Franklin Electric Co., Inc.

Good day and welcome to the Franklin Electric Reports second quarter 2026 sales and earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand has been raised. To withdraw your question, please press star

Thank you, Andrew, and welcome, everyone, to Franklin Electric's second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Joining me today is Jennifer Wolfenbarger, our Chief Financial Officer, and Joe Ruzynski, our Chief Executive Officer. On today's call, Joe will review our second quarter business highlights, Jennifer will provide additional details on our financial performance, and then Joe will make some additional comments highlighting our water system segment. We will then take your questions. A replay link of the webcast will be archived for seven days, and a transcript and audio version of this call will be available on our website tomorrow. Before we begin, let me remind you that as we conduct this call, we will be making forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties, many of which could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking statements. A discussion of these factors may be found in the company's annual report on Form 10-K in today's earnings release. During this call, we will present both GAAP and certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures is included in the appendix of our earnings presentation. All forward-looking statements made during this call are based on information currently available and, except as required by law, the company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. Earlier today, we published a slide deck to accompany our prepared remarks. The slides can be found in the investor relations section of our corporate website at www.franklin-electric.com. With that, I will now turn the call over to Joe.

Thank you, Dean, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining today's call. I'm pleased to share Franklin's results today and show you a company that is on a journey of growth and transformation. Let's move to slide three. Our second quarter was solid for all segments. We continued our work to expand margins and increase our investment in our strategic plan. Our revenue from new products recently launched is at a record pace, and we expect this to continue throughout the year. As we exited the quarter, we saw strong order growth and a healthy backlog, along with a balanced inventory position in our channel. Our balance sheet remains strong. We closed two deals in our water business in the first half, strengthening our position in water treatment in North America and our water systems business in Europe. We also closed a deal in our distribution business, which extended our ability to bring our leading customer service and portfolio to some new end markets. All three deals are tracking ahead of plan. Finally, as we are a company on the move and have a great story and momentum to share, we'd like to announce our first investor day on March 23rd, 2027 in New York. So please stay tuned for more details. If we could move to slide four. Looking at our results for the second quarter, we like to talk first about our growth. It's critical for us. While we play in global markets that have dealt with some significant uncertainty, Our story is one of a focused strategy, clear metrics, and controlling our destiny. We finished the quarter with over 6% growth, 3.5% organic, and each segment grew nicely. We saw positive pricing, some good volume growth overall, and strong contribution from new channels, new customers, and M&A. Our adjusted operating income was up 12%. Gap EPS was up 11% with adjusted EPS up 18%. Our adjusted EPS growth in Q2 more than tripled our sales growth year over year. This was helped by strong improvements in our income and SG&A productivity. We received a portion of our EPA tariff recovery. As we knew we would receive some benefit in Q2, we modeled some balance in pricing and the offset to these same tariffs included in our inventory. The benefit to us was a few million dollars, mostly benefiting the energy P&L. We saw an acceleration of inflation throughout the quarter and some softer regions in Europe and South America and continued to watch for pricing and productivity measures to offset as we moved to the back half. We are ramping up a new factory in Turkey and working through some facility consolidations in North America to build an efficient operating structure to better serve customers long term. Some of these costs are included in our numbers, both in restructuring and operating expense, and we expect a nice productivity boost from these efforts as we move into 2027. If we can move to slide five, I'd like to share our progress on some of our strategic priorities. Our value creation model starts with a clear growth focus on moving to faster-growing markets, adding new channels and customers, and accretive revenue through new product launches. I'd like to give some proof points for Q2. By focusing on wider customer needs and the market trends, we have invested in our R&D. Our goal is to increase velocity and scale. In Q2, we've seen some growth from new products deliver over $10 million in new sales. We expect this number to grow over the next few years. We are also focused on partnering with the best channel and looking to add customers. One great example is our water treatment business, adding new dealers that contributed over $2 million in new revenue in Q2. These two examples highlight a focused plan to expand our reach, customers we can serve, and to accelerate our growth. Our margin expansion efforts continue to accelerate. We have recently announced V.T. Rajeshnath as our new Chief Supply Chain and Transformation Officer. He brings a stellar resume of building teams, supply chain networks, and transformation execution. He will also lead our VAO, or Value Acceleration Office, which is off to a great first year and has a funnel that we expect to help accelerate our productivity efforts as we move into the second half of 2026. I mentioned on our last call we launched a new factory in Q1. We've also made some smart consolidations of assets to more efficiently serve our customers and expand capacity in North America. Our capital budget is a record this year. More importantly, we are getting a great balance of growth, productivity, and sustaining projects to ensure we achieve our long-term strategy. Our commitment to our shareholders remains a key tenet with continued growth and dividend in 2026. Finally, and most importantly, we are focused not only on building the strongest team in our industry, but growing a company that attracts, develops, and retains this great talent. Thank you to our Franklin team for your support of our journey and your important contribution to our results. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Jennifer to discuss the financial results in more detail.

Thank you, Joe. Please turn to slide six. are fully diluted earnings per share was $1.46 for the second quarter 2026 versus $1.31 for the second quarter 2025. Second quarter adjusted diluted EPS was $1.55, a new quarterly record compared to our 2025 second quarter adjusted diluted EPS of $1.31. The 18% year-over-year expansion in adjusted diluted EPS was primarily driven by the expansion in our adjusted operating income year over year as a result of volume growth above market, price discipline, and cost management. This is a continued demonstration of our commitment to expand the earnings power of our business. In the quarter, we booked a $4.5 million provision as we concluded a legal matter. This was recorded in the energy system segment during the second quarter of 2026. There were $400,000 in restructuring costs in the second quarter of 2026 compared to $200,000 in the prior year second quarter. Restructuring costs in the quarter are primarily related to structural improvement initiatives across our global water operations. These actions will deliver savings in 2026 and will be accretive in 2027. The effective tax rate was 25.7% for the quarter compared to 24.9% in the prior year quarter. The increase in effective tax rate was primarily due to increased unfavorable discrete events in Q2 of 2026. Moving to slide seven. Second quarter 2026 consolidated sales were $622.9 million, a year-over-year increase of 6%. The sales increase in the second quarter was primarily driven by organic growth, including price, volume, and foreign currency translation, followed by the incremental sales impact from recent acquisitions. Franklin Electric's consolidated gross profit was $230.6 million for the second quarter of 2026, up from the prior year's gross profit of $211.8 million. The gross profit as a percentage of net sales was 37% in the second quarter of 2026 compared to the second quarter of 2025 gross profit margin of 36.1%, an increase of 90 basis points compared to the prior year. The gross profit margin was favorably impacted in the second quarter of 2026 by price, volume, and tariff refunds, which were largely offset by material inflation and the timing of tariff expense rolling off the balance sheet. Selling, general, and administrative expenses were $132.1 million in the second quarter of 2026 compared to $123.5 million in the second quarter of 2025. The increase in SG&A expense was primarily due to the incremental impact of our acquisitions in the past year. SG&A as a percentage of net sales was 21.2% in the second quarter of 2026 and 21% in the second quarter of 2025. without the impact of acquisitions, our SG&A as a percentage of net sales was 20.8%, an improvement year-over-year of 20 basis points. Consolidated operating income was $93.6 million in the second quarter of 2026, up $5.5 million, or 6%, from $88.1 million in the second quarter of 2025. The increase in operating income was primarily due to favorable price and higher sales volumes in the second quarter. As previously mentioned, there were $4.5 million in illegal settlement and $400,000 in restructuring costs in the second quarter of 2026 versus $200,000 in the prior year second quarter. Excluding those items, consolidated adjusted operating income was $98.5 million in the second quarter 2026, up $10.3 million, or 12% from $88.2 million in the second quarter 2025. The second quarter 2026 adjusted operating income margin was 15.8% versus 15% in the second quarter of last year, an 80 basis point improvement year over year. Moving to segment results starting on slide eight. Global water system sales were up 5% compared to the second quarter 2025, driven by strong price, favorable currency exchange on sales, and additional volume from our recent acquisitions. Water system sales in the U.S. and Canada were up 8% compared to the second quarter 2025. The sales increase was led by sales of groundwater pumping equipment into the agricultural market, up 12%, Sales of residential products, including water treatment products, up 11%, and sales of product into mineral extraction applications up 6%, partially offset by sales of large dewatering equipment sold into industrial applications, which decreased 12% compared to 2025 in the U.S. and Canada. Water system sales in markets outside the U.S. and Canada increased 1% overall. foreign currency translation increased sales by 5%, recent acquisitions added roughly 1%, and volume price were negatively impacted by 5%. Excluding the impact of acquisitions and foreign currency translation, sales in the second quarter of 2026 increased in Asia Pacific as Latin America and EMEA sales were down year over year. EMEA sales volume specifically in North Africa, Middle East, and Eastern Europe were negatively impacted by the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. Global water systems operating income was $65.2 million, up $3.4 million versus the second quarter of 2025. The operating income margin was 18.2%, a year-over-year decrease of 10 basis points. There were $400,000 in restructuring costs in the second quarter of 2026 in the water segment. Restructuring costs in the quarter are primarily related to the prior quarter structural improvement initiatives across our global water operations. Adjusting for restructuring charges, the water system's adjusted operating income was $65.6 million, up 3.7 million, or 6%, from the prior year, with an adjusted operating income margin of 18.3%, an improvement of 10 basis points from the second quarter last year. Operating margin for our global water systems business was positively impacted by favorable price realization and somewhat offset by higher material costs. Moving to slide nine. Distribution second quarter sales were $221.1 million versus the second quarter 2025 sales of $200 million, an increase of 11%. The distribution segment sales increase was primarily due to higher volumes Acquisition-related sales and price realization. The distribution segment's operating income was $19.7 million for the second quarter, a year-over-year increase of $3.6 million. Operating income margin was 8.9% of sales in the second quarter, an improvement of 80 basis points versus the prior year. Operating income margin increased primarily due to higher sales volumes and strong price realization. Moving to slide 10. Energy system sales in the second quarter of 2026 were $80.2 million, an increase of $2.7 million, or 3%, compared to the second quarter of 2025. Energy system sales in the U.S. and Canada increased 1% compared to the second quarter of 2025. Outside the U.S. and Canada, energy system sales increased 12%, primarily in Europe and Africa. Energy Systems operating income was $27.9 million, down $1.2 million versus the second quarter of 2025. There was $4.5 million in legal settlement provisions booked in the second quarter of 2026 in the energy segment. Adjusting for the legal settlement provision, the Energy Systems adjusted operating income was $32.4 million, up $3.3 million, or 11% from the prior year. with an adjusted operating income margin of 40.4%, up 290 basis points from the second quarter last year. Adjusted operating income increased primarily due to favorable price, organic volume growth, and refunds associated with IEPA tariffs. Moving to the balance sheet and cash flows on slide 11. The company ended the second quarter of 2026 with a cash balance of $97.3 million and with $107 million outstanding under its revolving credit agreement. We generated $58.7 million in net cash flows from operating activities during the first half compared to $32 million in the first half of 2025. The main driver for the change was cash flows from operating activities including improved inventory usage. Yesterday, the company announced a quarterly cash dividend of $0.28. The dividend will be payable August 20 to shareholders of record on August 6. Moving to slide 12, our second quarter financial results were in line with our expectations and underlying demand remains. Given our strong performance despite mixed markets year to date, we are raising our full year sales expectation to a range of $2.21 billion to 2.29 billion, and a full-year adjusted diluted EPS to a range of $4.50 to $4.70. This range reflects some uncertainty in our global markets as we further assess the macroeconomic and geopolitical outlook. We continue to maintain a strong balance sheet and will continue to be disciplined as we deploy our capital resources to drive maximum return on investment. Before I turn the call back to Joe, please mark your calendars for Tuesday, March 23, 2027, when we will host our inaugural Investor Day at NASDAQ in Midtown Manhattan. We look forward to sharing our strategy, refreshed midterm guidance, and vision for long-term value creation. We hope you'll join us. Now I'll turn the call back to Joe for some additional comments.

Thanks, Jennifer. As we shared last quarter, this year we're spotlighting each of our segments to give investors a clear view of our focus, differentiation, and long-term opportunities. These spotlights will also serve as a foundation for the deeper strategic discussion we'll have at our Investor Day next March. This quarter, we're highlighting our water segment, a $1.3 billion business that has been central to Franklin's identity for decades. After building our reputation as a leading electric motor manufacturer, Franklin Electric transformed the industry by inventing the gold standard submersible motor, a foundation that still anchors our leadership today. Today, we're a global leader in the global water market and products that supply, move, treat, and dewater. With 15 factories worldwide and a leading channel, we design from the application outward, building solutions around how customers want to be served. Our strategy aligns tightly with Franklin's broader focus on faster growing markets, supported by powerful megatrends, a rising middle class, increased residential construction, accelerating urbanization, and the expanding need for critical minerals. Industrial growth and urban density also increase demand for pressure boosting systems that enable reliable and efficient water access. We also see a growing opportunity in making computing more energy efficient. particularly through advanced liquid cooling solutions that support the rapid expansion of AI and data center infrastructure. Innovation remains central to our strategy. Our world-class water labs, deep engineering expertise, and agile development approach allow us to design for what's next. By increasing velocity and scale, we are adding meaningful value to our base business and delivering solutions that anticipate customer needs. Our brands are trusted, our customer service is tireless, and our focus on execution continues to reinforce our leadership positions globally. While our end markets are diversified today, we expect a more balanced mix over time as we innovate and expand into growing markets and acquire businesses aligned with our strategy. In future calls, we'll provide a deeper look at our fast-growing water treatment business, which is becoming a model for how we execute our strategy. I will now turn the call over to Andrew for questions before closing thoughts.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 1-1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. One moment, please. And our first question comes from the line of Matt Somerville with DA Davidson.

Thanks, Joe. I was hoping you could maybe delve a little deeper into how you define your exposure today to things like critical minerals as well as data centers or data center infrastructure. How big are those exposures? What sort of CAGRs? Can we kind of think about you attaching? And on the ladder with data centers, are there any sort of CDU wins that you'd like to call out? And then I'd follow up.

Yeah, thank you. You know, just maybe touching on those two, I think as we go back to this theme of what are the markets growing faster and how do we point in position, how we serve new products, et cetera. I mean, you call it two markets that I think we've highlighted a few times and we're excited about. I think one theme, you know, in both of those places is we like being, you know, the industrial, you know, kind of point of service and development of product that sits a level or two behind some of these megatrends, you know, for critical minerals, obviously energy infrastructure, you know, the need for more electricity, data centers, etc. That critical mineral space for us, we think, is a multi-billion dollar We're trying to make sure that we can both position ourselves to serve, but also have the products to meet that need. I think one interesting thing about that space for us, we said that space for us was up high teams in the first quarter, up another 10% roughly in the second quarter. Our service in that space really is focused on the operating of those minds. So not as exposed to the capital cycles or the commodity swings, but really the maintenance. And it's a dewatering focus largely. But we made a few acquisitions the last few years. We like the space a lot. We've been able to move those products around the world because we see those needs in South America and Africa and the U.S. And we're really positive about building that channel out and getting those products to our customer. I think that market, our view is that's a high single-digit CAGR. So if you look at our base business, which sits more in the low to mid single digits, as we move from resi, we move from that groundwater space, it's a nice mix-up for us, and it's a very nice margin business. On the data center, we're not ready to call out big wins, but I think as we've talked about before, one thing we like about our portfolio is we serve different elements of that loop within a data center. So from the entry point, we've had some nice wins in terms of the municipal hookup. We have some flushing applications that are critical for the service and the maintenance of that loop. And then also, you know, as I mentioned in my prepared comments, serving CDU manufacturers of which, you know, as you probably know, there's more and more of those getting into that space. Having an efficient and a focused supply chain that can serve in Asia, North America, we're excited about in Europe. You know, I think we're in a great position. Our intent is to talk more about that with some increased specificity as we get into the back half of the year, but stay tuned there.

Thanks. And then as a follow-up, can you maybe just kind of double back on what you acquired in the second quarter, how big the acquisitions are, maybe a little bit of quantitative detail, and then any color you can provide on orders, backlog, book-to-bill overall for Franklin Electric?

Yeah, the three deals we referenced in the first half, two of those actually closed just before we exited Q1. So there's a systems business really focused on the groundwater and the resi space in Europe, specifically in the UK, a smaller business. But we like it a lot because we see government investment there. We see a space that we could not only bring in the product, but also integrate solutions for four builders and drillers, which has been a great business. It's a business called GeoQuip. So we like this a lot. We've known these guys for a while. We serve them upstream. The other two businesses, one in the water treatment space is a company that really helps us to extend Wood Brothers, helps us to extend our reach in a part of the U.S. that we historically didn't have as strong of a presence. kind of sits right in the center of the U.S. That kind of revenue is in the mid-20s, low-30s. What we really like about it is we called out this idea of serving as an OEM and being able to serve across the market, not only as a front end directly to customers, but also we've become really a platform that smaller dealers around the U.S. really look to for for their infrastructure, for their technical solutions, and obviously the scale that we can buy and serve them. So we think that that extends our reach. And again, that one is nicely ahead of our plan. The final one is a company called Benson. And Benson is a great, great distributor, kind of in that same space, right in the middle of the US. But they expose us to markets that historically, they reach down to the Gulf Coast, they serve a nice ag space, they touch, you know, utility or a municipal in the infrastructure space really well. And again, we've known them for a while, but bringing them into the family, it's a mid-20s type revenue business. Close that one, you know, as we entered Q2. And again, what it allows us is to pull through other great Franklin products. I think as we've talked about before, if you look at extending that reach further with OSIs or the container solutions, but then also bringing some of these new products One of the themes I think that's interesting for us is as we design and build new products, having that channel, that exposure to end customer really is a multiplier for us. So, you know, all three of those kind of clearly fit that being able to bring that wider solution set and serving those end markets. And I think that balance is something that, you know, obviously Franklin has had a part of our repertoire portfolio for a while. And that playbook is one we're well accustomed to. So. and your your question about about inventory. So just to go further, you know, one thing that's that's nice for us is if you look at we have a very diversified channel. So other than other than our distribution segment, which obviously, you know, we've got we've got a nice feed into upstream from Franklin product. We've got a we've got a nice balance and some leading distributors around the world. We feel good about the inventory position. Our best indication is, and you can see it in our numbers, it's fairly easy to see, our sell-in and sell-out are right aligned with each other. So if you look at that distribution business and you pull out the acquisition, you can kind of see that North American performance that Jennifer talked about, the 8%, 9% for our groundwater business. We're right on top of that for the distribution business in terms of what their organic growth looks like. Yeah, we feel good about the position. As you know, I think with watching weather, watching where that product is going, it's been some different ag markets, hot out west, wet in the Midwest. We've really become good at how to position that inventory to make sure we're not sitting too heavy or not serving those customers that need them on a real-time basis. So it's a nice position to be in and and I think we're getting smarter in terms of those end-to-end metrics with SIOP and with inventory planning to make sure that we keep that balance. So we feel we're in a good spot. The other proof point is if you look at our working capital and cash flow, in spite of some growth, some nice growth in volume, we continue to improve our turns and to make sure that we're keeping our inventory moving and those right skews, those A items just right on top of.

Thanks, Jeff.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Brian Connors with North Coast Research.

Good morning. Thanks for taking my question and congratulations on the good quarter and the all-time high for the stock as we speak. So, great stuff. I wanted to dive into some of the tactical stuff on some of the revenue drivers, demand drivers in the quarter. One of the things that's jumped out to me is the growth in water systems in agriculture. If I got it right, you said a 12% increase. That's a pretty good number given that we've still got some pretty significant headwinds, more broadly speaking, in ag. So curious what exactly is driving that and allowing you to buck the trend in the ag space.

Yeah, you know, a couple things. I think one is ag's been a bit underinvested over the last year or so, just as you've seen some of the volatility and the pressure from a commodity standpoint. So there's probably a little pent-up demand that we're able to serve there. Weather definitely hasn't hurt us this year. You know, we're well positioned, you know, as you see El Nino and some of the drought conditions come. You turn that pump on and it's not working. And, you know, given our footprint and our reach, you know, we talked about OSIs and having that real-time inventory availability. We get a benefit of any short-term movement in terms of what those trends are, what the needs are, et cetera. So I think planting season has been more normal. The last two years have been just, you know, not great. And you see some of those systems that are out there, you know, and farmers need it. We're ready and we're there for it. So ag, and specifically in the U.S. and Western Europe, has been a nice story for us. We see the season, you know, kind of holding in there here as we get through Q3. So, you know, so we like that. I think, you know, part of our business, and Ryan, we've talked about this before, is, you know, we're a high replacement business. And in that ag space, it's the same thing of that, you know, 75% plus replacement business. and when you blend that with good service, good inventory availability and the quick turn that we have for our customers, I think you see that reading out this year. So that's been a help to us.

Got it. Good to hear. And then on the mining side, good to see you mentioned mine dewatering in Australia nice and strong. I know that's a strong market for you, but any evidence that we're going to see that strength spread to some of the other key and many more.

in Europe specifically in the stands, just to call out some of the areas that we see them pulling this product in addition to Australia and the Pacific region. We'll continue to highlight that because we think that's an area where that investment is gonna have a good return for us. At the end of the day, critical minerals are the needs and you can kind of do your own market, double check here, but it's six to seven times the critical minerals needed in the next 10 years There's just really no other way to do that. The position that we're into, we like because a lot of the investment you see is on expanding existing mines where it becomes easier as technology improves to go in, to go deeper, to spread that mine out. And that really plays well with the portfolio we've decided to focus on, which is in that dewatering or the maintenance of that mine space. In the U.S., you know, it's really interesting. I mean, you go from copper nickel mines in Minnesota to lithium mines out west in Nevada and Arizona. You're seeing uranium start to pick up and you can see the pull from some of the government, you know, comments on wanting to invest in that space. We serve it, you know, really through two important ways. One is an OEM business that our our water systems team works with works with those operators to get spec'd in on those products and then we create that pull through channel but the other one is you know we did a small deal last year in the distribution side that put us up in the Dakotas and one of the reasons is because we have the products we can see what the pull is and really that was that was as much of a nod to this faster growth movement to to the mining space as anything small business you know but but we like that and we're seeing that in all parts of our business. A big thing for us too, Ryan, is just raising awareness, is tying these brands together. You know, we like to use that Pioneer brand a lot because it's known, it's well known in the dewatering space. So really bringing, you know, some of the different products and these acquisitions under an umbrella has really increased the awareness out there for what we can do. Yeah, so, and we see those trends continuing here the next three years.

Got it, thank you. And then one last housekeeping question For me, if I can, I realize it's a one-time item, but can you give us any kind of flavor for what exactly the legal settlement was related to? I know you said it was in energy, but whatever you're able to kind of share there, just so we have some idea what that was about.

Well, I can tell you it's a bit long in the tooth of the deal or of a situation that preceded both me as CEO and probably the prior CEO. It's been sitting out there for quite a long time. It was It was a piece of litigation that was going through in Europe. It's taken a long time. We feel really good about our legal team and kind of bringing this to resolution. So we've known about it for a bit. We think we ended up in a good spot. And that one is behind us. And yeah, I think that's probably a good summary.

There'll be a little bit of information in our queue. But additionally, it just It's a long-standing legal item that's been there that we were able to close out in the queue in the quarter. And it is closed.

Sorry, Jennifer. Got it. No, that's helpful. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Brian Blair with Oppenheimer.

Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Hey, Brian.

Good morning.

Another really solid quarter for your team, and that in mind, I'm hoping you can step back, as much as you've provided very useful color throughout the call today, just step back and walk through the key puts and takes as your team is looking at the back half and specifically what's contemplated in the implied 2-H guide. The earnings moderation, second half versus first half, is pretty notable. I realize that you face more challenging comps in the back half, but it just seems like you have a very broad-based momentum. You're very confident in the setup, and that's perhaps not fully reflected in the guidance.

I'll start and then let Jennifer add, but I think where you ended, which is our core markets are strong. We feel good about our core markets. We feel good about the demand in those markets. I think if you look at the balance, so if those are the puts and that momentum that you see is, you know, we feel it as well. Order trends, backlog healthy here as we enter Q3. I think what, you know, what we're still watching for is, you know, obviously last week another tariff, you know, announcement. We're watching the Middle East. Middle East, you know, if you go back a year ago, we talked about the Middle East with quite a bit of confidence in terms of, you know, what we were doing there to position ourselves. and some things are going well. The replacement business we're still able to sell, but that conflict definitely has put a damper on kind of that Middle East region to Jennifer's point, North Africa, Southeast Europe and the Middle East. I think the other thing is it's a slower year than we expected in South America. There's some political change. There's a pause on some of the support that they're giving to farmers and others. We see that in our business as well. It's hard for us to know exactly how those read out in the back half, so that does give us some balance and pause. But, you know, it's the unknowns that are a little harder to predict. We feel we have them modeled in, so the puts and the takes are in there. But those are some of the things that we're paying close attention to. Core business, the markets that we feel are growing, we've got the good products. I think that momentum is real. You know, but it's an interesting time in the world today as we all read the headlines and digest.

The three big things on the horizon that we're watching are tariff expense, as Joe mentioned, our Brazil market, which is a very strong ag market for us, and we had a great 2025 in Ag in Brazil. Q1 was actually very strong for Ag in Brazil, whereas we saw our competition being impacted by the election year in Brazil. So keeping a watchful eye. And then, as Joe mentioned, the Middle East conflict continues to have some impact in the broader European region. So we continue to see good growth, despite that, in Western and Southern Europe. It just gives us a little bit of pause of the unknowns out on the horizon in the second half.

Understood. Those are all fair points. And apologies if I missed this detail. What was organic growth for water treatment in Q2? And I guess even more important... Maybe remind us what's allowing your team to win in this space. I know it's difficult to isolate over short time periods, but you definitely seem to be taking care in a relatively sluggish market backdrop.

Yeah. I'll just chime in there. So organic volume growth and water treatment was north of 5% in the quarter. So really, really good growth despite a pretty muted residential market. We play mostly in the residential space and water treatment. What's driving that? And we've talked about this on previous calls. We have some very pointed KSI's in our water treatment space for that team to drive new dealer revenue. And that team exceeded those metrics in the prior two quarters in the first half by about 4%. So continuing to take share through either new dealer storefront, but more and more so new dealer revenue in that space. So really proud of the team for the work that they've done in that space.

Maybe just one add. I think what we like about our water treatment space is a really focused go-to-market strategy. I think to Jennifer's point of creating that platform of we're a great assembler and OEM and producer of product, but I think our service and specifically our marketing strategy online and support for those dealers is something that's unique. So we're not all things to all people. We have a very specific route. When you get into the front end of one of our water treatment sites or you see how we support our dealers, there's really something special there that that team has developed. And we do feel that share gain and we expect that to continue. That's encouraging.

Appreciate the detail.

Thank you. Just as a quick reminder, to ask a question, please press star 1-1 on your telephone. One moment, please.

Did we go down again?

Our next question comes from the line of Mike Halloran with Baird.

Andrew? Good morning, everyone. It's calling from somewhere else. Can you hear me, guys?

Yes, yes, we can hear you, Mike. One moment. There's some technical difficulties. Just one moment. Mike, you can hear me, correct? I can hear you. Okay, great.

We lost you for a moment there, so we're back on. Sorry. Could you still hear us there, Andrew, as we're answering those questions?

Yes, yes. But once I open the mic, that's when you guys disappear. Okay. Sorry. So you're live now.

Yeah. Great. All right. So I'm good to go? Yes, you are, Mike. All right. All right, good. Hey, hi. Hi. Good to hear you guys. So could you tie up a handful of things here for me? If I think about the back half guide, is there a change in the trajectory that you're assuming in the back half of the year versus what you've seen in the front half of the year? Is there a change in how you guys are thinking about your share-oriented performances? I think somebody mentioned there's a little decel embedded there relative to normal seasonality. My guess is that's more conservatism. You don't know what you don't know at this point, but I just want to make sure there's not any core assumptions that have shifted relative to the momentum in the first half of the year.

Thanks, Mike, and good morning. I think where Jennifer ended that last question, we talked about some of the puts and takes. I think watching the South American market, we're definitely watching that. Watching the Middle East conflict, we don't see any change in terms of the performance, the base performance of our business. There are some unknowns there that we've tried to model in. But if you look at, again, the core markets, you look at our order rates, we feel relatively confident. I think, you know, there are some comps where we had some stronger performance in Q3 specifically and, you know, into Q4 in some of the water business. So there's some of that, but, you know, we generally see the business performing kind of as we set out at the beginning of the year, hence us raising that top line a bit. There's no real share change that we see. We expect to continue to do what we're doing and serve the markets. So there is a little bit of balance based on some of those unknowns that we talked about. that you see modeled in there.

And then, thank you for that. And then, secondarily, just an open-ended question, just where do you think you stand on some of the margin initiatives you're driving internally, and what are you prioritizing as we sit here today?

Yeah, good question. So, we called out some of the consolidations that, you know, and we've mentioned this as we exited last year into this year. Being a highly inquisitive company here over the last five or six years, there was work for us to do to streamline operations, consolidate a few rooftops, and make sure that from an operating and a campus environment, we had some smaller factories that we wanted to get the benefit and the leverage of some more strategic and efficient overhead. Those movements have been happening here the last couple quarters. We're finishing some of those up in the back half of the year. So the costs are baked in both our performance and then our guide. But we expect some of those operational consolidations, the new factories to get more efficient. We expect, from an operational standpoint, us to pick up some steam there. The other thing is, and Mike, it probably got lost in a fairly long read there, but we're building a focused supply chain organization. with our new chief supply chain officer with a focus on we've settled in, we've done work the last couple years to make sure that we're not sitting in China for some of our suppliers. We're repositioning those supply chains. That benefit and that read of material productivity, I would tell you material productivity and some of the factory transitions, those are really two of the focus areas. Maybe one other small tidbit, you know, as a part of our Value Acceleration Office, we hired an AI director here this past year. And what's been interesting for us is really to take a look at the way that we're positioned. Franklin, a little bit different than maybe some of our peers. We didn't migrate, you know, our customer service overseas. We didn't make some of these changes. But we really see an opportunity to make that more efficient. You know, we, like a lot of companies, have a lot of long-tenured, very experienced, very talented people. So we have a lot of fun AI projects that we think both give us productivity, but also can help us to make sure that we continue that level of improvement as, and I mentioned this, as we're bringing in some great new talent here today. So our ability to ramp them up, we've really seen that accelerate. So those are a couple areas we're excited about.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Thanks, Spike.

Thank you. and I'm sure no further questions. So with that, I'll hand the call back over to CEO Joe Ruzynski for closing remarks.

Thanks, Andrew. Thanks, everyone, for joining us today. As we look ahead, we feel very good about our performance here today and the momentum we're carrying into the second half. Raising our guidance reflects the confidence we have in our growth strategy, the strength of our execution and the resilience of our teams across the globe. Our focus on faster growing markets, innovation and channel expansion continues to fuel our growth engine. and our productivity initiatives are progressing well, along with the new and strong leadership now in place across our supply chain. While global challenges remain, we're navigating them with discipline and clarity. We believe our strategy position to add customers, expand to new markets and drive meaningful productivity gains throughout the year will continue to pay dividends. We really like the businesses that we're in. We like the direction that we're heading. We appreciate the continued support of our employees, partners and shareholders. Thanks everyone for joining us today and have a great week.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating. This does conclude today's program and you may now disconnect.