AAON, Inc.

Thank you for standing by. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Aon, Inc. Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Release Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to turn the conference over to Joe Mondillo, Director of Investor Relations. The floor is yours.

Thank you, Operator, and good afternoon, everyone. The press release announcing our second quarter 2026 financial results was issued earlier this afternoon and can be found on our corporate website, aaon.com. The call today is accompanied by a presentation that you can also find on our website, as well as on our listen-only webcast. We begin with our customary forward-looking statement policy. During the call, any statement presented dealing with information that is not historical is considered forward-looking and made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, the Securities Act of 1933, and the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, each as amended. As such, it is subject to the occurrence of many events outside of AON's control that could cause AON's results to differ materially from those anticipated. You are all aware of the inherent difficulties, risks, and uncertainties in making predictive statements. Our press release in Form 10-Q that we filed this afternoon details some of the important risk factors that may cause our actual results to differ from those in our predictions. Please note that we do not have a duty to update our forward-looking statements. Our press release and portions of today's call use non-GAAP financial measures as defined in Regulation G. You can find the related reconciliations to GAAP measures in our press release and presentation. Joining me on today's call is Matt Tobolski, President and CEO, and Andy Chung, our CFO. Matt will start off with some opening remarks, Andy will follow with a walkthrough of the quarterly results, and Matt will finish up with our updated outlook for 2026. With that, I will turn the call over to Matt.

Thanks, Joe, and good afternoon. Q2 was another strong quarter, building on the momentum established in Q1 and reflecting continued execution across the business. Higher throughput across all four of our major facilities resulted in substantial volume growth, demonstrating the value of recent investments we have made across the organization, including supply chain management, lean manufacturing, operational excellence initiatives, expanded capacity, and leadership development. These efforts translated into our fourth consecutive quarterly revenue record, with sales increasing 101% year over year and 26% sequentially. EBITDA more than doubled from the prior year period, and we generated substantial earnings growth while converting backlog at a much faster pace across the enterprise. These results are tangible evidence that the investments we have made are translating into measurable operating progress. For an industrial manufacturing company, this level of organic growth and operational scaling is exceptional, and it reflects the strength of our markets, our strategy, and our people. Despite the substantial increase in production rates during the first half of the year, backlog remains nearly double prior year levels. Sequentially, backlog declined because production and shipments increased significantly across the enterprise, resulting in accelerated backlog conversion. That is exactly the outcome we have been working to achieve. Customer engagement remains strong, our pipeline of opportunities remains healthy, and backlog continues to provide meaningful visibility into future growth. Let me begin our brand discussion with basics. The long-term market opportunity remains compelling, supported by continued investment in data center infrastructure and the differentiated solutions we provide to the market. Basics branded sales were a record, increasing 216% year-over-year in the quarter and 501% on a two-year stack. For the first half of the year, sales were up 137% year-over-year and 570% on a two-year stack. Achieving and sustaining this level of growth requires coordination across engineering, operations, supply chain, manufacturing, and our field teams. Production increased across our facilities and I hope all of our stakeholders appreciate the significance of what our teams have accomplished. As we have scaled at an unprecedented pace, maintaining high standards across quality, delivery, and customer support has remained a major focus. We continue to see meaningful improvement as the systems, processes, and teams we have been building become more mature and effective. The progress is translating into better outcomes for our customers and stronger execution across the enterprise. Basics branded bookings were below the unusually elevated levels experienced in recent quarters. However, we do not view that as a change in the long-term opportunity. These projects are large in scale and can generate quarter-to-quarter variability in booking activity and award timing. Customer engagement remains strong. Our opportunity pipeline remains healthy, and backlog continues to provide substantial visibility into future growth opportunities. More importantly, our ability to support customers continues to improve as throughput increases, lead times come down, and additional capacity comes online. The underlying market opportunity remains very favorable, and we continue to see substantial long-term opportunities for growth. Turning to the Aon brand. The Aon brand continued to perform exceptionally well, gaining market share despite a relatively soft commercial HVAC market. Aon branded sales increased 40% year over year and 5% sequentially, reflecting improved production throughput, strong demand, and continued execution improvement across the business. These results point to meaningful market share gains and reinforce the strength of our product offering , and customer relationships. Increased production volumes also drove further lead time improvements during the quarter, although additional improvement remains a priority as we continue increasing throughput. Bookings of Aon branded equipment increased approximately 16% year-over-year during the quarter and were up approximately 45% on a two-year stack. Year-to-date, bookings increased 12% year-over-year and 25% on a two-year stack. Growth was primarily driven by continued strength in our traditional transactional business, which is particularly encouraging given the softness we experienced throughout much of last year. National account activity remained healthy and generally consistent with prior year levels. We also continued to see strong momentum with AlphaClass, our fully electric heat pump platform. Alpha Class orders increased 50% during the quarter and 54% year-to-date, and customer adoption continues to build. This platform is an important long-term growth opportunity as customers increasingly focus on electrification, sustainability, and energy efficiency. Strong Aon-branded bookings resulted in a 6% sequential increase in Aon-branded backlog despite significantly higher production rates. As a result, we remain focused on continuing to drive throughput, work down backlog, shorten lead times, and deliver for our customers. Turning now to margins. As we have discussed for several quarters, the level of demand we are experiencing has required us to scale the business rapidly. We have expanded our manufacturing footprint. brought new capacity online, invested in equipment and infrastructure, strengthened our supply chain capabilities, and significantly increased talent across operations, engineering, manufacturing, and support functions. These actions have been deliberate. They allow us to better serve customers, convert backlogs faster, capture market share opportunities, and build the operating platform required for the company Aon is becoming. Importantly, The underlying economics of the business continues to improve. Oklahoma's core operations are performing well. Memphis continues to perform meaningfully ahead of our expectations, and production throughput across the enterprise continues to increase. Consolidated margins remain pressured by the mixed impact of exceptionally strong growth, ramp of activity associated with new capacity, and price-cost timing dynamics. We continue to expect margin improvement through higher facility utilization, productivity gains, sourcing initiatives, improved price-cost realization, and a continued maturation of recently added capacity. The key point here is that we are not simply growing revenue. We are building a stronger operating company with scale, infrastructure, systems, and discipline to support higher revenue, stronger execution, improved margins, greater cash generation and durable earnings growth over time. We are confident in our ability to continue demonstrating the earnings power of this business as we move through the balance of 2026 and into 2027. And with that, I will now turn the call over to Andy.

Thank you, Matt, and good afternoon, everyone. Second quarter net sales were a whack of $627 million, an increase of 101% year over year. and many more. and greater utilization of recently added manufacturing capacity. Aon Branded sales grew 39.3% in the second quarter, driven by a healthy backlog and improved production throughput as we work to reduce lead times at both our Tulsa and Longview facilities. Gross profit in the second quarter increased 84.3% to $152.5 million compared with $82.7 million in the prior year period, reflecting the company's strong revenue growth. Gross margin was 24.3%, down from 26.6% in the second quarter of 2025. Results reflected the impact of ramping recently added manufacturing capacity, including the Memphis facility, along with Thank you. As throughput and utilization continue to increase, productivity improves and better price backlog is converted. There is clear sight into gross margin improvement in the coming quarters. SG&A expenses as a percent of sales declined 570 basis points to 13.3%, demonstrating strong operating leverage as revenue growth outpaced our continued investments in the organization. On a dollar basis, SG&A increased $24.5 million to $83.6 million as the company continues to make intentional investments to drive long-term growth. Long-term adjusted EBITDA increased 102.3% from the prior year period to $94.2 million. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 15.0% compared to 14.9% a year ago. Adjusted diluted earnings per share grew 213.6% to 69 cents. Turning now to the segment financials. beginning with Aon Oklahoma. Second quarter net sales increased 42% to $262.3 million, driven by strong execution against a robust beginning backlog and accelerated conversion enabled by production improvements. Results also benefited from favorable price realization and a beneficial comparison to the prior year period, which was impacted by the industry refrigerant transition and other operational challenges. Aon, Oklahoma gross profit increased 18.9% to $63.6 million. Gross margin was 24.3%, a decline of 460 basis points from 28.9% in the second quarter of 2025. Overhead expenses associated with the Memphis facility impacted segment margin by $18.1 million, compared with just $3 million in the prior year period. Excluding these costs, Oklahoma margins expanded approximately 60 basis points to 31.2% compared to 30.5% last year. Adjusted for Memphis overhead expenses, The increase in Aon Oklahoma gross margins was largely due to increased production rates. These gains were partially offset by elevated outsourcing levels and inflationary pressures, both of which are temporary and do not change the long-term margin profile of the segment. These factors have been addressed in recent quarters with actions embedded in backlog and new pricing actions. We expect These temporary headwinds to moderate as the year progresses. Aeon Coil product sales were $146.7 million in the second quarter, an increase of $88.2 million or 151% compared to the prior year period. Growth was driven by $126.6 million in basics branded liquid cooling product sales. which increased 208% during the quarter. This strength was also supported by 15.1% increase in Aon branded output within the segment. Aon Coil Products' gross profit increased 130% to $23.5 million. Gross margin was 16.0% in the second quarter compared to and many more. In the second half of the year, Basic segment sales grew 221% in the second quarter to $218 million. The outsized growth was driven by sustained demand for data center solutions and a robust backlog. Increased utilization at the Memphis facility contributed meaningfully to quarterly results by expanding production capacity, accelerating backlog conversion, and driving higher sales volume. Basic segments gross profit increased 244.2% to $65.3 million, compared with $19 million in the prior year period. Gross margin was 30.0%, up from 27.9% in the prior year period. The improvements in margin reflect a strong volume growth, partially offset by incremental resources and investments to support future growth and share gains. Lastly, a quick update on the Memphis facility. We understand the accounting treatment can make performance difficult to evaluate, and we intend to provide greater clarity going forward. When considering the facility's revenue generation to date and fully burdening results with all associated expenses, including overhead currently allocated to the OGA home assessment, Memphis is performing exceptionally well and ahead of plan. Production and revenue have significantly outpaced expectations, and margins have expanded for two straight quarters, reaching levels well ahead of where we expected them to be at this point in the facility's development. Now, turning to the balance sheet, cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash balances totaled $12.7 million on June 30th, 2026 and that at the end of the quarter was $435 million. Our leverage ratio improved to 1.48, down from 1.71 on March 31st and 1.77 on December 31st. In the first half of 2026, cash flow from operations was a positive $55 million, a significant improvement compared to a $31 million use of cash in the prior year period. This was driven by higher earnings and improved working capital efficiency. Capital expenditures total $102.6 million year-to-date, reflecting continued investment in incremental capacity to support future growth. Looking ahead, we continue to see significant opportunities to improve productivity, profitability, and working capital efficiency. We expect these initiatives to support stronger cash flow generation and continue balance sheet improvement, providing a solid foundation for sustained long-term growth. I will now hand the call back to Matt.

Thank you, Andy.

We enter the second half of the year with strong momentum across the business. Production throughput has increased significantly. Backlog remains at elevated levels despite record revenue conversion, and demand across both brands continues to be healthy. Importantly, the backlog we are converting today carries a more favorable margin profile than the backlog during the first half of the year. combined with higher production volumes, improving facility utilization, pricing actions, sourcing initiatives, and continued operational improvements, we believe the building blocks for margin improvement are firmly in place. Turning to our outlook for 2026, we now expect sales growth of 55 to 60%, gross margin of 25 to 26%, SG&A expense of 13 to 14% of sales, and depreciation and amortization expense of $95 to $100 million. Our updated outlook reflects stronger than expected production, backlog conversion and execution across the enterprise. While we continue to see operational improvement across the business, our consolidated margin outlook reflects the mixed impact of exceptionally strong growth from recently added capacity, continued ramp up activity and price cost timing. As we sit here more than halfway through the year, I want to provide a few thoughts on how we're thinking about the business beyond 2026. First, we continue to feel extremely positive about the long-term outlook for both the Aon and Basics brands. Both businesses continue to gain market share, supported by differentiated products, strong customer relationships, our industry-best sales channel, and highly engineered solutions that are difficult to replicate. Second, we continue to see substantial opportunity to improve margins over time. The drivers are straightforward and well understood. Higher utilization of recently added capacity, improved fixed cost absorption, increased productivity, continued sourcing improvements, and pricing actions already embedded within our backlog. We expect to see progress through the balance of the year and a more meaningful benefit as we move into 2027. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for joining us. These are the outcomes we expected to see as the investments we had made across the business matured. The key point is that we are not simply growing revenue. We are building a stronger operating company with the scale, infrastructure, systems, and discipline to support higher revenues, stronger execution, improved margins, greater cash generation, and durable earnings growth over time. We still have work ahead. particularly around margin improvement, but the direction is clear. The long-term opportunity remains strong and the actions required to improve margins and cash generation are underway. We are proud of what the team has accomplished, confident in the opportunity ahead and focused on demonstrating the earnings power of this business as we move through the balance of 2026 and into 2027. In closing, I want to thank our employees, customers, sales channel partners, and shareholders for their continued support. Our employees have accomplished an extraordinary amount. The growth we are delivering today is a direct result of their effort, discipline, and commitment to serving customers while building a stronger company. We remain focused on execution, disciplined in our approach, and excited about the opportunities ahead.

And with that, I will open the call up for questions.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star then the number one on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star one again. Your first question comes from Ryan Merkle with William Blair. Your line is open.

Hey, everyone. Thanks for the question. I want to start with the data center orders in the quarter. They're a little bit weaker than I think some of us were expecting. So Matt, just put a finer point on that if you would. I know you mentioned the pipeline is healthy. And then could you provide any color on if you think orders will improve in the third quarter?

Good afternoon, Ryan, and certainly a great question, one we anticipated was going to come out today. I want to start off maybe by stepping back for one second and just looking at the trajectory that we've had in our data center bookings over the last four quarters. So at a high level, when we look at the momentum that we have going into this quarter, the prior four quarters had a book-to-bill approaching three over that time period. So we've had exceptionally strong bookings as we've been ramping up capacity. And We think about it from the standpoint of that trajectory that we see really highlights that differentiated offering that we have in the data center space has certainly been resonating within the marketplace. And so there's been a lot of great momentum, a lot of great trajectory, and tremendous amount of pipeline opportunity. Now, when we look at the size and the scale of the orders, it's important to kind of go back and recognize that these tend to be large orders. And so There is potential, as we talked about in prior quarters and really highlighted, that there's potential for there to be a little bit of lumpiness around how that flows through to actual backlog and bookings. But really, just at a high level, the amount of activity that we have in the data center space, the amount of volume we're putting through, there's a tremendous amount of momentum that we have around our products and our orders. And really, it's a timing conversation around how that pipeline opportunity is converting to overall bookings. But The pipeline itself is the strongest that it's ever been. And it would be important to highlight that it's not just strength with existing customers. There's great strength with our existing customer base, but our pipeline continues to expand in terms of diversification of our overall customer base. And so really from an outlook perspective, we're incredibly excited about the opportunity. We've seen acceleration in conversations and activity with our sales channel engagement in the overall market. So While this quarter certainly has a little bit lighter bookings, we don't see that as indicative of anything on the overall market opportunity for our product.

Okay, that's helpful. And just a quick follow-up there, just because it's an important topic. Was there a large order that slipped because of a timing issue, or is it just the lumpiness that you talked about and the pipeline is still healthy?

Yeah, it's just lumpiness. There's no specific order push-out or movement. Again, it's just really lining up the overall bookings in a given quarter.

And then moving to gross margin, you cut the gross margin for the year 200 basis points. And my question is, I'm curious what changed versus when we spoke to you in May. It almost seems like you accelerated throughput and you were willing to eat the higher costs, but just tell us what happened.

Well, let's maybe kind of unpack this for a bit. And so when we look at margin as a whole and looking at Q1 to Q2, I want to start off by saying, operationally, the margin in the Oklahoma segment is improving, and the basics Redmond segment is improving, and the Memphis segment is improving, and there's a little bit of pressure from a price-cost perspective in the ACP segment. But I want to start by framing there that the progression that we see operationally is improvement in the overall margin profile of this business. Now, what is driving that conversation is the accelerated progression and many more. to continue serving data center customers. And so us pushing a little bit harder in our Memphis site and really ramping this facility is giving us a foundation to then drive more business through, allowing us to turn on more production lines and continue growing the overall volume through our Memphis site. And so that mixed conversation is one of the biggest drivers of kind of that consolidated margin coming down in the quarter.

I see. So of the 200 basis point cut, it was mixed and lower margin data centers accelerating, and then it was price cost and then still a bit of outsourcing.

Correct. And I mean, we think about bringing up the top line outlook for the year up about 20%. Obviously, the vast majority of that is coming through Memphis. And so there's a lot of drive that we're getting in throughput through Memphis. But obviously, it is burdened by a little bit more ramp pressure and outsourcing and other things. Again, this facility, just point of reference, in the quarter Q2, we did roughly half of the total year 2025 revenue that Basics did out of Redmond. And so in one quarter, a brand new facility did almost half of what an established mature facility was doing. And so there's inherently going to be some pressures to margin kind of as we ramp that from a productivity standpoint, onboarding new staff, and really outsourcing some of the production as a lot of the new equipment continues to come online throughout that facility. And so really that is the bigger pressure. It's not a fundamental structural pricing issue. It's just ramping a large facility from scratch.

Got it. Okay. Thanks, Matt. I'll defer to others.

Your next question comes from David Tarantino with KeyBank Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Hey, good afternoon, everyone.

Good afternoon.

Yeah, could you give us some color on what the sales outlook now embeds between Aon and basic branded product sales and maybe some thoughts on what's informing the confidence on your ability to deliver that growth relative to the capacity ramp that's ongoing?

Yeah, no, great question. And so from a kind of a branded perspective, The 2026 guide is assuming approximately 20% growth year over year in the Aon brand. And so then back in Aon, that implies that basics will again more than double in the year. And so just in perspective, the overall data center market last year and this year is growing around 30%. And so more than doubling basics again after having 140% growth rate the prior year continues showing a good growth outperforming the overall market. So really Strong acquisition from a market share perspective. When we look at confidence in supporting and executing that growth, you've seen us be intentional and disciplined around trying to not overcommit too much growth until we see the sort of legs get below it in the Memphis site. And so as we get more and more runtime in Memphis, we get more and more visibility and confidence in that rate of ramp. and that's really what helps guide our approach to that backlog conversion and the messaging around the overall growth rates. You take that and kind of add in all the investments you've been making in our operational model and execution within manufacturing, within lean manufacturing process, continuous improvement and supply chain discipline and really it's making meaningful results in the overall ability for us to execute. Now I will say there's certainly a level of caution that is you know, growing this rate in this environment certainly has a little bit of pressures. And so when we look at, you know, the implied growth rate in the back half of the year, obviously it's not some acceleration beyond Q2 in the back half of the year. It's showing a relatively moderate kind of performance in the back half. And that's just recognizing that, you know, this rate of growth is going to have some level of pressures, whether it be supply chain or operationally. But, you know, that's embedded into our outlook. That's From our standpoint, we're intentional and we're also clear-eyed about some of the realities about growing this fast.

And then just to follow up on that last comment, is that supply chain pressures and or other pressures that you're seeing today, or is that just conservatism?

I mean, I'd say, you know, there's always... There's always challenges that pop up. I mean, Q1 and Q2, there's certainly been a variety of issues we've tackled and continue to tackle. So there's nothing new or meaningful that's in there, but it's just a reality of this market that we're not wanting to dismiss the reality of some of the supply chain sensitivities and operation in this kind of environment today.

Okay, great. And then... Maybe back on gross margins, could you just give us the key buckets driving the second half improvement versus the first half, particularly between the better absorption and maybe improving price costs, and then maybe kind of give us some color on how these should progress between both 3Q and 4Q?

Yeah, so at a high level, the biggest driver of margin improvement in the back half is price cost. That certainly is the biggest driver. messages back in the Q1 call as well. But at the very end of last year, we certainly noticed some price cost challenges that we intentionally took action on from a pricing perspective. And so the backlog that we have today is at a substantially different price point than the backlog that we executed in Q1 and Q2. And so that certainly is the biggest driver of margin improvement in the back half. But certainly beyond that, productivity gains will certainly continue to be a positive from an overall margin perspective. You know, looking at Memphis as an example, as there's more runtime, productivity gains will begin to materialize an overall margin profile. But the progression, you know, from Q2 is really improving in Q3, but Q4 certainly is the back half load of that overall margin improvement.

Okay, great. Thanks, guys.

Your next question comes from Noah Kay with Oppenheimer. Your line is open.

Thanks. Maybe just double-clicking on margins. Can you help us understand the margin trends in ACP where we saw sequentially lower margins and, you know, liquid cooling was, I think, over 85% of the segment. So, you know, how should that segment, particularly the liquid cooling side of it, Profile from a margin perspective, what happened in the quarter and what is sort of embedded for improvement from here?

Yeah, the biggest driver in the ACP segment, well, first off, Catherine, you know, the biggest driver in the segment margin kind of quarter over quarter was really on price cost driven by inflation. So whether it's the kind of raw materials kind of inflationary pressures, a lot of freight pressure from a costing perspective, really, those are the biggest drivers in the quarter. And to be frank, we were behind on pricing actions to recover those. And so there's been a lot of work done in the ACP segment around pricing to basically make sure that inflationary pressure is captured properly. and I would just say as we continue investing in our organization's sophistication, whether in Andy's organization from a finance perspective or our supply chain organization, we're getting more and more visibility, which is allowing us to make more and more forward-looking actions to stay ahead of these inflationary pressures. And so this sophistication investments we're making to really drive improvements in our operating model will continue to make meaningful impact and the overall margin profile to help capture this ahead of time. But the reality is we were behind on the overall pricing against the inflationary cost. And those actions have been taken and continue to be monitored and taken appropriately going forward to capture that.

I will also just add that given the actions that we've taken, it's probably going to be towards the end of the year for us to see some meaningful rebound there. There's a bit of a backlog there as well. So But we knew what it is, and we've been taking action. So I think to Matt's point, now that we have a more solidificated view of our costing, product cost, so now we'll be able to do more timely actions. But we knew that a lot of the action is already in place.

Very helpful. Thanks.

And then I guess just to double-click on David's point, so I think you talked about 4Q being kind of where some of the margin improvement is weighted towards it. So should we not assume kind of fairly ratable sequential margin improvement in 3Q and 4Q? We can get there within 120 bits or so improvement quarter over quarter for the next couple of quarters. Do you think it's going to be more back-end weighted?

Yeah, you'll see modest improvement in Q3, but really Q4 is going to be where the more noticeable improvement is going to be weighted. Okay.

Thanks, Matt. And then just on the orders, because to agree with Ryan, that was a big focus today. I just want to see if we can get some clarity here. Were there large orders or meaningful improvement in orders in July and early August versus the 2Q level? Can you share anything on that? Because you mentioned the pipeline expanding, and certainly we know industry activity is very good. Can you just talk about trends Quarter to date, to the extent you can share.

I would just say quarter to date. I don't have specifically in front of me the overall bookings, but what I would say is from a pipeline perspective with visible and high confidence conversions, there is a tremendous amount of pipeline with existing customers for 27 and 28 orders. And so there's a lot of work going into those existing relationships and really they're planning for 27 and 28 deliveries. that just didn't hit the books in Q2. But again, part of our normal planning process this time of year is where a lot of that planning actually begins to materialize into orders for the next year and beyond. So I would just keep reiterating that the amount of activity that we have is tremendously high, very strong with existing customer base. And again, we're continuing to turn on production capacity in Memphis, which is allowing us to beyond that existing customer base really accelerate new customer relationships from a diversification play. So the amount of activity that is out there that we're involved in with a lot of high probability closures of existing customers and new customers is as high as it's ever been.

Yeah, and that would be very consistent with, you know, kind of how the calendar year works where some of those 27, 28 commitments would start to flow through to your orders. So that would make sense. And Matt, just to follow up on that last point, you mentioned The diversification progress here. I'm not sure whether it was in the bookings this quarter or any other metrics, but what can you share with us around, you know, where you feel you're making real progress on that diversification? You know, what are customers looking for? What wins have you had or, you know, what feels, you know, reasonably high probability?

What's been great is that it's relatively diverse across our product portfolio. So we're not looking at pipeline activity and new relationships just in one specific product. So whether it's liquid cooling products, whether it's airside products, chiller products, the conversations are happening across the entire portfolio. And really, there's a pretty good weighting across all of that. So it's not weighted like it's all 95% one or the other. It's actually pretty evenly spread across that product portfolio with new customers. And so really showing that that portfolio really resonates across a broad spectrum of customers.

All right. Thanks for all the color.

My pleasure. Your next question comes from Timothy Woj with Baird. Your line is open.

Hey, guys. Good afternoon. Thanks for all the details. Maybe just my first question, just when you look at the Oklahoma segment and we talk about kind of mid to high 30% gross margins and having visibility to that, I mean, I think we've kind of been talking about that for really the last 18 months. So, you know, we've still kind of been kind of hung up in this kind of 30, 31% range. I guess, can you put a little finer point on kind of when you would expect to get to that kind of mid to high kind of 30% level? Or do you have backlog today that is kind of clearly at that level? Just some color on the timing and the visibility to when we'd actually start to see that.

Yeah, first off, good afternoon, Tim. Yeah, so on the Oklahoma segment, you know, obviously we talked about this in the Q1 call where We noticed some definite price cost dislocation at the end of last year and pricing actions started to get put in place. Well, that was getting put in place when we had a pretty healthy backlog. And so as that pricing went in, it takes time for that to really start hitting the overall production floor. But those actions, you know, we're really starting to see movement, obviously, in this quarter. But really, you know, we think about that meaningful pricing is going to really come in Q4. You'll see some very meaningful price impacts. hitting the Oklahoma margins and then into 2027. So we anticipate with the overall pricing structure and our productivity gains that we're seeing across that facility, that Q4 in 2027 is when we're going to really expect to see that kind of start to flow through as that mid to high 30s.

Okay. Okay. And can you just step back and talk about what, I mean, we've got Some kind of trailing kind of price cost pressures in ACP. We've got it in Memphis or in Oklahoma. Can you just kind of step back and talk about what you've done over the last six to nine months so that we're not as behind on price cost as we've been here the last six to nine months?

Yeah, no, it's a very fair question. And, you know, we've talked about this really for the last few quarters, which is the evolution and the investments we're making and the sophistication How we run this business. And so as whether it comes down to the supply chain strategy, whether it comes down to the overall finance organization and partnership with the business and better insights and kind of forward looking information to the business, all these investments we're making are really being made to provide better forward looking visibility and better confidence in execution. and, you know, you and I have certainly talked about this and I've made these comments before around the scaling, the rate of scaling at Aon. It's pretty phenomenal to think that, you know, five years ago, the revenue was a bit above $500 million and certainly substantially higher than that in this calendar year, you know, more than 4X in this calendar year. So when we look at that dynamic, there was a lot of evolution that had to happen in the business to really provide the infrastructure and the discipline to not only run that fast, but to do it successfully and reliably time and time again. And so the investments we're making in really the operational improvements and sophistication of this business are really driven on that idea of getting better visibility and foresight into our execution and allow us to have actionable insights well in advance of when we have to make decisions. All of those investments are being made to allow us to see these things coming so that, you know, a year down the road, I'm not saying, hey, Tim, we didn't see this coming. Like, we're going to be able to say, hey, we saw this coming, which is why we made these actions, which is why you see the margin maintaining where it's at.

Yeah, Tim, I'll add that to Matt's point. So now that we have a handful of new finance leaders joining us and we organized a bit a couple months ago, So every executive now is partnering with Finance Insights and allowing us to do much more analytics to inform the action faster. And this can really go beyond gross margin as well. So we really have a lot of insight now into managing working capital. A lot of process change already been kicking off. So I'm pretty bullish that we'll quickly see some food coming out of these investments. So definitely we have a next level of insight guiding the business right now.

Okay. Okay. That's helpful. Thanks. And then just a sneak one last thing. Just the basics backlog. I know you ran through production more than you thought and you had some order lumpiness, but would you expect that backlog and basics to be higher at the end of the year than it is today?

Certainly we anticipate there being, yeah, I guess what I'll say is two parts. So first off, I want to just kind of keep reiterating that some of this acceleration and conversion, it is building us a stronger foundation to build off of. And so the faster we convert, the better visibility and clarity we get into the ability to execute at scale and then we build more production capacity, more lines out from there. So it's allowing us to really continue taking this opportunity in the market and capturing as much as possible. And so that conversion of backlog, acceleration of conversion certainly makes the bookings become a big balancing point. But our goal is to get that operating foundation in place to keep growing it and then continue driving sales based on visibility into our ability to execute against the overall demand of the market. So we've talked about this in the past that the balance of confidence and execution in bookings kind of go hand in hand. And so as we keep getting this foundation built, it allows us and our sales team the opportunity to more aggressively go after the orders. And so just to say, I mean, the growth and the execution that our operations team is driving is pretty phenomenal when we think about all of this organic growth and the scale of growth and the pace of growth. And so that is then arming our sales channel to go out there in the marketplace and really drive more bookings. And so we certainly anticipate that being very, very good ammunition for our sales channel to keep driving more order cadence into the That's us, you know, should be a driver to continue capturing more and more of the opportunity and driving more and more backlog into the business.

Understood. Thank you guys for the color. Appreciate it.

Your next question comes from Chris Moore with CJS Securities. Your line is open.

Hey, good afternoon, guys. Thanks for taking a couple. Maybe one more on gross margin. So, Recognizing that you're not given specific guidance on 27, but what would be maybe the puts and takes that would make it possible or make it difficult to improve the 25 to 26 percent gross margin range in 26 by, say, 400 basis points in 2027?

Yeah, so I guess, you know, when we look at the margin trajectory through 2026, and again, we've talked about the fact that Q4 is certainly going to be the strongest margin quarter for the overall organization. That certainly means that we're entering 2027 at a much higher than 25 to 26% margin profile. So starting off to say, you know, we're ending the year at the high watermark and then driving that momentum into 2027. When we look at, you know, how do we drive that margin? Again, people ask the question around, when do we get back to that 30 plus percent? You know, my starting point is to say, well, we're exiting the year actually at a pretty healthy margin when you run the math on the momentum and the guidance. And really the upside to keep driving beyond that comes down to, you know, higher volumes to absorb the fixed costs, continued discipline around price cost, and continued overall focus on improving productivity across the business. And so all those things are what allow us to keep driving that margin higher and getting ourselves back into that 30 plus percent profile from a consolidated basis. I will just say that obviously mix is certainly a conversation. So as that basics brand, that again, it's got improving margin quarter over quarter, but certainly as we keep driving more volume through there, mix can be a little bit of a factor. But again, we anticipate on that side of the business as well to continue seeing progress in margin profile throughout the year.

Got it. That makes sense. As you said, Q4 is going to be the high on the margin side. I wasn't sure what you said earlier, Matt, in terms of from a revenue perspective, Q3 versus Q4. Is that relatively balanced or is Q3 meaningfully a bit higher than Q4? I'm just not sure how we should be looking at that.

No, they'll be relatively balanced. But one thing I want to point out is, you know, we have holidays in Q4. So a balanced, you know, top line revenue Q3 to Q4 actually implies higher productivity in Q4. Just the holidays tend to certainly slow down production levels. So sales per day should be up, but overall top line, you know, relatively flat quarter to quarter. Got it.

Thanks. And maybe just the last one for me. I mean, many of the data center HVAC players dealing with significant supply chain issues. One of the bigger challenges being the sourcing of certain fans. I know you guys made a decision a couple years ago to vertically integrate a little further, specifically with regard to plenum fans, you know, for your own HVAC units, external sales. Can you talk a little bit more about the current impact of that decision and just kind of overall supply chain challenges that you're seeing at this stage?

Yeah, just a data point. I mean, certainly on the Aon side of the business, we brought in the manufacturing of fans a couple of years back. But just as a data point, the basics business, from the day we started that business, we manufactured our own fans. And so whether recently through some of our current supply chain challenges or during the COVID supply chain challenges, you know, the insourcing of fans continued to be a competitive benefit for us with some of the overall volatility. Now, that said, we still do buy fans. We still use fans other than just our own. So we do also get a good eye into the overall marketplace and recognize that fans, as an overall market, certainly have some constraints around the amount of available capacity in the marketplace. And so there is some pressure kind of on the fan side, but We continue to look for opportunities to manufacture our fans or to multi-source fans. I would say that the discipline and the continued focus around supply chain resiliency that our supply chain organization is focused on continues to look at ahead of being hit by a supply chain constraint. We tend to be looking at as many leading indicators as possible in driving multi-sourcing strategies or alternate vendor selections. as early in the process as possible to mitigate the overall challenges. So I would say that at a high level, Chris, I mean, supply chain challenges certainly exist in this market. There definitely are constraints and our team continues to very actively and proactively manage those constraints. You know, we've actually had some very good success in mitigating the overall impacts to our overall volumes. That said, you know, we also recognize there is potential for those to create some noise in the coming quarters. And so our focus is to continue looking as far ahead as possible to look for constraints in the overall supply base as soon as we can see them and really drive sourcing strategies to mitigate the overall impacts as soon as possible.

Very helpful. I will leave it there. Appreciate it.

Your next question comes from Leo Romero with Sadati. Your line is open.

Thanks. Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. Matt, based on the comment earlier in the Q&A of the revised four-year sales guide embedding Aon branded sales at 20% growth, I think that implies, if my math is right, second half Basics branded product sales of roughly $290 to $330 million a quarter, and that would be below the $345 million of Basics Branded Sales you just did in the second quarter. Is that right, Matt? And if so, kind of help us understand why the step down there.

I'd say more flattish on the Basics kind of sales, kind of quarter over quarter in Q2, 3, and 4. So relatively flattish. I wouldn't say a big step down. And so just from that standpoint, I would say Our focus and our drive is certainly to continue driving volume through our facilities, but also embedded in there is recognition that while we've had very good success in mitigating supply challenges, we're also not blind to the potential that there could be issues. And so we're looking at this from a standpoint of open eyes and reality around the overall market. And the reality is growing a business as fast as we are growing this business and a market that has some of the constraints that it has is not without challenge. And so embedded in that sort of back half on the basic side is some recognition of some of that potential impact to the business. But I would just say that our focus every day that we wake up is to mitigate those impacts and really drive the volume through that factory and continue delivering. But that really is the focus from an execution standpoint.

Got it. Okay, that is helpful. And then... You did see some pretty good leverage on the SG&A line this quarter. Is there room for further leverage as kind of revenue continues to scale, especially as we head into 27?

What I would say is, you know, we certainly, you know, rewind the clock last year and the year before, you know, we've been making investments, very intentional investments to prepare this business to operate at the scale that it's operating at. And so, We're seeing some of that leverage show through in the quarter, obviously, which is great. But I would say there continues to be some investments that we have to make to really kind of get all of the parts and pieces in place. So I wouldn't expect at least in the next quarter or two to see substantially more leverage. But what I would say as these investments that we're going to be making in the near term take effect and we keep driving revenue beyond that, we would anticipate seeing that kind of lever up. or Leverdown, I should say, in the future, in more than a 2027 calendar year.

Great. Thanks again. I'll pass it on.

That concludes our Q&A session. I will now turn the conference back over to Joe Mondillo for any closing remarks.

Thank you, Operator. I'd like to thank everyone for joining today's call. If anyone has any questions over the coming days and weeks, please feel free to reach out to myself. Have a great rest of the day and we look forward to speaking with you in the future.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect and have a wonderful rest of your day.