Franklin Electric - Earnings Call - Q1 2025

Executive Summary

• Q1 2025 revenue was $455.2M (-1% YoY) and diluted EPS was $0.67; the quarter missed Wall Street consensus on revenue ($470.4M*) and EPS ($0.73*) and EBITDA ($61.5M*). Energy Systems strength partially offset weather-driven headwinds in Distribution, with operating margin at 9.7% and gross margin at ~36%.
• Energy Systems grew 8% YoY to $66.8M with operating margin up 250 bps to 32.8%; Water Systems was ~flat, and Distribution declined 3% YoY; one-time executive transition and acquisition costs created ~$0.07 EPS drag.
• FY 2025 guidance: sales maintained at $2.09B–$2.15B; GAAP EPS range lowered on the low end to $3.95–$4.25 (from $4.05–$4.25), reflecting tariff uncertainty, restructuring and growth investments; quarterly dividend declared at $0.265 per share.
• Setup for Q2: backlog and book-to-bill >1 in Water; inventory built selectively ahead of tariffs; management expects Distribution seasonality to normalize as weather improves; tax rate moved to ~25% in Q1, impacting EPS by ~$0.03.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Energy Systems delivered another strong quarter: sales +8% YoY to $66.8M with operating margin 32.8% (+250 bps), supported by pricing, mix and productivity; “We would expect those margins to stay strong”.
• Water Systems resilience and backlog: U.S. groundwater +6% and water treatment +7%; book-to-bill >1 and backlog up mid- to high-single digits; order trends healthy into April.
• Strategic execution: two acquisitions closed/announced (PumpEng and Barnes de Colombia) enhancing dewatering, foundry capacity and Latin America reach; management reaffirmed a disciplined M&A pipeline and product innovation (OVERSITE and optimizer).

What Went Wrong

• Miss vs consensus and margin compression: revenue, EPS, and EBITDA missed Street; operating margin fell to 9.7% from 10.4% YoY due to higher SG&A tied to executive transition and acquisitions.
• Distribution softness: net sales -3% YoY to $141.9M on lower volumes and negative pricing; weather-related road restrictions delayed installations, though margins held at 1.5%.
• FX and tax headwinds: FX pressured results across regions; effective tax rate rose to ~25% from 22%, reducing EPS by ~$0.03.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Welcome to the Franklin Electric Report's Q1 2025 sales and earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand has been raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce Interim Chief Financial Officer, Russ Fleeger.

Russ Fleeger (Interim CFO)

Thank you, Andrew. Welcome, everyone, to Franklin Electric's Q1 2025 earnings conference call. Joining me today is Joe Ruzynski, our Chief Executive Officer. On today's call, Joe will review our Q1 business highlights. I will provide additional details on our financial performance, and Joe will make some additional comments related to our key growth and value drivers, along with our outlook. We will then take questions. Before we begin, let me remind you that as we conduct this call, we will be making forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties, many of which could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking statements. A discussion of these factors may be found in the company's annual report on Form 10-K and today's earnings release.

All forward-looking statements made during this call are based on information currently available and, as required by law, the company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. Earlier today, we published a slide deck to accompany our prepared remarks. The slides, titled Q1 2025 earnings presentation, can be found in the investor relations section of our corporate website at www.franklin-electric.com. With that, I will now turn the call over to Joe.

Joe Ruzynski (CEO)

All right. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining today's call. Before we begin, I'd like to take a moment to welcome Russ Fleeger, who recently took on the role of Interim Chief Financial Officer and will report our financials today. Russ has been with Franklin Electric since 2023, serving as CFO of our Water Systems segment, and brings more than 20 years of financial leadership experience into the company. We thank Russ for his commitment and stepping into this role, and I look forward to continuing our partnership. With that, I would like to begin my thoughts on the Q1 on slide three. Our underlying business performed in line with expectations.

While we worked through some weather-related challenges earlier in the quarter in our distribution business, the positive order trend from last year carried into the Q1, supporting a robust backlog in Q1 and giving us confidence as we look ahead. As we execute our strategy, we're focused on faster-growing markets, making great use of our healthy balance sheet, driving efficiency in our operations, and building processes and teams to continue to deliver great service to our customers. We're pleased with our two acquisitions completed in the Q1, bringing two great businesses and strong products into our portfolio. We expect integration to be well executed for these businesses to deliver great value to our customers. I'll touch on these topics later in the presentation. Our energy systems segment delivered strong results, which helped offset the slower start in our distribution business, demonstrating the strength of our diversified global portfolio.

Several one-time costs were a drag on Q1 results, namely expenses related to an executive transition and recent acquisitions. However, our core business fundamentals remained strong, and I'm pleased with the response from our global teams to the uncertainty surrounding the tariff environment. Moving to page four on the slide deck, I'd like to take a moment to thank our global Franklin Electric team. Our commitment to serving customers, bringing great products to market, and leading in a difficult environment has shown great momentum. These past few months have been challenging as we navigate tariffs, acquisitions, accelerating our strategy, while my first few quarters have brought some change to our structure and focus. The response, dedication, leadership, and support from our global team has been amazing. We will continue to build on our great history and reputation as we grow in 2025.

Turning to results on slide five, consolidated sales were down slightly as growth in our water systems and energy systems segment were offset by a decline in our distribution segment. Gross margin was up slightly for the quarter at 36%, showing an underlying operating strength, even as we navigated two acquisitions, some FX headwind, and a slower market. Operating margins for the quarter were 10%, down slightly year over year, as we absorbed one-time SG&A costs tied to an executive transition and acquisition-related expenses. Excluding these items, which totaled about $0.07 of EPS, SG&A costs were favorable as compared to the prior year, as we realized the benefit of our restructuring actions from previous quarters. Considering the challenging macroeconomic environment and one-time costs, we're pleased with our performance and view this quarter as a productive start to the year.

Before I turn the call over to Russ to discuss the financials in detail, I'd like to give an overview of our segment performance, where we've seen some momentum. The Water Systems segment delivered flat sales for the Q1, in line with our expectations, as unfavorable volumes were offset by strong pricing actions. Additionally, negative impact from foreign currency translation was mostly offset by incremental sales from our recent acquisitions. We also lapped what we anticipated to be the final quarter of a difficult comparable period. As a reminder, we capitalized on the pent-up demand of our U.S. fleet business for large dewatering products during the prior year period. In water treatment, we continue to see strength despite a weaker housing environment, and the U.S. groundwater market remains healthy. Outside the U.S., performance was solid despite some currency-related headwinds in South America and Turkey.

Energy Systems delivered another strong quarter, with sales up 8%, reflecting both positive market dynamics and solid execution by the team, as both pricing and volumes were favorable. We recorded growth across key product lines, supported by robust demand in the U.S. energy sector. While our critical asset monitoring business had a slightly slower start to the year, we feel good about this activity in this space and expect to ramp up in the coming quarters. Energy Systems continues to demonstrate our ability to execute and drive productivity and deliver great new solutions. The segment operating margins increased by 250 basis points in the quarter. Our Distribution business faced some short-term weather-related disruption, particularly in the U.S. Midwest, where road restrictions due to frost impacted field installations for several weeks. However, we're encouraged by the team's ability to hold margin despite these challenges and softer sales.

The fundamentals of this business remain solid, and the market has improved throughout the quarter. We're committed to delivering premier customer service, driving margin efficiencies through our recent cost actions and process improvements, along with maintaining pricing discipline. Taken together, the performances across our segments highlight the resilience and diversity of our portfolio and our adaptability to changing conditions while we continue to invest in long-term growth. Now I'm going to hand the call over to Russ to review our financials in more detail.

Russ Fleeger (Interim CFO)

Thanks, Joe. Our fully diluted earnings per share were $0.67 for the Q1 2025 versus $0.70 for the Q1 2024. While down from the prior year, we were pleased with the results from our base business. Moving to slide six, Q1 2025 consolidated sales were $455.2 million, a year-over-year decrease of 1%. The sales decrease in the Q1 was primarily due to the negative impact of foreign currency translation and lower volumes in the distribution and water systems segments, partially offset by the incremental sales impact from recent acquisitions, as well as favorable results in the energy systems segment. Franklin Electric's consolidated gross profit was $163.9 million for the Q1, up from prior year's gross profit of $163.6 million. The gross profit as a percentage of sales was 36% in the Q1, an improvement of 50 basis points compared to prior year.

Selling, general and administrative expenses were $119.6 million in the Q1 of 2025, compared to $115.6 million in the Q1 of 2024. The increase in SG&A expenses was primarily due to employee separation costs related to an executive transition and the additional expense of our 2025 acquisitions, including various deal-related costs. Consolidated operating income was $44.1 million in the Q1 of 2025, down $3.8 million, or 8%, from $47.9 million in the Q1 of 2024. The decrease in operating income was primarily due to the higher SG&A costs previously mentioned. The Q1 2025 operating income margin was 9.7% versus 10.4% in the Q1 of 2024. Moving to segment results on slide seven, water system sales in the U.S. and Canada were up 2% compared to the Q1 of 2024.

At a product level, sales of groundwater pumping equipment increased 6%, and sales of water treatment products increased 7%, while sales of large dewatering equipment decreased 8% and sales of all other surface pumping equipment decreased 7% when compared to Q1 2024. Acquisitions contributed a 1% increase in sales and were offset by the negative impact of foreign currency translation. Water system sales and markets outside the U.S. and Canada decreased 2% overall. Foreign currency translation decreased sales by 5%, and recent acquisitions added roughly 4%. Excluding the impact of acquisitions and foreign currency translation, sales in the Q1 of 2025 increased low single digits in EMEA, were roughly flat in Asia-Pacific, and were down low single digits in Latin America. Water systems operating income was $43.4 million, down $3.7 million versus the Q1 of 2024.

The decrease was primarily due to lower gross margin and higher SG&A costs, primarily related to our recent acquisitions, as well as the negative impact of foreign exchange. The operating income margin was 15.1%, a year-over-year decrease of 130 basis points. Distribution's Q1 sales were $141.9 million versus Q1 2024 sales of $147 million, a decrease of 3%. The distribution segment sales decrease was primarily due to lower volumes and the negative impact of commodity price declines. Distribution segment operating income was $2.1 million for the Q1, a year-over-year increase of $0.3 million. Operating income margin was 1.5% of sales in the Q1, an improvement of 30 basis points versus the prior year. Energy system sales in the Q1 were $66.8 million, an increase of $4.7 million, or 8%, compared to the Q1 of 2024.

Energy system sales in the U.S. and Canada increased 10% compared to the Q1. Outside the U.S. and Canada, energy system sales decreased 6%. Energy systems operating income was $21.9 million compared to $18.8 million in the Q1 of 2024. The Q1 2025 operating income margin was 32.8% compared to 30.3% in the prior year, an improvement of 250 basis points. Operating income margin increased primarily due to favorable geographic mix of sales, as well as price realization and cost management. The effective tax rate was 25% for the quarter compared to 22% in the prior year quarter. This change in the effective tax rate was driven by an increase in foreign earnings taxed at rates higher than the U.S. and less favorable discrete items, and had an impact on EPS of approximately $0.03 cents.

Moving to the balance sheet and cash flows on slide eight, the company ended the Q1 of 2025 with a cash balance of $84 million and with $64 million outstanding under its revolving credit agreement. We used $19.5 million in net cash flows from operating activities during the Q1 compared to $1.4 million in the Q1 of 2024, as we invested in higher inventory levels to get ahead of potential tariffs. We also invested $110 million for the Barnes and PumpEng acquisitions during the quarter. The company purchased about 56,000 shares of its common stock for approximately $5.4 million in the open market during the Q1 of 2025. As of the end of the Q1 of 2025, the total remaining authorized shares that may be repurchased is about 1.3 million. Yesterday, the company announced a quarterly cash dividend of $0.265.

The dividend will be payable 22 May 2025 to shareholders of record on 8 May 2025. Moving to slide nine, while our underlying demand remains strong and plans to manage the tariff environment are in place, we are adjusting the lower end of our EPS guidance by $0.10. We are holding our full year sales expectations of $2.09 billion to 2.15 billion, but adjusting our GAAP EPS to a range of $3.95 to 4.25. While we have price and mitigation plans to account for the tariffs, this range reflects some further restructuring and growth investments we plan to take in 2025, uncertainty in the market, and some added expense and accelerating adjustments to our supply chain. Now I will turn the call back to Joe for some additional comments.

Joe Ruzynski (CEO)

Thanks, Russ. Turning to slide 10, I'd like to bring back our value creation framework, which we introduced last quarter. Our framework is anchored on four key pillars: growth acceleration, resilient margins, strategic investments, and top-tier talent. For growth, we're leveraging our strong customer relationships, focusing on high-growth verticals and utilizing our global presence to introduce new innovative solutions across our various markets. Our margin integrity is supported by our efficient operating system and data-driven tools. Strategic investments, including M&A, enhance our competitive positioning, and our commitment to attracting, developing, and retaining top talent drives our value engine forward. Moving to slide 11, I want to highlight an increased focus on new products and innovation in the markets we know well and the ones we feel are growing faster.

We've launched a series of initiatives in the past year to increase our velocity, focus on fewer, more impactful launches, and use our new product development methodology to increase our speed to market. We have some aggressive goals for 2025 and expect this trend to continue over the next few years. Here are a few examples of exciting new products in dewatering, building off recent acquisitions, and incorporating new features to bring these products and dewatering systems to new markets, and two new solutions for our energy systems segment. The first, our oversight solution, is an innovative system to help our major marketers remotely monitor and recover critical systems during power disruptions. The second, our new optimizer product, which detects potential circuit breaker deficiencies and enables proactive maintenance actions.

Moving to slide 12, during the quarter, we executed two strategic acquisitions: PumpEng, a dewatering pumping business focused on the mining industry and the dewatering market based in Perth, Australia, and Barnes de Colombia, highlighted here, a serial pump manufacturer based in Bogota, Colombia, with assembly locations across Latin America. These two acquisitions enhance our product portfolio, expand and enhance our channel reach, and add vertically integrated businesses, including good foundry capacity in regions which Franklin Electric already has a strong presence. Welcome to our new team members. Before we open it up for Q&A, I want to take a moment to address the current tariff environment and how we're managing through it. At present, we're in a strong competitive position, and we feel good about where we stand.

We have yet to see any broad-based impacts to demand, though it's possible that we see some pressure as customers react to a changing trade landscape. That said, our business is largely in region for region and centered around replacement demand, which historically tends to be resilient even in periods of broader economic softness. We continue to remain highly engaged with our supply partners and customers, and we're monitoring forward indicators closely. While our guidance incorporates all known tariffs, we expect that we will have more visibility in the medium to long-term tariff environment and will be prepared to talk about any future impacts when we speak again in July. Within our supply chain, we move selectively to position inventory for success. While a slight Q1 drag on working capital, we felt it was prudent to best position our business to mitigate potential tariff unknowns.

We were also active on the cost and pricing front, working to reduce our costs where we can and diligently pass along costs where appropriate. Our team has historically done a fantastic job of navigating through various economic cycles and periods of uncertainty, and I'm proud of their execution this quarter. We put our proven playbook to work, and we feel we have an opportunity to gain share in regions with meaningful manufacturing footprints. We've taken thoughtful actions on inventory, pricing, and cost optimization and remain confident and optimistic about our competitive position. We will now turn the call over to Andrew for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. One moment, please, for our first question. Our first question comes from the line of Ryan Connors with Northcoast Research.

Ryan Connors (Managing Director and Research Analyst)

Good morning.

Russ Fleeger (Interim CFO)

Good morning, Ryan.

Ryan Connors (Managing Director and Research Analyst)

A few questions here. Yeah, I wanted to actually start on the energy segment. Really just remarkable margins there. Almost a third of the profitability, really, on operating income in the quarter. Should we be extrapolating that type of margin, or is that mixed benefit that really boosted it in the Q1? Should we expect that to kind of normalize as we move into the middle part of the year?

Joe Ruzynski (CEO)

Yeah, I think, Ryan, on that, what we've said is we don't expect the same growth that you've seen over the last five or six quarters, but we do expect to hold those margins at a strong state. There are a couple of reasons for that. One is we've migrated that business to smarter solutions for our end customers. You see a general movement to those products and a lift that that provides to margin. A little bit less on the commodity side, more on the smarter solutions. They also did a great job managing price, managing productivity, which contributed to their Q1 result. We would expect those margins to stay strong, but not to see the continued increase that you've seen over the last four or five quarters or so.

Ryan Connors (Managing Director and Research Analyst)

Got it. Okay. Then secondly, on the water segment, you talk about healthy order trends, which is great to hear. You yourself also mentioned you're investing in inventory. Any sign that there's some kind of a tariff pull forward associated with that order growth, or do you think that's really organic?

Joe Ruzynski (CEO)

We tend to think it's organic. We've looked for bullwhips in the supply chain. We've looked for people making big pulls ahead. I think related to the inventory positioning, we use the term selective for a reason, and that is products that we felt were most exposed. We've got, relative to some of our peers, a relatively small exposure to China, but we still wanted to make sure that we were positioning ourselves well, and it turns out that was prudent. When we look at our channel, we see some selective positioning and selective buildup, but it's not across the board. Our view of inventory in the channel is that it's at a relatively stable position.

Some of that increase, we made sure that our channels were well stocked and we were prepared for it, but we have not seen a huge pull in our channels, and we do not think we are sitting on heavy inventory in the channels from a historical standpoint as we get ready for busy season, and especially related to the tariff environment.

Russ Fleeger (Interim CFO)

Yeah, and if I could just add on that, a significant chunk of our build of inventory, if you look on a sequential basis on a quarter over quarter and a quarter over 2024 quarter, was the two acquisitions that we made in March. We ended 2024 at the lowest level of total inventory in the last three to four years. We generally have a fairly sizable build in Q1 to get into the busy season. Now, some of that season was delayed in our distribution business because of the weather that Joe spoke about, but we feel pretty good about the inventory level and where we sit right now.

Ryan Connors (Managing Director and Research Analyst)

Got it. Okay. Just a couple of others on distribution. Is M&A still a priority there? I know we were very active in M&A for a while. It seems to have slowed down. Is that due to there being a lack of assets for sale, or is it just less of a strategic priority? Curious on the M&A there. Also with distribution, what does the weather comp look like in the Q2? I know that's a headwind in Q1, just trying to get a sense of the setup for the Q2.

Joe Ruzynski (CEO)

Yeah. We'll take those in order. I think on the first one, we're always still active and staying close to the market if there's a good acquisition for us in the distribution space. One thing we've been working on, and I alluded to it in the script, is we also feel that we've got some benefit in terms of how we serve because we've got a great footprint. Bringing some of those efficiencies after the last three, four years of acquisitions, that's a key focus for us. We're not opposed to doing another deal in that space. I think our focus right now is serving the market, building those efficiencies, and making sure that we can execute kind of unparalleled. That's where we sit right now for acquisitions.

I think related to the weather pattern in Q2, we feel we're in a better position than coming into last year. We've kind of seen a flip in terms of one of the wettest years last year that we've gone through and a year that looks more normal this year. We definitely see that. I think if you look at the move to a weather pattern that's drier, we see that benefit starting to show up in some of our regions. I think the blip in the upper Midwest related to some of the frost restrictions was just basically due to a very, very warm winter last year where the restrictions came off earlier, and we got that benefit in March. This year, it was pushed out three, four weeks. Q2, from what we can see right now, we feel good about the weather pattern.

Obviously, hard to predict, but that's kind of where we sit right now.

Ryan Connors (Managing Director and Research Analyst)

Yep. Okay. Super. Thanks for your time this morning.

Joe Ruzynski (CEO)

Thanks, Ryan.

Matt Summerville (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Matt Somerville with D.A. Davidson.

Joe Ruzynski (CEO)

Good morning, Matt.

Matt Summerville (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Good morning. A couple of questions. I just want to make sure I understand the tariff exposure. While you're seemingly able to mitigate it, I guess I want to understand if it were to go unmitigated, what would your current tariff exposure look like? I just want to make sure I understand how the groundwater business is performing in North America when you think about it in terms of the residential side of it and the ag side. I may have a follow-up.

Joe Ruzynski (CEO)

Sounds good. I'll take the tariff overview, and then I'll turn it over to Russ. He can give you some more detail on groundwater. Tariffs obviously have been in place for the last few years. Coming into this year, as we do every year, is to make sure that we're more than accounting price plus productivity to offset inflation, and we had a good start to the year. We added not quite $60 million of exposure over the course of Liberation Day and some of the other tariffs that were put on. That was the target for us to make sure that we mitigated and offset. We've had a series of increases. We've tried to be thoughtful and measured in terms of what we can account for internally and what we need to pass along. Most of those actions have been taken.

Clearly, it's hard to predict exactly what's going to happen with tariffs. As you know, Matt, you've been on these calls here the last few weeks. What we wanted to do is to make sure that we kind of played forward a few different scenarios for what could happen. I feel we're in a strong position this year to do that. Again, offset for this year, we feel we're in a healthy spot. In addition, we're looking to take some other actions to make a few other changes to our footprint and supply chains just to make sure we're in a better spot to serve customers as we go forward. Russ, do you want to cover groundwater?

Russ Fleeger (Interim CFO)

Yeah. Your question on growth in groundwater. On the residential side in the Q1, REZI was up about 11%. AG was up about 3%. I will caution that that residential number does include some sales to our distribution partners at Headwater that we will see in the eliminations. That aside, the market was strong for us in mid-single-digit growth. Pretty strong there, and the order book is largely held up as well.

Matt Summerville (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Thanks. Just as a follow-up to the question on the order book, can you maybe talk about what your organic book-to-bill looked like in water in Q1? From an M&A standpoint, Joe, I think you have indicated in the past maybe a willingness to explore something a bit more transformational for Franklin. Maybe just an update on your thought there and how that funnel may be developing for you guys. Thanks.

Joe Ruzynski (CEO)

Yeah. Yeah, I'll start with that last question. It's a good question. And Matt, as I probably have told you before, as a CEO in his first year, there's a lot of good ideas that come our way. And myself with John Grand in our council and his team, we're staying very close to what we think is going to be a nice funnel and some good opportunities. I think we've got opportunities in two spaces. Obviously, some of the strategic bolt-ons that put us in a strong position around the world, you saw that in Q1. We'll continue to look for those deals. I think related to something that's more strategic, yeah, we are open to it. I think our position with a healthy balance sheet and the ability to be smart about these deals puts us in a nice spot. So we're working on networking.

We're working with our partners to make sure that we've got good visibility to what may be coming up. Yeah, we're still positive about that. Some of the noise and some of the disruption here over the last 60 days, we're making sure that we're prudent with capital. I still think that there's going to be opportunities to do something more strategic, and we're keeping our ears to the ground.

Matt Summerville (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Do you have any quantification on organic book-to-bill in water in the quarter? Thank you.

Joe Ruzynski (CEO)

Oh, yeah. Sure.

Russ Fleeger (Interim CFO)

Yeah. On the book-to-bill, book-to-bill was above a 1 for the quarter. Our backlog, I will caution again, the backlog incorporates some of our industrial business with Fleet, but it was up mid to high single digits in the quarter.

Matt Summerville (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Got it. Thanks, guys.

Joe Ruzynski (CEO)

Yeah. Thank you, Matt.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Walter Liptak with Seaport Research.

Walter Liptak (Industry Analyst)

Hi. Thanks. Good morning, guys.

Joe Ruzynski (CEO)

Good morning, Walt.

Walter Liptak (Industry Analyst)

Just a couple of follow-ups. First, on the tariffs, I wonder if you could help us understand the supply chain that you have from China and any percentages that you could give us of cost of goods sold, things like that. Do you still have ample supply? It sounds like you can pass along any kind of tariff-related pricing. Is that the correct way to think about it?

Joe Ruzynski (CEO)

Yeah, that's correct. Our overall percentage of COGS from China is under 10%. We're not hugely exposed there. Some of our opportunity or some of that exposure, I would say, hits us in a couple of product areas that we worked to try to mitigate before coming into the Q2, hence our comments on some inventory pull. I think there's further opportunity to do that. I referenced the Barnes deal. One of the things that we love about the Barnes deal is giving us added foundry capacity in the Americas that we can take our tools and look at repositioning. We're continuing to do that. We're going to make some investments to go faster. We feel good about that ability to protect ourselves from any future noise or disruption there, specifically to China.

Yeah, that's the view on China and our exposure and some actions there. Was there another question I'm missing?

Walter Liptak (Industry Analyst)

Yeah. Yeah. Just kind of a follow-on to the sectors. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about just the REZI. Sounds like it's on better footing. Why do you think you're seeing better growth this year? Maybe talk a little bit about how April's going. With the groundwater and AG, how is it? Seems like it's a lot hotter and drier this year and an easier comp. How's the visibility as you're getting into the Q2?

Joe Ruzynski (CEO)

Yeah. Maybe just start on REZI, and we can then give a couple of comments on just groundwater and ag overall. REZI, obviously, housing starts and sales aren't the driver for that growth for us. What we've done here over the last few years in the water treatment business and then in the water business is really to focus on how we serve, on making sure that we've got the right footprint, and putting ourselves in a good position to grow. We view that as we're taking some share in that REZI space. All of our indicators were positive in Q1 and continue to be positive in April. Any boost, any help, anything that comes our way from an overall macro standpoint would be in addition to that. We feel good about our position thus far. REZI continues to stay strong.

I think your question back to my weather comments earlier, just groundwater in general, municipal, ag, etc., we think is, at least from a weather standpoint, it's a more supportive environment this year than it was last year. Those are trends that we're looking out for on a daily and a weekly basis here. From what we see right now, hotter and drier, I think, is an accurate representation.

Walter Liptak (Industry Analyst)

Okay. Great. Okay. Thank you.

Joe Ruzynski (CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mike Halloran with RW Baird.

Micheal Halloran (Senior Research Analyst and Associate Director of Research)

Hey. Morning, guys.

Joe Ruzynski (CEO)

Morning.

Russ Fleeger (Interim CFO)

Morning, Mike.

Micheal Halloran (Senior Research Analyst and Associate Director of Research)

Just want to clarify the guidance as you think about the year from two respects. First, are we implicitly saying pricing up some, organic demand down some, to kind of hold that revenue range, or are we just saying we do not totally know yet, so keeping it as an offset against each other is fair? Secondarily, maybe just some thoughts on how you are expecting the cadencing to play out through the year. Is this just relatively normal seasonality based on what we know right now, and then we will adjust as the uncertainty does or does not hit the P&L?

Joe Ruzynski (CEO)

Yeah. To your first question, Mike, that's a good assumption you're making, which is pricing will be up. We expect for some pockets of our products that that would push down some of the organic growth. That is roughly the offset that you see, which is why we're holding sales, because there'll be some lift to price, but obviously some pressure on volume. That pressure comes in a couple of very specific segments. We're keeping a close eye on that. That is the offset that we had made as we put that guidance together. In terms of the cadence, yeah, some seasonality and distribution in quarter one. The busy season, as we see it right now, our indicators are it looks generally positive. We see momentum, as I mentioned before, as we kind of exited the quarter.

We see order rates largely in line with what we expected as we get into the end of April here. I think the back half for us is obviously a lot can change. The world is a moving place here. For the most part, we feel good about our plans where we can see a little further out in terms of backlog. Take for an example the energy business, strong backlogs, and feel relatively good about the next couple of quarters. I think it's harder for us to see in that distribution business where it's obviously shorter cycle. What we tend to look there is at short-cycle trends, obviously leading indicators. We talk to and put a heat map together for our major customers, the drillers, etc. There's a general confidence there in terms of the outlook and in terms of the order book.

Micheal Halloran (Senior Research Analyst and Associate Director of Research)

Two more just related to that. Remind me what the percentage of replacement is for your distribution and your water businesses on the more submersible side of things.

Joe Ruzynski (CEO)

It's north of 70%-75%.

Micheal Halloran (Senior Research Analyst and Associate Director of Research)

Okay. Lastly, just in light of all the tariffs, maybe just a thought from your perspective on how your footprint is positioned competitively, all else equal.

Joe Ruzynski (CEO)

Yeah. One is my comment on in-region, for-region, it's important for us. We've never been a big build a huge factory across the world and then move products. Labor arbitrage and really chasing that product has never been Franklin's key focus. We've worked on putting manufacturing footprint close to where we serve. Now, that's not pure or perfect, but in general, that's been part of our strategy. When I look at some of our investments, and Russ alluded to a few investments that we want to accelerate and make sure that we get well executed this year. We're expanding our manufacturing footprint in Turkey. We're expanding our manufacturing footprint in India. Both of those are largely to serve those regions. In some cases, it's to serve the Middle East and to serve a few other places.

In addition, when we looked at Barnes, we looked at that vertical capability and how we would make good use of that foundry, not only for what is now a very nice and sizable market for us in Latin America, but obviously to serve Mexico, Northern Latin America, and the U.S. Those are in process right now, and we're working on taking advantage of that. I think from a footprint standpoint, those are some strategic advantages that we have. We've also looked at, I know as other companies have in terms of what makes sense to move or to shift. For us, it's more about assembly and supply chain, not a major shift in our manufacturing strategy overall.

Micheal Halloran (Senior Research Analyst and Associate Director of Research)

Great. Really appreciate it. Thanks.

Joe Ruzynski (CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. I am showing no further questions at this time. With that, I will hand the call back over to Chief Executive Officer Joe Ruzynski for any closing remarks.

Joe Ruzynski (CEO)

Thank you very much. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. I'd like to close out by sharing that I'm very pleased with our team's hard work and execution during this very busy Q1. We feel good about our start to the year and how we're positioned as we enter the Q2. We are widening our guidance on the low end of EPS, but have plans in place to address tariffs, solve problems, and serve our customers every day. We feel good about our strategy. It's the right one, and we're focused on improving our margins, finding the next best acquisition, and delivering great new products to our customers. Our expectation is for a great year of progress and strong performance. Thank you, everyone, and have a great week.

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating. This does conclude today's program, and you may now disconnect.