Good morning and welcome to the Gates Industrial Corporation second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. All participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's remarks, we will conduct a question and answer session. To ask a question at this time, you'll need to press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Rich Klaas, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Greetings, and thank you for joining us on our second quarter 2026 earnings call. I'll briefly cover our non-GAAP and forward-looking language before passing the call over to our CEO, Ivo Yurik, who will be followed by Brooks Mallard, our CFO. Before the market opened today, we published our second quarter 2026 results. A copy of the release is available on our website at investors.gates.com. Our call this morning is being webcast and is accompanied by a slide presentation. On this call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures that we believe are useful in evaluating our performance. Reconciliations of historical non-GAAP financial measures are included in our earnings release and the slide presentation, each of which is available in the Investor Relations section of our website. Please refer now to slide two of the presentation, which provides a reminder that our remarks will include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the private securities litigation reform act. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks that could cause actual results to be materially different from those expressed in or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks include, among others, matters that we've described in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K, and in other filings we make with the SEC, including our Q2 quarterly report on Form 10-Q that is expected to be filed later today. We disclaim any obligation to update these forward-looking statements. This quarter, we will be attending the Jeffries Industrial Conference and the Morgan Stanley Laguna Conference, both in September, and look forward to meeting with many of you. Before we start, please note all comparisons or against the prior year period, unless stated otherwise. And with that out of the way, I will turn it over to Ivo.

Thank you, Rich. In the second quarter, we delivered strong performance as sales came in near the high end of our guidance, supported by incrementally constructive industrial and markets and contributions from our strategic growth initiatives. Sales grew approximately 7%, with core revenue growth of 4.9%, which enabled us to achieve record quarterly sales and adjusted earnings per share. Our adjusted EBITDA margin was above expectations, led by solid improvement in our adjusted gross margin. Importantly, we believe that we are in a good position to achieve our second half adjusted EBITDA margin target outlined earlier this year. Core growth in our industrial channels was up nicely, led by double-digit growth in industrial OEM with strength building as we exited the quarter. Broadly speaking, we generated year-over-year growth in most of our end markets during the second quarter, and book-to-bill remained above one. Given our solid second-quarter financial results and the favorable shift in demand trends, we observed exiting the quarter. We have raised our 2026 full-year guidance for core sales growth and profitability. Our updated guidance implies incrementally better performance for second half of the year relative to our initial expectations. We believe we are also on track to deliver adjusted EBITDA margin of 23.5% or higher in the second half of 2026. Brooks will provide more details on guidance later in the presentation. Please turn to slide four. Our second quarter sales were $942 million, which represented record quarterly sales for Gates. Total sales expanded 6.6%, inclusive of foreign currency benefits. Core sales grew 4.9%. The underlying demand continued to improve with year-over-year growth strengthening during the second half of the quarter. We saw momentum across most of the portfolio, highlighted by approximately 25% growth in personal mobility and 20% cost growth in commercial on highway. industrial oem sales expanded low double digits and our industrial aftermarket saw improved demand trends which resulted in mid single digit growth in general the bulk of our end markets have begun to inflect positively and we are in a strong position to capitalize on the building and market momentum. Adjusted EBITDA was approximately $211 million and represented an adjusted EBITDA margin of 22.5%, modestly better than expectations. Adjusted gross margin increased by 50 basis points while we continue to make targeted investments to support our enterprise initiatives. adjusted earnings per share increased 13 percent to a quarterly record of 44 cents the growth was driven by improved operating performance and other items on slide five we will review our segment highlights in the power transmission segment sales were 589 million dollars and translated to over 5% core growth. The expansion was led by high single-digit growth in our industrial end markets, which was driven by mid-teens growth in the industrial OEM channel globally. Our transmission industrial aftermarket increased mid-single digits and supported by double-digit growth in EMEA and Asia Pacific. Automotive aftermarket grew high single digits with solid growth achieved across all geographies. At the end market level, personal mobility grew in the mid-20s and commercial on highway increased similarly. Segment adjusted EBITDA margin increased 60 basis points. In the fluid power segment, sales were $353 million and increased 4.2% on a core basis. Similar to power transmission, industrial OEM sales were strong, growing double digits. Industrial aftermarket increased low single digits. Fluid powers strongest and markets were commercial on highway, which increased high teens, and construction, which grew mid-single digits. Of note, diversified industrial grew mid-single digits and represented a good contributor to the segment's growth, given its relative size within the segment. We continue to grow our data center business, which expanded more than 2x versus the prior year quarter, and we anticipate sales contribution to step up in the second half as certain high-value project launches occur. Adjusted EBITDA margin in the fluid power segment decreased 120 basis points, primarily due to footprint realignment costs, as well as targeted investments into our enterprise initiatives. I will now turn the call over to Brooks for additional comments on our results.

Thank you, Ivo. I'll begin on slide six and review our core sales performance by region. All three regions had positive core growth during the second quarter. Americas grew 1.5% with low single-digit growth in North America, more than offsetting a decrease in South America, which was primarily driven by soft agricultural demand. In North America, industrial OEM sales were up mid-single digits, fueled by solid growth in commercial on-highway. North American automotive aftermarket grew high single digits. Importantly, overall North America sales momentum grew as the quarter progressed with an exit rate in the mid-single-digit range. In EMEA, core sales grew 6.4%, led by double-digit growth in the industrial channels and many industrial markets. industrial oem sales increased at a mid-teens level and industrial aftermarket grew in the double digits at the end market level commercial on highway diversified industrial and personal mobility drove the strong growth in emia in the second quarter apac growth accelerated in the second quarter, increasing 11.5 percent, with China and East Asia and India delivering comparable growth led by strong double-digit growth across several industrial markets. On slide 7, we show the primary drivers of our double-digit growth in adjusted earnings per share. Underlying operational of performance and favorable foreign exchange combined to contribute two cents per share. A lower tax rate, share count, interest, and other represented three cents of adjusted earnings per share contribution. Slot eight offers an overview of our cash flow performance and balance sheet metrics for the second quarter. Our free cash flow was approximately $60 million and trailing 12 month free cash flow to adjusted net income came in at 94%, which is above our historical average. Our net leverage ratio declined to 1.8 times, which was a 0.4 times improvement compared to the prior year period. During the quarter, we repurchased approximately $22 million of our stock. Our trailing 12-month return on invested capital was 21.6%, up 30 basis points. We continue to fund high-return projects that we believe will improve our growth and profitability over the midterm. On slide 9, let's discuss our updated 2026 outlook. We are increasing our guidance for core sales growth, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted earnings per share. We anticipate our full-year core sales growth to be in the range of 2.5% to 4.5%, representing a 100 basis point increase at the midpoint. We expect our full-year adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $800 million to $830 million, which is a $10 million increase at the midpoint. Our full-year adjusted earnings per share range is $1.62 to $1.70, a $0.06 increase relative to our prior guidance midpoint. Our guidance for capital expenditures and free cash flow conversion is unchanged. For the third quarter, we estimate total revenues to be in the range of $880 million to $920 million, and total revenues to be up approximately 5.5% at the midpoint. We anticipate our adjusted EBITDA margin to increase in a range of 50 basis points to 90 basis points compared to the third quarter of 2025. five.

I will now turn the call back to Ivo for summary remarks. I'll summarize our thoughts and views on slide 10. First, we've generated strong top-line growth in the second quarter, and we believe that we have entered the early stages of an industrial recovery. Industrial OEM schedules are generally improving, with some end markets further down the recovery curve, and industrial distributor orders are solid. We are well positioned to generate attractive growth and margin expansion as the cycle evolves. As such, we anticipate producing incrementally stronger core growth in the second half of 2026 relative to our second quarter performance. Our updated 2026 guidance implies 6% core sales growth year-over-year in the second half, representing a significant uptick from approximately 1% core sales growth realized in the first half of the year. Second, we are delivering on our commitment to our investors and shareholders. Our first half adjusted EBITDA margin outperformed the initial guidance, we outlined on our fourth quarter 2025 earnings call in February. More importantly, we are on track to achieve an adjusted EBITDA margin of at least 23.5% in the second half of this year, putting us on a good path to achieve a midterm margin target outlined in 2024. With the industrial markets turning positive, We intend to deliver attractive incremental adjusted EBITDA margins through the cycle. Third, we are highly focused on accelerating our top-line growth and delivering above-average shareholder returns. The strategy we deployed a few years back is yielding results. Our focus on improved operational performance has resulted in significant improvement in gross margins, and we are approaching a mid-term adjusted EBITDA margin target. We believe our investments in strategic initiatives support future sales outgrowth in excess of market growth rates. In our view, a strong second quarter execution and a clear inflection in our underlying end market demand trends provide a solid backdrop to deliver differentiated performance. Our balance sheet is strong. We have significant optionality to deploy capital and will be judicious and responsible. We are broadly excited about the opportunity ahead and anticipate generating significant value for our shareholders. Before taking your questions, I want to thank the 13,000 Global Gates Associates for their dedication and perseverance in meeting our customers' needs. With that, I will now turn the call back to the operator for Q&A.

As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star followed by the number 1 on your telephone keypad. In the interest of time, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up question.

Thank you.

Our first question comes from Steve Boekman from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Great. Good morning, guys. Thank you for taking the question. Good morning. can we just unpack the it seems like we're sort of on plan here we're getting past some of these margin headwinds as we expected as we think about the second half margin how much of the improvement is is kind of these temporary headwinds going away versus you know the the better organic growth fall through and I guess what I'm really trying to get at is is as all the dust settles you know how should we think about incrementals sort of on a more medium-term basis within the kind of adjusted cost structure, et cetera?

So I would say we're seeing the results of our footprint optimization, our restructuring, our cost optimization. That's all starting to come through. And as you said, as the headwinds go away, the core growth improves. We expect to continue to improve margins as we said in the second half if you think about the incrementals you know for q3 you know we're implementing pricing to offset some of the oil related cost increases and that's going to cause a slight bit of dilution uh in q3 our incremental so we expect them to be in the 35 to 40 range we expect those to uh then move back to 45 plus as we move into Q4. And then for the first half of next year, we expect that trend to continue as the footprint optimization and the cost optimization work that we've done rolls through. And then after that, we'll update you at the end of the year on our 4-20-27 guide. But that's how to think about it over the next 12 months or four quarters. Great.

Very helpful. Thank you. And And then just to follow up, I was kind of surprised by EMEA up 6.4%. That seems pretty healthy, given what we're hearing from a lot of folks in that region. Just anything to call out relative to that growth?

Yeah, look, I mean, I think we have seen a pretty reasonably broad strength across our end market exposure. We are well diversified, and we have put the company on a trajectory to continue to deliver that growth. So, the end markets that are performing quite well, obviously, in EMEA are automotive aftermarket, you know, actually the industrial, diversified industrial expanded very, very nicely, and on a highway expanded very nicely, as well as personal mobility. So, you know, we feel pretty well about how our business is performing in Europe.

Thank you, guys. I'll pass it on.

Our next question comes from Mike Halloran from Baird. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Hey, morning, everyone. Hey, good morning, Mike. Hey, thanks. So, you know, it sounds like you guys are pretty constructive on the trajectory of your demand curve right now. You know, Ivo, maybe put this in context of history. When you guys have organizationally seen this type of thing before, you know, what does that mean? Put it in context. It's been a bit since you've seen – it seems like you've seen this kind of momentum, and so trying to get a sense of pervasiveness through the portfolio and then what it can mean for the organization if this has legs, and it seems to be that you think it does have legs.

Yeah, thanks, Mike. There's a lot to unpack. Now, obviously, when we look backwards and we see some of the market recoveries from a historical perspective, you should anticipate a reasonably solid acceleration for kind of the first four to six quarters of the recovery. We have seen a nice expansion in PMIs. Obviously, that's no secret to anybody else. And what we are seeing is reasonably broad-based recovery and support across the exposure that we have in the end markets. Now, obviously, not everything is in solid shape yet. Agriculture, as an example, is still in bottoming out and troughing conditions today. But, you know, we should see a very constructive demand. And look, that's reflected in our second half guidance. We are stepping up our forecast for core growth rather substantially year over year. And we certainly believe that it's just the beginning of what we should see. Now, let me remind you, we have also done lots of work internally on self-help, so we've developed nice exposure to some secular end markets that we believe will continue to deliver incremental performance on the top of the end market support that we anticipate. And as I said during my prepared remarks, we feel very constructively about where the company sits presently, and we are in a very good shape.

Thanks for that. And then maybe some thoughts on pricing, price cost environment, and how that's being managed and how you think about it moving into the second half of the year.

Yeah. So we've implemented price increases to offset what we've seen from an oil and petroleum materials base increase. And so we feel good. We've got pricing in place, as I said earlier. It's a little bit dilutive to our incrementals as all the pricing gets in place for Q3, and then it'll be fully in place for Q4. And it's, you know, it's impactful, but it's not really that big of a deal when you kind of look at some of the stuff that's happened in 22, 23, 24. So it's manageable. We've got all the pricing in place, and we feel pretty good about, you know, where we stand as we move through the back half of the year. And we expect to be at least price-cost neutral in the back half of the year.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks, Mike.

Our next question comes from Dean Dre from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone.

Good morning, Dean.

Hey, maybe you can put the spotlight on personal mobility and the construction on highway because you don't typically see 20% numbers like that in those verticals. It's just, you know, what are the dynamics there? Are there any new products? Is this a catch-up? Is it, you know, an inventory, sell-in, hire? Just take us through that.

Yeah, sure. Thank you, Dean. I think that we spoke on our last call about the rebound in order trends on highway. Let me start with that, please. So as you start seeing some reports coming through, very significant improvement in Class A truck orders for the industry in North America in particular. They were up a couple hundred percent year on year. So very significant recovery there. uh the track the class five and seven truck orders are also trending nicely positively so we feel uh that that market has definitely inflected as we anticipated and you know we've uh we have been the beneficiary of uh of that um of the performance on personal mobility side look maybe a year or so ago, we have committed that personal mobility should deliver kind of a mid 20% to 30% core growth for next couple of years that has been driven through our effort, penetration, new design wins, broadening of our product portfolio across significant and a broader-based set of applications. And so you see that playing itself out. And, you know, we have not really changed our mind about delivering 25% to 30% core growth in personal mobility over the next couple of years, and we're just on point to do just that.

Great. And second question, just to be clear, I'm not expecting the next analyst meeting to be in Bermuda. But I'd love to know just some more specifics around the re-domicile move. Our understanding is England-Wales had some pretty onerous restrictions on your capital allocation flexibility for buybacks and dividends and so forth. But just take us through what we should know about the re-domicile and what changes, if anything, that might entail being in Bermuda now. Thanks.

Well, the biggest change is we don't have to do two annual reports and IFRS reporting and things of that nature anymore. So it's a pretty good thing for us folks on the accounting side. It's going to make life easier. So, you know, it's going to eliminate some costs. It's going to eliminate some, you know, kind of bureaucracy that we have to do in terms of filing annual reports in the U.K. and in the U.S., you know, having audits in the U.K. and in the U.S., things like that, and then, and so it's going to make it a lot easier from that perspective. Leo, do you want to do the capital allocation?

No, look, I think that, you know, the overall governance environment is getting more complex globally, and we just felt that as a North American company, North American-based company, we wanted to make sure that our shareholders have shareholder rights that are very well aligned to the wants of companies that operate in this country. And, you know, I think that we accomplished that by redomiciling in Bermuda, where the governance is very, very similar to the governance of companies that are domiciled in the U.S. So I would say that between those two attributes, those were the predominant drivers. And then, obviously, capital allocation flexibility with capital allocation has been another component of our thoughts. But we had a reasonable level of capital allocation flexibility being domiciled in the U.K. and Wales. So I just think that it's better for our shareholders, and it makes it less complex for a company to operate.

Great. That was really good to hear, and it sounds like that was a smart move. Thanks.

Our next question comes from Jeff Hammond from KeyBank Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Good morning, guys. Good morning, Jeff. If you had given me the growth rates to put on the map, I would have been completely wrong. That was not what I was expecting. Just on the North America comment about going to mid-single digit, is that just kind of timing mean of cycle inflection, or would you say 2Q is still a little muted around, you know, ERP and facility consolidation, you know, versus the other geographies? And if you look to the second half, you know, map, would it look pretty balanced across the three geographies, thanks?

Yeah, no, thanks for the question, Jeff. You know, I would say that, you know, North America demand has been improving very, very nicely as the quarter progressed. And so, you know, you should almost think that we were exiting June kind of already in a mid-single-digit growth rate, and I would say that North America in particular was more impacted by ag, which is still weak, and by automotive OEM, that production output obviously has not been terrific in North America. But that has inflected by strength that we have seen in some of the other exposure, like diversified industrial, personal mobility, construction, and such, and on highway, obviously, as I mentioned as an answer to Dean's question. So we feel quite well about that inflection, and we believe that that's going to continue to accelerate in the second half of the year. Certainly, all the indications are there. South America, on the other side, was reasonably weak, and that's predominantly driven by the fact that we have a large exposure to agriculture and market there, and that has been, you know, reasonably weak. It has had a couple of very strong years in 2024 and 2025, and it's in an inflection in 2026. Okay, good color, Ivo. um just on the the short cycle recovery i'm just wondering if there's any want or visibility that your distributors are doing anything in terms of you know wanting to restock or are they wanting to run lean and this is just all sell through thanks yeah right now jeff uh bc just sell through uh we have seen a very nice recovery uh with our oe customers and as we monitor our channel partners, channel partners in general, kind of delayed one to two quarters as the recoveries take a firm hold. So I would anticipate that kind of end of, towards the end of this year or beginning of next year, that should be very supportive for continuation of growth into 27. But presently, the channel partners are being pretty judicious and inventories are reasonably lean. They're in good place. and we don't see any significant rebound that would be restocking-driven. Certainly, we haven't seen that globally yet.

Okay, appreciate the color. Thanks, sir.

Our next question comes from Andy Koplowitz from Citigroup. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Good morning, everyone. Good morning, Andy. Evo, your health performance in Asia has continued to be relatively significant, so maybe you can give more color there into what's going on. I think you said China and East Asia, but the same growth. What do you think about the durability of the strength you're seeing? Is it sort of more your self-help, or is it just the markets there being pretty strong?

Look, our teams are executing extremely well in Asia, not just in China, but also in East Asia and India. We have put a strategy in place to capitalize, frankly, on the broad-based industrial activities that you see in those regions. We are well exposed to all of those. And, frankly, outside of maybe energy, which we have very little exposure to in Asia, everything has seen really a very, very decent performance. So I'm quite optimistic about the fortunes in Asia for our company, and certainly expect that we will continue to outperform our tier set, as well as the underlying end markets there.

And then, Brooks, could you give us a little more color on the impact on fluid power margin back in Q2? I think you had cited footprint realignment costs, investments in R&D, and commercial front-end costs. How are those impacts trending in the second half of 26? I know you said you're confident in 70 base points of year-over-year improving for the company in Q3. Does fluid power trail power transmission a little? How should we think about that?

So, you know, as we said at the beginning of the year, and, you know, we reiterated, you know, in our Q1 call, you know, the footprint optimization is almost entirely around the fluid power business. between that and some of the investments we're making and some of the enterprise initiatives. That's what drove the second quarter margin compression. That was expected. It was embedded in our guidance. Going forward, that should normalize, and we don't expect to see – we expect to see that to continue to expand, you know, kind of along with the company margins as we move forward. So, you know, as I said, we knew that was coming.

We telegraphed it. we highlighted it and uh and it should be uh nothing to see as we move forward helpful our next question comes from chris snyder from morgan stanley please go ahead your line is open thank you um i wanted to ask about the erp dynamic in the first half um i think you guys called out maybe like a 250 300 basis points headwind in q1 um if i remember i think you talked to maybe some some opportunity for modest catch up here in q2 just wondering if that came through and how it contributed to that five percent organic growth number then do you guys um anticipate any further catch up into the back half of the year thank you yeah so so it was you know kind of de minimis to the overall, you know, less than 100 basis points to the overall company in terms of catch-up.

When you think about EMEA, we're about 6.5% core growth. It was maybe about 200 basis points tailwind as we caught up in Q2. There'll be a slight bit of catch-up as we move through the back half of the year, but nothing meaningful. And, you know, we continue to see a little bit of SG&A headwinds. That was, when you think about year-over-year headwinds. We saw some, you know, hyper-tier headwinds in Q2. Those, again, should go away in the second half. We're operating normally as we enter the second half of the year, so we feel very good about the implementation, how it's gone, and then how things are going to be moving forward.

Thank you. I appreciate that, and I think earlier you were talking about some better price realization into the back half, you know, following some of the actions, I guess, put in place in Q2. I guess I wanted to maybe get some color on how you think cost inflation tracks to the back half. You guys have resin exposure. I imagine there was some cost inflation there in Q2, Q3. But just kind of wondering, is that building off Q2 into the back half, or could that actually be easing as we look into the end of the year, just kind of given some of the movements in the global commodity prices. Thank you. Well, it's not easy.

I think that the volatility of oil prices has kind of kept the cost increases that we've seen either stable or maybe slightly moving up. So, you know, we don't expect to see any relief. Now, we put pricing in place, as I said earlier, to completely offset, you know, at least completely offset uh the the cost uh increases that we've seen around around oil related products we didn't see any real impact in q2 uh because we were working through our lower cost inventory and the higher cost inventory doesn't really come into play uh until q3 which is which is you know how we tried to match up our price increases um as we move forward so you know what you know we've got price increases in place to make sure that we're in good shape you know pricing is something we think we do pretty well um you know we can get price increases out relatively quickly um we typically have some time to work through them and so we feel comfortable about where we are from a price cost perspective all makes sense thank you very much thanks chris our next question comes from brendan shea from jp morgan please go ahead your line is open hi good morning thanks for taking my question.

I'd just like to touch a little bit more on your confidence in the second half acceleration. So, can you just walk us through how much of that anticipated second half acceleration is already visible in your order book, given you have a book to bill above one times? And then, you know, how much of it is dependent more on continued demand improvement and sort of where you're seeing the most and least visibility?

Yeah, sure. Look, we, as I've indicated. We have seen strong bookings performance. I would think you can think about kind of a high single digits year-on-year bookings growth in Q2. So we have seen very reasonable strength, I would say, that continued through July. So we feel very confident that second half will continue to track, you know, in accordance with the trajectory that we have anticipated or we've embedded in our guidance. We see very significant strength in personal mobility. We are ramping programs in support of our data center applications that we have been specified on. So, you know, we do have some level of visibility to the overall underlying demand. And, you know, in a way, we've built a little bit of a backlog in Q2 as that revenue start accelerating. So, you know, decent level of visibility from where we sit.

Great. Thank you. And then just one more for me, please. So you've mentioned acceleration of strategic initiatives to help you outgrow the overall market over the medium term. Can you just highlight, if you could, just two or three of the initiatives you think will most meaningfully differentiate your growth and just widen that gap, please? And then actually how investors measure progress against it, please.

Yeah, no, absolutely. One of the big initiatives that we have been speaking about for a while has been an initiative around personal mobility and, you know, slapping out the industrial chain for our Gates belt drives. You know, obviously, that's been growing very, very nicely. it's growing up 25% to 30% from a meaningful base, and we certainly have a line of sight of delivering that level of growth over the next couple of years on a forward basis. We've spoken a number of occasions about our exposure to data centers, and while that is still a reasonably small level of revenue. It's inflecting meaningfully. We've indicated that, you know, we will be multiples of last year's revenue. We have identified that we anticipate 100 to 200 million dollars of revenue being generated by 2028. We certainly feel a high degree of confidence in being able to deliver that. You know, one of the areas that we have been ramping up our revenue gem is in our industrial water pumps that go in the applications in the data centers. We're now in process of actually ramping up a first sizable program with a major U.S.-based server manufacturer as we speak. So, we anticipate that that's going to start delivering a nice amount of incremental revenue for us in the second half of the year. We've spoken about industrial chain-to-belt conversions that are very similar in nature to what we have done with personal mobility. So I'd say, though, those are probably the three of the most meaningful secular-type opportunities that we feel a high degree of confidence that will give us an incremental above-market growth rate that is meaningful for our company.

Thank you. Appreciate the call.

Our next question comes from David Razo from Evercore ISI. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Thank you. My question is related to margins between the segments and auto replacement. By the fourth quarter, do we expect FP margins to surpass PT? And then on the auto replacement, the growth has been pretty impressive. I'm just trying to make sure I understand how much of that is the underlying market and how much is it related to recent wins and just trying to think through that growth rate if there's some comp issue related to some of the timing of the wins. Correct me if I'm wrong, I would assume that's some of your highest margin business within PT.

Look, I'm going to stay away from being too predictive on forward-looking margins. We don't really give forward-looking margins on product lines. I will say we do expect fluid power to normalize um you know in the second half there is some you know footprint optimization uh that's going to help fluid power but there's stuff we're working on um on power transmission that's going to help as well so we expect both product lines to continue to improve uh their margin profile as we move forward yeah and um i would say that we have done uh our teams have done a rather nice job in automotive aftermarket over the last, certainly, two, three years.

We spoke about some market share gains last year that has washed itself out in the comps. So actually, our comps are reasonably difficult on a forward-going basis, taking to an account that step-ups that we have seen last year. And we still deliver mid-single-digit core growth with our automotive aftermarket business. So that business is performing quite well globally. And we certainly anticipate that that business should be, you know, in a very normalized type run rate, delivering a low to mid-single digit growth rate between now and kind of the next two to three years. So I hope that that color is helpful for you.

That is helpful. But so you've anniversaryed the wins and you were still able to do mid-single in the second quarter for auto replacement? That is correct. That's great. And I know I'm generalizing here a little bit, but given its replacement, I would assume that's some of your highest margin revenue within PT?

Look, as we indicated, we have profitable business across all of our channels. You know, this is not kind of like an airspace type business. We are, you know, they're very proud of our OEM margins just as much as, you know, we obviously are proud of our aftermarket business margins. But it is somewhat more positive than the OE exposure. And, you know, we anticipate certainly that that's going to be accretive. And, look, you know, we've indicated that we have a reasonably nice step up in profitability in the second half of the year as well. We've indicated that we will be in that 23% plus at minimum. And so, you know, I think that you are seeing the fruit of, you know, diligence and effort by our global teams, not only to execute on things that we can control operational performance enterprise initiatives, but also a favorable performance across the markets.

That's helpful. Thank you very much. Thanks, Deb.

Our next question comes from Nigel Ko from Wolf Research. please go ahead your line is open yeah hi good morning guys thanks for the details here books can you just remind us how much cost capture is falling into the second half of the year prior framework and then how much is then rolling into the first half of next year how much what cost saving restructuring savings consolidation oh yeah so well so on the on the cost saving side look you know we've we've done a lot of work as i said before we've done a lot of work on uh improving margins through our

footprint um optimization um through our cost realignment through restructuring um and you know the 23 and a half you know embeds a lot of that um or you know all of that in its uh and it's forward-looking forecast right now looking at the meaningful inflection that we've seen in demand especially on the industrial side we're balancing our footprint optimization and how quickly we move versus making sure we have plenty of capacity in place to take care of the customer so we expect to see those benefits roll through over a little bit longer period so I would say to the end of 27 um now that doesn't change our margin outlook at all in fact you know if you look at our margins we're actually uh at the midpoint a little bit north of 23.5 when you look at uh when you look at the back half but so um you know i would say it's pretty evenly spaced out over time and we're going to manage that footprint optimization along with um you know the customer service and capacity side of things to make sure we take full advantage of the upcycle we're seeing right now.

Okay, we'll follow up offline now. Then obviously EMEA, really good performance in the quarter. I mean, I'm assuming there's a little bit of shift from 1Q to 2Q of the ERP.

But I'd be more curious, Evo, if you could maybe just spell out, you know, kind of what benefits you're getting, you know, post ERP transition in terms of day-to-day operations um working capital management etc um and do you think that means that uh you get just better growth in in europe look um nigel i think that we are still so early on posting implementation we are just one quarter out and you know my my sense is that we will never have to talk about the implementation because we are done uh and we are just uh now focusing on optimization i believe that we will get nice benefits as we roll into 27, gives us the opportunities to optimize our working capital, gives us better opportunities to track our inventories and match our manufacturing activity to what we are saying from the underlying perspective in the end markets. So we will see more benefits. But I would say that, you know, we've done a lot, our teams have done a lot in Europe to drive penetration, market share gains. And I think that you are seeing some of that acclude in our results. You're seeing terrific performance in personal mobility. You know, that business has been growing very, very nicely. Our diversified industrial business has been growing very nicely. The OE penetration on highway and commercial construction are, you know quite okay as well so we believe that um uh the penetration the performance the focus on broadening our exposure in europe is uh the right strategy and you know we don't certainly believe that we will you know we'll always grow um you know mid to high single digits in europe but we certainly feel pretty well about uh you know the midterm prospects for our business there And frankly, globally.

Yeah. And just a very quick follow-on. I mean, Brooks, you don't like to give segment margin details. But as you look into 27, is there any reason why FP margins would be any significantly different to PT?

Again, look, I think we're going to see FP normalized, which will put it back closer to PT as we move through the back half of the year. And then we have significant margin improvement opportunities on both sides. And so they should both improve about the same rate. There's nothing structurally different about the businesses that should cause one to be significantly better or worse than the other. So we would anticipate kind of a return to normalization of FP and then a rate of improvement that's very similar on both sides.

Okay, that was three questions. Thanks, Nigel.

Our last question comes from Jerry Revich from Wells Fargo. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Good morning, everyone. Brooks, I wanted to ask you, given the really good margin momentum that you folks are building over the course of this year, it looks like your exit rate, and midpoint math is dangerous, but it looks like the exit rate is going to be somewhere in the 24% range, and you folks have outlined cost savings coming in 27 versus 26 is the 24 and a half percent margin target that you laid out back at the 24 analyst day is that within uh within the possible range i know the market's been weaker for a while but it feels like you've got the underlying momentum and if you're still expecting incremental improvement 27 versus 26 it feels like 24 and a half percent margins might might be feasible in 27 can you just touch on the puts takes around that place.

Thanks for the question, Jerry. That's definitely how we are thinking about that. And I think that we have spoken about being on the trajectory of travel, despite the fact that the markets have really not been supported for us over the last two years since 2024 CMD. So we've done a lot with this franchise. We are positioning it to outperform, deliver meaningful performance for our shareholders. And we feel well where we fit. And, you know, as I also indicated, we don't believe that 24.5% is some magic endpoint. And we will provide update as we start to think about the next CMD, likely in 2027.

Okay, super. And separately, you know, we're thinking back to the 22-23 timeframe, you know, So lead times got blown out for a lot of categories, and we're running pretty heavy on overtime. Can you just update us on how your footprint's evolved since then and give us a sense for what lead times look like now, given the acceleration and then demand?

Sure. I mean, we've done a lot of gain with the business. We've spoken about the footprint realignment, positioning ourselves to a position where we have a better access to labor, direct labor in particular. We have accomplished that. We have a number of projects that are still in production ramp-up. So we feel reasonably well. Now the demand inflection that we see is meaningful, and we will monitor our lead times very, very carefully and ensure that we are lock and step with some of the demand that we see from our customers on a forward-going basis.

Thanks.

Thanks, Jerry.

We have no further questions. I would like to turn the call back over to Rich Clause for closing remarks.

Thanks, everyone. Appreciate your participation. If you have any further questions, feel free to reach out, and we'll get back in touch. Have a great day and great weekend.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.