Nordson - Earnings Call - Q2 2025

Executive Summary

• Q2 FY2025 delivered revenue of $682.9M (+5% YoY) and adjusted EPS of $2.42, modestly above S&P Global consensus for both revenue ($671.9M*) and EPS ($2.36*) as ATS strength offset IPS weakness and medical interventional destocking.
• EBITDA was $217.2M (32% margin), up 7% YoY on improving ATS incrementals and strong Atrion contribution; GAAP diluted EPS was $1.97 as restructuring and acquisition amortization drove a $0.45 adjustment to EPS.
• Q3 FY2025 guidance: sales $710–$750M and adjusted EPS $2.55–$2.75; management stated this is “in line with the full-year guidance we set at the beginning of our fiscal year” ($2.75B–$2.87B sales; adj. EPS $9.70–$10.50).
• Stock catalysts: sustained ATS demand tied to AI/HPC semiconductor investments, margin-accretive portfolio actions (sale of medical contract manufacturing lines), easing medical destocking, and IPS sequential improvement as industrial coatings transition completes; tariffs are manageable but end-market demand sensitivity remains a watch item.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Electronics and semi strength drove ATS organic sales +18% YoY; EBITDA rose 43% to $40M (25% margin), reflecting cost actions and manufacturing optimization.
• Atrion performed “above expectations,” supporting MFS sales +20% YoY with EBITDA up 22% to $77M (38% margin); backlog grew ~5% q/q.
• CEO: “Our results outperformed the mid-point of our sales and earnings guidance… Operational excellence drove strong profit performance of 32% EBITDA”.
• CFO: Tariff impact “not material” in Q2; leverage 2.4x with robust YTD FCF conversion of 116% and $85M share repurchases in the quarter.

What Went Wrong

• IPS sales -8% YoY on weaker industrial coatings and polymer processing systems; segment EBITDA -12% to $114M (36% margin) from lower volumes.
• Medical interventional organic sales declined ~10% as destocking persisted; organic MFS (ex. contract manufacturing) down ~4% YoY in Q2.
• Gross margin slipped YoY to 54.7% (from 56.2%); net interest expense increased to $26M due to Atrion-related debt; GAAP diluted EPS fell to $1.97 (vs. $2.05 prior year).

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Nordson Corporation Second Quarter Fiscal Year 2025 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'd like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, again, press star one. Thank you. I'd now like to turn the call over to Lara Mahoney. You may begin.

Lara Mahoney (VP of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications)

Good morning. This is Lara Mahoney, Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications. I'm here with Sundaram Nagarajan, our President and CEO, and Dan Hopgood, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. We welcome you to our conference call today, Thursday, May 29, to report Nordson's fiscal 2025 second quarter results. You'll find both our press release as well as our webcast slide presentation that we will refer to during today's call on our website at www.nordson.com/investors. This conference call is being broadcast live on our website and will be available there for 30 days. There will be a telephone replay of the conference call available until Thursday, June 5, 2025. During this conference call, we will make references to non-GAAP financial metrics. We've provided a reconciliation of these metrics to the most comparable GAAP metric in the press release issued yesterday.

Before we begin, please refer to slide two of our presentation where we note that certain statements regarding our future performance that are made during this call may be forward-looking based upon Nordson's current expectations. These statements may involve a number of risks, uncertainties, and other factors as discussed in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission that could cause actual results to materially differ. Moving to today's agenda on slide three, Naga will discuss second quarter highlights. He will then turn the call over to Dan to review sales and earnings performance for the total company and the three business segments. Dan will also discuss the balance sheet and cash flow. Naga will then share a high-level commentary about our enterprise performance and provide an update on the fiscal 2025 third quarter guidance. We will then be happy to take your questions.

With that, I'll move to slide four and turn the call over to Naga.

Sundaram Nagarajan (President and CEO)

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining Nordson's fiscal 2025 second quarter conference call. We started the second quarter with increasing momentum in order entry and backlog, enabling us to outperform the midpoint of our sales and earnings guidance. This was driven largely by strength in our advanced technology system and part sales, where order entry continues to be solid due to ongoing customer demand within semiconductor and selective electronic applications. We also experienced solid growth in nonwoven systems and medical fluid components, and our precision agricultural business, previously referred to as ARAG, posted solid double-digit year-over-year growth. Our Atrion integration is going well, and results continue to perform above our valuation model expectations. I'm very pleased with the customer adoption of Atrion's differentiated products, as well as our new employees who have adopted the NBS NEXT framework, driving operational efficiencies and delivering solid growth results.

The sales growth in the second quarter was partially offset by year-over-year weakness in select industrial system sales, reflecting lower overall market demand. That said, industrial systems improved sequentially compared to the first quarter, as expected. Operational excellence during the quarter drove strong profit performance, resulting in 32% overall EBITDA margins. This was driven by operational execution in our core businesses and strong contribution from the Atrion acquisition that exceeded our expectations. As a growth compounder, we are executing a balanced capital deployment strategy, buying back $85 million in shares during the quarter. In addition, we paid $44 million in dividends and maintained our debt leverage ratio at 2.4 times, comfortably within our targeted range. Let's turn to slide five. As investors know from our Investor Day presentation, using NBS NEXT, we hold our product portfolio to a high standard.

We regularly assess the strategic fit of our businesses and product lines from a market attractiveness and product differentiation perspective, as well as their relative financial performance in the company's portfolio. On May 28, we signed an agreement to divest select product lines within our medical contract manufacturing business. Exiting these product lines will increase focus on higher value growth opportunities within the $800 million medical and fluid solutions segment, namely within our growing portfolio of proprietary medical components, including devices from the recent Atrion acquisition. The transaction is expected to improve our growth profile going forward and will be accretive to our margins post-sale. We expect this deal to close in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025. I'll speak more about the enterprise performance in a few moments, but first, I'll turn the call over to Dan to provide a detailed perspective on our financial results for the quarter.

Dan Hopgood (EVP and CFO)

Thank you, Naga, and good morning to everyone. On slide number six, you'll see second quarter fiscal 2025 sales were $683 million, up 5% from the prior year's second quarter sales of $651 million. This growth was driven by an 8% increase from the Atrion acquisition, offset by an overall organic sales decrease of 2%, and unfavorable currency translation of a little less than 1%. Gross profit in the second quarter was $374 million, a healthy and consistent 55% of sales. SG&A leverage improved year-over-year, leading to EBITDA adjusted for restructuring and integration costs in both periods of $217 million, or 32% of sales. This is an increase of 7% compared to the prior year. EBITDA growth was driven by improving incrementals in our ATS segment, as well as strong contribution from the Atrion acquisition, which continued to perform above expectations from both a sales and margin perspective.

Importantly, the impact of tariffs was not material to the company's operating financial performance in the quarter. Looking at non-operating expenses, net interest expense was $26 million, an increase of $7 million versus the prior year, driven by higher debt levels tied to the Atrion acquisition. Other expenses increased a nominal $3 million, primarily reflecting higher foreign exchange transactional losses compared to the prior year. Tax expense for the quarter was $26 million, or an effective tax rate of 19%, in line with our guidance range for fiscal 2025 and 180 basis points lower than the prior year. Net income in the quarter totaled $112 million, or $1.97 per share on a GAAP basis.

Excluding non-recurring costs related to restructuring actions and integration, as well as amortization of acquisition-related intangibles, adjusted earnings per share totaled $2.42 per share, slightly above the midpoint of our quarterly guidance, and a 3% increase from the prior year adjusted earnings per share of $2.34. This improvement in year-over-year earnings reflects the strong overall conversion on higher sales and favorability in our tax rate, modestly offset by higher acquisition-related interest expense. Now let's turn to slides seven through nine to review the second quarter 2025 segment performance. Industrial Precision Solutions sales of $319 million decreased 8% compared to the prior year second quarter, down 7% organically and 1% due to unfavorable currency impacts. Growth in nonwoven systems, precision agriculture, and packaging product lines were offset by weaker system sales in our industrial coatings and polymer processing product lines, where we're seeing lower end market demand versus 2024.

Also, you may recall that we initiated the transition of our primary industrial coatings manufacturing site to a new South Carolina plant at the start of the fiscal year. That transition is now substantially completed as we move into the third quarter. We expect to see continued sequential sales improvement in our IPS segment as the year progresses. EBITDA was $114 million in the quarter, or 36% of sales. This is a decrease of 12% compared to the prior year EBITDA of $128 million, driven by lower sales volume in the quarter. Turning to slide eight, you'll see medical and fluid solution sales of $203 million increased 20% compared to the prior year's second quarter. Growth was driven by the acquired Atrion business, which delivered $51 million in revenue during the quarter. This was offset by double-digit declines in our medical interventional product lines.

The year-over-year decline in interventional volumes includes the contract manufacturing business that we have intentionally rationalized to prepare for the pending sale. Excluding these medical contract manufacturing product lines, organic sales for the remainder of the segment were down about 4% compared to the prior year, reflecting continued destocking trends in our interventional products. We expect the impact of destocking trends to continue to lessen as the year progresses, and we continue to see sequential improvements that validate this. EBITDA for medical and fluid solutions was $77 million, or 38% of sales, which was an increase of 22% from prior year EBITDA of $63 million. The increase was driven by strong conversion on Atrion sales during the quarter and solid execution to minimize decrementals on lower organic volumes.

Turning to slide nine, you'll see Advanced Technology Solutions sales were $161 million, or an 18% increase compared to the prior year second quarter. The growth in sales was driven by broad-based demand, notably in electronics dispense, optical, and X-ray inspection systems, all growing double digits over the prior year. We started the quarter with a strong backlog, and we continue to see steady order entry as the semiconductor and electronic applications we serve continue to show solid ongoing demand. Second quarter EBITDA was $40 million, or 25% of sales, an increase of 43% compared to the prior year second quarter EBITDA of $28 million, or 20% of sales. The improvement in EBITDA margin was driven by the organic sales growth and continued emphasis on cost management and improved manufacturing efficiency. These margin enhancements should continue to compound as the segment demand outlook continues to improve.

Finally, turning to the balance sheet and cash flow on slide 10. At the end of the second quarter, we had cash on hand of approximately $130 million, and net debt was approximately $2.1 billion, resulting in a leverage ratio of 2.4 times based on trailing 12 months EBITDA. This is a slight reduction from year-end and within our long-term targeted leverage ratio of 2-2.5 times. Our free cash flow generation was in line with the prior year at $103 million during the quarter, resulting in a 92% conversion rate on net income for the quarter and a year-to-date cash flow conversion rate of 116%. During the quarter, given market dynamics, we prioritized share repurchases over debt reduction, with share repurchases totaling approximately $85 million.

In addition, we returned $44 million to shareholders through dividends, and we also continued to invest in our base businesses, spending roughly $16 million on capital investments, including the final investments in our new ICS manufacturing facility. All in all, we had a solid operational quarter, and our teams delivered on their commitments despite ongoing uncertainty in geopolitical and trade policies. While market conditions remain mixed for some of our businesses, we are well positioned to capitalize on profitable growth as the year plays out. With that, let's turn to slide 11, and I'll turn the call back to Naga.

Sundaram Nagarajan (President and CEO)

Thanks, Dan. Let's start with the implications of dynamic global tariff policies on the company's performance. Similar to the second quarter, we believe we can manage the current tariff levels and don't expect them to have a material impact on our third quarter results. We continue to monitor potential impact on end market demand as a result of these trade uncertainties. However, we remain agile in our action plans, knowing there is still plenty of market uncertainty due to tariffs. Given our in-region, for-region manufacturing strategy, decentralized organizational structure, and close to the customer model, we are well positioned to offset the impact of changes in trade policies as they evolve. In the near term, we have implemented targeted price increases and adjusted supply chains to overcome the to-date modest tariff-related cost increases.

In the medium term, the capital-like nature of our businesses allows us to further enhance our in-region, for-region manufacturing strategy. I am proud of the Nordson team's solid execution in the quarter on multiple fronts in this uncertain environment. Our close-to-customer model with innovative differentiated products is accelerating our commercial execution and leading to positive order entry momentum in electronics, precision agriculture, and select medical product lines. This has resulted in sustained order entry and a healthy backlog increase of 5% since last quarter. In businesses where we are experiencing weaker customer demand, we have implemented targeted restructuring to adjust cost structure. These actions will be substantially completed by the end of our fiscal third quarter and are expected to provide ongoing annual benefits of over $15 million by 2026. We also continue to invest in our organic business. To support the medium-term growth needs of our U.S.

Global customers, the industrial coatings business moved into a new Greenfield facility in South Carolina at the beginning of this fiscal year. Similarly, we have expanded manufacturing capacity for the electronics process solutions business into India to support growing needs of our customers in the region. Finally, as Dan mentioned earlier, our strong balance sheet allowed us to take advantage of the dynamic market conditions in the second quarter and accelerate share repurchases. Year-to-date, we have bought back approximately $141 million in shares. At 2.4 times EBITDA, we remain within our long-term targeted leverage ratio of 2-2.5. Turning now to our outlook on slide 12. Based on current visibility and order entry trends, we expect third quarter fiscal 2025 sales to be in the range of $710-$750 million.

Third quarter adjusted earnings are forecasted to be in the range of $2.55-$2.75 per diluted share. The third quarter guidance is in line with the full year expectations we set at the beginning of our fiscal year and confirmed in our Q1 earnings call. In the near term, we are comfortable managing current tariff levels and do not expect current policies to have a material impact on our results. Despite these short-term uncertainties, the strategic competitive advantages of Nordson that we note on slide 13 remain unchanged. Our strong growth portfolio, high recurring revenues, diversified niche end markets, close to the customer model, proprietary differentiated products, and the NBS NEXT growth framework position us well for long-term growth, including potential opportunities when customers shift or modify their manufacturing footprints.

This is why Nordson has continuously demonstrated resilience and the ability to deliver best-in-class profitability in varying market scenarios from the Great Recession to the pandemic and beyond. As always, I want to thank our customers and our shareholders for your continued support. In particular, I want to thank our Nordson employees who are passionate about meeting the needs of our customers. Your efforts show. With that, we'll pause and take your questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star one again. Your first question comes from a line of Michael Halloran from Baird. Your line is open.

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

Hey, morning, everyone.

Sundaram Nagarajan (President and CEO)

Morning.

Dan Hopgood (EVP and CFO)

Morning, Mike.

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

Hey. Can we just, at a high level, just talk about how you see trends playing out through the rest of the year, what's embedded in guidance, and specifically talk to some of the major verticals, sustainability of what you're seeing in the ATS, when interventional destock is behind you, and any other kind of key variables as we think about the back half of the year here?

Sundaram Nagarajan (President and CEO)

Sure, Mike. Let's start with ATS. We experience solid order entry in the ATS business across all of our businesses in that segment. Stop and think about where this is coming from. What you really see is this incredible investment that is going on for computing power, be it for AI, be it for cloud computing, or e-commerce, any of that. What you're seeing really is this incredible investment happening. At the heart of all of that investment is really complex new generation computer chips and semiconductors, right, and plays really well to Nordson. I think that is playing into our growth. Sustainability, based on what we see in the business, we feel really good about the trends we see, the conversations we have with our customers. We've been talking about this impending order entry for a couple of quarters here.

I would tell you, we are now seeing it in our businesses, and we're seeing it in our results, right? ATS, in general, pretty good, feel pretty good about it going playing out through the rest of the year. On MFS, what you're experiencing really is Atrion contributing to growth, very solid performance above our model expectations. Our fluid components business, which was down for several quarters, that is now delivering nice growth. We're seeing some positive order entry momentum there. Destocking continuing to reduce in severity as we go through the year. You would see that a significant part or more than half of our organic decline coming from our contract manufacturing businesses as we have rationalized programs. That reduces. Now, coming to IPS, look, ARAG doing really well, double-digit organic growth, order entry pretty strong there.

Our traditional consumable non-durable adhesive business is doing well, good order entry, steady growth there. Our industrial systems business is where we are behind, both industrial coating, where automotive is the big impact there, and our plastic processing business. I would tell you, automotive will remain a headwind for the company for another couple of quarters, given what is happening in that end market. We do see pretty good momentum in our powder coating business. We see very good momentum in a couple of product lines that are very niche applications. The industrial coatings business continues to improve and believe that through the year, they'll do better. The trends that we are seeing in IPS are largely in line with our expectations. It was largely in line with our expectations in the second quarter, largely in line with what we thought at the beginning of the year.

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

No, that's super helpful. Then as far as the contract manufacturing divestiture goes, any way to size the revenue as well as maybe talk to if there are other areas you're thinking about internally? I know this is the second major one. You had the screws, the plastics one earlier, which was super successful. You have this one. Are we at the end of that journey, or do you think that there's a little more to go there as well?

Sundaram Nagarajan (President and CEO)

Let me give you just the top-level color first, and then Dan can work you through some of the details. Look, as we said in our investor day, building and sustaining a strong growth portfolio is an important part of our strategy. To that extent, that portfolio analysis happens every year, and we stay true to that process. It is really based on product differentiation, relative financial performance of the business within the portfolio. That is really the criteria. Nothing changed there. It is an ongoing process, and I'll leave it at that. And so, Dan.

Dan Hopgood (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, maybe just to add a little more color, Mike, so maybe direct answer your question. No, there are no other ongoing actions. I think Tanaga's point, this is a great example of the small business for us to size it for you. This is roughly 4% of our year-to-date sales in the medical segment. This is an example of a business that we've been looking at and assessing for a while and ultimately made the decision it's better off in somebody else's hands. Small part of the overall portfolio. As you look at, as you think about margin implications, Tanaga mentioned on the call that it would be accretive to ongoing margins post-sale. I think the simple way to think about that is this is on a full-year basis, roughly 100 basis points accretive to our medical segment margins going forward post-sale.

A small business, but one that ultimately we determined is better off in somebody's hands. There are no further, we have other active portfolio actions, but this is something that we continue to look at every year.

Sundaram Nagarajan (President and CEO)

Yeah. Dan, one thing I would add to that is, look, the main reason to continue to build the portfolio and keep the portfolio strong is the opportunity cost, right? This action allows our teams in the medical component business to focus on things we are really good at. While this contract manufacturing belongs within Quasar, who's the buyer of this business, and they are building this into a great home for our teams in that business, and they will do fine. It allows our teams to focus on what strategically we are positioned to do, which is to grow our medical component business, including the ones we bought, were acquired through Atrion.

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

That's great. Thanks, Naga. Thanks, Dan. Appreciate the help.

Sundaram Nagarajan (President and CEO)

Yep.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Elena of Andrew Buscaglia from BNP Paribas. Your line is open.

Andrew Buscaglia (Senior Analyst for Industrial Technology)

Hey, good morning, everyone.

Sundaram Nagarajan (President and CEO)

Good morning, Andrew.

Dan Hopgood (EVP and CFO)

Good morning.

Andrew Buscaglia (Senior Analyst for Industrial Technology)

Yeah, I wanted to touch on a couple of the segments. ATS has been really volatile the last couple of quarters. Should we see more consistent growth in that segment going forward? What's informing, I guess, can you be more specific around where in the orders you're seeing improvement, either on a sequential basis or however you want to look at it?

Sundaram Nagarajan (President and CEO)

Yeah. Yeah. Let me address sort of your first question, which is sort of the lumpiness of this business. This is a business inherently lumpy and inherently lumpy because of the industry that we operate in, right? When we have customers who tend to expand and expand fast and want to expand right now, right, or want to stop buying and want to change their investment profile right now. That is something the company is difficult to control. Overall, if you think about how we think about the business within the company, and that may be helpful, is to really say this is a part of the cycle where it is starting to grow. Now, it is difficult for us to sort of control customer expectations of shipments and timing of shipments. Things could slip from one quarter to next.

First half, second half is a good way to think about this business in terms of growth. We feel and what we see in our order entry is some pretty strong order entry patterns that gives us pretty good confidence that this is a part of the cycle where this business is going to contribute nicely to the company's organic growth. If you put it in perspective, through the cycle, this is a 5+% organic growth business, right? Order entry and backlog are building and are supportive of that for the year.

Dan Hopgood (EVP and CFO)

Maybe one other thing I just hit on as you think about this, just to add one additional flavor. Most of the growth we're seeing right now is really with our Asian customers. As you think about some of the announcements being made around investments in the US, frankly, we're not even seeing that yet. The cycle does have some legs to it. Most of the growth that we're seeing is with existing capacity or expanding capacity in some of the Asian markets. There are additional legs to that that I think are still at the early stages.

Sundaram Nagarajan (President and CEO)

The other thing to also think about is these tariff regimes that are being talked about, figured out. I think our customers are going to adjust manufacturing footprint. As they adjust manufacturing footprint, that represents a nice opportunity for Nordson. If you really think about our expansion in India, that really stems from the fact that some of our customers are diversifying their manufacturing footprint, and we'll benefit from it. Look, this is who Nordson is. We have a very closed customer direct model. We work with our customers. They're a capital-light manufacturing business. We are able to pivot to the needs of our customers, help them expand, serve their needs in whatever geographies they want to. As they move, as they expand, as they invest, Nordson benefits. Hopefully, that gives you some color.

I know you had a couple of follow-ups, so let's just.

Andrew Buscaglia (Senior Analyst for Industrial Technology)

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe switching on MFS, the question would be the line of sight on that. The continental interventional medicine has been surprising due to destocking. What's your line of sight on that destocking at this point? Seems like it's slowly coming to an end. On the other side of that, is there an acceleration, or is this not the type of market where you could see a pickup? Maybe it's more of a gradual pickup. I'm not sure the nature of how that cycle would work in that business.

Sundaram Nagarajan (President and CEO)

Sure. If you had asked me prior to COVID, this is a business that is not cyclical, right? It was a secular 5%, 6%, 7% growth every year. If you think about where we are at in terms of destock, what we are finding is that the destock in this business is definitely reducing, right? Definitely reducing because we can see our order entry improve, right? We feel good about where we are at in terms of the destocking getting played out. Fluid components, which is another part of this business, it is a smaller business, but a smaller part of the business that was down significantly for six to eight quarters almost, it is now delivering growth, and we feel really good about where they are at. Longer term, the pipeline projects that we're working on for these businesses, they remain strong.

In terms of how they would recover, this is not the customer behaviors are not similar to what you see in electronics. Here, this is going to be far more steady growth. People went through COVID, overstocked, destocked, and now it is going to gradually recover to normal demand growth rates rather than a significant uptick or a significant downtick. Our expectations for this business is that we continue to recover on the destocking, fluid components contributing nicely. Do not forget, Atrion is a big contributor to our growth, and that business, as we have shared, is doing very well above our expectations.

Andrew Buscaglia (Senior Analyst for Industrial Technology)

Yeah. All right. Thanks, Naga.

Sundaram Nagarajan (President and CEO)

Sure.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Elena of Saree Boroditsky from Jefferies. Your line is open.

Saree Boroditsky (Equity Research Analyst)

Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Maybe building on some of the stuff you talked about with ATS, how do you think about margin performance going forward, and how do you maintain a more steady margin performance if you're going to continue to see some of that volatility with the customer behavior you spoke about?

Sundaram Nagarajan (President and CEO)

Yeah. I think during the last downturn, the teams really did a nice job of restructuring the business. Our expectation is that this industry performance, margin performance is different from our other businesses, right? Because our investments on innovation are significantly higher in this business. You have to invest in innovation, which is four or five times higher than what we have in our other businesses. Because unless you invest, you're not able to participate in the growth cycle. The margins will be different. We feel like we have adjusted the cost structure such that in a downturn, the margins would be lower than where it is today, which is right now it is at 25%. In a down cycle, could it be lower? It could be.

It's not going to be a place where we have significantly lower margin performance like seven years, five years ago, or six years ago.

Dan Hopgood (EVP and CFO)

Hey, Terry, maybe one way to think about it is with the kind of foundational changes or improvements that we've made in the business model, we've essentially raised the waterline in this business, right? If you look peak to peak or trough to trough, you're going to see sustained improvement in the margin profile going forward. That's because of the structural changes that have been made to reposition the business.

Saree Boroditsky (Equity Research Analyst)

That's helpful. Maybe turning to the precision ag business return to growth in the quarter, as I believe you expected, could you talk through what you're seeing in that market and what you've seen from a margin performance and how it should perform in an up cycle?

Sundaram Nagarajan (President and CEO)

Yeah. Let me just take the margin question first on ARAG or precision agriculture business. Look, even in a downturn, the EBITDA margins in that business were as good as the company or slightly better, right? In the up cycle, there may be some benefits, but our goal is to continue to grow this business. That's where the opportunity is. Where we are seeing the growth, the growth is coming mostly in Europe and in South America. If you remember, just to refresh all our memories around this is that, remember, this is a European-based business. That is where their strength is. They're a market leader in Europe. Clearly, we've gone through an inventory adjustment in the channel in Europe, and we're growing back again. We're super excited about a couple of new products that they've launched.

Clearly, we are at the very early stages of implementing NBS NEXT. So we are super excited about this business. It is growing. Our expectation, it continues to grow.

Saree Boroditsky (Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks. I appreciate the question.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Elena of Christopher Glynn from Oppenheimer. Your line is open.

Christopher Glynn (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Thanks. Good morning, guys.

Sundaram Nagarajan (President and CEO)

Good morning.

Christopher Glynn (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Nice to hear the increasingly assertive pivot on ARAG. And then on your subsequent acquisition to that, Atrion, just kind of curious about the upside, whether that was a conservative initial posture or true surprise. Curious your current thoughts on the compound growth over time. Is what we're seeing here the profile, or does the current upside maybe create some growth challenges in fiscal 2026 as you—I do not know if you have to digest the scaling that you're seeing here in fiscal 2025. Just kind of surrounding some of the Atrion dynamics a bit there.

Sundaram Nagarajan (President and CEO)

Yeah. I wouldn't say it was a conservative model. Remember, we have been in the kind of products that they sell the majority of the business. We have very good familiarity. And so I understand what the performance expectations can be from both the market perspective as well as internal. Where we are at in that business is we're integrating nicely. We're certainly performing well commercially. They've got one new product out there that we're doing really well. They've got a couple more coming right behind it. I think we have a good benefit of new products that are going to help our growth. Look, we're ahead, but we still have opportunity in this business. I think that's how I would think about it.

Christopher Glynn (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Okay. Great. Is this something where they can really generate a couple of material new products every couple of years?

Sundaram Nagarajan (President and CEO)

It's going to be difficult to say, but look, this is a business that has a significant amount of IP. I don't know whether I could put a number next to it other than I would say that the innovation opportunities are pretty strong. We really like where they're at. I think that is an important growth contributor for them and the rest of Nordson, right? Innovation has always been an important part of our playbook, and that's what they—that's the alignment with their strategy and ours. Operationally, there may be more opportunities too. I think that is—we're very early days there, so.

Christopher Glynn (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Okay. Great. Then pivoting over to ATS, just curious how the center of gravity is moving. Are you seeing the industrial RF chips around customer innovation starting to land? Is it more midstream processing? Just trying to get a sense of where the piglet is in the pipeline.

Sundaram Nagarajan (President and CEO)

All right, Chris. Let me try to—if you're asking me where we are at and how the cycle is playing out, a couple of things we see is, A, the investments that are happening by our customers are pretty significant, and they're pretty rapid, which essentially tells us that the opportunity for us to continue to benefit from it remains. I think the investment, as Dan mentioned, investments in North America is still an upside. That's not played out. It'll take many more years to have that show up. The opportunities in Asia are strong, and they're happening. There is a ton of innovation that is happening, and I don't think that is going to end here because I think we are at very early stages of the GPUs that are getting built. The technology around the GPU is significant.

I think the more difficult it is, the better it is for Nordson. This is one of those cases where we're going to benefit from it. We're going to continue to adapt our existing technologies. There's going to be some fast innovation to customize for people's investments. Also, as we solve these bigger problems, I think we have an opportunity. We have new categories of products. Through our CyberOptix acquisition, we have a new generation of in-process sensors called WaferSense. That is a product category that is growing very nicely for us. We just released two new products in that category. We have new opportunities there. We're working on more. Innovation is going—in ATS, for us to win, we have to innovate. We need to have—we have to play at the right price points with the right manufacturing footprint.

It's got nice upside, but it is lumpy, and it is cyclical.

Christopher Glynn (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Great. Thanks for that.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Matt Summerville from D.A. Davidson. Your line is open.

Matt Summerville (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Hello. Just a couple of quick ones. If you look at your tariff exposure on an annualized basis, what does it look like if it's completely unmitigated, which I realize it isn't based on the current tariff scenario? I'm trying to get a feel for how much of an impact you're working to offset, and then I'll follow up.

Sundaram Nagarajan (President and CEO)

Dan, you want to?

Dan Hopgood (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. Maybe I'll take that one. I certainly appreciate the question. It's something that's top of mind for everybody. Yeah, what I would say is certainly at the current levels, tariffs are very manageable. As we stated, really had no material impact on our second quarter results. We continue to monitor it. Obviously, this is a developing situation. Frankly, announcements seem to be coming. The general way I would think about it is our in-region for region mitigates a large amount of the tariff exposure. Maybe I'll just give you a little bit of a framework. If you think about it as a percent of our overall sales, roughly 85%-90% of our sales are fully in-region for region, meaning very little import-export exposure.

If you think of the 10-15% that is not, that is a broad-based or very diversified set of exposures. We do not have any concentrations of exposure. If you think of that 10-15%, it is split amongst many different arrangements in our global footprint. No single inter-country exposure is more than low single digits. For those reasons and others, including Naga's points that we tend to be more nimble than most and can pivot as our customers pivot, we do not see a significant impact. It is certainly not at the current levels. Now, things can change, and that is where we are continuing to monitor the situation. If the situation changes, we will make pivots where we need to. I would come back to no material exposure in the second quarter. At the current levels, we think this is very manageable.

Really, for us, the bigger risk and the bigger consideration in all of this is what it does to end market demand with our customers, right? If our customers start deferring investments or deferring capital, that's probably the bigger risk, what the general economic impact is to this. Frankly, that's, I would say, what we're watching closer than anything.

Matt Summerville (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Thank you for that comment.

Dan Hopgood (EVP and CFO)

That's helpful.

Matt Summerville (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Yeah. No, that was super helpful. Thank you. Just to maybe try and put a little bit finer point on what you're seeing in ATS, is there a way to quantify how much of that business today is being driven by various categories of high-performance computing relative to what that number would have looked like 12 to 18 months ago? Thank you.

Sundaram Nagarajan (President and CEO)

I would say, I think 50% of our business would be semiconductor, high-power computing, as you describe it. A couple of years ago, I don't know. If you go back, I want to say four or five years ago, maybe that number was 30% or so. Look, I'm guessing here, 20-30% at best. Certainly, this is an area our teams have focused on. Also, the type of customers have changed. Without getting into specific names, I would tell you if we were very North American-centric five years ago, we're more Asia-centric. Although Asia was a big presence for us even five years ago, I would say the kind of customer projects we're working on, the innovations we're leading, the demands we are creating tend to be in Asia than North America.

I think that would also change because as North American semiconductor investments become real, meaning when the buildings are done, when things people are making, as we will have packaging lines come on, Nordson is going to benefit.

Matt Summerville (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Understood. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Again, if you'd like to ask a question, press star one on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from the line of Walter Liptak from Seaport Research. Your line is open.

Walter Liptak (Senior Industrial Analyst)

Hi. Thanks, and good morning.

Sundaram Nagarajan (President and CEO)

Good morning, Walt.

Walter Liptak (Senior Industrial Analyst)

I've got a couple of follow-ons. On the ATS segment, Naga, I think you kind of alluded to a 5% growth. I wonder if I just want to clarify, was that 5% growth in the second half on an organic basis, or were you just talking about kind of growth in the future of 5%?

Sundaram Nagarajan (President and CEO)

I'm talking about through-the-cycle growth, right? I mean, there is going to be since it's cyclical, you got to take it through the cycle. Our expectation is this business grows 5%, right? We have very good clarity to Q3, and that is definitely higher than 5%. We don't guide by segment, so.

Walter Liptak (Senior Industrial Analyst)

I realize that. Yeah. Thanks for adding that in. Okay. Good. I think in your prepared remarks, you commented on some selling price increases.

Sundaram Nagarajan (President and CEO)

Yeah.

Walter Liptak (Senior Industrial Analyst)

I wonder if you could just help us understand, was this a price increase or a tariff surcharge? Was this uncommon? Do you usually do annual price increases, or is it kind of a normal course of business?

Dan Hopgood (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. No, it's a good question. Look, our pricing focus—so the answer to your question is we regularly assess pricing. It's a normal part of our process. Our focus, and this is largely driven by our current margin profile, our focus is really on maintaining competitiveness and maintaining our margins. It is something that we look at regularly in the current environment. Certainly, some of what you're seeing is tariff impacts being passed on where necessary. That would include both—think about it as both the direct impact and any indirect impact through the general supply base. That is certainly—if I were to look at our overall pricing, I would say there's no significant escalation at this point, right? It's really, look, where we have to pass things through and manage, we are doing that. It's not a significant impact.

Sundaram Nagarajan (President and CEO)

Yeah. The other way to also remember is that we run the company as 14, now 15 divisions. What this allows us is you have a decentralized organization with business owners who understand their market dynamics, understand their cost structure, are able to simply read the situation and be able to adjust pricing, adjust supply chain so that we are able to keep growing and growing profitably. Our structure, our entrepreneurial spirit in the businesses, as well as our close-to-the-customer model, allows us to be able to learn the market and adjust accordingly.

Walter Liptak (Senior Industrial Analyst)

Okay. That's awesome. Just maybe a follow-on to that, so the price increases went through. Do you get benefits from it already, or are you just about to announce them?

Dan Hopgood (EVP and CFO)

They're phased in over time. There's no one-size-fits-all. I think, as Naga just mentioned, each of our divisions are making those decisions and managing as appropriate. Think of it as pricing is generally an ongoing activity that takes place throughout the year.

Walter Liptak (Senior Industrial Analyst)

Okay. Got it. Fair enough. And then just one last one for me, if it's okay. Last quarter, I think you guys talked about how you were feeling that things would be at the low end of your sales range. I didn't hear—or maybe you did make a comment about that. Do you still think you're going to be at the low end of the sales range for 2025?

Dan Hopgood (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. No, it's a very good question. Look, I'm going to come back to what we said explicitly. What we can tell you is that Q3, the guidance providing for Q3 is certainly in line with our full-year expectations. There's a lot of things that are still pending on the policy and trade front, namely some deadlines coming up in July and August. It's a bit early to call Q4 and the outlook for the full year. That doesn't mean that we're backing away from our guidance. Frankly, we just don't know what's going to happen as some of these decisions get made and play out. Q3 is certainly in line with our full-year expectations that we reiterated in the first quarter. Q4 remains to be seen and largely dependent around what happens on the trade front over the next couple of months.

What that impact is, again, I'm going to go back to my earlier statements. You asked me, "What are we concerned about?" It's really, what is the impact on end market demand, right, across our portfolio if customers start pulling back because of these uncertainties? We haven't seen that yet, but it's too soon to say.

Sundaram Nagarajan (President and CEO)

I think that is probably what you have to remember is it is uncertain, but we are not seeing in our businesses yet. These deadlines come up in summer. Yeah. These are not, these are dynamic times, to say the least. Yet our teams are doing a fantastic job of continuing to serve our customers, continuing to innovate, continuing to do all the things Nordson does really well. I think that is a testament to the team's ability in a very entrepreneurial way to adjust to some very uncertain times. We tell you that there is no impact on tariffs. Yes, but there is a lot of work that goes behind achieving that outcome, right? I think that's what you want to take away is that the impact is minimal. Teams are agile, working, and we'll take a quarter at a time here.

Walter Liptak (Senior Industrial Analyst)

Absolutely. Thank you very much, guys.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from a line of Chris Dankert from Loop Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Chris Dankert (SVP and Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, morning, guys. Thanks for squeezing me in here. Just as it relates to the outlook, we've been hearing some more constructive commentary from the European machine builders. I guess maybe any color on customer conversations within that business, and then does that support a chance for organic growth in that adhesive dispense business in the back half here?

Sundaram Nagarajan (President and CEO)

Yeah. I think you're right about the European machine builders. We feel pretty good about our position there, and we continue to do well. What we are seeing really is our big cyclical, big system businesses, which is not the—we don't include the adhesive businesses in it because we have our plastic processing business and industrial coating businesses, which are much bigger systems. Now, that is different, and that's what is weighing on IPS. The adhesive business in general, our non-Rowans business year to date has done extremely well, and we expect that they will finish the year really nicely. Our packaging business is doing well. We also expect to do well there, and our product assembly seems to be okay. I think what we are experiencing is slightly different.

We are seeing what you're talking about, which is the machine builders, and our adhesive businesses are definitely benefiting from that.

Chris Dankert (SVP and Equity Research Analyst)

I guess my—on a relative basis, I mean, does it seem like current demand is similar to what we saw in the first half, or is there actually some improvement in that non-ARAG activity?

Sundaram Nagarajan (President and CEO)

I would say similar, nothing significantly better. They had a pretty nice first half.

Chris Dankert (SVP and Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. I guess I'll leave it there. Thanks so much for the call there, Naga.

Sundaram Nagarajan (President and CEO)

Sure.

Operator (participant)

We have reached the end of our question and answer session. I will now turn the call back over to Naga for some closing remarks.

Sundaram Nagarajan (President and CEO)

Thank you for your time and attention on today's call. Nordson is well positioned in this dynamic environment. Our close-to-the-customer model, proprietary and niche technology, diversified geographic and end market exposures, high level of recurring revenue, and a strong balance sheet are among the many attributes that make us a reliable compounder. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.