RBC Bearings INC Q4 FY2026 Earnings Call

Good morning, and thank you for joining us for RBC Behring's Fiscal Fourth Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. I'm Josh Carroll with the Investor Relations Team. With me on today's call are Dr. Hardin, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, Daniel Bergeron, Director, Vice President, and Chief Operating Officer, and Rob Sullivan, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. As a reminder, some of the statements made today may be forelooking and under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. ASHRAE results may differ materially from those projected or implied to a variety of factors. We refer you to RBC Barron's recent findings with the SEC for a more detailed discussion of the risk that could impact the company's future opting results and financial condition. These factors are also listed in the press release, along with the reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP financial information. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Dr. Hartman.

thank you josh and good morning and thank you all for joining us this morning as usual i'll begin today's call with a brief review of our financial results and highlight several key trends we see across the sectors then i'll turn the call over to rob sullivan who'll provide additional details on our financial performance for the fourth quarter Fourth quarter net sales increased 18.3% year-over-year to $518 million, driven by continued momentum in our A&D segment and steady growth in our industrial businesses. Consolidated gross margin was 44.4% for the quarter, or 45.3% on an adjusted basis. Adjusted diluted EPS increased year-over-year to $3.62 compared to $2.83 in the prior year period. Adjusted EBITDA rose 21% to $168.9 million, up from $139.8 million last year. Free cash flow remained a strong $67.5 million, and we paid down an additional $116 million of debt during the quarter. Now, turning to our two business segments, approximately 57% of our revenue during the quarter came from our industrial segment. 43% came from our A&D segment. Our A&E business has continued to deliver exceptional performance, with segment revenue increasing 41.2% compared to the prior year period. This strong momentum in aerospace and defense is further reflected in our backlog, which has continued to expand and currently stands at approximately $2.3 billion. This growth continues to be driven by robust demand across the defense and space markets. along with unprecedented commercial aircraft build rates at the major builders. For the full year, A&D segment was up 32%, of which 19.1% was organic. With regard to our business segments, commercial aircraft was up 17.8%, 17.3% of which was organic. defense was up 65.4 percent and 22.1 percent was organic our key revenue drivers first as many of you know marine has been a significant contributor to our backlog growth driven by accelerating build-out of the submarine fleet given the strategic importance of submarines within today's defense strategies we expect this to remain a meaningful tail ring as production rates continue to ramp across all subcontractors for both the Virginia and Columbia class programs, as well as fleet spares. We are adding machinery and floor space to accommodate increased production rates as we speak. Next is missiles. Missile-related revenue was up significantly this year. with revenue for this sector exceeding $45 million in the fiscal year. Some of this gain did come from our recent EVACO acquisition. This growth really reflects increased content we have across several top missile programs and the expanding demand we are seeing given the current global conditions. We are planning for sustained growth in requirements for this sector in the current and future years. We also see an impressive ramp in our space business as investments in this sector continue to hit record levels. During the year, we saw space revenues come in just above $70 million, including $30 million from eight months' contribution by backup. This impressive growth, especially considering that space-related revenue was only four million dollars for rbc back in 2021 as this trend accelerates and private investment grows space infrastructure is being viewed not only as a major strategic national priority but as a substantial and essential commercial reality on top of this strong momentum we are also supporting the unprecedented unprecedented production rates for commercial aircraft and engines. As you know, we are deeply embedded across these markets on three continents, and as a result, expect to see continued growth at both the OEM and aftermarket levels. Turning now to our industrial business, performance remained steady and up during the period with OEM revenue increasing 7.8 percent and distribution revenue growing at 4.5 percent. During the quarter we saw strength in aggregates, warehousing, food and beverage, grain, and semiconductor and markets. As we look to the fiscal year 2027, we are encouraged by the continued strength of our operating environment and the building momentum across many businesses. We firmly believe our strong service levels, coupled with our brands, our renowned brands, market positions, and technical expertise provide for continued strong financial results long into the future. This was a record year for RBC, and as always, it is a true team effort. I want to thank our employees across the organization for their hard work, dedication, and unwavering commitment to executing our strategy and serving our clients with excellence. With that, I'll turn the call over to Rob, who will

walk us through the financials. Thank you, Mike. We closed fiscal year 2026 with another strong quarter that exceeded our expectations, with net sales growing 18.3%, which led to an 18.9%

increase in our reported gross margin. Gross margins were 44.4% for the quarter, or 45.3%

on an adjusted basis, compared to 44.2% in the same period last year. Fourth quarter A&E sales increased 41.2% year-over-year. With the VACO acquisition excluded, our A&E business saw an increase in sales of 22.8%, which highlights the continued strong growth in our legacy commercial and defense markets. A&D gross margins during the quarter were 41.6 percent or 44.2 percent on an adjusted basis, and industrial margins were 46.5 percent or 46.2 percent on an adjusted basis. Excluding VACO, our aerospace and defense gross margins were 43.7 percent during the period. We are encouraged by the margin improvement we've achieved within A&D, driven by increased deficiencies, volumes, and newly awarded contracts in the period. Looking ahead, we expect these benefits to continue to further support margin improvement while recognizing the impact will be gradual as these benefits flowed through. On the SG&A line, we had total cost of $86.9 million, or 16.8% of net sales for the quarter. This ultimately resulted in an adjusted EBITDA of $168.9 million, or 32.6% of sales for the quarter. That represents an approximate 21% increase in adjusted EBITDA dollars during the quarter compared to the same period last year. Interest expense for the quarter was $11.2 million. This was down 12.5% year-over-year, reflecting the improved leverage position achieved over the last 12 months, coupled with lower interest rates compared to this time last year. We paid off $116 million of debt during the quarter and another $27 million since the end of the fourth quarter. The tax rate in our adjusted EPS calculation was 21 percent compared to last year's 21.7 percent. This led to adjusted diluted earnings per share of $3.62, representing growth of 27.9 percent year over year. Free cash flow in the quarter came in at $67.5 million, with conversion of 73.6 percent, compared to $55 million and 75.7 percent last year. For the full year, free cash flow was $342.6 million, with conversion of 119.1 percent, compared to $243.8 million and 99 percent last year. Our capital allocation strategy continues to remain focused on deleveraging by using the cash that we generate to pay off our outstanding debt, and we continue to remain on track to pay off the remainder of the term loan by November of 2026. Looking into the first quarter of fiscal year 2027, we are guiding revenues of $500 million to $510 million, representing year-over-year growth of 14.7% to 17%. Adjusted gross margin is expected to be in the range of 45.25% to 45.5%, and SG&A as a percentage of net sales is expected to be in the range of 16.5% to 16.75%. With that, operator, please open the call for Q&A.

Thank you. We'll now be conducting the question and answer session. To ask a question at this time, you may press star 1 from your telephone keypad, and a confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. If you'd like to withdraw your question, you may press star 2. For participants who are using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, for our first question. Thank you. And our first question comes from the line of Christine Leweig with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your questions.

Hey, good morning, everyone. You know, I wanted to dive a little bit deeper into your comments about the missile end markets. So first, you know, you talked about how, you know, VACO was able to increase share of content on programs. Can you expand more about, you know, what that looked like? And also, you know, the genesis of this question ultimately with the multi-year agreements that we're seeing the Department of War sign with the missile providers, we're seeing volumes of, you know, 200 to 1,000 percent growth in the next five to seven years. So just want to understand more, you know, how VACO plays into that. And then also, you know, with VACO's deeper relationships with some of these customers, are there avenues in which, you know, RBC bearings can increase total company share into some of these end markets to solve for the shortages that the industry is facing?

Well, Christine, good morning. There was a lot of questions in there.

Sorry. I hope you answered them all, though, Mike.

Well, you know, VACO provides some pretty unique components to manage fuel systems. And in the case where their fuel system is generated by liquid propulsion, VACO has products that are pretty widely used, particularly on some of the more significant programs like the Tomahawk. um so we expect to see more expansion with um with vacco on these missile programs as time goes on and um and uh sort of enough said there but on the rbc side i mean we're probably you know we sort of took a a little survey of around our plants to see exactly which systems we were servicing, and it's a pretty broad range of systems, and, you know, it certainly gets the well-known Patriot and the GMLRS and the Comahawks, but there's also the standard missile, the Jagams, the Aster missile in Europe, and there's a next-gen missile that's recently been developed to replace the Hellfire. So we're on all those systems, and we are definitely expanding our production capability to participate further in all of these programs. So that's happening now. I'm not sure I got all of your questions answered, but I think I might have touched on a few of them.

That's super helpful to get the context for those programs. But I guess, Mike, as you kind of look at the significant growth that industry needs to build to be able to meet the capacity needs of the Pentagon, it just seems like a very big number, right? So I guess my follow-up question to that is you have your existing share and you've got this volume and it sounds like you'll be prepared for that, but are there other avenues where you could take higher ship-set content in these programs, so you would get the double benefit of the volume plus potential share increase?

Yeah, the answer there is yes, and we're working on that now. And so we're working on both. You know, the volume is pretty substantial on some of these programs. I think one of the programs I didn't mention was the hypersonic missile program, which we're also part of, which is a significant program for us. So, yeah, I mean, we're going to have our hands full with volume, and at the same time we're increasing mix. And increasing the mix is a little bit slower because it requires tooling and that sort of thing. But it's within a three-year, certainly within a three-year period.

Great. That's super helpful. And, you know, you also called out your space revenue exposure, you know, which is larger right now than your missile exposure. For this end market, can you give us an idea about, you know, your customer sets? Are these traditional space companies? Are these the new space companies? What's your role in that ecosystem, and where do you see the growth coming from?

Well, it's both. It's both the existing, you know, people that service the space industry since Apollo, you know, it's the Boeings and the Lockheed's and the Northrop's and the Raytheon's, the Collins, and so on. So it's that standard group, which we, you know, been long associated with. But it's also the new people, such as, of course, SpaceX and Blue and Rocket Lab and a few others whose names don't come to mind quickly. So, you know, I mean, it's both sides of the street. It's, you know, right now, you know, I like to think of it as, you know, 50 years ago when there was the Apollo program, the only table in the casino was NASA. And now it's a huge casino with many tables, NASA being one of the tables. And so there's just a lot of places to do business for our particular mix of talents and manufacturing skills. And so we're really very actively engaged in trying to determine how to take that forward in the best possible way for our shareholders.

Great. Thank you very much for the color. And, you know, very great to see a solid quarter from you.

Thank you. Our next questions are from the line of Steve Barger with KeyBank Capital Markets. Please receive your questions.

Thanks.

Thank you, Steve.

Mike, for the last few quarters, to include your comments today, you've talked about adding equipment and headcount to support customer ramps. I'm curious, where are you tightest capacity-wise by end market or program, and what do you think the entire company is capacitized to from a revenue standpoint?

Well, you're asking even bigger questions, Steve. Well, certainly we're tight on producing marine hardware. There's no question about that. It's got our attention. And we're adding equipment and floor space and test labs and people to accommodate that. I mean, the submarine business has been, you know, sort of dormant since they canceled the Seawolf. And now it has to, you know, the entire support system is in this extremely aggressive ramp and doing everything they can to keep up with the priority right now being the Columbia. And so it's taxing. We're up to it. We're making progress. We're adding capacity. We're attempting to double our revenues over a short period of time, years, not months, Steve. um it's it's all production related but we're definitely going to double our revenues in that

sector uh over the next uh 20 24 to 36 months and then just overall company like you're running at 500 million dollar run rate so you know two billion annualized how much does the current footprint with with incremental kind of tweaks like support two and a half billion or three billion just trying to get a sense for when you need a more robust and and long life uh kind of

capacity expansion or capex cycle well the capex cycle um you know this this past year has been on um adding bricks and mortars and sort of moving some plants around that uh is there even because they're you know the infrastructure in existing plants got a little tired and uh it seemed better to build a new one and then it did to fix the old one so we've spent we've spent a little bit money um on brick and mortar and and uh but going forward it's it's going to go into equipment and so you know we expect we expect to be in that three and a half percent maybe four percent range some some years and it will be it will be hard equipment and um you know in in terms of um In terms of production ability, we have some great plants in Mexico that are well-staffed and well-tooled and are big production aids for us, and our ability to flex those plants is high, so that really helps with the capacity situation. It's more difficult to hire in the United States in many areas. It's taxing. It's less difficult in Mexico. And so that's been part of our strategy in terms of increasing our tool group.

Got it. And then for a follow-up, with multiple programs ramping at the same time, Are you seeing supply chain constraints for the things outside your control that could affect the programs you sell into, any issues with castings or forgings or things that you source?

Yeah, on the AMD side, there's always the issue of titanium. You know, there may be – we haven't seen it yet, but, you know, we're watching aluminum. High-alloy steel is available at a price that's extraordinary, but if you have the money, you'll get the steel. So those are some of the areas to watch. Got it.

The next question is from the line of Scott Newsley with Deutsche Bank. Please receive your question.

Hey, good morning. Dr. Hartnett, can you give us any sense as to what level of commercial aerospace growth you're planning for in fiscal 2027?

Well, yeah. Certainly the demand will be greater than our growth, and our growth will be beyond what we're planning for growth on commercial aerospace beyond 15%.

Okay. And would you expect defense and space together to grow faster or slower in commercial aerospace? faster. Good news. And then there's been some recent notable strength in the industrial automation market recently. I guess, can you remind us as to how much exposure you have to industrial automation and then speak to the demand trends that RBC is seeing in that vertical

specifically? Industrial automation as a supplier to industrial automation? Yes. Yeah. Well, I mean, And that part of it, as a supplier to that, that's a little bit of a small sector for us, but it's, you know, we like it. I mean, I think we're in the $40 to $50 million a year range, kind of in that space. And, yeah, certainly Semicon fits into that space nicely, where we supply robotic components for chip manufacturing. And that demand has been strong. It hasn't shown up in FY26 as a significant contributor, but it will in 27.

And then can you share any detail on what the current level of annualized sales is for RBC into the humanoid robot sector and what type of growth you've been seeing there recently?

It's small. You know, for us, that's still sample making, and we continue to support the industry as it's being developed. We don't see any values there from anybody.

Okay. Thank you very much.

The next question is from the line of Pete Skavisky with Alembic Global. Pleased to see us with your questions.

Good morning, guys. Nice quarter. Hey, Mike, in the way of understanding, you know, kind of recent trends, are you guys seeing any, you know, headwinds in the commercial aerospace aftermarket just from airlines kind of tightening their belts in this higher jet fuel environment, you know, if we think about April and kind of May to date?

I'd say we haven't seen it yet. We're watching it, you know, we're, it's on the bubble.

Okay. And your aftermarket, is it more leverage to the engine than to the airframe?

Yes.

Okay, okay. I guess last one for me, just on – can you update us on where you're at with your commercial OEM, the LTA repricings? I'm just wondering if all of your LTAs have repriced at this point to sort of the post-COVID inflation environment. I mean, I think I'd written down that January 1, 2026, you'd have, I don't know if it was 100% of your contract would be repriced at that point or some lower percent. I'm just wondering if you could shed light on that.

Yeah, I would say that's about 60%. Okay. There's still another 40% to go.

Okay. I guess by the end of this fiscal year, maybe two more fiscal years?

Effective January 27th.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Thanks, guys. Thanks.

Thank you. As a reminder, if you like to ask a question, you may press star 1 at this time. The next question is from the line of Alexandra Mandry with Truist. Please receive your questions.

Hi. Nice results, and thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to see if you could provide any further details underpinning the Fiscal fiscal 1Q guidance, and any initial thoughts on fiscal 2027?

Yeah, you know, just like we typically do when we put these raises together, we have a range of outcomes, both in aerospace and industrial, and that's kind of where we led to the five. The aerospace margins have obviously been accelerating, and we're very happy with that. And that, you know, was contemplated when we were looking at the consolidated margins that you see in Q1. you know the industrial margins have obviously been coming in at a higher level so as aerospace and defense has been growing faster you know it just puts a little bit of dilutive effect on the consolidated margins but for the full year we think we can still expand the consolidated gross margins by about 50 basis points so that's kind of how we we put it together in an SG&A it's just a reflection of our kind of continued investment in the organization to effectively be able to achieve the growth that we see in front of us.

And I guess what is your M&A appetite going forward, and what capabilities or company profile might you be looking for if you're interested?

Well, the profile would be mechanical products servicing a customer base similar to – very similar to almost by name to the customer base that we currently service. It would be a company that would be preferred to be insolvent. And it would be in a geography that would be easy for us to get to, to repair an insolvent company.

Great. Thank you.

The next question is a follow-up from the line of Scott Gisley with Deutsche Bank. Please receive your question.

Hey, Rob, the SG&A costs came in a bit high relative to guidance this quarter. Can you speak to what drove that? It looks like stock comp is a piece of that, but I think there was a piece of that as well.

So it's really primarily personnel costs that kind of flow through just the timing and certain compensation matters that kind of flow through, notably, and then just a few other administrative costs.

Okay. Should we expect it to trend above $80 million a quarter going forward? It looks like that's what the first quarter guide implies, but just wanted to check if I should continue to have that in a month.

Yeah, I think that's probably right. It'll be, you know, a little bit above $80 million.

okay and then last question for dr hartnett just as spacex ramps up production of starship should we expect that to drive an acceleration in your space revenue growth modestly i think um

i think we're still working on some some starship programs but uh i say right now the outlook there for us would be modest okay thank you very much next question is from the line of

I'm Steve Archer with KeyBank. This is you with your questions.

And, Mike, last quarter you were early versus other companies talking about an industrial inflection, saying demand improved in December and January. Has that momentum really held up exiting your 4Q into 1Q?

Yeah, I would say it has, yeah. I mean, it's modest, but it's held up.

I would say the story through industrial earnings has been kind of a broadening out of orders across automation, semis, power, some of the same things that you talked about. I guess are you seeing more breadth in the industrial order book?

Breadth in terms of sectors serviced?

Yeah, across more end markets. You know, last year, aerospace defense and I guess things related to data center were really the drivers. Is that broadening out to some degree?

Well, you know, when you look at the amount of money that's going into the AI and the build out of the server farms, and there's an enormous amount of build out that's occurring right now. And since our aggregate business is up 20 percent, 17 percent, something like that. So, you know, you can see it through our aggregate business. But that's something extraordinary is happening someplace in the United States, in North America. And that's one step. Yeah, that has breadth.

Yeah. No, I think that's an interesting comment on just kind of that should be a leading indicator to a lot of other industrial end markets as that kind of flows through. Does that make sense to you?

Yeah, it does.

Perfect. Thanks.

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ross Berenbuck with William Blair. Please just use your question.

Hey, good morning, guys.

Good morning.

All right. Just one quick question for me. Did I hear you right that the ex-VACO Aerospace and Defense gross margins were 43.7%?

Correct.

So that puts VACO around 48% gross margins in the quarter?

NACO was over 46 this quarter. They had some really strong, unique items flowed through this quarter. Great mix, and that kind of pushed it. I would not expect that to be the naturalized run rate. For the full year, I believe their adjusted margins were probably more in the mid-30s, which is their normal operational level. And that's baked into the forecast for the Q1.

As I said, that's a pretty exceptional trajectory if we were to assume that in the 27th.

Yeah, yeah. Don't assume that.

All right. Well, next quarter, gentlemen, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. At this time, I'll turn the floor back to Dr. Hartnett for closing comments.

Okay. Well, we thank everybody for their participation and interest today in RBC and look forward to speaking again in late July. Good day.

Ladies and gentlemen, this will conclude today's conference.

Thank you for your participation.

You may now disconnect your lines at this time, and have a wonderful day.