Kennametal Inc (KMT) Q4 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

and general inflation. A lower effective tax rate contributed a $0.09 benefit in the quarter, driven by geographic mix. The headwind of $0.07 and other is mainly driven by higher share count and slightly higher interest expense. You can also see $0.04 of transaction gains related to preferential Bolivia exchange rates. Currency and pension effects offset each other, and there is a one-cent gain from the Inflation Reduction Act tax credit. Slides 8 and 9 detail the performance of our segments this quarter. Metal cutting sales grew 22% organically and 24% on a reported basis. We outperformed the public peers again this quarter. That marks the fourth quarter in a row and extends a favorable trend that started four years ago. Regionally, on a constant currency basis, the Americas increased 29%. Asia-Pacific increased 20%, and EMEA increased 16%. Looking at sales by end market on a constant currency basis, energy increased 36% this quarter. The growth was driven by price and continued AI data center project wins. Aerospace and defense grew 35% year-over-year as we capitalize on higher build rates and accelerate share of wallet gains in tier suppliers in the Americas and EMEA. General engineering grew 25% year-over-year, driven by higher price realization and share gains in the indirect channel. For an example, in the Americas, we leveraged our strategic partnership with a large national distributor to expand our reach. And lastly, transportation increased 7% year-over-year as higher price was partially offset by prior-year project wins in age-specific, including EV-related program activity. Metal-cutting adjusted operating margin was 27.3% compared to 7.9% in the prior year, driven by a favorable timing of raw material-related pricing compared to costs of $54 million, non-raw material pricing and tariff surcharges, higher sales and production volume, and restructuring savings of $4 million, partially offset by higher compensation costs and general inflation. Turn to slide 9 for infrastructure. Organic sales grew by 74% year-over-year, with a favorable foreign exchange of 1% and a favorable business day effect of 1%, partially offset by a divestiture effect of 3%. Regionally, on a constant currency basis, sales in the Americas increased 103%, OMEA grew 46%, and Asia-Pacific grew 40%. Looking at sales by end market on a constant currency basis, energy grew 135%, mainly driven by price in the Americas, partially offset by volume as we prioritized other end markets. Earthworks grew 76%, driven by price and a higher volume in surface mining and construction from share gains due to availability of materials. Aerospace and Defense grew 63%, driven by price and continued execution of our strategic initiatives in the Americas and EMEA. And lastly, General Engineering grew 37% from price and volume growth in EMEA, partially offset by volume prioritization in the Americas. Adjusted operating margin increased to 58.4% compared to 6.8%, primarily due to favorable timing of raw material pricing compared to costs of $198 million, partially offset by lower sales and production volume, higher compensation costs, and general inflation. Now, turn to slide 10 to review our free operating cash flow and balance sheet. Free operating cash flow has a percent of adjusted net income was modestly better than we anticipated. Our full-year free operating cash flow was negative $79 million compared to positive $121 million reported in the prior year. The change in free operating cash flow was primarily the result of increased working capital required by higher tungsten prices. Net capital expenditures were $75 million compared to $87 million dollars in the prior year in total we returned 71 million dollars to shareholders 61 million dollars through dividends and 10 million from share repurchases our share repurchase program remained paused this quarter as a result of the higher tungsten pricing and corresponding working capital needs during the quarter we took actions to enhance liquidity extend debt maturities to position the company to capture near-term growth opportunities. These actions provide additional liquidity to support near-term tungsten-related working capital needs and preserve financial flexibility to respond to future market developments while maintaining balance sheet discipline. At quarter end, we had combined cash and revolver availability of approximately $926 million, which includes the additional $200 million available by exercise the accordion feature on our revolver, and we were well within our financial covenants. Additionally, we had full availability of our new $500 million term loan. As is customary, this facility is a use-it-or-lose-it proposition, so we intend to fully draw the new term loan during the September quarter and pay down any revolver borrowings. Going forward, the term loan can be paid down within the three-year term, which gives us the flexibility to scale down the balance sheet if working capital needs decline. With the refinancing of the 2028 notes, the remaining $91 million of outstanding notes were redeemed on July 1, we have meaningfully extended our debt maturity profile. Our nearest debt maturity is July 2029, and our public notes maturities are now extended to 2031 and 2036, respectively. The full balance sheet can be found on slide 22 in the appendix, turning to slide 11 regarding our full year outlook. We are providing a range for both the full year and the first quarter, beginning with the full year. We expect FY27 sales to be between $3.33 billion and $3.45 billion, with volume ranging from 1 to 4 percent, price and tariff surcharges ranging from approximately 40 to 43 percent, and a neutral effect from foreign exchange. We have been successful and remain committed to achieving price. As Sanjay noted earlier in his remarks, most end market indicators maintain positive momentum them into FY27. At the midpoint of constant currency, and including price, we expect all end markets to increase high double digits year over year. Our annual outlook also assumes that tungsten will remain stable at the current level. Additionally, we are assuming that there is no material effect on customer activity as a result of the conflict in the Middle East. Approximately $10 million of rollover savings from our previously announced restructuring Initiative has been included. We expect interest expense of approximately $50 million due to the additional borrowings to fund working capital requirements and an effective tax rate of approximately 25%. We expect adjusted EPS in the range of $4.15 to $5.15. On the cash side, the full-year outlook for working capital expenditures is $85 million, and the outlook for primary working capital is 45% by fiscal year-end. Taken together, we expect free operating cash flow to be approximately 20% of adjusted net income, reflecting the working capital pressure from the rise in cost of tungsten. The bridge on slide 12 highlights the main drivers impacting EPS at the midpoint of our outlook. The bridge walks you from our FY26 adjusted EPS of $4.57 to the midpoint of our FY27 outlook of $4.65. Pretty flat on the surface. Underneath that roughly flat headline number, the core earnings engine of the business continues to strengthen. There's a lot going on underneath, so let me unpack it. Starting with the tailwinds. First, operations adds about $0.53. Favorability of raw material pricing compared to costs is positive to $0.39 for the full year, with favorability occurring in the first half of the year, most significantly in the first quarter. Higher sales and production volume as end markets continue to improve and we execute on our share gain initiatives together with lower incentive compensation of approximately $0.18 and about $0.10 of restructuring savings, partially offset by higher raw material costs as tungsten remains at elevated levels and higher wages in general inflation. We also expect a $0.17 benefit from the IRA Advanced Manufacturing Credit. Now to the headwinds. Year-over-year, we will see a 23% Bolivia FX headwind as the Bolivian government has ended the preferential program. Higher interest expense is a $0.25 drag, reflecting our higher debt levels following the recent financing actions, and other items of about $0.08, primarily a higher share count of $0.07. Taxes and pension are $0.04 and $0.02 respectively. Net it all together, and we arrive at an FY27 midpoint of $4.65. The key takeaway is that our operation momentum, price realization, volume, and cost discipline is essentially offsetting a set of largely non-operational headwinds related to FX, interest, and a higher tax rate. The FY27 midpoint reflects a $0.39 EPS price raw tungsten impact as compared to $3.11 in the prior year. Our first quarter outlook can be found on slide 13. We expect Q1 sales to be between $745 million and $775 million, with volume ranging from 1% to 4%, price and tariff surcharges in the range of 50% to 53%, and neutral foreign exchange. Let me share some details on the sales assumptions affecting the Q1 outlook. Once again, similar to the full-year impact, the combination of improving end market conditions. Focus on share gain initiatives and price. We anticipate each end market to be up high double digits on a constant currency basis. Foreign exchange is neutral on both the sales and operating income basis. Interest expense is assumed to be approximately $11 million and an effective tax rate of approximately 25%. We expect adjusted EPS in the range of $2.50 to $2.80, which includes approximately $2.25 of favorable timing of raw material pricing compared to costs. Finally, as we discussed on our last call, I'll provide you some assumptions to help you model a FY28 and beyond view of the business if tungsten were to remain at this elevated level. First, some context on the FY27 quarterly cadence. We have provided the impact for Q1 and the full-year effect of tungsten on the business. The FY27 price-raw benefit will be materially behind us by the beginning of the third quarter, as we expect tungsten pricing and costing will be on the same level in the second half. The working capital build will follow the same pattern, and we expect free operating cash flow to turn positive in the second half. Assuming tungsten remains stable at the current level, we expect Q4 EBITDA margins in the mid-teens, which represents a clean quarter to use as a jump-off point to model FY28 and beyond. In the current high-priced tungsten environment, we expect volume leverage to be in the mid-30s. This volume leverage estimate reflects the substantially higher raw material costs in the business as well as a sales mix that is more heavily weighted toward the infrastructure business. We remain committed to executing share gain initiatives to drive above-market growth, continuous improvement actions to enhance our margins, and evaluating opportunities to optimize our portfolio. And with that, I'll turn it back over to Sanjay.

Thank you, Pat. Turning to slide 14, let me take a moment to summarize. We delivered a solid fiscal 26, driven by price and modest improvements in our end markets, project wins on the commercial side, and cost improvement actions. We continue to make steady progress on our strategic growth initiatives, lean transformation, and structural cost improvement while also exploring ways to strengthen our portfolio over time. We are well positioned to continue to deliver on our commitments in fiscal 27 and remain confident in our plan for long-term value creation for our shareholders. And with that, operator, please open the line for questions.

Thank you. And ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask your question during this time, simply press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press the star, then number two. And our first question today will come from Angel Castillo with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning, and congrats on a strong quarter. Pat, we'd just love to go back to the normalized and the bridge that you provided. I guess you gave a lot of good color on the slides, but can you just help me reconcile a couple things? If I just take the $0.39 EPS from raw material timing for fiscal year 27, and then also layer in the 311 that I think you had in the fiscal year 26 guide, It implies an underlying kind of normalized of 115 if I just kind of leave everything else unchanged. So it seems like there's a number of puts and takes, but as I kind of look at that normalized earnings, I used to think about it as closer to 160. So has anything changed in terms of what you view as kind of an underlying kind of normalized run rate of the earnings bridge for the business? And, you know, as you think about that exit rate of fiscal year 27, just help us kind of level set, you know, what am I missing or what has changed?

No, I think, Angel, there's two things to consider, right? And let's go back to a simple view of, let's say, FY26, right? And so when we talked a quarter ago, we talked about a midpoint of $3.88 and price raw effect in the year about $2.45 and about $0.20 tailwind going into $0.27 from a comp perspective, and that kind of gets you a clean FY26 of $1.63. All right. I would say as you think about those numbers in the context now of what actually happened in the fourth quarter, EPS came in a bit higher, 457, really driven by a little bit better pricing, a little bit of raw material. That's why that price raw number went from 245 to 311. All right. And then a comp number came in a little bit tighter. And so that's a that's an 18 cent tailwind going into FY27. so $1.64. So $1.63 in terms of what we thought that number was 90 days ago, $1.64 kind of in the world we're living in now. I think as well, as you think about what's happening in the context of FY27, yes, you have 39 cents for the full year, right? But I think you got to figure into that, that, you know, the first half of that of the year is going to be positive, all right? And as we talked about in the prepared remarks, beginning of the third quarter, that price raw tailwind is going to be substantially behind us at that point in time. And so the benefit that we saw in FY26, the $0.39 in Q3, the $2.43 in Q4 goes away, okay? And so you just have these fundamental two halves where you're going to have strong price raw in the first half and then on a year-over-year basis, it's going to be a headwind for us.

Maybe kind of putting all that together, the dots together, you had the $163 was before. What would you kind of consider now you're normalized?

In terms of last year for FY26, $1.64.

No, for fiscal year 27.

From a fiscal year 27 perspective, then you just – you simply need to take back out the full amount of tungsten, right, from a FY26 perspective, 243 plus the 39 cents.

Got it. And then just maybe as a second question here, just in terms of the organic growth, could you just help us understand for the fiscal or 4Q, was volume for the total company up, or was there a little bit of a drag when you kind of put all the pieces together? And then just curious, you talked about, you know, acceleration or good kind of improvements in some of the end markets here. Just curious, you know, how your kind of order trends right now are shaping up versus that 1% to 4% volume growth outlook.

Yeah, certainly. So as we think about across the business, you know, I'd say the business in total, low single digits from a volume perspective, a little bit different in terms of what's going on between the two businesses. You know, metal cutting a bit higher, mid-single-digit volume performance in Q4. Infrastructure, as you talked about, was volumetrically more flat. You know, and there is inside of infrastructure there, we did make some choices around portfolio in terms of customers' reserve and how we're utilizing our material to drive, you know, ultimately the best return on the tungsten we have. Sanjay, do you want to add anything to that from the market's perspective?

Yes, Angel, good morning. I'm just going to add to your second part of the question. Of course, as you know, that we have had three years of slow burn industrial production being soft. So 26 was first year where we saw mid-single-digit, low-single-digit type of numbers throughout the year. And then now, as we're looking at it, we do expect the low-single-digit at the midpoint. We have given you 2.5 percent volume for fiscal 27. So that is definitely a positive news because that's going to build upon the base that we have in fiscal 26. And I will give you more color here by segment level. Aerospace defense will be the strongest of that. The next will be energy. And following that will be general engineering where we continue to see improvement in IPI across the board. And then you come into earthworks, which is flattish, and transportation being the one that is negative slightly.

Very helpful. Thank you.

And our next question will come from Steve Barger with KeyBank Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Good morning, guys. In infrastructure, you took share in Earthworks due to availability of materials. You just talked about that. But you also, you know, when you're prioritizing volume and energy and general engineering, does that mean on the whole you were short material and lost potential sales due to the the prioritization?

No, Steve. We are not short. What we're saying is that as we see the growth in overall volume, including in aerospace and defense and the areas where we do consume a lot more tungsten, we did prioritize what will drive the best return for our shareholders and how we get the best return on, you know, tungsten that we have. There was no shortage, but we were definitely allocating what we have while there was no shortage. You know, let's just say that even if we maintain even supply, which we did secure, we were allocating based on where we can get the best return.

Got it. But I mean, so you have enough material for everybody, but you didn't sell to everybody because you want to drive those returns.

Yeah, I think as you might have heard, you know, from you and others that we could actually take more business if we can go get a lot more tungsten material. But that doesn't mean that we have shortage. We are managing our overall supply chain and processing capacity because, remember, it's not just about the ore. In our business, processing capacity is also one of the competitive advantage, which we do have. So that's what we have to manage how we allocate that capacity also.

Okay. Well, when I look at the 1% to 4% volume guidance for FY27, in the context of the cycle inflection, how much of that is what the market's giving you, and how much is share gain, would you estimate?

Yeah, we're not breaking it down specifically, but I can tell you that it will be coming from both. As we have said before, that above market growth, 100 to 200 basis point is our target. That whatever market does, we want to definitely do 100 to 200 basis point better than market. So that gives you a rough idea that that's where we will be in terms of breakdown between market versus the strategic growth or so-called, you know, our own initiatives.

So just to clarify, I mean, if the market's up one or 2% and your guidance is one to 4%, your outgrowth should account for basically all of that? No, so let me go with them. Sorry, go ahead.

Finish your question.

No, no, I'm just trying to break apart, you know, what you consider outgrowth versus share gain.

Yeah, so if you look at the overall volume growth that we have said, 1% to 4%. In that, share gain will be 1% to 2%.

Okay.

The rest is market. Yeah, rest is market.

And our next question will come from Chris Dankert with DA Davidson. Please go ahead.

Hey, morning, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. Apologies, a quick just clarification. I got a little bit lost on the explanation on price cost for fiscal 27 specifically. So, again, if we take the 311 from this year and the 39 cents of raw material timing that we're benefiting from in 27, back that out, I'm coming to kind of a core X price cost of $1.15. Is that right? And if not, could you just one more time run me through that?

I think you – yeah, Chris. I think you've got to take in the other factors that are in play there as you build it up, right? And so clearly in terms of versus the prior year, and if you're bridging it all the way back, you've got the Bolivia FX you've got to take out of there too, right? Since the Bolivian government ended that preferential exchange rate program here this quarter, right? And so when I think about that price raw, certainly we've got the $0.39 going on here in FY27, right? We've got the, excuse me, $3.11 going on from the prior year. That's the double stack, so to speak, right, if you pull all of that out.

And then I hadn't seen anything in the presentation. Was there any IEPA benefit anywhere in the numbers here? Do we expect any benefit, maybe just stake out anything around the tariff recovery?

Yes, Chris, we have applied for refunds, and we have received some, but it was immaterial to report. We continue to apply. Our overall plan at this point is that we will reinvest that to strengthen our overall supply chain security, supply network optimization, and also product and service development to serve our customers better. But I would like to take the opportunity also to, you know, tell you that as you look at this situation that we were dealing with over the last year and a half, you know, initially we did incur some cost, and then we implemented surcharges, but that was not our first action. First thing we did is to make sure that we have production moves. We moved several thousand parts around the world. We did supply chain network optimization, and then we passed along some of the surcharges. Of course, you know, even with the new policies in place, tariffs are more or less in a similar zone. So that's how we're looking at it, and we're managing it in an overall sense. And we'll continue to monitor and take appropriate actions.

Thanks so much for the call, guys.

And our next question will come from Steve Volkman with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Good morning, guys. Pat, thank you for the sort of cadence through 27. um obviously the key and at least in my humble opinion is sort of when we get back to kind of the core uh earnings of the company so you talked about i think mid-teens uh ebitda margin as sort of the 4q exit rate for 27 i just want to make sure i had that right um and then yeah okay good all right so uh two questions about that one is i guess um you know we sort of give up the the timing arbitrage on the raws here, obviously, but revenue will sort of stay in the zip code it's in, I guess, assuming that tungsten stays where it is. So as I just do the sort of the dumb math, it feels like you're talking about kind of a 600 million-ish in EBITDA run rate to exit, annual run rate to exit 4Q, mid-teens margin on, you know, $3-ish billion of sales? Is that the right way to think about the annualized way to do that? Sorry if this is confusing.

Yeah, I guess the way I would think about that, Steve, and so, you know, let's think about this from the standpoint of, you know, FY27 from an overall, you know, outlook perspective, you know, you've got, you know, basically that they're, you know, let's call it $3.4 billion, you know, roughly. If you think about that and you take that now forward a year in a flat tungsten environment, that's the number you're going to kind of iterate off of, small amount of incremental price, whatever you think the incremental volume is, that's kind of where I would take that forward. from an EBITDA perspective, yeah, that fourth border maintains EBITDA, right, that I would expect based on what we know today, that's going to be a clean price raw quarter, right? And so then you can apply, say, normal seasonality of the business then going forward to really generate what that FY28 EBITDA profile would be.

Got it. Okay, helpful. And then switching to the free cash flow, just you mentioned that that turns positive, I think, in the second half of FY27. Is this a situation where we're going to get like 150 or 200 percent free cash flow at some point and kind of recapture this? Or does it just kind of slowly go back to something higher than 20?

Yeah, I would say when you think about this year and then how we've talked about what's going on from a price raw perspective, you know, talking about cash flow effectively being the mirror image of that, right? And so when I think about how cash flow is going to develop this year, you know, Q1 is going to be a sizable cash draw. And to put a fine point on that, you know, probably in terms of just dollars, around $200 million. I would expect that that's going to basically be, call it the high watermark, right, for the cash draw here. And then in Q2, that would step down a little bit, right? And then in Q3, expectation is that now reflects positive, right? And that's more or less matching up with what's happening on the income statement on the price for all benefit, okay? It's just, again, somewhat the mirror image of that. And that's really driven by inventory valuation, right? And so, obviously, you've seen there's a significant step up here in inventory in the fourth quarter, anticipating another sizable inventory build here on valuation in Q3. And inventory will basically hit its peak for us here in the second quarter.

Okay.

So, now we get back half of the year. Back half of the year should have good positive cash flow to it.

And is FY28 like way above 100 or just directionally?

I would simply say with respect to FY28 and kind of beyond, we would return to a normalized cash generation profile. Again, as soon as it comes to remain stable.

Yeah, appreciate it. And once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star then one. And our next question will be a follow-up from Chris Dankert with DA Davidson. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Thanks for the follow-up here. Hoping you can help me out on one other aspect of the fiscal 27 guide. So if I look at the operations bucket, we're looking at 53 cents for the year. If I back out the things you flagged there, the raw materials, lower incentive comp, restructuring, I'm kind of left with a core volume wage inflation number that's like a negative 15, 18, whatever EPS impact. So how are we getting negative contribution on kind of the core volume? Maybe just, again, apologies if I'm misinterpreting that.

Yeah, the way I look at that in terms of what's sitting in there, right, you got the 53 cents. Obviously, you've got favorability in the raw material timing of 39 cents. You've got the favorability on the comp coming in as well, right? You should have some favorability coming through, obviously, on the restructuring. You're going to have a little bit of, I'll just call it, the normal wage inflation and things like that that are going on in the course of the business. And, again, this is obviously at the midpoint as well, right? When you think about this over the context of the Outlook, the Outlook has some variability built price into it as well, just, again, given the sheer amount of tungsten going through the business today and how much price we're going after.

Yeah, thanks for that, Pat. Appreciate the caller.

And this will conclude our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Sanjay Chobo for any closing remarks.

Thank you, operator, and thank you, everyone, for joining the call today. As always, we appreciate your interest and support. Please don't hesitate to reach out to Mike if you have any questions. Have a great day.

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