Transcat, Inc.

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the TransCat fourth quarter fiscal year 2026 financial results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, you will have the opportunity to ask questions during the question and answer session. And as a quick reminder, today's conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Mr. John Howe, Senior Director of Financial Planning and Analysis. Mr. Howe, please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and good afternoon, everyone. We appreciate your time and your interest in TransCat. With me here on the call today is our newly appointed President and CEO, Jamie Eyrich, and our CFO, Tom Barbato. We will begin with some prepared remarks and then open the call for questions. Our earnings release crossed the wire this afternoon after the market closed. Both the earnings release and the slides that we will reference during our prepared remarks can be found on our website, transcat.com, in the investor relations section. If you would, please refer to slide two. As you are aware, we may make forward-looking statements during the formal presentation and Q&A portion of this teleconference. These statements apply to future events, which are subject to risks and uncertainties, as well as other factors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from where we are today. These factors are outlined in the news release, as well as in the documents filed by the company with the SEC. You can find those on our website, where we regularly post information about the company, as well as on the SEC's website at sec.gov. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or correct any of the forward-looking statements contained in this call, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by law. Please review our forward-looking statements in conjunction with these precautionary factors. Additionally, during today's call, we will discuss certain non-GAAP measures, which we believe will be useful in evaluating our performance. You should not consider the presentation of this additional information in isolation or as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with GAAP. We've provided reconciliations of non-GAAP to compared GAAP measures in the tables accompanying the earnings release. With that, I'll turn the call over to TransCat President and CEO, Jamie Eyrich.

Thank you, John. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us on the call today. Before we walk through the quarter, I just want to spend a few minutes introducing myself. I joined TransCat at the end of March, and in the time since, I spent many days on the road, visiting our calibration labs and meeting with our talented team of employees, sitting down with our board and getting in front of as many customers and partners as possible. I came in with a very high opinion of this company, and I leave each of these conversations more convinced that Transcat is the most attractive growth platform in our industry. Two things attracted me to Transcat. First, the people. From the board of directors to the senior management team to the technicians in our service centers and on the road, This is a high-performing organization with deep cultural commitment to integrity, technical excellence, and customer service in the highly regulated industries we serve. Additionally, many of our employees are U.S. military veterans, which really resonated with me because I'm also a veteran and a West Point graduate, and that's a special part just of our population here at Transcat. Second, the opportunity. Transcat is the established leader in a calibration services market with exceptional fundamentals, highly regulated end markets, durable secular tailwinds, recurring revenue streams, and a long runway for both organic growth and disciplined consolidation. That opportunity also aligns directly with my background, driving profitable B2B growth at scale, executing strategic M&A, and leading teams through technology-enabled transformations. My message to you today is straightforward. The strategy is working and we are going to keep executing and accelerating against our four clear strategic imperatives. High single-digit service organic revenue growth, service gross margin expansion, strategic M&A, and rentals growth. With that, I will briefly turn to our financial results. Transcat delivered strong performance across our entire business portfolio in the fiscal fourth quarter, and as expected, service organic revenue continued growing in the high single digits. Consolidated revenue was up 16% to $89.3 million in the fiscal fourth quarter, and increased 19% to $331.9 million for the full year, driven by double-digit revenue growth in both segments. Demand in highly regulated end markets, including life sciences, aerospace and defense, and energy, remained strong, and our differentiated value proposition continues to resonate throughout Transcat's addressable end markets. Given our organic growth and strategic acquisitions of top regional players, we believe Transcat gained market share in the calibration services market during fiscal 2026. Consolidated gross profit grew 18 percent and gross margins expanded 50 basis points in the fiscal fourth quarter. We experienced similarly strong full year results as gross profit increased 21 percent with gross margin expansion of 50 basis points. Adjusted EBITDA grew 16 percent in the fiscal fourth quarter and 23 percent for the full fiscal year. Let's take a closer look at our services results. In the fiscal fourth quarter, service revenue increased 18% and service organic revenue grew 7%. The fourth quarter marked our 68th straight quarter of year-over-year growth. Service revenue grew 20% on a full-year basis, driven by our differentiated value proposition, along with the continued successful integration and performance of our acquired companies. The recent acquisition of SCM metrology and laboratories is consistent with our M&A strategy and establishes TransCat's first operational presence in Latin America, advancing the strategy to grow alongside our customers in high growth, highly regulated end markets. You can expect us to continue to complement our services organic growth with strategic M&A. Service gross profit increased 16% in the fiscal fourth quarter and 16% full year. As expected, service gross margins improved sequentially in the fiscal fourth quarter by 670 basis points. The service segment has substantial runway for growth, both organically and through acquisition. Our acquisition pipeline positions us well to pursue strategic, accretive deals that generate real synergistic value. M&A will remain a cornerstone of how we grow. Turning to distribution, distribution revenue grew 11% in the fiscal fourth quarter and 18% full year due to strong demand from rentals and product sales. Gross margins expanded 280 basis points versus prior year in the fourth quarter and 330 basis points full year, driven primarily by an increase in the mix of higher margin rental revenue within the distribution segment. Overall, we are very pleased with our performance and optimistic about the future given the momentum building in our service segment. With that, I will turn things over to Tom for a more detailed look at our fourth quarter and full year financial results.

Thanks, Jamie. I'll start on slide four of the earnings deck, which provides detail regarding our revenue on a consolidated basis and by segment for the fourth quarter and full year of fiscal 2026. Fourth quarter consolidated revenue of $89.3 million was up 16% versus the prior year as both segments grew double digits. For the full year, consolidated revenue grew 19%. to 331.9 million. Looking at it by segment, service revenue in the fourth quarter grew 18%, with organic growth of 7%, and the balance of the growth attributable to the ESCO calibration acquisition. Service revenue for the full year grew 20%. Turning to distribution, fourth quarter revenue grew 11%, driven by strong performance in our rental channel, and also strong product sales. Full year distribution revenue grew 18 percent. Slide five, our consolidated gross profit for the fourth quarter of 30.5 million was up 18 percent from the prior year, but consolidated gross margin expanding 50 basis points to 34.1 percent. For the full year, consolidated gross profit increased 21 percent, with full year gross margins expanding 50 basis points. By segment, service gross profit increased 16 percent in the fourth quarter, and 16% on a full year basis. As expected, service gross margins of 35.5% in the fourth quarter improved sequentially by 670 basis points in relationship to fiscal Q3 gross margins. As we continue to leverage technician productivity and absorb the cost of onboarding new customer wins, distribution segment gross margins of 31% expanded 280 basis points in the fourth quarter and 330 basis points in a full year basis. driven by the favorable mix shift of our higher margin rental offerings. Turning to slide six, fourth quarter diluted earnings per share was 21 cents, and for the full year, diluted earnings per share was 57 cents. The year-over-year change reflects increased intangible amortization, stock-based compensation, interest expense, and executive transition costs. We reported adjusted diluted earnings per share to normalize for the impact of upfront and ongoing acquisition-related costs, executive transition costs, as well as the costs that are not directly tied to ongoing operations. Fourth quarter adjusted diluted EPS was 56 cents, and for the full year adjusted diluted earnings per share was $1.84. Flipping to slide seven, where we show our adjusted operating income, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted EBITDA margin, We use adjusted operating income, which is a non-GAAP measure, as a measure of performance when evaluating our business segments. The company's management believes adjusted operating income and adjusted EBITDA are important measures of operating performance because it allows management, investors, and others to evaluate and compare the performance of its core operations from period to period by excluding items that we do not believe are indicative of our core operating performance. In addition, these metrics are also indicators for the company's ability to generate cash. Fourth quarter consolidated EBITDA of $14.8 million increased 16% from the same quarter in the prior year with 10 basis points of margin expansion. For the full year, adjusted EBITDA grew 23% to $48.7 million with adjusted EBITDA margins expanding by 40 basis points. By segment, service-adjusted operating income was $11.2 million, up 9 percent in the fourth quarter and 6 percent for the full year, while distribution-adjusted operating income was $3.7 million, up 42 percent in the fourth quarter and 67 percent for the full year. A reconciliation of adjusted operating income and adjusted EBITDA to operating income and net income could be found in the supplemental section of this presentation. Moving to slide eight, operating free cash flow for fiscal 2026 was 19.6 million, reflecting working capital investments supporting strong revenue growth in the second half of the year. Capital expenditures of 15.3 million continue to be centered around service segment capabilities, rental pool assets, technology, and future growth projects. At quarter end, on slide nine, on quarter end, we had total debt of 99.9 million $50.1 million available for borrowing on this evolving credit facility in a leverage ratio of 2.03x. The growth in adjusted EBITDA enabled TransCat to continue a sequential reduction in our leverage ratio. We believe we are well-positioned to grow both organically and through acquisition and have the capital structure in place to support both.

With that, I'll turn it back to you, Jamie. Thanks, Tom. This fiscal year's financial results reflect the underlying strength of our business. A diversified portfolio of products and services, a strong balance sheet, and a consistent ability to deliver excellent performance both organically and through acquisitions. Our unique positioning in attractive end markets, high recurring revenue, business model, and strategic acquisition pipeline support our long-term growth strategy and ability to increase market share. Given increased customer activity levels, solid retention, and realization of new business wins, we expect to deliver a sequentially higher level of service organic growth for fiscal first quarter. Strong first quarter performance will position us well to execute on high single-digit organic growth for the full year. The momentum building in our service segment, coupled with robust growth in rentals, is driving our optimism for fiscal 2027 and beyond. Additionally, we're leveraging technology, data, and AI as a competitive advantage by investing in capabilities, systems, and improved customer-facing business processes. By utilizing technology and innovation, we can drive growth and improve efficiency across our business model. We view AI and technology as key tools for enhancing customer outcomes, increasing organization-wide productivity, and supporting stronger margins. Before we open the line for questions, I'll close with a few thoughts. 68 consecutive quarters of service revenue growth is not an accident. It is a result of a clear strategy, disciplined execution, and an exceptional team that has been doing the work for years. In my time at Transcat so far, I've seen firsthand the depth of capability and the cultural commitment that produced this track record. And I'm confident in our ability to build on it and to accelerate the performance moving forward. Looking ahead, you can expect us to stay relentlessly focused on our four strategic pillars. We will drive high single-digit service organic revenue growth supported by strong customer retention, rising activity levels, and win incremental market share. We will continue to improve service gross margins by driving productivity and automation in our recurring revenue business model. We will continue to play offense on strategic M&A like our recent acquisition of SCM Metrology and Laboratories. As the acquirer of choice, in our market. Additionally, we remain focused on growing our high margin rental business. Finally, I want to thank our customers for the trust they place in us, our employees for the work they do every single day, and our shareholders for the confidence they've shown in this company in our path forward. I'm energized about what we're going to accomplish together, and I look forward to updating you on our progress. With that, Operator, please open the line for questions, Bob.

Certainly will do, Mr. Eyrich. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, if you do have any questions, please press star 1, and if your question has been addressed, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star 2. Once again, that is star 1 for questions. We'll go first this afternoon to Greg Palm with Craig Hallam.

Yeah, thanks for taking the questions, Jamie. You're officially welcome aboard. Great. Nice to meet you virtually. Hi. I wanted to start, you know, you gave us a little bit of kind of a flavor on how you're thinking about things. And it doesn't sound like there's going to be a whole lot from a strategic standpoint that changes. But I'm assuming you've probably thought about some tweaks here and there. From like an operational standpoint, you know, what do you think can be improved upon most? Is it just in terms of kind of, you know, how you're running the business and how you maybe expand margin and profitability from here?

Yeah, Greg, of course, you know, with about 60 days in, there's a lot more I'll still learn. But let me say this. You know, I grew up at General Electric and I've been working on, you know, Lean, Six Sigma and Operational Excellence for 20 plus years. I've run five different businesses in five different end markets. This is my sixth. So there are a lot of transferable areas around Operational Excellence. And the team has made great progress, as you know. But a couple of things that you can expect us to do more, you know, number one, you know, organic growth has been a huge focus and we've driven automation. I would say that underneath organic growth, there are areas to drive better efficiency as we go forward and things like tracking our deal pipelines, thinking about cycle time reduction, improving the customer experience. And a lot of those things, the team is on a path to do, and we plan to accelerate. On the operational side, as far as Lean Six Sigma and continuous improvement, if you just look at our customer-facing business processes, and by customer-facing processes, I mean from the time we get an inquiry from a customer to the time they place an order, how do we make ourselves faster there with cycle time? How do we improve the quality for customers? When you look at our order to remittance or order to cash, how can we make that a faster process so we have better on-time delivery for customers, faster cycle times? And that's something that we will continue to be focused on. And the last piece, if you just look at our innovation, we've done a lot of great work, I'd say, to be a leader in this industry on the service innovation that we bring to customers. And that's something we want to continue to drive as far as innovation from the customer back to our business and to our company. So those are a few things. We'll share a lot more detail, Greg, in the coming weeks and months.

Yeah. Okay. Good color. Maybe flipping to the margins, obviously from a sequential standpoint, really nice improvement in the service gross margins, still down on a year-over-year basis. Maybe you can help us, I don't know whether it's quantify or you know, qualitatively, you know, startup costs on some of the new business that you alluded to last quarter, but I don't necessarily want to pin you down to a timeframe, but at what point do you start seeing the year over year improvement in service gross margins? Cause I think it's been, uh, I don't know, four or five quarters, uh, since, since we saw that, that year over year expansion.

Yeah, correct. Greg is Tom. So, you know, to your point, I think, you know, um, A lot of what we're seeing in Q4 is similar to Q3, right? We're onboarding a lot of new customers of all different shapes and sizes, right? And that was the primary thing that weighed on us in Q4. But I think you'll start seeing, you know, things normalize as we move forward, certainly in the first half of fiscal 27. And, you know, we certainly expect to have, you know, on a full-year basis, improving margins, you know, year over year in 27 versus 26.

Yep. Okay. And then just last one as it relates to M&A, I'm curious if the priorities have changed more so around who or what you might look to acquire. I thought the SEM acquisition was most notable because it's a brand new geography for you. So just give us a little bit more color on what the pipeline looks at. And maybe more importantly, from a geographic standpoint, are there more areas internationally that you feel like are underserved and could provide an opportunity?

Yeah, I think our M&A strategy, Greg, remains sound and consistent. I think we're going to look for opportunities to expand into geographies that we're not currently serving. I think that applies both within the U.S. as well as outside the U.S., where it makes sense. I think we'll continue to look to increase our capabilities and take on, you know, either be able to, you know, keep more work within the TransCAD network or bring on incremental capabilities that are, you know, nice adjacencies to what we do today. And then, you know, opportunities to leverage our existing infrastructure. We've talked, you know, with you about bolt-ons in the past, right, and that will continue to be an important part of our overall strategy. So I think what you're hearing is, you know, consistency. And, you know, we've got a strategy that has served us well in the past, and we think will continue to serve us well going forward.

Okay. Thanks for the color.

Thanks, Greg. Thank you. We'll go next now to Max Michaelis at Lake Street Capital Markets.

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions, and congrats on the solid quarter. Hey, guys. And then... First question for me, it sounds like Q1 is off to a good start, saw the activity levels from customers. But can you give us a sense of if you're pulling any demand forward or how we should be thinking about the rest of the year? And I guess anything you could share there would help.

No, it's certainly not pulling demand forward. I think to Jamie's prepared comments, we're seeing really good activity levels, our pipeline's in great shape, we're seeing those opportunities convert to wins, and we're seeing the benefits of all the hard work we did last year to kind of rebuild the pipeline coming out of the first half, which was heavily impacted by macroeconomic headwinds as a result of the tariffs, which we've talked about for the past year or so. We definitely are, you know, like where we sit right now. And, you know, we're very comfortable with, you know, the guidance that we've given for Q1 and certainly more importantly, the guidance we've given for the full year.

Great. And then last one for me is sort of what you kind of did with the service segment. Anything, any color you can add on the rental business going into fiscal year 27? And then what did it grow in Q4?

yeah so um a couple of things there right so you know the the rental business continues to perform well right we don't we don't talk specifically about you know the growth of the rental business but as you know um you know as the rental business grows distribution grows right so directionally distribution you know had a great year last year had a great fourth quarter and you know we continue um to expect that business to perform well you know, going forward. We've talked about it being, you know, kind of a low double-digit, you know, growing business. And, you know, that will support, you know, good performance and distribution in fiscal 27 as well.

All right, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Thanks, Max. Thanks. Thanks, Max.

We'll go next now to Ted Jackson with Northland Securities.

Thanks very much. Jamie, congrats on the quarter and getting in the saddle and doing your first call.

Thank you.

Thanks, Tim. I have just a couple of little questions. With regards to the guide for the first quarter being up, my model didn't go back that far, but in the last six years of my model, you've had one time where that's actually ever been in front. Is there any particular... you know, like vertical or segment or, you know, is there anything to hang our head on with regards to kind of what's, you know, kind of breaking that, you know, seasonal trend for the company?

That's the first question. Yeah. So, Ted, I just want to start by just clarifying, you know, the comment that Jamie made, right, is that, you know, basically what he's saying is that the rate of growth in Q1, organic growth, we expect to be higher than it was in Q4, right? So, you know, we grew 7% organically in Q4. We expect our growth in Q1 year over year to be organically to be higher than 7%. So I just want to make sure that that came across.

No, I didn't catch that. No, not to me. Okay. So that kind of takes that whole question out. Another question then is, you know, you highlighted three areas of strengths, which were life science, you know, aerospace defense, and energy. And I don't recall you ever mentioning energy as a vertical, you know, and so maybe, you know, a little bit of color around, you know, what's going on within that market, what's your exposure to it, you know, what kinds of things are you testing for, you know, are there regulatory considerations in those markets that are similar to what you get at Alliance Sciences Aerospace Defense, some color around that would be great.

Yeah, I would say that, you know, we've been talking about energy a bit, you know, over the past six months or so because we're starting to see, you know, strong demand signals there. And it's really, you know, it's really kind of runs the gamut from, you know, power generation and power creation all the way to, you know, power consumption and power conditioning. And we see, you know, we see that playing out as an example in data centers, right, where You know, the quality of the power coming into those facilities needs to be monitored, conditioned, and there's equipment required to ensure that those power supplies and the usage are able to be measured, right? And all of that equipment requires calibration. It also has been a large catalyst for our growth in rentals as well. you know, that equipment that's needed isn't needed every day. It might be needed, you know, for two weeks every quarter, right? So it doesn't make sense to buy the equipment, and we make it available to rent, and we've been really successful in that space.

And, Ted, related to you, I'm glad Tom clarified. Thank you, Tom, on the first question you asked. What I would say is we look at upstream KPIs, so what happens, activity pipeline, before we actually get an order or ship something. We're seeing...

you know, widespread activity across all of the segments that we participate in, inclusive of energy.

Okay. And then my last, just a clarification, you commented that you look for low double digit growth in rental. When you look at, when you make a statement like that, is that organic?

It is, yes.

It's all organic. Okay. Okay, those are it for me. Congrats on the quarter again. Thanks.

Thanks, Ted.

Thanks, Ted.

And ladies and gentlemen, just a quick reminder, star one, please, for any further questions today. We'll go next now to Martin Yang with Oppenheimer.

Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking the question. First question, I'll ask... Hey, Jay. First question now, SCM, can you maybe give us a bit more context on where do you see the opportunity and how big of an end market there is in the adjacent regions and whether or not the DO valuation is comparable to those you're seeing in the States? Thank you.

So I think, Martin, you know, one of the things that makes you know, Costa Rica unique is the free trade zones that exist there, right? And I was just amazed the first time I went down there to drive around, they call them parks, right? These free trade parks. And just to drive around these parks that are all within, you know, I'll just say, you know, three to five miles of SCM's location and to see the concentration and density of, you know, life sciences and med device customers and the investments they're making in new facilities and new capabilities. And it just, it was exciting to see, um, you know, in such a tight geography and then, you know, to get to, to get to meet and understand, um, the SEM business and their focus on quality and, you know, customer service. And there's just such a good alignment and, and they service customers outside of Costa Rica as well. Right. So, you know, Latin America, um, is a fairly tight geography, you know, so they're doing business in, you know, Panama and Colombia and Dominican Republic and other places as well. But, you know, it's just, there was just such good, you know, alignment in terms of their customer base, the market opportunity that exists there, the culture that they have. I mean, and now, I mean, they're just so excited to be part of the TransCat team. I mean, Jamie and I were there you know, the day of the closing and the excitement level was just, it was off the charts, right? And because TransCAD has such great brand recognition everywhere you go. And, you know, for a company like that and people, you know, early in their careers to be able to be part of the industry leader, I think is exciting for them. So it was just a, it was a great experience. It was great to see that excitement and to see it carry through now that we're, you know, a couple months into it. And, you know, your question on deal valuation, I think, you know, this is one that, you know, kind of put us back into more of our historical range of deal multiples. And, you know, it really presents a good opportunity for us to generate a nice return on investment.

Yeah, Martin, I'd add, well said by Tom, and as Tom said, a chance to travel down My first month to Costa Rica, it's clear, it's very early, but it's clear just from inbound calls that we've received post the deal closing that there are going to be multinationals that we will now have the opportunity to grow with in ways we did not before in Latin America. So that's very exciting to me and to us. Again, it's very early, but early indication in some of these upstream KPIs that we look at are trending positive.

Thank you. Another question also regards M&A. As you tour through the different regional labs, can you remind us where do you still see ample growth opportunities? What regions make you most excited about expansion?

Yeah, so it's pretty consistent with what we've talked about before, Martin, right? Certainly, we want to be in Northern California, right, to support the the significant common concentration of life sciences as well as technology companies in that area. Um, Dallas is another area that, that we have a significant interest in Atlanta. Um, and, and the fourth one is the mid Atlantic area, you know, like think around, you know, Baltimore, you've got a lot of life sciences there. You've got, you know, uh, companies like John or, you know, businesses like John Hopkins and, and a lot of, uh, a lot of core, you know, uh, pharmaceutical and med device companies there. So those are the four that we talk about very consistently. And they're all geographies that we certainly want to be in at some point in time.

Thanks, Tom.

Yep. Thank you. And gentlemen, it appears we have no further questions. Gentlemen, it appears we have no further questions this afternoon. Mr. Howell, I'd like to turn things back to you for any closing comments, sir.

All right. Thank you all for joining us for today's call. We look forward to sharing more on our story at upcoming investor events, including facility tours, institutional investor conferences, and non-deal roadshows across key cities throughout the United States in the summer and fall of 2026. We will also be attending Craig Hallam's 23rd Annual Institutional Conference in Minneapolis on May 28th. and Stiefel's Boston Cross-Sector One-on-One Conference on June 2nd. We look forward to discussing our recent results with investors at each conference. If we were unable to answer any of your questions, please reach out to our IR firm, MZ Group, who would be more than happy to assist. Thanks again for your interest.

Thank you, Mr. Howell. Again, ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude the Transcat fourth quarter fiscal year 2026 financial results call. Again, thanks so much for joining us, everyone, and we wish you all a great remainder of your day. Goodbye.