SPX Technologies - Q4 2025

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the SPX Technologies Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you'll need to press star one one on your telephone. You will hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I'd now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mark Carano, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Mark Carano (CFO)

Thank you, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us. With me on the call today is Gene Lowe, our President and Chief Executive Officer. A press release containing our fourth quarter and full year results was issued today after market close. You can find the release in our earnings slide presentation, as well as a link to a live webcast of this call in the Investor Relations section of our website at spx.com. I encourage you to review our disclosure and discussion of GAAP results in the press release and to follow along with the slide presentation during our prepared remarks. A replay of the webcast will be available on our website. As a reminder, portions of our presentation and comments are forward-looking and subject to Safe Harbor provisions. Please also note the risk factors in our most recent SEC filings.

Our comments today will largely focus on adjusted financial results. Comparisons will be to the results of continuing operations only. You can find detailed reconciliations of historical adjusted figures from their respective GAAP measures in the appendix to today's presentation. Our adjusted earnings per share exclude intangible amortization expenses, acquisition and integration-related costs, non-service pension items, changes in estimated value of equity security, among other items. Finally, we will be meeting with investors at various events during the upcoming months. With that, I'll turn the call over to Gene.

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Thanks, Mark. Good afternoon, everyone, thank you for joining us. On the call today, we'll provide you with an update on our consolidated and segment results for the fourth quarter and full year of 2025. We'll also provide full year guidance for 2026. We had a strong close to the year. We grew full year adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS by 21%, with a strong performance by both segments. In addition, we continue to advance our value creation initiatives. Organically, we made further progress on our efforts to expand capacity within our HVAC segment to meet the growing demand for our highly engineered solutions. During the fourth quarter, we completed the purchase of a new 459,000 sq ft facility in Madison, Alabama, which will have capabilities to produce our data center and custom air handling solutions.

Inorganically, we recently announced the additions of Thermelec, Air Enterprises, and Rahn Industries to the HVAC segment. These strategic acquisitions strengthen our position in the attractive electric heat and engineered air movement markets. Today, we are introducing our 2026 midpoint guidance, which implies approximately 20% Adjusted EBITDA growth at the midpoint. Running the high-level results. For the fourth quarter, we grew revenue by 19.4%, driven by the benefit of recent acquisitions and organic growth in both segments. Adjusted EBITDA increased by approximately 22% year-over-year, with 50 basis points of margin expansion. As always, I'd like to update you on our value creation initiatives. Demand for our customer handling and data center cooling products remains strong.

To capture the growing demand, we are investing in expanding capacity across several of our existing HVAC facilities, including Ingenia's Mirabel and Cooling Products, Olathe locations, and have recently added two new facilities to further accelerate our expansion efforts. During last quarter's call, we announced the addition of a facility in Tennessee that will produce TAMCO highly engineered aluminum dampers, which are seeing strong demand within the data center market. Production in this facility is expected to begin by the end of this quarter and steadily ramp throughout the year. Additionally, in Q4, we completed the purchase of a facility in Madison, Alabama, that will have flexible manufacturing capabilities to produce both our custom air handling and data center solutions, including our new OlympusMAX product. We expect to have assembly capabilities toward the latter half of this year and initial production capabilities in the first half of 2027.

We expect the expansion-related investments across all of our HVAC facilities to require approximately $100 million of capital in 2026, in addition to approximately $60 million invested in 2025. We anticipate these investments will enable nearly half of our HVAC segment's revenue growth in 2026 and add roughly $700 million of incremental capacity once at full production, supporting substantial growth in both data center and custom air handling volume. We've also continued to advance our inorganic growth initiatives. During the first quarter of 2026, we completed two strategic acquisitions in our HVAC segment that strengthen our positions in the attractive electric heating and engineered air movement markets. I'm very pleased to welcome our new colleagues to the SPX team.

Air Enterprises and Rahn Industries, formerly the air handling segment of Crawford United, advance our strategy to build market-leading positions in the engineered air movement market by expanding our portfolio of custom air handling solutions and enhancing our capabilities with a coil offering. The combination of complementary technologies, design capabilities, and manufacturing footprint strengthens our ability to serve customers in the attractive healthcare, institutional, and commercial markets. Thermelec, located in Montreal, is a natural extension of our electric heat strategy, adding a complementary custom duct heating solution and broader geographic reach to enhance the value we deliver to customers throughout the North American commercial, industrial, and multifamily markets. The combination of Thermelec's exceptional service, quality, and strong Canadian presence with our established electric heat channels in the U.S. provides significant opportunity for growth. Now, I'll turn the call over to Mark to review our financial results.

Mark Carano (CFO)

Thanks, Gene. Our fourth quarter results were strong. Year-over-year adjusted EPS grew by 25% to $1.88. Full-year adjusted EPS grew by 21% to $6.76, or towards the upper end of our guidance range of $6.65-$6.80. For the quarter, total company revenues increased 19.4% year-over-year, driven by the acquisitions of KTS and Sigma & Omega, as well as organic growth. Consolidated segment income grew by $27 million, or 21%, to $156 million, while consolidated segment margin increased 30 basis points. For the quarter, in our HVAC segment, revenue grew by 16.4% year-over-year, with 5.5% inorganic growth and a modest FX tailwind.

On an organic basis, revenue increased 10.3%, with solid growth in both cooling and heating. Segment income grew by $17 million or 18%, while segment margin increased 40 basis points. The increases in segment income and margin were largely driven by higher volume and associated operating leverage. Segment backlog at quarter end was $585 million, up 22% organically year-over-year. For the quarter in our detection and measurement segment, revenue increased 26.3% year-over-year. The KTS acquisition contributed growth of 23.2%, FX was a modest tailwind. On an organic basis, revenue increased 1.7%, primarily driven by higher project volumes. Segment income grew by $10 million or 27%. Margin increased 20 basis points.

The increases in segment income and margin were primarily driven by higher volume, including the benefit of KTS. Segment backlog at quarter end was $350 million, or up 43% organically year-over-year. Turning now to our financial position at the end of the year. We ended the year with $366 million of cash on hand and total debt of $502 million. Our leverage ratio, as calculated under our bank credit agreement, was approximately 0.3 times at year-end. Including the effect of the recently announced acquisitions, our leverage ratio was 1. Full-year adjusted free cash flow was $294 million, reflecting a 90% conversion of adjusted net income, inclusive of the approximately $60 million invested to support our capacity expansion efforts. Moving on to our guidance.

Today, we introduced full year 2026 guidance, inclusive of the recently announced acquisitions, Thermelec and Air Enterprises and Rahn Industries. Note: Crawford United's Industrial and Transportation Products businesses are not included in our guidance. They will be reported in discontinued operations while we seek a suitable buyer. We anticipate total company revenue in a range of $2.535 billion-$2.605 billion, and segment income margin in a range of 24.6%-25.1%. We expect Adjusted EBITDA to be in a range of $590 million-$620 million. At the midpoint, this implies year-over-year growth of approximately 20% and a margin of approximately 23.5%.

Our adjusted EPS guidance range of $7.60-$8.00 reflects approximately 15% growth at the midpoint. In our HVAC segment, including the recent acquisitions, we anticipate revenue in a range of $1.8 billion-$1.84 billion, and segment margin in a range of 24.5%-25%. In our detection and measurement segment, we anticipate revenue in a range of $735 million-$765 million, and a segment margin in a range of 24.75%-25.25%. As a reminder, growth in 2026 will be impacted by the execution of projects in 2025, totaling approximately $20 million that were originally slated to execute in 2026.

For Q1, as a percentage of our full year 2026 guidance midpoint, we expect revenue and segment income for both segments and adjusted EPS to be similar to the prior year. As always, you will find modeling considerations in the appendix to our presentation. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Gene for a review of our end markets and his closing comments.

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Thanks, Mark. Current market conditions support our 2026 outlook, which implies significant growth. Within our HVAC segment, we continue to see solid demand in key end markets. Our strong backlog of highly engineered solutions and increasing production capacity further reinforce our confidence in HVAC's growth opportunities. In our detection and measurement segment, we are seeing improving global market conditions, which is supportive of growth in our run rate businesses. For our project-oriented businesses, front log activity remains steady and backlog is at record year-end levels, yet with a higher percentage of multiyear projects. In summary, I'm pleased with the close to 2025 and our strong full year performance.

As we look to 2026, we expect to continue to drive additional shareholder value through both our organic and inorganic initiatives, including our continued efforts to expand capacity to meet the growing demand for our HVAC solutions, integration of our recent acquisitions, which further scale our HVAC platforms and strengthen our positions in key end markets, and an active pipeline of attractive acquisition opportunities. With these initiatives and a solid demand backup, we are well positioned for another year of 20% growth and adjusted EBITDA in 2026. Looking ahead, I remain excited about our future. With a proven strategy and highly capable, experienced team, I see significant opportunities for SPX to continue growing and driving value for years to come. With that, I'll turn the call back to Mark.

Mark Carano (CFO)

Thanks, Gene. Operator, we will now go to questions.

Operator (participant)

If you'd like to ask a question at this time, please press star one one on your touchtone telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Our first question comes from Bryan Blair with Oppenheimer.

Bryan Blair (Managing Director)

Thanks, guys. Solid finish to the year.

Mark Carano (CFO)

Thanks, Bryan.

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Thanks.

Bryan Blair (Managing Director)

There understandably remains a lot of focus on your team's data center exposure. I guess to level set on that front, how much did data center revenue grow in 2025? What percentage of revenue is now driven by data centers, and how is your team thinking about DC sales growth within your initial 2026 guidance?

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

I'll start there, Brian. You know, we're seeing substantial growth. Let's see here. We had talked about, you know, some of the numbers we'd shared previously, that 25 would be about 9% of revenue. You know, it's in the neighborhood of $200 million, maybe a little bit more than $200 million. That's up quite a bit. We'd give the number of 7% prior, and we would anticipate that to be, you know, as we said, low, low double digits, say 12%. You know, we'd expect nice growth here, probably in the 50% neighborhood for our data centers going into 2026.

Bryan Blair (Managing Director)

That's very encouraging. Maybe offer a little more color on the strategic state of Air Enterprises and Rahn Industries and Thermelec, EAM and Electric Heat, respectively. You know, they seem like very, you know, down the center kind of, kind of deals for your team. You know, how do the assets strengthen HVAC positioning overall? How should we think about commercial synergies and the ability to accelerate growth going forward? What exactly have you baked in for revenue and profitability in the initial 2026 outlook? Thank you.

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

When I first on the strategy side, I think that a couple things. You know, with Crawford United, their air handling unit, it's really two pieces. The bigger piece is Air Enterprises. This is custom air handling. They have a great product, a blue chip customer base. They have a different style of product, lower leakage, and I would say they're viewed as a premium provider in this market. You can go to their website, you'll see all of the blue chip customers that basically have them oftentimes as basis of design. It's a little bit different flavor of a product versus Ingénia, but a very high-quality product and one that we're very excited to have as a part of our portfolio.

We think we can help them grow. We think we can help them operationally. We also think we can help them in the building of the channels there. The Rahn component of that is somewhat smaller. That's the coil manufacturer. That would be coils for the customary handling units. We actually like that because we can actually use that not only for Air Enterprises, but also for Ingénia, which we predominantly buy outside. We have a lot of coils and coil usage increasing across our product lines in HVAC, and this is just going to give us more confidence. We see some nice growth there, not only within our own businesses, but within our customers, where we have a very strong position, particularly at the TAMCO business. Operational synergies and channel synergies there.

With Thermelec, this is a real no-brainer. We're very strong in duct heating. As we've talked about with Indeeco, we invented duct heating, right? We have the original patent. Very strong position in the U.S., but very, very low in Canada. Thermelec is the leader for duct heating in Canada, so very complementary. They have a very good brand, a very good channel. We really like the team, a great leader there, really engaged workforce. We actually think that they have a variety of products that we will be able to that they don't only sell in Canada. The majority of their business is Canada, let's say approximately 2/3. We think we can help them grow more in the U.S.

We actually see some products that we have not been able to successfully sell into Canada, that we think we can really leverage the Thermelec channel. We see some nice channel synergies on both sides there. Additionally, I think, you know, we really do have a good lean process and operational experience, that they are also very capacity constrained. We believe we can help them grow as we look ahead. Mark, do you want to make any comments on the, on the numbers?

Mark Carano (CFO)

Yeah, Bryan, let me add to that, your question of the impact on 2026. We've disclosed a few numbers out there. There's also some publicly available information out on some of the businesses with respect to Air Enterprises and Rahn. What I would guide you to is, you know, $35 million in revenue at the Thermelec business, and something in the low $80 million for the Air Enterprises and Rahn business combined. That's on an annual basis. Obviously, we're gonna own both of these businesses for 11 months. You know, that kind of gets you to something just shy of about $110 million. Segment income margins for both these businesses are slightly higher than our segment average.

Bryan Blair (Managing Director)

Understood. Very helpful. Thank you.

Mark Carano (CFO)

Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Andrew Obin with Bank of America.

Andrew Obin (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Yes, good afternoon.

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Andrew, hey.

Andrew Obin (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Hey, how are you? Maybe I know a lot of people will be talking about HVAC. Maybe I'll ask about detection, D&M. Couple of things. A, this, $20 million pull forward of revenue, how should we model it in 2026? Part two of the question, how should I think about the growth for the business, given that your backlog is up organically 45%, if I heard it correctly?

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Yeah, let me start. This is something we talked about. We had a project. That, you know, we were actually have a very nice backlog. As you have seen, you know, from our press release, we have record year-end backlog. We have $350 million in detection and measurement. This is up more than 40% organically. It's a very, you know, we feel really good about how that business is doing. But what I would say is, we had a project that was in 2026, that the customer pulled it forward. It's approximately $20 million. We talked about it in Q3. If you do the math, that makes 2025, $20 million higher and 2026, $20 million lower. It's about a 5% growth headwind.

As you look at it, that would be a, you know, the reason we're more flattish. If we look across the business, as a reminder, about 2/3 of this business is run rate, and we actually are seeing nice growth in our run rate business. I would say GDP plus growth rates in our businesses there. On the projects, we have a lot of projects, and we also have a lot of backlog as you look ahead to 2027 and 2028. That's the reason that we're more flattish. You want to give a little more color there, Mark, on?

Mark Carano (CFO)

Yeah, I think, Andrew, Gene kind of touched on, you know, the top line. I think it's, you know, important if you, if you do the math, he gave you a little bit of it to look at, you know, what the impact of that growth would. That shifting of that project had on 2026. Had it not shifted out into 2025, it would have been mid-single digit top line growth in 2025.

Andrew Obin (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Yeah, I think my question was even simpler: Should we model in Q1, Q2, or where should I take this $20 million out versus normal seasonality?

Mark Carano (CFO)

It was in the back half of the year. That's where you should look to to adjust it.

Andrew Obin (Managing Director of Equity Research)

I should take.

Mark Carano (CFO)

In the back half of this year.

Andrew Obin (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Right. It was pulled forward from... Is all the impact in Q1? Sorry, it's just my question, I think, is a lot simpler than yours. Should I just take $20 million out of Q1 versus what I would normally have? Is that, is it that simple?

Mark Carano (CFO)

Yeah, I mean, that's probably the right way to think about it. You know, the D&M business, we always talk about the fact that, you know, there's a project element to it, and the way these projects gate and how they fall within the quarters, they can move around on us. I think that's probably the right approach.

Andrew Obin (Managing Director of Equity Research)

I know you sort of answered part of your question when you talked about data centers, but I think you've described the OlympusMAX as your most successful product launch ever. you know, could you just tell us about what the feedback has been, what a booking, you know, any update on bookings there, and, you know, applications beyond data centers as well?... data centers and beyond, but how has reception been, particularly in the life we've been getting questions about, you know, NVIDIA announcement? Does it tie in at all to that, or is that more about PUEs? Just maybe give us a little bit more color there. Thanks so much.

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Yeah, the OlympusMAX, if anything, I'm feeling more bullish than I was on our last earnings call. The punchline is we have a winner here. We have advantages with our product. We believe we have advantages on tonnage. We believe we have advantages on flexibility, specifically the fact that our dry unit can be upgraded to an adiabatic and get a lot more thermal, you know, heat exchange additive after the fact, gives you a lot of flexibility. We have integrated controls, which is a differentiator versus our competitors, and we have more robust mechanical equipment. We have already been awarded with 3 customers, material amounts, and we feel good. I mean, we're not gonna get into the specifics of dollars and so forth.

What I would say is we targeted to get $50 million of bookings last year. We did get that, and we're converting that to revenue this year. I would say that, you know, we feel really good as we look to 2027, 2028, 2029. We have one customer that has already locked up multiple years of demand, growing demand, and a lot of activity that we feel good about. I, you know, I would just say I feel very good about the OlympusMAX. You know, I think it's a, it's the right solution for the market.

Andrew Obin (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Well, congratulations. Thank you.

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Ross Sparenblek with William Blair.

Ross Sparenberg (Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, good evening, gentlemen.

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Hey, Ross.

Andrew Obin (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Hey, Ross.

Ross Sparenberg (Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, just sticking on the OlympusMAX, what can we read through from the new Rubin announcement? You know, the way that this market is heading, do you get a sense that this will be the predominant cooling tower going forward, or will this be a nice mix for water cooling as well?

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Yeah, I know. Thanks, Ross. You know, there was a little bit of when the Rubin announcement came out, it can run at lower water temperatures, and that caused some concern for do you need a chiller, you know, and there's some, there's some different variations and, you know, I can't really speak too much. I think there are some circumstances where you may need less chillers or not need chillers, but we're not aware of circumstances where the Rubin chip would reduce the need for external heat rejection, which is where we play. The Rubin chip really has no impact on us. I would say it's actually some positive impact in some of the architectures that we have seen.

The other thing, as a reminder, is as chips move towards the AI chips, like the Rubin chip, they generate a lot more heat, and that heat is linear. The more electricity, the more kilowatts, you're gonna need more cooling towers, and that cooling tower could either be a, a, an adiabatic, it could be a dry, or it could just be a normal, a normal Marley cooling tower. We are seeing, as we've talked about in the past, you know, the bulk of the data center market, I think, historically has been done with air-cooled chillers. We don't really participate in that market. That's, that's a, you know, the smaller, standalone rooftop units you'll often see.

As the heat loads get bigger, they're moving more and more towards water-cooled, chilling, free cooling, and these are opportunities that are very attractive for us. We, we like the direction. Basically, the more compute power, the more heat. It's very simple. You need more cooling towers. Yeah, we feel like we're well-positioned with some of the trends that we're seeing in the data center market.

Ross Sparenberg (Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah, that's very helpful, Gene. Maybe just thinking through the lead times, you know, if it takes a couple of years to build a data center, typically, these cooling towers are one of the last things to go, you know, into the field. If you're booking orders now, is there an expectation that that should just start to compound, and you start booking into 2027, potentially 2028, or just how should we kind of conceptualize that?

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Yeah, I think, you know, there's a set of hyperscalers, a couple of hyperscalers we work with, and they have different methodologies. Some will actually lock you up for, you know, four or five years, and you kind of have very clear, you know exactly what your future demand's gonna look like. I'd say, you know, we feel very good about the trajectory that we're seeing. There's others that more lay out what the plan is, although you don't have a PO in-house, they'll release the POs on a more quarterly basis, but they will vigorously validate that you have the capacity to meet their demand and that you can meet their growing demand at the appropriate levels of quality.

I would say you do get different levels of visibility across different customers, but what I would say.

... you know, we're growing a good amount in 26. We would expect nice growth into 27 and 28 with what we're seeing in front of us. There's a lot of activity, and we feel like we have a good set of solutions in order to meet that demand.

Jamie Cook (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Yeah, that sounds exciting. I'll pass it along. Thanks, guys.

Mark Carano (CFO)

Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Joe O'Dea with Wells Fargo.

Joe O'Dea (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Hi, good afternoon.

Mark Carano (CFO)

Hey, Joe.

Joe O'Dea (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Zero in your comment around the. Hey, can we just start on the capacity additions? Just wanted to confirm. I think you said when you're at full production, that would equate to roughly $700 million of revenue potential. Just wanted to confirm that, and then if you could touch on the timeline to reach full production, and how much you think those capacity adds will contribute to revenue growth in 2026.

Mark Carano (CFO)

Yeah, Joe, you're correct. That is what we said, 700. You know, it's gonna take some time to get to that full production level, particularly at our Madison facility. You know, both those projects, both, you know, the investments that we're making in the facility for TAMCO as well as Madison, they're gonna take some time to ramp up. You know, some of that's driven by equipment lead times, you know, as we get them up and running into their respective production processes. I think just so you're level set, you know, when you think about the TAMCO business, that facility will come online, you know, at the end of Q1, it will ramp through the year.

The Madison facility will come online the second half of the year. It will be assembly only. It really won't be in a production phase until 2027. I think big picture, if you, if you sort of step back and look at it, it will be sometime in 2028 before you'd see a sort of a full production capacity, you know, across these expansions. I'm just focused on those 2 expansions. We've also obviously been making incremental investments in a couple other facilities that we noted as well, but they're all part of that collective investment to meet the market, really around data centers and also customer air handling.

Joe O'Dea (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

That's helpful. On the D&M margin expansion in 2026, I think up 140 basis points at the midpoint. Can you just bridge that? I think last quarter you were talking about some initiatives that would require some investments, maybe some things around NPI and a couple other initiatives, potentially some cost adds, but clearly some pretty good margin expansion expected. You know, just bridging the path to that.

Mark Carano (CFO)

Happy to do that. When you think about that margin, I'd really kind of bucket it in two areas. You know, one is a function of the mix that we're gonna see next year across the business. Some of that's driven obviously by the project mix that we have and the margin profile of those that are forecasted for 2026. That's probably, you know, close to two-thirds of it. The balance, the other third or so, is really, you know, this continuation of this we call it this cost optimization initiatives that we have. You know, it's really about leveraging the capabilities of engineering, of R&D, of sourcing. We're looking at some rationalization of the footprint.

It's really a broad portfolio of things that we're doing across the segment as they work together, more in unison, really, to drive more efficiency out of the businesses. That's really the way we break it down.

Joe O'Dea (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

That's helpful. Thank you.

Mark Carano (CFO)

Great.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Jamie Cook with Truist Securities.

Jamie Cook (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hi, good evening, and nice quarter. I guess, just first, a flip question on HVAC, Mark, on the margins, I think you imply, you know, that the top line growth is fairly healthy and the organic growth implied is healthy. You know, I think margins at the midpoint are up, you know, about 25 basis points, which is less margin expansion than 20, than what you saw, I guess, this past quarter and this year. Just any commentary on that. Just my second question, just on the M&A pipeline, obviously, you guys have been, you know, very active in the market throughout 2026.

Just wondering how we should think about, you know, M&A, potential, you know, given the strength you've seen so far or the amount of M&A you've done so far. Thank you.

Mark Carano (CFO)

Yeah, sure. Jamie, I'll start on your question with respect to HVAC margins in the guide. You know, I think we suggested maybe in the last call, but we've sort of indicated that, you know, there'll be startup costs related to the bringing these plants online really in 2026. These are gonna be, you know, temporary in nature, but I would kind of gauge them as around 50 basis points of a temporary impact. I would expect, you know, as we ramp these facilities up, you know, to full capacity, you're gonna get operating leverage off of that. So we'll outstrip that initial cost. You know, with any plant, as you're getting it stood up, there's obviously costs that are required.

Jamie Cook (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you, Gene, on the end.

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Yeah, some questions on the M&A pipeline. I would say, you know, first of all, we're very pleased with the two transactions that we executed in Q1 that we talked about. We think these are great fits, very value accretive. You know, having said that, as Mark had shared in his prepared remarks, even with the pro forma leverage, we're about one time on net debt to EBITDA. Point being, we have a lot of capacity, and what I would say is there is a lot of activity. We, you know, I said in Q3, Q2, I was talking about the amount of activity, and we've seen this come to fruition. And it's in very similar spaces we've talked about before.

Engineered air movement and electric heat, these are the two acquisitions those are the areas we highlighted. Those are the areas that we closed these two transactions. We similarly see a lot of activity as well, also in engineered air movement and electric heat, as well as a number of the detection and measurement platforms. To your question, I would say the pipeline of opportunities is very full. It remains very full, and we feel like there's a good probability that there will be more opportunities for us to invest in growth this year.

Jamie Cook (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Amit Mehrotra with UBS.

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Good evening, Amit.

Operator (participant)

Amit, your line may be on mute.

Amit Mehrotra (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Sorry about that. Still learning how to ask questions on calls clearly. Hi, guys. Thanks for letting me ask a question. I had a question about, you know, non-data center end markets, you know, within HVAC and then also in D&M. There's a lot of anticipation right now that we're seeing some sort of cyclical or procyclicality, and I just wanna get a sense from you if you're seeing any of that in real time, if orders have perked up. I know you talked about mid-single-digit growth in D&M ex the $20 million, but any color outside of kind of just normal procyclicality, I think would be helpful.

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

This is Gene. Let's see, a couple comments I'll make here. You know, we have a list of where we're seeing growth and which markets are outputting a little slower, and I can kind of walk through some of these. If you look across HVAC, some of the areas that we're seeing some really nice strength, obviously, data centers, healthcare, power, heavy industrial, aftermarket, as well as institutional and higher ed. Some of the areas that I'd say that we see when we look at 26 are a little softer, would be battery, automotive, semiconductor, chemical, and I'd say commercial real estate, which is still active, but at a lower level. You put it all together, we actually see pretty solid growth, even outside of data centers.

What I would say also is when you look at the end of Q4 and the first, you know, seven weeks of bookings in this year, we've had a, I'd say, a nice start. You know, I'm not gonna predict the GDP of the, you know, the U.S., but we're seeing some positive signs here.

Amit Mehrotra (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay. That's very helpful. Thank you. Mark, maybe a question on overall earnings growth. Obviously, you're forecasting another very, very strong year of earnings growth, and then there's also kind of this layering in of capacity as we progress through the year. I just wonder if that kind of informs some cadence of earnings growth. If you could just give us a little bit of help or handholding around as we progress through the year, how the earnings growth kind of cadence evolves as that capacity comes online. Thank you.

Mark Carano (CFO)

Yeah, no problem there. I think, what I would say with respect to the gating, we kinda gave some color with respect to Q1 and the prepared remarks, but if you step back from that and sort of think about first half, second half gating, it should be similar to last year on a percentage basis with respect to, you know, revenue, segment income and EPS. I mean, the capacity expansions are gonna ramp incrementally, really each quarter. You're gonna see, as they come online, you know, throughout the year, you'll see the benefit of them, you know, as you get into the back half of the year.

Amit Mehrotra (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Is there anything around the backlog or orders, particularly in data centers, that, you know, is an elongation of your typical lead times? Because we're seeing this across the board in other companies, just the numbers are very, very strong, but begs the question of lead times and if these orders are actually getting a little bit longer dated.

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

You know, I think that with the large data center customers, you know, this is obviously mission-critical. They can't start a data center without cooling. They give you a lot more visibility, you know, than a local, you know, hospital or a local commercial building or a local airport. I'd say you have, you know what's coming earlier, but our lead times haven't really changed that much.

Mark Carano (CFO)

Yeah.

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

If you look at across our businesses, it's pretty similar to where they've been.

Amit Mehrotra (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Very good. Thank you for the help. Appreciate it.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Joseph Giordano with TD Cowen.

Joseph Giordano (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions.

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Hey.

Joseph Giordano (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

I appreciate the color on the, like, the warmer liquid and warmer liquid used for cooling, what that means. I'm curious what, like, a move to significantly higher voltages in the DCs would mean, where current goes down and much less copper and less heat required, like, per unit of compute. Like, as you move into these next-generation architectures, kind of, how does that have implications for you guys?

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Yeah, I mean, I think all of the chips that we have seen generate more heat. If you look at the kW going into the racks and the amount of electricity going into the data centers, I haven't seen anything where that's basically increasing. You know, at the point of which you're seeing these, you know, gigawatt data centers, just massive amounts of electricity, and the electricity correlates very well to heat, which correlates very well to the amount of data cooling you would need. Yeah, I mean, if there were to be an invention that significantly reduced electricity, that would reduce the need, the amount of cooling towers that you have. I'm not aware of any such invention.

Joseph Giordano (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Anything we should think about in terms of tariffs? I know this is only 24 hours for you, or whatever, for you guys to think that through. But what any of those changes mean for you guys and, you know, the volatility you're seeing in metal prices?

Mark Carano (CFO)

Yeah, I think, Joe, that's a great question, obviously, and timely, given the tariff dynamic is back here, you know, 12 months from the last time we were talking about this. You know, for us, I would say, you know, the tariffs, you know, during 2025 were really not a material impact to us. We were largely able to, you know, offset that impact, whether that be through price or sourcing or CI initiatives. It's something we're clearly going to, you know, keep our eye on and pay very close attention to for obvious reasons. Our model really is, you know, we're largely US, we're largely in country, for country on the sourcing front.

You know, when you think about our North American business, particularly the Canadian businesses, those are, you know, all covered under the USMCA. Something that we're going to keep our eye on, not something I'm overly concerned about as I sit today. You know, and metals prices, you know, we'll be watching those. You know, one of the dynamics with our business is, you know, everything that we sell, a large part of what we sell, I should say, on the HVAC side, is configured to order or engineered to order. You know, we're largely taking that order and pricing and manufacturing in real time, right?

We don't have kind of, real exposures, long lead time exposures for things like steel and aluminum, which, you know, where the largest metal exposure would be for us.

Joseph Giordano (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Thanks, guys.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Jeff Van Sinderen with B. Riley Securities.

Jeff Van Sinderen (Senior Research Analyst)

Hi, everyone. Just kind of getting back to the data center area. Maybe you could just share a little bit more in terms of what you're hearing from your customers, what they're asking for most, what's top of mind to them at this point, then really, how is that evolving?

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

You know, I would say at a high level, demand is increasing, and there's push for acceleration of demand with several of the hyperscalers that we deal with. I would say the demand that we see, both with our existing customers, but also with various bidding and new situations, and I would say it remains very robust.

Jeff Van Sinderen (Senior Research Analyst)

Okay, good. Just circling back to supply chain for a minute. Did you mention any areas that you think might be increasingly tight this year, that you anticipate for supply chain? Any area, any bottlenecks, potentially, or not really?

Mark Carano (CFO)

Yeah, Jeff, as I'm thinking across the supply chain that we have, I don't think there's anything that jumps out that, you know, where there's material concerns today back to the supply chain. I mean, you know.

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

You go through the process as you grow, and we have some of our products growing pretty dramatically. You have to go through a line item by line item, bill of materials review, to make sure you can scale up. Yeah, we've gone through that, and that's something that we always do to make sure we feel good, we can support the growth. I don't think we see any red flags as of today.

Mark Carano (CFO)

I think that's right.

Jeff Van Sinderen (Senior Research Analyst)

Okay, good to hear. If I could squeeze one more in, a completely different topic, but curious to know what trends you're seeing in drone detection and jamming for that business line, and then the outlook there?

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Yeah, I think that that business, our CommTech business, plays in a niche. It's a very effective product. You know, you look at the drone detection world, there's a lot of players out there. A lot of people are trying to do residential or trying to do stadiums. I've seen a lot of those kind of belly flop. You know, really, we're playing more on the military side, predominantly, and I think we have a very good solution there. You know, we have one primary competitor that we typically see, a German competitor that we know very well, we compete very effectively against. I would say there's a good amount of activity, but I don't see anything dramatically higher or lower.

I think it's pretty steady with what I see in front of us.

Jeff Van Sinderen (Senior Research Analyst)

Good to hear. Thanks for taking my questions.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Walter Liptak with Seaport Research.

Walter Liptak (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Hi. Thanks. Good evening, guys.

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Walt.

Walter Liptak (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

I'll ask one, too. Hi, on data center, the CapEx is going up quite a bit, and so I might as well ask about the timing of the cash out for the CapEx, and it's a fairly big range. You know, what, you know, what could be there for pluses and minuses, getting all that capital spending done this year?

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Yeah, Walt, I mean, it's, you know, the plan is to meet that CapEx guidance for the year. It's obviously important and relates to these plant expansions, stand-ups that we're in the process of doing. You know, I think, you know, if you were to see any of it shift, it would just be really related to timing of delivery of equipment. That would be something that we're watching very carefully. We've got a great team on it. They're very focused on it. Not something that I think we're concerned about today, but that's really what would impact the, you know, the CapEx that relates to the projects.

Walter Liptak (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay.

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

The plan expansions.

Walter Liptak (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay, great. Okay, I'm interested in thinking about the capacity that's going in. You mentioned that some of the hyperscalers are trying to lock down capacity. Is that what the CapEx is there to meet, or is within that $700 million run rate, is that kind of room to grow, kind of projecting out future demand levels?

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Yeah, I think.

Walter Liptak (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Another way, is there another round of CapEx that might happen after this? Is there like a phase 2 of this data center HVAC build-out?

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

I think, you know, Walt, I think it's, you know, what I would say is, it's nice to have, you know, a hyperscaler who wants increasing growth demand over the next couple of years. You know, with these expansions, you know, as Mark had alluded to, we think this is approximately $700 million, which would be about $550 million for data center, about $150 million more for the customer handling, predominantly in Ingénia. You know, I would say that this gives us some runway over the next couple of years. Where we sit today, we don't see an imminent need over the next couple of years of anything.

Having said that, you know, if all of a sudden there is an increasing acceleration, you know, we'll always look at what, you know. If there is an excessive growth in demand, you know, we'll always be careful to look at those opportunities. We feel very good about this expansion. We think this is gonna give us a lot of flexibility over the next several years.

Walter Liptak (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay, great. Okay, thank you.

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Bradley Hewitt with Wolfe Research.

Bradley Hewitt (Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the questions.

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Hey, Brad.

Amit Mehrotra (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Hey, Brad.

Bradley Hewitt (Equity Research Analyst)

It looks like you're guiding to about low double-digit organic growth in HVAC in 2026. You mentioned the 50% growth expected in data center, and then if we also adjust for the Ingénia revenue growth, it seems like the implied growth rate for the rest of the segment is around 3%. Just wanted to see if that's kind of in the right ballpark, and how you think about some of the puts and takes to growth in core HVAC, ex Ingénia and ex data center.

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Yeah, Brad, your math's directionally right. I would say kind of low single digits, growth in the, in the, you know, non-data center, non-air handling, customer handling parts of the business. Exactly.

Bradley Hewitt (Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Then on the DNM side, you're guiding the margins of 25% at the midpoint versus the invested 8 target of 22%-24%. Do you still think of that as an appropriate medium-term target, or should we think about 25% as a good baseline upon which you can then layer on normal incrementals over the next several years?

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

You know, I think it's a great question. You know, when I think I mentioned this in a question that was asked earlier today. You know, some of this margin improvement is, you know, related to mix, and some of it's related to some of these opportunities that we're pursuing to really, you know, drive the overall margin profile of DNM up. You know, those are structural in nature, so I expect them to be, you know, durable going forward. You know, if you kind of did the math around that would sort of pencil out to a margin, you know, right about at the top of our range that we guided to a couple years ago, so the 22%-24% segment income range.

You know, I think for now, you know, I don't think we're looking to change the overall target profile of the business, but something we'll certainly look at, you know, as we go through the year and into next year.

Bradley Hewitt (Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks, Mark.

Gene Lowe (President and CEO)

Got it.

Operator (participant)

That concludes today's question and answer session. I'd like to turn the call back to Mark Carano for closing remarks.

Mark Carano (CFO)

Thank you all for joining us for today's call. We look forward to updating you again next quarter.

Operator (participant)

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