Toro Co at Robert W Baird Global Industrial Conference Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Tim Wojs - Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated - Analyst : Super. Thank you for that, Rick. If anybody has any questions, you can e-mail -- raise your hand or e-mail session2@rwbaird.com. So maybe just to start, I don't know if you want to -- you've got several different end markets that you kind of went through. You have golf, you have landscape, you've got resi those types of areas. Just can you maybe kind of run through the status of each one of those kind of right now and any of those -- any kind of differences in how you're kind of thinking about those markets?

Question: Tim Wojs - Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated - Analyst : Great. So one thing that's kind of happening, it seems like in your business right now, you kind of have some end markets like landscape where maybe you're going through a kind of destocking cycle, resi is kind of going through destocking cycle. And then you have other parts of the business like golf and underground where you've got backlogs where normally you wouldn't have backlogs, you've got higher lead times. So on that part of the business, could you just kind of talk about where lead times are in like a golf for an underground relative to normal? And how investors should think about kind of soft landing that backlog to something that's kind of more appropriate or what you would consider to be more appropriate over time?

Question: Tim Wojs - Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated - Analyst : Okay. Maybe just on kind of R&D. That's kind of your -- I know you mentioned a little bit about areas that you're focused on, that's been a big commitment that you guys -- Toro's done. I think you spent like $150 million, $175 million in R&D last year. It's probably bigger than some of your competitors. So I guess how functional or cross-functional is the R&D effort? Because you've got four or five different businesses, but it seems like themes,

Question: Tim Wojs - Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated - Analyst : Okay. How does the business model or the pricing kind of work when you think about new technologies, right? So if somebody is using battery, they're not paying for gas. If somebody's theoretically using autonomous, they're not necessarily paying as much for labor. So how do you -- how does that kind of change the price of your product or the economics of your businesses as these new products are adopted?

Question: Tim Wojs - Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated - Analyst : Okay. And then I guess, where are you in the various stages of adoption? And then kind of just like level set us on like where California and some of the legislative opportunities are and kind of how you're prepared for that?

Question: Tim Wojs - Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated - Analyst : Okay. Great. Maybe just topically, the election, kind of what are your kind of preliminary views on like your exposure to things like components and tariffs and those types of things? And then you do have industries that have labor populations that might come from certain areas of the world. And so does the election kind of change the labor equation for some of your customers? And is that an opportunity for Toro?

Question: Tim Wojs - Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated - Analyst : Any questions from the audience? From here. Unidentified Participant Great. On the underground business, how does that differ in terms of your total market distribution. Would you be making adjustments in the business in terms --

Question: Tim Wojs - Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated - Analyst : And maybe last question here, Rick. You are kind of embarking on this AMP program from a cost perspective. Just kind of maybe review what you're trying to accomplish. I think it's a $100 million cost program. How that kind of layers in cost wise over the next couple of years? And how do you think about reinvesting some of that?