Operator
Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q2 2026 Amatek Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference call is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Kevin Coleman, Vice President, Investor Relations, and Treasurer. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Stephanie. Good morning, and welcome to Amitec's second quarter, 2026 earnings conference call. Joining me today are Dave Zipico, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Dala Puri, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. During the course of today's call, we will be making forward-looking statements which are subject to change based on various risk factors and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ significantly from expectations. A detailed discussion of the risk and uncertainties that may affect our future results is contained in Amitec's filings with the SEC. Amitec disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. Any references made on this call to historical results will be on an adjusted basis, excluding after-tax, acquisition-related and tangible amortization, and excluding acquisition-related cost. Reconciliations between GAAP and adjusted measures can be found in our press release and on the Investor section of our website. We'll begin today's call with prepared remarks and then we'll open it up for questions. I'll now turn the meeting over to Dave.
Thank you, Kevin, and good morning, everyone. Amitech delivered fantastic results in the second quarter with double-digit organic sales growth, excellent orders growth, strong core margin expansion, outstanding cash flow generation, and record earnings ahead of our expectations. We also raised our full-year sales and earnings guidance to reflect our outstanding first half results and our positive outlook for the balance of the year quarter sales were a record 2.04 billion dollars up 15 percent from the same period in 2025. Organic sales were up 10 percent acquisitions added five points with foreign currency flat orders were again exceptional in the quarter with continued broad-based growth across all Amatek divisions. Overall orders were a record 2.3 billion dollars up 28 percent versus the prior year with organic orders up sharply at 25 percent leading to a record backlog of 4.11 billion dollars. This outstanding second quarter orders growth follows the first quarter's 22 percent organic growth reflecting the strength across our attractive end markets. Creating income for the quarter was a record five hundred forty four million dollars and eighteen percent increase over the second quarter of 2025 operating margins were excellent in the quarter at twenty six point six percent up sixty basis points from the prior year core margins were twenty seven point one percent up a very strong 110 basis points versus last year's second quarter EBITDA was a record six hundred forty four million dollars up fourteen percent versus the second quarter of twenty twenty five with even a margins and impressive thirty one point five percent we also generated strong cash flow in the quarter with free cash flow up thirty seven percent to four hundred fifty two million dollars and free cash flow to net income conversion a very strong one hundred eleven percent reflecting our outstanding operating performance and working capital management. Diluted earnings per share were a record $2.09, up 17% versus the second quarter of 2025, and above our guidance range of $1.96 to $2.00 per share. Now we'll share some additional details at the operating group level, starting with the electronic instruments group. EIG generated outstanding second quarter results with excellent sales growth, strong operating performance and robust orders growth. EIG sales in the quarter were $1.32 billion, up 14% from last year's second quarter. Organic sales were up 7% and acquisitions added 7 points with foreign currency flat. Orders for EIG were again outstanding with overall orders up 23% and organic orders up 20% in the quarter. Growth in both sales and orders was broad-based across all EIG divisions with our process, instrumentation, aerospace, and power businesses all benefiting from their strong positions in attractive markets. EIG's second quarter operating income was $385 million, up 12% versus the second quarter of 2025. Core operating margins were 30.1%, up 40 basis points from the prior year. The factory mechanical group delivered exceptional results in the second quarter, with excellent sales growth, sizable orders growth, strong operating performance, and impressive core margin expansion. EMG's second quarter sales were a record $723 million, up 17% versus the prior year. Organic sales were again up double digits at 15%, with acquisitions contributing approximately two points to growth. EMG's sales growth in the quarter was balanced across our aerospace, defense, medtech, and automation businesses. EMG organic orders were once again exceptional, up 35% versus the prior year. EMG operating income for the second quarter was a record $191 million, up 32% compared to the prior year. EMG's core operating margins were 26.2%, a 290 basis point increase versus the second quarter of 2025. I'm very pleased with our performance this quarter and in the first half of the year. Our colleagues continue to deliver exceptional high-quality results and position Ametek for continued growth. Together we have delivered an exceptional long-term track record and have created meaningful shareholder value. I'm equally pleased with the work we have done to strategically position and align our portfolio with many powerful secular growth drivers. AI is driving sizable demand for advanced semiconductors that require ultra-precise optics, 3G metrology systems, and expanded power infrastructure. At the same time, recent geopolitical uncertainties and volatile energy prices are increasing the focus on defense modernization and energy security, creating broad-based demand for our businesses. In addition, innovation-led momentum in MedTech, sustained strength in commercial aerospace, and improving demand across precision automation are complementing these secular tailwinds. Looking ahead, we believe these broader investment themes will continue to drive meaningful growth. With that said, I would like to spend a few minutes highlighting how Amitech's businesses are aligned with key areas of strong demand. RTDS Technologies, a leader in real-time digital simulation of power system infrastructure and hardware-in-the-loop testing, recently received a key order from a data center hyperscaler to help de-risk the power profile of a broader data center build-out. RTDS's real-time simulators enable detailed power system analysis, helping engineers anticipate system and device behaviors that can impact electrical system stability, resilience, and performance. As data center power ecosystems grow increasingly complex, operators must ensure their power architectures can meet evolving requirements across operating conditions, load cycles, and infrastructure changes. RTDS is well positioned to support this critical need. Additionally, our Zygo business, a provider of advanced metrology systems and optical components, is supporting accelerated investment in AI infrastructure with its precision metrology and optical solutions. These solutions are designed into leading semiconductor platforms used to manufacture advanced chips to power AI in next-generation computing. As semiconductor complexity increases, precision becomes more critical. Our customers rely on Zygo's technology to meet tighter tolerances and improve manufacturing yields. Alongside this, demand across the broader semiconductor ecosystems, including memory, logic, advanced packaging, and photonics, remains strong. Zygo is positioned to benefit from ongoing investment in these infrastructure enabling technologies. I also want to note the exceptional growth we are seeing within our Paragon medical business. Continued superb orders growth is being driven by attractive new design wins tied to orthopedics, drug delivery systems, and highly engineered medical components. More broadly, Paragon is performing extremely well and delivering outstanding growth and profitability. Excellent job by our RTDS, Zygo, and Paragon teams. Now turning to acquisitions and capital deployment. As I have regularly noted, our top capital deployment priority is strategic acquisitions. Our strong balance sheet and consistent, robust cash flow provide us the ability to deploy a meaningful amount of capital for acquisitions. We continue to maintain a robust pipeline of acquisition opportunities across deal sizes and expect to remain active and executing on these pipelines. We remain excited for the acquisition of Indicore Instrumentation. Our teams are working through the integration planning and we continue to expect the acquisition to close in the second half of the year. In addition to our acquisition and capital deployment strategy, we are committed to invest in our businesses to ensure they are well positioned for long-term sustainable growth. In the second quarter, our new product vitality was a strong 25%. These investments in new products help continue to drive our organic growth. Our used trailer business, a leading provider of advanced heat exchangers and thermal management solutions for mission-critical aerospace and defense applications, recently introduced Microfoil, a next-generation lightweight heat exchanger technology. This new product delivers a compelling combination of exceptional heat transfer performance and an ultra-low weight design, providing customers with a unique solution to address their most demanding applications. Microfoil's innovative architecture can be easily adapted to curved and conformal spaces, providing exceptional thermal performance for use in aerospace, defense, and industrial cooling applications. Congratulations to the used trailer team on this outstanding achievement. I would also like to congratulate our AlphaSense business for receiving Ametek's Annual Innovation Award. The Ematec Innovation Award recognizes our businesses' efforts to develop and advance next-generation technology, products, and solutions for the markets we serve and celebrates the most innovative product development from across the company. AlphaSense, which is part of our Process and Analytical Instruments Division, is a leading provider of advanced sensors used in environmental, health, and safety applications. applications. The latest product, the A2GLF Oxygen Sensor, was named the recipient of our Innovation Award. This sensor, the world's first galvanic lead-free oxygen sensor, is designed for accurate oxygen gas measurement in demanding environments targeted to OEMs of portable and fixed gas detectors seeking regulatory compliance and environmental controls without sacrificing performance. The sensor is designed to retrofit a large installed base along with next generation instrument development. Well done to the AlphaSense team for this outstanding achievement. Now, shifting to our outlook for the balance of the year. Our increased sales and earnings guidance for the year incorporates our strong second quarter results and positive outlook for the balance of the year. For 2026, we now expect overall sales to be up approximately 10% on a percentage basis, with organic sales now expected to be up mid to high single digits versus a prior year. Our diluted earnings per share for the year are now expected to be in the range of $8.20 to $8.30, up 10% to 12% compared to last year's results. This is an increase from our prior four-year guide of $7.94 to $8.14 per diluted share. For the third quarter, we anticipate overall sales to be up high single digits on a percentage basis with adjusted earnings of $2.08 to $2.10 per share, up 10-11% versus the prior year. Ametek delivered an outstanding second quarter. Our exceptional results reflect our well-positioned portfolio and the disciplined approach of the Ametek growth model to capitalize on a broadening infrastructure investment environment. Ametek's mission-critical niche solution position us as a prime beneficiary of a changing macroeconomic environment and will enable us to continue to deliver superior growth for our shareholders. I will now turn it over to Dalla Puri who will cover some of the financial details of the quarter. Then we'll be glad to take your questions.
Thank you, Dave, and good morning, everyone. As Dave noted, Amatec delivered another excellent quarter with strong orders, sales, and earnings growth, robust core margin expansion, and outstanding free cash flow generation. Now let me provide some additional financial highlights for the second quarter. Second quarter general administrative expenses were 1.5% of sales in line with last year's second quarter. Second quarter interest expense was $20 million. Second quarter other operating expenses were $6 million, compared to $3 million in the second quarter of 2025 due to higher acquisition diligence spend in the quarter. The effective tax rate for the quarter was 17.5%, down from 19% in the second quarter of 2025. For 2026, 6, we now anticipate our effective tax rate to be between 18.5% and 19%. As we have stated in the past, actual quarterly tax rates can vary above or below our full year expected rate due to the timing of discrete tax items. Capital expenditures in the second quarter were $32 million. For the full year, we expect capital expenditures of approximately $160 60 million dollars or about 2% of sales. Depreciation and amortization expense in the quarter was 106 million dollars. For the full year, we expect depreciation and amortization to be approximately 430 million dollars including after tax, acquisition related, and tangible amortization of approximately 210 million dollars or 91 cents per diluted share. Operating working capital in the second quarter was 16.4% of sales, an impressive 220 basis point improvement versus 18.6% in last year's second quarter. The improvement reflects excellent operational execution across all working capital components led by strong inventory discipline and improvement in inventory turns, an outstanding company wide operational achievement. Operating cash flow was exceptionally strong in the second quarter at $484 million, up 35% versus the second quarter of 2025. Free cash flow was also strong, up 37% to $452 million, with outstanding free cash flow conversion of 111%. For 2026, we continue to expect strong free cash flow conversion of 110% to 115% of net income. Total debt at June 30th was $2 billion, down from $2.3 billion at the end of 2025. Offsetting this debt was cash-in-cash equivalents of $495 million. At the end of the second quarter, our gross debt-to-EBITDA ratio was 0.8 times, And our net debt to EBITDA ratio was 0.6 times. During the quarter, we also completed the renewal of our committed revolving credit facility. As part of the renewal, the size of Amitek's revolver facility increased to $3.5 billion. And the maturity was extended until June 2031. This renewal strengthens our liquidity profile, lowers financing costs, and positions us well to support future growth initiatives. As Dave noted, we expect to deploy $5 billion on the acquisition of Indicor in the second half of the year. Following the closing of the acquisition, we will continue to have substantial financial capacity, including approximately $2.5 billion of cash and available credit facilities to support our growth initiatives and strategic acquisitions. In summary, Amatek delivered another outstanding quarter with excellent orders, revenue and earnings growth, robust margin expansion, and strong free cash flow conversion. Our leading positions across attractive market segments, combined with our global operating capabilities and strong track record of execution, leaves us very well positioned to drive further growth and value creation.
Thank you, Dalot. Stephanie, can we please open the lines?
Operator
Thank you. At this time, we'll conduct the question and answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Deanna Dre from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open. Thank you. Good morning, everyone.
Hey, Dave, I was hoping you could Take us through your typical end market and regional data points and color. And as you do that, we're seeing a number of the industrial companies reporting this quarter some significant and positive inflection in the non-data center part of the industrial economy. We're really in this two-speed economy. me. But I would love to hear whether you're seeing some data points color like that. We saw it with the ISM. So as you take us through the end markets and regions, anything that you could add there would be great. Thanks.
Sure, Dean. But before I answer your question, I wanted to take a moment to congratulate you on your retirement. It's been a complete pleasure working with you. You are a true pro at what you do, and the entire Amatek team appreciates all the support you've provided us through all the years. Really, all the best, Dean, to you and your family.
I really appreciate that, Dave, and wishing you and the team all the best as I watch from the sidelines after this quarter. But great. Thank you very much, and let's dig into your quarter here, if we could.
I get your question. So I'll start with a walk around the end markets, and I'll start with our process business. Overall sales for our process businesses were up high teens, driven by contributions from recent acquisitions and excellent high single-digit organic sales growth. Process orders were, again, outstanding as project activity remained strong. While growth was broad-based, we're seeing the strongest growth across semiconductor and energy-related instrumentation businesses. And for the full year, 2026, we now expect sales for our process segment to be up mid-single Next, I'll go to aerospace and defense, where demand across our A&D businesses remains robust, with mid-teens organic sales growth in the quarter. Growth was, again, broad-based. All segments of the A&D market see continued strong demand, notable strength in our commercial OE and commercial aftermarket segment. Our businesses are very well positioned to benefit from increased defense spending and the continued strong commercial aerospace super cycle. We now expect our aerospace and defense businesses to be up low double digits versus last year, balanced growth across commercial and defense businesses. And our power businesses delivered mid-single-digit organic sales growth in the quarter, along with strong orders momentum. The orders momentum and growing pipeline are in support of the broader, for 2026, We continue to expect organic sales for our power businesses to be up mid-single digits. And finally, our automation and engineering solutions growth was, again, outstanding. Mid-teens organic growth in the quarter. We are seeing continued excellent and broad-based growth. The businesses are well aligned with attractive growth applications in medtech, semiconductor, and automation. And for 2026, we now expect organic sales for automation and engineering solutions to be up high single digits organically. Okay, that's the walk around the company. The next thing I'll do is I'll answer your question about looking at the geographies. And really, we were strong in all major regions of the world. the US and Asia were the strongest and in the US we were up low double digits the strongest growth was in process also good growth in our A&D business Europe was up mid single digits driven by strength and power and Asia was up low double digits with automation and process doing well so it was a really good quarter and really strength across all major regions and in terms of the the question that you had about the the where's the growth coming from is it broadening yeah that's a great question when I think about it you know we have AI infrastructure you have the needs for semiconductor manufacturing to to build the chips and in the first quarter and the second quarter we receive substantial orders for highly differentiated, unique products in semiconductor optics and metrology and advanced computing technology. That's one area of growth. In terms of power as a second area, we're well positioned for the power grid buildout. We're providing critical fail-safes. We talked about our ruggedized UPS systems for microgrids. We manufacture natural gas turbine sensors that are enabling the electric power build-out we have successfully monitored their power grid with our power instrumentation business and we have the RTDS business that I talked about helping hyperscalers build out local power grids when they can't wait for the utilities to do it so just another example of a growing area that's you know positioned the to help the critical build out the critical physical layer for the AI build out. But in addition to that, we have our aerospace and defense, which remains a structural growth driver. In the commercial market, we have the continuing aerospace super cycle, an almost decade-long backlog. And with the ongoing conflicts in the geopolitical situation, we have really a non-discretionary demand for global defense modernization. We talked about the last quarter, the UAV programs and missile launcher programs in our last call, where we supply ruggedized thermal management systems and power systems and advanced sensing technology. The combination of this very active defense modernization combined with the commercial and aerospace super cycle provides another secular growth driver for us. So when I look at this thing, we're really, there's durability because the underlying capital spend by our customers is driving a multi-year infrastructure build-out. And we are supplying mission-critical, essential products for new semiconductor fabs, new power plants, the A&D market, fence modernization. So I believe we're in the beginning stages of a multi-year infrastructure build-out, and we're incredibly well-positioned. And to your point, it's great that we're diversified across multiple thematic growth drivers and not dependent on any one single driver.
Dave, that was a great comprehensive answer. And since I did ask what turned out to be a lengthy topic, I'll leave it there. And thank you again for the send-off. Really appreciate it.
Thank you, Dean. All the best.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Matt Somerville of DA Davidson. Your line is now open.
Morning, David. Can you really talk about the build you're seeing in your backlog and how the duration in your backlog, i.e. visibility, compares now to maybe the longer-term Amatek historical average? And then I have a follow-up.
Our backlog was now $4.11 billion, up about 21% from the end of the year. And we had a positive book-to-bill of $1.12 billion in the quarter, both groups positive. And we also are executing very well. We saw an acceleration of organic growth from Q1 to Q2. and what you really have is is you know our customers are you know related to the infrastructure belt out or placing orders with us and our products are customized unique products so there's some engineering that design that goes into this is these are not commodity products so what we really have is probably you know 80% of that backlog will ship within the next 12 months we have the second half of the year filling in very nicely and we're starting to to to fill in to 27 so it's very positive and and we're executing very well our businesses are you know performing well strong execution discipline operations excellent momentum across the portfolio so what you really have is through our recent acquisitions we probably have a little mid and long cycle performance portfolio than prior but it's feeling nicely and we have specialized products and our customers are getting the orders in place of the we can deliver the products for them.
For that. And then just as a follow-up, how much of your business would you say today is tied to thematics involving data center infrastructure build slash AI? And when you think about Amitek's broader business and the level of inbound demand you're seeing, does that inform a greater ability to capture price?
Yeah, I think in terms of pricing, we have a highly differentiated, highly engineered, IP-driven product portfolio, and we put in healthy levels of RD&E investment, and it results in high vitality in our products. It was 25% in the quarter, as I said in my prepared remarks. So we're niche leaders, mission-critical products. We saw some of our customers' most difficult problems. And when you put all that together, in addition, they're in environments that are high switching costs and regulatory-driven markets. So the price of failure is high. So all these factors give us the ability to offset inflation and tariffs with price. And in the quarter, we offset inflation and tariffs a little more than price, and we continue to expect to do that. And it's really given the unique portfolio construction of focusing on these products and this heavy level of R&D investment that go together and provide that we have a special place in our customers' value chain. That's how I would explain it.
Question on how much of your business today would you roughly estimate is tied either directly or indirectly to data center infrastructure build out slash AI?
Yeah, I think the data center slash IA part of it, along with the military modernization, along with the commercial aerospace, along with the power infrastructure, I put that whole bucket together and it's about half of our business. In terms of data center, in the data center, it's actually smaller, but in all the related parts of it, in terms of semiconductor, in terms of the power grid, in terms of the items that I talked about, it's actually quite broad and broadening to Dean's question and his But in the data center, it's not big enough to report on a specific segment, but what's happening now is the growth is expanding from that and we're very well positioned okay thank
you our next call is from nicole de blasi of deutsche bank your line is now open yeah thanks good morning guys good morning nicole maybe we could just start with um double clicking a little bit on orders um really strong result there um anything notable with respect to like large or lumpy orders, just trying to think about the sustainability of the strength that you guys have seen in order growth into the second half. And maybe, Dave, if you're willing to share anything about what you've seen in the month of July, that would be helpful too.
Yeah. As I mentioned, the orders were excellent in the quarter, 28%, organic 25%. Book to bill was solid at 1.12, and both groups were positive. In terms of cadence, June was the strongest month for orders in the quarter in all time, so we had a record for the month of June. And we just finished July, and the orders were very good, so it's continuing. So I would say that you know that there's a bit of a lumpy nature to the order but as I mentioned here to Dean's question I mean we really have what I believe is organic growth durability because the underlying capital spend by our customers is driven by this multi-year investment infrastructure build out and we're kind of locked into these opportunities with with our you know our pedigree and regulatory mandates and security priorities. So it's very encouraging and again it's not you know it's not just the AI build-out, it's not just the power build-out, it's not just the defense modernization, it's not just energy security with our energy businesses doing very well, it's not just the commercial A&D business super cycle, it's kind of all of them.
We're in the right places we're in the right places we have unique capability and we think we're in the early innings of a mission critical infrastructure build out and you know it feels pretty good excellent thanks dave and then as a follow-up i guess i'm just considering the strong order growth that you guys have seen for the past two quarters you know you are modeling a bit of the desol and organic revenue growth to high single digits in the third quarter is there maybe just some conservatism baked in there. I know that the prior year comps are a little bit tougher. If you could maybe double-click on that a bit. And then any big differences in EMG versus EIG within that 3Q expectation?
Yeah, I think that what you're seeing there is we flowed through the Q2 sales and earnings beat, and we also increased our sales and earnings in the second half so the revised h2 organic sales guide is you know between one and a half to two points stronger with the EPS flowing through so we increased the second half of the year from our prior guide I think you know for sure we're very confident in the guide and it has a bit of you know Amitek prudence or conservatism built into it so we're confident we can deliver the second half.
That's great. Thank you. I'll pass it on.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Daniel Tachico, BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
Great. Thank you for taking my question.
Hello, Daniel. How are you? Just in terms of the end markets, I mean, just in the quarter, where did you see the most acceleration? And then did any of the markets maybe come in below expectations i know it sounded like everything was pretty strong no i i think i think it was everything was pretty strong if i had to uh uh point to a couple of markets i i'd point to the uh the semiconductor market especially in eig and i actually uh point to the MedTech market in EMG, where Paragon had just an outstanding order. So those will be the two standouts. So it was, you know, the aerospace was obviously very strong and the power orders were good, but in EIG it was the semiconductor orders that stood out, and to me, and then in EMG it was the MedTech orders from Paragon that stood out. And, you know, Paragon is an interesting, great example of the Emitech growth model in action. And many of you know that soon after we acquired Paragon, we ran into a pandemic-driven inventory de-stock. It was a little more significant than we modeled. But we utilized that downturn when the sales volume was lower to accelerate our integration activities. and this allowed us to absorb the integration friction when the volume was low and now the volume is back so we're getting excellent leverage on our growth now very importantly we continue to invest in all the new product development opportunities at Paragon and this allowed for phasing in of new product wins and allowed us to capture outsized margin expansion at EMG that was a key driver of the margin. So I just think that the whole Paragon and how well they're doing now and the tremendous order growth they have, because they won new products, that's not really a market trend. It's a great business that won new products. It just shows you that the Amatek growth model is relentless. The relentless implementation of the Amatek growth model really delivers over time, and our teams are continuing to do an outstanding job.
Great, great. And then just a quick follow-up. I know you've been working on a number of AI pilot programs internally across the businesses in various functions.
I was just hoping for an update there and potentially some opportunities, whether that's internal or maybe on the commercial front.
A great question, Daniel. You know, we're using AI to improve efficiency and accelerate growth across the entire company. And, you know, it impacts all functions. It helps us speed up due diligence. We have agents that are automating document processing, agents to improve customer service. You know, they're helping us to predict and mitigate supply delays. They're improving our products, the predictive maintenance nature of our products, really having a substantial effect and improving the custom engineering design processes. So really all functions of our business. And, you know, we're looking at really, you know, automating the Emotech growth model. So all elements of the growth model are being impacted by this. So we're going to get stronger at this in the future. In terms of the deployment, it kind of matches the decentralized nature of the company, where our businesses are empowered to deliver AI solutions that are tailored specifically to their needs. But enterprise-wide, the company provides overall governance, technology platforms and policy frameworks. We've had some things that have worked. We have some things that haven't. So we've learned to, when something's not worked, just move on to the next thing. And we had a wave of 50 projects that I talked about before, some great results. And now we're on to wave two. And we recently started wave two. There's another list of projects across the company. We have strong momentum. It's a very exciting time. I think that as we learn about the technology and we get good at deploying it, then we look for a specific instance of something and then deploy it company-wide. So we're in the beginning stages of seeing the benefits, but we have a whole growth model here that is ripe for automation, and we're looking at applying it to it. At the same time, we're deploying it on our products. We mentioned a call or two ago that we have it used in our Vertec business that detects critical defects in materials and using AI algorithms to do that. And we mentioned before one of our EIG businesses uses it to improve the predictive maintenance of the businesses. So it's showing up with enhanced products. It's showing up in really the Amatek growth model. It allows us to build an AI-enabled company. And when you think about our products, they're inherently low obsolescence risk. You know, our niche portfolio of, you know, mission-critical differentiated technology solutions with market-leading specifications combined with these requirements and all these markets on these long-cycle platforms, we have low obsolescence risk. So I think we're in a good position where we're active on getting the tools to make our business, improve our business, where we don't have an obsolescence risk right now, and at the same time, we're enhancing our new products. So it's really important, and we're spending a lot of time on it, as many companies are, but I'm pleased with the results that we're seeing.
Great. Thank you so much.
Operator
Our next question comes from Scott Graham of Seaport Research Partners. Your line is now open.
Hey, good morning, Dave. Great quarter. Thank you for the rundown so far. I wanted to get at maybe two things internally. the core margin expansion of 110 basis points was pretty impressive. You know, certainly the organic was part of that, but, you know, what were the other features there? Was it mixed, and if so, which businesses or otherwise?
Yeah, it was – we had an excellent operating quarter, great margin quarter. We had, on the face of it, margins up 60 basis points, but when you look at the core, it was up 110 basis points, and when you look at the two groups, EIG margins were up 40 basis points, and core margins were up 40 basis points, and EMG core margins were up 290 basis points, and EMG is benefiting from what I had talked about earlier in terms of Paragon with new products phasing in with the leaned-out cost structure, And that drove the bulk of that. But when you look across it all, we had strong incrementals, about 40%. Both groups were near 40%. We had, as you mentioned, sales growth, good incrementals. But really, we had excellent productivity, too. So we increased our productivity, enterprise-wide productivity target, to $160 million this year. I think it was $155 million last quarter. So we had $5 million more in productivity that we got confident in forecasting because of performance during the quarter. And, again, as the question that Matt asked earlier, we had positive price where we more than offset inflation and tariffs. So with the solid incrementals, with the excellent productivity and the positive price inflation, it all drove the core margin expansion.
I was also hoping you could maybe update us on Indicor. you know you've you've had the company sort of in tow here waiting for the closure of the deal and has have you identified maybe some new synergies is their excitement a little bit higher across those 10 business units yeah I think the excitement is high within the core I mean we're progressing well through the integration and the regulatory approval process and we continue to expect it, as I said in my opening remarks in the second half of the year, but to your point, we're very excited about the acquisition. We're acquiring an outstanding group of high-quality businesses with leading market positions in attractive niche markets, very differentiated technologies, strong IP positions, deep domain expertise, similar characteristics to Amatek with high switching costs. But they have a higher profitable recurring revenue stream of 50% of revenue. So tractor growth profile, excellent profitability. It's just a great strategic fit. In terms of are we finding more things to get excited about as we work with the team, teams are working very well, and we have to follow the requirements. We don't own the company now. So we're working on integration planning and working on the closing of the business. You know, the typical cost structures that we have, we're getting very confident that we bought some premier assets at the same time. They're run very independently without an overriding business system. And we're highly confident that the proven Emitech growth model is going to add value to this acquisition. In global sourcing, typically one of the largest growth drivers, we confirmed the opportunity. The international sales and service facilities, we run them as one Ametek facility in a region that everyone operates out of. Essentially, we provide the hotel that everyone operates out of, and so there's opportunities there for facility rationalization while still letting the business units have their independence. We have a global shared service infrastructure in places like India, Malaysia, Mexico, Serbia, Poland, and that is not available, so there's cost reduction opportunities there. We have a growth philosophy that you operate in a local market to grow locally, a little bit different, and then we have the talented people to help implement it all. So we are getting more confident with the 10% to 12% cost energy, and we think this is going to be a great acquisition for our shareholders. We're going to deliver exceptional value to them. Thank you.
Operator
So just a reminder, at this time, we still do have a few more additional questions to be available. And just if you would like to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone and just wait for your name to be announced. At this time, we do have a question from Joseph Giordano of TD Cowan. Your line is now open.
Good morning. This is Chris Gringa. I'm for Joe. Hi, Chris. You had highlighted the UAV opportunity, and I was just curious if you could provide a little bit more color on how activity in that market has trended and how you're seeing the scope of opportunities continue to expand. And are there any particular size class of UAV that Amatek is best positioned for? And do you see any opportunities in other domains beyond unmanned aerial?
Yeah, there's a tremendous opportunity. And I highlighted, I think it was last quarter, we had won three new UAV programs. One was a U.S.-based program. Two were with NATO allies. we often provide you know sensing for fuel sensing we provide power distribution lightweight power distribution we provide cooling for the electronics in the system so it's been an area of strength for us historically and as as this as the UAVs grow we're well positioned to do well the other areas that we talked about were, you know, in the advanced computing, some of the things that we do with our Abaco business where data analysis is becoming more important. The cooling systems related to electronics implementation were very successful and with our Rotron and PDT businesses. So we're, you know, we're well positioned in niches where we're the market leader and the opportunities are growing, and we have established pedigree in these markets, and we specialize in areas, and our customers recognize that. So it's a positive area for us, and defense modernization is an area that I think is non-discretionary, and we're well positioned to execute on it.
Thank you very much. And you've talked about the strength in MedTech, And I'm just curious if you could provide any more color. As we've heard, increasingly constructive commentary across broader life sciences recently, just in terms of what you're seeing in terms of customer spending patterns and any improvement in life sciences in particular.
Yeah, the point that I talked about at Paragon is more in the medtech directly. And Life Sciences, we were out visiting one of our automation businesses, and they build automation systems for Life Sciences equipment, and their businesses are doing extremely well. So the Life Sciences is definitely picking up, and this MedTech increase that we have for Paragon is a market improvement, but we also won a significant amount of new programs. So that's why that's a little bit outsized.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question is from Andrew Aubin of Bank of America. Your line is now open.
Yes, good morning. Hello, Andrew. Just maybe a question on this ramp. Where does capacity utilization stand today? I think CapEx guidance is up 22% year-over-year from 25.
How much of the $160 million is growth CapEx? yeah I think the growth CapEx is probably about two-thirds of it and you know remember that we're largely IP drives our business so it's not like we have a lot of fixed assets we were two percent of sales as CapEx and over the past couple of years we've built infrastructure we added capacity and and, you know, in multiple U.S. plants in Serbia and Mexico, and, you know, we're doing some more work in Poland. So, capacity-wise, it's, you know, we're not at the limit of capacity because the traditional CapEx is really not what our business is based on. We have a, you know, a return on tangible capital of about 100%, so that's kind of unique in the industrial world, and it's easy for us to ramp up and ramp down. You've seen that before when we scale up, and you've also seen us to be very flexible when we scale down. So, you know, we saw an acceleration in sales, organic sales, in both groups this quarter, and we're also we increased our guide for the second half of the year and and next year you know it's filling in nicely so I think the you know and one of the things I talked about earlier is in our AI prototypes we took a product line that took us about one year to design a custom new product and we do it now in a month. And that's an example of using AI to shorten the design cycle. So I think that capacity is well in hand. And you can see that by how efficiently we're operating. We reduced working capital. We generated over 35% more cash flow. So we're operating very, very well. And we have a low capex business. And I think in an environment like this, we're going to shine.
And maybe a follow-up, you know, people asking on M&A, but maybe can you give us an update on what's happening at Faro?
Yeah, sure. Faro, as a reminder, designed and develops advanced 3D metrology and digital reality solutions. And we have now leadership position and measurement arms, laser scanners, laser trackers, and it was an excellent strategic fit with our Creoform business because of Faro's products we really complement the existing Amatec Creoform metrology capabilities. And the team are doing great. We were just up there as part of our North American Regional Operating Review, and the teams are working well. The integration is on plan. I think you'll see the businesses with some substantial margin upside over the next 6 to 12 months. So everything is going very well, and all of our plans are intact, and it is going to be an acquisition that pays off for the long term for Hamatech because we put together a couple of market leaders and we feel really good about it.
Operator
Thank you. The next question is from Christopher Glenn of Oppenheimer & Company. Your line is layout open.
Thank you. Good morning, everybody. Good morning, Chris. The 35% organic orders number for EMG, just wanted to revisit that first to make sure I heard it right. And second, I think you drilled down on maybe MedTech and defense being particular accelerators, but the 35% maybe means more than a couple accelerators.
Curious if automation took more of a yeah yeah yeah automation was Chris and it's why I mentioned the the life sciences part of our automation business really accelerated so that was another big growth driver it was a bit lower but then the med tech and the defense but it was right up there and then on the defense side you see incomparable input from US and allies each you know we're seeing more input from the U.S., given the size of the defense infrastructure, but there's a notable increase with NATO allies off a smaller base.
And just a clarification, were there any tariff refunds impacting the margins in the quarter?
Operator
Thank you. Our final call, our final question will come from Andy Kaplowitz of Citigroup. Your line is now open.
Good morning, everyone. Thanks for fitting me in. Dave, you talked about your power business. From our vantage point, there continues to be a large pipeline of opportunity there, particularly, as you know, in the U.S. So maybe talk about why mid-single-digit organic sales growth in 26 is the right number, and could you grow faster than that in the future?
We could grow faster. We could grow faster. It's more tied to the great expansion, and we talked about the orders were very strong, so that's an area where you're going to see increased sales growth going forward because the orders growth precedes the sales growth. But the order's momentum and the growing pipeline are really in support of the growing build-out of the power.
Got it. And I just wanted to double click on EIG margin for a second. You just talked about FARO and how it's tracking. So that would get, I mean, your core margins were obviously good up 40 base points, but if FARO continues to improve, that's going to help with overall margins, right? That's how we should think about the overall margin trajectory moving forward in that segment.
Yeah, we almost have lapped the one-year FARO ownership. So, I'm not sure if it's next quarter or the quarter after. I think it's next quarter. This quarter. Okay, it's in July. So, FARO will show up in our core margins going forward, and there's a lot of opportunity there. So, after one year, the acquisitions become core. Andy.
Operator
Thank you. This concludes the question and answer session. I would now like to turn it back to Kevin Coleman for closing remarks.
Thanks, Stephanie. And thank you for joining our call today. As a reminder, a replay of today's webcast may be accessed in the investor section of amatech.com. Have a great day.
Operator
Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.
