LSI Industries Inc.

Greetings and welcome to the LSI Industries Fiscal 2026 Second Quarter Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce Jim Gilles, Chief Financial Officer.

Please go ahead. Welcome, everyone. and thank you for joining today's call. We issued a press release before the market opened this morning detailing our fiscal 26 second quarter results. In addition to this release, we also posted a conference call presentation in the investor relations section of our corporate website. Information contained in this presentation will be referenced throughout today's conference call Included are certain non-GAAP measures for improved transparency of our operating results. A complete reconciliation of GAAP and non-GAAP results is contained in our press release and 10-Q. Please note that management's commentary and responses to questions on today's conference call may include forward-looking statements about our business outlook. Such statements involve risks and opportunities, and actual results could differ materially. I refer you to our Safe Harbor Statement, which appears in this morning's press release, for more details. Today's call will begin with remarks summarizing our fiscal second quarter results. At the conclusion of these prepared remarks, we will open the line for questions. With that, I'll turn the call over to LSI President and Chief Executive Officer, Jim Clark.

Thank you, Jim, and good morning, everyone. I appreciate you joining us today. This morning, we'll be reviewing our second quarter results for fiscal 2026. As you likely saw in our earnings release, we delivered a solid second quarter with results that were in line with our expectations. Revenue was essentially flat year over year at $147 million, while profitability and free cash flow improved. Given the strength of the prior year comparisons, particularly within display solutions, I'm pleased how this quarter performed and how our teams executed throughout the quarter. Jim Gilles will walk through the financial details in a few minutes, but I wanted to spend some time on a few areas that I think were important as we move into the second half of the year. As we've discussed previously, the second quarter of last year benefited from unusually strong event-driven demand, most notably in the grocery vertical, following the resolution of a failed merger between two large grocery chains. The release of pent-up demand drove exceptional growth of 100% in our display solution segments, with 50% of that being organic growth in Q2 of last year. This demand pattern in groceries have returned to a more normalized level. And against that backdrop, flat consolidated sales and improved margin represent solid execution. More importantly, we continue to see healthy customer engagement active planning discussions, and increasing order trends as we exit the quarter. Lighting delivered another strong quarter with sales growth of 15% year-over-year and meaningful margin expansion. This follows 18% growth in the first quarter and we're encouraged by the consistency of performance across multiple end markets. Several factors have contributed to the strength in lighting, including the addition of aluminum poles to our steel pole product line, an increase in large project shipments, continued momentum in our national account strategy, and solid traction from recent product introductions as we remain focused on product vitality. As we exit the second quarter, lighting orders were up approximately 10% year over year, resulting in book to bill above one. This gives us continued confidence as we look ahead. In display solutions, we maintained a high level of execution, across several large multi-year customer programs, particularly in the refueling area, convenience store, quick serve retail, and casual dining restaurant verticals. While revenues declined slightly year-over-year due to the prior year comparisons, orders improved sequentially and were up year-over-year, supporting an improved backlog entering into the third quarter. What's particularly encouraging is how the opportunity set within Display Solutions continues to evolve. Historically, much of our growth in food services has come from quick-serve restaurant customers. These programs often involve large number of sites, sometimes hundreds at a time, with individual product values ranging from $20,000 to $40,000 per location. This work remains an important and durable part of our business, and we continue to win and execute well in that space. While at the same time, we are now seeing meaningful traction beyond traditional QSR into the casual dining space and premium food services. With these programs, they typically involve fewer locations, and the value per site is significantly higher, often ranging from $250,000 or $1 million per location. These opportunities align well with our capabilities in custom fabrication, integrated design, and program execution, and they represent a natural extension of the platform we've built over the past several years. We're also encouraged by improving activity in the international market, particularly in Mexico and the islands, where conditions strengthened during the quarter after several softer periods. Based on what we're seeing today, we expected activity to remain elevated into fiscal and calendar year 2027. Over the last two quarters, I've emphasized that our focus for 2026 and what will continue into 2027 will be our people. that commitment remains unwavering. Talent management through thoughtful role design, succession planning, and deeper cross-team integration are not just priorities, they're essential to creating a single unified organization as we continue to bring JSI and EMI together under the LSI umbrella. While there will be opportunities for operational consolidation in the future, the greatest return on our investment will continue to come from empowering our people. aligning them around shared goals, and enabling them to collaborate more seamlessly. The core objective of this integration is to unlock meaningful cross-selling opportunities by breaking down silos, improving transparency, and ensuring our teams are working as one cohesive commercial engine. A few months ago, we brought on a senior sales leader within our display solutions group specifically targeted to enhance visibility into our current sales activities pipeline development, and near-term conversion opportunities. Just as importantly, this role is helping us to strengthen alignment between sales, operations, and execution, ensuring that we are not only identifying opportunities across brands, but we act on them quickly, consistently, and with unified customer experience. Next week, we will take another important step forward as we host our national sales meeting here in Cincinnati. bringing together nearly 120 sales employees and marketing professionals from across the organization. We will be spending several days together, including time over the weekend, focused on collaboration, alignment, and building the relationship that makes true cross-selling and coordinated execution possible. This time together is not just about strategy and planning. It's about reinforcing our shared purpose, our culture, and continuing to work on becoming one integrated team, moving forward as one organization. From a customer perspective, we continue to see increasing engagement from large, sophisticated organizations that place a premium on supplier scale, geographic coverage, and manufacturing depth. In several cases, customers have specifically cited our ability to design, fabricate, and deliver across multiple regions as a key differentiator. This capability continues to elevate the types of programs we're invited to pursue. Profitability and cash generation were highlights of the quarter. Adjusted EBITDA increased year-over-year to $13.4 million, and margin performance benefited from discipline, project pricing, productivity improvements, and effective cost management, which together helped offset ongoing cost inflations. Free cash flow was strong at 23 million, driven by profitability and continued working capital discipline. We used that cash flow to reduce our total debt by 22.7 million during the quarter, ending with a net leverage ratio of 0.4. The balance sheet strength supports our fast-forward strategy, allowing us to invest in our organic growth, pursue operational improvements, and maintain optionality around future acquisition opportunities all while continuing to return capital to our shareholders through our dividends and other programs. Execution across the organization continues to reflect LSI's high say-do ratio and culture. Our team stays focused during a quarter that required careful management of mix, margin, and timing, and I'm proud of how they delivered. The collaboration between sales, operation, design, and supply chain continues to be strong and that alignment is showing up both in execution and in customer confidence. Looking ahead to the second half of fiscal 26, we expect continued progress on our goals supported by improving order trends and backlog. We remain confident in the secular growth outlook across our key vertical markets and in our ability to grow above market through differentiated solutions-based approach. In closing, I want to thank you for your continued support in LSI. We're executing well. We're financially strong. We remain focused on building long-term value through disciplined growth and operational excellence. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Jim Gilles for a more detailed review of our financial results.

Good morning, all. LSI generated sales of $147 million in Q2, consistent with prior year and successfully offsetting challenging prior year comps. Adjusted net income and adjusted EBITDA were modestly above prior year, and all were double digit above the same quarter fiscal 24. Adjusted earnings per share were 26 cents for the quarter. Cash flow in a quarter was higher than expected, over 23 million, following a timing-related softer first quarter. The strong cash flow lowered our debt to EBITDA leverage ratio to 0.4 times, providing significant capital allocation flexibility. With our amended financing facility, LSI has cash and availability of approximately $100 million. Next, a few comments on our two reportable segments. As mentioned, lighting had an outstanding quarter, realizing sales growth of 15%. This represents the third consecutive quarter of double-digit growth as compared to the prior quarter. Referencing various reports on non-resi construction, our double-digit growth rate continues to outperform the market. As a result of volume and effective margin management, adjusted operating income increased 29%, with the adjusted gross margin rate improving 190 basis points versus last year. One of the growth opportunities identified for lighting was increasing our business with national accounts. We felt our operating model capabilities aligned closely with satisfying strict customer requirements, so investments were made to support this initiative. Results reflect a significant progress in gaining new customers and sales. This, along with the health of our key vertical markets, is driving our strong growth rate. We expect the favorable momentum to continue into the second half of fiscal 26, as lighting orders for Q2 were 10% above prior year, a book-to-bill ratio above one on strong shipment quarter, and an improved backlog. Shifting to display solutions, Jim did an excellent job providing context to the current quarter's performance for display and how to interpret comparisons to the prior year. I'll just add a few additional comments. You know, for the grocery vertical, second quarter sales reflect a return to normal seasonal demand. Implications were lower sales this quarter versus the pull forward of last year, but also a return to more predictable demand flows, allowing us to plan and fulfill customer programs more efficiently. For example, Q2 adjusted gross margin improved 30 basis points despite lower production volume, reflecting improved productivity enabled by more stable production scheduling. Orders also fall to return to sealed demand patterns. Q2 grocery orders increased double digits year-over-year, generating a strong book-to-bill ratio of 1.2 versus under 1 last year and building backlog. We expect sales growth in grocery in the second half of fiscal 26. Activity remains high in the refueling C-Store vertical as we continue to execute against several large customer programs. In addition to our established foundation of large customers, we recently added multiple midsize projects representing a combination of new and existing customers and brands. Building relationships with new customers provides the opportunity to expand our sustainable repeat business model successfully built and executed over time. On growing growth in our service business is also providing cross-selling opportunities For one refueling C-Store customer, where we are currently active with service at over 140 sites, the opportunity to present our broader solution set resulted in a significant number of sites specifying our Archer perimeter lighting system, generating an expansion of revenue per site. The QSR vertical has been sluggish, as large chains manage multiple priorities, inflation, leadership changes, and shifting consumer habits. Our teams, however, are very busy working with customers on numerous programs in the concept and development phases. So, future investments are planned, but timing of release remains unclear. In summary, LSI delivered a solid Q2 and first half of fiscal 2026, and we remain encouraged by the level of activity in the majority of our key vertical markets. To market the value of our LSI solution set is ongoing, and we expect to generate growth in Q3 and the second half of the fiscal year. I'll now turn the call back to the moderator for the question and answer session.

Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up the handset before pressing the star keys.

One moment while we poll for questions. Thank you. Our first question is from Aaron Spichala with Craig Hallam.

Yeah, good morning, Jim and Jim. Thanks for taking the questions. Maybe first on refueling and C-Store, you talked about onboarding multiple mid-sized projects, giving some more targeted sales initiatives. So, you know, sounds like a little bit more consistent growth is expected there. Can you just maybe help frame that opportunity a little bit for us more on what that looks like and just, you know, some of those initiatives?

Good morning, Aaron. It's Jim Clark. Thanks for the question. I mean, I think that the word I'd use is steady. And I can think about this call last year, this time, and we were looking at a project that we knew in the refueling sector was going to run out into fiscal year 26. And that has proven true. Right now, I would say we have a number of those projects, smaller in scale, but the same kind of makeup where we have, you know, where we receive the order, we're looking for the releases, and we've got a nice kind of pathway in front of us going to bring us through the remainder of 26 and into 27. So I can't, you know, there's no color to give on any one particular. They're all a little bit different, but I would say they're geographically spread, both internationally and domestically, and the business is healthy and, you know, both in its content and in its pace.

Yeah, Aaron, Jim G here. I'll just add on to Jim's comments that we have this very strong foundation with our large core repeatable customers that we've done business with multiple cycles for years. And some of these midsize customers, I think it indicates two things. Number one, the health of the vertical, the level of activity going on there. And then secondly, it is a combination of we've done business with some of these customers before, but several of them are new. And some of those are actually non-domestic entities. So it is an opportunity now for us to further develop relationships and build on this foundation that we have. But it does send a positive signal about the health of the vertical.

Yeah, that's helpful. Thanks. And then maybe on that, you know, Mexico, good commentary on activity levels there. Can you just talk about, you know, some of the market drivers you talked about noted, you know, elevated demand into FY27? You know, maybe just what level has that, you know, business been for you? And where can it kind of get to if we look out into FY27?

You know, I mean, I think that, you know, in general, we're relatively conservative, right? So we look the best we can when we start to kind of forecast out six, nine, 12, 18 months. It gets difficult for us. But I'll comment on this, that if you look at that market in general, and it's just one of the markets, right? I don't want to get overly focused on C-Store because we've got grocery in there. We've got QSR. We've got casual dining that I just talked about today. We've got auto. We've got a number of other segments. And I'd And, you know, we talk a lot about grocery and C-Store, but they're not our only verticals. And I feel good about the momentum in all of them right now, to tell you the truth. What we're seeing is a competitive environment that's accelerating. If you look at companies like Wawa's and Sheetz and Casey's and, you know, you look at some of the conversations around Circle K, around 7-Eleven, I mean, I just think it says a lot in that particular vertical about the pace of that industry, the competitive forces that have come to play. New construction is driving remodel. Remodel is driving remodel. And this pace, you know, to continue to refresh their location, refresh the aesthetics of the location, the capabilities both in food services and other services, it just bodes really well for us. And to be completely honest, I mean, we see this going on for many years, and that's just within that vertical. You know, like we talk about grocery, you know, I'd like to underline that we think that things have returned to their normal again, but that normal has a nice upward curve to it. We believe that the competitive forces in grocery also have a lot of the same dynamics we talk about in C-Store, which are competitors raising the game and kind of the guys that are the foundation in those industries raising their game along with it. And that just bodes very well for us. Somebody asked me just the other day to kind of recap that new construction versus remodel. We love new construction, but it's a smaller component. I mean, it is 80-20. It's 80% is remodel. And that remodel just is on a nice curve where it's trending kind of five-year remodels right now. People are investing in those stores and putting money in there to be competitive with all these new upstarts in the changing environment.

Okay, that's helpful. And maybe just on, I mean, kind of the non-U.S. or the Mexico component, just, you know, how does that potentially look as we kind of move out like pipeline and just maybe what that business can become for you?

Yeah, I mean, I think that basically Mexico, I mean, you know, all the chaos, the global chaos of trade and duties and immigration and all of that just caused a lot of question marks over the heads in Mexico. And I think a lot of that has normalized now and folks are ready to get back to their original plans. I would argue that we're far behind based on their plans. And now it's just a matter of How much effort will they start and just try to go on their plan from, you know, day one? Or are they going to start and try to catch up with some of the things that are in arrears? And that, I think, will materialize over the summer. We'll have a better, you know, kind of better vision on that.

You know, and Aaron, I would just add that, you know, the deregulation of the external retail order environment, you know, it's been a nice win, you know, for LSI. And it's had its ebbs and flows and probably will continue to have some ebbs and flows. But one thing is certain that our partners, the oil company partners who entered Mexico, it does truly reflect that we are partners with them. So it's not a supplier. So we bring some experiences to them as they enter and grow in that market and vice versa. All right. And right now, you know, that activity is on an upswing. And in the intermediate term, we see that upswing looking positive to continue.

And we're in the second inning on that, by the way. I mean, to even say we've scratched the surface would be an overstatement.

Okay. Okay. Understood. And then maybe just one last on EMI, you know, the integration. Can you talk about where margins stand today as we get closer to that two-year mark? You know, talk about some of the operational initiatives there and maybe, you know, just more broadly across the business as well.

Well, first of all, we love EMI. We love the whole team, and it fit in so well. You know, I think we've talked about this before, but, you know, when we look at M&A, we don't just look at, you know, the financials. We look at culture and everything else associated with the business as much as we look at any element. And I wanted to underline the culture part. What I usually say is we look at the operational efficiency, the sales synergies, and the balance sheet, which is with as much weight as we look at culture. And our thinking behind that, you know, from an M&A perspective is, look, if we're a square and they're a triangle, that just takes a lot of work to kind of get them into our company and get them operating in the same rhythm. They were, you know, they demonstrated, the people there and their culture demonstrated very close to LSI's culture. So it was a real win-win together, just like JSI was, just like Canada's Best is. We've talked about it before. They've had, you know, better than 200 bps of improvement in, you know, in their margin. And we're continuing on that. I think that, you know, for us to reach to get them up to, you know, that 10.5 and better, we've probably still got a full year left in that journey, but I'm very pleased with the progress.

Understood. Thanks for the color. I'll turn it over. Okay. Thank you. Our next question is from Christopher Glenn with Oppenheimer and Company.

Thanks. Good morning, Jim. You know, I wanted to go into your comment about the premium food services, get a better picture. what that entails, and I had a couple other opportunities in mind. I don't know if they fit into premium food services or other, but, you know, how do you look at, like, the campus meal plan infrastructures and, you know, maybe hotel buffets?

Yeah, so good morning, Chris, and thanks for the question. So I wanted to kind of highlight what we're going to just kind of moniker as, you know, kind of premium food services. And it was just really to kind of delineate and differentiate between QSR. You know, we've always had a very strong position in QSR. We remain in that. We see a lot of growth opportunity in that, both from, you know, particularly on our display solution side, but both on our lighting and display solution side. and across the gamut, right? Our digital menu board, our refrigerated products, our food-grade countertops, you know, all of that. We love QSR. But we've always had a spot in this premium food services, and I want to break it up into two pieces. One we'll call casual dining, and that's, you know, those are restaurants that are, you know, think about waiter, waitress, service, a restaurant that you're going to come in, typically a chain restaurant, You know, and some of them are larger, some of them are smaller, but the numbers tend to be smaller than QSR, but the investment inside the store is measurably bigger, right? So we were just looking at a project. I was just looking at it last week that's going to tip over a million dollars just for the restaurant interior. And we don't talk about it a lot, but we have steady business in that. And I'll just say there are indications that that's improving. On the campus side and on the food services side, particularly related to refrigeration, we have been making inroads there. We sat down, I'm going to say, just over two years ago to really kind of double our effort there. We have a steady business, but we don't have the volume that I think we deserve. And they've been working, you know, across EMI and across JSI. They've been working very hard to, you know, kind of put themselves in those spots. So the difference between our core business where we have multiple projects that span across multiple years, when we get into this premium food services side, a campus for a college, cafeteria plans, these casual dining restaurants, hospitality, the number of locations tends to be smaller. If we get a project, you know, a lot of times it's a project of one or maybe a regional project of five or 12 or something like that. But the scale of the project is much bigger, 10, 20 times the size of our smaller projects, same kind of development time. But we think that our spot in that is unique to their demands because we we're able to come in and truly be a one-stop shop. And, you know, from refrigeration to countertops to steel to lighting to graphics to millwork, it's really a nice fit. And I think that the work we're doing in these other sectors has really created more visibility for us and more credibility. So we come in much more credible, much more recognized. And I think we're starting to see the beginning of that as a very viable market for us, one that we can continue to grow exponentially.

Yeah, yeah, thanks. It seems like campus could be a nice size vertical at some point. And then, you know, you've talked about the three acquisitions today and the 1-8 integrated team. Appreciate that explanation messaging. really well packaged and you know obviously suggests you know opportunity to continue to uh do the appropriate consolidation so i was just curious what how you think about you know what might be an appropriate leverage ratio ranges for the the right kind of deal uh when we when we're talking m a what do we look at for um

for multiples? Is that what you were saying? Or you were talking about that? No, no. Oh, leverage ratio. Oh, okay. Yeah, your balance sheet. I mean, yeah, we've talked about this before. I mean, you know, certainly anything below three we're comfortable with, and we sleep even better when it's below two. You know, right now we're, you know, 0.4%. I think we have a demonstrated history of kind of using our debt revolver, using debt inside the company to go and make strategic acquisitions and then quickly put ourselves into a leverage ratio where we're comfortable. But generally, we want to be certainly below three. If we had something extraordinary, we always talk about it in terms of incremental or exponential, right? So incremental is something we do within our debt revolver and You know, it's, you know, 50, 80, 100, 125 million maybe. And we're very much there. And then we look at exponential, which might be something that pushes us into the threes. I can't see a scenario where we would go any, you know, the first number wouldn't start any greater than a three. But, yeah, I mean, that would be exponential. And we're always on the look for that. We just haven't found the right fit for us at this point.

Yeah, Chris, you know, we feel very strong about our cash flow generation. As you saw, we had an excellent cash flow quarter. We're on pace now for our fourth consecutive year of cash flow exceeding, pre-cash flow exceeding $30 million. So, you know, we're comfortable at looking at, you know, M&A transactions of multiple sizes and then the ability to, you know, to bring that leverage ratio down, you know, pretty quickly given the given our cash flow generation capabilities.

Thank you, guys. Our next question is from Alex Raghu with Texas Capital.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Very nice quarter. First question here. Can you give us an update on Canada Best's acquisition integration activities and the traction in particular on entering the banking vertical in the U.S.

So, Alex, thanks. Thanks for the question. So Canada's best has worked out very good for us. Again, you know, I just talked about it a minute ago about culture and, you know, and they were just another good fit. And I couldn't underline that enough that, you know, like I said, we look at the balance sheet, but we look at culture with as much, you know, diligence and as much focus as we look at anything else in the business. These guys have been great. They hustle. They are proud and energized to be part of LSI and part of a bigger team. But I got to tell you, they're true entrepreneurs, the whole team up there. They look for opportunities. They're more emboldened with the financial strength of LSI and the capabilities. I didn't talk about this specifically, but we have a JSI has a facility up there in Collingwood. Our Canada's best facility is just outside of Toronto. We're in process right now of integrating those two and making them a stronger Canadian operation under one umbrella. So it has worked out very well for us. We have begun to talk to retail bank environments here in the U.S., These projects typically, you know, when we're talking about hundreds or thousands of sites, it's not unusual for, you know, the gestation period to be, you know, 12, 18, 24 months for us to get involved in a large project. I can't say that we've had any meaningful wins yet, but I will say that we've been investing time. They will have a spot at our sales meeting next week to talk about the markets there and the diversity and how they're addressing those markets. We have teams that are collaborating on that. So, you know, we're very hopeful that we're able to talk about retail banking as another, you know, kind of top five, top 10 market for us, you know, within the next 12 months. And so summary is the activity started. We've had some small wins and we're looking to just kind of continue to push that forward.

And then secondly, more broadly on price increases, I believe your last price increase might have been around March of last year. Can you talk to us if there have been any recent price increases or if there's sort of a need for price increases given tariff implications or other raw material cost inflation?

Yeah, I mean, when you look at the two segments, two reportable segments, our display solutions is you know, minimally impacted by tariffs. You know, and I'm not giving specific numbers, but I would just broadly say, you know, no more than 10 or 15 percent of any material or any product we use in display solutions has been impacted by tariffs. Lighting a little bit more because of some of the sourcing locations on some key components and things like that. But I would say in terms of pricing, we're making price adjustments now as opposed to price changes. And some categories and some products are more susceptible to it and others are more stable. I would say that, you know, we're always looking for the opportunity. We're price zealots. We're very disciplined. But we also want to, you know, respect fairness and, you know, be good partners for our customers where we're market competitive and we make it difficult for others to kind of, you know, we put a mode up and, you know, pricing is one of them, but we're disciplined in the way we do it. And we don't ever want to get to a spot where we're overstepping our bounds and then, you know, bringing different competitive forces into our customer environment. I would just summarize with saying We're price zealots. We're very focused on it. And most of what we're doing now is price adjustments instead of as opposed to blanket price changes.

Yeah, just to reinforce Jim's comments, as you know, we are principally a project-based business. So given that, that gives us the opportunity on a regular basis to examine pricing and make sure we are aligned with what's going on with our cost structure, particularly our material input costs. So our group does a very good job. Our team does an excellent job of maintaining what we call current costs. So when we're making these project quotes, we are accurate and we can make the pricing decisions that allow us to optimize our margin management.

And I will just add on the closing comment, We always reserve the right for price review. So even when we have, you know, we win an award and we have a three-year project, we're not, you know, at no time are we locking ourselves in in pricing for three years or anything. We have good relationships with our customers. We're upfront about our negotiations and project costs. And that discipline around price goes both ways. We want to make sure we're good stewards for LSI and we want to make sure we're good partners for our customers.

And then lastly, you talked a little bit about some operational improvement opportunities. Are there any notable sort of CapEx needs associated with that over the next, say, 12 months?

Nothing notable. You know, our CapEx is relatively small. We don't see anything material impacting that, at least in the foreseeable future. But I will say, You know, not related to that question, but not specific to, you know, capital spending. You know, we're looking for these opportunities, right? I mean, we always talk, I used to talk, you know, a few years back about building a better company before we built a bigger company. We've built that better company. We've built a bigger company. Now we're going back and we're making those improvements and we're doing it in respectful ways for the people within our company. you know, for our customers to make sure we're not doing anything disruptive. But we're after all of those improvements and that consolidation and that rationalization, and all of the opportunities are hidden in it.

You know, Alex, I would just broaden your comment that it's just not about, you know, capital spend, but I would broaden it to say, you know, investment. You know, we invest in multiple ways, not just CapEx, right, in terms of looking at our facilities, footprints, you know, our talent structure, new product introductions, so development costs, you know, et cetera. And, you know, we are very aggressive in having our team put forth proposals to us in all those categories, and we invest accordingly. And I think, you know, those investments are showing up in some of our performance areas across our two reportable segments.

Very helpful. Thank you. Our next question is from George Giannarikos with Canaccord Genuity.

Hi. Thank you for taking my questions. Maybe to focus first on your statement here in the press release that you expect above market growth for the year, can you sort of talk a little bit about the competitive environment and what you're seeing there and what gives you the conviction that you can grow faster than competition? Thank you.

Yeah, good morning, George, and thanks for the call. And I think we hit on it a little bit earlier, and I appreciate you bringing it up again. We think that there's just a lot of dynamics going on in these spaces that we're playing in. We purposely, if you remember the whole story, how we constructed our first plan and then the fast-forward plan, it was really about narrowing the aperture and looking for markets where we thought we could make an impact and differentiate ourselves. But the other a component to that. The other leg of the stool was that those markets had some type of disruption that was going to cause some type of long-term growth. And we define growth long-term rather as, you know, five or 10 years. And I would just underline that, you know, these new entrants in the convenience store space, they're very aggressive. They're very committed to the customer environment in those stores. And that aligns very well with what we're delivering. You know, you look at the grocery market, the work and the investment they're putting in for shopper experience and branding and customer experience. It's so key. And I think that, you know, lighting plays such a big piece of this, but really our entry has been, you know, display solutions. It gets us in the door. And then, you know, the combination of these products, the uniformity of it, our ability to deliver, our services component, I think it puts us in a category of one. And, you know, and I feel like we just have an opportunity to continue to win and not only win those projects, but accelerate our win rate with those projects.

Thank you. And maybe just last question for me on focusing on the M&A opportunities that you've been focusing on for a while that you've executed on. I'm curious as to what the return dynamics look like with the sort of bump up in rates here that we've seen and your willingness and desire to use debt as a way to finance them. What has that done sort of to the pipeline and the available pool of acquisitions in the marketplace? Thank you.

Yeah, I don't want to poke the bear here. But, you know, I mean, I obviously I don't like that the rates are higher, but I do feel like there's been a leveling effect, you know, particularly as it accounts to private equity. The multiples are more realistic. The conversations are more business oriented. I don't feel like there is as much of the fever pace as there was a couple of years ago where, you know, where deals were just getting done, you know, sometimes one, two, three turns. higher multiple than we would even consider. So I feel like even with the higher rates, the environment's better for a strategic acquirer like us. It just comes down to the selection process. We're, you know, we're picky buyers, right? And I talked about it a couple times just on the call today. You know, it can't just be the company performance. It can't just be the products. The culture has to be there. because we don't want to go in and try to rework anyone or, you know, or fight an opposing culture or just a different one. It doesn't necessarily mean theirs isn't good or ours is better, but we want it, you know, we want to have a similar thought. We want to have a similar goals. We want to have, you know, be familiar with the similar tools. And, you know, that makes it, you know, that makes it trickier because we are so selective, but I have to be completely honest. I, The rates are not that bad as we look at them. And I do think that they have helped turn the conversations more realistic and more business-oriented. And I wouldn't mind lower rates, don't get me wrong, but I feel better in this environment than I did when it was free money.

Thank you so much. Thank you, George. Our next question is from Sameer Joshi with HC Wainwright.

Hey, good morning, Jim and Jim. Thanks for taking my question. Congratulations on a better than expected quarter, really good performance on the display here, display segment here. Most of the questions were answered, but just digging a little bit deeper into the implications of meaningful traction in the casual dining and the premium fast food services where there are large projects. I think you mentioned the timing is similar, so that is good. But in terms of order visibility and profitability, how does this compare with QSR?

Yeah, well, first of all, Samir, thank you for the question. Very good to hear your voice. I will say that, you know, I was hesitant to even bring up casual dining because, you know, when you look at QSR, you know, typically the projects we're involved in are multi-site, hundreds and hundreds of sites. And when we talk about them, we talk about, you know, a project award and then a project deployment or release schedule that tends to go on for you know, six months or a year. And it's much easier for us to, that, you know, get the visibility and talk about it. But at the same token, I felt like it was, you know, we were underselling the work that we were doing in, in particularly because we see the real cross selling happening more in this casual dining space more quickly, I should say. Um, And I wanted to draw our attention to it, but the casual dining space is going to be counted in the dozens as opposed to the hundreds. And the project sizes are going to be much larger, and they tend to be larger. And the combination of goods and services we offer tend to be much bigger. And I would just say that it's a work in progress, developing and picking up speed And if you give us two, three more quarters to talk about it, I'll have more visibility and maybe a stronger story to tell. But we've always been in this space. I don't want anybody to think that it's new. I don't want anybody to think that all of a sudden it represents a significant turn. But I did want to bring it up because I just feel momentum building in it. The project sizes are much bigger, which I think reflects on our cross-selling opportunity. And just in general, I think that we see some more accelerated market activity right now. And that could end tomorrow. That could end with one bad quarter of sales in that casual dining spot. But right now, we're looking ahead for the rest of 2026, even though it's just January. We feel pretty good about it.

Yeah, no, thanks for that color. I mean, bringing this out gives us a better insight into the inner workings of the company. Thanks for that. And then just one immediate question, sort of. I know the fiscal 3Q is historically a low quarter, especially in the displays. Are things any different for the current year fiscal three quarter, third quarter?

Well, I mean, I'm not going to hide the fact that, you know, I said it in my comments and et cetera. I mean, I'm enthusiastic about what Q3 could be, but I'm moderate in the sense that I think it's going to track, you know, Similar to our other Q3s, you know, on a comparative basis to any other quarter, you know, Q3 is always our toughest. But on a comparable basis, prior year, you know, I don't have any, you know, I have very little doubt that we will outperform, you know, prior year. How much will we do that? I mean, I'd like to say that, you know, we have opportunities. I feel good about Q3, but if it, you know, Q3 and bleeds into Q4 is more moderated over, you know, three, four, and one. I can't, I just don't, I can't tell right now, but I feel good.

That's it. And that's good to hear.

Thanks a lot for taking my questions. You're welcome. Thank you.

There are no further questions at this time. I'd like to hand the floor back over to Jim Clark, President and CEO, for any closing remarks.

You know, I'd just like to say that we were proud of the accomplishment of the team in Q2. You know, myself and Jim are two people out of 2,000 that are here. We're very happy with the work they're doing. We're very happy with the confidence our customers have in us. And we're encouraged by what we see in front of us. And that's a good quarter, and we're looking for even better ones in the future. Thank you for your time and attention and your interest in LSI.

This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.