Enerpac Tool Group reports 5% product revenue growth but faces 26% service revenue decline, maintaining FY2026 guidance despite EMEA challenges.

Offsetting the gains in product was a 26% decline in service revenue. This was largely focused in the EMEA region and particularly in the UK. That market has continued to slow due to lower production and customer consolidation in the oil and gas industry, which is predominantly where we provide service. That said, our team is pursuing a number of attractive opportunities in that market. As a reminder, we continue to streamline service operations in EMEA and invest where. We see opportunities for service growth globally. Turning to Slide 5, which shows our performance by geography, we delivered strong 5% growth. Growth in the Americas led by an 8% expansion in product revenue. Service revenue declined slightly, mainly due to. The timing of some specific projects. As we anticipated, we are enjoying strength from the infrastructure market as well as strong demand from power generation. Generation revenue in EMEA, the region we previously described as a wild card for fiscal 2026, given the underlying economic conditions, declined 10%. Again, it's meaningful to separate product from services. In EMEA, product revenue grew 5% with continued strength from infrastructure and government spending and a solid performance in Southern Europe. In APAC, revenue declined 8% in the. First quarter of 2026 due to a. Decline in our lumpy HLT business. Additionally, political uncertainty in Southeast Asia and. A slowdown in China was a drag on our performance. Nonetheless, with continued strength in India, recovery in Australia and an excellent HLT funnel, we expect the APEC region to resume year over year growth in the second. Quarter and for the full fiscal year. Turning to Slide 6 for the first quarter of fiscal 2026, gross profit margin of 50.7% was in line with our. Performance over the past few quarters. As expected, margins were affected by higher. Tariff driven costs flowing through cost of goods sold. However, we were able to successfully offset. These on a dollar basis through pricing and productivity actions. We expect the margin pressure from tariffs to ease as we enter the second. Half of fiscal 2026. Additionally, we enjoyed a favorable mix shift. Within the portfolio which was offset by lower service margins. On the selling, general, and administrative line, We were able to hold spending essentially flat year over year, offsetting the inflationary. Impact from compensation and incremental spending on innovation with tight cost controls. As a result, adjusted EBITDA was 32.4 million, representing a margin of 22.4%. First quarter adjusted earnings per share were $0.36 compared with $0.40 in the year ago period. A higher effective tax rate negatively impacted. Earnings by $0.02 per share. Turning to the balance sheet shown on. Slide 7, Enterpac's position remains extremely strong. Net debt was 49 million at quarter. End resulting in a net debt to. Adjusted EBITDA ratio of 40. Total liquidity including availability under our revolver and cash on hand was 539 million for the quarter. Cash flow from operations was 16 million. Compared with 9 million in the year ago period. The resulting free cash flow of 13 million Million in the first quarter of 2026 was an increase of 10 million year over year. This increase in free cash flow is due to the timing of receipts and. Payments in the quarter. Capital expenditures were also lower as the. Year ago period included additional CapEx for our new headquarters. Finally, with our balanced capital allocation Strategy, we repurchased $15 million of stock in the first quarter. While we maintain ample dry powder for strategic MA. Based on our performance in the first quarter and encouraging trends on the order front, we are maintaining our full. Year fiscal 2026 guidance. As shown on slide 8. Our expectations include organic revenue growth of. 1 to 4% and adjusted EBITDA growth. Of 6% at the midpoint, free cash flow of 100 to 110 million and. Earnings per share of $1.85 to $2. With that, let me turn it back. To Paul.

Thanks Darren. As I mentioned at the top of the call, we enjoyed a pickup in order rates in the first quarter, a trend we achieved across all three geographic regions. Demand has been particularly healthy from the infrastructure, defense and power generation markets. At the same time, we have a strong backlog and excellent pipeline in HLT and with the global rollout of ENTERPAC Commercial Excellence or ecx, we are benefiting from more discipline and rigor and in our sales process and funnel management. In light of the strong order flow, we built additional inventory in the first quarter to ensure that we have the right products in the right locations to meet customer demand on a timely basis. As we've discussed, we are investing in our business to support enerpac's growth strategy. As Darren mentioned, we are increasing spend on the innovation front as we expect to deliver even more new product introductions in fiscal 2026. We are also investing in our commercial organization, expanding sales capabilities, coverage and distribution in countries like India, Australia and the Philippines. And we are enhancing our e commerce capability with the implementation of a new technology platform that will improve the user experience and provide us with even more sophisticated marketing and analytical tools, all of which we expect to result in higher conversion rates. The topic of innovation and growth was front and center during our recent annual Global Leadership Conference, which is a gathering of EnterPAC's roughly top 50 leaders held. Each year in Milwaukee. I was truly inspired by the excitement and energy amongst the team and the work completed to further refine our growth strategy and update our strategic growth initiatives. Speaking of growth, two of the attractive verticals we mentioned over the past few quarters are power generation and infrastructure. In the former, the proliferation of AI data centers and growing demand for electricity, including a resurgence in nuclear energy, underscores the need for Enterpac's products and services. As seen on slide 9, Enerpac provides a range of standard and specialized products and services that support the nuclear industry in multiple regions across all phases of building operations and maintenance, inspection, refueling and decommissioning. In addition to our standard industrial tools and services that many of you are familiar with, Enerpac sells a line of specialized tensioners under the BIAX name that have been the industry standard for refueling and inspection for more than 50 years. The BIAX lightweight Self Contained Tensioner shown here is used to tighten reactor pressure vessel head studs. The Self Contained Tensioner (SCT) brings greater safety, reduces manpower and shortens critical path time. With decades of experience serving the industry and sizable market share in specialized products, we believe we are well positioned to capitalize on growth opportunities in nuclear. Another strong market we've addressed over the past few quarters is infrastructure, where we've enjoyed significant contract wins for bridge and tunnel projects both in the US and internationally. Recently, Enerpac was selected to design and build a bridge launching system for the Juneau Creek Bridge in Alaska, which can be seen on slide 10. Our custom hydraulic cylinders and computer controls will pull bridge segments into place. When completed, the bridge will be the highest crossing in the state at 285ft and the longest single span bridge built in Alaska since 1982. As we continue to drive profitable growth. At Enerpac, we believe we are well. Positioned with multiple product lines in these key end markets to take full advantage of these secular trends and the opportunities in the market. Before we take questions, I would like to address a change on the investor relations front. Travis has accepted a position at another company and his last day with Enerpac is tomorrow. Travis has done an outstanding job building relationships and communicating Enerpac Tool Group's story to investors. Moreover, he's been an invaluable resource internally, sharing intelligence and insight into the industry and capital markets. I would like to take this opportunity to thank him for his many contributions and wish him all the best in his new role. We have a search underway for Travis's replacement. Until we fill the role, Darren will be the main point of contact for investors. With that, we'd be happy to take questions.

At this time I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from the line of Will Gildia with CJS Securities. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning.

Morning, Will.

Thanks for taking our questions. You've talked for a number of quarters about efforts to improve profitability of the service business and invest in ways that enable you to tap higher margin opportunities. What caused a sudden sharp decline in service revenue this quarter and were you surprised by it?

Right, so yeah, I think we're certainly. Disappointed on the top line performance in. The service business this quarter after a strong fiscal 25 year growth actually for service. You know, the issue as it referenced on the remarks was largely driven by a contraction in the UK market. And as part of our ongoing initiatives to capture, you know, higher margin service business, we passed on lower margin projects as we've talked about in the past. But given the consolidation and softness in the oil and gas market, you know, we've not yet successfully backfilled all that with more profitable business, particularly in the UK given some of the market conditions there. I would say as a reminder, our. Service business is a mix of rental. And manpower and overall it is margin dilutive to Enerpac. We are actively consolidating our service footprint. We've already taken actions underway on that in Europe while selectively continuing to make growth investments in the business. And I think it will take some time to work through the dynamics on the service side. But keep in mind that based on our reiterated guidance, we do anticipate growth and margin expansion in fiscal 26.

Thank you, that's helpful. And then I guess just a follow up question on that. Can you add some more color to the changes you're making in services to capture higher value business? I know on the last call you gave the example of transitioning Algeria from an agent based model to a direct based model. Can you talk about the reasoning behind that? And you know, if an initiative like that is successful, how long of a Runway do you have to make that change in other regions? Thank you.

Yeah, thanks. Well, so we're taking a number of initiatives, some are commercial like you referenced, where we're moving from an agent to a direct model. That's. The direct model is more the norm for our business. The agent is more the exception in the case of agents and moving to direct, we end up with obviously the direct customer relationship which allows us to do more follow on business, obviously capture more margin as well and just get a closer overall relationship with the customer. So we feel good about that model and the progress that we're making to transition to multiple markets there. We're also investing in our service business, both in field service capabilities, but also in capital equipment and tools. We've invested in the European market in our leak sealing business, for example, and some new capital equipment that will allow us, we believe, to capture more growth opportunities and more market share in that service line and be able to respond to customers more quickly for their needs in that kind of service service business. So we're making a number of improvements like that. We're continuing, as I talked about, to optimize our footprint as well, not only from a cost standpoint, but to be able to react quickly to customer needs.

Thank you. And switching gears, can you add some color on your pricing strategy heading into calendar year 2026? Should we be expecting an annual price increase at the beginning of the year?

Yeah, well, good question. So just as a reminder for everyone we Talked about in Q4, you know, going into the year, we saw about two points of benefit in price from the actions we took last year. You know, as we look at this. Year, you know, we will look to kind of remain, obviously from a tariffs perspective and a price perspective, we're going to make up for those on a dollar for dollar basis and hold our margin. So with that, we did, you know. Take a small, low single digit price increase in early December here. That will take some time to roll. Through the channel as we do have notice periods for that. But we constantly look at price and productivity to keep our margin targets and margin high.

Thank you very much.

Thank. You.

Your next question comes from the line of Ross Sparnblack with William Blair. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, gentlemen.

Morning. Morning, Ross.

Hey, when we think about your 2026 Organic Guide, a little bit of price, what is, you know, contributing there from new products and kind of the cadence of your new product launches? What do you think about the the rest of the year for fiscal 26?

Yeah, Ross, we're super excited by our innovation program. We highlighted that on the last Q4 earnings call we launched, you may recall, five new products in fiscal 25. We're pleased with the market acceptance they continue to ramp commercially and globally. We also have a pretty ambitious innovation program and a set number of launches that we're targeting for this fiscal, which are more than we launched in last fiscal. So we're continuing to accelerate our innovation efforts. Part of that is driven by additional investments we've made in innovation over the last few years. In fact, if you look at our 10k actually over the last 3 years, you'll see incremental R and D spend on a dollar basis as a percent of revenue every single year. So I think that's a good indication. Also, you know, some folks may have visited our new innovation lab here at our global headquarters in downtown Milwaukee. That's another investment we've made to drive improvements in our innovation program and faster time to market. So we're pretty excited by the innovation progress we've made, excited about the commercialization and the ramp of those products, and excited about the products we're planning to launch here in fiscal 26.

Okay, well, when we think about kind of, you know, early days on this, you know, R and D flywheel, what is kind of the trajectory here as we think about, you know, the longer term growth algo? I mean, are you trying to get a couple extra points of growth in new products? Are we targeting new adjacent tams or is it just kind of upgrading and more defensive the core portfolio?

You know, Ross, I think as we. Think about growth, I mean, you heard us reaffirm our guidance for this year, kind of 1 to 4%. You know, I think as we think of the macro, you know, Europe was the wild card for us, but as. We look at the higher end of. That range, that encompasses a little bit of price recovery in the market and obviously successful launches of our new products. You know, beyond that, obviously innovation and the product investments we're making, as Paul referenced, really that increase in R and D over the last three years, we'll see that start to take off into the future. Yeah, and Ross, yeah, it's certainly part of the growth algorithm. You know, it is part of how we believe that, you know, we are targeting to perform or outperform our, our peer set. And we believe we've been able to do that successfully here. But I would also make the comment that, you know, obviously we look very closely at our direct competitors and what they're doing from an innovation perspective, and we continue to firmly believe that we are outpacing not only investment spend, but just the pace and the intensity and the level of new product launches relative to our competitive set. So we never rest on our laurels, but we're pleased with the progress we've made particularly relative to the competitive set.

Yeah, I can appreciate that. I mean, it looks like you guys. Run around 2% of sales in your R D spend. It has been, you know, ticking up slowly. I guess I'm just trying to get a better sense of, you know, what your visibility Looks like into your R and D funnel. Like how robust of opportunities you see today or we're still kind of early days of planting the seeds and you know, buying the equipment and helping the guys, you know, get to the point where they're, you know, empowered to start. Building out that pipeline.

Yeah, so we do, we do have. A multi year innovation funnel. So we're always looking several years out. We're working on, you know, now updating that funnel for another year out as we execute on funnel products and projects for this year. And just a reminder, again, you know, we launched five new products in fiscal 25. You know, our target is to nearly double that number of new product launches here in fiscal 26. So I think you'll see us gain additional pace and acceleration and just again, you know, reflective of the investments and the focus and the new processes that we've put in place. So that, that all is part of our overall growth algorithm at the end of the day.

Okay, so we should anticipate a more measured pace of R and D growth going forward.

Yeah, I again, I think three and. A half percent of sales or 5% tomorrow. Yeah, no, I mean I think you'll see a consistent ramp over prior years, you know, but you know, we've talked consistently about beating the market by several hundred basis points in terms of top line growth at the end of the day. And you know, part of that clearly will be driven by our innovation program.

Okay, I appreciate that. And if I can just have one more here. If I go back to last year, the backlog seemed pretty immaterial, but now we're speaking to confidence kind of these secondly growing, you know, project funnels. Any visibility there on sizing where the backlog kind of stands versus like a normalized basis and what's kind of underwriting that confidence?

Yeah, I mean, I'll make a few comments. Darren may weigh in as well. I think, you know, we do, you know, we're not a very heavy backlog business as you know, we tend to be more, you know, book to bill or shorter cycle and most of our products are what we would classify as more OPEX spend by our customers. Although we do have a capital equipment business in hlt, you know, inclusive of DTA that has more backlog and those backlogs tend to be sort of 6 to 12 month time frames. You know, that said, I think we have seen, you know, our backlog tick up and that was driven by, you know, as we referenced on the remarks earlier, pretty strong order activity and growth in overall orders in the quarter. And we were very pleased with that. And that order growth actually outpaced revenue. Growth in the quarter. So again giving us, you know, just more increasing confidence in our overall outlook for the year, particularly as we, as we go through the year. So I think all that, you know, you know, just led us to maintain, you know, our current guidance for the full year. The only thing I would add, Paul, is, you know, Ross, as we kind. Of look at the business, obviously we acquired DTA (Dynamic Technologies) last year. So DTA (Dynamic Technologies) being part of our HLT. Business now is really helping that as. Those markets take off, we now have more products for our customers. As we Talked about in Q4, that cross sell opportunity is huge. So. So we're bullish on HLT for the year.

That makes sense. All right, well, thank you guys for the time. I'll pass it along.

Okay, thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Tom Hayes with Roth Capital.

Please go ahead. Hey, good morning guys. Thanks for taking my questions.

Morning, Tom. Hey, Tom.

Hey, just wanted to go back to one of Will's questions on, on the pricing, Darren, was that pricing act that you put in place in December across all product families and globally and then kind of a related question on gross margin for the year. How are you thinking about the margin flowing through the balance of the three quarters? You guys have done a great job of offsetting the tariffs. I was just wondering your thoughts and kind of puts and takes on the margin front for the balance of the year.

Sure, Tom. You know I would say from the. Recent pricing actions, those were in the Americas and in Europe. Now, you know, we did kind of release in this earnings a little bit more of a pie chart to give you a flavor for what our product business looks like. So just remember that low single digit price increase is solely on product. So it's not on the total portfolio. So when you factor that into the math, just make sure you look at. That aspect of it. I would say the second piece from a margin perspective, you know, Q1 was. Where we thought it would be. Okay, Q2 will probably look more like Q1. And then as we get into the second half of the year, some of. Those higher cost tariffs will work their way through the system. So margin will improve as we enter the second half of the year.

Okay, great. Appreciate that. I appreciate the color on the product sales by region, but I'm not sure if you gave it by for apac. Is that something you guys can share?

Yeah, I think it's. It's actually in the slides on page five. But in apac, we actually saw growth in this revenue in standard products. We saw, we did see sharp decline in APAC on hlt. I mean, it's a small business and HLT tends to be lumpy. So that just varies quite a bit. From quarter to quarter.

Okay, maybe just lastly in respect to time, you know, an area we don't talk about a lot, but you called it out on one of the early slides. The continued strong growth in Cortland just kind of remind us, you know, a little bit about the business and kind of what's driving that strong growth.

Yeah, we continue to be really pleased with the progress the team is making at Cortland. As you recall, that's effectively our other segment and that's Cortland Biomedical. So, you know, roughly a $20 million revenue business annually. Obviously not connected to our core tools business, but it is a very strong, very solid, high growth and high margin business. And, you know, it doesn't draw undue investment or sort of management time or attention. So it runs relatively independently. But that business is very long cycle, very sticky. They design and develop and manufacture, you know, custom biomedical textile fibers for, specifically for particular medical devices for giving OEM customers. So those are spec'd in and those ultimate products that the customer has are obviously FDA qualified. So. So it's a very sticky business. You know, there's a lot of growth happening in that market. Cortland is exceptionally, we believe, well placed to support customers. We've won a number of new commercial opportunities and you've seen that materialize in the ramp in revenue. So we continue to be quite bullish about the growth opportunities, the margin prospects, and we like the funnel of opportunities that we have there.

I appreciate the color. Thank you.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Steve Silver with Argus Research. This. Please go ahead.

Thanks, operator. And thanks for taking my questions. And I'd like to offer my best wishes to Travis as well. So in the prepared remarks, you guys mentioned the pickup in order rates, and you also mentioned building inventory heading into Q2. I'm curious as to whether you can quantify at all the magnitude of the inventory ramp and maybe identify any key products beyond hlt?

No, Great question. I mean, as we think about inventory as we head into, you know, into the quarter, I mean, it's up about 15%. Okay, so we had a really strong Q4. As you think about Q1, our product sales were at 4%. Okay, so we were very pleased with that. With all those product sales coming through, you know, we had to work the plants a little bit harder to get the inventory in place to deliver Q2. And we're very bullish on that because our order rates were stronger than our product revenue growth rates in the quarter.

Great. And one more, if I may. You guys have talked quite a bit in recent quarters about the balance sheet being in a very strong place to support strategic M and A, and also about the macroeconomic factors facing the industry. Curious as to whether there's been any change in the. In the M and A funnel, if you will. Just in terms of companies that are dealing with the macro issues that might be kind of gravitating towards M and A at this time.

Yeah, sure, Steve. I would say I'm pretty encouraged there as well. I mean, I do think M and A activity overall in the market and here for ENTERPAC has picked up reasonably. Considerably in the last quarter or two. We are actively evaluating several opportunities, so we're spending a lot of our time focused there. You know, the pace and the quantity of deal flow has definitely picked up, and we're having very robust dialogue on any number of opportunities. So I feel, you know, more positive and optimistic around that. At the same time, I would say, you know, we remain extremely disciplined as always. We will certainly not overplay, overpay. And, you know, our focus ultimately is, of course, on creating value for Interpac shareholders at the end of the day.

Fair enough. Thanks again and happy holidays to the entire team.

Thank you. Thank you. Thanks very much. Happy holidays.

As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. We will pause for just a moment to compile the Q and A roster. There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Paul Sternly for closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Okay. Well, thanks again for joining us this morning. We will be participating in the CJS New Ideas for the New Year virtual conference on January 14 and the annual ROTH conference in Laguna Niguel, California in late March. Thank you. And to all our team members around. The world, customers, partners and shareholders, best. Wishes for a wonderful holiday season and a happy New year.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining, and you may now disconnect.