Enpro Inc (NPO) 2025 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Greetings and welcome to the Enpro Q4 2025 earnings conference call and webcast. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. (Operator Instructions)

It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to your host, James Gentile, Vice President, Investor Relations for Enpro. Please go ahead, James.

Thanks, Kevin, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today as we review Enpro's fourth-quarter year 2025 earnings results and introduce our outlook for 2026. I will remind you that this conference call is being webcast at enpro.com, where you can find the presentation that accompanies this call. With me today is Eric Vaillancourt, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Joe Bruderek, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

During this morning's call, we will reference a number of non-GAAP financial measures. Tables reconciling these historical non-GAAP measures to the comparable GAAP measures are included in the appendix to the presentation materials. Also, a friendly reminder that we'll be making statements on this call, including our current perspectives for full-year 2026 guidance, that are not historical facts and that are considered forward-looking in nature. These statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, including those described in our filings with the SEC. We do not undertake any obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Eric Vaillancourt, our President and Chief Executive Officer. Eric.

Yeah, good morning. Since launching this next phase of our value-creating strategy last year, there's been tremendous pride, motivation, and focus throughout Enpro. The inherent balance and quality of our portfolio shined once again in 2025. Our teams have made considerable progress aligning the organization to our long-term strategic goals by leveraging our core capabilities and engineering expertise to expand new commercial opportunities while steadily finding ways to optimize our foundation.

We advanced our strategic goals in the first year of Enpro by growing organically at 7.6%: holding or expanding margins, despite increases in operating expenses supporting growth initiatives; deploying two-thirds of our capital expenditures towards growth and efficiency projects; allocating $280 million toward value-creating M&A with the acquisitions of AlpHa and Overlook; delivering total shareholder returns above premium peers; achieving and maintaining premium valuation reflective of a differentiated industrial technology franchise. And as a learning organization, each of our colleagues completed a minimum of 16 hours of training and personal development this year.

We have clear line of sight in areas of the business where we can accelerate the growth and profit performance and are excited to work on these value-creating levers again in 2026. Our growth priorities underpinning Enpro 3.0 strategy remain unchanged and will guide our performance from 2030.

Over the long term, we are posing to generate mid- to high single-digit organic top-line growth as strong profitability and return levels. We are targeting mid-single-digit organic growth in Sealing Technologies, while at AST, we are targeting at least high single-digit organic growth with both segments capable of generating 30% adjusted segment EBITDA margins plus or minus 250 basis points.

Now on to our full year 2025 performance. Enpro performed well in 2025 with sales up 9% to $1.14 billion, strength in aerospace, food and biopharma, firm domestic general industrial performance as well as improving performance in semiconductor markets were the primary drivers of the 7.6% increase in organic sales. Complementing our strong organic results for the partial quarter contributions from the acquisitions of AlpHa Measurement Solutions and Overlook Industries completed in the fourth quarter of 2025.

In addition to the AMI acquisition completed in late 2024, the AlpHa and Overlook teams are energized and are hitting the ground running, and we are deli with our performance since they joined our Enpro family. We continue to be pleased with this best-in-class performance for our Sealing Technology segment. as well, I'm encouraged by AST steady performance on the choppiness we experienced in semiconductor capital equipment spending over the last few years. In all, we have been able to maintain premium profitability, free cash flow and solid returns on invested capital, despite the persistent weakness we experienced in areas of semiconductor and commercial vehicle OEM demand through 2025, while continuing to invest to support growth programs at AST and throughout the organization.

In Sealing Technologies, disciplined execution and efficient operations drove an adjusted segment EBITDA margin of over 32% for the second year in a row. Our teams are positioning the businesses to drive above-market growth by leveraging our applied engineering capabilities, durable aftermarket characteristics and specification positions to deliver important solutions to our customers in areas where we have clear technology and process advantages.

In addition, our pipeline of strategic acquisitions that can expand our capabilities in key growth areas throughout the segment remains robust, possessing premium characteristics that can enhance the growth profile of the segment over time. We will continue to be disciplined in pursuing these opportunities at the time and at the right value for our business.

At AST, revenue increased nearly 14%, with strength in solutions serving leading edge applications and pockets of recovery and semiconductor capital equipment demand. We continue to proactively invest capital and operating resources throughout 2025 in preparation for new platforms in anticipation of a recovery in semiconductor capital equipment spending. We are encouraged by the recent improved order flow in AST that will begin to be realized in the second half of 2026.

We remain well positioned to participate in a stronger semiconductor market in coming periods, while also seeking 80/20 improvements and cost realignment opportunities to drive incremental improvement in segment profitability over time. Thanks to the inherent balance and quality of Enpro portfolio, and the resilience of our business model, 2025 marked another year of robust free cash flow generation.

Our cash flows allow us to maintain our strong balance sheet with a net leverage ratio of two times after taking into account the recently completed acquisitions of AlpHa and Overlook purchased for $280 million in aggregate. Looking ahead to 2026 and beyond, we have ample financial flexibility to execute on our growth and optimization objectives and deliver premium results for our stakeholders.

Under our Enpro 3.0 strategy, we are positioned to accelerate profitable growth through 2030. We are making considerable progress on our key growth priorities, and we'll continue to pursue select strategic acquisitions that fits our strategic characteristics of an Enpro business, drive incremental long-term growth and add complementary talent, technology and process expertise that expands Enpro's ability to answer critical needs of our customers. The foundation of this strategy is designed to extend our track record of strong shareholder returns and enterprise value growth while creating opportunities for our colleagues to develop and thrive.

We have the right positioning and discipline to deliver on these targets, especially as we reinvest in growth nodes across the portfolio and drive continuous improvement to maintain and opportunistically improve profitability. At the same time, with our dual bottom line culture as a cornerstone, we encourage each of our nearly 4,000 colleagues to accelerate their personal professional growth again in 2026. Our colleagues have made commitments to themselves and their teams to work on leadership and communication skills, financial acumen, psychological safety and awareness. Our team is pleased to continue on path to value creation as we empower technology and purpose. Joe.

Thank you, Eric, and good morning, everyone. Turning to our results for the quarter, Enpro performed well in the fourth quarter, reflecting momentum across the portfolio and continued progress executing our Enpro 3.0 strategy. In the fourth quarter, sales increased 14.3% to $295.4 million. We saw strong sales performance in aerospace and food and biopharma within Sealing Technologies, as well as improvement in overall AST sales led by continued strength in precision cleaning solutions supporting leading-edge semiconductor production.

In addition, strategic pricing initiatives, the partial quarter contributions from AlpHa and Overlook and firm domestic general industrial performance helped offset slow commercial vehicle OEM sales and slow industrial sales internationally. Organic sales increased approximately 10%. Fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA of $69.4 million was up 19.2% and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 23.5% was up 100 basis points. Continued robust performance in the Sealing Technologies segment and the partial quarter contribution from the acquisitions completed during the quarter, were partially offset by increased operating expenses ahead of growth programs largely in AST.

Corporate expenses of $14.2 million were up $800,000 from a year ago, primarily due to increased medical costs. Adjusted diluted earnings per share of $1.99 increased nearly 27% compared to the prior year period. largely driven by the factors increasing adjusted EBITDA and lower interest expense tied to lower net borrowings.

Moving to a discussion of segment performance, Sealing Technologies sales of $187.1 million in the fourth quarter increased almost 15% versus last year. Healthy demand in aerospace and food and biopharma markets, strategic pricing actions, firm domestic general industrial sales and the partial quarter contribution from acquisitions completed during the fourth quarter offset continued weakness in commercial vehicle OEM demand and slow industrial markets internationally. Nuclear sales remained temporarily choppy during the quarter in Europe as well. Organic sales were up nearly 8% year over year.

For the fourth quarter, adjusted segment EBITDA increased more than 21% with adjusted segment EBITDA margin expanding 180 basis points to 32.8%. Strategic pricing, improved volume and the additions of AlpHa and Overlook as well as firm aftermarket demand in the commercial vehicle market also contributed to the consistent year-over-year profit performance. We expect best-in-class performance in Sealing Technologies to continue. 65% of the segment sales are tied to critical positions in the aftermarket, offering the segment stability during periods of uncertainty.

In addition, we continue to earn new business by leveraging segment's technological expertise, process know-how and applied engineering capabilities to drive above-market organic revenue growth and to help our customers safeguard their critical environments. Overall, Sealing Technologies is well positioned to drive mid-single-digit top line growth organically with strong profitability during Enpro 3.0.

Turning to Advanced Surface Technologies, in the fourth quarter, sales increased 13.4% to $108.4 million. We saw continued strength in precision cleaning solutions tied to leading-edge applications, along with pockets of strength and precision components supporting semiconductor capital equipment and growth in optical coatings. Adjusted segment EBITDA increased approximately 3% versus last year. Adjusted segment EBITDA margin remained above 20%. We continue to invest in certain areas of the segment to support strength we are seeing in the leading edge.

Increased expenses supporting growth programs which totaled approximately $2 million in the fourth quarter and more than $8 million for the full year, continued ahead of revenue. Last quarter, we discussed a number of factors that will drive our near-term performance in AST, where we expect lower sales growth year over year in the first half, followed by improved performance in the second half, as Eric noted, evidenced by current order patterns. Also as a reminder, we shipped $12 million of safety stock inventory in 2025 to support customer supply chain transitions, which we'd not expect to recur in 2026.

On the cost side, we continue to make progress on optimization plans in AST and remain committed to expanding AST margins through appropriate operating leverage on sales growth. especially as we begin to realize the benefits of investments in operational resources supporting growth programs in coming quarters. We are well positioned to support our customers during the upcoming ramp and remain focused on delivering AST profitability towards 30% of sales, plus or minus 250 basis points on high single-digit, low double-digit revenue growth within the Enpro 3.0 planning horizon.

Turning to the balance sheet and cash flow. Our balance sheet remains strong, and we exited 2025 with a net leverage ratio of 2x inclusive of the $280 million in cash used to acquire AlpHa Measurement Solutions and overlook industries during the fourth quarter. We continue to generate ample free cash flow to invest the necessary capital and operating expenses into our strategic organic growth opportunities. In 2025, we generated more than $150 million in free cash flow net of $48 million of property, plant and equipment and capitalized software expenditures in 2025. This was up 18% from the $130 million in 2024 and net of $33 million of capital expenditures.

During the fourth quarter, we substantially completed and settled the termination of Enpro's US defined benefit pension plan. As a result of this transaction, Enpro incurred a noncash settlement loss of $67.2 million, which was recorded to other nonoperating expense primarily associated with recognition of life-to-date actuarial losses attributed to the plan previously deferred and accumulated other comprehensive income.

During this planned settlement process, existing plan assets more than fully satisfy the cash settlement obligations. Overall, we maintain ample financial flexibility to execute our strategic initiatives both organically and through strategic acquisitions that broaden our capabilities. Earlier last year, we expanded our revolving credit facility to $800 million from $400 million previously and currently have more than $580 million of available capacity. We are also maintaining our commitment to return capital to shareholders and during 2025, we paid a $0.31 per share quarterly dividend, totaling $26.2 million for the year.

On February 13, our Board of Directors approved another increase to the quarterly dividend to $0.32 per share, representing the 11th consecutive annual increase since we initiated a quarterly dividend in 2015.

Moving now to our 2026 guidance. Taking into consideration all the factors that we know currently, we expect total Enpro sales growth to be in the range of 8% to 12% in 2026, including the contribution of approximately $60 million from the acquisitions of AlpHa and Overlook completed in the fourth quarter of 2025. We expect adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $305 million to $320 million including $16 million to $17 million contributed from the recent acquisitions. Adjusted diluted earnings per share is expected to be in the range of $8.50 to $9.20.

The normalized tax rate used to calculate adjusted diluted earnings per share remains at 25% and fully diluted shares outstanding are approximately $21.3 million. Capital expenditures in 2026 are expected to be approximately $50 million or around 4% of sales as we continue to invest in growth opportunities across the company at accretive margin and return thresholds.

In the Sealing Technologies segment, we expect revenue growth, including the contributions from the fourth quarter acquisitions of AlpHa and Overlook to approach 15% in 2026, with mid-single-digit organic growth for the year. We see continued strength in aerospace and food and biopharma markets and steady domestic general industrial demand drivers. We expect our commercial excellence programs, new growth programs leveraging differentiated capabilities and focus on solving critical problems for our customers to drive above-market growth this year.

While we do not expect a significant recovery in commercial vehicle OEM demand to occur in 2026, aftermarket drivers in that market remain firm. We expect strong operational performance to continue in Sealing Technologies, with adjusted segment EBITDA margin to again exceed 30% this year. In the Advanced Service Technologies segment, we are seeing clear signs of a robust recovery in semiconductor capital equipment spending as capacity for leading-edge applications gains momentum.

Today, we expect AST sales to grow high single digits, inclusive of the previously mentioned $12 million of equipment sales that we do not expect to recur this year, with the second half of 2026 being stronger than the first half. Precision Cleaning Solutions is expected to perform well throughout the year. as fab utilization and expansion of capacity for leading-edge applications accelerates.

On the equipment side, we expect growth to accelerate as we move through the year. predominantly driven by a second half improvement, multiple industry sources are predicting will occur and supported by our recent order patterns. We also expect demand for optical coatings to grow, as demand signals improve in semiconductor and communications infrastructure markets. We expect to see adjusted segment EBITDA margin expansion in AST in 2026, with margins increasing throughout the year. We expect AST's second half profitability to be materially better than current run rates as demand improves and we begin to leverage our recent growth investments.

Thank you for your time today, and I will now turn the call back to Eric for closing comments.

Thanks, Joe. I got so excited to talk about our results in the future. I jumped over our world-class safety performance. So I want to take a minute to recognize our teams across the company for their excellent safety performance in 2025. Safety is our first core value at Enpro and we begin every meeting with our safety pledge.

striving to achieve an injury-free and psychologically safe workplace. Every day, we look after each other and we make sure we return home safely to our loved ones. In 2025, we recorded our best safety statistics ever with a total recordable incident rate of 0.64 and a lost time case rate of 209%.

Our world-class safety results reflect the day-to-day commitment of our active and engaged environmental health and safety communities of practice, we steadfast leadership and development of strong repeatable processes enable us to achieve these terrific outcomes. I'd like to celebrate these milestones as we continue to strive towards an injury-free workplace. Our value-creating strategy remains unchanged, and we are energized to deliver another year of strong performance and execution for our customers and shareholders in 2026. We continue to invest in areas where we are strongest, while pursuing strategic acquisitions to build upon our leading edge capabilities at attractive growth and margin levels.

I want to again recognize our dedicated colleagues across the company or the driving force beyond our success. Thanks to their contributions, we have a clear path to achieve our vision for Enpro 3.0. Thank you for joining us today. Life is good as Enpro and our best days are ahead. We now welcome your questions.

(Operator Instructions) Jeff Hammond, KeyBanc.

You hit a lot of bull's eyes in that Enpro 3.0. Maybe just starting on AST, a little more color on how you're thinking about first half, second half kind of margins. I think you mentioned margins being substantially higher in the second half. So just flush that out a little bit more? And then just expand on the order activity you talked about and where you're seeing it and just how broad-based?

Yes. Sure, Jeff. I'll talk about the cadence first half, second half and a little bit about our margin expectations and then turn it over to Eric to talk about kind of current order demand and part of what we're seeing with our customers. So as we've been talking about, there's clear signs that the second half is going to be considerably stronger than the first half. I think you've seen that in a lot of expectations for market conditions across the semiconductor capital equipment guys. We're no exception. We're going to see moderate growth in the first half.

I would think low to mid-single digits, something like $100 million-ish sales for the first quarter, and margins similar to what we've experienced over the last couple of quarters. Things will accelerate through the year, and we expect some recovery starting in the second quarter, and then materially into the third and fourth quarter. So there's no doubt we're going to be on significant -- significantly higher growth rates as we move through the year, and we expect the second half to be stronger. At the same time, some of our key growth programs that we've been investing behind are set to start to materially contribute in the second half as well. So that's what we talked about margins in the second half being considerably stronger than the current run rate.

Yes, Jeff, we're seeing our order patterns continue to accelerate. So our order booking is getting stronger and stronger as the year goes on. In addition, we're having some customers that are starting to get more -- let's say, get more excited replacing orders and their order patterns increasing differently than it has been in the past. And so we're seeing the return to kind of what used to be in some cases. So we're more excited about the second half of this year.

We also have two new platforms coming online, some of our growth investments that will start to get some legs probably in the late second half of this year.

Okay. Great. And then just on seeing a lot of discussion about short-cycle trends, PMI kind of bumping above 50. Just wondering what you're hearing from customers around that inflection domestically and just -- maybe a little more on how long you think this nuclear choppiness lasts.

Nuclear choppiness, I think, is going to last for a little bit, although we did have a little better order rate right now. but I expect that the second half would be choppy. But in general, our industrial business throughout Enpro is very, very strong. There hasn't been any let up. We're not seeing any reduction in orders or anything that would indicate that it's slowing at this point, still very strong and still our book-to-bill is higher than 100%. So still strong right now.

And I'd say, overall, we're seeing clear continued strength in space and aerospace, food and biopharma being strong. Industrial being just firm, as Eric mentioned, right, good order demand, customers feeling relatively confident and stable as we move into 2026. The areas where we're clearly seeing some offset to that is commercial vehicle OEM, which is expected to be flat to slightly down. And on top of that, we continue to win many different applications. We're seeing strong earned growth across new platforms in space, aerospace, food and biopharma, even in some of our traditional general industrial markets.

So if you blend all that together from a market perspective, the market is probably low single to low mid single-digit growth and where we expect our Sealing Technologies segment to outperform that and grow at least in mid-single digits this year.

Even the commercial vehicle segment being down, it was down so much before 25%, 26%, whatever it was being projected to be down another 9%. It's still not that many units. So I expect that business to recover as the year goes on.

Steven Ferazani, Sidoti & Company.

Appreciate all the detail on the call. Just wanted to walk through how things played out the last couple of months of the year versus your November guide, looks like revenue ended up running a little ahead of the guide, particularly on Sealing on organic growth, but margins may be a little bit softer. Can you walk through what you saw both on top line and on margins. It looks like either AST costs, you are continuing to make those ads in the last couple of months or perhaps it was on slightly higher corporate expense. Could you just walk through the revenue versus the margins the last couple of months of the year?

Yes. Thanks, Steve. Yes, I think things finished up pretty much as we expected through the end of the year. The sales were at the higher end of our range, but in -- relatively in line, margin was clearly right in the bull's eye of what we expected from an EBITDA perspective. We did, as you mentioned, see a little bit higher corporate expenses as we move through the year, really two drivers.

Medical costs continued to increase and we saw a spike in just claims and overall medical expenses. And again, with our strong performance this year, we did have a little bit of higher short-term incentive costs associated with that forming, especially on our eCFRI metric, which is really driven by really good working capital management and strong free cash flow as we ended the year. So in general, I think fourth quarter, pretty strong and as expected.

Okay. As far as the 2026 guide and how that will turn into cash conversion. Given the higher CapEx expected second straight year, it's going to go up a bit. But when I look at 2026, your free cash flow basically around 100% of adjusted EPS, do you expect, even with the higher CapEx next year, but still in line given the top-line growth? Do you expect cash conversion to remain somewhat around 100%,? And then, how you would use that cash given your balance sheet remains in great shape even after the couple of M&A activity in 4Q?

Yeah. The short answer, Steve, is yes. We expect strong free cash flow conversion as a percent of adjusted net income. The one thing we will see a little bit higher interest expense in 2026 as we included in our EPS guidance because we had periods of 2025, where we really had no draw on our revolver. And with the late-year acquisitions, right, we expect to be materially drawn on the revolver for the most of this year. So that will require a little bit higher interest expense.

But our balance sheet is in really good shape, right? At two times strong free cash flow expected again this year. We're well positioned to continue to allocate $250 million to $300 million or more, if needed, for strategic M&A.

Our pipeline is -- continues to be strong. We have multiple targets that we've been working for a number of periods that meet our financial and strategic criteria, and it's just an element of the timing and availability of those assets. We are getting a lot of early looks, which is a good sign, right? We're having discussions with a number of assets that haven't even gone to market yet, cultivating those relationships and being ready for when they're actionable.

So we feel really good about our balance sheet. As you mentioned, we're stepping up for the last couple of years into our CapEx investments. The majority of that, two-thirds or more, going to growth investments, both in AST and in Sealing. And that's probably the right appropriate level for us to continue compounding growth as we move forward.

If I could just add one on -- in response to your answer, M&A focus, has that shifted at all what you're looking at?

No. We continue to look very aggressive looking. We probably look at an asset once or twice a week, but we're very, very disciplined about what we approach, and it will be both strategic and appropriate in terms of value we pay.

And again, Steve, we feel really good about the pipeline. We have a number of growth nodes where we have good, strong organic positions, and we're looking to add additional capabilities in technology in some of those spaces to continue to round our portfolio, have good growth characteristics and strategically allow us to continue to grow in those markets like compositional analysis that we talked about on the last call and food and biopharma right in the wheelhouse of what we did with overlook and AlpHa and more assets like that in AMI where we're focused.

(Operator Instructions) Ian Zaffino, Oppenheimer.

This is Isaac Sellhausen on for Ian. I just had one on AST kind of the margin expectations and ramp through the year. Should we expect any higher OpEx associated with the qualification work in 2025? And should that continue this year? Or any additional color you can provide on the ramp through the year?

Isaac, I think materially, we're at the run rate for those additional operating expenses, right? We've been at that for a number of quarters where we have a number of qualifications and additional growth opportunities kind of layering on top of each other.

We talked about that last call, and we're at the run rate of about $2 million a quarter right now of operating expenses ahead of demand. And with all of those, we're kind of at the point now where we're progressing well, and we'll start to see revenue come in and leverage against those costs really throughout 2026, right? We always have growth programs going on.

We always have investments ahead of revenue. We just have a lot of them going on at the same time in multiple places, both for additional growth opportunities geographically, customer expansions, platform expansions.

So we don't expect any incremental spending on those specific programs in the near term. We're just kind of at that similar run rate and then as those programs deliver revenue as we move through 2026, they'll leverage against that. And that's why we said we're confident that the second half, not just because of demand improving, from general capital equipment spending increase, but also from those growth programs, delivering revenue and leveraging against those expenses, we'll see some margin expansion as we move through the year and more predominantly in the second half.

Okay. Understood. And then just as a quick follow-up on Sealings with the addition of AlpHa and Overlook this year, if you could just touch on how you anticipate those businesses perform maybe compared to the mid-single-digit growth rate that you gave for the segment.

The businesses both have very good backlogs and very good order rates. And so they're -- right now, they're exceeding our expectations and it's really full speed head. No concerns and integration has been very seamless at this point.

Ian, both of those businesses, the inherent market drivers and strong secular growth characteristics should grow at least high single digits combined, as we move forward. So we expect them to be accretive from a growth rate perspective over time and in the short term to the Sealing Technologies segment.

We reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over to James for any further closing comments.

Thank you for your interest today. We look forward to updating you in May when we report Q1, and we're available to answer any questions that you may have as you review our results. Thank you again for your interest.

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