BWX Technologies, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to BWX Technologies' first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Following the company's prepared remarks, we will conduct a question and answer session, and instructions will be given at that time. I would now like to turn the call over to our host, Chase Jacobson, BWXT's Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good evening and welcome to today's call. Joining me are Rex Cheveden, President and CEO, and Mike Fitzgerald, Senior Vice President and CFO. On today's call, we will reference the first quarter 2026 earnings presentation that is available on the investor section of the BWXP website. We will also discuss certain matters that constitute forward-looking statements. These statements involve risks and uncertainties, including those described in the safe harbor provision founded the investor materials in the company's SEC filings. We will frequently discuss non-GAAP financial measures, which are reconciled to GAAP measures, in the appendix of the earnings presentation that can be found on the investor section of the BWXP website. I would now like to turn the call over to Rex.

Thank you, Chase, and good evening to all of you. We had a great start to 2026 with very strong first quarter results. Revenue grew 26%. 11% of which was organic. Adjusted EBITDA grew 14%, and earnings per share grew 22%, all ahead of expectations. Outperformance in the quarter was driven by improved throughput, favorable pacing of work, and exceptional operational execution across our business lines. We ended the quarter with a backlog of $8.7 billion, up 77% year-over-year and 19% sequentially. supported by robust bookings in government and consistent backlog in commercial, providing clear visibility to future growth. Demand for commercial nuclear power components and services continues to accelerate across the U.S., Canada, and Europe. As projects launch, we believe that localized manufacturing capacity will increasingly differentiate BWXT, making the establishment of U.S. commercial manufacturing footprint to complement our Canadian operations a strategic priority. To that end, in April, we announced the acquisition of Precision Components Group, PCG, a US-based manufacturer of complex heat transfer components for the US naval and commercial nuclear markets. With two facilities and more than 400 highly skilled employees, PCG represents our first step toward building domestic US commercial nuclear manufacturing capacity. While most of PCG's current revenue and backlog is related to naval programs, Its facilities have immediately available capacity that we intend to utilize for the commercial market with products such as reactor internals, pressurizers, heat exchangers, and reactor head assemblies. Beyond the PCG acquisition, we intend to expand our U.S. commercial manufacturing footprint, likely with a greenfield plant at our Mount Vernon, Indiana site on the Ohio River. This facility will be capable of producing larger heavy nuclear equipment, including steam generators, and reactor pressure vessels. Ultimately, our goal is to build scalable U.S. commercial nuclear manufacturing operations that can serve U.S. and global SMR and large reactor projects. By adding domestic capacity, we are positioning BWXT to meet rising commercial demand while creating meaningful synergies with our existing U.S. operations. Beyond commercial power, we are making disciplined growth investments across the portfolio. supporting existing businesses, adding new technologies and capabilities, and pursuing opportunities in advanced nuclear and other national security applications. Turning to segment results and market outlook. Government operations revenue was up 4% and adjusted EBITDA was up 1% and a quarter, slightly ahead of our expectations. We had strong bookings, including $1.4 billion from the second portion of the pricing agreement, for naval reactors awarded last year and long-lead material procurement contracts for out-year production. This led to segment backlog of nearly $7 billion, up 25% sequentially and 93% year-over-year. In naval propulsion, we are driving operational efficiencies in our plants, which contributed to our good margin performance in the quarter. We anticipate continued revenue growth with a steady pace of Virginia-class production growth in the Columbia class, and early work on the next board class ship set. The President's FY27 budget request supports these programs and shipbuilding generally, further reinforcing our confidence in longer-term growth rates and special materials. Our legacy programs delivered solid results, and our defense fuels enrichment and HPDU programs are progressing in line with early program schedules. Specific to defense fuels enrichment, we completed construction of the centrifuge manufacturing development facility earlier in the year and have begun prototyping the first units. In April, we engaged with the NRC regarding our plans to build an HEU enrichment facility in Irwin, Tennessee. This engagement is an important milestone as it creates alignment with regulators in the NRC approval process. For our new large HPDU contract, we are organizing the supply chain and preparing for construction of the new facility in Jonesboro, Tennessee. That program will ramp through 2026 and continue over the next several years before transitioning to commissioning and production. The growth potential in special materials is exciting, and we continue to pursue new scopes with existing customers and evaluate entry points to new markets. Technical services has delivered strong equity income growth over the past few years with multiple strategic wins. We are pursuing new opportunities in the DOE market and in other new markets with the next wave of contract awards expected over the next 12 to 18 months. Moving to microreactors and advanced nuclear fuels, the market is evolving rapidly in land-based defense, commercial, and space markets. We continue to see strong demand across the board, including for TRISO fuel for demonstration reactors and future commercial projects with multiple reactor developers. Of note, Kairos, with whom we have a collaboration agreement on TRISO, recently began construction of its ERMIS II reactor for Google in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Finally, we are continuing our close engagement with the Army on the JANIS program. Turning now to commercial operations, results in the quarter were well ahead of our expectations. Organic revenue grew 39% and total revenue rose 121% with robust double-digit growth in commercial nuclear and medical and contribution from Connetrix. While the outperformance was partially due to timing of outage work and progress on large component manufacturing, we also improved operational performance with accelerated throughput and reduced lead times. Following an 85% increase in backlog in 2025, backlog was flat sequentially in the first quarter, but still up 33% year over year, supporting our expectation for low-teens organic growth and commercial power this year. The outlook for new-build nuclear projects remains very positive. Notably, the U.S. and Japan announced plans to invest up to $40 billion to build up to 3 gigawatts of GE Hitachi SMRs in the southeastern United States. Our role as the reactor vessel supplier on the first GE Hitachi BWRX 300 SMR in Canada puts us in a good competitive position for these future projects. Given BWXT's industrial scale and engineering and design capabilities, customers are increasingly coming to BWXT to supply critical nuclear components for their current and future SMR and large-scale nuclear projects which should lead to further backlog growth over the next 12 months. Connetrix continues to exceed the acquisition business case, having delivered another very strong quarter. A key highlight in the quarter was Connetrix being selected as the design and fabrication partner for a UK tritium loop facility, which will be the world's largest and most advanced tritium fuel cycle facility. This presents an entry point for engineering services and specialty equipment manufacturing and the exciting nuclear fusion market. With that, I will now turn the call over to Mike.