Dover (DOV) Risk Factors

Approximately 44% and 43% of our revenues for 2023 and 2022, respectively, were derived outside the United States and we expect international sales to continue to represent a significant portion of our revenues given our global growth strategy. As a result of our international operations and our global expansion strategy, we are subject to various risks, including: opolitical, social and economic instability and disruptions;ogovernment import and export controls, economic sanctions, embargoes or trade restrictions;othe imposition of duties and tariffs and other trade barriers and retaliatory countermeasures;olimitations on ownership and dividend of earnings;otransportation delays and interruptions;orisk to theft of proprietary information and/or intellectual property;olabor unrest and current and changing regulatory environments;o widespread public health crises, such as a pandemic or epidemic;oincreased compliance costs, including costs associated with disclosure requirements and related due diligence;othe impact of loss of a single-source manufacturing facility;odifficulties in staffing and managing multi-national operations;olimitations on our ability to enforce legal rights and remedies; o potentially adverse tax consequences; andoaccess to or control of networks and confidential information due to local government controls and vulnerability of local networks to cyber risks. If we are unable to successfully manage the risks associated with expanding our global business or adequately manage operational risks of our existing international operations, the risks could have a material adverse effect on our growth in geographic markets, our reputation, our consolidated results of operations, financial position and cash flows.

Our businesses or operations may be adversely affected by natural or human-induced disasters including, but not limited to, earthquakes; tsunamis; floods; hurricanes, cyclones or typhoons; fires; other extreme weather conditions; power or water shortages; telecommunications failures; materials scarcity; terrorist acts, civil unrest, conflicts or wars; and health epidemics or pandemics. The occurrence of any such event, and the measures taken in response thereto, may disrupt the global economy and adversely impact our operations, including demand for our products across multiple end-markets as well as our supply chain and operations. Existing insurance coverage may not provide protection for all of the costs that may arise from such events. Additionally, concerns over the economic impact of such events could cause increased volatility in financial and other capital markets, adversely impacting our stock price, our ability to access the capital markets, and our ability to fund liquidity needs. The impacts of any such unexpected event are difficult to predict but could have a material adverse effect on our businesses, financial condition, or operations.

The success of new and improved products, digital solutions and support services depends on their initial and continued acceptance by our customers. Certain of our businesses sell in markets that are characterized by rapid technological changes, frequent new product introductions, changing industry standards and corresponding shifts in customer demand, which may result in unpredictable product transitions, shortened life cycles and increased importance of being first to market. Failure to correctly identify and predict customer needs and preferences, to deliver high quality, innovative and competitive products to the market, to adequately protect our intellectual property rights or to acquire rights to third-party technologies, to provide adequate data security and privacy protections and to stimulate customer demand for, and convince customers to adopt new products, digital solutions and support services could adversely affect our consolidated results of operations, financial condition and cash flows. In addition, we may experience difficulties or delays in the research, development, production or marketing of new products, digital solutions and support services which may prevent us from recouping or realizing a return on the investments required to continue to bring new products and services to market.

Our businesses own patents, trademarks, licenses and other forms of intellectual property related to their products and continuously invest in research and development that may result in innovations and general intellectual property rights. Our businesses employ various measures to develop, maintain and protect their intellectual property rights. These measures may not be effective in capturing intellectual property rights, and they may not prevent their intellectual property from being challenged, invalidated, or circumvented, particularly in countries where intellectual property rights are not highly developed or protected. Unauthorized use of our businesses' intellectual property rights could adversely impact the competitive position of our businesses and could have a negative impact on our consolidated results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.

Although we have several processes and procedures in place designed to manage and mitigate cybersecurity risk, our business is still subject to certain risks. We depend on our own and third party information systems, including cloud-based systems and managed service providers, to store, process and protect our information and support our business activities. We also use third party systems to support employee data processing for our global workforce and to support customer business activities, such as transmitting payment information, providing mobile monitoring services, and capturing operational data. Additionally, some of our products contain integrated hardware and software and offer the ability to connect to networks. While we have measures in place that are designed to protect these systems, these systems have been and are expected to continue to be the target of cyber attacks. Although we conduct security assessments and periodic re-assessments of third party partners and other service providers, our systems may also experience vulnerabilities from third-party or open source software code that may be incorporated into our own or our vendors' systems. Any prolonged system disruption in our systems or third-party services could negatively impact the coordination of our sales, planning, and manufacturing activities, which could harm our business. Our business has both an increasing reliance on systems and an increasing digital footprint as a result of changing technologies, connected devices and digital offerings, as well as expanded remote work policies. If these technologies, systems, products or services are damaged, cease to function properly, are compromised due to employee or third-party contractor error, user error, malfeasance, system errors, or other vulnerabilities, or are subject to cybersecurity attacks, such as those involving denial of service attacks, unauthorized access, malicious software, ransomware, or other intrusions, including by criminals, nation states or insiders, our business may be adversely impacted. The impacts could include production downtimes, operational delays, and other impacts on our operations and ability to provide products and services to our customers; compromise of confidential, proprietary or otherwise protected information, including personal information and customer confidential data; destruction, corruption, or theft of data or intellectual property; manipulation, disruption, or improper use of these technologies, systems, products or services; financial losses from fraudulent transactions, remedial actions, loss of business or potential liability; adverse media coverage; legal claims or legal proceedings, including regulatory investigations, actions and fines; and damage to our reputation. We regularly assess our threat landscape and monitor our systems and other technical security controls, maintain information security policies and procedures, including a breach response plan, ensure maintenance of backup and protective systems, and have a team of security personnel managing our efforts and initiatives. However, there has been a rise in the number of cyberattacks targeting confidential business information generally and in the manufacturing industry specifically, as well as an increase in cyberattacks targeting managed service providers, by both state-sponsored and criminal organizations. Moreover, there has been a rise in the number of cyberattacks that depend on human error or manipulation, including phishing attacks or schemes that use social engineering to gain access to systems or perpetuate wire transfer or other frauds. These trends increase the likelihood of such events occurring as well as the costs associated with protecting against such events. It is possible for vulnerabilities in our systems to remain undetected for an extended period of time up to and including several years. We attempt to mitigate these risks by employing a number of measures, including employee training, systems monitoring and other technical security controls, vulnerability scanning, risk assessments, a breach response plan, maintenance of backup and protective systems, and security personnel. Notwithstanding those measures, our systems, networks, products and services remain potentially vulnerable to known or unknown cybersecurity attacks and other threats, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our consolidated results of operations, financial condition and cash flows. We continuously monitor and develop our systems to protect our technology infrastructure and data from misappropriation or corruption. However, a cybersecurity attack could persist for an extended period of time before being detected, and, following detection, it could take considerable time for us to obtain full and reliable information about the extent, amount and type of information compromised. During the course of an investigation, we may not know the full impact of the event and how to remediate it, and actions, decisions and mistakes that are taken or made may further increase the negative effects of the event on our business, results of operations and reputation. While we maintain insurance coverage that is intended to address certain aspects of cybersecurity risks, such insurance coverage may not cover all losses or all types of claims that arise. As cyber threats continue to evolve, cybersecurity and data protection laws and regulations continue to develop in the U.S. and globally, and our business continues to move towards increased online connectivity within our information systems and through more Internet-enabled products and offerings, we expect to expend additional resources to continue to build out our compliance programs, strengthen our information security, data protection and business continuity measures, and investigate and remediate vulnerabilities. For additional information on our cybersecurity risk management, strategy and governance, see Item 1C. "Cybersecurity."

Our businesses' domestic and international sales and operations must comply with a wide variety of laws, regulations and policies (including environmental, employment and health and safety regulations, data security laws, data privacy laws, export/import laws, tax policies such as export subsidy programs and research and experimentation credits, carbon emission regulations, energy efficiency and design regulations and other similar programs). These laws, regulations and policies are complex, change frequently, have tended to become more stringent over time and may be inconsistent across jurisdictions. Failure to comply (or any alleged or perceived failure to comply) with any of the foregoing could result in civil and criminal, monetary and non-monetary penalties as well as potential damage to our reputation and disruption to our business. We cannot provide assurance that our costs of complying with new and evolving regulatory reporting requirements and current or future laws will not exceed our estimates. Any of these factors could adversely affect customer demand, our relationships with customers and suppliers, and our business and financial position. Certain of our businesses have sales or operations in countries, including Brazil, India and China, and may in the future invest in other countries, any of which may carry high levels of currency, political, compliance, or economic risk. While these risks or the impact of these risks are difficult to predict, any one or more of them could adversely affect our businesses and reputation. Our effective tax rate is impacted by the mix of earnings among countries with differing statutory tax rates, changes in the valuation allowance of deferred tax assets and changes in income tax laws. The amount of income taxes and other taxes paid can be adversely impacted by changes in statutory tax rates and laws and are subject to ongoing audits by governmental authorities. If these audits result in assessments different from amounts estimated, then our consolidated results of operations, financial position and cash flows may be adversely affected by unfavorable tax adjustments.

Certain of the acquisition agreements by which we have acquired companies require the former owners to indemnify us against certain liabilities related to the operation of those companies before we acquired them. In most of these agreements, however, the liability of the former owners is limited and certain former owners may be unable to meet their indemnification responsibilities. Similarly, the purchasers of our disposed operations may from time to time agree to indemnify us for operations of such businesses after the closing. We cannot be assured that any of these indemnification provisions will fully protect us, and as a result we may face unexpected liabilities that adversely affect our consolidated results of operations, financial condition and cash flows. In addition, we have retained certain liabilities directly or through indemnifications made to the buyers of businesses we have sold or disposed against known and unknown contingent liabilities such as tax liabilities and environmental matters. There can be no assurance that the indemnity agreements will be sufficient to protect us against the full amount of any liabilities that may arise, or that the indemnitors will be able to fully satisfy their indemnification obligations. The failure to receive amounts for which we are entitled to indemnification could adversely affect our results of operations, cash flows and financial condition.

Governments, shareholders, customers, employees and other stakeholders are increasingly focusing on corporate ESG practices and disclosures, and expectations in this area are rapidly evolving and growing. We have announced certain initiatives, including goals, regarding our focus areas, which include greenhouse gas emissions reductions, health and safety, diversity and inclusion, talent attraction and development, and innovation for sustainable products. The criteria by which our ESG practices are assessed may change due to the evolution of the sustainability landscape, which could result in greater expectations of us and may cause us to undertake costly initiatives to satisfy new criteria. Moreover, the increasing attention to sustainability could also result in reduced demand for certain of our products or services and/or reduced profits. If we are unable to respond effectively, investors may conclude that our policies and/or actions with respect to ESG matters are inadequate. If we fail or are perceived to have failed to achieve previously announced initiatives or goals or to accurately disclose our progress on such initiatives or goals, our reputation, business, financial condition and results of operations could be adversely impacted.

We expect to continue our strategy of seeking to acquire value creating add-on businesses that broaden our existing position and global reach as well as, in the right circumstances, strategically pursue larger acquisitions that could have the potential to either complement our existing businesses or allow us to pursue a new platform. However, there can be no assurance that we will be able to continue to find suitable businesses to purchase, that we will be able to acquire such businesses on acceptable terms, or that all closing conditions will be satisfied with respect to any pending acquisition. In addition, we face the risk that a completed acquisition may underperform relative to expectations. We may not achieve the synergies originally anticipated, may become exposed to unexpected liabilities or may not be able to sufficiently integrate completed acquisitions into our current business and growth model. Further, if we fail to allocate our capital appropriately, in respect of either our acquisition program or organic growth in our operations, we could be overexposed in certain markets and geographies and unable to expand into adjacent products or markets. These factors could potentially have an adverse impact on our consolidated results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.

Our competitive environment is complex because of the wide diversity of the products that our businesses manufacture and the markets they serve. In general, most of our businesses compete with only a few companies. Our ability to compete effectively depends on how successfully we anticipate and respond to various competitive factors, including new products, digital solutions and support services that may be introduced by competitors, changes in customer preferences, evolving regulations, new business models and technologies and pricing pressures. If our businesses are unable to anticipate their competitors' developments or identify customer needs and preferences on a timely basis, successfully introduce new products, digital solutions and support services in response to such competitive factors, or adopt to market changes relating to climate change related policies, they could lose customers to competitors. If our businesses do not compete effectively, we may experience lower revenue, operating profits and cash flows.