Sotera Health Company - Earnings Call - Q2 2025

Executive Summary

• Q2 2025 delivered solid execution: net revenues $294.341M (+6.4% YoY), Adjusted EBITDA $150.735M (+9.8% YoY), Adjusted EPS $0.20 (+$0.01 YoY).
• Results beat Wall Street consensus: revenue $294.341M vs $275.941M*, Adjusted EPS $0.20 vs $0.173*, and EBITDA outperformed consensus $137.219M*; company-reported Adjusted EBITDA was $150.735M, reflecting non-GAAP addbacks.
• Guidance raised: FY25 net revenue growth to 4.5–6.0% (from 4.0–6.0%), Adjusted EBITDA growth to 6.0–7.5% (from 4.5–6.5%), Adjusted EPS to $0.75–$0.82 (from $0.70–$0.76); tax rate lowered to 31.5–33.5%; capex cut to $170–$180M.
• Key catalysts: Sterigenics volume/mix momentum (+6% volume/mix, +4% price in Q2); Nelson Labs margin expansion (>500 bps); leverage improved to 3.5x (from 3.7x).

Values retrieved from S&P Global.*

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Sterigenics outperformed: revenue +10.5% YoY to $195M; segment income +11.3% to $108M, driven by favorable volume/mix and pricing. CEO: “more than 6% top-line growth… Adjusted EBITDA grew nearly 10%… 160 bps of margin expansion, driven by over 500 bps of improvement at Nelson Labs”.
• Nelson Labs margin execution: segment income +13.9% YoY to $20M; margin expansion from core lab testing, optimization, and pricing; fourth consecutive quarter of YoY margin improvement.
• Raised FY25 outlook across revenue/EBITDA/EPS, signaling confidence in trajectory; FX impact now expected neutral on full-year.

What Went Wrong

• GAAP headwind from EO litigation settlements: $34M in Q2 and $64.943M YTD weighed on GAAP EPS (diluted $0.03) despite non-GAAP strength.
• Nelson Labs revenue declined 3.3% YoY to $57M due to Expert Advisory Services softness, though margins improved.
• Nordion segment margin decreased (supplier mix timing), despite revenue +2.9% YoY to $42M.

Transcript

Speaker 5

Good morning and welcome to the Sotera Health Second Quarter 2025 Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's remarks, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touch-tone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Vice President and Treasurer Jason Peterson. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Good morning and thank you. Welcome to Sotera Health's Second Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. You can find today's press release and accompanying supplemental slides on the Investor section of our website at soterahealth.com. This webcast is being recorded and a replay will be available in the Investor section of the Sotera Health website. On the call with me today are Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Michael Petras and Chief Financial Officer Jon Lyons. During the call, some of our comments may be considered forward-looking statements. The matters addressed in these statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or implied. Please refer to Sotera Health's SEC filings and the forward-looking statement slide at the beginning of this presentation for a description of these risks and uncertainties. The company assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements.

Please note that during the discussion today, the company will present both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin, tax rate applicable to net income, adjusted net income, adjusted EPS, net debt, and net leverage ratio, as well as constant currency comparisons. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures for all relevant periods may be found in the schedules attached to the company's press release and in the supplemental slides to this presentation. The operator will be assisting with the Q&A portion of the call today. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up so that we can give everyone an opportunity to ask questions. If you have any questions after the call, please feel free to reach out to me and the Investor Relations team. I will now turn the call over to Sotera Health Chairman and CEO Michael Petras.

Speaker 0

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our quarterly earnings call. We're excited to share that Sotera Health delivered a strong second quarter, building off our solid performance last quarter marked by growing momentum across our core businesses. This progress resulted in top-line growth of 6.4%, adjusted EBITDA growth of 9.8%, and an improvement in adjusted EPS compared to the second quarter of 2024. We continue to invest in our businesses to support organic growth and made further progress on reducing leverage, reinforcing our commitment to disciplined financial management and long-term value creation. Moving on to the performance in our businesses, Sterigenics' increased customer demand drove strong volume and mix performance in the quarter, resulting in 10.5% year-over-year revenue growth compared to the second quarter of 2024.

Stronger volumes were driven by our core med device customers, along with continued momentum on bioprocessing, which was supported by our most recent facility expansion. Nordion delivered stronger than expected second quarter revenue versus the second quarter of 2024, driven by the timing of Cobalt-60 shipments. At the request of our customers, certain deliveries originally scheduled for the third quarter were fulfilled in the second quarter. Nelson Labs delivered second quarter revenue in line with the expectations outlined during our first quarter earnings call. Improvements in core lab testing helped offset the anticipated impact from expert advisory services. The increased core lab testing volume and mix, along with our discipline optimization actions, resulted in segment income margin expansion of more than 500 basis points. This marks the fourth consecutive quarter of year-over-year margin improvement at Nelson Labs.

Given the strong momentum through the first half of the year, we are raising our outlook for 2025 revenue-adjusted EBITDA. For revenue, we are raising our growth outlook to 4.5% to 6% versus 2024. We are also raising our adjusted EBITDA growth outlook to 6% to 7.5%. These updates reflect improved performance expectations and now assume no impact from foreign currency for the full year. Jon will go through our 2025 outlook update in more detail in a few minutes, but first, I would like to highlight an example of how Sotera Health plays an essential role in safeguarding global health. Together, Sterigenics and Nelson Labs play a critical role in patient safety and supporting FDA approval of groundbreaking treatments. From validation testing such as biocompatibility and packaging to routine sterilization, our teams contribute to the launch of this new infusion set for advanced Parkinson's therapy.

This innovative drug delivery device helps improve quality of life by managing tremors and rigid body movements. Our expertise helps customers commercialize new products and is a great example of how we play an essential role in safeguarding global health. Now, Jon will walk us through the financials.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Michael. I will begin by covering the second quarter 2025 highlights on a consolidated basis and then provide some details on each of the business segments, along with updates on capital deployment and leverage. I will finish with additional details on our updated 2025 outlook. On a consolidated total company basis, second quarter revenues increased by 6.4% to $294 million, or 6% on a constant currency basis compared to Q2 2024. Foreign currency was a tailwind of approximately 40 basis points for the quarter. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 9.8% to $151 million, or 9.5% growth on a constant currency basis. Adjusted EBITDA margins were 51.2%, representing a 156 basis point increase from Q2 2024, driven by a 514 basis point increase in Nelson Labs' segment margin. Interest expense of $41 million for the second quarter of 2025 was consistent with the prior year period.

Net income on a GAAP basis for Q2 2025 was $8 million, or $0.03 per diluted share, inclusive of the pending and previously disclosed $34 million settlement of ethylene oxide claims in Illinois. That compares to a net income of $9 million, or $0.03 per diluted share in Q2 of 2024. Adjusted EPS was $0.20 for the second quarter of 2025, an improvement of $0.01 from Q2 2024. Now let's take a closer look at the segment details. Sterigenics delivered strong second quarter 2025 revenue growth of 10.5% to $195 million, or 10% on a constant currency basis as compared to Q2 2024. Revenue growth for the quarter was driven by a favorable volume and mix contribution of 6%, pricing of 4%, and a benefit from foreign currency exchange of approximately 50 basis points.

Segment income increased 11.3% to $108 million, with segment income margins expanding 42 basis points versus Q2 2024. Segment income and margin growth were driven by strong top-line growth, partially offset by inflation. Nordion's Q2 2025 revenue increased by 2.9% to $42 million, or 3.4% on a constant currency basis compared to the same period in the prior year. Nordion's revenue increase was driven by a favorable volume and mix of 1.1%, as well as a 2.3% pricing benefit, partially offset by unfavorable foreign currency exchange of 50 basis points. Nordion's segment income was $23 million for the quarter, while segment income margin decreased 145 basis points to 55.3% compared to Q2 2024, driven by the timing of supplier mix. Nordion's year-to-date margins versus 2024 are up over 200 basis points.

In Nelson Labs, revenue for the quarter was $57 million, a decline of 3.3% compared to Q2 2024, as favorable contributions from core lab testing, pricing gains of 2.8%, and a foreign exchange benefit of 110 basis points were offset by the anticipated volume impact of expert advisory services. Segment income increased 13.9% to $20 million, while segment income margins expanded by 514 basis points. Increases in Q2 segment income and segment income margin were driven by favorable volume and mix improvements, benefits from optimization, and favorable pricing. Turning to the balance sheet, cash generation, and capital deployment, we delivered positive operating cash flow of approximately $57 million in the quarter, and capital expenditures totaled approximately $31 million. Our liquidity position remains very strong.

At the end of Q2, we had $918 million of available liquidity, which included $332 million of unrestricted cash and $586 million of available capacity on a revolving line of credit. Finally, we finished the quarter with a net leverage ratio of 3.5 times, an improvement from net leverage of 3.7 times at the end of 2024, and continued progress towards our long-term goal of 2 to 3 times. As Michael mentioned previously, we are raising our 2025 constant currency revenue growth outlook versus 2024 to a range of 4.5% to 6% from our prior range of 4% to 6%. We also expect to drive healthy operating leverage and are increasing our constant currency adjusted EBITDA growth outlook to 6% to 7.5% from our prior range of 4.5% to 6.5%.

Based on average second quarter 2025 FX rates, we now expect foreign currency impact to be neutral on full-year revenue and adjusted EBITDA versus 2024, compared to our prior assumption of a 1.25% and a 1.5% headwind, respectively. Total company price for 2025 is still expected to be near the midpoint of our long-term stated range of 3% to 4%. For Sterigenics, we raised our full-year 2025 constant currency revenue growth outlook and now expect mid to high single digits growth. For Nordion, we continue to expect full-year 2025 constant currency revenue growth in the mid-single digits. Nearly 60% of full-year revenue is expected to occur in the second half of the year, with Q4 2025 revenue expected to be down mid-teens versus Q4 2024 due to the timing of Cobalt-60 shipments.

Also, revenue risk associated with Russian-supplied Cobalt-60 has improved to less than one half of 1% of total company 2025 revenue. For Nelson Labs, while core lab testing continues to improve, we now expect full-year 2025 constant currency revenues to decline in the low single digits due to the impact from expert advisory services. We expect a return to growth in Q4 2025 and continue to expect strong margin improvement at Nelson Labs for 2025. Moving on to other guidance items. Based on the current forward rate, we continue to expect interest expense to be in the range of $155 million to $165 million. We are projecting an effective tax rate applicable to adjusted net income in the range of 31.5% to 33.5%. The favorable tax rate change reflects the recent U.S. tax law change that increased deductible interest expense up to 30% of EBITDA generated in the U.S.

With the upward adjustments to our revenue and adjusted EBITDA ranges and the favorable change in the tax rate, we now expect adjusted EPS to be in the range of $0.75 to $0.82, an increase from the previous range of $0.70 to $0.76. We continue to expect a fully diluted share count in the range of 286 million to 287 million shares on a weighted average basis. We now expect 2025 capital expenditures to be in the range of $170 million to $180 million, down from our prior outlook of $190 million to $210 million. Approximately one quarter of the reduction reflects cost savings, while the remainder is due to the timing of large projects.

As outlined in Investor Day, we continue to anticipate CapEx of approximately $110 million in 2027, which supports our goal of delivering $500 million to $600 million of free cash flow over the period 2025 to 2027. We continue to expect year-end 2025 net leverage ratio to improve compared to 2024 as we work towards our long-term goal of 2 to 3 times net leverage. Finally, as usual, our guidance does not assume any M&A activity. I'll now turn the call back over to Michael. Thank you, Jon. We are proud of the strong quarter we delivered, which was highlighted by continued momentum and enabled us to raise our full-year outlook. This performance underscores the resilience of our business and the strength of our teams. We are energized by what lies ahead and remain focused on executing with discipline to drive continued value for our stakeholders.

At this point, operator, let's open the call for questions and answers.

Speaker 5

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touch-tone phone. If you're using a speaker phone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we'll pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from Patrick Donnelly from Citi. Please go ahead.

Speaker 7

Hey guys, thank you for taking the questions. Michael, maybe one just on the overall results, particularly Sterigenics. Just given the strength there, kind of have to ask, did you guys see any sort of pull forward dynamic? Nice to see the full year move up, obviously, but just curious what you were hearing from customers. Were folks looking to stock up ahead of some of the tariff noise and anything there to call out?

Speaker 1

Yeah, good morning, Patrick. We're not seeing any material on tariff pull-ins or anything of that nature. I mean, there's a little bit here and there, but there's nothing material. The team, you know, we saw this volume progressing, as we said earlier in the year. We said that we would see volumes progress throughout the year, and we're seeing that the team's executing against that. We're excited about where we sit today with Sterigenics, and the outlook is positive going forward as well.

Speaker 7

Okay. Maybe to dive a little bit more into the recovery here, can you just pull back? It sounds like both the med tech side and bioprocessing were doing well for you in the quarter. Can you just maybe parse out the two, what you're seeing from both, where we are in this recovery? It does sound like you guys are maybe a little more confident on the volume side, but maybe talk about both med tech and bioprocessing volume versus price. It would be helpful just to talk through how you're seeing it and the expectations for the rest of the year. Thank you guys so much.

Speaker 1

Yeah, thanks, Patrick. As we mentioned in our prepared remarks, the volume and mix was up 6% in the quarter over last year. The price was up 4% in Sterigenics. We're seeing that across the board with our customers, no segment necessarily outperforming the other. Bioprocessing, again, it's a small portion of our business, but we saw significant growth there as we expected. We also had capacity put in place with one of our buildouts, and we're seeing the fruits of that expansion and the ability to capture volume based on that performance. In addition to that, the med tech volumes were pretty steady. We're seeing it across multiple categories. As we talked about previously with you folks, we're doing some segmentation of end markets that we're really focused on, and the team is seeing nice growth in those end markets that we focused on and are executing against.

Overall, bioprocessing was up larger, but it's a smaller base, but med tech had nice volume in the quarter, and we anticipate that going forward to be positive as well.

Speaker 7

Great. Thank you, guys.

Speaker 5

The next question comes from Brett Fishbin from KeyBanc. Please go ahead.

Hey guys, good morning. Thank you very much for taking the questions. I just want to start off with maybe a similar one from Q1. Obviously, a highlight of the quarter was the step up in Nelson Labs margins. I know you mentioned the benefit of positive mix with expert advisory declining more, but curious if you could just parse out some of the different drivers of the year-over-year improvement, like how much was related to the mix of services versus other factors.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I would, you know, Brett, this is Michael. I would say this is consistent with what we have been messaging for the last several quarters. We said that we would see expansion of margins within the Nelson Labs business. We felt that business probably ends up being, you know, low to mid-30s. We're approaching those areas. We're actually right there. The key things that the team's done that we talked about previously with you folks is the labor productivity and matching that up, and the team's done a really nice job of matching that with supply and demand. We're getting some optimization there on the productivity side and some of the volumes. Overall, the favorable mix, as you referenced, you know, moving from expert advisory services into core lab testing. I'd say the other thing is that business continues to perform on price at 3% price in the quarter.

Overall, this is four quarters in a row of margin expansion, which is what we communicated that we expected, and the team is delivering against that.

All right, perfect. Shifting gears a little bit, during the quarter, there was an announced extension to the implementation timeframe for the updated ethylene oxide (ETO) regs. It looks like the EPA is still reevaluating the updated NESHAP rule. I was curious if you had any thoughts on this development, whether this changes your planned investments in any way, and just how you think about maybe competitive implications of that decision. Thank you.

Yeah, thanks, Brett. On the knee shap rule, we're well positioned. We're continuing to execute on that. We're going to continue to invest in that moving forward. This will give us an opportunity to get a little bit of price out of some vendors that we think we're speeding a little bit on cost, but we're continuing to invest in that to finish this up. For us, the extension just gives us an opportunity to facilitate optimal installation and validation of some of the emissions controls around the facilities. We feel good about where we're sitting there, and we also feel good about the competitive environment long term.

Speaker 5

The next question comes from Luke Sergott from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Great, thanks. I guess on the Nelson improvement for the margin, I know that you're hitting up against your targets here at low to mid-30s for the year. Just trying to think about how much more runway you guys have left in that business and ultimately what you think you could get margins to go to, assuming that the volumes come back to your target of utilization.

Speaker 1

Yeah, Luke, I would say where we're at today is pretty consistent with what we projected, and that's what you should expect going forward here. We're in the low 30s, right? Low to mid-30s, that's where you ought to be expecting. I don't think you're going to see us approaching the 40s we saw during COVID, as we explained in the past. That was some favorability we had from mix and some bolus of large volumes that came in. I think what you're seeing is that this should be able to deliver consistent with the margin rates we're at today. You should think about that that way going forward.

All right. The follow-up here is, you had your peer that does the same thing, but they're a little bit more gamma and X-ray focused. They had strong growth in the quarter, and it's not like Sterigenics had a bad volume quarter either. I'm just wondering, they had a little bit of elevated growth. Are you seeing internally increased demand for gamma and X-ray, and potential share gain there? Has there been a technology advancement where they can get that increased capacity for that sterilization technology?

Yeah, you know, Luke, obviously you'll have to talk to them about their performance, but we're very proud of what Sterigenics has done here. 10.5% growth in the quarter, 6% volume in mix. We're seeing it across modalities. We don't have a huge X-ray base. We've got a new X-ray that we announced that will be coming up in the Southeast by the end of the year. The gamma side is a little weaker, but still, nice progress there. Ethylene oxide continues to do real well, and e-beam does real well. Overall, really proud of what the Sterigenics team's doing. It's consistent with what we told everybody we were going to do, increase volumes as the year progressed, and the team's executing against that. Even sitting here today in early August, we're optimistic of where we sit, going forward.

Great, thanks.

Speaker 5

The next question comes from Jason Bednar from Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Speaker 3

Hey, good morning guys. I want to focus on Sterigenics. A couple of questions here. I'll just ask them all up front. The growth you're seeing, is that mostly same store or how much? I think you referenced a little bit on capacity expansion. I don't know if there's any way you can parse that out, what you're seeing from each of those. A bit of a follow-up to Patrick's question earlier. There's a ton of med tech players out there that are trying to adjust sourcing supply chains to work around tariffs. Not asking if there was a pull forward, but more so just broadly, are you seeing movement across your network as a lot of these companies are trying to, again, adjust their supply chain? Is that impacting Sterigenics at all? Thank you.

Speaker 1

Yeah, thanks, Jason. It's Michael. We had healthy performance in same-store sales. We did, as I referenced, pick up incremental volumes in one of our expansions in Europe that we expected. Overall, same-store sales were healthy as well as this other expansion. Pull forward, you know, med tech, there is a lot of moving parts right now with these customers and exactly how they're trying to optimize their supply chains. We're having multiple discussions with them around the global where they're going to ultimately settle. We didn't see material numbers pick up because of that, as I referenced earlier. Overall, our goal is to work closely with our customers and help optimize opportunities for them. As I look forward, there's a couple of opportunities that are percolating that could be interesting as they look to optimize their supply chains.

Right now, we're just looking forward to service them as best as we can with the facilities we have in place.

Michael, just one quick follow-up. Do you think you're in a good spot? I think you know the answer to this, but given those companies are trying to move supply chains, they're incentivized to move supply chains. Do you feel like you're in the capper seat just from a pricing position in terms of asking for even more price than you normally would?

No, this is not about taking advantage of the situation. What I feel good about is our position in the marketplace, in our capacity in the U.S. We have a pretty significant presence here. If people want to come to the U.S., we feel like we're pretty well positioned to do that. Also, the other thing to keep in mind, we've been talking about investments in incremental capacity. There was one program that we've been continuing to scrutinize, and we decided to move forward with that program as well. That'll optimize opportunities here in the U.S. that our customers have asked us for support around. The business case has come together pretty well, with the pricing that they've committed to us, as well as the construction costs that we have to apply against it. Our board ended up making that decision earlier in the year to proceed with that.

We feel really good about that coming on board. That won't be till late 2027 or so, but we're trying to be responsive to our customers broadly, Jason.

All right. Great to hear. Thanks, Michael.

Thank you.

Speaker 5

The next question comes from Casey Woodring from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Hi, great. Thanks for taking my questions. Just on Sterigenics, you did 6% volume and mix growth in Q2. You mentioned you're not really seeing pull forward. Is it fair to assume that same sort of volume and mix growth in the back half, and maybe just walk through the quarterly cadence there? I have one follow-up.

Speaker 1

Hey Casey, thanks for the question on that. We're really pleased with the performance in Sterigenics. I think if you look at how we've upped our guidance there to mid to high single digits growth, that would imply that kind of range in the second half. We do have some upticks in maintenance-related downtime that'll mute the growth a little bit, which is why you could see it being a little less robust in the second half than we saw in Q2, but we're still really pleased with the trajectory of the business and the growth we're putting up.

Got it. That's helpful. On Nelson Labs, it looks like you took down expectations for the year just on the RCA business. You mentioned a return to growth in Q4 in Nelson Labs. Just curious how we should think about that business maybe in 2026. The moving pieces there, you'll have an easier RCA comp. Sounds like core volumes are improving. Maybe just walk us through kind of the normalized growth rate of that business and what that would look like in 2026 with the easy comps. Thank you.

Yeah, thanks, Casey. You know, we're not going to get into 2026 in any depth at this point. You know, we're only in the second quarter of 2025. I would just tell you, you know, we don't see long-term significant expansion of the RCA business. Again, that's more strategic for us and how it works across the company. We saw the benefits last year, some elevated FDA activity, which is not repeating this year. Overall, you know, we're looking at bringing a full service to our customers there that helps facilitate growth in both Sterigenics and Nelson Labs. When we get later in the year, we're able to give you some guidance on 2026. We'll give you more details around that. Right now, you know, we're pretty proud of the work this team has done on getting the margins in line and recovering the lab business.

We've got a couple of regulations that are coming into place, which the team is maximizing the opportunities around. Happy about that. We've got to continue to focus on core lab volume going forward here. That's what the second half is going to be about for that team.

Got it. Thank you.

Speaker 5

The next question comes from Dave Windley from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one is a follow-up to the very end of your answer to Jason's question on the prior or the project that you're approving and moving forward. I think I heard you say the $110 million in 2027 capital expenditures target is still valid. I wondered if you could talk about the path to that, particularly in light of that comment about the project.

Speaker 1

Yeah, David, I'll make sure I won't be commenting. Jon could jump in. You know, we are looking at that $110 million, which is a commitment we made last year. The big things that are going to help ramp that down are Cobalt-60 development and the GFE spend, the facility enhancement spend on the Sterigenics side. Those are moving on track to come down just like we said they would. Those are two big outliers that have had an impact here on our CapEx spend the last couple of years. Some growth investments on Sterigenics have come down, and we have this one left that we've got forecasted out.

Speaker 0

Yeah, I think the nuance there, David, is that this one was always contemplated. Over the last couple months or even quarters, we've reflected on it just to make sure we were confident in the returns that it would deliver. We feel really good about that, as Michael mentioned. We're moving forward, but it was always contemplated in the numbers that we were talking about.

Speaker 1

Yeah, good clarification. Yeah, Dave, it was always in those capital expenditures numbers that we had before. We just were pushing it until we got comfortable on the economics of it.

Speaker 6

Right, okay. I wondered also on Nelson Labs. I think in your description of the margin benefits, in addition to the mix shift, there was also a mention of optimization. I guess what I'm wondering there is, you're taking the revenue guidance down a little bit on the EAS business. I'm wondering if the second quarter was a level of kind of more of a step function of, hey, the revenue is what it is. Let's right-size the staffing levels even more so to current demand without any kind of growth anticipation. That helped to bump the margins up even more than, you know, we on the outside at least expected. Am I reading too much into that?

Speaker 1

Yeah, you're reading too much in. There were no incremental actions. There were no incremental actions in the quarter. This is just a run-on of the things that we talked about a couple of quarters ago. There was nothing incremental there, David.

Speaker 6

Got it. Okay. If I could just squeeze one more in, you had previously said that your margin expansion for the year was going to be Nelson-driven. Is that still the case, or do you see some benefits in the other two segments? Thank you. I'll be done.

Speaker 1

Go ahead, Jon. You want to hit the margin one?

Speaker 0

Yeah, no, that's still our expectation, Dave. I mean, we feel really good about the improvement and the work that the team at Nelson Labs has done to get margins in a spot where we think is consistent with the long-term guide. As Michael mentioned, they've been at this for several quarters to get the labor and productivity right, and so we're pleased with that. We still are expecting Nordion and Sterigenics to have stable margins for the year on a year-over-year basis. Again, feel really good about both those businesses' trajectory. Super happy about the return to growth, or the accelerated growth that we saw in Sterigenics for sure.

Speaker 6

Thanks. Great, thanks very much for the call. Appreciate it.

Speaker 5

The next question comes from Michael Polark from Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. I want to put this all together. Steris posted a real 10% growth rate as well. I see that in Sterigenics. Like something clearly is going well as we reflect on the last two, three years. Obviously, there was first bioprocess boom and then bust and destocking and then kind of med device customer inventory management. Michael, you're not saying this is tariffs. Is this just, look, there was a two, three-year period of post, let's call it post-COVID destocking of COVID era inventory bloat. We've worked through it because end markets are still pulling through units like hospital utilization and procedures and people are taking drugs and all this stuff. It's back. I need a little more than like, I don't know. There's a category thing here and I'm curious if you could give me a little more.

Speaker 1

Yeah, Michael, I think some of your comments are right on. We've been talking the last couple of quarters that we are not hearing about destocking in a significant way, right? We've been telling you that. We're not hearing that at all. I think you're starting to see volume starting to match up a little closer with the volumes that you're seeing in the end markets. We saw it across multiple categories here. We talked about bioprocessing a minute ago, but we're seeing it across multiple categories. As we said earlier in the year, we expected that to continue throughout the year, and we think that'll still be the case. Our customers, you know, we're in active dialogue with them, and the volumes are coming through. I imagine our competitors are seeing that same thing.

Understood. When we do the Sterigenics 2H guidance, to me, the midpoint of mid to high single digits is 6.5% for the full year. If I use that, I get 6.5% revenue growth for Sterigenics in the second half. Let's assume price is stable because it probably is. At four, that imputes volume growth of 2% to 3% in the back half. You just described 6% volume and mix in the second quarter. What are you, you know, Jon, you said downtime, but that feels kind of normal course of business. Tell me if that's wrong. What else are you bracing for in the back half that explains this lower volume input? Is it simply conservatism? Thank you.

Speaker 0

Yeah, Mike, I think, you know, candidly, I think we view the, you know, I understand where you get the 6.5. I view that probably a little bit better than that, from how we were thinking about it. I think that we could, you know, the business could do better than that. I would say we do have the downtime, and it's a little bit more non-routine. We have our facility enhancements that Michael mentioned we're proceeding with. We've got a couple of those that are pretty back half loaded. If you look at our capital expenditures year to date versus our capital expenditures year to go, based on our guide, you'll see the pickup in capital expenditures. That's really a good bit of activity. We've got some caution there around that.

We feel good about the team's execution, but we want to make sure that we deliver against our commitments here.

If I can sneak one more in and be greedy, the tax rate lowered this year, the midpoint of the new 2025 range. Is that a good adjusted tax rate for 2026 and beyond? Thank you.

Yeah, no, I think there's going to be some moving pieces as we move forward. We're happy about the tax bill. I mean, it's a little bit nuanced here that most of the tax bill changes are timing related for a lot of taxpayers. Because we have the valuation allowance against the interest deduction, the increased deduction for us allows us to improve the tax rate. The midpoint is the right number for this year. Some moving pieces going forward, but as we grow, we'd expect that tax rate to improve.

Thank you.

Speaker 5

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Michael Petras for any closing remarks.

Speaker 1

Great. Thank you, Jason. We thank everybody for taking the time to join us this morning. Hopefully, you can see the optimism we have on our outlook for the rest of the year. Overall, the team's doing a great job in executing and taking care of our customers. A couple of things I just want to connect the dots back to around proof points that we've talked about with you in the past here. We talked about Sterigenics volumes improving. We're seeing that come together. The team's executing on that. We talked about Nelson Labs margins improving. We've seen that over the last several quarters. Nordion's been a very steady performer. We helped try to get some visibility around the lumpiness around that. Our focus on free cash flow. We're optimistic about where we sit and hitting the long-range commitments that we've made to the investment community.

We thank you for your ongoing support. We hope you have a good day and a good weekend. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Speaker 5

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.