Oshkosh - Earnings Call - Q1 2025

Executive Summary

• Q1 2025 was mixed: consolidated sales fell 9.1% to $2.31B and adjusted EPS was $1.92, below consensus, driven by Access softness and defense catch-up adjustments; Vocational delivered strong margin expansion and backlog growth.
• Versus estimates, OSK missed on revenue ($2.31B vs $2.41B*) and adjusted EPS ($1.92 vs $2.04*); Q4 2024 was a clear beat and Q3 2024 modestly beat both metrics (see table).
• Management maintained confidence in the FY25 adjusted EPS trajectory of ~$11.00 absent tariffs but introduced a $1.00 per-share tariff headwind with up to $0.50 offset via cost actions; no formal guidance reset was issued.
• Key catalysts: tariff mitigation progress and clarity on Access pricing, continued strength in Vocational, and NGDV ramp to full-rate production by year-end; Investor Day (June 5) should update strategy and FY outlook.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Vocational strength: revenue +12.2% YoY to $0.87B and operating margin expanded to 13.6% (adjusted 14.9%) on improved price/cost and higher refuse volume.
• Access resilience: despite sales down 22.7% YoY, adjusted operating margin held at 11.3%; management cited strong backlog ($1.80B) and book-to-bill 1.0.
• NGDV ramp: USPS deliveries started; management reaffirmed plan to reach full-rate production (16k–20k units annualized) by year-end, supporting H2 revenue and margin cadence.

Selected quotes:

• “Adjusted EPS of $1.92 was in line with our expectations of approximately $2.00 per share.” — CEO John Pfeifer.
• “We are on target to increase NGDV volume to full rate production by year-end.” — CFO Matt Field.

What Went Wrong

• Access volume/mix pressure: North America softness and higher sales discounts led to segment sales -22.7% and margin compression (10.8% GAAP OPM vs 16.8% prior year).
• Defense segment breakeven: operating income fell to $0.6M (0.1% margin) on lower JLTV volumes and unfavorable cumulative catch-up adjustments (CCAs).
• Tariff headwinds: company now expects ~$1.00 EPS headwind (direct), mostly impacting Access; cost actions may offset up to $0.50, but timing is back-half loaded and uncertain.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Greetings, and welcome to the Oshkosh Corporation First Quarter 2025 Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Patrick Davidson, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you, sir. You may begin.

Patrick Davidson (Senior VP of Investor Relations)

Good morning, and thanks for joining us. Earlier today, we published our First Quarter 2025 results. A copy of that release is available on our website at oshkoshcorp.com. Today's call is being webcast and is accompanied by a slide presentation which includes a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures that we will use during this call and is also available on our website. The audio replay and slide presentation will be available on our website for approximately 12 months. Please refer now to slide two of that presentation. Our remarks that follow, including answers to your questions, contain statements that we believe to be forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks that could cause actual results to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.

These risks include, among others, matters that we have described in our Form 8-K filed with the SEC this morning and other filings we make with the SEC. We disclaim any obligation to update these forward-looking statements, which may not be updated until our next quarterly earnings conference, if at all. Our presenters today are John Pfeifer, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Matt Field, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we get started, I'd like to highlight our upcoming Investor Day. We are planning for a morning start on Thursday, June 5th, at the New York Stock Exchange in Lower Manhattan. We look forward to sharing our plans for the future, and you will get to hear from several of our key leaders in addition to both John and Matt. Please reach out to Victoria Connolly or myself if you are interested in attending in person.

Now, please turn to slide three, and I'll turn it over to you, John.

John Pfeifer (President and CEO)

Thank you, Pat, and good morning, everyone. We are off to a good start in 2025 with strong performance in our vocational segment, good margins and resiliency in our access segment, and solid progress as we ramp up NGDV production in the defense segment. For the quarter, we delivered revenue of $2.3 billion and an adjusted operating income margin of 8.3%. Our adjusted EPS of $1.92 was in line with our expectations of approximately $2 for the quarter. We are confident with the underlying trajectory of our operational performance across all our segments, which we believe would keep us on track to deliver our full-year adjusted EPS guidance in the range of $11, excluding headwinds caused by the recent tariff announcements. Before Matt provides more details on potential tariff impacts on our results, I want to make some key tariff points upfront.

First, as we've said previously, nearly all of what we sell in the United States is built in the United States, and we have a broad U.S. production footprint, which we believe puts us in a strong competitive position in our industries. Second, we have a global supply chain, and we are proactively working to mitigate potential impacts from tariffs. Third, at this time, we are not experiencing significant secondary impacts of tariffs, like supply chain disruptions or reductions in demand. Fourth, we continue to execute on our strategies despite near-term volatility, as we believe the trends that support our industry-leading businesses align with our long-term growth initiatives. Please turn to slide four, and we'll get started on our segment updates. Access performance was in line with our expectations. We delivered a resilient adjusted operating margin of 11.3% despite lower sales.

We remain confident in the long-term opportunities arising from mega projects and infrastructure spending. Our backlog remains strong, ending the quarter at $1.8 billion, equal to the end of last year as we booked orders in the quarter of $930 million and achieved a book-to-bill ratio of 1.0. We did not experience any notable order cancellations from customers in the quarter. We continue to stay close to our customers to respond quickly to any changes in the macroeconomic environment. A good example of our team's ability to respond quickly to tariffs was the localization of booms at our Hinowa facility in Italy in response to duties that the European Union applied to Chinese imports. I'm proud to report that it took our team less than a year to move production from China to Italy and begin shipping our first units to customers, thus mitigating the tariff impact.

On the product front, the access team previewed our new micro-sized ES1930M scissor lift at the ARA rental show in February. This category of scissor lifts is creating excitement in the market, growing at a solid clip and being used in places like data centers. Customers are particularly eager for our entry into this emerging category as they value JLG's quality, service, and support. Finally, JLG hosted international customers at the Bauma event in Munich earlier this month. Attendees were enthusiastic about our product innovations, including our new line of multi-fuel booms and ClearSky Smart Fleet with its many technological advantages. This was another outstanding opportunity for us to showcase our products and technology that lead the industry toward a connected and productive job site of the future. Please turn to slide five, and I'll review our vocational segment.

We achieved strong year-over-year revenue growth of 12% in the quarter and a robust adjusted operating income margin of nearly 15%. The higher volume was led by higher refuse and recycling vehicle sales and strong price realization across the segment. The backlog remains robust at $6.3 billion, providing excellent visibility to future revenue. We continue investing in people and resources toward our goal of increasing production levels across the segment to support strong demand, which we expect to lead to meaningful revenue and operating income growth. A great example of a growth opportunity that I'd like to share is with the City of Calgary in Alberta, Canada. Some of you may recall that Calgary was an early adopter of our Pierce Volterra electric fire truck.

Previous to that, they purchased limited apparatus from Pierce, but their experience with our Volterra custom pumper EV helped us, along with our dealer Commercial Truck Equipment in Canada, secure a multi-year order for 22 conventional Pierce fire trucks for the City of Calgary. Innovations are key to our success, and we continue to develop advanced technology such as our CAMS, that's Collision Avoidance Mitigation System, and ClearSky Intelligence fully integrated telematics solutions showcased at FDIC earlier this month. These are great examples of our Neighborhood of the Future technological advances. Additionally, we announced a new lineup of Oshkosh's IMT cranes at Work Truck Week in March. The updated family delivers increased reach, lifting capacity, and reliability across 16 models. We've incorporated customer feedback into the design and focused on commonality, ease of maintenance, and exceptional performance.

Finally, Oshkosh AeroTech continues to perform very well and lead with innovative technologies like iOPS fleet management software and investments in autonomous baggage handling vehicles. Several of you on this call today experienced these products at our CES Airport of the Future display earlier this year. Customer demand for our jet bridges, ground support equipment, and advanced technologies continues to grow as customers seek to improve efficiency of airport operations. Let's turn to slide six for a discussion of the defense segment. We're confident in the defense outlook for 2025. Although first quarter results reflected lower volume and higher cumulative catch-up adjustments, we are pleased with our progress on the production ramp-up for the NGDV program and deliveries to the United States Postal Service. We are on target to increase NGDV volume to full-rate production by year-end.

This should provide strong revenue growth in the back half of 2025 and into 2026. We continue to execute programs for the United States Department of Defense. During the quarter, we took orders for the FMTV low-velocity airdrop vehicles, as well as PLS A2 autonomy-ready vehicles for the U.S. Army. We are also wrapping up negotiations for a sole-source FMTV A2 contract extension later this year. We expect the extension to include an economic price adjustment mechanism similar to our agreement for the FHTV program we announced in 2024. Just last week, we announced a 150-unit JLTV contract with the Netherlands Ministry of Defense for the Dutch Marine Corps. The contract calls for design modifications to the JLTV that fulfill requirements for the Dutch Expeditionary Patrol Vehicles.

This order is an excellent example of the attractive international opportunities for our tactical wheeled vehicles, and we look forward to sharing more of these successes in the future. Before I turn it over to Matt, I want to note that our defense business is going through a leadership transition. I am overseeing the segment for the time being, and we expect to announce a new segment leader later this year.

Matt Field (EVP and CEO)

Thanks, John. Please turn to slide seven. Consolidated sales for the first quarter were $2.3 billion, a decrease of $231 million, or 9% from the same quarter last year, primarily reflecting the softer market conditions for access equipment in North America, as we expected and highlighted on our previous call, primarily offset by improved pricing in the vocational segment. Adjusted operating income was $192 million, or 8.3% of sales. Adjusted operating income was down from the prior year as a result of lower sales volume, higher operating expenses, and higher new product development spending, partially offset by improved price-cost dynamics. Adjusted earnings per share was $1.92 in the first quarter, in line with our expectations of approximately $2 per share. Free cash flow for the quarter was also in line with our expectations and reflected a net use of cash of $435 million due to seasonal working capital needs.

During the quarter, we entered into a new $500 million 24-month term loan to provide additional liquidity. We used the proceeds to reduce the balance on our revolving credit facility. The term loan, which can be repaid early, carries a slightly lower interest rate than our revolver. We also continued to repurchase shares steadily throughout the quarter, repurchasing nearly 290,000 shares of our stock for $29 million. Share repurchases during the previous 12 months benefited adjusted EPS by $0.03 compared to the first quarter of 2024. Please turn to slide eight. At the beginning of our call, John mentioned our confidence in the underlying trajectory of our operational performance, which we believe would keep us on track to deliver our full-year adjusted EPS guidance in the range of $11, if not for the impact of announced tariffs.

Based on current announcements and what we are seeing as of today, we estimate that the direct impact of tariffs net of targeted mitigation actions could be about $1 per share. We are monitoring conditions closely and proactively working to mitigate the impact of tariffs through cost actions across the company. We believe these efforts may offset the impact of tariffs by up to $0.50 per share. We do not anticipate these tariffs will have a material impact on our second quarter results as we work through existing inventories. Our estimate of the direct impact of tariffs is based off currently announced rates and excludes potential future indirect impacts, which are difficult to predict at this time. We remain committed to execute on our strategies despite uncertainty introduced by tariffs, and we believe the trends that support our industry-leading businesses will provide long-term growth opportunities.

With that, I'll turn it back over to John for some closing comments.

John Pfeifer (President and CEO)

We delivered our first quarter in line with expectations, and I'm confident that we have the right team to execute our priorities regardless of the current macroeconomic environment. We believe our industry-leading brands, strong product portfolio, and strategic initiatives will serve us well and position us for long-term growth. I'll now turn it back over to Pat for the Q&A.

Patrick Davidson (Senior VP of Investor Relations)

Thanks, John. I'd like to remind everybody, please limit your questions to one plus a follow-up, and please stay disciplined on your follow-up question. After the follow-up, we ask that you rejoin the queue if you have additional questions. Operator, please begin the Q&A session.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. Again, we ask that all callers limit themselves to one question and one follow-up. If you have additional questions, you may re-queue and those questions will be addressed time permitting. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Stephen Volkmann with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.

Stephen Volkmann (Equity Analyst)

Hi. Good morning, guys. I'm going to lead off with a question on tariffs, and I bet you didn't expect that. Big picture, I'm curious, John, how you're thinking about this. Last time we had tariffs, you were able to basically offset all that with price, but let's be clear, I mean, this time it seems like the demand environment is not quite as robust. Do you think over time that we should still expect that you'll be able to recapture whatever tariffs sort of hand you here?

John Pfeifer (President and CEO)

I'll tell you the way, thanks for the question, Steve. I'll tell you our MO. I mean, our MO right now is we want to minimize impact that we pass on to our customers. Now, you know we have pricing power in all of our end markets because we lead in all the end markets that we serve, but our MO is to try to minimize impact to customers. We want to use that as our last lever. We've got a lot of initiatives right now. These tariffs are targeted. We kind of have the top three areas that we have to mitigate tariffs in, in terms of countries in the world. If we mitigate those top three, we mitigate the vast majority of problems that we see ahead of us. That's with the tariffs as they are today.

We are laser-focused on doing that. I talked on my prepared remarks about what we were able to do in Europe in a very short period of time to deal with European tariffs on China. We will continue to do that same type of work here. We have pricing power, but the MO is we do not want to pass a whole lot on to customers if we can avoid it because of what you said. There is elasticity of demand in any market, and we want to be prudent about how we go about this.

Stephen Volkmann (Equity Analyst)

Got it. My extremely disciplined follow-up is last time it took quite a while to pass some of this through given long backlogs and various types of pricing. Just any comments there?

John Pfeifer (President and CEO)

Yeah. What we learned last time is what everyone learned is, A, we do have pricing power, but B, when we had general inflation, and this was not just U.S. inflation, it was general inflation that was global, it did take us a little bit of time in some of our end markets to realize the price because of big backlogs and contractual obligations and so forth. We have been able to change the way we do business to give ourselves more flexibility now versus what we had a few years ago during the rampant inflation years. We definitely feel good about that. I will come back to say our MO is to try to minimize disruption for our customers.

Stephen Volkmann (Equity Analyst)

Thank you, guys.

John Pfeifer (President and CEO)

Thanks, Steve.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Mig Dobre with Baird. Please proceed with your question.

Mig Dobre (Senior Research Analyst)

All right. Thanks and good morning. Just on this tariff topic, I'm curious if you can maybe give us a little more clarity in terms of where the cost headwinds are here. As you said, you manufacture things in the U.S. So presumably, I would imagine this has to do with components. Maybe you can highlight.

Absolutely.

Yeah. Maybe you can highlight some of the key countries that we need to watch for here just in case policy changes so that we get an understanding as to how your cost structure might evolve.

Matt Field (EVP and CEO)

Good morning, Mig. It's Matt. If you think about our exposures, fundamentally, you'd think about the three segments. Access is the most global of the segments. There, you've got a broader supply chain. Obviously, with the rate at which tariffs were put in, China has the outsized impact just given the overall tariff amount there. We do source some from Europe in that global supply chain. The other two segments have a much more U.S. focused supply chain. In terms of mitigation, it's about negotiation, sourcing, and all those normal toolkit things you'd use for tariffs, which are slightly different than what you'd use for general inflation.

Mig Dobre (Senior Research Analyst)

All right. Understood. Then my follow-up is on the defense segment. First, I guess, thank you for starting to break out the NGDV so that we see the revenue there. Can you comment at all in terms of how that revenue should ramp, maybe what the exit run rate is going to look like in the fourth quarter? Then relative to your initial guidance for segment margin, how should we think about the cadence of margin given that we're starting the year at break-even, basically? Thank you.

Matt Field (EVP and CEO)

Mig, defense, we've always talked about how we'll exit the year at full-year run rate, and that's 16,000-20,000 units of NGDV production. Obviously, the first quarter would be the lowest quarter. We said that should be about linear across the year. That's really how I would think about the revenue. In terms of margins in defense, you would expect that to ramp up sequentially as well to support a reasonable rate as we guided earlier in the year.

Net, I mean, excluding tariffs, obviously.

John Pfeifer (President and CEO)

Yeah. The Q1 did not influence our outlook for the year at all. It was a little bit of tariff impact, but mostly the Q1 being break-even, that did not influence our confidence that defense was going to do exactly what we expected it to do.

Mig Dobre (Senior Research Analyst)

All right. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Jamie Cook with Truist. Please proceed with your question.

Jamie Cook (Managing Director)

Hi. Good morning. I guess two questions. Sorry, more tariff questions for you there. Of the $1 headwind that you're talking about, is there any way you could allocate that sort of across the segment? It sounds like most of that would hit access, and then I'm just trying to figure out of the $0.50, does more go to access as well? Any help there would be helpful. Thank you.

Matt Field (EVP and CEO)

Hi, Jamie. Thanks for the question. As I mentioned, most of the cost elements would be access in terms of how the costs flow through on tariffs. The cost offsets, those will be broad-based across the company. It would be difficult for me to allocate that specifically to the segments.

Jamie Cook (Managing Director)

I mean, I'm assuming the buck, like over half, you know what I mean? Like $0.70 or the majority of that is all access because I'm just trying to think about the implications for margins. I mean, I think before you guys were targeting a 13% margin for the year. Obviously, that's off the table, but I'm just trying to think how low margins go there.

Matt Field (EVP and CEO)

We're not going to provide specific guidance on margin by segment relative to the tariff impacts because we see this up to a dollar, and obviously, it's a dynamic environment. We are going to have to adjust as policies evolve.

Jamie Cook (Managing Director)

Okay. I guess just back to access again. John, any color? I guess just broadly across the board, any color in terms of as you're talking to customers with regards to tariffs, just their sentiment. So far, the results, I think, across the board haven't been as bad as people would have thought. Just wondering what you're thinking or hearing how customers are reacting. Thank you.

John Pfeifer (President and CEO)

Yeah. Sure. We have great relationships with our customers, and we talk to them all the time, of course. If you look at our customers, I think they've got a pretty balanced view on 2025. I think the best indicator is our backlog coming out of the quarter at $1.8 billion. $1.8 billion backlog for access is a very healthy backlog coming into a Q2, as was the order rate throughout the first quarter. That's kind of a metric that I always point to because it indicates what customers expect. Underneath that, you hear our customers talk about fleet productivity or they talk about utilization rates. Those are both in a healthy range. There's no defleeting that's happening in the market. The customer sentiment is continuing to be what we would expect coming into Q2.

I think in line with our expectations when we provided guidance one quarter ago. It is continuing to stay the course.

Jamie Cook (Managing Director)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Jerry Revich with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your question.

Jerry Revich (Senior Investment Leader and Head of US Machinery, Infrastructure, Sustainable Tech franchise)

Yes. Hi. Good morning, everyone. I'm wondering if I could ask, in terms of orders that you folks are taking today, can you just talk about the terms that you're implementing by business to provide protection just in case tariffs are at the high end of the expectation range? Can you just talk about the parameters for fire trucks in particular that are in backlog as well, John, in terms of what kind of protection you folks might have on that book of business given the long lead times?

John Pfeifer (President and CEO)

Yeah. I'll tell you, a lot of the work that or all the work that you're referring to was already done quite a while ago because, as I mentioned earlier, when we had the ramp in inflation a few years ago, we have pricing power, but it took us a little while to realize it because of big backlogs. We corrected that in our end markets. Some of those end markets have different Ts and Cs than others because you have, in one end market, a bonded order with municipality, and another end market is more private customer work. We have those terms and conditions in, and they vary depending on the end market. We feel comfortable with where those are. I want to go back and reemphasize our MO.

The tariffs are probably going to lead to some price increases, but our MO is to try to minimize that impact on the customer. Again, because any market has elasticity to demand, and we know that, and we want to minimize the impact. I think we have a better chance of minimizing this impact because in the inflationary period of 2021 -2023, it was broad-based and global. I mean, there was not a lot of places you could run. When we have the tariff scenario, while it is relatively broad-based, we know exactly where the impact for us is and where it is not. We know, therefore, in very targeted ways where we can focus to be able to mitigate the impact of tariffs over time. That is what we will be doing.

Jerry Revich (Senior Investment Leader and Head of US Machinery, Infrastructure, Sustainable Tech franchise)

Super. Just to shift gears, capital deployment has been a big focus for you folks. AeroTech doing really well. Do you see an opportunity in the current environment for meaningful M&A, or is the focus here, let's make sure we execute on the tariff and manufacturing transition?

John Pfeifer (President and CEO)

Mitigating tariffs is job one right now, of course. I mean, I think probably everybody would tell you that. We have an active corporate development group. We have what we always call an always-on approach, and our team is looking at opportunities all the time. We still have a strong balance sheet, so we have capacity. I'll tell you what we look at. When we look at our M&A work to be a little bit more focused on it, we look at growth in healthy segments like within our vocational segment and near adjacencies to that. We look at growth and resiliency in our access segments, and we look at targets with good recurring revenue streams.

I want to point out that we carefully scrutinize our capital allocation priorities, and we'll always, no matter what the case, reinvest in our businesses organically. Really, right now, in this period of time, I will say that returning money to shareholders when our multiple is where it is becomes a bigger and bigger priority.

Jerry Revich (Senior Investment Leader and Head of US Machinery, Infrastructure, Sustainable Tech franchise)

Thank you.

John Pfeifer (President and CEO)

Thanks, Jerry.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Angel Castillo with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your question.

Brendan Shea (Senior Research Associate)

Hi. This is Brendan on for Angel. If I could just touch on access quickly. Noted not seeing material impacts from tariffs to customer demand yet, but volumes there were a bit of a headwind. Just kind of higher level, if you could give more color what you're seeing in terms of the overall construction market conditions in the U.S. and Europe and how that might be impacting the higher sales discounts that you noted in the quarter. Thanks.

John Pfeifer (President and CEO)

Yeah. I think that when you look at demand in the access equipment segment, demand is really still strong and healthy. You hear our customers talk about it, those that are public companies, really solid with mega projects, whether it's an infrastructure project or it's a data center, those in particular, the backlog certainly supports that outlook. I think customers are seeing relatively healthy demand in non-construction environments. You have to remember, our equipment goes into a lot of end markets that have nothing to do with construction, and those markets are holding up fairly well. I think the area that we're seeing weakness, and this is probably not new, it's in kind of the private non-residential construction markets. There's a lot of projects out there, but there's a lot of projects that are kind of in wait-and-see mode. We're kind of on hold right now.

Interest rates are still high. I think that that's why we gave the original guide that we did when we came into the year that we guided that we'll be down about 15% in our access market. We're kind of holding to that right now. We still think that that's our outlook. That's driven, again, by that private non-res construction market. There's a lot on deck, just that with the conditions where they are, people have to come up to bat. That is in line with our guidance. That is all in line with our guidance.

Brendan Shea (Senior Research Associate)

Okay. Great. Thank you for that. For my follow-up, if we could talk on vocational, just what's driving the strong performance in refuse and recycling that you've seen, and how does that compare, I guess, to your internal expectations? Thank you.

John Pfeifer (President and CEO)

Yeah. I think that the refuse and recycling market's one we've been optimistic about for a long time. We like the market. We like the resiliency of the market. We like the customers. We like the need and the desire for us to apply our technological capability, whether it's autonomous functionality or electrification to lower costs, those types of opportunities. We've made some investments in this marketplace, and some of that you've seen the product investments. If you went to the CES show, if you go to Waste Expo that's coming up shortly, you'll see a lot of new technology that we've come out with to drive productivity in the end markets. We also made an investment in our manufacturing capability. We really have state-of-the-art manufacturing now. You're seeing the fruits of that investment right now as the productivity in our plants is up dramatically.

The output is really healthy, and that's what's driving some of these results, and we expect that that will continue.

Brendan Shea (Senior Research Associate)

Got it. Thank you.

John Pfeifer (President and CEO)

Thanks, Brendan.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Tami Zakaria with J.P. Morgan. Please proceed with your question.

Tami Zakaria (Executive Director)

Hey, good morning. Thank you so much. Access margins were quite impressive given the pullback in sales in the first quarter. I just wanted to get some color on the second quarter. Usually, it is a sequential step up, but given all the tariffs, how should we think about access margin in 2Q versus what we saw in the first quarter?

Matt Field (EVP and CEO)

Hi, Tami. Thanks for pointing out the resilience in access. It's good to have a positive question like that. We talked on our Q4 call about the work the access team has done to improve resilience in a relatively down year. What you're seeing in the first quarter and what we guided to for the year and inherent in the original $11 was that resilience in margin. Set aside tariffs, I would expect second, third quarter to be stronger than the first. We did talk about that on the Q4 call. The first quarter would be our lowest quarter. You throw in tariffs, we still expect second quarter to be quite strong just because you don't really see a tariff impact because of inventories in the second quarter.

Beyond that, reference the guidance we've provided in terms of the dollars and the offsets, but it's difficult to say how the rest of the year shapes up.

Tami Zakaria (Executive Director)

Understood. To follow up, is the $1 EPS headwind essentially a partial year number, not an annualized headwind, assuming the go ahead?

Matt Field (EVP and CEO)

Yeah. No, no. That's right. For this year, we see that as a dollar, mostly back half loaded, obviously, just how tariffs will work. Obviously, over time, we have more levers. Resourcing is a bit of a lag. You can't do that in day one. That $1 would be the impact on this year. Again, we've got levers we pull over time depending on how the tariffs work and how they're instituted.

John Pfeifer (President and CEO)

Yeah. Tami, a good point. The $1 is a partial year number, but we are not standing still. I talked about how quickly we were able to move to mitigate European tariffs, which was a pretty big number, by the way, that we were able to mitigate. We are doing the exact same thing with these tariffs. We are not standing still. We will continue to drive activity and minimize any our intent is to minimize as much as we possibly can for 2026 and beyond, and that we believe we can minimize and mitigate a significant portion of this.

Tami Zakaria (Executive Director)

That's wonderful. Thank you.

John Pfeifer (President and CEO)

Thanks, Tami.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Kyle Menges with Citi. Please proceed with your question.

Kyle Menges (VP of Equity Research Analyst)

Hi. Thanks for taking the question. I just had a couple on just digging into the segment revenue results a little bit more, starting with access. Telehandler sales were certainly down a little bit more than I anticipated and down actually quite a bit more than the AWPs in the quarter. If you could just provide some color, help me understand kind of what drove that. I guess, has that already seen the impact of the loss of the CAT contract? Is that what that is?

John Pfeifer (President and CEO)

Some of the CAT impact is in there, yeah. I would caution you not to look too much into the first quarter revenue across the access business because the first quarter, second quarter, and third quarter are much more indicative of what the health of the market looks like. While telehandler sales were down in the quarter, I'll just point to the fact that our market share continues to climb in the telehandler business. This has not impacted our decision or our outlook at all in the long-term health of the telehandler market, where it's going, where we're going with it, why we put in investments into manufacturing these products. We're as confident about that today as we've ever been. Just because the sales were down in telehandlers in Q1 doesn't change that.

I'll point to the fact that we continue to have the leading share in this market and a growing share in the market.

Kyle Menges (VP of Equity Research Analyst)

Helpful. Thanks. Just looking at the refuse and recycling side, I mean, those revenues were up quite a bit in the quarter. Could you just help us understand how much of that is market growth versus you outgrowing the market? I guess later in, some impact assumed as you stock dealers, as you move to more of a distribution model. I guess, could that create a tough comp for next year?

John Pfeifer (President and CEO)

I don't expect it to create a tough comp for next year. No. You pointed out two things. Number one, yeah, we have been able to, because our production investments are paying off, we've been able to catch up a little bit in the backlog. That drove some of it, but that was not the whole story. You mentioned about the dealer network now. We have a much more comprehensive go-to-market strategy that we've executed where we brought on a fantastic dealer network, highly professional, a lot of after-sales service centers around the country with our dealer network. That allows us to go into the small and mid-size refuse companies and really make sure we're serving them well along with our big customers that are out there. You know the big customers' names that we've been serving for a long time, and they're growing nicely as well.

I think that that dealer network that we brought on, yes, that's starting to help us grow, but we don't see a scenario where it's going to create a big spike in a comp problem next year. We do not see that.

Kyle Menges (VP of Equity Research Analyst)

Helpful. Thank you.

John Pfeifer (President and CEO)

Thanks, Kyle.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Chad Dillard with Bernstein. Please proceed with your question.

Chad Dillard (Senior Analyst)

Hi. Good morning, guys.

Matt Field (EVP and CEO)

Good morning.

Chad Dillard (Senior Analyst)

Good morning. My question is on the $1 impact from tariffs that you guys are guiding to. It sounds like it is very back-end loaded. Is it fair to say nearly all the whole dollar goes into 3Q and 4Q? On the $0.50 of mitigation efforts, is that mainly cost? Are you embedding some price increase? Is that more of a 3Q or 4Q event? What do you think in terms of when that P&L impact actually hits?

Matt Field (EVP and CEO)

Hi, Chad. If you think about the dollar and the $0.50 offset, I would say they're both Q3, Q4 primarily because, again, the cost actions are really taking hold on spending, restraining growth, slowing down hiring, all of those things. The tariff impact, obviously, that net of mitigation efforts would be mostly Q3, Q4 as well.

Chad Dillard (Senior Analyst)

Got it. The breakdown between cost versus price increases?

Matt Field (EVP and CEO)

It's all in there. Any of the cost actions and any pricing associated with tariffs would be in the dollar, and the $0.50 really is on overall corporate costs, belt tightening, and so forth.

John Pfeifer (President and CEO)

Yeah. Chad, you know what? Our plan is kind of short-term and then longer-term. Because to mitigate these tariffs, it takes work. It takes engineering work. You're doing supply chain reorganization, that type of activity. You can't do that overnight. That takes some time. In the short term, what we do is we really tighten the belt up a few notches and go after any cost that we can go after in the short-term period to mitigate the tariffs until we get to the point where the longer-term strategies kick in, and that provides benefit in 2026 and beyond. The 2025 is really tightening up the belt to make sure we protect the year and protect our customers.

Chad Dillard (Senior Analyst)

Okay. That's super helpful color. Just shifting gears on the fire side of your business, just more broadly, I mean, where do you think we are in that replacement cycle? You've had a strong couple of years, and we just love to get some color on in terms of what ending we are and how you're thinking about that business as we look towards the next one to two years.

John Pfeifer (President and CEO)

Yeah. I think that the fire market is going to be a really healthy market for the foreseeable future. We did see a spike in the market coming out of COVID. It went way up beyond anybody's forecast, and that's why lead times have gotten long for the industry. The industry will recover from that as we put capacity in place to be able to meet the current demand environment. Going forward, why are we confident this is going to continue to be a healthy market for us? We're confident because there's aged fleets in the market. All over the country, there's aged fleets. We know what the fleet age is. We talk to fire departments all the time, and we know what their desire is for upgrading their fleets.

In addition to that, you see a lot of technological upgrades that we're introducing, and we showed them off at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and at FDIC. We had all sorts of technology on display at FDIC in Indianapolis just recently. This is desired by municipalities. They want these types of technologies that promote safety and productivity for the most important fleet of vehicles in just about any community that there is. That demand, because of the aged fleet and because of the desire for that technology, we believe is going to, when you look at the size of the fleet and where half the fleet age is fairly aged, that tells us that this is going to be a healthy market for the foreseeable future in our forecasts.

Now, I'm not saying it's going to be at it when it spiked up coming out of the pandemic to a pretty high level. I'm not saying it's going to stay up there, but it doesn't need to stay up there. It just needs to be healthy, consistent growth over a long period of time, and we'll be able to satisfy the industry with the new innovations we're bringing forward.

Chad Dillard (Senior Analyst)

Got it. Thank you.

John Pfeifer (President and CEO)

Thanks, Chad.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Steve Barger with KeyBanc. Please proceed with your question.

Steve Barger (Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, good morning. For the full year 2024, vocational incremental margin ran at 27%, and it was better than that in 1Q. When you think about planned capacity actions and mix in the upcoming production schedule, should we think that segment can keep running at 27% or better for the year?

Matt Field (EVP and CEO)

The first quarter was a very strong result in access. We're pleased to see that. Last year was strong. We are making a bet on that.

Steve Barger (Equity Research Analyst)

This is vocational.

Matt Field (EVP and CEO)

Sorry. Vocational. Too many questions on access. Sorry.

Steve Barger (Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah.

Matt Field (EVP and CEO)

Vocational has had strong results. We continue to make investments in capacity. Some of those investments will reduce that incrementality as we put down costs to drive volume over time. Overall, we do continue to believe, as we've talked about before, in the strength of vocational and the opportunities we have there, whether that's in fire, where we talked earlier, but also in refuse where you see continued strength based off the capacity we put in place over the last couple of years.

Steve Barger (Equity Research Analyst)

Capacity that was standing, you do not expect a negative mix. You will still continue to monetize better pricing and that sort of thing in the backlog?

Matt Field (EVP and CEO)

Yeah. We have considerable pricing still in the backlog to flush out as we build. The more capacity we can put in place, the more we build ahead units that are planned for the future.

Steve Barger (Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. I know you're agnostic to drivetrain, and it's mostly ICE to start, but any update on guidance you're getting in terms of mix for internal combustion versus battery electric for NGDV?

John Pfeifer (President and CEO)

We talk to Postal Service all the time. We had the entire leadership team of the Postal Service at our plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina just recently. It was a phenomenal visit. They saw the product being produced down the production line. We were just with them earlier this week at their National Postal Forum. It is, "Stay the course. We need vehicles." The vehicle is performing exceptionally well, and we feel really good about it. The simple answer to your question is there has not been any mix shifts. They're taking both internal combustion, and they're taking battery electric. They're staying the course that they've been on. We're happy to supply them with whatever mix that they want, and we'll let them make that decision. At this point, we're continuing to stay the course per their direction.

Steve Barger (Equity Research Analyst)

All right. Thanks.

John Pfeifer (President and CEO)

Thanks, Steve.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of Judah Aronovitz with UBS. Please proceed with your question.

Judah Aronovitz (Associate Director of Equity Research)

Hey, good morning. Calling for Steve Fisher. Just on the catch-up adjustment in defense, which programs was that tied to, and how should we think about risk going forward?

Matt Field (EVP and CEO)

Hi, Judah. It's Matt. In terms of the CCA, really, that's a function of continued line rebalancing we're doing in defense. You had a catch-up adjustment on JLTV as we were building up those last units, as well as FMTV. Those were the two primary programs. You can't expect future CCAs necessarily because the very nature of the accounting that results in a CCA is you're putting forward your projection of what's going to happen in the future into that. I wouldn't expect any material CCA going forward based off what we see today.

Judah Aronovitz (Associate Director of Equity Research)

Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from the line of David Raso with Evercore. Please proceed with your question.

David Raso (Senior Managing Director)

Hi. Thank you. Just so I'm clear, and I apologize, I've been hopping between calls. There's no change in the segment guidances from before except for allocating the $0.50 drag in the guide, and that most of that hit, or if you can help me with the mix of the hit that goes to access versus the other businesses. I know it's a large part of it. Is that correct? No change to the revenue by segments, just a change on the net $0.50 cost, mostly second half and majority access. Is that correct?

Matt Field (EVP and CEO)

Hey, David. I think that's a fair characterization. I mean, this is a dynamic environment, so spreading out the exact revenue impacts and how that works exactly by segment is difficult to do. We reiterated that without tariffs, we would be comfortable with the $11 and the guidance we put out, including by segments and margins. With the tariff impact, the dollar, and then the cost offset of $0.50, more difficult to provide specific guidance to the level we did earlier. I think broad-based, you've characterized it fairly.

David Raso (Senior Managing Director)

It's fair to say of the net, call it $42.5 million, $42 million pre-tax, right? The net, not the dollar, the $0.50. It is a large majority, just to be clear, it should be access. Because I'm just trying to think through the margins for the rest of the year. Ex tariffs, you're implying decrementals at around 30% for access. Again, this is keeping the original revenue guide, which seems a pretty impressive result given the magnitude of the revenue decline. Obviously, I have to layer in the related tariffs. I was just looking for a little guidance. Of the $42 million-ish of pre-tax hit in the second half net, should we apply again a large majority, $30 million plus, $35 million plus to access? Just if we had to try to bucket it out a little bit.

Matt Field (EVP and CEO)

Yeah. I can't be as explicit and precise as what you're asking, but I think you can think of the broad brush of the dollar hitting access. The $0.50 will be more spread across the company based off our cost structure. Decrementals, when we set up our guidance in access, was about 33% with the allocation of the dollar and tariff impact. Obviously, that'll move around some.

David Raso (Senior Managing Director)

All right. That in and of itself, I know it's not easy. We're all in the same boat here trying to model the unknown. When it comes to the cadence of the revenues for the rest of the year, right, the rest of the year access revenue growth implied down 12% after the down 23% we just saw. Just curious, from independents to majors, just curious when we think about that cadence, has anything changed from the original view of how we stepped down from the first quarter decline to the rest of the year only being down 12%? Is it pushed out a little bit due to uncertainty? Is it customers saying, "Hey, if you can promise me a price, I'll take it a little bit earlier"? Just curious on the cadence.

John Pfeifer (President and CEO)

At this point, David, it has not changed. In the first quarter, we had a higher mix towards independents than we did to the big nationals. That is primarily because in the first quarter, people are positioning fleet for the construction season. Some want it in the end of the first quarter, some want it early in the fourth quarter, depending on what their situation is. We expect the mix to shift back more towards the nationals as the year goes on, and that is what we are seeing. I would say that is in total, that is in line with what we expected at the beginning of the year. We have not seen any significant moves that would cause us to change that outlook at this time on the revenue side. Going back to your first question on the tariffs, this does change on a regular basis.

We have had multiple different scenarios that we've been addressing as the situation continues to evolve. As things continue to evolve over the next between now and July, that'll continue. We have pretty good, fairly aggressive plans for what we know now to address those tariffs, which will, again, short-term, it's tighten your belt, reduce cost in 2025. Longer-term, the initiatives kick in on resourcing and negotiations with suppliers and all that kind of stuff you have to do. That starts to kick in more from 2026 onward.

David Raso (Senior Managing Director)

Yeah. I mean, you're just in a hard situation of, do we go ahead and make the move to mitigate, and then we get a tweet and it changes? I thought it was interesting, the AWB assembly moved to Italy following the EU duties on China. Just curious, what made that, "Let's just do it," versus maybe some hesitancy around scissors out of Mexico or whatever it may be? I mean, I assume the general premise is tariffs on China are going to stay fairly high, so maybe it's a little bit easier to say we have to do something. Is it the other countries where you're just sort of, again, tightening the belt, but we're not dying to make some real structural changes to our supply chains so we really know what's going on?

John Pfeifer (President and CEO)

With the European tariff about a year ago, we knew what they were going to do. It evolved over a relatively reasonable amount of time. When the writing was on the wall, we knew that that was something we could rely on, and we had to react to it, and we did very, very quickly. In the tariffs that we're dealing with today, what's still going on is you said the rate in China is still in question, but it's a big rate and probably will be. We'll move forward with mitigation actions on that. You've got lots of other countries that have blanket 10% but are trying to negotiate down from much higher tariffs that were announced in early April. The outcome of that is important to us.

Does a country stay at the announced rate in early April of 24% or sometimes in the 40s, or does it stay at 10%? Those outcomes will impact some of the things that we do.

David Raso (Senior Managing Director)

I appreciate that. Thank you so much for the conversation.

Matt Field (EVP and CEO)

Thanks, David.

John Pfeifer (President and CEO)

Thanks, David.

Have a great day.

Operator (participant)

We have reached the end of the question and answer session. Mr. Davidson, I'd like to turn the floor back over to you for closing comments.

Patrick Davidson (Senior VP of Investor Relations)

All right. Thanks, Christine. Thanks, everybody, for joining us on this busy earnings day. We look forward to speaking with you at a conference or perhaps during our investor day scheduled for Thursday morning, June 5th, in New York. Have a great rest of the day and week.

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation, and have a wonderful day.