Columbus McKinnon Corporation

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Columbus MacKinnon Corporation Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all lines are in listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Monday, February 10, 2025. And I would now like to turn the conference over to Ms. Christine Moser. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and welcome everyone to our call. On today's call, we'll be covering both our third quarter fiscal 2025 financial results, as well as the recently announced combination of Keto Crosby with Columbus McKinnon. This is an exciting evolution in our strategic journey that combines two complementary businesses with scale advantages and and strong value creation for all of our stakeholders. On the call with me today are David Wilson, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Greg Rustowitz, our Chief Financial Officer. In a moment, Dave and Greg will walk you through our financial and operating performance for the quarter before sharing more about why Columbus McKinnon is so excited about bringing these two great businesses together. The earnings release and presentation, including details on the Keto Crosby deal, to supplement today's call are available for download on our investor relations website at investors.cmco.com. Before we begin our remarks, please let me remind you that we have our safe harbor statement on slide two. During the course of this call, management may make forward-looking statements in regards to our current plans, beliefs, and expectations. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties and other factors that can cause actual results and events to differ materially from the results and events contemplated by these forward-looking statements. I'd also like to remind you that management will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. You can find reconciliations of the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures on the company's investor relations website. and in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Please see our earnings release and our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for more information. Today's remarks will be followed by a question and answer session. We respectfully ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. With that, let me hand it over to David.

Thank you, Christine. Good afternoon, everyone. We're excited to share more about a transformational milestone for our company, bringing together Keto Crosby with Columbus McKinnon and a highly complimentary deal that we expect to deliver compelling value for all of our stakeholders. This business combination enhances our scale and market position while delivering top-tier financial performance. But before I get into the details of the deal, let's discuss the third quarter. Our global team adapted quickly to shifts in industry demand in the second half of the quarter and delivered adjusted EPS of $0.56 on $234 million in sales. including an 8-cent impact of unfavorable foreign exchange movements in the quarter, or 11 cents compared to the favorable foreign exchange in the prior year. While the demand environment deteriorated over the quarter, mid-term market sentiment remains positive. As the third quarter progressed, we encountered two dynamics. First, our U.S. customers took a cautious approach to the evolving policy environment, particularly related to tariffs, which delayed decision-making. And second, We saw subdued demand in Europe, particularly in Germany and France, consistent with what you are hearing across the industry. While our optimism for the business over the medium and long term remains unchanged, our third quarter results and revised guidance for the near term contemplate that the resolution of these dynamics extend through the fourth quarter. We continue to see attractive opportunities from industry megatrends like nearshoring, scarcity of labor, and infrastructure investments, and we are well positioned to benefit as we capitalize on those dynamics. As always, we remain focused on what we can control, operating effectively, managing our business with agility, and executing our strategic plan. As you would expect, we are diligently managing costs to reflect current demand levels, while remaining flexible to take advantage of what are likely to be upside opportunities. We continue to advance our strategic plan, including executing our 80-20 simplification initiatives. In fact, this quarter we announced the execution of the next step of our footprint simplification plan. Specifically, we are consolidating two smaller precision conveyance factories into our largest U.S. precision conveyance manufacturing facility. We began transitioning manufacturing last week and expect to cease operations at the discontinued locations in the first quarter of fiscal 26. Like the rest of the market, we are monitoring the recent developments with respect to tariffs closely. If a 25% tariff on both Mexico and Canada and a 10% tariff on China were implemented, the impact would be less than 5% of trailing 12-month sales. If they were matching retaliatory actions from the impacted countries, these would affect another 3% of sales. And of course, in that environment, we would explore strategic adjustments to our supply chain and manufacturing footprint to minimize the impact to our customers to the extent possible. Where this isn't possible, we have a consistent record of working with our partners to pass through input cost increases and preserve margin. As referenced earlier, the demand environment has been choppy. and we saw orders down 4% year-over-year, driven by a 6% decline in short-cycle orders, where destocking pressures, uncertainty, and delays in decision-making persisted. Project-related orders remained flat, with strength and precision conveyance offsetting softness in Europe. Precision conveyance grew by 16%, and linear motion was up 8% from the prior year. Our project funnel remains healthy, reflecting improving customer sentiment and the effectiveness of our commercial and customer experience initiatives. Quotation activity in the quarter increased to near record levels, but the speed of order conversion is lagging historic levels. Backlog also remains healthy, down modestly from prior year, driven by softer short cycle demand. Project-related backlog was up 3%, again driven by strength and precision surveillance and linear motion. With that, I'll turn the call over to Greg, who will provide some additional color on our financial results and outlook.