw it firsthand.
Speaker 4: It's real, it's real, it's real. In fact, I had
Speaker 4: a I spent a big chunk of my time having
Speaker 4: conversations with our district leaders. We have about two hundred
Speaker 4: and forty district managers. They each run about a thirty
Speaker 4: five million dollar business. You had them all up, that's
Speaker 4: an eight billion dollar fastenal.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 4: I had a conversation with our team in Atlanta this morning,
Speaker 4: one of our district managers, and most of his discussion
Speaker 4: was about business pickup. He's seeing his market because of
Speaker 4: data centers.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: Atlanta is unique in that it's one of a handful
Speaker 4: that are really being impacted by that build up.
Speaker 1: What is the pricing power, Dan that the company has
Speaker 1: right now? Because historically during periods of inflation, you've been
Speaker 1: able to be pretty aggressive with price increases. I think
Speaker 1: people would argue you weren't as aggressive as you could
Speaker 1: have been in twenty twenty five. What's the barrier to
Speaker 1: pushing price more aggressively.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, the one barrier is the size of
Speaker 4: the customer, the nature of the products, how much of
Speaker 4: it is production centered versus maintenance centered. Because when it's
Speaker 4: production centered build business, you have customers buying a very
Speaker 4: large volume of narrow band of skews, and their price
Speaker 4: sensitivity is different than if it's MRO and they're buying,
Speaker 4: you know, one hundred dollars of this and one hundred
Speaker 4: dollars of that. You know.
Speaker 2: One of the things I want to ask you to
Speaker 2: there was a story on my read in this morning,
Speaker 2: Dan in terms of Volkswagen saying that they're going to
Speaker 2: the head plans for a possible out factory in the
Speaker 2: United States. They're not progressing due to President Donald Trump's
Speaker 2: tariffs and unsuccessful talks for local incentives. So we have
Speaker 2: certainly seen an administration that talks about all the investment
Speaker 2: money coming into the US, and I think we here
Speaker 2: at Bloomberg continue to try and figure out how much
Speaker 2: of this is actually going to play out. You can
Speaker 2: say you're going to invest, and then there's the reality
Speaker 2: of actually building facilities. First of all, tariffs, and I
Speaker 2: know we've talked about this with you in the past,
Speaker 2: and forgive me if I'm repeating, but you're thinking about outsourcing,
Speaker 2: how have tariffs changed that, especially when it comes to fasteners,
Speaker 2: I think primarily sourced from China and Asia. So I'm
Speaker 2: just curious how many of it's been shifting for you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you are absolutely correct, Most of the fasters
Speaker 4: in this country, in North America in general come from
Speaker 4: Northern Asia, China primarily obviously huge impacts. And for us,
Speaker 4: what it's meant is over about for about the last
Speaker 4: six years, seven years, we've been actively expanding our ability
Speaker 4: to import fasters because there's still not a lot of
Speaker 4: domestic production. And so when I think back to twenty eighteen,
Speaker 4: our primary sourcing entity was based in Shanghai with a
Speaker 4: secondary location in southern Taiwan. Today we have personnel in Bangkok,
Speaker 4: we have personnel in India, and that's where all of
Speaker 4: our growth and movement of sourcing personnel has occurred over
Speaker 4: the last seven eight years to just broaden our ability
Speaker 4: to be a little more agile and where you have
Speaker 4: source from depending on the geography it's going into.
Speaker 1: So that's on the sourcing side, but what about on
Speaker 1: your customer side? And about customers moving manufacturing back to
Speaker 1: the US. Are you seeing that happen or hearing discussions
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I guess you know anecdotally. Yes, I can't say
Speaker 4: that we've seen a tremendous influx. What I would say
Speaker 4: is I hear less about stuff leaving than maybe I
Speaker 4: would have, you know, ten years ago or five years ago.
Speaker 4: And that in itself is a win from the standpoint
Speaker 4: of production. But you know, a lot of it is
Speaker 4: folks are getting closer to where the end customer is
Speaker 4: for a lot of our customers. And so when I
Speaker 4: see customers expanding production facilities in North America, and I'll
Speaker 4: say more broadly than North America rather than just the
Speaker 4: United States, it's usually to service more efficiently the local market.
Speaker 2: Which makes sense, which we've seen that t and right happening.
Speaker 2: I feel like over time, Hey, Dan, you mentioned about
Speaker 2: maybe less companies leaving the US. Speaking of leaving, you
Speaker 2: are stepping down as CEO come July. You've been CEO
Speaker 2: since twenty sixteen, you were CFO before that, going back
Speaker 2: to two thousand and two. You've been there a long
Speaker 2: time and I know last time you were on I
Speaker 2: asked you a question about this cycle, and I was
Speaker 2: not very kind. I got yelled at by my team
Speaker 2: because I think I gave you twenty seconds, but I
Speaker 2: want to we do get yelled at.
Speaker 1: You get twenty five seconds now, no, no.
Speaker 2: No, you've got almost two minutes. How do you describe
Speaker 2: this cycle, because it's it feels unusual.
Speaker 4: Well, it's unusual in that, you know, you hear about everything,
Speaker 4: Whereas in years past there was so much of this
Speaker 4: political stuff that went on, but most of it, if
Speaker 4: you weren't in the midst of it, you were oblivious too,
Speaker 4: and you went around about your life. Now everybody hears
Speaker 4: about everything when it happen, So that's just a lot
Speaker 4: more noise on the flip side. What's really different is
Speaker 4: I mentioned on that conversation with the team in Atlanta
Speaker 4: this morning, we were talking about data centers, and one
Speaker 4: of the people on the call, he leads our business
Speaker 4: in the Southern US. He said, Hey, Dan, I'm gonna
Speaker 4: flip your something, and he punched in a bunch of
Speaker 4: questions and he came back with a twenty nine page
Speaker 4: report on the data center industry in the United States,
Speaker 4: and so I read through a bunch of it, it's
Speaker 4: actually pretty accurate and pretty good. I mean, there's stuff
Speaker 4: in that I could pick apart, but it's pretty good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, well, you know, Okay, Now.
Speaker 1: Dan still had to do the reading though it didn't
Speaker 1: read the report for him.
Speaker 4: So I probably would have. But I'm old school, I guess.
Speaker 2: Is that just quickly, I know, this is truly like
Speaker 2: thirty seconds. Is that the most transformative change you think
Speaker 2: we'll see of the next decade is just the continued
Speaker 2: impact of AI and things like CHATCHYPT and everything else connected.
Speaker 3: Just your quick thought on that, Yeah, because I mean,
Speaker 3: when I think of our business, we're selling tens of
Speaker 3: thousands of different parts to customers every day, and the
Speaker 3: ability to improve the visibility.
Speaker 4: For for folks sourcing all that stuff is an incredible
Speaker 4: efficiency tool.
Speaker 2: All right, Dan, come back soon, especially before you leave
Speaker 2: in the summer. Dan, Dan, thank you