SXI earnings call analysis

NYSE:SXI Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript Generated on 10/9/2026 Operator | Conference Operator: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Stenex International Fiscal Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If anyone has any difficulties hearing the conference, please press door zero for operator assistance at any time. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Chris Howe.

Please go ahead. Chris Howe | Vice President, Investor Relations

Thank you, operator, and good morning. Please note that the presentation accompanying management's remarks can be found on the investor relations portion of the company's website at www.StandEx.com. Please refer to StandEx's safe harbor statement on slide two. Matters that StandEx management will discuss on today's conference call include predictions, estimates, expectations, and other forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. You should refer to STANDEX's most recent annual report on Form 10-K, as well as other SEC filings and public announcements for a detailed list of risk factors. In addition, I'd like to remind you that today's discussion will include references to the non-GAAP measures of EBIT, which is earnings before interest and taxes, adjusted EBIT, EBITDA, which is earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, adjusted EBITDA, EBITDA margin, and adjusted EBITDA margin. We will also refer to other non-GAAP measures, including adjusted net income, adjusted operating income, adjusted net income from continuing operations, adjusted earnings per share, adjusted operating margin, free operating cash flow, and pro forma net debt to EBITDA. Adjusted measures exclude the impact of restructuring, purchase accounting, amortization from acquired intangible assets, acquisition-related expenses, and one-time items. These non-GAAP financial measures are intended to serve as a complement to results provided in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States. Sandex believes that such information provides an additional measurement and consistent historical comparison of the company's financial performance. On the call today is Standex's Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, David Dunbar, and Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, Ademir Sarcevic.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Chris. Good morning, and welcome to our fiscal second quarter 2026 conference call. I am very pleased to present results that demonstrate our years-long efforts to build a growth engine at Standex are now reading through in top line results. We recorded 6.4% organic growth and a book-to-bill ratio of 1.04, led by our electronics segment, which grew 11.1% organically with a book-to-bill ratio of 1.08. The contributions from sales into fast-growth markets, new product sales, and improving general industrial markets are now evident in our results. As such, the company is well-positioned to deliver mid- to high-single-digit organic growth in the fiscal third quarter and remains on track to the fiscal 2026 sales outlook. I would like to thank our employees, our executives, and the board of directors for their efforts and continued dedication and support that drove our solid fiscal second quarter 2026 results. Now, let's look at the results beginning on slide three. In the second quarter, sales increased 16.6% year-on-year. Contributing to this growth were new product sales and sales into fast-growth markets, New product sales grew approximately 13% to $16.3 million. Sales into fast growth markets were approximately $61 million, or 28% of total sales. These results have been literally years in the making as we began our focus on new product development in fiscal year 2021 by increasing our R&D spending from 1% of sales to the current 3%. In the same year, we began directing our efforts to win more applications with customers serving fast-growth markets. In our August earnings call, we said that we believed both efforts were reaching an inflection point and would deliver organic growth this fiscal year. These results show they are paying off. Orders of approximately $231 million were the highest quarterly intake ever, showing our growth engine continues to accelerate and setting us up nicely for the balance of the year. In the second quarter, sales increased 6.4% organically with book-to-bill of 1.04, highlighted by the electronics segment that grew 11.1% organically with book-to-bill of 1.08. In addition, the engraving segment grew 10.3% organically. Adjusted gross margin of 42.1% was up 120 basis points year-on-year. Adjusted operating margin of 19% was up 30 basis points year-on-year. We paged down approximately $10 million of debt and reduced our net leverage ratio to 2.3. We are reiterating our fiscal year 2026 sales outlook. Barring unforeseen economic, global trade, or tariff-related disruptions, we expect revenue to grow by over $110 million from 2025. The drivers of this increase are the strong momentum we are seeing from new sales and sales into fast-growth markets and the full-year impact of last year's acquisitions. In fiscal year 2026, we expect new product sales to contribute approximately 300 basis points of incremental sales growth and have increased our expected sales from new products to $85 million from $78 million. We launched four new products in the second quarter and remain on track to release more than 15 new products in fiscal 2026. Sales from fast growth markets are expected to grow over 45% year on year and exceed $270 million. On a year-on-year basis, in fiscal third quarter 26, we expect significantly higher revenue driven by mid to high single-digit organic growth from higher sales into fast growth in markets and increased new product sales, and slightly higher adjusted operating margin due to higher volume and favorable product mix, partially offset by growth investments and higher medical costs. On a sequential basis, we expect slightly to moderately higher revenue driven by higher contributions from fast growth end markets and new product sales, and slightly to moderately higher adjusted operating margin due to higher volume in pricing and productivity initiatives, partially offset by growth investments. I will now turn the call over to Ademir to discuss our financial performance in greater detail.

Ademir Sarcevic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Thank you, David, and good morning, everyone. Let's turn to slide four, second quarter 2026 summary. On a consolidated basis, total revenue increased approximately 16.6% year-on-year to $221.3 million. This reflected organic growth of 6.4%, 9.4% benefit from acquisitions, and 0.8% benefit from foreign currency. Second quarter 2026 adjusted operating margin increased 30 basis points year-on-year to 19%. Adjusted earnings per share increased 8.9% year-on-year to $2.08. Net cash provided by operating activities was 20.7 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2026 compared to 9.1 million a year ago. Capital expenditures were 7.7 million compared to 7 million a year ago. As a result, we generated fiscal second quarter free cash flow of 13 million compared to 2.2 million a year ago. Now, please turn to slide five, and I will begin to discuss our segment performance and outlook, beginning with electronics. Segment revenue increased 20.6% year-on-year to a record $115.7 million, driven by organic growth of 11.1%, acquisition benefit of 9.1%, and 0.4% benefit from foreign currency. Organic growth was driven by sales into fast-growth markets and increased new product sales. Adjusted operating margin of 28.8% in fiscal second quarter 2026 increased 120 basis points year-on-year due to higher volume, pricing initiatives, and product mix. Our book-to-bill in fiscal second quarter was 1.08 in orders of approximately $125 million. This marks the sixth consecutive quarter with book-to-bill near or above one. As mentioned before, Due to the customized nature of our products, the conversion cycle is longer, but with higher sustainable margins. The healthy order funnel is now being realized in our organic growth results. Sequentially, in fiscal third quarter 2026, we expect slightly to moderately higher revenue, reflecting higher sales into fast growth and markets, and increased new product sales. We expect similar adjusted operating margin, primarily due to product mix and continuous strategic growth investments. Please turn to slide six for discussion of the engineering technologies and scientific segments. Engineering technologies revenue increased 35.3% to $30.6 million, driven by 33.4% benefit from recent MacStyleLite acquisition, organic growth of 1.2%, and 0.6% benefit from foreign currency. Organic growth was suppressed by delays in customer project timing. Adjusted operating margin of 18.9 percent increased 260 basis points year-on-year, primarily due to higher volume. Sequentially, we expect moderately to significantly higher revenue due to growth in new product sales and more favorable project timing. We expect slightly to moderately higher adjusted operating margin due to higher volume. Scientific revenue increased 5.5 percent to 19.5 million due to acquisition benefits of 8.1 percent partially offset the organic decline of 2.6%, primarily due to lower demand from academic and research institutions affected by NIH cuts. Adjusted operating margin of 24.2% decreased 270 basis points year-on-year due to organic decline and product mix. Sequentially, we expect similar revenue and slightly lower adjusted operating margin due to product mix, investments in research and development, and tariff costs partially offset by pricing and productivity initiatives. Now turn to slide seven for a discussion of the engraving and specialty solution segment. Engraving revenue increased 13.6% to $35.7 million, driven by organic growth of 10.3% from improved demand in Europe and North America and 3.3% benefit from foreign currency. Adjusted operating margin of 19.2% in fiscal second quarter 2026 increased 490 basis points year-on-year due to higher sales and realization of previously executed restructuring actions. In our next fiscal quarter, on a sequential basis, we expect similar revenue and slightly lower adjusted operating margin due to project and regional mix. Specialty solution segment revenue of 19.8 million decreased 7.2% year-on-year. Operating margin of 10.7% decreased 600 basis points year-on-year. Sequentially, we expect moderately to significantly higher revenue and operating margins. Next, please turn to slide eight for a summary of Standex's liquidity statistics and capitalization structure. Our current available liquidity is approximately $213 million. At the end of the second quarter, Standex had net debt of $437.7 million compared to net debt of $413.2 million at the end of fiscal second quarter 2025. Our net leverage ratio currently stands at 2.3. We pay down our debt by approximately 10 million during the fiscal second quarter of 2026. In fiscal third quarter 2026, we expect interest expense between seven and seven and a half million dollars. Timex's long-term debt at the end of fiscal second quarter 2026 was 534.7 million. Cash and cash equivalents totaled 97 million. we declared our 246th quarterly consecutive cash dividend of $0.34 a share and approximately 6.3% increase year-on-year. In fiscal 2026, we expect capital expenditures between $33 and $38 million. Relative to our debt leverage, we will continue to focus on paying down debt and anticipate that our leverage ratio will further decline through fiscal year 2026. I will now turn the call over to David for concluding remarks.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Adamir. Please turn to slide nine. I'm very pleased to see the inflection in organic growth in the second quarter as new product sales grew 13% and as fast growth markets contributed 28% of revenue. Organic growth was driven by our electronics, engineering technologies, and the grading segments. The year-on-year organic growth reflects actions and investments since fiscal year 2021. During this time, we ramped up new product development across our businesses and further positioned ourselves in fast-growth end markets like grid, commercialization of space, and defense. We will continue to align our organic and inorganic growth investments around secular end markets and new products that expand our presence and deepen our customer relationships. This continued momentum in fast-growth markets and from new product sales helps support a record order book in the fiscal second quarter. We are reiterating our sales outlook for fiscal 2026 and remain on track to achieve our fiscal 2028 long-term targets.

Operator | Conference Operator

We will now open the line for questions.

Operator | Conference Operator

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. We will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press the star followed by the one on your touch-down phone. Should you wish to cancel your request, please press the star followed by the two. If you're using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. Once again, that is star one should you wish to ask a question. Your first question is from Chris Moore from CJS Securities. Your line is now open.

Chris Moore | Analyst, CJS Securities

Hey, good morning, guys. Congratulations on another solid quarter. Thanks for taking a few. Good morning. Good morning. Maybe we just start with one on the on the purchase accounting side. The $17.98 million redeemable non-controlling interest redemption value, I know that relates to the 10% that you could not acquire of Ameren and Orion. Maybe you could just kind of walk us through the math there and how that works.

Ademir Sarcevic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Yeah, sure. Good morning, Chris. It's Adam here. So it's a bit of a technical answer, and we anticipated this question, so we prepared a few remarks. So let me try to explain. So kind of in general, whenever we acquire the business, our goal is to ensure full alignment in objectives and incentives between owners of the business and standards. And, you know, if in many cases actually owners and key management of the acquired business stay on board with us, not only to ensure successful integration, but also, frankly, to help us grow the business in the future. And that's been our key success with our prior acquisitions, has been really strong strategic, financial, and cultural fit. So last year when we negotiated agreement to acquire Amaran, and Amaran is actually a U.S. legal entity, and Orion, which is an Indian legal entity, our goal is essentially the same, to ensure common goals and incentives between owners of the business and standings. So in order to achieve this goal, we acquired 85% of Amaran in cash and 15% with standard shares. And then we also acquired 90% of Narayan in cash, and our plan was to acquire the remaining 10% of Narayan, an Indian entity, with standard shares. This acquisition actually of the remaining 10% of Narayan with standard shares was not possible at the time of acquisition because it was subject of approval by Indian government as Indian nationals have restrictions on owning foreign equity. And since we didn't have this approval at the time of Narayan acquisition, we included in the purchase agreement an alternative method to acquire the remaining 10% with cash using the same 12 times, trailing 12-month EBITDA multiple, which is measured at future points in time. So now, after one year, the India government approval was not obtained. And at this point, this approval is unlikely. And based on the original purchase agreement, minority owners of Narayan now have the right to sell us one-third of their remaining 10% interest in Narayan. And as a result of these two facts, per accounting rules, we had to record the increased value of remaining 10% of Narayan based on trailing 12 months Narayan EBITDA as of end of fiscal Q2 FY26, applying the same 12 times multiple to frankly represent what it would cost Standex to acquire in cash the remaining 10% stake of Narayan as of today as per the purchase agreement. So really, Chris, it just shows the increased value of this business since the acquisition and just frankly a phenomenal performance that this business has had as part of Standex Grid. Hopefully that helps. I mean, I can read to you the explanation from the queue, which is even more technical, but hopefully this helps clarify.

Chris Moore | Analyst, CJS Securities

No, it does. That was perfect. Thank you. Very, very helpful. All right. So on to the business. So maybe just continue with Amaran or grid. So OEMs, you know, such as Snyder Electric, Siemens GE, all found it more efficient to outsource, you know, the low to medium voltage transformers that, you know, grid's providing much of the engineering that they had done in-house. So maybe just a question or two here. How would you characterize the competitive environment here? I'm just trying to understand, do most of these OEMs have multiple relationships with companies like Amaran, or are you sole sourcing? How does it work now, and what's your expectation moving forward?

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Well, Chris, this is a great example of a customer intimacy market. And the idea of customer intimacy is that as customers design their next generation platforms, they've got their engineers focused on the most critical functionality within that platform. But there are other elements that are very important that must be custom designed, and they need partners to do that. So over the years, instrument transformers have moved into that category, and Amaran Orion is quickly becoming a valued partner to the global equipment OEMs. If you zoom out and look at the global market for instrument transformers, about 40% of the instrument transformers are made by the electrical equipment OEMs, by GE Siemens, by Schneider, Eaton. They are outsourcing more and more of that, but not all of it. The other 60%, there are different suppliers in every region of the world. And, you know, they're not small family shops. These are businesses about the size of AMRA and Orion. But there are a lot of suppliers out there around the regions of the world. And we feel that we, you know, we stack up well against all of them.

Chris Moore | Analyst, CJS Securities

Got it. Very helpful. And maybe just the last one for me, maybe, you know, just bigger picture. India and EU just signed a trade deal, just wondering... You know, any thoughts there?

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Well, yeah. Well, first of all, clarity in trade is good. Clarity and consistency so we can make our investment, make our plans. Now, if you think about the Croatia site that we've started up and now ramping up, we're installing machinery now there. That makes that Croatia site even more viable long term because that's there to serve the European market and leverages the India supply chain. So we don't know fully what the implications are, but it can only be good.

Operator | Conference Operator

Got it. I will leave it there. I appreciate it, guys. Thanks, Chris.

Operator | Conference Operator

Thank you. Your next question is from Ross Perenglak from William Blair. Your line is now open.

Ross Perenglak | Analyst, William Blair

Hey, good morning, gentlemen. Good morning. Hey, on the electronics, can you maybe just help parse out the... sales and order growth for the grid business versus the legacy?

Ademir Sarcevic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Again, our book-to-bill for the electronics in total was over one, with the grid business being at about 1.2 book-to-bill and the core business being at about 1.03, 1.04. I think even more of an info is that our orders in the electronics business have been strong over the past two quarters. As you know, Ross, it takes us a little while to convert some orders into sales. We are pretty pleased with what we are seeing in the overall order book, both in the core business and especially what we are seeing on the grid business because the demand is very strong.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

You know, there's three big pieces of our electronics business. The grid business continues to grow kind of as it has in the last few years. Our switches and sensor business with reed switches and relays is growing, you know, upper single digits. And the magnetics business, which is primarily North American business, is less than that. So our core electronics business is mid-single digits.

Ademir Sarcevic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Yeah, correct.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

And then that...

Ademir Sarcevic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Yeah, the grid business. So, yeah, in the quarter, right, that's a good point. In the quarter, Ross, you know, the grid business kind of got that organic growth rate because we lapsed the year, got the organic growth rate for the whole total segment over 10% with the core growing at about mid-single digits organically.

Ross Perenglak | Analyst, William Blair

Okay. So, I mean, you get the sense from the legacy side that you're starting to hit an inflection here. Yeah. It seems to indicate, but I mean, we kind of think through the end markets and the drivers. I mean, is there anything really to come up there? I mean, I know EVs was a story for a bit. You want some new content or space in the fence. Just what's helping sustain that legacy?

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, on that legacy side, right, it's primarily the switches and the relays. Asia is very strong. There's a lot of economic activity in Asia. We're seeing a pickup in Europe. North America is still flat. So you look at the geographies. The end markets... Our relay business is growing with test and measurement. Sales relays into test and measurement equipment, and that's tied to electrification, grid, and data centers. Those are kind of things that stick out.

Ross Perenglak | Analyst, William Blair

Yeah. Okay. And then can you maybe help us bridge the second half walk to the 270 of fast growth sales? But we've comped over the AMRAN acquisitions. And kind of by my math, this seems like the biggest two bucks are probably commercial space and grid. But I know we also have capacity coming online there, too, that might be inhibiting that the next quarter or two on the grid side.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Well, yeah. So last year, our sales and fast growth of 184, that included a partial year of the grid business. This year, we're saying 270 plus, and that's a full year of the grid business. Within that, our sales into defense in North America are up $15 to $20 million. Space, about $10. EVs, about $5. And the rest is the grid growth, which is primarily the Ameren Orion acquisition, but there's some sales into grid from our legacy magnetics.

Ross Perenglak | Analyst, William Blair

Okay. I mean, that's kind of what you're making it for the year. That's what you've already seen in the first half. Yeah. No, we're seeing that. Yeah, yeah. Okay. I'm trying to understand there's going to be a bigger mixed shift towards the grid since it is higher margin or what the timing looks like there.

Ademir Sarcevic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Yeah.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Well, it is higher margin, but... Yeah, no, no, you're right.

Ademir Sarcevic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

You know, the grid business is higher margin. Just one thing, you know, Ross, that's important is, you know, we're also, you know, investing in growth and capacity expansion in grids. So, you know, there's going to be some cost to set up our Croatia site, to expand in Mexico, you know, to get the... to get the Houston, Texas, you know, capacity expansion. So, you know, we do expect, you know, the margins kind of to continue to be very strong, but there's some investments we need to make now to continue to sustain this, you know, exceptional growth, frankly, on the grid side.

Ross Perenglak | Analyst, William Blair

Okay. Fantastic, guys.

I'll hop back in queue. Operator | Conference Operator

Thank you. Thanks, Ross.

Operator | Conference Operator

Thank you. Your next question is from Matthew Caronda from Roth Capital Partners. Your line is now open.

Matthew Caronda | Analyst, Roth Capital Partners

hey guys good morning um maybe just continuing on the electronics uh chain of questioning here um maybe could you just run us through the state of play with the capacity expansion projects you have for emma and orion between houston mexico croatia just the status there and how that sort of informs the um segment profit guidance uh that you've laid out for us yeah uh let me let me David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer: First kind of zoom out and talk about capacity expansion. Since we acquired the business, we've increased the capacity about 50%. And that's largely through the addition of additional shifts with the work on lean, a little bit of automation. Now we're bringing on new sites. The Croatia site is now ramping up. We're moving machinery into our Mexico plant. So now if you zoom out over five years, within three to five years, we'll more than double the capacity with the addition of the Croatia site, the expansion in New Mexico. We will move into a larger site in Houston. That should be up and running in about 18 months. Expansion in India. And then just continued automation and lean work will more than double the capacity in three to five years.

Operator | Conference Operator

Okay, got it. Yeah, helpful on the capacity side.

Matthew Caronda | Analyst, Roth Capital Partners

Just wondering, maybe Adam, you can chime in on how that creates a little bit of a near-term drag on segment profitability. Just wanted to understand how that informs the guidance.

Ademir Sarcevic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Yeah, yeah, no, for sure, Matt. So, you know, initially, obviously, to get, for example, to get the Croatia site up and running, you know, you have to set up the site, you have to hire a general manager, you have to hire people, sales and marketing, production, etc. So there is some cost that's going to be incurred before we get to, you know, ramp up the production. So we don't expect electronics margins to decline in subsequent quarters. But, you know, I would probably tell you that, you know, I wouldn't expect them to increase in subsequent quarters as well.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, I guess a good way to say that is we are adding resource, project management resource, expertise, and bringing up these new sites is so important. We're doing that with the growth. We're paying for that and increasing margin. Margin would be higher right now if we didn't make those investments, but it would compromise the capacity growth.

Matthew Caronda | Analyst, Roth Capital Partners

Okay. Yeah, that makes total sense. Okay. And then on ETG, I think you guys mentioned maybe there was some organic growth that was held back by customer timing issues and guessing just based on the guidance that that slides into the third quarter, but maybe just talk a little bit about that.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, absolutely. For longtime followers of Standix, this comes up pretty regularly in that business. And whether the customer, whether it's aviation, space, or defense, these are large shipments. They sometimes carry over from one quarter to the next. And it really is just a matter of timing. Maybe they couldn't get in it. There's a lot of reasons that could happen. They couldn't schedule a final inspection. But these things slip from one quarter to the next all the time. The backlog remains healthy and growing. Yeah, no.

Ademir Sarcevic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Yeah, Matt. I mean, it could be, yeah. And I really, for ETG business, you kind of got to look at it over a 12-month period, you know, to normalize for some of these ebbs and flows. But, you know, David is right. It could be, you know, changing production on a customer side, you know, changing, you know, timing when they need a product would obviously affect when we work on the product, et cetera, et cetera. But over, you know, over kind of a four quarters, it all equalizes out. But you're right. You know, we do expect some of the shifts from year two to happen this quarter.

Yeah. Matthew Caronda | Analyst, Roth Capital Partners

Understood. Okay. Um, maybe just one more, if I could sneak one in on the sort of the MNA front, uh, just given where leverage is, it's, it's coming down to a healthy place. It looks like Linus is, uh, to, to under two at some point in the near future. Um, where are you focusing your efforts now? Just given, you know, sort of the balance sheet looks like it's in order to, to maybe get larger stuff done potentially. Just curious how, where your head's at on that.

Operator | Conference Operator

Um, David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer: Yeah, we've had extensive discussions about this recently. We're obviously looking for opportunities in grid and building up a funnel of opportunities in grid, A, to help even accelerate the capacity expansion. Based on earlier questions, there are other companies out there that make instrument transformers, so we can expand the instrument transformer business. our grid customers are asking us to expand the products we sell them. So we have some ideas from our customers like Schneider and Eaton about companies we could look at. So we're building up that pipeline. In our legacy electronics business, we know that every time we work with a customer and we customize a switch, relay, or a sensor, there are other products that we could work on if we had a broader offering in that components and modules area. So you think about expanding our sensor and switch business into other related technologies, we're building up a pipeline there. So don't be surprised if in the future you see us building that business out so we can offer a broader customer set. I guess the final area, we feel pleased we have so many great end markets to look at Space, the space market is becoming a bigger and bigger opportunity. It is not just putting satellites in orbit anymore. If you look at the long-term plans some people have for space, there's going to be a lot going on up there with different kinds of vehicles requiring different pieces of equipment. So we're also building up a funnel in emerging capabilities in the space market.

Operator | Conference Operator

Sounds like a target rich environment. I'll leave it there. Thanks, guys.

Yes. Yeah. Operator | Conference Operator

Thank you. Your next question is from Gary Prestopino from Barrington Research. Your line is now open.

Gary Prestopino | Analyst, Barrington Research

Hi. Good morning, all. David, your new product sales to date, how many products have you introduced? I think you did four this quarter. What is it to date?

Yeah. David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, so to date, once you do four or five, we're nine to date.

Gary Prestopino | Analyst, Barrington Research

Okay, so you're going to do greater than 15 this year, right?

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes, yep.

Gary Prestopino | Analyst, Barrington Research

Are there any new products that you put out that you would have considered more wildly successful than you initially thought as you were developing them?

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Well, I tell you, a lot of our sales in the commercialization of space are new products. And these are, you know, every year we seem to take up our expectations of those. So the engineering technologies business for the spin craft business have been very successful with their new products.

Gary Prestopino | Analyst, Barrington Research

Okay, so that's where the new products are really getting. Okay, and then... are you at liberty to say if, if your fast growth markets are going to do 270 million sales this year, I would assume a lot of that, that jump year over year is due to your, what you're doing in the grid. So what percentage of your sales are, are going to the grid right now or out of that 270, what percentage of your sales would be the grid?

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes. I kind of ran through those numbers earlier to another question. And, um, It's just over half of that is into the grid, you know, 50%, 52% or something like that. And that was the run rate we saw these last couple quarters because we've got AMRA and Orion fully in our numbers. And the rest, as I mentioned before, defense and space are the biggest pieces with a little bit of EV and renewable energy.

Gary Prestopino | Analyst, Barrington Research

Okay. And then just lastly, in terms of the – the AMRON acquisition, is there any more residual carryover that would impact the next two quarters in terms of from the acquisition, such as it would impact the income statement as it did this quarter?

Ademir Sarcevic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Oh, Gary, are you talking about this non-controlling interest adjustment?

Gary Prestopino | Analyst, Barrington Research

Yeah. Yeah, the non-controlling.

Okay. Ademir Sarcevic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Yeah, we will have to. I mean, obviously, it will not be disguisable because this was the annual churro based on the two factors that kind of led us to have to book it this time. But yeah, I mean, it'll have to be adjusted on a quarterly basis going forward because the trillion 12-month EBITDA for which the multiple is applied to is going to change.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, I'm going to say a word about that. We're delighted that we had to make that large an adjustment because that means that business is doing great. And this incentive, this 10% of that Indian remaining in the hands of the owners really completely aligns our incentives. I mean, I'm delighted at the cultural integration, at the cooperation we're getting from the teams. And so this is an accounting and a technical matter, but it's playing out the way we had hoped.

Gary Prestopino | Analyst, Barrington Research

No, I understand that, but what I'm just trying to get at is because they still own 10%, we're going to have this going forward for the next couple of quarters? I mean, does this ever end?

Ademir Sarcevic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Well, it would obviously end when the 10% is executed and sold. When we repurchase the 10%, then it will end.

I'm sorry. Gary Prestopino | Analyst, Barrington Research

Go ahead. I'm sorry. No, no.

Go ahead. I'm sorry. Ademir Sarcevic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

No, no, no. At the point when those 10% shares are, you know, transferred back to us and we purchase them, obviously, then, you know, this would go away. But as long as there is some portion of the minority interest that's owned by the prior owners in India, there will be, you know, there will be minority interest that has to stay on the balance sheet and, you know, let build that we would have to pay for that remaining part at some point. Actually, in the contract, we have put the call options, you know, the way that this agreement was structured. by which for the first three years the owners have the right to essentially sell us their shares, and then we get the right to repurchase it starting in year four, so.

Operator | Conference Operator

Okay, thank you.

Operator | Conference Operator

Thank you. Your next question is from Michael Swisky from DA Davidson. Your line is now open.

Michael Swisky | Analyst, DA Davidson

Good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. I want to follow up on your last answer there. I'm also just trying to make sure I get my hands around this. Does the eventual sale of the shares or purchase of the shares have to be approved by the Indian government, and could that be an issue? Will you be just consistently reviving this every quarter until they approve it?

Ademir Sarcevic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

So to come back to the original agreement we had, we actually, the original objective was to purchase 10% of the Indian entity Narayan with standard shares. And the India government needs to approve an Indian national to own equity of a foreign company. So, you know, if you're buying it with shares, there needs to be a government approval. If you're paying it with cash, obviously there is no government approval that's needed. That's a pretty straightforward transaction.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

And that's what we're doing.

Ademir Sarcevic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

And that's, I think, where we're going to end up at some point in time over the next few years.

Operator | Conference Operator

No approvals.

I got it. Michael Swisky | Analyst, DA Davidson

I know it's like a bigger segment, but I did notice the substantial margin decline. in specialty solutions, and I was wondering if you could maybe share what was behind that. I know you mentioned one of the engineering technologies group. How about that one?

Ademir Sarcevic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Yeah, it's been just a very, very difficult end market in North America, Mike, in terms of where the specialty solutions is playing. And it's all North America, you know. And, you know, we do expect this quarter to get better. You know, we are seeing some order intake improvements in both businesses that make up the specialty solution segment. And we do expect those margins to improve this quarter as the general market conditions improve.

Operator | Conference Operator

But it's market driven.

Michael Swisky | Analyst, DA Davidson

Okay. Okay. And similarly, I wanted to touch on the engraving business as well. It was a little bit of a nice comeback coming here after a very long period of waiting. Can you just tell us a little bit about what the pipeline of business looks like in engraving? Does it go beyond a couple quarters here?

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, I mean, like we've said the last few quarters, we think that in North America and Europe, that activity bottomed out and we were kind of in the trough in the last year. We do see that. In North America, it's still kind of at similar levels. Europe is starting to pick up. We anticipate programs will be launched in America that will lead to work for us later in the summer and the fall. So we do see a pickup in our traditional business there. And another thing we're quite excited about is the increase in our new product sales for the year is actually out of the engraving business. You might remember in the summer, we talked about a new win they had making these differentiated parts using some proprietary knowledge we have of the soft trim process. So we're producing these parts. That is a new product for us. And the $8 million increase in new products is largely from that business. So we think there's a pickup from that we'll see in the late this quarter and into Q4.

Ademir Sarcevic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

But we are still cautious about the overall market and engraving the auto market.

Operator | Conference Operator

Okay, okay. Thanks very much. I will leave it there. Thank you, Mike.

Operator | Conference Operator

Thank you. Your next question is from from William Blair.

Your line is open. Ross Perenglak | Analyst, William Blair

Thanks for taking the follow-ups here. Just quickly on the capacity, I mean, you've spoken to over 60 million roughly in Croatia, but can you just remind us on where that stood when you acquired the asset on a dollar basis?

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Zero. There were only, the Croatia was just a request from customers to install the total capacity of Amaran.

Ross Perenglak | Analyst, William Blair

I mean, you weren't out in India.

Yeah. David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, so the capacity of Amaran at the time of acquisition was basically in line with the sales. It was about $100 million. We have increased that capacity of the existing capacity by about 50%. And then we've got these other sites coming online.

Ross Perenglak | Analyst, William Blair

And then just to clarify... we think through doubling that and we doubling it off the, you know, original base or what we stand today.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

No, no, no, no, no. In fact, we're more than doubling it with based on the, if they're at one 50 now, we'll more than double that in the next three to five with Croatia, Mexico, Houston, new expansion in India and lean and automation.

Okay. Ross Perenglak | Analyst, William Blair

Uh, and then just on Ameren and just kind of a qualitative and competitive landscape. Uh, can you say elaborate on the right to win there? Is it the scale, the relationships, or is it just kind of the prototyping and technical capabilities? I didn't understand the question. Amaran? Sorry. Yeah, on the Amaran, on the grid business. I mean, we're expanding globally. There's a lot. It's a fragmented market, regional players. I mean, what truly is kind of the right to win there for that business?

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Well, customers are asking us to expand. They have earned a privileged position with the largest electrical equipment OEMs to great service levels. When we announced the acquisition and in previous quarters, we've explained they have an advantage. The way their business model works, they can turn around prototypes faster. They can deliver faster than internal teams and a lot of our customers and from our competitors. They have a great track record for quality. And they've got a great supply chain in India that gives them a cost advantage as well. So they win on a lot of fronts. All the expansion plans we're talking about are really at the request of customers. We don't have to go prospecting for business. Customers are very open with us about their long-term plans, what they want us to do. So this is a very collaborative effort to expand this capacity.

Ross Perenglak | Analyst, William Blair

Okay. And then maybe just one final one here. We think they're like the delta of the mid to high single. Could you put a finer point on those ranges? What could go wrong? What could go right? I know you guys have better visibility in some markets than others, but it feels like the cyclical pieces are pretty much a trough at this point.

Ademir Sarcevic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Yeah, I mean, I think, yeah. I mean, that's right. I mean, we feel from a kind of an overall economic environment and when the global markets are, we feel we are... We bottomed out for sure, and now we are starting to recover and see some increased demand.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Back in August, we said that there's a lot of positive energy in the company because we feel we're reaching an inflection point where the new products and the fast-growth markets are overcoming weakness in some other general industry markets. North America is still pretty weak. You heard about it in specialty. That's kind of a weaker spot in our legacy electronics business. So in terms of what could go wrong, if we don't see a pickup in North America, that would be kind of a... Yeah, that's fair.

Yeah. Ross Perenglak | Analyst, William Blair

Okay. So more macro-related, it's not timing or any watch items regarding like the A350 or SpaceX or something like that?

Operator | Conference Operator

No, no, no. Awesome. All right. Thanks again, guys. Thank you. Thanks, Ross.

Operator | Conference Operator

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I will now hand the call back over to David Dunbar for the closing remarks.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

I want to thank everybody for joining us for the call. We enjoy reporting on our progress at Standex. Thank you also to our employees and shareholders for your continued support and contributions. I'm excited about the company's potential in fiscal year 2026 and look forward to speaking with you again in our fiscal third quarter 2026 call.

Operator | Conference Operator

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. The conference has now ended. Thank you all for joining. You may all disconnect your lines. jsPDF 3.0.3 D:20261009125854-00'00'

NYSE:SXI Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript Generated on 6/6/2026 Operator: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to STANDEX International Fiscal First Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participant lines are in the listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. And if at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. Note that this call is being recorded on Friday, October 31st, 2025. And I would like to turn the conference over to Christopher Howe, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Christopher Howe | Director of Investor Relations

Thank you, Operator, and good morning. Please note that the presentation accompanying management's remarks can be found on the Investor Relations portion of the company's website at www.standex.com. Please refer to Standex's Safe Harbor Statement on slide two. Matters that STANDEX management will discuss on today's conference call include predictions, estimates, expectations, and other forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. You should refer to STANDEX's most recent annual report on Form 10-K, as well as other SEC filings and public announcements for a detailed list of risk factors. In addition, I'd like to remind you that today's discussion will include references to the non-GAAP measures of EBIT, which is earnings before interest and taxes, adjusted EBIT, EBITDA, which is earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, adjusted EBITDA, EBITDA margin, and adjusted EBITDA margin. We will also refer to other non-GAAP measures, including adjusted net income, adjusted operating income, adjusted net income from continuing operations, adjusted earnings per share, adjusted operating margin, free operating cash flow, and pro forma net debt to EBITDA. Adjusted measures exclude the impact of restructuring, purchase accounting, amortization from acquired intangible assets, acquisition-related expenses, and one-time items. These non-GAAP financial measures are intended to serve as a complement to results provided in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States. Standex believes that such information provides an additional measurement and consistent historical comparison of the company's financial performance. On the call today is Standex's Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, David Dunbar, and Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, Ademir Sarcevic.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Chris. Good morning and welcome to our fiscal first quarter 2026 conference call. Following record operating performance in fiscal year 2025, our first quarter performance provided a strong start to the fiscal year, positioning us well to exceed our previously provided guidance of greater than $100 million of incremental sales in fiscal year 2026, which includes organic growth in our core businesses as well as the full year impact of acquisitions. First, I would like to thank our employees, our executives, and the board of directors for their efforts and continued dedication and support that drove our solid fiscal first quarter 2026 results. Now let's take a look at the results beginning on slide three. In the first quarter, sales increased 27.6%. Contributing to this growth were new product sales and sales in the fast growth markets. New product sales grew more than 35% to approximately $14.5 million. Sales into fast-growth markets were approximately $62 million, or 30% of total sales. Orders of approximately $226 million were the highest quarterly intake ever, setting us up nicely for the balance of the year. Despite electronics showing an organic decline in the quarter, its books-to-bill ratio remains above 1, and organic orders were up approximately 8% year-on-year. We remain on track for mid- to high-single-digit organic growth in electronics in fiscal 2026. Ameren Orion Group continues to perform ahead of our expectations. In the quarter, it delivered record sales of greater than $35 million. I'm excited to announce that in the quarter we kicked off operations in Croatia and Mexico. Adjusted operating margin of 19.1% was up 210 basis points year on year. This operating performance, along with our cash generation and cash repatriation, enabled us to lower our net leverage ratio to 2.4. We are raising our fiscal year 2026 sales outlook. Barring unforeseen economic, global trade, or tariffs-related disruptions, we now expect revenue to grow by over $110 million, $10 million more than we communicated last quarter. The drivers of this increase are the strong momentum we are seeing from new product sales and sales into fast-growth markets, in particular from the Ameren Orion Group, which we now expect to grow more than 20% year-on-year in fiscal 2026. In fiscal year 2026, we expect new product sales to contribute approximately 300 basis points of incremental sales growth. We launched four new products in the first quarter and remain on track to release more than 15 new products in fiscal 2026. Sales from fast growth markets are now expected to grow over 45% year-on-year and exceeds $270 million. On a year-on-year basis, in fiscal second quarter 2026, we expect significantly higher revenue driven by mid-single-digit organic growth and contributions from recent acquisitions and similar adjusted operating margin due to higher growth investments and less favorable product mix. On a sequential basis, we expect slightly higher revenue due to a higher contribution from fast growth and markets and new product sales and realization of pricing initiatives. We expect slightly lower to similar adjusted operating margin due to increased investments in growth and less favorable product mix. Please turn to slide four, which discusses how grid and new products support the increase in our sales outlook. We celebrated a significant anniversary on Wednesday. A year ago, the company made the largest acquisition in its history by acquiring the Ameren Orion Group, a leader in low and medium voltage instrument transformers. we could not be more pleased with its integration, the seamless cultural fit, and business results. Building on the shared success, we are renaming Ameren Orion as Standex Electronics Grid within the electronics business segment. Since we owned Ameren Orion, sales over the past 12 months have grown nearly 35% versus their 12 months before we acquired. Looking even further back, sales are up nearly 75% versus two years ago, This growth continues to be driven by robust end market demand within data centers, electrification, and grid modernization. To support future demand, we have expanded geographically in Croatia and Mexico. While grid has provided a step change to our sales into fast growth markets, I'm also excited to show here how fast growth markets as a whole have scaled, showing that there are several pathways for growth, including commercialization of space and defense, These factors give us confidence to raise our expectations to $270 million. In addition to fast-growth markets, new products are off to a strong start. We launched four new products in fiscal first quarter and are on track to launch more than 15 new products this fiscal year. The majority of these new products are within fast-growing end markets or new product categories and are expected to deliver margins above our core products. New product sales grew more than 35% to approximately $15 million in the fiscal first quarter and are expected to grow more than 40% to approximately $78 million in the fiscal year. These areas provide us with confidence to raise our fiscal 2026 sales outlook. I would like to turn the call over to Ademir to discuss our financial performance in greater detail.

Ademir Sarcevic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Thank you, David, and good morning, everyone. Let's turn to slide five, first quarter 2026 summary. On a consolidated basis, total revenue increased approximately 27.6% year-on-year to $217.4 million. This reflected 26.6% benefit from recent acquisitions, organic growth of 0.6%, and 0.4% benefit from foreign currency. First quarter 2026 adjusted operating margin increased 210 basis points year-on-year to 19.1%. In the fiscal first quarter, adjusted operating income increased 43.3% on 27.6% consolidated revenue increase year-on-year. Adjusted earnings per share increased 8.2% year-on-year to $1.99. Net cash provided by operating activities was $16.8 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2026 compared to $17.5 million a year ago. Capital expenditures were $6.4 million compared to $6.7 million a year ago. As a result, we generated fiscal first quarter free cash flow of $10.4 million compared to $10.8 million a year ago. Now, please turn to slide six. and I will begin to discuss our segment performance and outlook, beginning with electronics. Segment revenue of $110.6 million increased 42.2% year-on-year, driven by 45.5% benefit from acquisitions, partially offset by organic decline of 3.1% and 0.1% impact from foreign currency. The organic decline was primarily due to a closure of one of our facilities and customer delays for alternate site approvals. Adjusted operating margin of 28.8 percent in fiscal first quarter 2026 increased 510 basis points year-on-year due to contribution from recent Amer and Orion Group acquisition pricing and productivity initiatives. Our book-to-bill in fiscal first quarter was 1.06 with orders of approximately $117 million. Organic bookings grew approximately 8 percent year-on-year. Sequentially, in fiscal second quarter 2026, We expect slightly higher revenue, reflecting higher contribution from the core business, partially offset by lower Amaran Orion group sales due to holidays in India. On a year-on-year basis, we expect mid to high single-digit organic growth. We expect similar adjusted operating margins sequentially, driven by product mix and continued strategic growth investments. Operations have kicked off in Croatia to serve our customers in Europe and support growing power requirements for data centers and grid expansion and upgrades in the region. Please turn to slide seven for a discussion of the engineering technologies and scientific segments. Engineering technologies revenue increased 45.6% to $29.9 million, driven by a 32.4% benefit from recent Max Starlight acquisition, organic growth of 12.7%, and 0.5% benefit from foreign currency. Organic growth was due to strong demand across space, defense, and aviation and markets. Adjusted operating margin of 16.8% decreased 270 basis points year-on-year, primarily due to lower margins from a pairable project mix in our recent acquisition. Sequentially, we expect moderately higher revenue due to growth in new product sales and similar adjusted operating margin. Scientific revenue increased 9.9% to 19.5 million due to 18.6% benefit from recent acquisition, partially offset by organic decline of 8.7%, primarily due to lower demand from academic and research institutions that were impacted by NIH funding cuts. Adjusted operating margin of 25.3% decreased 300 basis points year-on-year due to organic decline. Sequentially, we expect similar revenue and slightly lower adjusted operating margin due to higher contribution from custom biogenic systems acquisition and increased tariff costs. Now turn to slide eight for a discussion of the engraving and specialty solution segments. Engraving revenue increased 7.4% to 35.8 million, driven by organic growth of 5.6% from improved demand in Europe and 1.9% benefit from foreign currency. Adjusted operating margin of 19.1% in fiscal first quarter 2026 increased 50 basis points year-on-year due to higher sales and realization of productivity initiatives and restructuring actions. During the fiscal first quarter, we announced the closure of four sites, optimizing the footprint in the United Kingdom, United States, Italy, and China, resulting in approximately $5 million of restructuring charges. These actions are projected to yield approximately $5 million in annualized cost savings once fully implemented and we expect to start realizing savings during the second half of fiscal year 2026. The segment is now substantially done with structuring activities and is well positioned to serve its customers. In our next fiscal quarter, on a sequential basis, we expect moderately lower revenue and slightly lower adjusted operating margin due to project timing. Specialty solution segment revenue of 21.7 million increased 2.6% year on year primarily due to slightly improved demand in hydraulics. Operating margin of 13.3% decreased 350 basis points year on year. Sequentially, we expect slightly higher revenue and operating margin. Next, please turn to slide nine for a summary of standard system liquidity statistics and capitalization structure. Our current available liquidity is approximately $198 million. At the end of the first quarter, Standex had net debt of $446 million compared to net cash of $15.6 million at the end of the fiscal first quarter 2025. Our net leverage ratio currently stands at 2.4. We paid down our debt by approximately $8 million during the fiscal first quarter 2026. In fiscal second quarter 2026, we expect interest expense between $8 million and $8.5 million. Standex's long-term debt at the end of fiscal first quarter 2026 was 544.6 million. Cash and cash accrual ends totaled 98.7 million. We declared our 245th quarterly consecutive cash dividend of 34 cents per share and approximately 6.3% increase year on year. In fiscal 2026, we expect capital expenditures between 33 million and $38 million. Relative to our debt leverage, we will continue to focus on paying down debt and anticipate our leverage ratio will further decline through fiscal year 2026. I will now turn the call over to David for concluding remarks.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Ademir. Please turn to slide 10. I'm very pleased to see continued momentum in the top line in the first quarter as new product sales grew more than 35% and as fast growth markets constitute a growing portion of our revenue. The first year performance of Amer and Orion Group, now renamed as Standex Electronics Grid, was above expectations and is expected to grow more than 20% in fiscal 2026. The growth within the grid and from new product sales helped support a record order book in the fiscal first quarter, leading us to raise our sales outlook for fiscal 2026. We remain on track to achieve our fiscal 2028 long-term targets. We will now open the line for questions.

Operator

Yes, sir? Ladies and gentlemen, if you do have any questions at this time, please press star followed by one on your touchtone phone. You will then hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. And should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press star followed by two. And if you're using your speakerphone, we do ask that you please lift your hands up before pressing any keys. Please go ahead and press star one now if you have any questions. And your first question will be from Chris Moore at CJS Securities. Please go ahead, Chris.

Chris Moore | Analyst, CJS Securities

Good morning, guys. Congrats on another good quarter. Thank you. It looks good. All good. Yeah, at some point, I don't know, either Q3 or Q4 call, you talked about StandX being roughly two-thirds of the way in its optimization journey. Other than potentially selling one of the business segments, what are the biggest areas of focus to help this further on the optimization journey?

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Well, I think we've got two things going on. There will be some ongoing portfolio work, although the greatest value creation will come from realizing the potential of the organic growth initiative. It's taken years to ramp up new product development. New products are coming out. We've repositioned the business into faster-growing markets. I don't know what's higher than two-thirds. It's five-ninths or something like that. I don't know. Because you see the momentum of new products and fast-growth markets. This year, 340 million of our sales will come from new products and fast-growth markets. So that is getting to be big enough to be able to weather the storm of any irregularities in our core markets. So in terms of optimizing our business models who are well positioned to grow in all conditions, I think we're almost there. In the next year or so, that momentum will get us there. And on the portfolio optimization, as you know, we really only have good businesses in the portfolio. And if the right opportunity comes along to simplify, we'll do it as we have in the past.

Ademir Sarcevic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Yeah. And Chris, you know, as you know, our track record, you know, we'll continue doing what we have done in the past. And, you know, we have some really exciting platforms. And to David's point, some really good assets that, you know, at some point in the future, we may look to monetize, but we like what we have.

Chris Moore | Analyst, CJS Securities

Got it. Very helpful. Yeah. You've talked about new products a couple of times, 15 this year. Are there a few that really kind of stand out in terms of, you know, that are being introduced this year?

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Well, being introduced, we have some exciting products in electronics. We had a couple released in the first quarter that will go into relays and into test and measurement applications. And test and measurement is an end market we don't talk a whole lot about, but it is driven by electrification, by grid, by data centers. Every time you generate a new generation chip or a new EV, you need test equipment. to test the production. And this test equipment has a lot of relays in it, and a lot of these relays are the read relays we make. So we have two new products that are released this quarter to go into that end market. We also, in scientific, we're excited about the release of the ultra-low temperature freezer, which the first version was released last quarter, and we'll continue to expand that. That gets the scientific business into the largest end market that it serves.

Chris Moore | Analyst, CJS Securities

Perfect. Maybe just the last one for me. Obviously, Amaran is performing exceptionally well, 30% growth. You're talking about 20% this year. I know you don't want to get ahead of yourself. Are you seeing any slowing down in growth at this point in time? You just opened up Croatia. It sounds like there's lots of opportunities there.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. Well, I would tell you, Chris, we are not seeing a slowdown in growth, but we continue to look forward. We're maybe somewhat conservative, but I'll tell you, this coming quarter, we have a lot of meetings with customers. We've got the Croatia site ramping up. We freed up some space in our Mexico plant in electronics, which we are now devoting to produce product for Amaran, which will give us more capacity there. So over the next few months, we'll develop a better view of the outlook. And, of course, we'll update that in our next earnings release in February. But the end market remains strong, driven by electrification, modernization of grid, and continued spend in data centers. So we see no slowdown right now.

Ademir Sarcevic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Yeah, and, Chris, the bookings are very strong. We just posted the highest sales quarter in Amaran Orion, or grid, as we call it today, of $35 million. The bookings were still over one, over one book to bill.

So the momentum continues. Ross Sparenbleck | Analyst, William Blair

Perfect. I'll leave it there. Thanks, guys.

Operator

Thank you. Next question will be from Ross Sparenbleck at William Blair. Please go ahead, Ross.

Ross Sparenbleck | Analyst, William Blair

Hey, good morning, gentlemen. Morning, Ross.

Ross Sparenbleck | Analyst, William Blair

Sticking with electronics here, can you maybe just help us think about some of the momentum you're seeing, particularly in the legacy business? What in markets? What stands out? It looks like From what we can tell, those orders have really started to pick up the last five quarters.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, just a couple of things. We communicated the book to Bill and the bookings in the quarter were both very good. And remember, about 80% of what we sell in electronics goes to OEM. So there's a longer cycle to convert the bookings to shipments. Strong bookings in defense in the legacy magnetics business. In the switches and sensor business, we're seeing strength in North America and Asia geographically. We're seeing strength in test and measurement and markets. And also the distribution market is up, which is kind of a reflection of general, kind of general end markets.

Ross Sparenbleck | Analyst, William Blair

Yeah. I mean, distribution feels like it's been doing well for a while. When we think about kind of the mixed profile of that backlog, Ross Sparenbleck | Analyst, William Blair: is magnetics the biggest piece of growth being the lower mix, you know, product line?

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

You know, as a percent, I don't think so. I don't think it's significantly, I think both SST and magnetics, uh, order growth is similar.

Ademir Sarcevic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Yeah. I think Ross, every, every, you know, if you look at, you know, uh, magnetics or sensors and switches or MRI and for that matter, you know, the book to build for all of those businesses has been over one. And, you know, it's been a, Actually, September was the strongest booking month we had in a very long time in all of those three businesses. And October is actually coming in very strong. So that strength is kind of across the board right now. So, you know, when we talk about having that, you know, mid to high single-digit organic growth, this quarter in electronics, it really will come from all parts of the business.

Ross Sparenbleck | Analyst, William Blair

Okay.

Ross Sparenbleck | Analyst, William Blair

That's great to hear. I mean, we think about kind of, you know, the lead times on converting this and then, you know, maybe... the incrementals and the type of operating leverage we should expect for the legacy business giving the prior cost out as we think about the second half of 2026?

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, in general, if you think about the legacy business, if you just lump together and average the switches and sensor and magnetics business, orders in the quarter, about 30% convert within three months, and then maybe another 30 in the following quarter, and the remainder beyond. you know, Q3 and beyond.

Ademir Sarcevic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Yeah, and, you know, I think, Ross, from margins standpoint, which I think was the second part of your question, you know, we really want to get, obviously, you know, there's going to be some margin improvement as we continue through the year, but, you know, we're also putting some money into investments. For example, we just started up the Croatia site. There will be some initial investments that we're going to have to put through before that site gets ramped up. So, you know, we'll see margin improvements, but they will be offset with the growth investments we have to make because we really want to make sure that this business continues to grow at a good organic growth rate going forward.

Ross Sparenbleck | Analyst, William Blair

Yeah, I definitely appreciate that. But if I recall, you guys have taken out like something like seven or nine million of prior cost out actions that we haven't really seen because of, you know, the destocking over the last couple of years. So there should be some natural lift there, right?

Ross Sparenbleck | Analyst, William Blair

Correct. Yes. Awesome. All right. Thanks, guys. I'll head back to you.

Thanks for having us. Operator

Thanks for us. Next question will be from Mike Sliske at DA Davidson. Please go ahead, Mike.

Mike Sliske | Analyst, DA Davidson

Yes. Hi. Good morning, and thank you. I have noticed on social media in electronics, I did see the grid brand be launched, at least on social media, not too long ago. But is your effort really not just across Amron? but across the entire electronic segment? Is there one brand being presented to the entire customer base? I wasn't sure if it was beyond just the Amaran. Please let me comment on what your plans are.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, I'm glad you asked that, Mike. Yeah, I like to make sure there's no confusion about that. After we acquired Amaran and Orion, we looked at that end market and thought there's a lot more we want to do with this business. And calling it Amaran and Orion was too narrow. That's a great trade name. Customers know Amaran and Orion. So internally, we started calling it GRID, GRID Technologies. because there's other acquisitions we can make. We have some product development underway that will get us into new product segments. So GRID is a better name for that business. And then we looked at the others and thought, well, the switches and sensor business, SST, that name may not be obvious to people. And the magnetics business is even less accurate. So we stepped back and said, How should we refer to each of these businesses? So we chose grid for what is now the Emerald and Orion business, but will grow into a broader business. Edge is a commonly used term for the point at which electricity is converted into useful work in products. That's what our magnetic business does. We do power conversion and power management products that go into our OEM businesses. And detect describes what the switches and sensors do. They're largely used in proximity and level sensing devices. So they detect the presence of a fluid or the closing of a door or something. So detect, edge, and grid are the terms you'll hear us use more often in the future to describe those businesses.

Mike Sliske | Analyst, DA Davidson

Got it. That's very helpful. Thank you. And maybe just turning to the topic du jour, there's a lot of smaller areas of this, whether it's the academic research institutions or maybe even space or even airport. Can you give us a broad view on The impact of the government shutdown on your business, maybe talk individually about this, but also kind of broadly, is there one number we can point to as to what that might be affecting your business today?

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yes. So, you know, immediately, I mean, I can't think of any recent rapid growth. change in prospects of any of our businesses due to shutdown. But if you step back, some of our North American businesses are dealing with uncertainty with their customers. You know, our federal business, our hydraulics business, our scientific business has been affected, as you know, by the reduction in spending in the NIH. So that's not directly related to the recent shutdown, but it's related to government policy. So that North American bit of the business is affected. In terms of any recent changes, Adamir, would you?

Ross Sparenbleck | Analyst, William Blair

No, I think you summarized it well.

Great. Thanks for that. Mike Sliske | Analyst, DA Davidson

Maybe lastly...

Except there's me. David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Now, I've got some travel plans in the next few weeks I hope I can make, but that won't affect our business results.

Mike Sliske | Analyst, DA Davidson

Well, hopefully you can just switch it over to Zoom if you have to.

Ross Sparenbleck | Analyst, William Blair

Yeah.

Mike Sliske | Analyst, DA Davidson

That question was about... I think you had mentioned the word... repatriation, essentially to pay down debt or something like that. Can you just share with us, Adamir, was there any one-time tax in the cash repatriation there?

Ademir Sarcevic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

No, no, no, there isn't. I mean, there is sometimes when you get the money out of, you know, foreign jurisdiction, there is a, you know, there's a little bit of a withholding tax you have to pay, but You know, a lot of our cash is actually sitting in international locations, and we have a process in place by which we try to repatriate as much as we can on a quarterly basis, and we'll continue to do that. But there is no significant tax impact.

Mike Sliske | Analyst, DA Davidson

Okay, great. I'll pass it along.

Thanks so much. Ross Sparenbleck | Analyst, William Blair

Thank you.

Operator

Next question will be from Gary Prestopnoe at Barrington Research. Please go ahead, Gary.

Gary Prestopnoe | Analyst, Barrington Research

Hi. Good morning, all. A couple of things here. The growth in sales, especially from new products and fast growth markets, is that safe to assume that the bulk of that is really a function of products going into data centers, grid modernization, et cetera, things like that? Or is it kind of spread around those markets five fast growth markets that you guys cite all the time?

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Well, you know, that Amer and Orion acquisition, all those sales are reported in fast growth in data centers. Well, it's not just data centers, but it's all reported in fast growth. So this year, of the 270 million of fast growth, more than half of that, about half of that, will be data center fast growth electrification and grid business from Amber and Orion. But the rest is, we have a healthy space business. Defense is growing nicely. And believe it or not, electric vehicles are growing, although it's a smaller piece of the total. So I'd say it's pretty well spread. And you mentioned new products. The new product sales of 77 million These are products released in the last few years, and the majority of those sales are not in the fast growth markets. The new products to be released this year and the coming years will be more heavily weighted to fast growth. So there's very little overlap in those two numbers this year.

Ross Sparenbleck | Analyst, William Blair

Okay.

Gary Prestopnoe | Analyst, Barrington Research

And then just in terms of you putting up a plant in Croatia or you've initiated production in Croatia, correct? Correct. Can you give us some idea of what the, you know, capacity for production is at that plant? Because that's going to be serving what I would assume is, you see, the growth prospects that you see in Europe itself.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, we're working closely with European customers to plan capacity for that. I think in the last call or two calls ago when we talked about this, we said that over, you know, three to five years, we think that gets to 60 million in sales. That's based on kind of current customer plans and our current capacity plan. We have ability to expand beyond that. And I think as we go one year after the other, we'll have a better feel for what the ultimate capacity is. There's space to build up more footprint if we need to. We can add additional shifts and machinery. But I'd say $60 million is a good conservative number, what that will do.

Gary Prestopnoe | Analyst, Barrington Research

Okay. Thank you. And then just lastly on slide three, just so I'm clear on this, you're citing – the 15 product launches and then the bars to the right of that 55 and 78, that's the actual sales that you expect to attain from the new product.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Oh yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. We should have put the, yeah, right, right. We should have put the dollar symbol there. 55 million last year, 78 million in sales this year.

Good catch. Gary Prestopnoe | Analyst, Barrington Research

No, that's just, you know, just, just to be clear, I have a simple mind.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Okay. Yeah.

All right. That's fine. Ross Sparenbleck | Analyst, William Blair

All right. Thank you. Thanks, Gary.

Operator

Next question will be from Matt Caranda at Roth Capital. Please go ahead, Matt.

Matt Caranda | Analyst, Roth Capital

Hey, guys. Good morning. So the confidence in emerald and Orion or grid, I guess, as we're calling it now, sounds as high as ever. But if I back into the book to bill for emerald and Orion, it looks like it's just about one time's. Um, maybe just, can you talk about order trends that you're currently seeing that, or as you currently see them and then just how that informs the view on the 20% growth this year?

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. Well, if you look at the, uh, the court, it's more than one, 105, six, seven, 1.06 or seven or something like that, but it's enough. I mean, the, the, the book to bill in the quarter would support the growth rate we've seen over the last few years for this business. you know, close to 30%.

Ademir Sarcevic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

And Matt, one thing, you know, they, I'm running a Ryan posted a record sales quarter of over $35 million in Q1, I think 35.5 and the book to bill was, you know, over one to David's point. So it continues to kind of grow and compound. So we, we, we continue to see those, those strong orders.

They're not slowing down. Matt Caranda | Analyst, Roth Capital

Got it. Okay. Yeah. You got a high delivery on those orders as well. I guess that's a high quality problem to have. Okay. And then the rebranding, The rebrand of like to grid, I guess it makes it sound like there's quite a bit more to do with the product portfolio there. So just curious if you could elaborate for us what types of products you would look to acquire or maybe even organically develop to fill in any gaps that you see in the portfolio.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, I think it accomplishes a few things. One is people were confused a little bit by the terms Amaran and Orion were those two different businesses. We have one global business. And we have two trade names. Amaranth is more common in America and Narayan in the rest of the world. So calling it Global Grid, it's Standex Electronics Grid. It's one global business. So I wanted to clarify that. There's some new products they're developing that will go into other applications. They're still transformer products, but they'll go into different applications. If you look in a switchgear or a transformer or a substation, There are other products that our customers buy. I won't name those products now because, you know, until we have a specific plan or a specific acquisition, it probably doesn't make sense to go into detail. But there are a handful of other products that our electrical OEMs would also buy if we had them.

Ross Sparenbleck | Analyst, William Blair

Okay, understood.

Matt Caranda | Analyst, Roth Capital

And then maybe just with leverage now kind of in the low twos, Probably quite a bit more reduction later this fiscal year. Seems like capacity to make bigger acquisitions is coming back. Could you maybe just speak to the appetite currently on that front? And also, you know, it sounded like you alluded to there could be simplification actions to come. Is there anything? Yep. closer to the horizon than not. I guess it's been dangled out there for a little while, but just curious how close we are to any action on that front.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Well, we've had enough experience and it's very hard to predict timing on those things. So yeah, I think it's reasonable to expect we will continue to simplify the business, simplify the portfolio, although I can't give you a time or an expectation of when the next steps might be taken, but believe me, Believe me, we're working on it. Yeah, so we do want to build up more powder. Prior to this Amaran Orion acquisition, the highest leverage we'd ever been to was 2.4, 2.5, we're at 2.4 now. We are continuing to reduce that, but we're also simultaneously working the funnel. So we are building powder, and when the right opportunity comes up, we'll be able to move.

Ross Sparenbleck | Analyst, William Blair

Okay, I'll leave it there, guys. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Matt.

Operator

Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you do have any questions, please press star followed by one on your touchstone phone. Next is a follow-up from Ross Sparenbleck at William Blair. Please go ahead, Ross.

Ross Sparenbleck | Analyst, William Blair

Thanks for the follow-up here, guys. Just wanted to quickly touch on the engraving again. Looks like that pipeline is showing some signs of activity. We don't need a lot of volume to come back in there to get to normalized levels. Just want to get your thoughts. And then the second piece is you know, prior cost out with, you know, the new, you know, efficiencies or productivity of the shutdowns. It feels like 20% margins is no longer the ceiling.

Ross Sparenbleck | Analyst, William Blair

Like, how quickly do you think we can get there with a little bit of volume?

Ademir Sarcevic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Yeah, look, I mean, the engraving market, as you know, the auto market, especially in North America, has been very weak for a while now. And it's bottomed out. And now we are... And now I'm sorry we were having a little bit of a noise in the room. But now the market is stabilizing and it's starting to improve and we are seeing some signs in recovery in Europe as well as in Asia. So look, I mean, over the last couple of years, we shut down about 15 sites with this last announcement that we made. So we do believe that we're going to start seeing some of the savings for the last shutdown starting to realize in Q3 and Q4 of this fiscal year. And, you know, that 20% margin number that you were talking about is within reach. And we feel very confident that when the market comes back, you know, with some strength that we'll be able to surpass that 20% as well.

Ross Sparenbleck | Analyst, William Blair

Fantastic. All right. Looks like a great quarter. Thanks, guys.

Thank you. Operator

At this time, it appears we have no further questions. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. David Dunbar, CEO.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, thank you. I'd like to thank everybody for joining us for the call. We do enjoy reporting on our progress here at Standex. Thank you again also to our employees and shareholders for your continued support and contributions. I'm very excited about the company's potential in fiscal year 26 and look forward to speaking with you again in our fiscal second quarter 2026 call.

Operator

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, this does indeed conclude your conference call for today. Once again, thank you for attending. At this time, we ask that you please disconnect your lines. Have a good weekend. jsPDF 3.0.3 D:20260606090447-00'00'

NYSE:SXI Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript Generated on 6/6/2026 Operator | Conference Operator: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Standex International Fiscal Fourth Quarter 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Friday, August 1, 2025. I would now like to turn the conference over to Christopher Howe, Director of Investor Relations.

Please go ahead. Christopher Howe | Director of Investor Relations

Thank you, operator, and good morning. Please note that the presentation accompanying management's remarks can be found on the investor relations portion of the company's website at .standex.com. Please refer to Standex's Safe Harbor Statement on slide 2. The matters that Standex management will discuss on today's conference call include predictions, estimates, expectations, and other forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. You should refer to Standex's most recent annual report on Form 10-K, as well as other SEC filings and public announcements, for a detailed list of risk factors. In addition, I'd like to remind you that today's discussion will include references to the Non-Gap Measures of EVIT, which is earnings before interest and taxes, Adjusted EVIT, EVITDA, which is earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, Adjusted EVITDA, EVITDA margin, and Adjusted EVITDA margin. We will also refer to other non-GAP measures, including adjusted net income, adjusted operating income, adjusted net income from continuing operations, adjusted earnings per share, adjusted operating margin, pre-operating cash flow, and pro forma net debt to EVITDA. Adjusted measures exclude the impact of restructuring, purchase accounting, amortization from acquired intangible assets, acquisition-related expenses, and one-time items. These non-GAP financial measures are intended to serve as a complement to results provided in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States. Sandex believes that such information provides an additional measurement and consistent historical comparison of the company's financial performance. On the call today is Sandex's Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, David Dunbar, and Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, Adimir Sarcic.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Chris. Good morning and welcome to our fiscal fourth quarter 2025 conference call. Fiscal year 2025 was a turning point for Sandex. We are a different company than we were even a year ago. We've been laying the groundwork for years and our growth drivers have now crossed a threshold. They are scaling. They have reached an inflection point and are beginning to move the needle in a meaningful way. I'm very excited to share with you what we are seeing and how it is shaping our outlook. I would like to thank our business and corporate teams for navigating this past year and achieving a record profit generation in fiscal 2025. Now let's look at the results beginning on slide three, key messages. In the fourth quarter, sales increased .2% with contributions from acquisitions partially offset by a slight organic decline. Electronics grew slightly on an organic basis with the book to bill ratio above one and organic orders up 16% year on year. This represents the first quarter of organic growth since 2023 and signals strong momentum into 2026. Our fiscal fourth quarter sales into fast growth markets increased to 28% of total company sales. New product sales added approximately .8% to sales ahead of our goal, 2%. Our grid technologies business continues to perform ahead of our expectations. To support strong global demand for electrical equipment, we are expanding Amron-Norion capacity with lean projects and additional shifts in the core facility. I am also excited to announce that in the quarter we established a site in Croatia to serve European customers. We expect to be shipping products from Croatia within four months. Operating performance was very strong in the quarter. We achieved record adjusted operating margin of 20.6%, up 120 basis points sequentially and up 350 basis points year on year. This operating performance, along with our cash generation and cash repatriation, enabled us to lower our net leverage ratio to 2.6%. Following record profitability in fiscal 2024, we again achieved record milestones in adjusted gross margin, adjusted operating income, and adjusted earnings per share. In fiscal year 2026, barring any unforeseen economic, global trade, or tariff related disruptions, we expect revenue to grow by over $100 million with continued adjusted operating margin expansion. This will primarily be driven by mid to high single digit organic growth in electronics, double digit organic growth in engineering technologies, and the contribution from recent acquisition. In fiscal year 2026, we expect new product sales to contribute approximately 300 basis points of incremental sales growth, and we anticipate releasing more than 15 new products. Sales from fast growth markets are expected to grow approximately 45% year on year and exceed $265 million. On a year on year basis, in fiscal first quarter 2026, we expect significantly higher revenue, comprise of contributions from recent acquisitions and organic growth, and significant operating margin expansion. On a sequential basis, we expect slightly lower revenue as the impact of recent acquisitions, higher sales in the fast growth and markets, and realization of pricing initiatives are more than offset by projects timing in engineering technologies and the impact of seasonality in Europe within electronics and in grading. We expect slightly lower adjusted operating margin due to lower sales and less favorable product mix. Please turn to slide four. Our growth drivers have reached an inflection point. There are four sources of growth that will help deliver above market increases in 2026. In fact, they will deliver growth even without a general market pickup. First is new product sales. As you know, we began ramping our R&D spending in 2020. New products began to be released in 2023, accelerating to 16 product releases in 2025. Sales of new products increased from $38 million to $55 million in FY 2025, exceeding our internal expectations. We expect their sales to continue to ramp and to be joined by more than 15 new products to be released in 2026, giving us confidence that incremental new product sales will add about 3% to our sales in 2026. New products, once released, take time to reach full commercial impact. In our customer intimacy business model, success depends not only on product innovation, but on deep collaboration with our customers. Our products are often designed into our customers' own systems, which require internal approvals, engineering validation, and their own development timeline. This results in a natural delay between product release and peak revenue. But once adoption begins, momentum builds and endures. Products introduced in prior years continue to ramp, even as we launch additional new offers. This layered effect creates a compounding engine of organic growth that is both durable and scalable. It has taken a while to get this momentum, but we are building a long-term new product capability in this company. And as a -to-be engineer, I think it is beautiful to watch. The second source of above-market growth is our presence in end markets with long-term secular tailwinds and above-average growth. This has been a focus for some time, and our two acquisitions in FY25 increased our presence in electrical grid, space, and defense markets, ramping our total fast-growth market sales to $184 million. All of these businesses are expanding capacity to serve our customers, and we expect sales to grow to greater than $265 million in fiscal 2026. This is also beautiful to watch. A third source of momentum is the support we are giving to recent acquisitions to maintain their growth rate. We are now bringing up a new site in Croatia for Amron Neurion, and are positioned with McStarlight to win new applications that the combined StandX-McStarlight capability is better positioned to win. Last but not least is success at the blocking and tackling of winning new awards in our business through commercial excellence. Two noteworthy areas stand out. Engineering technologies have been awarded applications on next-generation missile programs, which are moving to production. Engraving has successfully expanded into niche production of parts, requiring our proprietary know-how. Based on the above, you can see that the incremental contribution from new products, sales into fast-growth markets, successful acquisition integration, and new program wins lead us to a fiscal year 2020 outlook of over $100 million in incremental sales. I will now turn the call over to Adamir to discuss our financial performance in greater detail.

Adimir Sarcic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Thank you, David, and good morning, everyone. Let's turn to slide five, World Quarter 2025 Summary. On a consolidated basis, total revenue increased approximately .2% year on year to $222 million. This reflected .4% benefit from recent acquisitions and .2% benefit from foreign currency, partially offset by organic revenue decline of 1.4%. World Quarter 2025 Adjusted Operating Margin increased 350 basis points year on year to a record 20.6%. In the fiscal World Quarter, Adjusted Operating Income increased .8% on .2% consolidated revenue increase year on year. Adjusted Earnings Per Share increased .6% year on year to a record $2.28. Next cash provided by operating activities was $33.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2025 compared to $28.7 million a year ago. Capital Expenditures were $8.6 million compared to $6.5 million a year ago. As a result, we generated fiscal fourth quarter brief cash flow of $24.9 million compared to $22.2 million a year ago. Now, please turn to slide six and I will begin to discuss our segment performance and outlook beginning with electronics. Segment Revenue of $115.2 million increased .2% year on year driven by 41% benefit from acquisitions, organic growth of .3% and .9% benefit from foreign currency. Adjusted Operating Margin of .5% in fiscal fourth quarter 2025 increased 640 basis points year on year due to contribution from recent Ameran Orion Group acquisition, pricing and productivity initiatives and product mix. Our book to bill in fiscal fourth quarter was 1.03 with orders of approximately $118 million or increase of $10 million sequentially. Orders in electronics core business were up sequentially with a continued increase in demand in defense, power magnetic application and the electrical grid and market. Since our products are custom in nature, our bookings take longer to convert into revenue but with stronger margins. Our expansion plans for Ameran Orion in Houston and India are well underway to support additional demand. We increased capacity by adding second shifts across facilities. In addition, we began commissioning Greenfield site in Croatia to serve our customers in Europe and support growing power requirements for data centers and grid expansion and upgrades in the region. We expect first shipments of the Croatia site in the next three to four months. Excluding recent Ameran Orion Group acquisition, our new business opportunity funnel increased approximately 27% year on year to $125 million. Sequentially, in fiscal first quarter 2026, we expect slightly lower revenue reflecting contribution from Ameran Orion Group acquisition, higher sales in the fast food and markets and price realization more than offset by the impact of seasonality in Europe. Although we anticipate slightly lower revenue sequentially, we are expecting significant revenue growth and adjusted operating margin expansion along with organic growth on a year on year basis. We expect slightly lower adjusted operating margins sequentially driven by product mix and continuous strategic growth investment. Please turn to slide seven for discussion of the engineering technologies and scientific segments. Engineering technologies revenue increased .8% to $32 million driven by 25% benefit from recent Max Starlight acquisition, organic growth of .9% and .9% benefit from foreign currency. Organic growth was due to growth in sales from new products. Adjusted operating margin of .4% decreased 250 basis points year on year due to product mix. Sequentially, we expect slightly lower revenue and adjusted operating margin due to project timing. Scientific revenue increased .3% to $17.9 million due to .1% benefit from recent acquisition partially offset by an organic decline of .9% primarily due to lower demand from academic and research institutions that were impacted by NIH funding cuts. Adjusted operating margin of .3% decreased 530 basis points year on year due to organic decline and unfavorable product mix as a result of the acquisition. Sequentially, we expect slightly higher revenue and similar adjusted operating margins. Now, turn to slide 8 for discussion of the engraving and specialty solutions segment. Engraving revenue increased .6% to $33 million driven by .2% benefit from foreign currency partially offset by organic decline of 0.6%. Adjusted operating margin of .2% in fiscal four quarter 2025 increased 190 basis points year on year due to realization of previously announced productivity initiatives and restructuring actions. In our next fiscal quarter on a sequential basis, we expect similar revenue and slightly higher adjusted operating margin due to seasonality affecting Europe offset by slightly improved demand in North America and Asia and realization of previously announced restructuring actions. In addition, in the fiscal first quarter, our engraving business secured the source from a major OEM in North America to supply soft-trimmed parts for a calendar year 2026 program. Specialty solutions segment revenue of 23.9 million decreased .2% year on year primarily due to general market softness. Operating margin of .6% decreased 360 basis points year on year. Sequentially, we expect similar revenue and slightly higher operating margin. Next, please turn to slide nine for a summary of Stundex's liquidity statistics and capitalization structure. Our current available liquidity is approximately $280 million. At the end of the four quarter, Stundex had net debt of $448 million compared to net cash of $5.3 million at the end of fiscal quarter 2024. Our net leverage ratio currently stands at $2.6. We paid down our debt by approximately $27 million during the fiscal four quarter 2025. In the fiscal first quarter, 2026, we expect interest expense to be approximately $9 million. Stundex's long-term debt at the end of fiscal four quarter 2025 was $552.5 million. Cash and cash equivalents totaled $1 of $4.5 million. We declared our 244th quarterly consecutive cash dividend of $0.32 per share and approximately .7% increase year on year. In fiscal 2026, we expect capital expenditures to be between $33 and $38 million. Relative to our debt leverage, we will continue to focus on paying down debt and anticipate that our leverage ratio will further decline through fiscal year 2026. I will now turn the call over to David for concluding remarks.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Adamir. Please turn to slide 10. I want to describe the emotions in the company. There is an energy here and you can feel the shift. After years of building, refining, and preparing, the results are starting to show. There's pride in seeing our efforts take hold and excitement in knowing this is just the beginning. The engine we've built is ready and now we're starting to see what it can really do. I'm very proud of our team for their continued operational execution and for the success of our recent acquisitions, both of which helped us achieve record adjusted operating margin for a third consecutive quarter. We achieved record profit generation again in fiscal year 2025, driven by contribution from recent acquisitions, higher sales into fast growth end markets, and strong operational execution. Both adjusted gross margin and adjusted operating margin expanded by more than 200 basis points, while adjusted earnings per share increased approximately 6% to a record $7.98. Through debt pay down and profit generation, our net leverage ratio was reduced to 2.6 at the end of the fiscal year. In fiscal year 2025, sales into fast growth end markets were approximately $184 million, exceeding our fiscal year 2025 expectation of approximately $170 million. This was primarily driven by growth in data center demand and grid modernization and expansion. Outside of the electrical grid, we are seeing growth in commercialization of space and defense applications. In fiscal year 2026, we expect sales into fast growth markets to grow by approximately 45% and exceed $265 million. To support our future growth, we continue to invest in new product development and new applications across markets with growth potential. We launched 16 new products in fiscal year 2025 and plan to launch more than 15 in fiscal year 2026, which are expected to contribute over 300 basis points of incremental growth. In fiscal year 2026, we expect to grow revenue by over $100 million with continued adjusted operating margin expansion. Growth will be primarily driven by mid to high single digit organic growth in electronics, double digit organic growth in engineering technologies, and the contribution from recent acquisitions. We are well positioned in this fluid economic environment due to regional presence, strong customer relationships, and disciplined approach to pricing and productivity action. We remain on track to achieve our fiscal 2028 long-term targets of sales of greater than $1.15 billion and adjusted operating margin of greater than 23%. We are targeting ROIC of 12.5%, which has been adjusted for recent acquisition. We will now open the line for questions.

Operator | Conference Operator

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. We will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press star followed by the one on your touchtone phone. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press star followed by the two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. Your first question comes from Michael with DA Davidson.

Your line is now open. Michael | Analyst, DA Davidson

Yes. Hello. Good morning. Thank you for taking my question.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Morning.

Michael | Analyst, DA Davidson

Morning. So I want to maybe first talk about the $100 million or more revenue increase in fiscal 26. As I try to break down some of the numbers here, looking at Amerenamec Starlight, that's $1.5 billion plus of just annualizing those businesses. And they are growing organically, so it could be even higher than that. You've got the new products, which as you said, three points, probably $20 million, $30 million. You have the other fast growth products as well. So I'm just kind of curious that $100 million of revenue is here. I don't want to say it's in the bag, but maybe could there be any sources of upside or is that number a very conservative estimate just based on those areas? Then there's also the organic growth and the other businesses. Just some thoughts as to if there any room for upsides of that $100 million and any concerns you might have on areas that might be more of a challenge in 2026 as well.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, Mike, your math is good there. The way we look at it is the full year impact of those acquisitions will bring something over $60 million. The new products just over $20 million. The underlying growth in the fast growth markets, and remember the fast growth is largely driven by defense, commercialization of space, grid technologies, electrical equipment, OEMs. These are customer commitments that will drive this year. There's about another $38 million there. So if you just stop right there, we've made no assumptions about an overall market growth that would affect the core business and the other businesses. So we've said over $100 million, and if you just add those things up, you could comfortably say $100 to $130 or even more for 2026.

Michael | Analyst, DA Davidson

Got it. Thanks. I also want to turn to electronics and your EV business as well. EV business has kind of been in the headlines. EV broadly has been just some OEMs showing sales decline in recent quarters. You've got US policies pointing towards a tougher environment for the EV market as well. Can you comment on how your EV business is doing, whether that's going to still you think be a positive for electronics in 2026?

David Dunbar | Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, you know, we still count EVs in our fast growth markets because I think over time the prospects are good, A, because there will be a shift to EV electrical vehicles and our content per vehicle is higher. Although with the growth in defense and grid, it's a smaller piece of our fast growth markets. In 25, our EV sales did dip a little bit from 25, from 24. I guess, yeah, just slightly dip from 24. As you recall, our position in EVs is largely with the European brands, with their higher end models, and with new model introductions, we anticipate a nice growth in EVs in 2026.

Michael | Analyst, DA Davidson

Got it. Maybe one last one for me, turning to the Amaran business in Croatia. You said it'll be open in the next four months. I just want to get a sense as to the ramp up run rate there and how fully booked that facility already is and whether that will be a kind of a, in the same sense, in four quarters from now, you'll have some great growth in fiscal 27 as that also ramps up. I'm just kind of curious as to how the cadence might turn out. Yeah, David Dunbar | Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer: we're starting, we have customer commitments through this year and we'll ship a single digit millions probably in fiscal 26. But as we look over three years, we think that'll grow, that can go to 30 million plus. There's vast opportunity in Europe. So we want to get in the market, get the customers there to visit. They've got to go through their certification and approval process. Once they do that, we anticipate there's some more upside. We may need another site. I don't know. But as a starting point, this will get us, you know, 10, 20, 30 million dollars in three years.

Michael | Analyst, DA Davidson

Okay. Thanks for the color. I appreciate it.

I'll pass it along. Operator | Conference Operator

Thank you, Mike. Your next question comes from Ross Sparren Black with William Blair. Your line is now open.

Ross Sparren Black | Analyst, William Blair

Hey, good morning, gentlemen.

Good Adimir Sarcic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

morning.

Ross Sparren Black | Analyst, William Blair

Hey, guys. Just starting off with electronics. Just get a sense of where the kind of run rate demand is. Looks like there is some good core organic order growth in the quarter. Maybe just speak to, you know, what's driving that and kind of assumptions going into, you know, FY26 here.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, just a couple of things. We mentioned in the script that orders year on year are up 16 percent. In the core business, that's about 12 million dollars. Of that 12, about 10 is from OEMs. So this is OEMs as they've designed our products into their next generation products. So that that will convert over the next three, six, nine months. The other two million goes into distribution. That's a quicker conversion. A lot of it comes from Asia. We're seeing some pick up in North America. Europe's still relatively stable, I would say. But, you know, across your general industry in terms of end market outlook.

Ross Sparren Black | Analyst, William Blair

OK, is the expectation this is kind of a new run rate for that segment? I mean, it's been a couple of down years. So like there should be some restocking. Yeah, we think this is.

Yes. David Dunbar | Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

We do. Absolutely. And Adam, you mentioned that our new application funnel is growing. It's at a record high in large part. That's because the management team now in this last year has put in place more disciplined commercial excellence processes to track opportunities to fill the funnel. So we do think this is sustainable and this momentum will build.

Ross Sparren Black | Analyst, William Blair

OK, and then we put a finer point on the AMRIN with the capacity unlock. I mean, strong growth, but there should be maybe a sequential step up at some point as Europe comes online. Yep. Any loose targets you get there out there? Kind of a base case or, you know, full case on how that could play out.

In David Dunbar | Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

some ways, it's embedded in that in the fast growing number. But if you think about capacity, so we've said the Croatia site, I think they're just answering to Mike said in three years, it could be 30 million. A couple of years after that, maybe 60 plus in India and Texas, as you know, we've added second shifts with lean. We're also freeing up some capacity so they can so that continues to support their 20 plus percent growth that they were experiencing before we acquired them. And they continue now in North America. We are also looking at an aggressive expansion in our in our presence in Houston. And depending on where trade and tariffs go to, we'll also look at a Mexico site potentially, depending on where trade and tariffs come in at the request of our North American electrical OEMs. And that would be a step up in capacity as well. So I can't put numbers on it. But if you if you continue to expect a 15, 20 percent growth in Amman, Narayan, I think that's reasonable. And we will add the capacity to support that.

Ross Sparren Black | Analyst, William Blair

Yeah, I guess my point is, spk00: you know, Ross Sparren Black | Analyst, William Blair: almost two thirds of businesses in North America and you guys have done a lot of work there. I mean, 15 percent seems like that would be very low bar. Yeah. Are you are you getting good pull through and traction on the capacity that's been added in North America thus far?

David Dunbar | Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We were we are every capacity we were selling and we have we have long term customer commitments to drive future capacity ads. I'm not sure if I'm answering your question.

Ross Sparren Black | Analyst, William Blair

We think offline.

I'll jump back in. Operator | Conference Operator

Your next question comes from Chris Moore with CJF Securities. Your line is now open.

Chris Moore | Analyst, CJF Securities

Hey, good morning, guys. Congrats on a nice quarter and encouraging organic growth discussion. So maybe start with with engraving. Just is the restructuring done there?

David Dunbar | Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

You know, the engraving business, we work on tools and we need to be close to tool shops because tools are expensive and that shipped a lot. The evolution of toolmakers around the world is kind of shifting. They're in different places now than they were before. And with certain with third, what's the number 30 some sites now around the world, it's likely that there will be this ongoing process to make sure our footprint matches toolmakers. So I think in the coming years, there probably will be some continued restructuring more to align with with where that end market is. With engraving in general, the way we think about it is this last year, we think demand kind of bottomed out. It was a very tough year for for the auto OEMs and their new platform releases. Many of them were delayed, kind of waiting for clarity of industrial policy, especially in America. We think that our outlook now shows some some growth from that. But more importantly, the business to also scramble to find some new opportunities. And Adam here mentioned these kind of differentiated parts that we're making based on our kind of proprietary processes with soft trim. So we think there's a growth opportunity in engraving. So the markets start to stabilize, come up and we've got some some growth on top of that.

Adimir Sarcic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Yeah, and Chris, if I can just add, you know, there was a lot of heavy lifting and engraving due to respect to eliminating some of the some of the unprofitable sites, so to speak. And most of the heavy lifting is done. So to David's point, there's a little bit of work left to do, but majority of the restructuring actions for engraving have been completed.

Chris Moore | Analyst, CJF Securities

Terrific. Have the competitive dynamics changed much in that business over the last few years?

David Dunbar | Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

No, it's been more the demand. In fact, the competition, there are fewer competitors now than there were five years ago. Right. Because our competitors are mostly, they're mostly smaller regional competitors. And so depending on what region they're in, it's been tougher sailing for them.

Chris Moore | Analyst, CJF Securities

Got it. You mentioned and we talked about in the past, the NIH funding on the scientific side. Just any any thoughts there? You know how significant that is?

Adimir Sarcic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Yeah, Chris, about third of our sales incentives go through a channel that it's either, you know, it's affected by NIH funding. And obviously that has impacted our order rates over the last over the last couple of quarters. But in the outlook that we are giving, we are not assuming any pickup or any significant changes in the in the demand from those type of that type of end market or that type of a channel. So, you know, we are more focused around, you know, new products, you know, exploring some additional selling opportunities. And if the NIH funding comes back, there will be an upside to the guy that we gave for 26.

Chris Moore | Analyst, CJF Securities

Great. Maybe just my last one. Bigger picture. I mean, if rates come down 50 to 100 basis points, does that have much of an impact anywhere?

Adimir Sarcic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Yeah, of course. And now that repayment. Yes, it does. So we obviously watching that watching that closely. But look, you know, our objective is to continue paying down our debt. You know, net leverage is now at about 2.6 and we take with the operating cash flow that we generate in this company that we can get that leverage down to about two, assuming current portfolio businesses, you know, by the end of this fiscal year. So even with this type of interest rates.

Chris Moore | Analyst, CJF Securities

Got it. And I was thinking more from a product standpoint, but perfect. I will leave it there. Thanks, guys.

Operator | Conference Operator

Your next question comes from Matt Coranda with Roth Capital. Your line is now open.

Matt Coranda | Analyst, Roth Capital

Hey, guys. Good morning. Just on ETG was curious with mixed starlight. Is that a creative operating margins in the segment? And then are you guys factoring in revenue synergies in the organic growth commentary for this year for ETG?

Adimir Sarcic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

It is it is similar margins as our core business with an ETG as far as mixed starlight is concerned. And yes, there are some revenue synergies.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Now, we've actually discovered some pretty exciting energy opportunities that our capabilities plus their capabilities allow us to design new parts with an efficiency that neither of us could do in the past. That that position as well for future opportunities. Now, those take a while to convert, but longer term, we think that opens up a little higher growth rate for both businesses.

Matt Coranda | Analyst, Roth Capital

OK, David Dunbar | Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer: that's Matt Coranda | Analyst, Roth Capital: helpful. And then maybe just I know it's dynamic, but just given the tariff announcements yesterday, Is there any way to just help us understand if any of those actions would be impactful to the business? I'd assume maybe the India announcement might be meaningful, but and then with regard to copper, any exposure on some of the new announcements there?

David Dunbar | Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, so let me just a broad statement. We went to Adam and I were talking about that this morning, but we have learned to love uncertainty in this company. If you go back five years, the most dramatic inflation we ever saw with rhodium inflation and we put in place practices to handle those disruptions that come from those unexpected rapid increases in cost with price with pricing practices. We redesigned a product or product line. And through that whole period, we only delivered higher margins. The inflation, the post covid inflation disrupt every part of our business kind of drove that same discipline through all the rest of our businesses. Now, if you look back six months, the last couple of quarters, we've lived in an uncertain trade and tariff environment. And look at the margins we just posted. Our businesses have done a great job identifying how best to deal with that in the short term. Several of our businesses are looking at their sourcing strategies, making sure that any exposure we have is being dealt dealt with with identifying, bringing on some new lines. So from a from a cultural standpoint, we think a highly uncertain environment kind of favors us because we demonstrated we're nimble and agile. The reason announcements may all turn it over to Adam here to look at the actual numbers and what the potential impact is.

Adimir Sarcic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Yeah, so Matt, you know, I, you know, about four percent of our cogs comes from India. It's mostly within our electronic segment. You know, and again, to David's point between pricing, productivity, alternative sourcing, we feel pretty good. We got we got it covered.

Matt Coranda | Analyst, Roth Capital

OK, all right. Super clear. Maybe just last one. The longer term target on sales, if we use just sort of an implied kegger off of sort of the maybe the low end of your guidance for fiscal 26, it still would imply sort of a low double digit sales kegger to get to the 28 target. Is that sort of how you think about it? And maybe just how much of that comes organically versus through acquisition in your.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, let me walk. Yeah, let me walk through kind of a high level bridge. We looked at this in a number of different ways. If you just anchor it on twenty twenty five, you're just finished seven ninety. Our new products were fifty five, fifty five million this coming year. We expect them to grow about 40 percent and we're just getting started with new products. So we anticipate about 30 percent growth annually in the new products. Fast growth market was one hundred eighty five last year, we're going to see sixty five and we're anticipating about 20 percent growth there in twenty eight. So those numbers that puts new products at 130 fast growth at three eighty. If you anticipate that the core, the remaining core business, which is about five fifty, will grow about three percent a year. That adds another 50 or so million that puts us at one just shy of the one point one five. In addition to that, we think there's an opportunity for a little pick up in the scientific markets. These additional defense opportunities we mentioned provide upside and these engraving wins that we described also provide. So there's maybe 30, 40 million dollars of go get in the next three years, but we've got the opportunities to to achieve them.

Unknown Participant | Participant

Super helpful alternative.

Thanks. Operator | Conference Operator

Your next question comes from Gary Presto Pino with Barrington Research. Your line is now open.

Gary Presto Pino | Analyst, Barrington Research

Hi, good morning all. Hey, just want to get an idea with new product sales. I would assume the majority of those are targeted to your fast growth markets. Is that kind of a correct assumption?

David Dunbar | Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, there is overlap in there. So engineering technologies has is a big contributor there. They've developed new products to expand their their participation in space. And that's those new products are all in fast growth. We've got fast growth in some of our other core businesses, while some of our other businesses, scientific and federal that are just in general industry. So there is some overlap in fast growth. So I'd say about 30 percent, 30 percent of new products going to fast growth.

Gary Presto Pino | Analyst, Barrington Research

OK, so 30 percent new products into Unknown Participant | Participant: fast growth. And then as we as Gary Presto Pino | Analyst, Barrington Research: you scale the fast growth markets and grow the sales, as you expect to, is can you give us some idea of relative to your adjusted operating margin that you generated this year? What kind of incremental margin increases do you get from growing that sales into these faster growth markets? I mean, I assume they've got to have a higher higher margin profile.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, they do. Just think through the businesses in there. It is higher than the average. So we mix up with every growth in fast growth markets in terms of how many basis points of gross margin. It's got to be three, four hundred basis points higher.

Adimir Sarcic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think if you look at our projections, then we say we're going to get to over 23 percent adjusted operating margin by FY 28. If you just assume and it's true that our margins when we do sales into fast growth and markets are higher, you can do back of the envelope calculation and see just on the higher volume. We're going to comfortably get there. And then obviously we're going to have pricing and productivity actions on top of that.

Gary Presto Pino | Analyst, Barrington Research

So. OK, and then getting back to new products, what do you say you generate? You put out 16 this year.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

In the quarter. So it was 55 in the year. Fifty five in the year. Oh, sorry. Sixty six. Sixteen new six. Yeah. Sixteen new products were released and the sales of products released in the last couple of years that are still new was fifty five.

Gary Presto Pino | Analyst, Barrington Research

So. OK, I just want to get an idea. Was there was there anything that that really drove the boat there as far as growth or. In any of those categories that you put out, David Dunbar | Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer: put Gary Presto Pino | Analyst, Barrington Research: out David Dunbar | Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer: the biggest numbers in the year with engineering technology sales into commercialization of space. These are these are new products for them that expanded their share of wallet and their content on those vehicles. OK, Gary Presto Pino | Analyst, Barrington Research: and then just lastly, how would you the acquisition pipeline? I know you're always active there. You know, would you have the appetite to do another acquisition this year? This fiscal year, the opportunity came up.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

You were always working the pipeline and a lot of the deals we do are the result of years of relationship building. So we're out there doing that. And. You know, with with with the projection of our deleverage. So now at the end of this quarter with two point six, we anticipate just with normal course with operating cash flows and things by the end of this year will be a two. So we're rapidly developing the powder to be able to do something.

Unknown Participant | Participant

OK, thank you.

Operator | Conference Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, should you have a question, please press star one. Your next question comes from Ross Farron Black with William Blair. Your line is now open.

Unknown Participant | Participant

Hey, Ross. Why is it open? He's on mute. There we go. Can you hear me?

Ross Sparren Black | Analyst, William Blair

Yeah, we have. On that, on the scientific margins, you know, decent squids and uptake with some tougher shipping rates. Can you just give us a sense of what played out there in the quarter and kind of expectations looking forward to 2026 as we think about R&D as well?

Adimir Sarcic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Yeah. So, you know, from a scientific standpoint, you're right. You know, the shipping, the shipping rates, you know, you know, are generally generally OK. You know, the acquisition we have in the scientific space is actually at a lower margin than our core business. So that's impacting our segment margin, if you will, a little bit. You know, but we do expect as we get into the fiscal 26 with the combination of pricing, productivity actions, we're going to be able to offset and alternative sourcing, by the way, in this segment, we're going to be able to offset the tariff pressure we got coming in because scientific is the business that sources some of its base products out of China. So, you know, we do expect scientific margins to hold.

Ross Sparren Black | Analyst, William Blair

OK, and then just one more point on free cash. Kind of a tough year. Can you maybe just speak to your ability to maybe get some more turns on the working capital and get that conversion back above 100 percent?

Adimir Sarcic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Yeah. Yeah, Ross. Great. Great question. Yeah. And, you know, if you look at our cash flow creation in the last fiscal year, you know, we were we were significantly impacted to by one time transaction related costs. You know, when you do three deals in a year and, you know, you have to do the payments to the bankers and the lawyers, et cetera, that adds up to be a pretty sizable number. And on top of that, you know, the acquisitions that we did, you know, have credit terms with the customers that are much longer than the credit terms that, you know, we we generally had in our core businesses. So our DSO has actually increased versus what we had prior to the acquisitions. So we are working on and, you know, frankly, some of the structure around collections is, you know, in some of those businesses, not as robust as we had the standard. So we are working to putting our process into place around the receivables and collections. And we think we're going to make a very good dent and progress in collections and receivables and working capital this fiscal year. So we expect conversion of cash to be much, much better this year than last year.

Ross Sparren Black | Analyst, William Blair

All right. So can we hold you to a mean reversion back to 60 on the DSOs?

Adimir Sarcic | Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer

You can. You can. That's a nice going to put it on the spot. Yeah, you can hold us that we're going to, you know, we're going to drive back to that low 60 number right now. We are about 69, 70 in terms of the DSO. And our goal is over the over this fiscal year to drive that as close to 60 as we can.

Ross Sparren Black | Analyst, William Blair

OK, fantastic.

Good. Unknown Participant | Participant

That's on the spot.

Operator | Conference Operator

I know for the questions at this time, I will now turn the call over to David Dunbar, CEO for closing remarks.

David Dunbar | Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer

All right. Thank you. Before we wrap, I want to send a special thank you to Tom Hanson, who is retiring from our board after 12 years. Tom has been a valuable board member and made many contributions to the company. I also want to welcome Andy Nemeth, the CEO of Patrick Industries, who is our newest board member. We look forward to working together. Finally, and as always, I want to thank everybody for joining us for the call. We enjoy reporting on our progress at StandX. Thank you also to our employees and shareholders for your continued support and contributions. I'm excited for the company's potential in fiscal year 2026 and look forward to speaking with you again in our fiscal first quarter 2026 call.

Operator | Conference Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines. jsPDF 3.0.3 D:20260606090448-00'00'