New Britain, Connecticut-based toolmaker Stanley Black & Decker on Feb. 2 reported it’s 2022 fourth-quarter earnings, including $4 billion in revenue, which was “in line” with the same period a year ago. The flat quarter-to-quarter earnings followed a 9% annual increase the company reported in 3Q 2022, as many industrial distributors and manufacturers saw slowed growth to end the year.

Lower volume (down 10%), currency ( down 3%) and the previously announced Oil & Gas divestiture (down 1%) contributed to a flat 4Q, the company said.

For all of 2022, outdoor power equipment acquisitions, industrial segment growth and price realization helped send total-year revenues to $16.9 billion, an 11% jump over 2021, the company said. Stanley Black & Decker said it spent the latter half of 2022 attempting to streamline and simplify its organization, and that will remain a goal in 2023.

“In the fourth quarter we took another meaningful step forward on our journey to streamline and optimize Stanley Black & Decker,” said. Donald Allan, Jr., Stanley Black & Decker President & CEO. “We continued to focus on advancing our simplification and transformation strategy and in the second half of 2022 we improved customer fill rates, reduced inventories by approximately $800 million, and realized $200 million in efficiency benefits from our leaner organizational structure as well as enhanced cost controls.”

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The company said its results represent continuing operations and exclude the divestment of its Security assets in July 2022.

Inventory at the end of 4Q was $5.9 billion, down approximately $500 million from the prior quarter and down $775 million in the second half of 2022, a “reflection of improving supply chain conditions and benefits from our planned production curtailments,” Stanley Black & Decker said.

Gross margin for 4Q was 18.9%. Adjusted gross margin was 19.5%, down 950 basis points from prior year because price realization was offset by commodity inflation, lower volumes and higher supply chain costs, the company said.