UFP Technologies, Inc.

Good day and welcome to the USP Technologies first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Ron LaTye, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning and thank you for joining us on our 2026 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. With me on today's call is our CEO and Chairman, Jeff Bailey. Today, we will make some forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 the accuracy of which is subject to risks and uncertainties. Wherever possible, we will try to identify those forward-looking statements by using words such as believe, expect, anticipate, pursue, forecast, and similar expressions. Our forward-looking statements are based on our estimates and assumptions as of today and should not be relied upon as representing our estimates or views on any subsequent date. Please refer to the cautionary statement regarding forward-looking information and the risk factors in our most recent 10 , including disclosures of the factors that could cause results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. During this call, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures, which include organic sales growth, adjusted gross margin, adjusted operating income, adjusted SG&A, adjusted earnings per share, and EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures discussed in this call is contained in the associated press release and is available in the investor relations section of our website. I'll now turn the call over to Jeff.

Thank you, Ron, and thank you to everyone joining the call. I am pleased with our first quarter results and start to the year. including important progress on our strategic growth initiatives. Our revenue grew 4.1%, with medical sales growing 5.9%, and our non-medical sales declining 15%, as we continue to focus our efforts on best fit, fast-growing segments in the med tech space. Growth in our robotic surgery, patient services and support, and interventional and surgical segments of 7%, 11%, and 15% respectively were partially offset by declines in wound care as two major customers slowed temporarily due to excess inventory. EPS grew more slowly than revenue due in part to, number one, startup costs related to our four simultaneous program launches, each of which is slowly ramping up and expected to make meaningful contributions in the second half of the year. Number two, softer results at AJR versus Q1 of 2025 as they continue to work through their labor inefficiency issues related to turnover following our E-Verify or legal right to work process last year. And number three, non-recurring legal expenses related to a cyber attack and the CEO transition. A lot of exciting things are happening on the business expansion front. In addition to the four successful program launches, Three of those four customers have already asked us to double our capacity on the new programs. We are also adding new buildings in both Santiago DR and La Romana DR to expand capacity and accommodate forecast growth in patient services and support and robotic surgery. In both locations, we are co-investing with our customers and will take possession of the buildings in the second quarter of this year. We're also in the planning stages to add capacity in the APAC region to meet growing demand in Asia. Our new product development labs in La Romana and Grand Rapids are performing well, adding new programs and new talent to meet growing customer demand. On the acquisition front, we are reviewing multiple opportunities. Although we have been outbid on a couple of recent opportunities, we remain disciplined in our approach to vetting and valuing strategic acquisitions. The three acquisitions we completed in 2025 and the four in 2024 are all performing well and have increased our value to customers and strengthened our position in the market. Mitch Rock is excited to take over as CEO in June and is well prepared to succeed. We have a deep team of talented managers supporting him who understand our strategy and how they fit in. This team, together with our vendor partners, adds significant value to our blue chip customers in growing market segments. Each of these three critical components of our success, our team, our customers, and our vendor partners, trusts and respects Mitch and looks forward to continuing to grow with UFP. So for these reasons and many more, I'm very excited about the future of UFP technologies and the value it can create for our shareholders. Thank you. I will now hand it back to Ron to provide more color on our financials.

Thank you, Jeff. Before reviewing operating results, I'd like to give a brief update on tariffs and the impact of the conflict in Iran on our raw material input costs. In general, effective tariffs are net down from our last update. This should have a positive prospective impact on margins. Additionally, as our suppliers seek refunds from the government, we will be looking for these to flow through to us in the form of vendor credits. Counting these savings are raw material inflationary increases caused by the increased price of oil stemming from the conflict in Iran. It is difficult to estimate the ultimate impact as the news changes daily and therefore the price of oil has been volatile. It remains our expectation that we will pass these through to our customers. Moving to operations, as Jeff mentioned, overall sales were up 4% fueled by a 6% increase in medical sales. Strength in this area was driven by our robotic assisted surgery, patient services and support, and interventional and surgical submarkets. As anticipated, organic sales growth for the quarter was essentially flat as we are slowly ramping our new programs and our non-medical business continues to soften. We anticipate that the new program revenue growth will accelerate in the second half of the year. In addition, approximately 1 million in sales pushed into the second quarter due to a cyber event at one of our key customers. Of note, sales to our two largest customers collectively grew 7.5% during the first quarter. Gross profit as a percentage of sales or gross margin increased to 28.8% from 28.5% last year. This improvement was despite continued labor inefficiencies at HAR, which, although diminishing, are still impacting cost of sales. Helping to drive the improvement was a more than 200% increase in revenue in Santiago, Dominican Republic, enabling us to leverage fixed overhead costs at this location. SG&A expenses for our first quarter of 2026 increased by $2.2 million to $21 million. This is largely due to approximately $750,000 in wages and benefits for back office investments made at various times during 2025 to support our larger organization, as well as approximately half a million dollars in non-cash equity compensation. We also incurred approximately half a million dollars in non-recurring legal expenses due to the cyber breach incident in mid-February, as well as the anticipated CEO transition. Adjusted operating margin for the first quarter was 16.7% of sales, and adjusted earnings per diluted share outstanding was $2.48, up slightly from last year. We generated approximately 3.2 million in cash from operations during our first quarter. This was lower than is typical as a much stronger March sales month created a correspondingly high working capital need. Since March 31st, we have paid down approximately 4 million in debt. Capital expenditures were 1.7 million during our first quarter, and we ended with a leverage ratio of approximately 1.14 times. With that, I now turn it back to the operator for questions.

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question comes from Brett Fishman with KeyBank Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Hey guys, good morning. Thank you very much for taking the questions. Just wanted to maybe start off with the robotics segment. And I saw in the press release, you know, you mentioned 7% growth in this category. Was hoping you could just, you know, discuss this a little bit more, maybe touch on the contribution from the new products that are starting to ramp in this segment. And then also just curious how growth is trending you know, across your larger customer base outside of the large robotics customer?

Sure. Thanks, Brett. So the 7% growth was a blend, but it's primarily anchor programs at this or existing programs at this point. The new programs that we've launched are still in their infancy stage. But over time, they will be a bigger and bigger component of our growth. So we are pleased with the start to the year in the robotic surgery area particularly at the 7%, it was a little higher than we had originally forecast. With respect to, was the second part of the question, I'm sorry?

I was just curious. I guess you kind of addressed it with asking about the new product launches and then also just how non-intuitive customers overall are doing.

Yeah, our business is becoming more and more diverse, more and more diverse within intuitive with additional programs and more and more diverse with additional customers. I think you'll continue to see less of a dominant position in that one customer as we go forward.

And then maybe just more broadly, you mentioned four large programs that are currently in the RAM phase. So maybe just a little bit more flavor around how you're thinking about those opportunities. I know you mentioned that they're expected to become significant contributors in the back half. Maybe just a little bit more detail on how you're thinking about that.

Yeah, I mean, three of the four programs are brand new, and one was a transfer. And so the three new programs, each of those customers has already asked us to at least double our capacity with them. So three very successful launches. But the startup revenue still is small. So the revenue will ramp into Q2 and be more robust in Q3 and 4 and then continue on. And as we add new capacity, those three programs will be meaningful contributors. Two were robotic surgery, and one was an infection prevention.

All right, perfect. And last question for me, just, you know, the non-medical business was down a little bit more than we were expecting. I wanted to just ask if you think that's kind of the right way to think about it for the rest of the year from a growth perspective, or if anything, you know, is changing in a notable way as the year progresses. And thank you so much for taking the questions.

Yeah, absolutely. So the dominant drop was in automotive, which I think is going to be the new normal as we literally phase out of this market. There was also a softer side in the aerospace and defense, and that will flip. We already have some activity that's going to take that from slowing back to growing. But I think you'll see advanced components continue to be little to no growth over time, and certain markets like Audemars, we will completely phase out of.

All right, perfect. Thanks again.

You're welcome.

The next question comes from Justin Ages with CJS Securities. Please go ahead.

Hi, morning, all. Morning, Joseph. You know, you mentioned the four large programs ramping and contributing in the second half. Can we dig down a bit and just talk about the impact of profitability from those? How long will those headwinds, well, I don't want to call them headwinds, but how long will those startup costs be in there? Are we going to see that go down once the programs start contributing more in the second half?

Yes, absolutely. So the startup costs relate to getting the whole team there prepared, trained, et cetera, before the volume follows. So all those hires have been made, those people have been trained, and as the volume ramps up, we'll be absorbing those costs. And so the fixed costs won't go up, but the revenue will. So I think you'll see just a smooth plus. They're very slow starts. We'll ship a handful of parts and then a pallet, and then eventually they'll sort of turn on the spigot. And by the second half of the year, I think it'll be robust contributions from all three of those brand new programs.

Okay, I appreciate that. And then, you know, you mentioned taking control of two buildings, one in La Bermuda and one in Santiago. Can you just remind us how many buildings you have in each location then and what the capacity looks like after that? Because you mentioned, you know, already customers you have are asking for increased capacity. So just wondering if there are new additional buildings that are already kind of on your pipeline coming down the pike.

In La Romana, this will be our sixth building. It's not exactly even how much capacity it adds, but it's approximately one sixth more capacity. That's primarily for robotic surgery. We set up a big infection prevention program in one of the other buildings. The La Romana campus is dominantly robotic surgery. In Santiago, we're adding our third building, and that one is predominantly patient services and support. That will probably stay that way for the time being. So if we have new low-cost country applications, we'll probably be directing them towards La Romana in the short term because that team is very experienced and their quality systems and everything have been going for decades, whereas Santiago is a little more of a startup situation still.

All right. Thanks for taking the questions.

You're welcome, Justin.

Again, if you have a question, please press star then one. The next question comes from Andrew Cooper with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Hey, everybody. Thanks for the questions. Maybe first, just want to touch a little bit on the wound care drags you called out tied to inventory. I guess, can you give a little bit of a sense of magnitude for those programs? And then what gives you the confidence and comfort that this is purely an inventory dynamic that should normalize as the year progresses?

So these are both, I mean, they're large customers within wound care, but not necessarily large customers within the whole of UFP technologies. Both had inventory issues that they thought were in the sort of eight-month range of impact to us. But at the same time, we have two major programs that were in the development stage in wound care. So I'm still long-term very bullish on wound care. There seems to be a resurgence of interest in this area. So to answer your question, probably, you know, a three-quarter impact from the slowdown in wound care and then back to normal. And then probably next year, we'd be overlaying some new programs.

Okay, helpful. And then shifting a little bit to the AJR business, I guess two-part question. First, can you give us a sense, I know you called out the 200% growth in what's coming out of Santiago, but what ending of that transition of getting those products from Illinois to Santiago would you say we're in? And then, you know, similar question when we think about the labor headwinds, you know, where are we in terms of temp labor and versus full-time hires and really sort of getting those hires trained and back to full capacity and where you would expect to be to start working down that backlog in a more meaningful way?

Yes, absolutely. So with respect to the transfers, we think in terms of three major programs. So number one, completely transferred and running at rate. Number two, now completely transferred and so about to ramp up in rate. So we had sort of a tripling of volume over the last you know, 12 months, and that will continue to grow. Program number three has not really started. So we have the space, the lease, we've got the equipment that's shown up on site, but there's a long sort of PPAP and protocol that we have to go through before that will get up and running. That may take more than a year, frankly, to be a meaningful contributor to Santiago. With respect to AJR, as Santiago comes up, it takes some pressure off AJR. So we have a lot of employees in Chicago We've really geared up quickly to get our backlog down. The problem is not only do we have backlog, but our customer was growing rapidly. So we've been working quite a bit of overtime with a less efficient crew. And so that overtime is already beginning to subside a little. And then as we transform more work, the less efficient employees will sort of naturally fall off. And the ones that are most efficient and eligible for overtime and incentives, et cetera, will be the ones that stay. So I expect to see a smooth plus on that. With respect to progress, between Q3 and Q4, I think we cut the problem about in half. Between Q4 and Q1, we made about a 25% improvement. So there's still a ways to go, but I think it will accelerate when we ramp up at Santiago because, again, we have to keep all employees, whether efficient or not right now, just because we're trying to get out of backlog situation. And then we'll end up with a more efficient crew when we're done, a smaller, more efficient crew in Illinois.

Okay, great. Super helpful. And then maybe last one, just would love a little bit more color on sort of what you're seeing in that M&A landscape and how you're thinking about it. I know you called out a couple opportunities that were interesting, but maybe not as interesting from a dollar perspective to you as others. So just would love maybe the latest thinking on what that landscape looks like.

Yeah, we have a number of discussions underway. I would say that it's a little quiet right now, frankly. There was some big deals that went through that we bid on, a couple unsuccessfully, which we are absolutely fine with, by the way. And if we get outbid, we'd rather get outbid by a lot than miss it by a little. So we are very disciplined in our process, both vetting strategically, vetting for culture, and then vetting for value. We do have some small ones that we're working on, and we do have still one very large one that's percolating in the background. that will probably take quite a while to come to fruition if it does. But the perfect deals for us are more of the medium sized ones. And there's not as many of those as we'd like to see in the pipeline, but we are looking at deals every single week. And we have meetings with prospects every single week. So the pipeline's constantly being refilled and then vetted and some stuff falls off. I still believe that over the next multiple years, acquisition growth will still be 50% of our overall growth. It's just hard to time. That's it.

Great. I'll stop there. Thanks for the questions.

You're welcome.

Thank you. This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Jeff Bailey, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, for any closing remarks.

Yes. Thank you, Operator, and thank you to everybody joining the call. Just as a close, this is my last call as CEO, and I really appreciate all the support of our shareholders. I'm super excited about the future of the company. U of P is still the largest investment I have by multiples of greater than 10 over the next largest stock, and it's the most exciting stock in my portfolio. I think the team of people taking over is super fired up and super excited, and it's a very deep, deep team of people. And so Mitch is well respected. He's ready to go, and he's well prepared to succeed. I will be there for the next year as executive chair to support him with acquisitions, key strategic hires, etc., But I just wanted to say thank you and I appreciate everybody.

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.