Donaldson Company - Q2 2026

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. My name is Krista, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome you to Donaldson Company's Q2 Fiscal Year 2026 earnings webcast and Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question at that time, simply press star, then the one on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw that question, simply press star one again. Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference over to Sarika Dhadwal, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Sarika Dhadwal (Head of Investor Relations)

Good morning. Thank you for joining Donaldson's Q2 fiscal 2026 earnings conference call. With me today are Tod Carpenter, Chairman, President, and CEO, Rich Lewis, Incoming President and CEO, and Brad Pogalz, Chief Financial Officer. This morning, we will provide a summary of our Q2 performance and our outlook for fiscal 2026. During today's call, we will discuss non-GAAP or adjusted results. For Q2 2026, non-GAAP results exclude pre-tax charges of $6.7 million, including $2.9 million of restructuring and other, and $3.8 million of business development charges. This compares to prior year pre-tax charges of $6.6 million, including $2.2 million of restructuring and other, and $4.4 million of business development charges. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP metrics is provided within the schedules attached to this morning's press release.

Please keep in mind that any forward-looking statements made during this call are subject to risks and uncertainties, which are described in our press release and SEC filings. With that, I will now turn the call over to Tod.

Tod Carpenter (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Thanks, Sarika. Good morning, everyone. Donaldson Company achieved record sales in the Q2 as we worked hard to meet strong customer demand across all three of our segments. Our underlying business is robust, as evidenced by our high backlogs and continued strong order intake. While we face short-term execution challenges in our industrial segment, we saw strength in areas such as independent aftermarket within mobile solutions and food and beverage and Disk Drive within life sciences. We also announced the acquisition of Facet, the largest acquisition in company history, which I will discuss in a few minutes. Entering the second half of the year, I have confidence in the strength of our organization and our commitment to deliver on our updated fiscal 2026 outlook, which represents record sales of approximately $3.8 billion, with operating margin and adjusted earnings per share at all-time highs.

Throughout our history, our talented global teams have demonstrated a commitment to deliver for all of our stakeholders, including our customers, shareholders, and employees. We continually do this through our leadership position in filtration, which was built on decades of solving our customers' most difficult filtration problems, our best-in-class technology, uniquely powerful because we focus on filtration capabilities and then leverage these technologies across markets, our ability to help customers meet evolving environmental and operational goals by helping to protect equipment, processes, and people, and our clear strategic and balanced growth strategy. This is how we have and will continue to win. In late January, we announced our next President and CEO, Rich Lewis, effective next week on March 2nd.

This transition reflects a long-term succession planning process that comes at a time when we are well-positioned for the future, thanks to the talent, dedication, and discipline of our global team. Rich has been with Donaldson since 2002 and has been our Chief Operating Officer since August. On behalf of the entire organization, I wanna congratulate him, and I look forward to his future success. Before I turn it over to Rich to discuss our Q2 results in more detail, I wanna touch on our recent acquisition of Facet, which we are very excited about. This acquisition complements and expands Donaldson's product portfolio, bringing high-performance fuel and fluid filtration capabilities for mission-critical applications and broadening our exposure to durable end markets, such as Aerospace and Defense and power generation.

Importantly, approximately 70% of Facet's revenue are driven by recurring, regulated replacement part sales, a nice fit with our already large composition of replacement parts. Facet makes us stronger, adding nearly $110 million in sales, with gross margins and EBITDA margins significantly above our current company average. The company has low capital intensity and strong cash flows. We look forward to welcoming the Facet team to Donaldson and reporting on our combined performance. I will turn it over to Rich, who will talk more about the Q2 highlights, and then Brad will take us through the financials in more detail. Rich?

Rich Lewis (Incoming President and CEO)

Thanks, Tod. Good morning, everyone. First, I'd like to thank Tod for his leadership and congratulate him on his successful Donaldson Company career, including his impact as CEO over the past 11 years. I am honored to step into the CEO role and look forward to working alongside our broader leadership team to build on our momentum and deliver for our stakeholders. I also look forward to my continued partnership with Tod as he transitions to the executive chairman position. Now I'll cover our Q2 results. At a high level, sales were a record $896 million, 3% above prior year, with growth across all three segments. Currency translation and pricing benefits were partially offset by volume declines in both mobile and industrial solutions. Operating margin was 14%, down from 15.2% a year ago as a result of gross margin pressure.

Volume de-leveraging, concentrated operational inefficiencies related to our production shifts to support higher demand and power generation, and footprint optimization costs negatively impacted gross margin in the quarter. Adjusted earnings per share were $0.83, flat versus the record achieved in 2025. Now, looking at our segments, mobile solution sales were $557 million, up 2%, driven by currency benefits. Aftermarket sales were $447 million, up 1%, with high single-digit growth in our independent channel, offset by OE channel declines. Overall, we are benefiting from share gains and increases in global vehicle utilization. On the first-fit side, off-road sales of $86 million increased 8% as we cycle against weak market conditions from prior year, particularly in agriculture. On-road sales of $23 million decreased 9% as a result of continued declines in global truck production.

Touching on our mobile business in China, sales were up 18% due to strength in off-road and aftermarket. This marks our sixth consecutive quarter of growth in China, and we are optimistic about the future opportunities in this important market. In Industrial Solutions, sales were $260 million, a 2% increase compared with 2025, driven by currency benefits. IFS sales of $223 million grew 7% from continued strength in power generation, particularly in North America and Europe, and demand for new equipment remained significant. Rounding out our Industrial Solutions performance, Aerospace and Defense sales were $37 million, down 19% versus prior year due to project timing, primarily in defense. In Life Sciences, sales of $80 million increased 16% year-over-year, largely as a result of robust growth in food and beverage and Disk Drive.

In food and beverage, our largest business within life sciences, new equipment sales grew substantially in all regions, laying the foundation for future replacement parts sales growth. We continue to win, including in areas such as liquid cooling for data centers, and we are winning with key OEMs and channel partners through our strong sales processes and technology-led products. Given our Q2 results and our expectations for the second half of the year, we are updating our margin and earnings outlook for fiscal 2026. At the midpoint of our revised guidance ranges, we continue to expect a record year for Donaldson, now inclusive of record sales of $3.8 billion and sales growth in each of our segments, consistent with our previous expectations.

Operating margin expansion of 50 basis points to an all-time high of 16.2%, including second half operating margin, consistent with our prior guidance. Earnings per share of $3.97, roughly 8% above prior year, free cash flow conversion of approximately 90%, which provides us capital allocation optionality to return value to our shareholders. In summary, I am proud of the agility and resilience displayed by the Donaldson team as we navigate some short-term operational headwinds to set ourselves up for stronger performance over the long term. With that, I will now turn it over to Brad, who will provide more details on the financials and our outlook for fiscal 2026. Brad?

Brad Pogalz (CFO)

Thanks, Rich. Good morning, everyone. I want to start by thanking the Donaldson team. They demonstrated tremendous agility as we work to deliver for our customers while making progress on several big projects, including the work done on the Facet acquisition. Facet will be an important addition to our company. We expect to close in the next couple of quarters. As Tod mentioned, Facet will make us stronger, strategically and financially. Beyond Facet, we're focused on delivering the strong second-half performance reflected in our guidance. First, a summary of our results. Note that my profit comments exclude the impact from the non-recurring charges Sarika referenced earlier. Total sales increased 3%. Adjusted EPS of $0.83 was flat year-over-year. Operating margin declined 120 basis points to 14%, due primarily to the impact from discrete operational issues on gross margin.

Q2 gross margin was 33.7%, down 150 basis points from the prior year and below our expectations. About 60 basis points of the total gross margin decline was due to de-leveraging from lower volume in the mobile and industrial segments. We anticipated some year-over-year gross margin pressure in the quarter, as there were certain businesses, particularly OE aftermarket and defense, with difficult comparisons from last year. The timing of orders and delivery had a greater impact than planned. For the second half of fiscal 26, we expect the volume pressures abate based on our strong backlogs and the leverage that comes with our typical second-half sales step-up. Q2 gross margin was also impacted by inefficiencies driven by changes we are making to our manufacturing footprint.

One item that spiked this quarter relates to power generation. Specifically, the production of our large turbine systems. To meet the super cycle demand and deliver on customer-specific requirements of producing in North America, last year, we began producing these large systems for the first time at one of our facilities in Mexico. The combination of a protracted startup process in Mexico and surging demand resulted in a gross margin headwind of about 40 basis points in the quarter. We have plans in place to accelerate our improvement and expect to make progress in the second half of this fiscal year. Another area where we expect improvement in the second half relates to our ongoing footprint optimization initiatives. This fiscal year is an important milestone for this work, with the most significant projects expected to be completed by fiscal year-end.

In the quarter, we had about 30 basis points of gross margin pressure as we go through the final stages of a plant closure in the U.S. and associated transfer of production. Once through this heavy lift period, we will begin to realize cost benefits later in this fiscal year and into the future. While gross margin in the Q2 was not to our expectation, the drivers of the performance reflect short-term headwinds from the work we are doing to establish long-term efficiencies in several of our most important businesses. Our forecast contemplates sequential improvement in gross margin and full year expansion. I'm confident we will deliver on that target. At the same time, our team continues to do an excellent job managing our operating expenses.

As a rate of sales, operating expenses improved to 19.7% from 20% a year ago, reflecting benefits from the structural cost optimization initiatives launched during the prior fiscal year, as well as continued expense discipline. We're prioritizing opportunities while conserving where we can, providing necessary offsets to the footprint work we're doing. In terms of segment profitability, Mobile Solutions' pre-tax profit margin was 16.8%, down 60 basis points from prior year, primarily due to volume deleveraging in the aftermarket OE channel and footprint optimization efforts. Industrial Solutions' pre-tax margin was 11.9%, down from 16.1% in 2025, stemming from the previously mentioned operational inefficiencies and footprint optimization costs. With improving plant efficiency and benefits from leverage on higher sales, we expect industrial pre-tax operating margin to step up notably in the second half.

Life Sciences' pre-tax margin improved to 9.3% from a loss of about 1% a year ago. Strong sales in our higher margin, food and beverage, and Disk Drive businesses, and benefits from a more focused expense structure following optimization programs a year ago, drove the improvement. Turning to our fiscal 26 outlook, first on sales, we are reaffirming our consolidated sales guidance of 1% to 5% growth, with stronger-than-expected sales in Mobile Solutions and Life Sciences being offset by lower Industrial Solutions sales. Our forecast assumes pricing and currency translation will each contribute about 1% to growth. Within Mobile Solutions, we're increasing our growth forecast to a range between 2% and 6%, compared with flat to up 4% previously, primarily due to favorable currency.

We are raising our guidance for aftermarket and now expect sales up mid-single digits versus our previous low single-digit forecast, primarily due to strength in our independent channel from currency, pricing, and volume. Consistent with our prior guidance, off-road sales remain on track to grow mid-single digits, mainly due to a modest rebound following significant declines in agriculture a year ago. On-road sales are expected to be flat for the year, also in line with our prior guidance, due to muted global truck production. In Industrial Solutions, sales are forecast between a decline of 1% and an increase of 3% versus the previous expectation for growth between 2% and 6%. Sales of IFS are now expected to grow in the low single digits, down from mid-single digits previously, due largely to declines in sales of dust collection and industrial hydraulics systems.

Aerospace and Defense sales are projected to decline mid-single digits versus flat previously, due to the timing of certain programs. In Life Sciences, we are increasing our sales forecast as benefits from favorable currency translation are expected to complement already strong food and beverage and Disk Drive momentum. To that end, we project sales to increase between 5% and 9% versus a 1%-5% increase previously. We expect benefits from sales leverage and continued cost discipline to generate full-year pre-tax margin in the mid to high single digits, up from mid-single digits previously. Given our Q2 performance and our outlook for the balance of the year, we revised our operating margin guidance to a range between 16% and 16.4%, a decline of 30 basis points at the midpoint from our prior forecast.

Despite the temporary gross margin headwinds in Q2, the full year operating margin forecast still reflects a record level, and at the midpoint, an incremental margin approaching 35%. With that change, we now expect fiscal 2026 EPS between $3.93 and $4.01 per share. At the midpoint of $3.97, we are projecting EPS growth of 8% on 3% sales growth. Our earnings guidance contemplates a second-half step-up in sales, supported by our strong backlogs, as well as gross margin expansion resulting from the operating improvements I discussed earlier. Onto our balance sheet and cash flow outlook. Our capital expenditures are expected to be between $60 million and $75 million, with focused investments, including new products and technologies across all verticals.

We continue to project cash conversion in the range of 85%-95%, an improvement versus 2025 and consistent with historical averages. The balance sheet remains a strength of Donaldson's, with our net leverage ratio currently at 0.7 times. Adjusting for the Facet acquisition, Donaldson would have a net leverage ratio of approximately 1.7 times, still leaving us ample financial flexibility to thoughtfully invest for our future growth. As we think about shareholder value creation for the long term, our capital allocation priorities are unchanged. First, reinvest back into the company. We are the leader in technology-led filtration and intend on maintaining our position. R&D investments in strategically important, high growth, high margin areas where we have a clear path to win will drive our success. Our longer-term efforts are also supported by ongoing working capital investments and capital expenditures.

Our second capital deployment priority is disciplined M&A. We actively work through a pipeline of opportunities. Discipline is key to our approach. We are excited about our Facet acquisition and look forward to pursuing additional opportunities that meet our strategic and financial criteria. We are creating long-term value through our growth investments, but also through the return of cash to our shareholders. Our third capital allocation priority is dividends. Calendar year 2025 was our 70th year in a row of paying dividends and the 30th in a row of increasing our dividend. We have every intention of maintaining our status as a proud member of the S&P High Yield Dividend Aristocrats Index. Share repurchase is our fourth capital deployment priority, and it has always been the variable component.

Given the pending close on our acquisition of Facet, we do not expect to repurchase additional shares in the balance of this fiscal year. Year to date, we have repurchased 1.2%, which offsets dilution, our focus now is using the strength of our business to rapidly pay down debt. Looking beyond the quarter, the underlying fundamentals of our business are strong, we have the right priorities to deliver another year of profitable growth and value creation. I'll turn the call back to Tod.

Tod Carpenter (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Thanks, Brad. As I sit and reflect today, I am particularly pleased with Donaldson Company's continued evolution as a premier global provider of technology-led filtration solutions, and I'm excited for the opportunities that lie ahead. It has been a privilege to be part of this organization for the last 30 years and an honor to have led the company for the last 11. I'll not be far away as I take on the role of Executive Chairman. I am highly confident in our teams around the globe who make Donaldson what it is, and who I know will reach new heights under Rich's leadership. With that, I'll now turn the call back to the operator to open the line for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you'd like to withdraw that question, again, press star one. Your first question comes from the line of Angel Castillo with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Angel Castillo (Executive Director)

Hey, good morning. This is Oliver on for Angel today. Can I just double-click on A&D? I know you guys got it down here for 26. Is that because of projects, you know, shifting into 2027 or, you know, something to do with underlying demand? Then, you know, how should we think about, you know, your guide versus what, you know, you're seeing for Facet? Is that just a, you know, product of different portfolios and aftermarket?

Rich Lewis (Incoming President and CEO)

Hey, good morning, Oliver. This is Rich. yeah, let's I'll take your first question. When you think about A&D, you know, we're coming off record sales levels the last couple of years, and clearly, we've had suppressed revenue the first half of the year. It's really a combination of two things. We've got some timing issues on some of our military projects. These can be lumpy. We've also have supply chain challenges as well that are ongoing.

I would say this, overall, we're very comfortable with the order intake. If you think about the backlog of this business sort of post-October, it's up over 20%. Orders are coming in nicely. We feel really good that the second half run rate's gonna be significantly improved. The name of the game is really gonna be working with our suppliers and making sure we can ship all the orders. Some of these suppliers are single-sourced, directed buys. We are trying to qualify new suppliers. These projects can take quite some time, but overall, it's really about muscling through this order book. We'll see a significant step up in the second half.

As far as Facet goes, we do play in different parts of the market, and they're exposed to. You know, they're more military, fixed wing. They're also a lot of marine. We're tend to be more ground vehicle. We play in different parts of the market, but we'll start to see improved performance in the second half on the revenue.

Angel Castillo (Executive Director)

Great. That's really helpful. Then just maybe one follow-up on industrial. I know, you know, there's some footprint changes this quarter. Do you kinda expect that to continue or abate somewhat into fiscal three Q and four Q? Then, you know, can you talk just a little bit about what that buys you in terms of power gen? Does that, you know, potentially expand throughput or potentially even a bigger portfolio there? Any color there would be helpful.

Rich Lewis (Incoming President and CEO)

Sure. Yeah, let's take the footprint optimization work. I know we've been talking about this for a while. These projects are pretty complex. They typically last, you know, 12 to 24 months. We have had an accelerated amount of activity in this space over the last couple of years. Just to put it into perspective, we have 4 plant closures that we've been working on, none of which touch power gen. It's other parts of the industrial business. 2 of these are in their final phase, which basically means the plants are closed, the assets have been transferred to the new location, and they're working through the learning curve and the productivity increase. We would expect that work to come to a conclusion, through the balance of the fiscal year. We also have 2 other ones.

We will close those plants in quarter three, and they'll be working through the learning curve and the productivity increase in Q4. Maybe a way to think about it is you'll start to see the benefit, the margin improvement benefit, in our guide in F27. We also do these projects for a couple reasons. You know, we're trying to reduce our asset base, and we're also trying to reduce or improve our risk profile. We believe these projects ultimately will be very successful, but we do have a few more months here of work ahead of us.

Angel Castillo (Executive Director)

Got it. Really, really appreciate that.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Bryan Blair with Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

Bryan Blair (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Thank you. Morning, everyone.

Rich Lewis (Incoming President and CEO)

Morning, Brian.

Angel Castillo (Executive Director)

Hi.

Bryan Blair (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Tod, congratulations on a very successful career, including over a decade as CEO. Rich, congrats on the nod.

Brad Pogalz (CFO)

Thanks, Brian.

Rich Lewis (Incoming President and CEO)

Thanks, Brian.

Bryan Blair (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Of course. I was hoping that you guys could offer a little more color on how IFS orders trended through fiscal Q2, what your team's seeing, you know, thus far in Q3. Year-on-year growth was, you know, stronger sequentially, aligning with the prior guidance framework of mid-single-digit growth. Power gen, you know, some inefficiencies in the Q2, but certainly a good guy in terms of growth path. Brad, I know you called out, you know, dust collection and hydraulic systems as the areas of relative weakness. I guess, if you can offer some finer points on, you know, whether there is accelerated weakness through fiscal Q2 into Q3 in those areas or you're simply taking a more cautious or conservative stance on continued macro uncertainty.

Rich Lewis (Incoming President and CEO)

Yeah, maybe I'll take the business side, the macro, if Brad wants to add anything on the numbers, he can weigh in as well. If we sort of disaggregate IFS, you know, you mentioned it, power gen is clearly very, very strong right now. Just at a big picture, you know, we're booked through the end of the fiscal, we've loaded fairly solid bookings already into the next 2 fiscal years. We're feeling really good about the demand on power gen, it's pretty broad-based. We're seeing it across sort of the compressed gas side, on the oil and gas piece, and on peak and base load energy generation. A lot of that's tied to, you know, the data center push that's going on.

On the IAF side, yeah, we're seeing it's a bit mixed. Globally, we see relatively decent order patterns outside of the Americas. The Americas have been pretty soft, and we're still seeing a fair bit of quoting activity in the Americas. I think the uncertainty in the economy is driving people to be cautious on pulling the trigger on POS. I would say across the board, if you look at replacement parts, those continue to perform very well. We see good utilization rates and good order intake on the replacement side.

Brad Pogalz (CFO)

Brian, this is Brad. I'll just add, I think as you look at the first couple of quarters, dust collection is about where it was in the Q2 in terms of the overall year-over-year conditions. Not much to comment there, but I do want to underscore a point Rich made. This is really about our new systems and the first-fit side of the business. The machines are still running, aftermarket is still doing well in IFS, and we've got good opportunities there with our placement. It's just about getting these capital expenditure decisions of our customers to break free a little bit.

Bryan Blair (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Understood. Helpful color. Facet is an intriguing deal for your team, certainly mix enhancing. Can you speak to the historical growth rates of the asset? You know, whether we should expect accelerated growth, you know, under Donaldson ownership? If so, you know, what the drivers are there, and then how we should think about P&L impact looking to fiscal 2027. I know you had said close within the next couple of quarters, so sometime in the fiscal back half, but if we look to next year, how should we think about impact? Thank you.

Rich Lewis (Incoming President and CEO)

Yeah, maybe just, I'll just take a step back, if it's okay, and just talk a little bit about Facet from a broader perspective. I mean, we're really excited about Facet potentially joining the Donaldson family. Obviously, we'll continue to work through the regulatory process to close this deal in the next couple of quarters, but this is a business that we've been following and frankly admiring for a long time. It's a perfect fit for what we're trying to do on an M&A side, so it's high level recurring filtration revenue. They've got a durable, competitive advantage, given the sort of the regulatory nature of their end market, and it sits in a high margin, high growth, business.

We'll talk about the growth rates here in a second. As we've gotten to know the team there, we think it's also a very good fit culturally. Really good folks, very committed to their customers, deep knowledge. Now, the growth rate, as we put in the deck, whether we posted out on our website, yeah, they're high single digits, and it's a mix of volume and pricing, and we would expect that to continue. They have a lot of potential growth opportunities outside of their core military and commercial markets on the aerospace side. Those are a lot of markets that we play well in on our industrial. We hope over time that we'll find significant growth synergies. We have not baked that into our expectations. That's all upside.

Yeah, it's gonna be a good fit for us, and we're really excited about it.

Brad Pogalz (CFO)

Ryan, on the P&L side, obviously, we expect to close in a couple quarters, so nothing factored into the fiscal 26 guidance, but you mentioned fiscal 27. As we think ahead, I think the important point that we said in the prepared remarks is that it's mixed positive on our most important operating metrics, gross margin and EBITDA. Obviously, this is a business that we'll work to integrate properly. We don't expect much in the way of cost synergies, a few million dollars, but more from procurement, 'cause it sits in a unique spot relative to where we sit in these markets. I think overall, you know, we'll give more detail with fiscal 27 guidance, but we're excited about this from the strategic side that Rich mentioned and the financial implications to Donaldson.

Bryan Blair (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

All makes sense. Thanks again, guys.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Tim Thein with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Tim Thein (Managing Director)

Thank you. Good morning, and congrats again to both Rich and Tod. You know, Tod, I'm hopeful that you're able to observe its turnaround and Gopher basketball in retirement, so.

Rich Lewis (Incoming President and CEO)

Thanks. Thanks, Tim.

Tim Thein (Managing Director)

Yeah, yeah, only one way to go. The question is on the mobile business, just in terms of the, you know, it's based on the full year guide, it would, it implied that the growth in that line picks up a little bit in the second half. Maybe you can just talk about, you mentioned the strength and continued strength in the independent channel, just maybe what you're seeing and hearing from the OEM dealers, then, you know, looking out a bit, how do you expect that, you know, eventually, as the first fit business hopefully rebounds, how would you expect kind of the interplay between those two?

maybe just, you know, what you've observed historically when you start to see, the first fit side begin to pick up?

Rich Lewis (Incoming President and CEO)

So-

Tim Thein (Managing Director)

First question.

Rich Lewis (Incoming President and CEO)

Thanks, Tim. maybe let me break this down. Let's just talk, let's talk about the replacement parts side for a second. as you pointed out, the replacement part, orders through our independent channel have been very strong. We still continue to see that, performance continuing. No slowdown there at all. When we think about the OE side, this year, we returned to what I would call a sort of typical, normal year-end, their fiscal year-end, inventory management practices. we did see a pretty good pullback, relative to the prior year, where we actually saw people stocking up, which was pretty atypical. year-over-year, it was a pretty drastic change. You know, what we always look for is when you come out of those holidays, what happens with your backlogs? We saw a sharp increase.

Unlike our independent aftermarket, which is really, you get orders, you ship them within 24 hours, our OE partners do give us really good visibility on lead times, and we've seen a sharp increase in our hard backlogs on the OE. We're really confident the second half will be a significant improvement there. Maybe touching on the first fit markets, you know, if you think about ag and truck, they still continue to be performing near what we would call bottom of the cycle. You know, we're monitoring this closely, 'cause when these markets come back, and hopefully, this will answer your question, they come back aggressively. You know, think 20%-30%, and we wanna be really ready to make sure we address our customers' needs. We're staying very tight with our customers on that.

I will say we're seeing signs of pockets or optimism in ag with some increased order intake on the first fit side with select OEs, but it's not broad-based at this point. Also, in the truck market, we're having signals from some of our truck manufacturers that in the second half of calendar year 2026, so this would be our fiscal year 2027, they're planning for increased truck builds. I would say we remain cautious on this and being ready for the upturn, 'cause when it does happen, it happens aggressively. That's how we characterize the markets, as we sit here today.

Tim Thein (Managing Director)

Yeah, that's great. That's super helpful. Then, then maybe, I don't know, Brad, just how to think about the... It's a kind of a multipronged answer, but just as that growth again, as you kind of outlined, if and when that begins to come in, how to think about just that, the mix impact on margins in that segment? Again, I'm sure there's multiple variables that go into that, but any help you can give on that in terms of how we should be thinking about the Incrementals, as that mix eventually kind of normalizes.

Brad Pogalz (CFO)

Sure. Well, you hit the main point. It is multivariable, but there's a mix impact as we sell more to the OEs, and especially on the new equipment, as that comes back. But honestly, that's something, to Rich's point, that we're getting ready for. While we may have a little bit of a rate mix impact that we talk about in future quarters, the earnings will flow to the bottom line from that, and I think we'll get very nice leverage on it as it moves through the P&L. Then the other side, and I just want to. It's a modest tangent to your question, but to the point Rich made and about these markets, I think we will also see some bounce back in the mobile solutions segment in the quarter.

There was a part of my script where I talked about the volume deleveraging. This will bounce back, so when we think specifically about the second half of the year.

Tim Thein (Managing Director)

Mm-hmm.

Brad Pogalz (CFO)

We would expect mobile solutions profit acceleration from here as the volume starts to come in as well.

Tim Thein (Managing Director)

Very helpful. Thank you, guys.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Adam Farley with Stifel. Please go ahead.

Adam Farley (Equity Research Associate)

Good morning, everyone.

Brad Pogalz (CFO)

Hi, Adam.

Rich Lewis (Incoming President and CEO)

Morning, Ad.

Adam Farley (Equity Research Associate)

Maybe can we go back to the operating inefficiencies in power generation? I just wanted to put a finer point on, you know, what exactly happened there, what was the underlying cause, and then just expectations on how that kind of ramps going forward.

Rich Lewis (Incoming President and CEO)

You know, I gave you the macro perspective on power gen, clearly the demand is very strong. We're in the, you know, the middle of sort of rebalancing our product portfolio across both sites so we can maximize output. We've moved production into our facility in Monterrey, Mexico. We've ramped that facility's capacity up significantly through a combination of process improvements to increase flow and a dramatic increase in staffing. We're working through the learning curve and onboarding these employees. A lot of the hiring is behind us, and now it's really about training and onboarding these employees in the Q3 here. We do expect output from this site to continue to improve with this increased capacity, and their productivity will continue to get better throughout the fiscal year.

Adam Farley (Equity Research Associate)

Okay, thank you for that detail. Maybe one more on the pending acquisition of Facet. Can you maybe talk about the total addressable market for Facet's market position, and maybe primary competitors in this space?

Rich Lewis (Incoming President and CEO)

Yeah, from a competitor standpoint, you know, they're one of the leaders. You know, there's a couple historic players that lead in this space, and then it fragments from there. They play in a lot of different markets, you know, they're in the commercial, the marine, and military space. We believe there's a lot of headroom for continued growth. Some of the interesting opportunities are actually in what I would consider maybe our core industrial markets, which would be relatively new to them. Yeah, there's a lot of space for us to grow this business over the coming years.

Adam Farley (Equity Research Associate)

All right. Thank you for taking my questions.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Brian Drab with William Blair. Please go ahead.

Brian Drab (Partner, Co-Group Head – Industrials)

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions, and, you know, congratulations, Tod and Rich. I'll follow up more with both of you later and save the sentimental stuff for the non-public call.

Rich Lewis (Incoming President and CEO)

Thanks, Brian.

Brad Pogalz (CFO)

Thanks, Brian.

Brian Drab (Partner, Co-Group Head – Industrials)

Some of the strongest growth lately has been coming from the Life Sciences segment.

Rich Lewis (Incoming President and CEO)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Drab (Partner, Co-Group Head – Industrials)

Of course, you know, I was wondering if you could just talk a little bit about, you know, that Disk Drive business. I know you've talked about the HAMR technology in the past that's driving incremental demand for your products. You know, what is the... You know, even though the growth is so strong lately, I'm wondering, you know, could that accelerate? Could that business be much bigger, and how tied are you to the data center build-out? Can you just talk a little bit about that business, who your customers are, and what the TAM is for you in that space?

Rich Lewis (Incoming President and CEO)

Yeah, Brian, you, as you point out, the life science business has been doing very well. You know, we restructured that business last year to bring more focus, the two largest businesses, food and Bev and Disk Drive, have been really excelling. On the Disk Drive side, you know, if you think about what's driving a lot of that demand, it is AI and cloud storage. There's a strong demand for drives in more and more dense storage. HAMR clearly addresses that. I would say our growth is a combination of market comeback and share gains. We do believe that the market has runway to grow.

A lot of our customers are building at very high utilization rates right now. As they bring on more capacity, the demand feels like it's there for the foreseeable future. HAMR's been a big success so far. We've ramped that business up with one of our OE customers this year, and we look forward to that continuing to gain market penetration.

Brian Drab (Partner, Co-Group Head – Industrials)

And your technology or product that's used in that application is what exactly? Can you just remind me?

Rich Lewis (Incoming President and CEO)

Yeah, it's a filter. You know, in the early days, it was a filter that removed particles, much like some of the air filters, but as these drives have become way more sophisticated, now we're doing absorption technologies that really take out harmful gases and fumes. These drives are very, very, very sensitive, and that's part of our share gain in this space. As the technology continued to increase, we were able to continue to differentiate our capabilities and take additional market share there.

Brian Drab (Partner, Co-Group Head – Industrials)

Is there any detail that you can give on your liquid cooling exposure? I know you mentioned it today on the call again, but, you know, what products, technologies are you supplying there? You know, what's the potential addressable market for Donaldson there?

Rich Lewis (Incoming President and CEO)

Yeah, on the liquid cooling, it's really an extension of the products that we sell in the food and Bev. Their products have applicability in several other, process filtration applications, and this is one. We've seen a sharp uptick in interest. A lot of these data centers are converting from air cooling to liquid cooling.

Brian Drab (Partner, Co-Group Head – Industrials)

Mm-hmm

Rich Lewis (Incoming President and CEO)

... our products fit very nicely with that. You know, it's a pretty fragmented market right now, 'cause there's really no clear standards on the systems. I'd say it's a bit early to judge how big it's gonna be, but certainly we're seeing a lot of activity and a lot of interest in that space.

Brian Drab (Partner, Co-Group Head – Industrials)

Okay, I'll leave it there. Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Laurence Alexander with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Laurence Alexander (Equity Research Analyst)

Good morning. Just 2 quick ones. First, on the power gen side, can you give some perspective on how you think the competitive market has changed, or the competitive landscape has changed since the last cycle? How much more capacity expansion do you think you would need to do to keep up with the order books that have been announced by the equipment makers? Secondly, on the acquisition, what's your time frame for the acquisition to get to an acceptable return on capital?

Rich Lewis (Incoming President and CEO)

I'll take the power gen, and then I'll let Brad address the second question. From a power gen perspective, yeah, I mean, the demand is very, very high. I would say the dynamic that's different now is, you know, 'cause as you, as you're aware, you know, we sort of narrowed our focus after the last cycle. We're seeing, I would say, more interest in being fair and balanced with the commercial deals. We'll continue to take orders that make sense for us commercially. We're increasing our capacity in our Mexico facility fairly significantly. We believe we're in a good position from addressing our customers' needs.

They have many other constraints besides our product, and so it feels like we're well aligned with what their build capability is right now.

Brad Pogalz (CFO)

Laurence, it's Brad. In terms of the returns, this is, you know, much more of a strategic acquisition than a synergy play. With that, thinking about it on a cash basis, probably more at our cost of capital in the 5-year time horizon. I think the really positive side of this business is it's throwing off cash immediately. We get to earnings accretion pretty rapidly. We said year 2. Of course, our goal is to make that even faster.

Laurence Alexander (Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Rob Mason with Baird. Please go ahead.

Rob Mason (Senior Research Analyst)

Yes, good morning. Tod, Rich, I'll offer my congrats on passing the baton there as well.

Rich Lewis (Incoming President and CEO)

Thank you.

Rob Mason (Senior Research Analyst)

Rich, I think in your comments earlier, you talked about the second half margin outlook had not really changed in the updated guidance. It does sound like there's more work to do on the footprint optimization effort, too. You just kind of give us a feel for the confidence level around the ability to ramp margins, whether that, you know, means the Q3 margins step up more meaningfully, or if that happens more in the fourth. Just, yeah, again, just kind of the confidence level, you know, to keep that margin, second half margin outlook intact, just given the Q2 challenges.

Rich Lewis (Incoming President and CEO)

Yeah, I think, I mean, you hit on it, Rob. Clearly, we need to see the volume come back in our OE and aerospace and defense businesses. We have those backlogs. We feel really confident on that part. We'll have to continue to fight through the supply chain issues on the A&D, the team's really focused on that, and they're working hand in hand with our suppliers. That part of it, we feel pretty strongly that we're in good position. The restructuring work, you know, as I mentioned, a couple of these are done. We should start to see the costs go down and some of the benefits start to feather in. The other two are still ongoing in Q3.

Probably the risk there is if there's a delay or there's any unexpected problems, but right now we're on track, and certainly we would expect to have those finished up here by the end of the fiscal for sure. Powergen, as we mentioned, you know, we've doubled the workforce down there just in our Q1. We feel good. The turnover is low, the staffing is starting to become productive. We need to see continued progress on that in the second half, but based on all the observations and with the team, we're well on track for them to continue to accelerate improvement through the second half of the year.

Brad Pogalz (CFO)

Rob, I'm gonna add one point, too, and I think an important note here is as we look at the second half step up, some of that comes with expense leverage as well. We've got really good controls over what's going on with expenses in the company. When you think about the improvement in the second half, a big portion of that also comes from the natural leverage. As Rich said, we've got the backlogs to deliver the sales. We'll keep expenses at a rate that's, you know, give or take, or at a dollar level, that's give or take where we were in the first half. There's the leverage that comes with that, too.

Rob Mason (Senior Research Analyst)

Okay, very good. That was actually my next question, just, the jumping off point there, you know, given Q2 OpEx anyway was, it had stepped down sequentially. Maybe just a last question, just, you know, thought process, again, it's smaller business, I understand, on the first fit side. We're certainly aware of the on-road, the truck challenges, but this, it does, you know, to reach flat for the year does kind of infer that, you see some recovery in that business. I mean, should we just be putting all that recovery in the Q4? When I say recovery, you know, sequentially, in the Q4?

Brad Pogalz (CFO)

Yes. I think the move towards the second half and late in the second half is it. I mean, of course, Rich said this earlier about the trough. We're seeing some green shoots out there. I think that the public data sources that many of us follow suggest even an increase in truck production in Class 8 heavy duty in North America this year. There are some things that give us encouragement. On top of it, we talked last quarter about some of the moves of programs within this business that we've won. I think that's an important part of our first fit business, is we're still gaining share with the OEs, to the extent that production comes back, that's just incremental growth for us.

Rob Mason (Senior Research Analyst)

I see. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

That concludes our question and answer session, and I will now turn the conference back over to Rich Lewis for closing comments.

Rich Lewis (Incoming President and CEO)

That concludes our call today. Thanks to everyone who participated. We look forward to reporting our Q3 fiscal 2026 results in June. Goodbye.