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ZWS · Zurn Elkay Water Solutions Corp

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$50.97 +0.24 (+0.47%) At close · Aug 14
Market Cap
$8.58B
Shares
166.87M
All earnings calls

Earnings call · FY2025 Q4

Zurn Elkay Water Solutions Corp Q4 FY2025 Earnings Call

Zurn Elkay Water Solutions Corp Q4 FY2025 Earnings Call

Concluded Feb 4, 2026 Audio replay Verified speakers
Feb 4, 2026 38:00 46 turns
Period
FY2025 Q4
Runtime
38:00
Sources
4 artifacts

Executive readout · one minute

What matters this quarter

Zurn Elkay delivered a strong Q4 2025 with 10% core sales growth to $407M and adjusted EBITDA up 14% to $104M (25.6% margin, +100bps), generating record full-year free cash flow of $317M and ending the year at 0.4x net leverage with $160M of share repurchases.

Organic growth and adjacencies 25 Data center vertical 21 Product innovation and filtration 16 Capital allocation and balance sheet 15 Margin expansion and profitability 14 Tariffs and pricing 12

Management tone

Confident

Net tone +68 · low hedging

Grounding quotes
  • “We wrapped up calendar year 2025 with a pretty decent fourth quarter as sales grew 10% organically over the prior year Q4 and EBITDA grew 14% to $104 million, with margins expanding 100 basis points to 25.6%.”
  • “All this while leverage declined to 0.4x.”
  • “We see more new organic growth opportunities, largely in adjacencies and underserved verticals than I can remember. We have a plan to attack these opportunities. And assuming we execute, which we have a reasonable track record of doing, I'm confident this only enhances our organic growth trajectory over the coming 2 to 3 years.”
  • “All things equal, we're off to a really good start in January, but still 11 months to go in 2026.”

Forward guidance

3 guided metrics

Management's latest ranges and targets are included below.

Research coverage

4 live sources

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Revenue · derived Q4 $407.20M +9.8% YoY
Gross margin · derived Q4 44.4% +0.9 pp YoY
Net income · derived Q4 $42.10M +15.7% YoY

Research materials

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Key takeaways

What improved, and what deserves a closer read.

Constructive signals

  • Q4 net sales grew 10% core to $407M, ahead of guidance provided 90 days ago
  • Q4 adjusted EBITDA grew 14% to $104M with margins expanding 100bps to 25.6% (36% incrementals)
  • Full-year 2025 adjusted EBITDA was a record $442M with margins up 120bps to 26.1%, on 8% core sales growth
  • Record full-year free cash flow of $317M, up 17% year-over-year
  • Repurchased $160M of stock (about 3% of shares) at an average price of $36.74 and paid $64M in dividends; quarterly dividend increased 22% YoY
  • Net debt leverage of 0.4x, the lowest as a public company, supporting M&A capacity

Risks & pressure points

  • Residential and pockets of the commercial segment within nonresidential remained soft in Q4
  • Product development and adjacency investment spending ran in the millions in 2025 and is expected to continue (and increase) in 2026, embedded in the ~$35M framework
  • Q4 results benefited from approximately 5 points of price from previously announced tariff-related pricing actions, implying tariff cost exposure
  • Outlook commentary flagged 11 months remaining in 2026 and provided no specific full-year quantitative guidance beyond mid-single digit core sales growth intent

Key moments

Jump directly to management's words in the synchronized transcript.

“we expect core sales to be up mid-single digits, incremental adjusted EBITDA margins of approximately 35% on the increased sales and generate approximately $335 million of free cash flow in 2026.” David Pauli, CFO
“we repurchased about 3% of our outstanding shares for $160 million and paid $64 million in dividends. All this while leverage declined to 0.4x.” Todd Adams, Chairman

Forward guidance

From the 8-K filed Feb 3, 2026.

Metric Guided
Incremental adjusted EBITDA margins
full year 2026
35%
Free cash flow
full year 2026
$335M
Incremental adjusted EBITDA margins
first quarter 2026
35%

Quarter detail

How the reported period landed and where the business moved.

Capital returned

Buybacks · derived
$25.00M
Dividend / share
$0.11
Full-screen source Call document