Mettler-Toledo International - Earnings Call - Q3 2025

Executive Summary

• Q3 2025 delivered solid top-line and EPS growth: reported revenue rose 8% to $1.03B and adjusted EPS rose 9% to $11.15, supported by strong Industrial and Product Inspection performance; gross margin contracted 80 bps year over year on tariff headwinds, partially offset by price and productivity initiatives.
• Results exceeded Wall Street consensus: revenue beat by ~$32M (+3.2%) and adjusted EPS beat by ~$0.49 (+4.6%); fully diluted shares fell ~3% YoY to 20.6M, enhancing per-share growth.
• Guidance updated: Q4 local-currency sales +~3% with adjusted EPS $12.68–$12.88 (includes ~7% tariff headwind); FY25 adjusted EPS narrowed to $42.05–$42.25 and initial FY26 adjusted EPS set at $45.35–$46.00 (+8–9%), with management expecting to fully offset tariff costs in 2026.
• Board authorized an additional $2.75B for share repurchases (on top of $1.1B remaining), a supportive capital-return catalyst amid sustained free cash flow generation.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

• What Went Well

  • Industrial strength: “very good growth, especially in Industrial,” with core industrial up ~10% (ex-acquisitions) and Product Inspection up 7% in local currency; service grew 8%.
  • Geographic breadth: the Americas +10% LC and Europe +6% LC drove the quarter; China returned to modest growth in core industrial for the first time in two years.
  • Strategic execution and innovation: management highlighted ongoing traction of the Spinnaker sales program and new launches (e.g., NineFocus pH meter, automation integrations with LabX and autosamplers) strengthening competitive positioning.

• What Went Wrong

  • Margin pressure from tariffs: gross margin fell to 59.2% (−80 bps YoY), and adjusted operating margin declined to 30.1% (−100 bps YoY); management estimates tariffs reduced operating margin by ~140 bps and were a ~6% gross headwind to EPS in Q3.
  • Mixed lab end-market: bioprocessing solid, but softness in liquid handling instruments tied to biotech/academia funding and policy uncertainties.
  • Europe macro caution and Q4 deceleration: Europe outlook flattish and core industrial expected to step down to low single-digit growth in Q4 due to timing and tougher comps.

Transcript

Speaker 1

Hello, and thank you for standing by. My name is Mark, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Mettler-Toledo Q3 2025 earnings 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 during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press star one again. Thank you. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Adam Ullman, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Speaker 0

Hey, thanks, Mark, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. On the call with me today is Patrick Kaltenbach, our Chief Executive Officer, and Shawn Vadala, our Chief Financial Officer. Let me cover some administrative matters. This call is being webcast and is available for replay on mt.com. A copy of the press release and the presentation that we will refer to on today's call is also available on our website. This call will include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933 and the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These statements involve risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause our actual results, financial condition, performance, and achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by any forward-looking statements.

For a discussion of these risks and uncertainties, please see our recent annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly and current reports filed with the SEC. The company disclaims any obligation or undertaking to update any forward-looking statement except as required by law. On today's call, we will use non-GAAP financial measures, and a reconciliation to these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measure is provided in the 8-K. Let me now turn the call over to Patrick.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Adam, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining our call today. Last night, we reported our third quarter financial results, the details of which are outlined for you on page three of our presentation. Our third quarter results were strong and reflected very good growth, especially in industrial. I am very pleased with our team's strong execution as we leverage our Spinnaker sales and marketing program and innovative product portfolio to drive growth while delivering solid EPS. Looking ahead, we are well-positioned to capture growth opportunities while benefiting from trends like automation, digitalization, and onshoring. We continue to remain very agile as we face several uncertainties in global trade disputes and governmental policies. We are confident that our strategic initiatives and strong culture of innovation and operational excellence will enable us to continue delivering strong performance in this dynamic environment.

Let me now turn the call over to Shawn to cover the financial results and our guidance, and then I will come back with some additional commentary on the business and our outlook. Shawn.

Speaker 4

Thanks, Patrick, and good morning, everyone. Sales in the quarter were $1.03 billion, which represented an increase in local currency of 6% and was 5% excluding several recently completed acquisitions. On a U.S. dollar reported basis, sales increased 8%. On slide number four, we show sales growth by region. Local currency sales increased 10% in the Americas, including a 1% benefit from acquisitions, 6% in Europe, and 1% in Asia rest of the world. Local currency sales in China increased 2% during the quarter. Slide number five shows local currency sales growth by region on a year-to-date basis. On slide number six, we summarize local currency sales growth by product area. For the quarter, laboratory sales increased 4%, while industrial increased 9% and included a 1% benefit from recent acquisitions. Excluding acquisitions, core industrial grew 10% and product inspection grew 7%. Food retail grew 5% in the quarter.

Lastly, service grew 8% in the quarter and included a 1% benefit from acquisitions. Slide number seven summarizes our local currency sales growth by product area on a year-to-date basis. Let me now move to the rest of the P&L, which is summarized on slide number eight. Gross margin was 59.2% in the quarter, a decrease of 80 basis points, primarily due to incremental tariff costs offset in part by positive price realization and benefits from our Stern Drive program. R&D amounted to $51.1 million in the quarter, which is a 4% increase in local currency over the prior year. SG&A amounted to $248.4 million, a 6% increase in local currency over the prior year, which includes sales and marketing investments. Adjusted operating profit amounted to $309.9 million in the quarter, up 5% versus the prior year.

Adjusted operating margin was 30.1%, a decrease of 100 basis points or down 30 basis points on a currency-neutral basis versus the prior year. We estimate the gross impact of tariffs reduced our operating margin by 140 basis points. A couple of final comments on the P&L. Immunization amounted to $20 million in the quarter. Interest expense was $17.7 million, and adjusted other income amounted to $4.3 million. Our effective tax rate was 19% in the quarter. This rate is before discrete items and is adjusted for the timing of stock option exercises. Fully diluted shares amounted to 20.6 million, which is approximately a 3% decline from the prior year. Adjusted EPS for the quarter was $11.15, a 9% increase over the prior year. Incremental tariff costs were a gross headwind to EPS of 6%.

On a reported basis in the quarter, EPS was $10.57 as compared to $9.96 in the prior year. Reported EPS in the quarter included $0.26 of purchase intangible amortization, $0.29 of restructuring and acquisition transaction costs, and a $0.03 tax headwind related to the timing of stock option exercises. Slide number nine summarizes our year-to-date P&L. Local currency sales increased 2% for the nine-month period, adjusted operating profit declined 2%, and our operating margin contracted 130 basis points. Adjusted EPS increased 2%. Excluding the impact of 2023 shipping delays that benefited 2024 results, we estimate local currency sales grew 4% on a year-to-date basis, operating margin declined 10 basis points, and adjusted EPS grew 7%. Gross tariff costs reduced operating profit by 3% and EPS by 4% on a year-to-date basis.

That covers the P&L, and let me now comment on adjusted free cash flow, which amounted to $689.5 million for the first nine months, a 6% increase on a per-share basis. DSO was 34 days, while ITO was 4.2 times. As mentioned, we completed several smaller acquisitions that add to our North American distribution footprint, add new service capabilities, and expand on our life science equipment offering. Overall, we paid approximately $75 million related to these acquisitions and may pay contingent consideration up to $31 million in the future. Going forward, they will approximate 1% of our sales and are modestly accretive to adjusted EPS. Let me now turn to our guidance for the fourth quarter and our initial thoughts on next year. As you review our guidance, please keep in mind the following factors. First, our guidance assumes U.S.

Import tariffs, as well as the impact of retaliatory tariffs from other countries, will remain in effect at recently announced levels. Trade disputes are dynamic, and there is a potential for new tariffs or retaliatory tariffs that we have not factored into our guidance. Second, while our third quarter results were better than expected, market conditions remain challenging with continued uncertainty related to trade disputes, governmental policies, and geopolitical tensions. Our forecast does not assume a significant improvement in market conditions over the coming year. Third, we have continued to make important investments in our business to capitalize on our customers' investments in automation, digitalization, and nearshoring. We believe this will position us to very effectively capture these opportunities over the coming years.

Finally, please keep in mind that our third-party logistics provider delays negatively impacted our Q4 2023 results by $58 million, nearly all of which was recovered in our Q1 2024 results. For the full year 2025, this reduces our sales growth by 1.5% and is a headwind to operating margin expansion of approximately 60 basis points and a headwind to adjusted EPS of approximately 4%. Now turning to our guidance. For the fourth quarter of 2025, we expect local currency sales to grow approximately 3%. Operating margin is expected to decrease approximately 200 basis points or down 130 basis points on a currency-neutral basis at the midpoint of our range due to higher tariff costs. We expect adjusted EPS to be in the range of $12.68-$12.88, a growth rate of 2%-4%.

Included within the EPS guidance is a gross headwind of approximately 7% from higher tariff costs. Currency for the quarter at recent spot rates would be a benefit to the fourth quarter sales by approximately 2.5% and would be neutral to adjusted EPS. For the full year 2025, our local currency sales growth forecast is approximately 2% or up 3.5% excluding the shipping delays. Adjusted EPS is forecast to be in the range of $42.05-$42.25, which represents a growth rate of 2%-3% or 6%-7% excluding the impact of prior year shipping delays. Adjusted EPS also includes a gross headwind of approximately 5% from higher tariff costs. We have also provided our initial guidance for 2026, and based on our assessment of market conditions today, we would expect local currency sales to increase approximately 4%.

Adjusted EPS is forecast to be in the range of $45.35-$46, which represents a growth rate of 8%-9%. At recent spot rates, foreign exchange is estimated to be a 1% benefit to sales and a slight headwind to EPS. Lastly, I would like to share a few other details on our 2026 guidance to help you as you update your models. We expect total amortization, including purchased intangible amortization, to be approximately $77 million. Purchased intangible amortization is excluded from adjusted EPS and is estimated at $26 million on a pre-tax basis or approximately $1 per share. Interest expense is forecast at $72 million, while other income is estimated at approximately $12 million. We expect our tax rate before discrete items will remain at 19% in 2026. Free cash flow is expected to be approximately $865 million in 2025 and $900 million in 2026.

As mentioned earlier, we have recently completed several small acquisitions that approximate $75 million of consideration in 2025 and have adjusted our share repurchase program accordingly. Share repurchases are now expected to be $800 million for the full year 2025, and share repurchases in 2026 are expected to be in the range of $825 million-$875 million. Our capital allocation philosophy is unchanged, and you will see us continue to use our free cash flow primarily for share repurchases and small bolt-on acquisitions. Our board has also authorized an additional $2.75 billion to be added to our share repurchase program, which had $1.1 billion remaining at the end of the third quarter. That's it from my side, and I'll now turn it back to Patrick.

Speaker 1

Thanks, Shawn. Let me start with some comments on our operating businesses, starting with FLAP, which had good growth in the quarter. We saw growth from pharma and biopharma customers with strong results in bioprocessing. These results were offset in part by softer demand from academia, biotech, and the chemical sectors. We are optimistic that some of the market uncertainty could ease in 2026, but we have also not assumed a significant recovery next year. Amid the challenging market backdrop, FLAP has benefited from the many innovations we have introduced into the market. Most recently, we have launched the NineFocus pH meter, our new high-performance multiparameter benchtop meter for pH, conductivity, ion concentration, and dissolved oxygen measurements. When used with our broad offering of digital sensors, NineFocus provides consistent, accurate results that support regulatory compliance with automating data transfer to our LabX software.

Our instrument can also be paired with our in-motion autosampler automation solution that allows users to calibrate, verify, and measure over 300 samples fully automatically. Joining our industrial business, growth in our core industrial business was very strong this quarter, especially in the Americas, although it benefited from easy multi-year growth comparisons and favorable timing of customer activity. Global market conditions for industrials are soft, and our sales are expected to grow low single digits in the fourth quarter. Looking ahead, our industrial business is well positioned to benefit from increased replacement demand as market conditions improve, and it is also poised to benefit from nearshoring investments over the coming years. Turning to product inspection, sales growth was very strong again this quarter despite challenging market conditions in the food manufacturing industry.

Our unique go-to-market approaches and innovative portfolio are supporting market share gains, and we look forward to continued growth over the coming year. Lastly, food retail sales grew 5% against easy year-ago comparisons. Now let me make some additional comments by geography, starting in the Americas, which had good growth across most of the portfolio, especially with our industrial solutions. Growth in our laboratory business was good and included strong bioprocessing growth. Turning to Europe, our results were very good this quarter and better than we had expected. Our industrial business delivered very strong results, while Lab had more modest growth. Finally, Asia and the rest of the world grew modestly and was slightly better than expected. Our business in China also grew modestly in the quarter and included growth in our industrial business for the first time in over two years.

Our team has remained highly agile and successful in identifying opportunities in China, and while we are monitoring efforts by the central government to reduce excess capacity across certain industries, we believe we are well positioned to continue to capture growth as conditions improve and should also benefit from trends such as the latest China Pharmacopeia update. In summary, we are very pleased with the strong execution from our team that has allowed us to deliver very good results. I recently came off our annual budget tour and met with senior leaders across the globe, and I'm inspired by the excellent progress our teams are making on our initiatives. Throughout 2025, our team's resilience and agility have been important differentiators that have allowed us to successfully navigate very challenging market conditions. Our high-performance culture is a hallmark of our success and appears to shine the brightest during challenging times.

Looking ahead, we are confident that our unique growth initiatives and focus on operational excellence will provide tangible benefits over the coming year. We continue to invest in global market trends around automation, digitalization, nearshoring, and hot segments, and believe we are well positioned to capture growth around the world. Our team's passion to pursue these opportunities is inspiring, and we have several initiatives that further strengthen our capabilities to serve customers as we also benefit from our significant digitalization investments over the past several years. Innovation is essential to our success, and we continue to advance the digital capabilities of our products, services, and software to provide additional insights and productivity improvements to our customers with many examples throughout their value chain. Spinnaker 6 has strong traction, and our global teams are actively deploying new digital solutions to further increase our effectiveness and improve our customers' digital experience.

We are also further increasing our ability to identify growth opportunities via our Spinnaker program and Top K initiative, and we are enhancing the capabilities of our sales force to leverage AI to further optimize our pipeline management. Service also remains a significant growth opportunity given our large install base of instruments, and we continue to invest and leverage sophisticated analytics to identify and capture these opportunities. Internal productivity improvements from digital tools and automation also continue to be exciting opportunities. This is especially effective as we operate from a single instance of our ERP and CRM systems that are fully integrated under the Blue Ocean program. Blue Ocean provides globally harmonized processes with extremely rich data that is essential to effective digitalization.

While conditions in China have been challenging over the past couple of years, our emerging markets outside of China have continued to grow and, in total, are now larger than China. We see significant growth potential in these markets and expect to benefit from our strong market organizations around the world. Now let me share some additional insights into our outlook for 2026. As mentioned earlier, we forecast our growth next year to be in the range of 4%, which assumes market conditions do not significantly improve from current levels. We continue to face uncertainty in the global economy with trade disputes, U.S. governmental policies, and geopolitical tensions. However, we expect conditions to gradually improve and replacement cycles will gain momentum again.

While we continue to see short-term uncertainty in our end markets, we believe we are very well positioned to continue to gain market share with our broad portfolio of new innovations. We have also recently launched new initiatives to ensure resources are effectively focused and reallocated towards the most promising growth opportunities. I am very proud of the resiliency and strong execution from our global supply chain organization as we navigated new challenges with trade tariffs. Our team has been very agile and effective in implementing our supply chain optimization strategies. Our focus is to strengthen and evolve our in-region, for-region manufacturing capabilities to increase flexibility and resiliency, and we continue to expect to fully offset incremental tariffs cost in 2026. Lastly, as Shawn mentioned earlier, we also recently completed several small acquisitions that broaden our distribution and service capabilities and also expand our life science equipment portfolio.

While these acquisitions are small and will add less than 1% to our sales growth in 2026, they add new products and services to our portfolio and increase our sales capabilities. We are very happy to welcome our new colleagues to our team. Now this concludes our prepared remarks. Operator, I would like now to open the line to questions.

Speaker 3

Absolutely. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question at this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Our first question comes from the line of Luke England Sergott with Barclays. Luke, please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Great. Thanks for the questions here. I wanted to start talking, start off with the guide for 2026. Can you just kind of give us a breakdown of how you're looking at that by segment, particularly around the industrial side and what you're seeing there from PID and core industrial?

Speaker 7

Yeah. Hey, Luke, this is Shawn. I'll take that one. For 2026, we're looking at low to mid-single digit growth in our laboratory business. Of course, we'd probably expect to do better than the average on our process analytics. We saw really good momentum in bioprocessing in the quarter that we expect to kind of continue into next year. Maybe the other side of that is that the early research area, like where we participate with liquid handling, will be a little bit softer. In the industrial business, we're estimating core industrial to be low to mid-single digit and product inspection to also be low to mid-single digit. Both of them will have a modest benefit from some of these smaller acquisitions that we talked about. Retail would be we estimate it to be flat for next year.

If you break it down by geography, we're assuming the Americas at mid-single digit with low single digit growth in Europe and China.

Speaker 4

Great. Thanks. As I think about the overall consumer market and some of the more consumer-facing segments like PID and what you are seeing there as the consumer starts getting weaker, how is that kind of playing out when you are thinking about based on that guide and how the pacing has been through the quarter and into 2024?

Speaker 7

Yeah. I mean, we've been really pleased with the results in that business this year. I mean, if you think about the end market, the end market still is challenging. I mean, 70% of that business is sold into food manufacturing. The dynamic we've seen is that we've invested a lot in innovation over the last few years, and we've really been able to build out our portfolio, particularly targeted towards the middle market. We find that to be a sweeter spot in terms of where there's growth opportunities as well. When we step back from that, our teams are executing really well, and the recent product innovations are being very well received in the marketplace.

Patrick and I just came out of our annual tour that he talked about in his prepared remarks, and we also spent time with our executives and the board this week. As we just look at the pipeline for the future in that business, as well as our other businesses, we feel really good about what we have coming out in the future as well too. I feel like we're competing very well, but you're right, the backdrop is still more challenging market conditions.

Speaker 4

Great. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Your next question comes from the line of Vijay Kumar with Evercore ISI. Vijay, please go ahead.

Speaker 8

Hi guys. Congrats on a really nice sprint here, and thank you for taking my questions. Maybe back off of Luke's question of fiscal 2026. I think, Patrick, you mentioned actually you're not assuming any change from current environment. When I look at your back half of 2025, you're averaging 4.5. So that's four for 2026 seems a step down from back half. What changes in how do you think of price versus volume?

Speaker 3

Yeah. I'll start and let Shawn chime in there. Look, Vijay, when you look at how we guide for 2026, we said we do not expect any significant change to what we are seeing today. The market situation is still quite uncertain out there with global trade politics and tariffs in place, which leads to a lot of customer uncertainty. That led us to really guide to the 4% for 2026. We think it is a very prudent guidance in this environment. There could be some upside, of course. I mean, again, if the market uncertainties become less, if the customer confidence increases. As we also mentioned, our pre-market, we think there is a good opportunity in our replacement business. We have seen probably now two years of subdued replacement business that hopefully will come into play once customer confidence comes back.

In terms of the overall sequence, in terms of the growth, first half of this versus second half next year, Sean, I do not think we have.

Speaker 7

Yeah. I mean, one thing to keep in mind, Vijay, is that we do have more pricing in the second half of this year than we'll have next year. We had about 3%; we benefited about 3.5% or so in the third quarter on pricing. We expect to benefit by a similar amount in Q4. As we kind of go into next year, we're assuming about 2.5% for price realization for the full year. That includes some of the benefits from these mid-year pricing actions to mitigate tariffs. When you step back from that, the assumption on organic volume growth, it's going to be certainly it's going to be modest growth next year. I think if you look at the back half of this year, yeah, Q3 was a little bit better.

Q4 is maybe kind of going down a little bit, but I do not think it is a significant change in terms of how we are seeing things. I think the reality is it is early, right? There is still a lot of uncertainty. Headlines are more favorable in the last few weeks. If that continues, we are optimistic that that can help increase the stability and confidence within our end markets. We are just a little bit cautious given all the volatility we have seen with our and the pressures on some of our core end markets over the past year.

Speaker 8

That's helpful. Sean, maybe on the margins for our '26, I think a guide in place, maybe modest operating margin expansion. Your tariff headlines should abate quite meaningfully. Should we see a little bit more robust margin expansion?

Speaker 7

Yeah. One of the—it's a good question because one of the dynamics we face is that the way currencies have evolved just over the past quarter, we have a lot more benefit on the sale side, but we have a—that's being offset by cost increase and the Swiss franc strengthening against the euro. Even though it's not having a significant impact on EPS, it has a bigger impact on operating profit as a percentage of sales. When you kind of do that math, our operating margin expansion for next year is about plus 60 basis points on a currency-neutral basis. It's not—I think it's a much better story than the reported number, which is probably in the 20-30 basis point kind of a level.

I do feel very good about execution in the organization, and I do feel good about our ability to mitigate these tariffs.

Speaker 8

That's very helpful, Shawn. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Your next question comes from the line of Dan Arias, but Stafford Dan, please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Good morning, guys. Thank you. Patrick, to what extent do you think onshoring demand can work itself into the picture for 2026 versus 2027 and beyond? You guys have some products that seem like it could be part of what's done earlier rather than later. I also know you guys tend to not get too worked up about some of these high-level ideas in your earlier stages. Can you just maybe think a little bit about and tell us a little bit about your thoughts on '26 there?

Speaker 3

Yeah. Very good. Look, I think we are very well positioned as a global company to benefit from the re- and onshoring activities. There are big numbers out there, as you know, from pharma, from semiconductor, and other places. And as you know, about 50% of our sales are sold into production and plus QA/QC. So that's a big part of the portfolio as these companies will start reshoring or building out capacities in the United States and in Europe as well. Again, there have been large announcements, but it will take multiple years to build these new plants. I think it will not have an immediate effect. It will be a gradual effect. We expect some of it in 2026, probably even more in 2027. Again, we make sure that we are ready to work with our customers.

We're talking to all our key accounts at the moment who have also made some of these statements. If you think about the pharma companies that they will build out capacity in the U.S., we are ready to help them with establishing their labs, their manufacturing floors, their QA/QC labs, etc., with our products. This will be a multi-year journey. I mean, if you think back even on the Semiconductor Act, how long that took until it really saw some momentum in the end market, I think the impact for 2026 will be moderate.

Again, for us, it's important that we are very early for our customers to help them as they design the labs and the manufacturing floors, that they get the latest of our innovation to help them to drive productivity and efficiency, which they are looking for together with all the digital capabilities that we have.

Speaker 2

Okay. That's helpful. Then, Shawn, maybe on the comments that you guys made on China, can you maybe just compare what you expect on the lab/bio-pharma side versus more of the industrial side? I'm trying to understand just the macro headwinds and what that might translate to for China for you guys next year.

Speaker 7

Yeah. I mean, we're assuming low single-digit growth in both of those businesses. As Patrick mentioned in the prepared remarks, one of the upsides I think we have on the lab side is the latest update of Pharmacopia in China, which I think is a nice opportunity. All the investments that are going on in-country with GLP-1s is a really good example. And so we feel like there's medium to long-term some upside here, but we're a little bit more cautious as we think about things today. On industrial, one of the highlights of the third quarter was our industrial business. Within that, we had good region. We had good growth in each region, but it was nice to see growth in core industrial in China in the quarter. It's actually the first time we've had growth in that business in two years.

When you think back to the beginning of the year and some of the things that were on our mind, that was a bigger an area where we would have had placed more risk just given all the uncertainty with their economy. It is nice to see that they had some growth. I feel very good about our ability to continue to execute there. We kind of walked away from our visit there just a month and a half ago feeling optimistic, and the team was really motivated and engaged. It was good to see.

Speaker 2

Okay. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Your next question comes from the line of Brandon Couillard with Wells Fargo. Brandon, please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Hey, good morning. Patrick, I mean, it's atypical for Mettler-Toledo to do one deal, much less a handful of them. I'd love if you just kind of elaborate on how this came about, some background on the assets, and really what you think they add to the portfolio.

Speaker 3

Yeah. Good. Hey, thank you, Brandon. Good morning. Yeah. Of course, normally we do not do this amount of deals in one quarter, but to be honest, the deals also take a lot of preparation time. We always look to expand our portfolio at new technology vectors or at agencies that we do not own and also expand our distribution. In this quarter, we acquired a few North American distribution partners that give us really additional sales and service capabilities, including some new services. We also acquired the Genie Vortex mixers, which is a really strong brand that expands our life science equipment portfolio that complements, for example, our pipette business and the businesses, shakers, and others that we sell through our OHouse business. It has been a good number of smaller acquisitions, not one big one, but small acquisitions that we will continue to do in the future.

As Shawn mentioned before, the revenue contribution was less than 1% this quarter and about 1% through the first half of next year.

Speaker 5

Just one follow-up, Shawn, did you give the China lab growth in the quarter and what is embedded for 2025 for China and those two segments specifically? Thanks.

Speaker 7

Yeah. For Q3, it was up low single digit. I mean, I'm sorry. Let me just confirm that. Yeah. It was up low single digit in Q3. For next year, we also expect it to be up low single digit as well.

Speaker 3

Thanks. Your next question comes from the line of Patrick Donnelly with Citi. Patrick, please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Hey, guys. Thank you for taking the questions. Maybe one just on the core industrial side. Can you just talk about what you're seeing there, what the trends are, conversations with customers? Obviously, it's helpful to hear a little bit about the go-forward on that front. We'd love just to hear what the trends look like there and the visibility as you work your way forward on core industrial.

Speaker 3

Yeah. Okay. I'm happy to take that. Look, I think we are performing extremely well with our innovative portfolio in a market that is still very challenging. As you know, most of the PMIs are still below 50. We are benefiting from the demand for automation, digitalization, and this is where our innovative products play strong. It also helps us differentiate nicely from our competitors, including China. As Shawn mentioned, it was good to see that China came back to growth for the first time in two years. We think these soft market conditions probably will continue for some time, but we are very well positioned then in the future also from the onshoring investments in the future because those will demand a lot of digital capabilities and automation solutions that we have developed and that we either implement directly with end customers or through system integrators.

Long story short, I think the market will continue to be challenging in many areas and probably will benefit next year and the year after from the re- and onshoring activities. For us, it's most important that, again, we have a very competitive portfolio and continue to help our customers with their demand for automation and digitalization in a fully compliant environment and also with products that also have very strong capabilities when it comes to cybersecurity, which we spend a lot of activity as well.

Speaker 5

Okay. That is helpful. Maybe on the geography side, I think Europe is flattish year to date. It seems like it has been improving a little bit. I think Shawn talked about low single next year. What do you guys see in there? Has there been kind of steady improvement? Is it just comps? The confidence level there going forward would be helpful. Thank you, guys.

Speaker 3

Yeah. I'll go a little bit through the macro of Europe. Again, it's, I would say, a tale of many cities here. If you look at how we see the end markets, I would say the southern European markets actually are performing better than the northern at the moment or in the mid. I think the biggest stress in Europe, as you can imagine, is probably right now in Central Europe with a large economy in Germany that is under significant pressure still from higher energy costs, etc. You hear the news about them also offshoring some of their manufacturing in other areas to try to address the cost issues. Nordics has performed well, but then we also had the news coming out of Denmark in the last quarter, so about Novo Nordisk going through some resizing there. That puts that piece of the market under pressure right now.

It is really a mixed bag. Overall, we are pleased with our own performance in Europe. I think it is very important that we leverage our tools to always guide our sales teams to the hot segments that we see there, like bioprocessing. There is a lot of good activities in bioprocessing, for example, some of it in the new energy markets as well. Also in pockets, also in semiconductor. Again, I think the story is here, yes, it is a more difficult environment. We see definitely better momentum right now in the U.S. and in Europe. We are still very keen on capturing all the growth opportunities to compensate the macro trend that Europe is probably slower at the moment and probably will also be next year a bit slower than the U.S.

Speaker 5

Great. Thank you, guys.

Speaker 3

Your next question comes from the line of Doug Schenkel with Wolfe Research. Doug, please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Good morning, guys. Thank you for taking the questions. I'm going to try to just throw out two and then get back and just listen given I'm out of the office. On the industrial side, lab came in, as we've talked about, pretty well above our model and your guidance at mid-single-digit organic growth. You've talked a little bit about what you're seeing there, but I'm just wondering how much of this was driven by BA process analytics versus traditional lab equipment. Maybe more specifically, are you seeing increased demand for bioprocessing sensors as several large CDMOs start to build out brownfield plants in the U.S.? That's on the lab side. On the industrial side, 9% organic growth is impressive.

As I've talked about with you guys, I mean, some of this is a function of maybe the name industrial being a little bit of a misnomer given how the business has evolved. That being said, still impressive. Last quarter, you said you had visibility into certain projects that would drive maybe a better than typical quarter. I think this was even better than that. Long windup to, does this start to normalize? Were there timing dynamics, or is there some real momentum here? Thank you, guys.

Speaker 7

Yeah. Hey, maybe I'll start here. On the laboratory side, we were very pleased with the quarter. As you mentioned, certainly a highlight in the laboratory portfolio was process analytics. We saw really good growth on bioprocessing. This business also benefits from some of the investments that are being made to the power grid as you think about data centers as an opportunity in the future. A lot of it was pretty much bioprocessing. The power is like we have ultra-pure water solutions, etc., that help with power plants. On the rest of the business, we also saw some good growth. For example, within our analytical instrument portfolio, we were very pleased with growth in that business. If you look at weighing solutions, also really good growth. The one soft spot that kind of I think I alluded to earlier was in our liquid handling business.

We still see a lot of softness in that business. That business really is in the crosshairs of a lot of the topics out there regarding funding and research, whether it is with biotech, whether it is with academia, whether it is with currently the government shutdown. Now, these are smaller exposures for Mettler-Toledo, but when you get into liquid handling, they tend to be a little bit bigger, and they tend to feel especially the consumable nature of that business. We did have modest growth on the consumable side. It is really more on the instrument side where we saw softness. On the industrial side, we did have some good, much better activity, as you mentioned, in the quarter than we expected. I think we were kind of walking into the quarter feeling pretty good.

A lot of things happened in different parts of the world that just all came together. As an example, we have some activity in our transportation and logistics business, which is selling. It is part of how facilities are trying to automate their factories. We have these solutions around dynamic dimensioning that are super effective and provide strong paybacks to our customers. A lot of that kind of caught on in the quarter. It is not only that. If you look at the rest of the portfolio where we are facilitating customers' automation and digitalization needs, we saw some good trends there. We also saw good growth in each region of the world. We also probably had, in fairness, a little bit of an easier comp in Q3 if you look at it on a longer-term CAGR basis.

That comp is maybe a little bit more difficult in the fourth quarter. As we kind of listen to the organization and customers, just the timing of activity seems to have been a little bit more skewed towards Q3 versus Q4. We are actually a lot more cautious on our core industrial projection for the fourth quarter. We are probably looking at more like low single digit in the fourth quarter. We do see a step down there quarter on quarter. When you look at the second half of the year and combined, we actually feel really good about how we are executing and how we are positioned going into next year. I just think the portfolio is doing well. It is being really well received globally.

We always talk about how this business is, while it's exposed to the macro, it also has a lot of opportunity with all these onshoring needs. As companies are onshoring, they're investing more in automation as well as digitalization. We continue to invest in our portfolio to optimize these opportunities.

Speaker 3

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Ryskin with Bank of America. Michael, please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Great. Thanks for that question, guys. Can you hear me? Yeah.

Speaker 3

Yes.

Speaker 6

Great. I want to follow just kind of where you were just touching on. On the 4Q moving piece, we've had a lot of questions on sort of comparing 3Q, 4Q. First of all, maybe you could just give us sort of the segment results to give us a little bit of hearing there, but I want to make sure we have all the numbers together. Then just anything on pull forward timing, what are you seeing for government shutdown? Are there any other moving pieces? You touched on the comp in core industrial just now, but we'll have to flesh out the 3Q to 4Q dynamic. I've got a quick follow-up. Thanks.

Speaker 7

Yeah. Hey, Mike. Hey, maybe I'll walk down the Q3 versus Q4, like you said, so everybody has that. I can make a couple of comments on it as well. In Q3, lab was up 4%. Our guidance for Q4 is to be up low single digit. As we think about lab, we're a little bit more cautious here on budget flush going into the fourth quarter. I mean, last year, you recall, we actually had a pretty good budget flush. We're not such a budget flush company, but the reality is we do have seasonality in our business. As we just sit here today, there seems to be a little bit more caution with some of the uncertainties out there around governmental policies. In terms of our core industrial business, as you know, it was up 11%. That was 10% organic.

Our guidance for Q4 is up low single digit. We just talked about that. Product Inspection was up 7% in Q3. Our expectation is that business grows high single digit in Q4. There will be a little bit of acquisition benefit in that number as well. Retail actually had growth in the quarter, 5%. It is always a lumpy business. They have been on the other side of the lumpiness now for the last couple of years. It was nice to see growth. They are actually looking at good growth here in the fourth quarter of about 10%. It is also against maybe softer comparisons. That business is actually competing really well. There are some really neat examples of innovation in that business with some imaging technologies, etc. I think we are competing really well.

In terms of the geographies, our business in the Americas grew 10% in Q3. If you exclude the acquisitions, it was 8%. Our guidance for Q4 is to grow mid-single digit. Europe was up 6% in constant currency in Q3. Our guidance is more flattish here. We're definitely a little bit more cautious on Europe. I mean, as Patrick mentioned, we're executing well there. Europe tends to benefit the most from our Spinnaker programs just given the magnitude of our direct sales force in terms of our go-to-market strategy. The economy is a little bit more softer. I think there's just more uncertainty with a lot of the different topics around trade disputes, etc., that have a potential impact on customer behavior. China was up 2% in Q3. We're estimating it up low single digit in the fourth quarter.

Speaker 6

Okay. That's all incredibly helpful, Shawn. Thanks so much. For follow-up, if I could just touch on tariffs in 2026. You said a couple of times you're going to fully offset. Just walk us through exactly what that means. Is that fully offset over the course of the year, fully offset as of Gen 1? Is there a net tariff impact on EPS next year that you could point to? Just walk us through sort of exactly how that's happening and the mechanics behind it. Thanks.

Speaker 7

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're extremely happy with the organizational performance in this area. As Patrick said in the prepared remarks, our culture does tend to shine the brightest during challenging times. I just could not be more proud of the colleagues in terms of how they've responded to these challenges over this past year. The journey towards offsetting these tariffs also did not start in 2025. We had also, coming out of COVID, like a lot of other companies, wanted to create more flexibility in our global supply chain. We also wanted to de-risk our global supply chain. We already had some things that we were working on and that we could accelerate over the past year. The other thing is that we also have the opportunity in pricing to mitigate.

I think that comes down to we've been investing a lot in innovation and the value proposition that we're providing to customers. Fortunately, with strong value propositions, it gave us an opportunity to take a look at pricing in a few areas over the course of the past year. As we kind of go into next year, I think we should be in pretty good shape. At the beginning of the year in Q1, we'll provide more color on that at the end of this year. If you want to be a little conservative in your models, that's okay. I think we should be in pretty good shape kind of as we start the year next year and certainly on a full-year basis. In terms of what it means, which I can anticipate is a question out there.

Tariffs right now are about, if you look at the tariff rate increases that were put in place in 2025, we're probably looking at about a 6% gross headwind on 2026. That's the magnitude that we're talking about offsetting.

Speaker 6

Great. Thanks. Appreciate it.

Speaker 3

Your next question comes from the line of Tycho Peterson with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Yeah. Hi. Good morning. This is Jack on for Dyko. Thanks for the question. Just wanted to double-click on China industrial for a minute. Did China's anti-involution campaign have an impact on the business over there? The macro data seemed to get worse intra-quarter, but did not seem like you were impacted much at all. Would appreciate any additional granularity on the core industrial side and what you saw in terms of activity. Thanks.

Speaker 3

Good. Very good. Thanks, Jack. Look, China has struggled with overcapacity for some time now. If you look at the anti-involution policy, I think it's mainly focused on trying to stop price wars and address overcapacities in areas like solar, steel, and other areas. These are, for us, not really large markets. As we exited the heavy industrial infrastructure-related markets over a decade ago, it doesn't mean that we are totally immune to this, but we are now more focused with our industrial portfolio on a broader market. This is really looking for automation capabilities, digitalization features. That's why we also saw some growth in Q3, frankly. I think our portfolio competes really well in a market that is fighting also for continued increases in productivity, driving costs down. You only can achieve that through automation and digitalization. I think our portfolio plays really strong there.

We have a strong R&D and manufacturing organization in the market that really also understands the local dynamics and the needs of our customers. I think we are set up well to capture these opportunities. With that, again, we think we will continue also in China to outperform the underlying market dynamics with our strong portfolio. Again, anti-involution for us, probably not as big as a topic as you would think because we are not playing in these market segments that are under most pressure or most focused by the government. The rest of the market still is looking for the portfolio opportunities that we can deliver to them.

Speaker 4

Okay. Great. That's really helpful context. I guess second, you talked a bit about onshoring in the call. Curious how conversations there, particularly among pharma customers, have evolved in the past 45 days or so with commentary getting better around MFN and other issues that are clearing up. Thanks.

Speaker 3

Yeah. Hey, I do not want to repeat myself, but again, there is a lot of big announcements out there, but we are in the very, very early innings with that. I mean, it still will take time to build these manufacturing sites and build up the labs, etc. Most important for us, as I said, is to really be with the customers in the planning phase to help them to implement the right solutions to not only replicate what they have seen in other places or have in other places as they try to onshore it, but really go to the next step in terms of automation digitalization.

Your next question comes from the line of Josh Waldman with Wolfe Research. Josh, please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Patrick, a follow-up on the bioprocessing side. I'm curious where all you're seeing the impact of stronger demand across the portfolio, and I guess any sense on durability into Q4 and 2026. Did it seem like volume strengthened throughout the quarter? I guess on the portfolio exposure piece, I believe you have bioreactor equipment exposure within core industrial. Were there any signs of strength there?

Speaker 3

Yeah. Good. Very good questions, Josh. Yes, you're absolutely right. We see this across the portfolio. Bioprocessing is a strong segment for us, of course, especially for the process analytics piece. As you think about the entire value chain of these customers when it comes to QA, QC solutions where our lab products play well, or in industrial solutions where tank scale weighing, etc., play a big role, we will definitely continue to benefit from the strong momentum in this market. Actually, we anticipate this to continue into 2026 as well. This is a market that shows strong momentum. Also, we have very strong engagement of our sales teams with the customers in this space.

Speaker 6

Did you see strength in the tanks and weighing side as well, or was it more on the consumable side here in the third quarter?

Speaker 3

Yeah, we saw it in both. I mean, probably a bit more on the bioprocessing sensor side, but also again, really good customer engagement and also upbuilding momentum on the tank scale weighing, etc. As these customers will build out their manufacturing capacities or do rein onshoring, again, they will look at us to help them to put in the newest and most effective solutions.

Speaker 6

Got it. Okay. As a follow-up, I was curious if you could talk to what you're seeing on the service side, maybe how service performed versus expectations, your thoughts going into 2026. If there's been any update on attach rates or change in strategy to drive better attach rates, that would be helpful.

Speaker 3

Good. Yep. Actually, we are very happy with the 8% service growth that we have seen in the quarter, that includes about 1% through the acquisitions we made. Service is really strong. We have also a great growth initiative in the company to build out not only our service portfolio, but also the coverage in the markets. We have continued to target mid to high single-digit growth in both 2025 and 2026. We are really confident that the long-term growth will be above company average for services. That is actually, again, a segment that I'm also putting a lot of energy in as CEO, making sure that we really capture the full opportunity out there. We have great progress in place, and I'm looking forward to continued growth there.

Speaker 6

Great. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Your next question comes from the line of Catherine Schulte with Baird. Catherine, please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hey, guys. This is Josh on for Catherine. Thanks for taking my question. We just wanted to unpack a little bit. Have you seen any change in sentiment from pharma customers since some of these MFN deals? Just wondering what those have kind of looked like since some of these announcements have been rolling out. Thanks.

Speaker 3

I'll take this question. Look, I think that the most favored nation discussion has been out there. I think it probably created some initial uncertainty of what that means. Overall, the pharma segment performed for us really well. I think the customers are really now looking forward to how they address the reshoring, onshoring opportunities for them, also what they have, the commitments they have made to the U.S. government. They also see the underlying demand for biopharmaceuticals and others. I think that the uncertainty, there's still some uncertainty there, but it's not around the most favored nation topics. At least when we talk to our customers, that is not the first topic that comes up.

They are really looking forward to optimize their processes to drive efficiencies and also as they continue to expand their manufacturing sites that they can work with us on implementing the best, efficient, and most profitable solutions for them.

Speaker 4

Great. You talked through the replacement cycle opportunity here, maybe starting to ramp up a little bit. Just wondering if any of this is baked in the 2026 guidance and how should we think about the impact here longer term? Thanks.

Speaker 3

Yeah. Look, I mean, I would have a glass ball to really see what's going to happen. What we do know is that we have two years of a little bit subdued replacement business. We also see our install base aging a bit more, but I cannot really tell you when the customers are ready to pull the trigger and replace the equipment. I think it's upside potential, but we have not factored that fully into our 2026 guidance.

Your next question comes from the line of Casey Rene Woodring with JPMorgan. Casey, please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Great. Thanks for fitting me in today. Maybe the first one, you mentioned that you were in China recently. Just what's the latest there on the ground in terms of potential stimulus and what that could mean for 2026?

Speaker 0

Yeah. Hey, Casey, maybe I'll take that one. We had a really great visit with the Chinese colleagues. As you can imagine, it's a pretty dynamic environment, but what's interesting is just to see how the pace of change there and our teams, like their effectiveness in terms of really being agile in the marketplace, really stood out to us. It's a very fast-moving market, and it's really exciting to see how, like I said, agile our teams are in terms of identifying and pursuing those opportunities. In terms of stimulus, as we've kind of talked about in the past, it's not so much of a topic for us. I mean, yes, there's maybe a little bit of benefit. Our teams do go after that.

If you just think about the nature of our portfolio and our customers in China, it does not lend itself as much to the current program for stimulus. Now, when we start talking about broader programs about physical stimulus with bigger packages, we have benefited a lot from those in the past, but the current program is a little bit more isolated in terms of opportunity.

Speaker 4

Got it. That is helpful. And then maybe if you could just unpack the product inspection performance, that 7% growth number in the quarter. I understand the comp dynamic you mentioned earlier, but in the past, you have talked about this sort of strategy shift towards focusing on the mid-range market there. That is really driving growth. Just curious if that is a tailwind that you are assuming extends into 2026 and the sustainability there. Thank you.

Speaker 0

Yeah. I mean, like I said earlier, we feel very good about the performance here. We feel really good about the portfolio. We have come out with new products over the last few years. The nice thing is that the cadence of product introductions will continue, and we'll continue to see some nice things coming out over the course of next year as well to help. I feel like that's what gives us a little bit of confidence in our ability to sustain here. Now, it's, of course, against a more challenging backdrop, but we do have good momentum. I think there's even some synergy opportunities with some of these acquisitions as well. One of them in particular has some additional services that we did not provide in the past and that we feel like is an opportunity that we can leverage.

Speaker 3

There's no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Adam for closing remarks. Adam.

Speaker 4

Okay. Great. Thanks, Mark. Thanks, everybody, for joining our call today. If you have any follow-up questions, feel free to reach out to me. I hope you all have a great weekend, and we'll talk to you soon. Thank you.

Speaker 3

That concludes today's call. You may now disconnect.