please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. It is now my pleasure to turn the conference call over to Dan Weltsien, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. Please go ahead, Mr. Weltsien.

Good morning. Thank you for joining the Badger Meter second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. I'm here today with Ken Bockhorst, her Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, and Bob Rockledge, our Executive Vice President of North America Municipal Utility. This morning, we posted the earnings release and related slide presentation on our website. As a quick reminder, any forward-looking statements made on this call are subject to various risks and uncertainties, the most important of which are outlined in our news release and SEC filings. On today's call, we may refer to certain non-GAAP financial metrics, including base results, which exclude the impact of UDLive, acquired May 1st, 2026. Our release and earnings presentation provide a reconciliation between the most directly comparable gap measure and any non-gap financial measures discussed. With that, I'll turn the call over to Ken.

Thanks, Dan, and good morning. As expected, we delivered sequentially improved sales in the second quarter as a number of our previously awarded AMI projects began initial ramping of shipments. We also saw a modest increase in our short-term order rates and within flow instrumentation. Importantly, we are reaffirming our outlook for improving sequential top-line results for the balance of the year, with full year 2026 organic revenue still expected to be roughly flattish with 2025 levels. The team executed well on the margin front as we continue to manage operating cost controls as we described in detail last quarter. I'll turn the call over to Dan to walk through the specifics of the quarter and then Bob will provide an update on commercial activity and collective customer feedback from our recent annual AWWA ACE trade show. I'll then come back to cover the outlook and take your questions. Go ahead, Dan.

Thank you, Ken. Turning to slide three, total sales in Q2 were $222.3 million, representing a 7% decline year-over-year. Excluding the two-month benefit of UD live sales of approximately $2 million, base sales were down 7.5% year-over-year. Importantly, base sales were 9% higher than first quarter levels, as we anticipated, with a number of awarded projects in the pipeline beginning their initial ramp in shipments. Note that we will not be providing individual project level detail from the anonymized subset of awarded but not yet started projects list that we shared last quarter. But as we mentioned during Investor Day back in May, product shipments for the PROSA project have begun. Utility water sales declined 8% year over year and excluding the acquisition were down 9%, reflecting the project pacing dynamics we have been discussing for some time. Lower AMI-related product revenue was partially offset by higher software as well as collective beyond-the-meter growth. It is important to note that utility sales improved 8% sequentially on an organic basis. Sales for the flow instrumentation product line were up six percent year over year as we experienced broad based water application demand turning to profitability overall we delivered improved operating leverage versus the first quarter the result of sequentially higher sales and the favorable impact of cost actions put into place earlier in the year on a year-over-year basis operating earnings declined 12 percent with margins down 110 basis points to 17.7 percent. Base operating profit margins, excluding UDLive, were 18.4 percent, down 40 basis points from last year's second quarter. Gross margin was 40.8 percent, down 30 basis points from the second quarter of 2025, primarily reflecting lower sales volumes and project mix. Gross margins remained solidly in the upper half of our normalized range, indicative of the resiliency of our overall structural mix and pricing discipline. One item I want to call out is the increasing level of electronic component cost and availability pressures, which are a byproduct of the AI and data center build-out demand. While we have been able to adequately mitigate these impacts to date, the challenges posed by these pressures are not easing. Turning to selling, engineering, and administrative expenses, the second quarter's $51.4 million was $1.6 million lower year-over-year due to the benefit of spending controls, lower incentive compensation, and specific cost containment actions. These more than offset $1.8 million from the addition of UDLive for two months, including related intangible asset amortization, along with the final $1.2 million of transaction-related costs, which combined added approximately $3 million to year-over-year spending. For your ongoing modeling, our preliminary expectation for UDLive and tangible asset amortization is approximately $5 million annually. The effective income tax rate was 25.2% compared to 24.5% last year. Finally, diluted earnings per share were $1.02, down 13% from $1.17 in the prior year period. Primary working capital as a percentage of sales was 22.9%, up from 20.0% at the prior quarter end. The receivable increase simply relates to revenue timing, and we anticipate working down the above average inventory levels resulting from the revenue pacing dynamics throughout the fiscal year. Free cash flow was $21.9 million, down from $40.6 million in the prior year comparable quarter, given lower earnings, the temporary increases in working capital. As always, we remain focused on delivering full-year cash flow conversion in excess of 100% of net earnings. In the second quarter of 2026, we repurchased 204,000 shares for a total of $25.3 million and have approximately $90 million remaining on our current share repurchase authorization. Over the past three quarters, we have deployed roughly $80 million in share repurchases. Finally, as noted in the release, we did finalize a five-year renewal of our $150 million credit facility in the quarter. This facility remains undrawn and provides us with ample financial flexibility under attractive terms, including its expansion feature. With that, I'll turn the call over to Bob.

Thanks, Dan. Last month, we had the opportunity to connect with multiple customers, engineering consulting firms, and investors at ACE 2026 in Washington, D.C. For those not able to visit in person, we showcased our AMI and beyond the meter applications in a way that conveys our ability to deliver critical outcomes our customers are seeking across the full water cycle from source water to wastewater treatment. From the many customer conversations, it is clear that the market remains constructive about our solutions as utilities continue to prioritize modernization, efficiency, and visibility across their water and wastewater networks. These long-term secular drivers remain intact. In fact, our meetings with consultants during the show, who were looking to gain further insight into our water cycle-spanning solutions, were booked solid. Given the role these consultants play in the early part of the opportunity funnel, it bodes well for the long-term durability of the multi-decade transformation of the water sector and for our competitive position. consultant and customer discussions were heavily focused on both the hardware and software components of our network as a service or nas solutions of particular focus were advancements to network resiliency and flexibility and communication devices such as dynamic multi-carrier sim technology and our enhanced orion lens endpoint solution for metal pit lids from a software standpoint, Ion Water Premium, our Beacon Field app, and of course our embedded AI functionality Cobalt garnered strong interest. Collective feedback reinforced our NAS leadership position and an AMI hardware and software set that provides value to all utility stakeholders and their customers. Finally, we continued to educate utilities on stormwater and sewer line applications with the broad solution portfolios from both Smart Cover and now UD Live. As Dan noted, we are starting to see early ramp activity at PRASA and several other awarded projects beginning deployment, which will continue to advance as the year progresses. I will remind you that these include both turnkey and supply-only projects and that implementations will continue to be uneven, the result of numerous external factors inherent in the industry.

With that turn the call back to ken thanks bob looking ahead as we noted in the release we continue to anticipate sequential improvement in base quarterly revenue dollars as each quarter progresses resulting in full year 2026 revenue excluding ud live flat-ish with with 2025. as we noted last quarter and as bob just reiterated you should read that not as flat but flat-ish with variability and unevenness in project ramping and short-term order patterns. Given the fourth quarter represents the easiest year-over-year comparison, you should expect the year-over-year-based sales growth rate to be heavily weighted to Q4. As noted last quarter, we implemented certain cost reduction actions and have been maintaining spending discipline to protect margin integrity as we navigate revenue pacing throughout the year. And as Dan mentioned, we are actively managing the electronics availability and cost dynamics. While we continue to navigate quarter-to-quarter factors, our confidence in the long-term outlook for the business has not wavered. To reinforce what you heard from our team at our recent investor day, we have multiple enduring revenue and profitability drivers underpinned by the ongoing digital transformation of the water sector, which we believe will positively drive shareholder value. these include the long-term durable growth foundation of replacement demand which is bolstered by ami adoption and hardware enabled recurring software the extension of our offerings across the full water cycle with our beyond the meter technologies leveraging core innovation excellence as well as acquisitions to continue to strengthen our competitive position and finally building on our disciplined execution which we believe will extend the profitable growth runway into the future. Finally, I'd like to call out our recently published 2025 sustainability report, which highlights our progress across the key pillars of our solutions, operations, and people. It remains clear that by managing sustainability as a business process, it enables us to both provide industry leading water solutions to grow our business, while also reducing our environmental footprint. With that operator, please open the line for questions.

We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Jeff Reeve with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. So now that we are about at the halfway point of the year and certain projects have commenced initial deployment, how has your visibility into the second half ramp changed versus 90 days ago? And are any at risk of slipping into 2027?

Hey Jeff so yeah so as we talked about last quarter we fully expected as the year progressed it would become you know a little more clear to us how things would play out given how important the nine projects are to to the rest of the year and frankly the positivity they have for the next several years. So as you know we talked about PRASA has begun and a few of the other projects have begun. We'll always note that there can be possible unevenness, but the total cohort of nine projects feels like it's pretty solid at this point.

Okay, got it. And to hit that flattish organic revenue target for the year, do all of the projects need to start shipping in the back half or is there ample cushion in that guide?

Yeah, so just keep in mind, it's not like they're all starting at the beginning of Q3. So there's multiple phase-ins and pieces. So it is a whole collection of, we're expecting, you know, some certain positivity around these projects we also have a robust funnel around just near-term projects that are in negotiation and other things that are not part of that and yeah in q2 we had a a higher you know daily turn rate of orders than we had in q1 so those numbers of factors give us the confidence to remain you know on this flattish for the remainder of the year stance got it and If I could just sneak in one more on UD Live, it seems like the revenues were a bit lower than I would have expected on kind of the trailing revenue.

Is that just a timing issue, maybe related to the May close, or is there anything else driving that?

Yeah, definitely just a timing issue. So, you know, as with any acquisition, particularly sometimes with small companies, you get just certain distractions and things. But, yep, certainly understand that question, but not concerned at all. Great.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Quinn Fredrickson with Beard. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Yeah, good morning, guys. On the short cycle portion of the business, could you put a finer point there on what you saw in the quarter, maybe in context of the 15 to 20 million shortfall in the first quarter, how second quarter compared to what you would expect seasonally, if there's any additional room for a short cycle recovery in the back half?

Yeah, so, you know, as we did expect, you know, Q1 was the outlier in terms of short order cycle rates, as you called it. So, you know, we would just say it was more normal-ish in Q2 and typical of the operating environment. So we certainly don't intend to get into sizing every quarter. I think in Q1, it was outsized enough that we did that just to provide some more clarity for investors to understand what happened. But we're really not going to get into that from quarter to quarter because that portion of the business is always somewhat uneven by nature.

And then, Dan, just given your comments on electronic component costs, any additional color on how to think about price cost or gross margin in the back half, perhaps any details you can share on your memory exposure as well would be helpful.

Yeah. Can I just go first? So, Quinn, I think it's important context here. So, we've been here before, right? so if you go back to 2021 with supply chain shocks and electronics availability and inflation so we know that the entire world is going through this not just if this isn't a badger meter challenge at the moment but we are positioned to continue to manage this accordingly to work our way through it but we wanted to call out the potential supply issues there and from a margin point of view you know just like all the other puts and takes structurally we certainly feel fine within our range, but just wanted to call this out. So Dan, any other color if you'd like?

Yeah, I think you hit on the two relevant points here. And there really are two things that we're managing through right now. It is a cost component dynamic that we're dealing with, but then also availability. And so as Ken mentioned, we're managing through both.

Thank you both.

Your next question comes from the line of James Ko with Jeffries. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thanks for taking questions here. I wanted to touch on the awarded project kind of ramp up timeline.

I mean, looking at the historical revenue profile of the cohorts that you guys shared, it seems like deployment tends to peak like one or two years after deployment should we expect kind of similar dynamic for the like nine kind of averted projects that you guys shared yeah so there's that's a lot to unpack because just like every acquisition is different every ami project is different but absolutely you you pace from this arrangement of there's nothing in the base and then initial implementation begins so product shipments in a supply only case begin or even in a turnkey solution and then that is married up with the insulation activity. So there is a ramp concept. I don't know that you could pinpoint the average project to a particular year or time duration, because some projects will be three years in nature, some will be five. But I think that the curve that you're describing in terms of a ramp, a scale of deployment for a period of time, and then as projects begin to wind down, that that other side of the curve begins to decline. But trying to pinpoint precisely an average project is a very difficult thing to do in this in this industry great oh thanks for the color and and i think you guys talked about like other like opportunities outside of this like nine or projects can you kind of provide more color on opportunity funnels outside of those awarded projects that you guys shared yeah i mean i think your your point is perfect because i think sometimes when you publish a list of a cohort particularly of the scope and scale that we did, that almost implies that those are the key projects and only projects, and that is absolutely not the case. That was a representative sample of projects that spanned everything from utility projects to investor-owned projects, from competitive conversions to incumbency experiences, and then a dynamic of both supply and turnkey type projects. So it's important to note that was chosen very purposefully to illustrate those factors, but those are not the only projects. whether we're selling direct or whether we're going through distribution there are absolutely lots of opportunities and sometimes those opportunities come through as turnkey or projects that we we would have disclosed like that and in other cases that's coming through that short cycle order rate that I think has now been coined as a term really that in my mind is implied to be those things that we have limited visibility to in terms of direct ordering behavior But those are taking place all day, every day in the natural course. And as Ken indicated, that rate of activity improved versus Q1 levels or increased versus Q1 levels. That's what's happening here in Q2. And that's what we're forecasting forward in our full year outlook of getting to flattish on an organic basis.

Great. Thanks for taking questions.

Your next question comes from Nathan Jones with Stiefel. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. I guess I'll follow up on the project ramp-ups to begin with. We've been focused on how they ramp up in the back half of the year, but I guess the question is, are they at full run rate as we exit the end of the year, or is there further for them to go to hit kind of a full run rate as we get into 2027? and you should continue to see that sequential improvement as we get into early next year just from those specific projects yeah so the one thing that uh as bob pointed out it's hard to you know compare one project to another and what a ramp rate looks like and how long it goes for but i think we did provide a little bit more detail at investor day that showed some of the actual projects of how they flow and some of the unevenness but um you know some of them will be at full run rate end of year.

Some of them will not, but that also doesn't mean that they might slow down or speed up in any particular quarter. So the main thing to think about that makes us feel good about it is that it is a large cohort as well as the other pieces going forward. And it gives us more air cover to deal with some of that unevenness than we've dealt with in the past few quarters.

Okay, I guess the second question then is going to be on price and costs. You talked about increasing electronics costs i know copper has become a bit less important over the years but it has increased significantly self-transportation uh costs and all that kind of stuff can you talk about where you are in terms of price costs are you able to pass this through to customers and then within these projects are there uh are there contractual pass-through of increased costs or do you have some exposure uh to increase costs there thanks for taking the questions.

Yeah. So Nathan, I guess I'll, I'll take that in two parts, you know, first just talking about, you know, price cost dynamics. That's an ongoing discussion that we're having internally and with customers as we're looking at RFP opportunities and working with customers on, on pricing individual projects. And we feel good about our ability to continue to, you know, recapture cost increases that we see, you know, within the market through our, our, you know, pricing excellence programs and really how we look at each individual opportunity. I'll also just remind you again, you know, the biggest driver of our overall gross margins is the structural mixed benefits that we continue to see. So as we move from mechanical to static metering, more cellular AMI deployments and then the beyond the meter and software solutions that come along with that are really the main drivers toward that that gross margin performance that we see. um over time in terms of specifically within our contracts um we negotiate in most contracts i'll say uh the the ability to pass along escalations throughout the three four or five year deployments that we might have um so while not maybe a hundred percent in all of our our contracts that's certainly a common term that we're negotiating with our customers thanks for

taking the questions.

Your next question comes from the line of Bobby Zolper with Raymond James. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thanks for taking the question. I think I saw that you renewed your credit facility. It seemed like also relative to the pace you were repurchasing shares at the investor day versus the end of the quarter that may have decelerated a little bit. Is there anything to read into that in terms of what you'll be doing with your excess capital? Does that imply that you're going to be doing more deals versus repurchasing shares?

Yeah, so Bobby, it's just a continued balanced approach to our capital allocation priorities. So, you know, continuing to invest in the business and make sure that we're super focused on our R&D innovation growth runways, returning cash to shareholders, obviously dividends, and for three consecutive quarters, We've been buying shares. We still have $90 million left on the authorization. So that's obviously something we've been doing recently. And we still are every bit as excited about M&A as we were. So nothing has really changed from when we saw you in May.

And Bobby, I'll just add, the renewal of that credit facility was largely driven by the fact that that was due to expire in July of this year. So we enjoy having that financial flexibility of having that facility in place.

All right. I appreciate it. Thank you. And then if in terms of swing factors to get to flattish for the year, I know there's this like letter floating around about the process of project from, I think it's the resident commissioner of Puerto Rico. Since that was published in early June, has that, I guess, changed your opinion of the likelihood of the process of project hitting your expectations for the year.

Yeah. So, Bobby, the normal disclaimer of we don't talk about legal issues and things publicly, but nothing has changed on our view on the process project. And this has been, you know, it's been public that there have been several reviews over the years. It's gone to appeals courts and it's been to other things. And nothing has changed the fact that from our view, they ran a fair and open process and we won it.

I think it's just important And while your question is very process specific, like the idea of challenging a procurement process or appealing the application of a procurement process is very common to our industry. This is all government bidding, government contracting, that the things that you're mentioning here are commonplace in the United States as well. Obviously, sometimes those can be more or less supercharged depending upon the political environment. But the point is, like, this is a common thing that we deal with and anticipate in the normal course all day, every day.

All right. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Krill with Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks. Good morning, everyone. Ken, I think in the prepared remarks, you noted 4Q organic sales would heavily weighted. The growth would be heavily weighted to that quarter. So for 3Q, you know, can you grow organically or is there a chance sales are still down year over year on that tough comp, I think?

So not getting into specific quarterly guidance. I will tell you, though, we do expect sequential growth again in Q3 over Q2. Not going to size up what that growth is, but I think just wanted to be, you know, pointing out of the fact that the obviously the comp in Q4 is easier than the comp in Q3. So I just wanted to point out that the growth rate will be more heavily skewed to 4 than 3.

And then flow instrumentation, I didn't get a ton of airtime, but the growth there, very impressive and pretty sudden. So just could you unpack, you know, what drove that? Is this sustainable or was it more, you know, one-time large order? I think that can happen here. You know, so can we extrapolate that looking forward or does this revert back to the kind of low single-digit area? that product line tends to grow at? Thanks.

Yeah, so two things. So I just want to call out again, the law of small numbers. So I'll point that out even when the growth rate is higher than when it's lower. You know, it's, we still view this product line as GDP-like in growth over the five-year strategic horizon. We've kind of downplayed in the past some of our role and what we sell into data centers we get asked that a lot and frankly as a as a whole it's not a big percentage of badger meter revenue but within that that flow instrument flow instrumentation product line we have two particular products that that do well in data centers it's our our clamp-on meters that are that are really flexible to use and and finding a lot of headway in data centers, mag meters for cooling towers and monitoring flow. So we do have a couple of products that do really well there. And in this particular quarter, we had some orders that came through and drove it a little higher. Since I'm talking about data centers, we also have good opportunities there within water quality. But I would caution you to stick with the GDP-like low single digits growth on average.

Thank you.

Your next call comes from the line of scott graham with seaport your line is now open please go ahead hey good morning nice that there was a pause there maybe that she meant to put a drum roll i don't know so um all things uh you know aside from the other questions which were all good ones um the ud live loss. Are you saying that it includes transactions? So you're saying intangibles are $5 million for the year, so $1.25 for a quarter, and I know less than that because it's a partial quarter. Are you saying the difference between the intangibles and the losses made up by these transaction costs, in other words, is the $3 million that you refer to inclusive of the $1.25 or is that separate?

Yeah. So Scott, what we were trying to point out there in the SEA dollars in the quarter is there's two pieces. There's the $1.8 million, which is just the ongoing run rate of SEA that you should see coming from UDLive. And we did a reconciliation this quarter to break apart the consolidated business from the base business so that you can specifically see that in that breakout reconciliation. That does not include the other piece, which is the transaction costs of $1.2 million that were the remaining transaction costs within the quarter. So ongoing run rate is that $1.8 million, which includes the intangible asset amortization, and the transaction costs are separate from that.

Very clear. Thank you. The other question I had was, Bob, you referred to successes and talking at the recent trade show with meetings with consultants and you brought in digital could you give us more color on what what you mean there you know some i know you guys have a lot of things going on in digital and you know the use of consultants i was i maybe just not clear what you were trying to say there yeah so i mean that that trade show in and of itself is of course designed to reach many an audience.

And the comments in the script were very specific to the engineering consulting community. And so that's an opportunity for us to meet with those consultants, understand what opportunities they're working on, but also to then sometimes talk about things that have been launched already that they may not be aware of, or in many cases foreshadow what is forthcoming for hardware and software. And so in those meetings, we're able to provide a whole view to both hardware and software solutions. In that case, that was a trade show very much focused on the clean water side. So it was all about advanced metering infrastructure. And through those discussions, the combination of the evolution of our hardware set, our NAS capabilities, and then the software enablement reaching all constituents of the utility. No longer just the billing read, but in large part workflows associated with utility efficiency and customer care, enabling the field service crews to see the real-time power of beacon data as they're doing work in the field and then eye on water with consumers. The collective feedback was your leadership in cellular, which started as a differentiated form of AMI has evolved now into NAS capabilities that is fully encompassing all stakeholders at utilities, and even importantly, the customer of those utilities who are the citizenry using water in every city and state. And so the collective feedback was, this is no longer just a discussion about cellular versus fixed network. It's a discussion about Badger meters, cellular leadership, NAS capabilities, and that's become the industry standard. And your leadership position is evident not only in your financial results, but in the products that you bring to market and our ability to provide customers with those outcomes and consulting firms recognize that.

This is very helpful.

Your next question comes from the line of Ryan Connors with North Coast Research. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Good morning. You've been very comprehensive, but I do have a couple of things left on my list here. One, I wanted to go back to the improvement in short cycle orders that you talked about. And I'm wondering whether the exit by one of your competitors from the mechanical meter space has anything to do with that. Obviously, you also see static growing faster, but you're still in the mechanical business. And I know that's a big part of the install base.

So was that at all a factor there? um i i would not say it was a factor that fast it will be a factor um because we are you know the provider of the premier mechanical meter that much of the market still very much desires so it there was no no sizable impact at all within that quarter that we would call out but we feel happy about that decision by that competitor i think that's a reinforcement of our long-standing choice matters approach to our Blue Edge portfolio, and that, you know, we continue to believe that there's a place for both mechanical meters and ultrasonic meters in the decision making that utilities undertake, whether it's upon standard replacement cycle or whether they're making

technology adoption decisions. Ken's exactly right. That did not manifest itself in the short term, but it's certainly something we hope to capitalize on.

Got it. And then sticking with that theme of ultrasonic versus mechanical, one of the things we've heard from some of the peers, not necessarily from Badger Meter, but that although there's positives to the ultrasonic side for the customer and for the manufacturers as well, the barriers to entry on ultrasonic and static tend to be a little lower than in some of the traditional mechanical applications. Would you agree with that? Have you heard that? And do you think that's been a factor at all in the competitive shifts? And just curious your thoughts or your reaction to that.

Well, what I would tell you about that is if you look at, we'll just start with the question that you just asked. So a very large portion of the market still by choice chooses mechanical. So if anyone comes in with ultrasonic, obviously there's a large portion of the market, if that's their only offering that they can't participate in to begin with. Secondly, when you do come in with a Me Too product of ultrasonic and you're trying to compete with very large, entrenched, strong, great competitors like us, Census, and Neptune as the big three who all have that and have the relationships and really the incumbency position is so strong, it's still very hard to get over for new entrants. So I would agree with you that a technology for technology base, yes, they have a me too product, but I think there's a lot more to it than that to be successful in this market.

Got it. Fair enough. Thanks for your time. Sure.

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Fairbanks with JP Morgan. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, just on the electronic component pressures, can you clarify what these subcomponents exactly are and then maybe what products in the portfolio this would affect. Thank you.

Yeah. So, Michael, it's really a broad-based thing. So, as you can imagine, it's the electronics industry in total. So, that could be certain capacitors that are used in different offerings. It could be right down to the bare boards that circuit boards are made from. So it's kind of across the way. Memory chips, obviously, are a big part of AI and hyperscaling. So it's kind of a general macroeconomic comment that us and everyone else out there is going to be dealing with.

And then tying to specific products, it's obviously without, you know, this isn't intended to create fear in any way. I'm just saying this as an obvious connection tie that all relates to any of the enabled products that have electronics. So it's Orion Cellular, it's ultrasonic products, it's beyond the meter technologies. But as Ken alluded to in the prepared remarks and in his first answer, we've dealt with this before. Everyone's dealing with the same situation. This is not a Badger unique challenge. This is a industry challenge.

Yeah, and one of the things that frankly in our industry positions us better than everybody else is the fact that last time this bared out, that being on the newest electronics being on the newest platforms our innovation edge was important last time and the flexibility of our cellular offering versus fixed networks and all of those things that were that were positive factors for us the last time still are true today got it and then maybe as a follow-up you you called out the working capital increase on the quarter how should we think about working capital in the second half of this year as you gear up for more of these projects?

Yeah, there's probably two things to focus on there. On the receivable side, certainly there's some timing impacts within any given quarter in terms of when shipments are going out and those types of things. The other side is the inventory, and a couple things to point out there. Number one, when we acquired UD Live, it came along with some inventory, So that contributes to the increase there. And obviously there's no sales in the trailing 12 months. So that's going to work itself out over time. We mentioned some cost pressures as you look at things from a year over year perspective, things like copper is more expensive. And so just naturally, the dollars that are sitting there on the balance sheet are higher. And then, again, with some of the revenue pacing things throughout the first half of the year, there was just some supply that showed up a bit earlier than we needed it. So fully anticipate working through that in the back half. I think the other thing to just point out is, you know, as sales continue to grow sequentially here in the third and fourth quarter, the sales base in the calculation of primary working capital as a percentage of sales is going to help that percentage to normalize as well. So, those are all factors, I think, to what we're seeing right now.

Thank you.

We have now reached the end of the Q&A session. I will now turn the call back over to Dan Weltsin for closing remarks.

Thank you, Operator. Just a quick note for your planning that our third quarter 2026 earnings release is tentatively scheduled for October 21st, 2026. As most of you know, Barb is no longer with Badger Meter, so please don't hesitate to reach out to me if you have any follow-ups at investors at badgermeter.com. Have a great day.

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