Operator
My name is Daryl, and I will be your conference facilitator this afternoon. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Forded Corporation's second quarter 2026 Earnings Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during that time, simply press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star, then the number two. I would now like to turn the call over to Ms. Christina Jones, Vice President of Investor Ms. Jones, you may begin your conference.
And thank you, everyone, for joining us on today's call. I am joined today by Illumideh Shiroyeh, Fortis President and CEO, and Mark Okerstrom, Fortis CFO. During today's call, we present certain non-GAAP financial measures. information required by regulation g is available on the investor section of our website at fordif.com we will also make forward-looking statements including statements regarding events or developments that we expect or anticipate will or may occur in the future these forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and actual results might differ materially from any forward-looking statements that we make today information regarding these risk factors is available in our sec files including our annual report on form 10k and the subsequent quarterly reports on form 10q these forward-looking statements speak only as of the date that they are made and we do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements our statements on period to period increases or decreases refer to year-over-year comparisons unless otherwise specified and our results and outlook discussed today are on a continuing operations basis. With that, I'll turn the call over to Elibidae.
Thank you, Christina, and thank you all for joining our call today. Let me begin on slide three. You two marked another quarter of strong results and execution of the 40 accelerated strategy by our 40 team. Four key messages from the quarter. First, our teams delivered strong financial performance across both segments. On a consolidated basis, we delivered core revenue growth of 6.7%, adjusted EBITDA growth of 12%, and adjusted EPS growth of 28%. Importantly, our results reflect continued progress on our objective of driving faster, profitable organic growth, powered by our 40 business system amplified. Second, we remain disciplined in our capital allocation approach. with relentless focus on optimizing shareholder returns over the medium to long term. This quarter, we executed a small bull-turn acquisition and deployed another roughly $200 million to share repurchases, bringing total share repurchases since our launch of New Fortive a year ago to approximately 38 million shares, or 11% of shares outstanding. Third, we continued to execute our Fortive Accelerated strategy. and we are pleased to see evidence that our investments in innovation, commercial, and recurring customer value are contributing to accelerating growth, margin expansion, and earnings performance, reinforcing our confidence in our medium-term financial framework and value creation opportunity. Finally, we are raising our full year 2026 adjusted EPS guidance to $2.95 to $3.05. reflecting our solid first-half performance and our confidence in the trajectory of the business. Moving to slide four, let me highlight some of the progress we are making in executing the three pillars of our 40 accelerated strategy. Starting with the first pillar, delivering faster, profitable organic growth. Overall, we remain encouraged by the progress we're seeing across cross-innovation, commercial and recurring customer value, all of which are building the foundation for durable, faster organic growth. This quarter, our accelerating innovation velocity again translated into faster growth. At Fluke, our innovation funnel is steadily expanding with new product introductions tightly aligned to strategic growth areas such as data centers defense and early in career technicians demand for certified max continues to exceed expectations helping establish flux position in the rapidly growing data center commissioning and maintenance market and driving pull through of the broader flu portfolio into this high growth area in facilities and asset life cycle solutions we are expanding our ai enabled predictive maintenance portfolio, our service channel and our current, including tools that help field service technicians diagnose and fix issues more accurately in the field. At Guardian, our Flash AI solution launched in Q1 is now in production across many of our strategic accounts and running well above plan. Cutting construction costs estimating time from days to minutes and creating measurable value for customers and for Guardian. In healthcare, ASP received FDA clearance for a 50-pound expanded steroid load capacity, further strengthening our position in robotic-assisted surgery applications, one of the faster-growing areas within the operating room environment. On the commercial side, we maintained our focus on faster-growing end markets and regions where we've made deliberate targeted investments to capture growth. At Fluke, investments in data center expertise drove incremental demand for our networks, power quality, and battery testing product lines. Additionally, we continue to see strong momentum in India, where our localized service and support investments are strengthening customer relationships and helping drive growth. Service Channel is investing in commercial and marketing resources across Europe to capture the meaningful international opportunity in the business. At Guardian, our investment in growing contractor engagement is reinforcing the competitive differentiation of our two-sided procurement marketplace. In healthcare, we continue to deepen our engagement with enterprise health systems and ambulatory surgical center networks through coordinated commercial efforts across ASP, Census, and our other advanced healthcare solutions operating brands. On our recurring customer value initiatives, we made further progress on deepening customer lifecycle engagement and improving revenue durability. In Q2, recurring revenue growth remained strong across both segments at fluke recurring revenue growth was driven by strong performance in services and software offerings and early customer feedback on ai enabled capabilities recently introduced within flukes e-main platform has been very encouraging asp consumables and services had another quarter of strong growth with solid growth contributions from every major region Moving to the second pillar, discipline capital allocation is an integral component of our 4Deep Accelerator strategy. Consistent with our priorities, we deployed another roughly $200 million to share repurchases in Q2. Since the spinoff, we have deployed nearly $2 billion to share repurchases, representing 38 million shares, or approximately 11% of diluted shares outstanding. Our revamped Bolton M&A engine and team is now in place, and we are continually evaluating opportunities for high-quality, accretive Bolton acquisitions that meet our rigorous strategic and financial criteria. This quarter, we completed the acquisition of a majority stake in UVSmart, an innovative company whose complementary UVC high-level disinfection technology expands ASP's portfolio and enables more efficient disinfection of specialized instruments. Looking forward, our capital allocation priorities remain clear. Invest in organic growth. Pursue both on M&A where risk-adjusted returns exceed other uses of capital. Return capital through share repurchases. And maintain a modest growing dividend. All with a focus on best relative returns and maximizing medium to long-term shareholder value. Moving to our final pillar, building and maintaining investor trust. We are pleased to deliver strong performance ahead of expectations for a fourth consecutive quarter as New 40th. We remain laser-focused on executing against our 2026 financial and strategic plan and continue to have strong confidence in our medium-term financial framework that we shared at our last investor day. With that, I'll turn it over to Mark to walk through our financial results for the second quarter in more detail.
Thanks, Elumide. I'll begin with slide five. In the second quarter, we delivered total revenue of nearly $1.1 billion, up almost 8% year-over-year on a reported basis and up 6.7% on a core basis. We were pleased to see price and volume growth again in both segments, with results driven by healthy customer demand and strong commercial and operational execution across the portfolio. Software-related revenue remained a meaningful contributor to growth in the quarter, reflecting the underlying strength of our businesses and robust customer demand for our increasingly AI-driven new product releases. Regarding core growth by geography, North America saw modest sequential acceleration in Q2 and continues to be our strongest performing region. Revenue in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region declined modestly due to macroeconomic uncertainty associated with heightened geopolitical tensions and continued economic softness across the region. Pressure in EMEA was more than offset by year-over-year growth and sequential acceleration in APAC and LATAM, driven by strong demand for professional instrumentation and healthcare consumables. Adjusted gross margin was 63% in the quarter, down approximately 100 basis points year over year. Adjusted gross margin performance was primarily driven by product mix dynamics resulting from outsized growth in certain lower margin products, partially offset by operating leverage. Note that tariffs had a minimal impact this quarter, as the prior year Q2 also reflected tariff-related costs for most of the period. Due to adjusted EBITDA was $323 million of 12% year-over-year. This strong performance was driven by adjusted gross profit growth, operating leverage, and discrete structural cost savings, partially offset by growth investments to support our Ford of Accelerated Strategy. Adjusted EBITDA margin in the quarter expanded by approximately 110 basis points year-over-year to 29.5%. We delivered adjusted earnings per share of 74 cents in Q2, up over 28% year-over-year, marking our fourth consecutive quarter of double-digit adjusted EPS growth. Strong adjusted EPS performance in Q2 was driven by growth in adjusted EBITDA and the positive year-over-year impact of share repurchases. We generated roughly $270 million of free cash flow in the second quarter, with our trailing 12-month free cash flow topping $1 billion, with conversion on net income well north of 100%. Please note that during the quarter, we recognized a $4.5 million IEPA tariff refund benefit in gap earnings. We expect another roughly $20 to $25 million of tariff refunds in the coming quarters. To help investors more easily compare results across periods, we exclude the impact of IEPA tariff refunds from our adjusted metrics and expect to continue doing so going forward, So the cash benefit is very real and will be deployed using our disciplined capital allocation framework. Moving to our segment results, starting with intelligent operating solutions on slide six. Revenue for this segment grew about 9% on a reported basis, with core revenue growth of 7.4%, and we are pleased to see broad momentum continue across the segment. Core growth was driven by both price and volume, reflecting solid performance across professional instrumentation, facility and asset lifecycle solutions, and gas detection products. At Fluke, order volume remained strong, with order growth modestly outpacing revenue growth during the quarter. Customer demand continues to be robust across our industry-leading portfolio and across a broad set of geographies. Our fluke team executed with discipline across the board, while increasing investments aimed at further tapping into key high-growth end markets, including data centers and defense. North America remained our strongest growth driver, with broad-based contributions across product lines. While performance in Europe was affected by macroeconomic uncertainty, this was more than offset by strong growth in APAC and LATEM, where increased commercial investments in strategic growth markets are yielding promising early results. growth in facilities and asset life cycle solutions was strong again in q2 led by strong performance in multi-site facility maintenance and marketplace software in north america we continue to see evidence that our commercial and innovation investments are driving increased demand for our increasingly ai enhanced products our gas detection business is growing nicely buoyed by strong demand for our hardware as a service product line in north america the Middle East, and in Latin America. Adjusted gross margin in the segment was just over 65%, down about 100 basis points year over year, primarily due to strong growth for some of our lower-margin products serving multi-site retail customers, partially offset by operating leverage. Due to adjusted EBITDA in the segment, grew 12% to $264 million, driven by adjusted gross profit growth, operating leverage, and discrete structural cost savings, partially offset by growth investments. Adjusting EBITDA margin for Q2 expanded by about 100 basis points year-over-year to just under 35%. Moving to our advanced healthcare solutions segment on slide seven, we delivered total revenue of nearly $340 million. Revenue grew 6% year-over-year and 5.3% on a core basis. Q2 growth was driven by solid demand for healthcare consumables, services, and software in Latin America, APAC, and North America. Our software products in the segment continue to deliver strong growth driven by effective execution and strong provider demand for our gastrointestinal case documentation solution. Low temperature sterilization capital demand improved modestly again in Q2 and contributed to growth. Adjusted gross margin in the segment was roughly 58 percent, down about 110 basis points year over year, reflecting product mixed dynamics and strategic growth investments partially offset by operating leverage due to adjusted EBITDA in the segment was 88 million dollars up approximately three percent year over year driven by adjusted gross profit growth operating leverage and discrete structural cost savings partially offset by growth investments adjusted EBITDA margin contracted by about 80 basis points year over year while remaining a healthy 26 percent turning to slide date our balance sheet remains strong we finished the quarter at 2.7 times gross debt to adjusted evita modestly delivering from last quarter as noted earlier we deployed roughly 200 million dollars to share repurchases in the second quarter reflecting our continued focus on deploying capital with a laser focus on driving best relative risk adjusted returns and confidence in our ability to deliver on our value creation plan as a result we had approximately 307 million diluted shares outstanding at the end of Q2. In terms of M&A, we completed the acquisition of a majority stake in UB Smart towards the end of Q2, and the execution of our value creation plans for the two small bolt-on acquisitions we completed in Q4 of last year are both going according to plan. We continue to evaluate high-quality, accretive bolt-on deals that meet our rigorous strategic and financial criteria and deliver superior returns relative to alternative uses of capital, and we now have the team and processes in place to execute effectively on our M&A strategy. We have a healthy balance sheet and a growing business with high durability, strong margins, low capital intensity, and very attractive free cash flow generation characteristics. All of this gives us ample capacity to execute on our capital allocation priorities with a relentless focus on optimizing shareholder returns over the medium to long term. moving to slide nine we are raising our full year 2026 adjusted eps guidance range to two dollars and 95 cents to three dollars and five cents reflecting solid first half performance and confidence in the trajectory of the business this outlook assumes a continuation of the market dynamics we experienced in q2 and reflects current tariff rates now let me provide some additional considerations to assist with modeling based on current foreign exchange rates we now expect full year reported revenue of approximately $4.35 billion. Given solid performance to date, we now expect full year core growth of approximately 4%, up from our prior expectation of 2% to 3%. In terms of the shape of the balance of the year, we expect Q3 reported revenue as a percent of total to be broadly in line with historical patterns, while Q4 will be a smaller than usual percentage due to there being four fewer selling days in the quarter versus prior year. As we mentioned last quarter, this will also drive about a $15 to $20 million headwind to reported revenue and a 150 basis point headwind to core growth in Q4. We expect FX and M&A combined to be about a 50 basis point tailwind to reported revenue in each of Q3 and Q4. We are expecting Q3 adjusted EBITDA margins to be slightly below Q2 levels, driven by slightly lower revenue on an absolute basis and the impact of modest strategic growth investments. On a year-over-year basis, EBITDA margin trends will also be impacted by a more difficult Q3 OPEX comparable. We now expect a Q3 effective tax rate in the mid-teens and Q4 in the low double-digit range and full-year net interest expense of about $140 million. From a bottom-line perspective, as we look forward to the balance of the year, as has historically been the case, we expect adjusted EPS delivery to be weighted towards the fourth quarter, with Q3 EPS up very slightly year-over-year, as we said last quarter, broadly consistent with what we saw in the first quarter of this year. As the balance of the year unfolds and we continue to execute on our Ford of Accelerated strategy, quarterly phasing may evolve. As a final note, before turning it back to Illuminae for closing remarks and Q&A, our first half results reinforce our confidence in the Ford of Accelerated Strategy and the financial framework we outlined at our last Investor Day, and we remain focused on delivering benchmark-beating returns for our shareholders. I'll now turn it back over to Illuminae. Thanks, Mark.
Let me close with a few observations on the quarter and where we are headed. U2 represented another strong quarter of performance. We delivered 6.7% core growth, approximately 12% adjusted EBITDA growth, and 28% adjusted EPS growth. Our fourth consecutive quarter of delivering double-digit adjusted EPS growth and exceeding expectations. One year after our launch of New 40th, we are generating momentum from our 40th accelerated strategy. strategy, and our confidence in the 2026-2027 financial framework we outlined at our last investor day is fully intact. We are pleased with the progress we have made. We believe we are still in the early stages of realizing 40's full potential, and we are excited about the value creation runway ahead of us. I want to thank our customers for placing their trust in us every day and all our 40 team members around the world for their commitment to our shared purpose of innovating essential technologies to keep our world safe and productive. With that, I'll turn it back to Christina to open the call for questions.
Thanks, Illumide. That concludes our prepared remarks. We are now ready for questions.
Operator
Thank you. We'll now be 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 line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for your questions. Our first questions come from the line of Scott Davis with Milius Research. Please proceed with your questions.
Hey, Illuminate, Mark, and Christina. Good morning. I think it's still morning there. So good morning to you. Good morning. I wanted to touch on two things, the first being new products and the second one being bolt-ons. But new products, is it something, you know, when you talk about NPIs and you think about the KPIs around that that you guys look at internally, are new products having a tangible impact on top-line growth? or sometimes, you know, you see it in price or you see it in margins because it's, you know, you're selling something that's iterative, but is there a tangible, you know, sign at least that you think you're getting a return there?
Well, thanks. Thanks for the question. I think short answer is yes, absolutely. I mean, we've been really clear, you know, for the batch rate strategy that there are three vectors that would versus innovation, a new product, second's commercial, and the third is recurring customer value, which means we do more for the 100,000 customer trust us every day. And what we've seen really is from a product innovation point of view, all 10 of our brands have really been introducing products and have a funnel of new products that's deeper and richer than they've ever had. And that's also more pointed at really high growth vectors. So the fact that we're growing 6.7% call this quarter in Q2 and we've been accelerating the last four quarters, that certainly has had the fingerprints of those new products on it. We've talked about some examples of those at Fluke with 30 Fiber Max, Service Channel with some of the exciting AI-enabled innovation we've introduced for work order anomaly detection and conversational work order completion and other things. So the short answer is yes. And as you can imagine, knowing us well, we have extensive instrumentation on how we track the portfolio of new products and each individual product in terms of what we expect and what we're delivering. And we feel quite good about what we're getting out of them.
Fair enough. And then on the bolt-on side, are there – I don't know what proper word to use here. This is my fourth call of the day, and my brain is starting to fry. But are there limitations, meaning particular businesses that you would not want to bolt-on to or areas that you have limited interest in expanding? Or are you looking at bolt-ons across the entire portfolio, you know, software, not software, healthcare, non-healthcare? I mean, just any sense of kind of priorities there and where we might expect to see the lion's share of bolt-ons?
So, I mean, we, first of all, have a much simpler portfolio. It's really quite interesting because if you think about the company today, Fluke is more than 40% of what we do. BizNet at ASP is another really big chunk of what we do. And then there's the rest of the company. So if you think about just the surface area we have to look for bolt-ons in, it certainly would skew towards our strongest platforms. I'll use Fluke as an example of those, and ASP as a good example as well. So while we don't exclude any area, we're generally building a funnel that's sort of looking at what's available and what's strategically and financially interesting for each of our brands. You're going to see us skew towards our strongest brands. On your point about software, you know, I mentioned this, I think, a few calls ago. We like the software brands we have because of the attributes they have around proprietary data and regulatory lock-in and two-sided networks. And so if we're looking to bolt on anything, that thing has to have those attributes that we like as well. It has to be at a financial proposition that fits our criteria in terms of returns. So, you know, software bolt-ons are possible, but it's a very narrow path to find something that works and is affordable. So that's the way we think about it. We build a funnel, but I think if you think about what's going to come out as executed deals, you'll see them skew towards our biggest brands where we're strongest and probably less towards software and more towards differentiated hardware businesses.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, I'll pass it on. Best of luck. I appreciate it.
Operator
Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Nigel Coe with Wolf Research. Please proceed with your questions.
Good morning, everyone. Thanks for the question. I know that Christina will do the great job of kind of like sending an email with all the modeling items. Just wanted to clarify, your comments on 3Q, Mark, do we have revenues and margin down modestly sequentially? I think that would be normal seasonality. Just wanted to clarify that. And then it seems like there's some moving pieces on the tax between 3Q and 4Q. I think you said high teens in 3Q, that's now mid-teens, and 4Q is looking to be a bit higher. Are we still on that path for mid-teens tax rate for the full year?
I think you've got it entirely right. So I think normal seasonality, as we said, Q3 revenue would track in the normal path, and that would be a sequential step down, along with the commentary we made on adjusted EBITDA margins. And then absolutely right on the tax rate, we are continuing to expect something in the mid-teens on a full-year basis, and again, mid-teens in Q3 and low double digits in the fourth quarter.
Okay, that's great, Mark. I just want to clarify that. And then just maybe just elaborate a little bit more on the mixed headwinds that you called out, especially within ASP. Just wanted to understand, you know, how persistent that is. And then just kind of beyond that, you know, maybe just talk about memory chip inflation. I think you might have touched on this last quarter. You know, is that weighing on conversion rates in the back half of the year 20 degree?
Sure. Happy to take both of those. So gross margin, yes, again, mixed shift was a big driver in both segments, specifically in AHS, as you called out. We saw McShift driven in part by just resumed growth in the capital part of ASP. They also made some strategic investments against some larger accounts that also impacted gross margins in the quarter. And again, overall, just as a reminder, McShift is predominantly impacting gross margins in iOS as a result of strength and high growth in one of our lower margin products. It's a strategic product in service channels, particularly. With respect to inflation generally and memory chips, you know, I'd say FBS is incredibly good at offsetting these. And we certainly had, you know, price cost was positive for us in the quarter. You know, on the margin, you know, there are projects that the teams are working on to make sure that we have multiple sources for things, as some things like, you know, rare earths and memory chips become harder to come by. It's not a material factor that you would notice in our results at this point in terms of converting orders and backlog to revenue, but it is something that we're actively working to countermeasure.
Thanks, Mark. I also want to say props for adjusting out the tariff benefits. Mixed levels are easier.
Thank you. That's our goal, make your life easier.
Operator
Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Dean Dre with RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed with your questions.
Thank you. Good day, everyone.
Hey, Illumina, I really was interested in your prepared remarks today where you walked through all of the different new AI products in your software offerings. And this is, as far as we're concerned, really important proof points on the AI as an asset, not a threat debate. And could you just step back and kind of give us a sense of where is Fortive in the rollout of these AI features? Is there any way that you can size the investment that you've made? And then even probably harder, how you measure enhanced functionality and benefits and so forth. But just further color on this would be really important to hear.
Yeah, Dan, thanks for the question. So just maybe the context on this is for us, we started with an AI center of excellence seven years ago before generative AI made it more fashionable. And so we, at some level for an industrial healthcare technology company, we've been ahead of the curve quite a bit with some of the top companies as partners over several years. So that really gave us a head start. And what we've done across six software brands is we've been able to very quickly figure out the best use cases for AI, like real use cases, that deliver measurable returns for customers, i.e. we save them millions of dollars, we help them improve outputs in measurable ways. And our teams have done a terrific job of really deploying those very quickly across our brands. And we've talked about some examples of those. I'll say to you that it's been really terrific to see the adoption of those. We refer to the eMaint example in the prepared remarks this time. But every single month we have another one of those AI-enabled stories on our software platforms that are great. So we're well into it at this point. We're seeing customers adopting it. We're capturing value in terms of returns, to your point, in multiple ways. In some cases, it's an explicit additional sale that a customer pays for. And in some cases, those are outcome-based. In some cases, it's a pass-through of the token cost plus a markup. In some cases, it helps kind of our overall NDR on the account and just depends our presence for the customer. As you can imagine with FPS, we've got deep instrumentation and how we track the returns on each of this. The investment level has not been significant for us, again, because it wasn't a new initiative for us. We've had this COE for a long time. We've been able to scale it by adding capacity in India and making sure that the partnerships we had give us good pricing in terms of any additional tools that we were using. So, overall, it's been a great story for us. You know, the fact that our software businesses continue to do really well is not exactly separate from how well we've been able to leverage AI, and we feel good about the setup.
Great. And then just as a follow-up, and I'll keep this one a bit more direct, can you give us an update on Fluke? We're always interested in the sell-in versus sell-through inventory and the channel, so forth. Whatever you can share there is helpful. Thanks.
Yeah, thanks, Dan. And Fluke is a big part of what we do. I mean, Fluke had another just terrific quarter in terms of performance, and it was broad-based strength really across product lines and across both volume and price, which was great to see. So we're gaining share with capture and price. From a regional perspective, North America remains our strong risk growth driver. We've sustained strong POS in terms of sell-through. We've talked about that now for several quarters, and the strength continues. Europe was affected by some of the macroeconomic uncertainty, but really it was more a few channel customers that deferred purchases. If you look at the POS in Europe, it was actually the best we had seen in six quarters. So it really was a channel holdback thing, which is good from an inventory point of view because we're leaving the quarter with a much better channel inventory position. APAC and Latin America both posted really solid growth at Fluke and really partially reflecting the increased commercial investments that we've referenced that we've been making in this region the last few quarters as part of our 40-year strategy. And, you know, orders grew modestly faster than revenues, like we referenced, so book-to-bill was nicely above one. And we feel really good about the setup at Fluke. And our team continues to drive just a terrific innovation funnel. We continue to have probably the best commercial intensity we've ever had in that business. We focus on some of the high-growth verticals like data center and defense and early-in-career professionals that now need to be tooled up and want them to start with Fluke and stay with Fluke all through their career. So, we really like the performance trajectory and set up for Fluke, which, again, is well over 40% of our entire company. So, we like that.
Thank you for all the caller.
Operator
Thanks, Tim. Thank you. Our next question has come from the line of Andy Kaplowitz with Citi. Please proceed with your questions.
Hey, good morning, everyone. Luminator, Mark, AHS growth continues to be solid in Q2, but maybe you could talk about what's going on between consumables where growth seems to be strong and capital equipment where you said growth has been maybe a little more modest. Are you still being slowed down at all by, you know, tight hospital CapEx budgets? Are they starting to get better? What's the outlook there?
Yeah, thanks for the question. We're really happy with what we saw in the AHS segment overall, frankly, and in ASV especially. And, you know, we really see it as an opportunity to reach environments as we dig more into those businesses. There's just a lot of exciting initiatives that can deliver sustainable growth and profitable growth for years to come. So we really like what we're seeing there. In terms of Q2, the strength was broad-based. To your point, in ASP, the consumables and services business grew in every major region with particular strength in APAC and Latin America, which was great to see. But every region grew on consumables and services. To your point on the capital business, we've talked about the hospital budget pressure now for several pressures. There's still some of that, but it's continued to improve. And that capital business returned to growth this quarter, which was great to see. And the commercial pipeline remained strong and very healthy. And then the software parts of the segment continued to deliver strong growth led by probation and our SaaS sales in North America. So, you know, it was a great quarter because the strength was really broad-based and cross-regions and components of what we do for customers.
Very helpful. And then I think last quarter, you said that FAL-related growth was accretive to this segment. Is that still the case? And then I think you said service channel has led growth for you in FAL. But could you clarify what you're seeing between service channel, Gordian, and Accruent?
Yeah, so, again, great quarter for the FAL platform overall. It was led by Service Channel, which continues to benefit from the robust demand in multi-site facility maintenance solutions and marketplace software. But every part of the FAL portfolio performed really well. Guardian, for example, had a solid quarter. As you know, Q2 is an important one for them for some of the state and local government year-end. and it was a solid quarter for Guardian. So we like that. And our current continues on its improvement trajectory as well, which led us to an outcome where a file delivered really strong growth, as did every other piece of the iOS segment. Frankly, we've talked about Fluke and the gas detection piece as well. So a good quarter for our team there.
Operator
Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Chris Snyder. with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your questions.
Thank you. I wanted to ask about back half margins. And I understand that corporate is a headwind to the overall forward of margin into the back half. But it seems like if my math is right, it seems like you guys are calling for the segments to be maybe flat to down on margins into the back half. So I guess, you know, is that right? What are the drivers of that? Is that just, you know, investment coming through? Is there gross margin? Does that remain down in the back half? Is there any kind of color on the segment margins? Thank you.
Yeah, happy to provide a little bit more color, Chris. I think, you know, first of all, you know, we continue to operate the business in accordance with the 50 to 100 basis point EBITDA margin expansion framework, you know, on annualized for this year. And again, And it's part of the framework, so we'll run it through next year's intakes in terms of just what's happening, particularly past year. There's a little bit of a step. And I think as you look through, again, you've got the space for less selling days that you should see a better.
Thank you for that. It makes sense. And then I want to follow up on Fluke. You know, you guys have been talking, I think, for a couple quarters now about some data center opportunities there. And I guess kind of my question is, is there something new happening in data center? Because we didn't really kind of associate that vertical that much. We didn't hear a lot about that opportunity in fluke, you know, going back a year or two. And, of course, data center has been strong for a long time. So is anything specifically happening? You know, I'm hearing about some maybe fluke opportunities within fiber specifically as that comes to market. So, I don't know, is it new innovation, new product? But why is that seems like it's coming through a little sharper now in the first half of 26?
Yeah, thanks for the question. I think the beauty of Fluke is kind of the durability that comes from the fact that we're playing in so many different sort of end uses. So data center have always been a part of what we did at Fluke, but it's one of many, many growth drivers for us within Fluke. So it's not, you know, Fluke's not a data center company. It's just one of many things. that we do. And Fluke already participates in the tool belt for data centers with a wide range of products from power quality monitoring to high voltage diagnostics and to your point, high density fiber testing, you know, electric ground fault detection. So we've always done, provided a lot of tools that have been used mostly, frankly, in the commissioning, but as well as operations and and maintenance of data centers. What is new is that as part of all the things our team at Flux is doing to drive innovation, they've actually pointed some exciting new products towards the data center use case that's become a pull-through for everything else we already do. And so we've talked about the certified fiber max example, which to your point on fiber testing, That's for testing kind of cables that have 32 fibers in them. And this tool essentially helps the certification process to go a lot faster than the existing tool set that these technicians use. And as you know, one of the key things right now is everyone trying to get their data center up as quickly as they can. So this tool is coming at a time that addresses a really unique need. And so what the team's then done is taking, you know, the demand for Certified Max is way above our plan. And it's now pulling through other things that we've always done for data centers at Fluke. So it's really a good example of how our team can pivot when there's momentum in a particular market. That's one of many that we're playing. And, you know, we've seen just incredible growth in the products at Fluke that are relevant and aimed towards data centers within our overall mix. So that's the way to think about it. It's not – we wouldn't say, like, you know, data center is a new thing for us at Fluke, but we've certainly been able to leverage our existing strength plus innovation plus, obviously, the momentum in that space to benefit from that. And, you know, the growth we're seeing as fluke is quite exceptional, and it's not completely unrelated to how we've tapped into that velocity in the end market at data center.
No, yeah, great to see all of that coming together and driving nice organic growth.
Operator
Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Andrew Piscaglia with BNP Paribas. Please proceed with your question.
Hey, good morning, everyone. um i just wanted to touch on um you know some of the comments you made and and as it pertains to recurring revenue um and i thought i had is is manufacturing complexities increasing in some of these areas like semis and aerospace um life sciences you guys you know kind of discussed those that's faster growing are you seeing any changes in how customers calibrate equipment or use the equipment that could provide more wear and tear that would require more upgrades and a higher velocity of repurchases. I'm just wondering if that is a new dynamic we're seeing out of Ford these days.
Yeah, look, I think that trend has been building for several years in terms of how customers use, especially some of these higher-end tools and what that means for the calibration cycle and do they calibrate it more frequently, less frequently? Do they do it themselves? With third parties, do they use Fluke? So that's always been an evolving space for us. The thing I would say is that we are seeing customers more interested in innovative ideas from Fluke, both on the calibration side, on the service plan side, and on the software side, that help them get better outcomes and more productivity out of the entire tool fleet. And that's, again, we've talked about the recurring revenue at Fluke growing double digits now for many quarters. And we're seeing that trend that you're kind of referencing a piece of there as the underlying driver of why customers are more interested in don't just sell me a device, but actually helped me with a lifetime experience that includes a calibration pattern, includes software, includes services. And for a business like Fluke that's as big and broad and global as we are, that's just a great chance to attach recurring revenues to an incredibly loyal customer base that we have, and we like that.
Yeah, that's interesting. I guess as a follow-up, I think, how does that inform where you go with your, you know, these growth investments you talked about and or M&A and that, like, some would argue that the hardware and the instruments are becoming more important, but you are kind of, you could arguably see more interest in your software and the software applications you provide and then the, you know, ability to help your customers optimize all these assets. I'm wondering where do you think is the more interesting place to go that sets you up for the next five years of growth?
Yeah, well, the way we think about it is we kind of go where we have the strength and the right to win. So, for example, in this question you're asking, the way we'll think about it is, well, if you think about our business at Fluke, it is a business that has an incredible footprint of hardware. And then we have some services and we have some software. And so if we see a piece of software that can attach to our extensive footprint of hardware and we think we can deploy to half our hardware footprint, that will be interesting because nobody else can do that with our software asset. If we see a piece of hardware that is aimed towards a really attractive end market and it's differentiated, we will be really interested in that because it extends our install base. And so we really think about it in terms of not just whether it's hardware or software services, but is it something that fits with our strengths, and is it something where we have a real commercial plan to scale it in a way nobody else can? I think what you would find is, given our footprint is over 70% differentiated hardware and maybe just about 20% real software and, you know, a little bit that's a mix of data and integrated services, that we're going to skew towards hardware in the M&A that we do. But any software we do will have that kind of advantage to our natural strengths.
Very interesting. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Quinn Fredrickson with Baird. Please proceed with your questions.
Thanks. On ASP, there's some mixed feedback out there regarding the impact of ACA subsidies expiring on elective procedures. I'm curious if you think you're seeing any impact or expect to see an impact on either capital equipment or consumables demand based on your conversations with customers.
Yeah, no, thanks for the question. Look, as you know, So the healthcare reimbursement space has been a dynamic one now for a while. So we feel quite good about our proximity to customers and their decision process and their funnel. I guess what I would say on that specific question is it is totally comprehended in kind of the way we think about ASP right now, which is, you know, it's in recovery. Q2 of last year, from a capital point of view, was the epicenter of the one big deal of cost in these hospitals to hold back on procurement. That's been opening up as they consider a whole bunch of other things. They've concluded that they actually have to keep enabling their operating rooms to run. So we're seeing those orders flow through, and we expect that will continue to be the case. And procedural volumes, as well, have to recover and continue to recover because that's, in the end, what drives the economics of this hospital. So we see that continue to get better, and we continue to deepen our presence with our key customers, including some of the investments that Mark referred to that's making us even deeper with them. And something like the UV smart bolt-on that we did gives us something else that we bring to this customer. So we feel good. I think all the ACA subsidy movements is within a broader range of changes, all of which I think we like the way it sets us up at ASC.
Thanks. And on the FDA clearance you mentioned you received in the quarter, can you just expand on what that means for you? Is this enabling you to go after new robotic surgery OEMs or just any color you can share?
Yeah, so this is really for our main sort of low-temperature sterilization capsule equipment that's called Sterit. And the approval we got is to be able to run things more than up to 50 pounds through the chamber in these machines. And so what that does is for a lot of our customers, most of the robotic equipment that they need to sterilize generally needs something that can handle that weight range. So now we have an addressable market in terms of this equipment for robotic surgery that's bigger than we had before. And so what that means is, you know, customers that were maybe saying, well, if you had that, we'll be interested. we now have a compelling offer for them. So we're excited about it. Our team's out there. It's going to show up as increased win rate and expansion in our funnel and better growth in the business.
Operator
Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Jamie Cook with Truist Securities. Please proceed with your questions.
Good morning. I guess just two questions. Just on the guidance mark, It looks like just putting everything together, like the EBITDA margin expansion this year should probably be more like, I think, at the lower end of 50 basis points. I just want to confirm that. And I guess my longer-term question is understanding we're making some investments in particular in AHS, and it sounds like those investments might be going into, it sounds like, lower margin product lines, et cetera. I'm just wondering, you know, when we start to see the payoffs of that and just sort of the setup for 2027 on margins, you know what I mean, just given the margins, where margins are coming out this year on what I would argue probably better than you expected, core organic growth.
We're happy to tackle those. You know, I think I just start by saying that we're very happy with the margins of the business gross margins, 63%. I think that's a pretty good indicator of, you know, the strength of the brand's differentiated products, FBS's ability to drive down manufacturing costs. And I think it's a good indication of what we would expect for a full year basis. And I think EBITDA margins in around 30% that we saw in the quarter, again, And did strong cost discipline while reinvesting the quarter, and I think that's a good range to be in for a full year. We do continue to expect to operate within that 50 to 100 basis point range, and we're going to continue to do that, you know, 26, and we expect to do that. The investments that we're making, I wouldn't necessarily assume they're going into lower margin products. I think we saw in the second quarter particular strength from lower margin product. A number of the products that we're launching, including the Certified Remax, for example, which is a highly differentiated product, have very strong margins and margins add. And as we look around at innovation just generally, we're going to innovate on product innovation, which is in high demand from our customers. And then, as is the case, we feel good about the margin trajectory of the business, EBITDA, and we're going to continue to drive price through innovation. We're going to continue to drive, you know, commercial acceleration and recurring customer value.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question has come from the line of Chagusa Katoku with J.P. Morgan. Please proceed with your questions.
Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. Just following up on the margins, I also think that I also see you trending maybe towards the lower end for this year. just if you could give a little bit more color on why you could do more in the range of 50 to 100 in 2027. I think Roper talked about some margin pressures as they're making investments in AI, but are you seeing any of those?
Yeah, you know, I would just remind you that the 50 to 100 basis points is something that we have control over. We use it as a framework to guide our investment. Investing very tactically against high return initiatives, accelerate organic growth pillar of the Ford of Accelerated Strategy. We have seen four quarters of sequential growth acceleration and on a normalized basis, I think as we talked about when we gave our updated expectations for core growth of 4% for the year, you know, we, at least based on what we see today, seem to be trending, at least for this year, near the higher end of our core growth framework that we laid out at Investor Day. So the margin expansion story, you know, continues to be in line with the framework. We are driving organic growth, you know, quite frankly, ahead of where we expected. And I think that gives us opportunity for margin expansion and also for increased investment levels. And that gives us confidence that, you know, our aspiration, which is ultimately to grow faster than our framework in sort of 2027 and beyond, is definitely insightful.
Great. Thanks for the color. And then just a little bit on organic growth. Is it directionally correct that third quarter you expect organic growth around the same range as the full year, around 4%? And I'll leave it there. Thank you.
I think you're in the zone. I think it's just as a reminder for everyone, there are a number of year-over-year comparable and calendar impacts that are impacting just the year-over-year comparisons. This year, as a reminder, in the first quarter, we had four extra days. That was about 150 basis points of tailwind to that 5.3% core growth. This quarter, we had a slightly easier comp relative to last year, if you remember, you of the impacts that Illumine mentioned in the second quarter of last year. Q3 does look like a more normalized quarter for us. And then, as a reminder, in Q4, you get the opposite impact we have in Q1, which is about 150 basis points headwind to core growth of $15 to $20 million on a reported basis. But I think the important thing to say is that on a normalized basis, this is a business that is gathering momentum. And, you know, we see the broad course and speed of the businesses as one of accelerating, and it's really a testament to the good work that our teams have been doing to implement the Ford of Accelerated Strategy across operating brands.
Okay, thanks for the color. Welcome.
Operator
Thank you. We have reached the end of our question and answer session. I would now like to hand the call back over to management for any closing comments.
Well, thank you everyone for your interest in Ford. We are excited about the acceleration in our business over the last Our entire organization is aligned and energized about our 40 vouchers strategy and our 40 business system that's enabling us to execute that. And we're laser-focused on delivering a strong 2026 and setting the foundation for an even stronger performance and share the value creation in the years ahead. And thank you for joining us today, and we look forward to speaking with you next quarter. Have a great day.
Operator
Thank you so much, ladies and gentlemen. this does now conclude today's teleconference. We appreciate your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Enjoy the rest of your day.
