Enerpac Tool Group - Earnings Call - Q1 2026

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Thank you for standing by. My name is Eric, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Enerpac Tool Group Corporation Q1 Fiscal 2026 Earnings 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 during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Travis Williams, Senior Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Travis Williams (Senior Director of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, and thank you for joining us for Enerpac Tool Group's Earnings Call for the First Quarter of Fiscal 2026. On the call today to present the company's results are Paul Sternlieb, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Darren Kozikowski, Chief Financial Officer. The slides referenced on today's call are available on the Investor Relations section of the company's website, which you can download and follow along. A recording of today's call will also be made available on our website. Today's call will reference non-GAAP measures. You can find a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures in the press release issued yesterday. Our comments also include forward-looking statements that are subject to business risks that could cause actual results to be materially different. Those risks include matters noted in our latest SEC filings. With that, I will turn the call over to Paul.

Paul Sternlieb (CEO)

Thanks, Travis, and good morning, everyone. For our first quarter of Fiscal 2026, results were essentially as expected, and there were some favorable developments and encouraging trends. In our Industrial Tools and Services segment, or IT&S, product sales grew a healthy 4% organically, which we believe is a reflection of our ongoing ability to gain market share and outperform our broader industrial peers. Additionally, we saw strong IT&S product order growth for the quarter, increasing our confidence in the outlook for the year, and as I will talk about later, we continue to invest in the business to support our growth strategy.

With that, let me turn the call over to Darren who will provide more detail on our first quarter performance as well as geographic and end-market trends. Then I'll come back to talk about our investments in growth and some important projects where we are supporting customers for mission-critical applications. Darren.

Darren Kozik (CFO)

Thanks, Paul. As seen on Slide 4, Enerpac's first quarter revenue of $144 million decreased 1%. IT&S sales declined 3% organically. However, as Paul mentioned, on a positive note, product revenue increased a solid 4%. Within product revenue, standard products were up low single digits, and we enjoyed double-digit growth year over year at our heavy-lifting technology business as we continue to capture additional applications in the infrastructure end market. The first quarter also included strong performance at DTA, which is now incorporated in organic growth as it has been part of Enerpac for a full year. Cortland also posted another high-growth quarter with an exceptional 27% year-over-year gain. Offsetting the gains in product was a 26% decline in service for the group. This was largely focused in the EMEA region and particularly in the U.K.

That market has continued to slow due to lower production and customer consolidation in the oil and gas industry, which is predominantly where we provide service. That said, our team is pursuing a number of attractive opportunities in that market. As a reminder, we continue to streamline service operations in EMEA and invest where we see opportunities for service growth globally. Turning to Slide 5, which shows our performance by geography, we delivered strong 5% growth in the Americas, led by an 8% expansion in product revenue. Service revenue declined slightly, mainly due to the timing of some specific projects. As we anticipated, we are enjoying strength from the infrastructure market as well as strong demand from power generation. Revenue in EMEA, the region we previously described as a wild card for Fiscal 2026, declined 10%. Again, it's meaningful to separate product from services.

In EMEA, product revenue grew 5% with continued strength from infrastructure and government spending and a solid performance in Southern Europe. In APAC, revenue declined 8% in the first quarter of 2026 due to a decline in our lumpy HLT business. Additionally, political uncertainty in Southeast Asia and a slowdown in China was a drag on our performance. Nonetheless, with continued strength in India, recovery in Australia, and an excellent HLT funnel, we expect the APAC region to resume year-over-year growth in the second quarter and for the full fiscal year. Turning to Slide 6, for the first quarter of fiscal 2026, gross profit margin of 50.7% was in line with our performance over the past few quarters. As expected, margins were affected by higher tariff-driven costs flowing through cost of goods sold. However, we were able to successfully offset these on a dollar basis through pricing and productivity actions.

We expect the margin pressure from tariffs to ease as we enter the second half of fiscal 2026. Additionally, we enjoyed a favorable mix shift within the portfolio, which was offset by lower service margins. On the selling, general, and administrative line, we were able to hold spending essentially flat year over year, offsetting the inflationary impact from compensation and incremental spending on innovation with tight cost controls. As a result, Adjusted EBITDA was $32.4 million, representing a margin of 22.4%. First quarter adjusted earnings per share was $0.36 compared with $0.40 in the year-ago period. A higher effective tax rate negatively impacted earnings by $0.02 per share. Turning to the balance sheet shown on Slide 7, Enerpac's position remains extremely strong. Net debt was $49 million at quarter end, resulting in a net debt-to-Adjusted EBITDA ratio of 0.3.

Total liquidity, including availability under our revolver and cash on hand, was $539 million. For the quarter, cash flow from operations was $16 million compared with $9 million in the year-ago period. The resulting free cash flow of $13 million in the first quarter of 2026 was an increase of $10 million year-over-year. This increase in free cash flow is due to the timing of receipts and payments in the quarter. Capital expenditures were also lower as the year-ago period included additional CapEx for our new headquarters. Finally, with our balanced capital allocation strategy, we repurchased $15 million of stock in the first quarter, while we maintain ample dry powder for strategic M&A.

Based on our performance in the first quarter and encouraging trends on the order front, we are maintaining our full-year fiscal 2026 guidance as shown on Slide 8. Our expectations include organic revenue growth of 1%-4% and adjusted EBITDA growth of 6% at the midpoint, free cash flow of $100-$110 million, and earnings per share of $1.85-$2. With that, let me turn it back to Paul.

Paul Sternlieb (CEO)

Thanks, Darren. As I mentioned at the top of the call, we enjoyed a pickup in order rates in the first quarter, a trend we achieved across all three geographic regions. Demand's been particularly healthy from the infrastructure, defense, and power generation markets. At the same time, we have a strong backlog and excellent pipeline in HLT. And with the global rollout of Enerpac Commercial Excellence, or ECX, we are benefiting from more discipline and rigor in our sales process and funnel management. In light of the strong order flow, we built additional inventory in the first quarter to ensure that we have the right products in the right locations to meet customer demand on a timely basis. As we've discussed, we are investing in our business to support Enerpac's growth strategy.

As Darren mentioned, we are increasing spend on the innovation front as we expect to deliver even more new product introductions in fiscal 2026. We are also investing in our commercial organization, expanding sales capabilities, coverage, and distribution in countries like India, Australia, and the Philippines, and we are enhancing our e-commerce capability with the implementation of a new technology platform that will improve the user experience and provide us with even more sophisticated marketing and analytical tools, all of which we expect to result in higher conversion rates. The topic of innovation and growth was front and center during our recent annual Global Leadership Conference, which is a gathering of Enerpac's roughly top 50 leaders held each year in Milwaukee. I was truly inspired by the excitement and energy among the team and the work completed to further refine our growth strategy and update our strategic growth initiatives.

Speaking of growth, two of the attractive verticals we mentioned over the past few quarters are power generation and infrastructure. In the former, the proliferation of AI data centers and growing demand for electricity, including a resurgence in nuclear energy, underscores the need for Enerpac's products and services. As seen on Slide 9, Enerpac provides a range of standard and specialized products and services that support the nuclear industry in multiple regions across all phases of building, operations and maintenance, inspection, refueling, and decommissioning. In addition to our standard industrial tools and services that many of you are familiar with, Enerpac sells a line of specialized tensioners under the Biach name that have been the industry standard for refueling and inspection for more than 50 years. The Biach lightweight self-contained tensioner, SCT, shown here is used to tighten reactor pressure vessel head studs.

The SCT brings greater safety, reduces manpower, and shortens critical path time. With decades of experience serving the industry and sizable market share in specialized products, we believe we are well positioned to capitalize on growth opportunities in nuclear. Another strong market we've addressed over the past few quarters is infrastructure, where we've enjoyed significant contract wins for bridge and tunnel projects both in the U.S. and internationally. Recently, Enerpac was selected to design and build a bridge launching system for the Juneau Creek Bridge in Alaska, which can be seen on Slide 10. Our custom hydraulic cylinders and computer controls will pull bridge segments into place. When completed, the bridge will be the highest crossing in the state at 285 feet and the longest single-span bridge built in Alaska since 1982.

As we continue to drive profitable growth at Enerpac, we believe we are well positioned with multiple product lines in these key end markets to take full advantage of these secular trends and the opportunities in the market. Before we take questions, I would like to address a change on the investor relations front. Travis has accepted a position at another company, and his last day with Enerpac is tomorrow. Travis has done an outstanding job building relationships and communicating Enerpac's story to investors.

Moreover, he's been an invaluable resource internally, sharing intelligence and insight into the industry and capital markets. I would like to take this opportunity to thank him for his many contributions and wish him all the best in his new role. We have a search underway for Travis's replacement. Until we fill the role, Darren will be the main point of contact for investors. With that, we'd be happy to take questions.

Operator (participant)

At this time, I would like to remind everyone in order to ask a question, please press star, followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from the line of Will Gildea with CJS Securities. Please go ahead.

Will Gildea (Equity Research Associate)

Hey, good morning.

Paul Sternlieb (CEO)

Morning, Will.

Will Gildea (Equity Research Associate)

Thanks for taking our questions. You've talked for a number of quarters about efforts to improve the profitability of the service business and invest in ways that enable you to tap higher margin opportunities. What caused a sudden sharp decline in service revenue this quarter, and were you surprised by it?

Paul Sternlieb (CEO)

Right. So yeah, I think we were certainly disappointed on the top-line performance in the service business this quarter after a strong fiscal 2025 year growth, actually, for service. The issue, as you referenced on the remarks, was largely driven by a contraction in the U.K. market. And as part of our ongoing initiatives to capture higher margin service business, we passed on lower margin projects, as we've talked about in the past. But given the consolidation and softness in the oil and gas market, we've not yet successfully backfilled all that with more profitable business, particularly in the U.K., given some of the market conditions there. I would say, as a reminder, our service business is a mix of rental and manpower, and overall, it is margin-dilutive to Enerpac. We are actively consolidating our service footprint.

We've already taken actions underway on that in Europe while selectively continuing to make growth investments in the business, and I think it will take some time to work through the dynamics on the service side, but keep in mind that based on our reiterated guidance, we do anticipate growth and margin expansion in fiscal 2026.

Will Gildea (Equity Research Associate)

Thank you. That's helpful. And then I guess just a follow-up question on that. Can you add some more color to the changes you're making in services to capture higher value business? I know on the last call, you gave the example of transitioning Algeria from an agent-based model to a direct-based model. Can you talk about the reasoning behind that? And if an initiative like that is successful, how long of a runway do you have to make that change in other regions? Thank you.

Paul Sternlieb (CEO)

Yeah, thanks, Will. So we're taking a number of initiatives. Some are commercial, like you referenced, where we're moving from an agent to a direct model. The direct model is more the norm for our business. The agent is more the exception. In the case of agents and moving to direct, we end up with, obviously, the direct customer relationship, which allows us to do more follow-on business, obviously capture more margin as well, and just get a closer overall relationship with the customer. So we feel good about that model and the progress that we're making to transition to multiple markets there. We're also investing in our service business, both in field service capabilities, but also in capital equipment and tools.

We've invested in the European market in our leak sealing business, for example, and some new capital equipment that will allow us, we believe, to capture more growth opportunities and more market share in that service line and be able to respond to customers more quickly for their needs in that kind of service business. So we're making a number of improvements like that. We're continuing, as I talked about, to optimize our footprint as well, not only from a cost standpoint, but to be able to react quickly to customer needs.

Will Gildea (Equity Research Associate)

Thank you. And switching gears, can you add some color on your pricing strategy heading into the calendar year 2026? Should we be expecting an annual price increase at the beginning of the year?

Paul Sternlieb (CEO)

Yeah, Will, good question. So just as a reminder for everyone, what we talked about in Q4, going into the year, we saw about two points of benefit in price from the actions we took last year. As we look at this year, we will look to kind of remain, obviously, from a tariff perspective and a price perspective, we're going to make up for those on a dollar-for-dollar basis and hold our margin. So with that, we did take a small, low single-digit price increase in early December here. That will take some time to roll through the channel as we do have notice periods for that. But we constantly look at price and productivity to keep our margin targets and margin high.

Will Gildea (Equity Research Associate)

Thank you very much.

Paul Sternlieb (CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Ross Sparenblek with William Blair. Please go ahead.

Ross Sparenblek (Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, good morning, gentlemen.

Paul Sternlieb (CEO)

Morning.

Ross Sparenblek (Equity Research Analyst)

Morning, Ross. Hey, when we think about your 2026 organic guide, a little bit of price, what is contributing there from new products and kind of the cadence of your new product launches as we think about the rest of the year here, fiscal 26?

Paul Sternlieb (CEO)

Yeah, Ross, we're super excited by our innovation program. We highlighted that on the last Q4 earnings call. We launched, you may recall, five new products in fiscal 2025. We're pleased with the market acceptance. They continue to ramp commercially and globally. We also have a pretty ambitious innovation program and a set number of launches that we're targeting for this fiscal, which are more than we launched in last fiscal. So we're continuing to accelerate our innovation efforts. Part of that is driven by additional investments we've made in innovation over the last few years. In fact, if you look at our 10-K, actually, over the last three years, you'll see incremental R&D spend on a dollar basis as a % of revenue every single year. So I think that's a good indication.

Also, some folks may have visited our new innovation lab here at our global headquarters in downtown Milwaukee. That's another investment we've made to drive improvements in our innovation program and faster time to market. So we're pretty excited by the innovation progress we've made, excited about the commercialization and the ramp of those products, and excited about the products we're planning to launch here in fiscal 26.

Ross Sparenblek (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Well, when we think about kind of early days on this R&D flywheel, what is kind of the trajectory here as we think about the longer-term growth algo? I mean, are you trying to get a couple extra points of growth from new products? Are we targeting new adjacent TAMs, or is it just kind of upgrading and more defensive of the core portfolio?

Paul Sternlieb (CEO)

You know, Ross, I think as we think about growth, I mean, you heard us here from our guidance for this year, kind of 1%-4%. I think as we think of the macro, Europe was the wild card for us. But as we look at the higher end of that range that encompasses a little bit of price, recovery in the market, and obviously successful launches of our new products, beyond that, obviously innovation and the product investments we're making, as Paul referenced, really that increase in R&D over the last three years, we'll see that start to take off into the future. Yeah. And Ross, yeah, it's certainly part of the growth algorithm. It is part of how we believe that we are targeting to perform or outperform our peer set. And we believe we've been able to do that successfully here.

But I would also make the comment that, obviously, we look very closely at our direct competitors and what they're doing from an innovation perspective. And we continue to firmly believe that we are outpacing not only investment spend, but just the pace and the intensity and the level of new product launches relative to our competitive set. So we never rest on our laurels, but we're pleased with the progress we've made, particularly relative to the competitive set.

Ross Sparenblek (Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah, I can appreciate that. I mean, it looks like you guys are running around 2% of sales and your R&D spend. It has been ticking up slowly. I guess I'm just trying to get a better sense of what your visibility looks like into your R&D funnel, like how robust of opportunities you see today. Are we still kind of early days of planting the seeds and buying the equipment and helping the guys get to the point where they're empowered to start building out that pipeline?

Paul Sternlieb (CEO)

Yeah, so we do have a multi-year innovation funnel, so we're always looking several years out. We're working on now updating that funnel for another year out as we execute on products and projects for this year, and just a reminder, again, we launched five new products in fiscal 2025. Our target is to nearly double that number of new product launches here in fiscal 2026, so I think you'll see us gain additional pace and acceleration and just, again, reflective of the investments and the focus and the new processes that we've put in place, so that all is part of our overall growth algorithm at the end of the day.

Ross Sparenblek (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, so we should anticipate a more measured pace of R&D growth going forward.

Paul Sternlieb (CEO)

Yeah. Again, I think.

Ross Sparenblek (Equity Research Analyst)

Not going to 3.5% of sales or 5% tomorrow.

Paul Sternlieb (CEO)

Yeah. No, I mean, I think you'll see a consistent ramp over prior years. But we've talked consistently about beating the market by several hundred basis points in terms of top-line growth at the end of the day. And part of that clearly will be driven by our innovation program.

Ross Sparenblek (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. I appreciate that. And if I can just add one more here. If I go back to last year, the backlog seemed pretty immaterial, but now we're speaking to confidence in kind of these steadily growing project funnels. Any visibility there on sizing, where the backlog kind of stands versus a normalized basis and what's kind of underwriting that confidence?

Paul Sternlieb (CEO)

Yeah. I mean, I'll make a few comments, Darren may weigh in as well. I think we're not a very heavy backlog business, as you know. We tend to be more book-to-bill or shorter cycle. And most of our products are what we would classify as more OpEx spend by our customers, although we do have a capital equipment business in HLT, inclusive of DTA, that has more backlog. And those backlogs tend to be sort of six to 12-month time frames. That said, I think we have seen our backlog tick up, and that was driven by, as we referenced on the remarks earlier, pretty strong order activity and growth in overall orders in the quarter, and we were very pleased with that, and that order growth actually outpaced revenue growth in the quarter.

So again, giving us just more increasing confidence in our overall outlook for the year, particularly as we go through the year. So I think all of that just led us to maintain our current guidance for the full year. The only thing I would add, Paul, is, Ross, as we kind of look at the business, obviously, we acquired DTA last year. So DTA being part of our HLT business now is really helping that. As those markets take off, we now have more products for our customers. As we talked about in Q4, that cross-sell opportunity is huge. So we're bullish on HLT for the year.

Ross Sparenblek (Equity Research Analyst)

That makes sense. Well, thank you guys for the time. I'll pass it along.

Paul Sternlieb (CEO)

Okay. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Tom Hayes with Northcoast Research. Please go ahead.

Tom Hayes (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my questions.

Darren Kozik (CFO)

Good morning, Tom.

Paul Sternlieb (CEO)

Hey, Tom.

Tom Hayes (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hey. Just wanted to go back to one of Will's questions on the pricing, Darren. Was that pricing action that you put in place in December across all product families and globally? And then kind of a related question on gross margin for the year. How are you thinking about the margin flowing through the balance of the three quarters? You guys have done a great job of offsetting the tariffs. Just wondering your thoughts on kind of puts and takes on the margin front for the balance of the year.

Paul Sternlieb (CEO)

Sure, Tom. I would say from the recent pricing actions, those were in the Americas and in Europe. Now, we did kind of release in this earnings a little bit more of a pie chart to give you a flavor for what our product business looks like. So just remember that low single-digit price increase is solely on product. So it's not on the total portfolio. So when you factor that into the math, just make sure you look at that aspect of it. I would say the second piece from a margin perspective, Q1 was where we thought it would be. Okay. Q2 will probably look more like Q1. And then as we get into the second half of the year, some of those higher cost tariffs will work out their way through the system. So margin will improve as we enter the second half of the year.

Tom Hayes (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Great. Appreciate that. I appreciate the color on the product sales by region, but I'm not sure if you gave it by for APAC. Is that something you guys can share?

Paul Sternlieb (CEO)

Yeah. I think it's actually in the slides on page five. But in APAC, we actually saw growth in this revenue in standard products. We did see a sharp decline in APAC on HLT. I mean, it's a small business, and HLT tends to be lumpy. So that just varies quite a bit from quarter to quarter.

Tom Hayes (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Maybe just lastly in respect to time, an area we don't talk about a lot, but you called it out on one of the early slides, the continued strong growth in Cortland. Just kind of remind us a little bit about the business and kind of what's driving that strong growth?

Paul Sternlieb (CEO)

Yeah. We continue to be really pleased with the progress the team is making at Cortland. As you recall, that's effectively our other segment, and that's Cortland Biomedical. So roughly a $20 million revenue business annually. Obviously, not connected to our core tools business, but it is a very strong, very solid, high-growth and high-margin business. And it doesn't draw undue investment or sort of management time or attention. So it runs relatively independently. But that business is very long cycle, very sticky. They design and develop and manufacture custom biomedical textile fibers specifically for particular medical devices for giving OEM customers. So those are specked in. And those ultimate products that the customer has are obviously FDA qualified. So it's a very sticky business.

There's a lot of growth happening in that market. Cortland is exceptionally, we believe, well placed to support customers. We've won a number of new commercial opportunities. And you've seen that materialize in the ramp in revenue. So we continue to be quite bullish about the growth opportunities, the margin prospects, and we like the funnel of opportunities that we have there.

Tom Hayes (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

I appreciate the color. Thank you.

Paul Sternlieb (CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Steve Silver with Argus Research. Please go ahead.

Steve Silver (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks, operator. And thanks for taking my questions. And I'd like to offer my best wishes to Travis as well. So in the remarks, you guys mentioned the pickup in order rates. And you also mentioned building inventory heading into Q2. I'm curious just whether you can quantify at all the magnitude of the inventory ramp and maybe identify any key products beyond HLT?

Paul Sternlieb (CEO)

No, great question. I mean, as we think about inventory, as we head into the quarter, I mean, it's up about 15%. Okay. So we had a really strong Q4. As you think about Q1, our product sales were at 4%. Okay. So we were very pleased with that. With all those product sales coming through, we had to work the plants a little bit harder to get the inventory in place to deliver Q2. And we're very bullish on that because our order rates were stronger than our product revenue growth rates in the quarter.

Steve Silver (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Great. And one more if I may. You guys have talked quite a bit in recent quarters about the balance sheet being in a very strong place to support strategic M&A and also about the macroeconomic factors facing the industry. Curious as to whether there's been any change in the M&A funnel, if you will, just in terms of companies that are dealing with the macro issues that might be kind of gravitating towards M&A at this time?

Paul Sternlieb (CEO)

Yeah, sure, Steve. I would say I'm pretty encouraged there as well. I mean, I do think M&A activity overall in the market and here for Enerpac has picked up reasonably considerably in the last quarter or two. We are actively evaluating several opportunities. So we're spending a lot of our time focused there. The pace and the quantity of deal flow has definitely picked up, and we're having very robust dialogue on any number of opportunities, so I feel more positive and optimistic around that. At the same time, I would say we remain extremely disciplined as always. We will certainly not overpay, and our focus ultimately is, of course, on creating value for Enerpac shareholders at the end of the day.

Steve Silver (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Fair enough. Thanks again, and happy holidays to the entire team.

Paul Sternlieb (CEO)

Thank you. Thank you. Thanks very much. Happy holidays.

Operator (participant)

As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. We will pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Paul Sternlieb for closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Paul Sternlieb (CEO)

Okay. Well, thanks again for joining us this morning. We will be participating in the CJS New Ideas for the New Year virtual conference on January 14th and the annual Roth conference in Laguna Niguel, California in late March. Thank you. And to all our team members around the world, customers, partners, and shareholders, best wishes for a wonderful holiday season and a happy new year.

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining, and you may now disconnect.