Teledyne Technologies reports record quarterly sales and free cash flow, raising full year guidance despite potential government shutdown impacts.

OPERATOR - (00:01:18)

Welcome to Teledyne's third quarter earnings call. Here's our first speaker, Mr. Jason Van Wiese.

Jason Van Wiese - Vice Chairman - (00:01:22)

Thank you, and good morning everyone. This is Jason Van Wiese, Vice Chairman and I'd like to welcome everyone to Teledyne's third quarter 2025 earnings release conference call. We released our earnings earlier this morning before the market opened. Joining me today are Teledyne's Executive Chairman Robert Moravian, President and CEO George Bob, EVP and CFO Steve Blackwood and Melanie Sibek, EVP General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer and Secretary. After remarks by Robert, George and Steve, we'll ask for your questions, but of course, before we get started, attorneys have reminded me to tell you that all forward looking statements made this morning are subject to various assumptions, risks and caveats as noted in the earnings release and our periodic SEC filings. And of course actual results may differ materially. In order to avoid potential selective disclosures. This call is simultaneously being webcast and a replay via webcast and Internet Live Network (ILN) will be available for approximately one month.

Robert Moravian - Executive Chairman - (00:02:21)

Here is Robert Good morning everyone and welcome to our conference call. First, I must say I'm very pleased to announce that we had record all time record quarterly sales, non GAAP earnings per share and free cash flow sales increased 6.7% from last year, non GAAP earnings increased 9.2% and free cash flow was a record $314 million. Furthermore, total company new orders were also a quarterly record due in part to continued backlog growth at Teledyne flir. Given our strong third quarter performance, recovering commercial short cycle businesses and also robust backlog growth, we're raising our full year earnings outlook at both the bottom and the top of the forecasted range. Likewise, last quarter we expected 2025 to full year sales to be about 6.03 billion, but now we believe we may achieve sales of 6.06 billion. Our defense related businesses, including our new acquisitions, are performing extremely well and we continue to pursue a number of significant contract opportunities not yet formally awarded or reflected in our backlog. However, given the current US Government shutdown, we measured on expectations for new contract awards or acceptance of allowance of shipments that we need export licenses for, and of course cash collections from the government will be somewhat delayed. The prior shutdown in December 2018 and early 2019 lasted about 35 days. I believe today we're in the 22nd or 23rd day. At that time between 2018 and 19, we didn't really experience any significant impact from the shutdown and we similarly don't expect to have much impact except if the shutdown were to stretch for months and God forbid to the end of the year, it may affect about if it goes that long, it may affect about 25% of our sales somewhat which are related to the government, but any temporary impact to commercial sales for which we may be dependent on US Government exports may be somewhat affected. Overall, I do not think this is going to affect Teledyne significantly. Also, you may have noted that China has designated Teledyne Teledyne FLIR LLC as an unreliable entity. While customers in China represent only 4% of our sales, in 202425 such sales by Teledyne Flir LLC were less than 0.4%, so we don't expect much effect from there. Actually, Teledyne Brownie Engineering was added to the same list in December of 2024, but its sales to customers in China are zero. Finally, I must note, despite spending $770 million in cash year to date on acquisitions, our current balance sheet is the strongest since prior to the flira acquisition in 2021. We also expect to close a small transponder tech carbon from SAAB very soon, having recently received approval from the Government of Sweden, and furthermore, we continue to pursue a number of other acquisition activities. George will now briefly comment on the performance of our business segments.

George Bob - President and CEO - (00:07:09)

Thank you Robert in the Digital Imaging segment, third quarter sales increased 2.2%. Teledyne FLIR sales continued to grow, but this was also the first quarter in two years in which sales from our legacy Dalsa E2V businesses collectively increased modestly. For example, sales of our sensors and cameras for industrial and scientific vision systems increased year over year and accelerated for the second quarter in a row. However, this was partially offset by ongoing weakness in sales of X ray detectors, especially for the more consumer discretionary dental market. Both the overall Teledyne FLIR defense and industrial businesses increased, with sales of unmanned systems, counter-unmanned air systems and infrared components and subsystems being the strongest performers. Third quarter digital imaging book to Bill was 1.12 times and as Robert mentioned, we continue to pursue a number of opportunities not yet awarded. These include, for example, Unmanned Aerial Systems opportunities such as a full rate production order for our Rogue One loitering munition under the Marine Corps Organic Precision Fires Light or OPFL program, as well as a potential new award under the US Army's Low Altitude Stalking and Strike Ordinance or Lasso program for which we are competing. There also remain several unawarded contracts, both domestic and International for FLIR's airborne land and maritime surveillance systems. Non GAAP operating margin decreased 92 basis points primarily due to greater cost reduction expenses which we did not exclude from non GAAP margins, as well as 90 basis points of increased R and D expense. In the instrumentation segment which consists of our marine, environmental and test and measurement businesses, third quarter total sales increased 3.9% versus last year. Overall sales of marine instruments increased 3.2% due to strong sales of interconnects used in offshore energy production and for US Virginia and Columbia class submarines. However, these were partially offset by difficult comparisons in offshore energy exploration and some reduced sales of products for hydrography and oceanographic research. Sales of environmental instruments increased nicely at 7.5%. This primarily resulted from higher sales for process, gas, safety and ambient air and emissions monitoring instrumentation due in part to demand for new natural gas fired power plants and other energy infrastructure. Sales of electronic test and measurement systems which include oscilloscopes, protocol analyzers and Ethernet traffic generators increased modestly both sequentially and year over year. In particular, sales of high bandwidth oscilloscopes used by customers developing or testing high speed networking devices increased nicely but were partially offset by sales to customers in the automotive and consumer electronics markets. Instrumentation operating margin in the third quarter decreased slightly on a tough comparison. However, we continue to expect a slight increase for full year 2025 in the Aerospace and Defense Electronics segment, third quarter sales increased 37.6% primarily driven by acquisitions and organic growth of defense electronics products. Commercial aerospace aftermarket sales increased and OEM orders for 2026 deliveries were strong in the quarter, but OEM related shipments declined from last year. Given some continuing customer destocking. Overall segment operating profit increased year over year, but GAAP and non GAAP segment margins decreased slightly year over year due to comparatively lower current margins at recently acquired businesses. Nevertheless, overall margin increased sequentially for the second consecutive quarter since closing the acquisitions. For the Engineered Systems segment, third quarter revenue decreased 8.1% given an especially tough comparison with last year. However, despite the lower revenue and also a tough comparison, operating margin increased 30 basis points from last year. I will now pass the call back to Robert.

Robert Moravian - Executive Chairman - (00:11:28)

Thank you, thank you, George. Let me just conclude by saying there are always going to be near term challenges to overcome and we have a strong history of doing that. We have a portfolio that varies from market to market and no one market in our portfolio goes down at once at the same time. No one market goes up all at once. Nevertheless, our strong portfolio always protects us from market turbulence. The government shutdown, of course, is a problem for everybody and there is some market volatility that we're dealing with, but we're resilient, we're well positioned and we have a number of very strong growing markets with tangible critical products and solutions. As George mentioned, for example, in our unmanned air and subsea system, as well as our space based electronics and imaging sensors for both the US Government and our NATO allies, we're very strongly positioned. The ongoing need for new energy resources and new or renewed power generation are positively impacting our instrumentation businesses and the development and inspection of advanced semiconductors utilize our electronic test and measurement instrumentation and our digital imaging solution. Finally, regarding M and A activities, while we have a very strong balance sheet and we have, as I mentioned before, we have about a billion dollars in free cash flow. We're going to be aggressive, but we're also going to be prudent not to overpay for things that are trading much higher than our own multiple. Let me just conclude with one remark. First, I want to congratulate George Bob for being added to our board last night. But I also want to note that I plan to be the Executive Chairman of the company for at least another three years. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Steve.

Steve Blackwood - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer - (00:14:11)

Thank you, Robert, and good morning. I will first discuss some additional financials for the quarter not covered by Robert, and then I will discuss our fourth quarter and full year 2025 outlook. In the third quarter, cash flow from operating activities was $343.1 million compared with $249.8 million in 2024. Free cash flow, I.e. cash flow from operating activities less capital expenditures, was $313.9 million in the third quarter of 2025, a record for Teledyne, compared with $228.7 million in 2024. Cash flow increased year over year in the third quarter, primarily due to favorable accounts receivable collections in the third quarter of 2025 compared with 2024. Capital expenditures were $29.2 million in the third quarter of 2025 compared With $21.1 million in 2024. Depreciation and amortization expense was $84.5 million in the third quarter of 2025, compared with 76.9 million in 2024. We ended the quarter with $2.0 billion of net debt, that is approximately $2.53 billion of debt minus cash of $528.6 million. Now turning to our outlook, Management currently believes that GAAP earnings per share in the fourth quarter of 2025 will be in the range of $4.76 to $4.98 per share with non GAAP earnings per share in the range of $5.73 to $5.88. And for the full year 2025, we believe that GAAP earnings per share will be in the range of $17.83 to $18.05 and non GAAP earnings per share in the range of $21.45 to $21.60. I'll now pass the call back to Robert.

Robert Moravian - Executive Chairman - (00:16:14)

Thank you, Steve. We'd like now to take your questions. Operator. If you're ready to proceed with the question and answers, please go ahead.

OPERATOR - (00:16:25)

Thank you. At this time, if you'd like to ask a question, please press Star one from your telephone keypad and a confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you'd like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up the handset before pressing the star keys. Thank you. And our first question is from the line of Andrew Buscaglia with BNP Paribas. Please proceed with your questions.

Andrew Buscaglia - Equity Analyst - (00:16:53)

Hey, good morning, everyone.

Robert Moravian - Executive Chairman - (00:16:55)

Good morning, Andrew.

Andrew Buscaglia - Equity Analyst - (00:16:58)

So, you know, last quarter there was some uncertainty around some of the strong growth you saw and whether that was pull forward or not. And it seems, you know, can you. Maybe run through the several segments where and talk about how that turned out? In some areas it seems like it didn't. Some, some areas it didn't seem like growth really resumed that strong. But from your perspective, how did, how did things progress?

Robert Moravian - Executive Chairman - (00:17:25)

Well, I think overall, you know, with acquisitions, we had 6.7% growth across our portfolio. I think what we're looking at is various businesses did differently. As you mentioned, for example, our marine businesses continue to grow very strongly and we're winning contracts both in the defense domain, which is our underwater vehicles as an example, as well as in energy development in some of our instruments. There's a variation between various instrument businesses. In our gas and flame businesses for safety, we're doing very well. While we see a little softness, for example, in our water and products that we that are used in drug development, overall, I'd say we also did have some pullings into Q2, maybe a little more in test and measurement than other areas. But going back to some of the other things that Robert mentioned before, FLIR's growth was 3% organic. We also had stronger growth in some of our commercial FLIR businesses. And our unmanned systems, which are both air, ground and systems, grew 10%. So there's variation in our portfolio. And I going back, Andrew, to what I said before, we have a fairly diverse portfolio. Some things go up, some things go down, but overall the truck is moving forward and it's moving forward handsomely based on what I see.

Andrew Buscaglia - Equity Analyst - (00:19:42)

Yeah. Okay. And what about specifically in digital imaging, you made the comment industrial automation or imaging equipment for that market. Presumably that's machine vision starting to pick up. So maybe is that one area that grew last quarter nicely, but seems like sustained growth from here?

Robert Moravian - Executive Chairman - (00:20:04)

Well, I'll answer part of it. Maybe George would want to add something to that. I think overall the industrial and scientific vision Systems grew about 3.4%, which to us is very attractive overall. Dalsa E2V, which is the rest of the digital imaging other than flir, was relatively flat both quarter over quarter. And we expect year over year. But George has really taken some very strong action to take cost out of the part of that business that has slowed down over the last two years. And as a consequence, he and I believe that what will happen is that the margins now will start improving going forward and that business will pick up because we've skinnied it down to where it should be much more healthy. George, you want to add anything?

George Bob - President and CEO - (00:21:11)

I think the only thing I would add is in the industrial side, we saw sales increases year over year. Both the machine vision cameras business where we're doing applications like semiconductor mask and wafer inspection, inspection of electronic components. And we also saw an increase year over year in our machine vision sensors business where we make sensors for other OEMs.

Andrew Buscaglia - Equity Analyst - (00:21:31)

Got it. Thank you, guys.

OPERATOR - (00:21:35)

The next question is from the line of Greg Conrad with Jefferies. Please proceed with your questions.

Greg Conrad - Equity Analyst - (00:21:40)

Good morning.

Robert Moravian - Executive Chairman - (00:21:42)

Morning.

Greg Conrad - Equity Analyst - (00:21:42)

Greg, maybe just putting a finer point on digital imaging margins. I mean, you called out some of the headwinds in the quarter between R and D and the restructuring, but I think in the past you had talked about a 24% target. How do you think about the margin recovery into Q4 and maybe into next year for digital imaging?

Robert Moravian - Executive Chairman - (00:22:07)

I think the margins between 23 and 24, at least in Q4, are obtainable, achievable. I think what will happen is that for the year when you add the first two-thirds and then Q4 for the year, we should be flat with last year, even though we took a significant amount of cost out in the first three quarters, including Q3 that we just concluded. So with all of that said, if we can maintain the same margins as last year with all the cost out, then going ahead, I think 24 is achievable.

Greg Conrad - Equity Analyst - (00:22:57)

And then maybe just to put a finer point on the revenue. So you raised the full year outlook by 0.5% to 6.06. Is that all organic? And then it looks like Maybe there's a $20 million step up sequentially in Q4. Can you maybe talk about seasonality into the final quarter of the year and maybe which segments you expect to see a step up versus maybe where there's a step down tied to just typical seasonality?

Robert Moravian - Executive Chairman - (00:23:27)

Well, first let me start with digital imaging. 10 million of the 30 comes from FLIR. We expect higher revenue in that area. 10 million of it comes from aerospace and defense organic. And then another 10 comes from our acquisition from Q Optic. So it's a $30 million increase. Not a big number. But there's also a little conservatism built into that, of course.

Greg Conrad - Equity Analyst - (00:24:09)

Thank you.

Robert Moravian - Executive Chairman - (00:24:11)

Thank you, Greg.

OPERATOR - (00:24:13)

Our next question is from the line of Jim Rashuti with Ninham company. Please proceed with your question. Thank you. Good morning. Just George, I think you gave a book to bill number and I wasn't sure if that was a book to bill in the digital imaging business, but maybe if you could. Are you able to, can you give us provide a book to bill for the various the three major segments?

Jim Rashuti - Equity Analyst - (00:24:37)

Sure, happy to do that. Yes. The book to bill ratio I gave you was for digital imaging 1.12. In the instrumentation segment we had a book to bill overall of 0.9, a little higher in TNM, for example, 0.98. Environmental closer to 0.95. Marine closer to 0.8. About 0.8. But keep in mind that's a longer cycle business. Little lumpiness in orders there. We have a lot of backlog in the energy business, so not concerned about that short term lower book to bill ratio. And then in aerospace and defense electronics, again longer cycle business lumpiness in some larger orders book to bill ratio was 0.84 and engineered systems was over two times in the quarter. But again that's a long cycle business and so we tend to look at the longer term view there, not one quarter at a time.

Robert Moravian - Executive Chairman - (00:25:29)

Got it.

Jim Rashuti - Equity Analyst - (00:25:30)

Yep. And the overall book to bill ratio, 1.09. Terrific. Thank you. And you alluded to in the earnings announcement the potential for significant contract opportunities. And I'm just wondering if you can give us some color on which areas of the defense business there are some potential large contracts. And any idea about the timeline just given the government shutdown? Yeah, I wouldn't want to opine too much on the timeline of the government shutdown. What I would say is not about the shutdown, just. Sorry. Just as it relates to the timeline for these contracts. Sorry.

George Bob - President and CEO - (00:26:13)

Sure, no problem. I would say we have some near term opportunities, particularly in the unmanned space. I mentioned a couple of them in the opening for our loitering munition program, both with the U.S. marine Corps. That's the organic precision fire light program. We're looking for a 4A production order there. Again, we think that would be relatively near term, hopefully in Q4, depending on the timing of the government operations. And that would be in the range of tens of millions of dollars. The lasso program that I mentioned, the U.S. army program, that initial order, again hopefully near term would be initially more kind of millions of dollars and grow from there. And overall what I would say is unmanned systems, things like our Black Hornet drone, our sales into counter UAS systems, both of ourselves and where we're selling to other OEMs, integrated surveillance solutions for both border protection and defense, et cetera. So I think those are the strongest areas. Also we continue to see a lot of strength in our submarine business where we provide interconnects on the Virginia and Columbia class submarines.

OPERATOR - (00:27:19)

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jordan Lyonnais with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question. Good morning. Thanks for taking the question on the 737 Rate Increase step up. How are you guys thinking about that into 4Q and next year given the comments on some destocking?

Jordan Lyonnais - Equity Analyst - (00:27:44)

Yeah, this is George. So what I would say there is. Yeah, we expect that destocking really to continue through most of next year. So we won't see much of a benefit from the OEM Boeing 737 max rate increase next year, although the demand there continues to be strong. And we received a large order for 737 Max 2026 delivery. So backlogs there. Just from a year over year comparison standpoint, we won't see much benefit from that slight increase in 2026 to the production rate.

George Bob - President and CEO - (00:28:15)

Got it. And then on defense, do you guys have any concerns about critical minerals availability specifically for the sensor products for flir?

Robert Moravian - Executive Chairman - (00:28:27)

We have a little exposure there. On the other hand, we've been very diligent to cover that exposure. So overall I don't think that's going to affect us in the short term.

Jordan Lyonnais - Equity Analyst - (00:28:42)

Thank you guys so much.

Robert Moravian - Executive Chairman - (00:28:44)

Thank you.

OPERATOR - (00:28:47)

The next question is from the line of Damian Karas with ubs. Please proceed with your question.

Damian Karas - Equity Analyst - (00:28:53)

Hey, good morning everyone.

Robert Moravian - Executive Chairman - (00:28:55)

Morning.

Damian Karas - Equity Analyst - (00:28:56)

Damian, you had mentioned. Yeah, I was hoping to dig in the weeds a little bit more on Your comments about cameras and sensors being up year over year, could you just perhaps elaborate on that? What do you think is driving the improvement and have you been seeing those trends continue into the fourth quarter?

George Bob - President and CEO - (00:29:20)

Yeah, I can tell you first of all, the comps are a little easier with respect to last year. Our cameras are up about 11% and our sensors are up about 5%. Some of our scientific cameras that are very specific applications are down a little bit. So all in all, and that's probably because I export, all in all, when you add it all up, we're up about 3.4%. I think what has happened, as I mentioned before with taking the cost out of the dulce E2V businesses aggressively this year, that business is stabilized, it's going to grow and the margins are going to improve as time goes on. So we're positive about that. When you look at the total imaging businesses initially right after we acquired flir, everybody was worried about flir. Flir, flir, well, we solved that problem. FLIR is doing great. FLIR defense is just hitting every milestone we expect and now Dulce to be stabilized. So we're very positive about our digital imaging segment altogether.

Damian Karas - Equity Analyst - (00:30:54)

That's really helpful. And Robert, I just was wondering if you could maybe give us your perspective on the macro outlook. You know, are there any changes to your view since your last update? And you know, I know it's early to be giving, you know, guidance for 2026, but just seeing where trends are, you know. And you, if you were to ballpark today, where do you suspect, you know, kind of growth could line up in 2026 if the current conditions kind of remain?

Robert Moravian - Executive Chairman - (00:31:35)

Yeah, let me, let me just kind of answer it first. Broadly we, I are very positive about our defense businesses with all the geopolitical problems you see if you for example, look at Europe, they are going to increase their defense spending. We Teledyne have 5,100 employees in Europe distributed among many countries. We make drones in Sweden, we make other products, we make stuff in Norway. We have people that go in and out of Ukraine and Denmark. Those guys are under a lot of pressure. When we talk to our folks, they have to increase their defense spending. So macro level, if I look at that with all of our people there and all the need for in country production, I see very positive trends for us in Europe today. We probably produce something close to half a billion in revenue in European defense and I expect that to increase as we go forward. Coming back to the just a bigger picture of defense, George talked about our loitering munitions, as you well know what they mean by loitering munitions. You got something that's flying around and can essentially attack a target totally. Most of our competition has fixed wing aircraft. We have rotary-wing aircraft or quadcopters, interestingly enough, that also can fit in a tube and be fired out of a tube and it can go vertical, takeoff and landing. And we're very positive about that. So the reason I'm talking about this stuff is because defense is going to be a pretty active area both in Europe and of course, in the Far East. And then I have to say, our small drones, what we call our nano drones, by the end of next year, we would have sold half a billion dollars of these nanodrones that you can hold in your hand. We probably have the strongest position there. So between all of the above, I think we're going to do fine in the defense. In the commercial domain, we see machine vision recovering, as I said earlier, with a reduced cost structure, we see our test and measurement recovering. And we do have long term opportunities in power generation. So all in all, 26 should be a good year for us, barring any unforeseen catastrophes across the world, which I don't expect. And we're just doing our plans for 26 and we're very positively inclined.

Damian Karas - Equity Analyst - (00:35:11)

That's really helpful. Appreciate all the color. Good luck.

Robert Moravian - Executive Chairman - (00:35:15)

Thank you.

OPERATOR - (00:35:18)

Our next question is from the line of Christine Larocque with Morgan Stanley.

Christine Larocque - Equity Analyst - (00:35:24)

Hey, good morning everyone. And Robert, that was really helpful color on what you provided with European defense. And I just wanted to clarify a few things. When you said half a billion dollars, is that encompassing all of your defense exposure to Europe or is that specifically only on the drone exposure that you were discussing? And then also, you know, more broadly speaking. I guess my question is really trying to understand more your go to market for these things. When you're looking at the drone encounter drone, how are you thinking about being a prime and selling your nanodrones versus your core competencies historically on sensors and those kinds of things? And how do you look at the opportunity set for those kind of different go to market?

Robert Moravian - Executive Chairman - (00:36:12)

Okay, Christine, let me start from the beginning. The half a billion dollars applies to two things. First, our total military sales this year in Europe. Also half a billion dollar applies. If you add everything that we've sold, all the nano drones that we've sold would be selling through next year, that's another half a billion. So they're kind of, you know, only 60 or 70 of the first half a billion is the nano drones so let's put that to one side. What, what we're doing is we're both prime in defense as well as subprime, for example in loitering munitions, we're prime in nano drones, we're prime in some of our counter UAS systems. We have partners and so it's a mixture. But we also have strong presence in all of these countries, which is very important because everybody, both in Europe and the Middle east is driving towards in country production of their defense products. And we have presence everywhere. So that works for us. It works for us in Europe. Of course, out of 15,600, 700 folks in our company, 5,100 are located in Europe. So that's how we go to market and where necessary, we established new entities to be able to operate from.

Christine Larocque - Equity Analyst - (00:38:04)

Super helpful, thank you very much.

OPERATOR - (00:38:10)

Next question on the line of Guy Hardwick with Barclays. Please proceed with your questions. Hi, good morning.

Guy Hardwick - (00:38:17)

Morning. Bye.

George Bob - President and CEO - (00:38:20)

Just a little, I want to ask a little bit more about the digital imaging margin. So I think based on your comments that the reason for perhaps the digital imaging margin would be lower than expectations being R and D and also the severance costs. So obviously you get the benefit of severance costs, particularly next year. But is R and D a permanent step up, effectively funded by the reduction in the cost base and kind of looking a bit further forward for 2026 as a follow up to Damian's question about the top line, what kind of, what should we be aware of in terms of margin mix? Digital imaging in 2026 as a FLIR versus medical versus industrial, what kind of margin dynamics could we potentially expect?

Robert Moravian - Executive Chairman - (00:39:09)

Let me take a piece of that and then see if George wants to add to it. First, in R and D, there are very, very specific areas that we've decided to invest. For example, in our test and measurement systems, we've decided to invest especially in protocol analyzers and the marriage of our oscilloscopes and protocols as well as our very high end oscilloscopes. We've intentionally decided to do that, switching over to digital imaging. There's an area of digital imaging that we think we can be extremely successful and that's in our sensor businesses. We've decided to invest a little more in our sensor businesses and frankly that's worked for us because some of our sensors, whether they are for visual systems or for infrared systems, are doing very well. Our infrared sensors we're also investing in because we are the supplier of infrared sensors to almost everybody that flies a drone in the United States. Or produces a drone. So the investment in R and D is very specific for specific areas. Cut across all of our products on the margin improvement for next year. I'll let George talk a little more about that.

George Bob - President and CEO - (00:40:55)

Yeah, what I would say is first, as we mentioned before, obviously we've taken the cost out. We're seeing the recovery in the short cycle business. So it's early really to talk about really what the, what the mix is going to look like next year, what 2026 numbers are specifically going to look like. But in general, as the machine vision margin comes back, that's positive. As we continue to grow in defense, that's a little perhaps negative in certain areas on the overall margin. So overall I'd say mix is probably neut headed into next year, but we certainly should benefit from the cost reductions that we took this year.

OPERATOR - (00:41:29)

Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Jonathan Sigmund with Stifel. Please proceed with your question.

Jonathan Sigmund - Equity Analyst - (00:41:38)

Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. So you've commented already on unmanned demand signals globally are very strong. But there also seems to be substantial aspirations by customers of getting these capabilities at much lower cost. So you have great market positions and sensors and cameras and you've already highlighted the prime opportunities that you have. But could you comment on how attractive is the potential to supply some of these components and drones at much lower prices but substantially higher volume? And maybe comment on is there opportunities to invest more capital in this area? Thank you.

Robert Moravian - Executive Chairman - (00:42:21)

Well, thank you very much. That's a really good question. I would say much lower. That's in due course. I think people are willing right now to pay for accuracy and for ability to defeat desired targets. So we, we are actually, in a lot of ways, a lot of our drones are low cost compared to others and also because they're highly capable. So for example, George mentioned and I mentioned are what we call the rogue one, which is a quadcopter. It's the lightest weight of the competition. It only weighs about 10 pounds. And as you can imagine, as we decrease the size, the cost goes down. So we're very cost competitive there. The nanodrones, which I mentioned earlier, again, those are produced in volume, very cost competitive. What I think will happen is people may go to the low end of the cost structure, but they'll have to give up some capabilities. And so you may, in defeating an armored vehicle, you may have to have a massive warhead in your drone. Whereas in our case, we can do the same thing much more accurately with a smaller vehicle, with a smaller Warhead. So I don't know. It's a give and take. The whole experience in Ukraine, which we've had, has taught us that there is no one solution for what's happening. They obviously are doing very well. On the other hand, they don't have to have that many capable stuff to just fly over the horizon and hit somebody. So cost is important, but I think accuracy and weight are going to be just as important.

Jonathan Sigmund - Equity Analyst - (00:44:59)

Super interesting. Thank you.

OPERATOR - (00:45:03)

The next question is from the line of Joe Giordano with TD Cowan. Please proceed with your questions.

Joe Giordano - Equity Analyst - (00:45:12)

Hey guys, thanks for taking my questions. Can you hear me?

Robert Moravian - Executive Chairman - (00:45:18)

Yeah, sure, Joe.

Joe Giordano - Equity Analyst - (00:45:20)

Yeah. Okay, great. Yeah. So for unmanned, we've been talking about $450 million across all unmanned. Feels like kind of for a while. Feels like a little bit of a dated number maybe. How can we frame out that over the next couple years? And we've talked about potential opportunities here, but if we want to look, you know, three, four years out, like is that. Can that. What can that. 450, if things break correctly for you, really become, how material can that business really get?

Robert Moravian - Executive Chairman - (00:45:49)

Yeah, I think we're around 500 now versus 450 that we talked about before. We're investing in that area and we're gaining market share not just on drones that we've talked a lot about, but also underwater. As you may know that we're probably unique as a company where we have products for air unmanned, ground unmanned and underwater unmanned. And I'll let George talk a little bit about the underwater domain because that's our growth domain right now and we're very excited about that. So the 500 will grow for sure. How fast? I'll know in about a month or two when we do our plan for next couple of years. But grow its will.

George Bob - President and CEO - (00:46:54)

Yeah. I would add on the subsea unmanned side, we have both our subsea colliders, which are kind of long duration, long endurance, can stay on station for a long time. Useful as you can imagine in areas like anti submarine warfare and other areas. We also have propelled AUVs particularly out of our Iceland business, Telangavia. Those vehicles, shorter in time and duration, but bigger, can carry more payloads again for things like mine countermeasures, anti submarine warfare. So yeah, I think we see growth both in the unmanned aerial side, the ground side, but also we're seeing significant demand with regard to the subsea vehicles given needs in the Black Sea, Baltic Sea and Asia Pacific.

Joe Giordano - Equity Analyst - (00:47:40)

That makes sense. And just follow up if you're thinking about your full year EPS growth year on year, how much would you attribute that to M and A? And how much would you say is organic this year?

Robert Moravian - Executive Chairman - (00:47:57)

For this year? Yeah, this year I would say probably most of it is organic. We have a little bit from M and A because of our acquisition that we made, I'm going to say maybe 20, 25 cents from acquisitions primarily because as George mentioned earlier and I have before, when we make acquisitions initially it drives our margins down in reality because they don't have the margins that we enjoy. But as you look at our products, if you look at across all of our acquisitions, after a few years the margins improve significantly and so they kind of become the standards that we have for instruments defense otherwise. So the margins they see contribution from acquisitions are relatively light, but they'll improve next year.

Joe Giordano - Equity Analyst - (00:49:14)

Yeah, I had similar numbers too. Thanks guys.

Robert Moravian - Executive Chairman - (00:49:17)

Good.

OPERATOR - (00:49:20)

Thank you. At this time we've reached the end of our question and answer session and I'll hand the floor back to management for closing comments.

Jason Van Wiese - Vice Chairman - (00:49:27)

Thank you, operator. I'll now ask Jason to conclude our conference call. Thanks, Robert. And again thanks everyone for joining us this morning. And of course the PFL vote questions. Please feel free to call me and my number is on the earnings release and all our earnings releases and a replay of this call via webcast is available on our website operator. If you could please give the replay information, that would be ideal. And again, thanks everyone.

OPERATOR - (00:49:51)

Bye bye. Thank you. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. We thank you for your participation. Have a wonderful day.