Executive readout · one minute
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Earnings call · FY2026 Q2
Executive readout · one minute
Read the call alongside every captured source. Transcript, audio, slides, 8-K earnings release, 10-Q stay in one workspace.
Management tone
Confident
Net tone +58 · low hedging
Forward guidance
5 guided metrics
Management's latest ranges and targets are included below.
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From the 8-K filed Jul 29, 2026.
| Metric | Period | Guided | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Adjusted EBITDA
Initiated
Q3 2026
|
24% – 28% | Non-GAAP | |
|
Adjusted EBITDA
Initiated
full year 2026
|
$1.35B – $1.41B | Non-GAAP | |
|
GAAP net income
Initiated
full year 2026
|
$481M – $531M | GAAP | |
|
Adjusted free cash flow
Initiated
full year 2026
|
$520M – $580M | Non-GAAP | |
|
Net cash from operating activities
Initiated
full year 2026
|
$890M – $1.01B | GAAP |
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Hey, good morning everyone. With me on today's call are our co-chief executive officers and Mike Battles, our EVP and Chief Dougas. Slides for today. Matters we are discussing participants are cautioned not to play any revisions in the front end of our election volumes and we are pleased to see the SKS segment rebound so strongly after recent challenging years.
This supply constraint on slide 9, we continue to look for the best opposition candidates that will come to market later this year. Internally, we can hand your best. Thank you, Mike.
Conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your lines in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Tyler Brown with Raymond James. Please proceed with your questions.
Hey, good morning. Hey, first off, just congrats to Alan, wishing him all the best. But, hey, Eric D., so there's quite a few moving pieces in the quarter. I think the guide's up maybe 110. It looks like most of that's from SK, but can we talk a little bit more about the ES guide? So, again, there kind of seems to be a few things, and maybe you can parse it out. But on the good side, it looks like you have Terra Nova. It sounds like some stronger ER work in Q3, and you've got the new contract as positive. But then maybe industrial services is slightly lower. Would that be right? But can you just give us any help on kind of what's going on inside of the ES guide specifically?
New contract that we talked about, we've got some upside from that. But there's other opportunities that we're seeing as well in environmental services. You know, when I look at industrial services, and we do have some nice things, I think a lot of good momentum leading into the second half of the year in environmental services, and we should see some kind of sequential.
Okay, perfect. And then just if we can kind of touch on industrial services a bit more, I kind of get it. The refineries are kind of running all out, giving crack spreads. But, Eric G., there have been some higher profile, call it accidents, in the past few months. And I'm just kind of curious how you're thinking about industrial services over the next couple of years. It just kind of feels to me that all this deferred maintenance is starting to really stack up, and maybe eventually some of these plants are just simply going to have to be turned around, maybe something similar to what we saw post-COVID. But I'm just curious just any thoughts about industrial services over the next few years.
We're charging, unfortunately, and our margins become a small amount.
You know, the good thing, Kyle, is I agree with all the things as far as long-term growth I'm really excited about it. The good news is we don't, in the guide that we just spoke up, we don't put a lot of, that's on the come. That happens. That's upside. I think that we're actually pretty thoughtful and balanced in our view as a back-to-back.
Our next question comes from the line of Noah Kay with Oppenheimer. Please speak with your questions.
Hey, thanks for taking the questions. A lot of growth initiatives to talk about this quarter. So I'll just ask about two of them. First, data center. So this is really interesting. Liquid cooling is growing probably 35% to 40% CAGR over the next five years. There are some really stringent requirements for liquid cooling management around pH and turbidity and particulate requirements. And, you know, we've seen some of the equipment vendors and EPCs add flushing and filtration services. Can you talk a little bit about your competitive differentiation and right to win when you're dealing with, like, highly sensitive materials? And can you help us understand what capabilities you're building up with that $50 million in CapEx?
Yeah, great question, Noah.
Our industrial, Clean Harbor's industrial, for a long time. And we have an industry-leading safety record, an industry-leading compliance record. We have the national, it's not, it's going to be growing, but it's modest growth. It's modest growth over the next few years, when obviously the upside is a much higher upside.
Yep, helpful. Thank you guys. And then on the large manufacturing contract customer, congratulations on landing that. Maybe you mentioned they're in manufacturing. Maybe you can help us understand a little bit more, give us a little more color about what that's exposed to and what investments you need to make to support that contract ramping through 2030.
Yeah, we would hate to go into the specific level, however, which all went to play for us in helping a contract that's going to ramp up over the next four to five years, about 15 to 20 million of revenue per year, and then get to an 80 to 100 million run rate. Our great insight in them right on the custom additional trucking and driver capacity redundancy and as we talked about in the past, where we're getting embedded and providing.
What I like about noise is that it proves you guys are not waiting aground for the IS refinery turnaround. You know, there's some real growth initiatives here to take that business higher. So nice job, guys. I'll turn it over.
Nice job.
Our next question comes from the line of James Shroom with TD Cowan. Please proceed with your questions.
Hey, good morning, guys. Congrats on a great quarter.
Thanks, James.
Let's just talk about SKSS for a minute if we could. Just kind of curious if you can help with the expectation for 3Q and 4Q with the $275 million EBITDA guide for the year. What does that imply for the quarters? Are you assuming sort of flattish at the 93 level for the third quarter and then $55 million in the fourth quarter, or what should we expect there?
Hey, Jim, it's Eric Bell. I think pretty similar to what you, and then begin to kind of, we see what I would tell you early in Q2 and then Q3.
Okay, thanks, Eric. And then just, is there any refinery maintenance that we should be aware of in the third or fourth quarter? that's significant or noteworthy nothing more than already done okay okay and then lastly for me um you guys mentioned um market share gains and i was wondering if you could elaborate on that was that in a specific segment or anything like what gives you confidence that you're you're gaining share if you could just talk about that a little bit year over year thanks a lot guys I appreciate it.
Thank you.
Adam Bubis with Goldman Sachs. Please just give me your question.
Hi, good morning. The safety clean environmental services business continues really robust growth performance, I think 11% in the quarter. Can you just help us understand what's driving that? How would you break that out between pricing and volume? Is the volume side reflective of market share gains or favorable underlying demand? and just help us understand that performance.
Hey, Adam, Eric here. So you're absolutely right. We're thrilled with the performance that is. When I think about that 11% growth, you know, typically we sit there about 50-50, maybe a little bit closer.
I think that's a bit there. And then on the S assumptions embedded in guidance on base, re-refining spreads relative to 2Q levels.
I'll take this, Adam. I would say that, you know, we follow, you know, kind of industry guidance that we get, And that's leading to a lower guide, and we're just using, you know.
And, Adam, think about the current market conditions year to date in the SKS, and we've seen a tremendous up to the current market conditions. Great job of deploying that close.
Great. Thanks so much.
Thanks, Adam.
Our next question comes from the line of Jerry Revich with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your question.
Yes, hi. Good morning, everyone. I wanted to ask on the manufacturing. I wanted to ask on the manufacturing side, you know, we've gone from environment over the prior 20 to 30 years of offshoring, and now, you know, we get the benefit of reshoring from a clean harbor standpoint. Can you just talk about which pockets of manufacturing reshoring are really additive to your opportunities that, you know, we're seeing obviously power and gas compression and semis and electronics? Can you just talk about what moves the needle for clean harbors as you look at the U.S. manufacturing plans? What are you folks excited about from a market standpoint, and what's the magnitude of upside to clean harbors?
Yeah, clearly we've been building out our platform.
And then can we shift gears in SKSS, obviously a really strong returns business for you folks through the cycle. Anything you can do to reduce the cyclicality at a time like this, is it an option to enter into long-term contracts? Maybe we shave the peak and maybe improve the trough price realization. Is that an option for you? Are you folks thinking about that at all, given your really strong competitive position for re-refined product?
Yeah, Jerry, one of the tools that we've talked about.
I would say, Jerry, that if you open up the aperture and look at the last five years and kind of where the guide is kind of on the whole average, it's next year, what's the year after. It's kind of based on what the price of baseball is. All the points that Eric just mentioned around more group three, selling to new customers, all that's very true in longer-term horizons. We're obviously excited about the business this year. We've always been excited about the business and a great job this year managing the spread. But you've got to look at it over a longer-term horizon.
I appreciate the discussion.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Jim Rusciutti with Needham. Please proceed with your question.
All right. I hear a couple of those growth drivers you identified. Just on the data center opportunity, can you say what kind of revenues you're generating currently in this market and maybe help us with the growth rate you're anticipating this year?
And our growth plan.
Whole customers, can you say how many customers? And I think you alluded to eight lines of business, but it sounds like initially, you know, tied more toward construction.
Exactly.
The EF business removal and PFAS project in the quarter. I'm wondering if you can just give us any update on how the PFAS business is tracking this year, just in terms of perhaps percentage of revenue, the growth, And whether, you know, your expectations have changed at all over the near term for this part of the business. Sounds like it's still going to be a good long-term driver.
The large event that Eric referenced, that 30% plus growth rate is not just in the U.S. and in Canada.
Thanks very much. Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Shlomo Rosenbaum with Steeple. Please proceed with your question.
Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. It was good to see that incinerator utilization go up to 91%, but I thought maybe you could talk a little bit about where we are in pricing versus volume in the quarter and kind of how did it shake out for your incinerators, how did the mix shake out?
Sure, I'll take that, Shlomo. And, you know, incinerators, as you all know, are kind of grouped into that line of business where we saw the 18% growth. So if I hit the parcel up in totality, I'd say it kind of breaks out in thirds. A third of it is probably good project volumes that we saw throughout the quarter and inclusive of the PFAS. A third, the remaining two-thirds is probably equally split. But when you think about the categories in general, we're really excited.
Okay, great. Maybe I could pivot a little. Where are you on the charge for oil? And just in terms of on a sequential basis, I know you talked about it year over year, but with the rise in oil prices, are you seeing more competition now? People are willing to kind of just, you know, take it for free because they're able to start to refine it. What are you seeing over there?
That's really the great story in the quarter, that even though they charge oil kind of up year over year, down a little bit as a guide into Q4.
You're just talking about holding the line. Can you give a little bit more detail? In other words, like, you're just expecting even if, you know, we go back to pre-war levels, you'd still be able to kind of maintain it within 10%, 20%. Just how should we think about that?
Our goal is to stay at CFO and deny kind of what happens to the price. Never go back to PFO.
And then just one more pivot. And just with that acquisition, ES and H, and just – it sounds like it's more of, like, a maritime type of acquisition, and I was just wondering what makes you decide, like, at this point in time that that's just a good place to expand into, and what are some of the capabilities that they bring in particular that you didn't have already, and is it really just geographic expansion, or is there something in particular that they do that's unusual? ...over the years is on an annual basis.
So this really hits the mark of around that Louisiana and Texas market, where we were a little bit light on our field services revenue. So it's a great fit there. And then additionally, Mike had mentioned in his years over the years, but the market, looking at that forefront capabilities and the people that really that helped me grow in their HEPICO, as you know, this acquisition that...
Okay, thank you.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Larry Sola with CJS Securities. Please receive your question.
Good morning, everybody. And echo the best wishes to Alan in the quarter of a century run for CJS and so thank you to him and best wishes. I guess just on the large contracts you guys announced, So it sounds like a new customer or significantly incremental high revenue. It feels like it's just a convergence of, you know, you mentioned people wanting, companies wanting to use a common service provider. Your capabilities obviously probably are, you know, by far the best in the U.S. and then more onshore manufacturing coming on board. So it feels like maybe we'll even, as we go forward, see more of these type of larger or contracted business. Is that fair to say? Just on the ES&H acquisition side, the margins are at pretty good. This looks like mid-30s. Is that driven just by mix? Is that water cleanup? I know generally NER is higher margin work. Is that the primary driver of those good margins? And it sounds like this forefront will probably have good margins as well, but maybe that's still relatively modest business.
Yeah, the forefront has good margins, but the legacy of the VR and...
Our next question comes from the line of Toby Thomer with Truist Securities. Please proceed with your question.
Thank you. A single question for me.
Could you discuss the return profile on acquisitions that you've announced this year and maybe compare and contrast them with the internal investments that you've articulated so far on the call and data center, new branches, et cetera?
Sure, Jeremy. I'll take that. When you think about what we've announced and you do the analysis around what the multiple is that we pay, I think that's pretty good because we weren't trying to put things. We're very active in the marketplace. I think this year, we've been able to go land on it, but with the same level of discipline. When you think about the interim investments, those tend to be barriers that the investments we're making in backtracks or in the FDA unit or in other things we're talking about. An incredible return.
Question comes from the line of David Manthe with Baird. Please proceed with your question.
Thank you. Hey, good morning, guys. First, could you dissect the EBITDA guidance change here? So as I'm looking at it, it looks like 110 basis points or, I'm sorry, $110 million at the midpoint for a delta. You picked up 110 on SKSS going from 165 to 275. My calculations are corporate is maybe a 15 million bad guy. And does that imply that ES in the new guidance is 15 million higher and 10 million of that organic? Like, does that all add up? In the S kind of, in the S, okay, and then as it relates to the S profitability, you touched on a few of these items, but you saw 8% growth margin up just 10 basis points. Could you talk about the puts and takes within the year-to-year growth that affected the segment margin?
For ESs in the current year, I think if the year continues to roll out, again, the full year forecast, kind of 30 to 40 basis points of incremental margin year-on-year. Great, thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Nadida Nayar with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.
Morning, gentlemen. Thank you for squeezing me in here. Just two quick ones from my side. Hey, just two quick ones here. So, you know, with regards to the incremental from Kimball this year, you know, I believe we talked about an incremental of $10 to $20 million of EBITDA. Could you just remind us what's kind of baked into the updated guide and, you know, maybe how it's tracking so far this year? And I always wanted to, you know, directionally just touch on the free cash flow outlook into, you know, just 27th grade. And I'm not asking for exact guidance, you know, Mike and Erichie, just, you know, would you say 26th is maybe likely the peak for, you know, your growth CapEx initiative? You know, I noticed, you know, we did step it up by 10 million or so this year, and you did talk about the 50 that's kind of spread across the coming three years. But, you know, just as you guys kind of progress towards your mid-40s pre-cash flow conversion target, I was hoping you could just, you know, give us some color and maybe the bridge that kind of gets us there. You kind of see these, you know, return initiatives growing faster than the CapEx spend. So maybe we could see, like, you know, an acceleration in maybe pre-cash flow growth over the coming years. Just any color there would be helpful.
You know, when we think about pre-cash being there this year, it's really the acceleration of some of the things we talked about in the past, as well as with new business opportunities. Roughly 40% this year is how it works out. We're going to continue to drive that number up. We have a long-term goal line at this point, but just know that when we put out some long-range plans here internally, it's growing that 40% basis and continuing to do high return. The beautiful thing about it is that the CapEx is growing because the opportunities are growing.
The pipeline is strong. When you think about the reason why we need to make these types of CapEx investments is because we see the 2027, 2027, 2028, 2029, and we need to drive that type of long-term growth. And I'm excited about it. I mean, the data center is one more good example of ways we can capture.
Very clear. Thank you, gentlemen.
This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the floor back over to Mr. Gerstenberg for closing comments.
We appreciate everyone joining us today. We hope everyone will see some of you at our investor events in the coming months.
And most of all, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. And have a wonderful day.
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